The Lost Garden Read online

  Luohan would usually follow the boat ride with stories of shipboard murders for the passengers’ valuables. Transporting several hundred people in a leaky boat, the bandits, who were seasoned sailors, would order their passengers into the cabin and seal them inside. They would set off in the dead of the night and, when they were well into the ocean, the overcrowded leaky boat would naturally begin to sink. Another ruse was to take the passengers to a sandbar, which they claimed to be Taiwan, and tell them to get off. Not knowing what was happening, the travelers got off and drowned when the tides rose.

  These were the scariest stories, which he told succinctly, but with terrifying effect, since his brief narration left so much room for her imagination to run wild. She came to fear the water in the Taiwan Straits, which, contrary to the clear blue described in books, was eerie red, like rouge, or black, like ink, both unusual ocean colors that were predictably strange and frightening.

  After hearing these tales, she was afraid to get up at night and had to get Mudan to accompany her when she needed to use the toilet. When he got wind of that, Father would not allow Luohan and Mudan to tell her such stories again.

  The last story she heard was about a battle between the pirates and Qing soldiers. Following his usual narrative style of few details, Luohan described how, when the people from both sides began to fight, the colors in the sky were clear, red on one side and blue on the other. Over the first few days, the sky quickly turned blood red, which lasted several days and nights, pressing down as if setting the land on fire as well. Now everyone knew that the pirates were winning, forcing the Qing soldiers back. Only a sliver of blue remained in the sky, on the verge of being swallowed up by red. But it was clear that the blue side was not destined for destruction yet, for the last shred of blue was able to hold off the attack and slowly gain ground inch by inch, restoring its blue dominance. Everyone knew that the Qing navy had regained control, and the sky was once again divided into red and blue. More battles, and the sky parted down the middle; the red would advance only to be beaten back by the blue. In the end the blue side won, and people knew that the pirates had been defeated.

  Later, Father produced logical and reasonable explanations for everything. For instance, the water in the red and black ditches was not really red or black. The black current was affected by seasonal winds that produced eddies, altering the color of the waves. And the battle between the soldiers and the pirates did not change the colors of the sky. That was caused by burning cargo boats, setting the distant sky ablaze. Nonetheless, Yinghong could never get over her fears instilled by the eerie image of the sky divided down the middle, red on one side and blue on the other, as the combatants fought. Sometimes she dreamed about the destructive, frightening battle of colors in the sky, dreams that returned after Lin Xigeng told her he was leaving her.

  Father’s alternate explanation for the pirates helped eliminate her nagging concerns. At the time, he had just finished removing the pines and oaks in the garden, and their replacements, the flame trees, were in full bloom. He had also begun repairing the roofs of the several pavilions and towers, while planting smaller trees and flowering plants.

  First he dug up plum trees by Long Rainbow Lying by the Moon. The plums were cold-weather flowers that showed off an ability to withstand the snow and frost, but in hot central Taiwan their withered branches were devoid of any sign of resilience. She had not once seen them bloom. So Father replaced them with Taiwanese magnolia and banana shrubs. The broad-leaved magnolia had fragrant flowers with long white jadelike petals, usually hidden among leaves. You could smell the flowers but couldn’t find them, though their cool, subtle fragrance lingered for a long time on summer days. In contrast, the squat banana shrubs had smaller leaves, with beige, cone-shaped flower buds, called smile flowers, like almonds, easily within reach. On winter afternoons, they gave off a sweet aroma. She imitated her father in putting one in her pocket and letting it turn soft, with a sweet fragrance, warmed by her body.

  Father planted the smile flowers by the path at the garden entrance.

  “That way we welcome our guests with a smile.” So Father had said, though they had few visitors when she was in elementary school, even up through early middle school.

  In addition to Taiwanese magnolia and banana shrubs, Father also planted tree orchids and gardenias. In Taiwan fragrant flowers are normally white; tree orchids, however, had yellow blooms that sprouted from tiny green beads that were barely visible among the green leaves. When they bloomed, the flowers were half the size of a rice kernel, but bloomed in such profusion that they had a noticeable aroma and color.

  Gardenias are small compared to other fragrant blooming trees. Yet when they bloom, the small, squat trees come alive with large, multipetalled white flowers, giving the impression of high density. With a tree full of fragrant flowers, they are typical aromatic tropical bloomers.

  Father also planted cassia. Lucheng’s autumn is often besieged by strong winds from the ocean that keep the number of cassia flowers low, but enough to produce a pervasive aroma. Hence, fragrant flowers graced Lotus Garden all year round, starting with the gardenias in late spring, the Taiwanese magnolia and tree orchids in the summer, cassias in the fall, and banana shrubs in the winter.

  Besides blooming trees and flowers, Father planted fragrant shrubs, such as his favorite, jasmine, which bloomed in early summer. Mudan had a different name for the jasmine, whose tiny white flowers bloomed at dusk; she called them “maidservant flowers,” her logic being that they must have been transformed maidservants or they would not bloom in the evening, when people do the dishes.

  Father had stopped Mudan from telling her stories, but Mudan had a bad memory, and in her mouth the jasmine was the reincarnation of a wrongly accused maidservant, which, on summer evenings, reminded Yinghong of why such a delicate fragrant flower would bloom at a time when all other flowers were resting.

  It was over the fragrant flowers of the subtropics that Father again brought up Zhu Feng, their pirate ancestor of more than three hundred years before.

  “The pirates had large fleets, equipped with cannons and long guns. Their targets were large merchant ships loaded with goods for trade.” He adopted a serious tone as he continued, “As for those who mistreated immigrating passengers or forced them onto the sandbar to drown, they weren’t even eligible to be pirates. They were plain murderers.”

  She smiled with relief.

  “So Zhu Feng didn’t kill anyone,” she said. “I’m going to tell Luohan and Mudan.”

  “That’s not entirely true either.” Father was searching for a good explanation. “The pirates were going after cargo, so it was unavoidable that weapons would be involved, and it was also inevitable that they would kill or be killed.”

  As he continued, his eyes began to sparkle.

  “Ayako, I’m going to tell you a story passed down by our ancestors. Once, when Zhu Feng dispatched a dozen seafaring ships to surround a Dutch fleet, he dealt the redheaded Dutch such a resounding defeat that they had to abandon their ships. Just think, Ayako, back then he had a few dozen seafaring ships and the Dutch called him the China Captain.”

  Fragrant flowers blooming at various times year round filled the garden’s terraces, pavilions, and towers. In hot and humid subtropical Taiwan, the heady fragrance of the many varieties of summer flowers and the subtly aromatic lilies from the big pond seemed even more redolent, as they fused with moist air until the combined effects of the flowers lingered in the air for a long time and created an intoxicating effect.

  “China Captain, the Captain of China, Ayako. China Captain,” Father continued in his usual Japanese. “We must remember that only a real man like Zhu Feng, who was used to riding the wind and sailing the ocean, who was not afraid to die, could be the ancestor of immigrants across the Taiwan Straits to open new routes and help maritime trade grow.”

  She nodded earnestly to show she would never forget what he had said.

  “The early immigra
nts to Taiwan relied on the guidance of the pirates and even sailed in their ships for safe passage across the Straits. You must remember, Ayako, that not all the early immigrants were poor, nor were they all refugees. In fact, there were quite a few adventurers like Zhu Feng, who tried to find a paradise in a faraway place blocked by the ocean. Taiwan was their newfound paradise.”

  Father paused and asked solemnly:

  “Ayako, do you know what Formosa means?”

  “Beautiful Island.”

  She was able to answer promptly because of his instruction in the past.

  “Yes, Beautiful Island, a rich island with fragrant flowers the year round, with emerald-green plains and snow-capped mountains.”

  Then, in the powerfully intoxicating aroma of flowers, Father began to speak slowly, looking at her in the utmost serious and solemn way:

  “Ayako, you must remember that Taiwan is not a copy or microcosm of any other place on earth. Taiwan is Taiwan, a beautiful island.”

  It was early summer, after the spring rains, when gardenias began to spread their perfume, and Father began renovating the “dragon wall” behind Lotus Pavilion in order to separate the pavilion from the eastern side of the garden.

  A “dragon wall” is a fence that follows the contours of the land; like other common walls, it is higher than a person of average height. The only difference is the dragon that sprawls along the top; the clay dragon’s head is raised high, while its long body is made of semicircular roof tiles that are fitted to look like real dragon scales from the side. The scaly dragon body coils and spreads over the undulating wall, resembling a true, auspicious dragon.

  “This kind of wall has a name; it’s called ‘cloud soaring dragon wall.’ It’s not commonly seen in ordinary people’s houses because dragons are traditionally considered to be the symbol of the emperor and a taboo for commoners.”

  Standing by the wall and dwarfed by its height, Father looked frail owing to his medium build and his recent recovery from a long illness. The dragon wall helped create a square courtyard behind Lotus Pavilion, while also serving as a barrier for a copse of trees to the east. Like the average fence, there was a moon gate for passage, framed by the giant, clay dragon heads, with their fangs and claws circling the top of the gate, while their bodies extended away with the wall. Following the custom of garden architecture, their tails were hidden among the next rows of terraces and pavilion, a place where they could not be easily detected.

  “The ancestors who built the garden wanted to use the ‘cloud soaring dragons,’ but were afraid to offend the emperor by using his symbol, which was why they created a creature that resembled a dragon, but wasn’t one.”

  Father led her to a spot below the wall, where he pointed to a clay dragon head that had turned blurry from the elements.

  “See, this dragon has fish scales, shrimp eyes, an ox nose, deer antlers, and eagle talons. At first glance it looks like a traditional dragon, but, Ayako, look carefully and you’ll see that our dragons have only four talons, not the normal five.”

  Still a child at heart, Yinghong raised her slender index finger to count.

  “One, two, three, four. It really has only four talons.”

  That drew a smile from Father.

  “The ancestors who built the garden were the richest men in Taiwan back then. Taiwan was far from the Central Plain, a true manifestation of ‘the sky is high and the emperor is far away.’ They wanted to use the dragon, but didn’t dare overdo it, and that is how our four-taloned dragon came into existence. With one less talon than the emperor’s golden dragon, they showed they didn’t dare consider themselves his equal, and if anything were to happen because of it, they would have a way out.”

  She nodded, not fully grasping the import of what he had just said.

  “Ayako, we should be happy that we’re no longer like our ancestors. Now we live in an era without an emperor, and we can create a golden dragon with five talons.”

  Then he sighed and his face darkened.

  “Even so, when will Taiwan gain democracy?”

  Despite his heavy heart, he was cheerful as he located an old master to renovate the cloud soaring dragon wall. The decaying dragon heads received a new coat of paint and the broken tiles of the bodies were replaced. He even asked the skillful master to give the dragons an additional talon each, making them true golden dragons.

  “Let’s consider the additional talon as the beginning of democracy for Taiwan. It’s better than nothing.”

  He smiled bitterly as he examined the newly renovated dragon.

  The garden was more or less fully renovated when masons finished repairing the cloud soaring dragon wall. The woodwork was repaired and repainted in the spring of her second year in junior high. On the day the work was completed, Father personally planted the last tree, a Cape lilac, in Lotus Garden.

  The Cape lilac, called “bitter berry” by the locals, was planted in a wide-open space near Yinghong Pavilion. After watering it for the first time, Father said in his preferred language of Japanese:

  “Bitter berry is the name I want; it means longing and experienced bitterness.” Looking at the people around him, he continued, “I hope we’ll never forget the bitterness or this experience.”

  A plant in the silk tree family, the Cape lilac, though having bitterness in its local name, grew into a tall tree with flowers so pretty they could only come from a dream when they bloom. Every spring and summer, it was covered in white flowers that gave off an unusual but pleasant fragrance, one with a hint of bitterness that wafted like lingering silk thread, as Father had said.

  The tree covered with white flowers seemed shrouded in mist. Unlike flowers formed by petals, Cape lilacs have long, thin whiskerlike white stamens and pistils that radiate from the center, giving them a dreamy, puffy cloudlike appearance. When the tree is in bloom, it looks as though a patch of wayward clouds has temporarily stopped at the tips of the green leaves. Without the usual petals, the flowers, with their threadlike stamens and pistils, seem loosely connected and almost unreal, as if one of the island’s frequent typhoons could blow them out of sight.

  The Cape lilac flowers are particularly dense this year. The seemingly endless patch of white, for some reason, has instilled in me a feeling that everything will soon turn into nothing.

  I picked this spot for the tree solely because only Yinghong Pavilion had a large-enough space for it; I didn’t give it much thought or consideration. Now when I look at the misty, bitter white flowers serving to contrast “yinghong” in the name of the pavilion, I have to marvel at the coincidence and how everything seems to have been predestined. White bitter flowers against shadowy red. The flowers will bloom and fall to the ground. The flowers in the water are left in the shadowy red. Isn’t everything an illusion, and won’t it all turn to nothing?

  Planting the Cape lilac by Yinghong Pavilion was a purely unintentional act, and it wasn’t until just now that I finally understand the profound implication of its location. If everything in the past and in the future will turn into nothing, then won’t even the “bitterness” also be an illusion? Wouldn’t what I never managed to forget, and even planted a bitter berry tree as a reminder to myself, also be illusory and punctilious? It’s easy to see through the prosperous side of life, for, if one can be at ease with bitterness, then what else should one pursue?

  But, Ayako, do not be affected by my mentality, which is a result of old age, a time when I have learned to take everything lightly. You need to remember, however, the couplet from our ancestor at the lily pond closest to Yinghong Pavilion:

  In a quite little garden, startled geese soar into the sky on the wind,

  In the boundless green leaves, feathered friends frolic in shadowy red.

  This is the real origin of your name. Just imagine how happy and bustling it is, with a pond filled with red water lilies serving as the backdrop for the startled geese, our feathered friends.

  Speaking of bustling, I must tell you about
the flame trees in the garden. Ayako, you must still remember when the garden was renovated, how I planted many flame trees in the garden because they were my favorite. I hadn’t realized that they would continue to grow and, more than a decade later, tower over everything; their trunks are now so thick only an adult can wrap his arms around them. Their leaves and branches spread into all the terraces and pavilions, press down on eaves, and take up so much space that they have become an oddity, unfit for the overall look of the garden. But I did not want to trim them and turn them into dwarf trees. In the end, I had no choice but to move them elsewhere. Now even the small hill by Authenticity Studio has only three left, but that was the only way to keep the branches from crisscrossing so much they could crowd each other out of existence.

  I planted the flame trees because they were my favorites. I never expected that one day I would have to move them out of Lotus Garden. You see, Ayako, how the world can be so mutable. Perhaps the only way to live a carefree life is not to care too much about love and hate.

  It was May, but there was still snow on the streets of New York that year. A muddy gray was all anyone could see—an ashen sky and melting gray snow on the roadside. The only exception was some scrawny forsythia that kept up with the season and struggled to open a few sprigs of yellow flowers.

  She thought she could hear her father saying:

  “The flame trees can be considered typical Taiwanese flora. On an island nation with its high temperatures, the fiery red flowering trees, with their resilience, are just like the Taiwanese, who maintain a burning red heart no matter what setbacks they encounter.”

  There were sparkles of tears in the eyes of her father, who had just recovered from the long illness.

  “Ayako, do you know that what I want to do most now is fill the garden with flame trees and change its name to Phoenix Garden? Wouldn’t that be more Taiwanese? But …”