The Kitchen God's Wife Part 4

"This is from Grand Auntie," my mother explains. "A few years ago she bought it for herself. One hundred dollars a pound."

"You're kidding." I take another sip. It tastes even better.

"She told me, 'If I buy myself the cheap tea, then I am saying my whole life has not been worth something better.' So she decided to buy herself the best tea, so she could drink it and feel like a rich person inside."

I laugh.

My mother looks encouraged by my laughter. "But then she thought, If I buy just a little, then I am saying my lifetime is almost over. So she bought enough tea for another lifetime. Three pounds! Can you imagine?"

"That's three hundred dollars!" I exclaim. Grand Auntie was the most frugal person I knew. "Remember how she used to keep all the boxes of See's candies we gave her for Christmas, telling us they were too good to eat? And then one year, she gave a box back to us for Thanksgiving or something. Only it was so old-"

My mother was nodding, already laughing.

"-all the candies were white with mold!"

"Bugs, too!" my mother adds.

"So she left you the tea in her will?" I say.

"Already gave it to me a few months ago. She was thinking she was going to die soon. She didn't say, but she started to give things away, good things, not just junk. And one time we were visiting, drinking tea. I said, 'Ah, good tea!' same as always. This time, Grand Auntie went to her kitchen, brought back the tea. She told me, 'Syau ning, you take this tea now.' That's what she called me, syau ning, 'little person,' from the old days when we first knew each other.

"I said, 'No, no! I wasn't saying this to hint.' And she said, 'Syau ning, you take this now so I can see how happy you are to receive it while I am still alive. Some things can't wait until I'm dead.' How could I refuse? Of course, every time I came to visit, I brought back her tea."

Phil returns with Cleo, Tessa is right behind. And now I am actually sorry we have to leave.

"We better hit the road," says Phil. I put the teacup down.

"Don't forget," my mother says to Phil. "Grand Auntie's present in the laundry room."

"A present?" Cleo says. "Do I have a present too?"

Phil throws me a look of surprise. "Remember?" I lie. "I told you-what Grand Auntie left us in her will."

He shrugs, and we all follow my mother to the back.

"Of course it's just old things," says my mother. She turns on the light, and then I see it, sitting on the clothes dryer. It is the altar for Grand Auntie's good-luck G.o.d, the Chinese creche.

"Wow!" Tessa exclaims. "A Chinese dollhouse."

"I can't see! I can't see!" Cleo says, and Phil lifts the altar off the dryer and carries it into the kitchen.

The altar is about the size of a small upturned drawer, painted in red lacquer. In a way, it resembles a miniature stage for a Chinese play. There are two ornate columns in front, as well as two ceremonial electric candles made out of gold and red plastic and topped by red Christmas tree bulbs for flames. Running down the sides are wooden panels decorated with gold Chinese characters.

"What does that say?" I ask my mother.

She traces her finger down one, then the other. "Jye shiang ru yi. This first word is 'luck,'this other is another kind of luck, and these two mean 'all that you wish.' All kinds of luck, all that you wish."

"And who is this on the inside, this man in the picture frame?" The picture is almost cartoonlike. The man is rather large and is seated in regal splendor, holding a quill in one hand, a tablet in the other. He has two long whiskers, shaped like smooth, tapered black whips.

"Oh, this we call Kitchen G.o.d. To my way of thinking, he was not too important. Not like Buddha, not like Kwan Yin, G.o.ddess of mercy-not that high level, not even the same level as the Money G.o.d. Maybe he was like a store manager, important, but still many, many bosses above him."

Phil chuckles at my mother's Americanized explanation of the hierarchy of Chinese deities. I wonder if that's how she really thinks of them, or if she's used this metaphor for our benefit.

"What's a kitchen G.o.d?" says Tessa. "Can I have one?"

"He is only a story," answers my mother.

"A story!" exclaims Cleo. "I want one."

My mother's face brightens. She pats Cleo's head. "You want another story from Ha-bu? Last night, you did not get enough stories?"

"When we get home," Phil says to Cleo. "Ha-bu is too tired to tell you a story now."

But my mother acts as if she has not heard Phil's excuses. "It is a very simple story," she says to Cleo in a soothing voice, "how he became Kitchen G.o.d. It is this way."

And as my mother begins, I am struck by a familiar feeling, as if I am Cleo, again three years old, still eager to believe everything my mother has to say.

"In China long time ago," I hear my mother say, "there was a rich farmer named Zhang, such a lucky man. Fish jumped in his river, pigs grazed his land, ducks flew around his yard as thick as clouds. And that was because he was blessed with a hardworking wife named Guo. She caught his fish and herded his pigs. She fattened his ducks, doubled all his riches, year after year. Zhang had everything he could ask for-from the water, the earth, and the heavens above.

"But Zhang was not satisfied. He wanted to play with a pretty, carefree woman named Lady Li. One day he brought this pretty woman home to his house, made his good wife cook for her. When Lady Li later chased his wife out of the house, Zhang did not run out and call to her, 'Come back, my good wife, come back.'

"Now he and Lady Li were free to swim in each other's arms. They threw money away like dirty water. They slaughtered ducks just to eat a plate of their tongues. And in two years' time, all of Zhang's land was empty, and so was his heart. His money was gone, and so was pretty Lady Li, run off with another man.

"Zhang became a beggar, so poor he wore more patches than whole cloth on his pants. He crawled from the gate of one household to another, crying, 'Give me your moldy grain!'

"One day, he fell over and faced the sky, ready to die. He fainted, dreaming of eating the winter clouds blowing above him. When he opened his eyes again, he found the clouds had turned to smoke. At first he was afraid he had fallen down into a place far below the earth. But when he sat up, he saw he was in a kitchen, near a warm fireplace. The girl tending the fire explained that the lady of the house had taken pity on him-she always did this, with all kinds of people, poor or old, sick or in trouble.

" 'What a good lady!' cried Zhang. 'Where is she, so I can thank her?' The girl pointed to the window, and the man saw a woman walking up the path. Ai-ya! That lady was none other than his good wife Guo!

"Zhang began leaping about the kitchen looking for some place to hide, then jumped into the kitchen fireplace just as his wife walked in the room.

"Good Wife Guo poured out many tears to try to put the fire out. No use! Zhang was burning with shame and, of course, because of the hot roaring fire below. She watched her husband's ashes fly up to heaven in three puffs of smoke. Wah!

"In heaven, the Jade Emperor heard the whole story from his new arrival. 'For having the courage to admit you were wrong,' the Emperor declared, 'I make you Kitchen G.o.d, watching over everyone's behavior. Every year, you let me know who deserves good luck, who deserves bad.'

"From then on, people in China knew Kitchen G.o.d was watching them. From his corner in every house and every shop, he saw all kinds of good and bad habits spill out: generosity or greediness, a harmonious nature or a complaining one. And once a year, seven days before the new year, Kitchen G.o.d flew back up the fireplace to report whose fate deserved to be changed, better for worse, or worse for better."

"The end!" shouts Cleo, completely satisfied.

"Sounds like Santa Claus," says Phil cheerfully.

"Hnh!" my mother huffs in a tone that implies Phil is stupid beyond words. "He is not Santa Claus. More like a spy-FBI agent, CIA, Mafia, worse than IRS, that kind of person! And he does not give you gifts, you must give him things. All year long you have to show him respect-give him tea and oranges. When Chinese New Year's time comes, you must give him even better things-maybe whiskey to drink, cigarettes to smoke, candy to eat, that kind of thing. You are hoping all the time his tongue will be sweet, his head a little drunk, so when he has his meeting with the big boss, maybe he reports good things about you. This family has been good, you hope he says. Please give them good luck next year."

"Well, that's a pretty inexpensive way to get some luck," I say. "Cheaper than the lottery."

"No!" my mother exclaims, and startles us all. "You never know. Sometimes he is in a bad mood. Sometimes he says, I don't like this family, give them bad luck. Then you're in trouble, nothing you can do about it. Why should I want that kind of person to judge me, a man who cheated his wife? His wife was the good one, not him."

"Then why did Grand Auntie keep him?" I ask.

My mother frowns, considering this. "It is this way, I think. Once you get started, you are afraid to stop. Grand Auntie worshipped him since she was a little girl. Her family started it many generations before, in China."

"Great!" says Phil. "So now she pa.s.ses along this curse to us. Thanks, Grand Auntie, but no thanks." He looks at his watch and I can tell he's impatient to go.

"It was Grand Auntie's gift to you," my mother says to me in a mournful voice. "How could she know this was not so good? She only wanted to leave you something good, her best things."

"Maybe the girls can use the altar as a dollhouse," I suggest. Tessa nods, Cleo follows suit. My mother stares at the altar, not saying anything.

"I'm thinking about it this way," she finally announces, her mouth set in an expression of thoughtfulness. "You take this altar. I can find you another kind of lucky G.o.d to put inside, not this one." She removes the picture of the Kitchen G.o.d. "This one, I take it. Grand Auntie will understand. This kind of luck, you don't want. Then you don't have to worry."

"Deal!" Phil says right away. "Let's pack 'er up."

But now I'm worried. "Are you sure?" I ask my mother. She's already stuffing the plastic candlesticks into a used paper bag. I'm not exactly superst.i.tious. I've always been the kind who hates getting chain letters-Mary used to send them to me all the time. And while I never sent the duplicate letters out as instructed, I never threw the originals away either.

Phil is carrying the altar. Tessa has the bag of candlesticks. My mother has taken Cleo back upstairs to find a plastic neon bracelet she left in the bathroom. And now my mother comes back with Cleo and hands me a heavy grocery sack, the usual care package, what feels like oranges and Chinese candy, that sort of thing.

"Grand Auntie's tea, I gave you some," my mother says. "Don't need to use too much. Just keep adding water. The flavor always comes back."

Fifteen minutes after leaving my mother's home, the girls fall asleep. Phil has chosen to take the 280 freeway, which has less traffic and longer stretches between speed traps. We are still thirty-five miles from home.

"We're not really keeping that altar thing?" Phil says. It is more a statement than a question.

"Um."

"It sure is ugly," he adds. "Although I suppose we could let the girls play with it for a while, until they get tired of it."

"Um." I look out the car window, thinking about my mother, what kind of good-luck G.o.d she will get for me. We rush past freeway signs and Sunday drivers in the slow lane. I look at the speedometer. We're going nearly eighty miles an hour.

"What's the rush?" I say.

Phil slows down, then asks, "Do we have anything to snack on?"

And now I remember the care package my mother gave us. It is stowed at my feet. I look in the bag. Inside are a few tangerines, a roll of toilet paper, a canister of Grand Auntie's tea, and the picture of my father that I accidentally knocked over last month. The gla.s.s has been replaced.

I quickly hand Phil a tangerine, then turn back toward the window so he does not see my tears. I watch the landscape we are drifting by: the reservoir, the rolling foothills, the same houses I've pa.s.sed a hundred times without ever wondering who lives inside. Mile after mile, all of it familiar, yet not, this distance that separates us, me from my mother.

3.

WHEN FISH ARE THREE DAYS OLD.

Helen thinks all her decisions are always right, but really, she is only lucky. For over fifty years I have seen this happen, how her foolish thinking turns into good fortune. It was like that at lunch yesterday. "Winnie-ah," she said, "have more chicken." I told Helen I did not want to eat any more funeral leftovers-five days was enough. So we went shopping at Happy Super, deciding what new things to eat for last night's dinner.

Helen picked out a flat fish, pom-pom fish, she called it, only a dollar sixty-nine a pound, bargain bin.

And I said, "This kind of bargain you don't want. Look at his eye, shrunken in and cloudy-looking. That fish is already three days old."

But Helen stared at that fish eye and said she saw nothing wrong. So I picked up that fish and felt its body slide between my fingers, a fish that had slipped away from life long time ago. Helen said it was a good sign-a juicy, tender fish!

So I smelled that fish for her. I told her how all the sweetness of its meat had risen to the skin and turned stinky-sour in the air. She put that fish to her nose and said, "That's a good pom-pom smell."

She bought that three-day-old fish, the dinner I ate at her house last night. And when she served it, her husband poked out a fish cheek, popped it in his mouth, and praised its taste; then their son Frank swallowed the other cheek right away. And Helen took a piece near the tail, the thinnest section, and after smacking her lips, she said she had steamed it just right, not too long. Then she saw my bowl, how it held nothing but rice. She dipped her chopsticks once again, this time near the stomach, took the fattest part of the fish, and laid this on top of my rice.

"Winnie-ah, don't be polite," she scolded. So I had to be polite and eat her fish.

I tell you, that fish made me so mad. It was sweet. It was tender. Only one dollar sixty-nine a pound. I started to think, Maybe Helen went back to Happy Super and exchanged that fish. But then I thought, Helen is not that clever. And that's when I remembered something. Even though Helen is not smart, even though she was born poor, even though she has never been pretty, she has always had luck pour onto her plate, even spill from the mouth of a three-day-old fish.

I am not the same way. I was born with good luck. But over the years, my luck-just like my prettiness-dried out, then carved lines on my face so I would not forget.

I cannot explain exactly how this happened, these changes in my life. If I try to say what happened, my story would not flow forward like a river from the beginning to the end, everything connected, the lake to the sea. If my life had been that way, one thing leading to another, then I could look back and I would know the lessons of my life: the fate that was given me, the choices I took, the mistakes that are mine. And perhaps I would still have time to change my luck.

Helen always tells me, "Why do you think about those old things? Useless to regret. You cannot change the past." She doesn't remember. She and I have changed the past many times, for many reasons. And sometimes she changes it for me and does not even know what she has done.

It is like that pom-pom fish Helen bought. Now it is swimming backward into my memory. Because once, many years ago, I bought a special fish for my husband, for Jimmy Louie. Oh, how I loved him! The fish was swimming in a tank when I saw it, caught from the ocean just that morning, so it was still angry. Its body was gleaming with red-orange scales, and when it flashed its tail to turn around in that small tank, the scales swimming now the other way looked pale golden. I told the butcher to wrap that fish live, not in newspaper but in clean, white paper. And as I carried that fish home on the bus, I was so proud, feeling it thrash and knock its head, then its tail. I imagined how sweet this fish would taste in Jimmy's mouth, how my husband would know this was a special fish, a lucky fish, and that I had good news to give him.

Let me tell you, that fish never stopped fighting me. Before I killed it, it puffed its gills out, spouted bubbles from its mouth to make me think it was poisonous. And even after I gutted it, it jumped up and down in the pan and threw itself on the floor, flopping all around as I chased it with a hammer. And after I cooked it, it still found a way to fight me. Jimmy ate only one bite before a little bone swam down his throat and got stuck, so that each time he swallowed he thought that fish was biting him from the inside out, all night long.

Later, in the hospital, the doctors operated to remove the fish bone. And even though Jimmy could not talk, I knew by his worried face that he was thinking about the cost of the fish-bone operation, the cost of the bed, the cost of the medicines that made him sleep. That's when I remembered my good news, the reason why I had bought that expensive fish. I had found a job, I told him, making noodles for Hang Ah Bakery. My extra money would now be enough, more than enough, to pay off the hospital in less than one year. And after I told him this, Jimmy squeezed his eyes and tears came out. He moved his mouth; no words came out of his wounded throat. But I could see what he was saying, what he wanted to shout: "Lucky for us! How lucky for us!"

So my luck is not like Helen's. It is not like other people's, people who brag how their bad luck turned good. No, I'll tell you how it is with other people, how it is with me. It is like that girl I once knew in Shanghai, the schoolmate who went to the same Christian school as me. She came from a rich family like mine. She was almost as pretty as me. Around the same time I married my first husband, she had a wedding contract to a rich banking family. But after the summer, her face became marked forever with smallpox, and that contract disappeared. I pitied that girl because she had lost her face two ways.

Many years later I met her again, when Jimmy and I moved to Fresno. She was married to an American Chinese man who owned a grocery store, selling soda pop, potato chips, cigarettes, everything at high prices. That's how I met her again, at the checkout counter. I was buying ice cream on a stick. She cried, "Sister, sister, remember me!" But she didn't give me a discount. After I paid her, she told me how her husband was honest, very kind, very nice, and as she said this, she pushed her many jade bracelets up her arm so they would fall back down and clink together like rich music. She was smiling so big all her pock marks looked like the happy dimples she now wore.

But later she dropped her smile and whispered to me, "You remember that son from the banking family in Shanghai?" And she told me, with sincere sadness, not bitter at all-that's how good life had been to her-that the family had lost all its banks when the Communists took over. Then later, their son, the same who had refused to marry her, jumped off the tower of a building the family once owned along the Huangpu River, and even his wife, the pretty one that he did marry, was too scared to go and claim his body. "Lucky he didn't marry me," said my friend.

I have never had luck like that. I refused to marry a good man, a man named Lin, for my first husband. I married the wrong one instead, a man named Wen. Both of them came from the same island where I had lived ever since I was six years old. This was in the old-fashioned countryside, in a little place surrounded by water, the river and the sea, so no new ideas could easily come in.

The man I should have married was from a family with not very much money, but educated and with good manners. When I was sixteen by my Chinese age, I refused his family's offer without ever meeting their son. This was because I listened to Old Aunt, the way she announced the family's offer at the dinner table, in front of New Aunt and Uncle, my cousins, and visiting family friends.

"That family, Lin," she began, and then sniffed her nose, "hnh! Wants to climb into our family on Weili's wedding skirt." With those words, I could see this boy, a boy I had never met, looking like a big ugly lizard, crawling up my leg at night. And then Old Aunt turned to me at the dinner table and asked, "Weiwei-ah, do you want to make a marriage with this family?"

She said this in a way that sounded as if she were asking, "Do you want to jump in the river?" which is what Old Aunt always threatened to do when she was unhappy with her husband. "I'd rather use these two feet to jump in the river!" she would shout. "I'd rather use these two hands to hang myself!" And then she would turn to Uncle and her voice would be even more shrill. "Which would you rather I do? Come on, you decide!"

My uncle was the one who later used his two feet and his two hands to kill himself. When the Communists came in 1949, he was too scared to run away, too scared to stay. He became so confused he walked with his own two feet all the way to the port at the north edge of the island, and there he sat down to think about his choices. Two fishermen later said that when a truck loaded with little crabs drove down the dark road to the port, they saw my uncle stand up, run in front of the truck, waving both hands: Go back, go back.

So peculiar, the fishermen said, as if he were now in command of the whole world, as if he really could have stopped that truck before it ran him over. After he was killed, Old Aunt started to believe that the dead tree in our courtyard was her husband, still too lazy to move and help get her out of one bad situation after another.

So that was the kind of family I had. What advice could they give me? If I had not lost my mother so young, I would not have listened to Old Aunt. And maybe I would have married that boy Lin when I was young. Maybe I would have learned to love him after we married. And maybe we would have had difficulties in life, just like everyone, but not the kind that would make me hate myself and think that my own heart was my worst enemy.

I met this same man Lin for the first time twenty years later, when I had already been living in the United States for five years. I was a grown woman then, now called Winnie Louie, married to Jimmy Louie. Pearl was more than four, Samuel almost three. And even though we were poor, I believed my life was full, just as a Christian lady once explained it for me. "A full bowl of rice is as much as you can ask for," she said.

I believed that was true. How could I not? Jimmy was the minister of our church in Fresno, the same one that paid him fifty dollars a week and gave us a little house to live in. So I believed I should not ask for more. I believed this until the day a man named Lin showed up at our same church and saved my life.

Of course, there were many Lins in China, even many Lins in our church, so I thought nothing of this at first, that he might be that boy I refused to marry. He had just moved into the area, and people were whispering: "He's a doctor, lives in Tulare, with a big swimming pool. Married to a former general's daughter who speaks beautiful Chinese, Peking accent, just like an opera star."