The Man Who Did Not Like Meat

On their first date Mirza said he did not eat meat either. Lejla had not asked whether he shared her reasons or set a condition for dating. She was merely choosing food. He wanted an easy beginning, so he ordered the same and omitted that he had eaten grilled meat that afternoon. A small adjustment, he thought, something to explain once they knew each other better.

A year later they still did not know each other in that ordinary detail. At Lejla's he ate her cooking; with colleagues he ate everything else. He had no health problem or reason to hide a meal, only an increasingly long series of conversations confirming her assumption. When she offered a new recipe, he praised it as a life-changing discovery. Sometimes he genuinely liked it. Sometimes he bought dinner afterward on his way home.

At a friend's barbecue the host placed his favorite meat on his plate without asking. Lejla stood beside him. Mirza could have told the truth but first claimed his friend had confused him with somebody else. The friend laughed and recalled their lunch the previous day. Silence at the table became much larger than one plate.

Lejla did not criticize his food. She asked him to walk. She asked what he thought would happen if he said he ate differently. Mirza admitted fearing he would interest her less. She said it now felt as though she had spent a year speaking to a man who answered what he thought she wanted. Suddenly she questioned films, plans, and his promise that he wanted country life one day.

That last point was not accidental. Mirza did not actually want to leave the city. He said so too, for the first time without softening the sentence. Lejla sat on a low fence and said she needed time. They returned to the guests without pretending cheerfulness. The host discreetly removed the plate. Nobody needed a joke to fill their discomfort.

Over the following weeks they discussed differences Mirza previously skipped. Some were easy, others important. Lejla neither abandoned her choices nor asked him to copy them. But she would not continue until he spoke as someone allowed his own answer. They stayed together more slowly and cautiously. At their first subsequent lunch they ordered different dishes. Mirza ate without hiding, and Lejla asked for the first time whether he liked it, waiting for an answer he did not already know.