Testament 1 - 4
Hong Kong Type #4
4.
Since being fired, my situation had reverted back to its original form, retracting into that transparent bubble isolated from the world. I tried my best to avoid going to the shopping mall, fearing to pass by that cake shop which had traumatized me.
As for the arrival of the new year, I didn't feel a thing. The past year was too painful to look back on, and the coming year held no prospects. Apart from continuing my sick leave next semester, there were no better coping methods. Looking ahead, there was nothing but a state of endless suspension.
Regarding my dismissal, Dad's reaction was just like when I came home from school as a child, telling him I had lost my water bottle or stationery - he didn't mind at all. Ever since Mom’s death, Dad had been using this technique of diminishing everything to alleviate the kids' anxiety about failure or crisis.
Maybe it was the consequence of coping with my mother’s condition, or maybe it was his non-competitive character, my father always avoided intense emotions and refrained from expressing both great joy and great sorrow. Whether I got full marks for dictation or won some competition, he would say, “Really? Well done!” Conversely, if it was bad news like being punished or bullied, he would just shrug and say, “Well? It's no big deal, right?”
This kind of sentimental education, by cutting off the highs and lows, indeed promoted family harmony and maintained a nap-like tranquility in its incompleteness. My brother, as a result, became a rational person who never let his emotions get the best of him. But for me, who grew up in the same environment, I had become timid and hesitant, lacking the ability to handle either enthusiasm or apathy, good or evil. In other words, I am afraid of extremes.
Why would someone fearful of extremes choose the path of suicide is beyond my understanding. Isn't suicide, contrary to what people think, an extreme course, but a gentle way out? Perhaps, when the world itself becomes extreme, death becomes the only sanctuary.
I couldn't think straight about anything. I didn't know if my mother was in the same predicament before she committed suicide. Yes, Mom committed suicide. When I was six years old, she jumped from the balcony of our apartment. I didn't witness the incident. I had gone to attend my kindergarten graduation ceremony, accompanied by my dad, while my mom stayed at home because she wasn't feeling well.
Since I could remember, Mom was always unwell and rarely took us out. Experiences of shopping or going to the park with her can be counted on one hand. I didn't know what kind of illness my mom had at the time, I just remember that she would easily get agitated. Then she would talk loudly, or throw things, otherwise she would silently shed tears or space out.
My brother told me that our mother wasn't like this before. He is five years older than me and has many memories of Mom taking him out to play. Not to mention going to Ocean Park, they even went as far as traveling to Taiwan. I don't know if my brother's memories are reliable, perhaps there are elements of fantasy. But it's clear that ever since I was born, my mom fell ill. Although no one has ever said it this way, or even hinted at it, my own reasoning tells me that this is indeed the case. Therefore, I always feel that Mom's death was my fault. The sin I had committed unwittingly, I must pay back one day. If I don't die, I should at least lock myself up.
Yet my self-imposed isolation wasn't complete. I couldn't help but go see Teacher Bei. According to him, I used to be quite presumptuous, so I might as well act the part. Sometimes I would spend an entire afternoon at his house, which doubled as his studio, doing nothing but watching him carve. His large body hunched over the worktable, chiseling away at the woodblock, sweating profusely, as if he were battling some beast.
It's embarrassing to admit that, although I knew Teacher Bei was a printmaker when I was in secondary school, I had never seen his work. He didn't mind my curiosity and took out some of his old pieces for me to see. He said these were A/Ps, or artist's proofs, so there was no edition number written on them. He spread the prints out one by one on his worktable, briefly explaining the creative intention behind each. He also found a few of the original woodblocks, not many. He said that the woodblocks were usually destroyed after printing, but he kept a small number that had personal significance.
I discovered that Teacher Bei specialized in carving the human body. Many of his works involved a pair of nude man and woman, entangled in exaggerated poses that resembled both passionate affection and intense struggle. On closer inspection, the human body turned out to also be a landscape or terrain, just like the myth of Pangu, whose body transformed into all things in heaven and earth. In these works where heaven, earth, and humans were one, there seemed to be some cryptic events hidden, but I couldn't understand them for the moment. Due to my lack of art appreciation skills, my focus was only on the couple. Intuition told me that these were images of Teacher Bei and his wife, but I didn't dare confirm with him and just blushed with my heart pounding secretly.
Teacher Bei also showed me his sketchbook. He said he lacked imagination, so everything he drew had to have a prototype. In the sketchbook, I saw the portraits of the nude man and woman again, and I couldn't help but stealthily compare the woman's face with the photo of his late wife on the bookshelf. This time, I was completely certain.
Afraid that I might get bored sitting, he brought out Lu Xun's collection of modern Chinese printmaking. These five thick volumes contained works from the "New Woodcut Movement" of the 1930s. He said that this was the beginning of modern woodcut in China. The skills were not mature, some were even very crude, but they had great historical significance. He also mentioned that in recent years, he had been rethinking the essence of woodcut, and this movement had given him a lot of inspiration. I had read Lu Xun's fictions and essays, but I was ashamed to admit that I didn't know about his contribution to printmaking. Knowing that this book was significant to Teacher Bei, I went through it time and again, swallowing every bit of it eagerly.
When Teacher Bei carved, he always stayed silent, as if he had forgotten my presence. I was satisfied with this situation. This indicated that I did not interfere with his creation. I visited him not to attract his attention. I just wanted to gain the sense of security emanating from his strength and energy, to combat the darkness within myself.
Then, the epidemic broke out.
I rarely went out and had cut off news and social media, so I was late to realize that the world was changing. One day when I took Fox for a walk, Dad reminded me to wear a mask. I asked him why, and he said there was a virus outside. By this time, he had resumed buying newspapers, but he would always read them secretly in his room. This time he probably felt the situation was serious and that I should have enough safety awareness, so he unusually handed the newspaper to me.
In the beginning, masks were in severe shortage and people were scrambling to buy them. There were several times when Dad went out very early, saying that he had received news that masks were being sold somewhere, but he would return empty-handed after half a day. In the end, it was my brother who managed to get a few boxes from his friend who was a doctor. Seeing this happening and being unable to help made me feel like a superfluous existence.
However, at that time, the government's epidemic prevention measures were still quite relaxed. During Lunar New Year, everyone still went to pay visits and join gatherings as usual. Seeing that I was in poor condition, Dad told me to stay at home and let him and my brother visit the relatives. But for my aunt, who was very close to us, I should also go along.
After Mother passed away and there were no women in the house, and Father had to go to work, my aunt would often come to take care of my brother and me. My mother's name is Dai Chi Ching, and my aunt, who is three years older than my mother, is called Dai Chi Yan. We call her Aunt Yan. Because the two sisters looked very much alike, we often had the illusion that our mother was still with us. Aunt Yan had been married, but divorced after a few years and had no children, so she loved us as her own. In recent years, she had suffered from neurasthenia and rarely went out to meet people. My dad also hid the fact that I had attempted suicide to prevent her from getting upset emotionally.
Aunt Yan lived in Mei Foo Sun Chuen, the same unit we had lived in before my mom committed suicide. She jumped off the balcony of that apartment. The house was bought by my maternal grandfather, Dai Fu, originally intended as a dowry for his youngest daughter (that is, my mother). Grandfather inherited a printing factory in Sheung Wan from his father (that is, my great-grandfather), Dai Tak. He operated it diligently for decades, and although he didn’t make a fortune out of it, it was enough to support his family and buy some properties for them. My paternal grandfather, Lai Kwong Sheng, migrated from Guangzhou to Hong Kong after the war. Knowing no one here, he initially worked in my grandfather's factory. Later, he left to work in the printing department of a newspaper. Unexpectedly, the two families ended up becoming relatives. My father, Lai Kai Wing, and my mother, Dai Chi Ching, knew each other from childhood due to their parents' connection.
My father, who is seven years older than my mother, tutored her in math at the Dai's shop when they were teenagers. After graduating from university, the young man, who didn't have much ambition, became a secondary school math teacher. He patiently waited seven years until my mother also finished university, and then formally proposed to her. After they married, they moved into the unit in Mei Foo Sun Chuen, where my brother and I were born. After Mother's incident and coinciding with the then slump in property prices, Father made a down payment and moved the family to a new home in the North District, leaving that heartbreaking place behind. The vacant house was then transferred to Aunt Yan for her residence. Two years ago, we finished paying the mortgage on our apartment, and my brother had started working. My dad let go of his heavy responsibilities, announced his early retirement, and planned to spend the rest of his life quietly gardening and raising dogs. Little did he expect that his disappointing daughter would still bring him so much worry and fears.
When we went to Aunt Yan's house to celebrate the Lunar New Year, in addition to the usual gifts, we also brought a box of masks. Having not seen each other for a while, Aunt Yan was very happy. She praised my brother incessantly for his outstanding performance and successful career. But when she turned to me, her face was filled with concern. She said I was too thin and kept urging me to eat New Year cakes. I exerted all my strength to put on a smile for her, but deep down, I felt my suicide attempt was a disgraceful betrayal of her. Aunt Yan had protected and nurtured me unconditionally when I was at my most vulnerable and helpless, but I was so reckless to squander my precious life. Just thinking about it, I felt overwhelmed by guilt. I was shaking with nervousness, trying to hide my shame.
Aunt Yan complained that she only went to the nearby supermarket to buy food every two or three days and spent most of her time at home. However, thanks to the pandemic, the disturbances last year had gradually calmed down, and society was not as chaotic. Repeated stresses like this, she lamented, gave her little hope for her health to improve. She frequently suffered from unprovoked palpitations, hand tremors, insomnia, and loss of appetite.
“Ah Wing, you know, mental illness is a hereditary trait in our Dai family,” Aunt Yan said unabashedly.
A look of unease flashed across my dad's face, his gaze unconsciously sweeping towards the balcony before quickly pulling back. He hurriedly changed the subject, discussing the suggestions from Aunt Yan's brothers to sell the old shop and the old apartment in Sheung Wan. That decades-old shop had been rented to other businesses since the closure of the printing factory. The flat upstairs in the same building had been vacant for a long time, untended.
When Grandfather passed away, his will specified that the shop be inherited by the three uncles and Aunt Yan, each owning a quarter of the business. The residential unit, however, was left to his youngest daughter, my mother. The next year, after my mother committed suicide, my father became the inheritor of the apartment. Being a soft-hearted man who was not good at practical matters, he always felt that the unit still belonged to the Dai family. He would seek everyone's opinion before making any decisions and had allowed our uncles' relatives to live there for free for over a decade. If the property were to be sold, he would certainly share the proceeds with the siblings of the Dai family.
Father was attached to the old house and didn't want any conflicts over money, so he tended to favor keeping it. But my brother insisted that the flat belonged to us and supported selling it to liquidate the asset. He and his fiancée were living in a rented place and planning to get married; with this money, they could buy an apartment. These considerations gave me a headache, and I remained non-committal.
Aunt Yan seemed to believe that selling the house was inevitable and suggested to my father,
“How about we pick a day to go take a look? We can clean up Father's possessions while we're there, throw out what can be thrown out, and keep what can be kept.”
After we returned from Aunt Yan's, I asked Dad if I could go with him to the old house in Sheung Wan and help clean up. He was surprised at my eagerness. I took out the three lead types he'd given me from the drawer and said,
“I want to see if there are any more of these type pieces. There might be other things too.”
That night, I had the same dream again about falling from a high place. In my dream, I saw my mom on that balcony and the printing machine that looked like a polyphonic instrument. I wanted to know what the machine was printing, but like every other time, I couldn't identify the densely packed text on the paper. The only difference was, this time my grandfather told my mom not to put her hand into the printing machine, saying it would get her hand cut off. But my mom, who looked like a little girl, disobeyed. She stretched her small hand into the gap where the plate opened when my grandfather wasn't looking. I started to scream beside them, but I couldn't make a sound. I woke up here, sweating all over.
Two days later, I made an excuse to go pay a New Year's visit to Teacher Bei, bringing him a few masks. I knew he probably wouldn't care about such conventions. I rang the doorbell repeatedly but no one answered. After a while a huge figure appeared coming down from upstairs. Teacher Bei said he was handling some stuff on the rooftop. He opened the door, brought out two boxes, put some printed materials in them, and asked me to help carry them upstairs.
On the rooftop was a metal barrel used for burning junk, with flames sporadically shooting from its mouth. The teacher asked me to throw the things in the cardboard box into the barrel while he hacked the woodblocks with an axe next to me. I saw that images had been carved onto those woodblocks, and the papers were the printed artworks he had completed recently. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I looked at him and said,
“Teacher Bei, why are you burning these? They are the fruits of your hard work!”
The teacher kept his head down, hacking at the woodblocks, and muttered to himself,
“Compared to the sweat and blood of others, what's mine worth?'”
The woodblock broke into two under his axe. I got a scare, loosened my grip, and a stack of prints slipped from my hand into the barrel. I tried to catch them but failed. The flames curled and soared, then turned into pungent black smoke.
I looked at Teacher Bei and, seeing his obstinacy, followed his instructions and burned all the artworks. After he had chopped all the woodblocks into pieces, he also threw them into the barrel and burned them together. We stood side by side, as if bidding farewell to spirits of the dead, watching the smoke rise slowly into the sky.
When the flames died down, we went back to the second floor. I noticed that Teacher Bei's left thumb was injured and bleeding. I grew anxious and asked him where the first aid kit was. After some rummaging, I finally found a box of Band-Aids. I happened to have brought alcohol-based hand sanitizer, originally meant for virus protection, which came in handy now. I asked the teacher to sit still while I tended to his wound.
Disinfecting the wound with alcohol must have been very painful. Even the man before me cried out, tears in his eyes, but he joked,
“See! This is real sweat and blood!”
Teacher Bei rotated his thumb, now bandaged with a Band-Aid, as if appreciating a piece of artwork, and said,
“Thank you, Sun Fei! You have good skills.”
"Teacher, you seem a bit strange today, not like your usual self."
"Really? Oh right — what's the date today? I should give you a red packet for the New Year! But it seems I don't have any envelopes!"
He sprang up, ran into the bedroom, and quickly came back out, handing me not a red envelope, but a card the size of a postcard. I took the card and saw a line of characters printed vertically on it:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
"What's this?"
"The first sentence of Genesis."
"I know, I mean —"
"This is Hong Kong Type."
"Hong Kong Type?"
"These characters were printed with lead type cast 160 years ago. This typeface is called Hong Kong Type."
"So that means?"
"I have a friend who is curating an exhibition about Hong Kong Type and is looking for someone to help with the researching. Are you interested?"
"I... "
"I think you'd be very suitable."
"I am not fit to do anything right now."
"How can you say that? You might not be able to do other things, but when it comes to words, I'm certain you can."
I stared at the characters on the card, feeling as if they were being imprinted, one by one, onto my heart.
[To be continued]