Aban's Accension

Chapter 29: The Feast

Chapter 29: THE FEAST

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

Aban runs lightly up the porch steps and slams the front door of Atasgah open.

“I’m home,” she yells and laughs. Aban slams the door shut, but it clicks back open. Unfazed, she turns to push it closed and notices its peeling cover of yellowy beige. Her front door needs paint. Aban contemplates her door. A Canadian blue sky colour, she decides, with the depth of the lake blues and the brightness of the hot sun. Liking her decision, she skips upstairs and into a cold shower.

Feeling refreshed, with a towel round her, she rummages through the shopping bags in the guest room next door. She hadn’t touched the bags or the clothes in them since she had dropped them on the floor that day, that day that seems so far ago. Thirty minutes later, she’s wearing a cambric short-sleeved shirt and loose linen capris with white sandals on her feet. Her feet feel naked. The sandals feel flimsy, strange. She takes a few tentative steps in them.

The smell of burning charcoal and grilling oil, vegetables, and garlic seep in through her open kitchen window and down the hall, to tickle her nose. Sniffing the air, she forgets all about her strange new sandals. Alive to the smells in the air of a barbecue in full use, she canters down the stairs to El’s half of the house and out the back door,

“I am making a feast in your honour Aban,” El says as he flips over the last grilling eggplant slice on the tray of a round barbecue in which sits crumbling grey charcoals glowing red. He hooks the spatula onto the side of the barbecue.

“My honour?”

“Yes. You have grown much. You have learnt much. It is time to celebrate before the work begins,” El replies.

“Work?”

El disappears into the kitchen and reappears shortly, carrying a tray of halved red peppers, wedges of red onions and vidalia ones, thick slices of fat juicy tomatoes, green asparagus glistening with oil, and globes of prepared artichokes still steaming from their boiling water bath.

El removes a bulb-shaped foil package with his cooking-hardened fingers onto the tray, unhooks a pair of tongs, shifts the eggplant slices over with them, and hooks them back up on the side of the barbecue. He places the onions on the tray first, followed by the peppers and asparagus, then the tomatoes. He disappears into the kitchen with the empty tray and comes out again with a bowl of grape tomatoes, a bottle of olive oil, and a cut lemon on the tray. He splashes some oil in the bowl along with squeezes of lemon juice. And then he rests.

El and Aban gaze upon the roasting vegetables with pleasure as they talk about the weather.

Aban looks up at the mustard-coloured haze that lies over the city, bakes their lungs, prickles their skin, and sticks their clothes to their bodies. Standing here with El, watching him cook, feeling secure that she’s with him, that haze doesn’t seem so oppressive anymore. And she is surprised to learn, her new shirt and linen capris are much cooler than her regular garb.

“How did you find asparagus? It's kind of late for them. Mom --” Aban stops herself and smiles at El. He smiles back.

El says: “For you, I went to the specialty shops that sell the hard-to-find and out-of-season vegetables.”

“That seems like a waste.”

“When it is time to feast, no expense, no effort will be spared. It is a time for celebrating, not for judging. I have also bought fresh Ontario buffalo mozzarella, parmesan from Italy, creamy Devon cheddar, fresh figs, seedless green grapes, and manuka honey gelato for dessert to serve with delicate almond cookies and airy chocolate mousse. I have also splurged on an ice wine to finish off the meal and coffee made from special beans found in Eritrea. Maple sugar will also be on the table.” El grins wickedly at her. “You may find my feast for you more than you expect.”