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From the Reforged pencil of Wong Yun

I find myself reflecting on those early days when I first met Torou.

There is not much else I care to recall from my years

in Taiwan.

Even the time spent with Torou, when he kept his promise and visited the pencil company, my parents peering curiously,

the two of us sitting closer and closer—I hesitated to share this with you.

It is trivial compared to everything else that

was happening around us: martial law in Taiwan, families fleeing Shanghai.

It didn’t seem important by comparison.

But seeing Monica and Louise together this week—oh, my heart soars.

I was worried at first (when have I not been worried for

Monica?

).

They are kind to each other and care for each other in a way that makes my heart ease, just a little.

It is not

only seeing their interactions.

It is seeing them exist , thriving and laughing, at the same age when you and I were fleeing, hiding, and betraying.

This letter is my attempt to

explain myself and all of my wrongdoing, and yet I cannot help highlight this: Monica is happy and she is a good person, and

that is my greatest achievement.

And so I have been thinking a lot about love these days, and how I could not possibly have known then how much that boy who came to visit would stay with me.

We would leave homes, adjust to new ones, fail in parenting but succeed in grandparenting—and how he would stay with me even now, when I am falling apart.

How can you ever expect someone to do all of that with you, for you?

How can you know when you’re young and sad and vulnerable how to choose someone to share your life with?

And how can you know when you’re old and weak and vulnerable that someone will be kind to your granddaughter, long after you are gone?

In those days, when business was slow, I would read in the nook, out of sight of the customers, and work on my English.

Everybody

knew that to really escape war after war, hunger after hunger, displacement after displacement, you had to go to America.

And one day not long after the picnic, I found Torou sitting in my nook, two textbooks and a notebook opened before him.

He

had kept his promise.

“Hi,” he said, looking up from his notebook.

“Your mother said I could study here.”

“You talked to my mother?”

“Yes. She was very kind.”

I had been in the back with Mother, and she had mentioned no such thing.

I think she preferred to see how our relationship

might develop without her meddling.

“Do you mind moving over a bit, then?” I asked.

“Of course.”

The desk was pushed against the wall, only one side of it suitable for sitting.

We sat on the same bench, him scratching at

his notebook as I opened my books to read.

Like him, I had two books in front of me: one an English text, the other a Chinese translation, and a notebook where I wrote out new words in pencil.

I was convinced the words I Reforged were easier to remember.

So at night, I Reforged everything I wrote and in that way committed the translation to memory.

I was sure English would be my way out.

We sat side by side for most of that first day, not speaking.

There was a calmness to our pencils scratching at paper, pages

flipping.

It was the closest I felt to the days you and I used to spend reviewing the accounts, though without that same urgent

competitiveness we used to share.

He came nearly every afternoon after that.

I only joined him sometimes.

I was too busy, either in the back, Reforging, or

in the front, showing off our pencils to the customers.

I would turn on my father’s charm and everything I learned from your

mother.

I was good at it, I think, though each interaction left me drained.

I often caught Torou watching me.

With each pencil

I handed out, I wondered when it would come back, mutate with my blood, and reveal all of their secrets.

Gone were the days

when I enthusiastically demonstrated their smoothness, balanced weight, and customizability.

They were excellent pencils on

their own.

Only we knew the power they possessed.

No longer were we Reforging cryptic work orders or military commands.

Now we Reforged the words of ordinary citizens, and worse, their secrets and personal stories, stories full of anger at the current political situation or their hope for the future.

Their words coursed through me, and I felt their full meaning, suffered with them—the Taiwanese people, freed from Japanese occupation, believing things would be better under the Chinese, only to discover occupation always looks the same.

No matter how hopeful their words, as soon as they were bleeding out of my body, it was over for them.

I didn’t know it then.

But I do now.

The government had these people arrested, disappeared, labeled Communist sympathizers.

They were exiled to small surrounding islands.

At the time it was only a hushed rumor.

If you had been there, maybe we would have had the courage to ask questions, to rebel, like the characters we wrote.

But it was only me, and I was trying to help my parents, who were trying to survive and who really believed this the best course of action for their family and the nation.

At least through our pencils we could do something when we had always been powerless.

Then there was the day I found Torou using one of our pencils.

Before I could think better of it, I snatched it out of his

hand.

He had been in the middle of writing an equation, his hand still shaped to hold the pencil as he looked up at me, baffled.

“I didn’t steal it,” he said immediately.

“I didn’t think you did,” I said, suddenly guilty.

“It was sitting on the table. I thought I’d try it out. How could I resist, after the way you describe them to the customers?”

“They’re not... I didn’t think you would like them.” I tucked the pencil into my apron.

“Are you kidding? I understand what my sister was going on about now.” He frowned.

“They write beautifully. I can afford it

if that’s what you are worried about.”

“It’s not.”

“I feel like I should be supporting your business with all the time I spend here.”

“Mother doesn’t care about that kind of thing.”

His expression turned dark.

“Is it because you don’t want locals using your pencils?”

I was able to cut off that line of reasoning quickly.

“You know I have sold to plenty of locals.”

He crossed his arms.

“Then why not to me?”

“Because—” I tried to weigh the risk in my head.

The powerful thing about a pencil was that almost always, one of the first things a person wrote was their name.

Then no matter what else they wrote with it, we could always trace it back to them, even if they lost it and somebody else began to use it.

I knew Torou did not hold kind feelings for the Nationalist government.

If they ever suspected him of dissidence, or simply did not want him to succeed for whatever reason, they would only need to find his pencil and twist his Reforged words to send him away.

Maybe he would write only calculus equations.

But his conviction that he would go to America and finally live his freedom—that was not worth the risk.

“Please trust me,” I said.

I could not tell him the truth or even think of a suitable excuse to convince him never to buy

one of our pencils.

“Fine. Then come see a movie with me.”

“What? That has nothing to do with pencils.”

“They’re both things I want.” He smiled.

“Surely you can do that much?”

I fidgeted.

He was right.

There was no harm in going to a movie with him.

I was not planning on falling in love with him,

after all.

“Alright.”

That night, I quizzed Mother.

“Is there any way to make a pencil heart that cannot be Reforged?”

She was almost always rubbing her wrist in those days.

It is only now I understand that feeling.

I cannot imagine Reforging

at the volume she did at her age.

“There are pencils that harm us when we Reforge them,” she said.

“Ones with cheap and impure hearts.”

“But what about ones that don’t hurt us? If we try to Reforge them, and we don’t get any words?”

She tilted her head and stared at me.

“But why would we do that?”

“You mentioned it was dangerous. That’s because people don’t know we can collect their words and use them against them, right?”

“Quiet down,” she ordered.

“That is true. But we are sharing truths. That is noble, isn’t it?”

Her question was genuine.

I think she really believed she was helping create a better China, and who am I to say that she wasn’t?

It was 1950, a new decade, and yet nothing had changed.

We were coming up on our second year in Taiwan.

My father’s promise of a few months seemed a lifetime ago.

I didn’t care for the Nationalists or the Communists.

I wanted to be free of it all, the same as Torou, and you only wanted a place to call home, regardless of who was governing it.

Our mothers longed for stability and the most straightforward way to achieve that was to support the government.

If the Nationalists could not form a unified front, there would be no hope of driving out the Communists, or returning to China, returning to you.

What little news we received from Shanghai was dire.

We heard about the forced confessions of business owners, how everyone

was once again paranoid, trying to sniff out any capitalist leanings among their neighbors.

That in itself was frightening.

But then there was the matter of the pencils.

They were uniquely suited for this kind of work, spying and revealing.

It was

possible you were doing the same thing we were doing here.

You would have an opinion, I knew, about whether it was noble.

You would not merely acquiesce as I did.

You would take action.

I dreaded Reforging Torou’s pencil, worried it would be like that time I stole your boy’s pencil and Reforged it, saw and

felt those things that were not meant for me.

Torou might reveal some truth he felt about me—that he hated me or, even worse,

that he loved me.

Both options terrified me.

But I had to do it so there was no chance his words could ever be discovered.

It turned out I was self-absorbed even in my paranoia.

He wrote nothing about me, only math equations.

A slanted, efficient

handwriting, numbers and symbols that I could not begin to understand.

He wrote with a mix of care and excitement and—at the

very end—a fullness, a satisfaction, an appreciation that could only be described as love.

Afterward, I lay on my bed and raised my hand toward the dark-paneled Japanese-style ceiling.

My phoenix black against my skin, the way it was after Reforging, made vivid by his words.

For that moment, I let myself admire the minimal lines, the way his heart filled in my scar.

I wrapped both arms around myself.

That was what his love felt like, I thought, smiling.

Torou and I finally went to our movie.

He took me to Ximending, perhaps the closest in terms of bustling city life that Taipei

had to offer.

It was the largest shopping district and home to several movie theaters, including a Peking opera house my parents

enjoyed.

I cannot recall the name of the film we saw.

I even asked Torou, just now, and all he could remember was the way

the movie stopped in the middle for some Nationalist propaganda.

Nothing happened between us during the movie or afterward.

He told me he had a test the next week and so he would not be stopping by the pencil company.

“I thought you studied well there.” I was disappointed.

I told myself it was not because of any soft feelings for him, only

that I longed for the minimal amount of comfort he provided.

He laughed.

“I never said that. I always end up too distracted by you.”

“By me? I’m just reading.”

“It’s one of the only times you look happy.”

Only through remembering the things he used to say to me can I recall the depth of my unhappiness during those years.

A shadow

of what you must have felt when you came to live with us in Shanghai, though maybe I flatter myself by believing my being

there helped you adjust.

In Taiwan, I had no one, and I shut out even those who wanted to be close to me.

“I think you should see that boy more,” Mother told me after a few days passed with no visit from Torou.

“The Tsai son.”

“He has to study.”

“Oh, Yun.” Mother looked at me, rubbing her hands together to stay warm, her eyes lined with her weariness.

“You have not been the same since we left Shanghai. You used to love life. You wanted everything from it. Remember the qipaos you used to admire? The dances you wanted to attend? The drawings you used to make?”

It did not even sound like she was referring to my life.

“Well, we’re not in Shanghai anymore,” I said.

“Shanghai was alive and real and home.”

“Find the boy again,” she suggested.

“Do not forget there is still pleasure in this life.”

The next time I found Torou studying at the corner desk, I joined him with my books.

He slid a package over to me.

I opened

it.

Inside were two more books—an English novel and its Chinese translation.

“These aren’t cheap,” I said, because I could think of nothing else to say.

“Of course not.” He turned back to his work.

“Stories are priceless.”

“How was your test?”

“Good. I think I can afford to goof off a bit now.”

Even so, we both opened our books and began to study.

Somewhere along the way, I realized he had inched closer, or was it

possible I had shifted nearer to him?

Our thighs touched.

Neither of us moved away.

As I finished the page I was working on, I felt his eyes on me.

I considered asking if he should be studying and not staring

at me or if there was something in my hair, or closing my book and moving away.

Something would change, I knew, if I turned

to face him.

Mother’s words made the decision for me.

I chose pleasure.

The kiss was simple, the barest touch of our lips before I pulled away.

We returned to our books.

I struggled to concentrate,

though, too focused on the way his leg moved against mine, his furiously tapping foot.

The next time, a few days later, lasted longer.

Each time, a bit longer than that, our hands slowly exploring each other’s bodies, both of us hoping no customers would walk in or that Mother would decide to make a rare appearance.

We would have heard someone approaching, I was sure of it, but there were also times when the rest of the world seemed to fade away entirely except for his arms.

Even then—and I find it difficult to convince myself of this, so I wonder if it is possible to convince you—I did not like

him much more than any other person I might have dated.

You know I married him, that things worked out.

But in those days,

I hardly felt anything other than adrift.

His arms locked me in place, slowed my descent.

I chased those feelings and kissed

him deeper, felt more of his body each time.

One day, after I had locked the front door and my parents had left to meet their friends, and only Torou and I remained, we

went even further.

We lay on the bench, him on top of me, the bench hard against my back, his body warm and welcoming.

His hand ventured beneath my shirt, working its way up to my breasts, which was not new.

But on this day, I wanted more.

I

let him touch me as he pleased, his cold hand in stark contrast to his warm lips and breath.

I slowly raised myself upright,

pushing him until we were both sitting.

I moved so I could face him, so I could straddle him with my legs and wrap my knees

around his waist.

I rubbed my body against his, and as I did, my mind circled back to you and your boy.

How once, you had done something just

like this, and how you never shared those details with me, and now I could see why.

The reactions of my body, new and foreign

and intoxicating.

I wanted only him to witness it.

His hand began to lift my skirt.

He stroked me and I shuddered into him.

I reached for his belt.

He took my hand with his free one, held it in place on the

bench.

My left hand still held his Reforging—I had not wanted to bleed it out yet.

My mind briefly wandered to the work I

still had to complete, the pencils I needed to Reforge, all the stories to which I had grown numb.

He teased a finger below

my underwear, pulling the fabric to the side, and all those stray thoughts disappeared.

I pressed harder into him.

His finger remained an obstacle between us.

It moved slowly, lazily, tracing corners not even I had explored, slick.

Then it slid right into me.

I shuddered, again, a soft moan against his neck.

I could feel his smile.

His finger continued to explore, to thrust.

My left hand protested weakly against his, though his grip was firm.

I wanted more.

I even told him so.

He quieted me with a laugh, traced his lips over my neck, and that sent the first wave through me.

It was a wonder to feel this way.

My body had only produced pain before—words bleeding out on the page, knives to skin, monthly

blood, the helplessness of wartime—and to now feel this glow, this euphoria.

I bucked against him, barely registered his hand

trying to keep up with my movement.

I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut as he sent wave after wave through me until I finally

fell against his chest.

For a moment, right as I thought I was coming to my senses, the world disappeared.

Not even Torou was there, or at least,

not the version of him that should have been.

Instead, I experienced the silent and studious Torou, the one who smiled at

his mathematics, and though I had no hope of understanding his numbers and logic, something about his posture, his warmth,

made me want to try regardless.

It was like I had Reforged a more vivid version of his pencil heart—and I realized that was

exactly what had happened.

“Hey.” His voice came from a distance.

“Yun? You still there?”

I was back at the pencil company, still sitting on top of him.

His hand brushing my cheek, so startlingly intimate that I

recoiled even when I didn’t want to, not really.

“Are you alright?” he asked, full of concern.

I scrambled off him and rolled up my sleeve, too caught in the moment to worry he might see my scar.

But it didn’t matter.

The dark glow that his words had formed on my skin and that I had privately enjoyed these last weeks, was gone.

The phoenix

was barely visible, pale as it would have been if I had bled out his words.

His story was lost to the world, as you had said.

“Sorry,” I said quickly, trying to understand.

“I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? It was like you were... gone. I mean, I don’t have much experience with this, but I don’t think that’s normal.”

“I’m sick,” I blurted out, a sudden lie I could not control.

I needed time to think, to understand myself and my body, run

back through our mothers’ warnings, our past conversations.

I had finally caught up to you.

I had all the missing pieces,

and still, I could not quite see what it meant.

His expression shifted.

“How so?”

“My body is—weird. It’s not normal. That’s why I... disappeared for a bit.” He kept trying to look into my eyes.

I twisted

away from him.

“Does it affect your health?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should we go to a doctor?”

I had to place a hand on his knee to stop him from rising.

“I don’t think a doctor could help me.”

“Why not?”

“It’s something that runs in my family.”

“Let me help you.” His earnestness would one day save me, but that day it wrenched.

“My mother wouldn’t want me to tell you.”

“Why is that?”

“Family secret.”

He frowned.

“Would I get to know if we married?”

“We aren’t marrying.” I nearly laughed.

It was too much, all at once.

This riddle of Reforging, finally an answer within reach, something to do with pleasure instead of pain.

I mourned that we hadn’t been able to puzzle it out together.

We had spent our last year feuding.

To know that you were experiencing something like this with your boy, that this, of all things, was what we had fought over.

“We’re—we’re only enjoying each other.”

He leaned back, his eyes wide.

My words had hurt him, I realized, the first time they had done so, even as I had continually

brushed him off for weeks.

“But I—” he began.

Then he shook his head and packed up his books, stuffed them into his bag.

“Wait.” Something had gone wrong, something I had not intended.

The pleasure I was chasing, those moments of happiness, was

leaving.

“I need to focus on studying,” he mumbled.

“I’ve wasted too much time.”

He stood.

I was in his way, between him and the door.

I continued to sit, looking up at him, at a complete loss for words.

“You’re not coming back?” I asked weakly.

“I’m going to America. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

I moved aside.

He left the pencil company, the door clicking closed behind him.

I wished he had slammed it.

It might have

woken me from whatever stupor I was in right then.

I had been relying on him to help me.

I picked up the nearest pencil and traced it across my notebook.

Each stroke deepened as I tried to rub the heart deeper into

the paper, turn it into nothing more than a nub.

My fingers turned white from the pressure.

Then the heart snapped.

The tip

rolled away.

I stared into the hollow of the wood.

Heartbroken.

It could not have been more obvious.