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119
I find our accounts book, the only book with the only paper in
the house, and write my name and the English letter ‘A’.
Ma doesn’t read or write, but she can copy anything. She’s good
at sewing and stitching; she can do flowers for embroidery. Her
eyesight hasn’t faded enough yet for her work to suffer.
Everyday, our lives rotated around food and work. A happy man
was a man well fed. Ma worked at home, I worked in under the
blazing sun in the fields.
And then the revolution began and formerly
rich, stupid, greedy
aristocracy were being sent to work in the fields, and
pure, strong,
good-hearted
country folk like myself were engaging in the war.
Ma had finished the second character of my name. She always
said my name was the best name out of us four kids in the family.
Mine meant I was loyal, that I obeyed my filial duty.
Not anymore
.
“Fourth,” Ma called me by my nickname, as the fourth child.
“Where are you going?” The name meant so much more than what
it sounded like. It wasn’t just a number.
“I’ll be in the city, Ma.”
“That’s not true, is it?” Her voice was soft, thick with emotion,
but not condescending in anyway. She sounded old, she sounded
like a mother.
“No.” I rasp out.
“Are you going to the front line?”
“No.” I deny it, but only confirmed it with my lighting fast
response. Ma had beat lies out of me from a very young age. Good
men don’t lie. The lie tasted foreign and acidic on my tongue.
“When I was helping your Pa get ready for the front line, I sewed
the same funny triangle on his coat.”
“Ma, I…” What would I say? I couldn’t tell another lie. But I
couldn’t hurt Ma any more.
“Don’t apologise. You do what is good for the people; you do
what Chairman Mao wants you to do. You make me proud.”
“I will make you proud, Ma.”
Her lips move, barely, not enough for clear sounds to escape, but
I had a feeling she said: “You already have.”
Something blossomed in my heart, just as light blossomed at the
edge of the sky.
I hugged Ma, in the dim light and warm orange glow of the
candle. We didn’t say anything; we didn’t need to, because a child is
The Weight
Of The Coat,
The Weight
Of The Heart
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