Victoria Shohet Quotes

“Victoria had been everything I'd hoped. I loved her apartment: the faded wall tapestries, vases of dried lavender, art, knickknacks, silver frames balancing on every surface, the smell of baking cinnamon. It reminded me of the inside of a child's fort- a million precious things huddled together. Victoria was wonderful, too. She was like an old photograph, feathered and thinned out but mostly unchanged from what, I imagined, she'd once been. She was still unmelted, as if she'd been carved from pain aux cereales dough. Her old age wasn't something she did to everyone around her, like Aunt Lou's would be, like her middle age already was. Victoria's smile was mini and maybe could be read as stingy, as though she were fighting against it- but I didn't think so. It seemed more like it was wringing out sadness.”
― Jessica Soffer, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

“Those are juice glasses," she said. I smiled.
"Right," I said. "This is how we drank it in Baghdad."
I put down the steaming glass in front of her and wrapped the oven mitt around the bowl of bamia and brought that too, smelling it on the way.
"Heaven," I said.
I watched her as she ate until I caught myself.
"I haven't made this in years," I said.
Lorca lifted her shoulders, cocked her head, asking why.
"I don't know," I said. "I should have. There's a saying in Arabic: Bukra fil mish mish. 'Tomorrow, when the apricots bloom.' Or, in other words, maybe tomorrow. I kept thinking that. I'd do it tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow."
I was thinking of Lorca, of cooking again. But I thought of Joseph too. No more tomorrows with him.”
― Jessica Soffer, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

“We didn't have wooden stakes in the ground. We didn't have burning brushwood either. We didn't have fish from the Tigris or the Euphrates.
We did have fresh red snapper from Citarella, which I butterflied down the back; tamarind paste from Fairway; hand-skimmed olive oil from Tunisia. We had a small fire when Victoria's sleeve brushed past the stove. And when I threw a glass of water at her, we had a fit of laughter so overpowering that I had to help her into a chair.”
― Jessica Soffer, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots