vast differences between us, now defined us. Liuli was self-conscious in front of me. She held herself away. I wanted to reach for her more than ever, but I did not. She was a good woman, a good mother; she and the boy had saved my life. Above all I had to show respect. I spent my last days on the water, playing with Longshan, unable to stop myself from casting long, speculative glances back up at the house where I knew she sat, divided, thinking of me.
In the end she gave me some money she had saved, and that decided it. She pressed it on me; she insisted. I think we both knew if she hadn’t done this I might never have left, and she didn’t want that. She knew I would never have been able to look at her straight across, as an equal, which is the least any woman deserves.
So she gave the money and I took it. Living as she did, on the water, she knew people who plied the sea for their living and could not be contained by governments or laws. Such people would take a man to Hong Kong and drop him on an outlying beach amid incurious fisherfolk — all it took was money. In China there has always been the hou men, the back door, which can be opened by money or relationships and through which many things can be negotiated. Thanks to her that door opened for me. When I went through it I was to keep going until I reached America, but I didn’t know that then. I only knew it was the last time I would see her. I climbed into a boat at the edge of the swamp. She poled away backward, her eyes on mine, her face still, remarkably, like the face of my mother.
12
In the Peking dialect of my youth, food was always used to describe the basic things. To have work was jiao gu, to have grains to chew. To have lost one’s job was da po le fan wan, to have broken the rice bowl. These words made the difference between life and death for people who were poor. So these words contained a world.
— LIAN G WEI, The Last Chinese Chef
On Thursday evening, after several days of cooking and sleeping and more cooking, Sam found his eyes straying to the clock. Tonight was Yao Weiguo’s banquet for the committee — Yao, his main rival. Tonight was Yao, tomorrow Wang Zijian, and then, Saturday night, the last and tenth night of the competition, Sam. Although radio call-in shows had been burning with exchanges over the merits of the ten chefs, and wagers had been laid, the panel itself had kept completely quiet. None of them had leaked anything about the banquets thus far. Everything in the media was speculation. Sam had not heard a thing.
He felt blessed to have the last slot. His flavors would be the final ones to linger in the judges’ minds. On the other hand, they might be exhausted. He would take care not to overwhelm them. Better to reach for greatness in simplicity. This was what he had in mind anyway.
He had forty-eight hours left. What remained was the last rehearsal of each dish, especially the ones that were new to him — these had to be done over and over. He was also still assembling bowls, plates, platters, paintings, and calligraphy in tune with the arc of the meal. Once any facet of the meal had struck a resonance in the diner, he wanted everything else in the room and on the table to multiply the effect. The effect could not be overt. It had to build quietly.
He looked again at the clock. There was so much to do. He should work. But he felt a nervous and unceasing tug to go out, too, to go to Yao’s side of town, to walk down the hutong that ran behind Yao’s restaurant, the Red Door, to get close to his banquet, see what he could feel, what he could hear, what he could smell. He closed his eyes. Don’t do it. But he knew he would.
Night was dropping as he locked his gate, shadows growing, and he felt a familiar wave of love for the area he lived in. His neighbors felt the same. He could see it in the way the grandmas walked the small children, the old men shouted over their card games and in hot