Poison
October 13, 2022The rain in Taiwan liked drama. It was only after an afternoon of air-rippling hotness that water would come down in boatloads, landing on the paved streets with reverberating cracks. There really was nothing to do as a seven-year-old in a foreign country on those afternoons except to lay around and eat mangoes until my belly swelled with happiness. Dinner would roll around on the kind of soft grey clouds that tumbled out of thunderstorms, and I would be compelled to set the table, scoop the rice, hoist chairs from the other rooms. The smell of food would stifle any of my lingering jet lag and the door would swivel open and close for my myriad of cousins. They floated in and out like anxious sailboats — momentarily returning to a safe harbor before bounding back to choppy seas. We would crowd around the table that was strewn across a giant ledge in the room, insulated from the percussive Taipei streets, my aunt’s gossip evoking scandalous gasps from everyone, even the most stoic uncle, and my grandfather’s one-thousandth retelling of his teenage hijinks causing us to double over in hopeless giggles.
Like the droplets left over from the rain, ever-forming into mounds and pulled down by gravity, these moments, they grabbed me by the wrist and planted deep into what I know as those rose-tinged years — “nostalgia”. When I sit in the parking lot, waiting forever to be picked up from school and I catch the word “childhood” escape from someone’s mouth, I would think back to the endless platters of fruit oozing with sweetness and the laughter only experienced with those who shared the same blood. But there was also something else. It lurked between the window panes and beneath the trees stirring in the dark; it was like a long, mourning cry, like dead waters stinking in a ditch. Something in the rain eclipsed all my moral soundness, and it had led me to do bad things.
Da Yin was everybody’s favorite cousin. She had eyes that were prone to scrunch when smiling, and a big, laughing mouth. Da Yin got good grades. Not the best, but good enough for a girl, said all the relatives. She always helped when you asked her to. Her thick black hair was always readily swooshed into a low ponytail — pretty, but out of the way. Every morning I remember making the twenty-minute trek to the apartment she resided in, brick pavement straddling a road lined with coconut trees, the air still sticky from the smell of late-night skewers. After a sharp turn into an alleyway not far from the Temple, I would find myself at her apartment, where anything imaginable, from old mail to dirty food containers occupied its floor, where everything was coated in a layer of clammy, tropical dust. Her dad, my uncle, was a lean, sallow man who had a back stiffly curved from years of dreaming up different business ventures that all ran into the ground with a resounding thud. He sat near the front entrance playing video games next to a dirty fish tank and occasionally exported a long line of expletives into the rest of the apartment.
I would follow Da Yin around like a duckling, imitating her mannerisms, trying to do anything I could to make her eyes scrunch and force laughter out of her big mouth. Sometimes I would even resort to saying something stupid so that she would let out an exasperated sigh, call me a silly foreigner, give me a poke on the shoulder, squeeze my cheeks, throw me up into the air with her strong arms and twirl me around like the princess young girls believed themselves to be. But there was a hidden sharpness to Da Yin, moments when her mask slipped, and something lethal came out like smoke. Now looking back, her mask was made of glass.
“Can I try some?” I asked one afternoon when we were laying on the mattress in the middle of the living room. We had exhausted our afternoon itinerary of doodling, jumping rope, bad karaoke, and experimenting with expired make up. So there I was, observing the wobbly ceiling fan when Da Yin took out a package of Hawthorn berry candy, a sugary cylinder of dried fruit cut into thin slices.
She nodded. “Of course, they don’t have stuff like this in America.”
There definitely was hawthorn candy in the States. Da Yin always had wild notions of America. For me, it was just an endless stream of homework and dance lessons. Taipei was freedom, away from my mom’s reign over my every second. She was off meeting with college friends, recounting their “rebellious years”, years which she would try desperately to keep me from entering, but I have inevitably stepped into now.
Da Yin peeled off the candy wrapper. I could feel my eyes widen at Da Yin’s methodical hands, tearing the paper so that it came off into a perfect, fuzzy-edged spiral. The sweet roll of hawthorn and sugar tumbled out at once, falling on the mattress with a bounce.
Without thinking, I reached for it, scooped it up, and swallowed the entire candy.
Da Yin stood up from the mattress. Her bare feet landed in the narrow strip of floor that was free from trash. “That was my last piece!”
I looked at her, not yet grasping the serious situation I had stumbled into. I blurted out haphazardly, “I’m sorry Da Yin, I wasn’t thinking.”
Da Yin yanked me by my shirt. My toes still grazed the mattress, but I was suspended in the air, hoisted up like a ragdoll.
She unclenched my shirt and began moving about the room like an odd Godzilla variant as I stayed in a shocked stillness. Empty bottles were being knocked down by her slow pacing and newspapers crunched under her narrow feet. I could tell she was fuming, but I was unsure how to approach this version of Da Yin I had never seen before.
I resorted to bargaining. “I can tell my mom to buy you more! Are there different flavors? What kind do you like the most?”
Da Yin turned to me. She did so slowly, which now in retrospect, seemed cruel to do to a child, to turn to them slowly as they watched on in terror.
“I bought that candy with my own money!” Da Yin said, each word a punch, and she looked at me, her brows furrowed as if her forehead was made of warm wax. She reached out one hand and grabbed my face. At that moment, I realized that Da Yin possessed the sharpest nails in the entire world, almond-shaped and filed to perfection.
“Spit it out!”
I tried, I really did. Alas, the hawthorn candy was well on its way to being digested. But Da Yin only squeezed my face harder. I didn’t yell for help. We stayed there. I could hear the clacking of my uncle’s computer games from out in the hall. Time slowed. What I remember now is an eternity of her big, unmoving mouth, her nails that dug into my still round cheeks, her stare locking onto mine, a mixture of mischief and something insidious permeating her irises. She let go at some point and I instantly crumpled into a ball. I coughed out a weak apology, but she simply strolled out of the room.
The next few afternoons I spent rocking on my grandfather’s vine-woven chair, thinking about her. Like that chair, which was secretly rotting from Taiwan’s tenacious humidity, the image of Da Yin turning towards me started to decompose, and its decaying debris punctuated my every thought. I became obsessed with her sharp nails and laughing eyes, scared by her rage and power. I was too young to admit to myself that, after such a blatant transgression, I wanted to go visit her again. So I tried to avoid her altogether at family dinners. I vowed to never catch any attention, to scoop rice with expert precision, set down chopsticks like putting babies to sleep, hoist chairs completely off the ground as to prevent any screeching across the floor. But when I saw her five days later, I was surprised to find that Da Yin’s rage had vanished like a summer thunderstorm.
My mom had dragged me to Da Yin’s apartment to be babysat because she could no longer stand me. I was like a little wraith according to her, ghoulishly haunting each of her day trips and high school reunions, twitching nervously, scratching my mosquito bites, incessantly asking her when the dessert was coming.
I entered Da Yin’s living room as if the trash scattered about were grenades, but I was met with a familiar smile and jingle of laughter. My mother exchanged pleasantries with Da Yin before leaving, her steps down the stairs lighter now that she was free of me. Da Yin waited a few minutes before throwing me the biggest smile.
“Do you want to go play outside?” she asked.
I was relieved, happy. “Yes!”
“Ok! I’m sorry but I have to do the laundry and finish my homework, don’t leave the alley, and don’t tell your mom I let you play alone,” said Da Yin wiggling her eyebrows up and down.
I nodded in earnest and then ran down the stairs, holding in a grin. I was almost unable to contain my excitement of having the old Da Yin back, pushing all my confusion and fear to the deepest part of my stomach.
Wang Wang was a boy who lived in an apartment that shared the same alleyway as Da Yin. He had chubby cheeks and spiky black hair that sprung from his perfectly round head. Every time I saw him, he was sweating — fat droplets rolling down the sides of his forehead, his bouncy tan skin twinkling in the sun. We became friends the way childhood friends are made: him showing me his collection of toy airplanes and me showing him the assorted pins on my turquoise backpack. Wang Wang and I would spend afternoons with chalk in one hand and peeled lychee in the other, rainbow dust and fruit juices creeping down our wrists.
On that day, we saw who could sprint down the alleyway fastest, and afterwards Wang Wang invited me into his apartment as we were leaning against the apartments’ browned bricks, our muscles atrophied from that childlike bullishness that pushed the body beyond its pain signals. I had wondered aloud about what his home looked like before, so I guess this was just the natural progression of our friendship. Wang Wang revealed to me on our walk up that he lived with his mom who was the hired help for a single dad and his daughter. We came up the final flight of stairs and were faced with a tall white door with a pin pad. Wang Wang entered a code and the door unlocked with a clack.
“It’s so bright! Like out of a magazine,” I marveled as we gingerly carried our shoes from the foyer to Wang Wang and his mother’s allotted room. The apartment was in pristine shape. Every surface was microscopically clean and the air was thick with the smell of citrus flavored disinfectant.
“Yeah, don’t touch anything,” Wang Wang warned. A grey severity had passed over his brows and he moved through the hall like a ghost passing over into the next life. I pursed my lips and followed suit.
The apartment was a long L shape, equipped with big windows and tiled floors. Maybe it was because I was just in Da Yin’s apartment, but I was mystified by the dichotomy between the two homes separated by only two walls and an alleyway. We padded along, and the floor lowered from a tiled ledge to wood paneling that seemed older than the rest of the apartment. This was where Wang Wang stayed with his mother.
“The girl who lives here, her name is Pei Er,” Wang Wang said, closing the door at the end of the hall. “She’s sick.”
“What do you mean?” I inquired while looking around. Wang Wang lived in a shoebox with a window so narrow that the phrase “a sliver of glass” would be better fit to describe it. A knife’s edge of afternoon gold landed onto the one mattress where he sat, and it made his hair look like it was on fire. The rest of the room was occupied by two plastic boxes of clothes and a shelf stacked with schoolbooks and canned food.
Wang Wang leaned in. I braced myself for what he was about to divulge. “The world is poisonous to her.”
I found myself confused.
“She can’t eat most things, not even bananas,” Wang Wang explained. “She can’t even leave the house unless my Ma or her Ba goes with her. He took her to Disney world last year, and this place called Singapore,” Wang Wang said as if reciting an oral tradition. He lifted his hands as if holding a small box. “But when they travel, they have to bring a whole case of pills.”
I nodded. “So that’s why her house looks like a hospital.”
Wang Wang agreed. “Sometimes we play hide and seek, she’s really good with words so I let her name my airplanes.” Wang Wang had never let me name his airplanes before.
“One day I’m going to be a doctor and help her get better,” Wang Wang said, bringing a closed fist to his chest. He said this with an earnestness only found in children. I felt something between curiosity and envy sneak up my throat.
“Where is she? Is she home?” I asked. I had not noticed a trace of dust or living things when we had entered.
“She’s in her room. Always sleeping. And my Ma has to nap with her.”
“Well, if the whole world was poisonous to me, I would sleep all day too,” I said, trying to stretch my prepubescent empathy but only succeeding at seeming like I did.
He rolled his eyes and showed me a laminated list his mother had of all of Pei Er’s allergies. All nuts, milk, wheat, eggs, most fruit, shellfish, the list went on so long I wondered if Pei Er could eat anything at all. I looked out the “window” and noticed that it had started pouring outside. We pulled the one meager curtain closed and made shadow puppets in the lamplight, telling ourselves stories while cloaked in artificial light, our imaginations so bizarre and silly we forgot about our mosquito-bitten legs.
Before leaving, I tried to catch a glimpse of Pei Er through the crack of a door. But all I could see were Wang Wang’s mother’s tired, sleeping arms. I reckoned Pei Er probably looked sunken and malnourished, like one of those starving kids on National Geographic magazines.
I got back to Da Yin’s apartment before dinner. She decided that we were going to walk back to my grandparents’ house for a free meal since she was too tired to cook. At a crosswalk, I told Da Yin about Pei Er’s controversial existence as a final peace offering. I knew that she would love it; Da Yin handled gossip like dough: kneading and molding it, waiting for it to rise with suspense between her fingers before licking its golden crust with her own embellishments.
“That’s so unfortunate,” she said, jutting out her right hip and resting her manicured hand on it. “So she can’t even eat a hardboiled egg?”
“Yeah,” I said, all chipper. Pei Er was just a character in my head, a sickly, mythical beast. All that had mattered was the glint in Da Yin’s now-interested eyes.
“You know, I think you should try to be friends with her,” Da Yin suggested nonchalantly. “She’s probably lonely.”
I nodded. I was busy looking at the people passing holding umbrellas of every color, each still adorned with water droplets that sputtered the red from the traffic lights over the slick black streets. “Yeah maybe, but she has Wang Wang, he likes her a lot.”
Da Yin chuckled. She put her hand in my hair, brushing with her fingers and gripping their tangled ends before finally running them through completely.
“But they do have a really pretty apartment. I bet she has nice toys.” I offered, and then, I began to drone on about how nice Pei Er’s home was, how I couldn’t spot even a pinch of dust. I glanced over, and I swore I saw knuckles tighten, the white of her bones against her already pale skin. Da Yin clapped her hands together and the smack brought me back to reality. “Hmmm, yes, I think we should bake her a cake! She must not get any good food!”
“But she can only eat…” I paused; the list of allergens scrolled through my brain in a blur. “Water?!” I exclaimed. “Can we make a cake with just water?”
Da Yin stared straight ahead as she grabbed my hand to cross the street. “We’ll figure something out, that poor, poor girl.”
The next day I found Da Yin had materialized baking supplies from rubble, bowls and bags of unnamed ingredients stood erect, proud against the slow decay her apartment cursed all its inhabitants with.
Da Yin was muttering something from the pantry.
“Mom made me fried taro pancakes with extra sauce for breakfast,” I offered this information as if it was interesting. “Did you make something Da Yin?”
Da Yin walked out with a cake-like thing sleeping soundlessly in a pan between her hands and multiple damp rags. “Yes, it’s for your friend.”
“Are you sure Da Yin?” I asked. I could hear my own voice carrying a note of higher-pitched distrust.
“Why not? I made it with special ingredients,” Da Yin replied. She winked. I didn’t know how pretty someone could be until I saw her sharp lashes flick so effortlessly at me that morning.
I nodded. But knowing what I know now, I can’t help but conjecture that I had already grasped what was about to transpire, but I had chosen childhood innocence, however artificial, over all else.
I found Wang Wang outside in the alleyway with his airplane collection nicely lined up on some crates. “Aren’t you scared someone is going to steal your planes?” I inquired.
He looked downcast. Wang Wang had the blackest eyes, the kind where you couldn’t tell where the iris ended, and the pupil started. Now they had a watery shine that made me want to crouch down and catch their residue with my hands.
“I’m selling them, my Ma said I had to” he said. "I can give you a discount.
I examined his collection for the thousandth time. I tried to cheer him up. “Let’s make a poster! Or I can draw something with chalk?”
Wang Wang’s eyes suddenly got very itchy, and he started to rub them, so I wrapped my bony arms around him, our sweaty shirts sticking to each other, my mosquito bite scabs brushing against his.
“Da Yin made cake,” I murmured into his ear. “She says it’s for Pei Er, but we can have some too.”
Wang Wang’s mother was out on her weekly grocery run. Even then I knew that this was a good thing, that it would make things go easier. We knocked on Pei Er’s door.
“Let’s just give her a small piece,” whispered Wang Wang, who was making eye contact with the cake. He could hardly stop salivating.
The door opened normally. For some reason I had imagined a dramatic swing accompanied by a slow and dreadful creak.
“Who are you?” asked the girl who was Pei Er, looking straight at me.
“I’m Wang Wang’s best friend,” I said, puffing up my chest. “We made you a special cake.”
I lifted the pan for her to examine as I examined her in return. She looked completely normal and healthy. She brought her nose gingerly to the cake, sniffing the yellow loaf.
“Why is it special?” she asked. “Did my Ba say I can eat it?”
Wang Wang crossed his arms. “It’s special because you can eat it. Her cousin made sure of it. Da Yin’s a nurse.”
She wasn’t. I don’t know how Wang Wang came to this conclusion, but I think it was because he saw Da Yin measure my temperature once in her strange, methodical way.
Pei Er smiled. “It smells delicious!”
We crowded around the breakfast table, our feet dangling off the highchairs, looking like a huddle of little adults. Pei Er scooped some cake straight out of the pan with a spoon. It looked perfectly moist, glistening with melted sugar. She stuffed the cake into her mouth.
“This…” Pei Er paused. She closed her eyes. “Is the best thing I have ever had.”
Wang Wang gulped, hunger in his eyes. “Can I try some?”
Pei Er offered him her spoon and he tried some too, his eyes widening as he chewed. All he could do was nod. I giggled. I grabbed some cake with my hand. Pei Er followed suit. Before we knew it, the three of us were covered in cake, smeared with its sugary goodness.
I still don’t know what happened first. Either Pei Er fell off her chair gripping at her neck, or Wang Wang’s mom came sprinting straight to the kitchen, squeaky clean vegetables wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam flying out of her hands. All I remember is Pei Er’s face turning blue, the word “water” escaping her pink mouth. I remember turning to her and smiling. I could feel my own bizarre ecstasy, my blood boiling. An apparition of Da Yin’s big mouth spreading into a grin appeared and I felt my smile growing wider parallel to hers. I made sure to remain unblinking. Pei Er’s thin voice grew thinner until she looked like a fish out of water, her mouth gaping in open air, her small contractions slowing into stillness. I remember Wang Wang leaping out of his chair and panickily shaking her shoulders, trying to rid her of the poison we dealt with smiling faces.
“I’m sorry, please Pei Er,” Wang Wang said through the streams of mucus running down his face like a freshly thawed mountain stream. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Unlike when I was in Da Yin’s apartment with the candy down my throat, I was the one with the luxury to gawk. Some time passed, and I felt my voyeurism sliced into two when Wang Wang’s mother shot me a murderous glare. I ran as fast as I could out of the apartment, down the concrete steps and into the thundering city, where rain shot down like bullets, bright blue lightning crawling above through the shifting greys and blacks of the sky. I ran all the way back to my grandparents’ house, where I was interrogated. I returned each probe with a steady answer, the monkey in my brain finding itself more civilized than it had ever been.
What happened with Pei Er or Wang Wang is still a mystery to me, but I still turn over these events in my head like loose soil above a casket, unable to finally bury what could not rest. I only see Da Yin now when I scroll through Facebook. She cut her hair at some point, blunt ends now hit her chin — it looked good, the style suited her. Apparently she had given birth to a healthy daughter. She is laughing in all her pictures. But still, the Da Yin steeped in summer rain, the Da Yin that brewed my childhood, is imprinted in my mind. I see the slow turning of her head towards me, but I never really see her face because in its place would always be my own.