The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  "Water," said Maggie. "Please. And could we turn that off?" She indicated the TV, now showing footage of mountain peaks set to tinny music.

  At once all three sisters waved dismissively at it, chattering; they didn't like it, they hadn't been watching it, they didn't care. Maggie received a water bottle, took a drink from it, lay back, and submitted to the hands of the girl who took her feet out, dried them, balanced them on the stool, and began to massage them. The woman was confident and strong-fingered. Maggie felt her anchor lift, her beleaguered self finally rise and float and start to spin downstream. The world fell away. In time she saw only disconnected images and scattered, luminous thoughts.

  Likewise the conversation between the sisters gave way to the silence of pleasure as the masseuses released the legs and feet and then moved around to each woman's head, neck, shoulders, and arms. Maggie drifted. In a half-dream she saw Matt's face. How far did you go with her? What did you do? Were there others? But he didn't answer. A glass wall seemed to separate them. She could see the humorous light in his eyes and the stubble on his chin. See his Welsh face, sheepish and brave.

  Is she your daughter or not?

  She floated with the woman's strong fingers kneading up her shoulders and her neck to her scalp, then dropping to her upper spine and starting again. Maggie's muscles were hard and tense. As their outer layers relaxed and released, images of Matt rose like bubbles, burst, and vanished. Maggie felt the Chinese woman's hands now on her neck. She remembered Matt two years ago, taking her to a birthday party for his friend Kenny's little son. She remembered complaining on the way over that people shouldn't invite grown-up friends to a party for a three-year-old, but Matt broke through her crust, as he usually did. He was the gracious one. He was the reason their relationship had manners. "You know what?" he said. "Kenny's more proud of this little guy than of anything else he's ever done. So it's fine."

  At the party she knew hardly anyone, except Kenny's wife, so she stood with her in the kitchen to help. They chatted and cut melons and pineapples, bananas and grapes, for fruit salad. On the other side of the pass-through, guests buzzed at the food table and formed a laughing circle around Kenny and Matt as they played with little William on the floor. Both men lay on their backs on the floor with their knees up, whooping and hollering, riding the boy on their knees and passing him aloft from one to the other while he shrieked with joy.

  "Look at Matt," said Valerie, Kenny's wife. "He loves it."

  It was true. Matt's face was alight. His eyes were dizzy with pleasure. So tender, the way he held the boy. He wants one. Look at him. Look. It was so undeniable that Maggie thought her heart would crack. "You're right," she said softly. "He does."

  Valerie put the last fruit on the platter and wiped it once around the edges. "So when are you two going to have one?"

  Now, years later, on her back with a Chinese woman's fingers working their way down her arm, spreading her hand, massaging it, Maggie remembered the way she had fished for an answer, how Valerie had seen her discomfort and kindly retreated. She remembered the silent thud inside her that told her Matt would never rest, never be content, until he had one of his own. She knew this wish would now define their life together. As it did, in the short time left to them.

  It's no use thinking about him. He's never coming back. She felt the old sadness. One of the sisters murmured softly in Chinese; the sister next to her released a little laugh. Maggie made an involuntary half-smile in response. She didn't understand. It didn't matter. They were happy here together, and they made her part of it. It was guanxi, the deep kind, family. She thought she was beginning to understand it. Make this the start, then. Go on from here. The thought was soft and clear in her mind. The room grew still, just the sound of their breathing, soft, like falling snow. She let go of the world and slept.

  9

  At the end of the Song Dynasty Hangzhou was the center of the world, and in the middle of the city was the brilliantly lit and clat-teringly joyful Imperial Way. One might think it was an avenue of restaurants, wine shops, and teahouses, but it was much more. It was entertainers and courtesans, music, opera, and poetry. The cuisine was the most rarefied, the most exotic. Lovely ladies sang, told stories, posed riddles. Diners vied with each other to compose the most elegant poems, and drank on the results. The night became another world. Leading away from the restaurant down narrow hallways were rooms where women fluttered in silks and the lamps burned low all night. The city had the subtlest and most discerning manners. When an outsider walked in who did not know the proper way to dine, all the patrons, behind their silk sleeves, would laugh at him.

  —LIANG WEI, The Last Chinese Chef

  Sam counted down the last minutes until the ribs came out of the steamer. He had already gone upstairs and whispered to Songzhao, who would rouse Uncle from his nap. While the ribs were steaming he had started work on the menu, killing and cleaning the chickens, preparing the cold dishes, mixing pastes and sauces. Still so much to grasp. He should have started younger. But life had been good in Ohio, and easy. He had let it go on too long.

  Teaching school had been moderate in its demands, with lots of time off. And a man who taught school was a woman magnet. That was a huge plus. Women loved a man who worked with kids. Double that for a man who could cook, and who cooked for fun. He almost always had someone, and life was sweet even if that someone kept on changing. It wasn't until he was past thirty, with most ofhis friends paired off, that he started to grow tired of traipsing from one abbreviated version of connubial life to another, his scuffed-up suitcase of self in hand.

  At the same time he started thinking about China. He decided to put aside Western food, ignore his father's warnings, and start to learn Chinese. The rest of that year he drove often to Cincinnati for long beans and pea sprouts, bottles, pastes and sauces. He took a lot of time to think. China was half of him too. He was the grandson of the Last Chinese Chef. He could either avoid it or commit to it.

  He made his father sit down with him, dictionaries at their elbows, and start putting The Last Chinese Chef into English. Sam's own two years of college Chinese had woefully underprepared him to do it alone. But once he knew what the characters were and could look them up, he could take his time with it. He loved the Chinese language, its allusive elegance. He loved the whole sense of history that came with it. And after months of reading and cooking he loved the food, too, even though he knew he'd barely scratched the surface.

  "I want to go, Ba," he said. "I'm going back."

  "Where?" His father was reading the Chinese newspaper from Chicago and only half listening.

  "China."

  "Speak reasonably," said his father.

  "I mean it. The uncles are getting on. I want to go while they can still teach me. I'm going to cook, Ba. I'm going to learn. I'm thirty-seven. If I don't start now, I never will."

  "So learn!" Liang Yeh barked. "You want to throw your life away, urinate on everything, including your education which your mother and I worked so hard for, who am I to stop you?"

  "Don't, Baba."

  "I suppose my opinion is worthless—"

  "Of course not."

  "—but even you know you are not a Chinese chef! You are good with food, I admit. Everything you cook is excellent. But to become a Chinese chef you must start young. You must be trained like steel."

  "I can learn," Sam said, stubborn.

  "Zi wo chui xu," his father shot back, You talk big. "You think you can do it? Learn to cook, then! Just don't go back to China."

  "But I must go back to China. It's the only place I can learn."

  Liang Yeh was trembling. "Force words. Twist logic. You can go to Chicago."

  "Ba," said Sam, "you yourself are the one who said a Chinese chef cannot cook in America! Remember? No cuisine here. No audience."

  "That's true! But you can't go back."

  "Look, I understand what you went through. It was bad."

  "You don't understand! I should write i
t down so you truly do."

  "Yes! You should! Do that! But why can't you see—whatever it was that happened—the world has changed? It's never going to turn back to the way it was. Other things might happen, but not that."

  "You know nothing!" his father bellowed. "What if they arrest you? They can do anything!"

  "You're crazy! Why would they arrest me? I'm an American."

  "I am your father! I escaped!"

  "Ba, they don't care. That's history."

  "You will throw away everything!"

  "First of all, you're wrong. Nothing's going to happen to me. Second, as for your opinion about my life, you're wrong there too. I really believe that. I actually feel for the first time that I'm doing something right. I want to go. I'm going."

  "What one thing have I always asked you?"

  "Never to return to China. But it doesn't make sense anymore. I'm sorry." In that moment his tone changed, no longer arguing, now consoling. He knew what he was going to do.

  Liang Yeh felt it. "So you will do this no matter what?"

  Sam nodded. "Come," he said to his father, as he took his arm. "Sit for a while. Let's have something to eat."

  Now the ribs were ready and Uncle Xie was up. Sam and Songzhao bore him downstairs. Sam saw that Xie's color was worse. He was the mottled pearl of a turtle's belly. They positioned him in the middle of the kitchen, nothing but thin, frail bones under the blanket. "Shiji cheng shu," he directed, The time of opportunity is ripe. "Quickly!" And Sam cranked off the flame, lifted the lid from the steamer, and released a fragrant cloud.

  "Take them out," Xie quavered. "No, don't touch them yet. They ought to rest. Ten minutes. Come and sit by me."

  Sam pulled up a stool and sat close beside him. After a time he heard the little car whine up the hill. The three sisters and Maggie came in. The blissful look on Maggie's face was nice to see. "You seem to have enjoyed it," he said.

  "I loved it," she corrected him. "They were so nice to me." And she gave Songan and Songzhe each a squeeze on the arm.

  "You're in time for the ribs." He used heavy gloves to flip the steamed plate over onto another one. Now the lotus packages, each of which held two succulent pieces of pork rib, were seam side down. "Lotuses are special to Hangzhou," he said to Maggie.

  "I saw them in the lake. Great clumps of them."

  "You should come sometime when they bloom, in midsummer. When you get close to one and smell it, it's the most surprising thing. The blossom doesn't smell like a flower at all, it smells camphorated. Like a Chinese medicine shop. But the leaf has its own flavor, which comes out in the cooking." And he transferred one lotus wrap to a small plate for everyone in the room.

  Inside the leaves, the rib meat came away under their chopsticks, rich and lean and long-cooked with a soft crust of scented rice powder. Underneath, the darker, more complicated flavor of the meat, the marrow, and the aromatics. Maggie thought it was wonderful. She ate everything except the rib bones, which she nibbled clean and folded back up, polished, inside the leaf. She wished she could lick the leaf, it was so good—and she wasn't even hungry. She sent an assessing glance around the room. Songan and Songzhe and Songzhao were eating happily. Songling was slowly, patiently, giving bits of the meat to her father. And then all movement in the room stopped.

  Xie's face was falling in disappointment. "Throw them out," he said sadly.

  Sam swallowed. What was there to throw out? Everyone else had eaten them.

  Xie turned his gaze to Songling. She removed his portion and carried it back to the kitchen.

  "What's wrong with it?" asked Sam in Chinese. Everyone sat, uncomfortably silent.

  "I will concede that scallions and ginger uplift pork," said Xie. "They carry its flavor, which is a dark flavor, up and out into the light. This is their function. But this is a dish of refinement! Sophistication and subtlety are what is most important, not the peaks of flavor. Everything must be intelligently stated. Every flavor must be a play on texture, while every texture suggests a flavor. This cannot be accomplished with extremes. Ever. The spicy, the flagrant, the hot—these things will never work."

  "So their flavors were too strong."

  Xie made a small nod. "You can be rustic, but never coarse. Always believe in the intelligence of the diner. Always reward them with subtlety." His words dissolved into a sharp, spiking cough. Songan patted his shoulder, Songling stroked his hand.

  "Baba," said Songling, "you will tire yourself."

  "Yes, yes." He bobbled his chin at Sam. "Well? What are you waiting for? Start again!"

  Sam exchanged discreet glances with the four siblings; none wanted the old man to be exhausted. They carried him to a quiet corner of the kitchen, leaving the two Americans alone.

  Maggie watched Sam turn and draw another package of ribs out of the refrigerator. It was clear to her that the old man didn't like the ribs. Why? She had vacuumed up her own portion shamelessly after the first bite bloomed in her mouth: lovely, mahogany-deep pork with bright accents of onion and ginger.

  "What was wrong?" she said.

  "He thought the flavors were too strong."

  "Onion and ginger?"

  He sighed over the new row of lean, rosy-fresh ribs. "You noticed."

  "That doesn't mean I thought it was a problem."

  "He's right. A meal like this has to be subtle." He cut with irritated clacks of his cleaver. "I ought to have known that."

  "Well," she said. She sat listening to the rhythm of his cutting. This was a sound she liked. In time she noticed that the kitchen was a litter of sauces, chopped piles, covered dishes, and used bowls, and she walked to where he was standing. "I think you should move over, Sam. If you could. Make room at the sink. I can't cook in the slightest. I would never think of trying to help you. But I can wash. I happen to be very good at washing, and there's a lot of it here. Let me clean up behind you."

  "You can't do that. You should sit down. You're a guest."

  "You want me to be relaxed, right? Comfortable?" She waited for his confirming glance. "Then let me help. You're American. You know visitors like to help."

  "But you could go upstairs—to the room where I'm going to stay tonight. You'll see my things. It's quiet. We'll call you for dinner.

  "Sam. I want to help."

  "Okay."

  His tone was resigned, but she could tell he was glad. She cleared a space on a counter and covered it with towels, then started scrubbing used dishes and bowls and upending them in a pyramid on the towel. When she finished building it, she dried and then started again.

  "You're precise," he observed, of her stacking.

  "So are you," she said, of his cutting. "You were taught well." She watched him. "Why'd you start so late?" she said. "I've been wondering."

  "Underneath, I think I wanted it too much."

  She upended a clean, dripping enamel basin on the outer flank of her pyramid. "Meaning?"

  "Did you ever want something so deeply you were scared to let yourself have it?"

  "Like love," she said suddenly, and then wished she hadn't. She swallowed. "Like being in love."

  "Yes," he said slowly. "Like that." He swept the ribs into a new bowl, washed his hands, and retied his hank of hair behind his neck. "Like a desire so great you know you will never forgive yourself if you fail. So you hang back." He washed scallions and cut them into green circlets. "And then you wake up one day and you realize if you don't do it now, it will move out of reach forever." He looked sideways at her. "You know?"

  "I do," she said. "I know."

  He nodded. "So I came here."

  "I think you belong here."

  "And in some ways I don't."

  "No doubt. But I love seeing you with your family. They are so good. Even your uncle, even when he's on the warpath." She looked behind her at the frail man beneath the blanket, dozing now, each breath scratching. "He is hard on you."

  Sam smiled down at his uncle's chopping block, which she saw was like the ones he ha
d in his restaurant kitchen in Beijing, a massive, well-worn slice of tree trunk. "There was a famous Chinese food writer and gourmet in the eighteenth century named Yuan Mei. His advice was, if you want truly good food, be hard on the cook. He said the Master should always send down a stern warning, before the food is served, that tomorrow the food will have to be better. Or else."

  Maggie laughed.

  "It's not just him, in other words."

  "So it's cultural," said Maggie. "But it's personal, too. He loves you."

  "He does," Sam agreed.

  "So go ahead," she said, and swept her eyes over the counters filled with food. "Pull one out for him tonight." He smiled. She took a fresh towel and started from the top of her new, perfect structure, dismantling it in order, drying.

  Dinner was a kaleidoscope of twelve courses and two soups which Maggie, on a purely visceral level, ranked among the best meals in memory. It was oddly comforting to be the outsider at a family table where everything was said in Chinese. She understood nothing, but she understood everything too. They were giddy with the food, with one another, happy to be together despite the anticipatory grief that already surfaced in rogue tears and trembling looks. They took turns encircling the mother and sitting close to the father. They said things to make the others laugh. They cried out with elated admiration each time Sam brought a dish to the table. And no one expected her to do a thing.

  It was a perfect position from which to observe the rhythm of the table, and to begin to see how their manners worked. It was quickly clear to her that the object was to serve others while avoiding being served in turn. She could see this was what they were doing with one another, so she played along.

  It suited her, to resist being served too much—especially tonight, when she was eating the way she ate when she was working. She consumed a small amount of each thing, but with heightened attention. Over the years she had found that she couldn't eat a lot if she was eating critically. To be truthful, her limit for genuinely attentive eating was four mouthfuls; after that she wasn't tasting, only eating. So when she was working, though she spent a lot of time researching and scheming and ferreting out food, she actually ate but little.