by Amy Tan
Ruth looked up and saw Wendy and Joe, gazing about the crowd. Behind them was Gideon, nattily dressed and perfectly groomed as usual, holding an expensive bouquet of tropical flowers. When Wendy turned and saw him, she smiled in mock delight, and he pretended to be just as enthusiastic. She had once called him "a star-fucker who practically gives himself neck strain looking past your shoulder for more important people to talk to." Gideon, in turn, had said that Wendy was "a vulgarian, who lacks the nuance to know why it's not good manners to grace everybody with lurid details of one's menstrual problems at the dinner table." Ruth had thought about inviting one and not the other, but in a stupid moment of resolve, she decided they would just have to work it out between them, even if it gave her heartburn to watch.
Wendy waved both hands when she spotted Ruth, and then she and Joe eased their way through the restaurant. Gideon trailed a comfortable distance behind. "We found a parking space right in front!" Wendy boasted. She held up her lucky charm, a plastic angel with the face of a parking meter. "I tell you, works every time!" She had given one to Ruth, who had placed it on the dashboard but only received parking tickets. "Hi, sweetie," Gideon said in his usual low-key manner. "You're looking radiant. Or is that sweat and nervousness?" Ruth, who had told him on the phone about Miriam's crashing the party, kissed him on both cheeks and whispered where Art's ex was. He had already suggested he act as spy and report everything appalling that she said.
Art came up to Ruth. "How's it going?"
"Where are Fia and Dory?"
"They went to check out a CD at Green Apple Annex."
"You let them go by themselves?"
"It's just up the street, and they said they'd be back in ten minutes."
"So where are they?"
"Probably abducted."
"That's not funny." Her mother used to say it was bad luck even to speak words like that. On cue. LuLing entered, her petite frame contrasting with GaoLing's sturdier one. A few seconds later, Uncle Edmund came in. Ruth sometimes wondered whether this was how her father would have looked—tall, stoop-shouldered, with a crown of thick white hair and a large, relaxed swing to his arms and legs. Uncle Edmund was given to telling jokes badly, consoling scared children, and dispensing stock market tips. LuLing often said the two brothers weren't similar at all, that Ruth's father had been much more handsome, smarter, and very honest. His only fault was that he was too trusting, also maybe absent-minded when he was concentrating too hard, just like Ruth. LuLing often recounted the circumstances in which he died as a warning to Ruth when she was not paying attention to her mother. "You daddy see green light, he trust that car stop. Poom! Run over, drag him one block, two block, never stop." She said he died because of a curse, the same one that made Ruth break her arm. And because the subject of the curse often came up when LuLing was displeased with Ruth, as a child Ruth thought the curse and her father's death were related to her. She had recurrent nightmares of mutilating people in a brakeless car. She always tested and retested her brakes before heading out in the car.
Even from across the big room, Ruth could see that LuLing was beaming at her with motherly adoration. This gave Ruth heart pangs, made her both happy and sad to see her mother on this special day. Why wasn't their relationship always like this? How many more gatherings like this would they have?
"Happy Full Moon," Ruth said when her mother reached the table. She motioned for LuLing to sit next to her. Auntie Gal took the other chair next to Ruth, and then the rest of the family sat down. Ruth saw that Art was with Miriam at the other table, what was fast becoming the non-Chinese section.
"Hey, are we in the white ghetto or what?" Wendy called out. She was sitting with her back to Ruth.
When Fia and Dory finally showed up, Ruth did not feel she could chastise them in front of their mother or Arlene and Marty. They did a mass wave, "Hi, everybody," then gurgled, "Hi, Bubbie and Poppy," and threw their arms around their grandparents' necks. The girls never voluntarily hugged LuLing.
The dinner began with a flurry of appetizers set on the lazy Susan, what LuLing called the "go-round." The adults oohed and aahed, the children cried, "I'm starved!" The waiters set down what Ruth had ordered by phone: sweetly glazed phoenix-tail fish, vegetarian chicken made out of wrinkly tissues of tofu, and jellyfish, her mother's favorite, seasoned with sesame oil and sprinkled with diced green onions. "Tell me," Miriam said, "is that animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
"Here, Ma," Ruth said, holding the jellyfish platter, "you start since you're the oldest girl."
"No-no!" LuLing said automatically. "You help youself."
Ruth ignored this rite of first refusal and placed a heap of noodle-like strands of jellyfish on her mother's plate. LuLing immediately started to eat.
"What's that?" Ruth heard Boomer ask at the other table. He scowled at the jiggling mound of jellyfish as it swung by on the lazy Susan.
"Worms!" Dory teased. "Try some."
"Ewww! Take it away! Take it away!" Boomer screamed. Dory was hysterical with laughter. Art passed along the entire table's worth of jellyfish to Ruth, and Ruth felt her stomach begin to ache.
More dishes arrived, each one stranger than the last, to judge by the expressions on the non-Chinese faces. Tofu with pickled greens. Sea cucumbers, Auntie Gal's favorite. And glutinous rice cakes. Ruth had thought the kids would like those. She had thought wrong.
Halfway through the dinner, Nicky, Sally's six-year-old, spun the go-round, perhaps thinking he could launch it like a Frisbee, and the spout of a teapot knocked over a water glass. LuLing yelped and jumped up. Water dripped from her lap. "Ai-ya! Why you do this? "
Nicky crossed his arms, and tears started to well up in his eyes.
"It's okay, honey," Sally told him. "Say you're sorry, and next time spin it more slowly."
"She was mean to me." He aimed a pout in the direction of LuLing, who was now busy dabbing at her lap with a napkin.
"Sweetie, Grand-Auntie was just surprised, that's all. It's only that you're so strong—like a baseball player."
Ruth hoped her mother would not continue to berate Nicky. She remembered when her mother would enumerate all the times she had spilled food or milk, asking aloud to unseen forces why Ruth could not learn to behave. Ruth looked at Nicky and imagined what she would have been like if she had had children. Perhaps she too would have reacted like her mother, unable to restrain the impulse to scold until the child acted beaten and contrite.
More drinks were ordered. Ruth noticed Art was on his second glass of wine. He also seemed to be having an animated conversation with Miriam. Another round of dishes arrived, just in time to dissipate the tension. Eggplant sautéed with fresh basil leaves, a tender sable fish coated in a mantle of garlic chips, a Chinese version of polenta smothered in a spicy meat sauce, plump black mushrooms, a Lion's Head clay pot of meatballs and rice vermicelli. Even the "foreigners," LuLing reported, enjoyed the food. Above the noise, Auntie Gal leaned toward Ruth and said: "Your mother and I, we ate excellent dishes at Sun Hong Kong last week. But then we almost went to jail!" Auntie Gal liked to throw out zingers and wait for listeners to take the bait.
Ruth obliged. "Jail?"
"Oh, yes! Your mother got into a big fight with the waiter, said she already paid the bill." Auntie Gal shook her head. "The waiter was right, it was not yet paid." She patted Ruth's hand. "Don't worry! Later, when your mother was not looking, I paid. So you see, no jail, and here we are!" GaoLing took a few more bites of food, smacked her lips, then leaned toward Ruth again and whispered, "I gave your mother a big bag of ginseng root. This is good to cure confusion." She nodded, and Ruth nodded in turn. "Sometimes your mother calls me at the train station to say she's here, and I don't even know she's coming! Course, this is fine, I always welcome her. But at six in the morning? I'm not an early birdie!" She chuckled, and Ruth, her mind awhirl, gave out a hollow laugh.
What was wrong with her mother? Could depression cause confusion like this? The next week, when they had
the follow-up visit with Dr. Huey, she would discuss it with him. If he ordered her mother to take antidepressants, maybe she would obey. Ruth knew she should visit her mother more often. LuLing often complained of loneliness, and she was obviously trying to fill a void by going to see GaoLing at odd hours.
During the lull before dessert, Ruth stood up and gave a brief speech. "As the years go on, I see how much family means. It reminds us of what's important. That connection to the past. The same jokes about being Young yet getting old. The traditions. The fact that we can't get rid of each other no matter how much we try. We're stuck through the ages, with the bonds cemented by sticky rice and tapioca pudding. Thank you all for being who you are." She left out individual tributes since she had nothing to say about Miriam and her party.
Ruth then passed out wrapped boxes of moon cakes and chocolate rabbits to the children. "Thank you!" they cried. "This is neat!" At last Ruth was somewhat becalmed. It was a good idea to host this dinner after all. In spite of the uneasy moments, reunions were important, a ritual to preserve what was left of the family. She did not want her cousins and her to drift apart, but she feared that once the older generation was gone, that would be the end of the family ties. They had to make the effort.
"More presents," Ruth called out, and handed out packages. She had found a wonderful old photo of LuLing and Auntie Gal as girls, flanking their mother. She had a negative made of the original, then ordered eight-by-tens and had those framed. She wanted this to be a meaningful tribute to her family, a gift that would last forever. And indeed, the recipients gave appreciative sighs.
"This is amazing," Billy said. "Hey, kids, guess who those two cute girls are?"
"Look at us, so young," Auntie Gal sighed wistfully.
"Hey, Auntie Lu," Sally teased. "You look kind of bummed-out in this picture."
LuLing answered: "This because my mother just die."
Ruth thought her mother had misheard Sally. "Bummed out" was not in LuLing's vocabulary. LuLing and GaoLing's mother had died in 1972. Ruth pointed to the photo. "See? Your mother is right there. And that's you."
LuLing shook her head. "That not my real mother."
Ruth's mind turned in loops, trying to translate what her mother meant. Auntie Gal gave Ruth a peculiar look, tightening her chin so as not to say anything. Others had quiet frowns of concern.
"That's Waipo, isn't it?" Ruth said to Auntie Gal, struggling to stay nonchalant. When GaoLing nodded, Ruth said happily to her mother, "Well, if that's your sister's mother, she must be yours as well."
LuLing snorted. "GaoLing not my sister!"
Ruth could hear her pulse pounding in her brain. Billy cleared his throat in an obvious bid to change the subject.
Her mother went on: "She my sister-in-law."
Everyone now guffawed. LuLing had delivered the punch line to a joke! Of course, they were indeed sisters-in-law, married to a pair of brothers. What a relief! Her mother not only made sense, she was clever.
Auntie Gal turned to LuLing and huffed with pretend annoyance. "Hey, why do you treat me so bad, hah?"
LuLing was fishing for something in her wallet. She pulled out a tiny photo, then handed it to Ruth. "There," she said in Chinese. "This one right here, she's my mother." A chill ran over Ruth's scalp. It was a photograph of her mother's nursemaid, Bao Bomu, Precious Auntie.
She wore a high-collared jacket and a strange headdress that looked as if it were made of ivory. Her beauty was ethereal. She had wide tilted eyes, with a direct and immodest stare. Her arched eyebrows suggested a questioning mind, her full lips a sensuality that was indecent for the times. The picture obviously had been taken before the accident that burned her face and twisted it into a constant expression of horror. As Ruth peered more closely at the photo, the woman's expression seemed even more oddly disturbing, as if she could see into the future and knew it was cursed. This was the crazy woman who had cared for her mother since birth, who had smothered LuLing with fears and superstitious notions. LuLing had told her that when she was fourteen, this nursemaid killed herself in a gruesome way that was "too bad to say." Whatever means the nursemaid used, she also made LuLing believe it was her fault. Precious Auntie was the reason her mother was convinced she could never be happy, why she always had to expect the worst, fretting until she found it.
Ruth quietly tried to steer her mother back to coherence. "That was your nursemaid," she coaxed. "I guess you're saying she was like a mother to you."
"No, this really my mother," LuLing insisted. "That one GaoLing mother." She held up the framed photo. In a daze, Ruth heard Sally asking Billy how the skiing was in Argentina the month before. Uncle Edmund was encouraging his grandson to try a black mushroom. Ruth kept asking herself, What's happening? What's happening?
She felt her mother tapping her arm. "I have present for you too. Early birthday, give you now." She reached into her purse and pulled out a plain white box, tied with ribbon.
"What's this?"
"Open, don't ask."
The box was light. Ruth slipped off the ribbon, lifted the lid, and saw a gleam of gray. It was a necklace of irregularly shaped black pearls, each as large as a gumball. Was this a test? Or had her mother really forgotten that Ruth had given her this as a gift years before? LuLing grinned knowingly—Oh yes, daughter cannot believe her luck!
"Best things take now," LuLing went on. "No need wait to I dead." She turned away before Ruth could either refuse or thank her. "Anyway, this not worth much." She was patting the back of her bun, trying to stuff pride back into her head. It was a gesture Ruth had seen many times. "If someone show-off give big," her mother would say, "this not really giving big." A lot of her admonitions had to do with not showing what you really meant about all sorts of things: hope, disappointment, and especially love. The less you showed, the more you meant.
"This necklace been in my family long time," Ruth heard her mother say. Ruth stared at the beads, remembered when she first saw the necklace in a shop on Kauai. "Tahiti-style black pearls," the tag said, a twenty-dollar bit of glassy junk to wear against sweaty skin on a tropically bright day. She had gone to the island with Art, the two of them newly in love. Later, when she returned home, she realized she had forgotten her mother's birthday, had not even thought to telephone while she was sipping mai-tais on a sandy beach. She had boxed the twice-worn trinket, and by giving her mother something that had crossed the ocean, she hoped she would also give the impression she had been thinking of her. Her downfall lay in being honest when she insisted the necklace was "nothing much," because LuLing mistook this modesty to mean the gift was quite expensive and thus the bona fide article, proof of a daughter's love. She wore it everywhere, and Ruth would feel the slap of guilt whenever she overheard her mother boast to her friends, "Look what my daughter Lootie buy me."
"Oh, very pretty!" GaoLing murmured, glancing at what Ruth held in her hand. "Let me see," and before Ruth could think, GaoLing snatched the box. Her lips grew tight. "Mmm," she said, examining the bauble. Had Auntie Gal seen this before? How many times had LuLing worn it to her house, bragging about its worth? And had GaoLing known all along that the necklace was fake, that Ruth, the good daughter, was also a fake?
"Let me see," Sally said.
"Careful," LuLing warned when Sally's son reached for the pearls, "don't touch. Cost too much."
Soon the pearls were making the rounds at the other table as well. Art's mother gave the necklace an especially critical eye, weighing it in her hand. "Just lovely" she said to LuLing, a bit too emphatically. Miriam simply observed, "Those beads are certainly large." Art gave the pearls a once-over and cleared his throat.
"Eh, what wrong?"
Ruth turned and saw her mother scrutinizing her face.
"Nothing," Ruth mumbled. "I'm just a little tired, I guess."
"Nonsense!" her mother said in Chinese. "I can see something is blocked inside and can't come out."
"Watch it! Spy talk!" Dory called from the other table.
>
"Something is wrong," LuLing persisted. Ruth was amazed that her mother was so perceptive. Maybe there was nothing the matter with her after all.
"It's that wife of Art's," Ruth finally whispered in her American-accented Mandarin. "I wish Art had not let her come."
"Ah! You see, I was right! I knew something was wrong. Mother always knows."
Ruth bit hard on the inside of her cheek.
"Now, now, don't worry anymore," her mother soothed. "Tomorrow you talk to Artie. Make him buy you a gift. He should pay a lot to show that he values you. He should buy you something like this." LuLing touched the necklace, which had been returned to Ruth's hands.
Ruth's eyes smarted with held-back tears.
"You like?" LuLing said proudly, switching back to the public language of English. "This real things, you know."
Ruth held up the necklace. She saw how the dark pearls glistened, this gift that had risen from the bottom of the sea.
FIVE
Ruth held LuLing's arm as they walked to the hospital parking garage. Her slack-skinned limb felt like the bony wing of a baby bird.
LuLing acted alternately cheerful and cranky, unchanged by what had just transpired in the doctor's office. Ruth, however, sensed that her mother was growling hollow, that soon she would be as light as driftwood. Dementia. Ruth puzzled over the diagnosis: How could such a beautiful-sounding word apply to such a destructive disease? It was a name befitting a goddess: Dementia, who caused her sister Demeter to forget to turn winter into spring. Ruth now imagined icy plaques forming on her mother's brain, drawing out moisture. Dr. Huey had said the MRI showed shrinkage in certain parts of the brain that were consistent with Alzheimer's. He also said the disease had probably started "years ago." Ruth had been too stunned to ask any questions at the time, but she now wondered what the doctor meant by "years ago." Twenty? Thirty? Forty? Maybe there was a reason her mother had been so difficult when Ruth was growing up, why she had talked about curses and ghosts and threats to kill herself. Dementia was her mother's redemption, and God would forgive them both for having hurt each other all these years.