Chapter 32 All That Remains #2
“There’s one other possibility which is worth considering,” he says. “I believe your mother mentioned something about … the city of ghosts?”
“Did she?” You frown, sifting your memory. She said so much jumbled nonsense. “I suppose so. What about it?”
“I’ve heard some of the old folks use that term. They’re not referring to the underworld, but a place in Hong Kong. A city within a city.”
The penny drops. “Wait. Do you mean that district in Kowloon? The Walled City, with all the crazy triad people?” The place Kit Ling wanted to knock down and pave over.
“Before you get too excited, I’ve looked there before,” he says. “They did take a census in Kowloon Walled City, sometime after the war. Of sorts. There were a few Mei Chis, and many Chens, but no one with that exact name who was anywhere near the right age.”
“Oh,” you say, a little crestfallen. Then you straighten again. “Perhaps she changed her name? Lied about her age?” Or changed her body. All of those might be possible. All options add complication, too.
“Could be,” he agrees. “How would you find her, though, if she had? What if she was there, like your mother claimed, and she’s moved on or died since then?”
“I don’t know, but it is still a place to start, and that’s more than I had before today.” Reach across the table and squeeze his hand briefly. “Thank you, again.”
“What for?” he says, surprised. As if he can’t see the many favors he’s performed on your behalf.
“For your loyalty and friendship. For keeping your promise and always advocating for me, even when I was locked up. For never treating me as a monster. And now you casually give me the only lead I have for the woman I seek.”
“Well, I am glad to have been of some use,” Wing Yun says, quietly. “Makes me feel like I’ve paid some of my debt.”
“There is no debt,” you insist. “Not with you. If anything, the debt goes the other way.”
“Siu Yin, you saved my life the night we met,” he says, very seriously. “As you saved the lives of so many resistance soldiers in the years that followed. Did I ever tell you how close my hope came to fading?”
You say nothing, too startled; he hasn’t confessed such things before.
“When we met, a fire started again in my heart, one I thought had gone out forever. I saw in you the victory that could be won for our city. I believed again, after I had thought my faith in the cause turned to dust. In the darkest moments of that war, you burned through my despair.” He pauses, and you get the sense he’s fighting back tears.
“Whatever else you may have done or be guilty of, I will never forget how you fought, or the gift of hope you brought to me and my soldiers.”
“I feel like all I did was destroy.” The words tumble out of you, unbidden. “I’m not a builder of anything, hope or otherwise.”
“I think you do yourself an injustice, Siu Yin.” Wing Yun dabs his eyes, and smiles. “The price of peace is always death. Every year of good fortune is paid for in war, and the cost of those lives means you and I can sit here, now, and breathe air quietly. You paid for us to live.”
“And when will it be my turn to live?” Heaviness squeezes your chest, a feeling not unlike the ache of drowning.
“That, I don’t know. But I believe the future holds more for you than vengeance. If you want it to.”
No idea what to say to that. As much as you adore this one human, his way of thinking is so alien. He sees by a light invisible to your eyes, and you cannot know the sunlit world that he looks at. Ghosts only understand darkness and shadows.
A little while passes in companionable silence. Tea is drunk, cigarettes are smoked. Sometimes, the best company is passed in silence, when no words need be spoken because each person understands the other.
Eventually, though, Wing Yun stirs again.
“Well. It was truly wonderful to see you once more,” he says, draining the last of his cup, “but unfortunately, I can’t stay much longer. I have a long journey coming up, and I’ve not finished packing.”
“Journey?” Sit up in alarm. “Where are you going?”
“It has been years in this city, Siu Yin,” he says, a little sadly. “What’s left of my family have already emigrated to other countries. Now that I have paid this debt to you, I will be leaving to join them. There is a ship, going to Liverpool in a few days’ time. I plan to be on it.”
“Liver-where?”
“It’s a city in England. I have a cousin there, and a job waiting. The British make it easy for Hong Kong people to immigrate these days.” He stubs out the end of his cigarette. “Anyway, it’s a fresh start. Sights to see. Nieces and cousins to meet. I’m told they have big European castles.”
“Oh,” you say, nonplussed. Then, “Isn’t it cold, in Britain?”
He smiles. “I’ll buy a coat.”
“It’s on the other side of the world! Why there?”
“Siu Yin, I am not from Hong Kong, not originally. I actually don’t really like it here. But I can’t go back across to Shen Zen, either. There’s nothing for me in China, and the country is so changed now. Not for the better under Communist leadership,” he adds, muttering.
“I see.” You rotate the cup slowly with your fingers. “I think I can understand that.”
“You could come with me,” he offers. But kind as he is, you suspect he hopes you’ll refuse, despite how much he likes you. It would be awkward for him to have a body-snatching spirit hanging around.
Luckily for him, you have no intention of accepting. “Thank you, but my place is here. England is a hostile land for ghosts, and I have unfinished business in Hong Kong.”
“No problem. I understand, too.” Wing Yun rises stiffly, with an old man’s gait. “Still, it was good to see you a final time. My heart is calmer, knowing you are freed from that cursed binding.”
“Wait,” you say, standing, too. Unsure what to say, but fully aware that you may never see him again. He is pushing sixty and going to a far country; that hurts. Your one good friend, the soft spot in your ghost heart, and he is leaving you as everyone leaves.
Even though you can’t blame him, it stings a little. Maybe a lot.
He pauses dutifully. “Yes?”
“I will miss you deeply, Chiu Wing Yun,” you say simply. “You’ll never know what you’ve done for me.” Or what he’s meant to you.
“Ha!” He throws a salute. “Goodbye, Sung Siu Yin. I’ll tell my nieces many stories about our adventures. The Girl with a Thousand Faces, who sank Japanese ships! The little lady ghost who revived a resistance! They’ll never believe me.”
He disappears through the surging crowds, swiftly lost from sight and gone forever.
You are alone once more.