Read Online The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rani Manicka
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girl was deserted in the afternoon heat.
“See the Amazing Python Lady!” screamed a big poster of a giant snake wrapped around a beautiful girl with fiercely penciled eyes. We paid ten cents and entered the covered tent. Inside it was stifling. A naked bulb burned in the stuffy air. In an iron cage, a lackluster middle-aged Malay woman sat cross-legged on a bed of straw. She held a disappointingly small snake in her hands and tried to drape it around her, but the bone-idle thing only flicked its tongue and slithered lazily back into the straw. Bored and hot, we left quickly.
The drinks vendor filled the enamel containers we handed over with chilled coconut water, and Mui Tsai persuaded me to join a line to enter a Chinese fortune-teller’s tent. Outside his tent were drawings of different types of palms sectioned off into various categories, their relevance to one’s fortunes explained in green Chinese writing. We were handed red tickets with numbers on them. Mui Tsai and I shared a ticket. We wanted to be seen together. Mui Tsai’s head brushed the wind chimes at the tent flap, and we were still giggling when we entered the brown tent.
An old Chinese man with a sparse goatee smiled enigmatically from across a folding table. His skin was very yellow and his eyes black and flat. He indicated toward some chairs in front of the table. We sat awkwardly, sliding our containers of coconut water to the grass, our silly giggles swallowed by his staring eyes. On his desk was a small red altar with burning joss sticks and a small bronze figurine.
He raised his right hand and said, “Let the ancestors speak.”
The wind chimes trilled softly.
Expressionlessly he reached for Mui Tsai’s hands first, clasping them between his own wrinkled hands, and drew a deep breath. Mui Tsai and I shrugged and made faces at each other to relieve the sudden tension in that oppressively hot tent. I rolled my eyes comically, and she pouted back.
“Sorrow, much sorrow, much, much sorrow,” he cried hoarsely.
We were startled by the sudden cry in the still tent.
“You will have no children to call your own,” he added in a strange, hollow voice.
The air in the room died. I felt Mui Tsai go rigid with fear. As if her small hands had burned him, the old man released them suddenly. Then he turned his vengeful eyes on me. Caught off guard and unnerved, I automatically slipped my hands into his outstretched, waiting ones. I felt dry leathery skin close over my damp hands. His eyes closed. In the stifling heat he was as still as a statue.
“Strength, too much strength. You should have been born a man.” He stopped to frown. Behind his closed lids his eyeballs moved wildly. “You will have many children but never happiness. Beware your eldest son. He is your enemy from another life returned to punish you. You will know the pain of burying a child. You will attract an ancestral object of great value into your hands. Do not keep it and do not try to gain from it. It belongs in a temple.” He dropped my hands and opened those expressionless two-dimensional eyes. They gazed at us blankly. Both Mui Tsai and I stood up shocked and frightened. Goose bumps spotted my arms. The heat was unbearable.
We stumbled outside, our containers of drinks forgotten in the grass. I looked at Mui Tsai, and her eyes were round with fear, her hands cupping her abdomen. Though she was seven months pregnant, her bump was not obvious like mine. In her loose samfu, she could fool anyone.
“Look,” I stated bravely, “it’s obvious that he’s a fake. Why, he said you would never have children when you are already pregnant. We’ve just thrown good money away. Everything he said was rubbish.”
“Yes, you are right. He must be a fake.”
“A horrible fake who likes scaring young girls,” I said.
We were silent on the walk home. I tried to forget about the old man with the lips that hardly moved, but his eerie words were branded into my memory like a curse
“See the Amazing Python Lady!” screamed a big poster of a giant snake wrapped around a beautiful girl with fiercely penciled eyes. We paid ten cents and entered the covered tent. Inside it was stifling. A naked bulb burned in the stuffy air. In an iron cage, a lackluster middle-aged Malay woman sat cross-legged on a bed of straw. She held a disappointingly small snake in her hands and tried to drape it around her, but the bone-idle thing only flicked its tongue and slithered lazily back into the straw. Bored and hot, we left quickly.
The drinks vendor filled the enamel containers we handed over with chilled coconut water, and Mui Tsai persuaded me to join a line to enter a Chinese fortune-teller’s tent. Outside his tent were drawings of different types of palms sectioned off into various categories, their relevance to one’s fortunes explained in green Chinese writing. We were handed red tickets with numbers on them. Mui Tsai and I shared a ticket. We wanted to be seen together. Mui Tsai’s head brushed the wind chimes at the tent flap, and we were still giggling when we entered the brown tent.
An old Chinese man with a sparse goatee smiled enigmatically from across a folding table. His skin was very yellow and his eyes black and flat. He indicated toward some chairs in front of the table. We sat awkwardly, sliding our containers of coconut water to the grass, our silly giggles swallowed by his staring eyes. On his desk was a small red altar with burning joss sticks and a small bronze figurine.
He raised his right hand and said, “Let the ancestors speak.”
The wind chimes trilled softly.
Expressionlessly he reached for Mui Tsai’s hands first, clasping them between his own wrinkled hands, and drew a deep breath. Mui Tsai and I shrugged and made faces at each other to relieve the sudden tension in that oppressively hot tent. I rolled my eyes comically, and she pouted back.
“Sorrow, much sorrow, much, much sorrow,” he cried hoarsely.
We were startled by the sudden cry in the still tent.
“You will have no children to call your own,” he added in a strange, hollow voice.
The air in the room died. I felt Mui Tsai go rigid with fear. As if her small hands had burned him, the old man released them suddenly. Then he turned his vengeful eyes on me. Caught off guard and unnerved, I automatically slipped my hands into his outstretched, waiting ones. I felt dry leathery skin close over my damp hands. His eyes closed. In the stifling heat he was as still as a statue.
“Strength, too much strength. You should have been born a man.” He stopped to frown. Behind his closed lids his eyeballs moved wildly. “You will have many children but never happiness. Beware your eldest son. He is your enemy from another life returned to punish you. You will know the pain of burying a child. You will attract an ancestral object of great value into your hands. Do not keep it and do not try to gain from it. It belongs in a temple.” He dropped my hands and opened those expressionless two-dimensional eyes. They gazed at us blankly. Both Mui Tsai and I stood up shocked and frightened. Goose bumps spotted my arms. The heat was unbearable.
We stumbled outside, our containers of drinks forgotten in the grass. I looked at Mui Tsai, and her eyes were round with fear, her hands cupping her abdomen. Though she was seven months pregnant, her bump was not obvious like mine. In her loose samfu, she could fool anyone.
“Look,” I stated bravely, “it’s obvious that he’s a fake. Why, he said you would never have children when you are already pregnant. We’ve just thrown good money away. Everything he said was rubbish.”
“Yes, you are right. He must be a fake.”
“A horrible fake who likes scaring young girls,” I said.
We were silent on the walk home. I tried to forget about the old man with the lips that hardly moved, but his eerie words were branded into my memory like a curse
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