Free A case of curiosities by Allen Kurzweil Page A

support for the display of his collection.
    As Henri was speaking, a squat woman entered and asked for some cinnamon.
    "To ask me for cinnamon is like asking a butcher simply for meat," Henri said. "What kind of cinnamon? At least tell me if you want dried quills, stoneground powder, or paste."
    Flustered by the choices, the woman accepted some Ceylonese quills and departed quickly. "The cook," Henri said by way of explanation, and clearly a cook in a hurry. She was passed at the door by the Abbe.
    "Thank you, Henri," the Abbe said, "I will take over from here." Claude was relieved. He had had his fill of store talk, and the combinations of tastings had given his stomach some trouble. The Abbe ditected Claude to a room dominated by heavily bolted doots that wete teinfotced with a tusted padlock. "You have been shown much but not all. The one spot where I do not wish you to venture is behind these ancient chapel doors. It is my inner sanctum, or, to use the language of conchology, my chamber of conception." His finger gyred in ever-widening rings. "Rumor will ascribe all manner of activity to the chapel. Ignore the rumor. Remember only that you are not to enter. Behind it, I have been known to rage." The Abbe's tone lightened as he took Claude's arm. "I hope that Henri was methodical in his tour."
    Claude struggled for the right words. "It was no tour, sir." He was tempted to say "Caliph" but denied himself this excess. "It was a journey."
    "No," the Abbe replied. "The vizier's journey has yet to begin."

7
    CLAUDE WAS CORRECT about the grease marks and the blood. They did indeed connect the great hall to the kitchen, a room hung with baskets of vegetables, cuts of cured meat, and utensils of copper, tin, and iron. The kitchen was dominated by a large squat stove and the large squat cook who moved around it.
    Marie-Louise, the woman who had accepted the Ceylonese cinnamon quills from Henri earlier in the day, did not notice Claude's entrance. She was much too involved in the preparation of three dishes, each of which appeared to require her full attention. She lifted a lid and tasted and shook her head. She moved to and from the spice box. She added salt and ground nutmeg—the Abbe liked nutmeg—and tasted again. She added a pinch more, tasted, and finally nodded approvingly.
    By way of counterpoint to the culinary frenzy of Marie-Louise sat Catherine Kinderklapper. She was the mansion-house scullion and general chambriere. This last word can be clumsily defined as "maid-of-all-work." But "maid-of-»0-work" would be closer to the mark. She was a person of the poorer classes, from outside Zurich, whose head was so curiously shaped that it was included in Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy. (The seventeenth English edition, illustrated with upward of four hundred profiles.) For Claude, however, who was ignorant of the facial sciences, Catherine was the woman with the feet. (Marie-Louise had feet, too, but Claude hadn't noticed them.)
    Catherine and Marie-Louise toiled in tandem. In tandem, but not equally. The cook moved around ceaselessly. She kept busy throughout the day, baking and tasting, stewing and tasting, roasting and tasting, basting and tasting, slicing and dicing. And tasting. Hence her squatness. The scullion was, to use a culinary metaphor that brings together the tasks of the two women, a different kettle of fish. The pot scrubber picked up and distributed bits of gossip, pursued amorous engagements where she could find them, and left cauldrons and marmites to rust. Were it not for the cook's insistence that the larger cook-ware remain "seasoned," that is to say unwashed, Catherine would never have been able to maintain her indolence. The accountant suggested repeatedly that the Abbe replace her, but the cook's energetic protests made such expulsion impossible. Marie-Louise was a natif; Catherine, a Catholic. Marie-Louise was plumped up by an unyielding commitment to her art; Catherine was distinctly slender. The