Girl in Translation

by Jean Kwok

  But it was after we lined up to be given our gym uniforms (green T-shirts and the wide shorts I had seen earlier) and crowded into the locker room that I knew I was really in trouble.

  SEVEN

  All of the other girls began stripping down. We’d never had to change for gym at my old school. We’d only had to switch to sneakers if we weren’t wearing them already. I clutched my new clothes as I saw everyone else was wearing store-bought panties. Some even had on cotton bras or sleeveless camisoles. All of their underwear was colorful and expensive.

  Some of the girls were completely flat-chested and I envied them. I had begun to develop small breasts that summer and I did everything I could to hide them. It was inevitable that a solution would have to be found for them, and I would have to be the one to find it. Everything under my clothes had been made by Ma and thus was badly sewn: a pair of thick cotton shorts unevenly trimmed in red for good luck, a stained and pilling long-sleeved undershirt. All the girls were checking one another out from under lowered eyelids. Then I spotted the toilet stalls against the wall. I silently thanked the gods and ducked into one to change.

  This first gym class was to be our individual evaluation. We were timed in our running, measured in our jumping, counted for our push-ups, and then the gym teacher put a racket in our hands, fired balls at us and counted the number we hit. Working in the factory had made me strong. I was far from the best but I was also not the worst. It was such a relief that I stopped feeling guilty for acting unladylike.

  I was beginning to see the importance Americans put on a kind of general athleticism, which was new to me. Back home, a student was praised if she did well in her classes at school, but for these kids, good grades were not enough. They were also expected to play sports and an instrument, and have straight teeth as well. I too would be expected to become attractive and well-rounded.

  By the end of the day, I’d learned some of the kids’ names: Greg was the mean one, Curt the one with hair like a lion’s, Sheryl was the girl in the leg warmers (I’d heard the term when another girl admired them) and Tammy was the brown-haired girl on my bus.

  After gym, school was over for the other kids but I was scheduled to work in the library three days a week and to get special tutoring in English on the fourth—though I had yet to figure out how I was going to fit all of this in with helping Ma at the factory too. The library work was a requirement of the scholarship I’d been given.

  I knew that the library I would be working in, the one in Milton Hall, wasn’t the main research library but rather a minor one mainly used for studying. I expected a modern sterile space, similar to the public library in Brooklyn. I opened the door to the library and caught my breath. It was small, intimate and lovely. Long streams of sunlight drifted through the high stained-glass windows. A few students were curled up in large leather armchairs, reading.

  A man in a striped maroon silk tunic was watering a gardenia on one of the tables. Aside from the gym teacher, he was the only man I’d seen the whole day who wasn’t wearing a suit and tie. He looked up and saw me, then approached. I saw his tunic had an embroidered stand-up collar and he was wearing white cotton trousers.

  His hair would have been as dark as mine, only his was shot through with silver. “Are you the new scholarship student? I’m Mr. Jamali.” He spoke English with a slight lilt.

  We shook hands and then I couldn’t help asking, “Where are you from?”

  “Pakistan,” he said. He saw me looking at the intricate thread work on his tunic.

  “Ah. You noticed. The headmaster has tried to get me in a suit for many years but I have resisted. I am also the theater director and that justifies a bit of flair, don’t you think?”

  Mr. Jamali showed me the mechanics of my work, which were very simple. He told me that since this library had a limited selection of books, most students came just to read or study. I understood this meant I would have some free time when working there, maybe even enough to do my own homework. There was even a typewriter in the back office I was allowed to use. I wanted to clap my hands for joy.

  “Mr. Jamali, can I change the hours I have? I like to be here more early in the day.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” My voice trailed off. “My mother work and I must help her after school.”

  “I see.” He looked at me with his intelligent eyes. “Well, in that case, we shall see what we can do.”

  At the factory, Matt noticed my new clothes right away. “Well, if it isn’t the landlady’s daughter,” he said.

  I must have looked hurt, because he immediately added, “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, you look pretty.”

  I knew he was only being kind, and also that I’d never forget it: the time Matt said I was pretty.

  But it made me realize that coming to the factory in my school clothes could cause trouble for me with the other factory kids or even with Aunt Paula, who clearly didn’t need to be reminded of my new private school. From now on, I would make sure I changed into my work clothes as soon as I arrived and never mention my new school.

  “How did it go today?” Ma asked. Seeing her warm, familiar brown eyes, I relaxed for the first time in hours, and I realized how much stress I’d been under the whole day, how foreign the entire world of Harrison was.

  I stood close to Ma and, without answering, leaned my forehead against her shoulder. I wanted so much to be her little girl again. Her shirt was made of polyester and was damp with sweat.

  “You crazy girl,” she said affectionately. She ruffled my hair.

  I lifted my head. “Ma, I think I need some new underwear.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with what you have?”

  “We all change together for gym and the other girls will be able to see it. They’re going to laugh at me.”

  “No decent girl would look at someone else’s underwear. Did they make fun of you today?” In Ma’s world, underwear was something that was invisible. With money so scarce, she believed it should be spent on things people could see, like my uniform.

  “No, but—”

  Her tone was indulgent. “Ah-Kim, you should not be so sensitive. I’m sure all of the nice girls are changing where they cannot be seen. The whole world is not looking at you.” She gave me a quick squeeze and turned back to her work.

  I stared at Ma’s back, the bony ridges of her spine visible through her thin shirt, and I was suddenly so angry that I wanted to push her into the pile of dresses stacked in front of her on the counter. But then, as I breathed in the factory air, perpetually damp and metallic from the steamers, I felt guilt slice into my anger. Ma hadn’t bought a single thing for herself in the whole time we’d been in America, not even a new coat, which she desperately needed.

  As soon as I had a break, I tried to remove the rhinestones from the skirt, but it was impossible. The colored plastic had been glued to the waistband, and taking it off would mean leaving unsightly stains on the cloth. I searched through the cart filled with rejected fabric remnants and found a strip of dark cloth that could double as a sash. It wasn’t exactly elegant but the stones were at least covered. There were also several skirts that hadn’t passed Aunt Paula’s examination and I wished I were big enough to wear adult sizes.

  As usual, Ma and I ate the rice she’d brought from home. For Chinese people, rice is the actual food and everything else—meat, vegetables—is just an accessory to it. We had so little money during these days, though, that Ma put hardly any meat in with the rice anymore.

  When we got home, at around nine-thirty that evening, I was finally done with my day. It was the first chance I had to think about everything that had happened. I had spent the entire school day as the only Chinese in a crowd of white people. The ginger-haired boy, Greg, both fascinated and frightened me. It wasn’t only that he’d made fun of me. He looked so alien, with his incredible hair, pale green eyes and veins under his skin. And the girls in my class, with their blue eyelids and sunken eyes, their thick u
pswept lashes. I stared in the paint-flecked bathroom mirror at my face. I didn’t look anything at all like those girls. If they were pretty, then what was I?

  The next day, I went to meet my English tutor, Kerry, in an empty classroom. When I stepped inside the room, she got up and shook my hand. She was quite short and I could see the gap in between her two front teeth when she smiled. She told me she was a senior.

  I sat down and waited for her to tell me what to do, expecting her to pull out a grammar book. She waited as well.

  Then she said, “What should we do, Kimberly?”

  I stared at her. She was the tutor. In Hong Kong, I’d never heard of any teacher or mentor allowing the students to influence the material.

  She leaned back. “What would help you the most?”

  I needed help in everything. I thought for a moment. “To speak.”

  “Good. How about if we talk and I’ll correct everything you say that’s wrong?”

  “Yes! Thank you!” I was so glad to have someone actually help me to improve my English. I wanted to hug her.

  In our ensuing conversation, I found out that she was a scholarship student too.

  Reacting to my surprise, she said, “Not all the scholarship students are minorities, you know. This place is really expensive.”

  “How you like Harrison?”

  “How DO you like Harrison,” she said, correcting me. “It takes some getting used to, especially at first, but it helps a lot if you get involved in some activities. You know, like tennis or lacrosse. Or the school newspaper.”

  “Yes, that good idea,” I said, but I knew I wouldn’t do anything extra after school. Ma couldn’t get the shipments out on time without my help.

  Greg and his friends were feared. He had his targets, and his taunts were cruel and calculated: Elizabeth, so shy she rarely spoke, the whiteness of her skin punctured by freckles (“Miss Chicken Pox”); Ginny with her faint mustache (“Forgot our razor today?”); Duncan and his deep nasal breathing (“Duncan Vader”). He’d also smelled the mothballs in my clothing, which Ma and I used to keep the roaches away. All Greg had to do was pinch his nose when I walked by and a wake of laughter from his friends would follow me down the hall.

  My classes were much harder than those at my elementary school. Despite the relief of not having Mr. Bogart as a teacher anymore, I struggled to keep up. One of the biggest hurdles was the daily current-events quiz in Social Studies, which I failed time and time again. Mr. Scoggins did not understand why we couldn’t simply watch the six-o’clock news each evening, or take a peek at our parents’ New York Times.

  “If you don’t understand something, ask your parents about it,” he said. “Discussing the news is one of the most important things we can do with each other.”

  I imagined Ma and me having long discussions over a polished dining room table like the one at Annette’s house, Ma explaining the intricacies of Watergate. I did try to ask Ma about wildlife conservation when we had to read an article on it for class.

  “Why would anyone want to save animals like tigers?” she’d asked, baffled. She looked sad. “A baby in our old village in China was taken by one.”

  I saw her looking through my books sometimes, attempting to sound out a word here or there, but she kept trying to read from right to left. She had a thin book she’d bought in Chinatown to learn English and I tried to teach her on Sundays, but Ma had always been bad at languages. And the two languages were so different, it was as if I were asking her to change her eye color.

  At the factory, I kept the radio on while we were working, and tried to grasp the main events, but the boiler was right next to our workstation and made a regular hissing sound, drowning out many of the words. There was so much vocabulary I didn’t know. Even when I could understand the sentences, I usually didn’t have enough background to understand most of the stories.

  I managed in Life Science and Math because those subjects came naturally to me, but in my other classes it took me three times longer to read the textbooks in English than if they’d been in Chinese. I couldn’t skim at all. If my concentration sagged for even a moment, the sentence became incomprehensible and I had to reread the whole thing. Every few words, I had to look one up in the dictionary. Often, I could barely understand the questions, let alone the answers I was supposed to be finding.

  Trace the theme of violence in the story from inception to its inevitable climax; how is violence unleashed in each of the main characters?

  I looked up to see Ma getting ready for bed. Her fragile frame was weighed down by layers of clothing, bound together by a furry vest made out of the stuffed animal fabric we had found. She had pulled on her gloves but she still rubbed her hands together to warm them. That past summer, I had read a passage in a children’s book in which the father sat down with his daughter to teach her how to write a check. I thought about that scene often.

  “Can I do anything to help you?” Ma asked.

  “No, Ma.”

  She sighed. “You have to work so hard. Don’t stay up too late, little one.”

  I wanted to go to bed. I felt the back of my neck growing heavier, weighing down my head, my eyes. The apartment was dark and empty. A few mice scurried in the kitchen.

  I rubbed my temples and studied the question again.

  A few weeks later, I had just finished dressing in the toilet stall when I heard a noise from above. There was a large skylight in the ceiling and I saw shadows moving in it.

  One of the girls shrieked, “Boys!”

  There was the sound of laughter and footsteps above our heads, and then the shadows disappeared.

  Instead of being upset, many of the girls seemed pleased by this event and there was a great deal of whispering. The next day, Greg yelled down the hall as I passed by, “Are those boxing shorts comfortable?”

  The boys and girls around him exploded with laughter. I kept on walking as I burned with embarrassment. Something had to be done.

  “The other kids have started teasing me about my underwear,” I said to Ma at the factory.

  She flinched and I was glad, glad to punish her by having been right. This was Ma’s fault.

  “How did they see you?” she asked, not meeting my stare.

  My pain from all the teasing cracked open like a rice pot from the heat. “I told you, everyone changes together and everyone looks at each other! This isn’t China, Ma!”

  She was silent. Then she said, “We can go shopping on Sunday.”

  I had to endure the rest of the week before our shopping trip. When we had gym, Sheryl started peeking into the stall where I dressed. I heard her and the other girls giggling outside, and their laughter had become more merciless, as if the fact that I was still wearing the underwear was my silent consent to their teasing.

  On Friday of that week, in desperation, I wore my one swimsuit instead of my homemade underwear under my clothes. A neighbor back home had given it to me as a going-away present. It had become too small and the straps cut into my shoulders. The bright yellow material was faintly visible through the white of my shirt but its tightness was reassuring to me. At least this was new, store-bought; at least this was taut and trim like the others’ underwear.

  In gym class, Greg made a point of saying to everyone, “Hmm, are we going swimming today?”

  I realized I had only made things worse.

  We bought a package of panties for me at Woolworth’s, but the store didn’t have any bras that were small enough, so we had to go to the Macy’s across the street. Aunt Paula talked about shopping there and we knew we couldn’t really afford it, but there was nowhere else we knew to go.

  Under the sparkling lights, saleswomen sprayed passersby with perfume but ignored Ma and me. We were too poorly dressed, too Chinese. The counters were crammed with things we didn’t dare look at: leather handbags, fake diamonds, lipsticks. Girls were perched on stools having their makeup done by women in lab coats. The entire store smelled ripe and exotic.


  In the lingerie department, multicolored nightgowns, corsets, slips, bras were displayed like candy. Ma picked up a price tag, looked at it and shook her head.

  It was clear I could never fit into any of those huge bras on display. They were for women with real breasts, not the little bumps I was growing.

  “Ask someone for help,” Ma said.

  I wanted desperately for her to be able to ask someone for me, to take charge as I was sure Annette’s mother would have. But I picked up a bra, hanging voluptuous and full even though no one was wearing it, and brought it to one of the salesladies. Ma stayed behind me.

  My entire body felt flushed even before I spoke. “Do you have this? For me?”

  To my horror, the black lady burst out laughing. When she saw my face, she tried to stifle her giggles. “I’m sorry, honey, it’s just that you so little and this so big.” Her voice boomed.

  “Come on,” she said. “What you need is a training bra. What size are you?”

  “I don’t know. Seventy?” I made a wild guess based upon Ma’s bras, which had come from Hong Kong and were based on the European sizing system.

  The woman started laughing again. “You just too much. Someday, I promise, you will grow up to be a real woman. No need to rush things, baby. Now, let me measure you.”