At her parents’ flat, Ai Ling watched her aunt even more intently, as if observing a trapped, terrified animal, though she kept an appropriate distance, not wanting to draw attention to herself, even as she stayed alert to her aunt’s presence whenever she paid a visit, every night after work. Her aunt showed little emotion. Once, when Ai Ling saw her aunt standing by the window, staring into space, she approached her and stood by her side, waiting for her aunt to notice her. When she did not, Ai Ling spoke up.
“Are you okay?” Ai Ling said. Her aunt, startled, turned to look at her, rearranging the expression on her face to something less fearful.
“Yes, I am, of course,” her aunt answered.
With the bruises on her face and arms slowly fading, her aunt convinced Ai Ling’s parents that she had recovered and wanted to go back home. After thanking all of them for their caregiving and also for helping to settle her late husband’s funeral, her aunt packed her things and made a quiet departure. Ai Ling offered to help her aunt settle back in. She swept and cleaned and put everything back in place, while her aunt glanced at every item in the flat with a detached gaze, as if she did not know how they had got there in the first place. She left Ai Ling to the tidying up and went to lie down in the spare bedroom, which had a single bed for visiting relatives or friends, closing the door behind her. When she had finished her tasks—the day had slipped into a dusky, warm evening—Ai Ling knocked on the bedroom door and entered when she heard no reply. Her aunt was lying on her side, facing the wall, seemingly asleep. Not wanting to wake her, Ai Ling left the flat quietly.
For a long time after her aunt had moved back home, Ai Ling lived in a state of constant anxiety, and it diverted her attention from the other things in her life that had come to somehow feel trivial and narrow, even petty. Then one night, as she was getting ready to sleep, her mobile phone rang.
“Hello, Aunt Jenny?” Ai Ling said, but there was no reply. For a brief moment, Ai Ling thought that maybe she had mistaken the caller’s detail and glanced again at the screen. It was her aunt’s home number.
“Hello, can you hear me? Is everything okay?” Ai Ling said, fear rising in her voice. Finally, she thought she heard something on the line, a few words, or maybe a cry—she could not tell exactly. Then there was a long, pitiable groan that seemed to reach deep inside her, clenching her in a tight, suffocating grip.
Ai Ling clung to the phone, listening, waiting for a voice to speak to her, to tell her what to do.
20
CODY
The year Cody turned sixteen, his mother was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and was sick for eight months before she died. He was taking his O-Level examinations that year, and his mind was distracted during the hazy, indefinite period of her dying. She had known about the cancer after going for a regular check-up at the polyclinic. It was only when the cancer reached the third stage and Cody and his sisters became suspicious of the frequent hospital visits and their mother’s dwindling frame and thinning hair that the parents broke the news over dinner one night. Cody lowered his chopsticks and stared at his parents, who carried on eating from their bowls of rice, unperturbed by what they just said. His mother spoke up after a few unbearable seconds and assured them that everything was okay, and that they would talk about it in due time, after everything was settled. After this, she did not say another word.
Because he was the youngest in the family, Cody was not expected to do much except stay at home after school and study for the impending examinations, while everyone else did whatever they could for his mother. His eldest sister accompanied her to the hospital for her check-ups while his second sister helped their father out at the fish stall from time to time. When she was at home, Cody would stay by her side and talk to her about the latest Channel 8 drama serials, the actors who were in them, the gossip and the scandals, and she would sometimes ask him about school, homework, his preparation for the O-Levels, and his friends. He would skip from topic to topic with as much lightness as he could muster, not wanting to trouble her in any way. Though there were many things on his mind, Cody could not get the words out.
He often wondered how he could tell his mother about what was going on in his life then: that he was struggling with his studies, that he was failing class tests even though he had studied for them, that he had a crush on a boy in his class, that he was confused about his feelings, and how he had become fearful and anxious all the time about who he was and who he was becoming. She did not need to know all this. Even before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, his mother had a forceful and domineering personality, and raised the children with the same authority and discipline employed by her own parents. She was the disciplinarian in the family, and would watch over their comings and goings, making sure that they did not get into any trouble, that they knew exactly why they were punished, that she did not raise them to be spoilt or ungrateful children. She would mete out her punishments—ten strokes of the cane, five slaps on calves or thighs—and tell them to reflect on their actions, to think carefully about their wrongdoings. Only fools repeat their mistake, she would intone. Growing up under the unbreakable spell she cast over them, Cody’s love for his mother was mired with fear and awe, spiked with thorns.
The boy Cody had a crush on, Cedric, was in his form class, and they had been friends since Secondary One, though it had never gone beyond simple exchanges and basketball games and smiles-and-nods of acquaintanceship. Though they hung out together with other classmates on many occasions, he hardly knew Cedric except for the fact that he had a younger sister and his father was an accountant. It was only in Secondary Three that Cody began to become aware of his attraction to boys and to Cedric specifically. It was hard to know when all this first started, and by the time he grew aware of it, it had become something that took up most of his waking thoughts, like a terrible secret had taken up residence in his head. At thirteen, his body had grown into a new one, and he was constantly conscious of its demands and urges and vanity. His first erection was a shock; he was surprised by how little he was able to control something that seemed so natural. His first wet dream when he was fourteen shamed him so thoroughly that he threw his soiled underwear and shorts into the rubbish chute. The first time he touched himself and produced an instant erection and later a quick ejaculation, he was overcome by the intense sensation and complexity of feelings that his body could generate over such a private, secret act. In the jail of his changing body, this act alone was his only constant, an escape into something that his other life, public and visible, was unable to provide.
Cody and Cedric were about the same height, though the shape and size of their bodies were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Cody was skinny, with a long torso and gangly limbs, while Cedric wore his mass of lean muscles comfortably and proudly. Like some of their classmates, Cedric would play basketball without a shirt, his pants riding low on his slender hips, the pelvic bones making a V that disappeared under the waistband of his underwear. Sitting at the side of the court, Cody would pretend to watch the game enthusiastically while, at the same time, ingraining his memory with as many images of Cedric’s body as he could, which he would replay later in his head while masturbating in the school toilet or at home. He never went far with these images; they were only the means to an end, to the pleasure he wanted to extract from them, and he never considered where they could lead him, to recognise something in himself that he was evading. At fifteen, Cody was far from knowing what he wanted, or who he was, or whether there were other boys like him; yet under this murky, impenetrable surface, he was deeply aware of the burden he was carrying and the secrecy that enshrouded it, and he took great pains to hide it. He presented another self to the world to appear normal—a self that was remote and detached, yet accommodating and highly adaptive to its surroundings, changing its shape and form to survive.