The Language of Baklava

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  The older gentleman nods to Gram over my head, and she says, “Oh, hellew,” in her cultivated voice.

  The older gentleman says, “And where are you two ladies off to today?” He smiles and reveals a gigantic set of ivory teeth.

  “We’re going to eat Oriental food!” I gasp at the man.

  “But first we’re going to see Madama Butterfly at the Metro-politan,” Gram says, enunciating syllables and tugging at her ivory-smooth gloves. The pair I’m wearing have little plackets at the wrists held together with polished-bone buttons, and they smell like lavender sachet. I curl the fingers under my nose and inhale.

  Gram takes me to these places—Carnegie Hall, the Russian Tea Room, the Guggenheim—stuffing me with culture every chance she gets. Gram attended normal school as a young woman, and she has been a teacher for nearly all her life. I’m her special education project. Nothing intimidates or unsettles Gram. At a Museum of Modern Art exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos—all burnished, naked men—she crossed her arms and said, “Well, that’s interesting. Maybe someone will explain it to me sometime.” Later, when I’m in high school and I ask her how she managed to read all of Finnegans Wake, she says, “One word at a time, dear.”

  “Well, that’s all delightful,” says the older gentleman, then turns to me and pats my sleeve. “And well, well, aren’t you something? Look at this wonderful ensemble. Is that real seal you’re wearing?”

  “Sure!” I say. “It’s faux.”

  Gradually, a conversation about the finer things evolves between Gram and the older gentleman, their voices light and bright as pins. All the while, I sense this man’s attention flaring beneath his words, his eyes sharp and avid when he glances in my direction. But this is so unbelievable—that such a very distinguished, very old person would pay any real attention to me—that I simply don’t take it in. Not even when the man comments on the length and delicacy of my neck and the particular shade of green in my eyes, speaking as directly and appraisingly to Gram as if he is judging a vase or a painting.

  Eager to bring the conversation back around to my own new, cherished topic, I blurt out, “Have you ever eaten any Oriental food?”

  He looks taken aback, then says, “Many times,” in the voice of a condemned man. He dabs a scented hankie at his mouth, clears his throat, and adjusts his ascot. “The Oriental people have an unwholesome obsession with the flesh of the young pig.”

  They do? I am struck dumb, ruminating on the possible connection between this moment and the time that Gram served Bud the ham. The distinguished gentleman makes eating pig sound like a mortal sin, and even though Mom regularly serves my sisters and me ham-and-Swiss sandwiches with mustard, for a moment I’m worried that I won’t even like Oriental food. What then?

  “Well, what else do they eat?” I ask impatiently. “Besides young pig flesh?”

  He sprinkles his fingers through the air, as if this is all too much. “Please, that was another lifetime ago.” His fluty voice trembles. “I’ve put all that infernal eating out of my mind. Now I consume only green and orange plants and crackers. If it were up to me, I would take all my nutrition in through the sun and the air.”

  “Like a little fern,” Gram says.

  “I’ve always had an abhorrence to the entire operation of chewing. So finally, I took matters into my own hands—”

  Suddenly, there’s a wet suction sound and the man’s whole mouth seems to jump forward. He curls back his lips, and I can see that his rich pink gums and massive white teeth have separated from a paler, wizened pair of gums still in his head. I gape and move forward on the seat to get a better look, but he shifts his jaw and clacks the teeth back into place. I feel I’ve glimpsed something miraculous, like a unicorn.

  “I told my dentist, ‘I’m done! Remove these offending items!’ And he pulled every last tooth. Now I wear my prosthetic only when I’m among the public and might need to make polite conversation. Otherwise I leave my gums at liberty. It’s the most free and wonderful feeling!”

  “I’m sure it is,” Gram says.

  “Like running around naked,” I offer.

  “Do you like to do that?” he asks with a chuckle.

  I suck the breath back into my chest and stare.

  Throughout our exchange, Gram has been studying the man. He gives off an air of prosperity and sophistication, yet even I realize that he’s taking a bus. Gram clears her throat daintily and touches her sternum and finally asks in her most high-class way why a man such as himself would trouble with public transportation. He sits back and declares with a wide gesture, “I love the bus. The bus is the world! Well, of course I’m quite wealthy and I could take a limousine anywhere I liked, but I meet the world’s most interesting people this way. Why, imagine if I had taken my chauffeur today, what I would have missed!” He lifts my hand on the edge of his fingers, lowering his head as if he will kiss it, then hesitates and simply passes the wedge of my knuckles under his nose, nostrils flaring.

  Gram smiles coyly and bends her head to one side. She slinks one arm around my shoulders and pulls me in close so my hand slips out of his. I’m filled with relief.

  He blinks at this gesture and then quickly states that he owns “several lucrative and high-class enterprises,” adding that a man in his position is frequently lonely and in search of a friend, someone to coddle and spoil and heap with riches. Then he invites us to come visit him at his main place of business and painstakingly prints instructions on how to take the bus there on the back of a Howard Johnson Motel post-card. Finally he gives Gram a scalloped, gilt-edged business card with his name and the words Pre-Owned Cars and, under this, Associate.

  “I do hope you’ll honor me with a visit soon,” he says at the end of the ride, and looks at me once more with such a raw longing that I withdraw a few inches, tucking in my chin and leaning against Gram’s shoulder.

  Gram assures him that we most certainly will consider this generous offer. Then, as soon as we walk into Port Authority and lose sight of him, she flips the card in the garbage and says, “There goes another one, walking around all loose and fancy free. Typical!”

  “Typical what?”

  She looks at me as if it’s scrawled all over the tiled walls of the station. “Typical man!”

  THE TENDEREST ANGEL FOOD CAKE

  For those who don’t like to chew very much.

  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

  Put the egg whites and water in a clean large metal bowl. Sift together the flour and 1⁄4 cup of the sugar into a medium bowl.

  Using a standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites on medium speed until frothy. Add the vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt. Increase mixing speed to medium-high and beat just until soft peaks begin to form. Gradually beat in the remaining cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl. Increase the speed to high and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Sift a third of the flour mixture over the whites. Beat on low speed just until blended. Sift and beat in the remaining flour in two more batches.

  Gently pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan and smooth the top. Run a rubber spatula or long knife through the batter to eliminate any large air bubbles.

  Bake the cake in the lower third of the oven until the top is golden and a tester comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and immediately invert the pan over the neck of a bottle. Cool the cake completely, upside down. Turn the pan right side up. Run a long, thin knife around the outer edge of the pan. Remove the outer rim of the pan and run the knife under the bottom of the cake to release. Invert to release the cake from the tube, then invert again onto a serving plate.

  All I remember of Madama Butterfly are the ornate chandeliers suspended from the ceiling of the opera house, arranged to resemble twinkling constellations in the cobalt black sky. They remain faintly illuminated throughout the performance and hold me enthralled while I speculate on the nature of Oriental food.

  After the show,
Gram is misty, transported, humming lines of music that I’m sure I’ve never heard before. “Wasn’t it just lovely?” she asks over and over. “Those Orientals are so dainty and refined,” she muses. “Like little porcelain dolls with their little shoes and parasols.”

  I fervently agree to everything. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’m nearly in a panic to get to the Oriental food.

  “Did you see?” she asks. “Did you watch what that awful captain did to poor Madame Butterfly? Left her stranded!”

  “Yes, Gram.”

  “Isn’t that just typical?”

  “Yes, Gram.”

  “That’s what a man will do.”

  Just a few blocks from Lincoln Center, the Imperial Palace is a massive edifice flanked by twin stone dragons on scrolls, glaring at incoming customers. A man in a red satin jacket opens one of the carved, ten-foot-high doors. He says, “Welcome, Imperial Palace,” like someone who has said this a thousand times a day, every day of his life.

  We enter and I feel my heart rock against the side of my chest. My hands fall open and the breath catches in my throat. It’s a Disney ride of a restaurant, with a soaring ceiling, banners of fabric in fiery colors, hostesses and wait staff crisply turned out in short skirts and tailored jackets with mandarin collars, hair spun into ivory combs. There are cages full of songbirds and a real little waterfall bubbling down from the far wall to run into a circular pool in the floor. I feel light-headed, and a white buzz fills my ears. The air smells gorgeous, like marrow, roasting garlic, and grilled meat. I’d be happy just to stand there drinking in the aroma, openmouthed in the entryway, but one of the angrily efficient hostesses snaps up two menus. “You come now!” she commands, and plunges us into the roaring restaurant.

  We’re offered seats at a table in the center of the room, which I think is an ideal viewing location. But Gram grumbles about being placed at what she calls a “dames only” table. We’re handed padded menus bound in crimson velvet and heavy as blocks of wood. I flip through the many pages, and even though there appear to be no Asian customers in the restaurant, all the meals are listed in both English and Chinese. The menu is a treasure map that takes me on its dotted line over snowy mountains, through hushed trees, past jade lakes. I read about bird’s-nest soup, thousand-year-old eggs, fried blowfish tails, jellied pigs’ knuckles, batter-fried eels, braised shark fins, dishes named for generals and princes, forgotten cities, and sinewy rivers.

  I’m desperate to order the flying monkey soup and house-fried birds’ feet, but Gram decides that for our first exposure we should stick with the dishes listed on the first page under the heading “Chef Recommends.” She selects wonton soup and egg foo yong for us to share.

  Our waiter is a remote, stately man with graying temples who looks out of place among the brisk hostesses and dapper young waiters, their hair sleek as chips of onyx. He bows very slightly, smiles a vacated smile, and recites the specials in a faint voice. His name tag, a bit of jade green plastic surrounded by a scroll, says “Chen”—the only Chen in the sea of Marys and Johns and Roberts walking around here. Gram gives Chen our order, then presses one confidential hand to his jacket forearm.

  “We just went to see a won-der-ful performance, all about your people!” Her voice is full and voluptuous, as if she’s congratulating him personally on the performance. I look away, my mouth wavy with embarrassment. You never know who Gram is going to talk to or what she’s going to say to them. “It was a wonderful show—at the opera house!” she goes on. “Such a spectacle—the little Oriental girl was so dainty and refined.”

  I study the marble columns in the back of the room, imagining that Chen is now rolling his eyes. There’s a pause; then I hear Chen say, “You see Chinese opera?” I’m astonished to hear an electric wire of excitement in his voice. I turn back. All his brusque efficiency has fallen away. He is staring at Gram.

  “Yes! You would have loved it,” she gushes as if they are old chums. “It was just glorious. The singing, the costumes, the set. Ohhh . . .”

  “Yes, Chinese opera very important, very ancient art form. Center of cultural life.”

  “Oh, I know, I know! It was spec-ta-cu-lar.” Gram draws out every syllable. “So sad and meaningful. It was ex-tra-va-gant.”

  Chen looks as if he will pull a chair right up to the table. He stands but is nearly bent double to speak as closely as he can with Gram. “Where you hear it? Where you hear Chinese opera?”

  “Why, it’s right down the street,” Gram says. “Right at Lincoln Center!”

  His eyes follow Gram’s gesture as if he could gaze through the walls. “This is venerable art form, this opera. In the Cultural Revolution, opera is the only kind of art we are allowed. Chairman Mao says it is not bourgeois. But I don’t care about this, I don’t think about politics. Always as a boy, I loved the opera,” he says, his voice suddenly so sweetly yearning that it seems too intimate of a confidence.

  Gram’s cheeks bloom; she looks as if she will rest her head against his chest. She places the flat of her palm at the center of her sternum. “Oh, Chen,” she says, “I understand completely, I really truly do. I too have always been a lover of the arts, but when I was married my husband would never have gone to the opera.”

  I bite my lips, and my neck stiffens with embarrassment. I want to bark at her, Gram, get a grip! But she’s not paying any attention.

  “I think maybe only most sensitive people understand the opera,” Chen says. Gram nods mournfully. He and Gram stare at the same point on the floor. I look back and forth between the two of them: What about the egg foo yong?

  “Only the sorts of people who’ve really known suffering really appreciate the opera.”

  “From suffering come the greatest art,” Chen says.

  “Oh, what a true, true, tragic thought.”

  I jitter in my seat, swing my legs, yawn like to unhinge my jaw.

  Finally, after a moment of charged silence, Chen seems to come to. He abruptly bows and withdraws from our table.

  While we wait for our food, Gram leans over and begins chatting with a family of five flaxen-haired boys and their mother. They’re hard to avoid since there’s barely a hand’s width of space between our tables. The mother tells Gram they are visiting from Kentucky, at which point Gram turns, covers her mouth, and murmurs to me that Kentucky was “neutral” in the Civil War. She swivels back and, flapping her hand, goes on to tell them all about our afternoon at what she is now referring to as the “Chinese opera.” When she reveals that the opera was Madama Butterfly, the family matron, a gentle-eyed woman with tightly permed steel wool hair and wearing a Ma Kettle dress, says to Gram, “Why, darlin’, I thought that was a Japanese type of music opera? Maybe even written by an Eyetalian?”

  And Gram laughs gaily and says, “Well, yes, I suppose she was supposed to be a sort of Japanese girl. But here in the North, we don’t really like to make those sorts of distinctions. We feel it’s more polite to call them Or-i-en-tals,” she enunciates.

  “Oh my, well, y’all don’t say!” remarks the flushed matron, fanning at herself a little. Then she redirects the conversation, complaining that she doesn’t know how to take all these spices.

  The youngest of the five big, round-shouldered sons at the table is hunkered down, holding his plate and using his chopsticks like a snowplow blade to shovel chicken with cashews into his mouth. He gazes at me steadily without slowing his food intake.

  “There’s a little boyfriend for you,” Gram says, elbowing me.

  This type of observation from Gram increasingly has the power to make me crazy. “I thought you hated men!” I roar back at her.

  She tut-tuts, rolls her eyes, and says, “Oh, for the love of Pete, that’s not a man.”

  Our exchange is preempted by a cool-eyed waiter with military posture and an impassive face holding up a tray crowded with steaming dishes of meats, vegetables, and rice. I scan them wildly, searching for the young pig flesh. Behind him, serene and dashi
ng, is Chen. He stands beside the young waiter and orchestrates the exact placement of each dish on the table, then dismisses him. While the Kentucky family looks on, he crouches between me and Gram and murmurs, “Egg foo yong too plain! Chinese opera lovers need real Chinese food!” He has taken the liberty of switching the egg foo yong for crispy shrimp with almonds and adding a plate of shredded beef in hoisin sauce.

  I swell up, proud of my sophisticated tastes, and glance over at the other tables, hoping that some ignoramus has ordered egg foo yong.

  Chen shows me how to fit the chopsticks to my fumbling fingers. After a few trembling attempts, I manage to get a small piece of beef to my mouth. I close my eyes and my senses swim in my head. The flavors are so complex and capacious, I don’t know how to make sense of them. It’s enthralling, the way the dark, sweet sauce clings to a salty bit of meat, the twenty-five shades of flavor secreted in the grilled crust of a shrimp. Who would have thought to bring these ingredients, these ways of thinking about food, together in such startling ways? It’s so good that it seems nearly intimate, an impossibility that this unknown chef, a total stranger, would know how to touch all the hidden places in my mouth.

  “Yes, yes, yes. . . .” Chen’s voice enters my reverie, coaxing and seductive. I open my eyes and he is looking at me. His own eyes are dark glimmerings. “It’s good, isn’t it,” he says. “You taste it, don’t you? I see that you taste.”

  I fumble with the chopsticks, feeling anointed and embarrassed. It is at once too much praise and no praise at all—who doesn’t know how to taste food?

  But Chen’s gaze goes distant again. “The chef here, a very fine, sensitive man—he was one of the cooks for the Chinese emperor.” He lowers his eyes. “No more. Now he must cook for people who have no tongues and no noses!”

  I concentrate on arranging my chopsticks, wanting to please this displeased man. Something about him—perhaps the failure to find the identical charms and graces of his first culture in this new one; the failure to recognize the new promises of his new country— reminds me of Bud. He’s also just as obscure as Bud. Who are these people with “no tongues and no noses”? I mull over the deepening mysteries of the Imperial Palace restaurant.