Secret of a Thousand Beauties (30 page)

He held up his hand and rubbed his fingers together. “You’re welcome anytime here.”

I didn’t want to be welcome in a prison. Of course, he wanted me to return so he could get another “entry fee.”

As Little Doll and I were walking out, I turned back and said, “Aunty Peony, we’ll come again soon.”

“No need. I’m happy that I finally had my revenge, ha!” Her eyes were blank and her voice cold.

“But, Aunty—”

She cut me off. “It’s no good for Little Doll—or your baby—to absorb the bad prison
qi,
you understand? Not good for you either. So no more visits.”

Little Doll exclaimed, “But I want to see you again, Aunty Peony!”

I turned away from my little sister so she could not see my tears.

32

T
hat night, thinking about Aunty, I tossed and turned on my bed and couldn’t enter the dream village. Since Ryan was still away, I decided I would visit Aunty Peony again in the morning. I feared it might be our last chance to see each other—I doubted the judge would really let her off for being crazy. This time I decided not to bring Little Doll. She’d had her chance to see Aunty one last time and I worried about the effect of the grim prison atmosphere on her impressionable mind.

To my dismay, when I was at the prison’s reception area, the guard from yesterday was not there.

When I asked his replacement for Aunty Peony, I was told, “She’s no longer here with us.”

For a moment my hope soared; could she have been released? But then reality intervened. They would not let a murderess go free. Yet I could not help but feel a slight trace of hope.

“Where is she?”

“Miss . . . she’s no longer on this Earth.”

“What . . . ?”

“She’s dead.”

“Are you joking?”

“Death is no joke here.”

“But I just saw her yesterday and she was fine!”

“Here, one minute they’re as alive as a fish thrashing in a bucket and the next as dead as the last emperor.”

“So Peony is . . .” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“Dead.”

“How . . . did that happen? Was she . . . executed?”

“Oh, no, she hanged herself.”

He spoke as casually as if saying, “Oh, she just ate a bun.”

He went on as if talking to himself. “But strangely, with a jacket we didn’t know she had.”

I felt an explosion inside my gut. Legs wobbling, I tried to steady myself but instead collapsed on a nearby chair.

“You all right, miss?”

“I’m all right, thank you for letting me know. Where’s her body?”

“No relatives, so she’s taken to be buried with the others.”

“But where? What others?”

He cast me a curious look. “You don’t want to know, miss. Are you her daughter?”

“No, I was her student for many years.”

“Well, then, I guess this should be for you.”

He took a soiled sheet of paper from his desk and handed it to me. “I don’t want it here anyway. Bad luck.” He spat on the ground to rid himself of this bad luck.

There was no reason to stay, so I said, “Thank you, I’ll leave now.”

“Good, and I hope you never have to come back.”

“I hope so too.”

I waited until I was on the bus to go back to the church before I unfolded the note and began to read. My heart galloped like a wild horse as I opened it and saw my teacher’s handwriting, once neat but now clumsy:

I read the letter over and over as the bus rattled and shook on the bumpy road back to Our Lady of Sorrows. Tears coursed down my cheeks, attracting the stares of other passengers. She was gone. My teacher, this woman with magical hands and a mysterious, forbidden past, was now only a memory. No offspring, no family, no friends . . . Nothing left even of her exquisite creations, now in the soiled hands of a gangster to feed his arrogance.

 

Soon after I came home from my unhappy journey, Ryan returned from his trip. Though I greeted him affectionately, he could tell something was wrong. I explained to him that Aunty Peony had passed.

“I’m so sorry, Spring Swallow. I will go with you to her funeral.”

“But there’s no funeral.”

I sighed and told him the sad story of Aunty’s end. When Ryan understood that she had committed suicide, his face turned pale.

“How terrible, no last rites, no Christian burial!”

Of course I knew such thoughts would have been far from Aunty’s mind. She’d be much more upset if she knew that she would not have a proper grave with good
yin
feng shui. But I appreciated Ryan’s concern for her soul. He suggested we go to church to pray for Aunty, which I thought was the least I could do for her. That and caring for Little Doll, which I would have done even without her telling me to.

I told him I was worried that she would not be properly buried.

“We can’t bury her in the churchyard here. Father Edwin would never allow it. Suicide is a mortal sin.”

“Then what can I do?”

“We can keep praying for her. But you’re pregnant. Try not to be too upset. Her soul is in God’s hands now.”

If so, I was not sure why she could not be buried here, but this was just one of the many strange ideas that foreigners have.

That night I slept fitfully. Disturbing images rose in my mind: Aunty hanging with her tongue bulging. Thrown into a mass grave on top of other corpses of those with no one to miss them. Her body, once wrapped in embroidered silk, urgently desired and lovingly caressed by the emperor, laid to “rest” with the bodies of criminals, gangsters, homeless beggars, and other outcasts....

Then I dozed off and had a dream.

Aunty seemed to be standing before me, but looking well, as she had when I first met her. She lifted up her hand, the one I’d watched so many hours as she taught me embroidery. She opened her mouth, but at first no words came out, though she seemed desperately trying to tell me something. Then I seemed to hear her speak, faintly but clearly, reminding me of what she had written in her last letter: “After I’m gone, you don’t need to make offerings or pay respect to my spirit. I could have treated all of you better but I didn’t, for various reasons. Don’t worry about me anymore. Now, you must take good care of your baby—and of Little Doll too.”

I woke up, my face wet with tears, but also relief. I had decided what to do.

The next day when Ryan was at work, I grabbed a thick wad of cash and went back to Tian Shan Women’s Prison. The guard who’d been there the day before recognized me.

“I thought you were done with this place.”

“Mister, I have a great favor to ask you.”

His face twisted into a frown but broke into a smile as I held up my wad of money.

“What do you want, miss?”

I told him what I wanted: for him to go to the burial ground and place Aunty’s head to the south, so she would be able to look respectfully north toward the emperor. Then, of course, protect her modesty by covering her over with earth.

“Well, I can’t really leave here now, but . . . maybe the other guard will let me go for a while. But, of course, that will mean more work for him.” He looked at the pile of bills I had handed to him.

The message was pretty clear, so I reached into my purse and held out a few more bills that rapidly disappeared into his rough fist.

“I can’t go myself, not in my condition, too much bad
qi
for me and the baby. But you better really do it. Unless you want to meet her again—as a ghost.”

He looked alarmed at this possibility, so I was pretty sure he would not dare to offend the dead by leaving Aunty Peony as she was.

T
o my complete joy, my new baby Bobby McFarland arrived on a beautiful day in spring, at turns kicking, screaming, and smiling. I truly believed he was sent by Heaven to heal my heart, which had been broken so many times in the few years I’d been on this Earth. I felt a fulfillment that I had never felt before. To my relief, Ryan enjoyed the baby as much as I did. Our life together was uneventful, but happy.

Though my life was forever changed for the better, I still thought about the old days.

I had none of the imperial embroidery left, but perhaps this was best, as it seemed to have brought tragedy to so many. Maybe it held some of the same curse that brought down the emperor and the entire Qing dynasty. As for Aunty Peony, I thought of her and her meticulous teaching every time I sat down to embroider. At the same time, I was also glad that our karmic connection had run its course. Having done my best to get her a burial that would put her spirit at peace, I felt released from my debt to her.

I decided not to try to look for Purple in the far north. Perhaps she really had entered the Empty Gate to detach completely from the dusty world. If so, I did not want to disturb her seclusion. However, to let her know that I still cared for her, I sent a letter to the temple where Aunty told me she’d become a nun. I ended the letter saying I hoped to hear from her, but if she didn’t want to reply, I would understand and wouldn’t be offended.

I never heard back from her.

The death of Leilei was no longer a mystery. Since she was not really a nice person and we’d never been friends, I didn’t really miss her. But Heaven had thrust us onto the same path for a short time, so I felt it my sisterly duty to pray for her unhappy soul.

Though I still missed my mountain, or revolutionary, husband Shen Feng, I came to accept that my life now was better than life with him would have been. When I thought of him, I would remember Du Fu’s lines:

To show my gratitude to Ryan and Father Edwin, I became more active in their religion, willingly doing all the Christian things like attending mass, singing hymns, studying the Bible, and helping with charitable work. But, after all, I was a Chinese from a village, so I discreetly set up a small altar in the kitchen to burn incense for Leilei, Aunty Peony, and, of course, Shen Feng. Ryan told me that as a Christian I had no need for such superstitions, but I pointed out that it was to pay respect to the kitchen god so we wouldn’t have a fire in the house. Even as a devoted Christian, he couldn’t argue against the safety of his home and family.

I’d never expected my skill as an embroiderer would be acknowledged outside the church, but I was wrong—happily so. A missionary who visited Our Lady of Sorrows took one of my large works back to America, where it got noticed by an important person at a department store. They wanted me to supply them with works on a regular basis—and they paid much better than Heavenly Phoenix.

Then one day a museum in America decided to have a show of my work, inviting me to the Gold Mountain to demonstrate
Soo
embroidery. I was able to accept because it would be in two years, so little Bobby would be old enough to travel.

Ryan and Little Doll were ecstatic, and Father Edwin congratulated me.

Little Doll clapped happily. “Sister Spring Swallow! Can you bring me with you so I can be your little assistant?”

Ryan and I both laughed at her enthusiasm.

I said, “Of course, we’ll all go, little sister.”

Ryan planted a kiss on my forehead. “Spring Swallow, you’re now internationally famous!”

Of course I was not going to argue against a genuine compliment, let alone from my beloved husband and the loving father of my little boy.

Since I’d become very busy keeping up with orders from America, Little Doll happily busied herself helping me and playing with little Bobby. Ryan became attached to my little sister, and finally officially adopted her. Now Little Doll was Dolly McFarland. However, I wouldn’t let her call me Mama—I was not yet old enough to have a fourteen-year-old daughter!

I was very proud that not only had I fulfilled my promise to care for Little Doll, but also gave her a father and a little brother. In fact, I felt even happier about this than being invited to America. I was very grateful to Old Heaven—known to foreigners as God—for putting us all together.

 

From time to time, I would look at the only picture I had of Aunty and the girls—the one we’d taken together during our trip to Peking. Aunty Peony sat in the middle with an imperial air. Leilei’s and Purple’s eyes seemed to be wandering, searching for something far away, perhaps happiness, which unfortunately they would only find in the Western Paradise and the Empty Gate. Little Doll was not even looking at the camera. Maybe she was thinking, “When will we finish this so I can have some tasty buns?” As for me, I looked alert, as if expecting attack from all sides.

Staring at the picture, I could only remember two times that Aunty had smiled happily during the whole time I’d known her. Once for this picture and the other when I’d taught her how to pronounce English, the exotic chicken’s intestines.

Now Aunty seemed to stare at me from the picture, admonishing, “Spring Swallow, though you’re the smartest girl, don’t forget you’ve learned everything from me. Only from me did you learn the secrets of a thousand beauties, you understand?!”

I nodded to her in the picture as tears mixed with joy and sadness rolled down my cheeks. . . .