Behind the Moon
by Hsu-Ming Teo
Summary
Outsiders and misfits in their Australian school, three friends form a mutual bond: Justin Cheong, an only child, and the idol of his Singaporean-Chinese parents; Tien Ho—daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an African-American soldier whom she has never met; Nigel “Gibbo” Gibson, an oddity: an Australian boy who, to his father’s chagrin, dislikes sports.
The three draw apart as they grow up, only to be reunited once more on September 6, 1997, to watch the funeral of Princess Diana on television. This reuniting turns out to be a more explosive event than they would have dreamed possible.
Excerpt
Justin Cheong believed in the truth that was to be found in toilets.
His earliest childhood memory was of going to a public toilet with his mother. Perhaps they were at McDonald’s, or perhaps they were in a food court in some suburban shopping centre where the glare of overhead fluorescent lights glanced off the laminated surfaces of tables and chairs, and the smell of sweet-and-sour Asian takeaway mingled with sizzling onions, chicken tikka and doner kebabs. Above the cacophony of conversations swelling in a maelstrom of noise, Annabelle screeched out, “Jay-Jay! Do you need to shee-shee?”
He shook his head vigorously. His neck swiveled like a periscope as he looked around to see whether anyone had heard Annabelle. Already, he was starting to develop the habit of censoring his mother in his head; eavesdropping on their conversation from an imaginary non-Asian point of view and marking out her oddness.
“You better shee-shee now,” Annabelle insisted. “I’m not going to stop the car afterwards if you need to go.”
The tips of his ears reddened with shame. Annabelle grasped his hand and hauled him off to the ladies’. She locked them both into a cubicle and heaved him up so that he was standing balanced precariously on the rim of the toilet. She pulled down his trousers and held on to his little body with a pincer-like grip so that he wouldn’t slip into the bowl. She flushed the toilet once so that no one would hear the happy tinkle of his urine hitting water.
“Aim properly and don’t make a mess for other people to clean up,” she admonished him.
She tore off a couple of sheets of toilet paper and threw them down the loo. Who knew what had contaminated them? Then she wadded a few more sheets together, grasped the warm dough of his penis with her cold fingers, shook it carefully and patted it dry.
After she’d dressed him, yanking up the metal tip of his trousers with a speed that had him wincing even at that age, she tore off more toilet paper and wiped the rim clean before flushing. They stood there and watched the gush of water and the gurgling swirl of paper sucked down into the S-bend. She could not endure the shame of strangers thinking she had fouled the toilet. She and her husband Tek lived their lives to one mantra: what would people say?
If I ever catch you not washing your hands after going to the toilet, I’m going to twist your ear off,” she told her son as she soaped and scoured their hands under the tap and blasted them under the hot breath of the hand-dryer. He nodded obediently; he was a good boy.
By the time Justin started primary school, he had begun to develop the thigh and calf muscles of a rugby league player from crouching over public toilets.
Reprinted with permission of Soho Press http://www.sohopress.com
Reviews
“Behind the Moon is a satisfying, original and thought-provoking pleasure”--—Good Reading Magazine
“Neatly balanc[es] betrayal and real drama, with farce and macabre, biting humour.... Highly recommended”—Australian Bookseller & Publisher
A beautifully crafted story of immigrant alienation, splintered families and the saving grace of friendship.... Never loses its emotional intimacy"--Kirkus Reviews
Author's Biography
Hus-Ming Teo was born in Malaysia in 1970, grew up in Australia, and currently lives in Sydney. She is a lecturer in history at Macquarie University. Her first novel, Love and Vertigo, won Australia’s prestigious Vogel Literary Award for Best First Novel of 1999.