Kitchen Chinese (22 page)

“Apparently, Uncle Gray’s been having an affair with their neighbor.”

“What?” I gasp.

“Aunt Marcie claims it’s a mid-life crisis, but according to Mom they’ve been having trouble for years.”

“Wow. Well, I’ve always wondered how he put up with her constant nagging.” I shake my head.

“I guess he worked out his frustration next door!” We both start to laugh.

“There’s one other thing,” she says, her tone suddenly serious. “Mom was thinking that a change of pace might be good for Aunt Marcie…”

Something in her voice makes me glance up. I have a feeling I know where this is headed. “Oh noooo,” I protest. “Not Aunt Marcie. Not here for Thanksgiving. Please. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.”

“I know, Iz.” Claire sighs. “But she’s getting divorced. Her husband of thirty years just
dumped
her, for crying out loud. I just…I don’t know…I kind of feel sorry for her.”

“I don’t,” I huff. “She’s single-handedly responsible for my low self-esteem.”

“So she has some transference issues. She doesn’t mean it.” Claire sighs. “I bet she’s so upset she won’t have the energy to criticize you.”

I grab another handful of pecans from the bowl. “You already told them they could come, didn’t you?”

“Well—” She hesitates and looks down. “Yes. But what else could I do? It’s the holidays, Aunt Marcie’s depressed, Uncle Gray’s moving next door, Dad’s going to be eating fondue in Switzerland…Come on, it’s not like I’m dying to see Aunt Marcie either. I’m going to have to take a day off from work…my boss is going to kill me. Besides, you know what Auntie calls me?
Yaqian
. Toothpick.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” I throw a handful of nuts back into the bowl and wipe my hands on my jeans. “It’s fine.”

“I’m really sorry. Look, I can call Mom back if you want—”

“No, really.” I force a smile to my lips. “It’s fine.”

“Well, okay…” She sidles to the kitchen door. “I should probably go over some papers before I meet Wang Wei for dinner…”

“No problem!” I wave her away cheerfully. But alone again in the kitchen, I stir my sticky pie filling and sigh. Claire and I may have moved halfway around the world, but our roles remain the same—she is still the good girl, the filial daughter. I am the bad seed, disobedient and selfish.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
. Or, perhaps the Chinese saying is more apt:
Bu bian ying wan bian
. The best way to face ten thousand changes is not to change at all.

O
f course, my mother and her sister have been back to China since they fled in 1949. But they are southerners, preferring
Shanghai’s sleek sophistication to Beijing’s chaotic sprawl. Though they speak Mandarin, it’s imbued with the soft, lisping sounds of the South, and though they miss China, their memories are of the graceful French concession mansions of treaty port-era Shanghai, not the blocky buildings, polluted air, and vast avenues of new Beijing.

“Northerners!” Aunt Marcie sniffs, spotting a migrant worker sprawled out on his three-wheeled cart, enjoying an early evening siesta. “They’re so lazy!”

“And dirty!” my mother adds, flicking at the grimy seat of our cab as it creeps down Dongdaqiao Lu.

We are on our way to the Sichuan provincial government restaurant, one of my favorite eateries, which Ed once oh-so-charmingly described as “better than a trip to Chengdu, shits and all.” Their food is blazingly hot and weirdly numbing—something to do with the Sichuan peppercorn powder sprinkled on everything. I’m not sure Mom and Aunt Marcie will like it, but chilies are supposed to raise endorphins, right? I’m sure we could all use a spice-induced good mood.

Mom and Aunt Marcie arrived this afternoon on the Air China flight direct from JFK. Despite fourteen hours of travel, they look pert and energetic, their tiny bodies folded into the backseat of our rattletrap Xiali cab.

“It’s so nice to see you two!” Our mother leans forward to pat Claire on the cheek. Again. After exchanging greetings, making tea, showing them the apartment—Mom will sleep in my room, Aunt Marcie on the pull-out couch in Claire’s office, while Claire and I will share the master bedroom—the four of us have settled into a forcedly pleasant atmosphere, like the calm before the storm. I can feel my mother and Aunt Marcie straining to unleash a barrage of questions as Claire and I both retreat further and further into silence.

It’s only 6:00
P.M
., but as our cab screeches to a halt outside the restaurant, I see a queue spilling out the doors.

“Did you make a reservation?” Claire murmurs to me. I shake my head and she presses her lips into a thin line. “Looks like we might have to wait a few minutes,” she announces.

“Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Aunt Marcie says faintly. “I don’t need to eat much, anyway. Must stay thin, you know, if I’m ever going to attract another man.”

I close my eyes in order to resist the temptation of rolling them heavenward. Aunt Marcie’s favorite role is martyr, which is currently at odds with her new status as gay divorcée.

We fight our way into a corner of the crowded waiting room, where we stand in a little huddled group.
“Er shi yi!”
calls out the hostess. Twenty-one. I look at the number in my hand. Fifty-five.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” I suggest.

“No, we’re fine,” says my mother. “I’m not really that hungry.” She heaves a deep, guilt-inducing sigh. “Getting old…losing my appetite.”

“Mom,” I object, “you’re not old.” But she ignores me.

By the time we sit down, we are all starving, hunger sharpening our fretfulness into a dangerous point. The waiter brings us one menu, as is customary in China, and I grab it before anyone else has a chance to take a look.

“Can I do the ordering?” I plead, anxious to show off my new knowledge of Chinese cuisine. Three doubtful faces look back at me—none more hesitant than Aunt Marcie—but no one protests.

My spirits lift as I page through the menu, and I order enough dishes to crowd the table, all packed with plenty of endorphin-boosting chili peppers. They arrive one by one, slinky cubes of
mapo doufu
in a deep red chili sauce, thin strips of sweet and
savory
yu xiang rousi
pork, nuggets of
lazi ji
fried chicken hidden within a bright nest of dried chilies, crescent dumplings doused with an aromatic roasted chili oil.

We pick up our chopsticks and silently start eating. The food is fresh from the wok, spilled carelessly onto the plates, yet each dish a complex blend of salty, sour, sweet, and spicy. The sharp tang of ginger hides in the slivers of pork, while the tofu burns my mouth with chilies, then thrillingly numbs it with Sichuan peppercorn, each bite more intense than the last.

“La!”
exclaims my mother. Spicy.
“Ma!”
Numbing. She quickly scoops some rice into her mouth.

“Did you order anything else? Anything not spicy?” Aunt Marcie fishes a piece of chicken from the chilies and blots the oil off on a paper napkin.

Oops. I knew I forgot something. “Er, no,” I admit.

Aunt Marcie turns to my mother with an exasperated look. “Your daughter. She’s lived in Beijing all these months and she still can’t order dinner properly!
Ta hai buzhidao zenme dian cai!”

“I know how to order!” I protest, but my words are drowned in their laughter.

“Look at all that oil!” Aunt Marcie tips the plate of
mapo doufu
so the deep red chili oil runs to the side.
“Zhenme duo you.”
She motions for another cup of tea and starts dipping cubes of tofu in it, rinsing them free of sauce before placing them carefully on her plate. “You need a boyfriend,” she says, popping one into her mouth. “Then, you’ll know how to order.”

“Yes, how’s that going?” my mother asks brightly, pouncing on Aunt Marcie’s opening. “Are you dating anyone?”

Impressively, she’s managed to hold out a whole five hours before asking.

“Not really,” I mumble. That sounds better than no, right?

“I know it’s really hard, honey. I just want you to be happy.” She pats my arm and I gaze at her gratefully. She finally understands! But then she continues: “Why don’t you let me make you an appointment with Dr. Wu? He’s one of Beijing’s top plastic surgeons. Don’t be scared,” she says, as I draw in a sharp breath. “I’ve done some research and he’s the best for eye surgeries. You want to look your prettiest, don’t you?”

“Mother—” I say warningly.

Aunt Marcie thrusts her sharp chin at me. “You pluck your eyebrows, don’t you? Wear makeup? What’s the difference? There’s no difference!”

Am I surprised by their insistence? I am surprised by my lack of surprise. They’ve been pestering me for so many years, their bluntness no longer takes my breath away; nothing they say could shock me. Their mantra is practically tattooed on their foreheads: find a husband, come plastic surgery or high water.

“Why are you so stubborn, Isabelle?” Mom pats her mouth with a napkin and lays it on the table. “You can lead a horse to water…”

I pick out a cube of tofu, dark with ground Sichuan peppercorn, and pop it into my mouth, willing the numbness to spread through my body.

“Ma—” Claire breaks in. “Don’t push her, okay?”

“She’s being selfish!” Aunt Marcie hisses. “As for you, young lady, Claire. I still don’t understand why you divorced that nice husband of yours.”

Claire’s face grows pale. “Oh, let’s not get into that ancient history,” she says, picking at her sleeve. I can tell she wants a cigarette, but our mother doesn’t know she smokes—and neither of us has any desire for her to find out.

“He had a good job, he came from a good Chinese family—his mother is
such
a nice lady,
really nice
—your children would
have spoken Chinese…” Aunt Marcie ticks off my former brother-in-law’s attributes on her fingers.

“I
almost
had grandchildren,” cries my mother. “I just want a baby to hold and love before I become senile and decrepit.” She folds her arms together and moves them in a rocking motion. “Claire, I will
never
understand why you had to go and—” She swallows. “It was unthinkable.”

“I’d prefer not to talk about Tom.” Claire’s tight voice cuts her off.

I look sharply at their flushed faces, both of them close to tears. What was unthinkable?

“I just don’t understand why! Why?” Mom lifts her hands in exasperation.

“He…didn’t make me…happy,” Claire says faintly.

“Happy!” Aunt Marcie snorts. “You think your husband is supposed to make you happy?”

“We wanted different things out of life,” Claire says a bit more decisively, as she signals for the check. I push my chair back from the table to hide my surprise. What does Claire want out of life? This flimsy expat lifestyle? A job that consumes most of her waking hours? A boyfriend who’s already committed to another woman? I have no idea, but what’s worse is I’m pretty sure Claire has no idea either.

The heaping plates of food sit congealing on the table, their once delicious fieriness subdued into an unappealing solid mass.

“Such a waste,” clucks Aunt Marcie, poking at the dish of pork. “Should we take it home?”

“No,” I answer. “It’s never as good the second day.”

I
don’t remember much about Claire’s wedding. But if I close my eyes and picture that day ten years ago, I see red. Red envelopes,
stuffed with cash, discreetly pressed into the groom’s thick hand. Claire’s traditional, high-necked red gown. The swaths of red fabric that decorated the banquet room of Triumphal Palace, our local Chinese restaurant. Every seat at every round table was filled with a face reddened from wine—some were double-filled with children sitting in their parents’ laps—the room was packed with our relatives, Tom’s relatives, their friends, business acquaintances, and strangely few guests of the bride and groom. Not that anyone would notice amidst the sumptuous eight-course banquet of shark’s fin soup and abalone, or among the roar of noise, the DJ cranking out the chicken dance, and the persistent tinkle of chopsticks on teacups, rewarded by a peck between the young couple.

Claire was twenty-five, an innocent bride, shy and oblivious to the double entendre in the best man’s toast. She and Tom met through their mothers—a match made at the mahjong table—and he popped the question after only six months of dating. It seemed sudden to me, but no one else was surprised—and, really, who knew Claire best? Not her little sister.

Claire changed multiple times throughout the day (Aunt Marcie’s idea), from a frothy white wedding dress, to a skintight red cheongsam, to a skintight hot pink cheongsam, to a plain black cocktail dress. I wasn’t part of the wedding party—Claire only had one attendant, her pale roommate from law school, Kate Addison, who took one look at the whole roast suckling pig and spent the rest of the day slugging Johnnie Walker Red in a deep state of culture shock—but I helped my sister change clothes, zipping her skinny body into the array of dresses. At one point—I think she was wriggling into the hot pink cheongsam—she lost her balance and grabbed my arm. When I reached down to help her, our eyes met, and the expression in hers startled me. They
weren’t filled with the joy of a bride. Instead, they were clouded over with something that looked like resignation.

After the wedding, Claire moved into Tom’s one-bedroom on the Upper West Side and I saw them on my weekend visits home. I wanted to like Tom, but I was nineteen to his thirty, a sophomore at NYU to his investment banker. We were worlds apart and my fragile relationship with Claire couldn’t bridge the gap. At family gatherings he would offer me nuggets of advice in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “I don’t know why you want to be an English major,” he declared one evening at the dinner table. “You already speak English. Economics. That’s what you should study. Basically, by majoring in English, you’re setting yourself up for failure.”

“Is that right, Tom?” my mother said, concern wrinkling her brow. “Isabelle, you should listen to him. He’s in business. He
knows
.”