The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1)

by Cole Reid

  In the bedroom, Qiu collapse on the bed leading with her back. She lied on the top sheet and stared at the ceiling. She began rolling her head from side to side to shake the dazed feeling. The room gained a sudden chill causing Qiu to wiggle her body to get under the top sheet. She didn’t bother to change her clothes. When her body went under the covers, so did her consciousness. Her head rolled to the side and she slept a dead sleep. Qiu woke up forty-five minutes later feeling less nausea but more of a threat. It was the same feeling that she had the day before, when she was convinced she would need to leave the apartment door open for escape. The feeling made her uneasy and she didn’t know the time. She thought she might have overslept, forcing her daughter to ride the city bus home. She thought the threatening presence was her daughter sitting frustrated in the living room because she had come home alone. Qiu called out to her daughter. Her voice rang once throughout the apartment and no other voice came back. There was no one in the apartment but Qiu. Still she felt the presence.

  The weeks passed with Qiu’s worsening health. She grew pale beyond what foundation makeup could hide. Watching her at work was watching her balance on stilts, not walk on legs. A worried Mr. Nan finally thought of an argument to intervene. He wouldn’t say anything because Qiu was always on time, always worked and never complained. But he couldn’t ignore the fading looks of a woman he wished he were young enough to marry. He called her into the kitchen and made her look into the mirror over the sink in the back, where employees washed their hands.

  “You see this face?” he said, “This is a face that used to bring in customers, now it’s scaring them off. This is the face of someone who, no matter how much she smiles at customers, still looks like she doesn’t want to be here. You see this woman? This woman needs to know her limits. This woman needs to take care of herself. This woman has two weeks to go get herself checked out. Two weeks paid.”

  Qiu had been too sick and dumbfounded to even thank him. As the thin framed man trailed off, he pretended he was only concerned about his business. Qiu stared at him and small tears came to her exhausted looking eyes. She left at that exact moment, even though she had forty-five minutes left on her shift. Qiu did not take the two weeks as a paid vacation. She did exactly what she was instructed to do, get checked out. The first Monday after the weekend, she went to the Taipei Basin Medical Clinic. It was eight blocks from her daughter’s school. She described her feelings of nausea on a registration form before handing the clipboard back to the front desk nurse. The hospital was advanced and had eight floors of expertise. Qiu was sent to the gynecology wing. She was escorted to a waiting room where she sat against a wall by herself. The hospital wasn’t crowded. She had just dropped her daughter off at school. It was still early morning.

  Qiu waited for seven minutes before a nurse wearing a pink dress and pink cap came to get her. The nurse’s soft white shoes made no sounds as Qiu followed her to another room, 505. The room had a light blue hospital gown waiting for Qiu. She was instructed to change into the gown and the nurse would be back to get her. A few minutes later, she left with the nurse and went to several different exam rooms before being allowed to return to the room with her clothes. Qiu waited with a sense of relief. She was exactly where she wanted to be. Before, she didn’t have time to come. She had wanted to take off to see a doctor and rest, but felt inappropriate asking Mr. Nan. The fact that he had suggested it himself put her at ease. She sat in a wood chair, still in her gown, running through her mind what the doctor would tell her. She thought she might be anemic. Her grandmother had been anemic and she remembered her brother had been instructed to eat fish, to make up for an iron deficiency. Qiu thought of her brother. He was nine years younger, but didn’t have a bad life as a child. Her parents had fed him eggs and beets to maintain healthy iron levels. He hated both but he grew steadily and didn’t have many health problems. She didn’t like beets but ate a lot of eggs and fed them to her daughter. She figured she could even afford to eat more fish. Qiu felt confident that she could change her lifestyle to be healthier. She thought it might be diabetes as well; it wasn’t prevalent in the family, but her paternal grandfather had it. But neither of her parents had it and neither did she or her brother. Qiu had a renewed feeling of confidence that no matter the state of her health, she would make the appropriate adjustments in her life to compensate. She promised herself she didn’t have to worry.

  A doctor came into the room fifteen minutes after Qiu herself—she was still in her gown. The doctor was tall and stocky, but his voice betrayed his appearance. His voice was not low and his speech was slowed. Qiu thought it was practiced so patients could follow him.

  “How are you feeling?” asked the doctor.

  “I feel better than the past few days,” said Qiu.

  “That’s good. I’m Dr. Lin,” he said, “So what about your diet? Are you eating healthy?”

  “I think so, eggs for breakfast and soup in the evenings. I work at a restaurant, so I eat their food during the day,” said Qiu.

  “And you don’t smoke or drink?” asked Dr. Lin.

  “No, I don’t smoke or drink,” said Qiu.

  “Good,” said Dr. Lin, “Well everything is normal and your blood pressure is fine. There really aren’t any risks to be concerned about.”

  “Well, I ‘m concerned with this nausea,” said Qiu, “Maybe anemia, my brother has an iron deficiency.”

  There was a steady silence in the room and Dr. Lin stared at Qiu as if he were trying to find something.

  “You don’t know,” said Dr. Lin as he exhaled.

  “What?” asked Qiu.

  “You don’t know,” said Dr. Lin with a tone of certainty.

  “What?” asked Qiu. Dr. Lin dipped his head down and put his hands together. He inhaled before speaking.

  “You’re pregnant,” said Dr. Lin.

  Qiu sat silent for a while—only silence would do. There was nothing. Nothing to be said. Nothing to think about. Silence was acceptance.

  “Are you ok?” asked Dr. Lin, “Do you want this pregnancy?”

  Qiu covered her mouth with her right hand and Dr. Lin knew he would not get an answer. She got up from her wooden chair and paced in a circle before heading to the far corner of the room. She stood in the corner facing the wall. Small whimpers echoed out of the corner and then she collapsed. Dr. Lin stood silently watching Qiu as she balled up in the corner, resting her arms on her knees and her head on her arms. Dr. Lin let his emotions sink into his professionalism.

  “We can schedule you for a termination of pregnancy,” said Dr. Lin, “The clinic is here in the hospital; you wouldn’t have to go anywhere else.”

  Qiu let out a scream that was audible in the next room.

  “You’re at five weeks,” said Dr. Lin, “We have time. We can schedule you for an appointment in the next couple of weeks.”

  Qiu went passed Dr. Lin, stomping her bare feet on the floor. She ripped open the door and went out into the hall. Dr. Lin didn’t chase her. The news was unexpected and she had to deal with it in her own way—he knew. Tears on display, Qiu walked at an angry pace through the halls of the fifth floor. She stopped and stared into different rooms, studying different patients, trying to guess their ailments. She felt a kinship with all of them. Whether old or young, rich or poor, they all ended up on the same floor in the same hospital, at the same time. Qiu silently blessed them all, hoping each had the strength to carry through the reason that brought them here. She played with her own karma, knowing that the blessings had little hope of bouncing back onto her but she played anyway. Her feelings of kinship were short-lived. She distinguished herself from the bunch, by telling herself that they could all heal. They could always trust that the right treatment would be available for them. Qiu saw herself differently. It wasn’t a long period of treatment that she faced. It was a short time to decide. Qiu came back to her feelings of kinship when she realized all the women on the fifth floor were up against time. Those who were sick had
a limited time to convalesce or their condition would get worse. She had a limited time to decide, before things were out of her hands. And then they would get worse by definition.

  Dr. Lin found Qiu with her arms folded, standing in the doorway of Room 519. She didn’t notice him come up behind her, as she was focused on an old woman lying still in bed. The woman was asleep, breathing through a tube. It made Qiu feel different, very different. She had been grabbed, forced down and raped on gravel. Now she stood in a doorway impregnated. It was capricious and against her will. But she wasn’t on her back, breathing through a tube. Life had not been choked out of her. Life was growing inside her.

  “Ms. Li?” said Dr. Lin.

  Qiu was unresponsive. She just stared at the woman in the bed; the woman looked dead. But Qiu would not have traded places with her. Despite what had happened and the complications it would bring, Qiu realized she still valued life over death. Being raped had to be accepted. Being pregnant had to be accepted. Being left for dead, like the woman in the bed, was not being at all.

  “Ms. Li?” said Dr. Lin

  Qiu turned around with dry eyes. Dr. Lin took one look at her and felt an instant relief. He could tell she was in a better state of mind. He had never been in such a situation with a patient before. It was obvious that she was upset about being pregnant, but he didn’t know why—why so upset. He told himself he would sacrifice professionalism to ask. He was a doctor for her body and her body only. He treaded carefully with attempts to doctor souls. She didn’t want the pregnancy; that he knew. He would go on from there and return to being a body doctor.

  “Should we go back to the room and discuss our options?” said Dr. Lin slightly above a whisper.

  Qiu simply shook her head.

  “You don’t have to come back with me. I just need to go get changed,” said Qiu.

  A confused look took over Dr. Lin. Qiu had demonstrated the most violent reaction to a pregnancy he had seen. And she didn’t want to discuss a termination immediately. Not to terminate, meant keeping the child.

  “Are you sure?” Dr. Lin had to ask.

  “Sure for now,” said Qiu, already halfway back to Room 505.

  Dr. Lin decided not to follow Qiu back to her room. He had always treated the patient’s wish above anything he knew about medicine. Whether or not she would terminate the pregnancy was a life decision. Dr. Lin was an expert on medicine but he considered Qiu to be an expert on her own life. Qiu left the hospital at 11:48 am. She drove the Vespa in no particular direction around southern Taipei. She drove for an hour without deciding what she would tell her daughter. She wasn’t sure if she would go home, but the hour passed and frustrated her. The wind in her face was supposed to clear her mind; it didn’t. Instead of having her mind cleared, she had her mind cleansed. She could think of nothing. She decided the familiar spaces of her apartment might do better, so she headed home. She approached her apartment building from an unfamiliar direction. It was the same street, but different side. When she was four blocks away from the pink brick building, she saw a purple neon sign for piming—a life commentator. It was an old practice that reached into multiple facets of Taiwanese society. Businessmen would consult a life commentator for strategic management decisions. Lovers came for direction in their relationship. But the focus of piming was predestination and Qiu didn’t believe anything was predestined. Predestination didn’t cause Qiu to pull her Vespa to the side of the road, indecision did. She wanted to talk to her daughter about her pregnancy, but didn’t know if she should tell her daughter. She could terminate the pregnancy without anyone knowing, but she had to have it clear in her head. If she didn’t terminate, her daughter would find out eventually. If she did terminate, she could tell her daughter after the fact but would face similar questions about the pregnancy. Either way, she thought her daughter would understand, but she wasn’t sure what she wanted her daughter to understand.

  Qiu stepped through the door and came to terms with how small the room was. It was on the first floor of an apartment building with a similar layout to the one Qiu lived in. The room had served as a laundry room for the building. From the marks on the wall, it housed one washer and one dryer for the building’s tenants. Qiu guessed the washateria in her building had made this room’s machines obsolete, so they were removed and replaced with spiritual machinery. There was an old woman wearing a navy-colored tunic suit and blue jeans. She sipped ginger root tea out of an old glass jar while watching a small box television set.

  “Hello,” said Qiu

  The woman flapped her right hand up and down. Qiu understood it as a signal to sit down. She landed in an old wooden chair with brown paint peeling off.

  “What is your name?” asked the old woman, still facing the box.

  “Li Qiu,” said Qiu.

  “Are you worried?” asked the old woman.

  “I don’t know,” said Qiu.

  “Why not?” asked the old woman.

  “What I would worry about may be a blessing,” said Qiu.

  “The worried come to see me, not so much the blessed,” said the old woman.

  “I want to know if I am to worry or am blessed,” said Qiu.

  “Now, so do I,” said the old woman.

  The old woman pulled out a small string-bound book from the shelf on Qiu’s left-hand side.

  “Li Qiu,” said the old woman.

  Qiu’s face went from relaxed to serious.

  “Li Qiu,” said the old woman, “The autumn landscape, lined with metal, filled with air.”

  The old woman flipped page after page in the string-bound book.

  “When were you born?” asked the old woman.

  “August 29, 1945,” said Qiu.

  “Before the season change,” said the old woman, “at the turn.”

  “I was born on the mainland,” said Qiu, “I wasn’t born here, if that’s a difference.”

  “Yours is to let go,” said the old woman.

  “Let go of what?” asked Qiu.

  “Of that which would make you feel worried not blessed,” said the old woman.

  “But they are two different things,” said Qiu.

  “And in your life they will manifest as two different people,” said the old woman. Qiu went silent. So did the old woman, looking Qiu up and down.

  “Worry is grounded and is yin; blessing is celestial and is yang. There is a union of forces and both yin and yang are united through you,” said the old woman. Qiu blinked.

  “The worry is grounded and in this world. The blessing is celestial and is not in this world,” said the old woman. Qiu inhaled.

  “Like a marriage between a man and woman, uniting yin with yang takes commitment,” said the old woman, “And commitment takes sacrifice. The forces of yin and yang are uniting through you. You will have to make a commitment to this union. And you will also have to sacrifice.”

  “What sacrifice?” asked Qiu.

  “You’re thirty-four years old, marriage is not the union. You don’t even look like the people who come here to ask about that. Lined with metal filled with air,” said the old woman. She stared into Qiu’s eyes before looking her up and down.

  “You’re not one of the two,” said the old woman, “It is two others. You represent the unity but not the union. But the union is through you, through you. And the autumn is lined with metal but filled with air, meaning its time is fixed but not its mood. Autumn can be more like summer or winter; it can be filled with anything in between. Like a womb, it can carry female and male, yin and yang. Its meaning is…children. You must be pregnant,” said the old woman.

  Qiu’s eyes grew warm enough to condensate, and a single long tear ran down the right side of her nose to her lips.

  “Do you already have children?” asked the old woman. Qiu nodded.

  “A daughter,” said Qiu.

  “Now, is a son,” said the old woman.

  “A boy,” said Qiu.

  “Your daughter represents yin, your worry. Th
is boy represents yang your blessing. The yin is grounded because your daughter is already born. But your son is celestial, he is energy coming into form. His energy is massive. I felt it when you came in here,” said the old woman.

  “His energy?” asked Qiu.

  “How many months?” asked the old woman.

  “Five weeks,” said Qiu.

  “Does this pregnancy feel different than with your daughter?” asked the old woman.

  “It feels horrible,” said Qiu.

  “Unearthing?” asked the old woman.

  “I’m sick always, I try to hide it from my daughter but I can’t anymore. Even my boss noticed. It’s why I’m here. He forced me to take off,” said Qiu feeling rushed.

  “The sickness is because of so much energy trying to align itself; it takes its toll. And it’s going to get worse,” said the old woman.

  “How much worse?” asked Qiu.

  “Much much worse. Commitment and sacrifice, until all energy has aligned itself,” said the old woman.

  “Which is which?” asked Qiu.

  “One will come out of the other. If you decide to carry this child to term, that will be your commitment,” said the old woman, “But if you do, you will sacrifice.” Qiu’s heart skipped a beat and she looked down.