The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (73 page)

              Six minutes went by.  Not a word was spoken.  Mr. Li could feel his sister’s tears seeping through his shirt.  It moved him, which was difficult.  He was unused to internal movement.  That was the nature of their connection, internal.  She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him.  The look on her face showed extreme pain.  But it was different than the pained expressions Mr. Li was used to.  He was used to expressions that couldn’t last.  The expression on his sister’s face was different.  There was a pain that hadn’t been dealt with. And it had been killing a part of her.  He didn’t know anything about it.  Mr. Li saw his sister and she was in a different world of hurt, a world not spied on.  It was her own soul.  Xiaofeng was tormented by an unyielding enemy, herself.  She looked at her brother.  A smile forced itself onto her red face.  He was handsome.  There were scars on his face but not enough to undo his face.  She didn’t see him as her brother; she didn’t feel as if she deserved that.  Instead, she saw her mother’s handsome son.  She knew her mother would be happy her son had grown up dashing.  She played with his hair as she looked at him.  When he was young she kept his hair shaved for his own benefit.  She rubbed her hand from his hair down the side of his right cheek.

              “Shuaige,” she said. 
Handsome boy
. 

              “Jie jie hao,” he said. 
Hello sister
.

              “Xiaoyu,” said Xiaofeng, “Xiaoyu.”

              “
Let’s stand up
,” said Mr. Li, “
I’ve been waiting here for a while.  My butt hurts
.”  Xiaofeng laughed, so much she rolled back.  Mr. Li pressed the wall with his back.  He used his legs to leverage his body, dragging his feet underneath him.  From there he stood up against the wall bringing Xiaofeng up with him.  He took his first real look at her.  Her round face had become an oval.  Her chin pointed.  Her face was made up, not over decorated.  A simple lip-gloss, a bit of foundation powder to hide the discolorations and that was it.  Little lines escaped from the corners of her eyes and almost escaped notice.  The lines were fine, etched with nature’s razor.  She had aged but in a humble sense.  Her age wasn’t overstated so she didn’t try to fight it.  It was 2011, late in the year—passed both their birthdays.  If he was thirty, she had made forty-four.  But his face was the older of the two—not the look—the impression.  Mr. Li’s face managed mostly seriousness, an almost hostility.  Xiaofeng could make her point on different notes.  Her expressions naturally had a wider range but not much wider.  She suffered a guilt that made her question the person she was.  Deep down she didn’t deserve to smile.  She broke her last promise to her mother, to care for her brother.  The guilt limited the range of her facial expressions. 

• • •

              Mr. Li was different.  His facial expressions weren’t limited.  They just weren’t there.  He was very young when he stopped smiling—nothing to smile about.  He had forgotten how to smile and was too old to be taught the trick.  His smile was a suspicious one.  The corners of his mouth could go up a bit but his eyes would sneak off like he forgot where he was.  But it was a smile that could be understood.  And it was a smile nonetheless.

              “
Come with me to my office
,” said Xiaofeng.  She walked the road upstairs to the end of the hall.  The second door from the end was hers.  But Mr. Li already knew.  She used her key to unlock the door as Mr. Li watched.  His mind commented on the differences.  He had entered the same door an hour before, keyless.  Xiaofeng opened the door and turned the light on.

              “
This is where they keep me
,” said Xiaofeng.  She grabbed the photograph of their younger selves and handed it to Mr. Li. 

              “
That’s all I’ve seen of you for all these years
,” said Xiaofeng.  Mr. Li pretended to have never seen the photo.

              “
Where have you been
?” asked Xiaofeng.  The question was blunt.  Her mind had driven a wide wedge between the memory of her little brother and the strange man standing in her office.  Only logic told her they were one and the same. 

              “
I’ve been…everywhere
,” said Mr. Li.

              “
Grandma called me and said you were gone
,” said Xiaofeng, “
That she woke up one day and you and uncle were gone.  We worried.  Then I got the letter from you in Hong Kong so I told her you were ok.  I heard nothing after that.  What happened?  Where did you go
?”  Mr. Li bent his neck.  Without looking at her he thought about how to address her.  They were no longer the boy and the young woman.  They were barely brother and sister.  But they were together no matter how awkward.  He thought for a while and remembered something he had forgotten.  He remembered why he went with his uncle to Hong Kong.  He went for her, Xiaofeng. 

              “
After you left I thought how to follow you.  I couldn’t stay in that house anymore.  I knew uncle made money in Hong Kong.  I went for the money
,” said Mr. Li.

              “
I would have come back
,” said Xiaofeng.

              “
You would have visited
,” said Mr. Li, “
You wouldn’t have come back
.”  Xiaofeng couldn’t recover.  Mr. Li was right and the truth hit the bull’s eye, her guilt.  Mr. Li was used to seeing a cornered opponent.  It was the look in her eye.  It was different to fighting an uphill battle.  Being cornered wasn’t something to be recovered from.  Yielding was the only way out.  But he didn’t let up, not even for her.

              “
I left hoping to make enough money to buy a way to Beijing
,” said Mr. Li, “
With you
.”  Mr. Li raised his head to look her in the eye.

              “
Then I got your letter
,” said Mr. Li, “
It said you weren’t in Beijing anymore.  It said you were in Arizona.  I didn’t know where that was.  But it was in the USA you said.  I knew there was no way I could follow you there.  I gave up, didn’t try anymore
.”  Xiaofeng had been weathered by self-torment.  She had fought the same battle against herself for two decades.  She wasn’t going to fight with Mr. Li.  He’d destroy her. 

              Xiaofeng realized her guilt was mirrored by her brother’s anger, seeds from the same tree.  She didn’t want to engage his anger.  If she could drown in guilt, his anger could come in spades.  They were siblings after all.  They had a shared point of origin.  And both had their mother’s tact.  Xiaofeng used a bait and switch.  She reached down toward a deep drawer under her desk.  She opened the draw with her left hand and grabbed an expensive bottle of merlot.  She used the end of the bottle to push the drawer shut.  With the bottle in her left hand, she opened the top drawer with her right hand and pulled out a multi-purpose knife.  She exposed the corkscrew and gave the bottle and the tool to Mr. Li.

              “
That was a gift when I made tenure
,” said Xiaofeng, “
I saved it for a special occasion
.”

              “
I’m a special occasion
?” said Mr. Li.

              “
You’re my family
,” said Xiaofeng, “
All I have
.”

              “
Grandma and Grandpa
,” said Mr. Li.

              “
She died in 2006
,” said Xiaofeng, “
He only lasted thirteen months without her.  Uncle should be gone too the way you haven’t said anything about him
.”  Mr. Li was surprised at her skilled work.  She could read him, still.  He used the corkscrew to open the bottle, while Xiaofeng found two coffee mugs.  She gave the more masculine one to Mr. Li.  She took the bottle from him without asking.  She served him first before pouring out her own.  The bottle stayed open like a wound.  They didn’t replace the cork.  The bottle bled on their behalf.  They were both wounded. 

              “
You know I changed all your diapers
,” said Xiaofeng.  There was nothing for Mr. Li to say.

              “
Grandma tried a few times in the beginning but you’d dirty them up immediately
,” said Xiaofeng, “
She’d have to wash all day.  When I did it, you lasted a bit longer.  Why
?”  Mr. Li shook his head.  The question was rhetorical.  Xiaofeng took her first sip of wine.  The flavor was long, going back to the beginning.  It had been corked for twenty-seven years, back when she was still his big sister.

              “
I forgot to make a toast
,” said Xiaofeng.

              “
We forgot
,” said Mr. Li.

              “
Ok
,” said Xiaofeng, “
Let me think
.”  She took her time before holding up her glass.

              “
To everything that’s necessary
,” said Xiaofeng.

              “
Everything necessary
,” said Mr. Li pinging her glass and vying for his first taste of wine.  He liked it.

              “
Why was that your toast
?” asked Mr. Li.

              “
Because I needed to see you again
,” said Xiaofeng.

              “
Why
?” asked Mr. Li.

              “
Because a piece of me has been missing
,” said Xiaofeng.

              “
And now
?” said Mr. Li.

              “
It’s still missing,”
said Xiaofeng, “
But I’m starting to remember where I left it
.”  Mr. Li did his smile, the halfway.

              “
Let’s do this
,” said Xiaofeng, “
I have another class coming up in forty-five minutes.  It’s a two-hour lecture.  You can wait here for me and I’ll come back to get you.  Then we’ll go home and I’ll make dumplings like grandma’s
.” 

              “
Ok
,” said Mr. Li, “
I don’t remember her dumplings
.”

              “
You will
,” said Xiaofeng taking her final sip of wine.  She reached in her desk drawer and pulled out a novel written in Mandarin.  It was marked near the end.  She put it on the desk.

              “
The rest of the books in here are in English and they’re about economics and policy
,” said Xiaofeng, “
Help yourself to whatever, but this one is better to pass the time.  I have to go across campus.  I’ll be back
.”  She opened the door and put one foot out of the room.

              “
If you get bored, remember the wine
,” she said before closing the door.  He didn’t read or drink.  He slept.  The time passed more slowly in his unconscious wandering mind.  And he wasn’t limited to real time.  He could go back and relive what was already gone.  He went back to his boyhood, his earliest memories of his sister.  He remembered her as she was, but his perspective had changed.  He remembered things he hadn’t noticed when he was a child.  She was always grimacing subtly, labor pains.  It wasn’t the pain of giving birth to him but the pain of raising him.  His mother had experienced the one while his sister experienced the other.  Mr. Li could see her face more clearly, submerged in his subconscious.  He had never noticed the subtleties before.  The slight wrinkle at her brow, the momentary gaze.  He could see better in his memory, looking at her for the first time with adult eyes.  When he was a boy he thought they were happy together, but his memory served him.  The years had changed his perspective, which made looking back damning.  In his subconscious, her face was revealing.  He troubled her.  He had always been too young to see it.  It was the reason for the devastation when she left.  It was the surprise of it all, the lack of explanation. But he saw reality reflecting against the still water of his mind.  There was an explanation.  She had been explaining all along.  Her explanation was in writing and it was all over her face, for years.  It was what Baba saw so much of.  Mama saw it as well.  His sister hated taking care of him.  It explained Baba’s violence toward him.  Baba knew he was ruinous.  He had taken his mother’s life and made his sister’s life miserable.  The images of his sister from her younger years morphed into the most recent images in his head.  He compared the two.  Her face was older but looked less labored.  Her eyes were still and blocked.  She held her emotion like at the gaming table.  Her eyes kept him guessing.  It was a visage that was practiced.  So much so, it became natural.  It was fitting that his sister no longer went by the name Xiaofeng.  She was so different.  Xiaofeng’s belabored eyes were gone.  Wendy’s eyes were different and told a very different story—none at all. 

• • •