Page 69 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Talking about the city interests her a lot, and soon you’re describing Hong Kong in-depth. Streets, cars, buses, thronging crowds, docks full of ships are alien concepts to Sea Sister. You wonder why she never ventures past the coast of Sai Kung, why she doesn’t just swim down to the harbor, but you decide not to mention it. Selfishly, you’re afraid that putting such an idea in her head will encourage her to abandon you for other adventures.
Whatever the reason, she eats up your chatter about the city eagerly enough, and you get the sense that it appeals to her. She isn’t sharing your indifference to that cancerous urban sprawl.
When you get tired of describing it, you bring her clippings from old newspapers—Mami used them to pack fragile things in your luggage—and show them to her.
The first time you give her a photograph clipping, passing it to her underneath the water, she stares and stares, those sea lion eyes grown huge and round in her face. Her fingers tremble as they trace the outlines of a burgeoning cityscape that she has never seen.
It doesn’t take long before the thin paper crumbles from the ocean’s wet erosion, taking her delighted smile with it.
The sea washes everything away, she says, and looks so mournful and listless that you can’t help but want to fix it for her. Anything to see your closest ever friend smile.
It’s then that you have your best idea yet: glass bottles.
“Wait here,” you tell her. “I’ll be right back!”
22THE TEMPLE
Thirty-three years ago…
The house is cold as ice as you set foot across the threshold. It is almost a relief from the boiling heat outside except that the unnaturalness of it makes you feel uneasy. Maybe you should be moving out? It’s not the first time the thought has occurred to you lately.
Mami is standing in the kitchen, smiling vacantly. To your shock, she is wearing her one fancy dress that somehow made it to the island: a blue and pink qipao, beautifully embroidered and brought with her all the way from Shanghai. In all the years of your childhood, she has only ever worn it once.
She wears it now, singing a modern Chinese jazz song you’ve never heard before. The ghosts gather around her to listen and are bolder, less concerned with what you think. Her voice trails away as you come in, though.
“Why are you here?” Mami says, distractedly. “What are you doing?”
“I need a bottle to store water, while I am out.” The lie springs to your lips with ease. “It is so hot these days.” The sight of her makes you uncomfortable, so you busy yourself digging through the cupboards, because it’s an excuse to keep your back turned.
“That’s fine.” Her finger is tapping the wooden table. Keeping time for the music. Several of the ghosts start playing on bamboo flutes, filling the silence her singing left. “Try not to get sunstroke out there,” she adds, kind of randomly. Like she’s grasping quickly for something motherly sounding to say.
“Try not to freeze in here,” you shoot back, unable to resist a barb.
“It is my turn to sing again, soon,” she says, and it’s unclear whether she is talking to you or to them. Either way, you get the sense she’s just waiting for you to leave.
You manage to find one old beer bottle, long empty and dry, and put it into a canvas bag. There will definitely be others around, but this will do for now. Some stacks of old newspaper go in next, along with a fishing knife for cutting, some oilcloth rags, twine, one of Baba’s old notebooks, a few other things.
As you head for the door, Mami says suddenly, “Wait.”
You pause in annoyance, fingers on the handle. “Yes?”
“You will stay out of the water.” She isn’t phrasing it as a question. There’s a curious flatness creeping into her voice. “Please, daughter.”
“Isn’t it your turn to sing?” you retort.
A few months ago, she’d have berated you for such a rude reply, and yelled till your ears glowed red. Strange to think how you used to cringe from someone whom you can just ignore these days.
No scolding this time. She just blinks, very slowly. “Yes, I should… get singing.” And she wanders back into the living room, attention focused on the deathly music.
You can’t get out of the house fast enough.
Back at the beach, out again in the hot, soothing sunshine, you put your worries into a mental box. One thing at a time: the mission for Sea Sister is occupying the moment. Worrying about Mami’s madness can come later, when you have to deal with her in the evening.
Squatting on the sand, open the bag and set to work. The knife is used to shred the old newspapers, clipping out pictures of Hong Kong with its boats and ferries and trading houses, all bustling around a choppy harbor.
Next comes the bottle. Pick up a photograph, partly roll it, and drop it in. The picture curves convex against the bottle’s interior. Next, though it feels almost disrespectful to do so, you rip out a sheet of the paper from one of Baba’s old notebooks, scribble a quick message, and slot it lengthwise into the last glass bottle. You don’t know if Sea Sister can read, but it doesn’t matter. You can read it to her, if she needs.
And because there is extra space (the paper is only narrow) you also slip in a single photograph of you and Mami on the other side: taken two years ago, at great expense. In it, you and she stand side by side, stiff and pale in the black-and-white grain, hands clasped at the front. Mami wears a severe frown to match her dark clothes; you have a slight smile, undermined by an ill-fitting cheongsam. Not much of a photo, but all you have to give.
