Bury What We Cannot Take: A novel

by Kirstin Chen

  “A simple accident,” Seok Koon said. She launched into the explanation she and Bee Kim had prepared. “My mother-in-law—oh, she’s so clumsy in her old age! She was aiming the hammer at a photograph of—”

  Comrade Koh interrupted. “Exit permits take at least a month to process, maybe six weeks.”

  Seok Koon contorted her face to express deep sorrow. “My husband could leave us in a matter of days.” She stared at a spot on the desk until her eyes watered. “There must be an exception you can make?”

  The director frowned, his bushy eyebrows forming a V in the center of his forehead. “The Party is very sorry for your troubles, but four exit permits is simply impossible.”

  She flung herself across the table and grasped the director’s clammy hands. He shrank back in surprise.

  “My husband wants to see his children before he goes. Surely you can find it in your heart to help us.”

  And then, a miracle. The director’s round face softened like a lump of uncooked dough. Seok Koon swore she caught a glimmer of warmth in those beady eyes.

  “Two permits may be possible.”

  She sat up. “What good would that do?”

  The director puffed his chest. “I’m going to say this one last time. Four exit permits is out of the question. I’m almost at my monthly quota and it’s only”—he glanced at the calendar on his desk—“only May twenty-first.”

  “Forgive me,” Seok Koon began in her most contrite tone.

  He cut her off. “You’re wasting my time. Come back when you’ve made up your mind.” He shut her file and tossed it atop a towering pile. The file skidded off and landed on the grimy floor, spilling its contents in a graceful fan. The director scowled at the papers and then at Seok Koon.

  Somehow her legs hauled the dead weight of her body out of the safety bureau, past the never-ending queue, and up the road. Just beyond the gates of the former Methodist Girls’ School, renamed Dragon Head School after its street, two girls held a thick rope of interwoven rubber bands at shoulder height, while a third took a running start and scissored her legs across the rope with startling grace. The girls’ cheers rang out like sirens. Seok Koon ducked her head and pushed on. In the leafy, bougainvillea-filled gardens of the sanitarium that was open only to high-level cadres, a nurse pushing an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair chattered on in a loud, cheerful voice. But Seok Koon saw the old man’s face was blank as paper, that the nurse might as well have been talking to herself.

  Outside the villa, Seok Koon’s arms hung dumbly at her sides; she could barely lift them to open the heavy gate. Her mother-in-law loved to boast that Diamond Villa’s gate was the islet’s largest and most ornate—no mean feat in an area filled with lavish mansions, built by overseas Chinese who’d made vast fortunes in Southeast Asia. In truth, Seok Koon found the gate ridiculous in its opulence and in its irreverent mélange of Eastern and Western architectural styles. An archway of art deco sunbeams crowned the towering wrought-iron doors, which were lined with a dozen carved canaries holding coins in their beaks, supposedly bestowing blessings on four generations of Ongs. Now, more than ever, those canaries seemed to taunt Seok Koon as they reveled in their boundless good fortune.

  On the front landing, the wives who’d taken over the villa’s first floor squatted in a circle, scrubbing tubs of laundry while their half-clothed children splashed in the overflow. At the sight of Seok Koon, the women stopped talking and stared unabashedly, daring her to reprimand them, as she had the first time they’d commandeered the landing. She trudged up the stairs.

  The following morning, Seok Koon marched into the safety bureau clutching a pink cardboard box of French pastries with a fat envelope of money tucked in the corner. She and Bee Kim had agreed there was nothing to lose.

  She offered the director the pastry box with both hands. Comrade Koh lifted the flap, plucked out the envelope, and tossed it on the table in disgust. He whispered fiercely, “Are you trying to get both of us in trouble?”

  From the other side of the thin wall came the clack-clack-clack of a typewriter. Seok Koon berated herself for heeding her mother-in-law’s advice. Could she even convince the director to give her the two permits he’d initially offered? Maybe Ah Liam and Bee Kim could leave first. She’d stay behind with San San and wait for two more. But her mother-in-law was so frail, she could no longer walk without a cane. How could she get herself and the boy all the way to Hong Kong?

  Meanwhile, the grim-faced director was shuffling the papers in Seok Koon’s file. He glanced at the envelope, now lying contritely by Seok Koon’s elbow, and shut the file. “You’ll be pleased to know that Dr. Lee Chin Kong, my friend and physician, has encouraged me to reconsider your case.”

  Seok Koon gasped. Her gratitude to Chin Kong—and to Rose, who she knew must have pressed her husband to act—filled her entire being. She thought she might lift right into the air.

  “I’ve managed to get you a third permit.”

  Her spirits plummeted back down to earth. She was ready to drop to her knees and beg, but the director held up his hand. “It’s the best I can do.”

  The words spilled from her mouth. “Thank you, comrade, oh thank you.” Now was not the time to worry about how to tell Bee Kim she would have to remain behind—just temporarily, of course.

  A strange smile spread across Comrade Koh’s face. “Good. Which child will you take?”

  The muscles in Seok Koon’s body went slack inch by inch. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Mrs. Ong, you cannot take them both.”

  A howl rose in her throat; she managed to force it down. “Their father is dying.”

  The director’s doughy face twisted into a smirk. “And your mother-in-law? Does she not care to see her dying son?”

  Seok Koon thought quickly. “My mother-in-law is old and weak. You know how it is—that generation and their lotus feet. She rarely even leaves the house.”

  Comrade Koh’s eyes were opaque. “The children are probably too young to really know their father anyway. Hasn’t he been abroad for quite some time?”

  She pressed her forehead to the cold metal desk in a kind of kowtow. “Please,” she said, unable to hold back tears. “It’s my husband’s last wish.”

  “Mrs. Ong, I really don’t have time for this. Surely you’ve seen the queue outside.”

  Seok Koon pushed herself up on her elbows and met the director’s gaze.

  He tapped his desk drawer. “The permits are right here. If you don’t want them, someone else will.”

  “Tell me what to do to get a fourth.”

  “It’s out of the question,” he said. And then his sausage fingers crept across the desk until they brushed the envelope of money.

  Seok Koon watched the director tuck the envelope in his breast pocket. The typewriter dinged in the adjacent room.

  “I see,” she said.

  He patted his pocket. “Still, things have a way of changing quickly around here. Why don’t you send an associate back next week.”

  Seok Koon stared into the depths of the director’s beady eyes, trying to discern if any bit of him could be trusted. She calculated how much money was left in the safe and said, “I will.”

  “Good,” he said, clapping his hands. “You and two family members will leave right away. You may remain in Hong Kong for up to fourteen days. Seven is standard, but because Dr. Lee is a good friend, I’m giving you a little extra time.”

  “Thank you so much,” she murmured automatically. She didn’t trust Mui Ah, who Bee Kim was convinced had turned her in, so Cook would have to come back for the fourth pass.

  Comrade Koh spread three permits on his desk. On the first, he printed Seok Koon’s name. On the second, he printed Bee Kim’s. When he got to the last one, he waited with his pen poised. “Well?” He was clearly enjoying himself.

  Seok Koon’s fingers twitched involuntarily. How she longed to strike the man squarely on his bulbous nose. She jammed her hands beneath her skirt. The
director’s gaze flicked up to the clock on the wall. The tick of the second hand thundered in her ears; she couldn’t think amid this racket.

  “Well, Mrs. Ong?”

  She pulled herself together. “Comrade, I beg of you, don’t make me do this.”

  He threw his pen on the desk and it clanged to the floor.

  “Ong Wee Liam.” She heard herself speak her son’s full name and knew it could never have been otherwise.

  She bent to retrieve the director’s pen, and he wrote the characters with a flourish. She slid the permits into her pocketbook and staggered to the door, where, for what seemed like an eternity, she fumbled with the doorknob. Her palms were slick with sweat; she could not find purchase. Had the director somehow locked her in?

  “Mrs. Ong,” he said.

  She turned to find that Comrade Koh had opened the pastry box and was biting into an almond tart.

  With his mouth full, he said, “I forgot to say I hope your husband makes it.”

  “Thank you,” she choked out, and then she found her voice. “My associate will be back next week for my daughter’s permit.”

  Crumbs gathered wetly in the corners of the director’s mouth. “We’ll do our best.”

  She dried her palms on her skirt and yanked open the door.

  How did one tell one’s daughter that the entire family was going to leave her behind? By dinnertime, Seok Koon still had no answers. The only thing she and her mother-in-law could think to do was to deliver the news as matter-of-factly as possible, as though they could somehow lull San San into failing to notice what was about to take place.

  “They gave me three permits,” Seok Koon announced, taking her seat at the table. “Ah Liam, Grandma, and I will go first. San San will stay behind with Cook and Mui Ah—just for a few days—until her permit comes through.”

  The girl’s chewing slowed. She lowered her chopsticks to her rice bowl.

  Seok Koon rushed to fill the silence. “We’ll leave on the very first ferry tomorrow morning so we can meet the train in Xiamen.”

  Bee Kim chimed in, “Did you hear that, Ah Liam? Make sure you get all your packing done tonight.”

  The girl stared into her bowl.

  Seok Koon kept talking in that same relentlessly cheerful voice. “Auntie Rose will stop by every day, so don’t even think of skipping piano practice. When you arrive, you can play your new piece for your pa. He’ll be so impressed.”

  “Ah yes,” said Bee Kim. “Your pa’s loved classical music ever since he was a young boy.”

  San San’s face gave away nothing. “How many days?”

  “One or two,” Seok Koon said. “Four at the most.”

  San San’s eyes locked on to hers, and she read something like defiance in her daughter’s steady gaze. If the girl refused to be placated, then couldn’t she at least sob and shriek like other girls her age?

  “It’ll go by in no time. Cook can prepare all your favorite foods,” said Seok Koon. Ridiculous words that would soothe only a younger, simpler child.

  “That’s a marvelous idea,” Bee Kim said. “Girl, write down everything you want to eat, so Mui Ah will know what to buy at the market.”

  San San bit her lip. “I don’t really care.”

  Seok Koon shot her mother-in-law a look of desperation.

  “What about popiah? Or kiam peng?” asked Bee Kim.

  Ah Liam said, “Give her my permit. I’ll stay behind.”

  Seok Koon’s pulse soared. “The permits have already been assigned.”

  Ah Liam’s still-unchanged voice always rose in pitch when he was agitated. “But if someone has to travel alone, shouldn’t it be me?”

  Seok Koon’s hand smacked the table. “I can’t discuss this right now. I have enough to worry about as it is.”

  Ah Liam squinted and looked away, and Seok Koon regretted her tone.

  “May I be excused?” San San asked.

  Bee Kim leaned over. “Are you feeling ill? Do you have a fever?” She pressed the back of her hand to the girl’s forehead.

  Seok Koon motioned for her mother-in-law to retreat. “Go ahead.”

  Her daughter’s footsteps blasted down the hallway. San San’s bedroom door slammed shut, the noise as sharp as any rebuke. In the center of the table, a skin of fat had congealed on the brown sauce in the dish of braised pork.

  “May I be excused, too?” said Ah Liam.

  Seok Koon threw down her napkin. “Whatever you want,” she said. “I have to give the servants their instructions.” She stood and went to the kitchen.

  Bee Kim tried to make up for Seok Koon’s harshness. “Your father needs you by his side,” she told the boy.

  “I know,” he said, “but I’m worried about San San.”

  From behind the kitchen door, Seok Koon watched her mother-in-law smooth the cowlick on the back of her son’s head. The boy had grown several centimeters these past months but was still small for his age.

  Bee Kim said, “Cook will take San San all the way to the border. She’ll only be alone for the very last stretch, and then we’ll meet her in Hong Kong.” She released a strained laugh. “Have some faith in your sister.”

  Seok Koon turned to find Cook and Mui Ah waiting by the stove.

  “Don’t worry about Little Miss,” Cook said solemnly. “We’ll take good care of her while you’re gone.”

  In two days, he was to go back to the safety bureau to try again. Seok Koon handed over an envelope for the director, fattened with even more money than the first, along with a promise to send twice that amount for Cook to keep once San San was safe in her arms.

  Mui Ah wiped tears from her eyes, even though everyone supposedly believed the family would be gone for no more than two weeks. “Master will recover,” she sniffed. “I know he will.”

  Seok Koon tried to remember if Mui Ah had met her husband more than once. She thanked them for their well wishes and retired to her room to finish packing, making sure to leave several valuables prominently displayed: a crystal vase of chrysanthemums that were just starting to wilt, perfume bottles with yellowed French labels.

  When she was done, she went to her daughter’s room.

  The light was on, but San San lay on top of the covers with a pillow over her face. Her beloved doll was splayed on the rug.

  Seok Koon picked up the doll and smoothed its sparse blonde mane. “What happened to Hansel?”

  San San kept her face covered. “I’m too old for dolls.”

  Seok Koon set the doll on the nightstand. “Are you feeling a little better?”

  “No.”

  Seok Koon sat down beside her daughter, who didn’t make room on the bed. When she lifted the pillow off San San’s face, the girl threw her forearm over her eyes.

  Seok Koon said, “It’s only a few days.”

  “You already said that.” The girl rolled over to face the wall.

  She stroked her daughter’s back, her fingers lingering on the faint knobs of her spine. “I’ll miss you, San San.”

  In a spiteful voice, the girl replied, “But it’s only a few days.”

  When had her children grown so rancorous, so mean?

  “All right, then.” Seok Koon rose to her feet. Her daughter’s shoulders trembled, ever so slightly, and she softened her tone. “Do you want me to turn out the light?”

  “I don’t care.”

  Seok Koon tugged on the chain, and, in the darkness, her daughter stirred.

  “Mama.”

  Seok Koon held her breath. “Yes?”

  “What if Pa dies before I get there?”

  Seok Koon flew to the bed and enveloped San San. “He’ll wait for you. I swear he will.”

  At first the girl’s thin body held taut, but when Seok Koon tightened her embrace, San San melted in her arms. Tears streamed out of San San swiftly, silently, soaking Seok Koon’s neck and chest. In that moment, Seok Koon believed she and her daughter could stay intertwined like this, that she would never have to let go. />
  6

  Only because the steps were wet and slippery from a brief predawn shower did Bee Kim concede to take Mui Ah’s arm. The sedan chairs were waiting; the luggage, piled in a wheelbarrow. Passing through the gates, Bee Kim gazed up at the coin-bearing canaries and asked them to bless her family one last time. Four decades she’d spent in this villa, and now she was leaving everything behind: the priceless antique furniture that had been in the family for generations, the gold and jade she couldn’t layer over the jewelry she already wore without inviting suspicion, Ah Lip’s pewter cufflinks that lay nestled in a worn velvet box on her nightstand. And, of course, the girl.

  There she was at the top of the stairs, still clad in her white nightgown, stoic as a sentinel. Even as an infant, San San had rarely cried, as if she’d understood from birth that there was no point in vying with her more demanding brother. Only once could Bee Kim recall her speaking up. One evening, a year or two earlier, Bee Kim had plucked the last slice of hard-boiled egg from the tofu stew and dropped it in Ah Liam’s bowl, prompting San San to ask, “Why don’t I ever get the last egg?” Bee Kim turned in surprise. Up until that moment, she hadn’t quite realized what she’d been doing. She answered smoothly, “Because your brother is older and eats more than you.” San San studied her for a beat and then whispered into her bowl, “I don’t like eggs anyway.”

  “Come here, girl,” Bee Kim called.

  San San approached. A droplet of mucus threatened to spill from her nose. Bee Kim offered up her handkerchief, and the girl blew into the cloth and looked up with uncertainty.

  “Keep it, silly gourd,” said Bee Kim. She cupped San San’s face in her hands and found herself at a loss for words. She gently pinched the girl’s cheeks to hide her discomfort and then reached beneath her sleeve and forced a slender, filigreed gold bangle from her wrist, wincing as it constricted her fleshy hand. She slid the bangle up San San’s thin arm, almost to the elbow. “So you’ll think of your grandma while we’re apart.”