Omar’s Perfect Falafel
Omar’s small stand is set against the foundation of the Citadel’s outer walls, its once vivid red and green paint faded into flaky pastels by a long succession of high noons. Stacks of flatbread compete for space with the cauldron at its heart, and the crescent of purple-rimmed enameled bowls that encircle it, each brimming with pickles, salads, and tahini. The other food stalls flaunt similar accoutrements to Omar’s, but none could match his falafel: hand-formed spheres of apricot-sized pale green paste, smothered in sesame seeds right ahead of their baptismal plunge into boiling oil.
After a day of mind-numbing classes, I join the long queue—the line moves quickly and then there’s Omar, perpetual toothy grin below his rampant mustache, eliciting reluctant echoes from even those who’d sworn off frivolity to survive their long and winding days. No one quite knows where Omar came from—some say he’s Sa’idi, owing to the sun-drenched wheat of his skin and the drawl of his lilting speech. Others say he’s a Jinn, wearing human flesh to lead the righteous astray. How else could he afford to charge so little? His competitors curse wherever he’s from, wishing only he’d go back there. I don’t care where he's from, though I rather like the idea of Omar the Jinn, here to take me elsewhere.
His grin grows a smidgen wider when he sees me, or so I convince myself. “Waleed, habibi, how was school today?” His voice booms yet remains intimate, his inquiry a confidence between friends.
“I’m studying at college, Omar,” I say, helplessly grinning back at him. “I finished school years ago.”
“We’re always learning, habibi, about who we are and where we come from; about what makes us happy and what doesn’t.”
As he wraps the two bread halves overflowing with falafel in fresh newsprint, his eyes dim a little, and his head drops, after a sideways glance. I follow its trail to a wake of Council goons lurking in a web of whispers spun by Omar’s competitors. He hands me the bundle, nods his chin at the conspirators and booms, “Let the people eat!”
†
That night, known unknowns trash his stand. Where it stood there’s only a pile of debris now: splintered timber and shattered glass, chips of purple enamel lost in the dirt.
I tell myself I mean to ensure Omar’s okay, as shadows grow shorter and I pace the gap between two tuk-tuks parked across a dusty lane from an old building’s narrow front door. I tell myself many things, none of them the truth, as I’m caught between dreading and yearning, my heart at war with my head.
The impasse is broken when I glance up and see Omar in the narrow recessed doorway. “Waleed, is that you?”
I fill my eyes with him, more brazenly for all my angst, heart pounding, my extremities atremble. I know why I’m here. Need burns through my skin with the merciless glare of the sky-cresting sun. Up close, the doorway seems so narrow and I wonder how Omar slips his muscular bulk through it every day. Does he graze its edges? Does it rattle at his touch?
He waits inside, smiling, not the marketplace fixture of swagger and challenge, but a softer one, warmer, knowing, inviting. “I thought it was you,” Omar says, leaning against a helical staircase that rose towards the sky. My tongue vanishes, deserting me, as has my breath, stolen by the blood thundering through my veins. It doesn’t matter, I nod.
“Come.” Omar grabs my hand and guides me into the darkness underneath the stairs.
†
His room is not at all what I expected.
I half-wondered if it’d be the gateway to some marvelous Jinn palace. The other half dreaded the reality of a musty and dank cavity, like the sort I shared with two other students. Forgotten nooks under stairs or atop roofs, buttressing the airy, balconied apartments of those of better means.
The reality lies somewhere in between. Omar’s room is clean and the only scents are lingering hints of citrus and cinnamon. Half the room is devoted to knee-high earthenware urns overflowing with soaking fava beans, alongside an ancient stone grinder. I look for sacks of dried beans but find none. The room’s other half holds a neatly made bed covered by a black-and-white wool blanket, a chipped Formica-topped table, and a squat metal-girded chest
A well forms where Omar sits on the bed. He pats a spot next to him. There’s nowhere else in the room to sit, except maybe the tiled floor. “Tell me why you came.”
“I wanted to l-learn how you make your falafel,” I stammer until I make the mistake of looking into his eyes. I lose my balance and fall into his well.
He steadies me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Are you sure?”
I know what he’s asking. I rest my palm on his chest and nod.
Up close, Omar smells earthy and wholesome, like fresh cilantro and tomato vines, and when he pulls off his shirt his brown hairy chest glows with a sheen like falafels fresh from the oil. In the whirlwind of skin meeting skin that follows, I uncover new universes in the intervals between pleasured gasps and guttural moans. When it feels like we’re flying, I open my eyes to find that we are. We tumble in the air, my weight supported by Omar’s, our limbs entwined, his body shining with dawn’s first light.
“You are Jinn!” I exclaim, too engrossed to be scared of falling.
“A migrant in your realm.” Omar’s laugh is a deep rumble that travels through our connected bodies. “All I want is to sate the hungry.”
I start to say that I’ll always hunger for tenderness, for safety, for joy. Hunger for him, his touch, his scent, his grin. But too many yearnings jostle within. In the end, I only say, “I know.”
†
Later, I wake up to garlic and cumin and frying falafel. I peek through slitted eyes to find Omar standing by a small butane burner below a dusty, wall-mounted ventilation fan, his features shimmying and swaying in the haze of boiling oil.
“You shouldn’t do that nude,” I say, my eyes at last unashamed. “Splattering oil is sure to hurt like hell, even if you’re Jinn.”
He looks at me and grins. In a moment, the burner is off and he’s by my side, a still-steaming bowl in one hand. “I wanted you to have something to eat to start the day.” I didn’t realize how long we spent in the windowless room.
I take a bite of the still hot falafel and close my eyes, lost in bliss, until I feel his finger tracing a path along my legs. I shudder and set aside any lingering fears—of who might find out and what they might do—and lap the moment’s promise, refusing to soil it with what ifs. My chest rumbles with unfamiliar contentment.
Omar draws me closer. His touch sends goosebumps racing across my skin. “Is that for the falafel or for me?” he asks through his mustachioed grin, and my lips, meeting his, answer him.
My heart thumps and my breath heaves ragged as we kiss. A lifetime of yearnings finds release. In the shadow of the Citadel’s walls, aren’t I as much a foreigner as Omar is? Both of us desperate to belong, to connect, to cling onto every scrap of long-denied joy that blows our way.
I wrap my arms around him and let go.
© 2024 Ramez Yoakeim
About the Author
Born in Egypt, raised in Australia, and now living with his husband in the United States, Ramez Yoakeim spent his whole life adapting. A one-time engineer and educator, Ramez writes mostly about hope, including “More Than Trinkets,” selected for Tor.com’s Must-Read Speculative Short Fiction. You’ll find his stories in Flame Tree Press and Erewhon Books anthologies, podcasts from Metaphorosis and StarShipSofa, and online in Translunar Travelers Lounge, UtopiaSF, Sci Phi Journal, and Andromeda Spaceways, among others. Discover more on his website, yoakeim.com.