Страница 87 из 147
“What the fuck is going on?” one of the businessmen shouted. “Is there anyone working here, or what?”
“Racists! War criminals! Fascist pigs!” Ah Gou yelled at them, still bleeding.
In the kitchen, the cook said to his son and grandson, “You’re my sous chefs now-we better get started.”
“There are only two tables to deal with, Pop-I think we can manage this,” Da
“If we just ignore the business guys, I think they’ll leave,” Kaori said.
“Nobody leaves!” Xiao Dee shouted. “I’ll show them what kind of crazy, fucked-up place this is-and they better like it!”
He went out into the dining room through the swinging door-his ponytail in that absurd pink ribbon possibly belonging to Spicy-and even after the door swung shut, they could still hear Little Brother from the kitchen. “You want to eat the best food you ever had, or do you want to die?” Xiao Dee was yelling. “Asians are dying, but you can eat well!” he screamed at the businessmen.
“The guinea hen is served with asparagus, and a risotto of oyster mushrooms and sage jus,” the cook was explaining to Da
“Where are the guinea hens from, Pop?” Da
“From Iowa, of course-we’re out of almost everything that isn’t from Iowa,” the cook told him.
“You want to see how your mushroom and mascarpone ravioli gets made?” Xiao Dee was asking the businessmen types. “It’s done with Parmesan and white truffle oil! It’s the best fucking ravioli you’ll ever have! You think white truffle oil comes from Iowa ?” he asked them. “You want to come out in the kitchen and see a bunch of Asians dying? They are dying on TV right now-if you want to see!” Little Brother was shouting.
Tony Angel turned to the Japanese twins. “Go rescue the business guys from Xiao Dee,” he told them, “both of you.”
The cook accompanied the Yokohamas to the dining room, where they served the two couples the guinea hens. “Your pasta will be coming right along,” Tony told the businessmen; he’d wondered why the business guys had so quietly listened to Xiao Dee’s tirade. Now he saw that Little Brother had taken the bloody cleaver with him into the dining room.
“We need you back in the kitchen-we want you like crazy back there! We’re dying for you!” the Japanese twins were telling Xiao Dee; they had draped themselves on him, being careful not to touch the bloody cleaver. The businessmen types just sat there, waiting, even after the cook (and Xiao Dee, with Kaori and Sao) had gone back into the kitchen.
“What are the fascist pigs drinking?” Xiao Dee was asking the Yokohamas.
“ Tsingtao,” Kaori or Sao answered him.
“Bring them more-keep the beer coming!” Little Brother told them.
“What goes with the ravioli, Pop?” Da
“The peas,” the cook told him. “Use the slotted spoon, or there will be too much oil on them.”
Joe couldn’t get interested in being a sous chef, not while the television kept showing the helicopters. When the phone rang, Joe was the only one whose hands weren’t busy doing something; he answered it. They all knew there was no maître d’ in the dining room, and they thought it might be Yi-Yiing or Tzu-Min calling from Mercy Hospital with a report on whether or not they could save Ah Gou’s finger.
“It’s collect, from Ketchum,” Joe told them.
“Say that you accept,” his grandfather told him.
“I accept,” the boy said.
“You talk to him, Daniel-I’m busy,” the cook said.
But in the passing of the telephone, they could all hear what Ketchum had to say-all the way from New Hampshire. “This asshole country-”
“Hi, it’s me-it’s Da
“You still sorry you didn’t get to go to Vietnam, fella?” Ketchum roared at him.
“No, I’m not sorry,” Da
There was blood all over the kitchen. On the TV, the desperate Vietnamese dangled from, and then fell off, the skids of the helicopters. The debacle would be replayed for days-all over the world, the writer supposed, while he watched his ten-year-old watching the end of the war his dad hadn’t gone to.
The Japanese twins were placating the business guys with more beer. Xiao Dee was standing in the walk-in refrigerator with the door open. “We’re almost out of Tsingtao, Tony,” Little Brother was saying. He walked out of the fridge and closed the door; then he noticed that the door to the alley was still open. “What happened to Ed?” Xiao Dee asked. He stepped cautiously into the alley. “Maybe some fucking patriot farmer mistook him for one of us ‘gooks’ and killed him!”
“I think poor Ed just went home,” the cook said.
“I threw up in his sink-maybe that’s why,” Sao said. She and Kaori had come back to the kitchen to bring the business guys their pasta order.
“Can I turn the TV off?” Da
“Yes! Turn it off, please!” one of the Yokohamas told him.
“Ed is gone!” Xiao Dee was shouting from the alley. “The fucker-patriots have kidnapped him!”
“I can take Joe home and put him to bed,” the other twin said to Da
“The boy has to eat first,” the cook said. “You can be the maître d’ for a little while, can’t you, Daniel?”
“Sure, I can do it,” the writer told him. He washed his hands and face, and put on a clean apron. When he went into the dining room, the businessmen types seemed surprised that he wasn’t Asian-or especially angry-looking.
“What’s going on in the kitchen?” one of the men asked him tentatively; he definitely didn’t want Xiao Dee to overhear him.
“It’s the end of the war, on the television,” Da
“The pasta is terrific, in spite of everything,” another of the businessmen types said to Da
“I’ll tell him,” Da
Some faculty types showed up later, and a few proud parents taking their beloved university students out to di
Ah Gou would get to keep his fingertip. Kaori or Sao took young Joe home and put him to bed that night, and Da
There was an awkward moment-after the Japanese babysitter had gone, and before the cook came home-when Joe was asleep upstairs, and Da
“So, here we are, alone at last,” Yi-Yiing said to him. “I guess we’re almost alone, anyway,” she added. “It’s just you and me and my damn cold.”
The kettle had not yet come to boil, and Yi-Yiing folded her arms on her breasts and stared at him.
“What?” Da
“You know what,” she said to him. He was the first to lower his eyes.
“How’s it going with that tricky business of moving your daughter and your parents here?” he asked her. Finally, she turned away.
“I’m very slowly changing my mind about that,” Yi-Yiing told him.
Much later, the cook would hear that she’d gone back to Hong Kong; she was working as a nurse there. (None of them ever heard what happened to the Yokohamas, Kaori and Sao.)
That night the war ended, Yi-Yiing took her tea upstairs with her, leaving Da