by Yangsze Choo
When Amah left, I sat up and fumbled for the pouch of powder that the medium had given me. With shaking fingers I poured a generous amount into a cup and sloshed some water in. She had said I could increase the dose if it didn’t work. Well, it had certainly not worked last night. I told myself that all I wanted was oblivion, to sleep and forget. I told myself this even as I gulped it down, gasping at the bitter taste. Now, in retrospect, I asked myself why did I do that? Why didn’t I wait for Amah to come back, to prepare it for me as carefully as she would surely have done? I was angry, despairing, and careless. But I truly don’t think that I meant to die.
Part Two
Afterworld
Chapter 11
Someone was crying, the harsh sobs like the wheezing of an animal in pain. I opened my eyes to a bedchamber with windows half shuttered against the strong sunshine. Though they must have once been of good quality, there was an indefinable shabbiness about the furniture despite the scoured floorboards and neatly mended linens. All these things I saw with a hawk-like sharpness I had never experienced before. Every whorl on the wooden beams stood out in relief. Each mote of dust hung in the air like a star.
An old woman was huddled against the side of the bed but it was hard to concentrate on her. My mind seemed to wander, as though it was constantly being drawn away. The bed was a three-sided box and on it was a single cotton mattress, worn to a concave meagerness. I spent a long time examining the stitches that held it together. All this time, the sobbing continued until almost in irritation, I turned my attention back to the old woman. She crouched on the floor, her face buried in the side of the mattress. As she rocked back and forth, she exposed the thin soles of her cloth shoes.
As I studied her, I became aware of a girl lying in the bed. She lay unnaturally still, her eyelids furled tight as flower buds. The extreme pallor of her complexion made the gently curving brows and thick lashes stand out in stark contrast, as though they had been painted with a heavy hand. I wondered what she looked like when she opened her eyes. If she ever opened them, indeed, for it was apparent even from a distance that something was wrong with her.
The door opened and a maidservant entered. When she saw the girl on the bed she began to shriek. Her cries drew an older man with pockmarked skin. From his long robe I guessed he was the master of the house, though he seemed pitiably feeble. He grasped the girl’s hands and called her name. Distracted, I was about to turn toward the windows, but the sound of her name arrested me and kept me where I was, watching almost disinterestedly as they tried to revive her. All the while the people in the room kept exclaiming “Li Lan! Li Lan!” as though that would bring her back.
At length a doctor arrived. Shooing away the hysterical maid, he listened to the girl’s pulse, prised open her mouth, and examined her tongue. He felt the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet, pausing to turn up her eyelids.
Then he said, “She’s not dead.” The old woman, who had not left her post by the bed, burst into fresh weeping. “What has she taken?” he asked.
Painfully, she rose and brought a paper packet of powder to the doctor, along with the dregs of an earthenware cup. He sniffed it, put in his finger and licked it briefly. “Opium,” he pronounced, “Along with a lot of other things, some of which I don’t know. Who gave this to her?”
The old woman began some muddled explanation about a medium and other events that I barely paid attention to. Instead, fascinated by the fact that the girl was still alive, I drew closer. If I had paused to reflect, perhaps I should have found it strange that no one appeared to notice me but it didn’t occur to me then.
The doctor was delivering his diagnostic. “Keep her warm and feed her plain chicken broth if you can. She may revive but you should also prepare for the worst.”
“Are you saying she might die?” asked the master of the house.
In answer the doctor wiped his fingers fastidiously on his sleeve, then using the second and third fingers of his right hand, pressed hard on the girl’s upper lip, beneath the nose. Surprisingly, her eyelids gave the merest flicker. At the same instant, I became aware of a tug at the very fibers of my being. If I were a kite blowing on some errant wind, that feeling would be the sudden jerk of the string catching up to me.
“You see?” said the doctor. “This is the acupuncture point to revive fainting and nosebleeds. She’s taken an overdose that has slowed her life force drastically, yet there’s still some qi circulating in her body.”
“Will she recover?”
“She’s young and her body may eventually break down the poison, so keep her warm and massage her. Try to see if she can take a little liquid.”
“Please, Doctor. Tell me truly, what are her chances?” The older man looked haggard, his eyes wide and glassy. I could see his pupils were dilated as though he himself were taking stimulants. The doctor must have noticed too, for he paused to look at him with a faint expression of distaste.
“Let her rest and tomorrow I’ll come back with acupuncture needles. I don’t want to stimulate the qi until her condition stabilizes. But she may be in this state for a while.” As the doctor prepared to leave, he took the old woman aside and muttered, “He’s smoking too much opium.”
She nodded, though I could see her heart wasn’t in it. Her gaze kept straying back to the girl on the bed, and after the doctor left, she immediately began to massage her limbs. At first the girl lay motionless like a beautiful doll, but after about twenty minutes I began to perceive a hint of color in her face. It was so faint that I wondered whether the old woman could detect it, but an expression of relief crossed her face. Tenderly, she smoothed the girl’s hair.
“I’ll make you some soup, my little one,” she said. “Don’t worry, Amah will come back soon.”
As soon as the door had closed behind her I went over to the girl. I felt intensely curious about her. When I gazed into her face I had the nagging feeling that there was something important that I couldn’t remember. Close up, I could detect the barely perceptible pulse in her throat, the sluggish meandering of blood through her body, and the faint lift of her rib cage. Drawn by some unknown fascination, I placed my hand on her chest. A jolt of lightning ran through my body, burning its way with a rush of memories, images, and feelings. In a flash, I remembered who I was, who all those people were. That was my body lying on the bed.
For some moments I stayed there, frozen in fear and amazement. Was I a spirit now? Frantically, I circled the body. My body, I reminded myself. It was said that when the soul was parted from the body it could be enticed back. I walked round, peering at it and wondering whether I could enter through a nostril or an ear, but I didn’t seem to have that ability. Frustrated at last, I lay down on it, my phantom form slowly sinking until it was completely engulfed by my unconscious self. I fit perfectly, yet there was a separation that couldn’t be reconciled. But despite my anxiety, I no longer felt as distracted. My spirit must have remembered the cradle of my flesh, the soft murmurings of blood in my veins, and it quieted down like a nervous horse in a familiar stall.
When I opened my eyes again, Amah’s familiar face hovered anxiously over me. For an instant I thought I was a child again, sick in bed, but then I remembered. She passed a hand over my forehead, but I felt nothing. It was a crushing disappointment. I called Amah, but she continued to gaze down at me sadly.
“Li Lan,” she said. “Can you hear me? I brought some broth for you.”
“I’m here!” I cried, but to her eyes there was no
change.
When she propped my body up, I sat up in it as well. Amah brought a spoonful to my lips. “Just a little,” she said. The fragrance was savory and enticing, but my body slumped forward and the broth dribbled out. Tears gathered in Amah’s eyes but she kept trying. In desperation, I took up my place inside my body and pretended to swallow whenever she spooned the broth in. At first it seemed to make no difference, but eventually my body swallowed weakly. Amah was beside herself with delight, and so was I. She cleaned my face with a warm damp towel, dressed me in fresh clothes, and tucked me in. All this I observed while standing at her shoulder, though she paid no heed to my piteous entreaties.
When she left again, I followed her out. Contrary to my expectations of the spirit world, movement was not difficult. The only change was that I seemed to have less substance. Soft filmy things, like curtains, were no barrier to my passing, but denser objects required a struggle. I didn’t even attempt the walls, not wishing to get stuck somewhere. Other people were impermeable to me. When Ah Chun brushed past, the movement of her shoulder pushed me back against the wall. Only my own body seemed to accept my passage easily.
Ghosts, it was widely believed, had the greatest difficulty turning corners and could be easily flummoxed by odd angles and mirrors. But they could also slip through cracks and dwindle like candle flames. None of these rules seemed to apply to me, and I wondered whether the fact that I was not quite dead had anything to do with it. Or worse, perhaps soon I would lose this ability to move purposefully and I would fade away, becoming no more than a wraith blown by the wind.
At the top of the stairs, I leaped impulsively, floating feather-soft down to the floor below. I was so pleased with this discovery that I was on the verge of running upstairs to repeat it when I heard voices in the courtyard. The air was beginning to cool and the smell of burning charcoal rose as stoves were lit for the evening meal. I could almost taste the food that was cooking, just as I had tasted the broth Amah had spooned into my body. While that had strengthened me, however, these aromas merely tantalized, leaving me unsatisfied.
I made my way slowly into the courtyard where Old Wong was talking to Ah Chun. Judging from her red nose and swollen eyes, she had either just stopped crying or was about to start again.
“The little mistress dead,” she said. “And she so young—I’m sure this house is cursed!”
Old Wong made a sharp sound of annoyance. “She’s not dead. Didn’t you hear the doctor?”
“I mean to give my notice tomorrow,” said Ah Chun. “I won’t work here anymore.”
“Go ahead, then,” said Old Wong. “Try and see if you can find another job right away. At least you’re still fed and housed here.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Will you leave at the end of the month?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “They need the help.”
“I heard the master is bankrupt.” Ah Chun blew her nose.
“Still paying us, aren’t they?”
I listened to them anxiously, wondering how our household would fare if Ah Chun and Old Wong should leave us. At that moment, Old Wong turned his head and looked directly at me. A spasm of emotion crossed his face, like a lizard skittering on hot stones. I was astonished. No one else had noticed me at all. I called his name but he turned away.
“Be off with you!” he said. “Go back to where you belong.”
Obediently, Ah Chun picked up her pan of vegetable peelings and made her way indoors. I lingered, thinking about the words he had used. They almost seemed intended for me, but he didn’t acknowledge me at all, even when I stood in front of him calling plaintively. Instead, he marched back to the kitchen, leaving me to doubt that instant of recognition.
For the next few days I stayed close to my body, often lying in it in the hopes that I could rekindle a connection. Compared to when I had first seen it, my body now looked as though it were merely sleeping. The waxen, lifeless cast was gone, and it could now eat a little and swallow involuntarily. When helped to the chamber pot, it would obediently void itself. This last I worked very hard on, for I didn’t want Amah to be burdened as though I were an infant again. At first I was flushed with this success, but when improvement halted at this basic level, I began to despair.
The doctor came every day. I shuddered to think at how we were paying him, but thankfully there was still some cash from the jewelry I had sold. I hoped Amah would have the sense to sell more, if need be. He administered acupuncture and pronounced himself pleasantly surprised at the signs of progress, which he attributed entirely to his own devices.
“I’ve seldom seen such a marked improvement in a patient,” he declared to my father.
“But what about her mind? She still doesn’t respond to anything.”
“It’s an unusual case to be sure. Usually the spirit returns first, prompting the physical recovery.”
“What do you think?” my father broke in. There were stains on his blue robe, which he had not changed for days.
“You need to call her spirit back. Who knows where it is wandering now?”
Since I was standing right beside him, I felt the horrible irony of his remarks. Wandering, indeed!
“And if her spirit can find its way back?”
“Then it should naturally join to the body. There is a strong attraction between the two.”
This conversation made me more certain than ever that I must do something. Anything. The disaster of my disembodiment had overshadowed all else, but now I feared that in my current form I might be easier prey for Lim Tian Ching and his schemes. And what of his other accusations? I found it hard to believe Tian Bai was a murderer, but I tore my thoughts from him. Even if he was innocent, he was marrying another. I had enough troubles of my own.
I had not yet dared to pass beyond the barrier of yellow spell papers that Amah and I had pasted on the windows and entrances. Whenever I drew close, they fluttered wildly though there was no breeze. I feared that they might trap me, as their purpose was to block spirits. I had noticed that my spirit form wore the same clothes my physical body did, and the food Amah gave my body seemed to strengthen it. That seemed a good sign; in some indefinable way, my spirit was still tied to my body. But I wasn’t sure what would happen to this bond if I left the house.
As I gazed at my body, wishing I had appreciated it more, I noticed a thin thread hanging in the air. At first I thought it was a strand of spider silk, but it glistened in the sunshine and in contrast to how solid objects had become for me in my new state, appeared strangely translucent. I put my finger out and felt a tingling hum, like the vibrating string of an instrument.
Startled, I drew my hand back. The thread emerged from a corner of the room and by kneeling on the floor, I saw the glint of brass that was Tian Bai’s watch behind the heavy almirah. I had been unable to retrieve it since I had flung it at Lim Tian Ching’s shade that evening, so long ago it seemed. The fine filament originated from the watch, drifting up to span the room until it was lost in the dazzling sunlight outside. I couldn’t understand how I had missed seeing it before, and wondered with dread whether I had become closer to the spirit world.
Yet, the thread drew me. It held a strange attraction so that I couldn’t help sliding my hand along it, following its path out of the window. On an impulse, I climbed onto the sill. The thread hummed like a captured bee in my palm. I glanced back at the girl on the bed, her eyes closed and her breathing regular. I knew that Amah woul
d take good care of my body. Then I jumped.
Chapter 12
Despite my fears, the spell paper on the window didn’t hinder my exit. Instead, I drifted slowly down until I stood in the side alley looking back at our house, the glistening thread still clasped in my hand. When I released my grip it floated up a little, blowing with the wind like spider silk as it stretched on out of sight. Without it, I might well have lost my nerve and returned home, for never in my life had I been alone outside like this.
I started to walk, passing the familiar houses of the neighborhood. There was hardly anyone about; it was too hot to go visiting and too late in the morning for the peddlers who went from door to door, selling fresh tofu in buckets of water and live chickens. Now that I could wander around freely, I felt a great curiosity to explore other people’s houses and see how they lived, but the thread in my hand reminded me that I had other things to do. I didn’t know where it was leading me, but it was all I had to go on.
I walked a long way, tracing the thread as it wended its way into a more commercial district. There were rows of shop houses bright with signboards and banners, so closely built that each one shared walls with its neighbors; a kaki lima, or five-foot way—the cool, shaded walkway created by the overhanging second story of each shop house—ran in front. Here pedestrians haggled, old men dozed in rattan chairs, and stray dogs sprawled, their sides heaving in the heat. There were various sundry shops: an ironmonger; a kopi tiam; an Indian moneylender girdled in his white cotton puggree with three wavy caste lines painted on his forehead. When I was a child, Amah would bring me here during the Moon Festival to choose from the ranks of celluloid paper-and-wire lanterns, bent cunningly into the shapes of butterflies and goldfish. Afterward, I would wait while she pored over packets of needles and wooden clogs.
