Vanessa Yee-kwan Wong’s Note: “Nausea” was published in Wong Bik-wan’s 黃碧雲Tenderness and Violence 溫柔與暴烈 (Cosmo Books, 1994). Inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel of the same name (La Nausée, 1938), the story encourages an existentialist reading of Hong Kong’s political precarity near the end of British colonial rule. The protagonist/narrator, Tsim Hak-ming, is a veteran student activist from Berkeley, California, who later continues his activism in Hong Kong, symbolically connecting the anti-imperialist movement in the West with that in the “Third World”. This connection is strengthened in Hak-ming’s Afro-Asian biracial foster-sister, Yip Sai-sai, whose own traumas are evoked by the alienating features of her black body. As the story unfolds, the narrator/doctor increasingly identifies with a patient he is supposed to treat, insinuating how the narrative of fragmented, nonlinear recollection of repressed, traumatic memories in “Nausea” might be a dark, absurdist self-diagnosis of a mad psychiatrist.
Between one patient and another, I have the tiniest sliver of space for contemplation. I suddenly recall the falling leaves on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, and the endless sunshine of California. Perhaps it is because autumn in Hong Kong is fragile and crisp, like paper, whereas in California, autumn feels perpetual. As I begin to feel my weariness and the burden of age, memories flood back like an old ailment, assaulting me in waves.
I want to retire early. As things stand now, amid hallucination, dissociative identity disorder, speech impairment, depression, and hyperthyroidism, between one patient and another, I have the tiniest sliver of space for contemplation. This is not what I imagined life to be.
Back then, the sunshine seemed endless, and everything was possible.
Leaves are falling and tapping against the window pane.
The last patient is Chan. A new case; hopefully it won’t take too long. I have grown impatient with my clients since a couple years ago. When they describe their conditions, my mind wanders aimlessly to the scent of a bottle of soured milk, the eyeballs of a deceased client, a broken compact mirror that my wife discarded, glinting in the sunlight, a Beatles song, the smile of John Lennon, my old, tattered denim jacket and the rusty iron badge on it, the pattern of my mother’s qipao, and the feeling of my long hair…
“Hello, Dr. Tsim.”
“How can I help you, Mr. Chan?”
The patient is a typical urban yuppie, around thirty years old, dressed in well-tailored Italian suits, with a wild-rose silk tie. Prognosis: depression, panic attack, sweating, possibly somnambulism and persecutory paranoia? I unfasten a button of my white robe, hoping this day will pass quickly.
The patient suddenly plunges into a long silence. Another leaf falls and taps against the window pane.
“I have seen you before, Dr. Tsim.”
“Oh?”
The patient articulates clearly, his voice completely normal.
“In a cinema, about two or three years ago. They were showing ‘Blood-stained flowers.’ You had probably just finished work. You were in your shirt and trousers, and you smelled of medicine. I didn’t quite remember your face; it was dark in there, as the show had already begun.” A chill is in the air. It’s already autumn, after all. It gives me a chill whenever I think of Yip Sai-sai.
On that same day, I happened to receive news of a patient who had jumped off a building to kill himself. He had been seeing me for five or six years and had strong thoughts of suicide. Now that he finally succeeded, I could finally close his case. Still the news depressed me a great deal, so I went to see an oldie from the 1960s, and there, in the dimly lit cinema, I ran into Yip Sai-sai, who came up to me, clutching my hands, saying, “It’s me… it’s me… it’s me.” I was startled and muttered: “It’s you.” But she was already gone; vaguely, I saw that there was a man beside her.
“Sai-sai disappeared.”
Perhaps Sai-sai is my first patient. I first met her in 1970. At that time, I was still at the medical school in Berkeley. One day during the Vietnam War protest, cops drove onto campus and broke the students up with water cannons and batons. I got injured in the struggle and broke my head; I ended up getting a handful of stitches. When my mother heard of the trouble I got into at school, she came to see me in California. Both by forcing and coaxing, she made me go back to Hong Kong for the summer vacation. Since I injured my head, I had no choice but to cut my long hair. My mother also got rid of my tattered jeans, so I had to get a new wardrobe, which tidied up my appearance quite a bit, and only then did my mother dare to introduce me to her friends. My mother used to be a minor celebrity, living an unruly life when she was young. After she married my father and inherited several garment factories from him when he died, she had become much more well off, but not all her old acquaintances were as lucky as her. She had this sworn-sister called Yip-ying, who hit it off with a Black movie director and went to America with him. Later, he abandoned her, so she brought her biracial daughter back to Hong Kong, making a living by playing extras for soap operas on TV, or singing in nightclubs. One night, she was raped and murdered. Her daughter was right there and greatly traumatised, and since then, she developed this disease of constant vomiting.
After Yip-ying died, my mother temporarily took care of her daughter. The frail, filthy little girl was brought to our home: she had slightly dark skin, woolly black hair. Her eyes were incredibly large, staring quietly at the world, filled with fear and wonder. She saw me, and then, silently and brusquely, she touched my hands, held up my palms, clapped them, and began throwing up in them. My hands were full of the yellowy, greenish vomit; a sour, rotten smell assaulted me in waves, causing me to retch involuntarily.
This nine-year-old girl just puked in my hands; her whole body was trembling. Her mother was raped and murdered while she silently witnessed it with fear and wonder. Right then and there I suddenly recalled the face of the black cop who beat me. Maybe that’s what brought me nausea?
That was how I first met Yip Sai-sai. Since then, all the memories about Yip Sai-sai are always very painful.
That summer, Yip Sai-sai stayed at our home. Our domestic helper cleaned her up, dressed her in a floral gauze dress, and tied her hair with a big scarlet bow. Yip Sai-sai treated me with an uncanny intimacy, with a precocious seductiveness that felt like sex among adults. Whenever she saw me, she would hold my hands and bury her tiny face in them, as if she would spew right there; then she would murmur my name: “Tsim Hak-ming, Tsim Hak-ming.” She wouldn’t call me “brother”, “uncle”, or anything else. She would clamour for a piggy-back and a firm embrace. At night she would cry, demanding to sleep in my bed. Usually I had to give in; then I would stroke her back to help her sleep. Sometimes she felt sick in the middle of the night, when she trembled from head to toe and vomited; her vomit got all over my face and body. Gradually, the stench of her puke became part of my life in that summer. As if driven by an irresistible excitement, Sai-sai enjoyed talking by my side. She made up story after story and narrated them to me and kissed the back of my ears with her almost imperceptible, tiny, butterfly-like lips. Without giving it too much thought, I let her do as she pleased. She also liked to scratch my back with her little fingers.
Summer flew by; each day the sun receded sooner and sooner. An icy breath was in the air. I was packing for returning to Berkeley. My mother arranged for Sai-sai to attend a boarding school and managed the little money left by Yip-ying for her future college expenses, as a gesture of their friendship as sworn-sisters. As my trip was approaching, I stopped messing around with Sai-sai. During the day, I went into town to pick up some personal items, some clothing, a suitcase, and a few electrical products to bring abroad. I dropped them home and headed out again in the evening for a high school friends’ gathering to say goodbye. That evening, Mother was playing Mah-jong at a friend’s house, and our helper took a day off to look after her ill husband. It was almost midnight when I got home. All was quiet, except the soft buzzing of crickets in the yard, and the light and crisp sound of a falling leaf. I reckoned Sai-sai was asleep so I headed back to my room and flipped the light. But the light didn’t turn on; there might have been an outage. The moonlight gently poured into the room from the balcony. As I fumbled around for a flashlight, I suddenly heard a retching sound, followed by waves of stench. I stood in the middle of the room and whispered: “Sai-sai, Sai-sai,” as I traced the source of the retching. I drew near my suitcase, and though I couldn’t see Sai-sai, I could hear it was her. I opened my suitcase: amid my clothes, hair-dryer, and hand-held recorder, there she was, crouching like a kitten and vomiting. I didn’t know what was it that revolted me: the provocative smell of vomit, or the sound of creaking and retching. I yanked her out forcefully and yelled at her: “Yip Sai-sai! I’d have beaten you to death if you were a guy.” Then she stared at me; in the darkness, her dark skin loomed like a shadow—life is like a shadow—suddenly she began to hit me, not in the cute manner of a spoiled little girl, but spitefully, with the disappointment and anguish of an adult woman. She clutched me, bit me, even kicked me in the crotch. I jerked her away at once and slapped her face hard. She struggled on, until we were both exhausted. My body was scratched all over, her mouth full of blood. Yet the moonlight was exceptionally serene and pale. In this absurd yet tranquil evening, the smell of blood, rottenness, and human breath suddenly made me want to cry, so I stopped. But Sai-sai was still wrestling and clutching at me languidly, so I took out my first aid box, and put tranquiliser into the syringe.
It was the first time I had tranquilised someone. She didn’t resist. All she did was leaning against me feebly and murmured, “Don’t leave.”
I cleaned her face and showered her. She quietly let me take off her stinking clothes. I could see her juvenile breasts even in the dark: two pale pink nipples, flourishing like tarnished paper flowers. In fact, I had made love to a few girlfriends, yet at that moment, when I saw the child’s body of hers, I hesitated, and dared not move. The tranquiliser took effect shortly, and Sai-sai slumped down in the bathtub and fell into a deep slumber. I carefully washed her body; inexplicably, I felt a terrifying feeling of intimacy.
It was also my first time touching her; at the same time, I wanted to stay away from her.
Several years had elapsed when I saw her again.
It was autumn. For the first time, I realised there were poinciana in Hong Kong; in the autumn, their leaves drizzle down like rain. The sunlight is now slowly dimming and fading away, like the passing of time. My present self has been separated from the long-haired Berkeley guy by an abyss called “age”. Because of age, I react to everything with indifference. Though Sai-sai still stirs up the deepest and heaviest of my memories, I merely ask my “patient” nonchalantly: “So, how did she disappear?”
“We live in two opposite flats on the same floor. I don’t have the key to her flat. She insists on having a private space, and I could only respect that. But after several days ringing her doorbell and getting no response, and smelling some really strong, rotten smells, I became alarmed, and I called the police. The firefighters broke into the flat. The living room was tidy as usual. There was a book on her desk, called Ulysses, by some writer I don’t know; she was very fond of it. There was still coffee on the table, with the stain from her favorite dark strawberry lipstick on the cup. But the tank of goldfish in the living room were all dead, and it stank. Her bed was a mess, with a pile of vomit beside it, all dried up but still very smelly, and it made me nauseous and sweat right away. None of the household stuff was removed, though she had taken all the cash, gold coins, and travel documents with her.”
“Was there anything unusual objects?”
“Well… there was a huge stack of job advertisement on the table, like receptionist, sales, brokers, etc… To be honest, these are all useless to her, as she is a rising criminal lawyer…”
“So, she left on her own, Mr Chan.”
“But that’s impossible! She’s such an organised woman… she has an indestructible will. She would stay up for three days straight just to investigate a case… she goes swimming and does sixty sit-ups every day; she never smokes. She’s not the type to act dramatically…”
“Yip Sai-sai is a frightening woman. There are endless possibilities in her life.”
When I saw Sai-sai Yip again, she was already a young lady turning thirteen. Her limbs were very slender, her chest flat; she had her hair tied into countless tiny braids with colourful strings and wore a plain white chiffon shirt and a pair of old, bleached jeans. When she saw me, she greeted me sort of properly: “Tsim Hak-ming.” She still wouldn’t call me “brother” or “uncle”, which was a huge relief. I held out my hand to pat her head: “How you have grown!” Then she brusquely embraced me, her soft body pressing tightly against mine. My heart tightened, and I pushed her away.
It was the year of 1973. I had just left the college town of Berkeley—a town inflamed with youthfulness—with a void in my heart. After returning to Hong Kong, I had to do placement work at the hospital and retake exams; studying was dull. At that time, Hong Kong was in the midst of anti-corruption protests and the student movement defending the Diaoyu Islands. Bolstered by the spirit of Berkeley, I naturally became involved: nothing was more important than freedom. One day, at our publication’s office, I met with other comrades to protest at the Star Ferry Pier against the oppression of free speech by the British Hong Kong government. The government had just issued an ultimatum: they would arrest any protestors. On the way to our demonstration, I put on a headband and took my comrades’ hands in mine, with Ng on my right, and Mei on my left. We marched head-on into a row of riot police. Then my mind wandered aimlessly: I thought of the expression on the black cop’s face in Berkeley just when he was about to knock me down; I thought of the music of John Lennon, the scent of marijuana, Sai-sai’s vomit, her budding breasts, and the breeze on the Bay Bridge. Memories turned me into a pure, serene existence. Next to me, Ng said: “They’re all gone.” I turned around: lo and behold, indeed, the crowd behind us had left, leaving only a few of us facing the riot police.
They started hitting us with batons. Amid the smell of blood and sweat, I thought of Sai-sai.
Any associations and memories about her always bring pain.
She and Mother came to see me at the detention center. Worried that a criminal record would thwart my plan to practise medicine, mother was crying her eyes out. Sai-sai stood beside her, blinking her large eyes, her dark skin shining, and the sweat on her shoulder was like a drop of dew in the darkness of dawn. She remained silent the whole time and gripped my hands tightly just before they left.
After returning home, I was bedridden. My head was throbbing the whole day. Ng and Mei came to visit me from time to time. Chiu-mei was a meek timid woman. Whenever she visited, she always seemed reserved, so I would tease her to make her speak. Yet she visited time and again, often bringing lilies, roses, and tulips. At first, she sat at the other side across the room; gradually she moved closer and closer to my bedside. Sometimes she would read one of her poems to me. Holding her hand gave me a closeness and tenderness that felt real. For the first time I thought of marrying.
Sai-sai was still in boarding school, and only came home occasionally. One weekend afternoon, Chiu Mei had come to visit, and ran into Sai-sai in the living room as she was leaving. Hearing the commotion, I wanted to come to the living room to make an introduction, but Sai-sai was already firing up: “Who are you? What are you seeing Tsim Hak-ming for?” I came to the living room, and there was Mei, terrified and helpless. Sai-sai raised her eyebrows high to scrutinise Chiu Mei, who hurriedly bowed her head and said: “Excuse me,” then she left like a gust of wind.
Sai-sai and I sat across the living room. She put on a pair of dark glasses and lit a cigarette. My head was throbbing. Air swept over us silently, like water. After a long while, she finally asked: “Do you love her?” Feeling extremely annoyed, I broke out: “Why do girls always ask this kind of questions?” Then abruptly she walked to me, pulled the bandage off my head, and said through clenched teeth: “You better show us some respect.” And then she let go of me, picked up her bag and went back to her room. Sai-sai had grown up now. She’s not the little girl who puked in my hand anymore. Surprisingly, I felt a loss in my heart.
Sometime after that, Sai-sai disappeared. My head had fully healed when Sai-sai’s school called and said she had run away from school a couple days ago. Mother was getting old now and didn’t want any trouble. She didn’t want to be Sai-sai’s guardian anymore and had been negotiating with the principal about it. Immediately I went everywhere to look for Sai-sai. Mei came along. Where on earth were we to go? So huge was the city, so packed were the neon signboards, even the seawater was black and dense, like lead. The city was an enormous secret. Only then did I realise: I really didn’t know anything about Hong Kong.
I talked to all of Sai-sai’s classmates. A girl revealed that a man had taken Sai-sai to an old vacant house and hid her there. Mei and I treaded the twisted alleyways in Sham Shui Po to scout for her, where I stepped in dogshit and got laughed at by some old prostitutes. Some drug addicts walked up to me begging for cash. Then we got there, an attic above an iron and steel factory. The night-shift workers were soldering iron, the sticks glittering, flaming up like a fiery flower. Stepping on warm iron flowers under my foot and feeling the surrealness before me, I tightly gripped Mei’s hand. She comforted me understandingly: “It’ll be okay in a moment.”
No one answered the door. It was pitch-black inside. One way was to leap into the flat from the courtyard outside. I told Mei to wait for me there, then I ducked into the flat like a thief. Immediately, I smelt the familiar stench of vomit, a smell that conjured up the days in the past before me in the darkness. Outside, a streetlamp shone bleakly. I heaved out a sigh: “Sai-sai.” Her black skin was concealed in the dark, but I knew she was there. Then, a slender silhouette emerged and hugged me tightly. She was shaking from head to toe, her stomach was in convulsion, she seemed to be in pain. Bruises were noticeable on her face. “Why? Sai-sai.” I said in a low voice. Sai-sai embraced me and whispered in my ear: “I love you, Tsim Hak-ming.” And it was the most absurd love story I had ever known. I held her; the ghastly, pale light penetrated the room, like a stage light on stage. “Can you love me back?” she whispered in my ear. All I could say was: “You know what? You are sick, Sai-sai. Let me take care of you for the rest of your life. I am your doctor.” “But can you love me?” she asked. I only repeated: “You are sick, Sai-sai.” To my amazement, Sai-sai bit my ear with all her might, and I cried in pain. Outside, Mei was banging the door. With Sai-sai plunged into hysteria again, I had to knock her down to open the door for Mei, and together, we managed to restrain her.
That night, I gave her a tranquiliser again, but I myself couldn’t sleep. I paced back to the living room and opened the balcony door. I gazed at Victoria Harbour below, which was lit dimly by dusky lights. I smoked one cigarette after another. My comrades were scattered after the arrest. Mei and I became an ordinary couple. She even enjoyed cooking for me. What would become of me? A psychiatrist, working sixteen hours a day. Was it how my life would end? I was really confused. Then, quietly, Sai-sai stepped into the living room and sat in front of me. I paid no attention and kept on smoking. She hugged herself and remained still. A formidable dawn approached from afar and came upon us. Slowly, Sai-sai undid her night gown. Her voice was distant and nonchalant: “This is how they took off mother’s clothes.” This is the second time I saw Sai-sai’s naked body; it was extremely delicate and of a faint chocolate hue. She then took my hand and gently guided it over her body—her face, her shoulder, her chest, her breasts, her belly. No one knew what happened when she had disappeared; she had bruises all over her body, yet she wouldn’t say a word about it. Now that I was touching her, but strangely, it felt hardly sexual, but merely signifying to me all the pain she experienced growing up. She let my hands rest on her knees. Then she scratched her leg. Each stroke left a faint white mark that would soon bleed red. Before I could see it, she was already holding a pair of scissors, and she said: “This is how they scraped off Mommy’s stockings.” Then she leaned on me and said: “Do you want me? Like how they wanted Mommy.” I shut my eyes. “I can’t, Yip Sai-sai.” I sighed and made a decision: “You can’t stay with me anymore. You will go to a boarding school in England. If not, I am going to give your money back. You leave our family.”
Yip Sai-sai is a monster. She is sick.
“Do you know she is sick?” For the first time, I examine my patient carefully. He looks strangely familiar. The way he bows his head in contemplation, with a look of frustration… it’s as if I’m looking into the mirror.
It’s getting dark outside. My nurse has got off work.
“We work in the same law firm. You know, she is attractive. She is quick witted, and she is agile. Her high heels click on the floor like piano keys. Working with her is like riding a roller-coaster… we’ve had a great time so far. Until the first time I made love with her.” Then, the patient returns the same careful gaze to me: “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No.”
“She started calling out someone’s name. I didn’t hear what it was at first—then I tried to listen carefully, it was Tsim, … Tsim something-ming. And then she began to bite me. Not the flirtatious kind of biting… she actually tried to bite me off… it hurt, I got really scared, I didn’t know what to do. Also… well… every time we make love she throws up. When we’ve finished, she vomits, like how guys ejaculate. It’s creepy.”
“Have you tried to leave her?”
“No. Other than that she’s fine. She is affectionate and yet very tough. When I messed up trading gold, she went to negotiate with my broker. She lent me money. When we travelled, it was she who booked the room, got the visas; she took care of everything. When my water tap broke, she fixed it for me. Living with her is awesome. Yet I feel I can’t get closer to her.”
“You think it’s awesome. What about her?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Then, why did you come to see me?”
“Because now I want to leave her.”
After Sai-sai left, my life returned to calm on the surface. I started interning in a government hospital. I married Chiu-mei, and we had a child soon after. Hong Kong’s economy skyrocketed. Everyone was enjoying his bliss in moneymaking. Of course, my old comrades were even more scattered. Ng became an assistant to a property tycoon. Ming became a comedian. Some became professors in colleges, their heads becoming bald, their bellies sticking out. This way of life was extremely dull, but I could not break free from it. I couldn’t do any work besides medicine: I didn’t even know how to type or operate a vacuum cleaner. My work and my daughter took up most of my time. My hair was turning grey before I knew it. Sometimes, when I came home after work, exhausted, I would hug my daughter and fall asleep on her bedside; and then, Beatles music would faintly ring in my ears, and I would see myself posting slogans in Berkeley, Sai-sai in my bosom, barely nine years old, traumatised. All those are poles apart from the reality before me.
I was bored to the extreme, so I decided to start my own clinic; that way, at least I could make some money. I found a small house on The Peak. There were fallen leaves outside the window; the house faced west. Chiu-mei complained that the rent was too high and the location too remote, but I insisted on renting it because it felt like California: looking out of the window, you would see the golden season outside.
When Sai-sai was studying in the UK, she came back several times during the holidays. She lived in Manchester. I either avoided her or brought Mei and my daughter along to meet her. She looked normal and fashionable, just like any other pretty black mixed-blood women. Her commonplace, youthful beauty gave me a sense of relief. Because she looked normal, I wouldn’t be tempted by her. These youthful cuties, they were a dime a dozen; just look at how they expose themselves to public scrutiny in the Miss Hong Kong pageant every year. I was now thirty-six, long past the age of confusion; I let the beauty of the flesh stay on the flesh. Sai-sai had also met some boyfriends of the same age, and they would go out together. Whatever happened between she and me seemed to have come to a perfect end.
Sometime later, Mother died of a heart attack. Sai-sai returned for the funeral; surprisingly, she was pretty skilled at hosting relatives and family friends and preparing meals for the guests. I wasn’t exactly grievous, but just felt heavy in the heart. I took some sedatives, then, I became my body and my body only. There was a thorough weariness in the bottom of my heart. About this, Chiu-mei and my daughter had no idea. My daughter was just as adorable, Mei just as loving. As Mother’s body was being cremated, Sai-sai and I stood outside the cremator. Dark smoke was rising, but there was no way to tell which body it rose from. Sai-sai held out her hand to hold mine. Her hand was tender yet steadfast, like Chiu-mei’s hand from the past; it’s not quite the same as when Sai-sai was small. She asked quietly: “Tsim Hak-ming. Are you satisfied with your life?” I was taken aback, and as I watched the smoke from the burning corpses slowly dissipated into the air, the sky had become gloomy at dusk; at that moment, my heart was filled with sorrow.
In the evening, Sai-sai and I were meeting at an Italian restaurant in Central. I closed the clinic, and before going to see her, I went home first to shower and change and put on a new pair of socks. I was slightly anxious, so I smoked a cigarette, only to regret when I went outside; so, I turned back to brush my teeth. All these hustles seemed ridiculous even to me. Sai-sai had arrived early, and when she saw me, she got up from her seat. Both of us acted courteously. She had her woolly hair tied up; she was wearing a pair of drop earrings hung all the way down to the chest, and a glimmering pink shirt, which was quite gaudy. We discussed her mother’s finances and she signed some of the letters. She was twenty-one now; Mother and I have fulfilled our obligation. Sai-sai decided to drop out of her second year in college and move back to Hong Kong. She detested the UK. We ordered chilled new wine and had some Italian cheese. Sai-sai first talked about how she was robbed in Italy, and then she talked about the Joan Miró Museum in Barcelona, and the castles and crystal in Prague. In comparison, my work was tedious—more and more indistinguishable from a kindergarten teacher. On hearing this she became quiet, then she asked in all earnestness: “Do you have any female patients like me?” I chuckled: “No.” “Did you touch them?” she asked. I answered honestly: “No.” Then, curtly she asked again: “Are you a good man?” I considered for a moment. “That’s for others to judge.” She insisted: “I am asking you.” I could only say: “I guess I am.” Then she said: “I’m pregnant.”
This was the third time I encountered her naked body. As the anaesthesiologist put her to sleep, she grabbed my white coat and asked me, “Tsim Hak-ming, can you love me?” I was stunned, and slowly I muttered, “Sai-sai. I can’t.” But she had already lost consciousness. I came to the operation room, holding a suction tube and forceps, standing in for a nurse. My old friend skilfully dilated Sai-sai’s cervix. She began bleeding very soon. Sai-sai had insisted that I stayed there; I wondered if it was a conspiracy or a seduction. As if signifying the woundedness of her life, her blood gushed copiously. The forceps were ice-cold. I looked up and saw the lamp on the surgery table. The suction tube extracted the fetus, now a puddle of blood and tissues on a plastic tray – they came from Sai-sai’s body. I gently felt the fetus, still lukewarm. At that moment, I suddenly had the desire to have a baby with her.
Her body was very weak, so I brought her home, telling Chiu Mei that she had just had a minor stomach surgery. Incidentally, Mei also got an acute pancreatic infection and had to be hospitalised for a few days to do a minor surgery. All of a sudden, I had two close patients in my care, and it was more than I could manage. One day I was exhausted; I had no appointment in the clinic in the afternoon, so I closed early and went home to rest. My daughter was staying with Mei’s mother. The house was quiet and empty in the afternoon, and Sai-sai must have already lain down. She had low blood pressure, which slowed down her recovery. When I got home, I caught a faint sour smell, coming at me along with waves of memories. It had been so many years! The scene, and these feelings, they were so familiar, yet the truth is that those days would never come back. It was the peak of summer, yet I felt chilly. I poured myself some whiskey with a lot of ice, then I dozed off in the living room. I woke up at dusk to a silhouette looming before me: was it my dead shadow? My heart leapt in horror, and I woke up. Sai-sai was facing away from me, drinking the whiskey I had left—it must have been tepid by now. I regarded Sai-sai silently. She was wearing a white silk nightgown, with no pyjama bottoms, just a pair of white silk panties. Her skin was dark and glossy, and tears trickled down her legs, drop by drop. Sai-sai was weeping, and I didn’t dare to disturb her. I didn’t know why she wept. Perhaps she wept for life, for survival— after all, she had survived such a turbulent life. My CD player started, and now I could faintly hear Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. The Missa was perhaps the composer’s most solemn and plaintive piece. At that moment, I was touched by a solemn closeness with Yip Sai-sai. After some time, when her tears had ceased, she began to speak: “Why do you not love me?” I was taken aback. I held out my hand to wipe the tears on her laps. “You know that love is not everything. I am your doctor and will always be.” She murmured: “Perhaps my love for you is a disease. I want to be cured.” I said: “Ask, and it will be given unto you.” How Christ-like, I almost burst out laughing. She turned around and looked at me: “Tsim Hak-ming. Could you please destroy me and my illusion? So that I won’t love you anymore?” I stroked her slowly: “Sure. I’m never worthy of it anyways.” I gently fondled her breasts: “You have grown up now. You don’t run after things that don’t exist.” And then she kissed me, her lips light and dense, like the drizzle in a rose-coloured nightfall. She slipped out of her pyjamas; her skin was like silk. As I succumbed to her quietly, I became convinced that we were one step closer to disillusionment. A fervent desire to enter her arose in me, accompanied with a nausea. Then I suddenly understood Sai-sai’s nausea: the emotion was so strong that it was no longer comprehensible for language—she had to vomit violently. Meanwhile, Sai-sai’s body pressed against mine with a vastness and abundance like a meadow after rain. I could not help but enter her, craving it like water, sleep, and death. She moaned in a low voice: “I want to be a normal person, Tsim Hak-ming. I don’t want to love you anymore.” I was moved, and I said: “Okay.” Her tears rolled down her face drop by drop. She had just had surgery, and it was extremely soft, sensitive, and painful inside her. Beads of sweat precipitated from her forehead. I tried to pull away from her, but she clung to me tightly and pleaded, “Don’t leave.” Her face was contorted but smiling eerily at the same time; I couldn’t tell if that’s pain or other emotions. Forcefully pressing on her shoulder blades (her shoulder blades were so slender and hard), I started to thrust intensely, ignoring how painful it was for her. If I’d had a knife or a pistol, I would have killed her on the spot, without a doubt. I didn’t know why. I came very soon, and felt exhausted more than ever, almost collapsing. She gazed out at the night scene outside the balcony; the city was lighting up bit by bit. Overwhelmed by shame, I got dressed immediately. She stayed naked and lit a cigarette; her disinterested look eluded me. I regretted it—and I pinched my face ferociously. She smirked at me devilishly: “Look at you—like a fallen woman. Nowadays, even women have no chastity to speak of.” I snatched the crystal tumbler and smashed it into pieces, then I stormed out of the house.
I didn’t drive. I walked downhill alone, staring at my own feet as I trotted, trying not to think. When I reached downtown, the rush-hour crowds had dispersed. Some vendors were selling newspaper extras at the entrance to the MTR: “The Sino-British declaration has been drafted! The Sino-British declaration whas been drafted!” Looking up, I saw the British flag flying proudly in front of the bank. Hong Kong was being handed over, and the world would never be the same. I walked past the district park, where some students had put on a street performance. Drum rolls reverberated ceaselessly between the modern buildings, as if ancient barbarism was transposed to the present day. A masked student claimed: “I woke up, and Britain has become China…” This world was not the same as the one that I had once known. We could no longer decide our own destiny, whether it be about love or politics. But it wasn’t like this before. In Berkeley, in the 1960s… It wasn’t like this before.
I couldn’t bring myself to that house again. I stayed in the hotel for a few days, afterwards, I picked up Chiu-mei from the hospital. She was still very weak; she leaned on me trustingly, which even made me feel secure. She’s my wife, after all. I held her tightly. Before stepping into our house, we could already smell something burnt. I rushed inside and was shocked: the couch where Sai-sai and I made love, the suitcase I brought with me to California, my old clothes, and Sai-sai’s childhood toys, were all tossed into the living room and burnt to a crisp. The ceiling was charred black. Furious and all jolted within, I kicked the remains in the living room in a frenzy and hurt my foot. I was going to sue her, hit her with a wooden stick, kill her. And yet deep down, I knew I would never see her again.
Sai-sai had left. She decided not to love me anymore and be a normal person.
Despite my anger, I suddenly wept. At that moment a nausea arose inside my body, so intense, as if my bowels were shattered to pieces. I rushed to the restroom but could only spew out colourless saliva. Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably.
My past had abandoned me.
Suddenly it dawns upon me. Presently, amid the heaviest dusk, my patient appears just like my past self: the way we bow our heads in contemplation, and the helplessness on our face.
“Why do you want to leave her?” I ask.
“I think… she is sick. She looks normal from the outside. It was last winter, I think, before the Christmas holiday, she and I were staying behind in the office. I was busy with a report, and when I looked up, it was ten already. I went to see if she wanted to get dinner together. She was at the photocopier. I stood behind her, and saw she was copying a bunch of blank pages. I called to her, and she began to throw up on the photocopier. It was horrible. The paper trays were full of vomit, green and yellow. As she threw up, she said to me intermittently, that she was sick of it. I had no idea what she was talking about.”
“From that day onwards, she refused to make love with me.”
“She must have been sick since then. It’s very strange. She would throw up at the most peculiar moment, say, when we were striking a deal with a client, when we won a case in the courtroom, or when she ate, or read porn.”
“Her nausea makes me want to leave her.”
“You’re glad that she disappeared, aren’t you?”
“I should be. And yet…”
Running into Sai-sai in the cinema was the only time I saw her after she had left. I heard from various sources that she worked as a flight attendant for two years, and stopped because she was charged with drug trafficking, but the charges were later dropped. Afterwards she went to study law in London. She resolved to be a normal person, an ordinary employee, with an ordinary boyfriend, someone she could hold hands with and go to the cinema with. I don’t have any place in her life anymore, and I suppose that’s the way it should be. But on that day, when she came and gripped my hand in the cinema, I was entirely flustered, and not even the 60s setting of the movie could move me. I left before the movie ended.
It’s completely dark now. The two of us sit in front of a small lamp, our two shadows overlapping with one another, as if we are of a piece. I take off my white coat and get ready to take my patient downhill. I turn off the air-conditioner. The patient still sits there, motionless. I can’t help but ask: “Is there anything else I can help you with?” He answers: “Should I go look for Sai-sai Yip?” With a snap I turn off the light, and everything plunges into darkness. “She has already abandoned you.” My voice is very low, as if I am speaking to myself: “There’s no need. She’ll find a new life for herself.”
As the patient follows me out, I realise he is about the same height as me and dresses like me, and the two of us are like ego and alter ego. We are both embodiments of what Sai-sai has been pursuing: perhaps it is love, or something she expected of humanity, like loyalty, gentleness, patience, and so on. Perhaps we are merely the shadows she sees in her pursuit. Whether it be this patient, or me, perhaps we are no more than some kinds of symbols to her. Silence fills the car. Soon we arrive downhill. The patient is heading to a dinner date in Central. When we are about to get there, he asks abruptly: “Dr Tsim. Have you ever made love to Sai-sai?” Then the light turns red, and I hit the brakes hard, both of us plunge forward. “No,” I say. “Why?” Then he replies: “Because one time, Sai-sai said she was once carrying your child.” The light turns green. Before I can say anything, the patient says: “Right here is fine. Thanks! Goodbye.” And then he steps out of the car. I was struck dumb and could hardly understand what his words mean. Is it Sai-sai’s fantasy or is it real? I probably won’t find out in my whole life. I don’t understand myself either.
I had indeed made love with Sai-sai Yip (it was extremely soft, sensitive, and full of pain inside her), but I lied to him.
I cherish the 1960s so much, and I now live a dull and timid life. And what is the purpose of the handover of Hong Kong? The radio starts playing John Lennon’s “Imagine”. The beautiful John Lennon. The beautiful Berkeley, California. The beautiful Yip Sai-sai. My golden past has left me for good. The honking from behind is deafening. Then I feel my whole world shaking, tumbling, losing its ground. I get out of the car, and right there at the junction crowded with cars, I recall the first half of my life. I stagger to a lamp post. My life is a lousy vulgar fiction, sentimental, pretentious, unrealistically romantic, full of dramatic moments and cheap middle-class nostalgia, written by a bored writer to kill time. But this is who I am, after all, and it eludes me. My stomach shivers with cold, my whole body tremulous. I bow my back and see the grey and black cement of the street. Falling on my knees, my insides twitching, I vomit violently.
How to cite: Wong, Vanessa Yee-kwan and Wong Bik-wan. “Nausea.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 14 Apr. 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/04/14/nausea.
Wong Bik-wan 黃碧雲 (author) is a Hong Kong-born writer. She has won a number of literary awards, including the awards for the novel of the 3rd and 12th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature, the essay award of the 4th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature, the 6th Hong Kong Book Prize, the 2012 Yazhou Zhoukan 10 Best Novels Award, and the 5th Dream of the Red Chamber Award.
Vanessa Yee-kwan Wong (translator) is a PhD candidate in the East Asian Studies department at University of California, Irvine. She is working on a dissertation on racial ambiguity and multiraciality in Chinese-language literature and films. Her other research interests include fashion and design theory, mental illness, and digital humanities. [Hong Kong Fiction in Translation.]