I’ll send you the girls to help in the kitchen, was what General Benjamin had said.
The words looped through Gen’s head like the plucked-out refrain of “Clair de Lune.” He went to the kitchen and when he pushed through the swinging door he held up both his hands, a prizefighter after an effortless knockout.
“Ah, look at that!” the Vice President cried. “The genius boy returns triumphant.”
“We’re wasting him on kitchen help and knives,” Thibault said in the good Spanish he had acquired when he first thought he would be the French ambassador to Spain. “We should send this young man to Northern Ireland. We should send him to the Gaza Strip.”
“We should give him Messner’s job. Then maybe we’d get out of here.”
“It was only a few knives,” Gen said humbly.
“Did you get to speak to Benjamin?” Ruben asked.
“Of course he spoke to Benjamin.” Thibault was flipping through a cookbook from the stack in front of him. The way his finger quickly traced back and forth across the lines he appeared to be speed-reading it. “He was successful, wasn’t he? You know Alfredo and Hector would have insisted on raw chicken. Better to toughen up the men. What did the good comrade say?”
“That he would send in the girls. He said no to Ishmael but I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns up.” Gen took a carrot out of the box and rinsed it off in the sink.
“Me they hit in the face with a gun,” the Vice President said lightly. “To you they give a staff.”
“What about a simple coq au vin?” Thibault said.
“They confiscated all the vin,” Ruben said. “We could always send Gen out for another request. It’s probably locked up around here somewhere unless they drank it all.”
“No vin,” Simon Thibault said sadly, as if it were something dangerous, as if it were a knife. How impossible. In Paris one could be careless, one could afford to run out completely because anything you wanted was half a block away, a case, a bottle, a glass. A glass of Burgundy in the autumn at a back table at Brasserie Lipp, the light warm and yellowed where it reflected off the brass railings around the bar. Edith in her navy sweater, her hair pulled back and twisted into a casual knot, her pale hands cupping the bowl of the glass. How clearly he can see it, the light, the sweater, the dark red of the wine beneath Edith’s fingers. When they moved to the Heart of Darkness they had the wine shipped two dozen cases at a time, enough wine to quench an entire city through a drought. Thibault tried to make a cellar out of what was merely a wet dirt basement. French wine was the cornerstone of French diplomacy. He handed it out like peppermints. Guests stayed later at their parties. They stood forever on the walk that led down to the gate and said good night, good night, but never seemed to leave. Edith would finally go inside and bring them each a bottle, press it into their resisting hands. Then they scattered into the darkness, each back to his or her car and driver, holding the prize.
“This is my blood.” Thibault raised his glass to his wife when the guests had finally gone. “It will be shed for you and for no men.” Together they would go through the living room picking up crumpled napkins, stacking plates. They had sent the housekeeper home long ago. This was an act of intimacy, a pure expression of love. They were alone again. They were setting their house to right.
“Isn’t there some kind of coq sans vin?” Ruben leaned forward to look at the book. All of these books in his home that he had never seen before! He wondered if they belonged to him or to the house.
Thibault pushed Edith’s scarf over his shoulder. He said something about roasting and turned his head away to read. No sooner had he looked at the page than the door swung open again and in came three, Beatriz, the tall one, pretty Carmen, and then Ishmael, each of them with two and three knives apiece.
“You asked for us, didn’t you?” Beatriz said to Gen. “I’m not on any duty at all now. I was going to watch television.”
Gen looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s past time for your program,” he said, trying to keep his eyes on her.
“There are other things on,” she said. “There are lots of good programs. ‘Send the girls to do it.’ That’s always the way.”
“They didn’t just send the girls,” Ishmael said in his own defense.
“Practically,” Beatriz said.
Ishmael reddened and he rolled the wooden handle of the knife between his palms.
“The General said we were to come and help with dinner,” Carmen said. She spoke to the Vice President. She did not turn her eyes to Gen, who did not look at her, so how did it seem that they were staring at one another?
“We are most grateful,” Simon Thibault said. “We know nothing about the operation of knives. If entrusted with something as dangerous as knives there would be a bloodbath here in a matter of minutes. Not that we would be killers, mind you. We’d cut off our own fingers, bleed to death right here on the floor.”
“Stop it,” Ishmael said, and giggled. He had recently received one of the amateur haircuts that had been going around. Where his head had once been covered in heavy rolls of curls, the hair was now snipped with irregular closeness. It bristled like grass in some places and lay down neatly in others. In a few places it was all but gone and small patches of pink scalp shone through like the skin of a newly born mouse. He was told it would make him look older but really it just made him look ill.
“Do any of you know how to cook?” Ruben asked.
“A little,” Carmen said, studying the position of her feet on the black-and-white checkerboard of the floor.
“Of course we can cook,” Beatriz snapped. “Who do you think does our cooking for us?”
“Your parents. That’s a possibility,” the Vice President said.
“We’re adults. We take care of ourselves. We don’t have parents looking after us like children.” Beatriz was only irritated about missing television. She had done all of her work, after all, patrolled the upstairs of the house and stood watch for two hours at the window. She had cleaned and oiled the Generals’ guns and her own gun. It wasn’t fair that she had been called into the kitchen. There was a wonderful program that came on in the late afternoon, a girl wearing a star-covered vest and a full skirt who sang cowboy songs and danced in high-heeled boots.
Ishmael sighed and set his three knives on the counter in front of him. His parents were dead. His father had been taken from the house one night by a group of men and no one saw him again. His mother went with a simple flu eleven months ago. Ishmael was nearly fifteen, even if his body produced no evidence to support this fact. He was not a child, if being a child meant that one had parents to cook your supper.
“So you know the onion,” Thibault said, holding up an onion.
“Better than you do,” Beatriz said.
“Then take that dangerous knife and chop up some onions.” Thibault passed out cutting boards and bowls. Why weren’t cutting boards considered weapons? Hold the two edges firmly in your hands and it was clear that these great slabs of wood were just the right size for hitting someone on the back of the head. And why not bowls, for that matter? The heavy ceramic in the colors of pastel mints seemed harmless enough while holding bananas, but once they were broken how were they much different from the knife? Couldn’t one drive a shard of pottery into a human heart just as easily? Thibault asked Carmen to mince the garlic and slice the sweet peppers. To Ishmael he held up an eggplant. “Peeled, seeded, chopped.”