Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (32 page)

 
          
 
Eva thought for a moment. "I know a
place. We can custom-order anything you want."

 
          
 
She led him up toward
19th Street
. "What are you allergic to?"

 
          
 
"Everything known to man, and then some.
Tomatoes, egg whites, beef, com, cane sugar, milk, wheat, yeast."

 
          
 
"You can't eat any of that?"

 
          
 
"I can eat them, but only every other day
and in low doses. If I make a mistake and have something two or three meals in
a row, 1 get zapped. It's easy to make a mistake. Com, for instance, is in damn
near everything—diet colas^ jams, jellies, ice cream and so on. So's cane
sugar."

 
          
 
"What happens to you?"

 
          
 
"Rashes, hives, bleeding gums, dandruff,
stomach pains, headaches, depression. The whole ball of wax. I never know till
it happens. I went to a dinner party one night, and there were beet shavings in
the salad, and I didn't know it till I fainted at the table." Burnham
grimaced at the memory. "Nice."

 
          
 
"Really!"

 
          
 
At
19th Street
they turned north. The street was crowded,
and Burnham was nervous. This was his neighborhood. He probably knew fifty
people who worked in the buildings within three blocks of the White House.
Suppose one of them saw him. Suppose Sarah saw him! No. She was in
Virginia
. But maybe she had a dentist appointment
downtown. Suppose he bumped into Warner Cobb. Okay, suppose he did. If Cobb had
the bad taste to bring it up, he'd tell the truth: He played squash and then
went to lunch with his opponent. What was wrong with that? Nothing. Only people
with salacious, suspicious minds would rush to judgment. People like himself.

 
          
 
He smiled at his own stupidity and, to free
his head from the fearful topic, said, "If you're a nutritionist, you
probably know all about this stuff."

 
          
 
"Not all," Eva said quickly.
"Not by any means. I see kids who are allergic to peanuts and ice cream. I
know the basic stuff about B-6 and vitamin C. But that's about it."

 
          
 
"What do you cater?"

 
          
 
"Lunches, dinners, dances. Anything. I
work for my father."

 
          
 
"And you went to
Bennington
."

 
          
 
She smiled. "And I went to
Bennington
. Have you always been in government?"

 
          
 
"No. Hell, no. I fell into it. I was a
journalist."

 
          
 
"What does a journalist do in the White
House? Work in the press office?"

 
          
 
"No. He writes speeches. And
proclamations. And messages to Congress. And letters to the President's
aunt."

 
          
 
"Must be interesting."

 
          
 
"Sometimes. Rarely."

 
          
 
Eva stopped. "Here we are."

 
          
 
It was an Oriental food shop. In the window
were teas and herbs, fruits, roots, nuts, powders, berries and what appeared to
Burnham to be dried pieces of animals.

 
          
 
"It's not Chinese or Japanese," Burnham
said. "I don't recognize the writing."

 
          
 
"It's Vietnamese."

 
          
 
"I don't speak Vietnamese. How'm I
supposed to order?"

 
          
 
Eva put both her hands on his upper arm.
Through the light fabric of his summer suit, Burnham felt her fingertips nestle
in his armpit. Her touch was soft and warm and (now he was projecting) full of
promise.

 
          
 
"Trust me," she said.

 
          
 
Burnham looked down into her eyes. On this
bright day, they were the faded blue of a tropical dawn. He said, "I
do."

 
          
 
There were four Formica tables in the rear of
the shop, served by a slight Vietnamese who might have been thirty or fifty. He
greeted Eva with a genial "Bonjour, mademoiselle," and she replied,
"fa va, Tuan?"

 
          
 
"Where did you learn about Vietnamese
food?" Burnham asked as he sat down.

 
          
 
"The war was still going on when I was a
teenager. My girlfriends and I had no way to protest. We couldn't resist the
draft. We couldn't go to
North Vietnam
, So we dressed like Vietnamese and ate like
Vietnamese. Cultural empathy." She smiled. "It made us feel
good."

 
          
 
The menus were in French as well as
Vietnamese. Burnham read French, but because the French words were translations
of Vietnamese descriptions, he recognized nothing. The menu might as well have
been in Aramaic.

 
          
 
"See anything?" Eva asked.

 
          
 
"I'll have two Saltines and a cup of
tea."

 
          
 
Eva studied the menu. "Is there anything
you react violently to, that makes you choke or fall into a fit?"

 
          
 
"Beets."

 
          
 
"That's it?"

 
          
 
"Far as I know. But go ahead and surprise
me." Burnham laughed. "We'll have an adventure in dining."

 
          
 
Eva summoned the waiter and began to order,
snapping off complex instructions in rapid-fire French.

 
          
 
Somewhere far back in the building—in the
kitchen, perhaps, or a storeroom—a phone rang and was answered.

 
          
 
A reflex was triggered in Burnham. He
interrupted Eva and, in French, asked the waiter where the pay phone was.

 
          
 
"Dans le W.C.," said the waiter,
pointing in the general direction of the kitchen.

 
          
 
Burnham found the men's room to the left of
the kitchen door. It was small, clean and remarkable only in being completely
free of graffiti. To distract his itchy-fingered clientele, the proprietor had
hung a poster-sized photograph of Nguyen Cao Ky which had been appropriately
desecrated by pens, pencils, erasers and blood.

 
          
 
Burnham dialed the White House number and said
to the operator, "This is Timothy Burnham."

 
          
 
"I know."

 
          
 
"You do?"

 
          
 
"Just kidding." The operator
snickered. "Keep you on your toes."

 
          
 
"Right." Burnham told her where he
was, gave her the number on the pay phone, and hung up.

 
          
 
By the time he returned to the table, the
waiter had departed. Eva was sipping a glass of tea. "Calling Big Brother?
she said.

 
          
 
"Just checking in."

 
          
 
"Everywhere you go?"

 
          
 
"Everywhere. Twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week.'

 
          
 
"Suppose you forget."

 
          
 
"Odds are, that'll be the one time
something hits the fan and they have to reach you."

 
          
 
"What can they do to you? I think I'd
give them the wrong number just to see what happens."

 
          
 
"Once, you might." Burnham smiled.
"Not twice. There' a chain reaction. Whoever's trying to reach you—and God
forbid it's the President—first screams at his assistant, who screams at his
assistant, who screams at your immediate boss for having such an irresponsible
half-ass on the staff, and he screams at the secretary who placed the call to
you, and she screams at the telephone operator who couldn't reach you. By the
time they finally find you, half a dozen people have been yelled at—and they've
all been told that the President himself is pissed purple, whether or not it's
true—and they're all convinced that their jobs have been placed in jeopardy
because you, you thoughtless schmuck, forgot to call in. Now you've got a
handful of new enemies, and if there is one thing you do not need, it is more
enemies on the White House staff. The quota you have already is quite enough to
make your daily life a thrilling parade across a bed of hot coals."

 
          
 
The waiter brought two bowls of steaming soup.
It was khaki-colored and contained floating bergs of something squooshy.

 
          
 
"What's in it?" Burnham asked.

 
          
 
"Don't ask. Eat."

 
          
 
"You mean I don't want to know."

 
          
 
"No." Eva smiled. "I mean I'm
not sure."

 
          
 
"It smells . . . good." The steam
that rose from the soup smelled exotic and pungent, spicy and ripe.

 
          
 
The taste was entirely alien to him—not
vegetables, not fish, not meat. But it wasn't unpleasant. It tasted . . .
nourishing.

 
          
 
Eva said, "Can I ask you something
rude?"

 
          
 
"Sure."

 
          
 
"When we were playing squash—or mud
wrestling, or whatever it was we were doing—I noticed that ..." She
stopped.

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
She was blushing. "I can't believe I'm
saying this."

 
          
 
"You're not. Yet."

 
          
 
"I noticed that you don't . . .
smell."

 
          
 
Burnham laughed—not a harsh, arch laugh, but a
laugh of true amusement.

 
          
 
"That's funny?" She was perplexed.

 
          
 
"What do I smell like?"

 
          
 
"Nothing! That's the point. You sweat
just like a human being, but you don't smell. I sweat, and I smell like a
goat."

 
          
 
"Not exactly," Burnham said, and he
believed he could still taste her ponytail in his mouth.