Free The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber Page A

eyes. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” He thrusts out his arm. “Look at the color you are!”
    He presses his arm to mine: His is a gleaming, nearly bone white, dotted with freckles and a faint sheen of burn. Mine is grimy and golden with a telltale greenish cast I’d never noticed before, not till I’d compared myself with someone like this. I’m not like Bennett, and he yanks his arm away as if I’ve just done something unexpectedly wrong. But in that moment I realize I’m not like Hisham, either. Not dark. I think about the way the relatives come to visit, standing in our bedroom doorway, appraising me and my sisters, the way their words trickle through the air, dividing us. “There’s the dark one,” they say. “And she—she’s the light one. . . . That one is American, that one is Arab. . . .” I’d never before thought to wonder which of us was which.
    Despite Bennett’s decree, my interest in the red scooter has miraculously dried up and gone. I’m once again running up and down the steps with Hisham and my old group of friends. When Bennett approaches me in the courtyard, pushing the red scooter before him like a sacrifice, offering to let me ride it alone for the entire day, I walk past him without a word. Is it possible that I am this heartless? Bennett turns into a shadow and then disappears just as suddenly as he appeared. He slips completely out of my mind and imagination, as do his native foods, his nutritious Horlicks, and his in-betweens. I forget him so quickly that his memory now comes to me in grainy, half-dissolved strokes, like an image made of powder.
    Weeks after forgetting him, I am swinging on the iron railing with Hisham, negotiating the details of our engagement, when Mrs. Haddadin calls me over to her chair near the flowering mint plants. She swirls her cup of tea and informs me that “my little English friend” and his mythical parents have moved back to Singapore. It takes me a minute to understand whom she is talking about. Then she gestures toward the staircase and there it is, where it has been all along, ever since I abandoned him, yet somehow completely invisible: the red scooter. “He left that behind.”
    The breath goes out of me in a gust. It waits like an accusation.
    She watches me and frowns. “Do you know why he did that?” she asks, very curious. “Why didn’t he take his English toy?”
    I shake my head, astounded. I don’t know the answer, not inside my head. But I sense it somehow, the truth prickling, a thing that will take a long, long time for me to bring into words: So I won’t forget him.
    Mrs. Haddadin sits, gazing up at me, squinting into my eyes, taking my measure. Mrs. Haddadin, who remembers everything and everyone—even a son she has never had—cannot fathom how deeply, powerfully forgetful I have already become. Though I am only eight, I too have already had to leave behind entire countries and lifetimes. Her eyes are orange inflected and amber, too light for her dark cinnamon skin. She gazes up at me from her chair and I look down: I can almost see the thoughts moving within her lamplike eyes, dark and illuminated as jinns. Perhaps at this moment, now that he has gone, she has forgiven Bennett, just a little. Perhaps, instead, she is wondering about me now, as I sometimes wonder about myself: What sort of person am I? Where are my loyalties? And who will I remember when I grow up?
    “FORGET ME NOT” SAMBUSIK COOKIES
     

    Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Stir together the butter and sugar. Stir in the milk. Add the flour in small batches and knead by hand until smooth. Roll out the dough to 1 ⁄4 inch thick and cut with a 2-inch cookie cutter. Combine all the filling ingredients and place a good mounded teaspoon of the filling on each round, fold it over, and pinch the edges closed. It’s traditional to then curve the cookie into a half-moon shape.
    Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned.