Murder on the Ile Sordou Read Online Free PDF Page A

Buffa (paying him too much), to catch some fish to grill. The meal had been simple, but fresh, and the Le Bons had been wildly enthusiastic. They told Villey he would be welcome to arrive early that spring, to get the kitchen ready, and experiment with menus on the staff, until the first guests would arrive in July. Émile Villey and Maxime Le Bon had finished the evening of his interview drinking twenty-year-old Armagnac and dreaming of Michelin stars.
    It was only after Villey had signed a three-year contract with the Le Bons that news was passed down to him via the extensive and rapid French chefs’ network: the Le Bons had been so enthusiastic because Villey had been the only applicant. After a few more visits to the island, Villey figured out why he had been the only one to apply for the job: given the remoteness of the island it would be almost impossible to produce a varied menu. There would be no exotic ingredients; even the basics would have to be delivered by boat from Marseille. And Marseille was still rough-and-tumble Marseille; it would never be, even with investments like the ones the Le Bons had made, Saint-Tropez, Capri, or even Aix-en-Provence. Apprehensive, the young chef had been ready to break his contract, disappearing into some restaurant in New York, or Italy, until he went back to the island in August for yet another meeting with the Le Bons, who were virtually camping out, overseeing the hotel’s renovations. After their brainstorming session, Villey went swimming along the cliffs and, floating weightlessly on his back, looked at the blue sky above. There was silence all around him, except for the splashing noise he made with his hands, and the far-off noise of the
cigales
who hung out in Sordou’s few trees. Putting his goggles on—a gift from his parents, who themselves had only once been to the sea—he swam along the underwater cliffs and marveled at the sea life, each tiny colorful fish swimming in the same direction as he did, each one living in a group, but alone at the same time.
    As Villey heaved himself up onto a flat rock and dried off in the sun, he reminded himself of his apprenticeship years: the rude awakenings at 6 a.m. in freezing-cold Berry, when it was still dark out and frost covered the ground and every other surface; working solidly in a large restaurant kitchen, long after midnight, six days a week, until his hands ached and were covered in cuts and sores. Saturday night was the apprentices’ only solace, which they shared with the nursing students at the opposite end of town, drinking beers and playing foosball. He soon became a
saucier
, then rose to the post as sous-chef for a manic-depressive two-starred chef near Lille who thought it funny to play practical jokes on his kitchen staff in the middle of a busy Sunday lunch. And then came his coup: a position as the fish chef at Le Meurice in Paris, where working conditions, despite the glamorous hotel and three-starred restaurant, were no better than his first
apprentisage
at the Auberge des Oiseaux in Berry. At night he would fall into his small bed in a studio in the twentieth
arrondissement
, exhausted. And the studio, where his neighbors didn’t seem to work and listened to rap all day and night, cost him 850 euros a month; half of his salary.
    Sordou would be
his
challenge, Émile decided as he toweled off that hot August day. Were there not other great restaurants in remote places? Iceland, for example? Or some South Seas islands? He almost ran back to the hotel, and sat down and drew up a plan, which included a kitchen garden and pots for herbs. If he planted in early spring of the opening season, then he could have Provençal summer vegetables to plan the menu around. If Villey would tend to the garden, the Le Bons promised they would set aside a plot of land. The architect even planned a six-foot-high stone wall that would protect
le potager
from the sea’s winds.
    Villey continued