Chapter Eighteen
We walked along a little sandy road through the sun-grazed golden fields. A flock of geese flew south. At least they knew where they were heading. It made me want to be up there high in the sky with them, free of somebody else’s expectations. I wanted to be able to live without having to reach for goals set by others. It didn’t matter if it were my parents’, Lucy’s, Mark’s. Let each one go after his own goals, if they’d just leave me out of theirs.
Come to think of it, most animals seem to be brighter than humans. Maybe not all of them, the chicken in the glasshouse definitely were an exception to the rule. But these geese, so free and yet so dependent on earth’s seasons. So conscious of their path and yet seeming to be so unconcerned about their lives. What are they thinking when some get shot down by hunters or as they’re flying over industrial areas and see man so busy destroying the planet?
Would they know and if, would they care or just take things for granted?
I got sentimental and thought of Nudjia. Strange how fast love is able to grow. We had known each other just for a day or two and yet a wonderful warmth and deep trust had me fulfilled. Not that I wasn’t thinking of sex. Of course I did, but these new feelings were like growing on top of that. And things felt great as a whole. I didn’t want to miss any part.
Though I was dazing away in the sun, my head filled with love dreams of Nudjia, I thought it impolite to keep silent to the woman next to me.
“What’s your name?” I asked, just to start a conversation.
“Who.”
“No, I mean, your name, what is your name?”
“Who, Who!”
I didn’t want to appear rude, but this wasn’t really getting anywhere.
“Look,” I said, pointing at my chest, “Me Damon, you?”
“Who!”
I finally got it. “Your name is Who?!” I had to laugh a little and while doing so I looked at her to see if I’d hurt her with my rather blunt behavior.
“Sorry, I didn’t understand you at first, because Who in English means, you know, who!”
We both laughed a little shyly. She was small and not exactly pretty, with her bald head and all, but when she smiled, you couldn’t resist. You simply had to smile, too. The way her almond eyes turned to sunny strips.
“Is there a restaurant in town or else a shop where me and my friends could buy some food?”
“Oh, you got friends with you? You can all come to our place. You’ll be our guests tonight. We never get visitors in town except for sometimes a customer at the barber shop.”
Her English was perfect. I wondered if maybe her acting like a foreigner half an hour ago was part of some strange cover-up.
“What do you need a barber shop for?” I asked pointing at her bald head.
“It belonged to my grandparents. They had been cutting people’s hair since long before I was born. Long before all the others were brought here because of the war. Cutting hair is all they’ve ever done in their lives.”
“In their time they were fabulous. People came from as far away as Twin Gates to have their hair done. I can still see them all standing in line on Saturday mornings, waiting patiently for their turn, the sun nearly burning a hole into their cranes. And you know what? My grandparents never charged anything. They lived of what people paid them willingly. To them it was enough to live a decent life and support a family. That’s what I call sharing.”
She looked as if she’d traveled back in time, watching her grandparents do their work.
“Nowadays people don’t seem to care much about each other. Sometimes travelers get lost in the village. If ever they want a haircut and read the ‘No Charge’ sign, you know what they do?”
Without finishing the story and with a look full of resentment she pointed at one of the larger huts. It even had a porch on which a chair stood leaning against the wall.
“Here’s where we live. Take a seat, I’ll get you a cup of tea.”
Before I could ask for the answer, she disappeared in the house. I thought about her grandparents and their idealism. I guess my parents were a little closer to reality, trying to sell ice-cream in the middle of the desert. But like the Whos they also lacked the power or the luck to walk away from their misery. Or maybe they didn’t have the will to do anything about it. Maybe they didn’t give a shit about success. I mean, success as in loads of customers and huge amounts of money. Maybe they liked having a nice little quiet life. They did have a ball yelling at us and at each other in the morning. They loved their ice-cream, the cooking at night and their little evening walk before going to bed. They also loved their kids.
What would they be doing right now? I looked at my watch. Seven thirty. Mom would be making pasta, the flour covering up most of the kitchenware, so that you,while entering the mess that was her kitchen, would think yourself in midwinter. Even Mona Lisa, grinning stupidly from a postcard Mom had stuck to the wall above the sink, would look like a nitwit snowman. Dad would be closing the parlor and start the redecoration into ‘Pizza Palace’. About an hour later they would open up again.
“I got you some Jasmin tea, hope you like it,” Who said as she pushed open the thin door. She carried a steaming teapot and two little cups on a tablet.
“And the travelers who want to get their hair done?” I asked, reminding her of the unfinished question.
“Oh, those backpackers. Manners are often unknown to them. They even dare to ask for the whole group to have free haircuts. No matter if they need it or not. It’s for free. Often they don’t even give a tip. Still Grandpa wouldn’t charge them anything. He wouldn’t change his ways. Too old, too proud and too stubborn for that. So now it’s up to me and my family to support him. Grandma died a few years back.”
I stood up from my chair to help her with the cups and all. In doing so I couldn’t help glancing inside the hut. An old man, about as frail as used baking paper, stood in front of the TV, more or less balancing on one leg, his arms and the other leg outstretched in a somewhat strange angle. He farted out of tune to the accompanying music.
Who must have guessed my wonder from the way I was staring at the old man, unsure if I thought it funny or sad.
“Grandfather is doing his t’ai chi exercise. He can’t in the morning. He’s too tired then. He tapes it and catches up in the evening. He says that if he stays in shape the illness cannot win.”
“What illness are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?”
She looked at me as if I was questioning God’s existence.
“Not know what? No, I don’t know about your Grandfather’s illness. How could I?” I asked a little irritated.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to offend you. It’s just that I thought everybody knows. I almost never get out of the village so I don’t get to meet many people who haven’t heard of our fate. Back in the forties and even in the fifties the U.S. government tested all kinds of small nuclear devices on different sites all over the state. At first they didn’t warn people. Nobody realized the danger. But even as they found out about the side-effects, they kept on testing. In all these years, my grandparents and the other villagers never received a single warning.”
She took a quick look inside. Pops was still practicing.
“People started losing their hair. While the newborns were still normal, they started falling behind in growth and all as they grew up. That’s why we’re so small. We’re not freaks, you know. We’re Americans like you. Some of our ancestors lived here long before the second world war. But then came the prison camps for the Japanese Americans. Nobody really cared if you were Chinese, Korean, whatever. If you had the almond eyes and no papers to prove otherwise, in you went. When the war was over and the camps had disappeared, a lot of people stayed. They had no money. Where should they have gone?”
“Then came the tests. I’m not saying they had a purpose with their testing so close to the people. I suppose they didn’t know any better. But still, I think it strange. As they began to realize that the testing had bad effects on the people living nearby, they moved the sites a bit further away from the towns. But by then, most damage had already been done.”
Tears fell down her cheeks. For a short while she stared in the distance, sniffing a little and trying to wipe away the pain. Then she looked at me and her little smile reappeared.
“I’m sorry if I appeared rude and arrogant before. It was not my intention. I think I was just being stupid,” I said. “And I wasn’t in the best of moods….”
I didn’t want to explain the reason for my feeling a little displaced - all this religious stuff that people had been pouring over my head lately.
“No, not stupid, just ignorant, that’s all. And it wasn’t just you. I was just as guilty in keeping you at a distance. I played my part quite well don’t you think? The broken English is our way of keeping people away from our world. Normally it works pretty well.”
She was nice.
“I’m not so sure if it sounds better, but ignorant it is, then.”
I took her head in my hands and placed a little kiss on her forehead. She looked at me. She was beautiful in her own way.
My prejudice was gone.
I felt dumb.
She said: “It’s difficult for me to tell you this. I mean, we don’t have much to hold on to, except for our faith. The old people never knew better after having been used and cheated for years. But we, the younger generation, don’t really share our grandparents’ deep faith.”
“I do not know if you understand us, but it’s a kind of protection. It keeps others at a safe distance. And it gives us all some peace. I know it sounds a bit simple to define our faith as a safe haven or protection against the outer world, but I guess that’s the closest I can get to explaining our behavior.”
With the back of her hand she caressed the thin wall she was leaning to.
“At the same time it scares me. I feel like a coward sometimes. But tell me, what would you do? It’s hard enough to support the elders with the little money we make with the chicken. We thought it better to keep things the way they were. Maybe one day, when the old people will have passed away, we’ll be strong enough to make a u-turn back to a normal life. We’ll need all our combined strength to open up to society again.”
She looked out over the valley.
“What about the egg with the hole in it, did it ever exist?”
“Yes, of course. It tied the old folks to the temple. Our first priest had found it by chance long before the government started the bomb-testing. He just put it away in a little silver box in the temple. Basically our faith is Buddhism with a twist. The egg being the twist. The priest was originally a monk from Tibet. He just liked the egg - that was all. But one day while cleaning up the temple, one of his neighbors found it. From then on people had something to hold on to. The priest didn’t like it of course, but what could he do? The town folks had regained a little of their strength and were willing to face the challenges of life again. It were different times then, you know.”
Standing there, her arms spread wide, questioning her people’s faith, she looked strong like a tree-trunk. I was sure she’d accomplish the change she thought they needed.