Chapter 45
Forty-Five
An Answer
Clutching the silk bundle, I don’t blink myself home immediately but head towards the lake. At the end of the long narrow walkway, surrounded by the shimmering water of the Lake of Eternal Reflection, stands the empty Pavilion of Reflection. It seems to be waiting for me.
The wooden floors are weathered, the honey silkwood bleached a pale grey, its surface no longer lustrous but dull and dry.
I sit in the middle, lay the bundle carefully beside me and gaze out towards the mountains that rise from the forest beyond the edges of the lake.
The same view I once shared with my mother.
One she adored, especially when the sky bled pink early in the morning.
I unfold the first letter. Scanning the text, the handwriting is not my father’s. My guess is Niang Niang stole the letter, then had it transcribed and translated.
13 October 1834
My dear Thirsty Smooth Four Bottle
I read out the odd name a few times until it hits me.
Kerusiping – a transliteration of Crispin, the Englishman who befriended my father on his sea voyage from France.
It makes me happy to know my father wrote to his new friend; but then I realise the letter might not have been sent.
I check the other letter. Though I don’t know how accurate the translation is, it’s clear Crispin wrote back.
That worry dealt with, I finally turn my attention to the letter itself:
A wise man once told me he followed his old friends Wonder and Curiosity with faith and devotion.
Naive fool that I was, I scoffed at such sentimentality.
Yet after we parted ways, I found myself newly acquainted with Wonder and Curiosity.
Taking the wise man’s example, I decided to put my faith in these new friends; they breathed new life into this decrepit old heart, something that would not have been possible had you not favoured me with your kind and gentle company during all those weeks at sea.
I laugh, very pleased that my grumpy father acknowledged his friend’s kind heart.
How was your journey to Madras and Calcutta? I am curious to hear your thoughts and impressions. As for me, I was greatly relieved to finally arrive in Kunming, after an arduous and difficult journey inland.
The city of Kunming is a bustling walled city – similar, I think, to York in the North of England – with wide city walls, though Kunming’s walls were built in the late fourteenth century.
I climbed a hill for a better vantage point and was rewarded with a view straight out of a painting.
Elegant rooftops nestling in a bed of blooms on the banks of the river Dian, majestic limestone peaks rising in the distance like so many fingers, adorned with rings of softest cloud.
I left the city and headed north on horseback, for my destination was a small village tucked at the base of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Yunnan province.
My steed reminded me of your camel from our crossing in Suez.
No doubt you would have called him uncommonly noble and very agreeable, then allowed him to do as he pleased.
My friend on whose insistence it was that my voyage to China came about, bade me take the slow path through the mountains.
As my steed and I climbed that path, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain rose in the distance like a great deity of old wearing a mantle of snow while a vast shimmering lake genuflected at its feet.
I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed my father didn’t tell his friend he’d named the stinky, slow, stubborn donkey he rode through the mountains, Crispin.
The path downwards towards the plain of Likiang crossed a valley filled with all manner of flowers. Roses and peonies, rhododendron, and so many more blooms I could not name.
Entering the village of Likiang was like going back in time.
It is a small town built around a system of canals which run with icy-cold, clear mountain water.
The local area has a rich folkloric tradition; the town is believed to be founded by the Jade Dragon, a most revered mythical being, renowned for her wisdom and compassion.
Dragons in China are akin to unicorns in Western myth – beings of great wisdom and purity.
Another mythical creature believed to live nearby is the hulijing – these fox spirits lure unsuspecting travellers into the woods to have their wicked way with them (and leave them for dead).
I decided to follow my new friends Wonder and Curiosity into the woods to see if I couldn’t discover an adventure.
I found naught but a dilapidated old temple.
I did not give up, however. While exploring the village and its surrounding areas, I ended up meeting two sisters, Lady Rey and Lady Ay.
Lady Rey is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld.
She captured my heart immediately, though in my hubris I believed myself immune to her charms and behaved abominably, hiding from her like a cowardly child.
(You see how naive a fool I have been?) Today I confessed my feelings and wait on tenterhooks for her reply.
I send you a few of my watercolours of the scenes I’ve described above which I hope you enjoy.
Be sure and write as soon as you receive this.
I will either be broken-hearted and in dire need of succour, or have a heart fit to bursting and desirous of sharing my felicity. I very much hope it is the latter.
Yours ever,
Romain
Please direct your answer to:
陸羅門
玉龍雪寺
麗江 雲南
中國
(I have taken the liberty of including address slips for you to paste on your letter, which I await with pleasure)
I fold the letter, musing about connections.
If not for my father’s long-ago good deed for Lady Longnu, they would not have become friends.
If not for Lady Longnu’s insistence on my father visiting Likiang, he would not have met Crispin.
If not for Crispin’s influence, my father would not have met my mother.
All those circumstances led also to Big Wang adopting me, and me meeting Tony Lee, as well as Ah Lang, Gigi, and Lord Aengus.
Without Lord Aengus I would not have met my vampire family and I would not have discovered my own history; knowing all of this is the result of happenstance makes me cherish it so much more.
I read the other letter; another slip of paper falls out. It is a rough sketch of a white fox which looks remarkably like Maomao – the annotation says the original was painted in full colour.
31 January 1835
My dear Crispin,
I received yesterday your letter of 15 December with great pleasure. Your adventures in hen-rearing had me laughing until I cried, though I entreat you to give my namesake a different name. Perhaps Crispin would do?
As for me, I shall not torment you further and finish my tale for which you have so patiently waited.
Me, too, I think to myself. I only had half a journal to go on! I can’t wait to share this with Mémère and Marianne.
When I finished writing your letter, I put it aside and tried to busy myself. I swept, then mopped, washed the windows, wiped the shutters. Folded my clothes, and even went so far as to do some weeding. The shadows lengthened until the sun kissed the horizon and still she did not come.
Honestly, I do not understand my father’s obsession with cleaning. Maybe it’s a French thing.
I was a wreck and fully convinced Lady Rey had forsaken me.
When the last rays of sunlight spilled across my floors, she sauntered into my rooms, chin high, haughty as ever.
She ran her hand over my recently replaced wooden shutters.
Rather indifferently, she said, ‘I thought maybe a hunter had gotten you.’
In the woods here, hunters are common. Some are rough and violent, with little care of whom they injure.
She is the type to hide a bruised heart with callous words.
I knew I had hurt her deeply. So I said I was terribly sorry to have run away.
The intensity of my emotions were new and unfamiliar.
I reacted in fear of the unknown. But, I reassured her that I was no longer afraid.
‘Mmm,’ she said. As if I hadn’t turned my heart inside out for her to see. She bowed formally, eyes averted and said in the most formal, distant manner, ‘Stay your steps. Ten thousand years of good health.’
Can you believe it, Crispin, after rejecting me so coldly, she turned to leave?
Remembering your good advice that I should honestly and openly speak my heart’s desires and not pretend indifference, I closed the space between us and took her hand.
‘Wait, Lady Rey,’ I said. To my sorrow, she did not turn.
However, she did not try to pull free. That small action allowed me to hope, for her disposition is honest and scrupulously frank.
Had she absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, she would have cheerfully torn my arm off to free herself from my grip. ‘Please stay?’ I said.
Her response was true to her nature. ‘Why should I?’
I explained that I should like to bring my family here to meet her mother, who is a matriarch of a grand court.
By this time, she was beginning to have an inkling of my intentions so I laid it out plain. ‘I wish to court you and make you my wife.’ I shall never forget the way she looked in that moment – the setting sun haloed her in golden light, and the angle of it made her eyes shine silver.
As a gentleman, I shall not tell you what happened next, but suffice to say she accepted my proposal. I have not the words to describe my joy in these past two months. She is my life.
If you are at leisure to travel, I should be very glad to see you here and introduce you to my Lady Rey. I plan to sail back to France and fetch my family in April, so will be gone between April and July.
I send a watercolour of a white fox pup I encountered by the village which I hope will convince you of the beauties of this place and tempt you to visit. Write soon with your news.
Yours ever,
Romain
My mother was feisty alright, keeping my father on his toes until the last possible moment.
I flick through the journal, but I can’t bring myself to read it just yet.
Right now, I feel fortified by my father’s light-hearted letters, whereas I’m worried finishing the last page of the journal will only make me cry.
I tuck the letters into the journal. There’s another conversation I’ve been putting off.
Clutching my bundle, I blink myself to Big Wang’s roof terrace.