“Judging by your nervousness, I’d imagine you were preparing a banquet for the czar.” Messonier watched the Baron pace around the table in thick fleece slippers.
The Baron barely acknowledged him, checking and rechecking the place mats arranged over the table. For Messonier’s pleasure, he’d persuaded Chang to conduct a tea ceremony. “I’ve been cautioned about the amount of water required to make tea. There are extra mats in the wardrobe over there.” They rummaged together through the shelves and found the stack of mats.
Messonier lowered his voice. “I make tea for Maria every day and take great care with the preparations. She believes I have expertise. But I’m certain my knowledge is very rudimentary compared to Chang’s learning.”
“I don’t believe you need to be concerned.”
“I’ve no wish to make a fool of myself in front of Maria. I don’t know what to expect. What if Chang asks my opinion of the tea? Quizzes me?”
The Baron glanced at Messonier. “Chang is a stern master but he won’t embarrass you. If you fail his test, it won’t change Maria’s opinion of you.” Strange to comfort Messonier when he needed comforting himself. But he was relieved by the Baron’s answer and they joined Maria and Li Ju at the table.
But the Baron was restless, uneasy with everyone’s closeness. He calculated that, between them, the three doctors had treated over fifty patients in the hospital earlier that day. Li Ju had wandered through the busy market. One of them might have met a symptomless carrier of plague, someone at the stage when the infection was ripe and could be transmitted to others. One of them might have brought the bacilli to the table.
There was no protection. Everyone was suspect. But for the moment, they had the shroud of innocence and he would trust it. He wouldn’t draw attention to his concern. He banished his calculations. They were simply friends sitting at a table. Companions of tea, chalu. He forced a smile to his lips, extended it to his eyes.
But Maria Lebedev was studying him. Startled, he busied himself as if guilty, straightened a dish on the table. Was she also uneasy? Did her expression mirror the worry on his own face?
Maria turned her attention away. Her wet boots had been left at the door and she swung her stocking feet as freely as a child, her thick skirt folded up over her knees. Messonier was delighted at her playful ease. So many doctors were unable to step away from the rigidity of service, the constant role of an observer.
Li Ju had just met Maria for the first time and giggled shyly at her boldness. She was quiet, slightly uneasy in the company of her husband’s older friends. Her eyes moved hesitantly from face to face, but she was generous with her smile, even when their talk seemed strange or difficult.
Maria pivoted into conversation with Li Ju, admiring the embroidered sash at her waist, tracing the intricate thick threads with her finger. Li Ju was pleased by Maria’s attention, the other woman bending toward her with kindness. The Baron knew his wife would unbuckle the jade button and present the sash as a gift to Maria. But Maria anticipated this courteous offer and was already shaking her head no, her hand extended to stop Li Ju’s generosity. To receive nothing for herself. Li Ju insisted, and the gift was made. Maria clasped Li Ju’s hand, the two women smiling at each other.
A lovely pantomime, the Baron thought. What significance might the embroidered sash have for Maria one day in the future, a bright piece of cloth perhaps pulled from tissue paper in a drawer, a memento of an hour when she drank ceremonial tea with her lover and his friends? Perhaps she would even turn to Messonier, if they had made a life together, and hold it up, ask if he remembered that afternoon.
A sweep of cold air from the door announced Chang before the stamp of his boots on the threshold. He called a greeting, handed the servant a wooden box, and hurried back outside. In a moment, he returned holding a bowl heaped with snow.
“Melt this over heat,” he said to the servant. “Just to the boil.” The servant took the bowl of snow and vanished into the kitchen. Chang turned and nodded in the direction of the group at the table. “I’ve brought you a very fine tea.” A second servant, a boy, helped Chang remove his coat and boots. The boy waited awkwardly as Chang stepped onto a stool and clambered into a chair at the table, uncertain if he should assist.
Chang unpacked the box on the table in front of them. “Today we drink wuyi, a rare yancha tea grown on the mountains in Fujian.” He opened a metal canister and, with a practiced tap, spilled a measure of dry tea into a tiny blue-and-white bowl. “Together we will share the five phases of tea: dry leaves, the dry leaves when heated, wet leaves, scent of a cup, flavor in the mouth.” He handed the bowl with dry tea to the Baron to pass around. “First, observe the size, color, and texture of the tea. Then appreciate its aroma.”
The Baron studied the loose tea in the bowl, dark twisted leaves fine as threads, then sniffed them. Not a familiar scent. It was vegetable—no, the odor of a location, something grown. Dry ground in a northern forest.
How to memorize the scent, lock it to this moment as he touched Li Ju’s fingers handing her the bowl? The scent frail, an intangible aura shared between them. His unease returned. He placed his hand on his wife’s arm to reassure himself and Messonier caught his eye, recognizing his gesture.
“We use two sets of cups for the tea ceremony. One set is slightly smaller.” Chang gently lifted a bundle of wrinkled red silk from the box and unwrapped five tiny cylindrical cups without handles. A second nest of silk held five slightly larger cups, also without handles, bowls, and a large plate perforated like a sieve. He held up a teapot the size of a small gourd, a rich brown-purple color, for them to admire. “My prize Yixing pottery. Yixing teapots are always unglazed. This is the natural color of the clay. It suits black or semi-fermented oolong tea.” Chang angled the teapot, displaying its interior for them. “Never clean the inside of a teapot. Each time tea is brewed, oil from its leaves adds subtle flavor. A teapot layered with years of these deposits is valuable.”
The Baron held the teapot carefully, peered at the dull film inside, and hesitantly touched a finger to its unexpectedly rough interior. He handed Messonier the teapot.
“A subterranean view.” Messonier squinted into the teapot, his voice slightly muffled. “Or a cave. I will never drink tea with the same innocence.”
The Baron took responsibility for this. “You may turn to the usefulness of vodka. Like the Russians.” He addressed Maria. “Dr. Lebedev, you must watch Messonier very carefully.”
Amused, she focused on Messonier, and he grinned. Some private joke between them.
Chang waited for Messonier to pay attention. Then he placed the perforated plate over the bowl and set the cups in a circle around it. “A proper tea ceremony requires a flood of water inside and outside the teapot. A repetition of water and tea.” The teapot was carefully balanced on top of the plate and bowl. “Where’s our hot water?” Irritated, he hurried from the room in search of the kettle.
They waited in respectful silence until he returned, walking ceremoniously toward the table balancing a hot kettle. He dramatically filled the teapot until it overflowed, the steaming water draining through the perforated plate into the bowl underneath. “A scholar claimed the Nanling water of the Yangtze River was the most superior in all of China. But even here, in the dirty wilderness of Kharbin, we can drink the purest water from melted snow.” In five seconds, the teapot water was emptied into the bowl. “Now the teapot has been heated. It’s ready for the tea.”
A spoonful of dry tea leaves was sprinkled into the empty warmed teapot. After one minute, Chang lifted the lid, handed the open teapot to the Baron. “Smell it.”