Page 64 of Aftertaste

The guests exchanged glances, wondering if there had been some mistake.

A Rapunzel-haired woman crossed her arms. A man in a grey suit fingered his goatee. A petite, curvaceous brunette squinted at Kostya. And Viktor struck a match in a way that communicated his displeasure, and lit a cigarette.

Kostya locked eyes with him.

It was time to face the Musizchka. Prove that he was worth every penny of this investment.

“When Mr. Musizchka first told me about this dinner,” he continued, speaking directly to Viktor, “I was intrigued. And when I spent time with your chefs this evening, I went from intrigued to impressed. It’s not every day that I’m invited to feed appetites as discerning as yours. Fugu, ortolan, ambergris—these are some of the rarest delicacies of the living world. But what I’m prepared to offer you is rarer still. A taste of the Dead.”

“Did he saydead?” one of the women hissed.

“Oh, no, not that cannibal shit again,” a round man in a paisley shirt whined.

“I have a unique palate,” Kostya continued. “Singular, perhaps. It offers me a culinary connection with the spirit world. With the proper triggers,I’ll taste a meal from one of your Dead tonight. When I prepare it, and when one of you eats it, it will bring that spirit back here to dine.”

Several people shifted uncomfortably.

“If this disturbs you, please, feel free to go.”

A slender woman dressed all in black walked silently to the door. A moment later, a red-faced man followed her.

“Anyone else?”

He looked from person to person, meeting their gazes. Behind him, he heard movement, and turned in time to see Kutsuki shake her head and dash for the door, whispering something that sounded likeidiotandraise Hungry Ghosts.

“All right,” Kostya continued, unfazed. “To begin, think of someone you’ve lost. Someone you’d like to see again.”

Several people closed their eyes; several others gave Kostya an incredulous stare.

“Concentrate,” he urged them, “on the Dead. Remember them.”

“What kind of memories?” the brunette asked, her eyes squeezed shut. “Like happy? Or sad? A memory about food, or eating with them? Our first memory of them, or our last one? What, exactly?”

Kostya opened his mouth to answer and closed it again. Frowned.

At Hell’s Kitchen, he’d never dictated atypeof memory; he’d just talked to each diner about their deceased and either something appeared in his mouth or it didn’t. But the way she posed the question—whatkindof memories?—made him pause.

He thought about Sister Louise. It had taken a while for Stacy to appear. She hadn’t been waiting in the wings to see her; there had been a trigger. She’d come along once Louise thought about her murder, once she’d blamed herself, once she’d missed Stacy so much there had been an almost palpable ache in the room, peppered by regret—the guilt of not being there when she died.

He thought about Steven Tyl—no; Kostya stopped himself. His name hadbeen Charlie. His dead wife was Anna. And he’d come down to The Library of Spirits practically paralyzed by grief, unable to move on with his life, his desperation so strong that the moment he invoked her—my poor, dead, beautiful wife—Anna came barreling up through Kostya’s digestive tract. The toll those thoughts had taken—it had been written all over Charlie’s face.

He thought about his own dad. He’d appeared in the moments Kostya felt his absence most, the awful resentment at the pool when he was young, the piercing yearning at the Bouche de Noël a few months prior. Just before he’d tasted thepechonkaat Saveur Fare, Kostya had been watching the line at work, swelling with pride each time he’d yell a direction and the whole brigade would shift in response, amazed at the place he’d made for himself, the respect he commanded. And he couldn’t help but think it:Papa, how I wish you could see this.

Kostya closed his eyes. He felt very close to something, his fingers twitching toward a pulse. Overhead, the white lights shivered.

“A memory that costs you something,” he said aloud, almost to himself. “One that hurts to remember. That makes you regret what you did or didn’t do. Or makes you remember how happy you used to be when they were here. Something that makes you really feel your grief.”

Those were the memories that summoned the ghosts: the ones that came at a price, that took a little something from the person remembering. These were emotions complex as flavors, sweet articulated by bitter, acid cutting through umami, fat neutralizing heat.

Like a burner catching fire, things began happening inside Konstantin’s mouth. Flickers of flavor—not aftertastes, exactly. More morsels than meals. A whole lot of them.

Boiled-chicken-Kiev-chocolate-cake-kielbasa-tart-red-currant-Wonder-Bread-kvass-coconut-amino-thin-sliced-cow-tongue-pickled-cabbage-bitter-wine-oyster-mushroom-pork-fried-sprats-on-toast-Nutella-morel-syrup-cognac-tuna-tartare-herring-in-a-fur-coat-honeydew-vinegar-burnt-brûlée-mortadella-sunny-side-pineapple-upside-down-marzipan-Jolly-Rancher-grape-fruit-snack-peanut-butter-pesto-escargot-lemon-jus-saliva-stomach-acid-prelude-to-a-puke—

Kostya gripped the edge of the counter for support. It was like drinking the pool of goo at the bottom of the kitchen trash. Dietary discord, cacophony, the notes all sour, curdling. He could feel bile clawing its way up the back of his throat; he was going to hurl.

“Stop!” he gasped. “Stop!”

The diners startled out of their thoughts, the flavors vanishing from his tongue with a little pop. Except for one, which fluttered to the surface now, enveloped his mouth, revived him like smelling salts. A real aftertaste, complete in its complexity.

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