by Hannah Bent
Back at the Shanghai Middle Hospital, I sat alone in a small waiting room off the transplant ward, rocking back and forth. The sounds of Harper’s screams echoed through the hall.
‘Don’t touch me, leave me alone! Fàng kāi wǒ! Fàng kāi wǒ! Leave me alone! I don’t like this place. I want my Louis – someone please get me my Louis.’ And then, ‘Marlowe, where are you? You promised no more hospitals!’
My insides felt hot. I swallowed bile as it churned up into my mouth. I was trying not to imagine how betrayed she must be feeling – conned into coming to this awful hospital against her wishes. It was cruel. I knew it was cruel.
I stood and shut the door. Her muffled screams tore through my chest. It was as if there was no boundary between us. Her pain was my pain. Her desperation, her frustration, her dependency – the feeling of being trapped, of having her free will harnessed by me. I placed my headphones into the small tunnels of my ears, as far as they would go. Although they were attached to my MP3 player, I did not listen to music. Silence enveloped me like a soft, cotton blanket. I sat on the floor and leaned my back against the wall. I brushed the tears from my cheeks, but they just kept coming.
I opened my handbag and rummaged for some tissues. It was a mess in there: hair ties, lip balm, Panadol, old receipts, my scarf, a notebook… and Dad’s letter. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and opened it.
Dear Marlowe,
I’ve had much on my mind that I’ve wanted to share, but when I’m with you, I struggle to find the words to express myself. I’ll try to say what I need to in this letter, but please forgive any clumsiness.
Most people thought it was me who had trouble accepting Harper’s birth. I fit the stereotype of the stiff-upper-lipped Brit who couldn’t handle emotion. But when I held her for the first time, looked into her eyes, the fact that she wasn’t ‘perfect’ didn’t disturb me at all. It made me want to wrap her up and tie her to my chest so that I could keep her close and safe.
As your mother lay in her hospital bed, listening to the doctors tell us we had a ‘retarded child’, I saw her eyes turn glassy. I knew then that she was stuck in a nightmare, waiting for her ‘real’ daughter to be born instead of this ‘flawed’ one. She will never learn to read, never learn to write…The doctors rattled off a list of things she would never be able to do.
When they left, I sat next to your mother and took her hand. I suggested we name our baby Harper, after Harper Lee – as you know, she is one of my favourite authors.
Your mother didn’t smile. She looked away and reminded me that the doctors had said Harper would never be able to write.
I wish she could see Harper now, sitting at the table, writing furiously, words spilling from her in a language that knows only love.
You see, my darling girl, my love for Harper is as strong as yours.
I do hope one day you will be able to understand my position in all of this.
Yours always,
Dad
My body felt weighed down by Dad’s words. I put the letter to my nose, searching for the scent of home, but all I could smell was ink. Suddenly I felt like a small child, desperate for her father to come and make it all better. Silly. I took a breath and folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope and slid it into the side pocket of my bag.
‘Marlowe?’ Bì Yù was standing in the doorway, panting. ‘Why aren’t you with Harper?’
I shook my head and looked at the floor between my knees.
‘Did you get the money for the tests?’ I asked.
She nodded.
‘But I can’t keep doing this – I’ll run out.’ She sighed, then held out her hand. ‘Come on.’
Harper was asleep when we entered her cubicle. The nurse attending to her told us she had been given a sedative to calm her down but we could take her home now.
She then handed me the bill. Bì Yù peered over my shoulder. Every item that had been used in Harper’s care, including cotton buds and the thermometer, was listed.
‘What the hell?’ Bì Yù grabbed the bill from my hands. ‘This is daylight robbery.’
I felt a flutter in my abdomen as I handed over the cash my cousin had given me. The woman took it and hurried off.
It will be fine, I told myself. This is all part of the process. Mr Zhāng had warned me from the beginning that there would be extra costs. The important thing was that tomorrow my sister would be given the new heart and lungs that would save her life.
I turned to wake her.
Harper
In the car on the way back to Bì Yù’s home from the hospital, Marlowe does not say anything when I tell her I will not be going to hospital again. I feel big anger flames burning in my heart.
She talks in whispers to Bì Yù in the front seat. She thinks I cannot hear because I am sitting in the back, but I can. I hear the word transplant.
Transplant transplant transplant.
I want to shout at them and say: ‘I won’t let you do that to me and my heart.’ But I can’t shout. The injection I was given in the hospital makes my body feel like it is made of bricks. Everything around me is slow and heavy. I understand in my mind that I can’t shout anymore, I can’t say what I need to, because if I do, the doctors will come and inject me with more of that wicked potion.
When we get home I am tucked into bed. Marlowe sits with her legs crossed by my feet and she is biting her nails – something Stepmonster says is unladylike. I think to myself that Stepmonster is right. Marlowe is un-lady-like. She looks thin and grey in the face and her eyes are empty. She ties her hair up in an ugly bun. No, she does not look like a lady. In fact, she does not look much like my sister anymore. I see and feel now that the air and space between us is broken.
Marlowe
While Harper was resting in her room, Bì Yù was in the kitchen making pork and chive dumplings by hand. I was sitting at the dining table drinking whisky. Normally I hated the stuff, but today I relished the burn of the hot liquid in my throat and the way it quieted the swirling in my mind. Just when I felt myself growing calm, the phone rang. After I had taken it off the hook, someone must have placed it back. Harper?
‘Bì Yù, no!’
But it was too late. She had already answered.
‘Hello?… Oh, hi, Uncle James.’
I froze.
‘You’re in Beijing?… Oh, I see… Yes, I’ll let you know if I hear anything.’
‘I hate this,’ Bì Yù said.
All I could say was ‘So do I.’ I sounded so pathetic.
The phone rang again.
Bì Yù answered once more.
‘Mā ma!’ She spoke in Chinese to Aunt Lĭ Nà. All I understood was Bì Yù saying, ‘I don’t know.’ She was covering for me. When she hung up the phone, she didn’t bother coming out of the kitchen.
‘I’m ready to go home now.’
It was Harper, standing behind me. I didn’t want to turn and face her. I couldn’t.
‘I said I want to go home now… Marlowe? Why are you ignoring me? I want to go home I want to go home I want to go –’
‘Enough!’
I turned and saw the word strike her like a blow to the stomach. Her beautiful brown eyes filled with pain.
Who was I becoming?
‘I’m going home, Marlowe,’ she said, her voice subdued.
Taking her in properly now, I saw she had her coat on and was standing with her oxygen tank in one hand, backpack slung over her shoulder. For a moment, I fantasised about letting her walk out of the apartment. A refreshing sense of solitude washed over me, reminding me of the silence I relished in the lab when staring down a microscope lens at the compound eyes of the arion. I drew in a breath, a full and deep one, and then I saw my sister walking through the door.
‘Harper.’ I leaped up.
She walked down the corridor towards the elevator.
‘Harper!’
She ignored me and kept walking. The elevator doors opened and she stepped in. I followed.
‘Harper, please.’
She looked away, pretending I wasn’t there.
I grabbed her arm.
‘Let go of me!’ she shouted.
The doors were closing.
‘Harper, this is silly,’ I said sternly.
‘I want to go home. Why can’t you respect me?’
Respect. She hadn’t used that word with me much before.
‘How exactly do you plan to go home without me?’ Bitter. I could taste it.
She took her wallet from her backpack and showed me a wad of US hundred-dollar bills.
‘Where the hell did you get that?’
‘Louis. He took it from his dad. It’s money for our marriage.’ I could feel gravity in the pit of my stomach as the elevator descended. ‘I’m going back to my Louis. He looks after me when I’m sick. He loves me with his brave heart.’
‘How dare you,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘All I do is look after you!’
Harper folded her arms.
‘You used to look after me. Now you’re just… you’re just’ she took a breath from her oxygen mask – ‘an empty heart.’
I took one step too close. I laughed bitterly at the irony. It was thanks to me that tomorrow she would have a working heart.
‘You’d be dead without me,’ I said.
The elevator doors opened, but she didn’t move; she just stared at me without blinking or breathing. My words seemed to have winded her.
‘I’m only doing what’s best for you,’ I added.
She sank to her knees on the floor of the elevator.
I felt numb. The doors closed and we travelled back up. Time moved painfully slow, and all I could think about was how I was supposed to stop myself from becoming someone I didn’t know.
Harper
Last night something strange happened. Marlowe came into my room. I pretended I was asleep, but I wasn’t really because I was thinking of my Louis and sending him love through my closed eyes and open heart.
I felt her fingertips on my forehead, brushing away my hair, making my appearance tidy. She was whispering something. I turned to move closer to her sound.
‘I’m sorry,’ she was saying. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I did not open my eyes because I could feel pain coming from her voice, so hot it felt cold.
‘Please, please, don’t leave me. Don’t die on me. I need you not to die, please.’
Her words travelled into my chest and every time my heart made one beat it hurt so bad that I had to squeeze my mouth shut so I did not scream.
She crawled under my covers with me, like I used to do with her when we were small. She wrapped her arm around my waist and held me tight and it felt so cosy I went to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning, she was gone.
A strong flame has been burning in my belly. It makes me want to leave Marlowe. Last night, I tried to go back home to my Louis, but I couldn’t. Not because I do not know how. Of course I know all about calling up a travelling agent and with my words telling her I will be getting on a plane, economy class, to Hong Kong International Airport. I have seen my dad do this. But he uses a card from his wallet and reads out the numbers on it to pay for a ticket. I do not have these numbers.
But that is not the reason I didn’t go. Deep in my heart, when I tried to leave Marlowe, I felt something inside me pulling and pulling.
It is like we are magnets, and right now the powerful forces and energies between us keep bringing me back to her.
This morning the phone rang early. Bì Yù answered it and had a conversation that sounded angry. And then she and Marlowe started shouting. I didn’t like the sound of the loud voices so I went to my room, but even though I shut the door, I could still hear them.
‘I don’t trust him, Marlowe. He can keep delaying all he wants. He can just run off with all the money now.’
‘It’s only one day. Don’t overreact.’
I wondered what was happening in one day, but I knew I could not ask this right now or Marlowe’s flames of anger would hit me and maybe mine would hit her.
‘Ugh, you’re so frustrating!’ Bì Yù said. ‘You’re not thinking clearly anymore. He could keep saying one day forever.’
‘I don’t need to listen to this. I’m going out.’
Then I heard the door slam. It made me jump. After a while, when I felt the air in the house drop to the floor like sinking dust, I crept out of my room and into the living room. I was getting a bit bored in the bedroom to be honest.
Now, lying on the couch with my warm, pink socks on, I feel my fire burning. Its flames are on low for now because Marlowe is still out. The house feels peaceful without her, but this is personal private information I will keep locked in my head. I am tired of the anger anger anger that is swimming around her whole body, inside and out. She can’t see it, but I can.
An envelope arrives via a Speedy Gonzales postman for Marlowe and Bì Yù opens it. Inside are some cut-outs from a newspaper and a letter. I know this is not a good thing to do. Mail is personal and private. If your name is not on the envelope, that means you should not read it, but Bì Yù does. She reads the newspaper cut-outs first and I can tell she is holding her breath because her chest is still. Then she puts the cut-outs down and reads the letter. Suddenly she runs to the kitchen. I can tell she is making a phone call because I hear her say, ‘It’s Bì Yù. Marlowe’s gone out and I opened the letter you sent. I need your help.’
I think to myself that I have not heard Bì Yù ask for help before.
‘Harper was due to have her procedure today,’ she says, ‘but it’s been moved to tomorrow. Marlowe’s already paid the money, but… I’m just not sure about it anymore.’
I wonder what she means by the word procedure and think I must look it up in my dictionary soon.
‘I know Marlowe is desperate to get this done, but my gut tells me it’s wrong.’ Bì Yù’s words are fast and shaky. ‘I couldn’t work out how the hospital can have so many organs available for transplant at such short notice, while in the rest of the world people have to wait years. I didn’t think we executed that many criminals.
‘But one of those articles, you sent said that it’s not just criminals who are being executed – that it’s political prisoners and people from labour camps too. Do you think it’s possible that the organs…’
I don’t want to listen anymore. There are too many words that don’t make sense and it is making me tired. I go back to my room and crawl into bed.
After a while, Bì Yù comes to my room and asks me to sit with her at the kitchen table. She shows me a book called The Anatomy of the Human Heart. There is a photo of a heart and lots of words. Some of the words are a bit strange and long, but Bì Yù explains the meaning of it all: that my heart is a muscle inside my chest and I need it to be full of life. When it stops beating, this is called dead. I tell Bì Yù that I already know about the human heart and I tell her that I am not going to be dead because the doctors are going to fix me. I also explain to her about dead. I tell her that just because your body becomes dead, your hum is not gone. Like my mum. Sometimes she is with me. When I am in the garden by the jasmine bush, I can smell her perfume.
When I finish speaking, I notice something different in me. I am calmer now; the dead word doesn’t scare me so much today. I said this word three times out loud and it didn’t upset me.
‘Don’t you think the heart looks like a plum, with vines and roots that reach all over your body?’ I ask.
Bì Yù looks at me. ‘Your heart is sick, Harper. You know that, don’t you?’
I nod my head. Not this conversation again. Does everyone think I am stupid in my brain or what?
‘And Marlowe wants to get you a new one from another person. This is why she has brought you to Shanghai.’ She leans her body in so she is close to me. ‘I don’t want to scare you, but she wants to get you a heart in a very bad way.’
Bì Yù’s eyes look a bit small and sideways, like she is doing
something secret.
‘I already told Marlowe I don’t want the transplant thing. I don’t want someone else’s heart and I don’t want it in a bad way.’
I ask Bì Yù to get me a glass of apple juice and she does. I drink it in one go.
She looks at me, and her eyes are soft.
‘Harper, if you don’t want this heart transplant, you have to be firm with Marlowe.’
I think to myself that Bì Yù does not understand a few things. First of all, even though I keep telling Marlowe that I don’t want someone else’s heart, she will not listen. This is something that happens a lot in my life, maybe because I am not as quick at speaking out my words as someone who doesn’t have the Up syndrome. Marlowe used to be someone who listened, but now she has forgotten how, just like everyone else. The second thing is that now I think I understand in my heart and in my mind why Marlowe won’t listen. It has something to do with the pain that she whispered to me last night when she thought I was sleeping.
I decide it is best not to use words to say any more to Bì Yù, so I lift up my glass and ask her for one more apple juice.
I go to my room, take out my autobiographical storybook and open to the page where my pen was last touching. I read it again:
There was a beutiful lady who onse upon a time had a sore chest and was sick. She didn’t know it yet but she had corage. Even though the yung woman was sick in her chest, she found her corage and desided to go on a jorney. Her body filled up with power like a leeping white tiger.
It is time for me to add in a few more words. I can feel them running from my brain and into my hand. I needed to find my plum heart before it was too late.
There was a dark forse that was trying to stop the brave woman from finding her plum hart.
I close my eyes and see a faceless man wearing a large black cape. In his hand is a glass globe, spinning.
