Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

I had to bite my lip hard to prevent myself, even in that grim setting, from bursting out laughing and kicking my legs like a demented woman. Everyone knows lawyers are experts in twisting or hiding the truth, not in telling it.

Lo ignored my sarcastic expression. “I’ll make it brief today. And I’ll arrange another meeting when Miss Madison is feeling better so she can tell you everything in detail herself. Then you’ll understand what’s happening and your role in this trip as well as in your mother’s life. All right, Miss Lin”—Lo took a deep breath—“you ready for this?”

“For what? Anyway, do I have a choice?”

He cleared his throat. “Your mother, Mindy Madison, is here waiting to be executed in two months.”

My heart almost dropped to the floor with a sharp thud as a loud “What!” shot out from my mouth. “What did she do, murder someone?”

Lo shook his head. “She smuggled art out of China.”

“That gets the death penalty?”

“Yes, when national treasures are involved. But I’ll leave it for Miss Madison to explain at your next meeting. Anyway, now not only is she awaiting her death by execution but also from advanced ovarian cancer.”

I didn’t even have the courage to look in Mindy Madison’s direction. I couldn’t imagine that this frail woman, or any woman, should deserve this most severe punishment, whatever the crime, let alone to be executed with cancer ravaging her body. And it would be death by what? A bullet in the head, electric chair, lethal injection, hanging…. I shut my eyes to ward off the horrible scenarios.

Lo spoke again. “Miss Lin, you’re the only one who can help your mother.”

“No, I don’t have a mother who’s a death row criminal. My mother is dead, period!”

Lo’s look was penetrating to the point of scary. “Miss Lin, let me reiterate, Mindy Madison, or Cai Mindi, is your mother, and your deceased mother, Cai Mayfong, was your aunt.”

I shook my head.

“These are facts.”

“Then prove it.”

“I will do that, later.” His tone softened a bit. “You’re entitled to know the truth of your life, which has been buried for so many years.”

I pointed an accusatory finger at the lawyer, then the death mask. “If the truth is that she’s my mother, then I’d rather not be enlightened to it.”

“But you have no choice.”

“How’s that?”

“Because only a daughter’s compassion can save her mother’s life.”

Big tears rolled down from Madison’s eyes. She wiped them off with her filthy cloth.

I thought of the sufferings my mother had to endure her whole life, and my heart softened. But my voice came out unintentionally sarcastic. “Then tell me how, since I’m neither a government official nor a doctor.”

“We are still appealing the case and therefore need more time for Miss Madison to regain her strength to fight. That’s why you were asked to get the special snow lotus from the Mountains of Heaven. This herb is your mother’s last hope. Even if it can’t cure her fatal disease, then at least it may boost her energy so she’ll have some time for you, her daughter.”

Feeling a splitting headache coming on and not having enough energy left to resist, I said dejectedly, “All right. What else can I do?”

“Be nice to your mother.”

Just then the guard returned and opened the cell door, motioning us to leave.

Madison’s sobbing was the only sound I could hear as Lo and I walked away from her cell.

Inside the car, I asked, “Mr. Lo, do you have any proof that Mindy Madison is indeed my mother?”

“Absolutely, “ he said with such confidence that my heart sank to the bottom of the Black Dragon Pond.

The next day I returned to Lo’s office where, as promised, Lo gave me my birth certificate. The space next to “mother” read: Cai Mindi. Mindi was almost the same as Mindy, and Cai was my mother’s family name, and she was Mayfong. But why had this woman changed from her Chinese name Cai Mindi to Mindy Madison?

Lo said, “Cai Mindi was briefly married to an Englishman—one of her admirers and overseas art contacts—so she could move out of the country when she’d learned that the government was starting to crack down on art smugglers. She’d hoped that her new, foreign name would prevent the government from finding out her true identity. But obviously it didn’t work.”

“What happened to her foreign husband?”

“Miss Madison only used him to change her name, and to help smuggle art to Europe. So after he went back to London, she divorced him.”

This weak, dying ghost woman certainly didn’t look as if she’d once had another incarnation as a cunning femme fatale. Then I suddenly realized why my mother had never shown me my birth certificate. All I’d ever seen was my Hong Kong Identity Card.

As a teenager, when I’d have big, hormonal fights with her, I’d scream, “I wish you were not my mother!” or even “I wish you were dead!” Now finally I was being punished by the bizarre karma of “Be careful what you wish for.”

I sighed. “Mr. Lo, what am I supposed to do now?”

“It was your mother’s wish to reunite with you and atone for what she did before she dies. Maybe she shouldn’t have lied to get you to come back, but she had no other way.”

“Did you just say she lied? Then is she really my mother or not?”

“Hmm…” He had the expression of an animal trapped between a cliff and a rifle-wielding hunter.

“Answer me, please!”

“Of course Mindy Madison, or Cai Mindi, is your mother. What I mean is, there’s no money left for you to collect.”

I felt blood rushing to my head. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me when I’ll get paid. So now, what do you mean, there’s no money left to collect?”

“The statement is self-explanatory.”

My voice shot up to the ceiling as my heart dropped on the floor. “You mean that I won’t be paid! That I risked my life for nothing! But it was written in the legal document!”

“Legal document or not, there is no money.”

“You serious?”

He nodded. “Calm down, Miss Lin. The money did exist once, but it was all confiscated.”

I should have never trusted anyone in China, and maybe should have discussed this with Chris, who was much smarter in money matters than me.

“Then how did she have the fifty thousand to pay me?”

“The fifty thousand was nearly all she had left. The rest was used to pay for better treatment in prison—much can be arranged, if your wallet is as bloated as a glutton’s stomach. “

I scoffed. “Three million. Oh, God… and I did that for nothing?!”

“No, not for nothing. You got paid fifty thousand, you reunited with your mother, and maybe you can even save her life.”

I felt too dejected to say anything.

“Today you can ask her as many questions as you wish and stay as long as you want. My advice is, forget the money. The most urgent thing is to clear your mother’s name so she won’t be executed.”

“But how can I do that?”

“I’ve already asked experts to verify the Diamond Sutra and Gold Buddha you put back in the Turpan Museum. Once they’re proved authentic, the accusation of theft will be dropped.”

“But don’t they know that the fakes had been sitting in the museum for a long time?”

“They only care about having the real ones back and don’t want to lose face by telling the whole world that the treasures were stolen right from under their eyes. Did you bring the fakes you exchanged?”

I nodded, fishing them out from my backpack and handing them to Lo.

He studied the two objects for a few moments. “I’ll destroy these so there’s no evidence they ever existed.”