Csirke Paprika

Ingredients:
2 onions
cloves of garlic
chicken breast
sour cream
3 boiled potatoes
paprika
tomatoes
salt
water

Ella has chopped everything on a cutting board next to the stove. She places her cool hands over mine and guides me. To my right, garlic and tomatoes. Then, the fiery paprika, finely cut. To my left, a saltshaker. Ella takes me to the bowl of boiled potatoes in the back, they emit a pale yellow aroma. I'm getting excited now, potatoes have always been my special addition. We skirt over the chicken, it's slimy.

"I poured a glass of tap water, it's next to the cutting board and I've lit the gas. Oil is in the pan," she says gently putting my hand on the handle. "Please be careful. Keep the heat on low and call out if you need help."

"Go go go," I tell her. I breathe in. All the patinas are raw.

Ella slips out so quietly I'm not sure she's gone.

I listen for the oil to start cracking. I'm shaky when I add the first fistful of onion, but isn't long before I breathe in sky-blue. My wooden spoon sweeps over the pan, spicy azure fills the kitchen. I add garlic and my mind goes turquoise.

It reminds me of my home in suburban America, where I lived as an immigrant. I see the silky floss of my children's' hair fleet across our big sky backyard.

I'm careful to turn the heat down; burning the garlic could char everything.

It's time for the chicken to brown. I carefully add the meat and it soon sizzles into bright purple. Going to turn velvet soon, I think. I add melting potatoes and they bring gold overtones.

Colors have floated through my mind alongside smells all my life. Thankfully, my synetheasia stayed with me after that desperate week in the hospital three years ago. Now, the gray turmoil I've been living in since I reluctantly returned to Pest is shrouded in the colors of other times.

Then come tomatoes. They turn magenta. I sprinkle paprika. Too much. It's too late, it's color is more red than in life. Piros is overwhelming. I am alone, hiding in the musty cellar that reeks of urine, hoping each inhale is punishment enough and the Arrow-Cross will keep away.

I fumble for vís, nearly knocking over the glass. Steam rises. The pan cools. I feel my first husband behind me. We are newlyweds. It's the 18th of March, 1944, the day before the coup. He's swaying me gently. I hear the strains of my brother playing his clarinet.

"Breathe in Zsoli, isn't this wonderful?" I say. I crave that creamy smell of sex, I let my head loll backwards with delight.

"Ummmm, Grandma, it's me, Ella," my granddaughter is patting my shoulders, "I wanted to check on you, and you've done it. You really are able to cook!"

"Oy!" I say. I am stirring in sour cream, the csirke paprika is babbling like a child. "It's my way of seeing again, you see."

She comes behind me and is lifting the pan; I feel her body against mine. I don't move away, I can't. I clutch the counter with both hands. With the gas off, the ingredients melting together and my old self becomes as shadowy as my actual granddaughter is to my blind eyes.

I am breathing in deeply, deeply, trying to hold onto the last scents of color. I feel faint and heavy. The world dims again. Then, as if she already knew, my granddaughter leads me to a chair. Rest.