by Isabelle Li
His wife came to Australia on a teacher exchange program. Her last words to him were: ‘Spend more time learning English. You cannot build a Great Wall with mahjong tiles.’
He said, ‘Yes, Wife,’ with a salute.
The program was supposed to be for six months, but she stayed on by claiming asylum as a Falun Gong practitioner. He looked after Little Mei with help from his parents and his in-laws.
Little Mei had asked for goldfish, so he bought her a fishbowl, which soon expanded into an aquarium. He came home in the evening and turned on the switch. The purple light accentuated the multiple colours of the fish, a slow-moving display of black, orange, red and white. But his eyes fixed on the concentrating face of Little Mei, who pouted her lips to kiss the approaching fish, her hands with baby dimples pressing on the glass.
He raised the glass lid on the aquarium and lifted Little Mei. She knocked on the side glass to gather the fish and spread the food generously. Together they listened to the splashing of the goldfish reaching for the surface of the water, and watched as they sucked in the fish flakes like vacuum cleaners and sank to the bottom with bubbles rising from their mouths.
After two years his wife obtained resident status and applied for family reunion. They said he was lucky. ‘Many have abandoned their husbands.’ ‘Even the children.’ ‘Many have married foreigners, some twice their age.’ They said life was more exciting elsewhere. ‘You walk into shops and they hire you right away. They need labourers.’ ‘People have got to play volleyball. Maybe you can coach beach volleyball.’
He thought the application would take months, but things moved quickly. Arriving in the two-bedroom rented apartment in Sydney, he was greeted by a ‘Falun Dafa’ banner on the living-room wall, the floor in front cleared for his wife’s meditation practice.
He went to the free English tuition provided by Immigration but skipped most of the classes to smoke with other men. He started to learn to drive, as his wife had Ménière’s disease. He tried to read the Falun Gong bible, but could not get past the first paragraph.
One day it was his wife’s turn to go to the Chinese Consulate for the round-the-clock protest and she brought back some newly printed pamphlets.
‘What’s the 610 office?’ he asked.
‘It’s set up to exterminate Falun Gong and is responsible for hundreds of thousands of cases of torture and murder. And they harvest organs from jailed Falun Gong members. Have a read.’ His wife was cutting the pamphlets, which had been printed two to a sheet.
‘This English is beyond me.’ He scratched his head. ‘What about that guy in our block back home? Once he helped us to take the grain sacks out and killed a rat with a rock. He poisoned his parents after practising Falun Gong.’
‘He had become psychotic after his girlfriend abandoned him. I once heard him howling.’ His wife sorted the pamphlets so they faced the same way, tapped them into a neat pile and wrapped a rubber band around them.
‘You really believe in Falun Gong ideology, after having studied Dialectical Materialism in school?’
‘I do believe in it. Since I started, I’ve learned to be a good person and have tolerance, so I can put up with things.’
She glanced at him and he looked down. He had loved her large eyes and square jaw. Now her eyes were still large but distant, and she looked more severe, although her jawline had softened.
‘How are you getting to the Consulate?’
‘I’m taking the bus and then the train. A friend will drop me home in the morning.’
He watched as she put on her jumper and realised it was the same one she had worn two years ago when he saw her off at the airport, except the colour had faded. ‘I’ll walk you,’ he wanted to say, but she had shut the door behind her.
With his poor English, he could never get work as a volleyball coach. So they took over a cleaning business from another Chinese couple. They bought a car. His wife found customers and did the scheduling. He did the work, together with one or two helpers, mostly mothers on three-month visas who came to visit their children studying in Australia. They purchased their first home, a run-down brick-veneer house on a small block of land in a neighbourhood populated with Chinese and Koreans.
He watched while his wife reconnected with their daughter, researched her schooling, and restricted Chinese being spoken in the household so as to help her catch up on English. He watched while his daughter transformed into a different child—her skin, which used to be fair and peachy, turned dark and shiny; her hair, which used to be tied by her grandmother into two braids with colourful threads, now fell loosely over her shoulders; her lacy, floral dresses had been replaced with shorts and T-shirts with striking prints.
He ate the last piece of the roast pork, threw the hard skin to a patient crow, put away the plastic box, wiped his hands on a crumpled handkerchief and lit a cigarette. With the first inhalation he felt the acidic sting at the back of his throat, rising up into his sinuses and tumbling down into his lungs. A familiar soothing sensation, like the midair pause of a good attacker on the volleyball court, where a millisecond seemed an eternity, with clarity and perspective.
A few cars drove by to make a U-turn at the bottom of the no-through road. Mellow birdsong in the distance. A rustling of small animals in the trees behind.
He felt the fatigue in his muscles, a tiredness sinking to the lower half of his body. He was 190 centimetres tall, with long limbs and a thick chest. Most bathrooms seemed too small when he crouched on the floor. Never enough room for the knees, the broad shoulders, the bent elbows. He had learned to keep his body in a safe position and watch out before turning.
Once he saw his daughter struggling to wrap a giraffe in silver paper with gold stars as a present for her friend. She gave up eventually and threw the giraffe on the floor. He felt like the giraffe sometimes.
He had experienced shortness of breath and nearly passed out at the last match, giving his team a shock. They gave him cold water to revive him, warm water to reduce dehydration, chocolate to increase his blood sugar level and a gulp of brandy because that’s what they always do in the movies.
He had complained at home. ‘Wife, your hubby has a stuffy chest and is going to have a heart attack, leaving you widowed and our child fatherless.’
His wife turned to him from the kitchen sink, her face blank. ‘I told you to meditate. You never listen.’ She carried on washing the dishes.
He opened the cupboard, reached for the Five Grain Essence and grimaced at how little was left.
‘Drink, drink, drink,’ said his wife with a half-smile on her face, shaking her head.
He opened the fridge and found on the side shelf the packet of smoked pork sausages, wrapped and isolated from other foods.
‘You know the smell makes Little Mei and me sick.’ His wife tilted her head as if speaking to an invisible creature on the ceiling.
Hearing her name, his daughter appeared in the kitchen, wearing her pink slippers, an orange pencil in her hand. ‘Daddy, are you eating dirty food again?’
He wanted to say, ‘Grandma used to add the sliced sausages to stir-fry and you loved it.’ But instead he said, in English, ‘Only a small bit,’ and went out onto the balcony. He did not bother getting a shot glass. Nor did he slice the sausage—no point polluting the chopping board.
Little Mei slid open the glass door and asked if he could take her to tennis lessons on Saturday afternoons. His wife normally had rehearsal for the Falun Gong choir, and took Little Mei with her, while he went to play volleyball. Now one of them would have to sacrifice. After running back and forth between them, Little Mei’s last words were: ‘Daddy, I won’t be able to learn tennis if you don’t take me.’
The sausage tasted awful. He sat there for a long time, staring at the patchy lawn and the timber he’d bought to rebuild the deck, the tarpaulin over the timber now covered with dust, leaves and spider webs.
He finished his first cigarette and decided to have another one. Connecting th
e tip of the second to the first, he inhaled deeply, then counted the remaining cigarettes in the packet, slipped it into his chest pocket and buttoned it up. Smoking was a luxury in this country. Luckily, a guy in the volleyball team frequently travelled overseas and bought him duty-free cigarettes.
He had begun playing with the team soon after he started to clean No. 2’s house. The suburb was not within the area he normally worked, so his wife charged extra. The furniture was beautiful and some of it Chinese. While he was vacuuming the study, he found five Molten volleyballs under the desk. He picked one up, checking the seams of the leather, feeling the pressure, as if it was his own, lost and found. When he finally met No. 2, he asked where she played and she invited him to join them.
On average, there were fourteen people on the team. The older players came for a chance to speak, swear and joke in Chinese. The middle-aged players came to exchange tips, from children’s schooling to self-managed super. Some of the younger players were bananas, though not completely white inside. They’d migrated with their families from Hong Kong at a young age and, though educated in Australia, they kept a strong connection with their Chinese roots. The other young players had recently arrived from mainland China. They were ambitious and competitive. They called each other brothers and sisters because they were born under the one-child policy and never had siblings.
They hired courts at the youth club in a suburban RSL. The evening sessions started at eight, because some players had to travel halfway across Sydney. He usually arrived earlier. Parking his car next to the tennis courts, he would walk across the basketball courts, through the dimly lit entrance, where the noticeboard was covered with advertisements for yoga, karate, judo and gymnastics, and stop for a moment at the narrow viewing area overlooking the multifunctional courts. The lights were on, and the polished timber floor marked for volleyball, netball and badminton was shining with anticipation. He would stroll down the staircase, casually drop his sports bag, unzip his white jumper, and start stretching his shoulders and hamstrings.
They used to form two teams with a similar proportion of men and women, and start playing matches right away. He suggested they warm up, run around the courts, play in small circles, line up for serving, digging, setting and attacking. Some resented it—they had to pay for every minute of the three hours and they wanted to have fun. No. 2 embraced the basic training, quietly herding the others to progress from one activity to the next.
She had not been trained before, or not properly trained. ‘You’ve got to jump with both feet.’ He tapped on her shoulder. He observed her effort in following his advice in blocking and was pleased to see her progress.
‘Why do you roll your arm from your waist? It takes time and doesn’t add any power. Lift your arm straight up, swing backwards and extend the front of your body.’
She smiled at him and started to call him Coach. In return, he called her No. 2 because that was the position she often played as the setter.
Gradually, he found himself coaching the others as well, and they went on to win the Jade Cup last season. He chuckled at the thought of the team name No. 2 had coined: Flied Lice.
He finished his second cigarette and nipped the butt on the kerb.
When he was coaching the junior volleyball team, there would usually be a girl who had a crush on him. They were only kids, but he was flattered, especially if the girl had potential. He believed that the chemistry between coach and athlete was important for high performance.
No. 2 was not particularly strong, but she made up for it with good skills. As the setter, she seemed to know where everyone was. He often complimented her peripheral vision and her ability to change tactics according to the positions of the opponents. She was the team’s unofficial treasurer, keeping a record of the costs, paying in advance if necessary, calculating and collecting money. She also arrived early to set up the net and left late to pack up. When she played, the boys tended to be more polite and the girls less precious.
He was used to having difficult conversations with girls on the junior volleyball team who seemed distracted. He felt confident that he should be able to talk through any problems with No. 2. He could start with the next tournament—they would not want to lose the Jade Cup to the New Bees, a team made up of Chinese university students. He would then ask her if she had any specific issues. Maybe she was losing interest. He could introduce some complex tactics and help her to set new goals. To finish, he would say she was an excellent setter and the setter was the soul of the team.
He smiled inwardly.
He saw her at the bottom of the road, emerging from the footpath of the small park, walking briskly. She was wearing an opal-coloured dress with a maroon cashmere scarf trailing off her shoulders. He had not seen her wearing a dress before and neither had he seen her with make-up on.
He called her name. She did not hear him at first, so he called again.
She stopped, looked towards him and quickly rubbed her eyes as if to wake herself from a daydream. ‘Hi Coach, you are still here.’
‘Just finished lunch.’
‘Did you have Char Siu again? They use colouring on the pork.’
‘I won’t tell you what I had but I didn’t have Char Siu.’
‘If you don’t change your diet, you’ll have problems with your cholesterol and risk having a heart attack. And you should stop smoking. It reduces your HDL, which is the good cholesterol to help carry the waste away from your arteries.’
He laughed. She seemed to have a theory to back up all her statements.
‘Shall I make you green tea? It’ll wash away the grease.’
‘I’m comfortable here,’ he said, looking up at her.
She gathered the hem of her dress and sat down next to him, her flat-heeled boots wet with blades of grass. ‘Coach, I know you want to ask me why I have missed a few training sessions.’ Her eyes were soft and moist as the spring air.
‘The next tournament starts in a month’s time.’
‘After this Saturday, I won’t be able to come for a while. I’ll hand over the volleyballs.’
‘Why?’ He tried to be calm, but the tightness in his throat shortened his sentence.
‘It’s personal.’
Her fringe fell over her face, and for a moment, he could not see her eyes.
When she’d been absent last Saturday, a girl said she’d seen No. 2 with a very good looking Chinese man in a street market.
‘I am not surprised. Her husband’s twice her age,’ said his cigarette buyer.
‘Don’t spread rumours,’ he said.
‘Coach is protective of his star performer,’ the girl said.
He chucked the ball at her and they resumed training.
His heart was throbbing and he could hear the blood flowing in his ears.
‘Fuck. If you are not there, we have no hope.’ He reached for his cigarette pocket but held back his hand.
‘I saw my GP today and took the liberty of booking an appointment for you. Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll come with you.’ She pulled her hair back behind her ears.
‘I have a late job tomorrow. No time for the doctor.’ He stood up from the kerb with an audible sigh. ‘I won’t come this Saturday, either. I need to take my daughter to tennis.’
‘Coach, listen to me.’ She rose and followed him.
‘I’ll come to clean your house in two weeks.’
‘Coach,’ she said again. ‘Listen …’
But he had already shut the car door and started the engine. From the rear mirror he saw her standing on the roadside, waving, her long sleeve retracted, a jade bracelet dangling on her thin wrist.
The sky had turned pink and the feathery clouds lilac. He felt a sting in his chest. Another blockage, maybe. Deep inside, the blood vessels were being blocked by grease. Less and less life could pass through. He felt a pain through his neck. As if, having a fishbone in his throat, he was unable to swallow, unable to speak.
2
As Green as Blue
As Green as Blue
My Mother
When I was two months old, my mother was sent by the hospital to Exquisite Tower, a small village in the remote countryside of our province. She took me with her and left my brother and sister with my father and Grandma Chen, her nanny. We lived in a deserted temple for twelve months. The smoke tunnel inside our brick bed was almost completely blocked, so only a narrow patch of the bed was heated. The winter draughts pushed in through the shabby walls and high ceilings. I lay in bed surrounded by protective mounds of clothes, staring at the paper flowers my mother hung above my head while she went out to work. She came back three times a day to feed me.
My mother often recalled the minute details of our life back then: my first solid food, which frightened me; the rabbit hat for my first photo; my sister’s bodysuit, which I quickly outgrew; how I sucked my sleeves on waking up at night; my brother’s letters to us. She recalled the past with increasing detail, as though she were looking through a foggy window and the longer she waited the clearer her memories became.
After returning to the city, my mother took me to the hospital wards on her night shifts. At dusk, I roamed along the endless trolley ramps, standing aside for the occasional patient stretcher. The winter sunlight passed through the small windows high up on the wall. I was lost in a labyrinth. At night I slept in hospital beds covered with white cotton sheets, feeling clean and peaceful.
When I grew bigger, I stayed in the kindergarten on my mother’s night shifts. I tried to stay awake by pinching my upper arms. I worried that her schedule might change and if I fell asleep she would not be able to find me. When I saw her in the morning, I wept, partly out of hurt, but more out of joy because seventy-two hours of hospital residence would be followed by twenty-four hours of time off.
On my mother’s days off we stayed at home together. She turned the chairs upside down on the tables, swept the concrete floor, then mopped it twice, and applied sulphuric acid to the toilet. She folded her sleeves inward and her lower arms were damp from washing and perspiration.