Chapter Forty-Five
Berkeley
Marigold
Five months later, Marigold’s grandmother told her about the curse.
It was a Sunday, and Yuk Fong was getting ready to attend church on Sacramento Street. Usually Peony or Rosie drove her, but today, she specifically requested Marigold.
“Marigold doesn’t have a license yet,” Helen said. “She can’t drive.”
“We’ll walk, then,” replied Yuk Fong.
“Walk! But—”
“I’m sixty-seven. Let me walk while I still can.”
Helen’s lips thinned with displeasure.
“Don’t look at me like that. I have more energy than any of you.”
Which was true. On most days, Yuk Fong went to bed after midnight and rose before dawn. By five-thirty, when Helen and Philip woke to begin baking, she had already finished the ironing, and congee was bubbling on the stove.
Only on Sundays did she rest. This morning, she descended the stairs wearing her best: a blue paisley shirt with a mandarin collar, a burgundy vest, and black pants. Her hair was combed into a low bun, and a single jade bangle ringed her wrist.
She selected a cabbage bun for breakfast, eating along the way. It was a chilly April morning, the sidewalks still damp from last night’s rain.
“You’re much quieter than your sisters,” Yuk Fong remarked as they paused at a street corner. “How come they have a driving license and you don’t?”
“I never took drivers’ ed,” replied Marigold. “Too busy studying.”
“Does that explain why you don’t have a young man, like Peony?”
Marigold tried not to wince. One thing her mother and grandmother had in common—no question was too personal.
“I’ll be getting a license soon,” she replied noncommittally.
“Maybe Rosie can introduce you to a nice boy. I’ve lost count of how many she’s brought over for free bread.”
Marigold merely smiled. “Shall we cross?”
She offered her arm in support; she’d noticed that whenever they came to a curb, Yuk Fong slowed down, favoring her right leg.
“Is the pain what keeps you from sleeping?” Marigold asked once Yuk Fong was walking steadily again.
“No, no. When you’re old, you need to sleep less.”
“You told Mom that you’re not old.”
Her grandmother regarded her. “I see it’s hard to hide anything from you, Mei Yoong. I’ll have to remember that.”
“I noticed because I’m going to study medicine.”
“Yes, I heard from your mother.” Yuk Fong sighed.
“It’s an injury from years ago. The pain comes on and off—there’s so much cement in this America.
My village was softer under the feet. More grass, more earth.
You look up more, see the clouds and the birds and the canopies on the trees.
No need to look down in case you step on chewing gum or fall into an open gutter. ”
Yuk Fong pointed at the ivory brick tower standing high above the other buildings. “What’s that?”
“The campanile. It’s part of my university—students play bells at the top that you can hear all over campus.” Marigold smiled to herself. “They’re reminders to study.”
“Which you don’t need.” Yuk Fong finished her bun and licked her fingers.
“Let me tell you, my father was very traditional, even more than yours. He only treasured boys, wanted his sons to become scholars, but they were all lazy buzzards.” She snorted with satisfaction.
“He never would have guessed the first one in our family to go to university would be a girl.”
“Is he still alive?”
“He died long before you were born. I wasn’t invited to his home again until his funeral. That’s how it was back then—once you married, you belonged to your husband.”
Marigold heard the strain in Yuk Fong’s voice. “What was your husband like?”
Yuk Fong wrinkled her nose. “A liar addicted to the pipe, but ay, was he charming. I liked Pok Mun more than I should have. Still, it was a mercy that he left me for his second wife.” Yuk Fong noticed Marigold’s blank look. “Your mother hasn’t mentioned Seet Ling?”
“Mom doesn’t talk about her life in Hong Kong.”
Yuk Fong made a humming sound. “Seet Ling was her sai ma,” she said. Second mother. “Men could have multiple wives back then. I never met her.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
“No. The last time I heard from him was after our oldest son died.” Yuk Fong squeezed her fingers as she did whenever her arthritis troubled her. “He . . . he was a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army.”
“I’m sorry,” said Marigold.
“It was his fate.” Yuk Fong continued walking, her steps heavier.
“After that, my mother-in-law cast me out of the Ha Family. I couldn’t blame her—being associated with a Christian was only asking for trouble.
” She slowed. “Besides, if she hadn’t thrown me out, I never would have met my second husband. ”
Marigold halted midstride. “You married again?”
“Yes.” Her grandmother’s tone warmed. “He was the opposite of Pok Mun, gruff and not charming at all. I thought he disliked me because he’d throw radishes into my basket without a glance.
He was better with vegetables than with people.
But he’d give me more than the others.” She smiled wanly. “We had five blessed years together.”
“How did you meet?”
“In prison.”
“Prison!”
They were a block away from the church, and Yuk Fong stopped to sit on a bench at a bus stop. “I spent years in and out of jail. The Red Guards burned down my church and dragged us into public meetings. If we didn’t denounce God, we’d be beaten.”
Her grandmother looked small on the wide wooden bench.
“My husband was the one who helped me escape. We fled south, lived on a farm until one day he tripped over a root and hit his head. It was just a bump on the head, I thought. We had no doctors since they’d all been sent for reeducation.
Three days later . . .” Yuk Fong’s body clenched.
“I knew it would happen, just not this way. I should have warned him to be more careful.”
“What do you mean, you knew it would happen?”
Yuk Fong turned to regard her fully. “You asked why I sleep so little. I’ll tell you.”
A bus stopped and Yuk Fong kept Marigold in suspense, waiting until the passengers disembarked and walked away before she continued.
“When I was twelve, I began to have strange dreams. I’d see a handsome husband lying in my bed, white smoke twisting up from his pipe like little ghosts.
I’d see my children leaving me.” Yuk Fong’s expression contorted.
“I’d see myself in prison, mice nibbling at my shoes, my hair turned gray and my skin as coarse as a tiger’s tongue.
Ask yourself now, why I do not like to sleep. ”
“You saw the future,” said Marigold, unaware that these were the same words her own mother had spoken long ago. And that was why Yuk Fong smiled.
“Every family has its demons, but ours are a little more wicked than most.” Her grandmother tilted her head. “Do you believe me?”
Marigold’s sisters wouldn’t have, but Marigold nodded, feeling a sudden tingle from the mark beside her eye. “I believe you.”
“Then tell me, what happens when you take off those gloves?”
By now Marigold had worn gloves for half her life, and it’d been years since she’d allowed herself to get a spark. She’d almost forgotten the dizzying downward rush.
“I see into the past,” she replied.
“It’s more than that,” Yuk Fong said softly. She leaned forward. “I’ve never told anyone this, but I tell you now, Mei Yoong: My dreams aren’t simply glimpses of the future. They show me how I will lose everything and everyone I love.”
Marigold was taken aback.
“Quite the curse, isn’t it?” A sad laugh. “Now, what do your visions of the past show you?”
“I don’t know,” Marigold confessed, for truly she did not. “I just see other people’s memories.”
“If that is all, then you’ve been lucky.
” The church bells rang, and Yuk Fong clasped her granddaughter’s gloved hands with her own.
“I will pray that our demons are tired and sated and won’t hurt you too much.
I will pray that I never see you in my dreams.” She patted Marigold’s hand.
“And I will pray we won’t need to have this conversation again. ”
After the service, Marigold walked her grandmother home, then headed to Larry’s, the new arcade on Durant Avenue. She couldn’t stop thinking about what her grandmother had said.
There’s no such thing as a curse, Marigold told herself. No such thing as demons.
Yuk Fong had lived through two world wars and a civil war.
It was to be expected that she should find comfort in such superstitious nonsense.
Just because she happened to have the talent of a doomsayer did not make her a real-life Cassandra or the Cyclopes or Paul Atreides, all of whom had indeed been cursed by their foresight.
And yet . . . if Marigold believed Yuk Fong could see the future, why were demons and curses too far a stretch to accept? Nothing else had ever been able to explain her sparks. Or her mother’s disappearances.
If it’s a curse, Marigold wondered, does that mean it can be broken?
This was her last thought before she saw Kenji standing in front of Larry’s, wiping egg yolk from his sleeve. Her grandma slipped from her mind.
“Shouldn’t have worn a Stanford hat in Cal territory,” Kenji explained. “My fault. How was church with your grandmother?”
“Don’t change the subject. Did you get a look at their faces?”
“Detective Yuen, it’s no big deal.” He rotated his backpack, flicking eggshell off the zipper.
“The big game’s next weekend, and some guys are just celebrating early.
No need to look at me all worried like that.
” He was cheerful. “I can tell they never played Little League. They missed my head each time.”
She had to marvel at him. “How do you stay so happy?”
“Easy to be happy when I’m with my best friend.”
Best friend. Her smile wobbled.