The coffee, in a sense, was already made. But not the cafe au lait. The beans had to come a long way, from Mocha and from Java (described by her as lying “in the lands of the Turks”), in order to be purchased under Tanta Tina’s eyes, roasted under Tanta Tina’s eyes, ground under Tanta Tina’s eyes, and then subjected to an almost alchemical process of. . . almost. . . distillation under Tanta Tina’s eyes. Tanta Tina next allowed the coffee to cool and then supervised its being decanted into wide-mouthed glass bottles which, each strictly rotated, remained three days each in the moist cool of the spring-house; the fluid was then poured off the dregs and set to heat in one pan while the milk was heating in another. A dash of cinnamon (fresh- ground), the contents of the two pots commingled at just the right moment: cool slightly, and drink. Who has never drunk cafe au lait made after the manner of Tanta Tina may indeed have drunk coffee and milk. But he or she has never drunk cafe au lait. And as for a mouse drowning in the cream of the milk with which Tanta Tina made the cafe au lait, no mouse would dare. As for the gingerbread —
“Ha, Tanta Tina, I am reminded of a capital story which I just heard today,” and he told it to her, complete with gesture and mime. The old woman laughed heartily; then she said, Ah the poor creature. And when he asked, Did she mean the Gypsy or the mouse?, she laughed heartily all over again, then wiped her eyes on her apron, made of hundred-year-old lace the like of which is never made more. And her little cousin-child lifted the gingerbread, sniffed it with zest, smiled ... what would they say, in fashionable circles, nibbling their petits-fours, if they were to see him about to bite into something as peasant-simple as a gingerbread-man? . . . well, he did not care; he need not care, any more than Tanta Tina; and he knew it and he knew they knew it, too. Then, as his tongue and teeth did their work, he was aware of his experiencing something quite different, quite, well, better, than he had expected. He felt his face change.
“It’s good, isn’t it, Little Engli?”
“But this is extraordinarily good! Is it some new recipe?” Even as he asked, he thought how unlikely it would be if this old woman were to try a new recipe.
She thought it unlikely, too. “Tchah! A new recipe? From the Old Avar Bakery?” Her tone revealed the all but impossibility of the Old Avar Bakery making anything from a new recipe. Assuming Charles XII, the Swedish “Lion of the North,” to have paused long enough in his impetuous ride through the old kingdoms of Scythia and Pannonia to have sampled something from the Avar Bakery; and assuming him to rise from the dead and, returning to sample the same item from the same bakery today, he of “that
Name at which the World grew pale” would find the item tasting exactly the same as it had tasted a century and a half before. The Swedish Lion had defeated Danes, Russians, Poles, Turks, sweeping almost insanely across the European continent —
“You can’t catch me, said the gingerbread-man,” Eszterhazy exclaimed, the line coming suddenly into his mind. But a sniper’s ball had caught the Lion, at last, in Norway, “on a mean Strand.”
“What is that you say, my child?”
He laughed, shortly. “Oh, just something from a children’s tale. I learned it long ago, from my English aunt —”
Ah, his English aunt. Meesis Emma. And how was Meesis Emma? He gave an account of the English Lady Emma Eszterhazy, and then his talk ebbed a moment into silence. He lifted up the remnants of the gingerbread, and, in the silence (. . . had an angel flown overhead? announcing, as the Moslems say, One God...?), he heard the old woman murmur, “There is a spirit in this man . . .” And it was his turn to ask, “What is that?”
She blinked, laughed lightly, brushed the matter away with her withered hand. “So my old nurse used to say. I don’t know what she meant. You say you like it, but you do not finish? So. A late lunch? An early dinner? Never mind. Let me wrap it up for you to take. The good Lord and Our Lady alone know what they give you to eat in Bella; is it quite wholesome? Yes? Not just foreign kickshaws, I hope?”
Almost back home, the odor of fresh-baked bread brought the matter to his mind again. Where was the — Ah. There. He dismounted, entered the corner bread-shop. Had they gingerbread? They had; he took it. Then he forgot it, until, later on, back home at 33 Turkling Street, the slightly unfamiliar weight in each of his pockets reminded him. Really, he mused, looking down, there was not much comparison. The gingerbread man from the antique Avar Bakery, broken though it was, was a sort of modest masterpiece. The outline was as crude as a child’s drawing. There was a currant for each eye, two for nostrils to indicate a nose, and a short row of them for teeth. The one from the neighborhood was elaborately confected with brightly-colored sugar icing in several hues. But it was soggy. And its taste was nothing. Let one of the servants remove it and give it to a child. Absent- mindedly he finished nibbling the broken bits from the Avar Bakery. It was good, it was good, it was very, very good. And as the taste filled his mouth, his mind filled with some vague thoughts not unconnected with it.
You can’t catch me, said the gingerbread-man.
There is a spirit in this man . . .
In came his servant with a small tray; on the tray an aperitif. “Ah, good. Ah. I shan’t want this piece of pastry.”
Would his Romanou valet lick the cream off a dead mouse before throwing it away? Possibly he might lick the cream off it even if someone else had thrown it away, unlicked.
Or even half-licked.
Ah, well.
Another day. Eszterhazy afoot. A woman called out, not especially to him, automatically, “ ’Llyri’ an’ th’ ’Talian ’Lliance . . . ’Llyri’ an’ th’ ’Talian ’Lliance . .. Press, Print, ’Zette... .” Elsewhere in the world, newspapers may have been hawked by newsboys — some of them, Dr. Eszterhazy had observed in his travels, rather well on into rather mature boyhood — in Bella the trade was largely in the hands of soldiers’ widows. True, pensions had ... eventually ... been instituted; true, pensions had ... eventually ... been increased . . . but when it had been hinted that the newswives might now tacitly retire and allow others to take this corner pitch and that: nothing like it! Wrapped in threadbare Army horse-blankets and with their late husbands’ medals pinned to their bosoms, they had marched — wailing — to the Ministry of War. Had the Minister hidden cravenly beneath his great mahogany desk? Had the Imperial Presence drawn his sword and stamped his foot and shouted that the newswidows must be allowed, etc.? Who could really say. The women still sat on their stools, still shortchanged their customers, still endured heat and cold, still chanted headlines they often did not understand, and still offered for sale papers which they themselves could often neither read nor wished to learn to read.
Half-automatically this one now held a Gazette out to Eszterhazy, half- automatically he gave her a coin and took the paper. He did not greatly desire it. He was not by any means a fanatical nationalist or imperialist, but he certainly preferred to see his own country’s flag flying over his own country rather than that of — say — Austria-Hungary, Russia, or Turkey. The news-vendor’s late husband may have died in battle or he may have been, whilst drunk, kicked to death by an angry mule. The price of a paper was a very small price.