One Day - Chapter 3
Filename: wm03.html
© 1999 Wai Lun Mo
Length: 1350 words
Genre: Fiction
Description:
What five students sharing a house experience over one day.
3.
Aside from me, Susan was the only early riser in our household. The others were bonded to their beds by some form of industrial-strength glue. For them, mornings began anywhere between half past eight and noon, and it was during these hours that all manner of alarm clocks trilled throughout the house, generally followed by the hedonistic smack of alarm clock meeting wall.
Not for Susan, though. Each morning she descended the stairs at half past seven, neatly groomed and ready for the day ahead. We typically met in the kitchen, and it was a ritual that neither of us particularly looked forward to. She was uncommunicative and I was too intimidated by her intelligent, sober face to make much conversation. By the third week of term, we had settled into an agreeable routine whereby she would brew espresso and read through class notes, whilst I drank tea and pored over the cartoon section of the Daily Post.
This morning was no different, except for the fact that I had a burning question to ask her. Susan must have noticed the expectant look on my face because she arched a quizzical eyebrow at me. This mere act was enough to clam my mouth shut and I meekly retreated to my cartoons.
Still, I silently wondered if it was she who had intercepted that phone call early this morning.
"Been up long?" I asked her, only able to muster the courage for these three words.
"Hmm?" murmured Susan, her clear grey eyes fixed on the page in front of her.
"I said…have you been up long?"
"Mmm," she said absently and I wondered if she had even heard my question.
So you see from this exchange that the calibre of our conversations was not high. It wasn’t that Susan had little to say. In fact, Kenny called her Oracle (amongst other things) owing to the immense knowledge she stored within her head.
However Susan, for unknown reasons, chose not to share any of her thoughts with us. Of course, it was only November and we had been acquainted for a mere six weeks of term, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that even six years would not bring us any closer. Still, I must also take responsibility for this. I am not good at making conversation. I always feel inferior and dull when I speak to others (except when I’m with Thomas he is the only one who can make me talk well).
I suppose that if I’m a mouse, then Susan must be a snake: elegant, intelligent and an astute thinker. My mother would have approved of her, and there are very few in this world who can gain my mother’s approval.
"Do not be lazy," she would say to me. "You are not pretty, a-Li, so you must be clever. Clever is better than pretty. Pretty is fragile, like glass. It will shatter. Clever is strong, like wood."
I would much rather have been glass than wood, but mother resisted my protests.
"What is glass for?" she sneered. "It has no substance. If you are glass, everyone will see through you. The slightest pressure and you will break. Now, if you are wood, you can build houses and withstand the fiercest of storms. See the trees in the park? See how firmly rooted they are? That is how you must be. (It.)Rooted.(It.)"
She meant rooted in knowledge, but as I grew older, it took on a different meaning for me.
Susan rinsed out her cup and left without a word of goodbye. I glanced at the clock, knowing that it would read a quarter past eight.
I couldn’t help the mild relief that swept through me, as it did every morning at this particular time. I think Susan felt the same.
***
Susan was the last to move into the house. I remember the day quite vividly – it was a brisk Tuesday in October, two days into the start of term. I was back from a morning lecture and noticed that the door to the fifth bedroom was ajar.
My first thought was to tiptoe past in the hope that I wouldn’t be seen, but I knew it would be rude not to offer some kind of welcome. I peered through the doorway of the room.
She was a slender stick of a girl, small yet she moved with authority. Her glasses glinted in the sunlight that streamed through her window glasses that seemed far too large for her small-boned face. Lank brown hair fell like a curtain past her square shoulders, secured back with a thin Alice band. She stood at the foot of the bed, unfolding clothes from her suitcase and re-folding them into neatly ordered piles. Her hands worked efficiently at the task, as if she had done it many times before.
My gaze swung to the desk behind her. Already, it was occupied by a thick stack of textbooks: Basic Histology, Physiology for Students, The Human Anatomy – Revised and Abridged.
I looked back at the stranger, only to find that she had stopped folding clothes and was now staring at me. A slight flush of embarrassment took to my cheeks and I felt as if I had left greasy fingerprints over her belongings.
"Hello," I said nervously, twisting my hands together behind my back. "I’m Wan-Li."
"Susan," she said, her voice as clear and crisp as the day itself. Her face was neither friendly nor unfriendly, merely disinterested. This was perhaps the one reaction I had not expected. Something about it unnerved me.
"When did you arrive?" I asked, not knowing what else to say. Something about her made me feel even duller than usual.
"An hour ago. I let myself in. No one else was around."
"Yes," I said, relaxing as we approached a territory I was familiar with. "They’re all at lectures. Well, except for Kenny. He’s…I’m not quite sure where he is."
Again, I met with that pale, disinterested face. Certainly, it was not an uninteresting face. I marvelled at the creamy complexion of her skin and the angular contours of her tiny face that defined and shaped a determinedness that I had sensed from the very first word she uttered. She returned to her unpacking and I watched her for several minutes, unsure of whether I was dismissed or not. I decided to linger a while longer, if only out of courtesy.
"Are you a medical student?" I asked, hoping to initiate some conversation.
She nodded, folding her clothes.
"You must know Kenny then," I said, brightening a little. "He’s first year too."
"There are over a hundred students, you know."
I was surprised by the coolness in her voice.
"I suppose it will take a while to get to know them all," I said weakly.
She said nothing to this.
"At least you know one person now," I continued, my words tripping clumsily over one another in their haste to come out. I wondered if this was how Daniel felt when he was lowered into the pit. "I’m sure you’re glad to share a house with someone in the same course."
"I work better alone."
There was no vanity in her voice. It was merely a statement of fact, rather than a claim of superiority.
"I…I’m sure you do," I said quickly, in case I had offended her. "You must be quite smart to be studying medicine."
Again, she offered no reply. My well of resources (not terribly deep to begin with) was drying up fast and my self-esteem was thoroughly shot to pieces.
"Well, I should leave you to finish unpacking," I said, slowly backing into the hallway again. For a brief moment I thought I saw relief flash across that emotionless palette, but perhaps I had just imagined it.
"I would appreciate that," said Susan, striding towards me. "Thank you."
She closed the door in my face and I heard the bolt slide across.