Chapter 3: Specialties {fragment}

The concluding chapter of the fantasy about net platonic friends Ethan and Emma. A postlude follows this chapter.

Emma had long loved the Danshuei area. With the luggage safely stowed in the car, itself safely parked, going was easier now"which was a good thing, especially as this riverside area was not designed for little wheels. Different storefronts had different types of floors outside: tiles, flat cement, cobbles, gravel, wooden slats, and so forth; their levels varied, too, so that they had to step up or down each time they passed a new shop. It was bad, also, for walking in heels, she thought. Not that either of them were wearing heels at the moment. But even in flats, it could be a little dangerous for a pedestrian whose attention was elsewhere. She squeezed Ethan’s arm as he stumbled once again.

Emma had been coming here for years, but she was barely any more steady on her feet. Actually, having Ethan there with her, together, made Emma giddy. It still felt much like a dream, and she held his arm tighter, as if she thought he’d fly away otherwise. Emma had been telling Ivan stories about previous trips to the waterside, but suddenly she interrupted herself to speak out the thought in her mind. They had always expressed the wish to share their thoughts and feelings directly, without fear of judgment, and in this case, her feelings were so positive that even if she were less forthcoming, she’d have gone ahead anyway.

“Ethan,” she began, slipping her hand into his and snuggling up a bit, “I have a really good feeling about your being here. Not just today"I think that your coming here was the right decision. You’re going to love it, I think"you’re great at this kind of work, the school will love you, the family will adore you, and I’m"” She trailed off, lost for words.

Ethan stopped her and they stood in front of a frozen ice cream place, face to face. Ivan looked at Emma, searching her face, needing to hear her speak it out, to finish the idea. “Emma Itava...” but he too seemed unable to finish.

“I’m here, Ethan. Do you have a question? You can ask me anything at all.” She put a hand on his shoulder, looking steadily at him.

“Emma Itava, what are you feeling?” Emma took a breath and put her other hand on Ethan’s other shoulder. “Ethan, I’ve never felt more excited or more...more fulfilled, than I feel right now. Right now...” She took another deep breath and took in the handsome face again, right there in front of her. “I have stars in my eyes. I’m dazzled.”

She pulled him close for a new hug, as if she could hold him there forever with her arms. Planting a kiss on his cheek, she let go a little so she could see his expression. “Having you here is like an achievement, it’s fulfilling. It feels like this is what I’ve always wanted, like a goal I’ve worked hard for, it’s like I’ve won the grand prize. I just hope you’ll be happy here. I hope it does you good, being here. I hope I’ve been able to find a way to make your life a better one. I hope this is all worth it, all these changes in your life, I hope it’s more like a transformation than a disruption. And I know I can’t make it a good experience for you just with hugs, just by working harder at it, or with willpower. It’ll suit you, or it won’t, and it doesn’t really depend just on me. You’ve always been so good for me, and to me, just by being my friend, just patiently accepting me, you’ve done so much for m and I do feel a little helpless. I hope it’s going to be a wonderful experience. I’ve put you to a lot of trouble. I feel so selfish. You made my favorite dreams come true, and I. . .I deracinated you!” Emma’s face was troubled, as worrying thoughts crowded in. “If you don’t like it here, if it’s only messing you up, you don’t have to pretend things are fine. You don’t have to say, just for me. I’m not a good enough reason to rip out your roots, give up your home. I love you, Ethan, and if it’s best for you, of course I’ll have to set you free.” She started to cry. “I just wanted to help you, I want to pay you back"” She dropped her hands, looking down to avoid Ethan’s gaze. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m too selfish. I had my dreams come true, and it was at your expense.”

Ethan took her hand, not speaking, and led her to a bench that looked out over the water. In front of them, as they sat down side by side, a boat was pulling away, and a family"a mother and two little kids, was waving goodbye. He put his arm around her waist comfortingly, rocking a little, thinking and feeling"feeling what, Emma didn’t know, but she imagined that on top of all his trouble so far and the derailment of his plans in the US, forcing Ethan to comfort her when it was all her fault, was just too much, too unfair to him, and suddenly Emma couldn’t take the guilt any more. She started crying more loudly, wildly. “Oh, Ethan, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.” She sobbed into his shoulder. “You don’t have to pity me! You should be mad at me.”

Ethan seemed to tolerate this calmly, as he rubbed her back. “Emma, dear, I’m not mad at you at all. I’m not in trouble, and I don’t pity you. I know you didn’t want me to get in trouble; I know you wanted to help me out. I know your intentions were good. I trust you. I know how much you want to help me. You’re a good person. I believe in you. But coming here doesn’t just help me, this isn’t just lending a friendly hand. This is a big change, and I made the decision myself. Can you hear me?” Emma nodded miserably. “You didn’t just help me out. You weren’t content with some little token gesture.” Anna, still full of shame and guilt, felt that at least now she was hearing his real feelings, he was coming clean, and he wasn’t pretending to be happy. Maybe it wasn’t too late to make things right...

“That wasn’t just some little assistance. What I believe, dear"” Ethan broke off, trying to meet her eyes, wiping a tear away gently as she timorously looked up at him. “What I believe, Ita, sweetheart...” Emma caught her breath, not daring to hope yet, or to believe, that he could still love her, that he could even forgive her"

“I believe what you did for me is"” He smiled at Emma kindly, even gratefully" “You saved me. You saved me, Ita; you swooped over and in a moment my life’s various disasters were resolved.” Emma was too surprised to feel happy just yet. “At least, my big problems, the ones that had the world pitted against me. That one email"and the foes were vanquished. The hopeless opportunities were at once accessible. Anna Lassos the Moon.”

Emma was gaping at him. Surely this was sarcasm? But no, it didn’t sound that way, and she trusted herself and her judgment with voices. She held her breath, suspended between hope and horror.

Ethan seemed to understand. “Really. You are my deliverer. You took me out of my abusive home situation, that was absolutely something I needed desperately. You solved my rent problems, at lesat for a long time, and you found a way for me to land my dream job. My therapy isn’t interrupted; we have a way to make that work; prescriptions will be no problem. Doctors"you even solved that for me; I forgot to thank you"and you sharing your home with me? You’re putting a roof over my head, and giving me a family, too. If I saved your mind or your heart, your confidence, you saved my damn’ life.” He tapped her chest lightly with one finger. “Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you! You’re gonna have me hanging around you all the time, trying to save yours now. How about them apples? How does it feel, having a burden like that?”

Anna managed a little blush. “Well, when you put it like that"it makes me hungry for more apples! I won’t ever insist or force you, Ethan, but I want to keep you around. You’ll always have a place to live, even if it’s just in my heart. That, I’ll never let you out of.”

And simply they both moved together into an embrace that expressed their acceptance of the situation. . .they would see each other through this period, no matter how it went"and they would always be there for each other. Everything was fine again. Sighing gently, both of them, they sat side by side, hand in hand, and watched the boats come back home again.

ii

The rest of the day was delightful, of course, unburdened as they were now. It was as if the world had been washed and they could see their way more clearly"not their ways, but their single way, together. There was a shared sense of freedom and they were in the mood to have fun. And luckily, they were in a great place for that.

Their appetite was whetted"not only for food, but for adventure, too"but food had to come first. Ethan had special dietary needs, but it wasn’t hard here to avoid glutenous foods and dairy products. They started a sort of sampling tour of local specialties. Taiwan as a whole had plenty of those, but some were particular to the Danshuei area. First was “a-gei,” a treat that was essentially a box, maybe three inches square and two inches thick, made of dried, deep-fried tofu, with special winter-melon noodles and fish paste inside. Emma had prepared forks and knives for the trip, but to her surprise, Ethan had already been practicing using chopsticks for a couple of weeks; it was a “gift of the magi” treat, in which the presents, happily, didn’t cancel each other out.

Coming out, they spied a McDonald’s restaurant, but Ethan said he had no interest in such food, even if he could process the items on the menu; this was a time for new experiences.

The boardwalk had plenty of shops. As this was a tourist area, many of these were gift shops, with a large variety of handmade items, from toys to business card holders to back-scratchers. Of course, tea was a specialtiy in Taiwan, as it is in China, and Emma wanted to take Ethan to a great tea shop she knew of.

On the way, there was a sudden racket of firecrackers and also something that had a certain resemblance to Western music...and as both friends had at first wanted to be professional musicians, and had both had professional training, it was a rather intriguing puzzle to work out just what the similarities and differences were between the music they knew and what they were hearing now. Soon, from around the corner, came the source of the sounds: though it was religious and ceremonial in nature, and dedicated to local gods with names that had never been given standardized English transliterations, it bore a strong similarity to an American parade, albeit it looked and sounded different in the details. The first members of the procession were costumed marchers, wearing oversized, false heads and featuring large, false, swinging arms. The style was different, surely but the basic idea was similar to that of a theme park’s costumed characters. Some resembled children’s heads, but orange in color and with hair only growing in odd tufts here and there. One looked like a horned, tusked monster, green in face and ferocious of expression. It was hard for Emma to picture such a figure as a deity that people believed in, and wondered if the feeling was different for these people than her own feelings of belief in God.

Other unusual and curious items were also part of the parade. There were no floats, but there was a sort of spinning, parasol-like affair that one man was holding in front of himself by a sort of strap around his back, rotating the spindle by hand. Also of interest was a sort of sedan chair that was being carried by eight men together. Instead of a person riding in it, however, there was a carved, wooden idol. The carriers held on to the poles the chair rested on in a strange, hesitant, and rather erratic way, weaving left and right alternately and sometimes walking in reverse, sometimes rushing forward, nearly colliding with the crowd of spectators and/or worshipers. As they moved, they bounced at the knee; the poles they held were of springy bamboo that gave their passenger a very bumpy ride, indeed, though nobody seemed ready to complain about this.

Ethan, like Emma had been before, was struck by the seemingly irreverent attitudes of the sedan-carriers and the others marching in the procession. Ethan would have expected formal dress and solemn expressions, but here he saw people in blue jeans and gimme-caps. Some men were smoking; some chewed betel nuts, which Ethan had probably only heard of in the lyrics of the “Bloody Mary” number in South Pacific. Chewing betel nuts in the Taiwanese manner provides a mouthful of a red liquid that stains anything it touches; the men in the parade were nonchalantly spitting this fluid right onto the street. As one passed Emma, she could again smell the distinctive and unpleasant odor that betel nut chewers always seemed to have. For Emma, even after all these years, it was hard to reconcile the religious nature of the parade with the marchers’ dress and behavior: a Western confusion, not an Eastern paradox.

[Manuscript breaks off suddenly here]

Author's Note

A conclusion follows in the next chapter, which will be a postlude, rather than "Chapter 4."