Three Souls (34 page)

“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.

After lunch, the guests file out of the dining hall and into the forecourt. Out on the street, hired rickshaws and donkey carts wait to carry the bride’s family to the train station for the journey home. It’s been an abbreviated celebration, because the bride’s family must return to their home and business.

During the farewell rituals, the bride weeps sincerely, tears streaking her heavy rice-powder makeup. She falls on the slate flagstones and wraps her arms around her mother’s knees. Then she shuffles over to her father, who pats her on the head. The winemaker gives Baizhen’s thin shoulder blades a jovial thump.

“Son-in-law, I’ll bring more wine on our next visit. On the occasion of Meichiu’s first pregnancy.”

Baizhen lowers his head and smiles uneasily.

Relatives circle Meichiu for a final round of embraces, words of farewell, and promises to write every week. They depart in a flurry of waving hands. Then out on Jade Belt Road, it is quiet once more.

***

My house has a fresh coat of paint. The railings on the veranda and along the staircase are new. My bedchamber is almost bare of furniture: only an old trunk and an armoire remain. Some of my dowry furniture is in Meichiu’s bedroom, a small chamber that is nonetheless infinitely preferable to the one where I died. Weilan is out of the nursery now, her little bed moved to one of the second-floor rooms.

The bride spends the rest of the afternoon in her bedroom. With Dali’s help she changes out of her wedding finery, then sits on the bed while Dali unpacks her trunk.

“I’m your house servant and also part-time nanny to your stepdaughter,” Dali says, folding clothes into drawers. I can tell the servant is trying not to be too obvious about running her hand over the clothing to judge its quality. “Young Mistress will like Weilan, she’s very bright. She can read already.”

Meichiu doesn’t reply.

“The Mistress will show you the whole estate tomorrow. You’ll find this house very comfortable, Young Mistress. It’s the newest one on the property. There’s even a small library upstairs.”

Meichiu stands up. “Where’s the toilet?”

She hasn’t spoken in a normal voice before; I’ve only heard murmured replies and teary farewells. Beneath her weary tone, there’s a no-nonsense quality to her voice.

The wedding day ends with a light supper. Jia Po serves the newlyweds a soup of dates and lotus seeds. After they spoon up the hot, sweet liquid, Baizhen and Meichiu bow to Jia Po and Gong Gong. Then Meichiu follows Baizhen through the courtyard and up the shallow steps to the lower floor of the house.

I don’t follow. I return to the temple, welcoming the dim silence. But my sharpened hearing still detects a quick, stifled cry followed by a low moan.

***

The next morning, Jia Po takes the bride on a tour of the estate, through the courtyards, each of the houses, and the kitchen. It seems only a few short years ago that I went on this same walk, as apprehensive as Meichiu. I see what Meichiu must be seeing, water stains seeping down the walls, shutters that need replacing, unmistakable signs of encroaching poverty. I find myself hoping she can look past the shabbiness and appreciate the estate’s elegant proportions and thoughtful design. When she’s lived here longer she’ll see how the bamboos in the courtyard sway in the slightest breeze to make a hot day cooler, how the deep veranda roof provides comfortable shelter from the summer rains. How the lazy afternoon light shimmers over the rock garden, washing the tall stones with gold.