Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

She waved her hand, a flourish of indulgence.

"So I hide fish in freezer with my name on little paper in case they find it. Then I go to library with my photograph of fish and they have very big book on every fish in the world. So I find Shao-tzou fish, I look it up, I see picture in book, I see picture in my hand. Same eye. Same gill. Same mouth. I pay for high-quality Xerox copy. I am a little bit happy, a little feel funny. Why does this fish swim to me now?"

Ha looked down at the butcher-block table, took one corner of the white napkin, and lifted it, revealing an array of gleaming knives. He gazed up again. "Then the big French cook here find the fish I put in freezer. He tell Allison. He is very mad at Ha. I am just man who clean up. I say it is no big deal, a little mistake I make. Allison very busy lady, she is not interested in frozen fish belong to old Chinese man. But I go back to Chinatown fish dealer and I show picture. I say can you get me some of this fish and they say let us see picture and we tell you. They send me little paper one month later. They say yes. I say how much. They say if dead, then one hundred and forty dollar, maybe more. Fish is very hard to catch. I say the first time it cost three dollar, seventy-five cent. They say that was big mistake. They say if I want fish alive I pay maybe two thousand dollar. Very expensive for fish to live on airplane. More than for me or you. So I say send me dead fish, biggest one. They send me fish. Cost me two hundred and sixty dollar, because they lie so much to me. But I don't care. I want to see if I can cut it up, if I remember from Jiangsu Institute of Cooking. I get fish downtown. It is big. Somebody has tear off fin. But I take it and I put it in big beef freezer. This time I get good fish knife."

He held up one of the knives. Curved, thin, maybe fourteen inches long. "I let fish get soft and cut up. Allison find me and I say it is nothing just a mistake I am very sorry. But she say why you freezing these funny fish in my beefs? I tell her the story because I like Miss Allison too much. Maybe like you, heh. She says can you cook the frozen fish and make it do funny thing like fugu fish. I say no, only live fish, frozen no good. So she say get live fish, we will see. She will pay. I say fish is two thousand dollar and she says we will pay, get fish. I say I do not know if it good idea-"

"But of course I was curious, gentlemen, very curious," Allison interrupted. "More curious than I have been about many things." And what those things were would be left to our imaginations, her expression said. "When I saw Ha handling the live fish, preparing it, I realized how unusual he was! How skilled! As I said before, there are maybe one or two Japanese restaurants in this entire city that serve fugu, but no one, and I mean no one, serves Chinese Shao-tzou fish. The fish itself may be illegal. Well, yes, it is, technically. But, as I say, I was curious-"

"I am ready," Ha said.

"Gentlemen, if anyone would like to leave now, please feel free. We only want you to stay if you feel comfortable." She looked around. "Everyone is staying? Very good." She nodded at Shantelle, who disappeared up the stairs to close the door.

"Now, a few more words before we begin. This is how the evening works. Ha will kill the fish, clean it, examine it, and then he will tell me how many Sun, Moon, and Stars portions he has. He will have at least one of each. Sometimes he will have an extra Sun or Moon. But only sometimes, depending on the individual fish. The order always goes Sun, Moon, Stars. Those of you who are interested in a certain portion may bid using the slate paddles that Shantelle will provide. Please write your bid with the chalk she will give you, and hold it up. Write in large numerals please. Those of you who are not bidding are asked to remain silent. There is only one round of bidding per portion, which means it's blind bidding, understand? One bid onlyexcept for the last portion, which I will auction off like a conventional live auction, in which bidders bid against each other. Once your bid is accepted, you make a credit card payment. No tipping or gratuity is necessary. As I said earlier, the billing to your card will be the same as any other billing here at the restaurant. It will not say Havana Room, or Shao-tzou fish, or anything else unusual. There's complete confidentiality."

She looked at Ha. He was stirring the water in the fish tank, and a tail slapped the surface. He withdrew his hand, folded back his white sleeve, then pulled from beneath the tank a wide rectangular screen attached to a handle. This he dropped into one end of the tank.

"Okay, what else?" continued Allison. "There will be no splitting of portions between people, and if the diner inexplicably decides not to eat his portion, or part of his portion, then it will be thrown away. The fish will be killed and prepared in front of you, gentlemen, cut sushi style. You may use your hands or a fork or chopsticks, but in any case we suggest that you try to consume the entire portion within thirty seconds or so, for maximum effect."

"What do we do after we eat the fish?"

"Good question. Shantelle?"

Colin Harrison

The Havana Room

Shantelle had retreated to the dark back corner, and now she whisked off a heavy blanket, revealing a luxurious, wide-armed leather chair. This she pushed forward into the square of light.

"Before you eat your portion, or certainly just after, we advise that you quickly sit in this very comfortable chair. You will lose most muscle control, and if you are seated, you will not fall or injure yourself. As I said, the total effect lasts only five minutes or so." She looked at her watch. "Let's get started. First, though, does anyone want to see the fish?"

We obligingly crept forward from our chairs and peered in the murky tank to see a brownish fish about twenty inches long, boxy, and scaleless, with a blunted, indistinct face. Its eyes were set high, and seemed oddly intelligent. The body of the fish was unappetizingly soft, its skin gluey, its dorsal fin and tail shredded. Not a fish built for speed or beauty, a bottom-feeder, a garbage fish. It lazily circled the perimeter of the tank, reversing direction, idling- a fish, I mused, without a country or an ocean or a future.

"Doesn't look like much," the fellow next to me whispered.

Back in our chairs, we watched Ha move the screen gently toward the other end of the tank, trapping the fish against its glass wall. There was a splash of water as the fish fought its imprisonment. Keeping pressure on the screen, Ha lifted a long gleaming pick and placed it above the fish. We waited.

"Must be just right," Ha muttered.

He stared into the water, and we saw him take a breath, hold it, then plunge the pick downward. Instantly he let go of the screen and lifted the pick and the wriggling, impaled fish into the air. The pick had gone straight down into the fish's nose, through its mouth, and out the bottom side. Ha inspected the fish. "Very healthy," he noted.

He nailed the fish onto his board, held its back with his other hand, drew a short knife, and quickly severed the fish's spinal column. "Now," he announced with the affability of a television show gourmet, "we make very good Shao-tzou fish."

He bent at the knees, hunched himself toward the fish. "First we see what you eat." He sliced open the belly and picked through some greenish-black gunk. "Maybe some crab, some clam. In China bad boy in my village feed cat meat sometime, when too many cat in the town you know. Very ugly fish. In China they call this fish 'river pig.' "

Working quickly, he removed the organs of the fish and dropped them into small blue ceramic bowls. Then he beheaded the fish, cut out the brain, and deposited it into another bowl. After each operation he dropped his knife into a wide bucket on the floor and withdrew from his gleaming array another identical one, so that the fluids of one part of the fish did not touch any from the others. With the organs and brain segregated, he dropped the remains of the head into another bucket, lifted up his board, wiped it, dropped the towel in the bucket, then flipped over the board. Now he quickly skinned the fish and filleted it.