Daddy, I hear bam-boom.

Sebastian jack-knifed out of my arms.  His head shook, as sleep still anchored his eyelids shut.

“Bam-boom, mommy, Bam-boom!”  He shouted and then burrowed under my left shoulder, so he was entrenched in the safety of my weight and the duvet.  I strained to hear any signs of rain, but the only sounds were scuffles and shuffles on the branches outside our window.

I gently tugged at the blanket.  Sebastian’s long lashes swept up.

“Sebastian, there’s no bam-boom,”  I said.

He pulled the blanket back over his head and wormed his way towards his dad.  An arm peeked from under the covers and crept up Skerdi’s shoulder.  Sebastian shook him gently.

“Daddy,” came the muffled voice.

With his right arm, Skerdi felt behind him, attempting to ruffle his son’s hair.  He found a plump leg instead.  He squeezed it, forcing a giggle from beneath the comforter.   “Yes, Sebi?”

“Daddy, I hear bam-boom.”

Skerdi sighed, raised his head to look at the clock and then at his 28 month old son.  “No, little boy, go look out the window.  Just sun, no rain.”

“Sun?  Oh, sun.  Yay, sun!”  Sebastian clambered up from under his billowy bunker.   With a foot against my chin, he hoisted himself up.  My head squeezed against the headboard as his foot slipped and fell against my nose.  Then, he swung the rest of himself over my chest and landed with both feet on the ground.  Sebastian gave me a smug smile.   He opened the door behind him; he snuck a look back at me.

Then, he bolted out.  “Nena!  Nena, ohhhh, Nennnnna!” His glee bounced around the apartment.

“Biri!  Mire mengjes!” I heard my mother-in-law’s equally boisterous voice.  She wished him a good morning, her heavier footsteps plodding across the carpet, chasing after him.

My head plopped back down on the pillow.  In the bedroom, semi-darkness was still a temptation to sleep anew.  I threw my arm over my eyes and groaned.  It was 6:30 am.

My husband grabbed my hand under the blanket.  I peeked at his stubbled face, swollen with a few hours of rest.  We looked at each other and then at Sebastian’s pillow—a crescent bolster in the shape of a curled up bunny.  We both sighed.

“Do you think there really was thunder,” he asked.

I shrugged.  “Weatherbug announced thunderstorms in the early evening.”   I kicked the covers off.   “I guess I’m up.”

I’m always up; it comes with being a parent.

How much does an airplane cost these days?

When I walked out into the living room, Sebastian was on his grandfather’s shoulders looking out of the window to the balcony.  My son’s dimpled chin moved back and forth across his Gjyshi’s bald head.

“Hi mommy! I massage Gjyshi.”

“Sebastian, time for school.”

“No, mommy, I go with Nena and Gjyshi.”  He hugged his grandfather’s head tighter, as I tried to yank him down into my arms.

“Sebastian, Nena and Gjyshi are going on an airplane.”

“To see xhaxhi Malti? And teta Sonila?”  He had relaxed his grip and allowed himself to fall into my embrace.  I nuzzled his neck, loving the smell in the nooks and crannies of his baby folds.

“Yes, to visit your uncle and auntie.  And you, you have to go to school, right?”

“No, mommy, I go to Albania!”

“Nope, it’s off to school, ok?”

“And daddy,” he looked up at me, “he go work?”

“Yup.”

“To make money?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“To buy Sebi airplane to go Nena and Gjyshi?”

Oh boy.  Someday we would have to tell him that we could not afford to buy neither an airplane nor the motori he wanted a month ago.

The Sky Wept Because We Couldn’t

Later that afternoon, a couple of hours before departure, a couple of miles from the airport, the clouds overhead had changed from dove-gray to charcoal within a couple of minutes.  A single spear of lightning touched the ground, as a plane flew sharply at an angle into the thick clouds.   One…two…three…the sky detonated.  Bam-boom!  Liquid shards fell, droplet by droplet.  And then the world wept in tormented cascades.

Immediately I had three thoughts:

1)   Will Mami and Babi be able to leave?

2)   What was Skerdi thinking?

3)   Who hugged my baby when the thunder cracked?

I could not see a few feet in front me.  If it had not been for the extra weight of the luggage in the trunk, my car would have slid right into the back of Skerdi’s small SUV.  He was most likely thinking the same thing.  That, and that his parents only had a two-hour window at the airport in Vienna, Austria, until their next flight for Albania.

Oblivious to the weather, Mami, who rode in my car with me, was less nervous about her flight.

“Take care of djali,” she said in Albanian. “Feed him always.  He’s too skinny.”

“Po, Mami.”  I nodded.

“He loves soup with noodles. Put a little olive oil in it.”

She sniffled behind me.  I gripped the steering wheel tighter.  The world was drowning.

Mami continued, “Take him on long walks in the afternoon.”

“Mos ki merak, mami,” I told her not to worry.

“But I do.  I do.  He’s the son of our son—more precious than anything.”

She sat in the backseat, by Sebastian’s empty car seat.  Babi was with Skerdi in his car.  They had a similar conversation.  Thunder exploded again.  In the rearview mirror, Mami shook her head and took a deep breath, “The bam-boom, Liza, Sebastian will be afraid of the bam-boom.”

A Crack in the Wall

For the past ten months, my parents-in-law helped us raise Sebastian.  This was their third visit to the United States.  Last Thursday, they left for Albania, to spend time with their other son and his wife for the next six months.  They have become indispensable to our home and to Sebastian’s upbringing.

The first time they had ever flown on an airplane was to attend my wedding five years ago.  Skerdi’s parents had applied for a tourist visa at the US embassy in Tirana.  We had little expectation that they would be approved.  But Mami and Babi—armed with hope and a couple of manila envelopes—had crossed the steel gates and walked behind the concrete walls of the embassy.

Me fat, they had told Skerdi on the phone.

An interpreter waited behind the glass kiosk, beside a stern-faced woman in her fifties with a steely gaze and a concrete expression.  Mami walked up, with Babi trailing behind her, pensive.

“Good morning!”  She smiled at the consular officer.

Dourly, the other woman replied, “Good morning.  Do you have your papers with you?  Do you have your fees?  Is everything in order?”

My mother-in-law smiled, “No English.”

The woman rolled her eyes and looked over at the interpreter, who translated.  Babi had stepped forward with a thick manila envelope.  He delicately laid out each form, each photo, and the exorbitant fee, which cost more than their monthly pensions combined.

“Have you ever been to the United States before?”

My parents-in-law shook their heads.

“You need to say your response,” she commanded, emphasizing each word.

“No.”  They replied.

“Why do you want to go to the United States?”

Mami  smiled at the human “wall”—in a blue suit with an American flag lapel pin—in front of her and tried her English again,  “My son. Marry.”

The wall remained stiff. “Ok.  And will you be part of the wedding?”

She nodded.

“Say your response.”

“Yes.”

“And how long has your son know his fiancée?”

Neither of my parents-in-law understood the implication of the question.  Mami had nudged her eyeglasses further up the bridge of her nose.  Meanwhile, Babi had pulled out the other envelope, burgeoning with photographs, letters, souvenirs from trips and other evidence of a longstanding love between Skerdi and me.  He slid it towards the woman on the other side of the glass.

“Ma’am, what is all this?”

Mami grouped the pictures in small piles.  In Albanian, she explained, “My son and his fiancee met in the United States in 1999.  For two years, they were apart.  She lived in Washington, DC, and my son lived here.  We had no internet, no phones, in the beginning.  The two of them wrote letters after letters to each other,” she had explained.

Mami pushed some letters and cards  towards the “wall”, who read through my private thoughts and declarations of love.  She then pointed to pictures of Skerdi and me on a stretch of beach, coconut trees and blue water behind us.

“Where is this?”

Mami replied, “In the Philippines, they were there in the summer of 2000. And…”

“The two of them went to the Philippines?”

My mother-in-law nodded.  Distracted, the “wall” did not ask her to reply out loud again.  Instead, she pointed to another set of photos.  “This is here in Tirana?”

“Yes.”

Babi then chimed in proudly,  “Liza has been to Albania six times.”

For an hour, the “wall” and the interpreter listened attentively as Mami and Babi spoke of our trip to the northwest city of Shkodra.  They described our travels to the coast—to Durres, Vlora and Himara—and to the mountains, to the village of Piluri.  They even spoke of my visit to Butrint, a national park, in Saranda and to the ancient hillside city of Gjirokastra.  Mami pushed another set of photos and souvenirs forward—from our travels to Turkey and Montenegro.  One photo had captured our excitement at having sailed off the coast of Bodrum in Turkey.  Another had highlighted the reverence with which we toured Ulqin, where Miguel de Cerventes had been imprisoned.

The “wall” began to crack.

Although her face remained impassive, her voice showed interest in a love story that overcame distance and cultural differences.  Her tone lowered to a near whisper, “And now, after all that, they are finally getting married?”

Babi had slipped a red, linen envelope, tied by a thin, red silk ribbon—our wedding invitation–through the slot in the glass.

“Thank you,” the woman said, without a trace of steel, “I will keep this and return it all back to you by courier.”

Mami and Babi both nodded.  A week later, a large envelope was delivered.  The photos, letters and souvenirs were returned in a neat stack.  Also inside were two passports stamped with multiple entry visas.

Gezuar!

There were thunderstorms the day that Mami and Babi had first arrived in the United States.  An hour after their plane had arrived, they still had not emerged from behind the double doors of customs and immigration. When they finally had exited, Mami and Babi each dragged 2 large suitcases.  They had kissed us three times: right cheek, left cheek, right cheek.

We had taken them back to our one-bedroom apartment on the 18^th floor.  Falls Church, Virginia, where we lived was an international hub—where El Salvadoreans and Ethiopians resided by each other, where Sudanese hang out at the Starbucks across the street, where Filipinos and Vietnamese shopped from the local Asian markets nearby, and where the most popular restaurant in our block was the Peruvian rotisserie.

When we arrived at the apartment from the airport, Mami immediately opened the largest suitcase.  Only one half of one suitcase contained their clothes.  Gifts were crammed into the rest of the baggage.  A white, king-sized quilt filled up one entire suitcase.  They also brought for us a large satchel of fasoule, extra large navy beans, jars of dried herbs, hand-made doilies, Skerdi’s baby clothes, a sterling silver Turkish coffee set, boxes of chocolates, and a kilim, or handwoven area rug in reds and greens.  Then, Mami pulled out 2 one-liter plastic bottles, with labels torn off. One contained olive oil—liquid gold—while the other held raki mani, grappa made from Albanian blackberries.

Moonshine.

Every Albanian home has at least four things in common.  There is always a loaf of crusty bread.  Somewhere in the living room, one can find one or more miniature Albanian flags.  In the pantry, you will always find olive oil and sweets.  And every home has raki.  When guests drop in for a visit, sweets are passed around and raki is poured.  Gezuar! Cheers and a long round of toasts to health and success are expressed.

Like olive oil, raki is also lauded for its curative properties as well as its potency.  When one has the flu, raki is applied topically, like rubbing alcohol, to the body before being swaddled in layers of sheets.  When one is congested, one must sip raki, that has been boiled with sugar and a squeeze of lemon.  Even a sprained ankle or pulled muscle earns a douse of raki over the affected area.

Out in the balcony, close to the stars, the four of us toasted the long journey ahead of us. Gezuar!

Chicken Adobo, Chipotle and Children

Before leaving for the United States, my parents-in-law had never tried cuisines from other cultures—except those from Greece and Italy, whose dishes were similar and, therefore, more acceptable to their palate.  There were Chinese merchants and tradesmen in Tirana, but Chinese restaurants were few and not frequented by those who lived outside the kines neighborhood.

Their first foray into Asian cuisine was my chicken adobo, served with a heap of jasmine rice and a salad of tomatoes and salted, red duck eggs. My in-laws were not effusive in their praise. As the meal progressed, Mami took a second and then a third spoonful of gently, braised chicken.  Then, Babi pushed his plate forward and looked straight across at me.

“Te lum shin duar, Liza!”

I looked to my husband.  He translated, “Your hands, he said, are gifted.  He loved your chicken.”

I smiled down at my plate.

Over the course of the month surrounding the wedding, Skerdi and I introduced his parents to Washington DC, to my family and to a wide array of cuisine.  Since work prevented Skerdi from spending more time with them, I, alone and with limited Albanian, toured Mami and Babi around to see the sights.  Bam-boom became a staple of my still-growing lexicon.

“Bam-boom!” I yelled to describe the bombing of Hiroshima at the World War II memorial.

“Bam-boom.” I described the Stock Market crash of 1929 at the Era of Depression vignettes at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.

“Bam-bam-boom-boom.” I mimicked the march of the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Natural History Museum.

When I should have been focusing on my wedding, I took them to restaurants instead. They tried tofu at a Vietnamese restaurant and green curry chicken at a Thai one.  They crunched hungrily on the crispy skin of Peking duck and that of lechon, the whole roasted pig, a tradition in the Philippines.  They even tried the American “classic”, the Big Mac.

“Is it really made of beef,” Mami asked, eyeing the meat suspiciously.

What they loved best of all in their culinary expedition was the made-to-order burrito from Chipotle.  In one month, they ate at Chipotle eight times.

On the eve of their departure, after our wedding, we introduced them to our local Indian restaurant.  I was spooning the rich chicken tikka masala onto my basmati rice, when Babi clinked on his glass of Kingfisher beer.

“Your mami and I want to talk to both of you,” he said.

Skerdi chewed on his naan noisily. “What is it, Babi?”

“You, two, must have children soon.”  He threw the advice out there without warning.

Mami added, “You are not young.  You are both 31 years old—you, Liza, are getting older.”

Calmly, Skerdi asked his parents to leave the topic alone.

The ever pensive Babi could not be silenced.  “We are getting old—your Mami and me—and a home needs children.”

“A boy first, preferably,” Mami chimed in with a smile.

I could not find the words to respond, so I slurped my mango lassi instead.

Clove of garlic or cloven foot?

Three years after their first visit, Mami and Babi came back to Washington, DC.  This time, they were staying for six months to spend time with their new grandson, Sebastian.

A week before their arrival, I decided to bring Sebastian to the office.   Born five weeks early, Sebastian fit along the length of my forearm; he was a mere 8 pounds—twice his weight at birth.  He was a survivor, a tough little fighter.  Yet, everyone felt he needed a little extra hand—especially against the “eye.”

“The eye?”  I asked my husband.

“You know, the eye.”  He said while I changed Sebastian into blue cotton overalls.

“You mean, like, the eye.”  I pointed to my own.

Exasperated, he said, “Yes, the eye.  The evil eye.”

“Ah, the evil eye.  Not to be confused with the…good eye, right?”

“Don’t be sarcastic.  Listen, it’s not going to hurt anyone, and if there is an evil eye, then Sebastian is that much safer.”

“Where is this coming from?”  I already knew the answer.  He had just called his parents that morning.

“Yes, yes…it’s an Albanian thing…but, just put one clove in his pocket.  In fact, all of us should have garlic with us at all times.”

“Where’s yours?”

“In my car, in the glove compartment.”

I looked at the baby, who smelled of powder and milk.  “He doesn’t have a pocket on this outfit.  So he’s to smell like garlic, when people pass him around?”

“Yes, just wrap it in tissue paper and tuck it away from his face and neck, then.”  He saw that my mouth was agape.  “Honey, just do it.  The evil eye exists especially among those who are jealous.”

I threw my hands up and conceded to the odd request.

I brought Sebastian to work, showing off my son, who had just started social smiling and laughing.  My colleagues were welcoming in their affection, but were hesitant to ask me something.

Finally, a close friend asked what many had been wondering, “Liza, is Sebastian all right?”

I nodded, but ran a hand across my son’s forehead.  “Yes, it would seem.  Why?”

“I mean…well…does he…”

“What is it?”  My heart started thumping.  Was is the evil eye?

“Does he have a cloven foot,” he blurted out.

“A what?!”

My co-worker pointed to his left foot, and the thick bulge on his ankle.

I chuckled and pulled down Sebastian’s sock. “No, it’s a clove of garlic.”

Later that evening, I noticed how newborns seemed to generate a lot of laundry.  Skerdi ran another load, while I bathed Sebastian before starting dinner.  A sweet scent floated across the kitchen.  Hmmm, I thought, what a delicious smell.

Skerdi, then, yelled out.  “What is that nasty odor?”

“Probably our neighbor cooking,” I said dreamily.

“They haven’t moved in next door, yet.”  Like a bloodhound, he sniffed the air and followed the scent.  My mouth was watering, while Skerdi made retching noises.

I left the kitchen with Sebastian in my arms, smelling of baby shampoo.  We waddled over to the bedroom, but stopped by the laundry area.

“Honey!  The smell is coming from here.”

He came out from the other side of the apartment and looked at me.  I looked at him.  Bam-boom!

The garlic!

We opened the dryer door, and the smell of roasted garlic slapped us in the face.

Vampires and bloodsuckers

A week after the garlic incident–and after running the dryer a few more times to “air” it out–Skerdi picked his parents up from the airport.  Sebastian and I waited at home.  I opened the front door, and watched them walk briskly down the corridor.  Sebastian lay quietly in the crook of my arm.

“Mami, miresevini!”  Welcome, I said.

Without paying me any attention, she grabbed her grandson and started screaming, “Te keqen nena!  Te keqen nena!”

Sebastian screamed.  Mami hugged him in fierce delight. I looked at Skerdi and mouthed, “What was that all about?”

He whispered in my ear, “That’s to curse the evil spirits and drive them away from Sebastian.”

“The evil spirits?!”

“You know, like vampires and ghosts.”

“So this is different from the eye.”

“Honey, stop.  Don’t go there.”

Raising my son in an Albanian and Filipino household means accepting all aspects of one’s culture, including beliefs and superstitions.  Whatever I thought about evil eyes and spirits, I could not discount the diligent care my in-laws gave to my son—both in the six months of their second visit, or during their more recent stay.  They never missed a single detail; they were vigilant in their attention to him.

Over the past ten months, Sebastian’s days were divided between his daycare and his grandparents, who doted on him like a little prince, an Ali Pasha.

Nowhere was it more evident than when summer broke out this year. As the heat and humidity descended over the Washington, DC area, so did the mosquitoes and their fondness for my son’s sweet skin.  No matter what bug spray or lotion we used, the little boy was not spared.

One afternoon, a couple weeks ago, while watering my potted herbs on my balcony, I saw a familiar stroller pass underneath.  Sebastian and his grandparents were on their daily afternoon outing.

My mother-in-law was pushing the stroller leisurely.  Sebastian, in repose, was sipping water from his cup.  Occasionally, she would lean over to feed him a grape.  My father-in-law walked sideways in front of the stroller, fanning away the heat and the mosquitoes with a large leafy branch, he had pulled down from a nearby tree.

On that balcony, I thought about the void Mami and Babi would soon leave behind, even if it were for a mere six months.

Daddy, I hear bam-boom

On the afternoon of their departure last Thursday , the storm grew in intensity. The thunder boomed loudly once again, as our cars pulled up by the departure area.  I opened the car door, and it took ten seconds for the rain to drench my clothes.  The plane could not leave in this weather, I thought.

Skerdi and I parked the cars, and ran into the airport, soaked and shivering.  We checked Mami and Babi in at the counter and walked them to the security gate.

“See you in January,” I said, “Please take care of yourselves.  Thank you for everything.”

“Play with Sebastian,” my mother-in-law cried as she kissed my cheek and left me her last instruction.

Babi took my hand and kissed it,  “Don’t work too much.  Play with him.”

We parted ways. I picked up Sebastian from daycare.  From the back seat, he asked, “Mommy, Nena and Gjyshi in airplane?”

“Yes, Sebi.”

We pulled into the parking lot. The rain abated slightly, and I ran, with Sebastian in my arms, into the elevator of my building.  When the doors opened on the fourth floor, Sebastian ran for home.

“Nena! Oh, Nena!  Gjyshi!”  He yelled across the puddled corridor.

The door opened.  Sebastian stopped, “Oh, hi daddy!  Make money?”

Skerdi swung his son up.  “Yes, I did.”

The sky exploded into another roar.  “Daddy, I hear bam-boom!”  Sebastian gripped his dad’s neck.

“It’s ok, Sebi.”

The weatherman on the television announced that flights were delayed by a couple of hours.  Sebastian ran to the window overlooking the balcony.  He railed at the storm, “No, bam-boom!  Go away, rain!  No hit plane!  My Nena, my Gjysh!”  His little fists pummeled against the pane of the glass.

The next morning, the sun shone through the bamboo slits.  A text message came through on Skerdi’s cell phone.  It was his brother.

“They are here.  They have arrived.”