The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel Read Free

amounts of water), stacked wood, stoked the fires, and scoured heavy pots, all in return for food and a straw pallet in the servants’ dormitory. It took several days to comprehend the miraculous fact that the chef—his name was Amato Ferrer—had taken me for his apprentice.
    Giuseppe, the disgruntled sweeper, understood my good luck before I did. As an apprentice I outranked him, and the miserable ubriacone couldn’t bear it. Whenever he passed by me, he whispered, “Bastardo,” or shot me the evil eye with his index finger and pinky stabbing in my direction. Behind the chef’s back, he tripped mewith his broom, scattered my neatly stacked wood, threw vegetable peelings on my clean dishes, and carried garbage back into the kitchen to make me look lazy.
    Still, I ignored him. For the first time since infancy, I ate three meals a day and slept indoors every night. I would become a cook, but it would not have mattered to me if the chef had been a cobbler or a fisherman. He fed me and offered to teach me a trade; it was more than I had expected from life. Seduced by luxury and afraid to offend, I dared not complain about Giuseppe or inquire into the chef’s motives. I did his bidding and ate his food, and I counted myself blessed.
    However, I did miss Marco, and I struggled with guilt for the inexplicable fortune that had favored me and excluded him. At first, I hoped there might be work in the kitchen for both of us, but it soon became clear that I had secured the only job to be had. I redeemed myself by stealing food for him at every opportunity. Early each morning, before the cooks arrived, I gathered leftovers that wouldn’t be missed, wrapped them in oilcloth, and hid them behind the cistern until late in the evening, when I took out the garbage. Marco sometimes waited outside the courtyard, hungry and anxious, and when he wasn’t there, I left the package behind a trash pail. It was always gone the next morning.
    I also fed scraps to my faithful cat, Bernardo, who had grown fat and sleek since I rescued him as a starving kitten. After my first week in the kitchen, Marco brought him to me, saying, “Here’s your pesky cat. You can’t expect me to feed him.” Although Bernardo often disappeared, in the mysterious way of cats, he always came back to eat and to sleep under my arm in the dormitory. Chef Ferrero tolerated him for my sake.
    In those early days, I flattered myself that Chef Ferrero chose me because he thought me exceptional, because he saw the signs of a keen mind or appreciated the deftness of my quick, pickpocket fingers. Now, so many years later, I know that his choice had moreto do with his faith in the human capacity to transcend adversity, as well as his wish for a son and his need for an heir—especially his need for an heir.
    And the chef’s timing was not capricious. In those days, a rumor was exciting Venice like a tickling sea breeze from the east. Everyone from the servant classes to the aristocracy was whispering about an old Byzantine book said to contain the formulas of ancient sorcerers. It was told that the book, thought to have been lost in antiquity, was actually hidden somewhere in Venice. I would eventually come to understand how the urgency created by this rumor spurred the chef to take an apprentice.
    The rumors enthralled everyone. I recall one conversation, overheard early in my apprenticeship, that catapulted me into a feast of fantasies involving the object of my desire, la mía bella Francesca. One afternoon, Enrico huddled near the brick oven with the vegetable cook, Dante. They held their heads canted toward each other at a tense angle and stood with their arms folded tightly across their chests. Enrico whispered out of the side of his mouth, and Dante appeared captivated. Teresa—Enrico’s gossiping counterpart and the palace’s other conduit of news—loitered within earshot.
    Always mindful of new developments around me, I busied myself stacking wood in their