This Old Man Read online

  Hackey’s mother says, “Well guess what, Son? I have a big old pumpkin chiffon pie put back in the kitchen for you to take home, ’cause I remember how you used to love pumpkin back in Council Bluff.”

  Hackey would have left the pie, but my mother runs back into the house for it, and I am allowed to eat every bite of it myself over the Thanksgiving weekend, because Hackey hates pumpkin chiffon.

  “Anyway, we have to work out who’s going to help me when the time comes,” Pammy said. “What if it happens while Elizabeth’s at school?”

  “Why, you’ll just call a cab. Or Mrs. Martin next door can drive you,” Elizabeth reassured her.

  Pammy looked perplexed. “Drive me? Where?”

  “To Kaiser Hospital, honey.”

  Pammy slammed her glass down and milk splattered all over the front of her red tent. “I am not going to the hospital. Whoever said I was?”

  “Mercy!” Elizabeth wailed.

  “You planning to have that thing here?” Darlene asked. “Good thing I’m getting outa here. Blood and pus and all that cheesy stuff babies come smeared with. I seen it in hygiene. It is so gross!”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Elizabeth said firmly.

  We all folded our starched napkins into squares and put them in the drawer of the buffet. Darlene crumpled hers like a newspaper: she wouldn’t be needing it for dinner ever again.

  With Darlene gone from Anza House, Pammy seemed deflated: blown up, but deflated. She carried her belly around in her hands, waddling down the front stairs and walking barefoot up and down Twenty-third Avenue. I couldn’t stand it. I took her with me to meet Wing one Monday. The receptionist was nervous when we appeared at the hospital entrance, until I assured her that Pammy had weeks to go and wasn’t even remotely in labor.

  Pammy hated the hospital smell. “Lysol makes me sick to my stomach.”

  “Everything does,” I reminded her.

  “That’s not true. Not for months now. But this place—” she tilted her head back and scanned the ceiling “—makes me sick.”

  “Upstairs it’s worse,” Wing reported. Some help he was. “It smells like one giant tongue depressor.”

  “I don’t like hospitals at all,” Pammy said firmly.

  “Which hospital do you, uh, will you, uh—?” Wing clearly found Pammy’s situation distressing.

  “Kaiser,” I replied, thinking of Hackey and his flowers.

  “No!” Pammy shuddered.

  “Yes! You know that’s the official hospital for Anza House. It’s all paid for.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “I’m not going to a hospital, even if I’ve gotta have the baby on the kitchen floor, all by myself. Understand?”

  Wing turned pale and leaned against the elevator door. He fell on the chest of a nurse as the door slid open. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, excuse me,” he said, blushing like mad.

  Inside the elevator, Pammy continued. “I read a magazine, and it says the most secure place for a baby to be born is in her very own home, with his father there to catch him when he, like, pops out.”

  At the third floor I motioned for Pammy to be quiet and not to ask questions. We tiptoed to Old Man’s door. Wing knocked gently and slipped in after a feeble greeting from Old Man. I took advantage of Pammy’s presence, brazenly peering into the room before Wing could close the door in my face. To my frustration, Old Man’s bed was situated in such a way that I could only see his feet sticking up like two twigs under the white blanket.

  Old Man’s voice grew a bit stronger. “Oh, he’s in fine form!” I told Pammy. “He’s yelling at Wing. That’s a wonderful sign.”

  “Kyi! Kyi!” we heard.

  Pammy whispered, “What does that mean?”

  I shrugged.

  “But what do they talk about every day?”

  “Who knows? All I know is that Wing’s usually pretty happy when he comes out. They must have a very special relationship, grandfather to grandson. How about you, Pammy? Have you got any grandparents?”

  Pammy stared at me. “Are you kidding? Do you?”

  “Are you kidding?” We both giggled.

  “My baby will,” Pammy said, and for just a second I envied her for having a third-generation baby.

  We heard the bowls being cleared from Old Man’s bed table, then the peculiar squeaking sound of the basket as it was repacked. “He’ll be out in a minute,” I whispered. But strangely, he wasn’t. Old Man began to drone on as though he were reading, and now and then Wing said a couple of words. For fifteen minutes I kept my ear pressed to the door. Then the conversation grew a bit more heated, and Wing’s voice was louder, closer to the door. I jumped back just in time, startling Pammy. “I wasn’t listening at the door,” I hastened to assure Wing.

  “And you didn’t hear the poems?”

  “What poems?”

  Wing was laughing at me. Would I have known what I had heard anyway?

  “Old Man is recalling the poems of Ch’u Yuan, who drowned himself in the Mei Lo River in the fourth century B.C.”

  “Why did he do that?” Pammy asked.

  “Oh, he was an idealist, like Old Man. He couldn’t reform a bad political situation, so he took his life instead.”

  “What a coward,” I said huffily.

  Wing cocked his head, considering this.

  Pammy said, “Why’s your grandfather still worrying about it? It had to be, like, two thousand years ago.”

  Wing smiled at her sweetly. “And is your baby going to be christened?”

  “Well, of course. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I rest my case.”

  Pammy shook her head in puzzlement. She and Wing weren’t going to be friends, I could tell.

  Wing said, “This is the month of the Dragon Boat Festival in old China, to remember Ch’u Yuan. He left a lot of poems, which Old Man has memorized. He’ll be reciting them after dinner all this month.”

  “Oh, Wing, what a total bore,” I said sympathetically.

  “It is,” Wing nodded. “But Old Man looks so lively when he recites. And his mind is so sharp. He remembers every word he learned seventy-five years ago. You know, when he gives me these poems after dinner, I let myself believe he’s going to live forever.”

  Once we were out on Jackson Street, I threw an arm in each direction, to stop Wing and Pammy in their tracks.

  “Be careful of the baby,” Pammy said irritably.

  “I’m having one of my horribly clever ideas.”

  Wing snickered, prepared for the worst. Tourists passed us, smiling at my proclamation and modesty.

  “The thing is, I’d give anything to drop in and see Old Man for just a minute.” I felt Wing stiffen slightly beside me. “I know that’s impossible, at least until he gets much stronger.” I watched Wing out of the corner of my eye. Would he ever let me in, even if Old Man were well? “Naturally, I don’t want Old Man to think I’m just an orderly out there, or some stranger lurking in the halls. I want him to know that it’s Greta Janssen out there for him. Does he ask about me, Wing?”

  “Well …”

  “My point exactly. I’m anonymous. My idea is positively dazzling in brilliance. Tonight I will go to the library, and I will find a real, genuine, authentic, actual Chinese poem.”

  “What are you going to do with it when you find it?” asked Pammy. She hadn’t caught on to my brilliance yet.

  “I will write it down on a piece of onion-skin paper, and Wing’ll give it to him, and tell him it’s from me, the girl in the hall.”

  Wing nodded. “He does love poetry. It’s a good idea.”

  “Do I have to come to the library with you?” asked Pammy.

  “Why not? It’s a good way to read some more of those terrific articles that tell you how to have babies at home. See you, Wing. We’ve got to go.”

  I wanted to dig right into the Chinese literature books and find the oldest, most boring poem I could get, for Old Man’s pleasure.

  5


  We were at the library until it closed, Pammy drumming her nails on the oak table and me searching for just the right poem. It would take a special one, I knew, because Old Man not only read poems, but wrote them as well. I’d seen the brushes he once used, and the rich, cream ivory parchment he drew his poems on. We’d brought these things to the hospital for him, and Wing said he kept them on his bedside table. But he didn’t use them anymore. Since his stroke, he had made the poems up in his head and saw them laid out, up and down, right to left, on a page in his mind.

  I didn’t have calligraphy brushes, and even if I’d had them, I wouldn’t know how to use them. And I didn’t have parchment. So I typed the poem on the best thing I could find in Elizabeth’s supply cabinet, which was erasable bond. I typed it fourteen times before I had it perfectly spaced in the middle of the page, with no errors. It had to be just right. I had a feeling Old Man hungered for perfection. I carried it between two blank pieces of paper, inside a manila folder, with the folder inside my binder. I took it out to read in history, holding it by the corner so it wouldn’t wrinkle or smudge. At the hospital that day I handed it over to Wing.

  “Please give this to Old Man. Tell him it’s from Greta.”

  “From Greta,” he repeated, in a faraway voice.

  “Oh, I see. Then tell him it’s from Fragrant Blossom.”

  “Yes, that would be better.” Brimming with confidence, I watched Wing read the poem.

  THE VALLEY WIND BY LU YUN

  Living in retirement beyond the World,

  Silently enjoying isolation,

  I pull the rope of my door tighter

  And stuff my window with roots and ferns.

  My spirit is tuned to the Spring-season;

  At the fall of the year there is autumn in my heart.

  Thus imitating cosmic changes

  My cottage becomes a Universe.

  When Wing finished reading it, I waited for his pudgy smile. Instead he looked worried.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing, nothing. It’s a good poem for him.”

  “Well, it should be,” I said hotly. “It’s by some guy who wrote in the second century, Lu Yun, or however you pronounce it. Old Man’s probably heard of him, even if you haven’t. Old Man’s probably related to him.” I felt a familiar fog of anger rising higher, Hackey anger. “What’s the matter? Am I only One Thousand Pieces of Gold?”

  “This poem is just fine, Greta.”

  No, it was better than fine. It was perfect. Wing just wouldn’t admit it. He was jealous, that’s what he was, jealous that he hadn’t found the poem first. With his brow set, he took it in to Old Man.

  I paced outside the room. All I heard was silence. Maybe Old Man was reading it over and over. Then I heard Wing’s voice, soft, slow, halting. Silence again. Then Old Man began to yell, in the thick, fuzzy voice of age. All that I could make out clearly was his usual “Kyi, kyi,” which I’d heard a dozen times. I released a deep sigh of relief. It was always a good sign when Old Man yelled.

  “He likes it,” I whispered to myself. The Chinese nurse walked by on her soundless crepe soles. “Listen to him, he likes my poem!”

  When Wing came out of the room, he looked forlorn.

  “What did Old Man say?”

  “The poem was perfect, Greta.”

  “Is that why he was yelling like a madman? What did he say?”

  “I read him every word, and he—”

  It was only then—stupid, how stupid could I be—that I realized what was wrong. Old Man couldn’t even understand the English, much less read it.

  “I translated it into Chinese, as well as I could. I’m not so good at it yet. He liked the poem, though, I can tell you that.”

  “When did he start yelling?” I felt defeated; I wanted to get to the good part.

  “He asked to see the poem. He doesn’t wear his glasses anymore. He couldn’t have read it anyway, but he wanted to see how it was arranged on the page.”

  “No problem there. It was in perfect balance. It took me fourteen typings. That’s when he started yelling?”

  “Yes.” Wing hesitated. Something else was wrong. “He saw that it wasn’t written in the old language. He, well, he got furious. He wants to know why Fragrant Blossom doesn’t write in Chinese.”

  “What?” I shouted. The little nurse had to signal for me to be quiet.

  “Now he knows you’re not Chinese,” Wing said sadly.

  “Couldn’t you just tell him I didn’t learn to write the stuff?”

  “It would be worse. To be Chinese and not write the language? Unthinkable. It’s like being the foreign doctor. Worse than being a Westerner.”

  “I hate him, Wing, I can’t help it. He’s an intolerant tyrant.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s his way.”

  “Okay, okay.” I was swallowing fast, trying to remember that I was in a hospital, a quiet zone.

  Wing let out a deep sigh and turned his back to me. “Tonight he was looking away from me, pointing his finger at the door. He was yelling kyi, kyi, ‘get out, go!’ without tsing, without even a please, as if I were a creature that revolted him.”

  It was bad enough what he did to me, but to Wing, to his own grandson? “Let’s get out of this place. I can’t explode in here.” We rode down the elevator in stony silence. Wing’s dejection was as thick as my own. He opened the door for me, and we were out on Jackson Street. We climbed the steep gray hill, and the muscles in my calves knotted and bulged like a ballet dancer’s.

  “In other words—” I broke the icy silence, and Wing moved a little closer to me. There were people everywhere on the street. “In other words, he’s mad at you because I’m who I am?”

  “Something like that,” Wing said miserably.

  “Hasn’t anybody told him he’s living in America? I mean, this is the United States of America. Most people aren’t Chinese here.”

  “He lives where he lives.”

  “He’s in another world,” I roared.

  “Completely. I’m sorry, it’s his way,” Wing said again.

  Then I did explode, all over Jackson Street. “His way? His way? How many times have you told me that? What about my way? You’re a turtle, Wing, you know that? You crawl toward him and let him beat you with a stick, and you pull your head back into your shell, and you keep going back for more. Well, I don’t need that from him, and I don’t need a turtle for a friend, either.”

  People were staring at us, I knew. Two little girls sat on the marble steps of an apartment building rolling their hands and singing some song in Chinese that sounded familiar, but I was too upset to pin it down. A small boy stuck his thumb in his mouth and grabbed his mother’s leg. He could have been Wing, ten years ago.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Wing murmured, bobbing his head.

  It was only later when I thought of this scene, thought of a stick prodding Wing and making him retreat, thought of his small dark eyes, and his head nodding helplessly, that I realized I’d made him look like a turtle, as if I’d completed Old Man’s job.

  I was too mad to go to the hospital Thursday. I went and sat by the Broadway Tunnel instead, and walked all the way back to Anza House, too late for dinner.

  The phone at the house rang all the time, but on those rare occasions when it was for me, I’d hear a different ring to it, and think of Hackey: finally he’s found me. When I heard it this time, my first thought was to run, catch a Greyhound to New York. But it was Wing.

  He said, “You didn’t come today.”

  “No.” My heart was racing. I was so glad it wasn’t Hackey, but not sure what to say to Wing.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Talk.”

  “I want to tell you some things about Old Man.”

  Old Man and Hackey Barnes, two men in my life. What a twosome. In fact, what a life. “I don’t want to hear about him.”

  “Please come,” Wing said.

  “Where?”r />
  “To my house.” He gave me an address on Washington Street. I said I wouldn’t go, and as soon as I hung up the phone I checked my overalls for bus fare, grabbed my sweat shirt, and left for Chinatown.

  Since I wasn’t there with Wing, I was looking at things with a different, rounder, Western eye. In the window of the Bonvivant Shop on Stockton Street, twenty-two dried ducks hung by their feet. Their brown leather bodies intrigued me. Their heads were still intact, with holes where their eyes once had been. One of the ducks had slits, not holes, as though he’d been asleep when his eyes were plucked.

  A gray-bearded man, wearing a beret and gold socks and sandals, smiled as he shuffled past me, his eyes disappearing into slits like the duck’s. They were old eyes, tired but merry.

  I found Wing’s building. His door, made of murky glass, was next to the door of a Dr. Marcus Lee, whose sign said he was a world-acclaimed acupuncturist, trained in China.

  Wing’s apartment was up three dark flights of stairs. He waited for me at the top. He had a key on a string, under his shirt, and he pulled it out, bending low to the lock. He pushed the door open against a throw rug, which folded like an accordion when the door caught it. Wing stamped it back into place and led me into his home.

  What hit me was the incredible clutter. My mother wasn’t a prize-winning housekeeper, but our apartment had never been like this. Most of our junk was shoved into a closet when anyone came over. Then I remembered that eight people lived in these rooms, and on closer inspection I noticed that the clutter was orderly.

  “Let me clear off a place for you.” Wing moved some stacks of newly ironed laundry from the couch to the ironing board. I smelled the starch. Hackey’s mother used to wash with starch. Her dresses looked stuffed with plump bodies when they hung on the clothesline.

  Half the living room was taken up with a folding table that held an old black and brass sewing machine a pile of mending was neatly folded behind the sewing machine. A bus passed in the street below, rattling the wobbly table legs. I felt the vibrations through my feet, rumbling up my legs.

  A TV set occupied one corner of the room, with suitcases and cartons piled behind it. I tried not to stare, but Wing followed my eyes.