The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  The corn cones went in the oven only briefly—fuel had been scarce on the road when the Empress fled—and then came out. He arranged them on a plain platter with the tiny meat-stuffed cakes. "Think of it as a pause by the side of the road," he told his son as he packed everything on a tray around a turnip that Tan had turned into a fragile pink peony.

  "Should I tell the panel the background story?" said Sam, before he carried it out. "Because I don't think they will know."

  "Surely they will know," said Liang Yeh. "It's the Empress Dowager."

  "Brother," chided Jiang, "they won't know. They have forgotten.

  Liang Yeh shrugged. "Then let it be."

  Sam took the platter from his father. He saw that his father was different here, light, almost at ease, in the way he must have been when he was young. Gone was the ill-fitting cloak of exile he had worn for so many years, the hunched and anxious shoulders. Sam wished his mother could be here, seeing it. She loved Liang Yeh, loved his kindness and his mordant humor; she would be uplifted to see him so happy. Sam felt a pang of longing for them to be together, the three of them, with his father like this, here in China.

  Back in the kitchen Sam noticed Maggie sitting now, watching. She was so attentive. Her presence reminded him that most people did not watch things very closely. Well, it was her job. She was a writer. He liked knowing she was there. She saw everything. He almost seemed to see his own life more clearly when she was here to witness it. Soon, though, she would be gone. "How much longer are you going to be in China?" he said.

  "I try not to think about that."

  "Why?"

  "I guess I don't want to leave. I would never have thought I would like it here, this much. But I do. It feels good."

  "So stay," he said.

  "I can't. I have to work. By the way," she said quickly, changing the subject, "he's amazing, your father. He really kept his skills up. I thought you said he never cooked!"

  "He hasn't, for many years," said Sam. "He's just naturally great. He's the last Chinese chef."

  "No, Sam," she said. "You are."

  He smiled. "That's why I wish you didn't have to leave."

  "I feel the same."

  "So maybe you'll come back."

  She said nothing. He held the first of the three molds over the sink and, supporting it with a sieve, dislodged it in one piece. He opened the crevice just a bit, and sizzling pork fat ran off and hissed into the sink.

  "Nephew! Your sense has vanished and left you!" Jiang flew across the room at him.

  "Remember?" Sam said to Maggie in English. "I told you this would cause a fight." Then he went back to Chinese. "Uncle, we don't need all the fat."

  "But this dish is you er bu ni," To taste of fat without being oily. "That is its point!"

  "This is enough fat."

  "Leave him!" cried Liang Yeh. "Do you not think he knows the right amount? To the droplet? To the touch?"

  A change came over the room. Even Maggie felt the fine hairs on her arms stand up.

  "Perhaps you are right," said Jiang in Chinese.

  "Thanks, Dad," said Sam, using English. Then, in Chinese: "It's so rich already. And this is the first rice we've had. I assure you, for the meishijia, the fat is waiting, delicate and aromatic as a soufflé, right under the skin." He turned to his father. "You serve it. Please. I served your corn cakes and your sloppy joes."

  "Xiao wo tou and shao bingjia rou mo, " his father said. "Learn the Chinese names."

  "I will," Sam said. And Liang Yeh carried the tray in high, with a flourish. They heard his smart steps across the floor, the click of the plates on the table, and then, from the panel, low shrieks of disbelief, submission, almost weeping.

  "They're going to eat the fat," Tan predicted.

  "Five to two says no," Sam said. "A hundred kuai."

  "Done," Tan said, satisfied. He had cooked for the meishijia all his life. He knew they would eat the fat.

  Jiang stood back to let Liang Yeh back in and peered out through the crack in the door. "You win," he said to Tan. "They're eating it. Any more dishes?"

  "One," said Sam. "The last metaphor. It's easy now. I made the broth yesterday." From the refrigerator he took a bowl with about six cups of rich-looking jellied broth. "Lamb broth. I boiled it for three hours—lamb meat and bones, and wine, and all kinds of aromatics. Then I cooled it, took out all the fat." He dumped the jellied broth into a pot. "Every great banquet ends with a fish," he told Maggie in English. "This is going to be carp in lamb broth."

  "I don't think I've ever heard of that combination," said Maggie.

  "It's a literary finish. This last dish creates a word, perhaps the single most important word in the Chinese culinary language— xian, the fresh, clean taste. The character for xian is made up of two characters—the character for fish combined with the character for lamb. In this dish the two are joined. They mesh. They symbolize xian. They are xian."

  "Is it hard to make them work together, carp and lamb?"

  "Harder than you think. It's about the balance of flavors. Lamb cooked in wine is sweet and strong. Carp is meaty and also strong. If you can find just the right meeting point, they're perfect." The broth was heating up.

  "It smells wonderful."

  "Watch," he said. "As full as the people out there are, they'll eat the soup, all of it." He added the fish, brought the broth and the fish back to a boil, and immediately turned it out into a famille-rose tureen. The smell was the two natural musks, of lamb and of carp, made one.

  "Mm." She drew it in. "In the beginning was the Word."

  He laughed at her, delighted, and took off his apron. "That's it!" He lifted the bowl. It was done.

  Dessert was a platter of rare fruits, trimmed and carved into bite-sized flowers and other small pleasing geometries, then assembled like a mosaic into the shape of a flying yellow dragon—imperial style, with five claws instead of four. This was another of Uncle Tan's creations.

  Crafting thematic images with fruits and vegetables was a common Chinese culinary trick, practiced at all the better restaurants, so when Sam first brought the fruit mosaic to the table the only comment it excited was on the perfection of the dragon and the pleasing way in which the finale reinforced the Liang family's roots in imperial cuisine. It was only after the panel began to nibble at the fruits that the cries of happy surprise once again rose from the table. None of the fruits were what they expected. They were from every corner of China and her territories, like the delicacies that had always been brought to the Emperor. There were mangosteens and soursops and cold litchi jelly from the south, deep-orange Hami melon from Xinjiang, jujubes and crab apples and haws from China's northeast.

  If the members of the panel ate enough of the fruit to see the line of calligraphy alongside the painting of peaches on the plate, they would also find an excerpt from Yi Yin's famous description of the tribute fruits brought to court, written in the eighteenth century B.C.: North of the Chao Range there are all kinds of fruit eaten by the Gods. The fastest horses are required to fetch them. If they ate far enough, they would read these lines and the connection would be complete.

  Sam didn't know if they would reach the quotation or not, but by now he saw that it didn't matter. The act was enough. There was totality in the act.

  Now, from the dining room, they were cheering and calling out. Maggie touched his arm. "I think they want you."

  So he walked in. They rose to their feet, crying out their happiness, applauding. "Marvelous!" "Unforgettable!" "The Liangs have returned."

  "Thank you," he said back to them, "thank you." He felt himself practically vibrating with happiness. He introduced his assistants, his father and his uncles, one by one. He bowed. He thanked them again.

  After hearing the names, one of the panelists addressed Sam's father. "You are Liang Yeh? The son of Liang Wei?"

  "I am he," the old man said.

  "So interesting. There is another face to the family name!"

  "Yes," Lian
g Yeh said simply, smiling at the panelist, saying no more.

  Sam watched. He remembered what First Uncle had told him about Liang Yeh laboring under his own father's fame, and once again he saw his father differently, not as his father but as a man with his own private mountains in front of him.

  Sam continued thanking the panel for their compliments, aware that very soon now they would leave. Chinese diners never lingered around a table as did Westerners. After completing a meal and taking the appropriate time to exchange moods of surfeit, gratitude, and admiration, they would rise as one and politely depart as a group. It was the custom.

  Sam saw his problem. Someone had to go out, quickly, to unlock the front gate. Originally this had been Tan's job, but Tan was out of commission. And he could not go himself. As the chef he had to see the panelists out.

  Head averted, just enough, he managed to catch Jiang's eye and signal toward the front. Jiang understood. He made a small confirming nod and stepped back from the group, quietly, to turn for the door.

  When Jiang Wanli caught Nephew's signal, he remembered that Xiao Tan was in no condition to run out and open the gate. Nephew was right. Someone had to go. He excused himself from the dining room, slipped back into the kitchen, and quickly crossed it to walk out through the back door. He hurried past the slab of stone where Nephew did the butchering, through the small arch, and into the courtyard, his old wisp of a frame quiet. The sky was clear now above the gathering trees, the small spotlights shining along the path. He kept to the quiet shadows along the side, by the south verandah, in front of the one room Nephew had not refinished. He pulled his old cardigan close around him.

  Just as he rounded the spirit screen he heard the door from the main dining room clatter back. Nephew was leading them out. He stretched his arm out, shaking a little, and turned the lock to release the gate. There. Now what? They were halfway across the court. Where could he go? There was the door into the little guardhouse. He didn't know if it was locked. He tried the handle. It turned. He heard Nephew's voice saying goodbye, moving toward the ceramic-faced wall. He opened the door and stepped trembling inside.

  It was a cramped cubicle, full of dust. They came flowing around the screen and their voices drifted right through the grillwork window to him. "Work of art ... Meizhile ... Beautiful ... Above everyone except possibly Yao ... Yes ... Too bad, isn't it? ... About the minister's son! ... Oh, yes ... Too bad..." Jiang stood in the darkness, listening. He held his breath so as not to sneeze. "Too bad..." Their voices faded as they passed into the street.

  Old fool, Jiang told himself, you knew this. You heard it from the Master of the Nets the day you took Nephew to meet him. Still, it hurt. Because from the meal tonight there had risen the fragrance of genius.

  When First Uncle had locked the gate again and made his way back to the kitchen, he found the family embracing one another, pouring wine. Even Tan was allowed to drink again. Young Liang and Old Liang had their arms linked, Nephew and his father, a sight Jiang had lived long to see. Everyone was happy, even the foreign woman, who, he noticed, did not like to take her eyes off Young Liang. If Nephew didn't see why she was here, he was blind. Jiang might take him aside and tell him.

  "Uncle!" Sam cried. "What do you think? They loved it!"

  "They did," said Jiang, his heart swelling for the boy who had cooked so well. No, he decided; he would not tell him what he'd just heard at the gate. Let him enjoy his success. In any case, speaking technically, it was nothing Nephew did not already know. He had been in the fish purveyor's office that day too. He knew.

  "Listen!" cried Liang Yeh. "I vow that by this time tomorrow it will be kuai zhi ren kou, On everyone's lips. You will succeed! I am sure!

  "I agree," said Jiang.

  Tan drained off another cup of wine. "Now let's go eat!" he said. "Before I die from hunger."

  "Do we have to go out?" Jiang complained.

  All five of them looked at what had been the kitchen. It was a wreck.

  "There's nothing to eat here," Sam said dismissively.

  They accepted this instantly. The talk bounced ahead to an animated discussion of possible restaurants. Eventually it was decided that the three elders must have jingjiang rou si, a celestially delicious local dish of shredded pork in piquant sauce rolled up with spring onion in a tofu wrapper. This specialty was available at many places around Beijing, but they had to have the choicest and most succulent, and for that they had to trek to a certain restaurant on the northeast side of town.

  "Not me," said Nephew. "I can't eat right now. You go." And they all walked out to the lakefront together so he could get a car for them, get them comfortable inside, and chat with the driver for a minute about finding the restaurant, which was down a side street and easily missed the first time one looked for it.

  Jiang clasped Nephew's hand one last time. He understood some English, just a little, and before they drove away he heard Young Liang say to the American girl, "Come on. I'll lock the gate and take you home."

  14

  Yuan Mei wrote that cooking was similar to matrimony. He said, "Two things served together should match. Clear should go with clear, thick with thick, hard with hard, soft with soft." It is the correct pairing on which things depend.

  —LIANG WEI, The Last Chinese Chef

  On Sunday morning, Maggie woke up to an e-mail message from the DNA lab: the results would be posted on the Internet at nine A.M. Monday, beneath her password—midnight Monday for her, here. She turned back to drafting her article. She felt the old thrill of insight as her fingers flew over the keys. How long since she'd written with such excitement? It really was more than food, this cuisine; it was guanxi, relationships, caring. She saw Uncle Xie and his family along with Sam as she wrote, the warmth and love and grief of the house in Hangzhou.

  There was another level too, one she understood only after watching Sam stage the banquet. In addition to connecting people to one another, food was the mediator between the Chinese and their culture. By its references to art and the achievements of civilization, it bound the diner to his or her own soul. Okay, she admitted, it was clubby, and maybe possible only in a closed society of long history, but she had never been in a place where the web was so rich.

  The next night, Monday, after walking outside all day, she decided to start the last part. The press conference was scheduled for Tuesday evening. She would watch it on the news, praying, repeating mantras all the while. For now she could write about the banquet itself, about his triumph, even after the loss of spongy tofu with a sauce of thirty crabs. What a sauce. Genius.

  She came as close as she could to the end of the piece before she had to stop. She could not finish until the winners were announced. And even though she had been careful to sound appropriately dispassionate on the page, she knew she badly wanted one of them to be Sam.

  She thought about this as she closed the file and switched off the computer. She liked him. She surprised herself. She didn't make real friends, as a rule, when she traveled. Not that she was unfriendly; the opposite. She had been doing her column for years. She thought of herself as an expert on the transient relationship. She had learned to create a friendship in a short time, have it lend mutual enjoyment and human glow to the work, and then let it go. Sometimes there were a few calls and e-mail messages after, but most of these column connections, even those that seemed full of possibility, would in time fall away from her. She never felt the way she felt now, that she actually wanted to put off leaving a place because she enjoyed being around someone so much.

  Was it him, or was it his family? It was both of them, and his whole world. Maybe she would break her mold on this story and they would actually become friends. No more than friends, she was sure, for she had never felt him look at her in the other way, but friends. She would like to know him, she realized. She would like to stay here, and stay connected, a little longer.

  There was time, at least as far as Table was concerned. She didn't even have to turn in her
copy for another eight days. That was far more time than she needed to get the lab results, act on them, learn the outcome of the contest, and write the last sentences of her story.

  She could just be here, a place she was realizing she liked. Be here, enjoy it, and finish with the past. That was another thing that was in pure, sharp focus here—all of her memories. She moved to the couch in front of the windows and watched the lit-up buildings. Never had the memories been so clear. She could see everything: the dark side of Matt, the light. The odd times and places she had really felt at home. The truth of certain moments.

  The last morning of his life floated before her. He was dressing and getting ready to fly to San Francisco. First she had made him coffee.

  She remembered it was French roast she had brought back from Louisiana, which released a wonderful burnt-caramel smell. He had declared that on the basis of that coffee alone it was difficult to leave her for so much as a single night, a day. He flattered her. Coffee was the only thing she ever made. She remembered how this made her laugh as she brought the coffee back to the bedroom with the first lightenings of the sun beyond the window. She remembered their feeling of calm together. She remembered the good feeling once again of not wanting him to leave, and the simultaneous sensation of having plenty of time, having years. She was thirty-nine then.

  She lay in bed and watched him get up and get dressed. She was still feeling as if they should change their schedules, do something about the traveling. Move closer to the kind of life he wanted. This might be the moment.

  "I've been thinking," she said from the bed. "I've been starting to wish we didn't have to be apart."

  He looked at her in surprise. "And not travel?"

  "Just a thought."

  He zipped up and buckled his belt. "Let's talk about it when I get back."

  "Okay." She was a little surprised by his reaction. For her to even say this was a big step. She had half expected him to leap on it. But he was preoccupied with his trip to San Francisco. He was late.