Zeppole (aka Awama)

Khalil AbuSharekh

I’d been living in Houston for four years when a new restaurant opened in my neighborhood. Coppa created quite a buzz. The cuisine was Italian, and the waiter told me the pizza was made with Italian water. I didn’t taste the Italian water, but after a delicious dinner, I asked the waiter what dessert he suggested to go with coffee. He replied that his favorite was zeppole. I didn’t know what that zeppole was, but said I’d like to try it. When it arrived, it looked familiar—like the Palestinian dessert known as “awama” (donut balls), but this time topped with chocolate syrup. I took a bite. Immediately the taste transported me far, far away in time and place. I remembered I hadn’t tasted this flavor for over fifteen years. At first, I couldn’t remember why I had stopped eating this traditional tasty street dessert so common in Gaza. Then it came back to me. The taste conjured up a huge load of physical and emotional—especially emotional—pain.

A constant source of contention in our household had been that my mom would regularly buy new clothes for my two sisters but seldom for me. I would get angry and argue. Her standard answer was that girls must always look good and dress nicely. At age eleven, that response would just irritate me more. Later, I realized this phrase is the polite way of saying daughters get married, and they should always look nice to speed up the process. But I didn’t care about that, and jealousy was eating at me like fire consuming wood. I decided to revolt against this injustice. I fine-tuned a master plan that would force my parents to buy me new shoes on a regular basis. I already knew how to wear out a pair of shoes in no time. No can, bottle, stone, wall, or even a street pole would be out of the reach of my kicks. I pummeled anything and everything in my path. If I didn’t find an object, I kicked sand. I became a master at abusing shoes. By the end of a month, they would look pathetic, so Mom would buy me a new pair. It wasn’t long before my dad suspected what was going on. He concluded that I needed to be taught a lesson. There would be no new shoes for me until the beginning of the new school year.

I looked at my pitiful shoes. There was no stitching in place. Air and water swirled in the space between my toes, and I couldn’t distinguish between the color of my shoes and the color of the dust encasing them. But I shrugged my shoulders and said, “That’s fine with me. When people see me, they will think I look homeless or like a beggar, and they know I am your son.” Dad acted as if he hadn’t heard me. I wanted to explode in anger, but he continued to ignore me. Months passed, and my hatred of humanity—all of it—accumulated. I couldn’t bear being around my family, Dad, Mom, my sisters. Besides that, hot, sweaty summer was approaching.

Summer also would bring my dad’s brother from the United Arab Emirates to spend his vacation with us. Uncle Marwan was and still is a generous gentleman. His visit meant gifts of French perfumes, colorful T-shirts, and lots of little gadgets powered by the Energizer Bunny. I figured that after my uncle arrived. I would be relieved of my dirty, tattered shoes, that they would be replaced in no time. “Just give him a day or two,” I thought, “and he will insist my mom buy me a new pair.”

Three days passed and he said not a word. To speed things up, I complimented his shoes. “Thank you. They are the Clark brand. It is known for comfort,” he replied.

I thought to myself, “I don’t care one whit about your shoe brand. Actually, they are a bit ugly. The point is, look at my shoes!” But of course, I didn’t say anything. Instead, I dropped other hints to direct his attention to my feet, but more days passed. I came to believe that Uncle Marwan was deliberately ignoring my dilemma. That led me to add my favorite uncle to the tyrant category, next to my parents. I forgot about the perfumes, T-shirts, and gadgets. I forgot about any extra cash that he gave me; I stripped him of the title of being generous and a gentleman. Now I considered him a cheap man who didn’t listen to me or help me solve my problem.

One night after a long, hot day, as usual I closed the family grocery store at the front of the house. When I entered our living quarters, everyone was already sitting in the courtyard, including many guests who had come to spend time with my uncle. Sitting in a circle on Monobloc chairs, they were listening to my uncle’s stories and his perspective on matters big and small. With the stars twinkling overhead and a cool Mediterranean breeze, it was a very pleasant setting. I pulled up a chair and joined the circle, a little behind the elders. A fresh breeze wafted over us, but this time it was loaded with an awful smell. At first everyone ignored it. But then it came again. Individuals began searching with their eyes where it could have originated.

When the third wave hit, someone asked, “What is this smell?” “What can it be? Is it trash burning?” Another said, “Maybe it is a dead rat.” Someone else asked, “Where is it coming from?” All the faces were questioning, except mine. I was immune to that smell. It was just my feet after I took off my shoes. Not a big deal.

Then, all eyes turned to the source of the smell. My uncle said to me, “Are you an idiot? You take off your shoes here, where we will be eating? Get up! Go wash your feet and put those shoes as far away from us as possible.”

I stood up slowly, my face looking as if I didn’t comprehend the problem. Then my uncle told my dad, “Do you like how he looks? What do you think people say about us after your son looks and smells like this?” My father tried to explain the situation to his brother, but my uncle cut him off. I turned my face aside to hide my smile. Filled with satisfaction, I wanted to do a victory dance then and there. Instead, I continued to play the role of a sad, miserable son as my uncle continued rebuking my dad for his actions. I washed my feet and returned to the group. Then Uncle Marwan said, “Mister, prepare yourself to go with me tomorrow to the market. I am going to buy you new shoes.” I continued my dopey look, and I asked, “But, who is going to sit in the store if I go with you?”

My uncle said, “Omar, tomorrow you sit in the store until we come back from the market.” I managed to continue looking like a boy who had no power but to obey his uncle’s orders, but that night I couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining what brand, what style, what color my new shoes would be. And what if my uncle would buy me two pairs of shoes? One scenario followed another.

We didn’t go to the old city market. Instead, Uncle Marwan took me to the new market. What a great start! This was the place Mom avoided because of the more expensive, luxurious brands. My eyes were scanning the windows while trying to keep up with my uncle’s giant strides. After we stepped into one of the shops, Uncle Marwan’s attitude made me think he must already know the store owner. Gradually, however, I realized it was a trick of his to act as if he were a celebrity, someone everyone knows. Because of his accent, it was instantly obvious that Uncle Marwan was not from Gaza. The owner welcomed my uncle and flattered him by announcing, “You sound as if you are not from here. May I ask where you are from?”

With a big smile, my uncle responded, “I can’t believe you picked up on my accent so quickly. I am from Gaza, but I’ve been working in Abu Dhabi, in the Emirates for over twenty years.” Whenever my uncle meets someone new in Gaza, he immediately tries to make a connection. He wants to find someone who knows someone who has worked with him in the Emirates or who studied with him in Egypt. The store owner was no exception. My uncle began digging into his memory, trying to remember the one guy he knew in Egypt with the same last name as the store owner, but that person’s first name did not come to him. Uncle Marwan started a description—a man about my uncle’s age who was fair-skinned with black hair, not too skinny, but maybe he had gained weight by now. Eventually, the name Mohammed came to him. The store owner’s face remained blank. My uncle came back with a question. “Maybe I’m thinking of his younger brother? Maybe it’s not Mohammed. Is there a Mahmoud?”

I just wanted all Mohammeds and Mahmouds to die. I wanted my uncle to end this useless dialogue. We were in the store to buy me shoes, not for an ancestry discussion. But I had no say in the matter. I sighed now and then or tapped my filthy shoes on a chair leg. My thoughts wandered to how I would burn these shoes with gasoline as soon as I got my hands on a new pair. Finally, after tea and the journey through extensive family histories and my uncle slipping details of his travels and adventures into the conversation, he mentioned me. “My nephew Khalil needs new shoes. Would you please find him something of excellent quality that also looks good?”

Soon I was trying on one shoe after another. I asked for the brands I coveted and tried on only those shoes that appealed to me. My mom wasn’t there, and I could choose what style, what color of shoes to buy. Price was not an issue. Plus, for the first time ever I would have a pair of shoes that actually fit like a glove. Mom always insisted on buying a size too big so my feet would have room to grow. But this day I didn’t need to think about the future. This day I could choose exactly what I wanted! I picked suede shoes because they were just what my mom would never consider buying.

Walking home, I tried to keep a considerable distance between me and anyone else so that no harm would come to my new shoes. I knew I was wearing the coolest brown suede shoes ever. I even believed I was a better human being because of the shoes I was wearing. Mom, of course, had a completely different opinion. She looked at me and said, “You are an absolute idiot! You picked suede shoes! What good are they on the camp’s dusty, dirty streets?” I was convinced she said those things because of how expensive the shoes were and because she was jealous. My uncle paid thirty-five shekels for the shoes. With thirty-five shekels my mom could buy me sufficient clothes for a full year. 

In the meantime, since my grandparents lived less than a block from us, as did many aunts and uncles on my mother’s side, Riad, my youngest uncle, spent a lot of time at our house. I considered him more a friend than an uncle. He let me listen to his tapes of Western music, especially George Michael and Ace of Base. On rainy winter nights we would be in his dark room listening to the music of Fairouz while reading pulp fiction pocket novels for hours on end. No conversation necessary. 

That “new shoes” summer, my mom asked her younger brother to go to Naser Street to buy some awama to be shared that night with my Uncle Marwan and other guests. Riad planned to ride his bike to the store and asked if I wanted to join him. Immediately I said yes, especially since it would be an excellent opportunity to show off my new shoes on the trendy, clean sidewalks of Naser Street. I rode on the middle bar of the bike, not a comfortable place to sit, but better for the biker. The added weight is in the center, and the person pedaling enjoys better control of the bike. As for me, I knew I would enjoy the ride no matter what, since I could feel superior to the kids we passed who were walking.

The ride became harder when we approached the steep slope by Shanti’s mosque. That hill is every biker’s nightmare. I offered to get off the bike and walk up the slope, but Riad was stubborn. I remained on the bike. His breathing became more labored, but at the same time he tried to suppress it and act cool. The bike continued to slow down. Soon, it was barely moving, but Riad was up to the challenge. Once he reached the summit, with his voice barely audible, he announced, “It wasn’t that bad. It was easy except for your heavy weight.”

Now the road was flat, and Riad wanted to make up the time lost on the slope. He started to go faster and faster. Turning to me, he asked if I was afraid. “Of course not,” I responded. “Actually, you are still going slow!” Though he pedaled still faster I couldn’t resist asking, “Is this the best you can do?”

My scream pierced the heavens. The bike was on top of us, and I felt the hot asphalt under me. Riad asked me not to move as he pulled my foot out of the bicycle’s wheel. After I was freed, I kept jumping on one leg, holding my other bare foot and squealing like a stuck pig. Riad shouted at me to stop moving around. Then he carried me to the sidewalk and sat me down. “Don’t move. Let me see if your foot is broken,” he said. That scared me even more, and my crying became more intense. He gently manipulated my foot, examining it like an expert. Then Riad said, “No broken bones.” I felt good, even though pain ripped through one foot.

But then I remembered my new shoes. I didn’t want to look, even though I knew I had to. My right shoe had been ripped to pieces, with one big flap barely hanging onto the sole. My heart stopped as Riad looked at me and smiled. “That’s a very good quality shoe. It saved your foot and absorbed the hit.”

Time froze. Voices faded away. Nothing else existed except me and my shattered shoe. First anger and then the sense of defeat crept into my being. I had worn those beautiful shoes only a few days. It would have been better if my flesh had been destroyed or my ankle broken if it meant my shoe had not been harmed. I concluded that day that mankind was involved in a conspiracy. My heart was on fire, filled with rage. I needed to seek revenge against all mankind, especially the evil forces that had taken from me my most precious shoes.

Days passed, and my sense of outrage slowly receded. I forgave my Uncle Riad and his bike, concluding that zeppole, awama, was the cause of this disaster. If no one had craved this dessert, I would have stayed home, and this disaster would never have occurred.

None of the donut balls—in my memory awama, but now zeppole—were left on my plate. I had devoured all six pieces as I finished my coffee. It was getting late, so I beckoned the waiter for my bill. He asked me, what did I think of my dessert? I produced a wide smile. He said, “I take it you liked it.”