April 1st, 2019 - 08:04 am
We finally managed to draw ourselves out of our contemplation of The City, and leave the windy, drizzly heights, as easily as on our ascent. With that odd feeling of being on the threshold of something, but also a paradoxical euphoria. Despite the dim light, as if the day were struggling to dawn.
Klaus understood my request to come back and see Granny, and I felt him bold enough to come back and face her bluntness. I think she intrigues him. But more than anything, I suspect he wants to make sure I won't go rummaging through the pharmacy again.
Granny appreciated that we brought cinnamon rolls. She may have found it suspicious, but she didn't ask why I got this sudden impulse. So far, she hasn't kicked Klaus out of the house or called him names. Yeah, really. And so, as if by obvious consequence, Klaus has made himself perfectly and indelicately 'comfortable', much to Ben's despair.
After hanging his socks out to dry on top of a chair, Klaus poured himself a big glass of the smoothie Granny had made for herself. While we chatted about neighborhood stuff, he casually ate half the cinnamon rolls while flipping through last month's TV program, then went to take a shower without even asking. His mood seems okay, but not enough to hum.
"I see you're making yourself at home," I hear from the hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedrooms, and I listen, my ears open.
Granny seems as pleasant as ever.
"No, I swear, you wouldn't like me to do that. Is that a colonic irrigation machine?"
"It's a pulsating hydrojet toothbrush. You're not to put it anywhere, not even in your mouth."
"Am I eligible for a towel?"
"Only the ones on the bottom shelf".
Granny grumbles, I roll my eyes, and while she goes to fill her kettle in the kitchen, I let my eyes linger on the framed photographs on display in the bookshelf. Young snapshots of Granny, of my mother. I think Ben is watching the drama. There's a quiet, paradoxical silence. In the kitchen, the kettle chirps softly.
"I remember that day," I say to my grandmother as she pushes aside the pearl curtain and comes back. "It was with Mom and the cousins at Thao Cam Viên."
My mother loved this botanical garden, much more than the sad zoo in Ho Chi Minh City. And I remember she'd hold my arm like this in the hope that I wouldn't teleport myself through the orchids collections. I must have been six, my cousin maybe three.
"Remember how Auntie used to shout "Bạch Liên!", when you had to go and pick me up from the greenhouse roof".
Granny doesn't smile, but her eyes tell me she's happy I remember that.
"You were unmanageable," she tells me, "before you got even worse for a while. But in the end, maybe you're just living up to your name."
I laugh softly. Bạch Liên? Well, that's what I'm called too. Because when it comes to identity, people like me wear more than one, whatever Réginald Hargreeves says. Like many kids from one or other diaspora, I have a usual first name, and another one stemming from the culture I come from. From mother to daughter, we inherit the name of the lotus: Liên. The flower of our land. A symbol of resilience, elevation and rebirth. The lotus blooms, piercing the muddy depths and opening its beauty to the sky: through adversity, as if unaffected by it.
My grandmother, in the old-fashioned way, is simply called Hoàng Thị Liên. In her own maternal solitude, she named my mother with the more modern Hoàng Kim Liên: the golden lotus. And eventually - inexplicably fatherless - I was born Hoàng Bạch Liên, a simple white lotus.
I use this name even less than Marine, even though it has a deep echo to me. Paradoxically, Klaus has always known about it, and for a simple reason: I can't hide it. I was just eighteen when I had that lotus tattooed between my shoulder blades. It was like a silent forgiveness, asked for all the harm I'd done to Granny, to my mother. But it wasn't enough. This act was even interpreted as a new affront, a rebellious gesture, even though it wasn't.
We recall other memories, taking us back to France and then to The City. Echoes of my school days, of my mother's cleaning jobs, and of Granny's costume deliveries even to society dinners. Do I feel nostalgia, regret, determination for what's to come? One thing's for sure, for a reason I can't explain to myself: I'm not afraid of anything anymore.
Well. Almost anything.
From Ben's posture and the look on my grandmother's face, I understand what's coming: Klaus's satisfied return from the hallway, 'dressed' in a tiny purplish towel under Granny's open dressing gown.
"Your exfoliant cream is a bliss, Mrs. Hoàng," he says, as he comes over and stretches like a cat. "Thanks to you, I've just completed my 'spring cleaning'.
I don't have time to open my mouth, because Granny is already scanning him. And rather than all the comments I'd have expected, she exclaims loud and clear with a certain annoyance:
"Oh dear! A fanciful Gao Yord. And on the stomach".
My gaze tracks hers, and I know what she's talking about. I wasn't really in the mood to dwell on this tattoo when Klaus came back, although I did notice this large design inspired by the heights of Mount Meru. Certainly one of the most sacred patterns in Buddhist tattooing, and - for this very reason - Granny's gaze is more rigid than ever.
/bH2V0TL
"Seven peaks instead of nine... Where on earth did you get that done?"
Klaus sighs, and again I'm afraid I'll regret bringing him here. But he answers, his eyes unfocused.
"Not in some hipster parlor cashing in on the Angelina Jolie hype, if that's what you're wondering."
"You didn't even use a mantra."
Klaus looks at me, then at the fringed rug, and shakes his head.
"It's a very personal kind of mantra, all right. I'm sorry about that."
Granny lets out a short wry laugh and crosses her arms in front of her TV, making it difficult for Ben to keep up with the drama. Granny goes on.
"You shouldn't feel sorry for me, but for generations of monks and warriors in the Khmer Empire, since the 9th century. But this only offends a quarter of my ancestors, and - you kids - always do whatever you want".
I'm only slightly familiar with the principles of Sak Yank tattooing, which is mostly Thai. But I do know that - nowadays - bamboo still infuses ink and mystical symbols to the very core of the skin. All too often for a small fee on street corners, rather than in the sacredness of temples. But I doubt very much that Klaus did this randomly. And the question is as much 'when' as 'where', but Granny can't know that, and she shrugs, as she goes off to get the tea.
"Have you been to Thailand?", I venture to ask.
Klaus nods slowly, as if mobilizing memories from another era:
"It was an ordinary leave destination, for many of us. But I... ~we~ went there especially for that."
He remains silent for a moment, looking down.
"It was actually a monk who agreed to do it. I think... he sort of understood what I'm fighting against, and how".
Granny parts the pearl curtain again, and returns with the teapot and three enamelled cups.
"Tame the mind", she states right along, "Master cosmic forces... Repel the attacks of evil spirits... You didn't choose Gao Yord at random, dear haunted junkie, did you?"
"Really, Mrs. Hoàng, there's no need to be so effusive, just call me Klaus, please".
I squint my eyes, and ask, without even taking a breath:
"Did you do this to stand up against the ghosts?"
Granny may think it's trivial, but I'm flabbergasted. Because - historically speaking - this is the very first time I see Klaus take deliberate action, not just suffer, suppress or undergo, but act and stand up for himself. I can see it, the symbolism of his act, and above all: the step he has taken towards his own self and power. And I'm grateful to Dave, because I'm absolutely certain that he's the one who pushed him to do this.
Granny takes a cinnamon roll and dips it in her tea, unknowingly sitting on top of Ben, who shifts to avoid her bottom. She glances at Klaus, still somewhat judgmental.
"As you know, there are a number of rules that come with such a tattoo".
Rules designed to elevate the wearer of these tracings as a better human, including a promise not to get drunk or intoxicated. Klaus looks at the ground, because he almost failed at this, this morning. But upon hearing my grandmother's words, he seems to strengthen his gaze, as if he needed this reminder.
"I wanted to gather here..."
He rests his hand under his breastbone.
"... what gives me the strength to do all this. What makes me safe enough to stand up to anything. I didn't do it on my back because... I guess I need to see it in order to remember."
Granny stares at him, straight over the navel, but I feel her expression is less stiff now. And I know what her dark eyes are doing, sweeping sideways across the mystical squares where the power of the mantras should have been traced. She reads what he had written there instead. Granny can read Akson, possibly Tai as much as Lao.
"I hope you won't regret these lotuses," she says, "but you know my Bạch Liên so much better than I do, now. I don't want to know who David is. But..."
I smile silently. Someday I'll have to tell Klaus how I feel about him having done that, but - by the way the picture on the cathode-ray set has just sizzled - I guess he's already figured out. And Granny squints.
"... does 'UA' really stand for what I think it does?"
Klaus says nothing, then finally nods, with a faint smile. And I distinguish those consonants, right at the top of the Gao Yord: a deliberate mention of the Umbrella Academy, by his own choice and heart, without anyone having forced it into his skin, this time. Out of place and dull, the umbrella on his wrist would almost seem to be gone. Meaningless, compared to this.
"That's also why I chose seven peaks instead of nine," he whispers. "It was time to realize what's really important to me".
Ben smiles discreetly, as he always does, and I realize the complexity of those relationships. The paradoxical kind of love Klaus feels for his family. I understand all the more his resentment and anger this morning, and the pain he feels when his siblings don't reciprocate. I'm stunned by what he's done, binding his world within this protective seal, to give himself the strength to fight.
Whether Granny likes it or not, yes: to fight like the Khmer warriors, like the soldier he once was, and simply with the courage he's always had without realizing it. I personally believe that he wears the ink of Sak Yank legitimately. And if he thinks the lotus can still help him, sincerely enough to have claimed it in his skin, then I'll honor that wish out of any waters.
Notes :
The subject of the Gao Yord with which Klaus returns is so little addressed in the series. And yet, the very symbolism of this tattoo makes it a powerful tool for understanding how he subsequently becomes much more successful at keeping ghosts at bay. I haven't changed anything to this tattoo in this chapter; it's just as Trason Fernandes drew it.
I don't know what a monk practicing this age-old tradition would think of this design and its lack of a traditional mantra. I chose to stick with the series for this fic, but it may not be a choice I would have made.
Dave's actor once said that the answer to addiction is not sobriety but connection. And I think Klaus's Gao Yord is also an expression of that, as well as a seal of protection.
Any comment will make my day!