Chapter 20 …Jiaoren? #2
“Back so soon?” she says, lifting the lid of a clay pot. Regardless of whatever she was doing with the ghosts, she hasn’t forgotten to cook.
“It is almost evening,” you point out, watching her, wondering whether it’s okay to ask about what you’ve just seen. “If I got back any later it’d be nighttime.”
“Yes, supper is almost ready.” Her response doesn’t really make sense.
“Thanks for cooking.” Fumbling for words, trying to sound normal even though your day was the literal definition of otherworldly.
“No need for thanks. Just wash up for me, afterward.” She plonks chopsticks on the table. “Where did you go?” No mention of the argument earlier today. Maybe she’s forgotten about it.
“Um…” You’re a natural chatterbox, a chronic oversharer, and that tendency to spill your life on other people has long been a source of conflict with her. Meeting the jiaoren is the most important thing to ever happen to you.
Which is exactly why you can’t seem to summon up the words.
It’s too much. You’re not ready. Your brain has only just begun to process the things that your eyes and hands experienced.
Speaking about it to someone else is out of reach, a distant mountain surrounded by churning rivers.
Especially when the “someone else” in question was the target of your boiling anger only a few hours ago.
Mami is looking at you, waiting for an answer.
“Just walked around the island,” you manage, and she nods distractedly. Neither of you mention the argument from before, which only makes it loom taller.
Together, you sit and eat. She’s made clay pot rice with chunks of preserved sausage, dried mushrooms, rehydrated bok choi, scallions aplenty, and a blend of salty-sweet sauces.
These are the very last of the good ingredients brought on the boat; there won’t be food this nice for a while.
You try to enjoy every bite, making it last.
It doesn’t escape you that she seems as averse to discussing her afternoon as you are to discussing yours. Better to leave it. To not question her, as she is not questioning you.
With hindsight, you should have talked to Mami about what was happening. About Sea Sister reaching for you beneath the waves, even as the village ghosts reached for her. The warning signs were there, all along.
But Mami isn’t easy to approach. She dislikes difficult conversations, seems to dislike conversations full stop. You have long suspected this was a consequence of her days working in a hospital, where she made endless polite chatter with endless patients, even as a cleaner.
Doesn’t help that Mami has never seemed to like you, specifically. She goes through phases of being almost affectionate, like those Friday evening walks. But it always feels like a slipup, like some kind of weak moment.
Again, lack of life experience is working against you. You are too young to understand how afraid she is of losing people she loves, yet again, and what that does to her: how she labors to keep everyone at a distance. That’s a lesson you’ve yet to imbibe, much less have sympathy for.
In the end, you’re both comfortable with things as they are, each willing to sue for peace, mutual secrets skinned in a thin varnish of mundane life. So you say nothing, and eat your damn food without complaint.
It’s a nice meal, at any rate. Mami always was a good cook.
When the bowls are empty and you’re both licking fingers clean, she says quite suddenly, “Are you worried, living here?”
The jiaoren’s ethereal face fills your mind, unbidden.
“No, I’m not worried.” The truth, mostly. You like the bits that don’t involve the village ghosts milling through your private spaces. “It’s beautiful. Quiet. No one has told me lately how annoying I am.”
More bitter than you mean to sound, and she actually winces.
“Good,” Mami says, not meeting your gaze. “Good.” For once, her sharpness seems abashed, even subdued, which is unlike her.
Despite feeling irritated, you ask, “Are you worried?”
Unspoken between the lines: Are you safe here, talking to these stupid ghosts?
“I miss your father,” she says, once again catching you off guard.
She is thinking, with rare wistfulness, of the ring he bought as part of the dowry for their wedding.
The gold was pure and soft as chilled wax, its square top carved with lotus blossoms. Not much, but all he could afford, and she’d loved it.
Regretfully, she sold it to pay for the fare to this island.
“Me too.” You don’t say that for her sake, but for your father’s; you owe him that admission. “Every day he doesn’t come, I worry more.”
“It takes time,” she says. “Selling our things and buying a boat is not a quick business, not with the war going on.”
“I know.” But you can’t help wondering if something has gone wrong that Mami isn’t telling you about. After all, Baba was so worried about the invasion that he didn’t think it safe for either of you to stay behind with him.
“I wish more of my family had survived the storms here.” Mami looks out the window, and you don’t miss how she’s changed the subject. “I wish that we had come back to a thriving village and not to…” She trails off.
Not to a walking graveyard, you finish silently.
The spirits in the house turn toward you both, one at a time, suddenly alert and attentive. They’re difficult to ignore.
Aloud, you remind her, “If living people were here, it would not be so safe. We came because the Japanese will ignore Shek Ham Chau.”
“Yes. There was nowhere else to go. And we are home, now.” She smiles, but not at you—her gaze slides over your shoulder to fixate on the ghosts.
The rest of the evening passes in wary silence. While you tidy up the bowls and chopsticks, and rinse the dishes, Mami studies the evening sky; she is trying to ascertain tomorrow’s weather. Wet season will start soon, and that affects the planting of crops.
Afterward, she reclines against her kitchen chair with a bottle of beer and a cigarette. She only brought three packs to smoke, and one crate of beer; despite her efforts to stretch them out, both will soon be totally gone.
In this light, the gray strands in her hair seem more prominent.
The lines of her face rest deeper, sink a little sadder.
She is not an unhappy person by nature, despite her sharp tongue and abrasive edge.
Instead, life has gnawed her joy away, loaded her with care and worries and guilt and exhaustion.
With a brain that won’t stop churning, you curl up and read one of Baba’s few poetry books that came in the luggage. The pages smell of his cigarette smoke. You wish you’d brought one of his jackets, but there wasn’t space to bring his clothes. He was supposed to bring those himself.
After a little while, though, the nosey ghosts are starting to put you off, hovering too close as you flip slowly through the pages. Besides, your thoughts keep drifting toward a certain green-skinned woman in the ocean.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
Tired to the bone, you wish Mami good night and get up to go sleep.
“Daughter,” she says, as you rise.
Hand resting on the doorway, you pause and look back. “Yes?”
“When you were out walking around, did you go by the shore at all?”
Stillness pools in the room.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well. I was wondering if you saw…” She hesitates, pulling at her lip.
“What?” you ask her, almost daring her to say it. “Saw what?”
“Nothing,” she says, retreating immediately. “It doesn’t matter. Foolish question.”
“If there’s something I should know,” you say, carefully, “maybe you should tell me before letting me wander by myself. Are these ghosts dangerous?”
“The island is fine. We’re among friends.” She tugs at the hem of her shirt in short, repetitive gestures. “Just—just be careful. There are sharks in the water.”
“Sharks,” you echo, flatly.
She says nothing.
“Well, I haven’t seen any … sharks. I’ll let you know if I do.”
Mami seems to wrestle with that answer, and you get the sense she regrets being so evasive, which only solidifies your sense of satisfaction at shutting her out. For once, you’re the one closing the door in her face, instead of the other way around.
There’s not a lot she can do about it.
She says, finally, “See you in the morning, daughter.”
“Good night.” And you turn on your heel, feeling pettily victorious.