(no subject)
Title: to be home again and built for kindness
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2155
Spoilers/Warning(s): none
Summary: They have gotten used to each other, over the years. Not friends, no, but not enemies, not anymore. Their initial dislike for one another was never personal, only circumstantial, a side effect of being the mothers of the wrong spouses for their children. But there is nothing like food to bring a family together.
Notes: Written for the October week 3 writing contest at brigits_flame.
“Some foods are so comforting, so nourishing of body and soul, that to eat them is to be home again after a long journey. To eat such a meal is to remember that, though the world is full of knives and storms, the body is built for kindness. The angels, who know no hunger, have never been as satisfied.”
Eli Brown, Cinnamon and Gunpowder
When Miriam arrives in the house, the flurry of activity has already started.
“Hey, ma,” Nehal says as he opens the door. He gives her a hug. It had taken her years to teach him to call her ma, like she always imagined her son-in-law would. She had never pictured a man like Nehal when she thought of husbands for her daughter, but having him now, she could not dream of a better boy. “C’mon, through here.”
Miriam hangs up her coat, following him. After so many hours in the car--the trip to Chicago had been a lengthy one--she is grateful to be on her feet. She notices a familiar coat beside her own. “Is your mother here, Nehal?”
“She’s in the kitchen now.” He shoots her a grin. “I kind of figured you’d join her in there later.”
“Most likely,” Miriam agrees.
He leads her through their little entryway and into the apartment’s living room, which is full of sound and scent. Voices greet her, but Miriam zeroes in on her daughter with a mother’s trained eye. Rachel is settled on a large rubber ball, her belly round and full in front of her. She wears baggy sweatpants and a button-down shirt that Miriam is fairly sure belongs to Nehal, and her face is calm and peaceful, her eyes closed.
Miriam says nothing, simply watches her daughter breathe, staying still and silent until Rachel opens her eyes. Her face lights up when she sees Miriam. “Hi, Mommy.”
“Hi, baby,” Miriam says. This permission granted, she crosses the room, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Rachel’s skin is damp with sweat along her hairline. “How are you doing?”
“She’s doing great,” says Kate, kneeling on the floor at Rachel’s feet. Kate is Rachel’s doula, a small, sweet woman with more freckles than skin. “Contractions are about nine minutes apart now. You just missed a biggie.”
“How exciting.”
“You’d be surprised,” Rachel says dryly. Nehal picks up a cup from the coffee table and hands it to her, holding the straw steady so she can sip at it.
“I would not be surprised,” Miriam tells her. “Don’t forget, I did this four times. You’re welcome. Maybe now there will be a little more empathy for your mother, hm?”
Rachel makes a face at her. Despite her humor, there is a serenity about her that Miriam finds surprising. Four births or not, she had felt nervous before each one, fearful of the hospitals and the doctors and the myriad of complications that could arise. Rachel has none of the fear that Miriam so closely associated with her own births. She seems content to labor in her home with her friends by her side. The midwife will meet them at the hospital later, Miriam knows, but still, it seems strange and modern, even though she knows that in the grand timeline, it was her own births that were strange.
“Mom?” Rachel looks curiously up at her. “You okay?”
“Just emotional,” Miriam says. She kisses her forehead again, and then straightens. “I’ll see what’s being done in the kitchen. “You’ll call me, if you need me?”
“You’ll hear it if I do,” Rachel promises. Nehal chuckles softly, kisses her temple, rubs her shoulders. Miriam smiles. He’s a good boy, her son-in-law.
The kitchen is already hot, full of a dazzling array of spices. Miriam breathes in and inhales turmeric and oil, the smells of frying and sizzling. “Mina?” she calls.
There is a scuffling, and Nehal’s mother’s head emerges from behind the door of the pantry. Her sari is a brilliant scarlet today, draped around her small body with deceptive ease, not bothering with an apron despite the oil jumping on the stove. She wears her long, dark hair piled atop her head. “Miriam,” she greets. Her accent, still distinctive despite fifteen years in the States, is musical now, no longer foreign or discomfiting to Miriam’s ears. They have gotten used to each other, over the years. Not friends, no, but not enemies, not anymore. Their initial dislike for one another was never personal, only circumstantial, a side effect of being the mothers of the wrong spouses for their children. “It is good to see you again. Are you here to cook as well?”
Yet the wedding has come and gone, and an uneasy peace has settled between. And with grandchildren coming, there is no more room for anything but love between them. Miriam reaches for an apron, plucking one down from the hook beside the refrigerator. It is white with blotchy spots like a cow might have, and red text across the breast reads: “If it’s not fun, why do it?” She thinks perhaps it came from an ice cream store. “You bet I am. What’s free?”
Mina points to the pan on the stove. It filled with oil, small golden-brown dumplings frying in the heat. “The pakoras need a few more minutes,” she says. “They will sit in the oil, and then go there--” she points to a bowl lined with paper towels next to the stove “to dry.” She clicks her tongue. “They should be eaten fresh, of course,” she says, disapproval in her voice. “I offered to make them later. But no, they say, we will cook now, while she labors, and then take ourselves away, leaving them a feast.”
“We’re not taking ourselves away,” Miriam says, rolling up her sleeves. She lugs the food processor up onto the counter, and attaches the grating plate. Then she begins pulling potatoes out of the refrigerator. As long as there is oil, she may as well add latkes to the mix. “We’re giving them time to bond with their baby without their mothers taking up their time.”
“Peh,” Mina says. She is quiet for a moment, mixing spices into a bowl. “Perhaps you are right,” she says after a minute or two of grudging silence, broken only by the spinning of the grater as Miriam feeds potatoes in. “When I was young, babies were born at home, into the arms of mothers and grandmothers and aunts and cousins. It was a special thing. A time of family.” She places her bowl of spices down and begins to fish the fried pakoras out of the oil. “This alone time...I understand it. But I do not have to like it.”
“No, you don’t,” Miriam agrees. She finishes with the potatoes and plops the grated mixture into a bowl, mixes in a bit of flour, some salt and pepper, half an egg. She pulls handfuls of the batter into her hands, squeezes out the water, and plops them into the still-hot oil. They sizzle. The smell of frying returns to the air. Miriam opens a window, and lets the brisk fall air wash over her. The smell diminishes somewhat.
Mina peers over her shoulder. “Potato patties?”
“Latkes,” Miriam explains. “They’re a holiday food, traditionally. Chanukah. We cook with oil for the eight days, to commemorate the miracle.”
“I see.”
There is a commotion outside the kitchen. Voices lift in song, Rachel’s surprisingly strong. Elohai neshama shenatata bi tehorah hi. Oh God, the soul you have given me is pure. Miriam hums along, smiling as she pulls a package of matzah meal from the pantry. Beside her, Mina has set her mixed spices aside and has started chopping onions and peppers into small, diced pieces. “What are you making?”
“Bhelpuri,” Mina says. “It is...comfort food, I suppose you would say. Street food but also comforting. Very common in Mumbai.”
Miriam sets her matzah meal aside. “May I help?”
Mina looks surprised. “Yes,” she says. “Thank you.”
At Mina’s instruction, Miriam dry roasts puffed rice, which she has never used before. With careful hands, she measures out lemon juice, red chili powder, roasted cumin, salt, and chaat masala powder. The ingredients are unfamiliar and spicy, and she resists the urge to dip a finger in and taste. Mina chatters gently beside her, murmuring in a steady stream of instructions, all the while dicing tomatoes, onions, boiling a potato and slicing it into chunks.
They have just mixed the ingredients together into a large bowl when Nehal pokes his head into the kitchen. “Mama? Ma? We’re heading to the hospital. It’s time.”
Miriam washes her hands well, dries them on a towel, heads into the living room. Rachel has her coat on and is standing near the door, her hair damp and curling, her smile radiant. There’s a bit of nervousness on her face now, but she returns Miriam’s hug tightly, her belly swollen between them. Miriam kisses her daughter’s cheeks, her forehead. She whispers a blessing in her ear, and then bends down to kiss her belly. “Be safe, my love,” she says. “If you change your mind, you have Nehal or Kate call me. We’ll come right there. Five minutes away.”
“I know, mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Mina comes behind her, kisses Rachel’s cheek, hugs her tight. She says something in a language Miriam doesn’t speak, and Rachel smiles. She kisses Nehal next, and he holds her, towering over her. Miriam, who has only daughters, tries to imagine what it must be like to have a child so tall. She wonders if her grandchild will be petite or gangly, dark or pale. She knows it will be beautiful.
The door closes behind the children, and they are left alone. The apartment is quiet and still, the scents of oil and salt and spice hanging strong in the air.
Mina holds out her hand for Miriam’s. “Come,” she says. “There is work to do.”
Miriam takes Mina’s hand.
They return to the kitchen, bury their hands in spice and flour. They taste as they cook, now, trading bites of family recipes, food laden with history and taste. Miriam tries tandoori chicken and nearly shrieks at the unfamiliar spiciness of it, kashmiri chili powder and turmeric, fanning her mouth and reaching for a glass of water as Mina, laughing so hard tears run from her eyes, hands her a spoonful of yogurt to calm the burning. Mina makes a confused face at the conflicting tastes and textures of Miriam’s mother’s kugel, as if the mixing of noodles and cheese and sugar and cinnamon are incomprehensible, but at her second bite, she hums in satisfaction.
Mina crafts a chicken tikka masala that is creamy and spicy, the tomatoes and ginger and garlic blending so smoothly Miriam has to hold it on her tongue to give herself time to identify every flavor, wanting to commit it to memory. She crafts a borscht nearly the same red as Mina’s sari, sweet and earthy, tasting of Eastern European history. They trade desserts back and forth, their arms coated in flour to the elbows, sugar and raisins and dates scattered across the countertops as their hands craft rugelach, modak, teiglach, gulab jamun. They make syrups infused with honey, with saffron, with sugar, dipping the pastries and khoya and dumplings into the syrups.
They tell stories of cooking with their mothers in kitchens thousands of miles apart. They trade the secrets of recipes, handed down from mother to daughter for generations. They trade scars on their hands from burning oil, from knife-nicks, from snatching small hands away from a burner or pan too quickly to watch their own fingers. When the kitchen is cooling, they sit at the table together, dipping latkes into applesauce and pakora into yogurt, marveling at the wonders of flavor, the history of spice.
Nehal calls in the small hours of the night, as they stand side-by-side by the kitchen sink, Mina washing, MIriam drying. He sounds tired, and tearful, and joy drips from his voice like honey onto an apple. Miriam cries, and blesses him in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish, and she tells him she loves him, and she hangs up the phone.
“Well?” Mina demands. Her hands, wet with soapy water, take Miriam’s in hers. “Well?”
“A girl,” says Miriam. She is laughing, and her eyes are wet. “A girl, and she’s perfect.”
They cry together, grandmothers in a kitchen not their own, full of the smells of oil and cinnamon and saffron and cilantro. Miriam’s mouth still tastes of sugar and yogurt. A journey has ended today, a new one begun. It is a day for sweetness, and she holds it on her tongue.