Testament 1 - 3
Hong Kong Type #3
3.
I changed out of my uniform and left the store, but I dared not go home. I was supposed to celebrate Christmas Eve with Dad. How could I bring such shameful news back and present it to him as a gift? I wandered aimlessly through the nearby streets, thinking about what a worthless daughter I was, and couldn't help but cry.
Reaching into my backpack for a tissue, my hand touched a piece of stiff paper. When I pulled it out, I realized it was the name card the teacher had just given me. Under the dim streetlight, I couldn't make out the words on the card, but my fingers brushed over a peculiar texture. I moved to the entrance of the train station where the light was brighter, and saw the teacher's name imprinted on the ivory-colored card with a subtle indentation.
The three characters "Bei Ming Yi" seemed to be stamped at the bottom of my eyes in an instant, and no amount of tears would fade them. Driven by some subconscious urge, I pulled out my phone and dialed the number on the card.*
"Teacher Bei, it's Lai Sun Fei! We’ve just met at the cake shop."
"Oh! Is it Sun Fei? What a coincidence to run into you today!"
The teacher obviously didn't expect me to call, and that too on the same day, so he didn't know how to react for a moment. Neither did I know what to say to him, and I began to panic. Observing my silence, he continued,
"Do you have something to say? Hello? Sun Fei? Is there something wrong?"
"It's nothing, teacher, I'm fine! I just want to —"
I couldn't stop myself from sobbing again as I spoke. The voice on the other end seemed to be at a loss, and quickly said,
"What's wrong? Are you okay? Just finish work?"
"Sorry, teacher! Forgive me the intrusion!"
I tried to hang up, but the teacher stopped me, saying,
"Hey! Hey! You definitely have something going on. If there's something wrong, you should talk about it, don't keep it inside."
"Teacher, I—I just got fired."
There was a pause, probably due to the suddenness of the news, then he said,
"Are you still nearby? I can come find you."
"No need to bother, teacher. It's really okay, it's just a minor issue."
"It's no problem, I live very close. — Or, do you have time? Come over to my place, I'll treat you to cake."
"I can't! The cake is for your wife, I can't eat it."
"It's okay, she won't mind. Please come over and have some. Follow the address on the card, walk past the sports field, and I'll wait for you at the intersection across from the swimming pool."
Listening to the teacher's commanding words, I complied like a well-behaved student. I heard that after my class graduated, he quit his job to focus on creating his own artwork. I didn't take Fine Art for public exams, so we weren't close. I was only his student in a general art class. Sometimes we'd run into each other after class and chat in the hallway, that was the extent of our relationship.
He was called "Teacher Bei" because of his rare surname. Some students mispronounced it and called him "Teacher Fei," which then turned into "Fei Lo," meaning “good-for-nothing-guy”. Those who pronounced it correctly called him "Bei Ming Yi", meaning “grief-wailing-child” word by word, abbreviated to "Bei Sir", and I just got used to calling him "Teacher Bei". No matter what nickname he was called, Teacher Bei never minded.**
I was a clumsy person with absolutely no talent for art, and I had never received praise from Teacher Bei. Oddly enough, perhaps because I had a special connection to words, my calligraphy was not bad. Sometimes when my paintings were too poor, I would write characters next to them to salvage the aesthetic and my grades. Perhaps because of my handwriting, Teacher Bei had a bit of an impression of me. Before we graduated, I wrote a piece of calligraphy for him, which included the complicated characters in his name. He said that it was the most beautiful handwriting of his name he'd ever seen, far surpassing even his own.
It took less than five minutes to walk from the railway station to the walled-village entrance, and a tall figure could be seen from afar. In secondary school, my classmates and I thought that a male teacher with such a physique should be teaching PE, instead of Art. It was only later that I found out Teacher Bei was best at woodblock printing, which was almost akin to manual labor.
Teacher Bei didn't wait for me to get close before he came over to greet me. As if nothing had happened, he did not inquire about my situation, nor did he deliberately observe my condition. I followed him to a house inside the walled-village. The unit he rented was on the second floor, and as soon as the door opened, a strong smell of wood, ink, and paper filled the air. Although it was supposed to be a home, there was hardly anything in the house that could be called furniture. There was a large work table in the center of the living room, surrounded by tools, materials, and wood blocks that were either completed or half-carved. The walls were covered with finished prints. Some were clearly a series in progress, depicting faceless, naked men and women in the midst of fog, fire, or a mountain of knives, stretching their bodies in extreme poses, seemingly struggling in pain, but also seemingly dancing ecstatically.
He handed me a wooden chair and sat on a short log himself, still towering over me. A corner of the worktable was covered with an old tablecloth, on which sat the cake he bought today. It was the most famous mille-feuille cake from the shop, topped with strawberries and blueberries. He took a dining knife, made a rough measurement over the cake, and cut me a piece that had both strawberries and blueberries.
"Where's your wife? Isn't she at home? It seems a bit impolite for me to eat first."
"It's okay, you go ahead and eat. I'm sorry, there isn't much to drink in the fridge. Is soy milk okay?"
I said it was fine, and he poured me some soy milk in a ceramic cup with a lizard design. He sat down next to me, watching me eat the cake, but he didn't eat himself. As if to alleviate my awkwardness, he started to chat casually.
"You entered the Chinese department at university, didn't you? But you haven't graduated yet, have you? Why are you selling cakes?"
"I had some problems half a year ago, and I'm currently on a sick leave."
"What happened? Can you tell me?"
I stopped, swallowed the cake in my mouth, licked my lips, and said, "I attempted suicide."
"Ah, is that so?"
Teacher Bei pursed his lips, poking his brow with his finger, as if trying to suppress a big reaction.
"Why was that?"
I lowered my head and said, "I don't know. I fainted at that time and was in the hospital for a while. Later, I couldn't remember many things, it was like I had a muddled dream. Although I slowly settled down afterwards, my head seemed a bit dull, and I couldn't concentrate. The world felt floaty, and unreal. I thought finding a simple job could help me recover. But the situation got worse, I couldn't handle the things in the shop at all. In just two weeks, I have been complained about by customers several times. Teacher Bei, do you think I'm useless?"
"How could it be? You are trying to get out of the predicament, which is very brave. You just temporarily don't know which method is most effective for yourself. I have faith in you, you will definitely get better."
A smile appeared on the teacher's face, softening his square features. His massive body, although not muscular, felt substantial up close. His hands, toughened by years of wood carving, were powerful, and only his hair had turned greyer and rougher than before, like a hat made of iron wire, tightly covering his head. In fact, Teacher Bei was at most around forty years old, but he exuded a faint sense of melancholy.
"What about you, teacher? Did you resign from your teaching job to focus on creating art?"
The teacher smiled in silence. After a while, he took a deep breath and said,
"I didn't plan to resign originally, but that summer, my wife suddenly passed away. So I realized that I should do what I really want to do as soon as possible."
I was greatly startled, almost dropped my fork, and said,
"Your wife is no longer here? And you still—"
"I occasionally buy things that she liked to eat, to feel the taste of her still being with me."
"Why did your wife—"
"It was a long-term illness. I was somewhat prepared. But when it happened, I was still caught off guard."
I put down the fork and buried my face in my hands.
"I'm sorry, Teacher Bei! I didn't know you'd suffered such great pain! I even bothered you with my trivial matters! And I ate the cake you prepared for your wife! I am too presumptuous!"
"Aiyo! When did you become a crybaby? You used to be a thick-skinned, back-talking girl!" The teacher teased me.
"No way!"
"Don't you remember? When I asked you guys to draw ink paintings, you handed in calligraphy, and argued with me that ink painting and calligraphy share the same origin."
"I was discussing it sensibly. I wasn't talking back."
"Alright, alright, if you're not talking back, then open your mouth wide and finish the cake."
Just after finishing the cake, my phone rang. It was my dad, who was looking for me because I hadn't come home yet. I told him I ran into my old secondary school teacher at the shop and chatted with him after work. After hanging up, Teacher Bei insisted on taking me home.
My home was on the other side of the railway. We took a pedestrian bridge behind the swimming pool, crossed the railway, and walked south along the bike path next to the public housing estate. The teacher was silent all the way, but he gave me a long-lost sense of security. Passing the bus stop, under a row of flame of the forest, which is called “shadow tree” locally, I pointed to the building across the road and said,
"My home is there, on the eighth floor, the third level from the top. I almost jumped out of that window."
Teacher Bei stopped, looked up into the darkness, squinting his eyes, and said,
"Here's the thing, Lai Sun Fei, if you ever want to jump out of that window again, remember that Teacher Bei is standing here watching. He absolutely doesn't want to see you do that. Do you understand?"
"I understand." I couldn't help but tear up again.
After saying goodbye, I walked into the elevator lobby of the building and found Dad waiting there. He looked towards the road and said,
"Is that your teacher?"
"Yes, that's Mr. Bei, the art teacher. He came to the shop today to buy a cake for his wife. But his wife has actually died."
"Indeed, that’s how it should be," Dad agreed.
As we got into the elevator, I said, "I got fired today."
"Really?"
"I'm sorry."
"No apology for Christmas. Let's have turkey when we get home!"
[To be continued]
* The teacher’s name “Bei Ming Yi” is 費銘彞 in Chinese, with “ming” meaning “engraving” and “yi” referring to a kind of ancient Chinese wine vessel, usually casted in bronze.
**The surname 費 is pronounced “bei” in Cantonese, but many mistake it as “fai,” which is the usual pronunciation of the word. Hence the nickname “fai lo”（廢佬）. But the pronunciation “bei” sounds similar to that of the word 悲, which means “grief,” and “ming” sounds the same as that of the word 鳴, which means “cry” or “wail.” Hence the other nickname “grief-wailing-child”（悲鳴兒）。The teacher adopted the latter as his pseudonym as woodblock printing artist. Sun Fei calls him Teacher Bei (Grief)（悲老師）throughout the whole novel.