4. Anyone who knows about peculiar North American food style trends of the yet-to-come ’70s, such as whipped edible oil products, fruit leather, and green goddess dressing, will foretell that most unusual ’70s culinary practice of slathering a whole salmon with store-bought mayonnaise, wrapping the fish in foil and running it through a full dishwasher cycle to cook it. Moist.]
The fish don’t die.
Conceit saves the koi.
Malmo wants to show the drawings to Phil, a self-confident colleague, who has done both structural and electrical specs. Whose teeth would drive Vee crazy, if he were only Oriental.
“You putting crab and stuff in here?”
“No,” Malmo says, regretting the moment he said to Phil, Let me show you something I’ve been working on, “Koi. They’re large fish. Carp.”
“But not, like, good for eating?”
“No. I’ve never heard of anyone eating koi. They’re very rare and expensive fish, Phil. You don’t eat them, you keep them in a pond. Strictly ornamental.”
“Oriental?”
“Ornamental.”
“Well, if you can’t figure out a way to cut, gut, and eat ’em, you better change your heat exchanger. God, at least the thermometer. You gonna fry those fish, Buddy. Don’t you know the variance between the waste heat values of these appliances? It’s like. . . Size Huge, man. Huge.”
Malmo repeatedly tries to terminate the conversation, but later, forty-eight minutes later, he is more resolute than ever to have a koi pond, explaining to Phil that, No, it’s not some weirdee Chinese thing Malmo has to do to prove his manliness.
Phil opens his hands to Malmo as if to show him how clean they are.
“Why don’t you just put a big aquarium in your kitchen, Mal?”
Malmo drops the concept of a heat exchange system in his drawings. He substitutes a primary source electric heating system, with a durable thermometer that can withstand millions of cycles and bumps. Malmo specifies that the thermometer be wired to an alarmed thermoelectric monitoring device, and searches relentlessly for the best one. Finally, he sources a device that can detect minute variances in water temperature from a supplier to a commercial freezer manufacturer. Malmo procures second and third opinions from competitor engineering firms, undertakes discreet, no-name consultations with the membership officer of the Professional Engineering Society to find the quintessential electrical engineer.
Wing drops Lizzie and Pen off at the Downtown YWCA on Saturday mornings for swimming lessons. Every week he says the same thing: Pay attention, and don’t go off the deep end.
banquette
elegant and modern renovation
good taste
koi are rare and expensive
won’t smell
makes house more valuable (bank)
?safer than an open pond (?kids)
banquette
won’t smell
?gimmees: columns? bed? patio deck?
Malmo unfolds and looks at his prep sheet. In the end, not as hard as he thought it might be. He knew to sell the new kitchen by the banquette, and not with the concept drawings. He turned the key, started, with the banquette, round, in tan leather, just like the Nancy Kwan movie. He pulled away from the curb, coordinating cupboards, copper tile counter back-splash, expensive dado, new appliances. He threatened to stall, when Vee asked Why, why under the kitchen floor. Skidded on a grease spot when he used the word, thermocouple, once too often. Malmo turned into the skid, coasted gently down the hill in neutral, quietly voicing the word, koi, like gold foil, so Vee’s mental brake on all things that she calls Chinese In A Bad Way would not be pumped, the brake cable snapping, and both of them careening out of control into the aftermath of a yin-yang slam-bang, No Way Malmo pile-up.
She didn’t even bring up the mattress. None of the ?s. Malmo tears up the page, throws half the scraps in the toilet and flushes; the rest, he pockets and will throw out at work.
Once: Malmo will apply for and be granted a second mortgage on the house, despite fully disclosing the nature of his renovation project to the bank. The second mortgage will be largely due to the bank’s fear of losing the significant ground they feel they’ve made with the Oriental community, by mailing bank calendars with the Chinese “Good Luck” symbol in December to anyone whose surname sounds even a little bit Oriental, like Lee, Spong, Low, Keen, and inviting customers at the same time of year to help themselves to a basket of what the bank manager calls Jap oranges. Twice: Harold Parker, head of the Biology department at the University of Alberta, will be paid twice: once, monthly, by Malmo for a year, for consulting on filtration, alkaline levels, acclimatization protocols, bottom fill specs, nutrition sourcing, and other details about the actual fish and their maintenance; and again, for decades, as Harold dines out on the story fodder gifted to him during his one-year association with the man who wanted a fish pond under his kitchen floor. Three times: Malmo will ask and ask and finally persuade Kai, the cook at the Osaka restaurant, to give him the name of the guy in Vancouver who has a cousin who lives in Taipei who knows a stevedore in Hong Kong who works for a man whose brother has the most hardy domesticated koi stock in the world. Third time lucky.
Mumma won’t go to see Malmo and Vee’s new pond, the idea of fish being able to swim between her legs, bulbous sideways eyes peering furtively under her skirt, and in the kitchen of all places is Too Much Thank You.
“C’mon, Mumma,” Wing says, “Means a lot to Malmo, and to Vee.”
Tom runs wild and Jane toddles after him, up and down the aisles, slowing only when they climb the slope where the floor humps in the middle aisle of Wing’s store. Mumma brought Tom and Jane downtown to the store on the bus, specifically one bus to the end of the line, and then a transfer to the second bus going downtown on Wednesday afternoon, when the buses operate on an off-peak schedule. Mumma feels noodle hot, and wants to get home before the older girls are home from school. Wing has almost finished checking the supplier invoices against the ledger, nothing he couldn’t finish tomorrow.
“There,” she says, taking Wing’s plastic magnifying sheet off the open ledger and slapping it down on the top edges of his fish tank at the back of the store, “Let’s go home.” The fish startle from the sound of the plastic sheet hitting against the frame of the tank, but settle quickly, swimming smoothly past the blue plastic scuba diver aerator.
“Mumma, shouldn’t we go see Malmo’s new pond?”
“Shouldn’t we,” Mumma repeats as a statement, “I stopped worrying, even thinking about ‘shouldn’t we’, the minute the nurse at the hospital put baby number four in my arms.” Mumma thrusts her left hand out, gesturing toward the fish tank, “What do you need me to do? Put this on the floor so you can watch the fish swim by your feet? Honestly.”
Wing laughs. “OK, Mumma. Let’s going home.”
Number 57. One Thousand Year Old Eggs
Mumma takes a man-sized Kleenex from Dad’s night table drawer, wraps it securely around a Kotex napkin, and slides the bundle into her navy leather going-out bag, almost filling it. That time of the month, the little visitor, her dot, or, Mumma’s favourite term of endurance, the capital C, Curse.
Why does capital C, Curse come at the worst time of the month, Mumma wonders. Why doesn’t it come when Mumma has nothing better to do than read those books that Sally Faber keeps foisting on her, naughty books with arching body parts and many speeds of breathing.
Oh who am I kidding, Mumma thinks, looking at the pile of unread books, Me, who can’t even say that word, that one. Mumma recalls the unbearably long discussion with Lizzie and Pen years ago, talking about bird and bee, Pen keeping at her and at her, even after Lizzie went back to watching The Forest Rangers on TV with Tom and Jane, “No, Mumma, it doesn’t make sense that if you just lie close together with a man you love, you’ll get pregnant. It just doesn’t make sense. Why do you have to love them? Do you have to love them? Bet you don’t even have to like them. Andy McLaughlin’s oldest sist
er is pregnant and I heard her say she hasn’t felt true love in forever and forever. Plus also, I bet you don’t even have to lie down. No, I bet you can be standing right up. Straight up, Mumma. You know, I stand up on the bus in rush hour surrounded by people. Strangers. Some of them are men — do you mean to tell me I could get pregnant on the Number 1 Jasper Place coming home in rush hour just because I’m standing up, close to men? Shouldn’t there be a law about women and men standing together on the bus, Mumma? Who wants to get pregnant with some stranger-on-the-bus’s baby? Something’s fishy, Mumma. Something doesn’t sound like love.” Mumma doesn’t know the word, disingenuous, but she does know that her bird and bee conversation with Lizzie and Pen, even just mentally replaying fragments, can still make a line of sweat break out on Mumma’s upper lip. Which does not help one little bit, not at this time of the month.
Okay. Dinky-do. Mumma can go that far, can say that word, a red blush flowing from the base of her throat up to her forehead, even now. Years and years ago, when she talked bird and bee with the older girls, gave them the Young Woman booklet from the Kotex company that she had sent away for, Mumma’s reddening reminded Lizzie of the Grade 4 science experiment, capillary action makes the red-dyed water travel up the tubes in a stalk of celery. Pressed and pressed by Pen, and seeing Lizzie’s expression transform from happily curious to dumbfounded and moderately anxious, Mumma mumbled, “You know boys. Boys. . .boys, they have. . . .they are. . . . They stand up to pee. Different, right? Remember when Tom was a baby, and you watched me change his diaper? Yeah, all boys have, the reason they can stand and pee. . . . They have a dinky-do. Yes. They do. They all do. Mm-hmm. And that. . . Yes, that’s, you know, it’s Involved With — with bird and bee too.”
Because Pen already knew from Andy McLaughlin’s sister, and Lizzie made the subconscious association with liquid travelling up the tubes of a firm stalk of celery, Mumma’s little talk somewhat followed through on its objectives. At least Mumma hoped that Lizzie wouldn’t think that she was dying when her little visitor came the second time, Lizzie behind the bathroom door, “Oh, you go on without me to church. I think I’m dying.” [Note: all of Mumma’s children will go to university. Each of them will take introductory psychology and kill themselves laughing when they study Freud and psychoanalysis and dinky-do envy.]
Mumma’s hands press against the sides of her navy going-out purse as if she is holding a closed book between the palms of her hands. Nope. There’s just no room for a second pad, a just in case Kotex. Darn it, a sanitary napkin double-indemnity insurance policy just will not fit into Mumma’s smart-looking going-out bag. Mumma knows that if you have a second pad, you won’t need it. Take an umbrella with you downtown in the Spring, on that day with the bluest sky, so the unforeseen, unforecasted cloudburst won’t wet slap you across the back of your head and flatten your curls. Same principle. Mumma craves the security of a spare Kotex, Mumma being accident-free for way more consecutive seasons and years than any construction site registered under the provincial occupational health and safety regime.
Damn capital C, Curse. Mumma opens her smart bag with the solo Kotex inside. Well, there’s always vending machine Kotex. Ha, as if Mumma has the faith to rely on a ten-cent vending machine that dispenses capital C, Curse protection. As if Mumma has ever procured a sanitary napkin from one of those metal boxes with a handle and a coin slot, mounted on a public ladies’ room wall. Mumma maintains a deep mistrust of coin-operated sanitary napkin dispensers, not based on any personal experience or what she’s heard said, as if anyone has ever talked about trying a sanitary napkin vending machine. Mumma does not trust any vending machine, but especially sanitary napkin vending machines.
When it comes to vending machine commerce, Mumma believes the only certain thing is that you certainly won’t get what you want. Actually not just want, but need, you will not get what you need when you need it. Mumma knows in her head that women must rely on these machines and find them handy and easy to operate, because they’re on the wall in practically every public ladies’ room. But Mumma’s heart tells her that at the very moment when she desperately needs a ten-cent vending machine Kotex, when she is pressing her knees together and willing every muscle and bone, each fascia, all the cells in her body to stay self-contained, as status quo as possible, against the odds, when that thin silver dime disappears down the slot in the machine and she turns the nickel-plated handle — in her imagination, Mumma sees a stream of hot coffee sweetened with two sugars pouring into the metal tray at the bottom of the machine, then dripping onto the ladies’ room floor; or a paper cup dropping down, followed by a thick jet of yellow chicken soup; possibly a defective box of Bridge Mixture tumbling down the chute, open-ended side down, clattering the restroom floor with a shower of shiny brown pellets. Mumma doesn’t have the load-bearing capacity to shoulder that much embarrassment. She scowls, imagines herself in a ladies’ restroom, with women, tittering, shaking their heads as they watch her, knees cemented together, trying to dislodge a Styro cup full of hot cocoa with hard little white marshmallows out of a Kotex vending machine, when all she wants — no, needs — is a sanitary napkin! Mumma feels the blood rushing up the back of her neck.
She will simply have to change her Kotex right before going out. Okay, Mumma thinks, I’ll wear the spare. Knowing this is not a great solution, Mumma shrugs her shoulders, she whispers under her breath, Damn capital C, Curse.
Mumma’s a keen troubleshooter, with mad skills for calmly attending to quotidian logistics, budgeting, medium and long range planning. Not exactly a perfectionist but right next door to it, Mumma’s miffed by the inelegant and half-baked solution of changing her Kotex right before going out.
Heaven knows, Kotex isn’t the problem, having saved the day for moments unrelated to capital C, Curse. Mumma fingers the fasteners on the spare Kotex and recalls how she first came upon using Kotex for a bridal shower gift.
[Note: it will be years from now, during the halcyon days, no, the years dedicated to self-absorption and self-help, when people will talk about “finding their passion,” or “doing what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” But if people had the mind-set to declare, even to think about what floated their boats, gave them their goodies, what zip-a-deed their do-dahs, at the time that Mumma was packing her smart going-out purse with the solo Kotex, Mumma would have said, “Oh that’s easy. I throw fabulous bridal showers.”]
Mumma enjoys a reputation for her creativity when it comes to bridal showers. God knows, Mumma may be an imposter with the Chinese language Bible in the House of the Lord, an ecclesiastical linguistic poseur, but what every woman in the congregation knows is that if your daughter is getting married, blessed be the family that Mumma Lee favours by throwing one of her memorable bridal showers.
God only knows why Mumma’s showers have such a devoted following, RSVPs 100% yes, with guests coming early and staying Late, late late. Is it the tiny cream puffs shaped like golden choux pastry swans, the top of the puff sliced in two pieces and fitted like wings into the cream-filled bottom, a slender choux pastry “S” placed to suggest the neck and graceful head of a pastry bird? How about the tomato roses, the pearly white onion mums, the celery dahlias, and the carrot daisies in Mumma’s carefully arranged bridal garden vegetable platters? Could it be Mumma’s salmon in aspic recipe from Janet Peters’s recipe book, Janet Peters, who women in the know kind of knew was actually Norah Willis Michener, noted philosopher, etiquette expert, hostess, home economist, and wife of the Governor General? [Note: God knows it shouldn’t be, but. . .] No, mostly it’s the way Mumma decorates the presents she gives to each bride-to-be.
Mumma remembers setting up her own household, knows that every bride could use a little help, a leg up, a hoot boost from behind, in collecting her kitchen linens — two crisp linen tea towels and a good quality dish cloth, the durable kind on which a young bride might not think to splurge her household allowance. Initially, Mumma tucked the kitchen linens into th
e sides of the box, holding her gift like tissue. Then one afternoon, as she wrapped up a tea cup and saucer, shortly after a Communion Sunday church service, shortly after seeing Dougie spin the linen napkins before dim sum at the New World, spinning linens bringing to mind a beautiful Leslie-Caron-An-American-in-Paris style wide-gore (not a Lesley-Gore-American-Bandstand-cry-if-you-want-to) party skirt, Mumma’s hands began to fiddle. A few finger pleats here and some accordian folding there, a twist there and another one there, a little criss-crossing, and three firm tucks.
“Tah-Dah?” Mumma queried, still not quite certain she could trust her eyes, each syllable having the same emphasis. Her hands held a little headless maiden wearing a long dress with cap sleeves, entirely made from two tea towels, with a dishcloth apron tucked in at the waist. What a wonder, she thought. Mumma frowned at the absence of a head.
But Mumma would never go out and buy a small Styrofoam ball adorned with a wiry pot scrubber wig, or a skein of baby yarn, rolled and braided into a head with a hairdo to finish the doll. Mumma came to decide that her bridal shower maiden doll would have a head with exquisitely drawn-on features but made from a sanitary napkin, rolled and tied by its own fasteners.
Mumma checks her makeup in her compact mirror, and slides the compact in beside the Kotex. Lizzie already in university, early admission. Lizzie brought home a black-and-white booklet on human reproduction printed by the Students’ Union, just about the time that Mumma noticed the stains on Tom’s bedsheets. “Here,” Mumma said, handing him the booklet, “if you want to talk about this, you better ask your father.” [Note: Years after Mumma loses track of the Students’ Union booklet, when it’s Jane’s turn for The Talk, Mumma will give Jane the Kotex Young Woman booklet to review beforehand. During Mumma’s mumble to Jane, “They lie down very close together, they do. So close — and they think about the baby they would like to have,” Mumma’s left hand will inscribe the air with an all-encompassing arc which will be twinned by the two black eyebrow arcs over Mumma’s you-better-pay-attention eyes. The total effect of Mumma’s talk and Jane’s pre-reading the booklet will leave Jane convinced that if a man sitting beside her on the Number 1 Jasper Place bus takes off his shoe to scratch the ball of his foot, she will catch a social disease.]
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