Three souls, p.26
Three Souls, page 26
My hun soul gestures upward. Your child was blameless. His souls went immediately into the afterlife. Perhaps he’s been reincarnated already.
Those tiny feet. The sweet scent of clean baby skin. Gone. I would never know them. I feel the sensation of tears but when my fingers brush my face, there is nothing.
All my memories are back and I still don’t understand. How is Hanchin the reason I’m trapped on this earth?
Isn’t it obvious? Hanchin died because you betrayed him, my yang soul says, and there is a sharp taste of tamarind on the tip of my tongue. You told Tongyin how to track him down. You must make amends for his death before we can ascend to the afterlife.
But Tongyin also betrayed him. Doesn’t he share the guilt?
Tongyin will atone for his sins when it’s his time. Right now it’s yours. My hun soul pats me on the arm but I move away, my mind still rippling.
But how am I supposed to make amends?
There is silence.
We don’t know, my yin soul admits. Her young face is anxious and there is an odour of mildew and old books. It’s up to you to find out. We’re all counting on you, Leiyin.
19
I’m not a ghost, at least not the sort people notice. I call out greetings when Dali sweeps the temple floors each morning, but she just continues with her broom, paying more attention to cobwebs than she does to me. I can find no way to reveal my presence: not through the creaking of ancient door hinges, not in cold breezes that raise goosebumps on her arm and lift the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.
How can I atone for Hanchin’s death when I can’t even make myself heard, or seen, or felt? When I don’t even know what the gods consider proper penance?
When I was alive, I had been slightly nearsighted. Now when I gaze at the ginkgo tree, its leaves are sharp outlines against the sky. Each feather on a flycatcher’s wing glistens blue as it skims past. Even from inside the temple I can hear the daily rituals of town life: washerwomen scrubbing clothes on the banks of the canal, water lapping as flat-bottomed boats are poled on their way along the banks, cries of greeting and gossip. And the scents. The fragrance of early-blooming clematis in the next courtyard fills my nostrils as though I’m standing beneath its rustling vines. The smell of garlic wafting over from the kitchen is so strong I can taste it.
I worry about Weilan. She sits by herself in what was my library, copying characters into her exercise book: Mother. Mother. Mother. Over and over. And in the margins: Please come back. She is like a small ghost herself, silent and pale. She hardly eats. At night, Jia Po lets Weilan sleep in her room. She comforts my daughter whenever she wakes up crying in the big bed.
“Mama, I want Mama!”
“Po Po is here, my precious, Po Po is here.”
“No, no! I want my Mama!”
I can’t bear to be in the room when Weilan cries. She’s so unhappy and I’m so helpless. But even if I hide myself in the farthest corners of the estate, I can still hear her heart-rending wails.
***
Weeks go by and there comes a morning that begins with weeping and harsh words, a quarrel between my in-laws. Curiosity pulls me away from the temple and to the main house, where Mrs. Kwan dawdles by the door and Dali is sweeping steps that are already clean. Old Kwan and Old Ming loiter in the main courtyard, within earshot of the house.
“It’s your fault she’s dead, our daughter-in-law, and the grandson she was carrying!”
“Be reasonable, Wife.” I can tell Gong Gong is nonplussed, and so am I. Jia Po has never raised her voice to him.
“I’ve been reasonable for thirty years! I’ve been reasonable while you frittered away my dowry on monuments to your dead ancestors. Reasonable when you couldn’t spare a thought for the living!”
“It was an accident—” he protests.
“It was your negligence! That railing broke because it should have been replaced ten years ago, no, twenty years ago! Instead you wasted a fortune on books and snuff bottles, on useless, useless things!”
More shouting, and a door slams. Heavy footsteps sound on the staircase, and the servants scatter as Gong Gong storms out the door, Baizhen at his heels. My husband looks embarrassed more than anxious.
“Son, pack me a suitcase and send it to the Eight Willows Guest House. Ming! Old Ming! Call me a rickshaw! At once!”
***
“Wah, wah, I’ve never heard the Mistress shout at the Master.” The day after the excitement, Old Ming is comparing notes with Mrs. Kwan and Dali. “No wonder he refuses to come home, he’s never been treated this way before.”
“You say the Master’s hired your son to fix up the cottage on Infant Mountain?” Dali asks. “If the Master moves to the cottage, will they divorce?”
Mrs. Kwan says in disdain, “They’re not Shanghai society, Dali. They’re too old for such nonsense. When will the Master move into the cottage, Ming?”
“In a few weeks, as soon as it’s ready,” says Old Ming, stroking his goatee. “My sixth grandson has agreed to live there with the Master, to do his cooking and housekeeping.”
“Hmmm.” Mrs. Kwan sounds doubtful. “Tell your sixth grandson to stop by whenever he’s in town. Old Kwan will cook up a few of the Master’s favourites for him.”
Dali picks up her basket and sets out for the market, ready to share her new stock of gossip. In a few hours all Pinghu will know that the patriarch of the Lee family has fallen out with his wife and moved out of the family home.
While Old Ming’s son works on the cottage, Gong Gong shuttles between the Eight Willows Guest House and our home on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s to fetch an extra pair of trousers, or because he has letters to write. Sometimes he slips a few of his antique books in a satchel to take away. When he passes Jia Po in the courtyard, he speaks to her courteously, hope barely disguised on his face. But she remains cold to him. She spends her days in her room and emerges one afternoon with a stack of letters for Old Ming to post. They’re addressed to members of her family in far-off Hunan.
Baizhen pleads with his mother to reconcile with Gong Gong.
“It looks bad for the family if you and Father live apart. What will people think?”
“Let your father worry about what people think. He cares more about keeping up appearances than our family’s welfare.” Her words are tinged with bitterness.
“Mother, you can’t blame him for everything,” Baizhen says, trying to reason with her.
“He thinks only of himself!” she snaps. “Do you know what it’s costing to fix up that cottage? We can barely feed ourselves and now we have to maintain two households.”
“Father said he’s sold more of his books.”
“He spent a fortune on those books! But not on your education, so that you could earn a living. He should have found you a better tutor, sent you to boarding school. Look how quickly you learned to read and write after Leiyin arrived.” She bursts into tears. “My beautiful, clever daughter-in-law. My grandson!”
“Ma, please, Weilan will hear us.”
Baizhen cries every night too. I wish he loved me less.
***
Do I need to atone for being unfaithful to my husband?
I don’t think so, my yin soul says, pushing back her bangs. Baizhen never knew about your affair. There was no actual harm to his life from that.
Oh, what’s the use in speculating on how I can do penance? I kick at a pebble, but it doesn’t move. I thought ghosts had powers. I can’t haunt the living, let alone find out how to atone for Hanchin’s death. Can’t you tell me what to do?
We would, but we don’t know, says my yang soul. We truly don’t. And it’s extremely important for all of us that you find a way to ascend to the afterlife. He sounds glum, and a peppery tang lingers on my tongue.
Test the limits of your existence, my hun soul advises. Explore. There is a way, we do know that much. Perhaps more than one way.
Don’t forget your father, my yang soul reminds me. You wanted to get to the afterlife to apologize to him.
Yes, but what if I don’t want to ascend to the afterlife? I know I sound childish and petulant. If I stay here, I can watch over Weilan.
There is a collective intake of breath, if such a thing is possible from souls.
There will be times when reincarnation seems less important than staying on this earth, my hun soul says, its words careful and deliberate. But as the weeks and months go by, you’ll feel the pull of that golden light and you’ll find that it grows stronger, more insistent.
If you don’t find a way to ascend, says my yin soul, her girlish voice edged with panic, you’ll feel as though you’re being pulled apart.
Pulled toward the portal, but weighted down to this earth, says my yang soul. We’ll feel it too. We’ll begin to fade. And then you’ll become a hungry ghost. Insane. Doomed to roam this earth without the comfort of your souls.
His words reverberate in my head like a gong, shattering and painful. I retreat into the temple and refuse to speak. I shut out the world. It’s too much.
***
Several few weeks after Gong Gong’s stormy departure from the estate, Baizhen makes an early morning visit to the shrine. Today his clumsy hands are even less certain than usual. They flutter and fuss over a plate of steamed buns, a tidy pyramid of preserved kumquats arranged next to them. It is all on one of my Limoges platters. He lights twice the normal number of incense sticks. He weeps as I haven’t seen him weep since the first days after my funeral, then he stands up and wipes his eyes. When he pushes the temple door open, he draws a deep breath, then squares his shoulders to step outside.
The incense has just burned down when Gong Gong and Jia Po arrive together, carrying more food and incense. Are they reconciled?
Jia Po sweeps the fine ash off the altar with a hand broom while Gong Gong gets out a feather duster and flicks it over the carved wooden tablets. They bow before the ancestral portraits on the wall. Then they stand before my name tablet, light fresh incense sticks, and bow deeply. Three times.
How can they not hear my shocked gasp? They’re my elders. They’re not supposed to be venerating me. Why do they feel the need to placate the spirit of a daughter-in-law, one who didn’t even give them a grandson?
“Daughter-in-Law, our son’s first wife, give us your understanding and blessings,” Jia Po murmurs. “Forgive us, we couldn’t wait. It’s for the good of the family.”
Wait for what? I must find out.
I follow them outside into the pale sunshine of early spring. The flowering plums are just showing their buds and they fill the courtyard with the thinnest haze of green and white.
“How many for dinner tonight?” Gong Gong asks, his breath visible in the cold air.
“Thirty-six, including children,” Jia Po replies in a neutral tone. “Just family and our closest friends.”
He looks at her wistfully. “Do you remember when Baizhen was born? We had a feast for two hundred in the large hall and gave gifts of tea and silk to everyone.”
“I must go see Old Kwan.” Jia Po’s voice is curt. Not reconciled then.
***
I’ve been dead for two months and now it seems there’s some cause for celebration. I follow my mother-in-law through the courtyards and the reception hall. Only a few months ago I had been the one making the rounds, helping to manage the household, going through the accounts, deciding how to economize on food and clothing.
The reception hall is decorated with branches of flowering plum, arranged in tall celadon vases on rosewood stands. It strikes me as a nice way to bring some freshness inside, but I pause when I realize the exquisite paintings that once graced the niches where the vases sit are gone. The fresh-cut blossoms are there to fill the gaps.
The doorways of the large dining hall are swathed in red fabric. Red-and-gold lanterns hang from ceiling beams, red draperies wrap the wooden pillars. Everywhere, red.
Red is for weddings.
Another wife, another dowry. Another chance for an heir.
There’s no other explanation for Baizhen’s tears or my in-laws’ behaviour. He’s getting remarried before the customary one hundred days of mourning are complete. For a good dowry, they’re willing to risk my wrath and the wrath of their ancestors.
And why not? There’s not much risk in angering me now. I’m as dead as any of their ancestors and I lack the power to damn or bless anyone. Only the living can inflict suffering on each other, I’ve learned.
My daughter will have a stepmother. I suppress a pang of fear.
I hurry after Jia Po and find her in the kitchen giving instructions to Old Kwan and Mrs. Kwan.
“When you serve the chicken and duck, cut them into small pieces that are easy to pick up,” Jia Po says. “And slice the ham very thin, we must have enough for three platters.”
She walks out of the kitchen, her back straight.
“One hundred days of mourning less forty.” Mrs. Kwan counts out loud. “I wonder how much they had to give the fortune teller to tell them this was the most auspicious date for a wedding, mourning or not.”
“Probably less than they gave to the Temple of Soul’s Enlightenment to hurry along the Young Mistress’s reincarnation.” Old Kwan snorts. “Those priests will promise anything for a fat donation, you know, but if it makes the Master and Mistress feel better about cutting short the mourning period, why not.”
Whatever they paid the priests to do, it hasn’t worked. I’m still here, not yet even in the true afterlife, and nowhere close to reincarnation.
In what was my house, Gong Gong and Jia Po are gathered in Baizhen’s room. He stands before the wardrobe mirror, buttoning a fur-lined vest over a gown of black silk brocade. His cloth shoes are new, his black silk cap topped with a jade bead. I’ve never seen these clothes before. The sleeves hang nearly to his knuckles, so I guess they are from Gong Gong’s wardrobe. After Baizhen finishes with his vest, Jia Po adjusts his round cap. He sits down on a chair and grips the ends of the armrests. He stares straight ahead, avoiding his parents’ eyes. No one speaks.
Dali comes in, holding Weilan by the hand. My daughter is wearing pink, a flowered tunic and matching trousers, pink ribbons tied to her pigtails. I remember buying the fabric. Jia Po must have sewn the clothes for her.
Weilan runs straight to Baizhen, who lifts her onto his lap. She buries her face in his chest and begins to cry, her silent tears absorbed by the black silk. Jia Po opens her mouth to protest, then stops.
I watch from the veranda as my in-laws leave through the courtyard. At the moon gate, Jia Po pauses to look back at Gong Gong, her voice cold once more.
“My brother has found a family willing to marry their daughter to our unlucky son. This dowry will get us through the next ten years if we’re careful. If you squander it, we’ll have to sell off this estate. Our son and grandchildren will end up living in the servants’ quarters, if not on the streets.”
“You didn’t need to remind me again, Wife,” Gong Gong says peevishly. “We will buy only necessities from now on. But don’t forget we still have an income from Old Fong.” This was the tenant farmer.
“That income is so insignificant we may as well sell the land—if anyone wants to buy that rocky plot of dirt.”
“Old Fong and his family have worked that farm for generations,” my father-in-law says. “I’m responsible for them. What would they do?”
“They’d find another farm. You just don’t want to sell it because then you won’t be able to call yourself a landowner anymore. What vanity.”
No, it doesn’t appear as though they’ve reconciled.
***
The bride is the eldest daughter of a family that owns a distillery. She’s young, of course, and as short and squat as a jar of cooking wine. The family is from Haiyang, a seaside town south of Pinghu, not too far away. They’re in awe of the Lee family’s lineage, impressed by their supposed connections in Shanghai, and eager to please Jia Po’s oldest brother, a long-time customer who has recently invested in their distillery.
Her name is Meichiu. Autumn Beauty. It’s an unfortunate name, because it draws attention to attributes she will never possess. Beneath her red veil, I see a moon face and heavy brows. My daughter will address this woman as Stepmother, and my in-laws will treat her with as much respect as her dowry and a potential future inheritance command.
Meichiu’s father brings all his children and both his wives to the wedding. The bride’s two brothers and four sisters resemble their father, square and solid. While Meichiu’s mother fusses over her in a dressing room, her siblings swarm through the estate, marvelling at the mansion’s fine architectural details, the rocks in the garden, the courtyard walls, and the graceful moon gates. They’re cheerful and uncritical, boisterous as schoolchildren. A flock of relatives follows behind them, uncles and aunts, cousins, and a deaf grandmother. They flit through the courtyards like brightly coloured parrots, filling the air with cries of discovery.
“Look at this wonderful rock shaped like a bear!”
“Read the name on this pavilion: Reflections of the New Moon. How beautiful!”
“Oh, look, this must be the house where Meichiu will live, two levels with verandas. Don’t you wish we had verandas?”
My family hadn’t behaved like this during my wedding. Meichiu’s family is exuberant and joyous, completely unselfconscious.
During the banquet, one of Meichiu’s uncles indulges too liberally in the family product and explains that the bride’s childhood nickname had been Shao Chiu, Little Autumn.
“But it also sounds like Little Ball,” he slurs, “so this was what we called her because she was a little ball of a child. A round head on top of a chubby round body.”
I feel sorry for Meichiu. Her family’s laughter is affectionate, but I see embarrassment radiating from her, her cheeks nearly as red as the veil over her face.
