Maria

She stood nervously on the stoop, dimly lit by a single bulb, and shivered in the chill of the November evening. Unconsciously pulling her coat tightly around her body, she locked her arms over it. A dog barked relentlessly down the street–the only sign of life on this dark night. She contemplated simply walking back down the sidewalk and driving away. After all, she barely knew this woman.

Her shaking fingers reached out to ring the doorbell, and she heard its tinny sound reverberate through the small house. Several moments passed before the door cracked open. A face appeared, partly obscured by the frame, as though reluctant to open it fully.

“Maria?” she asked, straining to recognize the features that were visible.

“Ah, Kelly! It’s you! Come, come in. Come in out of this cold.” The door was flung wide then, and warmth flooded the porch. Kelly was ushered into the cramped living room, immediately enveloped in the light and comfort of the space. The room was simple, filled with worn couches and an assortment of old photographs. The television set blared an ongoing commentary of the soccer game it broadcast.

“Kelly, this is my husband, Francisco,” the small woman gestured to the man on the couch, intent on the match playing out on screen. “You must forgive him, he cannot bring himself to miss a World Cup game.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she smiled. He nodded politely, his eyes meeting hers briefly before dropping to the floor.

“Come, come this way. My children are all over the place—you will meet them later. Come, join me in the kitchen.” Maria led the way down a narrow corridor, its scuffed walls smothered with photographs in mismatched frames. The kitchen was sparse. A small table filled much of the space and its surface was littered with utensils, plates, and pans. The one countertop was equally covered in boxes and packages of food. The stove, a model that seemed to have had a longer life than Kelly, supported an enormous pot that hissed and steamed. Maria picked up a spoon and positioned herself in front of the pan, expertly stirring its contents.

“It is a small space,” she said apologetically, not looking up from her work.

“It’s lovely,” Kelly smiled warmly, aware that an awkwardness hung in the air. “What can I do to help you?”

“Have you ever made hallacas?” she asked.

“No, never!” Kelly laughed. “You’ll have to teach me every part of it.”

“It is a Christmas dish, usually, but Francisco—it is his favorite. He wanted you to try it.” She beamed, pride shining in her eyes. “Here I have chicken, pork, and beef. Some say this is the most important part. Come, I will show you how to stew the meat.”

Maria placed the spoon in Kelly’s hand, guiding it as she stirred the fragrant broth mingled with the meats. The sweet aroma filled the kitchen and made Kelly’s mouth water. “There, now. You try.”

As Kelly stood at the stove, Maria cleared the countertop and began chopping onions. The two women worked in silence, lost in the rhythmic sound of the knife that punctuated the bubbling of the meat—a sort of symphony of the meal they were creating.

“This is a small space,” Maria said again after several minutes. “It is very simple.”

“It’s a beautiful home, Maria,” Kelly smiled. Maria held up her hand.

“You must understand, this home is an answer to our prayers. A miracle.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Two years. It will be two years in December.”

“How wonderful. Where were you before that?”

“We were in Venezuela. That is my country, you know?” Her eyes left the onions, gazing off as though she could see the expanse of her homeland before her even now.

“I’m sure you miss it,” Kelly said gently, unsure what to say. Maria sighed heavily.

“Yes, I do. But this is better. This is a better place for us now.” She laughed to herself, a laugh weighted with sadness. “Here my children eat. They always eat.”

Kelly studied the woman. Maria brushed a strand of dark hair from her face, seeming to brush the memory away with it.

“That is all in the past,” she forced a light smile. “Now, the meat is done. We must add achiote oil to the pan to cook these onions.”

The pan sizzled and spewed under Maria’s watchful eye. She motioned for Kelly to take her place, then quickly chopped peppers, leeks, and garlic. They slid into the pan, hissing and filling the tiny kitchen with their fragrance.

“We need to add the harina and the wine,” Maria poured out a powdery yellow mix; a small cloud of flour hung for a moment in the room. She poured in sweet wine, whisking artfully as she combined the two. Then she added the sticky mixture to the bubbling meat pot. “There,” she nodded, satisfied. “Now the guiso, the meat mixture, is finished.”

“It smells wonderful,” Kelly sniffed the air.

“Wait until you taste it! This is, to me, the smell of the holidays,” Maria smiled broadly.

“Your holidays must be wonderful, then,” Kelly grinned. Maria shrugged slightly.

“Next we must make the masa; the—how do you say it?—the dough.” Maria reached for the box of harina. A shadow passed over her face, so briefly Kelly wondered if she had really seen it.

“Once,” Maria said, almost to herself, “I waited in line for eight hours at the store. Eight hours—I still can’t believe it. When it was finally my turn to shop, all the shelves were empty. I needed bread and eggs and rice. There were none left. Only harina, like this. So, I bought it—it cost more than a week’s groceries used to cost. And we had masa each meal for a month.” She sighed heavily.  “But we were not hungry.”

“Oh, Maria, I’m so sorry,” Kelly touched her friend’s arm gently. It seemed to draw Maria back from some distant place.

“That was the way of things back home,” She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, let’s get this masa going.”

Maria poured the flour mix into the bowl, ladling in reserved broth and achiote oil. She stirred the mixture until a thick paste formed.

“Now, Kelly, this is the best part. Come, we will sit at the table and make the hallacas.”

Kelly pulled a chair up to the rickety table and rolled her sweater sleeves. She noticed for the first time a plate stacked high with deep green banana leaves. Maria set down the pot of guiso and the masa, then settled herself next to Kelly.

“Here is how you do it,” she said, laying a banana leaf on the table before her. “You spread the masa in the middle of the leaf. Add the guiso and any toppings you like. You can choose; we have olives, raisins, onion, peppers, and chicken pieces. Roll it up and wrap it in another leaf, then tie it tight with a string. You see?” she held the shiny green bundle up for Kelly to see.

“Easy enough,” Kelly said, reaching for a leaf.

“Yes, it is very easy. It’s a simple dish, but delicious.” The women worked side by side filling and rolling the fragrant parcels.

“Your English is very good, Maria,” Kelly said after a long silence. “Did you learn it in Venezuela?”

Maria paused in her work, looking at her hands as she formulated the words.

“I did, yes. Here I clean houses—you know this. But in Venezuela, I had a different life. I was a professor at a university. I taught literature and writing.”

“I had no idea,” Kelly said softly.

“Like I say, it was a different life.”

“What about your husband? What kind of work did he do in Venezuela?”

“He was what I think here you would call a mechanical engineer. He was in charge of a large group of engineers designing and building oil rigs. He did quite well for himself,” she paused to wrap string around another bundle. Pride glowed in her eyes.

“Then the price of oil collapsed, and Francisco suddenly found himself without a job.” Kelly shook her head sadly. “We carried on for a time, and of course I continued to work. But the economy, it grew worse and worse.” Maria rubbed her hands across her forehead, easing the tension of her past hardship.

“Groceries cost more than we made in a month. We owned our home, gracias a Dios, but many friends and neighbors were unable to pay their rent. It was a terrible time.”

“I can’t imagine,” Kelly whispered.

“We planned to retire early in just a few years. We had been saving for many years and dreaming about life after work. But, no, it was not meant to be. In just a short time all of our savings were worthless. They were worth nothing.”

“How awful.”

Maria gathered the green bundles and crossed to the stove. One by one, she lowered them into a large pot of boiling water. Her shoulders slumped as she returned to the table.

“We wanted to stay. We loved our country. But the shortages—there was no money for food, and there was no food to be found. It was all just…gone. One time we did not eat for three days. Three days! I cried at night as the children went to sleep hungry. My little one, Paco, he would cry and cry. ‘Mamá,’ he would say, ‘I just want some bread. Do you have some bread?’ But, of course, I did not.”

She wiped a tear from her eye, and Kelly blinked back her own.

“We noticed little changes, in time, in the children especially. They were sick always. Their noses ran and they had pale skin. They never played. Children should play,” Maria winced and took a deep breath.

“One night, Francisco and I sat outside. Many houses on our street were empty. Many of our neighbors had lost their homes. It was like a—how do you say it, a ghost town? It was a shadow of our town, and nothing more.

“The children had gone to bed hungry, as always, and there was nothing to feed them in the morning. I looked at Francisco then and I told him, ‘Fran, if we stay here, our children will die. They cannot live like this.’”

“‘I know,’ he told me, ‘I have the same thoughts. We cannot stay.’ And so we did what I never thought we would do. We packed our things and we left our home, our Venezuela.”

“I can’t imagine how it must have broken your heart,” Kelly wiped her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“My heart broke long before, when my children suffered and I could do nothing to help them. Leaving was the only way we knew to heal the broken heart.”

The pot hissed on the stove, and Maria stood to turn off the burner.

“It is ready,” she said.

Moments later, Kelly found herself seated in the simple dining room. The table overflowed with platters heaped high with hallacas, dishes of fried plantain, and a golden loaf of bread. One by one, Maria’s family filed in and filled the space with conversation Kelly could not understand. Maria took her place next to her husband, beaming as she introduced each person. Then she looked to her husband and nodded.

“Padre Santo,” he prayed as he bowed his head, “Te damos gracias por este día.” He paused.

Next to her, Paco nudged her elbow and whispered, “Holy Father, we thank you for this day.” She looked up, startled, and he winked before closing his eyes once more.

“We thank you for this family,” Paco translated as Francisco continued, “and for the way you have cared for us. Thank you for friends who can share the bounty of what you have given us. You have been very generous with us, and our table overflows with food. We praise you and give you the glory for all these good things. Amen.”

“Amen,” echoed the voices at the table.

As she opened her eyes, Kelly felt she had never been in a place of more abundance than this sparse, simple family home.