Forgetting English by Midge Raymond

Author:Midge Raymond [Raymond, Midge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Tonga, art, Japan, Africa, deception, Love
Publisher: Ashland Creek Press
Published: 2012-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

At the language school, she catches the other American teacher, Gabe, staring at her long sleeves. She turns away, trying to ignore him. Later, after classes, he invites her to grab a bite at a nearby night market. Paige demurs, having seen him leave after work with several different women, all teachers.

He keeps asking, and she keeps returning home alone to the stifling apartment, where she swallows the thick, smoky air and drinks can after can of Taiwan Beer. She grades her students’ homework, listening to Abbey talk and sometimes taking a toke from her hash pipe, until they both grow heavy-lidded and head to their rooms. There Paige lies awake, listening to the rumble of traffic, the rain on the windows, the neighborhood kids setting off firecrackers in the alleys. She inevitably gets up for a walk, in hopes of seducing sleep. She often finds the streets slick from recent rain, reflecting the ubiquitous neon lights. The summery scent of wet asphalt makes her forget where she is until she catches a whiff of chou doufu, stinky tofu, from the vendor down the block.

Tonight, she walks all the way to the harbor. The sky is cloudy and starless, the water murky and dull, and she breathes in dank, fishy odors, magnified by the humid air. It is the only time she feels at home here, camouflaged by the darkness that masks the white of her skin and the red of her hair. It is the only time she can almost relax, with another day behind her, and the next one still hours away.

It’s the little things she finds most exhausting: reading a map, asking a question, buying a bag of noodles. The language reminds her of how far away she is; words hiss and snap in her ears, achingly unfamiliar, and on the streets she feels both safe from and deprived of human contact.

So the next evening, when Gabe asks her yet again to the night market, she agrees, longing for the simplicity and comfort of having someone order her food. After class, she follows him into the gluey night air. They turn into a dim alley. At the end, light blanches the street, forming a halo over the short concrete buildings that evoke an overcrowded cemetery.

Gabe has lived in Taipei for three years, and he was born in the Year of the Rat. She knows little else about him, and he knows less about her. He doesn’t know that last year she made six figures, that she gave it up for the twelve dollars an hour she makes here. He doesn’t know that she sold everything she owned and left for Taipei without a word to anyone. He doesn’t know that she’s been on her own since she was seventeen.

They walk in silence, passing long tables displaying packages of men’s, women’s, and children’s underwear; hair accessories; cheap jewelry; Hello Kitty notebooks, pencils, and pens; Chinese books and magazines. In the food stalls, fried dumplings sizzle in oil and various meats sear on grills, constantly flipped and slathered with sauces by sweaty cooks.

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