The Last Mandarin

Chapter 1

Alice was, predictably, in the restaurant bathroom when the first alarm sounded.

She’d taken refuge there to relieve herself. Of her mother.

Just before she entered, Alice paused. Don’t look back, don’t look back. But as in all horror movies, Alice looked. Though why she bothered, she didn’t know.

She saw exactly what she expected. What she always saw.

Other patrons, noticing her leave, were now shuffling zombielike toward her table.

Though it was not really her table. It never was. Never would be. Not while her mother was the other occupant.

Neither was it her movie. Alice Li was not even the star of her own film.

That role would always be taken by Vivien, the tiny, luminous woman whose body Alice had once shared.

Though from the moment of delivery, the cutting of the cord, the distance between them had grown until, now, it was a great divide.

A chasm filled with broken bridges and paved over with indifference.

Alice knew she’d been a pudgy howling disappointment then. And was a pudgy scowling disappointment now.

Run, Alice wanted to scream at the men and women approaching, approaching the table. The woman. Save yourselves. Do not get close. You have no idea what you’re letting yourself in for. A lifetime of servitude to a woman who does not deserve it.

Or, worse, thought Alice, as she entered the cubicle, who does.

She’d agreed to meet her mother at the luxury hotel in Washington, DC, for brunch, mostly because she could not think of a way to get out of it.

When she’d arrived at the restaurant, Alice had been a twenty-six-year-old woman.

A graduate of Columbia University School of Journalism who had a burgeoning career as a food blogger.

Her site was called Junk Food and specialized in, though was not limited to, Asian cuisine.

Not necessarily because it was the food of her heritage, but just because she loved it.

She was in the middle of a post on especially tasty dumplings from a restaurant in New York. “Tasty.” “Tasty.” There must be a better word …

She’d have to ask Liam when she saw him. They’d met at Columbia and had a lot in common. Mostly food. He’d moved away, but they’d gotten back in touch a year or so ago since he too wrote a food blog, and often asked Alice for her opinion on posts he was working on.

His job as an account manager for a food distribution company often took him to Asia. China mostly. Since he specialized in rice.

In his spare time, on planes, he wrote his blog.

When she saw him next, in just a few hours, she’d suggest they take a trip together. Her cheeks burned at the thought. She knew she’d almost certainly chicken out. Like she’d deleted all those texts she’d written to him suggesting the same thing.

Hey, buddy, why don’t we travel to Hong Kong together sometime?

Nope, nope, nope.

Hi, Liam. I’d love …

Hi, Liam, I’d like …

Hi, Liam, it would be fun to …

Fuck.

Still, he was on his way to DC and had asked to meet her.

Surely that meant he wanted to suggest the same thing.

Wanted to let her know he enjoyed her company.

That he wanted them to be partners in more ways than just consulting on each other’s blogs.

Maybe he wanted to merge their blogs … and lives. Wanted to marry and have children.

Yes. That must be why he’d asked to see her.

Alice checked her phone again in case there was another message from him.

There was not. Not since that slightly strange one a few hours earlier.

He’d sent a photo of himself on the Star Ferry crossing the Hong Kong harbor, along with some text.

But it didn’t really make sense and had contained some spelling mistakes, which was unlike him.

But the passage was probably rough, and he’d just hit the wrong keys.

Still, she’d reread the message as she’d approached the hotel, pausing to look again at the photo on the ferry. She found herself smiling back at Liam’s beaming face. That slightly goofy expression he always wore. So expressive. And what he mainly expressed was delight.

It was a rare pleasure to be around a happy person, even if they lived in different cities and didn’t actually see each other all that often. Their communication was mostly about, and through, their blogs. Their language was food.

“Tasty.” “Tasty.” Not really the right word to describe the dumplings. Liam would have a better word. There was one right on the tip of her tongue. Began with S …

Alice had slowed down as she’d approached the hotel, though she knew she should, in fact, be hurrying. She was already late. And that drove her mother nuts.

Which was, she knew, why she did it.

It was childish. So much so that, as Alice made her way through the lobby and across the elegant restaurant toward the best table in the place, she felt herself regress. With each step forward, she moved back. By the time she reached her mother, Alice Li was fourteen.

She could almost feel the cramps, her face breaking out.

The man in the dark suit and dark glasses and earpiece, hotel security, scrutinized her as though he’d never seen her before, then nodded.

Alice found herself wishing he would just shoot her. It would be less painful. Though the headline would probably read: Famous Chinese Dissident’s Brunch Interrupted by Minor Incident.

Her mother didn’t rise but instead offered her cheek, which Alice, despite promising herself that this time she would not, kissed.

“I’m so glad we could get together. It doesn’t happen often enough,” said her mother, in Mandarin, folding delicate hands in her lap and holding her daughter’s eyes.

“Why do we always have to come here, Vivien?” Alice replied in English, knowing her mother would prefer she spoke Chinese when they were together.

Alice had been born in the United States but spoke good Mandarin, because her mother insisted on speaking it to her at home.

But despite years of lessons, she was still unable to master the basics of reading and writing.

Alice had called her by her American name, Vivien.

She wondered if her mother realized that, upon escaping China to the USA, she had chosen an Anglo name that sounded like Vivien Leigh. The beautiful and self-destructive star.

Though Alice didn’t really give a damn.

“Wǒ xiǎng nǐ,” said Vivien. I miss you.

Why aren’t you more attentive, Alice heard, as a good Chinese daughter should be?

“I’ve been busy.”

“How’s your site doing? I read your piece on sweet dumplings. I didn’t know you liked them so much.”

You’re getting fat, like your father. And like him, you’re a disappointment. Writing about dumplings. Look at what your classmates at Columbia are doing. They’re making a difference.

“I’m actually in DC to meet an old friend from Columbia.”

Alice wondered if her mother would pick up on the subtext. Not to spend time with you.

“Oh? Who?” Vivien made a tiny gesture toward the ma?tre d’.

Don’t tell her. Don’t let her in. “Liam.”

“Liam? Qǐng gěi wǒ è lí tǔ sī.” The ma?tre d’ bowed as he took Vivien’s order for avocado toast, then left without asking what Alice wanted.

This was so common she no longer bothered to take offense. It was not the man’s fault. So deep was the shadow her mother threw, it was almost impossible for mere mortals to see who else was there.

Alice raised her hand to get someone’s attention, then lowered it when her mother again made the tiniest of gestures and two servers rushed over.

“I’ll have the blueberry pancakes, please,” she said, though she really wanted the avocado toast. But the jab about the sweet dumplings had landed, and Alice felt the need to retaliate. To assert independence. With the only weapon at hand. Pancakes.

Alice was now nine years old and in danger of sliding under the table.

In that agonizing period before the food arrived, mother and daughter made small talk, mostly about Kevin, Alice’s younger brother. It was a safe topic. A fairly safe topic. As long as Alice chose not to drop the bomb, in the form of Kevin’s secret.

But it was a weapon she was keeping hidden, one might even say in the closet, until needed. Breakfast crêpes were Alice’s bludgeon du jour.

When their meals arrived, Vivien’s eyes moved from her avocado toast and rested for a moment on the mountain of pancakes topped with blueberry compote and mounds of whipped cream.

She watched as her daughter slowly poured maple syrup over it, making a show of raising and lowering the jug until it was empty.

This was the extent of five-year-old Alice’s defiance and sticky weaponry. Then Vivien raised her eyes, and just for a moment, they rested on her daughter’s face.

Considering herself practiced at decoding her mother’s subtle expressions and tones, Alice found herself momentarily lost in that look. Was it censorious? Was Vivien embarrassed by her uncouth, unkempt, gluttonous daughter?

No. Far worse.

The look Alice caught was envy. Vivien, cutting into her avocado toast, envied her daughter her pancakes. And perhaps envied even more than that.

Don’t go there, don’t go there, don’t look in that crevice. Dreadful things live there.

But she did. And sure enough she saw something terrifying.

Pancakes. Her mother wanted them. Longed for them. Longed for what they represented.

Freedom. From endless helpings of avocado toast, and salads, and public engagements, and dinners with useful people. Freedom from Pilates and beautiful tailored clothing. And beautiful tailored people.

Freedom from scrutiny, from the expectations of total strangers. Freedom from the men in the dark suits and dark glasses and the bulges at their armpits.

The tiny, perfect, brave, dazzling, universally admired and respected woman across from Alice wanted only one thing.

Blueberry pancakes. Loaded with whipped cream and swimming in maple syrup.

Her mother had escaped the tyranny and oppression of Communist China, only to place herself in her own prison. Built by the expectations of others. Now there was tyranny.

Alice felt a small fissure open in the wall around her heart. A little slit through which her mother—

“So, you’re meeting Liam,” said Vivien. “I’m assuming he’s the one from Columbia. The fellow you had a crush on.”

The one you didn’t approve of, remembered Alice, as the opening slammed shut and hardened over. Because he wasn’t Chinese. “He’s been in Hong Kong on business,” she said, looking defiantly at her mother. “He sometimes writes for my blog,” she lied.

“Ahhh.” As though what Alice said was important. Or even interesting.

“He’s a senior vice president at Garnett Foods. You know, the multinational food distribution firm.”

“Really?” Vivien appeared impressed, but Alice knew her mother and knew she’d seen through the lie. Liam was, in fact, not a vice president, but an account manager. Specializing in rice.

“He wrote to say he’d like to meet me here in DC when he gets back.” She could feel her cheeks burning.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does he want to meet?”

Meet you. Why would he want to meet you? Why would anyone?

Alice was now in the terrible twos, high on sugar and moments away from a tantrum.

“We’re friends. We reconnected a while back. He wrote to say he liked my item on cakes that look like appliances.”

She said that last bit as a challenge, to see what her mother would do with it.

“Yes, I saw it. So creative. I especially liked the toaster.”

Advantage Mother.

Some of the more courageous patrons had begun to approach the table, perhaps afraid Vivien would leave before they had a chance to meet her.

The large man in the bespoke suit and earpiece narrowed his eyes, but at a nod from Vivien, he let them through.

“Nǐ hǎo.” The wizened bejeweled woman bowed. “It is an honor, Madame Li. Might we take a photograph together?”

She gestured with a thin veined hand to the women behind her. Daughters. Granddaughters. All staring wide-eyed at the tiny woman who fought the government troops in Tiananmen Square and lived to tell the world about it. To keep reminding the world about it.

To fight for freedom and democracy, in China and elsewhere.

Vivien smiled and agreed. And this, Alice knew, was why her mother chose to come here for brunch. Because the hotel was owned by a member of the Chinese diaspora, one of Vivien’s many billionaire friends, and the restaurant was a meeting place for DC’s power brokers. Asian and otherwise.

Vivien chose this place so that Alice could see them fawning over the famous dissident. Oddly enough, Vivien herself brooked no dissent. At least not from her children.

Alice was now little more than a skin tag, having brunch in the luxury hotel with a 麒麟, a qilin. The not-so-mythical monster whose appearance presaged a death.

This chimera had chosen to appear in the form of Vivien Li.

Alice excused herself, though no one seemed to notice, and made for the bathrooms. Sitting in the stall, and heaving a sigh of relief, she brought out her phone and read and reread Liam’s message. She stared, for the hundredth time, at the photo of him on the Star Ferry in Hong Kong harbor.

Was there some hidden meaning to this odd selfie? Odd because normally his photos had something to do with food. The only food he had was a bun clasped in his hand. And he never posted selfies.

Was there something that would tell her their feelings were mutual? Maybe he was saying that she was the star of his life? No, that was too tortured even for her.

But surely this photo, and the fact he wanted to meet, was a message?

That was when the first alarm sounded.