The Clarkl Soup Kitchens Read online

  The roommate is still in a snit about something. I pretend to be oblivious to whatever is going on, but I worry that I may have made an enemy without knowing why.

  She has said her prayers on her knees by her miniscule bed every night. I have said no prayers since the day Harry was buried, but I don’t really think I owe her any apology.

  We are looking forward to three trips around the planet before we land. Each trip will take about an hour, and the captain will play a recorded message to describe what we are seeing. I am very anxious to see the Great Ice Castles that so much has been written about.

  November 17, 2137

  I have been so busy with getting settled that I have neglected my journal.

  The landing was glorious! The dry, cold climate was wonderfully refreshing after the months in the spacecraft, and I stretched my arms toward the star.

  The Reverend Wade assured me the atmosphere would be very similar to Earth’s, but I am frequently out of breath. Each day I am better able to pace myself.

  My little house is very primitive. It is about 250 square feet, with a large all-purpose room and a small room with a sink and a toilet. The tiny bed, not much larger than the one in the spacecraft, is shoved against one wall, and the easy chair is in another corner. I also have a card table with Sunday-School-room chairs, those old wooden folding chairs that frequently break. The floor is a cheap linoleum somebody must have donated; it tends to curl at the edges.

  The bathroom offers running water, which I was delighted to find. If I want a shower, though, I have to go down to the main building. I do that just before I go to bed each day.

  So far, the roof has held against the winds. I have seen no precipitation. Certainly the nights are very cold, and I am happy we have the electric blankets, as advertised.

  The day is just about an hour longer than at home. I am almost used to the new clock, and I have stopped awaking too early. Like a baby learning to sleep, I guess.

  The complex has one large building and dozens of little houses for us workers. The large building faces the road, and our guests enter and leave by its front doors. Then, a sturdy fence surrounds the little houses, attached to the large building at its rear corners.

  The large building is a huge dining room in front and a large kitchen in back. Separating these is the cafeteria line, and the guests can see the Earthlings and the Earthlings can see the guests.

  I am still trying to get all the types straight. I have never seen a Monarch, but I can tell a Drone at fifty paces. These Drones are tall and thin, with faces that look as if they have been bashed in from both sides. They, like all Clarklians, have no hair. I understand they are wild about copulating, even though they are sterile.

  The Drones are my favorites, so far. They are very pleasant, unlike nearly every other Clarklian. When I meet one on the serving line, he (?) always smiles and sometimes bows.

  The work is long and hard. I am getting used to it.

  We start very early to prepare the first meal, and the doors open just as the star comes over the horizon. Usually we prepare oatmeal and serve it with a pineapple sauce. This is a great favorite with our guests, and we never have any left over. Sometimes, though, we prepare a sloppy type of Cream of Wheat and serve that with maple syrup. This is not as popular. With the first meal we have a kind of tea native to Clarkl. Water, which is very plentiful on all parts of this planet, is also served.

  We rarely see any children. The Clarklians are very careful not to allow their youngsters to starve, and they themselves feed the children in groups. Our guests are the society’s dregs, entities who are unable or unwilling to work.

  We tend to make large batches of cooked food and store much of what we make for later. However, we are not allowed to turn anybody away if we have food to serve, so sometimes we have to quickly pull stored food from the enormous freezers or from the shelves of canned goods.

  The number of meals served per day has steadily risen over the last two years, according to our excellent manager. She knows, also, that the dining room managed by the Fundamentalists has not seen this increase in volume.

  I started with vegetable stock, and, after I had filled the freezer with many gallons, the manager moved me to breads. I have been on the bread team for about a week. On this team we use enormous mixers with kneading attachments. The dried yeast comes from Earth, getting here just a few weeks before its expiration date. How nice the kitchen smells while the many loaves of bread are baking!

  Again I have developed a reputation for hard work and little skill. Each day I feel better about my contribution.

  December 25, 2137

  We have only an approximation of the Earth date here, but we celebrated Christmas today.

  The natives smiled when they first saw the trimmed tree, a grapefruit bush in a barrel about five feet high. Each of us made a decoration from paper or plastic food wrap, and the variety of several hundred Santas and stars was quite a sight! The farmers came into the dining room an hour early today to help with the decorating, which took about twenty minutes, and to take their meal before moving onto the fields and the greenhouses.

  We sang a few songs together and then put on a tape of carols for the natives to hear at breakfast.

  We have no presents except messages from family and friends on Earth. Susan remains guarded and the twins are enjoying their third year at college.

  My routine is very much established now, and the weeks are flying by. I have learned to breathe the atmosphere without my earlier problems, and I know the strength in my arms has increased significantly.

  Tuesday is my day off. For each other day of the week, I continue to rise very early and work until about two hours before it is time to go to bed. We are encouraged to take two one-hour breaks during the day for meals, and I take mine just after we have served the large crowd at breakfast and lunch.

  We have food available on the buffet line during all the daylight hours, starting with the breakfast service and ending with the dinner offerings. Sometimes we see the same entities four or five times during the day.

  Cabbage is very abundant now. We are making soup (not very good) and spring rolls (better). In the last week I have helped to put over 20,000 spring rolls into the freezer.

  The natives have their favorites, of course. Cabbage is not among them, but they will eat the spring rolls if they are served with our pineapple sauce.

  In three weeks, the early corn will be ready, and all days off may be canceled for several weeks until we get it canned.

  A Christmas note from the real estate people. I have made progress toward getting my house paid off, and all county taxes are paid for the year.

  Saving money is easy here. My meals are free and my little hut is free. Our coverall uniforms are laundered free. The only expenses I have are toiletries at the commissary, a set of shelves in the storeroom. I have spent under $50 each month at the commissary. There is nothing to buy for gifts, but the nearby village has a market day about once a month where handmade items are sold. I have a promise from our manager that I may have a few hours to go to the market in April.

  Still very little news from the Fundamentalists. Their productivity number continues to drop, according to the manager. They did not receive a bonus last month for extra meals from the American government, even though we exceeded our plan easily.

  There is no love affair here at the compound, as far as I can tell. The men keep to their little houses, and so do we. Everybody is working about fourteen hours a day, so romance may not be as desirable as sleep.

  I borrowed a tape measure from the office several weeks ago so I could determine the actual size of my hut. It is 160 square feet, about 10 feet wide and 16 feet long. Tucked into a corner is the half bath at 4 feet wide and 6 feet long. The ceiling is about 6 feet high at the sides and about 10 feet high in the center. The roof appears to be made of something like tar paper, and the sides of the house are made from the native woods. There is a window at each end.
/>   Inside my hut are several serviceable lamps, clearly taken from somebody’s garage sale.

  I have everything I need to sustain life but nothing to make life enjoyable. If I keep working day after day, the rest of the time will pass quickly.

  December 25, 2138

  I’ll take up my journal today, after a year of silence.

  Another Christmas here in this unfriendly land. How I wish I could see the patchy lawn at our house. The land here is barren and almost gray, so foreign to an Ohioan. Even the most prized vegetation here would be thrown on the weed pile at home.

  Except for our farms, of course. What a wonderful year this has been for our farmers, with great success with pumpkins and peas.

  The manager asked me to help with the development of a pumpkin stew, thinking, perhaps, if I can cook it, it will be nearly foolproof. We added this to the serving line almost right away, to great appreciation from the Clarklians.

  I’m almost ready to like the Batwigs. We see so few of them, though. They always have a Monarch parent, and many of them live in the royal compound. The ones we have seen appear to be better dressed and better cared for than our good friends the Drones.

  The Batwigs are short and very, very thin. They have enormous heads, even larger than the large head of every other Clarklian. They command respect when they walk into the dining room; the Drones and nearly everybody else motion them to the front of the line. They certainly never smile at me or anybody else in our kitchen, although I have seen them smile at their fellow Clarklians from time to time.

  We put up the grapefruit tree again in a token nod to our great religious celebration. We had all the decorations from last year, and somebody from America sent us some lights to string around the dining room.

  This year, we put our best dishes on the serving line. These are the ones the Clarklians like best: corn pudding, mashed potatoes, green beans, candied yams, and pumpkin pie. We served English Breakfast tea from Earth along with the usual Clarklian brew, and we found a few of our guests were taking seconds on that.

  Three Drones, our regulars, brought gifts, strange decorations for the tree made from platinum and rolled in diamond chips. The manager came out in front of the serving line to receive these, with much applause from our side and many smiles from the Drones. She put them in the most visible places on the tree. If I had one of these to sell at an Albany auction house, I could pay all Harry’s debts and go home.

  I am about to become a grandmother. Susan says her first baby is due in March, after several years of Susan’s not being able to conceive. It breaks my heart that I cannot be there to help and to hold the little girl in my arms. Rigel has agreed to go to Canada for two months in my stead.

  Work goes on as before, exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I have no complaints about my strength or my health, so I work for nearly fourteen hours six days a week.

  I like the other people in the Congregation’s work group. Everyone is warm and helpful. The farmers sometimes have clashes, but the kitchen staff is a very good team. We have never opened the serving line late, and we have never run out of food.

  In April I went to the market, several miles away. I took about $100 in the local money, but I found nothing I wanted to buy at any price. All the artistic items were poorly made or not very interesting, and all the household goods were very well worn. I think the best I can do is to continue to take photographs of our kitchen and dining room to send to my family. Other souvenirs may be available near the spaceport in Gilsumo when I leave.

  My little hut has a new roof, required after the rainy season eroded the tarish stuff. Actually, nearly every building in the compound was reroofed this year, thanks to a gift from the American government. Again, we served more meals than we had agreed to serve, and our bonus came in the form of roofing materials. Those who had hoped for more money, such as I, were at least given some useful reward.

  The Fundamentalists did not receive any bonus, according to our manager. The Clarklians do not patronize their dining room unless we have a stampede here. Our manager has also suggested the Fundamentalists will be asked to start making deliveries of meals to housebound Clarklians.

  December 25, 2139

  It’s Merry Christmas again, nearly at the end of this busy year.

  Our manager is starting to plan for her departure in two years, and she has selected three of us to train as her replacements. I was really honored to be selected, but she told me I was the one who most looked after the entire kitchen rather than just the current project.

  It was something of a strain to be selected for the training as heir apparent. I am not the best cook, and everybody knows it. At least four other people have told me I was selected out of turn. If I had an advanced degree in nearly anything, I could have pointed to my wonderful qualifications. But I am just practical, the result of keeping a family of five fed and clothed for nearly thirty years.

  The Clarklians don’t care who is in charge, and the contract the Congregation has with the government talks about a team and the requirement to serve a certain number of meals. We are always exceeding the plan, and the Clarklians care about nothing else.

  The great thing about this job is that I am so busy I don’t have time to get blue about my situation. If I had more time, I would miss my new granddaughter, Molly, and her parents. The pictures, always grainy after being sent through the Clarklian’s data reception devices, show a very dear child who looks a lot like Harry. I’m glad Susan found the family christening gown.

  We have been working on potatoes this year. Several new varieties were developed at the University of California at Davis, now relocated to Auburn, and two of those new varieties have flourished here. We have been able to add potatoes as soup thickener and as a main dish with the local mushrooms.

  The highlight of the year was the visit by a gaggle of Monarchs. I never really understood what holiday they were here to celebrate, but our regulars were bowing and bobbing and genuflecting all over the dining room.

  How different those Monarchs are! The Monarch is always a product of two Monarchs or a Monarch and a Wolpter, and they are at the very top of the pecking order here. Most of them have two or three feelers on their heads, blobs of skin that grow beyond the skull. Some of these feelers are over fifteen inches in length. The head of the Monarch is elongated and nearly square. The body is usually taller than our average regular, but I am not sure if this is how they are built or a problem caused by the years of famine on this planet.

  This year also was different in that the Clarklians decided to send a small party of Seekers to observe the farmers. This entire effort was essentially a nuisance for us, but the Seekers took pictures and certain measurements. They asked numerous questions via their translation cubes, and our farmers did their best to answer. The observation party was with us for about sixty days, and then they went away. We have not seen them since. Certainly those Seekers are not our regular diners.

  My training for the manager’s job started in the storage rooms. The records there are entirely computerized, of course, but the manager has a good idea by just looking around what is in short supply. If cabbage is getting low, the menus for the next week are reviewed and, perhaps, modified to use what is plentiful.

  The manager has a firm rule to use right away the foods the Clarklians like best. They are just crazy about walnuts and almonds and, after the supply ship comes from Earth, we add nuts to at least one meal each day. They also like wild rice, and we try to serve it weekly. They are not very fond of carrots, so we slip in these vegetables only when we can hide them with potatoes or broccoli.

  I am catching onto all the many tasks, slowly. I have been writing down nearly everything I learn, as have the other two candidates for this job.

  My little house is still quite snug. The new roof keeps the cold out much better, and I sometimes am able to turn down the electric blanket.

  December 25, 2140

  Another holiday has come and gone, and I
am almost starting to count the days until I go home.

  Financially, things are much better. The house is paying a little more, after an increase in the monthly lease amount, and I received a raise here of $50 a month.

  I got out my ledgers the other day and reworked my financial situation. At the end of the ten years, I will have the house and all the other loans paid off, and I will have about $20,000 in the bank. All this if no major repair is required at the house. And if Patsy keeps up with her payments.

  At least the twins are finished with their undergraduate expenses. What a relief it was to see that the trust funds held out! Now that they are both in graduate school at Ohio State, their “packages” from their departments are paying them tiny salaries and providing them places to live as dormitory counselors. It must be very much like my situation, except that the University surely has better roofing materials over those dorms.

  Romance is in the air here, though. A new chef arrived in June and has aging hearts aflutter. This is a man, something unknown in the kitchen heretofore, except for the dishwasher repairman. I sent everything I knew about him to my real estate agent in Ohio, and she sent back a complete report of his adventures. Coming to Clarkl was not his idea, it seems, in spite of what he says. He had a choice between ten years on Clarkl and twenty years in the state penitentiary. He may be dissatisfied with his decision, especially since he is pursued nearly everywhere by one of the more energetic women.

  The Clarklians are not dissatisfied with his decision, though. Our dining room is overrun at all hours, and the appearance of certain of his dishes on the buffet cause the Clarklians to call all their relatives to further drum up our business. The chef is especially known for curried potatoes, wild rice with wickenberries and broccoli, and pineapple upside-down cake.

  Our numbers of meals served has increased by thirty percent in the last year. The Clarklians had to renegotiate their contract with the American government, and that was the cause of my small increase in pay. Our government also threw in about 2,000 place settings of Lenox and some Kirk flatware. This is the first American china we have seen here, and it is very popular, too.