The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan

  As we slide into our seats, Auntie Helen turns around in the front row. She squeezes my hand, and I see she has tears in her eyes. My mother is dry-eyed. “Why so late?” she asks crossly. “I told them to wait until you came.”

  Suddenly Cleo starts laughing and points. “Daddy, there’s a lady sleeping up there! And her dinner’s on fire!” Tessa is staring too, only her eyes are big, her mouth dropped open.

  And then I see it too—God!—Grand Auntie Du lying in her casket, with glasses perched on her emotionless waxy face. In front of the casket is a long, low table overflowing with food—what looks like a nine-course Chinese dinner, as well as an odd assortment of mangoes, oranges, and a carved watermelon. This must be Grand Auntie’s farewell provisions for trudging off to heaven. The smoke of a dozen burning incense sticks overlaps and swirls up around the casket, her ethereal stairway to the next world.

  Phil is staring at me, waiting for an explanation. “This has to be a mistake,” I whisper to him, and then turn to my mother, trying to keep my voice calm. “I thought you decided on closed-casket,” I say slowly.

  She nods. “You like? Clothes, I chose for her, all new. Casket, I also helped decide this. Not the best wood, but almost the best. Before she is buried, we take the jewelry off, of course.”

  “But I thought you said the lid would be down.”

  My mother frowns. “I didn’t say that. How can you see her that way?”

  “But—”

  “Do we have to eat here?” Tessa asks fearfully. She squirms down low in her seat. “I’m not hungry,” she whispers. I squeeze her hand.

  “Tell that lady to wake up,” Cleo squeals, giggling. “Tell her she can’t sleep at the dinner table. It’s not nice!”

  Tessa slaps Cleo’s leg. “Shut up, Cleo, she’s not sleeping. She’s dead, like Bootie the cat.”

  And Cleo’s bottom lip turns down, dangerously low. “Don’t tell me that!” she shouts, and then pushes Tessa’s shoulder. I am trying to think of what I can say to comfort the girls, but—too late—they are pushing each other, crying and shouting, “Stop it!” “You stop!” “You started it!” My mother is watching this, waiting to see how I will handle it. But I feel paralyzed, helpless, not knowing what to do.

  Phil stands up to lead both of the girls out. “I’ll get them some ice cream over on Columbus. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Make it forty-five,” I whisper. “No more than that. I’ll meet you out front.”

  “Daddy, can I have a chocolate and a rocky road?” asks Cleo.

  “And sprinkles on top?” adds Tessa.

  I’m relieved to think this may be all the damage that will remain, a ruined appetite and sticky hands. Over on the other side of the pews, Mary’s son, Michael, is snickering. As I throw him a scowl, I notice something else: Uncle Henry still has the videocamera going.

  After Phil and the girls leave, I try to regain my composure. I look ahead to avoid glaring at my mother or Uncle Henry. No use arguing, I tell myself. What’s done is done.

  In front of the pews is a large picture of Grand Auntie. It looks like a blown-up version of a passport photo taken fifty years ago. She’s not exactly young, but she must have had most of her teeth back then. I look at Grand Auntie in her casket. Her mouth looks caved in, her thin face like that of a wizened bird. She is so still, yet I feel we are all waiting for something to happen, for Grand Auntie suddenly to transform and manifest herself as a ghost.

  It reminds me of a time when I was five years old, that age when anything was possible if you could just imagine it. I had stared at the flickering eyes of a carved pumpkin, waiting for goblins to fly out. The longer I waited, the more convinced I became that it would happen. To this day, I can still vividly remember the laughing ghost that finally poured out of the pumpkin’s mouth. My mother had come rushing into the room when I screamed. I was babbling tearfully that I had seen a ghost. And instead of comforting me, or pooh-poohing that it was just my imagination, she had said, “Where?” and then searched the room.

  Of course, my father later assured me that the only ghost was the Holy Ghost, and He would never try to scare me. And then he demonstrated in a scientific way that what I must have seen were smoky fumes created when the candle inside the pumpkin burned too low and extinguished itself. I was not comforted by his answer, because my mother had then stared at me, as if I had betrayed her and made her look like a fool. That’s how things were. She was always trying to suppress certain beliefs that did not coincide with my father’s Christian ones, but sometimes they popped out anyway.

  “The jiao-zi, I made them,” my mother is now telling me. “Grand Auntie always said I made the best-tasting.” I nod and admire the steamed dumplings on the banquet table. She really does make the best ones, and I think it’s a pity that these are just for show.

  “Auntie Helen made the chicken and green peppers dish,” she says, and after I nod, she adds, “Very dry-looking.” And I nod again, wondering if Grand Auntie is appreciating this culinary post-mortem in her honor. I scan the other dishes and see they have even added the cake left over from last night.

  Above the casket, a white banner made out of ten feet of butcher paper is stuck to the wall with masking tape. The banner is covered with large black characters, and the whole thing ends with an exclamation point, just like political billboard slogans I once saw in magazine photos of China.

  “What does that say?” I ask my mother quietly.

  “ ‘Hope that your next life is long and prosperous.’ Nothing too special,” my mother replies. “I didn’t write it. This is from people with the Kwong family association. Maybe Helen gave them a donation.”

  I see all the wreaths perched on their easels. I search for mine, and I’m about to ask my mother where it is, when Uncle Henry turns the spotlight on again and starts filming Grand Auntie Du, lying at center stage. He waves to someone at stage left.

  The next moment, I hear hollow wooden knocking sounds, followed by a persistent ding-ding-ding, as if someone were impatiently ringing for the bellhop in a hotel lobby. These sounds are joined by two voices, chanting a tune that seems to consist of the same four notes and syllables. It repeats so many times I’m sure it’s a record that has become stuck.

  But now, emerging from the left alcove are two Buddhist monks with shaved heads, dressed in saffron-colored robes. The older, larger monk lights a long stick of incense, bows three times to the body, then places the incense in the burner and backs away, bowing again. The younger monk is sounding the wooden clapper. Then they both begin walking down the aisle slowly, chanting, “Ami-, Ami-, Amitaba, Amitaba.” As the older monk passes by, I see one cheek is flattened, and the ear on the same side is badly misshapen.

  “He must have been in a terrible car accident,” I whisper to my mother.

  “Cultural Revolution,” she says.

  The smaller monk, I can see now, is not a monk at all, but a woman, a nun with three or four small scabs on her skull.

  “She must have been in the Cultural Revolution too,” I tell my mother.

  My mother looks. “Too young. Flea bites, maybe,” she concludes.

  “Amitaba, Amitaba,” they drone. And now the old ladies in the old-style jackets begin moaning and wailing, waving their arms up and down, overcome with grief, it seems. Uncle Henry turns the camera toward them.

  “Are they Grand Auntie’s good friends?” I ask my mother.

  She frowns. “Not friends, maybe Chinese people from Vietnam. They came early, later saw we didn’t have too many people to mourn Grand Auntie. So they talked to Auntie Helen, she gave them a few dollars. And now they’re doing the old custom, crying out loud and acting like they don’t want the dead person to leave so fast. This is how you show respect.”

  I nod. Respect.

  “Maybe these ladies can do two or three funerals every day,” my mother adds, “earn a few dollars. Good living that way. Better than cleaning house.”

  “Um,” I answer. I don’t
know if my mother has said this to be disdainful or simply to state a matter of fact.

  The wooden clapper and the bell sound again, faster and faster. Suddenly the white paper banner tears away from the wall, and the family association wishes for lucky and long life spiral down and land draped across Grand Auntie’s chest like a beauty pageant banner. My mother and several of the older women jump up and cry, “Ai-ya!” Mary’s son shouts, “Perfect landing!” and laughs hysterically. The monk and nun continue chanting with no change of expression. But my mother is furious. “How bad!” she mutters. She gets up and walks out of the room.

  In a few minutes, she comes back with a young Caucasian man with thinning blond hair. He is wearing a black suit, so he must be with the funeral parlor. I can tell my mother is still scolding him, as she points to the disaster-ridden banner. People are murmuring loudly throughout the room. The old ladies are still wailing and bowing stiffly; the monk and nun keep chanting.

  The blond man walks quickly to the front, my mother follows. He bows three times to Grand Auntie Du, then moves her casket, which glides forward easily on wheels. After another bow, the man ceremoniously plucks the banner off Grand Auntie’s chest and carries it in both arms as if it were holy vestments. As he tapes the banner back up, my mother is fuming, “That corner, put more tape there! More there, too. How can you let her luck fall down like that!”

  Once he has finished, the man pushes the casket back in place and bows three times to the body, once to my mother, who huffs in return, then quickly retreats. Did he bow to show genuine respect, I wonder, or has he learned to do this only for his Chinese customers?

  Now Frank is passing out lit sticks of incense to everyone. I look around, trying to figure out what to do. One by one, we each get up and join the monk and nun, everyone chanting, “Amitaba! Amitaba!”

  We are circling the coffin ‘round and ’round, I don’t know how many times. I feel silly, taking part in a ritual that makes no sense to me. It reminds me of that time I went with some friends to the Zen center. I was the only Asian-looking person there. And I was also the only one who kept turning around, wondering impatiently when the monk would come and the sermon would begin, not realizing until I’d been there for twenty minutes that all the others weren’t quietly waiting, they were meditating.

  My mother is now bowing to Grand Auntie. She puts her incense in the burner, then murmurs softly, “Ai! Ai!” The others follow suit, some crying, the Vietnamese ladies wailing loudly. Now it is my turn to bow. And I feel guilty. It’s the same guilt I’ve felt before—when my father baptized me and I did not believe I was saved forever, when I took Communion and did not believe the grape juice was the blood of Christ, when I prayed along with others that a miracle would cure my father, when I already felt he had died long before.

  Suddenly a sob bursts from my chest and surprises everyone, even me. I panic and try to hold back, but everything collapses. My heart is breaking, bitter anger is pouring out and I can’t stop it.

  My mother’s eyes are also wet. She smiles at me through her tears. And she knows this grief is not for Grand Auntie Du but for my father. Because she has been waiting for me to cry for such a long, long time, for more than twenty-five years, ever since the day of my father’s funeral.

  I was fourteen, full of anger and cynicism. My mother, brother, and I were sitting by ourselves in an alcove, a half-hour before the service was supposed to begin. And my mother was scolding me, because I refused to go up to the casket to see my father’s body.

  “Samuel said good-bye. Samuel is crying,” she said.

  I did not want to mourn the man in the casket, this sick person who had been thin and listless, who moaned and became helpless, who in the end searched constantly for my mother with fearful eyes. He was so unlike what my father had once been: charming and lively, strong, kind, always generous with his laughter, the one who knew exactly what to do when things went wrong. And in my father’s eyes, I had been perfect, his “perfect Pearl,” and not the irritation I always seemed to be with my mother.

  My mother blew her nose. “What kind of daughter cannot cry for her own father?”

  “That man in there is not my father,” I said sullenly.

  Right then my mother jumped up and slapped my face. “That bad!” she shouted. I was shocked. It was the first time she had ever struck me.

  “Ai-ya! If you can’t cry, I make you cry.” And she slapped me again and again. “Cry! Cry!” she wailed crazily. But I sat there still as a stone.

  Finally, realizing what she had done, my mother bit the back of her hand and mumbled something in Chinese. She took my brother by the hand, and they left me.

  So there I sat, angry, of course, and also victorious, although over what, I didn’t know. And perhaps because I didn’t know, I found myself walking over to the casket. I was breathing hard, telling myself, I’m right, she’s wrong. And I was so determined not to cry that I never considered I would feel anything whatsoever.

  But then I saw him, colorless and thin. And he was not resting peacefully with God. His face was stern, as if still locked in his last moment of pain.

  I took so many small breaths, trying to hold back, trying not to cry, that I began to hyperventilate. I ran out of the room, out into the fresh air, gasping and gulping. I ran down Columbus, toward the bay, ignoring the tourists who stared at my angry, tear-streaked face. And in the end, I missed the funeral.

  In a way, this is how it’s been with my mother and me ever since. We both won and we both lost, and I’m still not sure what our battle was. My mother speaks constantly of my father and his tragedy, although never of the funeral itself. And until this day, I have never cried in front of my mother or spoken of my feelings for my father.

  Instead, I have tried to keep my own private memories of him—a certain smile, a coat he wore, the passion he exuded when he stood at the pulpit. But then I always end up realizing that what I am remembering are just images from photos. And in fact, what I do remember most vividly are those times when he was ill. “Pearl,” he would call weakly from his bed, “do you want help with your homework?” And I would shake my head. “Pearl,” he would call from the sofa, “come help me sit up.” And I would pretend I didn’t hear him.

  Even to this day I have nightmares about my father. In my dreams, he is always hidden in a hospital, in one of a hundred rooms with a hundred cots filled with sick people. I am wandering down long hallways, looking for him. And to do so, I must look at every face, every illness, every possible horror that can happen to one’s body and mind. And each time I see it is not my father, I shake with relief.

  I have had many variations of this dream. In fact, I had one just recently. In this version, I have gone to the hospital for a checkup, to see if the multiple sclerosis has advanced. Without explanation, a doctor puts me in a ward with terminally ill patients. And I’m shouting, “You can’t treat me this way! You have to explain!” I shout and shout and shout, but nobody comes.

  And that’s when I see him. He is sitting in front of me, on a dirty cot, in soiled bedclothes. He is old and pathetically thin, his hair now white and patchy after years of waiting and neglect. I sit next to him and whisper, “Daddy?” He looks up with those helpless searching eyes. And when he sees me, he gives a small startled cry—then cries and cries, so happy!—so happy I have finally come to take him home.

  Grand Auntie’s memorial service is finally over. We are all standing outside and the bay wind has already started to blow, cutting through our thin jackets and causing skirts to whip up. My eyes are stinging and I feel completely drained.

  My mother stands quietly next to me, peering at me every now and then. I know she wants to talk about what happened, not about all the disasters at the funeral, but why I cried.

  “All right?” my mother asks gently.

  “Fine,” I say, and try to look as normal as possible. “Phil and the girls should be here any minute.” My mother pulls a balled-up Kleenex from her sweater sleeve a
nd hands it to me without a word, pointing to her own eye to indicate I’ve smudged my mascara.

  Right then, Bao-bao comes up. “Boy, that was sure weird,” he says. “But I guess that’s the kind of funeral the old lady wanted. She always was a bit you-know,” and he taps his finger twice to the side of his head.

  My mother frowns. “What is you-know?”

  Bao-bao grins sheepishly. “You know, uh, different, unusual—a great lady!” He looks at me and shrugs. And then relief springs to his face. “Whoa! There’s Mimi with the car. Gotta run. You guys going to the cemetery?”

  I shake my head. My mother looks at me, surprised.

  Bao-bao walks over to a shiny black Camaro, and Mimi slides over so he can drive. “I don’t got a choice. Mom roped me into being one of the pallbearers.” He flexes his arm. “Good thing I’ve been pumping iron.” He turns the radio way up and flexes his arm faster in rhythm with the vibrating music. “Well, nice seeing you again, Pearl. Catch you later, Auntie.” The car rumbles off.

  And now I hear Auntie Helen calling from behind. “Pearl! Pearl!” She waddles over, dabbing a tissue to her eyes at the same time. “You going to the cemetery? Nice buffet afterward, our house. Lots of good food. Your mother made the potstickers. I made a good chicken dish. Mary and Doug will be there. You come.”

  “We can’t. Tomorrow’s a work day, and it’s a long drive.”

  “Oh, you kids,” she says, and throws her hands up in mock frustration, “always too busy! Well, you come visit me soon. No invitation needed. You come, so we can talk.”

  “Okay,” I lie.

  “Winnie-ah!” Auntie Helen now calls loudly to my mother, even though they are standing only five feet apart. “You come with us to the cemetery. Henry is getting the car now.”

  “Pearl is taking me home,” my mother answers, and I stand there, trying to figure out how she manages to catch me every time.