by Derwin Mak
I didn’t want to appear as scared as I felt, so we first talked about the quarantine. The principal had said it would last two weeks. Now he was saying it would not be over until the May holiday. We debated whether or not we should believe even that. Then I told Judy how strangely Mike had been acting and asked her if she had any idea what Mike and I had been doing differently.
“You two do not eat with us in the cafeteria,” Judy said as correctly as an instructor on a language tape. She even looked the part in her silk blouse and black slacks.
I smiled because I thought it was cute. “Can’t stand it.”
“What do you do?”
“Can’t say.”
“You sometimes have a burger smell.”
I felt my face flush. “So?”
Judy gazed at the forest, which was often obscured by white, smoky ribbons of pollution. We sat in meditative silence before I noticed workers shoveling near the brick wall.
“Is something wrong with the wall?”
Judy watched the workers add bricks beneath it. “No, they are keeping out foxes.”
“I didn’t know we had foxes.” I hadn’t even seen birds and thought pollution had killed them. “What do they do?”
Judy made a face as she concentrated. “They play.”
I couldn’t tell if she had meant to sound so ominous, but I could tell the answer was too complicated for her to fully explain in English. “What games?”
Judy looked as though I’d asked her to name every Chinese dish in the country. Then it occurred to me that someone else might have been suffering the same sorts of problems I was and had filed a complaint, attributing the problems to fox demons. Ridiculous superstitions.
“Can filling in the holes really keep them out?”
Judy shrugged. Of course not.
But, with Mike the way he was, I was willing to try anything. “Can they be killed?”
Again, that look of concentration on Judy’s face. “Foxes? Yes. Fox demons? Very difficult.”
“I’ve heard of garlic keeping vampires away. Can it work on fox demons?”
Judy shook her head. “The only people they leave alone are enlightened.”
Great.
I returned to my apartment and packed, prepared to stay at some other teacher’s apartment for the rest of my contract, which ended in August. Mike was still watching the news. I placed myself near the front door and faced him while gripping the straps of my duffle bag.
“Have you seen the fridge?”
Mike set his cup down on our coffee table. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you what’s up with that.”
“You went berserk at it with a butcher knife.”
Eyes narrowed, Mike leaned back and stretched an arm along the back of the couch. “Yeah, right.”
“Do you never wonder if, like, maybe you’re doing strange things?”
“You’re the one losing your mind, throwing stuff around. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m tired of cleaning up after you. Must be this freaking cabin fever.”
The warmth from my body drained into the tile floor. The days that had seemed to pass normally must not have. I took a deep breath, hardly able to believe what I was about to say. “Rabbit’s food might have something to do with this. Let’s try the cafeteria food instead.”
Predictably, Mike laughed. “You are so out of your mind, dude.”
I had hoped to leave before Rabbit delivered dinner, but then came a familiar pattern of loud knocks.
“Well?” Mike said. “Get it.”
“I don’t trust her anymore.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Mike pushed himself off the couch, shoved me aside, and opened the door. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and paid Rabbit, who handed him a bag. Then she handed me a bag.
Before, I couldn’t have resisted the smell of burgers and fries, but now it made me sick. I backed away. “No thanks. No more for me.”
Rabbit wrinkled her brow. “Why?”
I stared at her, wondering how I had come to suspect she was a shape-shifting fox demon. Was it like human rights, something that existed if enough people in the country believed in it? When I returned to America, would I still think she might be a demon?
Rabbit’s bewilderment mutated into a sly smile. She held the bag behind her back while her other hand slid down my arm, the one with the duffel bag. “I know what you really want. Why not take it?”
A treacherous desire trembled through me. I bolted down two flights of stairs and pounded on a fellow foreign teacher’s door before risking a look back up. No sign of Rabbit.
I settled in with the other teacher before braving the cafeteria’s greasy trays and hairy food. Like the rest of the campus, the cafeteria was half empty, which was no surprise since many students had left the boarding school. As I told the cafeteria workers what to add to my tray (there was no line to wait in anymore), I thought about how even young, healthy, local students could get diarrhea from this stuff. But diarrhea was the least of my problems now. I ate with some other teachers, who told me the best news ever. Since the demand for teachers had diminished, I could sign an early termination agreement with the school.
This I did. I should have dropped by my old apartment to say farewell to Mike, but I kept imagining him greeting me with the butcher knife. After I flew back home, my parents enforced the American government’s recommended quarantine of ten days for travelers from SARS-infected areas, which I accepted as a fitting touch to the end of my Chinese adventures. This last confinement was a breeze, thanks to my mother’s cooking.
I emailed Mike many times, but he never replied. The last news I heard of him came a year later when I met with a fellow former teacher at a dim sum restaurant. We were toasting to all the good times back in China when she mentioned that Mike had disappeared about a week after I left, officially dismissed for “wild behavior.” She couldn’t elaborate because that was all the principal would say to the remaining foreign teachers.
Away from Rabbit, Mike should have recovered. To this day, I still don’t know what happened to him. But whatever the case, I’ve kept him in my prayers.
Papa and Mama
Wen Y. Phua
PAPA was swimming listlessly in his glass tank, so Ning wrapped her hands around him, and though he writhed and flapped his reddish-gold tail, she managed to get him into a bowl of fresh water. He looked sicker than yesterday. She hoped the spoonful of salt she’d stirred into the water would invigorate him.
As she hoisted his heavy tank to the bathroom to scrub, she started singing what used to be Papa’s favorite tune. Sometimes, she wondered if he could hear her. After all, he was immersed in water, unlike Mama, who was perched in her carved wooden cage and could sing far prettier songs. But despite Ning’s doubts, she sang for Papa as he had sung to her when she was little.
Two years ago, not long after Papa and Mama had died in the train wreck and left Ning an orphan, Uncle had come home one morning with a fish in a red bucket and told her this was Papa.
She didn’t believe him at first. She was thirteen already, not a gullible little girl. But as she yelled at Uncle for lying to her, the fish popped its silvery gold head out the water, and as its gleaming black eyes met hers, a flash of tingling warmth shot through her, and she just knew ...
Uncle didn’t scold her, as he sometimes did for being disrespectful, but sat patiently with her to explain.
Each morning since the seventh and last day of her parents’ funeral, Uncle had risen before dawn and ridden his bicycle west along the dusty village streets till he reached the old bamboo grove Mama had enjoyed strolling through with Papa. There, Uncle would get off his bicycle and push two sticks of smoking incense into the ground. After telling Papa and Mama he was there, he’d hike down the beaten trail to the lily-covered pond where Papa had spent most Sundays fishing. For an hour, Uncle would trudge around, peering into the clear water, after which he’d head for work.
For ninety mornings, Uncle
had left the bamboo grove empty-handed. But on the ninety-first morning, he glimpsed a dazzling shimmer amid the reeds growing along the pond’s shallow edges. When he strode over, he spotted a luminous fish. It was shorter than the span of his hand and had a silvery head, a vivid yellow body blazing with orange streaks, and a reddish-gold tail.
Uncle knew there was no other fish like it in the pond. When he dipped his hands in to scoop it up, it didn’t swim away or struggle, removing any doubts in his mind that this was his brother reincarnated.
Now the fish was Ning’s to care for, which was her duty as his daughter.
Three days later, on the hundredth day following her parents’ death, Uncle found Mama flapping through the grove. Mama was a golden yellow bird with a silvery white crown, orange wing tips, and a red streaked tail that glistened under the sun. It was from these colors that Uncle knew her, and when he called her name, she came. Mama matched Papa in so many ways. They both were fond of the same colors, and now in their reincarnated forms, their body hues matched.
Uncle had bemoaned the fact that Mama couldn’t share Papa’s tank. But Ning secretly rejoiced when he said they could start eating meat again, for there was no longer any danger of them unwittingly eating her parents.
Two years had since passed. Papa had grown to almost twice his initial length. But now, he was ill. The more Ning thought of it, the more convinced she was of her failing. Uncle had always said it was his duty to give his brother and sister-in-law a home and keep them safe, but it was the daughter’s duty to see to their health and happiness. Ning wondered where she might have gone wrong.
Mama squawked when Ning transferred Papa back into the big tank. “Just a moment, Mama,” Ning said.
Mama continued squawking, making Ning’s skin prickle, but Ning finished tossing food into Papa’s tank before stepping to Mama’s cage in the corner.
“I’m here, Mama. Shh ...” Ning cooed to Mama, but Mama still screeched raucously.
Ning felt at a loss. Mama had never been hard to take care of. All Ning had to do daily was clean the cage and give her ample fresh water, seeds, and nuts. She’d done this already after coming home from school. Why then was Mama so riled up? Ning poked a finger through the bars, intending to stroke Mama, but Mama pecked at Ning’s hand, almost nipping her.
“Mama, please, what’s wrong?” Ning asked. She tried singing a lullaby, but Mama didn’t quiet down.
Soon, Ning had to leave Papa and Mama alone in their room, for it was time to meet her friend. With a heavy chest, Ning got on her bicycle and rode to Liwei’s house.
When Ning met Liwei, her petite classmate with a head of unusually frizzy hair, Ning smiled and laughed as usual. However, as they were halfway through their homework, Liwei dropped her pen.
“You’re not happy,” Liwei said. “What’s the matter?”
Ning faked a laugh. “Who says I’m not happy?” Tightening her grip on her pen, she looked down and continued with her essay.
“I’m your best friend,” Liwei said, but didn’t pursue the issue.
Ning forced herself to keep writing. Liwei’s understanding warmed Ning’s heart. Sorry, she wanted to say. But what could she tell Liwei? That Papa was a fish and Mama a bird? Her stomach felt knotted. She spent another hour scribbling, and then realizing she could barely concentrate, she told Liwei her head was hurting and went home. She hoped Liwei wouldn’t be too upset.
“Uncle, what do you think is wrong with Papa and Mama?” Ning asked when she sat down to dinner. “Papa has no energy, Mama is agitated.”
“Maybe they’re unhappy or worried about something,” Uncle said as Aunt piled white rice into a blue porcelain bowl and handed it to him. “How have you been doing in school? Do you have any problems? Animals can sense things, especially charmed ones like your Papa and Mama.”
Ning frowned. “Papa and Mama look pretty ordinary to me.”
“What do you mean, ordinary? Have you seen another bird or fish looking like them?” Uncle dipped a pot sticker into a bowl of black vinegar and sucked loudly as he bit into it.
“I mean they haven’t done anything special,” Ning said. It wasn’t as if they’d seen all the birds and fishes in the world, so how could they conclude Papa and Mama looked unique?
“You haven’t answered my question.” Uncle put his chopsticks down. With his thin angular face, thick brows and stout build, he looked awfully stern as he stared at her. “How have you been doing in school?”
“The problem isn’t me,” Ning said, hiding her exasperation. “I got ninety-five points in the last test. I haven’t done anything bad.”
Aunt gave Ning her bowl of rice. “Yes, Ning, you’ve taken good care of your parents.” Aunt’s small lips stretched out into a long smile as she rubbed her bulging belly. “I hope my child will be as filial as you.” Her glasses slipped down her flat nose, and she pushed them up with a knuckle, leaving a grain of rice stuck to her nose.
Uncle didn’t notice the white blemish on Aunt’s face and just picked up his chopsticks. “Ning will make a good big sister to our child.”
Ning stifled a chuckle and grinned at Aunt, who was always so caring that she made her feel at home from the first time she stepped into their house two years ago. “Uncle, why do you say Papa and Mama are charmed?” Ning popped some cold bean sprouts into her mouth, chomped fast, and swallowed so she’d be ready to respond promptly to whatever Uncle said.
“They were reincarnated just within a hundred days of their passing.” Uncle’s voice emerged muffled through his mouthful of rice and pork. He finished chewing and swallowed. “When I found your Papa, his body was glowing. Usually, when people are reincarnated, they lose all their memories, but your Mama—she knew her name. After I called her, she even settled on my hand.”
“What does it mean?” Ning asked. “Are they magical? Do they have special powers?” Could her parents bless them with good health and prosperity? Could they help her win a scholarship to a good university when she was older?
Uncle flicked his bushy brows up and down. “How would I know? I don’t know everything. But though they are charmed, they were not blessed.” He put down his chopsticks again and shook a finger at her. “Don’t you get attached to any single place, I’m warning you, or you’ll end up like your Papa and Mama. I want to be reincarnated as a man. And your poor Papa and Mama—one in the water, one in the air.” He shook his head as he retrieved his chopsticks.
For the next few days, Papa continued in his lethargy, while Mama continued squawking whenever Ning entered their room. Ning noticed Mama squawked more frenetically whenever Ning attended to Papa.
“I know,” Ning said one Friday afternoon after returning home from school. “Mama, you’re worried about Papa. And you’re angry with me for failing to take good care of him.”
Mama’s screeches escalated in pitch.
“Shh ... Mama.” Ning felt like clamping her hands over her ears, but approached Mama’s cage instead. “Mama, I promise I’ll make Papa well again.” Mama was so agitated Ning didn’t dare open the cage, so she just tossed seeds onto the cage floor.
Mama flapped her wings and squawked furiously.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Ning said as she slowly backed out the room and closed the door. The squawking dropped to a muffle, then ceased altogether.
What was wrong with Papa? Ning pondered this as she paced around the backyard. Her white shoes soon became brown with mud, for the ground was still soggy from this morning’s rain. The sky was beginning to clear, however. Sunlight pierced through broken clouds, reflecting off beads of water on the tree leaves and potted plants. While Ning made another circle around the backyard, a yellow glare caught her attention. It was a yellow flower with a pool of shimmering water gathered in its center, and as she blinked and looked away, its brightness left an imprint in her vision. She remembered Uncle saying how Papa had been glowing when he’d first found him in the pond. Ning wondered why she’d never seen Papa glow. Had it only been
temporary, or could it have something to do with the pond?
At this new thought, Ning grabbed her bicycle and a plastic bucket and rode off for the bamboo grove. She took almost forty-five minutes to get there because she made a wrong turn on one of the little dirt roads and ended up getting halfway lost and having to make a big detour. The ground in the bamboo grove was uneven and squelchy, so she leaned her bicycle against some bamboo and walked.
Through a brushwork of mist and a faint drizzle of rain, the pond looked like a painting, surrounded by dark green reeds and supple willow trees whose slender branches and leaves drooped into the water, which was strewn with lily pads. An aura of serenity coupled with a fresh green fragrance made Ning smile. Now she understood why her father had loved fishing here.
Not wasting any time, Ning dunked the bucket into the limpid pond. Soon, Papa would get better. She filled the bucket almost to the brim and struggled off, sloshing water. Her arms ached, but she refused to rest. She heaved the bucket up into the wire basket at the rear of her bicycle, spilling more water.
The bucket was only three quarters full when Ning got home. Ignoring her aching back and limbs, she transferred Papa into a bowl and washed his tank to the background sound of Mama’s screeching. The pond water filled only half the tank, but it was just enough.
To Ning’s disappointment, Papa didn’t glow or dart about with newfound energy. He only lay at the bottom, almost motionless except for the in and out movement of his gills and that ever so slight wavering of his fins.
Ning ran to Aunt, who was watching television in the living room.
“Aunt,” Ning said, clenching and unclenching her fists, “I tried my best. I brought Papa his pond water, but he’s still sick.”
Aunt patted Ning’s damp hand. “You can’t expect him to get well immediately. Anyway, how can pond water be the same as the pond?” She clutched Ning’s hands in hers. “Don’t worry. Your Papa was a good man in his previous life. Now he’s a good fish. He’ll be fine.”
