And: “Watch out for getai,” Ah-Ma told her, as
she turned. “Remember, mind where you step. Don’t get in any ghosts’ way. It’s their time—they expect politeness.”
Jin’s mind raced, a thousand replies suggesting themselves: Wish I was a ghost, uppermost. But it wasn’t even vaguely worth the trouble, considering that come tomorrow, they’d all still have to live together.
So she nodded instead, avoiding Ba’s sad eyes: “Wei, Ah-Ma.” Bowing her too-long melon head, pulling in her too-long limbs, crushing down her too-tall half-Korean self in general—almost to “normal” height, or close as she could get—as she went.
***
Inside the Empress’ Noodle, meanwhile, everything was cool and dim. Mrs. Yau flicked the same hand she’d used to entice Jin closer shut once more, a five-fingered fan, and nodded to the chair at her left elbow; as she did, red-shaded lantern-light glinted off nails grown just a half-inch longer than anyone Jin had ever seen before wore theirs. Jin nodded back without thinking twice, and found herself already sitting.
“Ni hao, mei mei,” Mrs. Yau said, her Cantonese softened by a wind-through-willows shading of Mandarin. “What is your name, please?”
“Jin-Li Song.”
Mrs. Yau pursed her soft lips, disapprovingly. “Song Jin-Li-ah, ai-yaaah. Don’t your parents know enough to teach you how to properly say your own name?”
“Well, uh . . . that’s how we say it at school, so . . . ”
Another nod. “So. How they say it, the long-noses. But mei shi, never mind. Perhaps this is only proper, given the age we live in: two names for two different worlds—one for use amongst the gweilo, the barbarians, and one to use here, amongst ourselves. Still, one cannot live in two places at the same time, wei?”
“ . . . No?”
“No.” She peered closer at Jin then, eyes narrowing further. “You must be Song Pei-Pei’s granddaughter, I think.”
At the sound of Ah-Ma’s “real” name, Jin lowered her head, blushing once more. “Wei, Mrs. Yau.”
“And how does her business flourish? Very well, I’m sure, this time of year.”
Jin didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. It was true that Gods Material Shop often stayed open around the clock during Hungry Ghost Month; only a year ago, when Ah-Ba was still alive, they’d probably have set money aside to hire extra help. Now it was just them—Ba and Ah-Ma out front, Ma and Jin in the back. And she was wasting time dawdling here, under Mrs. Yau’s unreflective gaze—her eyes that took everything in, gave back nothing . . .
A small nod, as though Jin’s silence constituted a valid answer. Mrs. Yau tapped the tablecloth between them, just once. Asking—
“Do you know this design, Song Jin-Li-ah?”
“Sure: Yin-yang. Right?”
“Yes. See how it is: one here, one there. They twine around each other, mix together—a little spot of yin in yang, a little spot of yang in yin. Yin is female, dark, cool; yang is light, hot, male. Yang acts. Yin is. Both are necessary. The building blocks of the world—without both working at once, in harmony, the mechanism no longer functions cleanly. But there is another thing too, something you don’t see here . . . it may be inside, or outside, or invisible. Yomi. Hell. Ten thousand kinds of Hell. Another thing to thank the long-noses for. Yomi is what’s hidden, what lies beneath. It is not for you. Not for anyone, unless . . . what time is it now, Jin-ah?”
“5:45 . . . oh, I’m sorry. Hungry Ghost Month.”
“Yes. So be careful, mei mei—little sister. Careful of what you see, and what you don’t. Because this month, what is hidden becomes revealed; what was obscure becomes obvious, without warning. Consider this my gift to you, and come back later on, perhaps, once my advice has been of some use. You may even call me Grandmother, if you wish.”
Jin frowned, studying the odd curl of Mrs. Yau’s tiny pink smile across her pale, pale face, and feeling as though the dim red world around her had somehow begun—almost imperceptibly—to swim.
With effort: “But—you’re not old enough to be anybody’s grandmother.”
The smile widened, pink deepening. And: “Oh, I am old enough to be your grandmother’s grandmother, child,” said Mrs. Yau, without much emphasis. “Old enough to be everyone’s grandmother.”
“You’re not a ghost, are you?”
“Ah, no.” But here Mrs. Yau bent her beautiful head, and took a single sip of tea from her thumbnail bone-china cup, adding—
“I am far worse than that.”
***
Read the Ullambana Sutra, was all Ah-Ma said, when Jin first asked her where the idea for Hungry Ghost Month came from, exactly. But Ba, knowing she never would, had been the one to paraphrase: How one time, long ago, there was a guy who ran away from home to hang with Buddha and become a monk—Maudgalyayana, that was his name. After he attained enlightenment, he looked around to see what his parents had been doing in the meantime, and found his father in heaven. His mother, though . . .