Through a Glass Darkly

Part One

Madame Leung-Kett was eighty-two. She was going to die.

One Saturday evening she called the family together. Seated erect in the Dragon Throne, her black syrup eyes smouldering, grey hair piled in a bun and a collar of pearls choking her neck, she raised her walking stick and shouted, “Look, you miserable lot, you’ve treated me badly. The doctor says I may die at any moment. But no one is getting the inheritance easy!”

Her living room in an Australian suburban home was like an interior from the Forbidden City. Grandiose pieces of Ming-style mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture struck out in every corner. A pair of immense blue and white floor vases proclaimed unbounded ambition and hare-brained ideas.

Seated around the rosewood table were Madame Leung-Kett’s daughter, Lauren Lee, her husband Dr Kwok-Keong Lee, and their daughters. Felicity was liked by everyone and Blanche, the youngest at twenty-one, had big hair and bigger ideas. 

Blanche had heard her grandmother announce her impending death at least twenty times. She’d always pretended to observe the rules because it was a mistake to climb into the ring and start a skirmish. But tonight was different. When Madame Leung-Kett again announced her coming demise at the dinner table, Blanche couldn’t help blurting out, “Por-Por, please stop repeating yourself.”

“I forbid you to talk back! No one’s getting the inheritance easy. You know my policy: Whoever treats me the best gets the most. Felicity has never let me down. I’m giving her my entire share portfolio.”

The old woman helped herself generously to moss hair from the clay pot while the family sat hunched over their rice bowls, like hidebound cocks tied to some invisible pole. No one lifted their head. Madame Leung-Kett singled out her first victim for reproach.

“You disobeyed me, Lauren. Marrying for love! Went through the money left by your father. Paw! George would never have forgiven you! But you’re still my daughter. So I’m leaving you the properties and the bank accounts. But you better take care. Everything’s subject to change—” Madame Leung-Kett started to cough, beating her chest. 

“Soup!” said Felicity, handing over grandmother’s bowl. Dr Lee got up to ladle watercress soup with pork ribs into the rice bowl. 

The old woman downed the soup in greedy gulps. After sweeping a continuous stream of rice into her mouth, she eyed her son-in-law between hiccups.  

“Look here, Kwok-Keong, I know you’ve looked after my daughter but she married beneath her station, d’you hear. It’s no secret I don’t care a damn you’re a doctor. Don’t give a damn about your umpteen degrees. But hang it all, you gave me grandchildren so you’re getting cash and securities.”

Then her gaze travelled to Blanche whose leg was shaking with nerves.

“Gawd, Mei-Mei. Look at you – crazy boho! Living in rundown houses eating pasta and potatoes! When are you ever going to learn!”

Blanche’s heart contracted.

“Moving out like a gwei. Are you mad?” She dumped every soong Blanche disliked into her bowl – overcooked carrots, mushrooms, vermicelli and turnips.

***

 “Understand me.” Madame Leung-Kett sprayed saliva everywhere as she heaved with the violence of her emotions. “If you keep doing this shameful thing – hardly speaking Chinese – mixing with maniacs – you won’t get a cent from me!”

Blanche was choked with such rage she could’ve murdered her grandmother. 

“Stop treating me like an outsider. I’m sick and tired of all this!” she cried, getting up and slamming the door behind her.

Her blood continued to rise as she drove home. She thought about her struggles to be an artist, wandering from one shared house to another, stumbling to outdoor toilets and through dingy corridors crammed with macramé tapestry, broken chimes, stray cats, and lopsided fiddle-leaf figs. She was writing stories, eating simply and feeling triumphant, like a real individual following her own unique path, until she returned from these Saturday dinners.

Inside the dilapidated Brunswick weatherboard, Blanche grimaced at the retro kitchen benches scattered with cored apples, orange rinds, and bundles of sticky cinnamon sticks. There was artful and tacky décor hanging crookedly on peeling walls – a red Mickey Mouse clock, dog-eared Kandinsky posters and badges announcing, ‘I’m the one your mother WARNED you about’, ‘Is that a BANANA in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?’ and ‘Not all those who wander are LOST.’.

Blanche shut the door of her room, realizing she was lost. 

As she threw off her scruffy coat, Blanche suffered real physical pain that yet again, she hadn’t been treated fairly. She had no doubt she’d been wronged. She was determined to have her revenge. What could she do?

With a hard expression, she found herself looking at a black and white photograph tacked above her desk. Bill Walters, a man with long, flowing hair had disappeared a little over a year ago with neither note nor word, leaving her to cover his hefty rent, alcohol, and gambling debts. He was a gifted artist and polyglot, slightly vague and obese at thirty-eight, but there was a general indulgent feeling amongst friends that he was sowing wild oats and would make good. 

No one in her family knew about her entanglement with Bill. To make them understand would have meant talking about things they never spoke of at the dinner table. She would have to put into words feelings they pretended didn’t exist. It was useless to explain. Perhaps she was still in love with him. But his running off without a word was offensive, and to be lumped with his debts made her feel hard done by.

Blanche hated anything unexpected, things that made life complicated. Her grandmother excluding her from her will was like a dagger to her heart. She couldn’t quite explain how it felt. But to be told she was not good enough, not Chinese enough – like a gwei – like Bill! It gave her a kind of disgust with herself.  

Blanche’s mood darkened and by the time she got into bed, she had a nasty feeling that a gap had opened up before her and the rest of the family. She’d been eclipsed, shunted to an inferior fate. What nonsense not to be entitled to an inheritance! Her grandmother had been rude and abominable to her. She woke up four times during the night. 

The next morning she was sitting at the kitchen table drinking her third cup of coffee. It was five o’clock. She knew the old woman woke up early. At the dot of six, she picked up the phone.

“It’s not true I’m a gwei – just because I roast chicken and eat curries,” she said in a burst of defiance.

“Paw! Look at you – bamboo thin!” Madame Leung-Kett’s voice boomed. “Don’t think you know everything just because you’ve left home!”

“I never said I knew―”

“There. Talking back again! Paying rent to a hippie when you could be living at home like your sister, saving money, eating Chinese!” The force of Madame Leung-Kett’s voice caused Blanche to move the receiver away from her ear. “Everyone knows eating Chinese is jerk sow – well worth it. If it weren’t for me feeding you beef tomato stir fry and Cantonese style beef you would’ve collapsed long ago!”

“Rubbish. You don’t feed me―”

“Be quiet! Fillet steak is forty-nine dollars a kilo! That’s at Woolworths. You’ll pay double at the butchers. You’ve no idea how expensive is red meat―”

“I wasn’t talking about ―”

“Listen, you’re coming over right now to get the billy-can of dongguai! Don’t tell me I don’t know it’s your period. That’s why you’re carrying on crazy!”

Feeling her breath rushing like she could beat her, Blanche slammed down the phone. 

She loathed dongguai, a revolting-tasting concoction packed with awful angelica roots, dried-up red dates, and goji berries. The medicinal brew was supposed to do wonders for period cramps and the skin or something. She never believed it but didn’t dare refuse it either. Between her and Por-Por, this was a kind of game, a contest they each hoped to win. She didn’t want people to think she could be easily ousted. She pulled on her coat as she passed through the hallway, and drove to Templestowe. 

At her grandmother’s doorstep, Blanche was struck dumb to find a man of smart appearance open the front door. 

“Ah, Mei-Mei,” came Madame Leung-Kett’s voice in Cantonese as she almost skipped forward with her walking stick. “Max has been helping me fix the lock on the shed and that gap in back fence. Thank God he’s here to help. No one else has time!”

“So this is the young scapegrace,” said the well-attired man of fortyish with a twinkle in his eyes.

Blanche stared in shock and disbelief at the expensive business shirt and fitted blazer, wondering if the dark-wash demin were designer jeans. That classy hairstyle and those svelte glasses would turn a few heads. She was thinking this suave gentleman might be someone she might want to get to know except…

“Bill!”

“I’m sorry. It’s Max.”

“But you’re – surely you’re ― “

Madame Leung-Kett gave her no time.

“Paw! Can’t you pay attention?” She turned to Max. “Shocking manners. Always like that.”

Blanche was seething. She might be excused for not recognising his new sophisticated look but that bass voice, those eyes…

She drew herself up with dignity. 

“Bill, what are you doing here? I’ve been looking for you―”

“Looking for him? What an idea,” said Madame Leung-Kett, outraged. “Max is a famous Mandarin and Cantonese scholar!”

Things were happening too rapidly. 

“I know who you are!” Blanche insisted, staking her claim before they stole a march on her. “Where’ve you been? Answer me!”

Max looked at Blanche earnestly. “I’m afraid you’re getting mixed up. I am here to help your grandmother. I hope I haven’t tired her out.” His eyes strayed to Madame Leung-Kett. “Ivy,” he said gently. “I think it’s time for your little lie-down.”

Blanche opened her lips, then closed them abruptly, as she gazed in a stupor at Max helping her grandmother into the TV recliner, the picture of a loving, affectionate partner. “Good God. I know all about you!” she nearly choked. “I’ve seen you without any clothes and you’re behaving like a paragon of virtue, someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

Blanche rushed to help Madame Leung-Kett into the recliner but Max jostled her and she almost fell over. His little bumps were violent but all the time he didn’t take his eyes off the target.

“I’m helping your grandmother tidy up, in case she wants to sell,” he said. 

“Sell?” Blanche found herself staring at Max’s poker face. Was he – hadn’t she – seen him in this part of town? She’d a sudden memory of a bespectacled man, rather like a distinguished-looking gentleman passing this area recently, but couldn’t place him. 

“You know, Max stopped that awful squeak in the buffet door,” Madame Leung-Kett beamed. “And tightened the hinges on the panel screen.” 

Max drew from his pocket a card and handed it to Blanche.

“Happy to help anytime. Your grandmother is really too generous, making me jin doys and baos.”

Blanche shook her head incredulously. 

“She gives you jin doys and―”

Madame Leung-Kett cut her short. 

“You have no idea I’ve been cooking for your gong-gong and his nine brothers since I was seventeen – almost the day I landed in Tong-see!”

“After sailing six weeks from Guangzhou,” Max erupted in Mandarin.

Blanche wanted to hit him. How dare he impress her grandmother with his Asian language skills and threaten to take her place! Look at him caressing her. She knew that well-fleshed, sex-laden, hot-headed air her grandmother gave off to make men infatuated with her. It was a mean trick to cover her ugly nakedness. Did he know she used the false identity of a deceased Chinese girl to enter Australia to marry a rich man almost twice her age? My God, the bride was still laying it on thick!

“Look, Mei-Mei, you’d better get the dongguai and go.” Madame Leung-Kett waved Blanche to the kitchen, tossing her away like she was a match. 

Blanche grabbed the billy-can realising this was going to be a three-way struggle to the death. Nobody was paying any attention to her but she wasn’t going to be shoved aside while they laughed at her. Had they forgotten she was brought up on warfare? How could she not go all in – and win!

In the car she put her foot down on the accelerator, forcing other cars out the way. She wanted to make a scene, do something violent, infuriated at her slippery adversary.

“That smooth talker, pulling strings! Surely Por-Por can’t be that stupid.” 

The car stopped at the lights. Blanche grabbed Max’s name card. For a moment, the distinctive lettering invaded her mind. She recalled seeing something similar in the home of one of her grandmother’s neighbors. Suddenly, she stiffened. That was where she’d caught a glimpse of Max but hadn’t recognized him – at Elspeth’s place. After she became a widow, she and Por-Por visited Elspeth’s majestic house full of old crystals and antiques. Now he was helping her grandmother with repairs! The coincidence was remarkable. Max must be thinking he’d hit the jackpot! She despised him – using his charm to sponge off rich, old women! It was her duty to warn her grandmother.  

As she swung the car into the driveway, she was too upset to notice someone waving and shouting at her, gesticulating towards the house.

“It’s your grandma on the phone again!” 

Blanche jumped out of the car and ran down the corridor past bohemian tapestry, wind chimes, a stray cat and a lopsided, leathery fiddle leaf fig as the landline rang. 

“Por-Por,” she said grabbing the receiver. “I just got in."

“Take me to the safety box.”

‘What? I’m working tomorrow―’

‘Why can’t you take leave? I want to take out the jewelry―”

Suddenly Blanche began choking and coughing.

"What’s wrong? You got the virus? The doctor says I may die any moment.”

She paused to catch her breath. “Monday isn’t a good day to take unscheduled leave. Everyone knows that.”

“By gee, if you’re not going to help me I’ll ask Max―”

“Alright, I’ll take you!" Blanche snapped, slamming down the receiver, her hands clenched in an anger she’d never known.   

Why was she asked to sacrifice her time and energy? She was always the sitting duck in her family. Couldn’t they see she had important business too? Or was she being melodramatic, exaggerating the wrongs she suffered because she couldn’t handle life? 

Something dangerous was about to happen. It was out of character for her grandmother to behave like that. Carrying on like a love-sick schoolgirl. She didn’t know what ‘take out the jewelry’ meant but she had no doubt Max was at the bottom of it.

The following morning Blanche’s sense of nervousness increased as Madame Leung-Kett showed great joy undoing the three complicated locks of her safe deposit box almost as big as a microwave. After checking off gold chains and pendants, various diamond rings, jade bracelets and pearl earrings against entries in her little feint-ruled notebook, the old woman counted King George V gold coins and stashes of cash in different currencies. Then she glanced at the vintage war bonds printed like works of art which she quite enjoyed looking at, but it was the half dozen antique fob watches that had belonged to her late husband, she had her eye on. 

Madame Leung-Kett consulted her watch and began winding the hands of a fob watch. 

“Since I’ve set aside something for everyone in the will,” she began.

“No, you haven’t ―” Blanche interrupted.

“Ah, this doesn’t seem to work,” Madame Leung-Kett continued, ignoring the interruption. “I’m sure Max would know how to bring it back to life…”

“About the will ―”

“Don’t interrupt. I’m setting the time.”

“But I want to tell you ―” 

Madame Leung-Kett put down the watch. There was a pause, like she’d thrown down the gauntlet. 

Blanche had to go through with it now. She picked up the watch. She’d always felt a polite embarrassment sitting with her grandmother watching her count money. But she’d ceased to feel shame…

“I knew Max when he was called Bill―” she began.

“So?”

Blanche controlled herself with a supreme effort. It was going to be hard to convince her.

“H-he’s not who he is. He’s just wearing – a new set of clothes!”

Madame Leung-Kett ignored her.

“I don’t want to hear about your problems.”

“You might have ideas about him but you don’t know what it’s like. He owes me money!”

“Nobody owes you anything.”

“You got to believe me.” Her voice rose. “He’s a fake! A gold dig―”

Before she’d finished, the old woman grabbed the watch off her but Blanche wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t surrender. She’d fight to the end. 

It was ridiculous. The old woman was still capable of moving mountains. How strong her hand was. How tough her grip. 

“You dare keep me from my happiness! You think you’re so virtuous? How stupid of you!” she spat.

Blanche was on the verge of giving way. Her fingers were slipping. A pressure was trying to burst its way out of her chest when the inevitable happened.

Madame Leung-Kett pulled it away, and with a theatrical action, hurled the watch against the wall.

***

It was Saturday again. It was Gong-Gong’s birthday and, as always on this day, they would be having his favorite meal of rump steak with Chinese-style gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots, parsnips, broccoli and peas, just the way Madame Leung-Kett had served it to the American soldiers in the restaurant she ran opposite Townsville railway station. 

“Did you hear what I said?” a voice jolted Blanche out of her contemplation. “I want the house tidied up before the others arrive. You’re to take out the lai-see hidden around the house, you hear? Look under the table lamps,” Madame Leung-Kett pointed with the end of the feather duster, “and under that happy plant. By gee, there are at least three packets underneath the settee cushions…”

As far as Madame Leung-Kett was concerned, she was already dead. She’d bungled her last assault. 

Blanche flicked out dust-covered red packets from underneath the blue and white table lamps and suddenly understood everything. She was dead! More dead than Gong-Gong! More dead than his hollowed-out, El Greco cheeks in the obscenely enlarged black and white portrait hanging above the buffet… more dead than his scrawny neck like the gnarled roots of trees… more dead than his dried-up, Adam’s apple bobbing like a gruesome sore… 

Blanche wondered if Madame Leung-Kett’s latest command to ‘take out the lai-see’ was a last-ditch effort to be undead? Had the affair with Max gone so far they were running away? Impossible to say which of them had this genius idea. What exactly had passed between them? Blanche was tempted to believe nothing had happened at all, yet she was convinced this was a strategic withdrawal. She’d seen Max at her grandmother’s place on more than four occasions. It made her furious to watch a guy half her grandmother’s age moving into the inner sanctum.

She could pick a quarrel to relieve the pressure. But it would be more interesting if she took hard cash. Whatever happened, she had to win. She couldn’t leave this place without money. She wasn’t obliged to stick around but the battle was too intoxicating. How could she leave empty-handed when they owed her big time?

“Where d’you want me to put the lai-see?” she called out, as another packet tumbled from the base of the porcelain planter poised on a stand. 

Madame Leung-Kett lowered the feather duster from the set of three wall birds she was cleaning in the hallway.

“Paw! Always in a hurry to finish! Have you checked the nest of tables? Or underneath the Tang horse or the barrel stool?” Then she went back to dusting the birds that were flying upside down. 

Blanche flicked out another bundle of envelopes, convinced that Madame Leung-Kett wouldn’t be too upset if these were to disappear. She had no need for security. She could fend for herself. But Mei-Mei was playing for much higher stakes. She had to continually prove her prowess, risk defeat… sacrifice… 

She pulled out the banknotes from the red packets and began stuffing them in her jeans pocket. She wanted to make them pay. She wanted to make them suffer – to shatter their nerves as they’d shattered hers. She was bent on taking all the money out when the doorbell rang.

Her parents were outside. Felicity stood behind them.

“You’re here already, Mei-Mei. Helping with the cooking?” Lauren bustled in.

Blanche pretended nothing had happened. She quickly tossed the lai-see into a rattan basket. 

“Er – I’ve been doing housework…”

“What for? We need to eat!”

Felicity and Dr Lee slipped into the kitchen where Madame Leung-Kett was dishing up in full swing – identical-sized scoops of mashed potatoes and the exact same number of carrots, parsnips, broccoli and peas fell on each plate like carefully reckoned balance sheets.

Blanche glanced furtively at the old woman. Would she say something? 

They sat in their usual seats. A blue jug broke across her vision. 

“No gravy!” said Felicity, putting a hand over her plate. 

“Paw! You need fattening up!”

Dr Lee tackled his steak. Lauren was complaining about a hair on her plate when Madame Leung-Kett sang out, “Good God! I forgot to bless George!”

Everyone paused politely, as the matriarch mumbled a prayer with her eyes closed. Blanche sensed something weighing on her. 

“Oh, I forgot to put lai-see under Gong-Gong’s portrait!” Madame Leung-Kett burst out again. She got up quickly. “Don’t wait for me. C’mon. Eat up! Everything’s getting cold!”

A clatter of cutlery erupted. Blanche’s eyes were strained on Madame Leung-Kett grabbing lai-see from the rattan basket. She started counting.

“… two, three… five, six… nine… ten… eleven… Funny. I thought I had…”

She looked straight at Blanche trying to provoke a reaction. Blanche pretended she noticed nothing. In a minute they would grasp the drama being played out, the insidious rituals and mind games...

“Mei-Mei!” a voice wailed then fell away as there came a sudden knock on the front door. 

“Who’s that?” said Lauren. Her knife dropped with a jangle on the plate.

Everyone started. 

In half a minute Madame Leung-Kett was at the door.

“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you.”

A moment’s dead silence as Max came forward carrying a slim document wallet. Madame Leung-Kett shut the door. 

Max took in the scene within – plates of food round the table, salt pepper mustard set, faces looking at him in surprise. 

“Sorry for intruding. Er – I didn’t know—”

“Paw! Don’t worry about them. How did you go?”

“Fifty thousand above the reserve. I couldn’t believe it…”

Madame Leung-Kett hurried to her handbag and became expansive. She talked and talked, then pulled out a check book. Dr Lee got out of his seat and looked at the stranger with an intent gaze. 

“What the —?” Felicity whispered.

Blanche was as startled as everyone else when Madame Leung-Kett began crossing a cheque emblazoned with zeros. 

“Mei-Mei! Come and write the amount in words.”

Blanche stared at the sum of money, drawing a deep breath.

Madame Leung-Kett gave the check to Max.

“Thanks, Ivy. That settles it! I’ll come round next week to start the move. Sorry for interrupting dinner.’”

Max bustled off but not before Madame Leung-Kett had pressed a red packet in his hand.

The door closed. Madame Leung-Kett turned and went slowly back to her seat, her eyes gleaming.

“Sold,” she said in a voice of triumph. 

“What’s sold?” Lauren’s face was dead white. “The house?”

Madame Leung-Kett snorted as a faint smile played on her lips. 

“The props!” She threw up her arms, waving at the mother-of-pearl settees, eight-panel folding screen and imperial floor vases. “If I didn’t have the props, I wouldn’t be playing Empress Dowager. Thank God they’re gone!”

“You mean―”

“I want nothing to do with her before I go. You’ve no idea how Kwai Fa badgered me!”

Madame Leung-Kett strode up and down and spoke about her mother-in-law.

“Never good enough! Never doing enough! By gee, I’ve been nearly driven crazy with her howling! I worked like a dog and she’d the gumption to insult me! I tell you, I was up at five bagging flour, sugar and tea, bottling gasoline seven days a week and she’d beat me with the feather duster for serving her rice in a chipped bowl! Gawd, I worked my fingers to the bone to please her. I scrimped and saved, economized on everything. When airfares went up and the government didn’t want imported footwear of any kind, we sold our slippers at seven shillings and six pence a pair! Paw, made no profits in that line! I tell you, things were bad in Tong-see for a long time – the meatworks closing down and parking meters driving away shoppers. I even re-used stamps of kings and queens and kangaroos all speckled with brown spots like sunburnt skin. You think Kwai Fa cared? Naw, she accused me of leaving a ring around the bath tub and not straightening her slippers! And beat me….”

Madame Leung-Kett paused, out of breath.

Everyone stared at her.

“What you don’t understand,” Madame Leung-Kett went on, “is that I hated myself for groveling. ‘Why is this happening to me?’ I thought. ‘Why am I feeling no better than a worm?’ Tip-toeing around the mountain, too afraid to make my mark. One day I saw these fat, juicy mangoes lying on the ground to rot uneaten and I thought, ‘By gee, that’s me, paying the price of terrible effort no one knows about!’ When Kwai Fa died I shed no tears. I vowed vengeance. I adopted her energy. I shouted at everyone, spat out my anger. I was bent on striking terror in everyone’s hearts.”

An illumination flashed inside Blanche’s head. 

Madame Leung-Kett continued. “I let Kwai Fa control my life. I despised my behavior at seventeen yet I kept handing over control to her. I became as aggressive and grasping as her. I had to have the upper hand!”

Blanche leaned forward. Everything was falling into place.

“When I go no one will weep for me. None of you will pity or forgive me―”

Madame Leung-Kett broke off, and looked at everyone.

“Can you believe I fought to have this dark, heavy heirloom furniture? All this accumulation of deadweight – Paw! Of course – the day I decided to be free of it – there was Max at Elspeth’s place. I couldn’t believe it – he’s a buyer and collector of antiques... Unbelievable.”

“You trust him?” said Felicity.

“Naturally, I tested the waters. I could tell he recognized the value of the items like a connoisseur. He told me his old man ran a big auction house in South Yarra but he’d rebelled – wanted nothing to do with it – but returned last year when his father died.”

“If he’s a buyer,” Lauren burst out, “why are you paying him?”

“Oh! That’s a charge for consulting specialist valuers and private collectors in Hong Kong and China, and America and Europe. It’s partly refundable when the goods get picked up.”

“But where will you sit?” asked Felicity, incredulous.

“Paw! Fold-up chairs will do. What’s it to you?”

“You’ve gone mad,” cried Lauren. “Giving up those antiques and treasures."

Dr Lee listened, half amused, and turning to Madame Leung-Kett, took part in the discussion for the first time.

“So you’ve nothing the matter with you except the ability to live happily with your past.”

Blanche got up from the table and left the room.

“Where’s she going?” Lauren said sharply.  

“Probably to some class she’d forgotten about,” said Felicity.

“But – surely―” said Lauren.

The door slammed. One of the wall birds was suddenly flying the right way up. And the little bundle shoved between the walking sticks fell into the hallstand.