MEMORIES from the EAST

by Abdulla Kazim

  I reached my hand and wrapped Trinh’s fingers in mine. Her fingers shivered at the first touch, but when they calmed down, her whispery song calmed and stopped. I stopped a taxi and when asked about the destination, I requested the driver to just follow my directions. Trinh looked through the window most of the journey, while I was busy looking at the streets, some of which remained the same, unchanged; even the pale painted shops along them still stood, bearing some scars of age now.

  There was the toy shop, my favourite one in my childhood. Once my eyes glimpsed it, it was hard to turn away from it. The glass window was still so clear that I, although in the cab, could clearly see inside. I glimpsed the shadow of the old sales lady who used to always give me candy whenever I visited it with my parents, saying that I was the most exquisite child in China. A new generation of small toy characters was on display behind the glass window. I had given up on them already and considered them now very trivial. It was hard for me to recall all the names of my own collection of toy characters.

  There was the tall building where my father used to work—on the fourth floor that was allocated to the private IT company he worked for. The building had survived the ravages of time and had been given a slight renovation: the white paint had been replaced with stripes of pink and yellow, and the small windows had been given square frames. I remembered when my father brought me to his office for the first time. His colleagues joked with me a lot, while I was nervously shaking inside, mainly out of fear of their scary complexions. Some of them jokingly asked my father to reserve me for their daughters. One of them even asked me whether I had a girlfriend.

  On the corner of a different street was a small bakery shop, whose name was engraved on its wood-board, MEMORIES. At this point, Trinh turned her face to me and smiled, pointing with her finger to the shop and whispering its name to me. She noticed what I noticed. Yes, memories were revived there of me walking with my mother, she holding my tiny hand. We used to visit that bakery twice a week, and my heart longed to sniff in the fresh smell of the warm bread it produced, but that feeling I suppressed.

  The last station on the memory chain was the graveyard, LIFE (as it was titled), which, my uncle mentioned, contained the graves of my parents. It looked so lifeless and gloomy now with its bushy trees, some of which were just skeletons of trees.

  I asked the driver to stop at a corner; I had reached my destination. My eyes were looking at the place now, the area where I had grown up and spent the early days of my life. I put my hand in my tight pocket and took out some cash. I didn’t remember when I had put those notes in my pocket, but I did find some, and I don’t know how many I took out, but I am sure the amount was more than what was asked for by the driver, because when Trinh and I left the car, the driver called me and mentioned something that his voice didn’t carry enough force to drop into my ears. I was in a different state of mind now.

  The area in view looked desperate for change now. It lacked life and looked like it had no spirit left to keep it standing. No damage had been done by any human deed, but nature had its dirty hands over everything. The green grasses that once filled the area were so brown and black now that one would hardly believe they had ever been alive. The trees had no leaves, and their bodies were filled with ugly cracks. Even the pavement carried deep lines of age, and some parts were totally broken. All the homes I used to know in the area still stood there, but they were more like ghost houses. The barking of dogs was loud enough to disturb the lifeless silence.

  “Where is your home?” Trinh asked.

  I turned my eyes and gazed at my home.

  “There,” I replied, pointing only with my eyes.

  Trinh didn’t make any comment. She just followed me as I walked. I stood in front of the door and put my hand on the handle. The door was locked. My hand was covered with dirty dust that released some black taint. In my mind came the picture of my mother putting a key under the square flower pot on the patio. I asked Trinh to wait there, and I walked to the patio I recalled. The key was still there. How surprising it was! I returned and unlocked the door.

  I felt a big onslaught of memories rush over me. I closed my eyes quickly as the image of my father walked in front of me, passing me and walking to his room. Another image came of my mother sitting on the chair watching television. I felt somebody place a hand on my back.

  “Are you all right?” Trinh’s voice came.

  I opened my eyes and nodded, but my legs were a bit heavy. On my left were three rectangular windows, the one in the middle taller than those on each side. The once pure and plain white panel curtains at the top now looked light grey. I caught the end of the curtain panel of the middle window and pulled it out with force, and there I heard Trinh’s gasp of fear. I soothed her with a gentle smile as I dropped the curtain on the floor. I did the same with the other two curtains. Pure rays of light were now slipping inside in front of my eyes with sparkles of dust floating in them, drawing bright squares in the overall dark landscape.

  “It looks better now,” Trinh giggled in whisper.

  She dragged each of her flat boyish shoes on the floor like a child, leaving clearly traceable marks in the layer of husks and dust. That generated a disturbing noise, but I wasn’t in any state to comment on it.

  I walked to my room and pushed the door open with my fingers. The wallpaper still struck me with its beauty as it had done in my childhood. In the damp sadness of the whole home, my room alone seemed still bright with its dim white background upon which scattered rectangles of light colours (pink, yellow, and blue) were printed, and each rectangle was framed in thick unbalanced straight lines of light brown, and the scattered shapes bore sketched flowers in the same colour as the frame. My bed, shaped like a red car, was still parked in the same spot as in the old days, and the funny face on its front still bore a wide smile. I located my toy characters’ storage cupboard. I opened one door, and particles of dust were blown from its top onto the front of my hair and a little onto the top of my nose. I picked out one toy, that of Princess Snow White, and turned to see Trinh standing in front of a picture on the wall next to the door. That picture was of my mother, the same picture on which my sketch had been based that Trinh found in my drawing pad that day.

  “Let’s leave,” I told Trinh, and I placed my hand on her arm.

  She didn’t speak but just smiled and nodded in agreement. We walked out of the house, but a desire still seemed unfulfilled inside of me—that of to visit the kitchen in that now-haunted house, the kitchen that was the scene of a hideous crime that had ignited in me some sort of delicious hatred for life.

  I stopped about ten feet from the home and so did Trinh. I put in her hand the Princess Snow White toy and asked her to wait for me at the end of the area, near the first stoplight, which was one kilometre away. The landscape surrounding my home looked a little scary, but its serenity amazed me. It seemed dead inside out.

  If anything did echo in my vast inner wilderness, it was merely the dim sensation of some force driving me along.

  I paused for a while to see Trinh walking away and then walked back to my home and stepped into the kitchen. The smell caught me—that of dry blood. There was blood still on the floor, and the marble surface of the table was almost fully covered with it except the small area that had been wiped. My mother’s corpse lay there once, and reviving its memory brought a hot glow to my heart. I found myself having difficulty breathing now, and my nose was uncontrollably vibrating. Nobody had even made the effort to clean up the mess of my parents. I believe nobody cared to. Looking at the corner where I recalled shrinking into myself when the police arrived caused my heart to miss a beat, and now my entire self was shaking and my eyes were flooding and my nostrils were on the verge of dripping.

  I felt a sudden explosion in my stomach and a squeezing feeling of sickness emerged. I rested my back against the corner and slowly let my body slip down t
here. Now I was sitting in the same spot where I had sat years ago to witness the crime of my father. Scenes came ever livelier now in front of my eyes. Fear grasped my heart, and I broke finally into tears.

  Several minutes passed, I believe. I raised my head, and my inner self seemed quieter now, but my anger was enraged. I just hated the home; I hated its presence. I walked around all the drawers in the kitchen till I found a green-handled kitchen lighter. I started walking through all the rooms of the house one by one, throwing flames of fire here and there and ensuring that enough was ignited everywhere.

  I walked quickly out of the house and started walking fast straight to where I had asked Trinh to wait for me. The smell of burning garments hung for a while in my nose.

  “Your nose looks red,” Trinh said upon seeing me. “Your eyes as well.”

  She was sitting on the pavement, leaned forward with her legs stretched full in front of her. My eyes fell on the group of tiny red ants gathered at the end of the wide opening of her jeans. I put my foot there on top of those gang-like intruders, and stirred it in a very slight movement that was sure to wipe out most of those gathered there.

  Trinh’s soft voice crept into my ears, and only now I did give it some attention. She was singing, a beautiful song in a tantalized tone.

  Hello darkness, my old friend

  I’ve come to talk with you again

  Because a vision softly creeping

  Left its seeds while I was sleeping

  And the vision that was planted in my brain

  Still remains… 1

  We took a taxi. I looked back as the taxi started moving. My eyes caught sight of light smoke rising up from the area of my home. My heart bid a hot farewell to my home. I wouldn’t visit it again ever, even if the smoke was just fake.

  16

  I had made up my mind to go with Trinh to Vietnam after graduation. My programming teacher, Howin, approached me a week before the end of the semester. I was at the time walking to the gym. She asked me to see her in her office. I walked after her. She had on a very long tight thin-fabric skirt. I could see the cuteness of her small buttocks that fitted her flat body and chest. Till that moment, I had seen Howin as a good person, despite my confusion about some of the signals sent by her mysterious smiles and winks and her casual kiss on my birthday. The perception my mind had created about her up till then was based on the way I saw her with a single eye, but that perception changed when I opened both my eyes on her.

  Howin entered the office and turned towards me, reaching her hands back and resting her palms on top of the desk behind her and placing that cute bottom of hers on the edge of the desk. I stood in front of her waiting for what she might say, but in my mind the shape of her buttocks was already engraved. I thought of the silliness of what she might say, and this encouraged my mind to develop the whim of imagining how her bottom might look now, half resting on the desk, and whether, unclothed, it might be soft or (unlike her face) already aged. The progress of my native whim went on, but I guess my face and eyes were on her, just physically, waiting for her to say something useful.

  “I want you to stay here.” She started, and with this the strings of my whim broke.

  Now my attention was with her. I frowned and wondered internally and in silence about the subject of her speech.

  “I already talked to the management about you, Gerald, and explained to them how good you are in all the programming subjects. They agreed to hire you as a faculty member. You will help our students make good improvements.”

  Her speech was so alien to me. I didn’t recall having asked her to arrange a place for me in the college. I didn’t even remember telling her or showing her any interest in teaching.

  “But I am not planning to work in this college,” I answered.

  I was waiting now for her reply, but, strangely, I saw a half-smile on her face, and the tip of her tongue was playing on the middle of her lower lip. Her eyes were all on me. She withdrew her left hand from her back and placed it on her left thigh. My eyes moved along with that hand. Then that strange teacher came up with an action that totally destroyed any innocent image I had about her and assured me that whatever I had heard from other students about her various affairs with other faculty members was all true.

  Howin started pulling her skirt up slowly with her thin fingers, and my eyes caught every lifting motion of that curtain and the revelation of the milky-white marble underneath. My senses all stopped at the next step of that silent deed of her, but she paused now with the skirt up just below her hips. I gazed at the thin part of her white panties that was now visible.

  “Come near,” she said in a capturing whisper that one can only expect from a woman in bed.

  I did what she asked of me and took two small paces towards her. My hot, charged breath touched her face, and our feet gently collided. In a fast motion, I moved my fingers and laid them where they were most desired and expected. Then with a gentle pushing force on my side and a bigger absorbing force from her end, a nasty small smile appeared on her lips, and a little gasp came out of them.

  “Yes, I accept your suggestion to work here,” I said, rolling my eyes on her small eyes, small nose, and half-wet lips. “But not now. When I come back. I am going to Vietnam.” Then my eyes dropped to her bosom.

  “With Trinh.” Her tantalized tone was mixed with sarcasm. “You love her?”

  “I didn’t love any girl…” I replied, stating it with complete honesty, but then suspecting what I had said in a strange fashion, as the image of Fang Zhang, my first girl, flashed into my mind.

  I unplugged my wet fingers from Howin, and she slowly pulled her skirt back down her thighs. There was silence between us now, with a slight smile on both our faces. I turned and went out of the office, closing the door behind me.

  I found the story of faithfulness very deceitful. If either of Ah Cy and Howin really believed in being faithful, they wouldn’t be enslaved by their blind lust. How strange it is to see middle-aged women chasing young males. What magic youth holds!

  I went to the gym, and as I was changing my cloth in the shower area, Bojing came in. I hadn’t seen him for a long time and all of sudden Qiuyue’s story popped into my mind again, and I asked myself whether he was the person Ah Cy had talked about. The unsatisfied question needed an answer.

  Bojing, with his usual big smile, greeted everyone, throwing a joke here and there. He made some dirty comment about a female Chinese movie star and forced laughter out of them.

  “I had a very intriguing date yesterday.” He started talking about himself. “I met a very young girl in a supermarket, a sales girl, but what a pleasingly plump girl!” He removed his T-shirt and pulled on a sports shirt. “Almost seventeen, Hmmm.”

  “A virgin?” one guy asked.

  “There are no virgins in China,” Bojing replied in a joking tone, and everyone in the room laughed again. “But I can guarantee now that she is not anymore.”

  He then went on to describe her body and some of the bed action they had shared. I walked past him and tapped his back.

  “See you in.” I said, meaning in the workout area.

  “Sure, my Chinese-American friend,” he said loudly.

  In a couple of minutes, Bojing joined me in the gym. I was doing decline barbell bench presses with twenty kilograms on each side of the bar. It was my first exercise after the warm up. The sensation generated earlier in me by Howin was still having its weakening impact upon me. Normally that weight would seem quite light to me, but at that time it felt a little heavier. After fourteen repetitions, I saw a shadow over my face, and two white hands were lightly placed under the bar, one on each side. I could see the big veins deepen in them at the ends of his wrists.

  “Push, push, brother,” he said in a voice that I found very usual among people helping each other in gym. It had always
been funny for me to hear such tones. It is as if the person, who puts some slight effort in the small help he provides, bears all the burden of the iron weight.

  “Since you are here, I say add ten more.” I placed the bar in its hook.

  Bojing added ten kilograms to each side of the bar and told me to start lifting. I adjusted my body on the bench, and my internal count started with each lift. Bojing’s encouraging voice was loud.

  “Have you ever had a relationship with Qiuyue?” I asked in a low breath. Then I realized that the question was like a blow. So I adjusted it. “Did you meet a girl with the name of Qiuyue?”

  “Let me think… I think I encountered three with that same name among my nasty adventures.” The volume of his voice went sharply down as he let out the word “nasty”. Then he laughed.

  “Qiuyue and her mother Ah Cy. I heard a story about an arranged relationship between you and Qiuyue.”

  Bojing’s supporting hands under the bar were removed all of sudden and the full weight fell upon me. My hands felt so weak, but I managed with a big effort to hang the bar on its hook. I adjusted my body to a sitting position and saw Bojing walking out of the workout area. I followed him, and my mind confirmed now that it was he that Ah Cy had talked about.

  I entered the shower area. He was standing in front of his locker with his back turned to me. He removed his T-shirt and threw it with force inside the locker and then sat on the bench opposite to it. He rested his elbows on his thighs and clapped his hands in front of his knees. Then he turned to face me.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked. It was the first time I had seen him look serious. It was like a mask on a joker’s face.

  “I didn’t wish to bother you,” I said. “I am sorry if my question did bother you. It is just curiosity. I just wanted to clarify something I heard before I leave China.”