Girl in a Suitcase

Girl in a Suitcase

Lucy Chau Lai-Tuen

27th December 1977.

I said good-bye to my friends by the café doors at 12.57am. They skipped off, tumbling onto the number 88-night bus. A quintet of sad faces began banging on the bus window as it drove past:

“Yangyu! Yangyu! Come back to ours. You can crash on the sofa!”

But I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I didn’t want to wake next day with a mouth like desiccated coconut. So I waved my friends away and watched the bus taillights diminish. I turned and walked down the imaginatively named High Street and slipped into Gauden Lane. The flat I shared with three, mostly absentee room-mates, nestled at the bottom of the lane, adjacent to the clattering insomnia of railway arches. I rummaged as I walked, fingers searching for keys. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head: “Always have your keys ready. Be prepared. Not only do they open your door, you can use them as a weapon. Stop it! Don’t slouch!” I continued walking and rummaging, casting my fingers wide, fishing in the dark interior sea of my bag. Annoyance started percolating, like morning coffee. When I get annoyed, I frown. Up popped my mother’s voice, again.

“How do ever expect to get married with a brow like that!”

Just as my hand was about to cradle my keys, I rounded the end of the lane and passed beneath the last streetlight and into the night. That was the moment something curled around my mouth. It formed a barrier, cutting off air and imposing an uncontrollable drowsiness.

I was dragged along the street to a place I didn’t belong. A house that every community has. The one that all the school children are terrified of. The one everyone says is haunted. The one that stands alone. A crumbling, shattered husk that should have collapsed yet defies its decaying masonry.

I fell asleep.

I woke.

My hands and feet were bound. My brain crackled, as it attempted to put the world the right way up. I reached fortyfive degrees and the world started to swim. As if I was inside a snow globe. I saw him. Smoke curled about his torso, writhing and weaving its threaded wisps into a halo which settled above his mass of blond hair. Even as he smoked one, he was rolling another cigarette. A perfect cylinder rocked between his thumb and forefinger. I had one of those small inconsequential thoughts, like puffs of hot air. ‘I wonder if he usually uses one of those cigarette machines?’

He lit the freshly rolled smoke, inhaled and then balanced the roll-up on his lower lip. There was a hacksaw now in his left hand. It was a strong, handsome hand. Long artistic fingers, hugging the handle of the saw. He hacks with it. The metallic teeth of the saw part my flesh. His cigarette undulates to the back and forth rhythm, as the hacksaw prises open skin and sinew. Some resistance. The blade splinters my neck bone. He smiles, admiring his work. I was looking directly into the face of a white male. Eighteen or slightly older? This is the face of the person who has ended my life. An angel of death, with a tiny upside down crescent shaped scar, just above his right eyebrow. I’d never thought that an angel would have scars. But this one did. He also had a tattoo around his neck. It felt at odds, given the rest of him and how he was dressed. The tattoo said:

‘tear here…’

Ironic, as he had torn my head from my body. I can’t keep calling him, him. I’ll name him Apollyon. After all, wasn’t Apollyon a fallen angel of death?

Apollyon removed my head. It meant I watched as he ripped me apart. Apollyon’s excitement grew as he removed my arms, legs, hands and feet. With each severance he seemed to draw more energy and pleasure. When the tearing and hacking had finished, he stood still, licking the blood that drizzled down his fingers. Savouring, cherishing, eyeing me. I understood why Apollyon had removed my head and my hands. But my feet? It’s a weird sensation being separated from yourself. Apollyon stored my head in a large tin. It smelt of sugar and lemons, sherbet lemons? Or maybe it was preserved lemons. Whichever, it had been an industrial-sized quantity. Not that my head is over-sized. Apollyon regularly opened the tin. He had positioned my head in such a way that, every time he opened the lid, I saw him peering down at me. Occasionally, he’d apply lipstick and mascara. When he was done, he’d hold a small mirror in front of my face. Ridiculous, right? Looking at my dead reflection reminded me of my grandmother’s weeping ghost stories. My love of my grandmother’s tales superseded my fear of them.

“Tell me a story, grandma,” I’d plead, as only a six-year-old could. “One that’s not too scary.” I sat on the floor in front of my grandma already hugging a cushion, waiting.

Grandma loved to scare me. She would lean back into her rocking chair and sway. “Don’t knows there’s any such thing as a not-too-scary ghost story. Long ago, there was a young woman who drowned in a well . . .”

And so, on those dark winter nights, she would start her tale as we sat next to the roaring fire. I miss her. I was hoping I’d see her. But Apollyon had trapped me. I was neither here nor there.

Sometimes Apollyon would rant for days and nights. He’d open my tin and shout alcohol-infused obscenities at me, his words sliding and colliding together. “Gohome! You’re kind’snot wanted here!”

What did that mean, “my kind?” There is only one ‘kind’ isn’t there? That’s mankind.

I couldn’t see Apollyon looking at the other parts of me, yet I sensed him. The roll of his eyes peeling away my skin. His cold, clammy hands pawing at my torso. The dead have no need for time, so I had no idea what day, month or year it was, or how long I had been kept. But Apollyon aged. His face began to show the movement of time. His once supple, elegant and mobile hands hardened. His skin became thin. Silver sprouted from his head. His hair-line slowly retreated like outgoing sea waves. His clothing changed styles. He grew old, but I did not.

One night, Apollyon pulled my head right out of the tin and placed it on a chair.

I saw the moon through a hole in the ceiling. The last time I’d seen the sky was the night Apollyon had taken me. I felt the fingers of the night, dabbling across my forehead. I could smell 85

life! I longed to be part of it again, to see my friends, to be sat in a greasy spoon nursing a cup of builder’s tea. My mother’s voice was suddenly there in the back of my head.

“What kind of food is that? Didn’t I teach you how to cook a good, nutritious meal?”

I suppressed the pain and the memory, instead focusing on that night. All I had wanted to do was to get home, kick off my shoes, curl up on the saggy sofa and eat a bowl of dandan noodles. But Apollyon had moved my life in a different direction. Dragging me into this unloved house. Where he pulled me apart like a roasted Peking duck.

Apollyon lays me out on the floor like a macabre Mary Shelly monster sewing pattern. Ready to be stitched back together. He dresses me, a short plaid skirt, frilly blouse and white knee-high socks. It’s perverted. He moves onto my head, brushing my hair. Fashioning it into two bunches. I wouldn’t have been seen dead like this. But then I am dead, aren’t I?

Then I was back in the tin, among the suitcase and the black bags. The swirling mist of my snow-globe world settled into the gloom of never having been. I remained there sleeping, for an uninterrupted, undetermined purgatory of time.

At last, my solitary torment ended.

Light, air and sound rushed in as the suitcase was prised open, my head released from its tin. I was looking up directly into soft brown, female eyes. They were set in a face similar to mine: an East Asian face: same, but different. I liked the way her body occupied the space. I liked the way she dressed. Comfortable, well-tailored clothes. A V-neck jumper, trousers covered by a three-quarter length overcoat. On her feet, soft suede Chelsea boots.

I remember those. How I’d lusted after a pair. I’d never had the wherewithal to buy a pair. Her clothes were all black, save the red poppy, pinned to the right lapel off her coat. The English she spoke was flawless. The woman squinted, forcing her brow to scrunch. In the back of her head a dead woman spoke to her.

“Don’t do that! No one will ever want to marry you with a brow like that!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The woman frowned even more. Did she see me smiling?

So, I wasn’t the only one with a mother living on in the back of my head. Maybe it’s an East Asian thing?

Suddenly people flood into the room. I look up as far as I can. I can only see the sky. The entire roof has fallen in. Once again, I feel the air on my skin. Definitely winter. That fresh bite to the wind. A bright, weak, watery sun that had no real heat. My dead eyes turned back to the woman. She continued to examine me. In another life might we have been friends?

A voice to my right called out, “DC Amber Chau?”

I couldn’t see who the male voice was attached to. He sounded relatively young. The woman’s attention is momentarily drawn away from me. She replied, “Here!”

A pair of large black shoes paced into view. The woman’s name is D.C. I rummage around in my memory bank to decode, D.C. Detective Constable Amber Chau! Amber refocuses on my head. Was it because of our close proximity that I could see the thoughts inside her head? The conversation with her mother, resumes.

“I swear the devil made you to be my life’s burden. Why did you become a policeman!”

Her mother obviously had not approved of Amber’s career choice. This was an old conversation replaying constantly in Amber’s head. Her mother no longer lives. I wonder, is my mum still alive? The conversation continues.

“It’s policewoman, Ma. And why not? Loads of women join the force,” Amber lies. Why? “It’s a good career, the pay’s not bad either.”

Her attempt at humour falls on stony ground. Amber corrects her mother’s English. So do I, always, when we argue. I can’t stop my mouth, then I hate myself for doing it, wishing I could take it back, but you can’t, can you?

DC Amber Chau stared into my bulging eyes, barely set in my decapitated head. She speaks. “Who in their right mind ..?” I know, right? Who on earth decides to become a copper? I mean a ‘Chinese’ policeman? Ironic, when I was alive the Chinese Detective had just started airing on the BBC. I loved that show. Finally, people who looked and spoke like me. And here now, for real, Amber Chau, a Chinese Detective. Thank God it is Amber and not Apollyon who is looking at me.

The city wakes. I hear, see, feel it all. Traffic, English breakfast cooking, croissants and coffee. It’s all so bright. New and intriguing sounds. This is Future World. Reality was holding me under its surface. I was looking up through the water. Through the water’s refracted light, to an unfamiliar world. The water distorting my sight and sound. People rippling, floating across my eyes. Voices zoning in and out. Their bodies wobbling like thin cardboard cut-outs in the breeze. Faces drifting, dissipating like paint being washed from a brush. The only thing that stays in focus is Amber. Amber talks.

“Anyone found ID? And where the f**k is the rest of this poor woman’s body?”

Suddenly Amber’s face is gone. Where is she? I can see her Chelsea boots, standing a little way off to my left. But I can’t see her. The face now staring into mine is male, white and old. His head, unlike mine, is attached to a body. He is dressed in tweed. I can smell pipe tobacco and peppermints. Ha! Reminds me of my history professor, Dr. Peter Carpenter. Very paternal, full of knowledge and anecdotes. Most of the students thought he was a joke but I liked him, he made me feel at home. Amber’s very comfortable in this man’s company. Work colleagues. Close friends, perhaps?

I see people all holding small oblong boxes. They talk into them. Amber has two. So does the old man, who reminds me of Dr Carpenter. Maybe it denotes seniority? The higher up the chain, the more of these boxes you have?

So much noise! Voices, wind, pigeons playing with the telephone lines, swinging wire to wire. I screen out the babble, concentrating on the conversation between Amber and the older man.

“Doc, what you got for me?”

So, he’s a doctor!

“Dr. Julian Cudlow, M.E., B.M., F.R.C.S., if you don’t mind, Amber.”

Amber smirks.

“D.C. Amber Chau, Dr. Julian Cudlow if you don’t mind.”

Both break into smiles, laughing as they hug each other. It’s nice when friends are reunited. They both turn their attention to me, well, my head. This quiet moment is suddenly shattered by a crash. Falling masonry. It sends the pigeons into a scattered frenzy through the open roof.

The Dr. and Amber turn in the direction of the kerfuffle. I am left alone. At least I was out of my tin and no longer Apollyon’s plaything. I mustn’t think about that. Think about friends, flat mates, my mum. The local pub where I drank on Saturdays. The Golden Egg café, with its wonderful mix of English and Chinese food. The Sunday post-party brunches with friends – hanging after an epic night out. For me it was always Dimsum and ho-fun. I can hear the laughter… but I can’t see their faces anymore. My mind keeps circling back to Apollyon. All I think about is this slice of fractured time. I’ve forgotten so many things. The taste of fruit and preserved ginger.

Suddenly Dr. Cudlow is talking about moving my head. I can’t leave without the rest of my body. I refuse to go!

I’m moved. Well, there wasn’t much of me to move, just my decapitated head. What could I have done to stop them?

The kerfuffle was the police finding the rest of my body. Apollyon had stuffed my torso, hands, legs arms and feet up a chimney.

The Doc’s laid me out on a metal slab. It isn’t as cold as I thought it would be. He’s managed to put me back together again. More or less. I’m missing a couple of ribs, my big toe, both of my little fingers and a few teeth. The latter were apparently removed by Apollyon for reasons the Doc’s not sure about.

More time has passed. How much? As I said, I have no use for time, so I don’t know. The doctor is retrieving my fingerprints. The miracles of science. And my mum’s back in my head.

“Science! What do you need science for? Science will not find you a good husband!”

Grandma chastised mum, telling her to leave me be. “The world’s changing. There’s more to life than marriage!” she told her. Grandma was a progressive.

The newspaper on the edge of a table catches my eye. I can’t quite make out the full date. But the year is clear, 2019. Thirty years!

Dismembered corpse found in derelict Eastend house. Gruesome find was made on Friday. The unknown female, of East Asian heritage was discovered by builders carrying out demolition work.

I wanted to amount to something, at least more than a oneeighty, by one-fifty rectangle of news.

Unknown female. Nothing’s changed. I wonder, have they told Mum yet? That’s assuming she’s still alive. Duh! How can they tell a mother that her daughter’s been found, if they don’t know who the daughter is? I want to go home . . .

A familiar scent travels through my nostrils. I look around, as much as a decapitated head on a mortuary slab, can look around. I hear two female voices: Amber’s voice and that of a younger female. I smell pipe tobacco and peppermints, the doctor. He’s speaking to an unknown male. I can’t place the new male’s voice, but there’s that smell, again! The doctor enters with Amber, the younger woman and the unknown, bent old man. I’m to be moved, again. Why won’t you let me be?

My bones are wrapped and carefully packed. There it is again. That smell. Instructions are given to the lean old man. The doctor, Amber and the young woman leave. My head is picked up. As soon as the lean old man’s fingers touch my skin, I know. He turns my head. I see his face.

Apollyon!