Chi Lin reached for his hand. He kissed hers, and then went to one knee. They had the ke-ting to themselves — only these two and the sound of the rain.
“It matters not that you are only his Auntie and I just his mentor,” Gao Lin said gently. “We have loved him and he has come to regard us as we are. You have managed the best for him, and I shall continue to watch over him as long as I live.”
Chi Lin closed her eyes, the tears welling from the deepest happiness within and also the deepest sorrow. How she wished she could embrace this man again and disregard the fiction of the ghost bride, but this was a special day and she would not dampen it with personal desires. Instead, she opened her eyes and drank in the sight of the man she loved, while he gently wiped away the tears cascading over her cheeks.
“He must never know,” she whispered.
“And yet he has always known, gentle heart, and will remember both of us as such although Heaven has set our places as they are.” He kissed her hand again. “I must go. I must knock on the bedroom door and vilify the institution of marriage like any good groom’s guest would.”
“Yes, Master Chou K’ai-lin,” she said, grinning slightly. “Remember me.”
“I have never forgotten.”
Then, he was gone, and soon Mi Tso-tze stood before Chi Lin toting the san-tze.
4
The return trip to the Silver Silence went unspoken, although Mi Tso-tze chattered, asking many questions. Chi Lin just nodded, deflecting them.
“Shall we visit the shrine, mistress? It would be proper.”
“Tomorrow is soon enough. The rain is sweet and gentle, but enough to make me damp.”
So they passed the shrine, went through the gate and crossed the courtyard to the Silver Silence, where Yu Li and Po Bo waited on the verandah. Chi Lin climbed the stairs, but stopped at the stone bench. Here she sat as she did on the day when she had arrived here so many years ago. She listened again. The wedding sounds had ended — only the rain sang soft on the cobblestones and balustrade. She sighed again.
“I shall sit here awhile.”
“But, mistress,” Mi Tso-tze chided. “You will catch cold and suffer for it tomorrow.”
“I will not be long. Yu Li, fetch my comb and, Lao Lao, in the chink under my bed is my last silver ingot. Bring it here.”
Yu Li departed, but Po Bo did not.
“Is there a fault?” Chi Lin asked.
“You called me Lao Lao.”
“Ah, yes,” she said. “Did I call Yu Li Snapdragon also? But no matter. You are the custodian as much as Lao Lao was. Fetch the ingot. Fetch the ingot. Bring it here.”
“Mistress,” Mi Tso-tze reproached.
“Turn down my bed, Tso-tze. Do not be tiresome.”
Mi Tso-tze grumbled but did as she was told. Yu Li returned and began removing the pins and combing her mistress’ hair. Chi Lin closed her eyes. She imagined Snapdragon’s spindly fingers dancing through her tresses. But this was Yu Li, who was competent and trained up for it. It must be the rain’s magic that made Chi Lin nostalgic.
Po Bo returned, holding the silver ingot in his palm. Chi Lin opened her eyes, the gray light reflected on the silver’s edge. She closed Po Bo’s hand around the ingot.
“Take this to the market tomorrow. Go to the carpenters and order me a strong ironwood coffin, and then see the draper for a fine silk shroud.”
“But mistress,” Po Bo said, alarmed. “You are not leaving us?”
“No,” Chi Lin said. “But there is comfort in such things when the work becomes less and the days grow shorter. This ingot should cover the cost, but if you get a good price, you may keep the balance and buy a sturdy chair for your quarters.”
Po Bo appeared stunned, especially when Mi Tso-tze returned.
“Enough, Yu Li,” Chi Lin said. “I shall come inside momentarily.” She spotted a distant light in her brother’s house. He was unable to attend the wedding. “Po Bo, see how my brother fares. Attend to his comfort before you and Yu Li retire.”
Po Bo hesitated, but bowed curtly before darting away. Mi Tso-tze grumbled, and then entered the hall. Yu Li curtsied, and then followed her.
Chi Lin sat alone now on the stone bench with the rain lulling her to fine thoughts.
“Gao Lin,” she whispered.
She sighed again.
“Wu Ming-kuan.”
She gazed through the rain, laughing gently.
“And yet he has always known and will remember us both as his parents, although Heaven has set our places as they are.”
Again she sighed, but then smiled. The rain danced in her mind now, the Silver Silence in her soul and, although she came into this place as a ghost bride, the fourth wife of Master Wu, she had grown beyond such things. She was Chi Lin — Mistress Purple Sage and Auntie to them all.
Ch’i-lin and the Cup
A Flash story originally published at Whim’s Place
By Edward C. Patterson
She reached out and took the cup, her eyes closing, shutting the world out. She would not see the edge as it touched her lips and made bitter the sweetened rice brew that sealed this pact. Her red veil was raised, but her heart was far from the moment. As the acrid cooling brew washed bitter over her tongue, she recalled her childhood—a recollection that had ended with that brutal cup and this heartless pact.
“Ch’i-lin,” came the voice. “Are you here Ch’i-lin?”
She was here. She felt the gentle breeze of the kitchen on her cheek, although she stood in the parlor surrounded by guests. She had left her father at the door with the many gifts for Master K’ung—gifts that matched the family’s expectations. She had left her mother down the road, peering over the wall, tears of mixed-joy standing in eyes like water bags on a mule’s back, stubborn to flood her arroyo cheeks. Ch’i-lin was content behind her father’s walls, content to be just a girl, flowering and useful to mother’s chores, her sister’s games and her father’s doting. Life for those who have the misfortune to be born bereft of testicles are distracted by those who had them; and those that had them had cash and good connections.
Ch’i-lin felt the kitchen’s breeze and she knew that her new mother stood in the portal planning the life of her new charge. Life for a childless woman was set, even at the age of thirteen; and childless Ch’i-lin would be. They all knew that. She heard that voice again—Ch’i-lin, but instead she heard the call of the kettles and woks, the buckets and the carry-poles. She had a strong back—her gift to the union as no issue would be coming. She shuddered and for a moment she wanted to answer the voice. “I am not here. I am in my father’s gardens sewing daisies to my mother’s skirts. I am singing to the willow and making my erh-hu sigh to the west wind. I am watching the rain kiss the bean fields and praying to the radishes as they quake from the soil. I am there, but never here. Never here.”
The kitchen breeze and her new mother’s voice cawed. “Drink and make it so.”
Ch’i-lin opened her eyes and swallowed. It was a hollow choke—a bitter vision. Beyond the toil of her new life, her husband sat slumped in a muddle beside his mother. The rice wine slurped to his chapped, blackening lips; the drops beading down his sallow cheeks like grease from a roasting duck.
The corpse wore crimson raiment, silks much finer than its skin. Soon it would wear white funeral robes hosting another ceremonial. But first—this one; the one bonding two properties in peace and civility. Ch’i-lin shuddered and her childhood and maidenhood passed along with the cup—the cup that made her the widow K’ung and a mule to her new mother.
Copyright 2006, Edward C. Patterson
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Edward C. Patterson has been writing novels, short fiction, poetry and drama his entire life, always seeking the emotional core of any story he tells. With his eighth novel, The Jade Owl, he combines an imaginative touch with his life long devotion to China and its history. He has earned an MA in Chinese History from Brooklyn College with further postgraduate work at Columbia University. A native of Brooklyn, NY, he has spent four decades as a soldier in the corporate world gaining insight into the human condition. He won the 2000 New Jersey Minority Achievement Award for his work in corporate diversity. Blending world travel experiences with a passion for story telling, his adventures continue as he works to permeate his reader’s souls from an indelible wellspring.
His novel No Irish Need Apply was named Book of the Month for June 2009 by Booz Allen Hamilton’s Diversity Reading Organization. His Novel The Jade Owl was a finalist for The 2009 Rainbow Awards.
Visit Dancaster Creative — www.dancaster.com
Contact author at [email protected] — Feedback is always appreciated
Amazon Author’s page — http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BMI6X8
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