Fic:When you Tell my Story, Don't Forget Me 4/6
Part Three
[Do you see now? Do you see what I see?]
Paper Boats
- to mother
Never willing to waste a sheet of paper,
I save and save
Then fold them into small, small boats
And throw them into the sea from my ship.
Some are blown back into the portholes,
Others are stuck on the stern, soaked by waves,
And I, undiscouraged, keep on folding and hoping
That one will finally reach its destination.
O mother, if you ever see a white tiny sail in your dream,
Don’t be startled by its unexpected presence for
It was folded by your loving daughter to carry homeward
Across the sea and mountains her love and sorrow.
Bing Xin
When They Tell My Story
There once was a child born of snow and fire; taken in by the arms of death. She was found in the midst of blackness, the smoldering embers of an entire village at her icy feet, as snow fell around her ears. It is said that she did not cry nor make a sound as Death's embrace picked her out of the ash. Stories tell of a child walking through ice with Death as her guardian. A child with skin as white as the snow she was birthed from, her hair the color ash, her lips stained with the warm blood of children.
November 1899
My darling Shen,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. My contact in San Francisco sends word that you have moved and will forward this to your new residence. I can only hope that this means you received my letter last month and pulled the government bonds out of the safety deposit box in the bank downtown. (Remember the one in the red brick building near the iced cream shop you loved so much?) I had meant them to be for your birthday, but I see no harm in you using it now instead.
I have arrived at the perfect time; our homeland is riddled with war and rebellion, enabling me to slip easily in and out of the chaos without notice. The voyage was quite difficult and so much longer than I imagined it would be, and it became quite uncomfortable travelling alone. Here, a girl of my size travelling alone draws attention. I cannot pass so easily as an older woman among these people. Which is why I am so grateful for the cover of rebellion upon my arrival, a young girl alone is not unusual in these times.
I must dash off - my first stop proved fruitless. All of the local monasteries have been completely destroyed and the monks have fled. (You remember of course, from my previous letters, that I have a vague recollection of my mother mentioning religious figures taking care of us when I was young to her friend Katherine. I am still hoping to find a record of her within religious texts around the time we were turned.)
I will always love you,
Anna
It was I, a young apprentice to the order at the time, who found the original documents in an Ancient text, detailing the resurrection of the Unborn Mother, who was forced to destroy the history of this woman. Many years have passed, and now in my death years, confined to a bed, I seek out you - my cousin's youngest grandchild - to keep these papers. I feel the stirrings of rebellion and violence in the air, on the wind. I feel that She may be used again, to our detriment. One cannot hold a woman hostage for so long, before she begins to plot her escape. My son, this may be the end of our world.
And so we deserve.
February 1900
My darling Shen, I wish you the happiest of birthdays!
Do you remember why we chose this day to celebrate you? It was only a few months after you followed me out of the railroad worker’s encampment and we had finally arrived in San Francisco. You were amazed and delighted by the city; it was so much larger than anything you had ever experience - except the mountains and valleys we had crossed on our way. Everything fascinated you! You wanted to stop at every step to investigate every person and thing you saw. I had never met a more curious child. I was also swept up in the excitement - something I have never told you - my mother had never allowed me to explore cities alone. The most I had seen of cityscapes was from behind the glass windows of coaches and from the high seat of buggies. My darling, I had been to the Royal Opera in London, but had never walked through the streets of a city as if I were a native. With you, I was given that opportunity. We were both swept away by the energy and newness of everything around us. Along the way, men and women kept directing us (two lost children) towards the center of the China district.
Do you remember what happened next, my darling? It was the Chinese New Year and there was a big celebration. While in the hubbub of the city, there were no signs. And then! We rounded a corner and there was a large parade, a large dragon leading the way. You clapped and cheered! It was as if the city had opened its doors just to welcome you in!
I decided from that day to always celebrate our new life, the day we arrived. I could never be sure as to your real day of birth, even after all these years I have been unable to find any hint of your birth mother (of course I kept searching, my love). This day, this was not the day we found each other, that is what I believe you always assumed, but actually the day we found a home.
I will always love you,
Anna
ps - this search seems fruitless, but I am determined and have not given up hope
In the time of the Great War, there was a great loss of incalculable worth. It is written in the Ancient texts that the Emperor beat his chest with sorrow and died shortly after, his heart broken by the loss. No one is certain as to the item that was lost, whether it was stolen by opposing forces or one of the Emperor’s own. Obscure texts, damaged by time, speak of a beautiful warrior-woman who was connected to this great prize. Many scholars suggest this woman was the guardian of the Emperor’s greatest prize, as well as his heart. She might also be attributed to the line of Royal representatives of the Divine Mother - young women throughout this dark time who stood at the Emperor’s side as his divine council and mistress. Ancient scholars speak of many throughout time, always young, beautiful, and strong. Their only connection, it seems, to be the their high and secretive status within the court - kept away from all but the Emperor himself and a few religious servants. After this war, there appeared to be no need for such a woman and the position was never again filled.
August 1900
I have found something! Oh my darling, I have found something!
About a month ago, I gave up my pursuit in large cities. The rebellion has hidden me, but it has also made it impossible to find any clues as to the whereabouts of my mother’s beginnings - or my own, for that matter. The temples I have found intact are full only of warriors that see me for what I am - and have been trained to resist compulsion. All of this precaution, yet I have come across no others like me (a small group of Europeans was terrorizing an area I was in, but I ignored them - they were too reckless to notice my presence). I can only conclude that my mother is known by these religious men - they seemed particularly frightened of my presence and I do not feel inclined to kill them, as it will not help my cause. (Your mother - ever diplomatic.)
Last week, I arrived at a small hamlet just outside of the fighting. It is a place that time has forgotten. A small village on the banks of a river, most of the inhabitants either rice farmers or fishermen. Many of the men have abandoned their families and work to join the skirmishes happening all around, leaving mainly old men, women, and children behind. I was afraid that my youth and appearance would set me apart - make me an outsider (oh, if you could see the people here, my boy. I struggle with the languages and dialects daily, communication is a struggle I was not anticipating. I can understand almost anything said to me, but the words trip and fall flat on my tongue. I am woefully out of practice. And I obviously do not belong here, my hands are not rough from work, my hair is unbound, I walk about in a state of constant isolation from these people), but the elder women took me immediately in, feeding and washing me as if I were their own child. It is still difficult for me to communicate, but I look more like I belong, dressed as I am now, and have been helping (as much as I can) with the gardening and mending.
While gardening, the women tell each other stories. It is just like when you were young and I spun stories out of the air, explaining the world to your curious mind (and my ignorant one) as best I could with the means I had. I was ignoring the talk at first, it falls into such an easy rhythm that I believed at first the women were praying or chanting verse to each other. But these women are far too rustic, their stories are oral and ancient - like the Odyssey once was (though I know you always preferred the Illiad and Achilles to Odysseus’ travels). I discovered this morning, that the stories the women are telling are of a “Divine Mother” - a woman who does not die, who traveled throughout the land, who once was human and disappeared with a child hundreds of years ago. It was all I picked out of their words before I ran inside to write this to you.
One of the consequences of living beyond the reach of rebellion is that I am also out of the way for any message carrier. Once a month, a man from a local village comes to trade sweetgoods and knick-knacks with the locals, taking fresh produce into the city for profit. In these hard times, men like this are not only profitable - they are brave and always under threat of death from opposing forces and the unchecked thieves on the roads. I trust this man to get this letter to a ship safely, so that you might know I am alive and have found a possible key to my past!
I will always love you,
Anna
ps- The wood carving was done by a small boy about seven or eight from the village. He is very shy and I am not even quite sure of his name - the women seem to call him something that translates roughly to “little rabbit” and I get the strong impression he is an orphan, as you once were. He came to me in the garden three days ago told me to send it to my boy across the water, so that you would know I am being cared for. And then he disappeared, I haven’t seen him since. The whole village wears similar totems on cords around their necks, either just out of affection for the boy or for some other reason - I have yet to determine which.
July 1910
Shen~
Today I finally continue on my way, I have been too long in the same place. I had lost track of time - only my letter writing to you has had any effect on my sense of passing time. Until last week, when the small boy (who carved the treasures I have been sending to you all this time) was married. Ten years have passed, as I farmed and visited with the old women of this village. I have buried many; I have been in the birthing rooms of far less. Never has one of these people questioned my age - or any of my bizarre habits. Not once has my presence been remarked upon with anything other than affection. I could not have known this before arriving, but this village - my village - had been terrorized in the past by bandits and the larger cities, livestock taken in the night, young girls and strong boys taken at midday amidst tears and supplications. My presence - my hunger - such as it is, has prevented any random passerby. I was never discouraged from hunting, for it kept them safe. I only hope that upon leaving they will stay safe for some time.
I have reacquainted myself with the language of my childhood… my proper, human childhood. A time I still do not remember.
The first letter I wrote to you upon arriving here - I recall being so very excited on the discovery of a folk story that seemingly was about my mother. I still believe this to be true, and so today will begin a journey to a small village to the far North of here, where the elders say a woman who knows all the old stories still lives.
I will always love you,
Anna
ps- A mutual friend has told me of your daughter’s birth. I have selfishly not mentioned her in any of my most recent letters, for the sake of your privacy. I am overwhelmed with joy and love for you and your child!
There once was a widower with three young sons who longed for his wife, for they had been children together and his heart still beat for her. Surrounded by the memories of his child-bride in their home village, the man decided to move his children to the mountain in the North. There, in the snow, his cold heart might be at peace.
Along their journey, the man and his sons came upon an overturned cart in the dead of night. There were three dead men on the road - killed obviously by bandits. The youngest son ran out of fear from the dead and fell upon a weeping woman, hugging to her a young girl. The father became obsessed with the woman immediately. Her beauty was that of legend, her long, slim neck holding up a strong face. Her daughter was equally beautiful. She was nothing like his dead wife, for she was taller, stronger, broader of face. There was nothing meek or transparent about the woman weeping in the forest. There was nothing of his dead wife in this new, mysterious woman from the road.
Together they travelled under the guardianship of the father through the wilds of the mountains. Along the way, the beautiful and mysterious woman fell in love with the widower. Upon arriving at the top of the mountain, in the small village where the widower’s cousin had settled with her husband, they settled on a small farm and lived happily together. And so it went for several years.
And the villagers grew fearful. For shortly after the arrival of this new family, a darkness grew in the wilds that surrounded the secluded hamlet. There were only whispers and unsubstantiated fears; children told stories of a wild beast that stalked women and children day or night; old wives and grandmothers whispered of a fear no one knew the root of. The farmer’s new wife and daughter were kept under lock and key as his paranoia grew and more villagers left…
Soon, only the farmer and his sons’ families remained, with a few elderly and a handful of orphans left behind as the villagers fled their homes from fear. None of these villagers ever arrived at their destinations, never heard from or seen again. The husband had grown weak and thin from living in fear for so many years, while his wife and her daughter seemed to grow stronger and more livid with each passing month. His sons urged him to leave, begged him to leave this empty village haunted by the memory of life and the growing darkness around. His daughters in law cried nightly for their missing families, for the safety of their young children.
The father secluded himself in his house with his shining wife and his beautiful daughter. With each passing day, he doted upon her with more ferocity than the previous. And as his sons withdrew from his house and hated his tenacity, his unwillingness to leave that haunted place, the father clung all the more to his bright-eyed daughter. Soon, loving the child more than the mother.
So great was his love and devotion, the farmer never noticed that his dear daughter never aged, that she was cold as ice in his arms, that her eyes shown with an unfathomable darkness. And as his grandchildren, daughters, and sons began to disappear into the darkness, the farmer only saw the shining youth of his daughter - her agelessness tricking him into believing that no time had passed at all since the arrival to the town. Her brightness pulling him into the darkness. Until she, too - was gone. Disappearing with her tall, dark mother into the night, when there was no one left but the father who had loved her.
Some say, the farmer still sits, waiting in a small shack in a haunted village, staring at the door and waiting for his shining daughter to come inside from play - her arms full of wildflowers. But the village and the farm have been lost to time and snow, buried beneath the years.
October 1920
I write in the hush of mourning, the death pall left behind me so that I may write to you on this, such a sad day.
I sit on the porch and watch the sunrise and think of you - my child. I think of your children; your daughter must be nearing sixteen years old by now! How is it that time has passed so quickly for me? Does it pass as quickly for you? watching your children grow taller and faster and stronger - struggling always to keep them still, just for a moment, wishing that time would pass you by, wishing that they might stay small and innocent for only a moment longer… Even now, as your own children age - you are also aging. Walking as swiftly as they towards oblivion, racing headlong into your own extinction. There is no possible way for me to explain what it is like to be still in the face of so much rushing and racing. How still and static I seem to myself, my own face in the mirror never changing or adapting. The pain I have felt does not mark itself upon my body, my laughter and tears do not leave scars etched across my face, there is no proof that I have lived a single day.
It was something I could not explain to you when you were a young man - so full of your own physicality and strength, so at home and content in your body - how much a life is worth.
I do not mean to be morbid, my dear. I only wish you to enjoy every moment. The aches and pains of aging; the emotional scarring your children leave behind as they rip themselves from your arms into the world, with no fear and no concern for their own well-being. Be gentle on them, as I was incapable of being gentle on you.
Do you see, now? Do you see what I see?
If I were to arrive on your doorstep tomorrow - I would be taken for a runaway. How could you explain my youth to your own children? Children who are now in age so very similar to me - possibly even older, I cannot say for sure. In all of my travels and collecting of stories and clues, there is no hint as to my real age, no value I can place upon the life I once lead.
I love you always,
Anna
Click for next Segment!