Food to Live By

by Debra Bliss Saenger

She molded the bread dough with her hands, lifting the mass of flour, butter, milk, and yeast into the air, flipping it, and dropping it back onto the counter. Continuing to knead, she integrated three freshly laid eggs into the mixture, repeating the rhythms of bread making. As she worked the dough, she added snippets of delicious amendments—raisins, bits of chopped nuts, and touches of cinnamon and other spices. 

Digging her calloused fingers into the sides of the mass, she was careful not to overwork this baking masterpiece. Every holiday, she served her legacy dish on a wooden platter with softened honey butter and a serrated knife to slice into the warm bread. The steaming vapors of cinnamon, cardamom, and a touch of honey enveloped the senses of those who sat nearby. 

A vat of wine stood in the corner of the small kitchen. Dipping a ladle into the deep red brew, the woman filled a large carafe. She set the food and the pitcher of wine on the table and sat in her designated place at the end of the table. Folding her hands in her lap, her knuckles swollen with the hard work of farm life, she dutifully bowed to those who gathered at the table. It was a hungry horde of family, with extended members from just one side of the couple, the husband’s. She married into this annual tradition and had no say in the event.

Her husband hovered at the other end of the wooden table. A piece of lumber atop a workhorse used for his woodworking trade extended the dining space, seating over ten relatives. Tucked alongside the table, assorted chairs gathered from the modest home stood. In the husband’s left hand, a gleam from the room’s low light revealed a larger knife, honed on the outside grinder. In front of him, a large side of lamb pulled from the outside cooking pit and cut into rough segments filled a metal tray with its size. Its savory smell overwhelmed the bread’s aroma from the opposite end of the table.

Raising a glass brimming with red wine in his other hand, the husband toasted the gathering and the occasion of this event. He took care to look each guest in the eye as he welcomed them and praised them by name. All except his wife at the opposite end of the table, who he ignored. She bowed her head until her eyes bore through the fabric of her long dress, a garment she especially sewed for this once-a-year dinner. She did not partake in the toast with this public shaming.

Her long, brown hair pinned to the back kept her lustrous hair hidden. One tendril popped from its pinned constraints and dangled across the curve of her cheek, falling out of sight beneath the bent face. She felt ashamed and feared that her husband cast aside her contributions to the meal. Her husband did not acknowledge her and did not welcome her. Those close to her heard a deep sigh that lifted her shoulders and chest, expelling in a song of agony. 

She had endured many such moments, mostly in private and out of sight of his relatives. She knew he did not think she was good enough, that she was a disappointment to him. Whatever her failings were for that day, that hour, or that moment, she would suffer consequences for them. She knotted her hands together underneath the table, unseen by others. The sleeves of her dress fell away, and welts marked her arms, unseen but felt. She dug her fingernail into her left hand until a bead of blood surfaced. Her heart raced, and she found her breathing becoming increasingly erratic. She was afraid. Afraid for her punishment and afraid for possibly her life.

Silently, she raised her head, with her left hand still throbbing from the self-inflicted wound of her fingernail. Stretching from each side of her, the line of his relatives passed along food from the table, trading barbs and jokes. She noticed the bread, sliced and distributed, washed down as the guests gustily drank the welcoming toast from her husband.

Scanning the table, she observed the looks of surprise on each guest, as their faces revealed a source of discomfort. A digestive malady that now knotted their stomachs. That distress quickly progressed into palatable pain. As each guest clenched their hands to their stomachs, they regarded each other with a rising sense of anxiety, then dread. Soft cries of agony replaced their boisterous eating. 

As a few minutes passed, the sounds erupted further into sobbing and loud incantations to their god to come to their rescue and relieve them from this torture. The walls of the room echoed with their anguished cries, but the walls could not help them. Their god could not help them. And no doctor was there to administer relief. 

One by one, the lines of relatives that feasted at the wooden table fell from their chairs and stools, roiling on the dirt floor of the home. Bit by bit, the sounds receded into a deathly silence where the pain stopped and the souls no longer had to suffer. 

The woman raised her head fully and saw that her husband, too, had succumbed. His prone figure sprawled across the roasted lamb, absorbing the juices from the slaughtered animal. In his right hand, the goblet of wine spilled onto the table. His left hand still clutched the sharpened knife used to make some of the first cuts into the meat. In death, the image of the husband holding the knife mocked the one person still alive in the room. But the knife was no longer a threat and no longer to be used as a weapon.

The woman stood and finally could take a deep breath, knowing she was alive and safe. At least for now. The rat poison she carefully baked into her bread, and the arsenic she introduced to the wine, had fulfilled their mission. She was the last person standing in the room.

THE END