The Language of Baklava Read Online Free Page B

filled with new lambs and of the scent of freshly grilled meat and the way he and his brothers stood between these two events, birth and food, though they were only boys; so much responsibility for a miraculous, sacred transformation. How could he help himself ? Even though he knew better, even though he told himself not to, Uncle Hal bought the runty lamb from the farmer. Then he called his brothers. Together, they decided they would butcher the lamb the way they used to when they were children and their parents were still alive and nobody knew anything about the bright grocery stores of America or the way meat appeared, bloodless, gleaming with cellophane, stacked in cold rows.
    This was the way it was supposed to happen: Four of the brothers would hold the lamb still, and with one powerful, swift stroke, Crazy-Uncle Frankie would cut its throat. Uncle Frankie was nominated for this unpleasant task by virtue of being the youngest brother in America as well as having the least exciting job (washing school buses) and because none of the brothers wanted to slaughter the lamb after seeing the children cozying up to it. Uncle Jack, it seems, had a change of heart and wanted to return it to the farmer, but Uncle Danny, who didn’t have any children yet, said that was ridiculous and wimpy. And my father, the pragmatic chef, said they were all turning soft and silly. At the time he told me the story, he still wasn’t sure why he had said this: He hadn’t wanted to kill the lamb, either.
    But then they were all saying things they didn’t really want to say as they converged on the knock-kneed lamb. Hal held the lamb on one side, Jack held the other. Danny held the legs. Bud held the head. Frankie unsheathed the big, sharpened knife and held it up with trembling hands. Bud had owned this knife a long time and cut many things with it, but never before a living thing. In that moment, he had no memory of ever having killed a living thing. Was it true? Had they done the slaughtering back in Jordan, or had it been done for them? He started to ask, but then his brother’s eyes bulged, the knife rose, Bud turned away, and Frankie slashed. He made a terrible, ineffective cut, deep enough to make the lamb scream and buck, for blood to course freely, but not deep enough to kill it.
    The lamb was wild. Its head rolled back, and its neck gaped like a bloody smile. The brothers panicked and lost their grip. The lamb kicked in a frenzy; its back hoof cut right through the fabric of Uncle Danny’s pants and gashed his knee. Hal grabbed the knife from Frankie and tried to make a better cut, but he missed and made another shallow cut in its face. The animal bawled and writhed. Jack picked up a rock, wildly attempting to knock it unconscious, but it again lurched out of their grip. Finally, Bud gripped the knife with both fists and, as the lamb stumbled to one side, plunged it straight into its neck.
    Then everything went still. They could hear a bird trill three fragile notes from a nearby tree. The barn walls were covered with blood; the floor was covered with blood; their faces were covered with blood; their arms were covered with blood. And then my father realized that what he’d thought was a bird was the sound of weeping. For a dreadful, unreal moment, he thought it was the lamb. Then he heard Cousin Sami’s voice rise from the hayloft: “I want to go home!”
    Telling the story twenty or so years after the fact, Bud looked a bit gray, his face filmed with distantly recalled panic. He closed his eyes, remembering the way the lamb’s neck strained, its soft, wide-open mouth, its babylike cry. The meat was spoiled, shot through with blood and adrenaline. But Uncle Hal insisted on salvaging a few pieces and ground it up to make stuffing for the squashes. None of them touched any of it.
    “We thought we could still do it,” Bud said. “But we couldn’t.”
    Making shish kabob always reminds the brothers of who they used to be—the