AM-MAH'S TEAPOT

Geraldine Yap

 Lucy surveyed the odd assortment of dusty boxes, plastic wares, cutlery, plates, and giant mayonnaise bottles on the floor. Her parents were moving to a brand-new house. After decades of paying rent to Doña Antigua and her heirs, the Tans finally had a house of their own.  Unfortunately, the new house was much, much smaller and their "collections" had to find a new home.

 "Lucy," her mother said.  "See if you want any of the stuff before I donate them to the nuns."

 Lucy squatted in the midst of the junk and picked up her photo albums and a few romantic novels she bought when she was a teenager.  Then, she selected a couple of plastic stools - her children could use them. 
Lucy was thirty-three years old.  She was so thin that people sometimes think that she was much younger than she looked.  Her short brown-black hair was trimmed into a hair-do best described as “comb and run”.  That was all she could do these days – comb and run.  She put on her lipstick and powder at the bank just before the doors opened for business.

Lucy lived with her in-laws for ten years now.   Some of her friends thought she was crazy.  But Lucy thought she was practical.  She had been married for six years before she discovered that her husband had a son elsewhere, a son much older that her eldest daughter. 

When she confronted her husband, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said, “What do you intend to do about it?”

Bitterly, she wondered what would happen if she kept her silence and pretended to know nothing.  But as it was, her husband moved out of the house and lived with his mistress, visiting her only when he felt like it, and sometimes, attending parties together.  Lucy had no option but to continue living with her in-laws.  Her salary as a bank teller was not enough to support her three children.  But most of all, she was afraid of the scandal.

Lucy tried to recall why she married him.  Certainly, it was not for love, at least, the kind of passionate and romantic love of the movies.  He was eligible, not a bad-looker, and the only son of a wealthy ship-owner. 

Perhaps, I also passed his list of qualifications for a good Chinese wife, Lucy remembered painfully.  She was from a good family, though not as rich as her in-laws, and she was good-natured, quiet, and well-bred.  They had a grand church wedding, even though both of them were not really Catholics, and a banquet of fifty lauriat tables. 

Her in-laws were kind but sometimes, Lucy felt they were just tolerating her because of her children.  But there was nowhere for Lucy to go.  She was a married woman and married women belonged to her husband and her husband’s family, according to the out-dated notions of her own upbringing. 

She was about to rise when she spotted something familiar, a dirty basket with a lid. She tugged the catch and chips of red paint flaked off. Inside the basket was a teapot edged in gold paint.  The slender spout and the lid were also gilded.  A red dragon was painted on one side of the teapot and a phoenix was on the other.  Yin and yang. Male and female. 

 Am-mah made tea in it and the red padding was to keep the tea warm when thermos bottles were not yet invented.  Lucy remembered how Am-mah loved the red color.  The family's first jeep, the cushions, the electric fans, and Lucy's underwear were all red.

 Suddenly, Lucy remembered.

 She was eight years old then, on a summer vacation, and feeling bored.  Her brothers and cousins hogged their only black-and-white TV and Lucy did not care much for the shows they were watching. In those days, there were no piano lessons, no art classes, no karate classes, and no computer classes. In those days, summer meant nothing to do for the younger children and work for the older children.

 “Am-mah,” Lucy poked into the kitchen where her grandmother preparing lunch for her brood of four sons, four daughters-in-law, one daughter, three maids, and twelve workers in the store.

“Yes, Bee-Ling.  What do you want?”  Am-mah looked up from the large mixing bowl containing ground meat.  She never called her by her English name. 

“Nothing, Am-mah.  I am just bored.”  Lucy replied.

 “Then come and help me make meatballs,” laughed Am-mah and showed her how. “First, get some meat from the bowl.  Then, squeeze you hand and a blob of meat will come out between your thumb and forefinger.  Scoop it up with a spoon and drop the meat into your palm.  Use the spoon to roll the meat around your palm and it will form a nice ball.  See how easy it is?”

 Lucy nodded happily.  Soon, she was getting the hang of shaping meatballs. 

 “Nyora.”  One of the maids announced,  “Doña Antigua is here.”

 Doña Antigua, their landlady, was a formidable Spanish mestiza. She was as tall as Lucy’s father and as fat as Great Third Uncle.

 “Mmmm,” said Dona Antigua.  “I smell something nice.”

 “Sit down, Doña,” invited Am-mah.  “Here, try some of my meatballs.”

“Ah, my favorites!  You make very good meatballs, O-Muy.”  Doña Antigua quickly popped a couple of meatballs into her wide mouth.

 “Good-luck mouth,” spoke Am-mah in Chinese as she poured some tea for the landlady.

 Lucy wanted to giggle but she knew she mustn’t.  She just nodded her head politely, as if Am-mah telling her to do something. 

 “Doña, here is the rent for May,” said Am-mah as she handed a wad of paper money to the landlady.  “Would you like to take some meatballs home?”

 “Yes, thank you.”  Her eyes gleamed with anticipation as Am-mah wrapped the meatballs in waxed paper.  “I will be on my way now.  Good-bye.” 

 “Am-mah, you nearly made me burst.”  Lucy was laughing uncontrollably, now that the Spanish woman was gone. 

 Am-mah laughed, too.  “But it’s true.  She has a good-luck mouth.  Every time I cook something good, she comes along and eat my food.”

 “But, Am-mah,” said Lucy.  “You always cook good.” 

 After lunch, Am-mah had a short nap and when she woke up, she taught Lucy how to sew pillowcases.  Am-mah sold the pillowcases to a wholesaler.  Later, when the sun became cooler, three Bisayan women arrived.  These women sold jewelry to office girls and wealthy matrons and Am-mah was a supplier of gold, pearls, jade, and diamonds. 

 “See this piece of jade,” said Am-mah, as she handed cabochon to Lucy.  “It has a crack.  Jade is like a woman.  Once cracked, no more value.”
 It had been a fruitful summer for Lucy.  She learned cooking, sewing, and judging the worth of gems and gold.  She learned to love working with her hands. 

 Her grandmother died years ago and Lucy never really thought about her much, until now.  It must have been hard for Am-mah to leave the Tall Mountains, to marry a stranger, to live in a strange land, and to learn a strange tongue.  But she survived.  She was a homemaker, businesswoman, accountant, seamstress, and jeweler even though she was barely literate in both Chinese and Bisayan.

“Oh, Am-mah,” spoke Lucy into the vacant air.  “A woman’s worth is not measured by her virginity or her reputation.  A woman’s worth is measured by how much she values herself.”

Four years of living a lie was enough, Lucy mused.  She had lost so much weight, hoping that her worthless husband would come back to her.  But she knew now that it would never be.  In the eyes of the law and the church, Lucy may be the wife but in his thoughts, in his heart, the other woman was his wife. 

It was time to start a new life without pretensions.  She decided to demand from him a house and support for their children.  He could certainly afford both.  And she would be free to chase after her dreams, her dream of having a peaceful home and her dream of seeing her children grow up without tensions and worries.

 Lucy decided to keep the teapot.  “It will look nice in my kitchen when I have my own house,” she thought. 
End.
 

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