Chapter 34
It seemed that the mysterious cosmic force traveled between America and China and now it took Linda back to America with Danba since they stuck together hand in hand. Linda felt again like in a dream and when she woke up, she found herself in the Central Park in New York. She sat up and looked around and saw Danba lying beside her. She could remember everything that had happened in China. It had not been a dream. Something did have happened to her, or she should be now at home in New Jersey, not in New York. It was in midday time. People stood around them, watching, because they were dressed in weird clothes. Linda just ignored them. Shortly Danba came to like from a coma. She opened her eyes, but could not recognize the surroundings. So many people in clothes of different styles were around them and so were a few dogs on leash. Danba did not know that these animals were dogs because they looked different from those she had seen in her life.
Then her eyes fell on Linda. “Where are we now?” she asked feebly as if she was recovering from a serious disease.
“We are in America now.” Linda responded. “Let’s go.” She pulled Danba up from her lying position. Linda had mentioned America several times to Danba. So she knew that it was Linda’s home country, from where she had come to China.
Linda was in ecstasy that she could go home and see her parents now, and her boyfriend Frank. They pushed through people and walked out of the park. Linda hailed the first taxi she saw in the street. Danba had never seen any motor vehicles before. She asked, “What is this?”
Linda did not know how to explain to the full comprehension of Danba. She just said, “It’s a sort of coach here.”
“Why no horse to draw it?” Danba was always curious.
Linda knew that Danba could not understand that it was driven by motor. She just said, “You will learn it later.” Danba must learn English first now that she was in America.
All the way to New Jersey, Danba was excited to see the view flitting by. When at last the taxi stopped at the address Linda remembered she had been living, she and Danba jumped out of it. She gave the driver the twenty dollar bill she had always kept in her pocket, but it was not enough. She gave him her watch that she had always had on her, and then she took out some big broken pieces of silver that she still had in her pocket. The driver shook his head and accepted all those as the fare. He guessed that the girls came from another country that was very backward.
Linda and Danba ran to the house. Linda rang the door bell while Danba stood a little behind her. After a while the door opened. To Linda’s great surprise, there stood in the doorway a woman that looked like her mother, but in a younger version.
“Who are you, Miss?” The woman asked.
“Mom, it’s me, Linda.” She replied, “You don’t know me?”
“Should I know you? I never saw you before.”
Linda was confused. Something must have gone wrong. “Can we come in to explain?” She asked.
She and Danba looked quite harmless. The woman stepped back and opened the door wide. Linda walked in with Danba in her wake. When they all sat down, Linda started to tell everything, from the day she had found herself in China till today she had found herself in New York with the girl Danba. To convince the woman, she produced some silver bits that had been used as currency in ancient China.
“An intriguing story. But what does all that have to do with me?” The woman was dubious.
Linda was helpless. She looked up and happened to see the calendar on the wall opposite her seat. It showed the year 1984 on it. Impossible. She could not believe her own eyes. It was twenty years earlier than the year in which she had been sent to China by a mysterious cosmic force. She had been eighteen in that year. When it was twenty years back, she was not born yet. No wonder, her mom did not know her. The whole thing seemed in a science fiction. How could it happen to her?
Linda was desperate and knew that any further explanation was futile, too. How could a mother know her daughter unborn yet? She stood up and so did Danba. They said bye-bye to the woman.
Linda did not know where she could go. She was homeless now. She could not sleep in the streets like a vagabond. Frank was not yet born either. Therefore, there was no one she was familiar with that she could go for help. The sole way now was to rent a house. But she must have money first. She had some jewels with her. So she must sell one of them. The first thing she decided to sell was her gem necklace. Anyway, she managed to sell it to someone who was a collector for some ten thousands of dollars. But she did not know that when the collector showed it to an expert, the expert was greatly surprised to see such an artwork. From the style the expert recognized it as a precious piece generally used by someone in the palace of ancient China. It was worth millions of dollars.
Linda rented a room in a certain house in New York. She must find a job to support herself and Danba. And Danba should go to school. So she must have more money. She had to give up her two bracelets for auction. They were sold for one million dollars.
Shortly Linda became a celebrity. Reporters from both the newspapers and the television stations tracked her down. They wanted her story. But FBI made investigations on her. They wanted to know how and where a girl of her age could get such a valuable thing. Was any crime involved in it? Linda told her true story to them, but they did not believe her. Only they had nothing whatsoever against her. They even at a time suspected her to be an alien spy from the outer space to the Earth.
However, when the media learned it, the story became the headline on every newspaper and on every news program of every television station. The reporters even dogged Danba’s steps. But some days later, they gave up any attempts to draw anything from her, because she could not speak English yet.
Then a publisher came to see Linda and asked her to write a book about her adventures in China. The publishing company advanced to her a large sum of royalty under a contract. When her book came out, it was soon turned into a movie.
Linda and Danba lived comfortably. Sometimes after a few years, Linda had a curiosity to know whether her parents had given birth to a girl named Linda now, or the next door neighbors had born a boy named Frank. But she had nothing to do with them any more. When that Linda or Frank grew to eighteen years old, she would be nearly forty, almost her mother’s age since she had returned to America twenty years earlier. Sometimes she felt that she owed her mother something. At least the bringing up of her had cost her mother a lot of money and energy. One day she mailed a package to her mother with a best-quality pearl necklace inside, which the empress had given her as a souvenir.
The End
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
