The Lost Garden Read online

  She did exactly what her father had done by planting mature trees. One fall afternoon a few years later, when the renovation was near completion, she sat on her father’s favorite Jiaping white stone terrace at Flowing Pillow Pavilion. A casual glance drew her attention to the red dots on the water in front of her. She scooped some up and saw that they were star fruit flowers, but there were no star-fruit trees nearby. So she followed the floating flowers, tracing them past several pavilions, terraces, and towers along the way, until she reached the small man-made waterfall, where she was surprised to find mature star fruit trees by Authenticity Studio. Their thick branches and dense leaves reached into the water, which was how the petals fell into the stream, past the artificial hills and winding paths and the pavilions and terraces, before appearing in every corner of Lotus Garden, with its crisscrossing waterways.

  Tears blurred her vision.

  I have spent most of my life in Lotus Garden, but only recently, when I learned how to observe small things, did I find myself captivated by the many wondrous sights and minute occurrences in the garden. Our world is filled with endless surprises and mysteries; nothing is possible and everything is possible.

  When Father wrote this letter, he must have seen flowers from the transplanted star fruit trees flowing down the waterways and reaching into every corner. The tiny teardrops of flowers traveled past pavilions and terraces, through the many ages of the human world and the vicissitudes of life in Lotus Garden.

  In addition to planting star fruit trees, Father also cut down the original beech trees on the hill behind Authenticity Study and replaced them with flame trees.

  “The ancients planted beech by their study because it portended good luck at the scholars’ examination. Such feudal beliefs are not only outmoded but should be completely eliminated.”

  He turned solemn as he spoke:

  “If one day democracy can be found in Taiwan, the Taiwanese will have a good life, even if it is the Western or Japanese type, even if it’s just a semblance of democracy, so long as no one holds the idea of a mandate from heaven.”

  During the first few years after the transplanting, the flame trees looked rather ordinary, except for the leaves that littered the ground when winter came. The sparse-looking trees in turn brightened up the area near the study, allowing the warm winter sun to slant in and climb up the scrolls on the white walls, where the warmth from the sun remained, then dissipated as it began to set.

  “The plane trees were planted so we could see their leaves fall, but the Taiwan coral planes never shed their leaves. Now we have flame trees with fallen leaves in the winter. Wouldn’t you call this one action with multiple results?” Father said laughingly, obviously in high spirits.

  When the flame trees began to bloom, the profusion of flowers overshadowed the green leaves, bringing Father a different kind of pleasure. With the onset of summer, the leaves were small, but the buds were already showing their faces, in two shades of red—orange and bright red. As the temperature rose higher and higher, the flame flowers looked as though they had been bathed in fire and were reborn; like the phoenix, they spread their petals and bloomed, cradling the whiskerlike yellow stamens as if ready to soar into the air.

  Any two of the flowers, which turned a fiery red with the arrival of each heat wave, could fit in the palm of your hand. Dozens of them formed clusters that hung high up on branches to create fire clouds against the clear blue sky of a summer day.

  As the heat lost its intensity, flowers nurtured by the high temperature began to wither, even though it was still the height of summer; soon they would all be gone. But they showed a lingering affection for the world on branches that were now laden with delicate but fully grown leaves, like the tail of a phoenix, swaying and roiling in the wind, and that is how they got their local name: phoenix flowers.

  Father was besotted with the flame trees to the point of obsessiveness.

  “You can say that flame trees are typically Taiwanese. On an island nation at this latitude, with its high temperatures, the fiery trees are hardy and resilient, just like the Taiwanese, who maintain a fervent heart no matter what setbacks they encounter.” Father continued, “Ayako, you know what I want most is to fill this garden with flame trees and change its name to Phoenix Garden. That would reflect a true Taiwanese flavor, don’t you think? But …”

  Naturally, Father never did change the name of the garden. But every year, when the flowers bloomed in early summer, he spent all day under the trees, reading, even napping. She also liked to bring up a stool and sit by his side, still haunted by the fear that he’d abruptly disappear for a long time; then, when he returned, he would stay inside the Flowing Pillow Pavilion for years, not showing his face.

  Most of the time, she could not manage to keep watch for long, and soon she’d lean against him and fall into a deep slumber in the lethargic summer air, forcing him to stay in his lounge chair for most of the afternoon. As he lay face up, distance was distorted, giving him the impression that the clusters of fiery red blooms were pressing down on him, filling every inch of his field of vision. By contrast, the azure blue sky of central Taiwan, now visible only through the leaves and flowers, seemed to spread out into the distance. The sky appeared to have never before been so far and so high.

  When she was thirteen, Yinghong tested into a provincial girl’s middle school in a town that was a thirty-minute bus ride from Lucheng. With the imminent beginning of the new semester, she had to cut off her long, fine hair and replace it with a uniform haircut that made her look like she was wearing half a watermelon rind. Father and Mother even had a fight over the haircut.

  In the summer following the exam, Father began teaching her English, starting with the alphabet, pronunciation, and a few words. In addition, he began telling her about the Zhu ancestors, usually under the flame trees after she woke up from her afternoon nap.

  “When we talk about our forebears, the Zhu clan likes to begin with Zhu Jiancheng. Our family lineage record begins with him. Some even say that Zhu was not our surname at first, but was given to us by the Zhu emperor of the Ming dynasty, to share the imperial surname.”

  With his eye on the fiery flowers, Father began casually:

  “I disagree. I’ve looked through regional and county gazetteers and have found nothing to substantiate such a claim. I believe, fundamentally, that the Zhu family should not have considered it an honor to abandon their original surname and adopt the name of the ruling emperor. You must keep this in mind, Ayako.”

  Thirteen-year-old Yinghong had yet to see why it was not a good idea to adopt the emperor’s surname, but she nodded obediently at what her father said.

  “There’s also a minor discrepancy in beginning the family lineage record with Zhu Jiancheng, who came to Taiwan during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor and developed Zhuluo County in central Taiwan, where he acquired a large quantity of land and property. One record shows that he harvested thousands of tons of rice to fill his storehouse, thus laying the foundation of the Zhu family fortune, and is deserving of our respect. But why wouldn’t the record go back further to include his ancestors, such as his father or his grandfather? Do you know why, Ayako?”

  She shook her head, for she did not understand everything he was saying.

  “My speculation is that whoever began the lineage record decided to skip that part because Zhu Jiancheng’s forebears must have done something dishonorable and shameful. As a child, I’ve heard elders whisper among themselves tales of our ancestors having been pirates.”

  Delighted by this, she giggled in a crisp voice that retained a hint of girlishness.

  “That’s wonderful, Otosan. Pirates! Were they like those in the stories you’ve told me, those who bury treasure on small islands?”

  “Maybe,” Father smiled. “I checked all the regional and county gazetteers until I finally discovered someone who may well be the first in our Zhu family to come to Taiwan. His name was Zhu Feng, and he ought to have been Zhu Jia
ncheng’s grandfather. I went to the Upper House to ask Grand Uncle, who agreed that some people in our clan do accept Zhu Feng as our earliest recorded ancestor.”

  Looking at him with her beautiful, big eyes under long lashes, she asked:

  “What did he do that was so bad that we have disowned him?”

  “He was a pirate who killed and plundered, so it was unavoidable and reasonable that later generations would feel shame.”

  Father stared into the distance as he looked at the flowers.

  “But we have to take note that Zhu Feng was no small-time pirate,” he went on. “He is mentioned in the county gazetteer, where he is described as a brave, gallant, and righteous person who made great contributions to local development and was praised by later generations. Records also show that he helped smuggle residents from the Hokkien and Canton areas across the Taiwan Straits when the late-Ming government banned immigration to Taiwan. So he obviously wasn’t just a murderous pirate.”

  “Then why was he dropped?” she asked anxiously.

  “My sense is that it has to do with the piracy business of the time. It was late in the sixteenth century, when the Ming government had a policy of no contact with the outside world, which gave pirates an indispensible role to play in trade between Japan, the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, and the South Pacific.” Father spoke to her somberly in elegant Japanese. “Pirates being pirates, they would surely plunder and pillage along the coast. But, they also helped by transporting deerskins and sugar from Taiwan and silk and medicine from China, and facilitated trade with Japan and the Netherlands. So you can say that pirates were Taiwan’s earliest global businessmen.”

  He began to slow down, and his tone turned despondent.

  “But with the fall of the Ming, the Qing empire naturally wanted to contain the pirates and bring them into the fold. When the pirate leader Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing, the pirates’ enterprise came to an end.”

  He stopped and sighed softly.

  “You can imagine how restricted Zhu Feng’s maritime activities would have become by then. He probably faced two choices, either change his name and settle on land, or remain on the run with Qing soldiers after him.”

  “So which one did he choose?” She asked. “Was he killed?”

  “No, but I think he was too used to the freedom of the ocean to settle on land and live out his years. He had to continue his old trade. The records of his last days all have him being chased by Qing ships all the way to Luzon.”

  Yinghong’s large eyes darkened.

  “But that still doesn’t explain why our ancestors didn’t include Zhu Feng’s name in our lineage record,” Father continued without looking at her. “That was reasonable and obvious: Zhu Feng refused to submit to the Qing imperial system, which probably displeased the local officials in Taiwan. Hence the Zhu family was worried that such an independent-spirited ancestor would have a negative impact on their accumulated wealth.”

  The thirteen-year-old girl had yet to fully comprehend what her father was saying, but she continued to listen attentively because pirates were involved and she wanted to hear more exciting stories.

  “Now we have to talk about Zhu Feng’s wife,” Father said, changing the subject. “Our family records have very detailed descriptions of her. We know she was born a Chen, the offspring of a Hoklo immigrant, with indigenous and Dutch blood. She was pretty, tall with big eyes, but not those slanted, single-fold eyes typical of the yellow race. Hers were more like the indigenous or white people, big with double folds.”

  He reached out and touched her face with loving tenderness.

  “Maybe big eyes like yours.”

  Ignoring the puzzled look on her face, he continued:

  “I’ve been thinking that she must have encouraged him to stay on land, but he didn’t listen to her. Worse yet, he abandoned her and their four young children. He ran off to the South Pacific with a Mainland Chinese concubine, a courtesan who had slanted eyes and bound feet. The woman from the Chen family, with her non-Chinese blood, must have had unbound feet.”

  With no more talk of pirates, Yinghong began to lose interest, but she remained seated, as required by her father’s instruction.

  “It was clearly difficult for the woman from the Chen family to raise four children all on her own, so they began to fall ill and three of them died. Only the second one survived, and he would be Zhu Jiancheng’s father. He didn’t live long either. Before his son was born, he died of lung disease from over-exhaustion as a carter. So Zhu Jiancheng was raised by his grandmother, the Chen woman. Zhu later made a name for himself and remained loyal to his grandmother, letting her control everything in the house. She died at the advanced age of ninety-four.”

  Noticing that her attention was flagging, he patted her on the head.

  “The family lineage records show that she was a tireless, capable head of the family who was more decisive and powerful than any man. She established the many rules that the Zhu family followed over the next two hundred years. One of them was never in writing; it was passed down by word of mouth, dictating that no one in the Zhu family was to add Zhu Feng to the lineage record and reincorporate him into the family. Rumor has it that she made a brutal vow that the Zhu family would be ruined if anyone dared to do that.”

  It was the height of summer when she returned to Lotus Garden with him for the first time. Under a canopy of fiery, red flame blossoms, she told him about her distant ancestors, a pirate who was active along the coasts of Taiwan, China, and Japan three hundred years before, as well as his wife and her vow.

  After she finished, he looked at her and said in a serious tone:

  “Your father’s views are very interesting. According to him, pirates were the progenitors of Taiwan’s trade. If that’s the case, then it was no coincidence that Taiwan rose three hundred years later in international trade.”

  He had always been cautious when the topic involved her father, and now he changed the subject and began to tease her:

  “If I ran off with another woman, would you denounce me like your great-, great-, great-grandmother and deny me peace and quiet even after my death?”

  She was quiet, smiling with her head down, before she teased him with a question of her own:

  “Would you dare?”

  Lin Xigeng roared in laughter.

  “You do look as though you have pirate’s blood in you,” he said. “You have your great-, great-, great-grandmother’s genes, and the day you murder me I won’t know why.”

  She pummeled him with her fists, but then began to giggle and fell into his arms.

  When the night deepened, they got up to return to Lotus Pavilion, where they would spend the night. It was so cool in the verdant Lotus Garden that he had a sudden urge to take her on the ground under the flame trees. She didn’t say no. Outdoors sex was titillating to begin with, and the mysterious, abandoned garden added even more stimulation and excitement.

  She lay on the ground in his arms. A bright, clear moon moved above them, making the phoenix flowers visible by its light. Only in spots heavy with layered flowers and leaves did dark shadows form to display a heaviness that seemed to hint at a bloody battle.

  Under the red flower–laden trees, she waited, but he suddenly stopped moving.

  “Why do I have the feeling that your pirate ancestor is somewhere nearby, lingering like a wronged ghost, watching us?”

  In addition to Father, Yinghong had two additional sources for stories about pirates: Mudan and her husband, Luohan.

  She begged Mudan for stories, but this time the maid slapped her thigh with her large, bony hand.

  “How would someone like me know stories about pirates, those bad people who loot and burn?” Then she changed her tune. “But if you promise not to cause me any trouble or ruin the star fruit before it’s ripe, I can tell you who’s a source for pirate stories.”

  Naturally, Yinghong promised her anything.

  “Go ask Luohan. One of his ancestors was
an infamous evildoer in Water Ditch on the coast near Lucheng.”

  Luohan had a nickname, “The Caponer,” because of what he used to do when he was young. A tall man with a refined look, he was bossed around by Mudan all day long, but nothing disagreeable ever showed on his agreeable face. He was a man of few words, and when he talked he was succinct and articulate, to which Mudan attributed his love of local drama. Whenever a show was put on in Lucheng, he wouldn’t go home until he finished watching the entire play, no matter what was playing, an amateur Beiguan drama, a Nanguan play, Taiwanese opera, or a puppet show. One time, when the nearby Temple of the Zhu Patriarch put on a Taiwanese opera to celebrate the deity’s birthday, Luohan took her along to watch, and didn’t return until midnight, for which they both received a severe tongue-lashing from Mudan.

  But it required Mudan’s help to get Luohan to talk. Usually, after finishing his work in the garden, he would squat by the wall and smoke his pipe, the crackling the only audible sound around. On this day Yinghong squatted beside him to hear the stories.

  Luohan began with the ocean, how the water was white when the boat first left the Mainland for Taiwan, but turned blue as the journey progressed. Then the boat would cross the “red ditch,” where the water was as red as the rouge on women’s faces. This was when the boatmen began tossing spirit money into the water in exchange for a safe passage. After the red ditch came the most treacherous black ditch, with rapid currents and deep gulches far below, where black water surged. If there was a southwesterly wind, the water turned into giant eddies, and the slightest error could send the boat wayward. The boatmen tossed in so much spirit money that the surface of the ocean was blanketed with paper; but once they were lucky enough to cross the ditch, Taiwan was not far off.