The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1)

by Cole Reid

  “That’s enough about my daughter,” said Mama, “If you’re gonna talk about her, you talk about her like she’s sitting next to you.”

  “When Xiaofeng gets back, she will be sitting next to me,” said Baba, “That’s what I’m saying. That boy clings to her like she’s his mother and she allows it. He’ll ruin her chances in this world like any other woman having a child clinging to her like that. He’s gotta learn to be a man and what’s what.”

  “He’s eight years-old and you want him to be a man,” said Mama.

  “He’s gotta start learning,” said Baba.

  “When did I start learning?...Does anyone remember?” said Li Xing. The table went silent. The silence wasn’t meant to last.

  “Don’t get me started on the men in this family,” said Baba.

  “Have you noticed any patterns?” asked Li Xing.

  “No patterns among the men in this family,“ said Baba, “One looks to do what he should, one doesn’t know what he should do and one still pees in the bed.”

  “Why would you bring that up?” asked Mama.

  “Because that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about,” said Baba, “He’s eight years-old. He still pees in the bed. Xiaofeng has to get up in the middle of the night to change sheets and do laundry, every time. That’s what I mean by taking away opportunities. She can’t even get a good night’s sleep because he still acts like a baby.”

  “Well, Xiaofeng doesn’t complain and her grades are still good, so it doesn’t seem to have ruined anything for her,” said Mama.

  “Her grades are good because she goes to Qingshan Institute, she could have gotten into Tsinghua, if she didn’t have to put up with that boy,” said Baba.

  “She wouldn’t have gone,” said Mama.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. She could have gone to a much better school but she stayed here to look after him. That’s the opportunity he’s taken from her,” said Baba.

  “He didn’t take it from her; it was her choice to stay. The boy didn’t ask to be born,” said Mama.

  “And he shouldn’t have been,” said Baba.

  The conversation came to a quick end, interrupted by the universal sound of a key turning a lock. The door cracked slightly open and then opened a little more. The door wasn’t open wide, but enough for a Young Pioneer to fit through. He was wearing a white collared-shirt with red neckerchief, navy pants and a yellow cap with the words Kuandian No. 2 Primary School written on front. Following house rules, he took the cap off, revealing a shaved head. His absence of hair was not a compliment—a strategy. Xiaofeng’s wisdom was a gift she used to protect her little brother. If she had let his hair grow long, it would magnify his differences. His hair was black like other Chinese children, just not straight like theirs. At a little over a centimeter long, his hair would start to bend noticeably. The longer his hair grew, the more it would deviate from a straight line. It would start to look slightly thick and wavy, so she kept it too short to make a difference. His other features she could not change. His skin was a deep reddish-brown, darker than other Chinese children. Xiaofeng read with her brother inside and allowed him to play outside only after 6pm. She was strict. She didn’t want his skin to absorb too much sunlight. It would get darker—too dark. When he was younger she had allowed him to play outside when he wanted, but even she had been shocked at how dark his skin could get. When he had started kindergarten his differences scared other children, so they bullied him. As he got older, some students wouldn’t even come to learn his real name. They would only learn his labels: Feizhouren—African; Chaokeli—Chocolate; Heigui—Black Devil.

  Xiaofeng came through the door after her brother. She had grown into a well-groomed, well-proportioned woman. Like her mother she could turn heads, but—unlike her mother—she wasn’t stunning. She could stun, but the feeling would get quickly used. She rubbed her brother’s bald head when his cap came off. The boy ran quickly to a dark room at the back left of the house, the room they shared. At twenty-one years old, Xiaofeng was no longer sure of her understanding of the world. Her surety steadily collapsed after her mother died. She had an internal and external anxiety about not being heard. She felt no one was listening or would listen to her, so she drowned herself in her duty—her mother’s last request. Her duty was made easier by the fact that her brother did listen, to no one but her. She broke her own ranks by frequently thinking about her time with her mother in Taiwan. She looked back and realized how carefree she had been, with her mother driving the Vespa and herself holding on the back. Her mother’s body had blocked most of the headwinds, so she enjoyed a gentle breeze—there at the back. Now she was driving and blocking winds, but she had never realized how uninsured her life had been. She battled with pits, trying to stay out of them. Her mood could sink uncontrollably by the easy realization that her life, her mother’s and her brother’s were all so tiny and fragile. She fought to maintain the memory of her mother and those times on the Vespa. Now, those moments did nothing for her, but a lot to her. They served only to remind her how naïve she had been and could be. How abruptly things changed and could change. She tried to honor her silent promise to her mother, to take care of her little brother, but she felt that she was honestly failing. The failure seemed no more apparent than standing there in the main room with her mother’s family. Qiu’s father, mother and brother all greeted her in the main room. But Xiaoyu had run off to another room. He knew there was no place for him. Xiaofeng knew it was nothing she could change, it felt like failure.

  “Have you all started eating?” asked Xiaofeng.

  “I told them to wait for you,” said Li Xing.

  “Thanks for waiting for us,” said Xiaofeng.

  “How was school?” asked Mama.

  “I guess I’ll see, I turned in the last part of my thesis,” said Xiaofeng.

  “Did they say anything?” asked Mama.

  “No, but it’s Professor Yi, so you know…,” said Xiaofeng.

  “I’ll make a bowl for you two,” said Mama.

  “Ok, I’ll get him cleaned up and bring him to the table,” said Xiaofeng.

  Xiaofeng’s words were not figurative. She would literally have to bring her brother to the table. He wouldn’t come back into the main room by himself; he would feel grossly outnumbered. The boy had a strange habit. He wouldn’t enter a room with one person in it, unless it was Mama or Xiaofeng. If it was Baba or one of the cousins that stopped by from time-to-time, he wouldn’t enter without Xiaofeng. Not even Mama, the capable matriarch, could drag him. She tried once, but he kicked and screamed before wetting himself. Then he was no longer presentable. The boy had a strength that was eerie. His patience was supernatural. Baba and Mama had tried to persuade him to the dinner table one evening, when Xiaofeng was gone. He didn’t go. He had locked himself in the only room where he felt safe and turned the light out. Baba and Mama assumed he had gone to sleep; he hadn’t. He sat in darkness, without making a sound loud enough to be heard in the next room. He sat and waited. He grew increasingly hungry but never broke his silence. He waited. He had no idea of the time, but it wasn’t time he was concerned about. He wasn’t comfortable falling asleep without knowing his sister had returned, so he waited. If day had broken without her coming back he would have run away—no food in his stomach.

  “How are you Handsome Boy?” asked Xiaofeng entering the room. She used the nickname she had coined for him when he was five years-old. The name was to contravene the verbal attacks that came when he interacted with other children. When he started kindergarten, the name-calling began. She had come to get him one day and had noticed his left ear was blackened with dried blood. Xiaofeng had marched immediately to the teacher and had demanded an explanation for his injuries. The explanation was grisly. He had been hanging on monkey bars, when he was pulled down by another boy and fell to the ground. He was immediately tackled by three other boys who held him down, while the boy who had pulled him down dropped a large rock on his face. Xiaoy
u had turned his head when he saw the rock and the rock dropped, hitting him in the side of the head. Xiaofeng had had her brother identify the boys to her the next day, when she dropped him at school. The boys were, like always, together. She had given them a one-liner, I know what you did to my brother, Xiaoyu, but you don’t know what I’ll do to you, be very careful. Her purpose had been served. The boys left Xiaoyu alone for the most part. At least, they refrained from physical attacks for fear of reprisal. But, the verbal attacks were still constant and they always revolve around his skin color. No one would have said that the boy, Xiaoyu, was stupid. In fact, he had a precocious wit and sardonic sense of irony, at a young age.

  Kuandian was a small town, which worked against Xiaoyu because he was never free from his persecutors. The same bullies that he faced in kindergarten were at his primary school. But he had grown and grown patient. He learned that patience was the weapon of the downtrodden. Persecutors had motive, so the persecuted had to wait for opportunity. As a child, Xiaoyu became better at exploiting opportunity than most adults. One week, Baba had been prescribed a medicinal tea as a laxative. Xiaoyu had switched his own morning green tea with the medicinal tea before Xiaofeng had taken him to school. He had spent the morning struggling to keep a straight face, as the medicinal tea began to slap his stomach. By recess there was one small difference in his behavior. Instead of hurrying to be one of the first out of the classroom, he had been sluggish and was dead last. He arrived to the schoolyard for recess a full two minutes after the other students. After recess, the day carried on as normal until the last class. There was no noticeable difference in Xiaoyu’s behavior all day. He was patient. When the last class had ended, he had already packed his book bag and was quickly out the door. One student had remained in his desk without and serious intent to move. He had sat humped over his book bag and his face had turned red. Tears had begun to stream down his face. The boy was familiar to Xiaoyu. He was the same boy who had dropped a rock on Xiaoyu’s head over a year earlier. The boy had stared into his book bag with a horrific look on his face. Inside the book bag, was a sullied note written in brown crayon. The note read: You always talk about my brown skin it must be your favorite color, a brown gift from me. The note was unsigned. Beneath the note, the contents of the boy’s book bag were soaked in a large amount of human feces.

  Xiaoyu’s patience played like brilliance when the boy’s parents had gotten involved. Xiaoyu had taken the time to plan carefully. He wanted revenge but realized when to claim it, so he left the note unsigned. At the same time, he had wanted to expose the boy as a bully. The boy told his parents what had happened and they told the school administrator and the teacher. Xiaoyu had denied doing anything. Mama and Xiaofeng had to meet with the school administrator, the teacher, the boy’s parents, the boy and Xiaoyu. In the meeting, Xiaoyu showed less emotion than all in the room. He, more than anyone else, had prepared for that meeting and he had prepared for over a year. He denied having done anything, but he made a small comment that sent a chill up the spine of all adults in the room and made the other boy feel cornered. He said, “There’s no name on the note, but you think it’s me because he says it’s me. If he thinks so, then the note must be true and he has been talking about someone with brown skin. And I’m someone with brown skin.”

  The room had gone silent. Xiaofeng was reminded of things her mother told her. Xiaofeng had been told her brother would be different, special. He would have strength and would need it. He would be under sustained attack, but he would have the ability to protect himself. Until that meeting, Xiaofeng had been trying to protect her brother because she believed his strength was the physical kind. She told herself she would have to wait, until her brother grew strong enough to protect himself. In one moment, she realized his strength was his ability to endure. His endurance made him patient. He could wait. He could wait while he aligned the right forces. He could wait until he collected the right weapons. He could wait while he gathered enough chain to bind the world, and then declare his mastery over it. That is how everyone in the room had felt—bound. Everyone had been bound, except the silent six year-old boy. The administrator and teacher had no choice but to admit something was going on. The boy, the bully, had to admit his attacks on Xiaoyu. At the end of the meeting, all adults had agreed that the boys should try to be friends, Xiaoyu’s silence made it clear that wouldn’t happen. But he had gained an awkward ally.

  The bully realized dropping a rock on Xiaoyu’s face had gone too far. He was beyond Xiaoyu’s forgiveness. But he had realized that any other transgressions would be met with even worse retaliation and he had become convinced that Xiaoyu could accomplish anything. The bully had learned a valuable lesson—some people were better left alone. The bully knew he could never be Xiaoyu’s friend, but he made a different decision—to be a harbinger. The bully had taken it upon himself to warn other children, they would be better off leaving Xiaoyu alone. A year later, one boy—large for his age—refused to listen. He had decided his favorite name for Xiaoyu was Heigui—Black Devil. And his classroom seat had been directly behind Xiaoyu’s. His favorite prank was to flick Xiaoyu’s right ear while, simultaneously, whispering Heigui in his left ear. The boy told himself the combination of physical and verbal abuse would be too much for Xiaoyu and would break him. The boy had set a goal of making Xiaoyu cry publically, but had grown increasingly frustrated at Xiaoyu’s outward calm. In fact, he felt Xiaoyu’s calm was humiliating him, after setting the goal of humiliating Xiaoyu. Despite repeat warnings from the other bully, the harbinger, the boy persisted. Despite the harbinger, Xiaoyu’s greatest ally proved to be his patience.

  Xiaoyu had been studying the habits of the large boy, who liked to flick his ears. Xiaoyu had noticed one of the boy’s habits and it interested him. In the mornings, he would sit up and stretch his chubby arms while yawning. He would do it three or four times before the morning was through. One Wednesday, the class took a reading comprehension test. Xiaoyu had made sure to sharpen his pencil before the exam started. The room was mostly silent, with students facing down focusing on their test work. The teacher was reading a book, looking up occasionally. Unlike the other students, Xiaoyu hadn’t written anything on his test paper. He wanted to keep his pencil sharp. Almost thirty minutes after the test had begun, Xiaoyu realized what he had waited for. The desk behind him had shifted forward. The large boy behind him sat up in his desk to stretch and yawn. Xiaoyu’s eyes rolled downward and his lips pursed. As the boy’s mouth opened, Xiaoyu turned around and stabbed the boy in the cheek with his pencil. The boy had immediately fallen out of his desk and onto the floor. Xiaoyu had gotten down on the floor next to the boy and asked if he was ok, while taking the boy’s pencil. The other students and the teacher had surrounded the two boys. Xiaoyu’s pencil had arrived with such force that it transfixed the boy’s entire cheek and pierced part of his tongue. The boy had gone into a mild shock and the pencil in his mouth left him unable to speak. Xiaoyu had told the teacher that he didn’t see what happened but thought the boy had stabbed himself with the pencil. The boy would later say he didn’t quite remember what had happened, a result of his shock. The teacher had been suspicious of Xiaoyu, until his harbinger came forward and said he saw the boy stab himself.

  Xiaoyu was never proud of his ability to reclaim a situation that started out against him. He viewed it as necessity. It was something he did, like eating and sleeping. He didn’t boast about his ability. Like all young life, he looked forward to his future capability. He was a wolf cub looking forward to one day hunting with the pack. But for him there was no pack. He possessed a preternatural ability to tear clouds and bend winds to serve his purpose. He was fully capable of surviving on his own, but internally he lamented that he had to. He was eight years-old and the only friend he had won was his own sister. Even his mother had abandoned him at birth. He had accepted that it would have been better for his entire family, if he had never been born.

  “Does a handsome boy feel like
eating?” asked Xiaofeng.

  Xiaoyu looked up at his sister and nodded his head. His eyes were foggy; Xiaofeng couldn’t tell what he was thinking. When he was younger it was easy for her, but as he grew up these moments were becoming more and more frequent.

  “Who’s that man in there?” asked Xiaoyu.

  “You don’t remember him?” asked Xiaofeng. Xiaoyu shook his head.

  “That’s Uncle Xing, he’s our mother’s brother,” said Xiaofeng.

  “Is he a good man?” asked Xiaoyu.

  “He’s very funny; he likes jokes,” said Xiaofeng.

  “I want to know if he’s a good man,” said Xiaoyu.

  “He doesn’t come here much. I can’t say I know him so well, but he’s only here for a visit,” said Xiaofeng, “Why not go out and meet him?”

  “There’s something about him,” said Xiaoyu.

  “What?” asked Xiaofeng.

  “He’s not who he pretends to be,” said Xiaoyu.

  “You have to meet him before you say that,” said Xiaofeng.

  “Everyone is going to end up very hurt by him,” said Xiaoyu.

  “He’s not going to hurt you, I won’t let him,” said Xiaofeng.

  Xiaoyu looked up at his sister, then looked back down. Xiaofeng sat down on the bed next to her brother.

  “Are you OK?” asked Xiaofeng.

  “Yes,” said Xiaoyu.

  “You want to come out with me and meet Uncle Xing?” asked Xiaofeng.

  “Yes, I want to meet him,” said Xiaoyu.

  “Why have you changed your mind so suddenly?” asked Xiaofeng.

  “I need to learn about him, if I have to attack him,” said Xiaoyu.

  “Why would you have to attack him?” asked Xiaofeng.

  “Go ask him that,” said Xiaoyu.

  Five minutes later Xiaofeng emerged from the bedroom with her brother and came to the main room. Xiaoyu followed behind her in a blue T-shirt and flannel shorts. Xiaofeng grabbed two pair of chopsticks and gave one pair to Xiaoyu. Xiaofeng sat down at the table next to Li Xing and Xiaoyu sat between Xiaofeng and Mama. Mama put rice in a small bowl for Xiaoyu, which he handed to Xiaofeng. Mama made another bowl with rice which Xiaoyu kept for himself. Mama made sure Xiaoyu wasn’t last to be served. If she didn’t serve him, he wouldn’t have served himself. Xiaoyu waited until everyone else started to eat before picking up his chopsticks. When he was guaranteed that no one was looking at him, he began to eat.