The Lost Garden Read online

  She had always thought her father was tall and slender.

  When she was in high school, a lesson in her Chinese literature textbook dealt with A New Account of Tales of the World. One day her father, struck by a sudden whim, took out an ancient-looking book lying flat on a carved sandalwood bookcase; it was a woodblock edition of Wondrous Tales of the World printed on bamboo paper. The bound cover looked well worn and the thread in the covers was coming loose, all signs of frequent use.

  “It should be in the language section,” Father mumbled to himself.

  He opened the book to reveal comments and annotations in vermillion ink that filled the yellowed pages, like red flower petals lodged between the lines. Flipping back and forth, he made the flowers flutter among the inky black characters.

  “No, so then it must be …”

  Quickly he turned to “Wit 25” and pushed the book over to Yinghong, who began to read word-by-word lines that had been punctuated with vermillion ink.

  “Sun Zijing, when he was young, had wanted to become a hermit, so he said to Wang Wuzi that one should use a rock as a pillow and flowing water to rinse one’s mouth. But it came out incorrectly as ‘using a rock to rinse the mouth and sleeping on flowing water.’ Wang objected by saying that water could not be used as a pillow and that a rock cannot rinse one’s mouth. Sun retorted that one could use flowing water as a pillow in order to wash one’s ears and a rock to rinse one’s mouth in order to sharpen the teeth.”

  Yinghong let out a soft cry. As a little girl, she had once sat on her father’s lap and listened to him explain the origin of “Flowing Pillow Pavilion”: using flowing water as a pillow. How can that be done? she recalled her father asking. Back then she’d hated it when Mudan dragged her up to a red wooden bucket and made her squat down to wash her hair, so she answered without thinking:

  “Sleeping on flowing water means you never have to wash your hair.”

  He roared with laughter. Unlike other people she’d seen laugh by cracking open their mouths and making tiny sounds, teeth still hidden behind stretched lips, her father would open his mouth wide to show his white teeth, and release loud, clear laughter, a sign of true delight.

  His laughter stopped her from discovering the true meaning of “using flowing water as a pillow” until that afternoon, when she held the ancient edition of Wondrous Tales of the World in her hands. With a cry of surprise, she said:

  “So it meant to use flowing water to rinse your mouth and pillow your head on a rock, but he made a mistake and reversed the two.”

  In high school, Yinghong was slightly over five feet tall, which placed her seat in the middle of the classroom. But a slender figure made her seem much taller. Standing by the bookcase with the thread-bound copy of the Wondrous Tales of the World, she was only half a head shorter than her father.

  So he was not particularly tall after all, and could only be considered a man of medium height among people of his generation. But he favored Japanese-style dress, a locally made cotton gown in a grayish blue. When he walked down the uneven verandah of Flowing Pillow Pavilion, he had to hike up the hem of his robe with one hand. Wind around the low hill in the open space would then be able to travel freely inside his robe, puffing it up enough that his normally gaunt body looked pleasingly trim and slender.

  It was not until high school that she had a true understanding of her father’s height, for before then she’d always had to look up at him; it was also about the same time when, through the allusion to “Flowing Pillow Pavilion,” that she began to have a vague understanding of her father’s admiration for Sun Zijing’s “Pillowing flowing water to wash one’s ears and rinsing with rocks to sharpen one’s teeth.” But at the time she was still unable to glimpse the profound meaning below the surface.

  Was it because of the name, then, that her father had always been partial to the pavilion among the many pavilions, terraces, and towers in Lotus Garden? She recalled that, according to a legend passed down by generations, the pavilion got its name because there happened to be a rivulet flowing by the small pavilion terrace when the garden was completed.

  Flowing Pillow Pavilion was on the west end of the garden, at the tip of a pond with irregular sides. A smaller pond of little more than a couple hundred square feet had been created by piling rocks near the pavilion; long wooden planks had been placed atop four stone pillars made of Jiaping white stone from Tangshan set in the pond, thus creating a small terrace that soared above the water. Flanking three sides of the terrace were hardwood bench seats, where one could sit and reach out to touch water lilies in the summer, when they bloomed profusely amid the graceful leaves. In mid summer, the lotus leaves might even reach across the bench seats, their lush, green figures spreading out to the middle of the pavilion.

  By the time October came to an end, the lotus flowers had long since turned into seedpods and the leaves were mostly dried up. Father would sit by the fan-shaped windows in the pavilion, keeping himself mostly in shadow. Perhaps because of the darkness around him, his face remained blurred in her memory. What she remembered most vividly was actually a dying lotus branch framed by the fan-shaped window. The lone stem was bathed in the light of the yellow setting sun, looking brilliant and glorious, as if gilded. But in no time, the autumn sun set, and she could no longer make out what she had written in her notebook: “I was born in the last year of the First Sino-Japanese War. …”

  I had always thought that the Sino-Japanese War was simultaneously the beginning and the end for the Taiwanese, for from that moment on, the fate of the Taiwanese was destined to be decided by others. My arrest and imprisonment, as well as the extermination of the Taiwanese elite, were simply another unavoidable continuation of the tragic fate of the Taiwanese. Except that, fortunately or unfortunately for me, I was released when they believed I was too ill to live much longer, which allowed me to drag on in my feeble existence to be an eyewitness as I awaited a Taiwanese future that could be even more tragic and deplorable.

  Which is why I’m convinced that on this land there can be no true paradise, no justice, no hope. In order for you, my beloved children, to start over in a new, unsoiled place, I sent your two older brothers to study abroad when they were young. I arranged for them to live in Japan and the United States of America with the express hope that they would have a clean, fresh start, without the entanglements and hindrances of the past. Only you, Ayako, my favorite little girl, were kept by my side because of my love for you. I was really worried that if you were to leave home at too young an age, a fragile girl like you would not know how to deal with the vast outside world. I therefore sought to console myself that you, Ayako, were, after all, a girl, for whom the most significant matter in life was to find a good husband. And that was why I indulged myself with this selfish desire and kept you by my side till you graduated from high school.

  But now that I have turned sixty, I cannot help but wonder every once in a while if I had any right to make these arrangements for all of you. As they have been away from a very young age, your brothers have basically forgotten about this land, their bloodline, and their familial continuity. They did indeed enjoy a new beginning, just as I had hoped. But if this new beginning turned out to be the ultimate break, then it will be I who severed the three-hundred-year continuance of the Zhu family in Taiwan. I may have given the Zhu clan two sons, two outstanding sons who hold doctoral degrees, but spiritually I have sundered the Zhu family bloodline.

  Ayako, at night, when I am struck by the reality that I sinned against eight generations of the Zhu family, I am startled out of my sleep, soaked in a cold sweat, and unable to go back to sleep. Ayako, you can probably understand my feelings, since you have always been my favorite and have stayed with me the longest. You are grown up now, and have gained experience overseas. Can you tell me if the decisions I made for you and your brothers were right or wrong? Did I have the right to make such important decisions for your lives?

  I imagine that your brothers, owing
to work and lifestyle, will not return to make a life in Taiwan. Their children, the ninth generation of the Zhu family, will surely stay in the United States, which means that their children and grandchildren will never again be Taiwanese. Ayako, I cannot help but pin my selfish hopes on you. Though you are a girl, Zhu family blood does, after all, flow in your veins. I don’t know why, but lately I have been possessed by the laughable idea that, as if arranged by an unknown force, you will be the one to revive the Zhu family. Don’t laugh at your father for having such a notion; I am probably just getting old.

  At the age of sixty with failing health, I have come to realize that what concerns me most, surprisingly, are the personal sentiments I was reluctant to talk about. Ayako, you are my favorite child. Have you given some thought to coming back to Taiwan to spend time with me before I die?

  The letter had not been sent through the postal service, and had obviously been spirited out of Taiwan by someone trustworthy, in order to escape inspection. There was no envelope. All she received were a dozen or so pieces of red-bordered white cotton paper filled with his handwriting in blue ink. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped onto the blue words. The handwritten Japanese hiragana script was made up of few strokes, rendering the wet words recognizable only for a while. On the Chinese characters, with their complex strokes, the blue ink quickly began to spread as soon as it came into contact with her tears; the words bled into each other until they were so blurry they lost their shape, turning into round, blue, water marks dotting the white paper.

  Snow still swirled outside the window, the result of the biggest snow-storm in New York in fifty years. As the night deepened, the darkening sky seemed to be under an assault by thousands of tons of snow, as if heaven and earth had broken apart and the sky was pressing down. Zhu Yinghong looked out the window, where flurries of snow were blurred by her teary vision. Her hometown would be visible only if she could see through a sky full of snow, across the American continent, and over the Pacific Ocean.

  She shivered in her room, where the heater was turned all the way up.

  She met him for the first time at a typical businessmen’s dinner in Taipei.

  They were introduced to one another as Mr. Lin, Chairman of the Board, Lin Xigeng, and Miss Zhu, Zhu Yinghong. She had been taken there by her uncle—her mother’s only brother, who at the time was planning to sell a piece of land to Lin or looking to develop the land with him.

  As “Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Board” at her uncle’s company, Yinghong was occasionally required to attend banquets with her uncle, a well-known figure in the business world, who had a long-standing strategy: with one or two women around (and not just a lady of the night who sold her body), the men who got together to talk business would behave in a more gentlemanly way, which in turn helped reduce disputes.

  From the surprised look in Lin’s eyes, she knew the moment they were introduced that she had caught his attention.

  “Ah, the Lucheng Zhu family,” he said, following up with a name of an important figure in the financial world. “I think he’s your—elder uncle. I know him.”

  She felt apprehensive. He obviously had some familiarity with her clan; she herself did not often get to see the elder uncle, an important figure in finance.

  But she merely smiled and gracefully took her seat.

  His youth and unexpected good looks surprised her. When he looked around, he had an arrogant, conceited expression, but his tall stature did make him stand out.

  “You’re younger than I thought,” she said. He smiled indulgently, with obvious self-satisfaction. A hint of self-assurance graced the perfect outline of his lips, a sign that he had received more compliments than he could count. What should have followed was, “It’s unusual to be so accomplished at such a young age,” but instead, Yinghong continued in an off-handed manner:

  “I’ve only read about you in the papers, and always thought you’d be a short, stocky businessman in his fifties or sixties.” She laughed at her own words. “And that you were connected with the underworld.”

  She saw a subtle, shy look flit across his face; it was unquestionably a bashful look, no matter how quickly it faded. That stopped her.

  Later they would, like many lovers, repeatedly return to when they first met. He would tease her about mentioning the underworld at their first encounter, and she would defend herself by saying that this was the impression she received from the news media, for he was a frequent subject for tabloid magazines, where he would be described this way:

  REAL ESTATE TYCOON PLUCKS A STAR OUT OF THE FIRMAMENT

  REAL ESTATE TYCOON ASSAULTED AT CONSTRUCTION SITE, TIES TO THE UNDERWORLD SUSPECTED

  LIN XIGENG SPECULATES ON LAND, INCURS WRATH OF MAJOR INVESTMENT COMPANY

  Along with the spurt of economic growth in Taiwan, the number of tabloid magazines also grew substantially; in any given month several would appear to embellish and propagate wondrous stories about individuals who had accumulated great riches in the export business. The salacious stories were told in an erotic and exaggerated tone to highlight the tycoons’ extravagances, including toilets made of gold in their houses, or how one was serviced simultaneously by a movie star and her mother, who was barely past prime.

  Ever since Lin Xigeng was assaulted at a construction site, the magazine that claimed to have the inside scoop insisted that he had ties to the underworld, speculating that he had to have close relationships with local thugs to protect his massive enterprises, with construction sites all over the island. The magazine even offered a convincing analysis that his payoffs at every site each year were enough to support half of one particular gang, which was why he was on equal footing with the leader of that gang, which in turn made other gangs very unhappy.

  At the time, a trade style unique to the island nation turned everything upside down and inside out; it was a time of anything goes and everything is possible. In an environment ripe for fanciful stories dealing with the underworld, a self-made man could become filthy rich almost overnight.

  With the coquettish smile typical of a spoiled, naive girl, Yinghong repeated for Lin the gossip in a magazine, although, befitting her social status, she politely avoided the most sensational details.

  Lin listened patiently, denying nothing, though with a perceptible show of shyness.

  It was a banquet typical of Taipei businessmen, with one hostess per man, known as a “flower arrangement.”

  The five or six girls that night all looked about the same—lightly made up, they did not appear to have come from the red-light district, trying hard to convince everyone that they were just ordinary women.

  At five feet three or taller, they had big bones and wide hips, thick arms and tall bodies; undressed, they would still display a full figure. Obviously, the highest-earning among their peers, these women, with their large frames, satisfied the demand for “good figures” by local men who were usually not particularly tall or their more important clients—Japanese men engaged in sex tourism.

  Naturally, they were all young, in their twenties, pretty but not beautiful. They wore ready-made clothes common in Taiwan, a bit too frilly for Yinghong’s taste, but in their view appropriate for evening wear. Some wore dresses with ruffled edges, some were in pencil skirts with side slits, and others had on layered-hem skirts that mimicked evening gowns. It was early spring, so not much flesh showed. Low waists with wide belts were in fashion, and, since the girls were large to begin with, six-inch-wide, bright, patent leather belts made them look even larger, their full-figured bodies overshadowing everything in sight.

  They sat, absent-mindedly, nonchalantly, never taking the initiative to talk or strike up a conversation with anyone. The men ignored them as well. When Yinghong took her seat, she noticed nothing unusual, except that none of the women at the table were talking; she thought they were being neglected. Then she heard that the girl across from her was named Chen, so she greeted her politely and inquired:

  “You’
re so young. Should I call you Miss Chen or Mrs. Chen?”

  With a languid, scornful smile, the girl answered lightly:

  “You can call me Fangfang.”

  What kind of woman would rather not use her family name? Yinghong wondered briefly before catching on.

  Like so many lovers, they often talked about their first meeting. He loved to tease her in a tender, indulgent way, remarking how, as a woman who had seen the world, she could have mistaken professional hostesses as women from good families. Even ask the girl if she should call her Miss Chen or Mrs. Chen.

  She would argue that they looked normal enough; they were just women. Later she realized that he enjoyed teasing her, for he obviously gained satisfaction from the fact that she was a pampered girl from a well-known family.

  So she let him tease her, burying her face in his arms and pummeling him gently.

  Like many typical banquets in Taipei’s business circles, dishes were brought out one after another, usually twelve in all. Liquor followed the food. The quiet girls sitting with the men now got into action, pouring drinks and offering toasts. Raising their glasses, they offered unvarying greetings:

  “My name is Manling (or Meilan, or Nancy, or Wawa, or Ziyan). I’m pleased to meet and learn from you. May I ask your honorable name, Sir?”

  The sirs gave them their names.

  “Mr. Lin (or Mr. Wang, or Mr. Li, or Mr. Wu, or Mr. Zhu). Here’s to you.”

  Glasses were raised.

  They poured drinks, they served food, and they passed out towelettes, all in a ritualistic, repetitive manner.