The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

Mr. Nan had been right about the flow of customers during the day at
87
; the place got steadily busy around lunchtime.  He had also been right about the flow of cash; there were few big tippers at this time.  Lunchtime at
87
operated as if invitation-only.  And those invitations were sent to local Taiwanese businessmen, factory managers and bank personnel.  They all took advantage of the American-inspired atmosphere at
87
, to escape the island for an hour or so during midday.  But unlike the food, the American tradition of tipping was somewhat slow to catch on.  Qiu collected just under 100 Taiwan dollars for the entire lunch hour.  She hoped things would pick up before she clocked out—they did a little.  But the collection of tips didn’t predominate Qiu’s thoughts, increasing nausea did.  No one mentioned her slightly off-hued shirt during the day, which helped because she didn’t have an explanation ready.  As the day passed, Qiu grew unsteady on her feet.  It wasn’t like feeling pain; it was like feeling her stomach itself.  Everything her stomach did seemed to count toward more sensation.  She could feel acid and mucus and blood, and then it was pins and needles.  She looked up at the clock above the front door, most people never noticed it was there, but it kept good time.  John Wayne stood behind the plastic cover with his hands on his hips and his face turned to a profile.  The hands of the clock obscured his visage only slightly.  The two hands of the clock decided the time was 1:38pm.  Qiu focused on staying whole and looking busy for the next 22 minutes.  After she clocked out, how she felt was her business. 

Qiu left
87
at 2:02pm, headed west on her
Vespa
.  She had parked in the front of the building—a new habit.  She always thought that parking her
Vespa
in the front increased the likelihood of theft.  The front of
87
faced the street and she couldn’t watch her
Vespa
while she worked.  The back entrance had always seemed a more secure place for it.  This had changed.  Her speed stayed steady as she headed toward home.  She began to feel bloated, like her stomach was expanding.   Suddenly it felt as if her stomach imploded.  She was riding on the side of the right lane making it easy to pull over quickly.  She tapped the brake gently and the
Vespa
made a slight skid as it came to a stop.  She didn’t turn the engine off.  She didn’t have time.  She dismounted the
Vespa
in one motion putting her right foot down on the pavement.  Her left knee came over the seat and she balanced on one leg before collapsing on her hands and hip.   Bracing herself with her hands, she bent forward and vomited on the sidewalk.  She started dry heaves.  She vomited a second time but thinner.  She closed her eyes and thought of her hometown:  the old store with pouches of tea; green hills and the trees of Qingshan Valley.  When she opened her eyes, she felt the eyes on her.  She had attracted a few bystanders.

“
Are you alright
?” asked a man in his early forties reaching with one hand.

Qiu looked straight up at him. She looked bewildered as she stretched her arm toward his hand.  Grabbing Qiu’s hand the man repeated his question.

“
Yes, thank you
,” was all Qiu could manage.  She turned away from him as she settled on her feet and the man looked at her suspiciously.  Qiu throttled the
Vespa
with its engine still running and was sent off in the direction of the pink brick building.  She arrived in front of her building with a dazed expression on her face and feeling about herself.  She parked the
Vespa
in a diagonal direction, preventing other scooters from lining up in a straight row.  Usually she would have cared, this time she didn’t.  She struggled to find the key to the big wooden door and became increasingly frustrated.  She finally found it in deep in the left pocket of her blue jean shorts and opened the door.  She tumbled her way through the dimly lit foyer and braced herself against the wall as she ascended the stairs to the first floor.  She made sure she had her key ready when she arrived at the door to Unit 203.  The door opened without any delay and she slammed the door behind her, as she darted to the bathroom.  She began to run water from the faucet and splash it in her face.  Her throat was burning so she swallowed some water as well.

In the bedroom, Qiu collapse on the bed leading with her back.  She lied on the top sheet and stared at the ceiling.  She began rolling her head from side to side to shake the dazed feeling.  The room gained a sudden chill causing Qiu to wiggle her body to get under the top sheet.  She didn’t bother to change her clothes.  When her body went under the covers, so did her consciousness.  Her head rolled to the side and she slept a dead sleep.  Qiu woke up forty-five minutes later feeling less nausea but more of a threat.  It was the same feeling that she had the day before, when she was convinced she would need to leave the apartment door open for escape.  The feeling made her uneasy and she didn’t know the time.  She thought she might have overslept, forcing her daughter to ride the city bus home.  She thought the threatening presence was her daughter sitting frustrated in the living room because she had come home alone.  Qiu called out to her daughter.  Her voice rang once throughout the apartment and no other voice came back.  There was no one in the apartment but Qiu.  Still she felt the presence.  

The weeks passed with Qiu’s worsening health.  She grew pale beyond what foundation makeup could hide.  Watching her at work was watching her balance on stilts, not walk on legs.  A worried Mr. Nan finally thought of an argument to intervene.  He wouldn’t say anything because Qiu was always on time, always worked and never complained.  But he couldn’t ignore the fading looks of a woman he wished he were young enough to marry.  He called her into the kitchen and made her look into the mirror over the sink in the back, where employees washed their hands. 

“
You see this face
?” he said, “
This is a face that used to bring in customers, now it’s scaring them off.  This is the face of someone who, no matter how much she smiles at customers, still looks like she doesn’t want to be here.  You see this woman?  This woman needs to know her limits.  This woman needs to take care of herself.  This woman has two weeks to go get herself checked out.  Two weeks paid.
”

Qiu had been too sick and dumbfounded to even thank him.  As the thin framed man trailed off, he pretended he was only concerned about his business.  Qiu stared at him and small tears came to her exhausted looking eyes.  She left at that exact moment, even though she had forty-five minutes left on her shift.  Qiu did not take the two weeks as a paid vacation.  She did exactly what she was instructed to do, get checked out.  The first Monday after the weekend, she went to the
Taipei Basin Medical Clinic
.  It was eight blocks from her daughter’s school.  She described her feelings of nausea on a registration form before handing the clipboard back to the front desk nurse.  The hospital was advanced and had eight floors of expertise. Qiu was sent to the gynecology wing.  She was escorted to a waiting room where she sat against a wall by herself.  The hospital wasn’t crowded.  She had just dropped her daughter off at school.  It was still early morning.

Qiu waited for seven minutes before a nurse wearing a pink dress and pink cap came to get her.  The nurse’s soft white shoes made no sounds as Qiu followed her to another room, 505.  The room had a light blue hospital gown waiting for Qiu.  She was instructed to change into the gown and the nurse would be back to get her.  A few minutes later, she left with the nurse and went to several different exam rooms before being allowed to return to the room with her clothes.  Qiu waited with a sense of relief.  She was exactly where she wanted to be.  Before, she didn’t have time to come.  She had wanted to take off to see a doctor and rest, but felt inappropriate asking Mr. Nan.  The fact that he had suggested it himself put her at ease.   She sat in a wood chair, still in her gown, running through her mind what the doctor would tell her.  She thought she might be anemic.  Her grandmother had been anemic and she remembered her brother had been instructed to eat fish, to make up for an iron deficiency.   Qiu thought of her brother.  He was nine years younger, but didn’t have a bad life as a child.  Her parents had fed him eggs and beets to maintain healthy iron levels.  He hated both but he grew steadily and didn’t have many health problems.  She didn’t like beets but ate a lot of eggs and fed them to her daughter.  She figured she could even afford to eat more fish.  Qiu felt confident that she could change her lifestyle to be healthier.  She thought it might be diabetes as well; it wasn’t prevalent in the family, but her paternal grandfather had it.  But neither of her parents had it and neither did she or her brother.  Qiu had a renewed feeling of confidence that no matter the state of her health, she would make the appropriate adjustments in her life to compensate.  She promised herself she didn’t have to worry.

A doctor came into the room fifteen minutes after Qiu herself—she was still in her gown.  The doctor was tall and stocky, but his voice betrayed his appearance.  His voice was not low and his speech was slowed.  Qiu thought it was practiced so patients could follow him. 

“
How are you feeling
?” asked the doctor.

“
I feel better than the past few days
,” said Qiu.

“
That’s good.  I’m Dr. Lin
,” he said, “
So what about your diet?  Are you eating healthy
?”

“
I think so, eggs for breakfast and soup in the evenings.  I work at a restaurant, so I eat their food during the day
,” said Qiu.

“
And you don’t smoke or drink
?” asked Dr. Lin.

“
No, I don’t smoke or drink
,” said Qiu.

“
Good
,” said Dr. Lin, “
Well everything is normal and your blood pressure is fine.  There really aren’t any risks to be concerned about
.”

“
Well, I ‘m concerned with this nausea
,” said Qiu, “
Maybe anemia, my brother has an iron deficiency
.”

There was a steady silence in the room and Dr. Lin stared at Qiu as if he were trying to find something.

“
You don’t know
,” said Dr. Lin as he exhaled.

“
What
?” asked Qiu.

“
You don’t know
,” said Dr. Lin with a tone of certainty.

“
What
?” asked Qiu.  Dr. Lin dipped his head down and put his hands together.  He inhaled before speaking.

“
You’re pregnant
,” said Dr. Lin.

Qiu sat silent for a while—only silence would do.  There was nothing.  Nothing to be said.  Nothing to think about.  Silence was acceptance.

“
Are you ok
?” asked Dr. Lin, “
Do you want this pregnancy
?”

Qiu covered her mouth with her right hand and Dr. Lin knew he would not get an answer.  She got up from her wooden chair and paced in a circle before heading to the far corner of the room.  She stood in the corner facing the wall.  Small whimpers echoed out of the corner and then she collapsed.  Dr. Lin stood silently watching Qiu as she balled up in the corner, resting her arms on her knees and her head on her arms.  Dr. Lin let his emotions sink into his professionalism.

“
We can schedule you for a termination of pregnancy
,” said Dr. Lin, “
The clinic is here in the hospital; you wouldn’t have to go anywhere else
.”

Qiu let out a scream that was audible in the next room. 

“
You’re at five weeks
,” said Dr. Lin, “
We have time.  We can schedule you for an appointment in the next couple of weeks
.”

Qiu went passed Dr. Lin, stomping her bare feet on the floor.  She ripped open the door and went out into the hall.  Dr. Lin didn’t chase her.  The news was unexpected and she had to deal with it in her own way—he knew.  Tears on display, Qiu walked at an angry pace through the halls of the fifth floor.  She stopped and stared into different rooms, studying different patients, trying to guess their ailments.  She felt a kinship with all of them.  Whether old or young, rich or poor, they all ended up on the same floor in the same hospital, at the same time.  Qiu silently blessed them all, hoping each had the strength to carry through the reason that brought them here.  She played with her own karma, knowing that the blessings had little hope of bouncing back onto her but she played anyway.  Her feelings of kinship were short-lived.  She distinguished herself from the bunch, by telling herself that they could all heal.  They could always trust that the right treatment would be available for them.  Qiu saw herself differently.  It wasn’t a long period of treatment that she faced.  It was a short time to decide.  Qiu came back to her feelings of kinship when she realized all the women on the fifth floor were up against time.  Those who were sick had a limited time to convalesce or their condition would get worse.  She had a limited time to decide, before things were out of her hands.  And then they would get worse by definition.