When I woke up, it was already six-thirty in the evening. I was hungry again, so I called room service and ordered drunken chicken, steamed fish with ginger and scallion, and Tsingtao beer. I couldn’t eat so much, but I wanted to feel abundant and spoiled, since now Alex was no longer there to spoil me.

After dinner, I started to imagine all the possible scenarios of my upcoming meeting with Lo and Mindy Madison. I’d come this far, but when I thought about it, the whole thing still seemed extremely strange. What if it was a scam—maybe my “aunt” didn’t even exist and I would never get my three million dollars.


Two days later in the afternoon, I was in the law firm sitting across from Mr. Lo, Mindy Madison’s lawyer, whom I’d met when I’d first arrived in Beijing six months ago. Like last time, Lo spoke the obligatory meaningless greetings in his cold, officious lawyerly tone. Then I gave him my journals documented with my routes, descriptions of my deeds, and pictures. After that, with no further ado, he plunged into business.

“Miss Lin, it’ll take me some time to read the accounts of your journey before I present them to Miss Madison. After all necessary verifications, we’ll proceed to the next step, and your meeting with her will be arranged accordingly. Please wait for my call at the hotel, and I will come pick you up and take you to see her.”

“Actually, I thought I’d be meeting her today.”

“I’ll let you know when it’s the appropriate time to see Miss Madison.” His tone was quite definite and his expression ominous.

What else could I do but agree?

* * *

Two days later, Mr. Lo called and told me that a meeting with Mindy Madison had been arranged for early afternoon. When I asked where, his answer was an annoying, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

To my surprise, the car took us outside Beijing city into an area I did not recognize. I wondered, was my aunt so rich that she lived in a villa in the suburbs? I tried to probe, but Lo stubbornly evaded my questions. Totally absorbed in reading my journal and stacks of other documents, he ignored my efforts to make conversation, polite or otherwise.

Almost two hours later, the car finally pulled to a stop in front of an immense, dilapidated gray building that did not at all resemble a luxury villa. We got out and I followed Lo for five minutes before we reached the building, in front of which, to my surprise, stood several scowling guards. We walked between two uniformed men holding submachine guns and found ourselves in a cavernous lobby. Here we were asked to show our identity documents. I noticed that when Lo handed over his identity card there was an envelope that disappeared quickly as the guard took his papers.

It was then that I realized what this place was.

A prison.

I turned to Lo, my voice shrill and frightened. “Why did you take me here?! I want to leave!”

He put his hand under my elbow and gave it a hard squeeze. “Calm down, Miss Lin, I’m taking you where you need to go.”

“What do I have to do with a prison?”

“This is where Miss Madison lives.”

“What?!”

The guard, tall with a pockmarked face, cast me a threatening look. “Lower your voice!”

The guard led us to a desk, where another guard asked us to write down our names, the name of the person we were there to see, and the time of visit. Judging from Lo’s ease in dealing with the guards, I figured he must be a frequent visitor. One who was generous with hundred-renminbi bills, cigarettes, liquor. Next, a third guard led us along to a dim, seemingly endless corridor lined with dingy cells inhabited by lifeless, ghostlike prisoners. A few went up to the bars to stare at us with dead fish eyes. What crimes had these people committed, I wondered as my wobbly feet followed Lo’s down this passage through hell.

Finally Lo and the guard stopped at a cell, and the guard called out, “Hey, you have a visitor!” Then he lifted a heavy bunch of keys clattering in a big metal ring, picked one out, opened the gate, and let us in. After quickly slamming the door behind us with a loud bang, he walked away.

The cell had a small window high in the wall, as if heaven were winking at hell. A woman was sitting on a cot next to a stained toilet, her emaciated face void of emotion. Lo signaled for me to sit down on a stool across from her, then sat himself.

He and the woman exchanged nods. The prisoner and I scrutinized each other like two hungry beasts wanting to tear each other apart but unable to decide if it was a good idea.

Finally Lo broke the silence. “Miss Madison, there’s not a lot of time, so please talk to Miss Lily Lin.”

She didn’t respond. Her eyes, round and hollow in her ghastly face, now studied me in a different way—like a mother her firstborn.

A long, awkward silence fell over the tiny cell.

It was the first time I realized talking could be so daunting.

Or silence.

The lawyer turned to me. “Miss Lin, why don’t you talk first.”

I studied this Mindy Madison, my supposed aunt, who was so emaciated that she resembled an anorexic mummy. The only feature that brought her back to life from mummyhood was her large, haunting eyes—tinted windows through which horror stories were desperately waiting to spill. Besides weight, she had also lost hair, for I could see large bald spots on her scalp. Her body, beneath her loose, gray prison outfit, seemed to have forgotten its claim to exist. Dark and bony like a black chicken’s claws, her fingers were nervously wringing a dirty rag.

I could only say that this barely human visage must have witnessed shocking mysteries, horrible nightmares, unspeakable sufferings.

I leaned close to Lo and whispered, “So she’s my aunt?”

She looked so far beyond normal that I couldn’t even tell if she was Chinese, especially with her foreign last name. She might have been British, American, Italian, Uyghur, or Mongol for all I could tell.

I clicked my tongue nervously in the smelly, suffocating prison air. “How do I know she’s even related to me, let alone that she’s my aunt?”

Lo cast me a dirty look. “Miss Lin, show some respect here.”

I answered in a heated whisper. “But to whom? I don’t even know her!”

“To your mother.”

This time I tittered nervously like a bad comedian. “You mean… my aunt?” I asked, feeling completely confused—and very scared. What the hell was going on here?

“Miss Madison is your mother.”

“No, she’s not. My mother died two years ago.” I tried my best not to lose my focus.

“Your mother is now right in front of your eyes.”

“What do you mean, and what the hell is all this about?!” Now I tried not to lose my mind.

Total silence.

Suddenly the lips moved on the mask of death. “I am your mother.”

My heart almost shot out from my mouth. It took a few seconds before I could gather myself to respond. “Please, lady, don’t be ridiculous. I don’t know who you are. I’m not even sure if you’re really my aunt. My mother never mentioned one in her entire life!”

Ignoring my rude, vehement exclamation, she reached to touch my hand.

My hand jumped back like a big dog scratched by a small cat. “How dare you!”

“You used to like it when you were very little.”

“Damn you!” I yelled, then turned to Lo. “Can you explain what this is all about? Or I’ll leave right now!”

The ghost woman wiped away a tear.

Her lawyer waved a hand. “Then listen.”

“I’m waiting. Go ahead.”

“Mindy Madison, or Cai Mindi, and your mother, Cai Mayfong, are sisters….”

“No, they are not! My mother didn’t have a sister!” Now I really felt I was losing my sanity. Was I in a prison—or a mental hospital?

He cast me a stern look. “Calm down and listen, will you?”

I pointed at the resurrected mummy. “If she really is my aunt, or my mother as you two claim, then why don’t you let her tell her story?”

Lo cast a worried look at Madison. “Your mother is not feeling well today, so I’ll do the talking.”

“Then why don’t we end this meeting now?”

“Because time is running out.”

“All right, then go on and tell me what you have to lie about.”

“I’m a lawyer. I only tell truths.”

I had to bite my lip hard to prevent myself, even in that grim setting, from bursting out laughing and kicking my legs like a demented woman. Everyone knows lawyers are experts in twisting or hiding the truth, not in telling it.

Lo ignored my sarcastic expression. “I’ll make it brief today. And I’ll arrange another meeting when Miss Madison is feeling better so she can tell you everything in detail herself. Then you’ll understand what’s happening and your role in this trip as well as in your mother’s life. All right, Miss Lin”—Lo took a deep breath—“you ready for this?”

“For what? Anyway, do I have a choice?”

He cleared his throat. “Your mother, Mindy Madison, is here waiting to be executed in two months.”

My heart almost dropped to the floor with a sharp thud as a loud “What!” shot out from my mouth. “What did she do, murder someone?”

Lo shook his head. “She smuggled art out of China.”

“That gets the death penalty?”

“Yes, when national treasures are involved. But I’ll leave it for Miss Madison to explain at your next meeting. Anyway, now not only is she awaiting her death by execution but also from advanced ovarian cancer.”

I didn’t even have the courage to look in Mindy Madison’s direction. I couldn’t imagine that this frail woman, or any woman, should deserve this most severe punishment, whatever the crime, let alone to be executed with cancer ravaging her body. And it would be death by what? A bullet in the head, electric chair, lethal injection, hanging…. I shut my eyes to ward off the horrible scenarios.