I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston Page A

comes
    from bagpipes. Pairs of women lift and
    lower the grain pounder—bang bang bang bang—
    a music too. Their religion has to do with
    buffalos. They collect the skulls and long horns,
    and put them on a wall or on the floor,
    and that place changes to a holy place.
    That area was made good. I felt
    the good. I am able to know Good.”
    So, what does Good feel like?
    He could not say. Or he did say,
    but in Chinese, and one’s Chinese
    is not good enough to hear. “After
    Great Calamity, after Xinjiang,
    I went on the road. People are still
    on the road, millions traveling like
    desert people. But the desert people
    go on roads they know for ten
    thousand years. We seek work.
    We seek justice.” Or
restitution
.
    Or
revenge. Come out even
.
    You know what he means, millions of homeless
    wandering the country, displaced by dams, industrial
    zones, the Olympics. “I wandered lost to many
    villages until I came here and made up my mind
    Stop. Here. My stay-put home.
    I took for my own this empty house,
    whose family left to work in Industrial Zone.
    Many empty houses—you can have
    any one you like.” “I want you
    to take me to U.S.A.,”
    said Moy Moy. “A Chinese farmer
    is nothing. A maker of the mouse in an electric brain
    factory—nothing.” The nightingale in the cage above
    their heads sang along with the talking, and scattered
    seeds and spattered water down upon the talkers
    (and their food). A bare lightbulb hung next
    to a wall, to be lit for emergencies and holidays.
    In the dark, Moy Moy told
    her failure: She’s never married.
    “During the Great Calamity, women acted
    married to one husband, and another husband,
    and another. I had no one. No one
    but this brother waiting for me at the agreed-upon
    place.” Lai Lu told
    his failure: “I have no children.”
    Wittman told his failures: Not
    staying with his wife till death us do part.
    His son not married. Never getting
    a play on Broadway, New York. Not
    learning enough Chinese language.
    (Marilyn Chin says, “The poet must read
    classical Chinese. And hear Say Yup.”)
    Midnight, Lai Lu stood, said,
    “Ho, la. Good sleep, la.”
    He left for some back room. Moy Moy
    said, “Follow me.” Wittman followed her
    out the front door. White stones
    studded the courtyard walls;
    a jewel-box up-poured stars into sky.
    Followed the queue of black hair gleaming
    in the black night, hied through alleys that turned,
    and again turned, and again, 3 corners
    in, and entered a home through an unlocked
    door. “No one lives here.
    You may live here.” She parted curtains.
    The bed was a shelf, like a sleeper on Amtrak.
    She backed into the cupboard, scooted, and sat.
    Her pretty bare feet swung. He
    sat beside her. “Heart Man, marry me.”
    He ought to kiss her. But they don’t have
    that custom, do they? He was a virgin for Mongolian
    women. Aged, married too long,
    the body refused to spring and pounce and feast,
    to make the decision for sex. He reached for and held
    her hands. “Moy Moy.” Oh, no,
    shouldn’t’ve said her name. Can’t fuck
    Younger Sister. “Thank you for wanting me
    to marry you.” Her hands felt trusty. “Marry”
    said, and “marry” heard many times tonight.
    Taña appears. She’s sitting on the other side of him;
    that’s her, warm pressing against him. He
    could see her in the dark, her whitegold
    hair, her expression; she’s interested, curious,
    pissed off. He tapped her bare foot
    with his bare foot. She’s solid.
    A red string ties her ankle to
    his ankle. No string connecting him and
    the other woman. He spoke to the not-hallucinated
    one. “You’re the most beautiful Chinese
    woman I’ve ever met. I dearly want
    to kissu, suck lips with you.”
    Say anything; Taña doesn’t know
    Chinese. “Thank you, you want to marry me.”
    A rule of the open road: Keep thanking.
    “However, I don’t want more marriage.
    Our son, my one son doesn’t have any marriage.
    No one. Will you marry him?”