The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel

by Maureen Lindley

  Xue's history allowed me to feel a connection with her as well as a certain amount of sympathy for her. She was a hard woman to like and I never managed that, but I could see how she had been made. We had both been banished to this ungenerous land, given to men by other men who did not value us. Although it had made her bitter and difficult, she had accepted the hard life chosen for her and had turned to religion and superstition as her salve. Unlike Xue, I would never accept that Mongolian life was my fate and I was determined to escape it, no matter what the cost.

  It was bad luck for me that Kawashima had settled on Xue and Tsgotbaatar's son for my husband, for unlike some other scions of Mongolian royalty, Kanjurjab hated to travel from his beloved grasslands and had scant knowledge of the world. Indeed, he had little interest in anything except Mai, archery and horses. I think that the journey to Port Arthur had been the furthest both in miles and experience that he had ever travelled. It had not whetted his appetite for adventure; he needed so much less of it than I to enjoy his life.

  In those early months of our marriage I lost heart and had difficulty in even imagining how I might plan my escape. It was to be some time before Kanjurjab finally called me to his bed, but in the meanwhile the only comfort I could find was in the company of Mai. I looked out for Jon to flirt with but I only ever saw him in Kanjurjab's presence or in that of Alta's husband Boria, a stern man who seemed to disapprove of me.

  When not riding or honing his archery skills with his brother-in­law, Kanjurjab spent most of his time with Mai in his ger. It provided everything he needed in a home and was spacious and splendidly decorated with colourful wall hangings and mounds of fur skins for bedding. Mai cooked traditional Mongolian food on a stove housed in the centre of the ger which burnt wood and dried animal dung. The air always smelled of meat and milk. There were brass pots as well as clay ones on low wooden shelves, and now a wedding photograph of Kanjurjab and myself hung askew above them in a silver frame. Kanjurjab used his saddles as chairs and would lounge on them, laughing at his boys as they, like all Mongolian children, wrestled endlessly. The painted wooden door of the ger faced south as was traditional. It was carved with a swastika for good fortune, and of course there was the ubiquitous altar on the back wall and the usual mangy dogs about the place.

  Whenever I visited the ger I sat with Mai to the right of the door under the eastern protection of the sun, Kanjurjab usually sitting to the left under the western protection of the great sky god Tengger. It was warmer than the house and I liked the way the light filtered through the small hole in the roof, but I could not envisage a time when I would willingly forgo my privacy to share it with my husband, his concubine and their noisy children. But through the long dark nights in my room I suffered a self-pitying loneliness. I was so cold that I took to sleeping curled up with the dogs as near to the fire as I could get, away from the wall that was damp and as cold as ice.

  Apart from the extreme cold, which was the worst thing for me, I had to adjust to many other difficulties. Even on the shortest of walks, great pyramids of animal dung drying for fuel had to be skirted, while the art of walking on frozen mud was one I never completely mastered. Camels spat their foul juice at will, and the fetid smell of the horses and oxen was at times unbearable. And then there was the vastness of the Mongolian sky, with no visible horizon, which seemed to trap me more securely than any jail. Kanjurjab still insisted that it was spring, which made me tremble at the thought of what winter might bring.

  The food was so awful that quite soon after my arrival I suffered a bout of poisoning so violent that without Mai to nurse me, I think that I might have died. She shared my bed, warming me with her fleshy body, and fed me boiled water on the hour that she had infused with bitter herbs. It made me pleasantly light-headed and soothed my stomach. No mother could have been kinder and I felt I had found a new Sorry and was comforted.

  To appease one or other of her gods, my mother-in-law Xue built an obo shrine at the door of the house. It was a simple pile of stones with a hollow space for offerings. I guessed that some unpalatable food or animal part would be a suitable gift to lay in it as there seemed nothing sweet or pleasantly perfumed to be had anywhere in my new home.

  As Mai fussed around me, Xue told her that my illness was because of my reluctance to accept my life on Mongolian soil. She said that I must eat only dried cheese and that I should dip a finger from my right hand into a glass of milk, flicking it once towards the sky, once into the air, and once into the wind; in that way I would acknowledge the gods of the land and a calm would descend upon me. Xue did not want to lose me in the first months of my marriage to her son in case Kawashima thought I had been intentionally poisoned. I expect she thought that if I died he would require the return of my dowry and that Kanjurjab would have difficulty in finding another wife. Under Xue's instructions, Mai supplied a bowl of jaundiced-looking butter and helped me to the door with my offering. It was a still night, but so cold that the frigid air scalded my lungs. The sky was beautiful, full of constellations and falling stars and the moon hanging huge and white. I was filled with sadness at the thought that the immense sky sheltered a land so wide and hostile that I would never be able to navigate it on my own.

  I was beginning to understand that my escape would not simply be a matter of running away. It would need careful planning and the help of someone who knew the land and how to survive it. To get to Suiyuan we had travelled from Port Arthur on a long train journey, then in oxen-drawn carts across miles of frozen earth, while the wind burnt any bit of skin left exposed, and the iron wheels thumped against the impacted ground. Without help to retrace the steps of the journey, I had no idea of even which direction I should go in. I had ached for a week after we arrived and knew that I would have to go through something similar again if I had any hope of escaping this place.

  I recovered from the food poisoning and tried to adapt to the only diet available to me, that of bone stew, meat broth and mutton fat. There was Russian tea with salt and mare's milk, a nostrum surely contrived by a sadist. But luckily there was plenty of vodka. I drank mine neat like sake, declining the sour milk that Mongolians liked to add to theirs. There was always plenty of the fermented liquor airag, made from mare's milk, but I could only drink it if I held my nose, as its rancid smell turned my stomach. The children sucked liquorice root, which I imagined would be sweet like aniseed, but when I tried it it was bitter and so rough on the tongue one might as well have sucked wood.

  It took some time, too, to get used to the terrible smell of my new family. Compared to us Japanese, who bathe and perfume ourselves, Mongolians have a more natural smell. It is not hard to understand why, when to wash you must first break the ice on the water, while to remove your clothes any time other than between the months of June and August is, to say the least, foolhardy. The furs and felts of the tribe secured the smell of blood and fish; not even the winds from Siberia could remove their rankness. I thought that my perfumed body must smell false to Mongolians, who have a habit of breathing you in when first introduced to you, but as I had no intention of removing even one layer of clothes before the weather improved I knew that I would soon smell just like them.

  Boredom was a problem, as I had no occupation other than to please myself, which was difficult with so few pleasures at hand. I sought my usual refuge in sleep, but one can only sleep so much in the day before one is robbed of it at night. There is nothing as depressing as those solitary Mongolian hours with only the dog's snores for company. In search of occupation I set about making the house more to my taste so that I might take some pleasure in being in it. Sorry would have wept to see my poor efforts, but I discovered that it didn't take much to please me when there was no excess of comfort. I rearranged the scant furniture and pushed the pile of furs that was my bed to the corner of the room. Mai said she thought it very strange to move things around, as in the ger everything had its own place and was never changed. She was very impressed with Natsuko's parting gift to me a
nd brought Xue to see it and to taste the honey that had solidified in the cold. Xue said that honey kept better in a clay pot, but that it was a very attractive thing. I soon forgot the insult attached to the gift and found the sweetness of the honey a welcome addition to the bitter Russian tea.

  I hid the preserved monkey embryo from Ichyo in Xue's wedding chest and hoped never to see it again. Amongst my other presents I had my knife from Hideo, the lychees from Sorry and a cashmere blanket from Itani, my birth-marked stepsister. I put my leather writing case on top of the chest so that I would not forget to take it with me when the chance of escape came.

  Most of my clothes were unsuitable for the weather, so to cheer the place up, I hung them around the walls of my bedroom as Mai had hers in the ger. Luckily my riding breeches were warm and did not look out of place in my new home. I wore them with the del, a Mongolian knee-length tunic belted at the waist with a coloured sash worn by both men and women. Dels were padded with felt and buttoned to the neck to keep out the cold.

  Mai got caught up in the idea of decorating and brought some lengths of red and white felt which she hung on the walls around my bed. The colours disturbed me, calling to my mind blood and bandages, and soon they began to inform my dreams. In one of them I was being swept away by a fast-flowing river, while all the women from my life stood along the bank dressed in lengths of fabric that flapped in the wind like tattered fragments of the Japanese flag. I frantically called to them as the water dragged me relentlessly down its cold reaches, but my voice was silenced by the thundering juggernaut of the river. I was desperate for Sorry to see me, but she was lost in an opium sleep on the river's bank and did not stir. My birth mother was looking away from the river towards my father's house and I knew that she chose not to see me. Natsuko and Shimako stood side by side holding hands like children. They smiled coldly as I passed, their painted lips blood red against the whiteness of their powdered faces. Mai tried to help me but was distracted by her children and I was swept away.

  In my waking hours I prayed for summer to come. Mai said that I would be amazed by the blueness of the sky when it did arrive. She said we would spend our days warmed by the sun and our evenings in the light of a hundred fires. Her favourite time was in the summer when they left Suiyuan to follow their stock as they grazed the vast grasslands. She thought I would enjoy the nomadic life for apart from never having met anyone who hated the cold as much as I did, she was sure that I would not be bored. I looked forward with Mai to those approaching months more than she could have imagined. I knew that nothing would go well for me until my blood warmed and I could walk without kowtowing to the wind.

  In the first month of our marriage a celebration was arranged so that all of Kanjurjab's people could offer their congratulations to us. An evening of feasting, songs and storytelling was to take place in the gers of Kanjurjab's family. Xue said that it would mark my transformation into a true Mongolian wife. I had spent only the briefest of times with my two sisters-in-law yet it was enough to know that I had no desire to be like them. Jon's wife Nandak had sweetness in her nature but no sense, while Boria's wife Alta was too like Xue to appeal to me.

  On the night of the festivities along with Kanjurjab I was to visit each ger to be formally greeted and to sample the food and entertainment. As most of his tribe was related to him, it would be a long night, one that Mai said would not end until the last star had left the sky.

  Xue for once seemed content and involved herself in the preparations. She brewed me an infusion of nutmeg to heat my blood and presented me with the gift of a black jade pendant. The ornament, a token from her mother, had been given to her when she had left Manchuria to marry Tsgotbaatar. She did not seem at all sad at the loss of the necklace but handed it over quickly and without ceremony as though she were being relieved of a burden.

  'Take it, take it,' she said, pushing it into my hands and waving away my thanks. She said that when the time came I in my turn should give it to the bride of my firstborn son. Xue appeared to be hurrying through her life ticking off tasks from a great list that she felt obliged to complete. It was as though she had a secret desire to fulfil all her obligations, so that she might be free to die and enjoy a happier reincarnation. Perhaps the handing on of the pendant represented an important task on that list.

  I must say that in its extreme simplicity the jewel was splendid. It was polished to a fine sheen with the sacred lotus Nelumbo carved at its heart. I had never seen a jade so dark, but it made me sad to think that I would not have the son Xue wished me. I have never found a place in which to hide the pain of my sterility from myself and have often wished there was a time limit on memory. As I accepted her gift, I felt sorry to deceive Xue and was astonished at the depth of my guilt.

  I sensed that it stirred some pride in her that her only son had taken a wife who, like herself, had been chosen from China's soil. I could have made an alliance with Xue, but she was a difficult woman to get along with. I respected her stoicism, a quality akin to courage, but her sense of duty was so strong that I could not imagine her understanding or forgiving my escape when I made it. She believed that we should accept our fate, but what mother would feel sympathy for the wife who deserts her son? I think that Xue had always been unhappy in Mongolia. Filled with duty and religion, she had spent her days in medicine making and prayer, defending her heart against the very idea of pain. She was a living reminder of what could happen to me if I did not act on my desires.

  I thanked her for the beautiful pendant and hung it on its silken thread around my neck where its weight between my breasts reminded me of Natsuko's pearl. I wondered if my stepmother thought of me when she wore her claimed-back treasure.

  As though she had been reading my thoughts Xue said, 'Your life is here now, Yoshiko; it is better not to think of the past. It will only make you sad to remember the family you may never see again.'

  I asked her how it had been for her to leave her family behind and take up such a different way of life.

  'Well,' she said, 'one is always on display in Mongolia; I miss the comforting shadows of my Chinese home. I am a woman who does not smile much, and people like you better if you smile.'

  It was the nearest Xue ever came to admitting her misery to me.

  Before dusk on the evening of the feast, with her cheeks whipped to red by the wind, Mai blew into the house. She said she had come to take me to Kanjurjab, who would lie with me before the festivities. She seemed very excited about it and explained to me how I should go about pleasing him.

  'Don't worry, Yoshiko,' she said, 'you cannot remain a virgin forever and nothing is as bad as we imagine it to be in our fears.'

  Although I understood better than most the place of a concubine in a man's life I did not wish to hurt Mai and I said as much to her.

  'I am glad it is you,' she said. 'I always knew he would take a wife. It is good we are friends. I will help you as much as I can and you will soon learn all you need to know and become used to it.'

  I wished briefly that I had been that innocent girl of Mai's imagination, but only briefly. I knew that my escape would be born out of my experience, and that innocence was the last thing that would be of use to me when the time came to leave. But once again I was disturbed by how affected I was by these simple, too easily deceived people of Kanjurjab's tribe.

  Mai said that Kanjurjab was not a hard man to please because his heart was open. He took his pleasure in covering a naked woman and although it was cold, I shouldn't be concerned because we would lie on fur near the fire and I would be well covered by my husband.

  'He has a fine big body,' she said with pride, 'so you will not lose too much heat.'

  I did not want to lose any, but the anticipation of intercourse with Kanjurjab excited me. I had been celibate for too long and it would surely be the most pleasurable thing available to me in Suiyuan. My healthy appetite for sex, food and adventure had been starved for too long. I remembered my brother, all those years ago in China, tell
ing me I must have been a warrior in a previous life. Things would certainly have been easier for me if I had been born a man, yet, given the choice, I would not relinquish those senses and experiences peculiar to a woman. A man will never know that mysterious sisterhood we have with nature, or the exquisite touch of silk against a heavy breast, or the power that comes with knowing you are beautiful. And then again, who would give up the vanilla-scented skin of a woman, a fragrance so delectable that no distillation of oil or nectar could match it? I envy men their power and their freedom, but not their minds or their bodies.

  Mai advised me not to talk too much while lovemaking, in case Kanjurjab thought he was not pleasing me. 'In any case,' she confided, 'no man likes a chattering wife.'

  She gave me a scarf made from thick wool to keep my head warm when it was time to go from ger to ger. I thanked her and said, 'It is a day for presents, Mai, and this is a very practical one.'

  'Well, your ears could freeze without it,' she said, 'and it will hide your short hair.' She took my hand and led me, bending in the wind, to my husband's ger.

  Kanjurjab was sitting on a saddle at the back of the ger in a space usually reserved for honoured guests. Mai left quietly as he beckoned me to sit beside him on a deep fur rug. I couldn't help noticing that this positioned me below him so that I had to look up to speak to him. It has been my experience in life that men, whatever they may say, prefer a woman in this position, and can be encouraged to pity or generosity better while we look up to them. Lucky for us, I suppose, that such simple ploys often reap generous rewards.

  Mai was right: Kanjurjab was a large man both in height and weight. He was a good four inches taller than most Mongolian men, who only looked big when on their small horses. He had huge hands with dirty nails and a surprisingly benevolent face. Although we were of a similar age, he looked younger and reminded me a little of Hideo when he was pretending to be not the least bit interested in me. His expression was nervous and irritated at the same time, like a fish when netted but still in the water.