Li Ang - The Lost Garden

Closing the doors, Mother next led them to an inner room on the second floor of Lotus Tower, where strewn atop the cupboard, chest, and an old-style carved bed were all sorts of stereo equipment, from early hand-cranked models to models of 78 and 33⅓ revolutions, plus various types of speakers, turntables, and amplifiers.

“There are five turntables, seven sets of speakers, and three sets of amplifiers, plus thirty-seven of the early all-in-one stereo systems.”

The speakers were all roughly four to five feet tall, crowding the corners in sets of two, on top of which rested turntables and amplifiers. Some of the all-in-one systems were in boxes piled high; others had extended speakers and had been placed on the floor, lined up from the bed to the door.

Mother took up all the unused space, so the three children had to stay outside and crane their necks to look in.

She pushed open the long, latticed south-facing windows; the walkway lights were still on, dimly illuminating the two cars parked neatly in Lotus Garden.

“There are also the two Mercedes, one from 1953, and the other a later model, with aerodynamic lines.”

She then closed the window and turned around, a contented smile on her face to show she was pleased to have accomplished her task.

“I’m pleased that, until the day he died, your father was able to have everything he ever wanted and never had to worry.”

Now she turned to face her three children.

“At first I sold off the dowry that my parents had given me, but the money quickly ran out, so little by little I sold every piece of Zhu family property.”

Placing her hands together in front of her, she bent deeply and gave her three children a Japanese-style, 90-degree bow.

“I’m very sorry.”

Unable to stop her gesture, the three children got down on their knees before her. Yinghong began to sob.

“I know some of our relatives criticize me for letting your father spend money like this, but they didn’t see how he suffered each day in Lotus Garden with nothing to do.” For the first time that night, Mother choked on her words. “His whole life was gone, so how could I watch him suffer with nothing to keep him occupied?”

She bent forward to help her children up.

“The orchard, the land, and other properties were all sold to outsiders, except for this garden, which is connected to the Zhu ancestral house. It was your father’s favorite place, the spot where he spent most of his life, but since I had to sell it, I asked my own brother to buy it.”

An unprecedented serious tone crept into her voice.

“I asked them to add a condition that, if in twenty years, anyone in the Zhu family could afford it, you would have first right to buy it back.”

Mother died in early autumn the following year, less than twelve months after Father. Yinghong was the only child with her when she passed away.

Within those months, Yinghong witnessed with her eyes how fast a garden can go to seed and how it is intricately connected to the vegetation inside.

After Father’s death, the flowers and trees, which had not been trimmed regularly to begin with, quickly overgrew, starting with the weeds spreading from the ground to the paths and quickly covering the flagstone paving. Mudan and Luohan cut the weeds back a few times, but the garden was crisscrossed with winding paths, and another would be overgrown by the time they finished weeding one nearer the house. Mudan had other household chores to tend to, and Luohan was getting too old to care for the plants in such a large garden.

She could almost see the vegetation growing wildly in front of her day and night; it grew any way it wanted, thriving and spreading its tentacles everywhere. And soon fallen leaves began to pile up.

Central Taiwan enjoys year-round greenery, so vegetation grows in profusion in all seasons, including fall and winter. At any given moment, buds sprout on trees, becoming fully formed leaves in a matter of days, only to fall to the ground before long, replaced by new buds that start the cycle over. Leaves fall twelve months a year, spring or summer, rain or shine; they drift softly to the ground in an everlasting cycle.

The fallen leaves were not much to see at first, unlike the deciduous trees in temperate zones, where they fall all at once, denuding the trees in spectacular fashion. Instead, the leaves here fell in small numbers, so no one paid much attention. But they quickly accumulated and, if not swept away soon enough, began to pile up, creating a sight of decay, a blanket of dry yellow leaves. Then they started to rot, lying atop the few remaining flowers, which now looked withered and desolate.

As leaves continued to fall, the trees grew even more vibrantly, with branches spreading and new leaves sprouting. Moss began to form in the shade under the trees; soon the red-brick wall was nothing but a dark-green patch. Even the tiled roof was taken over by weeds with gnarly roots that stuck on anything they came into contact with.

Looking down from the ancient vase-patterned window in Lotus Tower, she saw that the garden was reduced to a patchwork of green in many shades; even in the ponds that had so far escaped the shade of the trees, the lotus and lilies were dying. The water congealed into a deep green, as if frozen over, and if you looked closely, you saw that duckweed had overtaken the surface, so tightly packed that it stopped moving.

It was on an early autumn day when the garden was lost to the greenery that Mother breathed her last, after giving her wish to be buried with Father.

“I’ve fulfilled my responsibilities. I’m free of all cares.”

She said before peacefully closing her eyes.

As expected, Lin Xigeng was elected director of Taipei’s Construction Guild, a confirmation to Yinghong that their relationship would continue, except that she had not expected to be carrying his child.

Lin reacted to the news of the baby in his usual manner.

“Great. We’ll have a child with the good genes from both families. He’ll carry the Lin surname, but would not be a disappointment to your Zhu family,” Lin pronounced with customary confidence.

He had five children, three boys and two girls, from two marriages, which to him meant that children were not special gifts from heaven. Too preoccupied with expanding his business, he had no time to think about inheritance, nor did he spend much time with his children. He was simply too busy. But he firmly believed that “they’ll come see me on their own when they’re old enough to take over some of the business.”

“Their mothers may not want them to be too close to you out of resentment, so it may be too late when they’re older,” Yinghong commented with concern, looking at the matter from a woman’s perspective.

“I don’t believe so. Children identify with a successful father. As long as I do well, they’ll want to be with me, no matter what their mothers say,” he replied with self-assurance. “Don’t worry. Facts will prove I’m right.”

Many years later, after they were married, she had an opportunity to see that he was right. In order to fight for what they believed their children deserved, his former wives not only did not drive a wedge between their children and him out of personal spite, but actually encouraged the kids to fight over favors from him. At the time, along with the continuing economic boom in Taiwan, the real estate business was experiencing another high. Lin Xigeng, known to have large landholdings in the Taipei metropolitan area, saw his total worth increase many times over.