Tender at the Bone (21 page)

I spent my final year in college worrying about the future. I would have a BA, with honors in sociology, prepared for absolutely nothing. I wished school would never end.

Serafina was equally loath to move on. She was deeply involved in politics and completely unsure of what she wanted to do with her life.

We both spent the summer of ’68 in Ann Arbor, but not together. Serafina had made it clear that she had no interest in white friends. Understanding did not make me less lonely. She always spoke to me when I called, but she never called me back.

It was a pretty depressing time. L’Escargot had closed, Henry’s restaurant was not yet open, and my job as a cocktail waitress was every bit as bad as Henry had said it would be, down to the short skirt and the men’s hands.

I missed Serafina. I missed Mac too. He had delicately indicated that he would be happy to expand our relationship; my mother had been right after all. When I didn’t respond he went off and fell in
love with someone else. I was miserable; it was clearly time to make new friends.

When a girl from my art history class asked if I wanted to move into her apartment I jumped at the chance. Pat was six feet tall, an artist, and the most flamboyant creature I had ever encountered. She attended classes barefoot, wrapped in bolts of cloth and clouds of patchouli. Bells and bracelets jangled each time she took a step. She was famous all over campus and I was flattered and terrified by the idea of becoming her roommate; she made me feel like such a bore.

Pat scoured her apartment from top to bottom before I moved in. She even emptied out a couple of closets. I was touched and surprised: I had expected her to be interesting but I hadn’t expected her to be nice. Aside from a reprehensible tendency to exercise—she went out at 6:00
A.M.
every morning to run barefoot around a cinder track—Pat turned out to be remarkably unscary.

Much later Pat told me that I was the most depressing person she had ever met. I certainly felt that way. Out in the real world there were riots at the Chicago convention and a love-in at Woodstock, but I was locked into my own misery. I felt numb. When Serafina called to ask if I wanted to take a trip with her I felt as if she were throwing me a lifeline. “I’ll go anywhere,” I said, “as long as it’s cheap.”

“How about North Africa?” she said. “We can get a cheap flight to Rome and take the ferry from Naples to Tunis. From there we can go to Algiers and then Morocco. Mohammed said we could stay with his family in Meknes. He said his mother will teach us to make her famous bisteeya.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Why would you want to go there?” my mother asked when I told her of my plans.

“Because it’s exotic,” I said. “Because no one else goes there. And because it’s cheap.”

I might have added that I was trying desperately not to lose Serafina. But I didn’t know it.

MOHAMMAD’S BISTEEYA

3 cups chicken broth

2 small chickens, rinsed

4 cloves garlic, peeled

1 teaspoon salt

1 stick cinnamon

1 bunch parsley

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

Quarter-sized chunk fresh ginger, peeled

1 teaspoon pepper

¼ pound butter

¼ cup lemon juice

8 large eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons butter

¾ pound almonds

¼ cup confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 package phyllo dough, defrosted if frozen

½ pound butter, melted

Put first 10 ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer for 1½
hours
.

Remove the chicken from the cooking liquid and shred meat into bite-sized pieces. Set aside
.

Strain liquid and cook down until it has reduced to 2 cups. Add lemon juice and simmer about 5 minutes. Slowly add beaten eggs and stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the eggs have congealed into a thick curd and most of the liquid has evaporated. This takes about 10 minutes. Cool
.

Heat the 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and sauté almonds. When you can smell them and they are lightly browned, drain on paper towels, chop, and combine with confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon
.

One hour before eating, preheat oven to 400°
.

Unroll the phyllo and put the leaves under a damp towel to keep them moist while you are working. Brush the bottom of a pizza pan, paella pan, or very large cake pan with the melted butter. Layer the bottom of the pan with leaves of phyllo until the entire surface is covered and the phyllo extends about 2 inches outside the pan in all directions. Brush the top of the phyllo with butter
.

Top with half of the nut mixture, cover lightly with more phyllo, and brush with butter. Add half the chicken, covering with more phyllo and brushing with butter. Cover with half of the egg mixture, add another layer of phyllo, and brush with butter. Add remaining chicken and a couple more leaves of phyllo brushed with butter. Add remaining egg mixture, two more layers of phyllo, each brushed with butter, and sprinkle the remaining almond mixture over the top. Cover with all but 3 of the remaining leaves of phyllo, again brushing with butter
.

Fold the edges of the bisteeya in over the top to make a neat package. Put the remaining leaves of phyllo on top and pour most of the remaining butter over them
.

Bake for 20 or 25 minutes until top leaves are golden. Remove pan from oven, carefully invert onto a large buttered baking sheet, brush with the remaining butter, and bake 10 more minuters
.

Dust with confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon and serve immediately. Bisteeya should be eaten with the fingers. It should hurt, a little
.

Serves 10
.

Neither of us wanted to admit it, but we were scared. Tunis seemed so foreign even after Naples. The boat ride over—$12 to sleep on the deck—had been more grubby than romantic and now here we were, trudging down a dusty road looking for a place to stay. The landscape was parched and colorless and little puffs of sand whirled up with each step. Our bags were getting heavy. “I’m thinking of Gary Cooper in
Beau Geste,”
said Serafina, swallowing hard. “Don’t look now, but we’re being followed.”

“I know,” I said grimly. The black car had been snuffling along behind us for several blocks, keeping a discreet distance. I didn’t want to look, but I thought there were two boys in the car. Or maybe they were men. Serafina started to turn. “Don’t look,” I hissed. We walked on, hot and silent, for another block. I was glad there were two of us, glad that we were together.

The car came closer. “We know a hotel,” said one of the boys, leaning out of the window.

“I bet you do,” said Serafina under her breath. I turned and looked at the boys. They seemed nice enough. “We are not talking to any men,” I said. One of the boys laughed.

“Just follow us,” he said, smiling. His teeth were very white against his coffee-colored skin and dark hair. The driver brought the car up until it was right next to us and we went along that way, silently, for several blocks. At least they appeared to be leading us toward the center of town.

The driver stoppped the car and got out. He unfolded himself from the tiny vehicle, and when he stood up he dwarfed it. Serafina giggled. I gave her a baleful look, but the harm had been done; he took the laugh as an introduction. The tall man held out his
hand to her. “Taeb,” he said, shaking hers. The smaller one held out his hand too. “Noureddine,” he said. I took it.

They followed us into the hotel and began talking to the man behind the desk in rapid Arabic. He looked from my pink, sunburned face to Serafina’s cool brown one and wrote something on a piece of paper. Noureddine glanced at it, snickered contemptuously, grabbed the piece of paper and tore it up. The man wrote another figure. Noureddine tore it up again. They both seemed to enjoy the game; it went on for a long time. Finally Noureddine shook his head and turned to me. “Okay?” he asked, showing me the figure. It came to about seventy-five cents a night. “We’ll have to see the room,” I said grandly, and the man behind the desk grabbed a key and led us upstairs.

It was a fine room, much nicer than any of our rooms in Italy. We said we’d take it and dropped our bags on the bed. Then we went downstairs to thank the boys.

“Come have tea,” said Noureddine. Serafina and I looked at each other, nodded, and squeezed ourselves into the back of the car.

It was hot. Our bare legs stuck to the plastic seats and the air in the car was so heavy that each time I took a breath I could feel the heat moving through my throat and out to the very edges of my lungs. Serafina rolled down her window. Taeb put his foot on the gas and sped off so fast that he took the first corner on two wheels.

I glanced nervously at Serafina. Why had we said yes? Who were these men? Where were we going? Noureddine pointed off in the distance and we could see the medina, a crazy quilt of stone buildings heaped together like some medieval city. The car headed toward it, turning off the broad, straight avenue onto small streets that wound around, becoming narrower with each turn. The walls of the houses came closer and closer until we could reach out on either side and touch them. When the car could go no farther,
Taeb simply stopped and opened his door. He got out. We followed, silent and frightened.

Little boys came rushing at us, chattering in Arabic, French, and English. Noureddine shooed them off impatiently, heading into a mysterious labyrinth that smelled like saffron, cayenne, mint, and cumin. I could hear the rustle of fabric and, way off in the distance, the high, wailing Arab music that sounds like cries of fear and joy.

We passed dark shops filled with patterned rugs, woven clothes, and amber beads. The cool, thick walls closed around us. Serafina licked her lips and hissed at me, “We could get lost and never find our way out. We could disappear forever. Nobody even knows we’re in Tunis!”

Then Taeb stopped, pulled aside a curtain, and motioned us into a shop. We both hung back. It didn’t look like any tearoom either of us had ever been in. It was dark. Low tables were surrounded by piles of faded oriental carpets on which men reclined, holding glasses of herb-filled tea. There were no women. The air was filled with moaning music and as the men listened, their eyes closed, they beat time with their hands. “It looks like an opium den,” whispered Serafina. “Let’s not go in.”

It might be dangerous. I knew we were acting foolishly. But Serafina and I were together and I felt happier than I had in months. Besides, it was too late to back out of this adventure. We were already in the door and tea was being ordered. Noureddine nodded his head to the music and said reverently, “That’s Oum Kalthoum.”

The tea came; it was achingly sweet and filled with mint but it did not seem to contain dangerous drugs. “Everybody in Tunis comes to the souk for tea,” said Noureddine, leaning back like a pasha. “It is a custom. You will see. Once you get to know Tunis it is impossible to leave.” I glanced at Serafina; it sounded like the beginning of an evil fairy tale.

Taeb and Noureddine switched into French, which I could follow and then Arabic, which I could not. They waved their hands and the sounds grew harsher. As the debate became more intense I became more nervous. What were they talking about?

I watched as they argued. The tall one, Taeb, had a lean face with sharply defined features and an aristocratic nose. He had a dangerous stillness. With his white shirt and dark pants he looked like one of those characters who stroll moodily through Antonioni films. The stocky one was more animated and less attractive. His square face was framed with curly hair and he looked strong enough to crack a skull between his hands. Now he stopped talking, suddenly.