Pomegranate Soup

by Marsha Mehran

  The priest stood up. He reached for his coat hanging next to the door, his arm shaking slightly.

  “Oh, are you leaving already?” Marjan smiled at the euphoria in the priest’s hazy eyes.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I’ve got to run. I’m sure I had an appointment somewhere, but for the life of me I just can’t remember what it was. How silly of me.” Father Mahoney’s confusion was sweet, steeped as it was in a greater force. He needed to lie down somewhere, anywhere. There was a lot to think about. He was not sure what it all was, but he knew that he needed to think about it.

  “I hope you enjoyed your abgusht and tea,” said Marjan.

  “Enjoyed it? I have never, in all my years traveling, tasted anything as divine—excuse me, Father.” The pudgy priest looked up to the ceiling and quickly crossed himself. “Never. You, my dear, have a true talent, a calling. I have no doubt that this enchanting little place will be filled with customers in no time. Enchanting!” He shook his head and placed a few notes on the table.

  “Oh, no, it’s on the house, Father. You are our first customer, after all.” Marjan shook her head.

  “Nonsense. That’s precisely why I insist on paying. I wouldn’t have that fine distinction if it was a freebie, now would I? And I’ll be back, you can count on it. Well, good-bye. And thank you, young lady!” With that he left the Babylon Café, heading in the direction of the parish without a second thought to the Patrician Day Dance committee.

  Marjan stuck her head outside the café door, chuckling softly to herself as she watched Father Mahoney toddle up the rainy street, too dazed even to bother opening his umbrella. Hearing a rustling behind her in the shop, she turned around. Bahar, rumpled and woozy from the remnants of a headache-induced nap, was crossing the room toward her.

  “How’s your headache?”

  “I’ve had worse. It’s fine. Who was that?” Bahar asked, blinking to readjust her blurry eyes.

  “Our first customer,” Marjan replied.

  “Well, let’s hope he’s not our last.”

  “He won’t be.” Marjan turned back to the wet street. The funny priest receded into the horizon, but she knew he would be back soon for more of her abgusht. Lunchtime had been a success as far as Marjan was concerned. Even if Father Mahoney was to be their only customer for the day.

  elephant ears

  1 egg

  1⁄2 cup milk

  1⁄4 cup sugar

  1⁄4 cup rosewater

  1⁄2 teaspoon ground cardamom

  3 3⁄4 cups all-purpose flour

  6 cups vegetable oil

  GARNISH :

  1 cup confectioners’ sugar

  2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

  Beat egg in a bowl. Add milk, sugar, rosewater, and cardamom. Slowly mix in flour, kneading into a dough. Roll out on a clean surface with a floured pin until it is paper-thin. Using the rim of a wide-mouthed glass or cup, trace and cut out a circle. Pinch the center of the circle with your thumb and forefinger to form a bow. Set aside. Repeat until all circles (approximately 15) are done. Heat oil in a deep pan. Fry each ear for 1 minute. Lay pastries on paper towels to cool. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixture.

  chapter six

  “COLM CAHILL AND THOSE Donnelly twins, now. They’re after one thing only. Best give them the cold shoulder, Layla. They think they’re God’s gift, those three.”

  Emer Athey’s blond curls bobbed as she pointed out a group of fifth-year boys, the same hooligans that congregated around Peter and Michael Donnelly’s fermented offerings before school. It was only midmorning recess, and Layla’s second day of school, but already every boy in that group was set on winning the exotic new girl’s attentions.

  “And steer clear of the rest of the lot there.” Emer frowned at the beefy boys before returning to her snack of marmalade and chocolate Jaffa Cake biscuits.

  Fiona Athey’s fiery daughter had taken Layla under her wing immediately, giving her a thorough tour of Saint Joseph’s expansive grounds. Before its latest incarnation as a coeducational secondary school, the medieval buildings had, through the ages, served as a monastery, an experimental love shack for a Gallic viscount, and a shelter for unwed mothers. Emer had also introduced Layla to Regina Jackson, a pert redhead who wore argyle kneesocks pulled tight over her skinny legs. Although by no means unpopular, Emer and Regina were rarely involved in the Saint Joseph social scene, which consisted mainly of Friday night piss-ups and Saturday morning football matches. Saturday afternoons spent bowling in Castlebar and the occasional traditional music seisiún in Westport were more to their liking.

  Layla was surprised by how simple it had been for her to make such quick friends in Ballinacroagh. Emer and Regina listened attentively to Layla’s concentrated version of her life story (Tehran, Lewisham, and now Ballinacroagh), and Layla in turn, appreciated their advice on boys.

  “What about Malachy? Is he like them as well?” Layla asked, praying hard under her thumping heart that he wasn’t. Malachy with the sapphire eyes had not been in any of her new classes, so she had learned his name only that day from Regina.

  “Malachy McGuire? Na—though there’s a bit of a surprise he came out looking and sounding the way he does, going by who his dad is,” Emer replied.

  Emer, Regina, and Layla watched the boy in question from under a large oak tree. Malachy was crossing the rugby field in gallant strides, deep in his own amorous thoughts, when he caught the girls looking at him. Blushing profusely, he walked toward them and waved shyly.

  “What do you mean? Who’s his dad?” Layla asked, her eyes still glued to Malachy.

  “Don’t you know? Well, you will. Thomas McGuire, the original egomaniac. Thinks he owns the town, he does. The pub next to your café is his. And the rest of the drinking holes on the Mall. That’s why I go to Westport for my beer. He won’t be getting my money anytime soon. My mum hates his guts and isn’t afraid to say so,” Emer pronounced.

  Regina snorted.

  “Well, she’s isn’t, Regina! Not when she needs to. Don’t you remember the summer we both turned five, or do I have to remind you?” Emer retorted hotly. While she and her mother often had screaming matches that rang out from the salon all the way up Main Mall, Emer loved Fiona very much and was always the first to defend her against gossips.

  “What happened?” Layla asked.

  “He tried to buy out the salon,” said Regina, munching on a bag of prawn-flavored crisps.

  “Let him try, that feckin’ gobshite!” Emer’s round face turned a bright shade of magenta. Besides a streak of Athey stubbornness, Emer had inherited little else from Fiona. It was from her philandering puppeteer father that she took her Germanic features and hearty Braunschweigan appetite—endless reminders to Fiona of tangled marionette strings and an ache that seventeen years had not dulled.

  “Well, he did own half of the place,” Regina muttered. She too had a deep hatred for the uncrowned king of Ballinacroagh. Her alcoholic father had lost seventy-five percent of his farm to Thomas McGuire, after running tabs the size of the river Shannon in all three of his pubs. Regina’s good Catholic upbringing prevented her from fully expressing her resentment, though. For this she looked to Emer. Regina would often push the louder girl’s buttons as a way to release her own bottled-up anger.

  “Own, my feckin’ foot! More like wormed his way in when no one was looking. Anyway, that was all my granddad’s fault. My mum owes Thomas McGuire nothing.” Emer pouted.

  By August 1974, after nearly five years of snipping thinned hair-lines and nodding through endless rounds of mind-bending gossip, Fiona had finally saved enough money to buy out Thomas McGuire’s shareholdings—only to discover that the man had his own plans for the beauty parlor. In a moment of unmistakable egotism, Thomas had invested half of his money (even giving the bank the deed to the Ale House and news agency) into the 10 Minute Tan—a chain of tanning salons that, as the name implied, promised ten minutes to bronzed beauty. From Cong in the south to Belmullet in th
e north, Thomas McGuire—with the help of the Turbo Tanner 200, a new line of sun beds straight out of the corrugated sheds of a Limerick wholesaler— was determined to bring pasty pores and blue-veined thighs out of their woolen shells. Starting with Fiona Athey’s beauty parlor as his flagship tanning salon, Thomas was going to make Mayo the Saint-Tropez of Ireland.

  Underhanded wrangling and legal maneuvers followed, with the pub owner visiting Fiona daily to issue threats that just made the former stage queen even more determined to see her business through to the last act. She hired a big-time lawyer from Galway (one of her many admirers from her theater days) and embarked on a defense that gave Dervla Quigley enough news to munch on for months. A week before the two parties were to meet in the county courthouse, tragedy struck. As a preview to sunnier days to come, Thomas had set up a tanning bed in the back of one of his quieter pubs, the McGuire Ale House, and invited the whole town to have a test run of it. Filomina Fanning, the town’s librarian and most devoted churchgoer, was to be the first (and last) victim of the shoddily built Turbo Tanner 200. At 8:30 A.M. Filomina walked into the Ale House white, round, and heaving from the extra hundred and forty-six pounds she carried on her small frame. At 8:40 A.M. she was wheeled out on a stretcher headed for Mayo General Hospital, blistered and burned by a tanning bed turned torture chamber. The Turbo Tanner 200 was really just a large microwave gone haywire, and Thomas McGuire was the eejit who had bought into it all.

  “He sold my mum his share of the salon after that. Even Thomas McGuire couldn’t afford to have two court cases on his head. I’d tell your sisters about him if I were you, Layla. Word’s out he’s got his eye on—”

  “He’s had his eye on that Delmonico place for years,” Regina interrupted.

  “Yes, thank you, Regina. Anyway, he’ll come hassling, sooner or later. Layla?”

  But Layla was not listening. She was lost in Malachy McGuire’s blue eyes, already too entangled in her own enchantment to heed Emer’s warning.

  IN ITS FIRST WEEK of business, the Babylon Café could count the number of its regulars on one hand. But within a month, its daily clientele had increased to nearly two dozen, with many more hesitant customers pausing before the café windows in wonder. The glint of the samovar and the smell of frying elephant ears were reasons enough for most to step inside. For a look, at least.

  Gush-e fil, or elephant ears, like their fellow fritters, are fried until golden and dripping with all things forbidden. In shape each pastry resembles a giant bow, much like farfalle pasta, but in taste it belongs to the doughnut family of treats. Gush-e fil is normally made in celebratory moments, when the satisfaction of its simplicity is unmatched by more complicated desserts. On that day in April, Marjan had decided to make elephant ears to celebrate the good fortune that had come their way since they had moved to Ballinacroagh, nearly a month to the day. Not only were lunchtimes filled with steady orders but the cloud that had followed Bahar around the first couple of weeks was dispersing. Who knew, Marjan thought to herself, maybe this time things were really going to work out.

  Marjan smiled with contentment as she beat an egg in a large bowl. After adding the flour, she vigorously kneaded the dough, not even minding the tenderness that the constant pushing and pulling created in her lower left shoulder. Hidden there, just at the juncture of her arm and shoulder, was a raised one-inch scar, so silver and slight that no one could have guessed the vulgar weapon that had created it. Through the circular windows of the kitchen’s swinging doors, Marjan could see Bahar taking Mrs. Boylan’s order as Father Mahoney nodded in approval. The friendly priest had kept his word, returning every day for lunch, and sometimes a second time for afternoon tea with several elderly ladies in tow. The only days he hadn’t shown up were Sundays, which Marjan assumed were the busiest in his line of work. Today he had brought his housekeeper and had begged Marjan to give away her elephant ears recipe, so that Mrs. Boylan could replicate the doughy treats whenever he had a midnight craving. More than happy to lend out her expertise, Marjan found a green index card and wrote in neat, round letters:

  Roll dough out on a clean surface with a floured pin until it is paper-thin. Using the rim of a wide-mouthed glass or cup, trace and cut out a circle. Pinch the center of each circle with your thumb and forefinger to form a bow. Set aside. Repeat until all circles (approx. 15) are done.

  “That priest of yours is really funny. Did you know that they’re allowed to drink, these priests? No women, but alcohol is fine!” Bahar walked in waving Father Mahoney’s order. Her usually skittish eyes were bright and—dared Marjan hope?—happy.

  “They drink beer like water here. Last Saturday I saw an entire family, with young kids, leaving the bar next door. At eleven at night!” Marjan replied with awe. She read Father Mahoney’s order:

  1. Pot of Darjeeling × 2

  2. Bread and cheese platter

  3. 1 chicken salad

  4. 1 abgusht

  “Sure likes the abgusht, doesn’t he? It’s the fifth time he’s ordered it this week.” Bahar shook her head in amazement. She enjoyed abgusht like the best of them, but too much made her feel sluggish.

  “Father Mahoney’s raved about it to everyone. The shopkeeper at the mini-mart told me this morning that ‘his Finnegan’—I think that’s his son—had heard all about us. He was wondering if we do takeaway packages! If this keeps up, we’ll be out of debt in no time!” Marjan said cheerily.

  Besides Father Mahoney and Mrs. Boylan, the regular lunchtime crowd in the Babylon consisted of Evie Watson and Fiona Athey. It wasn’t only Father Mahoney’s praises that had drawn the two hairdressers inside but three days of intense curiosity heightened by the smells of fried elephant ears and cinnamon-roasted walnuts. The perfume blew into the beauty salon on the ocean breeze, creeping through the door’s crevices and floating above the bouffant hairdos and hair spray fumes. Evie and Fiona sat at one of the window-side tables now, each drinking her own bowl of red lentil soup as vague ruminations—prompted by Marjan’s magic—swam in their heads: Evie could see neon pink letters spelling out her name over the salon’s door, while Fiona imagined hers lighting up a theater marquee once again.

  Even the elderly ladies of the Patrician Day Dance committee had heard Father Mahoney’s descriptions of the sweet, exotic pastries and teas to be had at the Babylon Café. Forgoing their usual meat and two veg lunches at the Wilton Inn, they now sat at the café’s long communal table before platters of minty chicken salad and bowls of sweet onion soup.

  Unlike her sister, Marie, Dervla Quigley never took part in these girlie lunches. She considered Father Mahoney’s absence from their first committee meeting a personal affront to her already overwrought dignity and officially moved her vigil to the Thomas McGuire camp. Upon Thomas’s request, Dervla was to continue her watch over the café and report back to him daily on the exact nature of the Babylon’s epicurean operations. Thomas wanted to know the types of food supplies that were being bought and delivered, the start of each day’s lunchtime rush, and the average turnover of tables, hoping to pinpoint in such rudimentary details the mysterious alchemy behind so many diners’ glowing smiles and rounded, satisfied bellies. Excited by her new patrol, Dervla bought a small spiral notebook and with her claw-like fingers wrote down the name of every soul who walked in and out of the café, even recording the times when Marjan opened the windows or Bahar crossed the street for the butcher’s. In addition to ranting from her bedroom window, the old gossip dialed every parishioner in her tattered address book and repeated the same indignant spiel: “There’s no tellin’ what’s in that food. Unhygienic, I’d say. Downright dirty. Babylon Café! Sinful, that’s what it is!”

  Orders slowed down after lunch, giving Marjan the opportunity to finish up the last batch of elephant ears. The morning tray was already sold out, gobbled up by schoolchildren who had given up their usual sticky taffy runs for the flaky pastries. Soon, afternoon tea junkies and the occasional passerby would once again wipe the silver
platters clean of her baklava, fried zulbia, wafflelike window cookies, and elephant ears, so she had to be ready.

  Marjan plunged two pinched elephant ears into a deep pan of hot oil for one minute, then transferred them with a slotted spoon to a paper towel. Beads of excess oil dripped luxuriously off each pastry and were instantly swallowed by the thirsty paper towels. When the entire batch cooled, she sprinkled the glistening ears with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon that made her nose tickle. Ever since childhood, Marjan had adored these fried pastries. After all, she thought, a little oil every now and again never hurt anyone. Not unless you were standing too close to the pan, that is.

  MALACHY MCGUIRE WAITED five weeks before he roused the courage to ask Layla for a date. The young man proposed a walk along the hilly roads leading to Clew Bay Beach, holding out his hand and locking Layla in his jewel-toned gaze. Sitting atop the crest of a high dune, the teenagers masked their timid hand-holding in the long sea grass as they watched the effervescent tide and felt the warm, powdery sand beneath their heated bodies.

  Layla stole a shy peek at the boy sitting next to her. Was he going to make the first move, she wondered, or should she take the helm? And what if he did try something? What would she do then? She could feel droplets of sweat dampen her school uniform and trickle between her breasts, settling in her belly button. Her cinnamon-rose perfume was growing denser by the second, emanating from her flushed skin in heady waves. Hoping Malachy hadn’t noticed her growing blush, Layla turned her face away from the boy and pointed up toward Croagh Patrick, which was staring down on them with grandfatherly approval.