Now inside the room, they can still hear the clanging celebration of the village, though they do not notice it so much, as they do not notice the other things out there, like the baying dogs or the faint roar of river or the half moon and its slow, striking clouds. They only notice each other: a pair of low lit shapes filling up the room.
She sits next to the bureau (the ink well is dry; the sheafs of paper rest in the drawer). She has pulled the chair out so that she faces away from it all.
Her palms balance in her red, beaded lap.
Blackie thinks she looks strange: innocently stiff. She seems heavied by the shiny, padded fabric. Though he has been wanting it for all these years, he is on the verge of forgetting that slender stroke of body underneath. But he looks different too, in his formality. He unhooks the button on his ceremonial collar and toward the bed he moves her, by the shoulders, as if she were a sleepy child. They sit on the edge of the bed. The oil lamp flickers a little; dies.
There is so much to get through, he says.
Let me do it, she replies. Her voice is surprisingly large in the dark. She tugs open buttons and knots with bored familiarity, as if they belonged to a shirt or a shoe lace that she wore every day; he is suddenly jealous of the shirt and the shoe lace. He turns away, abashed. In the years before her return, he has been jealous. Of each object she has touched, each person she has passed and who has passed her or looked at her, or not (though how could they not look at her), each word she has spoken that he has not heard, they did not have to be meant for him—
It horrifies him then, the thought of her knowing exactly what she has done to him. But he thinks she must know. But how can she know, how can she know and still come back with no evidence of shame? So she doesn’t know. It is better this way, that she doesn’t realise how she holds him. But if she never knows what she has done to him then she will never know what he has felt for her, and she needs to know all of this so she knows how much he has felt, for her, and how much this has robbed and diminished him over the years. He wants her to know. He wants to leave it in the past. He wants no desire.
She takes his hand and pulls it inside the fabric, rests it on her waist. His hand is cold but she doesn’t flinch. She asks,
Don’t you want to?
Isn’t this what you wanted?
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.
What do you want me to do?
He replies,
Take off your clothes. I want you to take off your clothes and get into the bed.
No, don’t fold them. You can throw them on the floor.
It doesn’t matter. Throw them on the floor.
You have enough room.
Yes.
My hands are cold.
A little.
I’m hurting you.
No.
You must tell me if I’m hurting you.
Of course.
He finds her too obedient, too compliant. Too reasonable. Yes, she is too reasonable. Quietly one day, she returned. She had nothing, but she wasn’t hurt, or defiant, or humbled. She didn’t behave as someone who doubts her worth. Neither was she arrogant from the assumption that he still wanted her. She just knew that he did. And now, surely, she is embarrassed and saddened by this knowledge, trying to hide it, trying to hide how careful she is being so that she doesn’t insult him again. And she is trying not to try too hard, not to let him feel too clearly in charge, owed, knowing he will see through it as an act of kindness or condescension. At the same time she is trying not to ignore their past injuries or the present potential for misery and more, more injury. She is trying not to ignore her power over him—how she has wounded him in the past, how he has wounded her, and that the difference was that she couldn’t be sure she intended to wound him, and if the pleasure in it had been real. It is all a difficult balance; it is all she thinks about. Her effort is a continous, ugly monument. It’s the least she could do.
She came back. And married him on an almost full moon, a summer evening. Drunken strings of lights through the trees and tops of walls, red scattered on the ground. Tables of men and women drink, talking about the couple in a general manner. Carcasses. Foam clinging to the sides of half drained glasses. She came back.
The tables of women marvel, suspicious:
Can you believe, he still wanted her.
Tables of men marvel, wary:
Still so beautiful. What does she want?
She had nowhere else to go.
She should be ashamed.
She has no shame.
Proud.
Beautiful.
But no-one else would have her. Only he would—
She’ll be his slave.
Finally.
I think it’s romantic. All those years…
I thought I saw a bruise, on her cheek.
He would never—
The tycoon.
The Shanghainese—ball bearings.
Ball bearings?
—his fortune—
Millions–
—made of gold!
Solid gold ball bearings!
Why on earth would she leave? Hahahaha!!!!
Madness.
I’m drunk.
They’re made for each other.
They’ll kill each other.
I’m going home.
Have another drink.
No. Home.
He is gentle, but not so gentle that it qualifies suspicion. He is not unsure. She can see through it. Gentle like caring, like promise, like slow water drips on the forehead. He is not unsure; he is biding his time. He knows it all. He is biding his time…the drips…the drips...the drips….Until she can do nothing but say,
Alright! Alright. Do it. Hold me down. Press your thumbs into me. Push with your breath in my neck. Push me under your frame of bones and meat. Push down, no, I said push—Yes, I want this. Sink me against the cold tile; leave your marks on me, I’ll remember where I’m meant to be. Yes I want this.
He wants this, he must. This is as far as she can see.
Night after night they sleep, but rarely at the same time, watching each other in turns and listening for the heartbeat; steady, secret, out of reach. After a storm the dogs bay all night, their howls sounding like invocations to some dreadful divinity, and then neither of them sleep. They go on.
*
word
wedding night
from the novel the dreaming exiles of shiu-shuet village © mimi lok
