Testament 2 - 8

Hong Kong Type #11

8.

That morning, I took Fox for a walk along our usual route. Cuckoos in the trees were crying out mournfully, and on the ground, spotted doves were courting each other in pairs. Fox was unfazed, walking calmly with the leash around its neck, maintaining a comfortable distance from me.

While going into the pedestrian subway, a figure approached from the other end. Since there was no one else in the subway, the lone figure was especially noticeable. About halfway through, I suddenly recognized the person to be Ah Loi. He slightly hunched his shoulders, carrying a backpack, moving briskly as if in a hurry to get somewhere, or rather rushing to escape from something.

I was usually most afraid of running into acquaintances on the street, as I hesitated over whether or not to greet them, my whole body would become frozen. Often, I lowered my head, turned away, or stepped aside instinctually to avoid their gaze. However, afterwards, I would feel uncomfortable all over, worrying that they might have seen my reaction and think of me as incurably apathetic.

At this point, Ah Loi was almost in front of me. There was no way to avoid him, so I braced myself and raised my hand, waving at him. Strangely, instead of responding kindly to my greeting, he appeared as if his thoughts were interrupted. He ducked and avoided me, showing a look of disgust. I stood there, petrified and embarrassed. Fox seemed to sense a threat and barked fiercely at him, causing him to jump towards the bike path on the side. He swore angrily, then raced forward without looking back, disappearing into the end of the subway.

I felt incredibly wronged, standing motionlessly for a long time at that spot, unable to accept that my goodwill was met with such cold treatment in return. Fox seemed to be trying to protect me, pacing around me, gazing with its unseeing eyes in the direction where that person disappeared, then nudging my knee with its nose. I squatted down, wrapping my arms around its neck, allowing it to lick my face.

That intangible hurt persisted all day, keeping me from focusing on my reading. Several times, I nearly pressed on that number saved on my mobile phone, wanting to call that person to ask what happened, but I gave up each time because my mind was too chaotic and I couldn’t find the right words.

After noon, I couldn’t stay at home any longer, so I made up an excuse to find something to eat and wandered the streets aimlessly. When I reached the overpass leading to the railway station, someone suddenly called out to me. As I turned around, the person standing in front of me was exactly the one I wanted to find but didn’t dare to.

Ah Loi was wearing clothes different from this morning, his backpack was replaced with a tote bag, and the color of his mask also seemed different. He asked in a friendly tone:

“Where are you going? To eat?”

I was immediately confused, the words I wanted to question him stuck in my throat, I simply nodded in response.

“Why don't we have lunch together then!”

Unexpectedly, I nodded again, but in my heart, I was annoyed at my own cowardice.

He asked me what I wanted to eat, and I suggested a Western restaurant. He looked a little awkward, then said it was too expensive. I offered to treat him, and he thought about it for a moment. Perhaps he felt that I would not want to accompany him to a fast-food restaurant, he agreed. In fact, that restaurant wasn’t expensive, the lunch was quite affordable. It was only later that I learned his family was in a poor financial situation. In addition to preparing for his diploma exam, he also had to working part-time at a convenience store.

Sitting down in the restaurant, I ordered tomato sauce salmon pasta, while he chose the cheapest cheese mushroom pasta. Despite his skinny appearance, his appetite was surprisingly large. He finished his meal in a few bites. Then, I offered him half of my dish. He was a bit embarrassed at first, but then ate the rest with an unabashed face, leaving not a single crumb behind. When he removed his mask to eat, I noticed for the first time that his teeth were crooked. I recalled the two weeks we previously spent working together at the cake shop and realized that I had never really taken the time to properly look at his appearance.

Ah Loi complained about how the pandemic caused the diploma exam to be postponed, disrupting his revision plan and making him unable to find a full-time job. Now it was hard to make ends meet. He said that since his father left without a word when he was a child, his mother often didn’t come home. She lived with her boyfriend outside and returned home only occasionally to leave some money. He was essentially brought up on his own in the absence of a caring adult. As he grew up, his mother’s financial support also decreased. Perhaps she was struggling herself, and he had to go out to work and earn money, sometimes even needing to bail his mother out. However, he talked about all these in a lighthearted manner, not showing any sign of grievances.

Ah Loi sincerely told me about his tough experiences, yet I was angry with him in my heart. I was timid about expressing my feelings and felt terribly bad about myself. Finally, I couldn’t hold back my tears. He was surprised and asked me what was wrong. Tearfully I asked:

“Why did you treat me like that this morning?”

“What did I do this morning?” he replied.

“I greeted you, but you glared at me and ran away.”

“Did we meet this morning?”

“Yes, we did! It was in the pedestrian subway behind the housing estate.”

Ah Loi slapped himself hard on the forehead, shook his head and said,

“That must have been Ah Sau!”

“Who is Ah Sau? Do you have a twin brother?”

“Not a twin brother - how do I put it...”

Ah Loi seemed like he wanted to say something but hesitated, as if in a dilemma, yet seeing my bewildered expression, he felt obliged to make a thorough explanation. He rubbed his unshaved chin, looking like his was going to talk about something even he himself found it hard to believe. He said:

"Have you ever heard of split personality? It’s not a joke, believe me. Ah Sau is my other personality. I found out when I was 10 that there’s another side to me. Probably after Dad disappeared. Friends and classmates would tell me I did things I didn't think I had done. Later, I found out it was the other me who did these things. This other me is called Ah Sau. He has a different personality from me - more violent, quick tempered, and difficult to get along with. Yet, when I can’t decide on doing something, he would go ahead without hesitation. I don’t know whether that’s a positive trait. He’s basically the opposite of me in all aspects. Imagine the misunderstandings and problems this could create. My poor performance in school, failed exams, and unstable jobs are all related to this. Later, when we became aware of each other, we would communicate through writing. We would leave messages for each other in a notebook. Even though we couldn’t fully coordinate, we at least set some rules to follow, not interfering or screwing up each other’s affairs. Of course, accidents still happen in reality, like what happened this morning.”

I wondered whether I was too gullible. Looking at Ah Loi’s sincere expression, I saw no reason to distrust him. Besides, he had helped me when I was in trouble. I felt that I should forgive his oddities. Suddenly, I felt as if the scales had tipped to an even balance. A newfound sense of liberation and joy washed over me. Yet, I immediately felt ashamed of this mindset. Being a poor person didn’t give you the right to celebrate another’s poverty. Thus, I felt sympathy for Ah Loi, and even Ah Sau who had once treated me ill.

“So, the next time you notice something off about my reaction, you'll know it’s Ah Sau. All you need to do is ignore him, and definitely don’t take his words and actions to heart. As for this time, let me apologize on behalf of Ah Sau!”

Ah Loi placed both hands on the table and bowed to me. I wanted to stop him, but didn’t know what to say, so I awkwardly accepted. When it was time to pay the bill, he insisted on treating me as an apology. I couldn’t persuade him otherwise, but I felt guilty for letting him who was badly off pay. Ah Loi laughed and said, “You can treat me to a big meal next time! But make sure you invite the right person!” After saying that, he put his mask back on, covering up his uneven smile caused by the crooked teeth.

During the New Year visit to Aunt Yan’s house, it was mentioned to find a day to tidy up the old stuff at the family house in Sheung Wan. When the pandemic eased slightly, Aunt called to remind Dad. Originally, the house was property of the Dai family and had nothing to do with my dad. However, Grandpa and Grandad were colleagues, and my dad grew up and met my mom in that district, so the family house held special meaning for him.

The shops on the street had been without tenants since last year, their pulled-down iron shutters plastered with posters. Relatives of my oldest maternal uncle once lived in the unit upstairs, but they also moved away last year. I faintly remember coming here a few times when my grandfather was still alive, before I turned five. The print workshop downstairs had already closed down by then, replaced by a stationery shop. The shop owner, seeing the landlord, my grandfather, bring his grandchildren, gave my brother and I some colored pencils for free. I remember that my mom didn’t come with us, it was my dad who brought us here. A year before Mom committed suicide, Grandfather passed away. I heard from Aunt Yan that among his five children, my grandfather loved his youngest daughter, Ah Ching, who is my mother, the most. I have no memory of seeing my grandfather and mother together, except in that recurring dream.

As Aunt Yan’s strength was limited, climbing those three flights of stairs nearly took her life. After opening the door and entering the house, Dad immediately found a chair for her to sit and rest. It had been many years since I visited, and my original impression of the house was very vague. I only remembered the old-fashioned floor tiles and iron window frames, which had been replaced by wooden floors and aluminum windows. I believed the furniture, added bit by bit over time, also had seen some days. The overall feeling was neither nostalgic nor novel.

The weather was quite hot by the end of March, but my aunt couldn’t stand the air conditioning. So, I opened the window, and my father turned on the electric fan. My aunt took a few sips of some unknown hot drink she had brought in a thermos, and slowly began to recover. She pointed to one of the bedrooms, stating that it contained my grandfather’s belongings. She had repeatedly instructed that no one staying in the house could touch them.

The window in that small room was quite narrow, and the natural light was insufficient, so my father turned on the light. Inside, there were several pieces of old furniture, including a small desk, a bookshelf with glass doors, and a heavy wardrobe. They were all made of wood in an old-fashioned design, and their color had deepened with time, but they did not form a set. It seemed I had some prior life memories of these old items. I smelled a strangely familiar scent.

There were stacks of cardboard boxes on and under the desk, all of which had been collecting dust for a long time, making it hard to know where to begin. The bookshelf was not overly filled. I opened the glass door and leaned closer for a look. A section of the books was about Cantonese opera, reportedly a hobby of my grandfather. There were also some novels from the 70s and 80s by Hong Kong and Taiwanese authors, including Zhang Ailing, Sanmao, Qiong Yao, and others. There were also Chinese translations of foreign literature, such as Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. I pulled out a book to browse. On the thin, faded pages, the printed text was uneven in color and some of the strokes were blurred. The characters even looked slightly debossed.

“These books were printed with movable type!” I exclaimed, as if I had made a great discovery.

“What’s movable type?” My aunt asked.

“A printing method that uses individual letters,” my dad explained for me.

“It’s called movable type, huh? Doesn’t sound like anything special!’

My aunt’s lack of interest in her own father’s profession surprised me. Perhaps she was concerned about other things.

“These were the books that your mother and I used to read when we were young. Whatever books we wanted to read, Papa would buy them for us.”

Dad also picked out a few books, flipping through them fondly, saying,

“Yeah! I often saw Ah Qing reading these novels at the shop back then.”

“Back then, Ah Qing was still a young girl of only ten years old and was already reading such novels. That’s why she was easily deceived by you!”

Aunt unusually teased Dad, and Dad just grinned foolishly. Then she turned to me and said:

“Ah Fei must have inherited Ah Ching’s traits. She’s loved reading novels since she was a child. And just like her mom, very easily deceived.”

This time, Dad replied with a little protest, “Ah Yan, where are you getting to with this? What’s the point about deceiving?”

“Novels are deceptive, aren’t they? Being captivated by them, reading them with relish, isn’t that being deceived?” Aunt retorted.

I ignored their argument and carefully picked out some books to take home. I didn’t know whether it was because these books had been read by my mom, or due to the letterpress printing in them, which caused an inexplicable excitement within me.

Later, Dad found a small hand-cranked printing press in the wardrobe. The device had a component that looked like a round metal mirror. When the handle was pulled up, two rollers would sweep over the mirror surface, and when the handle was pressed down, the rollers would bring the ink they picked up onto the printing plate. There were two such machines in Miss Yung’s print studio, and Master Lok even personally demonstrated to me how to operate them.

Inside the wardrobe, there was also an old-fashioned leather suitcase, which was filled with tools for letterpress printing, including frames, rectangular metal blocks of various sizes, thin metal sheets, etc., likely used for line spacing and intervals when typesetting. In a cloth bag, there were a pile of lead typefaces, the size of which was similar to the No. 4 letters I had seen in the print studio. I estimated that there were roughly more than three hundred of them, all old and turning black, emitting a strong smell of ink and metal. Intuition told me that this was an extremely important thing. It set my blood boiling, my head dizzy, and I almost fainted.

We found another photo album in the wardrobe. The album wasn’t very old, most likely Grandpa bought it after he retired to reorganize the old photos. It contained family photos of his children, from my eldest uncle down to my mom, the youngest. The most photos were from our family, from my parents’ wedding to pictures of my brother and me in our childhood.

Inside, there were three rare photos of me and my mother. One was taken in a park, where my mother was holding me as a baby, with a gentle smile on her face that I could never recall. The second was when I was about two years old, at my grandfather’s old house. We were dressed as if it was Chinese New Year, and there were daffodils on the table. My mother’s hand was on my shoulder, but her eyes were closed just as the shutter clicked. The last one was when I first attended kindergarten at four, wearing a school uniform. My mother was sitting on the balcony at our home in Mei Foo, and I was standing next to her, looking a bit stiff, as if I was afraid to get close to her. For some reason, these three photos were not in our family album.

Even older were the life and passport photos of Grandpa's children when they were young. Perhaps it wasn’t as convenient to take photos back then, so there weren’t many. Aunt Yan said that when Grandpa was in his prime, he worked almost every day of the year to support his family, leaving little time to spend with his children. It wasn’t until after his eldest sons became independent that he gradually let go of his burdens, so Mom was the child who received the most paternal love. Sadly, not long after Grandpa retired, Grandma passed away, and then even his most cherished daughter became mentally ill.

This was the first time I had seen photos of my mom when she was a child and a young girl in her adolescence. What shocked me was how alike she was to me. Her goldfish-like eyes stood out prominently in the black and white photos. No wonder my grandfather always favored me so much. There was an inexplicable melancholy in the gaze of my mom in her youth. In the photos of her and my grandfather, he always held her so tightly, as if he could never let go of his dearly loved daughter. One of the photos was taken in a shop, with a little her standing in front of a printing machine, and my middle-aged grandfather pretended to be in operation. It was nearly exactly the same as the scene I had seen many times in my dreams.

In addition, there were a few scattered photos, placed in a paper bag from an old-fashioned studio. Among them were individual and group photos of my grandparents when they were young, as well as a family picture of my grandfather when he was a child. In the photo, my great-grandfather looked very old, while by contrast, my great-grandmother looked quite young. Encircled by his three sisters, my grandfather carried a bit of a young master’s demeanor, suggesting that the family might have been quite well-off back then. My aunt said that my great-grandfather had two other wives, and we are from the smallest, the third house so-called. The whereabouts of these distant relatives had become impossible to trace.

Finally, there was a severely yellowed and blurred photograph. It featured a grown man with a queue, the Qing Dynasty hairstyle, wearing a long robe, and a boy in his teens with short hair, wearing Western-style clothes. The man sat with a stern expression on a traditional Chinese chair, while the stubborn-looking boy stood beside him. Their postures resembled a father and son, but their facial features did not look very alike. The boy’s hair and skin tone seemed lighter, but it was unclear if this was because the photograph had faded. Even my aunt had never seen this photograph. After comparison, we all believed that the boy was likely my great-great-grandfather. As for the man, he could possibly be my great-great-great-grandfather. On the back of the photo, written with dissolving ink in the British style of dating, read ‘4-9-1884.’ Other than that, there was no other information. We decided to take all the photographs back with us for a closer look.

After rummaging around for most of the day, my aunt was beginning to feel physically drained. Dad suggested that we should stop for now. After deciding which items to discard, we piled them up in one corner of the hall to be cleaned up another day. The items worth keeping were taken back to my house and my aunt’s house. As for the items we didn’t have time to properly look through, they would have to wait until next time. The items we had to carry away weren’t large in size, but there were many of them and they were not light. It was more than just the three of us could handle. My father called an instant delivery service van online to transport everything back to our homes.