House of Kwa

by Mimi Kwa

  At night while Brigit irons, I hear the maid’s laughter and dismay – ‘Oh no, Ferdinand!’ – over her favourite Filipino soap opera on Hong Kong free-to-air. It flickers on a small black-and-white TV on the chest of drawers in the corner of her tiny room.

  I sit beside Aunty in her palatial study as she writes letters to ladies and baronesses, and an occasional Kwa. When she writes to a Kwa, it’s usually in delicate staccato pen-stroked Chinese characters down a page, often finished off with a marble chop of her name character. She dips it in red paste from a green stone bowl with a carved dragon on its lid, gently wiping any excess on a spare sheet of clean paper before bringing the pillar shaped stone chop down firmly to stamp the denouement of her prose. After just a second, she lifts the chop back up and cleans the chiselled stone with a soft leather navy-blue rag.

  Aunty writes a cheque and slips it into an envelope addressed to a Kwa. She does this a lot – sends thousands of dollars to help educate half nieces and nephews, distant cousins and their spouses. ‘If we can help, we should.’ She turns over the monogrammed envelope and dabs her finger into a small round carved wooden dish containing a wet circular sponge. ‘You know, your third cousin, Nin Hua, in Guangdong, is a doctor now.’ To moisten the glue, she runs her finger along one side of the triangular flap then the other. ‘And Seventh Brother from Second Grandfather has a daughter in Montreal studying law.’ She seals the envelope. ‘I helped them both.’ In her desk drawer, she finds a stamp. ‘This is for your niece in Hainan province.’ Aunty wets the stamp on the round sponge and presses it down with her forefinger. ‘She wants to be a chef and work in a big hotel one day.’

  The more I visit Hong Kong, the closer I become to Brigit. I enjoy being in Aunty’s Swatow Lace shop with Christina and Amy, but I love my time with Brigit more. To me, she is an in-house beautician, nail technician, chef and counsellor. She is like a sister. She has watched me grow up.

  I’ve started trying to mirror my life of independence in Scarborough by setting out on my own between Peace Mansion and Causeway Bay, so Theresa enlists Brigit as her clandestine spy. There are legitimate fears I could be kidnapped – children of wealthy Chinese tycoons often are. ‘Aunty, the kidnappers will get a shock once they learn Dad has no money,’ I joke, but she is still protective. So, instead of us going out together like we usually would, Brigit follows me clumsily through Hong Kong’s streets. She stops at newsstands, leafing through magazines and pretending to read like the spies in the corny dramas she watches while she’s ironing. People stare at me because of my Eurasian looks and my height, making Brigit more nervous on my tail. I give her a few scares for fun but never really try to lose her.

  On my way home, she boards the same bus as me and sits at the back.

  I turn around and smile at her. ‘Come sit with me, Brigit.’

  ‘Oooooh, Mimi, I didn’t see you there.’

  It’s the perfect charade. No one ever arrives back at the apartment unhappy, and Aunty scolds us both, in jest, for being late. ‘Brigit, I’m soooo hungry. Eat-eat-eat, fat-fat-fat. Where is my dinner, Brigit?’ Aunty laughs and rubs her belly, and Brigit serves a five-course meal.

  While she cooks, I often flit in and out of the tiny kitchen, the output of which is like that of a Michelin star restaurant. ‘Teach me, teach me, Brigit,’ I beg. She shoos me away, but I sneak back in and skirt around her, my head bobbing up either side of her round frame, trying to catch a glimpse over her shoulder or under her arm. ‘C’mon. Teach me, Brigit.’

  But she never does. She seems embarrassed that she might know anything worth teaching. ‘Oh, Mimi, you are so funny. Why would you ever need to cook?’ Brigit knows I am born of privilege and cannot comprehend that where I’m from we don’t all have maids and cooks and drivers. ‘How do you eat, Mimi?’ ‘How do you have clean clothes?’ ‘How do you survive?’ ‘Oh, Mimi, I am so sorry for you.’

  I wander into Brigit’s room where she is watching another overacted soap opera, ironing and folding to the soundtrack of her life. I stand next to her and fold too. TV is her escape – it must be a nice break from her life of servitude and more plausible theatrics, and the very real act of survival. Brigit was born with a script in her hands and knows the role she must play: Theresa is master and Brigit servant, with no deviation from birthright.

  ‘Go. Go, Mimi.’ Brigit snatches the laundry from me. ‘Aunty will be cross if she catch you here.’

  I find it hard to make sense of the inequality. Brigit stands while we eat and serves us with a lowered gaze. She follows behind Aunty, forever folding, dusting, replacing and rearranging, sweeping away dirt and disorder in our wake. Wiping, polishing, straightening, placing a stray necklace neatly in a golden dish. Everything is perfect, though not without significant effort. Brigit retires to her tiny room, exhausted from making our lives decadently comfortable. I sleep on layers of sheepskin under woollen blankets and duvets of goose down. Brigit is up before dawn, cooking and scrubbing, and whenever I offer a hand, ‘No, noooo, Mimi. Off you go.’

  She heads to the market, knowing the optimal days and times for the best produce and catch. I tail her this time, following from a distance, watching attentively as she navigates Hong Kong as if it’s her home. I watch her compete against other maids, haggling over prize broccoli and rare mushrooms. She is one of them – one of Hong Kong’s hundreds of thousands of maids. She turns and sees me, then quickly pretends she doesn’t.

  She sends every cent she earns to her parents and siblings back home, an hour south of Manila, visiting once a year at least when Theresa is travelling.

  When no one is looking, I laugh with Brigit at silly things. I ask her questions about her life and family that no one else in House of Kwa has ever bothered to ask. She longs to go home. I hug her and cry. But I know Aunty needs her, and I tell her how valued she is and how Miss Kwa could never manage without her, adding to the guilt that keeps her here.

  I am part of the problem. Aunty has taught me carefully and deliberately; she is kind and wise, but also at pains to keep some distance between mistress and servant. She and Dad grew up with maids, and until Dad moved to Australia he’d never known a life without one.

  Aunty’s friends and acquaintances frequently offer advice on how ‘one must keep “the help” in their place’. One day she tells me, ‘Do not tip too much. Because next time they will expect more and then they will tell their friends. And then they will tell their friends. And then everyone will expect more, and prices will go up everywhere.’ I feel heavy with the weight of responsibility not to start a global economic crisis. I’m not allowed to tip Brigit, so with the money Aunty sometimes gives me I buy clothes for her to send to her siblings and nieces and nephews.

  Another goodbye. I hug Aunty. I hug Brigit.

  Dad scolds me on the way to the airport. ‘You don’t go spending your money to give her anything. That’s why your aunty employ her. She is lucky enough already. You’re too much like your mother – she give away everything to the beggar in the street.’

  STICKYTAPE AND BELLS

  I’M ELEVEN, AND MUM IS MOVING OUT OF HER CHILDHOOD room at Bicton into the basement. She can’t take the constant shouting of the man next door any longer. The light he shines through her bedroom window keeps her awake all night, even though she pulls her heavy curtains tightly closed. His nasty threats torment her despite the earplugs and earmuffs and beanies she layers on. It’s particularly upsetting that he rings bells just to annoy her; they make a horrible din, despite the classical music she plays louder and louder each day, turning the volume up so high that Paw Paw, Granddad and I have to keep the solid wooden sliding door along the corridor to her bedroom permanently shut.

  In the night I hear her cry out and moan in pain. Occasionally, she stomps past my room on a mission. Paw Paw always tries to stop her. ‘Mela, go back to bed. It’s late. Let’s talk about it in the morning.’ Usually, Mum pays no attention and flies through the kitchen and out the back door. One night, before an
yone can get their dressing-gowns on, she strides up the neighbouring Moss family’s driveway. She takes their front doorknocker in her fist and slams it down forcefully, again and again. It’s 1 am. ‘Leave me alone!’ Mum screams at Mr Moss, who has opened the door dazed and confused in his pyjamas. ‘Just leave me alone!’

  Paw Paw tucks me into bed again. ‘Mrs Moss drowned in their pool,’ my grandmother whispers. ‘There’s a touch of it in their family too. They understand. Granddad is over there now to smooth things over. Don’t you worry. You get some sleep now.’

  Moments later, Granddad brings Mum home. She’s screaming, ‘Let go of me! He is trying to kill me! Don’t you understand? He will kill me. I hate you! Let me go.’ The sliding door closes, and I bury my head in my pillow.

  We all hope the relocation to the room downstairs will be a positive change, but instead Mum’s behaviour intensifies and her self-isolation increases, creating a hermit in a hoarder’s den.

  ‘Hi, Mum, can I come in?’ I ask. Then I wince, overcome by the unbearable stench. ‘Mum?’ I look around, horrified.

  It wasn’t this bad last time I was down here; now it seems there’s nowhere to sit. I wade through the bathroom and kitchenette, past boxes filled with clothes and toys.

  It is a generous-sized house, but Mum prefers this small corner. She feels safer here. There’s a lot of storage space in the house as well, but she prefers to keep everything with her, ‘just in case’. She and Dad have hoarding in common, at least. Hoarding to answer voices. Hoarding to answer loss.

  Frantic lists occupy every vertical space not already intruded upon by stacks of books and engorged rubbish bags. Mum has used Blu Tack to attach them to walls and cupboard doors, the wallpaper groaning with notes and reminders, and stickytape holds up line after line of words: random words, sequential words, shopping lists, notes to self, notes to others, plans, strategies, labels. It’s dizzying. And the room smells of fear, which makes me afraid too, though of what I’m not sure. There is nothing on any of Mum’s lists that offers me any hints.

  I look around again for a place to sit, but everything is covered in newspapers. There’s nothing to say, anyway. Mum only talks about Mr Moss, who rings a bell at her door all day and all night, in his pyjamas.

  ‘But Mr Moss wouldn’t do that,’ I say.

  ‘No, it’s definitely him.’ Mum goes on to tell me I don’t understand and I’m just a child. ‘Oh, Mimi.’ She looks at me with burdensome pity. ‘One day, you will see.’ She shakes her head. Then she tells me Mr Moss only goes away when I visit and will continue shouting at her after I leave.

  I am afraid to stay. I am afraid to go. My mother’s fear seeps in through my every pore, filling me up until I can’t breathe.

  CINDERELLA AND CIGARETTES

  THE YEAR MY MUM MOVES DOWNSTAIRS, I BECOME BEST friends with Michelle in Grade Six. We are close and highly competitive, developing a sadistic way of showing our mutual adoration by jabbing each other in the thigh with freshly sharpened pencils. It hurts and we bleed, but we keep playing the stupid game during class, determined to see who will give in first. We’re fascinated with self-harm, sometimes turning the pencil on our own legs to condition ourselves against the pain. She calls me ‘chog’ and I call her ‘wog’. It helps us both be in on the joke of racist remarks we receive.

  Kids at my primary school with older siblings at Scarborough High, the tough public school down the road, are a source of the worst ideas. Michelle’s fifteen-year-old sister, Sherrie, goes there.

  ‘Get a rubber,’ Michelle says to me. We giggle because even though she means ‘get an eraser’, ‘rubber’ is slang for ‘condom’. ‘Get a rubber and rub it like this on your arm so it burns the skin, and then you’ll end up with a scar like you’ve cut your wrists.’

  Among local teenagers, suicide attempts are a sick badge of honour. ‘Life sucks and then you die,’ is the quote that circulates. The rubber trick is meant to give you a scar as if you’ve at least tried, although anyone who cares knows you’ve used a rubber, so really there’s no point other than desensitising you against pain.

  Even so, I rub with an eraser day and night until the red turns raw, and the red raw becomes an open wound. I hope it will scab and scar nicely, but instead it festers, becoming so infected Mum takes me to a doctor, where I make up a story. ‘I slid my arm across my school desk in a sudden movement. The desk was splintering, so it caught my skin and cut my wrist.’ No one comments. I’m put on a strong dose of antibiotics and end up with a scar shaped like the underside of a slug.

  My other best friend is Narelle, a year younger than me. Her wild brown hair is a lion mane; she is a lion, and I’m a tiger. We find each other in the schoolyard jungle. Youngsters lost in family sadness finding refuge in empathetic friendships, getting so close we inhabit a life together. We don’t belong anywhere, so we band together. We fear, and we fight, getting tougher and stronger.

  Narelle’s dad hung himself when she was small. No matter how many seances we conduct in the middle of the night, I’m never convinced that her older sister isn’t pushing the pointer to frighten us, and it does frighten us. Lying head to toe, we share a mattress and a blanket. We smoke a packet of cigarettes between us and resort to scrounging butts from an overflowing ashtray. Our dinner is white bread Smith’s Lites crisps and cheese Twisties sandwiches with butter and tomato sauce. Of course, we use either the crisps or the Twisties – you wouldn’t mix both in the same sandwich, that would be ridiculous.

  Narelle’s mum, Carol, does the best she can with two daughters. She’s so young herself, sitting quietly reading Mills & Boon novels, smoke swirling around her. A motley crew of her daughters’ friends come and go. It’s like a halfway house, but Carol prefers it that way because at least she knows where her daughters are. She figures that’s better than the alternative: to have them ‘God knows where on the back of motorbikes at parties with older men’, sometimes old men. She does the best she can.

  I ride the bus with Carol and Narelle to collect food with pension stamps from a warehouse far away. A volunteer hands over toilet paper and bags of cornflakes, tomato sauce, Lites, Samboy chips and Spam: non-perishables to get Carol and her kids by, along with dozens of freeloaders. I’m one of the latter, so I make myself useful by providing an extra pair of hands to take home additional provisions. Carol has saved up her vouchers to make the long trip worthwhile.

  ‘You’re rich,’ Narelle tells me one day.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I reply, but I know my life is luxurious compared to hers.

  Friends like Narelle and another girl, Liesle, come over to my place to enjoy the middle-class life for a change. A high life. They live on Stanley Street, a few hundred metres from one another, and I live a street away – a world away – on Wheatcroft.

  Liesle lives with her father, a huge heavy-set German man who sits in an armchair all day in an apartment too small for him. You can turn one way and touch the kitchen table, then the other and you’re standing in the bathroom.

  ‘But you’re rich,’ Liesle says one day when I complain about a long list of chores I’ve been given.

  She’s right, I realise. I should stop moaning. But although I have so much, I feel terribly lonely, sometimes even when I’m surrounded by friends. They cocoon me, and I call them family, the family I choose. They are my people and they see me – or at least I think they do. We’re all running so fast from our own lives, perhaps we don’t see at all.

  Narelle and I discover shoplifting, smoking cigarettes and pot, drinking Southern Comfort, and snowdropping (stealing clothing from washing lines). Adults buy alcohol for us. We befriend a group of men who are more than happy to assist, and I tell Dad I’m staying at a friend’s.

  I tell myself our motley crew is all that matters, and my eleven-year-old life gradually becomes about booze and boys, so by twelve I’m pretty good at pulling off a double existence.

  ‘Goodnight, Dad.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ he replies.


  I close my bedroom door, pull on a coat, slide open the balcony window on the third storey and climb onto a railing, gripping the narrow surface with my bare feet. It’s a dizzying height, and I cling to the gutter as I try not to look down at the concrete staircase and brick driveway. ‘Okay.’ I expel a breath. ‘You can do this.’

  I must be a sight: a twelve-year-old girl in a long black trenchcoat, barefoot and shimmying along the side of a three-storey building. I’ve got my shoes in my coat pockets. I have to stretch to manoeuvre around the partitions dividing the flats, a silhouette against the night sky, not looking down. I sidestep along the edge of units eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. No one sees me, but I can see tenants watching TV, having dinner and drinks.

  I can’t go any further so I jump down onto unit thirteen’s balcony. The door is open, and the backpackers inside get a big fright. ‘Jesus Christ! Aren’t you the owner’s daughter? What are you doing?’

  I explain I’m sneaking out and use their front door to escape into the darkness, a tiger running alone in the night.

  How I’m not raped and killed on these adventures, I don’t know. I’m lucky to have survived the balcony let alone the streets of this rough suburb. I feel invincible, though, and free. Whether I’m singing at the top of my lungs with Narelle as we traipse the footpaths, or I’m walking in the shadows on my own, I don’t feel vulnerable. I’m entitled to own the darkness, and I am whoever I choose to be among strangers of the night, on the beach, by a bonfire, or rolling in sand dunes. At home, I am powerless; outside, I take control.

  Carol always knows where Narelle is, because Narelle never lies to her mum. My parents have no idea.

  One day Narelle and I wag school. That’s another thing I learned from my friends, or maybe we learned it from each other. I master both parents’ signatures, bringing in notes to explain my absences. I’m asthmatic, and forging also helps me to avoid sport.