Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

Youyou had eventually fulfilled her dream of becoming a chef. She opened a small restaurant in downtown Fuan called Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry across from Big Dishes from South and North, the Freshest Seafood. Youyou’s stomach turned every time she saw the other restaurant’s sign, thinking that the words amounted to crude bragging. So, you claim to be big? I want simply to be small, small stir-fry, small but not insignificant, with the sort of intimate, trustworthy family atmosphere that never goes out of style. The name was not her idea. On Yabao Road in Beijing’s Ambassador District, there was a restaurant called Auntie Feng’s Small Stir-Fry, which had overflow business. Tiao had been to that restaurant and had told Youyou about it. Youyou said, “I can open a restaurant called Auntie Meng’s Small Stir-Fry.”

Tiao said, “Stir-Fry sounds fine, but the Auntie Meng part isn’t a good idea. For some reason, whenever I see the word ‘auntie,’ I think about that spooky aunt in that old movie Secret Mission to the City of the Ram. Why don’t you call it Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry? Yeah, you should call it Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry.” With specialties like Shanghai eel, honey-plum spare ribs, beer corn chicken, tilapia with preserved vegetables, and crispy turnip pancake, Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry did excellent business. The cuisine, which no one could classify precisely and Youyou didn’t care to, included a little bit of everything, from Cantonese to Shandongnese. Youyou was very open-minded and would cook whatever was delicious. For instance, tilapia with preserved vegetables was merely a local Fuan dish, but it was delicious and Youyou prepared it with great care.

Tiao asked Fan, “You still remember Youyou, right?”

“Of course I remember her, and also that great beauty, Fei,” Fan said. She remembered how she had offered to contribute her milk and followed Tiao to Youyou’s home when she was little, waiting eagerly for them to make the mysterious grilled miniature snowballs.

They were eating and drinking at the cosy, elegant private room at Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry. Fei soon joined them, bringing Fan a red-lacquered antique bracelet as a gift. Not until that moment did it occur to Fan that she never thought about bringing gifts for her sister’s friends. Americans aren’t as much concerned with etiquette as Chinese are, and don’t give gifts as often. But was Fan really an American? Deep down, she had never thought of herself as one, but unfortunately she was no longer Chinese, either. Chinese affection and friendship, feigned or sincere, all felt foreign to her.

While she was thankful to Fei, she was also upset by the idea she didn’t belong anywhere. She offered Fei a cigarette, More 100 Slims. They looked each other over as they smoked. Fei had on a black leather coat and a matching miniskirt, soft and smooth as silk. The leather would be considered of the highest quality in America. Her dress and her wavy, waist-length hair made Fan think about some of Fei’s life experiences, which she had heard about from Tiao. She didn’t feel comfortable asking about Fei’s current job; someone like Fei would probably always be involved in something suspect. Again, she had to admit that life in China now was much better than when she lived here. From what her sister and her friends wore, it seemed like the clothes made in China compared well with those made in America. She listened to their conversation and gathered that Tiao and Fei regularly brought customers to Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry, particularly guests of the Publishing House. Tiao told them about a Canadian couple, special guests invited by the Publishing House to write and edit a series of Fun with English books for children. Youyou’s crispy turnip puffs were their favourites. When they were about to leave Fuan, they came to Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry three days in a row, ordering nothing but a pot of chrysanthemum tea and a dozen delicious and inexpensive turnip puffs. Youyou said, “Tiao, guess what I do to the customers Fei brings here?”

“What customers can Fei bring in?” Tiao asked. “The people she knows are all super-rich, and why would they come to your place?”

Fei chuckled and said, “I’ve brought quite a few sets of customers here. I would call Youyou before I came and have her show them the second menu, the one with the prices changed, where thirty becomes three hundred. Those new-rich types never ask, What’s good here? Instead it’s, What’s the most expensive dish here? They like to order expensive dishes, so even carp with preserved vegetables gets to be a hundred and eighty.”

Tiao laughed and said, “They deserve it. If I were you, I would have added another zero and made it eighteen hundred.” Their conversation left Fan cold; the minor Chinese trickery annoyed and offended her, not because she was above it, but because she couldn’t be a part of it. She envied the ordinary chatter her sister could have with her two girlfriends, which no longer seemed possible for her.

When the dinner ended, Tiao called Chen Zai and then told Fan that Chen Zai would drive here to pick them up. He was going to take them to see the villa on Mei Mountain that he designed.

Chen Zai had returned from England to become a noted architect in Fuan. He had successfully designed Fuan City Museum, the Publishing Hall, and the Mei Mountain Villa, commissioned by a Singapore businessman. This year he was building his own studio. He was married, but even marriage didn’t prevent him from thinking of Tiao. He couldn’t do enough for her; anything she wanted. They saw each other often, and their meetings were innocent and furtive at the same time. They talked about everything. He wasn’t family, but why would he be the first person Tiao thought of when she was in trouble? This man and woman, maybe they didn’t want to think about the possibilities. He only knew she lived in the city where he lived, and she knew he lived in the city where she lived; they lived in the same place, and that seemed enough.

Chen Zai drove them to Mei Mountain Villa, which was truly a beautiful place in the suburbs of Fuan, very close to the city. The sudden change of coming upon a quiet, spotless village from a noisy city was captivating. After passing a scattering of houses on the hillside, they came to Villa Number One. Everything inside was new, as yet unused. As the designer, Chen Zai had the privilege of enjoying everything in the villa. Fan admired the design of Villa Number One very much — Spanish style, simple, rough-hewn, and practical. They took a sauna, and then had a candlelit dinner. The sweltering sauna made their faces shine. Fan suddenly asked for a drink, so they drank Five Grain Liquor. Tiao drank very fast, and Chen Zai asked her to slow down, with sincere concern. He said the words simply enough, but Fan could discern the tenderness that came out of their long regard for each another. In fact, Chen Zai had been talking to Fan most of the time. When they spoke in English, he complimented her excellent pronunciation. Tiao looked at them with a smile; she liked to see Chen Zai treat Fan so well and for Fan to be so pleased about it. Even so, Fan still had a deep sense of loss. The hospitality and care that they showered on her didn’t cheer her up; on the contrary, it served to emphasize Tiao and Chen Zai’s deep attachment to each other. Under the guise of playing a prank, Fan urged Tiao to empty each of her glasses, with the hope that Tiao would make a fool out of herself by getting drunk, and Tiao really did start to drink recklessly.

Chen Zai had to take her glass from her, saying to Fan, “I’ll empty this glass for your sister. She … she can’t do it.” Fan’s eyes misted over. Everything she didn’t have was here, and the greatest luxury was the mysterious unspoken understanding between this Asian man and woman. She envied this and felt a longing to be with an Asian man. She remembered a college classmate of hers when she was studying in Beijing. They had a crush on each other. A native of the Shandong countryside, he once told Fan about his childhood; his family was poor and he was adopted by his uncle after his parents died. He always remembered how, at his father’s funeral, a family elder patted his head and sighed: “Poor child, you won’t have a good life from now on.” He kept the words in his heart and used them as motivation to study hard and to fight for a good life. Other children often bullied him, and he would be sure to get back at them. His mode of vengeance was unique; he would take a small knife and bring along some Sichuan hot peppercorns to the courtyard of his enemy’s house. If there was no one around, he would use the knife to cut into a poplar tree and bury the hot peppercorns. The next day the poplar tree would begin to die. Those who had bullied him all paid by having their poplar trees killed in this way. Too young to take revenge on people, he got back at their trees instead. Fan thought him unusual but wasn’t altogether sure if embedded Sichuan peppercorns would really kill trees. She asked him where he got the idea, and he said it was from a beggar passing through from the neighbouring town. Fan stared at the poplar trees on campus, sorely tempted to bury some Sichuan peppercorns in one. In the end, she didn’t, hoping to let the story stay a story. The truth of a story is more fascinating than reality, and lends charm to the teller. Fan simply believed that a man should be like her classmate, who had great ideas, ideas out of the ordinary. Only after she met David did the poplar killer fade from her memory. Now she thought about him again. On this quiet night, a night drinking Five Grain Liquor and with Chen Zai and Tiao’s hearts resonating with each other, the man she was thinking about was not David, but her college classmate, maybe because he was Chinese. Fan had never dated a Chinese man.