by Yangsze Choo
“I would rather die,” I said.
“What?”
I had spoken aloud without thinking. Amah looked at me with concern. “Don’t worry so much about what happened today,” she said, thinking that I must be frightened.
“I’m not worried,” I lied. “I know what to do.” I took out a purse and counted the money inside. Amah had managed to sell the gold hairpins and for once the little purse was heavy with cash.
“Amah, will you do something for me? Can you buy some funeral offerings?”
She looked at me in surprise. “What kind of offerings?”
“Cash. Hell banknotes.”
“How much?”
“As much as you think is necessary.”
“But surely his family has burned plenty of money for him?” she asked. I realized that she thought we were to bribe Lim Tian Ching to leave us alone.
“The medium said to burn some,” I replied evasively. Amah looked irresolute, but in the end she agreed to go. In the meantime, I had preparations of my own to make.
When Amah came back, she showed me a paper parcel containing printed stacks of hell banknotes, their colors garish with the seal of Yama, the god of hell. In addition to this, she had also bought gold paper to be folded into the shape of ingots, another favorite currency of the underworld. The numbers of the banknotes were in tens and hundreds of Malayan dollars. Hell must surely have seen inflation, given the recklessly high amounts of currency that were regularly burned. What of the poor ghosts who had died long before such large notes were printed?
Later that afternoon, when Amah had retired for a rest, I brought the funeral goods to the courtyard where we burned family offerings to the ancestors. I folded the paper ingots into the proper shape and now they sat, neatly stacked like small boats, on a large tray. I wanted to do the burning on my own without Amah, because it was better if she continued to believe the offerings were for Lim Tian Ching, and not me.
In the past, I had simply followed along with Amah at the appropriate festivals. She was the one who arranged everything at New Year’s, or at Qing Ming, piling the paper funeral offerings to one side and laying out a tray of food for the ancestors. This was an elaborate affair, consisting of a boiled chicken complete with head and feet, cups of rice wine, a head of green lettuce tied with red paper, and pyramids of fruit. After the offering had been made, the family consumed the food. Apparently, the ancestors only needed to partake of the spiritual part of the offering. I had always thought this a practical way to approach things, though it didn’t seem to entail too much sacrifice for the living. The paper grave-goods and funeral money were burned afterward. This was the part, I decided, that I needed to do.
Amah burned incense facing the ancestral tablets upon which the names of the deceased were written. I wasn’t sure what to do about the lack of such a tablet for myself, but while she was out, I had prepared a makeshift one of wood and paper. My hand had trembled when I inked my own name on it, the pigment sinking into the paper like a dismal stain, but I had gone so far that I might as well try everything.
Long ago, I once saw my father burn handwritten poems. It was late one evening, and a blue dusk filled the air. When I asked him why he was destroying his calligraphy, he merely shook his head.
“I sent them,” he said.
“Where?” I asked. I must have been very small at the time, for I had to peer up at his face.
“To your mother. If I burn them, perhaps she’ll read these poems in the spirit world.” His breath was heavy with the sweet reek of rice wine. “Now run along. You should be in bed by now.”
I climbed the stairs slowly, watching as he stood in the dark courtyard. He seemed to have forgotten my presence as he lit yet another poem and watched the paper spark up then dwindle to nothing. After that incident I had asked Amah if I too could burn things for my mother, such as my drawings or my first tentative embroidery stitches. She had seemed unduly cross, snapping that we didn’t do such things out of the right time and where did I get such ideas from? Amah was always a stickler about the correctness of worship and feast days.
Now I wondered whether my father still indulged himself by writing letters to my mother and burning them. Somehow, I doubted it. It was hard to imagine him still having the energy to execute such projects. And what of my mother? Was she still in the spirit world? Amah had always said my mother had surely already been reborn somewhere else. I hoped so. Otherwise I would have to pray that she would take pity on the daughter she had left behind. I had not been taught to pray directly to my mother, even though her death had remained a central, unspoken part of our lives. Amah clung to her belief that my mother had been spared the torments of hell and long since passed on to rebirth. Other than that odd incident from my childhood, Father did not acknowledge it either. I thought of Tian Bai—if I died, would he write letters to me?
Taking a deep breath, I arranged a sheaf of notes into a fan. Muttering a brief prayer to Zheng He, the admiral who had sailed so far around the world, I hoped it would do, though my heart was full of doubt. Then I faced my own name and bowed, saying, “May this money be of use to me somehow.” It sounded weak and rather pathetic, but I dipped the notes into the brazier and they caught fire instantly. I was just about to arrange another fan of cash when Amah came into the courtyard.
“Started already?” she said, her eyes darting to the hell banknotes in my hand. Hastily, I cast them into the brazier and tried to hide the makeshift soul tablet with my name on it, but it was too late.
“What are you doing? You’re not dead yet!” With surprising speed, she snatched away the paper tablet and tore it up.
“Amah,” I said, but she was crying and scolding me.
“Unlucky! So unlucky! How could you do such a thing?”
“The medium told me to.”
“She did?” Amah glared at me. “Then she’s a liar. You’re not going to die. You’re too young to die!” As she wept, distraught, I clung to her like a child again, feeling the slightness of her frame and the frailty of her bones.
“I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.”
How many times had she held me thus when I was small? After a while, she wiped her face with the backs of her hands.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because nobody ever burns offerings to a living person!”
“But this might be a special case.”
Though I didn’t wish to upset her, I couldn’t help arguing my point. All that preparation wasted if I couldn’t burn the money!
“Are you sure she didn’t want you to burn them for him?”
“No. She said it was for me.”
Amah sat down heavily. “It’s as good as saying you’re dead already. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“But, Amah, you told me to see her!”
“She has some talent, to be sure, but she’s not a god. How does she know what fate has in store for you?”
Two faint spots of color appeared on Amah’s face. I knew that look. It meant that there was to be no more discussion over this, however rationally one might argue. I thought about insisting. After all, I was the mistress of the house now. Had probably been for years, in fact, though I had never thought of things that way. As though she could read my mind, Amah cast her eyes down.
“Li Lan, I’m just an old woman now. You can do what you want. But please, don’t do this. It’s very unlucky.”
To my dismay, she began to cry again. I crouched down to look up at her. “I won’t do it.”
Tears slipped into the wrinkles on her face. “You don’t understand. I raised your mother. I carried her when she was a baby, and held her hand when she learned to walk. And then she died so suddenly, poor creature. At her funeral you clung to me, your sweet baby arms holding on to my neck. I swore to her that I would never leav
e you. If you die young too, I can’t bear it!”
I was amazed at this outpouring. Amah was usually so unsentimental, so unwilling to talk about the past. “Was she that young then?” I had always imagined my mother as being much older than me, looking like other people’s mothers or my aunts.
“Not much older than you are now. She was like my own child.”
Unconsciously, Amah’s hand smoothed my hair, falling back into the old rhythms of childhood as though I were really only knee-high and had come to seek solace in her lap. “And now you. You are my little girl too.” We clung to each other like two shipwrecked survivors.
Chapter 10
That night I had terrible dreams, despite the medium’s medicine. My eyes were swollen from crying and I was in low spirits. Amah’s fear had infected me. Death had already stolen from her once and she believed that it could easily happen again, whether from the god of smallpox or as a ghostly affliction. Not wanting to think about it, I went to bed early. The dreams began almost immediately, as though they had been pent up for days. From my drugged sleep, dark shapes wavered, pressing shadowy hands and faces against an invisible barrier. Everything was blurred and slow. I caught glimpses of Lim Tian Ching’s face fading in and out. The mouth moved and the eyes rolled alarmingly. I didn’t want to listen but eventually he swam into focus.
“Li Lan, my dear,” he said. The distortions pulled his mouth into a strange rictus. “You’ve been so unfriendly lately. Surely this is no way to treat your betrothed?”
“Go away!” I shouted, though the words emerged with terrible effort. “I’m not your betrothed! I have no relation to you at all.”
“I came to give you a warning,” he said. “A little willfulness in a wife isn’t too bad, but outright disobedience . . . Well, Li Lan, as your fiancé I do feel it is my duty to correct you, don’t you think?”
“Did you put blood on our door?”
He giggled. “Wasn’t it impressive? Even I was surprised.”
“You did it yourself?”
“Now, now, I can’t give away all my secrets. But suffice it to say that I have others at my command. I am a person of some prestige, which you may come to appreciate soon.”
“How is it that you can command spirits?”
He laughed. “It was nothing really,” he said. “I just told them to give you a fright. I would never have thought of blood myself, but I have to say it looked good. That maid of yours couldn’t stop screaming. Really, I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since . . . since . . . ” He frowned and broke off.
I knew better now than to steer him onto the topic of his death. “And they did this for you? Who are they?”
“The border officials. Oh yes, they listen to me. They’ve been seconded to my command.”
“By whom?”
“One of the Nine Judges of Hell, of course.” He positively smirked at this, his shoulders hunching so that the thick pad of fat where his neck met his back shifted. It was a shame that dying had done so little for his physique.
“Does everyone get demons to command?” I asked.
“Of course not! As a special case, I received resources for my task. You don’t think they would let people just do whatever they like! There are procedures, the proper people to know.” He stroked his chin, fondling the ghost of a goatee. “But enough of that. I came to see if you had changed your mind. You didn’t exactly make it very pleasant for me to visit you lately. Consulting that old witch.”
“So the powder worked.”
Too late, I realized I had said the wrong thing. Rage flitted across his face; his eyes flattened dangerously. This was the frightening thing about Lim Tian Ching. Living in our tranquil, slightly gloomy household, I had never experienced such tantrums.
“No powder can hold me!” he said. “It was a minor inconvenience. But I’ve come for my answer tonight.”
“But why do you want to marry me?”
“Li Lan, Li Lan, you ask too many questions. Surely you don’t mean to weary your bridegroom already.” But he was still smiling, as though the game pleased him in some manner. “There will be plenty of time for our love to become intimate.”
“Love? You hardly know me.”
“Oh, but I know you very well, Li Lan.” I shrank away as he approached. “And it was agreed, you would be part of my reward.”
“For what?”
“I suppose I can tell you since we’re to be married anyway. Someone important has granted me special restitution for the crime committed against me. I need only complete a few trifling tasks for them. And in return, the perpetrator shall be mine.”
“What crime?” I asked, although my skin was prickling.
“Surely you don’t think a strong young man like me could die suddenly of a fever, do you?” he said. “I was murdered.”
I blinked nervously. “And are you trying to discover who did it?”
“But I already know. It was my dear cousin, Tian Bai.”
Amah was the one who woke me, weeping and screaming as I thrashed about. For a long time afterward, she held me as I sobbed incoherently about Lim Tian Ching while she stroked the sweat-soaked hair back from my face. At last I fell into a fitful sleep. When I finally rose, it was almost noon and Amah was tapping on the door.
“What is it?” I asked. I was still preoccupied with Lim Tian Ching’s revelations. My hair was wild, my eyelids swollen. I looked like a madwoman.
“Your father wants to see you.” Amah seemed smaller than ever, a clockwork toy that had begun to run down. “Downstairs, in his study.”
I looked at Amah but she merely shrugged. “Who knows what he wants? But you! You’re too ill to get out of bed. I’ll tell him to wait until later.”
“I’ll go.”
For some reason I felt profoundly uneasy about this summons and I suspected Amah did too, even as she tried to detain me by fussing and scolding. When I had washed my face and plaited my hair, I went downstairs. For the first time in days, the door to my father’s study stood ajar. I knocked tentatively, even though I had never been in the habit of doing so.
“Come in,” said my father.
He was standing behind his desk holding a painted scroll. The bones protruded from his emaciated cheeks and it struck me that the ghost of Lim Tian Ching was eating our household alive. I wondered what pressures he had brought to bear in the Lim mansion, and for the first time, felt a twinge of pity for his parents.
“A fine painting, don’t you think? This has always been one of my favorites.” It was a black-and-white study of mountains, the brushstrokes fierce as though the artist could barely control his impatience to bring the scene to life. “I tried to keep it out of the light and heat,” said my father. “This is by a very famous painter. Can you guess who it is?”
Surely my father had not summoned me down to continue my neglected classical education. Or was he losing his reason after all? He twisted his lips in a grimace. “It will get a good price,” he said. “And there are more. These old things that I’ve collected, perhaps they may be of some use after all.”
“How much?” I said.
“Not enough. But I plan to declare bankruptcy. These are for you. We’ll convert them into gold and cash so you’ll have something to live on.”
“And you? What about you?” I asked in sudden fear. Scenes flashed across my mind. My father in debtor’s prison, or lying broken in the street.
“Don’t worry about me.” Seeing that I was becoming agitated, he said, “Li Lan, I actually wanted to give you some news. I thought it would be better that you heard it from me, rather than from some gossiping servant.”
My heart sank. “What is it?”
“Tian Bai is to be married. The betrothal is official, the contracts have been signed and he will marry the daughter of the Quah family.”
I stood there dumbly, his words ringing
in my ears like the wash of distant waves. “The Quah family?” I said through stiff and clumsy lips.
“You may have seen her that night at the Festival of the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden. She stood next to you at the needle-threading competition.”
Of course I remembered her. That tall, horse-faced girl who had been so unfriendly to me. I was falling, drowning in dark water. I could barely hear my father. Numb, I watched as he grasped my cold hands.
“Li Lan!” he said. “I’m so sorry. That day when he came to talk to me, I was afraid he would raise your hopes.”
I turned and walked away. Dimly, I was aware of my father calling me, of Amah running up to catch my sleeve, but all was underwater. A roaring filled my ears and my vision blurred. Tian Bai! Wrapped up as I had been in my struggles with Lim Tian Ching, I had taken it for granted that he was, in his own world, fighting his uncle to ensure that we could still be together. And now he had failed me. Had failed for quite some time, since the marriage contracts were already signed. What a fool I had been! Taken in by a charming smile and an old brass watch. I had indulged in daydreams while the Quah girl probably sewed her trousseau. Perhaps she too had received a length of cloth as a prize from Yan Hong. I felt sick.
I lay on my bed with unseeing eyes. I was exhausted, but could not rest. Lim Tian Ching’s accusations. Tian Bai’s marriage. They churned together in a nauseating morass. If Tian Bai was a murderer, then I was well rid of him. Yet I could not bring myself to trust Lim Tian Ching, nor even my own dreams. That way led to madness. I didn’t know how long I lay there, but the sun moved from one window to the other as the day waned. Amah came in and lit the lamps. She brought soup, even as I turned my face away. She wept aloud and cursed Tian Bai, saying all the things that I wished I could say. As the light faded, the yellow spell papers over the windows shivered in an unseen wind. I knew what that meant. My unwanted suitor would come again that night.
