X
I
The Capo di Monte was in Dean Street, Soho. It occupied the whole of a tall, blistered house that had once been painted brown, and on either side of its swing glass doors sat two white Capo di Monte cherubs, perched on pedestals of carved Italian walnut. Judging from their smiles and the contours of their figures, the food at the Capo was good, a fact which they proclaimed to the hungry of Dean Street—or at least had been put there to proclaim. The Padrone was intensely proud of his cherubs, he dusted them himself every morning; they had come with him all the way from Italy, and had given their name to the restaurant.
The Padrone was still quite young in years, but old in the ways of business. He had soft brown eyes and a devilish temper. His skin was sallow and luminously greasy; his nose was aggressive, his mouth overripe, and his teeth were magnificently healthy. He was tall, but already his soiled white waistcoat showed signs of a little paunch. For the rest he was obviously born to succeed, being quite untroubled by scruples.
Fabio had felt a little doubtful about him when it actually came to the point, but Gian-Luca had preferred the life of the restaurant to the more monotonous career of the shop.
“I would like to see things outside,” he had said, “a waiter sees all sorts of people, Nonno; I think I would rather go to the Capo, Mario likes it so much.”
So Fabio had nodded and murmured: “Si, si,” as he usually did when afraid of an argument, and one morning Gian-Luca started off with Mario en route for the Capo di Monte.
Gian-Luca was carrying a brown paper parcel which contained his exciting new clothes; a black suit with a species of Eton jacket, some stiff shirts and collars, and four white cotton bows which fastened with a clip at the back. In addition to all this he had six enormous aprons that would cover him down to his feet; in fact he had been very generously equipped for his duties as “piccolo.” The March wind blew clouds of dust in their eyes as they turned the corner of Dean Street.
“Now listen,” said Mario, halting on the pavement; “I would say a few final words.”
Gian-Luca stood still obediently, though he secretly wondered what there could be left to say, so much had been said already. It was ten o’clock, and since seven that morning Mario had never stopped talking. However, he was evidently still full of words which were no doubt better out than in.
“Now first,” said Mario, removing some dust from the corner of an eye with his thumb; “now first, you observe me in all that I do, and whenever you can, you do likewise. Now second, you are always smiling to the clients, even if they spit in your face—they do not quite spit, I speak figuratively, but one feels sometimes that they would like to. Now third, you move quickly; whatever you do, do it quickly and do not make a noise; a plate should be given or removed with a flourish, and yet it should seem to be arriving out of space—do not fumble with the hand, the hand should appear superfluous, but be careful not to spill the gravy. Now fourth, keep a quarter of an eye on the clients, but an eye and three-quarters on the Padrone; he has many little ways that are purely his own, for instance, a language of gestures. You must learn all his gestures and exactly what they mean, otherwise he may lift his voice—I have found it better to understand his gestures, it often saves trouble later on. The Padrone is a genius, and as such he has his moods, that is only to be expected; he appears to be impatient, that, however, is not so, he is probably thinking about a new dish that will some day make him famous. Now fifth, you must always wait on the Padrona and do whatever she asks you; she is beautiful, so the Padrone loves her—I do not think she on her part loves him, but that is none of our business. If you win the Padrona, you win the Padrone, and that makes an easier life; I myself am always most careful to win her, I have found that it more than pays. The Padrona controls all the dishes from the lift, you will have many dealings with her; she also controls all the wines and the spirits, but that need not concern you just yet. And sixth, never give away any secrets regarding the business of the house; every house, you will find, has a few little secrets; they are not for the public, they are not for the clients—”
Mario glanced at his watch. “Come on, come on! Already it is late,” he said, pushing Gian-Luca; “we have no time to stand here talking in the street!”
They began to hurry against the wind, Gian-Luca clutching his parcel. “This way!” cried Mario, as, arrived at the Capo, he led Gian-Luca through a grimy side-door, and down some steep stairs to the basement.
Gian-Luca had often been past the restaurant, but had never until now been inside its portals—the Padrone did not encourage visits from the friends and relations of his staff. Gian-Luca found himself standing by Mario in a narrow passage lit by one electric globe; the uneven stone floor was very far from clean, the walls were discolored with damp and mildew, and from somewhere out of sight came a furious voice, swearing loudly in Italian.
“The Padrone,” whispered Mario, in the awed tone of one who hears God speaking in His thunder.
They stood very still while the storm subsided, or rather until it betook itself upstairs, then Mario smiled nervously: “Come along to the kitchen, I will show you our chef, Moscatone.”
The kitchen was a vault quite devoid of daylight; like the passage it had one electric globe; in this case, however, the globe was more powerful, so that every defect jumped at once to the eye, and Gian-Luca decided that there were many. The cooking appeared to be all done by gas, judging from the huge gas stove and the smell; the smell of the kitchen was far from appetizing, consisting, as it did of greasy gas ovens, a stopped sink, and last night’s black beetles. Moscatone, a gigantic Neapolitan, was standing in the middle of the floor; his huge face was shining and splotched with temper:
“I will slay him! Corpo di Dio, I will slay him!” he rumbled, like a bursting volcano.
A scullion, busily peeling potatoes from a pan gripped between his knees, looked up with a smile.
“He is offal,” he murmured; “he is even less than offal—”
And he mentioned with some detail exactly and precisely what he was.
“Here is my friend Gian-Luca,” said Mario; “Gian-Luca, this is Moscatone; the very best chef in England we have here, that is why some day we will be famous.”
Moscatone’s anger blew away like a cloud, dispelled by his enormous guffaw. “Famous, the Capo! I think not, however—how do you do, Gian-Luca?”
Gian-Luca took the extended hand, which felt soft and unpleasantly greasy.
“He is going to learn to be a waiter under me,” put in Mario, with pride in his voice.
“Is that so?” said Moscatone, as though surprised. “He will learn under you, you say?” Then he changed the subject, for in spite of his temper he was really a kindhearted giant.
“Come along, you must change your clothes,” ordered Mario; “I will show you the way to the dressing-room, Gian-Luca.” And he led the way to a green baize door at the end of a long dark passage.
What Mario had called the “dressing-room” was a small composite apartment; part wardrobe, part storeroom for boxes and rubbish, part dustbin, and part lavatory. A fair young man with a round, foolish face, was already very much in possession. He was standing in front of a bit of cracked mirror, in his shirt sleeves, adjusting his tie.
“Here we are!” announced Mario, as though they were expected; “Gian-Luca, this is yet another waiter. His name is Schmidt, and moreover he is Swiss, a very excellent fellow.”
“Good Morgen,” said Schmidt, who spoke no Italian, but who prided himself on his English; “I vill not be a tick, not ein half a tick—it is nearly completed already.”
“Do not hurry,” said Gian-Luca, surveying him gravely; “we can wait while you finish your tie.”
Schmidt grinned. “Do not hurry? Vell, my friend, I must hurry; if I do not I get in the soup.” He turned from the glass to put on his coat, and pushing past Mario was gone.
“He is always like that,” said Mario disapprovingly. “He is always in too great a hurry; a waiter must be quick, but never in a hurry. They are foolish people, these Swiss.”
He began to unearth some old dress clothes from the crowded peg on the door. Gian-Luca undid his brown paper parcel, and together they struggled to dress. There was so little room that whenever they moved they promptly collided with each other.
“Pazienza!” sighed Mario in a vague, patient protest, as Gian-Luca bumped him with his elbow.
“I do not understand my apron,” said Gian-Luca. “It seems to me very wide.”
“I will show you,” Mario told him kindly. “The wider it is the better.” He folded Gian-Luca into the apron which swathed his legs like a shroud. “Ecco!” exclaimed Mario. “And now you are ready, and very fine indeed you look, piccino,” and he smiled with affection and approval.
II
Upstairs it was certainly more cheerful than the basement, it also smelt less of stopped sink. The restaurant was a long, low, well-lighted room, with a stand of aspidistras in the center. Here and there, in a pot tied up in pink paper, a fern was trying not to die; there were many little tables, and the one good-sized window was embellished with red cotton curtains.
“Some day they will be silk,” thought Gian-Luca when he saw them, remembering Mario’s words.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Padrone, jumping up from a table at which he had been drinking vermouth. “You are late as usual, accursedly late. I am sick of you and your lateness!”
Mario’s eyes goggled: “I am sorry—” he faltered.
“My apron delayed us,” piped Gian-Luca.
The Padrone stared. “And who may you be? Ah, yes, I remember, the new piccolo.”
“At what time would you wish me to arrive?” inquired Gian-Luca, assuming the air of a man.
“Half-past nine and not a minute later,” he was told.
“I will come,” said Gian-Luca calmly.
“That is well,” growled the Padrone, rather taken aback, “that is well. Time is money at the Capo. And now go and wash the glass in those doors; after that you must sweep out the restaurant. Come here you, Schmidt, and give him a baize apron and show him the buckets and brooms!” he bellowed. “Corpo di Bacco! Where is the fool? Santa Madonna! where is he?”
III
Gian-Luca washed the glass, and then, just for fun, he polished all the brass as well. He brushed down the steps and finally retired to sweep up the restaurant floor. From the corner of his eye he watched Mario and Schmidt scuttling in and out of the pantry; they were very busy laying the tables for luncheon, and Mario puffed a good deal. Schmidt, who was rather a painstaking fellow, had a habit of breathing on things, especially the glasses, which he always suspected, and once, when he thought he detected a smudge, he spat on his finger and removed it. Gian-Luca, thumping about on his knees, watched the proceedings with interest.
“Nun was! You not got those clean serviettes yet? Mein Gott! You take long, venever you be ready?” he heard Schmidt grumbling at Mario.
“Mind you your business!” shouted Mario hotly. “I know how I set the table!” Schmidt laughed. “You not spit on the glasses,” went on Mario, who had looked up and caught him in the act.
“Then why you bring them in dirty from the pantry?”
“You not make them any cleaner with spit!”
“Was? Do you say then that my mouth is dirty?” Schmidt’s face was now red with temper, “Ich ask; you perhaps would accuse my mouth?”
“Dio!” groaned Mario, who was limping a little. “What do I care about your mouth!”
Schmidt went back to the pantry, muttering in German, and Mario stood still for a moment; very gently he began to rub his sore joint against the calf of his leg, then he sighed, and mopping his brow with his napkin he too hobbled off to the pantry.
Gian-Luca, left alone, settled into his stride—the proverbial new broom sweeps clean. The dust rose in clouds, in less than five minutes he produced a miniature dust-storm.
Through the haze he could see a woman approaching: “Santa Madonna!” she was saying. “Santa Madonna! Do not use so much force. Have we imported a Samson?” He paused with the brush firmly gripped in his hand and, still kneeling, stared up into her face. Then he sneezed and she sneezed; after that he stood up.
“The floor is very dirty,” he told her.
The Padrona laughed softly. “Do I not know as much? Naturally the floor is very dirty.” And then, speaking in Italian: “But you must brush gently. One flicks with the brush to make the top clean; one does not disinter all the filth of a year—see, like this, I will show you, like this—”
And together they both went down on their knees.
The Padrona smelt nice when she came close to you. Gian-Luca could smell her through the dust. She had very small hands with pink-tinted nails; her feet were small, too—she wore little bronze slippers and thin silk stockings to match. She laid her hand gently over Gian-Luca’s and moved the brush backwards and forwards.
“Ecco!” she murmured. “Now I think you understand. As they say here in England, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie!’ And that proverb applies to our dust.”
“Thank you,” said Gian-Luca, very red in the face, and he quickly looked down at the floor. With a gentleness worthy of the Padrona he caressed the carpet with his brush.
The Padrona went behind the counter of the bar and busied herself with some bottles; from time to time she glanced at Gian-Luca, and her lips twitched into a smile. She began to notice his ash-blond head bent in an effort of attention. The back of his neck looked absurdly young, the hair grew down into a youthful hollow, and where it ended it turned suddenly sideways, forming a little comma.
“Have you not swept enough?” inquired the Padrona. “I think you have swept enough.”
“As you will,” said Gian-Luca, getting to his feet, “but I feel that the floor is not clean.”
“Come here,” said the Padrona. “You shall help me with these bottles; you shall take this damp cloth and wipe them; but first, what is your name and how old are you? Mario brought you, did he not?”
He was staring at her now because he found her lovely; his pleasure overcame his shyness. He said: “I am called Gian-Luca, signora; I am nearly fifteen, I was fourteen last November, I came here with Mario this morning.”
“I see—Gian-Luca; but Gian-Luca what?”
“Boselli,” he told her, and flushed; then quickly, “But I’d like to be called Gian-Luca, please; I have always been called just Gian-Luca.”
“Why not? It’s a very nice name,” she smiled, surveying him calmly with experienced eyes, the color of mountain gentians. “You are tall, very tall for your age, Gian-Luca—” And she nearly added, “and amazingly handsome.” But instead she pointed to the row of bottles, which Gian-Luca proceeded to dust.
The Padrona was thirty; she was also a Venetian; she was also married to the Padrone; three facts which she found no cause to resent—she looked younger than thirty, she was proud of her birthright, and her husband was—well, just the usual husband—a thing it was always essential to possess and to pet into comparative good temper. Her nature was skeptical, sunny and placid; having never expected too much of life, she had never been disappointed. She was conscious of her beauty and in consequence of men, but her technical virtue was perfectly intact, and was always likely to remain so. With the clients she assumed that air of aloofness that had always impressed the good Mario. With her husband she was docile and unfailingly good-tempered, there was no necessity to be anything else; her beauty was the only weapon she needed to subjugate the Padrone. The Padrone was jealous, he adored and he suffered, and the more he suffered the more he adored. He lived in perpetual terror of losing the love of so beautiful a creature. Her docility never made him quite happy—he feared that it might be a cloak; yet so foolish was his love that he cringed to his wife and vented his anguish on the waiters.
But at moments the Padrona felt a little dull; she detested the English climate. It was weary work standing for hours behind the counter, serving out other people’s drinks. There were times when her husband’s ridiculous outpourings had begun to get on her nerves, when she noticed that little inclination to a paunch—it had not been there when they married. So when Gian-Luca turned to her with a smile, because he could not resist it, the Padrona smiled back and said:
“Splendid, Gian-Luca; you polish my bottles to perfection.”
And when he was once more busily at work she began to speculate about him, her speculations being principally concerned with what he would be like in a few years’ time, and with what would happen when he first fell in love, and with whether the woman would be fair or dark, older than he was or younger. For of such fairly harmless but foolish romancing the mind of the Padrona was full. The more strictly virtuous the married woman, the more she will sometimes dally with fancies; and then Gian-Luca being almost a child, what could be the harm in her fancies?
Presently she said: “Is your mother dead, Gian-Luca?”
“Si, signora; she is dead.”
“And your father?”
A long pause and then: “Si, signora; my father is also dead.”
The Padrona sighed. “I see, that is sad; but I also have lost both my parents. What part of Italy do you come from—from Rome?”
“My mother was born here in England, signora, and I too was born in England.”
He stood quite still with a bottle in his hand, dreading the Padrona’s next question. Would she ask if his father had been born in England, too? And if she did, what would he say? The Padrona spared him this embarrassment, however; her mind had reverted to business; it was nearly one o’clock and she had suddenly discovered that she had only two siphons left.
“Go quickly, piccolo, and fetch me six more siphons and twelve small bottles of soda,” she ordered.
He flew to obey and went rushing downstairs, all but upsetting Mario in the process.
“Piano, piano!” cautioned Mario. “You must walk with more repose; a waiter should never appear hurried.”
“Where are the siphons?” said Gian-Luca breathlessly.
“In the cellar at the end of the passage,” Mario told him; “but, Gian-Luca, remember what I say and walk softly; a waiter must not be a whirlwind.”
IV
By half-past one the Capo was crowded. The Padrona took dish after dish from the lift that came up with a bump at the back of the bar, and passed them across to Mario and Schmidt, who grabbed quickly and disappeared. In between times she served out whisky and brandy, filled glasses with beer from the nickel-plated tap, produced cigarettes, cigars and liqueurs, shouted orders down the lift shaft, opened bottles, stacked up glasses, and surreptitiously powdered her nose with a puff in a pink silk handkerchief.
Gian-Luca watched Mario with the bright, alert eyes of a dog who expects an order; he was anxious to study the celebrated manner that Mario employed to the clients. Mario had said: “You assert yourself, but with grace—you expatiate on the food.” And Gian-Luca, who was there on his first day to learn, waited, growing ever more anxious. He remembered all the things that Mario had said about tempting the appetite; his words regarding the handling of dishes—only that morning he had spoken of a flourish, and remarked that a plate should appear out of space, quickly but without noise. He had begged Gian-Luca to watch all his movements, and not only to watch but to copy—and yet now Mario was doing none of these things, and moreover he was making a noise. Schmidt, on the other hand, could carry four dishes and two plates with never a sound, but when Mario did likewise the pyramid slipped; and once a truly dreadful thing happened, for Mario upset a large dish of salad right on to the shoulder of a client. Gian-Luca dashed forward to the rescue with his napkin, but he only rubbed in the mayonnaise; the client, a fat business man, objected; the Padrone was called to apologize, and Mario, pale, with goggling eyes, stood there doing nothing at all. Of course after that Mario may have been nervous, for a number of small things happened; an irate lady was given a chop when her order had been for chicken; a coffee cup was broken; some clients were kept waiting unduly long for their food.
“I say, look here, waiter, we can’t sit here all day; do hurry up with that mutton!”
And Mario was dumb—that was what was so dreadful, he neither protested nor cajoled. And he hobbled; the more impatient they grew the more ostentatiously he hobbled. There was peace at Schmidt’s tables, comparative peace; but Mario was having a bad day.
“Perhaps,” thought Gian-Luca, “he watches the Padrone too much, and that makes him careless.”
The Padrone was certainly well worth watching, for his strange sign-language was now in full swing; he appeared to be spelling things out on his fingers as though they were all deaf and dumb. From time to time his sallow cheeks would swell as though about to burst, and this happened whenever Mario went near him, and yet he remained quite speechless. The Padrone’s silence was more terrifying than the explosion of a bomb, for one felt that he must be gathering force for what was to come later on. Possibly Mario was feeling this too, for his face looked worried and pale.
“Via! Do not get under my feet!” he kept hissing in Gian-Luca’s ear.
There were far too many plates and dishes for the lift, and in consequence much running up and down to and from the kitchen.
“Can you not help?” whispered Mario furiously, turning to glare at Gian-Luca.
“What must I do?” Gian-Luca whispered back.
“Why, take all those dishes to the scullery, and on your way up bring a basket of rolls, and I want some more clean knives and forks.”
“Und I vant four coffee and fasti,” ordered Schmidt. “You hurry und bring me at once.”
“Gian-Luca,” came the Padrona’s soft voice, “go and get me a few clean glasses.”
It was almost as though as Mario’s first protest, a spell had been suddenly broken. Now the orders poured in on Gian-Luca like hail; hitherto he had not been asked to assist, being there on his first day to learn.
“Hallo, boy! Can you give me a match?” said a young man, and proceeded to hold out a cigar.
“Send me that waiter; I’ve asked for my bill!” came a voice from the opposite table.
Up and downstairs with armfuls of dishes, with glasses, with coffee, with ices, went Gian-Luca. He had no time to observe Mario’s methods and he felt that this might be just as well. His arms ached from the weight of the large metal trays, his legs ached from the steep kitchen stairs, his head ached from a superhuman effort to remember, not one thing, but more like a dozen. In the kitchen Moscatone had returned to bad temper, and he almost threw the food at Gian-Luca. The man who washed up in the vault-like pantry would keep sending messages to the Padrone—of a kind that could not be repeated. Whenever this happened Gian-Luca snatched his plates and tried hard to pretend not to hear; then the man who washed up got offended with Gian-Luca and called him an insolent, bandy-legged puppy, and many less complimentary things.
At half-past three there were still people eating, just two little inconsiderate groups; or rather not eating, but chewing the cud, a habit that all waiters learn to dread very early in their careers. At half-past four Gian-Luca got his luncheon, which consisted of odds and ends; he shared them with Schmidt and the now sulky Mario who refused to speak or to look up. But the odds and ends were both plentiful and good, and Schmidt and Mario had each a glass of beer wherewith to enliven their spirits. After gobbling their food they all got up stiffly and went to the door for some air. Presently Mario decided to go home for a little, while Schmidt went out for a stroll; but Gian-Luca, feeling work-tired for the first time in his life, preferred to remain at the Capo.
V
That evening Mario acquitted himself better; Rosa had managed to cheer him up, and when he came back he was looking almost playful.
“Ah, Gian-Luca,” he said very brightly, as they washed their hands together at the sink, “and what do you think of the Capo di Monte? Is it not rather fine?”
Gian-Luca was silent for a moment, then he said: “I think that one must begin.”
“Jawohl,” agreed Schmidt, “one must begin. I am nur here to learn English.”
The evening clients appeared more aristocratic, some of them had dressed for dinner. The Capo was occasionally patronized by people who were going on to the theatre. This amused Gian-Luca; he liked the women’s clothes and the neat dress suits of the men.
“Some day I will have waistcoat buttons like his,” he decided, examining a smart young man out of the corner of his eye.
Once or twice Gian-Luca was actually able to get near to these elegant people.
“A match?” said Gian-Luca, striking one with a flourish and holding it to a fair lady’s cigarette.
“Thank you,” said the fair lady with a small, fleeting smile.
“Niente, signora,” bowed Gian-Luca.
“That was very well done,” whispered generous Mario; “that was done with distinction and grace.”
But the next time Gian-Luca offered a match his hand was pushed away with a curt refusal.
“If I want one I’ll ask,” said a lonely male diner, beginning to study the menu.
The Padrone was very busy recommending wines to those who had dressed for dinner. A handful of bank clerks and suchlike people he ignored completely, as did the Padrona, though some of them lifted their hats to her in passing and one youth openly admired her. Gian-Luca, of course, had no time to admire her, though he felt very conscious of her presence; when passing the bar he would look the other way because he so much wished to look at her. He hoped that she observed him with an armful of plates, quite as many as Schmidt could manage. When he felt her eyes on him, he assumed the grand air, he whisked out his napkin or made a remark with a shrug of the shoulders to Mario. If he had to approach her he became very stiff.
“A packet of Gold-Flakes, if you please, signora.”
“Ecco! How many packets?”
“Only one, please, signora.”
“Very well, there you are then, Gian-Luca.”
And off he would go without even a glance, convinced that the Padrona was smiling. He could feel that smile on the back of his head; it seemed to be singeing his hair.
They had had to abandon serving suppers at the Capo after a fortnight’s trial. The Padrone was too experienced a slave-driver not to be able to gauge with some niceness the limits of endurance of his slaves. At half-past ten or a little after, the waiters found themselves free, and Mario, Gian-Luca, and the still cheerful Schmidt were jostled together in a last frantic effort to get out of and into their clothes. Mario appeared to have wilted again, his round face looked weary and drawn; from time to time he would glance through the door as though expecting something to happen. And it happened quite soon; downstairs came the Padrone, they could hear him talking to himself—he was muttering fiercely under his breath.
“He works himself up,” thought Gian-Luca.
The Padrone stood still in the doorway for a moment with his soft brown eyes fixed on Mario; then he opened his mouth and began to shout. All the while he was shouting his eyes remained gentle—dove’s eyes in the face of a tiger. One by one he checked off the mistakes of the day, beginning with the horror of the salad:
“Scemo! Imbecille! Sporcaccione!” he shouted. “How long am I going to endure you! You limp round my place like an old lame mule; no one else would engage you; very well you know that! If you did not come cheap, I myself would dismiss you; you bring shame on my Capo di Monte.”
And then, as though Heaven itself cast off Mario, Schmidt happened to move his foot—the toe of his boot struck full on that joint that had ached so intolerably all day. With a sharp yell of anguish Mario collapsed like a rag doll against the wall; his face grew red and, to Gian-Luca’s horror, he suddenly burst into tears.