The Joy Luck Club

I used to believe everything my mother said, even when I didn't know what she meant. Once when I was little, she told me she knew it would rain because lost ghosts were circling near our windows, calling "Woo-woo" to be let in. She said doors would unlock themselves in the middle of the night unless we checked twice. She said a mirror could see only my face, but she could see me inside out even when I was not in the room.

And all these things seemed true to me. The power of her words was that strong.

She said that if I listened to her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from, always from up high, above everything else. And if I didn't listen to her, she said my ear would bend too easily to other people, all saying words that had no lasting meaning, because they came from the bottom of their hearts, where their own desires lived, a place where I could not belong.

The words my mother spoke did come from up high. As I recall, I was always looking up at her face as I lay on my pillow. In those days my sisters and I all slept in the same double bed. Janice, my oldest sister, had an allergy that made one nostril sing like a bird at night, so we called her Whistling Nose. Ruth was Ugly Foot because she could spread her toes out in the shape of a witch's claw. I was Scaredy Eyes because I would squeeze shut my eyes so I wouldn't have to see the dark, which Janice and Ruth said was a dumb thing to do. During those early years, I was the last to fall asleep. I clung to the bed, refusing to leave this world for dreams.

"Your sisters have already gone to see Old Mr. Chou, " my mother would whisper in Chinese. According to my mother, Old Mr. Chou was the guardian of a door that opened into dreams. "Are you ready to go see Old Mr. Chou, too? " And every night I would shake my head.

"Old Mr. Chou takes me to bad places, " I cried.

Old Mr. Chou took my sisters to sleep. They never remembered anything from the night before. But Old Mr. Chou would swing the door wide open for me, and as I tried to walk in, he would slam it fast, hoping to squash me like a fly. That's why I would always dart back into wakefulness.

But eventually Old Mr. Chou would get tired and leave the door unwatched. The bed would grow heavy at the top and slowly tilt. And I would slide headfirst, in through Old Mr. Chou's door, and land in a house without doors or windows.

I remember one time I dreamt of falling through a hole in Old Mr. Chou's floor. I found myself in a nighttime garden and Old Mr. Chou was shouting, "Who's in my backyard? " I ran away. Soon I found myself stomping on plants with veins of blood, running through fields of snapdragons that changed colors like stoplights, until I came to a giant playground filled with row after row of square sandboxes. In each sandbox was a new doll. And my mother, who was not there but could see me inside out, told Old Mr. Chou she knew which doll I would pick. So I decided to pick one that was entirely different.

"Stop her! Stop her! " cried my mother. As I tried to run away, old Mr. Chou chased me, shouting, "See what happens when you don't listen to your mother! " And I became paralyzed, too scared to move in any direction.

The next morning, I told my mother what happened, and she laughed and said, "Don't pay attention to Old Mr. Chou. He is only a dream. You only have to listen to me. "

And I cried, "But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too. "

More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen. A month after I told her that Ted and I were getting a divorce, I met her at church, at the funeral of China Mary, a wonderful ninety-two-year-old woman who had played godmother to every child who passed through the doors of the First Chinese Baptist Church.

"You are getting too thin, " my mother said in her pained voice when I sat down next to her. "You must eat more. "

"I'm fine, " I said, and I smiled for proof. "And besides, wasn't it you who said my clothes were always too tight? "

"Eat more, " she insisted, and then she nudged me with a little spiral-bound book hand-titled "Cooking the Chinese Way by China Mary Chan. " They were selling them at the door, only five dollars each, to raise money for the Refugee Scholarship Fund.

The organ music stopped and the minister cleared his throat. He was not the regular pastor; I recognized him as Wing, a boy who used to steal baseball cards with my brother Luke. Only later Wing went to divinity school, thanks to China Mary, and Luke went to the county jail for selling stolen car stereos.

"I can still hear her voice, " Wing said to the mourners. "She said God made me with all the right ingredients, so it'd be a shame if I burned in hell. "

"Already cre-mated, " my mother whispered matter-of-factly, nodding toward the altar, where a framed color photo of China Mary stood. I held my finger to my lips the way librarians do, but she didn't get it.

"That one, we bought it. " She was pointing to a large spray of yellow chrysanthemums and red roses. "Thirty-four dollars. All artificial, so it will last forever. You can pay me later. Janice and Matthew also chip in some. You have money? "

"Yes, Ted sent me a check. "

Then the minister asked everyone to bow in prayer. My mother was quiet at last, dabbing her nose with Kleenex while the minister talked: "I can just see her now, wowing the angels with her Chinese cooking and gung-ho attitude. "

And when heads lifted, everyone rose to sing hymn number 335, China Mary's favorite: "You can be an an-gel, ev-ery day on earth…"

But my mother was not singing. She was staring at me. "Why does he send you a check? " I kept looking at the hymnal, singing: "Send-ing rays of sun-shine, full of joy from birth. "

And so she grimly answered her own question: "He is doing monkey business with someone else. "

Monkey business? Ted? I wanted to laugh-her choice of words, but also the idea! Cool, silent, hairless Ted, whose breathing pattern didn't alter one bit in the height of passion? I could just see him, grunting "Ooh-ooh-ooh" while scratching his armpits, then bouncing and shrieking across the mattress trying to grab a breast.

"No, I don't think so, " I said.