Dusk had settled in on rue Beaubien as I shuffled through the fresh snow. I was heading into my restaurant to inspect the veal stock I had started in the morning. It was the calm part of my week, Monday, when the restaurant was closed and still, and my routine was followed in a lazy manner. I took a moment to stop in front of my business neighbours’ shop. Mr. Klausen, the owner, had died the previous year. The facade was like a gravestone, with his name written above and the date it opened printed on the window below - ‘est. 1968’. Whenever I noted that date, I always wished I had asked him ‘Why here?’ Why open on rue Beaubien, and not Bernard Street? In 1968, ‘here’ was less than a kilometer away from ‘there’; yet it was miles away on the imaginary maps of Montreal. The maps that said who should live ‘here’, and who should live ‘there’. This thought left my mind just as quickly as it had entered, and I continued with my Monday routine.
I arrive early in the morning on Mondays, turn on the oven, and drink a coffee as I wait for the meat order to arrive. I listen to the hum of the refrigerators before opening the radio; classical music if I am comfortable with the thoughts in my head, talk-radio if not. My delivery arrives and I unpack the boxes of different meats – rib steak, hanger steak, foie gras, bacon, lamb shanks, duck legs - and place them in their respective containers, leaving the box of veal bones on a worktable. In the coming days each form of meat will be butchered, or marinated, or braised, someway treated according to its needs. I return to the box of veal bones and remove heavy bulbous hips joints, strings of sinewy rib-tips, broken vertebrate, and chunks of cross-sawed legs, and lay them on two aluminum baking sheets. The baking sheets appear as if pounded by a ball-peen hammer; small impressions forged overtime, as the hot metal softens slightly and succumbs to the roasting bones’ weight. I place the two bone-filled baking sheets in the hot oven and set a timer for seventeen-minute intervals. I then leave the oven and putter around the empty restaurant - it is calm, a rambunctious child that is asleep. At each interval of beeps, I return to the oven and examine the bones’ progress as I turn them one-by-one. I search for a deep amber and gold colour, a depth that is found just before the black and bitter char arrives. After the third interval, bones with the right tone are plucked from the baking sheet and tossed into a large-sixty-quart stockpot, while the anemic ones resume their roasting until they too have changed their colour. After the last bone is tossed, the fat is drained from the baking sheet and the sheet is placed over live burners. A cup or two of cold water is flashed onto the sheet’s surface, contorting and crystalizing the hot malleable metal, and I firmly rub the baking sheet with a wooden paddle; this action lifts a brown residual crust (the intensely flavoured formation from the scraps of meats left on the bones, their internal sugars caramelized) from the sheet’s surface into the shallow water. The murky liquid is poured over the roasted bones in the stockpot. It is then lifted onto its own burner and fresh cold water is added. The gas is opened and ignited. As the large flame underneath the pot of bones and water attempts to raise the temperature inside, I scrub the dirty baking sheets clean and put them away until the following week (they have only one purpose once they are damaged by the repeated roasting). I return to the stockpot and watch the flame’s effort. There is no rush. I am permitted to take time as I stare at the top of the stock and wait for it to boil. In another age, I would have enjoyed a cigarette as I waited for the first bubbles to rise; Inhaling and exhaling smoke as the effervescence travels further into steam.
Moments later, the bubbles are larger and more rapid and steam swirls over the pot’s entire horizon. A collection of scum, fat, and foam forms on the surface and glides across the simmering water. The three interlopers are removed with a ladle before the stock can reach a full boil and is said to have ‘rolled-over’. Their removal prevents the overly agitated boiling stock from pushing these undesirables down to the bottom of the pot and bonding with the liquid’s goodness. A rolled-over stock renders a veal jus cloudy and pasty on the lips - a description that should never be used to describe a veal jus. Once the active stock is safe and secured from scum and others, the temperature is reduced, and the liquid slowly calms down. The small bubbles return, paced to a relaxed heartbeat, as I stare at the pot. I continue adjusting the flame, as if steering a large ship, conscious the smallest variance in heat will lead to an unwanted consequence hours later. I study the small ebbs and flows in the current on top, created from the heat below, to help me direct the flame. Neither the controls nor the flames are dependable on my old stove – they are more felt than measured. In an act of parental affection towards my stock, I shuffle back to the restaurant every Monday evening to ensure the stock simmers well through the night.
The habit of visiting Mr. Klausen late in the afternoon on Mondays began shortly after I opened Atchie’s, my restaurant. I would head into his Jewelry shop before I inspected the stock’s progress. ‘Klausen’s’ was a point reference on the street for everyone in the neighborhood. And “Next to Klausen’s”, was my shorthand to describe Atchie’s location when it first opened. He and I rarely stepped beyond the subjects of business life, the history of the street and neighbourhood, or the passionate chronicling of the city’s poor decisions, when we spoke together. His personal life seemed out of bounds; only ghosts of family and friends could be heard in between the words he spoke. I assumed he was in his late seventies when we first met. He appeared the same age for the next ten years before passing away. He wore an old person’s uniform: grey slacks, comfortable worn-in Hushpuppy shoes, a light blue dress shirt, and a dark green cardigan. The weather seemed to have little effect on his wardrobe. Only on the hottest days of the year did the cardigan come off and reveal a short-sleeved dress shirt with a breast pocket filled with papers, pens, and a small calculator, with no room for a cell phone. He stood about five-foot-six – he may have peaked at five-foot-eight when he was younger - and was plumped and stocky, resembling an egg with stumpy legs. But it was his hair I loved, full and white, combed back with just a little cream to keep the big waves in place as they reached to the collar of his cardigan.
Outside, a sign hung perpendicular to the wall above the door and read KLAUSEN & Son’s Fine Jewelry. The ‘& Son’s Fine Jewelry’ on the sign was re-emerging from beneath a block of faded black paint. I was never sure if Mr. Klausen’s lackadaisical effort to hide the English on his sign, to conform with Quebec’s language laws, was an act of protest or simple fatigue with the province’s politics. Otherwise, the sign appeared as an historical artifact from the late 1960’s, as did the two window displays that winged Klausen’s front door. Each window was four feet from the ground and housed displays that looked like theatrical stages, with pinkish opaque drapes in the back. On the left stage was a framed ad for Rolex watches, on the right, De Beers Diamonds; both ads stonewashed by time.
The shop was dimly lit inside and appeared even older than the outside suggested. It did not house the ubiquitous fluorescent lights one might expect, nor did it have metal and glass display cases. Rather, in a line that divided the room, hung from the ceiling, two small early twentieth-century chandeliers, each with one working light bulb. On either side of the room were old wood and glass display cases with well-worn soft edges. Merchandise was only found in the right case near the front of the shop. Amongst the classic watches was a Swatch watch from the early eighties, a fad I endured as a teenager. Beyond giving me a smile the first time I recognized it, the watch informed me Mr. Klausen at one time had tried to keep up with trends.
The further one went into his shop less merchandise was found as the clutter emerged. Varying objects - a cordless drill, a box of date cookies, unopened mail – gathered on the display cases and appeared to multiply as the years went by. Deeper into the shop, the space transformed from a store into an office; like one that could be found at the back of a mechanic’s garage, or in the corner of an old commercial bakery. The lighting consisted of three lamps: one perched on a backwall-shelf, with the radio, that loomed over his shoulder while he sat in his chair as he read, one on shone his desk as he wrote, and one on a Scandinavian buffet table that illumined a double-burner hotplate, a toaster, and many less identifiable objects. The buffet was made of teak wood, with a simple countertop and sliding doors below. Beside the buffet table, in the corner, was a closet bathroom with the door slightly ajar. Mr. Klausen’s desk was deep enough for two people to sign a contract from either side, and wide enough to comfortably house a filing tray for signed contracts. Once he sat, he would lean back in his wooden swivel chair, with arm rests polished by his cardigan, and inquire.
“Good afternoon, Ronald” was always my greeting, a rare time in the day when I would hear my full first name. Not Ronnie or Atchie, as most people called me. “How are you?”
“We had a good week, business seems to be fine, but no big energy right now. Not sure about my food costs. How about you?” It took me years to realize I would answer the question ‘how are you?’, when anyone asked the question, with a report on the restaurant’s ups and downs, rather than with my personal state. Mr. Klausen always seemed comfortable with this reply.
“Fine, Fine. Why are you worried about your percentages?”
“I am not sure they are a falling into a healthy range.”
“Do you know your margins? On each item?”
“I think so, at least in a ballpark way” I lied a little, I knew I was always missing something in my calculations.
“Take care of your margins, and the percentages will take care of themselves. As long as every product generates profit, everything will be fine.” Then he chuckled and smiled as he added, “I do not believe in loss-leaders.”
Mr. Klausen was said to own half the block, and other buildings in the neighbourhood. I did not rent from him. I had heard from others he was tough in the negotiations, yet, they were happy with him as a landlord. He maintained his buildings and was helpful when needed. The store itself seemed to be an outdated passion, something personal he could not part with, a place to trade stories and sign leases. Only a few times did I see him make a sale to an old client.
“Are you in a rush today? Can you stay a while?” he asked.
“Yes, I would like to stay a while.” This was true. His store had always appealed to me more in winter than summer. And it was a change in pace. I never felt the need to take the lead in our conversations, as I did with my clients or staff; to be the one who makes an observation or adds some humour and entertainment to mix. In his space my only responsibility was to listen and answer his questions. I did try to participate more fully when our visits began, inquiring about his family and such. The conversation would quickly and politely move away from these subjects. My questions were like bunions in our dialogue and required a shifting of the weight to avoid direct contact with them. Overtime, I built a narrative of Mr. Klausen from the tidbits he chose to drop.
I did know he lived elsewhere in town and drove a 300D Mercedes-Benz. Like the Swatch, the car was from the early eighties. I was never sure if he had bought the Mercedes with an expectation of it being his last automobile (an optimistic purchase to make in his early forties), or if he simply never found an adequate replacement - having developed an apathy towards vehicles in general. The car was maintained, but not loved. One can tell if a car is loved. He never told me where he lived, nor did I ever see anyone with him in the car. That is how it was.
During the visit I am recounting now, he smiled and rose from his chair, walked slowly over to the buffet, slid open the door that lay beneath, and retrieved two pots: a large deep saucepan with a small pot stacked inside. He found some room for the pots to rest on the buffet’s tabletop, then turned to his left side and reached beyond the hot plate and toaster and picked up a small carton of eggs. I had not seen the eggs before, nor will I have noticed many of the elements he was about to use (I believe I saw the items as holding no inherent narrative and discarded them upon viewing. But as each one was brought into the light, a story formed that I could not have imagined.). Two eggs were placed in the small pot and Mr. Klausen walked to the bathroom and filled the pot with cold water from a small sink. He returned with his head down as he looked at the pot in his hand and placed it on one of the metal coil burners. He had stopped speaking. I knew he would speak again when he was ready. He returned to the bathroom with the larger saucepan and filled it with water as well and - at his own speed - placed it on the second burner.
“I learned this when I was in Japan. In the early seventies. I was about ten years younger than you are now. Still filled with piss-and-vinegar about business.” He laughed to himself as his sentence finished. “This store was already opened, and I had bought the building the year before. I convinced my wife I should build another business.” He then reached into the buffet table again and pulled out a bamboo steamer. “You know the feeling, once you open a business – you feel empowered – and begin to understand how a business works. You have removed the cloud that surrounds the ‘how to’, and you are comfortable with the fear of owning your own way!” Even though his back was towards me, he still pointed his finger into the air as part of the exclamation.
The bamboo steamer was placed on the large saucepan and its heat was turned on. He then turned on the heat for the eggs. “Once the water boils, you set a timer for four minutes.” He continued his slow movements, reaching for a third time into the buffet table and retrieved two very nice glass tumblers – wide, heavy-set bottoms - simple elegant design – and placed them onto the steamer. “Well, I had reached that point in my business cycle – we all eventually do, not sure if you have yet - and decided I could sell something other than jewels. A business is a business, as you know. The content of the business is mostly interchangeable.” A bottle of scotch was then produced from the poorly lit left side of the tabletop. It was one from Islay. Mr. Klausen poured two healthy amounts into each tumbler. Both the coils of the hot plate were now beginning to glow, and the pots began to rattle as the heat rose; small crackles of energy in the metal as it faced the cold water.
“It was 1971 and Japanese Hi-Fi electronics had already started to enter the market. I liked them. They had an aesthetic that appealed to me. The little switches and knobs. Silver on black. Bronze, or gold, on silver. The warm light of the tuner. Sony, Hitachi, Luxman, my favorite Sansui. Their transformers gave them weight. The copper windings wrapped around the core.” He was staring at the pots. Small vapers rose through the steamer and began to envelope the glasses. Silently we waited for the water to boil for the eggs. Then he picked up the timer, an old one that was cranked and clicked its way through the seconds, set it and placed it on the table. “Starting the timer too late is just as bad as missing the timer at the end; both ways you overcook the eggs.” His activity began again. From inside the buffet table a bag of bread was taken. “Rye bread. Not too light, but not the dark stuff.” He then put two slices into the toaster.
“In those days you had to travel to make the good deals. And I had a love of Japanese gems, the jade from the north. Hairpins were my favorite. They didn’t sell well, but I loved them.” He turned around for the first time and leaned back against the buffet’s top. “I met some people in Tokyo. I had big plans for stores all over the city. It worked for a while, then things changed in the market. The transformer turned into a transiter, and the stereos looked big, but they had lost their weight. The sound was also big, but flat. And they became cheap, nothing a specialist needed to sell. Most the brand names were soon found in the big furniture stores, next to the couches and dining sets. The stereo components became just another object in a room, nothing special. I couldn’t compete with the big stores, nor did I want to. I sold all my stock, even the leases on the stores, and got out. When everything was done, my accountant told me I had made one dollar on the whole venture.” He laughed and said “I still have my Sansui.
“Then I realized real estate was slower, but safer.” Again, he lifted his right hand and pointed to the ceiling. “Nonetheless, I did learn on my trip to Japan how to prepare this treat for us today.” He paused and stared at me, a small piece of theatre for my benefit, I smiled back. “When I was there, I took a small trip to Itoigawa, in the Niigata Prefecture. On the west coast, about a five-hour train ride from Tokyo as I remember it. I was there to meet a Jade dealer. A gentle man, in his late sixties. Mr. Hoderi was his name. He had studied at Oxford before the war and was a translator for Americans after the war. We initially met through correspondence – he wrote much better than me, beautiful penmanship – so I stayed at his house while we did business. Lovely place. He had decided to return to his village after having worked for the Americans, to his family and their business in jade. The world had gotten too busy, as he put it. He had no family of his own - I never asked why.” He stopped for another moment, looked down towards his shoes then turned his head as if to examine the carpet, and continued, “On the second day, in the afternoon he served me what I am about to serve you. And he taught me how do it, just as I am teaching you.”
The toast jumped just as he finished his sentence. He placed each slice on one of two small plates and began to coat them with butter “Do not go lightly on the butter. And I have discovered that the butter tastes better, if it is left out on the counter for two or three days, after its color has darkened a little in has a different shine - waxy.”
The timer rang, and with a speed that surprised me, Mr. Klausen took the pot of eggs to the bathroom and began pouring water over top of them. From the acoustical-bathroom he piped, “you have to cool them with water, do not pour out the hot water first and add cold water. That is too quick a contrast in temperature. Just run the cold water over top. The temperature will slowly change” I allowed him to forget I was a chef, and that I understood how he was cooking the eggs.
He left the water running over the eggs and returned. He turned off the empty burner and stuck his finger into one of the two scotches. “The eggs and scotch have to be harmonious in temperature. That is what Mr. Hoderi taught me.” Then he went back to the bathroom and returned with the eggs. “If the peel comes off nicely that is a good omen. You do not want to cool the eggs completely, just a few minutes under the cold water” He peeled each egg and plopped it into a scotch glass that remained on the steamer.
“Really?” I said, reacting to the unexpected act of sacrilege (I think those were the first words I had said through the whole process).
“Yes, really! You will see. I couldn’t believe it the first time I tried it.”
He was now very animated. I imagined the anticipation in his mind. I have felt the same anticipation waiting for a cake to come out of an oven, one’s success or failure presented in a corporal form.
He quickly cut the bread – again I had missed the small cutting board and knife – into small strips, like my mother used to for soft boiled eggs. He placed the strips back onto the plates and brought one plate to me. He placed the second plate on his side of the desk.
He hustled back to the scotch and eggs on the steamer. Carefully, he picked up each glass and dried it off with a cloth. He then put a teaspoon in each, conscious not to break the egg, and brought them to the table. Once in his chair, he leaned forward and passed one of the tumblers to me.
“Let’s see if we got this right? It comes down to the egg.”
I had seen Mr. Klausen laugh from time to time over the years, and often he would have a smile at the beginning of the day, but as he focused on his concoction his face truly brightened. He became a five-year-old seeing a wrapped gift box, desiring a red firetruck to be inside. He spoke to me as much as he spoke to himself.
“Now take the rye bread and butter. Good. Now dip it inside. Just into the scotch! Good. See how the golden liquid has become cloudy.”
His desk lamp shone perfectly on the glass; I could see the swirls of butter as they worked their way through the warm scotch.
“Now, here comes the moment of truth. Take the spoon and cut into the egg. It should be soft at the core. Even a bit softer than the eggs in Ramen. You have had Ramen?”
I nodded.
“Good.”
When we broke into our eggs, both released a bright yellow thick flowing yolk.
“Bravo! Well done.” I admired how he congratulated himself in an unreflective and earnest way. His audience - me - was only half-material to him in that moment.
“Now dip the rye bread back in, coat it with the yolk, and scoop some of the egg white onto. Now quickly, eat it.”
The warm scotch, with its sweet-smoky-peaty flavor and the fire of the alcohol, were balanced by the richness of the egg and butter; a dessert that could be paired with a cigar. Even the choice of rye bread complimented the flavors, rather than taking everything in a different direction.
“It is lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yes, surprisingly. But it also makes sense. The egg, the butter, and the rye bread work well too.”
“They don’t really have rye bread in Japan. Definitely not back in the 70’s when I was there Mr. Hoderi used ‘Shokupan’, a white fluffy bread, too sweet for me. He smeared on a little sweet red bean paste, instead of butter, which I loved. I thought the rye would go well with the whisky. And the butter reminded me of a hot toddy. I once tried to find the same red bean paste - gave up. Been using butter for years.”
“Is this traditional? I know they love their scotch in Japan, but this seems really out there.”
“Mr. Hoderi said it was. But then again, he was a Gem salesman. Most salesmen are more interested in a good story than the truth.” He smiled and winked.
I dipped my toast a few more times. It became messy. The egg yolk stuck to the side of the glass and the breadcrumbs thickened the scotch. I began to use the spoon and brought the tumbler close to my face – like soup.
“Did you buy some gems from Mr. Hoderi?”
“Yes, of course. You don’t stay at someone’s house without buying from them. And we got along great. We kept in touch for about ten years after my visit, sending letters back and forth. I would buy only small things. Loved his letters sometimes more than the Jade.” Mr. Klausen laughed to himself.
“Do you still have some jade here?”
“No. I only have a gift he mailed me – it was the last time I received one of his letters, he never responded to mine after that. It was an uncharacteristically short note, along with it a pen box. He wished me well, and inside the box were two hairpins: the tide twins or tide jewels. In his note he reminded me who they were.”
“The tide jewels?”
“Yes, the tide jewels. The white Jade one is the twin Kanju, and the blue Jade one is called Manju. I can’t imagine what they are worth. So beautiful, I never had them appraised. I knew I would never sell them.”
“But what do they have to do with the tides? Like in the ocean?”
“Sorry, yes, it’s not the jade that makes them jewels, it’s their story. Kanju is the tide jewel of ebbs, and Manju is the twin of flow. In Folklore they are two gods that control the tides. There is a whole story. I can never remember it. But from what I gathered; Manju, the flow, pushes someone down, and Kanju, the ebb, restores them.” He rested a moment, looking around the room with a slow gaze, as if he was taking it all in, and said “Funny thing, I would have thought it was the opposite, the flow being positive.”
We sat there for a moment in silence, both of us sated by the concoction of drink and food. Dusk had finally fallen, and his store began to feel even more like a cave - a place to slumber.
Then Mr. Klausen broke the silence, instructing me to pass the glasses over to him for washing and said that I should be on my way. “You must have things to do”, he said. I did as I was told and thanked him as I left his shop.
A year or so later Mr. Klausen died; his shop remained in stasis, no one entered or left, and his buildings were put in the hands of a trustee. Rumors on the street said his estate was in limbo, in a financial purgatory, as his family and lawyers tried to settle his affairs. Some said there was infighting amongst his children, others said Mr. Klausen had entirely cut off his family. Maybe I had drawn the wrong conclusion about his sign. Maybe the ‘& Son’s’ was crossed out for a reason beyond politics. Or, perhaps, a personal calamity had once occured, one that has been lost to time. I do not know; I was witness to nothing. I only saw the joy he had as he broke his egg.
I returned to Atchie’s and checked on the veal stock. For a moment I stared at the gentle current on its top. I saw the ebbs and flows, and wished I could linger with a cigarette.
Once I felt assured my stock was settled and safe for the night, I headed home through snow filled streets.