Gift of the Golden Mountain (63 page)

     The chill moved up her arms, into her teeth. She clamped them shut tight. The sounds were voices, there were voices in the room. She began to shiver and could not stop.

     "Ah," the voice said, "my new patient from the North awakens, and she is chilled."

     May opened her eyes to look into the face of a woman who was observing her with humor in her eyes. "I am told you went to war with your bicycle," the woman said, pulling a thick comforter over May. "As soon as I finish lancing Mrs. Chen's boil, we will have a look at your war wounds." She smiled and turned back before May could say anything.

     
She is here.
The words rang up May's spine, into her stomach, into the small nerve endings of her fingers. In this room, standing there, her mother. Liao Ch'ing-Ling. May closed her eyes and forced them open again. To see her, she had to see her.

     Her body was slender under the dark cotton pajamas she wore, her hair was cropped short and was streaked with gray. But the face . . . May's eyes were riveted to the face, absorbed now in her work . . . the high cheek bones, the wide-set eyes, the delicate smoothness. Her mother's beauty had not been erased by time, only softened. She wore dark-rimmed glasses and as she tilted her head back, May could see they magnified her eyes. She bit hard on the inside of her mouth to keep from crying out.
Dear God
, she wanted to pray,
help me.

Quickly, with hands that were sure, the doctor removed the bloody rag and looked at the cut. "Not so bad," she said, in the reassuring tones of one who had looked at many cuts, and then repeated, "Not so bad, we'll just clean it out some more and I think you will be fine. Did the part of the bicycle that cut you have rust on it?" She looked at May for the answer.

     May could not think what to say, all thoughts were gone from her head. She lay there, blinking her eyes, her mind spinning, words rolling around in her head. She had to say something, so she blurted in the Mandarin taught her by her father: "I had a tetanus shot before I left."

     The doctor moved back a step and stared at her, confusion and suspicion written on her face. She asked, carefully, "Who are you?"

     "You are Liao Ch'ing-Ling," May said, and then she whispered. "I am Wing Mei-jin."

Her mother stood as if facing into the wind, arms out to steady herself. She was staring at May, looking at her as if searching for someone, something . . . and then she lifted one arm and moved it across her eyes, as if to shield them from the light.

     May was the light, and she was blinding her. Ch'ing-Ling began to move backwards, away from her.

"I had to see you," May said, sitting up. "I can't stay long, only a few hours, but I had to see you." She heard the pleading in her voice. She had promised herself she would not plead, but she could not stop. It had happened, they were alone in the room, and she had to finish it, to see it through. She could not let her leave.

     "Please talk to me," she begged. "You are my mother. I have only to look at you to know that. You left me behind thirty years ago, in San Francisco, and I have to know why. I promise, if you tell me I'll leave and never bother you again. But I can't continue . . . I have to know."

     Ch'ing-Ling clenched her hands tightly together and tried to speak. Nothing would come out. She walked toward the door and for a moment May feared she would walk out, walk away from her again. But all she did was open the door, say a few words to a small boy who waited outside, and come back in again, latching the door from the inside.

     Those few actions gave her time to regain control. She stood very straight in the middle of the room, regal. May thought, in spite of the surroundings. She bowed her head slightly, as if she were about to say something.

     May waited. The silence began to gather. "Why did you say I was from the North?" May finally asked, to break the growing awkwardness.

     "I am told your traveling companion is from the North," she answered in a halting voice, "and your height. But now I understand . . . the height . . . your father . . ."

     "Thank you," May said simply, "for admitting that you are my mother."

     Ch'ing-Ling moved to take a seat on a small bench, sitting
with her back very straight. Her eyes did not leave May's. They sat facing each other, in the manner of a doctor and patient, hands folded. May looked at her mother's hands. They were long and slim and strong, the nails short and blunt. They said nothing, only waited, as if words were rationed. The gulf between them was too great, May thought. They could never bridge it, it was wrong to have come.

     "I gave you life," Ch'ing-Ling said in choked tones, "but I am not your mother. Sister Kit is your mother. I left you with the old Aunties and with Sister Kit, who wanted you as much as any mother could want." Her eyes did not waver, they held May's.

     All the questions that had formed in May's mind rang hollow. She stared at her mother's face, into the dark intelligence of her eyes, and closed her own not to witness the pain and the hurt. "Why did you leave me?" she tried, knowing it was the wrong question, knowing it would not provide the flash of light that would fill the dark place inside of her.

     Ch'ing-Ling stared as if searching for some manifestation of May's illness, of the fever that burned inside her.

     "Reasons are often not what they seem," she began. "You will understand that someday, when you have lived long enough to look back on your life. You will consider the decisions you made, actions you took, and know that the reasons you gave were not the true reasons." A long shaft of last light entered the window and splintered on the gleaming steel instruments, sending flares of light dancing about them.

     The silence gathered. Ch'ing-Ling seemed to draw into herself, so concentrated was her thought. May knew she must wait. She folded her hands in her lap and watched the splinters of light move about the room.

     When Ch'ing-Ling spoke again, her voice seemed almost to echo in the room, and though it was a small voice it carried to the far corners, to the stainless steel containers that held surgical equipment, to the boxes piled against one wall that held her
patients' records. Thirty years of records, in this one room. May looked at the peg on the wall, saw the flowered apron, and felt the weight of the years her mother had spent in this place.

"The Taoist Lao Tsu believed that words were not forms of reality, but symbols only, which always must misrepresent the true, or inner, reality. Words alone can only confuse us. They can never penetrate the essence, they can only warp the reality. But you say I must find the words to tell you, and if that is what I must do, you must first understand how unsatisfactory these words will be. And you must attempt to hear
beyond
the words, to grasp the reality. Do you know this?"

     May answered with a quotation: "Let the hearing turn inward and let it not be interfered with by the intellect or intelligence."

     Ch'ing-Ling did not smile, but her mouth relaxed: "Even Confucius, at times, agreed with the Taoists. Well then," she went on, "how much do you know?"

     May was cautious. "I know that you felt homesick, I know that my father was not faithful."

     "Yes," she sighed, "I longed for my family and China, and your father had dishonored me. Reasons enough to leave, my family accepted those reasons. I did not tell them there was a child, but if I had they would have thought my judgment correct, leaving the child with the aunts, for this was not a child that would have been welcomed in China. This was not a Chinese child. Yes?"

     I nodded.

     She paused then, deep in thought, searching for the words . . . the symbols . . . that would take May into her mind, her reality.

     "Coming back was failure. The war was over, my family left Shanghai, left China to follow Chiang to Taiwan. They left at night with their gold bars and their jade, and I did not go with them. If I had gone, it would all have been for nothing, can you understand that?"

     She paused, out of breath, as if they had been walking together and now she was waiting for May to catch up. May could not take her eyes from her mother's face; the mask was gone, all the pain was there and it was terrible to see. Pain and disappointment and hurt, buried for all those years.

     "I have ripped away her protection," May thought, "she has had this great wound, and whatever healing there has been, I have come along and opened it up all over again." A wave of remorse washed over her. She began to shiver, her teeth to chatter.

     Ch'ing-Ling rose, walked to a cupboard, and pulled out a thick padded jacket which she brought to put around her shoulders.

     "Put it on," she said, and as May pulled it around her shoulders their hands touched. In a voice that vibrated with warmth, Ch'ing-Ling said, "You are cold, these hills are filled with chill." And then, in the same mesmerizing voice she went on, "In China there are legends. Many legends. Those books on that wall are filled with parables and stories and koans. The rabbit in the moon, pounding the elixir of life, there are many legends about the rabbit in the moon. Once, I took a very small sip of the elixir, and found myself in the place the Chinese call the Land of the Golden Mountain, but I did not drink deeply enough to climb the mountain. I had no bravery in me, and no forgiveness, not then. I longed for the safety of my family, and fled to them, and found that safety to be illusory.

     "And so I came here, to this town which is so poor that no medical doctor would ever want to stay, so the authorities do not disturb me. For thirty years I have worked among these people, they are glad to have me." For the first time she smiled, and May caught a glimmer of her beauty. "My patients pay me in eggs and geese and sometimes coins, and it is enough. I have no wish to leave."

     "Your family, do you ever hear from them?"

     The muscles in her face tightened. "I have no family. I was never brave enough to have a child. That was my great failure. I could not keep you and infect you with my unhappiness. You have come here looking for your mother, but your mother is not here.
You are Sister Kit's child. I have always believed this, and take comfort in it."