Garden of Empress Cassia (2 page)

Traffic was busy this morning on Rumba Street. Trams were banked up along the track like large green caterpillars playing follow-the-leader. Two men stood on the roof of a yellow tramway's truck, fixing the power lines overhead, black wires playing noughts and crosses against the sky.

‘Hey ching chong,' a voice yelled from a passing car.

‘
Unfortunate beings!
' Mimi muttered, to keep out the hurt.

‘People like that, very unfortunate,' her mum would say. ‘Their parents no teach them right or wrong.'

As Mimi arrived at the school gate, the bell started ringing. This week's number one hit, ‘ME-YOW' by The Furballs, was blaring from the loudspeakers into the assembly area.

‘I thought we could do some pottery today, Mimi,' said Miss O'Dell, walking beside her down the asphalt path. ‘I fired up the kiln yesterday'

Miss O'Dell's rosy cheeks stood out like little pink balloons as she smiled at Mimi. Her skin was smooth and soft, and when she spoke it was as though she was singing a gentle Irish lullaby.

‘Dad won't let me come any more,' Mimi replied sadly.

‘Why ever not?'

‘He says I draw too much. I have to concentrate on school work.'

‘My, that's a shame. But maybe if you work really hard, he might change his mind and let you come back. Give it a go, all right? Why don't you drop by the art room on your way home anyway. I've got something to give you.'

After morning assembly, Mimi slipped into her wooden desk beside Josh Rudd. She liked Josh. Everyone did. He had a broad smiling face and spiky fair hair and his voice would crack in mid-sentence. But best of all, he never called her Smelly-Loo. Instead he called her M.

Josh was extremely untidy. His books would start in a nice neat pile at nine fifteen. By nine sixteen, they would slowly spread, like molten lava, across both desks, onto the seat, then finally spill over onto the floor. By three thirty, Mimi's feet would be surrounded by books, pencils, pens, rubbers and rulers all belonging to Josh. But Mimi didn't mind a bit.

At lunchtime, Mimi sat by herself in her usual spot under the peppercorn tree, swinging her legs to keep away the flies.

‘Hey there, Smelly-Loo . . . what ya got for lunch today?' chanted Gemma Johnson, the leader of the ‘cool' group. She winked at her two offsiders Phoebe and Eliza. Gemma always wore her hair high in a ponytail which she would deliberately swing from side to side to attract attention. Especially the attention of Josh Rudd. She was jealous that Mimi got to sit next to him in class. ‘What a waste,' she told everyone.

Mimi grimaced, desperately trying to hide her thermos before Gemma could make fun of it. But it was too late.

‘She's eating flied lice!' Phoebe pointed and laughed.

‘Oh, puke,' said Gemma sticking her fingers down her throat. ‘And look at these primitive eating sticks.' She snatched Mimi's chopsticks and rolled them under her shoe. ‘There, all nicely sterilised. Why don't you use a knife and fork like civilised people?'

Eliza and Phoebe giggled. ‘Seeya, Smells,' they chorused and ran off towards the oval.

Why won't Mum give me a plain old sandwich like everyone else?

Mimi had pleaded with her mum to pack
normal
lunches but her mum didn't understand what the problem was. ‘Hot fried rice is surely better than a cold sandwich for lunch,' she had told Mimi. ‘Cold food is not good for the stomach.'

Suddenly, Mimi had lost her appetite.

As soon as the bell rang for dismissal, Mimi grabbed her bag and raced to the art room. She loved the thick and slightly sickly smell of paint, and the brushes standing up in their containers like bunches of hairy flowers. The shelves were stacked with a new delivery of coloured paper, but it was the pure white paper that Mimi loved the best, lying there waiting to be given new life.

Miss O'Dell stood on a bench pinning up giant papier-mache faces, with bulbous eyes and hairy noses.

‘Hello, Mimi,' she said, her lips studded with drawing pins. ‘Come in, I'll just be a sec' She spat the pins into her hand and climbed down, then cocked her head to one side as she looked into Mimi's face.

‘Something's bothering you, I can tell.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Come on, what is it?'

Mimi wasn't used to telling
outside
people her feelings. ‘We Chinese keep them to ourselves,' her mum always said, ‘that way we never lose face.' But Mimi did feel a closeness with Miss O'Dell that she never felt with her parents.

‘I hate being a banana.' The words echoed around the art room.

‘A banana?'

‘You know . . . yellow on the outside and white on the inside. I wish I didn't look Chinese because I don't feel Chinese. I feel just like everyone else. I hate it.'

Miss O'Dell smiled her soft smile. ‘I know it's hard being different, but that's what's wonderful about you. You are a Chinese Australian just like I'm an Irish Australian. And I think we're lucky'

‘I don't think so. Someone like Gemma Johnson is lucky. She fits right in.'

‘You might feel that way now, but as you grow older you will see how you can choose the best from both cultures. Sit down, Mimi.' Miss O'Dell pulled out a stool. ‘You know, there's something else, apart from your Chineseness that makes you different from others. You are an artist. You see the world in a special way – and you paint with your heart. Few people can do that.' Miss O'Dell's eyes brightened. ‘I've got an idea. If you don't mind giving up your lunchtime, how about coming in twice a week, say Mondays and Thursdays? Your father surely wouldn't object to that.'

‘Oh, Miss O'Dell, that'd be so great.'
Dad'll never find out and I'll be able to eat my lunch in peace,
thought Mimi.

‘I've been meaning to give you something for a long while now. I think the time is just right.'

Miss O'Dell went over to her bag and pulled out an oblong object wrapped in a purple silk scarf. She handed it to Mimi.

‘Open it,' she whispered, as if she was about to share a secret.

Mimi let the silk slip away. It was a long wooden box with a beautiful carving of a miniature oriental garden on the lid, with willows and pavilions and bridges crossing lakes. As Mimi ran her fingers over the honey-gold surface, it was like touching the finest silk or the smooth skin of a newborn baby. Flowing Chinese characters were carved around the sides and inlaid with mother of pearl. Mimi read each character out loud:

Empress Cassia

Supreme Ruler of all China

80 Sticks of the Finest China Pastels

A Treasure for Some

A Curse for Others

That's funny, why would pastels be a curse?
Mimi wondered, then put the thought out of her mind.

She laid the box on the bench and opened it carefully. Inside were rows and rows of coloured pastels that shimmered in the light. The colours were so delicate they looked as though they had been made from the gossamer wings of fairies.

Mimi rolled the pastels under her fingertips and her imagination began to fill with amazing pictures.

‘You must promise me one thing, Mimi.' Miss O'Dell spoke in an unusually serious voice and a frown touched her brow.

‘What is it, Miss O'Dell?'

‘
No one
is to use the pastels but you. Look me in the eye, Mimi, and promise me now.'

‘I promise, Miss O'Dell. I definitely won't let anyone use them. They're too precious. Thank you so much.' Impulsively, she gave Miss O'Dell a big hug. ‘I better go or Dad'll be mad. Thanks for everything.'

Mimi carefully wrapped the box up in the silk scarf and raced out the door, her mind brimming with pictures. She couldn't wait to get home and start drawing.

Mimi dumped her bag in the hallway and entered the kitchen. ‘Hi, Mum, has Dad gone out?' she asked hopefully.

‘Your daddy go Sydney. Uncle Ting in hospital.' Mrs Lu looked worried. She shook her head slowly. ‘He not live long, Mimi.'

‘Uncle Ting? But he's younger than Dad isn't he?'

‘His stomach no good, eat too much meat, too much greasy food.'

Mimi hadn't seen her uncle since she was six years old. She remembered how he had joked with her and recited beautiful Tang dynasty poems, each word rolling off his tongue like a polished pearl. How she wished her dad could be like him.

‘Why didn't he ever come back to visit?'asked Mimi.

‘Aiya . . .' sighed Mrs Lu. ‘Your daddy angry. He say Uncle Ting lazy, because he not find good job. Lu family lose face, make ancestors unhappy.' She sighed again. ‘Maybe they now make peace.'

‘Will he die soon?'

‘Doctor say any time. You want something eat, Mimi?'

‘Later, Mum, I'm going outside to do a drawing for Uncle Ting, okay?'

Mimi took the box of Empress Cassia Pastels from her school bag and went out into the street. The footpath was her giant drawing board. Drawing would calm her heart when she was angry, or cheer her up when she was sad. And when she was happy, she would draw as freely as an eagle catching thermals in a clear blue sky.

Mimi knew all the regular shoppers by their shoes – and sometimes even by the sound of their footsteps. Mrs Jacobs always wore high heels. They made a
dock
,
dock
,
dock
sound as she hurried by. Those bright red shoes of hers with the pointy toes could be used as lethal weapons! And then there was Mr Honeybun. One day as Mimi was inspecting a tiny ant dragging an
enormous
breadcrumb across a crack in the footpath, she heard loud farts coming down the street.
How gross,
she thought, holding her breath as a man came limping towards her.
Twelve farts in a row. Should be in the
Guinness Book of Records.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that Mimi learned Mr Honeybun's left leg had been blown off by a bomb in World War II. He had to wear a plastic leg held to his stump by suction. The limb didn't fit properly, so it made a farting noise as he walked. Now Mimi always said a special hello to Mr Honeybun.

Mimi knelt on the pavement and carefully opened the box of pastels. Once again her imagination exploded with colour. Wonderful images of gardens floated into her mind. She took a shimmering sapphire blue and began to draw a pond. A soft summer breeze blew down the street, so Mimi drew gentle waves rippling around the shore. Long-necked swans dived for snails. Their tails bobbed on the water like fluffy white meringues.

Mimi already had a keen eye for detail, but today she even surprised herself. The two-dimensional world she had drawn in pastels on the footpath was truly beautiful.

‘Dinner's ready, Mimi,' Mrs Lu called.

She was just packing up when Gemma and Phoebe passed by holding their noses and wrinkling up their faces.

‘What's that disgusting smell?' Gemma said. ‘Oh, hi Mimi, I didn't see you there. Is your dad still giving people garden sweepings to boil up and drink?'

Phoebe giggled.

Why can't I stand up to her? Say something back, you wimp.
But Mimi's words caught in her throat.

‘Wanna come ghost hunting tonight?' Gemma asked, a smirk on her face. ‘They say Ghost Gum Park is totally swarming with them.'

‘No thank you,' said Mimi coldly.

‘Your loss, our gain. Come on, Phoebs.' Gemma turned to leave, then spied the box of pastels lying on the footpath. ‘Hey, these are cool. Where did you get them?' She bent down to take a closer look.

‘Get away!' Mimi was surprised at the anger in her own voice. She rushed over and grabbed the box, holding it protectively to her chest, then ran into the shop leaving an indignant Gemma standing on the footpath, her mouth gaping.

The next morning, Mimi was eager to beat the Saturday morning rush of shoppers. Last year, Wattle Valley Council had laid large concrete pavers along Rumba Street. It was a much better surface for Mimi to draw on than the old footpath. She was no longer restricted by the cracks, or the big black blobs of chewing gum that freckled the ground.

An idea had come to Mimi during the night. She wanted to draw the images before they dissolved into air. She opened the box of pastels. In her mind she saw spring flowers bursting into full bloom. She chose a pastel the colour of velvet moss on a rainforest floor in the early morning – and drew a crisp cool spring day. A young woman jogged past, then stopped. She looked down at the drawing and wiped her brow with her sleeve. It was as if she could feel the coolness in the air. ‘Great painting kid,' she said and dropped a dollar coin into the lid of the box. Before Mimi had a chance to return the money, the jogger was up the hill and out of sight. Another passerby stopped to look into the painting. It was Mr Holes. Mimi didn't know his real name. She called him that because his coat was so full of holes it looked as though mice had mistaken it for cheese.

Mr Holes spent the night wherever he could find shelter from the wind and rain. Sometimes it was in a shop doorway, sometimes it was in a dumpster. He had no set place. He was a wanderer. Mr Holes scratched his head. His dreadlocks wriggled like thick, curly worms. What was he trying to remember?

By noon, more people gathered. Mimi drew a beach streaked with seaweed and dotted with laughing children. Above them, seagulls caught crusts in mid-air.

‘Daddy,' said a small boy. ‘I want to play, too.' He struggled with his safety harness, trying to get out of his pusher. His father smiled. ‘Beautiful day for a swim,' he said absent-mindedly even though a curtain of cloud now covered the sky.

‘I think I'll take the children down to the beach after lunch,' the lady standing next to him replied.

By late afternoon, Mimi was drawing the swirling leaves of autumn floating across golden hills. The crowd by now was two deep but nobody pushed or shoved as they watched the Garden of Four Seasons grow. They were amazed at the colours and fine sensitive lines. There was something in the drawings that each person understood – as if a distant memory had been awakened. The perfume of roses floated in the air even though there wasn't a rose within at least five kilometers. And if there was a lull in the traffic, was that the sound of a waterfall cascading over rocks?

As dusk approached, Mimi completed the full cycle. A snowman, with a carrot nose and corks for eyes, bravely withstood the icy winds of winter. In the centre of the four drawings, she drew a
yin yang
symbol. Uncle Ting had shown Mimi this ancient image that went round and round into itself. It fascinated her as a little girl. He said that it represented the never-ending cycle of change in the universe – day turning into night, summer into winter, good into bad. And then the whole cycle was repeated all over again.

Mimi thought of Uncle Ting lying in hospital in the winter of his life. Would he be reborn to continue the cycle? Her mum believed that everyone came back to earth many times. She was Buddhist. That's why she was a vegetarian and wouldn't even kill an ant. Mimi hoped it was true.

‘Uncle Ting . . . the Garden of Four Seasons is for you,' she whispered.

As the sun sank low on the horizon, the people awoke from their stupor and remembered their families waiting at home. There was homework to be done, dinners to prepare and children to bathe. They had completely forgotten about their day to day lives for just a moment. Visiting the Garden of Four Seasons was like going on a wonderful holiday.