Page 45 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
“Great, just fine,” you say, dropping the photo back into the drawer and shutting it discreetly with your hip as you fidget uneasily. “The furniture is still sturdy, after all this time.” You can’t shake a lingering sense of embarrassment, as if she’s walked in while you were snooping.
“Good, that’s good. One less job to do.” Mami almost smiles, doesn’t quite make it. It’s as if any emotion sucks energy from her, these days. Then her half smile collapses as she says, irritably, “Siu Yin, bestill. There is no need to jump around.”
You’re not jumping, just jigging one leg restlessly, but you don’t argue the point. Nothing sets her off as fast as hearing you talk back.
Instead, you opt to distract her by pointing at the sign outside. “Mami, what does this mean?”
“Ah,” she says, after a moment. “That points to the Shrine of Compassion.”
Understanding dawns. “The stone temple itself,” you say. “The one this place is named for.”
Mami nods. “On the south shore of this island, there is a cave. It is possible to swim into it during low tide, though it is treacherous to do so. In high tide, the entrance floods completely.” She crosses her arms, brow bent in an emotion you can’t place. “Anyway, there is a very old temple, or perhaps more of a shrine, deep inside the cavern. Carved right into the rock.”
“It’sunderground?” That surprises you. Temples are almost always built on higher altitudes, with their backs against mountains. Closer to heaven. “Who made it? Was it carved by the original Hakka settlers?”
She shrugs. “It is very ancient is all I know. The shrine was there before even my ancestors came to this place. Nobody knew what it was for, but it is dedicated to Kwun Yam, sort of. Some people here called her Ma Zu.”
“Huh? Aren’t they very different?” To the best of your haphazard knowledge, Ma Zu was a seafaring goddess of lowly human birth. Kwun Yam, meanwhile, was the very lofty goddess of compassion.
“My people believed Ma Zu was an incarnation of Kwun Yam. Not typical, but it’s what we were raised to think.” She makes a vague gesture. “Anyway, it’s an ocean temple to the goddess, and it has carvings of jiaoren in it. So we called that place the Jiaoren Cavern, and the building within it is simply the Shrine of Compassion.”
“Oh. That sounds interesting. Maybe I could have a look? It can’t take very long to swim around this island.”
“I don’t think you should go swimming, not yet,” Mami says, drawing in her breath sharply. “The cave faces the sea, and is impossible to enter when the tides are high. Only strong swimmers should attempt it.”
“That seems like a bad location to build a temple, if it’s so dangerous,” you say, doubtfully. “Shouldn’t temples be easy to reach? And near the top of a mountain?” Everyone knows that temples should be close to heaven.
“Itiseasy to reach, if you are swimming and don’t need to breathe air. And itisatop a mountain, if you’ve come from the ocean depths,” Mami says, matter-of-factly. “We found the temple, daughter, but it wasn’t built for us. Humans are not the only ones who wish to worship gods.”
You wait for her to laugh, or turn the statement into a joke.
She simply looks at you, unsmiling.
“Oh,” you say, faintly.
Carved by jiaoren—for other jiaoren, or so your mother seems to be implying. But surely not. Those are just stories, silly old myths.
Aren’t they?
“We will eat supper in an hour, and tomorrow go look at the fields.” She isalready turning to go. “Time to see if I can remember how to farm and fish, and if that old water well still works.”
“Yes, Mami,” you agree, and reluctantly get back to tidying the room.
Outside, near the rusted sign in that derelict field, ghosts begin gathering in glistening silence to peer through the window.
15FINGERS MADE OF WATER
Fifty-two years ago…
It is time to introduce myself. This may be your story, but you are not telling it. You can’t, because you don’t remember it anymore.
I am Kwan Yam, the goddess of mercy and compassion. In my heart, I still recall all of your life, and your days—before you ever left Hong Kong, and arrived to Shek Kan Chau. It is the privilege of a goddess to know such things, to be in myriad places.
I know that you are beginning to wonder why I retell you these details, but I promise that it matters. The shape of your life has informed so many other lives that it bears looking at, albeit briefly.
I recall your birth, though you do not. I remember that humid, quiet evening in 1922, your Mami laboring in the privacy of her cramped Hong Kong harbor flat. The bed was too hot, so she took to the floor, damp cloths easing her backache. Soon after, infant-you had the shock of emerging to the world, and being lifted to her chest by hands that were warm and kind.
It was one of the few times that your mother was any sort of gentle.
