The Ghost Bride (6 page)
M
y fears were well founded, for this marked the beginning of many nights when it felt as though all I did was dream. Despite my resistance, I couldn’t help falling asleep. Pricking my fingers with needles, biting my tongue, or even standing and pacing were of no use to me at all. Night after night, I found myself in that strange world I had come to associate with Lim Tian Ching. Once I attended a grand feast where I was the only guest at a long table laden with heaps of oranges, bowls of rice, boiled and quartered chickens, and pyramids of mangoes. Displayed like funeral offerings, the food had a distasteful quality to it, despite its splendor.
Another time I found myself in a stable filled with horses. Some were dappled, others white, brown, or black. Despite their varied coloring, they were all exactly the same size and had the same ears and tail. Each stood in its stall, ears pricked forward and eyes fixed obediently ahead. When they moved, there was no sound other than the loud rustling of paper. As I walked farther into the shadowy building, there were carriages, phaetons, and sedan chairs, all gleaming with polish and lacquer. But the most fearful sight was a rickshaw equipped with a man standing silently between the poles, his grip frozen on the shafts as he stared blankly ahead. Though I passed my hand before his eyes, he didn’t blink. I shrank back, seized by the sudden fear that he would snatch at my wrist. From his attitude of readiness, I suspected that he would respond to a command. Perhaps the horses were the same way if one chose to ride them, though I dared not try. This shadowy world filled me with unease; my skin prickled, morbid fancies filled my mind, and my spirits sank until I barely had the energy to keep moving.
The greatest mercy was that Lim Tian Ching did not appear in these dreams. I was alone as I wandered through vast halls, echoing courtyards, and landscaped gardens. There was an enormous kitchen filled with pots and pans and heaps of food piled on the tables, and even a scholar’s study, complete with reams of paper and graduated sets of wolf-hair writing brushes. When I examined the books and scrolls, however, they were blank inside. Everything was staged as though for a grand performance; and though nothing ever seemed to happen, I felt a constant knot of tension in my stomach.
Occasionally, I came across servants of the same type as the rickshaw puller. Sometimes they moved involuntarily with a sharp rustling sound, which alarmed me. The houses and landscapes were cheerless despite their grandeur, and I found the puppet servants grotesque and frightening. I was thankful that I didn’t meet Lim Tian Ching, though I suspected he was somewhere around. Sometimes I sensed his presence in the next room or behind a copse of trees. Then I would hurry along, my heart beating faster and an inner voice shrieking to wake up.
I didn’t tell anyone about the dreams, though many times I was on the verge of going into my father’s study to unburden myself. I realized, however, that he was unlikely to believe me. He would soothe what he considered childish fears and tell me not to worry about such things. After all, if he who had longed for my mother so much was unable to see her, or grasp any essence of her spirit, why then surely the afterlife must not exist. It was a repository of folk beliefs. He was a devout Confucianist, and Confucius had specifically spoken against such things. I knew him too well to expect him to change his mind on the basis of a few dreams. Instead, he would blame himself for ever mentioning that unlucky marriage proposal to me.
If I told Amah, I would have the opposite problem. She would be only too ready to believe me. She would get an exorcist, burn chicken feathers, instruct me to drink the blood of a dog or suggest splashing it around the room to unmask ghosts. She might drag me off to visit a medium. And certainly she would work herself into a frenzy of superstitious fear.
Sometimes, I wondered whether this immersion in a dead world was the beginning of lunacy. I tested my memory and checked the pupils of my eyes for madness, but I didn’t like to look in the mirror too long. There were too many shadows. The only thing that comforted me was Tian Bai’s watch. I kept it with me at all times, fingering the brass case in my pocket. Each time I wrenched myself awake from the dreams, I was comforted by its soft ticking. In fact, the person I really wanted to talk to was Tian Bai, but I had no way of contacting him. I sent a message back to Yan Hong, thanking her for the cloth and I wondered whether she had known about the watch. Somehow I doubted it. Yet if I sent a letter to her, he might see it.
In the end the note I wrote was simple.
Thank you for the beautiful gift. It was entirely unexpected, but I will certainly treasure it and think of some good use for it to pass the time.
A little awkward, but it was the best I could manage. Or perhaps someone had accidentally dropped the watch into the bundle of cloth. Maybe a child had done it. Between my nightmares and my waking preoccupation I lost weight, spending my days in listless withdrawal. Amah noticed, of course.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Are you sick?”
When I confessed to not feeling well, she administered a series of brews. Boiled radish soup with pork bones to flush out poisons. Mung beans and yellow sugar to cleanse. Chicken soup and cordyceps for stamina. Her soups had helped me recover from many childhood illnesses in the past. This time, however, they had a limited effect. One afternoon when I was lying on the rattan daybed downstairs, I joked that I felt like Lin Daiyu, the tragic heroine of the classic
Dream of the Red Chamber.
She was a consumptive and spent a great deal of time in the book coughing up blood and looking wan and interesting.
“Don’t talk about such things!” Amah’s sharp response surprised me.
“I was only joking, Amah.”
“Sickness is nothing to joke about.”
She was always at her most belligerent when worried. It was true that the dreams were wearing me down, but I still hoped that they were something that I could surmount if I had enough willpower. Didn’t I prove that night after night when I woke myself up? Just how illusory that was would soon be proved to me.
I
hadn’t seen much of my father since the Double Seventh Festival at the Lim mansion. He spent a surprising amount of time out of the house and when he returned, shut himself up with his books. When he emerged for meals he looked haggard, his pupils dilated. Normally, I would have been more alert to his condition, but I had been too preoccupied with thoughts of Tian Bai and the dreams that plagued me nightly. Thus I was surprised when one afternoon he called me into his study.
“What is it, Father?” I asked him. It was very hot. The bamboo
chiks
were drawn against the sun and wetted down for coolness, but his study was still stifling.
He passed a hand over his face. “Li Lan, I realize that I haven’t been doing my duty by you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re almost eighteen. Most girls your age are already married or at least betrothed.”
I kept silent. When I was younger I had sometimes teased my father and asked him about my marriage. He had replied that I was not to worry about it and he was sure that I would be happy. I had somehow come to assume that he meant to allow me to choose. After all, my parents’ marriage had been by all accounts very happy. Maybe too happy, in retrospect.
“As you know, our finances haven’t been good,” he said. “But I thought that there would be enough for you to live modestly on, even if something should happen to me. I’m afraid, though, that we’re now in worse straits. In addition to that, a marriage alliance I had in mind for you since you were a child has fallen through.”
“What marriage? Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t want you to worry about such things. I also thought, and maybe this was a romantic notion of mine, that you would be well suited to the young man and might naturally be drawn together without being burdened by expectations. It was, after all, what happened with your mother and myself.” He sighed. “If anyone is to blame it is myself. I’ve been too unworldly about such things. I expected—”
“What marriage?” I asked again.
“It was never formal, but I had an understanding with an old friend. We were not, of course, an equal alliance with his family as the economic disparity was too great.” He laughed bitterly. “My friend, however, had a nephew, a bright young man with no family of his own. Years ago when you were young, he proposed a marriage with our family as we still had a good name and a modest income. I had seen the young man and felt it would be a good match. A better match, perhaps, than with the main family as there would be less family pressure on you.”
I was in a fever of curiosity and agitation. This sounded horribly familiar to me. “What happened?”
“My friend’s own son died and his nephew became the heir. For a while I thought our arrangement still stood. In fact until very recently . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Who is the family?” I felt like shaking him.
“The Lim family.”
Blood was rushing in my ears. I felt dizzy and short of breath. My father continued. “Until very recently, I thought it was still settled. After all, they had asked you to the house and showed you signs of favor. But there was that strange request from Madam Lim.”
“The ghost marriage.” My heart sank.
“She approached me about it one day. I wasn’t sure whether she was serious or if she had somehow confused the betrothal arrangements of her nephew and her son.”
Everything was falling into place, even Lim Tian Ching’s mention, in my dream, of using his mother to ask my father about the marriage. “So now what happens?”
“Lim Teck Kiong, my supposed friend, spoke to me a week ago. He said that given his nephew’s new status as the family heir, it was impossible to marry a penniless girl. He did, however, once again broach the subject of you becoming his son’s spirit wife.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I would think it over and talk to you.” My father stopped me. “Wait! I know it’s distasteful, but you should at least know that it means you would be well provided for in their household, which is more than I can say right now about our own. We’ve lost a great deal of capital, and unfortunately the person who holds my debts is none other than Lim. He offered to buy up our debts and I thought he meant to do me a favor.”
“I will not! I will never marry his dead son!”
“Hush,” said my father. “Don’t fret so. Whatever else I’ve failed to do, I won’t force you into this ghost marriage. I thought that the best thing would be to betroth you to someone else. Then everyone would save some face. I’ve been asking around discreetly, but have had no luck. It’s my fault. I didn’t cultivate new or useful friendships since your mother died. Those old friends I approached were under the impression, no doubt from Lim, that you were always betrothed to his son. But we’ll think of something.”
Tears filled my eyes. If I started to cry, I would be unable to stop. My father stared at his desk, guilt and shame written across his countenance. Then he glanced involuntarily at his opium pipe. I felt a stinging rebuke rise to my lips. No wonder Amah had grumbled at him so often. I had always defended him, feeling that my father doted on me and was sweetly unworldly. But now I began to comprehend the true cost of his failure. I bit my lips until they bled. The hours, days, and years that had bled away in his opium haze demanded a payment from my future. In his apathetic way he had squandered my chance at happiness. The storm of tears overtook me and I ran from the room.
T
ian Bai’s
wife! That was all I could think of. All this time I had been promised to him. I
shut myself up in my room, crying. It was a tragedy to be sure, but there were
some horribly comic elements to it. I heard Amah rattle the door anxiously, and
then my father’s voice. I wished I had never seen Tian Bai. Then I wished that
my father had married me off to him sooner, before Lim Tian Ching had managed to
die. As upset as I was, I had to admit that my father had good taste. He was
right, I would have liked—I did like—Tian Bai. Very much.
Did Tian Bai know about this arrangement? Was that
why he had sent me the pocket watch? If so, then presumably he had not been
informed that it was terminated. I wondered whether he had merely been polite to
me because custom demanded it. But his eyes had lingered too long. Remembering
his steady gaze, I felt weak. Was this love? It was like a consuming flame,
licking through my defenses at a slow burn.
My father’s second instinct to betroth me to
someone else was also astute. That was my father: clever but no will, no impetus
to follow through, so his plans had little chance of realization. When it came
down to it, there was no one in his limited circle who could or would make such
a marriage arrangement in haste, and frankly I could scarcely blame them. But
presumably he had only looked at good families. If I really wanted to get
married, there must be some poor man who would welcome a bride. But I didn’t
think I could bring myself to marry anyone else. I suppressed a shudder as I
thought about Lim Tian Ching. This was all his doing, I was sure of it. Well, I
would not bow to him. I would rather run away. Cut my hair, become a nun, or an
amah. Anything rather than be a bride to his shade.
My eyes were red and sore. As I peered into the
watery depths of my mother’s mirror, I caught a glimpse of a dim form standing
behind me. In a fit of anger, I caught up the nearest object and flung it at the
shadows. Too late, after it had left my fingers, did I realize that it was Tian
Bai’s watch. Well, what did it matter anymore? I burst into tears again; and
having exhausted myself, fell asleep.
B
ut
sleep was no aid to me. I should have known that by now. Part of me tried to
swim back to the waking world but instead I felt myself sinking downward into
mist, as though I was drawn along a ribbon or a string. The fog parted and gave
way to a dazzling brightness. I was in a magnificent hall, lit with hundreds of
red candles. Red satin runners lay on the tables and large rosettes of scarlet
ribbons were garlanded from the ceiling. I looked around with unease. The
darkness outside the brightly lit hall was oppressively flat. The other thing
that made me uncomfortable was the obvious preparations for a feast. Red is the
celebratory color for auspicious occasions such as New Year’s. And weddings.
As was always the case in that world, the great
hall was empty. It could have held scores of guests but there were only rows of
vacant seats. Not a breath of air stirred. It was as silent as the grave. My
skin prickled at the thought that anyone, or anything, could be watching from
outside those blank, dark windows. No sooner had that crossed my mind than the
gay red ribbons began to flutter. Someone was coming. Desperately I tried to
wake up. To make this world dissolve away as I had done so many times before.
But while I was summoning up my willpower, Lim Tian Ching stepped out from
behind a screen. His silent entrance, as though he had been waiting there all
along, filled me with terror.
“So you’ve come, Li Lan.”
I took an involuntary step back.
“My dear,” he said, “I have to admit that I’m
disappointed in you.”
He sighed and twirled a paper fan. “I thought I
would be patient, show you some of the things that we would share together. You
did like them, didn’t you?” Seeing that I was speechless, he allowed a smile to
steal across his face. “There are so many wonderful things that I have. Houses,
horses, servants. Really, I don’t see how any girl could be unhappy here. But
what do I find?” His eyes became opaque. “I find you mooning over another man!
And who is this man?”
I tried to gather my strength but he kept
advancing.
“My own cousin, that’s who! Oh, it’s bad enough
that he had to outshine me in life but even in death . . . ” As
Lim Tian Ching said the word
death
, I noticed
something strange. His figure blurred for an instant, but it was merely a
flicker, for he continued, “Tian Bai has to compete with me. Don’t think I
didn’t know you were promised to him! That was one of the first things I
discovered after I saw you at the Dragon Boat Festival. Imagine how I felt when
I found out that there was some kind of prior arrangement with him.” An
expression of distaste crossed his face.
“Why him, of all people? My mother said it had been
arranged because your family was poor and they didn’t want his marriage to
outshine mine. Well, I told her, why did you have to pick such a girl for him
and she said she had no idea; no one had ever seen you.” His face suffused with
color, like a fat schoolboy complaining about the theft of his sweets.
“You should forget about me,” I said. “I’m not
worthy of your family.”
“That’s for me to decide. Although I commend your
modesty.” He bestowed a smile on me again. “My dear, I’m willing to overlook
your momentary weakness. After all, you did throw it away.”
“Throw what away?”
“That clock, that watch. I hate those things,” he
muttered. “When I saw that, I knew that you couldn’t possibly be interested in
him. Now, Li Lan, shall we drink to our union?” Lim Tian Ching held out a wine
cup in a grotesque parody of a wedding toast.
“How is it even possible? After all, you’re
dead.”
He winced. “Please don’t mention it. But I suppose
you have a right to know. There will be a ceremony. I’ve already instructed my
father as to how it must be held. You’ll have a magnificent wedding, everything
a girl might want. There’ll be bride presents and jewelry, even a kingfisher
feather headdress, if you want. We’ll send a sedan chair and a band of musicians
to your house, though a rooster will ride with you instead of me.”
I shuddered at this image, but he pressed on,
pleased with himself. “For the actual ceremony, you’ll exchange bridal cups with
my soul tablet in front of the altar. Then after the formal marriage, you’ll
enter the Lim household as my wife. You’ll have all the material things that you
need. My mother will take care of it. And every night we shall be together.” He
stopped and gave me a roguish smile.
Despite my terror, I felt a slow burning in my
stomach. Why should I be married to this autocratic buffoon, alive or dead?
“I don’t think so.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ I don’t want to marry
you!”
Lim Tian Ching’s eyes narrowed into slits. Despite
my bold words, my heart quailed. “You don’t have a choice in this matter. I’ll
ruin your father.”
“Then I’ll become a nun.”
“You don’t know the extent of my influence! I’ll
haunt you; I’ll haunt your father; I’ll haunt that meddling amah of yours.” He
was raging now. “The border officials are on my side, and they said I have a
right to you!”
“Well, you are dead! Dead, dead, dead!” I
shrieked.
With each iteration of the word his figure began to
shiver and shake. The opulent hall with its hundreds of red candles wavered and
began to disappear. The last glimpse I had was of Lim Tian Ching’s face
dissolving, his form smearing as though a giant hand was rubbing it out.
I
was
very ill after this experience. Amah found me lying on the floor, curled up like
a crayfish without a shell. The doctor looked at my tongue, felt my pulse, and
shook his head gravely. He had said he had rarely seen a case of someone so
young with so little
qi
, or life force. It was as
though someone had drained me of half my vital energy. For that he prescribed a
course of heating foods. Ginseng, wine, longan, and ginger. On the third day
when I had recovered enough to sit up in bed, Amah brought me a bowl of chicken
soup laced with sesame oil to strengthen the heart and nerves. In the morning
light she looked shriveled, as though a puff of wind would blow her away.
I gave her the ghost of a smile. “I’m all right,
Amah.”
“I don’t know what happened to you. The doctor
thought it was brain fever. Your father blames himself.”
“Where is he?”
“He was at your bedside the past few days. I made
him rest. There’s no sense everyone in the household getting sick.”
I sipped the scalding soup. Amah had an arsenal of
brews in her battery, but she said we would start with chicken soup as I was so
weak. Later I should have ginseng.
“That’s expensive,” I said.
“What’s the point of saving when things have got
this far? Don’t worry about the money.”
She made an angry face and turned away. I was too
tired to argue with her. The doctor came again and prescribed a course of
moxibustion and more herbs to warm my blood. He seemed pleasantly surprised at
my progress but I knew the real reason. During the past week I had had no
dreams.
I had no illusions about this state of affairs,
however. If it was madness, the situation seemed hopeless. But if the spirit of
Lim Tian Ching was really haunting me, there might be something I could do about
it. Presumably I had to consent to the marriage, judging from his insistence on
a ceremony. But his wild talk about border officials, whomever they were, and
his assertion that he had a right to me was disturbing, even terrifying. I
wished I still had Tian Bai’s pocket watch. When I had flung it, it had fallen
behind the heavy
almirah
, or cupboard; and while I
was so weak in bed, there were no means to move the furniture and retrieve it. I
asked Amah to find it for me but she refused. She had been set against the gift
of a clock as bad luck in any event, and I quickly realized it was better not to
mention it again in case she decided to get rid of it for me.
A few days later, there was a commotion in the
house. Noises floated up—people talking and doors banging in the courtyard
below. I came out of my room and asked our maid, Ah Chun. Besides Amah, she and
the cook, Old Wong, were the only servants in our large and empty house.
“Oh, miss!” she said. “Your father has a
visitor.”
My father occasionally had visitors, but they were
old friends; mild, retiring people like himself who came and went with little
ceremony.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s a handsome young man!”
This was clearly the most exciting event that had
happened in a long time; and I could imagine that Ah Chun would be pressed
against the courtyard wall gossiping with next door’s maid before nightfall. But
my heart was pounding. The hope that rose in my throat almost choked me.
I made my way slowly down the stairs. The front
stairs in our house were finely carved of
chengal
wood in my grandfather’s time. Visitors always exclaimed over the exquisite
handiwork, but for some reason neither Amah nor Old Wong liked the staircase.
They would never say why but preferred to come and go by the cramped back
stairway. When I reached the bottom, Amah found me.
“What are you doing?” she cried, shaking her dust
cloth at me. “Go back to your room at once!”
“Who is it, Amah?”
“I don’t know, but don’t stand here. You’ll catch a
chill.”
Never mind that it was a warm afternoon. Amah was
always darkly muttering about drafts and cooling elements. I started back up the
stairs slowly when my father’s study door opened and Tian Bai came out. He stood
in the courtyard taking leave of my father while I clung to the railing. I
wished I didn’t look so disheveled, yet hoped desperately that he would see me.
As I hesitated over the impropriety of calling his name, he exchanged a few more
words with my father and took his leave.
When Amah had thought me safely upstairs, I made my
way hastily to the front door. At the very least, I wanted to gaze upon his
retreating back. There used to be a porter to man the great doors of our house
and announce visitors, but now his post lay derelict. There was no one to see as
I opened the heavy wooden door. To my surprise Tian Bai was still there,
standing irresolutely under the eaves of the great gate. He started at the
cracking sound of the hinges.
“Li Lan!” he said.
A wave of happiness washed over me. For a moment, I
could not speak.
“I brought some medicine from Yan Hong. She heard
you were ill.” The warmth of his gaze seemed to penetrate my skin.
“Thank you,” I said. The urge to touch him, to
place my hands on his chest and lean against him was overwhelming, but that
would never do.
After a pause, he said, “Did you get the watch I
sent you?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it wasn’t a very appropriate gift.”
“My amah disapproved. She said it was unlucky to
give a clock.”
“You should tell her that I don’t believe in such
traditions.” When he smiled, a dimple appeared briefly in his left cheek.
“Why not?”
“Didn’t Yan Hong tell you? I’m a Catholic.”
“I thought the English were Anglicans,” I said,
thinking of his education in Hong Kong’s missionary medical college.
“They are. But as a boy I had a Portuguese priest
as my tutor.”
There were a hundred things I wished to say, a
hundred more to ask him. But time had already run out for us. Tian Bai raised a
hand to my face. I dared not breathe as he ran a finger lightly down my cheek.
The look in his eyes was serious, almost intense. My face burned. I was seized
by an urge to press my lips against the back of his hand, to bite the tips of
his fingers, but I could only drop my eyes in confusion.
