Like Spilled Water

by Jennie Liu

  Gilbert rests his arms on his knees, looking down at me from the rock pile, listening, sympathy all over his face as I unload everything that I haven’t been able to talk about.

  “He was giving our parents trouble. I didn’t know that side of him at all. I keep thinking about the Bao-bao I knew from when we were kids. I used to have to trick him into doing his homework. But Mama always made it seem like he was the perfect student. She never let on that he was making things difficult or that he was unhappy.” I heave a breath out my nose. We’re all so absorbed with the narrow paths we’ve been assigned. Our parents with pushing Bao-bao to achieve at all costs. Me with my misguided resentment of him.

  Tears are welling up in me, from regret, from Gilbert’s compassion, from the stress of the last days. I grab another handful of gravel-sized rocks and throw them over hard, blinking the tears back. The rocks make a satisfying patter as they land and skitter downhill.

  “Did he leave a note?”

  I shake my head. No one mentioned a note, but all those composition books come to mind, and I begin to wonder.

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  I shrug, my heart sinking. The only thing I know for sure is that I am not going back to school. I hate to say it out loud, but I know in just a couple of weeks when I go back to Taiyuan, it will become very real. “I have to go to work now. My parents need me to help out with some debts. School’s over for me.”

  “What?” Gilbert shoots up and scuttles off the rocks. “No! Can’t you find something just for the summer? You only have two more years to get your degree!”

  “I’ve already got a job at my mom’s plant. With Baba not working . . .”

  “What about when he gets better? You still have more than six weeks before the term starts.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Mama must think it’ll take longer than that. He’s really not doing well. Besides, coal operations wasn’t really what I wanted to study.” I feel like I have to make excuses.

  “So what?” Gilbert throws me a quizzical look. “You were glad to be there. You made good grades, and if you graduate you’ll get a better job than sewing stuffed animals or working in a stall restaurant.”

  He’s offended because he helped talk my parents into letting me go to school, and I’m offended because it’s my future that everyone’s deciding on.

  “There’s nothing I can do about it!” My voice is sharp with the strain in my throat and chest. “I have to help my family!”

  Gilbert is sorry immediately. “Of course, of course. I know. We have to do what our parents tell us.” His face softens, and he reaches for me and pulls me into a hug.

  11

  The questions I have about Bao-bao don’t leave me, and late in the night after Baba and Nainai are fast asleep, I have a sudden impulse. I get out of my bedroll and lug the bag full of Bao-bao’s books up onto the kang with me. In the yellowy light of the bulb hanging from the ceiling, I pull out all his exercise books and arrange them into stacks by school year.

  When I have them neatly piled, I rest back on my folded knees. Science, Chinese, Mathematics, History/Geography, English, Moral Education—Bao-bao’s handwriting is blocky and precise on the covers. I picture Bao-bao in his blue-and-white polyester school uniform, sitting at his desk among the rows of students, doing the compulsory eye exercises before settling down to work on his assignments.

  My pulse, which just a few moments ago was racing with the idea of examining the books, has now slowed with the peculiar sensation that I am committing a trespass on Bao-bao, as if I’m snooping into his personal diary.

  But these are just his school things, I tell myself. And it’s just me, stewing with envy and resentment over his seven years of private schooling, who’s imagining he would care.

  I take one of his sixth-year workbooks and begin to turn the pages, not really expecting to find a suicide note, but looking for clues about his frame of mind. The book is tidy, with page after page of class notes and assignments in Bao-bao’s compact handwriting.

  I rifle through all the sixth-year books, then move on to the next year, progressing through the stacks of middle school. They’re all unremarkable except for the depth and number of his assignments, which causes an ache in my chest because the workload is so much more than I had at my village middle school.

  I’m well into the ninth year when I come across a drawing of Chairman Mao sketched in the margins of Bao-bao’s Moral Education notebook. I hold the book up to the light to get a better look at the drawing, which is small, done in pencil. With just a few strokes, the likeness of the stock image that often hangs in classrooms is unmistakable.

  A few pages further, there’s another drawing of Chairman Mao, larger this time with more detail and shading to his thick face and pointy collar. Bao-bao has gone off-model though, archly raising one of the man’s eyebrows. The sketch is clearly of the famous leader, but I have the eerie sensation that it’s Bao-bao looking up at me, wanting to know why I’m prying into his things.

  I methodically keep flipping the pages, but no other sketches appear until the tenth-year workbooks. Within the first few pages, Bao-bao has drawn a teacher with her back to the class. I suppose she’s his own teacher, and I smile, knowing he must’ve had to wait until she was writing on the board to avoid her catching him doodling an image of her instead of studying.

  Sketches of students pepper the rest of the notebook. They’re done in both pencil and ink, shaded by stippling and crosshatching, with more and more detail. First he’s drawing classmates hunched over their desks, but then he begins to draw people playing soccer, basketball, and guitar. The figures are realistic and lively, his skill improving rapidly, but I’m alarmed to see that his schoolwork falls off sharply as the pages are overtaken with artwork. Video game avatars and designs of mystical creatures begin to appear in his next year’s books, surely influenced by his growing interests outside of school.

  When I come to the notebooks for Bao-bao’s final year, I’m dismayed to find that they’re half empty. Lacking both schoolwork and illustrations. It’s as if he lost interest not only in his education but also his art. I remember what Min said about Bao-bao being practically addicted to video games.

  The last exercise book has a plain brown board cover that’s different from the others, but Twelfth-Year Moral Education is boldly printed on the front. I flip it open and immediately see that rather than the Communist thought essays, quotes, and theories that should be filling the pages, this book is a home for sketches. I go through the pages slowly. Elaborate drawings, portraits, and design studies cover every page. Min’s nine-tailed fox is here, taking up several pages as he developed it to the final version that I found under the bed. The design starts in pencil as partial studies, the face of the fox, the sweep of the tails, the images colored different ways as if he was testing out different color schemes.

  I recognize other images that started as doodles in his earlier notebooks and see how they advance to perfect works with sharp, bright colors. Bao-bao couldn’t have done them all in class because there’s no way he could work with an array of colored pencils and markers under the watchful eyes of a teacher.

  My legs, bent under me, are tingling so I have to move. I’m holding the sketchbook as I stretch out onto my stomach, and two large envelopes slip out from the back. I stare at them for a moment, my heart beating faster, dreading at what I might find there.

  I open the first one and pull out several pieces of torn, crumpled papers. They’ve been smoothed out, but the creases and rumples still show. I start laying out the pieces, fitting them together like a jigsaw. It takes me several minutes to figure out that they’re five animals of the zodiac. The dragon, which was Bao-bao’s sign, the snake, the horse, and the goat each pose fiercely against a pattern of blue and white clouds.

  The last one of the monkey is only half completed. Bao-bao must have spent hours on these illustrations; they’re intricate in detail and colored with complex shading
. What could have made him tear them up?

  I examine the monkey, looking for some flaw, imagining Bao-bao blowing up at some mistake he made and ripping them apart. Was he actually such a perfectionist? Or was he a loser who neglected his studies, shrugged off our parents, and played video games?

  I open up the other envelope and draw out a thin sheaf of papers. My breath catches as I carefully flip the sheets. Dragon, horse, monkey, all the other animals of the zodiac are here, done in the same style as the torn-up ones. Bao-bao started all over and finished all twelve animals. There are a few other mythical creatures as well: dragons, phoenixes, cranes, drawn in another style. I spread them out around me.

  The time he must have spent on them. How did he manage to hide all this from Mama and Baba, who clearly would’ve viewed drawing as a waste of time?

  Was it Mama or Baba who found these images and ripped them up? I picture the fury that must have been triggered when they saw that Bao-bao’s good mind was distracted from studying, that he was spending precious time doing art.

  But the waste of such a talented artist is another heartbreak. I can see he worked hard at crafting his skill in secret, that he wasn’t allowed to go in the direction of his heart. This is something I know more about than I care to admit.

  I slowly gather the drawings and slide them back into the envelope. Although I’ve found no note, I feel as if I understand Bao-bao a bit more now. Which only makes the gaps in my knowledge more glaring. There’s so much I will never know.

  12

  The next day, Baba has had a bad morning, and I’m about to clean the floor where he vomited in his room when I hear Gilbert’s grandma calling to Nainai at the door. I quietly set down the bucket of clean water and pull the connecting door of the two rooms closed most of the way, because Baba has sprawled out in a restless slumber on the kang in here. Still, their voices drift in as Nainai urges her friend to enter.

  Gilbert’s grandma chides Nainai for not telling her about Bao-bao, but her tone is gentle. There’s a brief scraping sound as Nainai goes back to peeling potatoes. She makes excuses: she just found out, they didn’t tell her right away, she was shocked and too despondent to go out, knowing the family has lost face.

  I swirl my rag in the bucket, hating that Nainai feels that way. Whenever something like this happens, people associate the family with bad luck. The gossip can be ruthless.

  At least Gilbert’s grandma is being kind. She clucks her tongue as Nainai talks. I hear her heave down onto a stool, and a clatter of ceramic as tea is made.

  “Ennh! How does one go on?” Gilbert’s grandma says.

  “There’s nothing else to do. We just have to.” Nainai’s voice is somber.

  “Gilbert says Chen Kou is suffering in the worst way. Is he here?”

  Nainai answers, but I suppose she tells her that Baba’s sleeping because their voices drop. I go back to washing the floor quietly, holding my breath against the sour smell. I work slowly because I’d rather not go out there.

  The floor is nearly clean when I hear Gilbert’s grandma say my name and chuckle lightly. I leave the rag, crawl closer to the door, and peer out. She sits at the table sipping tea, her back to me. Her hair is roughly cut like most of the older women’s, mostly gray and held back with a headband. Her neck is deeply tanned from working in the fields.

  Nainai stands at the table with a potato and a metal grater in her hands. “That would be a good situation. The ideal, really, but who can think about that now?” She bears down and scrubs the potato fiercely on the grater.

  Gilbert’s grandma reaches over and pats Nainai’s hand. “You don’t need to worry about any of it. I’ve been telling Huan all these years, and now that he’s secured this new job, it’s the right time. I’m sure the seed is planted. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t do something soon.”

  Nainai’s head bobs distractedly. “Yes, yes.”

  “Everything has changed for your family. You’ve been hit with an awful affliction. But our families have always been close, and we’ll try not to be as wary and . . . superstitious as some people are about these things.” She leans forward onto her elbows again. I can see one of her fists urgently but softly pound the table. “Now is the time to lock it in! It would be something for your son to look forward to.”

  I gasp and quickly slap my hand over my mouth. She’s talking about marriage. About Gilbert and me getting married. I think about Min’s ma and her frantic efforts to get Min matched up. I wrinkle my nose. Gilbert and I haven’t even really dated. Part of me wants to laugh out loud, imagining his face when she starts in on him.

  But part of me is grateful just to be thinking about something, anything, besides Bao-bao’s death.

  13

  After Gilbert’s grandma leaves I come out of Baba’s room. Nainai is sitting at the small table, staring into her cup. She’s never just sitting, not doing anything.

  “Ah, Na.” She glances at the bucket I’m holding. “All done? Is your baba still sleeping?”

  I nod.

  She pulls a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’re all grown up now. Such a help. You were always such help, even when you were as young as seven or eight. I remember when I got back from the fields you would have all the washing done and my dinner ready. And when Bao-bao—” She stops for a moment and looks away, taking a moment to collect herself before she continues. “He would be sitting here at the table doing his homework while you checked it over his shoulder and served up our food while you were at it.”

  I stand there with my bucket in hand, miserable, but glad that she’s talking to me about him. “Nainai, why did he do it? Was he so unhappy that a bad score seemed like such a hopeless thing?”

  She shakes her head, wisps of her gray hair falling over her eyes. “I don’t know.” She sighs heavily. “We didn’t know him much after he left us, eh?”

  I know what she means. Before when it was just the three of us, we were our own family unit. Nainai was our parent then. Even now, I’m more comfortable with her than I am with Mama and Baba.

  “Go ahead.” She swings a finger from the bucket to the door, gesturing for me to dump it in the yard. “After you dump that, you should go out for a while. I’ll stay with your ba. I’m not going to work in the fields today.”

  I start to protest but Nainai says, “Go, go. Go see Gilbert. You shouldn’t be with us old sad people all the time. Take a break. You’re both going to start work soon. You should see him while you’re here.”

  Outside, the sun is blazing. I dump the dirty water out in the lane. Nearby, three young children are scratching at the dirt with sticks. One of them, a girl in a ruffled tank top and pink plastic sandals, is using her stick to stir dirt in a can. With it being summer, there’s no school, so I know these children are left to entertain themselves while their grandparents work in the fields. Of course their parents have gone to the cities. They probably only know their parents as voices over the phone.

  Bao-bao and I always looked forward to our parents’ yearly visits. We’d be shy with them at first, but by the time they had to go back to work, we would be terribly unhappy about their leaving.

  I wouldn’t show it. I couldn’t, because Bao-bao would already be mad. He wouldn’t want to say goodbye, and after they left and called home he wouldn’t want to talk to them on the phone. I’d tell him that they were working hard for us. I’d scold him for being mad or sad. All the same things that Nainai or Mama had said to me until I started keeping everything inside. We never said we missed them, but we both did.

  I put the bucket back in the yard before I head for Gilbert’s. As I walk on the hilly road toward his house, the sun scorches. The countryside is still, except for the buzzing of the insects in the field. I’m not used to the quiet anymore. The loneliness and yearning I remember from my childhood creep over me. I always wanted so desperately to go somewhere, to do something. Soon enough I’ll be going to Taiyuan, which I longed for back then, but now that I’ll be
going there to work, my heart is cold as stone.

  Gilbert’s two-story home is just a few years old, built from the wages his parents sent home from their jobs in the south. It sits on a hill, a boxy vertical rectangle, above their old yaodong, which Gilbert says his grandma still prefers. I’m nearly there when Gilbert comes out. I smile to see that his hair is back to normal with his bangs hanging down to his glasses.

  “My nainai told me she just came from visiting yours,” he says. “I hope your nainai wasn’t too upset that I told her about Bao-bao.”

  “Don’t worry,” I reassure him. “It probably made it easier for her than having to tell your nainai herself.”

  “Is your ba doing better today? He must be since you’re out.”

  “Nainai’s watching over him. She pushed me to go out for a little bit.”

  “Good! Do you want to go to the village?”

  I grimace, not wanting to deal with the locals asking questions or gossiping about our family behind my back.

  “Of course not. How stupid of me. Let’s walk over to the old school?”

  I nod. We head up the lane, falling into step beside each other. The school is on a flat rise a few hills beyond the village. We don’t talk. I’m afraid that Gilbert doesn’t know what to say to me, so I say, “Our nainais were talking about your new job. When do you start working?”

  “Next week,” Gilbert answers, but he suddenly looks down at his feet and falls silent again.

  “What’s the matter? Are you sorry it’s not in a big city?” I know he applied for several positions, most of them in cities, but this one in Loufan is the only one he’s been offered.

  He sighs. “I guess I should be glad to have something. It’ll be a good start, and then maybe in a couple years I can find something else and transfer to a city.”