‘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 that I’m an adult, I realize it wasn’t my fault that Kwan went to the mental hospital. In a way, she brought it on herself. After all, I was just a little kid then, seven years old. I was scared out of my mind. I had to tell my mother what Kwan was saying. I thought Mom would just ask her to stop. Then Daddy Bob found out about Kwan’s ghosts and blew his stack. Mom suggested taking her to Old St. Mary’s for a talk with the priest. But Daddy Bob said no, confession wouldn’t be enough. He booked Kwan into the psychiatric ward at Mary’s Help instead.
When I visited her there the following week, Kwan whispered to me: ‘Libby-ah, listen, I have secret. Don’t tell anyone, ah?’ And then she switched to Chinese. ‘When the doctors and nurses ask me questions, I treat them like American ghosts – I don’t see them, don’t hear them, don’t speak to them. Soon they’ll know they can’t change me, why they must let me go.’ I remember the way she looked, as immovable as a stone palace dog.
Unfortunately, her Chinese silent treatment backfired. The doctors thought Kwan had gone catatonic. Things being what they were back in the early 1960s, the doctors diagnosed Kwan’s Chinese ghosts as a serious mental disorder. They gave her electro-shock treatments, once, she said, then twice, she cried, then over and over again. Even today it hurts my teeth to think about that.
The next time I saw her at the hospital, she again confided in me. ‘All that electricity loosened my tongue so I could no longer stay silent as a fish. I became a country duck, crying gwa-gwa-gwa! – bragging about the World of Yin. Then four bad ghosts shouted, “How can you tell our secrets?” They gave me a yin-yang tou – forced me to tear out half my hair. That’s why the nurses shaved everything off. I couldn’t stop pulling, until one side of my head was bald like a melon, the other side hairy like a coconut. The ghosts branded me for having two faces: one loyal, one traitor. But I’m not a traitor! Look at me, Libby-ah. Is my face loyal? What do you see?’
What I saw paralyzed me with fear. She looked as if she’d been given a crew cut with a hand-push lawn mower. It was as bad as seeing an animal run over on the street, wondering what it once had been. Except I knew how Kwan’s hair used to be. Before, it flowed past her waist. Before, my fingers swam through its satin-black waves. Before, I’d grab her mane and yank it like the reins of a mule, shouting, ‘Giddyap, Kwan, say hee-haw!’
She took my hand and rubbed it across her sandpapery scalp, whispering about friends and enemies in China. On and on she went, as if the shock treatments had blown off the hinges