Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Law, Lucas K.

  Mrs. Liu stepped around the vendors as best she could, keeping Michelle’s red beret within her line of vision. Michelle wanted to show her the night markets, but Mrs. Liu was no longer used to such large crowds, and she had never liked loud music. She could feel her nerves fraying at the edge.

  “It’s too busy here,” Mrs. Liu called out to her daughter. “Isn’t there somewhere quieter we can go?”

  Ghost followed behind them, bewildered as well. Never had he been around so many spirits. In fact, he had only met three other ghosts in total, and all of them had existed very temporarily. Much more so than he. They had all found the issues they were meant to resolve, met the person they were meant to join.

  Ghost watched as Michelle’s red hat bobbed in the air. All the colours had grown disorienting as small flames lighted up constellations in the darkness of the sky and water. Some of the spirits followed them like streams of mist and smoke. Ghost tried to call them back, to let them know that these were only paper, nothing more, but he found that he could not communicate.

  He tried to ask one round-eyed matron where she and her cohorts had come from, but she only shook her head, and from her thin, elongated neck came one whistling keen that seemed to tremble along his perimeters.

  He lagged behind Mrs. Liu and her daughter as they turned down a winding road. Even in these quieter alleys, other strange ghosts would brush by. Some, like the woman, had long needle-necks above their voluminous bellies. Others bore diaphanous flames dancing in their mouths. A few of them, in passing, released a belch of air so foul it made him quiver.

  Mrs. Liu found the hutong side streets, though narrower, more expansive for her body, like she had room to breathe. Sometimes, though, a horrible stench would fill the air, so repulsive she could almost feel its slither against her skin.

  Walking through these streets, she remembered her years as a student in the ‘80s. Her college was nearby, and she came to this neighbourhood often. She would sit with friends at a tea shop with a talking parrot. She would spend entire afternoons in quiet admiration of a calligraphy master working in the back corner of a bookstore.

  A group of poets, quiet but rebellious, used to gather here, behind one of those red wooden gates. She remembered the prideful cadence of her best friend’s voice as she read her work out loud. It was Wen, always the more outgoing one, who had brought her to the meetings, who had introduced her to the young poet with the strong, confident voice yet such timid, soft lips. The ash was back in her eyes again. She swiped at them with her hand.

  “This place is one of the last pieces of Beijing’s past,” Michelle said. “The government’s slowly taking it over. They’ve changed the old street names. They want to keep building things. Construction everywhere.”

  Mrs. Liu was content to let Michelle explain China, but she was surprised when her daughter turned, eyes bright, and said, “Mom. I love it here.”

  She thought of her old friends, all those empty seats in the classroom. “Life is more difficult here.”

  “I know it’s dirty, and broken, and it can be dangerous, but I feel so much more alive here,” Michelle said. “What could I possibly learn in a classroom again that matters more than all the things I’m learning here? I can’t go back to reading about philosophy or logic, or God help me, the psychology of market research. I want to do my work here.”

  Mrs. Liu remembered sitting behind closed doors with her best friend and that young poet, discussing the world with an urgency that only twenty-year-olds could afford. Outside, bells were ringing and ringing; hordes of students on bicycles rode past.

  “I needed to leave, Mom,” Michelle said. “You have no idea how much I needed to get out.”

  She thought of mentioning those students to Michelle, of letting her know that she too had lived moments of passion. But, of course, Michelle did not ask. She had her own story to tell.

  “It wasn’t a good place, Mom. I know it seemed nice. Like I’d won some kind of prize. But the people there. I’d never felt so small.”

  “It was a good opportunity. You were lucky to get the job.”

  “I know,” Michelle said, in that tone that dragged the words out and laid them down like brick. No more. Stop here. “I met a man who was imprisoned for two years. Do you know why?”

  Mrs. Liu could guess.

  “He was a student protester. He was only nineteen when they locked him up. Now his mind’s not the same, and he still doesn’t have full citizenship. He can’t work or travel. But he walks. He’s walked all across China, talking to people and playing the flute.”

  “How romantic,” Mrs. Liu murmured. “What a life.”

  “Mom, it’s not romantic. It’s fucked up. They took away his life and still haven’t given back his identity.”

  The heaviness on her chest sank deeper. Her sigh came with effort. “Watch your language.”

  They were coming out to a main street now, cars lined up behind a stoplight. Ghost paused with them as they waited for the crosswalk. He watched as a cluster of spirits clawed at a bowl of fruit left beside a few sticks of incense outside a convenience store. The peaches disintegrated in the flames and fumes of the ghosts’ malodorous mouths. Not even a grape could fit down those piped necks cinching their billowing bellies. This drove the spirits into mad frenzies. All they hungered for was food. But Ghost was jealous of them, following the trails of light to find the offerings set up by harried descendants. All he had were these two women, neither of them paying him mind.

  He thought at first that these spirits would direct him home; that among them, he would find a familiar face, like Grand Auntie Du’s, who would tell him what to do. But as the spirits clamoured for their gifts, he was still lost and directionless. Utterly forgotten.

  Now that they were back on the main streets, Mrs. Liu could tell from some internalized compass where they were going. She continued with a sense of trepidation, her mind filled with images from the past. Sweet scenes of holding hands with her best friend, with the young poet, whispering their desires, yet these brought her no pleasure. The distant bells continued chiming, carried by the breeze. The past pressing upon her, threatening to carry her off.

  “Mom?” her daughter turned to her again. The indignant anger was gone, replaced by cautious concern. Mrs. Liu drew herself together warily. “Dad called before you got here. I was surprised. He almost never calls unless he’s with you, you know.”

  Her husband never put his family on any of his lists.

  “He’s worried about you.”

  Michelle spoke haltingly, arranging her face and plotting her next phrase. Mrs. Liu recognized her own strategies.

  “He says your moods have been off. And you’re more forgetful. He wanted me to keep an eye on you and see if I noticed anything. But, I don’t know. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  Mrs. Liu bit down the inside of her lip. So her husband had laid down his own moves. So he had played them both. She tried to summon some anger or even just surprise, but she was so tired. Nothing her husband did could surprise or disappoint her much anymore.

  “I’m fine, honey,” she said. “Your father likes to exaggerate.”

  Michelle was still solemn-eyed. “I’ll go back, you know, if you ever needed me. But I’m not ready to leave yet.”

  Mrs. Liu wondered what Michelle was searching for, what her work entailed and what risks she would encounter. “When will you be ready? What’s your work here?”

  “It’s not just that.”

  She waited for her to continue, but her daughter stayed quiet. Mrs. Liu recognized the hesitant withholding in her face and her stance, but she could not guess anymore at its reason. Michelle had travelled past her reach.

  In the distance, Ghost spotted something that felt like kin. He felt it more than saw it, a churning disappointment, an aimless craving. They were nearing the larger buildings again, and hundreds of apparitions swarmed in the air. He communed with each one, touching, caressing, searching for that sour
ce of recognition.

  Mrs. Liu had done her own searching in this city. When she last visited in 1996, she had knocked on doors and talked to school secretaries, tracking down addresses and phone numbers. She carried with her the photos of Wen. She took a train three hours to a small village in Shan Dong, weaving stories for Michelle the whole trip to keep her from complaining about the heat, the noise, her hunger. They arrived at an abandoned house in ruins. “Did someone have a fight here?” Michelle asked, her eyes wide at the sight of capsized tables and broken chairs. Mrs. Liu knew then to stop searching. Her best friend had disappeared. The young poet who had once so gently kissed her was no more. His hold on her life would always be that tenuous, an exhalation left on a window glass.

  Ghost saw the spectral masses reflected on the glass windshields of passing cars, and he himself was among them. They were as fragmented as light, as insubstantial as shadow, and yet they were burgeoning. He felt the spark of their electricity catch within him.

  Across the wide lanes of highway, Mrs. Liu could see Mao smiling down from his portrait over the large empty court of Tiananmen Square, quiet and abandoned.

  Bustling with pale and anxious spirits, the open plaza undulated seductively to Ghost. He heard the shriek of their exertions, their ardour. Their pulsations engulfed him completely. Together, they were nameless. They were consciousness inchoate. They could be as loud as they wanted to be. They could haunt indefinitely. No one had bothered to delineate their passing, and thus they had no boundary.

  Mrs. Liu stood facing the cold, open expanse. That spring, all the students had converged in this place, marching and chanting, filling it with fervent speeches. They included her, her best friend, and that young poet. They were going to create change, improve the education system, make a difference for the future. Then, in the middle of May, she had gotten on a plane to join her betrothed in California, a man she had met only twice. The distant bells fell silent, and terrible scenes flooded over her. Bloodied faces and fallen bodies, obscured by gunfire smoke, images she was unsure she had ever seen before, yet they felt as familiar as memories.

  “It wasn’t my choice to leave,” she said.

  “What did you say?”

  In one night, it was all gone. The sun rose on a mess of corpses, never counted, never named. How easy they were to clean up, to erase. How easy they were to forget.

  “We have to give them names.”

  “Give who names?” A young woman stepped up to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She looked so sweet, so familiar, and yet there was harshness at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes shined with fear.

  “Wen?” Mrs. Liu grabbed her hand. “Is that you?”

  The girl seemed taken aback, as if she had just been slapped.

  Mrs. Liu narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

  “Mom. It’s me. Michelle.”

  Yes. Yes, it was her daughter, for her life had continued. She had gotten on a plane.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. Don’t look so worried.”

  “You scared me.”

  “I just got tired.”

  “We can take a cab home.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  She let her daughter take her hand and lead her away. She needed to go, close her eyes for a moment.

  Behind her, Ghost shimmered in the phantom throng, released at last to swell and amplify.

  Rose’s Arm

  Calvin D. Jim

  Rose Ishikawa sat on a wooden bench in the vestibule of the Japanese United Church. Her left hand cradled an urn containing her mother’s ashes. She felt the weight of the cold, mottled grey stone in the folds of her flower-patterned dress.

  Papa’s friends slowly shuffled out of the sanctuary. Their muffled voices, drenched in sympathy, faded into the hollow patter of the warm Vancouver rain. Papa would want to go home soon. She clutched the urn tighter.

  “Miss Rose?”

  She looked up. Dr. Samuel T. Trask removed his fedora with his mechanical right hand. Tiny pistons and gears whirred and clicked. He knelt in front of her. Whispers of hakujin, “white man,” hung in the air. And he was visiting with a young Japanese girl.

  “I am deeply sorry for your loss, Miss Rose,” he said. “Your mother did not suffer, I assure you.”

  Of course she suffered. I was there.

  “Breech birth like that, it was too late. There was nothin’ I could do.”

  Rose stared down at the grey urn. He would have been a beautiful boy. A son, a son. Papa talked about nothing else in the weeks before Mama’s death. A boy was all he wanted; a son to carry on the family name. Born in 1928, the Year of the Dragon, he would have brought much luck. Mama told Rose many times not to pay attention to all that talk. “Papa loves you too,” she said. He was ijusha, an immigrant from the old country, she whispered. It was just his way. “But I was born here,” Rose would say. Mama just smiled softly and held her close.

  Dr. Trask pulled a calling card from his jacket pocket and slid it into her left hand still clutching the urn. Coppery light glinted off the metallic limb. “If there is anything I can do, please let me know.”

  Rose nodded, not wanting to appear ungrateful at the gesture, but her gaze never left the brassy mechanized hand folded over her own. It was beautiful.

  “May I help you?”

  Rose looked up. Papa loomed over them.

  “Mr. Ishikawa, sir,” Dr. Trask said as he stood up. “I am payin’ my respects to you and your daughter. And offerin’ any assistance in this time of need.”

  Papa glanced down at Rose, spotted the little beige card, and grabbed it from her hand. He crumpled the card and tossed it on the floor. More good fortune thrown away.

  “Thank you,” said Papa. “We need no charity.”

  Was it charity, thought Rose, or did Papa not want to be beholden to a hakujin?

  Dr. Trask tipped his hat and left without a word.

  Papa grabbed the urn.

  “Papa,” Rose said, stifling a cry. “Please let me carry Mama home. Please.”

  “I said before, out of question,” he said, gesturing to the stump of Rose’s right arm, cut off below the elbow.

  He didn’t want a daughter. He certainly didn’t want a one-armed one.

  Papa strode out of the church. Rose sighed and picked up Dr. Trask’s crumpled card before following three paces behind.

  The evening after the funeral, Rose and her father went back to work. Her job every evening was simple: pull the wooden cart while Papa sold tofu to the restaurants along busy Powell Street. It took every ounce of willpower not to spill the waterlogged tofu sloshing around in the wooden buckets, especially when they passed the wide bay windows of Kasuga Confectionary: filled with tempting baskets of apples, red ginger candy, and sweet mochi. The fish cakes, tart Japanese pickles, and fresh oranges at Maikawa Grocery always made her mouth water. Too soon, Papa pulled her across the street as Model-Ts and the Stanley Streetcar trundled toward them, bells and horns blaring.

  Mrs. Hasagawa, who smelled like stale mothballs, always complimented her on what a great job she did. Rose forced a smile and turned away. Would Mrs. Hasagawa say as much to a girl with two arms? Or was she just amazed at what a cripple could do?

  Their first stop was Fuji Chop Suey, but its owner had already purchased his daily quota from Tanaka-san’s tofu-ya. Rose heard more of the same at Yoshino and Morino. Chidori always took a few pieces out of a sense of duty.

  Rose gazed into the bucket of crumbly malformed blocks of tofu. Good tofu was firm and easy to slice. Papa’s was spongy and soft, barely good enough for soup. Papa never haggled about price. He took what they gave him. Usually, it was enough to buy the next day’s soybeans to make more tofu. But they were receiving fewer and fewer coins every day.

  “Mama’s tofu much, much better,” said Papa as they passed by Mang. The Chinese beggar sat on the sidewalk staring blankly through rusted mechanical gog
gle-eyes while rattling pennies in a tin cup. A rough scrawl on the cardboard sign in his lap read: “Help me see again.”

  The heady scent of chicken broth filled Rose’s nostrils as they neared the soup line close to St. James Church. Her mouth watered and she became aware of the emptiness gnawing at her stomach. “Papa?” she said.

  “Not now.”

  “But Papa, you haven’t eaten—”

  “I said not now.”

  Rose’s shoulders sagged. She stared at the ground and followed her father past the railway tracks toward the old mill. It was far out of the way from home, but Papa always insisted they walked by. The scent of pine and sea salt drifted from a warm breeze hovering over Vancouver Harbour while gulls squealed above them. Far beyond the mill, the grey North Shore Mountains blended into the evening sky. Soon, they would fade into blackness.

  How long had it been since the mill owners dismissed Papa and all the other Japanese? Two months? Three? At least Mama’s tofu kept a roof over their heads.

  “When will you go back to work here?”

  “Be quiet,” said Papa.

  The sign posted on the chain link fence was Papa’s silent answer: “No Japs Allowed.” Papa didn’t read much English, but he recognized those words. Outside Powell Street, the signs were everywhere.

  They passed the rickety docks near the old mill where fishing boats unloaded their daily salmon catch at the cannery.

  How many hours had Rose spent with Mama sitting on those docks listening to the gulls gliding above the seashine, watching the red sun sink behind the tall cedars in Stanley Park? One evening, tears fell on Mama’s cheeks even as she stared at the setting sun.