Ying-Ying St. Clair
My daughter has put me ii of rooms in her new house.
"This is the guest bedroom," Lena said in her proud Ameri way.
I smiled. But to ese ways of thinking, the guest bedroom is the best bedroom, where she and her husband sleep. I do not tell her this. Her wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into the darkness and dissolve. Her eyes looking back do not refleything.
I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore. And now I must tell her everything about my past. It is the only way to pee her skin and pull her to where she be saved.
This room has ceilings that slope downward toward the pillow of my bed. Its walls close in like a coffin. I should remind my daughter not to put any babies in this room. But I know she will not listen. She has already said she does not want any babies. She and her husband are too busy drawing places that someone else will build and someone else will live in. I ot say the Ameri word that she and her husband are. It is an ugly word.
"Arty-tecky," I once pronou to my sister-in-law.
My daughter had laughed when she heard this. When she was a child, I should have slapped her more often for disrespect. But now it is too late. Now she and her husband give me moo add to my so-so security. So the burning feeling I have in my hand sometimes, I must pull it bato my heart and keep it inside.
What good does it do to draw fancy buildings and then live ihat is useless? My daughter has money, but everything in her house is for looking, not even food-looking. Look at this end table. It is heavy white marble on skinny black legs. A person must always think not to put a heavy bag on this table or it will break. The only thing that sit oable is a tall black vase. The vase is like a spider leg, so thin only one flower be put in. If you shake the table, the vase and flower will fall down.
All around this house I see the signs. My daughter looks but does not see. This is a house that will break into pieces. How do I know? I have always known a thing before it happens.
When I was a young girl in Wushi, I was lihai. Wild and stubborn. I wore a smirk on my face. Too good to listen. I was small and pretty. I had ti which made me very vain. If a pair of silk slippers became dusty, I threw them away. I wore costly imported calfskin shoes with little heels. I broke many pairs and ruined many stogs running across the cobblestone courtyard.
I often unraveled my hair and wore it loose. My mother would look at my wild tangles and se: "Aii-ya, Ying-ying, you are like the lady ghosts at the bottom of the lake."
These were the ladies who drowheir shame and floated in living peoples houses with their hair uo show their everlasting despair. My mother said I would bring shame into the house, but I only giggled as she tried to tuck my hair up with long pins. She loved me too much to get angry. I was like her. That was why she named me Ying-ying, Clear Refle.
We were one of the richest families in Wushi. We had many rooms, each filled with big, heavy tables. On each table was a jade jar sealed airtight with a jade lid. Each jar held unfiltered British cigarettes, a