Anguli Ma by Chi Vu Page B

somehow, her lungs were not drinking in the air…her head felt like someone was wringing it out like a wet piece of discarded fabric. So you are standing somewhere else much different from where you thought you were. She was panicking, from having to chase after something, a word, perhaps, a word half-remembered. It ran along on two legs, or perhaps four. It cast a shadow over the cracked surfaces as it ran along the empty yard, opened the gate and then bolted. Out the front of her garden. Chết mồ !
    When Đào woke up, the kitchen was bathed in blue light from the street, streaming through the windows. She was unsure of how long she’d slept.
    ÄÃ o switched on the fluorescent light; she looked around the kitchen, the living room, the backyard, then ran out to the front of the house where the cars and trucks on the highway churned the dust ceaselessly. She called out her granddaughter’s name – Tuyết, Tuyết Æ¡i – but only the sound of traffic came back. Đào crossed the big intersection, went past the used-car yard, and still she could not see her granddaughter. Maybethe shops, she thought, maybe Tuyết walked herself there while Đào was asleep, even though she knows not to.
    Tuyết
    The adults met and talked loudly, while Tuyết waited in the kitchen. And then everyone left, and she went to practise on the piano, at least half an hour of finger exercises to strengthen the fourth and fifth fingers. Her grandmother cleared away the pens and cushions and snacks, locking and unlocking the different rooms in the house, and then came back to the couch. As Tuyết played the piano, she looked past her grandmother’s shoulder and saw the new man living out the back of the house. He had been through the side gate and was making his way to the front of the house.
    â€œWhat wonderful playing! Genius!” Her grandmother clapped, oblivious to the new man’s presence outside.
    Tuyết was confused by her grandmother’s praise; she hadn’t played anything too special or difficult – she merely repeated the melodic phrase like a trained monkey. “So that was what was meant by being good,” Tuyết thought.
    At the front of the house, the new man stopped and turned around as though he had forgotten something, and walked slowly back past thewindow again, looking all around where she was. At the side gate, he then turned around again , going past the window by the piano. He pressed his cheek against the glass and smiled a funny lopsided smile at her, through all the screens. He stood still to watch her tiny fingers dance.
    She quickly averted her eyes and continued playing, or else her grandmother might see the man in the window. The next piece was longer and more difficult. Tuyết played it with more feeling, and placed into it both her fear and her courage. When she finished playing, the new man was gone, and her grandmother was asleep.
    Tuyết turned on the television. There was an ad for Vita-Weats, and it had Vegemite maggots squirming out of the holes as the boy squashed the crackers together. “Disgusting!” thought Tuyết, as the jingle sang out, “Good trim Vita-Weat, the crispbread all the family eats.”
    Her grandma snored behind her, on the couch. Tuyết realised that her grandmother couldn’t know that she was sitting too close to the television. She sat on the floor, and in spite of herself, moved away as she had often been told to. Then, the little girl heard footsteps in the kitchen.
    The new man who lived out the back reappeared, this time inside the house. He had a large black bag over his lopsided shoulder, and waved at her to come over to him. His large hands waved and waved and waved to her, and his grin was as wide as a happy bear. Tuyết looked at her grandmother, who was snoring; she looked down, not knowing what to do. Then she stood up off the floor, and came out