Ribbons of Smoke
Aoife had inherited her father's features, her mother's sense of humour, her uncle's dimples and the wholly unrelated name of the Irish tour guide her parents had on their honeymoon in Perth, Australia.
"We picked it because it sounded like a name most Chinese would be able to pronounce, but never spell right," she had explained to her seven year old who had just wondered aloud why she couldn't just have spelt her name the way it was said: Ee Fah. She also told Aoife that while she was pregnant with her daughter - she had been 24 and a buddhist before hearing the holy voice of the Lord back then - she had admired her uncle's best features and wished them on the child she was carrying.
"And that's why you have dimples, whereas your father doesn't and I don't," she said, in that end-of-story tone she always used with Aoife when she was tired of her ceaseless whys. It was the same tone she would later use whenever her daughter begged her, a decadelater, to contemplate divorce from a man whose anger manifested itself in welts from a kettle wire he habitually converted to a whip. "I am just afraid of what God will do to me. No matter what, he is still my husband. Anyway, you are who you are, I am who I am," she said, to an Aoife who had by then become inclined to believe that Buddha would have felt differently about the pain, given his preference for moderation, and whether her mother might not be wiser to consider converting back to buddhism.
Aoife wondered, in the meantime, if there was another reason for her dimples. At the edge of her grandfather's brows she noticed two pin-prick sized holes that appeared whenever he suggested they go for a walk to buy "big pink wafers for you, and a stout for me". In her mother, she had noticed these facial features had migrated to the tops of the cheekbones, right underneath those crinkles that appeared every time her mother smiled.
I think they just move down the face with each set of children, she mused, looking into a mirror as she gathered her hair into pigtails for school. I'm just lucky I was my mother's daughter, and not my own, she thought, trying to imagine how she would look if she had two deep wells at the base of her chin instead of on her cheeks, where they currently resided.
"Eeefaaah, cepat! You'll be late for school," rasped Granny, whose unique perfume of tobacco and Cussons baby powder always entered a room about two seconds before she did. Aoife thought it was the loveliest smell in the world, and had taken to placing her nose to Granny's fingers whenever she needed to feel safe. Like on days like today.
"Mamma can you please do the ribbons?" she asked, knowing that she might have to face yet another school day without the certainty of a saga seed game.
"Aiyoh, no time lah."
"Please."
"Ok."
So she exhaled through her nose, cigarette smoke curling into ribbons, and Aoife quickly tried to grab them to tie around her pigtails.
"We picked it because it sounded like a name most Chinese would be able to pronounce, but never spell right," she had explained to her seven year old who had just wondered aloud why she couldn't just have spelt her name the way it was said: Ee Fah. She also told Aoife that while she was pregnant with her daughter - she had been 24 and a buddhist before hearing the holy voice of the Lord back then - she had admired her uncle's best features and wished them on the child she was carrying.
"And that's why you have dimples, whereas your father doesn't and I don't," she said, in that end-of-story tone she always used with Aoife when she was tired of her ceaseless whys. It was the same tone she would later use whenever her daughter begged her, a decadelater, to contemplate divorce from a man whose anger manifested itself in welts from a kettle wire he habitually converted to a whip. "I am just afraid of what God will do to me. No matter what, he is still my husband. Anyway, you are who you are, I am who I am," she said, to an Aoife who had by then become inclined to believe that Buddha would have felt differently about the pain, given his preference for moderation, and whether her mother might not be wiser to consider converting back to buddhism.
Aoife wondered, in the meantime, if there was another reason for her dimples. At the edge of her grandfather's brows she noticed two pin-prick sized holes that appeared whenever he suggested they go for a walk to buy "big pink wafers for you, and a stout for me". In her mother, she had noticed these facial features had migrated to the tops of the cheekbones, right underneath those crinkles that appeared every time her mother smiled.
I think they just move down the face with each set of children, she mused, looking into a mirror as she gathered her hair into pigtails for school. I'm just lucky I was my mother's daughter, and not my own, she thought, trying to imagine how she would look if she had two deep wells at the base of her chin instead of on her cheeks, where they currently resided.
"Eeefaaah, cepat! You'll be late for school," rasped Granny, whose unique perfume of tobacco and Cussons baby powder always entered a room about two seconds before she did. Aoife thought it was the loveliest smell in the world, and had taken to placing her nose to Granny's fingers whenever she needed to feel safe. Like on days like today.
"Mamma can you please do the ribbons?" she asked, knowing that she might have to face yet another school day without the certainty of a saga seed game.
"Aiyoh, no time lah."
"Please."
"Ok."
So she exhaled through her nose, cigarette smoke curling into ribbons, and Aoife quickly tried to grab them to tie around her pigtails.
posted by Peaceful Pig at 6/08/2006 11:30:00 pm
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