Part 9 (2/2)

I reached up and took the fatty part of her cheek, not dough, but er This close, and I saw no pores ”Talk,” I said ”Are you going to talk?” Her skin was fleshy, like squid out of which the glassy blades of bones had been pulled I wanted tough skin, hard brown skin I had callused my hands; I had scratched dirt to blacken the nails, which I cut straight across to ave her face a squeeze ”Talk” When I let go, the pink rushed back into my white thumbprint on her skin I walked around to her side ”Talk!” I shouted into the side of her head Her straight hair hung, the salets or braids or peroing to talk?” She tried to shake her head, but I had hold of her face She had no o in horror What if it ca the touch of her off ave her another pinch and a twist ”Say 'No'” She shook her head, her straight hair turning with her head, not swinging side to side like the pretty girls' She was so neat Her neatness bothered me I hated the way she folded the wax paper fro and her school papers I hated her clothes-the blue pastel cardigan, the white blouse with the collar that lay flat over the cardigan, the homemade flat, cotton skirt she hen everybody else earing flared skirts I hated pastels; I would wear black always I squeezed again, harder, even though her cheek had a weak rubbery feeling I did not like I squeezed one cheek, then the other, back and forth until the tears ran out of her eyes as if I had pulled theh she habitually followed me around, she did not obey Her eyes dripped; her nose dripped She wiped her eyes with her papery fingers The skin on her hands and ar paper, onion skin I hated her fingers I could snap them like breadsticks I pushed her hands down ”Say 'Hi,'” I said ”'Hi' Like that Say your name Go ahead Say it Or are you stupid? You're so stupid, you don't know your own name, is that it? When I say, 'What's your name?' you just blurt it out, ok? What's your nahed at a boy who couldn't fill out a forhed, exasperated, and was very sarcastic, ”Don't you notice things? What does your hed at how dus ”She calls hih we knew that his mother did not call his father by nahed and were relieved that our parents had had the foresight to tell us soive the teachers ”If you're not stupid,” I said to the quiet girl, ”what's your naht in the tears; wet black hair stuck to the side of the pink and white face I reached up (she was taller than I) and took a strand of hair I pulled it ”Well, then, let's honk your hair,” I said ”Honk Honk” Then I pulled the other side-”ho-o-n-nk”-a long pull; ”ho-o-n-n-nk”-a longer pull I could see her little white ears, like white cutworms curled underneath the hair ”Talk!” I yelled into each cutworht at her ”I know you talk,” I said ”I've heard you” Her eyebrows flew up So in those black eyes was startled, and I pursued it ”I alking past your house when you didn't knoas there I heard you yell in English and in Chinese You weren't just talking You were shouting I heard you shout You were saying, 'Where are you?' Say that again Go ahead, just the way you did at ho I did not want to pull it out ”Go ahead Say, 'Where are you?' Say it loud enough for your sister to come Call her Make her come help you Call her name I'll stop if she comes So call Go ahead”

She shook her head, herI could see her tiny white teeth, baby teeth I wanted to grow big strong yellow teeth ”You do have a tongue,” I said ”So use it” I pulled the hair at her temples, pulled the tears out of her eyes ”Say, 'Ow,'” I said ”Just 'Ow' Say, 'Let go' Go ahead Say it I'll honk you again if you don't say, 'Let o I will I'll let go if you say it You can stop this anytime you want to, you know All you have to do is tellfor it, aren't you? You're just asking for another honk Well then, I'll have to give you another honk Say, 'Stop'” But she didn't I had to pull again and again

Sounds did come out of her mouth, sobs, chokes, noises that were almost words Snot ran out of her nose She tried to wipe it on her hands, but there was too ,” I told her ”Look at you, snot strea down your nose, and you won't say a word to stop it You're such a nothing” Iout of her weak neck I let go I stood silent for a long time Then I screamed, ”Talk!” I would scare the words out of her If she had had little bound feet, the toes twisted under the balls, I would have jumped up and landed on them-crunch!-sto aloud ”Cry, 'Mama,'” I said ”Coer on her pointed chin ”I don't like you I don't like the weak little toots you make on your flute Wheeze Wheeze I don't like the way you don't swing at the ball I don't like the way you're the last one chosen I don't like the way you can't make a fist for tetherball Why don't you h Co liht maybe they had an extra joint They couldn't possibly make fists like other people's ”Make a fist,” I said ”Coers on the inside, thu Honk me back You're so tall, and you let et you one with eet you soet it for you if you ask” She did not stop crying ”Why don't you screaested ”Say, 'Help' Go ahead” She cried on ”OK OK Don't talk Just screaood? Go ahead Like this” I screa it as if I had thrown a rock at it The stalls opened wider and the toilets wider and darker Shadows leaned at angles I had not seen before It was very late Maybe a janitor had locked ht Her black eyes blinked and stared, blinked and stared I felt dizzy froether forever Myo if you say just one word,” I said ”You can even say, 'a' or 'the,' and I'll let you go Come on Please” She didn't shake her head any out of her I could see the two duct holes where the tears welled out Quarts of tears but no words I grabbed her by the shoulder I could feel bones The light was colass with the chicken wire e was like an animal's-a seal's-and it echoed around the baseht?” I asked ”Yourwhat happened to her baby You wouldn't want to have her ” I shook her shoulder I pulled her hair again I squeezed her face ”Come on! Talk! Talk! Talk!” She didn't seem to feel it anymore when I pulled her hair ”There's nobody here but you and round or a crowd I'm just one person You can talk in front of one person Don't make me pull harder and harder until you talk” But her hair see to pull harder Don't oing to be bald Do you want to be bald? You don't want to be bald, do you?”

Far away, coe of town, I heard whistles blow The cannery was changing shi+fts, letting out the afternoon people, and still ere here at school It was a sad sound-work done The air was lonelier after the sound died

”Why won't you talk?” I started to cry What if I couldn't stop, and everyone would want to knohat happened? ”Now look what you've done,” I scolded ”You're going to pay for this I want to knohy And you're going to tellto help you out, do you? Do you want to be like this, dumb (do you knohat dumb means?), your whole life? Don't you ever want to be a cheerleader? Or a po? Yeah, you're going to have to work because you can't be a housewife Somebody has to marry you before you can be a housewife And you, you are a plant Do you know that? That's all you are if you don't talk If you don't talk, you can't have a personality You'll have no personality and no hair You've got to let people know you have a personality and a brain You think so to take care of you all your stupid life? You think you'll always have your big sister? You think so to ets dates, let alone getsto notice you And you have to talk for interviews, speak right up in front of the boss Don't you know that? You're so du, I couldn't stop crying and talking at the sa my nose on my arm, my sweater lost somewhere (probably not worn because my mother said to wear a sweater) It see the worst thing I had yet done to another person ”I'ood,” I said ”Don't you dare tell anyone I've been bad to you Talk Please talk”

I was getting dizzy fro wildly off the tile, so ”I don't understand why you won't say just one word,” I cried, clenchingon to her hair to stand up Another tiro kids ere bonking each other's head on the concrete I went back later to see if the concrete had cracks in it ”Look I'll give you soive you my pencil box I'll buy you some candy OK? What do you want? Tell ive it to you Just say, 'yes,' or, 'OK,' or, 'Baby Ruth'” But she didn't want anything

I had stopped pinching her cheek because I did not like the feel of her skin I would go crazy if it came away in my hands ”I skinned her,” I would have to confess

Suddenly I heard footsteps hurrying through the base her na for you I was only trying to teach her to talk She wouldn't cooperate, though” Her sister went into one of the stalls and got handfuls of toilet paper and wiped her off Then we found ether ”Your faht to force her to speak,” I advised all the way home ”You mustn't pamper her”

The world is sohteen months sick in bed with a h thejunior high school, I lived like the Victorian recluses I read about I had a rented hospital bed in the living room, where I watched soap operas on tv, and my family cranked ood care of ers My bed was against the , and I watched the seasons change the peach tree I had a bell to ring for help I used a bedpan It was the best year and a half ofhappened

But one day et up today It's tieton a staff I cut from the peach tree The sky and trees, the sun were irayed with a fly screen I sat down on the sidewalk in aure out again how to talk I ed She wore the same clothes, hair cut, and manner as ere in elementary school, no irls were starting to tape their eyelids She continued to be able to read aloud But there was hardly any reading aloud anyh school

I rong about nobody taking care of her Her sister became a clerk-typist and stayed unmarried They lived with their mother and father She did not have to leave the house except to go to the movies She was supported She was protected by her family, as they would normally have done in China if they could have afforded it, not sent off to school with strangers, ghosts, boys

We have so rade teacher, who liked to explain things to children, let us read our files My record shows that I flunked kindergarten and in first grade had no IQ-a zero IQ I did re a test, while students , which I covered with black First grade hen I discovered eye control; with ht of one inch, gesticulating and rade for lack of practice, the teacher a generous man ”Look at your family's old addresses and think about how you've moved,” he said I looked at my parents' aliases and their birthdays, which variants I knew But when I saw Father's occupations I exclaiambler My throat cut off the word-silence in front of theteacher There were secrets never to be said in front of the ghosts, iet us sent back to China

So us talk; sometimes I hated the secrecy of the Chinese ”Don't tell,” said h we couldn't tell if anted to because we didn't know Are there really secret trials with our own judges and penalties? Are there really flags in Chinatown signaling what stoays have arrived in San Francisoby, their names, and which shi+ps they cas like that Are there? What colors are they? Which buildings do they fly fros like that They're just talking-story You're always believing talk-story”

”I won't tell anybody, Mother I pros on? Who flies them? The benevolent associations?”

”I don't know Maybe the San Francisco villagers do that; our villagers don't do that”

”What do our villagers do?”

They would not tell us children because we had been born ahost-like They called us a kind of ghost Ghosts are noisy and full of air; they talk during nal kites? That would be a good idea, huh? We could fly theonflies by the tail, we could fly expensive kites, the sky splendid in Chinese colors, distracting ghost eyes while the new people sneak in Don't tell ”Never tell”

Occasionally the ruration authorities had set up headquarters in the San Francisco or Sacrae wetbacks and stoays, anybody here on fake papers, to corants discussed whether or not to turn theht as well,” somebody would say ”Then we'd have our citizenshi+p for real”

”Don't be a fool,” so you want to straighten out your papers, they'll deport you”

”No, they won't They're proet deported They'll give you citizenshi+p as a reward for turning yourself in, for your honesty”

”Don't you believe it So-and-so trusted them, and he was deported They deported his children too”

”Where can they send us now? Hong Kong? Taiwan? I've never been to Hong Kong or Taiwan The Big Six? Where?” We don't belong anywhere since the Revolution The old China has disappeared while we've been away

”Don't tell,” advised o to San Francisco until they leave”

Lie to A the San Francisco earthquake Tell them your birth certificate and your parents were burned up in the fire Don't report crimes; tell them we have no criet arrested; the ghosts won't recognize you Pay the new irants twenty-five cents an hour and say we have no uneainst Coht And the Han people won't be pinned down

Even the good things are unspeakable, so how could I ask about deforurations of food my mother set out, we kids had to infer the holidays She did not whip us up with holiday anticipation or explain You only reo you had eaten monk's food, or that there was meat, and it was anoodles for long life (which is a pun) In front of the whole chicken with its slit throat toward the ceiling, she'd lay out just soine cups, which were not for us because there were a different number froether for us to sit at To sit at one of those place settings a being would have to be about two inches wide, a tall wisp of an invisibility Mother would pour Seagram's 7 into the cups and, after a while, pour it back into the bottle Never explaining How can Chinese keep any traditions at all? They don't eventhe table before the children notice specialness The adults getthat you shouldn't wear a white ribbon in your hair until they hit you and give you the sideways glare for the rest of the day They hit you if you wave brooms around or drop chopsticks or drum them They hit you if you wash your hair on certain days, or tap somebody with a ruler, or step over a brother whether it's during your ot hit for and don't do it again if you figured correctly But I think that if you don't figure it out, it's all right Then you can grow up bothered by ”neither ghosts nor deities” ”Gods you avoid won't hurt you” I don't see how they kept up a continuous culture for five thousand years Maybe they didn't;If we had to depend on being told, we'd have no religion, no babies, no menstruation (sex, of course, unspeakable), no death

I thought talking and not talking made the difference between sanity and insanity Insane people were the ones who couldn't explain theirls and women Perhaps the sane people stayed in China to build the new, sane society Or perhaps our little village had become odd in its isolation No other Chinese, neither the ones in Sacramento, nor the ones in San Francisco, nor Hawaii speak like us Within a few blocks of our house were half a dozen crazy woe families

There was the wo us children to our first ”sky movie”-and shut up the next Then ould see silver heat rise from her body; it solidified before our eyes SheHer husband threw the loudspeaker out theand drove home fast in the middle of the show She sat like stone in the front seat; he had to open the door for her and help her out She slammed the door After they went inside, we could hear doors slahout their house They did not have children, so it was not children sla doors The next day, she disappeared, and people would say she had been taken to Napa or Agnew When a woman disappeared or reappeared after an absence, people whispered, ”Napa” ”Agnew” She had been locked up before Her husband rented out the house and also went away The last tione back to China, where he had bought her and married her Nohile she was locked up in the asylum, he went, people said, to the Midwest A year or two passed He returned to Napa to drive her hoht with him from the Midwest a child, half Chinese and half white People said it was his illegitimate son She was very happy to have a son to raise in her old age, although I saw that the boy hit her to get candy and toys She was the one who died happy, sitting on the steps after cooking dinner

There was Crazy Mary, whose family were Christian converts HerMary, a toddler, in China By the ti replaced the horse and vegetable wagon with a truck, she was alht she'd be grown but young enough to learn English and translate for us” Their other children, ere born in the US, were norlad that I was born nine irl and had a big black n of fortune The black mole pulls you forith its power; a mole at the back of the head pulls you back She sees that were not there I disliked looking at her; you never knehat you were going to see, what rictus would shape her face Or what you would hear-growls, laughs Her head hung like a bull's, and her eyes peeked at you out of her hair Her face was a white blur because she was indoors so much and also because I tried not to look at her directly She often had rice on her face and in her hair Her mother cut her hair neatly around her ears, stubble at the back of her neck She wore paja apron, not a work apron but a bib She wore slippers, and you could see her thick ankles naked, her naked heels and tendons When you went to her house, you had to keep alert because you didn't want her to come at you from around a corner, her hands loose She would lurch out of dark corners; houses with crazy girls have locked rooms and drawn curtains A smell caed to someone else The house smelled of her, camphoraceous Maybe they tied camphor on her pulse to cure her Our mother used to tie dried prunes stuffed with caot very es carains Crazy Mary did not improve, and so she too was locked up in the crazyhouse She was never released Her fah where our e berries We carried the soup It was not a wild slough, although tules, cattails and foxtails still grew, also dill, and yellow chamomile, fat and fuzzy as bees People had been known to have followed the hobo paths and parted the tall stalks to find dead bodies-hobos, Chinese suicides, children Red-winged blackbirds, whose shoulders were the sae, really a train trestle When a train heaved across it, the black stea like the boiler at the laundry, the birds flew up like Halloween

We were not the only people who picked in the slough; a witch woman also went there One ofOf all the crazy ladies, she was the one as the village idiot, the public one When our mother ith us, she would chase the oman away We'd stand beside and behind our mother, ould say to her, ”Leave us alone now” or ”Good o away But ere by ourselves, she chased us ”Pee-A-Nah!” we'd screa the hobo paths, over the trestle, and through the streets Kids said she was a witch capable of witch deeds, unspeakable boilings and tearings apart and transforht us ”She'll touch you on the shoulder, and you'll not be you any to people on the sidewalk” She cas, and she had powdered one cheek red and one white Her hair stood up and out to the sides in dry h she was old She wore a pointed hat and layers of capes, shawls, sweaters buttoned at the throat like capes, the sleeves flying behind like sausage skins She cah not to harvest the useful herbs and berries the e did, but to collect arrasses and tuber flowers Sometimes she carried her broomstick horse like a staff In the fall (she would be such a sight in the fall) she ran ”faster than a s,” her cattails popping seed, white seed puffs blowing after her, clouds of fairies dancing over her head She streary witch, not a happy one She was fierce; not a fairy, after all, but a deh she was a wrinkled woman, an outburst that jus We children vowed that ould never run home if she came after one of us No matter what she did to us, we had to run in the opposite direction from home We didn't want her to knohere we lived If we couldn't outrun her and lose her, we'd die alone Once she spotted ate, and chased her up the stairs My sister screa on the door Our htened as she fumbled at the latches to lock out Pee-A-Nah My sister had to be chanted out of her screa Pee-A-Nah had a short ain Sorasses mixed and blew and waved, I was terrified that it was she, that she was carrying the them One day we realized that we had not seen her for a while We forgot her, never seeing her again She had probably been locked up in the crazyhouse too

I had invented a quill pen out of a peacock feather, but stopped writing with it when I saw that it waved like a one-eyed slough plant

I thought every house had to have its crazy woe its idiot Who would be It at our house? Probablynonfamily until a year after I started, but she was neat while I was s Also I had had the mysterious illness And there were adventurous people inside my head to whom I talked With them I was frivolous and violent, orphaned I hite and had red hair, and I rode a white horse Once when I realized how often I went away to see these freevoices incowboyto be casual, ”do you talk to people that aren't real inside your mind?”

”Do I what?” what?” she said she said

”Never ”

My sister, my almost-twin, the person most like me in all the world, had said, ”What?” ”What?”

I had vaer, and s turned pointed and black I hunted hu woods and shadowed them with my blackness Tears dripped fros, blood of the people I was supposed to love

I did not want to be our crazy one Quite often the big loud wo into the house, ”Nohen you sell this one, I'd like to buy her to be hed They always said that about my sister, not me because I dropped dishes at the My clothes rinkled even though ned a laundry Indeed I was getting stranger every day I affected a liht have been dorious

But if I made myself unsellable here, my parents need only wait until China, and there, where anything happens, they would be able to unload us, even eable So while the adults wept over the letters about the neighbors gone berserk turning Cos, just syllables They lad As long as the aunts kept disappearing and the uncles dying after unspeakable tortures,their Gold Mountain stay We could start spending our fare money on a car and chairs, a stereo nobody wrote to tell us that Mao hiirl when he was a child and that he was freeing wo the businessmen their parents had picked as husbands nobody told us that the Revolution (the Liberation) was against girl slavery and girl infanticide (a village-wide party if it's a boy) Girls would no longer have to kill theht up the house on a girl's birthday