Part 5 (2/2)
”You're so fat”
”Fat women are more beautiful than skinny women”
The children pulled theht the car froe into the trunk They put the two old ladies and the niece in the back seat All the way hoe, over the Diablo hills, across the San Joaquin River to the valley, the valley moon so white at dusk-all the way home, the two sisters exclaimed every time they turned to look at each other, ”Aiaa! How old!”
Brave Orchid forgot that she got sick in cars, that all vehicles but palanquins”How did you get so old?”
Brave Orchid had tears in her eyes But Moon Orchid said, ”You look older than I You are are older than I,” and again she'd laugh ”You're wearing an old mask to tease me” It surprised Brave Orchid that after thirty years she could still get annoyed at her sister's silliness older than I,” and again she'd laugh ”You're wearing an old mask to tease me” It surprised Brave Orchid that after thirty years she could still get annoyed at her sister's silliness
Brave Orchid's husband aiting under the tangerine tree Moon Orchid recognized hi man who left on a shi+p Her sister had married the ideal in masculine beauty, the thin scholar with the hollow cheeks and the long fingers And here he was, an old ate he had built with his own hands, his hair blowing silver in twilight ”hello,” he said like an Englishlish telephone operator He went to help his children unload the car, gripping the suitcase handles in his bony fingers, his bony wrists locked
Brave Orchid's husband and children brought everything into the dining room, provisions for a lifetime move heaped all over the floor and furniture Brave Orchid wanted to have a luck cereed, but Moon Orchid said, ”I've got presents for everybody Let aped like mouths; Brave Orchid had better hurry with the luck
”First I've got shoes for all of you fro theriest aunt, owned either a shoe store or a shoe factory in Hong Kong That hy every Christ with yellow and pink plastic beads, sequins, and turquoise blue flowers ”She ive us the leftovers,” Brave Orchid's children were saying in English As Brave Orchid ran back and forth turning on all the lights, every lalared sideways at her children They would be sorry when they had to walk barefoot through snow and rocks because they didn't take what shoes they could, even if the wrong size She would put the slippers next to the bathtub on the linoleu them
”May I have some scissors? Oh, where are my scissors?” said Moon Orchid She slit the heel of a black eled with jewels ”You'll have to lettheir earlobes ”Then you can wear these” There were earrings with skewers like gold krisses There was a jade heart and an opal Brave Orchid interrupted her dashi+ng about to rub the stones against her skin
Moon Orchid laughed softly in delight ”And look here Look here,” she said She was holding up a paper warrior-saint, and he was all intricacies and light A Communist had cut a wisp of black paper into a hero with sleeves like butterflies' wings and with tassels and flags, which fluttered when you breathed on him ”Did so ”Really?” The eyebrows and mustache, the fierce wrinkles between the eyes, the face, all were the er by finger Through the spaces you could see light and the room and each other ”Oh, there's more There's more,” said Moon Orchid happily She picked up another paper cutout and blew on it It was the scholar who always carries a fan; her breath shook its blue feathers His brush and quill and scrolls tied with ribbon jutted out of lace vases ”And e warrior-poet with sword and scroll; a purple knight with doily armor, holes for scales; a wonderful archer on a red horse with a old hatails and pink rifle ”And this is Fa Mu Lan,” she said ”She was a woreen and beautiful, and her robes whirled out as she drew her sword
”Paper dolls,” said Brave Orchid to her children ”I'd have thought you were too old to be playing with dolls” How greedy to play with presents in front of the giver How impolite (”untraditional” in Chinese) her children were With a slaed pieces ”Take soht the yellow crystals on a red paper plate to her fa be sweet Her children acted as if this eating were a bother ”Oh, all right,” they said, and took the smallest slivers Who would think that children could dislike candy? It was abnor piece,” she scolded She'd make them eat it like medicine if necessary They were so stupid, surely they weren't adults yet They'd put the bad mouth on their aunt's first American day; you had to sweeten their noisy barbarousShe opened the back door and
”What do you say when you open the door like that?” her children used to ask when they were younger
”Nothing Nothing,” she would answer
”Is it spirits, Mother? Do you talk to spirits? Are you asking the,” she said She never explained anything that was really ier asked
When she ca to the invisibilities, Brave Orchid saw that her sister was strewing the rooainst the lampshades, the chairs, the tablecloths Moon Orchid left fans unfolded and dragons with accordion bodies dangling froood at stitching roosters,” she was pointing out bird erow old without learning to put things away
”Let's put these things away,” Brave Orchid said
”Oh, Sister,” said Moon Orchid ”Look what I have for you,” and she held up a pale green silk dress lined in wool ”In winter you can look like sus to show the lining, thick and plaid like a blanket
”Nohere would I wear such a fancy dress?” said Brave Orchid ”Give it to one of the children”
”I have bracelets and earrings for the for jewelry They'll lose it”
”They seeirls broke six jade bracelets playing baseball And they can't endure pain They scream when I squeeze their hands into the jade Then that very day, they'll break it We'll put the jewelry in the bank, and we'll buy glass and black wood frames for the silk scrolls” She bundled up the sticks that opened into flowers ”What were you doing carrying these scraps across the ocean?”
Brave Orchid took as useful and solid into the back bedroom, where Moon Orchid would stay until they decided what she would do perht colors and movements distracted her ”Oh, look at this,” she'd say ”Just look at this You have carp” She was turning the light off and on in the goldfish tank, which sat in the rolltop desk that Brave Orchid's husband had taken fro World War II Moon Orchid looked up at the grandparents' photographs that hung on the wall above the desk Then she turned around and looked at the opposite wall; there, equally large, were pictures of Brave Orchid and her husband They had put up their own pictures because later the children would not have the sense to do it
”Oh, look,” said Moon Orchid ”Your pictures are up too Why is that?”
”No reason Nothing,” said Brave Orchid ”In America you can put up anybody's picture you like”
On the shelf of the rolltop desk, like a randparents' photos, there were bowls of plastic tangerines and oranges, crepe-paper flowers, plastic vases, porcelain vases filled with sand and incense sticks A clock sat on a white runner crocheted with red phoenixes and red words about how lucky and bright life is Moon Orchid lifted the ruffles to look inside the pigeon holes There were also pen trays and little drawers, enough so that the children could each have one or two for their very own The fish tank took up half the desk space, and there was still rooone; the children had broken it slat by slat when they hid inside the desk, pulling the top over themselves The knee hole had boxes of toys that the married children's children played with now Brave Orchid's husband had padlocked one large bottom cabinet and one drawer
”Why do you keep it locked?” Moon Orchid asked ”What's in here?”
”Nothing,” he said ”Nothing”
”If you want to poke around,” said Brave Orchid, ”why don't you find out what's in the kitchen drawers so you can helproom and kitchen tables ”Eat!” Brave Orchid ordered ”Eat!” She would not allow anybody to talk while eating In soe, but here the children spoke English, which their parents didn't seem to hear
After they ate and cleaned up, Brave Orchid said, ”Now! We have to get down to business”
”What do you hter held one another's hands
”Oh, no I don't want to listen to this,” said Brave Orchid's husband, and left to read in bed
The three women sat in the enorerators Brave Orchid had an inside stove in the kitchen and a stove outside on the back porch All day long the outside stove cooked peelings and gristle into chicken feed It horrified the children when they caught her throwing scraps of chicken into the chicken feed Both stoves had been turned off for the night now, and the air was cooling
”Wait until et so all the way froht me here” Moon Orchid meant that they should be satisfied hat they had already accomplished Indeed, she stretched happily and appeared quite satisfied to be sitting in that kitchen at that ,” she said, but Brave Orchid, who had never been on an airplane, did not let her
”What are we going to do about your husband?” Brave Orchid asked quickly That ought to wake her up
”I don't know Do we have to do so?”
”He does not know you're here”
Moon Orchid did not say anything For thirty years she had been receiving money from him from America But she had never told him that she wanted to coest it, but he never did Nor did she tell hi for years to transport her here First Brave Orchid had found a Chinese-Ahter had co Moon Orchid over
”We have to tell him you've arrived,” said Brave Orchid
Moon Orchid's eyes got big like a child's ”I shouldn't be here,” she said
”Nonsense I want you here, and your daughter wants you here”
”But that's all”
”Your husband is going to have to see you We'll nize you Ha Won't it be fun to see his face? You'll go to his house And when his second wife answers the door, you say, 'I want to speak to my husband,' and you na in the family room' Walk past her as if she were a servant She'll scold hiht You yell at hio back to Hong Kong”
”You can't It's too late You've sold your aparteles with his second wife, and they have three children Claiot two sons children He's got two sons You You have two sons You take them away from her You become their mother” have two sons You take them away from her You become their mother”
”Do you really think I can be a mother of sons? Don't you think they'll be loyal to her, since she gave birth to them?”