1982

 “You can’t just spill shit, like no one lives here” said Gaidi’s mother, slamming a pan down on the small stove that she took out to the courtyard every time she cooked. She jabbed her spoon at the sanitation workers walking back and forth to empty our shared latrines into trucks, carrying yokes with buckets, either end filled to the brim. Her voice crossed the courtyard and – wrapped in a familiar stink – squeezed through the cracks of all the walls in the compound. Holding our noses, we were used to picking our way around the remnants of this monthly chore – careless splashes, rank spills…

Then the familiar sound of wheels rattling over the uneven paving of the courtyard, the ting ting the bike makes when it crosses the steps: Grandpa had arrived on his bicycle.

“The television is here!” Grandma bustled past me into Taitai’s room, muttering something about this being the worst time for such a special arrival. She set about wiping the already spotless surface of the scarred ebony chest next to Taitai’s kang. This was where the new possession would be enthroned.

Grandpa pushed his bicycle into the compound, a large cardboard box strapped on its frame, my uncle walking alongside, holding it steady with a protective hand while hurdling the stinking puddles. Fourteen-inch black and white television was printed on both sides of the box.

“Not bad, a television! One of the four big items already!” The neighbours were out in force to witness the arrival of the first TV in the compound.

Grandpa had once pointed out how lucky our family was to own all four desirable items of the 1970s: a radio, bicycles, grandma’s sewing machine, and his watch – bought in 1962 on his 35th birthday, and one of the first watches ever made in China. But it was the 1980’s now, and everyone knew that the desirables had changed: a television, a washing-machine, a refrigerator, a stereo. No-one in our world could boast a full set of these items yet, and the arrival of just one turned the ubiquitous sea of grey people outside the compound into a clamouring entourage.

I had only seen a fridge in the home of one of my classmates. It stood taller than me, a smooth and solid treasure box casting its fresh glow across the scuffed floor. The fridge had presided over the room from its position of honour, opposite to where the family and guests sat. My friend’s mother dressed it up with a cloth of fine needle work covering its top. On this she placed a framed family photograph and a vase of plastic flowers.

Without a fridge ourselves, I had become the family nose. My grandmother ensured that anything not consumed at one meal lived to fight another day.

“Mengmeng, come and smell this!” She would call to me through the smoke-laden air of the dim kitchen. My keen sense of smell would decide whether the contents of the pot went into the pan or the bin.

Grandma made a cover for our TV – she had worked at a long-saved length of dark velvet.  Each time we finished watching the TV she’d cover it again, settling the new possession amongst us – dressed and protected.

On that first occasion, a small crowd followed Grandpa into  Taitai’s room, where he set about unpacking the television with great care. Gently, uncle lifted it from its box and set it on the ebony chest. They murmured their approval, craning their necks to see the smart grey set from every angle.  Used to people milling around, Taitai paid no mind to the commotion. She sat on her kang, rubbing coarse scraps of paper between her bony fingers, some thin brown wrapping papers of filial treats she had received, and pages she peeled from my old notebooks, making them soft with her rubbing. (This softening had a purpose, and one we had reason to be grateful for.)

The TV looked like an oversized radio, but with two silver antennae protruding from the top, and a curved, eggshell-smooth screen that Grandpa switched on with a press of one of the row of black squares down one side. A crackling snow of black and white lit the screen.  Grandpa adjusted the antennae, bending them this way and that, random movements accompanied by intense concentration.

Just as Taitai opened the drawer below the TV to put in the newly softened paper, figures emerged from the screen’s snowy haze. Taitai’s mouth fell open.

A group of Party leaders in a foreign country, shaking hands with dark suited foreigners, and then close ups of toothy grins on each of their faces. “Look how clear the picture is!” Grandpa announced. “It’s like being there yourself!”

I’d watched TV a couple of times before, in the community room two streets away from our compound – my mother and I taking stools and jostling with twenty other people for a decent view. But Taitai had never seen anything like it. On her tiny feet, her wide eyes darted between the screen and the photograph of her husband atop the dresser, as if at any moment, both frames might release their ghosts.

 “Mother, it’s called a TV!” Grandpa’s voice rang above the chatter.

Steadying herself against the side of the dresser, Taitai bent – cautiously –  to examine the screen. The middle of the room was usually underlit and shadowy. To me, whenever I imagined her, she was a creature living in the midst of some perpetual evening. Now she was lit by the flicker of a moving image. Tall modern buildings soared to impossible heights flashing with bright steel like intricate metal embroidery; long lines of gleaming cars stretched out in endless rows on highways in a foreign country. In this new electric glare she acquired details I had never clearly seen before.( winkles ), next to her neck, The bud of a round cotton button hung limply, its empty loop worn thin and useless by decades of her fingers’ touch.

A few more neighbours trickled in, grumbling about the odour. A particularly noxious wave hit the room just as they were sitting down, but they were soon distracted by the surreal scenes of the western country, by the new light emanating from the screen beaming the future onto their weathered faces. Beneath the TV, Taitai’s drawer was still open displaying her essentials: tattered plastic bags, loose balls of string, stubs of wax, empty toothpaste tubes - and the scraps of newly softened paper our family would grab later before heading outside to squat over the emptied holes in the ground and fill them up again.