by Joan Boswell
It finally dawned on me that I hadn’t explained it properly. I wasn’t destroying my father’s legacy; I was ensuring that it would survive and thrive. That clinched my argument. Minutes later, I was on the phone making appointments with renovators.
Telling my mother that we had to close for a month for renovations was not an easy task. Her fears that the Red Pagoda’s doors would be closed permanently were obvious. To placate her, I let her have a say in the decor. I agreed with her decision to keep the huge embroidered picture of one hundred birds, a Chinese good luck symbol, but cringed when she insisted on keeping the gold plastic lanterns with red tassels, which she deemed classy. And there was no way I could talk her into giving up the grotesque framed plastic skyline of Hong Kong, which my father had purchased for the restaurant’s twenty-fifth anniversary. She never ceased to admire the fireworks that lit up its nighttime sky when it was plugged in. The interior designer did her best to incorporate my desire for a more upscale look with my mother’s reluctance to let go of the past.
The result was Calvin Klein meets Suzy Wong.
Customers and restaurant critics loved it.
The review was the lead story in the Gazettes restaurant section one Saturday. My mother beamed as I read out loud the critic’s praise for her authentic cuisine, translating phrases with which she was unfamiliar. The staff congratulated her, and everybody’s spirit was lifted by this public declaration of success. While she sat at the table basking in the glow of the restaurant’s triumph, I felt relief. There is a certain amount of pressure in taking over the family business. Comparisons to my father would be inevitable. Could I, the son with all the advantages of higher education, match the success my father had achieved with only a grade school education? The following months would tell, but this was a good start. I continued to read through the pages of the newspaper as my mother chatted about the new dishes she wanted to add to the daily menu. Suddenly, she grabbed the newspaper and turned back a couple of pages. She pointed at the caption underneath a black and white picture and asked me what it said.
“Violet McIntosh, CEO and president of McIntosh Enterprises, hospitalized after falling down the stairs at her home in Westmount.”
The woman in the photo was anything but matronly. She looked to be in her sixties, one of those women who aged gracefully, perhaps more due to her station in life than nature itself. Her no-nonsense look and confident smile probably reassured thousands of shareholders from the pages of McIntosh Enterprises’ annual reports.
The accompanying article explained that she had fallen down the concrete stairs in front of her house. She was unconscious when the ambulance rushed her to the Royal Victoria Hospital. With serious wounds to her head and a couple of broken bones, doctors described her condition as life-threatening. Her son, Michael, was with her when the accident occurred.
My mother didn’t say anything for a few seconds. What was it about the photo that had caught her attention?
“I used to work for her family,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“When?”
“A long time ago, before I married your father.”
The news wasn’t shocking, but it was news. My mother was generally disinclined to discuss her past. For instance, I had never known we had relatives in Hong Kong until one day, out of the blue, she announced that my high school graduation present would be a trip “back home” to meet relatives. Then, there was my uncle, her brother, who had moved to New York before I was born and was never heard from again. He was mentioned infrequently, but served as a warning of what happens to people who aren’t responsible. Even the circumstances surrounding my parents’ marriage were fuzzy. I suspected, but never tried to confirm, that I was already born when she married my father. The loss of face in those days would have been great, and I felt the memory of the shame was still vivid in her mind.
Violet had been a teenager when my mother was hired by her family to serve as a domestic. They lived in one of the stone mansions in an area known as the Square Mile, close enough for my mother to make the trek from her parents’ apartment in Chinatown. She was provided with two uniforms, consisting of a white jacket and black trousers, so that she would be suitably dressed when answering the door. She was allowed meals and earned only a few dollars a day.
My mother inhaled deeply as she recalled the first time she had seen the sumptuous surroundings. At thirteen years old, she had marvelled at the velvet curtains, silver serving trays, and a dining table long enough to seat twelve people. Every week, she sheathed the beds in soft clean cotton sheets and blanketed them with silk coverlets. She hung wool carpets over a clothes line and beat them clean, dusted heavy wood furniture, and washed and ironed fine European fashions.
Her acquaintance with Violet hadn’t started right away. There was too much work to do, and there was also the language barrier. My mother barely spoke enough English to understand instructions. Violet took it upon herself to expand my mother’s vocabulary. Thereafter, for a few minutes each day, Violet had taught her a new word or phrase. Their bond as employer and employee became so great that when Violet’s parents sent her to Hong Kong for a year, ostensibly to work in one of her father’s banks, they’d sent my mother along to look after her.
I was caught off-guard by her story. Questions erupted in my mind so fast that I couldn’t get the words out. I hesitated too long. With a sigh, my mother shook her head and said it was all in the past. Then she got up, ambled down the aisle and disappeared behind the kitchen door.
The “sweet and sour” smell of success, when associated with a Chinese restaurant, is a good thing. Long-time customers couldn’t believe they now needed a reservation on weekends. At least once a week, a celebrity was spotted in our dining room. The purchase order for ingredients to create popular dishes such as Sweet and Sour Pork, General Tao’s Chicken, Pan Fried Dumplings, and Bird’s Nest Soup doubled. Every Tuesday morning before the restaurant opened for the noon crowd, delivery trucks dropped off boxes of Chinese vegetables, noodles, sacks of rice and fresh pork and beef. A local farmer delivered a couple of crates of live chickens. That my sixty-five-year-old mother could lift one of these crates on her own astonished both me and the delivery men. She waved off my concern. She knew what she could and could not handle.
Slaughtering chickens was one of them.
The chickens fought right down to the last second of their lives. My mother would snatch one from a crate and slam the lid down before the others could escape. Plopping her prey into the deep sink, there would only be a few seconds of desperate squawking and a mad flutter of wings before a quick slash of a chopping blade across the throat took the fight out of it. Then, she’d hold the chicken upside down for a few seconds as the blood poured down the drain, pleased that we would serve fresh chicken that week. I tried to convince her that buying frozen chicken would save her a lot of time and work. She’d just shrug and say she had nothing else to do with her time, and besides, since her chicken dishes were so popular, she had no intention of changing what were obviously winning recipes.
Friday evenings are the noisiest of the week, as people welcome the beginning of the weekend. Groups of office workers often fill the tables and keep the bartenders at the newly installed bar busy. On the wall behind the bar, surrounded by a display of liqueurs and aperitifs, a stream of fireworks light up the plastic Hong Kong skyline. The constant chatter is punctuated by the tapping of the hostess’s high-heeled shoes on the hard, blond wood floor as she escorts customers to their tables. On one such evening, I happened to overhear lewd praise of the hostess’s legs. I scanned the new arrivals. After all, the hostess was only eighteen, in university, and from what I’d seen and heard, a good girl. The remark came from a small group of men who were dressed as if they owned the world.
At least one of them did.
I recognized him immediately. His photo had been in the papers over the past few weeks, along with reports of his mother’s condition. The heir apparent to M
cIntosh Enterprises looked as if everything was going his way. The tabloids nicknamed him “The Heir Most Likely to Lose the Family Fortune,” capitalizing on rumours of his gambling habit. The news reports that morning stated he was deciding whether or not to pull the plug, since Violet’s condition had not improved. As her only child, and with the death of his father in a sailing accident years ago, it was all in Michael’s hands. Right now his hand held a glass of wine, which the waiter had poured for his approval. Something about the scene was distasteful. Maybe it’s just the way I was brought up, but if my mother were hovering between life and death in the hospital, I’d be eating day old sandwiches from the hospital vending machine.
When one of the waiters tapped me on the shoulder later that evening and said one of the customers wanted to meet the chef, I wasn’t surprised. It had become a regular event, happening often enough for my mother to arrange for a standing weekly appointment with her hairdresser. He pointed out Michael Mcintosh’s table. Normally, I’m pleased whenever a customer wants to congratulate my mother, since the restaurant is her life’s work. But I just didn’t trust that cheeky Cheshire cat’s smile. I told the waiter I’d handle it and headed over to his table.
“Mr. Mcintosh,” I extended my hand, “I’m Roger Chiu. I understand you’d like to meet our chef.”
“Yes, it would be an honour.” He stood up and gripped my hand with both of his, like a politician on a campaign. “Have we met before?”
“No, but I’ve seen you in the news. I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”
“Ah, yes.” He dropped back into his chair. “It’s awful, but when people get to that age, they start to lose their balance. Accidents start to happen.” A murmur of agreement went around the table. I excused myself to get my mother, not because I didn’t want to keep him waiting, but because I didn’t want to say something I’d regret later.
My mother was curious about the son of her former employer; she scrutinized him from behind her image as a simple immigrant cook. Her coiffed salt and pepper hair was carefully tucked underneath a hair net. She’d put on a clean white chef’s jacket to cover her splattered apron, something she’d seen on the cooking channel, thinking it would make a better impression on the customers. She smiled at Michael’s comments, but when she asked me to translate phrases I knew she understood, I wondered why she didn’t want him to know.
“Better he not ask too many questions,” she explained later as we were closing up for the night.
“Questions about what?”
“Anything!” She threw her hands up in exasperation.
After that, Michael started to dine regularly at the Red Pagoda. He was usually accompanied by men in business suits or a pretty woman. He always shook my hand campaign style, and he would always ask me or the waiter to send his compliments to my mother. But the day he had the gall to stroll into the kitchen, unaccompanied and unannounced, was the day I wished he would take his expense account elsewhere.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” He swivelled around, taking in the stainless steel refrigerators, the back door where deliveries were made, the assistant cooks stir-frying in woks over gas lit stoves, and the busboy loading up the dishwasher. Maybe if he hadn’t chosen lunch hour to invade the kitchen, I would have been more patient. Maybe if he hadn’t looked as if he was checking out the kitchen. Maybe if his apology was at least as sincere as the words were meant to convey.
I planted myself in his path. His six foot plus frame towered over me, and it was obvious he was using it to intimidate. At five foot eight, I consider myself of average height for a Chinese man. I had encountered a few opponents in the bank’s board room who tried to use their physical size as an advantage, and I had no trouble taking them down a notch.
“Mr. McIntosh,” I said firmly, looking him in the eye. “This is not a good time for a tour. The kitchen is like a steam bath at this hour.” I stepped towards him, attempting to usher him out, but he ignored me and continued to survey the kitchen. When my mother emerged from the basement around the corner, it was as if he’d found what he was looking for.
“Mrs. Chiu, I just wanted to pay my respects. You and your team created a lovely meal as always.” My mother nodded in acknowledgement, but didn’t reply as I moved Michael into the dining room. “Roger, I’m sorry about that,” he said, contritely. “Other restaurants don’t mind, and I had just assumed...”
I wasn’t in the mood to listen to his excuse. “Understandable,” I lied.
“Listen.” He stopped and reached into his jacket pocket. “Actually, I wanted to show this to your mother.” He pulled out an old black and white photo. It was square with a white border trimmed with ridges. A young pregnant woman had her arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders. They were poised on a hilltop overlooking a seaside city below. I wasn’t sure who the pregnant woman was, but I recognized my mother, who must have been in her late teens then.
“Know her?” Michael pointed to the pregnant woman. I shook my head. “That’s my mother,” he said.
I blinked twice. Violet had been a beauty; a young Marilyn Monroe without the heavy makeup. She must have been pregnant with Michael at the time. My mother had been thin in her youth, unlike the sturdy figure now who could hoist a sack of rice with ease. But, if my mother had known Michael when he was born, why did she act as if she’d never met him before?
“I came across it when I was going through some of my mother’s things,” he explained. “You know, she might go any day now, and I thought your mom would like to have it as a memento.”
It was a sincere gesture, and a pang of guilt hit my gut for doubting his intentions. I thanked him and took the picture, assuring him I’d give it to her. He looked grateful. We shook hands and parted without another word.
By mid-afternoon, the lunch crowd had dispersed. The staff chatted away in the nearly empty restaurant as they went about getting their lunch. I was sitting at the bar examining the photo when my mother came over to ask what I wanted to eat.
I showed her the photo. “When was this taken?”
She stiffened and stared at it for a few seconds. “Who gave that to you?”
“Michael McIntosh. He wants you to have it.”
“Aiyah,” she exclaimed softly. “How did he get that?” A worried look came over her. I put my hand on her shoulder just as she turned away to head back to the kitchen. There were too many secrets in our family.
“Ma, tell me, where was it taken?”
“Long ago. I don’t remember.”
“When you worked for Violet’s family?”
“Yes, long time ago. I’m too old; don’t remember too well.” She shuffled off, mumbling something about Singapore fried rice.
I remained at the bar for a few minutes, staring at the photo. Something was familiar about this seaside city and the view from that hilltop. As I stared at the photo, I noticed several boats on the water, their sails indicative of no other: sampans. I looked at the plastic skyline above the bar and compared it to the photo.
The picture was taken in Hong Kong.
I didn’t bring up the subject again until the next morning, when I drove over to my mother’s house, as usual, to pick her up. I thought I’d give her time to think things over, but getting her to talk could be maddening. Peter had already arrived and was working in the office. My mother was rushing around, putting things away, when I brought up the subject.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, firmly. “I already told you I went to Hong Kong with Violet.”
“You never said she was pregnant. And, if she was pregnant when you were in Hong Kong, why did you pretend not to know Michael?”
“Not pretending. I never met him before.”
“Well, Violet was pregnant in the photo.”
“Yes, but not with Michael.”
The photo was taken in the late 1950s. A beautiful, unmarried, pregnant woman was sent to Hong Kong. There was a reason for this sketchy picture. It’s easy to forget that
things were different back then.
“Her family sent her away because she was pregnant, and you were supposed to look after her?”
My mother nodded.
“What happened to the baby?”
“She could not keep the baby.” She hung a black purse over her arm and headed for the porch to put on her shoes.
Of course, the family would have insisted that it be put up for adoption. Having a baby out of wedlock in those days would have put the entire family to shame. Sending Violet to Hong Kong to give birth seemed a little extreme to me, but then, things were not as they are now.
There’s something about opening the restaurant that I enjoy. It’s like unwrapping a gift again and again. My mother and I were the first ones to arrive. A few minutes later, two of the cooks announced their arrival with a cheerful “Good morning” as they walked through the door. I went into my closet-sized office and snapped on the radio as I prepared the till for the day. When the news announcer stated that Violet McIntosh had died in her sleep, I almost scattered a roll of quarters all over the desk. Hospital authorities deemed the death suspicious, as her condition had improved a few days earlier, and they would be investigating further. I decided not to tell my mother until the end of the day. Since she didn’t want to talk about the photo, there was no telling how the news would affect her.
As people are less inclined to stay out late early in the week, the restaurant closes at midnight. It had been a moderately busy day, enough to make me forget about Violet. I locked the door as the last customers faded away down the empty sidewalk. The dining room staff had already left, so I cleaned up the table and brought the dishes to the kitchen. The stoves were cold and the countertops clean. The back door was ajar. One of the cooks was probably hauling the garbage to the dumpster. I assumed my mother was downstairs getting ready to go home. I went back to the dining room to wait for her. A few minutes later, when the assistant cook came out, he looked relieved to see me.