Leslie Li - Daughter of Heaven: A Memoir with Earthly Recipes

Many people were involved in the creation of this book, either directly or indirectly

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Joanne Wang, my exceptional literary agent, to Casey Ebro for her thoughtful and earnest editing, to Stacey Barney for an enthusiastic first read, and to Anton Li for his gift of the laptop on which Daughter of Heaven was written.

I owe a debt of gratitude to friends and family members who either served by example, offered inspiration, or contributed support of various kinds often all three. I would like to mention several of them by name: Solange Ferr, Pamela Frasca, Hilary Blake, Kathryn Kass, Maurice de Valliere, Douglas Manfredi, Julia Zanes, Marian East, Monica Pejic, and Sophie Kandaouroff.

Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt for the gift of refuge and respite at Chateau de Lavigny, where much of the gestation of this book took place.

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.

But which is the stone that supports the bridge? Kublai Khan asks.

The bridge is not supported by one stone or the other, Marco answers, but by the line of the arch that they form.

Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: Why do you speak to me of stones? It is the arch that matters to me.

Polo answers: Without stones there is no arch.

from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

One last story remains to be told. Not by me, but by a stonemason who lived in Guilin. That is, he was a stonemason, until he became the very material he had mastered. To hear his story firsthand, I returned to Guilin.

On my previous two trips, Old Man Hill brooding, lantern-jawed, gazing out from under a monstrous brow across the South China Sea was not high on my to-do list For one, he was isolated, far away from the other karst formations anthropomorphic or eidetic enough to merit their own myths and which I had visited up close: Elephant Trunk Hill, upon whose back I climbed to inspect the hilt of the sword thrust between its weary shoulders, only to discover that the protruding object is, in fact, a Buddhist dagoba, or reliquary Folded Brocade Mountain (whose accompanying legend is a hybrid of Cinderella and Rumpelstilt-skin) and Single Beauty Peak (shades of Jack and the Beanstalk), both of which I scaled for the spectacular views at the top. Luotuo, or Camel, Hill, a geological version of a recumbent dromedary at whose flanks lay a scraggly combination of zoo and circus, complete with very sad, barely sentient pandas.

By contrast, Old Man Hill resisted the casual visitor. He was distant, emotionally as well as physically But I was a persistent pilgrim. I made the long, arduous journey, during which I suffered, among other ailments, a bruised ego and a guilty conscience, and finally arrived at my destinations off-putting, cold-shouldered, hunched back. I walked around to where my unwitting host could see me, which he gave no indication of doing. Perhaps he was asleep. It was hard to tell with a man of stone.

I hope Im not intruding ... I began.

A sound came from the crag. A sigh, or perhaps simply an exhalation, like wind rushing through a tunnel or a soughing through trees.

... but Ive come a long way, even if it is only in my imagination, which sometimes takes the longest time and makes for the farthest journey of all. I was hoping that you might tell me your story, if you have a moment, of course.

This time, what exuded from the massive rock was most definitely a sigh.

I have nothing but time, all the time in the world. And you are interested in stories and stones, stones in stories, and stories in stones.

Yes, I replied, surprised and pleased that I didnt have to explain my presence and purpose any further.

Have you brought one of each with you? A story and a stone, as offerings?

I have. Do you want them now? I swung my bag off my shoulder and deposited it at his feet.

When Ive finished telling you my story and only if youre satisfied with it. Sit down. People who stand in my presence make me feel even older than the hill I am. As old as the proverbial since time began. And time, as you must know, began with stories. How else could it start?

I sat down in front of him, my legs crooked in at hip and out at knee, in a W, the obverse of the lotus position, the way I used to sit when I was a child anticipating a story, hungry for narrative, the meat of meaning. He began with a sigh, a rumble of breath in his stony lungs. The air he exhaled was cold, moist, subterranean, mineral.

My name is Lao Shi. Not the laoshi that connotes teacher. But the lao shi that means old stone. I was forty years old before I married, having finally scraped together enough money to afford a wife. Two years later, she bore me a son, whom we named Xing, which means happiness. A son, after all, is a big happiness.

I nodded in acknowledgment, not necessarily agreement.

A month later, my wife died. I was left with an infant and no idea how to care for him. Fortunately, I found sympathetic nursing mothers willing to share their milk, and so Xing was passed from one mother to the next. When he was old enough, I fed him juk at night when he awoke and cried. And during the day, I strapped him to my back while I worked, hacking rock out of hillsides and setting stones into walls. My friends hinted that I should remarry, but who would want to marry a poor stonemason with a small child? And why would I want a stepmother for Xing, when such women treat their stepchildren as badly as mothers-in-law treat the wives of their sons?

Years passed, and Xing became a strong young man, while I quickly grew gnarled and withered through toil and care. When I suggested that he was old enough to work and that I would gladly teach him my trade, he hooted in disdain, Theres no future in being a stonemason unless youre satisfied with an empty purse and an aching back. Not I. Im going to be rich! When he went down to the river to swim, which he did often, I offered to buy him a bamboo raft so that he might become a fisherman. Fishing? he exclaimed as if Id gone mad. Theres no money in that.

Every trade I mentioned he rejected, as though it were an insult, until one day recruiters from Hepu, a region along the coast famous for its pearl oyster beds, arrived in Guilin searching for novice divers. A good swimmer with powerful lungs, Xing decided that here was the opportunity he had been waiting for. If diving for pearls was so lucrative, I asked him, why did the recruiters have to cast their nets as far as Guilin to collect new divers? Why didnt boys from Hepu jump at the chance to gather pearls for them? Because the South China Sea is given to sudden storms and treacherous currents, I said, because the risks outweigh the rewards. When reason failed to deter him, I pleaded with him to stay for my sake. At seventy, I was an old man who hoped my son would take care of me in my final years as I had cared for him all of his life. But Xing would not be dissuaded. I did, however, extract from him a promise: that in three years time he would return.

The morning of his leave-taking, again I implored: Remember your promise to return to Guilin in three years. That is all I ask of you. Then I raised my walking stick and pointed to this hill where you and I now sit. At the end of three years you will find me there, waiting for you. Xing fell on his knees and swore that he would return in three years time. And so we parted.

The sun was at Lao Shis back. I couldnt see his face, which was in shadow (the eyes had always been in shadow, beneath the ponderous brow), but I heard his labored, rhythmic breathing. With each inhalation, he gathered and ordered memory. With each exhalation, he gave memory speech.