The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

“
Here is no place for me, but it’s no place for him either
,” said Xiaofeng.

“
You have been shown a way out
, “said Mama, “
This is not his place, so he will be shown a way as well.  You have no need to worry about him.  His way will come
.”

“
Will you look after him
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
You are no more my grandchild than he is, haven’t I looked after you
?” said Mama.

“
Fully
,” said Xiaofeng.

“
You can tell yourself that I treated you best
,” said Mama, “
I tell myself I’ve treated all my children and grandchildren the same
.”

Xiaofeng smiled like her mother once did.  Smiling had been a rare practice for both of them.  She knew her brother was waiting up for her, since he had left the table.  She helped Mama clean the table and wash the dishes.  Together they folded the table and chairs, then cleaned the floor.  Xiaofeng said goodbye to Mama for the rest of the evening.  She entered the bedroom to find Xiaoyu on the floor, writing in a notebook.

“
Homework
?” asked Xiaofeng.  Xiaoyu shook his head without turning around.

“
Diary
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
No
,” said Xiaoyu.

Xiaofeng knew her brother would not say what he was writing without being asked.  She gave in.

“
What are you writing
?” asked Xiaofeng

“
My plan
,” said Xiaoyu.

“
What plan
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
My plan B
,” said Xiaoyu.

“
Plan B for what
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
Everyone needs a Plan B
,” said Xiaoyu, “
I’m doing mine
.”

“
Why would you need a Plan B
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
In case I don’t succeed at Plan A
,” said Xiaoyu, turning toward his sister with a serious stare.

“
What’s Plan A
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
To be like the others
,” said Xiaoyu.

“
What others
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
The happy ones
,” said Xiaoyu.

“
Why aren’t you one of the happy ones
?” asked Xiaofeng

“
I’m like Hamlet
,” said Xiaoyu.

“
How are you like Hamlet
?” asked Xiaofeng.

“
Looking over my shoulder
,” said Xiaoyu.  His statement was delivered with a twist.  Xiaofeng thought the eight year-old was incapable of double entendre, but he was lying on the floor with his head turned toward her, looking over his shoulder. 

              The boy knew more about Shakespearian drama than a boy growing up in Kuandian would.  Xiaofeng had repeated the same habit with her brother that her mother had done with her, she did her best to retell the English classics to her brother.  Her mother had a soft spot for the English language and its puppet masters—Shakespeare was her favorite.  Xiaofeng did not share the same fascination with English, but she retold Shakespearian plays from memory as best she could.  It was her way to connect the boy to his mother.  Qiu would have raised him on the same stories, so he had to be raised on the same stories.  It was the single idea that Xiaofeng had on how to raise her brother.  The rest was a reaction.  The boy had required a lot of reaction.  His character evolved rapidly along with the trouble he caused.  Xiaofeng had long looked at her brother as the bearer of bad news.  His life had cause problems for her that seemed to mount and spread.  But it was these moments, when they were alone, that she felt a burning need to rub his bald head.  She never slept the same without rubbing his head.  It was a compulsive, obsessive thing she did.  She seemed to be fascinated by his head.  When he was five years-old he ran through the house to burn off the energy he couldn’t burn off outside.  Xiaofeng would catch him by the head and kiss him on the forehead before letting him run wild again.  It was only around the early evening, when Baba returned home, that he had to stop.  It never bothered him because it was late enough for him to play outside in the wizened sunlight.  His skin wouldn’t get dark.  Xiaofeng would watch her brother run around in the yard posing, pretending to be a
feizei
.  It never seemed that the late evening sun was too hollowed out to darken his skin.  His skin couldn’t be bothered by the pretentious light.  He would play in a dimly lit yard, as happy as other children, who played in the sun.  The impending darkness made no difference for him, his surroundings ceased to matter.  The boy had a surrounding that was all his, as long as nothing bothered it, nothing bothered him.   And his sister could watch him play by himself for hours on end, not joining, just watching.  Sometimes she did join him, but she could watch him play and never tire.  Her desire to touch his head and the spectacle of watching him play were deep-rooted.  These desires housed themselves in the caverns of her heart and flowed through her entire body like pumped blood.  She would never say it, and she had never told him but she loved him, as far as distance.  She knew that she could never love anyone else like she loved her brother—the last living piece of her mother. 

Xiaofeng’s love of her brother grew in her, not like a fire, like a cancer.  The more time she spent raising him the more she felt vested in his survival—adhering to her promise.  But her love for him steadily consumed her life and she felt stuck.  Loving him made her life unbearably hard.  Some decisions she had to keep to herself, not for fear of misunderstanding, but for fear of upsetting.  At eight years old, Xiaofeng was sure her brother could understand as much as she could.  But she was unable to give him credit for something she had never seen him do, forgive.  She had never seen him forgive anyone, but the question of whether he could forgive was drawn out in her imagination.  There were some people she knew he hadn’t and wouldn’t forgive.  There was also one person, whom he’d never had to forgive—Xiaofeng herself. 

The next three weeks Xiaofeng was missing; her body was present but it seemed like a puppet, with predetermined motions.  Her mind was trapped inside the question whether her brother could forgive her if she left him.  She had already given her answer to Professor Yi.  She would go to Beijing.  She knew the decision to leave would crush her brother’s eight year-old heart.  What she didn’t know was if an eight year-old’s crushed heart could forgive and reinflate.  She realized there was no point in thinking about it any longer; it was a question for an eight year-old with a crushed heart.  And she didn’t know anyone like that—at least—not yet.

Xiaoyu hadn’t slept well, but was about to when his sister woke him up.

“
What time is it
?” asked Xiaoyu.

“
It’s about 4:00 in the morning
,” said Xiaofeng.

“
Why are you up
?” asked Xiaoyu.

“
I’m going somewhere
,” said Xiaofeng.

“
Where are you going
?” asked Xiaoyu.

“
To Beijing
,” said Xiaofeng, “
Do you want to come with me
?”  The boy nodded, while rubbing his dry eyes that desperately wanted to close.

“
Then go take your shower
,” said Xiaofeng.

The boy didn’t say anything or think anything.  He proceeded to the bathroom to shower as instructed.  Xiaofeng had planned the moment carefully.  The light in their room stayed off, so the boy wouldn’t notice the full luggage in the living room, which was also dark.  He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light of the bathroom, when he turned the light on.  He proceeded to undress and drew hot water from the shower head.  The boy didn’t wonder why his sister was up so early or why she was taking him to Beijing.  He didn’t even wonder why she had never mentioned going to Beijing before.  The boy washed himself, trusting the only person he knew how to trust.  He knew everything would be explained in time.  There was lather and foam on his head, in his ears and over his eyes, but he thought he heard something strange.  He turned his head sideways to let water rush into his left ear before whipping his neck to turn his left ear down, so the water would drain out of his ear, taking the soap foam with it.  He did the same thing with his right ear.  With the soap foam removed from his ears, his confidence in making out sounds was renewed.  He thought he heard some more sounds that sounded as if they were coming from outside, but he couldn’t think of what they would be at 4:30 in the morning.  He washed the suds from his eyes to see.  He looked around the bathroom.  Nothing seemed strange to him.  He had a change of clothes on the washing machine next to the toilet.  He couldn’t remember whether he had brought the clothes with him to the bathroom or if his sister had put the clothes there for him to change into.  He decided on the latter.  Nothing in the bathroom looked unusual to the boy, but it wasn’t what he saw that bothered him; it was what he felt.  He felt that something was out of place. 

The questions that he should have asked before became eerily relevant. 
Why did he have to be up at 4:00 in the morning to go to Beijing?
 
Why wasn’t he going to school?
 
Why didn’t Xiaofeng tell him earlier?
  He called out to his sister,
Jie
.  There was no answer.  He called out to her again, and there was still no answer.  He decided that he was clean enough for Beijing and wanted to see if he had truthfully heard noises from outside.  He put on his underwear and T-shirt before he heard a familiar noise with an unfamiliar sound.  It was a car engine turning on.  But he was sure it wasn’t Baba’s car.  He had heard the engine of Baba’s
Lada Samara
enough times to be sure.  It was a different car.  Xiaoyu thought that maybe a different car would take him and his sister to Beijing.  For a second, his heart calmed.  He reveled at the thought that Baba wouldn’t be taking them to the train station, but he misunderstood why the engine of the car was already on—he was only half-dressed.  He called out to his sister again,
Jie
.  Nothing echoed, not even his own voice.  The eerie feeling returned.  He dashed out of the bathroom yelling for
Jie
—his sister.  He ran into their bedroom and found it empty.  He could still hear the hum of the car’s engine; the only thing he could think of was to follow it.  He ran across the living room and braced his left hand on the wall, using his right hand to pull open the heavy door, in one motion.  He could see the red rear lights of a maroon looking car sitting in the front yard.  The car was crowned with a glowing sign that said
TAXI.
   It blew smoke out of its exhaust pipe.  The early morning air hosted multiple sources of light but they disliked each other, refusing to work together.  The red lights repelled the white light coming from the open front door and from the taxi sign.  The battle between lights made it hard to get a clear picture of anything.  Looking across the battlefield of white and red soldiers, Xiaoyu saw what he thought was his sister’s hair, in the passenger seat.  His mind told him it couldn’t be, before telling him she couldn’t be anywhere else.  The maroon taxi started to roll forward through the already open green gate.  In the right rear view mirror, Xiaoyu saw his sister’s face looking back at him.  Her face was soaked in pink, a combination of the white and red lights.  Her eyes looked big and apologetic, but she didn’t say anything.  She didn’t turn back and look at him, as the speed of the taxi increased.  All he got was the reflection in the mirror. 

Xiaoyu took out after the taxi.  Both his speed and the speed of the taxi increased substantially.  The taxi was out of the gate and made a left down the flat dirt road.  The boy was barefoot and half-dressed but ran hard after the taxi shouting—
Jie Jie!
  The distance between the boy and the taxi began to grow exponentially.  He could no longer see his sister’s face in the review mirror but he ran full-speed against the wind.  The wind brushed his tears backward.  He didn’t know he was crying.  He just ran.  It would have been impossible to know which ran faster, the boy or his tears, but his speed started to give.  His motion became wobbly and his legs began to buckle.  His muscles refused to extend him any more credit and froze all his accounts.  His thighs began to lock and his arms pained him near his armpits.  Extending an arm or a leg became all but impossible and he collapsed in paralysis on the dirt road.  The faint roar of the taxi’s engine was still audible in the distant darkness, mocking him.  He rolled over on his back feeling sharp stones sting him in random places.  He hyperventilated, inhaling some of the dust as it settled back to the ground.  His throat felt like a dry pipe that made him cough as he tried to swallow.  The coughing forced more tears from his eyes, drying him up completely.  He was exhausted and out of breath—dehydrated.  He lied on the dirt road until he felt the strength in his limbs return.  The tears on his face acted as glue that stuck beige-colored dirt to his face.  His eyes were all out of tears; he couldn’t cry anymore.  His legs had lost their go.  He couldn’t run anymore.  He thought about not going back to the house.  He thought about running away, but he didn’t have pants or shoes.  Plan B had always included pants and shoes.  He realized he had no choice but to retreat.