Part 8 (2/2)
”I heard the about me I snuck up on them and heard them”
”But you don't understand Mexican words”
”They were speaking English”
”You don't understand English words”
”This time, miraculously, I understood I decoded their speech I penetrated the words and understood as happening inside”
Brave Orchid tweaked her sister's ears for hours, chanting her new address to her, telling her how hter and nephews and nieces loved her, and her brother-in-law loved her ”I won't let anything happen to you I won't let you travel again You're home Stay home Don't be afraid” Tears fell from Brave Orchid's eyes She had whisked her sister across the ocean by jet and then made her scurry up and down the Pacific coast, back and forth across Los Angeles Moon Orchid had misplaced herself, her spirit (her ”attention,” Brave Orchid called it) scattered all over the world Brave Orchid held her sister's head as she pulled on her earlobe She would make it up to her For moments an attentiveness would return to Moon Orchid's face Brave Orchid rubbed the slender hands, blew on the fingers, tried to stoke up the flickerings She stayed home from the laundry day after day She threw out the Thorazine and vitaeles had prescribed She made Moon Orchid sit in the kitchen sun while she picked over the herbs in cupboards and basearden Brave Orchid chose the gentlest plants and made e
At night she moved from her own bedroom and slept beside Moon Orchid ”Don't be afraid to sleep,” she said ”Rest I'll be here beside you I'll help your spirit find the place to coo to sleep” Brave Orchid stayed aatching until dawn
Moon Orchid still described aloud her nieces' and nephews' doings, but now in a er interrupted herself to ask questions She would not go outside, even into the yard ”Why, she's mad,” Brave Orchid's husband said when she was asleep
Brave Orchid held her hand when she appeared vague ”Don't go away, Little Sister Don't go any further Come back to us” If Moon Orchid fell asleep on the sofa, Brave Orchid sat up through the night, so in a chair When Moon Orchid fell asleep in the middle of the bed, Brave Orchid made a place for herself at the foot She would anchor her sister to this earth
But each day Moon Orchid slipped further away She said that the Mexicans had traced her to this house That was the day she shut the drapes and blinds and locked the doors She sidled along the walls to peep outside Brave Orchid told her husband that he ht to shut the s; it kept her spirit fro off the lights like during air raids The house becaht This was very tricky, the darkness a ay for going as well as cohts, calling her sister's name all the while Brave Orchid's husband installed an air conditioner
The children locked themselves up in their bedrooms, in the storeroohts Their aunt would coht in there?”
”Yes, Aunt, we're all right”
”Beware,” she'd warn ”Beware Turn off your lights so you won't be found Turn off the lights before they co blankets over the cracks in the door-ja the bottoms of doors ”Chinese people are very weird,” they told one another
Next Moon Orchid rerandrandfather, froathered up the family albums ”Hide these,” she whispered to Brave Orchid ”Hide these When they find me, I don't want theraphs to trace you” Brave Orchid wrapped the pictures and the albums in flannel ”I'll carry these far ahere no one will find us,” she said When Moon Orchid wasn't looking, she put thee box in the basement She piled old clothes and old shoes on top ”If they come for me,” Moon Orchid said, ”everyone will be safe”
”We're all safe,” said Brave Orchid
The next odd thing Moon Orchid did was to cry whenever anyone left the house She held on to theo The children and Brave Orchid's husband had to sneak out ”Don't let theo,” pleaded Moon Orchid ”They will never come back”
”They will come back Wait and see I promise you Watch for them Don't watch for Mexicans This one will be home at 3:30 This one at 5:00 Remember who left now You'll see”
”We'll never see that one again,” Moon Orchid wept
At 3:30 Brave Orchid would reh, here he coht after school Don't you dare stop for a moment No candy store No comic book store Do you hear?”) But Moon Orchid did not re to stay with us? Don't go out tonight Don't leave in the ”
She whispered to Brave Orchid that the reason the fao out was that ”they” would take us in airplanes and fly us to Washi+ngton, DC, where they'd turn us into ashes Then they'd drop the ashes in the wind, leaving no evidence
Brave Orchid saw that all variety had gone from her sister She was indeed mad ”The difference between mad people and sane people,” Brave Orchid explained to the children, ”is that sane people have variety when they talk-story Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over”
Every , whispering ”Don't go The planes Ashes Washi+ngton, DC Ashes” Then, when a child ed to leave, she said, ”That's the last tiet hiave up She was housing a s for her children, the one in Vietnas when they needed blessing Perhaps Moon Orchid had already left thisher children Brave Orchid finally called her niece, who put Moon Orchid in a California state mental asylum Then Brave Orchid opened up the s and let the air and light coain She moved back into the bedroom with her husband The children took the blankets and sheets down fro room
Brave Orchid visited her sister twice Moon Orchid was thinner each tily, she was happy and had made up a new story She pranced like a child ”Oh, Sister, I am so happy here No one ever leaves Isn't that wonderful? We are all wohters” She introduced Brave Orchid to each inhters She was especially proud of the pregnant ones ”My dear pregnant daughters” She touched the wohtened collars, tucked blankets ”How are you today, dear daughter?” ”And, you know,” she said to Brave Orchid, ”we understand one another here We speak the sae, the very sah, the women smiled back at her and reached out to touch her as she went by She had a new story, and yet she slipped entirely away, not waking up one
Brave Orchid told her children theyanother woman because she didn't think she could take it any better than her sister had If he brought another wo up on her and play tricks on her, hit her, and trip her when she was carrying hot oil until she ran away ”I am almost seventy years old,” said the father, ”and haven't taken a second wife, and don't plan to now” Brave Orchid's daughters decided fiercely that they would never let men be unfaithful to them All her children made up theirfor a Barbarian Reed Pipe
What my brother actually said was, ”I drove Moot the other wife”
”Did she hit hi ”
”What did she say?”
”She said he'd better take them to lunch at least”
”Which wife did he sit next to? What did they eat?”
”I didn't go The other wife didn't either He motioned us not to tell”
”I would've told If I was his wife, I would've told I would've gone to lunch and kept my ears open”
”Ah, you know they don't talk when they eat”
”What else did Mom say?”
”I don't re so he would coet in one nasty word? She ”
”No, I don't think she said anything I don't re”
In fact, it wasn't eles; one of my sisters told me what he'd told her His version of the story may be better than ns The hearer can carry it tucked aithout it taking upinto buttons and frogs, and rope into bell pulls There was one knot so complicated that it blinded the knot-maker Finally an emperor outlawed this cruel knot, and the nobles could not order it anymore If I had lived in China, I would have been an outlaw knot-ue She pushed ue up and sliced the frenum Or maybe she snipped it with a pair of nail scissors I don't rechildhood I felt sorry for the baby whose mother waited with scissors or knife in hand for it to cry-and then, when its mouth ide open like a baby bird's, cut The Chinese say ”a ready tongue is an evil”
I used to curl up ue in front of the mirror and tauten my frenum into a white line, itself as thin as a razor blade I saw no scars in ht perhaps I had had two frena, and she had cut one I made other children open their mouths so I could co into precise edges that looked easy enough to cut Sometimes I felt very proud that my mother committed such a powerful act uponue
”Why did you do that to ain”
”I cut it so that you would not be tongue-tied Your tongue would be able to es that are completely different fro Your frenus, so I cut it”
”But isn't 'a ready tongue an evil'?”
”Things are different in this ghost country”