The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,24
the herbalist’s secret ingredients to improve, and sometimes to give, life.
The herbalist’s wife, a woman who sold tobacco and hand-rolled cigarettes on the streets of Tam Ky, had recommended the herbalist to my grandmother. My grandmother had known her for years, but not because my grandmother smoked her cigarettes. The Tobacco Woman, with her rotting teeth and greasy hair, was well known for being closely connected to the supernatural world. The spirit of her deceased grandfather frequently visited her to guide her and advise the living souls of the community who were fortunate enough to fall within the Tobacco Woman’s good graces. The Grandfather Spirit moved and spoke through a teenage boy from a nearby village who when occupied by the Grandfather Spirit would bike immediately to the Tobacco Woman’s house, where he would stay for one or two days, ready to help those who sought his counsel. In exchange for allowing the Tobacco Woman to sell her wares in front of our store, my grandmother was informed with all haste by the Tobacco Woman or one of her children when the Grandfather Spirit had returned. After years of advising my grandmother by the light of an oil lamp in a one-room shack on what lottery numbers to select, which had proven more often right than wrong, the Grandfather Spirit and the Tobacco Woman had a loyal believer in my grandmother.
And now, without saying why, my grandmother had asked the Tobacco Woman for the name of a good herbalist far away from the curious eyes and ears of Tam Ky, and the Tobacco Woman had named her own husband, a man with whom she no longer lived, but a man she still believed to be a good and useful practitioner of the healing arts.
“So what can I help you with?” the herbalist asked after my parents had sat down at the table, each with a cup of tea in hand.
My father fidgeted with his faded red teacup as he said, “We were hoping that you could help us with our newborn. She can’t see.”
The herbalist bent over my mother and me, leaning in so he could get a better look at my eyes and pulling the lamp toward him. “Hmmm. It looks like cataracts. Surprising that it should happen in someone so young. I can give you medicine that will strengthen her eye muscles, but to tell the truth, I don’t know of any medicine that will make this go away. Sometimes, we squeeze lemon juice into infected eyes, but I don’t think her eyes are infected here, although it wouldn’t hurt to try that, too.”
“Actually…uh…we don’t want you to give her medicine to make it go away because we know there isn’t anything like that. We want you to give her medicine to make her not suffer so she can go someplace where she will be able to see perfectly forever,” my father clarified in a voice that was barely audible above the motorcycle engines and beeping horns from the streets below.
The herbalist deliberately drew away from my mother and me then, returning to his side of the table and his chair. “Is that really what you want to do?” he asked.
My parents did not respond, except to look down at the cement floor littered with bits of spices and herbs.
When the herbalist spoke again, his voice was low, too, but firm. “You know people come to me because they’re afraid of dying of cancer or they have such high blood pressure they might keel over any second. Some women come to me because they can’t get pregnant. And I try my very best to help them all with the knowledge my father passed on to me and the knowledge his father gave to him. I can’t get involved in the sort of dirty business that you’re asking me to do. I’m sure there are other people who can help you, but I can’t. I understand the pain you must be going through, I truly do, but I don’t believe in this sort of thing. I’m sorry.”
With those words, the numbing armor around my mother began to crack, the tears rolled down her face, and without realizing it, she hugged me tightly and said to the herbalist, “Thank you, Uncle! Thank you so much!” Her tears were tears of relief, of incredible joy. Her body felt lighter, its way of celebrating this reprieve. This herbalist was proof that there were still sane people in this world, people