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HONG KHAC KIM MAI
___________________________
FACE TO
FACE
1.
-
I was
gazing at the bookshelf in the garage.
My
wife bought a bookshelf fifteen years ago while wandering the neighborhood
garage sales. It was very old and made with inexpensive material. The
bookshelf was extremely long and tall with many shelves. While waiting for
her change, my wife murmured in my ear, “This is for you so you can display
your books as you please”. I was so happy. “That’s my present for your coming
birthday. Someone is fifty at last!” she said. I smiled with ease in return.
The
bookshelf was too cumbersome. I had to ask for help from my friends to haul
it home in a big truck. My children eagerly suggested painting it white. My
wife said it would be nice to resurface it with lacquer. “Oh well, what you
want is what you get, my dear,” I said. I took the job without complaining
even though I had never done anything like that before. Since the day we left
our beloved country, we had each become a Jack-of-all-trades person to
survive.
The
bookshelf was so high and unstable, my wife thought
that I should nail its four corners to the wall nearby to make it more
secure. The wife’s will is God’s will, I guessed. Now the bookshelf looked so
beautiful, so elegant. It became stable, like a muscular statue standing
proudly right in the main room of the house. It was hard to believe that just
a few days ago it was a refuse object.
We
had very few books to display. As refugees freshly settled in this new
country, the humble income we received from the welfare system did not allow
us to spend lavishly. A group of friends, living out-of-state, sent me their
unwanted books and magazines. I gratefully received them, even though most of
them were outdated and there were many authors who I did not recognize.
Watching me dusting the books and arranging them neatly, my wife put
her arms around my neck and whispered, “You can display other people’s books
now. Some day, I wish you would do it for your own written books. I am afraid
that these shelves will not have enough room for you by then.”
What
she said was so moving. I held my breath awhile to calm myself down, and then
I slowly said, “You really want me to go back to writing?” She sat there,
looking down. Sincerely I told her that life in a new country has so many
hurdles to overcome. “I have to work two or three jobs in order for you and
the children to have a good life. Being involved with the word game is the
sort of luxury that I dare not dream about.”
My wife responded, her eyes
growing moist, “I
married you because I always admire your poems so much. Are you no longer
that person?”
Her question was like a sharp knife
cutting my soul. I stood up pretending to sip some water, hiding my tears
about to fall on my face. A flock of innocent children and a weak woman were
under my wings. Did I have the right to bury myself in one place with the
passion of writing, and let my family struggle to make a living?
2. -
I was gazing at the bookshelf.
Five years have gone and the
bookshelf was pretty full. The works of so many authors who were my friends
from all four corners of the world had been sent to me. I respectfully arranged them in good order.
My wife was sometimes in a bad mood for no reason. Once, not being able to
contain herself, she said, “Why don’t we republish
your books?”
I held her face in my hands and laughed. “You
should forget that idea, Honey. You are my Muse. I am not so stupid as to
look for another one somewhere else”. She was upset thinking that I made a
joke of her. That night she skipped her meal.
Three months later, four
strange new books appeared on the first shelf. I took them down and, immediately,
I felt confused. My hands were trembling and my heart was pounding. No doubt
that they were the books of thirty years ago with my name on them as the
author. Still the same pictures on the covers, but the presentations were
more colorful and indeed more attractive. The letters inside were sharper,
nicer. My mouth suddenly became dry, and within me there was a mixture of
joy, excitement, and worry. I asked myself if they were real. I asked myself
if I was hallucinating. Was my soul on cloud nine or were my eyes deceiving
me? I looked at my books in amazement, feeling so proud. In a state of
ecstasy, I held them tight to my chest, afraid that they would disappear …
In the
evening after everyone was asleep, I walked on my toes to the bookshelf.
Taking my books down, I contemplated them for a moment. Then with the eyes
semi-closed, I went back to the days when I was a young and ambitious writer
in my native country. Memories of the past were still vivid within me. Oh
yes, I certainly enjoyed the day my very first book was published….
Somebody made a noise
somewhere in the house.
I hurried to put the books
back in their place and sat down in an armchair nearby. I pretended to read
the newspaper and heard my beloved wife coming. She scooted next to me and
cuddled. “Somebody has been reading
the front page of the newspaper for hours!” she said.
I smiled but I felt guilty
inside. I replied, “Today I was so tired after work, I held the paper and
fell asleep. I did not read anything.”
My wife laughed loudly, “Is it
true, darling?”
I felt embarrassed, then admitted I had noticed the strange and suspicious
presence of the new books.
My wife pretended to look
serious for a while; she then whispered as usual in my ear, “I had them published for you as my
present for your fifty-fifth birthday”.
I could not hold back my
tears. My voice trembling, I asked, “Where did you find the money to do
so?” She did not answer my question.
Later, I discovered that she had saved money little by little to make my
dream come true.
The
fact that my wife was reprinting my poetry books made me realize that
returning to the writing life was at hand. I should seize the opportunity. Like
a wilted plant upon receiving fresh water, I rose.
My
wife collected all my poems and my writings like a fan. She did not spend
money for herself. Every week she worked long hours and saved any penny she
could. Her goal was to print a few books every year for her husband…
The
shelves became more and more full. With the growing number of my own works,
the bookshelf no longer had room for other authors. My wife decided to buy a
new one to store my friends’ books. The giant one remained mine.
3. -
I was
gazing at the bookshelf.
The
moments I was sitting at my desk, while my soul merged with the pen and my
heart was in harmony with the characters of the story to be written, my wife
quietly laid some wet and clean towels on the table nearby. She brought in a
pitcher of clear water, a plate of cookies or a handful of my favorite sesame
candies… Sometimes she moved the electric fan around to keep me cool, or
adjusted the bulb to provide me adequate light. Everything she did, she did
it quietly, trying not to disturb my inspirational flow.
There were moments when I was laying on the Lazy-Boy armchair to
review my scripts, my wife often sat next to me and lovingly massaged my
shoulders. Or she would sit down on the carpet and touch my feet, doing
reflexology. Sometimes she expressed some vague jealousy about a certain
character in my story. I would smile and say, “You should not be jealous! Any
wonderful person in my pages is just a copy of you”. The lady cried because
she knew that her man was truthful. Yes, my wife changed faces and shapes in
my books. It did not matter that the story began with an evil, ugly or
morally disagreeable character; by the end I always managed to transform that
heroin into someone with a generous heart full of love and dedication. There
was no doubt that the later reflected my wife’s image.
There were moments, late at
night, when we sat down discussing the cover of a new book, that my wife
always had some treat. The slow-cooked lotus seeds with rock-sugar had a very
delicate taste. She would leave the treat in the refrigerator a few hours
ahead of time. Once ready to eat, the juice gave my tongue a sensation of
lightly tender sweetness, and the lotus seeds melted without my mouth
noticing.
In a conversation with my
sister, I faithfully compared my wife’s love for me with the lotus seeds
treat. That silky sweetness has slowly infiltrated into me. As a result,
poetry flowed out as a soft stream. My sister burst into laughter, “I thought that
you were inundated with the passion of creating literature, but actually you
were using literature to express the Saintliness of your lady.” I took her comment with surprise and
happily discovered that she was totally right.
There were moments when a new
book was freshly printed and brought home that my wife and I shared joy and
bitterness. A newborn masterpiece definitely gave me the pride of
achievement, but it also gave us additional worry for its uncertain future.
Day
after day the bookshelf became more crowded. Stacks of books lay in every
corner of the house. The garage was also filled with boxes and boxes of my
papers. My works were not available
for sale to the general public due to the fact that they were written in my
native language. It was too costly to have them translated, and with my very
limited vocabulary, I was not able to do the translation myself. They could
not be sold to my own people, because they were not in very hot demand. The
life of exile has created more writers than readers in the immigrant
population. Books were exchanged between us more often than they were sold.
It was true that sometimes I felt tired just by looking at my own works. But
my wife, she kept her spirits high. She always said, “Honey, never give up. I love you so
much and I love your writings as well.”
4. -
I was gazing at the bookshelf.
Springs, summers, autumns and
winters have gone by like a flash. On various occasions, I listened to my
children talking in the kitchen. The subjects discussed were always about the
eye-irritating-ugly-old bookshelf sitting in the living room, and the mother
of the house. My eldest daughter complained that the lady was too difficult
to please as she was aging. Anytime someone made comments about the
bookshelf, she easily became agitated, angry, and in bad mood. She had also
skipped meals for the day.
Better to let her stay in a
nursing home for everybody’s sake,” my first daughter said.
The second daughter jumped in,
“Well, how much do each of us have to contribute for
that type of expense?”
With a grin, my daughter
in-law contributed, “Why should we pay? Just take her social security income
to pay for her care”.
My wife sat in a corner of the house, eyes shut, mouth
shut. She appeared as if she heard nothing, saw nothing. I stood next to her
and caressed the few gray hair falling on her forehead. I told her some
loving words to ease her pain, but I was pretty sure that she did not hear my
voice. She sat still, like a statue.
When my son started talking
about relocating the bookshelf into the garage, my wife stood up vigorously,
pointing her finger at him. “No, no, I will not allow you to do so. Do you
hear me? As long as I am still alive, nobody can touch that bookshelf. It
should stay where it belongs!”
My son replied, “Mom, those
books have no value at all. You folks kept printing and printing, and nobody
wants to buy them. They have occupied the house for so long. It’s time to get
rid of them”. He insisted on his last
words. Yes, he really meant it.
My eldest daughter interrupted
him, “David, you should not say something like that. They are the fruit of
our father’s endless efforts. They are our father’s achievement.”
David, the young man who
carried my last name, who had my blood and heart in him, walked back and
forth, hands moving in the air. He exclaimed, “My gosh!
You must be kidding me by saying that. Those efforts can be credited only if
they bring us fortune. Otherwise they are nothing more than garbage.”
My
two-year-old grandchild cried when he saw his father’s anger. His mother kept
coaxing the baby to be quiet. She then pressed him to her chest, mocking, “A hah! You are on grandma’s side”. And she took her turn to make the scene
more tragic. “Sisters, remember when Dad used to spend all night writing
those stupid books? And Mom did not dare to spend money on good food, dared
to do nothing; all the money they spent was to publish the crazy books, for
what? Remember the days when they had book presentations? Some people gave
out money to buy their books, more out of pity than appreciation.”
By this time, my wife could
not take any more. She moaned, “Poor me! Poor me! Please give me a
break, young lady”.
I sat there, shaking my head
in disgust. I honestly thought that even though my children’s points of view
were rude, they did reach some rough truth. My masterpieces were only
valuable to myself and to my wife because they were part of our lives. They
have made our existence more joyful, more meaningful in times of nostalgia;
in a time of mourning the loss of a country. In time, we found ourselves
isolated in a foreign land where it took time to mix harmoniously with
different cultures. The people who
showed up at the book presentation were brave guys who came to applaud me, as
I would come to clap my hands for them when their turns came. When the stars
have faded away one after another, who is left to chant the glory of books
written by first generation immigrants?
The
young man and women left the room. My aging and faint wife silently laid
herself down in the same armchair where I used to read my manuscripts. It was
my turn to sit down on the carpet, holding her feet and gently doing
reflexology. I wondered if she felt it. I murmured in her ear, “Honey, I have
told you from day one that you should not press me to write”.
I
was sure that she did not hear my voice, but I saw her tears running down …
5. -
I was
still there, gazing at the bookshelf in the garage.
That
morning, it rained sadly. My son helped his mother step into a van. Her face
was rigid like ice. She kept her eyes down. The corners of her mouth were
shaking tremendously, showing her anger in silence. My daughter in-law
secured her son in the child car seat and told her husband, “Let’s go to the
nursing home, honey. Sisters will bring all mom’s
belongings there this afternoon.”
Wow! These people were so
ungrateful. They have everything well planned: the old woman was to be kicked
out of the house … I felt sorry for my wife. From now on, she would endure
her existence in a new place with bitterness, losing everything.
That
afternoon, it rained harder and harder. The daughter in-law rearranged the
garage for the shelf-relocation project. My two daughters returned to the
house after the visit at the nursing home. My son David also returned from
somewhere with a friend. They all moved the bookshelf step by step from the
living room to the garage. I watched them painfully until the job was done.
As a
few books were stacked back on the first few shelves, my eldest daughter
picked one up and looked at it for a while. “Poor Dad! Poor Mom!” She mumbled. Very fast, she put that book
in her purse. She took another one and again put it in her purse. Her sister
reacted, “Why did you do that? If you try to read them, you will not
understand them. When our children grow up, they will not need to read them.
When our parents’ generation is over, everything will be over.”
Silence.
The elder woman suddenly
lowered her voice, “Well, I take the books to keep as a souvenir because they
are part of our parents. Without them, who are you?” Suddenly, she cried out
loud. The two others were lost for a second, and then their eyes grew moist.
The trio kept crying silently while
stacking the books on the shelves. I wondered why they dared do those
horrible things and were now crying. Ah! A farewell cry, I guessed. Nevertheless, when watching my own children
crying, their tears touched my heart.
Joe,
a thirty-something guy who is my son’s friend, finished his beer. Joe raised
his voice and said, “Hey, hey, hey! No more lamentations, please!” Pointing
at the bookshelf he asked, “Is that all?”
One of my daughters replied, “No, there are more
than one hundred boxes stored in the shed in the back yard.”
Joe gave a hearty laugh, and
then jokingly commented,
“Your old folks may be sad to see all they have done has
resulted in nothing. I tell you, if you think you are able to write something
universal, then publish it. If you write just to
release the tension of sadness, which is very personal and does not bring in
any income, then write to satisfy your need. Let them get printed in some
local magazine, and then forget it. If
you feel that you can move mountains, do it. Otherwise, just consider it as a
pastime entertainment while waiting for eternity”. He lifted up his face and
enjoyed the last sentence for a moment. He then continued, “Do not bother to
publish these kind of books and leave them for us,
the next generation, to clean up.”
My Goodness! What a weird and
broad idea. This truly terrified me. Yes, the immigrants who had left home to
come here were losers in no matter what form. The old country completely
wiped out their names. In the new land their roots are not yet well settled.
Most subjects, in the exile literature, were about nostalgia, love, memoirs
of the old times when people were trying to make themselves a hero, or
creating a sound excuse for their loss. There were regrets for the past, and
sorrows for tomorrow’s roads to nowhere. There were some books written about
science and research studies, but the number of readers was very limited. The
first generation immigrants sacrificed their lives for their posterity, and
the latter plunged themselves into the new fields of study, crying for
success. They bravely brought home honorable diplomas to shine on family
walls. But in the mean time, they also imported new attitudes that made the
parents somber.
I sighed. I forgive you, children.
I turned my back and walked
away in the windy rain…
Once in a while, I still went back to the garage
gazing at the bookshelf to remind me of my old passion. I stood there,
pausing silently. There was some kind of attachment that made me feel uneasy
to forget.
6. -
It was
still very early in the morning. Soft white fumes covered the ground of the
enormous landfill site. From time to time, large trucks or pick-ups loaded
with garbage came and parked at a designated place. The driver and his helpers
jumped out, and hurried to shovel the unwanted items from their vehicle down
to the disposal areas. Strong odors were exhumed, and the smokey
clouds surfacing from the ground were the result of rotten materials being
decomposed.
I have been standing here
since dusk last night. My son and his friend have loaded the extra large
U-haul truck with all the books, papers and documents that I have gathered
since my first days in exile. I have written a number of books on a variety
of interests. They were in the form of Poetry, Prose, or Fiction. There were
also more than a dozen unpublished manuscripts.
My wife’s destiny was settled
at the nursing home, and the process of discarding this truckload of books,
considered no less than garbage, was inevitable. The bookshelf was the first
thing to go. Large chunks of dark wood were thrown out one after another. The
breaking of this shelf, once my treasure, cracked my heart.
Next were thousands of loose
papers. Every time the hands of the two young men lifted up and released
their fingers, sheets of paper full of words fell like leaflets scattered
from an airplane. Oh please look, words from those papers were flying out in
the space like zillion tiny butterflies. Darling butterflies flopping their crippled wings... Amazing me! Amazing zest
of divine separatio! Sure, romance was still in me
in this time of pain. The image of thousands of uniform papers flying down
the immense deserted field, dancing in the weak orange golden sunset light,
was heavenly fantastic. All of a sudden I found myself so excited, so
overwhelmed. I felt exhilarated. There was definitely life in death, however
fragile.
David stood on the floor of
the truck, using his strength to kick out one box after another. Each time a
cardboard container broke apart, dozens of hard copies flew like a current.
Books poured down continuously and magically in strands of purple and pale
orange light, while dusk went dimmer and dimmer. It was a stream of
books! Stream of murmuring fantasies,
stream of palpitating reveries. … My heart cried out to the very end of the
horizon. I soared to the highness of the nowhere. I plunged deep into holy
awesomeness. The miraculous-lonely-me melted splendidly in great mercy and
with a zap, my soul merged into that extraordinary stream, staggering....
The dumping job was done in a
short period of time. The engine of the truck came to life again. In a blast
and without a backward glance, my son ran away as into hiding.
I walked to where the U-Haul
truck just left. On the ground still laid some copies of my writings. I bent
down to pick one up. An unexpected freezing wind blew me backward. Scattered
materials were swirling, swirling, swirling around me. The book was shaking
fiercely within my grasp, but I managed to keep it tight. The spirit of my
being was defensive at its best: I am poetry. I am passion. I am beauty. I am
the nocturnal melancholy. The universe is in me. I am the universe.
The wind yielded. Harmony
resumed its toll.
The soft breeze of midnight
slowly turned one page after another for me. Under the mystic blue light of
the crescent moon, I went over my poems. In the background, the silhouettes
of the bulldozers were listening to me chant my verses.
7. -
During the daytime, it was really
noisy at the landfill site. There were so many activities. A convoy of
trucks, one after another, kept coming to dispose garbage. Disgusting odors
were dominated the whole area. Dusty clouds floated high. Dozens of busy
tractors and tanks, all painted solid yellow, and armed with huge spades,
scrapers, buckets, and forks, moved slowly back and forth to work on the
newly dumped waste. Iron, steel, wood, tree limbs, old furniture, sheet rock,
clothing, kitchen trash, all were ground instantly. My eyes blurred to watch
Destruction. Each day, along with waste, all the refuse or outdated items
would rest here. In the same space, at the same time, I witnessed the
presence of Past, Present and Future. I saw Life and Death. They went along
with each other, mixed in with each other, twisted around each other, and
disappeared into one another.
Again, the sunset was back,
shedding its strange pale orange light on Earth. Hundreds of birds with
metallic-white flopping wings flew over the immense garbage field. I directed
my gaze to the wild iron-made animal, which was crawling to the place where
my books and materials were dumped last night. The bulldozer lifted its long
arms. Its hands, armed with claws, violently grabbed a great number of books.
The ferocious animal captured a big chunk, and threw it aside. Going down
again, it threw another load aside. Again and again, until it reached the
rotten layers underneath, it dug.
Another tractor with a huge circular blade came to do the mixing. Once
the task was done, it moved on. Immediately, flocks of birds headed down to
pick worms creeping over my beautiful verses, on my splendid prose, through
my flesh and heart, into my whole life that I had sweated over too hard to
accomplish.
Suddenly strong waves of energy were moving
towards me and besieging me. They became more and more frightening. Flames of
audacity, heat of merciless urgency, momentum of fiery crush?! A tremendous
burning force was devouring me. The non-stop bizarre refrain: “Recycle.
Recycle. Recycle.” was repeated over, over, and over. This refrain pressed me
almost into a stage of insanity.
I listened and tried not to
collapse. I heard within me a yearning to amplify divinity.
Someone patted my shoulder. A
voice from nowhere whispered into my ear, “Your physical body has been
decomposed for so long. It’s time to go on”.
I said, “No, I do not want to go. I still
feel a heart beating in me. All my accomplishments are still here. With all
the dedicated work I have invested in this life, how can I go on?”
A voice as soft as a breeze
poured into me, “The ME that you talk about no longer exists. So many times
you have gone back to that garage, trying to cling to things you thought were
your fulfillments. The play is over, the curtain is already down and
cleansing time is on its way… Old stuff needs to be recycled. New ones will
take a turn to become old. That cycle will never end and there is no
immortality. Whatever is left behind belongs to no one…”
HONG KHAC KIM MAI
· THE WRITERS
POST (ISSN: 1527-5467),
the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation.
VOLUME
6 ISSUE 2 JULY
2004
Editorial
note:
All works published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed
Wordbridge magazine double issue 3 &4 Winter
2003 & Spring 2004. (ISSN: 1540-1723).
Copyright © Hong Khac Kim Mai & The Writers Post 1999-2004. Nothing in
this issue may be downloaded, distributed, or reproduced without the
permission of the author/ translator/ artist/ The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge magazine. Creating links to place The Writers
Post or any of its pages within other framesets or in other documents is
copyright violation, and is not permitted.
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