The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

by Cherise Wolas

  “Look,” he says, “the asphalt is bubbling,” and Paloma Rosen stops dead on the sidewalk, looks at the street where the potholes, re-tarred again and again, each layer a shiny, stretchy black, are indeed bubbling.

  “I have not yet been able to figure out how to make stone appear to bubble like that,” she says, a sentence whose meaning Da cannot fathom.

  “Young Wong,” she says, “do you have a camera on you? Can you take a picture for me?”

  Da Wong wonders if she is light-headed again, for it must be obvious to her that he, a fishmonger, hanging onto her fish, is not a photographer on the sly, a camera on a leather strap around his neck.

  “I have no camera, Miss Rosen.”

  “A phone. Do you have a phone? You must have a phone with a camera, all the phones today have such things attached. Even I have a phone that has a camera, but I left it at home.”

  Da Wong does have a cell phone in his shirt pocket and when he is not sure what to do with the heavy bags in his hands, Paloma shakes her head, and says, “Don’t be a dummy, give them to me,” and then he is standing over the bubbling tar, taking a picture, and another, and another.

  “And one from a little farther away,” Paloma calls out.

  Da backs up and shoots again and again.

  “Now one from directly above, up as close as you can get.”

  A car is barreling down Grand, and Da watches Paloma Rosen step out into the street and put up a palm, “Arrêtez-toi, idiot,” she yells loudly, and there is the screeching of car brakes, the driver leaning out of his window, yelling, “What the hell, lady?”

  Da kneels down on the hot, dirty macadam and takes a picture of the stirring tar over the cavity that leads to who knows where, or how far down.

  When he and Miss Rosen are back on the sidewalk, the man in the car lays on his horn again as he passes, jabbing his middle finger in their direction as if his finger were a gun and he could shoot them both with a bullet, shoot them dead where they stand.

  Paloma returns the bags to Da. “When we get home, I’ll give you my email address and you can send them to me.”

  Da Wong will send her the pictures of the pothole, for what purpose he does not know, but he can use them himself, to try and capture the movement of something prehistoric underneath an old irregular street, try to make it come out right in paint. Miss Rosen has, for the short-term, returned Da to the land of those who are broiling, but living.

  They move slowly down Grand Street. Da Wong would not have thought Miss Rosen a window-shopper, but she is dawdling past the store selling Chinese fans, halting in front of the Chinese apothecary, its window stocked with glass canisters filled with teas and medicinal herbs. Inside, along one wall, are hundreds of mahogany drawers all the way up to the ceiling, the Chinese pharmacist busy scooping out leaves, petals, black pellets, weighing, and bagging, and consulting with his patient, a stooped Chinese man holding the hand of a woman who might be his daughter. Young and old are sitting silently on chairs waiting their turns.

  “Young Wong, amazing isn’t it? There are no labels on any of those drawers and yet he moves with such certainty, such directness, knowing exactly what to retrieve and from where. You have the same directness when you move about in your store.”

  Da Wong is surprised again by this second compliment, that Miss Rosen would have noticed that he knows his stock intimately. Although he refuses to call himself such, his father insists that it is a great honor to be a third-generation seafood specialist, wishes Da would wear the special white apron Fùqīn had embroidered with the honorific in red. Da will wear only a plain apron, unadorned, does not want to proclaim to his insulated world a title that makes him feel small, that he is not in his right skin, when, to his family, such should make him strong and powerful. He is rebelling these days, eating no fish, has not in more than a year. He may have to sell the fruits of the sea, he may live his life surrounded by their eyeballs, their mottled or rainbow skin, may have to care for them like his children, and clean and devein them, but he does not have to make himself one with them. Now he keeps his own innards free, no more fish sliding down his gullet.

  They are nearly past the windows of the Double Crispy Bakery when Miss Rosen stops and says, “Let’s go in here.”

  The bakery is filled with its homemade sweet and savory offerings and ready-made delights. Plastic containers of their good almond cookies are piled high on the counter. Inside the cases are endless trays of tiger-skin cheesecakes, melon-puff pastry cakes, snow skin moon cakes, Macau-style egg tarts, fluffy pumpkin buns, all manner of creamy desserts, then the seaweed buns, the pork floss buns, everything so colorful and ripe, including a tray of desserts that confuses Da’s mind, looking like American hamburgers with some strange pink blob on top, or like ripe breasts with nipples, like he has seen in Bai’s dirty magazines, either way he tries to see those particular desserts makes his stomach roll. He looks away fast, finds his eyes taking in all manner of Swiss rolls packed up in tight plastic, orange sponge, and chocolate tapioca, butter sponge, strawberry, peach, mocha, and Da Wong is suddenly ravenous.

  “Almond cookies might be a nice touch,” Miss Rosen says, and Da Wong hopes she is talking to herself.

  The exchange happens quickly—a bag with eight containers of almond cookies slides up Da Wong’s arm, knocking against a bag filled with fish, a piece of Tiger Skin Cheesecake is placed in his mouth, which he opens automatically, like a hungry child, Miss Rosen’s curiously thick fingers barely missing his teeth.

  He reaches up to hold the cake steady as he bites it in half, fish banging against his cheeks.

  “Say nothing,” Paloma Rosen says. “My treat. Un petit merci for carrying my goods home.”

  Da Wong could not speak if he wanted to, his mouth crammed with such sweetness. He could eat everything in the bakery and still not find himself stuffed.

  To the woman behind the counter who is handing Miss Rosen her change, Miss Rosen says, “Madame, s’il vous plaît, please also two of those Swiss rolls, strawberry tapioca and orange sponge, and two of those split balls, whatever they may be … Oui, oui, the flashy magenta one, and that one, quelle est la couleur? Would you say it is chartreuse?” Da knows Miss Rosen has seen him staring at those pastries.

  The counter woman gives Paloma a disgusted look. “We are not fancy here. Only simple colors. Pink, red, yellow, green.”

  “Then one of the pink ones and one of the green ones. Merci,” Paloma says, the tone of her voice not rising a beat, as if the fifty-dollar bill she handed over for the almond cookies and the rest has not been thanked with rudeness. Da Wong is embarrassed by such treatment. He does not like what he does for a living, but never would he treat a paying customer in such a way.

  The woman tallies Paloma’s additional bakery goods, extravagantly yanks bill after bill out of the pile of change, hands Paloma a single dollar. “Good day to you,” the bakery woman says, and huffs past a red curtain to the back.

  Back on the sidewalk, Paloma says, “Some people get up on the wrong side of the bed all of the time. Nothing one can do about that. Ici,” she says, and removes the bag of almond cookies from Da Wong’s wrist. “I’ll carry the pastries home, but they are all for you. Well, not the almond cookies, but the rest.”

  “It’s not necessary, Miss Rosen,” Da Wong says, wondering how to lick his fingers clean of the tiger-skin cheesecake without looking gauche, or like a beggar, or knocking himself again in the face with her fish.

  “Young Wong, because I am old, I get my way, and as a result, I am in charge of determining what is necessary. D’accord?”

  Da stares at her.

  “How is it that at my age I find myself all at once consorting with people who speak no French? Somewhere along the line I have made some kind of cosmic mistake. What I said was, ‘Okay?’ So you and I, Young Wong, are we okay?”

  “We are very okay, Miss Rosen.”

  “Très bien. That means ‘very good.’ Now, what do we have here?” a
nd Da Wong is catching on. She doesn’t expect him to respond to her casual comments. Her casual comments are intended to put him at ease, to feel that a young fishmonger walking a beautiful old lady home with forty pounds of fish on his wrists on a hot August day is nothing unusual. He wonders if his father and grandfather ever provided door-to-door service for customers. He nearly hopes he is breaking new ground here, or shattering some taboo, fraternizing with the clients, doing something father and grandfather might have quite liked to have done for Miss Rosen, providing such personal care which Haiyang Best does not need to do, the way the fish flies out the door, on the backs of people, in their bags, in ice-filled crates shoved through the open doors of vans. There is a handsome chef with a restaurant in Harlem who comes down twice a week, spends an hour and no more, selecting exactly what he wants. Tight skull, dark-brown skin, dressed in interesting clothes. In winter, he wears brightly colored socks that Da thinks of as Mr. Marcus’s happy socks.

  As they pass the GoodLuckJade/Crystals store, its jades and crystals jumbled together, Miss Rosen says, “I’ve often wondered if such things work,” and Da Wong thinks of his special crystals, his large piece of deep-green jade, all set out on a clean cloth on his windowsill, how he picks them up one at a time and puts each to his forehead, rubs it between his fingers, feels its warmth, its vibrations, tries to believe completely, and yet nothing ever changes.

  He wants to say, “No, they do not work at all,” but then he and Miss Rosen are in front of the vegetable market, a great cornucopia spilling onto tables and into bushels. Durian fruits hold a position of importance on their own raised shelf, looking tough and unassailable, the way Da Wong thinks they should look, smelly beasts he abhors and the rest of his family adores, so stinky they must be eaten with a shuttered nose.

  Da Wong dislikes them and everything else in the world that appears one way but is really another, except when it comes to his painting, then he likes things to be hidden, known only to him. Or at least he keeps the work itself hidden from others. Sometimes he paints layers and layers and layers, trying to figure out what should happen next and having no idea of which way to go; other times, he knows exactly what he is after. Still, regardless of whether the work comes easy or hard, even when he is alone in his small room with the easel he found tossed away in a Dumpster on Great Jones Street, and the canvases that he buys one by one because they are costly, and his brushes, and paints, his ideas swirling like sparklers in his head, he feels himself avoiding the truths of himself.

  Past 精, with its limp yellow chickens hanging from hooks in the window, Chef Uk at the counter mixing up a vat of the day’s marinade, its tables empty at this hour, and Lendy Electric, the only place on the street not open until noon.

  Cars race down the cobblestone streets as they cross Elizabeth, Mott, Mulberry. The WELCOME TO CHINATOWN sign hanging over the street looks sad to Da Wong, its lights turned off, the letters barely visible in the slanted morning sun. Past narrow Centre Market Street, known, on the flip side, as Baxter, and then Chinatown recedes as they step forward into Little Italy. Da Wong did not to think to ask Miss Rosen where she lives. Despite the weight of the fish and the heat, and his stomach churning from the pastry sugar, now that he is free, he hopes it is a long walk.

  When did he last leave the shop, or Chinatown, for that matter? Was it last year, perhaps back in December? He cannot remember. How pathetic that he has no memory of leaving the confines of his world, when such an unusual action should be a firecracker event, the colors of all that exploding gunpowder created by his own people emblazoned on his brain. How hard could it be to remember when he last escaped from a life circumscribed to a single building. He lives over Haiyang Best, on the third floor, and the rest of his family lives two floors above him. Since childhood, he has always felt separate, removed, an outsider among his clan. Even the way his family’s names fit each of them, and his does not, tells the story of his life. Yéyé’s name, Hai, means coming from the sea, and he started Haiyang Best, Fùqīn’s name is Chang, which means thriving, and the store thrived under his guidance, his mǔqīn’s name is Lì húa, which means beautiful pear blossom, and his younger sister’s name, Jinjing, means gold mirror, both of which fit mother and sister perfectly. Only Da’s name does not suit. It means accomplishing, but what he is accomplishing in his life he could not say. Even when da is used as a word, it does not apply to Da. It means big, large, loud, strong, heavy, huge, and he is the opposite, small and quiet, only his heart is big, large, loud, strong, heavy, and huge, and it weighs him down.

  Sometimes he thinks he is no different from a lobster caught in a cage under the waves. He has wondered whether the lobsters are aware of their imprisonment, the vast seafloor suddenly out of their reach, if they have a false sense of security, are unclear about what their sudden caged existence means. He carries no such delusion. He knows he is caged, imprisoned, and with each year that passes, the lock is a little more rusted, until one day it will be impossible to break. Since his twenty-first birthday, five years ago, he has commenced a slow-moving battle with his parents, fought in his quiet way.

  Mǔqīn and Fùqīn remain upset about his tendency to keep to himself. Politely extending them all the venerations they are due, he bows to them, and says that as long as he must work in the family business, he must be afforded some privacy. It is a concept that bites at the way he was raised, what his family expects from him. It took a dozen tries to explain to his parents what he was asking of them, the sacrifice he understood they would be making so that he might find some little happiness.

  “American ways have altered our once-good boy,” his mǔqīn had said in Mandarin.

  And Da could not explain that being American had nothing to do with it. After all, how American could he be when he never leaves Chinatown?

  He is Da, which is his only explanation. He is not like his parents, or his sister Jinjing, or his cousin Bai, or Bai’s younger sisters and brother and parents, who live on the top floor of the Haiyang Best building. Da’s and Bai’s fathers are brothers, two years apart, but they look so nearly alike they call themselves the Wong twins, arms thrown across each other’s shoulders and happy laughter when the two of them are rocking the scotch.

  Da does not share the same excitable Wong temperament, their love of being together all hours of the day and night, eating together and working together and watching American movies dubbed in Mandarin they buy from the bootleggers on Canal. In a big mass, they all take part in the Chinese New Year proceedings, eleven Wongs all together, his family of four, Bai’s family of six, and Yéyé’ Hai.

  When Da realized he would have to take what he wanted, that his parents would not simply give in, he started showing up for dinner only on Sunday nights, and he endures so much grumbling and mumbling and declarations that Da must not really be a Wong when he enters his family’s home. Always he shakes his head, says, “What you are saying is not true. I am a Wong through and through,” though really he would give anything not to be. All through those dinners, all the reminders that Da is the eldest Wong son of the eldest Wong brother, the only son in this wing of the Wong family, and he has obligations.

  “In not too long,” his father says, “Haiyang Best will be yours to run on behalf of us all. Running it until your own son has come of age to take over from you.” It is, to Da, an intolerable jail sentence.

  Da’s sister smiles when his parents discuss his failings, as if he were not at the table hearing it all. Seven years younger than Da, Jinjing is as Americanized as a nineteen-year-old Chinese girl can be who lives at home and is not allowed to date. Bright and reflective, a perfect embodiment of her name, pleased to have all the parental attention, saying that she will take over from Da, run Haiyang Best if he does not want to, pinching Da under the table whenever she puts herself forth as a better heir, a painful twist to his upper thigh that he cannot decipher, whether it means she is kidding or not.

  He would step aside happily if his parents allowed Jinji
ng to take his place, if he could go off to a place like Paris, live in a small room like his own, but higher up, an artist’s garret. Paint and parks and pretty people, maybe then he would uncover himself. But Jinjing will never run Haiyang Best. She is a daughter first of all, and second-born, and their parents have other plans in mind for his sister.

  His thoughts have catapulted him far away, and he returns to the sunny sidewalk, walking next to Miss Rosen, whose step is suddenly springing. She has such a nice voice, Da thinks, deep and musical, with that French lilt to her words, and she is saying, “I’m going to salt-roast the sea bass I purchased from you, Young Wong. A bed of Kosher salt in the pan, then after I have cleaned the fish, I shall stuff it with Herbs de Provence—” and Da decides to join the conversation. Already it is the most interesting thing he has heard in a long while.

  “How do you prepare such herbs?” he asks.

  “Très facile. Rosemary, fennel seed, savory, thyme, basil, marjoram, parsley, oregano, tarragon, bay leaves, and my own dried lavender flowers. All stuffed right up in there. Then I make the salt crust to seal in the moisture and gently steam the fish in its own juices. A plaster of two egg whites for every cup of Kosher salt. Some people use only water, which is ridiculous. It is the egg whites that bind the salt most effectively, like making un papier mâché, as children do in school. The crust becomes solid when baked, sealing in la loup de mer entièrement.”

  “That sounds like it would be enjoyable to make,” Da says, thinking of his hands in such a mixture, up to his wrists, even if the goal was a coating for hateful fish.