by Chongda Cai
“I believe it.” My mother’s expression made it clear that she wanted to end the conversation.
I knew that my mother needed to believe she was helping my father.
It helped to have friends in high places, and she stopped off at each temple to ask for divine help. She wanted to know how she could bring my father back to this world, if only temporarily. “We can only ask the gods for help,” she explained, “but each god is in charge of a different thing, like in our world the Public Security Bureau is in charge of household registration. . . . So to track down a spirit, you need to go to the right god, which is the local god of wherever the spirit is from.”
When I saw my mother rushing around looking for a solution to my father’s spiritual problems, however strange it was to me, I could still understand what she was doing. But deep down, I couldn’t shake the conclusion that she simply couldn’t face her own grief. I could see her weakness.
She put everything into her quest, and I was at a loss as to what I should be doing. When I got back to my parents’ house, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. The feeling was still weak, like some faint smell in the air, but as time went by it seemed to gather around me and grow stronger. It felt as if it was festering inside me, almost like indigestion. I thought it must be what other people called grief.
My mother followed the local god’s instructions and eventually came to tell me that on a particular date, we would be able to go to the temple of the local god and meet my father. “The local god found him,” she said, “and he’s on his way here now.”
I had gone along with her plan until then, but I was suddenly tired of the charade. “You just want to find a way to make yourself feel better,” I said.
She pretended not to hear me and continued: “So when we get there, you have to stand in the doorway of the temple and call him, and then tell him to come home with you.”
“You just want to find a way to comfort yourself.”
“I need you to help me with this. The local god told me that I can’t call him myself. You’re his son—you have his blood in you.”
The next day when we were supposed to leave, I couldn’t contain my annoyance. When my mother saw, she chased after me and yelled, “You have to call him back!”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t expect her to run after me. Her eyes were dry, but there were red circles around them. She wasn’t sad; she was furious.
I had never lost the feeling of closeness with temples and gods, so when I got to the doorway of the local god’s temple, even though it was the dwelling of a supernatural power, it felt more like dropping in on a family patriarch. Hokkien people have a local god for every district and village, and according to tradition, this god guides everyone in the community through life, intervening on their behalf with gods and demons, negotiating for heavenly blessings, and trying to head off potential disasters. The local god was responsible for all those things and more. Every year, locals led processions to the local god’s temple, beating drums and gongs, carrying his statue in a sedan chair down roads and alleys spread with joss paper and medicinal herbs, taking him on a raucous inspection of every inch of his domain.
As my mother requested, I started by offering some incense at the altar to tell the city god I had arrived. I went back to the doorway and stood beside her.
She motioned for me to begin.
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
My mother gave me an anxious nudge.
I opened my mouth again and finally yelled, “Dad! I’m here to get you, come home with me.”
My shouts were swallowed up by silence. I hadn’t expected a response.
My mother told me to keep yelling, while she went into the temple to use her moon blocks to ask the local god if my father had arrived.
I kept going, half-heartedly, listening to the sound of the clattering blocks from inside the temple.
I yelled until I couldn’t take it anymore. I yelled until I choked on my words. I mumbled finally, “If you can really hear me, please come home. I miss you.”
“Your father’s here!” my mother shouted.
I started to cry.
In the days after my father was “drawn back,” as my mother called it, there was a joyful atmosphere at home.
My mother cooked something new every day and put it all on the altar. She went to find an artisan who made paper funeral offerings and had him make her a paper cell phone and a cardboard motorcycle. Those were the two things my father had asked for after his stroke.
A few days later, she went back to her divine friends to ask them how she could go about helping my father atone for his sins. Their suggestion was for my father to act as a sort of volunteer for a local deity, like the American idea of sending minor offenders to do community service. “These gods are pretty modern, aren’t they?” I joked.
My mother nodded and very solemnly said, “They have to keep up with the times, too.”
A few days later, my mother found the perfect place for my father to do his divine community service: Zhenhai Temple at White Sands Village.
White Sands Village was a small community on the outskirts of my hometown that had become a tourist destination. The river that ran through the area made a dramatic turn right around the village, just before emptying into the ocean. The curve of the river had created a triangular patch of land rimmed with white sand. Whenever we went on field trips for school, we always went to White Sands Village.
Zhenhai Temple sat at the corner of the triangle, near the mouth of the river. I had noticed on a trip to White Sands when I was younger that local fishermen would cruise past, bowing to the temple before roaring out into the open ocean.
When my father worked on the ships, he used to make the trip out to Zhenhai Temple a few times a week to pray for safety on his voyages out to sea. “He came here thousands of times,” my mother told me on our first visit there together, “so the gods here know him well. They’ll take him in.”
Arranging his passage to the temple was a simple procedure. My mother burned incense in front of our home altar and told the gods in the niche, “Zhenhai Temple has agreed to accept my husband as a helper. I want you to help me send him there.” Then we picked up the offerings and rushed over to Zhenhai Temple.
I brought my mother there on my motorcycle. From our town to White Sands Village it was about fifteen miles. The ride took us along the beach, and when the wind picked up, we were blasted with sand. I was driving carefully and taking my time, which gave her time to reminisce. She pointed to a beach and said, “Your father and I came here to watch the sea.” When we rode past a small restaurant, she said, “When your father was planning to go to Ningbo, he took me here for lunch.”
When I walked into Zhenhai Temple, I was hit with the familiar scent of the place, an aroma I knew from childhood. Everything looked the same. A temple is a special type of place, I thought to myself, because whenever you return, it’s always the same. The feeling of a temple never changes. I’m not sure what creates that solemn, warm atmosphere. Maybe it’s from all those prayers mumbled in front of the altar, voices mixing and floating upward.
The head of the temple seemed to have been made aware of my father’s situation. As soon as he saw my mother, he said warmly, “Your husband has arrived. I just got word from the gods.” He put on some tea and passed cups to my mother and me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They will look after him. They have known him since he was a boy.”
The tea was very good, and the sun spilled bright white across the stone floor of the temple like whitecaps.
“What does he have to do?” my mother asked.
“Well,” the head of the temple said, “he just got here. But they know he’s a go-getter, so I suppose they’ll probably have him running errands, taking messages around for them.”
“But he can’t really get around very well. He was half paralyzed before passing away, so he might hold things up.”
“That doesn’t m
atter. They have already fixed his leg. He may have gotten mixed up in some things that have not yet been resolved, but he was a good man, so the gods of the temple are happy to help him.”
“That’s good then,” my mother said, her eyes half closed in a smile.
After that, the head of the temple and my mother swapped stories about my father’s visits to the temple.
We sat for an entire afternoon. She knew she had to get home to make dinner, but she hesitated. Before she could allow herself to leave, she had to ask, “I don’t want to make any trouble, but I just want to know how he’s doing. Is he getting along okay? Is he busy?”
The head of the temple laughed and went to the altar.
“He was a bit clumsy at first,” the head of the temple said, “and he had a few problems, but the gods are understanding.”
My mother immediately rushed to the altar, bowing, and said, “Ask them to go easy on him! Please! My husband has always been clumsy.” She lowered her voice and hissed at my father, “Come on, you! Be more careful. Don’t cause any trouble.”
Even after my father had begun his divine community service, my mother was still unable to find relief. The day after our first visit, she wanted me to take her back to the temple. It wasn’t as if she could see him working, but she wanted to know how he was doing.
When we arrived, the head of the temple put on tea. The sun was as beautiful as it had been the day before. They chatted again about my father and the temple. And before she left, my mother once again couldn’t help but ask about my father, so the head of the temple went to the altar to ask after him. The answer came: “He’s making progress.”
“Really?” my mother said. “Great. I’m proud of you. I’m going to make your favorite marinated duck for you and bring it over tomorrow.” And then we drove the forty minutes back home again.
After lunch the following day, my mother wanted to go back again to deliver the duck. Her trips to Zhenhai Temple continued, and as the days went by, my father’s performance was upgraded from “not bad” to “making progress,” then to “the gods are very satisfied with him.” Every time she went to Zhenhai Temple, she came back all smiles.
My mother had discussed with the gods the length of his community service, and the answer she received through her moon blocks was that he should spend at least a month at Zhenhai Temple, and then, if necessary, if his sins were not yet cleansed, transfer to another temple. But that would require another god and another temple to accept him.
That day, as we were preparing to go out after lunch, I saw my mother pacing nervously. The whole way there, she kept asking me, “Do you think he did a good job for them? I’m sure he made his share of mistakes, but they’ll understand, right? Do you think he enjoyed himself?”
She didn’t give me time to answer one question before she had asked the next.
We went into the temple and accepted cups of tea.
My mother wasn’t in the mood to chat over her tea, though. “Did he complete his task?” she asked.
The head of the temple said, “Don’t ask me. Rest here a while, wait until the sun goes down, then you can ask the gods yourself.”
My mother couldn’t spend another afternoon talking over tea. She moved her chair into the temple and sat, waiting for dusk, waiting for the sun to slip off the floor of the temple like the tide going out, and for my father to receive his judgment.
Maybe all the anxiety had exhausted her, because after a while, she fell asleep in the chair.
The sun sank behind the temple. It looked like a ripe orange tangerine as it slowly slipped into the ocean.
I gently shook my mother awake and said, “It’s time to ask them.”
She woke with a start, and I saw that she was smiling.
“I don’t need to,” she said.
My father had come to her, she said. She told me that he looked like he had when he was in his twenties. His skin was fair and smooth. His body looked strong, not yet beaten down by age and illness. He had his hair cut short. He moved gracefully. He waved to her, she said, and then he seemed to drift away from her, away from this world. She saw him fade into a silhouette and then into nothing.
“He’s gone,” my mother said. “He’s finally at ease. He’s gone.”
Tears ran down my mother’s face.
I knew that she was finally laying down her burden. It was not only tears leaving her body.
When we were about to leave, my mother turned back toward the temple and smiled at the gods inside.
I pressed my palms together reverently and mumbled, “Thank you. It’s good to know she has friends in high places.”
From that point on, I never stopped believing.
6
Bella Zhang
Bella Zhang was beautiful. That was her name after all, but I only confirmed the fact much later.
Before I ever laid eyes on her, I knew the legend of Bella Zhang.
The trip to my elementary school and back was down a stone path that ran beside a slightly decrepit brick house. In the evening, when the flagstone path was illuminated with a sunset color of rouge, the pathway was particularly beautiful.
But that was also the hour when we often heard the sound of a woman sobbing coming from a brick house. It was less a sob than a plaintive wail rising and falling in the dusk. That is how the legend got started that the house was haunted. The ghost’s name was Bella Zhang.
When I was young, I didn’t really have it in me to figure out what it was. I suppose that is why I needed all those legendary tales of chivalrous fighters, seductive ghosts, and love.
At my school, the legend of Zhang spread like wildfire: it had all three of those elements.
Once upon a time, at least the way I heard it, Bella Zhang had been a sweet, beautiful girl. She fell in love with a man who worked on a freighter. He had come to town to load up on supplies. He was tall and well built, befitting his role as the legend’s knight in shining armor. The idea of a girl losing her virginity before marriage was unimaginable in our small town, but Zhang made a secret rendezvous with the sailor and gave herself to him. They made a plan to elope, but their secret was discovered, and she was dragged home—and then killed herself.
The legend of Zhang was a cautionary tale. That was a time of great changes in coastal towns like ours. The streets began to glow with neon, and outsiders rushed in like the tide, patronizing the newly opened bars and peddling goods of dubious origin.
These great changes in our sleepy coastal town were an assault on the psychology of the locals. On one hand, they enjoyed hearing gossip from those brave enough to stride into the ballroom, savoring every detail, mouths agape at the descriptions of gold wallpaper, scandalized by the mention of short skirts exposing creamy thighs, but on the other hand, they were quick to offer their sanctimonious assessments of the excess and debauchery.
But what nobody realized was that with the coming of wealth and the steady churn of cash in town, it became impossible for people to contain their private desires. Without hunger and poverty to worry about, everyone could relax a bit. Poverty had acted like a valve, keeping private desires from gushing out, but with a bit of money, those wants and aspirations could flow freely. For the first time, everyone was forced to confront those desires.
It was an age of restlessness, stirring things up in the hearts of people—young and old, men and women. . . . The old folks would gather together and sigh deeply, saying, “We might have been poor before, but at least there wasn’t as much to worry about.” They nodded in agreement, but there was a fresh caution in the way they studied each other’s faces.
Fortunately, we had the legend of Zhang. She represented what would happen to those who fell into disrepute. We stood safely back from the pit of desire, but she had already fallen in. The lesson was drilled into our heads, repeated over and over again. The details of her story could be put to use in explaining any number of unwritten rules: don’t talk to outsiders, never meet secretly with a classmate of t
he opposite sex. . . . The list of forbidden behavior seemed to go on forever, extending even to a complete ban on going into the type of hair salons where a woman could get highlights in her hair. The point was always driven home like this: “Do you want to end up like Bella Zhang, with your reputation following you around town forever?”
Nobody expected that their attempts to demonize Zhang would make her into a saint.
Her legend only grew. There were harrowing tales of her preternatural powers of seduction, recollections of how she was caught in flagrante delicto with the man from the freighter, stories about how he was in fact the descendant of a grand general of the People’s Liberation Army, and so on. . . . I had an image of her in my mind, but the details had not yet been filled in. Finally, the description that stuck was one offered by a classmate: “You know the girl leaning on the motorcycle in that nudie calendar? That’s what Bella Zhang looks like.”
Around that time, my male classmates and I began to have inexplicable urges. It was only later that words like “horny” or “sexual appetite” were applied to them. We started an underground circulation of dirty pictures. Thoughts of Zhang—legendary fallen woman but calendar girl doppelganger—especially when they came late at night, suddenly became less philosophical and more biological.
If our town could be said to have a goddess of sex—our own personal Venus—then it would have to be her. For a boy like me, obsessed with Dream of the Red Chamber, she was as seductive and ephemeral as the fairies that Jia Baoyu saw in his dream.
It was an age of turbulence. If parents saw a woman coming up the road who looked like she came from outside of our town—wearing fancy clothes, hair dyed—they would leap to cover their children’s eyes as if sheltering them from some horrific sight. But within a couple of years, local women started to adopt the same fashions. Otherwise how could they compete with those women coming from outside our town who were looking to steal their husbands away from them?
The sight of men shouting into cell phones became commonplace. More women came, too, parading around in the latest fashions, faces caked with heavy makeup.
