Maggie saw she had been abrupt. “I’m sorry – I guess I thought maybe that was why you asked me here.”
Zinnia nodded. “I don’t have the tickets yet. Unfortunately I did not receive your file until I was assigned to help you, and that was the morning you arrived. So I have just started. But I will do my best. You should not worry.”
“You are determined,” Maggie said admiringly. “I believe you’ll do it.”
“I will. Ni fang xin hao. That means you should put your heart at ease. The day we met I had a lunch. The person couldn’t help me. But then last night I had dinner with a friend from China Northern. It is one of the biggest domestic airlines. We had ten courses and wine. Very good. Long talk. Now I am waiting for his call.”
“Good,” said Maggie.
Their business clarified, Zinnia looked back at what she’d been studying when Maggie walked in, which was the menu. “I want to have the jellyfish. It reminds me of my childhood. My son likes it too. Have you had it?”
“Yes,” said Maggie. “You have a son?”
“Yes. Two years old. He’s a good boy,” she said proudly, still looking at the menu. “When you had jellyfish, did you like it?”
“It didn’t have much taste.”
“You are right! Actually jellyfish is not taste food. It is texture food.”
“Fine.” Sam Liang had told her all about texture. “Let’s have some.”
“Hao-de. Then some other dishes.”
“What exactly did you ask him?” said Maggie. “The guy from China Northern.”
“I didn’t ask him. I only mentioned the facts in passing.”
“I thought you meant you had dinner to ask him for tickets.”
“Yes. But that was the request, the dinner. The only thing left was to mention the matter in passing. I did. Now I must wait.”
“I see.” The jellyfish arrived, handed off by a waitress on her way to another table. “So do you think it’s possible we could leave today?”
“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.”