Read Online The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tatjana Soli
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mistake.”
Richard shook his head. He hated this about Ann, how she took a headstrong position and then reversed herself. “It’s paid for. We’re doing this.”
The truth was that Richard had been so stressed by the restaurant opening he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but now that the obstacle had been removed, he felt … empty. What did one do without crushing pressure every waking moment? The lack of tension scared him, but there was a moment yesterday while he was deep underwater when he had felt curiously at peace, as if the pressure of the water both held him down and together; without it he was in danger of flying apart. He still hadn’t processed the experience and was shy to describe it.
He had never imagined the sun from underwater, had never seen such brilliant tropical fish—not in a pan, or even baked whole—but alive, swimming. It was a mystical experience to be at the source of one’s food, swimming in the same element it did. For twenty minutes, he forgot about everything, including, blissfully, the disaster of his career. Not quite true. Underwater, the words of his hero, Brillat-Savarin, came to him and made sense for the first time: The universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats.
He was so mesmerized that the dive master had to bang on his tank and angrily signal for him to ascend. It was a moment as pure as his first discovery that food could be something more than mere sustenance.
* * *
Richard’s parents were first-generation immigrants from Ireland. They had squatted down in a nondescript suburb of Stockton, California—his father, a mechanic; his mother, a schoolteacher—and never looked up again. Richard’s childhood was a long, devastating rotation of Hamburger Helper, Wonder Bread, Jell-O, and tuna melts blanketed in Velveeta cheese.
His parents took no joy in eating. Food was simply ballast. Taught by their parents to prepare for a rainy day (and all the days in Ireland were rainy), Richard’s parents felt the necessity of building a fortresslike nest before starting a family. First they saved to buy the garage Richard’s father worked in (becoming a small-business owner was the holy grail they had come to America for). Then they decided they needed to own a house. Substantial savings were essential, and after that a college fund, which ended up half filled by the time Richard was finally born to now very middle-aged parents. As a teenager being raised by the near elderly, gray hair and bad knees the norm, Richard himself developed a preternatural maturity about him. At fourteen, he monitored his salt intake and watched The MacNeil/Lehrer Report every night, wedged on the couch between them.
Going back to Ireland during summer vacations, Richard confronted the dark sources of his parents’ parsimony. His grandparents had slogged through a carb-laden adulthood in a postwar Europe marked by lack. The apartment they lived in all their lives was dark, with small, high windows that blocked the cold, as well as air and sunlight; the place had the permanent odor of root vegetables and things kept beyond their prime. His grandmother tortured him with an unimaginable repertoire of family recipes passed down through the Dolan generations: mutton broth, nettle soup, rarebit, white pudding sausage, cabbage-and-bacon pie, skirlie, boiled or fried or baked boxty, potato champ, more potatoes, potatoes on potatoes, on and on. A sadistic, starchy, leaden nightmare.
But salvation finds us wherever we are hiding.
Back in Stockton, new neighbors moved in across the street: a professor at the local college with his FRENCH! wife, Chloe, and their son, Claude, who was the same age as Richard. Richard’s first meals over at their house, as Claude’s new best friend, were remembered more fiercely, were more formative, than his first sexual experiences: melted Brie on a toasted baguette with fresh arugula on top, for dessert
Richard shook his head. He hated this about Ann, how she took a headstrong position and then reversed herself. “It’s paid for. We’re doing this.”
The truth was that Richard had been so stressed by the restaurant opening he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but now that the obstacle had been removed, he felt … empty. What did one do without crushing pressure every waking moment? The lack of tension scared him, but there was a moment yesterday while he was deep underwater when he had felt curiously at peace, as if the pressure of the water both held him down and together; without it he was in danger of flying apart. He still hadn’t processed the experience and was shy to describe it.
He had never imagined the sun from underwater, had never seen such brilliant tropical fish—not in a pan, or even baked whole—but alive, swimming. It was a mystical experience to be at the source of one’s food, swimming in the same element it did. For twenty minutes, he forgot about everything, including, blissfully, the disaster of his career. Not quite true. Underwater, the words of his hero, Brillat-Savarin, came to him and made sense for the first time: The universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats.
He was so mesmerized that the dive master had to bang on his tank and angrily signal for him to ascend. It was a moment as pure as his first discovery that food could be something more than mere sustenance.
* * *
Richard’s parents were first-generation immigrants from Ireland. They had squatted down in a nondescript suburb of Stockton, California—his father, a mechanic; his mother, a schoolteacher—and never looked up again. Richard’s childhood was a long, devastating rotation of Hamburger Helper, Wonder Bread, Jell-O, and tuna melts blanketed in Velveeta cheese.
His parents took no joy in eating. Food was simply ballast. Taught by their parents to prepare for a rainy day (and all the days in Ireland were rainy), Richard’s parents felt the necessity of building a fortresslike nest before starting a family. First they saved to buy the garage Richard’s father worked in (becoming a small-business owner was the holy grail they had come to America for). Then they decided they needed to own a house. Substantial savings were essential, and after that a college fund, which ended up half filled by the time Richard was finally born to now very middle-aged parents. As a teenager being raised by the near elderly, gray hair and bad knees the norm, Richard himself developed a preternatural maturity about him. At fourteen, he monitored his salt intake and watched The MacNeil/Lehrer Report every night, wedged on the couch between them.
Going back to Ireland during summer vacations, Richard confronted the dark sources of his parents’ parsimony. His grandparents had slogged through a carb-laden adulthood in a postwar Europe marked by lack. The apartment they lived in all their lives was dark, with small, high windows that blocked the cold, as well as air and sunlight; the place had the permanent odor of root vegetables and things kept beyond their prime. His grandmother tortured him with an unimaginable repertoire of family recipes passed down through the Dolan generations: mutton broth, nettle soup, rarebit, white pudding sausage, cabbage-and-bacon pie, skirlie, boiled or fried or baked boxty, potato champ, more potatoes, potatoes on potatoes, on and on. A sadistic, starchy, leaden nightmare.
But salvation finds us wherever we are hiding.
Back in Stockton, new neighbors moved in across the street: a professor at the local college with his FRENCH! wife, Chloe, and their son, Claude, who was the same age as Richard. Richard’s first meals over at their house, as Claude’s new best friend, were remembered more fiercely, were more formative, than his first sexual experiences: melted Brie on a toasted baguette with fresh arugula on top, for dessert
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