by Amy Tan
“And now?”
GaoLing was quiet for a long time. “Now I think Bao Mu left a lot of sadness behind. Her death was like that ravine. Whatever we didn’t want, whatever scared us, that’s where we put the blame.”
Dory flew into the kitchen. “Ruth! Ruth! Come quick! Waipo fell in the pool. She almost drowned.”
By the time Ruth reached the backyard, Art was carrying her mother up the steps of the shallow end. LuLing was coughing and shivering. Sally ran from the house with a pile of towels. “Wasn’t anyone watching her?” Ruth cried, too upset to be more tactful.
LuLing looked at Ruth as though she were the one being chastised. “Ai-ya, so stupid.”
“We’re okay,” Art told LuLing in a calming voice. “Just a little whoopsie-daisy. No harm done.”
“She was only ten feet away from us,” Billy said. “Just walked in and sank before we knew it. Art dove in, beer and all, as soon as it happened.”
Ruth swaddled her mother in towels, rubbing her to stimulate her circulation.
“I saw her down there,” LuLing moaned in Chinese between more coughs. “She asked me to help her get out from under the rocks. Then the ground became sky and I fell through a rain cloud, down, down, down.” She turned to point to where she saw the phantom.
As Ruth glanced where her mother gestured, she saw Auntie Gal, her face stricken with new understanding.
Ruth left her mother at Auntie Gal’s and spent the next day at her house sorting out what should be moved to Mira Mar Manor. On the take list she included most of her mother’s bedroom furniture, and the linens and towels LuLing had never used. But what about her scroll paintings, the ink and brushes? Her mother might feel frustrated looking at these emblems of her more agile self. One thing was for certain: Ruth was not moving the vinyl La-Z-Boy. That was destined for the dump. She would buy her mother a new recliner, a much nicer one, with supple burgundy leather. Just thinking about this gave Ruth pleasure. She could already envision her mother’s eyes aglow with wonder and gratitude, testing the squishiness of the cushion, murmuring, “Oh, so soft, so good.”
In the evening, she drove to Bruno’s supper club to meet Art. Years before, they often went there as prelude to a romantic night. The restaurant had booths that allowed them to sit close and fondle each other.
She parked around the corner a block away, and when she looked at her watch, she saw she was fifteen minutes early. She did not want to appear too eager. In front of her was the Modern Times bookstore. She went in. As she often did in bookstores, she headed to the remainder table, the bargains marked down to three ninety-eight with the lime-green stickers that were the literary equivalent of toe tags on corpses. There were the usual art books, biographies, and tell-alls of the Famous for Fifteen Minutes. And then her eyes fell on The Nirvana Wide Web: Connections to a Higher Consciousness. Ted, the Internet Spirituality author, had been right. His was a time-sensitive topic. It was already over. She felt the thrill of guilty glee. On the fiction table were an assortment of novels, most of them contemporary literary fiction by authors not well known by the masses. She picked up a slim book that lay obligingly in her hands, inviting her to cradle it in bed under a soft light. She picked up another, held it, skimmed its pages, her eye and imagination plucking a line here and there. She was drawn to them all, these prisms of other lives and times. And she felt sympathetic, as if they were dogs at the animal shelter, abandoned without reason, hopeful that they would be loved still. She left the store carrying a bag with five books.
Art was sitting in the bar at Bruno’s, a retro expanse of fifties glamour. “You’re looking happy,” he said.
“Am I?” She was instantly embarrassed. Lately, Wendy, Gideon, and others had been telling her what she appeared to be feeling, that she seemed bothered or upset, puzzled or surprised. And each time, Ruth had been unaware of any feelings in particular. Obviously she was showing something on her face. Yet how could she not know what she was feeling?
The maître d’ seated them in a booth that had recently been redone in clubby leather. Everything in the restaurant had managed to stay as though nothing had changed for fifty years, except the prices and the inclusion of uni and octopus appetizers. As they looked over the menu, the waiter came with a bottle of champagne.
“I ordered it,” Art whispered, “for our anniversary… . Don’t you remember? Nude yoga? Your gay buddy? We met ten years ago.”
Ruth laughed. She had not remembered. As the waiter poured, she whispered back, “I thought you had nice feet for a pervert.”
When they were alone, Art lifted his flute. “Here’s to ten years, most of it amazing, with a few questionable parts, and the hope that we’ll get back to where we should be.” He pressed his hand on her thigh and said, “We should try it some time.”
“What?”
“Nude yoga.”
A rush of warmth flooded her. The months of living with her mother had left her feeling like a virgin.
“Hey, baby, want to come back to my place afterward?”
She was thrilled at the prospect.
The waiter stood before them again, ready to take orders. “The lady and I would like to begin with oysters,” Art said. “This is our first date, so we ‘11 need the ones that have the best aphrodisiac effects. Which do you recommend?”
“That would be the Kumamotos,” the waiter said without a change of expression.
That night, they did not make love right away. They lay in bed, Art cuddling her, the bedroom window open so they could listen to the foghorns. “In all these years we’ve been together,” he said, “I don’t think I know an important part of you. You keep secrets inside you. You hide. It’s as though I’ve never seen you naked, and I’ve had to imagine what you look like behind the drapes.”
“I’m not consciously hiding anything.” After Ruth said that, she wondered whether it was true. Then again, who revealed everything—the irritations, the fears? How tiresome that would be. What did he mean by secrets?
“I want us to be more intimate. I want to know what you want. Not just with us, but from life. What makes you happiest? Are you doing what you want to do?”
She laughed nervously. “That’s what I edit for others, that intimate-soul stuff. I can describe how to find happiness in ten chapters, but I still don’t know what it is.”
“Why do you keep pushing me away?”
Ruth bristled. She didn’t like it when Art acted as if he knew her better than she knew herself. She felt him shaking her arm.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want to make you tense. I’m just trying to get to know you. When I told the waiter this was our first date, I meant it, in a way. I want to pretend I’ve just met you, love at first sight, and I want to know who you are. I love you, Ruth, but I don’t know you. And I want to know who this person is, this woman I love. That’s all.”
Ruth sank against his chest. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she said softly. “Sometimes I feel like I’m a pair of eyes and ears, and I’m just trying to stay safe and make sense of what’s happening. I know what to avoid, what to worry about. I’m like those kids who live with gunfire going off around them. I don’t want pain. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to see other people around me die. But I don’t have anything left inside me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it’s to know what’s possible to want.”
THREE
In the first gallery of the Asian Art Museum, Ruth saw Mr. Tang kiss her mother’s cheek. LuLing laughed like a shy schoolgirl, and then, hand in hand, they strolled into the next gallery.
Art nudged Ruth and crooked his arm. “Come on, I’m not about to be outdone by those guys.” They caught up with LuLing and her companion, who were seated on a bench in front of a display of bronze bells hung in two rows on a gargantuan frame, about twelve feet high and twenty-five feet long.
“It’s like a xylophone for the gods,” Ruth whispered, taking a seat beside Mr. Tang.
“Each bell makes two distinct tones.” Mr. Tang’s voice was gentle yet authoritative. “The hammer hits the bell on the bottom and the right side. And when there are many musicians and the bells are struck together, the music is very complex, it creates tonal layers. I had the pleasure of hearing them played recently by Chinese musicians at a special event.” He smiled in recalling this. “In my mind, I was transported back three thousand years. I heard what a person of that time heard, experiencing the same awe. I could imagine this person listening, a woman, I think, a very beautiful woman.” He squeezed LuLing’s hand. “And I thought to myself, in another three thousand years, perhaps another woman will hear these tones and think of me as a handsome man. Though we don’t know each other, we’re connected by the music. Don’t you agree?” He looked at LuLing.
“Buddha-ful,” she answered.
“Your mother and I think alike,” he said to Ruth. She grinned back. She realized that Mr. Tang translated for LuLing, as she once had. But he knew not to be concerned with words and their precise meanings. He simply translated what was in LuLing’s heart: her better intentions, her hopes.
For the past month, LuLing had been living at Mira Mar Manor, and Mr. Tang went several times a week to visit. On Saturday afternoons, he took her on outings—to matinees, to free public rehearsals of the symphony, for strolls through the arboretum. Today it was an exhibit on Chinese archaeology, and he had invited Ruth and Art to join them. “I have something interesting to show you,” he had said mysteriously over the phone, “very much worth your while.”
It was already worth Ruth’s while to see her mother so happy. Happy. Ruth pondered the word. Until recently, she had not known what that might encompass in LuLing’s case. True, her mother was still full of complaints. The food at the Mira Mar was, as predicted, “too salty,” the restaurant-style service was “so slow, food already cold when come.” And she hated the leather recliner Ruth had bought her. Ruth had to replace it with the old vinyl La-Z-Boy. But LuLing had let go of most worries and irritations: the tenant downstairs, the fears that someone was stealing her money, the sense that a curse loomed over her life and disaster awaited her if she was not constantly on guard. Or had she simply forgotten? Perhaps her being in love was the tonic. Or the change of scenery had removed reminders of a more sorrowful past. And yet she still recounted the past, if anything more often, only now it was constantly being revised for the better. For one, it included Mr. Tang. LuLing acted as if they had known each other many lifetimes and not just a month or so. “This same thing, he and I see long time ‘go,” LuLing said aloud as they all admired the bells, “only now we older.”
Mr. Tang helped LuLing stand up, and they moved with Ruth and Art to another display in the middle of the room. “This next one is a cherished object of China scholars,” he said. “Most visitors want to see the ritual wine vessels, the jade burial suits. But to a true scholar, this is the prize.” Ruth peered into the display case. To her, the prize resembled a large wok with writing on it.
“It’s a masterly work of bronze,” Mr. Tang continued, “but there’s also the inscription itself. It’s an epic poem written by the great scholars about the great rulers who were their contemporaries. One of the emperors they praised was Zhou, yes, the same Zhou of Zhoukoudian—where your mother once lived and Peking Man was found.”
“The Mouth of the Mountain?” Ruth said.
“The same. Though Zhou didn’t live there. A lot of places carry his name, just like every town in the United States has a Washington Street… . Now come this way. The reason I brought you here is in the next room.”
Soon they were standing in front of another display case. “Don’t look at the description in English, not yet,” Mr. Tang said. “What do you think this is?” Ruth saw an ivory-colored spadelike object, cracked with lines and blackened with holes. Was it a board for an ancient game of go? A cooking implement? Next to it was a smaller object, light brown and oval, with a lip around it and writing instead of holes. At once she knew, but before she could speak, her mother gave the answer in Chinese: “Oracle bone.”
Ruth was amazed at what her mother could recall. She knew not to expect LuLing to remember appointments or facts about a recent event, who was where, when it happened. But her mother often surprised her with the clarity of her emotions when she spoke of her youth, elements of which matched in spirit what she had written in her memoir. To Ruth this was evidence that the pathways to her mother’s past were still open, though rutted in a few spots and marked by rambling detours. At times she also blended the past with memories from other periods of her own past. But that part of her history was nonetheless a reservoir which she could draw from and share. It didn’t matter that she blurred some of the finer points. The past, even revised, was meaningful.
In recent weeks, LuLing had related several times how she received the apple-green-jade ring that Ruth had retrieved from the La-Z-Boy. “We went to a dance hall, you and I,” she said in Chinese. “We came down the stairs and you introduced me to Edwin. His eyes fell on mine and did not turn away for a long time. I saw you smile and then you disappeared. That was naughty of you. I knew what you were thinking! When he asked me to marry, he gave me the ring.” Ruth guessed that GaoLing had been the person who did the introductions.
Ruth now heard LuLing speaking in Mandarin to Art: “My mother found one of these. It was carved with words of beauty. She gave it to me when she was sure I would not forget what was important. I never wanted to lose it.” Art nodded as if he understood what she had said, and then LuLing translated into English for Mr. Tang: “I telling him, this bone my mother give me one.”
“Very meaningful,” he said, “especially since your mother was the daughter of a bone doctor.”
“Famous,” LuLing said.
Mr. Tang nodded as if he too remembered. “Everyone from the villages all around came to him. And your father went for a broken foot. His horse stepped on him. That’s how he met your mother. Because of that horse.”
LuLing went blank-eyed. Ruth was afraid her mother was going to cry. But instead, LuLing brightened and said, “Liu Xing. He call her that. My mother say he write love poem about this.”
Art looked at Ruth, waiting for her to acknowledge whether this was true. He had read some of the translation of LuLing’s memoir, but could not connect the Chinese name to its referent. “It means ‘shooting star,’” Ruth whispered. “I’ll explain later.” To LuLing she said, “And what was your mother’s family name?” Ruth knew it was a risk to bring this up, but her mother’s mind had entered the territory of names. Perhaps others were there, like markers, waiting to be retrieved.
Her mother hesitated only a moment before answering: “Family name Gu.” She was looking sternly at Ruth. “I tell you so many time, you don’t remember? Her father Dr. Gu. She Gu doctor daughter.”
Ruth wanted to shout for joy, but the next instant she realized her mother had said the Chinese word for ‘bone.’ Dr. Gu, Dr. Bone, bone doctor. Art’s eyebrows were raised, in expectation that the long-lost family identity had been found. “I’ll explain later,” Ruth said again, but this time her voice was listless. “Oh.”
Mr. Tang traced characters in the air. “Gu, like this? Or this?” Her mother put on a worried face. “I don’t remember.” “I don’t either,” Mr. Tang said quickly. “Oh well, doesn’t matter.” Art changed the subject. “What’s the writing on the oracle bone?” “They’re the questions the emperors asked the gods,” Mr. Tang replied. “What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow, who’s going to win the war, when should the crops be planted. Kind of like the six-o’clock news, only they wanted the report ahead of time.” “And were the answers right?”
“Who knows? They’re the cracks you see next to the black spots. The diviners of the bones used a heated nail to crack the bone. It actually made a sound—pwak! They interpreted the cracks as the answers from heaven. I’m sure the more successful diviners were skilled at saying what the
emperors wanted to hear.”
“What a great linguistic puzzle,” Art said.
Ruth thought of the sand tray she and her mother used over the years. She too had tried to guess what might put her mother at ease, the words that would placate but not be readily detected as fraudulent. At times she had made up the answers to suit herself. But on other occasions, she really had tried to write what her mother needed to hear. Words of comfort, saying that her husband missed her, that Precious Auntie was not angry.
“Speaking of puzzle,” Ruth said, “the other day you mentioned that no one ever found the bones of Peking Man.”
LuLing perked up. “Not just man, woman too.”
“You’re right, Mom—Peking Woman. I wonder what happened to her? Were the bones crushed on the train tracks on the way to Tianjin? Or did they sink with the boat?”
“If the bones are still around,” Mr. Tang replied, “no one’s saying. Oh, every few years you read a story in the paper. Someone dies, the wife of an American soldier, a former Japanese officer, an archaeologist in Taiwan or Hong Kong. And as the story goes, bones were found in a wooden trunk, just like the trunks used to pack the bones back in 1941. Then the rumors leak out that these are the bones of Peking Man. Arrangements are made, ransoms are paid, or what have you. But the bones turn out to be oxtails. Or they are casts of the original. Or they disappear before they can be examined. In one story, the person who had stolen the bones was taking them to an island to sell to a dealer, and the plane went down in the ocean.”
Ruth thought about the curse of ghosts who were angry that their bones were separated from the rest of their mortal bodies. “What do you believe?”
“I don’t know. So much of history is mystery. We don’t know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life.” Mr. Tang winked at LuLing.
