Bury What We Cannot Take: A novel Read online

  PRAISE FOR KIRSTIN CHEN

  “Bury What We Cannot Take explores what it takes to survive in a world gone mad—and what is lost when we do. Kirstin Chen has written both an engrossing historical drama and a nuanced exploration of how far the bonds of familial love can stretch.”

  —Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere

  “In Maoist China, the family at the center of this propulsive, haunting story is fractured by the dazzlingly complex fallout of a single irrevocable act. This beautifully plotted, suspenseful, and deeply compassionate novel shows Kirstin Chen, whose work I’ve long admired, at her absolute finest. Bury What We Cannot Take is a vital book.”

  —Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me

  “Bury What We Cannot Take fulfills the promise of Kirstin Chen’s debut. San San’s family flee Drum Wave Islet, leaving her behind. An epic story follows that explores gender roles, oppressive ideologies, sacrifice, and what it means to be free. All through the microcosm of one family. This is a book set in the past, on the other side of the world, that is more than relevant in today’s America. Chen delivers a page-turner that holds a historical mirror up to our fuzzy, complicit world.”

  —Matthew Salesses, author of The Hundred-Year Flood

  “This story will sweep you away. An utterly beautiful, entirely engrossing family saga. Chen writes betrayal and love with wisdom and nuance, attuned always to the complexities—personal, historical, cultural—of the human heart. Bury What We Cannot Take is an instant classic.”

  —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus and Battleborn

  “The perfect blend of family drama, complicated romance, and behind-the-scenes artisanal brewing of the world’s most unsung condiment.”

  —Glamour

  “Chen’s flavorful prose will have you thinking about the often dismissed condiment in a whole new way.”

  —Metro

  “Chen keeps the action at a steady pace with well-placed dialogue and setting, making it hard to put down, even for sleep.”

  —Webster-Kirkwood Times

  “Gretchen’s journey of self-discovery forms the backbone of this story about family, tradition, and honor. Foodies will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at the world of artisanal soy sauce, while others will enjoy Chen’s tribute to her native Singapore.”

  —Booklist

  “Soy Sauce for Beginners is Kirstin Chen’s first novel, and it works like a good recipe, with smooth language and an easily digestible plot . . . a dialogue based page turner . . . Readers craving an engaging and readable foodie tale will declare themselves satisfied.”

  —Washington Independent Review of Books

  “Soy Sauce for Beginners is an assured debut novel as light and flavorful as the condiment spicing its pages.”

  —The Straits Times

  “A funny and heartfelt novel exploring the intersections of food, family, and culture.”

  —Hartford Guardian

  “Chen navigates the culture with the insight of an insider.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “Kirstin Chen’s debut is a delicious page-turning treat. Chen captures the zeitgeist of Singapore’s new generation in an engrossing, intimately layered tale of love, family, and the discovery of one’s true calling. It will also turn every reader into an artisanal soy sauce aficionado willing to settle for nothing but the best.”

  —Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians

  “Soy Sauce for Beginners is an engaging story about a young woman’s journey through love and friendship, business and family as she seeks her own place in the world. A satisfying and insightful novel.”

  —Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life

  “At the center of this novel is a struggling family business, but its bright heart is the difficult business of family. Written with warmth, umami and humor, Soy Sauce for Beginners considers the intricacies of inheritance and the challenges of safeguarding tradition. Kirstin Chen has written a spirited novel of self-discovery.”

  —Amber Dermont, author of The Starboard Sea

  “Kirstin Chen evokes with wonderful brio the conflicts of a family business, and of a family. Reading these vivid pages made me want to catch the next plane to Singapore. Or failing that read another absorbing chapter. A sparkling debut.”

  —Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

  ALSO BY KIRSTIN CHEN

  Soy Sauce for Beginners

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Kirstin Chen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Little A, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Little A are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542049702 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542049709 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542049719 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542049717 (paperback)

  Cover illustration by Olivia Bodor

  Cover design by Faceout Studio

  Interior map by Mapping Specialists, Ltd

  First edition

  For Asmin, my Paris

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  SUMMER 1957

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

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  13

  14

  15

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  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

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  26

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  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SUMMER 1957

  1

  When San San followed her brother inside, she knew something was wrong. The flat was too quiet. Mui Ah, who always met them at the door to take their satchels, was nowhere to be found. Her brother shrugged and dropped his satchel on the floor on his way to the dining room, and San San did the same.

  Usually their grandmother would already be seated in the chair closest to the kitchen door, but this afternoon, though the pink pastry box sat on the revolving stand in the center of the table, Grandma’s chair was empty.

  Mui Ah emerged from the kitchen with the tea tray. Her eyes were bloodshot, as though she’d rubbed them with her fists.

  “Where’s my grandma?” San San asked.

  Mui Ah busied herself with the teapot and cups. “In her room, I think.”

  San San’s brother asked, “Is she ill?”

  San San asked, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  Mui Ah waggled her head, halfway between a nod and a shake, and retreated to the kitchen. San San’s brother lifted the lid of the pastry box, and together they peered in, as though its contents would provide clues. There were the same petits fours that Grandma had Mui Ah purchase dai
ly from the baker who’d apprenticed with a real Frenchman, before all the foreigners had left Drum Wave Islet.

  Her brother was pinching out the chocolate éclair when they heard the crash of shattering glass. San San’s hands clapped over her ears, as though compelled by some outside force. The éclair landed on the table with a soft splat. Mui Ah appeared in the kitchen doorway with Cook close behind her.

  “I’ll go check,” her brother said, pushing back his chair. “You stay here.”

  San San pushed back her chair, too. Twelve years old to her nine, her brother was constantly forbidding her from going places with him and his friends. Sometimes when he was particularly grumpy, he made her follow several paces behind when they walked home from school. This time, however, she wouldn’t let him bully her. She stood and squared her shoulders, and he scowled but said no more.

  They tiptoed out of the dining room, through the empty drawing room, and stopped before the study. The sliding door had been pulled almost shut, though not all the way. Inside the room, something thudded to the floor.

  Her brother held his finger over his lips, and San San pulled a face. What did he expect her to do? Burst into song? He planted himself before the sliver of space between door and wall, blocking her view. Her nose was running—her grandmother scolded her for always catching cold, as if it were something she could control—and she wiped her nostrils on her sleeve so she wouldn’t have to sniffle. She tugged on the back pocket of her brother’s uniform trousers, and at last he stepped aside.

  San San held back a gasp. On the opposite end of the room, Grandma knelt before the framed photograph of Grandpa on the family altar, her face buried in her hands to muffle her sobs. And then San San noticed the shards of glass strewn about the dark walnut floor, the claw and long wooden handle of the hammer partially hidden by Grandma’s skirt. Above Grandpa’s portrait, in the very center of the wall, the Chairman’s gleaming face continued to preside over the room, smiling benevolently at all who gazed upon him, oblivious to the spiderweb of cracks that scarred him.

  San San’s fingers brushed the door handle, and then she pulled back her hand. She turned to her brother, but his face was pale, his eyes clouded with worry. He dragged her back to the dining room.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said.

  When he let go, she saw that his fingertips had left red spots on her skin. She winced dramatically and massaged her forearm.

  “Sorry,” he said quietly, even though he no longer had to whisper. He leaned in close. “I need you, please, for once, to listen to me.”

  San San stopped rubbing her arm.

  “You didn’t see anything. Neither of us did. Is that clear?”

  San San nodded.

  “Nothing at all.”

  She nodded again.

  “We came home from school, and they told us Grandma was resting in her room, and we had our afternoon tea as usual.”

  “All right,” San San said, annoyed.

  Mui Ah came out with a broom and dustpan. “Does Grandma need help?”

  In unison, San San and her brother shouted, “No.”

  Mui Ah narrowed her eyes.

  “Leave her alone,” her brother said. “She’ll call if she needs help.”

  Mui Ah backed slowly into the kitchen.

  Her brother took his seat at the table, and San San did, too, even though she was no longer hungry. He reached for the slightly squashed chocolate éclair, which Mui Ah must have returned to the pastry box, and held it out to San San. “You can have this if you want.”

  He’d never once offered up his éclair, and, regardless of her lack of appetite, San San wasn’t about to turn him down. Before he could change his mind, she bit into the crisp chocolate-glazed shell.

  “Good?” he asked.

  She nodded and took another bite. “Thanks, Ah Liam,” she said with her mouth full. As a small child, she hadn’t understood why she was supposed to call him “Gor”—elder brother—when everyone else in the family used his nickname, and, after a while, the grown-ups gave up and stopped correcting her.

  Ah Liam lifted out the pear tart that was their least favorite, which they usually left for their mother to eat when she returned from her residents association meetings. He nibbled at the crust.

  As much as San San relished her éclair’s spongy, slightly savory pâte à choux and creamy custard, her thoughts remained in the study with Grandma. Could the whole thing have been an accident? Could her grandmother have been aiming for something else? No, the damage San San had seen was purposeful, precise. Grandma must have tottered on her tiny bound feet beneath the weight of the hammer, drawn back her arm until her shoulder strained in its socket, and gathered every ounce of her meager strength to smash the Chairman’s sacred face.

  San San pushed the last nub of pastry into her mouth and chewed. “Do you think—” she began.

  “How should I know?” her brother cut her off. He dropped the mostly uneaten pear tart on his plate and charged to his room.

  San San took a sip of tea. She was surprised by his vehemence, but not by his words. All her life, her family had skirted her questions, turning away or simply telling her to be quiet. Once, she had asked Grandma why her father couldn’t find a job closer to the islet, like the fathers of her friends. Even before the borders had closed back when she was three, her father had returned from Hong Kong only a few times a year. Grandma had clicked her tongue against her teeth and said, “No man will marry such a nosy girl,” which, as far as San San could tell, was beside the point.

  Another time, after San San’s teacher explained that the Chairman had liberated Chinese women by banning the oppressive practice of taking multiple wives, she asked her mother whether concubines were still allowed in Hong Kong. Ma choked on a mouthful of tea and fled to the kitchen, coughing. Someone changed the subject. San San never got her answer.

  She couldn’t conceive of anything that could so anger her wise, unflappable grandmother. Then again, her family came from a long line of landowners and industrialists and capitalists. As she’d learned at school, bourgeois thought processes and behaviors had been bred into her kind through the generations. Could this tainted blood of theirs have somehow muddled Grandma’s brain? Were all of them at risk?

  When San San had trouble falling asleep, her grandmother sometimes sat by her bedside, recounting stories of the olden days. Once, Grandma mentioned an exorcism she’d witnessed in the adjacent courtyard. San San’s eyes sprang open, causing Grandma to say, “That’s a story for another time.”

  But San San begged and begged until she relented.

  “The girl screamed so loud that all us neighbors came to our windows. She thrashed her arms and bared her teeth at the priest like a bloodthirsty wolf. Three grown men had to hold this slip of a thing down.”

  “Why?” San San asked, tightening her grip on her grandmother’s arm.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” said Grandma. “The demon inhabited her body and controlled her completely.”

  San San set down her teacup and hurried to her brother’s room.

  2

  At school the following day, Comrade Ang wrote the political discussion topic on the blackboard with a stub of chalk: Western goods are not superior to Chinese goods. Ah Liam searched for an appropriate example from his own life. As one of two class monitors, he was expected to be a model for his classmates. And the sooner he spoke up, the sooner he could relax.

  As usual, Ping Ping, the other monitor and the class’s sole Youth League member, was the first to raise her hand. “None of us needs to be reminded that the bandit Chiang Kai-shek brainwashed the masses into worshipping all things foreign,” she said, looking around the classroom and smiling.

  Ah Liam hoped she would single him out, but the instant their eyes met, he looked away.

  Ping Ping continued. “Because of our shameful history, we must be vigilant against our baser instincts.”

  Ah Liam studied her profile. How confidently she uttered
those smooth, glossy phrases. How grown-up she looked with that elegant gold pin, emblazoned with new China’s crimson flag, on the upper corner of her blouse—unlike the rest of them, with their childish Young Pioneer scarves knotted at their throats.

  “Just the other day,” Ping Ping said, “my father ordered our whole family to throw out our Western-made shoes.” She stuck her foot in the air to show off a dainty canvas slipper. “Red Stars are the best shoes in the world. They’re light and washable. What more could you ask for?”

  Comrade Ang nodded firmly, the most he ever did to show his approval. The political discussion leader was slender and of average height, with flat, unremarkable features—the kind of person whom Ah Liam would have struggled to describe to his friends. But despite Comrade Ang’s placid demeanor, everyone knew he tracked participation and scrutinized every word.

  Ah Liam wiggled his toes in his own Red Stars and raised his hand. “Comrade Ping Ping is right about the need for us to question our behaviors. For example, my grandma would have continued her old habit of buying French pastries for tea, if I hadn’t urged her to break free from the bondages of her background and her upbringing.”

  Ah Liam’s seatmate, whom everyone called Pimple Face, grunted his assent. Across the room, Ping Ping gave Ah Liam a smile that hid her teeth.

  He kept talking. “Besides, our local sweets, like moa ji and mooncakes, are equally, if not more, delicious. As the Chairman states, ‘Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in word is only a revolutionary in speech. Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in deed as well as in word is a revolutionary in the full sense.’” Then and there, he resolved to talk to his grandmother as soon as he found the chance—and to never touch another French pastry.

  When the session was over, Ah Liam headed for the door with his classmates, but Comrade Ang called his name. Ah Liam took a tentative step toward the discussion leader, who rested his palms on his wooden desk and looked intently at him. There was no way Comrade Ang could know that Ah Liam had made up his entire example, unless he’d spotted Mui Ah hurrying to the baker’s and somehow known she was the Ongs’ house girl. Had something in his words rung false? Why had he gone on and on like that? Why did he have to show off by quoting the Chairman?