Today when I was out doing errands I had to pass right by my in-laws and
decided to pop in to say hi to them. They like that, or at least they pretend
they do.
Every single time I pay an unexpected visit to them my father-in-law opens the
door in his t-shirt and boxer shorts, and then walks off down the hall to put
on trousers. I don’t know why he does this. I’ve already seen him open the door
and then walk down the hall. If the sight of his legs would be too much for me
then I would already be stupefied by the time he exited the room.
Today was just as it should have been, my father-in-law looking through the
peep-hole and then opening the door in his boxer shorts. But today my
mother-in-law was in the doorway as well, ironing a stack of clothing. This is
where she puts the ironing board: right at the front door. There is just so
much about my in-laws that I don’t understand, you see. And what was my
mother-in-law ironing today? A pair of sweatpants. I recognised them as one of
the pairs my father-in-law wears when he goes walking in the mornings.
My mother-in-law wore her industrial-strength back support. It’s a thick,
body-cast type manifestation of neoprene, plastic and metal that wraps all the
way around her torso and keeps her back from bending. She says it helps her
when she’s ironing sweatpants and doing other chores that are essential for
genteel life. I’m not sure I would be entirely at ease in a brace that didn’t
allow me to bend. What if I was on a horse, trotting through a thick stand of
trees, and saw a big branch coming right at me?
My own mother, too, is fond of ironing things like dish towels and tablecloths when she's run out of clothing to press. Is
this strictly a mother thing? The sight of wrinkled textiles seems to trigger some mechanism in their brains and they can't rest until they hear steam wafting out of a hot iron. I wonder if my mother-in-law
likes bitter marmalade, for I believe that is another mom thing. I must
remember to ask her.
When I was leaving my in-laws I ducked my head in at the natoor’s hovel to say
hello to him (remember, we use to live in this building) but he wasn’t in. A
bunch of children stood in the gloom of the windowless room. These would be
Nowras’s offspring, not many months arrived from Syria. Only the eldest boy had
been present when we lived in the building but Nowras had sent for the rest of his kids and his wife when the fighting in his homeland got too close to them.
I learned from Kassem that the eldest boy, who’s around thirteen years old, was
now working full-time serving coffee at a little shop in a nearby
neighbourhood. This is the boy who, on a visit to his father around the age of
eight, announced that he would never go back to school and would stay in Lebanon
and help his father look after our building.
This isn’t quite as romantic as it sounds. Nowras’s duties, though spread out
over a very long day and evening – a natoor in Lebanon is expected to be
available every minute of the day or night – amount to little. Except for
washing the building’s eight flights of stairs every Saturday, he may not do
more than an hour or two of real work each day. He is nearly always standing
around, smoking something which looks like a cigarette but smells like garbage,
and watching people come and go out of the building.
He performs a lot of useful tasks, like watching for a parking spot to open and
then buzzing on the interphone the building resident who requested the
information, or going to buy a bag of bread or bunch of parsley for someone.
These things just don’t add up to much actual work. He is also the
neighbourhood’s biggest snoop and gossip. To illustrate what I mean, I can tell
you that exactly two days ago as M and I and the kids drove past the building
on our way to the beach Nowras saw us. I said to M, “Tonight your dad is going
to call us and say, ‘I heard you went right by the building today and didn’t
stop in to see us.’” And he did.
I think Nowras’s eldest son observed his father’s undemanding workload and
decided it would be a fine sort of life for himself. He settled in with his
father and could be seen thereafter, occasionally doing a spot of work around
the place but more often strolling up the street eating chips from a bag. He
got a bit fat. He seemed contented but I suspect he may not have been fully
capable, at the age of eight, of understanding what impositions on his life
quitting school would have. Nor, I’m sure, did he sit down with a pencil and
paper and work out how he would ever be able to afford an apartment or the
upkeep of a wife and children on 300 dollars a month (his father’s salary). And
that’s presuming he knows how to write and add up numbers.
Last fall when Nowras’s wife and remaining children came to live with him M
asked Nowras how many children he now had and Nowras answered, “Around nine.”
We have been quoting that at least once a week ever since, and have yet to
weary of inventing new ways to make fun of it (“Do you know, there are around
twelve months in the year.” Or, “I just realised that when you count in Mom and
Dad I have around two parents,” etc.)
When I got home from my errands and began to unload my groceries I saw that it
was already noon so I decided to start cooking lunch and finish unpacking once
the food was simmering on the stove. I had planned in the morning to make Thai
green curry with fish because it was easy, healthy and delicious. At least, I
thought it was delicious. I had used to make Thai green curry with chicken but
recently switched to fish and the kids had seemed happy with it.
Only Noonie was happy with it this time. Dude, who generally eats anything as
long as it has protein in it, fiddled with his fork and, when I asked him if he
wasn’t enjoying it, said he preferred the dish with chicken.
But M, now, he was in vintage form. When I set his bowl down before him he
stared at it and said, “What is this? Have you made a jigg’s dinner?”
He was referring to a traditional Newfoundland dish -- which he hates.
“It’s Thai green curry,” I said crisply. “With fish.”
“But it’s not green.”
“No, well. I didn’t make it very strongly flavoured. I made it the way I think
it is best. Just taste it.”
“But curries are supposed to be strongly flavoured.”
“If you want more of the curry paste I’ll add some to your bowl. It’s no
problem.”
“No, no, it’s all right.”
I began to eat my own curry.
“When I roomed with the Asian guys in university,” M began, and I knew what was
coming, “they used to make green curry and it was totally green in colour. They
would simmer chicken – bone-in chicken, for flavour – and potatoes and other
vegetables together in the curry sauce for hours to soak up the flavour. It was
a highly flavourful dish.”
“Do you want more curry paste or not?”
“No, no, it’s no good adding it at this point. It won’t blend in properly.”
I went back to eating my food, but more quickly now. I wanted to finish and get
out of the room.
“Of course, they always used chicken. You can’t use fish in such a case because
it will become totally mushy.”
I shovelled in the rest of my food, got up, and took my plate into the kitchen.
I had to put away some laundry and when I came back to the kitchen I saw M’s
plate beside the sink, much of the sauce and rice still in the bowl. M almost
never leaves food in his plate. This was a strong statement indeed.
For a brief moment I considered bellowing, “Anyone who doesn’t like my
cooking can bugger off!” but I didn’t.
I’m in my forties now. Life is too short for bitterness. So
I came over here to Antoine’s at the Souks to write about my day. And here is
where you see me now, just finishing up what may be an unusually boring blog
post, even for me.