Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

Author:Amy Tan [Tan, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780062107312
Google: qWr6ngEACAAJ
Amazon: 142332241X
Barnesnoble: 142332241X
Goodreads: 17383934
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

WE RECEIVED A letter of eviction a few days later, no doubt hastened by the Ivory family’s thorough plan to dig me up like a weed and be rid of me. A representative from the Ivory Shipping Company confiscated the car. Someone from the Japanese company made a list of all the belongings of the house. When they tried to claim the paintings by Lu Shing that Magic Gourd wanted to keep, she pointed to the dedication on the back of each that showed it had been given to my mother.

I found positions for the amah, Little Ram, and Bright through the help of a kind woman at the American Club, who had recommended them as servants to recent arrivals from San Francisco. Magic Gourd and I brought out everything of value we owned: my jewelry, the dresses, the carvings, whatever we could sell, and we made a list of the order in which we would part with them. I would not let go of Little Flora’s and Edward’s belongings. I would never have the heart to sell them, but I could not leave them behind for someone else to sell or throw away. “When the time comes,” Magic Gourd said, “I will find a use for them and you will never know.”

The one possession of Edward’s I most wanted was his leather diary, his words and thoughts, his view of the world and himself. I had been searching for it ever since he died. I had to find it now. Magic Gourd and I went through his dressers, looked under the bed, the one we shared and the one he died in. We looked behind the furniture and even moved the heavy wardrobe. We looked at every book in the library and ran our hands behind the books. The brown leather covers made it nearly indistinguishable from a thousand other books. It sickened me that we might not find it. I had already set aside his fountain pens, pencils, blotter, the beautiful green leather volume of Leaves of Grass he had given me as an apology soon after we met, and on top of that the beaten copy he had purchased for himself to replace it. I picked it up. He had held this book. I opened it and I cried to see what was inside. The pages had been cut out to make a secret vault for his journal. Here he was before me: his words, his thoughts and emotions. I opened it, turning the pages, no longer sad but joyful in remembering the moments he had read the pages to me. Here was the story of his heroics that ended with his face in the mud. He had been so pleased when I laughed. I saw another entry, toward the back. I did not recognize it, and I was frightened that there was a reason he had withheld it from me, that it might contain a confession that he felt differently about me.

Violet was driving slowly. This

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