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1. Talking with Eternity
Las voces de los muertos me dirán para siempre - Borges
he kitchen smelled of pine nuts and flour roasting in
butter. The windows had steamed up against the
dark November evening but the room bathed in the
bright light from the fluorescent tube.
We stood around the stove, three women, our eyes on the
oversized pot. My oldest aunt Nermin kept stirring the
flour with a wooden spoon, agony on her face and in her
breath. My mother and I stood motionless, hypnotized by
the rhythm of her hand drawing circles over the pot.
Nermin’s daughter was sitting at the table where Ameli
used to serve us chickpea stew, pilaf and pickles most
weekends. She was reading aloud from a prayer book with
curled brown pages. She was wearing a silk headscarf but
the way her auburn hair spurted out of it hinted that she
was not used to covering herself. She had already finished
several
suras
and was now on Al-Falaq, one of my favorites:
I seek refuge in the Lord of the Daybreak from
the evil of that which He created, from the evil
of the darkness when it is intense, from the evil
T