Group 2 | HKBU21stp

The Yeast

- Hon Li Chu 韓麗珠

That day, my mother cried like a sheep waiting to be slaughtered while my sister was preparing for the debate competition. If not a debate competition, it must have been a bulletin board design competition, or an oral presentation. She claimed our mother's uncontrollable tears did not matter. "She must have eaten too much bread." After taking a closer look at our mother's crying face for a while, my sister said, "She has never been good at restraining herself." Then she picked up her school bag, took a stack of notes, and left the house. Her school uniform had not been washed and ironed for many days, but it was never meant to be disrespectful.

Except for my mother, who was lying on the sofa limply, I was the only one in the house. If it wasn’t the unexplained wailing resembling an endlessly grinning soprano, it must have been the sound with a power to pierce a wall, which drove me to unlock the door, walk through the corridor, and go down the stairs to the floor. Then, I opened the fire door and entered the area full of golden sunlight. The leaves swayed on the wind. I didn’t know where the aroma of the freshly baked bread came from. At first, it was faint, but it gradually gathered and became richer. It never dissipated, sticking to my airway and lungs, and becoming my scent. It reminded me that I could never escape that particular thing or my mother.

At that very moment, I almost understood how my mother must have felt when she kneaded the dough and she was determined to bake her own bread.

Back then, we didn't have a say in what to eat at each meal. "People are jealous of you two, as no options means no unnecessary worries," mother said. That's why whenever she came out from the kitchen with a plate of rock-hard whole wheat bread and put it on the table, we had no other choice but to look down at the table and eat our bread without saying a word. There was only the sound of chewing in the air.

We would have continued eating our bread, and someone would have said something, like "it's so tasty" or "I haven't eaten a tastier bread " - if my sister didn't scream. The shrieking of my sister broke the icy silence. She pulled out a clump of brown wavy hair from her mouth. There was still some light brown chewed bread mixed with saliva on the wet hair clump. She picked the hair clump up with her fingertips and showed it to us.

I don't remember whether my mother’s face showed any awkwardness. I only remember her voice - sharp and firm- and her words, which carved our nerves, like a sword in winter. Her words still pop up in our minds from time to time - "No matter how exquisite the food looks, as long as it is cooked with heart, there must be some traces left by the cook in it. It could be sweat or dead skin, saliva, secretion, eyelashes, hair, fingernails, or even blood. You just didn't realize it, or you have already gotten used to it." Her low and hoarse voice gradually turned high, as if she was angry. Her words sounded more like an accusation, than an explanation or persuasion.

"The bread you buy from the store is way dirtier", she looked into our eyes one by one and then said, "If you have ever visited any restaurant kitchen, you will lose all your appetite."

Ever since then, bread has become the main course in at least one meal. Was my mother utterly obsessed with making bread? Had her stomach hinged to the yeast and the dough that she grew and made? We were not sure. She led us to the kitchen, pointing at the yeast that resembled to a pale, lazy, sleeping chubby boy, and said, “If we stop baking for two days, or stop adding flour and water, it will fade away”. The yeast was part of my mother. Perhaps it was the unbearable guilt and sympathy that made me volunteer to look after the yeast, promising my mother that the yeast would get enough water and nutrition every day. It would be like loving and protecting a fragile and innocent baby.

In fact, we did not hate bread so much. That is what I had always believed. Our body rejected the baking products intuitively, but when it was necessary, I often comforted myself that eating is nothing more than filling our stomach.

Besides, my mother was always relaxed and joyful when making bread, like another soul had possessed her. That got me wondering perhaps we needed not to pretend to be our usual self. After all, anyone could leave their home anytime they wanted.

Every night after dinner, mother must take the yeast out of the fridge to help it feel the warmth of this world while stroking its stiff surface lightly and whispering to it gently. It was more like confinement than encouragement. Not till late at night, she gave it water like keeping a freakish plant. She added some new flour, like massaging a person with sore muscles. Then, she pushed a fresh bread dough like God creating Adam, the bread eventually carried traces of mother.

It was inevitable. Sometimes, she hit the dough whilst screaming, cursing and sobbing. Sometimes, she stretched, tore and tossed the bread dough to different corners of the kitchen. Of course, most of the time, she just babbled when shaping the sticky substance, spilling all kinds of secrecy to it.

We pretended to be asleep. Nevertheless, life is filled with too many uncontrollable matters, as the ears we cannot shut, which made us realize that one can hardly detach themselves from the intractability.

Shortly afterwards, mother made her announcement during dinner that she intended to churn out her bread and peddle them on the street. “Each type of bread has its own unique sentiment, like the intense hormone that allures passers-by with irresistible features, which includes like-minded people.” Her eyes shone with joy, but can it stimulate the appetite of the passers-by? I’m not certain.

“Loaves of bread sold in markets are all fermented by scientific approaches, and they taste like a ball of empty wind. They either all stick between the crevices of the teeth or have a void-like taste. Only the naturally fermented bread can fill the sense of hollowness and wave away the starvation as if yielding the fruits after you plant a tree,” she said, biting down a piece of the brown rice bread that she had been holding with her prominent canine teeth.

Sister and I did not speak a word. Instead, we filled our mouths with breadcrumbs. I have no clue about whether we were silent for the same reason. I just know that my sister dined less at home with us afterwards. She is already a uni student, dresses up in her own clothes instead of uniforms. If there was no group work that day, she would definitely attend the department meeting, or do part-time tutoring, or date somebody, or celebrate a friend’s birthday, which she does not have to fix with the mess of mum’s unsold bread.

I always found myself unconsciously pondering why I am not the one entering the university and why I am not the one dining outside with whatever excuse. Maybe because I have squandered too much time on seeking for the hidden holes in me, like a blind man groping for a gigantic elephant, or a boundless grey wall, reaping nothing at all. Or maybe due to the incurable sense of starvation inside me, I cannot step beyond the boundary set by the unknown. Whenever I have the impulse to secretly dine outside, I think of dirty nails or the greasy hair of a strange chef, just like the meaningless faces in front of me when I arrive in the downtown area, where no one interests me at all.

That night, my sister came home after my mother fell asleep. Therefore, she could stare at the unsold bread, which was piled at random on the table. Her eyes riveted on the dry, stale bread which was spoiling as if frustrated. A while later, she came to me. She lowered her voice which revealed her disappointment, “We all know red beans, sesame, cheese, corn, taro, tomato, vanilla mocha, and pumpkin are the flavors people like.”

Although we shared the same thought, I didn’t go along with her. The fact was that I still picked up a piece of bread made by my mother after having fasted overnight whenever I woke up from my dream.

My sister moved her stuff from home to another place little by little, like an insect diligently stored food for the winter in a low profile, and my mother stealthily ended her bread-selling business without batting an eyelid.

My mother doesn’t need to wake up in the cold and early mornings anymore to ensure every customer gets hot and freshly baked bread She put much effort into kneading and shaping bread. Her expression is as solemn as a mournful sculptor. Sometimes, she will tell me who the dough just kneaded represents. That reminds me how the unrepairable flaw and fault in someone’s personality brought about wounds hard to heal long ago.

She misses them so much as they used to be so close.

Now, something has changed. First, the dough is kneaded together.

Later, it slowly swells in the oven, spreads out and turns into an oval shape. After it is adequately baked and takes a good rest, we can finally eat them all and digest everything quickly. Many nights, in our dreams, we waited for the aroma of freshly baked bread to wake us up. Therefore, I am sure, she was delighted when she took a big bite out of the blurry bread with different shapes and drank a cup of green tea in the afternoons.

Translation by:

Au Ho Laam, Aria 19232047

Sung Ka Yu, Sherry 19234406

Tang Tik Man, Cathy 19207883

Leung Tsz Yui, Celeste 19230494

Man Wai Laam, Daphne 19230583