The Hundred Secret Senses Read online

  On the other hand, people tell me I’m the one who takes after him most, in both appearance and personality. “Look how much Olivia can eat without gaining an ounce,” Aunt Betty is forever saying. “Just like Jack.” My mother once said, “Olivia analyzes every single detail to death. She has her father’s accountant mentality. No wonder she became a photographer.” Those kinds of comments make me wonder what else has been passed along to me through my father’s genes. Did I inherit from him my dark moods, my fondness for putting salt on my fruit, my phobia about germs?

  Kwan, in contrast, is a tiny dynamo, barely five feet tall, a miniature bull in a china shop. Everything about her is loud and clashing. She’ll wear a purple checked jacket over turquoise pants. She whispers loudly in a husky voice, sounding as if she had chronic laryngitis, when in fact she’s never sick. She dispenses health warnings, herbal recommendations, and opinions on how to fix just about anything, from broken cups to broken marriages. She bounces from topic to topic, interspersing tips on where to find bargains. Tommy once said that Kwan believes in free speech, free association, free car-wash with fill-’er-up. The only change in Kwan’s English over the last thirty years is in the speed with which she talks. Meanwhile, she thinks her English is great. She often corrects her husband. “Not stealed,” she’ll tell George. “Stolened.”

  In spite of all our obvious differences, Kwan thinks she and I are exactly alike. As she sees it, we’re connected by a cosmic Chinese umbilical cord that’s given us the same inborn traits, personal motives, fate, and luck. “Me and Libby-ah,” she tells new acquaintances, “we same in here.” And she’ll tap the side of my head. “Both born Year the Monkey. Which one older? You guess. Which one?” And then she’ll squash her cheek against mine.

  Kwan has never been able to correctly pronounce my name, Olivia. To her, I will always be Libby-ah, not plain Libby, like the tomato juice, but Libby-ah, like the nation of Muammar Qaddafi. As a consequence, her husband, George Lew, his two sons from a first marriage, and that whole side of the family all call me Libby-ah too. The “ah” part especially annoys me. It’s the Chinese equivalent of saying “hey,” as in “Hey, Libby, come here.” I asked Kwan once how she’d like it if I introduced her to everyone as “Hey, Kwan.” She slapped my arm, went breathless with laughter, then said hoarsely, “I like, I like.” So much for cultural parallels, Libby-ah it is, forever and ever.

  I’m not saying I don’t love Kwan. How can I not love my own sister? In many respects, she’s been more like a mother to me than my real one. But I often feel bad that I don’t want to be close to her. What I mean is, we’re close in a manner of speaking. We know things about each other, mostly through history, from sharing the same closet, the same toothpaste, the same cereal every morning for twelve years, all the routines and habits of being in the same family. I really think Kwan is sweet, also loyal, extremely loyal. She’d tear off the ear of anyone who said an unkind word about me. That counts for a lot. It’s just that I wouldn’t want to be closer to her, not the way some sisters are who consider themselves best friends. As it is, I don’t share everything with her the way she does with me, telling me the most private details of her life— like what she told me last week about her husband:

  “Libby-ah,” she said, “I found mole, big as my nostril, found on— what you call this thing between man legs, in Chinese we say yinnang, round and wrinkly like two walnut?”

  “Scrotum.”

  “Yes-yes, found big mole on scrotum! Now every day–every day, must examine Georgie-ah, his scrotum, make sure this mole don’t start grow.”

  To Kwan, there are no boundaries among family. Everything is open for gruesome and exhaustive dissection—how much you spent on your vacation, what’s wrong with your complexion, the reason you look as doomed as a fish in a restaurant tank. And then she wonders why I don’t make her a regular part of my social life. She, however, invites me to dinner once a week, as well as to every boring family gathering—last week, a party for George’s aunt, celebrating the fact that she received her U.S. citizenship after fifty years, that sort of thing. Kwan thinks only a major catastrophe would keep me away. She’ll worry aloud: “Why you don’t come last night? Something the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter.”

  “Feel sick?”

  “No.”

  “You want me come over, bring you orange? I have extra, good price, six for one dollar.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  She’s like an orphan cat, kneading on my heart. She’s been this way all my life, peeling me oranges, buying me candy, admiring my report cards and telling me how smart I was, smarter than she could ever be. Yet I’ve done nothing to endear myself to her. As a child, I often refused to play with her. Over the years, I’ve yelled at her, told her she embarrassed me. I can’t remember how many times I’ve lied to get out of seeing her.

  Meanwhile, she has always interpreted my outbursts as helpful advice, my feeble excuses as good intentions, my pallid gestures of affection as loyal sisterhood. And when I can’t bear it any longer, I lash out and tell her she’s crazy. Before I can retract the sharp words, she pats my arm, smiles and laughs. And the wound she bears heals itself instantly. Whereas I feel guilty forever.

  IN RECENT MONTHS, Kwan has become even more troublesome. Usually after the third time I say no to something, she quits. Now it’s as though her mind is stuck on automatic rewind. When I’m not irritated by her, I worry that maybe she’s about to have a nervous breakdown again. Kevin said she’s probably going through menopause. But I can tell it’s more than that. She’s more obsessed than usual. The ghost talk is becoming more frequent. She mentions China in almost every conversation with me, how she must go back before everything changes and it’s too late. Too late for what? She doesn’t know.

  And then there’s my marriage. She simply won’t accept the fact that Simon and I have split up. In fact, she’s purposely trying to sabotage the divorce. Last week, I gave a birthday party for Kevin and invited this guy I was seeing, Ben Apfelbaum. When he told Kwan he worked as a voice talent for radio commercials, she said, “Ah, Libby-ah and me too, both talent for get out of tricky situation, also big talent for get own way. Is true, Libby-ah?” Her eyebrows twitched. “You husband, Simon, I think he agree with me, ah?”

  “My soon-to-be ex-husband.” I then had to explain to Ben: “Our divorce will be final five months from now, December fifteenth.”

  “Maybe not, maybe not,” Kwan said, then laughed and pinched my arm. She turned to Ben: “You meet Simon?”

  Ben shook his head and started to say, “Olivia and I met at the—”

  “Oh, very handsome,” Kwan chirped. She cupped her hand to the side of her mouth and confided: “Simon look like Olivia twin brother. Half Chinese.”

  “Half Hawaiian,” I said. “And we don’t look alike at all.”

  “What you mother father do?” Kwan scrutinized Ben’s cashmere jacket.

  “They’re both retired and live in Missouri,” said Ben.

  “Misery! Tst! Tst!” She looked at me. “This too sad.”

  Every time Kwan mentions Simon, I think my brain is going to implode from my trying not to scream in exasperation. She thinks that because I initiated the divorce I can take it back.

  “Why not forgive?” she said after the party. She was plucking at the dead blooms of an orchid plant. “Stubborn and anger together, very bad for you.” When I didn’t say anything, she tried another tack: “I think you still have strong feeling for him—mm-hm! Very, very strong. Ah— see!—look you face. So red! This love feeling rushing from you heart. I right? Answer. I right?”

  And I kept flipping through the mail, scrawling MOVED across any envelope with Simon Bishop’s name on it. I’ve never discussed with Kwan why Simon and I broke up. She wouldn’t understand. It’s too complex. There’s no one event or fight I can put my finger on to say, “That was the reason.” Our breakup was the result of many things: a wrong beginning, bad timing, yea
rs and years of thinking habit and silence were the same as intimacy. After seventeen years together, when I finally realized I needed more in my life, Simon seemed to want less. Sure, I loved him—too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I’m number one in his life. I’m not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.

  But Kwan wouldn’t understand that. She doesn’t know how people can hurt you beyond repair. She believes people who say they’re sorry. She’s the naive, trusting type who believes everything said in television commercials is certifiable truth. Look at her house: it’s packed to the gills with gadgets—Ginsu knives, slicers and dicers, juicers and french-fry makers, you name it, she’s bought it, for “only nineteen ninety-five, order now, offer good until midnight.”

  “Libby-ah,” Kwan said on the phone today. “I have something must tell you, very important news. This morning I talk to Lao Lu. We decide: You and Simon shouldn’t get divorce.”

  “How nice,” I said. “You decided.” I was balancing my checkbook, adding and subtracting as I pretended to listen.

  “Me and Lao Lu. You remember him.”

  “George’s cousin.” Kwan’s husband seemed to be related to just about every Chinese person in San Francisco.

  “No-no! Lao Lu not cousin. How you can forget? Lots times I already tell you about him. Old man, bald head. Strong arm, strong leg, strong temper. One time loose temper, loose head too! Chopped off. Lao Lu say—”

  “Wait a minute. Someone without a head is now telling me what to do about my marriage?”

  “Tst! Chopped head off over one hundred year ago. Now look fine, no problem. Lao Lu think you, me, Simon, we three go China, everything okay. Okay, Libby-ah?”

  I sighed. “Kwan, I really don’t have time to talk about this now. I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Lao Lu say cannot just balance checkbook, see how much you got left. Must balance life too.”

  How the hell did Kwan know I was balancing my checkbook?

  That’s how it’s been with Kwan and me. The minute I discount her, she tosses in a zinger that keeps me scared, makes me her captive once again. With her around, I’ll never have a life of my own. She’ll always claim a major interest.

  Why do I remain her treasured little sister? Why does she feel that I’m the most important person in her life?—the most! Why does she say over and over again that even if we were not sisters, she would feel this way? “Libby-ah,” she tells me, “I never leave you.”

  No! I want to shout, I’ve done nothing, don’t say that anymore. Because each time she does, she turns all my betrayals into love that needs to be repaid. Forever we’ll know: She’s been loyal, someday I’ll have to be.

  But even if I cut off both my hands, it’d be no use. As Kwan has already said, she’ll never release me. One day the wind will howl and she’ll be clutching a tuft of the straw roof, about to fly off to the World of Yin.

  “Let’s go! Hurry come!” she’ll be whispering above the storm. “But don’t tell anyone. Promise me, Libby-ah.”

  2

  FISHER OF MEN

  Before seven in the morning, the phone rings. Kwan is the only one who would call at such an ungodly hour. I let the answering machine pick up.

  “Libby-ah?” she whispers. “Libby-ah, you there? This you big sister . . . Kwan. I have something important tell you. . . . You want hear? . . . Last night I dream you and Simon. Strange dream. You gone to bank, check you savings. All a sudden, bank robber run through door. Quick! You hide you purse. So bank robber, he steal everybody money but yours. Later, you gone home, stick you hand in purse—ah!—where is?—gone! Not money but you heart. Stolened! Now you have no heart, how can live? No energy, no color in cheek, pale, sad, tired. Bank president where you got all you savings, he say, ‘I loan you my heart. No interest. You pay back whenever.’ You look up, see his face—you know who, Libby-ah? Youguess. . . . Simon! Yes-yes, giveyouhisheart. Yousee!Still love you. Libby-ah, do you believe? Not just dream . . . Libby-ah, you listening me?”

  BECAUSE OF KWAN, I have a talent for remembering dreams. Even today, I can recall eight, ten, sometimes a dozen dreams. I learned how when Kwan came home from Mary’s Help. As soon as I started to wake, she would ask: “Last night, Libby-ah, who you meet? What you see?”

  With my half-awake mind, I’d grab on to the wisps of a fading world and pull myself back in. From there I would describe for her the details of the life I’d just left—the scuff marks on my shoes, the rock I had dislodged, the face of my true mother calling to me from underneath. When I stopped, Kwan would ask, “Where you go before that?” Prodded, I would trace my way back to the previous dream, then the one before that, a dozen lives, and sometimes their deaths. Those are the ones I never forget, the moments just before I died.

  Through years of dream-life, I’ve tasted cold ash falling on a steamy night. I’ve seen a thousand spears flashing like flames on the crest of a hill. I’ve touched the tiny grains of a stone wall while waiting to be killed. I’ve smelled my own musky fear as the rope tightens around my neck. I’ve felt the heaviness of flying through weightless air. I’ve heard the sucking creak of my voice just before life snaps to an end.

  “What you see after die?” Kwan would always ask.

  I’d shake my head. “I don’t know. My eyes were closed.”

  “Next time, open eyes.”

  For most of my childhood, I thought everyone remembered dreams as other lives, other selves. Kwan did. After she came home from the psychiatric ward, she told me bedtime stories about them, yin people: a woman named Banner, a man named Cape, a one-eyed bandit girl, a half-and-half man. She made it seem as if all these ghosts were our friends. I didn’t tell my mother or Daddy Bob what Kwan was saying. Look what happened the last time I did that.

  When I went to college and could finally escape from Kwan’s world, it was already too late. She had planted her imagination into mine. Her ghosts refused to be evicted from my dreams.

  “Libby-ah,” I can still hear Kwan saying in Chinese, “did I ever tell you what Miss Banner promised before we died?”

  I see myself pretending to be asleep.

  And she would go on: “Of course, I can’t say exactly how long ago this happened. Time is not the same between one lifetime and the next. But I think it was during the year 1864. Whether this was the Chinese lunar year or the date according to the Western calendar, I’m not sure. . . .”

  Eventually I would fall asleep, at what point in her story I always forgot. So which part was her dream, which part was mine? Where did they intersect? Every night, she’d tell me these stories. And I would lie there silently, helplessly, wishing she’d shut up.

  Yes, yes, I’m sure it was 1864. I remember now, because the year sounded very strange. Libby-ah, just listen to it: Yi-ba-liu-si. Miss Banner said it was like saying: Lose hope, slide into death. And I said, No, it means: Take hope, the dead remain. Chinese words are good and bad this way, so many meanings, depending on what you hold in your heart.

  Anyway, that was the year I gave Miss Banner the tea. And she gave me the music box, the one I once stole from her, then later returned. I remember the night we held that box between us with all those things inside that we didn’t want to forget. It was just the two of us, alone for the moment, in the Ghost Merchant’s House, where we lived with the Jesus Worshippers for six years. We were standing next to the holy bush, the same bush that grew the special leaves, the same leaves I used to make the tea. Only now the bush was chopped down, and Miss Banner was saying she was sorry that she let General Cape kill that bush. Such a sad, hot night, water streaming down our faces, sweat and tears, the cicadas screaming louder and louder, then falling quiet. And later, we stood in this archway, scared to death. But we were also happy. We were happy to learn we were unhappy for the same reason. That was the year that both our heavens burned.

  Six years before, that’s when I first met her, when I was fourteen and she was twenty-six, maybe younger or old
er than that. I could never tell the ages of foreigners. I came from a small place in Thistle Mountain, just south of Changmian. We were not Punti, the Chinese who claimed they had more Yellow River Han blood running through their veins, so everything should belong to them. And we weren’t one of the Zhuang tribes either, always fighting each other, village against village, clan against clan. We were Hakka, Guest People—hnh!—meaning, guests not invited to stay in any good place too long. So we lived in one of many Hakka roundhouses in a poor part of the mountains, where you must farm on cliffs and stand like a goat and unearth two wheelbarrows of rocks before you can grow one handful of rice.

  All the women worked as hard as the men, no difference in who carried the rocks, who made the charcoal, who guarded the crops from bandits at night. All Hakka women were this way, strong. We didn’t bind our feet like Han girls, the ones who hopped around on stumps as black and rotten as old bananas. We had to walk all over the mountain to do our work, no binding cloths, no shoes. Our naked feet walked right over those sharp thistles that gave our mountain its famous name.

  A suitable Hakka bride from our mountains had thick calluses on her feet and a fine, high-boned face. There were other Hakka families living near the big cities of Yongan, in the mountains, and Jintian, by the river. And the mothers from poorer families liked to match their sons to hardworking pretty girls from Thistle Mountain. During marriage-matching festivals, these boys would climb up to our high villages and our girls would sing the old mountain songs that we had brought from the north a thousand years before. A boy had to sing back to the girl he wanted to marry, finding words to match her song. If his voice was soft, or his words were clumsy, too bad, no marriage. That’s why Hakka people are not only fiercely strong, they have good voices, and clever minds for winning whatever they want.