“Wine?” I offer.
“Yeah, thanks. That would be great.”
I refill my glass and pour one for him. It’s only my second glass, but I can already feel the effects, my legs soft and leaden and my head lighter. Dutch courage.
He sits up on the sill, leaning against the opposite corner. We watch people walking back and forth on the pedestrian crossing below. The view is always so dynamic, people moving and going places. This place does not sleep for a moment. Some days it makes me feel like I am the only person in the world inside an apartment, doing nothing. It makes me feel like a sad princess in her tower.
Tonight there are a lot of children walking about with their parents and nannies and grandparents. I’ve become used to seeing little ones up at midnight or even later. I imagine Mama’s shocked voice whispering in my ear as a child walks home from a restaurant with his parents, being tugged along by the arm. “My God!” she would have said. “It’s well past his bedtime!” Forgetting that I had been awake at that time often—baking cakes, making volcanoes out of flour, building with LEGOs, drawing pictures of whales.
“I think it’s a lantern festival or something. The end of Chinese New Year,” Pete explains, as though he can read my thoughts.
“So we’re well and truly in the Year of the Rat then …” I say.
He nods before leaning his head against the glass.
I think back to last week’s fireworks and the bangs that splintered through my thoughts like lightning. “Is that why there are so many kids out?”
“Yeah, I reckon.” He traces his finger around the rim of his wineglass.
He must be right, as a few of the children are bouncing inflatable toys containing battery-powered lights. Below us a brother and sister are skipping. He has a blue toy in the shape of a hammer, which he grasps by the handle, and she holds an enormous Hello Kitty head tied to a thin plastic stick. She swings it up and over her shoulder, like it’s a fishing line she’s casting. After a few swings, she connects with her brother’s head and he spins around to face her. Soon enough the blue hammer thuds against her forehead. She lets out a round-mouthed wail. We can’t hear it from where we are, but her face is red and aghast.
“Ha!” Pete snorts. “Did you see that?”
“I think Junior is going to get into trouble.”
He raises his eyebrows in agreement. I can see the effect of the wine, moving down over his face as he slumps back against the window. He starts to relax. There is something in the moment that is suspended, the two of us sitting up here looking down at the world below. As if it were a dreamland, a movie; as if we were above it all like puppeteers.
“Pete, I have an idea,” I say slowly.
“Mmm?” He is still looking out beyond the glass.
“I want to open a café.”
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
“I thought I could use, you know … the money.”
He turns to look at me.
I am being vague so I don’t have to say things out loud. It is money we put aside for in vitro fertilization. But you need healthy eggs for that, and we both know that hope has dissolved.
He studies my face, and I wonder what he sees.
“I want to sell sandwiches, coffee … macarons …”
“Right. Macarons.” His voice has tightened up, the words squeezed as if wrung out.
“Maybe it sounds crazy …”
“Sure does,” he answers too quickly.
“You won’t have to have anything to do with it, Pete.” I drop my voice almost to a whisper in the hope of pacifying him. “It’ll be my thing. I’ll manage it, I’ll run it.”
He takes a gulp of his wine but is still not looking at me. I know he is listening, but he looks out the window and doesn’t meet my gaze. His chin is lifted so he has to look down his nose at the scene below.
“Pete.” I plead a little, reaching out for his hand. “I need …”
He turns his face toward me slightly. “It’s a big responsibility.” His voice is clipped. He looks down at the glass in his hands and starts to roll it back and forth between his palms.
“It’s a lot of money. I know. But it’ll be a business. It’ll be an investment. I’ll make money.” I can hear a little nervous quiver in my voice, so I pause and swallow. “We should use the money for something useful, right?”
He raises his eyebrows. “You sound like you’ve made up your mind.”
I know he wants to talk about the end of our dream. Of having our own child. But I cannot.
“Well …” My mind hovers above my argument, as if looking down upon it. I try to muster strength, conviction. “I know we could use the money for other things. But, this … this is what I want to use it for.”
We sit in silence for a few moments, looking at each other. I feel uncomfortable, like this is a kind of standoff, as we try to figure each other out. The distance between us suddenly seems vast.
“It’s not a good idea, Grace,” he says firmly. Unreasonably.
“Maybe,” I reply. “But I need something. Something that is mine.” There is that calmness in my mind again, thick and cool. “Maybe it’s not a good idea, or maybe it is a good idea. I know I have to try.”
He gives a strange kind of half laugh. “You’ve barely been able to get out of bed. Now you want to run a business?”
I stare at him in disbelief. I have moved all the way to China for his career. I have had faith in him and his abilities.
“Why are you even asking me?” he continues. “Like I said, it sounds like you’ve made up your mind already.”
I raise my chin. “Well, actually, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t ask,” I say, and my eyes lock with his. My voice sounds so soft, but feels so strong rushing out of my throat, it is a surprise even to me.
Pete’s eyes widen. “Right then. You have it all sorted.” He stands, angry, throwing back the last of the wine in the glass. He looks down at me before turning to go into the kitchen. “I won’t get in your way then. I’ll leave you to it.”
I can hear him putting his glass into the sink, the base hitting the metal with a loud clang. I feel queasy from the confrontation. Pete always manages our money and has the last word on our decisions, a fact that has never bothered me. Until now. Now it needs to be different. Beneath the churning of my stomach, something deep within is firm and quiet with knowing, unconcerned whether the business fails or not; I have to try.
Pete walks through the lounge room without looking at me, goes into the study. I hear him sink into his chair and make out the beeps and whirs of the computer firing up. The jingle of the home page of a sports betting site. The chair wheels creak against the floorboards as he pulls himself closer to the screen. I take a few deep breaths, navigating back to that sweet, deep calmness. I turn to the darkness of the window, watching the steady stream of customers in and out of the stores and the silky, luminous lanterns swaying from the lampposts studding the middle of the road. Out there, in the night, is the land destined to be a park. I can just make out the shape of a single tree, like a lonely exclamation mark.
Dearest Mama,
They have planted one tree. I think it must be a trial, starting with one tree and seeing how it goes from there. Perhaps they are not optimistic. Perhaps they think the land is not going to nurture such a thing. Perhaps that is what they hope for. What I love is that they have planted it in the middle of the whole block. Not to one side where it could lean wearily against the fencing, fatigued by its solitude. Not in one of the corners. But smack bang in the middle, as if to say, Well, there you go. Try surviving right there. I do get the impression they would prefer it didn’t. I get the impression that they would much prefer it if the whole one-tree experiment was a bloody failure they could report to the government and happily get on with icing the block over with concrete and turning it into a car park.
But it’s been about a week now and it is still standing. This morning I just
about waved hello. I did smile, I admit. A real out-loud kind of smile. I’m surprised my face didn’t split in two with the shock. In the daylight the shadows of the clouds crawl over the empty block and up and over the tree. The land is suddenly three-dimensional. I imagine the shadows having to pick up their skirts like old dames as they navigate over the inconvenient tree. I hear them cursing and complaining, as they lift up their rusty knees and heavy petticoats. I love the idea of the tree being such a nuisance to everyone. Those who planted her, the shadows that have to step over her. Sometimes I think I am in love with this tree more than with my husband. It makes me feel bold. And resolute.
Your loving daughter,
Grace
* * *
The pastry kitchen is colder than I had imagined but smells delicious, as sweet and crisp as the bite of an apple. The walls are covered in white tiles, and almost everything is made of stainless steel. There are quite a few Chinese chefs in the kitchen, busy at work. They don’t look rushed at all, carefully executing their tasks. One chef is releasing praline balls from their molds and then dipping them in a bowl of melted chocolate. It looks like a silken soup, and my mouth waters. He drops each ball in with a large fork and slowly stirs it around. When it comes up again, it has the satin sheen of the warm chocolate. He rolls it, the fork providing a cradle against a marble bench top until it is cool. The fork leaves no crease or mark on the finished product, a perfect sphere. There is such slow art to it; I feel hypnotized.
“Grace!”
I turn to see Léon, wiping his hands against his apron. He gives me a wide, white smile.
“So good to see you. Welcome to our kitchen.” A few stray beads of sweat hang delicately on his upper lip, and he blows out a dramatic puff of air. “Pardon. I have been in the bakery; it is very hot in there. I’m a little … what do you say? Overcooked.” He laughs.
“No problem. Thanks for having me.” My gaze falls, briefly, to the floor, in order to avoid looking at his lips, rosy with the heat. I notice my shoes are dusty with sugar or flour or both.
“No, no, no. It is my pleasure. It is so nice to have someone interested. Maybe Macau is ready for the macaron after all.”
“Well, I love them. I hope the rest of Macau does too. I used to eat them in Paris.” With Mama.
“I’m sure your café will be a success. You know, the most important ingredient in this kind of business is passion.” He lifts his eyes to mine for a quick moment before his gaze shifts. The words your café, along with his brief stare, make me feel slightly electric. Then I remember all the forms and red tape I’m plowing through, fortunately with the help of the Portuguese-speaking previous owner of the shop. English is not an official language in Macau, and I don’t have any connections here to get things done, so I feel like a spare part most of the time. I hardly expect success; I’m hoping just to get the place open. I need to show Pete I can at least do that much.
Léon begins to move around his kitchen. He is gentle but clear with the staff, leaving a sense of direction and purpose in his wake. He accepts two bowls from a chef: one full of what looks like flour and another with egg whites.
“Here we are, this is where we start.”
I come around to watch him from a better angle, facing him and the bowls from the other side of the marble bench.
“This is ground almond, sugar, and what I think you call ‘icing sugar.’ Oh, and cream of tartar, the little acid to make it rise,” he says, patting the top of one bowl. “This other bowl, of course, has the egg whites. And now we need to fold them together.”
Léon explains that the “folding” of the macaron ingredients is very important, gesturing with his hands that the mixture can be too flat and runny or too rough if not mixed properly. He takes both bowls over to a shiny white mixer, adding the dry ingredients to the wet slowly.
I peer into the mixing bowl. Baking always fills me with such hopeful expectation; Léon can sense it too.
“You enjoy this, non?” He laughs.
“Yes, I love it.” I notice that I am suddenly standing with my palms pressed together and raised close to my chin. Self-conscious, I move them behind my back and try to keep them there, fingers knotted together.
“Okay, looks good.” Léon switches off the mixer. “It needs to look like whipped cream. Thick, but not too stiff. The mixture must … ah …” He struggles to explain it, so instead shows me. He puts his finger into the bowl and presses lightly. As he lifts his finger up, the mixture clings on and then reluctantly lets go, remaining to stand tall like the top of a mountain.
“The mixture must stand in peaks,” I finish for him.
“Aha, yes, that’s it. Once it does this, then it is okay and ready. Today we are going to make passion fruit macaron, so we need to add a little color before we put it onto the trays.”
He reaches for a bottle filled with a radiant yellow liquid. He squeezes a few drops into the bowl, and as he mixes it through carefully, the snowy contents become bright, practically neon.
He notices my frown.
“Not to worry, the cooking makes it a bit browner. It’s the almond, you see.”
“Oh, okay.”
Back at the bench, a chef has prepared a plastic piping bag and a tray covered in a silicone sheet. Léon spoons dollops of creamy mixture into the bag and then starts to push out tiny rounds from the nozzle onto the tray.
“These are petits macarons. You can make them bigger if you wish. These ones, they are a good size for our parties; the guests can have just a taste. Sometimes we get some catering requests for macarons … not as often as I would like.” He starts to fill up the tray with rows, sunshiny as the centers of daisies.
“Thank you for showing me this,” I say. “It’s very generous of you.” I am leaning on the edge of the cool bench.
He pauses to shrug and smile. “It’s my pleasure. I’m glad you are opening a café. You know, I love the way people are about macarons, cakes, these kinds of things. Sweets, I guess. It’s in their faces. How they look. They make people happy, you know?”
I think of a cake Mama made me for my eighth birthday. It was a clock tower, like Big Ben, laid flat against a tinfoil-covered chopping board. It was smothered in a buttery, cream-colored icing that was as thick and soft as a cloud. Smarties and jelly beans covered the face, and the numbers on the clock face were made with twists of licorice. Running up the side, there was a little mouse with a plump marzipan body and licorice tail. Mama sang “Hickory Dickory Dock” and planted kisses under my chin and tickled me till I squealed.
“Yes, I know what you mean.”
Léon bangs the tray on the marble top. The yellow buttons spread a little but stay separate from one another.
“Okay, come now, we go to the ovens.”
The ovens are in the next room, stacked like shelves, at least ten or twelve in two tall columns.
“They need to be inside for about eight minutes. The oven is preheated to three fifty. You must make sure it is very dry. No steam at all.”
We stand close together staring into the heat. The warmth is dry and pleasant and the silence between us comfortable as we watch the macarons slowly rise. Around us the staff is busy: rolling dough through a machine, chatting and mixing, laughing and pounding. But the jumpy, sharp sounds of Cantonese, which normally interrupt my thoughts, fade into the background as I stare at the tray. I can feel Léon’s breath beside me. We are joined in the holy communion of this miracle: sugar and egg white and almond coming together.
The tops of the macarons become rounded and shiny, like buttons or bottle tops. Léon explains that we need to cook the undersides for a few minutes and then they must sit for a day or so. When they are done, he takes the cooked macarons from the oven. Back in the main kitchen, he talks me through the art of ganache, the soft, silky center of the macaron. He is not going to make the ganache for the shells we have just baked as they are too hot from cooking, so instead he mimes the process, gesturing while explaining what he a
dds, how he mixes it, what is important. He looks to the ceiling, searching for the appropriate words. He is so concerned that I get it right. As if it is his duty as a friend, as a chef, as a Frenchman. Finally he asks one of the chefs to help him in another room. I wait for a few minutes, watching as someone carefully peels ripe pears.
Léon returns with a glass plate—a traffic light of macarons down each side. He places it in front of me. “Voilà. Macarons. These ones I made yesterday for a party tonight, so they should be delicious.”
He is right, of course; they are perfect. The first one I taste is dark chocolate with a center that is firmer than I had expected but that melts on my tongue in seconds. The second one is raspberry, the ganache retaining the roughness and texture of the fruit. The almond paste is stronger in this one, nuttier; blended together with the raspberry, it tastes of autumn. The last macaron is passion fruit. I know the shells are unflavored, but it tastes as though the entire sweet—the shells, the ganache, the scent—is alive with the zest of passion fruit before it even enters my mouth. Then, acidic on the tongue and rounding off a heavy sweetness. The perfume of the passion fruit macaron is like a bunch of lilies, assaulting and exotic. I close my eyes for a second, savoring each one.
“So, what do you think?” He is close enough for me to notice that the color of his eyes matches the cornflower blue initials stitched delicately onto his white chef’s shirt.
“Wonderful. Really lovely.” I smile at him, feeling drunk on the taste of divine macarons. He grins and looks down at the empty plate. I swallow with some effort and feel my heart run through a few beats.
“Good, that’s what I was hoping for.” He smiles.
Dearest Mama,
I might be a wanton harlot.
I knew that would make you laugh. But it could be true. I can’t stop thinking about a man who is married. And I am married. We are both married but not to each other, which means such thoughts are wicked, aren’t they?
Mama, he has an accent that brings to mind a sweet and smoky caramel melting in your mouth. I feel so ridiculous even thinking about him. Léon. Léon. Léon. It’s got that soft, floating ending that could go on and on. And, I don’t know how to explain but, he looks like Paris.
The Colour of Tea Page 7
