The Astonishing Color of After(19)

Waipo hands him a dan bing and soy milk and steps over to the altar. Her shaky fingers are surprisingly firm with a match. The flame follows her hand like a comet tail, settling into a dot of light as she touches it to incense. The woody smell drifts across the room. I watch the lazy curl of the smoke and think of the black sticks sitting in that box in my room. There are no whispers out here. Had I only imagined those?

Next to the incense bowl, there’s a wide ceramic vase painted with blue dragons, its glossy finish catching both light and shadow. Gray smoke pirouettes in front of the dragons. For a brief moment, one of them seems to swing its head around to peer at me through the haze, teeth bared, claws splayed. A blink, and the smoke shifts. The dragon is once more two-dimensional and unmoving, glaring off to the side in the direction of an unframed photograph that sits propped up against the edge of a fruit bowl.

I didn’t notice the picture before. It’s barely the size of my palm, black-and-white, worn and coated in fingerprints: two little girls sitting stiffly in high-backed chairs. A faded copy of the photograph I found in the box, the one I asked Dad about.

“Waipo,” I begin to say. But before I can figure out the words to ask about the girls, a loud chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp fills the apartment. At first I think it’s an actual bird, but there it goes again: chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp, too rhythmic, too exact. I’ve learned the precise and flattened quality of audio samples from watching Axel work on his compositions, and this is sort of the same—just a recorded bird vocalization on repeat.

Waipo swallows the last bite of her fantuan and rushes to throw open the front door.

It’s a deliveryman, holding a brown parcel in his arms.

My grandmother immediately launches into a fast and animated conversation. Her words sound completely different—the vowels wider, the consonants coming faster, stronger, syllables clicking and turning. She’s switched from Mandarin to Taiwanese. The phrases completely unrecognizable to me.

The deliveryman leaves, but as Waipo steps aside, a pale young woman comes into the apartment, her blouse printed with giant roses in shades of pink and green. She’s older than me, maybe college-age. Maybe older than that. I shift in my chair, shrinking into my loose tee and jeans. I didn’t pack much more beyond the things I usually wear at home, which all take into account the possibility that I might get charcoal or paint everywhere.

Waipo is still cheerfully rattling off words, now gesturing in my direction, saying my name. She tears into the box with a knife from the kitchen and begins to pull out packages of snacks, dried fruits, a tin of tea. For just a moment, she switches to Mandarin, throwing a sentence in my direction. Your father is the only thing I catch. When I shake my head, she shrugs and turns back to the package.

The woman gives me an uncertain smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, Leigh.”

Her English hits me like a splash of cold water. She has no accent at all.

“My name is Feng, but I also have an English name, if that’s easier—”

“Hi, Feng,” I rush to say, prickled by the idea that her one-syllable name would be too difficult for me. “Nice to meet you.”

“Popo says you speak a bit of Mandarin—would you prefer that?” Her hands flutter like moths, pale and nervous.

“English is fine.” Even as I say the words I feel my shoulders tightening with a sense of inadequacy.

“Sounds good!” Feng smiles. “English is great for me, too. A new skill, you could say. Ah, there’s green in your hair! Is that an American thing?”

“Um, I think it’s an anyone thing.”

“Oh. How unusual. People will probably think you’re some pop star.”

I’m dying to change the subject. “So how do you know my grandparents?”

“Well.” She looks embarrassed, uncertain. “I’ve known them a long time. I’m an old family friend.”

Waipo hands me a scrap of paper that was in the box—a pink piece of Hello Kitty stationery. There are two lines of Chinese words, but they’re scrawled out in Pinyin, the romanization system that Dad taught me when I was little. Since the letters are all from the English alphabet, I can sort of guess at how to pronounce the words, even if I have no idea what they actually say.

“What is this?” I ask.

“My address—just in case. But I doubt you’ll need it.”

I nod. “You live around here?”

“Temporarily. I’ve been away from home for a long time.”

And then she points my attention toward a stiff white gift bag that Waipo has just pulled out of the box. The front of the tote has Chinese characters printed across it in red calligraphic strokes. “I brought some fresh pastries, with different fillings—red bean, lotus seed paste, sesame. I made sure to get all my favorites for you to try. They’re delicious.”

Waigong’s already investigating the contents. He dips his head to smell one of the buns wrapped in waxy parchment.

My grandmother’s speaking in Taiwanese again. She comes to stand beside Feng; it’s clear the two of them are very close.

In the shiny glass of a picture frame, I can see the three of us reflected. Feng looks like she should be the granddaughter, with her sleek black ponytail, her dark eyes, her delicate features. I’m the one who doesn’t match. Thin hair, brown plus the stripe of color, nowhere near as shiny and thick. My eyes too pale.