All That Matters

by Wayson Choy

  Jung twisted his leg around the stool. “Is that truly true?”

  “Of course!” Mrs. Lim said. “In China, witches and magicians everywhere.”

  “No,” Jung said. “I mean the comb.”

  Mrs. Lim looked at Poh-Poh. The two women shook their heads in disbelief. How could a child doubt the truth?

  “Comb had two serpents,” Poh-Poh said. “Oh, yes, yes. I never to forget.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mrs. Lim said. “A Chinese comb is not a five-cent Woolworth comb! Many combs with serpents made in China. Why should your Poh-Poh not say so?”

  Jung nodded. He watched the Old One drop more peas into the Blue Willow bowl.

  “Why wasn’t the magic comb made of—gold!”

  “Because made of rosewood,” Mrs. Lim said. “Who can change wood to gold?”

  “Ah, yes,” Poh-Poh said. “If that was possible, I would be rich with gold, with jade, and have by my side today six more grandsons.”

  “If we can change the past by lying,” Mrs. Lim said, helping herself to some raw peas, “these will change to pearls.” Mrs. Lim put a few into Jung’s hands. “See? Still peas!”

  Jung stared at the green spheres, then bit into one. Peas, for sure.

  “Tell what happened,” Jung said, chewing slowly. “Poh-Poh, tell what happened.”

  I stopped scraping. There was perfect silence. The turnip in my hand seemed to be listening, too.

  A sigh.

  “Every morning, first thing, I comb her hair. If Mistress yelp, she call me cat-bitch, slap me hard. Lash me with her bamboo cane. Every night I sleep on the kitchen floor, I clutch the magic comb and wish her dead. Every night, with the comb beside my stone pillow, I hear the hiss of snakes. Ugly cat-bitch! Mistress Mean-Mouth yell at me. Every morning, her thick hair snag and snarl: she hit me again and again.”

  “What did you do?” Liang asked, clutching at Poh-Poh’s elbow. “Did you trick her?”

  It was a question I wanted to ask. To survive in this world, Third Uncle once warned me, you had to know that demons and even good ghosts used trickery to test your character. Demons you had to outwit; with good ghosts you had to prove your character a worthy one. But human trickery could go either way. Liang knew from Poh-Poh’s stories that deception often meant survival. I knew that a ghost or demon would soon appear. Always at the last minute.

  “Trick her?” Poh-Poh smiled. Her voice fell into a whisper. “One day, the cook told me to soak the comb overnight in the wide-mouth jar sitting on the shelf above my head. The deep jar was filled with pure cooking oil. ‘Be sure always to wipe the comb off,’ he instructed me, ‘then use it on the Mistress.’ ”

  I asked, “Did it work?”

  “Slowly, slowly”—the Old One’s small, wrinkled hands drifted up and down—“with trembling hand I pull the comb through the Mistress’s hair. Her long fingers tightened on the cane, ready to strike me if I slipped. But the combing went as smooth as wind. No more knot. No tangles. And by the fifth day, Mistress’s hair shone like black silk in the morning light.”

  “Good, good.” Jung laughed.

  I said, “Then what happened?” Caught!

  “Aaaiiyaah.” Poh-Poh’s voice faltered. “One day there was no fresh cooking oil to be found. The big jar was empty. Not a drop. At the great Full Moon banquet in the main hall the night before, so much food was cooked, the three family cooks had used up all the oil. All that was left was thick grease, thick, brown syrup left in a deep pan.”

  Liang clutched her hands. “What you do, Poh-Poh?”

  “I don’t know what, Granddaughter. I only nine years old like Kiam-Kim.”

  Poh-Poh held my eyes for a moment. She looked to see that I was using the rasp properly. The Old One smiled.

  “You see, I only know to push the rosewood comb into the pan, hard, like this, and let the dragon-headed serpents sink slowly into the thick, brown grease. As the handle slipped downward, Jung-Sum, I thought jewelled eyes winked at me. The next morning, after I wiped the comb over and over again, the rosewood gleamed darker, the serpent coils so slippery. Then I saw that the two tails were fixed again by the edge of the handle, just as I had first seen them. I nervously go to comb Mistress Mean-Mouth’s hair. The comb teeth slipped through even more easily … so smooth. The long hair shine even brighter, brighter than silk. Shine like polished imperial ebony.”

  Liang shut her eyes against the brightness.

  I wanted to shut my eyes, too, the way I used to, so that Poh-Poh’s world came alive in my head, more real than anything I saw or felt with my eyes open. Though I knew better, I couldn’t resist.

  “But her hair smell,” Poh-Poh said, curling her fingers as if she held long silk strands of dark hair. “Smell like yesterday’s great Full Moon banquet! Smell like splendid Peking roast duck, crispy-skin pork, fried quail, stuffed breast of pheasant, and fat-braised oxtail. Mistress Mean-Mouth sniffed the air. Her nose bounced back and forth like a squirrel, sniff, sniff.

  “She said, ‘I’m hungry. Get me something to eat!’

  “All the poor people in the town were dying, starving, but she could eat as much as she wanted, like a royal princess. This rich family shared nothing with the poor. Nothing.”

  “What did they do with leftovers?” Jung asked.

  “Leftovers?” Poh-Poh looked sad. “You think they give even to slaves like me?”

  “They feed leftovers to their dogs,” Mrs. Lim jumped in. “Then, Jung-Sum, they cook and eat the fat dogs. Servant-slaves eat rice gruel. Maybe lucky to suck on dog bones.”

  Liang gasped.

  I laughed with squeamish glee. But I knew that, in Poh-Poh’s stories, a just punishment followed injustice. Mistress Mean-Mouth and her family had chosen their luck.

  “All morning the Mistress eat and eat. One hour after lunch, she run her fingers through her hair. Sniff, sniff. She want to eat again. At night, even after the servants had cleared away an eight-course family dinner, she still smell food. Sniff, sniff.”

  “Her stomach growwwwl.” Poh-Poh patted Liang’s tummy. “She demand all the servants bring her more and more food. She go to bed. She eat. She shake her long hair and, guess what? She want more food! More ox smell, more chicken smell—more food!”

  “More pork smell!” Liang shouted.

  “More roast duck!” Jung joined in. I held my nose in the air and sniffed and sniffed, laughing with Mrs. Lim. We began sniffing; even Mrs. Lim raised her nose in the air, her nostrils flaring with indignation.

  “Finally, I go to my own bed.” Poh-Poh lowered her voice. “Every day, from spring to fall—to winter—the Mistress get fatter and fatter … and fatter.”

  We looked at Poh-Poh’s big friend.

  Mrs. Lim laughed. “No, no, ten times fatter than me!”

  “As round as this kitchen table?” Liang asked.

  Poh-Poh nodded yes, yes, and emptied the brimming blue bowl of shelled peas into a clean pot.

  I sat up, and my knees knocked against the bucket of turnips. They rolled about like decapitated heads and carrot noses. Mrs. Lim put down her teacup. I held the bucket still.

  “First thing in the morning,” Poh-Poh began again, “I get up as usual to groom the Mistress. Her eyes strangely shut tight, her mean-mouthed head as dark as that turnip.” She pointed. “I climb up big bed, tug hair, yank one, two, and then harder! The hairy head, heavy like turnip, fell over on my knee. Suddenly, from beneath her winter quilt, I hear bubbly, burbling noises. I lift up autumn quilt. Aaaiiyaah! I scream. Her stomach split wide open, belly gaping like this—” Poh-Poh unbuttoned her quilt front and pushed aside the flaps, her thin fingers danced madly, twisting and turning. “I see hissing worms on the bed—worms and twisting guts.”

  Liang shrieked.

  Poh-Poh’s eyes rolled, her head plunged backward. “Mistress Mean-Mouth”—she sighed—“dead.”

  Jung clapped. I clapped, too, imagining the bed splashed with gobs of burbling intestines.

  At my clap
ping, Jung must have felt the story was as true as the Old One wanted him to believe it was. I knew he was thinking of his own life, of the belt that had fallen upon his back.

  The rain began to pelt the back porch.

  Jung tugged on my sleeve, and I shuffled over with the bucket and leaned against the stool. His hand, settled against my shoulder, and my tongue could not speak.

  Liang grasped the Old One’s fingers.

  “Tell, Poh-Poh,” she said gently. “Tell how she look in the coffin.”

  Liang had stood with Jung and me one afternoon and watched a coffin being carried out of the Mission Church. The coffin had a polished brass top and shone like gold.

  The Old One sighed. “She— Her hair so shiny, the hair I combed for months and months—”

  Grandmother looked away, her eyes glistening. She hugged Liang to her. “Oh, Liang-Liang,” she said, “she looked … beautiful.”

  I saw a shadow cross the Old One’s brow. Liang and Jung-Sum were too young to notice anything. I wished I hadn’t—it threw me off, made me feel that I had sensed something impossible, something invisible yet … there.

  Mrs. Lim broke the silence, “No use to curse the dead, Chen-Poh.”

  The Old One bit her lip. “At—at her funeral,” she said directly to Mrs. Lim, “everyone said, ‘Look, look how lovely her hair is.’ ”

  The two women began talking to each other as if no one else were there.

  “And I smiled to myself,” Poh-Poh said, “proud of that beautiful, burnished hair. The other servants said, ‘Look how lovely her tiny bound feet are.’ But I not envy her tiny bound feet, not envy her shiny hair.”

  “Old One,” Mrs. Lim said, “better to forget those days. The mistress die so long, long ago.”

  “She dead, yes, yes”—she put her arm around Liang—“and I still live.”

  Liang kicked her feet. “What happened to the comb?” she asked.

  Grandmother shook herself, as if shaking away a ghost. Mrs. Lim urged her to go on with the story.

  “When I—” Poh-Poh began, “when I was sold a second time, I hid the comb in my jacket and took it with me.”

  Liang squealed with excitement. But something wasn’t being told. My knees shifted, rattling the bucket of carrots and turnips.

  “And then what happened?” I asked.

  “I made last wish, Kiam-Kim. I stood on sampan taking me to second owners. I wished one last time”—she threw her hand out—“and tossed comb away into Pearl River.”

  Mrs. Lim nodded, her dark eyes tracing the comb’s descent into the waves.

  Our eyes followed.

  We knew from other tales about the adventures of the Monkey King and the treacherous Fox Lady that it was dangerous to carry with you magic items whose luck you were uncertain of; foolish to think such magic might not harm you in the end.

  “Yes, yes,” Mrs. Lim said, “best to get rid of the comb.”

  “The wish, Poh-Poh,” Jung said. “What did you wish for?”

  “A secret,” the Old One said. “But I promise I tell it to First Son when right time comes. Then, maybe, he will tell you.”

  I squirmed with impatience, but Mrs. Lim put a finger to her lips. A secret for now, she was saying. Be patient. In my bones, I knew there was no way I could ever force a secret from the Old One.

  The two women closed their eyes, remembering the past, or perhaps, as I did, imagining the rosewood hair comb floating upon the waves, a pair of beady-eyed serpents splashing out to sea. The rain fell harder. I thought of the dust on the sidewalk washed away. The rasp rested against the bucket.

  The two ladies sat motionless, breathing deeply, eyes shut.

  No one could ever know everything the two of them knew, close friends since their first neighbourly meetings in Old China days. When I looked down at the large turnip Poh-Poh had pointed to, I could see again Mistress Mean-Mouth’s head lolling against my knee. But I also heard Father warning me again, “Don’t believe all those Old China stories.”

  “Poh-Poh,” Liang said, “tell what happened afterwards.”

  The Old One opened her eyes. “I told you. I was sold one more time.”

  “Then what happened? Did the Monkey King come?”

  “No, no. Finally, a good Canton family took me in.”

  Liang snuggled against Grandmother’s quilted warmth. Jung-Sum gazed into the air.

  “I bought and sold three times. Three times lucky! Then I birth a son for the Chens, and this son, well, he became your father!”

  A lucky ending.

  “Lucky like you, Jung-Sum,” Mrs. Lim said, splitting open the last pea pod. “You a Chen, too!”

  Jung-Sum untwisted his legs from the stool.

  I wondered if my adopted Second Brother had ever been told such tales by his own mother. I wondered if he knew his mother had been unlucky to marry a man pushed by demons, a man who would abuse Jung-Sum, murder her, and kill himself, mysteriously leaving their son behind.

  I thought, too, of Stepmother sweeping the rooms upstairs; how in Old China, Grandmother and she had been luckily rescued by the Christian Chen family. I thought of Only Sister, how Stepmother held her so tightly those first few weeks, afraid her girl-baby would be taken away. How Liang-Liang gurgled and smiled, not understanding her luck. I was the First Son and China-born, my mother dead. Did that make my luck different or the same? Was her ghost still in my head?

  Would my siblings ever think of their luck at all? And what ghosts, if any, would come to live inside their heads?

  Only memories.

  Even after I got up, the two of them had not moved. Liang, still stiff with enchantment, clung to Poh-Poh, and Jung-Sum sat wondering. I wanted to tell Second Brother what was real. Trains were only trains, as Father had taught me. Combs were only combs, nothing more. He was older; he would understand. All at once Jung’s knee pushed against my back, his heated hand clutched at my shoulder, and I saw again his hopeful eyes; I knew then that saying the obvious would be careless of me, that both Liang and he would suffer. Something had been taken away from me. If I said anything now, something in them, too, would perish.

  “Time to cook supper,” Poh-Poh said. She turned to me. “Take the two with you, Kiam-Kim.”

  But I wanted to leave them there, leave them between the two women brewing with story.

  One morning before he went to the Chinese Times office, I asked Father about Mistress Mean-Mouth.

  He told me that in the real story (so the oldest of Patriarch Chen’s sons told him) the first mistress Grandmother had served as a slave-child had died in agony during the night, of an internal rupture, perhaps from overeating. Poh-Poh had not seen the doctor cut her mistress open. No one in the household had thought to wake her up and warn her to stay away.

  Well, maybe her appendix burst, Father suggested when I insisted on knowing more, or maybe the mistress died from a poison. To be poisoned by a family rival or by a spiteful servant was not uncommon in those days. In fact, Father said, the Imperial family kept official food-tasters to guard against such poisoning.

  “Maybe Poh-Poh poisoned her,” I said.

  “Frankly,” Father said, laughing, “I don’t know what the Old One is capable of.” When he caught the dark, proud look on my face, he stopped laughing.

  At once I saw the young girl that was Poh-Poh reach for a small packet of poison and shake the dark powder into Mistress Mean-Mouth’s steaming soup.

  I would have poisoned her, too, I thought. Poisoned anyone who was mean or nasty to me. I tried being a detective, like Dick Tracy, told Father some of my ideas. He laughed.

  “Don’t think too much about their stories,” Father said. “You’re getting too old for that.”

  I asked him if he knew what Grandmother had wished for when she threw the comb into the Pearl River.

  “Her secret,” Father said. “Just her Old China ways.” He put down his briefcase and looked straight at me, as if to say it was foolish to guess about such wishing. “W
e in Canada now.”

  “Yes,” Stepmother said, helping Father with his coat.

  “Maybe soon we have another grandson for the Old One,” he said. “Make her old age happy, make her forget those unhappy days when she was a servant and had no family.”

  Stepmother said nothing.

  One spring morning we were preparing for the next day’s Ching Ming Festival, the day everyone in Chinatown visited the gravesites of family or namesake members and burned incense and paper money for the spirits to spend in their next life. We also carried plates and bowls of token foods, like chicken and pork, oranges and other fruit, and bowed three times to show our respect. I mentioned that we had run out of the dark soy sauce.

  “Lucky you have smart grandson!” said Mrs. Lim, wiping her wet hands on Poh-Poh’s handy apron.

  “You go, Gai-mou,” said Poh-Poh when she noticed Stepmother’s wan face and tired expression. “Get some exercise. Enjoy yourself. Buy sweet buns from the Royal.” She reached into her porcelain steamer bowl, high on the shelf, and handed Stepmother some dollar bills.

  The two older women had been busy preparing the chicken and pork, checking through the pantry for ingredients. Mrs. Lim had coated the chicken with dark soy in a special way, so that the roasted skin would turn crispy and taste of salt and ginger, exactly the same way her one-eyed husband had liked to eat it. Some other ingredients were running short, and Poh-Poh sent Stepmother and the three of us children to pick up some things from Chinatown.

  “Go, go, go,” Poh-Poh said, rushing all of us out of her and Mrs. Lim’s way.

  “Get fresh air,” said Mrs. Lim, and I noticed how she sweetly patted Stepmother’s tummy. She and the Old One burst into knowing smiles.

  “Buy sweet buns,” Poh-Poh said again.

  Stepmother blushed when I patted her on the gut and asked if something was wrong. Her belly was pushing against her simple dress. But that wasn’t too surprising. At supper, Father had pointed out that she had been eating much more than usual and had been drinking lots of tea with Mrs. Chong. Before she could answer my question, Poh-Poh came chasing us to leave the house. We rushed out the door, my head filled with thoughts of treats to be bought from the B.C. Royal bakery.