Girl in Reverse (9781442497368)

by Stuber, Barbara

  I creep out of the bathroom, stop at the drinking fountain without swallowing a sip, and go upstairs.

  I skirt the Main Chinese Gallery, which is filled with people, not crates. No remnant of my ripped petticoat, either, just glowing gorgeousness everywhere—polished wood, a floor-to-ceiling green-and-gold-tiled walkthrough, and towering open-cut screens that divide the ceiling light into snowflakes dusting us all. Flashbulbs bounce off display cases full of jade and porcelain. I hop around a photographer and spot Mr. Howard in his chef’s hat. He raises a wooden spoon in greeting, shakes his head slightly as if to say he won’t tell the Chows I’m here.

  A gong sounds and everybody finds a seat in the Buddhist temple. I head down a row of folding chairs to the back corner. I have dropped my program somewhere, but I am not about to get up now. I put my purse on the floor, wrap my feet around the chair legs, and try to swallow my heart, which is lodged in my throat.

  I spot the hidden door in the wall by the stage, just a rectangle of molding with a keyhole. I have imagined Gone Mom coming through that door and stepping up onstage a thousand times. Will she look out and recognize me instantly? Will I run to her or turn away? Will we look alike? Or will we gaze up at the dragon pearl—our starting point or ending point—together?

  One whole wall is a painting of Buddha. The platform at the front has a tall red curtain on wheels. There’s a slide projector, a podium, a table with the wooden body parts hidden under a tasseled red cloth, a vase of chrysanthemums, candles, scrolls with rows of calligraphy, a bowl of sand, and an old Chinese fellow playing a skinny, high-pitched instrument. His strumming calms everyone’s voices. The man in front of me whispers—zither—to the lady he’s with. She wears a heavy armor of Chanel No5 perfume. Mother’s favorite. Ralph swears that if our mother ever once perspired, she’d sweat Chanel.

  Somebody tests the microphone and dims the lights. The overflow crowd settles down in the Main Chinese Gallery. Blood rushes from my hands and feet. I straighten my face and look ahead.

  Mayor Taylor welcomes everybody, thanks a million people, and says, “A well-publicized stranger has come to town, and I don’t mean our special guest speaker.” Ha-ha-ha. “I am referring to the treasure behind this curtain.” Ooh . . . aah . . .

  The director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum speaks next. He will introduce the guest speaker. He has white hair and a crimson necktie. I scan the audience. There are lots of Chinese people—distinguished-looking scholar types and couples, the men in tuxedos, the women in slim silk dresses. None are carrying bayonets. None of them are Gone Mom. They are black-haired and elegant. I am unelegant in my swing skirt and blue cardigan. In their beaded purses I imagine silver combs and cigarette holders. My purse contains Chiclets, my compact, a comb, Tangee, and six grainy photo graphs.

  “We’ve waited fifteen years for this evening . . . Dr. Benton molded our Chinese collection . . . a mecca of Oriental antiquities right here in the Midwest . . . painstaking . . . searching and piecing together . . . fakes and halos . . . sixth sense . . .” We learn that the featured speaker’s credentials and talents are too vast to be contained in one institution. He and his colleagues will stay in Kansas City for several weeks.

  Now the crowd laughs. The museum director has said something funny, but I don’t care what. It feels like nothing is happening outside of me tonight.

  The audience stands, so I do too. Dr. Michael Benton walks onstage to huge applause and begins his remarks. His American face and Chinese coat and pants are an odd mix. “Jin wan xie xie ni men lai. Wo hen rong xing he ni men zai yi qi. Thank you so very much for coming this evening. I am so honored to be with you.” He’s the expert, the head of the archaeological team, the one everybody but me is waiting to see. He thanks the museum for sponsoring the work of his team in China.

  He explains he has come home to tell a Chinese fairy tale. He lights incense sticks, pokes them into the sand, and steps back with his hands folded. We watch the smoke rise. “Smoke carries our deepest desires and gratitude to the ancestors,” he says.

  Sandalwood curls to the back of the room, mixes with the Chanel No5. Gone Mom combined with Mother. Tears spring down my face. No warning. No stopping them. I turn toward the wall, use my sleeve for Kleenex. Why didn’t I bring some? Why didn’t I think?

  The expert shows slides of artworks in our museum—sculptures of pharaohs and martyrs, busts of Roman emperors, statues of Hercules, Shiva, Buddha, stained-glass images of Mary and Jesus, the beaded throne of an African king.

  “An art museum is the perfect place to experience diversity. No wars allowed in here. Rulers and kings, gods and goddesses, mummies, and saints live peacefully under one roof!” He smiles, extends his arms in a wide circle to include the audience, Buddha, the guardian lions, and dragons all around.

  The audience claps and cheers.

  “And it is in this spirit that we gather tonight to dedicate our Chinese Buddhist temple and to celebrate an object of unparalleled merit, an object that exemplifies heavenly peace and compassion for all. But let us first hear the tale of its discovery.”

  His voice fades. I check my watch. I try to figure out which of the lumps under the red cloth is my wooden hand, which is the head. “Our team’s search began here in Shanxi.” The expert points to a slide of China. Shanxi. His next picture is tethered camels and a bonfire and rubble.

  I lean forward, squint, my stomach a pincushion. I know these camels. I have their picture in my purse.

  He slides the cloth away, but instead of the hand and toes there are piles of rocks, a scale, a magnifying glass, and logbooks. He undoes a leather tool roll and explains the painstaking process of excavating “the hidden strata below China” using hand shovels, trowels, picks, and paintbrushes.

  I recognize the bamboo brushes. I own two just like them.

  “We were an international mix of archaeologists, art historians, locals, guides, camels, and grooms. We each contributed our expertise and passion to the search. China in the 1930s was a country in collapse, a victim of endless political turmoil, unequipped to maintain and restore its own treasures. But fortunately, we were able to uncover and preserve those treasures and bring them into the present.”

  A slide comes on. Everyone gasps, including me. He walks us through the unearthing of a dead man’s hand. It’s a close-up of the tips of stiff fingers poking out of the dirt, like five thick plant shoots. “When we unearthed this wooden beauty, we knew we were there. The elegant fingers pointing to nirvana.”

  Each photograph shows more of the hand—my hand— as it is dug out of the ground. The next slide is a profile picture of a kneeling woman with a snowy hat pressing the sculpted fingers to her cheek.

  I have touched that same cheek with my fingers.

  Mamá.

  I suck in air and hold it. The crowd falls away. I see the two perfect folds in her eyelid, her soft ear, and the side of her nose—the same view I had when she carried me into this very room.

  I touch my own cheek, breathe sandalwood smoke, and stare at the pearl.

  A tall lady sitting several rows ahead turns and looks right at me. I look away. I don’t know her.

  “A school had been built over the ruins of the Buddhist temple that once housed our bodhisattva. But not all our digging was done in the ground. We scoured flea markets, grottoes, and ransacked ruins.” He shows the slide of the snow-dusted head with crystal eyes and a hole in the forehead. Another shows pieces of the flame-shaped halo. “Before being researched and labeled, these random artifacts are gambles, intriguing finds, nothing more.

  “But here is our find, our masterpiece, today! The bodhisattva.” The expert rolls the curtain away, revealing a radiant towering person dressed in green and gold scarves and ribbons, with polished skin, elegant hands, wrists wrapped in bracelets, a soaring flowered crown, and crystal eyes. A golden starburst halo shoots out all around it.

  He waits for the crowd to quiet. “Bodhisattvas are spiritual beings who offer compassion to
all people. But in this case, the bodhisattva needed our help. It lay broken and scattered for a thousand years, waiting to be made whole again—the head, toes, hands, halo, and torso reassembled. Fortunately, bodhisattvas are patient by nature.

  “Bo-dee-satt-va,” he repeats, encouraging the audience to say it. I roll it through my mind. I know the word. I have it in the fortune taped in my notebook:

  Bodhisattvas surround you.

  “Viewing a bodhisattva is like smelling salts, awakening us. The figure is made of wood, but we aren’t. It enlivens our capacity for love and compassion. I know because bringing these broken pieces together transformed everyone on our team. Please notice the indentation called an urna, or heavenly wisdom eye, in the forehead.”

  He shows a new slide—the group I thought were gypsies in my picture. The speaker points to a Chinese man with a heavy coat and boots. “Meet Chun Loo, our brilliant archaeologist and Asian art historian from Peking University, and his daughter and apprentice, Lien Loo.”

  Chun Loo . . . Lien Loo.

  Chun Loo—my grandfather.

  He stands next to his daughter, my mother, in the picture. They look alike. They smile alike. I stare at his hand resting on her shoulder. Father-daughter. One glimpse—the camera capturing their connection. Father and daughter. Gone. Past. I weave my fingers, focused on my lap, guarding my heart.

  Dr. Benton names everyone else in the photograph—each assistant, guide, and groom. Then he folds his hands and rocks side to side, absorbing the picture. “We walked northern China together examining ruins on top of ruins, armed with our tools, our bargaining skills, our money, our passion, and our cameras.” He announces that the Chinese Temple is dedicated to his former colleagues, the “finding team” in China.

  I hold my breath, arms wrapping my waist. Now the secret door will open and they’ll step onstage. I am twisted so tight I’m numb. The expert clears his throat and explains in a voice mechanical and sad that they lost contact with Chun Loo after their collaboration and that his daughter, Lien Loo, who had planned to come study in the U.S., remained in China.

  I cover my mouth. WHAT?

  The tall redheaded woman twirls around again, her eyes locked on me. The speaker fades. I look from Gone Mom on the screen to the dragon pearl and back. Why is he saying that? Tears leak down my cheeks. I clutch my purse, shrunk to nothing, heartsick, confused, and . . . relieved.

  “If you think a bodhisattva is a strange heathen from across the sea,” Dr. Benton says, “think again. Bodhisattvas represent what is best in us. They are beginning points and ending points too, like the miracle of this evening.” The speaker holds his hand the way a crossing guard would stop traffic. “This hand gesture is called a mudra.” He turns to the bodhisattva, matches palms. “It means ‘go in peace.’ What better message could we hear tonight?”

  Happy ending point? Really? I could walk up there, open my purse . . .

  I’m startled by strains of zither music and the scrape of chairs. Everyone is inching to the front to congratulate the speaker and view the bodhisattva up close, except the lady who is heading back to me.

  Sister Evangeline!

  Chapter 21

  Evangeline has switched from black and white to color! She wears a gold necklace and green plaid dress with a scoop neck. Her purse sways as she sits on the edge of the chair next to mine. The nun is gone, but not her voice.

  “I hoped you would come tonight,” she says.

  Really? I don’t say that she is the last person I expected to see. She is the last person I expected to see ever again!

  Evangeline looks at the bodhisattva, then turns to me. She reaches to my cheek, then curls her fingers back. Nun training. Most of the audience has moved into the main room now. The expert, Dr. Benton, converses with Mr. Chow in Chinese.

  “My birth mother used to bring me here to look at this dragon pearl,” I say, pointing up. “It must have reminded her of home.”

  Evangeline raises her eyebrows. Nods. I cannot take my eyes from the matching curves of her collarbones, the elegant upward sweep of her neck. We each sit waiting, it seems, for the other one to talk.

  “She was the Chinese archaeologist’s daughter.” My voice is raspy. I clear my throat. “Did you know that?”

  “Adoption records are sealed.”

  “The speaker said Lien Loo never came to America. Why would he say that? It’s a lie.” A tunnel of silence stretches between us.

  “Perhaps you should ask him,” Evangeline says.

  I glance at the dragon pearl collecting candlelight. “I thought the pictures in that box were clues to help me find her, that she might be here and I could show them to her and, if not, I could at least show them to someone.” I take a deep breath, knit my hands. “Idiotic. After all this time, but . . .”

  She glances at my purse. “Did you bring the slipper?”

  “No! It’s too fragile, and I don’t know . . . I . . .” I fiddle with my purse strap, glance up at her. “I came back the next day. I needed to talk to you.”

  She looks off. “There are restrictions for sisters who leave. I couldn’t . . .”

  What restrictions? “Joy took me on a tour. Sister Immaculata can’t hear. Joy’s food was dried out, her water was frozen, and the new nun is allergic to cats. Joy was curled up on your bed when I left.”

  Evangeline lowers her head. I wish I hadn’t said it. I wish I had Kleenex. “I’m sorry, Lily. Leaving was terribly difficult.” She stares at her lap. “I grew up there.”

  “You did ?”

  She straightens her back and chin. “Yes.”

  “But . . .”

  “I became one in the stream of souls going out the door.”

  “Y . . . you left that day, after the shed, didn’t you?”

  “It was time. My work was finished. The Mercy Home saved all our lives—yours, mine, my mother’s, and both of your mothers’.”

  I sit back, picturing my mothers. So strange to think Evangeline actually knew both of them. The Sisters of Mercy saved Mother?

  “How did it save my adoptive mother?” I ask.

  Evangeline looks puzzled, as if this is something I should already know. “Maybe you should talk to her about it.”

  Is she crazy? My mother is the last person I could talk to. I check my watch. Eight thirty. An hour to get home. I say the dumbest out-of-the-blue thing. “So you’re just plain Evangeline now?”

  Her cheeks crinkle. “Just plain.” She stands. “I understand the art experts will be here for a few weeks. Their story is certainly a fascinating and important one.” She gives me a serious look. “Good evening, Lily.” Evangeline weaves out of the temple opening and through the reception crowd, catlike, mysterious.

  I sit with my head tilted back. “I came,” I whisper to Gone Mom, “and even Sister Evangeline came. Where in the world are you?”

  Beyond the rows of empty chairs the bodhisattva glows on its lotus flower throne. Its smile is calm and simple. Its scratched crystal eyes remind me of Evangeline’s somehow—with every bit of life they’ve witnessed leaving a mark.

  The bodhisattva’s raised finger catches the candlelight. How has it not been broken in a thousand years? I weave through chairs, pulled to the front of the room, and stand so it is pointing right at me. I reach up and touch fingertips with the bodhisattva.

  God and Girl.

  Lien and Lily.

  * * *

  I dodge the photographers and Elliot James and exit the museum petrified that a picture of my fingertip will be on the front page of the Sunday paper. I cross the lawn and sit down by The Thinker. The full moon has washed his bronze face in milky light.

  Sometimes things come together and sometimes they don’t. I came for Gone Mom and I left with a lie. And what did Evangeline mean about the orphanage saving all of us?

  “Mr. Howard said you might be out here.”

  I whip around, nerves unzipped.

  Elliot!

  “God! What’re you doin
g? You scared me to death!”

  “Sorry.” I can’t see his face, just his flappy horse blanket of a coat.

  I hear car engines in the circle. Voices. Horns. Elliot and I stare at the other member of our trio—The Thinker, the only one of us without clothes.

  He sits, asks why I came tonight. Garbled words rush from my mouth—I have become interested in various aspects of Chinese culture because I don’t know very much and I . . . that my brother is doing a Boy Scout merit badge and tried some interesting mirror angles to see the Chinese artifacts that . . . bodhisattvas are good inspiration and . . .

  This would be the perfect time for Elliot to rescue me, acknowledge that something is painful and weird and help out by changing the subject. But when he’s not holding a pencil or paintbrush, Elliot’s personality can shred down to nothing.

  “The Thinker and the bodhisattva are opposites,” he says finally. “The Thinker’s all clenched, wanting answers to everything, and the bodhisattva’s just calm, like he knows there aren’t answers.”

  I unclench my jaw, drop my shoulders, breathe, breathe again, and for a tiny moment unhook from the world. It feels heavenly.

  “Two statues,” Elliot says. “Same size. Same museum. Opposite message.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So do you need a ride?”

  “Did you drive your car?” Stupid. Stupid.

  “No. A camel.”

  I turn, debate his offer, and while I debate his offer, Elliot leans over and kisses me. No warning. Just boom! Lips on . . . lips off.

  Instant heart attack. Inability to speak. Wobbly world.

  He stands and stretches. Since my brain is blank, I stand also, wobble wobble, and follow him like a tethered camel to his turpentine car parallel parked by the curb. The rusty door squeals open—squeeeeek! Leeleeeian got keeessed!