I also enjoyed that smell because the long-awaited moment was about to arrive: the preparation of the bakhsh lay ahead of me. It was I who was to mix all the ingredients in the bowl. That was my privilege, my responsibility – whatever you called it – and I was very proud of it. Mama didn’t trust Emma to do this important work: she was too little. And Emma, even though she envied me and fidgeted around, had to give in.
Kr-zhik, p-shik… pfik… chok… chok… The moist rice with pieces of meat snorted and crunched under my hands becoming more elastic and homogeneous, almost like Play-Doh. It stuck to my hands, to the edges of the bowl, and I continued to mix it, pushing my fingers through the mixture so the juice reached everywhere, and then I mixed it again. I tried so hard that my fingers hurt.
“Well, that’s enough… It’s ready… Pour it out…”
Mama held a small closely woven cloth sack up to the edge of the bowl, and I transferred the greenish moist mass, the raw bakhsh, into it. I did it very carefully, down to the last grain of rice and piece of meat. That’s when Mama’s watchful eyes wouldn’t allow any carelessness. When I was done, the bowl and my hands were as clean as if they hadn’t had anything to do with the bakhsh. Mama and I finished packing the bakhsh: I beat it down tightly in the sack, and Mama tied it up with thick twine. Then, the bakhsh was lowered into the cauldron with its merrily bubbling water. The fragrance of the cilantro and something very tasty became stronger with every passing minute.
“Mom. Will it be ready soon?”
Ah, Emma, Emma… She knew so well that it took a long time to cook bakhsh, but she was already drooling.
“In three or four hours,” Mama explained patiently. She understood everything and suggested, “Why don’t you have some apple?”
When Mama was at home, Emma’s and my mouths were always full. Mama’s system of child nutrition was simple: when she was not around, the children ate carelessly and were underfed – she thought that I looked “like a skeleton” because of that, and it means that children had to be fed, fed and fed on her days off.
Apples were stored in a wooden crate near the fridge on the veranda. They were top quality and juicy. Each apple was wrapped in paper. The apples were of a winter variety and usually lasted till spring. But this year, they didn’t feel right, and almost all of them were worm-eaten.
I picked out a few very good ones, but also took along a couple of those in which gluttonous invaders had toiled hard.
“Mama, these apples are rotten. We should throw them out.”
Mama looked at me reproachfully. “Rotten, you say? How can you possibly know that?” her glance expressed. Mama took an apple and a knife into her hands… The apple began to spin under the blade of the knife as if it were alive and could feel pain. And Mama, the tenderhearted compassionate surgeon, pursed her lips, doing her best to complete the surgery as quickly as possible… A piece was cut off on the right side… on the left side… at the bottom… a deep hole was made. Aha, I could see who was there.
The poor apple had been slashed considerably. And Mama said, casting a crafty look at me, “Well, was it necessary to throw out such a wonderful apple?”
A second worm-eaten apple was “operated on” the same way. We ate them with great relish. To be precise, Mama fed them to us. She would cut off a piece of apple so that it stayed where it was, like a candle chopped up by a skillful swordsman. Then she would pick it up with the tip of the knife and bring it to Emma’s and my lips. That’s how esteemed guests were treated in our parts.
“Do you want some more?” Mama picked up an apple that wasn’t worm-eaten. That was even more interesting than the “surgery.” She made a cut at the top of the apple, and it began to spin under her knife as fast as if a small engine had been hidden in her left palm. The strip of skin, almost translucent, grew longer and longer. It already touched the table: Mama stood as she did this. The last turn, and she picked up the skin with the knife and extended it to me. The skin had been cut in such a way that one could put it back onto the apple, and it would look as if the skin hadn’t been removed. Just try to do that.
I tried to peel apples, even potatoes, many times, but to not avail. The damned knife didn’t obey me; it slipped, tearing the skin, cutting it into pulp. It behaved any way it wanted. The skin didn’t turn into a strip but into thick, clumsy scraps. It wasn’t clear where there was more pulp, on the scraps or on the shapeless, emaciated object that was once a potato or beautiful apple.
Mama was smiling. She was, perhaps, pleased that I admired her work. Mama had talented hands. And that was, as I see it now, inextricably connected with certain of her emotional qualities. Not only could she do everything well, beautifully, without any concessions, but she had an inner need to do everything that way, the need not to let herself down, even in trifling things, to remember everything and organize her own little world perfectly. I think that also explained Mama’s other feature: her thriftiness, which went beyond the limits of ordinary efficiency. No, I would not call it stinginess. I would like to emphasize again: it was something quite different.
The pockets of Mama’s robe were always stuffed with different things, things that one of us had misplaced out of sloppiness or negligence or didn’t need. Those things might be torn-off buttons, hairpins, pencils, spools of thread, abandoned toys. Pins picked up from the floor were always stuck into one side of her collar, needles with black and white threads, just in case, into its other side. Sometimes, she was like a peddler who didn’t demand payment for purchases. I would stand at the phone searching with my eyes for a pen to write down a phone number. “Mom…” I would begin to say. Before I could continue, she would come up to me, rummaging in her pocket, and produce the pen that I had misplaced.
“Dinner time! Dinner time!”
As soon as Emma heard the clinking of plates, she rushed to the kitchen. While we ate apples, chatted, helped Mama clean in the kitchen and the bedroom, and played something in the meantime, the bakhsh finished cooking. We took our seats, rattling the chairs. Now, Mama didn’t need our help. She removed the sack from the cauldron with the ladle, placed it in a deep bowl and, holding the sack by its lower corners, shook the bakhsh out. The greenish pile looked like a volcano emitting heat: there was steam hovering above it. And the fragrance was amazing! Was it possible to describe?
In general, freshly made bakhsh, with tomatoes and cucumber or pickles on the side, is something incredible. That’s why I limit myself to the lyrical exclamation: It was a Very Delicious Day, which I still remember.
I remember it not just because of Boolk-boolk and bakhsh. It was a day not marred by anything: no sorrows, no strain of family squabbles, no fear of hearing the malicious voice. Emma and I spent that winter day like cubs with Mama Bear in our cozy lair. Warmth and emotional radiation, which haven’t been given a name and couldn’t be detected by any device, without which children are so unhappy and any person is lonely, emanated from Mama.