The Astonishing Color of After(77)

Minutes later, it’s Fred who appears. He scowls at us. “I told you to behave like normal customer!”

Before I can say anything, Waipo starts spewing words. She points to the piece of paper in my hand.

“I’m trying to figure out who brought this to us,” I say. “It was under the baozi.”

Fred snatches up the paper and reads it, his eyes scanning impatiently from side to side. “What is this?”

“I think it’s an Emily Dickinson poem.”

“Emily Dickinson,” he repeats slowly. Again, even slower. “Emily. Dickinson.”

“Right. Do you… know who that is?”

He shakes his head. But then, a moment later, his eyes widen. He pulls up a nearby stool and sits down at the end of our booth. “I know this name, Emily Dickinson. We burned the poem by Emily Dickinson for the wedding.”

“What wedding?” I ask sharply.

His voice drops. “When I married the ghost of Chen Jingling.”

I stare at him, speechless.

“You don’t know?” he says, reading the expression on my face.

I shake my head.

“Okay.” Fred sighs. “I don’t want to talk here. First you have to see.”

“See what?” I ask.

He points out the window. “Look at those trees.”

I squint through the lights reflected in the pane, through greasy smudges of fingerprints on the glass, try to find something in the dark outside to focus my eyes on. After a moment I see the silhouette of trees, a cluster of them not too far from the teahouse.

“Kan dao le ma?” asks Waipo. Do you see?

What am I supposed to be seeing?

“Energy flow through trees,” Fred says quietly. “Watch the leaves.”

And there it is. The sharp, silhouetted edges shifting and melting, forming the shapes of animals and humans. The shadows extract themselves from the tops of the branches, pull free, and drift upward into the sky, turning to a pale mist before vanishing into the darkness. Every time I blink, my eyes have to resettle, refocus, find the edges all over again.

“Where there is a shape, there is a spirit,” says Fred. “People have those statue of Guan Yin and they know there is something there, filling the shape. But then those people forget about the original shapes made by the earth. The trees hold spirits, too.”

“Gui?” I ask, looking at Waipo. Ghosts?

She nods.

“You should never shine a torch at trees,” Fred tells me. “The light disturb the spirits. Right now because it is Ghost Month we can see them clearly here, so close to Jilong. Most people try not to see the ghosts. They just burn offerings and ignore signs. But if you look and try to see, you will see.”

There’s something beautiful about the way the shadows move. Like contortionists. Like dancers. Like brushstrokes across a canvas.

I watch carefully to see if there’s a large bird. If there’s a silhouette that might be my mother.

Fred reaches across the table for the last bun. He crams the whole thing into his mouth. “Now we drive back so your grandmother can rest. Then I’ll tell you everything.”





79





On the third floor of Fred’s bed-and-breakfast, there’s a balcony with chairs and a table situated right up against its stone wall. Overhead, the vague shapes of gentle giants shift across the sky, clouds veiled by night. We sit here in the quiet dark, Fred on one side of the table with an unlit cigarette between his fingers, me on the other, leaning on my elbows and gazing out over the town. Breezes whisper past our faces. For the first time since arriving in Taiwan, I find myself feeling cold.

He slides the cigarette behind his ear and pulls out a box of matches. “You have the poem?”

I hand it to him and watch as he cracks open a flame and touches it to the scrap of paper, drops it into the porcelain ashtray.

“This came from a ghost. Now we send it back.” He holds the cigarette in the small fire until it catches.

If I squint my eyes, I can just barely make out the lines of the mountains. I can see the sparkle of lights like gemstones on the surface of the water.

“Many years ago, when I still live in Taipei, I go to Shilin to visit my sister. I was walking to her apartment, and I saw a red pocket on the ground. Someone dropped it.” Fred pauses and looks up at me. “You know red pocket?”

“They have money in them, right? They’re given for, like, Chinese New Year?”

“Yes,” Fred says. “I pick up the red pocket, and think how lucky I am. I really need money! But inside, instead of money, there is—how do you say it? Hair. A pinch of hair?” He gestures with his fingers as if they’re stroking along silky strands. “A bunch of hair?”

“A lock of hair?”

“Yes! A lock of hair. It was tied using ribbon. Then your grandfather stepped out from behind a corner. He was hiding. He told me the hair belong to his daughter, Chen Jingling, and I have to marry her.”

“But she was dead?”

“Yes. So I have to partake in a ghost wedding.”

“But couldn’t you say no? They couldn’t force you to do it, right?”

“I did it because they were grieving. So they could have peaceful hearts if they know their daughter has a husband. But, you know, see this?” He points to the birthmark on his cheek. “If someone is marked by the universe, there must be a good reason. I think to myself, this is part of my destiny. Also, if you have a ghost wife, sometimes she will bring good fortune.”