Cleaving (40 page)

Add the greens and cook, stirring, until soft, perhaps 10 minutes. Turn the mixture out into a bowl and set aside. Rinse the
saucepan. Add 6 cups of water and return to the burner.

When the water is just at the boiling point, slowly stir in about a cup and a half of the maize flour. Let boil, stirring
often to avoid sticking, until quite thick, about 7 minutes. Add the remaining flour and cook another 7 minutes. By this time,
the
ugali
will be almost a dough, more solid than liquid. As you stir, it will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and form
a ball. Turn this out onto a plate. Toss it over lightly a couple of times with a sort of flipping motion of the plate, forming
a loaf.

This will serve four people. Cut thick slices of
ugali
and place them on plates, and spoon some greens to one side. You and your guests can eat with your fingers, pinching off
a gob of the
ugali,
rolling it into a ball, and pressing an indentation into one side. Pinch some of the greens up into the depression and eat.
Feed yourselves like this, bite by bite.

Master?

Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made,

driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed.

And if you give me weed, whites, and wine, and

you show me a sign, I'll be willin', to be movin'.

--L
ITTLE
F
EAT
, "Willin' "

Change has a way of just walking up and punching
me in the face.

--V
ERONICA
M
ARS

T
HE FIRST FULL
day I'm back in New York is a crisp November one. I'd come back through rain clouds and met Eric with a long hug and short
kiss in a gray drizzle in front of a JFK terminal while traffic cops dully shouted for us to pack up and move on. But in the
night, all that blows away, and the sun the next morning makes the Chrysler Building across the river glitter like mica as
I walk Robert for the first time in ages.

"How did it go?" Eric inquires when we get back to the apartment. He's using the excuse of my return to very much not get
to work on time, mulling over the crossword and eating some eggs. I'd not known how things would be with us when I returned,
and neither had he, I could tell the moment I first saw his face. But the next moment after that was easy, and we've slipped
right back into life with astonishing, almost disturbing swiftness. There is something different going on under the surface,
furniture moving around, air seeping in, perhaps. But we still fit together like puzzle pieces, with a snap.

"Rather marvelously, actually."

"Marvelous, eh?"

"Yes. I think I may be having a New York renaissance."

"Gonna read a lot of Joseph Mitchell and ride the subway all day?"

"Might do, might do."

After Eric has shaved, gotten into some clothes, and gone off to work, I shower. My Lord, Tanzania took that Ukraine weight
right off and then some. I weigh ten pounds less than I did when I left! I dress in the skirt I got in Ukraine and a little
black sweater, black tights, and my tall black boots with their secret red lining. (One must wear all black when having a
New York renaissance; it's a rule.) I wrap a cunning green scarf around my neck (except for scarves--scarves are the exception
to the black rule, scarves and hats). I put on some lipstick, a scarlet shade darker than I usually go with; as I watch myself
putting it on in the bathroom mirror, I fancy that the bracelet Kesuma gave me--white hair still bright on the band, but beginning
to wear off in places--looks rather mysterious and jaunty. I head out for the 7 train.

I don't get a block away from the apartment before the first man stops me.

"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

He is a bit older than I, well dressed, tweedy in that good, Giles-y sort of way. I find myself giving him a wide smile. "Thank
you!" I walk on.

It keeps happening, all day. On the subway, in bookstores, in restaurants, on the street. I get whistles, open stares, extravagant
compliments. From men young and old, wealthy and destitute, of every color.
Man, what a figure.... You have a beautiful face....
I get hit on by a couple of guys at the bar at Republic, which I come by so I can say hello to Marcel, my favorite bartender.
The guy collecting money for the homeless in a watercooler jug doesn't even give me the "
One
penny!
One
penny!" spiel. He just says, "You have amazing legs." A sultry dark-haired young man working at one of the greenmarket booths
shoots me a bedroom smile from across a bin of apples. I've never gotten attention like this in my life. I could get used
to it.

But the best part, the part that makes me feel like something strange is happening, is how I respond. I do not blush and sweat
and turn away, and neither do I feel a pang of craving for more, more. To each man I nod with a small smile as I pass by without
stopping, as if graciously receiving my due.
I am beautiful, yes, it's true, thank you for your kindness
. It feels utterly foreign, but as natural as sunshine.

That night, once I'm home and the spell has faded, I'm still all a-burble with the aftereffects, becoming giddy, as I'd not
been when it was happening. "I swear to God, there was something otherworldly going on."

"Oh, come on. You're gorgeous."

"I'm really not. I'm telling you, it was weird. I wonder what it was?"

"Maybe that you're gorgeous?" Eric is making a stew, peering down into a big pot, at the bottom of which chunks of beef I
bought at the greenmarket this afternoon sizzle merrily in bacon fat. It is a meal for a November night, a meal for home,
and I'm ravenous.

"No, that's not it. I lost some weight, that could be part of it. But can't account for it all. The lipstick, maybe? No..."

"You're not listening to me.... Ouch!" He jerks his hand back as fat splashes up. "You think these are brown enough?"

"Looks good." I'm sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, rather unable to let it all go. "Oh, well, duh! It's the skirt,
of course."

Eric shrugs. He's fishing the stew meat out in batches as he sears them well on all sides. "It's a cute skirt."

"It's a magical skirt. My Ukrainian Magical Mystical Skirt, bestowing the power of instant irresistible sex appeal."

Now that all the beef is browned, Eric's scraping a hillock of chopped vegetables and herbs from a cutting board into the
pot. There is a lively hiss as he begins to stir. "Great."

"I think so. That smells good."

"We may be eating just a wee bit late."

"Fine by me." My stomach is growling.

Once Eric has gotten his stew composed and in the oven, we retire to the couch with our bottle of wine (well, our second if
you count what was left of the bottle he opened to add to the stew, which we've already finished off) to wait for it to come
back out again.

I'd thought that after a month of relative teetotaling, and after coming home to find this new sense of comfort, this lack
of dread, I'd not drink so much, and we have, after all, limited ourselves to one and a half bottles tonight, half our usual
amount. But I've not counted on my reduced tolerance and the fact that I have had nothing but the two glasses of wine and
the vegetable dumplings Marcel served me during my glamour spell at Republic. The next morning I'll not remember much of the
DVDs we watched. As I recall, we started with an episode of Joss Whedon's sci-fi Western, but now
The Third Man
is in the machine--and I barely remember the stew, though at least we did manage to get it out of the oven without burning
it to a crisp. It goes on to make a bizarre but delicious breakfast for us both. This is Eric's recipe:

E
RIC'S
B
EEF
S
TEW

3 pounds beef chuck stew meat, in 2-inch chunks

1/2 cup flour, in a shallow bowl or baking pan

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus some more

1 onion, sliced into thin half-moons

5 cloves garlic, minced

3 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch rounds

3 stalks celery, finely sliced

11/2 tablespoons fresh thyme

2 cups red wine

11/4 cups beef stock

1 tablespoon tomato paste

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 300degF. Dry the stew meat with paper towels and toss them lightly with the flour until evenly dusted. On
the stovetop, in a heavy soup pot, brown the meat in batches over high heat in the olive oil.

Once the meat has all been browned, remove it to a plate and set aside. Turn the heat down to medium, add another small glug
of oil, and throw in the vegetables and thyme and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 10 minutes.

Return the beef to the pot, then add the wine, beef stock, and tomato paste. Stir in salt and pepper. Don't go light on either,
but especially not the pepper, which ought to be freshly ground, really.

Cover the pot and slide it into the oven. Cook until the meat is meltingly tender, about 3 hours, or when you wake up on the
couch, with the wife you still love like your own flesh snoring beside you, with her feet in your lap and a wineglass threatening
to spill from her fingers. Rub her feet and remove the glass before rousing her enough to slip out from under her to fetch
the stew. Two people can get three meals apiece out of this. Eat some, blearily, right away, then let cool thoroughly on the
stovetop; all night long is fine. It will taste much better in the morning.

T
HANKSGIVING COMES EARLY
this year, just three days after I arrive back home, so we decide on a quiet day, no family, just the two of us and Gwen
at our apartment (her boyfriend is out of town), a turkey and dressing and a couple of vegetables. We've finally, finally
seen about as much of
Buffy
as we can collectively stand. It's time to move on, so our postmeal TV watching consists of four or five episodes of our
brand-new obsession,
Veronica Mars
. We continue to drink and nibble and fall asleep on the couch, eventually. It's pleasant, easy, and just a tad morose.

How we approach Thanksgiving, it turns out, is how Eric and I seem to be approaching all aspects of fitting back into our
life together. We don't have fights in the middle of the night anymore, I don't wake up in the morning to the heat of Eric's
radiating anger. And neither do I feel that same trapped, claustrophobic feeling that used to overwhelm me in the evenings.
This doesn't mean all is well, though. More like all is quiet and waiting to see.

"I think we should go to couples' therapy, Julie. Maybe start up after the holidays."

We've talked about this before, of course. For the first time the suggestion doesn't fill me with stark terror. But I'm still
uncertain. "Okay. I don't know if that can fix things."

"You mean you don't know if you want to fix things."

"No! I love you, I want you in... I just don't know if I want to be--"

"Married."

I flinch a bit, pressing my lips into a thin pale line, and say nothing.

Since we didn't see family for Thanksgiving, we arrange a trip for Christmas with my folks, as last year, only this time we
all come together in Santa Fe. There is, as usual, much eating and jigsaw puzzling. I buy Eric something carefully unromantic,
a Bose dock for his iPod.

He gives me a knife.

Actually, it's a necklace, a delicate silver pendant on a chain, a charm of a knife, and the hilt is studded with tiny diamonds,
the tip actually sharp enough to hurt just a bit when I press it into the flesh below my breastbone.

"Oh my God."

"I know it's not the right kind of knife. I wanted a cleaver or a--"

"It's perfect." I'm tearing up, and my parents and my brother think I'm being a little silly, sentimental over a thoughtful
gift. But Eric and I know it's something else. I don't read aloud the small card he's tucked inside the box.

For my butcher wife. To do with as you will.

I
AWAKE
early on the morning of New Year's Eve, roused by a dream. I'm in a dark corner of a library or bookstore, and a man, someone
faceless and irresistibly strong, is forcing himself upon me, holding me down, roughly fondling me. I try to scream out, there
are people so close who could help, but my voice dies in my mouth. It is the most helpless feeling in the world, and familiar,
and somehow my fault. But still I try to cry out, and try, and desperately try, and.... "Stop!!"

Eric jerks up in bed in terror. "What? What? Are you okay?"

I am, already, in the wake of the nightmare, smiling. "Yeah, actually. Sorry."

"You had a bad dream?"

"Yeah. But it's okay. I could scream."

"No shit."

I feel like I just woke from a dream of fine wine and warm summer evenings.

Eric tumbles back to his pillow. It's nearly dawn, the light outside our apartment window tender and growing. He and I are
having a dinner party, eight people coming for our usual New Year's Cajun feast. There's cleaning and shopping and cooking
to be done, and what with recovering from Christmas and traveling I've not gotten around to much of it.