Beastly Beauty

Forty-Nine

Word has spread among the servants.

Their mistress and the thief are having supper.

Camille stirs batter for a torte. She uses the finest chocolate, ground coffee beans, candied chestnuts, and mixes in a pinch of paprika. Everyone knows that the spice sparks passion.

Lucile, the gardener’s wife, wraps her red wool shawl around her shoulders and ventures to the greenhouse to snip blooms for the table. She chooses camellias for longing and roses for love.

Claudette, Josette, Florian, and Henri ready the great hall as if God Himself were coming to dine. They polish the table. Wind the music box. Lay out the very best porcelain.

And Phillipe the chef begins to cook. He does not know if he will be alive in a week’s time, but he knows that food is love.

For a hundred years, he has cooked chicken soup for his old friend Valmont, who coughs too much from too many years spent breathing gunpowder on battlefields.

For a hundred years, he has roasted shank bones for Josephine, whose back aches from lifting wet sheets. The rich marrow does her good.

For a hundred years, he has made duck with sour cherries for Percival, the love of his life, who is creaking to a halt before his very eyes. His joints grow stiff; his gait grows slow. He tries to hide these things behind sharp creases and sharper words, but Phillipe sees them.

He fights for them, all of them, at his giant iron stove like a general fighting a war.

He fights powerful enemies: sorrow, grief, hopelessness, despair. He fights with powerful weapons: onions, garlic, butter, and salt.

But for some time now, he has been losing the battle.

He knows this. He sees it in Gustave’s stooped shoulders. In Claudette’s tears. In Camille’s heartbroken eyes. He sees it in the castle’s dusty corners, in all the rooms that are never entered anymore, in the vases that stand empty of flowers.

Arabella gave up. Long ago. He himself is close to giving up. He does not know how to fight on. It calls for more strength than he thinks he has.

Then he picks up a white truffle he’s been saving, raises it to his nose, and inhales its earthy scent. It brings back a memory of the first dinner he ever made for Percival, such a long time ago: tagliatelle with cream, white wine, and whisper-thin slices of truffle.

He’d been a young chef at a duke’s Paris mansion, and the truffle had cost him a week’s wages.

Bertrand, the baker, said he’d lost his mind. “What does a fungus know about love?” he’d scoffed.

“More than you do,” Phillipe had replied.

He’d surprised Percival, who was then a valet, late one night. It was just the two of them in the cavernous kitchen, with the platter of pasta, half a bottle of champagne left over from the duke’s dinner, and candlelight.

Percival had never tasted a truffle, and Phillipe can still see the look on his face as he tried it. He’d chewed his first bite and swallowed it, then he’d leaned across the table and kissed Phillipe full on the lips.

“I fell in love that night,” Percival always says.

“With me?” Phillipe always teases. “Or a truffle?”

Phillipe regards the fat little jewel in his hand. It worked once … could it work again?

Though it hurts to hope, he lights the big stove once more. He heats a pot of chicken broth, fetches a bag of rice, a chunk of Parmesan. There isn’t enough time to make fresh pasta, but risotto’s good, too.

Valmont walks into the kitchen carrying a silver tray. Percival is right behind him with a wine decanter. They stare at the truffle.

“It won’t work,” Percival says with a sigh.

Phillipe shoots him a look. “I won’t give up. I can’t give up.”

“But they do not love each other. They do not even like each other. It’s pointless.”

“What, exactly, is pointless?” Phillipe asks, his voice rising.

“All of it. Everything. We’ve tried, Phillipe, haven’t we? Over and over and over—”

Phillipe slams the pot he’s holding down on the stovetop and gestures at Valmont. “Our old friend there is not pointless!” he shouts. “Gustave and Lucile and Josephine are not pointless! The maids are not! Even Florian is not pointless! We matter, Percival. Each and every one of us. This is our story, too.”

Percival’s chin quivers. His eyes fill with tears. The sight melts Phillipe’s anger. He crosses the room and touches his forehead to Percival’s. “You are not pointless. You are my life,” he says ferociously. “And I will fight for you until the clock winds down. Until the walls around us crumble to dust. Until I draw my last breath.”

Percival nods. He wipes his eyes and touches Phillipe’s cheek. Then he turns and leaves the kitchen.

Phillipe watches him go, then picks up his grater. This will be the best truffle risotto ever made. It will be so delicious, so beguiling, the thief will not know what hit him. It’s only when he finishes grating the Parmesan that he realizes Valmont is still there. He is leaning against the table, a look of pain on his face.

Phillipe’s brow creases with worry. “What’s hurting you now, old friend?” he asks. “Your shoulder? Your knee?”

Valmont shakes his head. He taps his chest.

On the left side.

Where his heart is.