The Beauty of Humanity Movement (146 page)

“She died when I was very small.”

H
ng aches for the boy, just as he once did for Bình. “I tell you what,” he says, drawing the boy toward him, touching his forearm, extracting his name. “When I am better, when this damn leg is healed, I will teach you. Now, which bones do you use for the stock?”

“The cheap ones. From the neck.”

“But no no no,” H
ng says, cringing. “It’s all about the marrow. You want knuckle bones, leg bones, tail. And you can get these cheap if you have a relationship with the right butcher.

“Beyond that, it’s largely about the time of year—how much rain has there been, has there been enough grass for the cows, how is the soil where your onions and ginger are grown? And what if the star anise is old and losing flavour? How might you compensate? There are ways.”

“I would very much like to learn,” the young man says, looking more like a new puppy now than a beaten dog.

He says he will go to temple and pray for H
ng’s full and speedy recovery.

H
ng cannot ask the young man to spare himself the effort. He will readily take all the help he can get.

T
’s parents are in the courtyard, his mother feeding her new chickens, the ground now covered in seed, his father squatting in front of the brazier pouring the tart juice he has extracted from tamarind pulp into the broth for a
canh chua cá
. He cooks this fish soup on days when T
’s mother says she just can’t bear the thought of cooking or eating meat, usually days she has spent up to her elbows making sausages. Bình prefers cooking his hot and sour fish soup out here on the open fire; he bought the stove in the kitchen five years ago, but after using it once, declared he didn’t like electric heat. He says it changes the taste of things.

T
squats down beside his father and passes him a series of small white bowls. Bình tips diced pineapple, bamboo shoots, sliced red chilies, sugar, fish sauce, tomato wedges and fat cubes of white fish in turn into his rolling broth. They are engulfed in its aroma: the sourness bites the back of T
’s tongue.

“I’ve been thinking about how to get H
ng that money,” Bình says, as he skims the surface of the broth with a slotted spoon, his wrist making a gentle figure eight.

“Me too,” says T
, tapping his temple. “The wheel is spinning but going nowhere.”

“You told me about the prices that Bùi Xuân Phái’s work fetches now. What if we were to sell my Phái drawing to these men Maggie is dealing with in California?”

T
is astonished his father would even consider such a thing, having guarded and protected the drawing for so many years. “I could ask Maggie what she thinks it might be worth,” he says tentatively.

“I leave the handling of it to you.”

The following morning, T
removes Bùi Xuân Phái’s naked lady from the chest in his parents’ bedroom and rolls her up carefully, wrapping her in newspaper, making sure every inch of her is covered. He holds her high above his head, not wanting her to be jostled about on these busy streets she has never walked down before, thinking how strange this bustling city would look to Bùi Xuân Phái if he were alive to see it today.