"You want to try a bagel?" he asked, slightly timidly. The old man smiled, with just about the same measure of diffidence, and said, "Sure." "Sit," said the young man, and then he turned to the pantry and pulled out a bag full of cinnamon raisin bagels. He then realized his dad was still standing. He sighed a little, frowning to show his disapproval, which, as he expected, made no effect. He took out two bagels before putting the bag of the rest back in the pantry. He wasn't sure if his dad was watching him take a plate out and splitting the bagel. His kitchen was much bigger than the old man's, and in the young man's opinion, much more organized. He had always been proud of his kitchen. That was why he wondered if his dad noticed. And he wondered if his dad noticed anything about the bagel.
"Have you had a bagel before?"
"No."
In that case, he never had cinnamon before. A piece of bark. But he said nothing. He put the halves of the two bagels open side up into the toaster oven, and pressed the toast button.
"Sit, sit," said the young man. And when he himself sat down, the old man sat down.
Did he notice about the stool? The old man probably never sat on a bar stool before. But he's such a mystery; he was quiet, not even his own son had much of an inkling on what the old man was thinking, his impressions, his thoughts. Every now and then he would say something the son wanted to hear, like in the previous day when the old man tried one of his son's baked goods for the first time, "Wow, I didn't know you could bake." That was what the young man wanted to hear, and he was delighted to hear it from this otherwise very reticent man.
But otherwise, like now, he said nothing, nothing expected nor unexpected. They had the special chai the son had prepared a few minutes ago. "I got this recipe from India," said the son. His dad knew he went to India, but he never asked about it, and this time the son wanted him to ask, or at least acknowledge that he went on this trip. But nothing. The father took a sip of the hot, milky drink, and said, quietly, "Has a nice aroma." For a Chinese, his dad didn't drink much tea, never did. He drank coffee for the sake of the milk and not the coffee, the son had learned this weekend. And this aromatic "tea" was even more foreign to him, but its milky taste reminded him of coffee.
"Not too sweet?"
"No. It's fine."
His not only never had a chai, but rarely drank from a cup, probably never from a glass except occasionally at a restaurant. In his house he drank everything from a bowl, including wine. Most of his life he spent during some upheaval or post-upheaval upheaval, and the only thing one could literally count on was a bowl that could hold soup, water, rice, and occasionally other foods. When time and suffering bind you to a way of life, it's hard to get out of it when time and suffering stopped possessing you like a haunting.
Still, his son couldn't know what he was really thinking, sitting there, on a bar stool for the first time, at a marble kitchen counter top for the first time, with his son, just with his son, in his son's house, for the firs time. His eyes were surrounded by deep wrinkles, his lower eyelids swollen with time. His gaze had always been at some distance, even when speaking to someone.
"It's Indian," the young man reiterated.
A mutter from the old man's pale lips was the only acknowledgment of the reiteration. They chitchatted a little more about things at home, the old man's work, and then the toaster oven made a sound, indicating that the bagels were ready. The young man stood up to get the bagel, and he was a little relieved that his dad stayed sitting.
"I hope you like it," said the young man to his dad who has never smelled bagels before, just seen its pictures on advertisements.
The young man opened the fridge door and took out a small container of cream cheese.
"You know what this is?"
"Butter?"
His dad knew that milk made butter and yogurt and cheese. His son was delighted to keep showing him off all these things the old man had been missing all his long and arduous life. "I don't know how to explain it. It's a kind of cheese, but not really. Kind of like butter. You spread on the bagel."
He took the butter knife and started spreading it for his dad. The young man was making the wavy motion with the knife on the spread cream cheese, the way he always did most mornings where this was on his short list of breakfast possibilities. And he was sharing this piece of his life with him.
"That's enough. I don't need a lot of cheese," said the old man, looking honored that his son was preparing food for him.
"Sure? Usually I put more."
Sure, of course. It wasn't about being afraid of trying something new. It wasn't about not liking this white, amorphous novelty. It was about not eating too much. His dad was never a small eater, but he had always eaten large volumes of scrap. For the whole of the young man's life, he had only seen the old man eat whatever the children didn't eat, either because they were picky or they were full. And for a long time, he didn't even eat with them, but rather watched them eat. To put more cream cheese than absolutely necessary was a waste unless no one wanted the cream cheese. He fed his body out of necessity, but he had no real opinion about what it liked or preferred. Preference was in the realm of his children. He would suck off the bits from bones or eat the extremely fatty skins off roasts because those were the parts no one wanted. And to be fair, it wasn't always for his children. He had from early on taught his children to also bear suffering first before enjoying life. And it came down to the tiniest details like eating the less desirable parts before enjoying the nicer parts, of anything, of life or of food.
However, in his presence, he always told his children to eat up all the best parts of the meal, and implicitly he would finish up whatever wasn't eaten, and he, like an omnibus machine, could eat off almost any parts of any vegetable or animal. He had never said it, but his son had learned in ways he hadn't quite grasped, that suffering was the only path towards enjoyment. Such was the paradox he had to grapple with all his life.
The young man reluctantly gave his dad the bagel half with a thin layer of cream cheese on it, as if it were butter. For himself, he, also with some reluctance, spread some cream cheese on one of the halves.
"Good?"
"Yes. Thank you very much, it's very good."
He remembered one time when he offered his old man wine, the latter couldn't refuse. And he nearly drank the wine from a bowl before his son insisted on a glass. There was so much politeness, their relationship anything but casual. His dad would never refuse anything unless it would cause him huge inconvenience. Wine might make him feel bad the later on, but he couldn't refuse his son. As they both bit into their respective bagel halves, the son felt that gap between them that, however wide, always had some unexpected bridge laid across. And now they were standing in the middle of this bridge, a suspension bridge, over a darkness the young man still could not comprehend but felt very keenly, while the old man simply didn't care. He met his son in the middle simply because the latter wanted that to happen.
"This cheese is famous from Philadelphia. Remember that city? We went there together the first time?"
"Yes. I remember. The bell. You let me drive. That was the last time I drove."
That was ten years ago. Ten years was how long the chasm seemed to be.
