How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa (2020)
How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa (2020)
Paris
Dang was what people who knew Red called her. It means red in Lao. It wasn’t her real name, just a nickname she got because her nose was always red from the cold. She hated that he called her by a nickname. It made things feel intimate between them in a way she didn’t want. The way he said “Dang,” it was like a light in him had been turned on and now she had to be responsible for what he could see about himself (17).
Walking quickly past him, she said, “Thanks, Sam.” Red knew he hated to be called by his English name. “Not Sam,” he would insist, “Somboun,” pronouncing the tones of the vowels the way Lao people would, refusing to make it easy. But he took what she said as if she was teasing and he smiled widely. To know someone’s dislikes was to be close to them (20).
The only love Red knew was that simple, uncomplicated, lonely love one feels for oneself in the quiet moments of the day. It was there, steady and solid in the laughter and talk of the television and with her in the grocery aisles on the weekends. It was there every night, in the dark, spectacular and sprawling in the quiet. And it all belonged to her (22).
Randy Travis
My father was nothing like Randy Travis. No one noticed who he was or what he did for his living. He never used the word love or showed much sentiment. For my mother’s birthday, he gave her a few twenty-dollar bills. Not even a birthday card or plans for a night out. He thought that because he was there, that was all that was needed to show his love. He thought his silence was love, his restraint was love. To say it out loud, to display it so openly, was to be shameless. He thought it was ridiculous to be moaning about love so much. What kind of man was Randy Travis, with his health, his looks, his fame, and his money, that he should ever have anything to cry about (46)?
You Are So Embarrassing
“You know,” she said, turning around to face her daughter. That’s what that person was back there-her daughter. But a stranger might have been more kind. “You won’t understand this now, but some day, when you’re a mother yourself, you’ll remember what you just said to me and you’ll hate yourself for having said it. You don’t know what it’s like to give birth, to have your body bust open like that. And then to have to clean and bathe and feed that life-just a bunch of cries and burps and shit to attend to. And I did it on my own! You just don’t know!” Her daughter stared out the window as if there was something off in the distance. She went on, “But let me say this to you. And you, you remember it! You remember it! No one really wants to be a mother. But you can’t know this for sure until you are one.” She turned forward again, started the car, pulled the seat belt over her left shoulder and clicked it into place too, securing herself. Then she checked her side and rear-view mirrors and waited for a clearing (124-5).
The Gas Station
Mary worked from home. She was an independent accountant. She didn’t want to be part of anything, didn’t want to answer to someone. She liked the thrill of having the whole enterprise succeed or fail with her. During the tax season she often found work by setting up a clinic or pop-up office. She had many types of clients. They all surprised her with their needs and problems and desires. Because the tax form asked you to declare a marital status, she saw every stage of love. There was the initial giddiness at having found each other, the boredom of having been together for too long, the anguish of separation, the finality of a divorce, the clinging one did in the hopes of a reconciliation that was not coming. She liked spending her days listening to people describe how things had fallen apart. It was like watching a play being acted out in front of her, the feelings raw and real-all of it up close. She didn’t have to feel what they felt, but what they told her about themselves stayed with her.
Mary always remembered the last client of every tax season. The last was usually the most dramatic (137-8).
He was not beautiful, but she liked looking at him. Beauty was boring. To be ugly was to be particular, memorable, unforgettable even. He was uglier than that. Grotesque seemed right to describe him. It was not yet spring and there was a chill in the air, but the man was shirtless. He had hair like barnacles all over his chest. It reminded Mary of pubic hair, messy and wet and shining. There was something bold about him, walking around so bare like that (138-9).
He had a reputation for being someone women fell in love with, and he was known to abandon them when that happened, leaving them wailing in the street below his window, begging to know why. Mary wondered what it was he did to make them lose themselves that way. She wanted to know if it could happen to her (139-40).
When she got home, she wasn’t hungry. She took a shower, washed her hair, and polished her only pair of shoes. She read a book that had belonged to her since she was a little girl. It was about a monster, but it wasn’t scary at all. When she was about four, she wanted to be the beast. She roared and pounded at her chest and no one ever said that was not how a little girl should be. She could be ugly and uglier and even more ugly. She threw the book across the room. It left a dark mark on the wall, like a bruise. To be a monster, a beast of some kind. Watching everything shudder, down to the most useless blade of grass. She wanted that for herself (142-3).
He explained everything to her. How it would all unfold. He said it was going to be sweet and tender and loving. Then he’d tell her he didn’t love her. “It’ll be a lie,” he said. “I don’t like feelings.”
When the evening was over, she noticed the paintings in the apartment. He said he painted only with black. He had very large canvases leaned against the wall. They all looked the same to Mary, until she got closer. The thing about these paintings was their strokes. Each one was particular, distinctive. She angled a painting toward the light, revealing where the strokes changed, where they thickened, where they swirled, where they began and ended.
She was going to go home, but then she saw him sitting there on the bed. Waiting for her to do something. So she stayed.
FOR A TIME, he was tender and sweet and loving (146).
After a while, he said, “I don’t love you.” Mary did not say anything back. She saw now that his eyes were grey. And she was not there. She said nothing about love, asked nothing about it, or how he felt. “You’re lying,” she said.
He said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
What was the difference between someone who lied about love and someone who didn’t love you? Nothing.
That night, Mary packed her bags and left town. No one would know she had been there, that anything had happened to her in that place. But that didn’t matter. She knew what she was for him. A void that would be immense (146).
A Far Distant Thing
Dad always talked about life as if it spilled out all at once and we wouldn’t have time to think or do anything about what was going to happen to us (152).
Picking Worms
She said the time for thinking about looks was after you get educated and work a good job. Then looks, if they’re any good, are worth something to you. But you couldn’t do it the other way around (169).
Paris
Dang was what people who knew Red called her. It means red in Lao. It wasn’t her real name, just a nickname she got because her nose was always red from the cold. She hated that he called her by a nickname. It made things feel intimate between them in a way she didn’t want. The way he said “Dang,” it was like a light in him had been turned on and now she had to be responsible for what he could see about himself (17).
Walking quickly past him, she said, “Thanks, Sam.” Red knew he hated to be called by his English name. “Not Sam,” he would insist, “Somboun,” pronouncing the tones of the vowels the way Lao people would, refusing to make it easy. But he took what she said as if she was teasing and he smiled widely. To know someone’s dislikes was to be close to them (20).
The only love Red knew was that simple, uncomplicated, lonely love one feels for oneself in the quiet moments of the day. It was there, steady and solid in the laughter and talk of the television and with her in the grocery aisles on the weekends. It was there every night, in the dark, spectacular and sprawling in the quiet. And it all belonged to her (22).
Randy Travis
My father was nothing like Randy Travis. No one noticed who he was or what he did for his living. He never used the word love or showed much sentiment. For my mother’s birthday, he gave her a few twenty-dollar bills. Not even a birthday card or plans for a night out. He thought that because he was there, that was all that was needed to show his love. He thought his silence was love, his restraint was love. To say it out loud, to display it so openly, was to be shameless. He thought it was ridiculous to be moaning about love so much. What kind of man was Randy Travis, with his health, his looks, his fame, and his money, that he should ever have anything to cry about (46)?
You Are So Embarrassing
“You know,” she said, turning around to face her daughter. That’s what that person was back there-her daughter. But a stranger might have been more kind. “You won’t understand this now, but some day, when you’re a mother yourself, you’ll remember what you just said to me and you’ll hate yourself for having said it. You don’t know what it’s like to give birth, to have your body bust open like that. And then to have to clean and bathe and feed that life-just a bunch of cries and burps and shit to attend to. And I did it on my own! You just don’t know!” Her daughter stared out the window as if there was something off in the distance. She went on, “But let me say this to you. And you, you remember it! You remember it! No one really wants to be a mother. But you can’t know this for sure until you are one.” She turned forward again, started the car, pulled the seat belt over her left shoulder and clicked it into place too, securing herself. Then she checked her side and rear-view mirrors and waited for a clearing (124-5).
The Gas Station
Mary worked from home. She was an independent accountant. She didn’t want to be part of anything, didn’t want to answer to someone. She liked the thrill of having the whole enterprise succeed or fail with her. During the tax season she often found work by setting up a clinic or pop-up office. She had many types of clients. They all surprised her with their needs and problems and desires. Because the tax form asked you to declare a marital status, she saw every stage of love. There was the initial giddiness at having found each other, the boredom of having been together for too long, the anguish of separation, the finality of a divorce, the clinging one did in the hopes of a reconciliation that was not coming. She liked spending her days listening to people describe how things had fallen apart. It was like watching a play being acted out in front of her, the feelings raw and real-all of it up close. She didn’t have to feel what they felt, but what they told her about themselves stayed with her.
Mary always remembered the last client of every tax season. The last was usually the most dramatic (137-8).
He was not beautiful, but she liked looking at him. Beauty was boring. To be ugly was to be particular, memorable, unforgettable even. He was uglier than that. Grotesque seemed right to describe him. It was not yet spring and there was a chill in the air, but the man was shirtless. He had hair like barnacles all over his chest. It reminded Mary of pubic hair, messy and wet and shining. There was something bold about him, walking around so bare like that (138-9).
He had a reputation for being someone women fell in love with, and he was known to abandon them when that happened, leaving them wailing in the street below his window, begging to know why. Mary wondered what it was he did to make them lose themselves that way. She wanted to know if it could happen to her (139-40).
When she got home, she wasn’t hungry. She took a shower, washed her hair, and polished her only pair of shoes. She read a book that had belonged to her since she was a little girl. It was about a monster, but it wasn’t scary at all. When she was about four, she wanted to be the beast. She roared and pounded at her chest and no one ever said that was not how a little girl should be. She could be ugly and uglier and even more ugly. She threw the book across the room. It left a dark mark on the wall, like a bruise. To be a monster, a beast of some kind. Watching everything shudder, down to the most useless blade of grass. She wanted that for herself (142-3).
He explained everything to her. How it would all unfold. He said it was going to be sweet and tender and loving. Then he’d tell her he didn’t love her. “It’ll be a lie,” he said. “I don’t like feelings.”
When the evening was over, she noticed the paintings in the apartment. He said he painted only with black. He had very large canvases leaned against the wall. They all looked the same to Mary, until she got closer. The thing about these paintings was their strokes. Each one was particular, distinctive. She angled a painting toward the light, revealing where the strokes changed, where they thickened, where they swirled, where they began and ended.
She was going to go home, but then she saw him sitting there on the bed. Waiting for her to do something. So she stayed.
FOR A TIME, he was tender and sweet and loving (146).
After a while, he said, “I don’t love you.” Mary did not say anything back. She saw now that his eyes were grey. And she was not there. She said nothing about love, asked nothing about it, or how he felt. “You’re lying,” she said.
He said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
What was the difference between someone who lied about love and someone who didn’t love you? Nothing.
That night, Mary packed her bags and left town. No one would know she had been there, that anything had happened to her in that place. But that didn’t matter. She knew what she was for him. A void that would be immense (146).
A Far Distant Thing
Dad always talked about life as if it spilled out all at once and we wouldn’t have time to think or do anything about what was going to happen to us (152).
Picking Worms
She said the time for thinking about looks was after you get educated and work a good job. Then looks, if they’re any good, are worth something to you. But you couldn’t do it the other way around (169).