I had formed this ghostly image of Meng, someone who had once been like a sister to her, who also grew up in the pencil company and lived through two wars in Shanghai, and here she was suddenly reappearing, the answer to my predicament. I don’t usually press when grandmother speaks about her past. She’ll rub the scars on her arm and change the subject to anything other than her cousin, anything other than the pencil company. And grandfather will shake his head, just a little bit. But there’s clearly a deep love for Meng hidden there, a tender pain. I thought maybe I could help her resolve it. So this time, I pressed. What if I could find Meng? I asked. What if she’s still alive, still in Shanghai, and there’s a chance to reconnect?

Normally, I don’t think grandmother would have agreed. But grandfather gave her this look, and maybe since it was her birthday she realized she should do something, or she was feeling sentimental, with me leaving for college and all. Whatever it was, she wrote down the characters for Meng’s name. That night, I began my search, not expecting it would take me almost a year to find a lead.

Her name was Louise Sun. EMBRS told me this a week ago. Actually, more precisely, it said:

Sparks are flyin’, we’ve found a match! Your query for “Meng Chen”, “陳夢”, “Shanghai Pencil Company”, “上海鉛筆廠”, “Phoenix Pencil Company”, “鳳凰鉛筆廠” has sparked a connection with Louise Sun, click to reveal.

I think we’ve made EMBRS too colloquial, but that’s kind of Prof. Logan’s cringe style, and since I’m a lowly undergrad researcher and he’s a hotshot professor, there isn’t much I can say about it.

The matching post was a picture of two women, one old and one young. I zoomed in on the older woman first, searching for traces of grandmother. There were similarities around the mouths and how their hair grayed in specks rather than completely whitening. Behind the women was the waterfront, Shanghai’s skyline sparkling. Beneath the picture, a post written by Louise:

Hello from behind the Great Firewall! Couldn’t get my VPN to work until now, but I’ve been having the time of my life in Shanghai this summer with this absolute BOSS sitting next to me here. She lived through the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and ran the Phoenix Pencil Company, one of the only woman-run companies in the city at the time! They would make custom pencils for people all over. My high standard for writing implements feels justified now! #uniball4eva Two more weeks here, then I’ll be back to the Hill. DM if you want to catch up!