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The Silk Emporium |
by Elaine Barnard
The sign on my shop blinks SILK EMPORIUM in large electric letters. You can't miss the sign even when the rain blinds you. Next door there is also a silk shop. In fact, there are many silk shops in Old Town. That's why I chose to name mine SILK EMPORIUM. In these difficult times one must employ every advantage to get ahead. It's not as if there were no other merchants in Hanoi anxious to close my doors in order to keep theirs open. Oh, we pretend we're not rivals. Each morning when we sweep the sidewalk in front we greet each other over our bamboo brooms as if we were one family truly concerned with each other's health and well being. In reality we wish each other nothing but illness and bad fortune so that we might prosper.
I've never confessed this before. Perhaps I never believed this, allowing myself to be deceived by small courtesies, such as the time I had a sick stomach and Li left a bowl of noodle soup on my doorstep. When I didn't come down from my rooms above to taste the soup, her daughter left a cup of herb tea on my step, knocking thrice to make certain I heard and would sip the tea while it was hot. I pretended not to hear the knocks only drinking the tea after I heard her sandals slap against the light rain that had begun to fall as it does many afternoons in Hanoi. That way I didn't have to thank her, could pretend a cat had lapped the tea and thus the empty cup. But Li would not give up continuing to annoy me with her solicitude as if I were some orphan that needed caring.
Indeed she was right in that regard, my parents having left me with the Sisters of Mercy when I was an infant. They had eleven other children and couldn't afford another spoonful of rice for the twelfth.
I know that if I accept anything from Li I must return the favor. That's our custom. I don't wish to dwindle my limited resources in that kind of exchange, each one seeing how she could best the other, give a less expensive gift for one more costly.
I'm standing in my doorway now watching the tourists flee for shelter before the next cloudburst. It's nearing five. Most of them will hail a rickshaw to drive them back to their hotels. How I would love to be driven back to a hotel rather than the dark rooms above my shop that stink from the dust of the streets, the bird droppings littering my window sill, the greasy smell of frying fish. I've never been in a hotel and maybe never will be. It's my wish that on my honeymoon my husband will take me to a grand hotel. But since I have no hope for a husband as I'm beyond the age of hoping, I must abandon that wish as I have so many others.
The rain is heavier now. Little puddles form where the dogs have slept. The peanut seller covers his wagon and moves on, the fish monger sits beneath his cart, the mango lady tries to hover in my doorway but I shush her off, afraid the tourists won't enter if she blocks their way. She curses me and spits on my step. I pretend to ignore her but inside I shudder, my stomach churning as if it would escape her wrath.
My electric sign grows dim, finally goes dark as thunder strikes. I hurry into the rain with my umbrella, hoping to lure any last tourist into my shop. Soon I see them, this fat girl and a thin grayish woman who must be her mother. The girl's hair is bright as an overripe orange, her skin freckled as the spotted sheets on my neighbor's line. Her mother frowns, grasping the girl's arm as they dodge the rain drops. I rush toward them, offering my umbrella, inviting them into the Emporium.
"We're wet." The mother wipes drips from the girl's forehead.
"It does not matter. Here, stand beneath the fan to dry yourselves." I fetch a rag and kneel to wipe their feet.
"We can do that," the mother protests.
"It's my pleasure," I say, thinking now that they're inside my shop with the rain pounding my roof they will surely buy something even it it's just a silk umbrella to send them on their way.
"Please sit and have some tea to refresh you."
"Oh no, we couldn't. We're late getting back to the hotel as it is."
The daughter says nothing. She's already pawing the garments, shaking her wet hair on my new straw mats as she admires herself in the mirror.
"Don't make a mess," the mother barks, joining her daughter at the dress rack.
"These fabrics are delicate," I tell them. "Some have Paris labels." I'd sewn the labels in carefully after I'd copied the designs from ELLE. I love the texture of silk, its sensuous surface, the way it clings to the breasts and hips of a small slender girl such as I once was.
"They're exquisite." The mother unrolls a bolt of silk the shade of cinnamon while her daughter tries on everything that doesn't fit.
"Be careful, dear, you could burst the seams."
"Would that be a problem?" she says to me as she tries to zip some indigo trousers over her bulging stomach.
"Of course not. We'd just sew them up again."
"This is a beautiful bolt of pink silk." The mother traces her long manicured nails over the shiny fabric. "Maybe she could make something for you."
The girl smiles tossing the trousers on the floor as she grabs a red sheath from a hanger and starts to drag it over her head. "Help me, Mom, it's stuck."
"One moment, I'll see if I have a larger size in back."
The girl doesn't answer as she's still stuck inside the dress. "Mom," she whines, "I can't pull it down."
"Pull it up then," the mother mumbles, busy trying on jackets.
In back I rummage through the storeroom, hoping I'll find a larger size, but there's nothing larger, only smaller as would fit an American twelve-year-old. I must find something, I think. They will not leave my shop without a purchase.
Finally I spot a bolt of white silk secluded on a high shelf. I climb the ladder and carry it down on my shoulder, sweat dripping down my neck, staining my favorite blouse, pale yellow with a lotus blossom trim. The blouse was a present from the Sisters of Mercy who still remember my birthdays even though it's many years since I have seen them.
Carefully I blow dust from the bolt of white silk. It's bridal white, pure and hopeful. I'd saved it for the wedding I never had and never will. So why not sell it now, why not get some profit from a dream that proved to be worthless. It's a heavy roll. I squat to wedge it through the doorway hoping my sweat doesn't stain it and ruin the sale.
The girl has managed to extricate her self from the dress and thrown it over a lopsided stool in the corner. Her mother is fitting her scrawny body into a mauve silk jacket much too large for her.
"Can you take it in?" she asks as I carefully roll the white silk to her feet, pushing my bangs from my forehead, where sweat has plastered them.
"My pleasure," I get some pins from my sewing machine and begin to pinch the jacket. But it's no use. The woman is a stick so it hangs limply. "Perhaps we can find something else. This white silk would complement your hair."
"I'm thinking of changing the color, dyeing it black while I'm in Vietnam. Hairdressers are so much cheaper here than in the States."
"Your hair is lovely as it is."
I unroll the silk and hold it against her. "See, white is just the color for you. I've been to the fashion schools in Paris. I know such things." In truth I've never been outside Hanoi. But the silk is white and so is the lie and thus can be forgiven.
"Really?"
"Why would I tell you a falsehood? It might keep me from entering the gates of heaven when I pass."
"You're religious?"
"Of course, the afterlife is to be cherished. It makes the indignities of this one bearable."
"I never thought of it that way, since I find this life perfectly enjoyable."
"We better go, Mom. The kids are waiting. If I'm late they'll go for beer without me."
"I don't want you going for beer. It'll bloat your stomach."
"Well I'm going anyway." She starts to leave.
"You're not going anywhere without me."
"Who says?" And she's out the door.
"Carolla, come back here."
But it's no use. The girl has disappeared into the storm.
"Wait," I call after them. "I have an umbrella for you. It's a fine silk. It can be used rain or shine."
But the woman doesn't hear. She hails a cab which doesn't stop. I plod after her, two umbrellas beneath my arm. "Here," I yell. "Take these. I'll sell them to you cheap."
She ignores me, boarding a trishaw hooded with plastic. Her daughter suddenly emerges from a shop down the street and climbs in beside her.
"Here," I call again shaking the umbrellas. "These will protect you."
But they've already rounded the corner. I open an umbrella and trudge back to my shop in time to see the leaks form in my ceiling. I set out pots to catch the drips as I have every year. Lifting the bolt of white silk from the floor, I carry it back to the storeroom and set it on the shelf beside the other unsold bolts of fabric. I slump there, wondering how I can pay the rent, which is higher every year, how I can buy enough rice before the monsoon sets in, how I can pay someone to fix the leaks, how I can....
***
Suddenly I hear three knocks. I descend my ladder and hurry to the door, thinking it might be a tourist attracted by my sign, which has begun to blink again. I open the door. Li hovers there, a cup of herb tea in hand.
"I-I couldn't help noticing... I-I just thought you might need...."
"Don't stand there in the rain, Li. Come in, come in.... We'll sip tea together."
Elaine Barnard was born in Brooklyn, New York. Some of her stories have been published in Southword, Apple Valley Review, R.KV.R.Y, Timber Creek Review, Storyteller, Pearl, Sage, Kalliope, and Writers Forum. Recently, she was a finalist at Glimmertrain. Barnard holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine.
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