gold spoon. After Leon, Salomone was her favorite person in the world, dearer even than her other sons and daughters.
Then and there, my father decided to move out of his bedroom and grandly offered it to my cousin. It was the most pleasant room in the house, with two beds and a large window that faced Malaka Nazli. He could rest even when his bed was being changed: he could merely roll over to the other bed.
Salomone had never felt so sick as in those first weeks of 1944. He slept a great deal, and when he didnât, he read obsessively. As it happened, in a number of the novels the hero or heroine died of pleurisy, which depressed him immeasurably. My mother would tiptoe into his room and lend him a book she had finished. Every once in a while, Salomone woke up to find my father or Zarifa standing over the bed, peering at him.
Dr. Grossiâs diagnosis had left him bewildered. All his life he had been exceptionally healthy. He stood at over six feet, nearly as tall as Oncle Leon. It was incomprehensible that he could feel so sick and beaten down.
It was surely a coincidence that at exactly the same time his parentsand older sister were rounded up for deportation, Salomone was felled by this awful malady. He had no idea, that terrible January when his life hung in the balance, that his parents and sister were also prisoners, albeit in a far more sordid kind of jail, in Milan, and confronting a deadlier and more ruthless enemy than pleurisy. Arrested in December as they prepared to flee across the Swiss border, Bahia, his mother, along with his father, Lelio, and sister, Violetta, found themselves among the thousands of Jews who had waited too long to leave their beloved Italy.
Â
NEVER HAD A DOCTOR â S orders been taken so literally or implemented so zealously.
Healing Salomone became my grandmotherâs sole endeavor.
Other women would have felt overwhelmed and resentful at having to care for a desperately ill grandson as well as a pregnant daughter-in-law. But Zarifa, with her profound sense of familial duty, embraced the responsibility.
Her blue eyes gleamed at the challenge.
My grandmother viewed cooking as a kind of black artâpart skill and part magic. She was surprisingly lithe in the kitchen, considering her advanced age, able to maneuver from pot to pot, stirring a bit here, adding a spice or condiment there. Then there were the pieces of apricot that she inserted anywhere she couldâinside a chicken breast, beneath a steak, alongside a pot of stuffed grape leaves, or in the massive fish from the Nile, the bouri, that both her son and grandson loved above all foods. She would use dry apricots because it was so hard to obtain the fresh juicy ones except during the brief apricot season.
She would have liked to impart some of the secrets of her cooking to Edith, to share with her recipes of old Aleppo. Alas, even after she became pregnant, Leonâs bride continued to show no interest in Zarifaâs bubbling pots and pans.
At 6:00 a.m. each morning, my grandmother would appear by Salomoneâs bedside. Lightly tapping him on the shoulder, sheâd hand him a tray with half a dozen raw eggs. He was always surprised at how hungrily he ate them.
An hour later it was time for breakfast. The rest of the house was awake by then. Leon, already back from synagogue, sat in the dining room enjoying tea with milk, while Edith sipped sweet black coffee. Zarifa would break away to prepare a special tray for her grandson. She loaded it with fresh milk, purchased that morning from the man who came each day with his cow and goat to the back of the house and asked her to choose which milk she preferred. She often chose cowâs milk, which was tastier and costlier than the thin, inexpensive, slightly discolored goatâs milk. She poured it into a special outsize bowl for her grandson, along with bread and cheese and a tub of fresh butter, then sat down near the bed and watched to make sure
Then and there, my father decided to move out of his bedroom and grandly offered it to my cousin. It was the most pleasant room in the house, with two beds and a large window that faced Malaka Nazli. He could rest even when his bed was being changed: he could merely roll over to the other bed.
Salomone had never felt so sick as in those first weeks of 1944. He slept a great deal, and when he didnât, he read obsessively. As it happened, in a number of the novels the hero or heroine died of pleurisy, which depressed him immeasurably. My mother would tiptoe into his room and lend him a book she had finished. Every once in a while, Salomone woke up to find my father or Zarifa standing over the bed, peering at him.
Dr. Grossiâs diagnosis had left him bewildered. All his life he had been exceptionally healthy. He stood at over six feet, nearly as tall as Oncle Leon. It was incomprehensible that he could feel so sick and beaten down.
It was surely a coincidence that at exactly the same time his parentsand older sister were rounded up for deportation, Salomone was felled by this awful malady. He had no idea, that terrible January when his life hung in the balance, that his parents and sister were also prisoners, albeit in a far more sordid kind of jail, in Milan, and confronting a deadlier and more ruthless enemy than pleurisy. Arrested in December as they prepared to flee across the Swiss border, Bahia, his mother, along with his father, Lelio, and sister, Violetta, found themselves among the thousands of Jews who had waited too long to leave their beloved Italy.
Â
NEVER HAD A DOCTOR â S orders been taken so literally or implemented so zealously.
Healing Salomone became my grandmotherâs sole endeavor.
Other women would have felt overwhelmed and resentful at having to care for a desperately ill grandson as well as a pregnant daughter-in-law. But Zarifa, with her profound sense of familial duty, embraced the responsibility.
Her blue eyes gleamed at the challenge.
My grandmother viewed cooking as a kind of black artâpart skill and part magic. She was surprisingly lithe in the kitchen, considering her advanced age, able to maneuver from pot to pot, stirring a bit here, adding a spice or condiment there. Then there were the pieces of apricot that she inserted anywhere she couldâinside a chicken breast, beneath a steak, alongside a pot of stuffed grape leaves, or in the massive fish from the Nile, the bouri, that both her son and grandson loved above all foods. She would use dry apricots because it was so hard to obtain the fresh juicy ones except during the brief apricot season.
She would have liked to impart some of the secrets of her cooking to Edith, to share with her recipes of old Aleppo. Alas, even after she became pregnant, Leonâs bride continued to show no interest in Zarifaâs bubbling pots and pans.
At 6:00 a.m. each morning, my grandmother would appear by Salomoneâs bedside. Lightly tapping him on the shoulder, sheâd hand him a tray with half a dozen raw eggs. He was always surprised at how hungrily he ate them.
An hour later it was time for breakfast. The rest of the house was awake by then. Leon, already back from synagogue, sat in the dining room enjoying tea with milk, while Edith sipped sweet black coffee. Zarifa would break away to prepare a special tray for her grandson. She loaded it with fresh milk, purchased that morning from the man who came each day with his cow and goat to the back of the house and asked her to choose which milk she preferred. She often chose cowâs milk, which was tastier and costlier than the thin, inexpensive, slightly discolored goatâs milk. She poured it into a special outsize bowl for her grandson, along with bread and cheese and a tub of fresh butter, then sat down near the bed and watched to make sure
Similar Books
