Hunger wasn't anything new. It was an old acquaintance. I could remember my
mother's look when I was small. Her face had been pale, pinched with
privation.
Dark circles surrounded her green eyes. I had been very young, but I had
tried
not to cry. I remember sitting in a small, dark room, wrapped in all of the
clothes I owned, my mother's arms were around me as we huddled beneath a thin
blanket. I remembered my mother's sudden resolve. She had risen and left me,
bidding me to stay in bed. There was no question that I would obey. I was too
hungry to want to play. Eventually, mother had come back with food and
money.
After that, every other day or so, mother would leave me and go out. She
always
threw up when she came back and she cried when she thought I could not hear.
Once a strange man followed her home. I hit him with a stick when he tried to
push his way inside. The man looked at me and laughed. He threw some money on
the floor before he left, saying, "So you don't have to go out and leave the
kid alone."
Later, when I was training, they kept me hungry at intervals too. They didn't
really have to teach me to eat anything to stay alive. I had learned most of
that lesson when I was a small boy. Those were the rules however. They
dropped
me in the woods to live on what I could catch. They locked me in a cage to
see
how long I could go without food and water. I endured, storing away the pain
and discomfort for later, telling myself I would wait and see. I promised
myself someday, I would have the power and they would be the ones suffering.
But not now. Not today. I was hunted today, even in this remote city, far
from
Spender's reach. My hand touched the key in my pocket. That was a promise of
power, of money, but my talisman couldn't buy me a bowl of rice right now.
Wandering toward the market, I felt a wave of dizziness. I felt as if I had a
fever, as well as being weak with starvation. Fear kept me from snatching
food.
I hoped that there might be someone willing to trade food for work, but I
knew
it was a vain hope. Close-knit families ran most of the stalls in the green
market. They would not hire a stranger, much less a foreign one.
The smell of shrimp soup enticed me. As I stood in the street, a querulous
voice said, "Move, big man."
The tiny figure looked too small to drag the heavy cart. Her face was pulled
tight with age, wrinkles bunching at the eyes, thickening the folds of her
eyes, and hunching her already tiny frame. She sighed wearily as I moved out
of
her way. The wheel hit a rut and her wiry body could not move it.
I wasn't even thinking about my plan when I helped her. Even weak, I was big
enough to move the cart to the open place that the old woman indicated.
The dark eyes stared at me for a moment then the woman said, "Lift the
baskets
down."
My first impression was that the contents had gone bad. I wrinkled my nose
though and set the largest basket down on a clean grass mat. I followed it
with
two smaller ones.
The tiny woman said, "My name is Wenxian Cao."
"Alex...William," I lied, stealing Mulder's middle name.
"You know how to work? Not a lazy American?" Wenxian asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Then you work with me," Wenxian said.
Pulling a spiny fruit out of the basket, Wenxian took out a sharp knife and
deftly opened it. The air filled with the smell of a dumpster behind a
produce
store.
"Eat this. It will fill you up," Wenxian instructed, holding out a glob of
white
stuff.
Automatically, I popped the foul smelling morsel in my mouth. My first
impression was that it was not fruit after all. The texture was creamy, even
more smooth and oil-laden than a ripe avocado.
The rest of the fruit was accepted quickly and eagerly consumed, despite the
reek.
The strange onion like aftertaste faded and I felt my stomach purr around the
quickly digested fruit. "What is it, grandmother?" I asked.
"Durian," Wenxian said.
The smaller basket held rambutans, another bizarre looking fruit. It was red,
covered with fiber, somewhat like a coconut with a bad hair day.Ý
I worked with the old woman all day. After the noon rush and the lunch sales
eased off, she gave me a few coins and I fetched two bowls of noodle soup.
Rice
balls produced from another basket helped to soothe my hunger.
Automatically obeying the sharp commands, I repacked the almost empty
baskets.
When the cart was ready for travel, I looked at it wistfully. I felt better
now
that I had eaten, but I didn't look forward to another night sleeping in an
alley.
The old woman asked, "Do you have a place to sleep?"
Shaking my head, I felt my eyelashes flutter. That had always worked on my
mother. I could have laughed at myself, resorting to childish tricks to try
to
get my way.
"Well, come along then," Wenxian said, sounding exasperated.
Her apartment, as she called, it was tiny, the size of a small bedroom in an
American home. She shared a bathroom with ten other apartments. I looked
around
for the facilities, but saw none in the pigeonhole of an apartment. When I
asked, Wenxian led me outside to a small building. The toilet was little more
than two porcelain holes, but it was clean.
When I returned to the apartment, Wenxian showed mw a tiny area, a spigot and
a
bucket set on a square of tile. Her instructions to bathe were clearly an
order. I felt oddly embarrassed although I thought modesty had been trained
out
of me. The screen had not been planned for a tall American man and I was
deathly afraid that I would knock it down. Still, I managed to get clean and
felt much better. My skin crawled at the thought of putting back on my filthy
clothing. Apparently, my feelings were matched; Wenxian refused to let me put
them on. She said she would wash my clothes and that I should sleep.
Wrapped in a robe that was almost too small for any modesty and with a
blanket
around that, I fell asleep on a folded pad and was as content as I might have
been in feather bed and silk sheets.
Our day started before dawn. We went to the train station to buy the
wholesale
fruit that we would sell during the day. Wenxian was a tiger at bargaining.
She
would haggle until the wholesalers threw up their hands and cursed the
heavens,
swearing that she would see them starve.
The trains were old. They belched black smoke and lurched along like dying
dragons. The rails were deep rust in color. Like dried blood. I hated the way
the train yard smelled and the rats that ran freely beneath the loading
docks.
As I listened to Wenxian trade, following the rapid Hong Kong flavored
Chinese
was almost impossible. I had been taught Mandarin, which bore as much
relationship to the dialect spoken here as Oxford English did to Cockney. I
caught a remark or two about the big dumb foreigner and heard Wenxian boldly
claim that I was her grandson. I laughed about that later, but it warmed me
inside.
Wenxian had one luxury other than keeping me. She had an orchid that she
moved
slavishly to follow the sun. She labored over the tiny pot of soil, brushed
each leaf with tiny puffs of water from a spray to make sure there were no
aphids to eat her darling. Her daughter had given her the flower, she said. I
saw young beautiful woman's picture set in a shrine and draped with white
ribbons of mourning. Her husband's picture also shared the small shelf. He
had
died last year and she had no near relatives to help her. When Wenxian could
afford it, a stick of incense burned at the shrine. I wished I had a shrine
for
my mother...I didn't even know where she was buried.
It did not seem possible that Wenxian's tough old body could be losing a slow
battle with cancer, but the medications she spilled one day were familiar to
me. I didn't say anything; I helped her gather up the pills and the little
case
with the needles. She put them in her silk purse with the embroidered
dragons.
She thanked me politely, her heavy lidded eyes shutting out any questions I
might ask.
After that, I made doubly sure that I did the heavy lifting. I didn't let her
help pull the heavy cart either. Meanwhile, I looked around for more ways to
earn money or to trade work for food. I was always hungry, the thin soup and
rice that Wenxian ate didn't satisfy me.
The chunks of Durian fruit became an obsession with me. Each day, Wenxian
sold
chunks of the reeking fruit. Each day, two chunks of the fruit were
pronounced
not fit to sell. The old woman and I ate these 'bad' segments not to waste
the
fruit. My initial distaste for the fruit passed. My body recognized badly
needed fat and nutrients. The ceremonious opening of the foul smelling fruit
each morning made me hold my breath not against the odor, but against the
fear
that the entire fruit would be pronounced fit for sale. Fortunately, that had
never happened so far.
One of the old people paid me some vegetables to write a letter to a grandson
in New York. She had never seen the boy and he did not read Chinese or
French.
I could tell that she thought her grandson only semiliterate, but that didn't
stop her from wanting him to know her. I wrote the long letter in my careful
script and was paid a bag of groceries to add to the soup that Wenxian would
cook as our main meal.
One day, I was able to trade unloading a truck, when two of a stall's workers
were ill, for a large bag of noodles with a tiny rip. The same day, I
repaired
a mobile phone in trade for dried shrimp. Wenxian and I ate well that day.
The people in the market gradually became used to Wenxian's suddenly acquired
grandson. Initial mistrust faded to acceptance. I felt safe for the first
time
since Spender had tried to blow me up in that car. Only a few tourists came
to
this old market and most of the customers were old folks who politely did not
ask me any questions.
The second week after I met Wenxian, I managed to raise enough money to call
Jerry Kallenchuk; she told me that she had brokered the disc. She would meet
me
soon. When I asked her for an advance, Jerry managed to lose the
connection...
the bitch.
My pockets lighter, I looked around for more work. I didn't want Wenxian to
starve trying to feed me. As I walked past one of the five noodle seller
stalls
that Jack Wong owned, Jack hissed at me. Thinking that the stall owner had
work
for me, I hastened to the big man. I didn't like him very much. He sublet the
stalls and strutted around all day like the gamecocks that men kept for
gambling. Wenxian said he had crime connections and I should be careful of
him,
but I felt guilty for spending my money on the phone call instead of on food.
Well, before I left, after I had the money from Jerry, I would make sure that
Wenxian had everything she needed. Right now, however, I would work for the
devil himself. It wouldn't be the first time.
"You looking for more work?" Jack asked.
"Always," I said.
"I have a friend who would pay you fifty HKD to be his pillow boy for a
night,"
Jack said. "He likes big American men."
"I'm not a whore," I said angrily. Whatever Spender made me do, I had
consoled
myself that at least I had never been demeaned to the status of rent boy. I
understood my mother's choice, but I never wanted to be what she had become.
Never.
"It's your choice," Jack said, "Fifty HKD is a lot of money. Could buy more
medicine for Wenxian. I saw her today and she was hurting. It's hard for an
old
woman to feed herself and a hungry young man."
"I pull my weight," I said. "I work."
"You think the little work you find around here feeds you? Ha, Wenxian is
feeding you out of the money for her medicine. That's why she has to rest so
much."
"It's not true," I said, walking away. Yet doubts assailed me. I wanted to
believe that my relationship with Wenxian was nothing like everything that I
had experienced in my adult life. The way I was taught, every person I met
was
either a target or someone who was sizing you up, looking for your
weaknesses.
I told myself that was the way it was even if it hurt to do what I had done
to
Mulder and to Walter Skinner. I told myself I never had a chance. There were
even times I believed the lies my bosses told me. Here, down and out, at
least
for the moment, I thought that I was free; that I could be the person my
mother
would have wanted me to be. Wenxian had become my grail, my salvation, my
proof
that I was not a worthless human being. I didn't want to think she was
suffering because of me.
However, when I went back to Wenxian, she asked me to take over. Fortunately,
two pretty American girls wandered through the traditional market. They were
pleased to find me and stayed at the stall, flirting. They bought almost
everything that Wenxian had left and then paid me to take them around and
translate for them. By the end of the day, I was pleased to give Wenxian
enough
money to pay the rent for the stall for a week. There would be money for more
food and medicine for a few days.
The next day it rained very hard. Only the old people still came to the
market
when it rained as heavily as this. The younger people preferred the clean
indoor supermarkets anyway. Any tourists were snug in cabs, perhaps exploring
the nightclubs or touring Marine Land to enjoy the sight of denizens of the
deep without getting wet.
Looking at the pitiful amount of money in her hand, Wenxian said, "It's good
that you made so much yesterday. Don't look so serious. We quit early and we
have an entire Durian to eat."
As the apartment house didn't permit the eating of Durian, Wenxian and I ate
the fruit in the partial shelter of the stall. Pieces were exchanged for tea,
for noodle soup, and for shrimp balls. It was the first time that I had
enough
to eat since Wenxian claimed me as her grandson.
The next day it rained very hard as well. By the fourth day, Wenxian claimed
she was too ill to eat her soup. I refused to eat mine until she caved in and
finished the thin broth with the sparse noodles and sprinkling of vegetables
that was all we could afford.
That night, I could hear Wenxian groan in her sleep. Every time her breath
hitched, I held mine until I heard the wheezing intake and the moaning
exhaust.
In the morning, I said, "Are you out of medicine?"
"It does me no good," Wenxian said. "I've lived a long time, grandson. Don't
worry about me."
Kneeling on the edge of Wenxian's mat, I lifted the fragile seeming hand,
parchment yellow with liver spots marking it. I kissed it and held it to my
cheek. "I'll take care of you," I promised. "I'll find a way."
The sun came out the next day, but the loss of four days of sales meant that
we
would struggle to pay the rent on the stall and on the apartment. There would
be no money for medicine and little for food.
I walked toward Jack Wong three times that morning. Once I saw a young girl
that I knew talking to Wong.Ý I pivoted and walked away, ashamed. The other
two
aborted responses were my reluctance to give up this final part of me.
The last time I had been with someone, it had been Mulder. Whatever Spender's
intentions, I had not used what I had with Mulder and with...Walter. I knew
they hated me now. Hell, my rage at myself for falling in love with them
nearly
made me hate them back. If I hadn't cared about them, I wouldn't have screwed
up. I wouldn't be here.
Even pissed at the world the way I was, I still didn't want to replace the
fire
of Mulder's touch with the lewd pawing of a stranger. I kept seeing my
mother's
eyes. She did it for me. I owed her... owed someone for my mother's sacrifice
even if I wasn't all that happy with the life for which she had saved me.
Wenxian needed the medicine. There was nothing I could do to save her life,
but
at least she should have the medicine.
I closed my eyes, feeling my body tremble from head to foot. When I opened my
eyes, I was the man Spender had meant me to be. I walked to Jack Wong and
asked him to make arrangements for me to meet his cousin. Wong said, "Good
choice, Alex." He couldn't pronounce my name correctly for all he bragged
about having attended college in the US.
Wong told me to be ready after the market day. I told Wenxian that I had
personal business and went to the deserted market place to meet Wong's
cousin.
I didn't even know his name just that he drove a red Jaguar.
I stood waiting, my eyes fixed on the worn pavement beneath my feet. He
pulled
up, his crooked teeth gleaming in the streetlight.
"You want a ride, American?" the man said.
"Sure," I muttered, moving in beside the man, my jeans sliding across the
leather seat.
His hand insinuated between my legs, feeling my crotch. I didn't flinch away.
I
had learned control from a master...my master, Spender, that cold-hearted
bastard.
"Money," I said.
Wong's cousin put an envelope into my hand. I counted it,
fingering each note. It was all there. I could buy Wenxian's
medicine.
His house was big, American style. I forgot what it was like to have so much
space around you. He gave me some rice wine. I drank some. Not enough to get
drunk despite the temptation. I couldn't lose my edge like that. It was too
easy to get cheated.
Jack's cousin undressed me roughly. I stood there, feeling huge and awkward.
His eyes lit, glittered, as if what he saw was more than the son of a whore
following in the family profession. He surprised me by getting down on his
knees, swallowing my cock.
I knew what he wanted. I turned my mind to Mulder, his bright flame, his long
lean glory projected in the place of this unattractive man with one drooping
eye and a flattened nose. There are people who don't like my Mulder. People
who
can't see him as I do. He's a slow torch burning in my heart, consuming more
and more of me. He scares the hell out of me, not for what he can do to me,
but
for what he has already done.
I thought he was the key to me. All he had to do was turn me. Oh, God,
Mulder,
please turn me.
I could see his eyes glittering up at me. They are hazel as emeralds are
green.
His eyes have muted hues in them, the rich swirl of topaz when he's happy,
the
color of the ocean on a winter day when he's angry.
He licks his lips before he takes me in. My cock slips in to plunder his
mouth.
His lower lips drags along the sensitive underside. He takes me deep, makes
me
slick with himself. My legs shake as I respond. As he lets me go entirely, he
turns his head to kiss my inner thigh. I'm all his. I burn for him. My heart
rushes through my veins, thundering like a distant train. He takes me again
and
then as I nearly collapse with pleasure, his hand guides me to the bed and he
arranges me for his pleasure.
His fingers feel wrong when he opens me up. I open my eyes as he breaks a
popper under my nose. There is a momentary shock as my fantasy breaks as
easily
as that mesh-covered ampoule. Jack's cousin grins. His teeth are as white and
as jagged as a dragon's. He pushes inside me as my muscles relax and my head
spins.
I try to slip back into my Mulder fantasy, but I can't get it back. It seems
like hours while Jack's cousin ruts inside me. It probably wasn't that long.
That was just the distortion of the poppers.
Shortly afterwards, Jack's cousin drops me on the street. He leaned out of
the
red Jag and said, "I'm having a party tomorrow. You want to work? There are
plenty of guys there who like American men."
I wanted to refuse, but I knew the medicine was expensive. "Pick me up here?"
I
replied.
"Yes, eight o'clock," Jack's cousin said. He laughed as he drove off.
I knew where to buy the medicine, at least the painkiller. I ran there and
purchased it. Wenxian looked terrible when I arrived. Her face was pulled
tight
over the bone. She was gray instead of her usual delicate parchment. I knelt
and rolled up her sleeve to expose her delicate arm.
"You're going to be so much better," I promised. "Tomorrow, you go to the
real
doctor and we'll get you something that will really make you well."
Her fingers caressed my cheek. Wenxian asked, "Where did you get this money,
Alex?"
"Writing letters," I said, "and doing other jobs. Jack found me some work."
"Jack?" Wenxian asked, her voice sounding very disappointed. "I know what
kind
of work he arranges."
"It's not like that," I said, knowing my lashes were blinking rapidly and
that
tension in my neck was making me swallow hard, as if my lies were more even
than I could ingest.
Wenxian didn't argue with me. She got up and cooked the food I brought. She
ate
too, her manners as exquisite as an empress. I knew little of her past, but I
knew she hadn't always been poor and I knew that she had been so beautiful. I
could see it in her bones, in the shape of her eyes and how she carried her
self. She did not reproach me.
The next day I thought Wenxian had gone to the doctor. I believed she would
go
and he would have a cure for her cancer. She and I shared a Durian fruit,
sitting on the curb. She had slept well last night with the medicine and she
was more like her old self today.
As she stood to leave, Wenxian said, "You should take your money and go home.
Go find that lover whose name you utter in your sleep. Go back to America,
Alex. This is not where you belong."
"I belong with you," I said, "I'll stay with you. I'll never leave you."
Her kiss was cool and dry, a blessing on me. Wenxian's fingers stroked along
my
cheekbones and she said, "I think there might be some good Hong Kong blood in
your family tree. You're a good boy, Alex, a very good boy."
She was the only one besides Skinner who could call me 'boy' without making
me
feel dirty. I watched her leave and then turned back to her sales.
I expected to eat dinner with Wenxian before I went to Jack's party. I
stopped
to use the facility and then ran up the steps to our little apartment. I
opened
the door and there were candles flickering all over. Wenxian was in her
bridal
robes. She lay on her pallet, her face already gone to wax.
"Wenxian?" I said, but I knew she was gone. I knelt, feeling for the pulse.
My
hands knew how to tell the living from the dead, mostly to change the former
to
the latter when needed. She was cold. A mirror held to her mouth betrayed no
fog of breath.
I had known she was dying, but I thought I could stave it off. I
thought perhaps she had killed herself with the drugs I had
purchased to ease her pain, but most of the morphine was still
in the case. She had been ready and she gone to death
fearlessly. I hated the peaceful expression on her face. I knew
that would never be for me.
I cried then. I cried all the tears I could have shed forÝ
myself. Her husband and daughter's picture were in her hands. I
left them where they were. Her orchid I smashed on the ground
and ground beneath my heel. How dare it outlive her?
I washed before I called the neighbors to attend her. I would
not bury her. I could not bury her. My tears had dried. I went
to the market and went with Wong's cousin. I don't know how many
men I had sex with that night. Too many, not enough to fill the
emptiness inside me.
I had enough money in my pocket to call Geraldine Kallenchuk and to sleep the
rest of the night at a hotel. Her voice sounded scornful as she answered me.
"Yeah, I can move it. You better not be bullshitting me, Alex. You better
have
the item."
"I have it," I said. "Send me some money or I'll find someone else to sell
it."
"I'm surprised you held out this long," Geraldine said smugly. "How you been
living, Alex?"
She knew, the bitch.
I said, "I have my resources. I've been staying with a friend."
"You don't have friends, Alex," Geraldine said. "You know better than that."
Nice to know she thought so.
"Wire me the money; send it to Alex William. I'll have the ID," I said.
Jack had ordered it for me with the bulk of the party money. He promised me
more work and I took it. High on the remainder of Wenxian's medicine, the
drugs
burning warmly down the tracks on my arm; I was a perfect party boy. I
laughed,
I danced, I was fucked, feeling nothing, like I wasn't there, wasn't
anywhere.
When I went outside, I looked up into the rain, laughing again. Anything was
better than dealing with the pain.
I didn't come out of it for a few days, but I sobered up to meet with Jerry
Kallenchuk. You don't want to show any weakness in front of her. She would
home
in on it like a wolf sniffing out the sick doe from the herd.
When I walked into the airport and Mulder caught me, I would have laughed
again
if Mulder's fists hadn't hurt so much. It was perfect. His fists thudded into
me like a runaway train running over me. His hands were bruised from hitting
me. I bled on his skin. I wanted to rub it into him, make him carry that much
of me with him wherever he went.
I know he washed it away, but I guess maybe my magic worked. We were never
free
of each other. Something always brought me back.
Epilogue:
I thought it was all forgotten. There was nothing I wanted to remember of
Hong
Kong except Wenxian. I carried her in my heart. Today when I went into the
little Asian import grocery, all I wanted was some lemon grass to make lemon
chicken. I passed a deep basket and it hit me. I took a deep breath and
followed my nose.
There it was, spiked, ugly, a green lump of a fruit. I touched it as I wished
I
could touch Wenxian's cheek once more.
"Alex? Alex? Are you all right?" the masculine voice asked.
It didn't fully register at once. My hands rested on the Durian fruit, still
lost in memory.
"What the hell is that?" Walter asked.
As I returned to the present, my current surroundings slowly replaced the
outdoor market of my reverie. The closely packed stalls and carts became the
clean sterile setting of the modern Asian market near our home. However, the
Durian fruit remained quite solid beneath my hand. There was only one left. I
hefted it, my old expertise coming back. It was ripe and full. My mouth
watered.
"Jesus Christ, that reeks!" Walter said, "Did it go bad?"
Mulder loped over with an assortment of tea filling his hands. He stopped at
the sight of the spiked ball in my hand. "They're back!" he deadpanned.
"Damn,
not only did they invade, but they have the worst BO I ever smelled. What the
hell is that, Alex?"
"It's a Durian fruit," I explained.
"What's wrong with it?" Mulder asked, wrinkling his nose.
"Nothing!" I snapped. "It's good."
Putting it in the cart, I glared at both of my lovers. "I'm buying it."
"Oh, God," Mulder drawled, rolling his eyes at Walter. "If it's this bad
before
it's opened, what's it going to be like cut?" He reached into the cart and
put
it back.
"Fuck you, I'm buying it," I said, snatching it out of the basket. I cradled
the fruit in my arm and stalked away. Over my shoulder, I said, "I'll walk
home
with it if I have to."
Mulder's stunned expression was my first clue that I had over reacted.
Walter said, "Alex, Mulder was only joking. Settle down."
"Yeah," Mulder added, "if that god awful thing makes you one whit happier, I
want you to have it. Is there another? I'll buy you two."
I blinked and I felt Wenxian settle where she belonged, in my heart. The
memory
didn't hurt anymore. She loved me, one of the few people in my life to love
me
not for my looks and not like my mother because she was supposed to love me.
"I want to buy an orchid," I said. "Will you take me to buy one?"
"Of course, we will," said Walter. His hand cupped my cheek and he stroked me
with his thumb.
Yeah, well, they didn't just love me when I was beautiful either.
Mulder's hand gripped mine and he kissed my knuckles.
"Someday, I have to tell you about a woman I met in Hong Kong," I said.
Mulder said, "Was she beautiful?"
I smiled and said, "The most beautiful woman in the world."
Walter and Mulder exchanged glances. I laughed and I said, "But she was
nearly
eighty years old."
"Sounds like quite a story," Walter said.
And we drove away with my Durian fruit to buy a perfect orchid.
Of Bitter Sweet Memory
by Ursula
The money ran out days ago. I couldn't even remember how much time had passed
since I could afford a bowl of soup at one of the roadside stands. My clothes
smelled of old sweat. My hair was shiny with oil. My chin itched with
three-day-old beard.
