The Feasting Virgin

by Georgia Kolias

  Dip the spoon into a glass of water between each ball. Do not crowd the loukoumathes in the pan. Turn them as they cook to achieve an even golden color. Remove them from the oil and allow them to rest on a bed of paper towels. Set the paper towels on top of a cookie rack to drain any excess oil.

  Place the loukoumathes in a serving bowl and drizzle them with honey. Sprinkle them with chopped walnuts, and cinnamon to taste.

  Eat them with your fingers, and feel free to lick the honey clean.

  Baking a Baby

  I can’t let myself think about what Callie said: It feels good to be with me? I have to push those thoughts out of my mind. Callie is married. Callie is a woman. I can’t let myself blush and stammer and have a racing heart. I have to focus. I have to show God that I am pure and deserving of a baby.

  Seeing Callie hold Manny to her breast, peacefully enraptured with her baby, just makes me want a baby even more. But I’m afraid it will never happen. I’m past my prime and my eggs are losing their vitality. I know how important fresh ingredients are. Just as yeast makes the loukoumathes rise, I need all the right ingredients to make my dream a reality. Why is this recipe so hard? Did I leave out some step or forget to perform a necessary ritual? It’s been over two years now that I have been praying for a miracle.

  Callie said she could have gotten pregnant without a man. She said she could have gone to the sperm bank. As much as I worry that it will be interpreted as a lack of faith, I have to try something different. I’m always telling Callie that you have to pick the right ingredients if you want your recipe to succeed. Would it be cheating to add a secret ingredient? I’ll still pray. It will just be a boost, like sprinkling mizithra on your pasta or adding olives to your salad. It would still be a salad without them, but the olives take the salad to the next level, and I need to get to the next level.

  Or maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with God. Maybe it’s all science, like baking. Add the right ingredients in the correct amounts and bake as directed for perfect results every time. I just need to get to know my ingredients better. I’m an excellent baker. I know that I can do this.

  I arrive at the sperm bank late, with the last of my savings in my pocket. Sitting in the waiting room, I focus on my hands folded in my lap. I don’t want to look up. I don’t want people to see me here and think that I am losing faith. I will still be an Ever-Virgin. I am still keeping my vow that no man will ever touch my body. It will still be a virgin birth even if I get a little help . . . won’t it? In the end, it’s God who makes the final call, who gives me a baby or keeps me barren regardless of what science says.

  There are no tellers at the sperm bank, only women wearing Birkenstocks. One of them calls my name, but she says it wrong.

  “Zee-ni?”

  “No, it’s Kseh-nee,” I correct her, and look down at my feet.

  She tries to repeat after me, “Okay, Seh-nee, follow me and we can get started.” She smiles at me when I look up at her and leads me into a small room with a window in the door. There is a metal tank sitting in the corner.

  “Now when it’s time, you’ll come and get the sperm in one of these tanks. It will have liquid nitrogen in it to keep the sperm frozen for up to seven days. Be careful handling it because the nitrogen can hurt your skin if you touch it.”

  I nod my head as she shows me how to lift the vials from the tank.

  “How many of those do I use?” I ask her. “They are so small.” I start calculating in my head as if composing a recipe.

  “It’s up to you, but we recommend two vials to increase your chances.”

  I make a note to myself . . . two vials of sperm, and one egg . . .

  “Now you can use a glove or a towel to hold the vial because it will be very cold initially.” I should wash my oven mitts.

  “After the sperm has thawed, you can tuck it between your breasts.”

  This strikes me as odd, or at least immodest. “Does it have to be between my breasts? How about in my hand?” I ask.

  “You can hold it in your hand, but your breasts will keep the sperm at just the right temperature.” She smiles so wide her face crinkles, and I wonder why that makes her so happy. I know that having the right temperature is critical in baking, so I decide to follow her instructions.

  She seems helpful enough, but she has some weird ideas about how to become pregnant. Charts, thermometers, sticking your fingers into your vagina to check your mucus! That can’t be right. I can’t believe that the miracle of life begins with probing your private parts. I’ve never even heard of some of the things she is talking about. If I was meant to know about my cervical os, then I would be able to see it. I’m not sure this is a good idea, but then I see the bulletin board with all the pictures of babies and I turn my attention back to her.

  She shows me how to draw the sperm up into a syringe and inject it into my private parts.

  “After you inject the sperm, you should lie quietly with your legs up in the air.” I imagine myself lying on the bed like a trussed chicken being basted with a magical marinade.

  “Okay! Now here is the fun part! Have you had a chance to peruse our donor profiles yet?”

  “I have looked a little. But . . . I’m not sure how to pick.”

  “Well, just look through. Maybe you’ll find someone that clicks for you. If it were me, I’d try to pick someone who looks like Jason Momoa.” She chuckles as she leaves the room.

  Looking through the binder of sperm donors, I grow more confused about how to pick. Eye color, hair color, height, hobbies? The donor information profiles tell me what they study, if their grandmothers have diabetes, and if they play basketball, but it doesn’t tell me if they are decent human beings. After looking through a binder full of donor profiles, I pick one that reminds me of Jesus. The description says he is a student of religion and serves food at the homeless shelter in his spare time. I reserve three vials of frozen sperm to represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and say a little prayer. I imagine the sperm bank lady lowering my vials into a cave of swirling mist, the cold keeping my future frozen, until that time when I can retrieve them and they will rise, bringing with them my baby.

  • • •

  I follow their recipe, and when the time comes I rush to the sperm bank to get the final ingredient. Early the next morning I put on my mittens and take each of the frozen vials out of the big beige nitrogen tank. They are so small, not even two inches long, about as wide as a pencil, and at the bottom, there’s just a little pea-sized bit of pink ice. It’s hard to believe that the miracle of life could be contained in such a small space. I warm up the first vial between my breasts like they told me to until the ice turns into a little pink liquid puddle. When I look at it closely with the light going through it, it looks like a tiny swirling universe in there, moving in slow motion, and it makes me choke up a little. According to the papers they gave me there are twenty-two million little sperm bodies in there swimming around, coming back to life after being suspended in death, resurrected for this moment.

  BAKING A BABY

  “Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with God. Maybe it’s all science, like baking.”

  1 uterus

  1 ripe egg

  3 vials of frozen, defrosted sperm

  Take vaginal temperature using a basal body thermometer every morning immediately upon waking. Note temperature on chart. Insert two fingers in vagina while squatting, and touch the cervix. Note the shape and position of the cervix. Note whether the os is open or closed or in transition. Collect cervical mucous, and with eyes closed rub it between the fingers and thumb. Note the texture, quantity, and temperature. Smell and taste the mucous. Note all data on chart.

  Starting on seventh day, using first morning urine, urinate on fertility monitor ovulation test sticks for ten days. When the test sticks indicate high fertility, collect saliva sample on microscope slide. Begin testing evening urine with backup ovulation test sticks, paying particular attention for a positi
ve evening reading, so as not to miss the beginning of ovulation.

  When the ovulation monitor has peaked, the backup test stick is positive, the saliva has ferned, the cervix has risen, the os is open, the mucous is copious and resembles raw egg white, but before your morning temperature has risen, and at the moment of mittelschmerz (a pain in the abdomen that accompanies ovulation), administer orgasm, insert defrosted sperm into the vagina using sterile syringe, and stand on head. If standing on head is not possible use the rotisserie technique: Lay with hips elevated above the head for two hours, turning position every fifteen minutes to thoroughly baste the cervix with sperm.

  Bake for two weeks and test for doneness on the first day of the missed period.

  Papoutsakia

  The following week, I arrive early in the morning with several brown paper bags clutched tightly to my chest. The steep staircase to the house on stilts seems especially treacherous and gray. I place each foot firmly as if walking a tightrope until I reach the top of the stairs. Looking behind me, I swoon a little and imagine myself falling backward with produce and bottles and sacks hovering in the air above my head before landing with a thud on my broken body. I shake off the vision and knock on the front door. While I wait for an answer I double-check my ingredients and try to smooth my hair, which the misty fog is causing to rebel and curl out of my tight braid. The longer I stand there the more out of balance I feel. The sperm bank lady told me I’d have to wait two weeks before I’d know if my recipe worked. In the meantime we cook.

  It is several long minutes before I hear Callie’s muffled footsteps on the carpeted staircase coming to let me in. My heart is beating soundly against my ribs in rhythm with her steps. I have to admit that I’ve come to enjoy these cooking lessons, almost as much as visiting the fat little baby.

  When Callie finally opens the front door, she looks as if she’s just emerged from her warm blankets, hair tangled, and wearing a striped men’s pajama shirt unbuttoned nearly to the waist and big sheared wool and suede boots. I have the sudden sensation that air is being sucked out of my lungs. Taking a deep breath, I blurt out, “Good morning! I have something for Manny!”

  “Is it time for our lesson already?” Callie asks as she rubs sleep out of her eyes.

  “Well, I’m a little early. I was at the farmer’s market this morning and I found the most perfect, firm, glossy melitzanes. They are just the right size and shape, and a beautiful deep purple color. I’ve planned a special lesson today. Unless . . . you don’t want the lesson today? Are you feeling ill? I could go . . .” I look back at the steep staircase, and imagine free-falling back down the bumpy steps.

  “No! No, of course not! Please come in!” Callie takes a heavy bag from my arms and leads the way up the last set of dark, twisting stairs. “I must have overslept. Manny woke up really early this morning, and I brought him to bed with me and nursed him back to sleep. I guess I fell asleep too. Nursing always makes me feel sleepy and relaxed, too. I guess that’s nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species, huh?” She chuckles as she mounts the steps.

  “Yeah, that sounds really relaxing,” I say, imagining the warmth and softness of Callie and the baby puzzled together under the covers.

  As I follow her up the stairs, I notice her long legs emerging from the furry boots, the way her calves flex with each step, the absence of freckles behind her knees, and her hot pink panties peeking out from under the pinstriped pajama top. I shake my head and focus my eyes on the stairs, willing myself not to trip and fall. I have always been extremely modest, and Callie’s ease with her own body both mesmerizes me and makes me uncomfortable. “I’m probably supposed to know this, but what’s a melitzanes?” Callie asks.

  “I’ll show you in just a minute,” I reply.

  We put the bags down on the kitchen table, and one by one I pull the ingredients out. “Today we are making papoutsakia, a very special dish, because you have to find melitzanes of just the right size and shape.” I pull from the bag two small eggplants that nearly glow with freshness and generously fill each hand. “Notice how the skin is so shiny and firm? The color is beautiful and deep. You can see your reflection in these—look!”

  Callie looks into the beautiful surface of the eggplant and grins. “You really love food, don’t you?”

  Unable to contain my happiness, I continue to pull out more of the perfect melitzanes until there are eight. “Aren’t they beautiful?” Also emerging from the bag are three fleshy red tomatoes, a yellow onion, a snowy white head of garlic, a bunch of frilly parsley, and a package of freshly ground beef from the butcher. “You still have plenty of the extra-virgin olive oil and the dried Greek oregano that I brought, don’t you?”

  “Of course. If I’ve learned one thing so far, it’s that I can’t keep a Greek kitchen without olive oil and oregano!” Callie says.

  “What kind of olive oil?” I quiz her.

  Callie smiles. “Extra-virgin olive oil from the first cold pressing, preferably from Greece, but Italian will do in a pinch.”

  “And?” I prompt.

  “Don’t tell the Italians.”

  “What about the oregano?” I ask as she caresses the rounded curves of the shiny melitzanes with her long fingers.

  “Only wild oregano collected from the mountains of Greece. It should be a vibrant green color even though it is dried. If it is dull and gray, it is last year’s harvest.”

  “Excellent! I am glad to see you are taking your lessons seriously!” I remove a large chunk of mizithra cheese, a half-gallon of organic whole milk, a dozen fresh eggs, and a pound of butter from the sack, and ask her to get the flour from the cabinet.

  “Okay. So what is the dish that we are making today, papou—?”

  “Pa-pou-tsa-kia. It means little shoes. Baby shoes. We take these lovely melitzanes, and we cut them in half and fill them with a delicious ground meat filling and top them with béchamel sauce and bake them. It sounds easy when I say it that way, doesn’t it? It isn’t. You are learning two lessons in one today. Papoutsakia and béchamel sauce. Once you learn how to make béchamel, you can make pastitsio, moussaka, and many other delicious dishes.”

  “And béchamel sauce is . . .?” Callie asks with a serious look while scratching an itch on her exposed thigh.

  “Béchamel is the most creamy, delicious sauce. The French and Italians both want to claim that they invented it, and the French call it one of the four ‘mother sauces’ from which all other sauces originate. But the Greek version of béchamel differs in that we add mizithra cheese, white pepper, nutmeg, and egg to finish it.”

  “Mmm . . . I think I’ve had that before when I went to a Greek restaurant.”

  “You haven’t had béchamel until you’ve eaten it fresh from the oven while it is still steaming hot and the texture is delicate and soft. It is still tasty after you reheat it, but the first bites are always the best. That’s why I always skip a meal when I cook a dish with béchamel, because I know that I will eat until I am ready to burst when the dish comes hot from the oven.”

  “Wow. That does sound like a high recommendation.” Callie smiles.

  I often find myself getting carried away when sharing the cooking lessons with Callie. Being near her seems to give me some permission to express myself freely, allowing my passion to expand.

  I feel her eyes on me for a long moment before she says, “I love that about you. Your passion, your belief. You feel so strongly about food it almost seems like a religion.”

  It’s as if I am being seen for the first time. I look down, trying to hide the emotion in my eyes. “Yes, in a way, it is. We can create miracles in the kitchen.” I shake myself and looking around ask, “Where is Manny?”

  “Still sleeping. I better go check on him. And put on some clothes!” Callie laughs.

  “I’ll be here.” I have brought a special surprise for Manny—one perfect sunflower, almost as tall as he is.

  • • •

  By the time Callie comes dow
n the steps from her upstairs bedroom, wearing a halter top and shorts, and carrying Manny, the fog has cleared outside and a bright sunshine is filling the kitchen. “Say, ‘Good morning, Xeni,’” Callie prompts Manny, and laughs since the baby is nowhere near enunciation yet. But Manny does give me a prompt smile and his face stretches out into a huge grin once he sees the sunflower that I brought him.

  “Wow. That is one beautiful sunflower, huh, Manny?” she says as he reaches out his fat fists to grab at the flower.

  “It reminded me of you,” I tell her. Why did I do that? I hold the flower out so Manny can touch the soft yellow petals and the bumpy texture of the purple center that later would have developed into seeds. His little fingers crush the petals and poke at the center, and he tries to grab the thick stalk with his fist. Avoiding Callie’s gaze, I smile and give him a quick squeeze on his blubbery, delicious thigh. Callie sets him down in his playpen with the flower, where she can watch and interact with him while we cook.

  My eyes linger on Manny, wondering if I could be pregnant, and what my baby would look like. I tie my apron on and hand another to Callie.

  “Okay, let’s get started. Gus’s mother is going to be here before we know it.”

  “Papoutsakia . . .” I say as I hold a melitzana down on the cutting board and make quick cuts, removing the stem end and then dividing the fruit neatly in half, “. . . means little shoes. When we cut the eggplant in half and stuff it with filling, they end up looking like little baby shoes.” I hand Callie the knife and supervise her technique, guiding her hands with mine as she cuts the rest of the melitzanes. “That’s why they have to be the right size, so they look like little shoes when they are done.” Next, I show her how to scoop out the flesh of the eggplant, leaving a shell the width of her pinkie finger.