End of East, The (9 page)
Authors: Jen Sookfong Lee
Pon Man twists his mouth. “Yes, Father. Of course.”
In the hall, there are hundreds of voices, and Pon Man cannot understand one.
He is in the New Canadian class, and the teacher is smiling toothily. She speaks loudly, her mouth exaggerating every sound she makes. She points at herself and the writing on the board, saying, “Teeeacherrrrr.” Pon Man snarls and looks out the window at the cars speeding past on Broadway, the seagulls flying in low to the wet pavement. Soggy brown paper lunch bags litter the school’s front lawn.
Rain
, he thinks,
always the rain
.
Rain
, he thinks,
always the rain
.
Later, he stands outside at recess. Other Chinese boys his age stand around in twos or alone like him. He tries to look cool and leans against a pillar, his eyes focused directly on the wide cuff of his jeans.
A boy saunters up, his shoulders slouched and his head cocked at an angle. He stops in front of Pon Man and jerks his chin at his face. “You wanna smoke?”
Pon Man looks at the cigarette in the boy’s outstretched hand. He glances away coolly and back again, taking in the other boy’s pockmarked face. He nods.
That afternoon, in B block, Pon Man sits in a ditch and smokes cigarettes with four other boys. They are laughing, pointing at the students in the windows above them who are reading, looking bored or falling asleep.
His English is still not good, even after a summer of instruction from his father, but his new friends are easygoing and correct his speech tactfully. They are Chinese boys like him, and they know what it’s like.
“Pon, you gotta learn better English. They’ll eat you alive if you don’t understand. You gotta be like them.”
He squints into the afternoon sun, wrinkling his smooth, pretty boy forehead. He has no idea how to say what he thinks (which is,
I left everything I know, so why should I be like them, when they could try just as hard to be like me, but even I know they would never do that, only force me to forget where I come from and the places I love, even now)
without seeming weird.
I left everything I know, so why should I be like them, when they could try just as hard to be like me, but even I know they would never do that, only force me to forget where I come from and the places I love, even now)
without seeming weird.
He takes another drag and says, “Yes, this I know.”
He walks back to the house from the post office, his first Canadian letter in his hand. He hurries along Hastings and then turns onto Princess, the thin brown envelope burning like a smouldering coal in his tight fist. He is afraid to look at it again, afraid that his name in English (“Pon Man Chan,” how odd) will have disappeared and that he will be left with a worthless envelope and a blank piece of paper. He wants to hold the letter up to his face and smell it, breathe in his mother’s house, the oil she rubs on her ankles when it rains. But he tells himself he must be patient, for if he lets himself consume it as he would like, he might end up destroying the letter in his frenzy.
He pushes into the house and runs up the stairs, ignoring his father’s roommate, who yells, “What’s the hurry, you crazy boy?” He butts open the bedroom door with his shoulder and stumbles in, collapsing face first on his father’s bed. Only then does he open his fist.
Dear Son,
I am not very good at writing letters, as I am sure your father has said to you already. But I guessed that you would rather read a tiresome letter from me than read nothing at all. Your father did say I should begin taking
English lessons and writing letters for practise, but I cannot imagine writing in a foreign language to my boy. It does not matter, because this is just between us. Your father need never see it.
English lessons and writing letters for practise, but I cannot imagine writing in a foreign language to my boy. It does not matter, because this is just between us. Your father need never see it.
Min Lai is getting married next month to that Ng boy. I have arranged it all. I hope he will be able to bring her to Canada soon, as his older brother is living there now. It will be nice to be in the same country, although young Ng tells me his brother lives across the country from Vancouver in a city called Toronto. But Canada cannot possibly be as big as China, so I am sure you will see her often. You must tell your father for me.
Your father writes that he will be looking for a house soon. You must go with him, because you will know the things I like better than he will. He means well, Pon Man, and wants only the best for us, even if he does not say so. He is not like me, with my big mouth that seems to let words fall out no matter what my intention, so you cannot expect to be comfortable right away.
I sometimes look east, which is the direction your father once told me the boat sails to reach the west, although I still don’t see how. I feel you all the way over there, my gentle boy. I know you are lonely and I know that your father is a stranger to you. Just be patient. He will learn. Remember that I will be coming to Canada very soon. That is what we are all saving for.
Be careful and always think twice before you say or do anything. I am looking forward to seeing your new Canadian drawings when your father finally sends for me.
Mother
He stuffs the letter back into its envelope and looks around the room for a hiding place. There is nothing much, only their beds and a small desk, so Pon Man kneels down and reaches under his father’s bed. He feels a wooden box and pulls it out, surprised. It is covered in a thick, even layer of dust that doesn’t quite obscure the drawings of apples on all of its sides. Carefully, he pulls open the lid and peers inside.
One by one, Pon Man draws out scrolls covered in Chinese calligraphy, each stamped with his father’s seal. He sees the brushes and inks at the bottom, practice sheets with penciled words carefully drawn out. They are all the same. “Friends come from far away, isn’t it a happy thing?” Pon Man remembers it as a quote from Confucius, one they had to practise writing in school over and over again. He counts the scrolls. There are seventy-two.
He repacks the box, slides it back under the bed. He collects the dislodged dust balls in his hands and throws them out the window. Still unsure of what to do, he rolls his letter into a tube and slips it into the lining of the empty suitcase under his cot. He quickly looks in the small mirror to make sure there is no dust in his slick black hair.
As he runs back to the barbershop (his father will ask him where he was, and Pon Man will know what Seid Quan suspects but rarely says: that he was out smoking with his friends, stealing penny candies and listening to no-good music), he thinks about what he will write back to his mother. He will tell her that he understands, that he knows Seid Quan only wants the best. Pon Man will promise his mother that he will do everything he can to help the family, that he will carry on his father’s success and build on it, so that everyone is proud.
Yes,
he thinks,
if I cannot tell him, then I can, at least, tell her.
Yes,
he thinks,
if I cannot tell him, then I can, at least, tell her.
Pon Man and his friends ride the trolley down Granville Street in a pulsing knot at the back of the bus. They are shouting over the heads of other passengers, swinging from the hand grips and singing “O Canada” as loud as they can.
An older man turns in his seat, glares and mutters, “Damned chink kids.”
And it doesn’t matter what this old coot thinks, because today is today and the sun is shining. They laugh and make faces behind the old man’s back. Pon Man leans forward, pushes his body in the direction the bus is travelling. He feels its mechanical pull all around him—a buzz that travels to his physical core from north, south, east and west, through his fingers, his heels, the tips of his hair. He laughs again, though he hardly knows why.
The bus hurtles down the Granville Bridge, rushing headlong into downtown. Pon Man pushes his hand into his pocket, feels the coins with his fingers and counts them in his head.
Enough for a movie,
he thinks,
but not for a snack.
His father has cut his allowance in half and is hoarding their money, waiting for the right house to turn up. Pon Man accompanies him to every viewing and claims he knows if a house is wrong just by looking at it from the sidewalk. Nothing pushes Seid Quan into silence more than a surly Pon Man scowling at a house and refusing to enter. Pon Man shrugs when Seid Quan lets out a big sigh before he walks in by himself; he knows what his mother likes, so why should he bother if he knows it’s wrong? The houses in Chinatown and Strathcona, where Seid Quan wants to stay, feel like a punch in the face to him—the rotting porches, the chipped siding. He tells Seid Quan to broaden the
search, saying Shew Lin would never want a house so close to the busy city core.
Enough for a movie,
he thinks,
but not for a snack.
His father has cut his allowance in half and is hoarding their money, waiting for the right house to turn up. Pon Man accompanies him to every viewing and claims he knows if a house is wrong just by looking at it from the sidewalk. Nothing pushes Seid Quan into silence more than a surly Pon Man scowling at a house and refusing to enter. Pon Man shrugs when Seid Quan lets out a big sigh before he walks in by himself; he knows what his mother likes, so why should he bother if he knows it’s wrong? The houses in Chinatown and Strathcona, where Seid Quan wants to stay, feel like a punch in the face to him—the rotting porches, the chipped siding. He tells Seid Quan to broaden the
search, saying Shew Lin would never want a house so close to the busy city core.
“Hey, Pon Man, stick your head out the window and see if you can spit on the cars beside us.” His friends hang half their bodies out the open windows as other passengers try not to look, hoping, Pon Man imagines, that one of these Chinese boys will fall out and be crushed by traffic. A tragedy, but then they would all learn, wouldn’t they?
Pon Man checks his watch, sees that he has four hours until the barbershop closes. He will have to run back to Chinatown and help his father clean up. Even here, with the wind blasting past his head through the bus windows, Pon Man can smell the dead hair and cloying shaving cream, can see the disappointment on Seid Quan’s face as he watches Pon Man angrily sweep the floor and rinse the combs. The bus lurches, and he starts to gag.
The old coot mutters to himself again, shaking his head.
Fuck you,
Pon Man thinks, but he does not say it.
Fuck you,
Pon Man thinks, but he does not say it.
Later that afternoon, Pon Man runs down the street toward the barbershop, already fifteen minutes late. Seid Quan stands at the window, waiting for him.
The bell on the door rings loudly. “I’m sorry I’m late, Father. The bus didn’t come for the longest time. Honest.”
His father holds up Pon Man’s sketchbook and opens it to one of the first pages.
Pon Man jumps forward. “That’s mine.”
Seid Quan looks at one of the drawings, his face expressionless. He looks at his son. “I didn’t think I looked so old.”
Pon Man pulls the sketchbook away and holds it close to his chest. “You’re not supposed to look at that.”
He shrugs. “I couldn’t help it, could I? Why did you hide it in the shop, of all places?”
“I’m the only one who washes the towels around here, so I thought the linen closet was safe.”
Seid Quan sits down in one of the barber chairs. “But you were late, and I had to start your work for you.” He shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you?”
“They’re just drawings.” Pon Man feels as if he is shouting, even though he can hear his own quiet voice floating in the high-ceilinged room.
“You scratched lines all over my mouth. Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. That’s my private book. It has nothing to do with you.”
Seid Quan stands up. “That’s where you’re wrong. It has everything to do with me. Everything you do involves me, whether you like it or not. This drawing is a waste of time, time that could be spent on working hard and helping me save. If I don’t know what you’re doing, how can I protect you?”
Pon Man frowns. “Protect me from what?”
Seid Quan starts to walk toward the back room. “There is still sweeping to be done. And make sure you polish the mirrors.” He stops for a moment, as if he has forgotten something, then continues walking. “And do something with that book. I don’t want to see it ever again.”
A teenage girl stands in the doorway of the barbershop, nervously looking left and right. Her shiny black hair is rolled into thick curls that sit, like a nest, on top of her head. She wipes the palms of her hands on her green plaid skirt. Her eyes
scan the men until they fall on Pon Man, washing off combs in a glass cylinder filled with transparent blue liquid.
scan the men until they fall on Pon Man, washing off combs in a glass cylinder filled with transparent blue liquid.
“Pon Man,” she calls, waving.
“Wanda.” Pon Man steps away from the combs.
“Gee, this is some shop. My dad gets his hair cut here, but I don’t think I’ve ever come in.” She giggles.
Pon Man shrugs. “Yeah, it’s all right, I guess.” He looks behind him and sees his father standing behind Mr. Mah’s head, his scissors held still as he watches.
“I just wanted to ask you if you’re coming to the roller skating party tonight. May and Bill and me are all going together. There’s an extra seat.” She looks at the floor, scrapes at the black and white tile with her saddle shoe.
“Yeah, sure. That sounds good.”
Wanda claps her hands together. “Oh, I’m so happy! Meet us at Oppenheimer Park at seven. We’ll be in Bill’s father’s car, you know, the blue Chrysler.”
Pon Man nods, and Wanda skips out the door, clasping her hands in front of her chest as she goes. He turns back to the combs, dunking his hand in the disinfectant.
Seid Quan walks over and leans in close. “Is that Mr. Chow’s daughter?”
Pon Man can barely hear him. “I don’t know. I think so.”
“I don’t want you going around with a Chinatown girl.”
Pon Man almost laughs. “What’s that supposed to mean? Aren’t I a Chinatown boy?”
Seid Quan shakes his head. “Those girls, they’re too forward. There are only so many girls here, and many more boys. Who knows how many they go around with? They get too much attention.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Seid Quan begins to walk back toward Mr. Mah. “We’ll find you a girl when the time is right. A nice girl from the village. Maybe Hong Kong, if you want someone stylish.”
Pon Man stares after his father. He wants to punch him in the back of the head or yell at him until he crumples into a ball of splintered bones. He takes in a lungful of air; he can still smell Wanda’s perfume (peony, apple, bubble gum). He shrugs as he walks to the back room and lights a cigarette.
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