Ficre, you would love this macchiato: perfectly smooth, strong but not sharp, fortissimo but shy of bitter, with a sexy plouf of milk foam dead center in the tiny white cup. You would love this marble-top Italian cafe on the Upper West Side, as you loved the Upper West Side and all its nations and pleasures and haimishness. Do you remember, I want to say, when you took me to the burger place on Broadway you loved so much? You shared everything you had with me, the infinity of your interior space, every little discernment and opinion. Such is love. Thank you my darling, thank you.
On the every-varied streets of New York, I see people who remind me of him in glances: Ficre elderly, in a favorite overcoat and a gentleman’s hat. Ficre an African man walking the city. I see a lovely bald brown head, or a slightly springing stride. He moved lightly and valued light-footedness, as he valued sotto voce. How he despised needlessly loud voices. Flashes of him in this complex metropolis, but he is not here.
Our niece Melay sends me a Google sound recording of a voice mail message from him sent in the months leading up to Easter. Hi sweetie, I called about our Lenten lunch date. How about we make a dish together of red lentils? It takes five seconds to make such a dish. Lizzy will be home at five.
I wonder if these memories are finite, which is why I keep writing them down. The basket of remembrance has three sides; one is open; can it tilt and spill out? Nothing more goes in the basket, my life with Ficre is over.
Except it is not. Except how I keep coming to know him again and again in the paintings, and in this writing, and in my mind. Traces are everywhere and unexpected. I come across an interview with Ficre that a young woman did for her food blog, “Dramatic Pancake.” He teaches her how to make red lentils. He was a reluctant interviewee, but when he answered her three questions, he spoke from his center, and described to her himself in our world:
Three Quick Questions… and Ficre’s Answers
It’s your last meal. What do you have?
Probably this dish. It’s a very good dish. There are many other things that I could have made that remind me of my parents, but I think this one is the best.
Your kitchen is burning down. What’s the one thing you grab?
This work of art right here (motioning to a watercolor painting of a pig sitting beside a giant flower vase, on the top of a hill). Our son Simon made it when he was eight or nine years old—we call him our little surrealist. Everything else in here is replaceable, but Simon is never going to be eight or nine again and paint this same painting.
Do you have a favorite cookbook?
I’m not sure—is it okay not to have an answer? My wife uses most of the cookbooks. She loves Nigella Lawson, says she’s a diva. I must admit that How to Be a Domestic Goddess is a very, very smart book. However, in general, I’m not a big believer in recipes. I find them a little controlling of one’s energy.
I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window as I run to catch a light on Broadway. There is my bottom, indisputable and proud, and there are my sturdy legs hard at work. “Douba, doubina,” I hear Ficre say. Douba in Tigrinya means “pumpkin,” and as he used it was a term of affection for a curvy person, what black folks call “thick,” or “brick house,” but sweeter. Eritreans are very direct in describing a person’s physical characteristics. If someone has some extra weight, they might be called “plumpy,” to their faces. It is merely descriptive.
When first we met, we told each other about every single lover, every crush, every assignation, every heartbreak. When I told him about the one I loved most before him, who came after disastrous heartbreak, he says, “Bless him for loving you when you needed it, for healing you, and for preparing you for me.” Everything was told! Then we could begin something new.
Seven