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Polly Ho
98 West Yale Loop
Irvine, Ca 92604
949-552-5687
pollyho@sbcglobal.net
The Glass Chamber
By Polly Ho
CHAPTER I
To this day, I still remember how numb and painful my knees felt after kneeling
on the hard and damp slate-tiled floor for an hour.
It happened on a windy autumn day in 1920, a week after my 6th birthday, when father
ordered all his children –Tai, Bang, Ling, and I-- to kneel on the floor in his
praying chamber.
“I’ll ask all of you one more time, which of you messed up this painting?”
In a roaring voice, my father asked us again as he pointed a tremulous finger at the silk scroll of Alvalokitesvara Bodhisattva behind him. His face turned tomato red and the purple veins on his temple popped up like squirming earthworms. I had never seen Father this upset before; a sudden fear struck me so that my body turned cold as if I had been dropped in a bucket of ice water. My fright heightened when I saw the long and skinny bamboo rod in his enormous hand, gleaming a grim, metallic green shine. Although I was never beaten by Father, I remembered the excruciating pain that my elder brother Tai was suffering after he was hit by the rod. He screamed and screeched like a pig in a slaughter house, as Mama applied the stinky herbal paste on his swollen thigh.
“I don’t remember how many times I told you not to fight with Bang, but you never listened,” Mama scolded Tai, sobbing. Then she let out a sigh and murmured,” Now she must be happy.” I knew she was referring to San Ma, Bang and Ling’s mother and
Father’s third wife.
Really, I had no reason to be scared, for all I did was hold the inkwell for Bang while he was drawing the spectacles on the Bodhisattva’s face. Who could say “no” to Bang when he gave an order? Everyone knew that he was the son of Father’s favorite wife, and you simply couldn’t afford to infuriate either one of them.
“If you don’t confess right at this moment, I’ll punish you all!” Father said, waving the rod menacingly. No one uttered a word. The room was so quiet that the only sound was the rubber soles of father’s shoes squeaking on the floor. The air permeated with the smell of burning sandalwood incense, so thick and heavy that you thought you could shave it with a chisel. Feeling sore on my neck, I tilted my head slightly and inadvertently caught a glimpse of Bang, who was kneeling beside me, eyes cast on his own hands which were folded quietly in his lap. His chubby face looked as placid as ever, as if he were the most innocent among us. Overwhelmed by a sense of disgust, I suddenly decided to tell Father the truth.
“Bang did it…I saw him,” I muttered.
“What did you say? ” Father turned his face to me with bulging eyes. But before I had a chance to repeat myself, Bang jumped up and knocked me on my head with his fist.
“You liar! I didn’t do it! I didn’t, I didn’t, and I didn’t!” He screamed at me at the top of his lungs while stomping his feet on the floor. I didn’t know what else Bang would do to me if Father didn’t grab his hair and forced him to kneel on his knees again.
“Now swear in front of Bodhisattva that you didn’t do it!” Father yelled at Bang when he threw him on the floor. Father’s face was as grim as that of Zhong Kui, the fierce looking deity, who was staring at me with his ferocious eyes from the altar. Father’s hand was raised mid-air holding the rod, as if it were ready to strike Bang’s tender flash. I held my breath and waited for the rod to fall.
Bang started to bawl, his twitching face was soon smeared with tears and mucus.
“Stop crying! Didn’t I always tell you that a boy sheds blood, not tears?” Father’s voice was softened, but the rod was still up in the air.
“Wait!” Suddenly, a woman’s piercing voice rang out in the back. It was San Ma. She rushed into the praying chamber, panting. She was accompanied by her maid Yan, who apparently reported to her the peril Bang had been facing and had urged her to rescue her son right away.
It seemed that San Ma had just risen from her napping bed, for I had never seen her look this way before. Strands of loose hair flying over her shoulders, and a button on her imperial yellow silk jacket remained unfastened. Without any makeup on her face, she
looked so pale that it seemed all the blood in her body had surged to her ten scarlet fingernails.
San Ma always appeared to be meticulously beautiful with peach- blossom colored rouge on her porcelain-like cheeks, and a dab of crimson lipstick on her curvy lips. Her jet-black hair was forever combed neatly to the back and tied into a knot, which changed in shape from time to time, according to the latest fashion.
Sometimes I wished that Mama would make herself look as beautiful as San Ma, so that Father would pay more attention to her. But I knew Mama would never do it. She was happy with her plain look. She said, “Once you become a mother, you need to look like one.” Does a mother have to look uncomely? I didn’t understand her.
Now San Ma looked so frail as if she were about to collapse any moment, had Yan not been holding on to her willowy waist.
“Bang had been playing in my room with his sister all day, so he couldn’t possibly have done anything to the painting.” Gazing at Father with teary eyes, San Ma looked as pitiful as the thrush caged in Da Ma’s shadowy, gloomy room. As Father’s icy face began to melt, San Ma turned to her daughter and said, “Ling, tell your father the truth!”
“Yes, Father…We… we were playing…” My half- sister muttered in a faint voice hardly audible to anyone.
“See what I mean?” Color returned to San Ma’s face as she smiled triumphantly. Looking at me sideways, she let out a deep sigh and said to Father, “A pair of liars! Like
mother like daughter!” She then pushed Bang and Ling on their shoulders and urged them, “Go! Go to my room immediately! Don’t stay here and upset your father like
some ungrateful kids.” No sooner had she finished her sentence than Bang and Ling dashed out of the door like two terrified mice.
Taking a glimpse of Father’s solemn face, I knew I was doomed. Evidently, he believed in this woman. Shaking like the leaves of the poplar tree outside the window, I closed my eyes and waited for the rod to fall.
The rod fell, but I didn’t feel a thing, for Tai rushed over and covered me entirely with his warm body. The rod stopped mid-air.
“I did it, father. I was the one who drew the circles around the Bodhisattva’s eyes,” Tai said, raising his head to meet with father’s blood-shot eyes.
“I knew it! I knew from the beginning that Mei lied to protect you! Don’t you feel any shame that you made your little sister do that for you?” Father rumbled.
The rod fell hard on Tai. I started to scream and clinched tightly to Tai’s body.
“Mei, go back to your room immediately. I don’t want you here when I punish your brother !” Father said.
“No!” I shrieked.
“Mei, listen to father and leave right away, otherwise he’ll beat up both of us,” Tai whispered in my ear and let go of me.
So I shambled out of the praying chamber crying hysterically, leaving Tai with our father and his ruthless rod. Covering my ears as hard as possible, I could still hear Tai’s squall. I ran faster. I had to get Mama before Tai got killed.
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