From “Three”

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In the fairy tales the daughter read growing up, the kings and queens would host banquets when an occasion for a grand celebration arose: a birth, a marriage, a victory at the borders, a dispelled curse. It would be reasonable to assume that the completion of a new palace (a mansion) would suffice for a banquet like this.

In the fairy tales, little was told about the preparation leading up to such banquets. Likely, the writers had attended the banquets as guests—­if they’d attended them at all—­but had never been backstage, where an auspicious date was chosen; the ingredients were purchased at nearby supermarkets the morning of; the women crowded the kitchen to rinse the vegetables, peel the shrimp, marinate the meat, cook the rice, brew the soup, slice the mangos and pineapples, and serve them with toothpicks on dainty porcelain plates to chain­ smoking and TV­ watching men in the living room.

Most certainly, the storytellers wouldn’t have written about the arrival of the in-laws—­who had never been to the palace, didn’t own a car, and lost their way after three bus transfers and a fifteen­ minute walk along a deserted highway. (The neighborhood of the mansion was still under development; many of the newly paved roads had yet to be named, the green road signs pristine and blank.) Come to think of it, you almost never read about in-­laws in fairy tales, do you? Once the princess marries the bravest warrior or the prince marries the prettiest virgin, the past of their non-­royal spouses is erased, their parents toiling on the farms or foraging in the forests are swept away and replaced by the majestic king and the magnificent queen.

The door to the basement garage beeped open and the daughter heard the woman’s voice downstairs. “What a big house you’ve got here, Sister!”

The daughter pierced through the back of a shrimp with a toothpick and teased out its intestine. Rinsed the lump in a bowl of water; tossed it into a big basin half-full with more translucent shrimp. With every second her mother’s exuberant exclamations grew louder.

“These chandeliers are simply gorgeous, I’ve never seen anything like them! And the staircase—­must be solid wood, isn’t it?”

In her normal voice M answered that it was indeed: American walnut, actually.

At the sight of the daughter, the woman looked dazed for a split second, as if she’d never expected to find her sitting in another family’s luminous dining room, shelling shrimp among women (relatives of her in­-laws) she’d never seen in her life until this day. 

It was Y who nodded to the daughter first. “N,” he called to her softly. “W­-where do I put these?” 

They’d brought with them two suitcases, worn and mismatched in color and size. Y was also carrying a cross-over bag and a backpack that the daughter recognized as her old school bag. The woman had a tote bag she made from a pair of Y’s old factory denim overalls. The invitation they received had been vague, without mentioning how long they were expected to stay.

Before the daughter could reply, F’s mother stepped forward and grabbed the handle of one of the suitcases with her strong arm.  “Let me show you to your room!”

The guest room greeted them with a bed large enough to swim in, duck­ yellow sheets with a bird­-and­-flower print and matching pillow cases. The ottoman and the armchair discreetly faced opposite directions; early dusk seeped through the French windows. The woman feigned surprise—­she’d seen these decorations from the photos taken by her daughter; together, they had derided them. Now her praises sounded fake and sycophantic to both of them. They avoided looking at each other.

The woman was changed by the mansion once she was inside it. She hissed at the daughter, who lingered with them once M left the room. “Go, go with your mother-in­-law! Help her out with the preparation!”

With mild disgust, the daughter joined the women in the kitchen. The clutter had been cleared away from the counter; utensils and wine glasses appeared on the dining table; cold dishes moated the hot ones.

Time for dinner!

The women called out to the men. Languidly they drifted toward the table, the man leading F, Y, and M’s brother­-in­-law, half­-finished cigarettes tucked behind their ears except for the youngest’s. Dinner is ready? Where is the decanter? Where are the napkins? Where are the extra chairs?

The man fretted over the seating at the table. He took such matters very seriously. With his family on one side and Y’s on the other, buffered by M’s sister and brother-in­-law, he was satisfied. Pointed his chin at N. “Serve the wine.”

Funny how power exerts itself through codes: who should sit next to whom, which person should serve the wine, in what order—­what did all this matter? Nothing, except to say: who was the king, who were the in­-laws, who was to be groomed to serve, who was to learn to sit back and enjoy. All this, expressed without language. Stupid; clever.

She filled the glass for her mother, her mother­-in­-law, M’s sister. Handed the decanter to F. Go serve your people.

The fairy tale writers would point out that the seed for what would happen later that night was sowed right there, right then. The king saw everything, remembered everything. The king was also vengeful.

He raised his glass, scanned the room, and cleared his throat. First, welcomed the guests from afar, addressing the woman and Y by their last names and professions—­teacher and engineer. Second, thanked his sister­-in­-law and brother­-in­-law, the only members of M’s family he could stand and who could stand him. Third, addressed N and F, dispensing words of wisdom to the younger generation, words he’d picked up from other kings’ banquets. Having worn the imperial gown for too long, it had become like a second skin. He sat down, satisfied with the little task he’d assigned to himself, though vaguely irritated, perhaps at the atmosphere, which became somewhat dampened after the speech, the dishes now lukewarm and dulled by the dust of officiality.

He looked around, searching for a pawn at his disposal. Laid his eyes on his brother-­in-­law, a retired plumber. “Want some baijiu?”

“Sure!” the plumber said. “This foreign stuff is too mild for my taste.” He looked at F, calling him by his nickname. “What do you think?”

F pulled at his earlobe, smiling. “I’m not as good a drinker as you are, Uncle.”

“Nonsense!” He burst into laughter.

The woman turned to M. “The shrimp is really nice, Sister, so juicy and bouncy! Where did you get them?”

A smile slowly crossed M’s tired face; she’d been up since six in the morning. “There’s a farmers’ market in the village nearby. I know a woman there who always has fresh supplies.”

“How much did you get them for?” mumbled her older sister. 

The man returned with a bottle of unopened baijiu and four shot glasses. Ignoring M’s look, he put one in front of Y. “You drink, of course?”

Y glanced at the woman, who didn’t speak. “Why, yes.” Intoxicated talk had the advantage of being louder and more heated; a fact that must have held true in fairy­ tale times, too. Not many of those conversations survived today, but they wouldn’t have deviated too far from this one, woven around the hardships and glories of the old days: the revolutions, the famines, the crises, the battles won and lost (but mostly won), the trophies and badges, sorrows assuaged with strong liquor.

When the man was about to fill up Y’s glass for the fifth time, the woman said apologetically, “He’s had quite enough, Brother.” 

Turning to M, she continued, “Your husband certainly knows how to hold his liquor—­his face has barely changed color!”

A look was exchanged between the queen and the king. He put the bottle down without a word.

The woman watched Y’s chopsticks reach for a piece of shrimp. “Stop it, Y! It’ll upset your stomach.”

The chopsticks trembled and shrank. The man snorted. 

“I can see that he’s more of a son to you than a husband,” he said, slurring a little.

The woman sealed her mouth. M shot up from her seat.

“Enough!” She motioned to her son to help the man to the living room.

The dining room was empty now except for N and her parents. Her father wasn’t feeling well. His face had turned from liver-­red to papyrus-­white, his breath shallow and inaudible. The two women in his life sat on his either side, a glass of water on the table, where the leftovers lay. The TV sounded from the living room, where the host and the guests had gathered.

The woman sighed. “Your father hasn’t drunk this much in years.”

From time to time he would half­ lift his eyelids to tell them that he was okay, still alive, still conscious. No one could dine with the king without sacrificing a small part of his health, this was to be expected, the price that everyone knew but never talked about. And the damage wasn’t totally irreversible: just give the body some water and time, it’d mend itself as much as it could.

He sipped at the water like an injured swallow. After his third visit to the bathroom, he said he’d go rest in the guest room. When N returned from the guest room, her mother was gone, and M was washing the dishes in the kitchen. In silence she joined her at the sink. The mixture of grease and dish soap smelled like a failed night. When F poked his friendly head in, she walked out with a sick heart.

On her way to the living room she could see the woman and the man seated on the couches opposite one another; the older sister and her husband were nowhere to be seen. The scene felt historical—­a vis­ à­ vis between two superpowers. The woman was talking with a tiny smile on her face until it disappeared. Some time between when she saw N approaching and when N reached the couch, a violent spasm seized her face and it fell apart like earth that had been baked dry. Water came profusely, accompanied by a wailing sound.

N stared at the man: he was drunk, he could barely sit straight, his sweat­-sheened face was slow to react. She turned back to her mother, asking what had happened, what was the matter. 

Shadows contracted around them: M, F, the older sister and her sobering husband. M screamed the man’s full name. “What have you done this time!”

He yelled back, voice high­ pitched and metallic. “Nothing!”

Between sobs the woman stirred to defend herself. “He said he’s got some millionaire friend who’ll marry their daughter to his son in a heart beat. Said they’ve got so many better choices. Do you realize those words were a slap in the face to a mother, mister? What have we done to deserve such an insult?”

M lunged at the man before F and her sister peeled her away. She exclaimed, “For this day, I’ve toiled for a week, and now this—­you just don’t want to see me happy, do you? You and your cursed tongue!”

Protected by a forest of arms, he looked almost subdued now, and slowly, he came back to his senses. Without a word he brushed away the protective web and limped down the hallway. After her mother’s tears dried, N helped her to the guest room. As they passed the staircase, she caught muffled quarrels from upstairs. 

She would never tell F what she and her parents talked about that night as the blue outside the window deepened and then faded; nor would he tell her what had happened between him and his parents, and then—after his father stormed out of the room—­the words exchanged between him and his mother. His relationship with his father—­whom he’d loved as a child, admired as a teenager, understood as a young adult—­would slowly deteriorate in the years to come, as the man closed up like an oyster when confronted with his own mortality.

The next morning, she and her parents would pack their suitcases and leave the mansion together. On their way, they’d run into F and his parents having breakfast in the kitchen, and would decline M’s invitation to join them. Together they’d walk for fifteen minutes along the highway until they boarded a bus heading for downtown. There they’d go on a shopping spree until they got hungry. They’d go on a wild goose chase looking for an affordable place that could remind them of all the meals they used to have when N was little and the woman and Y were relatively young: the sweet Taiwanese hot dogs, the glazed takoyaki, the stir­ fried noodle and stuffed fried pancakes. Eventually they’d find themselves in a food court on the top roof of a declining shopping mall. They’d sit down, determined to enjoy themselves, and order from a Korean food stall. The fried rice and the bibimbap were disappointing, but they were too bruised to let their sorrows show. They were about to finish the meal when a scream erupted from behind the curtains of the stall, followed by the clanking of pots. The woman shuddered at the sight of something.

Someone sitting next to their table shrieked: “A rat just got away from the kitchen!

The owner feigned calmness. “No it didn’t! I dropped a stick—­that’s all.”

“I swear it was a rat—­I saw its tail, for heaven’s sake!”

The three of them looked at each other. Y picked up his fork but the woman snapped at him: “Haven’t you heard what he said?” They tumbled out of the building. The sky was concrete­ gray, threads of golden sunshine in the brisk air. For a moment they walked in silence; then, at some point, a strange noise escaped from the daughter and spread to the woman. They burst out laughing, their bodies bent, their bellies shaking until they hurt. Next to them Y stood and watched with an indulgent smile. What were they laughing about? The rat, the escape, the sleepless night, the humiliation?

Perhaps this was why the in-­laws had been removed from the fairy tales: to keep the rats away from the palaces.