The Woman Warrior_ Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston [53]
“What do you say when you open the door like that?” her children used to ask when they were younger.
“Nothing. Nothing,” she would answer.
“Is it spirits, Mother? Do you talk to spirits? Are you asking them in or asking them out?”
“It’s nothing,” she said. She never explained anything that was really important. They no longer asked.
When she came back from talking to the invisibilities, Brave Orchid saw that her sister was strewing the room. The paper people clung flat against the lampshades, the chairs, the tablecloths. Moon Orchid left fans unfolded and dragons with accordion bodies dangling from doorknobs. She was unrolling white silk. “Men are good at stitching roosters,” she was pointing out bird embroidery. It was amazing how a person could grow old without learning to put things away.
“Let’s put these things away,” Brave Orchid said.
“Oh, Sister,” said Moon Orchid. “Look what I have for you,” and she held up a pale green silk dress lined in wool. “In winter you can look like summer and be warm like summer.” She unbuttoned the frogs to show the lining, thick and plaid like a blanket.
“Now where would I wear such a fancy dress?” said Brave Orchid. “Give it to one of the children.”
“I have bracelets and earrings for them.”
“They’re too young for jewelry. They’ll lose it.”
“They seem very big for children.”
“The girls broke six jade bracelets playing baseball. And they can’t endure pain. They scream when I squeeze their hands into the jade. Then that very day, they’ll break it. We’ll put the jewelry in the bank, and we’ll buy glass and black wood frames for the silk scrolls.” She bundled up the sticks that opened into flowers. “What were you doing carrying these scraps across the ocean?”
Brave Orchid took what was useful and solid into the back bedroom, where Moon Orchid would stay until they decided what she would do permanently. Moon Orchid picked up pieces of string, but bright colors and movements distracted her. “Oh, look at this,” she’d say. “Just look at this. You have carp.” She was turning the light off and on in the goldfish tank, which sat in the rolltop desk that Brave Orchid’s husband had taken from the gambling house when it shut down during World War II. Moon Orchid looked up at the grandparents’ photographs that hung on the wall above the desk. Then she turned around and looked at the opposite wall; there, equally large, were pictures of Brave Orchid and her husband. They had put up their own pictures because later the children would not have the sense to do it.
“Oh, look,” said Moon Orchid. “Your pictures are up too. Why is that?”
“No reason. Nothing,” said Brave Orchid. “In America you can put up anybody’s picture you like.”
On the shelf of the rolltop desk, like a mantel under the grandparents’ photos, there were bowls of plastic tangerines and oranges, crepe-paper flowers, plastic vases, porcelain vases filled with sand and incense sticks. A clock sat on a white runner crocheted with red phoenixes and red words about how lucky and bright life is. Moon Orchid lifted the ruffles to look inside the pigeon holes. There were also pen trays and little drawers, enough so that the children could each have one or two for their very own. The fish tank took up half the desk space, and there was still room for writing. The rolltop was gone; the children had broken it slat by slat when they hid inside the desk, pulling the top over themselves. The knee hole had boxes of toys that the married children’s children played with now. Brave Orchid’s husband had padlocked one large bottom cabinet and one drawer.
“Why do you keep it locked?” Moon Orchid asked. “What’s in here?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”
“If you want to poke around,” said Brave Orchid, “why don’t you find out what