Look, he said, putting his hand down. I don’t want you to think that this only has to do with your father.
The praise resumed and I tried to keep my eyes open but it felt like being placed in the path of an oncoming train. That I was able to work through a parent’s death so quickly and nondisruptively showed a great deal of character. Plain and simple, he would like to see my efforts rewarded and he personally believed that doctors like myself were the future. If he even had two more of me, he would be able to significantly reduce on other staff and improve our ranking.
Ever heard of cassette tapes? he asked.
I said I had, but his question turned out to be rhetorical and he carried on like I hadn’t.
You might be too young, but cassette tapes, or tape cassettes or audio cassettes or simply cassettes, had two sides, an A and a B. They had an analog magnetic strip that you could wind and unwind, by putting your fingertip into one of the reel holes that had these tiny plastic teeth.
How he viewed my constant and comforting presence in the hospital was like that. From Joan A to B, he said, then from Joan B to A. My being a tape was music to his ears.
Why stop at cassette tape, I said, since there was no end to the number of inanimate objects I could be. What about Joan the orange? An orange being squeezed for hours to make a tall glass of refreshing juice that the hospital could drink.
He asked if he had offended me again.
No, not at all, I said. Just the opposite. I’m thrilled. And I was.
You don’t sound thrilled.
But I am.
The director said he could ask for a higher raise.
I’m sorry?
He said I drove a hard bargain, which was a compliment, but he could definitely get me more money. I want the number to shock you, he said. I want to hear a good curse word out of you. Like fuck. An interesting fact, most English swears rely heavily on continuant-stop sound patterns. The f sound in fuck, you can hold for a very long time, but the k sound you can’t, and this is what gives most swear words that punch. Phonaesthetics, you know what they are?
I didn’t.
It’s the sound-feel behind a word. How syllables are arranged to evoke an emotion or paint a picture. Hummingbird, for instance, has a great mouth quality to it, sounds like the bird itself flitting around and, for so many linguistic reasons, could never be a swear.
I said, Okay, sir. But honestly, I was lost. A hummingbird’s wings could beat an insane number of times per second, so holding one in your mouth sounded painful.
Then his secretary of many years came in to say that we had reached the end of our time. His next meeting was waiting online, a ten-way conference call with other directors from other intensive care programs to fortify the image of a linked hospital system within our great city. But each hospital was still its own entity, and each director had a secretary. His, who was now in the room, moved in such a way that I could never catch her face. She wore black clothes and had red hair, a constant campfire ablaze on her head.
The director asked to shake my hand.
Glad we could come to an agreement, he said, my hand in his, and I left wondering where in the conversation we had disagreed.
* * *
—
LINGUISTICS OR PHONAESTHETICS WERE beyond me, but learning a language was not. My father had used cassette tapes to practice English and had pressed the player right up against his ear until the ear turned red. He would repeat the same phrases as the voice inside the machine, that by some shipment mistake, was British, and my father would try to sound like this voice, a man who called everyone chap, but end up sounding nothing like Chap, given the discordant clash of two accents.
I’d spent my earliest years speaking only to my parents, meaning I’d spent those years speaking only in Chinese. Then on my first day of kindergarten, the teacher found it so strange that while I spoke basic English, I was not entirely fluent. She called my parents in and the problem was figured out. The problem is that you are not speaking to your child in English, she announced, and my father, haltingly, said that he and my mother would continue to speak to me in whatever language they chose. But they had every faith that my English would catch up. (Because isn’t learning the language why his daughter was in school, and isn’t teaching the language this teacher’s job?)
The teacher was skeptical, a little miffed by my father’s obstinacy and implied meaning, but of course, my English would far surpass my Chinese and, like a speeding bullet, cruise through my brain.
The deeper I fell into English, the further I drifted from my parents.
Further, farther
Farther, father.
Mother tongue is the same in both languages.
Changing of the guards, which for most families is a gradual process but with immigrant families happens much earlier and precipitously, as the child becomes a parent.
Having English fluency in my household was like this: at any fast-food stop, I was sent in with the entire family’s order and a small folded-up wad of cash. I was in charge of public ordering until Fang, once he arrived, had mastered English as well and entirely lost his accent. It was mostly the accent. Broken pronunciation implied a broken mind, unless the accent was British or French, which then meant the person was posh. For years, I was the designated telephone picker-upper and, if it was junk, the polite hanger-upper. Deepen your voice, my mother said, answer yes to your father’s name or mine. If my parents had an inquiry for anyone, I was sent forth to ask. Because who could refuse a child? Or judge her for questions like Your sign for single-ply toilet paper clearly states buy one, get one free, but how come on this receipt I was still charged for two?
Come here. My father beckoning me over with the back of his hand, so I could read him a letter. A second rejection from the bank: no, they couldn’t extend to him a business loan, for the same aforementioned reasons that he didn’t have enough credit with them or any reputable assets like a house. What’s aforementioned? What does that word mean?
It means “for the same reasons as in the first.”
Then he and I would have to apply again. No harm in trying, he said, only in giving up.
My mother sometimes brought me along when she cleaned, so I could quickly address any concerns that a wife might have about the service. Is that eco-friendly cleaner you’re using? No phthalates or ammonia? In exchange, I could sit at this family’s large dining table and do homework. I could also watch the wife watch my mother. Phthalates were esters used in plastic, ammonia, the amines used in fertilizers. Already in progress was my science literacy, and the possibility that it could elevate me far and away from here.
If either Fang or I couldn’t go to school—rare, but sometimes happened from seasonal flu—I was in charge of writing our sick notes for our mother to sign. But since she didn’t like the sight of her own cursive, I was tasked with forging her signature as well.
I hated all of my tasks of course—the standard juvenile complaint of why me? and why did some parents clear entire forests for their children but not mine?—though with time, what I hated more was seeing my parents get bullied, for no real reason except the obvious.
Big words aside, the language of medicine has its own shorthand and lingo. Yes, the training could flatten you but it also let you into an exclusive club.
None of the jargon mattered to patients.
Give it to me simply, they and their families would request. Are you talking about the head or the heart?
I’m talking about the heart.
* * *