Sawala


I met Sawala during my first summer break at Fresno State. In the summer, only poor international students were staying on campus, taking inexpensive condensed summer courses. Those of us in the dorms were moved into one building; Sawala and I were among the few residents. We both lived on the first floor. I had a double room and a Japanese roommate. Sawala had a single suite room at the end of the hallway, which was more comfortable and costly than the others.

Sawala came from Thailand. Her parents were Chinese, but she only knew a few Chinese words besides her name. That summer she was twenty-five or -six, just a few years older than most of us, but I always felt she was much older, as if she were a generation ahead of me. Maybe it was the way she dressed, the way she spoke, or simply the way she was. I don¡¯t remember what her major was¡ªperhaps nutrition¡ªshe never looked like a student to me.

Sawala was an exaggeration. She wore beautiful dresses, patterned with noisy, flowery designs; long, permed hair bundled with big hairpins; brightly painted fingernails, thick-layered makeups, glittering earrings, and stylish high heel sandals. Like a tropical bird, she was saturated with vivid colors. She was a little shorter than me, slightly plump. Her face was larger than usual, and her eyes big and sparkling, framed in a pair of oversized red plastic glasses. And you couldn¡¯t miss her big, brightly lipsticked mouth, which was constantly talking or laughing. She had a loud, brisk, and intrusive voice, as if she was always in a heated argument. While she was talking, all I could see was her animated face, her bright red lips, and her glowing smile, vigorously shooting toward me words after words, engulfing my sense of serenity.

I still find it difficult to believe that Sawala was a Christian. She seemed so vain. We attended the same church, the Campus Baptist Church near school. I was a regular churchgoer, because my host families were active members there, and I wanted to sing in the choir. Like the few other foreign students who went to the church, I wasn¡¯t religious. But Sawala was an authentic Christian. She said her prayers before meals, and she participated in all church functions. She even joined the choir after seeing me in it, although she couldn¡¯t read any music. She always nagged me to teach her how to sing her parts. I was annoyed.

I did not like her. I did not like her materialistic style, her demands for my complete openness, and her ease of physical closeness. ¡°Why can¡¯t you tell me whom you went to lunch with? What did your mother write in her letter? Why didn¡¯t you want to tell me what that boy said to you? What¡¯s on your mind? Why can¡¯t you tell me everything? What do you have to hide?!¡± she constantly pressed me. When we were together, she liked to hug me, pat my shoulders, touch my arms, hold my hands, and all her friendly body contacts made me uncomfortable. At times she was so genuine that she seemed fake. She could not sense that I disliked her. She was very fond of me.

No matter how much I wanted to avoid her, I hung out with her from time to time throughout the long hot summer. It was probably because of my yearning for peer acceptance, of her persistence, and of my inability to say no. We had nothing in common. I cannot remember what we used to talk about except for one subject¡ªshe wanted to teach me how to look like a real woman.

I was extremely unattractive all through my college years, or at least I had felt so. I had short hair, thick glasses, and a lot of pimples. In the summer, I was often in a pair of large shorts and a collared T-shirt, bought when I was in a high school. I did not even have proper dress for church. I had long given up on my appearance, and I devoted my attention to school works in hopes that people would recognize me because of my good grades. I had not dared to think about boys. I had no admirers.

Sawala wanted to improve me. She gave me numerous advice on what to wear, how to wear, which color goes with which, how to tie my hair, which lotion to use, et cetera. She told me if I followed her guidance, then I could get a boyfriend who would like me. I thought if I were a guy I would never want to date someone like her, so I resisted her improvement attempt. One day when I was in her room, she persuaded me to try on some of her dresses, ¡°just to see what looked good on you¡±. Her closet was full of shining, colorful, dressy cloth. They were so vibrant that they hurt my eyes. I put on a few and they all looked too noisy on me. They made me look too much like her, and that was the last thing I wanted. I resisted, until finally, there was one dress that I liked. It was a white long-sleeve dress, with small peachy color dots. The design was simple, elegant and quiet. The touch was smooth and silky. When I put it on, it was not only comfortable but it made me felt like a princess. She was glad that I liked it, and said I could borrow it to go to the church whenever I needed it.

Before summer ended, Sawala moved to an apartment a few miles away from campus. It was a spacious one-bedroom apartment with a large courtyard. I only visited her there once, on a warm Sunday afternoon, to hang out with her and another Asian girl friend. Bathed in the balmy sunshine, we sat around a small table in the courtyard, talking girl talks and steaming rice and cutting string beans and peeling potato skins and cooking dishes and eating supper and drinking tea and talking about nothingness and falling into silence and enjoying the laziness. That was the only relaxing time I remember being with Sawala. In the late afternoon, the sun cast long shadows of trees on the walls in her apartment. Everything was peach, even my memory of that day. Was it because of the color of the sunset, the smell of the rice, the softness of the conversation, or her feminine charm? I cannot recall.

After school started again, I only met her in church. As usual, she was cheerful and colorful, talking and laughing and touching everyone. Her lustrous red lips ever so confidently solicited my friendship.

A few weeks into the fall semester, one evening she phoned me unexpectedly. She asked me if I would want to have some of her clothes, because she was leaving the country soon. I was very surprised by the seriousness of her tone, but I did not ask further questions and I biked over to see her right away.

Her large apartment was almost empty. There were a few packed suitcases in the living room, and some clothes loosely hanging in the closet. She pointed at the clothes and asked me to buy some.

I was very poor and was hoping to inherit some of her stuff for free before she moved away. I didn¡¯t want to spend any money on the cloth that I never even liked. I pretended to leaf through her dresses, and saw the white one that I once tried on and liked. She sensed my hesitation, and said, ¡°You can have that one for fifteen dollars.¡± Fifteen dollars! That was more expensive than any cloth I had ever owned. The price embarrassed me.

¡°So, why are you leaving all of a sudden?¡± I changed the topic.

¡°Family emergency. I¡¯m leaving tomorrow¡±, she replied.

¡°What happened? When are you coming back?¡±

¡°My brother just died in a car accident. I am not coming back¡±, she said, simply.

The image of the story suddenly seized me and saddened me, but I did not know what to say. I wasn¡¯t good at saying the proper things at the proper moment, and the moment passed. I only said sorry.

She did not tell me any more about it. It was so unlike her¡ªno more loud voice, no more hurried words, no more bright red lipstick, no more intimate touch. She was so much dimmer.

¡°Do you want to give me ten dollars for this dress, to remember me by?¡± She held out the white dress in front of me, big sad eyes, pleaded, wearily. She knew I liked that dress.

¡°No....¡± I resisted, feeling extremely guilty under the circumstances. But then I comforted myself by thinking, if she really wanted me to have it, she should have given it to me for free. Besides, I never really liked her.

I left. And I never heard of her again.


First draft: March 18, 2001
Revision: April 12, 2001
Revision: September 3, 2001
Revision: March 25, 2004