It is only the true chefs who gut their own fish, and sometimes even they instruct Da to have it done for them. Da looks down at the old woman’s hands, thick-fingered and resting lightly on top of the glass case, and wonders how well she yields a knife. It does not seem to Da that she has the requisite flexibility or delicate touch to do the job right. But it is what she wants and he knows from the stories told about her at the dinner table that one does not question Miss Rosen.
Da nods at his cousin Bai, who works alongside Da perpetually, constantly, day after day, chattering in Da’s ear all manner of naughty things when the shop is empty of customers, naughty things Da can’t stop thinking about, unsure if he is interested in them or not, naughty things falling out of Bai’s mouth even when Da says, “Bai, despite your name, you are no person of purity.” Bai lifts the hefty bass off the ice, begins wrapping it in thick white paper, using too little tape as always, until Da throws him a sharp look, and Bai returns it with a shoulder shrug, then rips an overly long strip through the teeth of the holder.
Without Da being aware, Miss Rosen has moved deeper into the store, to another case, this one open to the air. He hurries after her and slips behind the case she stands before, staring down into the mound of prawns piled high. The tiger shrimp of the sea, is how Da thinks of them. Brown and orange shells, skinny feelers, and those angry black eyes moving around ever so slightly. The air and the ice doing them in.
“When did those arrive?” she wants to know.
“Two hours ago,” Da says.
Paloma nods her head. “Ten pounds, merci. And your cod?”
“Follow me,” Da says, slipping back into the aisle, gently grasping her elbow, steering her way.
“Très bon,” she says, looking at the cod laid out in a perfect, synchronous row. “That display speaks to me, Young Wong, as if the fish were marching forward into battle, or are the stakes of an iridescent picket fence. I’ll take eight, petites, s’il vous pla?t.”
The only customer, Da thinks, to ever notice how he has arranged any fish in any of the twenty cases in the store.
Da nods again at Bai, and says, “Eight, Bai,” and then in rapid Mandarin, “Nǐ tīng shuōguò ba?”
Bai says under his breath, “I heard that cousin, I’m not an idiot,” and Da shrugs his shoulders.
“Et enfin, anchovies,” Miss Rosen says.
Da speaks no French, only fish, and leads her to the case with the anchovies.
“Ten pounds, merci. Eviscerated and descaled.”
Bai, following along, is crestfallen, so much work to do on ten pounds of anchovies.
When Bai does not move quickly, Da says to him, “Xiànzài zuò tā, zuò tā kuài, nǐ lǎnduò de hùnhun.” Do it now, and do it fast, you lazy bum.
“And now, deux bo?tes de caviar,” and Da indicates she should continue down the aisle, to the double-stacked and refrigerated display at the end which showcases Haiyang Best’s assortment of roes from different kinds of pregnant fish.
Opened silvered tins front each case. The roe cling to each other, froth over the edges, interesting formations Da always thinks, as if someone has carved those roe into sculptures. The exemplar tins are Da’s doing, to allow customers to see the panoply of roe the store sells. “Let them examine the color of the eggs, their size, large, or medium, or small. Let the customers imagine the skin of those eggs cracking easily or sharply between their teeth, the explosion of smokiness or saltiness assailing the senses. Allow them a taste, if they ask,” Da had said to Yéyé’ and Fùqīn, until Grandfather and Father were convinced, said he could do it his way.
Roe, Da will still eat.
“Ikura, Tobiko, Masago, Kazunoko, or Tarako?” Da asks, mentioning the types most frequently purchased.
“Quelle est la différence?” Miss Rosen asks.
Hearing the word difference, even in French, is enough for Da to understand what Miss Rosen wants to know. But he stops for a moment. Usually, he rattles off the ten types of roe they sell, but there is something about Miss Rosen, beyond what his father and grandfather used to say about her, that makes Da throw out his summary speech, want to give her the personal touch.
He opens the case and leans down to the top tray, places a finger next to the Ikura, talks with more volume than he usually would, so she can hear him through the glass—who knows if she might be deaf. “See how big these eggs are. So red-orange. Looking soft to bite into. This is Ikura, big salmon roe.
“But these tins here,” he says, pointing to a quartet of display tins all sprung open, the roe making Da think of miraculous clouds hugging one another in the sky, absolutely impossible to touch—how has he not seen this in all his days working at Haiyang Best? He should be painting tins of opened roe. His heart is pounding happily from his discovery, but he continues on without missing a beat.
“These, Miss Rosen, are varieties of Tobiko, flying fish roe. Teeny-teeny eggs. Its untouched color is red-orange, like salmon, but Tobiko is often colored. Squid ink turns the eggs black. Yuzu turns them nearly yellow.”
“Gorgeous, Young Wong,” Miss Rosen says.
“And if you look over here,” Da says, watching as Paloma follows his finger to the other side of the case. “This is Masago, smelt roe. Do you see how the eggs are even smaller than the Tobiko?” and he is gratified when the old woman vigorously nods.
From this vantage point, when she is facing Da through two panes of display glass, she does not look old at all, just gorgeous and refracted, lit up from within by a thousand-watt bulb. He rarely sees faces in his daily world that he would like to paint, but he would like to paint Miss Rosen’s. Preferably just her face and neck, perhaps the hollow of her throat, but the rest of her lost in blackness, the kind of blackness Diego Velázquez used so well, an icon of Da’s that sometimes, when he feels brave, he tries to copy, with abysmal results. But Da would try again with Miss Rosen as his subject.
“And these tins here. This is Kazunoko. Herring roe. See how it is a single cohesive mass, as if it is an intact piece of fish? It is not, but it has a firm, rubbery texture, and its natural color ranges from pink to yellow.
“And this one is called Tarako. Alaskan pollock roe that people eat salted and grilled.”
This is the best Da can do, and Miss Rosen, all five feet two inches of her, stretches back up and says, “Merci, Young Wong. I have learned so much in such a short time. Mais, je crois que le caviar vert est très beau.”
Da raises his head over the counter and looks at Miss Rosen.
“Ah, oui, yes, I think I want the green caviar, like a colony of delicate vegetation attached to an undersea rock. The color is so beautiful, so lush.”
“That is one version of our Tobiko, flying fish roe, the eggs quite small, but its coloring, the reason it is green, is because it has been mixed with the Japanese horseradish, wasabi.”
“Oui? Vraiment? I do love sushi and wasabi. So does that mean the caviar is good and spicy? Might knock people out with surprise when they spoon a bit into their mouths. Make them gasp and fall over and die?”