The Hundred Secret Senses. Amy Tan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the lines, and we ran off just before a dozen sprinkler heads burst into spray. Kwan, however, simply stood there, getting soaked, marveling that so many springs had erupted out of the earth all at once. Kevin and his friends were howling with laughter. I shouted, ‘That’s not nice.’

      Then one of Kevin’s friends, a swaggering second-grader whom all the little girls had a crush on, said to me, ‘Is that dumb Chink your sister? Hey, Olivia, does that mean you’re a dumb Chink too?’

      I was so flustered I yelled, ‘She’s not my sister! I hate her! I wish she’d go back to China!’ Tommy later told Daddy Bob what I had said, and Daddy Bob said, ‘Louise, you better do something about your daughter.’ My mother shook her head, looking sad. ‘Olivia,’ she said, ‘we don’t ever hate anyone. “Hate” is a terrible word. It hurts you as much as it hurts others.’ Of course, this only made me hate Kwan even more.

      The worst part was sharing my bedroom with her. At night, she liked to throw open the curtains so that the glare of the street lamp poured into our room, where we lay side by side in our matching twin beds. Under this ‘beautiful American moon,’ as she called it, Kwan would jabber away in Chinese. She kept on talking while I pretended to be asleep. She’d still be yakking when I woke up. That’s how I became the only one in our family who learned Chinese. Kwan infected me with it. I absorbed her language through my pores while I was sleeping. She pushed her Chinese secrets into my brain and changed how I thought about the world. Soon I was even having nightmares in Chinese.

      In exchange, Kwan learned her English from me – which, now that I think of it, may be the reason she has never spoken it all that well. I was not an enthusiastic teacher. One time, when I was seven, I played a mean trick on her. We were lying in our beds in the dark.

      ‘Libby-ah,’ Kwan said. And then she asked in Chinese, ‘The delicious pear we ate this evening, what’s its American name?’

      ‘Barf,’ I said, then covered my mouth to keep her from hearing my snickers.

      She stumbled over this new sound – ‘bar-a-fa, bar-a-fa’ – before she said, ‘Wah! What a clumsy word for such a delicate taste. I never ate such good fruit. Libby-ah, you are a lucky girl. If only my mother did not die.’ She could segue from just about any topic to the tragedies of her former life, all of which she conveyed to me in our secret language of Chinese.

      Another time, she watched me sort through Valentine’s Day cards I had spilled onto my bed. She came over and picked up a card. ‘What’s this shape?’

      ‘It’s a heart. It means love. See, all the cards have them. I have to give one to each kid in my class. But it doesn’t really mean I love everyone.’

      She went back to her own bed and lay down. ‘Libby-ah,’ she said, ‘If only my mother didn’t die of heartsickness.’ I sighed, but didn’t look at her. This again. She was quiet for a few moments, then went on. ‘Do you know what heartsickness is?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘It’s warming your body next to your family, then having the straw roof blow off and carry you away.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘You see, she didn’t die of lung sickness, no such thing.’

      And then Kwan told me how our father caught a disease of too many good dreams. He could not stop thinking about riches and an easier life, so he became lost, floated out of their lives, and washed away his memories of the wife and baby he left behind.

      ‘I’m not saying our father was a bad man,’ Kwan whispered hoarsely. ‘Not so. But his loyalty was not strong. Libby-ah, do you know what loyalty is?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘It’s like this. If you ask someone to cut off his hand to save you from flying off with the roof, he immediately cuts off both hands to show he is more than glad to do so.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘But our father didn’t do this. He left us when my mother was about to have another baby. I’m not telling you lies, Libby-ah, this is true. When this happened, I was four years old by my Chinese age. I can never forget lying against my mother, rubbing her swollen belly. Like a watermelon, she was this big.’

      She reached out her arms as far as she could. ‘Then all the water in her belly poured out as tears from her eyes, she was so sad.’ Kwan’s arms fell suddenly to her sides. ‘That poor starving baby in her belly ate a hole in my mother’s heart, and they both died.’

      I’m sure Kwan meant some of this figuratively. But as a child, I saw everything Kwan talked about as literal truth: chopped-off hands flying out of a roofless house, my father floating on the China Sea, the little baby sucking on his mother’s heart. The images became phantoms. I was like a kid watching a horror movie, with my hands clapped to my eyes, peering anxiously through the cracks. I was Kwan’s willing captive, and she was my protector.

      At the end of her stories, Kwan would always say: ‘You’re the only one who knows. Don’t tell anyone. Never. Promise, Libby-ah?’

      And I would always shake my head, then nod, drawn to allegiance through both privilege and fear.

      One night, when my eyelids were already heavy with sleep, she started droning again in Chinese: ‘Libby-ah, I must tell you something, a forbidden secret. It’s too much of a burden to keep inside me any longer.’

      I yawned, hoping she’d take the hint.

      ‘I have yin eyes.’

      ‘What eyes?’

      ‘It’s true. I have yin eyes. I can see yin people.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. But first you must promise never to tell anyone. Never. Promise, ah?’

      ‘Okay. Promise.’

      ‘Yin people, they are those who have already died.’

      My eyes popped open. ‘What? You see dead people? … You mean, ghosts?’

      ‘Don’t tell anyone. Never. Promise, Libby-ah?’

      I stopped breathing. ‘Are there ghosts here now?’ I whispered.

      ‘Oh yes, many. Many, many good friends.’

      I threw the covers over my head. ‘Tell them to go away,’ I pleaded.

      ‘Don’t be afraid. Libby-ah, come out. They’re your friends too. Oh see, now they’re laughing at you for being so scared.’

      I began to cry. After a while, Kwan sighed and said in a disappointed voice, ‘All right, don’t cry anymore. They’re gone.’

      So that’s how the business of ghosts got started. When I finally came out from under the covers, I saw Kwan sitting straight up, illuminated by the artificial glow of her American moon, staring out the window as if watching her visitors recede into the night.

      The next morning, I went to my mother and did what I promised I’d never do: I told her about Kwan’s yin eyes.

      Now СКАЧАТЬ