Hummingbirds Fly Backwards

by Amy Cheung

  “You have to take good care of yourself—for him,” Yau Ying said.

  “I can do that,” I said. “He’ll protect me.”

  “Does this mean you’ll give Chen Dingleung a second chance?” Chui Yuk asked.

  “I haven’t seen Chen Dingleung in ages. He’s never been my backup choice,” I said.

  Chen Dingleung could never replace Sam. No man could ever take Sam’s place.

  The following afternoon, I ran into Chen Dingleung at a liquor store in Central.

  “Chow Jeoi, I haven’t seen you in ages,” he said.

  “What a coincidence running into you here,” I said.

  “The chance of us running into each other is higher than one in three hundred sixty-five. It doesn’t seem so unusual at all!” He still hadn’t forgotten about that one in three hundred sixty-five chance.

  “Ah, right,” I said.

  “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry.”

  “Did Chui Yuk tell you?”

  He nodded.

  “I really loved him,” I said.

  “I could see that. Every one of us has been tormented by love at some point.”

  He noticed that I was holding a bottle of 1990 vintage red wine.

  “You’re having red wine, too?” he asked.

  “I like red wine from 1990. That’s the year he and I met,” I said.

  Ever since Sam died, I’d been buying wine from that year. That day I was buying three bottles.

  “Well, 1990 is a good vintage,” he said. “Wines from that year are worth preserving. That’s what the books say.”

  “I’m lucky, then,” I said.

  I’d amassed eleven bottles of French red wine from that year. Chen Dingleung was right. The grape harvests from 1990 were good. Red wines from that year were constantly increasing in value. In fact, the prices had risen so quickly that I could now only afford a bottle a month.

  The previous spring, I’d planted tomatoes in the plot of land that Sam gave me. Now Cherbourg was plowing the field. He was a year old, and he was healthy and strong. Big, red tomatoes were starting to appear in the field, and I gave lots of them away to Chui Yuk and Yau Ying. The tomatoes that I’d grown seemed to taste especially good. Daihoi and Yau Ying wanted to get a plot of their own.

  One day a few months later, I met up with Chui Yuk. She said she had something she wanted to give me.

  “What is it?”

  “Open it up and see,” she said, handing me a paper bag.

  Inside was a shadow box that contained something that sort of resembled a honeybee, but not exactly. It had feet and two iridescent wings that gleamed like gemstones.

  “It’s a hummingbird. You said you wanted one, didn’t you?”

  That was a long time ago.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “Yu Mogwo gave it to me.”

  “Are you two back together?”

  “We’re not getting back together, but we see each other every once in a while.”

  I examined the taxidermic specimen for a long time. It was the only thing that could fly backwards. It’d be nice to be able to travel backwards into the past. I’d be able to hold Sam in my arms again; we’d be keeping each other warm. Our love was a lot like a hummingbird: it was singular in this world.

  I took the hummingbird home with me and bought a twelfth bottle of red wine from 1990. That day was the coldest yet of the beginning of winter. I wrapped myself in a blanket and put on “I Will Wait for You,” which I hadn’t listened to since Sam died.

  Tap-tap-tap-tap. Someone was knocking at my window. I moved the picture away from the window. But no one was there. I opened the window, letting in a bone-chilling wind, but no one was outside. I recalled how Sam always told me, “I’ll never leave you.” It was on a freezing cold night like this that I saw him outside my window, and it was for the last time.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2013 Amy Cheung

  Amy Cheung is one of Hong Kong’s most popular writers, well known throughout the Chinese-speaking world. Her first novel, Women on the Breadfruit Tree, appeared in serialized form in the daily newspaper Ming Pao. She has written more than forty widely acclaimed books, including novels and essay collections.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Photo © 2016 Polly Watson

  Bonnie Huie is the translator of the forthcoming Notes of a Crocodile by Taiwanese countercultural icon Qiu Miaojin and the liner notes for the Golden Melody Award–nominated debut album by Taiwanese jazz double bassist Vincent Hsu. Her translation of the story “Under the Cherry Blossoms” by Japanese modernist Motojiro Kajii was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she is a past recipient of a PEN Translation Fund Grant. Her work appears in PEN America, Kyoto Journal, the Brooklyn Rail, and the Margins.