‘Look, Meng. That’s what I want,’ said Ger, pointing to a row of half-made swords leaning against the wall. They were slim Qin swords, of tempered bronze, as long as the reach of the Emperor.
‘What do you want one of them for?’ I asked. ‘You won’t be allowed to wear it.’ Our father’s sword had been taken off him.
‘I will if I get into the military academy,’ Ger said. ‘I need the sword for that.’
The military academy! We didn’t know anyone who’d ever been there. Comparing our school to the Academy was like lining a blunt penknife up against one of those new swords. The Academy was where the greatest generals in the imperial army – the Qin army – had trained.
‘Will our father agree to that?’ I asked doubtfully.
Ger cuffed me over the head. ‘What does our father know?’ Ger’s look was intense. He dropped his voice. ‘All this stuff our father says – about our great family – it’s the past. The land, the gold, the northern kingdom, they’re all in the Emperor’s hands. We have an empty title, but nothing else. Just praying to our ancestors won’t change that.’
I’d never put it that way, even to myself. His words gave me goosebumps. I knew he was right.
‘Why do you think the Qin army won, Meng?’ my brother demanded.
I didn’t know. I’d never thought about it. They just did and that was why we were here – poor, banished and despised.
‘Because they’re better.’ Ger answered his own question. He was so direct, it took my breath away. But I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder, like Silk had. Ger would get thrashed if my father heard him.
‘I’m as good as anyone in the empire,’ Ger said. ‘I’m going to fight my way to the top.’
‘But how can you get into the Academy?’ I asked.
‘I’ll find a way,’ my brother said. He indicated the swordsmith. ‘Give him the wine.’
‘It’s mine,’ I said. ‘You could get thirty cash for this quality.’
Ger laughed. ‘Yours, is it? You and your coins, little brother. I tell you, most of what gets bought and sold is invisible. It can’t be weighed. But people will pay for it just the same. Like power, and respect.’ He gripped my arm again. ‘If we treat this man right, we can talk him into giving us a sword, for old times’ sake. Then leave it to me to work on our father.’
I could feel Ger’s determination, hot as the sword on the anvil, beaten strong by years of humiliation. It wasn’t just in his grip. I could feel it in my heart too. We had been through the same fires, me and Ger. The penknife idea suddenly seemed childish. The wine was a small price to pay for our future. I passed it to Ger.
Ger waved the Yen man over. The swordsmith put down his tools and we sat on the mat to drink and talk together like men.
A month later, when Ger showed my father the finished sword, my father was pleased. He weighed it in his hands.
‘What do I always tell you?’ he said. ‘You are a prince, and the people of Yen owe you their respect.’
Ger and I didn’t tell him about the several jars of wine we’d shared with the swordsmith, nor where they’d come from.
Then my father frowned. ‘But why a Qin sword? A ceremonial dagger would be better.’
Ger took a breath and looked our father in the face. ‘Because I want to learn how to fight. I need this sword to join the military academy.’
‘What?’ my father roared. For a second I thought he was about to hit my brother with the weapon. I could see the muscles tense along his forearms and up his neck. Then he threw the sword on the ground so hard that it spun.
‘How can you forget!’ he shouted. ‘The Academy is run by the Wang family. It was General Wang who led the Qin troops into Yen. He killed your uncle and destroyed our palace.’
Of course we hadn’t forgotten. We knew it was even worse than my father said. Our uncle, Silk’s father, was our grandfather’s oldest son. General Wang told our grandfather to execute him. And our grandfather had done so, hoping it would save his kingdom, or at least his skin. But it hadn’t. As far as my father was concerned, there was nobody more evil in all the empire than General Wang, bar the Emperor.
My father’s beard jutted out and his topknot bristled like a rooster’s comb.
But my older brother did not back down. ‘Doesn’t Sunzi’s Art of War tell us to know our enemy?’ he countered. I was impressed that Ger knew that sort of thing. He was holding his own against my father.
‘Ha!’ My father flexed his fingers and narrowed his eyes. There was no telling what he thought. Maybe he noticed that Ger was almost an adult now, and he was proud of him. Maybe he was seeing his own brother’s death again. Maybe he dreamt of revenge through Ger’s hands.
‘Have you thought what this will cost?’ he said.
Ger nodded. ‘The craftsman will give us the sword. For the honour of Yen. But we need connections to get into the Academy. I thought we could use our royal status …’
My father brooded. He could not bring himself to say our status was useless. He drew himself up to his full height. Somehow he and Ger looked a lot alike in that moment. Both tall, straight as swords, and bitterly determined.
‘So,’ said my father slowly. ‘Whatever it takes, I will get you into the Academy. For the honour of Yen. It will take gifts to open the right doors. Gifts I can scarce afford. You’re sure you’ll do this?’
Ger bowed.
I thought, then, that my father would give away the ancestral bronze. It would nearly kill his pride to give that to his enemies, but hadn’t my grandfather done the same thing in giving up his son? I reminded myself I should wash out that wine vessel at the first opportunity.
That’s what I’d thought.
Instead, a week later, my father announced the news. He had arranged to marry thirteen-year-old Silk to a man in the Wang household.
It felt like a punch in the stomach when my father told us. I should have known she’d be married in the next few years, but still, that’s how it felt. Even Ger looked uncertain.
‘The groom – he isn’t some ugly old cripple, is he?’ Ger asked.
‘Neither ugly, nor old, nor crippled,’ my father said emphatically.
‘For once the old man’s put a foot right,’ Ger said to me in private later. ‘Maybe we aren’t doomed to live in poverty, as virtual hostages for the rest of our lives.’
I really hoped so.
On the day of the wedding, my father, Ger and I accompanied Crimson-Silk to the Wang mansion. It was massive: room upon room filled with painted screens, gilded bronzes and plump women in costly dresses. Perhaps Silk would like it better here than in our crumbling house, I thought.
The General himself came out to welcome us. He smiled: not warmly exactly, but with his hands on his hips, as if he was supervising the collection of his war booty. A servant led us into a side room. Crimson-Silk was marrying a grand-nephew, Ger had found out, not one of the General’s more important sons.
Wine and dishes were already laid out in two rows, one for the Wang family and one for ours. At the top of the rows sat a little boy of two or three. He looked uncomfortable and unhappy in a heavily embroidered coat.
He was the groom.
I’d heard of families bringing in girls like this, often to look after a child whose mother had died. The girl wasn’t a real wife – more a slave. In General Wang’s household even the slaves had to be quality, I supposed. But his banquet tasted bitter and stuck in my throat.
I didn’t hear what anybody said during the meal. At the end, the boy didn’t even know to lift the veil, and Silk had to lift it for him. We could all see her face. It was white as the purest jade. The glow had gone out in her eyes. As if the house had really fallen down on her.
Ger got what he wanted. For that, Silk became a married woman. My father sold her into Qin hands, just like his father had done with our uncle.
Now that Ger is in the Academy, I’ve got a place in a better school, where the sons of the rich are my friends. I m
ight live in a house with a hundred bronze lanterns one day. But they will never have the shine of Crimson-Silk.
She was the price of our dreams – and we paid.
Take one
‘I am an aspirin,’ you say
to the man behind the counter.
He nods his head, uncertainly.
He smiles.
There is
a pause.
Perhaps he didn’t hear you.
You speak
a little louder.
‘I am an aspirin,’ you say,
again. You smile.
Everyone
understands a smile,
don’t they?
False start
You have become
uncertain
in this shiny Circle-K,
with its row upon row
of Japanese snacks,
and signs that scream
in a language you can’t understand.
The promises of air-con
and convenient convenience
are not working out
like you planned.
Nothing
is working out
like you planned.
You arrived … how long?
Seven hours ago.
Seven hours ago
you got off the plane.
And that
was the end
of all that you’d known
until now.
Long ago
Nine hours before that
with no doubts in your mind
you sat in a plane
on the edge of Australia.
The smooth edge, the straight
edge, the runway concrete. Everything
under control.
Taxiing smoothly to the edge
of your life, ready to fly
to another.
Ready to fly
to Japan.
No doubts in your mind.
You were leaving behind
your everyday life
with its everyday problems.
You were flying away from a life
that you wanted to change.
It all
seemed so simple
back then.
Far away
Back there, back then,
not even a day ago.
So much now changed,
your head
is about to explode.
You left in winter. You were wearing
a jumper. A scarf. A beanie. Seventeen
socks. And now you stand sweating
in a T-shirt and shorts, your head
full of everything,
your head
full of nothing.
Too much.
There is too much noise, there are too many smells,
and the cars on the street are all somehow
just different, and you’re too jetlagged
to say just how they’re different,
but the streets are different,
and the footpaths
are different,
and the air
is different
and the
people,
oh, the people
are different.
Stop making sense
And here. In this shiny
convenience store.
You weren’t expecting
to find so much difference.
Coffee in cans and rice balls
and sushi and packets
of tiny dried fish.
You searched through it all
for headache tablets,
thinking that somehow
that was going to help.
But all you could find
was a swirl of unknowns.
You can’t read the writing,
and because you can’t read it
it’s telling you nothing
at all.
Everything
a haze
of not-quite-getting.
Like this man who nods
and smiles in front of you.
There’s something
he’s not quite getting.
Take two
But then,
a smile
of understanding.
He nods his head
and turns away.
Reaches down
behind the counter
for a crispy waffle cone.
Turns to the soft-serve machine
beside him, pulls you
a perfect serving.
Places it
in the holder on the counter,
rings it up
on the till.
What else can you do?
You smile, you fumble,
you hand him a note.
You accept the coins he carefully places
in the tray beside the register.
Clarity
And at that moment,
you suddenly get it.
Your one (and only)
Japanese lesson
emerging
through the jetlag haze.
Ice-cream? Aspirin?
Could they sound
so much the same?
Perhaps (just perhaps)
your accent isn’t perfect
just yet.
Possibly (just possibly)
you didn’t say quite
the right thing.
The kindness of strangers
And yet.
This man in front of you.
Listening hard
as you mangle his language,
politely trying
to make sense of your mess.
And more than all that,
much more
than all that,
wanting to help you
land on your feet.
The real beginning
You smile at him
and pick up your soft serve,
walk into the street
with an ice-cream in your hand.
You’re feeling much better
already.
I loved everything about my best friend Daryl. I also called him Lynchy, performing the Australian practice of elongating someone’s name with an ‘o’ or ‘y’. I admired his crewcut and was riveted by the idea of a rat’s tail, which he sported with great confidence. I wished I had a rat’s tail, but my parents were horrified, believing it would be my first step towards ending up in juvenile justice.
My dad still cut my hair once a month, a ritual we undertook while I sat on a stool on the bathroom floor. Each time he would remind me of how he cut his relatives’ hair while growing up in a small Bangladeshi village. He almost collapsed in his armchair when my mother came home once and confessed to a one hundred dollar haircut. He was adamant, it seemed, that I would never pay for a haircut again.
Lynchy advised me gently that my father’s foray into hairdressing had to stop. We were almost twelve years old and were beginning to take an interest in girls. My chances of meeting a girl were zip while my father was channelling 1970s rural Bangladeshi fashion through me.
Lynchy would visit my house every day after school and we would ride our BMX bikes to the local creek. There we would play marbles, skim rocks across the water or play French cricket with a plastic bat. I had never visited Lynchy’s house. He always made excuses about his annoying older sister or that his parents didn’t like having guests. I didn’t push it. I thought my parents were annoying too and I was embarrassed that my house always smelt like curry.
But Lynchy seemed to love hanging out at my house. He would sit with my adoring mother and talk about school. He helped her with making snacks and dipping doughy mixtures into Indian spices. He spoke of how all his family ate were rissoles, steak and baked potatoes. I looked at him with envy, wishing my mother could cook them. She treated him like her long-lost Aussie son, hand-feeding him and stroking him across his blond flat top.
‘You are a very nice boy, Darr-el,’ she wou
ld say while patting him on the head. ‘Not like my son, who never eats his vegetable curry.’
I never felt jealous. I knew my mother was just being nice, because she lamented how poorly Daryl performed in his studies. She would encourage us to do homework together, but the chances of that happening were slim. I can’t say I was ever disappointed. It was embarrassing to be good at studies and I tried to hide my scholastic abilities as much as possible. I even failed a couple of exams on purpose. The teachers freaked and thought about sending me to counselling. That was enough motivation to top the class again.
But in the afternoons, once Lynchy had chowed down on his daily samosas, it was time to ride to the creek.
That was all our suburb really had. Toongabbie it was called, home to the highest concentration of drug addicts, single mothers and ex-cons in all of Sydney. I’m not sure there were Census figures to prove it, but everybody seemed sure about it. I would later attend a posh private school in the city and be known as Tanny from Toony. It even flooded when the creek overflowed. Some people thought we lived there because the poverty and flooding resembled Bangladesh.
It was one of the very last days of our primary school when Lynchy asked me to come over. I was shocked. It felt like some kind of goodbye before we headed off to high school. For all our talk of maintaining our friendship, I thought his invitation was some kind of admission that it would be futile.
Things a Map Won't Show You Page 4