Auntie Helen walks up to my mother, a worried look on her face. She asks her quickly in Chinese: Not coming? Are you feeling sick?
I can’t understand all the Mandarin words, only the gist of them. It seems my mother doesn’t want anyone to worry, nothing is wrong, only a little discomfort here—and she points to her chest—because something-something has been bothering her. She mentions something-something about the banner falling down, and how her whole body has been aching ever since.
Auntie Helen rubs my mother’s back. She tells my mother she can visit Auntie Du when something-something is more quiet, not running around all over the place. And then Auntie Helen laughs and tells my mother that Auntie Du will wait, of course she will wait for her visit, she has no choice. And my mother jokes back that maybe Auntie Du has already become mad-to-death about what happened today and has flown off to something-something place where she doesn’t have to do something-something anymore with such a crazy family.
They are laughing hysterically now, laughing so hard that tears sprout from their eyes and they are barely able to catch their breath. My mother covers her mouth with her hand, giggling like a schoolgirl.
Uncle Henry drives the car up, and as Auntie Helen climbs in, she sternly reminds my mother to drink plenty of hot tea. They take off, beeping the horn twice.
“Aren’t you feeling well?” I ask my mother.
“Ah?”
“You told Auntie Helen you couldn’t go to the cemetery because you were sick.”
“I didn’t say sick. I only said I didn’t want to go. I did my duty. I sent Auntie Du to heaven. Now it’s Helen’s duty to put her inside the ground.”
That’s not what they said. And although I’m not sure I understood most of their conversation, apparently there’s a lot I don’t know about my mother and Auntie Helen.
As we drive across town to my mother’s house, Phil drops hints: “I hope we’re on the freeway before the weekend rush hour to get back home.”
My mother is making small talk. She tells me that Bao-bao may lose his job soon. This gossip she heard at the dinner from Uncle Loy, who heard it from his son. She tells me that Frank is now working the day shift as a security guard, but he is breaking Auntie Helen’s heart, spending all his extra time and money at a pool hall on Geary Street.
As we get closer to her house, she points to a place on Clement Street, Happy Super, where she always does her grocery shopping. It’s one of the typical Asian markets in the neighborhood, people standing outside, pinching and poking through piles of fruits and vegetables, hundred-pound bags of rice stacked like giant bricks against the window.
“Tofu, how much do you pay?” asks my mother, and I can tell she’s eager to outdo me with a better price, to tell me how I can save twenty or thirty cents at her store.
But I can’t even oblige her with a guess. “I don’t know. I’ve never bought tofu.”
“Oh.” She looks disappointed. And then she brightens. “Four rolls of toilet paper, how much?”
“One sixty-nine,” I answer right away.
“You see!” she says. “My place, only ninety-nine cents. Good brands, too. Next time, I buy you some. You can pay me back.”
We turn left onto Eighth Avenue and head toward Anza. Auntie Helen and Uncle Henry live one block up, on Ninth. The houses in this area all look the same to me, variations of two-story row houses built in the twenties, differing mostly in what color they are painted and whether the front has been modernized in stucco, asbestos shingles, or aluminum siding. Phil pulls into my mother’s driveway. The front of her place is Day-Glo pink, the unfortunate result of her being talked into a special deal by a longtime customer, a painting contractor. And because the outside is bumpy stucco, the whole effect looks like Pepto-Bismol poured over cottage cheese. Amazingly enough, of all the things my mother complains about, the color of the house is not one of them. She actually thinks it’s pretty.
“When will I see you again?” she asks me as she climbs out of the car.
“Oh, soon,” I say.
“Soon like Auntie Helen’s soon?” she says.
“No, soon. Really.”
She pauses, looking as if she doesn’t believe me. “Oh, anyway, I will see you at Bao-bao’s wedding next month.”
“What? The wedding is next month? I didn’t hear that.”
“Very fast,” my mother says, nodding. “Edna Fong from our church said she heard this from her daughter. Mimi washes her hair at that beauty shop. Mimi told Edna Fong’s daughter they are in a big hurry to get married. And Edna Fong said to me, Maybe because something else is hurrying to come out. Auntie Helen doesn’t know this yet. Don’t tell her.”
So there goes Auntie Helen’s theory about Bao-bao’s getting married because she’s going to die soon. Something’s growing all right, but it’s not a tumor in Auntie Helen’s head.
My mother climbs out of the car. She turns back and gives Tessa a cheek to kiss, then Cleo. My mother is not the cheek-kissing type, but she knows we have taught the girls to do this with Phil’s parents.
“Bye-bye, Ha-bu!” they each say. “We love you.”
“Next time you come,” my mother says to the girls, “I make potstickers. And you can eat moon cakes for Chinese New Year’s.” She takes a tissue out of her sleeve and wipes Cleo’s nose. She pats Tessa’s knee. “Okay?”
“Okay!” they shout.
We all watch my mother walk up the steps to her front door, all of us waving the whole time. Once she’s safe inside, we wave once more as she peers out the window, and then we take off.
“Whew!” Phil sighs. “Home.” And I too sigh with relief. It’s been a difficult weekend, but we survived.
“Mommy?” Tessa says at the first stop sign.
“Yes, sweetie.”
“Mommy,” she whispers. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Me too,” says Cleo. “I have to go oo-oo real bad.”
My mother is standing outside the house when we return.
“I tried to chase you, but you were too fast,” she says as soon as I get out of the car. “And then I knew you would remember and come back.” Tessa and Cleo are already racing up the stairs.
“Remember what?”
“Grand Auntie’s farewell gift. Remember? Two three days ago I told you not to forget. Yesterday I said, Don’t forget. You forgot?”
“No, no,” I say. “Where is it?”
“In back, in the laundry room,” she says. “Very heavy, though. Better ask your husband to carry it.” I can just imagine what it must be: the old vinyl ottoman Grand Auntie used to rest her feet on, or perhaps the set of chip-proof Melmac dishes. As we wait for Phil to come back with the girls, my mother hands me a cup of tea, waving off my protests. “Already made. If you can’t drink it, I only have to throw it away.”
I take a few quick sips. “This is really good.” And I mean it. I have never tasted tea like this. It is smooth, pungent, and instantly addicting.
“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 laughi
ng.
“—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 god, 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 God. To my way of thinking, he was not too important. Not like Buddha, not like Kwan Yin, goddess of mercy—not that high level, not even the same level as the Money God. 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 god?” 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 God. 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 God, 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 God 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 God 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 passes 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 god to put inside, not this one.” She removes the picture of the Kitchen God. “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 superstitious. 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.”