“There was a woman selling arecas,” I told her. “I’ve met her twice.”
“Hush, don’t talk nonsense. That was your aunt.” She winked and grinned. “You need to calm down. How can it be that you don’t recognize her? It can’t be more than ten years? She is the same old self, never changes. She stole my lamb jacket when she left. She’s been very greedy ever since her youth.”
Mother’s remark reminded me of my aunt, who used to live with us when she was thirty-five or thirty-six. She was a celestial, who could fly as lightly as a little bird. Her brows were plucked away completely, and her mouth was dyed bloody red. She nailed two big iron hooks in our bedroom, and on the hooks she hung a string, which held up a bed. This was her hammock. At midnight, she would swing in her bed as if it were a real swing. Standing on her bed and letting down her hair, she would utter strange sounds. Eventually she would slide through the window and fall onto the cinder road. As a result, her knees were forever swollen and bruised, and her hobby was hiding in her mosquito net squeezing the pus. To whoever tried to peep in, she would open her net as if nothing had happened and say: “Strolling in moonlight with neck stretching out, isn’t that a spotty duck? There’s also a shortcut that passes the withered rose. That path is a secret.” She finally fled with a horse keeper for a circus. They walked away valiantly and spiritedly, smelling of horse urine.
As soon as they left, mother wailed and whined, calling the man “human-monger, with a hooked knife in his waist. Little sister has bit the hook.” She jabbered on and on with tears in her eyes, but father was very excited. Standing in the middle of the room, he started his lecture. He talked about the beautiful wish, about the rats’ invasion of the grain at our house. When he was talking about his painful itching syndrome, he became nervous. Rubbing his chest, he searched high and low, stepping on mother’s feet.
Later on I heard Mother talking about the affair between father and the aunt. Mother understood them and supported their relationship in secret, though on the surface she pretended that she knew nothing. However, Father disturbed her plot. Nobody knows where he got this disabled man. The two talked in whispers in the cell for a whole afternoon before the business was done. Mother tried very hard to persuade them that I could substitute for the aunt. She said that although I was only in high school, and pretty young, I was very experienced in this. Otherwise, the garbage collector would not have hanged himself. But aunt was only a baby. She trusted people too easily, and she would suffer for that. Mother grabbed me by the chest and shook me, while shouting: “Just think what kind of person he is! Selling to a human-monger. That spider.” For this she had profound hatred toward Father.
So many years have elapsed, and aunty has come back at night. With those mysterious arecas, she appears in the dim moonlight. I can never figure this out. I suspect that she never left. The walking out was only a trick, and the guy who kept horses for the circus was only a lie. All that time, she was hiding at the other end of the corridor, selling her goods to the wandering spirits. Though she was long past her youth, she could, with some fixing up, still appear a gentle and graceful lady. No one can tell about those things, because the corridor is forever hazy and tricky. Ever since I can remember, a damp steam has spread there. You couldn’t see things three steps away, and you couldn’t hear your own footsteps. Very often similar doors cracked open, and a soft shadow floated out. It gave off some muffled dream talk before it disappeared completely. Sometimes, I went outside. It was different from the corridor, though there were also those soft shadows. The wind smelled like a horse’s mane, and the sky was pitch dark. Only those reddish yellow lights peeped out from narrow windows. They looked very irritating. When I stood on the low-lying land, I felt my body turn into a rock. The raindrops pattered on it. My eyes held water dripping from the eaves. A broken gong banged in the wilderness.
Oh, aunty, aunty, where are you? You even write to us, telling us something. You really take things to your heart! You attempt to fool me, making the illusion that this is a graceful April dusk. You think I will be running around like a blind person, twitching my nose to chase the smell of the dusty rain. It’s your nature to put up a smoke screen in order to confuse human life.
Good, very good, aunty! I now understand the meaning in your letter. It’s pouring with rain. A snake-shaped reflection flashes in the sky. In the earth, grass is breeding. The dream walkers are coming. Their stretched-out arms resemble iron forks. My brother is hiding in the middle. Yet he is no more than a sham. This is the result of your teaching. His steps are stiff and hard, lacking natural rhythm. I can see through him with one glance. Why did you teach him? It’s in vain!
When the rain stops, I will feel my way to the other end of the corridor. I want to bump into you in the haze. Then I will ask for an areca, and tell you the miracles of these years. I will tell you how the detective slipped into our little house, how my parents disappeared mysteriously, how abnormal my brother’s consciousness of sex is, how a cobra appeared in the wardrobe.… Aha, aunty, in fact I won’t tell you anything. It’s not necessary for me to fool you. Why should I fool an old witch like you? Yesterday, I found the compact you used for putting on makeup. I kicked it out the window. Now I still have enough strength to kick it. The wet rusty scissors have been inserted into the door crack again. The room is full of a fishy smell. Late last night, hundreds of nightingales sang on the tree. The moon was shining, the stars were shining. The little round mirror in my hand was also shining. Pale white sand stretched out into the distance.
3. THE DETECTIVE’S (OR DOCTOR’S) LONG, DULL STORY
She eventually attained her goal by shoving me out the window. The moment I hit ground, I heard her telling somebody in a nasal tone, “It’s nothing, just an empty can. There are too many of them under the bed. They attract ants.” Supporting myself against the wall, I stood up. Patting the dust from my clothes, I staggered away. I supposed that the run-down temple was just ahead of me. Somebody had told me that my father-in-law was enjoying living there. In the back of my mind, I had the idea of looking for him. I had to find somebody. How could I not? I had been deceived! Someone had made a monkey out of me. I had to complain to somebody. Good, just the person was approaching. It was a fat woman selling arecas. I had seen her from behind several times. I grabbed her and rushed into my story:
“Kind-hearted person, you have to listen to my story from the very beginning. This family is a wonder! There must be some guy hiding somewhere giving instructions. Once this guy blows a whistle, all my family’s necks go stiff, and their eyeballs freeze. They are turned into nothing but empty puppets shaking in front of you. I’ve been searching high and low but can’t find the puppet master, even though I’ve been severely tortured by him all along. The trouble is I have a little hobby, that is, chatting with others, and sometimes I enjoy playing a little trick. Otherwise life is too depressing. Yet once this guy whistles, the family turns arrogant. They march into the house and dash at each other, emitting the sound of cracking wood. It’s savage. I have to hide myself every day in a cistern. Such long hours of hiding cause abscesses on my joints, and little worms crawl out of the abscesses. Unfortunately, even the cistern is not safe. The hermaphrodite of the family, that patient of neurosis, found my dwelling and drove me out with a broom. As I was naked, I had to protect my private parts with my hands and avoid his attack. He’s a vicious man, so he knows how to wait for that fatal blow. He has particular hate for my sexual organs. His glance is too extremely horrifying. Oh, and there’s something else.”