Sour Heart Read online

  Sammy rolled his eyes. “Her prettier sister, right?”

  “No,” my mother said, surprising us. “No one was more beautiful than Deng Lijun.” When news of her death came over the evening CCTV broadcast the year before, my mother shrieked and dropped her Cup Noodles to the floor. I had been standing next to her and some of the broth splashed onto my feet, scalding me.

  “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Mommy, that was really hot.”

  “No, no, no. This can’t be, this can’t be, this can’t be, this can’t be,” my mother had cried. She beat her fist into her chest and smashed the cup and the noodles and the still partly dehydrated peas and carrots and scallions and corn with her slippered feet. “They killed her. They killed her with their bare hands. I can see the marks on her neck.”

  “It was an asthma attack, honey,” my father had said. “She had been in bad health for a while.”

  “Lies,” my mother had cried. “She was murdered.” For weeks after, our house filled with her songs.

  “Look at the moon,” my mother told me the night Teresa died. “No one sang more gracefully or more lovingly of the moon than little Deng. Her English name was Teresa and I wanted to name you Teresa, but your father said we ought to embrace American idols. What crap. I should have gone with my initial impulses. From now on, you’re Teresa. Teresa, my heart, should we get McDonald’s for breakfast tomorrow?”

  I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure if she was calling out for me or her favorite singer.

  “Hello? Are you asleep? Where’d you go, Teresa?”

  “Are you talking to me?” I asked.

  “I’m talking to Teresa,” she snapped, tears dripping down her cheeks.

  Now, a year later, she was singing more and crying less. And by the time school let out for the summer my qin jiu jiu really was qin. He was precious to me, as miraculous as my mother had prepped me to believe. When we didn’t clap loudly enough to satisfy my mother after another rendition of “Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin,” she threw the microphone across the room. “You’ll give your father a standing ovation for the ‘Macarena’ but you can’t throw your own mother a few measly claps? How about ‘Good job’? How about ‘That was great, Mom’? Nothing?”

  My uncle picked up the microphone, neatly wrapped the cord around it, and put it back into the sliding glass case in our entertainment center. “They did clap,” he said. “Your kids love your singing. We all do. You can’t get upset if things don’t go exactly as you envisioned them. Your emotions take a toll on them.” He meant me and Sammy. We were talked about in those days. We were considered. It made me feel like royalty. Now when my mother was on a roll, one of her soliloquies about how life had mistreated her and saved an especially cruel fate for her and her alone, as long as my uncle was home and not out delivering food or attending English language meet-ups at the public library, he would stop her mid-sentence and remind her that their mother wouldn’t have stood for this kind of self-pity. “If Ma could hear you,” he’d say, “she’d come to New York and slap those complaining lips right off of you.”

  “Well, she’s not here, is she?”

  “She’s not here because she’s at home taking care of our father—her husband. She’s looking out for him. Don’t you want to be able to say the same?”

  My mother let him say these things to her. Since my uncle moved in with us in April, she hadn’t threatened to leave or tear out her hair or rip off her fingernails one by one and flick them against our faces so we could feel a fraction of the pain she felt. Instead she’d sniffle and straighten up like she was getting ready for battle and then go into the bathroom for a few minutes and come out with water drying on her face. She didn’t apologize but she didn’t go on and on either. It was during those periods of uneasy calm, when Sammy and I wondered how long her restraint could possibly last, that we were finally as doting and caring and considerate toward our mother as she had been berating and unreasonable and furious with us. We’d make sure to apologize anytime we walked past her too quickly and we’d remember to leave a bottle of Sunkist out on the counter so she could enjoy her warm soda with the rest of us, who always had plenty of chilled sodas since we were in the majority with our preference, and though she clearly enjoyed our penance and attention, it was nothing compared to the rapturous delight she expressed whenever we outdid her by blaming our father for anything and everything that could possibly bother her before she had a chance to.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Sammy said in the aftermath of one of these de-escalations, “I’ll never attempt art when I get older. Only a sadist—a self-centered sadist—would put his family through that.”

  “Yeah,” I chimed in. “It’s really unfair for the person who has to marry him.”

  “No, I would never attempt art. That’s a death sentence right there,” Sammy continued.

  “Two death sentences!” I said.

  “Well”—Sammy hesitated—“unless it was someone who was actually talented.”

  “A star!” I cried. “Like Mommy!”

  “It’s true, Mom. You’ve got a voice like the queen of the mermaids. I can only imagine what kind of vision you had behind the camera.”

  “That’s old stuff,” my mother said. “Kids, I want you to be the first to hear this…your mother has decided to become a novelist. It’s a much worthier endeavor. Not nearly as frivolous as singing or as decadent as directing.”

  My uncle cocked an eyebrow. “What do you plan on writing?”

  “The untold story of my life,” my mother said. “And your life and our mother’s life and all the family stories no one has the guts to tell.”

  “Well, I hope you won’t savage your poor little brother in it,” my uncle said, winking at me.

  “Or me,” I said, winking my exactly-like-a-blink wink, the precise mechanics of which I was refining in secret because my uncle said it was charming and part of my personality and thus something I should cherish and cultivate.

  My mother, however, was uncharmed and refused to make any promises. “Art does not pledge loyalty to the petty feelings of its subjects! There cannot be any restriction on the truth!”

  My father looked up from his Programming in C++ book. “I don’t recall you saying that when I was in grad school.”

  “And I don’t recall you making anything anyone wanted in their home or gallery,” my mother retorted.

  “And this book you’re writing…”

  “Will be on every bookshelf in every library and every bookstore!”

  I backed her up. “It’ll be taught in every school. Right, Mommy?”

  “That’s right, my baby.”

  “Are you writing it in Chinese or English?” my brother asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” I could tell he wanted to say, “Chinese because your English is broken,” but he knew that would upset her. No broken person in the history of the world had ever wanted to be described that way. He was sparing her because she demanded to be spared.

  “If only,” my mother started to say, “one of my kids could read and write in Chinese.”

  “Now, that’s a big endeavor,” my uncle said. “I’m only semiliterate myself. It takes a special kind of nerd to slog through all that memorization.”

  “Your uncle is being humble,” my mother said. “Don’t listen to him. In a few years, we’ll all be calling him Dr. Li.”

  “All right, sis, it’s just a master’s degree.”

  “So now you think grad school is a good thing again?” My father tried to enter our conversation but no one was listening to him.

  Sammy offered to be my mother’s research assistant, her own personal historian and archivist, since he had a gift for keeping track of details and was a natural interviewer. “I’ll go through the family documents. I’ll record the oral histories of all the people who are still alive.”

  “What documents? What people?” my father asked.

  “I wanna start Chinese school t
his summer,” I said. “So I can translate all your books, Mommy.”

  “My sweet angel girl,” my mother said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “You pitched a fit last year when your mother suggested you start attending on Sundays,” my father reminded me.

  “Will you look at your kids,” my uncle said to my father, always the person who attended to anyone who needed attending and tried his best to not adhere to the hierarchy that my mother wanted us to adhere to. “What would A-Ling do without them? What would you?”

  My father looked at us like we were potatoes trying to be oranges. The way my mother egged us on, the promises she begged us, explicitly and implicitly, to make if we wanted to avoid imminent and future breakdowns, must have riled him.

  “My book will open with the story of Bighead!” my mother said.

  “Now, what did I say about painting me in a good light?”

  “It’ll be better than good! It’s art.” My mother was gleeful and seeing her this way, I felt infected.

  “Mommy will tell the story of qin jiu jiu!”

  My mother grabbed my hand and we started to sing the Bighead song.

  “Now, stop that,” my uncle said, feigning like it didn’t bring him any pleasure. Even Sammy was humming along. My mother and I danced around my uncle in a circle, like the kids had done in the summers when there was nothing to do. I locked eyes with my father as I passed him and then broke the gaze. He must have been wondering how and why he had helped to create me—what part of him did he pass on to me, and would I nurture it with the same patience and care I was nurturing the part of me that was my mother, who never, ever, ever gave anything a rest?

  August 1966

  My mother was the one who went up to the roof after a few hours had passed, when the children of Nanchang longtang, tired and hungry and uncomfortable with being anointed the stewards of anarchy, haunted by the rumors of where they were going in the fall and how long they would be going there for, began to make the trek home, hoping this was the night when there might be a little bit of pork fat to eat for dinner. It was my mother who found my uncle, his little naked boy body shivering under the dimming light, his face swollen and long strands of mucus falling from his nostrils to his lap. She was the one who brought him a sheet to wrap around himself and the one who wiped his nose with a handkerchief and coaxed him into coming back downstairs. She was the one who took him down to my grandmother and said, Forgive him. He’s sorry. She brought him a bowl of rice seasoned with a few drops of soy sauce, and when he was still hungry afterward, she went into the kitchen and asked my grandmother in the softest voice she could muster, Can you slip some pickled radishes into my bowl? I’ll tell him I stole it. We both know he won’t eat it if he thinks I asked you for it. It’s okay, Ma, he learned his lesson and he’s hungry. Remember what we said? We don’t let anyone in this house go hungry.

  It was my mother who tucked him in and told him that there exists a sort of love in the world that only survives as long as no one speaks of it, and that was the reason why he would never have to worry because my grandmother was never going to be the kind of mother who held her children in her arms and told them how smart and beautiful and talented they were. She was only ever going to scold them, make them feel diminutive, make them feel like they were never good enough, make them know this world wouldn’t be kind to them. She wasn’t going to let someone else be better than her at making her children feel pain or scare them more than she could, and to her, that was a form of protection.

  That’s how we will be with our own children, my mother told my uncle, proud that she had realized this. Because we’ll learn from our mother who learned from her mother who learned from her mother who learned from her mother before her and all the mothers before them. That’s how I imagine we’ll be, my mother said, watching my uncle’s mouth open slightly, allowing a trickle of drool to escape—his nightly ritual before falling asleep.

  August 1996

  My mother insisted on a going-away party for my uncle before he left for Tennessee to start his master’s program in chemical engineering. My uncle was reluctant but we all agreed there had to be a proper send-off.

  In the weeks leading up to his departure, my mother had reverted back to her twice-daily breakdowns. “You can miss the first month, can’t you?”

  But my uncle wasn’t having it and shut down all her attempts to bargain with him. “And what? Keep delivering food? You don’t actually want me to mess this up, do you? You gotta move past the first layer of sentiment—that’s just reaction, an attempt to circumvent any kind of pain. Deep down, you want me to go. I know you do.”

  I had trouble accepting it too. “Will you come back right away?”

  “He’ll come back for Christmas,” my father said. “We already got his ticket home.”

  “Why why why why why why?” I moaned, climbing all over my father and smacking the bony parts of his body.

  “That’s what he came here to do. That was his plan, my little ape.” I was eight now, but still had the tiny lanky body of a monkey, helpless and prone to being swung like an object.

  “It’s true,” my uncle said. “You better stay small and adorable for your qin jiu jiu. I’m kidding—I want you to grow if those bones of yours want to stretch. Remember: you can be who you want to be, okay? And you,” he said, speaking to Sammy, “you’re gonna have to be the man of the house because this one”—he pointed to my dad—“needs to retire soon. And Sammy? Make no mistake about it. You’ve already grown into a fine young man. You’re five times the man I was at your age.”

  Chen shu shu and Xiao Ming a-yi were the first to arrive, and right away he and my father egged each other on to take three shots for my uncle. Then Chen shu shu ordered me to sit on his knee and drunkenly proclaimed to everyone that if Xiao Ming a-yi finally came to her senses and left him and he was still single when I turned eighteen, he would marry me. My parents laughed and clutched at their bellies, and I thought, Great, I’m getting married to a pervert in ten years. People were drinking fast, just as Sammy warned me earlier when he came into my room and told me to brace myself. “When adults are sad, they bury their feelings in drink.”

  “I just don’t get what’s so good about alcohol,” I said.

  “Let’s hope neither of us ever do.”

  A few of the guests drank too much and started talking about the old days, who turned in whom and who got beaten and who lost their minds.

  “This is a celebration,” my father said, climbing onto the couch and interrupting the somber talk. “We’re all of sound minds, aren’t we?”

  Some of the guests nodded and the drunk ones ribbed each other and jokingly accused the other of lunacy.

  “We’re all still here, aren’t we?” my father said. “We all came to this country with not a dime in our pockets, did we not?”

  “Dad, can you help me with the helium? It’s not pumping properly,” Sammy asked, offering my father a dignified exit off the couch.

  “Some of us are broken down. But not my brother-in-law. He’s…he’s…he’s…”

  “Okay, okay,” my mother intervened. “That’s enough.”

  “Annie,” my father said after slumping back down onto the couch and tapping the seat cushion next to him. “Come sit with Daddy.”

  “Okay.”

  “Daddy’s drunk.”

  “I know. Do you want some coffee?”

  “You know how to make coffee?”

  “Qin jiu jiu showed me.”

  “You’re a miracle daughter. You really are. I lucked out with you and Sammy. I will do everything in my power to give you the life I lost out on. Daddy’s old, you see. But Annie, you’re still young.”

  “If I’m so young,” I said, “then you can’t be that old yet. As long as I’m still little, you can’t say you’re old.” My father pulled me in so close to him that I couldn’t breathe. I struggled to escape but he wouldn’t let me go.

  �
�One second longer. Let Daddy hold you.”

  A tear rolled down my face, the first of who knew how many for him and him alone.

  Chen shu shu came over and broke our embrace to ask me the dreaded question, “Do you remember what I asked you at your birthday party? You said you needed to think it over and I said, Okay, but I’m gonna need an answer before your uncle leaves.”

  I looked at him with pure hate. “No.”

  “C’mon, now,” he said. “You’ve deflected long enough. Everyone wants to know the answer. We’ve all been waiting and now you’ve had enough time to think this through. Who do you love more? Your mother or your father?”

  I shook my head.

  “C’mon, little Annie, it’s easy. Just say ‘my mom’ or ‘my father.’ Here.” He put his fists out in front of me. “Just pick one of these and I’ll tell you if it’s your mom or dad.”

  I shook my head again.

  “All right, all right,” my uncle said. “Let that one go. She doesn’t want to answer right now.”

  “Pick one! I can tell you already know your answer. Share with Chen shu shu. Just whisper it into my ear.”

  There was some amused laughter followed by silence as my mother made her way to the door. At this point in my life, the sound of my mother slamming the front door should have been only as shocking as the sound of a car key turning on the engine, or the sound of the blinds squeaking when my father pulled them up in the mornings, or the sound of my brother pushing his glass of orange juice back and forth on the kitchen table whenever he was anxious about a test, but there must have been some shred of hope I couldn’t bear to give up that prevented the sound of the door slamming from becoming familiar to me, and so it chilled me as it always did and always would. No matter how long the intervals between each outburst lasted, it was still a shock when the period of respite ended.