Fiction by Amy Tan, from 2000: “ ‘You speak,’ he said, ‘the language of shooting stars.’ ”
One late-autumn day, when Precious Auntie was nineteen, her Chinese age, her father had two new patients. The first was a screaming baby from a family that lived in Immortal Heart. The second was my father’s youngest brother. We called him Baby Uncle. They would both cause Precious Auntie everlasting sorrow, but in entirely different ways.
Right after the Changs and their baby left, Baby Uncle limped in. His name was Liu, he said, Liu Hu Sen. He had been on his way from his family’s ink shop in Peking to their home in Immortal Heart, when his horse spooked, throwing him, so he decided, “Better take myself right to the Famous Bonesetter in the Mouth of the Mountain.” Precious Auntie was in the back room and could see the young ink-maker through a parted curtain. He was a thin man in his early twenties.
Chang went to a fortune-teller in Immortal Heart, a man who walked about the village with a divining stick. The marriage signs were excellent for a second wife, this fortune-teller said. See here, Precious Auntie was born in a Rooster year, and Chang was a Snake—nearly the best match possible. The old man said that Precious Auntie also had a lucky number of strokes in her name.
The bonesetter considered the offer. He was growing old. Where would his daughter go when he died? What man would want her? She was too spirited, too set in her ways. She had no mother to teach her the manners of a wife. True, the coffin-maker was not the bonesetter’s first choice for a son-in-law, but he did not want to stand in the way of his daughter’s future happiness. So he told Precious Auntie about Chang’s generous offer.The bonesetter had to give Chang’s matchmaker an awkward answer.
Precious Auntie did not tell her father or her beloved Baby Uncle what had happened. No sense in worrying them. And why lead her future husband to wonder if Chang had reason to feel insulted? Too many people had said she was too strong, accustomed to having her own way. And perhaps this was true. When she came to, Baby Uncle was lifting her out of the sedan. She looked around and saw that the wedding trunks had been ransacked and that the guards and carriers had fled. And then she noticed her father lying in a ditch, his head and neck at an odd angle, the life gone from his face. Was she in a dream? “My father,” she moaned. As she bent over the body, unable to make sense of what had happened, Baby Uncle picked up a pistol that one of the guards had dropped.
On the third day, Chang arrived at the Liu family home with two coffins. “He killed them!” Precious Auntie cried when she caught sight of him. She picked up a fire poker and tried to strike him. She beat at the coffins. Baby Uncle’s brothers had to wrestle her away. They apologized to Chang for the girl’s lunacy, and Chang replied that grief of this magnitude was admirable.
At the time, Precious Auntie still had four or five dragon bones left from our visits to the cave at the Monkey’s Jaw. Soon after this, her father, the Famous Bonesetter, came to her in a dream. “The bones you have are not from dragons,” he said. “They are from our own clan, an ancestor who was crushed in the Monkey’s Jaw. That’s why nearly everyone in our family has died—your mother, your brother, myself, your future husband—because of this curse.
I was often jealous when Gao Ling received more attention from our mother. I was the elder daughter. I was smarter. I had done better in school. Yet Gao Ling had the honor of sitting next to Mother, of sleeping in herWhen I was younger, that had not bothered me. I felt I was lucky to have my nursemaid by my side. I thought the words “Precious Auntie” were what others meant by “Ma.” I could not bear to be separated from Precious Auntie for even one moment.
“Our association goes back even further than that,” Mother boasted. “He was the man who stopped his cart to help after Baby Uncle was killed by the Mongol bandits. A man of good deeds, that Mr. Chang.” Since Mother could not read, she asked Gao Ling to, and I had to hide my disappointment. Gao Ling smoothed her hair, cleared her throat, and licked her lips. “Dear Cousin,” she read, “I send greetings from all those who have asked after you with deep feeling.” Gao Ling then stumbled through a long list of names, from those of brand-new babies to people Mother was sure were already dead.
I shook my head. I was afraid to anger Mother with a lot of unnecessary questions and ruin my chance to visit Peking. Our chests were heaving. And I shouted back what I had often heard Mother and my aunts say: “You’re alive because our family was good and took pity on you and saved your life. We didn’t have to. Baby Uncle never should have tried to marry you. It was bad luck. That’s why he was killed by his own horse. Everyone knows it.”
In the late afternoon, we approached Peking, and I instantly revived from the effects of the heat and my hunger. When we entered the inspection station, a policeman with a cap poked through my small bundle and looked inside the cages with Mr. Wei’s snakes.“Delivery of medicine.” Mr. Wei nodded to the snake cages.
When I next appeared before Old Widow Lau, she exclaimed, “Is your head just an empty eggshell? Why are you wearing a padded jacket and winter trousers? And what’s the matter with your hair?” The ink shop faced north and was quite dim inside. Father was busy with a customer, and did not see us at first. Big Uncle welcomed us and invited us to be seated. From his formal tone, I knew he did not recognize me. So I called his name in a shy voice. And he squinted at me, then laughed and announced our arrival to Little Uncle, who apologized many times for not rushing over sooner to greet us. They urged us to be seated at one of two tea tables for customers.
“What luck that we should run into you here,” Old Widow Lau cried in a high voice. “When did you arrive in Peking? . . . Oh, visiting a cousin? How are things back in Immortal Heart?” After we had recovered from our fake surprise, Old Widow Lau introduced the woman to Father and my uncles. I was concentrating so hard on not showing any expression whatsoever that I did not hear her name.
As Mrs. Chang paused to consider the excellence of this idea, Father added, “In any case, I’ve been eager to talk to your husband about the dragon bones he contributed to the great scientific discovery of Peking Man.” “Those foreigners,” Chang said, “you can’t trust them to keep their word. They’ll find a way to sneak out some pieces. They’ll find excuses, make new treaties, apply pressure.”
Mr. Wei came before dawn to take me back to Immortal Heart. On the way home, I began to dream about all the ways in which I had to change my life. I needed new clothes. And I should be more careful to keep my face out of the sun. I did not want to look like a dark little peasant girl. After all, we were artisans and merchants from an old clan, greatly respected.
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