The Concubine's Daughter

Ma Law came, preceded by the aroma of her Chanel Number 5 and flanked by Sylvia and Gallant. Fa Law followed a few steps behind. The customary bows over, Ma Law came up to speak with Elizabeth. "I’m sorry about your father," she said, giving Little Mother a perfunctory nod. "But seriously," she continued, "I may not be able to make it to the funeral tomorrow. Eleven o’clock is such an inconvenient time. I’m so busy these days you know."

To this Elizabeth replied, "Don’t come then."

Ma Law went on, "If I do show up, I will definitely not file past the coffin with the rest of the crowd. One look at a dead person and I’m off my food for days."

To this Elizabeth replied, "Don’t look then."

Before turning away Ma Law said, "I guess you’ll come into a lot of money now. My Eric can retire and start being a kept man from now on." Ma Law probably intended her remark to be taken as a little joke, but there was bitterness in her voice. Now her daughter-in-law was going to be even richer. She could hardly conceal her disgust. Elizabeth was not amused. Ma Law had committed an unforgivable sin. In fact she had committed two sins. She had shown disrespect to the dead by attempting to crack a tasteless joke. She had shown disrespect to the dead by wearing a dress with small pink flowers. Granted the dress was predominantly gray, but those pink flowers! How very inappropriate! It was probably an Emmanuel Ungaro, or a Valentino. Nowadays everybody who was anybody had to wear Italian or French. Ma Law wouldn’t be caught dead in a Tailor Cheung or a Tailor Chan original anymore. Times had changed. The four Hsus sat in a row, looking somber. With his ghastly pallor and hollow cheeks Gallant blended in harmoniously with the eerie surroundings in the smoke-filled room. After about five minutes they rose to leave. After a cold and clammy handshake Gallant followed his family out into the gathering dusk.

They came and went, those mourners. Like actors wearing tragic masks, they made their entrances and their exits. A few came because they wanted to, many came because they thought they had to. It would be bad form not to show one’s face. And yet Elizabeth believed Father would be disappointed if no one came, lying there stiff and still in the little back room with the temperature set so low. A group of women soon made their entrance, women who slept by day and worked by night. Elizabeth recognized the type. They converged on Big Brother after their bows. "Hello, Handsome," said one. "So your old man’s finally croaked." Another chimed in, "Don’t feel so bad." And turning to go, they all said, "See you around." Big Sister-in-Law was livid with anger. "Who are these women?" she shouted, quite forgetting her dignity. "Get out, get out," she cried. But they didn’t need to be told. They had already left, going back to ply their trade in the dimly lit bars in Wanchai.

They went up to their luxuriously furnished room, and while Eric was taking a shower, Elizabeth began to read the letter from Ming Ming. She had written, in her beautiful bold hand: "Dear Elizabeth, Welcome home. You’ll find that Hong Kong has changed. Our whole culture has changed. Chinese has come into its own, it’s become respectable. People read, speak, write and hear Chinese, and Canto-pop is king. You may find yourself strangely out of place here you know. If you want to blend in with the rest of the community, you’ll have to be more Chinese, whatever that might mean. There’s a lot of wealth around, but the poor are still with us. Except we want to pretend they’re not here. We prefer to sweep them under our beautifully woven carpet, out of sight, out of mind, banished to the rat-infested tenements of the Walled City, or to the tiny bed spaces of some squalid slum. I want you to feed my lambs and to feed my sheep. I need you to do this for me, because I won’t be around to do it myself. By the time you read this I shall have departed from this world, gone west, joined my ancestors, joined the heavenly choir. There may be many ways of referring to my present state, but the simplest term is the best. The word is "dead". I am dead, dear friend, while you are reading my words." Elizabeth could not go on, she could not see the words through her tears. She could feel pain radiating from her heart to her arms and legs and down to her fingertips. Her whole being was aching. She could not breathe. After some minutes she forced her eyes to look at the page again. "When they told me it was terminal," the letter went on, "I asked, Why me? And then I immediately answered my own question, Why not me? I don’t want to die, not in this way, not with all that pain, but I don’t want to die because there are so many things I still need to do. When I go my parents will become orphans you know. You will take care of them for me, I know you will. I’ve just started a campaign to raise money for another old people’s home. Please say you’ll take over the work and do what you can. I need more than twenty-four hours a day and certainly more than fifty years to do some of the things I want to do. But I guess I’ve only been allocated this measly amount. A few weeks ago Fanny bought me a wig, out of the kindness of her heart, to hide my shame. I’ve been wearing it dutifully, although it makes my head itch and it’s blacker than Chinese ink so no one except people who are color-blind can possibly be deceived into thinking it’s my own hair. It sort of makes me look like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra though I’m pleased to say. Since I’m leaving you for some unknown destination, and we may not meet again for a long time, if ever, I need to tell you something I’ve not told you all these years. I think about you all the time and want to be with you, I want you to be happy, and every thought of you fills me with a warm satisfying glow. Farewell, my dear friend. Maybe I can still think about you and love you from the other shore. Yours, Ming Ming."

Elizabeth let her tears run down her cheeks, unashamed. No doubt some Tu Fu or Li Po or other Chinese poet could write something appropriate for this moment, but the only lines that came to Elizabeth in her grief were some lines from Milton, writing in a foreign tongue: "For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade and rill," and "But O the heavy change, now thou art gon, Now thou art gon, and never must return!"