“Hitachi? Like the old VCR?”
“No!” She sounded irritated, although I could swear a corner of her mouth twitched a little. After three years together, I was hyper-aware of the little signs her body gave me. “Hibachi. Ba, not ta! I told you - it’s a form of Japanese cooking!”
“Ah,” I said, drawing that syllable out, scrambling for time while I tried to tug at the threads of a vague memory. “Like… like sushi, but grilled? Like, live, in front of you, that kind of stuff?”
She made a sound that was half-sigh, half-snort. “Close enough. My friend’s brother has opened up a new place downtown and they want to do a rehearsal dinner before the actual opening. We’ve been invited.”
“But it will be cooked food, right? Not raw?”
“No.”
“And if they haven’t opened yet…” I didn’t want to sound cheap, but running the risk was worth it IMO.
Three years, so she knew me just as well. “It’s free. We don’t pay anything. Just go there, pretend to be actual customers, eat the food, tell them what we think, what we liked, what we didn’t, that’s it.”
“Cool! I mean, not that I don’t want to pay, but it’s just that these new places, they need some time to get their act together, and the pressure of having paying customers… yeah, no, it makes sense to do this for free, just so no one’s feeling short-changed or anything, you know.”
I don’t know if I actually saw it, or just sensed it, but I am sure she rolled her eyes just a bit. Three years… not the first time, not gonna be the last.
She messaged someone that we were on the way before we started, and then it took us the good part of an hour hopping on and off buses and trams to get to where we needed to be. Like most of our outings these days, there were periods of silence broken by desultory conversations and then the recognition of arriving perilously close to disagreements for which trailing-off-into-silences was the prescription.
The coming-soon diner was located off the main street in one of the more touristy corners of the city, but thanks to the persistent drizzle and forecast of unpredictable weather, there were not as many people around as there would usually be. The nameboards, wrapped up tightly in white plastic, were stacked near the entrance to an unlit stairwell that led up to the dining area.
We climbed up the steps and arrived at an unfurnished foyer. In one corner, there were various pieces of furniture piled up high, and covered haphazardly with a tarpaulin sheet. There was a faint smell of paint - or was it turpentine? - in the air, but not enough to ruin my appetite.
We pushed through an unpolished door and into, it seemed to me, another world. Now this was right - the right look, the right feels! Tables dotted the periphery, four- and six- and eight-seaters, with bonsais in small pots on them and fern-like five-foot plants in large pots between. These tables surrounded a central island that could comfortably seat ten on each side. A heavy-duty lamp hung from the ceiling over this island, illuminating our chef and the rest of our company for the night while still throwing sharp shadows over their faces.
Of the six seats that were occupied, I recognized the people in four of them. The older couple on the left as we entered were my future parents-in-law, their expressions just as impassive and joyless as always. Next to them was my future brother-in-law, which was a bit of a surprise - I was under the impression he was not due on leave ashore for the next two months. Our relationship could, I suppose, be described as one of watchful respect. More from his side than mine, the respect part, but I had long ago understood that you don’t always get to choose every member of the family you marry into.
On the other end of the row, leaving four seats between them, were a similarly old couple with a young woman sitting between them. Clearly, Mom, Pop and Kid - the family resemblance was unmistakable at more than a moment’s glance. I say Kid but she was around twenty-two, twenty-three. Her, I knew.
But I was pretty sure no one else in the room knew how well I knew her. We’d always been careful - well, I’d always been careful, and I had often impressed upon her how damaging it could be to her if others found out, so I was pretty sure she had been just as careful. This was temporary, a momentary indulgence, beneficial to both of us where she could learn what I had to teach, but no one else would ever see it that way. They would call it names, ugly ones, undeservingly unkind.
Everyone had turned around when we entered, but almost immediately turned their attention back to the chef. The man - boy? for he couldn’t be much older than me - was the only one to acknowledge us with a brief nod, but he did it without a break in his routine. Vegetables flashed in the air as he tossed them up, and knives slashed through the air as they descended. Radish, beet, onion, greens… they seemed to land on the black surface in front of him in a state of flowering discs and droplets.
We took the seats right in the middle, leaving one stool empty on either side of us, because these were the only ones with plates in front of them. We flipped the plates right side up and settled in.
The chef continued to choose and chop his way through a shallow basket of vegetables before sweeping them all off to the side with a majestic drag of his biggest knife. By now, we could feel the heat even across the thick-topped table, but he had barely broken a sweat. Up close, I realized that he must be a little older than I had initially guessed. There was of his control of his tools a suggestion of strength and confidence that I haven’t seen in many people.
As he broke down a small cup of rice and mixed it with the vegetables, I risked a glance to my left and caught the Kid staring at me. Before I could look away, she smiled and winked.
I jerked my head around even as I was telling myself to stay cool, to act cool. There was no harm in admitting that we knew each other, after all, for it was my fiancée who’d introduced us in the first place. As my eyes passed over the chef, I caught his face at a particular angle - and then I knew whose brother he was. When the light hit the side of his face just right, you could see that his father’s cheekbones had been passed on successfully.
I turned my head all the way round to look at my fiancée, to see if she had caught anything of that smile or that wink, but she seemed to be mesmerized by the chef.
“And now… I add the meat.” The chef’s declaration was met with a slight murmur of appreciation - or was it anticipation? - from his audience. I smiled encouragingly. I found the whole thing a little too pretentious, but I suppose we all have to do what it takes to make a living these days.
He dipped his butcher’s knife into a mug of water and held it over the stove, letting water droplets drip off the tip and turn to steam, it seemed to me, even before they had hit the surface. Another swish, and a thin layer of oil spread across the stove, sizzling and turning into little silver beads. I was so caught up with the sight that I did not even notice the chef setting out three cuts of steak next to each other.
“As you most respected guest,” he said, “you choose.”
It took me more than a moment to realize that he was talking to me. I glanced at the others, but the only vote of support I received was from my future brother-in-law.
“Choose quick,” the chef said, tapping the edge of the stove with his knife. “Oil should not heat over.”
“That one, then,” I said, pointing to the middle one. It looked to be the rarest of the three cuts.
“Which one?”
“That,” and I extended my arm to point to the cut I was talking about.
His knife was sharp, his movement swift. And I stared with unseeing eyes as my wrist lit up with sensations I had never felt before.
Fire and ice. Weightlessness and weakness. A roar in my ears and silence everywhere else… Presence… and absence.
And then I was finally able to focus on the hibachi in front of me on which sizzled a hand, just a hand, palm down…
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