White Truffles in Winter (7 page)

Two months had passed when Doré stopped by Le Petit Moulin Rouge to see Escoffier. The artist's studio was around the corner from the café and so he often ordered supper to be delivered, especially when he was working late with students.

“It's for Mademoiselle Bernhardt,” he told Escoffier. “You know what she likes. Make whatever will suit her.”

Escoffier could not believe what he was hearing. “She's taking lessons?”

“She's very good. It's surprising. Exhibition quality,” Doré said. “And don't forget. Several bottles of champagne, of course.”

Escoffier knew exactly what Sarah liked; he knew what everyone liked. He kept extensive notes about all of his favored diners. This was his second chance. He sent the champagne ahead and planned to cook and deliver the food himself.

Escoffier knew if he could win Sarah's heart it would be with a dish made of truffles and pureed
foie gras
, the one she often doted over. The subtle aroma of truffle, according to the great Brillat-Savarin, was an aphrodisiac. And so, “Let the food speak where words cannot,” Escoffier said, making the sign of the cross, and cooking as if his life depended on it, because on some level it did.

When the chef finally knocked on the studio door, his small hands shook under the weight of the silver tray and its domed cover.

Escoffier had changed into clean clothes and now looked more like a banker than a chef. But he was, most certainly, a chef. Beneath the dome, caramelized sweetbreads, covered with truffles, lay on a bed of golden noodles that were napped in a sauce made from the
foie gras
of ducks fed on wild raspberries, the
framboise
, of the countryside.

It was a dish of profound simplicity, and yet luxury.

When Doré opened the studio door, Escoffier was surprised to see that Sarah was dressed as a young boy, which was, of course, illegal. She wore a black vest, gypsy shirt, riding pants tucked into tall boots with her wild copper river of hair twisted into a knot on the top of her head. Her eyes were dusty, tornadic. Her skin seemed more like marble than flesh. She held a chisel in one hand—the bust she was working on was rough, just a few cuts—and a glass of champagne in the other. The thing he would always remember about that moment was that she was covered with a fine white dust, like powdered sugar.

She could have dismissed him. After all, she clearly didn't remember that they had already met. “Put the tray on the table and go,” is what he expected her to say. But she did not.

She looked at him as if he were someone whom she had loved and lost. She would later say that it was at that moment that she noticed that he had her father's eyes—eyes filled with a glorious burning. She had, indeed, remembered him.

As was the custom, she kissed him on both cheeks. “Le Havre,” she whispered and Escoffier lifted the silver dome off the heavy platter. The room was filled with a hint of raspberries, warmed by the summer sun, and truffles, dark as memory.

Sarah leaned over the dish and closed her eyes. “It is as if the very air is made of velvet.”

And then she laughed: all bones and fury.

And he was forever hers. No matter whom he loved, or was loved by, the shadow of her always remained.

A
T LE PETIT MOULIN ROUGE, THERE WERE ROOMS TO BE
seen in, rooms to be lost in, and rooms never to leave. The restaurant, only open during the summer months, featured a series of outdoor gardens with arbors of roses and lilacs trellised to form fragrant walls. Inside there were two formal dining rooms on the main level, two large private rooms on the second, and several smaller rooms for more intimate dining on the third and fourth floors. There were thirty rooms in all and a private entrance at
3
rue Jean Goujon that was hidden by a roadside lilac grove.

Every night, every dining-room drama was scored by music from Napoleon Musad's orchestra, who played in the band shell across the street at the Champs Elysées gardens. That night was no different.

Escoffier usually worked the dining room, kissing the hands of the ladies who were discreetly ushered in through the side entrance. But that night, he waited in the kitchen so that he might catch a glimpse of Sarah leaving Doré's studio, or maybe even find her standing outside the back door waiting to thank him for such an elegant supper.

It is impossible that she is not moved,
he thought and watched the couples in the park, under the gaslights. The ladies in their elegant bustled dresses and peacock-plumed hats. Men in their frock coats and silver handled canes. They strolled along dimly lit walks or sat drinking wine under the darkness of the trees. Musad and the orchestra were playing an evening of the work of Vincent d'Indy, mostly his chamber pieces; a charming backdrop for an evening in the park.

At eight p.m., when the last dinner service ended at Le Petit Moulin Rouge and the waiting horse-drawn hansom cabs began to leave one by one, the orchestra began the
Quartet for Piano and Strings in A Minor, Op.
7
.
It was one of Escoffier's favorite works. The joy of it, the coyness, and then the bold dance of the keys and strings always reminded him of his grandmother, the warmth of her kitchen and the kindness that she showed a young boy who wanted to learn the art of cookery.

Tonight, however, the
Quartet
made him furious. All he could think of was Sarah and Doré listening, too, their bodies entwined. Some said Doré was handsome, but to Escoffier his mentor was not an attractive man at all. He looked like an educated ape with his wild hair and unsuitable clothes—he was quite fond of wearing checkered pants and an unmatched checkered scarf in all seasons.
What could Sarah see in him besides his talent?

But as soon as Escoffier thought this, he understood that it was precisely what attracted her to Doré. He had, after all, illustrated the works of Milton, Dante, Lord Byron and that Spaniard Cervantes and his
Don Quixote
. Not a week passed without a new book illustrated by Doré. He was rich and successful, but it was more than that and Escoffier knew it. Doré was the heart of Paris. His etchings of the Prussian Siege showed a city at its knees—a mother watching in horror as a soldier killed her infant and market stalls selling rats, cats and dogs. Doré had been there, as they all had been there. He remembered for them all and so they would not forget.

And I am nothing but a cook.

And yet Escoffier could not bear to leave the window.
Just one last look.
When the staff left for the evening, Escoffier remained.

Hours later, the
boulanger
found him asleep in a chair facing the street. He shook him gently. “Papa, I have come to start today's bread.”

“I was just . . . ”

Escoffier could see by the look on the baker's face that there was no need to explain. He knew.
Everyone must know
.

“Yes. Well.” Escoffier stood. Straightened his vest. “Please tell the staff that today's menu is in honor of my own personal triumph, the success of the meal that I made for our Miss Bernhardt and the esteemed Gustave Doré, my now former teacher.

“It will be
Noisettes d'Agneau Cora Dressés dans les Coeurs d'Artichauts
and
Pigeonneaux Cocotte
.”

The
boulanger
looked confused. “Artichoke hearts and pigeons?”

“It seems appropriate, does it not? A pigeon is a sucker and the
Coeur d'Artichaut
is a man who falls in love with every girl he meets.”

The man laughed and hugged Escoffier as if he were his own son.

“C'est la vie,”
he said. “Enjoy your heartbreak now, while you can. One day soon a woman will come along and you will become an old married man like me with too many children and too little sleep.”

“You have bread to make.”

The
boulanger
winked, tapped the side of his nose. “Our secret,” he said and then went back to his work.

Escoffier washed his face, gathered his topcoat and hat. “I will return before the luncheon service,” he said. The light was still on in Doré's studio and so he walked up the stairs and leaned against the door. He could hear the chipping of chisel on marble. The muffled sounds of laughter.

He stood for a long time, listening. When a champagne bottle popped and then all grew quiet, Escoffier knew it was time to go home.

Later that morning, two notes arrived for him. The first was from former French Minister Léon Gambetta requesting a private salon for a meal that night. The menu was to include a saddle of Béhague lamb and the utmost secrecy.

The second was from Sarah.

Both eventually would come to haunt him.

S
ARAH'S STUDIO WAS NOT AT ALL WHAT ESCOFFIER HAD
expected. It was not a hot square box of a place like Gustave Doré's. It was a top floor flat in a small odd building that sat in a courtyard just beyond the Boulevard de Courcelles. It looked more like a greenhouse, with several rows of windows and a glass-paned roof. And it was filled with people—all of whom, oddly enough, had striking yellow hair.

Yellow as pineapples,
Escoffier thought. He was not expecting this familial scene and felt foolish standing there with a large hamper of food and a chilled bottle of Moët.

“It is as if I am drowning in a sea of butter, is it not, my dear Escoffier?” Sarah laughed. She wore white trousers, a jacket, and a white silk
foulard tied around her head like a washerwoman. A cigarette hung from her mouth. She looked beautiful, careless and cunning.

“Drowning in butter. I cannot think of a better way to die,” he said, and she leaned into him and kissed him on both cheeks as was the custom, and yet his face went hot.

“Well, I can,” she whispered. “But there are children present.”

At the center of the room there was indeed a child, a small girl whose golden curly hair formed a halo around her angelic face. She was dressed as cupid wearing only a diaper and holding a small bow and arrow, a quiver on her back. She was obviously posing for Sarah. She had her head tilted to the right and her eyes toward the heavens. Escoffier had never seen such a beautiful child before. It would be difficult to do this creature justice in marble, but he had to admit that Sarah was well on her way. The sculpture she was working on captured the girl's innocence and also her mischievous air.

“This is young Nina,” Sarah said. “She was sitting in the balcony last week. I was on stage and could not keep my eyes off her—which is a dangerous thing for an actress. I could have fallen into the orchestra.”

An older woman with a straw-colored rope of hair—Escoffier assumed it was Nina's mother—smiled at the thought of the beguiling Sarah tumbling into the timpani. But the man next to her—his lemon-colored mustache made him obviously the child's father—fawned, “And we would have all run to your rescue and swooped you up into our collective adoring arms.”

Sarah looked at the man as if he were a speck of dirt on her jacket. “Yes, well, I didn't fall. Lucky us,” she said, and turned back to Escoffier. “I've seen your work at Doré's. The floral. You're very good. The poppy was so lifelike; how you crafted the leaf to appear as if it were folded, as if the wind had creased it, was quite remarkable. You
must
understand what I mean. The moment I saw her, I knew I must make a bust of her. A child this charming
must
have the soul of cupid within her. Don't you think?”

Escoffier was not sure what he thought. He had expected a private luncheon. And perhaps an indiscreet moment or two after lunch—Doré had obviously failed her—and then back to the kitchen to oversee Léon Gambetta's special dinner. A luncheon with a yellow-haired family was a possibility that he had not thought about.

“I must get back soon,” he said.

Sarah smiled as if she could feel his disappointment, expected it, and yet was irritated by it. “We're almost done here,” she said. “But if you are much too busy to wait, you could just leave the basket and put it on Doré's account.”

Escoffier thought of the dozens of small plucked pigeons at the restaurant
that were, at that very moment, being scalded, roasted and sauced—and felt a certain kinship.

“Mademoiselle, perhaps another time.”

“Surely you can wait half of an hour for me.”

“I could wait a lifetime.”

“So could everyone else, but I only need a half hour from you.”

Escoffier smiled and bowed. How could he not? “Shall I set that table?”

The only suitable table in the studio was a long rough wooden one filled with paints and old painting cloths. “Do you have anything clean to cover it with?”

“There are some clothes and things in those suitcases by the door. There might be something there.”

The child began to fidget. “When will I get my special book?” she said. “My head is tired. I'm cold.”

“Even angels can be ill-tempered,” she whispered to Escoffier. “You should keep that in mind for the future.”

In person, Sarah was nothing like he imagined. She was more human and somehow more real—and yet still magical. Everyone in the room was watching her. You couldn't look away.

She re-posed the fussy Nina with her head down and eyes up again.
“Mon enfant,”
Sarah said in her most silvery voice. “You have never seen an album like the one I am having made for you for being such a very good model.” Sarah stubbed her cigarette out with the heel of her boot and began to chip at the marble again. “Every artist I know I have told of your beauty, and they are working on an offering to honor you. Meissonier, for instance, the painter, is doing a watercolor scene of the war: a Prussian regiment attacking a French inn being defended by French soldiers. It is as bold and brave as you are. Gounod, the composer, is working on a new song,
‘La Charmante Modèle
,
'
because, of course, I have told him what a delightful model you are.”

It seemed to Escoffier that the child and her parents were transfixed by the princely sum such a book would bring on the open market.

Escoffier set the table. He'd found a Japanese kimono, an obvious prop from some theater production, to use as a tablecloth. Paris had recently fallen in love with all things oriental. It was red silk brocade, covered with a flock of white flying cranes, and made from a single bolt of fabric. The neckline and cuffs were thickly stained with stage makeup but the kimono itself was quite beautiful. It ran the length of the thin table. The arms overhung one end.

Outside the building he'd seen a garden with a sign that read “Please do not pick.” But it was, after all, for a beautiful woman. Who would deny him? And so Escoffier cut a bouquet of white flowers: roses, peonies and a spray of lilies, with rosemary stalks to provide the greenery. He placed them in a tall water glass and then opened the basket of food he'd brought. He laid out the china plates so that they rested between the cranes, and then the silver knives, forks and spoons, and a single crystal glass for her champagne. Even though it was early afternoon, he'd brought two dozen candles.

The food had to be served
à la française
; there were no waiters to bring course after course. So he kept it simple. Tartlets filled with sweet oysters from Arcachon and Persian caviar, chicken roasted with truffles, a warm baguette,
pâté de foie gras,
and small sweet strawberries served on a bed of sugared rose petals and candied violets.

There was a lovely domestic rhythm to the moment. On one side of the studio, Escoffier was transforming a corner into an elegant dining room. He pulled the red velvet curtains, lit dozens of candles to set the stage. On the other side, Sarah was sculpting the petulant cherub and weaving the tale of the magic book—a promise she would clearly not keep.

Half an hour elapsed. As promised, Sarah bid Nina and her star-struck parents goodbye.

“Such beautiful idiots,” Sarah said after them.

“And the book is fantasy?”

She laughed, “But of course. I am fantasy.”

A thundercloud passed overhead. A hard rain began to fall on the glass roof. The room filled with the scent of the flowers and wet earth, humus and peat.

Sarah washed her hands and face in the sink as if she were an ordinary groundskeeper. She scrubbed her elbows and arms with harsh lye soap and then wiped them dry with a torn cotton towel. Escoffier was mesmerized by the humility of the moment—this was after all the great Sarah Bernhardt. Then she shook off her scarf and her wild tumble of hair cascaded down her back. She took off her boots and rolled her stockings into a ball. She took off her jacket. And then her vest. Her trousers. She folded her silk blouse, unhooked her corset, and continued on until she was completely naked. She never paused once. It was as if Escoffier wasn't even there.

And then she rubbed her skin with a spiced oil that reminded him of walking down the street in the Moroccan section of Paris late at night, when the lingering fragrance of so many evening meals filled the air with cumin and ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and pepper.

She was Venus, that much was clear, standing naked in a darkened room, unashamed as a child. But the darkness that the rain brought made her skin seem so white that she could have been made of marble. She was as untouchable as any museum statue.

The rain fell hard against the glass roof. Escoffier could feel it in his veins.

Sarah turned to him and seemed bemused that he was still sitting there. “Most men would have either run or thrown themselves on me.”

“I am not most men.”

They both listened to the rain for a moment. It seemed to be letting up a bit. Dozens of flickering candles set across the long red table warmed the moment.

“Do you see this?” Sarah pointed to a half-moon scar on the side of her belly. “It is my one imperfection. Odéon. During the siege.”

Four years earlier, during the Prussian War, Sarah had converted the Odéon Theatre into a hospital. She and the other actors had served as nurses. She hired doctors. She'd bartered sex for government rations for the injured and raised a flock of chickens and ducks in her dressing room to slaughter for those who only had a few days to live. Jules, Escoffier's pastry chef, had worked there with her. He stood alongside her as they collected the dead and dying from the streets. “Ambulance! Ambulance!” they would murmur as they walked along in the stunned darkness.

“The dead,” Jules told Escoffier. “You never get over the sight of them. Nor that smell.”

Escoffier understood. He'd traveled as a cook with Napoleon III's army, was a prisoner of war at Metz, and arrived in Paris in time for the uprisings in which Catholics like himself were slain in the street.
Too much death.

“I am seeing Léon Gambetta this evening,” he told Sarah and as soon as he did, he couldn't believe he'd said it. Something about her made him want to tell her everything. “But it is a secret. He is setting up some sort of meeting.”

Sarah's face went pale at the mention of Gambetta's name. The rain clouds shifted and shafts of strained sunlight poured down through the glass roof. Her skin turned from marble to paper and she turned slight and frail. Escoffier found himself sweating hard.

During the siege, Léon Gambetta, the former Minister of Interior and of War, ordered that the French fight to the death. “Never surrender,” he told the people. And so they didn't. They didn't feel that they needed to. The French had ingenuity and invention on their side—every man in the army was equipped with a new breech-loading Chassepot rifle and several had the
mitrailleuse
, an early machine gun. National pride was never stronger. Unfortunately, they were no match against the Prussian army, whose sheer numbers alone were overwhelming. Paris was soon surrounded.

Gambetta was undaunted. Like most born handsome, he never entertained the possibility of failure. He was emotional and unruly, given to equal parts of eloquence and heroics. He had only one eye and the empty socket reminded everyone that he understood loss and could overcome it.

For that moment in time, he was Paris and all of Paris knew it. He had a plan. He would pilot a balloon, the
Armand-Barbès
,
to Tours, where he would organize an army to recapture the city.

It was an act of holy rage.

At the appointed time, everyone gathered where the Sacré-Coeur now stands. There were people as far as the eye could see. Shoulder to shoulder, in the valleys and along the hillsides, the city watched as Gambetta, theatrically heroic in his floor-length fur, was carried through the crowd. Saintlike and wild-eyed, he climbed into the ragged gondola basket. He looked up into the large gas-filled balloon, the burners flaming, and then nodded. A dozen men on the ground guided the balloon into the air, one by one they let the rope slip from their fingers while Gambetta unfurled a tricolor flag.

“Vive la France! Vive la République!”

The crowd joined in—shouting, weeping. Fear and joy intertwined.

Unfortunately, the
Armand-Barbès
did not ascend quickly. It spun, jerked and groaned its way forward low along the ground, taking the hopes of Paris with it. And then, suddenly, for no reason at all, the balloon took flight. An ambling ghost, it began its journey to Tours on the winds of hope.

But Gambetta arrived too late. Before he could mobilize his army, Napoleon III was captured and France, bloody and beaten, had surrendered.

“We would have followed him into Hell,” Sarah said to Escoffier and ran her finger along the scar's jagged edge. “The army continued to store explosives in the theater's basement. It is universally known as a barbaric act to bomb the wounded, Gambetta told me this, but he should have told the Prussians, too.