Dan's Conundrum - 12. Chapter 12

On the very tip of the island Lantau where the natural beauty of green mountains standing strong above the South China sea was irrelevant, where the sound of waves echoing across golden beaches was long forgotten by the rest of Hong Kong and the economic boom, stood a lonely estate where my grandparents lived. Impossible to reach via public transport, we had to travel by taxi and it wasn’t cheap.

As soon as we arrived I felt a familiar breeze coming from the sea, stroking my skin as though talking to me. But I no longer understood a word. Looking across the back of my hands the skin felt rougher, dryer, with deeper creases, and didn’t bounce back when pinched. This was how long I had been away – the aging of my skin said it all. Were those creases of wounds? Creases of experience? Surely I had none of them when I left.

While I was reflecting on the beach about my own life there was a different story living on the green mountains to my left – well, I’d like to think that story wasn’t quite over yet. There was always something sad in his eyes when my dad reminisced his own childhood adventures with his brother up in that mountain where they used to live. Poverty was still widespread in the 60’s. They couldn’t afford a flat so my grandparents built their own house along with many others on this mountain, overlooking the sea. Resources at the time were crude, Dad told me. They couldn’t afford treated wood and so they made do with the trees around them. Like many others after the War, Granddad had a day job and was employed by the growing industries paying less than a dollar a day for heavy lifting – eight hours a day, seven days a week. My grandparents built the house with what remaining hours they had. Even paint in their time was luxurious. They needed a solid and livable home to raise a family and, in a world that had no promise, no hope aside from the desire to survive, they made their own dream come true.

Dad had told me many times that my grandparents were amongst the most amazing people he knew. Granddad lost his mother at eight due to disease and his father at twelve to a Japanese bomb. He had learned to stand on his own two feet after being cheated out of his land and inheritance. His fortune was a coat full of pockets filled with rice, the only currency acceptable in times of war. In the swarms of refugees fleeing from the Japanese he met Grandma, herself abandoned by a mother who had refused to see her despite the knocks on her door day after day. She said she had no daughter. As adolescents, during the war when he was just sixteen and she twelve, they climbed on top of trains, mountains, bypassed armies and staged a daring escape from a Japanese camp and survived to see the end of the war. They are survivors, Dad often said, so are we. It’s in our blood.

My dad would never forget how Granddad, with incredible strength and perseverance, single-handedly made a stair of a hundred steps with nothing but a pickaxe on a steep hill leading up to their home inside a few months. He would say, before machines were invented, people made everything themselves. He would never forget how Grandma saved the succulent parts of a fish for her sons and she herself would suck on its bones. He remembered vividly that one evening when a typhoon unroofed their house, my grandparents rushed into battle. Under strong winds and rain louder than thunder, the children watched in awe as their parents pulled everything back together with savage vitality.

Then of course, one day the children grew. When he was my age, Dad was into martial arts and street-fighting. He and his brother were heroes in their neighbourhood, fighting thugs who preyed on the poor and vulnerable. They fought gang members be they armed or unarmed, black belt or white. They became something of a role model. As teenagers they felt they had done a good job driving away the injustice from a place where the police could hardly reach. All that was to change when Dad met my mum, who took him to church. It taught him there was another way. By his late twenties, he claimed he’d retired from fighting altogether. You don’t stop violence with more violence, he once said.

With these stories of the past living in my mind, I stopped outside the flat where my grandparents lived for the last twenty years and regarded how rusty the gate was. There were decades of stain in the building and between the many flats and hallways there was a silence I did not remember. Maybe the neighbours, the uncles and grannies I once knew no longer lived here, or no longer lived at all. Suddenly I felt cold winds and knew not where from.

I was about to knock when Dad touched me on the arm. ‘It’s the next one down,’ he whispered, as though we were in a library or a museum where tranquility must not be disturbed.

We rang the bell. Still ten in the morning. We heard slippers on tiled floor before the door swung inward and saw Grandma regarding us like strangers. She had a languished, tired expression but her initial suspicion vanished quickly when she saw my dad.

‘Hey,’ my father said, nodding at her as though he’d only been gone for a few hours.

She was happy to see us. She pushed open the gates and let us in, noting how tall I’d grown, how thin my mum had become.

‘It’s very cold over there,’ Mum explained.

The flat was smaller than a hotel room. With three extra people there was hardly any room for movement. We sat on the sofa – where Granddad sleeps and next to us was the dining table with two tiny stools. A black, digital TV stood like an outsider on the opposite end of the room, just two metres away. Grandma’s room had a single bed and could fit up to two people inside, standing. Up to one in the case of the shower room and kitchen. The tiles beneath my feet were cold – there was no central heating here. Whatever my dad and uncle had given them for bills, food and other expenses, it was clear they saved as much as they could so the money was there should their sons need them back.

‘You need to see an acupuncturist with your knee problem,’ Dad said to Grandma.

‘No need,’ she insisted.

‘It needs to be checked out.’

‘Too expensive,’ she stated.

Dad smiled dryly. ‘Not in Hong Kong.’

She shook her head.

At this moment the shower room opened and the granddad that appeared shocked us all. He’d lost half his weight and looked old and frail. His sunken eyes and thinning arms hinted nothing at the man he once was or the things he had done. With my grandparents’ health deteriorating rapidly, I wasn’t sure if they’d be around the next time I came back, whenever that might be. Every moment with them could be the last. And what were they thinking now? Were they resigned, feeling the strength and the vitality they once possessed ebbing day after day? Were they depressed that time had robbed them of their health, achievements and their family? Were they still living in the good old days, hoping they would have the chance to live it again?

I stared between each of my grandparents as memories of my own childhood kept flooding back. It seemed a lifetime ago when my granddad held me in his arms and scolded me for hitting the teapot with a chopstick as though it were a percussion instrument. Basic Chinese table manners. Before I slept Grandma would make up bedtime stories of lions, bears, deer and hunters, of loyalty and betrayal, love and forgiveness with family – I was too young to learn that all this time, she was talking about herself and the characters were people from her past. One story was so moving that I cried. For many nights I demanded the same story, but she no longer remembered any of it.

Granddad said to us, ‘Wanna see the old place?’

It was a question directed at Dad mainly, since he was referring to the wooden house he’d built in the mountains many years ago. It must have held a special place in my father’s heart. He’d lived there and he must have memories I could not begin to imagine.

‘They’re demolishing it next year,’ Granddad added. He didn’t seem to miss it at all, but then Granddad never showed that kind of emotion. Dad nodded. Mum was going with him but I was too tired so I asked to stay with Grandma until they returned.

‘Can I sleep for a while?’ I asked her.

She pointed to her bed. She had the only pillow in the flat. The mattress was hard as stone and unforgiving on the spine. I climbed on it, closed my eyes and listened. I heard her moving, searching for an unknown object. The next thing I felt when she returned was a cool gentle breeze brushing past my face. I opened my eyes a little to find her fanning me to sleep. That woven fan had been around for as long as I could remember. She used to do this many years ago when those summer afternoons were insufferable. It was nostalgic, the way she lulled me to sleep. But it was not summer now; it was winter. It was nearly Christmas. Had she forgotten that?

Thinking I was asleep, she asked softly, ‘Do you remember? You said I did nothing to put food on the table.’

My blood froze. She remembered. She could forget it was winter but she could never forget this. I was but a seven year old resenting I could never finish dinner and play because she kept giving me more food even if I’d said I was full. Not eating was a sin. All children must eat. Having lived in that age where night after night they gave their children their own food, her concern for me made sense. I was a skinny kid.

But all I saw at the time was adults turning against me, piling food onto my bowl which would remain full for three hours and I was to remain at the table until I finished. One evening I stood up for myself and things spiralled out of control. She said I should be obedient as I did nothing to put food on the table. Running out of things to say I deflected it right back at her. As the words left my mouth I knew I’d regret it one day. A stab of betrayal crossed her face and later she told my dad what I’d said. Dad slapped me across the face and told me to jump out of the window because no one says that to Grandma. But she stopped him, telling him I didn’t mean it and soothed his rage. I sat on the sofa, crying. I’d said that to her and she came back for me. She was my grandmother.

‘Of course you don’t,’ she mumbled to herself.

I felt a streak of tear leaving the corner of my eye, trickling down the side of my face. But she didn’t notice. She kept fanning.

I do remember, and I’m sorry, I wanted to say. Part of me felt I was right to stand up for myself, but it was beyond right and wrong. What mattered was I had hurt someone who truly cared about me, someone who loved me. This was the past I could never escape.

How could I prove to her that I was no longer this child? How could I show her the experiences of being mocked, humiliated and punished in a foreign land had changed me completely, that I had become much more than the boy she knew? She hardly knew any of that or the person I have become. What other memory than that horrible child could she cling on to, when I had been six thousand miles away, all these years?

‘But,’ she began, and I noticed a hint of warmth and affection in her tone, ‘you were stubborn just like your dad.’ I opened my eyes a little and saw her smile before closing again. She did have a positive memory of me. I listened on.

‘You loved chewing on that towel, remember? You had no teeth but you chewed at it until there were holes everywhere. I had to pull it off you. You cried all day.’

I was smiling in my heart when she told me. For a second at least. Then, as the words sank in and I started to think on what she had said I realised I did not remember anything at all.

This? Me?

‘You won’t spend a minute without it. Do you remember?’

Then I remembered. It was familiar now, what she said. The puzzles fell into place. She was talking about Ka-Fie, who did chew on a towel when he was small and was famous for it. There was no doubt. Tears were flooding again.

I was sinking into an abyss, completely overwhelmed and for once, I would rather not think. I could not undo the damage I had caused. Three weeks would not change her opinion. Eventually she left the room, leaving me to my silent tears. I do not cry. I will not cry. I was afraid that one day when she should pass away, all she would remember was that child.

At this moment, there was nothing I would have wanted more in this world than to see my grandmother smile when she thought of me.

* * * * *

The only consolation I have had for the rest of that week was seeing a sparrow that had lost a leg hopping and fighting against other sparrows for little crumbs of bread. Despite the odds it had beaten its rivals and flew off with its prize. What did I learn from this? Coping with life was one, that no matter what, we deal with a broken leg and least of all, a broken heart. The second was that the setbacks made us stronger, more determined to live life to its fullest and achieve great things when no one thought you could. That life is a gift and you are what you make yourself to be.

So despite everything that had happened to me, if I could deal with them and use my experiences in some way, I could be stronger for it. That wasn’t to say Grandma would look fondly at me. She probably never would, but at least that thought would no longer be a handicap.

Inevitably, I went to church on Sunday morning with my parents and grandparents. I didn’t want church goers asking my parents, Hey, why haven’t your son showed up? Doesn’t he know it’s important to attend weekly services? And then my parents responding, Well, he doesn’t go to church anymore – he has faith issues. Will you go talk to him about it? Then I would be interrogated and they would get the truth out of me. When I told my parents I was going to church that morning they looked at me, confused. Then they smiled as though relieved they didn’t have to explain my absence or that I no longer go to church, like it was a dirty secret never to be told. Then again, they might just be happy because I seemed to be returning to God, an impression I did not want to give.

We went to a church in Kowloon. It was years since I last came here and even then, I was just a kid who enjoyed the activities and games of Sunday school, and Bible stories where a prophet summoned a giant she bear, ripping teenage boys who called him baldy. The hymns and stories of kind hearts rewarded and bad guys punished still clung to my heart. They were part of my childhood, not easily forgotten. When we arrived at the reception a number of people recognised my parents and their eyes widened in delight. Though none recognised me. They found out I was their son after I said so.

This is home, I saw in my mother’s eyes. I felt sick. As we were late we sat quickly and the catching up had to wait. I was told I had to endure the adult service as I was too old for Sunday school.

For the next hour we sung about things I did not believe, read the Bible and made offerings – well at least my parents did. As a child I had believed the pastor would hand over our money personally to God, or would put it in a room where God would collect in His own time, since the whole thing was so solemn and sombre. But then all my theories crashed when I saw the pastor pocketing those coins one morning and I knew then that the money wasn’t really going to God.

To top it off, we had a sermon on the Original Sin.

‘We’re born sinful,’ the pastor spoke through the speakers. ‘Since the moment the fruit was eaten, sin entered the world and into the heart of man. Humanity was tainted with tendencies to do evil. We’re condemned to death and burning for eternity in hell. This was our punishment.’

Why were we born sinful exactly, when only Adam and Eve ate the fruit? Was it the logic that the sons and daughters of those who did bad things would also do bad things? Instead of thinking we were tainted by sin since birth, why could we not see that thinking and doing the wrong things at times were simply part of being human?

The pastor continued, ‘It hurts God to see His people murder, steal, rape, become homosexuals and paedophiles. He knew that men could not give up sin – so He sent His only son. All may repent and through Him we are saved.’

It would have been quite rude now to stand up and throw stones at him. I wasn’t far from doing so. Just to see if God endorsed such a view, you know? I bet this guy knew nothing about being a homosexual. What he thought he knew was coloured by ignorant views written two thousand years ago. Prophets who passed on prejudices as words of God. And because there was the Good Book the pastor could jump to conclusions and pass it on to us as facts. He knew nothing about me, or how his words were hurting me. But why would that matter? I was an outsider, a pagan amongst them, soon to be discovered and thrown out with ease.

Then I looked to the front roll to find both my grandparents listening attentively to every word. How proud I was when Dad told me they finally believed after years of persuasion. I felt they were saved from a certain doom and I would see them again in a place beyond death. But now…I can never come out to them. If they had taken the pastor’s words to heart then they would believe what I am is evil. That I am an abomination, a disgrace. If I could convince them otherwise…but they were beyond the age where changing one’s beliefs was as easy as flicking pages of a book. And I lived in another country now. I could do nothing as the church slowly turned my family against me. There’s still hope, I thought. Given time I may be able to save my parents from thinking this way, even though it was too late for my grandparents.

Finally the service was over and the congregation rose, then dispersed to form smaller groups socialising and catching up. I was about to ask my dad if we could leave when his friend Mr Lam approached us with a Bible in hand.

‘Tse-Ho has grown! Unrecognisable,’ he remarked, smiling.

‘Time flies,’ Dad laughed. ‘Your hair’s turning grey too.’

‘I feel dumber every year,’ Mr Lam said. Then to me, concern in his voice, ‘How did you find the service? Can you still understand Chinese?’

‘Yes…’ I replied dryly. Before I could stop myself I’d already responded ‘Yes’ in English.

‘What are English churches like?’

I hadn’t been to one. I looked at him, mouth open. ‘Umm…’

‘Very different,’ Mum told him, rescuing me. ‘They tend not to be this serious…’

‘And the people?’

Wanting to redeem my earlier blunder, I said, this time in Chinese. ‘They’re very friendly, kind, nice and…stuff.’

Mr Lam looked at me in a funny way, like he had noticed my descriptions were too general to be genuine.

Finally he said. ‘Your accents are off.’ Though he wasn’t accusing me.

At least to him, my struggling for words was simply because my Chinese was rusty, not because I hadn’t actually been to a church in years. Why go to a church that promises family and acceptance when all the while they’re preaching against me? As the conversation went on I only grew more uneasy before Mr Lam’s unwavering smile of warmth and acceptance. He was smiling because of my parents, not me. If he knew anything about me, he wouldn’t be smiling at all. His smile would be replaced with a frown or at least some distance. Or he might hit me on the head with that Bible of his.

I am only welcomed here because they think I am one of them.

But I was no longer one of them. As my heart sank yet again I felt a sudden urge of nausea. Needed fresh air. Just get out of here where you clearly don’t belong, and get out before anyone notices a thing.

‘Excuse me,’ I muttered. I walked and headed down the aisles, ready to leave everything behind. I couldn’t keep this up for long. Once I stepped out onto the street, the feeling of expulsion from paradise was complete. I sat against a wall like I often did as a child. I didn’t care that the floor was wet and now my trousers were wet. I stared onto the street. I thought about David. I thought about Chris and Jenna and the wonderful Christmas holiday they must be having. It was cold. My heart would have been warmed if I saw a pair of boys walking past, holding hands in their own little world – but that never came. Instead, men and women approached me trying to sell me things. I was happier to be left alone.

There wasn’t a single place in this world where I truly belonged.