Travels through the Alphabet with Mai
Part 23, W: White
Did everyone keep a set of white robes somewhere in the back of their wardrobes, hidden, unseen, waiting and ready should a death occur in the family? They must, Mai figured. For how else could news of Grandfather's death arrive one minute, delivered by a suitably somber man carrying an impressive looking scroll, and seemingly the next, both her mother and father wore crisp, pure white?
"Mai, come." Her mother's tone offered no hope of resistance. Mai went. "The seamstress will be here shortly to fit you for mourning clothes." She sniffed then and dabbed at her eyes. "I expect you to cooperate."
"Yes, Mother."
Mai wondered at the grief on her mother's usually composed face. Her eyes were pink from weeping and her features were pinched, sort of sunken in like a melon when it begins to rot. Mai bit back any questions she had, sensing that now was not the right time. Probably, there wouldn't be a right time. She would observe and listen like she always did and figure things out for herself.
Her mother turned away then and wandered back down the stairs in a sort of daze. Her grief must be tied somehow to the past, for Mai's grandfather, her mother's father, never visited. Perhaps he had seen her as an infant, mute but for shrieks and gurgles and burps, easy to handle, easy to deal with. Perhaps he'd never seen Mai at all. Whatever the case, Mai had no ties to the man, but for his contribution to her physical being, the traces of his blood that mingled and mixed with other traces to make her own.
The seamstress arrived, an old woman who had sewn countless robes and gowns in her lifetime. Her shrewd eyes skimmed over Mai, measuring, assessing.
"I've seen enough," she declared. "I can work here. It will save time."
A space was cleared. The seamstress set down a huge sewing kit. Inside was all the material she would need, reams and reams of white, scissors and needles and thread. She got to work, her head bent, only taking an occasional look at Mai.
It felt weird and disconcerting to be scrutinized so, evaluated and summed up as if she were nothing but a set of numbers. Uncomfortable, Mai wandered downstairs to the kitchen and scrounged about for something to eat. A cold supper had been laid out on the table, buffet style and the eight year old helped herself to a bit of this and a bit of that. She ate, not appreciating the tastes and textures, simply filling her stomach.
Mai left the kitchen then and wandered along the corridors. The house had never been a cheerful one filled with laughter but the quiet that settled over it now was surreal. Is that what death was then; quiet, the absence of something that was ephemeral to begin with? Walking further, a stack of biscuits in one hand, she reached the back of the house and the garden.
The sound of weeping reached her ears, the sound of regret and the sound of her father doing his best to provide comfort. It was an intimate moment and Mai felt like an intruder. She backed away with slow deliberation, away from the startling white of their mourning robes, white that seemed to hover in the growing darkness, ghostlike and otherworldly.
Some things were beyond her eight year old capacity to understand or decipher. Mai knew that her mother was sad about Grandfather's death. Did that mean she loved him once or still? Did that mean she harboured some sort of guilt? Did it mean that the idea of death rather than the person who died affected her mother so profoundly?
Confused, Mai crept back into the house and up the stairs. She wiped her hand off on her tunic, removing the dusting of biscuit crumbs. When she walked by the sitting room, the seamstress crooked a finger and beckoned her in.
"I'm not quite finished. But try this on."
Mai obeyed, not saying a word. She wondered how those piles of cloth could become something stitched and shaped so quickly. The woman fussed with the sleeves, sticking the odd pin here and there before declaring Mai free.
"Just the gold piping left to do; go tell your mother."
She hesitated. No, Mai would not go back out into the garden again. But she nodded anyway and left, sneaking up to her room and shutting the door. It was almost full dark now. Her furniture and bedding blended in like it should. The only thing that stood out was the white of the moon outside her window.