Pomegranate Soup

by Marsha Mehran

  “Estelle. Call me Estelle.”

  abgusht

  4 pounds boned leg of lamb, save bone

  5 large onions, chopped

  1 teaspoon turmeric

  10 cups water

  1 cup yellow split peas

  1 teaspoon paprika

  4 teaspoons salt

  1 teaspoon ground black pepper

  5 large potatoes, peeled and quartered

  7 tomatoes, sliced

  2 tablespoons tomato paste

  1 dried lime

  2 strands sa fron dissolved in 7 tablespoons hot water

  2 teaspoons advieh*

  *Optional: equal amounts crushed rose petals,

  cardamom, cinnamon, and cumin, mixed

  Brown meat, 1 onion, and turmeric in a large stockpot. Add water, split peas, paprika, and bone. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 2 hours. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer, covered, for 40 minutes. Remove bone. Remove all vegetables and meat, and mash them together in a large bowl. Serve mash in a separate bowl alongside remaining broth.

  chapter five

  MAYBE IT WAS ALL Thomas McGuire’s doing. Not trusting Padraig Carey to the effective dissemination of his message of hate, Ballinacroagh’s chief publican had promptly set up camp inside McGuire’s Ale House after leaving the town council parking lot. From his favored stool at the high end of the oak bar, Thomas deftly expounded, like a seasoned politico of the Roman Forum, on the dangers of foreign smells.

  Perhaps Dervla Quigley had a finger in it as well, hissing the news up and down Main Mall until all of Ballinacroagh knew exactly what to avoid. “Forget the infested ways of the tinkers,” Dervla would have whispered darkly to anyone standing beneath her window. “It’s these foreign hippies we’ve got to hold fast against.”

  Or it could have simply come down to the uncontrollable caprices of Lady Luck, Bahar’s blistery thumb and the persistent Atlantic rains, signs of imminent trouble ahead.

  Whatever the culprit, the opening of the Babylon Café that first day of spring was not half as grand as Marjan had hoped. To her utmost disappointment, not a single customer had stepped inside the inviting café the whole of Monday.

  “Maybe we need to put up a big Open sign. What do you think?” Marjan said on Tuesday morning. She stood perplexed before the café windows, with folded arms and knitted eyebrows.

  “A sign? Open your eyes, Marjan. We had the curtains opened and all the lights on yesterday and no one even stopped to look through the windows. A sign!” Bahar sniffed, shaking her head.

  “I just don’t understand it. Not even one customer! Maybe it’s the rain.” Marjan pressed her forehead against the cold glass windowpane.

  The rainstorm had started Monday around noon, blasting down in stinging sheets, rattling hinges and windowpanes, and wiping Main Mall of any pedestrians. Most shops had soon shut down for the day, their tired proprietors heaving sighs against the wind as they struggled to lock their storefronts. Battling gusts with overturned umbrellas, they quickly scattered home on foot or, the luckier ones, in freezing, water-clogged cars. Even Dervla Quigley, who hardly counted the daily village drizzle as a reason to leave her window, had retreated behind the pleats of her chintz curtains at the height of the storm.

  “Well, it doesn’t look like the rain’ll stop anytime soon. Look at it! I didn’t think any place could be wetter than London,” Bahar commented, gazing outside. The street gushed with an unappetizing soup of broken glass, stray turf blocks, cigarette stumps, and the salty tears of a darkened sky that had yet to end its purge.

  “I bet we’ll get at least fifty people in today. Right, Marjan?” Layla looked up from her breakfast of lavash and feta. She was already running late for her first day of school and was scarfing down her food as fast as she could.

  “Of course, joon-e man. We’ll have the whole town in here soon,” she replied, trying to sound upbeat.

  “It’s a good thing you made Mrs. Delmonico take some food home with her yesterday. We’d never get through all the pots of soup and abgusht you made,” Bahar said disapprovingly.

  “Okay, wish me luck!” Layla rose abruptly from her half-eaten breakfast. She was decked out in her newly starched uniform of light blue sweater, crisp white blouse, and brown tweed skirt. Grabbing an umbrella, she slung her schoolbag on her shoulders, smiled radiantly at her two sisters, and swung open the café door.

  The dense mist that usually sat upon Croagh Patrick’s shoulders had descended on the village, insidiously inhabiting all crevices and street corners. Layla eagerly joined the train of high school kids braving the cold rain and fog, pushing through a shrouded Main Mall up toward Saint Joseph’s Secondary. She paused for a moment to wave excitedly at her two sisters before disappearing in the heavy veil of mist. Bahar, worried for Layla’s well-being, waved back anxiously, but Marjan looked on with delight, happy to see Layla so energized. In a decade of regularly televised hijackings and terrorist bombings carried out by masked Middle Easterners, new schools for Layla tended to be breeding grounds for endless taunting sessions; accusations of “terrorist” and “hijacker” were thrown around the school yards like recess diversions. Their youngest sister would usually be too terrified to sleep the night before she started at a new school. But Layla had surprised her sisters this morning, getting up early with bright eyes to pack her own lunch of basil, tomato, and yogurt-cucumber dip wrapped in lavash and to iron out her school uniform. There was no nervousness in her gestures, no fear on her beautiful face as she nearly skipped up a drenched Main Mall.

  Layla’s unexpected cheerfulness was a good sign, Marjan decided. Any optimism was welcome, especially in light of yesterday’s failed opening.

  A SAVIOR, AND THE BABYLON CAFÉ’S first customer, came that very Tuesday afternoon, in the merry shape of Father Fergal Mahoney.

  Father Mahoney was on his way down to Marie Brennan and her sister Dervla’s dimly lit parlor for the first meeting of the 1986 Patrician Day Dance committee. For the past thirty-nine years, the good-natured priest had served as coordinator of the dance that celebrated the annual pilgrimage to the peak of Croagh Patrick. Every summer a stream of pilgrims climbed the mountain’s stony shoulders—some with bare feet—as penitence for choosing sinful paths during the rest of the year. To commemorate this turn for atonement, Ballinacroagh celebrated the first Sunday climb in July, Patrician Day, by hitching up coarse canvas tents, stringing up Japanese lanterns, and brandishing life-size, cutout posters of a rather soused Saint Patrick. Foldout tables were loaded with Thomas McGuire’s latest ale and enough bacon and cabbage from his carvery at the Wilton Inn to give everyone in town heartburn, with a three-pound charge, of course.

  As coordinator of the Dance, Father Mahoney had a lot on his plate: not only was he in charge of choosing a band (always a success but for that unfortunate year a group of three Dublin nuns shocked the crowd with their a cappella renditions of “99 Red Balloons” and “Relax”), but he was also designated Master of Ceremonies. It was a delicious role for the extroverted priest, who often peppered his Masses and homilies with humor. As MC, Father Mahoney happily indulged in a good half hour of jokes that, for one time each year, were unfettered by his religious duties.

  Preoccupied with new punch lines, the funny priest did not notice the Babylon Café’s welcoming glow until he was standing right in front of its sparkling windows. Having prepared himself for the committee’s usual fare of afternoon tea, crumbly digestive biscuits, and gossip, the priest was stopped dead in his tracks by the savory aroma of lamb abgusht. Dumbfounded, he peered in at the warm blush of the café’s walls with his mouth open, not even minding the cold raindrops that pierced his round face and priestly overcoat.

  Marjan was just making her way out to the café’s front room with a tray of washed teacups when she spotted Father Mahoney’s hungry face outside the window.

  “Hello! Please come in! We’re open for lunch,” she enthused, thrusting the shop door open. Were priests allowed to eat
outside their homes? Marjan wasn’t so sure. But now was not the time to hesitate.

  “Lunch? Ah, so this is what Estelle Delmonico’s been up to. I heard a thing or two about it from the ladies after Mass. Are you a relative of Mrs. Delmonico’s, then?” Feeling a bit woozy from the saffron perfume that hit him when Marjan opened the door, Father Mahoney had forgotten the introduction he customarily dished out with a joke or two on the collared profession.

  “No. We just met last week, actually. I’m Marjan Aminpour. My sisters and I are renting this place from Mrs.—ah—from Estelle.” She pointed to the sign hanging over her head and smiled. It was a simple wooden square that Bahar had made with the leftover wall paint, writing out the café’s name in red cursive flourishes, one side in English, the other in Farsi.

  “Ah, yes. The Babylon Café. Very clever. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Birthplace of Nebuchadnezzar the Second and all that he created.”

  “Not far from where we come from.”

  “Is that so? And where, may I ask, is that?”

  “Iran. We left over seven years ago, though. For London.”

  “London. Fabulous town. Lots of fantastic theater on the West End there. I’m not keen on the English sense of humor, though. Monty Python and all that Holy Grail stuff. I much prefer the Americans for a bit of a laugh. Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby. Fantastic, they are.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Marjan replied, laughing, surprised by the incongruity of a priest with a sense of humor. He reminded her of a ripe quince fruit, pale-skinned and tart-flavored. Unexpected.

  “I’m Father Mahoney. It’s my parish you’ll be coming under. Right up the Mall there.”

  “Oh, but we’re not Catholic.”

  “Right so. I won’t tell if you won’t.” He laughed, his little blue eyes twinkling beneath folds of fat and skin. “Ah, sure, I’m a bit of a tease. You’ll learn that about me sooner than later, I’m afraid. Mmmmm . . . but that smells fantastic. What is it?” He sniffed, his round nostrils moving with a life of their own.

  “It’s called abgusht. Lamb and potato stew. Are you sure you can’t come in—for a cup of tea at least? You’ll be our first customer.”

  Father Mahoney glanced at his watch; fifteen minutes to spare before Dervla Quigley rang the parish looking for him. Besides, it would only be a cup of tea. How long could that take?

  “Your first customer, you say? Well, I can guarantee I won’t be your last! You’ll be the first café we’ve ever had in Ballinacroagh, as far as I can remember. Sure, the Wilton Inn’s carvery doesn’t even come close. No lovely smells like this lamb and potato stew,” he said, stepping inside. “Hmmm, Iran, did you say? Have you heard the one about the Priest, the Rabbi and the Mullah?”

  “JUST WHO DOES she think she is? I hear they’re Indian or Pakistani or something of the like,” Dervla Quigley said churlishly. The crabby gossip had taken up her usual roost at her bedroom window and had just witnessed Father Mahoney’s encounter with Marjan across the street.

  “I think it was Iranian. Danny Corcoran was telling me so himself just now.” Marie Brennan leaned over her sister’s curved back, gawking. “That one there was at the market looking for tarragon of all things. Tarragon! Now what do you suppose that is?”

  The two old women watched as Father Mahoney took off his coat and settled into one of the front tables with the look of a man possessed.

  “Whatever they are, it can’t be civilized. And what do you suppose that Father Mahoney is thinking now, sitting there like some Romanian beggar and just before teatime? He knows very well we’re expecting him. If he’s even one minute late—I’m counting, it’s seven minutes to three on my watch—I’ll be telling him a thing or two.”

  “It’s a café! Babylon Café! Says so right there on the sign!”

  “I can see it with my own eyes, Marie,” Dervla snapped at her younger sister. “Babylon! Sinful, that is.”

  “It’s in the Bible, as I recall,” Marie muttered, hurt by Dervla’s mean tone.

  “So’s Sodom and Gomorrah. Humph! Will you look at him sitting there! That Father Mahoney better have a good excuse. Is that a meal now he’s having? Marie?!”

  “Looks like it, Dervla,” Marie answered weakly, as she edged out of the room. Dervla sure knew how to suck her dry. Years of tending to her bitter sister’s every need, whether it was helping her onto her toilet seat or into the black pleated skirt Dervla favored for Sunday Mass, had left Marie Brennan a ghost of a person. Sometimes, God help her, Marie wished she’d come home to find Dervla at her window, staring at nothing but the pearly gates of Saint Peter himself. Every time she imagined this, though, she made a beeline to Saint Barnabas to see Father Mahoney. The kind priest always made time for the lonely spinster’s frequent, guilt-ridden confessions.

  “Marie!”

  “Yes, Dervla?”

  MARJAN LEFT A FASCINATED Father Mahoney to take in all the fineries of the café’s front room and returned to the warming pot of abgusht to taste its progress. She lifted the lid and breathed in the slowly simmering lamb stew, which she had cooked with a large, round limuomani— or dried lime. Just one of these limes is enough to add an intense flavor to any savory dish, its tart essence rising to the occasion.

  As Father Mahoney gaped at the radiant vermilion walls and the curious belly of something that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale—the samovar bubbling with contentment—Marjan placed a bowl of broth on an oval, silver serving plate that was etched with a village scene of children dancing around a donkey. Next to the bowl she arranged a plate heaped with gusht kubideh (mashed meat and veg), warmed lavash bread, mixed-spice torshi, sliced onions and radishes. Marjan would have loved to have included some fresh tarragon, but it was one of the few key ingredients she had forgotten to bring back from Dublin, so she settled for fresh sprigs of mint and basil, and made a mental note to get some seedlings on her next trip to the city. She was going to turn that craggy patch of a backyard into a blooming herb garden yet.

  Marjan steadied the heavy platter and pushed through the swinging doors. Father Mahoney stood next to the northern wall, running his fingers over the hanging tapestry.

  “Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. Handmade, I take it?”

  “Yes, from Iran,” Marjan replied. “You know, each region in Iran has its own specific rug pattern. Tribal families would weave their histories into their rugs, passing down their secrets to the next generation. So, you could say that in a way, they were magic carpets.”

  “Enchanting!” exclaimed the priest.

  Marjan smiled, placing the platter on Father Mahoney’s table. She noticed that his cup of jasmine tea was already drained dry. “Here’s the abgusht I promised. I hope you enjoy it.”

  “I’m sure I will. You are too kind. My goodness! What smells, what smells indeed. This ab-abba-goosht is not a Portuguese dish by any chance, is it? I used to be quite the connoisseur of Portuguese dishes in my day, that’s why I ask.” Father Mahoney sat back down, looked into the platter, and instantly forgot about the committee meeting he was about to be late for.

  “No, it’s Persian, through and through. It’s hearty, but contains some very delicate ingredients. Would you like another cup of tea? Or a pot, perhaps?”

  “Oh, well, I can’t say no now, can I?” He peered at the various abgusht components, at a complete loss for where to start. Father Mahoney picked up his spoon but paused over the broth as if afraid he was going to hurt it.

  “The broth is clear enough. You can take it throughout the meal, but the real treat is the meat paste there. The thin bread is called lavash. Use it to scoop some of the meat, then add onions and herbs and whatever else you like there as you go along. It is a very nourishing dish, especially during the winter months,” Marjan explained, pointing to the food as she went along.

  She took the priest’s empty cup to the samovar for a refill. Instructing him on the finer points of eating abgusht had somehow stirred Marjan’s memories of home. She p
ushed the lever down on the samovar and watched the tawny liquid fill the glass and gold-plated teacup. If she was in Iran now, this tea would be accompanied by angelica-powdered pomegranate seeds, toasted nuts, or sticky saffron and carrot halvah. On the night of the winter solstice, everyone in her family would gather on the living room rug to share such treats and tell stories. If it was particularly cold, they would snuggle around the korsi, a low table covered in a quilt and wrapped a second time in a pretty embroidered cloth. Underneath the table would be a small electrical heater that warmed their hearts and laps as they sat, recounting memories and their hopes for the year ahead.

  One year her cousin Mitra had kicked the heater, nearly burning off her big toe in a fit of passionate storytelling. Another time, her great-aunt Homa had made everyone scour the snowy garden and front yard until dawn, convinced that her prized ruby bracelet had been lost, only to realize in the morning light that the piece of jewelry had surreptitiously crept into the folds of the blanket she had been sitting on. Why were these memories coming back to her now of all times? Marjan wondered. Now that she was the furthest she had ever been from her place of birth? Why this homesickness today?

  The tea overflowed the cup and gushed over the edges of the saucer Marjan was holding. With a noisy clatter, she released the samovar’s lever and grabbed a towel, soaking up the hot puddle beneath her feet. The commotion, however, did not wake Father Mahoney from his own reverie. He was softly brewing over his abgusht, his round cheeks rosy and full of life. Marjan finished cleaning the spilt tea and leaned against the counter, not wanting to disturb the priest. She understood exactly what was happening to Father Mahoney.

  If Layla inspired lust in younger men and youthful dreams in their older counterparts, then Marjan worked her magic over both men and women in a more practical, yet equally intriguing manner. Through her recipes, Marjan was able to encourage people toward accomplishments that they had previously thought impossible; one taste of her food and most would not only start dreaming but actually contemplate doing. It was no different for Father Mahoney. As the priest chewed his last bit of meat-filled lavash, he felt a little lump in his stomach. It was a seed that would not bloom for at least another month, forever changing the course of his life, but for now it rustled against the abgusht and gave him an unsettled feeling. Father Mahoney did not know what had happened to him exactly, but he knew that he was a very different man from a half hour ago.