But I do have an excellent palate, Cohen. And it’s not because I’m deaf. No, it’s because I’ve spent years mixing ice cream with my mama, creating flavours while other children played, tasting textures while the few friends I did have drifted away. I tried not to let that bring me down, you know. Mama always told me I didn’t need friends if I had her and a good gelato, and maybe she was right. She always said I didn’t need boys if I had a worthwhile profession, and maybe she was right there too.
I’m fairly certain she’s going to tell me I don’t need you if I have myself, but I’m not sure that’s true. Not any more. After all, what is mint without a chocolate chip? What is rum without a raisin? What am I, Cohen, if I don’t have you? I’ll always be myself, I know that, and I’m not unhappy with who I am.
But I have this feeling, like a tingle in my blood, that with you I could be so much more. That together, we might make the perfect flavour.
I’m taking you for dinner now, Cohen. Me and my kick-ass, deaf palate.
I hope you like it.
River’s hand reached for Cohen’s, but he was too quick for her. With lightning-fast reflexes, he hoisted River into the air, his arms holding tight to her hips as he pushed her against the gallery wall. This time he didn’t hold back, and his kiss was hard, almost brutal. It was a kiss born of passion, but also a kiss born of desire. And not just desire for her body, but a desire for her to always remember this moment. He wanted this kiss to sear itself into River’s skin, her memory, as well as her heart. He pressed himself against her, delighting in her warmth beneath him, in her gorgeous smell around him, in her mouth all over his.
The perfect flavour indeed.
It was a lost cause really, this dinner. Because Cohen already knew that wherever River took him, nothing would taste as good as this moment.
No. Nothing would ever taste as good as this kiss against a wall, red gingham around his neck, on a cold winter’s eve of a deep December’s Tuesday.
Chapter Eight
Rice Wine
Cohen had never been a man of faith.
His mother, of course, was proudly Jewish. But, as she was always quick to point out, she was the right kind of Jewish. The kind that went to temple and kept kosher and spoke nicely with the rabbi and practiced Teshuvah during the days of awe, while also occasionally binging on shrimp rolls and breaking fast on feast days and forgetting to light the Shabbat candles. Jewish, Esther would tell everyone but her rabbi, but not too Jewish.
Cohen had never understood his mother’s faith, or its haphazard application to his own existence. For while his body bore the mark of the Jewish faith, his soul had remained resolutely untouched by God. He’d attended temple without feeling and said prayers that meant nothing to him, merely reciting empty words from an apparently empty soul. He married Christine in a New York courthouse, a clinically faithless wedding that Esther called a knife to her heart, and during which she tore her dress while he said his vows. Christine merely raised an eyebrow at his mother’s ‘clumsiness’, but Cohen, who understood, grit his teeth at her overt sign of mourning.
‘Are you honestly going to sit Shivah during my honeymoon, Mother?’ he asked her testily, when it was all done.
‘One of us should,’ Esther replied tightly. ‘You’ve married a gentile. Now your faith dies with you.’
‘I have no faith,’ Cohen told her, his own temper frayed. ‘How can something which never existed die?’
‘You’ll see,’ Esther spat viciously. ‘One day God will find you and you’ll know. You’ll feel it. And then you’ll regret this marriage, mark my words.’
Well, in the end he didn’t need God to regret his marriage. A monthly hit to his bank account, the absence of his grandmother’s ring and a home devoid of everything but a bread maker took care of that particular emotion. Regret, Cohen knew, was something he could do on his own. In his world, self-hate and recriminations were par for the course.
And he didn’t need a helping of religious guilt to add to that misery.
So, when River led him from the National Gallery to Leicester Square, turning off into Gerrard Street and then up a dingy looking flight of stairs, Cohen almost laughed. Because this was Chinatown, and Chinese food was indelibly linked in his mind with Christmas and Easter and all the other gentile holidays he wasn’t supposed to celebrate. River looked at the smile on his face with questioning eyes, and he grinned back, reaching for his notepad to scribble an explanation for her.
My mother is Jewish, he wrote. And Chinese, like brisket and chopped liver, is a food of her people.
River grinned, reaching for the notepad and writing her own reply.
My mother is Chinese, she told him. This is the food of her people too.
A waiter soon appeared and, on seeing River, immediately broke into a wide smile, reaching over to kiss her on the cheek. When he stepped back, he dropped his arms from her shoulders and, still smiling, began to sign at her, his hands moving in a way that had become familiar, though was still largely incomprehensible, to Cohen. River replied to him, pointing to Cohen. I’m on a date, her hands must have said, because the waiter immediately glanced over at him, looking Cohen up and down with an open suspicion that instantly made him feel apprehensive. Apprehensive but also irrationally guilty; just how he always felt when at passport control, when walking through security barriers or during phone calls with his mother.
But he refused to be cowed, standing taller even while his ears flushed, trying to look like the truth he already knew in his heart: that he belonged next to this woman and was worthy of a place by her side.
The waiter, suitably chastised by Cohen’s refusal to be intimidated, backed away. Instead, he turned his attention back to River, gesturing for her to follow him up yet another flight of stairs, just as dingy, just as badly lit, but also filled with the promising aroma of garlic, onion and seared meat. Still, Cohen lagged, his steps heavy and uncertain, everything feeling out-of-place and yet all too familiar at once.
Just like home, he thought to himself bitterly.
But River must have felt his hesitation, because on the landing she turned, her hazel eyes wide, a hand reaching out to brush his brow in concern. Cohen caught her hand in his, turning it over to kiss the palm, before holding it to his cheek.
He sighed, closing his eyes momentarily and surrendering to the comfort River’s presence brought to him. Her hand was warm and soft and felt like heaven against him, and for a minute they stood, locked in a private moment of companionship, the smell of rice and garlic hanging heavy in the air. It was but a brief exchange of skin, but still Cohen’s heart beat just as quickly as it had during their kiss earlier.
This woman will be the death of me, he thought suddenly, a wry smile crossing his face. And quite frankly, he could think of no better way to die. In fact, forget ‘adversity is the parent of virtue’ and ‘a new voyage will lead to untold memories’ and all the other random, clichéd and misleading aphorisms found within fortune cookies. When he cracked open his cookie later tonight, all he wanted was for his fortune to read: ‘River will be your death’.
He’d have it dipped in gold, framed and hung in pride of place on his walls.
The top floor of the restaurant was full, and it didn’t take long for Cohen to realise that he and River were the only non-Chinese people there. The waiter seated them in the corner before pushing his notepad towards River, who scribbled upon it a slew of Chinese characters.