Fiona and Jane(11)

“What was my father like?”

Just then, a loud squealing rose from the park. Two men hunched over a silver cage on the ramp. They hurried to guide the cage down. On solid ground, the men unlatched the door and released the animal—a large spotted pig—into an enclosed pen surrounded by bales of hay they’d set up in the grass. The pig trotted in circles, still raising a frenzied racket.

“Something you should know, Ona.” Grandfather’s voice was a whisper. She leaned in closer, smelled the tobacco on his breath. He paused for a long moment, then said: “Your father isn’t dead. He’s alive, as alive as that pig shrieking down there.”

Ona frowned, shaking her head. “No he’s not. Mama said—”

“We can’t tell your mother,” Grandfather said. “You want him to come to your recital?”

Still frowning, Ona nodded vigorously.

“Then I’ll invite him. On your behalf.”

“Will he really be there?”

“You understand, he’ll have to hide himself. No one can know about him. I’ll be onstage with you, representing him. But you’ll know that he’s in the audience, watching you dance.”

“What about Mama? Why can’t we tell her?”

“Not a word,” Grandfather said. “Part of the deal.” He touched an index finger to his mouth. “Understood?”

Ona bit her bottom lip, unsure of what to say. Finally she nodded.

Grandfather lit up another cigarette. They watched the men in silence a few minutes more, then went back inside the apartment after he’d only smoked half of it.

Ona’s mother and grandmother had gone out. Grandfather turned the knob on the television set and landed on a Sunday variety show. He adjusted the antennae before sinking down on the sofa next to Ona. They sat together, watching the comedians onstage banter with a panel of pop starlets and soap actresses. The secret he’d floated out on the balcony hung between them, but she knew that there would be no more talk of it. She glanced nervously from the TV to her grandfather in profile and felt like a balloon filled to its capacity, ready to burst. It seemed as if she had to breathe very carefully or the secret would tumble out.

Ona heard her mother’s and grandmother’s voices in the hallway outside. The front door swung open.

“Mama!” Ona cried.

Knotted plastic bags hung from her mother’s wrists. “Stinky tofu,” she said. “I had a craving.”

Grandfather straightened up and cleared his throat. “Little girl’s excited from seeing the animals outside.”

“What did you see, bao?” her mother asked.

“Yes, we saw them too,” said Grandmother. “It’s a production of the Monkey King chronicles, and they’re setting up a petting zoo for the children.” She kicked off her brown leather flats and nudged them to the side. “I told you it’s a special school,” she said to Ona’s mother. “Does Miss What’s-her-name show them real farm animals?”

“A petting zoo?” Ona said, looking from her grandmother, to her grandfather, and, finally, to her mother. “You’re allowed to touch them?”

“Seems a little unsanitary to have a pig running around,” her mother said. “A monkey, too?” She shook her head.

“Of course you can touch them,” Grandmother said. “We should go back down and see if—it’s only for the school, but maybe they would make an exception—”

“You know the woman in admissions,” said Ona’s mother. “So we’ve heard.”

“Of all the farm animals, pigs are actually quite clean,” Grandfather put in.

“See? You think you know everything,” said Grandmother. “But you don’t,” she added.

Ona’s mother crossed the room to the round dining table and began to open up the bags of food. She told Ona to go wash her hands for dinner.

The auntie who cooked and cleaned for Ona’s grandparents had the week off to visit her family in the southern part of the island, so rather than eating a home-cooked meal, they picked from the night market foods Ona’s mother and grandmother had brought back from their walk. Grandfather complained about indigestion, but he ate everything in his bowl and cleaned up what remained in each of the Styrofoam boxes, down to the last pieces of deep-fried fish cakes drenched in sweet chili sauce.



* * *



? ? ?

After dinner, while her mother and grandfather retreated to the balcony for their cigarettes, Ona’s grandmother led her to the bedroom at the end of the hallway, past the kitchen. Ona smelled mothballs when Grandmother pushed the bedroom door open.

“Try it,” she said, and gestured toward the child’s bed, which was set up next to the far wall. A pink-and-white-checkered blanket lay over the mattress, a pillow with a white scalloped case at the top. “What do you think?”

Her grandmother took Ona by the hand, and they sat down on the bed’s edge. Next to it stood a white bookshelf. Ona noticed a few familiar titles, books she’d been allowed to borrow from her school’s library for a week at a time. She longed to run her finger along their spines but did not dare to do so. Who did they belong to? Some lucky boy or girl, Ona thought.

“Isn’t this a nice room?” Grandmother said. “I ordered a little desk, and a chair that’s just your size. It’s being delivered next week.”