Janette Turner Hospital Collected Stories by Janette Turner Hospital Page B

laughed loudly, in a high-pitched nasal way. “Yes indeed, ma’am. I am the son.” His laugh sounded Chinese, but his voice sounded local. Home grown. And slightly snide. No different from her own son’s. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œI was wondering …” She hated the way her voice quavered. “I have a small request. I don’t like to make a fuss, but I wonder if you wouldn’t mind playing your radio more softly, especially at night. Much more softly, actually.”
    He stared at her, his eyebrows puckering. “It’s a free country, ma’am.”
    â€œYes, of course it is. But we do … in this country, that is … we do try to respect each other’s rights. We have very different tastes in music, you see. You people …”
    â€œWhat do you mean, we people ?” he demanded belligerently.
    â€œI mean: you people who like rock music …”
    â€œI was born in this country same as you, lady. You feel you have special privileges?”
    â€œNo, of course not, Mr Wong. This is quite uncalled for. I was only asking if it is necessary to have your radio quite so loud …”
    â€œYou been across the road to speak to those students about their stereos?”
    â€œWell, no … not yet … because I keep my storm windows … But if their sound carried … if they kept me awake after midnight …”
    â€œI’ve got more right than those students, lady. I’ve got legal title to this land and they’re just tenants. My tenants, as it happens. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
    He closed the door.
    Mrs Phillips felt decidedly unsteady. She leaned on the porch railing and sank down to sit on the top step. She put her hands to her cheeks and realised that she was weeping. It was not the sort of thing she approved of in public but she did not seem to be able to do anything about it.
    I shall have to leave of course, she thought. The world of high ceilings and harpsichords and sweet neighbourhood silence was irretrievably lost. She had outlived it. It could not be transplanted to a condominium, it was as outmoded as gas lighting. Well, she had survived other losses.
    She realised with embarrassment that old Mrs Wong was staring at her.
    â€œOh, I’m so sorry. Crying here on your step. It’s an upsetting time for me.”
    Then she remembered that Mrs Wong did not speak English. What formidable isolation, she thought. How long has she been in this country? Thirty years, if the son was born here. At least thirty years.
    â€œHow have you been able to stand it?” she asked aloud. “Whom do you speak to? What have you lost?”
    The old lady suddenly began to talk, earnestly, rapidly, in pell-mell Chinese. It seemed to Mrs Phillips that she spoke of ancient courtyards and green rice paddies and granary floors. Of bound feet perhaps, and of family shrines.
    Mrs Phillips moved down to the bottom step. “Of course,” she said, “as long as we are alive nothing is completely lost. In here and in here” – she touched her own forehead lightly, then Mrs Wong’s – “it is still complete.” She formed a sphere with her hands. “Everything still exists whole for us.”
    Mrs Wong nodded vehemently, smiling. She patted the ground beside her. Mrs Phillips hesitated a moment. (She had never sat on the ground.) She kneeled instead, as though she were about to prune her roses, and began to help with the roots, breaking them into fragments with her fingers.

Waiting
    Mr Matthew Thomas owed his name and faith, as well as his lands, to those ancestors of lowly caste who had seen the salvation of the Lord. (It had been brought to South India by St Thomas the Apostle, and by later waves of Portuguese Jesuits, Dutch Protestants, and British missionaries.) Now, heir of both East and West, Matthew Thomas sat quietly in one of the chairs at the crowded Air India office,