“Well, 'Arry,” said Gramp.
“En alerte,” snapped 'Arry to the waiters, and he bowed over us. “What to eat?”
Mama said, “I think you do well with fish. Wasn't there a dish called' ‘Arry's’ ‘orror?’”
“I am pleased,” said 'Arry. “You mean 'Arry's 'addock. But this year we use not the'addock, but the shad.”
Still, in Mama's travel journal it's listed as “'Arry's 'orror.” Take a four-pound shad, and split it along the back. Rub the fish down with a mixture of salt, pepper, a ground clove, and a clove of garlic. Make a dressing of a half-cup of melted butter, two ounces of mixed lime and lemon juice, and two small fresh red peppers ground up. Now bake the fish in a hot oven of about 400° F. for half an hour and keep basting the fish with the dressing. Then remove the fish to a plate, and pour the rest of the dressing over it. If spring onions, cumin seeds, and citronella leaf-stalks are still to be had, garnish the fish with them.
'Arry himself served the dish to us, and I remember we did well by his “'orror,” and only the peace meeting kept us from sitting there a little longer while the customers came in to pinch and order and eat and sit drinking their wine, and while there tired lovers of seasoned violins played something that Gramp called “Schlampersi” and that Mama called “Strauss waltzes in exile.”
I called for another order of three-colored ice cream. And got it.
“Everything is all right?” asked 'Arry.
“Everything,” said Mama. “How do you feel about peace, “Arry?”
'Arry bowed. “I am polite to it.”
“That,” said Mama, “is about the nicest thing a head-waiter could say about anything in this world…even if he is supposed to be his own chef, too.”
Mama, after her cheese and dry bread, led us to the peace-to-come meeting in the next block. There were not too many people in the old loft, but those that were there were all earnest thinkers. They had brows going back baldly to behind their ears, they wore earrings of solid stone that made them a little round-shouldered, and they polished their eyeglasses with an honest, earnest firmness that showed Mama was in the right place…they really wanted to finish off the Germans this time.
On the platform sat a lot of fat legs and thin shanks, and among them was Lord Belka himself…his neat little beared trimmed like a fine lawn, his tiny medals in a row across his fine-fitting evening clothes, and his white tie two shades whiter than any white ever seen before.
“It's a fine face,” said Mama.
“He never uses it much,” said Gramp. “Must be saving it to get buried in.”
Lord Belka kissed Mama's hand. “Candor dat virbus, alas.” I remember that line, because the lord and I must have had the same Latin teachers. I had had trouble with it earlier in the week.
Mama said, “Good of you to come. …”
And a fat little lady draped in pearls almost big enough to look like the skull-necklaces savages wore, got up and said something about Belka, and the lord spoke for two hours. I don't remember what he said, but it doesn't matter, since nothing was done about Germans after that war, except business as usual. …
Gramp and Mama carried me to a cab (I had fallen asleep on a sweet stranger's shoulder and dreamed of Mama leading an army into battle).
When we got home, I remember Gramp's saying, “Lord Belka is a fraud. …”
“That's easy to say,” said Mama… and the next thing I knew it was noon, and I had missed a half-a-day by sleeping late.
Lunch was being served, and I went down and Gramp was reading the newspapers. “Damn it, and pump Hell dry, they don't make war the right way any more.”
Fiona, the daughter-in-law who never knew when to remain silent, said, “Not as right as when you and that foul Mr. Grant were fighting in Virginia, I'm sure.”
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