"I typed the words," Sister Yu boasted.
"And I carved the seals," GaoLing said.
"It's very realistic," I told them. "My heart went peng-peng-peng when I read it."
"Fu Nan will think firecrackers have exploded in his chest," said GaoLing. She and Sister Yu squealed like schoolgirls.
"But won't Mother and Father be in agony when they hear you're missing?"
"I'll go see them next week if the roads are safe."
And that's what GaoLing did, went to Immortal Heart, where she discovered that Fu Nan had told no one about the letter. About a month later, she returned to the school as Sister Yu's helper. "Mother and Father knew only what the Chang father told him," she reported. "'That husband of yours,' Father said to me. 'I thought he was all boast and no backbone. And then we hear he's joined the army-didn't even wait to be forced to go.'"
"I also told Mother and Father that I ran into you at the railway station at the Mouth of the Mountain," GaoLing said. "I bragged you were an intellectual, working side by side with the scientists-and you'd soon be married to one."
I was glad she had said this. "Were they sorry about what they did to me?"
"Ha! They were proud," GaoLing said. "Mother said, 'I always knew we did well by her. Now you see the result.'"
The dew turned to frost, and that winter we had two kinds of weddings, American and Chinese. For the American part, Miss Grutoff gave me a long white dress she had made for her own wedding but never wore. Her sweetheart died in the Great War, so it was a bad-luck dress. But she had such happy tears when she gave me the gown, how could I refuse? For the Chinese banquet, I wore a red wedding skirt and head scarf that GaoLing had embroidered.
Since GaoLing had already told Mother and Father I was to be married, I invited them out of politeness. I hoped they would use the convenient excuse of war to not come. But Mother and Father did come, as did the aunts and uncles, big and little cousins, nephews and nieces. No one talked of the great embarrassment of what we all knew. It was very awkward. I introduced Mother and Father as my aunt and uncle, which would have been a true fact if I had not been a love child without proper claim to any family. And most everyone at the school acted politely toward them. Sister Yu, however, gave them critical stares. She muttered to GaoLing, loud enough for Mother to hear: "They threw her away, and now they stuff their mouths at her table." All day long, I felt confused-happy in love, angry with my family, yet strangely glad that they were there. And I was also worried about the white wedding dress, thinking this was a sign that my happiness would not last for long.
Only two of the scientists, Dong and Chao, came to our party. Because of the war, it was too dangerous for anyone to work in the quarry anymore. Most of the scientists had fled for Peking, leaving behind almost everything except the relics of the past. Twenty-six of the local workers stayed, as did Kai Jing, Dong, and Chao, who also lived on the former monastery grounds. Someone needed to keep an eye on the quarry, Kai Jing reasoned. What if the Japanese decided to blow up the hill? What if the Communists used the quarry as a machine-gun trench? "Even if they used it as an open pit toilet," I said to him, "how can you stop them?" I was not arguing that he and I should run to Peking as well. I knew he would never separate from his old father, and his old father would never separate from the school and the orphan girls. But I did not want my husband to go into the quarry as hero and come out as martyr. So much was uncertain. So many had already gone away. And many of us felt left behind. As a result, our wedding banquet was like the celebration of a sad victory.
After the banquet, the students and friends carried us to our bedchamber. It was the same storeroom where Kai Jing and I had gone for that disaster of a first night. But now the place was clean: no rats, no urine, no ticks or straw. The week before, the students had painted the walls yellow, the beams red. They had pushed the statues to one side. And to keep the Three Wise Men from watching us, I had made a partition of ropes and cloth. On our wedding night, the students remained outside our door for many hours, joking and teasing, laughing and setting off firecrackers. Finally they tired and left, and for the first time Kai Jing and I were alone as husband and wife. That night, nothing was forbidden, and our joy was effortless.
The next day, we were supposed to visit the houses of our in-laws. So we went to the two rooms at the other end of the corridor, where Teacher Pan lived. I bowed and served him tea, calling him "Baba," and we all laughed over this formality. Then Kai Jing and I went to a little altar I had made with the picture of Precious Auntie in a frame. We poured tea for her as well, then lighted the incense, and Kai Jing called her "Mama" and promised he would take care of my entire family, including the ancestors who had come before me. "I am your family now, too," he said.
All at once, a cold breath poured down my neck. Why? I thought of our ancestor who died in the Monkey's Jaw. Was that the reason? I remembered the bones that were never brought back, the curse. What was the meaning of this memory?
"There are no such things as curses," Kai Jing later told me. "Those are superstitions, and a superstition is a needless fear. The only curses are worries you can't get rid of."
"But Precious Auntie told me this, and she was very smart."
"She was self-taught, exposed to only the old ideas. She had no chance to learn about science, to go to a university like me."
"Then why did my father die? Why did Precious Auntie die?"
"Your father died because of an accident. Precious Auntie killed herself. You said so yourself."
"But why did the way of heaven lead to these things?"
"It's not the way of heaven. There is no reason."
Because I loved my husband very much, I tried to abide by the new ideas: no curses, no bad luck, no good luck, either. When I worried over dark clouds, I said there was no reason. When wind and water changed places, I tried to convince myself that there was no reason for this as well. For a while, I had a happy life, not too many worries.
Every evening after dinner, Kai Jing and I paid a visit to his father. I loved to sit in his rooms, knowing this was my family home, too. The furnishings were plain, old, and honest, and everything had its place and purpose. Against the west wall, Teacher Pan had placed a cushioned bench that was his bed, and above that, he had hung three scrolls of calligraphy, one hundred characters each, as if done in one breath, one inspiration. By the south-facing window, he kept a pot of flowers in season, bright color that drew the eye away from shadows. Against the east wall were a simple desk and a chair of dark polished wood, a good place for thought. And on the desk were precious scholar-objects arranged like a still-life painting: a lacquered leather box, ivory brush holders, and an inkstone of duan, the best kind of stone, his most valuable possession, a gift from an old missionary who had taught him in his boyhood.
One night Teacher Pan gave me that duan inkstone. I was about to protest, but then I realized that he was my father now, and I could accept it openly with my heart. I held that circle of duan and ran my ringers over its silky smoothness. I had admired that inkstone since the days when I first came to the school as his helper. He had brought it to class once to show to the students. "When you grind ink against stone you change its character, from ungiving to giving, from a single hard form to many flowing forms. But once you put the ink to paper, it becomes unforgiving again. You can't change it back. If you make a mistake, the only remedy is to throw away the whole thing." Precious Auntie had once said words that were similar. You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again. She said that when I first learned to grind ink. She also said this when she was angry with me, during the last days we were together. And when I heard Teacher Pan talking about this same thing, I promised myself I would change and become a better daughter.