White Turtle

by Merlinda Bobis

  “I am a tree.”

  “Come up here, you funny girl, and have some of my leche flan.”

  I’m shameless when it comes to food, especially sweet things. I don’t need a second invitation. Tiya Bising’s leche flan is the best egg custard in the village. And she’s our prettiest old woman, next to Grandmother. This afternoon, she wears her tortoiseshell comb with glitter and her sequined shoes, and she smells of caramel. She tells me she had planned to go to town, but that she had missed the bus which brought Pilar. Between mouthfuls, I tell her about Pilar and her new dress, new shoes and socks with lace on them, and her roses, of course. I emphasise the roses. And I advise her to listen hard to the cricketsong of the bus next time, so she won’t miss it. She looks at me strangely and laughs again, saying I have funny ideas. Why is everyone like Pilar today?

  “So your basket is empty.” Tiya Bising smooths its ragged paper frills.

  I’m not good at curling paper with the scissors’ edge, so the frills around the bottom of the basket can bounce-dangle charmingly. Cut one side of the paper into strips and curl each one of them with the sharp edge of the scissors. That’s how all of us girls are supposed to do it. Everyone can, except me. I wish I were a regular girl. I lick my spoon.

  “You should have come this morning. I gave all my kanda flowers to the Garcia girls.”

  What can you expect? Five girls can demolish a tree. I tell Tiya Bising not to worry, because I’ll find something. I blame Pilar for being late, and excuse myself. I need to be in business or the Virgin will have one basket less of white flowers. Tiya Bising understands. She doesn’t mind me running off after the feast at her table. Eat-and-run, as we say. She knows too well that I’m a busy girl today.

  I head for the marsh, walking through a swarm of dragonflies. Giants and dwarfs, and needle-thin ones which we call dagom-dagom. I think they are baby dragonflies. I stand very still in their midst. I even stop breathing. I do this trick often with them. It always works, like now. A pair, one giant deep blue, the other needle-thin and slightly blue, alight on each of my shoulders. Mother and daughter, I suppose. I glance at them from the corner of my eye. They’re curious about this flowerless girl. I hold my breath longer, too long, I feel my chest might burst open, and my heart might jump out and join them. As if comprehending, the mother blue takes off and lands on my chest. It’s listening to my heart. It hears about Pilar and Grandmother and Mother and Tiya Bising and her leche flan, and the cricketsong no one believes in. I wonder how its tiny body can hold all the stories of my day. I sneeze. The baby one flew too close to my nose. The pair flies off. I leap onto a stone and descend into the marsh.

  Nothing. Some clever girl raided my secret flower kingdom. All the kamya are gone. Perhaps because it’s the last day of the Flores, and everyone is desperate to have a basket brimming with white. I run my basket over the headless stalks. The mosquitos wake and hum their sympathy. I clap one dead as it gets too friendly on my ear, but the sudden movement makes me slip—the basket flies from my hand and gets caught in a milflores bush at the other bank as I land waist-deep-smack on the mud! A king-frog surveys his visitor through half-lidded eyes, croaks twice, and hops away. In frogspeak, it must mean, “Naughty! Naughty!” Almost like Grandmotherspeak.

  “It would have been worse if I had my slippers on.” I argue with the retreating frog, the headless stalks, the mosquitos, the mud, and the milflores on the bank as I haul myself out of the marsh. My surprisingly still immaculate-white basket flutters its limp frills in a slight breeze, as if to remind me we are on opposite banks, and that I’ll have to cross the muddy water to retrieve it. It had chosen to catch its handle on a branch drooping with the weight of lilac clusters. Milflores, thousands of flowers —but they are not white. My basket quivers proudly in the wind though. Perhaps, it thinks itself aptly positioned. Lilac and white. Look at me, it seems to say. I have some colour now, some contrast, unlike you stupid girls who are uninterestingly pale every afternoon in your bloodless frocks.

  I am suddenly caught with a crazed inspiration. I wade to the other side, rescue my basket, and pick a bunch of milflores. As I wade back, I chance upon a stalk of fire-red bandera española. I pluck it, too, staining my fingers with its sap. Then I clamber up to safety, where some wild cadena de amor creep in profusion. I twine a crown from its vines around my head, and prance about, gathering a handful of the tiny pink buds. The scheme in my mind is as colourful as the prize in my basket. I feel quite heady. I pull up tufts of grass as well as I walk home. The swarm of dragonflies buzzes around me. Chismosas, I hush them conspiratorially. Spying gossips! They don’t leave me alone until I climb over our back fence.

  It’s nearly four o’clock now and Grandmother must be waiting with her tumagiktik, the dried bamboo rod, ready for my wayward bum. I dare not walk through the front gate with the state of my unshod feet and, worse, my mudcaked limbs. I wonder where Pilar is. I sneak through the cacao and coffee shrubs. I nearly stumble over Karing, our pregnant sow, as I rush to the well among the guava trees. I quickly draw some water and strip down to my underpants. Grandmother says the well spirits always keep watch from below, so one must never bathe completely naked. They can blow air into your vagina and you might bloat like Karing. I wonder whether Mother ever bathed naked near a well. The last time she visited, her tummy looked strange. She seldom visits, because she’s too busy, she said. Grandmother harrumphed and drew her lips into a thin line when Mother explained this to me. I asked her then, what keeps you busy? Dancing, she answered and stopped short when Grandmother snapped at her. Mother gave me a quick hug and left in a rush. I remember her tummy looked strange. I must not forget to ask her the next time she comes whether there’s a well near the place where she dances. I must warn her about the spirits.

  Mother dances in Manila, where there are bright lights, she said—Manila is a very big city with too many buses. Imagine how loud their cricketsong must be. But Mother said there are no crickets in the big city. I hope she does not miss the bus to her dance then. Being late for it is as bad as being late for my Flores now. I really must hurry. I give my feet a final douse of water, while vigorously rubbing them together to get rid of the mud, roll my dress into a small ball, pick up my basket, and hurriedly sneak through the kitchen door. I wonder where Pilar is.

  I hear a familiar voice from the bedroom. Tiya Bising! Just my luck. Grandmother never whacks me when there’s a visitor. I pat my wet wayward bottom confidently and walk into the room, dripping and wearing my most engaging smile.

  “Grandmother, I’m all washed and ready, see?”

  Everyone stares at me from the bed. Pilar is as pale as her white dress. Tiya Bising has her arms around Grandmother. She’s making funny noises, there’s a steady stream on her cheeks. I’ve never seen her like this before. I get scared and confused. I drop my ball of clothes and the basket of flowers. The puddle around me becomes bright with petals. I don’t know why, but I begin to cry. Maybe I hurt Grandmother, because I ignored her call a while back. Maybe she’s so angry, she’ll whip my skin off.

  “I didn’t mean to, Grandmother. I’m sorry for running off. I’m sorry, too, for not wearing my slippers.”

  A twig snaps in Grandmother’s throat. She hugs me tightly, I can’t breathe. Tiya Bising turns away to hide her face. Pilar wails on her white skirt.

  “And I was going to play a trick on the Virgin, Grandmother. I was going to the Flores with flowers not white.”

  Grandmother trembles at hearing my latest prank. She can’t stop shaking and making more strange sounds in her throat. “Something happened, Connie—your mother—”

  “A bus did it, Connie. Ay, a very big bus. Bigger than our bus.” Pilar is sobbing like a cow, I can’t hear Grandmother clearly.

  She cups my face with both her shaking palms and looks at me with the saddest, gentlest eyes. “Connie, dear, your mother—she’s coming home—”

  “Is that why you’re upset, Grandmother?”

  “Connie, de
ar—”

  “You don’t want her here?”

  “Connie—”

  “Why are you always angry with her?”

  She keeps on crying out my name as if I were far away, and she were calling me back. I push her away.

  “Is her tummy all right?”

  Splinter

  This is my salvation, this sliver in my palm. You suck it out and we both come. Before this train gets to Central, let me tell you, it can happen. It’s probably festering, see? Here, right here at the centre of my palm, where the lifeline crosses the heartline.

  You don’t believe me? Take a close look then. That hardly discernible dot like a nudge from a fine point pen, that’s the tip of the thing. You doubt it? Feel it then, the way you’d search for an invisible, fucking splinter that gets stuck in your skin when you clean up a mess. A pinpoint ache that seems not to be there, but insists it is whenever you accidentally rub the skin. Almost like a pretend affliction, because it seems so inconsequential, but hurts anyway.

  You beautiful boy, don’t you understand? My palm is sending messages to your mouth, to your half-opened lips made for sucking. You yawn, I shiver slightly over those strong, even teeth which could bite the tip of this shard and pull it out, both of us sighing afterwards, as if blessed even before arriving at the terminal. For this is every heart’s desire on a Friday rush hour, all of us throwing our bodies into train carriages, crying save me, save me. There is a pinpoint ache somewhere, show me where, and, please, kiss it better.

  Me? I know where it is. You don’t have to find it for me. I am certain. Suck my palm. You Catholic? Heard about one of the wounds of Christ? It doesn’t matter. I’m lapsed anyway, religious shelf life over when I left my country—what about you? You ethnic, too—once? No worries, I’m as Aussie as you now. I love steak and onion pie, by the way, with lots of chilli sauce, an old habit. Makes lips burn, oh-oh.

  I love your lips, beautiful boy. I love Australia. I love you to suck my palm.

  Palm sex. Rings a bell, I know, what with the joke about Mrs Palmer and her five lovely daughters. Wish I could find that funny, but like the act it’s too obvious and predictable. Fondle-rub-oooh-fondle-rub-rub-hah-hah-hah-hah-oooooooooh God! And you’re not even Catholic.

  But palm sex is something else. It’s the act of any stranger sucking the centre of your palm, where the lifeline and heartline intersect, to draw out the nasty ache hiding there. A thorn or sliver of glass or wood or the thinnest chip of china from the last decent plate in the house after one of its creatures had lost her temper.

  I think it was the Wedgwood cake plate which she hurled at me, minus the cake, but missed. I swear I saw a white Attic nose jumping out before the crash, wanting to be saved like me. Half past twelve when I ran out the door, hugging myself for dear life. Just in time before her china armoury was depleted, yeah, yeah.

  You keep looking at your watch, that ticking wound on your wrist which infuriates me. I’m jealous of your many appointments, the way you wear them as if your life depended on them. I ditched mine, you know, fifteen minutes ago at the ticket counter. There was a long, motionless queue as some wog pestered the ticket man for directions. Well, I was a wog once, I pestered ticket men for directions once, but I’m better now. Once a wog, always a wog, I don’t believe that, you see.

  I have ditched time, ditched history, I mean, ditched my watch at the ticket counter with its fucking slow-mo queue. I actually tried to crush it in my hands for good measure, then finished it off with a good grind of the heel. After being attacked by a flying Wedgwood cake plate, the last thing I needed was an extreme reversal of pace. I was going to miss this train, I was going to miss you, to miss me with you, because of that bloody slow queue and—you know what—my hurrying bloody Seiko. Let me tell you, its hands must have been afflicted by the speed of the flying Wedgwood plate or by my pulse outrunning the speed of its flight. The fucking Seiko had doubled up its speed—tickitickitickitick instead of tick-tick-tick-tick.

  Don’t do that—I can’t think straight every time you catch me with the corner of your half-lidded eye—no, yes, do that all over again, ooooh, yes, then suck my palm. Suck it out, please, this hint of white from the thinnest chip of china or this splinter of Seiko time, whichever, suck out my story, my history, and let us come then, you and I. Where the sigh is sweet like a fart etherising the goddamn bed, smart ass. My boy, a lot of people fart after sex, do you know that?

  But palm sex is better than sex sex, result hundred per cent guaranteed. We both come or your money, no, your precious time back. How to do it? Turn it back, of course, pretend it never happened, fuck history, simple. And when we get to Central, we would have forgotten that you serviced my hand, that we caught each other’s eye, that we sat opposite each other or that we even took this train.

  You have the habit of giving back, giving up time! She had screamed before launching the Wedgwood missile. She was, of course, referring to the act of relinquishing past time, my abandoning our history. That silly cow and her quaint English, never qualifies her statements— giving up time? What do you mean, you idiot! The crux of her aggro was the fact that I usually forget things.

  Ah, more soma versus history, that’s what the world needs, I reckon. That’s what will save us to enjoy a moment like this, darling. Fuck history and ditch its making. Palm sex with no responsibility at all, babe. No pills, no condoms, no pregnancies, low AIDS risk, or none at all, no worries about the little lover waiting back home, no angst over the memories of ex-fucks. All in a train’s ride, hey, quicker than the quickest quickie if you know where to suck. You’ll know, because I’ll tell you. Here, see here, where the lifeline and the heartline intersect. And you don’t even have to be a palm reader.

  She is though, my general of the crockery, my weird Mama is. Weeps into my hands, as if reading my palms, when she gets a wee tipsy—“Oh, my black sheep child’s memory is shorter than her miniskirt, sweet Jesus. She goes to church no more, prays no more, eats my cooking no more, too much fish and chips and booze, will come home no more.” Imagine, the silly cow wants us to fly back to her hovel over there. There—where? Must visit my sisters there, she says, so I can tell them about my Wedgwood collection here in Australia. Minus the cake plate, of course.

  Finally you’re beginning to smile at me, to half-smile. You have caught my fever, oh, yeah—but you’ve been quite slow, haven’t you? Why don’t you come over, sit beside me, as if there were only us in this carriage, baby, you and me against the railway line, and I’ll show you where the splinter is, then you’ll swoon in the joys of sucking. Don’t you know that palms itch when you’re horny? That’s why a knowing lover scratches them when he wants some.

  What, you fancy the view outside more than me? Hey, look again, I’ve got excellent credentials, darling. I’m not just any girl, you know, I’m at Uni now—surprise, surprise. Yeah, a long shot from the lot of my poor Mama. She’s proud of me, of course, even if she weeps over my short skirts and booze—sure, I’m not just any girl. I’ve scrubbed off my wog-ness with HDs, let me tell you. Had to explain this to her. High Distinction, the highest possible mark at University, Mother, meaning, I’m top of my class. HD! She thought it sounded like some dirty disease that they talk about on TV. I nearly pissed myself laughing. Hey, silly, this means you’re now facing a brilliant girl—

  But still you won’t look at me—hey, I may work my arse off at school, but I do know how to let my hair down, like my knickers, yes, down to my knees, especially now that I’ve got a verrrry hot palm—c’mon, take its temperature —but oh you’re shy, you won’t even budge from your seat. Is it more comfortable there? Well, let me find out.

  You shift your bum to give way to mine, hey, gentleman beauty? Uhmm…I love your heat, shoots straight to the cunt, bull’s-eye, then zooms to the palm, like an electric shock, whew! Feel it—hey, I could lay me on your thigh, what about that? Much better than a begging bowl, huh? Yeah, bare palms are sexier, like this, outstretched. The passing donor ca
n read lifelines, heartlines, the brevity of existence, and his power to extend it with that extra centavo, of course—

  “The train on platform eleven goes to Sutherland…”

  C’mon, don’t be such a killjoy, mister train—you want me to go back, to re-track me, before I have even started my joy ride, hey? Bad luck for us, dearest, Central Station now, but must we go? Let’s ride back, yes, let’s, to the finish. This is our salvation, this sliver in my palm. You suck it out and we both come. Before this train gets to Sutherland, let me tell you, it will happen—hey, hey, wait, I’ll get off with you, of course—”

  “…et demie…” her voice trails away.

  Fuckkkk! Whatta kiss, man, ooooh—did I see that? So you like her better, huh? A pro-active Frog instead of a beggar girl like me, hey, you hear me? What, me blocking the door, of course not, sir, just get in, hop in, ma’am, and don’t mind me standing here, just ogling my aborted boyfriend while he paws another girl, shit!

  “The train on platform eleven goes to…”

  “…déjeuner…?”

  “Oui, oui…mon cheri…”

  Wogs! Of course, both of you genuine wogs. Stupid me, I should have sniffed out your secret, my dreamboat wog—but what about my palm, hey, babyyyy—?

  “…all doors closing…”

  Huuups! Nearly got my coat there, damn door—well, what are you staring at, huh? Huh? Something the matter? I’m a good Aussie citizen just having a bad day, so what’s new? Why, you want to see my palm, too, you mister, you, ma’am, oh, keep your eyes to yourselves, will you?

  “…First stop, Hurstville…”

  Aw, stop wherever you want. Take me back home, yeah, but bloody shut up! Turn the journey upside down, turn the point of origin into one fucking destination, who cares? Yeah, send me home to a Wedgwood-throwing Mama while the Frogs seek their own croak on a horny p.m. and the wheel of fortune rolls back—fuck this palm. History hurts!