by Rina Frank
She was hungry, a hunger accumulated over three months of going without food in order to save enough money to fly to the country of her bridegroom-to-be.
The arrived at a swish apartment block, and he pulled into an underground parking garage, where he parked next to a brand-new BMW. “This is my parking space,” he explained, “and that’s my father’s car,” and when they stepped out of the car and into an elevator, she felt she as if she were in a movie.
On the tenth floor, the man opened the door, calling out “Mummy” and announcing in French that they had arrived. She was sorry now that she had stopped her French lessons at Tante Marie’s, but she understood a little, because it wasn’t unlike Romanian. They entered a square hall, with one wall covered in mirrors and green marble pedestals; the other side had two shiny wood doors with painted flowers. Next to the entrance stood a red-velvet-upholstered chair, on which the man placed his briefcase. The hall was the size of her parents’ living room.
A plump woman with ingenuous blue eyes walked toward them, smiling, and he went up to her to give her three kisses. Next, a distinguished-looking man with piercing blue eyes and a Kirk Douglas dimple in his chin came up to shake her hand. He introduced his parents, Luna and Alberto, and they remained standing, a little embarrassed, in the elegant hall. His father spoke fluent Hebrew and explained that he had learned the language when he belonged to the Hashomer Hatza’ir youth movement in Bulgaria. She spoke a stilted English with the mother, but the father and the man broke out in simultaneous translation as soon as she opened her mouth.
They entered the salon, and she caught her breath. It was very large, with two separate reception areas, one with a television, where they sat most of the time, and another, for guests, with wall-to-wall red velvet furniture. Leading off the salon was a dining area, containing a long table with enough room to seat sixteen. So there would be enough room for anyone wanting to eat.
She remembered that when they’d had all the uncles and aunts over for the seder, they’d had to spill over into the neighbors’ apartment to accommodate all sixteen diners. The table was laid for a festive meal—a white tablecloth embroidered with delicate pale blue flowers and matching napkins, on which the cutlery had been laid. Each place setting consisted of a large plate under a smaller one and two kinds of drinking glasses, one for wine and one for water. A stainless steel bowl lined with a white napkin contained small slices of baguette; several other small bowls contained diced red pepper, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onion; and there was another bowl filled with croutons.
She looked up at the crystal chandelier hanging from the dining room ceiling, at the beautiful pictures hanging in the salon, at the large ceramic figure on the parquet floor in the corner of the room, and at the elegant dishes on the dresser and wondered if her gift would appear pathetic among all this splendor. Still, she put her hand into the bag she had carried close to her heart throughout the flight and pulled out a small blue porcelain figurine, which she had bought with her sister on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street. They had picked out the unique little piece simultaneously as soon as they laid eyes on it. The figurine was of a woman in profile, her head dropped sideways, a hand raised in doubt or pleading. Her body was soft, and her entire pose said, “Here I am, whether you want me or not.” A gentle woman, powerful, her clay eyes filled with compassion.
The figurine pleased his parents, and his mother gave it a place of honor on the dresser in the dining area. She felt wanted, and they sat down to eat their lunch. His mother sat at the head of the table, her usual place, and his father to her left, her son to her right, and she next to him.
Laura, the housemaid, brought in a large stainless steel soup tureen and laid it beside Luna at the head of the table. Luna served them all soup, first their guest, then herself, then her son and husband.
She was surprised to be served first; at home she had become accustomed to the men being served first, and only after them did the women get their food. Maybe it’s because I’m their guest, she thought, but in the evening, when the extended family arrived for dinner, she discovered that his mother made a habit of serving the women first and the men later, which she thought was an excellent arrangement.
The first course was gazpacho, and it was accompanied by a detailed explanation from Luna that this was a Spanish dish, a cold soup made from all the vegetables on the table, finely blended, with added water, vinegar, and ice cubes. The red soup looked especially refreshing to her and was eaten together with the diced vegetables on the table and the fried croutons. She watched the man to see what he was doing and did as he did, exactly as her sister, who had accompanied her to the airport, had instructed her. So as not to make a fool of herself, she was to watch everything the others did and do the same; place her napkin on her lap, take up a small amount on her spoon—not so little as to appear insulting or so much as to appear a glutton—take note of the cutlery they were using for each course, and of course, not confuse the water glasses with the wineglasses.
The soup was delicious, but when his mother asked if she wanted a second helping, she was too shy to accept. She was glad in retrospect that she hadn’t had another helping, because she was already full up after the second course, a Russian salad consisting of cooked vegetables in mayonnaise and coarsely cut pickled cucumber. Laura came around and collected the soup plates before handing the woman of the house the bowl of Russian salad, which she proceeded to serve first to her, then to herself, and finally to her son and husband.
The salad was tastier than the dish her mother made at home from cooked vegetables left over from the chicken soup. Here, obviously, the vegetables had been cooked especially for the salad.
“Is this a Spanish salad?” she wondered, and Luna explained that she cooked an eclectic variety of dishes from recipes she had picked up over the years. “The salad is a recipe I got from Ruth, my friend,” she said, “and I always make my own mayonnaise.” She didn’t understand how you could make your own mayonnaise, rather than buy it in the grocer’s shop.
The mayonnaise salad she ate with the small slices of baguette was so delicious that she was no longer annoyed at not being allowed to live with the man in a separate apartment.
Without asking, his father poured her a glass of wine, and they all said, “L’chaim.” The man asked her if she liked the wine, and she said, “Very much,” although she had no idea how to tell if a wine was good or not.
And again, Laura came in to collect the salad-soiled plates, and she didn’t know if she should get up to help; as the man didn’t stand up, she didn’t either. She thought later that she should have helped, and at dinner she did stand up to clear the table in spite of the housemaid, which in retrospect salvaged her reputation in his parents’ eyes.
Luna saved a portion of everything she had served for Laura, who ate her meal in the kitchen.
And again, Laura came in with a long stainless steel carving dish containing tender veal, which his father carved and his mother served out. Two small bowls, one with peas and the other with potatoes and onions, arrived alongside. The man piled her plate with generous portions of everything, as if suspecting that she was too shy to help herself; the veal was the most delicious meat she had ever eaten in her life.
She made a point of chewing everything carefully, as per her sister’s instructions, and most important—but really most important—not to forget to eat with her mouth closed. With every bite, she repeated over and over not to forget to keep her mouth closed. It’s very difficult to chew with your mouth closed. She didn’t say a word, worried that if she opened her mouth, she would forget to close it again when she was chewing. In any case, she was quite shy about saying anything, so she sat there, meekly listening to those who were wiser than she. This too was in accordance with her older sister’s orders to avoid making embarrassing gaffes in the home of a bourgeois family abroad, one of the pillars of the Barcelona Jewish community.
“Would you like to have some more garlic?” His mother inte
rrupted her closed-mouth drill.
“No, why?” she said uneasily.
“Because I don’t cook with garlic. Alberto doesn’t like it, but I know that Romanians eat a lot of garlic.”
“Bulgarians, too,” added his father. “It’s just that I hate garlic.”
“Does your mother cook with garlic?” Luna asked.
“Yes, a lot of garlic,” she said. “My mother starts her morning with three cloves of garlic. For her blood pressure.”
“It’s healthy, garlic,” said Luna, “and really good against high blood pressure. I, personally, like garlic.” Later, with time, she taught Luna how to introduce garlic surreptitiously into her cooking without her husband noticing it; after all, good meat really does need to be cooked with some added garlic.
“Alberto has diabetes, so nothing we eat contains sugar….” His mother continued to share the family secrets with her.
As they finished eating the main course, they discussed the falling prices of gold ingots and agreed the time was not right for selling off those they had; she listened in silence, concentrating on the French and on his father’s Hebrew translation and her man’s translation into English; each sentence, as it was uttered, was translated simultaneously especially for her. After Laura had cleared away the dishes, and she had almost messed up by rising from the table—they had been seated for forty minutes and eaten three courses—Laura returned with a bowl of lettuce salad and fresh plates for everyone. She thought that Laura might have forgotten to serve the lettuce with the meat and now brought it to table, having just remembered. But it seemed that an experienced housemaid like Laura would never forget to serve something on time. Luna, who noticed her confusion, explained that in Paris they eat the lettuce salad after the main course, to ensure proper digestion. She took a little lettuce, which, of course was very tasty, but she was too shy to ask Luna about the dressing, which so enhanced the lettuce; and when the salad bowl had been removed and she was sure that this time they really had finished their meal, Laura returned with a wooden board on which pieces of every kind of cheese known to man were arranged. Various kinds of hard cheeses, Camembert, Brie, goat cheeses, every type of cheese except the regular yellow cheese she was used to at home. By this time she really had had enough and didn’t even try any of the cheeses; she had had enough to eat to last her for the next two years. And this was before she even knew that there was still a dessert course to follow and that coffee and cake were yet to be served, and before she know that the entire process would be repeated in the evening—a meal that would last for over an hour, or if they were entertaining guests, two hours—with first courses, second courses, main courses, lettuce salad, cheeses, fruit, followed by coffee and cake. She had never in her entire life eaten so much in a single meal, with every course being a delicacy. And twice a day, even.
No wonder his mother was somewhat plump.
Another twenty minutes passed before a signal was given and the man stood up from the table, saying, “Thank you very much” in French, and she hurried to follow him in case someone brought in another final course that was good for the digestion, saying, “Muchas gracias.” She thanked her hosts, not because that was what the man had done, but because it was what her parents had brought her up to do: each time you get up from the table, say, “Thank you very much,” for the food that was prepared for you.
He took her on a tour of the house and showed her the large rooms; even Laura’s room, which was attached to the kitchen, was a lot bigger than any of the rooms she had seen until then.
“Don’t you have a balcony in your house?” she asked him.
“Of course we do,” he was quick to reply, and led her to a fifty-foot-long balcony stretching from the dining area to the red velvet reception room.
The whole length of the balcony was filled with tubs of multicolored geraniums.
The balcony overlooked a smart office block without balconies. When she looked down from the tenth story, she saw cafés and bars packed to overflowing, with people milling around on the sidewalks waiting to get in.
“Don’t you ever sit out on the balcony?” she wondered, renowned aficionada of balconies that she was.
“Not really,” he replied.
“Pity,” she said, “you’re missing a connection with the outside.”
He pulled her from the balcony to show her his own spacious bedroom, and when she saw that he had a suite all to himself, a lavatory for his own use, and a bath and shower that he alone used each morning, she remembered the once-a-week bath she used to share with her sister.
Dirty Thursday
Mom stood on the balcony, calling us loudly in Romanian to come up to eat. We always had to be called up to eat; it made no difference if we were busy and in the middle of an important game, or in the middle of playing hide-and-seek and not yet ready to reveal where we were. It didn’t matter if the gasoline truck had just arrived and the intoxicating smell was driving us half out of our minds. It didn’t matter if the driver of the ice van had just split a block of ice in half or in quarters and was selling the pieces to everyone who wanted to buy; nor did it matter that we had caught a ride with the horse-cart driver, sitting up behind him before being discovered and getting a lash of his whip.
Mom was calling us, and—if only to stop her shouting in Romanian—we hurried up the stairs to our apartment, although we knew that it was Thursday.
We were ashamed to speak Romanian, we were ashamed of people knowing that we knew Romanian, and more than anything, we were ashamed of being Romanian. We always insisted to whoever wanted to know that we had a Sephardi father, and when people wanted to know what country he came from, we always answered quickly, He’s from Romania, but he’s a Sephardi Romanian. At home he speaks Ladino.
And we omitted the disgraceful fact that Mom was an Ashkenazi Romanian.
“Ooof, how I hate Thursdays,” I said to my sister as we climbed up the stairs.
“Why, don’t you like being clean?” she asked.
“No,” I replied immediately. “I’ll only get dirty again anyway, so what’s the point?”
“Actually, I’d like to be clean all the time,” my sister said to me. “I’d have a bath every day, if I could.”
“Are you crazy?” I said, horrified. “No one washes every day. Not even rich people.”
“I bet they take showers every day in America,” she said confidently, “and they change their knickers every day.”
“I don’t believe that,” I told my sister, who always knew everything and believed that there were people in the world who had a daily shower and even used it as an excuse to change their underwear.
We burst into the apartment through the kitchen. Mom was busy preparing mamaliga and told us crossly to go to the table. We entered the room and saw Dad peeping in from the other door, which led to Tante Lutzi’s rooms. He held his finger to his lips, signaling to us to keep quiet, and tiptoed into the room and closed the door after himself, so Mom shouldn’t hear. His hair was wet, and a large towel was draped over his shoulders.
I went to him and started sniffing, the way a dog sniffs at his master when he’s just come home.
“You’ve been to the Turkish baths,” Yosefa whispered to him, and I sniffed my father and told him that he smelled of roses.
He asked us not to tell our mother, and hid his towel behind the pile of bedding on the sewing machine. “You know how she doesn’t like me spending money.” We nodded our heads conspiratorially, prepared to defend him with our lives.
Dad asked us to lay the table and shouted to Mom, so she should hear, asking what she wanted him to do.
“I want you to stop wasting the girls’ dowry,” Mom shouted back without even putting her head out of the kitchen. “I can smell the roses on you from here. Have you forgotten that people who are hard of hearing have a heightened sense of smell?”
I took out four plates and laid them on the table, and my sister removed them and went to the cupboard to take out an
orange tablecloth with a pale print. She spread the cloth over the table, and Dad asked her what the occasion was. My sister smiled at him and said that the cloth would protect the family photographs beneath the glass tabletop. I didn’t understand how a cloth could protect photographs. Doesn’t the glass protect them? But I said nothing. Dad smiled and patted Yosefa’s head fondly, and I was jealous at the way my big sister always managed to please our father, whereas I only caused trouble.
My sister arranged the plates, brought over the jar of anemones we had picked the previous Saturday, and placed it on the table.
Mom emerged from the kitchen carrying a pot of mamaliga and asked my sister, “What are the flowers in honor of?” As if she already knew that there was no way I would ever place a jar of anemones on the table. My sister explained that she had seen it in last Saturday’s movie. And Dad patted my sister’s head again, glad that he had a daughter who shared his American dream.
“Keep your mouth closed when you’re eating, and don’t make any noise when you chew. It’s not polite,” my sister said to me when all the attention was on her.
“I’m not chewing the mamaliga. I’m just swallowing it. But it’s terribly hot.” I sulked.
She was always educating me. Stand up straight. Pull your neck up from your shoulders. Don’t use bad language, and don’t spit. Don’t be rude, and don’t look adults straight in the eye. They don’t like it. Nod your head in submission as if you agree with them—and then you can do whatever you like.
“What else do you like in movies?” Mom asked my sister as she served out generous helpings of the yellow mamaliga bubbling in the pot. One tablespoon and then another until the plate was filled to the rim; then she added a dollop of sour cream to the torrid yellow mass, melting, blending, and folding it into the mountain of mamaliga until it got swallowed up, without a trace. She served Yosefa first, and then I received an equally generous helping.