Yesterday I was on the phone with my paternal grandmother who I hadn't seen in a while. She said my youngest aunt, Patricia, was unwell and staying with her and grandpa, in the family home I spent parts of my childhood in. Would I like to speak to her? Yes, of course. Patricia got on the phone and I casually asked her why she had quit living with her boyfriend in his village house. "Oh, I've got cancer," she said, "I'm staying here because it's closer to the hospital." The rest of the conversation lasted two minutes: "How are you going to take care of this and that?" vs "I'm fine. I'm not worried at all."
I was on a crowded street, around a bunch of shopping malls flooded with mainland Chinese tourists who queued up outside Louis Vuitton and Gucci. After the call I found the Mister Softee ice-cream van--which has been a part of our city life since 1970--and got myself an ice-cream cone. I bit and licked that ice-cream, walked for a long while and fought back tears so that I wouldn't have to hide myself from passers-by. Finally I took the ferry and got some air.
***
When I was a child I lived with Patricia for several years. After my parents' divorce (when I was 5) I lived with my grandparents and my youngest uncle in a small flat in this very 'domesticated' district, full of old people, housewives, children, supermarkets, street food and polluted air. Typical Hong Kong life in the 80's. Pat came to stay with us a couple years later with two dogs--a Pomeranian and a Cocker Spaniel--because she was always out working and hanging out with men and she wanted someone to take care of the dogs. She was in her mid-20's then.
The dogs soon ruled us. They always shat first thing in the morning in that 400 sq ft flat and someone--at times it was me--had to clean it up before anyone could start their day. Grandma cooked lunch for them (rice with chicken meat and all kinds of human food); Grandpa helped bathe them; I played with them when they started barking like crazy or trying to kill each other (which often ended with one of them getting taken to the vet). In those days, Patricia was a popular masseuse in a sauna place. On most nights she came home late. The dogs always waited for her by her bed.
I waited for her, too. Sometimes she was gone for a couple days. There were photos of her with a middle-aged man at dinner, at the park, on vacation. Pat was a pretty woman--petite figure with good curves, fine features and a charming smile. She joked a lot, smoked and drank occasionally, was a straight-shooting girl who could get very upfront with anyone who talked shit around her, which was rare for a young Chinese woman at the time. Every other woman her age was getting married, worrying about in-laws and babies. Patricia didn't want any of that.
At some point I heard that her boyfriend was a married man which, in my young mind, was just a 'given' like another aunt was married to a quiet man, or that I couldn't grow my hair long because no one would do my ponytail. I attended an afternoon school. On most days I went to the library in the morning, came home around noon for lunch, when Pat woke up and took a shower. Sometimes, when my grandpa wasn't around and Pat had forgotten her towel, she walked out of the bathroom naked. Water dripping down her well-proportioned body and fine skin. So much flesh and beauty.
***
Patricia took an interest in my well-being like most of my relatives did, but since we lived together, she took care of things for me when my father didn't. Like giving me money to pay for books and taking me to get a haircut. The year I turned eleven, she threw a birthday party for me at home, invited some of my aunts and cousins, came up with a cake and a camera. I was so agitated that I didn't speak the whole time. By that age I'd accepted that while my relatives took good care of me at a practical level, no one would attend to my feelings--that I often grieved over missing out on these little doses of caring other children received from their parents.
Shortly after that my father, in a fist of anger at my bad behavior (not doing homework), threatened to send me to this prestigious, Catholic boarding school for girls on an island. I wanted my freedom; I screamed and cried for days. At that time, Pat was going to move to a bigger place with Grandma and the two dogs, so she got Grandma to pack my things too. The new home was spacious and close to the harbor. At night Pat and I walked the dogs in the park. I also developed this terrible habit of staying up way past midnight to listen to the radio--which was how I got to know so much good music.
We lived that life for a few years. Pat started to take me out to dinner, movies, even Karaoke with this other boyfriend she had, and his two very young daughters from two previous relationships. The man was a charming talker, very sociable. Pat drove a red sports car. Those days came to an end when Pat moved again with Grandma, and I went to stay with my father when I was 13. Even then, Patricia (and my eldest aunt Carmen who I'll mention later) tried to make sure I lived well. The women took me on a shopping spree for household appliances, convinced me that I needed a rice cooker, a microwave and a washing machine, which my father couldn't afford to buy.
***
Pat's story unfolded in tragic ways. She attempted to break up with the married boyfriend she had been with for years, so that she could be free to marry the man she was in love with. The boyfriend wasn't going to have it. In addition to giving her money, this man was in love with my aunt--he had met most of my relatives, even introduced her to his wife and family who had accepted her as the mistress. When Pat called it quits, he was down to his knees in tears, with a check in his hand: "Write any amount you want." And this was a man who was the owner of a popular Chinese newspaper, connected to the city's celebrities, politicians and rich businessmen.
Pat grabbed the check and threw it in the man's face, said some nasty things. The man hired a private investigator and found out about the other boyfriend--and presumably did certain things to destroy her which, to this day, aren't fully explained to me by my family. Pat married her beloved just to get divorced in a year. The husband and the two girls treated her coldly at home, they fought often, her fortune had dried up and he wanted her gone. In the end the man hit her, called her a whore until she walked out of the house. She had always had problem with her right ear, and she suffered a partial loss of hearing from the blows on that night.
That wasn't quite the end yet. My aunt was so hopelessly in love with that jerk--she would do anything as long as he came back to sweet talk her. Which meant her taking on a huge loan on his behalf. And then he ran off. In the following years, Pat was evicted from one place to the next, could never hold a job for long (the creditors would come after her), had no friends, even abandoned one of her dogs (the two I grew up with were long dead by then--she went on to have others) at a pet shop. Carmen, who had handed over all her savings to help Pat and my father with their debts, paid for the dog's lodging at the pet shop for a year, until she moved to a new place and had room for the dog.
***
This is the family I come from--everybody does what they can for one another, which includes monetary help in pressing circumstances. In the 90's, my father got into an unconceivable amount of debt. My grandparents cleared out their savings--jokingly called 'coffin fund' in Chinese culture, the money that the elderly keeps--and Carmen helped us out all the time. The others took care of me now and then. My aunts and uncles were just regular people with manual jobs--taxi driver, receptionist at a laundry shop, cleaner at a hotel. Before Patricia's fall from grace, she gave my father as much money as it would cost to send someone to an Ivy League school. By the time Pat needed money, no one had any left to help her.
It wasn't just the money, of course. It was the unspoken love and pain of watching my aunt turn into a shadow of the woman she once was. Year after year I watched her--she lost weight, or got bloated; her face turned yellow as her liver malfunctioned. She moved back to the family home where she woke up sick on some days, from being cursed by my selfish, foul-mouthed, angry grandfather ("You've become such a useless person"). She missed that jerk who left her in ruins, and for years she wouldn't get another proper boyfriend. Now and then she had a job at a massage place, which ran out of business or she had to quit because of her not-so-good health.
Over the years I would talk to Patricia at family gatherings, ask her what she was up to. But every time I'd ask with a sense of dread--the answer would probably be not good, and my aunt was a proud person. "Oh yeah, it flopped," she would shake her head like it was nothing that her workplace had closed down and she was out of work again, and I knew perfectly well that it meant she might be evicted again. Other times I tried to tell her what I was up to, but nothing ever seemed appropriate. Should I tell her that I hated my job but my colleagues were funny people? Or that I didn't love my boyfriend even though he was a nice guy? Or that I got a cat? I'm not good at small talk at all.
***
In the last three years Patricia has finally had some stability, thanks to this boyfriend who is a chef at a Chinese restaurant. The boyfriend is married, too, though the wife and the son have moved to Canada for years. The man asked for a divorce and the wife told him to do it on his own in Hong Kong. Patricia was a proper, live-in girlfriend. The boyfriend visits and takes her to the hospital these days.
Given all this long and terrible history, you can imagine how I've been feeling since I talked to Pat. My aunt has got cancer and she doesn't have medical insurance. I don't know how much the boyfriend can help her out--a part of me is even worried that he may disappear. I can't help her out because I'm broke at the moment. I can't go up to her with an envelop of money and say, Hello Aunt, I guess it's taxi rides to the hospital, which is the kind of excuses (like "Hello Grandma, go get yourself some food") Chinese come up with when they give money to their families. It's something I've always done with my grandparents and Carmen who used to support me. In the past I tried to give Patricia money too but she would never take it.
My memories of Patricia are a little bound up with the difficult times I lived through in those early days, and my love for her carries a taint of grief. Whenever I think of her, I think about how difficult, sad and pathetic life could be if one only made a couple bad mistakes. It was a different time; but still, it makes me very gloomy to think about it.
