The Last Chinese Chef (31 page)

As the little girl grew, she looked frustratingly like herself, and not really like either man, but Gao Lan still felt pretty certain she was not Matt’s. She was not developing Matt’s type of body, for one thing. Gao Lan had to approach the other man, and she knew it. She kept planning it, and putting it off. She could not stand to see him now, given what she was selling to survive. It would cost her more than she was prepared to pay. She could not bear to tell her parents, who loved her; how could she tell him, who had toyed with her for months and then dropped her so cruelly? When he ended their affair with a terse, abrupt phone call, she demanded he meet her to talk in person. It had worked with Matt, and even though their liaison was over, the fact that they spoke face to face made her feel better. She at least received a minimal level of human respect from Matt. The other man gave her no such thing. When she asked, he hung up on her. She could not tell him about the child.

At first she reasoned that she’d get a real job soon, and after that she’d approach him. But it did not happen. Three months, she vowed. Six. Then it became a year, then two.

She had finally gone to see him a little more than a year before. She had given up on waiting. She carried a picture of Shuying. His response was to curse her out of his office for suggesting any child of hers could be his. He hadn’t seen her in years. It was outrageous. If she ever tried to do it again he would ruin her.

Gao Lan knew he was well connected. He could make it harder than ever for her to return to work if he wanted to. And she had to return to real work eventually or she was finished. She’d take a cut in pay when she did, and she didn’t yet know how she would manage, but she also knew she had no choice. In just a few more years she’d run out of time.

It was soon after that she heard that Matt had been killed. She still remembered her physical reaction, a jolt in her midsection. She knew then she had cared for him, despite the brevity of their encounter, for she’d found her body, in its visceral reactions, to be incapable of a lie. Yet she still didn’t believe Matt was Shuying’s father.

After the Treaty was passed, her parents pressed her to file a claim and she said all right, but not against the other man; against Matt. He was gone. He could not take revenge on her, at least not on this side of the veil.

Not that his wife would be pleased. Gao Lan shivered. That was the woman coming to meet her now. So be it. Just as they said all men were brothers, all women were sisters, and Gao Lan vowed to tell her the truth. She would regard her with respect. The two women already had a connectedness between them, because of Matt.

In the apartment, after she had prepared tea and set flowers in a plain jug, the doorbell rang. She pulled it open to two women. One was American, the widow — older, attractive in the sharp, speckled, brown-eyed way some Westerners had. Almost friendly. “Welcome, welcome,” Gao Lan said, drawing them in. She was relieved she would not have to use English. This big-glasses girl, Chu Zuomin, was obviously here to translate.

In the living room she poured tea, which sat untouched. She and the Chinese girl made small talk about the apartment, and Gao Lan waited for Matt’s widow to begin.

Yet the woman was not in a hurry. She followed right along behind the translator, observing manners, talking, laying small increments of relationship. She complimented the big, modern complex, the neighborhood. She asked about nearby restaurants, and Gao Lan told her of Ghost Street, a nearby stretch jammed with eateries, which was one reason so many men kept mistresses in the Dongfang Yinzuo, few things in life mattering more than proximity to a good meal. The widow even praised little Shuying for being bright and pretty. She seemed to be thinking of ways to advance the conversation, even as she studied Gao Lan centimeter by centimeter. Finally she said that she understood Gao Lan was working hard at the logistics company.

Gao Lan stared. “Logistics?”

“I thought you worked at a logistics company.”

“Oh. My parents must have told you that.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s what they think. Would you blame me? Of course I tell them that. It’s not true. I haven’t been able to get that kind of job. I work for the man who rents this apartment. Naturally I would not want them to know this.” Gao Lan saw that the translator colored a slow pink as she put this into English.

“I thought this was your apartment,” said the widow.

“Not at all. Living here is part of my pay.”

“And what is it you do?” said the widow.

“Whatever he wants,” said Gao Lan. “Do you understand my meaning or not? He has a wife and children in Taiwan. He is only here sometimes.”

“Oh,” said the widow suddenly, when she heard the translation. “I didn’t know.”

“My parents also do not know,” Gao Lan reminded her.

“They won’t learn it from me,” the American said. “Don’t worry.”

“Bie zhaoji,”
Chu Zuomin translated.

Gao Lan filled the ensuing silence by insisting they have melon seeds and small candies. They thanked her without actually eating any, again showing manners.

Then the wife of Matt sat up straight. “May I ask you a question?” she said.

“Please.”

“I
do
understand why you would seek support from the father of your child. Why you
should.
What I want to know is, why did you file against my husband? Why not the other man?”

A charged silence hung, like the kind before a storm’s first crack of thunder. How had the widow known? Finally Gao Lan broke it with a short, formal laugh. “You’ve made a wide cast of your net.”

“If it were your husband, would you do any less?”

“I suppose not.”

The woman went on. “Look. I know there is a chance Shuying is Matt’s, and a chance she’s this other guy’s. You’re the mother. You’re the only one who can say which is more likely. So all I’m really asking is, why Matt? Is it because you think she looks like him? Because I’ll tell you, I went there and met her with an open mind, and I’m going to be honest: I don’t see it.”

Gao Lan nodded. It was true; Shuying did not look much like Matt. She had been aware of it since the girl grew out of her split pants and left babyhood behind. “I did go to the other man first.”

The American woman sat higher in her chair. “And?”

Gao Lan was a woman who hated to show she was afraid, but this man she feared. She had done many things in her life which showed her bravery — she had struck out on her own; she had refused her parents’ suggestions for husbands and come to Beijing to make her way instead. This man was different. She didn’t say his name anymore. She didn’t even like to think it. “He threatened me,” she said.

“What?” The American widow almost rose from her chair, a fierce, instinctive movement.

“He said if I ever said such a thing again, implied Shuying was his daughter, or did anything about it, he would make sure I did not work in Beijing again.”

“He can’t do that.”

“But he can. He can spread talk about me easily, if he wants.”

“Does he know this work you do?”

“Not now,” said Gao Lan. “At least I don’t think so. But secrets are hard to keep. And if he found out, and passed this around” — she trailed her eyes over the apartment, the sparkling plaza down below outside the windows — “the door for me would close.”

“But if he’s the father, he’s responsible for Shuying under the Treaty. He must take care of her.”

“Asking him to do that is like asking a tiger for its hide.”

The American’s eyes softened in understanding. “I see why you’d feel that way. But he
still
can’t intimidate you. I don’t know about the laws here, but he couldn’t do it in the States. Impossible.”

Gao Lan felt a frisson of surprise. Something in the American woman had changed. It seemed as if she didn’t like hearing that this other man had threatened her. “Unfortunately, though, I don’t know of anything that could stop him here in China,” she said.

“I do,” said the widow. “Carey could stop him. He could straighten him out. Carey James? Remember? You met him.”

The name did not click at once in Gao Lan’s mind. She shook her head.

The foreign woman closed her eyes. “The night you met my husband. The night the two of you were together. The first time.”

“The only time,” said Gao Lan. “I remember. Your husband’s friend.” Now she could see Carey: tall, blond, remote. He was the one who had been with Matt, who had urged Matt over and over to say goodbye to her and go someplace else.

“He will help you,” the widow said. “I’ll make sure of it. That’s if the child is this other man’s and not Matt’s — and we’ll know the answer to that in a few more days.”

Gao Lan decided to give voice to what she noticed a minute before. “Why would you help me? If Shuying is not Matt’s.”

“I’ll tell you why. Women don’t stand by and watch another woman being bullied. That’s a law of nature, as I see it.” The Chinese woman translated this, even though Gao Lan found she could more or less follow Matt’s wife’s English.

Now Gao Lan felt her own guard dropping and tears, for the first time, gathering in her eyes. “You know what? I am sorry. Sorry two ways. First and forever, I’m sorry he took leave of this world. I felt so sad when I heard.”

This made the widow’s tears start up.

“I’m sorry for what we did together, too. It was only once. I thought it would be a secret, safe, separate from you and your life. Well water not intruding with river water — that’s what I thought. I was wrong.
Duibuqi.
”

“That means I’m sorry,” said Miss Chu.

The American nodded, now with shiny tracks down her face.

Gao Lan pushed on. “But I want to tell you this. Matt was the one who stopped it with us. Not me. I wanted to go on. I’m sorry, but it’s true; I did. He said no, he wouldn’t, because he loved you. He said he had done it once and he would have to live with that, but he would never do it again. He told me, ‘I love her so much.’ That’s what he said.”

Gao Lan had to stop, and she sat in a tremble while the Chinese woman put this in English. The American listened, then reached out and brushed her dry fingers across the back of Gao Lan’s hand. “Thank you,” she said.

“Drink some tea,” Gao Lan said, with a gesture to the table. The other two women murmured agreement, though they still did not touch their cups.

“There is one more thing,” said the American.

“Hai you yijian shi,”
translated Miss Chu.

The widow wiped her face with the back of her hand in a movement she had obviously made many times before. Gao Lan felt for her.

Then she opened the bag she had brought with her and withdrew an envelope, and from this she took a picture. She handed it across. “Have you ever seen this?” she said, and Miss Chu translated.

Gao Lan leaned to the left to hold it under the light. She saw a street corner, people on the ground, a car on the sidewalk. She swallowed.

“It’s the accident.” The widow’s voice was thick.

Gao Lan looked at it again. Her heart rushed up into her mouth. That was Matt. On the ground with the woman kneeling over him.

When Gao Lan looked up her eyes were wet again. She handed it back. She didn’t want to look at it anymore.

But the widow stopped her. “Wait.” She pointed to the picture. “See that woman?”

“Yes.”

“Carey says that looks like you.”

“Like me? But how?” Gao Lan looked closer. “Maybe. In a way.”

“So you’re saying it’s not you.”

“How could it be me?”

“You were not there?”

Gao Lan stared as she listened to Miss Chu’s Chinese. Her, in San Francisco? Kneeling over Matt at the moment of his death? “No. I haven’t even been to Hong Kong. The farthest I’ve been from home is here, Beijing.”

The American looked at her again, then at the picture. A tightness faded from her face. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “I see. It’s not you.” She looked at Gao Lan for a long moment, then replaced the clipping in her purse. “Shall I call you when I hear from the lab?”

“Please.” Gao Lan gave her a card, no title, no company. Just her name in two Chinese characters and a cell number. “Get in touch anytime. Dark or light.”

“I will,” said Matt’s wife, and handed over her own card. Maggie McElroy. Writer,
Table
magazine. “Look, I didn’t say and you didn’t ask, but I want you to know something too. If Shuying is Matt’s, you won’t have any trouble from me. I’ll take care of things.”

“Thank you,” said Gao Lan.

She stood up with them and walked them to the door, where she and the widow clasped hands for a second. “Three days, maybe four,” Matt’s wife said. “I’ll call you.”

 

The next day, Saturday, Uncle Xie died. Sam called her about it in the morning. She consoled him, sharing the weight of it, as friends had done for her during her year. She also told him how sorry she was about the timing. It could hardly have been worse. Tonight was his banquet.

“It’s true,” he said, “everything’s crazy. So much so that I don’t even have time to call more than one person with this. Just you. And isn’t it funny that I’d call you? Someone I’ve known for only a week.”

“How can you say that? We’ve been to Hangzhou together. I’ve met your uncle.”

“He liked you. They all liked you.”

“That’s why you called me,” she said, “because I was there. I saw how much he loved you. And he believed in you, too. I’m sorry, Sam. I know it’s a blow.”

“It is,” he admitted.

“And don’t think of me as an interviewer. Not anymore. We’ve done that. I’ve written almost all of the article, leaving only one part blank, the ending. What I mean,” she said delicately, “is that when we talk now we talk as friends. I don’t write it down anymore. I don’t use it. You can say what you want without worrying.”

“I wasn’t worried,” he said.