The Language of Baklava

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  The restaurant looks natural among the stone walls and medieval light, as if such a place has always been in business in this location. It makes a kind of historical sense. My drunken, wantonly generous grandfather used to invite whole neighborhoods to his house for dinner, and Kan Zaman is an extension of those invitations. There’s a brisk hubbub, the big round tables are crowded, and a rear wall of arched windows faces out over a driveway filled with steaming, rumbling tour buses.

  Bud touches his palm to his chest as if about to sing an aria. “Do you see this?” he implores, as he had back in the blue-lit chamber, as if I’m refusing to open my eyes. “This is it. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

  While the rest of us hesitate in the doorway, he walks right into the restaurant and strolls around the tables, muttering: “Good, good, very good.” Diners glance up from two-foot-high tasseled menus as he passes, assuming, perhaps, that he is the maître d’. I watch him amble through, chin tucked, hands clasped behind his back, taking possession of the place.

  “What has he been trying to tell you?” Fattoush asks me, his voice low. Mai turns her plush gaze from Fattoush to me, and it seems we’ve all fallen under a believer’s spell, each of us wondering about Bud’s special, private truths.

  I open my hands, shrug. “He’s always saying things like that.”

  But it is a very simple reality: Bud is finally in place. His history spirals directly from this wind and desert, where distances dip into pools of shadow and the only sign of life is the pulse of camels stalking their shadows. A long time ago, the people here learned to give food, water, and shelter to anyone who needed it, before they needed it, because that would be the only way to keep one another alive in such a hard place. Such an imperative, repeated so many times over the generations, insinuates itself into the genetic code, becomes a drive or instinct. I watch Bud scrutinize the dishes on one family’s table, observe as he puts his hand on the back of another man’s chair and leans in to ask if everything is to his liking.

  “Look at your dad.” Mai turns to me, her face bright with astonishment. “Does he own this restaurant?”

  Bud nods to another couple who’ve come in and points toward a nice table, then waves to a waiter, who hurries over with an armload of menus. Bud inspects a fork and sends it back for a fresh one.

  “It would seem so,” I say to Mai.

  After a few minutes of impromptu ownership, Bud dusts off his hands and turns to go. A waiter approaches him, I assume to ask what on earth he thinks he’s doing there. Instead, the man says, “Sir—they don’t like their lamb at that table!”

  Bud looks the man over a bit critically, then says, “What don’t they like?”

  “They want it Engleesi style, with mint jelly, but we don’t have mint jelly. I don’t even know, what is mint jelly?”

  The table in question is filled with pink-cheeked tourists in shorts and knee socks. Bud nods at the waiter. “Never mind. I can already tell you, they won’t like the lamb. Get them a nice plate of mixed grill and tell them it’s on the house. Remember, they’re our guests.”

  The waiter thanks him and runs off. Bud watches him push through the swinging doors to the kitchen. His face is dignified and his back upright. One hand rests formally on his midsection; he looks a bit like Napoleon in repose. As we turn back at last, I notice Mai still lingering, backlit, in the doorway, ducking her head toward Fattoush as he moves toward her, as if the mood of Bud’s dream is catching. The silhouette of her hand barely grazes the back of his. For a moment I feel a surge of affection for them, as if they’re an actual couple.

  This evening, it seems, contains a small warp, like a ripple in its fabric, that shows us another way that things could have gone. Our alternative lives emerge in bas-relief: a life in which Mai falls in love with Fattoush; in which Bud owns and runs Kan Zaman; in which I live contentedly in Jordan and understand exactly where in the world I belong.

  Soon, I know, we will be walking out of this curved night, back into the regular lives we’ve set in motion, the old familiar pathways. But for now, it is very lovely, and oddly satisfying, to think that there are always other possibilities, hidden in the blue-lit chambers.

  GARLIC-STUFFED ROASTED LUXURIOUS LEG OF LAMB

  Cut slits all over the lamb with the tip of a sharp knife and insert the garlic slivers in the slits.

  In a large cooking pot, heat the oil until it sizzles, then sear the lamb, browning on all sides and taking care not to burn it.

  Add the onion, vinegar, and water to the lamb, bring to a boil, and then reduce to a medium-low heat. Simmer, covered, for 1 1⁄2 hours. Turn the meat, add the carrots and mushrooms, and simmer, covered, for another 11⁄2 hours. Try to resist lifting the lid to peek into the pot. It will smell divine. When done, add salt and pepper to taste.

  SERVES 6 TO 8.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Just a Taste

  Mai and I loll in the leather chairs of her government office, clicking spoons in glasses of American-style iced tea. During one especially long, glistening afternoon, our friend Dobby taught Ziad, the office driver, to make iced tea in his free time, when he wasn’t driving Dobby and Mai around to bakeries and cafés. It is a lovely, golden iced tea, delicately brewed with cardamom and brightened with sugar and lemon and whole sprigs of mint. Ziad hand-chipped the ice from solid blocks in the office sink.

  Like iced tea in Jordan, Mai is a bit of an anomaly, a hybrid of older and newer worlds. Mai’s parents are unusually liberal and cosmopolitan; her dignified, frowning father is one of the king’s personal advisers, and her American mother, Katy, in her gleaming cashmere suits, is the founder of an organization dedicated to preserving the ancient buildings and historical sites of Amman. This is why Mai at thirty-two has so far not been required to marry anyone. Dobby, who also works in Mai’s office, who was born and raised in Jordan and who, ever since his sojourns in Paris and London, groans regularly about his distaste for Jordanian food, music, clothing—in fact, all things Jordanian—says the problem is that Mai’s parents are too sophisticated for Jordan. They prefer that Mai find her own suitors, without their intervention. But Jordanians do not share in the American institution of dating—at least not publicly—so it is very difficult for someone like Mai to meet anyone.

  From what I’ve observed, this situation seems to suit her just fine. Mai and I have been friends since French-Catholic-Jordanian grade school, back in the days when I was engaged to Hisham. Twenty-five years ago, she was a little girl with a stern expression, polished shoes, and an immense cloud of black hair. Even then, Mai informed me that she found boys unsatisfactory and had no wish to marry one. Since childhood, she has had a dignified equanimity about her, of exactly the sort that has always eluded me; her eyes are dark and level, and her physical beauty seems predicated on a sort of emotional distance. If Mai secretly pines for a suitor in the hidden nights of her dreams, I’d never guess it now, watching her roll her big leather chair back and forth behind her burnished desk, stabbing buttons on the intercom and ordering Ziad to bring us more ice, fresh mint, sliced oranges and limes.

  I admire her fierce manner. Like my aunt Aya, Mai was the only daughter in a family of sons, which has rendered her unflinching and indomitable. Her cheekbones are high and straight and suggest something of a ship’s prow, and her eyes have a dauntless clarity. She has the presence and loveliness of a film star but there is also a deep vertical line between her eyebrows; Dobby is always fussing over her hair and nails and tries to smooth out this line with his fingertips, scolding her to “stop glaring.” But she continues to glare.

  “He really has a thing for you,” I say, underlining the obvious.

  “Fattoush?” She swivels her sheer gaze to me. “No—he’s a child.”

  Fattoush has sent me to Mai to plead his case. I’m meant to act as his “cultural attaché,” to tell Mai all about his “talents,” and to get a sense of her level of interest. “He’s not so bad—he loves music and . .
. he’s studying art history, you know,” I say haplessly, drawing a blank on his list of talents.

  “Oh yeah? Like in grade school, you mean?” She snorts with satisfaction, her teeth clicking on the glass of iced tea.

  It occurs to me that some part of Mai’s scorn may come from fear— of losing herself, her independence, in a relationship with a traditional man. More than one Jordanian woman has told me of an easygoing courtship period with an Arab fiancé that abruptly comes to a halt after the wedding—the sweet suitor suddenly insisting that his wife quit her job, produce babies, and wait on both himself and his mother.

  Mai’s little greenish gray cat, Lonely, curls between my ankles like a puff of fog. He stares at me in perpetual astonishment—perhaps at his good fortune. In parts of the Middle East, cats used to be venerated, but in modern Jordan they’re bums, forever spilling out of garbage cans, trailing a foul reek.

  But Mai found Lonely when he was tiny and newly abandoned under her windowsill; now he is pampered, fluffed up as a powder puff. He leaps to Mai’s lap, slinks into a coil, and begins kneading her thigh. Mai strokes the crown of his head down to the base of his spine. Lonely’s eyes lower to wet slits as she strokes and strokes. “No,” she finally says in a new, formal voice. “I’ve got a cat in my life. Which is plenty. And I’m afraid that Fattoush isn’t a man. Give me a man— then we’ll talk.”

  His ears gleam and his cheeks are fiery with exertion and sunburn.

  Fattoush is doing the twist while Mai embroiders the air over her head with intricate, diaphanous hand movements, dancing at her full length.

  Fattoush invests himself in his dance, rolling and swiveling and elbowing the air. Mai stays an eternal half step out of reach, like a jinn or a mirage. A distant, neutral smile floats on her lips.

  The rest of the family ignores them—they’re eating mezza.

  Last night, when I tried gently to dissuade Fattoush from his infatuation with Mai, he brushed aside my concerns. Even when I finally blurted out, nearly verbatim—in exasperation—her request for “a man,” Fattoush seemed only mildly bemused. “A man, eh?” he said, chuckling and puffing out his chest. “So she wants a real man?”

  The record player’s arm slides up and down over the Fayrouz record, and music bounces off the stone walls of the fortress ceilings and arched doorways. Bud’s cousin Haroun and his wife, Sandra, live in one of the ancient apartments in the Abu-Jaber compound at Yehdoudeh. Uncle Haroun went to the States long enough to not finish a degree in engineering and to collect his Wisconsin-born bride, Sandra, who was as ready to go as if she’d been standing at a bus stop all those wintry years, waiting for Haroun to arrive. “Where did she appear from?” Bud asked when he heard about his cousin’s engagement. “It’s like a magic trick.” They married, returned to Jordan, and settled into one of the apartments of the medieval fortress, where Sandra began having daughters and cooking esoteric Arabic dishes as matter-of-factly as if she’d been doing it all her life. Sandra, with her long, thin nose and small, regal head, is the unacknowledged reigning queen of Abu-Jaber cookery. None of the family can bring themselves to admit that an American could outcook them, but there are always friends and family lined up in orderly rows along her table, their faces clear and open as those of a congregation at services, waiting expectantly at their plates. Before each meal, Sandra always pauses, platter in hand, to claim her moment of recognition before placing the food on the table. She reads slick American gourmet magazines and visits the tiny, bubbling kitchens of the local old crones, studying the ways they blend their spices and balance their sauces. She guards her recipe for bitter mulukhiyyah greens as jealously as if it’s the polio vaccine, and even her adult daughters complain that she deliberately leaves crucial ingredients out of the recipes she gives them. Today, she frowns at the music over one shoulder, unhappy with anything that might interfere with the experience of eating her cooking.

  Fattoush and Mai are dancing in the clearing at the center of the main room. The stone floors make a fine dance surface, and the singer’s elastic Arabic notes bound through the air. A long table is set up against one wall and servers bustle around it, laying out heavy platters piled with roasts and rice and vegetables. Occasionally, the relatives call to Fattoush and Mai to sit and eat, but every time Mai turns to go, Fattoush snatches her hand and begs her for another dance. Mai makes a show of relenting each time, but I know she must want to dance. Mai does only what she wants.

  “Look at her play with her little mousy.” Dobby nudges me, slitting his eyes and making his smile very sly. “She’s toying with him.”

  At that moment, Aunt Sandra emerges from the kitchen carrying a small tray of glistening stuffed grape leaves that she says are the “vegetarian special.” She takes the plate right up to Fattoush on the dance floor and waves it under his nose so that the rich aroma softens him and his dancing falters. He sneaks a delicate glance at Mai, who shrugs, and he follows Aunt Sandra back to the table like a man in a waking dream.

  The atmosphere is feverish, the air humid with conversation and drinking. Sandra has proclaimed that this meal would be an American-style buffet. She has hired a man who claimed to be a professional bartender—a dusky-eyed young Bedouin who takes all sorts of orders for mixed drinks, beer, and wine but serves everyone tall glasses of araq instead. Fattoush, Mai, all the wives, and I are seated at one table. Most of the uncles prowl the buffet table, eating directly from the serving platters with their hands.

  “They’re standing up like wild Bedouins in a tent!” Sandra complains, glaring at the bartender as if he is responsible. But her husband, Haroun, is the leading culprit, calling his brothers over to this or that plate, brandishing chicken legs, and encouraging them to tear the lamb pieces directly from the skewers with their teeth.

  Haroun materializes at Fattoush’s left shoulder and gestures at his plate. “Come on, boy, let me give you some real food. Enough with the leaves and twigs.”

  Fattoush pays no attention. He is glazed from his joyful exertion and sheerly buoyant beside Mai. He hunches over his plate of vegetarian grape leaves and guards it with both arms, as he’s learned to do so the uncles won’t try to pile on more food, and he eats with evident appetite. He’s lost about ten pounds during his weeks in Jordan, with all the meat dodging he’s had to do. This is the most I’ve seen him eat in one sitting.

  Haroun brings up the recurrent concern about Fattoush’s child-bearing abilities. “You know, you can’t have a baby from just dancing around and eating leaves like a monkey,” he observes.

  Sandra waves her husband away with her long, imperious fingers and seats herself to my left. She complains, “These Jordanian men can’t fathom anyone deliberately turning down meat.”

  Fattoush grins as he eats, nodding at Mai, Aunt Sandra, me, back to Mai, and so on. Sandra, who never eats when she is feeding others, pulls her elbows into her lap and asks, “How long have you been a vegetarian?”

  Fattoush chews and bobs and scoops more grape leaves onto his plate. “Ever since I was eleven years old. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than half my life now. I saw a TV show on the way they slaughter cows and that did it for me,” he confides to Mai in a tender way.

  Sandra contemplates him with a fond, abstracted smile, clearly enjoying his pleasure in the meal. Like Bud, she doesn’t have a son, and she looks as though she’d like to try rubbing her hand along the shorn, downy nape of his thin neck. “Do you like the grape leaves?” she coaxes. “I made them special.”

  He nods with his whole upper body. “I’ve never had anything like these. I’d eat them every day if I could—I don’t think I’d ever get tired of them. They taste incredible.”

  “Oh, well . . .” Sandra brushes modestly at her sleeves. “After all, we want you to grow big and strong.”

  It is not so much what she says as the way she says it—sharply, disjointedly. I slowly turn toward her and think I see in her eyes the coppery glint of a secret arsonist or poisoner. There’s an odd set
to her lips, and the angles of her jaw don’t quite match up. I glance back at Fattoush, and then I slowly return my gaze to Sandra. She’s holding so still, she doesn’t seem to be blinking. All at once, a great fizzing rush comes over me. My spine unbends. My fingers close around the silvery handle of my fork. I reach toward Fattoush’s plate—is that Sandra’s chilly white hand rising to stop me? No, she lowers it. Without asking permission, I spear a stuffed grape leaf from his plate. “I just have to try one of these special ones,” I say, and then bite in. It is delicious, of course—there was no question of that. I taste the moist sweetness of rice and fresh oil, the faint brine of the leaf, a luscious node of onion, garlic, currant . . . and there, quite subtle, nearly transparent yet unmistakable, is the flavor of lamb.

  My eyes fly up to Fattoush, who is devouring the tightly wrapped packets in single bites as he fans one hand through the air, describing his skateboarding exploits to Mai. Do I tell him what he’s eating? I look back to Sandra, who is watching me, her eyes amused. She puts her hand on mine—it’s surprisingly warm. “There’s just a little in there,” she says. “For flavor.”

  Fattoush smiles at us as he forks up another helping, chewing and rocking.

  My lips part. I hesitate. Fattoush notices my expression and lifts his eyebrows.

  “And quite honestly,” Sandra says in her drowsy, flat American voice, “I’m not that sure that what they’re saying isn’t true—” She tilts her head at Fattoush. “You know, he really might have trouble having babies otherwise. For heaven’s sake, you can’t literally cut out all the meat. Look at Haroun—he always ate so much milk and ice cream, and you see? All we had were daughters!”

  Fattoush stops mid-chew, his mouth a tiny circle, eyes filmed with the intimation of panic. He covers his mouth with his hand. He swallows.

  His skin takes on a pewtered sheen, slick with sweat. He stands, slightly lopsided, and says, “Oh. Oh.”