Jümei Mau didn't know what to do with her small, wrinkled hands, so she folded them awkwardly in front of her. Jümei's back was hunched over from age. Her hair was gray and curly, like bits of steel wire sprouting like wild grass above a worry-creased forehead. She said nothing as she watched her daughter from the other side of the hallway.
Jümei's daughter, Jade, leaned on the wooden door for support, stuffing her bare feet into high-heeled shoes. She had a leather purse which swung around her shoulder when she moved. Jümei found herself smiling -- her daughter had always been so beautiful, even when she was a child. Jade's ball of curly black hair puffed up like lion's mane, her skin smooth and brown and beautiful, like what Jümei once had. Two children, twelve and nine, hung to her blue work dress, strapping on little plastic backpacks like turtle shells. She glanced at her mother. "Alright, Ma, I'm heading out."
Jümei started, forgetting she herself was still there. "Did you remember to bring your lunch, Jade?"
"Don't need it; I'm eating with coworkers today. And I already packed their lunches," Jade motioned to the little ones clinging to her legs. "Alright, kids, say bye to Grandma!"
In a heartbeat the door slammed and they were gone. Silence in the house, not a bit of noise except for the distant bustle of the street below the closed windows of their third-floor apartment. The clock ticked in the living room. Jümei stood at the end of the hallway, eyes wandering from the living room to the kitchen and back to the living room. Surely there must be something to be cleaned? She wandered for a minute before realizing she had vacuumed only two days ago. Her son-in-law had left earlier for work, her daughter Jade had left with the children.
They had told her, just watch some television. They had bought a dozen new channels just for her, they said, all Mandarin and German channels from the home country. Home? She had not been back home since she and her husband left their friends, families, livelihoods in Kannex many years ago. Then, all Jümei and her husband could think of was that their newborn daughter grow up in a land of opportunity. But now her husband had passed away, far from home. Now her daughter had grown up, calling this new land her own, with children and a livelihood and a husband here in Goyanes. But worst of all -- her daughter didn't need her anymore.
All the same telenovelas, North or South Kannexan, Mandarin or German. Then there were the news -- Kannex had changed these two decades and instead of bland high-rise apartments they had skyscrapers and computer cafes and runway models and all the new smartphones, the blazing trail of technology, youths who talked in gibberish-like slang about their internet games. Kannex was as foreign as Goyanes.
The clock in the living room ticked. A bit after seven. Jümei rose from her chair, hearing the honking and chatter beyond the apartment windows. There was a whole city out there. Why not go to Little Kannex, where most Kannexan immigrants kept themselves? There were bound to be other exiles like her, old men and women whom the times left behind, who spent their days idling in teashops and parks.
Jümei thanked God that she still could walk on her two feet at her age. No canes, no wheelchair. She trudged on the concrete sidewalk, letting the bright sunlight and the honking and the Gojan shouting assault her senses. Yellow taxis driving by barking dogs, school buses with brats who stuck their heads out of windows, Goyanean elderly looking equally as confused as her, young men and women in business attire walking with purpose, public buses screeching to a halt at bus stops, children skipping to school, pigeons pecking at scattered bread crumbs, the smell of piss, the capitalized Gojan letters on everything from street signs to storefronts, the rumble of the subway below.
Gripping the handrail, Jümei made her way down the steps as more youthful men and women brushed past her with some mumbling. At last she arrived underground and glanced with a nonchalant air at the bright lights and signs of the new subway station before heading towards the ticket barrier. She was fumbling with her wallet when a young man darted past her. Jümei made out his straight black hair and light-colored skin, along with his hoodie and backpack. The kid glanced around and, spotting no cops nearby, placed his arms on the sides of the ticket gate and lifted his lean body off the ground. With minimal effort he swung and jumped over the turnstile, hitting the ground running for the train. A Han-Kannexan teenager -- no, a Goyanean-born kid of Kannexan descent. No first-gen immigrant would dare such a thing. Jümei sighed and shook her head, but threw a glance around the subterranean plaza. Not many police officers were looking her way. Still, she would have to be forty years younger and a gymnast to jump like that. She resorted to the legal means of swiping her elderly-discounted Metrocard instead.
