A Certain Smile

by Judith Michael

  Night had fallen when they stirred again, and Li reached out to turn on a lamp. In its amber light, Miranda saw the small, square room clearly for the first time. Within pale walls, its only furniture was the chaise on which they lay, the lamp and table beside them, and a square black chest with dozens of tiny drawers embossed with Chinese characters in gold. "How beautiful," Miranda said. "What is it?"

  "An apothecary chest, each drawer for a different herb."

  "And do you keep herbs in it, in case you get sick?"

  "Oh, I am too modem for that. I keep my herbs in the refrigerator."

  "For sickness?"

  "Some of them. Shall I show you?"

  "Yes. And everything else. Your whole house." She stretched, raising her arms above her head, pointing her toes, arching her back. They

  had the whole night: time for everything. They were alone and secluded, they were in Li's house, and the rest of the world was at bay and invisible and, for the moment, did not even seem real. She stretched again, luxuriating in the smooth taut length of her muscles; she felt young and clean, strong, whole, protected, invincible. "What room is this?"

  "A reception room. You would call it an entry hall, I think, but here it takes up all of the first house."

  "The first house? How many are there?"

  "Seven." He plucked Miranda's silk blouse from the jumble of their clothes on the floor and gently shook it out. "Not a good way to treat such a fine blouse, but it seems to have survived."

  "A few wrinkles would be a small price to pay," Miranda murmured and Li chuckled as they dressed quickly and left the room. The courtyard was dark, lit only by the rectangle of light from the doorway of the reception room.

  "In the old days there would have been kerosene lamps," Li said, "but I am too modern for that, too." He flicked a switch and wall sconces spread a pale yellow wash over the small brick courtyard, casting long snaking shadows from the outspread branches of a linden tree. The tree was on the far side of the courtyard, beside a door into a long, flat-roofed building. Li opened the door. "The kitchen. We'll come back here after our tour."

  Miranda had a swift impression of wooden counters, woks balancing on wok rings over gas burners, cleavers lined up in flat baskets, and shelves of pure white dishes, and then they were through the kitchen and standing before a high, formal gate of green wood panels in a carved doorway. Beyond it lay a tiny courtyard with small buildings on either side—"servants' quarters," Li said—and then another wall with double doors set at an angle from the gate they had just come through. Li opened them. "We never build doors in a straight line," he said casually. "That would allow any evil spirits that might get in to flow straight into the heart of the house. There is a spirit screen in the first courtyard for the same purpose: to keep evil spirits out when the front gate is opened."

  Miranda glanced at him with a smile, thinking he was relating an amusing superstition, but his face was serious, his voice matter-of-fact. He took her hand and helped her step over the high wooden threshold into the third and largest courtyard where, once again, he turned on wall sconces. Miranda drew a long breath. "How lovely." The courtyard was framed by three houses, one straight ahead and smaller ones to left and right. To one side was an earthenware tub with a rose lotus

  floating in its center; on a long low step stretching the length of the main house were oleanders and pomegranates in earthen pots; before the two side houses were fig trees in broad tubs. "I wish I still had figs," Li said. "Their flavor is sweet and perfect. But it is past their time. Now we have chrysanthemums."

  They were everywhere, in large carved pots and small plain ones, huge flowers in russets and golds and parchment yellow-whites. Nestled among the pots were stone benches and two stone pedestals, one holding a statue of a dragon, the other a bronze turtie, its head raised high. "The turtle of longevity," Li murmured. "And chrysanthemums are the flower of immortality. We stack the odds in our favor. Here is the main house."

  It was brick, rectangular, with a long row of windows on either side of the doorway, its roof pagoda-like, with tumed-up comers and small figures marching up the ridge line of each comer. The large main room, flanked by a smdy and a bedroom, was divided into living and dining areas by pale oriental mgs and groupings of deeply carved furniture polished to a high gloss, with cushions of peasants' cotton, old brocade, and embroidered silk. But what drew Miranda's eye was a solitary sculpture against a brightiy lit wall. Standing on a plain wooden table, it looked like a distorted tree tmnk, two or three feet high, gnarled and knotted, with random openings through which the light shone. "Like a dream," she murmured. "A tree in a strange dream."

  Li followed her look. "A scholar's rock."

  She gazed at the twists and whorls of the stone sculpture. Now it did not seem distorted or gnarled, but graceful, its long slightiy curved shape like two embracing dancers, its gleaming surface almost alive. There was something magical about it; it was as if the magic of the hours she and Li were together had found visible form, "Scholar's rock," she repeated. "What an odd name. It doesn't look like a rock; it's too alive, too fluid. As if it sprang from the earth and awakened to the sun."

  "That's almost exactly right," Li said. "It comes ft"om the earth, from the bottom of Lake Tai, and represents the forces of nature in the universe, and, rather mystically, is supposed to mirror the tums and twists of our thoughts. Scholars use them as objects of contemplation, hoping to understand the universe." He smiled. "Pretentious, but they believe it. This one is from the Ming Dynasty."

  "When was that?"

  "The 1300s to about the middle of the 1600s. A dark time in many

  ways, with wars and corruption, but also a time when great beauty was created."

  "And do you contemplate your scholar's rock to understand the universe?"

  "To understand myself. And to become serene in times of unhappi-ness." He kissed her lightly. "Right now, I cannot remember what unhappiness is like. Perhaps it is a myth. Unhappiness? There is no such thing."

  "No, how could there be?" She kissed him and her arms gathered in the hard bones of his shoulders and the muscles of his arms. "I love you," she said. "I love you." The sound of her voice saying the words made her startlingly happy.

  Li held her close and caressed the back of her neck, the shape of her head, the curve of her cheek. Then he put a few inches between them, and kissed her lightly. "Shall we make our dinner?" And Miranda understood that he was saying that there would be time for talk of love, and so much else, in this whole night that was theirs, and that they could stretch it out, savoring each moment, instead of cramming it into one or two overburdened hours. So they turned and walked back through the courtyard, past the turtle of longevity and the chrysanthemums of immortality, past the floating rose lotus and the bending fig trees, into the kitchen.

  And there they cooked together, standing side by side at the long wooden counter scarred with thousands of knife cuts and deep gouges from cleavers. With Li giving directions, they chopped and diced, sliced and stirred, shredded pork and chicken. They poured rice wine, sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil into small measuring cups, and stirred it with chopsticks. They ground spices with a mortar and pestle, boiled noodles, and swirled hot peanut oil up the sides of two woks, working in harmony, concentrating or talking in low voices, until, at last, they sat at a small round table at one end of the kitchen, set with a white cloth and white dishes. "If my housekeeper were here she would serve us in the main house," said Li, "but rather than carry everything—"

  "I like it here," Miranda said. And, in fact, the warm, steamy room with its dark woods, blue and white tiles, burnished woks hanging from large hooks, and colorful array of foods keeping warm on low burners gave her the same feelings she had had on the silk-pillowed bamboo couch where they had made love: young and clean, strong, whole, protected, invincible.

  They ate slowly, leisurely, sliced pork with tiger sauce, chiang-bo duck, chili-pepper chicken with mushroom-smothered bean curd, stir-r />
  fried spinach, simmered radish balls, red-cooked spicy beef noodles, hot and sour soup, all washed down with quantities of Tsing-tao beer. It was almost midnight when Li said, regretfully, "We have no dessert."

  "Or room for any," Miranda said. "I don't believe this. Could you really eat dessert?"

  "Only a modest portion." He grinned. "To have something to go with our tea. Wait, we do have something." He took from the refrigerator a plate and a bowl and set them before Miranda. "Sweet cashew porridge and steamed sponge cake. I'm sorry we have only a little of each, but they are left over from dinner with friends a few nights ago." He divided the pudding into two small bowls, and placed diamond-shaped pieces of cake on two tiny plates. "And tea," he added, filling their cups with pale green tea, its fragrance curling upward in tendrils of steam.

  The pudding was crunchy with candied cashews, speckled with raisins, and Miranda ate it all. The sponge cake was bland and she toyed with it.

  "You don't care for it," Li said. "But sometimes a quiet flavor is good after a vociferous meal."

  Miranda laughed. "Probably. But I loved all those vociferous flavors, and I don't want to lose them. How did you learn to cook?"

  "My mother and grandmother thought that a man should be self-sufficient in stormy times. The war with Japan, and then our civil war, convinced them they had to prepare me for upheavals and chaos. There is a poem I like, by the Irish poet, Yeats; his book was in my father's collection. 'Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....' The first time I read it I thought it was written about China. A terrifying poem, and cooking is a good thing to do when one is terrified; it turns one's thoughts to life instead of death."

  They sat quietly, drinking their tea. The tick of a wall clock was the only sound. Alone and secluded. Young, strong, whole, protected, invincible. She had never felt this way, never known this happiness. This is where I belong, she thought.

  "You belong here," Li said, his voice so low it was almost as if he were thinking aloud. "You fit so well in my kitchen, in my house. It is good to hear your footsteps in the silence of my rooms." He smiled. "And we cook well together, that is always a test."

  Miranda was watching him, her mouth slightly open. How did he do that? Not often, but several times since they had met, he had given words to her thoughts, as if, somehow, though they walked through separate lives and separate worlds, he briefly fell in step with her, their

  paces locked in perfect rhythm, their eyes looking in the same direction, with the same feelings. As if he were inside her, looking out. That, too, was new, and disconcerting, because she liked it and knew she could come to depend upon it.

  Li held out his hand. "I want us to walk from the kitchen to the main house, to my bedroom, and go to bed as if we lived here and this were an ordinary evening and we were in an ordinary routine."

  Miranda gave a small smile. "I think no evening with you would ever be ordinary."

  Hand in hand, they walked across the shadowy courtyard, through the spicy scent of chrysanthemums to the main house. The scholar's rock gleamed in solitary grandeur against its pale, silk-covered wall; the rest of the room was in near darkness touched faintly with gold, like a shadowy landscape beneath a rising moon. In the dim light, Li moved surely between couches and chairs, and into the bedroom, where a lighted lamp stood just inside the low doorway. In the wall opposite was a deep sleeping alcove framed in dark blue drapes fastened with slender half-circles of bronze. An amethyst glass lamp hung above the brocade-covered bed. The walls of the alcove were a shimmering silver, dancing with violet shadows from the lighted lamp.

  Miranda and Li turned to each other, clung to each other. Li kissed her eyebrows, her closed eyes, the tip of her nose, her lips. "I love you," he said, and Miranda put her head back to look at him fully. "I love you," she said. "And want," he added with a faint smile. "And want," she echoed. "Oh, yes, I want you, always, always."

  Desire built again, swelling, lifting them with a power they had no will or wish to contain, a hunger that seemed never to be satisfied, fired now by the sweet harmony of their hours in the kitchen, and the sweetness of the many hours that still lay ahead, holding off the day. They kissed, and kissed again, and sat on the edge of the bed, their hands finding buttons, belts, zippers, their rhythmic breathing the only sound in the hushed room.

  "Not ordinary at all," Li murmured, and they lay together on the silky, yielding brocade.

  Chapter o

  Li swiveled in his chair to look out the window at the skyscraper under construction across the street. It was someone else's job, so he could watch its progress with disinterest. They've installed a ventilator grill upside down, he thought idly. I suppose at some point they'll discover it. He tried to concentrate on the grill, and the to and fro of laborers on scaffoldings and finished floors, but he could not do it. Even with his eyes open and sitting upright in his chair, he could feel Miranda beneath him, feel the silkiness of her hair between his fingers, and her mouth, her beautiful mouth, like a butterfly, whispering, shussshhhing, fluttering along his skin, her fingers moving over him, trailing little streamers of heat, and her thighs parting, wide and wider, welcoming him, until he was inside her, deep inside her, and his whole world was warm, soft, clinging, caressing, dark.

  I've got to get out of here, he thought. I have to move.

  Instead, he called Miranda in her hotel room, where he had taken her on the way from his house to his office. "I'm glad you're sfill there," he said. "I miss you."

  "I was just leaving for Xiujiang."

  "Your third company. Soon you will be an expert."

  "My last, except for Mr. Tang." He heard her voice tighten on those words. My last.

  "I want to see you," he said, "and there are too many hours between now and tonight."

  "Yes. Oh, I wish I didn't have to— Except, if I didn't have this work to do, I wouldn't be here at all. Li, I must go; I'll be late."

  "Six o'clock tonight, is that all right?" And then he added what he

  had been thinking about but had not been sure he would say until this minute. "I would like to take you to my daughter's house for dinner."

  There was a pause. "You've told her about me?"

  "I told her I have a friend I would like her to meet. You do not mind?"

  "I don't know. I suppose it's all right. It feels strange, somehow."

  "Not to me." When she was silent, he said, "It is important to me and I think you will not be uncomfortable. Will you do this?"

  "Yes," she said, so quickly he knew she was overcoming her reluctance only because he had asked it of her. "I'll see you tonight. I love you."

  And there was one of the profound differences between Americans and Chinese, Li thought. In an office, on the telephone, she could say it, and he could not.

  "Father," said Sheng from the doorway.

  His thoughts cooled, settled. "Come in."

  Sheng took the chair opposite Li and held out a folder. "The report on the meeting yesterday with the laborers."

  "Good. That was quick. And you called the other companies?"

  "There is a list, with the names of their presidents, and what they said. Four of them will be at the meeting this afternoon."

  "Good, very good." He was skimming the pages. "This looks excellent. A thorough report. Thank you." He looked up and saw his son sitting straighten How much he needs praise, he thought. But, then, so do we all. No one is ever exempt from that.

  "One thing, though," Sheng said. "They all heard about the meeting yesterday. They said you seemed to sympathize with the workers instead of the other construction presidents."

  "That is not true."

  "They heard it from the presidents who were here, and they said they won't be here tomorrow unless you take a hard line and don't give the workers anything."

  "It is too late for a hard line. We have to deal with labor because we can do absolutely nothing without them, and the more satisfied they are, the b
etter their work will be."

  "You're the only one who thinks that way."

  "Then I'm the only one who understands that this is one of the changes we must deal with today, and if we don't do it now there will be strikes, perhaps even violence. You don't believe this?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then follow my lead. I expect you to support me."

  "They think you're a subversive!" Sheng blurted out.

  Li sighed. "They'll find out soon enough that I am not subversive; only right. Was there something else you wished to talk to me about?"

  "Yes, I need to leave early this afternoon. Right after the meeting."

  Li looked at him thoughtfully. "How long do you think you can manage your two different lives when each one demands your full energy and attention?"

  Sheng frowned. "Have I not given you my full time and attention?"

  "Well, clearly today will not be a full day. Mostly your attention has been satisfactory, but I am looking to the future. Since you seem to be interested in becoming president of All-China Construction someday, I am wondering how you will master the skills and knowledge you will need when you spend so much time mastering other skills and other knowledge."

  Sheng's face became sullen. "If something happened to you, I could take over now. I know enough—"

  "No," Li said gently, "you do not. You know a great deal; you could oversee the construction of a building, and I am glad to see that, but there is so much more to running a company, requiring knowledge of people, in which you still are deficient; patience, in which you are sadly deficient; the ability to compromise, which I have not seen in you at all; and skill in wending your way through our bureaucracies without losing your independence or alienating your suppliers or making enemies along the way, and I think you are a long way from that, as well."