The yellow kitchen, p.1
The Yellow Kitchen, page 1
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Pour Maman
She teaches me that the world is made to be pounced on and enjoyed, and that there is absolutely no reason at all to hold back.
Annie Ernaux, A Frozen Woman, 1995
Few days are remembered as exceptional. History books weigh heavy on schoolchildren’s backs, photo albums gather dust inside drawers, diaries fill up with events and deadlines, the watches we tighten onto our wrists, the time-trackers of our hunt for the next date to remember. London, E17, fewer hours than days left until the year of 2019 begins, a kitchen with yellow walls holds three friends together. Claude, Giulia and Sophie.
* * *
Claude stares expectantly at the kitchen counter, where olive pits, baking trays and pools of oil clutter the surface. ‘Béchamel is all about patience,’ she declares.
‘Like most things in life,’ adds Sophie, the popping sound of a cork punctuating the rhythm of her voice. Pinot Noir, a compact beverage that matches the heavy sky over North London, its colour overwhelmingly lilac like clouds on the cusp of snow.
Claude slowly and delicately begins to pour milk into a saucepan, one serving spoon at a time, while Giulia is stirring the béchamel robustly from the opposite end of the hob. She responds after a short silence: ‘That’s a shame. I have little patience left in me.’
The creamy sauce comes to a soft boil and Claude lowers the heat, a thickening cloud forming between them as the evening embraces the room. Lights switch on, the smell of milk and butter highlights the bitter taste of the wine, the women’s bones whirl stone-cold as the wind blows through the thin kitchen window. They warmed up the milk before pouring the liquid into the sauce, that is the trick. The secret their grandmothers and mothers gifted them, each experienced through different home countries, cultures that are on the edge of a break-up; the EU withdrawal agreement under negotiation, a sentence due to fall this upcoming year, the scribbled recipes the previous generations abandon once there is no flesh left for them to feed. Tonight, the three friends agree to warm up the milk in a saucepan first, melt butter and flour in a separate pot, a grind of nutmeg for Giulia, a bay leaf for Sophie and a pinch of salt for Claude. That is the trick for a good béchamel, they agree.
* * *
The kitchen is narrow but this is the room where the memory of their friendship is enclosed. A yellowing shell, like coral resting on sand at the bottom of the ocean, a once-upon-a-time shining pearl safely hiding inside. They painted the walls in a vivid mustard yellow, ‘like the kitchen of Marguerite Duras.’ Giulia and Sophie did not dare ask further questions; it is Claude’s home, after all. She still hasn’t got round to refurbishing the old-fashioned black-and-white tile flooring. They’d grown to like it, ever since the night Giulia turned up at the flat with a bottle of Cono Sur Bicicleta Pinot Noir, a wine renowned for its reliable stock levels across London’s neighbourhoods and corner shops. She was on her way back from her latest dispiriting date, another spate of daily texting that had failed to deliver the stimulating face-to-face conversations she had rehearsed for. Sophie was already there and a few drinks in, avoiding meeting Giulia’s eyes for the first half an hour, making her work for a truce after she had intruded on Sophie’s night with Claude in the yellow kitchen. A bitter appetiser until they found each other as a trio again, on the floor, playing a game of checkers with empty bottles. Claude’s yellow kitchen and dreams of making a living from her baking, Sophie’s career ambitions and glorious relationship, Giulia’s activism and disappointing dating life hanging between them, discords in the search for a contented middle ground. They cherish such a childish but shared memory of a time together so tightly, they cannot possibly change the flooring. The yellow kitchen is where they reunite to commemorate each one of their life events, however small, joyful, raging or sad. The wobbly, dark oak cupboards do not close properly after years of being slammed. There is a small, solar-powered radio on the counter, and no one is allowed to touch it since Giulia found the best station. They don’t know which frequency the radio is set to, however the sun makes rare appearances in that corner of the kitchen and thus the music is mostly silent. They drink wine from old chipped cups, spending long nights debating why the shelves in the cupboards are not spaced far enough apart to accommodate wine glasses. Is the owner a recovering alcoholic? Do they intend to remind them of their place in society? No wine glasses for you, girls. Who owns the yellow kitchen? Are they even aware that wine glasses do not fit in the cupboards?
* * *
31 December 2018, Claude, Giulia and Sophie are layering sheets of pasta in the form of a lasagna for a shared meal. The timer ticks as the room warms. Sophie turns on the oven before stepping back; Claude and Giulia move around the kitchen, peeling and slicing mushrooms. When Giulia begins to grate parmesan and slice mozzarella, Sophie turns towards Claude to ask her about the yellow vest movements in France. Claude continues to stir the vegetables in a frying pan, a tear conjured by the smell of whitening onions, her gaze focused until she taps the wooden spoon aside and she twirls to face Sophie.
‘I know very little about the yellow vests.’ She pauses. ‘Would you like to start layering pasta sheets at the bottom of the oven dish?’
Sophie executes, topping up her drink on the way. Claude allows herself a soft cough, then she reminds her friends she has not travelled to France for a long time. She refuses to be the spokesperson for the country and its politics among them simply because of her name, the dreaded rhythm of double vowels followed by their reciprocal consonant. Claude. Giulia brings in the cheese and they start working around the oven dish together: a third of the béchamel, a third of the vegetables and a third of cheese. They repeat the same layering method twice, their hands labour in concert, empowered with Giulia’s energy as she makes a plea in defence for the yellow vests. She reports that groups are gathering together throughout the world, small pockets of hope made of real people.
‘This is not only about petrol or commodity prices. No.’ Her voice rises above the backdrop of the tired oven fan. ‘It’s a wave of people who have had enough. They want to work towards something tangible, like a roof or a meal to share, and not against a system. I think it’s beautiful, however disruptive they may be.’
Sophie returns to the bowl of grated parmesan and adds extra on top of the final layer, a shy but meaningful smile breaks her lips as she draws the lasagna to a close. Claude opens the oven’s door and sets the timer. The smell of béchamel and cheese comes in waves through the yellow kitchen as they toast the coming new year.
* * *
When they finally sit at the table, plates steaming before them, Giulia must remind them she has never had a white lasagna before, her tastebuds sharp and earthy, the child of ragù Bolognese. Claude and Sophie nod back at Giulia, their expressions tender but tight. Sophie wanted to add asparagus, longing for summertime. The radio is miraculously working tonight, a special New Year’s Eve show runs in the background as clocks rapidly approach the midnight high tide, promised celebrations looming. Forks and knives in hands, the three women cut through the pasta; the béchamel sauce and gummy mushrooms appear in a cloud, the first bite loosens their tongues. Claude turns down the radio so they can hear each other.
* * *
On the first day of January 2019, the expectations of a new year shadow the disappointments from the previous four seasons. Claude, Giulia and Sophie are consuming life, determined to be grown-ups.
Claude
Our kitchen when I was a child was milky white, long as a corridor and compact like a spiderweb. The left wall was covered with fast-slamming cupboards and the right side accommodated a bar with one stool only. I ate all my meals sitting on this chair for a throne, challenging my balance, learning to sit straight and strong, while Maman leant on the kitchen counter, staring at walls greying from simmering ratatouille and draining steamy water from pasta.
* * *
I had never seen the light inside the oven switched on until the week of my first-ever birthday outing. May 1999, I was seven years old. I brought a flashy blue envelope back from school, Claude written on the front in cursive and careful letters, meticulously flattened between two exercise books in my cartable so it would not crumple. I left it on the coffee table before bed for Maman to find it later in the night.
The next day, she woke me up early enough to go to the supermarket before school. I remember how fast my feet moved as we entered this bright grotto, full of signs and noises and smells. My senses became hyper-stimulated. I was awake. Supermarkets introduced me to new words, letters I had never seen together before and colours I had only met in my pencil case, flavours I longed to make my own. Maman walked with the same assured pace with which she dressed herself each time we came downstairs from our apartment on the sixth floor of a cement block building, our steps echoing through the unpainted stairwell, bouncing off the fading red guardrail. As soon as the supermarket’s sliding doors opened, she seized the sleeve of my jacket, decisively walking towards the baking aisle, undistracted by the yellow promotion signs, not slowing down as an elderly woman’s voice rose from the speakers to announce further discounts. Before
I had time to count all the way to one hundred, we were back outside, lightheaded from the sudden change in lighting and drop in decibels, a box of Betty Crocker Zesty Lemon Cake Mix and six eggs in our hands. Simply add eggs, oil, water and icing, the package read.
* * *
When I came back from school that afternoon, I found the cake preparation and eggs abandoned on the kitchen counter. I sat and began to read the back of the package attentively, and I read it again, as many times as it took before Maman re-entered our home:
Sugar, Wheat Flour, Palm Fat, Raising Agents: Sodium Bicarbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Modified Corn Starch, Corn Starch, Emulsifiers: Propane-1, 2-Diol Esters of Fatty Acids, Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate, Flavouring, Dextrose, Salt, Stabiliser: Xanthan Gum, Colour: B-Carotene, Acidity Regulator: Citric Acid
May contain Milk, Egg and Soy traces
I read all these words out loud, meticulously enunciating each syllable, repeating and wondering what they were, what form, feel and smell they inhabited in the world. I wished we owned a dictionary like the one we shared in our classroom, so I could better understand the words that make for a birthday cake. Maman came back, turned the oven on to 180°C fan, grabbed a bowl and a fork and handed them to me. She nodded, ‘Allez Claude, c’est ton gâteau,’ she passed the scissors. I cut, slowly and in a straight line as they taught me in school, and pushed the yellow mixture through into the bowl. Stodgy and bubbly, the batter dripped at a snail’s pace. I cracked the two eggs open, picked out leftover shells with my fingers, poured in water and oil. I mixed everything together with the fork, inhaling the sweetness resulting from the movement of my hands, encouraging me to increase my pace. Maman took the bowl away from me, poured the mixture into a cake tin and slid it into the oven. I did not move for the next twenty minutes, the timer running in one sticky hand – tic tac tic tac tic tac – sucking my other thumb. It came out bright and moist, our achievement in the form of a lemon cake. I gently carried the cake all the way to my friend’s home, proudly displaying it among the other goods on the table, colourful napkins and confetti lying around. The day unfolded with games of Twister and hide-and-seek, the children snatching slices of the red velvet layered cake, the chocolate brownies, the vanilla cupcakes – these children’s dreams of homemade baked goods – as they ran past the table. Apart from the one slice I had eaten, my Betty Crocker Zesty Lemon cake stood untouched, in the absence of a homemade glaze but featuring granulated, repulsive industrial citrus spikes. When I walked home, quiet tears ran down my cheeks and I promised my little self that the next time I served a cake, I would know for certain if it contained milk, eggs and soy. I told Maman I won the round of Sleeping Lions and I made new friends. I omitted to mention the left-behind cake. She looked at me with proud eyes.
* * *
Itchy eyes, achy body awakening from a feverish nightmare the following night, I found Maman sitting on the sofa in the living room, which also made for her bedroom, knitting a jumper in front of a bowl of plain cornflakes and a touch of milk. The reliable mother, ever awake in the middle of the night. On worrisome nights, she also had a cup of coffee, no milk nor sugar, only the sour liquid between us, like fluids from our unnamed ancestors. I have never seen photos: our apartment had plain white walls throughout. Maman refused to sleep, guarding our house, and yet the bad dreams still reached me. She grew paler, frailer and knitted for longer hours – the tac tac tic tac tic tac tac flowing through the needles and echoing as she worked, broken nails and skin drying at the tip of her fingers. The little scratching noise her spoon made as she dug for the last sip of milk, final sweetness of the night. Even when days broke into spring weather, she continued to knit jumpers: Maman is always cold.
* * *
On Sundays we bathed. We ran a long bath, squeezed all the leftover soaps from the ending week together, whizzed our hands through the water making bubbles, shy laughter emerging from my tiny body and a nodding smile shaping on my mother’s face. I hopped over and into the foaming bathtub; a welcoming warm lagoon for me and then a cold puddle for Maman. She sat on the ice-cold tiles, topless, her hair roughly held up with a clasp, and read Jack London’s The Call of the Wild to me as I submerged myself in water. She never missed a Sunday. Dimanche soir was the one moment when the world would turn around us as we granted ourselves intimacy: wet hair curling down our backs, her tits hardening, my freckles melting into the redness of my body after meeting with hot water, and Maman’s blue lips afterwards. Our memories, a family album in the making.
* * *
It was then that I noticed the different shades on her body: bags under her eyes and bruises inside her forearms. Bruises from the long work shifts; bags under her eyes as a result of the food in the fridge that eventually got eaten and the bills that accumulated on the wooden desk in the entrance, and me, petite Claude. Maman was alone, responsible for my aliveness; there was no rest left for her, only worrisome nights, knitting me woollen armour.
Now she has retreated, with sleepy eyes and few words left for her battles, and I move on, instincts alert, expectations high, the call of the wild. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move. I often hear her small whispers in my ears, as my hands meet with flour, butter and eggs, as I whisk.
Spring
1
2019, on a bus. Claude, Sophie and Giulia are sitting in the front row – Claude and Sophie on the left, Giulia on the right, an empty seat next to her. They are wrapped up and agitated, shouting loudly, grabbing each other’s arms, tapping their feet against the deck. The weather is grey and chilly outside, but the end of March is fast approaching. Hundreds of thousands are expected to walk through central London this afternoon, in a bid to stop Brexit. They make their way to 10 Downing Street with one goal: to gain a second people’s vote, together. It is fair to say they have not always aligned politically – Claude often rolling her eyes at Sophie’s liberal discourse; Giulia distributing tracts for the Labour Party – but Brexit is one trauma they share. The hangover they experienced on 24 June 2016. None of them has had a toss of tequila since. Today there is a renewed energy. They met at Claude’s earlier in the morning to have breakfast, the most problematic meal to share since Giulia craves buttery pastries, Claude dreams of egg and soldiers before they march for their rights and Sophie just wants to nibble the crust from the bread. They argued briefly before they agreed on a loaf of bread, butter, either jam or cheese to pick for a topping, and black coffee brewed on a low flame, as they painted signs:
BOLLOCKS TO BREXIT
FROMAGE NOT FARAGE
THE ONLY SINGLE MARKET
I WANT TO LEAVE IS BUMBLE
‘Did you know that until 1993 the list of those who had not voted was displayed in the municipal registers in Italy? A did not vote note also appeared on certificates of good conduct,’ Claude says, after a silence that felt longer than it lasted.
‘That’s how I feel about my Twitter feed these days,’ says Sophie.
‘I wish I had a dog so everyone would know that I did go to vote.’ There is a further silence before Giulia continues, ‘How do you know about this?’
‘About?’
‘About the registers in Italy,’ she clarifies with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
‘I read about it at an exhibition in Rome.’
Giulia contemplates adding that she has never been to Rome herself. The sharp and ambient cold, the low winter sky and the blooming expectations of spring make her fierce. She wants to remind her London friends that this so-called race against Brexit is not about securing their rights to travel smoothly for holidays, but about the lives that are held together by the European Union, the dreams and connections that are now drifting, filled with uncertainties, a future flooded with lies. The Erasmus programme that allows students to move around Europe, even when they have not travelled in their own country before; the funds that energise and protect research, agriculture, access to medicines, global security; the social and labour laws that are debated and reviewed at a larger scale, so they can be for the many; the European identity. Giulia came to London soon after she graduated from her History degree, with a specialisation in Culture and Media Communication, from the Università di Bologna. Most of her friends had moved places already and she dreamt of working for a famous London music venue. She does not, she manages projects. Giulia’s work vaguely relates to marketing and hides a ton of administrative tasks that give her little perspective, but she remains proud that she always knows which song to play next at a party. She even made a playlist for their breakfast this morning, the lyrics that pulse through the politics of their lives.
