by Amy Tan
Right away I noticed the feather boa was missing. “Give it back!” I shouted. But the girl was gone, which alarmed me, because only then did my normal senses return, and I knew she was a ghost. I searched for the feather boa—under the covers, between the mattress and the wall, beneath both twin beds. I couldn’t believe that a ghost could take something real and make it disappear. I hunted all week for that feather boa, combing through every drawer, pocket, and corner. I never found it. I decided that the girl ghost really had stolen it.
Now I can think of more logical explanations. Maybe Captain took it and buried it in the backyard. Or my mom sucked it up into the vacuum cleaner. It was probably something like that. But when I was a kid, I didn’t have strong enough boundaries between imagination and reality. Kwan saw what she believed. I saw what I didn’t want to believe.
When I was a little older, Kwan’s ghosts went the way of other childish beliefs, like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny. I did not tell Kwan that. What if she went over the edge again? Privately I replaced her notions of ghosts and the World of Yin with Vatican-endorsed saints and a hereafter that ran on the merit system. I gladly subscribed to the concept of collecting goody points, like those S&H green stamps that could be pasted into booklets and redeemed for toasters and scales. Only instead of getting appliances, you received a one-way ticket to heaven, hell, or purgatory, depending on how many good and bad deeds you’d done and what other people said about you. Once you made it to heaven, though, you didn’t come back to earth as a ghost, unless you were a saint. This would probably not be the case with me.
I once asked my mom what heaven was, and she said it was a permanent vacation spot, where all humans were now equal—kings, queens, hoboes, teachers, little kids. “Movie stars?” I asked. Mom said I could meet all kinds of people, as long as they had been nice enough to get into heaven. At night, while Kwan rattled on with her Chinese ghosts, I would list on my fingers the people I wanted to meet, trying to put them in some sort of order of preference, if I was limited to meeting, say, five a week. There was God, Jesus, and Mary—I knew I was supposed to mention them first. And then I’d ask for my father and any other close family members who might have passed on—although not Daddy Bob. I’d wait a hundred years before I put him on my dance card. So that took care of the first week, sort of boring but necessary. The next week was when the good stuff would begin. I’d meet famous people, if they were already dead—the Beatles, Hayley Mills, Shirley Temple, Dwayne Hickman—and maybe Art Linkletter, the creep, who’d finally realize why he should have had me on his dumb show.
By junior high, my version of the afterlife was a bit more somber. I pictured it as a place of infinite knowledge, where all things would be revealed—sort of like our downtown library, only bigger, where pious voices enumerating what thou shall and shall not do echoed through loudspeakers. Also, if you were slightly but not hopelessly bad, you didn’t go to hell, but you had to pay a huge fine. Or maybe if you did something worse, you went to a place similar to continuation school, which was where all the bad kids ended up, the ones who smoked, ran away from home, shoplifted, or had babies out of wedlock. But if you had followed the rules, and didn’t wind up a burden on society, you could advance right away to heaven. And there you’d learn the answers to all the stuff your catechism teachers kept asking you, like:
What should we learn as human beings?
Why should we help others less fortunate than ourselves?
How can we prevent wars?
I also figured I’d learn what happened to certain things that were lost, such as Barbie’s feather boa and, more recently, my rhinestone necklace, which I suspected my brother Tommy had filched, even though he said, “I didn’t take it, swear to God.” What’s more, I wanted to look up the answers to a few unsolved mysteries, like: Did Lizzie Borden kill her parents? Who was the Man in the Iron Mask? What really happened to Amelia Earhart? And out of all the people on death row who had been executed, who was actually guilty and who was innocent? For that matter, which felt worst, being hanged, gassed, or electrocuted? In between all these questions, I’d find the proof that it was my father who told the truth about how Kwan’s mother died, not Kwan.
By the time I went to college, I didn’t believe in heaven and hell anymore, none of those metaphors for reward and punishment based on absolute good and evil. I had met Simon by then. He and I would get stoned with our friends and talk about the afterlife: “It just doesn’t make sense, man—I mean, you live for less than a hundred years, then everything’s added up and, boom, you go on for billions of years after that, either lying on the proverbial beach or roasting on a spit like a hot dog.” And we couldn’t buy the logic that Jesus was the only way. That meant that Buddhists and Hindus and Jews and Africans who had never even heard of Christ Almighty were doomed to hell, while Ku Klux Klan members were not. Between tokes, we’d speak while trying not to exhale: “Wow, what’s the point in that kind of justice? Like, what does the universe learn after that?”
Most of our friends believed there was nothing after death—lights out, no pain, no reward, no punishment. One guy, Dave, said immortality lasted only as long as people remembered you. Plato, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus—they were immortal, he said. He said this after Simon and I attended a memorial service for a friend, Eric, whose number came up in the draft and who was killed in Vietnam.
“Even if they weren’t really the way they’re now remembered?” Simon asked.
Dave paused, then said, “Yeah.”
“What about Eric?” I asked. “If people remember Hitler longer than Eric, does that mean Hitler is immortal but Eric isn’t?”
Dave paused again. But before he could answer, Simon said firmly, “Eric was great. Nobody will ever forget Eric. And if there’s a paradise, that’s where he is right now.” I remember I loved Simon for saying that. Because that’s what I felt too.
How did those feelings disappear? Did they vanish like the feather boa, disappear when I wasn’t looking? Should I have tried harder to find them again?
It’s not just grudges that I hang on to. I remember a girl on my bed. I remember Eric. I remember the power of inviolable love. In my memory, I still have a place where I keep all those ghosts.
4
THE GHOST MERCHANT'S HOUSE
My mother has another new boyfriend, Jaime Jofré. I don’t have to meet him to know he’ll have charm, dark hair, and a green card. He’ll speak with an accent and my mother will later ask me, “Isn’t he passionate?” To her, words are more ardent if a man must struggle to find them, if he says “amor” with a trill rather than ordinary “love.”
Romantic though she is, my mother is a practical woman. She wants proof of love: Give and you should receive. A bouquet, ballroom dancing lessons, a promise of eternal fidelity—it must be up to the man to decide. And there’s also Louise’s corollary of sacrificial love: Give up smoking for him and receive a week at a health spa. She prefers the Calistoga Mud Baths or the Sonoma Mission Inn. She thinks men who understand this kind of exchange are from emerging nations—she would never say “the third world.” A colony under foreign dictatorship is excellent. When emerging nation isn’t available, she’ll settle for Ireland, India, Iran. She firmly believes that men who have suffered from oppression and a black-market economy know there’s more at stake. They try harder to win you over. They’re willing to deal. Through these guiding thoughts, my mother has found true love as many times as she’s quit smoking for good.
Hell yes, I’m furious with my mother. This morning she asked if she could drop by to cheer me up. And then she spent two hours comparing my failed marriage with hers to Bob. A lack of commitment, an unwillingness to make sacrifices, no give, all take—those are the common faults she’s noticed in Simon and Bob. And she and I both “gave, gave, gave from the bottom of our hearts.” She bummed a cigarette from me, then a match.
“I saw it coming,” she said, and inhaled deeply. “Ten years ago. Remember that tim
e Simon went to Hawaii and left you home when you had the flu?”
“I told him to go. We had nonrefundable airline tickets and he could sell only one.” Why was I defending him?
“You were sick. He should have been giving you chicken soup rather than cavorting on the beach.”
“He was cavorting with his grandmother. She’d had a stroke.” I was starting to sound as whiny as a kid.
She gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sweetie, you don’t have to be in denial anymore. I know what you’re feeling. I’m your mother, remember?” She stubbed out her cigarette before assuming her matter-of-fact, social worker manner: “Simon didn’t love you enough, because he was lacking, not you. You are abundantly lovable. There is nothing wrong with you.”
I gave a stiff nod. “Mom, I really should get to work now.”
“You go right ahead. I’ll just have another cup of coffee.” She looked at her watch and said, “The exterminators flea-bombed my apartment at ten. Just to be safe, I’d like to wait another hour before I go back.”
And now I’m sitting at my desk, unable to work, completely drained. What the hell does she know about my capacity for love? Does she have any idea how many times she’s hurt me without knowing it? She complains that all that time she spent with Bob was a big waste. What about me? What about the time she didn’t spend with me? Wasn’t that a waste too? And why am I now devoting any energy to thinking about this? I’ve been reduced to a snivelly little kid again. There I am, twelve years old, facedown on my twin bed, a corner of the pillow stuffed into my mouth so that Kwan can’t hear my mangled sobs.
“Libby-ah,” Kwan whispers, “something matter? You sick? Eat too much Christmas cookie? Next time I don’t make so sweet. . . . Libby-ah, you like my present? You don’t like, tell me, okay? I make you another sweater. You tell me what color. Knit it take me only one week. I finish, wrap up, like surprise all over again. . . . Libby-ah? I think Daddy Mommy come back from Yosemite Park bring you beautiful present, pictures too. Pretty snow, mountaintop . . . Don’t cry! No! No! You not mean this. How you can hate you own mother? . . . Oh? Daddy Bob too? Ah, zemma zaogao. . . .”
Libby-ah, Libby-ah? Can I turn on the light? I want to show you something. . . .
Okay, okay! Don’t get mad! I’m sorry. I’m turning it off. See? It’s dark again. Go back to sleep. . . . I was going to show you the pen that fell out of Daddy Bob’s trouser pocket. . . . You tilt it one way, you see a lady in a blue dress. You tilt it the other way, wah!—the dress falls down. I’m not lying. See for yourself. I’ll turn on the light. Are you ready? . . . Oh, Libby-ah, your eyes are swollen big as plums! Put the wet towel back over them. Tomorrow they won’t itch as much. . . . The pen? I saw it sneaking out of his pocket when we were at Sunday mass. He didn’t notice because he was pretending to pray. I know it was just pretend, mm-hmm, because his head went this way—booomp!—and he was snoring. Nnnnnnnhhh! It’s true! I gave him a little push. He didn’t wake up, but his nose stopped making those sounds. Ah, you think that’s funny? Then why are you laughing?
So anyway, after a while I looked at the Christmas flowers, the candles, the colored glass. I watched the priest waving the smoky lantern. Suddenly I saw Jesus walking through the smoke! Yes, Jesus! I thought he had come to blow out his birthday candles. I told myself, Finally I can see him—now I am a Catholic! Oh, I was so excited. That’s why Daddy Bob woke up and pushed me down.
I kept smiling at Jesus, but then I realized—ah?—that man was not Jesus but my old friend Lao Lu! He was pointing and laughing at me. “Fooled you,” he said. “I’m not Jesus! Hey, you think he has a bald head like mine?” Lao Lu walked over to me. He waved his hand in front of Daddy Bob. Nothing happened. He touched his little finger light as a fly on Daddy Bob’s forehead. Daddy Bob slapped himself. He slowly pulled the nasty pen from Daddy Bob’s pocket and rolled it into a fold of my skirt.
“Hey,” Lao Lu said. “Why are you still going to a foreigners’ church? You think a callus on your butt will help you see Jesus?”
Don’t laugh, Libby-ah. What Lao Lu said was not polite. I think he was remembering our last lifetime together, when he and I had to sit on the hard bench for two hours every Sunday. Every Sunday! Miss Banner too. We went to church for so many years and never saw God or Jesus, not Mary either, although back then it was not so important to see her. In those days, she was also mother to baby Jesus but only concubine to his father. Now everything is Mary this and that!—Old St. Mary’s, Mary’s Help, Mary Mother of God, forgiving me my sins. I’m glad she got a promotion. But as I said, in those days, the Jesus Worshippers did not talk about her so much. So I had to worry only about seeing God and Jesus. Every Sunday, the Jesus Worshippers asked me, “Do you believe?” I had to say not yet. I wanted to say yes to be polite. But then I would have been lying, and when I died maybe they would come after me and make me pay two kinds of penalty to the foreign devil, one for not believing, another for pretending that I did. I thought I couldn’t see Jesus because I had Chinese eyes. Later I found out that Miss Banner never saw God or Jesus either. She told me she wasn’t a religious kind of person.
I said, “Why is that, Miss Banner?”
And she said, “I prayed to God to save my brothers. I prayed for him to spare my mother. I prayed that my father would come back to me. Religion teaches you that faith takes care of hope. All my hopes are gone, so why do I need faith anymore?”
“Ai!” I said. “This is too sad! You have no hopes?”
“Very few,” she answered. “And none that are worth a prayer.”
“What about your sweetheart?”
She sighed. “I’ve decided he’s not worth a prayer either. He deserted me, you know. I wrote letters to an American navy officer in Shanghai. My sweetheart’s been there. He’s been in Canton. He’s even been in Guilin. He knows where I am. So why hasn’t he come?”
I was sad to hear that. At the time, I didn’t know her sweetheart was General Cape. “I still have many hopes of finding my family again,” I said. “Maybe I should become a Jesus Worshipper.”
“To be a true worshipper,” she said, “you must give your whole body to Jesus.”
“How much do you give?”
She held up her thumb. I was astonished, because every Sunday she preached the sermon. I thought this should be worth two legs at least. Of course, she had no choice about preaching. No one understood the other foreigners, and they couldn’t understand us. Their Chinese was so bad it sounded just like their English. Miss Banner had to serve as Pastor Amen’s go-between. Pastor Amen didn’t ask. He said she must do this, otherwise no room for her in the Ghost Merchant’s House.
So every Sunday morning, she and Pastor stood by the doorway to the church. He would cry in English, “Welcome, welcome!” Miss Banner would translate into Chinese: “Hurry-come into God’s House! Eat rice after the meeting!” God’s House was actually the Ghost Merchant’s family temple. It belonged to his dead ancestors and their gods. Lao Lu thought the foreigners showed very bad manners picking this place for God’s House. “Like a slap in the face,” he said. “The God of War will drop horse manure from the sky, you wait and see.” Lao Lu was that way—you make him mad, he’ll pay you back.
The missionaries always walked in first, Miss Banner second, then Lao Lu and I, as well as the other Chinese people who worked in the Ghost Merchant’s House—the cook, the two maids, the stableman, the carpenter, I forget who else. The visitors entered God’s House last. They were mostly beggars, a few Hakka God Worshippers, also an old woman who pressed her hands together and bowed three times to the altar, even though she was told over and over again not to do that anymore. The newcomers sat on the back benches—I’m guessing this was in case the Ghost Merchant came back and they needed to run away. Lao Lu and I had to sit up front with the missionaries, shouting “Amen!” whenever the pastor raised his eyebrows. That’s why we called him Pastor Amen—also because his name sounded like “Amen,” Hammond or Halliman, something l
ike that.
As soon as we flattened our bottoms on those benches, we were not supposed to move. Mrs. Amen often jumped up, but only to wag her finger at those who made too much noise. That’s how we learned what was forbidden. No scratching your head for lice. No blowing your nose into your palm. No saying “Shit” when clouds of mosquitoes sang in your ear—Lao Lu said that whenever anything disturbed his sleep.
That was another rule: No sleeping except when Pastor Amen prayed to God, long, boring prayers that made Lao Lu very happy. Because when the Jesus Worshippers closed their eyes, he could do the same and take a long nap. I kept my eye open. I would stare at Pastor Amen to see if God or Jesus was coming down from the heavens. I had seen this happen to a God Worshipper at a temple fair. God entered an ordinary man’s body and threw him to the ground. When he stood up again, he had great powers. Swords thrust against his stomach bent in half. But no such thing ever happened to Pastor Amen. Although one time when Pastor was praying, I saw a beggar standing at the door. I remembered that the Chinese gods sometimes did this, came disguised as beggars to see what was going on, who was being loyal, who was paying them respect. I wondered if the beggar was a god, now angry to see foreigners standing at the altar where he used to be. When I looked back a few minutes later, the beggar had disappeared. So who knows if he was the reason for the disasters that came five years later.
At the end of the prayer time, the sermon would begin. The first Sunday, Pastor Amen spoke for five minutes—talk, talk, talk!—a lot of sounds that only the other missionaries could understand. Then Miss Banner translated for five minutes. Warnings about the devil. Amen! Rules for going to heaven. Amen! Bring your friends with you. Amen! Back and forth they went, as if they were arguing. So boring! For two hours, we had to sit still, letting our bottoms and our brains grow numb.