by Kien Nguyen
Song pushed the partition aside. Ven remained on the front porch, looking through the door. She would not dare cross the threshold. In the center of the room, she saw an elderly woman, dressed in lustrous black satin. The old lady reclined on a bench, holding a cup of tea. Ven recognized the emerald glow of Master Nguyen's soup bowl in her bony fingers. She concealed her anger by keeping her eyes low. A child about six years old played at the old lady's footstool. She held in her hands a bottle of colored liquid and a small metal loop. In the soft light of the room, the little girl made soap bubbles by twirling her loop through the air.
Magistrate Toan's first mistress scrutinized Ven through sunken gray eyes. Thick saliva, a mixture of betel juice and limestone powder, filled the tiny cracks on the old lady's lips. From afar, the sharp look in her eyes, the wrinkles on her thin face, and her shockingly red mouth reminded Ven of a monkey in an expensive costume. Ven fell to her knees and knocked her head against the stone ground.
“Who are you?” the old lady asked. Her voice echoed through the cavernous room.
“I am a beggar, Great Lady,” Ven replied.
“Our door does not open to beggars. Leave this place at once.”
Ven looked at the old mistress. “I am not here to beg for food,” she said. “I have a small affair to discuss with you.”
“What sort of affair?”
Standing in a corner, Song said, “She wants to sell her seven-year-old son to the house of Toan.”
“Why does she not speak for herself?” the old woman asked. “Where is the boy? I do not see anyone but that beggar woman.”
Ven crawled on her knees across the marble floor to get closer to the old lady. Her mouth was dry from the fever. “The boy is waiting by the gate,” she said.
“Seven years old,” the old lady said, sipping her tea noisily. “He is too young to be a servant in this house. What can a starving child do that could be worth the rice that we feed him?”
“I can teach him the duties and responsibilities of a skilled servant, Old Mistress,” Song replied.
The old lady gave Song an angry glare. “You are now a mistress,” she said to the girl. “In front of the servants, you should behave like a lady. You do not teach somebody to be a slave. It must be innate, like an ox born to plow the fields, or a dog to guard houses.”
Ven implored, “Have a heart, Great Lady. Think of it as a good deed for your life in Heaven. Only a small payment will save a hungry child and his mother.”
Master Long came into the room, carrying a book. He removed a Western-style felt hat and fanned himself; then he touched the little girl's black hair and asked, “Why is a beggar in our living room, First Mother?”
The old lady answered, “She is selling her son. A small household affair, which need not trouble you.” Turning to Ven, she ordered, “Bring the boy in. I want to see if he is fit to serve my first grandchild. A seven-year-old slave is worth three silver dollars.”
Ven thought of Dan waiting outside. Her protective instinct rose, and she considered leaving at once. Seeing her uncertainty, the old lady said irritably, “Well, go, will you!”
Ven did not forget to bow to the old mistress before leaving the front porch. On her way out, she picked up the stick and her torn hat. This time, she was ready to fight the dog if necessary. It hid somewhere behind the tall brush and growled at her.
At the wooden gates, Dan sat and waited for her. He jumped up as soon as he recognized her faded brown shirt. Ven waved for him. Seeing the blood on her hand, the boy gasped in fear. His face bore a sadness so expressive it seemed part of his personality.
“Come with me,” she said to him. “The old mistress wishes to see you. Please behave yourself, and don't forget anything that I have taught you.”
She turned to the house, looking back now and then to make sure he was behind her. The boy plodded along. His eyes were glued to the thick shrubbery, from which the dog's snarling could be heard. Soon they were at the front door of the main living room.
Master Long sat on a chair on the front porch, watching Ven and her husband through the thin lenses of his spectacles. Without a word, he grabbed a handful of rose petals to wipe the dirt off his leather shoes. Then he scattered the bruised flowers on the floor and resumed reading his book.
Ven pushed the boy onto his knees, facing the old mistress. On the bench, the old lady lay with her eyes closed and her mouth open, making little snorting sounds in her throat. Song stooped and whispered something in her ear, which roused the woman from her nap.
“My grandchild, where is she?” she asked, searching the room with her ancient eyes. Once she spotted the little girl, still playing with her bubble toy nearby, the old lady smiled, and she recovered her poise. “Where is that beggar and her son?” she asked.
“This is my son, Old Mistress,” Ven replied. Her hand rested on the boy's shoulder, keeping him on his knees.
“What is your name?” asked the old lady, looking at Dan.
The boy searched Ven's face before he answered, “M-mouse.”
“How old are you?”
“Seven.”
Anger appeared on the old woman's face. She kicked the footstool. “Ill-bred scoundrel!” she screamed. “Always address me as Old Mistress, do you understand?”
Dan shrank back, more in surprise than fear. “Yes, Old Mistress,” he said.
“Your mother also told me that you are seven years old,” the old woman went on. “From the look of those tiny hands and feet, I think you both lied to me. It is inherent in a beggar's blood to lie. You just cannot pull those tricks on me and expect to get more cash. I can see that this boy is six years old—much too young to work in this house! However, I have pity for your wretched condition, and my grandchild needs a servant. I will buy this slave despite his age. But because of his inferior quality, I will only pay two silver dollars.”
“Have mercy on us, Great Lady,” Ven cried. “My son is seven years old. He was born in February, the year of the rooster. We would not dare to lie to you.”
“Shut your mouth,” the old lady snapped. “I have decided. If you do not like the price, you can take him with you and face the famine together.”
Sitting up in his chair, Master Long snapped his fingers to get Dan's attention. “Come over here, Mouse,” he ordered.
Dan seized his wife's hand and stood his ground. Ven pushed him away from her. In a solemn voice she said, “Come now, the master calls for you. You should run to him.” Step by step, Dan moved toward the man as a convict draws near his guillotine. The images of his father's death still burned in Dan's memory.
Master Long reached out to grab the boy's thin arm and pull him closer. Terror deepened on Dan's face. Lifting up the child's shirt, Long examined his torso, carefully checking his front and back. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he said, “Go back and bid farewell to your mother.”
Ven knew that Master Long and his father would continue searching for a boy with a tattoo. Thankful for her father-in-law's wit in his final moments, she muttered a prayer for him under her breath.
Old Mistress whispered to her grandchild, “Little May, that boy is my gift to you. He is now your new servant. Do you like what grandmother gives you?”
The little girl laughed, clapping her hands together and spilling the soap liquid on the floor. She glided and pirouetted across the room until she came face-to-face with her new present. Shyly, she reached out and wiped a tear off his face. Dan stepped back.
“Don't cry,” the girl whispered. The plastic loop in her hand traced along the side of his cheek, forming a small bubble that smelled like flowers. He forgot himself and grinned at her.
The old lady turned to Song. “Fifth Mistress,” she said. “Go fetch Tutor Lo for me. I need him to draw up a contract for this drifter to sign. One must be careful of a derelict's capricious mind.”
When Ven left the great house of Toan, two silver dollars clinked inside her pocket, next to the contract. She remembered the co
ld touch of the black ink on her mangled hand when she laid her fingerprints across the document. She recalled the boy's hysteria as he clenched her torn shirt, and the strong hands of the servants who had pulled him away from her. She could not stop crying.
That night, and during many nights that followed, Ven battled her illness in the burned ruins of the old kitchen. Hidden in the murky stillness of the abandoned house, she slipped in and out of consciousness, having a recurrent nightmare in which she was tied to a bamboo post in front of a shallow grave. Several times she woke to her own screams. The crescent moon above her became the gleaming scimitar. Her body pressed deeper into the ground in those confusing moments, and the delirium intensified. She shrieked and wept until she lost consciousness.
After several weeks, she felt her strength begin to return. Ven went to the community hall to beg for food more substantial than the morsels she found by scavenging through the garden. There, she learned from the gossips of the Cam Le Village that the house of Nguyen was haunted. Tales were rampant of the ghosts that dwelled in the ashes of the mansion. Many a villager had heard the unearthly screams at night. Now, hardly a soul dared to pass by the ruins of the once stately house.
In Ven's mind, it was a place she could never leave. Each day after begging for alms in the village, she returned to the place of woe and watched the moon stroll across the night sky.
Slowly, the dusty road in front of the mansion fell into disuse. Weeds grew up to cover the shattered entrance with their greenery. Even the few remaining walls continued to disintegrate with the torrential rains. Fallen mango fruits covered the bare earth, rotting under the sun.
However, at night, when the silver moon spilled its eerie light over the treetops and a faint mist rose from the quiescent land, the cries of the ghosts would echo clearly, lingering in the gentle wind like a never-ending song.
Part Two
NINE YEARS LATER
chapter eight
A Marriage of Propriety
THE CITADEL OF HUE, SEPTEMBER 1925
In the early autumn of 1925, a mandarin and his son from the Imperial City of Hue were invited to open the Harvest Moon Festival that would take place a few weeks later in the village of Cam Le, four miles south of the citadel. Acting in the name of the emperor, Minister Chin Tang and the young Master Bui Tang agreed to officiate at the three-day celebration along the banks of the Perfume River. Together they would lead the townspeople in giving thanks to the gods of the soil and the harvest—the sovereign lords of the terrestrial world.
In the letter Minister Chin wrote to the mayor of Cam Le to confirm his attendance, he also implied that his son, who had just passed his seventeenth birthday, was a proper candidate for marriage to Master Long's only daughter, Lady Tai May. The Toan family eagerly accepted this suggestion but expressed its wish for the two young people to get acquainted during the festival before any further arrangement for their union would be made.
The young lord, Bui, had passed his childhood with his father behind the high stone walls of the citadel. For as long as he could remember, his mother had lived separately in the apartments of the emperor's first wife in the heart of the Purple Forbidden City, where she served as a lady-in-waiting for the Queen Mother, the majestic Lady Thuc. The quarters where his mother stayed were probably the most secluded in the citadel—except, of course, for the king's private bedchamber, into which no outsider would be admitted on any account. Bui formed vivid impressions of the nobles' luxurious and decadent lifestyle through the descriptions his mother offered each time she visited her family, which could be as often as twice a week for a few hours during dinnertime.
Around the Imperial City, located inside the citadel, were the complexes of six ministries—the Exchequer; the Justice Sector; the Chancellery; the Ministry of Forests, Navy, and Shipbuilding; the Ministry of Religion and Ceremonies; and the Ministry of War. In this elite society Bui's father, Minister Chin Tang, held a distinguished position in the branch of religion. As a third-rank mandarin, he had endowed their family name with a degree of nobility. But Bui quickly learned that the title itself generated little income or respect in the king's court. To other mandarins, his father was merely a scholar, teacher, and secretary for the royal family. Chin Tang possessed no arable lands or properties that could produce any earnings. In fact, according to his mother, if she had not taken the employment in the queen's palace, they would have gone through Bui's entire inheritance much faster and would have left him penniless when they died.
Bui grew up inside a small, protected enclave known as the “ministers' section.” Located behind the eastern gate, it was a series of guarded rooms that the king had reserved for mandarins of his father's stature. Except for a handful of holidays and special events, when he was allowed to venture outside his home, he spent his days inside his bedroom reading ancient scriptures with a private tutor or playing with the neighboring children. Now Bui was ready for his first trip beyond the walls of the citadel.
The prospect of escaping the confines of his childhood home sparked in him a thrilling flight of the imagination. His spirit longed for the freedom that lay beyond his orderly, formalized existence. Besides the chance to enjoy some rural entertainment, the excursion represented Bui's journey to marriage. He might leave this place a boy, but in the eyes of the world, he would come back a man.
The wait was excruciating. The female servants his father sent to help him prepare for the journey seemed to irritate him deliberately. These were the older, more experienced maids, who had served his family for several decades. By now they should have been able to read his thoughts and understand his moods. Yet, to his surprise, they acted like a herd of oxen, slow to move and just as dumb. The sight of them crashing into one another, stumbling over their large feet, and dropping his expensive Western clothing on the floor infuriated him. Venting his frustration, Bui cracked his riding crop on their backs and sent them screaming into the garden. Still, this sudden outburst did not satisfy him. He wished he were strong and skillful enough to break their tough hides and leave scars, so he could teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget.
On the day of his departure, an hour before sunrise, a cannon announced the opening of the gates to the fortress. Shortly afterward, the bell from the faraway Pagoda of the Celestial Lady, west of the citadel, tolled its persistent knell. Its chime vibrated in deep and long strokes to the ruddy dawn. The crowing cockerels of nearby villages responded with their usual zeal.
The monks had always been the first ones to rise inside the citadel. Bui usually lay comfortably in bed, watching his window through half-shut eyes to catch glimpses of the monks' dark shadows as they moved toward the eastern gate, begging Heaven to preserve the king's well-being. Another hour would go by before he heard the door of his father's room creak on its wooden hinges. Then came the young maids, holding red lanterns in their hands and making a faint rustle in the hallway with their cotton shoes. He waited until the servants' soft hands nervously touched his shoulders through his thin blanket before he stirred.
That morning, in the comfortable darkness of his bedroom, Bui woke to the distinctive perfume of sandalwood oil that the servants sprayed on the altar of the earth gods in the garden. It was the first time that he did not wait for the maids to wake him. Wrapped in his blue satin bedspread, he sprang up and left the warmth of his bouncy Hong Kong mattress. The new bed had been sent to him as a preemptive wedding gift from the Toan family. Bui adored his new present. Lacquered and brass-trimmed, it served dual purposes: a place to sleep and a fashionable trunk in which he could hide his valuables. Its ebony wood, renowned for its magical properties, was said to ward off evil forces.
At the center of the room, a blue-and-white urn containing a flaming wick afloat in sesame oil had managed to burn for several years to nourish Bui's weak spirit. His father had explained to him on several occasions that since Bui was a gift sent from the underworld in response to his parents' prayers, they must constantly make offerings to ensur
e that the gods would protect him. Bui never opposed any of these superstitions since they served well to endorse any unruly actions he might commit and to shield him from all the trouble he made.
He stood facing the copper jar on the floor, unfastened his coverlet to leave enough room so that he could urinate, and swayed his hips from side to side to direct the flow into the vessel, unsuccessfully. Later, the maids would clean up the puddle he left on the floor. Pushing aside the screen of his bedroom, he stepped out into the chill.
The earth was still fogged over from the night's soggy breath. As he watched, shivering, a cool autumn wind rolled across the vast enclosed field and scattered the mist into a walled garden full of flowers, cherry trees, frangipani, and flame trees. All of the plants and walkways in his garden circled around a small pond—a typical design for the dwellings in this section of the citadel. Between the properties, several simple paths merged and formed a larger road, leading to other areas of the fortress. Running alongside this road was the wall of the Imperial City. Its majestic height and thickness protected the king's estate from all those living around him, making his home a city within a city.
From behind the Great Eastern Gate, the sun emerged, dimming the lingering stars in the bronze sky. Bui sat on a quilt placed on the ground, touching a silver chain around his ankle and staring at the four brightly lit lanterns hung from the garden walls. In front of him, a single file of porcelain vases with sprouting orchids of different shapes and colors sat against the backdrop of a miniature landscape—all built from a single piece of stone. When he was younger, the intricate forms of these rocks above the pond had suggested mountains, animals, and human forms, a magical world full of mysteries.
