How to Pronounce Knife

by Souvankham Thammavongsa

  When her daughter saw her mother standing there, the girl quickly slammed the locker shut and shoved at the lock. Then she ran up to her, ushered her out the door. “What are you doing here?” she said, urging her mother to walk faster.

  “I came to pick you up,” she said. “It’s raining.”

  “Don’t go in there again. Wait for me in the car.”

  “What if something happened to you? I was worried.”

  “Just don’t, okay?”

  They crossed a parking lot. The prickly cold of the rain was surprising, hitting hard at them, and there was no way to protect themselves except to run through it and get into the car as soon as possible.

  “And will you stop calling me that name!” her daughter went on. “Everyone calls me Celine now.” Her seat belt clicked in the back seat.

  “Celine? How do you get Celine out of Chantakad?”

  “That’s who I am now. I’m Celine. And can you not talk to my friends, please? You are so embarrassing.”

  And how old was her daughter then—was it thirteen? Thirteen and so sure of everything. What was it about her, the woman wondered, that was so embarrassing? Was it the perm? She hadn’t looked at the instructions on the package and had left the formula in for too long, so her hair now curled tight to the scalp. Was it her blue jeans, bought at the flea market and fitting high and loose like a flag around the hips? Maybe it was just that she was a mother and all mothers were embarrassing. Maybe it was just something to say to put more distance between them.

  “You know,” she said, turning around to face her daughter. That’s what that person was back there—her daughter. But a stranger might have been more kind. “You won’t understand this now, but some day, when you’re a mother yourself, you’ll remember what you just said to me and you’ll hate yourself for having said it. You don’t know what it’s like to give birth, to have your body bust open like that. And then to have to clean and bathe and feed that life—just a bunch of cries and burps and shit to attend to. And I did it on my own! You just don’t know!” Her daughter stared out the window as if there was something off in the distance. She went on, “But let me say this to you. And you, you remember it! You remember it! No one really wants to be a mother. But you can’t know this for sure until you are one.” She turned forward again, started the car, pulled the seat belt over her left shoulder and clicked it into place too, securing herself. Then she checked her side and rear-view mirrors and waited for a clearing.

  Eek. Eek. Eek. There was a knock on the glass, a figure standing outside beside the car. She couldn’t see who it was. For a moment, she imagined it was her daughter. But when she lowered the window, a different face appeared. A man in a police uniform. He said, “Ma’am, this is not a parking space. I’m going to have to write you a ticket if you don’t move along now. You hear?”

  She apologized and started the engine. It was four-fifteen and she still had not seen her daughter. Had she already passed by? Eek. Eek. Eek. It was hard to tell now what was happening inside the car and out. The blur, the wet, the rain, the sobbing.

  Ewwrrrkk

  The summer I turned eight, my great-grandmother showed me her boobs. Mine were just growing in, and they were sore and sensitive. They weren’t large enough to fill a bra yet, but you could see them poking out from underneath my pink unicorn T-shirt. My brother’s friends called them mosquito bites.

  My great-grandmother lived in a house with my aunt and uncle and cousins. The two of us were alone in the kitchen; everyone else was outside, in the backyard. She always carried a basket filled with her tobacco supplies. I watched as she took out a plastic bag, reached in to retrieve a wad of dry tobacco leaves, and rolled it into a bubble gum–sized ball, which she then tucked underneath the right corner of her upper lip. Every so often she’d spit red into an empty tin can. If you didn’t know what it was, you’d think she was spitting blood. The smell was as sharp as days-old urine. You always knew when she was in the room. It didn’t bother me, though, and after a while I didn’t even notice the smell.

  She spit into her tin can, pointed at my chest, and said, “You know, you have yourself some little titties.” Just like that. No being shy or subtle about it. “You should be wearing a bra.” She then took off the cotton shirt she was wearing, one she had made herself. “Nothing fits this body or supports it like it used to. They don’t make clothes for people like me. Think I won’t live long enough to spend my money, I guess.”

  She dug into her home-stitched bra and pulled out her bare breasts. They looked like eggplants—not new fresh ones you buy from the supermarket, but ones that had been left in the fridge for some time.

  She said, “When I was younger, all the boys liked me because of these. They all wanted to cop a feel. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

  I asked her where the nipples were and she pointed to the dark lobes at the very bottom.

  I thought of all the breasts I had seen up until then. My mother’s were small, with large protruding nipples like pink buttons. “They used to be bigger, you know,” she told me once. “You and your brother did that. Sucked all the milk out of me.” And last summer, when my brother let me hang around with him and his friends, one of them stole a magazine with a picture of a naked woman on the cover from his father. Like them, I stared at her breasts. They were magnificently large, so large they made her head seem small.

  The boy did not let our eyes linger too long at the magazine. Instead, he ripped out a whole page, tore it into pieces, and sold them off one by one. A breast cost a quarter, and for both breasts you had to pay a whole dollar. He ripped out the hairy crotch for me and said I could have it for free. My brother, who was three years older than me, bought the face. It was the cheapest at only a penny. Later, we met up to put all the pieces together with some tape. They told me I had to give them the crotch shot, but I told them I had thrown it over the bridge, even though it was still neatly folded in my back pocket. I just didn’t want them to have that part of her. Even so, someone put a finger into the space where the model’s crotch would have been and circled it around.

  “Scared?” my great-grandmother asked me now, with an amused smile.

  I wasn’t scared. I was amazed. “How come they don’t look like the boobies in nudie magazines?” I asked.

  “Don’t be stupid. You think they’re going to photograph or put in the movies something that looks like these? For a joke they would. But this is for real. This is what they look like if you don’t wear a bra … well, even if you do, no matter. It all ends up looking like this.” She shrugged, lifted her breasts, and stuffed each one back into her bra, patting them like flour dough. “And another thing,” she added. “The first time a guy says ‘I love you,’ your legs will pry themselves open like this.” She held up two fingers and spread them slowly to form a peace sign, and as she did this, she made the sound of a door opening on rusty hinges: “Ewwrrrkk.” Then she shut her eyes tight, threw her head back, and laughed at her own crudeness. The sound of her laughter came mostly from her throat, like a dry cough.

  In all the time I knew her, I loved seeing her laugh, how her face would fill with countless lines around her eyes, forehead, and dimples. When she wasn’t laughing, she sometimes let me touch her face and squeeze the skin together to show the places where her laughter had been. But now her laughter wasn’t something I wanted to see.

  “That won’t happen to me!” I said, shaking my head vigorously from side to side and puffing my chest out, so full of pride.

  “No. Especially you. You think you’re so smart, but in the end that’s the thing that will get you. That ‘I love you’ will do it for you. It gets everybody,” she said with another laugh. “Don’t think you’re some exception now. I know you’re just a kid, but that doesn’t mean you can’t know things. Might not make much sense now, but it will. Eventually.”

  When it did happen to me, it didn’t happen like my great-grandmother said it would. It was with a man who no longer had h
is young face. He did not say anything that had to do with love. And, afterwards, there was a pool of blood on the grey bedsheet.

  Looking at that alone, it really could have been anything.

  The Gas Station

  Mary believed there were two kinds of people in the world. There were those who were seen, and those who were not. Mary considered herself one of the latter.

  She hadn’t lived in the town for long, only a few months. It was known for its beaches, and during the summer it swelled with tourists, their talk and oils and heat. When it cooled, the town was quickly abandoned.

  Mary was thirty-six years old. She was living in a small white house. It was one of many white houses in the neighbourhood, painted that way because of the intensity of the sun. The one she lived in had a flat roof; it wasn’t a place that needed to deal with snow. Or cold. The house had one of everything. One bedroom, one bathroom, and one kitchen. Each room had a single window, which all looked out onto the same pine tree. It was not a pleasant sight.

  Mary worked from home. She was an independent accountant. She didn’t want to be part of anything, didn’t want to answer to someone. She liked the thrill of having the whole enterprise succeed or fail with her. During the tax season she often found work by setting up a clinic or pop-up office. She had many types of clients. They all surprised her with their needs and problems and desires. Because the tax form asked you to declare a marital status, she saw every stage of love. There was the initial giddiness at having found each other, the boredom of having been together for too long, the anguish of separation, the finality of a divorce, the clinging one did in the hopes of a reconciliation that was not coming. She liked spending her days listening to people describe how things had fallen apart. It was like watching a play being acted out in front of her, the feelings raw and real—all of it up close. She didn’t have to feel what they felt, but what they told her about themselves stayed with her.

  Mary always remembered the last client of every tax season. The last was usually the most dramatic. The previous year, it was a woman who worked for the government. Educated, well-to-do, financially independent. She said her ex wanted to claim the child-care expenses even though she was the one who paid them. Mary reviewed the woman’s papers laid out on the table and advised her that since she and her ex were no longer together, and the child lived with her, it was her right to claim the exemptions. The woman’s eyes welled with tears as Mary started on the return. This went on for quite some time—Mary filling in the lines, and the woman with her tears. The woman apologized. “I’ve been with incredible men,” she said. “Men who really loved me and cared for me. And appreciated me. But it didn’t happen with them.” Her story sounded like a cheap old country song. “Given my age, I didn’t think I could have a baby. So when I got together with this guy, I wasn’t thinking. Suddenly I’m pregnant. After all the tests, the pills, and giving up on them, he’s the only one it happened with. And he was the worst!” Mary did not say anything. She continued filling out the forms.

  The gas station was on the edge of town, before you hit the interstate. It was bright green, like a tennis ball. Easily spotted from miles away. This was where he worked. The gas station man. He came out to pump the gas. He was not beautiful, but she liked looking at him. Beauty was boring. To be ugly was to be particular, memorable, unforgettable even. He was uglier than that. Grotesque seemed right to describe him. It was not yet spring and there was a chill in the air, but the man was shirtless. He had hair like barnacles all over his chest. It reminded Mary of pubic hair, messy and wet and shining. There was something bold about him, walking around so bare like that.

  From inside the car, Mary pushed the button that unlocked the door to the gas tank. She watched the man in the side mirror, where there was a note of warning that said objects in mirror were closer than they appeared.

  He knew what to do each time. He came over and pushed aside the gas tank’s door, reached his hand inside, and twisted the lid to a little hole. He turned, pressed a few buttons on the machine, brought over the pump, and pushed the nozzle in. Mary could hear the gasoline, how it rushed in, eager and desperate. It took a while to fill that voluminous tank.

  She had seen him often like this, but they never talked. He had a reputation for being someone women fell in love with, and he was known to abandon them when that happened, leaving them wailing in the street below his window, begging to know why. Mary wondered what it was he did to make them lose themselves that way. She wanted to know if it could happen to her.

  She ironed out the wrinkles on a bill with the warmth of her palms. She pressed on the side with that old man’s face, and pressed again on the image of a white building on the other side. All the money in this country was green. It was easy to give away the wrong denomination. She checked all four corners for the number fifty, to be sure. He came over to the driver’s side and she opened the window just a slit. The bill slid out of the window like a tongue and he grabbed an edge. Mary revved her engine and sped away.

  The town did not encourage much walking around. There were no sidewalks, only grassy ditches on the side of the road. Most people drove pickup trucks and at interstate speed. Every bank had a drive-through window. The tax deadline was approaching, and Mary relied on being noticed for business. It would take some time before anyone did. She had to set up her office in a public place early this year, get a head start, especially in a town like this. Besides, she could use the money. She worked out a deal with the manager of the community centre to let her set up her office there, in front of the library. She brought in a foldable desk and put out her sandwich-board sign. She thought it was the perfect place. There was a lot of foot traffic. There was a pool and a gym too.

  It was inevitable, in a town this small, that she would cross paths with the gas station man. She wasn’t surprised to see him at the community centre, though he appeared out of his element. His whole body was covered up. She wondered who was at the gas station now that he was here.

  He noticed her sitting at her desk and came over. “Hey,” he said. “Can I ask you some questions?”

  She did not like how he used that first word. Hey. As though she were some hole in the wall you could just stick your questions into.

  “You have to make an appointment!” she yelled. There was fury in her voice. She pulled down the hem of her skirt, which had been creeping up, showing too much of her legs—her bony ankles, the muscled curve of her calves, the rough patches of her knees, and the area above that did not tan. Her work wardrobe was two black pencil skirts, one black jacket, and two black blouses, one short-sleeved and one long-sleeved. She owned nothing else, and the clothes fit every occasion.

  He looked around, then said, “There’s no one here.”

  It was true, but she was a professional. He couldn’t just walk up to her and take up her time as though it were free.

  “I am a professional, sir,” she said. “Professionals make appointments.”

  He laughed. “Okay then. Can I do that?”

  While she considered her schedule, he took the seat in front of her.

  “Oh. I get it,” he said. “Dressed in black. Death and taxes.”

  She ignored his comment.

  She handed him her business card and said, “How is nine o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  “But I’m here now.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “What’s the problem, then?”

  “No problem. As I said, you don’t have an appointment.”

  He seemed amused. “I never met anyone like you.”

  She wondered whether that statement was a compliment or not. She decided it was an observation of a fact. Well, working at the gas station, she thought to herself, how could you?

  “We’re done here,” Mary said, making a small circle in front of her with a finger, a boundary that needed to be drawn.

  He put his hands up, as if preparing for an arrest, and said, “Ma’am, I like you. Sharp. Real tough. I
’ll see you tomorrow.” And he got up and walked away.

  Mary drove home that night glad she didn’t have to go by the gas station. She drove over three speed bumps on the road on purpose. She made sure she went slowly, so she could feel the rise and rise and rise and fall of the car. The buildup to the bounce was more pleasurable. Her eyes looking up at the ceiling of the car, her jaw loose and open.

  When she got home, she wasn’t hungry. She took a shower, washed her hair, and polished her only pair of shoes. She read a book that had belonged to her since she was a little girl. It was about a monster, but it wasn’t scary at all. When she was about four, she wanted to be the beast. She roared and pounded at her chest and no one ever said that was not how a little girl should be. She could be ugly and uglier and even more ugly. She threw the book across the room. It left a dark mark on the wall, like a bruise. To be a monster, a beast of some kind. Watching everything shudder, down to the most useless blade of grass. She wanted that for herself.

  The next morning, Mary smoothed out her black hair, dabbed some lipstick onto two fingers and patted them on her cheeks. She spread this same colour on her lips. She wore black—one of her black pencil skirts and the long-sleeved blouse.

  The sky was a long, unbearable lump of grey and there was rain all over everything. It was eight-fifteen when she arrived at the community centre. Instead of making her way to the desk, she went to the bathroom. It was clean and bright with lots of room. She sat down on the counter next to the sink and pulled her skirt up to her thighs, spread her legs apart slightly, and reached in. She closed her eyes. Arched her back. Brought a finger to her mouth, her teeth clutching it there, muffling a moan of pleasure. The fluorescent lights were unflattering.