Elza’s Kitchen
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Valeria’s Last Stand
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Elza’s Kitchen A Novel
MARC FITTEN
New York
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Berlin
London
Sydney
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Copyright © 2012 by Marc Fitten All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York All papers used by Bloomsbury USA are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Fitten, Marc, 1974– Elza’s kitchen : a novel / Marc Fitten. — 1st U.S. ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-60819-769-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Title. PS3606.I8655E49 2012 813'.6 — dc23 2011039009 First U.S. Edition 2012 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by Westchester Book Group Printed in the U.S.A. by Quad/Graphics, Fairfield, Pennsylvania
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For Zita
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Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy, And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men— Ill it becometh me to dwell so wealthily When at my very Door are those possessing more, In abject poverty— —Emily Dickinson
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Book One
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One
E
lza awoke alone. Alone and distraught over it. She felt distraught because, quite frankly, though she was not a woman in love, she was a woman who had grown accustomed to company at night; and waking as she had — dressed in scratchy nightclothes and supine in bed — with the bland view of her apartment’s ceiling and crown moldings overhead instead of her lover’s bristly haunches beside her, and with morning noises from city buses and trams seeping in instead of his heavy breathing in her ear or the smell of food wafting in from her kitchen, for a moment Elza wished to God that she had not woken at all, but rather had slipped mercifully into a heavier slumber — a coma perhaps — or at the very least, into an amorous dream. While this may have been a distasteful thought to have first thing in the morning, it was no less true. Company at midnight took the edge of a busy day at the restaurant away. A bath after work. A glass of wine. A foot massage she insisted on as foreplay. And then, finally, unapologetic abandonment. Elza required no convincing in 3
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MARC FITTEN
this regard, no coaxing, only the foot massage. Her feet massaged and a certain young man. A man she wasn’t in love with, but one who was just attentive enough to distract her from her day at work— their day at work, really, as they in fact worked together. This special employee possessed the added value of helping her sleep more soundly at night. But today, this blue-skied Sunday morning, her day off, away from the bustling kitchen of the restaurant, away from her other employees — the dishwasher and the line cooks — well, even on her day off, having missed her evening company, instead of feeling cocksure, she felt irritable. Irritable and unsure . . . confused. Unsatisfied. Untethered. Fitful. Restless. Bitter? Elza considered this. Yes, perhaps even that. She had reasons to feel bitter, for certain. It happened that Elza had walked Delibab’s Centrum alone one recent evening while windowshopping. A photographer had opened a new studio, and in this studio’s window hung well-lit and oversized portraits of the traditional middle-class variety: families gathered around their patriarch, done-up wives looking out sunlit windows, children in matching ensembles sitting on rococo chairs, the odd pet. Family scenes being of interest to Elza, particularly because she had none — parents deceased of natural causes, divorced, childless — Elza stopped to look. She examined the portraits for a good five minutes before one of them caught her eye. She gawked open-mouthed. Staring back at her was a photograph of her ex-husband — a man she thought she had loved years ago. He was seated, and a woman and two teenage girls were draped over him. She assumed this was his family. He had daughters! She looked closer. She couldn’t decide if the girls were pretty. Actually, best not to bother with them at all. She simply shook her head, looked at her ex-husband, and laughed. The idea of him sitting for a portrait seemed fitting. It was the reason they had 4
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E L Z A’ S K I T C H E N
parted ways all those years ago. He wanted things she didn’t. Like sitting for portraits, for starters. Newly wed, he had found a job in the municipal works department in Budapest and a flat in a newly constructed block of buildings. He wanted them to begin a family right away. “You can cook for us,” he told her while she was studying at the culinary institute. “For the kids and me.” It was their death sentence. Elza divorced him soon afterward. Eight months into the marriage. In the photograph in front of her, her ex-husband wore a dark suit. Elza noticed his paunch peeking from his jacket. He looked content. Blissful even. Elza couldn’t help but wonder about him. It was twenty years since she had seen him last. It should not have mattered that his picture was here now, in her town. It was only a strange coincidence, care of a transplanted photographer. But still, was she bitter to see this long-lost person happy, to see that he had survived her refusal of him, had thrived, in fact, had succeeded in living his dream, and had even replicated himself ? Was she bitter that he had grown into the sort of post-socialist, American-style family man who took portraits of the newly minted bourgeois variety? All toothy wide smiles and plain-spoken earnestness. She was. Very. And the effect of seeing him remained with her long after. An uneasiness followed her around for days and finally settled in her dreams. She awoke regularly — even on blue-skied Sunday mornings like this one — suffering from heartburn and a sour belly, with one hand resting on her stomach. And this morning with the other pressed against her forehead. Really pressed against it, as if stuck there, as if to remind her of something important. 5
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Sometime during the middle of the night Elza had awoken with a startled gasp and smacked her forehead with the realization that despite her professional successes, despite her popu lar restaurant, her material comfort, and her own newly minted bourgeois status, her life was passing her by and she wasn’t quite fulďŹ lled. . . .
6
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