The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

Baba sat down at the table and put his hands on his knees.  Li Xing returned from the kitchen with a large porcelain bowl, full of steamed rice. 

              “
Where is Xiaofeng
?” asked Li Xing.

              “
She went to get the boy from school, she should be on her way back now
,” said Baba.

              “
How is she
?” asked Li Xing.

              “
Are you asking me or your father
?” said Mama.

              “
I’ll hear both sides
,” said Li Xing.

              “
Well, she stays motivated.  She’s about to graduate and she should be near the top.  Xiaoyu is still having behavior problems at school but she broke him of some of his habits, so
…,” Mama trailed off.

              “
Are they still sharing a bed
?” asked Li Xing.

              “
No, your father saw to end that last year
,” said Mama.

              “
What do you mean
?” asked Li Xing, looking at his father.

              “
I put a stopped to it
,” said Baba.

              “
He pulled the boy out of bed, in the middle of the night, and gave him a whipping
,” said Mama.

              “
I gave him ten lashes and told him for each night he stayed in his sister’s bed I’d give him an extra lash.  That made it his decision
,” said Baba.

              “
You pulled a seven year-old boy out of bed in the middle of the night
,” said Mama.

              “
It wasn’t his bed and it’s not his house
,” said Baba.

              “
What did Xiaofeng say
?” asked Li Xing.

              “
She told him the next time he’d have to hit her as well, that stayed your father’s hand
,” said Mama.

              Li Xing laughed, “
She’s so like Qiu, so like Qiu.  She would have said the same thing
.”

              “
That’s the problem
,” said Baba, “
She thinks she’s the boy’s mother.  She needs to come into her own.  I’m noticing a pattern about the women in this family.  They keep having their lives ruined by boys who refuse to be men.  Like Xiaofeng’s father, Zhang whatever the fuck his name was.  He refused to be a man and left my daughter to raise Xiaofeng alone.  Do you know how much that cost me?  I raised Qiu to be dignified and because of that bastard, she dropped out of school and ran around doing odd jobs like a beggar’s daughter.  I’m no fucking beggar
.”

              “
Oh we’re all beggar’s in the end
,” said Li Xing, “
It’s what a baby does when it cries.  It’s what an old man does when he pisses himself.  We’ll all need someone else’s help sooner or later
.”

              “
A woman in this world is different
,”
said Baba,
“
She can put herself in a position where no decent person’s gonna help her.  Like your sister, smart and just as good looking.  But when she’s carrying a baby without a husband, what are people gonna think?  They’re gonna think she’s a whore.  And whores are only good for one thing
.”

              “
That’s enough about my daughter
,” said Mama, “
If you’re gonna talk about her, you talk about her like she’s sitting next to you.
”

              “
When Xiaofeng gets back, she will be sitting next to me
,” said Baba, “
That’s what I’m saying.  That boy clings to her like she’s his mother and she allows it.  He’ll ruin her chances in this world like any other woman having a child clinging to her like that.  He’s gotta learn to be a man and what’s what
.”

              “
He’s eight years-old and you want him to be a man
,” said Mama.

              “
He’s gotta start learning
,” said Baba.

              “
When did I start learning?...Does anyone remember
?” said Li Xing.  The table went silent.  The silence wasn’t meant to last.

              “
Don’t get me started on the men in this family
,” said Baba.

              “
Have you noticed any patterns
?” asked Li Xing.

              “
No patterns among the men in this family
,“ said Baba, “
One looks to do what he should, one doesn’t know what he should do and one still pees in the bed
.”

              “
Why would you bring that up
?” asked Mama.

              “
Because that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about,
” said Baba, “
He’s eight years-old.  He still pees in the bed.  Xiaofeng has to get up in the middle of the night to change sheets and do laundry, every time.  That’s what I mean by taking away opportunities.  She can’t even get a good night’s sleep because he still acts like a baby
.”

              “
Well, Xiaofeng doesn’t complain and her grades are still good, so it doesn’t seem to have ruined anything for her
,” said Mama.

              “
Her grades are good because she goes to Qingshan Institute, she could have gotten into Tsinghua, if she didn’t have to put up with that boy
,” said Baba.

              “
She wouldn’t have gone
,” said Mama.

              “
That’s exactly what I’m saying.  She could have gone to a much better school but she stayed here to look after him.  That’s the opportunity he’s taken from her
,” said Baba.

              “
He didn’t take it from her; it was her choice to stay.  The boy didn’t ask to be born
,” said Mama.

              “
And he shouldn’t have been
,” said Baba.

The conversation came to a quick end, interrupted by the universal sound of a key turning a lock.  The door cracked slightly open and then opened a little more.  The door wasn’t open wide, but enough for a Young Pioneer to fit through.  He was wearing a white collared-shirt with red neckerchief, navy pants and a yellow cap with the words
Kuandian No. 2 Primary School
written on front.  Following house rules, he took the cap off, revealing a shaved head.  His absence of hair was not a compliment—a strategy.  Xiaofeng’s wisdom was a gift she used to protect her little brother.  If she had let his hair grow long, it would magnify his differences.  His hair was black like other Chinese children, just not straight like theirs.  At a little over a centimeter long, his hair would start to bend noticeably.  The longer his hair grew, the more it would deviate from a straight line.  It would start to look slightly thick and wavy, so she kept it too short to make a difference.  His other features she could not change.  His skin was a deep reddish-brown, darker than other Chinese children.  Xiaofeng read with her brother inside and allowed him to play outside only after 6pm.  She was strict.  She didn’t want his skin to absorb too much sunlight. It would get darker—too dark.  When he was younger she had allowed him to play outside when he wanted, but even she had been shocked at how dark his skin could get.  When he had started kindergarten his differences scared other children, so they bullied him.  As he got older, some students wouldn’t even come to learn his real name.  They would only learn his labels: 
Feizhouren—
African;
Chaokeli
—Chocolate;
Heigui—
Black Devil. 

Xiaofeng came through the door after her brother.  She had grown into a well-groomed, well-proportioned woman.  Like her mother she could turn heads, but—unlike her mother—she wasn’t stunning.  She could stun, but the feeling would get quickly used.  She rubbed her brother’s bald head when his cap came off.  The boy ran quickly to a dark room at the back left of the house, the room they shared.  At twenty-one years old, Xiaofeng was no longer sure of her understanding of the world.  Her surety steadily collapsed after her mother died.  She had an internal and external anxiety about not being heard.  She felt no one was listening or would listen to her, so she drowned herself in her duty—her mother’s last request.  Her duty was made easier by the fact that her brother did listen, to no one but her.  She broke her own ranks by frequently thinking about her time with her mother in Taiwan.  She looked back and realized how carefree she had been, with her mother driving the
Vespa
and herself holding on the back.  Her mother’s body had blocked most of the headwinds, so she enjoyed a gentle breeze—there at the back.  Now she was driving and blocking winds, but she had never realized how uninsured her life had been.  She battled with pits, trying to stay out of them.  Her mood could sink uncontrollably by the easy realization that her life, her mother’s and her brother’s were all so tiny and fragile.  She fought to maintain the memory of her mother and those times on the
Vespa
.  Now, those moments did nothing for her, but a lot to her.  They served only to remind her how naïve she had been and could be. How abruptly things changed and could change.  She tried to honor her silent promise to her mother, to take care of her little brother, but she felt that she was honestly failing.  The failure seemed no more apparent than standing there in the main room with her mother’s family.  Qiu’s father, mother and brother all greeted her in the main room.  But Xiaoyu had run off to another room.  He knew there was no place for him.  Xiaofeng knew it was nothing she could change, it felt like failure. 

“
Have you all started eating
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
I told them to wait for you
,” said Li Xing.

“
Thanks for waiting for us
,” said Xiaofeng.

“
How was school
?” asked Mama.

“
I guess I’ll see, I turned in the last part of my thesis
,” said Xiaofeng.

“
Did they say anything
?” asked Mama.

“
No, but it’s Professor Yi, so you know
…,” said Xiaofeng.

“
I’ll make a bowl for you two
,” said Mama.

“
Ok, I’ll get him cleaned up and bring him to the table
,” said Xiaofeng.

Xiaofeng’s words were not figurative.  She would literally have to bring her brother to the table.  He wouldn’t come back into the main room by himself; he would feel grossly outnumbered.  The boy had a strange habit.  He wouldn’t enter a room with one person in it, unless it was Mama or Xiaofeng.  If it was Baba or one of the cousins that stopped by from time-to-time, he wouldn’t enter without Xiaofeng.  Not even Mama, the capable matriarch, could drag him.  She tried once, but he kicked and screamed before wetting himself.  Then he was no longer presentable.  The boy had a strength that was eerie.  His patience was supernatural.  Baba and Mama had tried to persuade him to the dinner table one evening, when Xiaofeng was gone.  He didn’t go.  He had locked himself in the only room where he felt safe and turned the light out.  Baba and Mama assumed he had gone to sleep; he hadn’t.  He sat in darkness, without making a sound loud enough to be heard in the next room.  He sat and waited.  He grew increasingly hungry but never broke his silence.  He waited.  He had no idea of the time, but it wasn’t time he was concerned about.  He wasn’t comfortable falling asleep without knowing his sister had returned, so he waited.  If day had broken without her coming back he would have run away—no food in his stomach.

“
How are you Handsome Boy
?” asked Xiaofeng entering the room.  She used the nickname she had coined for him when he was five years-old.  The name was to contravene the verbal attacks that came when he interacted with other children.  When he started kindergarten, the name-calling began. She had come to get him one day and had noticed his left ear was blackened with dried blood.  Xiaofeng had marched immediately to the teacher and had demanded an explanation for his injuries.  The explanation was grisly.  He had been hanging on monkey bars, when he was pulled down by another boy and fell to the ground.  He was immediately tackled by three other boys who held him down, while the boy who had pulled him down dropped a large rock on his face.  Xiaoyu had turned his head when he saw the rock and the rock dropped, hitting him in the side of the head.  Xiaofeng had had her brother identify the boys to her the next day, when she dropped him at school.  The boys were, like always, together.  She had given them a one-liner,
I know what you did to my brother, Xiaoyu, but you don’t know what I’ll do to you, be very careful
.  Her purpose had been served.  The boys left Xiaoyu alone for the most part.  At least, they refrained from physical attacks for fear of reprisal.  But, the verbal attacks were still constant and they always revolve around his skin color.  No one would have said that the boy, Xiaoyu, was stupid.  In fact, he had a precocious wit and sardonic sense of irony, at a young age.