The Truth About the Cook

The Truth About the Cook

a short story by

Matthew T. Hastings

A great many people, probably most people, spend considerable time wondering how different (better) their lives would have been had they just taken that chance, had they stuck it out, had they the courage to follow their heart, if they’d said I’m sorry or I love you or had forgiven. Emma was not one of those people. Emma lived here now. Emma had one speed: Drive. Next week’s menu was as far as she planned.

Emma was tall, reserved, striking and looked you right in the eye when she spoke. She intimidated a lot of people, but was not uncaring. She drew from her bank of emotions carefully and deliberately and did not withdraw and discuss feelings or anxieties.

The beach had minimal allure for her first twenty Rehoboth summers. Her son Will had spent his first sixteen summers hero-worshiping the lifeguards and eventually after some opposition which was effectively squashed by Miss Charlotte, became Rehoboth’s first African-American lifeguard. She began to go to the beach after gentle Will came home to her from Vietnam in a pine box. The beach became the place where she allowed herself to remember Will as he was, not as he might have been. She was so afraid she would forget his voice, his laughter, the hundred parts that made Will, Will.

Emma craved the moment she would slip into one of those calming, sun-bleached trances that you can only have under an umbrella in the relentless sun and deep heat. Surrounded on virtually every inch of sand with screeching children, rapidly dehydrating parents and insolent teenagers; Emma did not hear them. Here she was alone; at peace with her memories with her wonderful boy.

Where did I read, I wonder who told me that for centuries red was the color of warmth and safety? Was it in Russia where brides wore red gowns? When I close my eyes and put my face to the sun and see the burning red I always feel good all over. All my worries are gone. Everything is calm.

If Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig could issue arrest warrants Emma would be Diet Enemy Number One. She was the renowned master cook for Charlotte Shippen Rush, the legendary and eccentric Philadelphia blue stocking blueblood, around whom what could be called polite society circled during the Rehoboth summers. Emma, together with her long-suffering husband, who doubled as butler and chauffeur, had run Miss Charlotte’s rambling 8-bedroom cottage, a five-star and free B&B, and social life for close to five decades.

Emma had a seven sentence life. She was born in London. Her parents ran a Jewish bakery in the East End. They have been killed during the Blitz. She had been dug out of a bomb site. She met her colored husband at a canteen for U.S. servicemen. They married within a month, had Will in nine and she moved with him to Philadelphia when the war was over and began to work for Miss Charlotte immediately.. They added two daughters. You could press for more details until you were blue in the face, and her children had been relentless, but there was no elaboration. She would tell you that unhappiness lived in the past and was always lurking about, always ready to pounce – if you let it. It must be invited in. Emma’s door was closed. That, of course, made her story even more compelling.

Emma went to her usual spot on the beach that Sunday afternoon. She slipped into her trance, Will was with her for a few, blissful moments.

Suddenly she jolted straight up. A dream, but then not a dream, had hit her like electricity. Two ladies not far away, unseen behind and an umbrella, sisters named Helen and Eva, were giggling and remembering their childhood in Prague. They had the diction and laughter of the Prague privileged. They were talking about Bubeneč, where they had lived long ago and about a classmate, with a nasty stepfather and silly mother, who had disappeared one day.

I have to get out of here. I must run, right now.They must not see me,

She could not breathe. Her hands went to her throat. Someone was smothering her. But she was alone. Suddenly she felt as if someone had doused her with a bucket of cold water. She was shaking. The burning sun and scorching sand had no heat.

These ladies were speaking Czech, a language Emma had no right understand; but she did. She knew what and who they were talking about. Her eyes were open but all she could see was red. She could hear them, she could understand them, but she couldn’t see them. They must not see her. She had to get away.

What has happened? Why can’t I move? Why am I frozen? What in God’s name is wrong with me? God have mercy. Get away from them. They can’t see me. No, please, don’t let them see me.

The ferry from Cape May bearing Miss Charlotte and Emma’s husband had been delayed and it was after nine when he returned. Emma wasn’t home; her husband was on alert. He walked as fast as he could down to beach, now bathed in moonlight. He could just make out Emma’s umbrella and saw her sleeping. He relaxed. She looked up when he called out her name and bent over. He knew immediately that something was wrong, very wrong. Emma was talking to him but it was like she had marbles in her mouth. The left side of her chiseled face had almost collapsed.

Thank God you’re here. Help me. Get me away from here. Hurry. Hurry. Before it’s too late. I can’t move. I am frozen. Please, please take me away before they see me. Please. Please.

She was sent home a month later, when it was clear that no amount of rehabilitation was going to restore her speech or the use of her hands. Miss Charlotte hired round-the-clock nurses. She was surrounded by love and attention, but of course everyone got on with their lives. Emma was always angry and frequently exploded.

What is wrong with you? Can’t you see I am talking? Can’t you hear me? Have you gone deaf? Why can’t I get out of this bed? Stop this. Stop this. Listen to me. I must tell you. You must know the truth about me. I can’t die with these lies. Why can’t you hear me? Why won’t my hands move? Please, please God, help me. I want you to know, to know why I did what I had to do. I must tell you before anyone else does.

She’d struggle and babble and then become furious and then cry and finally just stare at a wall. Her loving husband and daughters and the kind nurses were helpless. Emma was buried alive.

You can’t possibly know what I’ve done. You don’t know who I am. Everything you believe, everything I have told you, is a lie. A shameless lie.

My name is not Emma. I am not Jewish. I am not from the east end of London. My parents were not bakers killed during the Blitz. I was not in love with my sweet shy colored husband I’d met at a commissary during the war in London. I needed him to get me out of there. I love him now. That came later. I am not a gifted cook. I just read the directions and do what they tell me to do. I am not a good mother. I love my children but I keep them and everyone at a distance. I am not ashamed of what I did. I did what, what I had to. I have never told the truth. I want my husband and girls to know about me, what I have done. No one else can tell them the real story.

Annie was Emma’s accomplished daughter; wonderful mother, wife of a doctor and first African-American to be President of the Junior League (as opposed to Cessy, who was serving a prison sentence on drug charges). It tore Annie apart that Mama was so angry and that she didn’t know why and wasn’t able to do anything about it. Annie worried that Mama would have another stroke and leave them completely.

No one had ever dared tamper with Mama’s locked metal box, kept in the back of the closet. Annie took a hammer to it. Inside were only three items: a framed photo of a man and woman with a little girl on the seashore, labeled 1932, with the name of a hotel in the background; in French. The frame was solid silver and monogrammed “vK.” There was also Mama’s stained, creased British ration book from 1942; a strange thing to keep, and most surprising a stunning Art Deco brooch in a green velvet box from a German jeweler labeled Louis Koch – Frankfurt and Baden-Baden. The brooch was elaborate with sapphires and emeralds; if it was real it was worth a lot. It was; Annie had it appraised.

So Mama had a history. Why did she have a photo in silver frame of these people? They had the casual look of people in a Ralph Lauren advertisement - that people who had always had money and never gave it a second thought - certainly not the family of an East End baker. And where did a cook and butler’s wife get that brooch, and why hadn’t she ever shown it to anyone? What was Mama hiding that made her so angry?

Papa could tell her nothing. He had no idea who the French people were, and why Emma had this valuable brooch or how she’d gotten it. There was something he knew as well as he knew his name. The little girl in the French photo – that had to be Emma – she was the spitting image of Cessy at that age.

Every weekend for a month Anna would go over the three items with Mama. She asked yes-or-no questions and Mama would nod yes or shake her head no. They could only get so far. When Annie first showed Mama the box and its contents her face light up and for the first time since the stroke she smiled and tried to reach out. But her answers made no absolutely sense.

Annie would ask: "Is this you in the photo?" Mama would nod Yes.

"Are these your parents?" Yes.

"Was this taken in France?" Yes.

"Were you visiting there from London?" No.

"Was your father a baker?" No.

Mama had always said that her parents ran a Jewish bakery in Spitalfields, London’s Jewish east end, and had died during the Blitz in a direct hit. Mama seemed to recognize faces but had lost memory of family connections.

Please, please. I am not confused. Those are my parents. That is me. We were in France. We were not Jews from Spitalfields. We lived in Prague.

Annie moved on to the ration card. "Is this your ration card?" No.

"Your name was Emma Worby before you married Papa?" No.

Annie grimaced; Mama didn’t know her name. It was Emma Worby’s ration card, but Mama, who was Emma Worby, insisted it wasn’t. Annie was sick with sadness, realizing the stroke was worse than they’d thought. She struggled to keep Mama with them and not to slip further away.

Ask me other questions. You’re a smart girl. Think. Ask me where I am from. List countries, cities, anything and I will nod. I will tell you. I am from Prague. I am not Emma Worby. I never knew Emma Worby. I bought that ration card from a rat-faced man in London. Emma was lost in the bombing. I had gone to London and stayed with my old English nanny in Notting Hill. She died and my passport had expired. I bought Emma Worby’s ration card so they couldn’t find me and make me go back. I am Vlasta Kimsky. Please. Ask. I am not Emma.

Time and time again Annie showed Mama the brooch.

"Is this your brooch?" Yes.

"Was it a gift?" No?

"Was it in your family?" Yes.

"Was it your mother’s?" Yes.

"Was it a gift to your mother?" Yes.

"Was it from your father?" Yes.

"Was your mother from Frankfurt?" No.

"Was your mother from Baden-Baden?" No.

"Did your mother give this to you?" No.

Annie was frustrated. How did Mama get this jewelry? Mama would never have stolen anything. How did a baker’s wife own something like this? Had she been in service and was given it by a rich employer?

Ask me if I took the brooch. Ask me if I stole it and other jewelry which Papa bought for Mama and was promised to me. For the sake of God ask me. Ask me. My parents’ were Marta and Jan von Kinsky. Papa died and Mama married this awful man. He moved into our beautiful house in Bubeneč. He beat me. He beat her. I want to tell you this and so much more. I must tell you. I had to run away. You must know. I need you to know.

Annie did not give up without a fight; if then. She googled the Worby connection. She found Mama’s birth record with the same birthday she always celebrated, daughter to Rachel Brill and Daniel Worby of Spitalfields. Annie found Mama’s parents listed as killed in an air raid. The same report had Emma as missing; that would have been when she was dug out from a bomb site - obviously she’d come through it. No other record of Emma until her marriage to Papa and then arrival with Will in New York as a war bride. Everything checked out. Just as she said Mama had no brothers or sisters. Well she had never said that, Annie assumed it. Annie realized she’d assumed a lot. The photo was a mystery and the brooch was even more so.

Finally she gave up. Papa handed the box and its contents to Miss Charlotte for safekeeping. It was put in the family safe next to the Monet, the winter Monet that went up over the fireplace in November and which was replaced in April with the summer Monet.

Miss Charlotte spent the summer listening to Annie asking questions, getting nowhere and watching Emma getting more and more frustrated, withdrawn, and finally closing down. Annie loved and trusted her mother; she could only ask questions that made sense to her of what she knew her mother to be. Charlotte knew that people like Emma only let others see a fraction of who they were, know what they had done. Emma was being eaten alive trying to tell us something. It would kill her before her time. Miss Charlotte would have none of that.

How can you all be so stupid? So trusting? Can’t you see the kind of person I am? Please, please just take me to the beach and let me sleep in the hot sun and let the ocean carry me away in the dark of night.

It was only after Annie had finally surrendered that Charlotte took charge. She turned the photo and brooch and ration card over to her lawyers who hired private investigators in Frankfurt. Miss Charlotte’s mother, and the people who knew she had more money than Oprah, and felt entitled to Charlotte sharing it with them, had left her with no illusions about the essential goodness of mankind. Emma had worked for Charlotte for going on half a century and knew absolutely everything about her. They long ago ceased being employer and cook. They were friends. Charlotte knew that Emma deserved peace of mind. To secure it Charlotte do whatever it took.

Money talks and a lot of money will scream. The detectives’ report was prompt and thorough. Germans keep records on everything. There was actually a receipt for the brooch. It had been purchased in the Rehoboth Beach of Germany, Baden-Baden, in 1929 by a man from Prague named Jan von Kinsky. The “vK” monogram on the picture frame was explained. He died in 1935. His Charles University law school graduation photo was attached to the file; there was no question - he was the man on French seashore. He had married a shockingly beautiful woman named Marta. Photos of her at various social functions were found on the microfilmed pages of Eva, a pre-war society magazine. Marta was the woman in the photo. And Emma was the little girl; or was she?

Somehow the detective unearthed a very old lady who as a teenager had been a maid for the von Kinsky family in a part of Prague known as Bubeneč; apparently their equivalent of Bala Cynwyd. The old woman's fee was slivovitz, and after she drank the first detective under the table she got around to telling the teetotaler second detective about the daughter named Vlasta. After Pán Kinsky was killed in a car crash, Madam, who was a very weak woman, had quickly remarried - a Lutheran minister. He was a holy terror.

The old woman clicked her teeth and said that the girl, Vlasta left the house one morning in the winter of 1939 to visit a friend and was never heard from or seen again. Several pieces of jewelry were also missing. Someone thought she went to her old nanny, somewhere in England. The minister told people that she’d been kidnapped and taken away by criminals. The old lady thought it odd that thieves would also take the girl’s passport, a suitcase, many of her clothes and a framed family photograph. Madam just cried and took to her bed. The old lady did not think that the family looked too hard for Vlasta. The Minister and Madam hadn’t made it through the War.

Yes, that Vlasta in the picture with Pán Kinsky and Madam on the Riviera. The old lady snorted and said that the stepfather was a tyrant and tormented his wife and stepdaughter and the servants. He also went after the maids, a total fraud may he rot in Hell.

The detectives then went to London and learned that the Nanny had died in 1944. There had been a Vlasta von Kinsky, a Czech national, registered at the Nanny’s address. She disappeared, assumed killed in the Blitz, shortly after the Nanny died.

Charlotte took the file and photos to Emma. She asked “Is your name Vlasta von Kinsky?”

Emma nodded yes.

Emma’s face went from vacant and grey to excited and flushed. Charlotte asked “Did you live in Prague?”

Emma nodded yes.

Emma began to sob. Miss Charlotte asked “Was your stepfather a bad man?”

Emma nodded yes.

“Did he hurt you?”

Emma nodded yes.

“Did you run away to London and stay with your old Nanny?”

Emma nodded yes.

“Did you take some of your mother’s jewelry to pay for it?”

Emma nodded yes.

“Did you know Emma Worby?”

Emma nodded no.

“Did you pretend to be her?”

Emma nodded yes.

“Were you afraid of being deported without the Nanny to protect you?

Emma nodded yes.

Thank God in Heaven. Miss Charlotte somehow figured it out. They will know. My God they will know.

“Do you want Annie and Cessy and their father to know this?”

Emma nodded yes. Then again. Then a third time.

The girls and their father examined the photos and detective’s report, but it seemed as if it were someone else’s story; something you read in a novel. The seven sentences were simply replaced. Their scant knowledge of Emma’s life was exchanged for this strange short story. It was Emma’s miraculous change that made them grateful for this information. She was suddenly alert, was so much more relaxed and would allow Miss Charlotte’s indulged Westies sit in her lap for hours. She seemed to be at peace.

But Emma was happiest when her husband would take her to the almost empty beach at night. They would watch the lights of the ships out at sea and stare at the stars and admire the fingernail moon. She would stroke his face with her hand as he carried her back to the cottage. Every time that happened he fell in love with her all over again.

Every sunny afternoon at four o’clock, Emma’s nurse in a crisp white uniform would take her out for a walk in her wheel chair. Accompanied by the rubenesque Westies, Emma’s husband would deposit them off at one end of the boardwalk and drive the mile to its end in Miss Charlotte’s mirror-shined 1949 Packard woody, a relic that resembled a bathtub on wheels. Immaculate in a hand-made British suit with bespoke shoes, he would sit on a boardwalk bench waiting for them and read that morning’s Inquirer.

On one perfectly ordinary afternoon in July, suddenly, out of nowhere he could hear Emma talking to him – she hadn’t said a word he could understand in ten years. She said that loved him and then she was sorry to say goodbye. He jumped up and sprinted half-way down the boardwalk, darting between sunburned tourists and sugared-up kids.

Emma was in front of Mr. Kilwin’s ice cream store, slouched over in her wheel chair, the nurse holding her in her arms, the Westies for once statue still, staring at their beloved friend; one was covered with pink cotton candy ice cream. He bent over, the nurse unbuckled the wheel chair seat belt, and he carried Emma to the Packard. The crowd on the boardwalk separated silently to let him pass, he could feel the sun and as he looked at Emma he saw that she was smiling.