Meet Me at the Intersection

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  As she walks past the room she had her first session in, she remembers thinking then that an appointment with a psychologist didn’t resemble the ones in TV shows. Her psychologist was in the same medical centre as her regular doctor, in a normal room complete with a hospital bed, a desk, three chairs and even a plastic skeleton. No windows, nothing to suggest an effort to cheer up mentally ill people. It was somehow comforting.

  Except that she had had to tell her psychologist everything that had happened leading up to that moment. Relive it all again. Stab her heart with the same persistent knife, albeit the blade was now blunter. Or perhaps her skin had grown thicker from the pain.

  First session. A clipboard and a pen, ready to record any noteworthy point she recounted. At least that was the same as what she had imagined a psychologist to be like.

  Where should she even start?

  ‘Your name is French,’ her psychologist commented before Fleur could begin. She was a soft-spoken, gentle-looking Chinese lady who’d also gone to the University of Sydney.

  Of course there would be a bilingual psychologist, Fleur thought. It is Hurstville after all, probably the only suburb other than Chinatown where Chinese shop signs outnumber English ones. Even with English as her first language, Fleur was comforted that she could use Mandarin to supplement her story. Everything that had contributed to her mental health crash had occurred in China, and all the grief, hurt and betrayal had followed her to Australia despite the physical distance; haunting her memory in a different tongue.

  ‘Yes, my grandma gave me the pet name Fang Fang in Chinese before I was even born.’ Fleur paused to write down the characters: , which her psychologist recognised immediately as the ones used to describe the fragrance of plants.

  ‘My zodiac sign is the ox, and she thought it’d be nice if I had fragrant grass around me so that I wouldn’t go hungry.’ Fleur let out a small smile at the thought of her grandma. At least she was still alive. Grandma was probably her last real connection to China. ‘And Mum carried a bit of the meaning over with a French name. You know I couldn’t have the name “Fang Fang” and have everyone in this country pronounce it as fang.’

  ‘Yeah, how exhausting if you had to explain that it’s pronounced “Fung Fung” every time, and that it doesn’t mean the tooth of a venomous snake, right?’ her psychologist chuckled, picked up her pen again and settled her clipboard on her leg. Small talk was over.

  Words so often lose their colour in the face of mental illness. Words, powerful enough to change the world, break up relationships, tear a family apart, seem too feeble to describe the evils of mental illness. How corrosive, debilitating, isolating it is as it consumes you, while still possessing the power to make you blame yourself for what is happening, or resent others for not understanding.

  Yet use words she must.

  ‘Dysfunctional families’ was not really a term you would ever hear in China. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if there was an equivalent term in Chinese. Sure, every family has its own problems, encapsulated in the old saying: . But simultaneously, the Chinese believed in , the equivalent of Do not wash your dirty linen in public. Fang Fang had long ago figured that, collectively, they meant that every family had their own troubles but it was nobody else’s business, really.

  If you looked at her uncle’s side of the family, you would think they were the pride of the entire extended clan — all of the aunties and uncles and cousins and distant kin unrelated by blood would sing their praises constantly, but in truth, envy snarled from the bottom of their hearts.

  This uncle seemed to have everything the Chinese could want — money, status, and a ‘successful’, money-making son to ‘continue’ the family name. The true Chinese dream.

  And what of Fang Fang? The child of an unimpressive daughter who never ‘made it’ overseas. A failed marriage. A failed career. Fang Fang was doing better than her mother — she’d gotten into a prestigious, world-class university law school. But her achievements could never be that impressive when she was not even born in China. She was the little foreigner. Whenever Fang Fang held a different view, or failed to observe some obscure tradition that seemed obvious to them all, however, her relatives would reprimand her with: But you are Chinese after all. You can’t forget your roots.

  Grandpa passed away in April. It would be May by the time they reached China.

  The only flight that could carry them from Sydney to Shanghai in time for the funeral was the budget airline that imposed a fourteen-hour transit in a city Fleur had never been to, and did not plan to visit ever again. 04:00 arrival in Kuala Lumpur. 18:00 boarding time to Shanghai. Actual limbo.

  Every trip to China before this trip might have been tiring, but at least joy had waited on the other end.

  Year after year, instead of spending Christmas and summer back home in Sydney, they would pack suitcases laden with ‘authentically Australian’ healthcare products for the older relatives and ‘original packaged’ English-speaking DVDs for the younger ones, and set off for wintery Shanghai. Fleur could never decide if she liked going to Shanghai or not. Part of her insisted: Of course you do! You love seeing your grandparents! And that was true. But part of her loathed how draining it was. Financially, yes, but most of all physically and emotionally. Especially emotionally. It was always hard to leave. As her grandparents’ age increased, every reunion seemed to herald one less reunion. Any reunion could be the last. How could she have known back in February, telling Grandpa she would be back by the end of the year to see him, that there would be no ‘next time’?

  Every year, they would approach the only green door in the entire row of apartments. The number ‘109’ was painted in red on the green door, just discernible behind the metal security grill. Fang Fang would press the doorbell on the top left corner, not believing she still had to tiptoe to reach it.

  The exhaustion from an eleven-hour flight on top of a two-hour metro ride could never dampen Fang Fang’s and her mother’s happiness in seeing the two elders. In the first few years, Grandma would open the door without a moment’s delay, as if she had been counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds, until the doorbell rang. After Grandma took up residence in a rehabilitation hospital, Grandpa would shuffle up to the door after a while, and after asking them if they had a good flight, would clasp Fang Fang’s hands in his and say, ‘I’ve just been re-reading your old letters!’

  No more joy from Grandpa waiting for her in China. No more letter writing. No more airmail from ‘5/57 Oxford St Hurstville NSW 2220 Australia’ to 299 109 (Shanghai, PRC)’.

  No more Grandpa, on this earth.

  The tears threatened to burst out like hot water from a boiled kettle again. Fleur quickly rubbed her eyes, and put the metaphysical lid back on before she could erupt.

  She needed to do something. Anything to distract herself.

  She dug out a pen and the flight confirmation papers, and set her pen off on the blank spaces between the printed words:

  I don’t know how we’re going to face the funeral. Part of me just wants to cry and shut everyone out. Part of me knows basic courtesy is still required around relatives, regardless of whether they truly cared for grandpa in their hearts or not.

  I want to support Mum, & I’m sure she wants to support me too. We’re just both not in the state to do that well.

  Why did Uncle lie to us? Why make out as if Grandpa’s illness was ‘nothing serious’ — push us up to the hill of hope before plunging us into the abyss with the sudden news of his death? Why insist that Mum shouldn’t go back to take care of grandpa and then blow the smoke of guilt in our faces when it was all too late, saying we did nothing to help?

  If Grandpa’s condition really was so bad, near the end — why prevent us from seeing him one last time? Why didn’t Uncle send him to a hospital to receive proper treatment at the earliest time? It wasn’t as if Uncle couldn’t afford it! It wasn’t as if they lived in a remote country town with no access to medical help! It was ! Big
city Shanghai, for heaven’s sake.

  The more Mum and I think about it, the more suspicious Uncle’s conduct becomes. As if he was hiding something from us. Taking advantage of the fact that we live all the way over in Australia so that he can mask the truth or twist it however he wants, knowing full well that he’s been our only channel of information regarding Grandpa’s health condition.

  When he didn’t reply for days on end, ignoring every frantic phone call and Wechat message sent by Mum, we knew something was off.

  When Mum’s old uni friends told her he was in a nursing home instead of a proper hospital, & that the carers strongly advised Uncle to take Grandpa to proper doctors for his bleeding situation, Mum lost it.

  What kind of a son says ‘I’ll think about it’ in terms of saving his own father’s life?!

  ‘He did it on purpose. He didn’t want him to live,’ said a relative who may be the only relative who cared about Grandpa as much as we did.

  We cannot even conceive of that possibility. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

  Fleur remembered how, at that first session, her psychologist had widened her eyes in the same incredulous expression she’d seen on the faces of her Sydney friends when she had finally opened up to them in July.

  ‘Had there been any family conflict that might have led your uncle to be so …’

  ‘Callous?’ Fleur finished for her.

  None that she nor her Mum had created. If anything, they’d both tried to stay out of any conflict. Always taking a step back, always offering reconciliation. But any act of kindness was taken as weakness, acquiescence for the uncle to climb one step higher upon their heads.

  Fleur told her psychologist about being in the kitchen, helping her aunt to prepare Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner, when it had happened. Grandpa’s apartment was not large — the front door opened into the kitchen. A tiny corridor on the right-hand side of the stove led into the living room, which doubled as the dining room. Grandpa positioned his desk under the window, creating an impromptu office space.

  As tradition demanded Uncle’s presence as a son, Chinese New Year’s Eve was one of the only times Uncle ever deigned to visit Grandpa. To bring Grandpa’s attention to his arrival, he would put his meaty hand on Grandpa’s shoulder — regardless of whether grandpa was engrossed in a history book or the stock market trends — and offer some kind of grunt as hello.

  Grandpa would look up, peer at him from behind his heavy glasses that magnified his eyes, and say, ‘Oh, you’re here.’

  In response, there would be no How has your health been, Dad? Have you been sleeping well? Eating well? Classic questions of care that demonstrated filial piety, questions that Fang Fang’s mother would ask without fail, and not because she was obligated by tradition to do so.

  At the demand of the aunt for more pak choy, Fang Fang’s mother left to pick up more groceries for the family feast. Fang Fang was left to have a strained conversation with her aunt, who refused to believe that Fang Fang and her mother could resist all of the shopping centres, restaurants and tourist attractions in Shanghai to stay in this dingy unit with Grandpa.

  ‘Grandpa and I chat.’

  A scoff. ‘You’ll need to shout for him to hear you.’

  ‘But he can read. We communicate with pens. Written words.’

  Fang Fang discerned a slight pause in her aunt’s stir-frying action. She hoped the pause was from a twinge of guilt.

  ‘No! Absolutely not!’ her uncle bellowed in the other room.

  Fang Fang sprang back in shock. Her aunt turned off the stove halfway through her braised pork dish and peered down the corridor with her.

  Her uncle was standing next to Grandpa’s desk, his left fist clenched tight. His facial features intensified, scrunched together in the centre of his face. He was nearly six-foot, complete with a potbelly and unnaturally black hair combed back to hide his balding spot. The classic look of a Chinese official pampered with too many under-the-table treats at fatty feasts.

  A low growl from Uncle ensued: ‘This apartment is mine. It’s been under my name since it was bought. I will never agree to dividing its value with her!’

  ‘Her’ undoubtedly referred to Fang Fang’s mother, who told Grandpa from the outset that this wasn’t a good idea, that her brother’s love for money would turn her into his enemy.

  But what her uncle deliberately left out — or perhaps had long forgotten — was that this apartment had been bought by Grandpa with his own money. Back when Uncle and his wife were struggling as laid-off workers, Grandpa had bought two apartments and put them both in his son’s name to provide him with some sense of security. At that time, Fang Fang’s mother had still been married, living in a two-storey house in a northern Sydney suburb. She’d had no problem with her father’s decision to help out her brother in this way.

  Now, Fang Fang’s mother was the one who was struggling as a single mother. Fang Fang was the only child in the extended family who was still studying. Surely it was not unreasonable to want to leave something for them? Grandpa must have said this, or uncle would not have flown into a rage in this way.

  Her aunt’s face was turning more scarlet by the minute. Not from shame, but from anger. Self-righteous anger.

  ‘You’re going to take what rightfully belongs to me, me, your only son, for her? Someone who’s not even a citizen of our country?’ her uncle raised his voice even louder. ‘You’re not going to give her any of my money. I’ll never agree to this!’

  Grandpa raised his voice too. ‘This is my decision and my money to divide. You are both my children no matter where you live. Are you signing the agreement or not?’

  For someone who didn’t grow up with a father, the sight of two men arguing froze Fang Fang in place.

  Her uncle scrunched up the piece of paper Grandpa was holding out to him and stormed towards the kitchen. Fang Fang didn’t move, couldn’t move — the potato she had been peeling was still in her hand. She should move to make room for him to pass through, but what if her movement reminded her uncle of her existence, prompting him to attack?

  Uncle shoved past her roughly. The man who had been so used to being right, so used to being lifted up in the sky by family praises and compliments, looked like a four-year-old deprived of his favourite toy. Except that his face burned more viciously than a childish tantrum, his eyes glowered more hatefully than could be expected from a family member. He tilted his head at the front door, and his wife, whose face resembled melting red wax, turned resolutely and walked out before him. Fang Fang could not believe they were walking out of a New Year’s Eve dinner.

  It had been the first major rift in the relationship.

  Money 1; family 0.

  ‘He let him die because of money. You should’ve seen him as soon as the funeral ended — he was all smiles. As if he’d just rid himself of a burden,’ Fleur told her psychologist.

  ‘I guess he has the money all to himself now,’ the psychologist mused.

  ‘But he’s still not satisfied. Mum never wanted to fight with him over money precisely because he was her brother. We’ve done nothing wrong, but he has never stopped attacking and antagonising us since that argument with Grandpa. He even had the audacity to tell us he refused Grandpa’s dying wish of leaving us some money. I stopped him was what Uncle said. As if he had done a glorious thing, refusing a dying man’s wish — his own father’s dying wish. Absolutely no remorse. I never realised such … evil, could exist in my own family. At least we always saw him as family. But now I realise he sees us as outsiders — ever since Mum moved away.’

  Organ failure, resulting from intentional negligence, resulting in the victim bleeding to death, slowly and painfully. Grandpa had died without dignity. Without love. Without true family beside him. Fleur would’ve never found out the truth if her mother hadn’t called up the carers in the nursing home herself.

  How was one supposed to feel when the victim of this crime of neglect was none other than her dear grandfather, who’
d taught her Tang poetry, chastised her with classical idioms, discussed world politics with her, shared buckets of snacks with her … the one person who’d left an indelible mark on her by training her in Chinese handwriting. His style of calligraphy was so evident in hers that her HSC Chinese teacher had noted that Fleur’s handwriting had a male quality to it.

  Until the world came crashing down in June, Fleur had never imagined she was capable of feeling so down for so long. Even smiling was an effort, and even when it came, the expression felt so alien to her facial muscles that she always checked herself. Even talking could trigger a flood of tears. Even singing to Disney songs could not lift her mood. She hadn’t believed she could deteriorate like this.

  Ever since the funeral, she’d been like an overfilled, boiling kettle; ignored for too long on high heat. But the lid put on grief was never meant to hold forever and much like that kettle, would eventually spurt out burning water.

  She had not been stronger than her mother, nor was she indifferent or recovering. She had been distracting herself with university, an internship, friends, bushwalks, social events, social media … hoping the passage of time would cure her pain. All the while, her internal wounds boiled and boiled. The lid she had put on her grief was only effective for so long. It had allowed her to function for a time — to smile, to respond to this society that still went on as if nothing had happened, as if nobody had been lost.

  Adjustment disorder, her regular doctor had written on her special consideration application form. The term sounded almost benign compared to the extremely severe depressive and anxiety symptoms her psychologist said she was experiencing.

  Only ten minutes until her fifth psychology session. As she sits in the waiting room, she anticipates the usual How are you feeling? question, and feels for her psychologist (and for herself), when she anticipates the answer will be: My grandma passed away last Thursday.