The plates on the table were filled, fresh coffee was poured, the cigarettes were stubbed out. We were just about to begin eating when the visitor folded his hands, bowed his head, and sank into a brief silence. I regarded him with amazement. When Coe looked up, he sought my eyes and winked. My father, who had seen the wink, grinned and said: “I’ll bet you two have a lot to talk about, Humbert. This boy is on his way to becoming the family cook.”
The fat man arched one eyebrow.
“Julia still isn’t too keen on the idea.”
My mother pursed her lips.
“She thinks a boy his age should go to school and learn things, not stand around in the kitchen cooking.”
Coe nodded thoughtfully. “Twelve? Thirteen?”
“Twelve,” I said.
He let his head rock back and forth in approval. “That’s the age when it happens. When did you begin to fly, Philip?”
My father mumbled something about “expensive hobby,” but admitted that from the time he was eleven you could nearly always find him sitting on the fence around the glider field. Coe leaned back contentedly.
“A talent,” he said, “is, at the start, nothing more than a somewhat obsessive interest. But with careful guidance, it can develop into that exceptional skill to which we generally refer when we speak of talent.”
My father stared at him for a while. Then he turned to me. “When Humbert was still on our base, he would hang around the kitchen all day pestering the cooks. He used to say that the misery of war was no justification for half-cooked potatoes.”
They laughed.
“But it’s true, Philip,” said Coe. “Certainly in times of need, food prepared with care can be a great consolation. It is my fate that I had to be raised in England, where the art of cooking is rarely taken seriously. Even though the British gastronomic culture has brought forth such magnificent dishes! Need I elaborate on Yorkshire pudding? The summer puddings with fresh fruit and bread fingers that dear old Cook used to make each summer? Warm scones with clotted cream? Potted salmon!”
“Humbert…”
He lifted his eyes and slowly returned from his dream of past delights. It was several moments before I realized that everyone at the table was looking at me. I was staring at the visitor, and my mouth was slightly opened. Coe studied me for a while and then began nodding, slowly at first, and then with the determination of someone who has thought up a good solution to a problem that has yet to be acknowledged as one. “Young man,” he said. “You and I are going out for dinner this evening.” He turned to my mother and lightly inclined his great head. “That is, if you will permit me, just this once, to take this young cook under my wing.” My father grinned. My mother frowned. “He’s still at school…This is an important year, the first year…”
Coe whipped the yolk out of his egg and maneuvered it onto a piece of bread. “School comes first,” he said. “But if I’m not mistaken, it’s nearly summer vacation. And one evening…”
“Let them go, Julia. It’ll be a good experience for the boy. What do you think?” He looked at me. I nodded, gravely enthusiastic. My mother produced a faint smile.
“All right,” she said. “All right.”
“LEJEUNE,” SAID COE that evening, as we crossed the canal in front of our house and walked into town, “is actually called De Jong. That is important information. It tells us that Mr. De Jong apparently doesn’t have enough confidence in the quality of his business to work under his own, inconsequential name.”
He was wearing a hat with a pearl-gray band and flourishing an ebony walking stick with a silver handle. I hoped we wouldn’t meet anyone I knew.
“Lejeune is, at present, the best restaurant in town, but Mr. De Jong seems to have his personality working against him. He insists that his customers order in French. Otherwise, he claims, you might as well stay at home and have fish and chips for dinner. And he’ll walk straight up to a table to explain to a guest, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, the proper way to eat asparagus. Anyone who dares to order the wrong wine is taught a lesson right there at the table. Mr. De Jong, I think we can safely say, is a bit of a parvenu.”
“How are you supposed to eat asparagus?”
“With your hands,” said Coe. “Preferably from a napkin, while supporting the asparagus spear with a fork. Dreadful mess, and practically no one who can do it well anymore. As far as I’m concerned, you simply eat them with a knife and fork. Although…I did once see a young woman eating asparagus…” He placed the tips of his index and middle fingers against his thumb and gently kissed them. “I was referring to the young lady,” he said, flicking me a glance. “She wore a Cossack hat, which, fortunately, she kept on at the table, and she was the only one of her party who consumed her asparagus in the proper fashion.” He looked sideways and raised his eyebrows. “Are you shocked?”
“No.”
“Good. A man who is easily shocked cannot taste.” He gazed into the distance for a moment, his head tipped back slightly, as he strolled along, swinging his walking stick. “She wore a short black dress with nothing underneath. Mind you: one didn’t see that, one knew it.”
Now I was shocked. I wasn’t sure I really liked seeing a man Coe’s age so obviously relishing, as he himself probably would’ve described it, the beauty of a young woman.
“And she was hired.”
I stopped short. Coe walked a few steps farther and then turned around. “Come, young man. We mustn’t be late. Yes yes, come. Hired. It does happen. There are prostitutes, and there are ladies whose company one can enjoy
