Chapter 18 The Night We Drowned
THE NIGHT WE DROWNED
Thirty-three years ago …
Typhoons have always been a summer occurrence. You can’t recall seeing one earlier than May, and more commonly in June, July, or August. That’s the wet season, when the winds are dangerous and fickle.
This one comes on the first day of March.
It begins with a sunrise of blood-red clouds and strong winds, which seems to leave Mami unsettled.
She keeps checking the sky, ignoring your questions.
By midmorning, she is urging you to help her tack down loose items, and bring inside anything essential.
You take down clothes off the line, though they’re still very damp.
Buckets, tools, other odds and ends are brought in.
Mami pulls tight the shutters, binding them so they won’t fling open.
Around noontime—lunch is jarred fish and raw vegetables, because Mami doesn’t think it is wise to cook—the storm begins to really spin up. The house rattles from gust after gust of unrelenting wind, and the rain sounds like hail because it hits the roof with such speed and fury.
Typhoons are not unfamiliar. They come every year, albeit usually in summer, to wallow all over the South China coast and make themselves heard.
But you are used to weathering them in the safety of a city, where the buildings shield each other like little concrete turtles.
Out here, exposed on the high hill of an island, it is rather frightening.
Mami’s reaction makes it worse. She huddles underneath the bed in her room like a child, wide-eyed.
“Mami? Are you okay?”
“I hate typhoons,” comes her muffled reply. “Ever since…” She trails off.
Ever since one of them destroyed this island, when she was a child. She hadn’t liked typhoons when you lived in the city, either, but maybe this was all just a little too personal. Perhaps the context is triggering some strong memories.
After some deliberation, you join her. At least it’s relatively safe here, and maybe it will make her feel better. As much as you often grate on each other, it’s hard to turn away from someone when they are clearly so terrified.
“Can I ask a question?” Reach out, touch her on the shoulder.
She recoils. “What is it?”
“Will this storm be bad?” you say. Wishing yet again that Baba had collected you both, by now. “Will the house survive?”
“It did when I was a girl.” She adds, in a voice thick with emotion, “Mine was the only house still standing, at the end.”
She doesn’t talk after that, and you don’t feel like drawing her into conversation. Together, the pair of you lie beneath the bed, uncomfortable and a little claustrophobic, while the rain pounds on the roof and the wind screams like a dying child.
Some hours later, when the tempest calms down, both of you roll out from under the bed and go to inspect the damage. The fact that the typhoon has lasted a mere handful of hours has not escaped you; that’s far from normal. Not that you’re complaining, exactly.
A quick inspection settles your nerves, at least initially. The house has clearly survived, though it’s lost a number of roof tiles and one of the shutters has blown off. The garden is ripped up and will need replanting. The thought is a little demoralizing, after all the work it’s taken.
Mami, though, has skipped looking at the house and gone straight outside. You’re still sulking at the mess of the garden when you hear her choked cry. Alarmed, you dart over to the hilltop where she’s standing.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, reaching her side.
“The village is destroyed,” Mami says, hoarsely. “Just like when I was little.”
Look where she’s pointing, and wince. The handful of homes you can see from this vantage point do look seriously damaged. The pristine beauty that was on display when you first arrived is now all wrecked.
“I’m sure the ghosts will rebuild it again,” you say, trying not to fidget because it will annoy her. It’s hard to know what to say in the face of such destruction, though. “They did last time.”
“Maybe.” Mami purses her lips. “I must see the village.”
“Huh? Why? Wait, where are you going!”
Mami doesn’t listen. She strides off through the light drizzle and you hurry to follow, unsure what is happening.
The damage soon becomes apparent. Almost every other house has been flattened. A few ghosts linger in their ruins, taking up positions that recall how they died. Some are crushed beneath collapsed roofs, others impaled improbably on sharp objects.
But overall, there are not many. Privately, you wonder where the other ghost villagers are. The death you can see is appalling, but there don’t seem to be many of them around. You wonder where the rest of the ghosts have gone.
“This is just like I remember.” Mami breathes raggedly, sounding close to panic. “When I was little, it was like this, too. I came out in the morning, found everyone dead. Found these houses ruined, and … and … I must get to the chapel!”
Abruptly, she starts running.
“Mami … Mami, slow down!” you call out, chasing after her.
She ignores you and keeps going.
Soon enough, you reach the old Catholic church. The roof has collapsed, the walls tilted in. Mami slows to a halt. “They hid in the cellar. I remember, now … Everyone thought it would be safe. But the church collapsed, and they couldn’t get out.”
You look uneasily; rubble has fallen atop the cellar door, blocking it shut. The sight of that sparks a bad feeling in your body. If the other ghosts are re-enacting their death, then what waits for you in this ruined building?
Mami begins clearing the rubble in a frantic burst of energy. “Come help!”
“I’m not sure we should do that,” you say, anxiously. “Everyone died years ago. Why go through this again?”
She whirls on you. “Just do your family duty!”
Anyone other than a parent, and you’d have considered slapping them and walking off. But since it is your mother and she’s clearly caught up in some kind of distress, you reluctantly bend to help her.
When the rubble is moved, Mami yanks up the cellar doors.
Both of you recoil, screaming.
The cellar has filled with rainwater, and every single person down there has drowned. The bloated faces of family and friends cluster at the cellar entrance, buoyed up by water. Their fingers are shredded to bone from scraping at the wood, skin purpled and bruised.
The dead begin to speak.
They wail and groan, crying out to the gods, begging for forgiveness, offering anything for their lives. One by one, bloated ghosts begin to surge from the cellar in slippery, sodden lumps, dead flesh hanging from dead bones, tormented spirits raging in their bodies.
“It’s not my fault!” Mami shrieks, tugging wildly at her own hair. “Forgive me!”
Never in your life have you seen her so unhinged, and the sight snaps you out of your own terror.
“We must go!” You loop an arm through hers and pull her away, as hard as you can.
Surprisingly, she comes with you, sobbing loudly as she flees.
All the way through the village, past every building, ghosts come out as the pair of you sprint past, shouting questions and garbled pleas. Mami tries to apologize in Hakka, even pausing to reach back with arms extended.
“Mami, no!” You grab her around her waist, since taking her arm is apparently not sufficient, and yank her very hard.
Once you get going, she stumbles into a run yet again. Dazed yet compliant, at least for now.
Eventually, you get back to the house. Slam the door shut and start whispering prayers to the Christian God, to your ancestral gods, anyone who will listen, frankly. Feel grateful for the fu talismans plastered over every entrance, keeping out those grasping and waterlogged hands.
“What,” you say, still panting and shaking a little, “the hell was that?”
“I’m sorry,” Mami mutters, forehead resting against the door. “I did not think it would be like this. The ghosts are remembering the night we drowned, acting it out in detail. The storm must have set them off. They should … they should calm down soon.”
“Maybe we should leave Shek Ham Chau,” you say, after a long, extended silence. “It doesn’t seem very safe, and, well…”
And Mami seems extremely unhappy. But you don’t say that part out loud, since she won’t appreciate it, at all.
“What’s the point? Where would we go?” she says, tiredly.
“Another island. Any other island. There must be space on Yim Tin Tsai, or Sharp Island. Anywhere.”
She is silent, genuinely considering it. Eventually, she straightens up and smooths down her hair. The rain has made it frizzy and unkempt.
“Let me have a sleep on it,” she says, at last. “It’s not so easy to simply go somewhere else. We don’t know where the Japanese are, or what they’re doing. We don’t know whether another village will take us in.”
“I guess.” It occurs to you that moving to a different island will make it hard for Baba to find you both, if he does arrive, but Mami doesn’t seem to have thought of that.
“Let’s eat something, and refresh ourselves,” she says, after several more beats of silence. “We have a lot of work to do in the garden tomorrow. Can you sleep tonight?”
“I think so? I might make a few more fu talismans before bed, though.”
“Yes, that’s sensible,” she says, already walking to the kitchen to start cooking. She pauses in the archway and says, “I’m sorry for dragging you into the village. I should not have done that.”
“It’s fine,” you say, but she is already turning away, taking out a wok and some of the stored food.
Sighing, you go to get some paper, brushes, and blessed ink.
Mami does not sleep that night, however.
Instead, she waits patiently for dinner to end. For you to write and hang your fu talismans, and go to bed. Then, when she is sure that you are deeply asleep, she throws on a light shawl and heads out.
Darkness lies thick across Shek Ham Chau, the moon hidden by clouds.
She picks a stumbling path across the night-chilled earth, toward the beach.
She feels naked out here, aware of the ghosts who lurk, the taut gleam of their spirit selves grown more dangerous, and yet paradoxically unafraid.
The frenetic fury of their re-enactment has passed, and they are placid once again.
Ingrained memory leads her to the right place. Carefully, she kneels in the sand, the sea crashing in front of her.
Mami cups her hands over her mouth and calls out, “Are you out there, goddess?”
From a distance, the little white cat watches her from the depths of tall, waving grass. She does not see it, and it does not reveal itself to her.
Nor do I reveal myself, for the time is not yet right.
Instead, a particularly large wave hits the shore, accompanied by a powerful gust of wind. The force is strong enough to knock her down, the accompanying spray soaks her through. Mami falls with a gasp, damp and outraged.
As a little girl, years ago, she would have found it funny to be sprayed by a wave. But she has not been a little girl in such a long, long time.
Mami stands up, fuming, and throws a rock into the ocean. What she hopes that will accomplish, I cannot imagine.
Hair dripping, breath steaming, she calls out, “Why didn’t you stop any of it? Were my prayers not enough? Whenever I pray to you, disaster strikes!”
The tide advances and retreats, advances and retreats. I am silence itself.
“I hope all humans forsake you, as you deserve,” Mami continues, fists clenched. “I hope you descend to the underworld and demons torment you forever! I hope—” She starts crying, the ranting choked off by her own tears.
In the tall grass, the cat looks up at me. It is the only being on this island who can perceive me, and its gaze is full of questions.
For a long moment, I’m tempted. Tempted to step forward and comfort a woman who was once a frightened child, even though I know I am the last face she wants to see right now.
Tempted to kneel at her feet, seeking forgiveness.
I would almost do it, just to make peace with the last living person in this place to remember me.
But Daiyu—your Mami—stopped believing in me a long time ago, and that makes it difficult to appear to her. Besides, it is not her forgiveness that matters; not any longer. A more powerful anger rules this island.
Her crying draws attention. Soon enough, the villager ghosts begin to gather at the cliffside. They stream down in their dripping clothes and bloated bodies, limbs like jelly, mouths open. Normally, they avoid coming too near the coast, but in this instance they will make an exception.
Mami is still kneeling in the sand, crying into her hands. They gather around her, whisper to her of their guilt, their longing, their suffering. She closes her eyes, and embraces them. The clouds roll back, allowing the moon to bathe the world in silvery light.
Welcome home, little one.
One of us …
Don’t leave!
Slowly, she stands, arms spread wide. The ghosts gather, pressing around her. And alone on that dark headland, she begins to dance with her dead beneath a darkly glittering sky.
Your Mami should know better; she does know better.
A child of three is wise enough to steer clear from the embrace of ghosts, because the past is an endless ocean on which we can sail forever without returning home.
And the past is the only place the dead can take you, the only thing a spirit offers: moments long gone, days turned to dust.
But her future is a cold, narrow place. Of course she wants to sail on that endless ocean of the past, wants to spend her days lost in re-creations of a place where she felt happy. Tomorrow holds less and less interest for your mother.
Mami does not return home that night. She stays out beneath the star-wracked sky, hair tossed in a midnight wind and arms entwined with her ghosts.
Only when the sun begins to creep shyly above the horizon line does she stagger reluctantly toward home, drawn by the one thread that still anchors her to the world of the living: you, her daughter.
I do not think that thread will keep her tethered very long.