Three Loves Seven, Chapter 25, Part 6 - "The Mysterious Raftsman"

Dear Gentle Readers,

Last time (two weeks ago), we left Dr. Wong out at the opening from Dog Island's Bay into the open sea. He had agreed to take the Islanders' ritual offerings of food for the Festival of Souls Lost at Sea out onto the open ocean. Accompanying him were the Princesses Faye (Unicorn/Chilin/West) and Angel (aka Jie, Tortoise) to assist.

He was given orders not to leave sight of land, but of course, he disobeyed when he received a manual distress signal from a figure he perceived in the fog out over the open sea. What would YOU have done?

Today's portion will conclude Chapter 25 and the strange occurrences of that day. There's more than can be said, but I think I'll just let you see what unfolds

... as the story continues ...

     “Do you girls see that?”  They looked up. They squinted to narrow their focus and then reacted in terror.

     “It’s a ghost! Dr. Wong, you need to take us back right now,” insisted Faye.

     “Nonsense. He looks like he needs some help. We’re going over to check it out.

     “Don’t! Nobody but a ghost would be out here,” Faye advised in great concern.

     “Normally, no, nobody would be out here—I would agree with you. But what if he’s from a shipwreck? Come on. What if we were the ones who were stranded? We have to at least see what the situation is. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

My assurances did not soothe the girls and they cowered together as I started up the engine and moved toward him.  He was on a raft cobbled together from what looked like old wood crates and barrels. He held an oar. I pulled alongside. He called out a greeting. I recognized it as being in Cantonese.”

     “My language is not good,” I said using my very rudimentary Cantonese.

I’ve had some use for my meager Cantonese in business settings in Hangzhou and Hong Kong, but it wasn’t much better than my elementary-level Chinese-school lessons. I could hear my dad and uncle laughing at me from their graves saying, “Told you it would be useful!”

     “English language?” I said hopefully.

To my surprise he answered in English, or at least I think he did, because I found I could understand him.  He had that dark red-brown appearance of a body that has spent too many days in the bright sun. His body and face were gaunt. His black hair, streaked with white, was long and matted. He wore a grayish robe that was so ragged and tattered that I could see the outline of his chest tattoo peering through the threads. His eyes were vacant and unfocused.

     “Get in, we’ll take you to shore.”

     “Dr. Wong! No! You must not allow that. HE’S A HUNGRY GHOST! He will haunt the island and trouble us!” said Angel.

     “Hush now. How inhospitable! That is very rude. I’m surprised at you. There are no such things as ghosts.” She bowed her head in apology.

     “I’m very sorry, Teacher.”

     “Are these your daughters?” the man asked. His voice was weak, raspy, and muted. I could barely hear him.

I don’t know why, but I felt I owed him a full explanation of why I was there on the open sea with these two young ladies, but it seemed like too much information to share, so I replied simply.

     “Yes, they belong to me. But sir, I would like to help you if I can.”

     “I see. I too have a daughter. And a wife. But where are they? Do you know?”

     “Were you separated at sea? Did you have a shipwreck?”

     “I don’t remember. It’s been a long time,” he paused. The sound of the water slapping our boat punctuated the silence, hitting to the beat. “Such a long time.”

     “I am Wong. What is your name?”

     “I don’t remember. It has been too long since I’ve said it. Or since anyone has said it.”

     “We’ll figure it out later. Take my hand and get in.” I reached out but try as I could, I could not grasp his hand.

     “It’s so COLD!” the girls complained. “He is making it freezing.”

They pulled their clothes tight around themselves and huddled even more closely together. I had an idea.

     “Hold on, let me throw you a line. Tie it to your raft and I’ll tow you in.”

I threw one of my attached lines to the man, but the rope seemed to fall through the palms of his hands and then through the gaps between the planks of his vessel.  I reached out and touched his raft. It was deathly frigid to the touch, almost like a block of dry ice, but it was solid.

     “I’ll get on your raft and secure it.”

     “Dr. Wong. I think it would be a bad idea to get on his raft. You might not be able to come back,” said Faye.

     “Now THAT is a fairy tale if ever I heard one,” I told her bluntly.

I stood to step on his raft and tried to put a foot on what I perceived to be solid just a moment ago, but I could not gain hold. The man saw my struggle and motioned to me to stay where I was.

     “Your daughters are right to be fearful. Something is wrong about me, but I can’t remember. It’s been so long. It is so frustrating. I am beyond your ability to help.”

He sat down upon his raft and set into a moan so sad that I began to feel like the girls looked—helpless and terrified. Surely there is something we can do for him. Eliminate inadequate explanations and what do you have left?

     “Girls,” I said, “I told your aunt earlier that I do NOT believe in ghosts. And I DON’T. Let’s be clear about that. However, I am at a loss to explain this phenomenon without further investigation. I really want to get his raft over to my lab.”

     “So can we go home now?” asked Faye.

     “We can’t just leave this guy here. He’s a goddamned wreck.”

     “But we can’t do anything for him,” said Angel.

That much was true. But it seemed inhumane just to leave him on his horrible raft.

     “Well, it is Hungry Ghost Day, and let’s just act as if that were true. If this guy is putting on some kind of elaborate performance to enact this festival, sure, fine, I’m OK with that, and I’m willing to pretend that he is a ghost. And if this is Hungry Ghost Day, what can we do, but give him the food? Right? That’s why we’re here. So instead of lighting the remaining lanterns and setting these little boats out, we’ll give him the food, all of it. Open up some of them for him to have now.”

They unwrapped all of the remaining rice morsels and meatballs and handed them over to him. Surprisingly, he was able to receive them and so, one by one, piece by piece, he slowly ate.

     “Put the rest on his deck. Faye, first, hand me the joss pail there.”

I had brought along a thick gauge metal bucket weighted with some sand on the bottom. This was to be used transmit burning joss. I set it on his raft; it stayed put and did not fall into the sea as I was worrying it might. My pockets were stuffed with all the joss paper that Johnson Lai had recommended I bring with me. It seemed that this festival might be the appropriate place to have that material on hand.  I remembered his words, “Nobody knows anything about the Islanders except that they are of Chinese origin,” he said, “but they’re probably about as Chinese as us, which is not much. But it doesn’t hurt to look respectful and pious.”

Johnson, you have NO idea how off the mark you were. I realized I had come so far from that ignorance of these Islanders. Silly as this care-of-the-dead exercise seemed, there was only one thing to do that I could hear every ancestor of my yelling at me to do.

So I reached into my pockets and pulled out the several bundles of tissue papers that I had brought, each of which were imprinted with a currency designation in the millions, and I placed them in the bucket.  If this stuff actually worked, he would be richer than the Sultan of Brunei. I also brought along a small tripod urn which was filled with incense cones which I then lit. I emptied my lighter’s fluid onto the joss paper and then struck a match to set the pail aflame.

     “This is for you,” I said, “I do this in the name and place of your wife and daughter. The peace of God whom I serve be upon you and yours, my brother.” A good generic Protestant blessing was only thing I could come up with myself.

He sat transfixed as the fire began to build. There was some sort of optical illusion as the flame grew against the reddening sky of the sunset, and a glow grew everywhere, and it seemed to envelop and warm us all. Color came to his face. Hollows under his eyes and in his cheeks seemed to fill out. The light of the joss flame cast the color of his garments toward red and gold, transforming them from the cold, lifeless grays.

     “I . . . I am starting to remember,” he said.

     “Who are you?”

     “I still cannot recall.”

     “If you are a ghost, why do you wander in these waters?”

     “I am drawn here. Something compels me.”

     “To this island? There’s nothing there.”

     “Do not be mistaken. There is powerful magic there.  A great witch has dwelt there for a long time. It’s surrounded with a great boundary spell to hide something. I cannot get any closer than this. That is why I cannot get into your boat nor can you tow me there. But I thank you for the food. I am stronger than I have been for a long time. My eyes can see a bit more clearly now, but it is starting to get dark.” He looked closely at the two girls. “My daughter was not even a year old when I, when I, ah, … that was it, when I left for the war. And yet, you two remind me so much of her. I lost her face from my mind. But here you are. Thank you. You brought her back. I so wanted to hold her again. At least once more. What a pitiful soul I am.”

Faye and Angel nodded at one another. Something he said brought back a memory of what they had heard in a story. They got to their feet and moved to step onto his raft.

     “Wait, you’re boarding?” I said, “What about your own warning to me?”

     “He is no longer cold. He is not a ghost anymore, almost. It will be fine,” said Angel.

     “And even if we cannot return, if you will say exactly what happened to our mothers, they will be pleased,” Faye assured me.

OKAY! Now it was now my turn to be alarmed. They were my responsibility. What if they couldn’t return? What the hell was I thinking there? Before I could restrain them, the two girls stepped adeptly aboard his raft, except it now looked like an imperial barge of red gold richly festooned, gleaming along its peripheries with sentry lanterns. The girls stood side-by-side, gave him three deep bows, and then wrapped their arms around him as if greeting an old friend of the family. He held their heads in his hands so he could study their smiling faces, intent not to lose the memory.

There was a great table set up in the middle of the barge; it was sumptuously dressed and adorned. The girls began to move the meager food offerings thereon, but each in turn became a generous platter comprising a great banquet as each item was placed. It seemed like we had stumbled into the third act of a Disney movie.

The fog blew in and I seemed to lose my focus on the situation, but the haze passed and I imagined that I was now standing on his deck. But it was time to say goodbye. The ghost kissed the girls’ foreheads and motioned them back into my boat. Faye and Angel bade him farewell and they used the title “Mother’s Father”.

     “Ah Wong,” he said to me, “hold out your hand.” I did as he instructed. He reached into his tunic and grabbed ahold of something which he pulled over his head. He dropped something metal into my hand. “It is time that I must let this go, so I give it to you.”

     “I’ll hold it in trust for you,” I said respectfully, and then reflexively stuffed it into the pouch I kept on my belt. I would examine it later.

     “It’s an artifact of this world. I have no need of it anymore. I leave it to you lest I be bound here further.”

     “You are not coming with us?” I asked.

     “Behold, as the sun dies there, the track of the moon is finally emerging to me on the water.”

I must have been hallucinating because I saw a full moon begin to rise.  This was only the 8^th day, the day of the 1^st quarter moon.

     He announced, “I can see it. That is my path now. When the moon looks like this, it is a doorway opening into a silvery realm. Maybe at its end I will find my dear ones. Follow me if you wish, but I don’t think it is your time.”

The golden raftsman picked up his oar and pounded it on the deck as a potentate would call an assembly to order with his floor baton. He called out an order and I heard the chuff of a great wind. The fog lifted a bit and I saw two massive towing cables on either side of the barge. They went taut and as much as I could tell, the barge was about to be towed by two large sailing ships, which, in the mist, appeared to have been fashioned into the form of sea dragons, rather like Viking ships. They moved with deliberation toward the rising moon. He started to grow small in the distance. He turned after a bit and yelled to me.

     “A warning, Ah Wong. A great surge is coming.”

     “How do you know?”

     “It can be read in the wind and tides years ahead of its arrival if you know how to look.”

     “So you’re a molecular determinist then? That school of thought has a boatload of critics.”

     “It is not simply chance that you are here. You must protect them all. It is now your duty.”

He disappeared from view as the fog thickened once more and we had lost bearings. And then I heard the beating of a distant gong. The sharpness of its alarm brought my mind back to full attention of my surroundings. The three of us agreed upon its direction, started up the motor, and headed back into the gong’s direction, into the harbor, and the beach torches came into view.

     “We lost sight of you in the blaze of the setting sun,” said Mu as we stepped out of the boat. “I was worried for a while. Did anything happen?”

     “Girls?” I said looking at them both.

     “No. We set all the offerings to sea. It was quite nice,” said Faye.

     “I got a little cold out on the sea,” said Angel. “It was quite a change.”

Their demeanor was reverent and understated. I started to question my sanity, but I left it at that and offered nothing about incident with the odd raftsman. It was only logical that we three could not all share the same hallucination. Mu asked me later that evening if I still did not believe in ghosts. I think she suspected that something had happened to me. I must have been quieter than usual. I told her my feelings had shifted a bit, but that I had come to realize that the power of remembrance may be the only thing that grants true immortality. She patted me on the head patronizingly but playfully as if I were a dog who had just learned a trick, but it surprised me how much I enjoyed it.

© Copyright 2012 by Vincent Way, all rights reserved.