Bel Canto(58)

Of course Ruben could have let it all go. It wasn’t really his house, after all. He could have watched the carpets molder in pools of spilled soda pop and stepped around the trash that circled the overfull wastebaskets, but he was first and foremost the host. He felt a sense of responsibility to keep some semblance of a party running. But what he soon found was that he enjoyed it. Not only did he enjoy it he believed, with all modesty, that he had a certain knack for it. When he got on his hands and knees and waxed the floors, the floors did shine in response to his attentions. Of all the many jobs there were to do, the one he liked the best was ironing. It was amazing to him that they hadn’t taken the iron away. If properly wielded he was sure it was as deadly as a gun, so heavy, so incredibly hot. While he pressed the shirts of shirtless men who stood waiting, he thought of the damage he could do. Certainly, he couldn’t take them all out (Could an iron deflect bullets? he wondered), but he could clank down two or three before they shot him. With an iron, Ruben could go down fighting and the thought of it made him feel less passive, more like a man. He nosed the pointy silver tip into a pocket and then slid it down a sleeve. He puffed out clouds of steam that made him pour with sweat. The collar, he had quickly come to realize, was the key to everything.

Ironing was one thing. Ironing was within his grasp. But where raw food was concerned he was at a loss, and he stood and he stared at all that now lay before him. He decided to put the chickens in the refrigerator. Avoid warm meat, that much he was sure about. Then he went to look for help.

“Gen,” he said. “Gen, I need to speak to Se?orita Coss.”

“You, too?” Gen asked.

“Me, too,” the Vice President said. “What, is there a line? Shall I take a number?”

Gen shook his head and together they walked over to see Roxane. “Gen,” she said, and held out her hands as if she hadn’t seen them in days. “Mr. Vice President.” She had changed since the music had arrived, or she had changed back. She now more closely resembled the famous soprano who had been brought to a party at enormous expense to sing six arias. She once again put out a kind of light that belongs only to the very famous. Ruben always felt slightly weak when he stood this close to her. She was wearing his wife’s sweater and his wife’s black silk scarf covered in jewel-colored birds tied around her throat. (Oh, how his wife adored that scarf, which had come from Paris. She never wore it more than once or twice a year and she kept it carefully folded in its original box. How quickly Ruben had served up this treasure to Roxane!) He was overcome by the sudden need to tell her how he felt about her. How much her music meant to him. He controlled himself by calling those bare chickens to mind. “You must forgive me,” the Vice President said, his voice breaking with emotion. “You do so much for all of us as it is. Your practicing has been a godsend, though how you can call it practicing I don’t know. It implies that your singing could improve.” He touched his fingers to his eyes and shook his head. He was tired. “This isn’t what I came to say to you. I wonder if I may bother you for a favor?”

“Is there something you would like me to sing?” Roxane stroked the edges of the scarf.

“That I would never presume to know. Whatever song you choose is the song I have been wanting to hear.”

“Very impressive,” Gen said to him in Spanish.

Ruben gave him a look that made it clear he had no interest in editorials. “I need some advice in the kitchen. Some help. Don’t mistake me, I would never ask you to do any work, but if you could give me the smallest amount of guidance in the preparation of our dinner, I would be greatly indebted to you.”

Roxane looked at Gen and blinked. “You misunderstood him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Try again.”

Spanish was to linguists what hopscotch was to triathletes. If he was managing in Russian and Greek, chances were he would not have misunderstood a sentence of Spanish. A sentence regarding the preparation of food and not the state of the human soul. Spanish was, after all, what he was translating in and out of all day. It was the closest thing available to a common language. “Pardon me,” Gen said to Ruben.

“Tell her I need some help with dinner.”

“Cooking dinner?” Roxane asked.

Ruben thought about this for a moment, assuming he was not asking for help serving dinner or eating dinner, then yes, cooking dinner was what was left. “Cooking.”

“Why would he think I know how to cook?” she asked Gen.

Ruben, whose English was bad but not hopeless, pointed out that she was a woman. “The two girls, I can’t imagine they would know a thing except for native dishes that might not be to others’ liking,” he said through Gen.

“This is some sort of Latin thing, don’t you think?” she said to Gen. “I can’t even really be offended. It’s important to bear the cultural differences in mind.” She gave Ruben a smile that was kind but relayed no information.

“I think that’s wise,” Gen said, and then he told Ruben, “She doesn’t cook.”

“She cooks a little,” Ruben said.

Gen shook his head. “I would think not at all.”

“She wasn’t born singing opera,” the Vice President said. “She must have had a childhood.” Even his wife, who had grown up rich, who was a pampered girl with most available luxuries, was taught to cook.