“We were hungry,” Marcela said. She had followed him.
Mariano turned around suddenly and felt cold inside when he saw Marcela’s cold stare in the semi-darkness. What did he not know about hunger? Goddamn!
“I wish I . . .” he stopped. Fear and anger welled up in him. Now he could understand the brevity of their answers to his questions; their swift glances that meant more than their tongues could utter. Now he could understand his mother’s deadening solemnity. And Marcela’s bitterness. Now it dawned on him that his mother and sisters had suffered the same terrors of poverty, the same humiliations of defeat, that he had suffered in America. He was like a man who had emerged from night into day, and found the light as blinding as the darkness.
The mother knelt on the floor, reaching for the lamp. Mariano walked back to the kitchen. He knew he could not do anything for them. He knew he could not do anything for himself. He knew he could not do anything at all. This was the life he had found in America; it was so everywhere in the world. He was confirmed now. He thought when he was in America that it could not be thus in his father’s house. But it was there when he returned to find his sisters wrecked by deprivation . . .
Mariano stood by the window long after they had gone to bed. He stood in the darkness, waiting. The houses were silent. The entire district was quiet as a tomb. His mother was sleeping peacefully. He turned to look at his sisters in the dark. They were sleeping soundly. Then noiselessly, he walked to the bed.
Mariano leaned against the wall, thinking. After a while a child began to cry somewhere in the neighborhood. Two dogs ran across the road, chasing each other. Then a rooster began to crow, and others followed. It was almost dawn.
Now Mariano sat still in the darkness, listening. When he was sure they were deep in sleep, he got up slowly and reached for his hat on the table. He stopped at the door and looked back. He found a match in his pocket and scratched it on the panel of the door. Then he tiptoed to his mother and watched her face with tenderness. As he walked over to his sisters, the match burned out. He stood between them, trembling with indecision. Suddenly, he walked to the door and descended the ladder in a hurry.
There were a few stars in the sky. The night wind was soft. There was a touch of summer in the air. When he had passed the gate, Mariano stopped and looked back at the house. The vision of his father rose in the night. Then it seemed to him that the house of his childhood was more vivid than at any other time in that last look. He knew he would never see it again.
MELPOMENE TRAGEDY
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
She could be seen sitting in the first few rows. She would be sitting in the first few rows. Closer the better. The more. Better to eliminate presences of others surrounding better view away from that which is left behind far away back behind more for closer view more and more face to face until nothing else sees only this view singular. All dim, gently, slowly until in the dark, the absolute darkness the shadows fade.
She is stretched out as far as the seat allows until her neck rests on the back of the seat. She pulls her coat just below her chin enveloped in one mass before the moving shades, flickering light through the empty window, length of the gardens the trees in perfect a symmetry.
The correct time beyond the windows the correct season the correct forecast. Beyond the empty the correct setting, immobile. Placid. Extreme stillness. Misplaces nothing. Nothing equivalent. Irreplaceable. Not before. Not after.
THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA, multimedia artist and author of Dictee, was born in Pusan, Korea, in 1951. At the time of her tragic death in 1982, Cha had been working on several projects, including a film and a book. In 1992-93, a retrospective of her video, film, and textual work was exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York. Dictee has deeply influenced the works of many Korean and other Asian American women writers and visual artists.
The submission is complete. Relinquishes even the vision to immobility. Abandons all protests to that which will appear to the sight. About to appear. Forecast. Break. Break, by all means. The illusion that the act of viewing is to make alteration of the visible. The expulsion is immediate. Not one second is lost to the replication of the totality. Total severance of the seen. Incision.
April 19
Seoul, Korea
Dear Mother,
4. 19. Four Nineteen, April 19th, eighteen years later. Nothing has changed, we are at a standstill. I speak in another tongue now, a second tongue a foreign tongue. All this time we have been away. But nothing has changed. A stand still.
It is not 6. 25. Six Twenty-five. June 25th, 1950. Not today. Not this day. There are no bombs as you had described them. They do not fall, their shiny brown metallic backs like insects one by one after another.
The population standing before North standing before South for every bird that migrates North for Spring and South for Winter becomes a metaphor for the longing of return. Destination. Homeland.
No woman with child lifting sand bags barriers, all during the night for the battles to come.
There is no destination other than towards yet another refuge from yet another war. Many generations pass and many deceptions in the sequence in the chronology towards the destination.
You knew it would not be in vain. The thirty-six years of exile. Thirty six years multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five days. That one day your country would be your own. This day did finally come. The Japanese were defeated in the world war and were making their descent back to their country. As soon as you heard, you followed South. You carried not a single piece, not a photograph, nothing to evoke your memory, abandoned all to see your nation freed.
From another epic another history. From the missing narrative. From the multitude of narratives. Missing. From the chronicles. For another telling for other recitations.
Our destination is fixed on the perpetual motion of search. Fixed in its perpetual exile. Here at my return in eighteen years, the war is not ended. We fight the same war. We are inside the same struggle seeking the same destination. We are severed in Two by an abstract enemy an invisible enemy under the title of liberators who have conveniently named the severance, Civil War. Cold War. Stalemate.
I am in the same crowd, the same coup, the same revolt, nothing has changed. I am inside the demonstration I am locked inside the crowd and carried in its movement. The voices ring shout one voice then many voices they are waves they echo I am moving in the direction the only one direction with the voices the only direction. The other movement towards us it increases steadily their direction their only direction our mutual destination towards the other against the other. Move.
I feel the tightening of the crowd body to body now the voices rising thicker I hear the break the single motion tearing the break left of me right of me the silence of the other direction advance before . . . They are breaking now, their sounds, not new, you have heard them, so familiar to you now could you ever forget them not in your dreams, the consequences of the sound the breaking. The air is made visible with smoke it grows spreads without control we are hidden inside the whiteness the greyness reduced to parts, reduced to separation. Inside an arm lifts above the head in deliberate gesture and disappears into the thick white from which slowly the legs of another bent at the knee hit the ground the entire body on its left side. The stinging, it slices the air it enters thus I lose direction the sky is a haze running the streets emptied I fell no one saw me I walk. Anywhere. In tears the air stagnant continues to sting I am crying the sky remnant the gas smoke absorbed the sky I am crying. The streets covered with chipped bricks and debris. Because. I see the frequent pairs of shoes thrown sometimes a single pair among the rocks they had carried. Because. I cry wail torn shirt lying I step among them. No trace of them. Except for the blood. Because. Step among them the blood that will not erase with the rain on the pavement that was walked upon like the stones where they fell had fallen. Because. Remain dark the stains not wash away. Because. I follow the crying crowd their voices among them their s
inging their voices unceasing the empty street.
There is no surrendering you are chosen to fail to be martyred to shed blood to be set an example one who has defied one who has chosen to defy and was to be set an example to be martyred an animal useless betrayer to the cause to the welfare to peace to harmony to progress.
It is 1962 eighteen years ago same month same day all over again. I am eleven years old. Running to the front door, Mother, you are holding my older brother pleading with him not to go out to the demonstration. You are threatening him, you are begging to him. He has on his school uniform, as all the other students representing their schools in the demonstration. You are pulling at him you stand before the door. He argues with you he pushes you away. You use all your force, all that you have. He is prepared to join the student demonstration outside. You can hear the gun shots. They are directed at anyone.
Coming home from school there are cries in all the streets. The mounting of shouts from every direction from the crowds arm in arm. The students. I saw them, older than us, men and women held to each other. They walk into the others who wait in their uniforms. Their shouts reach a crescendo as they approach nearer to the other side. Cries resisting cries to move forward. Orders, permission to use force against the students, have been dispatched. To be caught and beaten with sticks, and for others, shot, remassed, and carted off. They fall they bleed they die. They are thrown into gas into the crowd to be squelched. The police the soldiers anonymous they duplicate themselves, multiply in number invincible they execute their role. Further than their home further than their mother father their brother sister further than their children is the execution of their role their given identity further than their own line of blood.
You do not want to lose him, my brother, to be killed as the many others by now, already, you say you understand, you plead all the same they are killing any every one. You withstand his strength you call me to run to Uncle’s house and call the tutor. Run. Run hard. Out the gate. Turn the corner. All down hill to reach Uncle’s house. I know the two German shepherd dogs would be guarding one at each side, chained to their house they drag behind them barking. I must brave them, close my eyes and run between them. I call the tutor from the yard, above the sounds of the dogs barking. Several students look out of the windows. They are in hiding from the street, from their homes where they are being searched for. We run back to the house the tutor is ahead of me, when I enter the house the tutor is standing in front of him. You cannot go out he says you cannot join the D-e-m-o. De. Mo. A word, two sounds. Are you insane the tutor tells him they are killing any student in uniform. Anybody. What will you defend yourself with he asks. You, my brother, you protest your cause, you say you are willing to die. Dying is part of it. If it must be. He hits you. The tutor slaps you and your face turns red you stand silently against the door your head falls. My brother. You are all the rest all the others are you. You fell you died you gave your life. That day. It rained. It rained for several days. It rained more and more times. After it was all over. You were heard. Your victory mixed with rain falling from the sky for many days afterwards. I heard that the rain does not erase the blood fallen on the ground. I heard from the adults, the blood stains still. Year after year it rained. The stone pavement stained where you fell still remains dark.
Eighteen years pass. I am here for the first time in eighteen years, Mother. We left here in this memory still fresh, still new. I speak another tongue, a second tongue. This is how distant I am. From then. From that time. They take me back they have taken me back so precisely now exact to the hour to the day to the season in the smoke mist in the drizzle I turn the corner and there is no one. No one facing me. The street is rubble. I put my palm on my eyes to rub them, then I let them cry freely. Two school children with their book bags appear from nowhere with their arms around each other. Their white kerchief, their white shirt uniform, into a white residue of gas, crying.
I pass a second curve on the road. You soldiers appear in green. Always the green uniforms the patches of camouflage. Trees camouflage your green trucks you blend with nature the trees hide you you cannot be seen behind the guns no one sees you they have hidden you. You sit you recline on the earth next to the buses you wait hours days making visible your presence. Waiting for the false move that will conduct you to mobility to action. There is but one move, the only one and it will be false. It will be absolute. Their mistake. Your boredom waiting would not have been in vain. They will move they will have to move and you will move on them. Among them. You stand on your tanks your legs spread apart how many degrees exactly your hand on your rifle. Rifle to ground the same angle as your right leg. You wear a beret in the 90 degree sun there is no shade at the main gate you are fixed you cannot move you dare not move. You are your post you are your vow in nomine patris you work your post you are your nation defending your country from subversive infiltration from your own countrymen. Your skin scorched as dark as your uniform as you stand you don’t hear. You hear nothing. You hear no one. You are hidden you see only the prey they do not see you they cannot. You who are hidden you who move in the crowds as you would in the trees you who move inside them you close your eyes to the piercing the breaking the flooding pools bathe their shadow memory as they fade from you your own blood your own flesh as tides ebb, through you through and through.
You are this
close to this much
close to it.
Extend arms apart just so, that much. Open
the thumb and the index finger just so.
the thumb and the index finger just so.
That much
you want to kill the time that is oppression itself.
Time that delivers not. Not you, not from its
expanse, without dimension, defined not by its
limits. Airless, thin, not a thought rising even
that there are things to be forgotten. Effortless. It
should be effortless. Effort less ly
the closer it is the closer to it. Away and against
time ing. A step forward from back. Backing
out. Backing off. Off periphery extended. From
imaginary to bordering on division. At least
somewhere in numerals in relation to the
equator, at least all the maps have them at least
walls are built between them at least the militia
uniforms and guns are in abeyance of them.
Imaginary borders. Un imaginable boundaries.
Suffice more than that. SHE opposes Her.
SHE against her.
More than that. Refuses to become discard
decomposed oblivion.
From its memory dust escapes the particles still
material still respiration move. Dead air stagnant
water still exhales mist. Pure hazard igniting flaming
itself with the slightest of friction like firefly. The loss
that should burn. Not burn, illuminate. Illuminate by
losing. Lighten by loss.
Yet it loses not.
Her name. First the whole name. Then syllable by syllable counting each inside the mouth. Make them rise they rise repeatedly without ever making visible lips never open to utter them.
Mere names only names without the image not hers
hers alone not the whole of her and even the image
would not be the entire
her fraction her invalid that inhabits that rise
voluntarily like flint
pure hazard dead substance to fire.
Others anonymous her detachments take her place. Anonymous against her. Suffice that should be nation against nation suffice that should have been divided into two which once was whole. Suffice that should diminish human breaths only too quickly. Suffice Melpomene. Nation against nation multiplied nations against nations against themselves. Own. Repels her rejects her expels her from her own. Her own is, in, of, through, all others, hers. Her own who is offspring and mother, Demeter a
nd Sibyl.
Violation of her by giving name to the betrayal, all possible names, interchangeable names, to remedy, to justify the violation. Of her. Own. Unbegotten. Name. Name only. Name without substance. The everlasting, Forever. Without end.
Deceptions all the while. No devils here. Nor gods. Labyrinth of deceptions. No enduring time. Self-devouring. Devouring itself. Perishing all the while. Insect that eats its own mate.
Suffice Melpomene, arrest the screen en-trance flickering hue from behind cast shadow silhouette from back not visible. Like ice. Metal. Glass. Mirror. Receives none admits none.
Arrest the machine that purports to employ democracy but rather causes the successive refraction of her none other than her own. Suffice Melpomene, to exorcise from this mouth the name the words the memory of severance through this act by this very act to utter one, Her once, Her to utter at once, She without the separate act of uttering.
TWO PARABLES: PARABLE OF THE CAKE
Marilyn Chin
The Neighborwoman said to us, “I’ll give you a big cake, little Chinese girls, if you come to the Christmas service with me and accept Jesus Christ, our lord, into your heart.” We said, “Okay,” and drove with her to the other side of the city and sat through a boring sermon when we should have taken the bus to Chinatown for our Cantonese lessons. Afterwards, she gave us a big cake that said “Happy Birthday, Buny” on it. She must have got it for half price because of the misspelling. My sister and I were really hungry after the long sermon, so we gulped down the whole cake as soon as we got home. I got sick and threw up all over the bathroom and my sister had to clean it up before Granny got home. Then, my face swelled up for two days on account of my being allergic to the peanut butter in the frosting. My sister was so afraid that I would croak that she confessed everything to Granny. First, Granny gave me some putrid herbal medicine, then she whipped us with her bamboo duster. She whipped us so hard that we both had red marks all over our legs. Then, she made us kneel before the Great Buddha for two hours balancing teapots on our heads.
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