The Golden Land: Chapter One
The Golden Land by Elizabeth Shick follows the story of an American family who has ties to Myanmar, and how their lives are affected by political events in the country. Published by New Issues Poetry and Prose in December 2022, limited copies of the novel is available for purchase in Bookworm Bangladesh. With consent from the author and publisher, here is an excerpt from chapter one
Boston, Massachusetts 2011
A thumb of ginger lies on the cutting board alongside several cloves of garlic and a pile of small, red shallots, as if any minute Ahpwa might resume chopping, grating, crushing. She was adamant about assembling her ingredients before beginning to cook, my grandmother.
Suddenly, I'm eight years old again, standing next to her with my eyes ablaze, enduring the fumes of the onion in exchange for a rare taste of intimacy. "Always prepare everything in advance, Myi, so the oil does not burn." We looked alike back then, or rather, I looked like her. A quarter Burmese, I had my grandmother's dark eyes and moon-shaped face, the same shiny, black hair, mine tied into an obedient braid down the center of my back, hers twisted into an elaborate knot, the impossibly long tresses coiled around a tortoiseshell hair comb at the nape of her neck before cascading, serpent-like, down the center of her back.
On closer inspection, the ginger is slightly shriveled, having sat in the open air for nearly a week now. I pick up the cutting board and tip the abandoned vegetables into the trash, then uncurl my fingers one by one and let the cutting board slide in on top of them with a thunk.
The kitchen looks much as it always did, the white jasmine hanging above the sink, an empty teacup in the drying rack. The only signs of distress are the open cupboard above the stove and an overturned chair. As I set the chair upright, a can rolls out from under the lip of the kitchen counter. I bend down to pick it up. Chaokoh 100% premium coconut milk, imported. The top of the can is crushed on one side, its label furrowed. So that's what Ahpwa'd been after when she fell.
Staring down at the mangled can in my hand, I feel a dull ache in my chest. Not sorrow, something else. A sense of wrongness, that this is not how her life was meant to end, that our family might have turned out differently. When I was little—before the family reunion in Burma, before I met Shwe and attended the protest march, before Ahpwa's breakdown and my parent's divorce and Ahpwa's declaration that we were no longer Burmese, before all that—she only ever cooked with home-pressed coconut milk obtained by grating the thick, white kernel of a mature coconut then squeezing the grated meat through a fine cloth. To think she died reaching for the canned stuff, imported from Thailand no less.
My younger sister, Parker, is the one who found her. Since quitting, or perhaps losing, the latest in a long string of jobs, Parker'd begun to spend quite a bit of time here, eating most of her meals with Ahpwa, sometimes even spending the night. Our parents died years ago, so for a while now it's just been the three of us on this side of the world. Now two. Monday evening, Parker arrived at Ahpwa's to find her sprawled out on the kitchen floor, unconscious.
As I entered the ER, Parker began to weep. "Etta," she cried, heaving the full weight of her body upon mine as if she were nine, rather than 29.
I stumbled backward, the glare of disinfectant and antiseptic lights making my head swirl. I couldn't believe Ahpwa was gone.
These last few days have been a blur of undertakers, morgue technicians and well-meaning acquaintances. Parker attends to the well-wishers. She's better with people than I am, warmer and more accessible. At least, that's what she says, and she's probably right. As the lawyer in our little family of two, I attend to the paperwork, which suits me fine. I find the banality of the forms soothing.
Parker hasn't wanted to return to the house, so I'm taking care of all the logistics here, too. Next up are the estate lawyers and real estate agents, today's visit the first step toward putting Ahpwa's house on the market, which begins with cleaning out perishables. I open the fridge: three bundles of spring onions, a posy of cilantro, one packet of thin egg noodles, and one whole chicken sitting unwrapped on a plate, its little feet tucked under its bum, skin dark and rubbery from prolonged exposure to the cold air. Ohn no khauk swe, that's what Ahpwa'd been preparing the day she died, noodles in a coconut chicken soup. My childhood favorite.
