Soy Sauce for Beginners

by Kirstin Chen

  Beside me, James looked remarkably unruffled by the heat. His poreless skin was moisture free, his shirt collar crisp as card stock. He squinted at the sky and inhaled deeply. “Smells like a brewery,” he said to no one in particular. When he raised one corner of his mouth, I looked away.

  As we made our way back to the offices, James fell in step beside me. “So,” he said, “what kind of work do you do around here?”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling the heat settle on my cheeks, “Nothing important. I’m really just here to pass time.” I considered explaining that I was taking the semester off from graduate school to help care for my mother. Instead, I quickened my pace to catch up to the others, who were discussing a company that a mutual friend had been forced to sell.

  “It’s always best when a business can stay in the family, though certainly there are challenges,” Mr. Santoso said. He gestured to his son. “So far, I’ve been quite fortunate.”

  Uncle Robert and Ba made vague sounds of agreement. Neither, I could tell, wanted to discuss these challenges in greater detail.

  In a low voice James said, “I apologize for my dad. He can be a little prosaic at times.”

  I tried to remember what “prosaic” meant as I searched for a funny response. When our fathers moved out of hearing distance, I said, “Mine’s the king of misused idioms. He’s coined such gems as ‘talking about the devil,’ and, oh—in college, he used to call me a ‘party dog.’” Even though this was true, I felt guilty for making fun of Ba while he was standing right there.

  When James laughed, his entire face shifted, creasing his forehead, wrinkling his nose and the corners of his eyes. A small pleasurable ache spread through my lower abdomen, a tightening that just as quickly slackened, leaving me invigorated and bemused. Suddenly I questioned why I so indiscriminately craved the approval of others.

  An electronic rendering of the Queen of the Night’s aria pierced the air: my new cell phone ring. Everyone turned. My father frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, rooting around in the handbag I’d purchased precisely for its multiple pockets and compartments. “Nobody here’s a Mozart fan?”

  Only James gave an uncomfortable chuckle. I silenced the queen by thumbing the red button, but not before I caught the name that flashed across the screen: Paul.

  I did the math. Ten a.m. here made it six p.m. in San Francisco. We hadn’t spoken since I’d left a week earlier, and our last conversation had been terse. I couldn’t think of any reason for him to be calling me now. But then, perhaps he had no reason; perhaps he just wanted to hear my voice.

  “Xiao Xi,” my father called from the top of the stairs, using my Chinese nickname. There was an edge to his tone.

  The others were already in the conference room, so I hurried to join them.

  Inside the room, one of the administrative assistants was pouring whole-leaf Iron Goddess of Mercy tea into five cerulean-blue teacups. My uncle sat at the head of the long table beneath a pair of Chinese landscape scrolls, featuring vast, jagged mountains overlooking a fog-shrouded river. He gestured for me to take the chair beside my father and across from James. “Now we will try some sauce,” he said.

  At the center of the table stood two slender glass bottles bearing gold labels embossed with the ring-enclosed 林. A squat plastic bottle of Yellow River, the sauce produced by Ahkong’s former employer, had been set to one side, separated from its more graceful counterparts by a white porcelain tray containing three separate sauce compartments. Next to it was a dish of rice crackers the size and shape of communion wafers.

  My father had led me through my first tasting at the age of six, and every year following, until I reached the age when kids start to hate everything their parents want them to like. Now, eighteen years later, the same impatience I’d felt as a girl of twelve washed over me. I wanted nothing more than to jump out of my seat, return to my desk, and call Paul.

  But Ba was going to give our guests the full experience, and because I knew what was at stake for Lin’s, I paid attention.

  He flipped up the cap of the Yellow River bottle and poured the sauce into the first compartment. “We start with the lousy stuff,” he said with a wink, and then his face grew serious. He held up the tray and swirled the sauce around with a priest’s solemnity. “You can see how dark that is?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in distaste.

  The Santosos studied the tray as if it were a Rorschach test. I, however, knew what to look for. The sauce was dense and opaque and left a brown-black stain on the porcelain like a watery thumbprint.

  Ba placed the tray back on the table and instructed the Santosos to lean in. “A bit closer, lah. Get a good sniff.” He took three short deep inhales to demonstrate. Just like a dog, he used to say when I was younger.

  James bowed his head, exposing his fauxhawk in a manner that struck me as almost vulgar, a too-gummy smile in an otherwise pretty face. I wondered how much gel he slicked on each morning to make his hair stand up that way. I could feel the oily stickiness beneath my palms.

  “You too, Xiao Xi,” Ba said, pushing the tray toward me.

  I bowed my head, and the sharp, acrid smell of Yellow River made me grimace.

  Next, Ba picked up a cracker, dunked its tip in the sauce and indicated that the rest of us should follow. The sauce tasted exactly like it smelled.

  “Harsh, flat, one-dimensional. Almost metallic aftertaste,” my uncle said, shaking his head. “Terrible, lah, this sauce. It doesn’t matter how good your ingredients are if you cook with this.”

  Ba added, “This isn’t real soy sauce. The color and flavor come from chemical.”

  My mother’s voice flashed in my head, her American accent honed over years spent studying in Ithaca, New York. “Chemicals, Xiong,” she corrected. “Chemicals with an s.” Ba often confused the singular and plural, which didn’t exist in Chinese.

  Next we moved on to the two bottles of Lin’s soy sauce. My uncle taught the Santosos to take a small sip of each sauce, rolling the liquid over their tongues to experience all the flavors. After the previous mouthful, this sauce was a revelation. Times like this, I understood why my grandfather had risked so much in pursuit of the perfect brew.

  “Real soy sauce is as complex as a fine wine—fruity, earthy, floral also can, lah.” Uncle Robert pointed out the lively acidity of the light soy sauce in comparison to the rich, mellow sweetness of the dark one. Light soy, he explained, was used for seasoning and dipping; dark soy was used for cooking because its flavors developed under heat.

  James and his father crimped their brows and made sucking noises with their tongues against their teeth. If Paul were here, he would have nudged me under the table. He hated any kind of pretension. A bunch of shee-shaws, he called people he considered phony. When I asked how he’d come up with that, he sat up very straight and lengthened his face like a bloodhound and muttered, “Shee-shaw shee-shaw shee-shaw,” as he wagged his head in time.

  But Ba and Uncle Robert observed the Santosos’ display with approval. So many years and so many tastings later, no one could accuse them of not caring about their work.

  When the Santosos’ questions were answered, and my father was satisfied that they appreciated the discrepancies between Yellow River’s and our sauces, he left the conference room and returned with a tray of tall glasses and three cold, sweating cans of Sprite. “Now for a special treat,” he said.

  The Santosos looked so eager that my allegiances flipped, and I silently chastised Paul. Why was he so threatened by other people? My irritation must have registered on my face because my father threw me a questioning glance. I only shook my head.

  Ba poured out the Sprite and tipped in a dash of dark soy sauce. The caramel streak swirled through the glass like an ominous cloud.

  James and his father traded uneasy looks. They held their glasses to the light.

  “Try it, lah,” Ba said.

  “You’ll like it,” said Uncle Robert.

  “No, really, it’s d
elicious,” I said.

  The three of us watched as the Santosos raised their glasses to their lips and sipped gingerly, their eyes widening in delight.

  My father pushed the third glass to me, and I took a long drink. The mixture, Ahkong’s creation, was sweet and tangy and savory—a comforting, full-bodied flavor like burnt sugar, or brown butter that contrasted sharply with the dancing bubbles on my tongue.

  When Mr. Santoso reached the bottom of his glass, my uncle moved right in with the pricing sheet, pointing out the special discount Lin’s was offering for the first time ever. At the mention of the discount, I thought I saw my father flinch, but the next time I checked, his brow was smooth. He was a professional.

  James pulled out a mobile device and began to tap at the screen. After a moment, he tipped the screen to his father.

  “This is all very impressive,” said Mr. Santoso.

  Ba and Uncle Robert inched forward in their chairs.

  “But, with all that’s happened this month,” Mr. Santoso continued, “we do have some small concerns.”

  Before he could say more, my uncle said, “Let me assure you, I will personally handle your account. There will be no oversights. You have my word.”

  Again, Mr. Santoso studied his son’s mini screen.

  James’s gaze lifted toward me, and I realized I was holding my breath. Avoiding his eyes, I focused on the paintings on the wall behind Uncle Robert’s head. There, in the very bottom corner of one scroll, amid the towering mountains and winding river, partially hidden by a large boulder, was a tiny thumbnail-sized man in a tiny fishing boat.

  At last Mr. Santoso put down the device. He extended his hand to my uncle and smiled with his entire face. “I look forward to serving your soy sauce in our restaurants.”

  The walls of the conference room seemed to expand with our collective exhale. We rose to our feet, and after a round of handshakes, my uncle called for an assistant to bring out a case of Lin’s prize-winning oyster sauce for our guests to take with them. Then we escorted them to their car, where we entered into another round of handshakes.

  “How much longer are you in town?” my father asked, pumping Mr. Santoso’s arm with gusto.

  “Just until the weekend, though we’re back and forth a lot from Jakarta. We have a condo in River Valley where James spends most of his time.”

  “Any time you want to discuss business, give us a call,” said my uncle. “No question is too small.”

  “That’s very kind,” James said, gazing over my uncle’s shoulder at me.

  I dropped my head and felt my heartbeat in my temples. I blamed Ba and Uncle Robert—for using me to distract these men from Cal’s absence, for trying so hard to make me care.

  Finally the Santosos drove off, and Ba and Uncle Robert congratulated each other, taking turns to thump me on the back. Only then did I fully appreciate how tense they’d been.

  “You know-ah, Gretch,” Uncle Robert said, “when you were small, you used to love coming to the factory. You knew all the workers’ names.” He’d told this story before—how I’d spent so much time on the factory floor that Mr. Liu had given me my own yellow polo shirt, so I could look like everyone else.

  Right on cue, my father said, “That shirt came down to your knee. You wore it every week for an entire year.”

  They often conversed like this, as if engaged in some sort of call-and-response.

  Now, it was Uncle Robert’s turn. “Remember how she loved those rice snacks?” He was referring to the crackers used for tastings.

  “At home you ate nothing,” Ba said, “but here you would eat an entire packet if I didn’t stop you.” He looped an arm around me as we walked back inside, and without thinking, I slid out from beneath him.

  It had been a long time since I’d viewed the factory as my own personal playground, but I didn’t bother to point this out. My head was filled with other thoughts. His name lit up in my mind as it had on my cell phone: Paul-paul-paul—an endless chain of hope and history, falling off the screen, slipping out of reach.

  2

  BACK IN 1958, when my grandfather opened his new soy sauce factory, he mandated that all employees, factory and office staff alike, break each day at 12:30 for a family-style meal prepared by in-house cooks. By the time I began temping at Lin’s, Ahkong had been gone for five years, but along with his custom-made jars and secret recipes, the practice of staff lunches had lived on to the extent that his favorite southern Chinese dishes were still in rotation: braised pork with hard-boiled eggs, stewed chicken with black mushrooms, sweet potato porridge. Many of these dishes I’d missed dearly during my time in San Francisco, and yet lunch was an activity I tried my best to avoid.

  My first day at work, I slipped into the kitchen early to fill a plate to take upstairs, but my uncle spotted me on my way out and insisted I take the seat beside him to explain what exactly I was learning in this master’s program in music education. After that, I feigned stomach trouble and stayed at my desk, where I ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch—purchased at the expat grocery store for twice the price—straight from the box.

  Now, as I headed back to my desk from the parking lot, people streamed past me toward the dining room. I spotted Fiona and Shuting, administrative assistants who I’d worked with over the past week, and, for the sake of conversation, asked where they were going.

  “To makan,” Shuting said. She mimed spooning food from the cupped bowl of her palm.

  Even though I certainly would have declined, I waited for them to invite me, and when neither did, I tried to look busy by hustling back to my office.

  My inability to make friends at work, I believed, could be traced back to this spacious room with freshly painted, pale-pistachio walls, right next door to my father’s corner office. As if things weren’t awkward enough with my last name plastered across every bottle we shipped out, I’d also earned the distinction of being the only temp in the history of the company to land her own office. I’d pleaded with my uncle for a regular cubicle, but he’d waved a hand at the window that overlooked the dense configuration of workspaces on the office floor. “Where do you want me to put you? This place is already packed, and that friend of yours arrives next week.”

  He was referring to Frankie Shepherd, my old college roommate, who was about to start a yearlong consultant position at Lin’s—a job I’d helped her obtain back when neither of us expected that I, too, would be in Singapore, much less just across the hall. At least Frankie would also have an office. Still, in protest, I refused to hang pictures on my wall, or to bring in photographs or potted plants. Whenever my uncle or father commented on the sparseness of the decor, I took the opportunity to remind them that I was only temping for a few months. Come January, I’d be back at the conservatory, completing my last semester.

  A knock interrupted my thoughts, and Shuting pushed open the door without waiting for a response. She was a skinny girl with a shrill voice and a mouth that was perpetually in motion.

  “By the way,” she said as though we were in the middle of a conversation, “you got a phone call while you were gone. Someone named Paul.”

  She was waiting for a reaction, and I willed myself to stay calm. Paul had a name for girls like her, too: drama vultures. This office was filled with them.

  “Oh?” I said with a shrug. “Did he leave a message?”

  Disappointed, Shuting sighed. “He just said to call him back. Sorry-ah, forgot to tell you.”

  I gave her a brisk nod. “Anything else?”

  She shook her head.

  When the door closed behind her, I picked up the phone, weighing its heft in my palm. Paul must have called the house first and spoken to my mother. Who else would have told him how to reach me here? A line of tension moved through me, like someone zipping me up from my tailbone to the tip of my spine. Paul and my mother had always gotten along. Surely she would have pressed him for information, and while I knew he’d honor our agreement to keep the details of our separation to ou
rselves, the thought of them conversing—asking after each other, showing concern—made my hands shake.

  I dropped the handset in its cradle and reached for the cereal box in my bottom drawer—the same cereal I ate for breakfast, right here at my desk, to avoid sitting down at the dining table with my parents. I shoveled a handful in my mouth and chewed, shoveled and chewed, savoring the heady burst of sweetness, the hearty preservative-enhanced crunch, the American excess of it all. Turning to my computer, I clicked on a new email from Kat Tan, my oldest friend in Singapore. It was an invitation to her thirtieth birthday party, and I closed the message to avoid having to make a decision.

  In the hallway outside my office, a girl from the marketing department paused at my window and made a show of shuffling through a stack of documents while keeping one eye on my strange mealtime ritual. I went over and yanked the cord to lower the blinds.

  Minutes later, a sharp rap on my door. I yanked it open with too much force and came face to face with my father. “Oh,” I said. “It’s you.”

  “Everything all right?” he asked. His gaze scanned the room before landing on the cereal box.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said, returning to my chair. “Except the entire company seems to think I’m some kind of exotic animal. This office might as well be a cage at the zoo.”

  Ba’s smile fell short of his eyes. “They’ll get bored soon enough.” He glanced over again at the cereal, but wisely avoided mentioning it. “I’m going home to pick up Ma.” He adjusted his glasses on his nose. “For her doctor’s appointment.” He waited, daring me to speak.

  I shifted my gaze to my computer screen and placed one hand on the mouse. “Okay.”

  He stood there with his arms crossed, and then whirled around and opened the door. Before I could relax he stuck his head back in. “Coming home for dinner or not?” he asked, as if I hadn’t given the same answer three days in a row.