The Way She Eats

A man watches my wife intently, as she devours crab.

Sitting in the fish market in Fethiye, munching on my lettuce and garlic bread and a few effeminate little cheese wraps -- dainty tidbits -- guzzling the beer amongst all the mayhem of the, "can I say you something...?", "listen, I show you...", as the fishmongers go to work on the young solo Chinese women, or one of the many Brits looking for a few more pounds. I see a gent across from us enjoying May and I's gesticulations and conversation. He looks British, of about eighty healthily lived years. May is consumed by the fish and crab in front of her, and she works vigorously to clear the flesh, cracking bones, scooping wet sloppy meat, in some Zen moment of consumerism. The old gent looks on, as I bug May for a valuation of her much awaited seafood, and continue nagging her how to say "five out of ten" in Chinese. Eventually, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look back and up to the right. The old gent is standing there, welling up with emotion. 

 

"Where are you from?"       

 

"UK... England."       

 

"And this lady?"       

 

"She's Chinese." 

 

The gent starts beaming. 

 

"I knew it. I was married to a Chinese woman for thirty-four years. I was sitting there watching her eat, and everything is the same. The way she demolished that crab. The way she sits cross-legged on that seat."

 

May gets up to allow the old gent to sit down with us, but he continues standing.       

 

"She died." He looks down, feeling the emotion, and tries to carry on. He is replaying moments together with his departed wife, while holding back the tears.       

 

"But everything is the same. The way she eats. The way she sits." He beams another smile.          

 

May reaches over to touch him on the shoulder, and he pauses briefly, takes a deep breath, and then continues...         

 

"The way she demolished that crab."            

 

I smile with him. He goes to move off, and I shake his hand. A real gent, who'd clearly had a good marriage and here was he reminiscing on old times, perhaps visiting old haunts, places he'd been to with his beloved. And here, it could be, was a gift from the gods, some stirred memories of how his wife used to sit and eat and voraciously manhandle food, especially seafood, into her gullet.

 

I ask him about how he met his wife and he tells me a brief story of a birth in Burma, her family's escape to Hong Kong during some unrest, her being sent to England when she was twelve, and how years later he met her in the bustle of Manchester.

 

"Look after her." He gently nods to May, looks to me, smiles, and in the stately fashion of his years, though reduced to the slow amble of a man having lived, he moves off before tears and joy and sadness and the wretched aloneness all mingle together back in his apartment or hotel room.  

Reviews

[emmajoy]

' "Look after her." He gently nods to May, looks to me, smiles, and .. .. '

What a descriptive, exhilarating and unusual story! You move the reader into another world with calm nudges and then, display real theatre! '

And the outcome is, more than a moment shared.. more a chunk of a stranger's lifetime.

Your words - so sparingly laid, have natural charm and sincerity.

[Joshua Knight]

Thank you for your comment. It was quite a powerful experience.

[KT-B]

Nice story, I enjoyed reading this, you paint a great picture with your words :)

[Joshua Knight]

Thank you. Glad you liked it :)