“Leigh?”
My grandmother is tugging at my elbow. The crowd ahead of us has thinned a bit.
I blink and glance back—the archway looks normal. My head’s all heavy and fogged up. It must be the lack of sleep.
“Are you okay?” says Feng.
I nod. “Fine. Tired.”
“Jet-lagged?” she asks.
“I guess so.” Or maybe just losing my mind.
We cut down an alley that’s cool and gray, untouched by the harsh sun, and emerge once more onto the open road.
Waipo points to the magnificent temple. Sweeping red roofs curve up at their square corners. Stone dragons guard the highest points with open mouths and hooked claws. Firebright lanterns hang down from the eaves, strung together like lines of planets, their tassels angling in the wind.
We weave our way past the smoke and crowd to get onto the steps. The thick columns holding up the temple are intricately carved, capturing the vivid details of humans and creatures.
“They all show different events,” says Feng, pointing at the closest one. “Every panel tells its own tale. When I was a kid, I used to make up my own stories about them. Usually there were two people falling in love and making their way through a world of monsters in order to find each other and be together.”
Waipo gestures around, her fingers grasping at invisible things in the air as she tries to tell me something. I don’t understand a word of it.
Feng jumps to translate, and I have to stop myself from sighing. I know I need the help, but I wish it were coming from someone else.
“This was your mother’s favorite Taoist temple. She would come here when she needed guidance, when she was looking for an answer.”
My grandmother points up at the ceiling. The undersides of the roofs are domed, made from carved pieces of wood that are stacked together in complex systems of interlocking circles and octagons. It’s beautiful, and even a bit dizzying.
In the heart of the temple, people bow before a crowned statue with a face of black stone, and dressed in imperial reds and golds.
Toward the far side, a young man is tossing things into the air, letting them arc up in flashes of red and fall back to the ground. For a second I think they’re feathers, just like the ones from the bird—but they’re dropping too quickly. The wrong shape, the wrong weight, clattering against the floor. No, they’re pieces of wood shaped like crescent moons, painted cherry red. The percussion of their falling makes them seem almost like toys.
Part of me wants to ask what those are and what he’s doing, except I’m reluctant to encourage Feng. The way she talks to me makes me feel like a tourist, like someone who doesn’t belong. And, well, maybe I don’t belong. Still, I don’t need the constant reminder.
But it’s like my thoughts are painted on my forehead, because she says, “In Taiwanese they’re called bwabwei. He’s asking his god a question. If one lands faceup, and the other lands facedown, the answer is yes. If both land facedown, it means the god doesn’t like what he’s asking. If both land faceup, it means the god is laughing at him.”
“What kind of question?”
“He might be trying to make a decision. It has to be a yes-or-no-type thing.”
The man steps over to a bucket of red sticks, raising the whole thing up like a drum and shaking them loudly.
Feng leans close. “So first he was asking whether his answer can be found here in these sticks. The god must have told him yes.”
Having selected one of the sticks, he reaches for the bwabwei again.
“Now he’s confirming whether that stick is the correct answer.”
The red moons fly up, turning in the air, clacking and skipping when they hit the floor. He throws them again. He throws them a third time.
“The answer is yes,” Feng explains. “So now he can use the number on the stick to find its corresponding poem. The poem will explain what the god is trying to tell him.”
I’ve never seen anything like this temple back home, never seen Mom do anything religious. Is this what my mother needed? Would having a place to go to ask questions have saved her?
I make my way over to where he was throwing the bwabwei, right in front of the crowned statue.
A teal curiosity settles in my stomach and my fingers itch to give a toss of my own. What answers could I get here? What questions would I ask?
Am I going to find the bird?
Is my mother happy, finally?
Was it my fault?
Waipo wanders over to the other side of the temple, and Feng follows her.
The relief of being alone comes like the cold side of my pillow on a restless night. When their backs are turned, I reach for the bwabwei. The moment my fingers touch the two moons, a shiver blooms against my neck.
Fear makes me hesitate. I throw the blocks anyway. As they turn in the air above me, I ask:
Is the bird here?
One lands faceup. One lands facedown.
The answer is yes.
34
The moon blocks said the bird was there. But I walked every inch of that temple, even the little offices where it didn’t look like I should be allowed in, and still I found nothing. Not one sign of my mother.
After lunch and back at the apartment, Waipo stands over a bamboo tray, cutting into a vacuum-sealed package of tea. It’s the tea from Feng’s box. She’s saying something, but I don’t understand.
“Popo says every set of leaves has their own story,” Feng translates.
My grandmother holds the package to her nose and inhales deeply, sighing the air back out. Her face full of cobalt contentment.
“You never drink this in America, right?” says Feng.
“I do, actually. You can get Asian teas in the States. And, like, Chinese restaurants always serve tea.” I try to swallow the instinct to be defensive.
“Well, you probably haven’t had this. This is Dong Ding oolong tea,” Feng explains eagerly, her eyes gleaming. “I got it because it’s Popo’s favorite.”
The way she grins at me as she says that last word makes my jaw clench. Is she trying to prove a point? Show that she knows my family better than me? It’s hard not to look at her since she’s sitting directly across from me, but I drop my gaze, try to ignore the sap-green irritation dripping through my insides.
Waipo arranges the cups in a line, handling them like fragile pieces of art. There are only three cups out; Feng made a big stink about how tea has been disagreeing with her stomach. I guess she brought the tea just to suck up.
My grandmother distributes the brew by pouring a continuous stream from left to right, excess water trickling down the sides of the cups, through the slats of the bamboo tray.
I reach for a cup, but my grandmother shakes her head.
“Hai mei,” she says. Not yet. With wooden tongs, she tips each cup by its edge, empties it over the tray.
“That was just a wash,” Feng explains, setting a hand on my arm, her long floral sleeve tickling me. “These are the steps in the laoren cha tradition.”
I shift out from under her touch. “Right.”
Waigong traces figure eights against the surface of the table, his finger tracking through a spot of water, dragging it left, dragging it right. He catches my eye and winks, and a bit of my tension ebbs.
Another round of water from the kettle. This time my grandmother lets the leaves sit. The usual tremor in her hands gone—in making tea they’re deft and stilled by certainty. She stands over us with a confidence in her shoulders I’ve never seen. Her fingers are older and softer versions of the hands I knew so well, hands that shaped the dough for danhuang su and mixed batter to pour into the waffle iron.
My grandmother. My mother. Both of them so careful, so full of love. How did they end up so cut off from each other?
When Waipo pours the tea again, the stream that flows forth is reddish brown.