Preparations
She gripped the stainless-steel handrail and planted her feet wide apart, stabilizing herself as the tram traveled over the uneven tracks. With her other hand, she shook her wet umbrella, adding a layer of moisture to the already damp floor. The tram came to a halt and its mechanical doors swung open to a flock of children in uniforms with large backpacks and their domestic helpers chatting away in Tagalog waiting to enter. She sighed in annoyance, then pushed her way to the middle of the carriage. The tram started up and its wheels began to emit a high-pitched squeal when her forearm began to itch. She slapped at the mosquito resting on her arm, but missed, sending drops of water from the umbrella flying across the tram car.
‘Diu,’ a young man with tattooed arms shouted, wiping the water off his designer T-shirt. A hush descended over the carriage.
She pointed at him with the umbrella. ‘Watch your language,’ she said.
‘Shut your mouth, old lady,’ he responded.
‘Did you not listen to your mother when you were young?’
‘You aren’t my mother.’
The tram stopped at the next station. The young man got up, pushed his way past her, and slammed his change into the fare box as he got off, murmuring under his breath. Noticing the gaze of the other passengers, she glared at them in response. Their eyes darted. ‘What are you looking at?’ she shouted. The middle-aged man standing next to her shrank away, covering his ear. She set her umbrella on the floor, took the young man’s seat, and rested her head against the window. As she closed her eyes with a faint smile, a car blasted its horn at the same young man jaywalking across the road.
The tram made its way through residential Tai Koo and industrial Sai Wan Ho before arriving at the old neighborhood of Shau Kei Wan. It pulled into the terminus, a loop that circled around a small green booth. A man in a blue work shirt sat inside reading the newspaper, sipping on a cup of tea. The sound of hawkers and shopkeepers yelling in a familiar rhythmic pattern at the nearby market was a comfort to her, a constant in a city that was now largely unrecognizable. She walked out from under the doorway of the tram, opening her umbrella just in time to catch the rain.
The afternoon rush had died down. Bits of fish entrails, discarded packaging, and unrecognizable remains of fruits and vegetables lined the street. As the shopkeepers in the wet market began clearing the stock for the day, she made her way around the stalls, scouting the produce.
‘How much for those?’ She pointed at a basket of tomatoes. One of them was bruised on the side.
The shopkeeper poured a large pail of mysterious liquid onto the street. ‘Twenty dollars,’ he replied.
‘I wouldn’t take them for ten,’ she said and picked up the defective one. ‘Look at this. You think I’m blind?’
‘I bet you did that when you picked it up,’ he said, and began putting various containers back into his stall.
‘You cheater. You think you can get away with this?’ She took out her phone and held it up despite not knowing how to use its camera function. ‘I’m going to report this to the authorities,’ she said.
‘Calm down, old lady,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Fine, ten.’
‘Eight,’ she said, dropping eight one-dollar coins beside the basket. She took out a folded red plastic bag from her purse and placed the tomatoes in it, including the one with the bruise.
The road sloped up at a steep incline. The engine of a double-decker bus groaned as it struggled past at a snail’s pace. A mass of leaves clogged the gutter, directing a stream of water down the concrete path. Rain splattered against the umbrella before sliding off her jacket onto the ground. As she walked up one step at a time, the tomatoes in the plastic bag bumped into each other rhythmically. Halfway up, she stopped, leaned her body against the metal railing, waiting for her heart to slow, her breath to ease, and set the bag of tomatoes on the ground. With clenched teeth, she stretched out her arm, then swung it in controlled movements she had performed countless times. It did no good to relieve the dull, pulsating ache that was always worse in this weather. As she contorted her body to adjust the herbal-medicine pack plastered onto her shoulder, a gust of wind ripped the umbrella out of her hand. In an attempt to save it, she leaped but fell short, landing hard on her side, the bag of tomatoes breaking her fall. Sucking in air with her teeth, she pushed herself up to a seated position, each movement tearing at her hip. She looked around but found no suitable replacement for her umbrella to help her stand.
‘Ma’am, are you okay?’ a female voice sounded in Southeast Asian-accented English. A young, darker-skinned woman held an umbrella over her.
Not understanding what the young woman said, she responded with one of the few English words she knew. ‘No, no,’ she said, waving her off. Holding onto the rail, with an enormous effort, she pulled herself off the ground. The first step sent a piercing pain through her leg, almost causing her to lose her balance, but she clenched her teeth and took another step, willing herself to continue on.
‘Ma’am!’
She kept going, paying no attention.
The bakery had just finished clearing out the remaining stock of bread and baked goods for the day. Just as the shopkeeper was letting down the metal gate, she called out, ‘Mr. Wong!’
He turned around. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter. Is it ready?’
He ducked under the partially lowered gate and slid open the glass door of the refrigerator. ‘Here,’ he said, placing a cake box, neatly tied with a red ribbon, on the counter.
She opened the box and scrutinized the cake. ‘Fine. How much?’ she asked.
‘Eighty.’
‘Eighty? Mr. Wong, it was always sixty.’
‘It hasn’t been sixty since the handover. You know that.’
‘Are you trying to cheat me, Mr. Wong?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Fine, sixty. Only because it’s Ah Jing.’
‘He has liked your cakes since he was young,’ she said, handing over three crumpled twenty-dollar bills that were slightly damp. ‘Cheapskate,’ she mumbled as she turned the corner from the shop.
The lobby floor was damp with patches of muddy shoe prints scattered throughout. A Custodian on Duty sign stood in the center as it always did. The security guard was taking a nap at the desk, with small monochrome security monitors flickering next to him. Fluorescent tubes on the ceiling buzzed along to the whine of a swiveling fan. She pressed the lift button. There was no response. She tried again. Nothing.
‘What is wrong with this thing?’ she yelled.
The guard lifted his head.
‘You awake now?’ she asked.
‘It’s broken. Take the stairs,’ the guard hollered back.
‘Lazy bum.’ She pushed open the fire door and headed up the stairs.
After five flights of stairs, she was exhausted. The pain in her hip had intensified and now radiated all the way down her leg. Her body, warm and wet from the sweat, felt strangely cold in her rain-soaked clothes. The empty hallway echoed with a faint rumble of noise—afternoon TVB dramas, endless piano scales, water hissing on hot oiled woks. She crept her way to the end of the hallway and reached for the large chain of keys in her purse.
A gated door down the hall creaked open. She quickly fingered through the keychain, picked out a key, and pushed it into the lock. It wouldn’t turn. While she fumbled around for another key, someone behind her spoke up.
‘Are you okay?’
She bit her lip. ‘Mrs. Yip. Do you need something?’ she asked without turning around while pushing another key into the lock. This time it wouldn’t fit.
‘You’re soaked. What happened?’ Mrs. Yip asked.
She remained silent, examining the set of keys before trying another. She turned it. The lock clicked.
‘How’s Ah Jing? I haven’t seen him since he got married.’
‘Fine,’ she said as she slid the gate open.
‘Come over for dinner sometime. Bring Ah Jing—’
‘Please, Mrs. Yip, I’m busy.’ She took off her shoes, placed them by the doormat, stepped inside, and locked the gate.
After drying herself off, she entered the kitchen, examined the bag of tomatoes—now crushed by the weight of her fall—and poured its contents into a large bowl. She opened her refrigerator and brought out a carton of eggs, a bag of choy sum, a large piece of ginger, and a bunch of green onions. She soaked the choy sum in a plastic basin of water then took out a cutting board. With a heavy cleaver, she diced the tomatoes into small cubes and including the bruised portions, placed them into a porcelain bowl. She then sliced the ginger into thin pieces, chopped the green onions into fine rounded coins, and cracked the eggs into a bowl, adding dashes of salt, white pepper, sesame oil, and Shaoxing wine, before beating them with a pair of bamboo chopsticks. As the pot of water came to a boil, she added oil and tossed in the ginger and choy sum. A thick earthy scent began to fill the kitchen, adding to the heaviness of the humid air.
After gauging the temperature of the wok, she poured in a generous amount of oil and swirled it around, then quickly poured the eggs in. The mixture began to settle, steam rising, as it crackled and bubbled up. Seeing the eggs partially solidified, she poured the tomatoes into the wok, and stirred the mixture with an old wooden spatula, before topping it off with a garnish of green onions. As the rice cooker sounded with a loud click, she removed its lid and fluffed the rice with a plastic rice scoop, releasing a nutty fragrance. She arranged the dishes on the table, originally a mahjong table that was repurposed with a piece of plywood and a plastic tablecloth, alongside two bowls of rice and two pairs of chopsticks, then sat down on a folding stool and turned on the television.
By the time the seven o’clock news ended, the food was cold, the warm fragrant aroma replaced by a heavy chill, laced with a faint trace of incense drifting in from the hallway. The rice, now hardened, adhered to the bowl and would be difficult to clean. The vegetables had toughened up and would be a pain to chew through. She felt her stomach growl, but decided to let the dishes sit. The sound of the television was accompanied only by the rain and the laughter of the family next door.
The phone rang.
She turned off the television and picked it up. ‘Who is it?’ she asked.
‘Ma, it’s me.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At the door.’
She set the phone down and unlocked the gate.
‘Why is it locked, Ma?’
‘Sit down. The food’s cold.’
He pulled out a folding stool from the closet and sat down across from her. She picked at the eggs and placed a chunk into his bowl.
‘Ma, I can help myself.’
She ignored him, forcing a portion of vegetables into his bowl. They sat in silence, the clank of plastic chopsticks against the porcelain dishes echoing in the small flat. Her thoughts drifted as she watched him eat, remembering the particular way he held his chopsticks, the way he would pick out the tomato before eating it all at the end, when her leg began to hurt again. She dropped her bowl and grabbed the table for support.
‘Ma, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Finish your food.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ she waved her hand in the air, ‘I’m fine.’
‘You need to take care of yourself, Ma.’
‘I don’t need you to tell me.’ She cleared her throat and picked slowly at each grain of rice.
‘Miranda bought you mooncakes,’ he said, setting the tin on the table.
She examined the text on the box. ‘Double yolk?’ she asked. ‘Is she trying to kill me?’
‘It’s for good luck.’
‘Superstitious—she doesn’t understand us Chinese people,’ she replied.
Before he could respond, she moved the tin off the table onto the floor. ‘Are you getting promoted soon?’ she asked.
He shrugged, ‘It’s not that easy, Ma.’
‘How long has it been?’
‘Seven years.’
‘You need to work harder.’
‘Ma.’
‘You have always been lazy, ever since you were young,’ she said calmly.
‘Ma, I’m a grown man now.’
‘I remember—’
‘Not again,’ he interrupted.
‘What? I can’t speak in my own home?’
He remained quiet. After pushing the contents of his bowl into his mouth, he set the chopsticks down on the table, then got up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The bathroom,’ he said, walking past her and shutting the bathroom door behind him.
The sound of children playing in the corridor echoed loudly above the gentle rumble of her neighbor’s air conditioner. As she walked over to the refrigerator, her leg began to sting. She pressed on her thigh hoping to control the pain, but it did not help. She took out the box, set the cake on a plate, and brought it out to the table.
He switched off the bathroom light, then wiped his hands on his pants. As he made his way to the dinner table, he saw the cake. ‘You remembered?’ he asked.
She stuck a small candle in and lit it. ‘Mango cake. Your favorite since you were young,’ she said, motioning for him to sit down. He nodded, then blew out the candle.
‘You would not believe what Mr. Wong tried to do today,’ she said.
He kept silent.
‘Eighty dollars. Can you believe it?’ She skillfully cut the cake, gently separating each piece with a swift motion. ‘And the guy at the market tried to rip me off,’ she said while transferring two pieces of cake onto sheets of tissue paper with the side of her knife.
He picked off a slice of mango with chopsticks.
‘Who does he think he is?’
He sucked on the mango, before swallowing it.
‘And young people these days, rude as hell.’
With a single chopstick, she sliced through the cream and pushed it onto a tissue, leaving an exposed layer of cake. ‘Too much cream,’ she said. She took her time with each bite, savoring the sweetness of the fruit and the richness of the cake. After she finished, she thought of eating another piece but decided against it. She pointed to him with her chopsticks, ‘You’ve lost weight.’
He set down his pair of chopsticks. ‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
‘You’ve eaten so little.’
‘Ma, I’m full.’
‘What happened to your appetite?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you not eating well?’
‘Miranda is a good cook, Ma.’
‘You’re Chinese—you need to eat our food. Tell Miranda to learn to make Chinese food.’
‘That’s not the problem.’
‘Then what is?’
‘There is no problem.’
‘Ah Jing,’ she sighed, ‘that’s what you think.’
‘Ma.’
‘Ah Jing,’ she said, ‘you never listen.’ She remained still. Outside her window, a bedsheet fluttered from a clothesline, filtering light from the building across. He collected the dishes, put them in the sink, then let out a loud sigh.
‘You’re always sighing.’
‘I am?’
‘See. You don’t even realize it. Ah Jing—’
‘Ma, stop,’ he said, trying to interrupt.
‘You were such a good boy, but now you don’t listen,’ she continued.
‘When have I not listened, Ma?’
‘Right now, yesterday, all the time, you never listen. You only listen to Miranda now.’
‘I’m listening to you, right now.’
She pointed a finger at him. ‘Listen to how you’re talking to your mother.’
He chuckled in irritation.
‘What are you laughing at?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘See what I mean?’ She turned towards the sky and asked, ‘What have I done wrong?’
He remained motionless for a while before pushing the half-eaten piece of cake away.
‘I only want the best for you, Ah Jing.’
He walked to the door and put his shoes on. ‘I know, Ma,’ he said, after a long pause. He opened the sliding gate and looked back at her with a face drained of emotion. ‘I’ll come over next week, Ma,’ he said. She remained quiet. The gate closed. As she listened to the clicks of his shoes slowly fading into the surrounding silence, her leg began to throb. She rolled up her pants and examined the injury. A large bruise on the side of her thigh and another on her upper calf looked to consume her leg. She hobbled over to the medicine cabinet, took out an herbal medicine patch and pressed it, hard, against the bruise, waiting for the plaster to slowly adhere to her skin. She slouched into her chair and turned on the television. As its flickers shimmered off the top of the remaining pieces of cake, a gust pushed its way through the hallway, sending leaves skidding across the floor, ripping an upside-down fortune poster off someone’s door. She remained still, eyes fixed on a point beyond the flashing images, ears attuned to the silence that transcended the clamor.
Wayne Mok is originally from Hong Kong and now lives in Sydney, Australia.