'Mother, I am terribly sorry for worrying you so much. I should never have done this. I am so sorry, but there is nothing to worry about, believe me.'
Rose put her hand over the phone. 'My baby is in Istanbul!' she said to her husband with a hint of a reprimand as if this were his fault. Then she yelled into the receiver: 'What the hell are you doing there?'
'Actually, I am staying at your mother-in-law's house. It is a wonderful family.'
Flabbergasted, Rose turned again to Mustafa and this time scolded harder: 'She is staying with your family.'
Then, before an ashen and alarmed Mustafa Kazanci could put in a word, she said, 'We are coming there. Don't disappear anywhere. We are coming. And don't you ever turn off your cell phone again!' With that she hung up.
'What the hell are you talking about?' Mustafa squeezed his wife's arm, harder than he intended. 'I am not going anywhere.'
'Yes, you are going,' Rose said. 'We are going. My only daughter is in Istanbul!!!' she screamed, as if it meant Armanoush had been taken hostage.
'I cannot leave my job now.'
'You can take a few days off. And if you don't, I will go alone,' Rose, or someone who looked like Rose, snapped. 'We will go there, make sure she is safe, pick her up, and bring her back home.'
Late that night when they were about to go to sleep the Kazancis' phone rang.
'Inshallah it is nothing bad,' Petite-Ma whispered from her bed, a rosary in her hand, a shadow of anxiety on her face. She reached out for the glass of water with her false teeth inside and, still praying, took a sip. Only water could quell fear.
Still awake, it was Auntie Feride who picked up the phone. More than anyone else in the family, she was the most talkative and communicative when it came to phone conversations.
'moo?
'Hi, Feride, is it you?' the receiver asked in a male voice. And without waiting for an answer, he added, 'It is me… from America… Mustafa….'
Thrilled to hear her brother's voice, Auntie Feride grinned. 'Why don't you call us more often? How are you? When are you coming to see us?'
'Listen, dear, please. Is Amy-Armanoush there?'
'Yes yes, of course, you sent her to stay here with us. We love her very much.' Auntie Feride beamed. 'Why didn't you come with her, you and your wife?'
Mustafa stayed put, his forehead buckled with discomfort. Behind him in the window lay the Arizona soil, always dependable, always secretive. In time he had learned to appreciate the desert, its infinity soothing his fear of looking back, its tranquillity easing his fear of death. At times like this he remembered, as if his body reminisced on its own, the fate awaiting all the men in his family. At times like this he felt close to committing suicide. Finding death before death found him. He had lived two very different lives. Mustafa and Mostapha. And sometimes the only way to bridge the gap between the two names seemed to silence them simultaneously-to bring both of his lives to an abrupt end. He shunned the thought. A sound similar to sighing. Perhaps it was him. Perhaps it was just the desert.
'I think we are. We will come for a few days to pick Amy up and to see you…. We are coming.'
These words seemed to come effortlessly, as if time was not a sequence of ruptures but an uninterrupted continuity, easily bendable even when fractured. Mustafa would visit as if it had not been almost twenty years since he had been home.
The miraculous news that Mustafa was coming to visit them with his American wife instantly instigated a series of reactions in the Kazanci domicile. The first and foremost one involved detergents, washing powder, and soap flakes. In two days the whole house had been thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom, windows scoured and buffed up, shelves dusted, curtains washed and ironed, every tile on all the three floors scrubbed and mopped. One by one Auntie Cevriye wiped the leaves of every houseplant in the living room, the geranium and the bellflower, the rosemary and the sweet woodruff. She even wiped the leaves of the touch-me-not. Meanwhile Auntie Feride surprised everyone by taking out the most precious latticework in her dowry. But it was no doubt Grandma Gulsum who was most thrilled with the news. At first she refused to believe her only son was coming to visit them after all these years, and when she finally was convinced of the news, she incarcerated herself in the kitchen amid the dishware, cutlery, and ingredients, cooking the favorite dishes of her favorite child. Now the air inside the kitchen was heavy with the scents of freshly baked pastries. She had already oven-baked two different types of borek- spinach and feta cheese-and simmered lentil soup, stewed lamb chops, and prepared the kofte mixture to be fried upon the guests' arrival. Though she was determined to make ready half a dozen more dishes before the end of the day, undoubtedly the most important item on Grandma Gulsum's menu was going to be the dessert: ashure.
All throughout his childhood and teens, Mustafa Kazanci had relished ashure more than any other sweet, and if those terrible American fast-food products had not messed up his culinary habits, Grandma Gulsum hoped, he would be delighted to encounter bowls of his favorite dessert in the fridge, waiting for him, as if life here were still the same and he could pick up from where he had left off.
Ashure was the symbol of continuity and stability, the epitome of the good days to come after each storm, no matter how frightening the storm had been.
Grandma had soaked the ingredients the day before and was now getting ready to begin cooking. She opened a cupboard and took out a huge cauldron. One always needed a cauldron to cook ashure.
Ingredients
1/2 cup garbanzo beans
1 cup whole hulled wheat 1 cup white rice 1–1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup roasted hazelnuts, chopped 1/2 cup pistachios 1/2 cup pine nuts 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/3 cup golden raisins 1/3 cup dried figs 1/3 cup dried apricots 1/2 cup orange peels 2 tablespoons rosewater
Garnishes
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 cup blanched and slivered almonds 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
Preparation
Most of the ingredients should be soaked in separate bowls the day before as follows:
In one bowl, cover the beans with cold water and soak them overnight. The wheat and rice should be rinsed carefully and then covered with water in a different bowl. Soak the figs and apricots and orange peels in hot water for 1/2 hour, then drain and reserve the soaking water; chop them, mix them with the golden raisins, and set aside.
Cooking
Cover the beans with 1 gallon of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat until the beans are just tender, about an hour.While the beans are cooking, boil 2–1/2 quarts of water, stir in the wheat and rice, and simmer over low heat, stirring frequently, until the wheat and rice mixture is tender, about an hour. Combine.
Add the reserved soaking water, the sugar, chopped hazelnuts, pistachios, and pine nuts to the pot and bring it all to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Simmer and stir for 30 minutes or more. Allow the mixture to thicken slightly until it resembles a thick soup. Add the vanilla, raisins, figs, apricots, and orange peels and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring constantly. Turn off the heat and blend in the rosewater. Let the ashure stand at room temperature for an hour or more. Sprinkle with cinnamon and garnish with slivered almonds and pomegranate seeds.
Inside the girls' room, Armanoush had been quiet and pensive since early morning. She didn't feel like going out or doing anything.
Asya stayed indoors with her playing tavla and listening to Johnny Cash.
'Six six! You lucky thing!'
