max yorke just wants to go home (capgrased) wrote in mnhttnprjct, @ 2010-08-03 00:04:00 |
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With the current economy and how hard it was to find proper music jobs, Max should have been more careful with his food budget. It wasn’t cheap, even with his almost-vegan eating, and eating out at restaurants was even worse. He should have been watching his money more carefully, but ever since discovering Khalil’s... well, he just couldn’t help it. The Middle Eastern eatery was some of the best food he had eaten since becoming stuck in the United States, so at least once a week he found himself in a nice corner table enjoying the food. On this particular day, he had stopped in during lunch for some mint tea and a big plate of hummus, complete with pita bread for dipping. Max finished the bowl in almost record time and even took the liberty of swirling his finger around the edges so he could make sure to get every last bite. Taking a moment to wipe his fingers off with his napkin, he then leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his stomach that was now slightly rounded from his lunch. “Delicious.” And the current economy being as it was, Uncle Khalil should have been more stingy with the regulars, but the jolly old Egyptian never could help his altruistic tendencies, and even in the years following his wife’s death, he had a habit of calling all the frequent patrons of his restaurant “friends. A friendship complete with discount plates of hummus and the occasional tea on the house. Ahdaf had scolded her uncle on the matter several times, “How are we ever going to stay in business, Uncle?” but only with a sigh and a half smile, because she knew the regulars were just as poor as she and her uncle, and that if they lost the regulars, they would lose everything. And, of course, the establishment held more sentimental value for them both than monetary, anyway. “That is good to hear,” Ahdaf said, smiling, as she came upon Max’s table. She enjoyed cooking, enjoyed even more to hear the fruit of her labors being so enthusiastically enjoyed. Even given the limited means and the lack of imports and the necessary improvisations, the young woman liked to think of her hummus and pita as still some of the best in New York, if not the best in the world. She was perhaps more proud of her work in the kitchen than her work in the classroom these days, but she tried not to dwell on the situation at NYU for the moment. “And the tea?” she added, cocking her head to one side. The mint was one of her favorites, although to say Ahdaf al-Qaddumi had a favorite tea was like saying Mohammad had had a favorite sura from the Qor’an. If it helped, Max was a very generous tipper. So while Ahdaf’s uncle was nice with the discounts, at least some of his patrons could make it up just a bit with the tips? Yes? No? At least he was recommending this place to anyone who wanted something more than just soy burgers and GMO french fries. “I think I might have to have some to go,” he answered with a smile. That way he could hoard it for the next few days since in his opinion, it was the best in New York. Seriously. They should package it if they hadn’t already. “While I don’t think I have any more room, I do want some more.” “Sure,” Ahdaf smiled kindly, and picked up the plate, empty and practically licked clean. Truth be told, the Englishman was one of her favorite regulars. He tipped well, he was always pleasant to talk to, and not only did he recommend Khalil’s to others, but his referrals were some of the sort Ahdaf and Uncle Khalil didn’t mind seeing more of. While Ahdaf found herself with less and less time to spend at the restaurant, she was glad of the company when she made an escape from her studies and her second job. Oh, for the days when she lived with Uncle Khalil and Aunt Nadia just upstairs of the restaurant, when people thronged outside the door for “exotic” pita and koshery, and when there still seemed a chance of going home again. “Is Middle Eastern food very popular in England?” she asked, almost as an afterthought. Prior to her four-year entrapment in the States, she hadn’t met a great many Europeans, and at the time, food seemed the last thing on her mind. Art, culture, language, public transportation, Ahdaf was desperate for every detail on the English world and way of life, but since, those seemed the last sort of things she would want to talk about. The idea that she would never have the chance, now, to see Europe was too much, perhaps. Or perhaps food was the most transient of these cultural elements, a topic anyone could understand, no matter what language she spoke, or what nation he called home. He was more than happy to help out a fellow foreign national by recommending their restaurant. In general, Max didn’t have a huge problem with Americans, though the government and what he viewed as its ignorant supporters was another question. While he didn’t claim to know what it was like to have such an act of terrorism happen upon his country, he was pretty sure the vast majority of them couldn’t claim to know what being held in a foreign country with nothing more than a suit case felt like. Hence why he tried to support other foreign nationals and their establishments like Khalil’s because in his mind, they needed it more than anyone else since he didn’t exactly trust the American government to help them out should something happen. Sitting up slightly, he pondered her question, initially finding it a bit hard to remember places and things about the home he hadn’t seen in near six years. Max remembered a few places, though he was having trouble remembering just how prevalent the places had been in Birmingham and London. “Umm. I think so, yeah? A lot of the places I remembered weren’t quite sit down like this one. They were mainly more of the take-away variety.” Which would probably explain why his falafel consumption went up during music school. “There was a lot of international cuisine. Much more so than here.” He supposed that maybe years ago there was more. “I guess I should say here now?” he finished as his voiced raised in question since he had no idea the status on foreign food in America pre-11/17. “Oh, yes,” Ahdaf said, leaning the empty hummus platter into her hip, “I am sure the popularity of international cuisine in America has gone down somewhat. Which is too bad.” Not that she herself had been in the U.S. more than a year before, but she was sure she had seen at least a few more places like Khalil’s. It seemed now anything that wasn’t called “Joe’s” or “Tom’s” or “American Bar and Grill” didn’t stand a chance in the new America. Khalil’s got by on the patronage of the international community alone, and on the assurance of the fact that Ahdaf’s uncle didn’t need the extra income, only enough to keep the establishment afloat. “I know this place has been here for many years,” she went on. “My aunt and uncle did very well before. It was after--” after the Bomb, things had changed, and in the weeks immediately following the event, hysteria had hit the streets all over the nation, people had boycotted foreign food, had attacked anything that smelled like chickpeas and unfamiliar spices, “--after the fire, it took a long time to get a good crowd back inside.” He thought he was pretty safe in his assumptions based on the general attitudes he had experience on heard during his time in America. To him, it was simply amazing how easily some Americans forgot the foundation and history of their own country when swept up in this fervent patriotism. Max would have been surprised if someday they started renaming foreign foods by new American names, much like the freedom fries of the past. Be careful, Ahdaf. Someday you may have to change the hummus to freedom chickpea mash or something equally as silly just to get some Americans to buy it. “That’s a shame,” he started with a small nod, mainly because he didn’t exactly know what else to say. While he did get his fair share of comments thanks to being from a supposed terrorist nation, Max did realize he had the benefit of being able to at least blend in with the Americans until he opened his mouth to speak. He supposed what he got wasn’t much compared to others. “I mean, American food really sucks once you think about it. Cheeseburgers really have nothing on the food you serve here.” At that, Ahdaf laughed. What did the phrase “American food” even mean? Ahdaf knew what it meant to be Egyptian. She knew where Egyptian food came from, she knew her nation’s history from the time of the ancients to the mamluks to the modern nationals of Naguib and Nasser. Ramses to Muhammad Ali to Anwar Sadat, the country and its culture had been evolving for thousands of years. From the ancient people to the Romans to the Persians to the Arab and Ottoman invasions, her roots were clear to her, albeit muddled by age-old blood feuds and stereotypes and misrepresentations and colonizations. “But I like cheeseburgers too,” she finally admitted with a grin. “America is such a young country.” A nod at her fellow foreigner and his nation’s equally long-standing history. “White America, I mean.” The truth of the matter was that America was a nation of colonizers, and one that had managed to keep its claim on its colonized land, if only by breaking ties with the motherland. Now that she thought about it, Ahdaf supposed Egypt’s Arab history was not so different in that respect. Just a thousand years, or so, before America did it. Imperialism was a cycle. At one time, Max would have said that American food was a delightful mix of all the countries whose immigrants called the vast nation home. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. He wasn’t exactly a connoisseur of American food, but he hated to believe that after hundreds of years of culinary history that so called American food boiled down to nothing more than some hot dogs and apple pie. Not that there was anything wrong with apple pie. Truth be told, he was just surprised that America had managed to center themselves around national food that was more boring than his own home country, which was something that took considerable skill. “I think it’s been about four years or so since I’ve eaten a cheeseburger,” he answered with a smile. When you had little money to start, spending money on expensive meat products just seemed frivolous, at least when there were important music/book things to be bought and rent to be paid. Vegetarian eating was cheap enough to support his music habit like that. “I guess being a young nation does explain somethings about their decisions.” Pausing, he shifted in his seat a moment, his fingers drumming on the table as he thought over his next thought. “I don’t think I ever asked you who you still have back home. In Eygpt.” In all honesty, Ahdaf was not the biggest eater of hamburgers and hotdogs. Though she was partial to beef, she found kofta to be far superior, and generally chose to eat her fill of rice and vegetables whenever possible instead. Vegetarianism was not a common practice in Egypt, but she had found a great deal more of those who cut meat out of their diets since coming to America. In today’s world, she surmised, it was probably better for everyone if the consumption of animals was kept to a minimum. The resources just weren’t there. But then neither were there many farms left either. “My family, mostly,” she answered, and reached for a chair from one the neighboring tables, turned it around, and took a seat. “Some friends. My father and mother, and I have two brothers, Fadil and Muhammad, and a sister, Nur. They live with my mother’s sister and her husband and my two cousins, Hamid and Sabah. My,” she started, but faltered, then went on, “My grandfather, too, but he died since I have been here.” It had been almost five years now, but Ahdaf still considered Grandfather Dabir a casualty of 17 Novemeber 2024, despite the fact that he would have died whether she had been at home at the time or not. His death, in her mind, as it occurred that same month of that same year, would always be tied to the collective loss of so many Americans. “What about you?” she asked, shaking her head and looking up to meet Max’s eye. It’s probably better Adhaf didn’t eat hotdogs. As she spoke, Max tilted his head to one side and listened with a good amount of interest as she rattled off all the friends and family that weren’t with her in New York City. The stories of how people’s lives changed after the bomb never ceased to interest him, especially for other foreign nationals like himself since they were the only other people who could fully understand what he was experiencing. Very few Americans (save the ones who were trapped outside the country) could know what it was like to be forced to stay in a foreign country, so any time he had the chance to hear about similar experiences, Max took them. Misery loves company, after all. “Sounds like you have an extremely large family. That’s lovely,” he answered with a smile even though he himself had no idea what it was like to have such an extensive expanded family. Max liked to think it meant there were really Interesting family gatherings come holiday times. “I just mainly had my Mum and my Dad. I never met my grandparents. My Dad was an only child and my Mum had an older brother, but he never married.” Unlike Adhaf, Max’s family gatherings were extremely small. “I had some really good friends I met through music school though. And I had a girlfriend when the bomb dropped, but obviously that did not work out.” Long distance relationships were a bit hard to maintain when reuniting was at least ten years in the future. “Do you plan on going back when the borders open?” he asked as he drummed his fingers on the table. In his mind, the borders reopening was always a when and not an if. When. Ahdaf bit her lower lip in an attempt to stamp the word into her skin and make it a reality. She had been on her way out of the country when the bomb fell, she had only planned to stay a few weeks, until things calmed down, but when the word went out that foreigners wouldn’t be going anywhere for quite some time, she was stuck. First stuck in the Village with her aunt and uncle (a small consolation in the wake of her grandfather’s death so many hundreds of miles away), and then forced to move apart from her uncle with the Housing and Redistricting Act. She had, of course, made friends by now, had become quite close with her uncle, and had gotten to know and even love certain parts of New York. NYU, for all its current budgeting and political dramas, had been a welcoming enough academic home for the better part of the last two years. But even so: “Yes, definitely. If,”--she corrected herself quickly--”when the borders open, I cannot imagine staying here. But when the world is a more peaceful place, I would not mind visiting New York again.” When the world is a more peaceful place. Max had to believe in a when. After all these years, it was the when that kept him going and allowed him to at least keep his outward outgoing appearance that so many of his friends and acquaintances were used to seeing. Thoughts of when rather than if kept him going in this world, kept him wanting to actually pretend like he was leading a normal life. No matter what shit the American government threw at him, the thought that someday this would all be over and he would be allowed to return to England. It would be a really bad day for him should that when ever shift to an if. At her comments about New York, he smiled and nodded, though he didn’t say anything in return. Given his experiences, Max was almost one hundred percent sure that he would never want to return to America, or at least not for a leisurely vacation like he had taken when the bomb had dropped. It was nice to see that at least Ahdaf may be able to do what he couldn’t. “Me too,” he answered with a small real smile. “When the borders open, I going back home as well.” Ahdaf didn’t want to be in New York. She didn’t want to be in America. She had not planned on staying for more than a year when she had first arrived for her stint as a Fulbright scholar, and she had not planned on coming back to America any time after that. She had planned on attending graduate school in Egypt, or at the very least Lebanon. She had planned on doing some research and studying and traveling in Europe, primarily England, but always she intended to grow old teaching literature to young Egyptians in a university somewhere in the heart of Cairo. That was the capital of her heart. But since having been in America for such an extended period of time, she had begun to wonder weather she wouldn’t miss certain avenues of New York City when she finally returned to the familiar bends of Tahrir square and Brazil street. And she knew there were certain faces she had grown accustomed to seeing and people she would miss once back in Egypt. Return trips were almost a guarantee, though she was sure she would never get over her fear of re-entering U.S. borders under the threat of lock-down. “For the most part,” she said aloud, “I just want to go home.” He hadn’t even planned to stay in New York very long, intending his trip to only last for a weekend. Looking back on it, Max thought it was a rather stupid idea and he probably should have listening to his girlfriend at the time when she said it was a complete waste of money to go to America just to see one concert that he could probably see on Youtube anyway. Sometimes he kicked himself that he hadn’t booked an earlier flight since only an hour earlier he would have been out of America and back to England. In his mind, Max had quite a few scenarios of how things should have happened in order not to get stuck in America, but he supposed they were all rather ridiculous to dwell on as nothing was going to change his present location. “Yeah,” he answered with a nod as he tried his best not to let his facial features drop into a sad expression. “Me too.” |