Niwawa (Clay Baby)

by

Suqi Karen Sims

泥娃娃 泥娃娃        Niwawa, Niwawa,

一個泥娃娃        A clay baby doll:

也有那眉毛 也有那眼睛        It has eyebrows and eyes;

眼睛不會眨        The eyes do not blink.

– Chinese Nursery Song

God is a little girl with mud on her hands. She crafts the soft skull of an infant from the earth, cradles it into a face, thumbs settling into eye sockets, an index finger smoothing the angles of a triangle nose. A stick ascends from the heavens to carve a mouth, to pierce nostrils and pupils. The mud baby is born, the size of two fists. It lies limp in the girl’s hands, the red clay staining her skin. Creation is messy. The girl wipes the mess away on her dress, but the red remains.

The little girl’s mother calls from the house, come in, baby, it’s time for dinner, set the table for your grandparents. The girl drops her clay child, eager to be useful, but something is wrong. The clay baby lets out a sound, a little gasp. A cry so small it could be the wind, so quiet it could be a thought. The girl considers her doll, and it blinks. Just once, but clearly, the stick holes of its eyes, gone—then back again. The girl squints at the clay doll’s face. Did it really? But her mother calls again, hurry up, the rice is getting cold! So the little girl moves her baby beneath a bush, tucks it into a bed of leaves. It’s the least a mother could do.

泥娃娃 泥娃娃        Niwawa, Niwawa,

一個泥娃娃        A clay baby doll:

也有那鼻子 也有那嘴巴        Has a nose and a mouth,

嘴巴不說話        The mouth does not speak.

Her mother calls again, and the little girl runs to the kitchen, grabbing the pot of rice. She likes to bring the rice to the table, because her grandparents will applaud her, tell her how good she is for helping, and although they won’t say it, what a good job her mother has done in raising her. Her mother will smile, and the little girl will feel good. The little girl likes to make her mother happy, even by way of her grandparents. It’s her job to make her mother happy.

But instead, the little girl’s mother slaps her hands away from the rice pot, screaming, what a mess! Don’t touch the food, stupid child! How many times have I told you, don’t play in the mud—you’re going to give us all worms—go wash up before you eat.

The little girl’s eyes are rim-red as her hands. She feels shame hit the bottom of her stomach, where it calcifies into anger. She was only trying to help, and she’d wiped most of the mud off her hands, anyway. She didn’t mean to give anyone worms, she just got excited.

In the bathroom, the little girl fills a plastic basin with soap and water, like her mother taught her, and how her grandmother taught her mother before. Her hands still sting from the slap, but the cool water feels nice. With a washcloth, she scrubs at her skin until the water turns orange and cloudy. It’s no use. Her hands look just as stained as ever. From her fingernails to her elbows, the clay seems to spread. She wishes her mother would come and help, but she doesn’t want to call out, be berated again. Eventually she gives up, throws on a long-sleeved tunic. Her hands must be clean by now, even if they don’t look it. When she finally comes to the table, her skin is raw and dry from scrubbing. She hides her hands beneath the table.

Her mother passes her a bowl of rice, which is no longer hot, and the family eats in silence, which is not unusual. Occasionally, the girl’s grandmother plops something into her bowl—a chopstick full of water spinach, a spoon of tomato egg, a hearty bite of fried fish, little bones sticking up like hairs. Chopsticks hit the bottom of porcelain bowls, and it sounds like a dulled wind chime, as if a dust coating keeps the music from shouting, from speaking out. The girl eats in sporadic bites, keeping her hands out of sight with her napkin.

Mama, the little girl says, breaking the silence, I made a clay baby doll today, and I heard it breathe. But her mother tells her not to be silly, of course a clay baby cannot breathe. The little girl protests, no, Mama, really, the clay baby, it’s real—you can come see it! But the mother tells her to stop lying, that she’s a naughty little ghost, and if she won’t stop this nonsense, she might as well go straight to bed, where Auntie Tiger can take her into the night and eat her in two gulps. The little girl keeps quiet. As she helps clear the table, she slips her napkin into a pocket.

她是個假娃娃        She is a fake baby,

不是個真娃娃        Not a real baby:

她沒有親愛的媽媽        No darling mother,

也沒有爸爸        No father, either.

After dinner, the little girl’s mother does the dishes and her grandparents play weiqi, a strategy game of black and white stones. While they play, the girl pinches two black pieces into her palm, then sneaks outside. She finds her baby under the bush, and even in the evening light, she can see the doll’s chest rise and fall. She scoops the creature into her arms, tells it, it’s okay, Baby, you’re safe now, Mother is here, she’ll take care of you, and I’ve brought you a blanket and a new pair of eyes. The little girl presses the weiqi pieces over the stick holes, and the doll blinks in wonder. Once. Twice. Then open. The girl sees her reflection in the black lacquer of her baby’s new eyes and knows it can see her now. She coos at her darling, Baby, now you can see how much I love you. The little girl pulls the napkin out of her pocket and swaddles her child. Drops of rain begin to kiss her cheeks, and she shields her child’s face from the weather. Holding the clay baby to her chest, she tiptoes back into the house. After all, it is dark, and time for bed.

The little girl’s grandparents have already gone to sleep, their game of weiqi adjourned for the next night. The girl’s mother is sweeping and doesn’t look up, so it’s easy to sneak the clay baby into her bedroom, where she tucks it into her bed. It will sleep curled up next to its mother tonight, safe and sound against a warm sternum while the storm picks up outside. The little girl then goes to brush and braid her hair for sleep, as her mother taught her, and as her grandmother taught her mother. The rain grows furious, and the little girl matches a brushstroke to each angry lash against the window.

But something is wrong. In the mirror, the little girl lets out a gasp. The red clay on her hands is spreading up her arms and onto her face, covering her left cheek. She looks down at her legs, and they, too, are a bright iron oxide. Terrified, she looks to her baby—could her child have done this to her? Could it really? But before she can act, the clay baby starts crying. It’s the mournful, primordial howl of first consciousness. Its screams bounce off the walls and the little girl drops her brush, overcome with a strange instinct. She holds the baby, rocks it gently and strokes its face, saying, hush, now, darling, go back to sleep. The doll’s voice cracks then hiccups to a whimper, but before it fizzles into silence, a word escapes its muddy lips. Mama.

Half a silent second, then the little girl’s mother bursts into the room, yelling with her hands in the air, why are you crying at this time of night, like a moaning ghost, are you some kind of baby? She sees the clay doll in her daughter’s arm, a small, dirty thing. Furious, she snatches the homemade toy, wrapped in one of her good napkins, no less. Ruined. She screams in frustration, what a mess, and look at you, look at your sleeves, your face! You’re filthy! Covered in clay! She slaps the little girl across the face, on the cheek that’s still clean.

The little girl reaches for her baby, but her mother holds it high above her head. No, Mama, don’t! The little girl cries in terror as her mother plucks the weiqi pieces out of the doll’s head like coins from the dirt. She screeches as her mother pulls away the napkin, then throws the creature out the bedroom window, naked, where it hits the wet mud. Its mangled body melts with the rain. Horrified, the little girl falls crumpled to the floor and sobs, her tears orange and murky, gritty against her eyelids. She picks the weiqi pieces off the floor and holds them in her fist.

Fine! Her mother shouts, be a dirty brat for all I care, go ahead and sleep in your dirty bed with your dirty clothes and dirty face, after I spent hours washing those linens! Then she turns, slams the doors, and leaves her baby to cry. If it were another day, the mother might have paused, might have seen the grief in her daughter’s eyes and comforted her. She might have kissed the clay away, no matter how bitter or sandy the taste, then cut up a plate of fruit for her. But today, for whatever reason, she felt hard. Immovable, as if her heart was sealed, painted with an armor of glaze, kiln-fired into stone.

泥娃娃 泥娃娃        Niwawa, Niwawa,

一個泥娃娃        A clay baby doll:

我做她媽媽        I’ll be her mother,

我做她爸爸        I’ll be her father,

永遠愛著她        I’ll love her forever.

The next morning, the mother is overcome with guilt. How could she let her baby sleep covered in clay? Would that really have taught her a lesson? Did she really have to hit her? Destroy her toy? Still, it was something her mother would have done. She thinks about being a better mother, at least today. But then she remembers the clay-stained sheets, the ruined napkin, and her temper flares. Actually, she has no idea what kind of mother she will be today, not until she sees her child. She opens the door to her daughter’s room and peeks at her baby outlined under the blankets. She looks so small from the door frame, like the size of two fists. At the moment, no matter how many ruined linens, how dirty, or how troublesome, the mother wants to hold her baby close, stroke her hair the way her own mother did. She steps gently to the bed and is overcome with a strange instinct. The terror that only love can bring. She pulls the covers back.

Her daughter is not there. Instead, there is a replica, a perfect clay figure of the little girl, curled up in sleep. The details are spectacular, a one-to-one model, not a hair out of line. But it’s unmistakable. This is a clay baby, but not her baby. The doll has her daughter’s eyes and eyebrows, but the eyes do not blink. It has her daughter’s nose and mouth, but the mouth does not speak. From the delicate eyelashes to the lines on its soles, this terracotta child is made of cool, lifeless clay. It will not move or breathe. It has been abandoned by its maker, left to dry and harden, a sleeping smile etched on its frozen face. Shaking, the mother brushes her hand against the doll’s cheek, where that same hand had landed in a slap the night before. What had been soft skin was now hard as tile, pulling moisture from the mother’s fingertips. The mother screams for the grandmother, who freezes in her search for two missing weiqi tiles.

Outside, a wind chime dances to the breeze. The morning after a storm has its song to sing. Its call is as clear as a newborn’s laugh, but quiet, like a silenced thought. Its lullaby is one of longing, for a gentle touch and a soft word, cooing, please mother, come and hold me, stroke my face and rock me to sleep. Its lyrics promise to do better, to love the unlovable, the dirty, the naughty little ghosts. The chimes ring and spin and ring again, the sounds of a promise, not breaking, but unraveling, like chopsticks on porcelain bowls.

Author: Suqi Karen Sims was born and raised in Taichung, Taiwan. Her work has been published in MSU Roadrunner Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, CALYX Journal, and others. She has won the Steven R. Guthrie Memorial Writers’ Festival Contest and the Margarita Donnelly Prose Prize and is a PhD candidate at Georgia State University.

Judge: Kellie Wells is the author of four books, God, the Moon, and Other Megafauna, winner of the Sullivan Prize for Fiction; Compression Scars, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Prize; and two novels: Skin and Fat Girl, Terrestrial. Her story “My Dog Lenny Bruce” won the 2022 Kurt Vonnegut Prize in Speculative Literature. She teaches in the graduate writing programs at the University of Alabama and Pacific University.