Ruth was amazed at what her mother could recall. She knew not to expect LuLing to remember appointments or facts about a recent event, who was where, when it happened. But her mother often surprised her with the clarity of her emotions when she spoke of her youth, elements of which matched in spirit what she had written in her memoir. To Ruth this was evidence that the pathways to her mothers past were still open, though rutted in a few spots and marked by rambling detours. At times she also blended the past with memories from other periods of her own past. But that part of her history was nonetheless a reservoir which she could draw from and share. It didnt matter that she blurred some of the finer points. The past, even revised, was meaningful.
"Thats what was written on the photographic plate."
Her mother had written about this, Ruth recalled, a story Precious Auntie told LuLing when she was small—how she looked up at the night sky, saw a shooting star, which then fell into her open mouth.
Her mother hesitated only a moment before answering: "Family name Gu." She was looking sternly at Ruth. "I tell you so many time, you dont remember? Her father Dr. Gu. She Gu doctor daughter."
"Youre sure its Gu?"
"Speaking of puzzle," Ruth said, "the other day you mentioned that no one ever found the bones of Peking Man."
"If the bones are still around," Mr. Tang replied, "no ones saying. Oh, every few years you read a story in the paper. Someone dies, the wife of an American soldier, a former Japanese officer, an archaeologist in Taiwan or Hong Kong. And as the story goes, bones were found in a wooden trunk, just like the trunks used to pack the bones back in 1941. Then the rumors leakout that these are the bones of Peking Man. Arrangements are made, ransoms are paid, or what have you. But the bones turn out to be oxtails. Or they are casts of the original. Or they disappear before they can be examined. In one story, the person who had stolen the bones was taking them to an island to sell to a dealer, and the plane went down in the ocean."
"I dont know. So much of history is mystery. We dont know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life." Mr. Tang winked at LuLing.
"Buddha-ful," she answered.
"Very meaningful," he said, "especially since your mother was the daughter of a bone doctor."
Soon they were standing in front of another display case. "Dont look at the description in English, not yet," Mr. Tang said. "What do you think this is?" Ruth saw an ivory-colored spadelike object, cracked with lines and blackened with holes. Was it a board for an ancient game of go? A cooking implement? Next to it was a smaller object, light brown and oval, with a lip around it and writing instead of holes. At once she knew, but before she could speak, her mother gave the answer in Chinese: "Oracle bone."
"The photo Mom has of Precious Auntie?"
"No, no," GaoLing said. "Gu as in gorge. Its a different gu. It sounds the same as the bone gu, but its written a different way. The third-tone gu can mean many things: old, gorge, bone, also thigh, blind, grain, merchant, lots of things. And the way bone is written canalso stand for character. Thats why we use that expression Its in your bones. It means, Thats your character."
"Wonderful," they said.
Ruth held her breath. She had pushed the idea out of her head for so long she still felt it was taboo, dangerous.
"Famous," LuLing said.
"Youre right, Mom—Peking Woman. I wonder what happened to her? Were the bones crushed on the train tracks on the way to Tianjin? Or did they sink with the boat?"
"Must be the same. The old lady said it was sad, because soon after the photo was taken, the girl was scarred for life, the father was dead, the whole family destroyed. People in the village said the girl was jinxed from the beginning—"
Ruth thought about the curse of ghosts who were angry that their bones were separated from the rest of their mortal bodies. "What do you believe?"
Ruth began to cry. Her grandmother had a name. Gu Liu Xin. She had existed. She still existed. Precious Auntie belonged to a family. LuLing belonged to that same family, and Ruth belonged to them both. The family name had been there all along, like a bone stuck in the crevices of a gorge. LuLing had divined it while looking at an oracle in the museum. And the given name had flashed before her as well for the briefest of moments, a shooting star that entered the earths atmosphere, etching itself indelibly in Ruths mind.
"Gu?" Ruth felt let down. It was the same mistake. " Gu is the word for bone," Ruth said. "She must have thought bone doctor meant Dr. Bone."
"Thats liu xing, sounds almost the same, xing is star, xin is truth. Liu Xin means Remain True. But because the words sound similar, some people who didnt like her called her Liu Xing. The shooting star can have a bad meaning."
"Its like a xylophone for the gods," Ruth whispered, taking a seat beside Mr. Tang.
"Liu Xin."
"The same. Though Zhou didnt live there. A lot of places carry his name, just like every town in the United States has a Washington Street. . . . Now come this way. The reason I brought you here is in the next room."
Ruth wanted to shout for joy, but the next instant she realized her mother had said the Chinese word for bone. Dr. Gu, Dr. Bone, bone doctor. Arts eyebrows were raised, in expectation that the long-lost family identity had been found. "Ill explain later," Ruth said again, but this time her voice was listless. "Oh."
In recent weeks, LuLing had related several times how she received the apple-green-jade ring that Ruth had retrieved from the La-Z-Boy. "We went to a dance hall, you and I," she said in Chinese. "We came down the stairs and you introduced me to Edwin. His eyes fell on mine and did not turn away for a long time. I saw you smile and then you disappeared. That was naughty of you. I knew what you were thinking! When he asked me to marry, he gave me the ring." Ruth guessed that GaoLing had been the person who did the introductions.
"Hes been in love with her since she was a little girl," Art said. "Shes not just a source of temporary companionship. He loves everything about her, and that includes who she was, who she is, who she will be. He knows more about her than most couples who are married." He drew Ruth closer to him. "Actually, Im hoping we might have that. A commitment through time, past, present, future . . . marriage."
"Did it include her first name?"
Mr. Tang helped LuLing stand up, and they moved with Ruth and Art to another display in the middle of the room. "This next one is a cherished object of China scholars," he said. "Most visitors want to see the ritual wine vessels, the jade burial suits. But to a true scholar, this is the prize." Ruth peered into the display case. To her, the prize resembled a large wok with writing on it.
"Your mother and I think alike," he said to Ruth. She grinned back. She realized that Mr. Tang translated for LuLing, as she once had. But he knew not to be concerned with words and their precise meanings. He simply translated what was in LuLings heart: her better intentions, her hopes.
LuLing went blank-eyed. Ruth was afraid her mother was going to cry. But instead, LuLing brightened and said, "Liu Xing. He call her that. My mother say he write love poem about this."
"What a great linguistic puzzle," Art said.
"Comet?"
It was already worth Ruths while to see her mother so happy. Happy. Ruth pondered the word. Until recently, she had not known what that might encompass in LuLings case. True, her mother was still full of complaints. The food at the Mira Mar was, as predicted, "too salty," the restaurant-style service was "so slow, food already cold when come." And she hated the leather recliner Ruth had bought her. Ruth had to replace it with the old vinyl La-Z-Boy. But LuLing had let go of most worries and irritations: the tenant downstairs, the fears that someone was stealing her money, the sense that a curse loomed over her life and disaster awaited her if she was not constantly on guard. Or had she simply forgotten? Perhaps her being in love was the tonic. Or the change of scenery had removed reminders of a more sorrowful past. And yet she still recounted the past, if anything more often, only now it was constantly being revised for the better. For one, it included Mr. Tang. LuLing acted as if they had known each other many lifetimes and not just a month or so. "This same thing, he and I see long time go," LuLing said aloud as they all admired the bells, "only now we older."
Art nudged Ruth and crooked his arm. "Come on, Im not about to be outdone by those guys." They caught up with LuLing and her companion, who were seated on a bench in front of a display of bronze bells hung in two rows on a gargantuan frame, about twelve feet high and twenty-five feet long.
Art looked at Ruth, waiting for her to acknowledge whether this was true. He had read some of the translation of LuLings memoir, but could not connect the Chinese name to its referent. "It means shooting star," Ruth whispered. "Ill explain later." To LuLing she said, "And what was your mothers family name?" Ruth knew it was a risk to bring this up, but her mothers mind had entered the territory of names. Perhaps others were there, like markers, waiting to be retrieved.
THREE
Thats what he had meant by a percentage interest in the house? She was baffled by the mechanisms of her own defenses.
Mr. Tang traced characters in the air. "Gu, like this? Or this?" Her mother put on a worried face. "I dont remember." "I dont either," Mr. Tang said quickly. "Oh well, doesnt matter." Art changed the subject. "Whats the writing on the oracle bone?" "Theyre the questions the emperors asked the gods," Mr. Tang replied. "Whats the weather going to be like tomorrow, whos going to win the war, when should the crops be planted. Kind of like the six-oclock news, only they wanted the report ahead of time." "And were the answers right?"
She pressed closer and kissed his shoulder. "Wonderful," she answered.
"Oh my God, what is it?"
Mr. Tang nodded as if he too remembered. "Everyone from the villages all around came to him. And your father went for a broken foot. His horse stepped on him. Thats how he met your mother. Because of that horse."
As Ruth and Art lay in bed that night, she pondered aloud over Mr. Tangs romantic interest in her mother. "I can understand that hes intrigued with her since hes done this work on her memoir. But hes a man whos into culture, music, poetry. She cant keep up, and shes only going to get worse. She might not even know who he is after a while."
He looked at his watch. "How about a wonderful lunch?"
LuLing perked up. "Not just man, woman too."
"Yes, comet. Comet means a rare calamity will happen. But some people mix up the broom star with the shooting star, so even though the shooting star is not bad luck, people think it is. The idea is not so good either—burns up quick, one day here, one day gone, just like what happened to Precious Auntie."
"Ive tried to legally bind you in the past with ownership in the house, which youve yet to take."
In the first gallery of the Asian Art Museum, Ruth saw Mr. Tang kiss her mothers cheek. LuLing laughed like a shy schoolgirl, and then, hand in hand, they strolled into the next gallery.
"Who knows? Theyre the cracks you see next to the black spots. The diviners of the bones used a heated nail to crack the bone. It actually made a sound—pwak! They interpreted the cracks as the answers from heaven. Im sure the more successful diviners were skilled at saying what the emperors wanted to hear."
Ruth had once thought that Chinese was limited in its sounds and thus confusing. It seemed to her now that its multiple meanings made it very rich. The blind bone doctor from the gorge repaired the thigh of the old grain merchant.
"First you have to know what trouble I had trying to find out. After you asked me, I wrote Jiu Jiu in Beijing. He didnt know, but wrote back that he would ask a woman married to a cousin whose family still lives in the village where your grandmother was born. It took a while to sort out, because most people who would know are dead. But finally they tracked down an old woman whose grandfather was a traveling photographer. And she still had all his old glass plates. They were in a root cellar and luckily not too many were damaged. Her grandfather kept excellent records, dates, who paid what, the names of the people he photographed. Thousands of plates and photos. Anyway, the old lady remembered her grandfather showing her the photo of a girl who was quite beautiful. She had on a pretty cap, high-neck collar."
"Its confusing why. People think the broom star is very bad to see. Thats the other kind, with the long, slow tail, the comes-around kind."
The name, I know your mothers family name." GaoLing was calling Ruth with exciting news.
Ruth now heard LuLing speaking in Mandarin to Art: "My mother found one of these. It was carved with words of beauty. She gave it to me when she was sure I would not forget what was important. I never wanted to lose it." Art nodded as if he understood what she had said, and then LuLing translated into English for Mr. Tang: "I telling him, this bone my mother give me one."
For the past month, LuLing had been living at Mira Mar Manor, and Mr. Tang went several times a week to visit. On Saturday afternoons, he took her on outings—to matinees, to free public rehearsals of the symphony, for strolls through the arboretum. Today it was an exhibit on Chinese archaeology, and he had invited Ruth and Art to join them. "I have something interesting to show you," he had said mysteriously over the phone, "very much worth your while."
"Its a masterly work of bronze," Mr. Tang continued, "but theres also the inscription itself. Its an epic poem written by the great scholars about the great rulers who were their contemporaries. One of the emperors they praised was Zhou, yes, the same Zhou of Zhoukoudian—where your mother once lived and Peking Man was found."
Ruth thought of the sand tray she and her mother used over the years. She too had tried to guess what might put her mother at ease, the words that would placate but not be readily detected as fraudulent. At times she had made up the answers to suit herself. But on other occasions, she really had tried to write what her mother needed to hear. Words of comfort, saying that her husband missed her, that Precious Auntie was not angry.
"Each bell makes two distinct tones." Mr. Tangs voice was gentle yet authoritative. "The hammer hits the bell on the bottom and the right side. And when there are many musicians and the bells are struck together, the music is very complex, it creates tonal layers. I had the pleasure of hearing them played recently by Chinese musicians at a special event." He smiled in recalling this. "In my mind, I was transported back three thousand years. I heard what a person of that time heard, experiencing the same awe. I could imagine this person listening, a woman, I think, a very beautiful woman." He squeezed LuLings hand. "And I thought to myself, in another three thousand years, perhaps another woman will hear these tones and think of me as a handsome man. Though we dont know each other, were connected by the music. Dont you agree?" He looked at LuLing.
"The Mouth of the Mountain?" Ruth said.
"Wonderful," she echoed.
"Gu."
Ruth couldnt stand it any longer. "What was the name?"
"Why?"
"Shooting Star?"
"Its just an idea," Art said awkwardly. "No pressure. I just wanted to know what you might think."
