The Ghost Bride (4 page)

Chapter
4

A
mah’s
foresight in preparing a new dress was proven right when a few days later I
received another invitation to the Lim mansion. This time my father was invited
as well. In honor of the upcoming Double Seventh Festival, it was to be a
musical gathering with a private performance for family and friends. There were
not many public venues for entertainment that women of good family could repair
to, so from time to time soirees were held at home. Amah had often told me about
how the main courtyard in our house would be cleared and how my grandfather
hired men to build a temporary stage. Needless to say, such occasions had been
nonexistent in recent years, so I was much excited at this prospect. My father
had consented to go. Master Lim had been part of his previous circle of business
contacts, and their relationship, though sporadic, was still cordial. Truly, I
wasn’t very certain with whom my father was still in touch. Sometimes he
surprised me.

The seventh day of the seventh month was a festival
to celebrate two heavenly lovers—the cowherd and the weaving maid. Amah told me
this tale when I was small. A long time ago, there was a cowherd with nothing
but an old ox to keep him company. One day, the ox suddenly spoke and told him
that he might win himself a wife if he hid beside a pool and waited for the
heavenly weaving maidens. As they bathed, the cowherd hid one set of clothes and
when one of the maidens was left behind searching for her garments, he accosted
her and asked her to be his wife. Eventually, the magic ox died. At this point,
I always burst in with questions. Amah would brush aside my protests, continuing
her well-worn tale. She was a pedantic storyteller who repeated her stories in
exactly the same words each time.

When the magic ox died, it told the cowherd to keep
its skin for a time of great need. And soon enough, the Queen of Heaven was
angered that one of her best weavers had married a mortal and commanded that she
be brought back to heaven. In despair, the cowherd followed his wife on the
magic ox skin, bearing their two children in baskets at the end of a pole. To
prevent him from catching up, the Queen of Heaven took her hairpin and drew a
river, the Milky Way, between them in the heavens. On one day each year,
however, the magpies of the earth took pity on the lovers and made a bridge so
they could cross to see each other. This was the conjunction of the two stars
Altair and Vega on the seventh day of the seventh month.

When Amah told me this story, I couldn’t understand
why such a tragedy was considered a festival for lovers. There was no happy
ending, only endless waiting on each side of a river. It seemed like a miserable
way to spend eternity. Instead, I was most interested in the ox. How did the ox
know that the heavenly maidens were coming? Why could it speak? And most of all,
why did the ox have to die? Amah never gave me very satisfactory answers to
these questions. “The point of the story is the lovers, you silly child,” she
said, and, indeed, the festival was particularly suited for young girls who took
part in competitions to thread a needle by moonlight, bathed their faces with
flower water, and sang songs to celebrate needlework. I had never had a chance
to take part in these maidenly activities, however, because the other thing that
was celebrated on the Double Seventh Festival was the sunning of the books.

The seventh day of the seventh month was also
considered a particularly fortuitous time to air old books and scrolls; and as
my father had vast quantities of both, this was our major activity during the
festival. Tables were placed in the courtyard and his collection was laid out in
the sun, papers turned to ensure even drying. A careful watch must be kept to
ensure the ink would not fade. I still remembered the smooth, hot feeling of the
paper beneath my palms, and the brilliance of the colors intensified by the sun.
Our climate was hot and damp, an adverse environment for libraries. Many times I
would find that silverfish or bookworms had begun to consume the paper, and I
would be set to tracing the wormholes to get rid of the pests. That was why my
memories of the Double Seventh Festival were inextricably linked to the smell of
moldy paper. This year would be different, though. I suspected that the Lims
would celebrate in a far grander fashion.

T
he
performance was in the afternoon, to be followed by a dinner afterward. I spent
the morning laying out what few pieces of good jewelry I had. Amah pressed the
new dress with a heavy charcoal iron until it was smooth and crisp. I rarely
wore a
kebaya
, but I wished I did so more often
because it was very flattering. The
baju
, or shirt,
was fitted at the waist and made of sheer white cotton with cutwork embroidery
down the front and edges. The front of the
baju
was
fastened with three gold brooches shaped like flowers and attached to one
another by fine gold chains, while the ankle-length sarong was made of fine
batik in a curling pattern of green leaves and pink and yellow flowers. When I
had bathed and dressed, and Amah put my hair up, I barely recognized myself. But
as I gazed at my reflection, it seemed as though there was someone in the corner
of the room watching me. Glancing round, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Yet
in the mirror I had the distinct impression of a figure standing near the large
wardrobe. Uneasily, I continued to stare into its depths. Amah came in as I was
doing so and caught my anxious looks.

“Why so sour? No one will marry you if you pull a
face like that!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I thought
I had seen someone in the mirror so I put on a smile, although my pleasure in my
appearance was quite dampened after that.

At the entrance hall of the Lim mansion, I had my
first glimpse of the master of the house. Lim Teck Kiong was short and inclined
to a certain porky affluence, but he had an imposing personality. He greeted my
father warmly and studied me with interest.

“So this is your daughter!” he said. “Where have
you been hiding her?”

My father smiled and murmured something
noncommittal, glancing around the reception room with an air of familiarity. He
must have been here many times before while my mother was alive, I realized.

I didn’t have much time to observe however before I
was sent off for refreshment with the ladies. In accordance with Islam, the
upper-class Malays kept their ladies in purdah and no men other than immediate
family members were allowed to glimpse them unveiled. The local Chinese did not
observe such strict segregation of the sexes, though too much intimacy between
young people was discouraged.

The house was full of people. Children ran
underfoot with an air of excitement, reminding me of my own childhood, when my
cousins and I had raced around the courtyards of our house. But my cousins had
long gone to Penang, together with my two aunts when their husbands had
relocated. I had only sporadic letters from them, especially since three of them
had already married. Servants passed swiftly bearing trays. I looked around to
see whether I recognized any of them, but the one I sought wasn’t there. A stage
had been set up in the main courtyard. “I heard a famous opera singer will give
a private performance today,” one young matron told me. She had a face like a
floured dumpling, but it bore a kind expression. I had been introduced to her
before but could not remember her name.

“You’re Pan Li Lan, aren’t you?” she said. “I’m Yan
Hong, the eldest daughter of the house.” As I stammered my apologies for
forgetting her name, she smiled. “Now that I’m married I don’t live here
anymore, but I come back from time to time to help out and show off the
grandchildren.”

“How many children do you have?” I asked.

“Three,” she said, rubbing the small of her back.
“My eldest is already seven, but the younger two are barely walking.”

Just then Madam Lim passed us. “The performance
won’t start for a little while,” she said. “Why don’t you get some
refreshments?” She still looked ill to me, although she had applied a little
rouge to her sallow complexion.

“Is your mother all right?” I asked Yan Hong.

Yan Hong laughed. “She’s not my mother. My mother
was the Second Wife.”

“It’s hard for me to get used to a household with
so many people.”

“Your father has only one wife?” she asked.

“Yes, he never remarried.”

“You’re lucky.”

I supposed it would have been strange to have a
stepmother or two. But then Yan Hong didn’t know my father and how the god of
smallpox had stripped him of almost everything he had. “My father lost interest
in life after my mother died,” I said. “We’d never have as many people over as
this.”

Yan Hong grimaced. “It’s a good show, isn’t it? But
I’d never want to be a second wife. If my husband thought about remarrying, I
would leave him.”

“Would you?” Silently I wondered at her confidence.
But then she was from a rich and powerful family. Presumably that gave her a
certain amount of clout with her husband.

“Ah, I’m frightening you. Marriage isn’t so bad,
and my husband is a good man. If you can believe it, I was madly in love with
him.” She laughed. “They didn’t want me to marry him because he was too poor,
but I knew he was clever. He got a scholarship from his Clan Association and
went to Hong Kong to study with my cousin.”

I looked at her with new interest. I knew that some
of the sons of rich men went abroad to Hong Kong and even England to study, and
came back as doctors or lawyers. Had I been a boy, I would have liked to do so
too, and I said as much to her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “The voyage can be
dangerous because of the typhoons. And once you’re there life can be difficult.”
She looked as though she was about to say something further, but pressed her
lips together. I had heard about the unrest in Hong Kong, despite its British
rule, and was curious as to what she meant, but she merely said that her husband
had studied at the new Hong Kong College of Medicine, founded by the London
Missionary Society.

“Come,” said Yan Hong. “Let’s find something to
eat.”

We wandered toward a large inner room from which
issued the sounds of musicians playing. I was transfixed by the music. The
er hu
was a two-stringed Chinese violin played with a
horsehair bow. The strings were steel and the resonator cover made of python
skin. It had a peculiarly haunting quality, like a voice singing. The small
ensemble here was playing folk music, and the tunes were traditional and
lively.

“You like
er hu
music?”
asked Yan Hong.

“Yes, I do.” A blind musician used to play in the
street near our house and the melancholy sound of his instrument had always
exemplified dusk and yearning to me. The performers today were two
er hu
players and one
yang
qin
player who accompanied them on the hammered dulcimer. To my
surprise, one of the
er hu
players was none other
than the young man who had been repairing clocks. Seated on a low stool with the
instrument held vertically before him, his fingers flew over the neck while his
other arm plied the horsehair bow. Despite his loose-fitting cotton gown, I
could see the square breadth of his shoulders as he leaned over the instrument
and how his torso tapered to narrow hips. I must have been staring for quite a
while when I realized that Yan Hong had asked me a question.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was listening to the
music.”

She looked amused. “Listening, or looking?”

I flushed. “They’re quite good, don’t you
think?”

“Yes, for amateurs. My father enjoys music and
encourages his household to play.”

“Who are they?”

“The older
er hu
player
is my third uncle, and that’s his son on the
yang
qin
. The other player is my cousin.”

Cousin! I looked down to hide my confusion. My
heart was beating like a drum. The music ended, but I could still hear the blood
rushing through my ears. Embarrassed, I selected a large and sticky
kuih angku
, a steamed red cake stuffed with yellow
bean paste, and bit into it. When I looked up again he was standing next to Yan
Hong.

“Li Lan, this is my cousin Tian Bai.”

We did not shake hands as I had heard the British
do, but under his gaze, I felt a flicker run through my veins.

“In addition to cleaning the clocks, I also play a
little music,” he said.

Yan Hong looked at him with amusement. “What are
you talking about?” Turning to me, she said, “Li Lan is the daughter of the Pan
family.”

I tried to swallow my
kuih
, but it was sticky and clung to my throat.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I said with as much dignity as I could
muster.

“I’ll get you some water,” said Yan Hong, darting
after a passing servant.

There was a little crease at the corners of his
eyes, exactly like the fold in a freshly laundered sheet. “I had a hard time
finding out who you were,” he said. “You just ran off the other day.”

“I was away too long.” I was too embarrassed to
admit I had thought he was a servant, but had a horrible feeling that he knew
anyway.

“You don’t like mahjong?”

“I never learned to play well. It seems like a
waste of time.”

“It is. You have no idea how much money some of
these women can gamble away.”

“What would you rather they spent their time
on?”

“I don’t know. Books, maps, maybe clocks?”

I hardly dared to look him in the eye, yet I was
drawn to his gaze like a moth to a flame. It wouldn’t do to appear silly and
empty-headed. A man who had traveled across the ocean must surely be bored by
small talk. He gave no sign of it, though, asking me what books I had read and
why I knew about the sea charts.