Dripping fat and hanging from stainless steel hooks.
Lan followed Shizuka inside Sam Woo BBQ, where they were quickly given a table, hot tea, and menus. The smell of the place was amazing. There were Chinese families, Mexican office workers, two Black secretaries on break from LA County Housing down the street. There was the obligatory Asian woman with her white boyfriend.
Through them all wove two older waiters. Yes. They were waiters, not servers. These were people who had been here for years, who saw this as a profession, not a vocation.
Lan noticed that people often stopped and stared when the Queen of Hell entered her donut shop. But here at Sam Woo BBQ, no one even glanced up from their noodles.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a child,” Shizuka said.
“Long time no see,” the taller waiter said. “Move back home?”
“For now,” Shizuka said.
“Good, good! Whole duck today?”
“Of course!”
The order came almost immediately. Shizuka picked up her chopsticks, grabbed a piece, and bit into it with delight.
“So good! This one must have eaten a lot of donuts.”
Lan shuddered. Yes, the aroma was amazing. But how could one think of ducks on the lake while eating Chinese BBQ?
Shizuka noticed Lan’s discomfort. Soon there was a plate of Chinese broccoli on the table.
“Shizuka, about the music.”
Shizuka pointed at Lan’s phone. “Korean.”
Lan nodded, and her phone gave off a soft blue light.
“So, what would you like to discuss?” Shizuka had another bite of duck.
“I heard your music,” Lan said.
“Really?” the Queen of Hell said softly. “I’m glad.”
“How does it do that?” Lan said.
“What?”
“That.”
Lan took her chopsticks and poked at her broccoli. She didn’t know how to even articulate what she had heard.
“Ah. Well some of it is the violin itself. Some say that the violin, due to the way the sound is played—not hammered like a piano string, yet not limited by actual breath or range—blends the music of the natural and the divine.”
“So it elevates us.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not everything?” Lan ventured.
“Of course not. If it were, then Hell would be empty. In fact…”
Suddenly, Shizuka stopped and pointed at Lan’s phone. “Wait. We’re not speaking Korean,” she said.
“Of course not,” Lan said. “Those people by the window are Korean. Why do you keep assuming it’s Korean? Well, not that you’d be able to tell; the scrambler has a negligible latency. But yes, we’ve used Thai, Malay, Ilocano, Hokkien … Last time, we were speaking Khmer.”
“Khmer? Oh … so what are we speaking now?”
“Japanese.”
“日本語？なんてこった！”
“That’s probably why you sensed a difference, since you are being scrambled into language that you already speak.”
Ah, that made sense. Right?
“By the way, why aren’t you having the duck?” Shizuka said, looking away from the scrambler.
The duck?
Lan hesitated. They had just been feeding ducks at the park. Ducks that had been gliding like spaceships, fighting for her donuts as if they were the most delicious things in the world.
Of course, they were not the same birds. But still …
“Lan, how can music lovers be so hateful when they find a musician is transgender? How is the person eating waffles with her grandchildren the same one who calls me a Chink? Yehudi Menuhin plays Mendelssohn, and people smash his records and call him a Nazi sympathizer. The person fighting for racial justice believes ‘God hates Fags.’ Proud, happy parents change the moment the car door is closed.”
Shizuka grabbed a golden piece of duck and held it in front of her.
“Too many sections.”
“Sections?”
“One usually learns to play a piece a section at a time. Within each section, the musician will memorize passages, phrases, movements, until the sections reach from beginning to end.”
Lan nodded. That made sense. Of course you would break a large task into smaller ones.
“And so many live the same way. One becomes a good plumber, or mother, or Christian, or Dodger fan, or teenager. One lives section by section, one stage to the next.
“But sometimes, sections change keys, tempos. They change moods. Timing … Some melodies don’t resolve in an expected way. Some don’t resolve at all. So people begin to fear playing beyond the sections they have played out of habit, out of fear.”