Sacrifices
by Allison Ma
It was 1:06 AM when the house began smelling of vinegar.
From the pull-out sofa bed in the living room, she could see the shadow of her grandmother standing in the kitchen, its ends dwindling as it swayed over a tiled floor. She could hear the clink of pots, and the knock of wooden cabinets. But most importantly, she could smell it.
The odor was putrid; it invaded her nose, sinking into her skin, slithering into the crevices of her lungs, and weaving in and out of her ribs. She buried her nose into her pillow as she watched, trying her best not to inhale any of it.
Not that it mattered anyway. Her nose was getting clogged again, and her throat was filled with phlegm. Perhaps, if she counted the flowers dotting the edge of her pillow, she’d forget about the stench and fall right back asleep. It was a hard task, though; she felt like she was melting into the mattress, and her feet itched to escape from beneath the cotton quilts.
Slowly, she peeled her chin from her pillow, tossing from one side to the other. With every shift, she could feel the germs oozing out of her, contaminating the left side of the bed, then the right, then the left again. The more she moved, the more she felt like her lungs were convulsing. Her shoulders shook as she tried to suppress a cough. With a swift blow to her chest, it leapt from her lips, rattling her throat.
Stifling another cough, she heard the final click of the stove, followed by a trail of creaking floorboards. Her grandmother emerged from the hazy yellow glow of the kitchen, already aware of her granddaughter’s awakening.
“Come here,” her grandmother muttered in a low whisper. The warmth from her grandmother’s palm radiated against the girl’s back, gently beckoning her towards the kitchen. She didn’t move, though. She hated the way the stench encroached on her senses. It smelt of sour aftertaste, one that left you scrunching your nose and furrowing your brows.
Another tap on her shoulder.
The girl grumbled, rolling back on her side to face the wall away from her grandmother. Away from the stench.
She never understood the use of Chinese medicines. Or why her grandmother insisted on feeding them to her. They smelt just as they tasted: bitter, with claws that sank into the back of her tongue and dangled from the ledge of her throat, threatening to climb back out again. She wished she had the medicine she saw at the pharmacies: the candy-flavored ones splashed with colourful cartoons and packaged in bright cardboard boxes. She always wondered what bubblegum cough syrup would taste like on her tongue.
After a few moments of silence, she could hear the mattress creak. A trail of footsteps sauntered back into the kitchen before returning, accompanied by the light bump of plastic against the coffee table by her feet.
Just from the thump of plastic alone, the girl knew what was coming next.
As she predicted, the reek of vinegar intertwined with the stench of herbal mint. Everything smelt of Chinese herbs in this odd concoction of pungent plants and acrid odours. She’d stink of it for weeks on end, and by the time she was well enough to return to school, everyone would make fun of her again.
If she had more energy, the girl would’ve kicked the blankets harder out of protest. Instead, she merely grazed a single woven panel. It rose into a short hill, before sinking like a flimsy iceberg into the sea of fabric. She even tried shaking her head, but even the most persistent protest was overshadowed by a coughing fit.
“Be good, and you’ll feel better,” her grandmother murmured, carefully pulling her granddaughter into a seated position.
A swift chill scurried across her skin, chasing away the warmth nestled beneath the quilt. Her core was burning, but her extremities shivered. Rough fingers dipped into the herbal ointment, before gliding across the girl’s back, neck, and chest. She cringed as her pajamas fell flat against her skin, sticking to the slick layer of ointment like a magnet.
She hated the smell. She hated the sensation. She hated the feeling of medicine seeping into her clothes, and the lingering scent it left on the couch.
Rough plates of calloused skin tickled her forehead, before sweeping aside a stray lock of hair. Carefully, her grandmother scooped her granddaughter onto her lap. At school, she was still on the smaller side, with her feet hovering far off the ground where they sat.
If the girl hadn’t been so tired, perhaps she would've noticed her grandmother’s drooping eyes, or the dark bags weighing down her face. But she was a child, and was more concerned about being carried, and the stench of vinegar, and the way her clothes clung to her body, to notice. Instead, she draped her arms across her grandmother’s shoulders, and nuzzled her head into the nape of her neck.
Her grandmother carried her into the kitchen, towards the vinegar. Far too exhausted to speak, the girl squirmed in silent protest, to no avail. The golden light hanging from the ceiling was blinding; she could hear the click of the stove turning on again, and the clink of metal against the countertop.
The girl whined, clasping onto her grandmother a little harder. Her words gnawed at her throat, and when they managed to crawl out her mouth, they ignited a puff of air from her chest.
Her grandmother hummed in response.
“I know…I know,” she said, her words dripping with empathy. She was pacing back and forth now, plodding from the kitchen counter to the fridge, and back again. “But you won’t be sick anymore,” she asserted. “That’s what’s important.”
The girl frowned. She'd rather be sick than smell of sickness.
She was already wallowing in discomfort— from the ointment, from the medicine, and now from the expanding cage of vinegar confining her to the kitchen.
Slow steps trod back across the floor, and the girl could feel her body dip as her grandmother tipped towards the stove. Heat licked her legs, and the stench of vinegar became overwhelming.
The girl shrieked, erupting in a fury of panic. Leaning as far from the stove as possible, she thrashed and flailed as tears streamed down her face. Her grandmother withdrew. Calmly. Quietly. Again, she ran a calloused hand across her granddaughter’s forehead, before sweeping a stray lock of hair to the side.
She took a seat at the dining table— it felt as though someone was reeling the energy from her body, pulling strands of stamina from her eyes, and now, drawing strings from her legs and feet. The child became increasingly difficult to support with her frail stature. Especially with her abrupt intemperance.
But who could blame the child, suffering from something she didn't quite understand?
Hugging her granddaughter a little closer to her body, she rocked back and forth on her chair— something that seemed to calm the child down. Her granddaughter was quiet now. All evidence of her outburst presented itself in ugly wet globs, staining her grandmother’s shirt.
As she smoothed her fingers across her granddaughter’s forehead, she felt creases fold above her brows. Her granddaughter had been out of school for weeks now, and she wasn’t sure how much more medicine she could tolerate taking.
How much medicine could she tolerate giving?
“You know,” her grandmother started, stroking the back of her granddaughter’s head, “there’s fish in the pot.”
Silence stretched over the pair for a while, until finally, the child lifted her head. After some contemplation, she spoke:
“Real fish?” the girl asked. Her skin was blotchy and her eyes were red-rimmed, but she was captivated nonetheless. Her grandmother smiled. The child had spoken.
“Yes,” her grandmother stated confidently.
She let the weight of her granddaughter shift in her lap, as she carefully stood once again. Her legs trembled— just the slightest— but it didn’t matter. The shadow of a smile swept over the child’s lips. She carried her granddaughter over to the stove once more, but the girl resisted.
“The fish,” her grandmother reminded her. The child nodded.
Again, she leaned towards the stove— this time, her granddaughter did the same.
The moment the girl ducked into the milky mist, the vinegar attacked her nose, this time, far more violently. It sliced into her lungs, piercing her insides. She recoiled, burying her head back into the nape of her grandmother’s neck. She would have kicked and cried and thrashed, but her nose was no longer clogged.
The smell of vinegar blossomed, and for once, the child did not despise its scent.
When her granddaughter finally drifted back to sleep and was tucked into bed, a certain stillness enveloped the early morning. The grandmother stumbled as she lowered herself next to the couch; her back ached, and her knees felt as though they might crumble into grains of sand. Her granddaughter’s cold had kept her up all night, and the lack of sleep began corroding her muscles. Not that she cared, though.
A rough hand caressed her granddaughter’s face, before retreating, back to her side.
Her granddaughter was sleeping peacefully. And that’s all that mattered.