Ronnie Li

An Abstinent Silence

Aggressively, I pierced the steamed fish with my chopsticks. Mom was sitting across
from me, and grandma was sitting next to Mom, chewing on the Chinese broccoli. A listless
candle illuminated the drab dining room because proper lights had not been set up yet. (In
Beijing, complete moving takes at least half a year; the ubiquitous overcrowding of the streets is
always discouraging to the moving companies.) Meanwhile, the seat opposite of the door,
reserved traditionally for the head of the household, was vacant. Grandpa was not home.
“Probably playing Mahjong again with those jerks,” Mom broke the silence with her
immaculate Chinese. She sighed and took some fish, only to give it to me.
“And drinking shot after shot,” Grandma added.
I looked askance at the door, almost reprimanding it for not opening soon enough. But
the door seemed to have listened, for immediately afterwards, the three of us heard offbeat thuds
on our apartment floor that were growing in volume. With a violent blast, the metal door
swerved open and struck the back wall, causing the steel bars to vibrate. None of us had any time
to react. There was Grandfather. His right hand was barely clinging to the kitchen counter and
his left hand still held a shot of hard liquor. It was extraordinary that face wasn’t even red, yet his
body seemed utterly defeated.
Mom sighed once more, threw down her chopsticks, and ran over to help. Grandma was
already there. Showing reverence and sympathy, I did the same. I took Grandpa’s left arm and
ushered him to his bedroom. Opening the handle with my free hand, odors of alcoholism
diffused out of the room, punched my stomach, and caused me to grimace upon entering. As I
put him down on his bed that lacked springs, I felt the effluvia of alcohol escape his body and
latch onto mine. It was repulsive and nauseating. I swiftly but politely exited the room and
resumed my eating, while Mom and Grandma were still sitting by his side. Behind me, I heard
the concerned voices of the two women and the incomprehensible voice of the man. After
eavesdropping a little, I realized Mom and Grandma were talking about how they should deal
with this addiction, since it’s been going on for decades. When Grandma finished her sentence,
Grandpa let out a short, unexpected burst of laughter.
When the two of them came back to the table, I lowered my head, hoping to hint that I
heard nothing. However, I certainly wasn’t expecting Mom to involve me in the discussion they
had begun at Grandfather’s bedside.
“Ronnie,” she began, “I need you to do something with us tomorrow evening.”
“Yeah, sure…I mean, um, what do you want me to do?” My voice sounded even more
timid now.
“At around this time tomorrow, we’re going to have a talk with Grandpa. You’re in
charge of bringing him to this sofa, where we’ll be waiting. If he refuses, I guess we’ll just have
to talk to him at the door. But he loves you so much, so he’ll definitely comply. Is that okay?”
“Fine!” I shouted instinctively. I didn’t even have to ask what the “talk” would be about –
Mom and Grandma have been openly planning this for some time now.
“Of course, if you don’t want to do it, it’s –”
“No, I’ll do it,” I said. “Tomorrow evening it is.”
***
“Tomorrow evening” soon became “this evening.” We were again pecking away at our
dishes with the head-of-the-household seat empty. But this time, instead of being surprised, we
were prepared. Grandma, being the one closest to the door, heard those idiosyncratic footsteps on
the concrete and scrambled up. Mom and I reacted to her and did the same. When Grandpa came
in, he found us standing away from the dinner table, but his reaction was subdued by the alcohol.
“What’s going on?” He managed to ask us.
Grandma eyed me, telling me that it was my cue.
“Grandpa, I…can you come with me for a second? Sit down on the sofa please?”
“Where’s my food and wh-what’s happening?” Grandpa stumbled over his words a
couple of times, but we managed to decode his speech.
“Just sit down!” I ordered with unexpected audacity. With that, Grandpa did as I said and
plopped himself like a rebellious student down on the black leather couch.
Grandma, taking advantage of the apparent sobriety, sat down next to him and began her
monologue as Mom and I watched from the sidelines of the kitchen.
“Shen Chao Xian,” she stated authoritatively, “you’ve been drinking for years now, and
your grandson has been watching you drink and smoke for years now. Do you want a similar
future for him when he grows up? He looks up to you; he loves you so much. Can’t you tell by
the way you two hug, by the way his eyes light up when he’s playing Chinese chess with you, by
the way he cries whenever he leaves Beijing? You’re like a father to him in China, so why do
you still provide such a malicious example for this little boy? Just quit! Why don’t you try? It’s
for all of us! Quit, please!”
Having listened to Grandma’s speech, Grandpa’s eyes grew wider, but only by a tiny
margin. It seemed as though Grandma’s words barely nudged him, although they moved my
mother to tears. But no; Grandpa, semi-prone on the sofa, was only semi-prone on the sofa and
nothing else. No motion, no response, no reaction. He was alive – just unable to be human at the
moment. Grandma let out a disappointed sigh, one that almost whispered “it’s no use” into the
airs. She walked to the table, passing us, sat down, and started pecking at her food again.
Realizing that to convince a drunken Grandpa was to break concrete with chopsticks, Mom and I
left the scene and resumed our dinner. Mom patted Grandma’s shoulder and said something in
her ear that I did not hear. The words were probably her condolences. Meanwhile, Grandpa
remained semi-prone on the sofa until we physically carried him to his bedroom once more.
***
We woke up the next morning with a dreadful feeling. Mom had been vomiting all night
and neither Grandma nor I could sleep. At 7:00 am, the thunder and rain ceased and we were
again busy with packing things in the old house and unpacking them in the new house. But this
morning, our task was a bit different. Since the moving was essentially complete, my aunt, who
lived close to the old home, asked somebody to go back and clean the place. Everyone except
Mom volunteered, because my mom was working at the time and her boss did not allow her to
take many days off.
The four of us split a taxi to the old home; Mom got off at her office. Grandpa, Grandma
and I walked up the stairs of this elevator-less building and opened the steel doors. Packets of
dust zealously rushed out to greet us, all of whom either gagged or coughed. For the couple of
days that we neglected them, the rooms were near fatal conditions.
“Well, time to get to work,” Grandpa said straightforwardly. “I’ll take care of the kitchen
and dining room. Ronnie, do the bedroom and bathroom. Wife, you can clean out the living room
and guest room.” With our brooms and dusters, we all proceeded to our stations as instructed.
It had been an hour already, and the Beijing sun was scorching our skin. As I was
cleaning the television, I suddenly heard a thud that coincided with the reflection on the
television screen of a collapsing entity. I jerked my body around. Grandpa was on the floor, and
a white substance was gushing out of his mouth. Too horrified to scream but too anxious not to, I
pulled Grandma over, who also nearly fainted on the parched floors. We began to panic, for there
was no phone, and there were no neighbors. And at this time, we were unsure if there was no
hope.
Grandma burst open the steel doors and began shouting for help. When she was tired, I
took her place while she tried to resuscitate Grandpa, now banging his fist on the floor helplessly
while spewing white foam. After about ten minutes of desperate screaming, a woman carrying
her groceries was heading up the stairs and saw us. I explained to her briefly what was going on.
Fortunately, she had a cell phone to call an ambulance.
“You just wait here with your Grandma,” she said and gave me a hug, “they’ll be here
very soon.”
Grandma and I thanked her awkwardly as she continued up the staircase to her floor.
We had to wait for another ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive. In addition to waiting
so long, the ambulance was a makeshift minivan that barely had any medical equipment. But as
long as the doctors were certified and the vehicle took us to the hospital, we could not complain.
At this time, a doctor and three nurses came in and took over the scene imperiously. Two nurses
went to help the doctor carry Grandpa’s body, which was fighting for precious breath after breath.
The remaining nurse came to attend me, making sure I was in the bedroom and away from the
gruesome visuals of it all – but I was still curious.
“Excuse me, nurse? May I have a look at Grandpa?” I asked cutely.
“No.”
“Please? He’s my grandfather and I love him and I want to see him!”
“No!”
“Nurse, please let me see him! I –”
I felt the sting of five long, thin fingers across my face and knew exactly what had
happened. I dared not glance up at the nurse, since I was certain she was boiling red –
unjustifiably – with anger. But here I was, a child who was being barred from seeing his Grandpa,
maybe for the last time. And she had the authority to physically attack me? Nonetheless, by then
I was too weak and too puny to retaliate, and the heat was unbearable. Lacking water, I stumbled
a few steps and heard my own thud on the scorching wooden floor.
***
It was already nighttime. The specious curtains tried to deceive me in vain. I found
myself lying on Grandpa’s bed, and as soon as my eyes were open, my body was active. I didn’t
know where Grandpa was, but I was going to find out. And discovering Grandpa’s location and
condition would be a mission for me. Rushing forward and emerging from the unforgiving
darkness, I hurled open the bedroom door – and realized that my mission was already complete.
There was Mom, there was Grandma, there was my aunt, and there was my uncle, and all of
them turned their heads toward me as I broke out of the bedroom. What I wasn’t aware of at first,
though, was that all of them were praying. Something went wrong.
Mom’s glimmering eyes reflected even more light with the moisture from the tears. She
told me that Grandpa had waited too long to be treated and didn’t make it. She told me the day of
his funeral and the location of his burial site. She told me the world in those two sentences. And I
could imagine lonely Grandpa under those white sheets, completely sober, finally experiencing
the abstinent silence he wanted for so long.
Goodbye, Grandpa. I hope you know that I love you.
***
Shirts, suits, dresses and skirts were all black that day. We drove for about two hours to
the place of the funeral, which entailed at least one hundred people dressed in black under the
uncompromising heat. Grandma, Mom, and I were among the first to file into the room. The hall
where Grandpa’s body lay repelled sound waves off its walls, and on the wall opposite the
entrance was an enormous portrait of my noble Grandpa, dressed in his best clothing. Every
centimeter of the hall was festooned with beautiful roses, tulips, daffodils, and magnolias to
complement Grandpa’s wondrous personality. The coffin was closed completely, but we trusted
that our beloved Shen Chao Xian was resting in peace. As people gathered around the coffin,
they marveled at the décor but wailed at the occasion. Mom put a hand on my shoulder, and I put
my head on hers. Somehow, I managed to hold back my tears as I saw the beautiful coffin.
Perhaps because I knew someone more beautiful was safely within it.
“He’s not here anymore,” I whispered to the breezes. They seemed to offer their
sympathies as well by encircling the room. I stole a glimpse of Grandma, who was sobbing softly
into a tissue. It was the first time I’ve seen her cry.
As handkerchief after handkerchief was used up, and as friends and relatives exhausted
their eyes with lamentation, we quietly left the room. The lights dimmed behind us and Grandpa
was once again left lonely in the darkness, waiting for the cremating fire.
Everyone was gone now, and Grandpa’s ashes were probably already buried in their
designated location. Mom and Grandma consoled each other behind me, one’s hand on the
shoulder of the other. In front of me, the parking lot awaited; but beyond that was an untamed
expanse of sea that held bright futures for Grandpa. I knew there would be no more chess-
playing on weekends, no more silly tongue-twisters that I couldn’t say, no more great food from
a world-class chef and grandfather. Yet, I also knew that wherever Grandpa went, he would
bring joy and compassion, love and laughter, sympathy and gratitude. Smiling, I thought of the
day two weeks ago when the three of us were lecturing him about alcohol and smoking. I turned
my back to the parking lot, paused, and raised my head to the sky. Somewhere, Grandpa was
saying to me, “I listened.”