Bury What We Cannot Take: A novel

by Kirstin Chen

  “Good girl,” the nurse said. She handed Gor a piece of paper. “Get this filled at the hospital pharmacy. The pills should make your ma feel better.”

  Gor took the paper with both hands and bowed deeply. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”

  “Yes, thank you,” said San San. She decided she ought to be too weak to stand.

  “It was nothing,” said the nurse. Her gaze seemed to linger on San San, and she ducked her head and scratched the nape of her neck.

  As the nurse and her companion walked out the door, the nurse said, “The little girl reminds me of someone I knew on the islet.”

  San San’s eyes cut to Gor to see if he’d heard, but he was crawling into the tent to talk to Auntie.

  “Oh?” said her companion. “How odd.”

  The nurse said, “The little girl I knew lived in the mansion across from the clinic. She wouldn’t survive in a place like this for more than a minute.”

  San San downed the rest of her tea in a single gulp. The intense bitterness coated her tongue and throat and made her gag, but at least nothing came back up.

  29

  In the taxi, Seok Koon’s fury grew. She’d been a fool to believe she could outsmart the Party. What distinguished her from all the other mothers who’d lost children to war, disease, poverty? What made her think she deserved more?

  Again came Father Leung’s voice, as though he were murmuring right in her ear. “Promise me you’ll pray. Promise me you won’t try to face this on your own.”

  “I did everything you said,” Seok Koon told the priest.

  “Hah?” the driver called back.

  She ignored him and went on with her conversation. “I came to church every Sunday. I prayed morning and night.”

  “Madame, you talking to me?”

  In her ear Father Leung whispered, “He is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

  But none of that had been true. What kind of God let a little girl be taken from her family? What kind of God let good, kind people be executed before a crazed mob?

  “Madame?” said the driver. “Madame, we’re here.”

  Seok Koon paid for the ride. She charged through the double doors of the cathedral, vacant on this weekday afternoon aside from Father Leung and the organist, who were chatting in the choir loft.

  “Madame Ong,” the priest called down. “Is there news?”

  She tucked her wayward strands of hair behind her ears. Her voice faltered. “In a sense.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  He and the organist descended from the choir loft. Once the organist had left, Father Leung came up the aisle, saying, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  All of her rage and confusion and desperation coalesced upon this kind, compassionate man. She flew at him and beat her fists on his chest. “Liar,” she screamed. The word echoed through the soaring nave. “You told me to pray. You told me to have faith. You told me God would not mete out more hardship than I could handle.”

  The priest shielded himself with his hands. “Please calm down.”

  An ache spread down her arms. Her fists continued to strike his chest.

  “Madame Ong, please, we can’t talk like this.”

  “Liar. You lied, and I believed you.”

  The priest caught her wrists and gently lowered them. “Tell me what happened.”

  Seok Koon unclenched her fists. “San San’s gone missing.”

  “Oh no.” The priest lowered his head and turned away.

  “Look at me,” she said sharply. “No one else can help me. Look at me.”

  He turned back slowly. “It’s not I who can help you, it’s God. Surrender your grief to the one who ‘heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.’”

  “What is that supposed to do?” she heard herself snarl. “My daughter’s missing. Tell me something that will actually make a difference.”

  “You’re hurting, I know, but we can’t make demands on Him. That’s not how it works.”

  Seok Koon stepped back, incredulous. “Then why am I here? Why are any of us here?”

  “Your pain is intolerable. You feel entirely alone. But trust that whenever you’re ready to turn to Him, He’ll be waiting for you.”

  She stuffed her fingers in her ears. “Stop, please, stop, I shouldn’t have come.” She stepped around him and made for the door, but he caught her by the elbow.

  “No, you were right to have come.”

  His touch made her shiver, and the instant he let go, she missed the weight of his hand. When was the last time her husband had been driven by an emotion other than rage to touch her? Her fingers stroked her cheek and jaw, still tender when she pressed down, the last places her husband had touched.

  And yet Zhai had swallowed his pride and accepted the loan, shocking them all. The day they’d received the good news, Seok Koon had decided that if bearing the full brunt of her husband’s wrath were the price of her daughter’s rescue, she would gladly pay it many times over. Indeed, she and Zhai had both held up their sides of the bargain. But what good had it done? Her daughter was gone, and she had no way of finding her.

  She fell onto a hard wooden pew and gazed up at the rudimentary figures depicted in stained glass.

  “Shall we pray?” the priest asked.

  She’d forgotten he was there. “Leave me alone,” she said. “Please.”

  He complied.

  Her eyes shifted to the crucifix atop the altar: two lengths of bronze, nailed together, painted gold. She couldn’t pray. She couldn’t even cry for her daughter, for Rose. Her head was a hollow cave, her body, a cracked and brittle shell.

  30

  The tablets were small and white and utterly ordinary looking. Within hours of swallowing one, however, Auntie’s moaning ceased. Her ragged breaths grew smooth and steady. The following day, after what she said was the first full night of sleep she’d had in as long as she could remember, Auntie was able to sit up and swallow a morsel or two of sweet potato. By the end of the week, she’d vanquished her near-constant cough and emerged from her tent to soak in the sunshine.

  Given these miraculous developments, San San shouldn’t have been surprised to awaken one morning to find a tall figure, ghostly in the early-morning light, standing before the stove. She’d never seen Auntie upright before and was stunned by the sheer length of her body, the ethereal quality of her bony limbs without their protective swathe of blankets.

  Gor looked on with pride and delight. When he noticed San San, his grin split his face in half. “You’re up. Come eat.”

  He insisted that San San and Auntie sit on a pair of overturned buckets, while he squatted beside them. The addition of a few bits of salted cabbage made the watery gruel taste delicious.

  “I’d forgotten what hunger feels like,” Auntie said. Despite her frailness, her complexion was bright.

  “It’s all thanks to Sio Beh,” said Gor, and San San demurely lowered her gaze. “If she hadn’t fainted, the nurse would never have come up here in the first place.”

  They sat together, talking and laughing, and when San San placed the dirty bowls in the basin, Auntie said, “Leave those. You children have done so much for me. Go out and play.”

  Auntie’s fingertips brushed San San’s cropped hair, making her scalp tingle. San San’s heart fought to break free of her rib cage. Someday in the future, after she’d solidified her place in this household, she would finally confess how she’d lured the nurse to the rooftop to examine Auntie. Gor and Auntie would admire her craftiness; they’d marvel at her convincing acting. “She hit the ground so hard,” Gor would tell Auntie, “Her shoulder was bruised for days!” Their lives would be humble but filled with joy.

  Only five days remained until the ship with the green flag returned, but such fantasies filled San San’s head. Once she made it to Hong Kong, she’d find a way to rescue Gor and Auntie. Perhaps they could board that same ship a fortnight later and come live with her fam
ily—didn’t Ma owe her that much?

  “Go on,” Auntie urged. “Go play.”

  San San recalled a poster she and Gor had seen a few days earlier, advertising a military theater troupe’s performance of “The White-Haired Girl,” an opera based on the story recounted in one of her brother’s comic books. Now she suggested they go to the square to catch the performance, and Gor agreed.

  They descended separate stairways and met up down the lane. The morning was crisp and cool. San San’s belly was full and her footsteps felt light and effortless. Her mother and her grandmother and her real brother were far, far away.

  She and Gor arrived as the opera was beginning. The quick, quivering notes of the violins in the small orchestra circled up by the stage set an ominous tone. A stooped old man, clad in rags, was helped onstage by his beautiful daughter. The pair prostrated themselves before a wealthy landlord and begged him to forgive their debts, but the ruthless man showed no mercy. He yanked the beautiful girl from her father’s arms and made her his property.

  San San watched in rapt silence as the girl bade her father a final farewell. And when the old man, driven insane by grief, hanged himself, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  Not long after her abduction, the beautiful girl became pregnant. Instead of marrying her, the cruel landlord sold her to a brothel. Her first night there, however, she managed to flee with her baby and return to her village, only to discover it occupied by the Japanese. To escape further brutality, the beautiful girl and her baby hid in a cave. Two years passed, and the girl’s black, waist-length mane turned a pure, snowy white.

  Finally, just as the girl had resigned herself to living out her days alone with her child in the cave, the communists arrived to liberate the village. The ruthless landlord stood trial, and the gathered peasants shouted the verdict: death penalty!

  San San and Gor cheered madly and hugged each other.

  “What a show,” Gor said. “I wanted to jump onstage and strangle that landlord.”

  But San San was fixated on the father who couldn’t go on living without his beloved child. She wondered how it felt to be truly indispensable, the way Ah Liam was to Grandma and Ma, the way Gor was to Auntie. Being indispensable meant being treasured above all else. It meant never having to prove your worth. San San would never be indispensable to her real family, or to Auntie, but she wondered if perhaps she was growing indispensable to Gor. He didn’t stay mad at her when she played wrong notes. He’d shed actual tears when she’d pretended to faint.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, looking askance at her.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  They ran home to tell Auntie about the opera, and to see if she felt up to attending that evening’s repeat performance.

  When they arrived at their building, Gor entered through the front while San San went around the back. She tugged and tugged at the door, but it would not budge. It hadn’t rained in days, so the wood couldn’t have swelled into the ground. She wondered if someone had locked the door, though she’d never encountered another person on those back stairs.

  She had no choice but to use the front entrance, where she immediately encountered nosy Mrs. Chan of the first floor. San San took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the woman who shouted, “You, boy, I’ve seen you here before. Who are you visiting? Where did you come from?” Luckily, Mrs. Chan’s bad limp kept her anchored to the bottom step.

  Up on the rooftop, the concrete floor had been swept and mopped. Blankets and bedding sagged on the laundry line; the straw mats had been draped over the railing to air.

  “Auntie, did you do all this?” she called out.

  She heard Auntie and Gor murmuring inside the tent, and then Auntie said, “Give us a moment, San San.”

  She gazed around the spotless space in wonder. Auntie’s recovery had truly been a miracle. And then it hit her: Auntie never used San San’s given name. To them, she’d always been “Sio Beh.”

  Her eyes flitted from her straw mat folded over the railing to the spot on the floor where it usually lay. She ran to the mat and patted down every inch of it, verifying what she’d already known to be true: her mother’s letters were gone.

  Her mouth and throat went dry. Her body grew cold but sweat sprouted beneath her arms. Aimlessly, helplessly, she spun around, wishing someone would tell her what to do.

  Auntie came out first, and then Gor took his place behind her. From his hand dangled the pink grosgrain ribbon that had bound her letters.

  “San San,” Auntie said.

  At the sound of her name, her knees buckled, and she fell onto an overturned bucket. Had they already sent someone to notify the authorities? Were the police on their way?

  “Do you have any idea of the danger you’ve put us in?”

  San San studied the hairline crack that snaked across the floor. All this time, she’d been so focused on her own survival that she hadn’t truly considered the risks she’d forced onto Gor and Auntie.

  “Have you ever thought of anyone besides yourself?”

  She looked up, stricken. The answer, she feared, was no.

  Auntie went on. “We let you stay because we believed you were an orphan. You told us you had nowhere else to go. Don’t you know what they’ll do to us for harboring a fugitive?”

  San San drank in each and every one of Auntie’s words and held them deep within her. She understood that she had no right to respond.

  Auntie raised her face to the sky. “The daughter of counterrevolutionary capitalists. We could be executed. My son could be executed. Did that ever occur to you?”

  She shook her head no because it was the truth. Could she really cause another execution? How did she end up destroying every soul who tried to help her? What deadly venom ran through her veins? What toxic blackness?

  Finally Gor spoke. “What do we do now, Ma?” His eyes were soft and sad.

  San San knew then that they hadn’t contacted the authorities. The realization almost disappointed her, for a part of her yearned to be punished, imprisoned on the islet, forced to write enough self-criticisms to fill a wall of encyclopedias. A part of her would have gladly given up all hope of reuniting with her family if it meant that she and Gor and Auntie were even. If it meant they would forgive her.

  Auntie took a step forward with her arms akimbo, forming a human barrier between San San and Gor, and between San San and this rooftop she’d thought of as home.

  There was only one thing San San had to offer: to spare them any further anguish.

  She rose from the bucket and went to gather her belongings. But aside from the watch on her wrist and those letters, which she never wanted to see again, nothing in this place belonged to her.

  She walked slowly to the door, training her eyes straight ahead, knowing that if she so much as glanced at Gor, she would start to cry.

  Her hand touched the doorknob.

  “Sio Beh.”

  She couldn’t help it; she turned. Gor’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes wide with alarm.

  Auntie said quietly, “Let her go,” and he scrunched his face and looked away.

  Alone in the darkened stairwell, San San couldn’t hold back. Tears flooded her eyes, stealing her sight. With her hand on the wall, she felt her way down the steps, both fearing and hoping she’d trip and tumble to the ground, for then she could curse and wail and otherwise bemoan her miserable state, and no one in the world would fault her for it.

  31

  Dear Mrs. Ong,

  You may not remember my name, but I am the head nurse at the clinic across from Diamond Villa. I am writing to express my condolences over the disappearance of your daughter. I am not yet a mother myself and thus can only imagine the grief you must be experiencing. Rest assured that our fine comrades in the Drum Wave Islet police department are working tirelessly to find her. I have utmost faith that they will bring her safely home.

  In the meantime, I wanted to share an interesting encounter I had in Xiamen yesterday.
I was taking a stroll in People’s Park when I heard the most enchanting music performed by two young buskers. The boy played the erhu and the girl, the accordion. Both had lovely singing voices. The girl not only looked to be your daughter’s age, but also very much resembled her in appearance. (Though, of course, she could not have been her.) In the middle of the performance, the girl fainted from dehydration, or, perhaps, low blood sugar (none of which are serious conditions). After tending to the girl, I escorted the children back to their home. Their household is poor but full of love. The girl appeared happy and content.

  I recount all this as a way of saying that wherever your daughter is, I am certain that one of the many kindhearted souls in our glorious nation has taken her in and will care for her until she can be returned home.

  I hope your husband’s health has improved, and I eagerly await you and your family’s return to the Fatherland.

  Your fellow comrade,

  Nurse Ho

  The nurse, a mere acquaintance, hadn’t made the long list of neighbors and friends Seok Koon had written to in an attempt to scrounge up news of San San. Seok Koon was well aware of the great risk the nurse had shouldered by entrusting this letter to a friend to carry across the border. From there, the letter had found its way to the Fujian Association and into the hands of one of Bee Kim’s mahjong friends, a Mr. Ng, who had personally delivered it to the flat.

  For all this, Seok Koon should have been grateful. Grateful that this woman she barely knew had gone to such lengths to give her this message. Grateful her daughter was alive.

  And yet, her mind swirled with numbers and calculations, what-ifs and why-nots. How likely was it that the nurse had come across San San and not some look-alike child? Was it better to know one’s daughter was alive but forever remote than to know nothing at all? Could she cleave her family in two to go in search of her daughter? Were they even a family without her? Seok Koon could tell herself that eventually she and San San would make it back to Hong Kong. But how long would that take? Months, maybe years? Her son would be a man when she next saw him; he would have learned to view her with his father’s disdain. Maybe that was a fair price to pay to have both children by her side, but she also risked ending up with nothing, with no one. To whom would she go to with her complaints then? From whom would she demand compensation?