Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet (9 page)

15

“T
here's gonna be two more people for dinner.”

Ana leans up against the kitchen doorjamb and hangs her head.

“Two? Two more?” Nai Nai repeats. Chelsea pats Ana's shoulder. Chelsea's family has followed the Conrads to the backyard. She's with Ana for emotional support.

“Hi, Mrs. Shen, Mrs. Shen, Mrs. White, everybody.”

“Hi, Chelsea,” Ana's mom says. “So, who else showed up?”

Ana looks up at her mother, grateful that the family drama is being ignored for the moment. “Amanda Conrad.” She spits the name out. Grandma and Grandpa White exchange a questioning glance.

“Amanda Conrad . . . she's a good one, right?” Ana's dad asks. The soups are ready, the lion's head and gumbo dumped into giant bowls, with a smaller bowl of rice half filled on the counter. Looks like the dinner plans carried on without Ana.

“No! She's the bad one! She's the freaking goddess of all things annoying and bad.”

Ana shakes her head. Family can be so stupid sometimes. They are loud, dense, sloppy and embarrassing, or just plain weird. They make themselves so obvious it's like there's a sign flashing over their heads that says
ABNORMAL
. Ana grimaces. Tonight is going to suck.

“Amanda Conrad. That's the horsy one,” Ana's mom says.

Ana snorts and relaxes a little. “See, Dad. Mom listens.”

The room seems to take a deep breath. Ana still can't bring herself to look her grandparents in the eye, but she doesn't have to. Not yet, at least.

“I never did the
mapo,”
Ana's dad says.

“That's okay, hon, the cake's not done either.” Ana's mother surveys the kitchen. “Let's just pull together what we have. We can always come back for round two.”

Trays are assembled. Faces are splashed with cold water.

“Didn't you want to put on a dress?” her dad asks.

Ana shrugs. “It's too late now.”

Dishes clatter, pitchers are filled, and the Shen family moves into the backyard more or less en masse, a chocolate and caramel-colored army, armed with dinner. General Ana Mei Shen rides at the head, resplendent in her battle-smeared polo shirt and shorts.

“Mom, Dad, you remember everybody.”

Ana can't help noticing the look on Mr. Tabata's face when her parents come out. The old “Ah, that's what she is” face. Ana's jaw goes tight, but she smiles anyway.

“Of course.” Ana's mom steps forward with the lemonade and iced tea and places both pitchers on the table. She reaches out a hand to Mr. Tabata and Mrs. Conrad. There is a general hubbub of hellos, and a clatter of platters meeting the table. The table falls into the following formation: Ana's parents sit at either end, with Sammy next to their dad and Ana sitting in the obvious place of honor at the center in a chair draped with crepe paper. Grandpa and Grandma White are on her left, Chelsea, Dina and Chelsea's dad on her right. Jamie is squeezed in between Amanda Conrad, who is right across from Ana, and Mr. T. Ana sighs. She should've put a tack on that seat.

Mrs. T is to the right, next to Ana's dad. Then, for some reason, Nai Nai and Ye Ye have squeezed in, putting Mrs. Conrad at the end, across from Chelsea's dad and next to Ana's mom.

“Oh, we forgot the glasses.” Ana rises. Chelsea and Jamie pop up, but Chelsea is faster.

“I'll help.” The two girls retreat to the kitchen.

“Holy crap,” Chelsea says. “And she's sitting next to him too.”

“Yeah. Surprise!” Ana throws her hands up in mock glee. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

Chelsea pats her shoulder. “You poor thing.”

“You don't even know. Like, right before Jamie showed up, I had a big blowup with my grandmothers. Huge.”

“What, about the
huen bao
?”

“Yeah. And the first-class ticket to Taiwan they ‘forgot’ to give me. And my college tuition and a house. That's the going rate for granddaughters these days, I guess.”

Chelsea gives a low whistle. “Geez. All I ever get is frozen yogurt.” She looks to see if Ana will smile.

“Hardee-har-har. Yeah, it's funny now, but I'm surprised I haven't been grounded.” Ana shakes her head and laughs in disbelief. “You know, I almost dyed my hair today.”

Chelsea's eyes widen. “What? No way.”

“Yep. Blond. Honey blonde, to be exact.”

Silence.

Chelsea laughs. “You're not serious, are you?”

Ana pulls a stack of acrylic cups from a cabinet without answering.

“Wow. That's crazy.” Chelsea scratches her cheek. “You know, I once ate brownies for a week because your granddad said it would make me brown like you.”

“He did not.”

“Yeah, he did. We were in first grade and I thought you were so pretty. I wanted to look like you.”

Chelsea and Ana stare at each other for a long time.

“But I needed braces,” Ana blurts out.

“So did I. Point being, you'd look dumb as a blond.”

Ana makes a straight face. “Like Mandy Conrad.”

They break into a laugh that lifts Ana's spirits enough to face the crowd outside . . . where there is more tension, courtesy of Nai Nai, who is saying to Mr. Tabata, “You look very Japanese.”

Mr. Tabata blinks. Ana cringes. Chelsea snorts and they hold back from the table.

“Well, thank you,” Mr. Tabata says slowly.

“My husband fought the Japanese,” Nai Nai continues helpfully.

“Nai Nai, war isn't exactly an icebreaker,” Ana says, coming forward to pass the cups around. Apparently, it is, because both of Ana's parents start to talk, offering to pour drinks for anyone who's interested.

Then Ye Ye clears his throat and speaks for what might be only the third time all day.

“I do not talk about the war,” he announces clearly over everyone else's hurried mumblings.

“We know, Dad,” Ana's father says. “So, that was some graduation ceremony, eh?” he adds lamely.

“Grandpa White fought in Korea,” Sammy chimes in.

Grandpa White chuckles nervously. “Only because I had to, little man.”

“Korea?” Mr. Tabata seizes on the comment. “You were fighting the Chinese, weren't you?” He glances around with an amused look. Across the table, Nai Nai's smile widens and grows brittle. Ana's eyes narrow. She flashes Jamie a look, but he's too busy being monopolized by Amanda Conrad to see it.

Grandpa White gives Mr. Tabata a friendly smile. “We were fighting the Red Army. I was fighting whoever my country told me to fight. Have you ever been a soldier, Mr. Tabata?”

Mr. Tabata clears his throat. His dark business suit gleams in the lantern light. “No, I can't say that I have.”

“Then count it among your blessings,” Grandpa White says. “Now, who wants to say grace?”

There is some shuffling at the table and Ana starts to say something—her mother's parents are far more Christian than Ana was raised to be. Nai Nai is a Buddhist, Chelsea's family is nonreligious and the Tabatas . . . they could be anything. Same with Amanda Conrad. But before she can think of what to say, Grandpa White nods.

“All right then, I guess it'll be me.” He folds his large hands together and bows his head. Ana does the same, although she's dying to see what the rest of the group does.

“Bless this food we are about to receive. May it help our children grow strong and wise and comfort us old people too. Amen.”

“Amen,” Ana says, and hears it echo around the table. She smiles at Grandpa White. Chelsea whispers to Ana, “He's my favorite.”

Covers come off plates and steaming food is passed around. The delicious scent of spicy gumbo and the sweet-savory aroma of the lion's head meatballs rise into the air. Ana's mouth waters and she starts to relax. It all smells amazing.

“So, Jamie, guess what? I'm off the wait list for Crossroads next year. We'll be going together!” Amanda Conrad practically wiggles in her seat like an excited Chihuahua. Ana and Chelsea roll their eyes at each other.

“Isn't that wonderful, Jamie?” Mr. Tabata exclaims in a way that makes Ana think he already knew. Mr. Tabata slides a lion's head meatball onto his plate and passes it to Jamie. For Jamie's mom, he dishes up a spoonful of rice and some of the gravy. Ana gives Jamie a questioning look.

“Diet,” he mouths. Ana looks at Mrs. T. She needs a diet like a hole in the head. Ana shakes her head and shrugs.

“Yeah, Dad,” Jamie replies, “that's great. Are you excited about University, Ana?”

Ana blushes with pleasure at the chance to take over the Amanda conversation. “Yeah. They've got a good music program.”

“Cool.”

Ana helps herself to a couple of dumplings. She chooses the misshapen ones that she made when she first started, before she got into the right rhythm. Sammy is already on his second bowl of gumbo.

“This is excellent, Mrs. Shen, Mrs. Shen, Mrs. White,” Jamie's father says with some surprise. He chuckles. “I confess, I did not know what to expect when you invited us.”

“Neither did we,” Ana whispers to Chelsea, with a chin nod toward Amanda and her mother. Chelsea giggles and swats Ana's leg under the table.

“But this is delightful. I spent some time in the South. Your gumbo is unusual and delicious. And the lion's head—it's similar to a dish my mother used to make, with chicken instead of pork.”

“I'm glad you like it, Jeffrey,” Grandma White says. Ana raises an eyebrow. Leave it to Grandma White to find out Mr. Tabata's first name and use it.

Ana nudges Chelsea. “In addition to buying my love, there's also a battle going on for the best dish. Check them out.”

Across the table, Nai Nai gives Grandma White a small smile. Grandma White returns with an acknowledging nod. So far, no favorites.

“Match point,” Ana whispers. Chelsea chuckles.

“Ana, your dumplings turned out better than you said they would,” Grandpa White says, holding up a fat pot sticker with his fork. Ana shrugs.

“Thanks. I tried.” She tries to hide the shameful blush she feels prickling across her cheek.

“They're great,” Jamie says, taking another from the platter. Chelsea nudges her under the table. Ana smiles, her blush deepening.

“They are very good, baby,” Grandma White agrees. Ana starts to relax. Maybe, just maybe, all is forgiven between her and the grandparents. And maybe, just maybe, she's got some play with Jamie, too. She smiles across the table at him.

On cue, Amanda grabs Jamie's arm and points to his chopsticks. “Can you show me how to use those things? You make it look so easy,” she drawls.

Ana deflates. “You've got to be kidding me,” she whispers to Chelsea. “Like the L.A. sushi queen can't use chopsticks. Please.” Chelsea makes gagging noises as Jamie self-consciously demonstrates the proper finger-as-lever technique. Ana jabs her own chopsticks into her leg. Why, oh why did she let that cow sit next to him?

“The mixed rice is unusual,” Mrs. Tabata says quietly.

“Mixed rice?” Grandma White says. Nai Nai's hand shoots out across the table and grabs a spoonful of rice from the bowl. Ana cringes.

“An-nah!” Nai Nai exclaims. “You have become so hardheaded. You do not listen to a thing I say.”

Ana sinks into her seat. “Sorry, Nai Nai. Sorry, Grandma.” Apologizing is easier than announcing to the table that they're eating floor rice. When it comes to dinner parties, Ana doubts the three-second rule applies. “I mixed them up by mistake,” she fibs in response to the questioning looks.

“Well, I like it,” Jamie says. “It tastes a bit like almonds.” Ana blushes again and stares at her plate.

“Thanks.”

Silence descends on the table, except for the clacking of chopsticks and the clang of forks and spoons. Ana shifts in her seat. The quiet is lasting too long, even for hungry people in front of good food. It's more like people with nothing to say. Ana's stomach sinks.

“Tell the chicken story, Grandpa,” Sammy pipes up. He's found a drumstick and is waving it in the air like a baton. “Chicken, chicken,” he chants.

“Chicken story?” Jamie asks.

Grandpa White looks at Ana across the table. She smiles and nods. It's one of her favorites.

Grandpa White clears his throat. “Well, like we were saying earlier, I served in the war. The Korean War. About five thousand miles and a whole lifetime from this dinner table right here.”

Ana relaxes a bit more. She loves her granddad's stories. He tells them in a slow, steady voice that makes you want to listen. Chelsea nudges her under the table and points her chin. Ana looks around and nods. Everyone is hanging on Grandpa White's words.

“The first thing you should know is that I am named after my father, the Reverend Derby Elias White, Senior. So when I became a corporal in the army, everybody called me Junior. That's just the way it was. . . .”

16

Well, as Corporal White, I didn't have many things to smile about. We'd been marching through the hills for two days, moving from one base camp to another, when shots rang out overhead, followed by a grenade, and the entire company found itself pinned beneath the sharp snapping missiles of a machine-gun turret. The ground exploded like popcorn, little dust devils whirling around my legs, like they were about to drag me into hell.

“Junior, move it!” my lieutenant yelled. I muscled my way toward cover, dragging my legs like any good soldier, jogging along just on my elbows and adrenaline. It was a long trip to the tree line. Not everyone made it. In fact, by the time I'd made it to cover, it was just me and Lieutenant Smith. Everyone else was out of sight, under cover, or in plain view, lying out in the road they had just left behind.

Korea. Who'd have thought I'd travel all that way around the world, just to shoot and get shot at? It was something else. In the woods, the trees had made drifts out of the pine needles. It smelled like Christmas.

“Junior, what's your real name?” Lieutenant Smith asked me.

“Derby, sir. But I don't like it.”

We'd finally pulled out our weapons. I worked to clear my rifle of pine needles, clucked my tongue at the sticky sap that'd found its way onto my barrel. Nothing that would stop the firing action, but messy nonetheless.

“What about you, sir?”

“John. John Smith. Nothing to be remembered by. Not like Derby.”

I grinned. “I won't be remembered by Derby, sir. It was my father's name. And he used it all up.”

“Oh yeah? Famous in his own right?”

“In his circles, yeah. The first black man to preach in a white church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.”

“You don't say?”

I paused. Lieutenant Smith was white. It was the first time the army had allowed mixed platoons. Ten years before World War Two, I would have never met Lieutenant Smith. And if I had, I wouldn't have spoken first, or even looked him in the eye. Times had changed. Lying on the soft mattress of Korean pine, I tried to think up a joke about strange bedfellows, and came up short. Then sniper fire rang out in the branches over our heads.

“You a racist, Lieutenant Smith?”

“Are you?”

I thought about it and said, “I don't think so. I pretty much like or hate on a personal basis.”

Lieutenant Smith snorted. “So you're a selective racist?”

“Race isn't the issue. It's integrity,” I said definitively.

Smith smiled at me. “Now, that sounds like the son of a preacher.”

I smiled back. “Amen.”

That's when the enemy came through the trees. Smith stood up, shouting, and the ground fighting began.

I killed three men that day, all of them with yellow skin, desperate eyes and Russian rifles. Miraculously, Lieutenant Smith and I both survived.

“What are you thinking about?” Smith asked me as we loaded into the caravan and drove the last few miles to camp.

“Pros and cons, sir, pros and cons.”

“Meaning?”

“The best thing about this war is you and me right now. Talking at our ease like we might have always done. The worst thing is, I have to kill men for the privilege.”

Smith hung his head a little lower. “First kill, Junior?”

“No, sir. First friendly conversation with a white man.”

Smith broke into a grin. “Ain't life a witch?”

“Not really, sir.” I smiled back. “Not today.”

But the day wasn't over. And the three miles to camp were longer than we could have known.

The caravan came to a halt two miles from camp. A bridge that had been there that morning was gone. The stream was shallow, but the banks were too steep for driving.

“We've got to go around the long way, sir,” the driver said. “It'll take a couple of hours, or you can walk it.”

A couple of hours was more than us men wanted to give. So we jumped down from the truck and forded the stream without trouble, guns over our heads, pants wet to the knees.

Lieutenant Smith told us to head west and fan out.

So I followed the others into the trees.

Not more than half a mile along, I heard voices and dropped to the ground. I could just picture my mother asking me, “Derby Elias White, what in tarnation have you gotten yourself into?”

Lying on my back against a shallow hillside, hoping the soldiers on the other side of the rise were American and not Chinese, I stretched my ears as far as they would go. Somebody was speaking, and it wasn't English.

I lay there, covered in dust the exact color of cinnamon. Funny what you remember at a time like that. “Spread out, fan out,” the lieutenant had said. That's how men got lost. That's how I ended up with the Red Army marching right on top of me.

Night fell with me hugging that hillside and my stomach growling loud enough to sound the alarm.

“I have got to eat,” I told myself. Eat now, march later.

So I slid off my hillside and made it to the tree line, watching my back every step of the way. Someone could be hiding behind the next bush, asleep on the bed of pine needles in front of me, who knew? An hour had passed on my watch by the time I came across an abandoned farm.

The gate to the cattle paddock was broken open. The chicken coop had been half burned by a fallen lantern. The shack that served as a farmhouse was empty as a shell. I took shelter in the woodpile, where I could get back to the woods quickly and have a good view of the yard.

The moon was full, and everything was deep blue and hard to see. My stomach was growling fit to wake the dead.

I was trying to keep it quiet when something moved in the farmyard. I set my service rifle at the ready. Whatever was moving was low to the ground. So I squint a little harder and see it was a chicken.

Just a regular old chicken, scratching in the yard.

So I relax a little and get to thinking,
Maybe that bird laid some eggs somewhere nearby
. Or better yet, maybe the farmhouse had a kitchen. I just needed a fire, some frying oil and a little flour. . . .

I was going to make me some Southern-style deep-fried chicken. Now, I had to come up with a plan first. See, if you shoot at a bird, you could miss, or worse, fill it up with bullets and bile. No, an eating bird has to be caught by hand.

So I hid my rifle in the woodpile, where I could grab it quickly if I needed to but nobody walking by would see it right away. Then I sized up the chicken scratching around in the dirt. I crouched down low, tightened the strap on my helmet and spat in both hands. Just like on my grandma's farm. Just. Like. It.

And I dove at the bird.

Only, someone else did too. I screamed, I was so surprised. The chicken shrieked and ran. I grabbed for my pistol but it wasn't there, and my rifle was too far away.

So I look up to see what I'm facing. And it's another soldier. Chinese, helmetless. Gunless. Dirty and tired. Just like me. Hungry, too. Caught diving for a chicken, just like me.

I raised my hands, but not too high, so he'd know I was backing off but not surrendering. He looked around and I did too. We were alone. Then this Chinese fellow raised his hands a little too.

“No gun,” I said, but the poor man was too scared to speak.

We looked like we were praying in a country church, both of us on our knees like that in the middle of the yard. And then we hear a clucking, and lo and behold it's the chicken, come back to scratch in the dirt.

Now, the both of us sit there staring at that chicken. My stomach growled, and his did too. That was all the conversation we needed. With barely a nod, in perfect unison, we dove for that bird and caught it.

So we start cheering and clapping each other on the back. The guy lets go of the bird long enough for me to wring its neck.

“Shu,”
the Chinese fellow said, and pointed to the water pump across the yard. Turns out the farm had a kitchen after all. Not more than a tripod over a fire pit, and an old blackened pot, but it was enough. We spent half the night, two men without a single common word between them, boiling water to scald the chicken and pluck its feathers.

When it was done, the other guy pulled out a knife and divided the bird in two. I found a clay jar of oil, and the other fellow came up with small sack of either cornmeal or flour.

He brings them over to me by the fire and says something I can't follow. But I figure it's simple enough. So I mime a few things, and he nods and starts cutting up the chicken into pieces.

Now, I was wishing we had some salt to season the meat. And I didn't speak Chinese, but I did have a few words of Korean because we had a Korean fellow who helped us out in the kitchen sometimes back at camp.

So I turned to the guy and tried it out:
“Sogum?”

This fellow stared at me for a good long time, and I'm thinking I've gone and made a mistake and offended him. Then the guy smiled and went outside. I sat there hoping he wasn't coming back with a gun or the rest of his platoon. My rifle was still outside. I was thinking about grabbing that chicken and running.

But my guy came back and this time he had a small bag with him. He pulled out an even smaller cloth bag and tossed it to me. I didn't know it then, but it was ginger. At the time, I was saying, “No, no. We need salt,
sogum
,” but he insisted.

Then he reached back into his bag and came up with a little brown bottle.

“Jiang you,”
he said, and opened the bottle. He shook a couple of drops of brown liquid onto his finger and tasted it.
“Jiang you.”
He held it out to me. It took a minute, but I tasted it. It was soy sauce, and I figured it would do just fine.

With water from my own canteen, he washed out my helmet, and I made a batter with the flour. Meanwhile, the other fellow dumped soy sauce on the chicken parts and heated the oil in the pot on the fire. It took a good long while, and by the time we were done, it was sunrise, but there was a batch of almost authentic Southern fried chicken served on a straw mat in Korea that day.

The Chinese fellow seemed to like it. He nodded and ate three pieces. I must've had three or four. I remember that man wrapped the last piece carefully in a piece of cloth.

Then we put out the fire and waited until the oil had cooled. It sure would've been wrong to burn down the place that had given us shelter.

When the oil was cool, we went outside. I washed my helmet at the water pump and slung it on again, still wet, but safer than going without one.

We stood in the yard for a minute and I thought about shaking hands with him, but it didn't seem right. We might've been killing each other come tomorrow.

Well, he must've agreed, because he waved to me quickly and walked back into the trees. I watched him for a moment, then went in the opposite direction, toward the wood-pile. I picked up my rifle and walked back toward camp. It was a long walk, but the chicken helped. It certainly did.