“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.