Mambo in Chinatown

“I want to be the one doing the poking.”

“It’s going to be okay, Lisa. Whatever it is, it’ll work out.”

She started to sniffle for real. “No, Charlie, it’ll never be all right again.”

I pulled away and looked at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” She avoided my eyes. “I’m just tired and scared and I don’t want to have all these problems. I wish I could go away and everything would be gone.” There was something new in her eyes, a resentment I’d never seen before. “You’re fortunate, Charlie. Lucky you don’t have to be me.”

I felt a spark of anger. “You’ve always been the pretty one, the smart one, the one who was good at everything, while I was the inept, stupid one. Now it’s my turn.” I was shocked by my own words but somehow also couldn’t stop. “I’m allowed to be decent at something too.”

“And because you were so bad at everything, you always got out of things. I was the one who was stuck at Uncle’s.”

“You’re jealous.” It had never occurred to me that Lisa might be resentful of the changes in my life. Were her problems a way of calling attention to herself? “All our lives, you’ve been the one who was praised by Pa, Aunt and Uncle, the teachers, by every single person we knew.”

Her eyes blazed. “A whole lot of good that did me. You had an easy way out. If you didn’t like something, you just became too clumsy to do it.”

“That is unfair!” I wanted to smack her. “I was desperate to stay at the dance studio but I still got fired as a receptionist. I was just lucky they saw potential in me as a dancer instead.”

“Well, maybe you should have tried harder. Goodness knows, what you had to do at all your jobs wasn’t that difficult.”

I gaped. Lisa had never turned on me like this. Perhaps because of the eleven-year age difference between us, we’d hardly ever squabbled like other siblings. “Who are you? Maybe something truly is wrong with you.” The moment I said it, I saw the hurt cross her face and regretted it. I shut my mouth before more words came out.

Lisa flung herself onto the sofa so that her back was to me and buried her face against the material. I moved stiffly onto the other chair, looking at anything but her. We stayed that way until the Vision of the Left Eye arrived.

—

Pa opened the door for her. Then Lisa and I both stood up and said, “Mrs. Purity.”

I was surprised she was alone, unaccompanied by Todd. The Vision went with us into the kitchen and lit all of the altars. She’d brought oranges and she set these up by Ma’s altar. She took out the sacred papers we would burn while praying, a red envelope and a piece of rock candy.

She said to Pa, “Would you make a pot of plain white rice?”

Then while he was busy, she went back out to the living room and sat next to Lisa. Lisa shrank away from her. Despite our earlier fight, I felt sorry for my sister. The witch took Lisa’s hands in hers. The Vision closed one eye and the other one stayed open, wandering far to the left.

I hovered over Lisa protectively, close enough that I could smell the witch’s scent of hair wax and sweat. Pa came out of the kitchen and also stood behind Lisa, listening.

The Vision began to speak. “She is infected by an evil spirit.”

Lisa gave a little gasp and I felt myself grow pale.

The witch continued, “The spirit has taken hold and must be removed. Today, we will start the process. This is the reason for the nightmares. It is a hungry ghost, one that can never be satisfied no matter how much it consumes. If you leave it, it will take all of her and leave a shell in its place.”

I didn’t know what to believe. This was terrifying yet also sounded like something out of a story. Pa had wrapped his arms around himself, as if he were cold. Although the witch’s earlier Release of Life ritual had seemed to help Lisa, I didn’t like her scaring my sister now.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

The witch didn’t bother to answer me, though Lisa gave me a grateful look.

I pressed on. “How did you know which items to bring before you even had a chance to examine Lisa?”

“That is standard equipment for those in our trade.” The Vision’s normal eye glowered at me. “At home, I already made contact with the spirit world and I suspected. Now that I have touched her, I am sure. Not that I need to explain myself to a young girl like you. Put a bowl of plain white rice in front of the altar. Place a pair of chopsticks next to it.”

Pa went into the kitchen to do as she said. The Vision turned to Lisa. “Do you have something you wear regularly?”

Lisa went and found the worn blue T-shirt she always slept in. The Vision took it and went into the kitchen while we trailed after her. The witch paused in front of the altars with the shirt in her hands and bowed to Ma and our ancestors. She turned and gestured to the three of us so that we all stood behind her and bowed as well. Then she took the long sacred red-and-green papers that we burned for the ancestors and bowed again.

She brought Lisa forward and held her hand over Lisa’s head. The Vision closed her eyes, then took Lisa by the shoulders and forced her to her knees on the bare vinyl floor. Lisa sneaked a look at me, trembling. I tightened my lips. If the witch hurt my sister, I was going to slug her. But all she did was indicate that Lisa should bow deeply, the way we did at temple to the gods. Lisa did it three times. Then the Vision had Lisa rise and she handed her the pair of chopsticks and the bowl that held the rice.

“Eat a piece,” the Vision said.

Lisa did.

Then the witch emptied the rest of the rice into the trash. She gave Lisa her shirt, the piece of rock candy, the red envelope, the bowl and chopsticks.

“Keep the bowl and chopsticks safe. Put the red envelope underneath your pillow. Also keep the T-shirt near your bed.”

“She sleeps in it,” Pa said.

“That is even better. It will protect her.”

“Are we allowed to wash it?” I asked.

Pa pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What? I know it’s supposed to be a magical item now that you’ve blessed it, but it’ll get dirty if she wears it. Will the magic wash off?”

“It is not magic,” the witch said, gritting her little square teeth. “It is power, my power. And it will not wash away.” With that, she swept out of the room. We heard the door slam as she left.

I cast my eyes downward, ashamed. “I didn’t mean to insult her, Pa.”

“I know, it’s all right.”

I felt bad that I had upset the Vision when I had an idea of how much she cost Pa per session. I hoped she hadn’t left early because of me. Years ago, when I was still working at Uncle’s office, Aunt Monica had hired the witch to help her get pregnant, and I remembered that to pay for one session with the Vision, my aunt had had me take a hundred dollars out of the cash register. My aunt hadn’t gotten pregnant but no one seemed to think that made the Vision any less effective. This visit was surely even more expensive because the Vision had come to our house.

Pa was working longer hours at the restaurant now, going in earlier than he used to and leaving later. When I’d asked, he’d just said times were busy. That meant he was probably helping to set up beforehand and cleaning up afterward for a bit more money. I still gave him almost my entire paycheck, just keeping out the bare minimum I needed. He always hesitated before taking it, asked me if I needed to keep anything more for myself. I would have paid anything if it would help. At the end of every month, I always saw Pa put a twenty-dollar bill into an envelope to send back to family in China. No matter how poor we were, he did this. Lisa and I had been telling him he needed a new coat for the winter but there was no purchase.

“What’s in the red envelope?” I asked.

Lisa opened it and took out a yellow piece of paper with red writing on it. It had been folded, like origami, into the shape of an octagon.