Dagou goes back to work at his full plate. He’s planned out every detail of the menu, but he doesn’t seem to know that he’s about to be the real meal here: he’s the main course.
Their father, seated near one end of the long table, smiles broadly. “Pass the vinegar, please!” His voice is so deep and loud that everyone turns to watch him. Holding a steaming dumpling in a large porcelain spoon, he drips a bit of sooty vinegar on top, greedy and focused. He picks up a sliver of ginger, using his chopsticks with the precision of a surgeon, and places it over the dumpling’s puckered nipple. He raises the spoon to his mouth and takes a bite.
“Hmm. It’s good,” he announces. “But I like my dumplings made with pork. Hot meat juice gushing into my mouth at the first bite. Hot, greasy, delicious pork juice!”
Dagou’s chest swells. “You know they’re vegetarians here.”
“You prefer plain dumplings?” their father shoots back.
Dagou doesn’t answer. He and their father favor meat in all of their food.
“I have nothing against ‘plain food,’” their father says, addressing the community at large. “Winnie says it’s sinful to eat living creatures, it amounts to killing, it’s an act of violence, especially because the choice is an act of will, because we can decline to eat meat, because it’s okay—and maybe even healthier, Winnie says—to eat only vegetables. She says people who stop eating meat have long life, and people who eat only vegetables have the longest life. Yeah, yeah. But, Your Elderliness”—he nods at Gu Ling Zhu Chi—“I, Leo Chao, would rather be dead than stop eating pig. I will be ash and bone chunks in a little urn before I don’t eat juicy pig.”
It’s because of people like their father that communism will never succeed. Because of simple human graspingness. Ming watches Leo beckon with chopsticks. A pimpled novice staggers from the kitchen with an enormous platter of freshly stir-fried young pea leaves. They’ve been painstakingly stripped from the stems, then soaked, washed, air-dried, and cooked quickly in hot oil with salt and garlic shavings until wilted to a steaming mound. If Leo Chao must eat vegetables, he will devour the most delicious, labor-intensive vegetables.
“Why no meat? Why ‘cessation from desire’?” Leo continues, heaping pea greens on his plate. “I love my desires. They belong to me, and so I listen to them, I believe them, and if I were a smart guy, like Fang here”—he shoots a glance at Fang, who blinks behind his glasses—“I would take notes. I want them to flourish and multiply. So, if you think the point of life is ‘cessation from desire,’ then you and I are mortally opposed. Of course, there’s no need to worry about you because you don’t believe in violence. So, you and I might as well be friends as enemies, except”—and here he grins, exposing a green stem stuck in the gap between his front teeth—“I don’t make friends.”
He turns this green grin to Gu Ling Zhu Chi, at the head of the table. If she’s annoyed, she gives no sign of it. She’s regained her tranquility. Maybe her harsh words earlier, to Dagou, were inspired by an empty stomach; then again, Ming thinks, there is no truth like the truth of what is said on an empty stomach. In vacuum veritas.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” his father is telling the abbess. “You seduced away my wife! She talks to you at one party, becomes your friend, and loses interest in meat, in sex. All of a sudden, she gives it all up!—the restaurant, the house, even the dog!—and moves into this temple. Are you too good for me, Your Peacefulness?” He pauses, momentarily distracted. For a moment it seems possible—it’s almost believable—that he’s actually hurt, that he begrudges Gu Ling Zhu Chi for stealing away Winnie. But then his features break open with laughter. “My wife—Winnie, or Sister Yun—at one time, you know, she would enjoy a good pork hock. She had juicy hocks herself!”
Ming doesn’t frown or laugh at this; he’s transcended all reactions to their father. But Dagou glowers, outraged on Winnie’s behalf. Although Dagou, too, is a dog. A dog in knight’s armor! Ming has heard him say worse about Katherine. As for Winnie, her suffering is unbearable. Yet Ming has long ago grown out of defending or protecting her. He is as loyal to her as any son, but nobody forced her to stay with their father for thirty-six years. Long ago, Ming vowed he would never marry a woman like his mother. He has never dated an Asian woman.
Now James leans toward Dagou, gazing at him in love and support. James has vowed to defend him. And Dagou nods at James, grateful for this vow. Ming sits back.
Dagou sticks out his chest. “Dad,” he says, “I invited everyone to lunch today for a conversation that will affect the whole community.”
Self-important words, surely. But a hush falls over the table. Ming can tell that everyone is waiting to hear what will happen next. Dagou’s fate doesn’t affect their livelihood or their own families. And yet the fate of these fellow Chinese parents, and these American sons, is everybody’s fate.
“Six years ago,” Dagou says, “when Ma got sick, you asked me to move back to Haven. You said when I finished helping out, you’d pay me fifty thousand bucks to resettle in New York. But if I stayed in Haven for good, you promised to make me a partner in the restaurant.”
The room has grown still. Only a few people continue to lift cautious chopsticksful of pea greens to their mouths. Ming waits for his brother to expose himself. It won’t be long.
“For six years, I’ve worked in the restaurant. I’ve upgraded the menu, fine-tuned every dish. I’ve developed a small but significant clientele who can handle a more authentic cuisine. I’ve invested my life’s passion into this place! And I’ve made a decision,” Dagou announces. “I want to be a partner at the Fine Chao, and settle down here in Haven.”
James says firmly, “That’s a great idea, Dagou.”
Their mother is smiling. Her friends regress into a momentary happiness, nodding and patting her sleeves. In the last decade, everyone has given up hope that the community in Haven might continue past their generation. With the exception of misfits like Fang and Alice, the next generation has reasonably left the wretched town to seek their fortunes in more cosmopolitan places. Now here is Dagou vowing to live at home, modeling filial piety to his age group.
“It will be nice to have a young person here in Haven,” says Ken Fan. With his thick, graying hair and gift for genial small talk, Ken is a silverback and the informal community leader. He adds, “Maybe you could get MBA, online degree.”
The whole group turns to Leo Chao, filled with hope that one of their children should be loyal to them—want to stay with them. But Ming knows that nothing between Dagou and their father was ever so simple.
Leo shakes his head. “I let you come home,” he says, “but you’re expensive.”
“Let me come home? Ha. You begged me to come home.”
“That was when Winnie got that bad pneumonia,” Mary Wa stage-whispers to her half of the table.