The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan Read Free Book Online Page B

generations of kuli s! He was strong enough to work himself to death, smart enough to find the answer to whatever he wanted to know. For instance, if you asked him how many pieces of clothing did the foreign ladies own, he wouldn’t guess and say maybe two dozen each. He would go into the ladies’ rooms when they were eating, and he would count each piece, never stealing any, of course. Miss Banner, he told me, had two pairs of shoes, six pairs of gloves, five hats, three long costumes, two pairs of black stockings, two pairs of white stockings, two pairs of white undertrousers, one umbrella, and seven other things that may have been clothing, but he could not determine which parts of the body they were supposed to cover.
    Through Lao Lu, I quickly learned many things about the foreigners. Only later did he tell me why local people thought the house was cursed. Many years before, it had been a summer mansion, owned by a merchant who died in a mysterious and awful way. Then his wives died, four of them, one by one, also in mysterious and awful ways, youngest first, oldest last, all of this happening from one full moon to the next.
    Like Lao Lu, I was not easily scared. But I must tell you, Libby-ah, what happened there five years later made me believe the Ghost Merchant had come back.

3
THE DOG AND THE BOA
    E ver since we separated, Simon and I have been having a custody spat over Bubba, my dog. Simon wants visitation rights, weekend walks. I don’t want to deny him the privilege of picking up Bubba’s poop. But I hate his cavalier attitude about dogs. Simon likes to walk Bubba off leash. He lets him romp through the trails of the Presidio, along the sandy dog run by Crissy Field, where the jaws of a pit bull, a rottweiler, even a mad cocker spaniel could readily bite a three-pound Yorkie-chihuahua in half.
    This evening, we were at Simon’s apartment, sorting through a year’s worth of receipts for the free-lance business we haven’t yet divided. For the sake of tax deductions, we decided “married filing joint return” should still apply.
    “Bubba’s a dog,” Simon said. “He has the right to run free once in a while.”
    “Yeah, and get himself killed. Remember what happened to Sarge?”
    Simon rolled his eyes, his look of “Not that again.” Sarge had been Kwan’s dog, a scrappy Pekingese-Maltese that challenged any male dog on the street. About five years ago, Simon took him for a walk—off leash—and Sarge tore open the nose of a boxer. The owner of the boxer presented Kwan with an eight-hundred-dollar veterinary bill. I insisted Simon should pay. Simon said the boxer’s owner should, since his dog had provoked the attack. Kwan squabbled with the animal hospital over each itemized charge.
    “What if Bubba runs into a dog like Sarge?” I said.
    “The boxer started it,” Simon said flatly.
    “Sarge was a vicious dog! You were the one who let him off leash, and Kwan ended up paying the vet bill!”
    “What do you mean? The boxer’s owner paid.”
    “Oh no, he didn’t. Kwan just said that so you wouldn’t feel bad. I told you that, remember?”
    Simon twisted his mouth to the side, a grimace of his that always preceded a statement of doubt. “I don’t remember that,” he said.
    “Of course you don’t! You remember what you want to remember.”
    Simon sneered. “Oh, and I suppose you don’t?” Before I could respond, he held up his hand, palm out, to stop me. “I know, I know. You have an indelible memory! You can never forget a thing! Well, let me tell you, your recollection of every last detail has nothing to do with memory. It’s called holding a goddamn grudge.”
    WHAT SIMON SAID has annoyed me all night long. Am I really the kind of person who hangs on to resentments? No, Simon was being defensive, throwing back barbs. Can I help it if I was born with a knack for remembering all sorts of things?
    Aunt Betty was the first person to tell me I had a photographic memory; her comment