3
HEARING HER ILLNESS FROM HER VOICE
MUST GET ALONG—BE TIGER VIRGIN
It is the weekend after the exam, I come home to stay with VeVe. As soon as I walk into the house, she emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She grabs both my hands, her palms still wet, and looks me up and down. “You’re home. You’re home,” she mutters, relief in her voice. “How did the exam go?”
“I passed and made the cut for the class.” I expect my good news will please her.
“Oh,” she says. She doesn’t even congratulate me. “What did he say?” she asks instead.
“Who?”
“The American.”
“He just asked questions, and I answered well. Some were difficult.”
“What kind of questions?” she asks, her eyes searching my face.
“All kinds, why?”
She’s never shown such intense interest in any of my exams before.
“Did he ask about your family?” she asks.
Strange that Luke did ask me about my family. Stranger that she has guessed it.
“Yes,” I reply.
“What did he ask?”
“Just who my family members are.”
The kettle hisses from the kitchen, but she ignores it.
“What is his name?”
“Luke.”
“Luke what?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did he tell you why he came to China?”
“No. He didn’t talk about himself. Why do you ask?”
“Oh. Nothing.” She nods, then shakes her head, unsatisfied.
“I’m very hungry,” I say, eager to end the questions. “I missed your cooking.”
She looks at me for a second. “Go eat, then.”
I hurry to the kitchen to eat—scavenging for food is the first thing I do after I come home from campus. The kitchen is tiny. The round table can barely seat three people—a larger one won’t fit. A free-standing cupboard nearly as tall as the ceiling and a coal-burning stove take up most of the room. The stove pipe adds to the crowdedness as it zigzags upwards before it goes out through a hole in the roof.
In the cupboard, besides a bowl of rice, I find a plate of cabbage with tofu and take it to the table. I like tofu. When there’s no meat, it is a good substitute. I take a few quick bites, but it tastes bland, lacking the richness and spiciness usually present in VeVe’s cooking. I notice that her secret ingredient, dried baby shrimp, are missing. She must have forgotten to add them, which is unusual. VeVe never forgets anything.
L
On Sunday morning, people visit VeVe to obtain herbal recipes.
There are two kinds of recipe seekers: those who don’t believe in Western medicine and come to our home for traditional Chinese remedies, and those who seek recipes that they hope to cure the ailments that their doctors cannot. They are acquaintances, residents in the neighborhood alley, and those who have heard about VeVe at the fabric store, the fish market, or at the vegetable stands.
VeVe has been reclining in bed for hours on a pile of pillows nursing a bowl of gao fang, an herbal remedy that my grandfather prescribed for her when she was a child, to “boost” her health. She’s been taking it all her life. Gao fang, VeVe says, contains rare nutrients extracted from deer antlers and swallows’ nests. Gao fang is not meant to cure illness, but to strengthen one’s health and boost one’s chi. Whenever she drinks it, she looks dreamy, as if she’s taking opium puffs. She savors the bitter liquid before she swallows it—the same way she drinks her she jiu, snake liquor.
When the school teacher and his little girl—no more than eight-years old—show up at the door, VeVe emerges from the haze that shrouds her and instantly slips into another persona, animated and exuberant.
“Please sit,” she says to her guests in a soft but cheerful voice. “You are very pretty,” she smiles at the little girl.
“Not at all, Aunt.” The girl blushes. Her voice sounds like Widow Zhang in the alley whose vocal cords have been ravaged by cigarette smoking.
“Lizi’s voice has been hoarse for a week,” the father says. “She doesn’t have a cold or a fever. The doctor gave her pang da hai, but it did nothing.”
VeVe asks the girl to sit next to her. She points at her own blouse. “Can Lizi tell me what material this is?”
Her question sounds weird, but I know VeVe has a purpose in anything she asks her patients.
“Of course I know,” Lizi says, “It’s silk.” The “s” sound in “silk” sounds off, as if she said ‘hilk.”
“That’s a smart girl,” VeVe smiles. “Do you like eating silk melon?”
“Yes.” Lizi nods.
“Say ‘silk melon’ for me,” VeVe gently coaxes.
Lizi says “hilk melon.”
“Don’t worry,” VeVe says. “I have a magic recipe just for you.”
VeVe tells me to fetch some boiled water chestnuts from the kitchen. She takes a handful from the wooden bowl and puts them in Lizi’s hand. VeVe’s face looks bright, with that expression she typically has when she is about to tell a story. She always tells a story to the recipe seekers before she sells them the herbs. She seems to have a story for every remedy. I cannot tell whether it is a story she knows or just something she makes up in the moment. Talking is important, she says, and the curing power is as much in the herbalist’s mouth as in her recipes. She tells tales about the herbal medicine that will cure them, just as it magically cured a famous actor or a certain emperor of a certain dynasty. By the time she puts the package of herbs in the patients’ hands, their illnesses may have already been half cured.
“Want to hear a story about the magic recipe I am going to give you?” VeVe asks Lizi, who carefully bites the purple skin of a water chestnut and nods.
L
“Before both you and I were born, there was a traditional medicine doctor named Smooth Boat.” VeVe has Lizi sit beside her on the sofa and begins. “Every morning as soon as the sun rose, Smooth Boat would sit behind his redwood table seeing patients. He placed the patient’s wrist on an herb-scented mini-pillow and took his or her pulse. He had a cat, with long white fur, one eye blue and the other green. The white cat always curled up at his feet when he worked.
“One day, a beautiful young woman came to see Smooth Boat. She was the ping tan singer at the teahouse, known by her art name, Willow. Smooth Boat felt her pulse and told her that there was nothing wrong with her. Willow said, in a sweet Shanghai dialect, that she would like Smooth Boat to make her voice sound brighter and sweeter.
‘That would be beyond my ability,’ Smooth Boat replied, ‘but I could give you something to soothe your throat after you sing.’ He wrote out a prescription for her. His writing was so scrupulous it left no ink spots on the page—besides being a good doctor, he was an expert calligrapher; the prescription he handed to his patients was also a work of art.
“Willow took the remedy and in no time her voice indeed sounded brighter and sweeter. The crowd at the teahouse grew larger and stayed longer. Willow asked Smooth Boat to come to the tea house to hear her sing—she had fallen in love with him.
“One night, on stage, Willow saw Smooth Boat scribbling something on a piece of paper. She thought he was writing a love note to her, since he was too shy to profess his love in person. When the teahouse closed, he handed her a folded note and left. It wasn’t a love letter at all; it was a prescription. Willow went home, distraught. At midnight, she fell ill and ran a fever of 390C. Where would she find a doctor at such an hour? Then she remembered Smooth Boat’s prescription. She took it out and noticed a brief note on the back: Go to Fa-Gen’s drugstore around the corner. You have to bang on the door to wake him and tell him that Smooth Boat has sent you. Miss Willow will be better in the morning.
“Smooth Boat had heard Willow’s illness in her voice as she sang at the teahouse that night. Everything that happened afterwards was exactly as Smooth Boat had written in the note—Willow’s temperature came down by morning.”
“That’s magical,” Lizi says. “What happened next?”
“Until then Smooth Boat had only come to the teahouse once. One day Willow invited herself to Smooth Boat’s clinic, sat down on his bench with the pipa placed on her crossed leg, and started to sing: There are only vines climbing trees. Who has seen trees climbing vines?” VeVe sings, her voice vibrating slightly.
“Smooth Boat realized that Willow was using the song to hint that he should pursue her. From then on, he started going to the teahouse to hear her sing more often. Whenever Willow spotted him at the tea table, she would sing Fan of the Peach Blossom, a song from a classic tragedy. It was Willow’s signature song that she sang only on special occasions. With her fingers dancing on the strings of the pipa, she sang from her heart, and at the last note she would often faint.”
VeVe pauses, her eyes glassy. It is hard to tell whether or not she has finished the story, but clearly she doesn’t want to tell any more. She turns her gaze to my grandparents’ photograph on the wall, the only one hung in the living room.
Grandfather Smooth Boat is good looking with bright eyes. He was only forty-six-years old when he starved himself to death in the labor camp during Wenge. My grandmother, Willow, killed herself—VeVe never told me how. They have become two ghosts living in our house, looking straight at me from the wall no matter from what angle I approach it, as though they are trying to catch my attention and tell me something.
VeVe awakens from her reverie. “I am going to give you the recipe that brightened Willow’s voice,” she tells Lizi.
Lizi claps her hands. VeVe walks to my grandfather’s medicine cabinet. It stands as tall as she does, and it’s made of burled walnut in a dark brown color with intricate carvings of trees and animals. The cabinet has a total of sixty mini-drawers containing various ingredients of traditional medicine, from herbs to barks to dried cicadas, beetles, and scorpions. The drawers are not labeled; VeVe has memorized each one’s contents.
To fill Lizi’s recipe, VeVe opens seven drawers. She weights each ingredient carefully on a hand-held mini scale and pours it into a brown paper bag. “I will add something special to make your skin fairer than it already is,” she tells the girl.
Lizi looks at her father with a big smile on her face. VeVe’s own smooth skin and clear complexion—and mine for that matter—are a testament to the wonder of her herbs. She opens another drawer, takes three pinches of herbs from it without weighing them, and adds them to the bag. She ties the bag with a piece of twine and hands it to Lizi’s father. Then, with a fountain pen, she writes the directions for taking the medicine on a sheet of white paper from a note pad.
“Take this for five days and you will sing like Miss Willow.” She folds the piece of paper into a bird and hands it to Lizi.
“What happened to Smooth Boat and Miss Willow afterwards, Aunt?” Lizi asks.
“They married like other people who fall in love,” VeVe replies. “And they had a happy life together with their daughter.”
VeVe and I exchange a look.
Satisfied, Lizi takes out the pomegranates from the basket they have brought and lays them on the table. VeVe is willing to accept anything for payment. Those who can’t afford cash bring her gifts, such as fresh fruit from their own trees, eggs from their hens, or a few yards of fabric. Those who know her better bring her sticky rice—originally a Southerner, she prefers rice to bread, and sticky rice is hard to come by in the North. For those government officials who are healthy but want gao fang boosters, she charges them extravagantly. The more she charges, the more valuable they believe their gao fangs are.
“Thank you for the pomegranates, so ripe they burst open,” VeVe says. “My daughter and I can’t eat enough of them.”
Lizi’s father walks up to VeVe. “Thank you for curing Lizi’s throat.” He bows slightly.
“The illness is not in Lizi’s throat,” VeVe lowers her voice. “It’s in her lungs.”
第三章
聽聲音做診斷
做一個虎處女
走在小巷裏，我心情舒暢。腳下步子輕快我不時停下來觀賞薔薇花，有黃色的，粉紅色的從人家的院子裏爬到牆外。窄窄的小巷裏很熱，隻有牆內探出的樹枝下才有一點陰涼。
這是英文考試後的第一個周末，我回家和微微過。我一走進家，微
就從廚房裏走出來，一邊在她的圍裙上擦手。她上下打量著我，然後抓住我的兩隻手，她的手還是濕的。“你回來了，你回來了，”她不聽地重複著，好像見到我，突然放下心來。“給我講一講你的英文考試，有什麽情況嗎？”
“我考過了，進了零班，” 我高興地對她說。
“是嗎，” 她淡淡地說，一點沒顯出高興的樣子。又問，“都說了什麽？”
“誰說了什麽？”
“那個美國人。”
“他問了我好多問題，有些挺難的，但是我回答的都很好。”
“都是什麽問題呀，”微微問，它她的眼睛好像在我臉上搜索什麽。“什麽問題都問了，你問這幹嘛？”
她從來沒對我的考試這麽感興趣。
“他問沒問你家庭情況？” 微微問。
奇怪的是Luke的確問了我的家庭情況，更奇怪的是微微猜到了。
“問了。”
“問了什麽？”
“就是家裏有什麽成員。”
廚房裏水壺開了，傳出響聲，但微微好像沒聽見。
“他叫什麽名字？”
“Luke. ”
“Luke 什麽? ”
“他沒說。”
“他說沒說為什麽來到中國？”
“他沒有談自己。你問這幹什麽？”
“沒什麽，” 微微搖搖頭，顯然不滿意。
“我肚子餓了，” 我說，不想再繼續說下去。 “在學校裏我一直在想你做的飯。”
她看了我一眼說，“去吃吧，去吃點東西。”
我匆忙來到廚房。廚子裏找到一碗米飯，一盤白菜噸豆腐。沒有肉的時候，有豆腐吃就很好。吃飯的小圓桌，隻能坐三個人。大一點的也乘不下。大部分的空間被一個很高的碗櫃和和爐子占用了。彎彎曲曲的煙囪，使房間顯得更擁擠。 我坐下來迫不及待的吃了幾口，沒設麽味道。奇怪，微微做的飯經常味道很濃啊。也許是因為她這次忘了放蝦皮。微微可是從來不忘事的啊。
周日早晨，有人來向微微討藥方。一般有兩種人來找她。一種人不相信西醫，到我們家來要中醫藥方。另一種人是看過醫生後沒治好的。來他們有的是相識的人，街坊鄰居，和在菜場，魚市場，布店聽說過微微的人。
微微倚著一大堆枕頭，靠在床上。手裏捧著一碗熱騰騰的中藥方湯。是她小的時候姥爺轉為她開的一個中藥方，給她養生健身的膏方。但她從沒有停止喝過。微微說，膏方裏含有從鹿茸裏提取的珍貴成分。膏方不治病，隻是強體補氣。每次喝膏方她都顯得醉夢迷迷的，好像在抽鴉片。她先把苦藥在嘴裏含一會兒在咽下去。好像要嚐一嚐它的苦味。她喝蛇酒的時候也是這樣。
客人來了。一個老師和她的女兒，七八歲的樣子。微微馬上從她的朦朧中顯示現出來，變成了另外一個人，靈動，昂奮的樣子。
“請坐吧，” 她用柔和的聲音說。她微笑地看著小女孩，“你很秀氣啊。”
“不秀氣，阿姨，”女孩紅著臉說。 她的聲音出乎意料的地又粗有亞，使我想起想小巷裏那個常吸煙把喉嚨熏壞了的張寡婦。
“麗子的嗓子突然啞了有三天了。不感冒也不發燒” 她爸爸說。“醫生給了她胖大海，但是沒管用。”
微微把麗子拉到她身邊坐下。她指了指自己的褂子問麗子，“知道這是什麽布料嗎？”她的問題顯得挺奇怪，但是我知道微微是有用意的。
麗子不加思索地說，“當然知道，是絲綢。” 但是“絲”聽起來很含糊。
“真聰明，” 微微說，“你喜歡吃絲瓜嗎?”
麗子點點頭。
“說‘絲瓜，’”
麗子張嘴說“絲瓜，” 但是聽起來像“黑瓜。”
“不要擔心，” 微微說，“我有一個妙方專門給你的。”
微微要我到廚房裏拿一些煮好了的荸薺。她從木板碗裏抓了一小把，放在麗子的手裏。微微的臉突然一亮，換了一種馬上就要講故事的特殊的表情。在賣給人中藥之前，她總是要講一個故事。好像每一個藥方都有一個故事。有時候我真看不出她到底真的有一個故事，還是臨時即興自己編寫的。說很重要，微微告訴我，藥效不光在藥理還在藥劑師的嘴裏。她總是告訴病人。這個藥方曾經治好了。著名演員或者某某朝代的皇帝。難道會治不好你嗎。等她把中藥包穩穩地放在病人的手裏，他們的病已基本好了一半兒了。
“阿姨要給你的妙方有一個故事，你想不想聽?” 微微問你麗子。
麗子正在小心地用牙齒咬掉荸薺的紫皮。”想聽啊。”
“那時你還沒有生呢，其實我還沒有生，有一個著名的中醫，名叫平舟，” 微微開始講，每天早晨平舟坐在他的紅木桌前看病人。號脈時，他讓病人的手腕放在一個塞滿草藥的小枕頭上。有一隻白色的波斯貓，一隻眼睛藍，一隻眼睛綠，蜷縮在他的腳邊。”
“有一天，一個很美麗的女人來到平舟的診所。她是茶館裏唱評彈的歌手，藝名叫楊柳。平舟給他她號脈之後說，你的身體很好，沒有病。楊柳說，那就請平舟先生給我開一幅藥，讓我的嗓音更亮更甜吧。楊柳有一個很甜的上海口音。我可沒有那個本事，平舟說。但是我可以給你楊柳小姐一個方子來滋潤她的喉嚨。他邊說邊寫處方。他的自字很工整，很漂亮。一個好中醫往往是一個好的書法家。他給病人的處方也會是一件藝術品。”
“楊柳喝了平舟的藥，果然他她的聲音變得又亮又甜。茶館的客人也越來越多，呆逗留的地時間也越長。楊柳邀請平洲舟到茶館聽她演唱，其實她已經愛上他了。一天晚上楊柳唱歌的時候，在台上看到平舟在一張紙上寫著什麽。她猜想他大概是給她寫一封情書吧。他很羞澀，從來沒有當麵向他她表示什麽。茶館關門的時候，平舟遞給他一張紙條就走了。楊柳打開一看，挺失望。哪裏情書，是一個處方。楊柳有點傷心的回家了。半夜她忽然發起燒來，39度。這個時候到哪裏去找醫生啊。然後她想起平舟的處方。他她把它打開，在背麵上麵寫著: 去法跟根的藥店，一拐彎就到了。你要敲他的門把它他鬧醒，告訴他是平舟送你去的。他知道會怎麽做。楊柳小姐早晨就會好的。”
“原來楊柳在茶館裏唱歌的時候，平舟從她的嗓音裏聽出來她已經病了。結果真如平舟所說料，楊柳早晨起來就好了。” 說到這微微停頓了一會。
“太神奇了，” 麗子說，“那我的聲音也會像楊柳小姐的那樣變得又亮又甜了？”
“是啊，” 微微邊說邊揪了一下麗子的小辮兒。
“再後來呢，” 麗子問，“後來又發生了什麽事情？”
“那是平舟去茶館的第一次，” 微微接著說。“有一天，楊柳忽然來到平洲舟的診所，坐下來，把琵琶放在腿上，開始唱起來: 世上隻有藤纏樹，有誰見過樹纏藤？” 微微輕輕地唱著，聲音有點顫，婉轉入耳。
“從歌詞裏，平舟明白了楊柳是在暗示他應該去追求楊柳。從那以後，他經常去茶館聽她唱歌。每次楊柳看見他就會唱桃花扇，一個古典悲劇裏的歌，也是楊柳的保留歌曲，隻在特殊時候才唱。她纖細的手指在琵琶弦上飛舞著。她是用自己的心在唱，往往唱到最後一個音符，她會暈倒。”微微停住，眼睛有些迷離。
看不出她是否已經講完了故事，但她顯然不想繼續講下去了。她轉向牆上，對著姥爺的照片久久地凝視著。照片裏老爺平洲舟很英俊，眼睛很亮。他死的時候隻有46歲，是在獄中絕食而死。我姥姥楊柳也相繼自盡_微微沒有告訴我她怎樣自盡的。姥爺和姥姥就像我們家的兩個鬼魂，在照片上看著我，不管我從哪個角度看，他們都在盯著我，好像在吸引我的注意力，好像要告訴我什麽。
微微漸漸從她的沉思中醒過來，對麗子說，“我給你的妙方就是楊柳用的方子。”
麗子拍手叫好。
微微走到姥爺的藥櫃邊，藥櫃和她差不多高，是核桃木做的，上麵刻有花鳥樹木的花紋。藥櫃裏有60個小抽屜裝著各種各樣的中草藥。還有幹的知了猴，甲殼蟲，和蠍子。抽屜上沒有標記，微微知道每個抽屜裏裝的什麽。給麗子配方微微打開了七個小抽屜。她拿著一個玲瓏的小秤，每一樣成分稱好，倒進一個牛皮紙包裏。
“我再加進去一個特殊成分，讓你的皮膚更細膩，” 她跟麗子說。
麗子高興地對她爸爸笑了笑。微微自己臉上白皙的皮膚_我的也一樣_是對她的中藥最好的證明。她打開最後一個抽屜，捏了一小把，沒有撐秤，撒進口袋裏。她把口袋用草繩係好遞給麗子的爸爸。然後她在一張白紙上用一隻水筆寫下了怎樣吃藥的方法。她把白紙折成一個小鳥的形狀，塞進麗子手裏， 說，“喝五天，你的聲音就會像楊柳的一樣又亮又甜。”
“阿姨，平舟和楊柳在再後來的故事呢？”麗子問。
“再後來像其他相愛的人一樣，他們結婚了，然後有了一個女兒。”微微和我交換了一個眼色。
麗子滿意了，從他們帶來的籃子裏拿出幾個石榴放在桌子上。微微願意接受任何東西做藥費。那些出不起錢的，就給她東西，比如自己家種的水果，自己養的雞下的蛋。有些了解她的人會給他她糯米，知道她是南方人，喜歡吃米，不喜歡吃麵，糯米在北方又很難得到。對於那些來向她討膏方的幹部們，她會要價很高。她要的越高，那些人覺得他們的膏方越珍貴。
“這些石榴多好啊，熟的咧嘴了，”微微高興的說，“我女兒和我最喜歡吃石榴了。”
麗子的爸爸走進微微，說，“謝謝給麗子治好嗓子。”
“麗子的嗓子不是問題，”微微低聲說，“病在她的肺部。”
