It’s four in the afternoon, the summer of my ninth year. I tiptoe out of my room, into the silence of my grandparents’ farmhouse in Catalonia. My veterinarian grandfather is asleep in his bedroom, having spent the morning making calls in the village on his bicycle. My mother’s sisters are asleep in their twin beds, in the pretty room with the organdy curtains and the dressing table with the pink cretonne skirt. My mother’s brother, who stayed up all night irrigating the wheatfield, is asleep in the attic. In their bedroom, my parents are probably quietly celebrating the fact that I have finally graduated to a room of my own.
My grandmother, however, is not asleep. While the sun beats down and the entire population of the Mediterranean basin naps, my grandmother wanders around the house, ever vigilant, averting disaster by the sheer force of her anxiety. I find her in the cool, dark kitchen, checking on the snails that she is “fasting” in preparation for the upcoming cargolada, the annual snail feast.
“Vols berenar? Do you want a snack?” she asks. “Dinner isn’t until ten, and you will faint if you don’t eat something before then.” Ever since I was diagnosed with malnutrition as an infant due to my mother’s lack of milk, the entire family is devoted to making sure I don’t die of starvation. She doesn’t have to persuade me, though, because the berenar is my favorite meal.
She saws a thick slice of the day’s crusty bread and drizzles olive oil over the crumb, squeezing the edges lightly so the oil is absorbed. Then, with a flourish, she sprinkles coarse salt over the whole. Next she pulls a slab of dark chocolate out of a drawer and breaks off a piece, wrapping a bit of foil around the bottom. (I tend to freak out if the slightest bit of chocolate gets on my fingers, a neurosis probably acquired during toilet training.) Then she finds my red-and-white checked table napkin and tucks it into my collar so I won’t get oil stains on my dress.
She hands me the snack—bread on the left hand, chocolate on the right—and looks me over. She kneels and tightens the strings of my red espadrilles around my brown ankles, re-tucks the napkin, notices the book under my arm, and warns me of the perils of reading in the sun. Sunstroke is another of the dangers that she dreads for me.
With my book and my berenar I climb the outside steps to the terrace on top of the house. It is partially under roof, so I find a shady spot near the ping pong table, prop the book open on my knees, and take a big bite of bread and a small one of chocolate, to make sure the chocolate lasts as long the bread. Oh, the glorious oily acidity of the spongy bread, the bitter sweetness of the chocolate, the coarseness of the salt!
And then, and then! This is the summer of The Jungle Book, and I am spending it deep in the dripping forests of Madhya Pradesh, just as I had spent the preceding summer in the misty landscapes of the Thames Valley, immersed in The Wind in the Willows. Now, Shere Khan, Baloo, Akela, Bagheera, and the fabulous, unpredictable Kaa surround me. I am Mowgli. Actually, I am much better than Mowgli! I am not a man cub but a real wolf cub, a jungle creature.
Little do I know, as I pick the last crumb off my napkin and lick the smear of chocolate from my fingers, that this is to be my last summer in the farmhouse. Next summer my parents and I will be living in Ecuador, tromping through the mud and undergrowth of an all too real jungle. But no big-eyed ocelot, no flight of plate-sized butterflies, no flock of red-and-blue macaws screaming in the canopy will console me for the loss of those August afternoons on the terrace, and the voice of my grandmother saying, Vols berenar?
8 Responses
What a lovely memory of your grandmother!
I had years of my mother’s mother, my Mamina, in Mexico, growing up. She was from a farm in Illinois, met my grandfather, Papa Memo, when they were both students at the U. of Illinois Champagne-Urbana, and married him – they moved to Mexico when my mother was three months old – and my grandmother had the huge problem of not having enough milk, too!
Mother survived – I don’t remember how – and lived to 94. But it must have been touch and go, and the three of them under the watchful eye of Mamá Chalito (Rosario), who would probably not have been thrilled at the new daughter-in-law that Guillermo brought home! And Papa Nico (Nicolás), too.
I knew my great grandmother a few short years, don’t remember if I met my great grandfather.
Wow, a great grandmother! All of mine were long gone by the time I came around.
Your writing invites every reader into your world, Lali. I can taste the bread and chocolate!
It was delicious…
In Madrid, in the mid ’50’s, my older brother and I were among a few Americans attending the British Institute. At recess, we pulled out our peanut butter (sent from the states) and jelly sandwiches. The Spaniards and other European kids brought crusty mini baguettes and big chunks of dark chocolate. I had to have some too. Unfortunately, I found it was too hard to bite off and my hands got so covered in sticky goo I couldn’t play recess games. I have no idea how the Europeans handled the dilemma.
I was with you Lali, sitting in the shade and alternating bites of bread saturated in olive oil and nibbles of that rich, rich Spanish chocolate. I wish it could have lasted forever.
Loved the story.
That chocolate WAS incredibly hard. It’s a miracle our teeth survived it.
Felt I was there with you and it brought back memories of my grandmother’s cooking and going to the garden with my grandpa to pick corn and eat it raw! So sweet–the corn and the memory.
Grandparents and food often seem to go together in childhood memories.