by Diana Ma
This must be Alyssa’s mother. I straighten up and fumble in my head for the right honorific to address her, but I don’t really know. My parents’ lessons on polite ways to address my elders never covered the sticky situation of what I’m supposed to call a woman who has renounced her own sister.
It turns out to be a good thing that I don’t try out an address since the woman isn’t Alyssa’s mother after all. Alyssa introduces the woman as the housekeeper. Of course Alyssa’s family has servants. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does. Alyssa’s world of servants and luxury penthouses is so outside my experience.
The housekeeper waves off apologies at how late it is and says only how happy she is to see Alyssa. She seems sincere in her delight over Alyssa’s visit, and I get the feeling that she doesn’t often make an appearance at her parents’ home.
The woman offers to get her mother, and that’s when hesitancy creeps into Alyssa’s eyes. Is she having second thoughts? Maybe it’s occurring to her that her mother might not want to see me.
Then Alyssa glances at me, and her face turns resolute. “Yes. I want my mother to meet Gemma. Please ask her to join us in the living room.”
The housekeeper disappears up a spiral staircase, and Alyssa leads the rest of us into the living room, where white leather couches await and floor-to-ceiling windows provide a stunning view of the glittering city.
Alyssa sits on a love seat, and after a beat of hesitation, Mimi sits on the long couch facing the love seat. I sit next to Mimi, and Eric sits next to me.
None of us speak as we choose our seats. It’s as if we’re in a play, taking our positions based on inaudible, invisible cues.
And we all wait tensely for the next act to begin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
When a beautiful older woman with soft, sweet features finally wafts down the spiral staircase, all my breath leaves my body in a dizzy rush. Wow. Oh wow. She looks like my mom! Except my mom would have been wearing old sweats for lounging around in her own home. This woman is wearing a flowing silk tunic over wide-legged pants. But it’s not just the older woman’s style that’s similar to Alyssa’s. She looks as much like Alyssa as I look like my own mother. There’s no mistaking this woman for anyone but Alyssa’s mom. My aunt.
“Alyssa,” my aunt begins, her eyes on her daughter. “What are you doing here?” Then her gaze flickers over to me and stays locked on my face. She comes to a dead stop a few steps away from the bottom of the staircase and clutches the railing as if she suddenly needs its support.
My throat works convulsively around a dry dustiness, but no words, in Chinese or English, emerge.
“Ni shi shui?” she whispers, her face ashen with shock. Who are you?
It shouldn’t be a hard question to answer, but it takes several tries and a reassuring squeeze of my arm from Eric to find my voice again. “Gemma. Gemma Huang.”
“Huang.” My aunt slowly descends the last few steps. “I don’t know that last name.” She sinks next to Alyssa on the love seat. But her eyes don’t leave my face. “‘Gemma’ sounds American, and Alyssa told me that you live in America. Is that true?”
I nod, not trusting my voice. Emotion dams up my throat.
“I didn’t know Lei went to America,” she murmurs, as if she’s speaking to herself. Then, with shocking suddenness, she drops her face into her hands and bursts into tears, deep, shuddering sobs racking her body.
Visibly startled, Alyssa puts a comforting hand on her mother’s shoulder. After a tense beat, Alyssa says, “I promised Gemma that I would talk to you about . . . about our inheritance.” Her voice grows stronger. “Then I decided that I wanted Gemma to know. No matter what.”
Inheritance? Alyssa didn’t promised to talk to her mother about my inheritance. She promised to try to get answers about my mother. What’s this all about?
My aunt raises her head. “Alyssa . . . are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Po Po wanted me to bring Gemma here. I think this is why.”
My aunt pales in response.
I’m gripping my hands together now, my fingers cramping and my heart frozen in suspense. Mimi and Eric look away uncomfortably, but I lean forward, my whole body wired with tension. “Did my mother steal Wu Zetian’s painting? Is that why she was cut off from the family?”
My aunt’s eyes are still swimming with tears. “Yes. Your mother did steal that painting.” My heart plummets like a bird shot from the sky. Then she says, “But that’s not why my sister was cut off from the family.”
Alyssa starts. “But, Ma, you told me . . .” Her words trail off at the stricken look on her mother’s face. Alyssa’s eyes meet mine. “You were right, Gemma. I didn’t know the whole truth.”
My aunt drops her gaze to her lap. “The biggest regret of my life was losing my mei mei. I should have fought for her. But I was weak.” Her mouth trembles as she looks up at Alyssa. “And then I was weak again when you told me that Lei’s daughter was in Beijing. All my feelings of shame came back to me. I didn’t want you to know what I had done. So I let you believe the lies your grandfather has told you—that Lei was dangerous. That she was banished from the family because she stole a painting. But that was never the real reason. My mei mei never betrayed us. I betrayed her.”
The sharp intake of Alyssa’s breath barely registers. My own shock spirals through my chest. “Why, then? Why was my mother cut off from the family?”
My aunt looks at me. “That’s not my story to tell.” I was this close to finally getting the last pieces of my mother’s past! Angry protest is about to burst from me when she adds, “It’s Lei’s story. And Delun’s too.”
Delun. A dull roar fills my ears. “But,” I sputter, “Delun is my father’s name.” I’ve always thought Mom was the reason for the dire warnings to never step foot in China. It hadn’t occurred to me that my dad could be part of it.
She nods. “Your father’s family name wasn’t Huang back then—it was Chuang. Your parents must have changed their name. You see, when your mother met your father, it was the beginning of their love story. But it was also the beginning of a tragedy.”
I stare at her. Tragic love story? And even my name is a lie? Maybe I don’t know my parents at all. And maybe . . .
Maybe my aunt is right. Maybe it is my mother’s story to tell, after all. In the entire month and a half that I’ve been in China, I’ve been chasing down one wild rumor after another, looking for the truth about my mother. All because I was sure my mother would never tell me herself. And I keep hitting dead ends. I mean, look at me! I put on diamond earrings, gold heels, and a sparkly minidress just to get here. Now I’m face-to-face with the aunt I’ve never known, hounding her for a truth she can’t give me. Alyssa. Eric. My aunt. Everyone’s told me that they don’t know the whole story. The only person who does know is Mom. It’s time I asked her. Tomorrow, on the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, I’ll tell my mother everything. And I’ll ask her for the same. For her story.
My aunt is watching me apprehensively. “Does . . . your mother ever mention me?” Alyssa wraps an arm around her mother’s shoulders but stays silent.
“I’m sorry.” My hands twist in my lap. “No. She didn’t mention you.” With a hot lump in my throat, I say, “I don’t even know your name. What do I call you?” It’s hardly my most pressing question, but it feels weird that I don’t even know what to call my aunt. Chinese terms of address for relatives are ridiculously complicated, often based on maternal and paternal lines, birth order, degrees of separation, or all of the above.
“My name is Jun.” My aunt smiles through her tears. “Call me Yi Ma.”
“Yi Ma,” I say tentatively, and my aunt’s smile grows broader. I turn to Alyssa. The terms of address for cousins are easier, and I already know the term for older female cousin. “Biao Jie.”
Alyssa blinks back tears as she looks at me. “Call me Jie Jie.”
Alyssa asking me to call her “older sister” instead of “older cousin” m
akes me sniffle. My aunt gives Alyssa a side hug, and their closeness makes me miss my own mother. The hot knot in my chest tightens.
Then Alyssa says, “And you’re Mei Mei to me. My little sister.”
That does it. Jiemei. Sisters. My hand goes to the jade pendant at my throat that has the character for “mei” on it, and my sniffle turns into a torrent of jagged crying. Eric squeezes my shoulder. Mimi is looking lost in all this, probably wishing she could go to Alyssa, so I clasp Mimi’s hand. That’s all Mimi needs to tear up and grip my hand back.
My aunt’s eyes dart from my pendant to Alyssa’s pendant. “I’m glad that Alyssa gave you your mother’s pendant, Gemma.” She smiles wistfully. “When we were young, your mother and I made a promise to each other that we would pass our pendants on to our daughters. It was silly, really. How could we know we’d have daughters or that mine would be the eldest and hers the youngest? But our wish came true.” Her smile fades. “When your mother sent me that picture of you eighteen years ago, I wanted to send her that pendant to pass on to you, but . . . I knew Lei wouldn’t want to hear from me.” Moisture tracks down her cheeks. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed my mei mei.”
“My mother misses you too. She will want to hear from you.” My heart clenches around a tide of emotion.
My aunt’s face shutters down. “Lei won’t want to talk to me. She hasn’t forgotten the past. Or forgiven me.”
“That’s not true,” I say with certainty. “You said that ‘Gemma’ is an American-sounding name, and I suppose it is. My father gave me the name. He calls me his ‘gem.’” I blush, but my dad’s embarrassing nickname for me isn’t important right now. “My mother gave me my Chinese name. She named me ‘Jun.’”
My aunt puts her hand to her mouth and sags like a crumpled paper doll. “She gave you my name? Why?”
“She must have missed her jie jie if she named me after you.”
“I was not a good jie jie.” My aunt averts her eyes. “I let her down,” she whispers. “I failed my mei mei. I was weak.”
My heart twists with sympathy, and I stand without conscious thought. “Yi Ma,” I say, “my mother told me that Jun means ‘king.’ A leader.” I walk over to her and crouch down. “She told me that the strongest person she ever knew was named Jun. She said that she wanted me to have the strength of kings. The strength of my namesake. Whatever you did or didn’t do, my mother forgave you a long time ago.”
“Jun.” She touches my cheek with a butterfly brush of her finger. “My mei mei named you well. You are the strong one. You lead us all out of the pain of the past. To hope.” Then my aunt gathers me into her arms. It’s different from being held by my own mother.
But it’s still like coming home.
At last, my aunt pulls away from me and turns to Alyssa. “You said you wanted Gemma to know about her inheritance. I think you’re right.”
Alyssa stands. “Gemma, I have something to show you. It’s why my po po wanted me to bring you here.”
Confusion mixed with electric anticipation makes my body thrum. What does Alyssa want to show me, and what does it have to do with my inheritance?
My aunt nods. “Go ahead. I’ll stay here.” Her face looks suddenly weary.
Alyssa turns to Mimi and Eric. “Er, do you two want to maybe look at the view from the rooftop patio?” It’s a blatant ploy to not leave her mother and girlfriend alone in the same room together.
“I’ll show you up,” my aunt says to them politely, but her attention is still on me. Thankfully, she isn’t really registering Mimi and Eric’s presence. But if she did, would she even recognize them? Mimi and Eric aren’t as high profile as Alyssa. Maybe they’ve flown under my aunt’s radar. As the grandchildren of the woman who regularly snubs my aunt in society charity circles and recently said nasty things about Alyssa to a gossip site reporter? Yeah, fat chance. It’s only a matter of time before my aunt realizes who Mimi and Eric are.
Mimi leaps to her feet so fast that several pillows fall from the couch. “No need,” she says breathlessly. “We can find our way.” Red in the face, she puts the pillows back on the couch and scurries to the staircase. Clearly, she doesn’t want to be left with my aunt either. Especially since there’s a strong possibility that my aunt could recognize them.
Slightly bemused, my aunt says, “Well, all right then.”
Eric squeezes my hand and murmurs to me under his breath. “Gemma, this is a lot. Do you want me to go with you?”
Warmth spreads through me at his words of support. “No, I’m OK.” Whatever I’m about to find out, it’s clearly meant to be between family. But I grip his hand hard, and when I let go, it’s with a sharp pang. “Thank you.”
Eric leaves with Mimi, and Alyssa leads me away. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch a glimpse of my aunt looking spent as she leans back into the couch.
Alyssa takes me into the elevator, and puzzled, I ask, “Are we leaving, then?”
“No.” She opens a small compartment below the three silver buttons to reveal what looks like a fingerprint scanner. Then she presses her forefinger onto the pad, and it lights up all green. The elevator glides smoothly down the floors. “We’re going to a sublevel that no one outside the family even knows about. My mother had it included in the architectural plans—we own the building, you know.”
This is getting seriously intense. A dedicated elevator is one thing, but a fingerprint scanner to access a secret sublevel in a building they own? That’s not just some private convenience for the rich—that’s a whole new order of paranoia.
Why all this secrecy? What is Alyssa about to show me?
The elevator stops, and the doors glide open. Alyssa steps out first. Moistening my lips, I follow her out.
“Lights,” she calls out, and a warm, soft white glow comes on.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ink paintings of lush landscapes. Scrolls of calligraphy. Marble lions. Horses carved out of green jade. Stone Buddhas. Glazed and painted vases. I could be in one of the galleries of my mother’s museum.
I swallow my awe and try to speak. “What . . .” I have to clear my throat before I can continue. “What is all this?”
“Tang dynasty art.” Alyssa’s expression is unreadable.
I walk forward in a daze, my footsteps echoing on the marble floors, and then I stop still in front of a stone Buddha. Resting on a white marble pedestal, it’s about three feet tall. And it looks familiar. All the hairs on my arm rise as my skin prickles. “I’ve seen this before. In a picture at an exhibit in the Forbidden City’s Imperial Palace Museum.” My head swivels to Alyssa, who comes to stand next to me. “The informational placard said the picture was of a gigantic Buddha carved into a limestone cave at the Longmen Grottoes in Henan Province.”
“Yes. That’s the Grand Vairocana Buddha. She’s also called the Eastern Mona Lisa or Eastern Venus.” Alyssa watches me closely. “More importantly, the statue was commissioned by and said to be carved in the likeness of Empress Wu Zetian.”
“Is this”—I gesture to the smaller statue—“a copy then?”
“No.” Alyssa contemplates the statue in front of us. “It would be more accurate to say that the statue at the Longmen Grottoes is a copy of this one. This is the template for the larger one.”
All my breath packs tightly into my lungs. “What are you saying?” I choke out in disbelief.
She turns to me, her face solemn. “You’re standing in the middle of Wu Zetian’s personal art collection. The art of the women the empress supported. All thought to be lost or destroyed.”
My breath whooshes out of me. That would be a collection beyond price. I remember standing in the sparse exhibit on Wu Zetian in the Palace Museum and thinking of how much art was lost during the Cultural Revolution. Shit. An imperial art collection from the Tang dynasty has been sitting like a ticking time bomb in their basement for who knows how long. Questions buzz in my head. How long h
ave they had this collection? How could such a collection of art from the Tang dynasty survive intact when so little else did? I manage to push one of these questions past numb lips. “How did you get all this?”
“Gemma,” Alyssa says gently, “it’s time I told you who you are.”
Alyssa’s words strike me to the core and resonate deep inside me. “Who am I?” I whisper.
“A direct descendant of Empress Wu Zetian.”
Lightness overtakes my body. Empress Wu Zetian. The only female ruler of China. My ancestress. “Are you joking? Because it’s not funny.”
Her face cracks into a small smile. “It’s true. This is Wu Zetian’s art passed down to her descendants from daughter to daughter. You, me, your mother, my mother, our grandmother, her mother before her, and all through the generations—in a single unbroken line. This is our inheritance, Gemma.”
Alyssa’s words from the nightclub rush into my head. You don’t even know what it means that your mother stole that painting . . . A painting said to have been commissioned by Empress Wu, the woman who dared to be a ruler! You have no idea how dangerous owning that painting would be.
And then I know.
“This is where the painting originally came from. The one Eric and Mimi’s grandfather had.” My stomach clenches in anger because everyone wanted me to believe that my mother was a thief. “Here from the secret art collection of Wu Zetian! My mother’s inheritance. My mother didn’t steal anything. She was taking back what was hers.”
Alyssa drops her eyes. “Yes. And I knew that all along. I’m sorry.”
My knees go wobbly. My mother isn’t a thief. But relief doesn’t make the hardness in my stomach go away. “But why did you let me believe that my mother had no right to that painting? That she stole it?”
“Because . . .” Alyssa pauses and takes a shaky breath. “Ever since I can remember, I was told that your mother took that painting for selfish reasons. That she had no consideration for what it would mean to the family if anyone found out what we inherited from Wu Zetian. And I never questioned it.” She flushes. “Not until you came to Beijing, pushing me to find out the truth. Now I’m questioning everything. Especially what my gong gong told me.”