Kitchen Chinese (11 page)

I open the book.
Fresh pasta sounds hard, but it’s really not that difficult,
I read. Great!
Once you develop a feel for the correct consistency of the dough, you will be able to make such delicious pasta that even Marco Polo would be impressed.
Marco Polo again! It must be a sign.

Okay, the recipe…Three cups flour. I start hunting for a measuring cup. Hm. Not with the baking sheets, nor with the mugs. I search through all the cupboards, unearthing a stash of contact lens fluid, teeth whitening strips, and a mass of tangled yarn and sticks that’s either an abandoned knitting project or an avant-garde sculpture, I’m not sure. But no measuring cup.

Well, I’ll just have to eyeball it. It’s all about proportions anyway, right?

Grabbing a mug, I pile flour onto the counter, wincing as a large flurry dusts the floor white. Claire would have a heart attack over the mess, but luckily she’s not home, having sped off for a coffee with her friend Samantha immediately after we got home from the store.

I dig down into my mound of flour, scattering another shower over the tops of my sock-clad feet.
Beat together the eggs, olive oil, and salt and slowly pour them over the flour.
So far, so good. I start mixing everything together, trying to control the flour, which
seems to have a mind of its own.
Beat until the dough becomes too stiff to mix with a fork
. Fork? What fork? Was I supposed to be using a fork? And why is there flour
everywhere
?

It’s coating the counters in powdery white. It’s cascading down to the floor, filling the air in thick clouds that are eerily reminiscent of Beijing smog. If I didn’t know better, I’d bet our kitchen had been the center of a cocaine bust.

Meanwhile, I gaze with dismay at the ball of dough that I’ve managed to pull together. Which is the size of a tomato. A grape tomato.

What am I going to do? I promised Geraldine I’d bring dumplings. The creamy, cheesy ricotta-and-spinach filling (delicious, added a dash of nutmeg) mocks me in its bowl, all mixed up with nothing to stuff. Suddenly, I have a brain wave. I grab my wallet and run downstairs to our building’s little grocery store, praying that Claire doesn’t return before I’ve had a chance to clean up the mess.

F
reaking Jiminy Cricket. I’m back from the store only to find Claire standing in the middle of the kitchen, a look of sheer bewilderment wrinkling her face.

“Isabelle. What. Is. Going. On.” She grips the counter for support.

“I’m so sorry, so sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” I babble. “I was trying to make ravioli and the flour just got everywhere, multiplied like rabbits…” I scan her face. Is she mad?

“What are you going to do?” she whispers.

“I’m going to clean it up. I promise. I’m so sorry, Claire. Honestly, it was an accident—”

“What about the ravioli?” she says weakly.

“No problem. All under control.” I reach into the grocery sack
and pull out a package of premade dumpling wrappers. “It’s one of the few useful things they sell at the store downstairs.”

Claire stares at them. “You’re going to use
jiaozi
skins?”

“Why not? It’s like a Marco Polo-Genghis Khan-creamy-cheesy-Chinese-Italian-
jiaozi
thing. You know, fusion.”

Silence. And then, to my surprise, she bursts into laughter. “Do you know what this reminds me of?” she says.

I know exactly what she means and the memory makes me giggle. “That time we begged Mom to make us meat loaf?”

“And she thought the recipe was so boring, she kept adding in her own ingredients…”

“Minced ginger and garlic, black mushrooms, water chestnuts,
curry powder
…”

“And that Lee Kum Kee chili paste!”

“And then she threw some bacon on top, and basted it with Hoisin sauce! It was like…Asian fusion meat loaf.”

“Yeah, she was definitely ahead of her time.” Claire laughs and wipes away a mascara smudge from under her eye. “You know, I thought that was what meat loaf was supposed to taste like until I got to college and tried it in the cafeteria. And then it was so bland, I was disappointed.”

“Hey!” In my excitement, I brush another flurry of flour off the counter. “We should invite a bunch of people over and have a meat loaf throwdown! Mom’s fusion meat loaf versus the one on the back of the Lipton onion soup box. Geraldine and Gab would love it. We could get the recipe from Mom.”

“Recipe? Oh, I don’t think there’s a recipe.” Claire fiddles with her cell phone.

“Well, we should ask her about it. The next time we call home.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” But the amusement has left her face, re
placed by something that looks like annoyance. Did I say something wrong? Was it because I mentioned calling our mother?

“Claire—” A million questions hang on my lips. What’s going on between her and Mom? Why did Claire move to China and disappear from our family? But I am suddenly tongue-tied.

“Hmmm?” she says, distracted by her buzzing phone. “Hello?
Wei?
” Her face lights up.
Wang Wei
, she mouths at me, before leaving the room.

I
’ve promised Geraldine that I’ll arrive early to help her set up for the party, but of course the cab driver gets lost in the snarl of
hutongs
behind Gulou Dajie, stopping the car again and again to ask for directions with good-humored determination. We creep through the narrow lanes until we rattle to a stop at a dingy
hutong
intersection. A printing press fills the tight space, with reams of newsprint stacked as high as the tiny
hutong
dwellings, and the steady hum of industrial machinery abuzz in the air.

“Na’r!”
he points. There!

“Are you sure?” I ask doubtfully.

“It says!” He shakes the sheet of directions, which are a spidery mass of characters. I glance at the English:
Left at the Heping Fandian, right at the dumpling restaurant, and then walk through the
Beijing Daily
printing press to a gate at the back.

“Okaaay…” I pay him, gather my bags, and haul myself out of the cab.

“Man zou,”
he says. Take it easy.

Hidden behind the printing press compound stands a high brick wall with a rusting metal door. Red lanterns bob on either side, adding a dash of color against cracked black paint. I juggle my bags so that one hand is free and ring the bell. After a lengthy
pause it creaks open, revealing Geraldine in a pale blue linen sundress.

“Welcome!” she says, simultaneously hugging me and relieving me of a bag. “Oof! What do you have in here?” she asks, drawing out a bottle. “Australian Shiraz! Iz, you shouldn’t have.”

She steps aside to let me pass through the gate, and I nearly drop my other bags in astonishment. For behind the high brick wall and dingy gate is a secret garden, a quiet courtyard planted with patches of grass and cooled by the rustling leaves of an ancient gingko tree. A building stands at each of the courtyard’s four sides to form the traditional
siheyuan’r,
or four-sided house; each structure is graced with fat scarlet pillars that lead the eye upward to the fading grandeur of elaborately painted eaves. A string of colorful lanterns hangs from the trees, and a domed Mongolian yurt stands at one end of the courtyard, its flaps pinned open to reveal a swath of brightly patterned carpets and a pile of kilim cushions. Across from the yurt rests a long table already laden with food: platters of papaya and mangosteens, large bowls of potato chips, small ones of pale green wasabi peas, and tall glass pitchers of pastel-colored fruit juices.

“Geraldine!” I gasp. “This is like…” I search for the right words. “It’s like a Chinese fairy tale.”

“It’s charming, but the plumbing is terrible,” she says. “Come on, leave the bags. I’ll show you the rest.”

She leads me into the nearest building and swings open a set of double doors set with diamond-shaped panes of glass. “The living room,” she says as we kick off our shoes. Rice paper screens soften the windows and a curved white sofa snakes across the room. Scarlet pillars soar through the space, while thick Xinjiang carpets, delicate with muted color and intricate patterns, cover the polished concrete floor. Geraldine’s Dirt Market treasures intimately fill the corners: a battered gramophone with a
trumpet-shaped speaker sits on a nest of carved tables, a flock of jade elephants lumbers across a bookcase, silver frames display photographs of her family. Beyond, a long maple dining table is piled with mail and newspapers, stacks of magazines, and a vase crammed with fragrant white lilies.

And everywhere there is art. Oversized paintings, abstract with bold strokes of color, hang from the white walls. A row of headless Mao busts stolidly stand guard on a bookshelf, while an enormous bright and brazen photograph of Beijing’s city sprawl leans casually against a side table. Even my untrained eye recognizes the work of Beijing’s biggest art stars, an Ai Weiwei here, a Wang Guanyi there, each selected by Geraldine’s impeccable eye.

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper into the quiet space.

“The rooms aren’t connected,” she says. “So we have to go outside to enter the next building.”

“What’s that like in the winter?” I ask as we step out into the courtyard.

“Horribly cold,” she says, throwing open the doors to her bedroom. A carved wooden headboard shines with dark varnish, and ornate red lacquer cupboards flank either side. The bed gleams with raw silk pillows in subtle shades of pale blue and celadon green, while above a swirl of mosquito netting tumbles down into a frothy mass.

It’s like stepping back in time—or into a Shanghai Tang catalog. I wonder how she can afford such opulence on our meager
Beijing NOW
salary.

“All courtesy of my ex-husband,” she says, answering my unspoken question. “This is what you get as the son of a Standing Politburo member. Don’t worry, it’s not their family home,” she assures me, seeing the surprised look on my face. “I found the house and Andy gave it to me as a wedding present. When we split up, he lost no time buying himself a penthouse condo in
one of those flashy developments near Chaoyang Park. He left this death trap to me.”

“He didn’t mind?”

She barks a short laugh. “Hardly. He hated living here. Hot in the summer, freezing in the winter; no doorman, no wireless, no satellite TV…” She ticks off the reasons on her fingers. “Believe me, he was ecstatic to escape the clutches of his crazy American wife…and run straight into the arms of his little mistress.” She rubs her hands over her face. “Anyway, this house…my alimony…it’s all peanuts to the Zhao family. They just don’t want any
mafan—
any trouble from me.”

Before I can respond, she walks out into the courtyard. “The kitchen and dining room are over here,” she calls. “They’re still pretty bare bones. I haven’t had a chance to renovate yet.”

We squeeze into the kitchen, maneuvering between Geraldine’s
ayi
and an army of caterers. The room is spacious but worn, with stained linoleum floors and an industrial-sized ceramic sink that dwarfs the gas stove. A washing machine stands between the sink and the door, but there is no dryer, and no oven. A circular dining table fills the other half of the room, its polished wooden surface shiny under the fluorescent lights.

I offer my
jiaozi
-ravioli to the
ayi. “Shi ni zuo de ma?”
she asks, lifting out a dumpling to examine it. Did you make these?

“Dang rang le!”
calls out Geraldine.

Of course! She whisks me out of the kitchen before I have a chance to explain that I’d like to make a special butter-sage sauce to accompany them.

“I want to change the floors in the kitchen,” Geraldine muses as we sway gently on the wooden swing that dangles from the gingko tree. “Put in an oven, add some counter space…”

“What’s in the fourth building?” I ask.

“Storage,” she grimaces. “My ex-husband had aspirations of
becoming a patron of the arts. We collected so much stuff I don’t have room to display all of it.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Paintings, photographs, sculptures…mostly from the early 798 gallery days. I should catalog everything but it was just a hobby. I don’t really have time for it now that I’m at the magazine.”

My eyes widen: 798 may have lost its edge, but when the former factory-complex-turned-gallery-district first opened, it was the center of the Chinese avant-garde art world. “They could be worth a fortune by now!”

“Ha. I doubt it.” She gets up and the swing jerks. “I should see what’s going on the kitchen. Help yourself to a drink. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I steady the swing until it rocks more gently, and watch the sun creep behind the gingko tree. As the sky deepens to indigo, I help light candles in the paper lanterns. They glow like jewels within the darkening garden, and I step back for a moment to admire them. A rattle at the gate makes me jump, and then voices call from outside. “Geraldine! Are you there? Geraldeeeeen!”

She laughs as she throws open the door, and suddenly the courtyard floods with people who are kissing cheeks and exclaiming, “We got lost!” No kidding, I think. Corks are popped, there’s a luscious glug-glug sound as wine is poured into glasses, and the party begins. I hang back for a second to examine a sputtering lantern, but another bright object catches my eye: the full moon, which has started to rise in the sky. Gazing at its pale surface, I try to remember the myth behind the moon festival—something about a woman who flees earthly pleasures to dance on the moon. I’m trying to recall the details when I feel hands lightly touch my waist.

I turn around. “Jeff!”

“Hey babe,” he says, kissing both my cheeks. He smells fresh, like green grass, mixed with cigarettes. “Great party. Isn’t this a cool pat?”

It takes me a second to figure out what he means. “Pad,” I say automatically. “Cool pad.”

A look of annoyance flickers across his face. “Whatever.” He shrugs.

“Would you like a drink?” I lead him to a corner of the courtyard, where Geraldine has set up the bar. “What’s your poison—er, what would you like? There’s red wine, white wine, vodka, gin…”