Travels through the Alphabet with Mai
Part 9: Invisible
Her parents were in the living room, having a disagreement about something stupid, a party perhaps or what to spend on an area rug for the dining room. The content of the argument did not matter. The fact that they were occupied did.
Mai, seven years old, slipped into the room on tiptoe and splayed herself flat against the wall. It was a game she played, seeing how long she could stand there and not be noticed. With all the will her young mind could conjure up, Mai melted into the background. Her red nightgown blended with the red curtains, her hair, the colour of deepest night, matched parts of the tapestry that hung down almost to the floor. She closed her eyes and held her breath and made like she did not exist.
When she opened them again, darkness cloaked the room and she was alone. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She stayed close to the wall, keeping one hand on its surface, and found her way to the door. Silent as a cat stalking its prey, the girl made her way upstairs and into her bedroom. Once under the smooth, cool sheet, she curled up into a tight ball and tried to disappear.
~~~~0000~~~~
The men talked at one end of the room, their voices rising and falling in a rhythm Mai found soothing. At the other end, the women gathered, high pitched titters and shocked gasps punctuating the gossip they disguised as polite conversation. Mai sat on a chair, her legs dangling a few inches above the carpet. She resisted the urge to swing them, not wanting one of those pursed lipped glares from her mother. Instead, she gazed down at the pattern in the carpet, following the trail of gold thread as it made flowers and leaves and more flowers and more leaves. The design was intricate and Mai found herself almost completely absorbed.
But some of the words made it through. Marriage and children seemed to be all that occupied the women while the men discussed the state of the nation and the war. How could they be so separate? How did they manage to get together in the bedroom, their couplings a series of grunts and gasps, sweat soaked and messy, when they were so very different? Mai thought of her own parents and their fervent desire to make another baby, a boy. There had been a few pregnancies; they failed within two months, ending in bloody robes and bloody sheets and cries ripped from somewhere deep inside her mother.
The little girl, ten now, felt alone there in that crowded room. And she was hungry too. Glancing about, making certain that no one looked her way, Mai hopped off the chair and crept out of the room. She headed for the kitchen, drawn by the smells and the brusque, straightforward talk. Sneaking some food, eating and licking her fingers as she walked, Mai wandered back to the party. No one had noticed her absence. She didn't have to pretend invisibility any longer. Practice had made perfect.
So Mai left, heading outside to the lantern lit garden. The party became nothing but faint murmurs, water flowing over pebbles, something more distant and more separate. She walked the paths, enjoying the breeze and the shadows and the encroaching darkness. Mai found a bench and sat, staring up at the sky. The stars, tiny pricks of light, were unreachable. But Mai felt more connection to them than to the people inside.