When Samuel used to think of autumn, he would think of leaves turning russet scarlet, black birds weaving through the pallid skies in Chaozhou as they departed for the winter. He would think of the moon, this universal constant that hung above his head like a golden yolk. Now, standing in the kitchen where decades of family dinners have culminated in a musky smell of ginger, Samuel thinks of his mother.
Tonight, she has insisted, yet again, on making mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival: round pastries stamped with Chinese characters to denote symbols of fortune and prosperity. Homemade mooncakes remind Samuel of chilly nights and woolly hand-me-downs, the eagerness with which he used to reach for his mother’s perfectly partitioned pastries. The familiarity of the recipe is engraved into the intricate lines that adorn the backs of her hands and the crow’s feet nestled around her eyes. Of course, he agrees to help.
He realises that she has prepared well in advance when she retrieves the container of salted egg yolks from the fridge. Samuel can imagine her moving about the kitchen, preparing the yolks like she did so many times before: rinsing the raw egg yolks, dipping them into baijiu and drumming her fingers against the counter while they bake. He easily falls back into his old role, swiftly kneading the dough for the mooncake skin. At one stage, he senses her familiar eagle-eyed gaze. It is fleeting, its sharpness dulled by age. Still, he is amused at the thought of her glancing over her shoulder to check whether he is doing things correctly. Samuel turns his attention to the sweet lotus seed paste and apportions it into round clay mounds. Soon, he has a tray of them ready to go, small moons ripe for pressing beneath the weight of warm palms.
Assembling mooncakes requires patience. They envelope the yolks within lotus seed paste, then sugar-brown dough. Lastly, a lever-like mould presses the pastries into shape for baking. In the past, it was not uncommon for Samuel to disfigure his first mooncake, but many autumns have passed since she needed to worry about his technique. He has cultivated his art, the work of an alumnus who has learnt much from his teacher.
The pair work in silence. His mother hunches over her mooncakes; the slight tremor in her hands makes her fingers resemble butterfly wings beating beneath the harsh fluorescent lights. He watches in admiration, then confusion, as she methodically wraps the yolk in the dough and then places it in the lotus seed paste.
“Ma, you’re doing it wrong.”
His mother’s hands, ancient masters of skill and refinement, pause in mid-air.
“Here,” he explains, stepping forward. “You put the paste before the dough, remember?”
He does not have the heart to tell her that this was what she used to always remind him about, that this used to be his mistake and not hers.
The woman stares blankly at him. For a moment in Samuel’s mind, he is no longer in the kitchen but in the dining room with his Chinese relatives. He sees himself as a seven-year-old. His clumsy fingers use the chopsticks in a knife-like action to fossick for food. He goes in once, twice, and with each primitive stab, his mother winces. Then Samuel sees himself as a twelve-year-old making mooncakes, dropping one of the precious salted yolks on the tiled floor. His smile sags down beneath the weight of her rebuke, something about being prudent and not wasteful. In his memory, he is nodding profusely, determined to not repeat the same mistake.
It feels like that was only yesterday. But the stiffness in his mother’s lower lip and the harshness of her frown has long faded. It is true that as humans age, they grow closer to the ground. Even in university, while he drew curves and mapped out the steep inclines of hyperbolas, how did he never notice the deepening arch of his mother’s back? The grooves gradually etched into the corners of her mouth?
Samuel coughs and eases into his new role, one where he is the adult and his mother the child.
“Ma, go make the tea,” he instructs gently. She nods and retreats from her position near the counter. When she is not looking, he hurriedly discards the ruined mooncake and prays she will not notice.
He spends the next half an hour completing the rest of the mooncakes. His mother watches him from the other countertop. After this is all over, he will help her clean the table. It is cluttered with forgotten things, a by-product of their baking: half-empty teacups, a bowl of walnuts, his box of mooncakes from the Chinese grocer. His mother eats a store-bought mooncake while she waits for him. Samuel grimaces when he notices how she slices the mooncake into even halves, only to slowly prod and gouge out the filling. He blames it on the shakiness of her hands. When she lifts her miniscule plastic fork, the two prongs momentarily resemble children’s chopsticks or the forked tongue of a snake, a homage to her acidic comments that once corroded his peace. Then Samuel blinks. The illusion dissipates. The passage of time has left nothing behind but his beloved mother eating mooncake and water boiling in the steel kettle.
When his mother eventually withdraws from the kitchen, Samuel realises that she has set aside exactly one half of her mooncake for him. He hesitates, surprised she even remembered. There was a time, so very long ago, when such rationing was necessary. Now, he smiles faintly and lifts her plate, adding it to his list of things to carry into the living room.
The kettle behind him sounds. Samuel makes a mental note to ensure that the oolong tea is ready for serving.
He has learnt from experience that mooncakes and tea always go hand in hand.
Everything feels sweeter having tasted the bitterness.
