The smell of my mother’s food always made me fly into the room. That day, it was a mixture of sweet tomatoes, oregano, yeast and rosemary.
The oven was on and it made the room warm and stuffy.
My mamá is blessed with the gift of cooking anything at any place and time. She makes the best breads, lasagnas, pastas, carpaccios and she prepares them at the speed of light – almost like a real chef. I’ve never seen her use a cookbook, yet she somehow always knows exactly what ingredient comes next.
When she moves her hands up and down, side to side, she reminds me of a symphony conductor trying to keep everyone in line. The room had only one table the size of a tray, but she still managed to cook like there was no tomorrow.
Dad once told me mom cooked the most when she was stressed or anxious. He said it was her way of coping with things. As years went by, he started to notice the more stressed she was, the more homemade pizza she cooked. She would stand for almost an hour slamming the dough against the marble counter, pressing and punching it down.
My mom thought it was important for me to know about food, so when she cooked, she tried to teach me everything she knew. As she grated some cheese into a pan she told me in Spanish, “I’m adding some parmigiano-reggiano. It’s called that because it was originally made near Parma and Reggio Emilia in Italy.”
I love it when she does that.
***
June 2005 had been the coldest month since we moved to Brazil from Uruguay.
The last day of that month my parents woke me up at 5 a.m. It was time to move into our new “temporary apartment,” as my dad called it. He told me we were going to stay there for a couple of months, but those two months became 12.
That year, I was forced to live with my parents in a room with a double bed, a couch, one television, one stove and a big red ugly clock. There was a small table next to the bathroom where we sometimes ate and my mom cooked on it. The room looked retro with its green walls and its weird red and yellow paintings hanging on the wall.
The first time I stepped into that strange place, I remember having a lump in my throat that stopped me from bursting into tears. The truth is, I hated that place. It smelled weird, it was way too small and I had no privacy. I knew my dad was going through some financial problems, but I couldn’t believe it was this bad. Our years of glory were over and I had to accept the facts.
But somehow my mom seemed to be having the time of her life or maybe she was just really good at acting like she was.
***
I had to sleep on the couch, but sometimes my father would let me sleep on the bed. In the middle of one of those nights, my dad’s cell phone rang. I could hear him struggling to get up from the couch. When he reached the phone, he said a few words and quickly turned it off.
I could hear him breathing heavily as he walked back. I stared at him, but I don’t think he could see. He sat down on the couch and stayed there for a few minutes, sitting and staring at one of the four walls. I could see him think, but I was too scared to ask what was going on. My eyelids got heavy and I fell asleep.
The next morning he told us that his mother had passed away. My granny, who hated it when anyone called her abuela – the Spanish word for grandmother – was now gone.
She was a brilliant woman, always dressed in orange with short hair and clever words and a shameless spirit. But she had moved on.
We looked at each other and then looked around us and it was hard to believe so much had happened in just a few weeks.
My mother hugged my dad and then nervously started to cook our lunch, even though it was nine in the morning. I couldn’t help but smile.
For the first time in those long weeks, I was happy we were living in that one room. I was glad we were this close to each other.
Mamá cooked with so much passion that day it was fun to watch her, considering there was almost no space to cook. When she was done, she and my dad sat down on the couch and I sat on the floor with my plate on my lap. I will never forget my dad’s sad stare, but when he looked up and at me, he smiled.
That’s when I realized, four walls are more than enough.
