by Hualing Nieh
The people who eat people are all dead. Papa and Mama are also dead. I am left alone. I cry and walk to the sea shore. There is a big footprint on the beach. I don’t know whose foot it is. I step on it with my foot to see how big it is. It is bigger than my foot. I faint and fall down. When I wake up I have a big belly. I’m so scared I cry. I don’t want to have a baby. A big round ball of meat comes out from inside of me. I cut the ball of meat into little balls and wrap them all up in pieces of paper. The wind blows and breaks the paper. The little balls of meat fly through the sky. When they fall to the ground they turn into stones. I look and the stones move, float and turn into clouds. The clouds float away and turn into white birds. The white birds circle in the sky and turn into snakes with heads like people. The snakes with people heads are playing in the sky. A black cloud sucks the snakes with people heads in and they turn into rain. It’s raining outside the attic.
I must go back to the attic in the evening. I don’t want to go back. I want Uncle Ts’ai to take me out; I want to have fun for a while.
We go to the circus. The trapeze act has just ended. The ringmaster on stage is announcing the next act.
Beauty and the Bear.
The Bear’s name is Ah Ke. He is from South Africa. Four feet tall. Two inches of black fur cover his body. Weight 220 pounds. A rare animal in the world. He can roll a ball. Leap through a fiery hoop. Walk on rolling barrels. Play the harmonica. Walk on his forepaws. Dance the mambo.
Ah Ke is in his cage getting ready to make his appearance.
The gong sounds.
The ringmaster cracks his whip three times. Then shouts:
Hey. Ah Ke, come out.
Silence.
The whip cracks three more times. The ringmaster motions to the audience. Hurray. Thundering applause.
Silence.
Ah Ke is temperamental. In Singapore, Bangkok, or Manila, he refused to come out. In Saigon he came out only once. In Calcutta, he came out twice. Ah Ke is happy in Taiwan. He will come out for sure. He will come out for every performance here. The audience must be patient. The ringmaster chats with the audience as he paces up and down the stage. He’s wearing a fancy flowered shirt that animal trainers wear. He is holding his whip.
Hey. Ah Ke.
Another shout and more thundering applause.
The bear definitely won’t come out, I whisper to Uncle Ts’ai. He asks why. I say because the bear has seen a ghost in the audience. Uncle Ts’ai laughs, that’s just a circus superstition; we shouldn’t believe it.
The whip cracks.
More shouts and applause.
More silence.
The audience begins whistling.
Don’t get upset, I whisper to Uncle Ts’ai, wait till the bear forgets there’s a ghost in the audience, then it will come lumbering out. Uncle Ts’ai says he doesn’t believe in ghosts. I say there really are ghosts in the world, for example, ghouls who eat people alive.
The audience is screaming for a refund. Some people are standing up to leave.
Hey. Ah Ke, come out, shouts the ringmaster as he snaps his whip.
The ringmaster should put down his whip, I say to Uncle Ts’ai. The bear will come out on his own. No wild animal likes to be shut up in a cage. Uncle Ts’ai laughs. He says I have become an expert on training animals. The ringmaster’s whip isn’t just for taming the animals. It’s also to give himself courage.
The ringmaster is strutting up and down the stage. He snaps the whip faster and faster. The audience is screaming for a refund. Some people have already left their seats.
Hey. Ah Ke is coming out. The ringmaster suddenly leaps on stage and yells.
The bear lumbers out from back stage.
Applause.
A large barrel comes rolling out.
The ringmaster stops the barrel. The bear climbs up on it. The ringmaster lets go and the barrel rolls away.
The bear spins on the barrel. The barrel spins under the bear. Spins and rolls. Rolls and spins. Faster, faster. It’s as though the bear and the barrel were under a spell. Rolling, rolling. The audience is clapping. Flash bulbs are blinking. Reporters are snapping pictures.
A slender young woman steps out on stage in a skin-tight, flesh-coloured leotard. It’s Beauty. The bear jumps down from the barrel. Beauty pats the bear. The bear rubs his face against her body. Beauty tells Ah Ke to kiss her. The bear stands up on his hind legs. He clasps her neck with his front paws. He licks her face. She tells him to kiss her neck. The bear licks her neck. Beauty turns her profile to the audience. She moves her face toward the bear. The bear embraces her and licks her on the lips.
Beauty murmurs with pleasure.
The audience claps. Flash bulbs blink. Reporters snap pictures.
Beauty smiles. The bear stands aside. She asks for someone in the audience to come up and meet Ah Ke.
Silence.
Two or three hands hesitate and wave.
Suddenly Uncle Ts’ai stands up. He climbs up to the stage. Beauty leads the bear over to meet him. He steps back a few paces. Laughter from the audience. Beauty tells him to come over and shake hands with Ah Ke. He doesn’t move. Beauty laughs and calls him a coward. She signals to the bear. The bear gets up on his hind legs and walks over to Uncle Ts’ai. He leans back and then retreats. People are yelling for him. He can’t move.
The audience is laughing.
Beauty points her finger at him. This is only the beginning. The best is yet to come, she says as she and the bear walk over to him. Ah Ke stretches out a front paw. Beauty takes Uncle Ts’ai’s hand and gives it to the bear to shake. Uncle Ts’ai nods at the audience and laughs. Beauty says the bear wants to kiss his face. No, no, no, he quickly says. Bears never kiss men on the face. Beauty says it is a Western custom. She leads Ah Ke over to another part of the stage. The man and the bear are standing on opposite ends of the stage. Beauty signals to Ah Ke. The bear thrusts out his stomach and lumbers over to Uncle Ts’ai. Uncle Ts’ai stands there, leaning forward slightly, rubbing his hands together. His eyes are glued on the bear, waiting for it to attack at any time.
The people are cheering.
The bear walks to centre stage. Uncle Ts’ai comes to life. His feet start moving. At first he is hunched over and takes tiny steps. Then he straightens up and takes bigger steps.
The man and the bear stand staring at each other, face to face.
People are getting up.
The bear stretches out a forepaw and puts it on Uncle Ts’ai’s shoulder.
I get up.
Uncle Ts’ai looks up. The bear draws close and licks his face.
Everyone is standing up. People in the back yell for the people in front to sit down. People are whistling at the man and the bear.
The bear is licking the man’s face.
People leap and cheer. Flash bulbs blink. Reporters snap pictures.
The bear draws back.
The man and bear stand staring at each other, face to face.
Beauty takes Ah Ke’s paw and bows to the audience.
Uncle Ts’ai stands there very stiffly. Staring in front of him, smiling.
A little girl comes out onto the stage and pins a yellow carnation on his lapel.
The audience is still screaming and clapping.
Frightened. Frightened, but with a strange sexual excitement, Uncle Ts’ai tells me after he leaves the stage. He laughs with satisfaction.
Chia-kang is sleeping. Sang-wa and I talk on paper:I’LL TAKE YOU OUTSIDE
NO
WHY NOT
I DON’T HAVE AN IDENTITY CARD
IF YOU GO OUT, YOU CAN GET ONE
I’M AFRAID OF THE SUN
WE’LL GO OUT AT NIGHT
I’M AFRAID OF PEOPLE
THERE’S NO ONE IN THE YARD AT
MIDNIGHT
IT’S TOO DARK
IT’S PRETTY WHEN IT’S DARK, EVERY-
THING GLITTERS
WHAT MAKES IT GLITTER?
THE SKY LIGHT
> I’M AFRAID OF DOGS AND CATS
ANIMALS ARE AFRAID OF PEOPLE
I’M A PERSON
RIGHT
DOGS AND CATS ARE AFRAID OF ME
TOO
RIGHT
REALLY?
REALLY
I WANT TO GO OUT AND SCARE THEM
LET’S GO OUT TOGETHER
Sang-wa is so happy that she hugs her pillow and rolls over and over on the tatami mat. I look over at Chia-kang sleeping. She calms down suddenly. She knows Chia-kang won’t let me take her outside.
Evening. I go back to the attic. Chia-kang and Sang-wa are asleep. I tap Sang-wa on the shoulder. She opens her eyes. I point out the window. A full moon. She scrambles up, rubs her eyes. I point out the window again. She nods.
I pull her up on her feet. She hesitates. She ducks her head when she stands up because she is taller than the ceiling. I walk down the stairs ahead of her. She stops at the head of the stairs. I pull her hand. She walks halfway down the stairs, then turns around to go back to the attic. I jerk her hand again.
Finally she is standing on the ground in the yard. She is still hunched over. I tap her on the shoulder and she straightens up.
She stands there looking surprised. Her eyes linger a long time on each thing before they move to something else. She softly says the names of the things she sees:GRASS
LEAVES
STONES
VINE
JASMINE FLOWERS
MOON
STARS
CLOUDS
BUGS
FIREFLIES
LIGHT ON THE CORNER OF THE
WALL
CAT: WHITE BODY, BLACK TAIL
Sang-wa grabs my hand. The cat hisses and jumps to the top of the wall. It squats there, its pupils two gleaming discs. I pat her hands. She doesn’t move. The cat jumps down the other side of the wall. She looks up at me and smiles.
She says being outside the attic makes her tired. She has never stood straight up like this on the ground before.
I take her back to the attic.
It’s very late at night.
Someone is knocking on the door, yelling, House Check. A light flashes across the window.
Sang-wa isn’t in the attic.
I crawl over to the window. Sang-wa is standing in the yard holding the white cat with the black tail in her arms. Two flashlight beams are riveted on the girl and the cat. Several other lights sweep in the air over her head.
Two policemen bend over to talk with Sang-wa. She is pointing at the attic. All the lights sweep over and shine on the attic.
I’m sitting by the window.
A flash of light nails me from behind. I turn. The white cat with the black tail is squatting on the tatami mat. Sang-wa is sitting behind the cat.
She says angrily:
‘PEOPLE!’
She raises her hand and points at the attic stairs. A policeman’s torso and another policeman’s head emerge from the stairs.
House Check. Take out your identity cards, says the policeman whose torso is showing.
We took them to the Buddhist Lotus Society to get welfare rice, Chia-kang answers from his tatami mat.
Then take out your household registration papers, says the half-bodied policeman and he rummages through a file in his hand. The file has a copy of everyone’s household registration paper.
I take my identity card out from under my pillow. Taipei, number 8271.
There’s no stamp on the identity card. This woman has not reported to the police station yet, says the half-bodied policeman as he turns my card over and over. It’s illegal not to report to the police station. According to the card, your spouse’s name is Shen Chia-kang. He says the name; then suddenly pauses.
Right, his name is Shen Chia-kang, I repeat.
Chia-kang glares at me.
The clock in the attic still reads twelve thirteen.
PART IV
ONE
Peach’s Fourth Letter to the Man from the USA Immigration Service
(21 March 1970)
CHARACTERS
PEACH, she informs the Immigration Agent that the area residents felt threatened by Peach and the woodcutter because the ruined water tower where they live was declared unfit for habitation. This threatened woman, who even seems a threat to others, starts out again on her endless flight, in search of a place to have her baby. With the letter she encloses Mulberry’s USA diary.
THE MAN FROM THE IMMIGRATION SERVICE.
Dear Sir:
I’m on the road again. I’m roaming around these places on the map.
I couldn’t find any peace of mind in the water tower either. First the lumberjack’s big saw disappeared. Next, my mud-splattered snow boots disappeared. Many people came to look at the strange couple living in the ruined wooden tank. The people living nearby reported us to the police saying that we were of questionable background and identity. Since we lived in such a broken-down wooden tank - that obviously meant something strange was going on; perhaps we had escaped from prison; or perhaps we were lunatics who had escaped from an insane asylum; they felt that their lives were threatened. Two policemen came to the water tower. The lumberjack and I were sitting nude in the water tower, discussing the baby’s birth. After asking us a lot of questions, they discovered that we were only two wandering foreigners. We hadn’t committed any crimes, and seemed very peaceable. We just wanted to live off the land naturally; we weren’t threatening anybody. But they discovered that the dilapidated water tower was unfit for habitation. There were no sanitary facilities. The wood was rotten, and there was the danger that it would collapse at any time. Reporters came to interview us and take photos. We became newspaper headlines. They called us ‘the people in the water tower’.
Finally, the police found the owner of the water tower, Mrs James. She had moved to California a long time ago. Her lawyer announced:
‘Mrs James strove to preserve the water tower because it was a historic monument. But she doesn’t want the water tower to endanger anyone’s life. She has now decided to tear the water tower down.’
The lumberjack and I left the water tower. We hadn’t planned on living there for the rest of our lives. He wanted to go east. I wanted to go west. We split up. He planned to cut down trees for people as he went, to save money to buy a camper to go to California. I told him the story about Donner Lake. He said he’d certainly pass through Donner Lake on the way to California. I want to find a place to give birth to my child. I’m going to give birth to a little life that’s my own flesh and blood. Now I’m alone again.
When I left the water tower I hung a wooden plaque on the iron legs with the following words, imitating what was written on the plaque that the astronauts left on the moon:A WOMAN WHO CAME FROM AN UNKNOWN PLANET
ONCE LIVED IN THE WATER TOWER
22 FEBRUARY 1970—21 MARCH 1970
I CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.
Peach
21 March 1970
P.S. I enclose Mulberry’s diary in America, several letters from Chiang I-po, several letters Mulberry wrote in New York but didn’t mail, and several letters from Sang-wa in Taiwan: she has fallen in love with a middle-aged married man. His wife is expecting their fifth child.
TWO
Mulberry’s Notebook Lone Tree, America
(July 1969—January 1970)
CHARACTERS
MULBERRY, she is now 41. She has applied for permanent residency in the USA. Everything in her life has been destroyed: her past, her traditional values, and her ethics have been shattered. She is schizophrenic.
PEACH, Mulberry’s other personality, who plunges Mulberry into a life of promiscuity and adventure.
CHIANG 1-PO, a Chinese professor. He cannot commit himself to anything and cannot choose between Mulberry and his wife. He lives in China’s past and is neither Chinese nor American.
TENG, (in his 30s), a Chinese college student. He represents some young Chinese intellectuals in the USA.
&nbs
p; BETTY CHIANG, (in her 50s), Chiang’s bored, crazy wife.
TAN-HUNG, (in her 40s), Teng’s older sister. Married with no children.
JERRY, (in his 40s), Tan-hung’s husband, an American born Chinese, a stock broker in New York. He is in love with machines, especially cameras, and is remote and indifferent to Chinese problems.
I’m in Room 81 of the Immigration Service. I sit facing the window. The window is shut. The row of windows opposite me, in the tall grey office building, is also shut. The investigator from the Immigration Service is sitting across from me; we are separated by a grey steel desk. He is bald with a sharp chin, and a pencil moustache. He is wearing dark glasses. A red-lipped secretary is sitting behind another grey steel desk. On the desk is an electric typewriter. The man in dark glasses pulls a thick folder out the file cabinet. In the corner of the folder is my alien registration number: (Alien) 89-785-462. He opens the folder, and pulls out a stack of forms and asks me to look them over.
Name: Helen Mulberry Shen
Sex: Female
Place of birth: Nanking
Date of birth: 16 October, 1929
Nationality: Chinese
Present address: Apartment 5, 33 Second Street, Lone Tree
Permanent address: None
Occupation: Chinese teacher
Employer: Holy Conception High School, Lone Tree
Marital status: Widow
Name of spouse: Chia-kang Shen (deceased)
Name of children: Sang-wa Shen (presently in Taiwan)
Have you ever joined any political party? No
Passport Number: Taiwan 53—28895
Date issued: 2 September 1966
Place issued: Foreign Ministry, Republic of China
Type of visa issued: Exchange visit