Maggie could not understand these bursts of Chinese, but she could see Sam’s Second Uncle Tan get up on the other side of the kitchen and move to lift the cover off a large stoneware crock. He hefted this and tipped it to fill a cup, which he then drained, quickly.
“Xiao Tan,” Jiang reproved him.
Tan raised his hand. He didn’t want to hear it. “My old heart,” he protested.
“Mine too! How do you think I feel, with Little Xie gone from this world! The same as you. I burn inside. But right now we need our wits. We must help Nephew.”
“I have my wits,” Tan grumbled, but he capped off the jug and returned to his vegetables. He was ruddy, glowing, visibly happier for his drink. Maggie watched it all.
Sam watched it too. “Tan’s been up half the night,” he explained. “My father called him and woke him up the second it happened.”
“So hard for them. And you.”
“Yes. Thanks.”
But she could still feel unease in the air. Sam and Jiang didn’t like Tan’s drinking. It would be better for her to get out of the kitchen and take a walk before the panel came. “Do you mind if I look around?”
“Go,” said Sam. “Go anywhere.”
So she slid off her chair. Sam was bent over his cooking. She traded nods and smiles with the uncles and pushed open the heavy door. She liked how hard it was to push. She liked some things heavy, a fire poker, bedcovers, keys on a piano. Matt had been heavy, much larger than she. A protective weight on top of her.
In the dining room, the standing wood lamps made pools of light against the pitch of the fitted rafters and the black tile floors. Tall windows were cranked open to the courtyard, where garden lights glowed among the potted flowers and wood filigree.
She peeked into the small private rooms. Two had round tables and chairs. One had a piano. A piano! The sight of one always brought back the warm feeling of her mother’s apartment. She wondered if it was in tune.
She walked across the courtyard. The light was starting to fail. The second dining room was here. This one was done differently, with white walls and contemporary art, and also doors to private rooms.
She looked into the smallest, north-facing room. It had not been restored. This was where he had lived while the place was being done. The high wooden ceiling was weathered, its paint half flaked off. The walls were seamed with cracks. Black-and-white subway tile, pieces of which were missing, covered the floor.
She turned out the light and crossed to the last, south-facing room. This was where he lived now. It was a warm room; it contained a life. The bed was rumpled. A laptop blinked on the table. Clothing lay in folded stacks beneath the window.
He had said to go anywhere, but here she was intruding. This was his private place. She did not enter, just stood in the doorway and looked.
Like the other rooms, this one had high rear windows. They were screened and hung open on chains. Through them she could see patches of rooftops and sky.
She leaned on the door frame. It was comfortable. There was a stillness to China in unexpected places, and once again she had the curious sensation of being anywhere in time. She felt relieved of her life, of the world she knew, stripped away from herself. It was a strange place, far from her home. She really didn’t belong. So why did the surprise thought keep rising like a bubble inside her that it might be nice to stay?
She backed out of Sam Liang’s room. As she crossed on the path she could hear the Chinese voices from the kitchen. The interplay of sounds was like abstract music to her. When she pushed open the door to the kitchen she saw that Jiang was disagreeing with Sam about something. Tan was off by himself carving furiously. He already had made birds and animals. He looked slightly melted.
“Perfect timing,” Sam said to her. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Were you arguing with him?” she said when Jiang turned back to his task.
“He thought I was using too many crabs.”
“Is there such a thing? Ever?”
He laughed.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, triumphant. “What’s the dish?”
“Spongy tofu. It’s a simple, plain dish – but the sky-high imperial version. The thing about tofu is, if you boil it rapidly for thirty minutes it will fill with holes. It becomes a sponge, ready to squirt its sauce when you bite into it. Now the average kitchen might dress it with green onion and oyster sauce. You know, whatever. Not me. I am making a reduction sauce from thirty crabs.”
“But that sounds great!”
“And not even their meat. Their shells, their fat, and their roe. Reduced and thickened until it’s just thick enough to soak into the tofu and stay there. Until you bite into it. This is a dish of artifice. See? It comes to the table looking like one thing. Like the plainest of food. Tofu. But you taste it and it’s something different.”
“Don’t listen to them. Do it.”
Sam stopped and turned his head to a sound, the gate. A knock. It was the smallest of sounds by the time it got all the way back to the kitchen, but this was his home and he knew that small sound by heart. “First Uncle! They’re here.”
“Oh!” Jiang yanked off his apron and brushed his pants, anxious suddenly, fussy.
“You’re fine,” said Sam. “Go.”
Maggie held the heavy door and watched him pause to light the candles and switch on more lamps to illuminate the couplets of calligraphy around the walls. Then he hurried out to the gate.
“How many judges are there?” she asked Sam.
“Six. All food people, from the Ministry of Culture and the Beijing Restaurant Association.”
“Here they come.” She peeked through the door.
Sam put his knife down and came over to stand next to her and look through the crack. The panel filed in, all men, with one senior member, all in dark suits, smiling, First Uncle welcoming them. It was right for him to be the one to do it; he was the eldest. Once he had them settled in their seats around tiny dishes of pickles and salt-roasted fava beans, he poured a rare aromatic oolong while he delivered a sparkling little introduction to Liang family cuisine.
“Now!” he hissed as he swept back into the kitchen. “Are you ready?” But Sam already had the first appetizers laid out. After an interval for the diners to relax, Jiang carried out a mince of wild herbs and dried tofu, sweet-savory puffs of gluten, and pureed scented hyacinth beans. He came back for the fragrant vinegar duck, spattered with brown Shanxi vinegar. The last appetizer was fresh clams, marinated in a dense bath of soy, vinegar, and aromatics. “That’s nong,” he said, bringing the sauce close to her to smell. “The dark, concentrated flavor.”
A shimmering interval of eating and happy laughter floated by in the dining room. Appetizers were consumed, along with tea and the first toasts of wine.
Sam himself carried in the first main courses. According to the classical pattern he started with a few lacy-crisp deep-fried dishes: pepper-salt eel fillets like translucent little tiles, similar to those his father had described making for the mother and son in the swamp; and an aromatic stir-fry of yellow chives studded with tiny, delicate fried oysters.
Back in the kitchen, he stir-fried tender mustard greens with wide, flat tofu-skin noodles and plump, fresh, braised young soybeans. These glistened on the platter in a light crystal sauce. After that there were lamb skewers, delectably grilled and crusted with sesame.
On the other side of the kitchen Sam noticed Second Uncle looking distinctly glossy as he bent over his knife. Too much to drink. It was bad enough that he was using a knife to carve vegetables; he had to be kept away from food. Sam and Jiang would need to do everything by themselves. Could they?