Kathy Schilbach

‘Voilà.’ Michelin-starred chef Henri-Auguste scoops the pieces of mushroom out of the pan and slides them on to my plate. I look across at the timer: nine minutes gone. Twenty-one minutes to go.

         We’re in the kitchen of his château with its beamed ceiling and bunches of herbs hanging from hooks. I’m sitting at the table while he stands at the stove.

         Sweat prickles out at my armpits. I spear a chunk of mushroom with my fork but don’t bring it to my mouth. Before it was cooked, it gave off the subtle scent of a faded rose. Now, it’s only the duck fat Henri-Auguste used that I can smell.

         ‘Let’s get this straight,’ I say, aware I’m playing for time. ‘For thirty minutes –’

         ‘Twenty, Johnny. There are only twenty minutes left. Quick now.’

         ‘I must eat three of these mushrooms.’

         ‘Mushrooms you choose. Three different mushrooms. Hurry up and eat.’

         My eyes go to the shallow wicker basket on the table and the mushrooms laid out in it. They exude the rich woodland smells of moss and dead leaves mulching. Their colours are warm forest colours: browns and whites and russet reds. ‘One of them is poisonous –’

         ‘Deadly, Johnny. One of them is deadly.’

Just one? His dislike of me, hatred even, pulses from him and gives me pause. Is that the outcome he wants? My death?

No, I decide, watching him bring his wine glass to his lips. Okay, so he’s a gambler, like me, and always relishes a good game of chance.

But he wants the €65,000 I owe him even more. Sixty-five thousand euros. That’s why he’s summoned me to his château this damp October afternoon and sprung this crazy challenge on me.

         I keep my expression neutral. But my palms are slippery, and I have to put the fork down and wipe my hands on my serviette. ‘If I avoid choosing the deadly one, if I survive the next twenty –’

         ‘Eighteen. Quick, hurry now.’

         ‘The next eighteen minutes, my debt to you is wiped out. I won’t owe you a single centime.’

         ‘Correct. You have my word. Now eat.’

         I bring the piece of mushroom up to my mouth and push it in past dry lips. I don’t eat it straight away. Instead, I move it round my teeth and over my tongue. No bitterness. I chew, cautiously at first. The texture is soft and squidgy, not unpleasant. I swallow it and pause an instant, taking stock. I’m still alive. No raging pain gripping at my intestines. My shoulders ease, and I pick up a second piece of the mushroom.

         ‘Choose another one,’ Henri-Auguste says. ‘Now. I’ll cook it while you’re eating that one. Or would you rather eat it raw?’

         I pick out a smallish golden yellow mushroom. Its cap is funnel-shaped and has a wavy outer edge. I bring it to my nose: it smells of apricots.

         ‘This one,’ I say. I’m a hundred per cent certain it’s a chanterelle, and excellent eating. ‘I’ll have it cooked.’

         ‘I’m surprised.’ Taking it from me, he cuts it in half lengthwise and puts the two halves in the pan. ‘You appear to know your mushrooms.’

         ‘My grandmother used to live in France. Not too far from here in fact.’ My one tie to France. Apart from Eloïse of course. ‘When we were younger,’ I hurry on, pushing all thought of Eloïse out of my mind, ‘My sister and I would spend the school holidays with her. Every autumn we’d go mushrooming. An annual treat.’

         ‘I see.’ His mouth crisps, and I have to work to hide my smile. The odds were already stacked in my favour – ten mushrooms in the basket (I’d counted) and only one can kill me. And now Henri-Auguste has realised my odds are even better than he thought.

         I feel no sympathy. Henri-Auguste Montmorency de Beauvallon lives in a château as large as his name is long. His success as a chef and TV personality has made him a multi-millionaire. He won’t miss a trifling €65,000.

         I take a piece of bread and mop up the juices of the first mushroom, a greencracked brittlegill, white with an olive-green tinge to the cap. Delicious. The ones my grandmother put into her soups had a nuttier taste though, I remember, helping myself to some more wine.

         ‘Fourteen minutes.’ Henri-Auguste tips the second mushroom from the pan on to my plate. ‘Choose a third one. Quick now.’

         I cut into the chanterelle, inhaling its sweet, peppery smell, and hesitate. Is my confidence misplaced? My grandmother always cautioned us against confusing good-to-eat mushrooms with their poisonous lookalikes. But I was a boy at the time and didn’t always listen.

A bead of sweat runs down my cheek. I lift a mushroom from the basket. ‘This one.’ It’s an ink cap. Its oval cap is a greyish-white, darker at the top, and closed, telling me it’s young and good to eat.

         Do I detect the hint of a smile on Henri-Auguste’s lips? I let go of the mushroom as though it has burnt me. A warning, something about not mixing ink caps and alcohol, pops into my mind. ‘No. This one.’ Creamy-white, its stalk looks like finely pleated cloth, its cap like folds of the same cloth. My grandmother picked and ate them, I recall. Well-cooked, they’re perfectly safe. ‘Yes. This one.’

         My stomach swirls queasily as I push a piece of the chanterelle into my mouth. I chew, on the alert for a bitter taste or a burning sensation or – anything else that might warn me. Henri-Auguste slices the creamy-white mushroom I’ve chosen into the pan and adds a knob of duck fat that sizzles in the heat. On the other side of the room a log shifts, sending a flurry of sparks up the chimney.

I swallow, wait a moment, feel my shoulders lose their tension. ‘Things still going well at the Miramaris?’ I ask, making conversation, filling the silence. ‘Eloïse still working there?’

         ‘Ah. Eloïse. I was wondering when you’d ask about her.’ There’s a sudden, openly hostile edge to Henri-Auguste’s voice, and the hackles rise at the back of my neck.

         I’d first met Eloïse at the casino Henri-Auguste had bought a year or so before, the Paris Miramaris. A professional gambler, I mainly play poker online. But every now and then I like to get out and play against people who are sitting within touching distance of me. That way, I can smell their despair, enjoy the expressions on their faces when it dawns on them they’re losing.

         All at once my heart gives an odd little thump. Have I got things wrong? I’d played at the casino three weeks before and – unusually for me – lost heavily. Henri-Auguste covered my losses, which means I now owe him the money. I assumed that’s why he summoned me to the château, and I’ve come prepared to plead for longer to repay the debt. Instead, he’s suggested this potentially deadly game with the mushrooms, no doubt confident the gambler in me would be bound to accept.

         So what is he playing at? Is it perhaps nothing to do with the money I owe him? I think about the sudden, open hostility in his voice. Something to do with Eloïse instead?

But if so, what? What’s the connection?

I look at the timer. Only nine minutes to go.

         Is it hot in the kitchen or is it me? I’m finding it harder and harder to swallow. Is it a symptom of –? I puff out a shaky breath. I’m eating a chanterelle. A common-or-garden chanterelle, for Christ’s sake. Harmless. Totally harmless.

         Six minutes left. Five and three-quarter minutes. Is time standing still?

         It’s no good. I can’t go on. I’ll stop this stupid game, tell him I’ll pay him the money.

         I watch him flip the slices of mushroom over in the pan. He turns my way, catches me watching him, and his upper lip curls. That decides me. The contempt I see in his face decides me. I’ll play on.

         And I’ll win. Five and a half minutes left. This will be my last mushroom. My grandmother ate mushrooms like these. I’ve eaten them. With no ill effects. I’ve got nothing to lose.

         I run my tongue across my teeth. ‘Eloïse and I – we drifted apart.’

         ‘When she told you she was pregnant with your child.’

I stare at him. How does he know about that? And just what the hell’s it got to do with him anyway?

Henri-Auguste slaps the creamy-white mushroom down on my plate. ‘Eat up. You’ve got three minutes.’

         I take a hefty gulp of wine. ‘I wasn’t, uh, ready for that kind of commitment.’ I’d told her it was her problem, not mine.

         ‘Eat.’ His voice is a growl.

         Chew and swallow. Chew and swallow. The taste is mildly mushroomy, but I hardly notice. I’m watching the timer, finishing my last mouthful just as it pings.

         I slump back in my chair. It’s over – and I’ve won.

         ‘You never answered my question,’ I say, smiling broadly. Relief has never felt so good. ‘Is Eloïse still working at the Miramaris?’

         Henri-Auguste leans back against the stove, pushes his hands into his pockets. ‘My daughter – Eloïse – had an abortion.’

All at once, my mind is swirling. I can’t take it in. His daughter? Eloïse is his daughter? She’d never said.

‘Perhaps she really loved you,’ Henri-Auguste says. ‘Though I can’t understand why. Or perhaps she really wanted the child.’ He pauses, draws in a long breath. ‘She killed herself. Exactly a month ago today.’

         For the space of a heartbeat, I can’t speak. Then: ‘I’m sorry.’

         ‘Hah! How easy it is to say those words. You killed her, Johnny, as surely as if you’d put the rope round her neck.’

         I flinch.

         ‘My bright, beautiful Eloïse – you robbed her of her future. If this hadn’t worked,’ he goes on, ‘I’d have got my revenge some other way.’

         That rouses me. ‘It didn’t work, though, did it? I’m still alive.’

         His laugh is bitter, pain mixed with contempt. ‘Give it a couple of hours and you’ll wish you weren’t.’

         ‘I don’t understand.’ It hurts to swallow. My heartbeat is drumming in my ears.

         ‘I lied, Johnny. There was nothing wrong with the mushrooms. None of them were poisonous. But you were concentrating so hard on them, deciding which ones to choose, you didn’t give the wine a second thought.’

         ‘The –?’ My mouth is dry.

         ‘It’s laced with arsenic, Johnny.’

         ‘But –’ I can’t finish the sentence. Any sentence.

         ‘How?’ Henri-Auguste supplies. ‘When you saw me too drink the wine?’

         I manage a nod. My stomach spasms, twists, tightens.

         ‘I brought my glass up to my lips, Johnny, but didn’t drink any of it. Ever the chef, I tipped it in with the cooking juices. And so, alas, in a very short while, you’ll be getting cramps in your stomach. You’ll vomit. You’ll feel –’

         With a snarl, I scrape my chair back, push myself to my feet.

         ‘Sit down, Johnny. Sit down.’ His smile is a taunt. He holds the wine bottle up. ‘Care for a top-up?’

END