After the twenty-four bellydancers leave, the restaurant is in shambles. Stained tablecloths form islands across the rice-speckled floor. Precariously stacked dishes await on every table. A hundred dirty glasses mob the bar. The porter flops next to a pile of cutlery, her eyes wet and red-rimmed. The chefs are grumpy, but everyone, even the porter, says, Eat. You must eat.

Eat my daughter, insists uncle chef, smiling.

I sigh. Life is too short, my mother would say. She was (still is): nimble, adaptive, dignified.

Now I get her point.

Eat. You must eat.

. . .

Ah, but how you eat! And how the world eats (or doesn't)!

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