But was it?
All told, there were fifteen ingredients. Six of them could be plucked from the pantry of the Boyarsky at any time of year. Another five were readily available in season. The nut of the problem was that, despite the overall improvement in the general availability of goods, the last four ingredients remained relatively rare.
From the outset, it was agreed that there would be no skimping—no shortcuts or substitutions. It was the symphony or silence. So the Triumvirate would have to be patient and watchful. They would have to be willing to beg, barter, collude, and if necessary, resort to chicanery. Three times the dream had been within their grasp, only to be snatched away at the last moment by unforeseen circumstances (once by mishap, once by mold, and once by mice).
But earlier that week, it seemed that the stars were wheeling into alignment once again. With nine elements already in Emile’s kitchen, four whole haddock and a basket of mussels meant for the National Hotel had been delivered to the Metropol by mistake. That was ten and eleven in a single stroke. The Triumvirate convened and conferred. A favor could be called in by Andrey, a swap negotiated by Emile, and Audrius approached by the Count. Thus, the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth ingredients. But the fifteenth? This would require access to a store with the rarest of luxuries—that is, one which served the highest members of the Party. A discreet inquiry was made by the Count of a certain actress with certain connections. And mirabile dictu, an unsigned envelope had been slipped under his door. With all fifteen ingredients now at hand, the Triumvirate’s patience was on the verge of being rewarded. Within the hour, they would once again experience that intricacy of flavors, that divine distillation, that impression as rich and elusive as—
“Good evening, comrade.”
The Count stopped in his tracks.
For a moment he hesitated. Then he slowly turned around—as from the shadows of an alcove the hotel’s assistant manager emerged.
Like his counterpart on the chessboard, the Bishop of the Metropol never moved along the rank or file. With him it was always on the bias: slipping diagonally from corner to corner, skirting past a potted plant, sliding through a crack in the door. One caught sight of him at the periphery of one’s vision, if one caught sight of him at all.
“Good evening,” replied the Count.
The two men took each other in from heel to hair—both practiced at confirming in a glance their worst suspicions of each other. Leaning a little to his right, the Bishop adopted an expression of idle curiosity.
“What do we have here . . . ?”
“What do we have where?”
“Why, there. Behind your back.”
“Behind my back?”
The Count slowly brought his hands in front of him and turned his palms upright to show that they were empty. The right upper corner of the Bishop’s smile twitched, turning it ever so briefly into a smirk. The Count reciprocated in kind and with a polite bow of the head turned to walk away.
“Headed to the Boyarsky . . . ?”
The Count stopped and turned back.
“Yes. That’s right. The Boyarsky.”
“Isn’t it closed . . . ?”
“It is. But I think I may have left my pen in Emile’s office.”
“Ah. The man of letters has lost his pen. Where is it now . . . , hmm? If not in the kitchen, perhaps you should look in the blue pagoda of your fine Chinoiserie.” And turning with his smirk, the Bishop slipped diagonally down the hall.
The Count waited until he was out of sight, then hurried in the opposite direction, muttering as he went:
“Where is it now . . . ? Perhaps in your blue pagoda. . . . Very witty, I’m sure. Coming from a man who couldn’t rhyme cow with plow. And what’s with all that dot-dot-dotting?”
Ever since the Bishop had been promoted, he had taken to adding an ellipsis at the end of every question. But what was one to infer from it . . . ? That this particular punctuation mark should be fended off . . . ? That an interrogative sentence should never end . . . ? That even though he is asking a question, he has no need of an answer because he has already formed an opinion . . . ?
Of course.
Coming through the Boyarsky’s doors, which Andrey had left unbolted, the Count crossed the empty dining room and passed through the swinging door into the kitchen. There he found the chef at his counter slicing a bulb of fennel, as four stalks of celery lying in an orderly row waited like Spartans to meet their fate. To the side were the filets of haddock and the basket of mussels, while on the stove sat a great copper pot from which small clouds of steam graced the air with other intimations of the sea.
Looking up from the fennel, Emile met the eye of the Count and smiled. In an instant the Count could see that the chef was in rosy form. Having sensed at two that all might not be lost, at half past midnight the chef hadn’t the slightest doubt that the sun would shine tomorrow, that most people were generous at heart, and that, when all was said and done, things tended to work out for the best.
The chef wasted no time on salutations. Instead, without pausing his chopper, he tilted his head toward the little table, which had been moved from his office into the kitchen and which had been waiting patiently to be set.
But first things first.
Carefully, the Count removed the little cordial glass from his back pocket and placed it on the counter.
“Ah,” said the chef, wiping his hands on his apron.
“Is it enough?”
“It is only meant to be a hint. An aside. An innuendo. If it is the real thing, it should be plenty.”
Emile dipped his pinkie in the absinthe and gave it a lick.
“Perfect,” he said.
Selecting an appropriate tablecloth from the linen closet, the Count unfurled it with a snap and let it billow to the table. As he set the places, the chef began to whistle a tune and the Count smiled to realize it was the very same song that he had heard in the Shalyapin regarding the absence of bananas. As if on cue, the door to the back stair opened and in rushed Andrey with a pile of oranges about to tumble from his arms. Reaching Emile’s side, he bowed at the waist and spilled them onto the counter.
With the instincts of convicts who discover the gates of their prison open, the individual oranges rolled in every direction to maximize their chances of escape. In a flash, Andrey had extended his arms in a grand circumference to fence them in. But one of the oranges dodged the ma?tre d’s reach and shot across the counter—headed straight for the absinthe! Dropping his chopper, Emile lunged and plucked the glass from the counter in the nick of time. The orange, which was gaining in confidence, dashed behind the fennel, jumped from the counter, thudded to the floor, and made a break for the exit. But at the last moment, that door that separated Emile’s kitchen from the rest of the world swung inward, sending the orange spinning back across the floor in the opposite direction—while in the doorway stood the Bishop.
The three members of the Triumvirate froze.
Advancing two paces north by northwest, the Bishop took in the scene.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in his friendliest tone. “What brings you all to the kitchen at this hour . . . ?”
Andrey, who’d had the presence of mind to step in front of the simmering pot, gestured with a hand toward the food on the counter.
“We are taking inventory.”
“Inventory . . . ?”
“Yes. Our quarterly inventory.”