Getting to Know You
by Yisol Jo
We’re in Jeddah. Our family. It’s a port city and we do a private tour of the old town. We drink pomegranate juice. They let you taste it first in a tiny disposable cup. We gasp in surprise. It’s so good! But the street vendor takes only cash and we have no cash except US dollars. The two men operating the stand have a brief discussion and in the end decide to sell us the juice.
How many? I look around, everyone wants it – Mom and Dad and my two younger sisters and my brother-in-law, my baby sister’s husband. It’s Ramadan and the city has woken up after the sunset and as the night deepens it becomes even more alive with people bustling. A boy darts out of nowhere and passes me by chasing a younger boy. Probably his brother. They look alike and share the same snorting laugh that rings loud and clear under a perfectly round moon. It’s almost midnight but the old town is full of children running about – their mothers sitting under a fragrant acacia tree, side-glancing while leaning closer on the table to talk to each other.
Wait, Mom doesn’t want the juice. I turn around. You sure? Mom nods fast and furious. She’s sure. But as soon as everyone has theirs in hands Mom approaches the middle child. And without asking, takes a sip with a fat straw which she pulls out from the cup afterwards – God knows why – and the red liquid drips to the ground from the wide hole, barely missing the middle child’s white sneakers. Are you serious? Small things like that annoy us, the three daughters, especially the middle one, she’s annoyed as hell. She’s the one who fretted the most over the cash only policy and when the deal went through she almost gave me a high five. But Mom of course chooses her as her juice drinking partner. And now this shoulder shrugging so-what attitude ingrained in her. She has no idea about me. No idea! The middle one later fumed when we all got back to the hotel.
We walk along the old streets following the guide. She’s wearing an olive-green hijab with a long gray skirt. She’s short and round and brimming with excitement to share the city with us – the tourists from Korea. Doesn’t matter we all flew from New York and communicating in English. We are obliged to represent the people and the culture she’s genuinely curious about. We behave the best we can and pretend we’re as authentic as you can get. And every time she comments about K-pop or K-drama, we respond with eager gratitude to make up for the things we have no idea about. She talks about her own job – not just a guide but also an interpreter – recently for the film festivals happening here. She throws big Hollywood names and shows us pics of herself next to those stars flashing their immaculate smile with a friendly gaze toward the camera.
You know, some people think we work just for them twenty-four-seven, she says, shaking her head. Obviously she wants us to know which one’s the villain. I take a stab. She says, no, no, she’s actually real. I mean she’s a good person, know what I mean? And she tells us how that particular star I wrongly pointed my finger at carried her own food tray – not only that – but asked her children to clean up their food trays after eating. Which is a big deal, believe it or not. My parents get bored as we stop interpreting for them. We’re engaged in a chit-chat out of politeness. But they don’t seem to see that. They think we’re enjoying ourselves, not minding them. The guide picks up the vibe and directs our attention to a merchant’s house from ancient time – a two story wooden house standing precariously on an uphill between two palm trees shooting up toward the night sky. But Mom wanders off to a spice shop tucked in a corner of a narrow alley. I go after her. When I get there she’s nowhere in sight.
Dad was in Saudi Arabia forty-two years ago. He was a young man but with two kids and one on the way. I saw pictures of him. Him wearing brown rectangular sunglasses under a blinding sun washing everything white – even the blue water behind him. I didn’t know there was a sea. I thought he was in a desert. Did I ask Mom that? Most likely not. One of many questions raised by me, answered by me. Like a prayer. Like conversation with God.
Dad came back because he got sick. This I did hear from my great-grandmother. He had terrible insomnia and indigestion. He was losing weight rapidly. There was no medical diagnosis – if there was, I was in the dark about that. And he was jobless again.
Mom was far from being okay with the situation. She had to ask a favor – to her stepmother out of all people – to get him this job in Saudi Arabia. The very stepmother who wanted to marry her off to a widower fifteen years older. But her scheme was short-lived. It ended once and for all as soon as Mom found out. The heated argument led Mom to grab her stepmother by the throat. And she shoved her against a curio cabinet. The glass was sturdy enough to stand the shock without breaking. The stepmother collapsed to the floor and started screaming, calling Mom all the filthy things she could think of. Mom opened the curio and took out the dishes her stepmother collected from Europe, and one by one, smashed them across the living room wall. And she packed her bag and came down south to live with her maternal grandmother. Mother of her dead mother. And in that port city by the sea, she met Dad.
I remember the arguments. Him lamenting. Do you even know what kind of shit job I was doing there? And I’d imagine him sweating a bucket in a dusty construction site wearing a glimmering helmet as the cranes lifted massive stones in the arid background. The noise? The heat? The dust? The long hours? Are they the culprit? The shit involved in his job?
I was wrong. I found out that his work involved checking the inventory of food supplies for the Korean workers stationed in Saudi to construct buildings. But later, after many years, he started revising this part of his history – with the rest of the things that happened in his life. He had the tendency to lie his way without any trace of malice or deceit, smiling a goofy smile, acting harmless and innocent, funny even, while believing that the tale he just told was indeed true. It grated my nerves, him constantly editing stories according to the makeshift reality in his head, full of loopholes, a lousy movie without any logic of consequences.
I loved it here, Dad tells my brother-in-law while we’re having breakfast at the hotel. Here – meaning Saudi, not Jeddah. So where was he, which city? He tells my brother-in-law but I miss it. I’m not interested. I don’t pay attention to what he says. I let it slide. Like his presence. I let him slide. As if watching an inanimate object without meaning, my eyes glaze over him. But unlike the facts involved in his personal life, he’s pretty accurate with general, miscellaneous things. Who composed what, the name of a fish nobody knows about. How to make wilting vegetables come alive again. Ice water. It does wonders. He’s talking about lettuce as he’s crunching away. Good lettuce. Fresh. He nods in satisfaction. But of course, the middle one won’t let anything slide. She’s watchful. I can tell she’s observing – taking notes in her head, later to be used as evidence in her argument to prove her point. She’s holding the information with her eyes, moving from me (did you hear that?) to the youngest (is this a joke?) and back to Dad. But she will not embarrass him in front of the newcomer. Our sweet brother-in-law who writes birthday cards to Mom and Dad. He’s still in the process of getting to know us and she doesn’t want to scare him. She believes in courtesy to pretend. A necessary social code to protect human vulnerability. But most of all she’s biting her tongue because she’s trying to save Dad’s face. I’m glad. I pour more coffee for her. I hate it when she gets angry. Even if it’s not towards me. Growing up, the three of us used to fight fiercely. Especially me and the middle one. Hair grabbing, punching, kicking, biting, spitting. We’ve done it all. My ex-boyfriend from long ago once said – pointing to a mural of three kittens huddled together – Look, the three sisters! I remember the shock from the association. Us? Kittens? I met him recently. On my last day of the project after the team party was over, I met up with him.
How long are you in Seoul, he asked. I told him I was leaving the next day. But a night flight. I asked him if he misses New York and he gave me an ambivalent smile. He lost a lot of hair which was surprising but then again not really considering his age. He was making good money and it showed in his mannerism. Confident and curt. But as time passed he relaxed a bit and the man I used to know came out from moment to moment. But that wasn’t enough to ignite anything close to passion or longing. But it felt good to be in the company I felt safe with. With him I let my guard down. I talked about the Jeddah trip that was to happen soon. My two kids. Do you know how forgiving they are? Their forgiveness moved me. And I wanted to share that epiphany with him; how loving and forgiving children are – more than you can imagine. Even now in their teens they’re so big hearted. He didn’t get the sarcastic wit I meant to convey. He had no kids to talk about. He mentioned his wife, away at the moment to study art restoration – where I asked, but maybe he didn’t hear me. All of a sudden he talked about his dog, a beagle that needed a long walk every night. Don’t get me wrong, I have a dog walker but as soon as I get home I know he wants to go for a walk. I just know. Off we go! I kept waiting for him to mention his wife again, thinking it’d be a good opening to talk about my marriage. Maybe bond over relatable problems. Yeah, I know what you mean. Understanding. Sympathy. But he wasn’t interested in that sort of comradeship. My husband is not into wine, I said, sipping the merlot he had recommended – It’s Australian wine, it means left-handed boxer. He gave a quick nod and swirled his wine glass. So, how are your sisters?
In Jeddah I share a room with the middle one. The two of us drink fake beer delivered to our room arranged by our brother-in-law. He knows we enjoy drinking, all three sisters, unafraid to get drunk with each other, united in the spirit of let’s focus on the positive. But this collective eagerness falls apart once we unravel the stories of hurt. Remember that time?
But no such drama would unfold this time. The beer that looks a lot like Heineken is made of malt. We play Leonard Cohen. His enigmatic song fills the room making everything a little heavier as if pressed by this velvety mood that’s descending on us like a blanket of comfort. Both of us whisper. We talk and talk. It’s been so long since we did this. Talk till dawn. I tell her about the rendezvous in Seoul. No way! He said he really misses you. Really? Yeah, both of you. Remember the trip with him? That was like ages ago!
It was five of us, including the little bulldog Mom brought one day. In a car cruising. The trip was only for a few days and we didn’t do anything special or memorable. The places we went to had no touristy landmarks. Just little towns, sometimes with souvenir shops where we bought trinkets to remember by – key chains, T-shirts, locally crafted things. I felt like a parent. A real adult. And with him next to me – a grown man driving his own car – the job seemed easier. More amusing. Fun. From the front seat I’d turn around and ask my sisters who were either quietly asleep or bickering relentlessly. You okay back there?
Reversal of roles. The daughter is playing the parent. That’s not good according to my therapist. Yeah, I know. I’m not judging you. The therapist wore an assuring smile on her thin lips. I wasn’t convinced. But nevertheless, I’m not worried about her judgment. It’s my eldest daughter I’m afraid of. Her judgment of me. Mom’s busy with work. What makes her happy, I wonder. When I read that my heart dropped. Do I not look happy to her? I started panicking. All those times when I abandoned myself to a good cry in the middle of the night behind the locked door flashed before my eyes. But I wanted her to hear me. And I felt like she saw through all that. I don’t have those crying fits anymore. I wish I did because it was a release after all but now, I can’t even do that. Incapable. Something is stuck.
I take a big swig of the fake beer. She keeps a journal, just like you, I tell my middle sister. She’s delighted. Really? It’s not really a journal-journal but she takes notes. Short sentences, two or three most of the time. Not that I was trying to pry, I’d never do that, not after what I had to go through with Mom who didn’t even let me close the door – of my own room, mind you. Thank goodness she wasn’t around much. She rolls her eyes. And we laugh. Still, there are moments…. Purify. Let go. You can’t shake it off easily. We were just kids. Free-range chickens. We’d joke among ourselves. How did you raise your kids so well? Out of politeness, people from Mom’s church would flatter Mom when they see us once in a blue moon visiting home on holidays – all dressed up properly, looking normal and functional, clustered in triple. And apparently Dad also journals, like all the time. I heard that from my eldest. They’re close. My sister cringes and says, oh.
I’m no longer in therapy but I’m constantly thinking about it. And with all things that need to be done, it sits there stubbornly as a to-do-list in my head instead of being translated into action. It’s just that I can’t find the time. That’s what I told my sisters on the phone a month ago when they asked me how my sessions were going.
By the way, Dad really wants to go to Saudi, I said, trying to dodge before I was pinned down by further interrogation. I thought he hated it there. Apparently, he changed his mind about that years ago. You don’t remember? Now all he talks about is how he had the best lamb there and the people…. What people? I don’t know – people! His friends? What friends? Look, I don’t want anything to do with him. It’s fair that way. Oh, you can’t drink in Saudi! Don’t worry about me. I was gonna detox anyway. But it’s his birthday. When? Next month! What? Not that he needs us. Of course he needs us! Are you kidding me? There’s no way in hell I can survive a trip with Mom and Dad without alcohol! What will people say if we do nothing for him? Ask me if I care. He just wants to go on this trip. That’s exactly why he needs us! But he’s not demanding it. Of course not – you know how he is. He’d never demand anything from us. How could he? That too but. He’s sensible that way. Sensible? Did you just say sensible? I think you can drink in Jordan. It’s right next to it. I mean, if you get really desperate and all. Who cares if it’s his birthday. How far is Dubai? Yeah, but it’s his seventieth birthday and it’s supposed to be a big deal. Exactly! That’s what I’m saying! And I feel like I have to do something! Why the fuck are you yelling?!
We were talking all at once and our voices were escalating to top each other off. Didn’t matter what was being said. Nobody was listening anyway.
Dad likes to eat. But he has good eating habits. His eating schedule is set, and he prefers fresh vegetables and fish over anything else, so he maintains a healthy weight. As much as eating he enjoys talking about eating. What he had for lunch – how it was prepared and how that made all the difference. What he had back in the days when he was five or six. His grandmother used to call him into the kitchen, to let him taste the dishes ready to be served to his grandfather, who was bedridden after his one and only son went missing in the Korean war. Here taste this. Dad would mimic his grandmother’s voice – high and shrill but with gentleness. Homemade tofu that was still warm, crispy anchovies lightly fried in sesame oil. She made miracles out of nothing. Really nobody could do something so simple so good. Dad would declare.
Maybe that’s why I don’t cook – I tell my middle sister who’s shaking her head in disbelief while chewing a fat date stuffed with pistachio cream. But I cook. She hands me the date. You have to try this. But you’re triggered by something else. True. I think that’s his way of communicating. Communicating what? I don’t know – love, bond between family? Maybe he thinks food is an important part of it. I mean it is. But he should be able to talk about other stuff too. Like what? Like you know. Why he’s the way he is?
Not that we didn’t try. We did confront him. But his reaction made us even more mad. You don’t understand me. He accused us. There are so many things I’m not telling you about. But when we urged him to go on – tell whatever that is you kept from us for whatever reason, now that we’re all grown up, he never did tell us anything substantial. Just a lot of you don’t know, you have no idea, mixed with I did my best, I really did everything to stay together as a family. What effort, we questioned. Proof, facts, alibi – anything we could understand by – we demanded, but nothing we could make sense of came out and after that we let it go. Acted as if we got it even though it was far from that. It was purely coming from a place of acceptance. He is our father after all. What else? Because, really, do we have a choice?
These were the things I wanted to talk about, but instead, on my last night in Seoul, we – me and my boyfriend from far-off time – talked about food as the bottle of wine he ordered gradually disappeared like sand slipping through an hourglass timer. Wine was something he got into after he visited a vineyard in Bourgogne. Ever since? I asked. Ever since. He nodded bashfully. And he talked about the top note of this one particular wine and how it should be paired with such-such dishes and his recent trip to Paris and the food he had tried. I talked about our family trip to Montreal and the bagels we had. Really the best in the world, I said, as if I’d know. But for sure it was good enough to make it to our conversation topics.
Why did you end things with him? You two were together for a long time. Was it what, ten years? Twelve. I met him too young. Oh, for sure. My sister agrees.
But that’s not precise enough. Not wholly honest. The answer changed every time, depending on where I was, but nevertheless, a variation of the same. I didn’t know any better. But when we met this time, I had a different answer ready for him. But our talk never took that turn. Revisiting the past when the two of us were together. Instead, he suggested a vague future, flaming embers of possibility at the very end of our night that was waning away.
Do you think we could – and he paused. Letting the silence linger. It gave me enough time to question what I really wanted. So when my sister asks me, Do you regret leaving him, I let out a long sigh, revisiting that moment of hesitation oscillating between hope and despair. And because my tipping scale is programmed to lean towards despair with all things, small and big, whatever we could be in the future – friends, lovers, strangers – would eventually lead to one ending. Mistake.
Do you regret leaving him? My sister asks once again, impatient with my silence. She’s single, childless. She has boyfriends, lovers, but they’re not meant to stay in her life. Transient. Mom once said she’s like a tenant who’s only interested in short term rentals. Not even a year or two. Three months, six months, once in a while maybe twelve. What, she’s gonna rent all her life? She needs to buy a house. Maybe she can’t afford it. Mom gave me a look. What’s that supposed to mean? I’m just saying. Maybe you should try to get to know her better, I said, without looking at her. She seemed taken aback but she brushed it off. What’s the use of me knowing her better, she should know herself better. And I think settling down is good for her. She wants a family, I know that. But Mom is wrong about her most of the time. She can be intuitive for sure. Know when she’s sick or when something bad happens to her. She’d call her to say – I had a dream about you. But other than that, she was baffled by the middle child. The quiet one – stubborn and unwilling to cooperate – who had clung to her day and night wailing for attention. She was different from us in that regard. My baby sister and I did fine on our own, but the middle one was obsessive. First it was Mom and later when Dad returned from Saudi, she latched onto him and wouldn’t let him get out of her sight. Now she’s warm and efficient but evasive and inconsistent and she can’t seem to remain in one place for more than a few years.
Watch out – a criminal on the run, she’d joke and Mom would frown, not liking one bit of what was coming out of her mouth. Now the joke was getting old and Mom being Mom she moved on. She lets all the repertoire of the family fly over her head. Like the time when I got her an alpaca scarf from Lima and told her not to recycle the gift, she just shot me a glance, one eyebrow raised, both a question and a command – instead of balking her usual defense – Oh, come on, it happened once, maybe twice, and you’re still making a fuss about it?
Why Lima? People had asked when I was taking off on my own for a week. Both kids were in a summer camp and my husband was on a business trip and I finally had some time off from work. Oh, to brush up my Spanish and they have the best food you know. But I skipped the Spanish classes and picked up pre-made food from the supermarket along with a bottle of pisco.
Most of my day was spent at the nearby beach listening to the waves swishing back and forth. It was a pebble beach and every time a wave dragged itself back to the water it wondrously drowned the traffic noise on the road by the sea – the honking and the grunting of old cars, the countless wheels spinning on the potholed surface in need of repair. All this fragmented noise culminated into a dramatic symphony but was silenced from time to time by the crashing waves. It was muggy. The clouds were thick and covered the entire sky making it appear whitish gray rather than blue. But don’t get fooled – I read in one of those travel blogs written by an American expat married to a Peruvian woman – The sun is strong and you will turn red as a lobster in no time.
I was watching the sunset when a man approached me. He was wearing dark sunglasses so I couldn’t see his eyes. He was my height and had a nice clean bob – his slick hair to his chin in one length. He introduced himself – an Italian chef in a fusion restaurant. Italian, Peruvian, with a touch of Indian. I couldn’t imagine what that’d be like. His English was decent considering he picked it up in Italy where he studied cooking for three years.
He asked me if I was going to Machu Picchu. No. No? Then Iquitos? No. No? Everybody goes to either one. Just Lima, I said. He was quiet for a moment and asked me if I’ve tried ayahuasca. No. No? He didn’t understand why I was in Peru.
Is it really life altering? This mystic experience of awakening? Knowing the truth behind the veil? He thought about the question, his mouth slanting down with the weight of his thoughts. And he beamed with a sudden knowing. It’s week. Weak? It lasts one week maybe and you’re back to normal. The old you. We are creatures of habits. Knowing is not enough.
He offered to make ayahuasca for me. It’s just tea after all, he said when I asked him if he was a shaman. I told him that I was interested in more permanent things, not a week thing. Something stronger. Then there’s only one way. What’s that? Death. And he laughed. Permanent. Strong. Letting go of the old. But the turn of the conversation made me uneasy. Oh, look at the time, I must run, my husband is waiting for me.
As I returned to the apartment where no one was waiting for me, I kept an image of my husband sitting in a hotel lobby anticipating my return. But when I passed by a limestone building in a half-ruin while the music from a street – a guitar strumming lugubriously – enveloped the warm evening breeze, he slowly metamorphosed into my longtime boyfriend from a distant past. And it hit me. What we had in common. Me and him. I saw it. Felt it. Sniffed it as if it was a syrupy smell clinging in the air. All along, I had recognized his tenderness. And in the end couldn’t help but run away. Because it’s so easy to let pain define and enslave you when you have that enormous hole of tenderness in your heart. Doesn’t matter how deeply buried or cleverly disguised, eventually you let yourself fall into that quicksand – flailing, wallowing, and taking comfort in sorrow. And just because you’re soft and vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re incapable of hurting others. Like Dad. We are so alike.
It’s funny how things come to you unexpectedly. As if waking up from a dream. All of a sudden, you just know. I tell my sister, remembering that moment of discovery in Lima – before the meeting in Seoul, before this talk in Jeddah. The ephemeral layers of knowing coming together. But she says teasingly – Come on, don’t be Dad. You didn’t give me an answer yet. She wants to get to the bottom line. So tell me, any regrets?
But words are not adequate. Not precise enough. Not wholly honest.
Dad once told me that the word happiness vanished from his life when he was five years old – on the day he said good-bye to his father. I think I sighed. I think that was my reflex. A minuscule gesture of unburdening myself. What did I say? I said something along the lines of how so many tragedies were brought on by wars – proven idiocy of the human race really – and more of a reason why we have to choose peace, all the time, every time, blah, blah, blah. Just blabbing without really being there. Relaying on words coming out of my mouth like a blind person relying on a cane. I do that. As if piloting some clunky robot – shielded by steel and glass between me and this apocalyptic world – I try to press the right buttons to move forward and navigate my way. But that night when the eyes were closed and the consciousness was drifting away, with nothing to hide behind, I felt a physical pain in my chest as if someone punched me right there in my heart and I had to curl myself tight like an overcooked shrimp.
Oh, poor, poor child. My tears were falling hard but it was too late. It wasn’t just happiness that vanished. The passionate flame of disappointment consuming Dad – minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day – had already turned him into ashes drifting with the wind. And I felt my love for him pouring out, nothing holding me back, towards his tender soul. To the five-year-old boy standing there on the platform waving at the moving train.
His own dad looked back through the window and nodded and waved with so much affection that it made him run after the train that kept putting on speed, moving faster, faster, forward, to the north. It was a typical business trip. And even though part of him knew – the mundane routines of everyday life which included sporadic separations – somehow losing the sight of his father felt different this time around, an isolated incident pricking like a thorn, never mind the patterns of things, what’s planned and predicted. Watching his father fade into the distance, what he felt was sheer terror of losing him, forever, infinitely, like the train track stretched out before him running parallel. His mother got a hold of his hand, wondering why he was acting up, not his docile self at all.
Listen, he’ll be back in no time. You know that.
But he kept wriggling his hand from her grip to run after the train. She yelled out his name over and over tugging his arm, but nothing could be heard, not even the trail of the blaring horn shaking the calm of early summer afternoon.
It’s a week thing. The chef from Lima was right about that. That kind of piercing glimpse into the interior. Our everyday dynamic will inevitably cover the brilliant light shimmering on the surface of the subconsciousness as if closing a lid to a container. And it will be pushed aside and be forgotten. But the lingering recognition will continue to ripple quietly as the fleeting insights pile up like a flurry of snow on a winter night. I hold my breath and let it out as if I’m holding a cigarette between my fingers. Did you start again? My sister eyes me sharp. No, if I did, I’d be out smoking right now. It’s true. But I’m definitely thinking about starting again. Soon. Quitting is a week thing. Regardless of how strong your resolve is. Unless.
You know – I pour the last few drops of the fake beer into the half-filled glass – I was thinking. What? My sister is curious. She leans forward. Her eyes are twinkling. I’m filled with delight to witness the light shining in her eyes. She reminds me of Mom at such moments. This is what Dad was drawn to. What attracted him to Mom. Life. Flickering life. And it saddens me to think what could have been. For all of us. My sister moves closer.
What, what is it? Her eyes are getting cloudy with worry. I must be making that face again. I pull my knees to my chest. I think they were clueless, that’s all. You mean Mom and Dad? I nod. She laughs. Yeah, no shit. And no wonder we are too. She raises her glass forgetting that it’s empty. But too late – the glass is already up in the air, waiting. I empty my glass and raise it to meet hers and notice the crack of light slithering between the closed curtains. It’s morning. The city is ready to fall into a slumbering peace.
How many? I look around, everyone wants it – Mom and Dad and my two younger sisters and my brother-in-law, my baby sister’s husband. It’s Ramadan and the city has woken up after the sunset and as the night deepens it becomes even more alive with people bustling. A boy darts out of nowhere and passes me by chasing a younger boy. Probably his brother. They look alike and share the same snorting laugh that rings loud and clear under a perfectly round moon. It’s almost midnight but the old town is full of children running about – their mothers sitting under a fragrant acacia tree, side-glancing while leaning closer on the table to talk to each other.
Wait, Mom doesn’t want the juice. I turn around. You sure? Mom nods fast and furious. She’s sure. But as soon as everyone has theirs in hands Mom approaches the middle child. And without asking, takes a sip with a fat straw which she pulls out from the cup afterwards – God knows why – and the red liquid drips to the ground from the wide hole, barely missing the middle child’s white sneakers. Are you serious? Small things like that annoy us, the three daughters, especially the middle one, she’s annoyed as hell. She’s the one who fretted the most over the cash only policy and when the deal went through she almost gave me a high five. But Mom of course chooses her as her juice drinking partner. And now this shoulder shrugging so-what attitude ingrained in her. She has no idea about me. No idea! The middle one later fumed when we all got back to the hotel.
We walk along the old streets following the guide. She’s wearing an olive-green hijab with a long gray skirt. She’s short and round and brimming with excitement to share the city with us – the tourists from Korea. Doesn’t matter we all flew from New York and communicating in English. We are obliged to represent the people and the culture she’s genuinely curious about. We behave the best we can and pretend we’re as authentic as you can get. And every time she comments about K-pop or K-drama, we respond with eager gratitude to make up for the things we have no idea about. She talks about her own job – not just a guide but also an interpreter – recently for the film festivals happening here. She throws big Hollywood names and shows us pics of herself next to those stars flashing their immaculate smile with a friendly gaze toward the camera.
You know, some people think we work just for them twenty-four-seven, she says, shaking her head. Obviously she wants us to know which one’s the villain. I take a stab. She says, no, no, she’s actually real. I mean she’s a good person, know what I mean? And she tells us how that particular star I wrongly pointed my finger at carried her own food tray – not only that – but asked her children to clean up their food trays after eating. Which is a big deal, believe it or not. My parents get bored as we stop interpreting for them. We’re engaged in a chit-chat out of politeness. But they don’t seem to see that. They think we’re enjoying ourselves, not minding them. The guide picks up the vibe and directs our attention to a merchant’s house from ancient time – a two story wooden house standing precariously on an uphill between two palm trees shooting up toward the night sky. But Mom wanders off to a spice shop tucked in a corner of a narrow alley. I go after her. When I get there she’s nowhere in sight.
Dad was in Saudi Arabia forty-two years ago. He was a young man but with two kids and one on the way. I saw pictures of him. Him wearing brown rectangular sunglasses under a blinding sun washing everything white – even the blue water behind him. I didn’t know there was a sea. I thought he was in a desert. Did I ask Mom that? Most likely not. One of many questions raised by me, answered by me. Like a prayer. Like conversation with God.
Dad came back because he got sick. This I did hear from my great-grandmother. He had terrible insomnia and indigestion. He was losing weight rapidly. There was no medical diagnosis – if there was, I was in the dark about that. And he was jobless again.
Mom was far from being okay with the situation. She had to ask a favor – to her stepmother out of all people – to get him this job in Saudi Arabia. The very stepmother who wanted to marry her off to a widower fifteen years older. But her scheme was short-lived. It ended once and for all as soon as Mom found out. The heated argument led Mom to grab her stepmother by the throat. And she shoved her against a curio cabinet. The glass was sturdy enough to stand the shock without breaking. The stepmother collapsed to the floor and started screaming, calling Mom all the filthy things she could think of. Mom opened the curio and took out the dishes her stepmother collected from Europe, and one by one, smashed them across the living room wall. And she packed her bag and came down south to live with her maternal grandmother. Mother of her dead mother. And in that port city by the sea, she met Dad.
I remember the arguments. Him lamenting. Do you even know what kind of shit job I was doing there? And I’d imagine him sweating a bucket in a dusty construction site wearing a glimmering helmet as the cranes lifted massive stones in the arid background. The noise? The heat? The dust? The long hours? Are they the culprit? The shit involved in his job?
I was wrong. I found out that his work involved checking the inventory of food supplies for the Korean workers stationed in Saudi to construct buildings. But later, after many years, he started revising this part of his history – with the rest of the things that happened in his life. He had the tendency to lie his way without any trace of malice or deceit, smiling a goofy smile, acting harmless and innocent, funny even, while believing that the tale he just told was indeed true. It grated my nerves, him constantly editing stories according to the makeshift reality in his head, full of loopholes, a lousy movie without any logic of consequences.
I loved it here, Dad tells my brother-in-law while we’re having breakfast at the hotel. Here – meaning Saudi, not Jeddah. So where was he, which city? He tells my brother-in-law but I miss it. I’m not interested. I don’t pay attention to what he says. I let it slide. Like his presence. I let him slide. As if watching an inanimate object without meaning, my eyes glaze over him. But unlike the facts involved in his personal life, he’s pretty accurate with general, miscellaneous things. Who composed what, the name of a fish nobody knows about. How to make wilting vegetables come alive again. Ice water. It does wonders. He’s talking about lettuce as he’s crunching away. Good lettuce. Fresh. He nods in satisfaction. But of course, the middle one won’t let anything slide. She’s watchful. I can tell she’s observing – taking notes in her head, later to be used as evidence in her argument to prove her point. She’s holding the information with her eyes, moving from me (did you hear that?) to the youngest (is this a joke?) and back to Dad. But she will not embarrass him in front of the newcomer. Our sweet brother-in-law who writes birthday cards to Mom and Dad. He’s still in the process of getting to know us and she doesn’t want to scare him. She believes in courtesy to pretend. A necessary social code to protect human vulnerability. But most of all she’s biting her tongue because she’s trying to save Dad’s face. I’m glad. I pour more coffee for her. I hate it when she gets angry. Even if it’s not towards me. Growing up, the three of us used to fight fiercely. Especially me and the middle one. Hair grabbing, punching, kicking, biting, spitting. We’ve done it all. My ex-boyfriend from long ago once said – pointing to a mural of three kittens huddled together – Look, the three sisters! I remember the shock from the association. Us? Kittens? I met him recently. On my last day of the project after the team party was over, I met up with him.
How long are you in Seoul, he asked. I told him I was leaving the next day. But a night flight. I asked him if he misses New York and he gave me an ambivalent smile. He lost a lot of hair which was surprising but then again not really considering his age. He was making good money and it showed in his mannerism. Confident and curt. But as time passed he relaxed a bit and the man I used to know came out from moment to moment. But that wasn’t enough to ignite anything close to passion or longing. But it felt good to be in the company I felt safe with. With him I let my guard down. I talked about the Jeddah trip that was to happen soon. My two kids. Do you know how forgiving they are? Their forgiveness moved me. And I wanted to share that epiphany with him; how loving and forgiving children are – more than you can imagine. Even now in their teens they’re so big hearted. He didn’t get the sarcastic wit I meant to convey. He had no kids to talk about. He mentioned his wife, away at the moment to study art restoration – where I asked, but maybe he didn’t hear me. All of a sudden he talked about his dog, a beagle that needed a long walk every night. Don’t get me wrong, I have a dog walker but as soon as I get home I know he wants to go for a walk. I just know. Off we go! I kept waiting for him to mention his wife again, thinking it’d be a good opening to talk about my marriage. Maybe bond over relatable problems. Yeah, I know what you mean. Understanding. Sympathy. But he wasn’t interested in that sort of comradeship. My husband is not into wine, I said, sipping the merlot he had recommended – It’s Australian wine, it means left-handed boxer. He gave a quick nod and swirled his wine glass. So, how are your sisters?
In Jeddah I share a room with the middle one. The two of us drink fake beer delivered to our room arranged by our brother-in-law. He knows we enjoy drinking, all three sisters, unafraid to get drunk with each other, united in the spirit of let’s focus on the positive. But this collective eagerness falls apart once we unravel the stories of hurt. Remember that time?
But no such drama would unfold this time. The beer that looks a lot like Heineken is made of malt. We play Leonard Cohen. His enigmatic song fills the room making everything a little heavier as if pressed by this velvety mood that’s descending on us like a blanket of comfort. Both of us whisper. We talk and talk. It’s been so long since we did this. Talk till dawn. I tell her about the rendezvous in Seoul. No way! He said he really misses you. Really? Yeah, both of you. Remember the trip with him? That was like ages ago!
It was five of us, including the little bulldog Mom brought one day. In a car cruising. The trip was only for a few days and we didn’t do anything special or memorable. The places we went to had no touristy landmarks. Just little towns, sometimes with souvenir shops where we bought trinkets to remember by – key chains, T-shirts, locally crafted things. I felt like a parent. A real adult. And with him next to me – a grown man driving his own car – the job seemed easier. More amusing. Fun. From the front seat I’d turn around and ask my sisters who were either quietly asleep or bickering relentlessly. You okay back there?
Reversal of roles. The daughter is playing the parent. That’s not good according to my therapist. Yeah, I know. I’m not judging you. The therapist wore an assuring smile on her thin lips. I wasn’t convinced. But nevertheless, I’m not worried about her judgment. It’s my eldest daughter I’m afraid of. Her judgment of me. Mom’s busy with work. What makes her happy, I wonder. When I read that my heart dropped. Do I not look happy to her? I started panicking. All those times when I abandoned myself to a good cry in the middle of the night behind the locked door flashed before my eyes. But I wanted her to hear me. And I felt like she saw through all that. I don’t have those crying fits anymore. I wish I did because it was a release after all but now, I can’t even do that. Incapable. Something is stuck.
I take a big swig of the fake beer. She keeps a journal, just like you, I tell my middle sister. She’s delighted. Really? It’s not really a journal-journal but she takes notes. Short sentences, two or three most of the time. Not that I was trying to pry, I’d never do that, not after what I had to go through with Mom who didn’t even let me close the door – of my own room, mind you. Thank goodness she wasn’t around much. She rolls her eyes. And we laugh. Still, there are moments…. Purify. Let go. You can’t shake it off easily. We were just kids. Free-range chickens. We’d joke among ourselves. How did you raise your kids so well? Out of politeness, people from Mom’s church would flatter Mom when they see us once in a blue moon visiting home on holidays – all dressed up properly, looking normal and functional, clustered in triple. And apparently Dad also journals, like all the time. I heard that from my eldest. They’re close. My sister cringes and says, oh.
I’m no longer in therapy but I’m constantly thinking about it. And with all things that need to be done, it sits there stubbornly as a to-do-list in my head instead of being translated into action. It’s just that I can’t find the time. That’s what I told my sisters on the phone a month ago when they asked me how my sessions were going.
By the way, Dad really wants to go to Saudi, I said, trying to dodge before I was pinned down by further interrogation. I thought he hated it there. Apparently, he changed his mind about that years ago. You don’t remember? Now all he talks about is how he had the best lamb there and the people…. What people? I don’t know – people! His friends? What friends? Look, I don’t want anything to do with him. It’s fair that way. Oh, you can’t drink in Saudi! Don’t worry about me. I was gonna detox anyway. But it’s his birthday. When? Next month! What? Not that he needs us. Of course he needs us! Are you kidding me? There’s no way in hell I can survive a trip with Mom and Dad without alcohol! What will people say if we do nothing for him? Ask me if I care. He just wants to go on this trip. That’s exactly why he needs us! But he’s not demanding it. Of course not – you know how he is. He’d never demand anything from us. How could he? That too but. He’s sensible that way. Sensible? Did you just say sensible? I think you can drink in Jordan. It’s right next to it. I mean, if you get really desperate and all. Who cares if it’s his birthday. How far is Dubai? Yeah, but it’s his seventieth birthday and it’s supposed to be a big deal. Exactly! That’s what I’m saying! And I feel like I have to do something! Why the fuck are you yelling?!
We were talking all at once and our voices were escalating to top each other off. Didn’t matter what was being said. Nobody was listening anyway.
Dad likes to eat. But he has good eating habits. His eating schedule is set, and he prefers fresh vegetables and fish over anything else, so he maintains a healthy weight. As much as eating he enjoys talking about eating. What he had for lunch – how it was prepared and how that made all the difference. What he had back in the days when he was five or six. His grandmother used to call him into the kitchen, to let him taste the dishes ready to be served to his grandfather, who was bedridden after his one and only son went missing in the Korean war. Here taste this. Dad would mimic his grandmother’s voice – high and shrill but with gentleness. Homemade tofu that was still warm, crispy anchovies lightly fried in sesame oil. She made miracles out of nothing. Really nobody could do something so simple so good. Dad would declare.
Maybe that’s why I don’t cook – I tell my middle sister who’s shaking her head in disbelief while chewing a fat date stuffed with pistachio cream. But I cook. She hands me the date. You have to try this. But you’re triggered by something else. True. I think that’s his way of communicating. Communicating what? I don’t know – love, bond between family? Maybe he thinks food is an important part of it. I mean it is. But he should be able to talk about other stuff too. Like what? Like you know. Why he’s the way he is?
Not that we didn’t try. We did confront him. But his reaction made us even more mad. You don’t understand me. He accused us. There are so many things I’m not telling you about. But when we urged him to go on – tell whatever that is you kept from us for whatever reason, now that we’re all grown up, he never did tell us anything substantial. Just a lot of you don’t know, you have no idea, mixed with I did my best, I really did everything to stay together as a family. What effort, we questioned. Proof, facts, alibi – anything we could understand by – we demanded, but nothing we could make sense of came out and after that we let it go. Acted as if we got it even though it was far from that. It was purely coming from a place of acceptance. He is our father after all. What else? Because, really, do we have a choice?
These were the things I wanted to talk about, but instead, on my last night in Seoul, we – me and my boyfriend from far-off time – talked about food as the bottle of wine he ordered gradually disappeared like sand slipping through an hourglass timer. Wine was something he got into after he visited a vineyard in Bourgogne. Ever since? I asked. Ever since. He nodded bashfully. And he talked about the top note of this one particular wine and how it should be paired with such-such dishes and his recent trip to Paris and the food he had tried. I talked about our family trip to Montreal and the bagels we had. Really the best in the world, I said, as if I’d know. But for sure it was good enough to make it to our conversation topics.
Why did you end things with him? You two were together for a long time. Was it what, ten years? Twelve. I met him too young. Oh, for sure. My sister agrees.
But that’s not precise enough. Not wholly honest. The answer changed every time, depending on where I was, but nevertheless, a variation of the same. I didn’t know any better. But when we met this time, I had a different answer ready for him. But our talk never took that turn. Revisiting the past when the two of us were together. Instead, he suggested a vague future, flaming embers of possibility at the very end of our night that was waning away.
Do you think we could – and he paused. Letting the silence linger. It gave me enough time to question what I really wanted. So when my sister asks me, Do you regret leaving him, I let out a long sigh, revisiting that moment of hesitation oscillating between hope and despair. And because my tipping scale is programmed to lean towards despair with all things, small and big, whatever we could be in the future – friends, lovers, strangers – would eventually lead to one ending. Mistake.
Do you regret leaving him? My sister asks once again, impatient with my silence. She’s single, childless. She has boyfriends, lovers, but they’re not meant to stay in her life. Transient. Mom once said she’s like a tenant who’s only interested in short term rentals. Not even a year or two. Three months, six months, once in a while maybe twelve. What, she’s gonna rent all her life? She needs to buy a house. Maybe she can’t afford it. Mom gave me a look. What’s that supposed to mean? I’m just saying. Maybe you should try to get to know her better, I said, without looking at her. She seemed taken aback but she brushed it off. What’s the use of me knowing her better, she should know herself better. And I think settling down is good for her. She wants a family, I know that. But Mom is wrong about her most of the time. She can be intuitive for sure. Know when she’s sick or when something bad happens to her. She’d call her to say – I had a dream about you. But other than that, she was baffled by the middle child. The quiet one – stubborn and unwilling to cooperate – who had clung to her day and night wailing for attention. She was different from us in that regard. My baby sister and I did fine on our own, but the middle one was obsessive. First it was Mom and later when Dad returned from Saudi, she latched onto him and wouldn’t let him get out of her sight. Now she’s warm and efficient but evasive and inconsistent and she can’t seem to remain in one place for more than a few years.
Watch out – a criminal on the run, she’d joke and Mom would frown, not liking one bit of what was coming out of her mouth. Now the joke was getting old and Mom being Mom she moved on. She lets all the repertoire of the family fly over her head. Like the time when I got her an alpaca scarf from Lima and told her not to recycle the gift, she just shot me a glance, one eyebrow raised, both a question and a command – instead of balking her usual defense – Oh, come on, it happened once, maybe twice, and you’re still making a fuss about it?
Why Lima? People had asked when I was taking off on my own for a week. Both kids were in a summer camp and my husband was on a business trip and I finally had some time off from work. Oh, to brush up my Spanish and they have the best food you know. But I skipped the Spanish classes and picked up pre-made food from the supermarket along with a bottle of pisco.
Most of my day was spent at the nearby beach listening to the waves swishing back and forth. It was a pebble beach and every time a wave dragged itself back to the water it wondrously drowned the traffic noise on the road by the sea – the honking and the grunting of old cars, the countless wheels spinning on the potholed surface in need of repair. All this fragmented noise culminated into a dramatic symphony but was silenced from time to time by the crashing waves. It was muggy. The clouds were thick and covered the entire sky making it appear whitish gray rather than blue. But don’t get fooled – I read in one of those travel blogs written by an American expat married to a Peruvian woman – The sun is strong and you will turn red as a lobster in no time.
I was watching the sunset when a man approached me. He was wearing dark sunglasses so I couldn’t see his eyes. He was my height and had a nice clean bob – his slick hair to his chin in one length. He introduced himself – an Italian chef in a fusion restaurant. Italian, Peruvian, with a touch of Indian. I couldn’t imagine what that’d be like. His English was decent considering he picked it up in Italy where he studied cooking for three years.
He asked me if I was going to Machu Picchu. No. No? Then Iquitos? No. No? Everybody goes to either one. Just Lima, I said. He was quiet for a moment and asked me if I’ve tried ayahuasca. No. No? He didn’t understand why I was in Peru.
Is it really life altering? This mystic experience of awakening? Knowing the truth behind the veil? He thought about the question, his mouth slanting down with the weight of his thoughts. And he beamed with a sudden knowing. It’s week. Weak? It lasts one week maybe and you’re back to normal. The old you. We are creatures of habits. Knowing is not enough.
He offered to make ayahuasca for me. It’s just tea after all, he said when I asked him if he was a shaman. I told him that I was interested in more permanent things, not a week thing. Something stronger. Then there’s only one way. What’s that? Death. And he laughed. Permanent. Strong. Letting go of the old. But the turn of the conversation made me uneasy. Oh, look at the time, I must run, my husband is waiting for me.
As I returned to the apartment where no one was waiting for me, I kept an image of my husband sitting in a hotel lobby anticipating my return. But when I passed by a limestone building in a half-ruin while the music from a street – a guitar strumming lugubriously – enveloped the warm evening breeze, he slowly metamorphosed into my longtime boyfriend from a distant past. And it hit me. What we had in common. Me and him. I saw it. Felt it. Sniffed it as if it was a syrupy smell clinging in the air. All along, I had recognized his tenderness. And in the end couldn’t help but run away. Because it’s so easy to let pain define and enslave you when you have that enormous hole of tenderness in your heart. Doesn’t matter how deeply buried or cleverly disguised, eventually you let yourself fall into that quicksand – flailing, wallowing, and taking comfort in sorrow. And just because you’re soft and vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re incapable of hurting others. Like Dad. We are so alike.
It’s funny how things come to you unexpectedly. As if waking up from a dream. All of a sudden, you just know. I tell my sister, remembering that moment of discovery in Lima – before the meeting in Seoul, before this talk in Jeddah. The ephemeral layers of knowing coming together. But she says teasingly – Come on, don’t be Dad. You didn’t give me an answer yet. She wants to get to the bottom line. So tell me, any regrets?
But words are not adequate. Not precise enough. Not wholly honest.
Dad once told me that the word happiness vanished from his life when he was five years old – on the day he said good-bye to his father. I think I sighed. I think that was my reflex. A minuscule gesture of unburdening myself. What did I say? I said something along the lines of how so many tragedies were brought on by wars – proven idiocy of the human race really – and more of a reason why we have to choose peace, all the time, every time, blah, blah, blah. Just blabbing without really being there. Relaying on words coming out of my mouth like a blind person relying on a cane. I do that. As if piloting some clunky robot – shielded by steel and glass between me and this apocalyptic world – I try to press the right buttons to move forward and navigate my way. But that night when the eyes were closed and the consciousness was drifting away, with nothing to hide behind, I felt a physical pain in my chest as if someone punched me right there in my heart and I had to curl myself tight like an overcooked shrimp.
Oh, poor, poor child. My tears were falling hard but it was too late. It wasn’t just happiness that vanished. The passionate flame of disappointment consuming Dad – minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day – had already turned him into ashes drifting with the wind. And I felt my love for him pouring out, nothing holding me back, towards his tender soul. To the five-year-old boy standing there on the platform waving at the moving train.
His own dad looked back through the window and nodded and waved with so much affection that it made him run after the train that kept putting on speed, moving faster, faster, forward, to the north. It was a typical business trip. And even though part of him knew – the mundane routines of everyday life which included sporadic separations – somehow losing the sight of his father felt different this time around, an isolated incident pricking like a thorn, never mind the patterns of things, what’s planned and predicted. Watching his father fade into the distance, what he felt was sheer terror of losing him, forever, infinitely, like the train track stretched out before him running parallel. His mother got a hold of his hand, wondering why he was acting up, not his docile self at all.
Listen, he’ll be back in no time. You know that.
But he kept wriggling his hand from her grip to run after the train. She yelled out his name over and over tugging his arm, but nothing could be heard, not even the trail of the blaring horn shaking the calm of early summer afternoon.
It’s a week thing. The chef from Lima was right about that. That kind of piercing glimpse into the interior. Our everyday dynamic will inevitably cover the brilliant light shimmering on the surface of the subconsciousness as if closing a lid to a container. And it will be pushed aside and be forgotten. But the lingering recognition will continue to ripple quietly as the fleeting insights pile up like a flurry of snow on a winter night. I hold my breath and let it out as if I’m holding a cigarette between my fingers. Did you start again? My sister eyes me sharp. No, if I did, I’d be out smoking right now. It’s true. But I’m definitely thinking about starting again. Soon. Quitting is a week thing. Regardless of how strong your resolve is. Unless.
You know – I pour the last few drops of the fake beer into the half-filled glass – I was thinking. What? My sister is curious. She leans forward. Her eyes are twinkling. I’m filled with delight to witness the light shining in her eyes. She reminds me of Mom at such moments. This is what Dad was drawn to. What attracted him to Mom. Life. Flickering life. And it saddens me to think what could have been. For all of us. My sister moves closer.
What, what is it? Her eyes are getting cloudy with worry. I must be making that face again. I pull my knees to my chest. I think they were clueless, that’s all. You mean Mom and Dad? I nod. She laughs. Yeah, no shit. And no wonder we are too. She raises her glass forgetting that it’s empty. But too late – the glass is already up in the air, waiting. I empty my glass and raise it to meet hers and notice the crack of light slithering between the closed curtains. It’s morning. The city is ready to fall into a slumbering peace.