City of Jasmine

by Olga Grjasnowa

  ‘That’s it, Youssef! I’m never cooking for you again.’

  ‘But then I’d starve to death!’ Youssef makes a show of regret, getting up from his chair and going over to kiss Amal. He puts his right hand on her neck and is just about to place his other hand strategically on Amal’s breast when Amina starts to cry in the bedroom.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Youssef murmurs.

  For the first time in her life, Amal reluctantly begins watching cooking shows. She even likes some of them. She soon finds out that the meals they make aren’t actually the main thing. It’s all about lifestyle concepts and marketing oneself. Most of the niches are already occupied, though.

  The first audition is held in a spacious converted factory loft in Kreuzberg. A kitchen island has been set up in the middle of the room and the applicants, twenty recently arrived young women of non-specific ethnic descent, have fifteen minutes each to prepare a small dish in front of the camera and tell their life story while they’re at it.

  When Amal’s turn comes she conjures up her father’s restaurant. Her story ends with his other family. She doesn’t even wait to find out how it went, leaving the set in a rage at herself.

  The next day, she’s invited to more test shoots and a trial cooking session. Even though she doesn’t want the job, Amal now starts fighting for it. She goes through the shelves of cookbooks in the local library. Then she strolls through the supermarkets with Amina in her buggy, in search of the best ingredients for her menu. Amina burbles away happily and waves at other babies, although she never pays them as much attention as dogs or cats.

  They’ve hinted that Amal may well get a contract, so she takes a far-too-short dress out of the wardrobe and puts on lipstick. A little bit of red rubs off on her white teeth.

  The associate producer is a man named Matthias, but he’s recently been calling himself Matthew in an attempt to appear worldlier. He’s insisted on showing Amal his kitchen; apparently, it’s worthy of a Michelin-starred restaurant.

  Matthew’s house is in an area that exudes affluence – Amal passes private kindergartens and multilingual primary schools. The front gardens are well kept and spacious, the houses flooded with light, their inhabitants white and slim.

  As she enters Matthew’s living room she notices not only the soft rugs, the fireplace and the rustic wooden table, but also the family photos showing a blonde woman with a pageboy haircut and stick-thin arms hugging two laughing boys. Alongside them is a Christmas tree, sparsely decorated with a few wooden toys. Matthew sees Amal looking and hurries her through.

  ‘Come on, let me show you my kitchen,’ he says.

  The kitchen looks expensive and overblown, the surfaces all granite and brushed steel. Amal thinks of her own kitchen in Damascus and is surprised to feel tears pricking her eyes. Matthew has a stove with eight hotplates, all of which look unused, and an ambitiously oversized fridge, and Amal spots a sous vide machine out of the corner of her eye.

  She’s learned by now that people in the West consume only symbols. At her third casting session, she served artichokes with foie gras and poularde demi-deuil – with truffles under the skin – to signal that she’s perfectly capable of pleasing sophisticated tastes. As she sliced the truffles and inserted them under the poularde’s skin, she talked to the camera about Middle Eastern cuisine, a very natural way of cooking without artificial flavourings, saying her mother only used the best products at home, all grown and produced locally. For dessert, she served a chocolate cake with a liquid centre and home-made ice cream. Bassel taught her the chicken recipe when she was little, the cake was out of a packet and the ice cream came from the nearest supermarket, but as they’d overrun their recording time the crew simply ate it all up and no one took any notice of the preparation.

  Matthew had quickly speculated that the show might be generously supported by a large chain of organic supermarkets, so Amal had to adjust her appearance to fit the image of the potential advertising client: not too much make-up, her hair mid-length and curly, her clothes understated and expensive. But they couldn’t do without certain Orientalist touches – she always wore striking jewellery referred to as ethnic, usually from Dolce & Gabbana. The jewellery and clothes were provided by a stylist; after the shoot they were neatly packed in boxes and sent back to the relevant company.

  Now Matthew’s standing in his kitchen, little boy lost, his shirt slightly too tight with too many buttons undone. A few droplets of sweat on his forehead compete for shininess with the subtle tan of a man who goes sailing regularly. He pours himself a glass of wine and degusts it, his lips giving off a sound Amal finds almost unbearably embarrassing. She tries to keep the annoyance off her face. Once he’s finally swallowed, he pours her a glass too. She drinks soundlessly.

  ‘This is my Pacojet. I use it to make Michelin-standard ice cream, but I did have to raid the old piggy bank for it.’

  ‘Did your wife not mind?’

  Matthew pretends not to have heard the question. ‘It’s a limited edition.’ He tries to brush Amal’s elbow but she shakes his hand off.

  ‘And this is my Salamander. Adjustable-height grill. Excellent!’ he exclaims, shoving Amal ahead of him to admire another appliance.

  ‘You know,’ he says to her after they’ve eaten a mediocre meal and while he’s serving crème brûlée with beetroot as dessert, ‘I refer to myself as gastrosexual.’

  Amal breathes a sigh of relief.

  He reads her face and rushes to add, ‘Not homosexual, gastrosexual. There’s nothing wrong with men cooking. Women cook what they can, men cook what they want.’

  After dessert, Amal swiftly makes her excuses and flees the scene.

  To her great surprise, she receives a contract in the post a few days later. For the pilot episode, she made several Syrian dishes and promised the viewers a trip back in time to an unharmed Syria. As mezze, she made tuna on taboule salad, the tuna marinated in advance, then a few quick recipes like mutabbal, aubergine purée with tahini, fried aubergines with feta cheese and green salad. The main course was roast chicken in lemon-and-thyme sauce. Amal rubbed the chicken with plenty of garlic and a paste made of salt, sumach, lemon zest, fresh thyme leaves and a little olive oil.

  The pilot has proved a big success. It seems the bored housewives of the Western world have been waiting all this time for Amal and her exotic cuisine.

  Amal is in the kitchen with Amina, the room filled with the scent of sautéed onions, and the baby is peering curiously into the cast iron pan. They moved into their own flat a few months ago. It was difficult to find a place; hardly anyone wanted to rent to refugees, let alone refugees with a toddler. Once they’d got used to the disappointments, an aid organization helped them find a small one-bedroom flat.

  They should be happy but they aren’t. The atmosphere between Amal and Youssef has become more and more strained, they’ve moved further and further apart, and if it hadn’t been for the shared secret of Amina’s origins they would have separated long ago.

  Amal’s work as a TV chef doesn’t make her happy. She comes home at night exhausted and gets up tired at dawn, a little more frustrated each day.

  When Amal is at home, she spends most of her time in the kitchen. When she’s cooking she conjures up memories, not just her own but those of the people who taught her how to make each dish, and those of the generations before them.

  Suddenly something shifts inside her. She reaches for the telephone and dials Ali’s number.

  ‘Did you know about the other family?’ she asks him straight out.

  ‘Yes,’ Ali admits hesitantly.

  Amal hangs up. Ali calls straight back but Amal doesn’t answer. She kisses Amina’s soft hair and goes on stirring.

  She makes a stew for dinner. It’s thick and comforting, made with lots of vegetables, chicken and herbs. They eat it with toasted sourdough bread rubbed with a clove of garlic and dribbled with olive oil. Amina starts rubbing her eyes and whining, so Amal takes her to bed and sings for her
until she falls asleep.

  Only then does she go back to the living room, take her laptop and begin searching the internet for her mother.

  A week later, she finds a blurry photo on Odnoklassniki, a Russian version of Friends Reunited. The picture shows a blonde woman smiling into the camera from a living-room sofa, a cat in her arms. The woman is older and fatter than Amal remembers her, but she’s definitely her mother.

  It takes another two weeks before Amal has the courage to write to her. She writes in Arabic, although she’s no longer sure Svetlana can even read the language. To be on the safe side, she gives her phone number in Arabic numerals and not the Indian ones the Arabs use.

  Two hours later, Amal’s phone rings. Svetlana starts out in broken Arabic and then switches to Russian. She trips over her words, justifying herself, speaking of her many attempts to contact her children, about the letters she wrote to them, the Christmas and birthday parcels. When she tells Amal she flew to Damascus twice and wasn’t let into Syria despite her valid visa, her voice trembles, and as she goes on it gets quieter, because then she tells Amal she gave up in the end, otherwise she couldn’t have gone on living. Whether going on living was worth it, she can’t say. It’s the beginning of a reconciliation. Something inside Amal starts to heal that day. Over the next few weeks she tells her mother about Amina and Youssef and sends photos, but when Svetlana asks how the pregnancy was, Amal just says there were no complications.

  The weather is beautiful, almost too good for the time of year. The sky is clear and idle. Summer has well and truly arrived. Amina is at kindergarten, Youssef will pick her up later. Amal is outside a Syrian supermarket on Sonnenallee, choosing tomatoes, when a man addresses her in Arabic. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

  She looks up, cautious. Sonnenallee in Neukölln has become a beacon for Syrians over the past few years; they joke that it’s now ‘Syrian Street’.

  ‘That’s a really bad pick-up line,’ Amal replies, rolling her eyes and going back to her vegetables.

  ‘But I really do know you,’ Hammoudi says with a laugh. Amal looks at him and can’t help laughing too now. She doesn’t know who he is but his face really does look familiar.

  ‘We met in Damascus. In another life. I picked up a key from you,’ Hammoudi says, surprised to find himself remembering this woman.

  Amal takes a close look at him and after a while she laughs again and says, ‘Oh yes. I thought you were a secret-service man.’

  ‘There’s a new pastry shop across the road. Can I treat you to something, perhaps? Only if you have time,’ Hammoudi suggests, and Amal nods.

  Hammoudi and Amal spend several hours together, during which time Amal is relaxed and calm. The pastry café is simple enough, the floor all white tiles and the walls the same. The sophistication is all down to the pastries themselves, which genuinely taste exactly like they do in Aleppo. The owner keeps bringing new treats over and the two of them eat everything, even though they’re long since full. Glasses of tea steam between them.

  At some point Amal puts her hand on the table and Hammoudi reaches for it absent-mindedly. When he realizes what he’s done he takes his hand back and stutters an apology. He blushes as Amal gets up and asks him whether he’d like to come with her.

  Hammoudi nods. They walk along the pavement side by side, not speaking.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Hammoudi asks.

  Amal looks surprised and then laughs. ‘I don’t know.’

  They take the underground to a hotel and get a room. When the receptionist sees they have no luggage he can’t supress a smirk.

  Awkward, they enter the room, suddenly embarrassed in front of each other. The place looks dismal, neither particularly large nor cosy. The only thing that might be considered unusual is the strong smell of disinfectant. Amal puts her handbag down in a corner.

  Hammoudi sits down on the bed and Amal looks for the minibar.

  ‘Would you like a beer?’ she asks.

  ‘Juice, please.’

  She laughs, but not convincingly, and then she takes off her shoes and joins Hammoudi with a can of Coke and a small bottle of peach juice. She sits cross-legged. They still don’t know why they trust each other. Perhaps it’s because they share the same native language and will probably never see each other again. Amal is embarrassed and avoids Hammoudi’s eyes. The peach juice is too sweet; he can’t drink it.

  After a while she starts talking about her daughter. She tells him about the crossing to Italy, about the Mediterranean and their ship going down, and then she takes a breath and asks Hammoudi, ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  He nods, knowing he mustn’t say a word now; it’s not his turn to tell his story. The light outside the window grows dusky.

  ‘I didn’t give birth to my daughter. She was on the ship with her mother, but her mother drowned. I kept hold of Amina until we were rescued, and then I didn’t want her to grow up in a home. I didn’t mean to steal her. But now I can’t sleep, I’m scared I’ll be found out. I know I have no right to my daughter, and at the same time my greatest fear is that someone will take her away from me. An aunt or a grandmother. We looked for them at first, but then we got so used to Amina that we started covering our tracks.’ Amal pauses and looks at Hammoudi. Her eyes are clear, enquiring. ‘I’ve never told anyone. Not even my mother,’ she says. Her tone changes when she mentions her mother.

  ‘Perhaps it’s better that way,’ Hammoudi answers.

  ‘And what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I watched nine hundred and seventeen people die.’

  Amal puts her hand to her mouth.

  Three weeks later, Hammoudi is transferred from his hostel to a home in the back of beyond. They write each other messages for a while, but at some point Amal stops replying. Hammoudi doesn’t want to put pressure on her.

  It’s the weekend, and one of Amal’s now-rare days off. Amina’s in a bad mood because she’s not allowed to play outside. Amal and Youssef are sitting on the floor building something very big out of blocks, which Youssef calls a castle and Amal calls a museum. At some point, Amina loses interest and snuggles up on Amal’s lap. Youssef brings them hot chocolate from the kitchen; it could be an idyllic family scene if Youssef didn’t start talking about their problems, Amal thinks. Amina wants to be put to bed now so Youssef carries her over to the bedroom. Amal wraps her arms around her knees and stays on the floor.

  When he comes back he sits down next to Amal. She’s feeling guilty – she’d like to tell him about Hammoudi but she knows he’d get the wrong idea. Plus, she got an offer from her agent a few days ago, to go to LA and record a pilot episode of her show for the US market.

  ‘Have you thought about the offer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Amal. She looks tired. She puts her legs up on the grey sofa, undoes her bra and sighs, ‘I can’t take it seriously.’

  ‘We could start over in the USA. People are already recognizing you on the street. Someone’s bound to find out our story sooner or later.’

  Rain lashes against the windowpanes with new vigour.

  ‘And they wouldn’t in America?’ Amal asks.

  ‘They don’t take Muslims anyway,’ says Youssef, and Amal laughs.

  ‘But what if it’s a flop, what do we do then?’

  ‘It won’t be a flop,’ says Youssef and takes her face in his hands. ‘And we can always come back.’

  ‘The pay’s incredible,’ Amal says, and Youssef lets her go.

  ‘It would be easier for me too. I could work again there.’

  ‘You could learn German.’

  ‘I have learned German, I did the integration course, but after that they sent me to the job centre and then made me take an internship at a fried chicken place.’

  ‘I know,’ says Amal, and repeats, ‘I know,’ as though repeating it might make it alright.

  ‘I don’t want to complain, but look, I’d like to go back to work too, and that would be so much easier in English t
han in German. It’d be better for Amina as well. She’d be an American, not a refugee.’

  ‘That’s not the issue here,’ says Amal, and then she whispers, ‘You just want to cover our tracks.’

  Youssef looks her in the eye and whispers back, ‘I’m scared someone will take her away from us. What would make them better parents? Being blood relatives? What does that mean? We take care of her day and night. We love her. She’s got used to us. I’m not going to let her go.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to lose her,’ Amal says.

  The rain has stopped and the road is covered in puddles, shimmering in the light of the streetlamps. Hammoudi is at the window of the asylum-seekers’ home where he’s shared a room with three men for the past two weeks.

  It’s cramped in there, two of his roommates dozing in their bunks. It smells of sleep. Life here is lonely; they’re isolated from the town and the locals and can only leave the home in groups. The boneheads lie in wait for them at every turn. They refer to the people in the home as the local brigade of Islamic State.

  There are often violent scuffles but the Nazis have never been in a war, so they usually draw the short straw. Last week, though, they got hold of an Afghan boy. He had gone out alone to get an ice cream, and returned to the home with a broken wrist and several broken ribs.

  The men in the home got their revenge later. They armed themselves with anything and everything they could find: sticks the children used to play with, a length of pipe, a broken tennis racquet, a broom, kitchen knives. They set out in a collective.

  They found the village Nazis in the market square, where they’d tank up on the local cheap beer every night and listen to loud music. As they let loose on them they offloaded all their aggressions, against Assad, against the Islamists, against the Free Syrian Army, against the traffickers, against the boneheads, against German bureaucracy, against their loneliness. After the fight they carried their heads slightly higher. There was even a smile on their faces. The whole town had seen that they could defend themselves. They were still men, even if they had nothing else left.