CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Dinteville, 2

DR DINTEVILLE’S waiting room. A quite spacious room, rectangular, with a herringbone woodblock floor and leather-padded doors. Against the rear wall, a large sofa upholstered in blue velvet; more or less everywhere, armchairs, lyre-back chairs, nesting tables with various magazines and periodicals spread out on them: on the cover of one of them can be seen a photograph of Franco on his deathbed watched over by four kneeling monks who look as though they have come straight out of a painting by La Tour; against the right-hand wall, a leather-padded writing desk on which stands a Napoleon III papier mâché pen-stand with small tortoiseshell inlays and fine gilt arabesques and, under its glass dome, a dead burnished clock with its hands stopped at ten minutes to two.

There are two people in the waiting room. One is an extremely thin old man, a retired teacher of French who still gives tuition by correspondence, and who whilst waiting his turn is correcting a pile of scripts with a pencil sharpened to a fine point. On the script he is about to examine, the essay title can be read:

In Hell, Raskolnikov meets Meursault (“The Outsider”). Imagine a dialogue between them using material from both novels.

The other person is not sick: he is a telephone salesman whom Dr Dinteville has summoned at the end of his day to show him the new models of telephone answering machines. He is leafing through one of the publications strewn over the side-table next to which he is sitting: a horticulturalist’s catalogue with a cover depicting the garden of the Suzaku Temple at Kyoto.

There are several pictures on the wall. One of them in particular attracts attention, less for its pseudo “naïve” manner than for its size – almost ten feet by six – and its subject: it shows in minute, almost laborious detail the inside of a café: in the centre, leaning his elbow on the bar, a bespectacled young man bites into a ham sandwich (with butter and a lot of mustard) whilst drinking half a pint of beer. Behind him stands a pinball machine representing a tawdry Spain – or Mexico – with a woman fanning herself between the four counters. The same bespectacled young man – the technique was abundantly used in medieval painting – is also busy at the pinball machine, and victoriously so, since his counter shows a score of 67,000 and only 20,000 points are needed to win a free game. Four children stand like a row of onions beside the machine, with their eyes at the height of the ball, and watch his exploits with jubilation: three lads with mottled jumpers and berets, looking just like the traditional image of the Paris urchin, and a girl wearing round her neck a string of plaited black thread on which hangs a single red ball, holding a peach in her left hand. In the foreground, just behind the café window on which large white letters spell out backwards

two men are playing Tarot: one of them is putting down the card showing a man armed with a stick, carrying a knapsack, and followed by a dog, the character called the Fool, that is to say the Joker. To the left, behind the counter, the proprietor, an obese man in shirtsleeves with check braces, is looking guardedly at a poster which a timid-looking girl is probably asking him to put in the window: at the top, it depicts a long metallic horn, very pointed, pierced with several holes; in the centre, it announces the world premiere in the Church of Saint Saturnin at Champigny on Saturday, 19 December 1960 at 8:45 P.M. of Malakhitès, opus 35, for fifteen brasses, voice, and percussion, by Morris Schmetterling, to be performed by the New Brass Ensemble of Michigan State University at East Lansing, conducted by the composer. At the very bottom, it shows a map of Champigny-sur-Marne with directions from various Paris exits – Porte de Vincennes, Porte de Picpus, Porte de Bercy.

Dr Dinteville is the quartier’s general practitioner. He holds his surgery every morning and evening and spends all afternoons on home calls to his patients. People don’t like him much, thinking he lacks warmth, but they appreciate his efficiency and punctuality and stay with him.

For a long time the doctor has nourished a secret passion: he would like to leave his name to a cooking recipe: he wavers between “Crab Salad à la Dinteville”, “Crab Salad Dinteville” or, more enigmatically, “Dinteville Salad”.

For six servings: three live crabs – or three maias (spider crabs) or six small tourteau crabs; half a pound of pasta shells; a small Stilton cheese; 2 oz. butter; a small glass of cognac; a tablespoon of horseradish sauce; a few drops of Worcester sauce; fresh mint leaves; three dill seeds. For the courtbouillon: sea salt, peppercorns, 1 onion. For the mayonnaise: one egg yolk, strong mustard, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, paprika, a teaspoon of tomato double-concentrate.

1 Using a large pot three-quarters full of cold water, make a court-bouillon with sea salt, 5 white peppercorns, 1 peeled onion sliced in two. Boil for 10 minutes. Leave to cool. Immerse the shellfish in the lukewarm court-bouillon. Bring back to boil, lower heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Take out the shellfish and leave to cool.

2 Bring the court-bouillon back to the boil. Sprinkle the pasta shells into it. Stir and boil for 7 minutes. The pasta must stay firm. Drain the pasta shells, rinse quickly in cold water, and put to the side with a drop of olive oil to prevent sticking.

3 Mix in a mortar with a pestle or wooden spatula the Stilton, moistened with a little of the cognac and Worcester sauce, with the butter and horseradish sauce. Pound well to obtain a creamy but not too liquid consistency.

4 Detach the legs and claws of the cooked shellfish. Empty the flesh out of them into a large bowl. Crack the shells, remove the central cartilage, drain, empty out the flesh and soft parts. Chop into large pieces and add the crushed dill seeds and the mint leaves chopped very fine.

5 Make a very stiff mayonnaise. Colour it with the paprika and tomato double-concentrate.

6 Place the pasta shells in a large salad bowl and stir in very gently the chopped shellfish, the Stilton, and the mayonnaise. Decorate as desired with chiffonade of lettuce, radishes, prawn, cucumber, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, olives, orange quarters, etc. Serve very cool.