MEMORIES from the EAST

by Abdulla Kazim

  A few more months remained for me to finish my studies at the college. Shun Zun, the old librarian, started getting sick and grew worse every passing day. I was under pressure to stay longer hours in the library on a daily basis. That meant having less time to study for my exams and less time to spend on my MIDlet application that I had been working on for more than a month. I intended to enter the competition that would be held in the following month. I couldn’t refuse to stay longer hours in the library; it was my main source of income, as publishing poems and short stories didn’t bring me much to feed myself with. Thus, I started bringing my laptop with me to the library to work on my MIDlet application. I realized that winning in the competition would be lucrative for me for the financial benefits I would get out of it.

  Having such a timetable kept me away from the gym for a while. This meant that my curiosity to learn the truth about Bojing and his story with Qiuyue remained unsatisfied.

  While Qiuyue stopped approaching me, Trinh did not. Whenever I had breakfast in the college in the mornings, she would sit with me and eat hers in silence with her gaze full on me. Sometimes she would bring her breakfast with her and sometimes she would even bring some for me as well. I had tried beef noodle pho and pork-mixed banh cuon with her.

  “How is your girlfriend?” she asked me on one occasion.

  “Who?” I wondered.

  “That… that Chinese girl?”

  “Qiuyue?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “She is just a friend of mine. She is not my girlfriend,” I answered honestly.

  Trinh smiled when she heard my answer. I could read in it some sort of triumph. It was true that I didn’t feel anything passionate about Qiuyue anymore.

  The day for the MIDlet competition came and I was ready for it. My application was fully functional and was applicable for most types of Nokia and Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The application was a car-racing game that could be played by a single user or a maximum of three using the Bluetooth utility for connection in between them. My programming teacher, Howin, was the first person to see my application before registering it in the competition, and she greatly liked it and admired my effort. After registering my game in the competition, she announced the news in the class, saying that I had made a great achievement by entering a prestigious competition and that success in it would bring pride to the college as no other student had done it before.

  A few days later, the results came out. My application won second place in a competition in which participation had come from colleges and universities throughout the Far East. This brought some sort of happiness to me, but not as much as gaining some money for my own future. But it did bring a reason for Howin and my classmates to start a new celebration for me. Trinh gave me a gift of a nicely stitched handkerchief, and Howin gave me a kiss on my cheek in front of my classmates. I did wish that all the hot teachers would give us kisses as rewards for our excellence instead of throwing out some meaningless words of appreciation.

  My daily talks with Trinh, mostly at breakfast time, tickled in me a slight feeling for her that I couldn’t analyse. Her rainbow-coloured image started to reflect differently now in the mirror of my eyes. Her image slowly unveiled a disguised beauty that I believed that she, for some reason, veiled intentionally in the first place.

  It was a Monday afternoon when I finished my class and walked fast to attend the library. Realizing that I had left the book I was reading in my bag, which I had dropped in the early morning in the closet of the gym, I walked quickly out through the open yard where the sunlight was fading. I unlocked my closet in the gym, took out my book, and locked it back up. Walking out of the gym, I paused at the end of the corridor near the glass windows that opened to the swimming pool. I saw the most unexpected form of a girl I knew. Trinh was getting out of the swimming pool wearing a dark blue swimsuit. Taking a towel, she started rubbing and drying her hair. She looked so different and very unlike the Trinh I and everybody knew. Her face was wiped up clean, and her true beauty was unveiled now with the layers of makeup peeled off.

  My gaze couldn’t keep away from that pure copy of the messed-up image I was used to seeing. As she approached the glass door and put her hand on the handlebar, our eyes met and she panicked all of a sudden, but she stood her ground, unsure of what action to take. It was as if a deep secret was revealed in a moment of mistake. I grabbed the handlebar from my side and pulled the door open and smiled at her. She put the towel back on her head and walked quickly into the ladies’ section.

  The next day Trinh approached me as I was having my breakfast. She was gasping, and the full array of disturbing makeup was back on the nice young face I had seen yesterday in its natural beauty.

  “You shouldn’t tell anybody. Did you tell anybody?” She was staring at me, still gasping.

  “What?” I smiled, examining her face for a spot that might have missed the thick white face paint.

  “What you saw yesterday.” She swallowed now.

  I started brushing the top of the table with the tips of my fingers.

  “I saw nothing of you yesterday,” I said with a smile. “Yesterday, I saw a beautiful young girl in her full blossom.”

  Trinh blushed and lowered her eyes, dropping a shy smile there before walking away.

  * * *

  Only one month was left until the end of my college year, and still I hadn’t satisfied the burning pleas of my soul to visit, just once, my old home, my father’s home once. I didn’t know what had become of it, but I secretly wished to know.

  Slowly, Trinh and I started to get closer to each other. All of a sudden, I felt that I had found what my heart longed for, something like the same feelings I first sensed with Qiuyue. I was glad to have been the person privileged to see that lovely face of hers in its true form, and she didn’t wish to reveal it to anyone else. From having breakfast together, we started sharing our lunches. And then, she stopped annoying me in class and ceased asking me silly questions to get my attention. She wished to pull me closer to her, I believe, and she had got it now. I was so close to her that I had the right to hold her hand and walk with her and even kiss her on her cheeks at the end of the day. But she hadn’t changed her style and dress, and nor did I ask her to do so. I just enjoyed being with her. My classmates, even Howin, gradually stopped making jokes about Trinh and her appearance just out of respect for me.

  Then came the news of the death of Shun Zun. I was asked by the library manager to work full time in the library. I still remember the belly of the guy, the manager; it was rounder than that of a pregnant woman in her ninth month. He was pushing me to take full responsibility for the library. How much of a fool was he? I explained to his deafness that I had got exams and then the end of the year. I wouldn’t get stuck in between those narrow racks of books, despite the love I had always carried for books, like that old man. That fat man couldn’t see that my flaw-full life was being swept away a bit each day. When I firmly rejected his offer, he sent me off and from that moment my part-time work ended in that library.

  Having no other job to do any more at the end of my classes gave me more time for myself and my studies. I spent more time with Trinh studying together. One afternoon I invited her to come to my room to study. She hesitated for a long while, and I liked her honest hesitation, but shyly she agreed in the end. I respected her more for that.

  That day, we studied for two hours. Then I suggested her that I should draw her picture. She giggled with pleasure and instantly stood on her small bare feet. Then, raising her heels and stretching her hands up in the air with her chin lifted up, she formed the pose of a ballerina dancer, and she really did look like a ballerina dancer with her thin delicate body. There we abandoned our studies, and I, with my skilled hands, took my drawing pad and sketched out her overall figure. From where I sat, I could see traces of tiny hairs on the surface of he
r silver hands.

  Afterwards, we were sitting together joking and laughing when there was a knock on the door. I looked at my wrist watch; it was now almost eight forty-five. How fast time had passed, and how much we had enjoyed ourselves together! This girl, who looked like a freak in the eyes of others, was so amazing and such a fine-natured creature of heaven.

  I walked and opened the door to see, to my unpleasant surprise, Ah Cy standing there wearing a slim white dress, a little slimmer than her body, that displayed clearly the shape of her bra and the lines of the black panties at both sides of her hips. She lifted one side of her lips in what seemed to be a half smile, and small lines of age stretched under her eyes. I didn’t smile back. On that evening, only then, my lust didn’t bubble up upon catching sight of her sexy body and complexion, even though she was as nicely put together as ever that night. Everything in me was just shallow, plain, so grounded to the ground. I could sense Trinh peeking to see the visitor, and Ah Cy at last glimpsed her and thus started to pull back her almost fully developed smile.

  “I think I should leave you now,” Ah Cy said, but the end of the line seemed more like a question mark than a full stop.

  I didn’t reply, and the visitor pulled back. That was the first time I had sent her off without fulfilling the purpose of her visit. When I closed the door and turned my face back to her, Trinh turned her face as well, but away from me pretending to be busy. I sat next to her on the floor while she silently wondered slyly about the visitor, but I, understanding the situation, was not generous in providing any details.

  “She looks beautiful.” She simply commented, playing with her maroon coloured nails.

  “Is she?” I replied. “I don’t think she’s any prettier than you.”

  Her mouth opened a little, but no word came out. She didn’t smile at the compliment. I knew she must have been thinking that such words were what I usually said to any new girl I met. Again, I was miserly in providing any explanation. But there our conversation about Ah Cy ended, and so did my relationship with her.

  As it was starting to get late at night, Trinh began collecting her books and materials and stuffing them in her bag.

  “I’d better go now. It is ten already,” she noted.

  “But you can stay here tonight. It is already late.” I suggested without looking at her.

  She paused and hesitated for a couple of minutes, thinking and analysing the situation, before whispering her agreement. She asked for a glass of water, and while she drank it, she slyly put a piece of white chalk in her mouth. I didn’t know whether it was out of hunger or habit, but she assured me in words that she wasn’t hungry. In the bathroom, she squeezed the toothpaste onto her left pointer finger and started brushing her teeth. But when she came out, the full range of makeup was still covering her face. A small drop of water lay on her dark pink-shaded cheekbone. I reached my finger, but she drew back her head, but still my finger reached her face and wiped that wet spot. She smiled as I removed my finger and realized what I had done, but my eyes were focused on that spot that now was set clear and showed the original colour of her skin. It was like wiping a dusty window to see the beautiful face of nature beyond.

  I lay on my narrow bed, facing the adjacent wall. Trinh came and lay next to me in a very slow motion. I didn’t feel having the courage to turn to her and caress her in any way whatsoever. She looked very pure to me, and that filled me for a while with shame of even thinking of removing that innocence from her.

  “You are not scared of my face?” she asked in a light whisper.

  I was glad she had witnessed her own ugliness with that hand-made clown face of her.

  “I am not scared of disguised angels,” I replied.

  I heard her silent giggle through the noise of releasing air through the nose.

  I closed my eyes and, I don’t know after how long, I could hear some echo of Trinh asking me to come with her to Vietnam. I couldn’t figure out till later whether it was just a dream or a real request.

  15

  With my small bare feet, I walked on the dark green, fresh wet grass. My pants were folded down, and so the grass played around my ankles. I walked fast in a way similar to running. My small dark-grey bicycle with training wheels lay aside. I just glimpsed it and passed by it. The door of the home was half open and my mother’s hands were stretched out, waving for me to come and give her a hug. On the doorstep, there was a light-brown teddy bear with a pink ribbon around its neck. With a wide smile on my face, I murmured words that couldn’t be understood even to me. But then the hands started withdrawing inside the home, dragging with them the teddy bear. As I took further small paces now, I could hear strange noises, something like a groan, soft and hard. The smile was still on my face, and the promise of the happiness that I would be finding in the laps of my parents far exceeded the glimpse of fear those groans planted in me. My soft bare feet touched the surface of the cold tiles on the doorstep. I walked in, and now warmth started creeping into my feet. I turned my eyes to my feet, and the softness of the muddy stuff under my feet and its red colour filled me with joy. I leaned down and fixed both my open palms next to each other and then dug them inside the warm material and came up with a handful of it. With the thick liquid dripping slowly from my hands, I walked forward and with my head pushed the slightly open door of my room. I could hear my father’s voice murmuring some prayers. Then Father’s voice was calling for me. I came in, and what struck me first was the colour of my room. It had changed to match the dark colour of the material in my hand. Suddenly I felt my body getting wetter and wetter with sweat. I was frightened by the sight of a human organ on the floor near the big brown-booted feet of my father, which were not spared the stains of the colour of red. My body was sweating more and more, and fear was creeping up to my heart. My father was smiling and reaching out his hand for me. His hand was covered in the same material that I cupped in my hands. I shook my head, refusing to obey him. My body was heavily sweating and shaking. I closed my eyes tight.

  I opened my eyes and shivered at catching a glimpse of a clown face on top of me. It took me a couple of seconds to recognize the face of Trinh. My heart beats started slowing down and getting calmer as I heard the voice of Trinh telling me that I was having a bad dream. I wondered at first what she was talking about, but feeling the dampness of my clothes brought back the memory of the nightmare. I sat on the bed and shook my head. Trinh sat next to me, stroking my hair and touching my wet scalp and telling me over and over that everything was fine.

  “What time is it now?” I asked.

  “It is six,” she whispered, as if afraid to wake me up fully.

  “I am planning to visit my home,” I said, laying one hand back and resting it on the bed.

  “Can I come with you?” she asked, as if knowing what I was talking about. She was already in my room and I couldn’t understand what she made of my suggestion.

  “Do you want to?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she simply answered, and the clown feature on her face forced a smile on mine.

  I leaned and pushed my body out the bed, placing my feet on the floor. There I was surprised by a sudden kiss on my jaw. I could sense the paint on Trinh’s lips touching my skin. I gave no sign of any pleasing reaction though the kiss was a comforting one, especially after that nightmare I had had. Feeling embarrassed, Trinh moved away. She sat near her books, arranging and rearranging them. I could see that she had woken up much earlier; her face was well made up. For a couple of seconds I sat contemplating her face from the side view. She sat there like an angel with no visible wings, and I felt the desire to embrace her tight to my chest, with all the innocence of the world, the whole of her innocence.

  I washed up and had a quick shower. I came out the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around my waist. She glanced at me and I noticed it, but as she turned her face away, I turned away mine also
. I started putting on my clothes, and I could sense her eyes on me, slyly concealed behind the act of going through my drawing book.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  I was putting on my green T-shirt when I heard that question. Pulling my T-shirt down my waist, I turned my head to see her smiling at the sketch of a woman standing with her head turned, waving with her hand as if waving for a photographer when realizing that her picture was being taken.

  “She looks beautiful,” Trinh commented.

  I had sketched that picture a year earlier. Yes, the lady in the picture was waving to a photographer. The lady in the picture was my mother. The sketch was based on a real picture taken by my father in my early childhood. I remembered it, even though vaguely, despite my young age. We were on a beach that sunny day. I was sitting on the yellow sand playing with my small toy cars when I heard my mother’s voice calling my name as she was walking towards me. Turning my eyes, the big smile on her face caught me. At that moment, my father’s voice came calling for my mother, and she, with a gentle toss of head, gave him a sweet smile and got the flash from his hand-held camera on her face. Actually, the picture was framed in my room in my childhood house, and that was the reason I had it fresh in my mind.

  I walked to Trinh and put my hand on the cover of the drawing pad, applying a slight weight to close it. She looked at me.

  “She is a dead demon. Shall we go now?” I said.

  She pushed the drawing book into my hands with the tips of her fingers and nodded her head.

  Outside, the light sun rays gently pricked my eyes. I blinked fast a few times, and my eyeballs became watery all of a sudden. Like a silent clown, Trinh giggled and made some comment about me being like a prisoner who sees the sun for the first time in ages. I seemed a little worried, but the presence of that girl beside me soothed things in my heart.

  She started to sing in a whisper what seemed like some comforting rhythm. I didn’t pay any attention to it; my mind was busy building expectations of what I was going to see and feel once I found my old home—if it was ever meant to be, standing as it was in its old spot.