The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan Read Free Book Online

on his face.
    â€œYou throw strong words at me, but you are nothing,” Auntie said. “You are the son of a mother who has so little respect she has become ni , a traitor to our ancestors. She is so beneath others that even the devil must look down to see her.”
    That is when I began to understand the stories Popo taught me, the lessons I had to learn for my mother. “When you lose your face, An-mei,” Popo often said, “it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it.”
    Now I could imagine my mother, a thoughtless woman who laughed and shook her head, who dipped her chopsticks many times to eat another piece of sweet fruit, happy to be free of Popo, her unhappy husband on the wall, and her two disobedient children. I felt unlucky that she was my mother and unlucky that she had left us. These were the thoughts I had while hiding in the corner of my room where my father could not watch me.

    I was sitting at the top of the stairs when she arrived. I knew it was my mother even though I had not seen her in all my memory. She stood just inside the doorway so that her face became a dark shadow. She was much taller than my auntie, almost as tall as my uncle. She looked strange, too, like the missionary ladies at our school who were insolent and bossy in their too-tall shoes, foreign clothes, and short hair.
    My auntie quickly looked away and did not call her by name or offer her tea. An old servant hurried away with a displeased look. I tried to keep very still, but my heart felt like crickets scratching to get out of a cage. My mother must have heard, because she looked up. And when she did, I saw my own face looking back at me. Eyes that stayed wide open and saw too much.
    In Popo’s room my auntie protested, “Too late, too late,” as my mother approached the bed. But this did not stop my mother.
    â€œCome back, stay here,” murmured my mother to Popo. “ Nuyer is here. Your daughter is back.” Popo’s eyes were open, but now her mind ran in many different directions, not staying long enough to see anything. If Popo’s mind had been clear she would have raised her two arms and flung my mother out of the room.
    I watched my mother, seeing her for the first time, this pretty woman with her white skin and oval face, not too round like Auntie’s or sharp like Popo’s. I saw that she had a long white neck, just like the goose that had laid me. That she seemed to float back and forth like a ghost, dipping cool cloths to lay on Popo’s bloated face. As she peered into Popo’s eyes, she clucked soft worried sounds. I watched her carefully, yet it was her voice that confused me, a familiar sound from a forgotten dream.
    When I returned to my room later that afternoon, she was there, standing tall. And because I remember Popo told me not to speak her name, I stood there, mute. She took my hand and led me to the settee. And then she also sat down as though we had done this every day.
    My mother began to loosen my braids and brush my hair with long sweeping strokes.
    â€œAn-mei, you have been a good daughter?” she asked, smiling a secret look.
    I looked at her with my know-nothing face, but inside I was trembling. I was the girl whose belly held a colorless winter melon.
    â€œAn-mei, you know who I am,” she said with a small scold in her voice. This time I did not look for fear my head would burst and my brains would dribble out of my ears.
    She stopped brushing. And then I could feel her long smooth fingers rubbing and searching under my chin, finding the spot that was my smooth-neck scar. As she rubbed this spot, I became very still. It was as though she were rubbing the memory back into my skin. And then her hand dropped and she began to cry, wrapping her hands around her own neck. She cried with a wailing voice that was so sad. And then I remembered the dream with my mother’s voice.

    I