“I wanted to know—the reason I’m here—if it would be all right . . .” Lorca said slowly. She shuffled her feet.
“Anything!” I said.
“If I asked you for the recipe? For the masgouf?” she said. Quickly, nervously, she began biting at her bottom lip.
“Oh,” I said. I gasped. “Of course I wouldn’t mind. It would be an honor.”
“It’s for my mother,” she said. “For her birthday.”
“When’s her birthday?” I asked. I must have shouted it. Lorca looked surprised, then embarrassed.
“Well, not for a while. It’s a long story.”
“All right,” I said. I would push no further, and the truth was, a part of me didn’t want to know. I was living on hope. “A story for a rainy day,” I said.
Finally, I could take a deep breath. I felt my feet firmly planted on the ground. I looked out the window to reacquaint myself with the world.
“It’s been so long since I’ve even thought about masgouf,” I said. “But it really was delicious.”
I wrote the recipe in such careful handwriting that my hands shook. I threw it out. I wrote it again. It wasn’t just that my writing had become sloppy and chaotic in my old age, but that it felt like, with every movement of the pen, something deep and visceral was being stirred inside of me. Something that hadn’t been shifted in years. There was an overgrowth, a protective layer, and I was afraid of shifting too quickly, setting something loose that was watery and sour-smelling underneath.
As I was finishing up, adding a little drawing of how to cut the lemons properly, it occurred to me that I might never see this child again. If I was totally wrong about everything, totally delusional, and she’d had this very particular reason for coming after all—the masgouf—all she needed from me was right here on this paper. I was giving her the key to lock me in again. Alone. I didn’t want to appear sappy, needy, but when I looked up and she was wrapping her scarf around her neck, pulling up her socks, I wasn’t sure if I could help it. She’d only taken a bite of her
bamia
. I wrote a little something about the history of masgouf, about the reeds, making a bed of reeds. Finally, I folded the paper carefully. I wrote
Lorca
on the front, biding my time.
“Well,” I said. I took a deep breath.
Lorca reached out a hand.
“Here,” I said, unable to look her in the eye. “Good luck.”
“I’ll need it,” she said. She began to stand up. My heart had risen into my throat, and my hands were tingling. I had to do something. She couldn’t just leave. The cookies were still in the oven. And then it came to me.
“Do you know what’s strange?” I said.
“What?” Lorca said.
“Masgouf wasn’t exactly our specialty. I mean, it was good. Don’t get me wrong. But your mother—she’s a chef?”
Lorca nodded.
“I wouldn’t say,” I said, “it was a very chef-y dish.”
“Was it a house special?” she asked.
“It was the tourists who liked it,” I said. “It’s the national dish of Iraq. It was, you know, ethnic.”
Lorca was quiet and probably had no idea what I was get- ting at.
“If you,” I said, “figure out why she liked that dish so much, we might be able to make it just right. We might be able to outdo ourselves.”
“Thank you,” she said. And then: “That would be great.”
She sat down again. She smiled at me. She ate more
bamia
.
“This is delicious,” she said and I believed her.
I took out another spoon and fed myself a bite from her bowl, hoping it wasn’t too forward.
“Delicious,” I said. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”
She crossed her hands in her lap.
“Would it be all right if I came back on Thursday?” she asked, covering her mouth, which was full. “Maybe we could try cooking some masgouf?”
“Would it be all right?” I said, nearly choking. I smacked at my chest. “It would be marvelous,” I whispered.
The cookies, I could smell, were done. I stuffed my hand into an oven mitt and took them out. Lorca lifted herself off her stool and over the bar to get a good look.
“They’re perfect!” Lorca squealed. I’d never heard her so happy. “Just look at them!”
After Lorca left, I stood by the stool she’d sat on, tried to take in our apartment as if I’d never been here before.
It isn’t so bad,
I thought. I brushed some flour off the table. I threw some over my shoulder. I turned around to see the mess I’d made, and there was something on the floor.
I knelt down too quickly. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever make it back up. My knees cracked like celery. But then, it didn’t matter. I picked it up—and thought I’d stay there forever. It was a photo of a child, in black-and-white. She had a part curved down the left side of her head, clean as an open book, as if done with a knife. She hadn’t yet grown into her limbs or neck but was graceful nonetheless—a human weeping willow. Her eyelids hung heavy, and she had the tiniest pillows above her cheeks. Her hip jutted to the side, and one bare foot was in front of the other. I wanted to hold this little girl in the photograph, wrap a blanket around her tiny, twiggy shoulders, tell her she had nothing to prove. No one had to tell me that she was mine. I was sure of it. Her strong bone structure was all Joseph’s, and her thick dark hair, long torso. But her face, an eddy of sadness, was mine. Unmistakably so. I recognized it like I would my own hand if I found it severed, elsewhere.
She was a person, no more and no less than anyone else. I wondered, I couldn’t help it, what I’d been doing at the very moment this photo had been taken. Or while she was turning five. Ten. Forty. When she’d given birth. If I’d raised her, I thought, wanted to think, she would have looked at the camera differently, not so defiantly. And though I had no right to think that way, or any way, for that matter, now that she was here, in my hands, I was part of her life. There were no two ways about it. What if I’d folded her clothes? I wondered. What if I’d taught her how to butterfly a fish, to braise and batter?
The truth was, I realized, that I wasn’t wondering about her, but about me.
It occurred to me that that is what distinguishes the good parents from the bad ones. Here I was, worrying about how it would have changed my life to part a child’s hair, comb it through. A good parent—Joseph, for example—would never have thought that way. He would have wanted to know her for her—not for the experience of knowing one part of himself. But for the first time in my entire life, I truly felt that my giving her up might have been a brave thing to do—and though I would never forgive myself for being the kind of person who should give up a child, at least I could forgive the act that had allowed the child to escape a mother like that. Which was something. And something, anything, was worlds better than all the nothing that had been.
Lorca had left this photo for me to find. The gutsy feeling that I’d been warding off, that Lorca might just be someone to me, someone important, mine, was justified after all. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but everything was coming together. The very fact of Lorca, perfect as she was, was validation for what we’d done. But that wasn’t all. The notion that I’d clung to all these years, that I’d ruined our daughter’s life by giving her up, was wrong. I’d gotten it wrong. And now not only was there happiness in that—that she was a successful mother, just fine, after all—but there was a great comfort in the fact that I’d had even less claim on her than I’d imagined. Any illusion I’d insisted upon, that I’d known something secret, sacred, about her, was false. And no part of that was disappointing. Just the opposite. Because it meant that the constant pressure of pushing against thoughts of her, the guilt from that, the fear that all the delicate strings I’d laid and used to walk away from her would snap back and into my face, were based on nothing. She was fine. She had a life and it didn’t include me. It didn’t include fighting against the pain from me.
What a gift, I thought, and wondered if Joseph had felt the weight of it too.
That night, I went to bed with the photo tight to my chest.
I wondered if Joseph had ever met Lorca, if Lorca even knew about him. I didn’t think so. I had a vague sense that Lorca and I were both seeking answers to questions that couldn’t be asked simply.
There were so many things I wanted to know, so many ends left untied, but I didn’t mind. In fact, they thrilled me. Everything buzzed and blurred together as some strong current pulled me to sleep. I didn’t fight it. In sleep, I thought, I might be closer to Joseph. I thought,
Let me come upon him so I can tell him everything and so he can know that I forgive him for having a secret, that things have worked out.
N
EW YORK,
1952
In September, Joseph considered writing Victoria a letter. But he feared making a spelling or grammatical error. She’d become such an English expert—a real zealot. Or maybe she wouldn’t be able to read his handwriting—distinguish the
e
from the
r
. She’d stop reading. Patience wasn’t her strong suit. He thought about taking her to her favorite place, the steps of the New York Public Library—she loved how on sunny days the stone warmed the backs of her legs, and the lions reminded her of those at the National Museum of Baghdad—and talking to her, reasoning with her. But he knew what would happen. Her face would shut down as soon as he got to the point. Closed for business. He knew her eyes, usually bright and discerning, would drain to gray—she would become armored. So this seemed like the best option.
They would go to the doctor’s office together. The doctor would talk to them as parents. Victoria would see the possibilities; she would have to. It would occur to her that having a baby wouldn’t be a burden. Just the opposite. It would usher her into a routine, a group of friends, lively chats with the pharmacist, the teachers, the cheese lady on Houston. She would strap the baby to her front. She could get out more. Feel less alone. And it would bring them together—not push them apart. She would see. And she could finally quit her hostessing job. Their pillowcases would no longer smell like cigarettes and unwashed dishes.
At three o’clock Joseph hung up his apron at the bakery. He walked home the usual way but was particularly conscious of everything he passed, as if he’d just woken up from a nap in a strange place. He was superstitious. If he went a different way—if he took Third Street instead of Houston—he might ruin everything. He avoided the cracks in the sidewalk. The cashier at the bakery had taught him the song. He walked deliberately and steadily. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two.
This will help,
he thought,
this calmness will matter when Victoria makes her decision.
He noticed the cleanliness of the streets. The Italians were so proud of their clean streets. He noticed a squirrel, its wild, fluffy tail, and the tiny brown door on Sixth Avenue. The man playing the accordion, bouncing from side to side not quite with the music. His smile revealed very few, very gray teeth. This was the place to raise a child, Joseph thought. This place of all places in the world.
Joseph passed the spice shop on Thompson Street where the Iranian couple worked. They had a baby. And the baby was happy. Isaac brought her by the bakery on his days off. The baby was not pretty. Her face was flat and brown. Like something left on the stove too long, Joseph thought. But she laughed and water bubbled out of her nose. That was something.
On MacDougal Street, he made a right. Almost there. He realized that today was the first day in a long time that he had not sweated through his shirt on his way home. He sweated a lot here. The heat was different. Fall would arrive soon, he told himself. And the sky had begun to change. It felt like it had lowered, come closer to him. Everything smelled metallic. But his hands and toes were clammy. He could feel them. And he had to use the toilet—again. Nerves got the best of his digestion.
He had a plan. When he walked in the door, he would say,
Thank you, Victoria. Thank you for letting me come with you.
And that would be a good start.
Or maybe, he thought, that was too much. He wanted to say—but how to say it without actually saying it—
It’s only right that you’re allowing me to accompany you. This is my baby too. This is my decision as much as it is yours. Be fair, please.
Maybe he wouldn’t say anything. Maybe his face would say it all. She always said he had a very expressive face. She could tell that he was hungry, she liked to say, from just looking at his bottom lip. This made her proud. Maybe he should pretend to be starving, for her.
Joseph counted down as he went up the 212 stairs. He reached their landing at 210. For the first time, he had missed two, he thought. He opened the door, and Victoria was standing against the counter, unshowered. She had a spoon in her hand but wasn’t holding anything to eat. Her left arm rested beneath her breasts like a broken wing. She wasn’t showing yet, but it seemed so natural. She dropped her arm, noticing him. His stupid, obvious face.
“What are you doing?” he asked, motioning to the spoon.
She looked at it, then at him. She disarmed him. He forgot to think about the baby and his plan. He could think of nothing but her face. Her cheekbones were perfect watermelon spears. She looked again at the spoon as if she’d found it peeking out of the sand.
“Don’t know,” she said and dropped it into the sink.
He’d gotten used to this. Her distance from him, from everything. She hadn’t liked New York to begin with, but the pregnancy had made it worse, as if the baby were a magnet drawing her attention inward, to a dark, moldy place. At first, he didn’t want to think deeply about what she was doing—or what she wasn’t doing. He feared that it would make him hate her, and then what? She’d come all the way to New York for him. He thought of her shivering and thin as she came off the bus, literally tumbling down the stairs with fatigue and into his arms. What kind of person would take advantage of that? If he really wanted to be good to her—and have a shot at changing things too—he’d have to try to understand.
“Are you ready?” he asked. “We don’t want to be late.”