Feast

Chapter 1

London, 1882

It was bread. Yes, bread that caused her infant self finally to stir. That peculiar alchemy that converts flour and yeast, in a well-seasoned oven, to what can only be called bliss. Minutes old, she could not taste it, not yet. But as the ovens were opened in the bakery below, and that infinitely tempting yeasted fug coiled up through bare floorboards, in through a single ill-fitting early-morning window, her round, dark eyes opened for the first time. A mirror pair, her father's, had been trained on her, full of concern. She was so still. His eyes brightened at this sign of life, restored to their usual carefree sparkle.

"Ju, it's all right, Ju, she's awake."

He lifted his gaze to a mattress across the room, on which a tangled lump of sheets did not bother to stir. He shifted his legs, leaning back against the wall behind him, better to accommodate his newborn daughter.

She shifted too, settling, not displeased by the handsome brown face smiling above her. Life had found her. She was held steady. She might, like her mother, lie in recovery from the trauma that is birth. But her body thrummed with purpose. Not just with excitement at whatever newly baked delicacies called her from what was certainly the finest bakery on the Strand. Closer to hand, the clothes in which she nestled, the arms of her father's shirt, were impregnated with a vibrant cocktail of spices. She opened her mouth, reaching.

"The baby's hungry, love."

Her father watched as she tasted the air, eyes wide. Then stood to take her over to her mother.

"Ju." He nudged the sheets.

They moaned.

"Judith."

The sheets cocooned themselves more tightly, then spoke.

"Take it away."

"It's a little girl."

"Take her away, then."

A shadow passed across his face.

They were unattended. Judith had been happy to strut with the handsome Indian sailor, ready and able to treat her well. His ship's cargo of cinnamon, cloves, and saffron made his presence in London a welcome one. But she was not so happy to show off the results of that liaison. A child that would be born not of an act of love. Not really. Not love for Qazi, with his ready laugh, and his swagger. But for the colored scarves, the rich sweets, and the steady supply of brandy he brought with him. When her belly had started to compromise the figure she cut at his side, she let the city swallow them. They holed themselves up in this attic above the Strand bakery. They waited. Alone. And increasingly frustrated with each other.

She wished he didn't remain so tall, so glowing, his body firm and brown and now a world away from the swelling gray-pink mass she had become. She wished she hadn't succumbed to that body and in so doing lost her own. Would she get her old body back, the one that tempted, the one that put food on the table?

He wished she did more than grunt at him. Show some appreciation for the supply of food he brought her. For the fact that he didn't simply move back on board ship. His business in England was almost done; the ship would sail in a month. He would be on it.

When it came to it, Judith could have done with an attendant. She could have done without the glamorous and irresistible man who had got her into trouble. And she could have done entirely without the trouble itself, another mouth to feed. But then, perhaps, if there had been another female in attendance, someone who saw the color of the infant's skin, and the distress on the exhausted woman's face, maybe they would have obeyed when she cried, "Take it away."

Qazi rallied, nudged the reluctant mother with a foot, and grinned. He smiled the broad and easy smile that had so beguiled her.

"Don't talk nonsense, Ju. She's a peach."

The peach twitched her minuscule nose. Judith grunted.

"She is. She's a gift. Our gift. That is her name, I think. Minha. It means gift."

He looked at his soon-to-be ex-lover for approval of his choice, her bare pink-and-white upper half emerging from the sheets. Her expression was blank. He looked at his daughter, whose shining eyes fixed on his, whose reaching mouth curled up at the edges, as if with amusement, with joy. Whose very being glowed.

"Minha it is, then."

He dropped a kiss on her forehead, and bent to hand her over. Judith lifted her heavy self, reached for her daughter without looking. Without a glance for the person, who was even then building herself, taking in her share of the sights and sounds around her. And more than her share of all that reached her nose, her tender baby mouth. Her father may have considered her a gift, named her so. But she was also, already, in her first moments, just beginning to discover her gift. Her peculiar, unwieldy, and precious gift.

Minha's gift was her sense of taste. Her ability to savor. Big, bold tango and fandango on her tongue. The shift, the hint, the smallest component of flavor eked out and found, considered, remembered. When the unwanted fairy godmother, unseen and unknown, turned up at her birth, she did not bequeath a prophecy, or a fairy-tale ending. No. She endowed the infant Minha with the ability to experience, wildly, vividly, appetite.

Chapter 2

The Northern French Coast, 1899

Her eyes smarted at the sea breeze but her determined gaze was rewarded. Eventually, light blossomed. At first over sea and sky, only distinguishable by the faint shifting gloss of the water, that tender August early-morning light that knows that most are still in bed. When land appeared, Minha gasped, then flung a hand over her mouth to stifle the cry of joy. She had done it! How extraordinary. She, who had lived her whole life in England, and the last years of it never leaving a few small Kentish acres. Arrival across an ocean, to a new land. To France.

She was arriving and she was flung back far away. In memory of her father, arriving in foreign lands on unknown boats. He might be doing so still. Perhaps, like her, unsure how he would be received. Standing tall though, she was sure of that. She gathered something of his spirit to her. If ever there was a time to be her father's daughter . . .

The portion of land they were fast approaching was made of wide sand flats. Beyond that, sometimes clusters of what looked like cottages, sometimes trees. She looked, but could not yet see a harbor or town. Then she was unable to look, as the crew up on deck increased in number. She ducked back down into her lifeboat hiding place. Breath held, the discomfort of her hard wooden bed now becoming unbearable, and worse as the day's warmth began to gather itself. After what must have been hours, Minha felt the ship finally halt with profound relief. The deck seemed swarming with men. After the best part of a day and night in such cramped quarters, she would have to stand soon, and stretch out the tension in her back, her shoulders. She exhaled when the footsteps started to diminish in number. The thud of feet landing elsewhere, alongside. The thump of ropes thrown and caught. The rhythm of the line of men, lifting, passing, unloading the cargo.

The ship lifted in the water. She could feel its wooden body lighten, hear the shift and thump in its belly go quiet, the creak and spin of wheels. All nearby voices, gone. A bustle still though, farther off. This wasn't the silence of the countryside.

Minha peeled back the untied corner of canvas, and hauled herself up and out of the lifeboat. She stood, wobbly on numb feet. Steadying herself on the side of her little wooden resting place, she looked up. Straight into the thin, startled face of one of the sailors. She stumbled back. The sailor, who didn't look much older than her, paused, despite already having flung a fist in the air. His mouth hung open. His eyes were wide, not so much menacing as shocked, as they took her in.

"Who are you? What are you doing?"

Minha opened her mouth to speak. To implore this almost-boy not to betray her. But her sojourn in the lifeboat without food or drink had taken its toll. Her voice had become a scratchy husk of itself.

"I . . . Please," was all she managed.

She tried a smile, which served only to get her an alarmed step backward in response.

"You can't be here. Whoever you are." The boy cast his eyes back at the rest of the ship, scanning for the others. "Just make sure you've gone before the captain sees you."

Minha nodded, vigorously. The youth scuttled off, and climbed down below deck out of sight. She took a deep breath, grateful for his withdrawal, curious as to why he had looked quite so alarmed. She stepped toward the water barrel, where the high sun had turned the liquid's surface into a mirror. Ah, that was why. She presented a more than curious sight. Her clothes were crumpled, certainly. Her tatty pink embroidered Indian shawl, that last remaining gift from her father, that last reminder of her mother, was swept about her upper body in an unconventional fashion. Her sleep-deprived eyes stared big and dark-rimmed out of her slim brown face. And as evidence of her last meal before she stowed away, bold pink cherry juice marked her left cheek. But the problem was mostly her hair. The hank of it that had been drenched in her efforts to get on board was plastered flat against one side of her face. To the other side, a section of curls was hectic above her forehead. The rest of it was every which way.

Clearly, it would not do to alarm everyone she encountered, not if she wanted to be met with any kind of welcome. After cupping her hands and taking several long drafts of rainwater, she unwound the scarf and put it into her bag along with her very few possessions. She paused a moment, then took out the gardening knife that had been her grandfather's and slipped it into her pocket, where she could reach it if needed. Then she smoothed her plain English dress into something closer to propriety. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and the juice stain from her cheek. Raking her fingers through her wayward tresses as best she could, she secured the mass of it at the base of her neck with a ribbon. There, much better. Or at least the best she could do for now. She then scooped up her bag and clambered off the ship, giving it a pat in thanks.

The length of time it had taken to reach land, to dock, was explained as she looked about her. The boat hadn't stopped at the coast, but had come inland, up a wide river. She was standing in a broad sunlit valley. If she looked out across the water, the land stretched away the other side, flat and many-colored-green, to a far horizon. Turning to look at the side of the river on which she stood, she wrapped her arms tight about her and caught her breath. Her gaze was pulled upward, as the land rose high before her, lush with trees in full leaf. The riverbank itself opened out to the north of her. A run of pretty, pale houses stretched along it, the sun glinting off their slate roofs. Elegantly proportioned, they sat nestled below the steep rise of land. It looked like a village or the beginnings of a town, positioned to take in the view out across the water, the plains beyond.

Her heart lifted. That was where she must head. She had no plan, not even the beginnings of one. She had attempted to form one in the hours spent hidden. But how do you plan for what you cannot imagine? She pulled out her French phrase book, raising a thank-you to her grandfather for the gift of this book, of his language. She suffered a sharp pang at the thought of him. The loss of him. Then took a breath, and rehearsed. "Bonjour, Monsieur. Bonjour, Madame."

Here were houses, something like a town. There would be people, and surely work, if she showed herself willing. And crucially, before she slid down in a faint, food. She lifted her nose, opened nostrils wide. Sure enough, from the same direction as the houses came a whisper, a fragrant hint of something tempting. Something that would answer her immediate needs. If she could get her hands on it.

As she made her way toward it the scent grew, and less dominant smells mingled with that which she had picked up along the riverbank. This would more than answer her needs. It was a market. She hung back as she found it, better to take it in, to manage her overloaded senses a moment before she tried to step closer, step in. Market stalls laden with the bright fruits of high summer, with verdant banks of vegetables, glistening with newly caught fish. The multilayered sweetness of every fruit in season-some she knew: apricots, grapes, greengages; some she didn't. The slick saline memory of the deep, from the arrested body of each fish and crab. Each new scent she encountered was a puzzle, a challenge to the senses, to her memory. But there were a dozen here, a hundred. She reeled a moment. Steadied herself, feet to cobbles. Roasted meat and toasted pastry. The funk of horse manure, the bitter tang of coffee. The many-colored perfumes of late-morning townsfolk, sweat and cotton, youth and age, hair and soap, garlic-on-skin and hunger-on-breath.

They filled the square. A square neatly lined on three sides by smart pale buildings, some of which housed shops with striped awnings. The fourth side was open to the riverbank, which contributed its own dark green waterlogged scent. There, the stallholders' carts rested, parked along the bank. Minha passed a few men and women as she made her way into the fray. There was no great crush; it was late enough in the morning for that to have passed. She might wander, look for peaches. Her grandfather had been very specific about the peaches. And in some ways, it was a peach that had brought her there.

She took a shy step closer. Then her stomach growled loud enough to make her laugh, and overcome any remaining reluctance to enter the square. There would be time to wander. For now, her need was pressing. To approach the wave of scent that called loudest.