“Oh, no, it’s not like that.”
“What happened?”
“She said she wanted to rest a bit. Because when the cooking class opens she won’t have that kind of time.”
“Oh… so you heard from her?”
“Yeah, a few days ago.”
“Where is she?”
“Why are you so curious? You don’t even like her.”
“No, that’s not true.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Because of her I realized how much I treasure you.”
“That’s a little awkward to hear.”
“So when’s she coming back?”
“Soon.”
“Soon?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure she’ll come back soon. Like nothing’s happened.”
He changes the subject. “But you look happy.”
“Oh, maybe because of my dream.”
“Dream?”
“Yeah, I had a dream about a beakfish.”
“Beakfish?”
“The Mediterranean fish with a golden crescent on its forehead. It’s really rare to catch that fish.”
“So you dreamed of a rare fish. I guess something good is going to happen to you.”
I’m standing in the kitchen wearing chef’s whites and my heels with pearls in the soles. Once, my favorite pastime was to stand in this open kitchen and make dinner, the person I love sitting in front of me. Why does everything feel so far away, as if it will never happen again? And why isn’t it happening again? I look at him over the chopping block. Seok-ju, I’m glad that after this dinner my heart can leave you, go far away, gradually. I dip my hot fingertips in ice water. “I’m going to Italy tomorrow.”
“Oh, really?” He can’t hide his relief. Both of you are the same—you are not careful. I open the fridge and take out the tongue that I aged after cleaning off the tendons and tattered muscles. I have to concentrate my cold fingertips on this deep red tongue. I wrap my palm around the knife. It feels good. The knife under my full control. This feeling is why I handle meat. I pour him another glass of champagne as an aperitif. And I whisper sweetly, “Don’t get drunk yet. I’m going to make you such a good meal that it’s going to melt your tongue.”
He lets his guard down because of his expectations for the meal, or maybe because I won’t be here tomorrow. If one person has changed and the other hasn’t, their former love becomes pathetic and stagnant and cruel. It’s better not to talk about the old times. But today may really be the last time that we sit across from each other in our kitchen and eat. Instead of feeling miserable, I feel sentimental.
“Do you remember that time?” I ask.
“What time?”
“When you regained consciousness.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“It was six months later.”
“…Yeah.”
“I still remember what you said when you opened your eyes.”
He’s quiet.
“You grabbed my hand and squeezed it.”
“Is dinner almost ready?”
“You told me we shouldn’t be apart anymore, remember? That you were afraid of not seeing me again. That even though you were unconscious, it was so real and painful. So you just kept thinking, this is a dream, a dream, I’m just dreaming.”
“…You said you wouldn’t do this. You told me it was only dinner.”
“When you were unconscious it wasn’t that hard. Even though the guy who caused the accident died, I knew you would wake up. You had to wake up, for me.”
“If you keep doing this, I’m leaving.”
“I’m making dinner right now. Just wait. It’s almost done. If you just leave now I might keep calling and bothering you, and not leave and stay here. That’s not what you want, is it?”
He’s silent.
“So just be quiet and stay.”
“What’s the main course today?”
“Of course it’s meat, it’s what you like. But today I cut it a little thinner.”
“…Why?”
“Do you know why people started cooking sliced meat?”
He’s quiet.
“Because it became uncivilized to put an entire animal on the table. You want to eat meat but you feel uneasy. So they started to slice it smaller. And you can keep distance from the animal being eaten. But isn’t it kind of funny? It’s not like it changes the nature of it.”
“I’m hungry. Is it ready yet?”
“You just want to leave here as soon as possible.”
“No, it’s just because I want to eat. Something smells so great.”
“I think it was when you were recovering from the accident. We were taking a walk and you said, I’m the happiest right in this moment. You stroked Paulie with one hand and grabbed my hand with the other. I was so happy that tears sprang to my eyes. I was so happy that you had come to and that you were happy. Unbelievably happy. And I smelled bursting thyme. I felt that delicate herb exploding and spreading like popcorn.”
“Did you ask me to come for this?”
“No, no. It’s almost ready. I’ll give you soup first.”
He sits down again, resigned. I place a tart green summer apple that I’d frozen after scooping out the inside, frosty, on the table. Inside is a cold soup made with apple, butter, sugar, broth. It would go down his throat sweetly and softly. I chose this soup because I thought it would go best with the strong, tough tongue. He takes a spoonful to his mouth and his face blooms. “It’s cold and sweet and silky. I bet the world’s first apple tasted like this.”
“Adam and Eve made love after eating an apple.”
“What?”
The apple that was placed in her armpit. For people with a sensitive sense of taste and a certain sensuality, the most amazing scent is that of their lover’s sweat. He laps up every last drop of the soup, scraping the bottom of the apple with his spoon. Her smell will keep him relaxed. At least until this meal is finished.
“Now it’s time for salad.” I serve a salad of arugula and grapefruit. Then it will be time for the main course. I have to gradually awaken his senses. The sweet-and-sour grapefruit and bitter arugula would gently waft past the bumpy taste buds like a spring breeze.
“Simple, and you can taste nature.”
“Good. I’ll get you a different wine. It’s time for the main course.”
I bring out two tall Riedel wineglasses, shaped like tulips about to bloom. The wine I got for tonight’s meal is Barolo Zonchera. It goes especially well with flavorful meat dishes. The wine he ordered on his first visit to Nove, when I leaned on the pass to steal glances at him, while he was immersed in eating my steak.
I pour a glass of the Barolo for myself. I place the tongue in the middle of a large white plate and top it with three slivers of truffle, and next to it I place fresh oven-roasted asparagus in a V shape. The deep brown tongue, intense gray truffle, and mellow green asparagus clustered on the white plate impart trust before they’re tasted. The reason chimpanzees eat each other’s brains is that their souls are in them. Our souls live here. In this tongue. Now it’s your turn to tell me what it tastes like.
I dim the kitchen lights.
I take a white cloth trimmed with lace from a cabinet.
I pick up the plate carefully with both hands and place it on the table.
“Your favorite poet, Baudelaire, said, Be always drunk on wine, or poetry, or virtue.”
His face splits into a smile upon seeing the plate. “So you’re saying, get drunk on virtue!”
“Right. Try it.” I slip the white cloth over his head. This is what they did when eating ortolan. When they chewed on the bird’s rib cage and wings, bones and innards, in the dark with a cloth over their heads, they were able to relive the bird’s entire life. They really understood taste, didn’t they?