The Allspice Bath

by Sonia Saikaley

  Youssef was a talented storyteller even if he only had a grade four education. Tucked on the couch next to her father’s body, resting her head on his round belly, Adele would listen intently to the stories of his youth, stories filled with hardship, betrayal, and hope.

  “I was a shepherd in the old country and one day the herd just took off in all sorts of directions. By the time I had managed to find them, half of them had disappeared, scattered along the countryside. When I returned home, my father, your Jido Salim, whipped me until I was black and blue.”

  Adele had squinted her eyes and tried not to cry.

  Youssef had looked down at Adele, his expression sad, then quickly stared vacantly across the room while he continued his story. “Well, I let him beat me. I actually hoped he’d kill me in the process so I wouldn’t have to endure my life with him anymore but then my Mama came running out of the house, screaming until the heavens shook. She covered me with her own body and took the final blows for me. And it was then that I swore I’d leave forever and never return. That’s when I decided to board a ship with my cousin Abdullah and come to Canada. I begged Mama to come with me but she refused, saying her home was with my Babba not some cold, foreign country named Canada. So I left with Abdullah…”

  “Uncle Abdullah?” Adele asked.

  “That’s right. I left with your Uncle Abdullah and one suitcase carefully packed with dried figs, zahter, pita bread, and second-hand clothes from my Canadian cousins. I had two hundred dollars to my name and the bruises on my face. When I arrived in Canada, I longed to return home, to return even to my old man. The first few months were so difficult for me. I didn’t speak a word of English, didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. Where would I make my living? I couldn’t be a goatherd or shepherd. At least in Lebanon, I could handle the beatings. It had become a part of my daily routine. But Abdullah forced me to stay. We got jobs in a restaurant owned by a Lebanese couple. They gave us room and board in exchange for working in the restaurant. I started to learn to speak the language with the help of some generous customers. They gave me tips, not only money, but also words. Thank you. Have a good day. How are you? We’re having beautiful weather, don’t you agree? So I learned a little bit every day. But I still missed my Mama, her cooking, her gentle smile. I also missed the mountains and I know this will sound totally ridiculous, I even missed the damn sheep! I yearned for my homeland. Canada was so different from my birthplace,” he said, his eyes trailing to the window.

  “Why was Jido Salim mean to you?” Adele asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, babba.”

  Bit by bit, story by story, her father weaved his history into hers, entwining it into her mind.

  Now as she stood in her father’s store, these memories crowded her mind. Why hadn’t Youssef showed this kind side more often when she was growing up? For the next few hours, she dusted shelves, rearranged packages and cans, and served a few customers before the moonlight shone inside and urged her to lock the door and close the lights, leaving her memories in the dark alongside the boxed goods.

  Dark turned to light and the next day, Adele stood in the dining room where she had set up her easel beside the enormous window. Her fingers were stained with acrylic paint but this didn’t stop her from continuing to work on her current project. She had decided to paint an old family photograph of her paternal grandparents. Jido Salim and Sito Najwa were walking hand-in-hand across a field in their village. Sito Najwa had a handkerchief tied around her head and she wore an old brown skirt and loose-fitting grey sweater. Adele thought she could detect flour between the folds of her long skirt. Jido Salim wore traditional Middle-Eastern style pants, the crotch hanging baggily between his thin legs. His jacket was torn near the flaps. Their hands were connected, palms subtly touching, fingers not quite fully clasped together. Nonetheless, they were unmistakably holding hands. Adele had been drawn to this old snapshot because of this intimacy; it suggested a love connection in spite of the harsh lines around Jido Salim’s mouth and eyes. They must have been in love at one point, Adele thought, and maybe still were when this photograph had been snapped. They were both in their late-sixties when the photograph had been taken. Now Adele wondered if it was possible to still love a man who could make you cry with a movement of his head. While she thought about this, she let her right hand guide the paintbrush to the canvas and tried to finish the dusty earth her grandparents tread upon. As she was about to capture the colours of the earth, Samira called out to her from the kitchen. “Adele, put that paintbrush down and come here for a minute.”

  Frustrated, Adele grunted. “What, Mama? I’m busy.” She didn’t take her eyes off the canvas, didn’t stop her long, even strokes.

  “I’m making sheik el mihshe. I want you to learn how to make this dish.”

  “Mama, I’m working now.”

  “You’re just painting. That’s not real work. Put the brush down and come here now. Your sisters all know how to make stuffed eggplants and now it’s your turn to learn. No Lebanese man wants a wife who can’t cook,” Samira said, her voice sounding excited and harsh at the same time. “Come on, habibti, come let me teach you,” she said gently now.

  Adele slammed the paintbrush down on the table next to the easel, walked over to the kitchen sink and rinsed her hands. She didn’t say a word as she stood across from her mother and watched her remove the skin from several eggplants. Her mother’s method of teaching cooking was to watch and learn; it was not hands-on for Adele or anyone else for that matter. “I’ve already started the filling. See, it’s made up of beef, onions, pine nuts, salt, cinnamon, pepper, and allspice. Remember, allspice…”

  “Is a very important spice for Lebanese dishes. I know, Mama. You’ve told me a hundred times over,” Adele said more curtly than she intended. It was also the spice Mrs. Foster had told her could soothe skin while in the bath. But Adele didn’t share this with her mother.

  Samira didn’t speak. She began to stuff the eggplants with the meat filling, then poured tomato juice carefully over them. Within minutes, she had prepared the tray and had placed it in the oven without one further word of explanation for Adele. Wiping her hands on her apron, she finally said, “I won’t always be around to cook for you. You should learn.”

  “I know how to cook,” Adele said.

  “What? Hamburgers, French fries, steak, western sandwiches … all Canadian dishes. What about your Lebanese heritage? You don’t even know how to make hummus! Our neighbours know how to make it and they’re not even Lebanese!” Samira stomped back to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair where she sat and glared across at Adele. “So what if I’ve explained to you before how important allspice is? Would it hurt you to listen again?” Samira took the end of her apron and rubbed it across her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” Adele reached towards her mother’s hand, but Samira pulled it into her lap. “I don’t want to be a great cook like you. I have other dreams.”

  “What are your dreams? I want to better understand you, Adele.”

  “They don’t include allspice, that’s for sure.”

  “Then what? What’s your dream? To paint? How are you going to make a living like that?”

  “I don’t know but I want to try.”

  “And all I want from you is to try to cook some of your ancestral dishes. Am I asking for too much?”

  Adele got up, pushed her chair under the table, and walked back to the easel. She picked up her paintbrush and moved it in tiny, swift circular motions, creating some stones in the earth beneath her grandparents’ worn shoes.

  After that, Adele did most of her painting at one of the studios in the art school. There were several instances where she had tried to explain her passion for painting to her parents but in each attempt, they simply couldn’t understand why someone would spend countless hours working away at something that wouldn’t make money. What was the purpose
of all this drawing and painting? They couldn’t understand why she would vanish for a few hours, embrace her own solitude as if it were a lover, spend a glorious afternoon, sun shining bright, in the confines of her room. They couldn’t understood why anyone would deliberately choose to be alone rather than learn how to cook, marry, and raise a family. That’s what all good Lebanese girls wanted, they concluded over late-night conversations in their bed. Adele would often sit up in her bed and listen to her parents’ hushed voices as they worried about the fate of their youngest child. A woman couldn’t survive without a man, they both whispered. Why didn’t she want to join the groups at the Orthodox Church, a place where she’d find a respectable Lebanese man who’d become her future husband? But she refused every time her parents suggested she join. After a while, Adele gave up explaining that she didn’t want that life, that she wanted to paint and become an artist, perhaps spend some time abroad, studying art in a villa in Tuscany or a chalet in Provence, and if she met a man that would be great, but if she didn’t that wouldn’t be the end of the world for her.

  It was past ten one Saturday evening when Adele walked inside the house and saw the light from the upstairs bathroom brightening the darkened hallway. Her father’s store was now closed for the day and usually she’d hear the television set and her father swearing at something he disagreed with on whatever program he was watching that evening. Now she heard someone retching in the bathroom. At first she thought it was her mother, but then she saw Samira walk across the hallway and gently push open the bathroom door. “Are you all right, Youssef?” she asked.

  Adele stood quietly at the front entrance and listened for his reply.

  “Let me be. Go back to bed, Samira,” Youssef said, his voice raspy.

  “You’re not okay if you’re resting your head on the rim of the toilet,” Samira said, concerned. “Let me help.”

  “How can you help me? Are you going to vomit for me?”

  Adele hung up her coat then walked into the kitchen, where she grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the tap. She walked down the hallway and up the stairs until she was standing next to her mother. “Here,” she said, handing the glass to Samira.

  “Drink some water,” Samira said.

  Youssef turned his head, his eyes red and sweat dripping down his forehead, “Leave me alone! Can’t I be sick without you both harassing me?”

  “We’re only concerned, Babba,” Adele said. “It’s only been a few weeks since the last time you were ill and now you’ve gotten the stomach flu again.”

  “Shut up!” Youssef shouted, before hurling into the toilet.

  “God, Babba, you don’t have to be so mean. We’re only trying to help you.” Adele stepped away.

  Youssef lifted his head, wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand and mumbled, “Wait, Adele … I’m … I’m sorry.”

  But Adele had already crept into her bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.

  The next morning, Adele packed the last of the customer’s groceries in a paper bag and handed it to him. Her father had not gotten out of bed yet, still feeling unwell. Adele would have to miss her classes today and if her father didn’t start feeling better, she would have to quit her job at the bookstore. Standing behind the counter, Adele stared at her father’s small store. Youssef had not renovated the yellow store since the day he bought it some thirty years ago. He had painted it maybe three or four times and replaced some of the appliances, like the cooler and freezer, but the shelves were still the same, not metal like those in the more modern and new places, but wooden. The exterior was also unchanged. When Adele was a child, she had loved working in the store with her father. She’d dust and fill shelves and deliver groceries, but as she had got older, the store had become boring, and she didn’t look forward to helping out. She was also embarrassed by her father’s business and tried to hide the fact that she was the shopkeeper’s daughter when she was in high school, which was only two blocks away from her father’s store and where a lot of her classmates congregated for smokes or soft drinks and bags of chips. Deep down she knew she shouldn’t have felt ashamed because it was her father’s livelihood and it supported their family—this small space she now gazed at tenderly had helped them financially. And now her father was getting old and who’d run the place? Adele certainly couldn’t.

  In her daze, Adele hadn’t noticed her father coming down the stairs and stepping into the store. His face was paler than usual and he appeared to have lost several pounds in less than forty-eight hours.

  “How are you feeling, Babba?”

  “Better.”

  Adele couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her father as he stood across from her in his baggy trousers; the belt that held them up was worn and too large for his waist, making Youssef crop the end of the leather strap so it wouldn’t be too long. She didn’t understand why her father wore things until they were ragged; they weren’t poor.

  “You can go now, Adele,” Youssef said, moving behind the counter, and lightly touching Adele’s shoulders. “Thanks for opening the store.”

  “I can stay, Babba. You should rest.”

  “I’ve rested enough.”

  “Maybe you should go see the doctor.”

  “What for? So he can send me back home and prescribe rest and lots of fluids. It’s just some kind of stomach bug. Don’t worry. Go paint or whatever it is you do.”

  CHAPTER 17

  IT HAD BEEN SNOWING SINCE MORNING and the streets were now covered. Adele looked out her bedroom window, watching pedestrians trudging through the snow, bundled. Several things had happened over the past weeks as the seasons changed. Youssef had been diagnosed with an ulcer and Adele had been accepted to the University of Toronto again, but this time in the Fine Arts program.

  Now she stood in the bookshop across from Bertha.

  “Well, it’s time for you to leave this old dusty and crowded shop and head to an even dustier and crowded place called T.O. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer Montreal?” Bertha teased, hoping Adele would have moved to Bertha’s birthplace.

  “I love Montreal, Bertha, but fate has sent me to another big city. I must confess that I’m a little scared,” Adele said.

  “Completely normal, my dear. If you weren’t nervous that would make you apathetic. But don’t worry, you’ll do very well in Toronto. It will be so good for you to live on your own.”

  Adele nodded and smiled.

  “How are your parents taking it?”

  “Not very well but they can’t make me change my mind, not this time.”

  “They’ll eventually accept your decision. Every parent usually does.”

  “I hope so. I want to still be connected to them. I can always visit on long weekends and holidays.”

  “Of course! Don’t worry too much. It’s hard for parents, you know, to let go, especially ones like yours who were brought up in a different country with strong ties to family. They don’t want to lose their baby. But you have to convince them that you’re not lost, only living somewhere else,” Bertha said, gently patting Adele’s arm.

  “You’re right. I have to let them know that,” Adele sighed.

  Back home, she quickly headed up the stairs to her bedroom. Her suitcases lay on the floor opened and half packed. She couldn’t believe she was actually leaving. Tomorrow she’d be boarding an airplane and heading to Toronto and finally living the life she wanted. Over the past few months, she often wondered how she would tell her parents that it was time for her to live on her own and now she was leaving without her father’s blessing. Squatting down on the floor, Adele gazed at her clothes neatly folded in the burgundy luggage and she remembered what her father had told her: If you must leave, then leave, but don’t think you can come back to my house. I only have three daughters now. Knowing her father’s antics, she didn’t want to give in as she had done the last time. This was
her time. And she knew this in her heart.

  Getting up, she walked across the room and pulled out some more clothes from her drawers, moving with the confidence of someone who knew where she was heading and what she was going to do. But did she really? Her shoulders were straight and her fingers didn’t tremble while placing the items in the baggage but she did feel a pull in her stomach, an uncertainty tearing the muscles under her ribs, and at first she thought they were just phantom pains but she knew it was something else. In spite of everything, she still wanted her father’s approval, wanted him to come in her bedroom and say that he approved of her going away to school. But she’d have to wait an eternity and she didn’t have the time. Tomorrow she’d be gone.

  The next day, Adele stood nervously at the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International airport. Her sisters stood around her as well as her mother. Youssef had refused to see her off. “Be sure to call when you arrive,” Rima said.

  “You’re going to be okay, Monkey,” Mona whispered, leaning into Adele’s ear. Adele softly touched her sister’s face.

  “Thanks, Mona,” Adele said. “I’m still fairly stunned, you know. I can’t believe I’m actually leaving.”

  “This is what you always wanted,” Katrina said quietly.

  Adele didn’t reply. Instead, she looked at her sisters and felt her body grow numb at the prospect of not seeing them every day. She wondered how she would survive this separation, but this was what she had always wanted, as Katrina had just said. Billions of people did it every day, packed up and left their loved ones for jobs, schools, marriage, or whatever, and they survived, so Adele knew she would survive too.

  “Do you think Babba will ever forgive me?” Adele asked.

  The sisters stared at each other then their mother. Samira lifted up her hands and rested them on Adele’s face. “Don’t worry. Remember to eat and rest well, okay? I won’t be there to cook for you.”