The Hundred Secret Senses (14 page)

We looked at his face. In all my life, I had never seen a person so intelligent, so wistful, so deserving to belong. We had no answer for him.

That night, I lay on my mat, thinking about those questions. What country? What people? What family? To the first two questions, I knew the answers right away. I belonged to China. I belonged to the Hakkas. But to the last question, I was like Yiban. I belonged to no one else, only myself.

Look at me, Libby-ah. Now I belong to lots of people. I have family, I have you. . . . Ah! Lao Lu says no more talking! Eat, eat before everything gets cold.

11
NAME CHANGE

A
s it turns out, Kwan was right about the sounds in the house. There
was
someone in the walls, under the floors, and he was full of anger and electricity.

I found out after our downstairs neighbor, Paul Dawson, was arrested for making crank phone calls to thousands of women in the Bay Area. My automatic response was sympathy; after all, the poor man was blind, he was lonely for companionship. But then I learned the nature of his calls: he had claimed to be a member of a cult that kidnapped “morally reprehensible” women and turned them into “sacrificial village dolls,” destined to be penetrated by male cult members during a bonding rite, then eviscerated alive by their female worker bees. To those who laughed at his phone threats, he said, “Would you like to hear the voice of a woman who also thought this was a joke?” And then he played a recording of a woman screaming bloody murder.

When the police searched Dawson’s apartment, they found an odd assortment of electronic equipment: tape recorders hooked up to his telephone, redialers, voice changers, sound-effects tapes, and more. He hadn’t limited his terrorist activities to the telephone. Apparently, he felt the prior owners of our apartment also had been too noisy, inconsiderate of his morning Zen meditations. When they temporarily moved out during a remodeling phase, he punched holes in his ceiling and installed speakers and bugging devices underneath the upstairs floor, enabling him to monitor the doings of his third-floor neighbors and spook them with sound effects.

My sympathy immediately turned into rage. I wanted Dawson to rot in jail. For all this time, I had been driven nearly crazy with thoughts of ghosts—one in particular, even though I would have been the last to admit so.

But I’m relieved to know what caused the sounds. Living alone edges my imagination toward danger. Simon and I see each other only for business reasons. As soon as we’re fiscally independent, we’ll divorce ourselves from our clients as well. In fact, he’s coming over later to deliver copy for a dermatologist’s brochure.

But now Kwan has dropped by, uninvited, while I’m in the middle of a phone call to the printer’s. I let her in, then return to my office. She’s brought some homemade wontons, which she is storing in my freezer, commenting loudly on the lack of provisions in my fridge and cupboards: “Why mustard, pickles, but no bread, no meat? How you can live like this way? And beer! Why beer, no milk?”

After a few minutes, she comes into my office, a huge grin on her face. In her hands is a letter I had left on the kitchen counter. It’s from a travel magazine,
Lands Unknown,
which has accepted Simon’s and my proposal for a photo essay on village cuisines of China.

When the letter arrived the day before, I felt as though I had won the lottery only to remember I’d thrown my ticket away. It’s a cruel joke played on me by the gods of chance, coincidence, and bad luck. I’ve spent the better part of the day and night gnawing on this turn of events, playing out scenarios with Simon.

I pictured him scanning the letter, saying, “God! This is unbelievable! So when are we going?”

“We’re not,” I’d say. “I’m turning it down.” No hint of regret in my voice.

Then he’d say something like: “What do you mean, turning it down?”

And I’d say, “How could you even
think
we’d go together?”

Then maybe—and this really got my blood boiling—maybe he’d suggest that
he
would still go, and take along another photographer.

So I’d say, “No, you’re not, because
I’m
going and I’m bringing along another writer, a
better
writer.” And then the whole thing would escalate into a volley of insults about morals, business ethics, and comparative talent, variations of which kept me awake most of the night.

“Ohhhh!” Kwan is now cooing, waving the letter with joy. “You and Simon, going to China! You want, I go with you, be tour guide, do translation, help you find lots bargains. Of course, pay my own way. For long time I want go back anyway, see my auntie, my village—”

I cut her off: “I’m not going.”

“Ah? Not going? Why not?”

“You know.”

“I know?”

I turn around and look at her. “Simon and I are getting divorced. Remember?”

Kwan ponders this for two seconds, before answering: “Can go like friends! Why not just friends?”

“Drop it, Kwan,
please.
”

She looks at me with a tragic face. “So sad, so sad,” she moans, then walks out of my office. “Like two starving people, argue-argue, both throw out rice. Why do this, why?”

When I show Simon the letter, he is stunned. Are those actually tears? In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him cry, not at sad movies, not even when he told me about Elza’s death. He swipes at the wetness on his cheeks. I pretend not to notice. “God,” he says, “the thing we wished for so much came through. But we didn’t.”

We’re both quiet, as if to remember our marriage with a few moments of respectful silence. And then, in a bid for strength, I take a deep breath and say, “You know, painful as it’s been, I think the breakup has been good for us. I mean, it forces us to examine our lives separately, you know, without assuming our goals are the same.” I feel my tone has been pragmatic, but not overly conciliatory.

Simon nods and softly says, “Yeah, I agree.”

I want to shout, What do you mean,
you
agree! All these years we never agreed on anything, and now you agree? But I say nothing, and even congratulate myself for being able to keep my ill feelings in check, to not show how much I hurt. A second later, I am overwhelmed with sadness. Being able to restrain my emotions isn’t a great victory—it’s the pitiful proof of lost love.

Every word, every gesture is now loaded with ambiguity, nothing can be taken at face value. We speak to each other from a safe distance, pretending all the years we soaped each other’s backs and pissed in front of each other never happened. We don’t use any of the baby talk, code words, or shorthand gestures that had been our language of intimacy, the proof that we belonged to each other.

Simon looks at his watch. “I better go. I’m supposed to meet someone by seven.”

Is he meeting a woman? This soon? I hear myself say, “Yeah, I have to get ready for a date too.” His eyes barely flicker, and I blush, certain that he knows I’ve told a pathetic lie. As we walk to the door, he glances up.

“I see you finally got rid of that stupid chandelier.” He gazes back at the apartment. “The place looks different—nicer, I think, and more quiet.”

“Speaking of quiet,” I say, and tell him about Paul Dawson, the house terrorist. Simon’s the only one I know who can fully appreciate the outcome.

“Dawson?” Simon shakes his head, incredulous. “What a bastard. Why would he do something like that?”

“Loneliness,” I say. “Anger. Revenge.” And I sense the irony of what I’ve just said, a poker stabbing the ashes of my heart.

After Simon leaves, the apartment does feel awfully quiet. I lie on the rug in the bedroom and stare at the night sky through a dormer window. I think about our marriage. The weft of our seventeen years together was so easily torn apart. Our love was as ordinary as the identical welcome mats found in the suburbs we grew up in. The fact that our bodies, our thoughts, our hearts had once moved in rhythm with each other had only fooled us into thinking we were special.

And all that talk about the breakup being good for us—who am I trying to fool? I’m cut loose, untethered, not belonging to anything or anybody.

And then I think about Kwan, how misplaced her love for me is. I never go out of my way to do anything for her unless it’s motivated by emotional coercion on her part and guilt on mine. I never call her out of the blue to say, “Kwan, how about going to dinner or a movie, just the two of us?” I never take any pleasure in simply being nice to her. Yet there she is, always hinting about our going together to Disneyland or Reno or China. I bat away her suggestions as though they were annoying little flies, saying I hate gambling, or that southern California is definitely not on my list of places to visit in the near future. I ignore the fact that Kwan merely wants to spend more time with me, that I am her greatest joy. Oh God, does she hurt the way I do now? I’m no better than my mother!—careless about love. I can’t believe how oblivious I’ve been to my own cruelty.

I decide to call Kwan and invite her to spend a day, maybe even a weekend, with me. Lake Tahoe, that would be nice. She’ll go berserk. I can’t wait to hear what she says. She won’t believe it.

But when Kwan answers the phone, she doesn’t wait for me to explain why I’ve called. “Libby-ah, this afternoon I talking to my friend Lao Lu. He agree, you
must
go China—you, Simon, me together. This year Dog Year, next year Pig, too late. How you cannot go? This you fate waiting to happen!”

She rambles on, countering my silences with her own irrefutable logic. “You half-Chinese, so must see China someday. What you think? We don’t go now, maybe never get another chance! Some mistake you can change, this one cannot. Then what you do? What you think, Libby-ah?”

In hopes that she’ll cease and desist, I say, “All right, I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, I know you change mind!”

“Wait a minute. I didn’t say I’d go. I said I’d think about it.”

She’s off and running. “You and Simon
love
China, guarantee one hundred percent, specially my village. Changmian so beautiful you can’t believe. Mountain, water, sky, like heaven and earth come together. I have things I leave there, always want give you. . . .” She goes on for another five minutes, extolling the virtues of her village before announcing, “Oh-oh, doorbell ringing. I call you again later, okay?”

“Actually, I called you.”

“Oh?” The doorbell sounds once more. “Georgie!” she cries. “Georgie! Answer door!” Then she shouts, “Virgie! Virgie!” Is George’s cousin from Vancouver already living with them? Kwan comes back on the line. “Wait minute. I go answer door.” I hear her welcoming someone, and then she’s on the line again, slightly breathless. “Okay. Why you call?”

“Well, I wanted to ask you something.” I immediately regret what I haven’t said yet. What am I getting myself into? I think about Lake Tahoe, being marooned with Kwan in a dinky motel room. “This is sort of last-minute, so I understand if you’re too busy—”

“No-no, never too busy. You need something, ask. My answer always yes.”

“Well, I was wondering, well”—and then I say, all in a rush—“what are you doing tomorrow for lunch? I have to take care of some business near where you work. But if you’re busy, we could do it another day, no big deal.”

“Lunch?” Kwan says brightly. “Oh! Lunch!” Her voice sounds heartbreakingly happy. I curse myself for being so stingy with my token gift. And then I listen, flabbergasted, as she turns away from the receiver to announce, “Simon, Simon—Libby-ah call me have lunch tomorrow!” I hear Simon in the background: “Make sure she takes you somewhere expensive.”

“Kwan? Kwan, what’s Simon doing there?”

“Come over eat dinner. Yesterday I already ask you. You say busy. Not too late, you want come now, I have extra.”

I look at my watch. Seven o’clock. So this is his date. I nearly jump for joy. “Thanks,” I tell her. “But I’m busy tonight.” My same excuse.

“Always too busy,” she answers. Her same lament.

Tonight, I make sure my excuse isn’t a lie. As penance, I busy myself making a to-do list of unpleasant tasks I’ve been putting off, one of which is changing my name. That necessitates changing my driver’s license, credit cards, voter registration, bank account, passport, magazine subscriptions, not to mention informing our friends and clients. It also means deciding what last name I will use. Laguni? Yee?

Mom suggested I keep the name Bishop. “Why go back to Yee?” she reasoned. “There aren’t any other Yees you’re related to in this country. So who’s going to care?” I didn’t remind Mom about her pledge to do honor to the Yee family name.

As I think more about my name, I realize I’ve never had any sort of identity that suited me, not since I was five at least, when my mother changed our last name to Laguni. She didn’t bother with Kwan’s. Kwan’s name remained Li. When Kwan came to America, Mom said that it was a Chinese tradition for girls to keep their mother’s last name. Later, she admitted that our stepfather didn’t want to adopt Kwan since she was nearly an adult. Also, he didn’t want to be legally liable for any trouble she might cause as a Communist.

Olivia Yee. I say the name aloud several times. It sounds alien, as though I’d become totally Chinese, just like Kwan. That bothers me a little. Being forced to grow up with Kwan was probably one of the reasons I never knew who I was or wanted to become. She was a role model for multiple personalities.

I call Kevin for his opinion on my new name. “I never liked the name Yee,” he confesses. “Kids used to yell, ‘Hey, Yee! Yeah, you, yee-eye-yee-eye-oh.’ ”

“The world’s changed,” I say. “It’s hip to be ethnic.”

“But wearing a Chinese badge doesn’t really get you any bonus points,” Kevin says. “Man, they’re cutting Asians out, not making more room for them. You’re better off with Laguni.” He laughs. “Hell, some people think Laguni’s Mexican. Mom did.”

“Laguni doesn’t feel right to me. We don’t really belong to the Laguni lineage.”

“Nobody does,” says Kevin. “It’s an orphan’s name.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I was in Italy a couple of years ago, I tried to look up some Lagunis. I found out it’s just a made-up name that nuns gave to orphans. Laguni—like ‘lagoon,’ isolated from the rest of the world. Bob’s grandfather was an orphan. We’re related to a bunch of orphans in Italy.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us this before?”

“I told Tommy and Mom. I guess I forgot to tell you because—well, I figured you weren’t a Laguni anymore. Anyway, you and Bob didn’t get along that much. To me, Bob’s the only dad I ever knew. I don’t remember anything about our real father. Do you?”