The Girl with No Face

by M. H. Boroson

  Now whispering white shadows flitted around, visible only momentarily before they slipped back into haze. Glowing yellow orbs floated in the air, drifting with the wind, and strange creatures clicked and skittered along the ground. A flying frog with butterfly wings fluttered above us, hovering for a moment before it darted away. A watermelon with a human face winked at me.

  For a moment now I thought I saw mice scampering along the platform, but no; they were hands. Human hands. Disembodied, they wriggled and fell, wriggled and fell, across the platform in an ungainly motion, like crippled birds; the four fingers of each hand reached blindly ahead, feeling for a surface, squirming forwards. Thrusting thumbs powered their movements. Something about the quick, dexterous motions and their scrambling, ant-like gait made me shudder.

  I looked away from the crawling hands. My eyes swept the fog-knit platform, taking in the wide expanse of concrete where two sets of train tracks ran, one in either direction. Where did they lead, I wondered? For a moment I imagined what it would be like to board one of those trains, destination unknown; to leave behind everything that was familiar and plunge forward into a new and different life.

  Wandering wisps of spirit substance strayed in and out of the ghostly world here. Some bubbled through the air; they would have looked like the pig bladders that get sold to children as balloons, were it not for the mouths opening and closing to bare the sharp fangs of carnivores.

  Benches lined the sides, and on each bench, vaporous, dark, and shadowy, were humanoid shapes. Ghosts, perhaps, or something stranger, they shaded the benches, waiting, waiting, though I did not know what they were waiting for.

  Shuai Hu’s eyes prowled the platform, and I could imagine him a tiger emerging from trees in the jungle into an open plain, which he surveyed for predators. My father, on the other hand, had only ever been able to see the spirit world in isolated moments. When it had been necessary, he’d burned talismans of spirit sight in order to hunt ghosts, or he’d dabbed his eyes with a balm expressed from fresh youzi leaves; but each method only allowed him to see as I see for a few minutes, and he’d never been granted such witchy vision in such a public gathering of spirits. Now, thanks to the strange magic in the hairs at the tips of two of Shuai Hu’s tails, Father and I moved in silence, observing the uncanny travelers and commuters, those who arrived from faraway places, and those who, like us, were going to an elsewhere.

  Father was looking all around him, taking everything in, with a wide-eyed, slack-jawed blend of horror and fascination on his face. I could tell how badly he missed having two eyes, as he tried to drink this bizarre and fascinating place in through his diminished scope of vision.

  Walking in silence through the mists of this unliving, undead land, I found myself thinking about the two girls. Had Xu Anjing come here? Was this what the flight of the Kongming lantern had meant, that railroad tracks led the way, somewhere, to some distant station? And Meimei, my “little sister,” who, though not ever a living thing, had cared enough to offer herself up in order to protect me—she had led me here, with her dropped train schedule. Would I see her again soon? What would I be able to do for her?

  A train’s shrieking whistle pierced the reverie of oddness, and the chuffing sound of immense and iron weight battered along one set of tracks. The shape of a locomotive drew in through the otherworld of vapor and smoke, the single bright eye of the engine’s light shining like the moon, full and devastating in the dark.

  The train slowed on its ringing tracks, shuddering to stillness. Then an inhuman, eerie voice called out, sounding like some kind of predator imitating the cries of its prey. In English first, followed by Toisanese, and then Mandarin, the inhuman, hunting cry came: “All aboooaaaard!”

  TWENTY-TWO

  The train’s arrival had been eerie, dreamlike, and painfully beautiful; the wind of the locomotive pulling in blew up dry stalks of grass, from some field I could not see.

  I knew my face must look awestruck, in a way my father would disapprove of, so I tried to hide my marveling when I made myself glance toward him. What I saw on his face surprised me. I’d been expecting an expression of solid steel on his face, not the red cheeks, bright glance, open-mouthed smile, and the hands clasped together in boyish exhilaration.

  I stood a little closer to him.

  Again that pale, cruel, hunter’s imitation of human speech cried out, “Alll abooooaaaarrrd!”

  Shuai Hu was the first of us to climb up onto the passenger car.

  Ghosts flitted glumly around, as if they could find no vacant seats. Yet all the seats were vacant.

  No, I realized, that wasn’t quite true; the train car only seemed empty. A moment later it would feel crowded, but then it felt empty again. My father and the tiger noticed it as well; they glanced uneasily around them at the dim, empty train car.

  Chugga, chugga, chugga, the train car went along its phantom rails, flowing past the spiritual miles. When it came to its first stop, that same inhuman, hunter’s lure imitation of a human voice called out, “Raccoon Station!”

  A cluster of raccoons rose from a bench, where they had been smoking fat cigars and playing games with dominoes. Bushy-tailed and cocksure, they waddled out toward the door. They climbed off, and the doors slid closed behind them. One looked back, met Shuai Hu’s eyes, and made an obscene gesture at the tiger. Shuai Hu’s laughter followed, sounding bottomless, and it made me like him even more. The train started to move again, and I saw, in my father’s face, that he’d enjoyed the rumbling warmth of the tiger monk’s laughter too, even if he’d never admit such a thing.

  Time stretched on our ride; I could not tell how much time had passed, or if it had passed at all. A while later, Shuai Hu made low chuffling noises in his sleep. Stretched out along the wooden bench, his hard-muscled body in its orange robes looked surprisingly vulnerable. Something in the pleasurable relaxation of his posture reminded me of a cat lying on its back, both hoping and afraid that someone might come along and rub its stomach. A mischievous impulse made me want to rub the tiger monk’s belly while he slept, but surprising such a deadly creature while he dreamed could be a mistake. The tiger man breathed heavily in his sleep. His snoring sounded like a rumbly purr.

  My father’s face pointed out of the train’s windows, cutting toward the long miles of marshland around us.

  Wide vistas would suddenly open around us, bold horizons came into view, as the train chuffed over a suspension bridge above a lake or valley.

  We reached an area where small cookfires dotted the twilight around us. “What are they?” I asked my father, and my voice creaked from lack of use.

  Father gazed out quietly, a bitter expression forming around his mouth. “I am not certain, Li-lin. They could be portions of human souls which floated away from their corpses, to spend a few hours roaming, before they return in the morning to their gravesites.”

  I could hear him omitting a possibility he found less pleasant. “What else could they be?”

  His sigh was long, and half of it was groan. “They might be the campsites of railway ghosts.”

  I followed his line of thought. If the flames were cookfires lit by dead men continuing their actions, awake and aware but not cognizant of the fact that they were dead, then they may have been lost out here burning their campfires in the lands of the dead for lonesome years, their forty-nine days having passed long, long ago.

  “We need to do something,” I said. “We need to save them.”

  Father turned to face me. Shadows darkened his face, and he looked like a furious ghost speaking to me out of dark corners. “What is this foolishness? What could we possibly do for them? If I am right, then these lost souls are out there, going through the motions of the living, lacking the means or even the ability to cross the Ghost Gate. What could I do, Li-lin? Track them down one by one?”

  “Would that exertion not be worth it, for the salvation of each man’s soul?”

  He snorted and looked away from me, his hands clutch
ing and flexing, tensely. “Uniting each man’s spirit with his corpse, probably buried in an unmarked grave; learning each man’s name and the details of his birth, if he even remembers them after decades in these dreaming lands. What you are talking about would require a lifetime’s labor for a dozen Daoshi, each and every day, for so many years. And who would even pay for it?”

  I closed my eyes, because I did not want to continue watching the passage of the lonely cookfires. “I see what you are saying,” I said.

  We were quiet for a while, our minds on the dead. For the railroads to be built, passes needed to be blasted through mountainous areas. Chinese railway workers, due to their supple bodies and lack of legal protections, were sometimes tied to a winch and lowered down into dark crevices with an armful of dynamite. This dangerous process spawned an English phrase: a Chinaman’s chance .

  At last my father spoke again. “Let’s be clear, Li-lin. I am burning with frustration that I can do no more to help these men. Men who are my responsibility, because I am this region’s highest authority when it comes to governing the passings of our people between their lives and their afterlives.”

  I took a moment to listen to what he was saying, and then spent another moment working out what he was really saying. “You are hoping there will be a new Tudi Gong, Invested in this area.”

  “Of course I am,” he said. “An Earth God would be able to call on far more assistance from the Celestial Offices. He could recruit runners from the bureaucracy of Hell to spread out and sift through these deathly lands, summoning all these lost souls to congregate. And then he might be able to coerce one of Hell’s King Magistrates to make the guards at Hell’s gates open the way and allow passage for hundreds of men, even without the proper paperwork.”

  I nodded. “A benevolent Tudi Gong could accomplish more in a month than we could hope to accomplish in our lifetimes.”

  He looked at me then, and then away, muttering, while shadows from the window sailed over his face. “You see the issue facing me, then. A Tudi Gong could do so much good; but all these proceedings have been so covert, sneaky, insidious. Why were the Rites performed so stealthily? And why couldn’t this Ghost Magistrate, Kang Zhuang, simply approach me? The fact that he established a yamen here, without my knowledge, seems suspicious. I question the integrity of such an underhanded approach.”

  “The Ghost Magistrate also,” I said, “treats his women poorly.”

  “Not relevant,” my father said. “A man’s justice is not measured by how he runs his household.”

  “Is it not? It seems to me that a man who mistreats his child bride so much that she’d prefer to flee and be hunted by exiled Hell Police rather than live under his rule is someone whose reign might bring abuses to all of us here.”

  My father sucked in air, sharply. “Do you know how many great rulers brought prosperity to their lands while keeping their women in an iron grip?”

  “Perhaps, then, they were not so great as we have been led to believe,” I said.

  “Don’t be foolish, Li-lin,” my father said. “If a ruler brings peace and wealth to his subjects, then the way he treats the women in his household is irrelevant.”

  “You believe women are irrelevant.”

  His glance was a sharpened spear. “Is that what you think, Li-lin?”

  “You would have preferred a son rather than a daughter.”

  He leaned back, looked out the window, and sighed. “You don’t understand me at all, Li-lin. You don’t understand your own culture. Do you have any idea why most Chinese parents would rather have sons than daughters?”

  “I can guess. It has something to do with our yin energy, our physical weakness, and the high-pitched squeal of the female voice, doesn’t it.”

  He snorted. “No, Li-lin, not at all. Do you remember the buildings we saw as we traveled the countryside on our way to the Pearl River Delta?”

  “Huge rectangles, with courtyards in the center,” I said.

  “Families there lived in enormous complexes, as big as the giant octagonal houses on Nob Hill. But those mansions in San Francisco house six or seven people, while a courtyard house in China might hold a hundred.”

  “A hundred?”

  “That is how I was raised, Li-lin. Brothers and sisters all around me, and cousins. My parents lived with us, obviously, but also my father’s father, and his father in return, some uncles and their wives. We were four generations of Xians, all together. And I did love it, when I was a boy; with all those children ready to play or talk, I was never lonely, and every meal was a time for raucous happiness.”

  “And you dislike women because . . .”

  “Stop that, Li-lin. I want you to think of my great-grandfather, the man whose intelligence, long years of labor, and luck built that home for us all. The patriarch of this family. His sons never left his side, never left his home, unless they died; his family was inseparable. He was loved and respected in his home. Every meal was a celebration. Each of his sons would bring him grandsons to play with; and each grandson would bring in another generation. Every time a boy was born, it was a joyous occasion, and everyone was eager to get to know him.”

  “Were the daughters so different?”

  “Of course they were. A daughter leaves, Li-lin. A father may love his daughter, dote upon her, feel delight in her presence, but still, eventually, she’s going to be married to some man and become part of his household. People say it’s a misfortune when a daughter is born, but do you know why?”

  “I do not. Please continue.”

  “Suppose this daughter is hard-working, talented, and affectionate; she is thoughtful and caring, she makes gifts for everyone; she’s a good listener, and dedicated, and there’s just something about her that makes everyone smile when she smiles.”

  “I do not see how that would be such a great misfortune.”

  “Oh, but it is. Because a daughter, even a beloved daughter, is going to leave. She will marry a man, enter his family, and her parents will never see her again. Her father will sit alone, sadly remembering the girl who is lighting up someone else’s courtyard. Parents know that when a daughter is born, loss will follow.”

  I stayed silent.

  “There were sisters and female cousins in the house with me, Li-lin. And sometimes I would form an attachment; one older sister doted on me, and I simply adored her, and then she got married and I never saw her again. I spent so many days wailing for my female relatives who went away. I had to learn not to allow myself to grow attached to females. My mother, my grandmother, and the wives of my uncles were my the only permanent female members of my family; cousins, sisters, and nieces were always only temporary. And what kind of fool would allow himself to care for someone who is guaranteed to leave?”

  “I did not leave you.”

  My father raised a hand as if he was about to launch into some invective, but a moment passed, and he allowed his hand to drop. “You only stayed with me for one reason: your husband was my apprentice, and his father did not live in America.

  “You know how much I dislike this country, Li-lin. This is a land without traditions; people have no respect for the past, no reverence for their ancestors; a man is forgotten as soon as his footsteps no longer echo on the boardwalks. Nothing is familiar, even the smell of grass is different, and the color of the sunset. But this, I swear to you, would have felt like a blessing to many Chinese fathers: in this country, my daughter married a good man, and yet you remained part of my family.”

  “Until you disowned me.”

  He inclined his head, shot me a sharp look. “I severed the ties of family, because of what happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An old enemy tracked me across the world,” he said. “He harmed you, Li-lin. Left you comatose. And he only came after you because of me.”

  “You’re saying you disowned me for my own protection?”

  “That was part of it.”

  I sat back and looked out
the train’s window. There was so much in my father’s speech, so much more I didn’t understand about the cultures I lived among, and between. He’d kept me at a distance all my life because he always expected to lose me? It made a hurtful kind of sense. And yet, with my husband’s death, my father again had become the most important man in my life, and I still struggled to know him.

  One step at a time, Li-lin. On this phantom train ride, he’d opened up and told me more about himself, about our family relationship, than he ever had before. I was grateful, and I would not press any further.

  “Regarding the past,” I said, “is China truly so different?”

  He blinked and jerked his face toward me. “What do you mean?”

  “You say America has no respect for what has gone before,” I said, trying to phrase this in a way that would not provoke his anger, “but just last year, the Emperor of China tried to ban books about ghosts, and ordered the burning of paintings depicting monsters.”

  “The Guangxu Emperor is young,” my father said. “He idealizes the notions of modernity; he has a child’s view of tradition. The Dowager Empress knows better, and now she acts as regent while Guangxu lives in the Summer Palace, far from the reins of power. She overturned those foolish decisions.”

  “The Reformists still have support,” I said. “There are still people in authority who believe the only way to modernize China is to erase its past.”

  Father’s face took on an amused expression as he listened to me. I was quiet and waited for him to share the joke.

  “All this talk of the past,” he said, smiling, “while we are on our way to meet it.”

  “You are excited to meet an official who lived six hundred years ago?”

  “It isn’t just the number of years,” he said. “He’s from the Song Dynasty. The Song, Li-lin! What an age that was, a pinnacle of Chinese grandeur, innovation, and achievement.”