NaNoWriMo Day 13: Feast of the Forest Devils

NaNoWriMo goal: 50,000 words by November 30 Average daily goal: 1,667 Today's count: 2,503 Total so far: 21,217

Artificial night in an artificial forest. The walls were painted matte black and mostly hidden by vines and potted orchids and the like, the room festooned sparsely with paper lanterns, which seemed to illuminate nothing but themselves. Water ran from a gap in the wall four feet high, splashing down over rocks of red and blue jasper, their mineral colors made vivid under the wash of cool water, while the dry rocks along the sides of the false river showed dingy lifeless gray. The water slipped down over a manufactured miniature cliff, accompanied by a swirl of manufactured steam hinting to some dry ice hidden somewhere lost to view. Along the wall, the river—a creek, a brook, really—trickled under a small arched bridge of mossy stone and pooled in a corner where an unseen frog chirped. Everywhere there were ferns, stands of rushes, weeds. The smell of fresh loam rose up, along with the indescribable smell of water running on rocks. Strange undergrowth, heart or arrowhead shaped leaves, crawling vines covered the floor.

The redheaded geisha led them over the bridge, tapping a happy rhythm with the small, clopping steps of her wooden sandals, then along the short path, paved with irregular slabs of slate, to where the dart-throwing girl and a male companion sat across from one another under a false overhang of pagoda-tiled roof, which was ornamented at the corners with upward stone swoops that lifted like tiny ski jumps to the imaginary heavens. More lanterns hung from the corners of the roof, and several ivory-pale pillar candles glowed on the table. Annie and Kimo could see that rustic hewn backed benches were pulled up to what seemed a single slab of split granite. The redheaded woman bowed again and slipped behind a stand of bamboo, which was brightly lit from behind for a moment as they heard the surreal chatter of an ordinary kitchen, before the silence and darkness returned. The dart girl and the man rose to greet the thieves.

“I am so pleased you could come,” said their tiny black-clad host. “My name is Isa, and this is Mr. Jonin. Mr. Jonin, these are Miss Annie and Mr. Kimo, my traveling companions.”

Mr. Jonin bowed, and Annie and Kimo, with the ease with which they usually infiltrated charity balls and crashed society parties, bowed as well. They took the opportunity to quickly look the man up and down. He could have been anything from forty to sixty, barrel-chested, bearded, with conservatively combed hair streaked with gray. He had dark, thick, ruffled eyebrows, a narrow long nose, eyes with a Clint Eastwood squint. Kimo observed, with his thieves’ eyes, the tailored Italian wool, charcoal gray, with a woven green and black tie that Kimo recognized as Kenzo. He also took a glance down at Mr. Jonin’s shoes, realized they were custom made, and by the time Annie and Kimo had straightened out of their bow, Kimo felt that he was in love.

“So charmed to meet you, Mr. Jonin,” said Annie, thickening her put-on European accent—for although she could read Italian and looked the part, she was removed from the Sicilian tailors who were her ancestors via two generations, through the Bronx.

“Yes, charmed,” added Kimo, his heart racing, alternately avoiding and seeking the older man’s eyes, a life of sugar daddy care playing out in the theater of his imagination.

“Miss Isa and I have known each other a long time,” said Mr. Jonin, and his voice had a sandpapery gruffness that made Kimo soften and melt, like chocolate in the mouth, he thought. “It is a pleasure to meet her friends.”

Annie and Kimo hid their surprise well, as they always did, and Annie replied, “Thank you, Mr. Jonin, but the pleasure is all ours.”

They sat, boy-girl alternating, with Kimo and Annie facing each other, and Kimo, with a touch of disappointment, seated next to Isa, and lucky Annie beside Mr. Jonin. No sooner had their bottoms hit wood than the bamboo glowed again, and their redheaded woman returned with a tray of more sake—Mr. Jonin seemed to be already into a bottle—and a glass of something beige.

“Bailey’s Irish Cream?” asked Kimo.

“Vitasoy,” answered Isa and raised her glass. The rest all raised the wooden boxes they’d been given as cups, and drank. It was the most delicious, smoothest sake either Annie or Kimo had ever tasted, and they tipped their chins up and drained the boxes in one go.

“I hope you will enjoy this meal,” smiled Isa, when they’d put their cups down and smiled in the same hedonist happiness, “because the chef is an old friend of mine, as well. He cooked for me when I was a little girl, and so I was keen to seek him out on the rumor that he was here.”

“Isa-chan is very good at finding things out,” mentioned Mr. Jonin, in a casual admiring way that Annie recognized, as a practitioner of the art, as false casualness. She saw Isa lower her eyes and look left at nothing in particular, her eyebrows lifting slightly. This is all trouble, thought Annie, thrilled with the entertainment. She was still considering it, when suddenly several waiters surrounded them, establishing chopsticks, sauce bowls, plates, and setting down tiny platters.

“Oooh,” squealed Kimo, “an amuse-bouche.”

A slice of orange, thin shavings of fennel, a glistening paper-thin sheet of yellowtail, artfully rumpled, and the aroma of sesame oil and limes, with several toasted sesame seeds emphasizing the effect. Mr. Jonin slipped his deftly into his mouth in one quick flick of the chopsticks, and Kimo followed, then Annie, then at last Isa, after Kimo and Annie had swallowed theirs. Washed down with sake. Then suddenly waiters, and then no waiters, no plates. Then suddenly waiters again. Glasses filled without anyone making a move to fill them. It occurred to Annie that this was the ideal service, that every restaurant in the world would do well to hire ninjas for wait staff, that she had never felt so expensive in her life. She was aware of her schoolgirl costume and found herself batting her eyes in false innocence and awe at the wisdom of Mr. Jonin, flirting with him, making up for the drab female presence across the table, giggling at his witticisms, even though there weren’t that many of them. Kimo kicked her a couple of times, but she couldn’t stop.

A strange small savory egg custard, of uni and egg yolks, with buttery taro root, slices of foie gras. Again, Mr. Jonin, Kimo, and Annie ate the first bites, followed by Isa. And so it would be through every course, Annie suspected, thinking, Wonder if she thinks she’s going to be poisoned?

A perfectly ripe pear, as sweet as liqueur, topped with small, salty-sweet crisp fried bait fish and chiffonaded slivers of mint.

A pale miso broth with lobster, sweet and smoky in flavor, with the lobster only barely cooked, so tender, just past raw, you could almost taste the life in it—they must have simply set it into the waiting pot before serving and let the vividly bright juices of the dying creature meld with the soup.

In the meantime, Isa and Mr. Jonin made small talk, about business, about travel. They had both recently been to Bali, and sorrowfully tut-tutted about the bombings; they had both been to Manila, and complained about the pollution, the poverty, the crassness, the religiosity. Mr. Jonin had read the book Memoirs of a Geisha in translation, and found it better than expected. Isa hadn’t read it and declared she never would. Annie stifled a yawn and tried to look interested. Kimo was enraptured, unblinking, gazing into Mr. Jonin’s eyes. Isa said little, really, preferring to answer questions with questions, and deflecting direct questions by demurring, “I don’t want to bore our friends here with stories of people they don’t know.”

A perfectly ripe tomato, hollowed, sliced and reassembled in such a way that it appeared whole at the table and, when tapped, fell open like a lotus flower to reveal three fat shrimp steamed in mustard oil and bruised mustard seeds, studded with small edible yellow blossoms.

A fan of asparagus tips, in a dressing redolent of tangerines and olive oil.

A baked sea bass, its creamy insides sliding apart along its natural faults as the waiter filleted it with a slender, shining knife.

A tableside vat of extraordinarily hot oil, and the beautiful dance, assisted by the waiter, of vegetable into flour then into batter then oil and, minutes later, onto the plate, where it received a quick pass of sea salt and was immediately consumed.

Isa accepted her cloud of crisp sliced pumpkin, inhaled the scent of sesame oil, and tenderly bit into it, a look of deep feeling in her face. She looked up at Mr. Jonin but spoke to Annie and Kimo. “My friends, if you will excuse our rudeness, but we do have some business to speak of, and it is easier for us to speak in Japanese. Please feel free to talk to each other.”

As the young girl and the Japanese man spoke, Annie and Kimo devoted themselves to chewing and drinking, grunting in pleasure, forgetting their manners. When they realized the other two were deep in conversation, Kimo whispered, “I’m in love with Mr. Jonin.”

“God, me too,” whispered Annie, and they giggled.

“This is the greatest food I have ever eaten in my life,” said Kimo, accepting yet another sweet shrimp from the tempura server, who gave a genuinely pleased smile.

“I can’t believe it’s free, hoo ha ha ha ha haaaaa,” Annie stuttered through a sizzling hot bite of green squash, which seared her soft palate and left the flesh ragged.

“Nothing is free,” Kimo reminded her, portentously, “but I don’t care what the price is now.”

“Don’t ruin it for me, dear, talking about cost. Just eat, eat.”

“He’s so handsome,” sighed Kimo, savoring his shrimp with extra gusto, looking sideways at Mr. Jonin with the head tilt of a besotted teenage girl.

“So rich,” agreed Annie.

In the meantime, the conversation at the other end of the table seemed to grow more fervent, Isa pleading, then explaining, Mr. Jonin at first grimly refusing, staunchly immovable on a point, then interested, then mulling, then refusing again, then charmed into a smile. They seemed still not to have come to an agreement when Isa turned back to the thieves.

“Mr. Jonin is a difficult man.” She chewed on a slice of radish thoughtfully for a moment, looking away. Mr. Jonin reached for a slice himself and she turned back to him, settling into, bizarrely, an entirely different posture than before, less rigid, inexplicably friendlier. “Pour me some sake, then, Joe.”

The request and the manner of it surprised Mr. Jonin, made him ill at ease, alert. A wooden box appeared. He poured. She topped off his cup, and lifted hers.

“You’ll be hauled in, I suppose, for contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” she warned him, a sudden flirtatious tone creeping into her voice.

“Isa.” It was a rebuke, but not a serious one. His mouth flickered into the barest smile. Then they drank, making eye contact all the while.

The tempura was swept away, and Isa reached into the darkness where Kimo and Annie had seen nothing at all, and produced a waiter’s arm, attached to a startled waiter.

“Kono satsuma imo-shochu wo kudasai.”

He bowed and scuttled away into the forest darkness and the sound of frogs singing to each other in the pond.

Mr. Jonin looked stern. “When did you learn to drink?”

“When I sailed with Lucia the Red,” Isa yawned, and winked, which seemed to make Mr. Jonin sterner.

“When was this?”

“Oh, it was only last month.” She reached out, startling Mr. Jonin by patting him lightly on the hand.

His face colored. “You’re a fool,” he growled. “Your grandmother will bring you back, dead or alive.”

“I know.” She yawned. “The question is which. Also when, and how? Will she hire you to do it?” Mr. Jonin began to protest, but she hushed him. “Has she hired you already? You won’t help me, so I assume that’s the case. She knows where I am at every moment. I know I am only at liberty at her pleasure. I half expect this meal is paid by her, and that she allowed news of your new cook to filter to me deliberately, knowing I would wander here, alone, looking for him.”

Kimo cleared his throat, but was ignored. A clear liquid like vodka was quietly slipped into glasses at each of their hands, and everyone drank. It was smooth and gentle as water.

“Isa.” And now Mr. Jonin’s voice grew unexpectedly tender. He reached out this time and touched her hand. “How old are you now?”

“Eighteen.” She trembled slightly.

He returned to speaking Japanese, and Annie and Kimo fidgeted, looking at the pond, the lanterns, casing the joint, really, to avoid the awkward emotional scene before them. What they could not understand him saying was this:

“I remember you when you were fourteen. You were the brightest in your class.”

She answered him in the same tongue. “It was a small class.”

“You were my favorite. You are smarter than you are acting. Why are you doing this? She will kill you.”

“No, she won’t,” answered Isa, firmly. “Unless you help her do it.”

“Child,” Mr. Jonin clasped her hands in his as if she were a little girl. And really, she was. “You put me in a terrible position.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Stay with me,” he urged, then. “At least stay with me. I can hide you. I can change your appearance. I could marry you to a person of even greater influence than your grandmother.”

At the word “marry” her face hardened. “You can call my grandmother instead,” she said, “and ask her whom I should marry. You have probably called her already.”

“You knew I couldn’t help you. Then why are you here? Why are you here!” his voice was rising.

Her face softened, her eyes gleamed. “I wanted to see my old friend and teacher, whom I loved so well. To eat dishes made by my grandmother’s beloved cook, who used to make me dumplings in the afternoons. And to see if I would be betrayed.”

“Not by me,” said Mr. Jonin, rising from his seat, as the lanterns began to go out one by one throughout the artificial forest, and the hustle of many swift feet, like the rustle of dry leaves underfoot, could be heard drawing nearer and nearer, though they were still out of sight. Annie screamed and Kimo clutched her arm. “I swear, Isa-chan,” he whispered, as the last lantern went out, the rustle grew louder, and he rushed around the table to her side, “it was not by me.”