by Isabelle Li
Aunty Liu came from the south and her cooking had a mildly sweet taste, which I liked very much. She cooked us a big lunch, because we would be having dinner with my family.
Ming and I sat next to each other on the small table in the kitchen. We did not use our elbows to fight for space, as we normally did, and our chopsticks did not compete for the prawns. Ming even picked up a piece of pork rib and dropped it into my bowl. Our shoulders and knees occasionally touched and separated quickly. We both ate less than usual.
After lunch we went to his room. He closed the door behind us and took out from his carry bag an old magazine called Public Health. He showed me an article entitled ‘Male and Female Functional Anatomy’ and asked me to read the section on procreation. I found the whole affair extremely funny, though intriguing. I had not seen an erect penis before, and the illustration made me laugh a lot.
It was then that I realised that what I had thought was Ming’s funny bone was actually something else. In one of our many frenzied wrestling sessions, while I held him to the ground, I had felt something hard under my belly. When I asked Ming what he had in his pocket, he’d casually responded that it was just a funny bone in his groin.
I sprang up. ‘You lied about your funny bone!’ I tried to pinch him, but Ming grabbed my wrists, backed me to the door and kissed me on the lips.
Kissing on the lips had seemed repulsive to me because, from my reading of literature, one had to part one’s lips, which meant the saliva and possibly food residue would be exchanged. But to my surprise, Ming tasted clean, clear and cool, with no trace of lunch at all. I knew, at that point, that Ming would be the love of my life. Intelligent, yet uncomplicated, we would always be together, till death do us part. Later in my life, I learned never to be that happy, always to have reservations—for the unexpected. But how could I have known that back then, when I was seventeen, had never been away from home, was spoilt by ageing parents, protected by eight elder siblings, and adored by a childhood sweetheart?
After our first kiss, we explored each other for ten minutes. We would have gone further had we not heard his mother’s footsteps on the creaking timber floor.
Aunty Liu looked at us with some suspicion and gave us a pack of goodies she had selected for my parents from what Ming had brought back.
The rest of the afternoon, Ming and I talked about nothing but sex. Since it was new to both of us, we did not argue; we just pooled what we knew about the topic. We agreed that it would be too risky to do anything at home. He told me that some of his classmates were paying hourly rent to use residents’ homes around the university campus. At last we decided that I would apply to the universities in Beijing. I had previously been studying science because my parents both believed it was for the brightest. ‘Look at Ming,’ they used to say to me. But my results for science subjects were mediocre. Only last semester I had rebelled and refused to study unless I could change to arts. Since I was the only hope for higher education in the family, and had all eight siblings on my side, my parents capitulated. I had a very good memory and could recall Chinese, English, history and geography text verbatim. Meanwhile, I topped mathematics in the art stream because the exams were much easier.
Ming and I kissed and embraced many times, officially saying goodbye to the wrestling stage of our life. I felt that we had never been closer. We looked at each other and could not help smiling.
On our way to my house, Ming told me that he had met brilliant students from around the country. The atmosphere on campus was contagious. When talking about how they were planning to protest against corruption, he was almost shivering. We could not wait for the day when I would join him. I should be exposed to all the new thinking and we wanted to grow together. After we finished undergraduate study in Beijing, we would go to the United States for postgraduate degrees. I felt very motivated to do well in the university entrance exam.
In those days we had dinner at about five. Since it was May Day long weekend, all my siblings came together with their extended families. Mum put in extra garlic and coriander to marinate the scampi, and all two and a half kilograms were eaten.
Ming and I went for an evening stroll after dinner. Our favourite place was the riverbank, where willow trees spread their long branches, bending over and almost touching the water. Even now I still miss the late spring evening in my hometown. I miss the smell of new grass and soft earth at the end of a warm day.
Everything seemed so meaningful that evening— Ming and his friends’ ideas about the political and judicial systems, our plans and the infinite possibilities of our future. We did not challenge each other because we were too busy sharing our dreams.
There were many people on the footpath, but it was not crowded. The air had cooled down and the still water was reflecting the last gleam of daylight. The scenery was becoming fuzzy as the dusk set in, just like the way I felt in my heart. We lingered.
A car squealed to a stop. Three men in uniform got out. They walked towards the river, stopped beside us, unzipped their pants and started to pee. They seemed to be having a competition to see who could shoot the furthest and made lascivious reference to the bathhouse they had just visited.
I tugged Ming’s sleeve. His chest was heaving and before he turned to leave with me, he said to them, ‘Hey, the public toilet is around the corner.’ The eldest man, with a neck thicker than his head, looked back and started yelling the most awful swear words. We held hands and quickly walked away.
The youngest man ordered us to stop. We heard his footsteps behind us and stopped. Without any warning, he took a punch at Ming. Ming put one hand on his nose, and blood came from between his fingers. My mouth was dry, my chest hurting, and my gut churning. I threw myself at the man and caught him off guard. He stumbled backwards, lost balance and fell on the ground. The other men laughed. Ming and I ran away.
When we reached the road at the top of the bank, Ming looked at the black sedan. He then turned back and shouted, ‘Drink driving is a crime, even if you are from the district court.’ We left, furious. Ming’s nose was still bleeding.
A couple of minutes later we heard the car make a U-turn and drive towards us from behind. We glanced back and were certain they were trying to run us over.
We ran down the riverbank again but the car followed us along the road. Five minutes later we reached the end of the footpath. The smooth wall of the river dam was right in front of us, tall and unconquerable. The car was above us on the road.
We ran back, exhausted, and reached the other end of the bank, where a bridge crossed overhead, leading to the highway. We could not run anymore.
When we stopped, the car also stopped. The three men came out with beer bottles in hand. People nearby walked away as the three men spread out to approach us from three directions.
A hand pulled my hair from behind, so hard that I fell backwards on the pavement. Then the hand pulled my hair up and I was on my knees. The first slap hurt the most. After that I could only feel that my neck was bent backwards and it was hard to breathe. I struggled to get rid of the hand pulling me. With so many slaps attacking my face, my ears felt as if they were filled with boiling water. I could not hear very well but I heard the sound of bottles smashing.
The man beating me finally slowed, then stopped. He must have been tired. The others also stopped. I was pushed down, and my face hit the ground. They left.
I could barely raise my head, which had taken the brunt of the beating. My whole body was aching. Then I saw Ming lying beside me. Apart from the bloodstain from his nose to his chin, his face was peaceful and clean. I crawled over, tried not to put my weight on his body and listened to his chest. Then I checked the pulse in his neck. The forensic doctor later said that Ming had broken ribs, broken fingers and a broken spine. But he had lost consciousness with the first fatal blow to the back of his head.
I picked up a piece of broken glass and cut into my left arm. My white flesh opened up, then oozed red blood. I needed acute pain to feel I
was still alive. I needed a scar to remember this pain.
A few people came back. They surrounded us and tried to help. I looked up at their faces and all I saw was guilt and pretence. I condemned them one by one in my heart.
That day I decided to leave my country. I did not go to the US, because an Australian university offered me a scholarship. Twenty members of my family and extended family came to see me off at the bus stop. Ming’s parents were with them. They did not say a word, because Aunty Liu burst into tears whenever she tried, and Uncle Zhao just looked into my eyes, nodded, and squeezed my shoulders. I felt sorry leaving them, but I knew that it was the only way for me to survive.
I married a Chinese poet in exile who had once been put in prison for organising democratic movements in China. Today he is more a publisher, but he thinks of himself still as a poet and an activist. He travels a lot and attracts women followers with his traditional Chinese outfit and his long hair. We have two children.
When I left China, I took nothing to remind me of Ming and the dreams we shared, except his spectacles. They had not broken, probably because of their thickness.
I always wanted to tell my children the story of what happened by the riverbank, though I have not found the right time yet.
Amnesia
Ben had started at eight in the morning and not taken a break. He finished typing the notes. The grandfather clock reminded him that he was twenty minutes behind schedule. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, ran his fingers through his hair and tugged it a few times, gathering the final dregs of energy to face the last appointment of the day.
Across the corridor, a young woman was sitting on the sofa, looking out the window, a white blouse hugging her handsome frame, dark hair pouring over her shoulders, intertwined with a peacock green scarf.
Denise handed him the patient’s information sheet. ‘Miss Lindsey,’ Ben called. She rose, her skirt gliding over her boots. She was almost his height. They shook hands, her hand dry and firm. Close up in the afternoon light, her face struck Ben as so perfect that it was almost out of place.
‘Call me Ben. My surname is too hard for anyone.’ He used his standard opening line. ‘Sorry about the wait.’
She smiled, her long Eurasian eyes curled up at the outer corners, her white teeth sharp at the canines. ‘Call me Olivia.’
At the threshold to the consultation room, she hesitated. ‘This room looks familiar,’ she said while sitting down.
Ben scanned the room: off-white walls, grey blinds, a Chinese painting of angelfish, two abstract paintings of autumn and winter, the other two seasons in the waiting room. ‘In what way is it familiar?’
‘It reminds me of a similar room, except it was quiet, without the clock ticking.’
Ben reached up to the clock, opened the glass door and stopped the brass pendulum, freezing this moment in his life. ‘Doctor Schelom mentioned in his referral that you’ve been having issues with your memory.’
‘Memories elude me. Have you ever tried checking your own profile in the mirror? It’s there, but the moment you turn your head, it’s changed.’
‘Can you give me an example?’
‘When I came in, I remembered I was once in love with a neurologist. I arrived in London early in the morning. My luggage behind me bumped on the subterranean walkway. I rang him, surprised that we were in the same time zone, waiting for the day to start. A black man sat opposite me on the train. The whites of his eyes were red, and the tips of his fingernails had a tinge of yellow. In his lap was a pink plastic bag. He took off his cap to scratch his woolly hair.’ Her voice was plummy and mellow, its vibration permeating the space around them, making every object three-dimensional.
‘You seem to have remembered every detail.’
‘Until I sat down here, it had eluded me, obscured.’
‘Was the neurologist your doctor?’
‘Yes. He couldn’t love me because I was his patient. We couldn’t love each other.’ Olivia lowered her head like a swan, her eyes cast down.
Ben felt the hair on his arms standing on end, and a tingling sensation travelling down his spine. Is she looking into her mysterious past or ominous future? ‘When did you first notice the memory issue?’
‘I can’t remember,’ she said, without any sense of mockery. ‘My memories are candles waiting to be lit. But I don’t know what lies in the darkness.’
‘How do you differentiate the real from the imagined?’
‘Every experience is real—scent, colour, texture, sound.’ Her words registered in Ben’s mind. He could detect the faint fragrance of Olivia. Her peacock green scarf seemed to heighten her presence in space.
‘What’s your earliest memory?’
‘A memory yellowed with age, like an old photograph, creased.’ Olivia sighed and her voice softened. ‘Water around me, steam in the air, yellow light. I felt comfortable and secure, vaguely tired. A woman looked at me, like an angel in the cloud, smiling. Then her tears streamed down and fell upon me, salty. I heard a deafening scream, like a pair of scissors cutting the photograph into pieces, and I couldn’t breathe.’ Her eyes welled with tears.
Ben felt a pang in his chest. He pushed the box of tissues towards her. When she pulled one out, he had the urge to hold the exposed part of her wrist, and press her long fingers onto his heart. But he could only stare at her neatly trimmed nails.
Olivia had withdrawn, uninterested in any more conversation. Her mind seemed to have shifted to a different time.
‘You’re tired. I’ll order some tests and we’ll walk through the results next time.’
He walked her to the reception and took a last glance at her before handing the paper to Denise. He felt that all his senses had been sharpened. For the first time, he noticed Denise’s soft skin, her plump face and her slightly hunched shoulders. He felt grateful for her care and protectiveness.
Back at his desk, Ben closed his eyes and felt the energy Olivia had left behind dancing in the room. His head was spinning but he was happy.
Ben bounded up the marble stairs and opened the door to his apartment. He ignored the blinking red light and turned off his phone. An idea was emerging in his mind, like the scent of jasmine through the open windows of a night train, subtle, yet persistent. He walked onto the balcony and looked out to the green dome of the cathedral. Cold wind brushed his temples and cleared his mind.
He searched every room, and found the English translation of Luria’s book hidden among his undergraduate textbooks. He started reading right away and scribbled on a notepad occasionally: memory tests, colours and scents, journal entries, dreams, hypnosis. His notes went on for pages.
By the time he’d finished, it was nearly midnight. He went to the fridge and drank some cold milk. He did not feel hungry or sleepy.
From a set of narrow stairs, he climbed up to the roof terrace. The harsh wind threatened to blow off his scalp. He slid inside his studio and pushed the door shut. The two rooms were crowded with rolled-up crayon and pastel drawings, piles of Chinese ink paintings on rice paper, and a few unframed oils.
His body was filled with energy and he started painting.
Drizzling. Traffic at a standstill. Ben sat idle, watching raindrops trickling down along different pathways on the windscreen, merging, separating, being wiped away. He turned on the radio. Evening news: wars, earthquakes, politics, murders, a Supreme Court judge was found in possession of child pornography, a plastic surgeon was sued for having an affair with his patient.
James had rung today, asking if he wanted to join him in buying office premises to let to other doctors. ‘The capital growth is not as high as residential, but the rental return is steady, good to include in your investment portfolio.’ But Ben did not have a portfolio. He tuned to various stations, eventually selecting melancholy solo blues.
The streets were packed with cars, enclosed worlds with their windows shut, the rain falling between them. Am I looking out or looking in? Ben wondered. Peeping th
rough the screen to his left, he saw a woman in black driving a black vintage car. She touched her forehead, as though to feel her own temperature, then bent forward like a swan and rested her head on the steering wheel. It was Olivia Lindsey, who had not booked in for a second appointment.
Ben felt a shot of adrenalin, every cell in his body excited by the apparition and the premonition. He turned off the radio. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia … He called it out in his mind, studying the resounding effect, a string of large beads.
The wiper squeaked. The rain had eased. Ben wound down the windows to let in the cold air. Olivia opened her windows as well, and he was again struck by her beauty. Their eyes met but she looked away, with no sign of recognition. The sky had reappeared in light blue, with a brush of pink at the horizon.
The traffic started to move. At the next set of lights, Ben would be turning right. This evening would be no different from the many other evenings he spent alone. He watched Olivia slowly driving by. His heart missed a beat, as if he was about to fall. He flicked the indicator and swerved to the left. The car behind beeped. He was now in the lane of the vintage car, with a utility van between them.
The winter daylight was fading. The black car turned off the main road, leading him towards the old part of Sydney. On a street lined with liquidambars and sandstone walls, she stopped outside a small Catholic hospital. He parked a few spaces behind.
She walked briskly into the main building. He followed from a distance and veered towards the opposite side of the entrance hall, so he would seem to be on his way out when he passed the reception. She was talking to a sister, her body tense, hands flat on the counter. As he walked by, they were so close that he could feel one or two of her hairs flying at the vibration of his footsteps. He inhaled slowly, sipping in the cool, faint fragrance. ‘Mrs Lindsey … I’m sorry …’ He could only hear the hoarse voice of the sister, with her large spectacles and deep nasolabial folds.
