I met Rita back in August. It was through her father, Mr. Guo, who was a client for my law firm in New York. I was assigned to him a past couple of months ago and I had been working on an acquisition deal for one of his companies called “The NS Group,” which is by far the largest manufacturer of digital products and components in Taiwan and East Asia.
Mr. Guo invited me to go to Taipei and tour his offices, and then on to Shenzhen and Hangzhou to see his factories. At the end of the weeklong tour, he took me to a traditional Japanese hot springs ryokan in western Ito peninsula. The ryokan had no name.
We flew direct from Shanghai to Narita, where a chauffer picked us up in a black Mercedes Benz S600 a drove us to Ito. We arrived at the ryokan around 5:30 in the afternoon. Stepping off the car, I took a deep breath. The air was a combination of saltiness from the sea, pine trees, pebbles, and a slight savory/smoky aroma coming from the back of the ryokan. This was quite a welcoming change from the slightly sour and grayish air in Shenzhen and Shanghai.
Mr. Guo and I walked on the narrow gravel paths that wind through the ryokan grounds, through a small, un-manicured bamboo forest to reach a small wooden cottage behind the main building. The cottage had three separate rooms, two on the first floor and one larger one on the second floor. There was also a small living room area on the first floor. Outside the cottage there was our own private outdoors hot spring, which was located on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This was the only suite that had a private hot spring, and it was always reserved for Mr. Guo’s family at this time of the year. Personal connections, he said.
After dinner I took some time to soak in the hot spring, changed into the robe I found in my room, and wandered around the grounds. There was the sound of waves gently splashing against the rocky coastline, and lots of cicadas chirping. As I came nearer to the cottage, I saw someone standing in the entryway with her back towards me. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Everything around her seemed to be there only to mark her existence. The door posts acted as a frame as she leaned on them, their deep, maroon lacquered wood contrasting with the deep blue yukata and orange sash she wore. The lamp by the door outlined the shape of her body. Her hair fell loosely down to the small of her back. I had a very intense urge to talk to her. Not the kind of talking that’s designed (one hopes anyway) with a certain endgame in mind, but more like unwrapping a birthday gift: carefully pull on the ribbon, and watch the entire package slowly unfold, that kind of talking.
“So…Ms. Guo?”
She turned around. “Just call me Rita. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“And I’ve heard a lot about you too.” We both smiled.
“Where’s your father” I asked.
“Asleep I think. He likes to go to bed early when he’s on vacation.” She walked towards me. “How was your evening?”
“Not bad. I was out for a walk.”
“How did you like the path along the beach?”
“Fabulous.”
She took a step closer in my direction. “Heading to bed?”
“I’m not sure yet. That depends on what you want to do.”
“I see how it is. Why don’t you come up to my room then? I made some tea.”
***
We sat by the veranda outside her suite, on the wooden floor, facing the ocean. There were a few palm trees just below the veranda. The moon was out, but it had a slightly orange glow, like the color of egg yolks. Rita had left the lights off, so the orange glow was the only source of light. As clouds floated by, shadows of different shapes formed and disappeared on her face, which I can only say was quite beautiful.
I told her the story of how I went to Vegas, how we had wild sex for days and then having breakfast at Arby’s. “I guess you didn’t find that story funny,” I said, a bit disappointed. “You know, most people I’ve told the story to thought it was funny.”
“It’s a good icebreaker. It shows that you were immature once, and it lets people see you right now and go, wow, this guy is quite introspective. But I wouldn’t say it was funny. I mean, everyone’s been through similar things in college.”
“That’s not necessarily true. Sure, a lot of people go to Vegas and get into all sorts of crazy situations, but not everyone has the same sensitivity to how events affect themselves like I do. Also, even if I do concede that your point about people being through similar things in college is correct, you still don’t hear people being frank about it and able to laugh at themselves for it.”
She quickly looked down, and sighed. “Ok. No need to be defensive, you know? I just don’t like to tell people what they want to hear, just to be polite. Why waste time being polite when we can just get down to knowing each other, right?”
“Fair enough.”
We talked a bit more about my attitudes towards women, and her attitudes towards men. Just the sort of things a guy and a girl talk about when they first meet. Exchange opinions on something just slightly controversial but not too confrontational, something people can actually be open minded about.
One thing I’ve learned throughout the years is this. Everyone knows that girls know more about girls than guys know about girls. It would be stupid to tell a girl something like, “I understand girls,” even if you really do, like me. But the wiser man knows something else: it’s better to let the girl feel like she understands you better than you understand yourself. Why? Because it’s true. Guys will do very well if they remember this.
“So you haven’t dated anyone since your Vegas trip, yeah?”
“That’s right.”
“No one you liked at Harvard Law School?”
“Well, no. Somehow I felt like I had to concentrate on studying. I almost lost interest in girls completely. All of a sudden dating felt pretty frivolous to me.”
“Was it only dating that felt frivolous to you after your Vegas trip?”
“Hmm. Actually…everything seemed pretty frivolous for me. While I was in law school I felt like, you know, I should finally sit down and get serious. I just wanted to work, nothing else but work. I wanted to be the best. I want to rule them all.”
“I like that.” She smiled and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing a few strands behind her right ear. “To rule them all. Sounds very much like my father.”
She looked away and lowered her voice. “You know, you’re the first person he’s brought to this place besides me and my mom. I was quite surprised when my father told me you were coming.”
“Hmm. And why didn’t your mom come with us this year?”
“She died several years ago.”
I paused. “Sorry to hear that.”
“That’s ok. It was a while ago.” She picked up her tea on the floor and took a sip. “We were quite close when I was little. Back then every year around this time my father would take us here and we would catch up on some family time. But that was a while ago. Honestly, this is my first time here since she died.”
I stopped myself from asking her what I had wanted to ask, and stared at the moon. A patch of cloud began to cover up parts of the moon, and the room darkened. The room I’m staying at right now---was it the room she would stay when she came here? I wondered.
“Forget it. Let’s talk about something else.” She said, lifting herself forward and hugging her knees close to her. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Sure.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Hmm. That’s a hard one. I love everything.”
“Don’t tell me it’s Arby’s.”
“Hey, at the end it’s just fast food, you know? It’s not real food. Fast food is like, engineered feed for humans. Like how we engineer feed for chicken and cows. They engineer ‘taste profiles’ in labs, find out what different human palates respond to, and then disguise that into foods that we are familiar with like burgers or pizza. It’s the same process for everything--- fried chicken, tacos, donuts, even mass produced coffee. So no, nothing mass produced.”
“Sort of a form of food snobbery, no?”
“Definitely. So the best meal I’ve had…it would have to be this one time in Taiwan, when I was very little. We were in the countryside in the south…and there was this damp little alleyway where there’s hardly any sun no matter what time of day it is. At the end of the alleyway, there was this little makeshift kitchen. You know, the stove was attached to these huge gas tanks, that kind of a kitchen.”
“What did they sell?”
“Chicken rice. Actually, it’s turkey meat and rice, but I didn’t know that until later. I didn’t even know there were turkeys in Taiwan.”
“I know what you’re talking about. I like it too. The key is the balance between the turkey fat and the rice; it can’t be too dry but it can’t be too greasy either.”
“That’s right. But what made it really special is that I went with my dad. It’s the same place that his father took him when he graduated from elementary school. My grandfather was a poor tenant farmer, and they couldn’t afford to eat the very rice they grew. My dad told me my grandfather used to take him there, and told him ‘小孩子長大, 要吃白米飯才有力氣讀書’ He was rubbing his eyes as he told me this. It was the first time I saw my dad with tears. It’s a strange thing…realizing that your father can be emotionally weak too, you know?”
She shook her head. “Were you born in Taiwan?” she asked.
“Yup. I grew up in Taiwan until I was fourth grade. But you know, now I think of it, I seem to remember very little about that time of my life. It’s like, if that chunk of my life simply disappeared. I don’t remember much at all. All I remember is…the food, and my parents talking about Taiwan a lot, all the time, but they really never told me about it. It always feels like they’re trying to hide something from me.”
“I see.” She nodded. “Anyway, want to hear about the best meal I’ve had?”
“Of course. Tell me.”
“I was in a little village on the shore of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland visiting a friend from college, who’s working there as a model. It was about two years ago, maybe. I was there for about a week. I stayed in her tiny little apartment overlooking the lake.
“She left the apartment around seven or eight at night to go to work. I’m not sure exactly where she went or exactly what kind of modeling she did, but I never thought to ask. It just didn’t feel right to me to ask. Well, she would leave about 7 or 8 at night, come home around 4 in the morning, and sleep until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I would go out to the street market around seven and buy whatever I felt like buying that day, bring it home, and then head out to the shore and walk around or just find a place to sit down and think. Then I would come home around 4, and find my friend cooking dinner, out of whatever I bought that morning. No matter what I brought back from the market, she could make a gourmet meal.
“She was an amazing chef. I say chef, because I believe no other professional chef matched her level of creativity and skill. Especially with her knife. Her knife was one of a kind. She kept it in an ebony velvet case and sharpened it on a white whetstone. On the base of the handle there was a small engraved emblem that looked like a circle with four horizontal lines inside the circle.
“The last night I was there, she woke up and said she had a strange headache. Couldn’t cook, cuz she felt nauseous thinking about the smoke and the grease. Why don’t you cook, she said. I looked at the pile of fresh red mullet, and they looked at me back. I said, I don’t think I can do this. I get squeamish at the thought of swatting cockroaches. There was no way I could kill a fish, gut it, filet it, cook it, and then eat it. Go on, just try it. No, I can’t. Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine. I promise. Just…let me guide you. Let me walk you through this. Trust me. Take out the knife, and let me show you.
“There was something strange in her voice as she urged me on, like she was trying to sell me heroine. She seemed completely out of it. Her eyes were wide open, and she was sweating. You know what, just go back to bed, I’ll figure something out, I told her. No, the ritual must be completed. You must fulfill your destiny. Draw your sword! No more darkness, and transform us into a new society! You must save all of us from ourselves!
“She was really scaring me at this point. So...I dragged her back to her room and pushed her into bed. I ran some cold water over a face towel and splashed it on her face. She calmed down a bit and her voice trailed off a bit. I gave her some water to drink, and put her back into bed. I made sure she was asleep, and then went out to the train station. I got a couple of Big Macs, a Filet-o-fish, and Super-sized fries from the McDonalds at the station, and brought it back. I ate everything on my friend’s kitchen counter, while she was sleeping.
“So that’s the best meal I’ve had. Strange, isn’t it? That’s the first thing I thought of, anyway.”
“Hmm. We seem to have something in common.” I said. “Fast food is comfort food for us.”
“Exactly. In a time when we travel all over the place so much, it might just be the only sense of belonging we can hold onto.”
“I suppose.” I said. “What happened to her work that night?”
“That’s the other thing. Towards around 11:30 at night her cell phone rang. I was about to go to sleep, and I hate it when something wakes me up when I’m about to fall asleep. So her phone rings, and not wanting to disturb her sleep, I went into her room and picked up. A man’s voice said: ‘Ms. Guo, don’t worry about your friend, just let her rest. She can take as long as she needs to recover, and it’s fine to come back to work only after that. Thanks for taking care of her all this time.’ And then he hung up.”
“That’s odd. How did he know who you are?”
“That’s what I was thinking too, you know? But I never found out because my friend never got back to work before I left. I wasn’t about to call her employers back and bother them with questions.”
“I suppose.”
“By the way, when I was about to leave she gave me her chef’s knife as a gift. I couldn’t take something like this, I told her, but she insisted that I have it for taking care of her while she was sick. Don’t know when’s the next time she’ll see me again, she said, so it’s something to remember her by. I couldn’t refuse when she puts it that way, you know? So yeah.”
She sighed slightly and looked at me for a moment without saying a word. “You know, it feels like you’re from another world. It’s a eerie feeling.”
“Exactly what I was thinking about you too.”
She shuffled closer and very gently placed her head on my shoulder. Her hair had a natural smell that reminded me of fresh snow.
