Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

Author:C Pam Zhang [Zhang, C Pam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

That was the most she’d say of the woman who left her. A bowl of fruit, a father and daughter united in new appetite. After? I met she who leapt forth as if born like Athena from Zeus’s head, full-grown and steely-eyed, the world her dominion. Enough wallowing, she said the next time I broached the topic. Stay here. Her fingers greedy as they guided mine to what was sweet. Her face, alive with her own pleasure. Yes, here. Here.

* * *

I had no kitchen duties in those months, and Aida no orders from a father gone silent since her ignominious return. When I asked, after a string of nights, about her going home, she shrugged. A bed is a bed. And then: I prefer ours.

We make our home the mountain.

In hidden orchards the stone fruit ripened so fast that what we didn’t eat was given to the animals, and so like chimps like finches like gilas we glutted on plums so ripe they split if looked at, cherries and blackberries staining our sheets. We distilled summer meads heady with anise and yogurt, and watered fields with the barrels’ dregs. To the tidal boom of an underground aquarium, I cut a sturgeon nose to slit and ransacked its body for that other fruit, pure caviar. I looked to Aida for the salt. Sweaty, unshowered, her pubis its own rough ocean. Saline, the meat of her as she bucked against my tongue, split open, gleaming.

My appetite returned with a vengeance. I craved the fresh. What was novel. We aren’t running out anytime soon, Aida teased when I scraped the pan, licked the bowl, wanted to pluck from every bough in every orchard and run my tongue to the borders for every last drop of juice. The residents’ meals came to evoke a sense of pity, a low-grade horror. Those ancient sauces, as suffocating and morbid as mausoleums. Oink, I whispered at Sunday’s table, the only time my presence was still required. I disguised my laughter as the sobs of the devout.

My employer said nothing. He was occupied with the upcoming referendum vote. Talks with our allies proved so successful that my employer spoke of the possibility of parliament ceding another few acres to our country. Several Sundays saw tinted cars pulling up to the restaurant, disgorging politicians whose blindfolds were removed, with a flourish, at a table laden with just enough to entice. Their constituents, these politicians promised, were certain to vote our way. I paid little attention. As my employer had said, my job was to nourish Eun-Young’s body: to eat.

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