Chef (6 page)

7

We were preparing mutton yakhni. Dipping fingers in the marinade. The air in the room carried the scent of star anise. Turn the flame on high, he said. Now, he said. One by one I dropped the half-brown, half-crimson pieces of meat into the degchi. Stir, he said. The mutton must never stick to the bottom. Chef, when do I add yoghurt? Not now, he said and explained the difference between
precision
and
estimation
. Then he wiped his hands on my apron. I felt uncomfortable, but kept stirring. Cook without fear of failure, Kirpal. But you must never fail. Take good care of your hands, Kirpal. He stared at my hands while teaching. If you lose the use of your hands you will be useless in the kitchen. Don’t ever think of touching a memsahib. If you want to keep your fingers intact simply keep away from memsahibs. Observe them from distance only.

Now, he said. Now you add the yoghurt to the pot. Yessir. I followed his command, and covered the degchi with a lid. He stroked my cheek and started humming German music. The music was beautiful. His hands moved up and down as if they were guiding invisible instruments. Then he stopped. I mean it, Kip. Take good care of your hands, kid. Not like the Sikh guitarist. The guitarist? I asked. Yes, yes; he cleared his throat. The Sikh guitarist belonged to 72nd Battalion, 5th Mountain Division. The man was blessed with the most elegant fingers, and he used to play for Colonel Tagore’s wife at the colonel’s house. The colonel, said Chef Kishen, was keen on young men and he used to hang out at a special room in the Officers’ Mess and he had no problems leaving his young wife alone with the guitarist who would play for her till the wee hours of the morning. They had no children, the colonel and his wife, but in the beginning I simply could not believe that man’s fondness for boys. The colonel (who was a major then) would find boys in the hospital. He would visit the doctor during the season of recruitment or just before the troops were dispatched to the front. He would stand next to the doctor during the medical examination and survey the naked bodies of hundreds of troops – optimistically – with a smile on his face. But his eyes had indescribable sadness in them, said Chef Kishen. He would move his gaze from head to toe, from toe to head, and after the chest measurements he would ask each one of the soldiers their age and the reason for joining the army, and he would try to persuade the boys to quit the battalions and return home. This, said Chef Kishen, was the psychological examination. I cannot even begin telling you how I felt the day the colonel fixed his gaze on my chest (I was a young man then and I had felt the heat of the colonel’s desire on my body and a part of me had felt really flattered because he had desired my body but I naturally felt no desire for him) and a chill went through my spine, but at that very moment I noticed the colonel’s gaze move to the troop standing next to me. I must confess, said Chef, my neighbor was far more good-looking and handsome than me and as a result the colonel simply lost all interest in me and started persuading the soldier to quit the army and not go to the front and when the recruit responded with clarity that he was going to do his duty for the sake of our great country, the colonel patted thrice on the man’s back. The colonel’s eyes welled up there and then. Days later, said Chef Kishen, I was the one – new to everything – who discovered the Sikh guitarist in bed with the colonel’s beautiful wife and now that I think about it I should have not stirred things up. The guitar was lying on the floor. The guitarist was in a white banian only and she wearing a petticoat only. I remember her smooth-looking body down to the tassels of her petticoat. The burgundy color of her sweaty blouse, which was clinging to the guitar. They did not see me. If I had sealed my lips the regiment gossip would not have started, the rumor would not have spread inside and outside the barbed wires like orange forest fire and things would not have followed the ugly course they did. General Sahib had not moved to Kashmir yet. The one before him, General Jagmohan, had the guitarist arrested and in the prison they chopped off the top of his fingers and afterwards commanded him to play the guitar, which he did. The colonel I heard later, continued Chef, had begged the General to spare the guitarist’s fingers. (The guitarist looked a bit like you. I am not one of those who believes that all men in turbans look exactly like each other, but your face, Kirpal, has a striking resemblance.) To this day I think the colonel did the begging because the colonel and his wife had made a secret pact: the colonel was interested in men and he was going to sleep with them despite the marriage, and his wife was interested in other men and she was going to sleep with them despite the marriage. This was their
arrangement
, which I did not know, around the time. Because of my intervention, said Chef Kishen, the colonel’s interest in men was revealed and afterwards he found it difficult to face certain persons in the army. When Colonel Tagore died ‘accidentally’ in the war with Pakistan some of us knew that his death was not an accident. His wife, the young widow, was pursued by a major (who is a colonel now) and exactly eleven months later she yielded and the two of them got married. Tonight they are coming to dinner. Who? I asked. Colonel Chowdhry and his wife, he said.

‘Tonight, from behind that curtain, I will show you the real thing.’ Chef cleared his throat. ‘The real memsahib,’ he said.

‘Tonight?’

‘Yes, observe her attitude. She speaks polished Inglish. And observe her nakhra. The way she holds a fork.’

8

Everything is ready, almost ready, in the kitchen. Fumes are rising from simmering pots. Soup is cream of corn. Starter is sheekh kebab. Main course is seven items, including pork in mango-coriander sauce. Memsahib is vegetarian, Chef tells me. Navrattan paneer and dal makhni have been prepared especially for her. Lady Fingers are also for her. Biryani, kakori and fish are for the colonel. Trout is ready – from Dachigam in the morning.

Evening approaches. Tonight the real memsahib is coming. The sun reddens the kitchen walls before it sets in the enemy’s land.

Everything is ready.

General Sahib stands on the verandah, hands clasped behind him. He is an inch or two above six feet and he always stands in this manner. The black American suit gives him a stately air, the red scarf on his neck depicts a leaping leopard. There is a fresh shaving mark just below his left cheek. His skin has an oily sheen, no wrinkles yet. Everything about him is what I had imagined to see in a General, even his eyes, which are at once intimidating and filled with compassion. He bends his neck, listening to the sound of footsteps on the gravel path. The guests are approaching.

The colonel, a short man wearing a black beret, walks a little ahead of his wife. She has Bombay actress good looks, but he is a bit on the heavier side. He looks restrained but angry as if already tonight someone has offended him deeply.

The two men shake hands firmly.

Sahib kisses the memsahib on her cheek, which is red because of make-up. She giggles. Says something in English.

‘India and Pakistan all right?’ asks General Sahib.

‘Both of us are very well, sir!’ says the colonel.

‘I don’t believe a word!’ says Sahib.

‘No. Please don’t believe him,’ says Memsahib and giggles.

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Sahib guides them to the living room.

‘More fire power,’ says the colonel, now looking more relaxed.

‘Darling, stop it,’ she says with a sparkle in her eyes.

She is wearing silk. The sari clings to the curves of her body, tight, as if purely out of desire.

Inside, Chef explains the meaning. ‘Gen Sahib calls all married couples as India and Pakistan.’

‘But who is Pakistan?’

‘Women are.’

There are three sofas in the drawing room, and a grand fireplace with glowing red coal. The painting of the dead woman looks down at the guests from the wall. Not far from the painting there is a glass cabinet. The artillery mementoes inside the cabinet demand one’s attention. Next to the mementoes are bottles of finest quality rum and scotch, and Kingfisher beer.

She sinks in the sofa, the real memsahib.

Chef and I are standing just behind the gap in the curtain. He is holding a sharp knife; he keeps wiping the blade with his apron. Now and then he points a finger. At first I find it hard to observe the colonel’s wife properly. All I can see clearly is the back of her blouse.

‘Where is the little one?’ she asks.

‘Rubiya, your Aunty and Uncle have arrived,’ says Sahib a bit loudly.

Rubiya is in her room with the ayah.

‘Papa, I am trying to commit suicide,’ she shouts from her room.

General Sahib laughs.

‘She learns these words. Don’t know from where. She doesn’t even know the meaning of “suicide”. Two days ago she told the ayah that her mother actually committed a suicide.’

India and Pakistan laugh.

The colonel rubs his hands.

‘Whiskey?’

‘With soda, sir.’

The colonel clears his throat.

‘Your wife was very beautiful, sir.’ He admires the painting; so does the memsahib.

‘She was a coastal woman.’

‘The beauty of Kashmiri women, sir, is overrated. Real beauty belongs to Indian women, especially from the coastal regions, as you very rightly said. Coastal women are
real
. They have
real
features. They may be darker, but with impressive features. That is why they get crowned Miss World, and Miss Universe also. Our Aishwarya Rai, sir!’

‘Kashmiri women here have a delicate beauty,’ says General Sahib. ‘The kind of beauty hard for Indian women to match. They are fair, they are lovely. What else can I say? I disagree with you, colonel.’

The two men look at the colonel’s wife.

‘What does
Pakistan
say?’ asks the General.

She wants to say something, but decides against it. She smiles tactfully, changes her seat. Her heels click when she moves next to Gen Sahib on the sofa. Sahib sips his drink.

‘But to us, Patsy, you are the one most beautiful,’ he says. The General touches her naked arm. Then he laughs and she, too, giggles and squeezes his hand.

The colonel chews his lips. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever,’ he says after a long pause.

The curtain flaps on my face.

‘What do you think about Memsahib?’ asks Chef, wiping the knife with his apron.

‘She is all right,’ I say.

She is wearing a low-cut blouse. Observe the shape, whispers Chef. She drinks two or three glasses of port and, I observe, the drinking is making her sad. The two sahibs raise their voices reminiscing about younger days when they were in the Military Academy, where they had been trained alongside batch-mates who were now running the enemy army in Pakistan. Memsahib’s nails are long and red and her hair is red too because of henna.

Chef wipes his hands on my apron and takes a mirchi and chops it like a surgeon and garnishes the Wagah biryani.
Smell it, kid
. Jee, sir . . . He applies a sizzling tarka to dopiaza and yells at server: Is the table ready? Chef hurries back to his position behind the curtain and with his finger makes me taste his new invention, the Mhow chutney. Then he puts his arm around my shoulder.

Memsahib flips through a foreign magazine, which has many photographs. She is comparing herself to the photos.

It is our time to come to existence, Chef tells me. We come to existence only to carry out orders. He parts the curtains briefly and enters the drawing room. There is a rhythm in his legs. He clicks his heels.

‘Dinner is ready to be served, sir.’

‘Dinner, Memsahib.’

Gen Sahib and India-Pakistan move to the table. Back in the kitchen, ghee sizzles and the air tastes pungent and Chef orders the assistant to start slapping more naans in the tandoor and phulkas on the griddle. Perfect puffed-up circles. No maps of India, he warns.

Yessir.

The guests keep an eye on the General’s plate. When he eats fast, they eat fast. When he slows down, they slow down. Sahib keeps an eye fixed on Memsahib’s face, even while chewing the lamb. He is liking the Rogan Josh. Sometimes his fork makes circles in the air, sometimes his knife hits the plate like artillery. But, he is liking the lamb. She eats with her mouth shut. She stops chewing now and then and flashes a smile.

Memsahib will stop eating only when he stops, says Chef. The General is aware of this. So he will keep eating until he is sure that Memsahib is almost finished.

They talk about classical music, beekeeping, carpets, silkworms, diameter of the most ancient plane tree, absence of railways in Kashmir, loathsome Kashmiris, and picnics in the Mughal gardens. Also about Nehru when he was the PM: an army helicopter would fly to his residence in Delhi with Kashmiri spring water. They pause just before their conversation drifts towards hometowns, educational institutions, well-settled brothers and sisters. Then one of them mentions death: the soldier who killed his own sergeant, the Major who hanged himself at the border, and the young Captain killed recently during the Pakistani shelling on the glacier.

‘Excellent biryani.’

The napkin touches the General’s lips.

Chef shoves the server in, bearing finger bowls. He returns for the dessert tray. Halva. Ashrafi. Jalaybee. Crescents of watermelon, and aloobukharas and peaches and strawberries. The colonel’s wife has become unusually silent. She closes her eyes and breaks out of silence slowly. Not a single Kashmiri fruit can make me forget the taste of a mango, she says.