Let her go
(This story won the second
runner-up place in The Standard-RTHK Short Story Competition in 2005;
also published inThe Standard.)
On Christmas Eve, 24th December 2004,
she did not get the pink Vivienne Westwood handbag he had promised, but
she said it was all right. In the hotel room, after ejaculation, he was
combing her long black hair with his fingers and she was scratching her
left forearm. It was winter and yet, strangely, mosquitoes bit. They
remembered that more Christmas songs were sung before the handover. Now
people sang the National hymn.
He switched the television off. They only needed it for about half an
hour, to cover the noises they made which were at first gentle and then
deep, intense. He said he loved the smell of the hair under her arms.
He said her eyes were of the shape of almonds. He said it felt
comfortable to hold her small body. He said many things.
The bedclothes had Japanese characters on them. She tried to read the
characters but it was difficult. Then she began to make up sounds to
cope with the eccentric shapes. It was better than counting sheep to
sleep.
The door was open. He
could see her naked body clearly. She did not know she should be shy.
He
did not do it on purpose. Her hair was at last tamed by the water from
the
nozzle. Who didn't make mistakes?
That year he was
eighteen and she was six.
The next morning they both woke up early. She drew
the curtains apart and when she looked down she could see some crazy
people swimming in the oval swimming pool, wearing bikinis. The
industrial buildings in the background were giving out black smoke as
early as half past six in the morning. Tsuen Wan was one of the
abandoned city roses planted by the government and the Panda Hotel was
one of the cheapest yet decent hotels he could afford. He was in his
black boxer shorts now. His legs were bony. His big toes were round
like marbles that children played with. From the windows she walked
back to him; she climbed on the bed and rested her head on his shins.
Her hair covered half of her face; the strands stirred a little with
her breathing. They lay on the bed just like that for about fifteen
minutes until he had a strong urge to pee.
When she woke up again she saw a
room without him. She got out of bed and looked at herself in the
mirror instincitively. She was happy, if tears and messy hair were
happy. A week later it would be the end of the year. The year of
Rooster was coming. He would become thirty-nine and she twenty-seven.
He bought her a black dress once. There was a silver
Earth on the front. America, Canada, Africa, Germany… She was
wearing that dress when he brought her to the cinema. They watched a
movie about giant monkeys. Was it Congo? After the movie, it was rather late, and they ate in a
small Western restaurant. He taught her which spoon to use for soup and
which spoon to use for ice
cream. He showed her how to use a knife and fork to cut steak. He
ordered
lemon tea for her. When she smiled, he knew he was not treating her as
his
niece. She was innocent. No one should know about this growing, peevish
love.
She stayed in the hotel room until
it was time to check out. It was Christmas Day, a Saturday. But despite
the 'red' on the calendar he had to work. Suppose he was not needed at
work, what would they do? She would like to watch Possession, or any
other thing that had to do with the notions of love or history. She
buttoned her brown shirt. He had forgotten his watch. It was on a small
table next to the bed, together with two empty glasses and an unlit,
fake, broken, Victorian lamp. A sense of helplessness ate her up. It
had been so long but he was using the same watch as yesterday,
yesteryear... She picked up the watch and put it in her palm. The watch
said it was a quarter to twelve.
He had moved away with her grandparents and aunts.
She saw him less and less. Sometimes she looked at the pictures that
they drew together. One was a picture of
an ocean. The ocean was sea blue. There were lots of fish in it. There
were
also some starfish and seashells and long seaweed at the bottom. The
fish
had different patterns and colours: spotted, checked, horizontal
stripes,
vertical stripes, plain … Then the boys at school made her forget all
about
him, but the pictures were kept tidily in a wooden trunk under the bed.
It was 1999. On Christmas she went to a Christmas
party with some friends she met in
university. For the occasion she wore a low-cut white woollen top, a
purple
leather miniskirt and a pair of long tight boots that reached the
knees.
It was well after midnight when
her friends drove her home. When she got out of the car she saw him
sitting on one of the stone benches in the small park of the mansion,
alone. She
knew he was waiting for her.
Her phone rang. It was not him but
Marco. How could it be him? Every time after some secret and passionate
sexual exploration, he had to keep himself away from her for at least
two days. In those two days or more, she was always worried that he was
with someone else, or worse, that he would rther be on his own. Last
week when they were together, he told her a dreadful story he read in
the paper aabout a single mother who had cancer and died. Her children
had to live on the streets. "Why is life full of misery and suffering?"
he asked. "Poverty, hunger, all kinds of sicknesses... " She clutched
his arm, and they gently kissed. The bleak outside world was distant,
not immedate. Now she could not help but think that falling in love,
especially love that did not have a future, was miserable. "This
relationship isn't going anywhere." she thought. To speak and think of
relationships in terms of journeys was to reduce the two grown humans
involved to two ants.
He said he had been
thinking of her all of the time. He said he knew she liked him,
and she did not need to be convinced otherwise. He said now she was old
enough to make decisions. He said no one should know about this
growing, peevish love. He said many things. That night she took out the
pictures from the
old trunk.
A few weeks later.
This was how the first time they gave pleasure and pain to
the other. She was on her back, naked and shy, her legs would not part
no
matter what. When he mounted her, their bodies blurred. He did not
break
her on that night, but the contact of his chest and her breast was
enough
to make him crazy. Her tender middle was caressed by where he sprang.
Was
it shame? She cried and cried afterwards, even though no real harm was
actually
done. But by all means, he saw her body with a triangle of dense fur
that
was not there when he last saw her.
Marco was her
boyfriend, known to her friends and family. Marco wanted to have
Christmas dinner with her. She said yes. Love was with her but so was
guilt.
He fell in love with her when her youth was excessively
dominant and her sexual
attractiveness was blissfully praised by the gaze of walkers-by.
For a fleeting moment she
thought of calling Marco back and cancelling the date. But she did not
want
him to think her flighty. She left the hotel and got on a bus to Causeway Bay. She bought
some new clothes in Apple Mall which she frequently visited and after
that she rushed back home to have a shower and wash her hair. Going out
with Marco was different. The hair had to be right and cosmetics should
be appropriately put on the face. She enjoyed this lack of casualness
that kindled the coyness and nervousness in her.
He put a
hand on her face. Without lipstick, her lips were so pale, almost
white.
She breathed softly. He thought her nose was too big for the rest of
her
features. Now he could not believe he possessed her. How stupid of him
to
think that she would stay young forever and her heart would never turn
to
others. He wept, and touched her fair breasts again. From his sister,
he
knew her plan to go to San Francisco with
Marco, her boyfriend. Perhaps he wanted to place his hand over her nose
and mouth until he could not feel any moist warmth. And then he would
stab
himself with a knife -- right into the heart -- and let the blood run
on
and dissolve into the red Turkish carpet. He did not want to lose her
to
someone else. But it was selfish of him not to let her go. She liked
stealing
the sheets and winding herself into them tightly. It was about four in
the
morning; he rolled over and began to make love to her. She purred when
she
came. Two hours later, they woke up. When he stretched his arm to pull
some
sheets to his side, she got out of the bed and walked to the windows.
When
she first told Marco about him, Marco was very angry.
But Marco was more sympathetic when he knew her more. Marco asked her
to
leave her uncle and follow him to a new place to start a new life. She
said yes to this request. It was not too difficult to utter that one
syllable, was it? Why, Marco, why do you forgive me? she asked. "I like
Amelie, and watching inferior movies is shameful and
intolerable" was Marco's reply. She did not understand.
Ann
you are lovely inside and out. He murmured when once again she was
asleep
with a placid smile. I will hear your giggles and sometimes see your
pursed
lips. You will be always in my mind even though I know I will be soon
forgotten. But I really hope many years later you will still remember
we kissed in
the bathtub; we were engulfed in water, my legs on top of yours. You
told
me you would never forget that. If I have enough courage to tell the
world
about you, I will not consign you to another man. Ann… He said no more.
His eyes were flooded with tears when he imagined himself saying
goodbye
to her and Marco at the airport. Marco would smile so triumphantly,
"Goodbye,
Peter." And he would say goodbye to Marco, consoling himself by
thinking
that Marco the idiot knew so little, and that Ann can depart the Tseun
Wan
polluted sky, and breathe some fresh air. Somewhere.
