The Wondrous Woo

by Carrianne Leung

  “And your brother and sister are gifted, huh?” He scratched his head.

  “I guess so,” I sighed.

  “Do you see them a lot?”

  “No. They don’t even know where I am.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your mother know where you are?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then you’re kinda like an orphan,” Mouse said slowly.

  “Hmmm. There is reason in what you say, little grasshopper,” I said, trying to be funny, but Mouse just looked at me.

  A silence engulfed us, travelling like the streams of smoke from Mouse’s cigarette. I ached right then from my muscles up through to my skin. I needed someone to hold me, to remind me that I was still human, that touch still mattered. But I stood where I was and he kept flipping through the pages until there were no more. Then he gently handed me the book. “Hey, kid. No worries.” He hopped up and slapped me on the back on his way to the kitchen. “You’ve got me. Besides, you’re right, kung fu heroes are usually orphans. They’ve got no family. What was I thinking? We’re just a travelling band of orphans, gathering each other up, inventing our own identities and making new families as we go, right?”

  I heard the tap running. “You want some water?” he called out.

  Soon sweaters replaced T-shirts and sneakers banished sandals. Toronto was a city of abrupt contrasts; the warmer seasons brought out patios and a street life that coloured the days and nights with people. As it got cooler, the population appeared to diminish little by little until it was as if the place were a grey-stained ghost town.

  In September, Mouse got a bartending job in the evenings, so I didn’t see him as much. Occasionally, I would wake up to the sound of pebbles peppering the glass of my window late in the night and I would look out to see Mouse underneath holding up bags of takeout. He would come after his shifts at the bar, full of energy to write out new storylines he had come up with for our projects. On the mornings after, I would go to work half-asleep, counting the minutes before I could go home and climb back into bed. My boss, the woman with the gold-rimmed glasses, strangely enough, seemed to approve of my dishevelled state.

  “Looks like you’ve gone out and got yourself a life, Miramar. Good for you. Youth is not to be wasted, my dear,” she told me. Regardless of how raggedy I appeared, she seemed satisfied with my job performance. My numbers were good. The immigrants were getting what they needed. Little did she know I was making up my own system as I went along. Someone needed housing? I pretended to be a former landlord and gave them the referral. Needed Canadian experience for a job? I put on my best manager voice and offered glowing reviews. It was not lying. I was simply doling out poetic justice, making minor adjustments to the topsy-turvy world that had one end slipping quickly over the edge while privileging the other end with too much gravity.

  The thought of calling my family had been sitting in my stomach like a little stone. I even imagined the full script for how it would go down. I would call Sophia first, and she would tell me how Ma and Darwin were doing. Then I might call Ma. Maybe. One day I even went so far as to punch in the numbers on the phone, but I hung up before I got a connection. As always, I continued to look for news about them in magazines, in concert listings in the UK papers, but weirdly, there was nothing.

  Until recently, despite the months we had not seen each other or talked, I still felt an invisible cord tying us together. At least I could keep up with them in print, see their faces, know where they were. Yet that fall, with no contact in any way, I felt the cord thinning, ready to break.

  Chapter 28 ~

  Hua steered her horse towards the hills, tearing through the tall grass as the Bandit King rode beside her. She was surrounded by the wind striking her face and the smell of an approaching spring rain. The yellow ribbons tied to her arm fluttered like tails. She glanced at her beloved and saw his face, tilted to the swirling clouds above. Like him, she was born to be wild.

  ONE DAY AT WORK, I was with my client Mary Chan and was just about to make a call to her boss as her lawyer. She worked at a garment factory, a.k.a., a sweatshop, and she and her co-workers were trying to unionize, which, once word had gotten out, expediently led to several firings. Mary Chan, who must have been close to my age, passed her giant, round-faced baby from thigh to thigh, jiggling her legs to keep the kid from crying. Meanwhile, her three-year-old roamed freely around my office, pulling books and files off the shelves while singing a broken, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

  As I was preparing my lawyer voice, the phone rang. It was Mouse. Lately, my feelings for Mouse were getting stronger. Whenever I heard his voice or he walked through my door, my hands would sweat and my heart would take off running. I was so afraid he would notice that I started avoiding him. But the more I made excuses not to see him, the more he persisted. Lately, I had noticed him looking at me while I was at work on our screenplays. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I didn’t dare hope that he was beginning to feel something for me too.

  “Hey, lang lui, what are you doing tonight? Come meet me at the bar.”

  “I don’t know, Mouse. I have to work early tomorrow morning.”

  “You won’t regret it. There’s someone I want you to see.”

  “Who?” The chubby baby was smiling at me, her eyes bright as moons.

  “She’s a vampire. Or at least that’s what she tells everyone. She’s got this white skin, like fucking whiter than white. These intense violet eyes. I was thinking, we should write a ghost story next. Kung fu ghosts, ya know. She would make a great character.”

  “I dunno. We’ll see.” I reached my hand out to grab a fleshy hand. The baby giggled.

  “Okay, just come.” His voice took on a more serious tone than I was used to. “Please, come.”

  Dusk bar was a short walk from my house on Augusta Avenue in Kensington, not far from Chinatown. I really liked Kensington Market, liked its story, its evolution: once a Jewish enclave in the early 1900s, it then hosted a succession of other Eastern Europeans, Italians, and Portuguese. Ba used to bring us there after films at the Golden Harvest Theatre to get fresh chickens when you could still buy live animals. Now it was changing with cafés and vintage clothing stores, but if you knew where to look, there were some of the best ethnic grocery stores in the city, and peeking out from between shops, a synagogue or two. I took note of where they were, in case Sophia was still considering becoming Jewish.

  I started walking to Dusk around eleven p.m., passing the darkened doors of the bodegas, the clothing shops and other bars. The streetlights cast an orange sheen onto the empty sidewalk. As I passed, rats feasting on the day’s garbage scurried away. Forget potential rapists or muggers—the thought of a rat clambering over my shoe freaked me out the most. I ran the rest of the way.

  The bar used to be a dried goods store, and yellowed boxes of beans still lined the window. I descended a flight of stairs and fumbled for the door in the dark. Inside was an enormous dark room with low ceilings; its only illumination came from lines of Christmas lights that zigzagged across the walls and candles that sat on tabletops. There was music — slow, sad music that went straight to my heart. People dressed in dark clothing were dancing, weaving through one another in the centre of the floor. At one end of the space was a small empty stage and at the other was a bar lined with bottles. People sat on short stools there, and talking to them from behind the bar was Mouse, a fog of smoke hovering above him.

  “Hey, lang lui, over here,” Mouse waved at me, then hopped over the bar. Beside me, he said loudly into my ear, “What do you think?” He spread his arms to make a sweep of the place.

  “It’s nice,” I nodded.

  “D’ya wanna drink?”

  I felt awkward standing in the middle of the dance floor among the shadowy dancers although I was happy to note I blended in nicely with my
all black outfit. “Not right now. Thanks.”

  “You wanna dance?”

  I stared at him. Only Mouse would get a job so relaxed he could decide to be a patron in his own bar. “Don’t you have to work?”

  “Mikey’s covering for me.” He gestured with his thumb at the bar to a man who was dressed in nothing but leather chaps and a codpiece. Mikey nodded to me while he sipped at his glass with a straw.

  Mouse jogged towards the stage and hopped on. We had never danced together before. Air kung fu, certainly, but dancing, never. The music switched to a slightly fast beat, the sound of a bass guitar drifted from the speakers like rising smoke. I recognized the first chords of The Cure’s “Lovesong.” Mouse started to sway back and forth in time to the singer’s melancholic drawl, his body moving like a pendulum.

  Head down, Mouse stepped left to right to left on the stage, his arms folded across his chest, instantly lost in the music. A scatter of people danced below on the floor. This was not real life, down here in the dark. I wanted to be with him, moving beside him. I climbed the one big step onto the platform just as the song quickened. Mouse did not even look up. He just took my hands and spun me around and around as the beat became more frenzied. I saw tiny dots of light stream past me as we whirled together faster and faster, the neon and music and air breaking into strobes, into fragments.

  This was not real. It was a dream.

  The song neared its end, and Mouse drew me to him in an embrace. We rocked gently against each other, finding our rhythm as we moved. I buried my head in Mouse’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of smoke and pine. I felt light, like I could just drift off into the air and fly above all these people, and into the night.

  I lifted my head to his face. He looked at me for a second and then gently, he pressed his lips to mine. That pretty mouth was so soft it was like being kissed by a flower. I laid my head back on his shoulder.

  “You okay?” Mouse whispered.

  “Yah, Mouse. I’m okay.”

  That night, we awkwardly arranged and rearranged our limbs around each other on my bed. Earlier it had been warm, so I had opened all the windows, but now a chilly breeze blew through the apartment. I was shy being naked in front of him. Mouse was all lean brown muscles and smooth skin, and I felt too soft, too pale, too goose-pimpled, too clumsy. When he pressed his mouth between my legs, my body quaked. When he came, it was with a loud wail, like a low siren passing. Afterwards, Mouse wrapped his arms around me and we slept.

  After that, not much changed except he had his own key to my apartment and came over almost every night after his shift. Sometimes, I went to the bar and hung out there until closing time. We still plotted our kung fu stories, writing them down in storyboard form, riffing off of each other’s crazy ideas, and we still did air kung fu the same, the only difference being that after the big fight scene, we would collapse on top of each other on the floor and make out.

  We never said we were boyfriend/girlfriend. I knew this was not going to be a Nida and her Rajiv from Mississauga kind of romance. And yet, it felt like the easiest thing in the world.

  Chapter 29 ~

  Na was happy in her new life among the nomads. They had given her shelter when she became lost looking for her father and brothers who had been captured by the magistrate’s men. She became their shepherdess because she liked her solitude. On still nights, while the roaming sheep slept, she felt a longing for home and searched the dark outline of the mountain range for a sign of familiarity. Frustrated, she danced the crane as her mother had taught her. Na’s frenzied movements scattered the sleeping birds from their trees, and they complained loudly as they flew away. Na continued her dance, thinking to herself, so “this is what it sounds like when doves cry.”

  ON CHRISTMAS EVE, instead of takeout food, Mouse decided to cook us a turkey. When he brought it over, I was afraid the oven that I never used would be too small for it. We were relieved when it slid in with barely a centimetre clearance on all sides. All day, Mouse had hummed to himself as he chopped and basted. I never even knew he could cook. Since I hardly knew anything about his past, he remained full of surprises. I turned the dial on the radio, looking for something appropriate for us to listen to. I settled on a jazz station, and bluesy Christmas carols filled my apartment while a heavy snow fell outside, covering the dirt of the streets.

  Now that it was December, I knew my time was running out. I had made a pinky promise to Darwin — every Chinese New Year, no matter what. Even if he despised me and disowned me as his sister, a pinky promise was a promise. With Mouse in the kitchen, and the sound of a knife hitting the cutting board solidly, and the scraping of a spoon against a plastic bowl, and the sizzle of onions hitting hot oil, I was slipping into emotions I had tried to tuck away in the hopes that they would not surface for a while.

  I wondered what my family was doing. Christmas did not have the expectation for us as it had for our white friends. We had tried it on, though, like a borrowed sweater, and we had to admit the little emblems of the holiday were fun: there was the silver tinsel tree Ma bought because it would not drop needles on the carpet and was virtually self-decorating. “A savings!” Ma had said. And it had been fun to open up gifts of new snow boots or mitts. Sometimes, Darwin got a toy — Lego one year, and Star Wars figures when he got older. But only once had Ma tried baking a turkey. All our neighbours did it, so Ba had brought one home. It looked like an oversized chicken. Despite Ma’s ample skill in the kitchen, the bird had turned out to be a leathery old thing. We made a good attempt at chewing until our jaws had become sore and we had to give up. Ma had actually made a fantastic turkey congee with the carcass, I recalled, but still we never tried turkey again, sticking instead with duck for special occasions.

  But Chinese New Year we did not mess around with. It was who we were.

  When Mouse presented the meal to me, I thought I would cry or laugh or both. His turkey looked like it came out of the pages of Good Housekeeping Weekly. “How’d you learn to do that?” I asked, stupefied. He was even carving it expertly.

  “Here and there. I’ve worked in restaurants and picked up a few things,” he answered.

  Mouse had laid a white cloth on the worn surface of my second-hand table. On it was rice, steaming yellow with nuts and bits of vegetables. A blue bowl of Chinese greens sat beside it, gleaming with oil and speckled with garlic. In another larger bowl were mashed potatoes with pads of butter melting slowly into pools. Another platter held crackers and different blocks of cheese and olives. There was corn on the cob, green peas, cranberry sauce, and gravy the colour of caramel. It was enough food for the Waltons, the Cosby kids, and the Brady Brunch, if they ever got together and had one whacked-out communal meal.

  “Holy Mother of God!” I exclaimed.

  “That she was. Happy Birthday, Jesus.” He smiled and raised his glass of wine. “This is what I like to call a multicultural smorgasbord,” Mouse said, between chews, pointing at the food. “A bit of biryani, a bit of choi, a bit of gweilo mashed potatoes, and a whole lot of poultry.”

  “I like this smorgasbord thing!”

  We made barely a dent in the feast before I found myself having to stop for a break. Good thing I was wearing elastic-waisted sweatpants. Mouse refilled my wineglass.

  “You like, señorita?”

  “I love it!”

  “Great! My job is done.”

  I did not want to say anything, and even suspected it might not be a smart move, but I felt compelled. “Why aren’t you with your family today? I assume you come from someone, somewhere?” I asked.

  He smiled lazily. “Don’t you remember, I was the spirit of a gingko —”

  “Stop!” I said. “Not again with the tree. Where’s your family?”

  He shrugged and concentrated on sucking the meat off the turkey neck.

  “What happened? I mean, did something happen to them?”

>   When I saw his face, it was clear I had stepped too far. “Hey, Miramar? I don’t bug you about your family, so don’t bug me about mine, deal?”

  I was taken aback by the edge in his voice. I had never heard him speak like that before. He was still working on his turkey, but irritation lined his forehead.

  “Okay, I guess I was just trying to get to know you better. I mean, I really don’t know much about you.”

  Mouse dropped the turkey onto his plate. “So you feel like you don’t know me?” He looked me in the eye. There were licks of fire in his.

  “Well, I mean … not about your past. Like, where did you grow up? Do you have brothers and sisters? What school did you go to? I just wanted to know….” I really did not understand why it was such a big deal. I was not exactly forthcoming about my personal life, but this was ridiculous.

  “Do you have to know those things in order to know me? You already know me better than anybody. It pisses me off that you feel you don’t know me,” he said, reaching for his pack of cigarettes, the turkey forgotten.

  “Okay. Sorry I asked. I didn’t mean that I don’t know you. I just wanted to know more, that’s all.” I brushed it off. Now that I knew what the reaction would be, it seemed Mouse, like his name, would have to remain an elusive thing.

  I was glad when our spat was over, and after dinner, we sat cross-legged on the parquet floor of my living room, listening to a CD of Yellow River, a classical Chinese piece. After some cigarettes, more turkey and a lot more wine, our conversation about family seemed forgotten, and Mouse returned to his normal self.

  Out of his jean pocket, Mouse dug out a red silk box. “Merry Jesus’ Birthday,” he said. “I know it’s a gweilo holiday and all, but I wanted to give you something.” He was almost blushing. I was touched. I flipped open the lid and found a jade pendant, carved into a lotus flower. It was pale green, but darker towards the middle. A red silk cord was strung through it.