Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 51, November 2021

Revista Literária Adelaide

back patio. You think about those who have without the television on. Without conver-
asked over the years, “What does he do all sation. Without teasing. Without cuddling.
day while you’re at work?” Laundry, dish- You grab a T-shirt from the basket with the
es, leaves, make the house nice for me. And force of grabbing onto your own life and
now your love is in the hospital for the sec- start to smooth out the wrinkles. You’ve
ond time in two weeks. Because of the pan- worked hard to be happy, successful, kind,
demic, you cannot be there with him. The friendly, but sometimes you feel like you’re
Love Shack feels dark. The floors creak too just eating salad with a spoon. You cannot
much. You have basked in his abundance actually control things. Isn’t that the thrill of
of love, and the happiness he showered life? Not knowing what is going to happen
upon you for fifteen years, and now he’s next, and will you be prepared? A stress
not here. You don’t need this reality check, bubble infiltrates your stomach. You feel
that someday— hopefully not now— he’ll like you’re falling.
likely be gone, and then what are you going
to do? Go on as usual? Quit your job, travel You lie diagonally across the bed with all
the world? Move to Hawaii? Die? six pillows to yourself and think of old mar-
ried couples, which you believe you are now.
You remember a day a few years after Your mom, who ran through three mar-
your wedding. The two of you were at a tiki riages, always told you, “It’s better to have
bar with live country music playing, cold loved and lost than never to have loved at
beer flowing, and a warm sun smiling. You all.” You think about how your husband
danced, held hands and nuzzled each other, knew what happily ever after was when
and with a rush of love-emotion, you told you did not. When he asked you, “Don’t you
him, “These are the good ole days, you want to share your life with someone?” Not
know?” You realized you just quoted a song really you recall thinking but thank god he
but you don’t care because you do things convinced you. Thank god you’ve had these
that you thought cheesy before, like tolerate last fifteen years with this man. Finally, you
country music and actually enjoy chick flicks. drop into sleep, a vision of his boyish face
in your dreams. And you take this as a sign
And you’re thinking of those good that there will be more years to come.
old days now. The Love Shack is so silent

About the Author

Marisa Mangani is a former chef, and now designs commercial kitchens and bars. She is
one of the featured chefs Thrill List’s July 2015 article, “Why 8 Top Chefs Quit the Kitchen.”

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/why-8-chefs-quit-
the-kitchen. Her fear of snow landed her in Florida, where
she still works hard but lovingly tends to her orchids and
her husband. Her essays and fiction have been published in
Hippocampus, Skirt!, Aji, Borrowed Solace, Sleet Magazine,
Punchnels, Sandhill Review, Adelaide Magazine, and others.
Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and
Sundress Best of the Net Anthology.

Website: www.misenplacememoir.wordpress.com

149

WHERE IS THE
LOVE

by Renata Hinrichs

“This time of year makes me feel sentimen- New York and Dad was in Iowa. We were
tal.” Dad said. still in lock down. We said good bye and I
transported myself back to my childhood.
“How do you mean?” I ask.
I went back to all the weeks leading up
“Remember, in Chicago, when you kids to Christmas day. The four weeks of Advent.
were small? Those are my favorite memo- The stories told every week in the Sunday
ries of Christmas.” service; the Angel and the Virgin Mary; she
married Joseph, the decree from the king
“Yes, mine too. You got to be Santa Claus.” to kill the firstborn sons and Mary and Jo-
seph fleeing to Bethlehem, the shepherds
“Yep, yep,” he says. who followed the star, and the three wise
men who showed up. The Three Wise Kings
“Remember that year when Santa brought brought gifts; Frankincense and myrrh,
the pink kitchen set?” herbs and oils. Mary and Joseph had to
find shelter in a stable and Christ was born
“Your mom and I stayed up all night put- among the sheep in the hay.
ting that together. We never got much sleep
on Christmas Eve.” I remembered the records that played
on the stereo; Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte,
“I woke you up as early as I could. I the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
grabbed Erika and we ran downstairs. Look,
look!! See what Santa brought! That was Dad said, “The Morman religion is a little
the best. The living room was a Christmas cockamamie but they sure can sing.”
wonderland. You never forgot to take a bite
of the sugar cookies and drink the milk we It all started on March 12th, 2020. We
left for Santa. Nice touch. Remember that were told to stock up on food for two weeks
year we left carrots for the reindeer?” then they said a month. Our home office
space became a storage area. My last day
“Oh yeah, I sure do,” he said. of work was March 17th. The plan was we’ll

I held my cell phone up to my ear and
closed my eyes. I was in my apartment in

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be back in two weeks. I went on Unemploy- world would provide for anxiety producing
ment for the first time in my life. The fear situations. We were in the epicenter of a
and anxiety of not knowing what was really pandemic. We had to wear a mask when
going on and all the changing information; we walked out of our apartment door and
mask or no mask; the virus is spread on everywhere we went. We live across the
surfaces; no the air. Sometimes I felt like I street from Central Park, which provided
would never feel lightness or joy again, or a place of refuge and sanctuary, but when
that feeling of excitement and pure love the virus was at its peak; the sight of a field
of life. I felt the weight of fatigue and sad- hospital that was erected near the eastside
ness with the reports of deaths, my friends of the park sent chills down my spine. How I
among them. Grief and fear hung in the air. was going to stay sane being at home all the
time and do we really need to worry about
Mom started planning for Christmas our toilet paper supply?
early. She made German Stolen, frosted,
sweet bread with nuts and raisins. She The Christmas season was always a big
made at least 4 or 5 loaves. She also made time for Dad. I suppose it is for any Min-
fruit cake. A lot of fruit cake. This dense, ister. He brought out the fancy surpluses,
molasses cake-bread-like loaf, jam packed the colored sashes that went around his
with nuts and candied fruit. The fruits were neck over his puffy white robe. He had a
bright orange, green and red. I think they new one every week to wear during Ad-
were originally cherries but they were in- vent. They were rich emerald green, deep
fused with so much sugar and food coloring purple or fiery red. He saved the most op-
that I was never sure what they were sup- ulent one of all; a golden white sash with
posed to be. There was also a rectangular an embroidered gold crown for a King and
yellow fruit that I think was pineapple but a brown crown of thorns woven through it,
the only thing that gave it any distinction for Christmas morning. Not only did he look
was that it had more of a crunch. I was not good but he made sure his sermons dealt
a fan of the fruitcake but Dad loved it. They with any current events that could relate to
reminded him of the farm. Mom made at the stories in the Bible. My favorite service
least 10 loaves and gave them to people in was always Christmas Eve. The altar filled
the congregation and to our neighbors as with poinsettias, singing all the carols, and
gifts. The Stolen was also used for gifts but at the end singing Silent Night. The whole
we always kept one and ate it on Christmas congregation held small lit candles with a
morning. The Stolen was my favorite. round piece of paper in the middle to catch
the wax drippings. I loved looking at the
I missed my job as an office manager flame as we all sang in hushed tones and
of a busy chiropractic office. I was around I dreamed about Jesus being born in my
people all the time and I loved it. For the heart and how would Santa make it down
first time in my adult life I had nowhere to the chimney?
go and no one to report to. I was one of the
lucky ones able to apply early for unemploy- I was on the phone with Andrew from
ment benefits and to my surprise and delight the IT department and opened my com-
started getting a weekly deposit in my bank puter. Together we set up my remote
account. Even with that weekly payment desktop to enable me to make phone calls
there seemed to be no end to what the and work with the systems for the New York

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City Ballet. It was October 2020 and I was the window and look up at the sky hoping
asked to work part-time for the Member- to see the glow of Rudolf’s nose and maybe
ship Department. A fancy way of saying, I hear Santa on the roof. My heart would be
was asking for donations. I was given lists bursting with love. Love for the baby Jesus,
of several hundred people and asked to call love for Santa, this all loving, giving, jolly
throughout the day no later than 6 pm. I man who cared for all people, especially
was excited about having something to do. children. I loved all my dolls, and my sister
I was grateful to be on a team. We met on and baby brother, and Mom and Dad. Loved
zoom and commiserated about how hard filled me. Love carried me. I drifted off to
this time was and how we missed ‘normal’ sleep with my Santa doll. I thought life could
life. We cheered each other on when not be any better than that.
someone ‘renewed a membership’; that
could range anywhere from $100 - $1000 The discipline required to work from
or more, and we gave comfort to those who home is strange to manage at first. The
had that nasty exchange of, ‘Don’t call me commute is going from the shower, get-
again’. I was amazed at how open some ting dressed, having my coffee and signing
people were to getting my call. I heard sto- in to a remote desktop and my computer
ries about how people were coping in their became my office and phone. Turns out I
apartments. “Are you still wiping down your am pretty good at leaving messages and
groceries?” “I lost my husband to COVID so asking people for money for something I
now is not the best time.” “I am on my way believe in. I found most people were open
to chemo but call me later.” “I’m in the park to speaking to me. Many were lonely and
with my children but I would love to support craved a friendly voice and connection to
the ballet. My mother took me as a child someone outside their own isolation. One
and I want to continue the tradition.” “Are evening as I was calling, a young woman an-
they doing the Nutcracker this year? Will it swered who I had left several messages for.
be broadcast?” “What will you do when we When she heard my voice she responded
are back in the theater again? I think I will like we were old friends.
weep with joy.”
“Hi Renata. I am so happy to hear your
I was given a Santa doll when I was a voice.”
toddler. There is a photo of me with this
doll that is almost as big as I am. I treasured “Hi Ms. Sousa, is this a good time to speak?”
that doll. He was stored somewhere with
the Christmas ornaments and he would be “Yes, yes. I am so happy to speak to
brought out of hiding a week after Thanks- someone from the ballet. I miss it so much.”
giving. When he was returned to my waiting
arms he never left my side. I slept with him, She proceeded to tell me about how
talked to him, sang to him. He helped me she works for the United Nations. I couldn’t
write my letter that would be mailed to the place her accent but she sounded like she
real Santa. We would sit and listen to Dad might be Italian.
read the Night before Christmas together.
He looked just like the Santa in the story. “Look at my ticket history you will see
Then on Christmas night, when I could not how crazy I am about the Ballet. When the
sleep from pure excitement, we would go to season is up and running, I leave work at the
UN, grab a bite to eat, and go every night.”

I checked her record and sure enough,
she was at the ballet every day of the week.

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She had a $36 ticket; which was either way says, “Hi, I’m Wendy. What’s your name?”
off to the side or very high up in the fourth and I say, “I don’t know.”
ring, but she was there. I wrote ‘Super Fan’,
in my notes. She lives in Queens. “Can you believe it? I forgot my own
name! My brain was total mush. I couldn’t
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas think. I was face to face with a goddess.
without the cookies. Mom made six, some- Then Wendy burst into laughter and reached
times seven different kinds of cookies. over and patted my shoulder. She said, ‘I am
The Russian tea cakes, that looked like happy to meet you, Maria.’ Clem must have
snowballs, dipped in powdered sugar, the told her my name. I was speechless.”
Lebkuchen, ginger-spicy, squares of hard
chewy goodness, the Neubergers, round “Wendy is such a lovely and down to
ginger cookies with a candied fruit in the earth person.” I said. “What a great story.”
center with three almond slivers pressed
in the dough like flower petals, then glazed The best part of the cookie baking pro-
with a sugar coating that made them shine. duction was when everyone helped make
There were the peanut butter cookies with the sugar cookies. We gathered in the
the chocolate kisses pressed in the middle, kitchen on Saturday morning and Mom
and the dark chocolate cookies dusted with rolled out the dough and we kids went to
powdered sugar. One year she discovered work pressing the cookie cutters in the
a cookie recipe that used salted, mixed, dough. There were snowmen, Christmas
roasted nuts. They quickly became a family trees, reindeer, Santa heads, snowflakes
favorite. The base was a thicker version of a and Santa’s sleigh. Once they were care-
pie crust with a hint of salt. Then she spread fully lifted out of the flat, perfectly even
the mixed nuts over that and covered it all circles of dough we laid them on the cookie
with a caramel, sugar concoction that re- sheets to be baked. The smell alone gave
minded me of pecan pie. That salty-sweet us a sugar high. Christmas music played
combination was totally addictive. as we tried not to break the delicate cut
outs as we placed them on the sheet pans
“Do you know Clem, the guard?” Maria waiting to go in the oven. While one batch
asked. was baking we waited for them to cool and
then the real fun started. Mom made three
“Yes.” I say. “He’s been at the ballet a long- icings; pink, green and white. The white
time.” always had some lemon flavoring. I loved
making my snowflakes and snowmen with
“I was there so much we became friends. that white, lemony frosting. We could add
He is such a wonderful man. Once when colored sprinkles, colored candy glitter, and
I was waiting to get my ticket, Wendy silver sugar balls for eyes and noses. Once
Whelan, passed through the lobby. She is they were done, everything was packed
my all-time favorite dancer. I love her so away in plastic Tupperware and left on
much. Anyway, he sees that I see her, and the breezeway. We were lucky to have a
he waves his arms like, go and say “Hi”. I screened in porch that served as an extra
wave back, “No.” I mean, I can’t do that. But refrigerator during the winter months. The
he knows Wendy and gestures to her. Then cookies were arranged on Christmas cookie
he whispers something to her and suddenly platters and were our dessert after every
Wendy Whalen is walking towards me. She meal during Christmas and New Year’s,

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ending on Mom’s birthday, January 6, when streamed digitally until Jan 3. She says she
we celebrated the end of Christmas season, is and tells me that the first time she saw
the day the Wise Men came to see baby the Nutcracker she wept through the entire
Jesus, the Epiphany. piece because she had never seen some-
thing so beautiful.
“Oh, oh.. I have another one for you.”
Maria said. What do you wear when you are about
to see your favorite dancer on stage for the
“A few weeks later I was with my friend. first time? I had seen her on television with
I try to bring as many people to the ballet Mikhail Baryshnikov and she was every-
as I can. So, we were in the lobby and now thing I ever wanted to be. She danced the
I knew to look for Wendy. I might see her role of Clara in the Nutcracker with the cho-
pass through and there she was; but this reography that he had brought from Russia.
time I was ready. I pulled my friend over She embodied perfection. When I saw she
with me and we walked up to Wendy and was coming to Minneapolis I knew I had to
I said, ‘Hi, I’m Maria, the woman you met be in the audience. I begged Mom and Dad
a few weeks ago who didn’t know her own to let me go.
name.’ And Wendy burst out laughing. I
love her even more now.” ‘No, you don’t understand, I have to go. I
have to see her.”
We both take a moment to laugh.
The ticket price was more than I could
“Renata, you don’t understand, I came afford on babysitting money and selling
to New York alone and New York City Ballet Avon products to the neighborhood ladies
made it possible for me to survive. The and the few times I covered my friend, Da-
dancers became my family. My friends say I vid’s paper route while he was on vacation.
should write about how I feel. I should write This would be my birthday and Christmas
love letters to the dancers. I am so worried present that year. I was allowed to go alone.
about them. I wonder about how they’re I was fifteen.
doing and when I can see them again. I am
sorry,” she said, “I hope you don’t mind my I decided to wear my pale pink faux an-
talking so much. gora sweater I found in a thrift shop down-
town with my girlfriends on one of our ad-
” No,” I said, “I feel your love and I think ventures to the Rag Shop. I felt elegant in it.
it’s beautiful.” I loved the softness against my skin and it
fell just right around my shoulders. I wanted
My hand went to my heart as she spoke. to feel like a dancer so I wore my hair in the
My eyes started to well up. I realized that I best bun I could manage with my curly hair.
have not allowed myself to feel how much I But as much as I tried, a few curls seemed
miss being in a theatre with live music and to escape. I wore a mid-length, black skirt
seeing dancers on a stage instead of on my that flared slightly at my hips and black
computer screen or cell phone. I have not ballet flats. Dad dropped me off in front of
felt that passion and devotion since my the theater and told me he would be there
childhood and I miss that. I miss that sense when the ballet was over. I handed my ticket
of delight and wonder at beauty and awe to the usher and went to my seat in the bal-
while watching human beings become gods cony area. When the usher handed me the
and goddesses before my eyes. I ask if she
plans to watch the Nutcracker that will be

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program I felt like I would begin to float up I said, ‘No.’
to the ceiling of the theater like the scene in
Mary Poppins when they visit the man who “Are you enjoying it?”
makes them giggle with joy. I was about to
see Giselle danced by Gelsey Kirkland and I smiled. I could barely find the words.
Ivan Nagy, two of the greatest dancers in “Yes, yes, very much.” I said.
the world.
As I sat there, I hadn’t thought about
My giddiness must have bubbled over the other people I might meet. I assumed
because the gentleman sitting next to me everyone would be with their husbands or
looked at me and smiled. wives and I would be the only one alone. I
never thought there would be a man alone
The house lights started to dim and the beside me. He was nice, funny. He told me
orchestra played the overture. The curtains he loved ballet and had seen Gelsey many
opened to reveal the village scene and times before. I told him it was my first time
there she was, upstage right in her blue and that the dance company I belonged to
peasant dress. She didn’t seem to touch was planning to do the second act over the
the ground. She seemed to float, hover just summer for our yearly performance. I could
off the stage. Her arms appeared to have tell you were a dancer, he said. I could feel
no bones but were made of light. There my face blush, cheeks burn. That’s what I
was never a sound when she landed. The wanted to hear but I was pleased and em-
way she moved through space, the way she barrassed at the same time. Was I too ob-
let us see the music through her body was vious? I got up to use the bathroom. When
like nothing I’d ever seen before. Then Ivan I came back we talked some more. I didn’t
entered, the Prince in peasant disguise. He pay too much attention to what he said
is already engaged to be married to the honestly. At fifteen, if a man who could be
Princess but he’s out to have fun and sees my father’s age talked to me I was polite
Giselle. She is so beautiful and full of pure but not too invested. I knew how to be nice,
love and innocence that he has to meet her. respect my elders.
I had never seen Ivan Nagy before but once
he came on stage I fell in love with him. He Then the second act began. Giselle is
had a quiet humility and grace. Not only dead and the Prince visits her grave. He feels
was he physically gorgeous but he radiated guilty and all the spirits of the young ladies
love and something far deeper than per- who have died of broken hearts, The Willis,
fectly executing dance steps. During the first come back from the dead and make men
act the Prince and Giselle fall in love and by who have wronged them dance to death.
the end of the act she dies of a broken heart But when Giselle comes back she takes pity
because she finds out he has promised to on the Prince and helps him dance through
marry someone else. the night. Giselle’s spirit is set free because
she chooses forgiveness over vengeance. It
I was totally immersed in the story and is a gesture of pure love. Gelsey was born to
I’m sure I made some audible gasps and play this role. Her ethereal and earthy qual-
sighs because as soon as the lights went up ities mix perfectly. The passion and love be-
for intermission the man sitting next to me tween her and Ivan brought the house down.
asked, if I was alone. Was anyone joining I sometimes like to imagine, when I’m in the
me? theater, that there are angels hovering in

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the rafters. Or the spirits of all the artists That memory comes back to be now
who have performed on that stage are in and I am grateful for the passion that Ms.
the corners soaking up and reflecting back Sousa shared with me. I felt some of the
all the magic and love coursing between ashes that had gathered around my heart
the artists and the audience. Something over the past months begin to loosen. I felt
happens to everyone in that space; trans- an ember of something begin to burn. Is it
formation, elevation, something that can inspiration; a glimmer of hope; a light that
only be explained in the heart. will not go dim? Whatever it was, it was my
Christmas spark. It was my light in the midst
We finished clapping. The lights came up of the darkness.
and as we put our coats on, waiting to file
out; the magic of the evening still vibrated
through me. I found my Dad waiting outside.

About the Author

Renata Hinrichs is a playwright, actress, producer and
dancer. She grew up in the Midwest and moved to New
York to become a dancer. Her solo plays, A WITNESS IN
MY HOUSE and RANDOM ACTS, have been produced
Off Broadway. She currently lives with her husband near
Central Park. www.renatahinrichs.com

156

THE DINNER TABLE

by Frances Guerin

Dinner at 29 Alpha Road was a formal occa- brother and I perched either side. Our
sion. My family sat around an antique oak places were set above drawers that slid
table in a wood-panelled room every night into the table’s frieze. I spent the dinner
of the week. The ten-seater table was the hour fiddling with the ornate brass handle
perfect size for our family of four. We pre- of my drawer, nervously clicking the metal
ferred to sit next to no one. backing. Clicking helped distract from the
emptiness in my chest carved out by unful-
My daily task was to set the table with filled expectations. The drawer was home
the silverware and crystal glasses kept to my placemat and a linen napkin held in
locked in an eight-foot-tall, walnut dresser. a silver ring embossed with my name and
The dresser, filled with inherited treasures the shield of my private school for girls. I
and my parents’ wedding gifts, loomed regularly shoved Brussel sprouts, fat from
over us as we ate. I could feel the ghosts lamb chops, and other unwanted bits of
of its previous owners in the room, keeping food to the back of the drawer. I would wait
watch over their belongings. The cut glass for a quiet moment in the next twenty-four
windows and sterling silver handles of the hours to sneak back into the dining room,
dresser rattled as I put the key in the lock, retrieve the scraps, and throw them into
sending a shiver through my forearm. What the garbage. Creeping around in the dead
if something broke on my watch? of night to scoop the food from the back of
the drawer felt safer than risking my moth-
Every accoutrement, from salt boat to er’s ire for leaving it uneaten on the plate.
silver spoons had to be in its place on the
table. I would move a vase of fresh flowers My mother always took charge of who
from the mantelpiece to its centre, and only ate how much of what.
then could dinner be served.
“I’m still hungry, can I please have an-
It was like dinner at the van der Luydens other sausage?” I would ask in my little-girl
in The Age of Innocence, minus the servants voice.
and New York society friends. Like the fami-
lies in Edith Wharton’s novel, we adhered to “Wait fifteen minutes. When your food di-
social form as a way to fill the spaces left by gests, you’ll be full.” My mother would reply.
the absence of intimacy at our dinner table.
“Please?”
My father would sit at the head of the
polished oak table, mother at the tail. My “There’s only two sausages left; one for
your father, and one for your brother,” she

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might answer, placing her folded napkin back doing and attend to his patients. But, once
in her drawer. “I’m going without second he was sitting at the dinner table, the phone
servings, so you can too.” Her mind was rang unanswered.
made up.
“They’ll call back if it’s important,” my
Luckily, suffocation by form, tradition father would say, mopping up sauce on his
and gendered portion sizes was not the full plate with bread.
story of dinner time in our house. It was
also when I saw my father. His long day at Over dessert he began to dream. “The
the hospital was finally cast aside when he Trans-Siberian Express has re-opened
sat down at the table. He was all ours for a after flooding in Novosibirsk,” he would
full hour. He did the talking. After all, as my announce, looking up as if through the
mother would remind us when we tried to window of the train. The citrus burst of the
speak, my father was the one with an inter- clementine he was peeling would fill the air
esting life. with exoticism, and we were already there,
in Novosibirsk.
Over sausages and mash with lashings
of gravy, my father recited details of his day “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” my mother an-
that were of interest to him alone. I didn’t nounced with traces of disgust in her voice.
care about the stories. I only cared that he “No one’s going to Russia.” … Or China, … or
was home with us, sitting at the head of the Peru, or wherever happened to be on the
table. itinerary that night at dinner.

“Mrs. Beatle’s cochlear implant malfunc- “You’ll give them ideas.” My mother
tioned and I had to re-operate,” he would would scold my father as she stood up and
explain, wiping sauce from his lips with a walked out of the dining room. Dinner was
clean white napkin. over.

“A dangerous foreign body made me late I assumed that everyone sat at a dinner
all day.” Sometimes there were real emer- table cowering from one parent and chasing
gencies. “The internal bleeding drenched a promised connection with the other.
the vocal cord as I tried to cut the nodules.”
Illness and death were popular topics at our *
family dinner table. From tracheotomies
to an out-of-order elevator, my father re- At my twenty-year school reunion, Caroline
ported all the events of his day in the same Demaggio raised the topic of Mary Mas-
tone of voice. den’s home life.

No one asked what happened next. We “Remember when Mary came to school
heard these stories or ones just like them with her face all puffy?”
many times. We knew them by heart. Chil-
dren swallowed peanuts and ten cent coins; “Vaguely,” I responded.
old people developed tumors and took
turns for the worse. The fresh wounds of “Which time?” Anne McCarthy asked,
the day’s operating schedule opened and nonchalantly taking a sip of white wine.
bled. Any number of things could result in
death if my father didn’t drop what he was “It happened all the time. Her father was
a rage-a-holic and screamed his way from
Mary’s Christening through to her gradua-
tion.”

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“He hit her?” I was agog. “My family was the same,” Lorna Asprey
began. “He would sit at the head of the
“I don’t know about hitting, but it was table, and my brother and I had to sit an
common knowledge that he was always arm’s length either side of him.”
angry and shouting.”
“Why arm’s length?” I asked.
“It was? I had no idea.”
“He liked to reach out and stroke the back
Did I block out the traumatic incidents of my hair, resting his hand on my cheek.
in my schoolmates’ lives? I have only one Within seconds, his hand would be raised to
memory of Mary Masden turning up at strike. He would whack me over the head if
school with puffy red eyes and blotches all I said or did the slightest thing to displease
over her face. It was on the day that Mrs. him. I spent my childhoold trying to mould
Gribble, our grade five teacher, pursed her myself into the girl he wanted, the one who
lips and pulled a powder puff out of her bag. did and said what would keep him happy.”
She walked straight to Mary’s desk, put her
arm around her shoulders and led her out “Did your mother try to stop him?”
of the room. We nine year olds were in the
habit of making fun of Mrs Gribble and her “She was too exhausted. She worked all
powder puff. But the day her arm encircled day in a dentist’s office and then had to
our tearful friend, our eyes followed the come home and cook. Dinner had to be on
two of them to the door without a word. the table at 7pm sharp, every night. If she
When they disappeared into the corridor, was five minutes late, he would shout ob-
we nervously turned back to our books, let- scenities in between shots of whiskey. ”
ting our hair fall over the fear in our eyes.
We knew this was deadly serious, even if we No wonder we all developed eating dis-
weren’t sure why. orders.

“It was like that in my family too,” Joyce *
Hansen started. “Dinner was the most
frightening time of the day. My sisters and I turn to art in search of insight into the
I sat in silence, watching and waiting for childhood vulnerability of my generation. I
my father to explode. Will he, won’t he? saunter down to a nearby Paris gallery to
We girls, including my mother, were struck see an installation of Chen Zhen’s Round
dumb with fear. I remember watching his Table (1997). Chairs in all shapes and sizes,
fork move from the plate to his mouth. Only for children and adults, Asian and West-
when his mouth was full, did I let out the ern, are perfectly inserted into the top of
breath I was holding.” two conjoined, fragmented tables. It’s not
possible to take a place at the table; the
“Was it always like that?” I asked. seats of the chairs are merged with the ta-
ble top. The chest height of the table is as
“That was the problem, we never knew if unsettling as the fact that we look but are
or when he would start. I could hardly eat prohibited from sitting. There’s no getting
for the anxiety and panic in my stomach. comfortable around this table. The title of
But not eating was also likely to set him off. Chen Zhen’s installation includes the words
I learnt very quickly that if I stayed silent, I “side by side,” but approaching the table
could disappear in plain sight.” I am overcome with a feeling of isolation.
Participants are shut out of the dinner con-

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versation. The table visualizes the Chinese Joseph smirks. “Is that what it was like?”
artist’s immigrant experience: no place to
sit down, no place to belong in two ill-fit- “I don’t know. We all sat around the table
ting cultures, two warring political systems. together. That part my family got right.”

The installation reminds me of 29 Alpha “And the rest?” Charlotte, my friend from
Road. I recall the sturdy, priceless antique, the American mid-west pipes up.
and with it, the discomfort of sitting in a
chair at the dinner table of my childhood. “It wasn’t like Leave it to Beaver, if that’s
No one is by my side, and I am perpetually what you mean. Still, at the time, I didn’t
squeezing, hiding, sneaking. I am hungry. know any better. At least Mother fed us and
People of all shapes, sizes, ages, and cul- Father didn’t hit us.”
tures are meant to come together at the
dinner table. Here, there is no togetherness. “That’s not enough to make a happy
Each to their own. Coexistence is a state of family,” Joseph turns to me, checking my re-
routine uneasiness. action. “Did you watch Leave it to Beaver?”
He continues. “I’m sure that show was cre-
* ated to make us all feel as though we were
doing it wrong.”
I sit on a brick wall overlooking the riv-
er Seine with my urban family of five An- “Or that if we did it right, we too could be
glo-American expats. Our bread and cheese the perfect American family,” I add.
lunch has been lovingly wrapped by our
favorite boulangère in his custom-printed “Even though we were Australian!” Jo-
paper. We indulge in the closeness and con- seph laughs.
nection of unfilial friends, without a table.
“Looking back, I think my family was
“What was dinner like in your family when closer to the one in that Danish film, Cel-
you were growing up?” I throw out the ques- ebration.” Laura muses. She is a successful
tion before unwrapping my sandwich. fashion designer who came to Paris for an
internship twenty-five years ago and never
“In my house, there was no dinner time,” returned to Britain. She tears a tiny corner
Joseph, a fellow Australian, speaks first. from her baguette but doesn’t eat.
“Everyone was on their own. I would have
given anything for a mother at home pre- “Is that the film that opens with the
paring dinner. My father left when I was birthday party?” I ask. I look into Laura’s
three and my mother worked two jobs to eyes to avoid watching her nervous fiddling
keep us afloat. She was never there.” with the bread.

“So what did you do for dinner?” I ask. “Yes. In a weird way, we had a lot in
common with that family,” Laura says.
“I dunno. Made a sandwhich,” Joseph “They voiced everything that went unsaid
holds his sandwhich in the air. “And I’m still around our dinner table.”
eating sandwhiches,” he laughs awkwardly.
“Really? Your family was like that?” Jo-
“My mother always told us that dinner seph sounds surprised. He takes an enor-
was about coming together, a time of mous bite of his sandwhich, and pickled
sharing, belonging to the family,” I reflect. cucumber pieces fall into the waxed paper.

“We weren’t stunningly gorgeous and we
didn’t live in an idyllic country house. No.

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But there were traumas seething under the rules. I was secretly elated when they left
surface of every pleasantry. It was British food on their plates. My face went hot with
stoicism at its best.” Laura stares at the river, delight if someone picked up the chicken
her face showing no emotion. bones with their fingers. I remember when
my father’s registrars came for dinner; they
“I remember how uncomfortable that ate more than two clementines and talked
film was,” Joseph says. with their mouths full. My mother was
unable to sit still and didn’t know where
“It’s difficult to watch,” I agree. to look. Her face crumpled like a piece of
paper as the rules that kept the family con-
“Remember the woman who reads the nected unraveled. I suspect this is why we
suicide note left by her sister?” Joseph re- rarely had guests.
fers to one of the film’s most disturbing se-
quences. “They were painful,” Laura responds. “I
remember sitting with my legs stuck to the
“Of course. While her adult brother sucks seat, hoping and praying that my father
on his fork like a two year old,” Laura gri- wouldn’t embarrass me, or that my brother
maces. It is the first emotion she has shown wouldn’t make racist jokes. I was riddled
us since the conversation began. with guilt and shame in the presence of my
family. For many years, I assumed that I be-
“He’s traumatized by the letter,” Joseph longed somewhere else, not there, in that
suggests. family.”

“Because it’s his twin sister who killed “It’s true,” Charlotte responds. “You be-
herself,” Amanda interjects loudly. long with us.”

“Then he makes a speech revealing that “I agree. We all belong together on a wall,
the father sexually abused him and his sister like migratory birds,” I add wistfully.
when they were children,” Charlotte chimes
in. “That film is too much.” *

“It’s interesting that we have all seen the As a university student in the 1980s, I was
movie,” I say. “I wonder what it says about both fascinated and apalled by the photos
us?” of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. I stole
into the library and pulled the book from
The others ignore me; their attention is the shelf, checking to see that no one was
focused on Laura. watching from behind the next stack. If I
heard footsteps, I stuffed the book back
“I don’t think my family was that dysfunc- on the shelf, hoping I hadn’t been seen. I
tional,” Laura adds. “It was the secrets my loved the idea of a dinner party of women,
mother and father kept that made every- but the vulva plates were scandalous to my
thing so stressful at the dinner table. Even naïve eyes. At 29 Alpha Road, displays of
if they had no idea of their guilty existence.” sex and sexuality were complicated. I never
saw my father run a hand up my mother’s
“What were dinner parties like in your leg, steal a passionate moment while doing
house?” Joseph asks Laura. the dishes, or make eye contact across a
room. Desire was satisfied with ice cream
“They rarely happened in mine, but when
they did, they weren’t like that!” I interject.

Celebratory dinners at 29 Alpha Road
were great fun because guests broke the

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and alcohol. Bodies were best kept at a dis- “Tell us everything!” Amanda’s facial ex-
tance. Maybe that explains why I felt em- pression changes from solemn introspec-
barrassed when I looked at images of The tion to open excitement.
Dinner Party. Maybe that’s why dinner was
filled with unexplained tension. “Dinner was a battlefield. Often, someone
would throw potatoes in a fit of anger. Some
I had never heard of most of the women nights, there were so many potatoes flying
at Chicago’s table, but my art history teacher that it was like trying to eat dinner with tor-
explained that they were famous and they pedoes whizzing past my ear. Then one of
collaborated in the fight for equality. I won- my brothers would beat up on me or my
dered if equality meant that Virginia Woolf sisters. My eldest sister Sue would start
was allowed a second serving of sausages? screaming at the boys for deigning to have
an opinion she didn’t share. Sue was a bully
* and she screamed at everyone—including
my dad. She was unrelenting in her struggle
“I grew up in a female household. It was like to have everyone do as she wanted. If one
a coven,” Amanda, another British expat of us dared to retaliate, Sue might pick up a
friend, begins. whole plate of food and hurl it the length of
the table. There was screaming and crying
“It was my mother, her sister, their mother and showers of fuck yous on a near nightly
and me. All the attention at dinner was on basis. My step mom just sat there telling my
my aunt. My grandma would place the meal father to do something. He had no idea of
before my aunt and her eyes would fill with how to be a parent. He kept telling us that if
disgust. She’d say things like ‘This looks like we didn’t stop shouting and throwing things,
vomit, I can’t eat it.’ She would balance a he would turn us out onto the streets. I can
single pea on her fork and, after it reached still hear him, ‘and don’t bother coming
her mouth, she would say, ‘I’m so full I back.’ He was all talk, no action. It was in-
can’t possibly eat another thing.’ Then my sanity.”
grandma would yell. ‘eat your dinner, you
ungrateful child, or you’ll get a spanking!’ On her fifteenth birthday, Charlotte left
Food has always been laced with humilia- home and lived in her car.
tion for me.” I hear the rustle of wax paper
and look down to see Amanda’s shaking Charlotte’s story reminds me of visits to
hand. the family next door, at number 31 Alpha
Road. As I entered, the screen door slam-
Contrary to the message of Chicago’s ming shut behind me, Michael, the only
installation, the raising of women’s voices boy of nine siblings, might be crouched on
at Amanda’s childhood dinner table didn’t the table licking the chocolate icing from
bring much equality to her relationship with the cake, like a cat. Or Peter, the eldest girl
food and family. Helen’s boyfriend, would be sitting back in
the recliner, pouring himself schnapps and
I turn to Charlotte, my dear friend from beer chasers from the father’s liquor cab-
the American mid-west, and ask “What was inet. The girls would be screaming, while
it like at your dinner table?” the parents were tuned out to the chaos.
It was as though they had been drugged
“Ask my sisters that question and they before being placed in their chairs ready
will entertain you for hours,” she laughs.

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for the performance. I loved the mayhem; “That doesn’t mean that all French fami-
everyone did what they wanted. I loved it lies are functional,” Amanda adds. “If my in-
because it wasn’t my family. For them, it laws are anything to go by.” She rolls her eyes.
must have been hell. They were like captive
animals, desperate to be loved or let out. Silence descends over the five of us
perched on the wall.
Today, only five of the ten siblings are
alive. The other half of the family, including *
the parents are dead from addiction to one
substance or another. In Orson Welles’s film, Citizen Kane, the
rising tensions between Kane and his first
Sitting on the wall overlooking the Seine, wife are shown by the growing distance be-
I ask my friends, “Do you think there are tween their seats at the table. A creeping
people who experience love and intimacy coldness pushes them apart, the camera
at the dinner table?” moving further back, until eventually, they
sit silently alone at each end of a long table.
“My guess is that if you spend long enough I have always related to this scene. Even if I
with any family, you will find dysfunction,” enjoy sitting on a wall, connected to my ur-
Charlotte proclaims. ban family over baguette and cheese. Din-
ner at a distance from my table companions
“Do you think it’s just our generation?” and framed by formality is a logical way to
I ask, pausing. “It could also be an An- guard against the emergence of unwanted
glo-American thing. The French love dinner emotion. It’s how I was raised.
time; they spend hours eating together.”

About the Author

Frances Guerin is an Australian living in Paris where
he teaches avant-garde film and visual culture. He has
published five books on film, photography and visual
culture, and many articles, interviews and essays.
His creative writing has been published in Midnight
Masquerade, The Ekphrastic Review, Hecate and Herstry,
among other magazines and anthologies.

163

STRUGGLE FOR
SOME, VACATION

FOR OTHERS

Book Review by Joy Drees

García, Taylor, Slip Soul, TouchPoint Press, August 2021

Taylor García’s Slip Soul is not afraid to find And then in a liminal zone between the
human goodness amid hardship two realities is the Otay Mesa Detention
Center where deportees are kept behind
Living in San Diego can be what many high walls heavily guarded by security per-
people imagine: sunny beaches, palm trees, sonnel and cameras.
Taco Tuesday, and eclectic microbrews. But
there’s also the looming presence of some- Going about my day-to-day life, it’s easy
thing else: the border. Catch the blue trolley not to think about this facility surrounded
south down to San Ysidro, walk the PedEast, by high barbed wire fencing so close to
and soon you’ll be drinking Tequila in Tijuana. home. That is, until I read Taylor García’s
debut novel Slip Soul published by Touch-
The difference between the two cities is Point Press this August. García is also a San
distinct. Tijuana has a chaotic feel, people Diegan, but he hasn’t ignored the struggles
everywhere, buildings and roads have a at the border, and brings to light the hard-
worn-down look. San Diego is vast but or- ships and perseverance of people coming to
derly. People keep to themselves mostly, America. In his preface, he says he’s New
they follow road signs; buildings are new, Mexican, a blend of Indigenous, Spanish,
glassy. One has hawkers hustling churros to and Mexican heritage, and that multi-gen-
cars waiting in line at the San Ysidro border, erational New Mexicans “suffer a centu-
the other has restaurants serving gentrified ries-long identity crisis” asking “What are
tacos in touristy Old Town. we exactly?” García explores the kinship

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between people in detention centers, these Later, as an older man in San Diego, Os-
places in-between worlds, where it’s hard valdo works for a World Mission run by a
to know where you belong, and who you corrupt founder, where he’s expected to
are. wear “native clothing,” and smile at the
tourists visiting the “International Village.”
Slip Soul starts at the Otay Mesa Deten- “Sounds more like a museum than a real
tion Center with Osvaldo unable to sleep village,” Osvaldo’s son says. Soon, everyone
as “officers come through once, twice, working at the International Village is as-
and three times, shining and waving their signed to janitorial work in the offices and
torches over our bodies.” He has no access buildings. And Marcos remarks, “‘So they
to the outside world and time begins to were preparing you for here,’” meaning the
blur. “My first day turns into another one, United States, where immigrants find them-
and another, and another. At this point, selves in jobs nobody else wants to do, the
I’ve lost count because every day is exactly jobs that serve the upper crust.
the same.” Soon, the reader finds out Os-
valdo is an older man with knee and back In Joanne’s novel, Pablo owns a bun-
problems, but he pushes through the daily galow motel along the shore and meets
labor that the deportees are assigned. He’s Jucélia and her controlling American boy-
befriended by a young man named Marcos friend Ruggy, tourists who are staying at his
who defends him against a particularly motel. Ruggy wants to use Pablo to open
brutal guard, and they both end up in the a beach bar. His cousin asks, “‘I wonder,
Center’s hospital. primo, why are we going around making
him happy anyway? Making his dreams
Here, Osvaldo tells his story, and García come true?’ ‘Because he’s always had it that
uses narrative dialogue to amplify Osvaldo’s way,” Pablo said.
voice, weaving the present day in San Diego,
with the past in Oaxaca, and even Puerto The stark differences tourism has on
Escondido through a novel by Osvaldo’s García’s Mexican characters, Osvaldo and
former lover, Joanne. Pablo, versus his white American charac-
ters, Joanne and Ruggy, made me pause to
What’s most compelling is the way the consider the role I play in tourism, asking:
characters in these layered stories interact Am I exploiting another culture, a group
with the conventions of tourism, whether in of people? How can I respect different cul-
Oaxaca, San Diego, or Puerto Escondido. In tures more? How might I help them feel
Oaxaca, Osvaldo as a young man is a zocolo more welcome in my own country?
boy, aka escort, where he meets Joanne, a
white tourist. Later, after Joanne experi- But García doesn’t condemn tourism.
ences personal trauma, Osvaldo takes her He shows the positive sides too, like the
to his aunt, a madrina, a healer, although relationship between Osvaldo and Joanne,
he’s hesitant at first, noting that “at the Pablo and Jucélia, people from different
time tourists—mostly hippie gringos—were worlds who never would’ve met had travel
flocking to Oaxaca to find her to have a not been available. The ability to see a ben-
healing, except their intentions were false. efit in a damaging enterprise is García’s
They simply wanted to have a trip…They gift. Rather than dwelling on the plight of
abused the ritual.” the immigrants, and the power dynamics
tourism plays to perpetuate the perceived

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hierarchy of Western society, his focus is on Frequently, García uses the word ‘good’
the goodness people can demonstrate in to describe the people in his story, and he
order to survive. Like the way Osvaldo and doesn’t shy from the heartfelt connections
Marcos connect and protect each other at they gain. Of his parting with Marcos, Os-
the Detention Center, whether fighting off a valdo says their goodbye was “the hug of
guard or telling stories to escape their cur- knowing that you don’t belong to each
rent situation. Or how the couple Hugo and other—you never have—but that you will
Beatriz give Osvaldo a place to stay when always help your fellow man.” And de-
he is homeless, and he says, “People like parting from Slip Soul I was left with the
Hugo and his wife are the reason we can go feeling of hope, that I can do better, we can
on living with our fellow man and woman, do better, and isn’t that what good stories
putting faith in them. Trusting them with do? Create change. For the better.
everything we have.”

About the Author

Joy Saler Drees was born in and has lived all over California,
currently residing in San Diego. MFA was earned at Pacific
University. Recent works have appeared in Blue Lake
Review, Dillydoun Review, Evening Street, Hedge Apple,
Hypertext, Kin, OxMag, RavensPerch, and Shooter Literary.

166

THEY ONLY SEE US
WHILE WE WEAR

THE MASK

by Deborah-Zenha Adams

I meet my friends Julie and Paul in the park- me, “so we only have to face mask-haters
ing lot of a restaurant at the I-40 exit. They’re when we buy gas.”
returning home to Texas from Maryland,
where they buried Julie’s father’s ashes. Some years ago I attended a cultural
sensitivity workshop along with two dozen
We don’t go inside the restaurant or get other social workers. I happened to sit at
food at curbside. In her own words, Julie has a table with the only BIPOC participant—a
taken social distancing to the extreme. In- Black woman who used my name in every
stead we’ll visit at the edge of the lot, masks other sentence (“How long have you worked
on and six feet apart, beside the highway. as an advocate, Deb?” “You make a good
point, Deb.”) Aside from her overuse of my
Julie’s abundance of caution is under- name, the only thing I remember about
standable. She has already self-quarantined this woman is that she explained a mystery
twice since COVID became our normal: once that had baffled me for years: Why is it, I
to protect her husband and his pediatric pa- wondered aloud during our get-acquainted
tients when she had COVID-like symptoms, moment, that people who rage against
and again after paying a final visit to her undocumented immigrants are really only
COVID-positive father. She was alone in her bothered by Mexicans? No one seems to
exile when he died, unable to go back inside care about German or Italian immigrants.
the facility to sit with him or hold his hand
as he struggled for his last breaths. “Well, Deb,” she said, “it’s because you
can’t recognize European immigrants by
This journey to resolve her father’s their skin color.”
life has been a struggle of a different sort.
“We’re packing all our own food,” she tells For a small-town Southern girl who
grew up eating mayonnaise sandwiches

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(literally—mayo on white bread) this was lot, my friends and I are a distinct minority,
truly an earth-shaking revelation. I am made visible not by skin color but by our
the default setting on the list that runs effort to protect ourselves and others from
from ‘Caucasian’ to ‘Other.’ I am the 98% the spread of a deadly virus.
of local demographics. I have sons, but I
didn’t know there was a talk about how to The barefaced majority come and go
behave when stopped by the police. Even from the restaurants around us. They roar
Jesus looks like me, in that print that hangs past us in RVs and tractor-trailers. Maybe
on so many Christian walls. they think we are the beginning of a pro-
test, the leading edge of a movement to
For that matter, Julie and Paul look like force them to eat kale and read literary fic-
that, too. Their skin is white, but they are tion. I’m wary, nervous with my back to the
probably the only Jews in this county today. highway, edgy, hyper-aware. I am a target
The only reason they stand out here is be- for angry people who think I wear a mask in
cause their faces are partially covered by order to take away their guns. And I wonder
masks. if one of them will throw a brick at my head,
run us over with an F-150, or mow us down
Masks provide protection, either for with an AK-47.
nefarious purposes (bank robbers) or for
self-preservation (Paul Lawrence Dunbar). I don’t mention any of this to Julie and
And yet…. Paul, of course. They still have to drive
through the rest of this unmasked state and
Not far from here, a state trooper ac- a couple of others. Why add that to their
costed a bystander who was filming a traffic worries? And so we shout above the din,
stop and ripped the mask from the man’s laugh when we have to repeat ourselves,
face. In New York, four people assaulted a and finally we air-hug, bless each other (“Be
woman for wearing a respirator mask in- safe. Be healthy.”), and retreat to our cars.
side a business. In a food market, a woman
pitched a tantrum and flung groceries on Before my friends are even out of the
the floor after being asked to abide by the parking lot, I pull off my mask. Anonymous
store’s mask policy. Today, in this parking again, I can breathe easy.

About the Author

Deborah-Zenha Adams (she/her) is an award-winning
author of novels, short fiction, CNF, and poetry. She invites
you to visit her website: www.Deborah-Adams.com

168

CHINA 1990:
THE SOUL OF AN
ENTREPRENEUR

by Michael Serwetz

(Author’s Note: When the future seems students to the college to study for a newly
uncertain, our natural tendency is to think created MBA program.
about the past. For me, the past is a long
and amazing career traveling all over the After the events of 1989 in China, the
world. I cherish so many of my experiences, government decided that it was not going
and this one is at the top of my memory list. to let any more students travel abroad for
This was a life-changing experience this program. What they said was that, if
the College was willing to continue the pro-
Most of all, I have had the rare privilege gram, it would have to be done in China.
of seeing a country in Asia, with a longer
tradition than any other, but which had So, after all the tenured professors all re-
“lagged” for a hundred years which went fused to go, and, since I had overseas busi-
from world leader to barely modern to ness experience, the college reached down
world leader. I hope that sharing these sto- the food chain to the students- I was asked if
ries will give some perspective on the world I would consider going to teach 2 subjects for
we now share with those who were, as a period of 6 months in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China.
people, less than an afterthought to some
in the past. There was only a small stipend attached
to this program; after weighing the nearly
Background: I was attending Domin- zero economic benefit against the experi-
ican College (now Dominican University of ence, I decided that the experience would
California) as a student in the Pacific Basin be once-in-a-lifetime, and I should do it. i
Studies Master’s Program. At that time, the had traveled to many other countries in
college had an exchange program with the Asia, but this would be my first experience
China Jiangsu Province Government to send in China.

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So, armed with what I thought I would man finished unloading, he pulled the cart
need to be comfortable for 6 months, I set into the room. Then he left.
off for Wuxi in January of 1990.
Unaccustomed to this type of service, I
After a long and uncomfortable ride waited for someone else to come to at least
from San Francisco on a Chinese airline, I take the piled luggage off the cart. Nobody
arrived in Nanjing, a city big enough to have came. Now people had massed at the cart,
an airport (there weren’t many). unceremoniously yanking their stuff off the
cart, with no regard to what happened to
This was like no airport I had ever seen; other luggage they displaced.
in fact, it did not look like an airport at all.
A wide expanse of concrete, at the end of Not like any airport I ever saw. I soon real-
which was a building the size of most peo- ized that, if I didn’t get in there and elbow with
ple’s bedroom- the terminal. the rest of the passengers, my luggage would
be thrown around, stepped on or worse. So, I
As I walked toward the building, I saw a got into the fray and retrieved my stuff.
lone man taking the luggage off the plane
and placing (or, rather, tossing) the luggage Fortunately, Dean Wang was there to
onto a cart that looked like it should have meet me. After a rather long ride in a small
been drawn by two mules. van, we arrived at The Jiangsu Province Cadre
Institute. It was a campus of 3 main buildings
Inside the building there was also con- in a small section of Wuxi, outside the main
crete, one big room with nothing but a “city” that bordered on a small finger of Tai
small, knee-high steel rail to separate the Lake which was a home to small fish farming
passengers from their luggage. When the and near a tourist site called Turtle Head Park.

The buildings were: A dormitory, A dining well as the ubiquitous hot water bottle. The
facility, and a classroom building. I was to chair was a straight chair in typical Chinese
stay in the same dormitory as the students, pattern. The bedding was Chinese style, in-
except with the privilege of having my own cluding a thick comforter that must have
room, on the 4th floor. weighed 30 pounds.

The room was furnished with a bed, desk On the floor was a carpet; it looked old,
and chair, small dresser and night table as dirty and seedy. I was given the carpet as a

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“special privilege” as all the other rooms had what came was a sight that I will never
a concrete floor. The carpet was not tacked forget: Two turtles, about 12 inches in
down, and when I lifted a corner of it, I was length, lying belly up in a very large bowl of
greeted by dozens of little scurrying insects. soup. Not what I expected!

Since I had just arrived, I was the object Maybe as a consolation or because I had
of great attention from my students, who revealed my shock, Dean Wang told me that
were with me when I made this discovery. this type of turtle was Chinese Medicine
So, I immediately asked them, help me. We food and could even cure cancer. Somewhat
extracted the rug from under the furniture, comforted, I set about eating the turtle,
rolled it up and tossed it out the window! most of which was bony like a chicken neck-
Then we mopped the concrete floor with yet very delicious- best described as chicken
hot water. (This was the first of several with umami. Then, I was given the privilege,
head-shaker acts during my tenure at the as the honored guest, to pick the small bits
Institute) off the inside of the shell.

Since I had just arrived, Dean Wang For drinks, I was introduced to the local
invited me to dinner at his home. I don’t baijiu (Chinese for “white wine). The only
remember all the dishes we had, but I do resemblance to white wine was its color;
remember one of them vividly: Dean Wang when the small bottle was opened, a small
asked me, “Do you like Turtle?” I answered puff of alcohol fumes emerged, along with
yes, having tried it in Florida before. But an indescribable aroma that can only be

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described as alcohol combined with a sweet, a Foreign Language) test to qualify for the
acrid herbal smell. This event later became Institute. That said, there were maximum
endeared to me as “jet fuel.” 10 that could understand me well. My first
teaching experience: MBA courses with a
The taste was no better than the smell. majority of students who couldn’t under-
First you had to get it close to your nose stand me. One thing that I learned quickly,
before drinking, which it unceremoni- which serves me to this day as a professor,
ously invaded. Then you needed to shoot is to distinguish by facial expression be-
the whole shot glass (this was not sipping tween those who understand and those
wine!). (Mind you, there are “gourmet” who don’t; the former can be described as a
Baijiu in China even to this day, as it is still blank stare or deer in the headlights; while
the number one alcohol consumed in the the latter clearly display the opposite, as in
country. What I tried was at the other end I get it, yes.
of the spectrum).
Of course, there were no Powerpoints in
Nobody who has ever tried this stuff will those days- just mouth and blackboard; so,
ever forget the first swallow; not only is the since all were ESL (English as a Second Lan-
first swallow memorable, but the taste can guage) I learned to speak Slowly and Care-
linger in your mouth and burps for days. It fully, and, as much as possible, in Simple En-
can only be described as a burn followed glish (there was a radio program on Voice of
by a bigger burn. I am proud to say that, America, which was short wave radio and
after that, I had the sacrificial fortitude to the only outside communication possible,
endure many tastes of the stuff and as many with that title).
drinking bouts.
The courses I was to teach were Mac-
So, that was my first taste of real Chinese roeconomics and Political Science, in that
food and Chinese dinners. Many hundreds, order. Each was a 3-month intensive pro-
even thousands (didn’t count), to come. As gram and to be taught using the Chinese
food is such an important part of my life even Text (imported materials not permitted)
today, this memoir will be liberally peppered which, more often than not, got it wrong.
with food. Some of which was great, some
of it just so-so, a little bit really bad. I don’t know how or why I thought of
this, but on the first day of class, I asked
I had 43 students under my care. All my class to look up the definition of entre-
had to pass the TOEFL (Test of English as preneur in their Chinese-English Dictionary.
The only definition that could be found was
manager. I promised my students that, by
the end of my tenure, they would under-
stand the correct definition.

It is ironic that China, starting about
10 years later, redefined and customized
entrepreneurship to their political and
social system, and grew their economy
at a record-breaking pace; I like to think
that I played one small part in laying the

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groundwork for that. They didn’t really rotten smell after several days. The final
know it at the time, but many of my stu- dish was to be Chou Doufu, which I later
dents had the soul of an entrepreneur; given learned some respect for, but at this time
the opportunity, they would seize the day it was a smell that induced you to give up
and be very successful. breathing.

Classes took place 6 days a week from And then something happened which
8 a.m.-12 p.m. I had secured a consulting turned out to be my last straw in the Insti-
project from Swift Denim (my Levi’s back- tute dining experience. On one restaurant
ground helped with that), so I had some- trip, I was introduced to a dish called Ba
thing to do in some of the afternoons. Part Bou Fan, translated as Eight Jewels Rice.
of that foray was usually a meal at a restau- It was composed of different types of rice
rant with good quality Wuxi Cuisine (more and grains, had a dark color due to the wild
about this later). rice content, and was pleasantly sweet. I ex-
pressed my enjoyment of the dish. One of
But the meals at the Institute were not my students who accompanied me and who
Cuisine, barely could be called food, which knew (everybody did) of my food concerns,
as well as the cooking style could only be related my enjoyment to Dean Wang. Im-
described as I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-this- mediately after that, I began to get a ‘hood
tastes-like. Actually, I was forced to eat the version of Ba Bou Fan 3 times a day!
same food as my students- which I didn’t
mind, other than the horrible taste, but the Okay. Enough. What to do? I decided that
taste of the food became even worse be- the best solution to not eating bad food was
cause I was forced to eat alone in a drab
room which looked prison-ish. I was iso-
lated because I was given more of what-
ever-it-was, and the administrators did not
want the students to see that.

Poor students- not only did they have
to eat this nasty stuff, but they didn’t get
enough to fill their bellies. Poor me- as a
contrast to what I had already eaten in my
life, I was hypersensitive to how bad it was.

After two weeks straight of eating this
stuff, I complained to Dean Wang. He kindly
said he would talk to the kitchen about the
taste and the dishes. The result of his talk,
as would be expected, was nil. No improve-
ment, not the fault of the cooks- they didn’t
have anything better to offer, especially
given their budget.

What was worse, the cooks were fer-
menting some doufu (soy bean curd) outside
in the sun, which took on an indescribable

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not to eat it. So, the American Teacher went lessons, no doubt, but the real answer was
on a hunger strike. Dean Wang scolded me to tear the mother apart with your hands.
for doing so, and my answer to him was that,
if he didn’t want me to starve and die on The restaurant itself was one pretty large
his watch, he better find me a decent place dining room. Every day I arrived there for
to eat. lunch before noon to sit in my own little
table near the kitchen- the only Lao Wai in
So, the next day, I was given a new lease on the place, for sure. The balance of patrons
life. Dean Wang informed me that I would be were local factory workers and managers.
allowed to eat 2 meals a day at a local restau- They stormed in en masse at noontime and
rant not far from the institute; I was even were solidly drunk from baijiu ten minutes
given a little old bicycle to get there, which later. I imagined they would all have produc-
became my own vehicle while at the Institute. tive afternoons.

The restaurant name was Hong Bou My evenings were consumed with-
Yuan. I was told by my students that the nothing. No TV, and the only radio that was
chef had worked for Chou En Lai in the past. receivable on my boom box was Short Wave-
It may have been true, because the food In English only the Voice of America, for less
was amazing, as was the lesson in Chinese than one hour. What did I do with the rest
cuisine (yes, this qualified) and how to re- of my time? Become adept at typing on a
ally eat with chopsticks (not just fool around computer keyboard (yes, they had those,
with them, as most of us did at Chinese not sure what their point was), ping pong,
restaurants in the US). and Uno.

I remember some of the dishes, which There was another teacher who over-
were never the same twice. One in partic- lapped with me in Wuxi- let’s call her Celia-
ular that comes to mind was the fish ball She was a young student who was selected
soup- little quenelles of mild white fish in a to teach English. We overlapped by about
gentle broth. Perfectly formed little balls of a month. This was great for me in the be-
fishy goodness, with fresh tomato wedges ginning, and, after I got my bicycle, was an
floating along. excuse for some fun “prison breaks” as we
were not supposed to leave the Institute.
Not so delicate was when I was given a One flimsy no-speed bike for two adults was
half chicken with only chopsticks as tools. a challenge, but neither of us cared.
How to manage? I tried my best- one of my
We started by crossing the bridge into
the main town area to a local hotel called
the Hubin (Lake View), which was exclu-
sively for foreigners and even had some
imported booze, which was not available
in Wuxi otherwise. After a few weeks dry, I
was down for that!

Another adventure that we both loved
was to visit the local Peking Duck joint (Bei-
jing Kao Ya). There we could order a whole
duck for 30 RMB (which was less than

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four bucks, as I remember), with a compli- A couple of years later, I went back to
mentary soup made from the duck bones find this restaurant, and found that it had
and cabbage). Delicious. been replaced by- a highway. 1990 was the
beginning of the jumping off point for China.
And at that restaurant, I was introduced Modernization without pity continues even
to a dish that I know very few Westerners to this day.
really like, but that I love to this day- duck
Tongue. A little piece of delicate meat on top I was generally impressed with the
of the flat tongue cartilage is a great munch! smarts and maturity of my students- the
My training in Coney Island provided me ones I could easily communicate with- as
with a ready “yes” and appreciation of the well as their open minds. I am not sure
weird-looking food. Would you eat this? the government would have approved of
what I was telling them all the time, but-
as it turned out- I was preparing them for
what would be the future of China, which
was pretty much a known unknown at that
time. We knew that changes were coming,
but the nature and extent was something
we knew we didn’t know.

Here’s how smart and pragmatic they
were: The first exam I did was typed onto
a mimeograph sheet (duplicated over an
inked and stenciled roller drum). I didn’t
collect the original from the drum, and was
surprised the next day to find out that ev-
eryone got all the answers right; The next
time I threw away the carbon, but they ex-
tracted the answers from the roller drum;
Finally, I figured out that the only safe
harbor for the test was in my head.

In addition to the classroom time, we
lived in the same dorm, so we had lots of
time to chat at night. The insight I gained
during that time into the heart and soul of
Chinese people was and still is invaluable to
me. Even as an American who grew up in
Brooklyn and later moved to San Francisco,
to me Chinese folks were primarily restau-
rants and laundries; beyond that, I never
had the chance to see. Now I did, living with
my students.

One student in particular and I became
fast friends. His name was Tan Qiliang, a
Shanghainese who was to become, after I

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finished the teaching assignment,
my business partner and a great
friend. Along with his fiancee Miss
Rong (never did know her first
name), he, I later learned because
of his upbringing, reached a level
of sophistication that was rare in
China at that time, and her blood-
line was one of the leading political
families in China in the early years
of the Deng Xiao Ping “to get rich is
glorious” era- one of her relatives
became Mayor of Shanghai and
later rose to some key posts in Bei-
jing.

This friendship led the way to
many experiences and adventures
in the three years after I finished my
teaching, at which time I started a
company with my uncle in Florida, a
retired man who made a small for-
tune in the printing business.

But the China of 1990 is unimag-
inable to those who travel to China
in the present day, and even to
those Chinese who are too young
to remember (some of my present
students at NYU).

What was the China of 1990 like?

To begin with, a country in the
throes of modernization, by gov-
ernment fiat, but without the mon-
ey and investment, as well as out-
side learning, to really break out.
The typical scene in downtown
Wuxi was of myriad bicycles and
almost no cars. Old people wearing
their Maoist uniforms (no chance
to buy anything different even if
they were inclined to), sitting in
the sun discussing who-knows-

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what-old-people-discuss, children going to “Eel mountain”- Eel (yes, eel, delicious)
school with their cute uniforms, and excit- fillets arranged and pasted together with a
ed because learning English was becoming sweet glaze until they form the shape of a
a requisite. volcano;

(At the time, I was, for many of the resi- Silverfish- Tiny white fish that look at
dents of Wuxi, which is only a few hundred you with both eyes and are lovely in soup;
km from Shanghai, the first foreigner they
had ever seen). When I waited at the train Drunken Shrimp- live shrimp that are im-
station, for example, I drew crowds of 50- mersed in baijiu and get so drunk they are
100 people who all wanted to get a close jumping for joy, right out of the bowl. Eat
look at a foreign face. And they did get close. them with soy sauce dip, still live as they
Like what we NYers would call in your face. continue to wriggle in your mouth.

But the youth of China knew something
important was happening, and they were
thrilled to be part of it. The framework for
business was in their DNA, and they were
passionate about the opportunities that
their parents had never been given; through
infrastructure and policy change, a new
China was created.

Wuxi itself was small shops, small roads,
and happy people, which was later erased
in an instant of road or rail building. Some-
time later, I returned to the same locations
I had gone to as a teacher, only to discover
that they were now a Highway.

Lest I forget- the food- marvelous. Be-
yond Peking Duck, the local specialties were;

Wuxi Paigu- Succulent and sweet pork
ribs- not your Cantonese style, much richer;

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

There are lots more, and it is mouthwa- And the nearby People’s Square Park,
tering to remember every single one of them. which was formerly a racecourse:

Let’s talk about infrastructure for a And, the controlled impoverishment of
minute. Wuxi is about 135 kilometers (about Maoist governments in the past had taken
84 miles) from Shanghai. IF I took the train Shanghai, from one of the world’s great
from Wuxi train station to Shanghai, it took cities (which it, to the credit of its citizens
3 hours. If I had a car, it might not be much and the government, it is again today) to a
better (today the high-speed rail can reach suburban village with little or no difference
Wuxi from Shanghai Hongqiao Station in less from other outlying cities.
than 45 minutes). My only choice of trans-
portation was hard seat or soft seat, which Why did I want to travel to Shanghai?
were just like what they sounded like. For one, to escape from the confined
environment at the Institute; second, in a
Shanghai itself was, as it has always been, desperate attempt to find some small sem-
the most sophisticated city in China; but not blance of the sophistication and choice I
even a close resemblance to what one sees was used to; but, most important, because
today. What remained from China’s Golden if I wanted to drink water other than the
Time before WWII was the Bund; other than nasty boiled water I was provided, which
that, Shanghai was a village of small and un- must be drunk hot (something it took me
remarkable structures. many years to get used to), as opposed to
cold, as in the West, and to drink any other
Here’s a picture of Nanjing Road in 1990, kind of booze than the local baijiu, I had to
which is now the Fifth Avenue of Shanghai visit the Shanghai Friendship Store, which
(notice the absence of cars) was the only place (that and Beijing) which
was allowed to sell imported goods to for-
Nanjing Road today, much of which is a eigners- only foreigners.
pedestrian mall with hundreds of shops: In my restaurant meals with factories, I
was cruelly pushed to drink entire bottles of
the nasty baiju (they thought they could get
me drunk, but it was fruitless, considering

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my extra weight and Russian/East Euro- Nanjing Road, the Shanghai no. 1 depart-
pean heritage)So one time I decided to pull ment store, my first experience with Pandas,
a small prank (revenge?) on the locals by and his parent’s home which including my
offering them free Stoly at dinner. Because first experience with Gong Fu Tea.
it tasted like water compared to Baijiu, all
of them proceeded to become dead drunk Nanjing Road is of particular interest
in a few minutes. I have to say that I thor- to me. Years later, I lived on Nanjing Road,
oughly enjoyed their discomfort, and that and it is a marketplace for the world’s best
this wasn’t the last prank of my career:-) watch brands, designers and top-end retail
with high office buildings and multi-story
So this procurement ended up as a malls. Then, it was a country bumpkin place
weekly pilgrimage of more than six hours to gather and buy something like frozen
total duration to visit Shanghai for “supplies.” chicken feet from the US (not that there’s
This became more urgent and desperate as anything wrong with that) and go home to
my comfortable American lifestyle was fur- your walkup apartment.
ther upturned. For example, I understood
that I could not take a coffee maker with me; Mr. Tan’s family lived on Nanjing Road
so how to drink coffee? My solution, which I in a walkup apartment whose stairs were
thought was brilliantly insightful at the time, barely long enough for me to climb. But,
was to bring Italian coffee, and a coffee once there, the warmth of his parents made
pot which could be turned upside down to the place seem luxurious. His father worked
produce drip coffee from hot water. Great for China Customs and, when retired, spent
idea, right? No. First, the only water avail- his days in People’s Park at the English
able was boiled water, which tasted nasty; Corner to help the youth that would be the
second, what I brought was not enough for future of China to learn to speak English by
six months. Stupid, right? Yes. practicing it with each other.

And so developed my life in Wuxi- week- There was a “new” phenomenon in
days teaching enthusiastic and genuine stu- Shanghai in those days- it was called the
dents (which I loved from day 1), and week- Free Market. This meant that people could
ends trying to salvage some semblance of sell their own product- not the product con-
my lifestyle with Stolichnaya vodka and ferred on them by the government or re-
French (Evian) water. 6 hours to find booze quired to sell TO the government. What we
and water. Worth it? Abso-frickin-lutely. in the US call a Farmer’s Market-local sellers
presenting their own product- a perversion
Of course, I could not just turn around once
I got there. So I booked a one-night stay in the
Huating Sheraton Hotel (which is still there
today and in Xujiahui, a very populated and
crowded area of Shanghai, near IKEA (who?
at that time), so I could have the opportunity
to see one of the world’s most famous cities.

So what did I discover? With Mr. Tan’s (I
always called him this) help, I was able to
travel around Shanghai and see what I had
no idea existed- The Bund, People’s Square,

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

of the Communist Doctrine? Selling your else for dinner? We decided it was time for
OWN product and collecting your OWN urgent measures. Mr. Tan had a needle nose
profits? plier, so we hatched the strategy that one
of us would grab the turtle’s nose and the
This was a harbinger of things to come; other would guillotine him (or her OMG did
from the doctrine of growing communal we kill a mother?).
product and sharing it, even with those who
did or contributed nothing, to realizing the This worked, as terrible as it was. The
fruits of your own labor. turtle tasted great.

It was (no surprise) celebrated by the The Shanghai No. 1 Department Store
people who had access to it. Beautiful veg- (not sure there was ever a No. 2) was a mob
etables, live chickens, fresh killed meat, and scene of people loving the opportunity to
a variety of creatures still alive and dangling shop in something bigger than them.
for their lives- like snakes, eels and turtles.
The Bund was an aging relic of days gone
Wow, what an opportunity, we thought. by where Shanghai was a sophisticated and
Take a live turtle home to Mr. Tan’s apart- global, exotic destination. Beautiful build-
ment and make a fresh turtle soup. So, we ings with European architecture, directly in
bought one of these dudes, which to this front of the Huangpu River, mouth of the
day I still feel sorry for. Yangtze to the Pacific.

Before you can cook one of these, you Today it is a gleaming example of the
have to kill it and extract the entrails from Sophistication of Shanghai, renovated and
the belly. Is killing a turtle easy? We all un- glittering at night, and fronted by a walkway
derstood that the method of execution was along the Huangpu River, which is walked by
beheading. Wait- where is the head? Oh. In- millions yearly.
side the shell. Can’t cut it off that way.
And, across from Puxi and the Bund was
Then, after some time, the the turtle was Pudong- farmland. Today it is an integral
sitting in the middle of Mr. Tan’s floor, head part of the vast skyline of Shanghai, and the
and appendages drawn inside. Dinner time area is home to millions of people, offices,
is coming, and this turtle needs to cook for malls and homes.
a while. What can we do? If you are squea-
mish, don’t read the next paragraph. So, here I come, back from Shanghai
with bottles of Stoly and Evian in tow, as
Should we have left the turtle to wander many as I can carry. A small consolation to
around the apartment and eaten something make me think less about what I left and
what I am deprived of now.

Back to the Institute- teaching in the
a.m., factory visiting in the afternoon, home
with my students in the evening.

Eventually, I taught my students about
Poli Sci and Macroeconomics despite the
deliberate misstatements in their text. But,
more than that, I hope I taught them to
think for themselves.

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At the end of the course,
we revisited the term “entre-
preneur” and I am sure I saw
the light in their eyes. And I
asked them, based on Marx’
prediction that Communism
would be measured by a dic-
tatorship of the proletariat,
which country was more
Communist- China, Taiwan, or
Korea? No answer was neces-
sary. What I hoped for, more
than an answer, was a realistic
look at where China was and
where it was going- which was
good, as long as you didn’t
label it.

I left Wuxi at the end of
my tenure, traveled to Zhuhai,
and walked across to Macau.
Freedom? Yes, but I was at
that time, as I am now, pain-
fully aware that I had seen a
moment in time and history
which would never reoccur.

So, to capture this precious
moment is why, after 30 years,
I am writing this story.

While this was not the be-
ginning of Travels with Mikey,
it is without doubt an experi-
ence that shaped my personal
and business life from then
until now. While my view of
life, culture, people and food
until this point was enthusi-
astic and open-minded, you
never understand your own
lifestyle until it is taken away. Living in a dorm, in a third-world country, not a five star hotel,
was in retrospect a privilege of understanding.

That is why I tell this story first.

© Michael Serwetz 2020- Copy/Share with permission only.

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About the Author

Michael Serwetz about his writing: I never thought I would write a book. As many books as I
have read, I always wondered how many words were squandered for the sake of length. My
writing style always was concise: If you can say it in 3 words, don’t use 6. The majority of my
life was consumed with either making money or looking for a way to make it. I never dreamed
I would put in the time or thought to put anything of significance on paper. During the entire
50 years of global travel, I never wrote anything down. Nor did I take many pictures. So how
was anything going to happen? This is not to say I remember everything that I saw and did
over the years. But, once I sat down to put it on (paper), I was surprised to see that a whole
lot of it was still there. So why did I write this book and what is it about? It is a kaleidoscope
of impressions that stemmed directly from my upbringing in Brooklyn. Multicultural was not
only ok with me, it was fascinating. And, growing up with a grandmother who was focused
on and very good at her style of cooking, whose fresh food was a priority of every day, and
who only wanted to make others happy with her umami dishes, I became rapt with the idea
of food as the cornerstone of culture- Italian, Jewish, Puerto Rican, etc. So once I was allowed
to travel, in addition to focusing on my mission, I found a whole new world of people, and
their food, was inextricably connected. My impressions and lessons are certainly business-
worthy, but my connections with people are the real key to relationships and understanding
of culture. Without understanding of culture, international business ventures are doomed
to fail. In this book I hope to give a real-life picture as seen by an impressionable human
being; the complete brain shot of international environments through people, business and
food. Finally, I hope to share the lessons of half a century of global travel which might help us
Americans to be better people and a better country- less all the political bullshit that seems
to always go along with that, which gets and has gotten us nowhere fast. This is all sprinkled
liberally, and somewhat randomly, through the book. I prefer you think of this book not as a
rant but as a memoir; we are sitting in comfortable chairs at The Bar at the Peninsula Hong
Kong and I am telling you a story (which may be a little long as it spans several decades, but
worth listening to, I hope). Most of all, I hope I have not wasted words.

182

KNEADING OUR
WAY HOME

by Kris Haines-Sharp

Ring the bells that still can ring I rub the loaf’s warm, rounded top with a
cold pat of butter, a ritual not unlike prayer.
Forget your perfect offering I’m not religious but oil is biblical, and the
melted butter anoints the surface so it
There is a crack, a crack in everything shines when cool. Sometimes, I take a knife
point and slash a grain of wheat into the
That’s how the light gets in. outermost surface of the dough just before
I set it in the oven. I haven’t this time, but
—Leonard Cohen the loaf is still beautiful and the steam and
earthy fragrance make me smile, success
I bring the side of the pan down hard on the overriding the scent of failure that some-
butcher block, shaking the loaf to its core. times lays thick in the air of my home.
Force is needed or it may never leave the
pan. Wait. A disclaimer. This is not a roman- Over the years, I loosely followed The
tic story about baking bread. Nor is it a cozy Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book recipe for
tale of my family, hunkered down together Whole Wheat Buttermilk Bread. Some of
during COVID. No, the year of quarantine, my deviations were productive and inter-
lock-downs, job loss, and isolation widened esting—additions of eggs and oats and
the cracks in the unreliable foundation of flax made for delicious experiments. I had
my home. I turned to dough—sticky, pli- plenty of setbacks and disappointments—a
able, and a tiny bit forgiving—searching for glass bowl holding proofing dough fell and
what, I didn’t yet know. shattered, salt forgotten, a too-hot oven
dried the bread to toast.
One mittened hand catches the loaf as
it slides out. Flipping it over, I lay it down I’ve learned to trust this recipe and
gently on the cooling rack. My thumb and always come back to this bread, condi-
index finger grasp it right next to the heel, tioned with buttermilk and frozen chips of
pressing. I run the risk of leaving a bruise butter kneaded in at the end. My mother
so I try for gentle. The slight bounce gives taught me to add vinegar to milk to make a
me license to roll it into my left hand and
I thump it, raising it to my ear, listening for
the tell-tale echo. Done.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

homemade version of buttermilk. The tang in response to my at-the-ready questions
moistens the bread and reminds me of my about their evening.
childhood home and now this one, the one
I’ve made for my children. Each one of us dreaded sitting down to
eat together. Every shared meal led to ten-
Eleven years ago, Gill and I decided to sion and guardedness. We thought about
buy a home together and move our respec- giving up. All of us, traumatized by the re-
tive two kids in with us. We assumed the minders that we were not the family we had
“blending” would just happen— get ingredi- hoped to be.
ents in close proximity and a family would
rise out of the fact that we loved each other. Late spring 2020, I am at home with three
kids—all three doing remote schooling in
Nothing of the sort happened. some form, two of the older kids unexpect-
edly with us. I hear on NPR that fifty percent
We were clueless and the mistakes of young adults in the US are back at home
were plentiful. There were competing loy- during COVID. I am convinced we will never
alties, differences in parenting styles, kids have the house to ourselves again. Far less
who acted out the stuff of adolescence and flexible and adaptable than my wife—a
kids who withdrew. Dinners became times personality trait— the more tension I feel
of torment, the tension seeping into every in our full house at this point in my life, the
glance across the table, every “Can you pass pricklier I act.
me the water?” The kids began to dread
when we’d call them—”I’m not hungry” or With the pandemic and the loss of my
“I’m not feeling well” the expected response. job, the days became excruciating negotia-
tions with my mind. Almost overnight I had
The two of us at the table, empty chairs time to cook, take long walks, and watch
scattered between us. “Schitt’s Creek” with my daughter. A TV ep-
isode now and then and two long walks a
Here’s a metaphor. We wanted our two day were manageable. Cooking? Still not.
families to become one but didn’t own a Not with three of our four at home, the past
vehicle large enough for all of us. So, by haunting me.
necessity, we split up each time we went
somewhere by car, dividing along biological I turned over meal prep to Gill and my
lines. The division became painfully evident stepson, the only kid who wanted to share
over holidays when one car drove one way in the cooking. Miraculous anyone wanted
and the other went in the opposite direc- to spend more time in the kitchen, especially
tion. You can imagine the rest. him. His love of meat in a semi-vegetarian
household had spurred a number of heated
The early weeks of adjustment grew discussions between Gill and me—he either
into months, then years. My children ate at didn’t hear us or chose not to. He had the de-
their dad’s home more and more often. I’d sire to find new recipes and follow them with
hear their voices, happy banter accompa- care. I began to notice that we gathered for
nying their walk down the last block back his meals. The youngest, who had moved out
towards our house, and I’d position myself to live with friends, came home to eat the
in the silent kitchen, cleaning up, wanting to nights his stepbrother cooked. I, too, began
greet them with an approximation of con- to eat his food, vegetarianism set aside. His
tentment and normalcy. They disappeared meals, heavy on the reds, were delicious.
quickly to their rooms. “Yeah, it was great—”

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The salty, garlicy broths a salve mending our side. It takes me back to my first job after
disconnection and disappointment. college graduation, arriving at the old-fash-
ioned bakery in the still dark, early morning
It’s a dreary, liquid sunshine day. It’s nine hours. My days began with the hefting of
a.m. and I’m already edgy about the open fifty-pound bags of Montana wheat into the
floor plan of the next fourteen hours. I open mill for that day’s honey whole wheat bread
the fridge door in the way that teenage boys and lemon poppyseed muffins.
do and stare at the contents. Without giving
it much thought, I reach for the yeast that’s I have an idea and google Farmer Ground
lived in the fridge door for the last few years. Flour. Before much time has passed, I am
talking with Greg Russo, one of the millers.
It comes easily. Even after all these years I picture him in his mid-thirties—there’s
of not wanting to cook and bake bread, I’ve a photo on his website—an amalgam of
got the buttermilk bread recipe memorized, youth and optimism and dogged determi-
my own adjustments still easily made. Push, nation. His bio on the website had caught
flip, roll—the dough is moist but not too my eye. The mill was a labor of love, the
tacky. I can feel it coming alive as the min- process mattered. “Greg spent that first
utes pass. There. Into the greased bowl and year transporting grain in his undersized
onto the counter in a bit of sunshine. truck, carrying sacks of grain up ladders,
filling hoppers by hand and sleeping on pal-
My stepson does a lap through the kitchen. lets.”
I can tell he’s curious and I offer that I’ve de-
cided to make some bread. While I’m mixing Farmers Ground Flour is a “micro-mill.”
and kneading, we repeat a new pattern—a What the largest corporations mill in a week
lap, a sentence: “Hey, how’s your day?” or takes Farmer Ground Flour a year. They mill
“Shouldn’t be long till it’s in the oven,” that sort six different grains—hard wheat, soft wheat,
of thing. He doesn’t ask me anything about spelt, corn, rye, and einkorn. They source
what I’m doing but he’s walking through the most of their grain at Oechsner Farms, a
kitchen more often than usual. certified organic grain farm in Newfield,
New York just a few miles south of Ithaca,
I am nervous around him. We don’t talk where I live. Wheat is dried to a specific
much. He’s a foot taller and I feel dwarfed moisture, cleaned and stored, and is avail-
by his height and his characteristic silence able year-round for milling. Roughly every
around me. I decide to vacate the kitchen two weeks, a truckload is delivered to the
for my study and busy myself with writing, mill—Farmer Ground Flour has capacity for
on bread no less. a month of grain storage. The millers get to
know the farmers and together, they know
After forty-five minutes, I pull the bread our region and the qualities of the grains
out of the oven and whack the pans, re- that are grown and harvested.
leasing the loaves. The kitchen is warm and
smells of a home that is comforting and safe. Milling at Farmer Ground Flour is both
“Smells good,” he says this time through. technical and harkens back to a time be-
fore mass production and consumption.
“Give them a few minutes to cool, but Pink granite millstones grind wheat into
have at it,” I say, pleased beyond measure. the finest of flour. Three 12-inch thick mill-
stones, each a step in the process, require
A twenty-five pound bag of freshly
milled whole wheat bread flour sits in my
pantry, Farmer Ground Flour printed on its

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precision—both in use and in upkeep. Mill- and holds the bread together. Yeast expels
stones used to be sharpened with a pick— carbon dioxide as it feeds off the honey I
Farmer Ground Flour uses an air-powered add and gluten keeps the gas from being
chisel—to ensure that two stones, up to lost, trapping bubbles as the dough gets
four feet in diameter, work together while stretchy. Kneading and proofing require
separated by only 1/1000 of an inch. If the attention and care so that the bread rises
sharpening is accomplished with care and and has the texture that one expects from
expertise, a piece of parchment paper can a well-baked loaf of bread. Over-kneading
fit between the heavy stones, but only just. kills gluten and there’s no fix for this mis-
take. But gluten isn’t the only way to get
The parallels between the micro-milling bread to hold together and while some-
of grain at Farmer Ground Flour and the times crumbly, sometimes dense, those
family Gill and I created by our marriage do loaves can be just as good.
not escape me: starting without the right
tools, the importance of connection, rec- Like the slash of a knife’s tip, the cracks
ognizing that small things matter, keeping in our family revealed unexpected bonds of
at it. The years of disappointment, angry connection—tenacity. Dough, like families,
outbursts, and regrets weighed heavily in can be forgiving but gluten or not, the pro-
my home but we stayed and allowed the cess requires patience.
years to refine us. I laid down the burden
of regret, a millstone hanging from my neck. A loaf is on the counter and the kids are
in their rooms.
The bread I make relies on gluten—
binding and elastic, it takes shape over time I know it won’t last long.

About the Author

Kris Haines-Sharp is an educator and writer living in
the Finger Lakes Region of New York. She is a 2020-21
Craigardan writer-in-residence where she was selected to
study with Kate Moses in the Bookgardan writing program.
She has been published in Entropy Magazine. She is writing
a memoir.

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POETRY



AWE

by Bernadette Dickenson

AWE

Gilded words spill from her lips
caressing me beckoning me to
immerse myself in her pain
I have no choice already I am swimming
upstream with her sinking beneath the
weight of her despair without a breath
Slowly I am lifted to the surface
I am in her hands.

About the Author
Bernadette lives in the Town of Torquay in Australia. Now
that her family no longer need her for babysitting etc.,
she is finding more time for her passion of Poetry. She is
in a poetry group in the community and is enjoying the
company of other poets.

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CREATE A PLAYLIST
FOR THE PERSON
YOU USED TO BE

by Jess Burnquist

Create a Playlist for the Person You Used to Be Something Entirely Untenable in Light

It’s important to do this alone The moment when dense fog piles onto itself
on a partially cloudy day when becoming thick with distortions
nostalgia seeps its light and wishes, this moment
though blinds in thin lends a temporary clarity about
slices of bright demands. our connectedness.

Don’t overthink--add I close my eyes and travel the space of my body
songs with longing, songs discovering you—precariously lodged inside
like time travel to desert a decorative, meaningless pocket
days before he burned
and buried his shredded an obstruction of space between
art in opaque glass jars. heart and mind. By the time
sunlight does its work, making
You might be the art white vapors evaporate,
or the glass. Most likely we are unraveled.
you are the faded
flame.

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The Meaning Beneath the Meaning is Work The Song Save Me Plays While I Search

A former friend says the people Autocorrect demands that I change the phrase
in our lives come and go as we need. ‘Imagine you to be’ to imagine youtube.
What would that show be about?
You are the receding tide
pulling permanence with you (Not humility)
as if you had a choice.
The arc of story might rise to meet
What’s in a word is a predator--the main character
intention, intention, intention driven to test his prowess on any
and sometimes (you’ll agree) woman within range.
invention.
Too harsh?
No journaling, no candles,
no hot baths with sugar salts Okay--the arc would be about
no rituals to forget. the middle of things like a marriage,
a life, a load of laundry, a recipe.
You may not remember
our absurdities lined up I flip on an electric mixer and remember
on an imaginary shelf. my mother’s wooden spoons--the moment
of sweet after the batter was smoothed.
All of the souvenirs
we collected, I carry inside Scratch everything! The apex arrives
taking out to behold at the moment my tongue laps
when the right song plays-- that sugared, splintered spoon.
as if the careful study of object
is the work of the living
and the labor of unearthing lyric
inconsequential.

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Delete the Playlist for the Person You Are
because it only serves as a
sliver of representation
and the lyrics were imagined as yours
when in fact they had nothing to do
except bear unaware witness
while you danced alone for hours
before awakening in a new room
to grab your own hand. Pull yourself
close—take the lead.

About the Author

Jess Burnquist is the author of the chapbook You May Feel Your Way Past Me (Dancing
Girl Press). Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Clackamas Review, Ms. Magazine/
Ms.Muse, Rise Up Review, Poetica Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review and more. She currently
directs education and youth empowerment at a human rights anchored nonprofit in
Southern California.

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THE HUMAN
PERSONIFIED

by Michael L. Correia

The Human Personified

I stand meditating in a Greek classical way.
At the knot Yet I know I’m experiencing an optical illusion-

On my Kentucky cherry wood antique table It’s just the simultaneous configuration
Circa Andy Jackson Of the sunlight, the oak’s shape
& the angle from which I view
It looked like the image of an elderly the woman’s face
American statesman of that day Outside from inside my house.

He sports darkened sideburn whiskers There are days I see human faces personified
& stern, coal black penetrating eyes Several times

Etched in a cherry wood profile. & days I see none.
Intensity of vision & chemical brain activities.
I sit in my car, driving from the big Walmart
Listening to classical music; These & those contoured profiles
We just viewed in reading or in person
it’s an unknown Romanticism piece trigger these personifications in Nature
which , after the oldie goldie pop rock sounds
& in humankind’s appearance
of the store No aliens?
it, in contrast, sounds stultified and stiff.
Because who knows what an alien or
I stand in my living room looking out at the Ghost for that matter resembles?
Tall live oaks, Georgia pines
And see a woman’s face

peering out from an oak’s trunk-
she’s young and attractive

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Adelaide Literary Magazine
True Freedom From Covid Comes…

A. of true freedom.
It tests us unlike America’s past wars tested us.
I would be happy to see its death mask:
Cease & desist, buried this powerful army’s members total
The number of stars in our prolific galaxy.
Having lost my brother at 71
Who couldn’t resist its fate All of humanity
Couldn’t resist that wretched pandemic of 2021 Faces the horror
couldn’t deny its death date. It faced once upon another time.
FREEDOM COMES at the start, middle the disease & death-bearing plagues
and finish line of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic race. & pandemics of old.
We buy groceries for ourselves, family, friends For they excised our freedom-
but, if not resilient enough, lucky enough- Humanity’s scientific vision then
A lot of Blacks, people of color was too nebulous, even blind then
to medieval & renaissance European scientists
impoverished whites- & in Post WWI Europe & the U.S.
you can’t always buy them (The Spanish Flu).
so than you & yr. family might starve.
FREEDOM: we must purchase it, & eat it too freedom may today may be tested
Each microcosmic minute, day by this one absurdity:

each macrocosmic year. that a contagious microscopic beast
invades our bodies
We encounter Freedom like
any interstate highway; slinking, even mutating from body to body
decimating populations
full of unpredictable, circumstantial detours throughout the Americas
interstate off ramps throughout the globe.

dangerous railroad crossings. B.
Freedom’s encountered Entrenched suffering now follows us

When we, each board a passenger 747 as if the fate of Sisyphus, it’s
We 2021 Covid pandemic our mocking shadow
Mask-wearing humans;
for we battle w./ a virus following each & every move,
every time we enter a store we creatures of habit
church, temple, mosque
doctor or dentist’s office may succumb to-our each, very breaths
workplace, hospital emanating
school
restaurant, lounge. straining like a faulty a/c unit
A living organism within our saccular, thoracic lungs

it ever mutates in our sacred human bodies some humans/citizens
It’s presents us with one of the ultimate tests immunocompromised.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

Here in the U.S. A Thought, A Relief, A Prayer
To retain each, our incandescent hearts beating
We can predict what will happen
to the motifs & rhythms but what will happen will happen anyway.
of freedom-filled homes The resulting event only can we be thankful for
we won’t vote autocrats to congress
nor a president who chomps & grinds us with a prayer, religious service
with corrupted, teeth & fetid mouth or thanksgiving ritual banquet
with which he lies to us
concerning the Covid virus Or the like praying
his attitude disingenuous, obstreperous that for what we prayed for
toward implementing a cure- that that turned out right and just
to all wise, discerning, concerned.
the harmonious goal
of true freedom.

About the Author

Michael Correia was born in Sydney, Australia, just after
WWII to an Australian mum & a Portuguese American dad,
Manual Correia, from New Bedford, MA. He taught English
Composition & Reading for over 30 years in Tampa Bay &
now, in Gainesville, have taught Creative Writing for the
past 8 years. He published two books of poetry, Some of
America Traversed, w./ Xlibris, 2009, Philadelphia, PA &
Little City New Century, Cawing Crow Press, Dunlo, PA.

195

I PRETEND NOT TO
LOVE YOU

by Viviana Viviani

Translated by Giuliana Barile, Angela Benitez, Caterina Casadei, Hugo De La Piedra, Alexandrina Dec,
Rosie Kenna, Ryann Kretz, Richard Leon, Heidi Moura, Sasha Passadore, Mickela Pitter, Nicole Siedlarek,
Dante Silvestri, Seth Stein, and Emanuele Pettener

I am happy to present to Adelaide a poem by Viviana Viviani, “Fingo di non amarti” in its original version
(from the collection “Se mi ami sopravvalutami”, Controluna, 2019), translated into English by a collective
work of 14 students and into Spanish by some of them (Spanish native speakers). These students made
their work during my Fall 2020 Intermediate/Advanced class at Florida Atlantic University and they had
the opportunity to discuss their translations with Viviana Viviani. I have of course their written permission,
beside that of the author and of the Italian publisher, to submit and have their works published. This
actually would be wonderful for each one involved in this project. Thank you. Emanuele Pettener].

Fingo di non amarti by Viviana Viviani dico: “stiamo insieme
Fingo di non amarti finché stiamo bene,
rispondo tardi viviamo il presente
ti faccio aspettare senza promesse”,
mi sento scaltra sotto queste sciocchezze
se sbaglio apposta da donna cresciuta
il nome dell’altra tengo nascosta
mostro indifferenza la bambina impazzita.
distrazione e assenza

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I pretend not to love you by Giuliana Barile, Angela Benitez, Caterina Casadei, Hugo De La Piedra,
Alexandrina Dec, Rosie Kenna, Ryann Kretz, Richard Leon, Heidi Moura, Sasha Passadore, Mickela
Pitter, Nicole Siedlarek, Dante Silvestri, Seth Stein.

I pretend not to love you
I reply late
I make you wait
I feel clever
if I purposely mistake
the name of the other woman
I show indifference
distraction and absence
I say: “We’ll stay together
as long as we’re fine,
let’s live in the present
with no promises,”
beneath this foolishness
as a mature woman
I hide
the crazy little girl.

Finjo de no amarte by Giuliana Barile, Angela Benitez, Hugo De La Piedra, Rosie Kenna, Nicole Siedlarek,
Dante Silvestri.

Finjo de no amarte
Contesto tarde
Te hago esperar
Me siento astuta
Si me equivoco a propósito
El nombre de la otra
Muestro indiferencia
Distracción y ausencia
Digo: “nos quedamos juntos
con tal de que estemos bien”
vivamos en el presente
sin promesas,
bajo estas tonterías
la mujer madura
tengo escondida
la niña alocada.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

About the Author

Viviana Viviani was born in Ferrara, Italy. She is the author of the novel “Il canto dell’anatroccolo”
(Corbo, 2013) and “Se mi ami sopravvalutami” (Controluna, 2019).Translators: Giuliana Barile,
Angela Benitez, Caterina Casadei, Hugo De La Piedra, Alexandrina Dec, Rosie Kenna, Ryann
Kretz, Richard Leon, Heidi Moura, Sasha Passadore, Mickela Pitter, Nicole Siedlarek, Dante
Silvestri, Seth Stein. Editor: Emanuele Pettener is Assistant Professor and Writer in Residence
at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida). He published “Oscar Wilde in Boca” in
Adelaide, n.23, April, 2019.

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