“Well, all I can say is I wish her big chief father were here,” Gram confides to Chen, tipping her chin at me. “That man, he thinks he’s the alpha and the omega when it comes to dinner. Fuss, fuss, fuss, nothing’s good enough, nothing’s right.”
“Many men I know this way.”
“Only the little onions, the itty-bitty cucumbers, only the meat from his butcher,” Gram minces. “Only this and that sort of rice. Oh, for the love of Pete, the rice! Only a certain kind of rice, washed, dried, oiled, sprinkled with ground lamb and fancy pine nuts. He spends more time on his rice than women spend on their hair.”
Chen glances at me again when Gram mentions the rice. “So you come from cooking,” he says. “I thought this when I see you eat.”
I lower my chopsticks in confusion, worried that I’ve broken another rule from Gram’s little pink book.
Chen apologizes profusely for the fact that he has a job and bows several times as he backs away, promising to return promptly. But I want only to return to my fumbling chopsticks, to retreat inside the smoky, sensuous dimensions of the food. I close my eyes as I chew. Slowly, I begin to remember something I saw in my parents’ encyclopedia set. I love browsing through these books and rely on them for the bulk of my school reports. I start to recall the entry for Japan, reading about some sort of dreadful, protracted trouble . . . with China. I don’t recall exactly what, though I dimly recollect something about invasions and atrocities. It occurs to me quite suddenly as I’m sitting there chewing that the Chinese and the Japanese don’t think of themselves as the same people at all.
The chunk of tofu and scallions in my mouth begins to turn cold. I swallow with difficulty and eye the generous abundance covering our table. Gram is offering bites to the Kentucky matron, who looks at everything fish-eyed and says, “Now good heavens, what is that?” before she waves it away.
The pleasure begins to leach out of everything. I try to keep eating, but my fog of gratification is dissipating. I’m ashamed, terrified of what the waiter will think if he finds out that we didn’t see a Chinese opera at all, but one about their sworn enemies. Anyplace with a thing like an emperor, I think, is a serious place. An emperor is even more than a king—it’s like a king and a president mixed together and seated on a mountaintop. I imagine the sad, refined chef who has lost his emperor, imprisoned in his strange new kitchen, hoping that some unknown diner out there will taste his food and the diner’s soul will be touched and will vibrate with the tender soul of the chef. This is the food for the emperor, I think, finally putting down my chopsticks.
Gram, however, is still blithely prattling away. She cuts through the food with a fork and knife, sprinkling it with what she is calling “salty sauce.” “Oriental men are so dear and lovely,” she says, scooping up some beef in its intense hoisin base. “They’re really not like men at all.”
“That’s not a good thing!”
“Oh,” she says smugly, “you don’t know the half of it, missy.”
“What?” I can’t stand being told that there’s something I need to know. “The half of what?”
“Oh, no, no . . . you’re too young for that.”
“Tch!” I cross my arms.
She eyes me and then finally says, “You see, there’s all sorts of trouble in bed, dear. That whole business is overrated. No, the best sorts of men cook for their women.”
My face burns and I am aggravated to be caught off guard by one of Gram’s risqué assertions. “So . . . what kind of cooking?” I rest my forearms on the table
She frowns and I remove my elbows: unladylike violation number five. “Any kind—that isn’t really the point.”
I look at her slyly, surprised at the color in her cheeks and how clear her eyes are. “Chinese food?”
She smiles like a conspirator. “It could be.”
“Rice with ground lamb and pine nuts?”
Her smile evaporates. “Oh, for the love of Pete,” she says.
When Chen next appears Grams asks for a doggie bag. I cringe with embarrassment, but Chen beams, saying, “Little appetite for little women. And no waste food—that is very good, very good. Americans like to waste food!”
This is, in fact, one of the themes dearest to Gram’s heart: the non-wasting of food. Her refrigerator is booby-trapped with a hundred slivers of leftovers, each shrouded in its own piece of plastic wrap and enshrined on the shelves. Gram becomes agitated when anyone rummages in her refrigerator, which she says is her “system.” Now she and Chen are glowing at each other. “That’s exactly right, Chen,” she says primly. “Waste not, want not.”
“Oh!” he exclaims. “This is one of the themes of the Chinese opera!”
Gram settles her chin on the heel of her palm meditatively. “Yes, I suppose I can see that . . . in a roundabout way.”
“During the war,” he says, “there was much starvation. We learn— every grain of rice is precious.”
“Exactly,” she says, tapping his arm. “Just like during the Great Depression in this country.”
I’m annoyed with Gram’s claim to understand. I imagine Chen being held prisoner by a Japanese soldier who offers him one grain of rice at a time, balanced on the tip of his flashing sword. I want to signal to Chen that it is I who senses his terrible pain, but instead I just watch mutely, wondering when he will realize that we didn’t go to a Chinese opera at all. Gram tips her head back, her features curled up with laughter, and my throat tightens with renewed anxiety. I anticipate our uncovering at any moment. My palms are slick and I can hear my own pulse in my ears, drowning out the sounds of Gram’s and Chen’s voices as they banter like old friends.
Chen stacks the takeout boxes into an oversize white shopping bag embossed in gold with the Imperial Palace’s twin dragons. It is too generous, his expression too full—conveying a kind of heartsickness and solitude that is hard for me to look at directly. Our small connection seems to mean too much to Chen. We simply cannot disappoint him. And this is too much responsibility; I can’t imagine getting away with it.
We stand to go, first shaking hands with the Kentucky family, who all stand as if we are visiting dignitaries. The mother smooths her hair and murmurs something about going to see some Oriental opera soon. The round-shouldered son swipes at his mouth, which gleams with chicken fat, and says, “Not me, not either.” Gram peaks her eyebrows and says to me, “There, you see that?” as if he’s just proved her point.
As Chen escorts us through the churning dining room, one courtly hand barely grazes Gram’s elbow as the other fends off the onrushing wait staff. Gram brandishes her white bag before her. I’ve seen her clear entire tabletops after restaurant meals, sweeping into her shopping bag not only the leftovers but foil-wrapped pats of butter, little tubs of cream, and packets of sugar; she has a special drawer at home crowded with packets of salt. I just want to get out of here before our opera treachery is discovered. As we approach the main entrance and I see streetlights twinkling through the heavy glass doors, my shoulders begin to melt back down and my breathing levels out. It looks as if we may get away with it after all.
My hand is pressed to the good, cold glass of the front door when I feel Gram hanging back, tugging on my arm. I turn to see Chen offering up a woven straw basket filled with fortune cookies. Gram scans them closely, her fingers dangling over first this and then that cookie. I want to cry with frustration: I no longer care about Chinese food or chopsticks or dragons balanced on scrolls. I just want to escape while Chen still believes we are good people.
Gram enthusiastically breaks her cookie into a thousand pieces. “Oh, what does this say? Darling, I left my reading glasses at home.” She holds the little paper up to me in a girlish, helpless way.
I turn my full incredulous scowl upon her, an expression I’ve been perfecting with the encroachment of adolescence. “I can’t read it,” I say, my voice a dark smear. “It’s too small.”
Chen gallantly volunteers. He removes a pair of half-glasses from his
vest pocket and bends his head toward the tiny slip. His tapering fingers handle the paper so precisely, I imagine that it was a man with just this type of fingers who invented such cookies. Then it occurs to me that this is the kind of thing Gram would think, and I bite the inside of my lip, angry at myself.
Chen reads: “You will travel far and meet mysterious strangers.”
Gram dissolves into giggles and swipes a cat paw at his jacket lapel. “Oh, Chen, that must be you!”
“Yes, and for me must be you!” Chen rejoins.
Consigning them to their private little world, I crack open a cookie and read my own fortune. Beside a line of Chinese characters, it says, “No blame.”
“Oh, now what does that mean?” I burst out bitterly.
Another staff person looks up. He is roughly the same age as Chen, but his uniform is bright red and covered with shining buttons like a military commander’s. It’s the man who held the door open for us when we first arrived. Chen notices the other man and gestures. “Old Lee, come here,” he says. “Old Lee from my village back home,” he confides to Gram.
All my hopes for escape wither inside me. I stare miserably at the door—just an arm’s length away. It might as well be on the moon.
Chen says something to Old Lee, and the man regards us skeptically. It won’t be as easy to dupe Old Lee as it is to fool Chen. Chen turns back to us. “Old Lee in this country thirty-five years. But when he got old, he forget all his English!”
This sounds exactly like the sort of thing Bud would do. Chen tells him something in Chinese that makes Old Lee’s eyes open and his forehead lift, and I know that Chen has made his big revelation about us and the Chinese opera. Then Old Lee says something and Chen turns back to us with the question that I’ve been waiting to hear all night, the most obvious question in the world: “Old Lee want to know, which opera?”
I spear my eyes at Gram and try harder than I’ve ever tried before in my life to communicate telepathically: Tell him you can’t remember! Tell him it was the “old favorite”! Tell him it’s our little secret!
Gram, of course, just smiles and says, “Well, it was Madama Butterfly.”
I glare at my shoes and wonder why I have the great misfortune to be standing here, in this place, at this time, having this conversation. I envy everyone who is not me, including those stone-headed dragons on the steps outside. I wait for Old Lee to begin roaring with indignation, brace myself for the looked of crushed betrayal in Chen’s eyes. Instead, both of them smile blankly. “Madam-u-Butter-fry-u,” he says to Old Lee, who echoes the same words. “Never hear of that one.”
I laugh a tiny, crazy laugh.
Chen smiles at me as if we are in on the joke together. He points at his friend. “Old Lee know all the operas, all the theater and arts. When Old Lee was young he teach ancient rituals back in China. He teach tea ceremony—Chinese and Japanese styles. But Chairman Mao gang say he’s intelligentsia and throw him in prison. For twenty years, more, he practices the ceremony in prison every day, though he has only water and rice and broken plates.”
Old Lee bows and says something. Chen nods. “Old Lee says Japanese tea style more refined, but no matter. Young people today know nothing about anything.”
At which point Old Lee bows to me as if he’s just paid me a huge compliment. Then he takes the fortune cookie slips and reads the Chinese aloud. He laughs and says something to Chen, who also laughs.
“What’s so funny?” I ask irritably.
Chen recovers and says, “Old Lee say this mean everything taste good if you hungry enough.”
I frown, confused, and crunch on a piece of fortune cookie. I wonder if a second fortune will cancel out the first one.
“Also it mean there is the right man for every woman.” I look up and see that Chen is looking at Gram. His expression is subtle, sideways, and beckoning. Gram lowers her eyelashes and smiles.
“How could it mean two different things?” I protest.
“Does not matter,” Chen says. “Still true.”
I blink at the two of them, and a dizzy warmth spreads over me. My knees tremble, my ankles go weak, and a winged thrumming fills the air. If we don’t leave now, I think, I may never get out of here. I clutch the front of my seal coat tightly, as if it will keep me upright. Old Lee murmurs something to Chen, who looks at me quizzically, then turns to Gram and says, “We think little girl doesn’t feel well.”
Gram looks at me, startled, “Oh, you’re flushed, darling! Well, we really better go—it’s past your bedtime.” She flashes Chen a sweet, rueful smile. “We will come back and visit again soon.”
He bows deeply, then straightens, his eyes glistening, his lips pressed together. I hold the door open for Gram. Just as I’m about to follow her out, Chen touches my fur coat so gently that it is nearly imperceptible: I think he is admiring it. “The rice,” he says, “is of highest importance.”
On the bus ride back, I sink into the warm nest of our coats and the sound of Gram humming the unfamiliar music of Madama Butterfly. As I drift off, I hear Gram saying, “Isn’t Oriental food wonderful?”
For years after that, Gram will ask if I want to go to dinner at the Imperial Palace. I always refuse, saying that place is for tourists, their food is too salty, too bland, overcooked. “It’s typical fake Chinese,” I say, “I only like the real thing.” And we never visit the Imperial Palace again.
GRAM’S EASY ROAST BEEF
When you want something good to eat
but don’t want to spend very much time preparing it.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Put the roast, fat side up, on a metal rack in a roasting pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Add about 1⁄4 inch water to the bottom of the pan and place it in the middle of the oven. Roast the meat for about 1 hour. Meat thermometers come in handy for checking doneness.
Let the roast stand for 10 minutes before slicing. Serve with a nice button mushroom gravy and buttered parsley potatoes.
SERVES 6 TO 8.
SIX
Mixed Grill in the Snow
Thanksgiving belongs to our house, Christmas to Uncle Hal and Auntie Rachel’s, which leaves the annual mystery of where to go on New Year’s Eve. The children are indifferent to this grown-up holiday. It’s elusive. When I’m ten, Mom and Bud give me, Suzy, and Monica paper cups with sloshes of champagne and ginger ale. I solemnly take the fizzing cup and sense that I am entering into an adult region. Then I taste the cocktail and recoil. It is a mockery of perfectly good ginger ale. That is all that the holiday amounts to that year. The following year, for certain ineffable reasons, my parents decide we should do something. We’ll be going back to Uncle Hal’s house in Oswego, where my sisters and I, along with my cousins, will be allowed to stay up all night long. When I hear this announcement, I run around the house three times without stopping, electrified with excitement.
After the adrenaline subsides, I ask my mother to explain for the hundredth time what New Year’s is supposed to be about. It doesn’t have any of the colorful characters, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, to let you in on how it all works. Mom talks about the world’s birthday and the passage of years.
“Does it matter?” I ask nervously.
“Does what matter?”
“Does it matter that the world is getting so old?” Lately I’ve been preoccupied with the elderly people I see on city buses. It’s not entirely clear to me how people get this way, but I suspect that we must all somehow choose what we are: Some people choose to be children, others choose to be old. But why would anyone make such a choice?
Mom compresses her lips. I am frequently a bafflement to her. “Hon, the world isn’t really getting old, not in that sense of the word.”
“But you just said!”
She rubs her temples. Bud says, “Never mind about that. New Year’s is what happens when the famous explorer Ibn Battuta makes his journey around the earth again and everyone celebrates by having a picni
c in the winter.”
A picnic in the winter! This is an enigma that preoccupies me for days, overshadowing even Christmas. I lie awake at night, jittery with anticipation, and in the morning I wake from dreams of long picnic tables set with plates full of snow and sunlight, my jaw moving and my tongue curled up with pleasure.
Uncle Hal’s house is thirty miles northwest of us, beside Lake Ontario. On this particular New Year’s Eve, we have to drive through a dense, ghostly blizzard that has started early in the day and just keeps going. We wait to see if it will settle down, and around four in the afternoon there seems to be a lull, the wind falling. But by the time we get three miles down the highway, it turns to pure night and the wind returns, driving snow sideways over the road, then whipping it into solid tunnels, the flakes blurring up over the car’s windshield so there is nothing to see but this spinning-open of whiteness. We roll down the windows and try to look out, but the whole world is perfectly draped in white. We hear on the radio that they’ve closed the highway behind us. The wind nudges at our car’s front end and we drive slower and slower.
For a child in the close captivity of her parents’ car, there is nothing to do in a nighttime lake-effect storm in upstate New York but let go. Let the snow take you into its breathing body, feel the subtle, fish-soft slips and slides of the car in motion, sense the wobbling moments before all that machinery threatens to skid and fly away.
In the backseat, Monica, Suzy, and I hold tight to an oversize silver tray as if it is another steering wheel. It’s a glorious, ceremonial thing, decorated with scrolls and flourishes and outfitted with four little flat feet, purchased in Jordan and transported to America in its own slender suitcase. It is the finest, most auspicious setting for my aunt Rachel’s fabulous knaffea pastry. Its weight and heft holds me down and reassures me. It feels like the true center of gravity of the universe.
The Language of Baklava Page 12