The Hundred Secret Senses. Amy Tan

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘Ah, Libby-ah and me too, both talent for get out of tricky situation, also big talent for get own way. Is true, Libby-ah?’ Her eyebrows twitched. ‘You husband, Simon, I think he agree with me, ah?’

      ‘My soon-to-be ex-husband.’ I then had to explain to Ben: ‘Our divorce will be final five months from now, December fifteenth.’

      ‘Maybe not, maybe not,’ Kwan said, then laughed and pinched my arm. She turned to Ben: ‘You meet Simon?’

      Ben shook his head and started to say, ‘Olivia and I met at the – ’

      ‘Oh, very handsome,’ Kwan chirped. She cupped her hand to the side of her mouth and confided: ‘Simon look like Olivia twin brother. Half Chinese.’

      ‘Half Hawaiian,’ I said. ‘And we don’t look alike at all.’

      ‘What you mother father do?’ Kwan scrutinized Ben’s cashmere jacket.

      ‘They’re both retired and live in Missouri,’ said Ben.

      ‘Misery! Tst! Tst!’ She looked at me. ‘This too sad.’

      Every time Kwan mentions Simon, I think my brain is going to implode from my trying not to scream in exasperation. She thinks that because I initiated the divorce I can take it back.

      ‘Why not forgive?’ she said after the party. She was plucking at the dead blooms of an orchid plant. ‘Stubborn and anger together, very bad for you.’ When I didn’t say anything, she tried another tack: ‘I think you still have strong feeling for him – mm-hm! Very, very strong. Ah – see! – look you face. So red! This love feeling rushing from you heart. I right? Answer. I right?’

      And I kept flipping through the mail, scrawling MOVED across any envelope with Simon Bishop’s name on it. I’ve never discussed with Kwan why Simon and I broke up. She wouldn’t understand. It’s too complex. There’s no one event or fight I can put my finger on to say, ‘That was the reason.’ Our breakup was the result of many things: a wrong beginning, bad timing, years and years of thinking habit and silence were the same as intimacy. After seventeen years together, when I finally realized I needed more in my life, Simon seemed to want less. Sure, I loved him – too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I’m number one in his life. I’m not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.

      But Kwan wouldn’t understand that. She doesn’t know how people can hurt you beyond repair. She believes people who say they’re sorry. She’s the naive, trusting type who believes everything said in television commercials is certifiable truth. Look at her house: it’s packed to the gills with gadgets – Ginsu knives, slicers and dicers, juicers and french-fry makers, you name it, she’s bought it, for ‘only nineteen ninety-five, order now, offer good until midnight.’

      ‘Libby-ah,’ Kwan said on the phone today, ‘I have something must tell you, very important news. This morning I talk to Lao Lu. We decide: You and Simon shouldn’t get divorce.’

      ‘How nice,’ I said. ‘You decided.’ I was balancing my checkbook, adding and subtracting as I pretended to listen.

      ‘Me and Lao Lu. You remember him.’

      ‘George’s cousin.’ Kwan’s husband seemed to be related to just about every Chinese person in San Francisco.

      ‘No-no! Lao Lu not cousin. How you can forget? Lots times I already tell you about him. Old man, bald head. Strong arm, strong leg, strong temper. One time loose temper, loose head too! Chopped off. Lao Lu say – ’

      ‘Wait a minute. Someone without a head is now telling me what to do about my marriage?’

      ‘Tst! Chopped head off over one hundred year ago. Now look fine, no problem. Lao Lu think you, me, Simon, we three go China, everything okay. Okay, Libby-ah?’

      I sighed. ‘Kwan, I really don’t have time to talk about this now. I’m in the middle of something.’

      ‘Lao Lu say cannot just balance checkbook, see how much you got left. Must balance life too.’

      How the hell did Kwan know I was balancing my checkbook?

      That’s how it’s been with Kwan and me. The minute I discount her, she tosses in a zinger that keeps me scared, makes me her captive once again. With her around, I’ll never have a life of my own. She’ll always claim a major interest.

      Why do I remain her treasured little sister? Why does she feel that I’m the most important person in her life? – the most! Why does she say over and over again that even if we were not sisters, she would feel this way? ‘Libby-ah,’ she tells me, ‘I never leave you.’

      No! I want to shout, I’ve done nothing, don’t say that anymore. Because each time she does, she turns all my betrayals into love that needs to be repaid. Forever we’ll know: She’s been loyal, someday I’ll have to be.

      But even if I cut off both my hands, it’d be no use. As Kwan has already said, she’ll never release me. One day the wind will howl and she’ll be clutching a tuft of the straw roof, about to fly off to the World of Yin.

      ‘Let’s go! Hurry come!’ she’ll be whispering above the storm. ‘But don’t tell anyone. Promise me, Libby-ah.’

       2 FISHER OF MEN

      Before seven in the morning, the phone rings. Kwan is the only one who would call at such an ungodly hour. I let the answering machine pick up.

      ‘Libby-ah?’ she whispers. ‘Libby-ah, you there? This you big sister … Kwan. I have something important tell you. … You want hear? … Last night I dream you and Simon. Strange dream. You gone to bank, check you savings. All a sudden, bank robber run through door. Quick! You hide you purse. So bank robber, he steal everybody money but yours. Later, you gone home, stick you hand in purse – ah! – where is? – gone! Not money but you heart. Stolened! Now you have no heart, how can live? No energy, no color in cheek, pale, sad, tired. Bank president where you got all you savings, he say, “I loan you my heart. No interest. You pay back whenever.” You look up, see his face – you know who, Libby-ah? You guess. … Simon! Yes-yes, give you his heart. You see! Still love you. Libby-ah, do you believe? Not just dream … Libby-ah, you listening me?’

      Because of Kwan, I have a talent for remembering dreams. Even today, I can recall eight, ten, sometimes a dozen dreams. I learned how when Kwan came home from Mary’s Help. As soon as I started to wake, she would ask: ‘Last night, Libby-ah, who you meet? What you see?’

      With my half-awake mind, I’d grab on to the wisps of a fading world and pull myself back in. From there I would describe for her the details of the life I’d just left – the scuff marks on my shoes, the rock I had dislodged, the face of my true mother calling to me from underneath. When I stopped, Kwan would ask, ‘Where you go before that?’ Prodded, I would trace my way back to the previous dream, then the one before that, a dozen lives, and sometimes their deaths. Those are the ones I never forget, the moments just before I died.

      Through years of dream-life, I’ve tasted cold ash falling on a steamy night. I’ve seen a thousand spears flashing like flames on the crest of a hill. I’ve touched the tiny grains of a stone wall while waiting to be killed. I’ve СКАЧАТЬ