Seeds of Plenty Read Online Free PDF Page A

businessman. Every year her father swam the Hong Kong Harbor race, gulping the grimy water and sweeping the trophies. After the race, he would throw a huge party at their Hong Kong penthouse overlooking the harbor, serving delicacies like sea cucumber, illegally harvested from the sea. Her father always smelled of cigarettes and chlorine from swimming pools. He had a foul temper and often slapped Sylvia for something as trivial as dropping bits of sticky rice on the floor as they ate dinner. As a child, she had walked on eggshells in his company. She worked hard to please him, to do as he said, or risk the wrath of his erratic temper. Sometimes at night he would fall asleep, sitting up in his bed with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. She feared one day he would burn them all to death. She was glad Winston didn’t chain smoke.
    Sylvia knocked on her neighbor’s door, and the maid let her in. Meghal’s house was identical to Sylvia’s with the same standard-issue Danish furniture, except it was adorned with objects from Meghal’s homeland—Indian silk woven carpets, a tiger’s skin, and paintings of the blue god, Shiva. In contrast, Sylvia had noticed the Europeans filled their houses with souvenirs from their travels throughout Africa—Kenyan soapstone sculptures, Nigerian thorn carvings, and Fulani tapestries.
    Richard’s wife, Elizabeth, waved to Sylvia. Elizabeth was a tall, robust, blonde Englishwoman, raised in Kenya. To her, Africa was home.
    “Do join us, dear,” she said cheerfully, although Sylvia felt it was forced. Elizabeth was simply being kind because their husbands were colleagues.
    Sylvia sat down with the mostly British crowd that surrounded the glass coffee table full of dainty Indian desserts. Not knowing what else to do, she reached out and tried a creamy white square. It was full of cardamom and pistachio nuts, and she liked its vaguely perfumed taste.
    The English women continued to chat.
    “You really should work on your backhand dear,” Elizabeth said.
    “You know who could teach you,” another English woman said.
    “Oh him, he’s too busy being a doctor, saving the poor brown children. I doubt he even notices me,” a young, redhead said.
    “It was just a suggestion. You know, to pass the time.”
    They all giggled like schoolgirls. Sylvia immediately felt left out of the conversation, and no one made any attempt to include her. It reminded her of her British school in Hong Kong. Sylvia had been one of the few Chinese girls at the school, constantly left out of the English girls’ games and chatter. Dressed in the same green uniform as the blonde girls, her black hair stood out. She had hated that school, but her father insisted that all his children should be educated in English, and he refused to send them to the local Chinese school. She knew he had been thinking about their future. She and her siblings went to the UK for university, presumably to a better life. But when she thought about her life so far, she wasn’t sure if that school had been worth it.
    Sylvia glanced over at the small group of Indian women, they were speaking Hindi. Meghal, her host, noticed Sylvia was uncomfortable, and she came over to sit by her.
    “Did you like the sweets?” Meghal said. She was a pretty woman with long, thick eyelashes and a gorgeous blue sari. “Please, take more.”
    Sylvia helped herself to a cake-like ball covered in syrup.
    “My favorite,” Meghal said. “It’s called Gulab Janeem.”
    But then another Indian woman spoke in Hindi, and Meghal went to talk to her.
    The wives on the compound were polite enough, but finding themselves trapped in a backwater West African town, they naturally gravitated to the company of their own kind. Sylvia felt they kept her, the only Chinese wife, at arm’s length.
    ***
     
    The next morning, Sylvia skipped the wives’ coffee. Her driver, Ige, took her to the town market instead. Sylvia preferred the town to the compound, and she used