To Kill the Duke (13 page)

“Don’t think about food smells or beer smells comrade. Think other smells,” the man with two wooden spoons said.

What other types of smells are there in a kitchen?
Ivan pondered.
Sweat from the workers? Disinfectant from the cleaning supplies? Fire from the gas stove? Heat from the oven?
Again, he was lost and the man with two wooden spoons knew it. After all, the man with two wooden spoons was a professional chef with incredible knowledge or he wouldn’t be running these kitchens for the leaders of the USSR — especially on film festival night. The man
with two wooden spoons took one of the spoons and dipped into a big wooden bowl. He brought the spoon to Ivan’s nose.

“That is what makes great German food smell so good — the herbs!” the man with two wooden spoons said. He took the other spoon and dipped it into a huge pan of dumplings and let Ivan taste the contents. “Without fresh herbs around, German food would smell like German beer. Well?”

“I like the French food better,” Ivan said.

“Comrade, so do I. Just don’t mention a thing about which is better to the big boys. They love both kitchens equally. They really hate Jewish and English foods, so don’t mention those cuisines at all,” the man with two wooden spoons warned.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as Jewish and English foods,” Ivan said.

“Well, to the English, their main cuisine is beans on toast. The Jews are a lot tougher. They have many dishes, but they
are
Jews,” the man with two wooden spoons cautioned Ivan.

Ivan wasn’t prejudiced against anybody. He was too busy surviving. He had no time to hate anyone.

As Ivan pondered the kitchen tours he had just experienced, a large gong went off. Ivan froze in his tracks, which was about halfway from the ‘German kitchen’ area and the confines of his little projection room.

It must be an incoming missile
was Ivan’s first thought, especially because of the way everyone in both kitchens and other places of the massive house started running from here to there. Worse, no one cared who he was or stopped to tell him where the bomb shelter was.

His version of the apocalypse was jarred into reality by the now-familiar voice of the captain of the guards.

“Comrade projectionist, why are you standing out here in the corridor?” the powerful voice asked.

“Comrade captain, I heard the giant gong and thought that this was an air raid drill,” Ivan said.

The captain started laughing so hard he dropped to one knee. His command came running over to see what was wrong.

“What’s. Wrong. Sir!?” the nine members barked out in unison.

Now the captain was laughing so hard, no noise was forthcoming. Tears were running from his eyes and his face was turning purple. The guards, sensing a wrongdoing by Ivan to their beloved leader, seized Ivan very roughly.

Luckily for Ivan, the captain was a man who could react very quickly.

It was one of the reasons why he had been made a captain of the guards for the Russian leader(s); he had incredible reaction time, amongst other skills.

“Easy comrades,” the captain said as he eased all the weapons that were being pointed at Ivan. “Our comrade projectionist has done nothing wrong. He thinks the noise going off means that American in-coming is about to rain down on us,” the captain added as he again began laughing hysterically.

One of the guards who had been holding Ivan’s left side started howling at what the captain had just said. “I better kiss my girlfriend good-bye,” he managed to shout in between laughing.

“I thought you were married?” the soldier who had been holding Ivan’s right said asked.

“I am!” cried out the guard holding Ivan’s left side replied.

This made the entire group laugh even harder.

The guards relaxed and all ten men returned to their posts… laughing the entire time.

“Comrade Viznapu,” said the captain.

“Yes, comrade Captain,” Ivan replied.

“The noise you hear is the dinner bell tolling for the people you will be showing movies to. I think you should quit your day job and start a new career as a comedian. Go and get ready. Someone will knock on the door when you have to roll film.”

Ivan thanked the captain with a nod of his head and turned to go back to the projection room when he was stopped by the man with two wooden spoons.

“What was that all about?”

“The captain thinks I would make a great comedian,” Ivan responded.

“Never mind that. Get into your room and get the first film ready. Dinner is about to start.”

“But my projection room is nowhere near the main dining room,” Ivan protested.

“Why? What’s happening in the dining room?”

“Isn’t that where all your fabulous food is going to be eaten?”

Now it was the man with two wooden spoons turn to break out into hysterical laughter.

Maybe I should be a comedian
Ivan mused, but not finding anything funny about the question he had just asked. “Doesn’t everyone who is attending the film festival eat in that dining room I saw earlier? The dining room that could double as its own country,” Ivan said.

“That place is for
formal
gatherings,” the man with two wooden spoons said. “Here, let me take you to the watching room, where the food is eaten, the drinks consumed and the movies watched.”

Ivan followed his new friend.

The two burly guards who earlier had been holding his left and right sides, were guarding the heavy wooden doors to the room that the man with two wooden spoons wanted to show Ivan. They smiled and stepped aside, and patted Ivan on his shoulders as he entered.

Ivan liked the guards better as ‘patters’ than as ‘holders.’

As dining rooms went — it wasn’t that nice. But as screening rooms went — this place was for the ages.

Of course the viewing screen was very large and in perfect shape. It took up an entire wall, which was opposite the wall that held Ivan’s camera and films. That wall only had a window in it for Ivan’s projector and a very small eye slit for Ivan to view the room. It was so small that Ivan failed to notice it the first time he eye-balled his room for the night. He made another mental note to check out the eye slot as soon as he finished with the tour of the screening room, even though he didn’t think that he would be able to see anything in the room but the movie screen, because of the eye-slit location.

The side walls were comprised of beautiful tapestries that Ivan figured at one time belonged to the Czars of his ancestors. He had been told by someone in his family that tapestries were always used by every home in Russia.

“Of course in the Viznapu family, our tapestry was a plain white sheet, provided that we had a sheet,” Ivan remembered an older family member telling him.

Tapestries helped keep houses cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Looking at the size of the ones being used by the bigwigs made Ivan wonder how any material to make another tapestry ever existed.

“They must have used up all the raw material in all of Russia to make those tapestries,” Ivan said to the man with two wooden spoons.

“Only all the raw materials that were supposed to help the poor,” the man with two wooden spoons joked. “Take a seat and feel real comfort.”

Ivan did what he was told, even though he wouldn’t have known what ‘real comfort’ was if it fell on him. He sat in the chair closest to him and then experienced what ‘real comfort’ was… at least as it related to chairs in a 1950’s screening room in the USSR. “I could fall asleep on this!” Ivan exclaimed.

“I have,” the man with two wooden spoons said. “Take off your shoes and ball your feet up in the rug.”

Ivan did as he was instructed and his feet felt ‘real comfort.’ “I wish my shoes were made of this material,” he said to the man with two wooden spoons. “Is there anything else I can play with before the festivities begin?”

Before the man with two wooden spoons could answer Ivan, the screening room was full of workers carrying metal trays with collapsible legs under them. A female worker placed a tray right in front of Ivan and the man with two wooden spoons beamed at him.

“What is going on, comrade?” Ivan asked his new best friend.

“You are full of questions.”

Ivan nodded in agreement. “Who wouldn’t be?” he asked.

And just as quickly as the workers entered, they exited. Ivan noticed that each viewing chair had one tray set up in front of it.

“Go back and get ready. These trays are the future for eating while one watches the big screen. The big shots love watching their films while we serve them their meals. The food tasters will be in shortly. When they are done, the fun really starts to happen,” the man with two wooden spoons said.

“Food tasters? Trays to eat off being the future? I don’t understand,” Ivan said.

“All big shots have someone taste their food,” the man with two wooden spoons said.

“I already did that… didn’t I?” Ivan said.

“No comrade, you tasted the food for yourself because I wanted you to get a taste of some good food. We peasants have to stick together and share when we can,” the man with two wooden spoons told Ivan as he winked his left eye.

“So the food tasters are people you choose, so they get to taste some things they never would have?” Ivan asked.

“No. The food tasters are people waiting to be deported or sent to the salt mines. They are chosen because if the food is poisoned — the tasters die, I die and everyone involved with the meal dies. The big shots find someone else to cook for them, prepare for them and of course taste their meals for them,” the man with two wooden spoons said with a shrug.

“Has anyone ever…,” Ivan began, but was cut off by his new best friend.

“Not on my watch comrade and that is how I intend to keep it… with the help of that captain. He is very good at protecting his fiefdom, and thus us,” the man with two wooden spoons said.

“And the trays. I don’t understand that comment at all,” Ivan said.

“About a year ago, one of the janitors showed me some memos that had been left in the garbage. It is funny comrade, what I find out the day after these film festivals,” the man with two wooden spoons said, with a wink to Ivan.

Not knowing any better, Ivan winked back.

The man with two wooden spoons rolled his eyes and told Ivan about the memo that the janitor had found in the garbage about the trays that were now in front of all the chairs in the screening room.

The memo was from one of the many spies stationed in America — this one to spy on Howard Hughes’ aircraft company. The report was on how Hughes was cornering the market in the metal dinner-tray market. It was the future of how every American would eat dinner, because television was both popular and affordable nowadays.

“So, after that memo made the rounds of the big shots, they decided to start having their meals in the screening room while the movies played,” the man with two wooden spoons told Ivan.

“Well?” Ivan asked.

“Well, according to all the subsequent festivals since, all the big shots, especially Uncle Joe, love their meals served on these trays. After all, look
around,” the man with two wooden spoons said as he waved around the spoons in his hands. If ever there was a time in his life that Ivan Viznapu felt out of place it was now; he quickly put his boots back on, thanked the man with two wooden spoons and walked quickly to where he would feel in place — the projection room.

For in the projection room there would never be a metal tray for Ivan to eat off.

He clasped the ‘on’ switch with his right index finger and thumb, as he waited for the signal to roll the first film.

Suddenly, there was a loud rap at the door. He was just about to flip the switch when a voice boomed out that there were exactly eleven minutes to go before the guests arrived at 4:30 p.m. He let out a loud sigh of relief that he
hadn’t
flipped the switch.

He noticed that his hands were getting sweaty and looked in vain for a towel to wipe them dry. There was nothing worse than trying to run a projector with sweaty hands. He wiped them on his pants, but it didn’t help, and he realized that he had to go and wash his hands with some soap and take some paper towels back with him. The lavatory wasn’t that far away and he knew he could accomplish everything before the guests settled in. After all, according to the booming voice he had just heard, he had eleven minutes. He exited his little room and headed for the rest room.