The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [67]
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I received this morning a most extraordinary document. It indicates — the good news — that Korky Kummerbund may still be alive. It also indicates — the bad news — that he is under considerable distress and possibly in great danger. I’ll let the document, which is carefully handwritten and which came via ordinary mail in a standard number 10 envelope, speak for itself.
Dear Norman:
The following article must appear in the Bugle as soon as possible under my byline if I am to have any chance of being seen alive again. It must be word-for-word or I will be starved to death. As it is, until the meal described below, I had not had anything to eat for more than a week. I am allowed to tell you that I am under extreme duress from lack of food and noise on a loop, but that is all.
Your trusting friend,
Korky
A UNIQUE REPAST
by Korky Kummerbund
It is not difficult to describe the decor at this new eatery, which opened recently to a very select clientele. It is strictly no-frills, a setting informed by a radical minimalism that announces an anti-aesthetic so total it defines a whole new aesthetic.
Suffice it to say, the surroundings achieved a congruity with the food and service to a remarkable degree. The walls are … well, walls, unfinished gray chalkboard. The floor, of concrete, is covered with a thin carpet of gray-beige, and the ceiling matches the walls. The toilet facilities, over in the corner, are rudimentary but adequate. The food is served through a hinged pet flap in the bottom of a sturdy door of solid wood.
To start this memorable dining experience, I had what the simple but elegant, hand-printed menu called bouillon aux bons morceaux de papier journal. It was in fact a transparently thin bouillon with florets of newsprint cut from one of my food columns in the Bugle. I was unable to discern which particular column. The bouillon came in a tin bowl with a ring attached to the rim for hanging. Along with the white plastic soup spoon, which had a slightly flaring handle, the bowl made for a fittingly Spartan vessel for the dish, especially when arrayed against the scarred Formica top of the table and the simple and effective lighting, a naked 75-watt bulb hanging from a standard ceiling fixture, dirty white against dirty white.
Appetite truly being the best relish, it takes an effort to describe how delicious the bouillon and the bouillon-soaked newsprint tasted. The first sip of the nearly clear liquid is like a revelation, an epiphany of the senses, as the tongue and the esophagus surrender to its essential minerality, satisfying a primordial craving for salt in a way hard to describe with mere words. (It brought to mind the remark by A.J. Denny that food gives the tongue a voice beyond language.) The florets of newsprint, cut into simple, almost child-like patterns, added body to the fluid and, when properly chewed, proved not all that difficult to swallow.
It was, in any event, the perfect prelude to the fish, or should I say amphibian, course. The menu lists les petites tranches de crapaud grillées avec des allumettes. The toad came under the door on a small, stark cutting board complete with a box of wooden matches, plastic fork, and X-Acto knife. To my great delight, it was accompanied by a pint of Thunderbird, a sweetish little wine with no pretensions to complexity whatsoever.
If anything, the bouillon and newsprint had whetted my appetite, and I tore into this delicacy with a gusto I usually reserve for more prepossessing dishes. The truth: I found every morsel of the thing delectable, especially after I had gotten the hang of cutting off an appropriately sized piece and skewering it on the tip of the X-Acto knife where, with one or two matches, I could crisp it nicely. The sulfur from the matches added its own distinct resonance to a taste hard to limn with mere words. The essence was