The Sight of Sound
Kevin Novalina
When I was a girl, my grandmother told me a Devi saved her life during a four-story suicide leap the year China went Red. Me on her lap, she told how she toed the building ledge, staring out over the network of alleyways smothered in smoke and screams. Men tearing through fellow man and manmade. How she leaned forward until the landscape fell up, blurring past her before Guānyīn appeared and placed 1,000 gentle palms beneath her. The Earth shall keep spinning, the Goddess of Mercy whispered, easing Grandmother to the ground. Spin with it.
“I broke my back and both arms,” she said, raising two gnarled fingers. “But it was magical.”
I’d cry when she told me about my grandfather, whom she hadn’t seen since the day he was taken away. He’d been a politician in the Nationalist Government, and so imprisoned for life.
“They took my possessions,” she said, “then my husband, forcing me to bow and confess against him to avoid his immediate execution.” She’d stare ahead. “Last time I heard his voice, he was screaming mine and your mother’s names as they dragged him away forever.” She’d blink several times and I could see the image dissipating, melting back to the now. “We were helpless in a country that needed help,” she said. “Unable to save those who needed saving.”
Years later, we returned to the location of her old house, but it was gone, replaced by a Ping An Insurance building. Grandmother only smiled and said, “Prettier than it used to be.”
She died not long after. As she was lowered into the ground at Tianma Hill Cemetery, I asked Mother if she believed an angel really saved her that Red August.
“I don’t not,” she said.
I married the next year, and every time I looked at my husband I thought of Grandmother’s story. How sorrowing it must’ve been to have everything, standing tall with honor one second, then bowing as it’s dragged away the next. How easy it would’ve been to just jump. How hard to climb back down.
So I branded behind the breastbone my husband’s voice, his smells. Imprinted behind the eyes every detail not seen by looking at but by never looking away.
Then on June 4th, 1989 he was murdered in Tiananmen Square, when a tank rolled between us and has never rolled away since.
After the funeral, I toed my own type four-story ledge with a bottle of Dilaudid and a fifth of baijiu. Stood watching the sounds of the helpless in a country that never helps. Of my own world in ruins at the hands of fellow man and manmade. I wanted to reunite with my husband. See Grandmother and Grandfather arm-in-arm, the memories of forced bows and screams forever nevermore.
So I leapt, chasing every pill with every drop. Felt the landscape fall up, blurring past me before my angel, my Goddess of Mercy, my grandmother appeared and placed one gentle palm beneath me. Keep spinning, she whispered, then eased me to the ground where I vomited over and over, and it was magical.
Kevin Novalina has had Fiction, Non-fiction and Poetry published in over 200 Literary Journals, Magazines and Anthologies. He won numerous writing competitions and was nominated for multiple prizes and awards, including three Pushcart Prizes.
