The Cook (4 page)

10

All day long the open land beyond the mill rang with the firing of guns, and the shouts and laughter of men drinking and having a good time. The shooting was excellent, and in a steady stream the men repaired to the cooking camp at the edge of the wood, exchanging their bags of red-birds for more beer, and then returning to the shoot. The men declared the beer had never been more plentiful.

Toward the end of the day the trips back to the camp became more frequent; though fewer birds were brought in, more beer was taken out . . .

Conrad and his staff worked without let-up. They kept the beer exceedingly cold, and new kegs were always tapped and ready. The birds were also attended to immediately. There were vats of boiling water with great fires beneath them, and plenty of cut wood to keep them going. The birds were plunged into the water, then plucked and seared and made ready for cleaning. After that they became Conrad’s responsibility.

It was tradition on red-bird night that a member of the Hill family help feed the men. Harold, of course, had volunteered, and Conrad worked him every bit as hard as he worked Eggy and Rudolph, possibly harder. “One learns from work,” Conrad would say as Harold began to draw another dozen birds.

Harold was too busy to answer.

He carefully saved the tiny hearts and livers, which Conrad mixed with berries for the stuffing. The men had never had stuffed birds before. They were also surprised to see Conrad wrap them with strips of salt pork. Prepared thus, the birds were set in a deep tray half full of wine and meat broth, to marinate until the men were all through shooting. Then the trays had only to be slipped into the huge outdoor oven. A small fire had been kept going beneath it since mid-afternoon, so it would not take long to stoke it to high heat.

Eating-time was set for about an hour after sundown.

The great fire beneath the oven, and the lesser fires which ringed the dining area and obscured the black forest and hills, consumed wood almost as fast as Rudolph supplied it. Frantically he ran back and forth, his bright red livery making him look rather like a moving torch. Then at one point he stumbled and pitched full-length, scattering an armload of wood among the feet of a tableful of diners.

“Too much beer!” laughed one of the men, kicking some of the small logs toward Rudolph.

Rudolph got up and brushed off his uniform.

“He’s been drinking all day!” laughed another man.

“He’s drunk more than anyone!” cried a third.

Rudolph recovered all of the wood, and then looked stupidly at the last man who had addressed him.

“I have not,” he mumbled. And then, after a moment: “Conrad has. He has drunk the most. I’ve seen him.”

The man started to laugh and say something, but Rudolph added, “Conrad can drink more than anyone. He can even drink more than you, Heavy.”

Rudolph turned and flung the wood on the fire.

“Hey, what did you say?” demanded Heavy. “What did you say . . . ?”

And that’s how the match came about.

On red-bird night an eating contest was traditional. But for several years this tradition had not been observed for the simple reason that there was no competition: one man, Heavy, had demonstrated time and time again that he could eat twice as many red-birds as any other man.

But Rudolph’s words suggested a contest, or perhaps only a good joke.

Heavy and a delegation of men approached Conrad and told him about the tradition. They repeated what they’d heard and inquired whether his capacity extended equally to solid food.

“I have a good appetite,” Conrad laughed.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed the men, nudging Heavy and winking at him.

But then Conrad added that it was an insult to good food to engage in deliberate gluttony.

However, more and more men began to clamor for a contest and they wouldn’t let Conrad out of it.

After all the others had eaten, Conrad and Heavy sat down at opposite ends of a long table. In front of each was an entire tray of birds, and beside it, an empty tray for bones. Steins of cold beer were on their right.

“Eggy,” Conrad said, “I want you to keep my stein full.”

Heavy slapped his stomach and gave the same order to Eggy, remarking jovially that he was even more thirsty than hungry.

The maximum time allowed for eating a bird was agreed on, and the match began midst the laughter and shouting of the men who had gathered round the table. Some of them had done a little betting and they encouraged their favorite.

Harold stood behind Conrad, smiling and tired.

At a nearby table two men worked carefully on the prize.

Rudolph, more and more drunk, lurched dutifully from fire to fire.

The match was really over when each man had eaten half his tray of birds and Conrad told Harold to put two more trays in the oven.

Heavy looked across at him, stupefied. One tray was his limit and the standing record for the contest.

By the time they started on their last row of birds the outcome had become obvious to all. Heavy was stuffing himself, forcing the birds down. His fat face was beginning to look apoplectic, whereas Conrad was laughing and talking, eating leisurely and delighting in every mouthful.

The ring of men drew closer . . .

At last there was only one bird left on each tray. Heavy picked his up and looked at it. He started to open his mouth. But then he had to close it to keep from gagging.

He tossed the bird on the tray of bones beside him.

A murmur rose from the men.

Conrad laughed and sank his teeth into the breast of his last red-bird.

Everyone began shouting and clapping him on the back.

“The winner! The winner!” they cried. “Conrad’s the winner!”

Conrad nodded in acknowledgment, slowly masticating his mouthful of red-bird breast.

And then there were shouts of “The prize! The prize!”

Two men came forward, bearing on a tray a wreath of red-bird feathers.

Conrad removed his chef’s hat, and the men solemnly placed the wreath of victory on his head.

Conrad thanked them and then said that a toast was in order: “To Heavy!” he cried, standing up. “To Heavy, a truly great eater! And a great drinker! For Heavy had eaten before he challenged me, while I was working all day without eating anything. And that hardly makes for an even contest. If it had been the other way around, if Heavy had been doing the cooking and I the shooting—who knows what the outcome would have been. Heavy might be toasting me!”

All the men cheered at this.

Heavy smiled at Conrad, very appreciative, and tried to join in the toast. But he couldn’t swallow any more beer. Someone laughed and said that if Heavy had done the cooking, the men would probably be shooting him now instead of toasting him.

After that all the men drank a toast to Conrad.

Conrad adjusted his red crown and then picked up the remains of his last bird.

The men suddenly fell silent. Incredulous, they watched him as he carefully detached one of the legs.

“Eggy!” Conrad called. “I need some more beer. And Harold—those birds must be done by now . . . Bring both trays. I’m hungry!”

PART II

11

Mrs. Hill was perched on Conrad’s stool, sipping a cup of broth, as was now her custom when she came into the kitchen to chat with him.

The relationship had grown steadily less formal, and sometimes Mrs. Hill sat in the kitchen for hours discussing matters and problems appertaining to the domain of food and domestic management. Maxfield resented this, and the first half-dozen times that he discovered Mrs. Hill in the kitchen talking to Conrad he sought to remain on some pretext, but Mrs. Hill had got rid of him, sending him on a duty to another part of the house, or with a message for Mrs. Wigton. Mrs. Wigton too felt she was being supplanted in Mrs. Hill’s counsels, though there was little she could do about it, since she wasn’t even allowed in the kitchen.

“. . . Daphne is coming this Wednesday with Mr. and Mrs. Vale,” Mrs. Hill said, taking a sip of her broth. “She rarely leaves the house, poor girl, but her parents have raved so about your cooking, and they insist that she come.—You know, Conrad, after you fixed Brogg’s specialty for them Mrs. Vale hasn’t said one good word about him. She’s even said she would like to send him over to take lessons from you.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate that,” Conrad commented, “from what I’ve heard about Brogg.” He also had a cup of broth in his hand, though it wasn’t the same kind.

“. . . and when I told Mrs. Vale that I’d lost some weight since I’ve been eating your cooking—though I’ve actually been eating more, and everything that I want to—why, she actually began to blame Brogg for Daphne’s being so fat. I had to remind her that Daphne was overweight before they got Brogg; after all, Dr. Law had suggested that she look for another cook, and told her of someone who was very well thought of in Highlands. That’s when Mrs. Vale hired Brogg—though I will admit Daphne’s continued to put on weight since he’s been cooking for them, and maybe even at a faster rate. Poor girl, she’s so fat. If only . . .”

She trailed off with a sigh, and her expression became remote, as if she could just picture a thin Daphne in a wedding gown, Harold by her side—if only . . .

“. . . Maxfield is sick in bed. I’m going to fix the drinks tonight.” Harold walked over to the stove. “It smells good; may I ask what it is?”

“It’s casserole of pheasant—the ones you shot the other day.”

“But those were for you, Conrad,” Harold objected quietly.

“There’ll be more than enough for all. The dish is very rich.”

Harold smiled and shook his head. Once or twice a week since red-bird night Harold had brought Conrad several brace of birds to prepare for himself: “Anyone who loves wild birds as much as you do, Conrad . . .” he would say.

And Conrad would take the birds: “Red-bird night revealed one of my weaknesses, Harold.”

It had revealed more than that. Not only had Conrad proved that he could out-eat anyone and out-drink anyone, but also that he could cook red-birds better than anyone had ever cooked them before.

He had also proved himself to be a prodigious and incredibly fast worker. Later that Saturday night, when Harold and he had finally got back to the Hill kitchen, Harold admitted he was on the verge of exhaustion, though he hadn’t done one-twentieth of the work Conrad had.

“I don’t know how you do it, Conrad,” Harold said.

Conrad smiled. “Did you enjoy the work?” he asked.

Harold replied that he had enjoyed it very much. “I’ve also learned a lot. I never realized there was so much to cooking.”

Conrad nodded understandingly. “You should look at some of my books on wild-bird cooking, and you’ll see how many things we did wrong—necessarily, I might add: the facilities weren’t ideal, and the number of short cuts we took—all to the detriment of the dish.”

Harold looked a little surprised at this—whether at Conrad’s invitation or at his strictures it was not possible to say—and after a slight hesitation replied that he couldn’t imagine what else could have been done to the red-birds or how they could have been improved, but a few days later he referred to Conrad’s remarks and Conrad again suggested that he take a look at the books.

“Do you want me to get them for you?” Conrad asked, as Harold looked a little shy, “or do you want to get them yourself?”

Harold replied that if Conrad didn’t mind he would go up and look himself . . .

“Oh, it has pictures!” Ester exclaimed happily.

At her request Conrad had given her the book on cat food.

After flipping through it and looking at all the pictures, she glanced at some of the suggested dishes. “Can you make any of these?”

Conrad said he could.

“Do you like kitties?”

Conrad replied that he used to have many.

“More than three?” Ester asked, incredulous.

“More than three,” Conrad conceded.

“Oh, how marvelous!—I hate dogs,” she added.

At last Ester pointed to a picture showing three kittens tumbling over themselves in eagerness to dispatch a dish of reddish-looking fish floating in green sauce.

“Next week,” Conrad promised.

Conrad spent all of Sunday afternoon and evening at the Shepard’s Inn drinking and listening to the gossip of the workingmen and servants who gathered there for the same purpose. Until quite recently most of these people would have gone to Ben’s or the White Door or one of the other taverns. But word soon spread that whenever Conrad was at Shepard’s, free hors-d’oeuvres and canapés were available. He prepared the tid-bits himself in the small kitchen in the rear of the inn. Also, Conrad was very liberal with his money; he would stand many rounds of beer and never ask for any in return. Word of this also spread, attracting customers.

There was a large table in a far corner, and this soon became known as Conrad’s table. The customers who dropped in were made to feel free to pull up a chair and join him there, or leave him—as they chose.

Nell had been reduced to his willing but nervous slave. She did everything he said as fast as she could: if his beer was warm, she took it back; if it was flat, she took it back; if more plates were needed, she ran to the kitchen; if something was wanted from a shop, she screamed at Gimpy to fetch it; if Conrad left a message for someone, it was delivered; if someone left a package for Conrad, it was put on ice; if his table needed cleaning, she cleaned it, etc., etc. And it was always: “Yes, Mr. Conrad,” or “No, Mr. Conrad,” or “I’m sorry, Mr. Conrad.”

Nell also related to Conrad any gossip which she thought he had missed and which might be of interest to him; and it was from her that he first heard that Ester Hill was seeing a boy in Highlands. “His family’s none too good,” Nell whispered, “and that’s why Ester Hill is keeping it a secret.” The boy’s name was Lance Brown.

Conrad also learned from Nell that Brogg had been saying some very bad things about “that new cook at the Hills’.”

And from some of the others Conrad heard that Mr. Hill had been proclaiming that he had the best cook this side of the City: “My fellow is really a magician with food.”

Mr. Hill had added that he never felt better in his life and that he had actually taken off a little weight, though he was eating everything he wanted to.