Fox Spirit 86 – Who is the Real Huli Jing?
Sara willed her pulse to slow down. She could have revenge on Trueheart Zhang and Ruth Cheng. She could tell Storm of the connections, the exchange of favors. Maybe he would be angry on her behalf. Maybe he would find some way for her to stay.
But only for a while. She thought of what her son had said. “I need you here, Mom.”
Suddenly Sara realized that, for all his protests, Storm had said nothing to prevent her leaving. He hadn’t asked what she would do, how she would live. Even more, he hadn’t spoken of the terrorist attacks, or asked about her family. He had only talked of his own pain.
Huge blocks were moving in Sara’s mind, like a Chinese puzzle where the sides and lid musts move in different directions until the box can be opened. Then she saw the way clear.
“Yes, it’s good news,” she spoke aloud. “And having Liu in the office will help fill my empty space.”
“Liu in the office?” Storm asked in surprise. “I hadn’t heard this. What will he do, a tour guide, in our office?”
Sara cursed inwardly at her slip. She’d heard this from Auntie Chen, who had spoken to Jade. Of course Jerry Wang wouldn’t have shown his intention so clearly to the office staff yet. “Excuse me,” she back-pedaled. “I only meant that he’ll be sure to come around a lot with Jade at the reception desk again.”
“Yes, that’s so.” Storm’s expression changed again, as he seemed to be looking into a far distance away from Sara. Then he turned to her, his face sober.
“I think I’m going to find business in Suzhou for these next weeks. I won’t come to say farewell at the airport. Our story should end like this, just the two of us. I don’t know how I would manage, saying good-by in a crush of people, rushing to be on time. I want to remember you like this, my heart’s core.” His face twisted.
Sara reached to him, but Storm stayed her hand. “No, I want to speak. I’m thinking about my life – twice parented, twice abandoned, each time thinking I knew love. With you, a third time, a different kind of love. But all the time I knew this would come. Truly you are huli jing. The Fox Spirit always must leave at the end of the story. The Fox Spirit always wins.”
“This is not about winning or losing,” Sara protested. “It’ about loving… and having to leave..”
“But only you have the power to leave,” Storm answered. “This is not, what you would say, fair.” His face twisted again as he fought against tears.
Sara’s disappointment suddenly flared into anger. “I will be leaving, yes, but you – you are letting me go. You have your parents to support you, your future wife and children to anticipate. You have had my company and Richie’s for a space, but now you won’t look back, while I….” She stopped and turned away from him, unable to think about the future. Her tone was bitter as she finished. “I wonder which of us is the real huli jing.” She stopped, waited for him to answer her, to put his arms around her once more.
She heard his footsteps and then the door clicked, then clicked again as Storm closed the door with quiet care behind him.
###
Sara lay in bed early the next Monday morning and stared at the ceiling. Her eyes itched from sleeplessness. Her eyelashes felt clumped together. Her hair was an oily tangle. She ran a hand over her cheeks. Her skin felt rough. Her mind was running over the same threads in an endless knot. What to do about her job? A place to live? Her vanished lover? She realized that her jaw was aching. She had been gritting her teeth in her uneasy sleep.
In the next room behind the screen she could hear Richie breathing softly. She forced herself to concentrate on the sound of his breathing, on bringing her breath into synchrony with his. His breath was smooth, untroubled. As hers fell into the same rhythm, Sara felt something loosen inside her mind. Her job? It was over. No sense in following that thread. Her apartment? In a week she must be out of it. Finished. That thread was broken. Storm was gone. That was hard to think about. How could she have let him go? Why hadn’t he tried to help her? What else had his mother told him? The memory of Zhang’s bitter words drifted into her mind. Maybe the Americans had it coming. How could she un-hear that? Tears came and Sara let them run down her cheeks, but kept breathing slowly, in synch with the sleeping child. Mark’s voice came into her mind. I need you, Mom.
Richie stirred and murmured. The sound broke Sara’s trance. In one movement she swung herself from the bed and then padded barefoot into the bathroom. She soaked a washcloth in the tepid water and washed the scum from her eyes, her face, her mouth. She looked at her reflection in the clouded mirror and lifted her chin at a defiant angle. “Not finished.” She spoke aloud. “Next chapter.” It was barely 6:30 in the morning. It would be Sunday afternoon in California. She thought for a moment, crossed to the telephone and began to dial. Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
A woman’s voice answered.
“Hello,” said Sara. “This is Mark Miller’s mother calling.”
###
Storm
Storm let himself into the locked Rainbow Software office and walked to the cubicle that had been Sara’s. He didn’t know, had not let himself find out, whether she had left for America on Friday on the last working day of September, or whether she might be flying later in the weekend, maybe even staying later. He would not let himself think that she might still be somewhere close. But he paused at the desk that had been hers, bent over and inhaled deeply. He thought he could still smell something of her, some faint trace of the lotion she had used, the shampoo that made her hair glow.
He turned and crossed the aisle to his own cubicle. His hand brushed the mouse as he set his backpack on the desk and the computer screen sprang to life. There was a different screen saver on the screen, a poem he had not seen before. Of course, Sara had known his password. He bent to read.
圆月消瘦；黑夜胜 繁星。
耐心地等待， 太阳之光明。
The full moon wanes; stars can’t defeat the night.
Patiently wait; the sun will bring its light.
###
Sara
Sara pushed her hair back and bent to look through the window as the plane made its approach for landing. The Los Angeles International Airport runway sliced inland from the ocean outlined with white surf along the cliffs and beaches of the Southern California coast. Beyond, the towers of central Los Angeles gleamed against the backdrop of the Santa Monica mountains. Ynez Cavallo was down there. Her house, with its renters, was down there. Her son was down there, with the unknown Elizabeth, his new lady. She could manage them. She had learned about masks.
Sara fingered the jade circle on the chain around her neck and looked again as the suburbs scrolled away below and the runway came into view. Richie stirred and whimpered fretfully in the seat next to her as the plane engines roared. She turned and murmured to him “Hush, baby, it’s all right. We’re almost home.”
[The End/ 末尾]
Chinese Puzzle Box 