Yet he had been impressed with her today. She had handled herself perfectly in the meeting, waiting to speak until all the pleasantries had been exchanged, then offering herself as exactly what they might hope for, the widow wanting nothing but to support her husband’s child – if she was her husband’s child. That was her only sine qua non and she held fast to it, at the same time making it seem utterly reasonable. He himself had spoken in support of her, in English, only once, and it had been enough. She had taken a message that was essentially metaphor, the Sword-Grinding Rain story, internalized it, and played it back as strategy. He hadn’t expected that.
“I really don’t know much about you,” he said now. “I know about your husband and this claim and the things that brought you here. But not about your life.”
She thought. “One of the things about writing a column for twelve years is that you have to build a sort of persona. I’ve done that. I have a public self. That person would answer, I have no home. My home is the road, the passageway between the tents at the state fair, the alley where the oyster place is, you get the idea. And I do live like that, about ten days a month.”
“And the rest?”
“I spend the rest of the time at home. Writing, mostly.”
“And you live in L.A.”
“In Marina del Rey. Actually on a boat. I live on a boat.”
“Seriously?” His awareness went up.
“It sounds cool and minimalistic, but it’s not. It’s kind of screwed up, to tell you the truth.”
“You moved there after your husband died?”
She nodded.
“You can’t cook on a boat,” he said.
“Sure you can. But I don’t. I never cook.”
“Never? And you’re a food writer?”
“Not if I can help it. On this, I can tell you, my husband and I were in perfect accord. Neither of us knew how to cook. My mother was a wonderful woman but terrible in the kitchen; his mother could cook but refused to show anybody how. So we kept a refrigerator that looked like a forest of takeout containers, his and hers. Matt loved to eat, but he had no interest in cooking.”
“Opposite man from me,” said Sam.
“What about you? I know you studied with your uncles, but where’d you learn before that?”
“My mom. Not Chinese, of course. Jewish food. The basics. Comfort food. Here.” He flipped up his phone and touched the buttons and flipped it around to show her the corded grin of a pleasant-looking gray-haired woman. “Judy Liang,” he said, his love evident. “My childhood home cook.”
“She looks nice,” Maggie said, which was the truth.
“She is.” He put the phone away. The food came. Dongpo rou was a geometrically precise square of fat-topped pork braised for hours in a dark sauce. Maggie lifted the fat layer delicately away with her chopsticks and plucked the lean, tender meat from underneath.
“Ah, you’re so American,” he said. “The Chinese diner is in it for the fat.”
“Let me see you eat it.”
He scooped up a piece and popped it in his mouth. Then he said, “Truth is, I don’t like the fat much either.”
She laughed. She couldn’t stop eating the pork, which was succulent and delicious. “Would you say this is high food or low food?”
“Both. That’s like so many things here. It’s low in that it’s one of the most common dishes in this city. They cook it everywhere. It’s high in the sense that to make it right – with tender, succulent meat and fat like light, fragrant custard – is a rare feat.”
“Will you put it in your banquet?”
“I will,” he said, surprising her. “But I think in a different form.”
“Good,” she said, “because I love it.” She turned to the second platter, which held lotus root and crisp, strong-tasting yellow celery and sausage. Also delicious. Then the beggar’s chicken. It looked at first like a foil-wrapped whole bird, but he undid it, folded back layers of crinkly baking bags, and broke the seal on a tight molded wrap of lotus leaves. A magnificently herbed chicken aroma rushed into the air.
Maggie couldn’t wait. She picked up a mouthful of chicken that fell away from the carcass and into her chopsticks at a touch. It was moist and dense with profound flavor, the good nourishment of chicken, first marinated, then spiked with the bits of aromatic vegetable and salt-cured ham which had been stuffed in the cavity and were now all over the bird. Shot through everything was the pungent musk of the lotus leaf.
At once she knew she should write about this place. She should give the recipe for this dish, catch the glorious bustle of this restaurant, describe these tall windows looking over the majesty of the lake and the virgin green hills beyond. Her one column was inadequate – inadequate even to tell the story of Sam Liang, which was so much richer than anything she could contain in a brief piece. And in addition to him she had so many moments, like this one, this lunch at Lou Wai Lou.
After they ate they walked outside and stood on the steps to look out at the lake. “The thing I can’t believe is that behind me” – she waved back over her left shoulder – “is that gray, honking city. While over there” – she pointed across the water – “I see nothing but trees and hills. No development. In this day and age that’s amazing! What’s over there?”
“Monasteries and stuff,” he said. “Temples.” Then she looked around and saw that his attention was focused away from her and the lake, trained on the bottom of the steps, where an older man used a bucket of water and a brush as long as a mop, which he dipped in the water and swirled on the wide smooth pavement.
“What’s he writing?” she whispered.
“A poem. Unless it’s a short one, the beginning will be gone by the time he gets to the end. It will evaporate away. That’s the idea. It’s like a recitation.”
“But who is he?”
“Just a guy out enjoying the day.”
“Can you read the poem?”
“Me? No! Impossible.” He looked at Maggie. If she stayed here, in time she would understand more. Only half the beauty of what the man was doing was the poem, beyond doubt some beloved classic. The other half was his calligraphy, which rendered each character into something like an abstract painting, beautiful, but all the more indecipherable to Sam. “Elder Born,” he said in polite Mandarin, “may I trouble you as to the author of this poem?”
“Su Dongpo!” the man cried up the steps, delighted.
“It’s the guy the pork dish was named after,” Sam said to her.
He knew how strange the connection between food and poetry seemed at first; he remembered his Uncle Xie explaining it to him. “The number-one relationship is between the chef and the gourmet, my son. The chef must give the meishijia what he wants. Here in Hangzhou, for a thousand years, the meishijia have been the literati, so we give them dishes named for poets. We create carvings and presentations to evoke famous poetry and calligraphy parties throughout history. We strive for dishes of artifice which inspire poetic musings. The highest reward for any Hangzhou chef is to hear poetry being created and applauded by his diners out in the dining room – oh! Nothing else in my life has given me such a good feeling, except my wife and my son and my daughters – and you, my son, of course. This is what you must understand if you are to be a true Chinese chef. Eating is only the beginning of cuisine! Only the start! Listen. Flavor and texture and aroma and all the pleasure – this is no more than the portal. Really great cooking goes beyond this to engage the mind and the spirit – to reflect on art, on nature, on philosophy. To sustain the mind and elevate the spirit of the meishijia. Never cook food just to be eaten, Nephew!”