Rita Cattoni
It was an odd choice, to leave the warm sunny days of the central desert for the cold and drizzle of a Melbourne winter. But Cynthia had promised her city-self twelve months before that she would never miss a film festival. From one venue to the next she flitted, catching up with friends in ticket queues, then sitting silently and watchful for hours, only to rush off see another, sometimes, masterpiece. Cynthia is reliving her inner-city existence, although now she is six months pregnant and her visit has become a final farewell to a past-life.
Occasionally, she finds herself alone with an hour or two to waste or ponder before the next film or meeting with a friend. And so it is that one night, Cynthia happens upon a sombre café where she had once dined with a lover, during her brief separation from David.
This night, the café is empty and it is hard to tell if it is too early or business is on a downward tumble. Cynthia barely notices the lack of diners at the long white tables nor the rain that has just begun to slice against the surrounding glass.
He was Egyptian. He had come in and out of her life for years, always as a friend or colleague. They would get close and then he would disappear. This time, Cynthia was free, or so she thought as she had gladly waved David off on the Spirit of Tasmania for an extended separation. Within days Samir had come back into her life.
This time their lives had more points of intersection, there were more chance meetings. Their conversations were endless. They would talk of politics, films and food. He would lament the despondency of the Australian nation, and Cynthia would agree. She would lament the dismal state of the Australian film industry, and he would agree. And then they would move onto food. Cynthia would describe items she had seen at her local Lebanese grocer: ful beans, kishk powder, salep, pomegranate molasses. Samir would explain their uses and their flavours. Then he had offered to cook for her.
Cynthia waits for her winter minestrone, perusing the long list of films, most of which she will never see. Her child moves through the amniotic fluid from one side of her womb to the other and Cynthia places a comforting hand on her abdomen. She feels pity for these city folk grimacing against the rain and moving backwards and forwards. She pities them because of the rain and cold, but also because she sees that none have the comfort of carrying a child beneath their skin, of this new feeling of being never alone.
The bowl of minestrone arrives. Cynthia surveys the choice of ‘winter vegetables’ through the clear broth. They are simple and sparing: spinach, parsnip and potato with a generous sprinkling of flat-leaf parsley. This is not the hearty, tomato stained minestrone variety she was expecting, but a subtle controlled mélange of flavours and textures. Samir’s specialty had been molokhia and Cynthia never could understand his near obsession with the strange slimy leaf.
Cynthia had thought she and Samir had plenty of time. But then she was given a chance to escape to a place of blue skies and new smells. She would have stayed if he’d asked, but he didn’t. He promised to visit, but he didn’t.
Her soup is hot and needs salt. Cynthia tries to catch the eye of a floating waiter, but his attention is focused on a party milling around the long white tables.
After three months as a foreigner in a desert community that felt more like the ends of the earth than the heart of a nation, the inevitable crisis had descended. In that moment of darkness the phone rang. Perhaps if she’d waited it out, or if he’d not rung, her life may be different.
When David arrived a few days later he seemed changed. It was only meant to be a week and he tried to be useful, fixing up her fences damaged by petrol sniffers and packs of dogs, then fixing up the neighbour’s fence, and then all the remaining fences in that poor excuse for a street. He seemed so happy absorbed in these manual tasks. He fitted into that strange place of red dirt, blue skies and camp dogs in a way he never had in the city. Cynthia did what she swore she never would again, she told herself that ‘this time things would be different’.
Within days they had fallen back into routines of cooking, arguing and sleeping together. Within weeks they had tired of each other. David was packing his bags when she told him. He was silent for a moment, then kept packing and left.
Pregnant at thirty-eight, Cynthia knew this was her last chance to have a child and was prepared to do it alone. On the first day she mourned David’s departure and the dream of a ‘perfect family’. The second day she planned her life as a single parent.
David returned two days later, proclaiming a wish to be a father and a better partner. Cynthia was overwhelmed and undecided. She had lived two lives in the last forty-eight hours and was not convinced that every child needed a father.
Undecided though she was, David stayed. He spent large tracts of time being charming, helpful and sober. But then he would fall, hard. Sometimes he was gone for days, and Cynthia had no idea where he was. Then he would return, shame-faced, his anger gone.
Cynthia pushes the vegetables around the clear broth, still desperate for salt and unwilling to eat any more soup until it appears.
She wonders at the likelihood of Samir turning up in this café on this night, saving her from her life. She dials his number, lets it ring once, twice, and then hangs up.
The café is beginning to fill. Apart from the growing group around the white tables, the only other customers are a few strays, alone like Cynthia. A woman by herself, a newborn strapped to her front, catches Cynthia’s attention. The woman is absorbed in her reading, occasionally nuzzling her lips against the soft fuzz on the baby’s head.
The voices from group around the white table begin to dominate the café and Cynthia sees that it is a wedding party. A pretty dark-haired bride sits beside the groom, a dark-haired man with greying temples and a familiar profile. It is barely a moment, a gasp of surprise. But it is enough for that creature called ‘Regret’ to gain a footing. Salty tears of remorse escape slowly then gain momentum landing at intervals in the minestrone. The wide shallow bowl of minestrone fills to the edges.
With the universe seeming on the verge of swallowing her up, Cynthia’s descent is arrested by a sharp kick to the ribs from her unborn.
She wipes her eyes. She breathes and gathers what little composure she has left. Cynthia looks around the room, from one side to the next. She sees that the rain has stopped. She sees the small bowl of black rock salt that has been sitting within arms reach at a table nearby. She sees the wedding couple. She sees that for her own wellbeing, it is not Samir. She adds just a small amount of black salt to her full bowl of minestrone. Now, it is ready to eat.