Act of Creation & Other Stories
J.A. Pak
Copyright 2011 J.A. Pak
Smashwords Edition
Grateful acknowledgement to Quarterly West, Tatlin's Tower, VerbSap and Wicked Alice where these stories have previously appeared.
Cover photo courtesy of Benjamin Earwicker
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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For Geoff
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Table of Contents
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Mary ran her cake business in a way she could never have run her marriage. It was by appointment only, full deposit, partial refund (and this purely at her own discretion). Business was terrific and she had to turn down job after job. She only made cakes, custom-ordered weeks in advance—months if you wanted a wedding cake. Mary wasn't at all temperamental—she'd make any cake you'd like, any design you wanted no matter how banal. But what she was really known for, what people sought her out to do, was her beautiful confectionery sculptures, eerily real and heartbreaking to eat. Her signature cake was an ornate arrangement of crafted flowers springing out of a cake vase, edible gladioli, roses, delphiniums, flowing ivy held by a genoise urn. Two-and-a-half feet tall, it was breathtaking to present, a thousand dollars to order because each spray of flowers took half a day of painstaking work. Mary's art lay in her absolute control of color. Never muted, never dull, the pigments in her icing vibrated in a choral mass so that flowers seemed to be ever blooming, leaves swaying and caught by even the gentlest of breezes. Most often people forgot the flowers were artificial, edible, confused that in their hands the flowers were so stiff and sticky to hold. Once near water, they'd disintegrate into a foamy mass. The actual cake was a conundrum of perception. People were either too timid—afraid of shattering the urn—or too forceful, convinced in the mind's eye that a cake knife would never cleave the urn apart. The surprise at the gently yielding cake was infinite.
Every once in a while Mary got requests just for the flowers because once eaten, they became addictive. The candy flowers were strangely chewy—almost fibrous—their taste floral with a sweet fermented quality like great Sauternes. One couple swore they were an aphrodisiac and always ordered a dozen golden lilies every wedding anniversary to Mary's great amusement. Not that she ever betrayed herself. Her professionalism was exemplary; no request, no confidence was ever brooked by her own emotions.
Because of her talent for re-creation, another of Mary's popular requests was for cakes decorated with a portrait. Often it was a wedding portrait, a couple hardly recognizable, the pose too formulaic, but sweet. She got lost in that sweetness, the bite achingly unbearable. Ten years and she hadn't thought for a moment that her marriage wouldn't last twenty, thirty—forever. She had in her optimism made her own wedding cake, four-tiered, a cascade of real, edible flowers—she hadn't yet perfected her artificial trademarks. The only time she'd ever looked truly happy was in her wedding photos.
What had gone wrong, she wondered, still baffled. For her, they had been happy. She had loved him and he had loved her, and for her, if they had only remained she and he, they would still be happy. She'd sat with a blank heart as her husband suddenly surrounded her with his carefully constructed tale. Before Mary had met her husband, he'd been madly in love with a woman named Honor, who for reasons Mary didn't understand, although her husband tried many times to explain them to her, wouldn't go out with her husband, eventually marrying someone else. Now, over a decade later, this woman was divorced and admits she had made a mistake—she should have gone out with Mary's husband. Too bad, Mary said. But now her husband realized that while he loved Mary, he wasn't in love with her. He was in love with Honor. And again Mary didn't understand. Why the hell was he making this distinction? Hadn't he been happy all these years, Mary wanted to know? He couldn't admit that he hadn't been happy—couldn't she see she was confusing things? Apples and oranges.
She'd thought all chaos would move out with him, the last of his boxes shipped to Honor's house. And for a time there was a stillness. She made her cakes and made new friends, found a smaller place where she could be content with her cat. But there was this lingering problem. She still loved her ex-husband—and what was she going to do with this love, still being produced like milk for a dead child? She had never before realized the true fabric of love.
Her next project called for something a little different. A couple wanted her to create a four-foot tall replica of an ancient palace the husband's ancestors had once called home. Having just been reacquainted with the property in Hungary, they wanted the replica to be the spectacular centerpiece for a grand, once-in-a-life-time family reunion.
Mary was meticulous in her preliminary work, drafting detailed drawings of every possible angle of the palace and creating several miniature versions to get a feel for the structure. When she felt ready, she began with gigantic cake tins, first building block by block the general contours of the castle before carving out all the architectural details. She didn't want to stop at the castle but planned to recreate the grounds immediate to the palace, manicured lawns, crisp topiaries and mazes, a marble fountain atop from which Cupid would blow champagne out of its puckered mouth. She'd created working fountains before—also an exploding three-foot volcano for a children's party. She'd rigged it so that colored sugar resembling ash first showered the dazzled children before quarts of red caramel came oozing out of the cavity.
It gave Mary great pleasure to see the reaction of the guests. At first they were simply too astonished by the sheer size and accomplishment. But then they began to scrutinize every detail, marveling at the bubbly champagne that sprouted out of Cupid. "All edible?" they would ask over and over again. Mary caught only a fleeting sensation of pain when the first pieces were cut and treasured away for eating. She even had a large piece herself—part of the manicured lawn she'd textured laboriously with finely shredded coconut flakes.
Even weeks afterwards Mary felt a tremendous letdown. Few people had the money or the occasion to order such a monstrously grand gesture. Mary looked at the gigantic cake tins she'd probably never use again, the bags and bags of flour and sugar—she'd over ordered. She thought she would never do anything quite as magnificent and toyed with the idea of retiring. Most people only wanted round or rectangular cakes, predictably decorated, which never satisfied the sculptor's soul Mary had.
And then one night, as she was scrubbing her kitchen, she received a divine inspiration. Her hands began imperceptibly trembling. For the first time she was afraid of failure.
Mary mixed several vats of cake batter and regreased all the gigantic cake tins. She was going to sculpt her husband—life-size and real in every way. She closed her eyes, breath held, and recalled just the right shade of skin color, how it varied from face to neck, arm to hand. He had dark black-green eyes with brown flecks, black hair, long toes. There was a spot above the small of his back that was surprisingly soft and vulnerable. Should she rely on the last mental picture she had of him? She realized there was a variety of being, ten years and the infinitely many ways he had changed.
Laying the cake blocks on top of each other, Mary assembled a solid structure of almost six feet. She worked in swift strokes, drawing the general outlines with a knife, carefully carving away chunks to roughly form the head, torso. Then her true work began, chipping the contours of the face, the musculature of the body. She remembered every detail, coloring white fondant in over a thousand shades for the skin, modifying her flower recipe for the black wig that would eventually crown the head. She added body hair, even a slight five o'clock shadow on the lower half of the face. The lips were moist and relaxed, the eyes smiling. The body was strong and assured, the face handsome. She worked on the hair the longest, remembering how much she had touched her husband's hair at the beginning, enjoying so much its gentle silkiness. She almost fainted when the work was done. It had taken three nights and four days, laboring almost nonstop in a room she kept at fifty degrees to keep the cake firm and pliable. Rubbing her hands together, she stepped back to admire her work. He seemed just about to speak to her. She touched his face, caressing his jaw line. She kissed him. And then methodically she cut him up into single-sized portions, securely wrapping each piece in plastic wrap and sealing them together in Ziplocs, all to be kept safe in the freezer until she craved a slice of him.
Once upon a time there was a Vietnamese restaurant. And then there were two, and four, and eight, until one corner of downtown had hundreds, all clumped together and indistinguishable. Little Saigon was one of the first. It's the one I always went to, maybe once a week, usually with my wife Phyllis. One Sunday we went down for a late lunch and walked straight into the wrong restaurant. We didn't realize it until we had the menus in our hands. Identical menus, only the menus were spanking new.
"They didn't change owners?" Phyllis asked.
I looked at the menu cover. It said Golden Saigon. I looked around and realized that all the furniture was ever so slightly different, the colors brighter on the wall. We walked outside and looked at the building.
"Look, there's Little Saigon," I said.
Golden Saigon was smack next to Little Saigon, the doors only three or four feet apart. If you weren't careful, you'd walk straight into Golden Saigon and never know it wasn't a part of Little Saigon. Even the sign was in the same yellow color, same style, same size.
"Clever," Phyllis said.
We went into Little Saigon and ordered lunch. Mr. Nguyen, the owner, came out of the kitchen and greeted us warmly. We told him what had happened to us. Mr. Nguyen's blood pressure shot through the roof. He started choking out Vietnamese sounds.
"Can you believe the nerve? Can you believe the nerve?" he spat. "I work hard, work very, very hard to establish my restaurant. It's a good restaurant, I have a good clientele, we work hard, seven days a week—we work sixteen hours a day, my family, for ten years and they have the nerve to steal it! Just steal it! It's highway robbery. How can this happen? Why do they let this happen in America?"
We shook our heads in sympathy.
"It seems silly to have the same restaurants all in the same neighborhood," Phyllis said. "It happens all the time. All the Chinese restaurants are right next door to each other. All the Korean and Mexican. There's a street with five burrito restaurants where I work."
"Crazy. Crazy. The world is crazy," Mr. Nguyen said. "I thought it'd be different here, but it's worse."
"I wish there was a Vietnamese restaurant where we live," I said. "I'd eat there all the time."
"Where do you live?" Mr. Nguyen asked.
"Uptown. Near the 60s. Why isn't there a single Vietnamese restaurant past the bridge?"
"We've all got to stick together," Mr. Nguyen said. "Safety in numbers. It's crazy. Now we can't make money. None of us can make money. There's only so many customers. It's crazy. We used to be full all day. Now we're lucky to have a full house during lunch. Our food's good, but we're not as cheap as the new noodle houses. Cheap ingredients, cheap food. I'm not even going to tell you where they get their fish. I wouldn’t let my cat eat there. I never buy anything but the best. I have pride. They have customers. Why eat cheap food? I don't understand."
Mr. Nguyen was always modest. The food at Little Saigon was the best. It was Mr. Nguyen, his hawk-eyed fervor. He knew what every one of his customers was eating, how much, what they ate, what they left behind. And if you left even the tiniest morsel, he was there at the table like a shot, asking what was wrong. His specialty was the noodle dishes. There were fifty different kinds of pho alone, rotating on a daily basis in accordance with what was fresh that morning.
"So here's a suggestion," I said. "Why don't you open up a restaurant uptown?"
"No," he said, waving his hand. "All the customers come here for Vietnamese food. They wouldn't go uptown."
"If you moved up, they would."
"Rents higher. Wouldn't make money."
"But you could raise your prices. They expect to pay higher prices uptown. You'd be the only Vietnamese restaurant around. No competition."
Mr. Nguyen laughed. More customers came in and he went to greet them.
About a month later, I noticed one of the restaurants in my neighborhood had closed. There was a "for lease" sign on the window. It was a small intimate space, right across from where I lived. Done right, it'd be a perfect place for Mr. Nguyen. I just couldn't let it go. I called Mr. Nguyen and persuaded him to come up and look at the place with me. I pitched him the idea again, told him I'd draw up the plans for the interior for free. I was a graphic designer. The more I talk, the more persuasive I get. His eyes lit up. An upscale Vietnamese restaurant.
"I have to talk it over with my wife," he said. But I knew he'd caught my bug. I knew I had him. The best Vietnamese restaurant in the city was moving across from me, and I couldn't be more excited.
Hammering out the details of the lease was a nuisance, but after Phyllis's brother, the big-time lawyer, got involved, things happened quickly. I had my pals move in and we practically gutted the place. Spanking new kitchen, the stainless steel shimmering like a mirage in the desert, funky fun furniture, warm wooden floors, huge panes of glass etched with shimmery gold paint, bamboo leaves and birds evoking glamorous orientalism. My friend Alice, the landscape artist, did that for free. She loved her pho, too. In fact, all my pals were doing things at cost—we felt part of something important. Like we were making some kind of declaration, although exactly what that was, none of us could really say.
The grand opening was a complete success. The Nguyens laid out an emperor's buffet and we partied until two in the morning. Phyllis and I'd sent out invitations to half the town. And of course there was the neighborhood, people who'd been curious for weeks, their eyes peeping in through the big panes of glass, pointing to the sign and asking when, when, when? Some were already fans of Vietnamese food, others had never even heard of it. Phyllis and I had sometimes stood for hours outside the door proselytizing. For those of the brave who'd ventured inside, Mr. Nguyen would hand out tiny samples of spring rolls. Or cups of iced Vietnamese coffee. Tantalizing them for the grand opening.
The next day was business as usual. I couldn't admire the Nguyens enough. The entire family stayed up all night to clean up the place. By lunch time they were open and greeting guests. The restaurant was booked solid the entire first month. For dinner. Lunches were a hit-or-miss affair. Most of the businesses were a few blocks east and people were still slowly finding out about the place. And like I said, some people weren't quite sure what to make of it. I sat at the bar for lunch every day. The Nguyens wanted to give me everything for free, but I wouldn't hear of it.
Working from home, the hop over to the Nguyens' was too easy. Pho, a cup of Vietnamese coffee, snacks—I was constantly running across the street for something to eat. Once, I ate five bowls of pho in one day. It wasn't unusual for me to sit at the Nguyens' all day long, working on the laptop, nibbling on spring rolls. Finally, I had to make myself go less. Limit myself to once a day. I was really putting on the pounds.
Phyllis could never understand my fanaticism.
"There's only so much pho a person can eat," she said.
"Speak for yourself."
About six weeks after the Nguyens' grand opening, my workload doubled in one of those freak cycles and I forgot about the restaurant. I was living off yogurts and pizzas-on-the-run between meetings. And then one night Phyllis asked me if I'd gone past the Nguyens' lately.
"Of course I've gone past them," I said. "I pass them every day."
"Yeah, but have you looked inside?"
"Looked inside?"
"Yes, big boy. Looked inside. They have no customers. The place is completely empty. All day long."
"What? That can't be."
"See for yourself."
I ran into my office. From there we had a perfectly clear view into the Nguyens’. Phyllis was right. I couldn’t see one customer.
"Hmm. Let's go over for dinner,” I said. “See what’s going on."
Mr. Nguyen was sitting at one of the back tables reading a newspaper. The place was a ghost town. Mr. Nguyen greeted us warmly, a rueful smile on his face.
"It's been a while, Tom," he said.
"I've been so busy with work—this is the first time I've eaten out in weeks. Phyllis will tell you—I've been living off yogurts. I can't tell you how I'm looking forward to this."
"Sit here. At the best table, as usual."
"So how's everything?" I asked.
"Well, as you can see, business is slow. Very, very slow."
He got us a couple of beers and started pouring.
"But I don't understand. Things were so good."
"Yup. Yup. Sometimes that happens. When a restaurant is new, everyone comes. And then sometimes they forget about it. People always want something new. Novelty impact."
"Novelty syndrome," Phyllis said.
"Hopefully it'll pick up soon," I said.
"Yup. Hopefully."
I was truly distressed. Making up some excuse, I went back to the apartment and started calling everyone I could think of.
"It's an impromptu party—you have to come—now—quick or you'll miss all the fun. We're having a huge banquet at the Nguyens'," I said. "The Nguyens'. Our Vietnamese restaurant. Yes, that one. Yeah, they do have great food. Have you gone back since the opening? Yeah, yeah, I know. Me, too. I've been living off yogurts. Listen, call everyone you know. See you there!"
As soon as I got back to the restaurant, Phyllis did her turn, calling up everyone she knew. By nine o'clock, the restaurant was filled with revelers.
But you can't have a party every night. Phyllis and I started having almost all our meals at the Nguyens'. We cajoled our friends, even strangers, into making reservations. I met my clients there, even if it was just for coffee or drinks. I knew a friend who was a friend of a restaurant critic. She wrote a favorable review. I got them listed in tourist guides. I did everything. But the damn restaurant was cursed.
I didn't get it. How can you have great food, good location, and empty tables? I couldn’t get any work done. I’d just stare at the restaurant from my desk. It got to the point where Phyllis and I would avoid walking past the restaurant. We'd go around the back block. We were so ashamed, we couldn't even show our faces. After all, it was our fault. We'd persuaded Mr. Nguyen to close up a perfectly good restaurant in Vietnam ghetto to move all the way uptown for what? Our convenience? Only we'd really believed it'd work. Why hadn't it worked?
In only eight months the restaurant was closed. God, it's a cruel business. The site stayed vacant for several years. My heart skipped a little every time I saw the "for lease" sign. We didn't know what happened to the Nguyens. We were too ashamed to try to find out. And then three years later, Phyllis and I ran into Mr. Nguyen. He was working as a waiter at a Vietnamese restaurant near Chinatown, one his brother-in-law owned.
"It's so good to see you," we both said, genuinely happy. "We'd wondered where you'd gone. How's your wife?"
"Fine, fine. She's working at a dim sum restaurant nearby. Maybe by the end of the year, we'll have enough money to open another restaurant. We'll see, we'll see."
"Oh, Mr. Nguyen," Phyllis said, breaking down.
"We're awfully sorry about what happened," I said. "We should never have talked you into moving uptown. I can't tell you how bad we feel about the whole thing. If we could only make it up to you—but I imagine you don't want anything to do with us, considering—"
"Not a problem, not a problem," Mr. Nguyen said, curtly. He sort of waved his hand, as if the past was a pesky fly.
The troubles began with Gordon Swink. You have to know Gordon—large and bulbous, floating around on a high whiny voice that was by far always the loudest in any room. But with a wit and intelligence, a crafty ingratiation that made people take heed, even leech off him. Gordon was a scrounger, obsessed with little knowledge—like where you went to get old shoes made into new, who still cured their own corned beef, how you could get contraband absinthe, who had rare performance recordings of Lead Belly. He hoarded things like this, and if he felt you were worthy, he'd feed you bits and pieces like you were a lap dog slightly out of favor: "No, no—don't go there! You want the real thing—go—" "That place is crap. Go—" "Guess who's selling a genuine 1924 Olivetti typewriter?" In New York knowledge like this is power, convertible power. And power, as everyone knows, is addictive. Because of Gordon, suddenly you were just a little bit more knowledgeable, a little bit more powerful, perceptively risen above all your friends and family who now looked at you for table scraps in that spiraling cycle of trickle-down economics. So people were scared to death of pissing off Gordon. They'd take all kinds of abuse, even force themselves to believe they liked it—it was part of knowing Gordon—not everyone knew Gordon—but you did—gotta experience the whole mise-en-scene and flash it around.
So when Gordon called up and said he was coming by in five minutes to take me to the best Japanese restaurant outside of Tokyo—I went.
I was surprised. It wasn't the usual kind of Gordon place—grungy and hole-in-the-wall, but all understated marble that shouted mega-money, slick and Manhattan, reeking tourist trade. The Times would be writing it up in no time. The thing is Gordon had never been to Tokyo (he hardly ever left New York, the center of his universe)—I doubted he even knew anyone Japanese.
"So isn't this place great?" he kept saying, having drunk two Asahis and three bottles of sake. "Isn't this the best Japanese food you've ever eaten?"
"It's pretty good," I said, "but it's not the best Japanese food I've eaten."
"What? Where have you eaten better?"
Oh, God, now I was in trouble. I'd promised not to tell. Been sworn to secrecy—you know, like Freemason kind of secrecy.
"Oh, some place," I said squirming. I didn't dare look him in the eye.
"You're holding out on me, Danny boy."
I hated it when he called me Danny boy. The Godfather of scrap thought threatening me sotto nasal voce.
Anyway, this was why I couldn't tell, why I didn't dare gloat. My roommate in college, Brian, was Japanese and we were still good enough friends to hang together whenever he wasn't busy logging time down on Wall Street. He'd introduced me to Japanese food. Every once in a while, if I was real lucky, he'd invite me over to his folks home out in Fort Lee for real home-cooked fare. Brian's mom was a fantastic cook. She made everything from scratch, even things like soba noodles. God, there's this cake she makes—a million golden layers—called a tree cake because each slice looks like the trunk of a delicate tree, the layers proclaiming the tree hundreds of years old—out of this world! Brian's dad was a real gourmet too—he'd never touch packaged dried noodles or processed bonito stock—poor Mrs. Tsuji was hardly ever out of the kitchen. Mr. Tsuji was that real nutty kind of perfectionist, the kind who'd even dare criticize the food of the gods if he felt it wasn't up to snuff. Even the best of foods got just a slight tilt of the head from Mr. Tsuji, a slight nod as if to say close, but no cigar.
Well, Mr. Tsuji owned a small, very successful import business and a tip I gave him saved him a couple of thousand dollars in taxes last year. He was incredibly grateful and he said to me, "Dan, I'd like to repay you somehow for what you did. What can I do? Please tell me."
"No—Mr. Tsuji—really—I was just glad my tip helped out."
"Now, Dan," he said, looking stern. "There must be something . . ."
Mrs. Tsuji smiled nervously. Brian stopped watching TV. I said the first thing that came to my head.
"Well, Mr. Tsuji, you're always saying I've never had really great Japanese food. I know we're not in Japan—but why don't you take me some place here that you think has the best Japanese food and we'll call it quits."
Mr. Tsuji looked grave and troubled.
"The best Japanese food?" he said. He was quiet, an inner debate raging through his soul. What in the world had I said? At last he nodded affirmative. "The best Japanese food then. I'll have to work on it—give me some time. By the way, do you have a tux?"
If I'd only known what I was asking. Mr. Tsuji's mania for precision wasn't just for food. You see, Mr. Tsuji was taking my words quite literally. I didn't say take me to the best Japanese restaurant. I said take me to a place with the best Japanese food. And Mr. Tsuji being Mr. Tsuji, and belonging to Gurume Kurabu, had to honor those very words.
The Gurume Kurabu (or the Gourmet Club) was a secretive brotherhood with one uncompromising mission: to create the most wondrous, esoteric Japanese food possible using your humble east of Eden foodstuff. There was only a handful of members, the basement of an office building, and No, the genius at the stove.
It took Mr. Tsuji six months to get me in. Members could occasionally invite guests, but they had to be heads of state or bank CEOs or something. And certainly Japanese. No pandering to foreign aesthetes. But then, I didn't really get in. I was seated in the reception area, behind a large screen so I couldn't see who was coming or going, my knees tight underneath a small table wedged into a corner. Mr. Tsuji was apologetic.
"The inner rooms are for members only," he explained. "But never mind. You came for the food. And you won't be disappointed."
From over the screen I could hear a rustle of people moving, chopsticks in the air, the sound of sake being poured, kimono-clad waitresses moving from table to table. There was no music, but if you listened close, you could hear a murmur—the sound of soft water gliding over pebbles, the distant call of birds?
"So, Mr. Tsuji," I whispered, "Gurume Kurabu—what's this all about?"
"Well, about ten years ago," he whispered back, "a few close friends and I were lamenting about the state of food today. It's become so commercial, so textbook. What happened to the surprise, the uniqueness? Today you have a handful of sauces—a handful of ingredients—everything tastes pretty much the same—all that soy sauce, all that sugar. Well, we got together and we started going out to restaurants—but what are restaurants but commercial enterprises, the source for all those textbooks? In desperation we started to cook ourselves, hunting out old family recipes, deciphering menus from ancient stories. But that got too burdensome, too stressful. Too much for the cook—we are all good cooks—but cooking for your demanding peers! What could we say to one another? It was never good enough. In despair we were about to disband—but then in walked No. Clear out of the blue, as if he'd fallen straight out of the sky, landing right before our feet. A divine gift from a sympathetic goddess, I say. And just as mysterious. We don't know anything about him and we don't dare ask. He says nothing, except what he says here, at the table."
There were twenty courses in all, a wondrous intermingling of complimentary flavors and textures, so sumptuous I nearly fell over from too much sensory delight. It was truly a night to remember, a night to relish in old age, wondering if it all hadn't been a dream.
So when Gordon put the screws on me, I was bursting to tell (I'd also been keeping up with Gordon's sake binging). In the end, of course I spilled. Gordon's eyes bugged straight out of his glasses.
"You've got to get me in there—"
"I can't."
"You've got to—"
He was on my case for weeks, calling me at three, four in the morning, at intervals of ten, twenty minutes. Sleep deprivation nearly drove me mad, but I couldn't betray Mr. Tsuji. Not that a sense of honor was something Gordon could appreciate. Something in his gut craved the submission of others; absolute refusal was intolerable to him. As a final assault he showed up at my door and put a figurative gun to my head. Gordon wrote for a lot of trendy magazines around town under various pseudonyms. Coolly, he threatened to deluge New York with articles about Gurume Kurabu.
"But you don't know anything about the club, only what I told you," I protested.
"I know enough for a juicy, very enticing article. I know enough to get hundreds of guys on your trail. You'll never sleep again."
"Why are you being such a shit?"
"You have a week to get me in."
There was nothing else for me to do but tell Mr. Tsuji.
"What have you done?" he exploded. The bottle of cognac I'd brought along wasn't helping one bit.
"Couldn't you let him in just once?" I asked.
"First you—and now him! Impossible! I'll get kicked out! You have no idea what I had to do to get you in! The things I had to promise! My God, just asking will get me kicked out! Blacklisted! Shunned! I'll have to move! To Thailand!"
Mrs. Tsuji stopped knitting. Brian shook his head. I wasn't sure if the shaking was for me or for his dad.
So what could we do but tell Gordon he could come—lead him on an elaborate trail of deception? We found an appropriately seedy-looking building near the George Washington bridge, gave the inside a quick scrub. We blocked everything from view so that when you walked in, all you could see was an elegantly decorated reception area and the appearance of a hallway and door that seemed to lead to grander apartments. I blindfolded Gordon, trying to keep him from peeking on the drive over, but quite happy to let him get a sense of where we were going, the mystery of the set up. Gordon loved it, and my job was satisfying Gordon off my back.
"This is it?" Gordon asked, delighted by the peeling door, the heavy aluminum over the windows.
"Shh!" I commanded, knocking gravely on the door. A woman's voice spoke in Japanese out of a muffled intercom.
"We're Mr. Tsuji's guest," I said. The door slowly opened and the woman Mr. Tsuji had hired for the evening let us into the curtained foyer.
"Yes, we're expecting you," she said, shuffling in her kimono. She guided us past the curtains and into the reception room where a small linen-clothed table waited for us.
"This is it?" Gordon asked, this time disappointed.
"Well, you see, you're not allowed into the member's room. This is as close as we could get you."
"Did you get into the member's room?"
"No."
He seemed satisfied and sat down. He was in too good a mood anyway. "So—where's the food?"
Now this was the difficulty—the food. It had to be good, but not too good or Gordon would be forever hassling me—even worse he'd insist on bringing one round of friends after another. But it couldn't be bad because then Gordon would know something was up. So the solution was Mr. Tsuji would do the cooking—twenty courses of what he could do best, good enough, but not quite good enough to meet Gordon's now inflated expectations. Mr. Tsuji was not a bad cook.
Gordon finished course after course, his smugness ballooning past his stomach.
"Yeah—" he said as we drove back home, not even bothering with a blindfold— "it was good—but the best Japanese food I've ever had? Nah."
God, it was really hard to keep my mouth shut, knowing Gordon was going to lord it over me for months. I'd never be able to go to another Japanese restaurant with Gordon Swink, never think out loud one independent thought. But at least I'd saved Mr. Tsuji from a fate incomprehensible—he wouldn't have to move to Thailand.
Or so I thought. Mr. Tsuji was near hysterical. Gordon had found his evening so amusing, he'd written it up in one of his weekly columns. "Maybe we New Yorkers just know better because the food wasn't good enough, and certainly not worth dusting off my tux for," he'd written. Gordon had put in all the wrong details but the sum of the article led to one thing—everyone in the club knew he was writing about Gurume Kurabu and No was incensed. How dare Mr. Tsuji pass off his lousy food for his? The deception was intolerable, the defamation a call for war. There was only one thing left to do:
"What?" Gordon said, amazed at my confession, his back straight against his chair. His surprise almost blew off his round little glasses.
"But look—No personally insists you come to Gurume Kurabu—taste the real thing."
"Let's go! Let's go!
More humble pie. I had to wait, stomach growing, outside in the reception area while Gordon got the star treatment inside. Twenty courses—I could only imagine, my mouth watering, my stomach in pain. Gordon came out like he'd had sex with Marilyn Monroe.
Six months later a new Japanese restaurant opened up in Manhattan. Reservations had to be made a year in advance—that's when they stopped booking, to the day. I never saw Mr. Tsuji again and Gordon was too busy for the likes of me.
Months later I got the details from Brian.
According to him, Gordon had been so enamored by No, he'd convinced him to open up a restaurant. "You'll be a millionaire by the end of the year," he'd promised. "All New York will be licking your feet. Cookbooks, David Letterman—the whole works!" Gurume Kurabu was defenseless.
"Wow. No wonder your dad will never forgive me. No more Gurume Kurabu."
"That's still around," Brian told me, slurping his udon out of the bowl.
"What? They found a new chef?"
"No."
"Then—"
"It's unbelievable. It's all a ritual now. Once a month they get dressed up in their tuxes. Dad does all the serving, course after course. Only there's nothing on the plates. Nada. Dad's on his way to having a nervous breakdown."
"Wow."
I couldn't think of anything worse than that.
I miss going to Fort Lee, but occasionally Mrs. Tsuji sneaks me a little slice of that tree cake via Brian. What I wouldn't give for a bite of her kuri gohan with those lovely chestnuts! I really have to learn to keep my mouth shut. Heard from Gordon the other day. Left a real nasty piece on my machine: "The best Japanese food you've ever eaten? Haaaaaaaaaaaa!" What a shit.
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