The Mystery of the Song Dynasty Painting

by Adeline Yen Mah

  ‘You are a genius, Ah Zhao!’ I say to his portrait.

  Genius he may be, but I need to make some important decisions. Am I to run away with him tonight?

  Outside, the rain continues to cascade down torrentially. I roll up the painting and put it back in its box with the three words ‘Please be careful’ on its lid. Why is he warning me? Is he waiting for me right now, as promised? In the pouring rain?

  ‘Whatever happens, I’ll wait for you at our ravine, on or before the Qing Ming Festival, in three years’ time.’

  That’s what he said, three years ago, when he left. Does he remember?

  Thin and tired. That’s how Nai Ma described him. I long to see him, but I need to think a while longer. Why? For the same reason he wrote his message on the lid of the box: ‘Please be careful.’

  Why did he write those words? What is he saying? Am I to be careful because the consequences of our meeting will be momentous and irrevocable? Or is it the other way round? And he is warning me not to expect too much?

  What he doesn’t know yet is that my heart is tied to him as a boat is to its rudder. My childhood is over, and there’s nothing here for me any more. I’m prepared to pay any price to go wherever Ah Zhao wishes to take me.

  The sounds of the household gradually die down as I creep back into my bedroom. Nai Ma is snoring loudly behind her curtain. Years of experience tell me that she won’t wake. It feels strange to think that this might be the last time I’ll be with her, but I have no regrets. She would like me to marry a rich man and bear children for her to look after. But she’ll never approve of Ah Zhao as my husband, let alone accept him as her master.

  Slowly and quietly, I pack some clothes and Ah Zhao’s painting into a linen bag. I look at my books, regretfully… they’re too heavy for me to carry. But I take my notebook, ink-stick and writing brushes.

  The jewels left to me by my dead Mama are concealed in a small silk pouch beneath a pile of clean underwear. I tie the pouch to my belt and make it part of my costume, underneath my padded, silk-cotton cloak. Mama’s legacy consists of two pairs of gold earrings, a fabulous pearl pendant, a gemstone bracelet, three jewelled combs, and an imperial jade hairpin with a stem as thin as hair.

  Before marrying Baba, my teenaged Mama worked for two years as lady-in-waiting to a previous Emperor’s favourite concubine at the Imperial Palace. Being a skilful seamstress, Mama designed and stitched a special dragon-and-phoenix pillow, out of kingfisher feathers, for the concubine’s birthday one year. This pleased the consort so much that she and the Emperor ordered a Palace eunuch to bring out His Majesty’s treasure chest. With His own hands, the Emperor personally selected two items and gave them to Mama as her wedding present. The first is the pendant with a large lustrous northern pearl, over one cun in circumference, said to be priceless. The other is the hairpin made of imperial jade. This jade is of such high quality that light appears to shine through its edges, creating an emerald-green translucence of incredible depth and beauty.

  Outside my room, the house wraps me in its dark silence. I feel my way along the walls and creep downstairs towards the front door. Everything looks strange and frightening in the blackness, but I bite my lip and press on. In my mind, I’ve already left and this house is no longer my home.

  The heavy, wooden front door creaks loudly as I open it. I hold my breath, but no one comes. Rain is pelting down. I close the door softly behind me, open my umbrella and pick my way through the pitch-black wetness, towards the ravine at the back of the garden. It’s so dark I can hardly see the path. In no time, my new cloth shoes are sodden. Nai Ma had finished making these shoes only two days ago. Because my feet are still growing, she takes my footprint every few months. Painstakingly, she cuts pieces of cloth according to the latest tracing, glues five or six layers on top of one another and sews them together to make the sole. Then she measures the height of my crooked toes and cuts the silk so the top of the shoe will fit.

  I sneak along, my shoes making ugly, squishing noises with every step. Something small and quick darts furtively in front of me. It brushes my leg, then disappears. I’m so scared I almost fall. Is it a rat or a raccoon? I can’t tell. I stand, paralysed with fear. A fox howls, and an owl hoots in the eerie silence.

  After a while, the rain slows and the air is still. A sliver of moon shakes free of its cloud-cover and casts a faint, silvery light over the flowerbeds, fish pond and stands of bamboo. I close my umbrella and step through the round opening in our garden wall. Now it’s easier to see. I hurry along the rough, gravelled path sloping down towards the ravine; past the ghostly, moonlit pines and shrubs; past the big boulders and jagged terrain incised in craggy bedrock.

  All this time, I’ve had no doubt that Ah Zhao will be waiting for me. But as I approach his favourite twisted pine tree, growing from a fissure in the weathered rock, I’m suddenly uncertain. ‘Am I dreaming?’ I ask myself. ‘What am I doing here in the middle of the night? What if there’s a wild tiger behind those bushes, waiting to pounce?’

  I creep past a shrub and a sharp branch jabs my arm. I stumble and almost drop my bag. Before I have time to think, a voice in the darkness says, ‘Qing xiao xin (Please be careful)! Allow me to carry your bag!’

  Ah Zhao emerges from the shadow. We stand and look at one another for a very long time… then we both begin to speak at once. This makes us laugh, and suddenly it’s as if we’ve never been apart.

  ‘You have no idea how often I’ve dreamt of today, all through these three years away from you!’ Ah Zhao says. ‘It’s a miracle that you’ve come to me like this!’

  ‘Please be careful!’ I say softly. ‘Those are the words you wrote on the lid of my box…’

  ‘Yes,’ he answers simply. ‘That’s my message to you… and you understood!’

  His voice is full of love, and I wish I could keep this moment forever… But he says, ‘Come, Little Sister, we must leave quickly. A friend is waiting for us with a carriage. He’ll take us to the river, where there’s a boat leaving at first light. When we’re safely on board, then we’ll be able to talk.’

  We make our way towards the back wall of Baba’s property, at the far end of the ravine. I’m hurrying to keep up, but I stumble and slip on the wet grass and gravel. Finally, Ah Zhao stoops down and tells me to climb on. I sit astride his neck with my legs hanging over his shoulders, like a little girl, feeling protected and secure.

  ‘My friend is waiting on the side lane, by the back wall. It’s safer than the main carriageway.’

  ‘But how –’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you over the wall.’

  ‘It’s so high –’

  Suddenly Ah Zhao stops.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Shhh! Listen! I can hear something.’

  We stand absolutely still, but all I hear is the sound of our breathing.

  ‘You must have imagined it, Ah Zhao…’ but even as I speak I see something moving in the trees. Is it a deer or a bird?

  Without a word, he sets off again, walking as fast as he can. I clutch onto his hair. He holds my bag in his left hand while steadying me with his right. In the distance, I see the garden wall and hear the horse chomping on the other side. If we can just get over the wall, I think, we will be safe.

  At that moment, I hear footsteps and Ah Wang’s voice shouting out to someone. Now I’m scared. Fear enters quickly, flooding the hollow spaces around my heart, making me tremble. Ah Zhao grasps my legs firmly and sprints for the wall.

  The wall is very high. Ah Zhao lets me down and calls out to his friend, who answers immediately. He throws my bag over to the other side. ‘Hurry!’ shouts the friend. Ah Zhao scrambles up the wall as if it were a ladder, and I know I can’t do this. The voices behind us are louder. A hopeless horror crawls up my leg from my crippled foot. I wonder if the terror will grow and grow until my brain blows apart under its relentless pressure.

  Ah Zhao reaches down from the top of the wall and holds out his han
d. Desperately, I try to grab it and clamber up, but it’s too difficult. My foot keeps slipping and I can’t hold on. The same weird feelings as before come flooding back. ‘Is this a nightmare?’ I ask myself. ‘Am I dreaming or is this real? Will I escape, or will they catch me? What is my destiny?’

  Even as my mind races, I struggle to find a foothold and reach the top. The rough rocks scrape my legs and hands. Unexpectedly, and all at once, Ah Zhao manages to catch both my arms as I jump upwards, and he’s half-pulling and half-lifting me up the wall. I make it to the top and lie there, catching my breath, while Ah Zhao jumps down the other side.

  ‘Come now, Little Sister! Jump! I’ll catch you!’

  I feel a cramp creeping up my bad foot, and a fierce pain in my left shoulder. Something is horribly wrong. Can a person’s arm be pulled out of her shoulder? I crawl on my right hand and knees and try to stand up. The pain is so excruciating I almost pass out. My left arm hangs uselessly at a grotesque angle. With a superhuman effort, I get to my feet and am just about to jump when I hear a familiar voice.

  ‘Little Sister! Stop!’

  There is only one person under Heaven who can make me hesitate at this moment.

  ‘Gege! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here to stop you making the biggest mistake of your life! Don’t jump! I forbid you!’

  A wave of nausea hits me.

  ‘You, of all people! Surely you understand?’

  ‘I won’t let you do this, Little Sister!’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, in agony.

  ‘You will disgrace Baba and make our family the laughing stock of Bian Liang! I won’t allow it! My decision is final!’

  ‘Does Baba know?’

  ‘Not yet! I haven’t told him. Come home with me and I won’t say anything to him, ever. It’s our secret.’

  A pang goes through me when I hear him. How many times throughout our childhood have I heard him say this very sentence to me?

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Oh, Little Sister! I knew as soon as I saw his gift to you. Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize his message? He and I were like brothers…’

  ‘What about his gift to you?’

  There’s a short silence as he ponders my question. I see the shame on his face. His eyes look shifty in the moonlight.

  ‘What about it?’ Gege finally answers defiantly. ‘Nobody forced him to put my name on that painting. He did what he wanted to do. Besides, I was the one who conceived the idea for that painting to begin with!’

  ‘So you created that painting all along! Oh, Gege! I would give everything under Heaven to have you the way you used to be.’

  Suddenly I hear Ah Zhao’s voice, urgent and harsh with anxiety. ‘Come, Little Sister! Jump! You must jump now!’

  I take one last look at my brother and turn to jump. An agonizing pain shoots from my left shoulder, through my entire body. My foot twists on the uneven stones, and I hear myself screaming as I fall…

  20

  Is Anything Impossible?

  The voice on the wire recorder faded into silence, leaving the room strangely still and empty. CC leant forward on her red recliner, her eyes fixed on the machine lying on Dr Allen’s desk. It was as if she was willing it to keep on talking, but there was nothing left to hear except the click click of the recorder whirring on.

  CC tried to speak, but her throat felt closed and tight.

  ‘That can’t be all… what happened to them?’

  Dr Allen got up from his chair and switched off the machine.

  ‘I’m sorry, CC. This was the last time Zhang Mei Lan spoke. It seems her connection with you began with your fall in the marketplace and ended when Mei Lan herself fell.’

  ‘But I need to know whether she managed to escape with Ah Zhao!’

  ‘I wish I could give you all the answers, but we might have to be satisfied with curing your headaches and bad dreams. I think you feel a lot better than before your therapy, don’t you?’

  He seemed so determined for CC to feel better that she laughed. ‘Yes! Yes! Thank you, Dr Allen. I haven’t had a single headache since you began treating me with hypnosis. It really helps to understand why the Qing Ming painting looks so familiar. Before that, a mysterious feeling would come over me whenever I looked at that hand-scroll… like seeing a face I know well but not being able to remember her name, no matter how hard I try. But I still have one important question: how do I know so much about Zhang Mei Lan and Gege in the first place?’

  Dr Allen opened his desk drawer and took out the book that had fascinated CC for so long.

  ‘I can only make an educated guess. What we know for sure is that the painting exists. It was painted in the time of Emperor Huizong, during the Song Dynasty. The artist was Zhang Ze Duan, who lived from AD 1085 to 1145. These are all historical facts that have been verified. However, you already knew that yourself from looking at this book so often.’

  ‘But the book doesn’t say anything about Ah Zhao or Mei Lan. How can I tell you so much about them under hypnosis? Could I have been Mei Lan at one time?’

  ‘There are a few possible explanations. For example, there’s a thing called a “false memory”, where people think they remember an event, but it’s really an incident they’ve heard or read elsewhere. This can be triggered by trauma – such as your accident. But I have to say that the level of detail stored in your memory is extraordinary. Madame Wu and I have shown the transcript of this recording to a professor of history and he recognized many of the people you mentioned.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense! How could I know their names under hypnosis without knowing them when I’m not under hypnosis?’

  ‘Well…’ Dr Allen began. Then he stopped and looked at Grandma Wu.

  ‘Yes?’ Grandma Wu prompted.

  ‘Well, CC, as Madame Wu here keeps reminding me, there are many who might believe that you were remembering incidents from a life you had led in the past.’

  Grandma Wu took the book from Dr Allen and opened it at the painting of Along the River at Qing Ming. She traced one of the figures with her finger. ‘See this man here? He has taken off his jacket and tied the sleeves round his waist. That’s something I do when the weather is either too hot or too cold and I can’t make up my mind. Eight hundred years ago, Ah Zhao or Zhang Ze Duan saw a man doing this and captured his image on silk. In addition, look at this same man’s posture: arms folded in front, shoulders thrust back, feet apart. That’s my posture exactly! That’s how I like to stand! Was this man my ancestor? Am I his descendant? Do I look like him? Who knows? If two people born eight hundred years apart can choose to carry their jackets and fold their arms while standing in exactly the same way, why can’t you believe that CC was a young girl named Zhang Mei Lan during the Song Dynasty? Instead of inheriting Mei Lan’s features, or the way she carries her jacket, CC inherited some of Mei Lan’s memories. Why is that impossible? Many people, such as the Tibetans, believe in reincarnation. At death, a person’s essence doesn’t vanish forever. It passes on to another. Just like a dying candle lighting a new one. Even if you don’t believe that the Dalai Lama is the reincarnated God of Compassion, isn’t rebirth a happier way of looking at death?’

  ‘That makes a lot of sense,’ CC said. ‘But it means Mei Lan and Ah Zhao would have really lived at that time, as well as people such as Tong Guan, Cai Jing and Cai You.’

  ‘I think Madame Wu has some theories of her own on that score.’ Dr Allen turned to look at Grandma Wu. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes! I’ve had some time on my hands these last few weeks, so I started doing research on the Song Dynasty. Through my new friend Jiang Fei Fei, the woman in black whom you first saw at the market, I met a retired university historian named Professor Yu who lives here in Feng Jie. He informed us that many of the names you mentioned under hypnosis are well-known historical figures. According to the official Standard History of the Song Dynasty, Cai Jing was indeed Huizong’s Prime Minister, and
Tong Guan his military commander. The Buddhist Iron Pagoda mentioned by Mei Lan still exists. There were also a few Buddhist nuns of that era who wrote and published poems and lyrics. It’s entirely possible that Mei Lan was one of those nuns.’

  ‘What about Ah Zhao?’ Dr Allen asked. ‘Were there Jews living in China so long ago?’

  ‘Absolutely. There’s evidence that a few Jewish merchants travelled to Kaifeng , which was formerly called Bian Liang, around that time, to trade cotton goods for silk. The Song Emperor was so pleased with the cloth He received that He allowed the Jews to use His royal surname of Zhao, as well as the surnames of His favourite ministers.’

  ‘How sad that Ah Zhao and Zhang Mei Lan didn’t end up together!’ CC said.

  ‘Oh I don’t know…’ Grandma Wu looked thoughtful. ‘I like to think that Ah Zhao got away that night and eventually fulfilled his dream of retracing his father’s footsteps and discovering his heritage. In any case, he left behind this brilliant painting. By the way, I want to show you something else that’s simply amazing!’

  Grandma Wu flipped the book over and showed CC a poem printed on the last page. ‘It says here that this poem was written by a Northern Song Dynasty Buddhist nun named Fo Ni . My historian friend, Professor Yu, tells me that Fo Ni was the religious name of Zhang Mei Lan, sister of the famous court painter Zhang Ze Duan. Imagine Mei Lan’s poem being published in the same book as the photo of Ah Zhao’s painting! How many couples get to have their creative work exhibited together, centuries after their deaths. So, in a way, they have been united after all!’