It’s ten past midnight. Dagou finds his notebook and scans his entries. A perfect, simple winter meal in honor of our closest friends.
How many have said they’re coming? There are the Was, of course—and well, Katherine, because his mother would insist on her—and also Brenda. Brenda must not work that night, but be a guest. Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Chin and their daughters, and Mr. and Mrs. Fan—maybe six more. Plus the hangers-on, like Jerry Stern. Of course they’re coming; they always come, they would be terribly hurt if they ever learned about the party after the fact. Winnie loves outsiders. She believes in reaching out. That makes twenty people. He must invite more of Winnie’s friends, make it more like two dozen, more like thirty. And it will be important to include enough food for a few extras, just in case—imagine if they ran out of food. Imagine if a stranger came, assuming the restaurant was open, and found the place lit up and everyone inside. Would it be right to turn away a hungry stranger on Christmas Eve? To turn away an angel in disguise?
So, dinner for thirty-five, forty people. Dagou flips through his notebook. All of his earlier plans now are meager and uninteresting, except for the fresh ducks brining in the refrigerator. Brenda has never eaten Peking duck. He imagines her biting into the finest, most crackling 121chestnut skin. Enjoying, in addition, a few banquet plates to keep it company. Cold chicken, and the hollow-hearted greens. Plus the stew he promised Winnie. And chicken. He’s already reserved the chicken, but his mother believes in combining flavors, she believes in many meats. He has promised her seafood—he can go to the seafood truck. For shrimp to accompany. There must be a shrimp dish—shrimp with mounds of diced ginger and scallions, or salted shrimp in the shell—or both, perhaps. Also, a second seafood dish. To serve only shrimp would be petty and small. Shrimp themselves, so very small. What else? Fish, of course—he’s been planning to have fish all along. Soft-shell crab? He imagines how Brenda will glow when he serves platter after platter of soft-shell crab. Of course, she’s never tasted it—he knows this because every bit of Chinese food she’s ever eaten came from his own hands. He imagines her crunching through the crisp shell. But soft-shell crab isn’t in season. He’ll be forced to rely on the seafood truck. Although it’s not from lack of generosity that they won’t have crab, but because he has high standards and will not, simply won’t, use frozen soft-shell crab. Scallops, then. Very large, tender scallops. Will scallops be in season? There’s a moment—only a few weeks—when they’re not available, in the winter. What if they’re not available?
Who will work the kitchen, with JJ and Lulu in California? James will help. O-Lan will help. And there must be someone else. Leo won’t set foot in the restaurant until the party. He must only be impressed. Of course, impressing Leo will require an extreme purchase of liquor. Dagou will figure it out. He knows it’ll work out. Even if it requires desperate measures. It will, it must be done. At this thought, a rushing, cool relief reaches to his fingertips.
At one a.m., he broadcasts the news on FM 88.8. “I’m going to throw the Greatest Christmas Party ever! Six-thirty on Christmas Eve, that’s tomorrow, everyone’s invited! There’ll be liquor and libations! There’ll be unimaginable Chinese specialties! There’ll be high spirits and fellowship and good cheer!”
He spends the rest of the night downstairs in the restaurant kitchen, 122preparing a strategy for every dish. Checking on the duck. Making quantities of sweet bean paste. His family thinks he’s lazy and disorganized; they don’t know what he can be like when he’s inspired. Every dish will show the community that Dagou is the bigger man and the most gifted cook: stronger, more generous, more enterprising, more forward-facing, the future of the Haven Chao dynasty. For those who notice such things and who have loyalty to give, he’ll be stronger. For those who come only for free food, he’ll provide better.
Shortly before the sun is up, he posts a hand-lettered sign on the restaurant door: CLOSED for private party. Closing the restaurant is the kind of thing Leo Chao never approved unless it was his idea and his party. Dagou tapes the sign with duct tape.
He removes the plow from his Toyota, swaps the Ford for his truck, and drives from one business to the next. In his mind, he’s already in the kitchen, making dinner. He’s not thinking much about the proprietors he’s speaking to, or what they say, or the money he spends.
At six a.m., he’s knocking at the front door of the Shire poultry farm, where everyone has been awake for at least an hour. Dagou pays with a hundred-dollar bill for eight chickens. He’s at the local food coop when the door opens at seven a.m. He purchases, with cash, every stick of asparagus they have, and a quantity of oranges besides. Back at the Fine Chao, he makes gallons of chicken broth. The kitchen windows steam; a delicious smell of broth escapes into the wintry morning when he leaves the restaurant for more shopping.
He’s waiting at the door when Mary Wa arrives to open up the Oriental Food Mart. He shoulders past her into the store with barely a hello. He runs back and forth, consulting his list and piling vegetables on the counter. He piles up baby bok choy, plus package after blocks of noodles, a number of boxes from the freezer section, blocks of pressed tofu, giant bottles of sweet fermented rice concentrate, and pounds of red beans. It’s enough to fill two grocery carts.
“I need you to call the seafood truck,” Dagou says, as he returns to the counter moments later, his arms filled with ginger. 123
“They won’t come out this far,” Mary says. The truck, which drives fresh seafood up from Louisiana, is generally intercepted in Chicago.
“Make them come this far.”
“It’s not worth the money to them,” she says.
“I’ll make it worth the money,” Dagou growls, and opens his backpack. From this he draws forth a large stack of bills. Mary Wa’s eyes bulge. She can see inside the backpack a half-drunk bottle and still more money.
“Where did you get all that cash, you unfilial child?”
“None of your business, Ma Wa,” Dagou says. “I want to buy five pounds of fresh shrimp with the heads on, ten pounds with the heads off. I want ten live lobsters, three pounds of crab, five pounds of jellyfish, all you have of sharks’ fins, and”—he pauses, peering at the ceiling—“abalone? I suppose they won’t have the abalone. Find out, and if she does, get it for me. I need ’em to come out here now. I need it all by about one o’clock at the latest.” He pauses again. “Also, don’t tell her it’s for me. I don’t want my father to know about this.”
“Dagou, I’m worried you are heading for big trouble,” Mary Wa says, as she goes to the back room.
“That’s none of your business,” he calls after her.
As Dagou storms out, he stops in front of Alice, who has taken her seat at the stool, a little pale and sleepy. Dagou looks her over. She’s small-breasted, hook-nosed, with long arms and legs, long fingers, and a long, gracefully curved neck. Not bad. “My brother wants to sleep with you,” he says. “You should make him happy.” He sees her little mouth open, her features loosen in surprise. He shoots her a lewd grin and leaves the store.
The cab of the Toyota gives off a strong odor that reminds him of his father: the smell of alcohol and stale sweat. He remembers, without meaning to, Leo Chao in his loose working clothes, arms swinging at his sides, shouldering his way into the restaurant after a night away from home; Leo counting bills with his outsized hands.
He texts Brenda, to remind her that the party is at six-thirty.
From the Was’, he drives straight to the American liquor store. He 124walks in and orders cases of wine, beer, gin, vodka, mixers, and more whiskey, paying in cash.
“No, on second thought, double the liquor. I want to get everybody drunk,” he says to the proprietor, who helps him move case after case into the truck (already loaded with groceries from the Was’, plus oranges, lemons, limes, and maraschino cherries). “I want to get everyone especially drunk. But not as drunk as I want to get myself. You’re invited. Can you come?”
“I’m working late tonight,” says the proprietor. “Holidays. Sorry. Hope everyone has a good time. Merry Christmas.”
Late in the morning, Dagou signs in at the hospital as a visitor to Winnie Chao, bringing a thermos of broth with seaweed and a beaten egg white, a bouquet of balloons, and a Christmas card. Winnie’s voice is stronger; she has more color in her face. She beams as Dagou gives her a full report about his plans for the party. He tells her he’s invited his father. He’s done it indirectly, taping an invitation to the front door at the house. He wouldn’t disobey his mother, but he won’t speak to Leo.
Back in the truck, he texts Brenda for the second time: Party is at six-thirty. Don’t forget!
Early in the afternoon, two of the Skaer nephews and their friends, Tyrone and Freedy Davis, arrive at the restaurant with a largish package wrapped in butcher paper. He and James greet them at the door.
“What’s this?”
Cody Skaer shrugs. “It’s ten pounds of stew meat. My dad heard on the radio that you’re having a big party. He’s sending this meat along, compliments of the family.”
At his side, James flinches. “Dagou,” he whispers, “Ming says—”
Dagou notices Tyrone and Freedy examining the restaurant menu. Ming has always said the Skaers were racist bullies, but Ming has always been paranoid. Can the Skaers really be racists if they have Black friends? Dagou unwraps the package. “Mutton!” he says. A gift from an unexpected source; the generosity and forgivingness of Christmastime. This would be the red stew. He asks James to chop a lot of ginger and five bunches of scallions to go with it. He tells Cody, “You’re all invited to 125the party!” He doesn’t believe the Skaers will come—he knows that they, mysteriously, hold something against him. But he wants to make sure they know they’re invited.
He prepares some takeout to send with the nephews back to Trey Skaer: a quart of wonton soup, a large order of chicken with broccoli, and a large order of orange beef.
Tyrone lingers near the kitchen, observing with curiosity the crowded counters, the enormous, steaming pots of broth. “What’s all this for?”
“It’s gonna be the best meal ever,” Dagou says. “You like Chinese food?”
“My family moved here from Houston. Lots of Chinese food. I love it.”
“Are you interested in restaurants?”
“I’m going into the business.”
Perfect. “Listen, would you and your brother want to come back? Could I hire you to help with the party? I’ll pay you, and I’ll show you some tips, fifteen dollars an hour, each. Cash.”
In half an hour Tyrone and Freedy are back. Dagou gives them aprons and sets them to chopping vegetables.
For the third time, he texts Brenda. Did you get my texts?
After several minutes, his phone beeps with a reply. He has to read the message twice before he can comprehend the words.
Sorry, Eric Braun has unexpectedly come back to town. Hope it’s okay for me to bring him to the party.
As far as parties are concerned, there are many ways to greatness. There’s greatness of style, of setting, of occasion, and of company. There’s greatness of food. But behind the most magnificent parties—the spirit, the festivity, the celebration, and the meal—there must beat a generous heart. Dagou’s skills in the kitchen are a gift from God. But his heart is Winnie’s. Her lavishness, her extravagance flowing from a need to share, to please, and to heal.
Now, as the first guests enter laden with Bibles and wrapped presents, 126they gaze about and gasp; the small dining room has been transformed by Katherine into a Christmas gift. Tiny lights outline the ceiling and the walls. The red tablecloths sparkle with glitter and glow with lit centerpieces. The faded scarlet lamps are delicately garlanded with ribbons and real holly berries. Suffusing the scene is a mouthwatering blend of succulent and savory smells. Proudly, Katherine welcomes everyone by name. Dagou has given her the role of hostess. He’s in the kitchen, setting out the courses and preparing for the final, torrid stir-fries; neither he nor James can long be spared to stand at the door. Brenda is nowhere in sight.
Katherine shows the guests where to put their Christmas presents. She seats them near the twinkling fir tree. Everyone smiles and nods, trying to make their love palpable, making sure she feels the warmth of belonging. Mary Wa presses a wrapped gift into her hands. This is something Winnie used to do—in the years before she renounced possessions, Winnie always gave Katherine a gift at the party.
“Thank you,” Katherine says, tears pricking her eyes.
When they are settled, Mary Wa puts on her reading spectacles and opens her Bible.
“‘At one time,’” she begins, in Mandarin, “‘we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.’”
“‘But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared.’” Ken Fan continues, “‘he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.’”
“‘He saved us,’” reads Lynn’s mother, “‘through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.’”
Katherine wipes her eyes. Returning to the door, she greets the Chens and their son, Corey, the doctor who helped care for Winnie the night before; he’s brought along a plus-one, a young man from Taipei. Next to arrive are the latest newcomers, an architect with his American 127wife, who smiles at Katherine over the heads of their brown-haired children. Fang and Alice arrive, dressed up as Christmas elves, Alice in a loose-fitting green velvet thrift-store tunic, and Fang in a red-and-green-striped hat.
James darts over to stand near Alice for a moment, then rushes off to fetch her a Sprite with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry.
“Thanks, James,” says Alice. Together, they duck into the hall. Near the office, she kisses him.
“Alice,” James begins, his heart knocking against his apron, “tonight, after the party, do you want to—”
“Ho, ho, ho! Merrrrrrrry Christmas!”
Leo Chao tromps in through the back door, crowned in the Santa Claus hat he has worn every year for as long as everyone can remember. Removing his coat, he’s resplendent in an eye-watering lime-green and scarlet plaid Christmas sweater, decorated with small, obnoxiously jingling bells. Following him are his winter poker buddies, three men in Carhartt jackets smelling of stale sweat and cold. Seeing James with Alice, Leo slaps James, hard, on the back. “Go get it, son!” Then he heads to the bar, where he introduces his buddies to Jerry Stern, and to Jerry’s plus-one, Maud Marcus, a woman running for town council. The poker friends can’t stay for dinner because they have Christmas Eve at home, but they take stools at the bar, laconic and content.
Back in the dining room, Katherine checks her phone. “It’s Ming again,” she tells Mary. Ming has been texting her all afternoon. The blizzard joined to a nor’easter on the previous night, creating a pile-up of flight delays. She’s told everyone the story of Ming’s texts over the last twenty-four hours: how long he sat on the plane, how many times the pilot changed the length of the delay. The number of times the plane circled before diverting to another city. After landing in Hartford, Ming rented a car, and all day he’s been driving back to Wisconsin, driving through the snow. He’s changed his mind; he wants to be in Haven, he wants to see their mother. He wants to attend the party. Mary tells Katherine 128that the party is going to last late into the night, and Ming might still make it, but they both know he won’t.
Dagou, in a bright red apron, emerges from the kitchen and urges the guests to be seated. He checks each section of the room: the pitcher of water for the readers, who have moved on from Titus to Matthew; the supply of whiskey for the farmers at the bar; and, especially, the door. He’s glaring at the door when it opens to reveal Brenda with a tall, good-looking, dark-haired man. Brenda makes contact with Dagou’s glare. Then she introduces everyone to Eric Braun.
There’s a lull in all conversations, even the reading, as everyone inspects Eric. With his square jaw and penetrating brown eyes, the man is unmistakably a rival to Dagou. Dagou turns and stalks back into the kitchen.
For an hour, there’s nothing to eat but shrimp chips with soda, beer, wine, and liquor of every type procurable in Haven. This is Dagou’s social strategy: to get everybody drunk; and although Leo, Lynn’s father, and the poker friends are the only true drinkers among them, the sheer amount and variety of alcohol inspires everyone to get tipsier than usual. Around six-thirty, the farmers, somewhat reluctantly, return home to their own family celebrations. Leo tends bar. In the kitchen, O-Lan frenetically rolls out pancakes for the duck, and Dagou cooks them in two pans. James sneaks out, searching for Alice. Near the tree, Katherine is encouraging the new half-Asian children, who have been silently watching, to join in with the other children. At last, they put down their Sprites and enter the ruckus. It’s a moment before James spots Alice. She’s sitting with her brother and Lynn and with Brenda and her guest, near the corner. James waves at her, making his way around the guests toward her table. Pink spots come into her cheeks.
As James reaches the table, Alice is asking Lynn how her journalism class is going.
“Horrible.” Lynn shakes her head. She explains she’s not lively or 129assertive enough to reach out to other human beings. “I wake up filled with dread,” she says, “whenever I’m supposed to conduct an interview, make a deadline, or turn in an article. My parents were right. I’ll never make it as a journalist.”
Fang points at her with a shrimp chip. “It’s impossible to write about the truth from within an institution. You say you can’t do journalism, but in reality you can’t figure out how to get an A.”
“But I have to get an A,” Lynn says. “Getting an A is the first and only step. I’m a terrible grade-grubber.”
“Ice!” Leo yells, signaling to James from the bar. “More ice!”
James leaves Fang, Lynn, and Alice. He makes his way down to the basement, the party tumult dimming, until he reaches the freezer room and there’s only a faint sound of cheering from above.
Entering the freezer, he reaches for the string to the single bulb, and the room jumps brightly into place around him. It’s an ancient unit, and one James himself rarely enters. He hasn’t been inside for almost a year. There are brick walls, and a crumbling brick layer along one side that’s only partially repaired and repainted; there are old metal racks where his father stores the meat, wrapped in variously shaped packages, and miscellaneous frozen foods he doesn’t recognize. There’s the extra ice bin in the corner, and a veritable army of vodka bottles. James shivers, reminded of Dagou’s broadcast. He leaves the door open, and, as he has been taught, he checks for the exit key before going farther into the room. There it is, on its shelf. It’s a large brass key with a square head. He hurries to the bin and seizes two bags of ice, hauls them upstairs to the bar, where Leo welcomes them with a nod.
In the kitchen, Dagou checks the clock. It’s six-fifty p.m., time for the first course: shrimp with heads on, spinach and pressed tofu, sea cucumber, cold jellyfish. Over at Brenda’s table—Dagou avoids looking at Eric, but he can’t help seeing Brenda—she waves to him, points at the kitchen, but he shakes his head. She’s not allowed to help. 130
He’s given James a muttered rundown of the facts: Eric Braun was captain of the football team in high school, when he and Brenda were involved. Homecoming king, the big man on campus, always an asshole. He went to college at Northwestern, majored in business, and made a lot of money in a northern suburb selling commercial real estate. He also married, had a son, and divorced. He’s returned to Haven for Christmas, and in the last twenty-four hours he’s taken Brenda out for drinks and lunch. Now he’s her guest at the party.
Dagou avoids Brenda’s eyes as he and James, Freedy, and Tyrone pass around small plates of tender cold chicken, and braised gluten.
At seven-fifteen, asparagus, pork belly, and soup with seafood dumplings.
Now comes the Peking duck. Dagou has directed a man or woman in each group of six to carve the ducks, which are served properly with scallions, plum sauce, and one pancake per person. The dish takes a long time to serve, but each duck is perfectly tender and the skin crisp under its mahogany gloss.
“Let me help!” Brenda pipes up, grabbing James’s sleeve.
James glances at Dagou; Dagou shakes his head. James has been instructed to make sure Brenda does no work tonight.
James makes his way to Brenda’s table and passes on his instructions. For a fleeting moment, watching Brenda’s face, James is certain Dagou isn’t letting her help not only because she’s a guest of honor, but because she has hurt him.
What does Dagou have in mind? James wonders. He can’t tell what Brenda’s thinking or feeling, but he notices she’s wearing more lipstick and eye makeup than usual. Is it possible, James wonders, that Dagou knows this one thing about Brenda she doesn’t know about herself: That she actually wants to work? Loves the swinging doors, the hectic insanity of the kitchen? Loves wooing, cajoling, and pleasing the customers?
Near Eric Braun, Alice sits dreamily over an untouched plate of Peking duck. James brings pancakes, but she doesn’t want any. He promises her the most mouthwatering dish will be a mutton stew. 131
“No thanks,” Alice says. “I’ve decided to be a vegetarian.”
“It’s eat or be eaten,” says Lynn. “Mutton stew, yum.”
Fang turns to her, grins, and shakes his head in some mysterious warning.
Eric Braun seems confused by their conversation and this restaurant: by its crowdedness and unusual smells, by its cacophonous conversations, many in a language he doesn’t know, by so many black heads, slanted eyes. Sitting next to Brenda, he peers around the room and straightens slightly, defensively, as though he’s surrounded by goblins. It’s not until Fang engages him on the subject of alternate currencies that Eric begins to relax into his cups. James watches very closely. There it is, in Brenda’s posture: relief. James doesn’t know how he knows this—what unfolding instinct has enabled him to read her. But he’s sure of it. Brenda excuses herself. She stands up, takes off her cardigan, and moves toward the kitchen in her snugly fitting red dress. She’s going to serve, permitted or no.
It’s a simple stir-fry of hollow-hearted vegetable, dressed up slightly with tiny dried shrimps.
“Ren,” shouts Dagou, from halfway across the room. Together, he and James, Tyrone, and Freedy have finished lugging out tureens of soup. “You don’t help tonight. You’re a guest of honor!”
Brenda straightens up, vibrant, gorgeous. “Of course I want to help,” she cries. “It’s an honor to help such a marvelous chef. This meal is an achievement!”
And as the words leave her mouth, everyone knows what she says is true. Their bodies are lighter, their souls expanded. It is a breathtaking meal created by a truly gifted chef, a man who has reached for and has grasped the power of his life’s possibility. They will remember it forever.
Dagou is elated. He shines like the sun. Beams of happiness and sweat rise visibly from his collar. For a moment, just long enough to snap a photo, he and Brenda glow at one another.
“Chip off the old block!” yells Leo Chao. “Look, I can sit in my own restaurant, do nothing, and get served banquet food by a beautiful woman!” 132
Dagou ignores this. He, James, and Brenda retreat to work on the next course. Behind the kitchen doors, Dagou reaches, leans toward her. James tries not to listen, but his brother has no interest in keeping his feelings a secret.
“This party is really for you. You’re a guest of the family,” Dagou exclaims. “I wanted it all for you. Are you going to get together with that bozo, or what?”
Smiling, Brenda shakes her head.
He nudges her toward the dining room. But neither of them moves; they stand holding hands. Something’s burning on the stove. When James passes them a moment later, carrying extra spoons, he backs off slightly from their radiance. They look as if they are aflame with beauty. He can almost see the stream of happiness flowing through them. Dagou beaming, handsome. Brenda a torch of dazzling light.
They wait until the guests have polished off the greens and the entire soup dish. Then they collect themselves in time to serve the red stew.
This is the mutton, deep and spicy, meat slipping from the bones, so tender and so flavorful that everyone wants seconds. It’s the meat the Skaers delivered, and although they’d sent a generous amount, there isn’t quite as much of it as there is of everything else.
Eric Braun is entirely taken by the mutton dish. He’s consumed a good-sized serving and now he reaches with his fork over to Brenda’s plate. He’s the only person at his table who is eating with a fork. Carelessly, Brenda pushes her own portion to his plate with chopsticks. Then she stacks the platters, making space on the table for the crispy noodles covered lavishly with seafood.
The Bibles have long been put away. Near the Christmas tree, Mrs. Chin, her anxiety over Lynn’s journalistic ambitions forgotten, is making a video to send to Winnie, while, in the corner, Lynn herself is deep in conversation with Fang about whether to switch her major back to data science. Corey’s mother is taking a photograph of Corey and his plus-one under the mistletoe, and Katherine is texting at top speed. In the middle of this, James becomes aware of a woman in the corner, talking 133to a couple of nuns. She’s looks Chinese American, around Dagou’s age; she’s a plump woman wearing red-rimmed glasses, her hair cut into bangs across her forehead. “… my grandfather, my junior year abroad,” James hears her say, “and we kept in touch.” The nuns are calmly nodding. She finishes speaking, rises, heads in the direction of the bathroom.
“Do you know who that is?” he asks his brother, pointing.
Dagou shrugs. “No idea. A stranger. A stranger appears! She must have heard the invite on the radio.” He slaps James on the back. James grins. But he puzzles over the unknown woman. He has the sense he’s met her somewhere before. While collecting another round of empty plates, he sees her looking over at him and he hurries into the kitchen. When he comes out, she’s talking to Mary Wa.
“I’m a vegetarian,” Alice says again, when Fang points out she’s eaten no meat.
“May I get anything else for you?” James asks. “We made some plain dishes for the people from the Spiritual House.” He leans close to her, ostensibly so she can hear him, but actually because he wishes to be near. He speaks into her ear. “After the party, should I come over to your house?”
“Yes, please,” Alice says.
Now the room is filled with warmth and light.
Dagou is bringing out bottles of champagne. He leads Brenda to her seat, gives her a little bow, and uncorks a bottle for her.
On the other side of the room, Leo Chao in his Santa Claus hat has sent the stranger back to the nuns’ table, dismissing her questions with a few loud, cheerful remarks. He’s now popping corks and passing out bottles, talking and laughing. He stands, straightens, like a bear on its hind legs. There’s a hush; everyone turns to look.
Leo nods around the room. The bells on his sweater jingle as he holds up his glass.
“My wife, Winnie, would tell me to shut up. But she’s in the hospital! So I’ll talk!”
There’s some nervous laughter at this. Near James, Dagou shifts his weight. 134
“Winnie would disagree,” Leo goes on, “but what can I say? We disagreed about many things! She was always dragging me to church, even though she was a Buddhist. Always hoping some kind of spiritual teaching would rub off on me. Christmas party! Even from the hospital, she wants to remind me about the life of Jesus Christ.”
In the moment that follows this undeniably true statement, motionless but for the slight shiver of bells, Dagou clears his throat. He puts a hand on James’s shoulder. He’s touching him for strength. James looks around at him, concerned. Dagou’s sweating, swelling like a bullfrog, glowering at Leo.
“Why don’t you listen to her, then?” he shouts. “Just listen to her, for once!”
“Because she’s crazy. It’s all chemical!” Leo bellows back. “You’re younger—you don’t know about that time of life. It starts in her fifties, when a woman dries up. She does and says whatever she wants.” James almost smiles. Menopause doesn’t sound too bad, to hear his father tell it. “She drops womanhood like an old sock. There’s no reason to please anybody anymore!”
“You leave my mother alone!” shouts Dagou.
“Get some tranquility,” shouts Leo, a grin splitting his face. “Calm down and apologize!”
“I’ll never apologize!”
“Well then, time’s up. I told everyone, at the hospital! I’m selling the restaurant, and you and your girlfriend are going to have to look for new jobs!”
He points at Dagou, and the bells on his sweater sparkle under the lights.
Dagou is pale. James’s own hands grow cold. It’s hard to keep listening, though some deep instinct is telling him to be alert, for his own sake as well as for his brother’s.
Ken Fan’s voice comes clearly through the hush. “You’re sure you can’t sell it to Dagou?”
“Are you kidding? No, I’m selling it to some guy from the mainland, 135this guy I know in Chicago. Cash on the barrel! This guy, he wants it as an investment. He knows nothing, he wants to turn it into an ‘all-you-can-eat’ food factory. You know, unlimited ice cream, crab-legs Sundays, I don’t know how those places ever turn a profit, it’s probably money laundering, but it’s not my problem!”
Dagou is edging from the room. When James turns to follow, Dagou motions to him: Stay there. James knows he must stay and pay attention to what else is said. He doesn’t quite believe Leo; yet he almost wishes to believe him, wishes Dagou were on his own, free of the restaurant.
“Yeah, it’s time for me to move on to new things! Business abroad, business in Shanghai—I’m not selling my house, but I can’t be tied up here in Haven every day. This is our final Christmas party here, so drink up! And to my son, our host, the big spender? Good luck with your new job. You’re unemployed.” Leo raises his glass. “To the future!”
There’s some troubled murmuring.
Ken Fan calls out, “To Winnie’s health!” and more people cheer.
“Winnie is better!” Mary Wa chimes in. “They release her to rehab next week!”
There’s a great deal of clapping and shouting at her words.
“To Dagou, generous man!” chimes in Mrs. Chin.
“To Dagou,” echoes Alice Wa across the room, her face a mottled pink.
“To my brother,” says James, raising a glass, “who taught me everything I know!”
“To the Chao family, a part of our great town and our community!” declares Maud Marcus.
“To the Chaos,” pipes up Fang, red-faced under his striped hat. “To the Chinese brothers! For this surfeit of extravagance, and with warning!”
At the words the Chinese brothers, James cocks his head. Fang is referencing something. James senses an echo of, back to childhood, but he can’t place it.
“What do you mean?” James asks Fang. The toasts are in Mandarin now, going on over their heads. Eric leans politely in to listen. “This is a surfeit of good food, and it’s an extravagance, but what’s the warning?” 136
“Read the bones,” says Fang.
“To Winnie!” someone yells again. “To Winnie’s health!”
“What bones?” James asks, with Eric and Brenda listening.
“These bones.” Fang points at Eric’s plate. “Maybe they don’t know what they’re eating.”
A hush of fear comes over James. “The meat was a gift.”
“To Mary Wa, for her help over the years!”
“It’s from the Skaers,” Fang says.
“I know. So what?” asks James. “Dagou invited them. They couldn’t make it to the party, so they sent this. It was a gift.”
“Is it a gift if what they send is dog meat?”
For a moment, the chattering from the room presses in around their silent little group.
Fang blinks. “Oh shit. I was just—”
There’s a sudden hacking cough. It’s Eric. He’s not coughing; he is gagging.
Brenda touches his shoulder. “Eric?”
Eric stiffens. “Let me get out!”
James jumps up. “I’ll take you to the bathroom.” He snatches a glass from the table and heads toward the back. Eric follows blindly, coughing into his hands. Everyone turns to watch.
In the bathroom, James waits while Eric throws up in a stall. Eric has eaten a lot of stew, and now, seeing and smelling the half-digested soup of what he has eaten, and knowing what it might be (is it possible?), sends him into another round of vomiting. He retches and retches again.
“Fuck. Oh fuck.”
James remembers Dagou unwrapping the paper package of stew meat, aglow over the generous gift. Was it too good to be true?
When Eric straightens up, his face slick with vomit, James turns the taps to warm so he can wash.
“What the fuck?” Eric gasps over the faucet.
James considers what to say.
“Do you think it’s true?” 137
Skaer’s Diner is the last of what was once a cluster of family businesses: a bar, two restaurants, and a butcher’s. Once, when they were both in middle school, Trey Skaer shoved Ming’s face into the toilet at the butcher’s. Where did the Skaers get that gift of meat? And where is Alf?
James hands Eric a glass of water. “It’s not true,” he says. “Fang was just messing with you. Honestly. You feeling better now?”
“I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
Eric washes his face, and together they walk back into the dining room. The families with children have departed, and other guests are putting on their coats. Eric heads for the door. James follows him out to the foyer, where he searches the rack for his coat, mumbling. “Goodbye,” James calls after him. “Merry Christmas.” His call is muffled by the snow. Brenda stands at his elbow. Together, they watch Eric disappear into the snow-surrounded parking lot.
“Thank God he’s gone,” Brenda says. Her features are severe, her squint crowding her dark lashes close together. She crosses her arms, huffs a cloud of steam. After a minute, a BMW pulls out and turns quickly into the street, tires squeaking.
“Didn’t you invite him?” James asks carefully.
“We went out in high school. He just got divorced, has partial custody of a son. Decided I was the one who got away.”
“He didn’t seem comfortable here.”
“No kidding. Well, you win some, you lose some.” But she turns back toward the restaurant with an expression of anticipation.
James monitors the consumption of dessert. First, the guests are served a fresh fruit plate with local apples and pears, orange slices, pineapple, and pomegranate. Next comes Brenda’s favorite, long-life peach-shaped red bean paste dumplings. Finally, each group of remaining guests is given a big bowl of hot sweet fermented rice broth with smaller dumplings made with sticky rice and black sesame seed paste.
Freedy and his brother enjoy second bowls of the rice broth. They’re sitting with Fang and Alice, holding their bowls Chinese-style, with steam rising on their faces. Katherine, who in the last hour has grown increasingly 138crestfallen and pale, has gotten up to collect the plates. James wishes Ming were here. He tries to talk to her, but she says, “I’m okay,” waving him off. She has the determined expression of someone planning to stay until the bitter end.
Leo is now at the bar again, red-faced. “More ice!” he roars at James.
James goes back down the basement steps and hurries into the freezer room, checks again to make sure the key is still on the shelf, and grabs another bag of ice.
When he comes upstairs, almost all of the guests have stumbled into the foyer.
“Fabulous,” someone says. This is Jerry Stern’s friend Maud, the one who’s running for the town council.
Maud is holding Brenda’s two hands in her own leather-gloved hands and gushing, as if Brenda is the wealthy hostess of an ornate home, “Brenda, you’ve become a part of something marvelous here.”
And Brenda, as if this woman has ever given her the time of day, gushes back, “It’s been lovely to see you, Maud.”
“I’ve eaten myself drunk,” Mary Wa is saying. “Let’s go home.”
In twos and threes, the final dinner guests stroll out into the snowy, crystalline night, relaxed, their eyes shining and their earlobes pink, desiring nothing.
In the empty dining room, Dagou looks victoriously around at the mess. The guests have left wet napkins, crumpled napkins, napkins festooned over the backs of chairs, overturned wineglasses, champagne flutes and soup bowls, fruit peelings and half-eaten fruits, garlands of poinsettias, at least two neckties, and a number of holiday presents piled on the front table.
While James and Freedy collect the trash, Tyrone gathers the tablecloths and napkins. They all work together to collect the dishes. Freedy and Tyrone, who live in her neighborhood, have offered Brenda a ride 139home. She invites each of them to choose something from the pile of presents, and packs the rest into a couple of shopping bags. Dagou gives them a wad of twenties. He thinks of the sensual happiness with which Brenda passed around the dishes. He’s eager to be alone with her. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he says. She smiles at him and steps out the front door.
He passes Katherine in the hall; her eye makeup is a little smudged. He can sense her anguish. He thinks, in her direction: Please leave. To his relief, the next time he comes through, Katherine is nowhere to be seen.
Leo directs James to stack the leftover whiskey at the base of the stairs. Later, Dagou sees his father talking to O-Lan. O-Lan is listening with a private, knowing look Dagou has seen before, an expression she wears only when talking to his father. “… thinks he’s a big spender!” Leo’s saying in Mandarin, slurring a bit. Dagou’s hands shake. He tries to focus on the memory of Brenda’s warm, brilliant voice telling the entire room he was a marvelous chef, the meal was an achievement. He imagines bounding through the deep, white, holy night, weightlessly, up to her door.
“Everything okay?” James asks, emerging from the stairs. Calm enough, but with a faint glimmering about his features that Dagou, heartstrings twanging, recognizes.
“Sure. Listen,” Dagou says. “You’re gonna get laid tonight. You’ve got guaranteed admission. I know it!” Pride swells into his mind: perfection. “Listen, you gotta use my apartment.”
James blinks, confusion shifting to a bewildered gratitude. “No, no—”
“My pad! It’s perfect! Come on, little brother. Your first time!”
“What about you?”
Dagou winks. “I got plans elsewhere. Just use my place! And forget the restaurant. We cleaned; don’t bother to set up. You can do it tomorrow morning. Go get her!” he adds, as James begins to protest. “I’m leaving soon.”
“… his Life Savings!” Leo Chao is saying to O-Lan.
“Get out of here,” Dagou says to James. “Good luck tonight!” 140
O-Lan, looking tired and grim, is taking off her apron. It’s ten minutes to midnight. “You can go home now,” Dagou tells her, and for perhaps the first real time, he wonders if she does have a home.
There’s a shout from the stairs. His father has found more leftover vodka. “Hey,” he calls out to Dagou, “help me bring this to the freezer!”
His father is hoarding the vodka, Dagou knows, for his own use.
“You’re going to miss that bar,” he says, hustling past Leo, who is swigging a final finger from one of the bottles.
“Ha!” Leo’s guffaw is like a blow. “I haven’t sold this place! I was bluffing. Sucker! You believed me?”
Dagou says nothing. His father can take everything else: the vodka, the profits, and the restaurant; yet he won’t take one more day of Dagou’s life. He loads the final dishes. Once again, rising like hot steam into the crevices and alleyways of his memory, past the windows, past the cornices and roofs and turrets and towers of his reasoning mind, unfurls his dark dream.
“Hey!” His father’s roar from below knocks out his breath. “Get those bottles down here. You want to be here until Christmas morning?” Dagou hears, from the basement, the jingle of bells.
“Hey, loser!”
Moving numbly, Dagou picks up a half case. Not feeling its weight, he stands at the top of the stairs. He can hear his father’s muffled singing, sardonic, sentimental in his deep baritone voice, exaggerating the held notes.
“Siiiiilent niiiiight …”
He hears the creak of the freezer door. The floor is dissolving, as if through the curls of black steam rising from below, and he is falling, falling into darkness. The restaurant is empty and his father is in the freezer. The events unfold themselves to him as they have a dozen, a hundred, even a thousand times: himself, having done what he has long imagined doing, emerging from the basement, turning off the lights, walking freely out into the silent night. All is calm, all is bright.
Carrying the vodka, Dagou descends the stairs. 141
Katherine puts on her coat, alone, but not empty-handed. How did Mary Wa remember Winnie has always given her a Christmas gift? Typically, something unfathomable: a china piggy bank, a Badgers baseball shirt. Once, a set of tiny matching silver ear-cleaners. She and Dagou had a running joke about those presents. Still, she treasured them. It was not precisely the thought that counted, not for Katherine and Winnie—but the ritual of the gift. This year, Winnie no longer believes in material possessions. But Mary Wa has remembered. Clutching her present, Katherine ducks into the bathroom. She’s promised herself not to unwrap it until Christmas morning. She’ll be in Sioux City, where she and her parents will have piled two dozen colorful boxes under the tree, and she’ll have brought with her this one package from Haven. A most likely puzzling, probably goofy reminder of the community, of Winnie. Winnie, alone at the hospital. Winnie, seeking tranquility. What is nothingness like? Dagou is gone. Katherine shuts her eyes. Against her burning lids, she can still see Dagou and Brenda, torch-lit, clutching hands. They are one. In their fleshiness; in their beauty, almost coarse; in their matching physicality of charismatic light: they are one. She is gripped by panic; her heart quails. What is there in all the world? Standing at the sink, she removes one of her mittens. Using a fingernail, she makes a tiny rip on the corner of the package. There’s a flash of embossed gold: it’s a Bible.
The exploration began more than a dozen years ago, in college. Raised white, by a white family in a white city, she first reacted to Dagou with resistance, even repugnance. She rebuffed his advances in the same way she rejected that unknown part of herself. He rose to the challenge, insisting she meet him at the Asian American Students House for the Lunar New Year party. Why not? he teased. He wasn’t inviting her to the Language Club; she wouldn’t have to learn Chinese. Was she not curious, did she not want to explore even this watered-down version of Asian culture? Of course, it wasn’t only culture he wanted her to explore. 142Dagou, funny and self-deprecating, was even then a specialist of appetite and lust. Dagou, with his old-country parents and Haven community, became, over the years, a desire, a fixation.
She gazes at the green jade glowing on her finger. She listens to scraps of conversation: Dagou and his father moving the liquor, Leo Chao bellowing and singing from the stairs. Then quiet. She tucks Mary’s gift back under her arm. She wipes her eyes and leaves the restroom, nodding at O-Lan in her puffy coat. She won’t go back into the dining room, doesn’t want to see the tattered decorations. Doesn’t want to say goodbye to anyone; they’re probably assuming she’s already gone. She’s going to leave through the rear door. As she makes her way back down the hall, a light catches her attention. The door to Leo’s office is open.