Pomegranate Soup

by Marsha Mehran

  The idea hit him as he was standing on the patio of Discoteca de Amor, listening to the opening strains of Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” pump out into the sultry Spanish sky above him. Prompted by the liberating ecstasy of synthesizers, the comforting approval of slippery polyester, and a pretty brown girl in enormous platform shoes jutting into his groin to the rhythm of a funky beat, Thomas’s feet suddenly began dancing again. Swaying with abandon to the loud disco music, the bar owner felt like a newer, better version of himself. And it didn’t take long for him to decide that what he needed more than anything, what he desired above all else, was his very own discotheque.

  Back in Ballinacroagh, a rejuvenated Thomas set about pursuing his goal with the greatest fervor. He sported bushy sideburns, grew his curly hair out to his shoulders, and squeezed his sausage legs into a pair of denim bell-bottoms. At Kenny’s Record Shop, he combed through thousands of disco records, produced in exotic American locales such as Bushwick, Brooklyn, downtown Detroit, and Jamaica, Queens, and in December 1980 he took in a total of twenty-two screenings of Saturday Night Fever in Castlebar’s one-screen cinema. By the new year Thomas McGuire was ready to implement the second step of his nightclub plan: finding the perfect dancing space.

  It was no contest, really. There was only one spot Thomas would consider for his disco—Papa’s Pastries next door. Chance had it that the wall separating the Delmonicos’ pastry shop from Paddy McGuire’s Pub was nothing but a shaky layer of plaster and rotting wood, an anomaly among the brick and stone of other shops. A three-man crew would need a day, two at most, to clear the way for the rip-roaring nightclub Thomas had already christened Polyester Paddy’s. It was the perfect venue. All that mattered now was figuring out how he could get his hands on it.

  Thomas McGuire wouldn’t have to wonder for long; his disco prayers were soon answered with Luigi Delmonico’s meringue-coated death in the spring of 1981. The sudden coronary waltzed Luigi out of this world and into the next. It also left the door open for Thomas McGuire to move in.

  At least, that was the plan.

  Knowing it would not sit well with the town’s more religious factions if he rushed into demolition the day after the chubby pastry chef’s wake, Thomas waited a whole month before knocking on Estelle Delmonico’s door. Tradition must be adhered to, he reasoned, if only for appearances’ sake. The green-shuttered, four-room Delmonico cottage was situated on a remote and perilously steep mountain road that proved far too narrow for Thomas’s mammoth Land Rover. Forced to park his prized vehicle at the bottom of the hill, the big man puffed his way along the rocky mile and a half to the cottage on foot, coughing on vapors of cow dung and pig fat that hung in the air. The hike felt to Thomas like penances paid in advance; his hairless inner thighs burned with every step, his self-preoccupations blinding him to the beauty of the surrounding verdant valleys.

  The lanes winding uphill toward the cottage are those quaint, postcard snapshots one has come to expect of the Irish countryside. Lined with rusted fences and stone borders, the leafy farm roads are liberally embraced by thousands of drooping, wet tree branches and stinging blades of nettle. But it is the clearing that suddenly springs upon the walker as he turns to the cottage that showcases the ultimate fairy tale, the Druids’ dream. For there is the ocean. The Atlantic feeds into the southern end of Clew Bay like a doting parent. On a clear day the view through the cottage’s windows, bordered with sills of African violets, is simply magnificent. One can even see, wedged into the side of neighboring Croagh Patrick, the graying blocks of a stone altar, where most climbing pilgrimages end and the redemption of souls begins.

  Thomas reached the whitewashed cottage and paused to wipe his sweaty meat brow. Yes, he had done what decency required. He had waited long enough, and now the pastry space would be his. All he needed to do was offer the old widow a tidy sum—probably more than she had ever seen come through that greasy wog excuse for a bread shop—and Polyester Paddy’s would become a reality.

  Thomas tried to restrain his excitement as he knocked on the low cottage door. A minute later a short, plump woman in her mid-sixties opened up, her ample, apron-covered bosom jutting out toward him in a way that brought back childhood memories of secretive peeking. For indeed, as a young boy, Thomas had been drawn to the decadent colors twinkling through the pastry shop’s windows. Schoolboy Thomas had loved to watch Estelle Delmonico administer sweet toppings to lemony yellow meringue pies and frozen scoops of orange gelato, smiling as she went along. He remembered quite vividly how her then younger breasts heaved passionately as she placed a single, pearl-glazed maraschino cherry on top of each dessert, from Danish to chocolate éclairs. But that was a long time ago, Thomas reminded himself. He didn’t know any better back then.

  “Yes?” Estelle’s puzzled greeting shook Thomas back to reality. She cocked her head quizzically—for she had difficulty remembering faces—but Thomas interpreted the gesture as a shrewd bargaining tactic from the Old Country. Well, two could play at that game.

  “Don’t think we’ve met. I’m Thomas McGuire,” he said, puffing out his broad chest. The bully did not extend his hand or even acknowledge the old lady with a nod, a basic Ballinacroagh extension of courtesy. He just stood there, looming over the Italian widow in unmistakable hubris, waiting for her to recognize his assumed superiority.

  “Of course. How silly of me, eh? You know, I would not even know my own mama’s face, may she rest in peace, if she was right in front of me. It’s my eyes. They don’t remember faces like they do recipes.” A surprisingly girlish giggle escaped from Estelle’s mouth. Pools of sweat glistened on her downy upper lip and began to trickle down the cracks above her lipstick line. She rescued them with her darting tongue, slurping the water in sweet delight.

  Thomas stared down into the widow’s playful face and felt an unexpected shiver of fright. Was she not right in the head, then? Her husband was not yet cold in the ground and here she was licking her lips and laughing like it was Christmas morning. He had always heard she was a bit strange, but crazy?

  What Thomas McGuire did not know, as he stood cultivating his jumped conclusions, was that Estelle Delmonico had sweated nothing but a highly potent mixture of pure sugar and water ever since she was a day old. Unlike the musk of normal feminine perspiration, her glands exuded no smell—but the taste! Her late husband, Luigi, himself anything but ordinary, had caught on immediately to the magic of those sugary drops. Sweet Estelle was the greatest muse an ambitious pastry chef from Naples could ever wish for, and theirs was a match made in plum-sugared heaven.

  “Would you like to come in? I’m making baklava. Can you smell the happiness? The recipe is a special Persian dessert sent to me by my niece in London.” Estelle wiped her floury hands on her apron and stepped aside to welcome him in.

  Thomas squinted into the dark house, expecting to see strange shadows and lacy doilies. He wasn’t prepared for the strange smell that punched him in the gut. Stunned by the erotic mixture of cardamom and toasted almonds, he reeled two steps back down onto the gravel. Unknown to Thomas McGuire, this very aroma had once induced a lusty Achaemenian king to declare sixty-nine nights of lovemaking in his kingdom of honeysuckle fortresses. Concubines were ordered to comb their dark locks with powdered cardamom, as harem slaves drizzled their white belly buttons with a mixture of warm honey and almonds. But rather than have a similar amorous effect on Thomas, the scent tied his bowels into a disturbed knot.

  “No, no. I’m here on a business matter,” he said, raising his hands in revulsion. There was something very wrong about a smell so strong. “Sorry to hear about yer husband’s death. See the shop’s been closed since. Would ya be leaving for yer niece’s soon, then?”

  “Gloria? No. She’s young, free, in London. No, I don’t go anywhere. Anyway, what would my Luigi do without me, eh?”

  “Luigi? Yer husband?” Thomas was already crafting his speech before the town council. This old bird was ready for the loony bin, fo
r sure. She certainly was not fit to keep her hold over such prime Ballinacroagh real estate.

  “Si, si, my husband. Luigi,” said the widow.

  She stepped beyond the door’s threshold and pointed past Thomas, toward the gravel path. There, at the beginning of the walkway, a large rosebush sat clinging to the ocean wind. Unlike the prim, Anglicized bushes spattered outside various Ballinacroagh houses, this plant burst with deep, primal magenta blossoms. Thick thorns curved around the flowers’ petals like good chaperones guarding virginal yet very hormonal schoolgirls. Estelle Delmonico didn’t seem to notice the thorns as she patted the flowers.

  “Luigi. My Luigi. You see the ribbon?” She pointed to a thin white sash tied tightly around the bush’s trunk.

  Shivers ran up Thomas’s spine as he realized that the sash he was looking at was no ordinary string. It was an apron string. A pastry chef’s apron, to be exact. Now there was no denying it: the woman was mad.

  “My Luigi is sleeping here. No, Luigi, I never leave you,” Estelle whispered. Leaning down toward the gritty soil, she kissed her hand and gently patted the base of the rosebush, where she had secretly sprinkled her late husband’s ashes.

  “Good. Right. Nice to meet you there, Luigi. And the shop? Is Luigi going back there as well?”

  “No. That shop killed my Luigi. No more work for him. Now he rests.” She sighed, patting the mound again.

  “Well so, that’s that then! Just let me know what yer asking for the shop and I’ll take it off yer hands right away. Just name yer price,” he said.

  “No, I’m sorry, Mr. McGuire. The shop is not for sale. No sale, but I rent it to you at a good price.”

  “Well now, Mrs. Delmonico. Renting is no good for me. It’s a sale I’m after. Wouldn’t you rather be free of the whole lot? Just spend yer days looking after, er, Luigi there?” He nodded uncomfortably toward the rosebush.

  “No, no. Luigi says to me not to sell. I have to listen to him. He’s so good with business. Me, no. I love the cooking, the baking, the bread.” Estelle turned toward the cottage. “I’m sorry, Mr. McGuire. No sale. But I give you some baklava before you go, yes? It’s a new recipe. You can be the first to taste.” Estelle disappeared into the dark cottage. Situated as she was on the lonely crag heap, the little widow had few visitors and no one to taste her baklava besides a couple of confused hillock sheep, so she took the pub owner’s visit to be positively providential.

  “Look what I have for you, Mr. McGuire. It’s a lucky day for your sweet tooth.”

  Estelle had returned to the doorway with a colorful plate piled high with baklava. She was humming an improvised aria under her sugared breath; a snippet from the second act of Don Giovanni, when the arrogant, sinful nobleman plunges into the open arms of hell. Little did Estelle know that the passionate chorus, “such is the fate of a wrongdoer,” combined with the overpowering seduction of the rosewater-soaked baklava pastry, would send Ballinacroagh’s own misanthrope hurtling down her gravelly pathway and into the thorny hands of Luigi’s rosebush.

  “Oh, Mr. McGuire! Do not move! You will get bad cuts from my Luigi’s thorns if you do!” Estelle exclaimed, hurrying to where Thomas lay prostrate, atop a hundred and one sharp rose thorns. She was about to help Thomas off the rosebush, the hopeful plate of baklava still in hand, when the big man held up his beefy paw and roared.

  “No! Stay away! Don’t you come near me with those feckin’ things!” Thomas lunged forward on the thorny stakes and managed to land on his feet. Backing down the rest of the path, he held up his two fists in front of his red face, an amateur pugilist shamefully defeated in the first round. “And if ya know what’s good fer ya, you’ll sell that bloody shop to me! You’ll be sorry if you don’t!” he threatened weakly, before turning and running down the cottage lane.

  Stunned, Estelle Delmonico watched the hulking man scurry away, his broad back pierced by curling rose spikes that resembled Beelzebub’s own cowardly tail. And all the while, the operatic chorus chimed in her ear, “such is the fate of a wrongdoer,” “such is the fate of a wrongdoer.”

  THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO. Thomas cursed under his breath and punched his good fist into the Land Rover’s steering wheel. Five feckin’ years.

  He should have kept on Estelle Delmonico like he planned instead of letting things go the way he did. But even he hadn’t been able to forecast the series of travesties that had sent him lurching through the first part of the new decade.

  The trouble had started with Kieran, that gobshite brother of his who had abandoned his managerial duties at the Ale House to run away with some dope-smoking actress. The last Thomas heard, the two lovers had formed a performance troupe called The McGuire Family Circus and were traveling the countryside in caravans, reenacting the “Feast of All Saints.” Put the whole family to shame, that Kieran. And then, of course, fortune had dealt another blow with the flood of 1982. Torrential rains washed through half the businesses on Main Mall as if it was laundry day. Nearly took the Wilton Inn off the map, the flood did. The gushing water burst into the carvery room and floated silver trays of roasted meats onto the hilly street. For weeks people were picking soaked pieces of parsnip and rotten ham out from the soles of their shoes. Getting the old inn back to working order had left Thomas with little time to devote to his disco cause.

  Bleedin’ nature and all her feckin’ rain. Thomas shook the morning drizzle from his thick hair. Ah, who was he kidding? The truth was he had become lazy, let things go. Taken it for granted that the pastry space would always be there for him when he was ready. It had never crossed his mind that the place could have a new life without his say-so.

  Jaysus! Thomas growled and punched the steering wheel again. He should have known the old bat was holding out on selling the shop for a better reason than her husband’s dying wishes. She was planning to get back into business for herself all along. Well, that Estelle Delmonico was in for a surprise, Thomas told himself. A big surprise.

  The synthesized vibrations of disco beats were suddenly pounding again inside Thomas McGuire’s potato head. He was going to heed them this time around. No doubt about it.

  dugh yogurt drink

  2 cups plain yogurt

  3 cups mineral or spring water

  3 tablespoons freash mint, chopped

  1 teaspoon salt

  1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper

  Mint leaves for garnish

  Mix ingredients in a large pitcher or jug. Add ice slowly as you stir. Garnish with mint leaves.

  chapter four

  PADRAIG CAREY NEVER had much luck with timing. If he had known that Thomas McGuire was waiting in the town council parking lot to unleash his wrath upon him, he would have stayed for another nine holes at Westport Pitch and Putt. Instead, he’d left in the middle of a great round, driven by guilt for having spent another workday morning putting the greens. Padraig drove his car into the town council parking lot and turned the ignition off. Another day of mindless slogging before he could tee off again, he wistfully thought.

  A thin and unusually hirsute man, Padraig was in the unenviable position of being intimidated by the McGuire name in both domestic and public sectors. Having married Thomas McGuire’s Amazonian sister Margaret (who, as the smartest of the McGuire clan, had the difficult job of balancing all of Thomas’s books), Padraig was completely cornered in his home life. He acquiesced to his wife’s every decision, whether it was who controlled their finances (she did), when to have a rough-and-tumble in the bedroom (once a month), or what to have for dinner (salty bacon and boiled cabbage). In his public life Padraig seemed to be set up comfortably as head of Ballinacroagh’s two-manned council post. His lofty position as council speaker required little of him: occasionally managing road-to-farmland ratio and cutting ribbons at foreign-owned factory openings. But in reality Padraig had little peace in his job. His bully of a brother-in-law was always meddling in every aspect of Ballinacroagh’s daily administration. Hardly a week went by without the counci
lman getting a complaint from Thomas, be it as trivial as the height of the hedges around the town council building or as dangerous as that time he had wanted to throw Estelle Delmonico into Saint Mary’s Mental Institution. Still, Padraig thought, as long as he could get himself onto the putting green most mornings, he could stand just about anything his job entailed. Even if it meant pandering to Thomas McGuire’s every whim.

  Oblivious to the bar owner’s hulking approach, Padraig reached out across the backseat and absently traced the brass buckle on the strap of his golf bag.

  “Padraig Carey.”

  Thomas’s booming voice made the short councilman jump in his seat.

  “Hello there, Tom. Yer up and about early as usual, I see.” Padraig gulped. He hurried out of his car, angling his thin body to block the golf bag in the backseat from Thomas’s view.

  “Can’t say the same for you, now can I? I want some answers, Padraig Carey! Just because you got my sister up the pole years ago doesn’t mean I won’t have you out on your feckin’ arse before you can blink twice!”

  “Sorry now, Tom.” Padraig could almost feel himself shrink before the steaming bully.

  “Sorry now, Tom? Sorry now, Tom! You’ve got some nerve, Padraig Carey! Why wasn’t I told about the old witch’s place? Why do you think I keep you in this shite post, if you’re no good to me then?” Thomas’s eggplant face contorted grotesquely. Standing on his toes, he towered above poor, inconsequential Padraig like a mighty sky-scraper over a feeble pigeon.

  “Now, now, Tom. Calm yerself. What do you mean? The old Delmonico place, is it?”