Vanessa Hua’s latest novel, Forbidden City, is the story of an ambitious, savvy teenage girl and her rise to power alongside the leader of China’s cultural revolution. Initially, the novel had dual timelines: one in 1960s China and the other in 1970s San Francisco Chinatown. Eventually, Hua cut most of the Chinatown timeline, except for what appears in the prologue and epilogue of the finished novel. This is an excerpt from the parallel timeline that Hua removed.
In her journalism and in her fiction, Hua has written about Asia and the diaspora for more than two decades. Her first novel, A River of Stars, which Guernica excerpted, is set in contemporary Chinatown.
— Jina Moore for Guernica
The Cook is plating another tiny portion, his head bent, and I am grateful he doesn’t see me upset. Grateful for all that he has done for me tonight and many nights at the Pearl Pavilion. I yearn to tell him the truth but dread his disappointment when he realizes I am a liar who does not deserve his affection.
“It’s been so slow I’m glad to make something before the ingredients go bad,” the Cook says, as he arranges a miniature pile of pickled white radish. He slides the dish across the line. “We should be cutting our daily orders in half, but Mrs. Hong won’t let me. She’d rather throw out the rotten meat and vegetables than have suppliers gossip.” He pauses. “Restaurants are always looking for capable waitresses. Lovely ones, all the better.”
I try to see him as he sees me, but my reflection is deformed, swollen in the brushed-steel counter. The Cook joins me on the other side of the line. “There’s only so many top spots at the restaurants,” he says. He fiddles with a goldfish carved from a carrot. A man who can turn a root into art.
If he moved to Sacramento, where there is less competition, he could own his restaurant. This is his long-cherished dream. He would need a good hostess, someone who can read the room, someone like me, to make the restaurant a success, he says, his voice husky.
My silver shoes glimmer under the lights, and I remember how alluring I used to feel at the dance parties, swaying in my heels. An assistant chef bumps into me, and the Cook pulls me out of the way, glancing at my cleavage. The jade necklace he gave me hangs cool in the hollow of my throat. I fidget with the corsage on my wrist, feeling shy.
“If you say your guest is like your father, would I have to request his permission to marry?” he asks, his tone light and joking.
The Cook, who is too shy, too polite to ask me to walk home, can playact at proposing.
“You’d have no problem, after this dinner,” I say. “Who wouldn’t want such a son-in-law? You’re in luck. If this were the old country, you’d have to pay him a bride price. I wouldn’t come cheap.”
“A dozen hens?”
“Two cows at least!”
We peek through the round glass window on the kitchen door. The Cook hovers behind me, not quite touching, and I consider leaning into him. Old Wu darts his eyes around the room before sliding roasted peanuts into his pocket. I won’t give up sharing my secrets with him, but I won’t spoil the celebration of his homecoming. He licks the salt off the dish and pockets it too.
“You better get back before he eats his napkin,” the Cook says.
I start to push open the swinging door when he puts his hand on mine.
“You’ll think about it?” he asks.
If I deny him, he would resent me. He might wish me harm. He might fall in love with someone else. The next Winnie. The next me. What, then, would happen if I accepted his proposal and revealed myself to him? He might try to sweep my secret aside. Or he might take my hand, and we would embark together. Having hidden for so long, I have forgotten how to dwell in the open. Or rather, I never knew. The Cook’s tender expression gives me hope that I might learn.
I squeeze his hand. As I return to the dining room, Shrimp Boy flags me down, and I pray he is not seeking information about Mrs. Hong. For now, Mr. Hong has delayed his trip to San Francisco, kept in Hong Kong by his wife, or another mistress.
“Auntie!” he shouts. I wince at this nickname, endearment and respect turned mean in his mouth.
“I need beers,” Shrimp Boy says. The deep flush of his cheeks matches his silk shirt. His black leather jacket hangs lower on one side, the bulge likely a gun.
“Two for me,” says the man next to him.
“Three!”
“I’m not working tonight,” I say.
A busboy drops a tray of dishes across the restaurant, and we both flinch. Despite his bluster, Shrimp Boy must be on edge from the revenge surely being waged upon him in the neighborhood.
He looks over my shoulder. “Your boyfriend is looking for you.”
He knows about the Cook, somehow. Saw us together at the market that day. Then I realize he is referring to Old Wu, who peers around the dining room. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“You may not think so,” Shrimp Boy says. “But he does.” He sees what I want to remain secret and unsaid.
“Glad he’s out of the hospital,” he says. “He should rest up. You can’t be too careful.” His concern is a threat, telling me what he and Mr. Hong know. “Now how about those beers?”
After midnight, Old Wu and I have been here so long that we are hungry again. The teapot filled and emptied, filled and emptied, the tablecloth spattered with sauce. He is irreverent and indecent, as if to entertain me, as if to make up for my earlier grief.
The Pavilion is more crowded now than when we arrived, as restaurants elsewhere in the neighborhood shut for the night. Tourists, students, and heavy drinkers spilling out of bars. The last course is a whole fish, the head pointed at Old Wu. Prosperity and abundance. We pluck off the moist white flesh from one side until the spine emerges. Old Wu chews and spits the silvery pin bones onto his plate. With a chopstick in each hand, I raise the fish aloft, and Old Wu picks off meat from the bottom, placing morsels on my plate and then his. Somehow, despite our different histories, we both know flipping a fish over is bad luck. Our parents taught us.
He burps. His stomach is swollen on his skinny frame, a snake who has swallowed a chicken. With his fingers, he drums a beat on his belly, shirt untucked, pants unzipped.
“I was thinking,” Old Wu says. “You could move into my apartment.” He sees my shock. “To save money on rent, we could live together. My place is bigger than yours.”
I would cradle Old Wu in my arms, his body light as rice hulls, and listen to the lullaby of his breathing. I don’t see lust in his eyes — nothing like the Chairman — only a longing for warmth. The way my family slept together.
“Butcher Yu is looking for a roommate,” I say. “His mother is kicking him out.”
“His own mother can’t stand him,” he says, his voice strained. “Why would I?”
“You’d get used to it.”
“We could live at your place, if you want,” he says. Old Wu, the Cook: both are hopeful, both insistent like never before — as if they must ask now or never again.
“I’m best nearby,” I say.
He nods, unhappy but not surprised. I have hurt him. Before I can speak, three men in black ski masks burst into the restaurant.
“Man with a gun!” someone screams.
Shrimp Boy fires first. The shots are firecrackers multiplied to an impossible din, and I dive to the ground and crawl to the next table. A woman jerks backward onto the floor. I listen to the spray and recoil of a shotgun, the grunt of a revolver. How many guns are there?
Men shout.
A woman screams.
My body lurches back, my head thumps the underside of the table, and my left leg tingles and burns. My eyes fill with white pain, and the sound of the room fades beneath the blood pounding in my ears. I bite my lip, the lesser irritation a reminder that I am alive, that I will not dissolve. Feet shuffle, the front door slams, and a car squeals away. I count to ten and drag myself out from under the table. My leg, my leg. Blood is spattered on a watercolor painting. Tables and chairs are overturned, and bullet holes pepper the walls like hundreds of black flies. A bearded American leans against the booth, his temple gushing blood, and a wet gurgle escapes his lips. His wife wails beside him, clutching her elbow. Winnie is facedown beside broken dishes. Her blouse rides up to reveal a crescent of pale flesh. In the manager’s office, Mrs. Hong is shrieking. Another man is dragging himself by his elbows to the safety of the kitchen, a wide smear of blood trailing on the carpet, his legs raw and ruined as ground beef.
Shrimp Boy emerges from beneath his table, locks eyes with me, and flees. The smell of gunpowder is sharp and acrid, catching me in my throat. My eyes water. Sirens howl in the distance. The Cook is pressing a cup of tea to my lips, trying to block my view. Behind him, Old Wu sprawls on the ground.
Blood blooms from his chest.
Vanessa Hua’s third book, Forbidden City, is out today from Ballantine Books.
