The Hundred Secret Senses (30 page)
“What’s that?”
“Herb.” She switches to English. “From special tree, new leaf only, very sticky. I make for Miss Banner myself. Good for drinking, also just for smelling. Loosen you mind. Make you feel peace. Maybe give me memory back.”
“Is this from the holy tree?”
“Ah! You remember!”
“No. I remember the story you told.” My hands are shaking. I have a terrible craving for a cigarette. What the hell is going on? Maybe I have become as crazy as Kwan. Maybe the water in Changmian is contaminated with a hallucinogen. Or maybe I’ve been bitten by a Chinese mosquito that infects the brain with insanity. Maybe Simon isn’t missing. And I don’t have things in my lap that belong to a woman from a childhood dream.
The mist and sharp scent of the tea waft upward. I hover over the cup, the steam dampening my face, close my eyes, and inhale the fragrance. It has a calming effect. Maybe I am actually asleep. This is a dream. And if it is, I can pull myself out. . . .
“Libby-ah, look.”
Kwan gives me a hand-stitched book. The cover is made of soft, floppy suede, sepia-colored.
OUR SUSTENANCE
, it says in embossed gothic lettering. Traces of gold flake rim the bottoms of the letters. As I turn the cover, bits of endpaper crumble off and I see from the exposed leather underneath that the now faded covers were once a somber purple, a color that reminds me of a Bible picture from childhood: a wild-looking Moses, standing on a boulder against a purple sky, breaking the tablets in front of a crowd of turban-headed heathens.
I open the book. On the left side of one page is a message typeset in cramped, uneven lines: “Trust in the Lord delivers us from temptations of the Devil. If you are overflowing with the Spirit, you cannot be fuller.” On the opposite page are the typeset words “The Amen Corner.” And beneath that, in a scrawl full of ink smears and sputters, is a quirky list: “Rancid beans, putrid radishes, opium leaf, pigweed, shepherd’s purse, artemisia, foul cabbage, dried seeds, stringy pods, and woody bamboo. Much served cold or adrift in a grim sea of castor oil. God have mercy.” The pages that follow contain similar juxtapositions, Christian inspiration related to thirst and salvation, hunger and fulfillment, answered by an Amen Corner listing foods that the owner of this journal obviously found offensive yet useful for heretic humor. Simon would love seeing this. He can use it in our article.
“Listen.” I read aloud to Kwan: “ ‘Canine cutlets, bird fricassee, stewed holothuria, worms, and snakes. A feast for honourable guests. In the future, I shall strive to be less than honourable!’ ” I put the journal down. “I wonder what holothuria is.”
“Nelly.”
I look up. “Holothuria means Nelly?”
She laughs, spanks my hand lightly. “No-no-no! Miss Banner, her first name Nelly. But I always call her Miss Banner. That’s why almost don’t remember whole name. Ha. What bad memory! Nelly Banner.” She chuckles to herself.
I grip the journal. My ears are ringing. “When did you know Miss Banner?”
Kwan shakes her head. “Exact date, let me see—”
“Yi ba liu si.”
I recall the Chinese words from one of Kwan’s bedtime stories. “Lose hope, slide into death. One eight six four.”
“Yes-yes. You good memory. Same time Heavenly King lose Great Peace Revolution.”
The Heavenly King. I remember that part as well. Was there actually someone called the Heavenly King? I wish I knew more about Chinese history. I rub my palm on the soft cover of the journal. Why can’t they make books like this today?—books that feel warm and friendly in your hands. I turn to another page and read the entry: “ ‘Biting off the heads of lucifer matches (agonizing). Swallowing gold leaf (extravagant). Swallowing chloride of magnesium (foul). Eating opium (painless). Drinking unboiled water (my suggestion). Further to the topic of suicide, Miss Moo informed me that it is strictly forbidden among Taiping followers, unless they are sacrificing themselves in the battle for God.’ ”
Taiping. Tai
means “great.”
Ping
means “peace.”
Taiping,
Great Peace. That took place—when?—sometime in the mid–nineteenth century. My mind is being pulled and I’m resisting, but barely hanging on. In the past, I’ve always maintained enough skepticism to use as an antidote to Kwan’s stories when necessary. But now I’m staring at sepia ink on yellowed paper, a tarnished locket, the bunched glove, the cramped letters:
OUR SUSTENANCE
. I’m listening to the music, its lively, old-fashioned melody. I examine the box to see if there is any indication of a date. And then I remember the journal. On the back of the title page, there it is: Glad Tidings Publishers, MDCCCLIX. In Latin, damn it! I corral the letters into numbers: 1859. I flip open the Bayard Taylor book: G. P. Putnam, 1855. So what do these dates prove? That doesn’t mean Kwan knew someone named Miss Banner during the Taiping Rebellion. It’s just coincidence, the story, the box, the dates on the book.
But in spite of all my logic and doubt, I can’t dismiss something larger I know about Kwan: that it isn’t in her nature to lie. Whatever she says, she believes is true. Like what she said about Simon, that she hadn’t seen him as a ghost, which means he’s alive. I believe her. I have to. Then again, if I believe what she says, does that mean I now believe she has yin eyes? Do I believe that she talks to Big Ma, that there actually is a cave with a Stone Age village inside? That Miss Banner, General Cape, and One-half Johnson were real people? That she was Nunumu? And if that’s all true, the stories she told throughout these years . . . well, she must have told me for a reason.
I know the reason. I’ve known since I was a child, really I have. Long ago I buried that reason in a safe place, just as she had done with her music box. Out of guilt, I listened to her stories, all the while holding on to my doubts, my sanity. Time after time, I refused to give her what she wanted most. She’d say, “Libby-ah, you remember?” And I’d always shake my head, knowing she hoped I would say, “Yes, Kwan, of course I remember. I was Miss Banner. . . .”
“Libby-ah,” I hear Kwan say now, “what you thinking?”
My lips are numb. “Oh. You know. Simon. I keep thinking, and everything I think about gets worse and worse.”
She scoots over so that we are sitting side by side. She massages my cold fingers, and instant warmth flows through my veins.
“How ’bout we talk? Nothing to talk about, that’s what we talk. Okay? Talk movie we seen. Talk book you reading. Or talk weather— no-no, not this, then you worry again. Okay, talk political things, what I vote, what you vote, maybe argue. Then you don’t think too much.”
I’m confused. I return a half-smile.
“Ah! Okay. Don’t talk. I talk. Yes, you just listen. Let see, what I talk about? . . . Ah! I know. I tell you story of Miss Banner, how she decide give me music box.”
I catch my breath. “Okay. Sure.”
Kwan switches to Chinese: “I have to tell you this story in Mandarin. It’s easier for me to remember that way. Because when this happened, I couldn’t speak any English. Of course, I didn’t speak Mandarin then, only Hakka, and a little bit of Cantonese. But Mandarin lets me think like a Chinese person. Of course, if you don’t understand a word here and there, you ask me, I’ll try to think of the English word. Let me see, where should I start? . . .
“Ah, well, you already know this about Miss Banner, how she was not like other foreigners I knew. She could open her mind to different opinions. But I think sometimes this made her confused. Maybe you know how that is. You believe one thing. The next day, you believe the opposite. You argue with other people, then you argue with yourself. Libby-ah, do you ever do that?”
Kwan stops and searches my eyes for an answer. I shrug and this satisfies her. “Maybe too many opinions is an American custom. I think Chinese people don’t like to have different opinions at the same time. We believe one thing, we stick to it for one hundred years, five hundred years. Less confusion that way. Of course, I’m not saying Chinese people never change their minds, not so. We can change if there’s a good reason. I’m just saying we don’t change back and forth, right and left, whenever we like, just to be interesting. Actually, maybe today, Chinese people are changing too much, whichever way the money is blowing, that’s the direction they’ll chase.”
She nudges me. “Libby-ah, don’t you think that’s true? In China today people grow more capitalist ideas than pigs. They don’t remember when capitalism was the number-one enemy. Short memory, big profits.”
I respond with a polite laugh.
“Americans have short memories too, I think. No respect for history, only what’s popular. But Miss Banner, she had a good memory, very unusual. That’s why she learned to speak our language so quickly. She could hear something just once, then repeat it the next day. Libby-ah, you have a memory like this—don’t you?—only it’s with your eyes not your ears. What do you call this kind of memory in English? . . . Libby-ah, are you asleep? Did you hear what I asked?”
“Photographic memory,” I answer. She’s pressing all the buttons now. She’s not going to let me hide this time.
“Photographic, yes. Miss Banner didn’t have a camera, so she was not photographic, but she did have the memory part. She always could remember what people said, just like a tape recorder. Sometimes this was good, sometimes bad. She could remember what people said at dinnertime, how they said something completely different the next week. She remembered things that bothered her, could not let them out of her mind. She remembered what people prayed for, what they got instead. Also, she was very good at remembering promises. If you made her a promise, oh, she would never let you forget. This was like her memory specialty. And she also remembered promises she made to other people. To some people, making a promise is not the same thing as doing the promise. Not Miss Banner. To her a promise was forever, not just one lifetime. Like the vow she made to me, after she gave me the music box, when death marched toward us. . . . Libby-ah, where you going?”
“Fresh air.” I walk to the archway, trying to push out of my mind what Kwan is telling me. My hands are trembling, and I know it isn’t because of the cold. This is the promise Kwan always talked about, the one I never wanted to hear, because I was afraid. Of all times, why does she have to tell me this now? . . .
And then I think: What am I afraid of? That I might believe the story is true—that I made a promise and kept it, that life repeats itself, that our hopes endure, that we get another chance? What’s so terrible about that?
I survey the night sky, now clear of rain clouds. I remember another night long ago with Simon, when I said something stupid about the night sky, how the stars were the same that the first lovers on earth had seen. I had been hoping with all my soul that someday he would love me above all others, above all else. But it was for just a brief moment, because my hope felt too vast, like the heavens, and it was easier to be afraid and keep myself from flying out there. Now I’m looking at the heavens again. This is the same sky that Simon is now seeing, that we have seen all our lives, together and apart. The same sky that Kwan sees, that all her ghosts saw, Miss Banner. Only now I no longer feel it is a vacuum for hopes or a backdrop for fears. I see what is so simple, so obvious. It holds up the stars, the planets, the moons, all of life, for eternity. I can always find it, it will always find me. It is continuous, light within dark, dark within light. It promises nothing but to be constant and mysterious, frightening and miraculous. And if only I can remember to look at the sky and wonder about this, I can use this as my compass. I can find my way through chaos no matter what happens. I can hope with all my soul, and the sky will always be there, to pull me up. . . .
“Libby-ah, you thinking too much again? Should I talk more?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
I keep my back to her, still searching the sky, finding my way from star to star. Their shimmer and glow have traveled a million light-years. And what I now see is a distant memory, yet as vibrant as life can ever be.
“You and Miss Banner. Did you ever look at the sky together on a night like this?”
“Oh yes, many times.” Kwan stands up and walks over to me. “Back then, we had no TV of course, so at night the only thing to do was watch the stars.”
“What I mean is, did you and Miss Banner ever have a night like this, when you were both scared and you didn’t have any idea what would happen?”
“Ah . . . yes, this is true. She was scared to die, scared also because she had lost someone, a man she loved.”
“Yiban.”
Kwan nods. “I was scared too. . . .” She pauses before saying in a hoarse whisper: “I was the reason he wasn’t there.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“What happened was—ah, maybe you don’t want to know.”
“Is it . . . is it sad?”
“Sad, yes, happy too. Depends on how you remember.”
“Then I want to remember.”
Kwan’s eyes are wet. “Oh, Libby-ah, I knew someday you would remember with me. I always wanted to show you I really was your loyal friend.” She turns away, gathers herself, then squeezes my hand and smiles. “Okay, okay. Now this is a secret. Don’t tell anyone. Promise, Libby-ah. . . . Ah yes, I remember the sky was dark, hiding us. Between those two mountains over there, it was growing brighter and brighter. A big orange fire was burning. . . .”
And I listen, no longer afraid of Kwan’s secrets. She’s offered me her hand. I’m taking it freely. Together we’re flying to the World of Yin.
E
arlier I was with Yiban, in the cave—the one with the glowing lake, a stone village by its shore. And when I was there, Libby-ah, I did a terrible thing, that led to another. I made my last day on earth a day of lies.
First, I broke my promise to Miss Banner. I did so to be kind. I told Yiban the truth: “Miss Banner was pretending with Cape. She wanted to protect you, make sure you were safe. And see, now here you are.”
You should have seen his face! Relief, joy, rage, then alarm—like the turning of leaves, all the seasons happening at once. “What good is it to have me alive when she’s not with me?” he cried. “I’ll kill that bastard Cape.” He jumped up.
“Wah! Where are you going?”
“To find her, bring her here.”
“No, no, you must not.” And then I told my first lie of the day: “She knows how to come here. She and I have been here many times.” Inside, I was worried about Miss Banner, because of course this was not true. So then I told my second lie. I excused myself, saying I needed a girl’s privacy, meaning I had to find a dark place to pee. I picked up the lantern, because I knew that if I took this, Yiban would not be able to find his way out of the cave. And then I hurried through the twists and turns of the tunnel, vowing I would bring Miss Banner back.
As I climbed out of the mountain’s womb, I felt I was being born into the world again. It was day, but the sky was white not blue, drained of color. Around the sun was a ring of many pale colors. Had the world already changed? What lay beyond these mountains—life or death?
When I reached the archway just above Changmian, I saw the village was there, the crowded marketplace, everything looking the same as before. Alive! Everyone was alive! This gave me hope about Miss Banner, and I cried. As I hurried down the path, I bumped into a man leading his buffalo ox. I stopped him, told him the news, and asked him to warn his family and others: “Remove all signs of ‘The Good News,’ God, and Jesus. Speak quietly and do not cause alarm. Otherwise the soldiers will see what we are doing. Then disaster will visit today instead of tomorrow.”
I ran toward other people and said the same thing. I banged on the gate to the roundhouses where Hakkas lived, ten families under one roof. I went quickly from household to household. Hah! I thought I was so clever, warning the village in such a calm and orderly way. But then I heard a man shouting, “Death is coming for you, you shit-eating worm!” And his neighbor cried back, “Accuse me, will you? I’ll tell the Manchus you’re bastard brother to the Heavenly King.”
At that instant
—ki-kak!—
we all heard it, like the cracking of dry wood. Everyone fell quiet. Then came another crack, this one like the splitting of a tall tree at its thick trunk. Nearby, a man howled, “Guns! The soldiers are already here!” And in an instant people began spilling out of their houses, grabbing on to the sleeves of those fleeing down the street.
“Who’s coming?”
“What! A death warrant for all Hakkas?”
“Go! Go! Find your brothers. We’re running away!”
The warnings turned into shouts, the shouts into screams, and above that, I could hear the high-pitched wails of mothers calling for their children. I stood in the middle of the lane, bumped by people running this way and that. Look what I had done! Now the entire village would be killed with a single volley of gunfire. People were climbing into the mountains, spreading across like stars in the sky.
I raced down the lane, toward the Ghost Merchant’s House. Then came another gunshot, and I knew it had come from within those walls. When I reached the back alleyway gate, there was another explosion, this one echoing through the lanes. I darted inside the back courtyard, then stood still. I was breathing and listening, then listening to my breathing. I scampered to the kitchen, pressed my ear against the door that led into the dining room. No sounds. I pushed the door open, ran to the window facing the courtyard. From there I could see the soldiers by the gate. What luck!—they were sleeping. But then I looked again. One soldier’s arm was twisted, the other’s leg was bent. Ai! They were dead! Who did this? Had they angered Cape? Was he now killing everybody? And where was Miss Banner?
When I turned down the corridor toward her room, I saw a man’s naked body, smashed facedown on the ground. Flies were feasting in the fresh gourd of his brains. Ai-ya! Who was this unlucky person? Dr. Too Late? Pastor Amen? I crept past the body, as if he might awake. A few steps later, I saw last night’s dinner, the shank bone now brown with hair and blood. General Cape must have done this. Who else had he killed? Before I could wonder too much longer, I heard sounds coming from God’s House. The music box was playing, and Pastor was singing, as if this Seventh Day were like any other. As I hurried across the courtyard toward God’s House, Pastor’s singing turned to sobs, then the bellow of an animal. And above this, I heard Miss Banner— still alive!—scolding as if she were talking to a naughty child. But a moment later, she began to wail, “No, no, no, no!” before a big explosion cut her off. I raced into the room, and what I saw made my body turn to stone, then sand. By the altar, lying bent and crooked—Miss Banner in her yellow dress, the Jesus Worshippers in shiny Sunday black—like a butterfly and four beetles squashed dead on the stone floor. Wah! Gone so fast—I could still hear their cries echoing in the room. I listened more carefully. These were not echoes but— “Miss Banner?” I called. She lifted her head. Her hair was unbound, her mouth a silent dark hole. Blood was spattered on her bosom. Ai, maybe she really was dead.
“Miss Banner, are you a ghost?”
She moaned like one, then shook her head. She held out her arm. “Come help me, Miss Moo. My leg is broken.”
As I walked toward the altar, I thought the other foreigners would rise too. But they remained still, holding hands, forever sleeping in pools of bright blood. I squatted beside her. “Miss Banner,” I whispered, searching the corners of the room. “Where is Cape?”
“Dead,” she answered.
“Dead! Then who killed—”
“I can’t bear to talk about that now.” Her voice was shaky, nervous, which of course made me wonder if she— But no, I couldn’t imagine Miss Banner killing anyone. And then I heard her ask with a scared face: “Tell me, quick. Yiban—where is Yiban?”
When I said he was safe in a cave, her face sagged with relief. She sobbed, unable to stop. I tried to soothe her. “Soon you’ll be reunited with him. The cave is not so far away.”
“I can’t walk even one step. My leg.” She lifted her skirt, and I saw her right leg was swollen, a piece of bone sticking out. Now I told my third lie: “This is not so bad. Where I grew up, a person with a leg like this could still walk all over the mountain, no problem. Of course, being a foreigner, you are not as strong. But as soon as I find a way to bind your leg, we’ll escape from here.”
She smiled, and I was grateful to know that a person in love will believe anything as long as it gives hope. “Wait here,” I said. I ran to her room and searched through the drawer containing her private ladies’ things. I found the stiff garment she used for pinching in her waist and pushing up her bosom, also her stockings with the holes at the heels. I ran back and used these clothes to splint her leg. And when I was done, I helped her stand and limp to the bench at the back of God’s House. Only then, away from those who were alive just a short while before, was she able to say how and why each person was killed.
She began by telling me what happened after Lao Lu lost his head and I fell senseless to the ground. The Jesus Worshippers, she said, joined hands and sang the music box song: “When Death turns the corner, our Lord we shall meet.”
“Stop singing!” Cape then ordered. And Miss Mouse—you know how she was always so nervous—she shouted at Cape, “I don’t fear you or death, only God. Because when I die, I’m going to heaven like this poor man you killed. And you, bastard of the devil, you’ll roast in hell.” Yes! Can you imagine Miss Mouse saying that? If I had been there, I would have cheered.
But her words did not frighten Cape. “Roast?” he said. “I’ll show you what the devil likes to roast.” He called his soldiers: “Cut off this dead man’s leg and cook it over a fire.” The soldiers laughed, thinking this was a joke. Cape barked out the order again, and the soldiers leapt forward to obey. The foreigners cried and tried to leave. How could they watch such an evil sight? Cape growled that if they didn’t watch and laugh, each of their right hands would be next to go over the fire. So the foreigners stayed and watched. They laughed and vomited at the same time. Everyone was scared to death of Cape, everyone except Lao Lu, since he was already dead. And when he saw his leg turning on a spit— well, how much can a ghost stand before he turns to revenge?
Early in the morning, before the sun came up, Miss Banner heard a knock on her door. She rose and left Cape sleeping soundly in her bed. From outside, she heard an angry voice. It sounded familiar yet not. It was a man, shouting in the Cantonese of rough workingmen. “General Fake! General Fake! Get up, you lazy dog! Come and see! Brother Jesus has arrived. He’s come to drag your carcass to hell.” Wah! Who could this be? Certainly not one of the soldiers. But who else sounded like a coarse-talking
kuli
?
Cape then cursed: “Damn you, man, I’ll kill you for ruining my sleep.”
The Chinese voice yelled back: “Too late, you son of a bastard dog. I’m already dead.”
Cape jumped out of bed, grabbed his pistol. But when he threw open the door, he began to laugh. There was Pastor Amen, the crazy man. He was cursing like a fifth-generation
kuli,
the shank bone from last night’s dinner balanced on his shoulder. Miss Banner thought to herself, How strange that Pastor can now speak the native tongue so well. Then she rushed to the door to warn the madman to go away. When Cape turned to push her back, Pastor swung the shank bone and cracked open the fake general’s skull. He struck him again and again, his swings so wild that one of them caught Miss Banner on the shin. Finally Pastor threw the bone down and shouted at his enemy, long past dead: “I’ll kick you with my good leg when we meet in the other world.”
That’s when Miss Banner suspected Lao Lu’s ghost had jumped into Pastor’s empty mind. She watched this man who was both living and dead. He picked up Cape’s pistol and ran across the courtyard, and called to the soldiers guarding the gate. From where Miss Banner lay, she heard one explosion. Soon another came. And then she heard Pastor cry in his foreigner’s tongue: “Dear God! What have I done?” All that noise had wakened him from his cloudy dreams.
Miss Banner said that when she saw Pastor next, he had the face of a living ghost. He staggered toward his room, but came across Cape’s body first, then Miss Banner with her broken leg. She cowered as if he would strike her again.
For many hours, Pastor and the other Jesus Worshippers discussed what had happened, what they must do. Miss Banner listened to their talk of doom. If the Manchus saw what Pastor had done, Miss Mouse pointed out, he and the rest of them would be tortured alive. Which of them had the strength to lift the bodies and bury them? None. Should they run away? To where? There was no place they knew of where they could hide. Then Dr. Too Late suggested they end their suffering by killing themselves. But Mrs. Amen argued, “Taking our own lives would be a great sin, the same as murdering someone else.”
“I’ll put us all to rest,” said Pastor. “I’m already condemned to hell for killing those three. At least let me be the one to deliver you to peace.”
Only Miss Banner tried to persuade them against this idea. “There’s always hope,” she said. And they told her that any hope now lay beyond the grave. So she watched as they prayed in God’s House, as they ate Mrs. Amen’s stale Communion bread, as they drank water, pretending it was wine. And then they swallowed Dr. Too Late’s pills to forget all their pains.
What happened after that you already know.
Miss Banner and I had no strength to bury the Jesus Worshippers. Yet we could not leave them as an easy meal for hungry flies. I went to the garden. I pulled down the white clothes I had washed the day before. I thought about all the terrible things that had happened during the time the laundry had changed from wet to dry. As I wrapped our friends in those hurry-up funeral shrouds, Miss Banner went to their rooms and tried to find a remembrance of each to put in her music box. Since Cape had already stolen their treasures, all that was left were pitiful scraps. For Dr. Too Late, it was a little bottle that once contained his opium pills. For Miss Mouse, a leather glove she always clutched when in fear. For Mrs. Amen, the buttons she popped off her blouses when she sang out loud. For Pastor Amen, a travel book. And for Lao Lu, the tin with leaves from the holy tree. She placed these things in the box, along with the album where she wrote her thoughts. Then we lighted the altar candles that had melted to stubs. I took from my pocket the key Miss Banner had given me the night before. I wound the box, we played the song. And Miss Banner sang the words the foreigners loved so much.
When the song was over, we prayed to their God. This time I was sincere. I bowed my head. I closed my eyes. I said out loud, “I lived with them for six years. They were like my family, although I didn’t know them very well. But I can honestly say they were loyal friends of your son, also to us. Please welcome them to your home. Pastor too.”
HOW MUCH TIME
did we have before the Manchus would come? I did not know then, but I can tell you now. It was not enough.
Before we escaped, I tore off the skirt of Miss Banner’s everyday dress and made a sling for the music box. I threw this over my left shoulder, Miss Banner leaned on my right, and we two hobbled out as one. But when we reached the door to leave God’s House, a sudden wind blew past us. I turned around and saw the clothes of the Jesus Worshippers billowing as if their bodies were renewed with breath. Stacks of “The Good News” scattered, and those papers that flew on top of the burning candles burst into flame. Soon I could smell the Ghost Merchant, chili and garlic, very strong, as if a welcome-home banquet were being prepared. And maybe this was imagination that springs from too much fear. But I saw him—Miss Banner did not—his long robes, and beneath that, his two new feet in thick-soled shoes. He was walking and nodding, finally back in his unlucky house.
