HAN-PING CHIN
434
sions passed over her face. I gazed at Mother and prepared for her
answer .
I noticed for the first time that half of her hair had turned
gray, as dry and puffy as hay. She was under fifty, but her flac–
cid eyelids drooped and shut out a part of her large eyes. The
dimple at the left corner of her mouth, instead of being a delicate
feature as it would have on a rich woman, seemed to indicate a
craving for something. I remembered that she had worried ever
since a fortune-teller had said she would have a short life . I
prayed that it wouldn't be true. When my mind returned to the
lost pen, I felt that her eyes were beaming at a far place and her
vision receding to a remote past. Finally she said: "Don't be so
sad, be careful from now on ."
* * *
One afternoon, arriving home from school, I saw all our cot–
ton-padded clothes hanging on a bamboo pole outside the door.
Mother did that every year to get rid of the mustiness after the
long rainy season. At first glance, I recognized Father's big
clothes among the others. Joyfully I ran to see him. In the next
moment, the lost pen jumped into my mind and guilt stopped
me at the door. Father called my name. He was sitting on a bam–
boo bench and smiling.
His face had become very dark and thin like a dried date ,
and his forehead and neck were covered with rashes from the
heat. His travelling gear was scattered around him-the same
items he had bought ten months before looked worn out. The toes
of both shoes were ripped. The only souvenir from his trip was a
calendar printed in the city where he had stayed. My classmates
had shown me the fancy goods brought by their fathers from the
big cities, such as a flashlight with a shiny barrel, springy ath–
letic shoes, a transparent plastic belt, a clothes umbrella, and
more. The sharp contrast made me realize that Father had not
found a job.
At school, the imperious third graders (the equivalent to
ninth graders in the U.S.) claimed to be "lords" and called the
freshmen "rice balls" (meaning dumb and uncivilized). As a
