An angel, Grandmother would say, saved her life during a four-story suicide jump the year China went Red. Me on her lap, she told how she toed the ledge, stared out at the network of alleyways smothered in smoke and screams and men tearing through men and manmade. How she leaned forward and the landscape fell up, toward and past her. How Kuan Shih Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, appeared and placed a palm beneath her. Whispered, ‘The Earth shall keep spinning.  Spin with it,’ and eased her to the ground. ‘I broke a leg and both arms,’ she said, raising two gnarled fingers, ‘but it was magical.’

I’d cry when she told me about Grandfather, whom she hadn’t seen since the day he was taken away.  He’d been a politician in the Nationalist Government, and so imprisoned for life. ‘They took my possessions,’ she said, ‘then my husband. Forced me to bow and confess against him to avoid his immediate execution.’ She’d stare ahead. ‘Last time I heard his voice, he was screaming mine and your mother’s names as they dragged him away.’ She’d blink several times and I could see the image dissipating, melting into the now. ‘We were helpless in a country that needed help,’ she said. ‘Unable to save those who needed saving.’

Years later, we returned to the location of her old house, but it was gone, replaced by an office building. Grandmother only smiled and said, ‘Prettier than it used to be.’

She died shortly after. As she ...