Scar
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An-Mei HsuWhen I was a young girl in a, my grandmother told me my mother was a ghost. This did not mean my mother was dead. In those days, a ghost was anything we were forbidden to talk about. So I knew Popo wanted me tet my mother on purpose, and this is how I came to remember nothing of her. The life that I knew began in the large house in Ningpo with the cold hallways and tall stairs. This was my uncle and aunties family house, where I lived with Popo and my little brother.
But I often heard stories of a ghost who tried to take children away, especially strong-willed little girls who were disobedient. Many times Popo said aloud to all who could hear that my brother and I had fallen out of the bowels of a stupid goose, two eggs that nobody wanted, not even good enough to crack over rice pe. She said this so that the ghosts would not steal us away. So you see, to Popo we were also very precious.
All my life, Popo scared me. I became even more scared when she grew sick. This was in 1923, when I was nine years old. Popo had swollen up like an overripe squash, so full her flesh had gone soft and rotten with a bad smell. She would call me into her room with the terrible stink and tell me stories. "An-mei," she said, calling me by my school name. "Listen carefully." She told me stories I could not uand.
One was about a greedy girl whose belly grew fatter and fatter. This girl poisoned herself after refusing to say whose child she carried. When the monks cut open her body, they found inside a large white winter melon.
"If yreedy, what is inside you is what makes you always hungry," said Popo.
Aime, Popo told me about a girl who refused to listen to her elders. One day this bad girl shook her head so vigorously to refuse her aunties simple request that a little white ball fell from her ear and out poured all her brains, as clear as chi broth.
"Your own thoughts are so busy swimming ihat everything else gets pushed out," Popo told me.
Right before Popo became so sick she could no longer speak, she pulled me close and talked to me about my mother. "Never say her name," she warned. "To say her name is to spit on your fathers grave."
The only father I knew was a big painting that hung in the main hall. He was a large, unsmiling man, unhappy to be so still on the wall. His restless eyes followed me around the house. Even from my room at the end of the hall, I could see my fathers watg eyes. Popo said he watched me for any signs of disrespect. So sometimes, when I had thrown pebbles at other children at school, or had lost a book through carelessness, I would quickly walk by my father with a know-nothing look and hide in a er of my room where he could not see my face.
I felt our house was so unhappy, but my little brother did not seem to think so. He rode his bicycle through the courtyard, chasing chis and other children, laughing over whies shrieked the loudest. Ihe quiet house, he jumped up and down on Uncle and Aunties best feather sofas when they were away visiting village friends.
But even my brothers happiness went away. O summer day when Popo was already very sick, we stood outside watg a village funeral procession marg by our courtyard. Just as it passed ate, the heavy framed picture of the dead man toppled from its stand ao the dusty ground. An old lady screamed and fainted. My brother laughed and Auntie slapped him.
My auntie, who had a very bad temper with children, told him he had no shou, no respect for aors or family, just like our mother. Auntie had a tongue like hungry scissors eating silk cloth. So when my brave her a sour look, Auntie said our mother was so thoughtless she had fled north in a big hurry, without taking the dowry furniture from her marriage to my father, without bringien pairs of silver chopsticks, without paying respey fathers grave and those of our aors. When my brother accused Auntie htening our mother away, Auntie shouted that our mother had married a man named Wu Tsing who already had a wife, two es, and other bad children.
And when my brother shouted that Auntie was a talking chi without a head, she pushed my brainst the gate and spat on ..is face.
"You throw strong words at me, but you are nothing," Auntie said. "You are the son of a mother who has so little respect she has bee ni, a traitor to our aors. She is so beh others that even the devil must look down to see her."
That is when I began to uand the stories Popo taught me, the lessons I had to learn for my mother. "When you lose your face, An-mei," Popo often said, "it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you get it back is to fall in after it."
Now I could imagine my mother, a thoughtless woman who laughed and shook her head, who dipped her chopsticks many times to eat another piece of sweet fruit, happy to be free of Popo, her unhappy husband on the wall, awo disobedient children. I felt unlucky that she was my mother and unlucky that she had left us. These were the thoughts I had while hiding in the er of my room where my father could not watch me.
I was sitting at the top of the stairs when she arrived. I k was my mother even though I had seen her in all my memory. She stood just ihe doorway so that her face became a dark shadow. She was much taller than my auntie, almost as tall as my uncle. She looked straoo, like the missionary ladies at our school who were i and bossy ioo-tall shoes, fn clothes, and short hair.
My auntie quickly looked away and did not call her by name or offer her tea. An old servant hurried away with a displeased look. I tried to keep very still, but my heart felt like crickets scratg to get out of a cage. My mother must have heard, because she looked up. And when she did, I saw my own face looking back at me. Eyes that stayed wide open and saw too much.
In Popos room my auntie protested, "Too late, too late," as my mother approached the bed. But this did not stop my mother.
"e back, stay here," murmured my mother to Popo. "Nuyer is here. Your daughter is back." Popos eyes were open, but now her mind ran in many different dires, not staying long enough to see anything. If Popos mind had been clear she would have raised her two arms and flung my mother out of the room.
I watched my mother, seeing her for the first time, this pretty woman with her white skin and oval faot too round like Aunties or sharp like Popos. I saw that she had a long white neck, just like the goose that had laid me. That she seemed to float bad forth like a ghost, dipping cool cloths to lay on Popos bloated face. As she peered into Popos eyes, she clucked soft worried sounds. I watched her carefully, yet it was her voice that fused me, a familiar sound from a fotten dream.
When I returo my room later that afternoon, she was there, standing tall. And because I remember Popo told me not to speak her name, I stood there, mute. She took my hand and led me to the settee. And then she also sat down as though we had dohis every day.
My man to loosen my braids and brush my hair with long sweeping strokes.
"An-mei, you have been a good daughter?" she asked, smiling a secret look.
I looked at her with my know-nothing face, but inside I was trembling. I was the girl whose belly held a colorless winter melon.
"An-mei, you know who I am," she said with a small scold in her voice. This time I did not look for fear my head would burst and my brains would dribble out of my ears.
She stopped brushing. And then I could feel her long smooth fingers rubbing and searg under my , finding the spot that was my smooth-neck scar. As she rubbed this spot, I became very still. It was as though she were rubbing the memory bato my skin. And then her hand dropp<mark></mark>ed and she began to cry, ing her hands around her own neck. She cried with a wailing voice that was so sad. And then I remembered the dream with my mothers voice.
I was four years old. My was just above the diable, and I could see my baby brother sitting on Popos lap, g with an angry face. I could hear voices praising a steaming dark soup brought to the table, voices murmuring politely, "g! g!"—Please, eat!
And thealking stopped. My uncle rose from his chair. Everyouro look at the door, where a tall woman stood. I was the only one wh<big></big>o spoke.
"Ma," I had cried, rushing off my chair, but my auntie slapped my fad pushed me back down. Now everyone was standing up and shouting, and I heard my mothers voice g, "An-mei! An-mei!" Above this noise, Popos shrill voice spoke.
"Who is this ghost? Not an honored widow. Just a hree e. If you take your daughter, she will bee like you. No faever able to lift up her head."
Still my mother shouted for me to e. I remember her voice so clearly now. An-mei! An-mei! I could see my mothers face across the table. Between us stood the soup pot on its heavy ey-pot stand—rog slowly, bad forth. And then with one shout this dark boiling soup spilled forward and fell all over my neck. It was as though everyones anger were p all over me.
This was the kind of pain so terrible that a little child should never remember it. But it is still in my skins memory. I cried out loud only a little, because soon my flesh began to burst inside and out and y breathing air.
I could not speak because of this terrible choking feeling. I could not see because of all the tears that poured out to wash away the pain. But I could hear my mothers g voice. Popo and Auntie were shouting. And then my mothers voice went away.
Later that night Popos voice came to me.
"An-mei, listen carefully." Her voice had the same scolding tone she used when I ran up and down the hallway. "An-mei, we have made your dying clothes and shoes for you. They are all white cotton."
I listened, scared.
"An-mei," she murmured, now mently. "Your dying clothes are very plain. They are not fancy, because you are still a child. If you die, you will have a short life and you will still owe your family a debt. Your funeral will be very small. Our m time for you will be very short."
And then Popo said something that was worse than the burning on my neck.
"Even your mother has used up her tears a. If you do not get well soon, she will fet you."
Popo was very smart. I came hurrying back from the other world to find my mother.
Every night I cried so that both my eyes and my neck burned. o my bed sat Popo. She would pour cool wate<q></q>r over my neck from the hollowed cup of a large grapefruit. She would pour and pour until my breathing became soft and I could fall asleep. In the m, Popo would use her sharp fingernails like tweezers and peel off the dead membranes.
In two years time, my scar became pale and shiny and I had no memory of my mother. That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And o is closed, you no longer see what is underh, what started the pain.
I worshipped this mother from my dream. But the woman standing by Popos bed was not the mother of my memory. Yet I came to love this mother as well. Not because she came to me and begged me tive her. She did not. She did not o explain that Popo chased her out of the house when I was dying. This I knew. She did not o tell me she married Wu Tsing to exge one unhappiness for another. I khis as well.
Here is how I came to love my mother. How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beh my skin. Inside my bones.
It was late at night when I went to Popos room. My auntie said it opos dying time and I must show respect. I put on a dress and stood between my auntie and u the foot of Popos bed. I cried a little, not too loud.
I saw my mother oher side of the room. Quiet and sad. She was cooking a soup, p herbs and medies into the steaming pot. And then I saw her pull up her sleeve and pull out a sharp knife. She put this knife on the softest part of her arm. I tried to y eyes, but could not.
And then my mother cut a pieeat from her arm. Tears poured from her fad blood spilled to the floor.
My mother took her flesh and put it in the soup. She cooked magi the aradition to try to cure her mother this one last time. She opened Popos mouth, already too tight fr to keep her spirit in. She fed her this soup, but that night Popo fleith her illness.
Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.
This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bohe pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must fet. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.
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