Letters in the Jade Dragon Box

by Gale Sears

  “What do you mean?”

  Master Quan grinned. “This official was paid lots of money by smart monkey couple to get me out of China.”

  Wen-shan sat back in her chair. “The Smythes arranged it?”

  Master Quan nodded. “After we drive for many hours, the truck stops, and governmental official dumps me out.”

  “In the middle of nowhere?”

  Master Quan chuckled. “No. In the middle of airfield. Monkey couple is sending small plane to fly me out.” His expression turns sober. “There was only one bit of trouble.”

  “What?”

  “The official did not want me to take jade dragon box. He said he was told he could keep all the treasures.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I tell him that monkey couple will never do business with him again if he does not let me take box.”

  Her uncle shook his head. “You were very brave, Master Quan.”

  “Ah, but I know the government official very greedy. He wants to do business.”

  Wen-shan leaned forward. “So he gave you the box?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the plane came and flew you to Hong Kong.”

  “To secret airfield in New Territories. Mrs. Smythe pick me up in jeep.”

  “I wish I could meet her,” Wen-shan said.

  “Yes. She is amazing woman.”

  “And your story is remarkable, Master,” her uncle said.

  Master Quan’s grin widened so that his eyes crinkled. “It is good story, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what I don’t understand is how you had the box when the official came to the university,” Wen-shan questioned.

  “I went to hidden room under your family shrine and took the box. That is what your grandfather tell me to do if things were very bad for the family.”

  “What do you mean, very bad?”

  Master Quan studied her face. “Have you finished reading letters yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  The Master’s expression softened, but he shook his head. “Then I must not tell you. That is story for your mother to tell. Just know that I hide box away with other art pieces.”

  Wen-shan resigned herself to the fact that no other information about her family would be coming from Master Quan.

  “And now, if you’re finished with dinner, Master, we would like you to join us as we open another of my brother’s paintings,” her uncle said.

  Master Quan’s head bobbed. “Oh, I would be so honored. So honored.” He went to stand and Wen-shan’s uncle helped him. He asked to use the washroom, and as her uncle showed him the way, Wen-shan cleared the dishes from the table and put away the extra food.

  Wen-shan smiled as she overheard a comment from Master Quan as he was coming back from the washroom. “So different from Chinese toilets. But better different, I think.” She turned off the lights in the kitchen and joined the two men in the front room. Master Quan was sitting in her uncle’s chair while her uncle sat on the sofa.

  “Wen-shan, would you please bring a painting?”

  “Yes, Uncle.” She went to the cupboard and picked up one of the last three paintings. She handed it to her uncle. “Only two left.” He nodded.

  As her uncle unrolled the scroll, Master Quan leaned forward. It was another magical scene of Guilin. The horizontal painting showed the Li River meandering through the stunning green peaks. The blue water curved around a crescent shoal of flat land that pushed up against the feet of the soaring cliffs.

  “I know that place,” Master Quan whispered. He cleared his throat. “First time I see Yellow Cloth Shoal, I am eight. I take boat ride with my family.” He pointed to the mountains. “See these seven peaks?” Wen-shan nodded. “They are the seven fairies. Would you like me to tell their story?”

  “Yes. I would love to hear a story.”

  Master Quan gazed at the beautiful painting as though magic was pouring out of it. “Seven fairies went to the king of the fairy court. They had decided they wanted to see what earth was like. The fairy king told them they would not like the earth. It was barren and filled with brutish beasts called humans. He told them they should stay in the fairy kingdom. The fairies were sure that they must go to earth and see for themselves. Finally the king gave his permission, and the seven friends dropped out of the sky and landed on the Yellow Cloth Shoal. They looked at the peaceful blue river, they walked along the beautiful yellow shoal of land, and they danced with the mist as it played among the heavenly mountains. They even dabbled their feet in the river and watched a kindly old fisherman paddling his boat. The fairies were so infatuated by the scene that they did not listen when the fairy king told them to return. They said they wanted to stay longer. The fairy king was angry that they liked earth better than his kingdom, so he granted their wish to stay longer by turning them into seven beautiful stone hills.”

  Master Quan pointed to each of the hills again, and Wen-shan smiled. “That is a good story, Master Quan. I can see why the fairies wanted to stay.”

  “Ah, yes. And I could stay gazing at this picture all night, but I am old, and sleep is calling.”

  Her uncle stood. “I will call the taxi.”

  • • •

  Master Quan was helped to the taxi by both Wen-shan and her uncle. He thanked Wen-shan many times for the dinner, and both of them for sharing the paintings with him. Her uncle told her not to wait up because it would be late by the time he took Master Quan all the way to the Smythes’ home in Kowloon and then returned.

  Wen-shan went back into the house smiling with the satisfaction of a good evening. She had been nervous about the dinner, but all went well. She drew her fingers across the seven hills of the Yellow Cloth Shoal and thought about the look of wonder on Master Quan’s face. It was a miracle that he had been able to get the jade dragon box to them. Her grandfather’s paintings were hanging here because of Master Quan’s bravery. She frowned as she thought about his daring escape. What had happened to all the other irreplaceable art pieces taken away by that greedy government official? How much of China’s art had been lost or destroyed through the years?

  She pulled her eyes away from her grandfather’s painting and went to the kitchen to finish the cleanup. It was nice to have company. For ten years she could remember only one or two other people being inside their home, but now, with the arrival of the jade dragon box, there seemed to be a constant stream of visitors.

  Notes

  Protecting art: Many people hid art during the Cultural Revolution to save it from destruction by the Red Guards. As one example of the level of destruction, in 1958 there were 6,843 monuments still standing in Peking. In the summer of 1966, 4,922 were obliterated.

  Chinese versus American toilets: A Western toilet has a base upon which to sit. A Chinese toilet is simply a hole in the ground.

  Chapter 21

  She stood on the Hundred Flower Bridge with Nui Gui. The ghost was silent and beautiful; her long silver hair blew in the wind, and in her pearly white hand she carried a red fan. Wen-shan looked away from her and down into the dark water. The shimmering face of Shui Gui peered up and beckoned her to come to the water’s edge. His voice was cold and pitiless, but his cunning words made the water tempting. Her body swayed forward and small hands pressed at her back. She felt her body fall, and she grabbed for the rough stones of the bridge. She did not want to sink into the cold dark water with Emperor Chan Lee! She did not want to feel the clammy hands of Shui Gui pulling her down to drink the dark water!

  Her body jerked awake, and Wen-shan found herself on her bedroom floor with a very sore side and elbow. She groaned.

  Suddenly the hall light was turned on and her uncle was at her door.

  “Wen-shan, what happened?” He came to her side. “Are you all right?”

  “I fell out of bed.” She got onto her knees and he helped her to stand. “I . . . I think I’m all right.”

  “What happened? Did you have your nightmare again?”
/>
  “It was a nightmare, but not my normal one. Anyway, I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “Don’t worry. It was almost time to get up anyway.”

  Wen-shan rubbed her elbow. “Ouch.”

  “Come. Let’s put an ice pack on that, and I’ll make you a cup of chamomile tea.” He helped her on with her bathrobe and the two trudged out to the kitchen. “Do you want cornflakes?”

  She smiled. “No. Too early. The tea sounds good though.”

  “It will calm you.”

  “What I really need is shark soup to help me be strong against those stupid ghosts.”

  Her uncle put on the kettle. “Another ghost dream?”

  She sat at the kitchen table. “Yes, but in this one Shui Gui was after me.”

  “Oh, he is a bad ghost.”

  “Yes, and I’m afraid of the water.”

  “See, I told you you should have taken swimming lessons.”

  “It’s not too late. Maybe I’ll sign up.” Wen-shan yawned and looked at the pale sky outside the kitchen window. “I wish I could figure out what all these ghost dreams mean, especially the one with the rain. I hate that one.”

  Her uncle handed her an ice pack. “Maybe we can say a prayer and give the house a blessing.”

  “What? A blessing for a house?”

  “Yes, we can ask for a better spirit to come in.”

  “Like the Buddhist teaching of sweeping the house with brooms to sweep out all the evil spirits?”

  Her uncle smiled. “Not exactly like that.” He put the tea leaves in the container. “I will ask Mr. Pierpont how to do it.”

  Wen-shan gingerly changed the position of the ice pack. “Uncle?”

  “Yes?”

  “The other day when I was helping with inventory, Mr. Pierpont told me the story of the Heaton’s little boy. The time he had polio.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember that.”

  “Do you think it was a miracle?”

  “How else can you explain it, Wen-shan? One minute he can’t move, and the next he’s running to his mother.”

  “But things like that don’t happen.”

  “We all saw the boy when he was well.”

  “Maybe his body just got better.”

  “Well, that would have been amazing enough, right?”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t be because somebody prayed and then God made him better.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you? You’re not sure there is such a thing as God?”

  The teakettle started whistling, and her uncle lifted it off the stove. He poured the water into the teapot and replaced the lid. He turned to look at her.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s good not to be sure. To know you do not know a thing is the beginning of true wisdom.”

  Wen-shan smiled. “I think it’s funny how you can believe in God and Confucius at the same time.”

  Her uncle smiled back. “Confucius has perfect philosophies. God has perfect answers.”

  “You really believe there is a God?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who lives in heaven?”

  “Yes.”

  “But where is heaven?”

  Her uncle brought the cups to the table and poured the tea. “Now you sound like Yan and Ya Ya.”

  Wen-shan laughed at herself. “I do, don’t I?”

  “It is good to ask questions, Wen-shan, but some questions are more important than others. Does it really matter where God lives?”

  Wen-shan sipped her hot tea. “I guess not.”

  “What would be an important question?”

  She tried to think of an important question. After a while she shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “Does God watch over us or not?”

  Wen-shan thought about the suffering of her family in Guilin, of Mrs. Yang’s suffering, of all the people killed in China. “No.”

  “No?”

  “If there is a God, He doesn’t watch over us very well. There are too many terrible things that happen.”

  Her uncle sipped his tea. “Are there good things in the world?”

  Images began flooding into Wen-shan’s mind: the picnic with her friends, her grandfather’s paintings, Mrs. Yang’s bulletin board, riding in the delivery truck with Mr. Pierpont, and Master Quan’s smile. “Yes, there are many good things.”

  “So, does God exist because there are good things, or does He not exist because there are bad things?”

  “You’re making my brain hurt.”

  “Good, that means you are thinking.”

  “But, if there is a God, why does He let so many bad things happen?”

  “Why do men let so many bad things happen?” He drank his tea. “Confucius taught that social or political power does not belong to a tyrant who inherits it, but to the person of right thinking who honors it.”

  “‘If there is rightness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.’”

  Her uncle smiled. “And that will lead to?”

  “‘Order in the nation and peace in the world.’”

  “It looks like someone has put their feet on the path of the Way.”

  Wen-shan blushed at the compliment. “It’s . . . it’s just that Jun-jai asked me about peace the other day.”

  “I knew I liked him.”

  Wen-shan poured them both more tea. “How did you start believing in God, Uncle?”

  His look turned somber, and he was silent for such a long time that Wen-shan was afraid he’d gone back to his old ways of not talking to her. She was just about to tell him he didn’t need to answer, when he spoke.

  “What is hanging above our family shrine?”

  “Grandfather’s calligraphy.”

  “And what does it say?”

  “Truth.”

  “This is what I owe you, Wen-shan. I owe you the truth, though it will bring pain to both of us.”

  Her heart beat faster as though expecting pain at any moment. “Then don’t tell me, Uncle. I don’t need to know.” She wished she hadn’t asked the question.

  “No. It’s time. My life has been closed for too long, and I don’t want that anymore.” He looked at the poem he had written out, and then back to Wen-shan. “When your great-aunt Mei-lan and I arrived in Hong Kong, we were sent to the relief workers in charge of the refugee camps. They found a shack for us to live in. It was just a couple of pieces of rusty tin and a few boards. It wasn’t even half the size of this kitchen. We had two stools, a wok cooker, and our platform bed with a thin, dirty mattress.”

  Wen-shan’s stomach churned as she thought about her aunt and uncle living in such a place.

  “There was no work and very little food—just rice and sometimes cabbage. The man who lived next to us was a scientist from Shanghai. In Kowloon, he worked lashing together bamboo poles for scaffolding. I found a few jobs like that, but it was never enough. Every day we would go out looking for jobs, looking for food, hoping for a handout.” His voice strangled in his throat, and Wen-shan knew he was fighting back his emotion. “There never was a way out.”

  “Oh, Uncle.”

  “I could not support us. My Mei-lan . . . Mei-lan was forced to beg just to keep us alive.” The tears flowed freely now. “We lived like that for six years.”

  Wen-shan cried with him.

  “Then we were told we were being evicted from our shack because we couldn’t pay . . . we couldn’t pay. I was ashamed.” He looked directly at her, and Wen-shan saw years of anguish on his face. “I could not take care of us. I was so ashamed, I tried to take my life.”

  “Oh, Uncle.” Wen-shan moaned, taking his hands. “Oh, Uncle.”

  He couldn’t talk for several minutes, but finally he calmed. He wiped the tears on his sleeve and stilled his breathing. “Mei-lan found me. I was still alive. She ran out into the alley screaming for help, but no one came. No one would help her. Then at the end of the alley, she saw two young men and they were running to her. They were missionaries fo
r the Mormon Church.”

  Wen-shan stared at him. She couldn’t find any words to express her astonishment.

  “They bound up my wrists and took me to where I could get help. They saved my life.” He wiped his eyes on a napkin. “At the hospital, Mei-lan kept saying over and over that it was a miracle . . . a miracle.”

  Wen-shan’s heart could find no other explanation. It was a miracle. No wonder her uncle didn’t question the healing of the Heaton’s little boy.

  “I’m sorry, Wen-shan. I should have had more courage.”

  “Please, Uncle, don’t. No one can judge you. How can anyone know what your life was like?”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  Tears leaked from his eyes again, and he took her hand. “I’m sorry for not treating you better. So many years I was distant from you. After Mei-lan died, I shut off from everyone. I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  Wen-shan could only nod.

  • • •

  They didn’t go to work or school that day. They took the ferry to Kowloon where they walked the streets, looked in store windows, and talked about trivial things. They ate snake soup and wandered through an antique furniture store. Her uncle bought her a small porcelain statue of a French farm girl carrying a big basket of fruit. Wen-shan knew exactly the shelf in her bedroom where she would place it.

  There were times when her uncle became quiet, and Wen-shan worried that he was reliving that horrible day, but then his expression would relax and he’d make a comment about the price of something or ask her opinion about a Western product with which he was unfamiliar.

  She also spent quiet moments thinking about miracles and missionaries, of Red Guards smashing art and tearing up books, of the Heaton boy running to his mother. She thought about her mother and grandfather in Guilin. If there was a God, she hoped He would watch out for them.

  On the ferry back to Hong Kong Island, even though the wind had picked up and the water was rough, Wen-shan and her uncle stood out on the deck watching the boats navigate the whitecaps. Her hair whipped about her face, and they both clung to the railing, but neither of them moved from their spots until the ferry docked at Central.

  Note

  Farm girl statue: The basket of fruit that the porcelain statue of the farm girl is holding is a lucky symbol meaning prosperity.