Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

Things happened so fast that I wondered if Shadow had really fallen or if my eyes had deceived me. Could it have been only my imagination? I looked around and saw that except for a few, the audience now seemed quite happy watching the clowns and the girls in front of them. Their fears of a few moments ago had already faded into the air like a whiff of incense smoke.

Ignoring the clown’s ad-libbing, I slipped through the audience so I could go backstage to see how badly Shadow was injured—if at all. But two burly men stood blocking the back entrance.

One yelled to me. “Just leave.”

“But, I want to see if Sha… Miss Melodie is all right.”

The other grunted, “Nothing happened, you got it?”

The next morning, I dashed down to the street to buy newspapers to read about last night’s calamity. Only one minor newspapers reported the incident.

The audience attending Shen’s Circus last night witnessed a tragedy when the lights failed, and magician and trapeze artist Melodie, performing without a net, fell to the ground.

Melodie was badly injured and is now being treated at Kwong Wah Hospital. It is rumored that Shen’s Circus, a family business, will now close down permanently. After years of financial struggle, they can no longer afford to pay the staff and feed the animals. There is suspicion that they plan to declare bankruptcy so as to avoid paying Melodie’s hefty medical bills.

This was the second time tragedy struck the circus in less than a decade. Five years ago, the Shen’s youngest daughter, also a trapeze artist, fell to her death during a Chinese new year celebratory performance. Mr. Shen, director and head of the circus, had then thought of closing down the circus but continued because he didn’t have the heart to abandon his loyal staff and hardworking animals.

However, since his daughter’s death, the circus, seemingly cursed, has been on a downward spiral. That was why Mr. Shen was willing to hire Melodie, an expert in both magic and trapeze, to be their major attraction—and their last hope. Until now, Shen had never used any outside performers.

Doctors stated that Miss Melodie is in critical condition but would not give further information.

After I finished reading, I set out to visit Shadow in the hospital. I hoped this would not be our last meeting and eternal farewell. I desperately hoped not, because this sad event made me realize that since we were both completely alone in the world, we should be friends instead of rivals. After all, we were what the Chinese describe as “sharing the same fate and living a lonely, isolated life at the margin of the world.”

I also knew that in this life, it is always wise to have at least one person to watch your back.

I set aside the newspapers, dressed, had a hurried breakfast of congee at a stall and took a taxi to the gray, depressing-looking building that was Kwong Wah Hospital in Kowloon’s Mong Kok area. I hurried inside the drab, medicinal-smelling lobby of this infamous institution where, it was reputed, few who came in ever came out.

At the reception desk sat a thirtyish, skinny, mean-faced woman totally absorbed in reading a sheet of paper, presumably a letter.

I put up my most ingratiating smile and asked in my most polite voice about the woman I knew as Melodie, or Shadow.

She raised her head and looked at me with a straight face. “We neither have a Shadow nor a Melodie here.” Then she sniggered, her eyes shrinking into slits. “What kind of names are these, anyway?”

I cast her a disapproving look. “Miss, I’m here looking for the young lady who fell during her performance at the Shen’s Circus last night at Shek Tong Tsui.”

She returned my look with an even more disapproving one. “Miss, this is a public hospital and we treat many girls who fall every day. Last night there was one who jumped from her boyfriend’s apartment after he told her that he had never loved her, not even a single day. There was another one who was being chased by her debt collector and fell from her balcony. So, I really don’t know which one you’re talking about. Miss, I’m sorry. This is a hospital, not a detective’s office.”

I knew she was not going to help me, or maybe she really didn’t know, or just was too lazy to even look it up. But maybe she would not be able to find it anyway, for like my name Camilla, Shadow and Melodie were made-up ones. Her parents must have given her a name, but I had no idea what it was.

“All right, thanks anyway, and enjoy your reading,” I said sarcastically.

She ignored my remark and went right back to her reading. Was it a love letter from her boyfriend? But what kind of man would waste time detailing his love to a woman like her? I amused myself wondering, when he decided to dump her, would she chase him and fall to her death?

But I cut off this train of thought and decided to look for Shadow myself, making my way through all the wards, floor by floor. Finally, I was inside the last room on the fifth floor, my last chance. Inside, there were altogether six beds, all occupied. I cast a quick glance around, but none of the women, young or old, looked anything like Shadow. But then I saw that there was another patient in a dark corner far from the windows. I could see that she was covered with bandages, except for slits over her eyes, nose, and mouth.

I hurried toward the bed, afraid that this was Shadow, horribly injured, but equally afraid that if it was not her, it meant she had died. This living mummy had hair that was long, curly, and black, just like my friend’s. But instead of the shiny tresses I was used to, her hair was spread over the pillow looking like tangled seaweed.

When I passed the bed of an elderly woman, she reached her skinny, clawlike hand to grab my sleeve. “Miss, please have a seat and talk to me.”

“Sorry, but I don’t know you.”

The many-wrinkled face pleaded. “But I’m your grandmother and I am lonely! No one comes to visit. So now you’re here, why don’t you sit beside me so we can talk?”

But fortunately or unfortunately, I never knew my mother, let alone any grandmother. So I ignored her and continued toward the patient in the corner by the window. I stopped in front of my target and looked, and what I saw gave me a chill. The patient was covered with bandages; though there were slits for her eyes, they seemed to be staring at nothing in particular. One of her feet was covered by a plaster cast and suspended in midair. Tubes were going in and out all over her body like little snakes slithering over rocks. Was the rotten odor that assaulted my nostrils coming from underneath her bandages, or the collective stink from all the sick and neglected patients? Or was it the smell of death? Because not all the patients lying here had moved at all since I’d come in.

I leaned close to the bandaged face. “Shadow?”

The resurrected mummy looked at me but didn’t respond.

I whispered again. “Shadow, is that you?”

Still no response. But a few seconds later, I noticed teardrops trickling down from the corners of her eyes. I realized that she must be in such pain that it even hurt to speak.

So I said very tenderly, like I was speaking to my little Jinjin in my dream, “I know you can’t talk. But if you’re Shadow, please nod.”

She did. Tears kept trickling down.

I tried to blink back mine. “It’s Camilla, your friend who comes to see you.”

She nodded again.

“And don’t worry, I think you’ll be fine.”

No response.

I asked. “Anyone paying for your hospital fees here?”

I noticed a slight shook of her head.

“Don’t worry, Shadow, I’ll take care of that.”