When Things Are Alive They Hum

by Hannah Bent

‘Dad hasn’t said anything to you?’

  Uncle Johnny grimaced slightly. ‘I don’t see that much of your father these days. Tell me, what’s going on?’

  I paused for a minute before speaking. ‘Harper needs a heart and lung transplant.’

  I heard Uncle Johnny catch his breath, but I wasn’t done. ‘And she has been denied one because of her disability.’

  I listed the hospitals that had rejected Harper, finishing with a description of Saturday’s meeting, at which we’d been urged to seek palliative care.

  Uncle Johnny rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Oh, Marlowe, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘She doesn’t have long,’ I said quietly. ‘So can you write a piece on her? Get her story out there? It worked for Sandra Jensen…’

  But Uncle Johnny was shaking his head. ‘Marlowe, it doesn’t quite work like that. I’m a business journalist; I don’t normally write feature articles. And even if I did, Hong Kong is not America – the law is different here.’

  ‘I know the law is different.’ I gripped the sides of my seat. ‘Please, I don’t know what else to do…’ I hated the sound of my voice, the desperation in it. I hated begging for help.

  Uncle Johnny sighed. ‘Okay, okay… Let me see what I can do.’

  I exhaled. ‘Thank you.’

  As he walked me back out to reception, he asked me how Dad was holding up.

  I stared at him. ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘Like I said, we haven’t seen each other in a while.’ He glanced away.

  Why was there such distance between them? It was as if Dad was slowly erasing all vestiges of the life he had lived with Mum. I swallowed. Soon there would be nothing left to hold our family together.

  It was dinner time. Wài Pó had placed an unusually bland looking omelette and plain rice on the kitchen table. Harper and I shared a look while Wài Pó prepared a tray for Dad and Irene to eat in their room.

  ‘I’ll take that to them.’ I whisked the tray from her hands. This was the perfect opportunity for me to tell Dad my plan. I’d already spoken with Uncle Johnny so it was too late for him to object.

  From outside Dad’s bedroom, I heard an argument between him and Irene. The door was slightly ajar and their words travelled clearly out into the corridor.

  ‘You have to control your temper with the doctors, James,’ Irene was saying. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘Is that seriously what you’re thinking about right now?’ Dad retorted.

  There was a pause; I heard the click of a lighter and then Irene exhaled. ‘You have to accept there’s nothing more we can do,’ she said.

  I didn’t wait to hear any more. I pushed the door open. Irene was by the window, cigarette in hand, while Dad was on the opposite side of the room, leaning against the cupboard.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘there is something we can do.’ I placed the tray on their side table.

  Irene looked at me. ‘You didn’t consider knocking?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Marlowe?’ Dad asked. His voice sounded weary.

  ‘We can get a story about Harper’s case in the media.’ I handed him the Sandra Jensen article and told him about her case. He shook his head dismissively.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘I already know about this story, darling, but this is Hong Kong. No one is interested in the rights of disabled people here.’

  Irene exhaled smoke in a long, steady stream.

  I squeezed my eyes tightly shut until I saw stars.

  ‘Don’t you want to help?’ I asked in a small voice.

  ‘Your father’s right,’ Irene cut in. ‘The culture here is different. People just don’t care.’

  ‘No one is going to want to write about this anyway,’ Dad said, his tone softer now.

  ‘Uncle Johnny will. I went to see him and he said he’d see what he could do.’

  ‘Uncle Johnny?’ Dad paused, his gaze averted in recollection. ‘How is he?’

  When I didn’t answer, he passed the article back in my direction.

  I folded my arms, refusing, suddenly disgusted by his passivity.

  ‘Why am I the only one who is trying to do something?’ I demanded. Then, startled by my own anger, I fled the room.

  Irene’s voice followed me down the hall. ‘You really should tell her that she can’t talk to you like that, James. It’s so disrespectful.’

  From the back of my wardrobe, I retrieved the empty rearing cage that Grandpa had given me one Christmas. With a damp cloth, I cleaned away the dust from the netted walls and wiped the floral tubes for milkweed cuttings. Why was I setting up an empty home with nothing to inhabit it? I stared at the cage, trying not to think of a life that was slowly slipping away from me.

  ‘Hello.’ Harper was standing in the doorway to my bedroom. She held a book in her hands. Its front was covered in a thin sheet of silver glitter. ‘I want to show you something.’ She plonked herself onto my bed.

  She held her notebook in the air and glitter rained onto the floor. ‘This is my autobiography storybook. I want you to know that I have started my own great story.’ She turned to the first page and, with her index finger following her loopy handwriting, began to read slowly. I sat down next to her and listened, marvelling at how her brain could turn our painful hospital meeting into a series of enchanted tales.

  She asked me if I liked her writing and I told her it was wonderful.

  ‘Do you think I can get this published soon? I would like an agent as well.’

  Ever since she was a teenager and started writing seriously, she would send me her work and ask me to help her find a publisher. ‘We can always keep trying.’ I didn’t want her to lose hope.

  ‘Harper,’ I said, ‘are you sure you’re okay? I know the meeting at the hospital a few days ago was really full-on.’

  My sister pushed her spectacles further up her nose.

  ‘Yes, yes. I am okay because I know the doctors will fix me.’

  I bit my tongue to keep my rage in check.

  ‘Also, the lady with the shell was nice,’ Harper added.

  That damn social worker.

  ‘Do you understand what a transplant is, Harper?’

  She nodded her head slowly. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  I took her hand in mine. Her fingers were cold. I massaged them gently. ‘Harper, a transplant is when they give you a new heart and lungs.’

  ‘Yes, you told me already.’ Then she tipped her head to the side and looked at me, puzzled. ‘But I did have one question: where do these hearts and lungs come from?’

  From someone who is brain dead.

  ‘From someone who doesn’t need theirs anymore.’ I was a coward. I was treating her like a child. ‘Sorry. I should have said from someone who has been in an accident and can’t live anymore, but their organs can live on in another person.’

  ‘I like my own heart. I don’t need someone else’s and you should know I am not going to die. I am quite happy in my body and with all the parts of my body, and I know the doctors will fix me.’

  My head began to throb.

  ‘I like my own heart,’ Harper repeated in an urgent voice. ‘I like my own. I want to keep my own.’

  I drew her close.

  ‘It’s okay.’ I rubbed her back like I used to when she was small, resting my cheek against the top of her head. She smelled like strawberry shampoo. We stayed like this for a while.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Harper whispered back eventually. ‘We’ll be okay.’ I listened to the certainty in her voice. All at once it was as if she were holding me. ‘We will be okay because you are home.’

  She stood and made her way to the door. ‘I am going back to my room to write now.’

  And then my sister was gone, leaving a trail of glitter behind her.

  Harper

  The feeling in our house has changed. This afternoon, the air in our home is calm and still because everyone has gone to their rooms and shut their doors. The quiet feels soft around me, lik
e fur touching my skin.

  Below my feet are wooden floorboards where my Mum’s piano used to be. I close my eyes and hear her music like it was before. White and black keys sing to one another.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ I say. ‘I love you, Mum.’

  I walk through the house to my second-most favourite place, which is Wài Pó’s kitchen. There are so many colours and smells: Wài Pó’s salty, dried fish that are hanging by the window and all her jars of pickled chillies and vegetables in orange, red and green. We have a little yellow chirping bird in a cage near the pantry. I call him Prince William after the very handsome prince in the United Kingdom.

  I place my storybook flat on the kitchen table and prepare my special fountain pen. In front of me there is a bowl. It is full of fresh plums that Wài Pó bought from the market. My fingertips feel the smoothness, as soft as the skin behind my ears.

  The silver tip of my pen is touching paper. Ink drops. A small spot of black water spreads. I write:

  Plums are shiny and the colour of blood.

  Being a writer is hard. I wonder if Shakespeare also had this thought in his brain. I bite into a plum and its skin cracks open. Plum juice covers my whole mouth and drips down all the tubes in my body to my stomach. I feel like I am standing under the air conditioner on a day when the sun is making fire.

  I chew and the insides of my cheeks fizz. I know all about plums and how they are made because of the plum trees in Zhōngshān Park, Shanghai. Marlowe told me about the stages of a plum being born from its tree; first it is a bud, then a blossom, then a fruit to be picked and put into a mouth. Delicious!

  A bit of plum blood swims down my chin and drops onto the paper next to the ink spot. It all becomes clear to me now. I see my body as if I am a tree. I have roots that reach all the way into the earth. And just like in the hospital, on the plastic model of the heart, I have veins that reach all over me like branches and my blood is like red juice. My heart is like a plum.

  I pick up my pen. I must write quickly now because the story words are spilling out of me all in one go.

  The Plum Hart

  1 time there was a beutiful yung lady.

  Her hart was sick but she still new how to love.

  Her 外婆wài pó told her a story with the word death imm- or-tal in it.

  Imm-or-tal is a very speshel word.

  She could get beter if she went to find a speshel plum on a tree – a speshel tree like in zhōngshān park, Shang-hi.

  If she eats one bite of the plum she will be imm-or-tal. Imm-or-tal meens her body will live. Her body will not die.

  Now I understand more about what a transplant is. It is like taking a bite of the plum heart.

  Marlowe

  Evening light flooded my room in lavender. I had fallen asleep in the afternoon again. Was this jet lag or the beginning of despair?

  I forced my eyes to stay open by staring at the white wall in front of me. I was helped by the high-pitched notes of Wài Pó’s Chinese opera, which rang through the house like howling cats. She only ever played it when she was trying to get herself out of a funk.

  My knuckles ached from gripping the bedsheets tightly. Had I had a nightmare? The hairs at the base of my neck prickled. I rolled over, and for the first time in my life I was prepared to see the face of a ghost. No matter how many times I told myself that ghosts aren’t real, the fear remained. Suddenly, I found myself longing for Mum again – so intensely the feeling squeezed at the bones in my chest. Whenever I had a nightmare, she used to lie in bed next to me, stroking my back. I closed my eyes and imagined her with me until I felt my body relax and my rational mind was able to take control, returning me to myself.

  I rose from my bed, turned off the purring dehumidifier and walked through the house.

  Dad’s office door was ajar. I saw him asleep in his armchair. A newspaper rested on his lap and he held an empty whisky glass in his hand. As I took the glass from his slack grip, his brows twitched, eyes moved rapidly under their lids. He looked like a child having a bad dream as his bottom lip quivered. It was hard to witness Dad turned into a boy in his sleep. I quickly left the room, shutting the door behind me.

  The sound of Wài Pó’s opera was replaced by the steadier drone of voices from a Chinese news channel. I passed the living room, note again the missing antique vases, and followed the sweet and sour aromas of Wài Pó’s cooking to the kitchen.

  Harper sat at the round table with a camellia in her hair. She was stringing beans. The small TV flickered in the background next to the microwave. Wài Pó was stirring a pot. I bent over the bubbling liquid and inhaled the familiar scent of homemade chicken broth. Beside her, two big woks were steaming away. Peeking under one steel lid I saw a large snapper garnished with ginger and spring onions. I asked her why she was preparing such a big meal.

  ‘I’m making a welcome home dinner for you.’ Wài Pó lifted her long cooking chopsticks in the air. ‘Better late than never.’

  Wài Pó usually had Esmerelda helping her in the kitchen. When I first arrived home, I had asked where she was; she had been working for the family since I was two and was a constant presence in my life. Irene told me she was on holiday and didn’t respond when I asked when she would return.

  ‘When is Esmerelda returning?’ I asked my grandmother now.

  Wài Pó, a master of selective deafness, pretended not to hear.

  Harper sighed. ‘That one is a sad story. Esmerelda is back in the Philippines for good, with her own family – her son, her husband and her pet dog called Locky. I miss her.’ Her bottom lip trembled.

  ‘What? Why did she leave?’

  ‘Marlowe, I want to tell you something.’ Harper patted the empty chair next to her for me to sit. Her glasses slid down the bridge of her nose. She pushed them back up again with her stubby finger. Her nails were painted pink, purple and blue. ‘I want to tell you something about my boyfriend, Louis.’

  ‘But why did Esmerelda leave?’ I asked, interrupting Harper. The missing vases, Esmerelda gone… There were too many unanswered questions.

  ‘Wài Pó, please tell me what’s going on,’ I insisted.

  My grandmother immediately dipped her spoon into the pot of broth, blew on it and shoved it in my mouth. Creamy, warm flavours of chicken flesh, rice wine and peppercorns slid down my throat. My stomach rumbled.

  ‘Delicious.’

  She then proceeded to lecture on the importance of preparing real broth, not the kind you get in a packet from the supermarket. ‘All these dishes I am making tonight are from a collection of my mother’s recipes.’

  I swallowed my irritation. Pressing Wài Pó further was pointless. She had always been so stubborn, just like Harper. I would have to pick a time to question her carefully.

  ‘Never mind then, Marlowe.’ Harper had folded her arms across her chest.

  ‘Sorry, Harper,’ I said, returning my attention to her. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘There will be a surprise guest tonight. A big surprise and excitement.’

  ‘Who?’

  Harper just shook her head and mimed zipping her lip. ‘It’s a secret.’

  Our round dining table was neatly laid with bowls and chopsticks. Harper had folded the napkins into the shape of swans.

  Irene took the seat facing the window and Hong Kong’s sparkling harbour. Harper and I sat opposite, facing the wall.

  ‘Where’s James?’ Irene asked.

  ‘Asleep,’ I said.

  She got up. I could hear the sound of her heels clip-clopping down the corridor to Dad’s study.

  Wài Pó placed a steaming bowl of rice onto the lazy Susan, before returning to the kitchen. Although it was rude to start serving before everyone was seated, I started dishing the rice into bowls.

  Irene returned. ‘I’ve decided to let your father sleep. There’s no use in waking him.’ Her cheeks were flushed.

  ‘He does this a lot,’ Harper chimed in.

  ‘He
does?’ It wasn’t like Dad to miss dinner.

  Irene told Harper to leave the subject alone.

  The doorbell rang and I seized the chance to escape. I opened the front door to find Louis standing there, wearing a crisp navy suit.

  ‘Twenty-two minutes and fifty seconds! Yessssssssss! I am speedy.’ He tapped his wrist. A bright yellow digital watch was strapped alongside a black one.

  ‘Oh, Marlowe!’ He pulled me close and gave me a big hug.

  I held on, tight. It was so good to see him. He felt like a breath of fresh air in our stuffy home.

  ‘I was wondering when I would see you, Louis!’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been away in Thailand for a beach holiday but I am home now. I am so happy that you are back from the bugs university. Harper has been missing you so very much and that means that I have been missing you too.’

  Before I had a chance to say anything, he ran into the house. Over his shoulder he shouted, ‘I love your Wài Pó’s cooking so much. I like her dumplings the best, then her fish, then her spring rolls, and of course her egg tarts…’

  I followed him. When he entered the dining room, Harper sprang up from her chair.

  ‘My Romeo has arrived! Oh, how I’ve missed you!’ She flung her arms around his neck and they touched noses. They were so cute together. The sight of them made me long for Olly.

  ‘Please. Not at the dinner table.’ Irene stood.

  I moved in front of Harper and Louis, blocking them from Irene’s view.

  ‘Irene, there’s no need to stop them.’ Heat bled into my cheeks.

  ‘I’m not kissing him with my lips, you know,’ Harper said. ‘This kind of kissing is with the nose.’

  Louis stroked her cheek and asked if she was okay. He was always so attentive and caring. I was reminded of the fact that it was because of Louis I’d felt I could leave Harper for London all those years ago. He made her happy. For that, I loved him.

  Irene asked Harper to sit back down at the dinner table, but of course she took no notice. Who did Irene think she was? I’d struggled with her presence when I only saw her occasionally, but now that she lived here it was a whole new ballgame.