Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

“Because you couldn’t possibly know he was Floating Cloud until you heard his sex mantra.”

How perverse. I didn’t mean only Madison, but also myself, since I’d willingly succumbed to her request—for three million dollars. “But who else could it be there besides Floating Cloud? The other is just a kid.”

“When I tracked him down, there were several monks in the temple,” she said, then picked up the plastic cup and drank the remaining snow lotus tea, her eyes avoiding mine.

Some silence passed before I asked, “Then what about the blind fortune-teller, why tell him nothing but lies?”

“Because if he really can perceive the truth, then he’d vehemently refute your lies, and in that case you’d learn about my real situation.”

How convoluted—truth and lies bouncing back and forth like ping-pong balls. “Why did you go to him in the first place?”

“When people’s lives stop making sense, all they can turn to is mysterious knowledge—metaphysics. After Wang Jin’s death and your supposed one, I was so desperate I thought of ending it all. But I visited Master Soaring Crane for guidance. His advice was that everyone needs to generate their own good karma and be their own bodhisattva.” Madison smoothed her scanty gray hair with her chopstick fingers. “That’s why I asked you to reclaim that clump of hair.”

“Ha!” I exclaimed. “So I risked my life visiting the Taklamakan Desert just for a clump of hair?”

“Because the hair now should be in the hands of nuns embroidering a Buddha image.”

This karmic drama was getting more and more weird. “How’s that?”

“It’s for merit, for my next life. Just like writing the sutra in one’s blood. When the nuns weave my hair into the Buddha, it will alleviate much bad karma that I have made for myself in this life.”

I stared at her semibald head. “That long, shiny hair is yours?”

She smiled dreamily. “Yes, Wang Jin used to really love my hair, which he referred to as my black waterfall. But it’s destroyed by cancer.”

“I’m sorry…. But why would you bury it in the Taklamakan?”

“That was a promise I made to Wang Jin. He always wanted to travel the Silk Road and enter the mysterious desert with me, but he died before he had the chance. On his deathbed, he urged me to go so he could see the places with me.”

“But he was dying!”

“I brought his ashes with me.”

“Oh….”

“Since he liked the Taklamakan so much, I decided to bury some of his ashes there—together with my hair—that way, if when I died I could not be buried with him, then at least we’d be together. The rest of his ashes I carried home.”

I fell silent, trying to put together all the pieces of this Silk Road puzzle. So the “dust” that Alex and I had found inside the box and that he had thrown out was Wang Jin’s ashes! But of course I was not going to tell Madison that.

She patted the back of my hand. “Lily, just think of your trip as a valuable life experience and a bittersweet memory to savor during your old age. Something that money cannot buy.”

I laughed. “Sure, since there’s no money for me.” I thought for a while, then asked, “Are there any more things you want me to do?”

“Visit me often so we can make up for lost time.”

“You mean your time lost. I’ve been perfectly happy living my life in New York.”

“Sorry to drag you into this. But trust me, Lily, you won’t regret it. You’ll understand after I pass away.”

“Maybe you’ll live forever, as most cunning people do; they cheat death….”

She cut me off and rushed on, seemingly trying to blurt out whatever had been stuck inside her throat for all these years. “My daughter, there is something I need to let you know before it’s too late.”

“What is it now? More unpaid services?”

She ignored my sarcasm, her voice urgent. “I didn’t have the heart to tell you earlier. You’re Wang Jin’s daughter, not the old man’s.”

I almost fainted at this declaration. I couldn’t believe that not only had this trip robbed me of my three million dollars, it robbed me of my parents, too. True, I had been given another pair, but I hadn’t really been looking to replace the ones I’d thought I had.

When I was about to protest, Madison turned to open a drawer, took out two large envelopes, and handed them to me. “Look at what’s inside when you are back in your hotel but bring them back to me.” She paused to take several deep breaths. “I’m tired now, otherwise I would tell you more about your real father. Maybe next time.”

Although I hated my father, suddenly learning about a new one was too much. Sometimes you can only bear so much truth. So I was relieved that she was too tired to tell me. “Yes, maybe next time. So why don’t you rest now.”

She stared deeply at me. “I want you to promise me that you will go to your father Wang Jin’s grave, to offer him respect and tell him that you’re his daughter.”

I didn’t respond.

“He’ll be ecstatic to see you.”

Hearing that, a chill crept into my bones.

Back at the hotel that evening, the first thing I did was tear open the envelope. It was a stack of letters from Wang Jin to Madison, all filled with love and admiration for her.

My dearest Mindi,

There is not one day that passes when I don’t think of you.

l always blame myself and sometimes even my country that we can’t give you a good future here so I hope you can find a better one in Hong Kong. I also feel terribly sorry that, as a university graduate, you have to work in a factory to weave hair for a pittance.

So I’m relieved to learn that your sister is with a rich man and that she’s been taking good care of you.

I don’t sleep well. I have so many goals to achieve and so much love for you that my heart always seems to be on the verge of bursting.

Please write to me often. Your letters are the only elixir in my life.

Love, Jin

Wang Jin must have been strongly attracted by Madison’s bravery. A young woman who went in a tiny boat rocking on the Pearl River’s angry waves to Hong Kong, then made a living by working in a factory. So Madison really was brave, and maybe I had received some of that trait from her.

Then I opened the other envelope and found a stack of pictures.

The first one showed a very young and pretty Mindy Madison and an almond-eyed, high-nosed, and scholarly looking man.

I stared at the man. There was something familiar as his eyes stared back at me. Yet, of course, I had never seen him before. And then it hit me. I was almost a replica! Closer to him than the imitation Gold Buddha was to the original.

As he smiled at the camera, the corners of his lips, instead of lifting, drooped a little. I felt dizzy, realizing on a deep level that Wang Jin was really my father, for I had the same kind of smile.

A teardrop fell onto Wang Jin’s cheek, rendering him very sad, as if longing for Madison. Or for the daughter he’d never known existed. Though I was sure that Madison loved Wang Jin, too, judging by the intensity of his eyes, his passion exceeded hers.

I decided I must visit Wang Jin’s, or my father’s, grave.

The next day, the car arranged by Lo took us many miles outside the city of Beijing to a cemetery scattered with only a few graves.

Upon arrival, Lo turned to me. “Miss Lin, I’ll stay in the car so you have a private meeting with your father.” He pointed to the site in the distance. “It’s the seventh from the right; you’ll see his name on it.” Then he reached to the front seat and, to my surprise, handed me a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums in a vase. “Here, take this and offer it to him.”

My cheeks felt hot. I had never thought of bringing anything to offer. I was embarrassed because paying respect to your ancestors is a big thing for Chinese. In Hong Kong, xiaozi xiansun, filial sons and virtuous grandsons, will bring all kinds of offerings imaginable, or unimaginable: yin money, gold and silver ingots, gold Rolexes, mansions, cars (Mercedes, BMW, Porsche), Louis Vuitton and Hermès handbags…. But Chinese are practical and thrifty, too, so all of these offerings are paper imitations. When burned, the essences of these objects will ascend to heaven for the dead to enjoy.

For these filial rituals, the only real thing offered is food. Roast pig is a must. Others can include the deceased’s favorite dim sum, desserts, snacks, wine, tea, cigarettes. However, after the living have demonstrated their filial devotion and performed their obligatory kowtows, they are the ones who actually gulp down the food. No one will ever find out if the hungry ghosts actually got their shares. So giving respect to one’s ancestors is also an excuse to have yet another big, sumptuous meal.

I took the vase of flowers from Lo, stepped out from the car, and let my hesitant feet drag me toward the destined grave, welcomed by two not very cheerful lines posted on the gateway:

Today my body returns to the ancient earth. Tomorrow exactly the same thing will happen to yours.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… I counted. “Voilà, here I am, Father,” I said to this dead man, someone who’d given me flesh and blood but whom I’d never met. On the gravestone was a black-rimmed photograph of a young man who stared back intensely with bespectacled eyes and a stern, edge-drooping smile. I imagined this black-and-white, one-dimensional man reaching out from his photo to touch me—a daughter he’d never known existed. My eyes moved down to read the inscription.