Dying for Chocolate

“Now what have we here?” asked General Farquhar as he paced off steps to the bar. He picked up liquor bottles and examined the labels, then took the tops off and gave each a healthy sniff.

“New way to get a buzz, General?” asked Julian.

“You have to be careful, son, you never know when substitutions can be made,” he replied seriously. Julian pulled his mouth into a smirk-grin that might or might not have been friendly. Hastily, I started another round with the crudites.

Brian assumed the role of gracious host. He popped the champagne cork and then flitted from person to person like a honeybee attending flowers. Weezie’s increasingly loud voice pierced the cool evening air. Once the champagne was dispensed, the host, hostess, and four guests arranged themselves into two groups. Brian appeared engrossed with Sissy and Julian, and Weezie held forth to the Farquhars. At one point Weezie nodded to me, which I took to mean that we should start dinner. I also could not help but notice how she shot several furtive glances in her handsome husband’s direction, and how her voice seemed to grow louder each time she noticed Brian moving closer to Sissy.

Inside, I removed the torta from the warming oven and readied the mushrooms for their brief sautéing. I had put the foil packets of lamb chops in the other oven; the guests would open them at table. I lit the candles and called the assembly to dinner with a set of tiny bells Weezie had given me for that purpose.

“Suggest,” whispered Weezie as she brushed past me in a cloud of chiffon and sweet perfume.

“Aye aye, Captain,” I said clearly.

“Let’s avoid navy terms, shall we?” said the general with a wink.

“Sissy, darling,” said Weezie, “come and sit down next to me.”

No, I wanted to say, that’s not the way the seating is supposed to . . . But I let Weezie arrange things in her own way. With a toss of her silver-blond mane she put Sissy on her left and the general on her right. This put Adele on Brian’s right and Julian across from her, which was correct enough in the end. But keeping Sissy away from Brian, not etiquette, had been Weezie’s top priority.

“What lovely flowers, dear,” Adele confided to Weezie. She leaned forward to admire the arrangement of white rosebuds, ruffle-edged pink tulips, and fragrant purple hyacinths. “Utterly, utterly reminiscent of love.”

“Why, thank you,” said Weezie, without acknowledging the caterer who had ordered them. She did look up and give me another of her withering looks, however, which I figured meant that it was time to start suggesting.

“Food for love,” I began, “has a long and illustrious history.” All eyes were on me. I picked up the chardon-nay and began to circle the table, filling the crystal glasses as I spoke. “In the 1400s the Arab sheikh Nefzawi wrote the first known treatise on the subject. Among other recommendations, he mentioned a number of foods,” the wine bottle teetered over Adele’s glass as I paused, “to excite passionate desire.”

There was an audible collective sigh. I served the oysters to enthusiastic approval from all but Julian, who nibbled unobtrusively on carrots, looking sullen.

“Next is Shrimp Dumpling Soup,” I said as I ladled delectable little mouthfuls into each white-and-gold bowl along with the broth. When I had finished passing them around, I said, “The myth surrounding Aphrodite’s birth holds that she was borne to dry land on the crest of a wave. The word aphros means foam. Traditionally, any product from the sea, Aphrodite’s birthplace, has aphrodisiacal properties. In their raw state, seafood such as the oysters contains iodine, reputed to excite the libido.”

“Mm,” said Weezie after her first spoonful. “Positively sensuous, n’est-ce pas?”

Brian did not look at his wife but instead gave Sissy a wink. He tilted his soup plate to catch the last dumpling, then noisily sucked it down. After a moment he said, “I’ve heard of this Nefzawi. Seems to me he says one of the things that turns a man on is ‘various women’s faces.’ I can buy that.”

Sissy said nothing, only turned over an ornate silver fork to see who had made it.

“When a man ages,” Julian said flatly, “maybe various women are what he needs to turn him on.”

Weezie gave me an icy look.

I wanted to say, This is not my fault.

“Now let me tell you something about oysters,” said the general. “Well, actually, it has to do with pearls. Did you know that Mussolini’s mistress absolutely refused to wear pearls after she heard about the Nazi experiments to coat the things with poison chemicals? The poison would be absorbed through the skin.”

Adele cleared her throat, as in, Shut up.

“I’m serious now!” cried the general. “And Ceausescu wore a new pair of shoes every day because he had heard about how the CIA could introduce poisons through the soles. His wife refused to have her hair bleached because she had heard that peroxide could be used for cheap torture on exposed nerve cells. It’s the truth!”