The sun rises fat and round like a tasty egg yolk. As I am watching it from my bed, I hear someone singing. It sounds like Mum. Has her spirit come to visit me?
Using all my strength, I get up and follow her sound. It takes me to Wài Pó’s room. Her head is sticking out of the window. She is wearing a long, white nightgown and her hair is puffy from the sea salt wind. Her voice grows stronger and stronger. It is low and wild from her belly and heavy from her bones, high from in her nose and soft on her lips. I feel a shock to my breath. She is making a masterpiece – but I did not know Wài Pó was an artist. She has sung to me many times before, but never like this.
It is as if she is calling all those things that are humming around her and drawing them into the space between us.
She is singing in Chinese and in English. I do not understand it all but I know it is something like poetry because of the rhythm, sound and the pictures they make in my mind. Her story is about home: ‘the home we find in country… the home we find in others… the home we find in ourselves’.
Listening, I feel like I am floating below the sun.
I do not know that Wài Pó is finished until she turns and a surprised sound comes out of her mouth.
‘Míng Huà, what are you doing here?’
Even though she is old, I think she looks like a child.
‘You normally knock before you come in,’ she reminds me.
I don’t know why she says this. I never knock, even though I know that is a polite thing to do.
‘Why did you never tell me about your music?’ I ask.
She takes my hand. We sit on her bed that smells like the minty oil she puts on her knees.
‘You know, when I was young, I loved to write my own songs and sing them.’
She is smiling now. I like that.
‘I would sing in the shower, in the car, on my way to school. My parents would fight and I would sing.’
Her smiling stops and her face becomes tight. All her wrinkles come out like the shell of a walnut.
‘And then one day my mother stopped me. The back of her left hand landed on my cheek. “Singing is not for people of our class,” she scolded me.’
I hold her hand as tight as I can. I do not understand what her mum meant by ‘people of our class’, but I know this is upsetting because of the way Wài Pó said it.
‘My mother was hurting. You see, she found out my father was in love with someone else.’
My body feels jumpy.
‘But, Wài Pó, when people marry, they do it because they love each other and no one else.’
‘My dear Míng Huà, love is not always that simple.’
I have seen this kind of thing in movies but I always press the stop button when it happens, because that is not what love is. Love is loyal, kind and full of romance.
‘After we fled Shanghai for Hong Kong, I found out my country had banned its people from singing these kinds of songs too.’
That is a strange thing, I think to myself. China is a fun place. It is where cousin Bì Yù lives, and Uncle Bĭng Wén and Aunt Lĭ Nà. I always eat good food and have a good time with family when we are there. China is the country of Mum’s birth and therefore it is a special place. We all used to sing in the car when we went there on holidays and no one stopped us.
‘Why did they stop the singing?’ I ask.
But she doesn’t reply. Her eyes seem like they are lost somewhere, and even when I squeeze her hand again she doesn’t come back.
‘Why?’ I say it louder now and it lands in the air like a full stop.
She looks at me. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’
I think that she looks very tired indeed.
‘At least your mā ma got to make her music. I made sure of it.’
‘Yes. Yes she did,’ I say.
‘Music is in our blood.’ Her voice is not soft and thin like it usually is; now it is young and full and reminds me of stamping feet.
I hear my own sound now, loud and clear. It goes: da dum da dum da dum.
I close my eyes and see red blood, swimming around my body.
Red blood, red music.