The Chef Read Free Page B

nut-brown liquid, which he then poured into the distillation flask.
    Maravan lit the gas flame under the flask, pulled up his only chair and sat beside his improvised distillation plant. It was important to control the process. He knew from experience that unless
the liquid was heated gently, the aroma would change. He had often tried to capture the essence of this smell, the smell of his childhood. But he had never succeeded.
    Now the sides of the glass flask were beginning to steam. Drops appeared, increasing in number, and ran down the misty condensation, creating clear lines. The temperature of the vapour rose
quickly to fifty, sixty, seventy degrees. Maravan turned the flame down and the tap on slightly. Cold water made its way up the transparent tubing, filled the double wall of the cooling jacket,
exited the cooler, and flowed through a length of tubing into the plughole of the second basin.
    The only sound in the kitchen was the occasional gurgling of the cooling water going down the plug. From time to time he could hear steps in the attic room above him. This is where Gnanam lived,
another Tamil, as were all the inhabitants of Theodorstrasse 94. He had not been here long, and after the standard six months of not being allowed to work had found a job as a kitchen help, like
most of the asylum seekers from Sri Lanka. He worked in the city hospital. The fact that Maravan could hear him wandering around at this time – it was just before two – meant that
Gnanam must be on early shift.
    Maravan had only asylum-seeker status and had to work as a kitchen help. But compared to Gnanam he was privileged.
    There was no early shift starting at four at the Huwyler. When he was on days he had to be in the kitchen at nine o’clock. And he did not have to deal with 200-litre pots or scour
blackened frying pans that were a square metre in size. At the Huwyler he was able to learn new things, even though they gave him no opportunity to do so. He had eyes in the back of his head; he
picked up new techniques just by watching and learned from other people’s mistakes. He was not bothered that the other chefs did not treat him particularly well. He had suffered worse
treatment. Both here and back in his homeland.
    Marvan stood up, tossed two handfuls of wheat flour into a mixing bowl, added some lukewarm water and a little ghee, sat down again with the bowl and began to knead the dough.
    During his chef’s apprenticeship in Jaffna, his teachers found it hard to accept that he was more skilful, talented and imaginative than they were. He had had to learn that he needed to
play dumb in order to get on. And later, when he left Jaffna and worked in a hotel on the south-western coast, the Singhalese treated him with the usual condescension they showed Tamils.
    The dough was now smooth and elastic. Maravan put the bowl to one side and covered it with a clean dishcloth.
    Recently he had enjoyed working at the Huwyler. Or, more precisely, since Andrea had started there. Like everyone on the team, he was fascinated by this peculiar, slender, pale creature who
looked straight through everybody with an absent smile. But he fancied he was the only one she ever paid any attention to – not very often, maybe, but it did happen. His suspicions were
confirmed by the fact that the chefs behaved even more patronizingly towards him whenever she was around.
    Today, for example, while he was rinsing plates and Andrea was waiting for Bandini to check a course, she had looked over at him and smiled. Not smiled through him, but at him.
    Maravan did not have much contact with women. The unmarried daughters in the Tamil community were too sheltered to strike up relationships with men. A Tamil woman had to be a virgin when she got
married. And traditionally her parents decided who she married.
    There were some Swiss women who had shown an interest in him. But the Tamils considered them to be bad women because of their permissive lifestyles. If he