She tries to deny it. ‘No.’ But her voice is weak and as broken as her confidence.
‘You stole her husband; you stole my father; you stole my whole family from me.’
Her words are barely a whisper. ‘I have regretted that choice every day since she died. Leave and never return. I cannot bear to look at you; you remind me too much of her, of my mistakes.’
‘I love my mother. I can see you loved her too, in your own twisted way. So I’m here to tell you that I saw my mom and dad board a ghost ferry. Lord Black says they will arrive in yin Shanghai tomorrow morning.’
‘But yaojing do not—’
I shrug. ‘Lord Black says only Madame Meng knows. We can ask her, but that’s not important. What’s important is that you’ll have a chance to apologise and to say goodbye.’
She’s silent for a long time, staring blankly into the distance. I’m about to leave when she whispers, ‘After everything I’ve done to you, why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I don’t want to make the same mistake.’ This, I decide, will be my last peace offering. ‘Big Wang is hosting a family dinner tonight. You are my only remaining family on the hulijing side. I’d like it if you came. And in the morning, we can meet my parents together.’
She doesn’t answer.
I can’t force her, so I turn to go. At the door I pause. ‘Don’t let your pride stop you from doing what your heart needs. She looked really happy, Niang Niang.’
Halfway down the hall, I hear footsteps and then, ‘Jing, wait!’
Niang Niang runs after me; she’s thrown on a deep crimson silk gauze over-robe. In her hands she clutches a silk bundle.
‘Take this,’ she says, voice rough, and shoves it into my hands.
I open the bundle. Inside are two letters and a torn leather book. The other half of my father’s journal.
Forty-Five
An Answer
Clutching the silk bundle, I don’t blink myself home immediately but head towards the lake. At the end of the long narrow walkway, surrounded by the shimmering water of the Lake of Eternal Reflection, stands the empty Pavilion of Reflection. It seems to be waiting for me.
The wooden floors are weathered, the honey silkwood bleached a pale grey, its surface no longer lustrous but dull and dry. I sit in the middle, lay the bundle carefully beside me and gaze out towards the mountains that rise from the forest beyond the edges of the lake. The same view I once shared with my mother. One she adored, especially when the sky bled pink early in the morning.
I unfold the first letter. Scanning the text, the handwriting is not my father’s. My guess is Niang Niang stole the letter, then had it transcribed and translated.
13 October 1834
My dear Thirsty Smooth Four Bottle
I read out the odd name a few times until it hits me. Kerusiping – a transliteration of Crispin, the Englishman who befriended my father on his sea voyage from France. It makes me happy to know my father wrote to his new friend; but then I realise the letter might not have been sent. I check the other letter. Though I don’t know how accurate the translation is, it’s clear Crispin wrote back. That worry dealt with, I finally turn my attention to the letter itself:
A wise man once told me he followed his old friends Wonder and Curiosity with faith and devotion. Naive fool that I was, I scoffed at such sentimentality. Yet after we parted ways, I found myself newly acquainted with Wonder and Curiosity. Taking the wise man’s example, I decided to put my faith in these new friends; they breathed new life into this decrepit old heart, something that would not have been possible had you not favoured me with your kind and gentle company during all those weeks at sea.
I laugh, very pleased that my grumpy father acknowledged his friend’s kind heart.
How was your journey to Madras and Calcutta? I am curious to hear your thoughts and impressions. As for me, I was greatly relieved to finally arrive in Kunming, after an arduous and difficult journey inland.
The city of Kunming is a bustling walled city – similar, I think, to York in the North of England – with wide city walls, though Kunming’s walls were built in the late fourteenth century. I climbed a hill for a better vantage point and was rewarded with a view straight out of a painting. Elegant rooftops nestling in a bed of blooms on the banks of the river Dian, majestic limestone peaks rising in the distance like so many fingers, adorned with rings of softest cloud.
I left the city and headed north on horseback, for my destination was a small village tucked at the base of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Yunnan province. My steed reminded me of your camel from our crossing in Suez. No doubt you would have called him uncommonly noble and very agreeable, then allowed him to do as he pleased. My friend on whose insistence it was that my voyage toChina came about, bade me take the slow path through the mountains. As my steed and I climbed that path, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain rose in the distance like a great deity of old wearing a mantle of snow while a vast shimmering lake genuflected at its feet.
I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed my father didn’t tell his friend he’d named the stinky, slow, stubborn donkey he rode through the mountains, Crispin.
The path downwards towards the plain of Likiang crossed a valley filled with all manner of flowers. Roses and peonies, rhododendron, and so many more blooms I could not name.
Entering the village of Likiang was like going back in time. It is a small town built around a system of canals which run with icy-cold, clear mountain water. The local area has a rich folkloric tradition; the town is believed to be founded by the Jade Dragon, a most revered mythical being, renowned for her wisdom and compassion. Dragons in China are akin to unicorns in Western myth – beings of great wisdom and purity. Another mythical creature believed to live nearby is the hulijing – these fox spirits lure unsuspecting travellers into the woods to have their wicked way with them (and leave them for dead). I decided to follow my new friends Wonder and Curiosity into the woods to see if I couldn’t discover an adventure. I found naught but a dilapidated old temple.
