Tender at the Bone

by Ruth Reichl

  “The wine writer? Are you an important person too?” I asked, slightly embarassed.

  “Oh no, dear,” she said easily, “I’m the last living home cook. I’ve just revised the twelfth edition of Fannie Farmer.” She put out her arm, scooped up a passing man, and said, “Let me introduce you to our host.”

  Suddenly there were a lot of people standing around making a fuss about an article I had written and I started thinking that these food people were really very nice. The nasty little piece vanished forever.

  Marion drove me home. We met for lunch a week later. And then again, a week after that. Before long we were talking to each other so regularly that when she answered the phone I didn’t have to tell her who was calling.

  She knew everyone in the food world, and she told me great stories about Julia, James, and Craig. And Gerald. All of these people interested me. But none of them interested me nearly as much as Marion, who had reinvented herself in middle age and did not seem to think there was anything remarkable about it.

  MARION’S DEVILED EGGS

  4 hard-boiled eggs

  ¼ cup mayonnaise

  1 teaspoon cider vinegar

  1 teaspoon ballpark mustard

  Salt and pepper

  Shell eggs, cut carefully in half lengthwise, and put yolks into a bowl. Mash the yolks with a fork until they are smooth.

  Add remaining ingredients and mix well. The mixture should be thick and creamy.

  Fill each egg white half with the yolk mixture. Grate a bit of pepper on top. Refrigerate until needed.

  Makes 8 deviled eggs, or about 6 servings.

  “At one time I worried that the people who made gin would stop making it, and that I would be left with nothing to drink. To guard against that I hid gin all over the house. Just knowing it was there made me feel a little bit better.”

  I had barely known Marion a week when she dropped this little bombshell. We were on our way to meet her friend Cecilia in San Francisco, and she said it as easily as she might have mentioned the weather. I was flabbergasted: it was impossible to imagine this statuesque woman as a hopeless drunk.

  “Oh, it was bad,” she said, “I couldn’t even leave the house without carrying a bottle in my purse.”

  “How did you stop?” I asked. “AA?”

  “No, I just made up my mind. The worst part, once I had decided, wasn’t giving up the liquor. It was giving up everything that went with it. Robert, my husband, said I wasn’t fun anymore.”

  I tried to listen, but I was turning onto the freeway and the Bay Bridge loomed ahead of me. “Be calm,” I said to myself, but I could feel the panic rising in my chest. The bridge was so long.

  “You can still get off,” said the voice in my head, “there’s one more exit before the toll booth.” Then the Powell Street sign sailed past and I was committed. There wasn’t even a shoulder to pull onto if I got in real trouble. I felt my throat close; I was choked with fear.

  Marion’s voice came to me from very far away. “Our life had revolved around drinking,” it was saying. I tried hard to pay attention. “When I stopped things were different. Robert was angry.”

  “That must have been hard,” I heard myself say while I was busy praying, “Don’t let this be the time I pass out.” I wished I had brought some gum or something to eat. Anything to distract myself from the rising panic.

  I fiddled in my purse for toll money. “Receipt, please,” I said. My voice sounded remarkably natural. Then we were past the booth and on the ramp and the blood was pounding in my ears and I started feeling that I was forgetting how to breathe. The car was very warm; I could feel the sweat prickling beneath my arms. You can get off at Treasure Island if it gets too bad, I told myself, reaching for the radio knob. I had to do something with my hands. I imagined turning the wheel hard in the direction of the railing, imagined the car spinning crazily in circles. I took my hands off the wheel to fight the impulse, and it veered a bit to the right. I quickly replaced them. Had she noticed?

  Marion was still talking and I tried to tune in. “After that,” I heard her say, as if she were at the far end of a long tunnel, “things got much better. I started giving cooking lessons and I discovered that my phobias had gone away. Did I ever tell you about my phobias?”

  She had noticed! I turned to look at her, stricken. But she seemed oblivious to the noises in my head. “Oh,” she went on, “I couldn’t possibly have done what you are doing now.”

  “Done what?” I asked.

  “Driven across the bridge,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it for ten million dollars. I was afraid.”

  “What were you afraid of?” What was I?

  “Afraid that I would panic and pass out. Afraid that I would let go of the wheel. Afraid that I would suddenly spin the car around.”

  Had she really said all that? I turned and looked at her, but she seemed entirely natural. “I was afraid of everything that moved: planes, trains, cars, even elevators. You probably won’t believe this, dear, but I was so phobic about elevators that I couldn’t have children until Walnut Creek got a hospital with a delivery room on the ground floor.”

  “Is that true?” I asked, turning to look at her face. She seemed perfectly serious. I looked beyond her blue silk shirt and noticed that we were passing Treasure Island. As I did I realized that for a few seconds I had actually forgotten my panic. Now I had remembered and it was back, spreading. We were on the span, the worst part of the bridge. I looked over at the city and wished I were there. The buzzing in my head got louder. I fiddled with the buttons on my jacket, scrabbled in my pocket book for something, anything, just a distraction to try to take my mind off the bridge, off the fact that I was in control of a lethal weapon and liable to lose it at any moment.

  “I could hardly leave my house for years,” she said. “And of course airplanes were out of the question.”

  “Mmmm,” I said. I bit my lip, fidgeted in my seat. I could feel the agitation down to the tips of my fingers. If only we would get to the end!

  “Darling,” said Marion gently, “aren’t you a little close to the car in front of you?”

  I eased up on the gas pedal; frantic to get across, I was inches from the bumper on the blue Saab in front of us. The buzzing in my head grew louder. But we were almost there; it was almost over. I let out my breath.

  “It was my son, Mark, who helped me,” said Marion.

  Suddenly I remembered that the worst was yet to come. After the bridge came the Embarcadero Freeway, a terrifying covered span. With curves. I almost closed my eyes as we took the first one off the bridge. The tires squealed as we wheeled into the darkness under the span, hurtling through space.

  Marion talked faster. “For my forty-fifth birthday Mark gave me a ticket to Portland to take a class from James Beard. I had never been out of the state of California before and I was terrified. I had never been on a plane, never been away by myself. Mark took me to the airport and said, ‘If you don’t get on that plane you’ll never go anywhere, you’ll never do anything and you’ll never be anybody.’”

  “Did you get on the plane?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “I did. I cried all the way. But when I got there, it was worth it. That was such a wonderful class. I went back the next year, and the next.”

  “Was it easier after that?” I asked.

  “Oh yes,” she said, “much easier. My life changed: James asked me to be his assistant.”

  “The fear went away completely?” I asked. “Oh look, hon, there’s a parking place.”

  Were we there? I turned off the engine and just sat still for a second. We had made it; I had not embarrassed myself. I was still shaking slightly as we got out of the car.

  Cecilia Chiang stood in the doorway of The Mandarin restaurant, dressed entirely in green silk. She had shiny black hair pulled into a severe chignon that emphasized the small oval of her skull. Her smooth, beautiful face was a mask offering no clue to her age. When she waved her manicure
d hands, gold and diamonds flashed in the sun. This woman, I thought, has never been afraid of anything.

  “Just a little lunch for friends,” she said, leading us across the elegant darkness of her restaurant to a table by the window. I looked out at Alcatraz and the San Francisco Bay. I tried not to think about the trip home.

  “I have asked my chef to make a few special dishes that are not on the menu,” said Cecilia, bestowing a gracious smile upon us.

  She picked up a pair of sterling-tipped ivory chopsticks and gave us each a piece of drunken squab. I took a bite: the bird was infused with the flavor of the wine in which it had been marinated and the tender meat made me feel faintly dizzy.

  “None for me,” said Marion.

  “There is not enough wine to hurt you,” said Cecilia briskly. The tone of her voice made it clear she considered abstinence absurd. Nevertheless she picked up another platter and handed it to Marion; whatever was on it floated on the surface like pieces of intricately flounced cloth. “Spicy pork kidneys,” said Cecilia. “Very difficult to make.”

  I gulped; kidneys are one of the two foods in the world I do not like. Then and there I made a bargain with God: I would eat the kidneys if He would get me back across the bridge without a problem.

  “The kidneys,” Cecilia went on, “must be soaked in many, many changes of water to make them pure.” I took a tiny bite. And then another. It was like eating fragrant clouds. Cecilia beamed upon me.

  “Did you know that Cecilia walked out of China with gold sewn into the hem of her dress?” asked Marion.

  “Really?” I said.

  “Oh yes,” said Cecilia matter of factly, “with my sister, during the Revolution. We were very lucky to escape.”

  “And then you came here?”

  “Much later,” she said. “First we went to Taiwan. Then I married and moved to Japan. Have some pickled pork.” She poured out little dishes of pungent black vinegar. “I bought this in China. You dip the meat like this.” She demonstrated and added, “It is very good.”

  “You should import this vinegar and sell it,” said Marion. “It tastes like Chinese balsamic. You could have put it in one of the suitcases.”

  Did I detect a slight edge to her voice? “Suitcases?” I asked.

  Marion turned to me. “Twelve to be exact,” she said. “Last year Cecilia took me, Alice Waters, and twelve suitcases to China.”

  I had a quick and vivid vision of the three women in a rice paddy surrounded by large suitcases. In my imagination they were pink Samsonite, all locked.

  “The entire time we were in China Alice and I wondered what was in them,” Marion continued. “Cecilia never opened them, never even mentioned them. Alice called them the phantom suitcases. But when we finally got to Hong Kong and checked into the hotel there were five tailors waiting for Cecilia. She had been carrying cloth!”

  “I have to get my clothes made somewhere,” said Cecilia evenly. She looked disapprovingly across the table and said, “Marion only took one small suitcase. And she insisted on carrying it herself.”

  “I don’t want to be dependent upon anyone when I travel,” said Marion. “It took me a long time to leave the ground. I like feeling independent.”

  “Have some shark’s fin,” said Cecilia.

  “Is this what you brought back in the suitcases?” asked Marion. She turned to me. “They were full when we came back too, but I never found out what was in them.”

  “This was in one of the suitcases,” Cecilia replied. “I always buy shark fin when I am in Hong Kong. Very expensive. I keep a special closet for it in my San Francisco apartment, and another in the house in Beverly Hills.”

  The waiter placed a large tureen in front of her and she picked up a ladle and began spooning transparent chevron shapes into delicate porcelain bowls. The fins were crisp and gelatinous, nestled against small fish balls so light they vanished into nothingness when my mouth closed around them. There were tiny hearts of bok choy too. The soup was intensely delicious and as we sat there inhaling its fragrance we were momentarily silent.

  “When Cecilia opened the first Mandarin in 1961,” said Marion at last, “none of us had ever tasted Northern Chinese food before. It was shocking; a whole new kind of food.”

  “The butcher didn’t believe me when I said I wanted lamb,” laughed Cecilia. “He said Chinese restaurants didn’t serve lamb.”

  “Did your husband help?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” said Cecilia dismissively. “He stayed behind in Tokyo. I left the children with him and came by myself. He’s still there. My first days in America were a big shock; I had never lived without servants before. But I learned. Have you ever seen hair vegetable?” She was holding up some curly black filament that looked exactly like coarse hair. “I brought this back from Hong Kong too.”

  The vegetable twined around straw mushrooms, cucumbers, and delicate little pieces of tofu stuffed with minced, gingered shrimp. I let it sit in my mouth, liking the way the smooth blandness of the tofu was emphasized by the chewiness of the vegetable. I held up my plate for seconds.

  Marion looked around at the large, elegant restaurant. Business was brisk. Waiters scurried past with platters of food and every once in a while Cecilia would call the maître d’hôtel over and point at some problem only she had seen. Suddenly Marion asked, “Do you ever wish you had stayed with your husband?” I was startled by the frankness of the question. “Are you ever sorry that you came?”

  Cecilia seemed neither surprised nor offended. “No,” she said. “After I walked out of China I could never have gone back to the old life. It was like coming to another world. I feel sorry for the women I grew up with who did not have a chance to discover that they could take care of themselves.”

  Marion nodded.

  “And you?” Cecilia asked. “Your children missed you when you were working with James. Do you ever regret going?”

  Marion shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “My family may not have liked it, but I think I finally became the person I was meant to be.”

  Cecilia held up a platter of entirely white food. “Very Chinese,” she said, pointing out that the chicken breast was cut into batons precisely the same size as the neatly trimmed bean sprouts. As she served, she mused, “Sometimes I come into the restaurant late at night when nobody is here. And I look at the floor and think that it hasn’t been scrubbed right. I just get down on my knees and do it myself; it is a good feeling. My mother could not have done that.”

  The chicken was so tender it evaporated in my mouth and the bean sprouts seemed to be all juice. Cecilia held one up. “Must trim them completely,” she said. “Most Chinese restaurants serve them with the threads still attached. Nobody wants to do the work anymore.”

  Afterward there was sea-turtle soup, the meat like velvet hugging bones as smooth as stones. “Sea turtles are very hard to find in San Francisco,” said Cecilia. She gave a small, satisfied smile. “But you can get anything if you try hard enough.”

  “Is this the last course?” asked Marion. I fervently hoped not; I was no longer hungry, but I was not ready to face the bridge.

  “Just a few olives and a little melon,” said Cecilia. “I told you it was a small lunch.” She held out a plate with large, smooth olives, unlike any I had seen. “Chinese olives,” said Cecilia proudly.

  I bit into one. “Lawrence Durrell,” I said, wondering if I was pronouncing the name right, “said that olives had a taste as old as cold water.” I rolled the musty pit around in my mouth, thinking that if I could come up with just one description as good I could call myself a writer.

  “As old as cold water,” said Marion thoughtfully. “That’s just right, isn’t it?” She looked at me with admiration, as if knowing the phrase was an accomplishment.

  The waiter brought the melon, followed by a crystal decanter filled with aged cognac. Cecilia filled three snifters.

  “You know I won’t drink that,” said Marion.

  “It will
be like China,” said Cecilia. “I will drink for you.”

  Marion smiled and turned to me. “Everywhere we went in China they toasted us with cognac. Alice was pregnant and could not drink so Cecilia had to drink for all three of us.”

  “We could not lose face by refusing,” explained Cecilia.

  “One night,” said Marion, “she drank thirty-two shots of cognac and did not get drunk. I will never know how she did it.”

  “It is easy,” said Cecilia. “You just make up your mind not to let it affect you. And then it doesn’t. Gambei!” She raised her glass and downed the liquor.

  I didn’t really want the cognac, but I didn’t know how to say so. I did not want to lose face. “Gambei!” I said and raised my glass.

  And then it hit me that I really didn’t want to drink it and I didn’t have to. I put the glass down and shook my head. “I have to drive,” I said. Cecilia gave me a look I could not fathom. I will never know if it was respect or disappointment. And then we thanked her and walked to the car.

  I climbed in, shut the door, put the key in the ignition, and for a moment all the fear came back.

  And then I turned the key and the motor turned over. I pulled out into the traffic and approached the Embarcadero Freeway. As I sailed up the ramp and took the first curve I looked at the bridge, glittering in front of me. It was beautiful.

  Then I was on the bridge and the sun was shining and Marion was talking about the meal we had just eaten. The old, cold taste of olives filled my mouth once again. “You know,” said Marion, “Chinese women do not leave their husbands. Cecilia has done everything by the strength of her will. Isn’t she amazing?”

  “What did it feel like to be an alcoholic?” I asked.

  Marion considered for a minute. “As if there was not enough gin in the world,” she said finally.

  “You’re amazing too,” I said.