A Bit More
Nasrin cooked with no cups and no spoons. Gus wanted numbers.
“How much rice?” he asked.
“A little.”
“How much is a little?”
“This much.” She put some rice in her hand.
“How much salt?”
“Not much. A bit.”
“How many vegetables?”
“A few.”
“And the water?”
“A bit more than the rice.”
Gus wrote it all down: a little, not much, a bit more. It didn't help.
On Sunday he cooked it himself, in his own flat across Leeds. The rice was hard and there was no salt in it.
Nasrin ate some. She thought about it.
“A bit more,” she said.
Gus looked at the pot. “Water or salt?”
“Both.”
He knew what she meant. He didn't ask how much.