Dogs With Bagels

by Maria Elena Sandovici

  “How is any of your business?”

  “Excuse me?” Monica says. “I went to that party with Victor...”

  Maria raises her eyebrows. There are a lot of things she’s dying to say to this woman. Things she has rehearsed during her sleepless lonely nights.

  “Vorbesti româneste?” she asks. Do you speak Romanian?

  The other woman nods.

  “Da, doamnă.” Yes ma’am. Maria doesn’t enjoy the sarcastic tone, nor the feeling of familiarity implicit in speaking their native language. Any closeness between them would only be sick, and Maria wants none of it. She just wants to say what she needs to say, and she wants to have her words come out articulate, and strong, the way they never would in broken English. She wants to express who she is, and where she stands, then get the hell out of here.

  “So you are telling me how to act with my husband.” Monica recoils at the word ‘husband.’ “And I am telling you, it is none of your business.”

  Monica sighs and rolls her eyes. Her beautiful lips are twisted in a grimace Maria doesn’t know how to interpret.

  “I am Victor’s wife,” she says, watching Monica cringe once more. Funny, how she cannot stand to hear ‘wife,’ or ‘husband,’ or ‘marriage.’ She’s probably chosen to ignore this aspect of Victor’s life. She probably likes to think of him as already divorced. “I have been his wife for almost twenty five years now. I am not just the mother of his children. I am his wife. Whatever you do with my husband is my business, if I choose to make it. But what I do with him is none of yours.”

  Monica looks away.

  “So you were with him that night. I knew it!”

  “I think you are not listening,” Maria says. “I will not ever give an account of what happens in my marriage, to anyone. Especially not to my husband’s mistress.”

  The other woman inhales sharply.

  “If you think you’re the wife and I’m the mistress, then you are in denial, lady!”

  Maria resists the urge to slap her.

  “Maybe you’re in denial, Miss. You did know he was married, didn’t you?”

  “Separated.”

  Maria feels blood rushing to her face. The nerve!

  “Separated. But still married. You should have stayed away from him!”

  The other woman’s eyes are defiant.

  “Maybe it’s you who should stay away from him! Your marriage is over. Your children are grown! Maybe it’s time you left us alone, Mrs. Pop. This is what I came here to tell you. I want you to leave my boyfriend alone. I don’t know what happened in your marriage. He never wanted to discuss it with me, but…”

  “Good!” Maria cuts in. “Because it’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, but it is my business, Mrs. Pop.” Again, that stress on her name. She speaks it as if it’s the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard, and it shakes Maria a little. Because, isn’t it, after all? “It is my business, because I love him. He might be your husband on paper, but I am the woman who loves him. And we’re together. You’re gonna have to learn to respect that!”

  Maria puffs, almost spitting her wine.

  “You can’t just go to a party and leave with my boyfriend,” Monica says. “You just can’t. And if you’re blind, and think the fact that you’re still married entitles you to anything, then I am here to open your eyes. Your marriage is over. And I want you to step out of the picture. You made him unhappy. I don’t even need to know what you did to figure that out. It’s obvious as daylight. You made him very unhappy. Mrs. Pop.”

  Maria looks into the depth and darkness of her wine. She looks at the face of her rival.

  She watches without saying anything at first. Then slowly, she lets her lips contort into a bitter smile. She wants the other woman to feel in her bones, that Maria despises her.

  “And with you, he’s just floating on happiness, is that right?” She laughs. “That’s why you’re here. Because the two of you are just so fucking happy. What a perfect relationship you have, Miss … whatever the hell your name was. Well, congratulations!”

  She raises her glass in a mock toast to the other woman.

  “Apparently the key to happiness is finding a man with problems in his marriage, sleeping with him, then sitting around blaming all your problems on his wife! Funny, isn’t it, how whenever a man is an asshole, there always seems to be a woman in his past whose fault it really is. It’s never him who is to blame. Some bitch must have done something bad to him at some point! Some bitch must have made him ‘very unhappy,’ as you say. The evil wife! Well, maybe you should write a book about it! I bet it’ll sell like hot cakes! Besides, that should give you something to do on all the holidays my husband is spending with his wife and children, and you are all alone. How about Christmas? Maybe you can start then? Miss, whatever the fuck your name is. How about I cook a big turkey for my family, and eat it with my husband, whom you love, and I hurt, and you sit home all by yourself, thinking what a bitch I am, and how I made him so very unhappy. Maybe I’ll even send you a little doggie bag, to give you some force, you know, so you can comfort him with your love, after I made him so terribly unhappy.”

  She’s bluffing. She has no idea what Victor will choose to do at Christmas.

  “You know,” Maria continues, “I very strongly believe this, and throughout my life I have found it to be true. Whenever you take something that is not meant to be yours, it will come back to haunt you, and you will pay for it. Call it karma, if you wish. If I didn’t know this to be true, I would shoplift from the glove department.”

  “I am not a bad person,” Monica says.

  “Maybe you are not. But for the past six years you have been fucking my husband. That is a bad thing to do.”

  “You are separated!”

  “Separated,” Maria repeats. “You keep saying that. But when you met Victor, we were not divorced. Actually, from two different ends of the city, we were raising our children together. Surely, you were aware of that. Were you?”

  She pauses, waiting for Monica to nod. The other woman just sighs.

  “Who did you think you were to decide that we were done with each other when you met him?” Maria asks, her voice rising. “How could you know I didn’t want him back? Maybe I did, and maybe you were in the way.”

  Monica’s eyes are fixing her.

  “So you do want him back?”

  “I will not answer that. As I said before, it is none of your business!”

  The other woman puffs like an angry horse.

  “Why did you come here to talk to me?” Maria asks. “Why don’t you take all of this up with your lover?”

  She specifically stresses the last word. Lover. Amant. In Romanian it implies something illicit about a relationship, something adulterous even.

  Monica looks away. She sighs.

  “Of course, you didn’t want to upset Victor, did you? Maybe you should be less concerned about him, and think instead about what is good for you.”

  “You’re telling me to leave him?”

  Maria shrugs.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. You’re a grown woman. Figure it out for yourself.”

  She gestures for the bill, pouring her own wine into the other woman’s glass. After sharing a man, she shouldn’t mind drinking after her. Maria waves away Monica’s gesture towards her purse, and places two fifties on top of the bill.

  “Maybe this will help you,” she says on her way out. “You and my daughter, Lili, you are close, right? I know she talks to you. She probably talks to you about intimate things. Why not? You are cool, you are stylish, you are older, you are not her mother. I believe you actually care about her, right? If my daughter came to you, and she was in your situation, what advice you would give?”

  Leaving the bar, she feels powerful and triumphant. Later, on the subway, the euphoria subsides. Once all is said and done, it’s just another Tuesday evening, she’s going home to her empty apartment, her ballet flats are wet and dirty from t
he slush on the street, her feet are freezing, she has a headache from drinking on an empty stomach, and she is a hundred bucks poorer than before. There go her sheets of Egyptian cotton. She’s tired, hungry, and cold. And though her pride just got a little boost, at the end of the day, is pride ever really worth it? Once she gets off the subway, she stops at McDonald’s and orders a Big Mac with fries. She’s ravenous after that wine. And who cares, anyway? She’s not pregnant, her children are grown, her husband no longer wants her, and she has already wiped the floor with his beautiful mistress, so isn’t it about time she coats her arteries in lard, and lets herself grow into a big fat cow?

  23

  Christmas

  Maria takes another sip of coffee. She enjoys the warmth spreading through her body, waking her up. She lets her senses relish in the glorious scent of her apartment. Coffee, fir, vanilla, and the zesty spice of lemon peel. Nothing in the world could smell better.

  She remembers her first Christmas in America, when they were not able to afford a tree at all. She cried quietly in the bathroom, missing the lovely scent of Christmases back home, the scent of fir, and of her grandmother’s baking. Then, on Christmas eve, Victor appeared with a small tree, and she was so excited! He realized how much she wanted a tree! Although she never told him, knowing they couldn’t afford one, he had read her mind, and he went out of his way to please her! He tried to make this easier on her, her first Christmas in the new country!

  “I just couldn’t stand the thought of our children not having a tree,” he said. Her heart sank. She managed to smile, but there was no way to repress her disappointment. She knew it didn’t matter, and that she got to enjoy the tree all the same, but it hurt her to know he bought it for the children, not for her. She felt selfish and immature, being jealous of her own children. She told herself that they were kids, and that their joy was more important than hers, especially at Christmas. To make up for her selfishness, she insisted they decorate the tree. She sat up all night making little ornaments out of scrap paper and the glass buttons of a hideous sweater somebody had given her. She unraveled the sweater to hang the ornaments on the yarn. They were ugly, her hand-made ornaments, but the children loved them.

  The tree she got this year is bigger than the one they had on that first Christmas in America. It’s greener, lusher, with a fuller crown. She didn’t even bargain for it. With Victor’s money sitting unused in her savings account, she relished in the small luxury of selecting the tree she liked best, and having it delivered, with no further complications. It arrived two days ago. She asked Alex to mount it in its stand, a task she always dreaded. He’s home on break, mostly hibernating in his room, in between partying with friends. She caught him in one of his few waking moments, and asked him nicely to set up the tree at his own convenience. As usual, he flat out refused, and she didn’t insist. She poured herself a glass of merlot, and decided to do it herself. She told herself that by now there was nothing she couldn’t do if she put her mind to it, no task too complicated. She got the tree mounted, and after several tries, it even stood up straight, not crooked. Her hands were sore from the rough wood, but she was pleased with herself.

  This morning, while drinking her coffee, she feels almost happy. Her tree is beautiful, and her house smells like Christmas. Three perfect pound cakes sit on the stove, tempting her with their golden crust.

  Her body is sore from the effort. Pound cakes are not something she would normally make. But this is no regular Christmas. L is bringing home her boyfriend, an American boy. Alex actually refers to him as a gringo, and each time she hears it, Maria has to laugh. She’s not pleased that L has acquired what appears to be a serious boyfriend. But as a mother, she considers it her duty to impress the young man. It will have to be a Christmas dinner like he never experienced before. And although Maria is not a big fan of tradition, she immediately decided to prepare the most traditional Romanian dishes she knew: Stuffed cabbage with polenta, then pound cakes for dessert. These are the two most labor-intensive foods she knows how to make, but they are also the most delicious, and the most likely to impress. Besides, she promised Mada a pound cake, for giving her free manicures all year.

  Of course, there is another reason why she went through all this trouble. This is the first time she’ll see Victor since Thanksgiving. She has not spoken to him since that night. Not even once. But she has, of course, asked L to invite him to Christmas dinner, as usual, and as usual, he has confirmed that he would come. It’s not surprising, really. Victor would never miss spending Christmas with his children!

  It seems surreal that in a few hours he’ll be walking through her door, sitting at her table, eating her food. The last time she saw him, he was lying in bed next to her, naked. The thought of that night makes her jittery. Will she even be able to survive Christmas dinner in the presence of Victor? Will her gestures betray her? Will her children read her secret in her eyes, in her burning cheeks, and her trembling hands?

  Whatever happens, she knows that she’ll fare best if the meal is impeccable. There is no better distraction for a hostess than serving complicated food, food she’ll have to fuss over all evening, food that will hopefully be the center of attention. Presented with delicious sarmale, intoxicated by the scent of fresh baked cozonaci, her children shouldn’t even notice Mami being flustered. And she herself will be too busy to pay attention to the butterflies in her stomach, and the weakness in her knees.

  As she stretches her aching back, a souvenir of staying up last night, kneading dough like a maniac, she knows that vanity has got the best of her. There is no use denying it. She’s gone to incredible expense, and tremendous effort, and the true reason has nothing to do with L’s young man. The person she’s really been cooking for is Victor. More than ever, tonight, she wants him to enjoy her food. She wants to lay out a feast that will amaze and delight him, a meal that will make him miss her with the same painful intensity that she’s been missing him.

  She still feels the pangs of rejection from his silence, his refusal to make even a small gesture to acknowledge what happened between them. She still cries over it every now and then. But there is nothing she can do about it. Except serve the most delicious Christmas meal he’s ever tasted.

  She knows how much he likes stuffed cabbage. Not just any stuffed cabbage. Hers. After all, it’s not a regular dish, one that turns out the same each time somebody follows a recipe. It tastes differently depending on who makes it, has a different consistency even. The cook’s personality is served along with the meal. She’s had sarmale that were glorious, but she also had some she could hardly bring herself to swallow. Some people make them too greasy. Others lace them with smoked bacon, a taste her southern European taste buds never grew to like. Others add too much sauce, too much rice, too much salt.

  Hers are perfection. She chooses the best cuts of meat, a combination of lean beef and pork, then has the butcher grind them in front of her very eyes. She adds the perfect combination of spices, and just enough rice. She takes her time wrapping each roll, in the best pickled cabbage she can find, making sure each palm sized ball looks the same, and that it is wrapped tightly. She adds tomato sauce, then slow cooks them on the stovetop. Finally, she bakes them in the oven until the juices evaporate, and the top layer is brown and crispy.

  The cakes, of course, have a saga of their own. Madalina was an angel to help out. Maria would not have managed the dough on her own. It needs to be kneaded for over an hour, in vigorous continuous motion, until it no longer sticks to one’s fingers, and its fragrant yellow mass turns into bursting little bubbles. Only then will the pound cakes come out soft and fluffy, layers and layers of feathery dough, slowly unraveling in one’s hand.

  Red in the face, and with sweat running down her back from the effort, Madalina laughed at the elaborate process. The yellow mass was stubborn, sticking to their fingers, and refusing to let them manipulate it. They had to tear at it, then slap it hard, and it seemed to rebel. It felt like operating some g
rueling machine at the gym, and Mada kept saying that she could not believe Maria was actually doing all this.

  Mada isn’t much for domestic chores, and that’s one thing Maria loves about her. She’s not traditional. But last night, her lack of skill and patience started grinding on Maria’s nerves.

  “I can’t believe you’re going through all this trouble, Mari!” Madalina exclaimed, and Maria rolled her eyes. They had been kneading for 45 minutes. Yes, it was a long time, but they had at least half an hour to go. There was no use complaining.

  “So what is next after this? Are we maybe weaving a rug? Or grinding flour?” Mada asked laughing, oblivious to Maria’s irritation.

  “Move your hands faster, girl. Watch me. You grab it, pull, then smack!” Maria instructed. “Afterwards we’ll drink some more wine and you can tell me more about this new boyfriend. And then, I was thinking, while the dough is rising, you can help me wrap the sarmale.”

  Madalina laughed harder.

  “Sarmale? And you want us to wrap them? By hand?”

  “It is the only way, silly. Besides, the only reason you’ve never done this is because you don’t have children. Lucky bitch.”

  “I don’t recall you going to so much trouble for your children last year… or the year before last…”

  “Yes, well, I told you L is bringing home a young man.”

  “I thought you weren’t happy about the boyfriend. Didn’t you say you were afraid L might be getting too serious with him?”

  “I still feel that way. She’s too young.”

  “So then, what are you trying to impress him for?”

  Maria shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I might not be happy about it, but L likes him. Maybe she’s even in love. I don’t want her to be embarrassed when she brings him home. Although I have considered opening a can of spam and telling him it’s traditional Romanian Christmas fare, and that we like to eat it with our hands.”

  Mada laughed.

  They kneaded silently for another few minutes, then Mada started giggling, still not able to contain her amusement at having to perform such bizarre and outdated chores.