gardeners. “I understand there's something called
“If you have one. In English,” I added with a self-deprecating grin. He responded to my silly-me attitude with a polite smile of his own, although something about it made me wonder if he wasn't aware that my act was just that. But he turned on the stool, and I was deciding to place the smile under general Oriental inscrutability when he all but vanished behind the counter. I watched the top of his head go past, realising belatedly that the man was only an inch or two more than five feet high.
As he walked towards the back of the store, I saw that his gait was slightly uneven, a twist more than a limp, as if his spine had a kink in it. He tugged a wheeled library ladder from its recesses, allowing it to run along its tracks for about fifteen feet before stopping it to clamber up into the reaches of the shelves. He pulled out two volumes, came down, returned the ladder to its place, and came back to the desk with the books, laying them in front of me on the counter.
“I do not have any English books entirely about
I looked over the offerings, finding among other things that the discipline was rendered as
When he had wrapped my purchase and given me my change, I pulled my mother's small framed photograph out of my coat pocket and laid it where the book had been.
“I wonder if you know these people? They may also be interested in feng shui.”
Again, I could read no reaction on the man's face. But I felt a brief beat of stillness before he leant forward, adjusting his spectacles to look at the photograph obediently. After a few seconds, he raised his eyes to mine. “You think I should know these people?”
“They lived in San Francisco, at least they did ten years ago. I knew them as Mah and Micah, although I don't suppose those were their names. They used to work for my parents. I'm trying to locate them.”
He did not ask why, although I expected him to. I even had a story prepared, about a bequest in the will. Instead, he reached out and ran a curious finger down the frame.
“I found the picture on my mother's dressing-table,” I said without thinking.
That time, he reacted. Only a quick glance at my face, and completely understandable—what kind of white woman would have a framed photograph of two Orientals on her dressing-table? But what could I say to that? I didn't even know myself, although I did know that it was very like my mother to look past society's restrictions.
When he sat upright, his face was once again polite and closed. “I am sorry, I do not think they live around here. But I will ask. How do I get in touch with you, should I find anything about them?”
I took out a visiting card and wrote on the back of it the address of the lawyer and, at a whim, the house itself. “I will only be in San Francisco a few days, but anything to the first address will be sent on to me, at any time.”
He accepted the card, and inclined his head slightly. “I wish you luck, miss.”
As I went out of the shop, I noticed a small mirror, located so low on a wall that only the proprietor would see it. And I wondered if, somewhere in the back of the store, lay a bowl of water and a small pot-plant.
Another waiter scurried past on his delivery, and as his heavy-laden tray trailed across before me, it emitted odours that tugged at me in a way I had all but forgotten. The hot breath of chilli pepper, the comforting aroma of fresh rice—for the first time in weeks, food had appeal. As I lingered on the pavement, waiting for the waiter to return, my mouth actually watered.
I had to wait for some time, jostled by black-clad women smelling of incense and spices, blue-clad men bearing the odours of laundry and labour, and bright, bobbed young things graced with the perfumes of the downtown shops, all of them intent on the greengrocer's peculiarly shaped wares, the impossibly long green beans and aubergines the size of eggs. Eventually, however, the young man reappeared, the tray tucked easily under one arm, a cigarette dangling from his lip, exchanging greetings with the people near the stall. I fell into step behind him; when he turned down a narrow alleyway and stepped down into a door-way, I did not hesitate to follow.
Once inside, however, I was not so sure of myself, for this was clearly not a restaurant that catered to outsider trade. A dozen Chinese people holding chop-sticks in their hands turned to see this exotic invader, and I offered them an uncomfortable smile, looking around for my unwitting guide. One of the customers called something in a loud voice, and the man popped out from a door-way, his eyebrows going up when he saw me.
“You like something?” he asked.
“Luncheon, if you're serving,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” he said, to my relief. “No problem, here, sit here.”
He dashed a clean white cloth over the surface of a corner table, and pulled out the chair. “You need menu?”
Even if it was in English, I probably would not have been able to make much sense of it. Instead, I told him, “Why don't you just bring me something you think I'd—No, make that something you like yourself.” Heaven only knows what pallid version of his native cuisine he might deem suitable for a white woman. Then I added, “Just nothing with pork or shrimp, please.”
It was only when he had taken himself through the door and was carrying on a full-voiced and unintelligible conversation with the cook that the belated thought occurred: Chinese people were rumoured to enjoy eating dog, and rat.
I told myself not to be squeamish, and fingered the pair of chop-sticks lying beside my plate, feeling the eyes of the other diners on me.
My food arrived quickly, although the earlier patrons were still waiting for theirs. One of them, a boy of perhaps fourteen, said something to his two older companions. All three watched me reach for the thin bamboo sticks.
They seemed more amused than disappointed when this white person's clumsiness with the chop-sticks did not come to pass—I had just spent three weeks in Japan, eating with sticks slicker and more delicate than these, and the skill had not deserted me in crossing the ocean. I grinned at the boy, cautiously seized and lifted a scrap of what appeared to be chicken, and held it out to him for a moment before slipping it into my mouth. He grinned back, and then frowned and said something to his companions.
Having been through this before, I knew what was puzzling them: I was using the chop-sticks in my left hand. I held up the empty sticks, clicked them together, and then bent over the rest of my meal.
The dishes contained neither dog nor rat, so far as I could tell. The soup held a tangle of chicken's feet, by no means the strangest food-stuff I had been faced with in recent months. The waiter watched surreptitiously until he had seen me suck the flesh from the bones in one quick between-the-teeth motion, then smiled widely. The other bowls appeared to be largely vegetable, although his English got us no further than the aubergine, which he called by the American name, “eggplant.” One dish was hot enough to bring sweat to my face, the second was heavy with garlic and tiny black beans, the third both tangy and sweet.
I paid, slid a generous tip beneath the side of my plate, and was halfway out of the door before I recalled my reasons for coming to Chinatown. With the experience of the impatient shopkeepers in mind, I hesitated briefly before I ducked back into the warm, fragrant room. The waiter again greeted me with raised eyebrows. When I took out the framed photograph and explained what I wanted, the eyebrows went down and the face closed. He handed it back to me with scarcely a glance.
“No, sorry, don't know them.”
“Look, I'm not out to cause them any trouble, I'm not with the government or anything—” (although surely he could hear that in my English accent?) “but they worked for my parents until ten years ago and I'd like to see that they get a small pension. You understand pension? Income? Money?”
