David hovers by the till and this appears to be the signal for George to produce a thick wad of notes. It isn’t to buy my silence that, following the ‘Whitman raid’, David hands me a couple of 100 franc notes. It’s more his embarrassment, I think, at me having witnessed a transaction involving so much dosh in relation to my meagre wage. He knows that I can’t live on the hours that he gives me in the shop.
I have to do an Orwell.
Relevant experience, claimed to secure the job at La Tavern Mexicaine, is quickly exposed as the lie that it is. The manager, Jean-Pierre, however, is perversely pleased; ineptitude rendering me good haranguing material. I can be relied upon to ‘fuck up’. His unnerving presence means that there is the constant threat of a bellowed instruction. ‘Six guacamole, six nachos. Non, non; non. J’ai dit deux, oui deux taco poulet. T’es con?’ The question is in all likelihood directed towards me since Raja has been sent to collect meat packages from a giant refrigerator in the backyard. Apart from me, the kitchen work force is Sri Lankan, men who have fled from the turmoil afflicting their country. ‘We had to,’ is all Raja says on the matter, making it clear that he has no intention of revealing more about the nature of their exile.
In spite of his competence, Raja is especially targeted since he is able to convey a sense of irony at his slavishness. I observe the battle between the boss and the bossed. Raja smokes illicitly in the backyard, mounts food raids on the stores and furtively mocks the manager by pulling faces. But Jean-Pierre, as if in retaliation, set tasks that are designed to humiliate. Raja is required to re-stack neatly stacked buckets, wash clean plates, and he is admonished for dicing vegetables the wrong size. ‘T’es con? The onions, I can’t see them.’
Both are French — the manager and the chef, a man who excels not in tyranny but in propagating a mood of sullenness. So it is in the spirit of subtle rebellion that I find myself speaking to the Sri Lankans about cricket. When fed up or stressed, I find sport often to be an effective palliative. In A Fan’s Notes, its author Frederick Exley asks ‘Why did football bring me so to life? I can’t say precisely. Part of it was my feeling that football was an island of directness in a world of circumspection.’ (Incidentally, A Fan’s Notes always sells well despite there being quite a few copies knocking about in the Penguin edition.) He was talking about American football but the quote holds true for other sports. That’s why I am excited about our mutual interest in cricket. The Sri Lanka cricket team is touring England. The newspaper, which I buy on the morning that the first test is scheduled to start, charitably defines their threat to England as one more subtle than that posed by the West Indians. My work colleagues excitedly run through their team’s line up before their thoughts turn briefly to the opposition. The mention of Gooch and Gower causes them to nod with respectful solemnity.
Our cricket conversations (invariably mine were with Raja) strike me as incongruous amid the cacophony of kitchen sounds: knives striking marble chopping boards, the clanging clash of tray on floor and the near constant hum of an industrial dishwasher. Electing to bat first, Sri Lanka play with a carefree abandon that rules out a big innings. My colleagues are not really disappointed when England win and cricket continues to provides a focus for communication between us. Raja is awesomely accurate as a bowler, sending down unplayable deliveries between the stoves. He insists that Ragunathan, positioned in front of the dishwasher, has caught me out at third slip.
At the start of the week, Raja is in fine form, both with the imaginary ball and with life in general. He has got one over Jean-Pierre by finding employment for a cousin who has recently arrived in Paris. Raja has circumvented the manager’s authority by making his request direct to restaurant’s Head of Personnel, a woman with an easy-going disposition that I find difficult to reconcile with the atmosphere of the kitchen. After a shift, she doesn’t mind if we stuff ourselves, almost to the point of sickness, with steaks and tostadas. Three of the Sri Lankans have been chef assistants for two years, their lithe bodies testament to the calories burnt up in the course of a hard working day. I mutilate the vegetables whereas they stroke them into slices. They have acquired an unassuming strength that rips lids noiselessly off buckets containing ingredients. I am adapting to the work but remain cack-handed in comparison to them. Going about their kitchen business with impressive efficiency, they do their best to make me feel part of the kitchen brotherhood. I am tipped off if the manager is on the warpath. I am invited to partake in covert food snacks.
On that final morning, Raja and myself are up to our necks in tomatoes. Since the place is going to be understaffed in the evening, two additional crates of big juicy tomatoes await dissection. I am first to complain. This makes Raja explain, by way of offering consolation, that the task is an even worse one in January. The glossy skinned tomatoes are tougher then and finger numbing cold. ‘But it’s not algebra.’ Nothing is ever as difficult as algebra.
Raja’s temperament is undergoing a transformation. The manager has spent his morning spitting his foulness with evil efficacy. ‘Propreté and rapiditié,’ he has bellowed. ‘T’es con?’ It is as if Raja’s high spirits earlier in the week have exacerbated the vindictive side to the manager’s nature. And the verbal attack is sustained further, during the heat and panic of a major lunch time rush. Raja says nothing, but beads of sweat break out upon his forehead.
Finally it happens. I am on my knees, looking for a 10-franc coin that has dropped out of my chequered chef trousers. The manager is inspecting plates before waiters whisk them away. According to Jean-Pierre’s arbitrary system of measurement, Raja is dumping excessively copious portions of degustacion de pacifico on the plates. ‘You try to make us poor,’ he complains. ‘Call this plate clean, you useless fuck?’ The language doesn’t surprise me as I get to my feet, expecting another broadside, but Jean-Pierre is otherwise preoccupied. Raja has him pinned against a shelf. The steel blade of the knife is of proven sharpness, reddened with vestigial tomato skin and juice. A thrilling uncertainty reigns for a moment, the manager grimacing with fright. But in sensing that if Raja is going to strike, he would already have done so, he recovers his composure. With a sad air of contrition, Raja withdraws the knife from the fleshy throat. The manager, along with the rest of us, watches silently as Raja walks out of the kitchen and then out of the restaurant. The next day I, too, walk out after shouting abuse in his face ‘T’es con con con con.’ My voice is breaking up. I tremble with the nervous energy. I’ve spent 24 hours working myself up to this moment. I am expecting a big scene. But Jean-Pierre, completely unfazed, says it is good for me to go. ‘You better off teaching.’ When I return a week later for my pay cheque, Ragunathan tells me that Raja has found a job in an Indian restaurant but that the steam cooking is making him unwell.
Two days after the Raja knife incident I go to church: the American Church besides the Quai d’Orsay, or rather an annexe of it where English and Americans congregate in their quest to find accommodation and/or employment. ‘Dishwasher wanted.’ Of the human variety, I take it. Three hours a day plus meal. Dish washing — how difficult can it be? I pass the phone interview but can’t start for two weeks, which is when the ‘plongeur’ will leave the post at a Montparnasse creperie.