The discussion continues over a fresh pot of tea, Ghalib insisting that he wants to give his good friend the best possible price but equally insistent that the children be purchased as a group. ‘As I told you,’ he says with a smirk, ‘I’ve traded off the rest of my cargo, and I’m in somewhat of a hurry to complete my business and get back home.’
Finally, Old Ma turns again to the green-eyed girl. She, he thinks, is the pearl among these pebbles; if she learns well, she alone will be worth more than the price he’ll have to give Ghalib for the lot. ‘What’s your name, young one?’ he asks. He speaks, as he and Ghalib have been speaking, in traders’ Soghdian.
To Old Ma’s complete surprise, she answers in his own language, Chinese. ‘My family name is Li.’
Old Ma shoots a glance towards the doorway. The curtain hangs unmoved. Ghalib reaches up to scratch his beard. ‘And your own name?’ Ma asks, his eyes intent.
‘I mustn’t –’ The girl takes a deep breath. ‘They always called me Little Imp,’ she says at last.
‘Sorry, I hardly speak any Chinese. You’re asking her name?’ Ghalib is quick to shift the conversation back to Soghdian. ‘The Iranian fellow I got her from called her Parrot. Said she was a wonderful mimic. Shouldn’t wonder if she was his own daughter, by the look of her. You know us Persians and our cousins in Samarkand: anything to get rich.’ He chuckles, and scratches his beard again.
Old Ma throws back his head and laughs dismissively. But he stops short as he takes a sip of lukewarm tea. ‘Funny, though. She says they called her a Chinese nickname’ – and he says Little Imp in Soghdian – ‘as if she were any Chinese child.’
Ghalib whirls and stares down at the girl. ‘What’s your name?’ he barks. ‘Your other name, not Parrot.’
‘Parrot?’ she says. ‘My family name is Li. I can’t, I can’t remember the rest.’ Her voice trails off. She bites her lower lip.
Ghalib’s shoulders loosen and he smiles. ‘Li,’ he says. ‘Well, that explains things. Half of those would-be Chinese families out there claim the name of Li. A strange kind of homage to the Son of Heaven, isn’t it?‘His smile broadens. ‘I suppose she saw your face and decided to put on airs.’ That, he thinks, should take care of Old Ma’s doubts, at least if he wants to have them taken care of. ‘She really is a fine mimic, you’ll have to grant her that.’
Old Ma’s eyes narrow as he considers. ‘Parrot! She’s the kind of mimic that gets an honest slave dealer into trouble. I’m afraid I don’t see how I can pay the price you’re asking for a liar. A girl like this is nothing but a nuisance. Pity you won’t break up the group. I had taken something of a fancy to the boy.’ There. If Ghalib acquired these children honestly, he’ll take his business elsewhere. If not, he’ll come down on the price.
Ghalib jokes again about his new wife, offers a discount of twenty per cent – for friendship’s sake – closes the deal, and leaves. In an awe-inspiring grotto on the edge of the city, a novice monk working on a mural applies the last flake of gold leaf to a halo, and begins to pray. And just so, as the city moves to the next moment in time, the storyteller finishes off another text, seals the entrance to the cave, and so protects the tales within.
PARROT
SPEAKS:
4
Old Ma raised his hand again and I fell silent. ‘So you will remember, Parrot, that you are not Chinese?’ My throat choked and my mouth swelled salty where a tooth had cut my lip when the back of his hand came down. I nodded yes. He grunted with a detached satisfaction. No ill will had lain behind his blows; he simply ensured that I would receive the message in a language any slave was bound to understand. But he also ensured, unknowing, that what I could not say, I would remember: I was a Chinese general’s daughter, from a good family of Chang-an.
Ghalib had left us in Old Ma’s shop in the bazaar an hour before. In the doorway, he paused long enough to catch my eye and incline his head in a brief, oddly formal farewell. His alert, strong-featured face went grave. Then he was gone. The Chinese merchant brought us to the elaborate clay-brick complex of hallways and courtyards where he lived and took me off to the little room where he set my memory. After he left, a young woman of sixteen or so, his daughter, walked in, bearing soup and steamed rolls on a tray. Baby, Nephrite, and the other girl from Khotan trotted in after her. We sat and ate, at last, our fill. Blackie never appeared again; Old Ma must have sold him off right away.
Old Ma’s daughter, Beauty, treated us well enough, as might a shepherd’s daughter who had been given charge of some orphaned lambs. She spoke to us – and to the eight other girls living in the tiny back rooms of Old Ma’s family compound – in a mixture of Soghdian and Chinese. Gradually, Nephrite picked up the Chinese words, though she never lost her foreign lisp. I pretended to understand no more than she but pronounced the language as I always had. No one commented on my Chang-an accent. Baby’s sweet desire to please kept her alert to what Beauty wanted, but she never spoke.
So for some days we rested from the hardships of the Road. Nephrite, having been judged old enough, helped Beauty and some of the others sew new clothes to replace our travel-worn rags. I remained rather thin, but Baby grew plump again, and the shadows passed away from under Nephrite’s eyes. We talked only of things in the present: Beauty’s green-painted eyebrows (a fashion new to Nephrite), the short temper of the laundress who sometimes oversaw us, or how nice Baby would look in her new crimson pantaloons and her boots with the turned-up toes. The other girls had been living there a little longer than we had but seemed no more knowledgeable, or no more inclined to speak, of the future. No one mentioned her earlier life at all.
It was not an unhappy time at first. The horrific dreams that plagued me through the desert journey had climaxed on the last night before Dun-huang and came no more. Sometimes I pondered Nanny’s warning to me, then, helpless and uncertain, let it fall away from my thoughts, holding only to what I finally took her command to be: that I should not reveal my given name and that I make my way to Chang-an, where my mother waited. In the evenings, after every dish in the kitchen shone and the lamps had been made ready, we girls would sit in the courtyard to catch the first coolness, singing together while Baby danced a comic dance. Others might dance beside her, but none so well. It was as if she had been granted a special language of the body to compensate for losing the speech of the tongue. Her fingers snapped as she skipped and spun. Still the youngest of the group, she soon became a general favourite.
Things were different with me. Though I had never spoken directly of my father’s position. Nephrite and the other older Khotanese girl had sensed long before that I was no farm child. Nephrite kept by nature a certain reserve about her, treating everyone with sisterly care but maintaining some part of herself safe within. Still, she was the closest thing I had to a friend, and it hurt me when she drew away, as a villager might at the approach of a sedan chair carrying the daughter of a lord. Perhaps the other girls imitated her unknowingly, treating me like someone to be kept at a distance. Sometimes I did things that made matters worse.
One hot afternoon, when I had been in Dun-huang only a few days, the laundress came for a few slavegirls to help her bring in and sort the wash. She blustered into the room where six of us took our afternoon naps, rousing me from an unusually deep sleep. Her red face reminded me of one of our serving maids at home; still drowsy, I ordered her to run and fetch me a cup of cool barley tea.
Her face grew redder than any I’d ever seen. ‘Fetch you what, you arrogant little snippet? I’ll show you what I’ll fetch you.’ With that, her meaty hands boxed my ears until they rang. At first the other girls watched stupefied, then one by one they began to giggle, until all but Nephrite laughed while the laundress dragged me off to bring in the laundry by myself. After that, she found fault with me whenever she could, and though the others had reason to dislike her, they grew wary of me, as children are of one a powerful adult has marked as different.
Not twenty days later I set myself a
part from the others again. In twos and fives, young slaves from the north and west joined us at Old Ma’s. Beauty grew busier, though she had trained Nephrite and the older girls to help her get the new ones into shape. We continued to gather in the courtyard near day’s end to sing, and even Old Ma came out to listen to us, watching with the remote pride of a landlord watching the peasants bring in a healthy harvest.
Until now, our only accompaniment had been Beauty playing on her bent-necked lute. But one of the new girls, a grey-eyed Kuchean, arrived with an oboe, and another in that group could play a little lacquered drum. The music of Kucha is said to be modelled on the sound of rainfall and tumbling waters; listening to them, I felt the truth of that. I saw, too, how Old Ma seemed to favour them and how Beauty treated them like friends. I had found the language that would win me a place in the group, I thought. I could be one of the musicians, and the others would be pleased. ‘Miss Beauty!’ I called out. ‘Let me use your lute. I can play three songs.’
In my excitement I had spoken too loudly, and just at one of those moments when the various conversations in a group come all at once to a pause. The laundress sniggered. Beauty raised a willow-leaf eyebrow, and all the faces in the courtyard turned towards me. ‘Let her try,’ Old Ma said, his voice dispassionate.
Of course I failed. Now I realize that Beauty – who had neither sisters nor a living mother – must have been as lonely as I was among the transient slave girls and that she may have hoped to learn something from these exotic musicians before they passed onwards to the east. Then I saw only her glare as she handed me the lute, daring me to succeed. The earth of the courtyard retained the day’s heat long after the air cooled; now its hot smell wrapped itself around me. My fingers stiffened and stumbled. The lessons I’d had in Khotan seemed the events of a former lifetime, remembered only in a fevered dream. I limped through one melody as best I could, broke a string – earning another snigger from the laundress – and, shamefaced, handed the instrument back to Beauty.
‘Perhaps you’ll honour us with your other two melodies another day,’ Beauty said in a tone too loud to be quite a murmur. She glanced over to the musicians from Kucha, inviting them to join her in a sisterhood of artistes condemning the inept. The other children whispered to one another that they hadn’t liked me from the start. Old Ma’s face displayed a quiet satisfaction, but whether he was glad to see a potential source of trouble put into her place, or whether he sensed some talent despite my clumsy fingering, I cannot say.
After another song, when everyone’s attention had returned to the new musicians, I slipped into the dusty hallway leading to the room where I slept. But in my distress I turned instead towards Beauty’s bedchamber. I was looking for a place where no one would see me cry, though I realized as I stepped inside her doorway that I couldn’t stay.
Just as I turned to go, a high-pitched voice rasped, ‘Good girl! Good girl! Come to Mama!’ My belly wrenched with sorrow, while curiosity filled my heart. Mama? No one was in the room, only Beauty’s parakeet, cocking its bright head and peering at me from its perch. I had seen the bird before, but I’d had no idea that it could speak. I stopped dead, open-mouthed.
‘Little Parrot! Come to Mama,’ it rasped, and I took a step closer. The bird preened the lavender feathers of its breast and looked at me as if for praise. Now, of course, I’ve seen a dazzling five-coloured parrot from the Indies, and rose-crested tropical cockatoos, and splendid scarlet lories with tongues like writing brushes; but even then I knew that this bird, small yet brilliantly green on its head and back and wings, came from northern China. It must have been brought west from the Loong mountains, where the Silk Road crosses them on the last stage of the journey to Chang-an. ‘Good girl!’ it squawked. ‘Good girl!’
I knew I should leave. But the little parrot crooned, ‘Come to Mama,’ and again I stepped forward. The bird fluttered awkwardly from its perch to an old wooden trunk near where I stood. As one entranced, I heard it say, ‘Take this. Little Parrot. Good girl!’ Did the lid of the trunk open by itself, or did I reach out to lift it? I know my hand glided into the trunk, brushing aside the folded silks and cottons, burrowing past the old papers in the corner. ‘Take this,’ the parakeet squawked again, as if it offered me a meal of millet grains. My hand folded around a tiny, tight-rolled scroll just as I heard the footsteps in the hall.
Praise to Lady Guan-yin that the trunk lid was oiled and closed without a bang. Praise to Lady Guan-yin that though there was no time to escape from the room, or hide, I stepped back three paces and half sat, half fell to a cross-legged pose on the floor. My hand thrust the little scroll inside my sash, and the bird fluttered back to its perch, so that I seemed to be staring at it when the laundress rushed into the room.
‘You sneaking child of a foreign turtle!’ With a roar she was on me, slapping me about the head. She bent and thrust her fat red face into mine. ‘What are you doing in the Young Mistress’s room, eh?’ She slapped me again. ‘Young Mistress!’ she screeched. ‘Come quickly, please. To your bedchamber.’
In a moment. Beauty arrived, still grasping her lute. Old Ma appeared behind her, with a crowd of others eager for excitement. ‘She was sitting right here,’ the laundress cried. The little barbarian sneak. I wondered where she’d gone off to, but who would think she’d dare to enter Young Mistress’s bedchamber?
Thieving brat!’ The last she addressed to me, punctuated with a final slap.
The servants gabbled. Beauty lifted an ironic brow, and then even the laundress hushed as Old Ma stepped forward. ‘Here?’ he said, fixing his puffy-lidded eyes on mine. ‘Sitting in the middle of the floor? Curious behaviour for a thief.’ He lifted my chin. ‘So, Little Parrot,’ he said, ‘tell me what you did here.’
I was crying too hard to speak. ‘Look at her,’ the laundress huffed. ‘Her tears speak lies.’ A stern look from Old Ma silenced her; I had noticed before that the woman irritated him.
The trader knew how to act the master to a frightened slave. Every line of his large body spoke of authority. ‘Tell me,’ he said, tightening his grip on my chin and pulling upward. ‘Stand up and tell me what you did.’
I stood up and swallowed my tears. ‘The bird,’ I said. ‘I listened to the bird.’ The parakeet squawked as if in affirmation. Beauty stepped over to the perch, and the bird hopped onto her forefinger. She lifted it gingerly to her face and made little kissing noises, which the parakeet repeated.
‘And why were you here?’ Old Ma asked.
‘I came in here – ‘ Shame flooded through my body. Already singled out from the others, I was now marked as one inevitably alone. ‘I came in here to cry, and the bird, the bird said, “Come to Mama.” I want to find my mama, and I can’t.’ The tears returned. I could say nothing more.
A shadow passed across Beauty’s face. Old Ma said, ‘Little slave girls have no mamas,’ but even his voice lost some of its commanding tone.
‘A pack of lies!’ the laundress said. ‘A pack of foreigner’s lies.’
Old Ma didn’t bother to look at her this time, but when the parakeet squawked ‘Good girl!’ he shot a glance in its direction. A babel broke out among the crowd. Everyone knows the stories of how talking birds report on unfaithful wives and disobedient servants. ‘Come to Mama,’ it said, confirming my claim. ‘Good girl!’
After that the laundress hushed. Old Ma warned me never to wander into the family’s rooms again and ordered all of us off to bed. As I left Beauty’s bedchamber, walking alone behind the chattering crowd of servants and slavegirls, I looked back. The parakeet fanned out its wings, skipping from side to side on its perch. Beauty leaned over it, her face turned down. Old Ma clapped one awkward hand on her shoulder. I hurried away to my bed.
The other girls had settled down. I was thinking that in only a few more minutes everyone would be asleep and I could finally release my loneliness in tears, when Nephrite slipped over to crouch beside my bed. ‘Little Parrot,’ she said, for everyone called me by the
name Ghalib had given me, ‘are you sad?’
I lifted my head and nodded glumly. Then, looking at her face, I remembered that she too, and Baby, and all the rest, had lost both mother and father. It is not easy for a child as young as I was to imagine another’s grief; perhaps I only think I did. But in any case, the tears that had been crowding in my throat vanished. I would find my mother, that was ail. I didn’t need to weep.
‘I have something for you. Little Parrot,’ whispered Nephrite with a soft half-smile. In the moonlight, I could see that she held out towards me a pair of embroidered shoes and a small bundle of cloth. I sat up and took them. The cloth unfolded into a shimmering, tight-sleeved tunic. ‘You know Beauty is having us older girls sew a special outfit for everyone. You’re not to wear this yet, but I thought you might want to see it early. I picked the best bit of fabric for yours. And look.’ Her large round eyes brightened. ‘Inside the collar. Do you see the little Chinese word embroidered there? It’s a secret, just for you and me. It means “jade”. I asked Beauty how to write it. So when you see it, you can remember the beautiful jade of Khotan.’
The tunic hung dark grey in the dim light, but the next day I would see it glimmer a deep rich green that brightened the green cast of my eyes. I rubbed its softness – so different from the hemp cloth I’d worn since Ghalib had replaced my stained silk trousers and tunic from home – against my cheek. ‘And you. Nephrite. It will make me think of the older sister who sewed it for me.’
Nephrite squeezed my hand. ‘It’s time to sleep now. Put them in the chest beside your bed, little sister. Good night.’
I whispered good night to her and lay down on my back, the tunic draped across my torso. For a long time I thought about Nephrite, and Nanny, and how Beauty’s bird said ‘Come to Mama,’ At last I remembered the tiny scroll, still tucked inside my sash, for I had thrown myself into bed fully dressed. Drowsily I pulled the thing out and slid it into one of the shoes; it fitted, just. I put the shoes in the little chest, covered them with the tunic, and fell asleep at once.
Silk Road Page 6
