And we ate until we had new wineglasses and, in them, a decade-old cabernet from Château La Tour Carnet.
“Now you’ll see something,” Metcalf said.
He was not speaking about the wine, though the first few sips were very good, but about the small, porcelain ramekin that arrived for each of us shortly thereafter.
Within, a tiny bird lay on its back, plucked and missing its legs but, I would later learn, in no other way altered, its having been trapped and fattened on millet and figs and drowned in Armagnac — literally drowned to death in French brandy — and then simply salted and peppered and baked in an oven complete with bones and blood and organs. I had barely taken my first look at it when our waiter appeared and handed me a large, embroidered white napkin.
He gave another to Metcalf, who said, “This, my friend, is an ortolan bunting. Considered by many to be the heart and perhaps even the very soul of French cuisine. As for our own souls, we each place a napkin over our head, hiding our face. It is true that this confines and enhances the aromas. But it is also true that we thus hide our faces from God, as we devour this innocent songbird, the human soul, of course, being not without its flaws. The Big Man’s eye is on the sparrow. It is also on the ortolan bunting. You may bite off the head and set it aside if you wish. There is no shame in that. But you eat everything else. Put it in your mouth whole, and after the first celestial rush of its fat, you chew. Very slowly.”
And with this he vanished beneath his napkin.
Was I going too far for Metcalf?
I put the napkin on my head and it dropped before my face.
I picked the bird up in my two hands. Though it weighed less than a pair of kid gloves, it was so clearly a body, I held it with both hands and did not let its head fall back. Though I knew I had to bite that off.
Metcalf was faintly moaning nearby. From the fat, no doubt.
This whole meal. What was this meal? Not a last meal. And surely, it now occurred to me, not a meal at the U.S. government’s expense. Metcalf must have his own money, I thought. A lot of it. He dined here often. He brought me with him. But he was also the man guiding me on behalf of my country.
A crackling sound began nearby. Faint and slow. He was beginning to chew his songbird, this Gentleman Jim.
I lifted the ortolan, inclining my head forward to make way beneath the napkin. I was glad God could not see. Nor anyone else.
I brought the bird to my face and I opened my mouth and my teeth found the bird’s neck and I bit through, the bones yielding easily and the head was free on my tongue and I quickly reached in and removed it and I placed it back into the dish.
I shuddered.
I’ve had some wretched food in my life. I’ve shared food with soldiers at war. Ragtag units badly provisioned in hot countries. I’ve eaten field slumgum, maggoty meat heated in big pots with dirty water and weed roots. But that was from necessity. That was as respite from gunfire. And I had never shuddered.
I shuddered from this songbird’s head.
And from its body, which I now laid on my tongue.
It was tiny, fitting in my mouth as if custom-made for eating, soft there but still structured — I was aware of the whole structure of bones within — and it had settled there only a moment and I had only just closed on it, very gently, when the warm rush of the bird’s body fat — the savor at once rich and delicate — filled my mouth and rolled down my throat.
I did not moan but I understood Metcalf’s exclamation.
Then I began to chew, the bones cracking softly, the taste turning from delicate and reminiscent of hazelnuts to gamey now — bird blood and organ meat, though still in a low key, scaled down to the size of this small singing creature — and even the tiny gamey surges of its lungs and heart carried a hint of the Armagnac, like honey and plum.
And it went on and on, the full chewing of this bird. I eventually grew impatient, but I had a mouth full of tiny bone shards and they were beginning to abrade my mouth and it was as if God found me after all, beneath my embroidered napkin, and His judgment was upon me.
But at last the bird was gone.
I took the napkin from my face.
I looked at Metcalf. He was still covered.
I drank my cabernet. Too fast. Trying to wash the bird from my mouth. Another lesson perhaps. Something about a sensual thing that’s intense and delicious but goes on too long and then goes bad.
My glass was empty and I turned back to Metcalf and I started. He was unmasked and looking at me.
As soon as he knew he had my full attention, he leaned a little in my direction, as if I’d just been delivered to him on a plate. And he said very softly, “You may have to act again as you did last night.”
I knew what he was talking about. But I had the odd reflex to play dumb.
“How so?” I said.
He looked at me steadily and did not reply and I knew what was behind his eyes: I know you know what I’m talking about. Don’t play this game.
“The knack,” I offered.
“That’s the act I was referring to,” he said. “But perhaps a different context.”
Now I really didn’t know what he meant.
“Preemptively,” he said.
In my report to him I hadn’t written of the killing of the Hun in detail. There was already a preemptive taint to what I’d done, which I did not mention. As I chewed slowly on that, I stayed quiet. Metcalf thought I was being dense.
He leaned closer. He spoke even more softly.
“I’m thinking at the moment of Brauer,” he said. “You might find it necessary to kill him.”
I spoke with equal softness. “Gentleman Jim,” I said. “I thought you were among the least violent of men.”
“I am,” he said. “But I have absolutely no qualms about advising men of a different temperament.”
I said, “Knowing what’s necessary when the threat isn’t imminent. That’s a different knack.”
“For the good of our country,” Metcalf said, as if that clarified things.
I could have called him on that. But I didn’t. He seemed to read my eyes or, perhaps, to hear how he’d sounded. He said, “You should trust us and the work we give you. The good of your mission is the good of the country.”
“I understand,” I said. And I suppose I did. I had the sanction to kill.
And when I’d spoken these two words, something apparently shifted in my mouth, from between my teeth, and I felt a small, sharp pain in my cheek.
I turned my head away from Metcalf and reached into my mouth with forefinger and thumb, and I extracted a sliver of songbird bone.
32
The meal lingered on till past midnight.
When I was at last released from the tuxedo and ready to have a final night’s sleep in a good bed before heading off to an unknown number of nights’ sleep in unknown circumstances, I lay down in my bed at the Arundel and almost at once a knock came at my door. Three quick, firm raps.
I rose and moved quietly across the room, and as I did, my mind finally began to work properly and I anticipated what this was, the mention of it seeming to have been a very long time ago, with all that food in between. But I did not touch the doorknob; I turned my head to listen; and as if I’d been observed the whole time, a voice outside immediately said, “Cobb. It’s Smith.”
I opened the door.
He had his suit jacket on, but his tie was askew. I was willing to bet his shirt sleeves were rolled up under there as well.
He held a kit bag and an oversized, cabin-top leather valise.
“Come in,” I said.
He passed by me. “Sorry to disturb you in your union suit,” he said.
“It’s one in the morning,” I said, closing the door.
“The boss wanted this done before dawn.”