Unpolished Gem (9 page)

“What do you think you are doing, giving her such a name?” my grandfather berated her when he heard her calling Little Brother to come and have her porridge. He watched the child toddle over, her little brown legs stepping on the ground as if she were marching. “Such a strong and balanced child,” my grandmother told him. “Look at how other babies wobble when they walk. They sway this way and that, and one little gust of wind would knock them flat. But look at your daughter, so balanced!”

“She’s built like a boy,” said my grandfather, “and now you’ve given her that terrible name. She’s going to grow up like a boy if you’re not careful, and then no one will want her. Who wants a girl always running about this way and that? Keep that child still, and stop calling her Little Brother! What do you think it is – some kind of joke? Do you think it’s funny hah?”

But she could not help it. Little Brother stuck. And every time my grandfather came by, she stuck close to my grandmother.

“You’ve not given me a son, but a daughter who is like a son!” he said to my grandmother. “Woe, what could be worse?” Yet she didn’t think that Little Brother was so much like a boy. She would try to teach her to be more graceful, but she was just a baby. A baby with balance. She still had Treasure’s little dresses, and she put them on Little Brother, but Little Brother would always get them dirty. Put holes in them where no child could possibly make a hole. Also, she was a dribbler, and the front of her dresses would always be wet.

So what could my grandmother do? She sewed her many suits. And all in pretty colours, so no one could say that she was like a boy – pink, pale green and yellow. Especially red. “Aiya,” neighbours would complain, “your daughter is so naughty, always climbing here and there! One day she is going to fall down and then it will be doom.” That’s why my grandmother was so worried about Little Brother. “Aiyoh, Little Brother,” she would yell, whenever she saw the girl climb up the metal stairs in the alleyway. “Little Brother! Come down now! No, you wait there! Don’t move! I am coming!” She would grab her and take her inside. She would give her some smacks, of course, although smacking your child is like smacking your own flesh – it hurts. But she did not want anything bad to happen to Little Brother. She would make sure she stayed inside from now on. “Aiyoh, Little Brother,” she would sigh, “why do you cause me such grief? Why do you always run off? Why are you always getting into danger? Why do you cause me such worry? Why can’t you be a good kid?”

And Little Brother would be on the floor, howling and crying mahhhamagghhh sounds, filled with fury. Such anger! Such anger for such a little person. “Why are you so nasty for a little person?” my grandmother would say to her, and Little Brother would scream some more. “Let me out! Let me out to play!” She felt sad for Little Brother, but she had to learn not to be so naughty.

Yet, as Little Brother grew, she clung to my grandmother less and less, and soon stopped altogether, except when she was in a fury. Then she would pull at my gran’s pants until her hands were all white. It was hard to shake her off. At other times, Little Brother loved to run and hide from my grandmother, and my grandmother saw everyone looking at her and making disdainful clicking noises with their tongues. “What a bad little girl,” they would say. “What a messy little girl.” And she was ashamed, she who was so neat.

“That woman doesn’t know how to raise a daughter,” she knew they were saying. “That woman doesn’t know how to discipline her own child. But what do you expect from a younger second wife? She must be a bit loose herself, if you know what I mean.”

“What a bad girl you are, Little Brother!” my grandmother said to her, fully aware of the sad irony of those words. Because if Little Brother really were a Little Brother, then she would still say the same words – “What a bad boy you are, Little Brother!” – but her sighs would be sighs of pride. Ah, look at my son, she would think to herself, so vibrant and active. So good. So good to be so vibrant and active. And the other women, those idle gossips, they would also say, “Ah, take a look at Huyen’s son. Even though that woman was the second wife, she produced for her husband such a fine handsome boy. Look how active he is. Look how naughty he is, how cheeky! That boy is going to go far, he knows what he wants, eh? Look at him howling to go outside! He’s going to be a traveller and cause you much grief, Huyen Thai!” they would joke. And she would laugh with them.

Oh, Little Brother, born in the year of the monkey! So cheeky, so cheery when she wanted to be. My grandmother would look at my grandfather’s other children, the ones from The Other Side. Such bland faces, such dull creatures! And here was her Little Brother, cute as a puppy, so lovable, but not able to behave. Whenever my grandfather would come for a visit, my grandmother would have to neaten her up. Comb her hair, tie ribbons in it. Put on a pretty frock, Little Brother.

“No!”

“Look how beautiful this dress is!” she would coax.

“No!” Little Brother was such a stubborn one, standing there in the corner, her hands crossed over her chest.

Then my grandmother had to resort to bribes. “Put on this dress and I will buy you an ice lolly!”

“You’re lying,” she would yell. “Ma’s always lying to me!”

Finally, she had to resort to threats: “Put on this dress or else you will be smacked!”

There was only one thing that scared Little Brother, and that was my grandfather. Whenever he came by, she would be quiet and well-behaved. So whenever my grandmother knew that my grandfather was visiting, she would have to prepare Little Brother. But sometimes he would come by unexpectedly, and he would catch her doing something wild. Chasing the chickens with holes in the knees of her pants. Sucking on an ice-lolly, an orange trail dribbling down her chin. Scratching marks on the wall with bits of black charcoal. “Discipline that child!”

At night my grandmother would sleep with her, curled up like one of those little grey beetles with the many legs – oh, how she loved that Little Brother. “Ma, Ma, tell me a story,” Little Brother would beg. “Ma, can you tell me a story?”

“Too tired,” my grandmother would mumble. “Too tired from you running around all day and causing trouble for me!”

“I’ll be good!” she would promise. “I’ll be good, Ma! Tell me a story!”

My grandmother sighed. “There was once a little girl who was always messy,” she would begin. “The girl was always doing things to torment her mother …” Oh, how Little Brother loved those stories, although she never learned from them. She just loved stories. Sometimes my grandmother would be too tired to invent a didactic tale, and it was at those times that she would just tell her the stories of Monkey. How Little Brother loved those myths! “You are such a little Monkey,” my grandmother would tell her, “and when you are bad I should get a little gold band made for your head, eh?” She would giggle, that Little Brother wrapped up in her blanket like an insect in a cocoon. “Go to sleep now.”

Soon my grandmother was pregnant again. Again, my grandfather hoped for a boy. Little Brother watched my grandmother’s stomach bloat round like a ball and heard everyone’s hopes and expectations: “Must be a boy, look how big the tummy is!” “Wouldn’t it be good if it was a boy!” And my grandmother would tell the little girl, “Ah, Little Brother, wouldn’t it be good if you had a little brother?”

The child didn’t understand. “But
I am
Little Brother,” she would say.

This time, my grandmother was lucky. My eldest uncle was born. After his birth, my grandfather returned to live with my grandmother. “Oh, how clever Huyen Thai is!” the women in the neighbourhood would say. “To have such a beautiful big baby boy, and her husband back!” Stupid city women with countryside intellects! She knew it had nothing to do with being clever or not clever.

Of course, when the new baby was a month old, my grandfather wanted the whole town to know that he had had a boy at last, after so many years. So he planned for a big celebration and invited many people. My grandmother was excited too, because she knew everyone would see how much he loved her, and how she was the superior wife. So the day was set, and food was ordered. Five roast ducks, crackling pork, so many oranges and, of course, the lucky red candy. All day my grandfather would hold the baby boy – he did not, of course, pay any attention to Little Brother. And my grandmother was so busy with preparing the big feast that she got annoyed with Little Brother, who was pulling at her pants-legs and asking her all sorts of questions: “Why are you making all this food?” “Who is coming over?” “Why are all these people coming over?”

Finally, my grandmother snapped, “Children shouldn’t be so nosey! Go away and play by yourself, Little Brother!” In the end, she handed the little girl a lolly on a stick, the kind that you can suck for an hour and not cause any trouble for the adults. “Now go and play.” And it was only then that Little Brother let go of her trouser leg and waddled off.

About half an hour later, my grandmother heard my grandfather yell, “No! These are for your brother’s guests! What a greedy thing, you have one already!”

“But he can’t even eat them and he has a whole bowl!” she heard Little Brother sulk, and then she knew she was trying to get at the lollies on the table.

“What a rude little girl!” my grandmother heard my grandfather bellow, and then Little Brother screaming and yelling and howling. She was throwing one of her tantrums, and my grandmother had no time for her tantrums.

“Little Brother,” my grandmother said as she entered the guest room. “Stop that! Stop that or else I will smack you!”

But she wouldn’t stop. “Pa took away the lollies!” she screamed, “Pa took away the lollies!” Her own lollypop had popped out of her mouth and was lying in a wet puddle on the ground.

“Aiyaah,” my grandmother moaned, picking up the lolly-stick and realising that it had stained the floor red, “what trouble you are! Stop crying!”

She looked around and could see that my grandfather had placed the tray of lollies on the very top shelf. She grabbed one and gave it to Little Brother. Little Brother whacked it out of her hands, not wanting it. She began squealing on the floor. From the other room, my grandfather bellowed, “Shut that child up! Her little brother is trying to sleep!”

“I am not trying to sleep!” Little Brother screamed. “I don’t want to sleep! I want more than just one lolly! Why does that baby get the whole tray?” She would not stop screaming and kicking and howling.

“Little Brother, be quiet or else your father will give you a thrashing!” my grandmother warned, but it was no use. She decided that the best thing to do was to ignore her and go back to preparing the food. She prayed that her father would not come and belt her for making such noise, but if he did, she deserved it.

She could hear my grandfather coming in to the guest room. “What do you think you are doing?” he said to Little Brother. “How can a child be so greedy?”

And Little Brother tried to quieten down. She was trying so hard!

He yelled, “Can’t you see that your little brother is sleeping?”

And her sobbing quietened even more.

My grandmother rushed into the guest room. “Don’t hit her,” she told your grandfather. “She really has stopped. Those hic-hic sounds – every child makes them when they have cried for too long. They can’t help making those noises.”

After my grandfather left the room, my grandmother said to Little Brother sternly, “Now, no more of that sooking, you hear me? Be good, and I will give you an ice lolly tonight.” My grandmother handed her back her lollypop, washed, and also the lolly she had thrown away. “Here,” my grandmother said, “now you have two lollies, and you will get some more tonight if you are good.” She watched Little Brother put the lollypop in her mouth and, now satisfied, went back into the kitchen to cut up the huge slab of roast pork with the big meat cleaver.

My grandmother probably often thought back to the what-ifs. What if she had done things differently, would the bad thing that happened still have happened? Why is it that when her luck was good, something bad had to happen, something that she could never have expected? And she probably also often thought, all those years of not having another girl – the gods were probably punishing her for what happened to Little Brother. For not being careful. She should have taken her into the kitchen with her. Oh, but the meat cleaver was so sharp, and she was such a distracting girl, pulling at this and that! And the kitchen was tiny, much smaller than the one in our house in Braybrook! Of course much smaller than that. She thought that Little Brother would be good in the guest room, sucking on her lollies.

She should not have cut up the pork then. Oh, why did she have to cut up the pork? Why couldn’t she have done a quieter chore, like washing the vegetables or even moulding the agar-agar? Because, as her cleaver went up and down and bam and bom, she was thinking about how terrible Little Brother’s tantrums were. Oh, why did she need to be so spoilt? Why did the gods give her a girl with the temperament of a boy? Bom bom went her cleaver, and bom bom went her thoughts. Why couldn’t Little Brother have been a boy? Then she would have a happier life! Bom Bom. That is why my grandmother did not hear what Little Brother was up to until the final BOM! that did not come from her cleaver. It came from the guest room.

My grandfather was there before her, and so was their servant. But the first thing she noticed when she ran into the room was that the top shelf of their set of shelves had fallen, and was lying, split in the middle, on the floor. My grandmother looked at the floor and saw the lucky lollies scattered everywhere – red drops all over the floor. The servant was screaming and wailing, “Aiyaah! What has happened? How could this have happened? Why?” And my grandfather was yelling at her, “Shut up, you stupid woman, stop the screaming! You are making it worse for my wife!” Then he turned to my grandmother: “I told you not to give her those lollies on a stick! How many times have I told you that, and still you don’t listen to me!”

I remember a cautionary tale my grandmother told me when I was little, about how I was never to run around with pencils or pens in my mouth. When she was young, in my grandmother’s street there was a child who died because he fell from his chair with a chopstick in his mouth. It poked right through to the back of his head.