An Asparagus Sandwich

For Lunch Today

            by Nadia Brunner-Velasquez

 

Having a European mother is different from having an American mother.  The days spent with her can be long and strenuous with ceaseless screaming and backbreaking tension - “Illona!  Where did you put my nail-filer?!  I need it NOW!”  - or  the days are relaxed and full of much understanding, “Come on, Illona.  Lets go to a beautiful café because the weather is just wonderful today!”

I looked over to her, she looked rosy-cheeked as always, “Mama, there aren’t any outdoor cafes here in America.”

“Well, we’ll see.  Lets go to a part of town that we’ve never been to before and see if we come across any nice little cafes!  I’d like to get an espresso somewhere.  Will you go to the corner store and buy me a pack of cigarettes before we go?”

 

When I was twelve I asked her if she had ever carried a fake I.D., and she replied with, “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Tell me honestly, Mama.”

“Well I think you should definitely get one in a few years.”  She was always good at avoiding my questions.  “Who knows, maybe you’ll want to go out dancing in clubs sometimes, but you can’t get into any of those places here in the U.S..”

“Yes, that’s true, Mama, but…”

“You are going to need to be able to do something fun every once in a while, Illona, and when you want to have fun here, you probably have to get an I.D..”  And that was that.  My mother had persuaded me to get a fake I.D. at the age of twelve.  And a “few years” in her terms most likely meant a solid sixteen years of age.

 I remember telling all my friends about what my mother had told me that day, and they responded, “Wow…No way!  Cool,” open-jawed and amazed.

“Yep, my mom’s pretty cool, I guess.  I mean…she’s German.” 

           

About seven years ago, my mom and I were living together in our house in Portland.  I had recently finished getting my Masters in Los Angeles, California, when my mom asked me to come back to live with her while I searched for a steady job.  She had just moved there herself, shortly after I left for my undergraduate years.  Portland, not being my first choice for a living situation, wasn’t so bad after all.  I found a stable position at a local law firm’s office.  I made great friends in the area, a lot of whom were starving artists and waitresses, striving to make money in Portland, of all places. 

“Why do you insist on staying here, though?” I asked my best friend, Isabel, one day.

“Because Portland is my hometown, Illona.  I can’t leave it for some hot-shot city like Los Angeles.  Besides, what do you do that’s so special around here?  You’re twenty-five and you live with your mom.”

“Well, she’s German.”  My best comeback for anything and everything.  She is German, so therefore she is European, and Europeans are hip and trendy fun-lovers.  Or: she is German, and therefore the most difficult person to live with – if I want to gain pity.  

Those times in Portland were a bit lonely in terms of lust and love.  Compared to California, almost everything was a bit more muted and dull.  But my mother and I were together again, after I’d been away for school for so long.  It was just the two of us, living in our beautiful and bright yellow house.  Older than most in our niche of the hood, it was a tall two-story with weathered, dry shingles that occasionally fell from the roof.  She complained for years about how dangerous it could be for the pedestrians if one of those shingles were to fall onto one of their heads, but she never did anything about it.

            “So why don’t you do something about it, Mama?” I asked.

            “Oh, hush!  Why don’t you do anything about it?!”

            It’s not a matter of bitterness.  Being a European mother and being bitter are two distinctly separate things to be.  As I may be generalizing for mothers and Europeans, or stereotyping if you’d prefer, I think I’ve gained enough experience after living with someone like my mother for over twenty years.  I liked to think of her comebacks as poison that would make me stronger if I survived them; if I could endure her criticism - which Germans, by the way, are particularly well known for - I could potentially bear it from anyone.

           

“Illona!  Come here immediately!” she’d scream shrilly.  I’d approach her slowly and with utmost caution, keeping my focus down towards her feet.  “Look at me when I talk to you!”  By “talk” she almost always meant “scream”.  “I forbid you to lie…and I do not allow any liars to live in my house!  Not under my roof!  You are just like your father – lying, lying, lying!  Always stabbing someone in the back!  Don’t you ever lie to me again, do you hear?  Do you comprehend?!  That is by far the worst thing that anyone can ever do!”  But the most I ever did at that age was throw out my nauseating lunches that she’d pack for me every morning.  Two slabs of organic whole-grain bread, which smelled of vomit, a stick of butter smeared onto both sides and two pieces of cooked, limp asparagus in between.  All I ever wanted was a PB&J on classic white bread.

           

After work at the law firm’s office, usually at four o’clock in the afternoon, I’d come home and take a power nap for twenty minutes or so.  She’d yell my name from downstairs, while making a racket with all the plates and silverware in preparation for dinner, “Illooooona!  Abendessen ist jetzt!”

            “Ok, Mama!” I’d shout.

            She’d be scrambling around the kitchen, trying to find her glass of Zinfandel, which was, no doubt, probably standing next to her plate on the dinner table.

            “Oh! Just a second…let me find something first!  Go get yourself a plate of what I made for tonight!”

            “Mama, I thought I was making dinner tonight.  And why are we eating so early again?”

            “Well, I don’t know!  Because this is how they do this everywhere else except for the U.S.!  Come on, this is how it is in Germany!  You know that.”

            “By the U.S., you mean America, Mama?” 

            “America? Oh no!  How dare you call it America.  Didn’t you know that America refers to The Americas?  America includes North, Central and South America.  This piece of shit United States thinks it’s the only America!  It simply is not.  Didn’t you ever take geography in school?”

            “I’m afraid not.”

            “Well, that’s really unfortunate.  We also can’t forget the Native Americans!  Hundreds, thousands of tribes used to exist in this country.  And now they’re all gone!  But we shouldn’t even call this a country, because there are countries and territories within it – there are reservations of all the surviving Native Americans, because they have nowhere else to go in this goddamned country!  Even though this was their land to begin with, you know?  That’s even more unfortunate,” she calms and slowly looks down, trying to summon more thoughts to add to her rant. 

            We sit and quietly eat dinner together, the same as always.  Wienerschnitzel mit Brattkartoffeln, breaded veal and mashed potatoes, is a common German dish and usually includes sautéed onions in a warm butter sauce to pour over the potatoes, and a slice of lemon to squeeze over the veal.  Its one of my favorites, but it requires a few hours of labor, so I only ask for it on special occasions, like my birthday.

           

When I was nineteen and flew home to visit my mother for my birthday weekend, I had called her ahead of time, from the airport, and asked if she would make me wienerschnitzel.  I had also just gotten my first professional haircut, and I had asked for a chin-length bob with straight-across bangs.  It was trendy at the time and very different from the look I had kept for the last nineteen years.  It also happened to be something I regretted after imagining the ghastly expression on my mother’s face if she were to see my hair. 

            “Oh yes!  I was just going to ask you what you would like for your special dinner, Illona!” she said cheerfully from the other side of the receiver.  She always makes a special dinner for people on their “special day”.  Whether it’s a day of promotion at work, for good grades in school, an engagement, or for birthdays, she always calls about a week in advance and invites the person over for a “beautiful dinner”.  “Oh please, its my treat to you!  Yes?  Ok, so what would you like?  How about some…”  And she’d go through her list of her most recently cooked foods, as if she had previously rehearsed for everyone’s special day.  “I can make you tofu and shrimp salad with a pesto sauce – that’s more of a New Californian cuisine – you know, its like Japanese and American cuisine combined?  Or…lets see…I can make you a Mexican meal…from Vera Cruz!”  Her favorite.  She loves to cook Mexican food because it is similar to German food in its hearty content and plentiful serving sizes.  Either way, European mothers will always fill your plate and stomach with food - and international food at that.  You just have to be prepared to hear the never-ending list of cuisines she is capable of cooking.

           

“What happened?!” she gasped when I stepped through the door.

            “Hi, Mama,” I said, half-expecting an actual greeting.

            “What happened, Illona?!” she repeated.

            With confidence, I looked her straight in the eyes and cleared my throat.  It was like preparing myself to say my final words, before having to surrender my body to the flaming pits of Satan’s lair.  “I got a haircut, Mama.  And I don’t care if you like it or not.  It was my choice, my decision, and its my hair.”

            “How dare you cut your beautiful long hair!” She didn’t know what to do, after finally realizing that she no longer had complete control over her college-aged daughter.  She looked me up and down nervously, eyes rapidly fixating from my face to my hair, her breath becoming short and tensed,  “It looks awful, Illona!”  And for the remainder of my visit that weekend, I had to bear the near unbearable: having to hear those four words over and over again.  But it was almost comforting.  It felt good to come home to a person I understood.  Her love may not always be tender and warm, but I understand the way she thinks, and I figure that my mother just likes to show her affection a bit differently from most people.  There is always one thing you can count on with European mothers, but with my mother especially, and it’s that they’re honest.  And honesty is just the toughest of loves.