Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

The ship for Hong Kong would be leaving that night. After we packed and got everything ready, I decided there was one last thing I must do before leaving. I did not want to spend the rest of my life wondering what had happened to Gao. I would not forget him, even though my life’s path was leading me in another direction.

Of course, I could not tell Jinying about this. So I said, “Before we go, I need to visit Madame Lewinsky’s grave to make an offering to bring peace to her spirit .

Jinying asked, “Do you really have to?”

I explained that, despite the great wrong she had done us, she had taught me to sing, and she had delivered Jinjin and cared for him while she was alive.

Jinying saw I was resolved and suggested that they could all come with me. I replied that it would be too depressing for Peiling to visit the cemetery. Being blind she was very intuitive, so her mind might be affected by the negative yin energy. Worse, it would be highly inauspicious to bring our baby to visit a dead person when he had just come back to us.

As I was about to go, Peiling piped up. “Miss Camilla, please don’t leave me!”

“Don’t worry, Peiling, I will never leave you. You are coming with us to Hong Kong.”

She remained silent. Her sixth sense told her something was not quite right. She was correct, because I was not quite finished with the dusty world of Shanghai.

I turned to Jinying. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

Then I kissed Jinying, Peiling, and little Jinjin, who was deep in his dream village. Before Jinying could say anything, I grabbed my purse, then left everyone behind.

As soon as I left the hotel, I went to a small department store, bought some men’s clothes, then changed at a public restroom. After that, I took a tram to the address Gao had given me at Wang’s birthday party. In case there were gangsters there, it would be simpler if they thought I was a man.

It was early in the morning, so there were only a few passengers and I was left alone. But I was so exhausted that I kept dozing off as the tram clanged along. I was in no mood to appreciate the scenery through the window. I didn’t know any way I could soothe my troubled mind.

I knew it was wrong to leave my new, little family to seek my old lover. But I couldn’t just leave Gao without saying a proper good-bye—not after he’d come into my dream with a severed hand. Would Jinying guess what I was up to and be bitter? Would he be suspicious of me ever after? I knew Peiling was terrified that we would leave her, but eventually, she would be able to have confidence in us.

Then, a few minutes into the ride, a horrible thought entered my mind. What about if Gao had been killed during the shoot-out at Wang’s banquet?

I dozed off again, then was awakened by rain sprinkling through the partially opened window. I looked out to see where we were and spotted, in some distance, a dilapidated bus inching forward on the other side of the road, looking like its allotted time in this incarnation was almost up.

Bored, I leaned toward the window to take a better look. I noticed that among the weary-looking passengers who were staring into space, one man was waving frantically toward my tram. Two children near me giggled and waved back. I wondered why this man was so eager to greet strangers on the other side of the road. Even when the children had tired of waving and giggling, the man kept waving enthusiastically. Or perhaps desperately. I wondered if we knew each other, but his face was indistinct through the gray drizzle.

Just then, the tram lurched forward and soon the bus was but a small dot behind us.

Finally, the tram arrived at my station and I hopped off, then walked around looking for Gao’s street. This was a small town with a few dingy shops, a grocery, a barber, a few unappealing eateries. I did not ask for directions, lest it arouse curiosity about me.

After passing a few more shops and playing children, I finally spotted the address I’d been looking for. It was a dingy shack next to a public bath house. A plump, middle-aged man wearing a tattered bathrobe entered, releasing a blast of steam.

I was surprised that Gao lived in such a forlorn area, because I always assumed that Lung had paid him well. I walked to the door of the shack and saw a small poster on the wall. A couplet was printed on faded gold letters against a sun-bleached red background:

Go in and come out safely

Prosper in all the four seasons

No doubt Gao had posted this because his job involved a lot of dangerous coming and going. And to look at his home, he clearly needed all the prosperity he could get. I knocked nervously, having no idea what, or whom, to expect. The door was opened by a thirtyish, sad-faced woman.

I apologized, thinking I had the wrong address, then asked, “Good morning, does someone named Gao or Hong Bin live here?”

The woman in her worn cotton top and pants seemed to suddenly come back to life. She studied me with sudden interest.

“Yes, mister, but who are you?” Her eyes were dull and her voice weak.

“My name is Shen Wei, his friend.” This was my latest invented name, to go with my man’s clothing.

“A friend? Then please help me.”

A strange request to a total stranger.

It was my turn to ask. “But… who are you?” Maybe she was a sister or a cousin.

“His wife.”

I was confused. “Whose wife?”

“Gao’s wife, who else?”

The word wife exploded in my ears like a gunshot.

“Oh, so he’s married?”

“You said you’re a friend and you don’t know?”

I remembered Gao had told me this but had pushed it out of my mind. It came as a shock to find myself face-to-face with her. Now the fact that Gao had a wife became a reality.

I put on a fake smile. “Of course he told me, I just forgot. Is he here, can I see him?”

“No.”

Her eyes were red; perhaps from the dust or perhaps she was crying.

“He’s not here. My husband rarely comes home and I don’t know his friends. If you’re my husband’s friend, do you know someone called Camilla?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Hmm… what about her?”

“My husband told me that if a Camilla comes, I should give her a package. So I’ve been waiting. But you’re not Camilla, are you?”

I quickly said, “She’s a mutual friend.”

“So can you take my husband’s package and give it to her?”

“Of course I can. Do you know what’s inside?”

She shook her head. “Some notes, but I don’t know what. My parents were too poor to send me to school, so I never learned to read.”

“Any idea why your husband wants to give it to Camilla?”

“Don’t know. I just do what he tells me. Come in so I can give you the package.”

I stepped inside the gloomy place. The whole house was about the size of the mansion of Master Lung’s foyer and kitchen. Except for a picture calendar and a few red lucky sayings pasted on the wall, there was no decoration or anything of value. I began to wonder how Gao could be so poor. Then I recalled that Lung was forcing him to pay back his father’s gambling debts and kept raising the amount Gao supposedly owed. But I hadn’t imagined that he would be this badly off. This brave, loyal man had been working practically for free.

The wife asked, “Would you like some tea?”

“Oh, please don’t bother. I just had tea before I came.”

“All right, I’ll get you the package.”

She went inside another room, then came back to hand me a big envelope.

I opened it, took out the notebook, and flipped the pages. It had to be Gao’s diary. My heart beat fast. I had no idea that he had kept any records of his life. I wanted to read it right then and there but suppressed my impulse.