The Last Chinese Chef (10 page)

“Maybe tonight, more likely tomorrow.” Zinnia reached out and snagged Maggie a pale, translucent heap of gelatinous curls. “Try,” she said.

Maggie took a curl up on her chopsticks and ate it. The flavor was mild, barely discernible, but Zinnia was right about the texture: it was the mouth-feel of the food that snapped her to attention, crunchy and spongy at the same time. “Hey,” she said. “Not bad.”

The younger woman grinned. “That’s what we say!
Bu cuo.
Not bad. It means so-so in English, doesn’t it? But it’s a sincere compliment in Chinese. Did you know that? It means you like it. Good.” Zinnia took some on her own plate. “Are you free after we eat?” she asked.

“I have a meeting.” She looked at her watch. She was going to see Sam Liang again.

“Can you stop at the office first? Carey James is back from Bangkok. He asked to see you.”

“Yes,” Maggie said immediately. For this she would call the chef and see if she could be a little late. Carey had memories of Matt, memories she hadn’t tapped. He’d have images or nuances still new to her — events, jokes, snippets of remembered conversations. She may have had this new blade of uncertainty about her husband buried in her side, but she still knew that she would take anything. Anything about Matt. Even just the chance to talk about him a little bit with someone who remembered him. “Of course,” she said.

“Good,” said Zinnia. “Now come.” She pointed with her chopsticks at the food. “Every person needs to eat.”

 

“You have to decide what manner of menu you want,” Second Uncle Tan told Sam. They were in a restaurant having midmorning snacks, restaurants being far and away the best places to meet in China at any time of day. Homes were small, while the world outside was filled with public places where people could eat or even just sip tea.

“There are three kinds of menus,” Tan said, “the extravagant, the rustic, and the elegant.”

“And within the elegant there is the recherché,” Jiang said, breaking his Chinese only for the French word. “This is another possibility: nostalgia. There are certain great classics still remembered by the people.”

“Jiu shi,”
Tan agreed, It’s so.

“You could make crisp spiced duck,” said Jiang. “Carp in lamb broth. And old-fashioned hors d’oeuvres — dipped snails, fried sparrows.”

Tan looked over with a snort. “Too intellectual. Such dishes are only for true aficionados.”

“Afraid I’m with Second Uncle,” said Sam. “That’s not for this panel. And a rustic menu wouldn’t work for them either. You and I know, to cook plain food brilliantly is one of the hardest things of all. But they won’t see it.”

“Just two hundred years ago Yuan Mei himself said that the most sophisticated thing of all was to use the cheapest bowls and plates,” Jiang said.

“But today?” Sam said. “Now that everything is about money? Suicide. Impossible. However,” he added, “we could go with the elegant. For instance — what about tofu in the shape of a lute, stuffed with minced pork, flash-fried? And a chicken’s skin removed whole, intact, then stuffed with minced ham and vegetables and slivered chicken meat and roasted at high heat until fragrant — ”

“Impressive,” said Jiang.

“ — and the skin is snapping-crisp,
cui
— ”

“Texture!” said Tan. “Yes. You should make this point clearly. What other cuisine controls texture as ours does?”

“He is right,” Jiang said.

Sam understood the implication. Be Chinese. Let the other, native-born cooks take chances and improvise. He would be what his grandfather had been, what his father would have been, a cook of tradition. Beijing might be wide open, aggressive — profane, even — in its run for the future, but people still longed for the past.

That was one reason he and his uncles liked this restaurant; it was old-fashioned and therefore restful. While they talked they picked at a few dishes. One plate was heaped with braised soybeans mixed with the musky chopped leaves of the Chinese toon tree; another held rosy-thin slices of watermelon radish in a delicate vinaigrette. Uncle Tan had proposed ordering wine, but had been overruled with a sharp reproof from Jiang. Sam agreed. It was not even lunchtime. Too early.

“For texture you could consider silver fungus, or your stir-fried prawns,” said Jiang. “Ah, yes! Those prawns. First crunchy, then inside, soft as mist.”

“I made those prawns just yesterday,” said Sam. He thought of the American writer in his kitchen, her ease as she watched him cook, her careful eyes, her perception that never lagged no matter how much he told her. The inflection of her speech, which was sunny and American and sounded like home to him. Even though what she told him just before she left, about her husband’s death, fell like a heavy weight. “I made them for the woman writing the article.”

“Ah, the woman!” They leaned forward.

“Forget it,” Sam said. “She’s in a bad situation. Her husband died — ”

“A widow,” clucked Tan.

“ — and there is some matter here in China over his estate.” He stopped at the sound of an American voice behind him.

“What are you guys talking about? That’s some fast Chinese.”

“Hi,” said Sam, turning. It was David Renfrew, one of the shifting crowd of foreigners he had met here. He had thought he would find friends among them, as they, like him, were outsiders, but so far he had not. “We were actually talking about prawns,” he said. “Have you eaten?” It was a traditional Chinese greeting, but said in English, from one American to another, it had an agreeable irony.

“Just did,” David said. “I heard you were on TV last night. You’re up for the cooking games.”

“Auditioning for the team,” Sam said.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks. Meet my uncles.” Sam circled a hand around the table. “We were just going over what I should cook. David Renfrew, Jiang Wanli, Tan Jingfu. Jiang is a retired food scholar, Tan a retired chef. David is a banker.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said David.

“Pleased,” they both murmured back in English.

“So.” David turned back to Sam. He still spoke little Chinese after all his time here, and didn’t really try. That was typical. David had been here a bit longer than most, the average expatriate stay being only about two years, but he still lived the
laowai
life. With occasional excursions for variation, this generally meant shuttling between the office and the circuit of clubs and hotels and gyms and restaurants that were aimed at foreigners.

“When was the last time I saw you?” David said. “Hold it, I know. That party at the Loft. Right?”

“I think so.” That had been one of those nights when Sam had gone out even though he hadn’t really wanted to.

“You know who else was at that party?” said David.
“Her.”
He trained his eyes on someone across the room. “I saw her that night. She was a friend of someone I used to know. Damn, what’s her name?”

Sam leaned to the side in his chair to follow David’s gaze. “Where?” he said to David, and then, “Oh, I know her.” He recognized her short, tentative posture, her straight fall of hair. She worked in the Sun Building. He’d met her through a Dutchman who knew her there, a guy who managed a shipping company. Piet. What had happened to Piet? Gone back to Europe. Then he had seen this girl occasionally at parties. She seemed young, maybe a little naïve, but nothing about her had really caught his attention. “That’s Xiao Yu,” he said.

“Xiao Yu! That’s it. Thanks.”

“Do you know her?”

“No. Well, I met her. At my friend’s place. That was a while ago. Forgot her name.” A possibility ticked across his precisely edged Teutonic features. “I’m not stepping on toes, am I?”

“You mean her and me?” said Sam. “No.”

“Just asking.”

“We’re barely acquainted.” Sam sent a glance to Xiao Yu. “I mean, feel free,” he said to David.

“Thanks,” the American said. “I will. Hey. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? We should catch up.”

“We should,” Sam said.

“Call me. We’ll have coffee. I’m at work all the time.” David turned his smile on the uncles. “Nice to meet you,” he said. Then he left.

“Your friend?” inquired Uncle Jiang, and Sam nodded.

“Did he want you to make an introduction to that girl?”

“No,” said Sam, watching David move away through the tables. “He met her before. He just forgot her name.”

Jiang raised one white eyebrow.

But Sam had his gaze beyond his uncles, still on David. Now he was coming up behind her. She didn’t see him. He reached a hand out to her shoulder. She started, and turned, and all the way across the room Sam could see the gladness in her eyes. She was so open to him. It made Sam sad. Why? She was no child. It was none of his business. He looked away. Maybe the feeling arose in him because of the American woman. He felt sorry for her too.

“Let’s go back to texture,” Jiang prodded.

“Good.” Sam turned.

“So far we have been talking about things that are
cui,
crunchy. Consider the spongy quality of intestines. Take the Nine Twists, the way they make the intestines into soup in Sichuan. And in Amoy they stuff them with glutinous rice and cook them and slice them cold with soy sauce.”

“Don’t forget Hangzhou!” Tan put in. “There they stuff the intestine not only with rice but also with smaller and smaller intestines, so it slices into concentric rings. So clever.”

“Flavor rich, texture delicate,” Jiang said with a sigh.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Intestines are out.”

“You should consider,” said Tan. “At least you should learn to make them. Hangzhou style. No cuisine has more richness behind it. Or more literary history. Of all the times you have visited Little Xie there, did he not show you?”

“Not that dish,” said Sam. He was in some ways closest of all to Uncle Xie, his Third Uncle — so called because he was the youngest of them. The best part of Sam’s apprenticeship had been sweated through in Hangzhou, under the old man’s displeasure and his tantrums and his praise. Xie had taught him many dishes, but not the intestines.

“Xie could really make that dish,” said Tan. “But your father did it best. Even better than Xie. Don’t tell me he didn’t show you.”

“He didn’t,” said Sam. Jiang and Tan still didn’t grasp the fact that his father had taught him nothing. When Sam was small, Liang Yeh had gone to work and come home every day and then sat alone in his little study. He would read and let himself wander, staring at the wall while unspooling scenes from paintings and operas, movies, and the classics of art and philosophy. In his mind men fought with swords, leapt and floated in the air. He was often far away when the young Sam would walk into the room looking for him. His mouth would be loose and his hand a light flutter on his book. “Hey,” Sam would say, and his father’s eyes would bounce to him, surprised.

To Sam as a child, this seemed merely like his father. But by the time he reached high school he understood that Liang Yeh was different. At games and other obligatory events, his mother, who had enough vitality for three people, managed to anchor all the interactions. Liang Yeh would stand apart, remote, attentive, his hands jammed for warmth into his layers of jackets and shirts. “How is it you Americans do not feel the cold?” he would say to the other parents — and that was if he spoke to them at all.

But Sam was in China now. Heaven had given him the gift of his uncles. “I have been thinking,” he said. “I am allowed to have three assistants at the banquet. What about the two of you and — you don’t think Xie will be well enough to come, do you? I worry that he’s not over his illness.” For
illness
Sam used the word
maobing,
which literally meant “hair of an illness,” showing his optimism that any indisposition would soon be over. “In which case I will just have two,” he finished, “the two of you.”

They exchanged looks. “Nephew,” said Jiang, “Xie is far beyond helping you cook. He is worse; to speak truly, he is gravely ill.
Bing ru gao huang.
” The disease has attacked his vitals.

“What?” Sam said. Sometimes the little four-character sayings went right past him. Chinese was a living web of references and allusions, a language that was at its best with short verse and metaphorical sayings. So much of the web of civilization was out of his reach that plain conversation often eluded him.

Tan shook his head with a gravity that made the meaning clear.

“That bad?” said Sam.

“Yu shi chang ci,”
Jiang said after a moment, He’s going to go away from this world for a long time.

“I thought he was better,” said Sam.

“A little,” Tan answered. “For a while.”

“Then I have to go to Hangzhou,” he said.

Jiang nodded. His face was pale.

“I was going to go after the audition.”

The interval of silence sent unwelcome recognition around the table. “Maybe that will be too late,” said Jiang.

“Then I’ll go now.”

“Nephew,” said Tan, “it is filial of you. But there is the contest. You must prepare. Xie would want you to do that.”

“True,” said Jiang. “And even if you try to go, you may not get a ticket. It is almost National Day.”

None of that changed anything.

“Stay and prepare,” Jiang repeated.

“Xie will understand,” added Tan.

Sam knew this was demurral and not truth. Jiang and Tan
wanted
him to go see Third Uncle. They expected it. But they had to counsel him not to, then later reluctantly agree when he insisted. “I’m going,” Sam said.

“Well,” said Jiang, as if resigning. “Then ask him to give you a dish for the banquet. One of his specialties.”

“The pork ribs,” said Tan. “Oh!
Ruanyiruan,
” So soft. “The meat falls away in your mouth. He marinates them, then rolls them in five-spice rice crumbles. They are wrapped in lotus leaves and steamed for hours.”