Provisions

After late-night tea, the intercom buzzes. Frantically and in Arabic, my family shifts. Men rise, the women shake worried heads. “Mskeen. Mskeen!” Unfortunate. “Lulu” flits bulkily into the master bedroom, all voices heighten and “Sidda” stands up on a backless sofa near the latched window, throwing open the fogged glass. The three ladies stick their heads out, and propelled by curiosity, I follow in suite. Across the third floor alley-way window, smoke is filtered by chipped blue shutters beneath faint streetlight. Necks craning, palms against a metal sill, the four of us look on, desperately scanning as a house fire pocks living room cushions. “Buggy” leans away, her bulk threatening to lose its balance right on a fat and droopy chocolate cake spanning the coffee table center. She laughs as “Sidda” steadies her, the back-of-the-throat hissing spittle and hack only made possible because “Buggy” has no back teeth.

DID YOU UNDERSTAND?? “Sidda” yells to me over the static of Avenue Mohammad V via cell.

No. I didn’t understand. I thought she was going to “Buggy’s” house for the night and “Vivi” was staying in Rabat. They KNEW I was spending the night at Amy’s.

I tried, over the badgering barter of men in striped sweaters selling salt-and-garlic snails, pulled from their shells with safety pins. But the staircase echoed. And the concept was fuddled.

NO! I DID NOT UNDERSTAND. ONE MINUTE. I AM RETURNING. I AM RETURNING TO THE HOUSE NOW. ONE MINUTE.

OK YULLA BYE.

When I returned, “Sidda” had already left. “Vivi’s” darija just tied me in knots, only understanding when she told me to pack, now. To get my “pajama”.

Oh, I thought. Looks like I’m going to Amy’s house AFTER dinner at “Buggy’s”.

And 25.5 hours later I was still at “Buggy’s”.









“Shep” opens the Qur’an, flicking the magnetic lid of his reading-glass case and clearing his throat. His recitations are long and nasally, necessarily so because of the incredible duration of verses meant to be spoken-sung in a single breath. Two minutes in and single glassy tears have parked themselves in the permanent vales below “Vivi’s” eyes. She follows along under her breath, few words on queue and rhythmically rocking.

The cuisina is central. Bickering, “Vivi” coils skinny legging-clad limbs beneath her, shaking her head at her daughters’ operatic tales, intonated with such sincere drama I can’t look away. “Sidda” uses her head, her upturned nose and mousy upper lip. The flesh on her wrist cuffs itself, cutting a clear bracelet-like crease in circumference.

I sit down for bread and butter, hot cups of too-sweet tea. Breakfast is not yet over and “Buggy” is already well into lunch preparation. “Vivi” slyly pushes quarter-loaf after quarter-loaf of flatbread to my place at the table without making eye contact. Hoping that, by it being before me, I won’t be able to help but consume it. So. Much. Bread. I slice a piece through the center, dipping the knife into lumpy chunks of butter. Crumbs speckle the table from past kitchen-denizens and “Vivi” uses square-tipped fingers to gather these remnants. Once piled she pinches and brings the dregs to her jutting lower lip.

Nothing wasted.

I catch single words with satisfying familiarity, asking for meanings with those unknown but frequently overheard. Silent and small, always listening, I see the shutters bang open and vacuum out delicious bread-baking scents into the dirty street. The fleece blanket is fringed. Blunt carrots and potatoes are cleaned, cut, cooked. A soup bowl shapes rice into perfect hemispheres, inverted and centered on round platters; edible sandcastles sprinkled with sweet pepper slices. The lettuce leaves circle as would rays, cupping bleeding beets like green canoes. Parsley’d potatoes and carrots, now stove-top soft, fill the spaces between, separated by ramparts of slivered cucumber, quartered turnip. Gold vinegar and oil make a heavy garnish and the salads are “Sidda’s” masterpiece.

Sitting in the saloon. Or the cuisina. Or a bedroom.

Striking hulking poses, “Buggy” moves from stool to stove, stove to sink, emphasizing her epics with suspenseful silences… spacing - words - with - tyrannical - precision. Her head bobbles forward and back, toggling freely on a spring-like neck when it comes time to make a point. All the while, fists in motion. Skinningslicingcoringcleaving carrots. Knife held flush by thumb, she brings her hands up and before her chest, palms out. And pauses there. Gesturing with disbelief and withdrawal. Moroccan women have wide hands, working hands. Their feet are arch-less, bulbous, bony and disfigured. Thick toenails holding perpetually the deep copper of old henna. Breasts are not individual stores but a single swinging, falling, languid unit, one to be picked up, slapped over, strapped down. But really it’s the hands. You can see in their color, their folds and knuckles. “Vivi’s” left ring finger is resistant to neighborly cooperation, remaining constantly, stubbornly erect. Their hands have borne babies, they have been burnt and bruised, buckled, cracked. They have kneaded and darned and slapped and wrung. Years add spots and stunt nails but the fists of these women are ropy with muscle and beside them my hands are too poor and too white. “Buggy” tears the stale flatbread like its combed cotton when we prepare something like croutons. I try to match her haste, the blur of those fat-veined fingers. My compatriots own such solid hands.

Except for “Lulu”. Like a porcelain doll, her face and fingers are hand-painted. The rest of her body is large; as shapeless as a toy’s stuffed torso. “Lulu” is from France and mostly she is quiet, scrolling through cell-contacts, waiting. Mohammad is late. “…and now she wears hijab…” Slippers flat and faded, she scuffs from kitchen to computer and back, slicing skinned potatoes too slowly for her mother-in-law’s desperate pace. Only when the bearded, soft-bellied Moroccan rings up to the third-floor intercom does the pink slap her wide round cheeks. She slides coyly past doorframes, watches him sideways. Reddening because she knows that we know that she knows we know why she blushes. Catching eyes she looks away quickly. Her cherub face, over and down. Once Mohammad is in the house “Lulu” laughs.

Explaining in pitiful Arabic the concept of Lent, the practice of deliberately altering a habit for the holiday’s duration, is a task not for the faint of heart.

You are not eating desserts? For that whole time?? I understand. Kind of like Ramadan. Cookie? They aren’t very sweet.

No desserts? Can you at least eat chicken??