The Cousin

The Cousin

Reluctantly he cast a glance at himself in the mirror. He was loathe to see the square face overpopulated by fat, with the corners of his mouth perpetually turned upwards, as if his face was made to fawn over whatever came his way. He’d tried several times to pull those corners downwards, only to be startled by what effects that simple change produced: instead of looking like a good natured and harmless imbecile, he looked like a malicious retard on a murdering rampage. So he gave up. He knew nobody took him seriously, and people only paid the slightest amount of attention necessary to acknowledge his presence for the sake of his father, a judge whose authority in town was feared and revered. But of course, he knew that the very person who brought this boon on him was also the one who thought the least of him. Because, well…

Someone banged loudly on the bathroom door and he almost jumped out of his skin. Despite his hefty frame, he’d always been jumpy, as if he was really not this big man on the outside, but a tiny girl that managed to squeeze inside his body from his birth. “Your mom’s calling, AGAIN!” His wife hissed, clearly pissed off on multiple fronts. Their daughter had a piano recital today, and she’d been practicing for months to get ready for this moment, and he wouldn’t be there to see her. Of course his wife should be mad.

“Just a moment, I’m coming!” He used his most ameliorating voice, his usual way in moments of tension like this. His mom had been calling him since this morning almost non-stop, just in case he changed his mind. “You must go. You have to do me this last favor. She was so good to us!” She was bawling her eyes out on the other side of the line. He just stood there and listened till she finished. For the first 30 years of his life, that was how he lived. His mom spoke, and he listened till she finished. Then she got kicked out by his judge father, so she started calling him to talk, and he listened till she hung up. His then fiancee, despite the sudden disgrace of his parents’ divorce, still married him, and the nagging baton got passed from mother to wife seamlessly. All he did was continuing to listen without putting up a fuss. That was his fate. That was how his life had turned out over the last 10 years after his mother’s departure.

It’s not that he didn’t have his own opinions, but it was hard both to form them and then to stick to them. His mom did everything for him since the moment he was born, so naturally it was his duty to listen to every word she had to say. In fact, it wasn’t that hard to take his mom’s will as his own. She had always said they thought the same way. His childhood memories were filled with nice little moments when his mother fussed over him and helped everyone else. She was beloved by all, including his father. He had thought of his father, then a mere clerk at the lowest rung of the official ladder, to be the luckiest man on earth. But who would have thought that she would change into this… he sighed, and shook his head, his face now truly sad with the corners of his mouth drooping down. A sudden itch spread over his scalp, sending him into a frenzied bout of scratching. Just when did this transformation happen? How? Why? These questions had occurred to him before, when evidences of his mother’s “crimes” were thrown in his face by his stern judge father, when his coworkers whispered not too lightly behind his back about the “embezzlement,” and when his poor cousin, now dead, showed up at their doorsteps in desperate search of his mother, her aunt, for the loan of money she gave to his mother and needed it back to pay her own debts.

Another battery of furious knocks, finished by a thud, clearly a kick on the door by an angry boot, and the single shrieking command: “NOW!” Oh yes, his cousin. The reason for his mother’s frenzied calls, and his wife’s fury at the incessant ringing. His damn phone would not go silent. The ringer was stuck at the highest volume when it rang. As a model husband he handed over his monthly paycheck to his wife, and had no easy access to money so he could either fix the phone or upgrade it. Everyone else upgraded their phones every 2 or 3 years. He’s been stuck with his for 6 now.

He took a last look at himself in the mirror, careful to restore the upright angles of his mouth, before opening the bathroom door into what clearly felt like a situation room. “Just smile and nod,” he could hear his mother say, “and nobody can say no to you for long.”

His wife and daughter were both dressed up in the fineries they’d picked out for the occasion, and were standing at the door, ready to head out. “We are going to be late now.” His wife squeezed words out through her canines. “I’ll take the car. You figure it out.”

“Isn’t dad coming with us?” His daughter asked, and turned back to look at him quizzically. “How come you are not dressed yet, dad? Do you remember it’s my recital today?”

He followed his daughter’s gaze and looked down at his clothing. Instead of putting the blue suit on for his daughter’s recital, he had changed into the black jacket he had worn to his aunt’s funeral 3 years ago. Of course that was on the same day when his daughter was rushed to the hospital for appendicitis. What are the odds!

But before he could open his mouth to offer an explanation or an apology, his wife had already opened the door and pulled their daughter out. “He’s not coming with us. He has MORE IMPORTANT stuff to do. It never ends!” The bitterness of her words was so thick that he could taste it on his own tongue, and he hung his head. It wasn’t his fault that his cousin died the day before his daughter’s recital. And he’s not even fully convinced that he wanted to go to the funeral more than he wanted to listen to his daughter play the piano. Heck, he knew he preferred happy over sad!

“Play well today!” He shouted after them. “You are the best!” He hastily added as his wife and daughter treaded heavily down the stairs. The phone was ringing again, and without even looking at it he knew it was his mother. He looked at the clock on the wall, 12:30. “Yes, mother, time to go, I know.” He muttered to himself before his hand reached the phone, and pressed the green button on the screen to take the call. He knew that he would hardly have a second to get a word in after picking up the call. Nor would he want to, really.

“Are you ready yet?” His mother asked as soon as the call got connected. She was most likely already speaking before he even picked up. “You should have already been there. I know you are not there yet, but you should be.” Her voice was agitated. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe she’s gone.” A sob, a cough, a loud clearing of nose, and she continued, “just do me this favor and I won’t ask anymore. Just be there for her and your niece today.”

He wanted to say that she should be there herself instead of just sending him. He wanted to say that he needed to be at his daughter’s recital instead, and now he was in deeper trouble with his wife. He wanted to say that he’d been approached by several angry and slimy looking men for her whereabouts, and that even his father got an anonymous letter or two with threats, and could she please just fix this… but nothing came out of his mouth. He just stared blankly at the screen and waited for the pause. His mother was repeating herself more and more these past few years, always so nervous and jumpy. She used to be so confident and lovable, not just to him, but everybody. Neither of his parents told him the exact reason for their divorce, but he had as good a guess as anyone else. Over the years, who followed her everywhere she went every chance he had? If he was not in school he wanted to tag along with her. He was, no shame in it, a mama’s boy, and he hated it when, at 25, barely 2 years out of college and into his work unit, he was told by his father to “modify” his attachment to mother. “You are never going to find a suitable wife if you continue like this.” His judge father had said that sternly, leaving no room for discussion. Over the years, as his father climbed higher and higher within the government body, his authority within the family also grew steadily and inevitably. He didn’t know exactly when the scale of power had tipped in his father’s favor, but he knew that at 25, what his father said was as good as the emperor’s edict, and his mother no longer had the power to sway his father’s opinion by that time. In fact he had started to cut her short quite often, and when he snapped at her he looked mean, his face displaying an undisguised disgust for anyone to see.

The pause came, so he automatically filled it, “ok, I’m going now.” When he hung up, he could still hear his mother blowing her nose noisily.

He had no doubt that his mother was genuinely sad about her niece’s passing. Although from two different generations, the two of them were just 9 years apart in age, so naturally they were more like sisters than aunt and niece. From the moment he was born, he was used to seeing his cousin every weekend. They put their heads together and whispered mysteriously together. They cried in front of each other. They went to karaoke houses often. They played cards and mahjong all the time. They went away on trips together. And for a brief period of time, they even ran a factory together until it quickly went bankrupt. That’s when the three musketeers broke up as his aunt, mother’s older sister, ran away to Macao to escape the creditors. Mother hung around for a few more years after that, and since he was already issued the “behavior modification” edict by his father, he wasn’t too privy to the goings-on with his mother and cousin. Suffice it to say that he noticed a startling shift in their relationship. He had a feeling that his cousin was trying her best to keep her distance from her previously inseparable aunt. Not only that, he could also tell that they were both muddled up in something unsuitable for open discussion. Of course his mother never told him what it was, and he was thankful to her for sparing him the misery of knowing what was clearly dragging both of them down. Not that he never contemplated the possibility of asking them and finding out. But nobody ever counted on him for anything, and he knew that. So he didn’t bother.

Now his cousin was dead. And his mother, aside from the nagging voice over the phone, was as good as gone too. If he was being completely honest with himself, he couldn’t help but wish that that voice would disappear for good as well. You know, so that he had a better chance to get on a good path in his own life. When his wife told him that the only way he was getting a new phone to replace his often malfunctioning one was if he got a new number and didn’t tell his mother about it, he was tempted. He could blame it on his wife if mother were to find out… but then he couldn’t do that to his mother. After all, she never did anything to hurt him. In fact, he was damn sure that his mother loved him more than anyone else in the world. To betray his mother would be like…well, simply unthinkable. Not yet.

When he arrived at his late cousin’s condo, there was already a mess of people littered around the place. It was a bit of an effort to move past the neighbors and passersby, who’d gathered around to find out the last bit of information they could get about the deceased. A rickety tent, about an 8x8 structure, had been thrown together on a few makeshift looking bamboo sticks to house the condolence plaques and flower wreaths visitors had brought for the dead. “Shit!” He swore under his breath, realizing that in his guilt for not going to his daughter’s recital, he had forgotten to stop by at the flower wreath store to get something appropriate for his cousin. He could already feel that some eyes were on him, busy trying to figure out how he was related to the deceased, and why he came over empty-handed if he was a relative. But who could blame him for forgetting? He had never needed to do this on his own before. His mother always took care of everything.

So instead of beating a retreat to get what he should have brought, he turned up the corners of his mouth and walked up the steps to his cousin’s second floor condo. On the third step he took he realized with a sudden pang of panic that such an occasion called for tears, not a smile, so he froze the corners of his mouth into what could only be described as an awkward grimace. How much would a wreath cost? He probably didn’t have enough cash to buy it anyway, and if he put it on the charge then his wife would know immediately how much he’d spent, and most likely give him an earful about his “reckless spending.” “They probably won’t notice. There are so many wreaths out there. Who’s going to sit there and check who sent something and who didn’t?” He told himself as he climbed the first half of the flight, already breathing harder than he should be. “Father would probably send something here. Maybe even mother. And if they did then they’d definitely include my name.” He reassured himself as he labored up the second half of the flight, now completely out of breath. “In any case,” he gasped as he finished his reasoning, “I’m just an agent, here on mother’s behalf. And I’m sacrificing my daughter’s rehearsal to be here.”

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud wail. A long and plaintive note, rhythmic and practiced, designed to lead off the mourning sounds of the visitors, pierced through the confused sounds of the crowds both upstairs and downstairs, inside and out. He hurried inside, glad that his labored breathing was drowned out by the mourners, who were now joined in a collective effort of sharing their sadness and affection for the deceased with each other. The women closest to the coffin, which was placed in the middle of the living room, cried loudly, emphatically, and without any attempts to hide their grief. Their courageous display gave the rest of the mourners permission to be as vocal as emotions took them, and pretty soon the entire enclosure was enshrouded by the unleash of a collective grief over the loss of a mother, a sister, a niece, a cousin, a wife, a friend, a neighbor. Tears flew down cheeks, sobs choked loudly, unintelligible words muttered, heads shook and buried. He shuffled on his feet uneasily. The room smelled terrible, a sour mix of sweat, incense, bad breath, urine, and the terrible stench of death. The coffin was far away from him, and although the lid had not been placed yet, he could not see his cousin’s body inside. The whole thing still felt surreal to him, like an insensitive joke. His cousin was only 15 years older than him. It would be ridiculous to think that he’d die in 15 years. It was a ridiculous age to die. Her mother, his mother’s older sister, died a few years ago and they thought that was way too soon, way too sudden. And how many years ago did the dad die? Not long either. He could still remember that man’s face clearly as he snarled a smile when he won a card hand and collected his winning like he was herding his sheep back to the pen, his yellow teeth marked sharply by black plaque in between. He shuddered involuntarily at the recollection of that face, often the source of an abrupt, violent, and sometimes even bloody ending to a night’s gathering for the extended family over the holidays. Death cast a long shadow over this wretched family.

It would be difficult to move past anyone to get closer to the coffin, but he was seized by the desire to see for himself, and make sure that this was not just a cruel joke, a despicable hoax. Most of the people in the room were much older than him, from his mother’s generation, so it was only right that they would be closer to the coffin than he would. They were on chairs and stools and sat there with no apparent concerns for others, leaving no space for anyone to pass without having to inconvenience them one way or another. Should he excuse himself and push through? From the other corner of the room, equally distant from the coffin, he spied his other cousin, son of his mother’s older brother. He was wearing a tracksuit, as if he just came from or was about to go to the gym. He was looking down at his phone with his eyebrows knitted, and his fingers were moving over phone screen furiously, clearly typing out a message that was about to change the recipient’s life on the other end. “The big shot can get away with anything.” He scoffed in his head. Rather than allowing his facial expression to reflect his true feelings though, he automatically lifted the corners of his mouth in case his cousin were to look up from his phone and see him. Mother always cozied up to her older brother, whose words had a lot of sway in the extended family, so he knew that by extension he must not show any negativity towards his older cousin, no matter how incongruous his behavior might be under the circumstances.

But his cousin continued to stare at his phone and didn’t look up. Another burst of tears from the women, and his cousin pushed through the crowd, quite unceremoniously he might add, and walked out. “The fucker!” He swore under his breath. No matter how much he pretended to the world, his inner voice sometimes raged so ferociously that he would have nightmares afterwards of being “discovered” who he really was, what he was hiding behind the obsequious smiles. Life wasn’t fair. Some people got way more than they deserved, and some people got everything taken away from them. Look at that fucker cousin. And look at this…

He remembered his mission of getting closer to the coffin to ascertain his cousin’s death. Sounds absurd, but until he saw it for himself, he couldn’t quite take other’s words for it. Something didn’t feel right, and not even the sight of his niece, who was dressed in white hemp, the color and fabric of mourning, from head to toe and sat next to her mom’s coffin with tears free falling from her unblinking eyes, could thoroughly convince him that all of this was real. How many times had he visited his cousin with his mom, and as soon as he walked in her door she’d greet him with a smile, the same one she’d give him since he could remember, and tell him to sit next to the snacks? Once he made it to the coffin and looked in, he would not be surprised at all if she gave him a wink and told him to grab some snacks and let these suckers think that she was really dead. That would just be too much, the prank of the century! She loved playing pranks, and whenever they pulled one on him successfully, she and his mother would laugh so heartily that he’d feel like a hero for making these women so happy, even though he should have probably felt foolish instead. But she would not try a prank like this, would she?

His heart sank, and the urge to get closer to the coffin abated as the impossibility of this being a hoax sank in. Fuck. This was not how it was supposed to be. A dead body in the coffin, all these people in this fucking room smelling terrible and faking their cries. How many of them were really nice to her when she was alive? He surveyed the room. The relatives from his mother’s side of the family had all but cast his cousin aside when the news of her scandal reached their ears. Although he was not personally privy to the unfolding of that particular event, from his mother he learned more than he cared to know. His cousin had reached out to her substantial network of relatives for financial assistance when she was issued a large fine for being involved in the operations of a now bankrupt and fraud company. But no one lent a hand. The only person who gave her anything at all was her own sister, who had long ago immigrated to the richest country in the world. The sum she received was only enough to cover the minimum payment she must make in order to stay out of jail. From then on she was placed under house arrest, and her health deteriorated. When his mother had to flee town, he received less and less updates on his cousin’s situation. How long had it been since she was like that? He was startled to realize that it’d been a few years. In fact he couldn’t even determine exactly if it was 3, or 4, or even 5…life ran by on a frenetic pace and he had kept his tail between his legs and head between his hunched shoulders, a perennial smile on his lips but perpetual numbness in his heart. His brain wasn’t clear on anything, and deliberate actions that led to anything good only belonged to others. Life had been…fuzzy. As far as he was concerned, life had not extended much of an invitation to him. Whatever that was happening, it was just happening to him whether or not he chose to participate in it. He was completely and utterly dispensable. Could and might as well be dead in a few more useless years. Like his cousin. And probably wouldn’t even have as many people coming to his funeral. Maybe not even his own mother.

The wailing had finally stopped, and as people stood up to get their cups filled with hot tea or get outside for a cigarette break, the path to the coffin cleared up somewhat. But he was no longer eager to take a look inside those plain-looking boards. His curiosity, like his ambition long ago, had passed on, and he was paralyzed by the same lethargy that had plagued him for his entire life. He thought about sitting down on one of the vacated stools to rest his hefty body, but didn’t do so because when the original occupier of the stool, a silver-haired old man he didn’t recognize, returned, he would have to get up and surrender the stool back. The effort required to sit down and get up in such a short period of time would be much greater than remaining on his feet. “If I left now, nobody would notice. I can tell mother that I came, which is the truth.” He reasoned to himself and looked back towards the door where his cousin disappeared with the phone. “If he could leave, then why shouldn’t I? I have my daughter’s recital, and I should go to catch the rest of it!” He worked up a suitable level of indignation that he had been forced into sacrificing his family time for this obligatory show of face, being careful not to overdo it in case he pissed off any lingering ghosts in their midst. “I’m here as requested, but I’m not really needed anyway.” He continued his reasoning with an invisible and silent officer sitting over his shoulder scrutinizing his conscience, and was a little miffed that his feet were uncooperative in moving towards the direction of departure. In all the times he’d visited his cousin while she was alive (and those times were literally numerous), he’d never once felt the desire to leave her company. She was such a charming person, warm, thoughtful, and oh so good at teasing him with sharp but harmless little quips that usually took him a while to understand while the others laughed. He knew that they were laughing at him, but he never felt that they were doing so at his expense. There was never any malice in her jokes, and she always made sure she had his favorite snacks when he visited.

He was startled back to the present when someone bumped his elbow. It was the silver-haired old man holding a steaming cup of green tea, who grumbled something as he scraped past him, and darted him a quick look, a question and exclamation mark in one. Being the frequent recipient of such looks, he could quickly decode the question as “how did you become so fat?” And the exclamation mark as “look at how much space you are taking!” His big frame recoiled somewhat as a response, but he knew that in reality this modest gesture didn’t change the fact a bit that he was taking up more space than his allotment in a crowded room. “More reason for me to go now, cousin.” He found himself speaking to his dead cousin directly, as if she were there in the room, lively as ever, hosting him and his mother. She would ask him to stay and offer him more snacks, and he’d stay longer, eating, laughing, and feeling at home. The world was not a strange and dangerous place when his cousin was around. She was magical in making him feel that he belonged…

His breath was caught in his chest and tears welled up in his eyes. In a moment his chest was heaving and he couldn’t see where he was going. He made an abrupt turn towards the coffin and padded across the floor over tissues, paper cups and plastic wraps the mourners had littered everywhere. He must see for himself. Truth or hoax, he must know. In those flimsy boards made to house the remains of a person, what would he see? What did he want to see?