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The Mankiller of Poojegai and other stories

Stories ranging from Stone Age Germany to 19th century Italy to currrent day Africa.

Crippen & Landru, August 2007

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Walter Satterthwait - Cassoulet: a short story

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Copyright, Walter Satterthwait. With many thanks to Cathleen Jordon and the folks at Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, where this story originally appeared in December, 1996.

"I must speak with you," says Pascal, "regarding a matter of great importance."

"And which matter," I ask him, "might that be?"

Thoughtfully, using forefinger and thumb, he strokes his mustache. "The cassoulet," he says.

"Ah," I say, and within my chest my heart dips a few melancholy millimeters.

We are drinking Pascal's passable filter coffee in his somewhat too-elaborate dining room. The room is situated in a corner of his apartment, and the apartment itself on the top floor of a portly old building along the Quai de Gesvres. A pair of wide windows, running from ceiling to floor, afford us an uninterrupted view of the Isle de Cite, and of Notre Dame with its many fine and graceful buttresses. The view no doubt is often charming; but today a gaudy sun is shining, and the river is perfectly reflecting the flawless blue of sky, as though posing for a tourist postcard; and I cannot help but find it all, as I find Pascal's dining room, a trifle overdone.

"You know, of course," says Pascal, "that I have always experienced a certain difficulty with the cassoulet."

"Yes, of course," I say. Pascal's failure with the cassoulet is reknowned.

"I have never understood it," he says. As usual, Pascal is wearing black--a silk shirt, a pair of linen slacks--on the mistaken assumption that black makes him appear at once more intellectual and less corpulent.

"I believe," he says, "that I am in all other respects a tolerable cook. The cassoulet, however..." he shakes his head "...invariably the cassoulet has eluded me. At the market I purchased the most delectable of beans, the most savory of sausages, the most succulent of pork. When I used fresh duck, I obtained the plumpest of these, and I plucked their feathers myself, with the utmost care. Always, before the final cooking, I rubbed the casserole scrupulously with garlic, like a painter preparing a canvas. Always, as the dish bubbled in the oven, I broke the gratin crust many times--"

"Seven times," I ask him, curious, "as they do in Castelnaudary?"

"On occasion. And on occasion eight times, as they do in Toulouse."

He sits back in his chair and shrugs. "Yet no matter what I assayed, always my cassoulet lacked..." frowning, he holds up his hand and delicately moves his fingers, as though attempting to pluck a thought, like a feather, carefully from the air.

"That certain something?" I offer.

"Exactly, yes," he nods. "That certain something." He smiles sadly. "You recall the party last year, on Bastille Day."

"Only with reluctance," I say. For a moment that evening, after each guest had taken a small tentative taste of the cassoulet, no one could look at anyone else. Silence fell across the table like the blade of a guillotine. Poor Pascal, who had been so embarrassingly hopeful before the presentation, suddenly became quite embarrassingly, quite voluably, apologetic.

"Yes," he nods ruefully. "A disaster."

"I have always," I say, "accounted it rather intrepid of you,this endless combat with the cassoulet."

He wags a finger at me. "Intrepid, yes, perhaps--but confess it, my friend, also rather foolish."

"Ah well," I say, and I shrug. "In this life we are all of us permitted a certain amount of foolishness, no?"

He inclines his head and smiles. "You are, as always, too kind." But then he frowns again. "You know," he says, "it was largely because of this Bastille cassoulet that Sylvie wandered out of my life."

"Come now, Pascal." I smile. "You know very well that Sylvie was wandering long before Bastille Day."

"Certainly. Sylvie was a free spirit and, I agree, a prodigious wanderer. Yet despite our many difficulties, after her wanderings it was to our life here that she invariably returned. Until the day of that fatal cassoulet. The embarrassment was too much for her. The cassoulet was the ultimate of straws."

Pascal's way with a cliche, can best be described as unfortunate. "Nonsense," I tell him. "By her very nature Sylvie was utterly incapable of fidelity."

He smiles sadly. "As you learned yourself, my friend, isn't it so?"

I return his smile, replacing its sadness with curiosity. "Surely, Pascal, you cannot hold that against me, my little incident with Sylvie?"

He lowers his eyebrows and raises his hand, showing me his pale scrubbed palm. "But of course not," he says. "It is inevitable, the attraction between one's friend and one's lover. It is, in a way, a confirmation of one's high regard for both." He shakes his head. "No, my friend, all that is history now. Water far beneath the bridge. But I speak of Sylvie. A few weeks ago, I saw her in the Cafe de la Paix. She was sitting with her American."

"The American is still in Paris, then?"

"Astounding, is it not? Almost ten months now, and the two of them are as inseparable as ever. You've met the man?"

"I've heard stories only. There are boots, I understand."

"The boots of the Cowboy, yes. Constructed from the skin of some unfortunate bird. A turkey, I believe."

"Not a turkey, surely?"

He shrugs. "A bird of some sort. And with them, inevitably, a ridiculous pair of denim trousers. Gray. Sitting besides Sylvie he looked like a circus clown."

"What was Sylvie wearing?" I ask in passing.

"A lovely little sleeveless Versace, red silk, and around her neck a red Hermes scarf."

I smile. "Sylvie and her endless scarves."

"Yes. She saw me, from across the room, and waved to me to join them. I could hardly refuse, not without causing a scene. Not in the Cafe de la Paix. So I crossed the room and the American stood to greet me. He's quite excessively tall, you know. He looms."

"It is something they all do, the Americans. Even the women. Even the short ones. They learn it from John Wayne films."

"Doubtless. In any event, we shook hands, the American and I, and naturally he squeezed mine as though it were a grapefruit."

"Naturally."

"His name is Zeke." Frowning, he cocks his head. "That cannot be a common name, can it, even among Americans?"

"I shouldn't think so." I glance at my watch. Eleven thirty now, and I have a one o'clock rendezvous at La Coupole. "So you joined them?" I say. "Sylvie and her Cowboy?"

"What choice had I? The American sat back and crossed his legs, perching his horizontal boot along his knee, so we might all admire the elegant stitchery in the dead turkey."

"I hardly think turkey, Pascal."

"Whatever. The point is the flamboyance of the gesture. Why not simply rip the thing from his foot and hurl it, plonk, to the center of the table?" Pascal shudders elaborately. "And then he hooked his thumbs over his belt, as they do, these American cowboys, and he said, "Sylvie tells me you're in chemicals."

"I said, 'Not in them, exactly.'"

"Touche," I say. "In French, this was, or in English?"

Pascal smiles. "He believed himself to be speaking French. It was execrable, of course. In simple self-defense, I replied in English. 'I have an interest in a small pharmaceutical company,' I told him. 'But naturally I leave the running of it to others.'

"And here Sylvie leaned forward and she said, 'Pascal's primary interest is the kitchen.'

"'Is that right?'" said the Cowboy. I cannot duplicate the accent. You recall Robert Duvall as Jesse James?"

"Vividly. The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid. A Philip Kaufman film."

"Something like Duvall. A combination of Duvall and Marlon Brando in Kazan's STREETCAR. 'Is that right?' he said. 'I purely do admire the way you French people cook up your food.'"

"Pascal," I say. "You exaggerate."

Indignant, he raises his chins. "Indeed I do not."

"And what did you reply?"

"I said, 'We French people are filled with awe at your Big Mac.'"

I smile.

"And then he grinned at me, one of those lunatic American grins that reach around behind the ears, and he said, 'Ain't all that big on burgers myself--'"

"Pascal!"

"I do not invent this. 'Me,' he said, 'I like to chow down on a real fine home-cooked meal.'

"'Perhaps,' I said, 'one day you will permit me to prepare something for you.'

"'That'd tickle me,' he said, 'like all get out.'"

"Pascal -- "

"Wait, wait! Sylvie had been sitting in silence, leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her arms upraised, her fingers locked to form a kind of saddle for her chin. You recall how she nestles her chin against the backs of her fingers? How she watches, with those shrewd blue eyes darting back and forth from beneath that glossy black fringe of hair?"

"I recall, yes," I tell him.

"Suddenly she spoke. Blinking sweetly, with a perfectly innocent expression, she said, 'Zeke's favorite dish is the cassoulet.'"

"Ah," I say. "I was wondering if we should ever return to the cassoulet."

"I was, of course, stunned," says Pascal. "I had believed us to be friends still, Sylvie and I."

"Possibly your comment about the Big Mac...?"

"Possibly. I was stunned nonetheless. And then the Cowboy, this Zeke creature, said, 'I reckon there ain't no food I like better than a good cassoulet.'

"And at that point Sylvie, still the picture of innocence, sat up and blinked again and said, 'Why, Pascal would love to prepare a cassoulet, wouldn't you, Pascal?'"

"Clearly," I say, "it was your comment about the Big Mac."

"Very likely. But what could I do?"

"You had no choice, obviously, but to accept."

"None. I invited them to dinner on the following Saturday. As I said good-bye to them both, I could not help but notice in Sylvie's eye that little twinkle she gets when she is anticipating some devilment. You recall that twinkle?"

"I recall it."

"Well. This occurred on a Thursday. That afternoon, and throughout most of Friday, I pored over the literature. Brillat-Savarin. Prosper Montagne. The Larousse. On Friday evening I bought the lingot beans, the finest, the most expensive in Paris, and I carried them home--in a taxi, on my lap, so as not to bruise them--and I set them to soak. Early on Saturday morning I purchased the rest of the ingredients. Again, all the finest and the most expensive. And then, when the beans had soaked for exactly twelve hours, I began."

He strokes his mustache, remembering. "First I drained the beans. Then I cooked them in just enough water for them to swim comfortably, along with some pork rinds, a carrot, an clove-studded onion, and a bouquet garni containing three cloves of garlic."

"So far," I say, "the method is unimpeachable."

"Using another pan," he goes on, "in some goose fat I browned a few pork spareribs and a small boned shoulder of mutton --"

"Mutton? Pascal, this sounds ominously like the cassoulet you prepared for Jean Claude's birthday."

"The very same recipe." He nods. "I know, I know. A catastrophe."

"You are a brave man, Pascal."

"A desperate man, my friend. But to continue. When the meats were nicely browned, I transferred them gently to a large skillet and I cooked them, covered, with some chopped onion, another bouquet garni, and two additional cloves of garlic--"

"Bravo."

"--as well as three tomatoes, chopped, seeded, and crushed. Then, when the beans in their separate pan were just approaching tenderness, I removed all the vegetables from them and I added the pork, mutton, onions, and a fat garlic sausage. And the preserved goose. It was while I was adding the goose that the accident occurred."

"The accident?"

"Yes." He glances at my empty cup. "Some more coffee, my friend?"

I look at my watch. Twelve o'clock. "Only a bit," I tell him.

He pours the coffee and sits back, sighing, and then with a ruminative look he stares out the tall window at the buttresses of Notre Dame.

"The accident?" I say.

He turns back to me. He smiles. "The accident, yes. It was extraordinary. Really quite extraordinary, in light of what followed. As I was cutting the leg of preserved goose, my knife slipped and the blade went sliding along my left hand. You see?"

He holds out his left hand. Along the base of the thumb is the clear mark of a recent scar, nearly two inches long, still pink against Pascal's plump pallor.

"Impressive," I say. "Was it painful?"

"I barely noticed it at the time," he says, "so intent was I upon the cassoulet. And then suddenly I realized that I was bleeding.

Into the beans."

"Goodness."

"I had bled rather a lot into the beans, it transpires. As soon as I understood what had happened, I wrapped my thumb in a dishtowel to staunch the flow, and with a spoon I attempted to remove the blood from the beans. This was impossible, of course. Already it had mixed with the liquid in the pot. I had no choice but to mix it in more thoroughly, and continue. You understand?"

"Certainly. It was too late in the day for you to begin anew. But still, Pascal..."

He raises his brows. "Yes?"

"It is...a tad macabre, don't you think?"

"Not at all. Think of blood sausage. Think of civet of hare. Think of sanguette."

"Yes, but human blood. Your own blood."

Dismissively, he shrugs. "I could not afford to be squeamish. As you say, it was late in the day. So, after having mixed everything, I simmered it for another hour, then removed the meat from the beans. I cut the meat and I arranged all the ingredients in the cassole. A layer of beans, a sprinkling of pepper, a layer of meat, a sprinkling of pepper, a layer of beans--"

"I am familiar with the procedure."

"--and so on. Over the top I sprinkled melted goose fat and bread crumbs--"

"Naturally."

"--and then I placed it in the oven. During the next hour and a half, I broke the gratin crust eight times, at regular intervals. By the time Sylvie and her Cowboy arrived, it was ready."

"And?" I say.

He smiles slyly. "And what?"

"You toy with me, Pascal. The cassoulet. It was a success?"

"Not a success," he says. "A triumph. Sylvie took a single bite and closed her eyes --you recall how she closes her eyes when she savors the taste of something, how that little smile spreads across--"

"Yes, yes," I say. "I recall." I had been recalling Sylvie rather more often than I liked. "And the Cowboy?"

"In raptures. He consumed three enormous portions. It was, and I quote, 'the best goldarned cassoulet' he ever ate."

I sit back and shake my head. "You astound me, Pascal. A remarkable story."

"But no, there is more. Over the weekend, Sylvie and her Cowboy mentioned the cassoulet to everyone they knew. It became a cause celebre. You were gone from Paris at the time."

"In Provence," I say. "I returned, as I told you, only last week."

"I began to receive telephone calls from people--occasionally from people whom I myself had never met--importuning me to prepare for them a cassoulet. You can imagine how gratifying this was to me, after my long and notorious history of failure."

"Certainly. But Pascal. You could hardly repeat the accident which brought about your one success. The contretemps with the knife."

"Ah, but I could, you see."

"Pardon?"

Smiling, he unbuttons the cuff of his left sleeve. With a magician's flourish, he pulls the sleeve up along his thick arm. Stuck everywhere along the pallid flesh are pink adhesive bandages, eight or nine of them.

For a moment I do not comprehend. And then I do.

"Pascal!" I exclaim. "But this is madness!"

Lowering the arm, he nods sadly. "I agree. I cannot continue. In the morning, I can barely climb from the bed. And yet everyone in Paris, it seems, hungers for my cassoulet."

I pick up my coffee cup, and very much to my surprise I drop it. It falls to my lap, spattering me with warm coffee, then rolls off and tumbles to the floor, shattering against the polished parquet. I look up at Pascal. "How very odd," I say.

He smiles. "The drug begins to take effect." He looks at his watch. "Precisely on time. It requires an hour. It was in your first cup of coffee."

"The drug?" Strangely, this emerges from my throat as a croak.

"A rather interesting variant of curare. A chemist at my pharmaceutical company developed it. Unlike curare, which paralyzes the body's involuntary muscles, this one leaves certain muscles untouched. One can breath, one can blink one's eyes, one can chew, one can swallow. But one cannot otherwise move."

I open my mouth, attempt to say, "You are joking," but only a shrill sibilant hiss escapes my mouth.

"Nor can one speak," says Pascal, and smiles. Paternally. At me, or at the drug and its effects.

I attempt standing. None of my muscles respond. Suddenly, without my willing it, my body slumps back against the chair. My head topples forward, as though it might snap off at the neck, roll down my legs, and go rattling across the floor. I can feel my heart pounding against my ribs like an animal trying, frantically, to escape a trap.

"Relax, my friend," says Pascal. "You will only excite yourself."

With my head lowered, I can see of Pascal only his feet. They move as he stands up. I feel him clap me in a friendly manner upon the shoulder. Then the feet and legs disappear off to my right.

My mind, like my heart, is racing. The rest of me is frozen.

A few moments later, I feel myself being lifted into the air. My head flops to the side. Pascal, for all his corpulence, is surprisingly strong. I am placed in what I recognize as a wheelchair. My head lolls back and I have a view of Pascal's ceiling, and then of Pascal's face as he leans into my line of vision.

"Believe me," he says with an upside down smile, "this will all go better for you if you simply accept it."

His face vanishes and the ceiling moves as he wheels me from the dining room.

"Perhaps you are asking yourself," I hear him say, "why I should choose you as the source of my--well, let us call it my special seasoning."

The ceiling unscrolls above me as we wheel through the apartment.

"First of all," he says, "you commend yourself to this purpose by the sheer emptiness of your life. No one will miss you. No one will ever even suspect that you are gone. Oh, here and there, I imagine, some poor benighted secretary, some simple-minded shopgirl, may wonder why you never telephone. But she will survive this."

We are in another room now. I feel Pascal lift me once again. The ceiling lurches, sways, and then I am lying along a bed. I feel Pascal's hand on my head as he swivels it, gently, to face him. He stands back, pursing his lips. "And second," he says, "I confess that I have never been terribly fond of you. Your condescension, your arrogance. That metabolism of yours that permits you to eat whatever you like without gaining a gram. Insufferable. And of course there is your seduction of Sylvie. Her relationship with me was never the same afterward. You are as much responsible for her leaving me as that cassoulet of Bastille Day."

I want to cry out that it had not been a seduction, that Sylvie had been as willing as I, which is very possibly true. But no sound comes.

Smiling again, Pascal leans forward and pats me on the shoulder once more. "Please," he says. "Relax. We shall have a splendid time together, you and I. Like two beans in a pod. We shall have enormous amounts of time to discuss Sylvie. We can analyze her reasons for leaving us both, endlessly. And, during the day, before I set off to gather the other ingredients of the cassoulet, I shall prop you up against the pillows and you can watch the television. Game shows, soap operas. Not your usual fare, I suspect, but it will be great fun, eh?"

He stands upright. "And you need have no fear. I will never take more from you than you can afford to give. A pint here, a pint there. I am not a barbarian. And, naturally, to keep up your strength, I shall provide you with the most nutritious and the richest of foods. Tonight you shall be enjoying a lovely duckling in orange sauce. With American wild rice and baby peas. A vinaigrette salad of lettuce and arugula. And, I think, a nice St. Emilion. Until then, I bid you adieu."

I watch him walk from the room, pull the door shut behind him.

I stare at the door. I have no choice but to stare at the door. Inside me, horror boils.

Boils and boils and goes screaming though my brain like steam from a kettle. And then, finally, like that steam, it exhausts itself. I continue to stare at the door. And all at once it occurs to me that Pascal is, as he says, a tolerable cook. And that his duckling with orange sauce is famous. His wine cellar, of course, is legendary.