Chapter 15 Fingers Made of Water #2
“I don’t know. I suppose a wise man could write many of them. But I only know a few, and that is all you will need to learn.” Mami scribbled a series of symbols, showing them to you. “See these two? Put them together, and that will frighten ghosts away from an entrance.”
You studied it intently; this was indeed a symbol you recognized. Many of the neighbors hung such fu talismans above their flat doors. “Is this how exorcists trap spirits, Mami?”
“No. Binding is far beyond my skill, something that takes years of practice. I can only teach you to preserve bodies for funerals, or to ward doors and windows against unwelcome spirits.” Mami got up and fetched down another stack of paper sheafs.
“Go on! Copy me. Copy the glyph I made. In your own hand.”
You couldn’t yet write your own name without getting the characters wrong, but did your best. The result was a blobby mess of wavering strokes, bearing no resemblance to her neat scripts.
“Looks like an ink spill,” Mami observed.
You flushed. She wasn’t wrong.
“Think more, think harder,” she said. “It’s not enough to just draw. Think of the ward, hanging above the door. Think of the ghosts who come to stand in front of it, then flinch at the sight, and drift away. Know what you want when you write. Know what you need. Understand?”
“No,” you grumbled, but squeezed your eyes shut anyway, thinking hard about the fu talisman hanging outside the flat; you’d seen it often enough.
Opening your eyes, you put brush to paper yet again, this time trying to keep the purpose held in your brain.
A strange thing happened. Soft warmth built in your palms, trickling to the fingertips. Your clumsy grasp became firmer, more confident. For a moment, joy buoyed you.
The lines began to writhe and shimmer, struggling away from your control. The image in your head grew hazy and your hands shook, unsure which line or stroke to draw next. The half-formed glyph devolved into a garbled, unusable thing.
You scowled at your work.
“Try again, it still is not right,” Mami said, sharp as a skewer. But she sat next to you, larger hand curling around your smaller one with a firm touch. “I will help. Think of the ward, of scaring away. Whatever looks at this glyph should want to turn around. Are you thinking like that? Now go!”
A third try. You held the essence of the ward in your mind with ferocious tenacity, moving your own hand while also allowing Mami’s experienced touch to guide and nudge the shaping.
Something in your head seemed to click. It was as if a weight had shifted, or a stone had been pushed into place. Suddenly, the writing flowed like rainwater down a polished gutter. The glyph crystallized, brush strokes glowing briefly, then darkening back to fast-drying ink.
And there on the page was a shaky but recognizable talisman, done in your own writing. More or less, anyway.
“I did it,” you exclaimed, proud and amazed. You were tired, too, and suddenly starving, as if you’d run too many laps or skipped at least three meals.
“With my help,” Mami said, then relented a little. “It’s fine for a first try.”
Unexpectedly, she stood and stretched, cracking the joints of her hands and shoulders. “We should go for a walk before it gets dark, have something to eat,” she said, which shocked you. She often went walking on her own, but she never brought you along. “Get your shoes on, daughter.”
Intrigued by her invitation-slash-command, you did as she bade and followed, feeling uncertain yet curious.
Cities, streets, and neighborhoods all have their own smell.
Your street in Hong Kong was no different.
Take a sniff, inhale that dizzying mix of dried seafood wares and raw fish, of salt water and ferryboat fumes, of smoked meats and soggy laundry.
Summer heat wrung the sweat out of everyone even as the night rolled in.
Down by the docks, Mami bought skewers of spicy fish balls from a dai pai dong, which she shared with you.
She had changed from her hospital uniform into a simple cotton qipao; that was a fashion trend she had adopted during her time in Shanghai.
You had so far managed to squash the insatiable urge to talk nonstop in her presence, and your ability to accommodate her need for quietude seemed to soften her demeanor.
She talked some about her day, the conversation polite and gentle.
It was a pleasant evening.
After that first venture, it became something of a ritual.
Friday evenings, practice those glyphs and fu talismans until your hands hurt.
Then tidy up, stretch, put on shoes, change into casual clothes, and walk down to the docks amidst the markets.
Conversation was often awkward, but you both tried.
It was a chance to eat snacks, if nothing else.
Looking back in later years, you were never entirely sure what Mami sought from you then, or you from her.
Family piety is strong in Chinese people, an overpowering drive to make it work between members, and maybe it was simple as that.
Beneath all the things that made her broken, some part of her was still trying hard, in a twisted fashion.
Sometimes, Mami would even tell stories. Some you knew from neighbors or friends, and others were unfamiliar. She liked ghost stories, and told those the most.
“Long ago, there was once a little girl, born to an island village,” she said one evening, leaning against the wall to take the weight off her feet, hair tied back severely.
“This girl was unique. She was a wild thing who could summon storms and talk to ghosts. They listened to her, instead of ignoring her, and they refused to harm her. Some said she was an incarnation of Ma Zu, the ocean goddess. Others said she was cursed.”
You listened attentively. There were many folktales of all kinds, but Mami was telling one you’d never heard of before.
“In another life, this girl might have become a powerful medium, but there was no one to teach her how to use her abilities safely.
Even as a toddler, she would anger local ghosts by crying at them, which in turn caused harm.
The villagers soon learned to be cautious around her, and to take care with wards.
“One day, while the girl’s father was traveling to the mainland for business, his ship was lost at sea, due to a storm.
The girl’s mother, on hearing this news, was filled with grief and could not be comforted.
She took her own life, soon after. Only the grandmother was left, to raise the little girl by herself.
“All of this terrible luck sparked cruel rumors.
The villagers came to believe that the little girl was surrounded with bad fortune.
They feared her tantrums and tears, which they said summoned storms. They claimed she spoke evil words to ghosts, and could command them to curse mortals.
They shunned the girl and told the grandmother to do the same, but the grandmother refused.
“Now, this girl happened to own a little cat.
She was very attached to it, as she had no friends among the other children, so it was her only companion.
One morning, the girl awoke to discover that her cat was nowhere to be found.
She looked all over the island, and eventually discovered it dead, on the beach.
Someone had crushed its head with a rock.
“The girl grew angry, and accused the other villagers of killing her cat. When no one would confess, she shouted curses at them, and threatened to raise the cat’s ghost in revenge. She was not truly a necromancer, but she was upset, and the villagers were afraid anyway.
“That night, several men came to the grandmother’s house and demanded that she and the girl leave the island forever.
Some claimed that the girl’s curse was already taking effect, that their chickens and crops were dying.
Others said they had been unable to catch fish all day.
The grandmother argued with them, but it did not help.
“These village men chased the girl and her grandmother out of the house, driving them toward the shore.
However, while running away in the dark, the girl and her grandmother fell to their deaths from a tall cliff by the sea.
The fall killed the grandmother instantly, but the girl survived—although she was terribly injured.
Her back was broken and she could not move or walk.
“The girl cried for help, yet no one would help her.
The men who had chased her would not let the others intervene, as they felt that implied their guilt.
Eventually, the tide came in, and the girl drowned, because she could not walk.
No one buried her, so her spirit could not rest. Soon, she returned as an angry, powerful ghost.
“Death only made the girl more powerful. As a raging ghost, she summoned a storm and washed away the whole island, in punishment for her death. That was the last anyone saw of the island, or the ghost girl. The end.”
When it became clear Mami was done speaking, you said, “But the story can’t be finished.”
“Says who?” She tore a chunk off today’s snack: a soft white bun filled with sweetly roasted pork. “I think it is finished.”
“What happened to the ghost? Is she just a ghost forever, now? Shouldn’t someone come to fight her?”
“Aiyah, what are you talking about?” Mami said, sharply.
“You are thinking like a Westerner, like one of the white nuns at your school. To them, ghosts are just a pest, a villain, a monster to kill. British people—like those gweilo soldiers over there, do you see them?—they do not love their ghosts, as they do not love their ancestors. When their dead return, they are banished. When their souls cling, they are forced onward. They even ward their own graveyards! Barbarians.”
“She drowned a village, in the end,” you said, interrupting her rant. “Doesn’t that make her evil, Mami?”
“No, it only makes her a ghost. Ghosts are driven by hurt, and cannot help themselves. Do you think a storm is evil, because it pours rain on your head?”
“No, but … not everyone in the village was responsible for her death. It’s not fair that they all died.”
“Isn’t it? They didn’t all kill her, but they all left her unburied. That was stupid.”
“But why should the other villagers have to bury her, if they didn’t kill her?” you say, puzzled. “Why is someone else’s crime their fault?”
“Again, you think like a Westerner! If each person only corrects the crimes that they have committed themselves, then the world will be full of pain, because evil men do not care about injustice, and so never correct their own.”
You mulled that over. “I guess that’s true.”
“The dead return when they have something to say, daughter, and we listen to them until they have said it. We help them even if we are not responsible for the crimes committed against them. Do you understand?”
“I think so, Mami.”
But secretly, you wondered if that was how she saw you: a bad-luck girl, a ghost haunting her life, whom she nonetheless felt a duty toward. Whom she dared not ask to leave.
“Good.” She straightened up. “We should go home. It is late.”
And you followed.
When I think of your mother in the years to come, I prefer to remember her in those moments: standing by the harbor’s edge in the failing light wearing her plain green qipao, eating cheap street food and rattling off stories in that flat, matter-of-fact way.
Her calloused hands smelled of hospital soap, and sometimes she would even smile.
Occasionally, I look back and wonder how your lives might have unfolded, if given enough time and peace. Whether you and Mami might have built something stronger, if brutal war and long toil had ever eased their grip.
I still wonder that now.