by Yangsze Choo
If I told Amah, I would have the opposite problem. She would be only too ready to believe me. She would get an exorcist, burn chicken feathers, instruct me to drink the blood of a dog or suggest splashing it around the room to unmask ghosts. She might drag me off to visit a medium. And certainly she would work herself into a frenzy of superstitious fear.
Sometimes, I wondered whether this immersion in a dead world was the beginning of lunacy. I tested my memory and checked the pupils of my eyes for madness, but I didn’t like to look in the mirror too long. There were too many shadows. The only thing that comforted me was Tian Bai’s watch. I kept it with me at all times, fingering the brass case in my pocket. Each time I wrenched myself awake from the dreams, I was comforted by its soft ticking. In fact, the person I really wanted to talk to was Tian Bai, but I had no way of contacting him. I sent a message back to Yan Hong, thanking her for the cloth and I wondered whether she had known about the watch. Somehow I doubted it. Yet if I sent a letter to her, he might see it.
In the end the note I wrote was simple.
Thank you for the beautiful gift. It was entirely unexpected, but I will certainly treasure it and think of some good use for it to pass the time.
A little awkward, but it was the best I could manage. Or perhaps someone had accidentally dropped the watch into the bundle of cloth. Maybe a child had done it. Between my nightmares and my waking preoccupation I lost weight, spending my days in listless withdrawal. Amah noticed, of course.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Are you sick?”
When I confessed to not feeling well, she administered a series of brews. Boiled radish soup with pork bones to flush out poisons. Mung beans and yellow sugar to cleanse. Chicken soup and cordyceps for stamina. Her soups had helped me recover from many childhood illnesses in the past. This time, however, they had a limited effect. One afternoon when I was lying on the rattan daybed downstairs, I joked that I felt like Lin Daiyu, the tragic heroine of the classic Dream of the Red Chamber. She was a consumptive and spent a great deal of time in the book coughing up blood and looking wan and interesting.
“Don’t talk about such things!” Amah’s sharp response surprised me.
“I was only joking, Amah.”
“Sickness is nothing to joke about.”
She was always at her most belligerent when worried. It was true that the dreams were wearing me down, but I still hoped that they were something that I could surmount if I had enough willpower. Didn’t I prove that night after night when I woke myself up? Just how illusory that was would soon be proved to me.
I hadn’t seen much of my father since the Double Seventh Festival at the Lim mansion. He spent a surprising amount of time out of the house and when he returned, shut himself up with his books. When he emerged for meals he looked haggard, his pupils dilated. Normally, I would have been more alert to his condition, but I had been too preoccupied with thoughts of Tian Bai and the dreams that plagued me nightly. Thus I was surprised when one afternoon he called me into his study.
“What is it, Father?” I asked him. It was very hot. The bamboo chiks were drawn against the sun and wetted down for coolness, but his study was still stifling.
He passed a hand over his face. “Li Lan, I realize that I haven’t been doing my duty by you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re almost eighteen. Most girls your age are already married or at least betrothed.”
I kept silent. When I was younger I had sometimes teased my father and asked him about my marriage. He had replied that I was not to worry about it and he was sure that I would be happy. I had somehow come to assume that he meant to allow me to choose. After all, my parents’ marriage had been by all accounts very happy. Maybe too happy, in retrospect.
“As you know, our finances haven’t been good,” he said. “But I thought that there would be enough for you to live modestly on, even if something should happen to me. I’m afraid, though, that we’re now in worse straits. In addition to that, a marriage alliance I had in mind for you since you were a child has fallen through.”
“What marriage? Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t want you to worry about such things. I also thought, and maybe this was a romantic notion of mine, that you would be well suited to the young man and might naturally be drawn together without being burdened by expectations. It was, after all, what happened with your mother and myself.” He sighed. “If anyone is to blame it is myself. I’ve been too unworldly about such things. I expected—”
“What marriage?” I asked again.
“It was never formal, but I had an understanding with an old friend. We were not, of course, an equal alliance with his family as the economic disparity was too great.” He laughed bitterly. “My friend, however, had a nephew, a bright young man with no family of his own. Years ago when you were young, he proposed a marriage with our family as we still had a good name and a modest income. I had seen the young man and felt it would be a good match. A better match, perhaps, than with the main family as there would be less family pressure on you.”
I was in a fever of curiosity and agitation. This sounded horribly familiar to me. “What happened?”
“My friend’s own son died and his nephew became the heir. For a while I thought our arrangement still stood. In fact until very recently . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Who is the family?” I felt like shaking him.
“The Lim family.”
Blood was rushing in my ears. I felt dizzy and short of breath. My father continued. “Until very recently, I thought it was still settled. After all, they had asked you to the house and showed you signs of favor. But there was that strange request from Madam Lim.”
“The ghost marriage.” My heart sank.
“She approached me about it one day. I wasn’t sure whether she was serious or if she had somehow confused the betrothal arrangements of her nephew and her son.”
Everything was falling into place, even Lim Tian Ching’s mention, in my dream, of using his mother to ask my father about the marriage. “So now what happens?”
“Lim Teck Kiong, my supposed friend, spoke to me a week ago. He said that given his nephew’s new status as the family heir, it was impossible to marry a penniless girl. He did, however, once again broach the subject of you becoming his son’s spirit wife.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I would think it over and talk to you.” My father stopped me. “Wait! I know it’s distasteful, but you should at least know that it means you would be well provided for in their household, which is more than I can say right now about our own. We’ve lost a great deal of capital, and unfortunately the person who holds my debts is none other than Lim. He offered to buy up our debts and I thought he meant to do me a favor.”
“I will not! I will never marry his dead son!”
“Hush,” said my father. “Don’t fret so. Whatever else I’ve failed to do, I won’t force you into this ghost marriage. I thought that the best thing would be to betroth you to someone else. Then everyone would save some face. I’ve been asking around discreetly, but have had no luck. It’s my fault. I didn’t cultivate new or useful friendships since your mother died. Those old friends I approached were under the impression, no doubt from Lim, that you were always betrothed to his son. But we’ll think of something.”
Tears filled my eyes. If I started to cry, I would be unable to stop. My father stared at his desk, guilt and shame written across his countenance. Then he glanced involuntarily at his opium pipe. I felt a stinging rebuke rise to my lips. No wonder Amah had grumbled at him so often. I had always defended him, feeling that my father doted on me and was sweetly unworldly. But now I began to comprehend the true cost of his failure. I bit my lips until they bled. The hours, days, and years that had bled away in his opium haze demanded a payment from my future. In his a
pathetic way he had squandered my chance at happiness. The storm of tears overtook me and I ran from the room.
Chapter 7
Tian Bai’s wife! That was all I could think of. All this time I had been promised to him. I shut myself up in my room, crying. It was a tragedy to be sure, but there were some horribly comic elements to it. I heard Amah rattle the door anxiously, and then my father’s voice. I wished I had never seen Tian Bai. Then I wished that my father had married me off to him sooner, before Lim Tian Ching had managed to die. As upset as I was, I had to admit that my father had good taste. He was right, I would have liked—I did like—Tian Bai. Very much.
Did Tian Bai know about this arrangement? Was that why he had sent me the pocket watch? If so, then presumably he had not been informed that it was terminated. I wondered whether he had merely been polite to me because custom demanded it. But his eyes had lingered too long. Remembering his steady gaze, I felt weak. Was this love? It was like a consuming flame, licking through my defenses at a slow burn.
My father’s second instinct to betroth me to someone else was also astute. That was my father: clever but no will, no impetus to follow through, so his plans had little chance of realization. When it came down to it, there was no one in his limited circle who could or would make such a marriage arrangement in haste, and frankly I could scarcely blame them. But presumably he had only looked at good families. If I really wanted to get married, there must be some poor man who would welcome a bride. But I didn’t think I could bring myself to marry anyone else. I suppressed a shudder as I thought about Lim Tian Ching. This was all his doing, I was sure of it. Well, I would not bow to him. I would rather run away. Cut my hair, become a nun, or an amah. Anything rather than be a bride to his shade.
My eyes were red and sore. As I peered into the watery depths of my mother’s mirror, I caught a glimpse of a dim form standing behind me. In a fit of anger, I caught up the nearest object and flung it at the shadows. Too late, after it had left my fingers, did I realize that it was Tian Bai’s watch. Well, what did it matter anymore? I burst into tears again; and having exhausted myself, fell asleep.
But sleep was no aid to me. I should have known that by now. Part of me tried to swim back to the waking world but instead I felt myself sinking downward into mist, as though I was drawn along a ribbon or a string. The fog parted and gave way to a dazzling brightness. I was in a magnificent hall, lit with hundreds of red candles. Red satin runners lay on the tables and large rosettes of scarlet ribbons were garlanded from the ceiling. I looked around with unease. The darkness outside the brightly lit hall was oppressively flat. The other thing that made me uncomfortable was the obvious preparations for a feast. Red is the celebratory color for auspicious occasions such as New Year’s. And weddings.
As was always the case in that world, the great hall was empty. It could have held scores of guests but there were only rows of vacant seats. Not a breath of air stirred. It was as silent as the grave. My skin prickled at the thought that anyone, or anything, could be watching from outside those blank, dark windows. No sooner had that crossed my mind than the gay red ribbons began to flutter. Someone was coming. Desperately I tried to wake up. To make this world dissolve away as I had done so many times before. But while I was summoning up my willpower, Lim Tian Ching stepped out from behind a screen. His silent entrance, as though he had been waiting there all along, filled me with terror.
“So you’ve come, Li Lan.”
I took an involuntary step back.
“My dear,” he said, “I have to admit that I’m disappointed in you.”
He sighed and twirled a paper fan. “I thought I would be patient, show you some of the things that we would share together. You did like them, didn’t you?” Seeing that I was speechless, he allowed a smile to steal across his face. “There are so many wonderful things that I have. Houses, horses, servants. Really, I don’t see how any girl could be unhappy here. But what do I find?” His eyes became opaque. “I find you mooning over another man! And who is this man?”
I tried to gather my strength but he kept advancing.
“My own cousin, that’s who! Oh, it’s bad enough that he had to outshine me in life but even in death . . . ” As Lim Tian Ching said the word death, I noticed something strange. His figure blurred for an instant, but it was merely a flicker, for he continued, “Tian Bai has to compete with me. Don’t think I didn’t know you were promised to him! That was one of the first things I discovered after I saw you at the Dragon Boat Festival. Imagine how I felt when I found out that there was some kind of prior arrangement with him.” An expression of distaste crossed his face.
“Why him, of all people? My mother said it had been arranged because your family was poor and they didn’t want his marriage to outshine mine. Well, I told her, why did you have to pick such a girl for him and she said she had no idea; no one had ever seen you.” His face suffused with color, like a fat schoolboy complaining about the theft of his sweets.
“You should forget about me,” I said. “I’m not worthy of your family.”
“That’s for me to decide. Although I commend your modesty.” He bestowed a smile on me again. “My dear, I’m willing to overlook your momentary weakness. After all, you did throw it away.”
“Throw what away?”
“That clock, that watch. I hate those things,” he muttered. “When I saw that, I knew that you couldn’t possibly be interested in him. Now, Li Lan, shall we drink to our union?” Lim Tian Ching held out a wine cup in a grotesque parody of a wedding toast.
“How is it even possible? After all, you’re dead.”
He winced. “Please don’t mention it. But I suppose you have a right to know. There will be a ceremony. I’ve already instructed my father as to how it must be held. You’ll have a magnificent wedding, everything a girl might want. There’ll be bride presents and jewelry, even a kingfisher feather headdress, if you want. We’ll send a sedan chair and a band of musicians to your house, though a rooster will ride with you instead of me.”
I shuddered at this image, but he pressed on, pleased with himself. “For the actual ceremony, you’ll exchange bridal cups with my soul tablet in front of the altar. Then after the formal marriage, you’ll enter the Lim household as my wife. You’ll have all the material things that you need. My mother will take care of it. And every night we shall be together.” He stopped and gave me a roguish smile.
Despite my terror, I felt a slow burning in my stomach. Why should I be married to this autocratic buffoon, alive or dead?
“I don’t think so.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ I don’t want to marry you!”
Lim Tian Ching’s eyes narrowed into slits. Despite my bold words, my heart quailed. “You don’t have a choice in this matter. I’ll ruin your father.”
“Then I’ll become a nun.”
“You don’t know the extent of my influence! I’ll haunt you; I’ll haunt your father; I’ll haunt that meddling amah of yours.” He was raging now. “The border officials are on my side, and they said I have a right to you!”
“Well, you are dead! Dead, dead, dead!” I shrieked.
With each iteration of the word his figure began to shiver and shake. The opulent hall with its hundreds of red candles wavered and began to disappear. The last glimpse I had was of Lim Tian Ching’s face dissolving, his form smearing as though a giant hand was rubbing it out.
I was very
ill after this experience. Amah found me lying on the floor, curled up like a crayfish without a shell. The doctor looked at my tongue, felt my pulse, and shook his head gravely. He had said he had rarely seen a case of someone so young with so little qi, or life force. It was as though someone had drained me of half my vital energy. For that he prescribed a course of heating foods. Ginseng, wine, longan, and ginger. On the third day when I had recovered enough to sit up in bed, Amah brought me a bowl of chicken soup laced with sesame oil to strengthen the heart and nerves. In the morning light she looked shriveled, as though a puff of wind would blow her away.
I gave her the ghost of a smile. “I’m all right, Amah.”
“I don’t know what happened to you. The doctor thought it was brain fever. Your father blames himself.”
“Where is he?”
“He was at your bedside the past few days. I made him rest. There’s no sense everyone in the household getting sick.”
I sipped the scalding soup. Amah had an arsenal of brews in her battery, but she said we would start with chicken soup as I was so weak. Later I should have ginseng.
“That’s expensive,” I said.
“What’s the point of saving when things have got this far? Don’t worry about the money.”
She made an angry face and turned away. I was too tired to argue with her. The doctor came again and prescribed a course of moxibustion and more herbs to warm my blood. He seemed pleasantly surprised at my progress but I knew the real reason. During the past week I had had no dreams.
I had no illusions about this state of affairs, however. If it was madness, the situation seemed hopeless. But if the spirit of Lim Tian Ching was really haunting me, there might be something I could do about it. Presumably I had to consent to the marriage, judging from his insistence on a ceremony. But his wild talk about border officials, whomever they were, and his assertion that he had a right to me was disturbing, even terrifying. I wished I still had Tian Bai’s pocket watch. When I had flung it, it had fallen behind the heavy almirah, or cupboard; and while I was so weak in bed, there were no means to move the furniture and retrieve it. I asked Amah to find it for me but she refused. She had been set against the gift of a clock as bad luck in any event, and I quickly realized it was better not to mention it again in case she decided to get rid of it for me.
