Free The American by Martin Booth

of it. ‘My family were Crusaders. A long time ago, you understand,’ he added, should I think this to be a recent calling, a contemporary crusade. ‘They fought for death and the remission of their sins. Guazzo wrote in his book of the wonders of the East, of the golden singing birds belonging to the Emperor Leo. My family owned one once, so it is said . . .’
    He spoke with a sudden, deep sorrow.
    Tonight we are dining together, just the two of us. Father Benedetto has an old woman who keeps house for him, a crone from the town. She does not live in, and every Wednesday, unless it is a feast day in the Catholic calendar, he gives her the afternoon and evening off. It is then he cooks his meal.
    Cooking is an art with him. He relishes it, enjoys the intricacies of transforming raw flesh into meat, dough into bread, hard earth nuggets into succulent vegetables. He spends the whole afternoon preparing the meal, humming operatic arias to himself in the high-ceilinged kitchen, hung about with tarnished copper pans and old-fashioned, redundant utensils which look more like instruments of torture than culinary tools.
    I always arrive an hour early, talk to him as he busies himself at his play.
    ‘You only do this because it is an evilness you can allow yourself to indulge in,’ I tell him. ‘This is the nearest you can get to alchemical practices without jeopardizing your soul.’
    ‘If only alchemy were possible,’ he muses. ‘If it were, I should change these copper pots to gold and sell them for the poor.’
    ‘You should not keep some for yourself?’
    ‘No,’ he answers emphatically. ‘But I should give some to Our Lord for his glorification. A new vestment for the cardinal, a gift to our Holy Father in Rome . . .’
    He potters about the stove. It is wood-fired and he stokes the flames with a brass poker. The pans are simmering on the hotplates.
    ‘Cooking is good. I sublimate my want for sex in here. Instead of stroking a woman, shaping her into an object of desire, I form food into . . .’
    ‘Objects of desire?’
    ‘Quite so!’
    He pours another glass of wine and hands it to me. He has his own which he sips as he works between bouts of humming.
    After some time, we go to the table. I sit at one side, he the other. He mutters a grace in Latin, speaking the words so quickly they form one long incantation, as if he is in a hurry to begin. This may be the case, for he does not want the main course to spoil.
    His soups are always chilled. Tonight, we have carrot and sorrel soup. It is both sweet and tart and whets the palate. We do not talk during this first course. This is customary. As soon as his bowl is empty, he invites me to help myself to more from the tureen. He bustles out to the kitchen, humming once more.
    The soup ladle is made of silver and is, I should guess, about three hundred years old. Decades of ardent polishing have all but erased the crest and three birds. The assay marks are invisible. The place cutlery comes from several sets: the forks are silver, the soup spoons silver-plated and the knives Sheffield steel with serrated blades and rounded ivory handles the colour of a corpse’s teeth.
    ‘ Ecco! ’ he exclaims, returning with a silver dish upon which sit two plump poultry carcasses covered in sauce and steaming into his face.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘ Fagiano – wild roast pheasant with oranges. The birds come from Umbria. A friend . . .’
    He puts the dish carefully on the table and rushes out to return balancing three bowls upon his arms like an experienced waiter: one contains salsify soaked in garlic butter, another mangetout peas and the third fried button mushrooms with shreds of truffle mixed with them. He pours a white wine into our glasses and serves each of us with a complete bird.
    ‘The sauce is orange juice, rind, garlic, chestnuts, Marsala and brodo di pollo . How do you say it in English?’ His hands supplicate and he looks up to the lofty ceiling for a translation: