The Vine Basket

by Josanne La Valley

  “When will you be back?” Mehrigul called. Then she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Just once, couldn’t he mind the cart and let her go?

  Ata shrugged his shoulders in a dismissive gesture and continued a distance down the lane to a spot where men had gathered by a tree.

  Mehrigul moved behind the stalks and pulled her scarf over her forehead, knotted it under her chin. It wasn’t the same out here. There were a few men around tending carts filled with straw, but no women or girls to whom she might talk. She stayed as hidden as possible, her eyes fixed on Ata.

  Osman and another man joined the group. Everyone stopped talking. Stood tall and formal. Salams were exchanged. The man turned and Mehrigul saw his face.

  It was the cadre. Led straight to Ata by his friend Osman.

  Was this it? The day the papers would be signed and she’d be sent away?

  Tears streamed down Mehrigul’s face as she stood watching. Her wish had been granted—she’d been given the three weeks’ time she’d asked for so she could make a basket and bring it to Mrs. Chazen. That seemed so unimportant now. How could she leave Lali and Chong Ata and Ana? She wanted only to live quietly on their land, even if she was never anything more than a peasant farmer.

  As she stared at the group, an uncontrollable burst of laughter welled up from her belly and came out in tiny, choked sounds. For once she might be more valuable to Ata than her brother had been. She might even please him with all the money she’d be sending home.

  “Go ahead, Ata. Sign,” she hissed through her teeth. She twisted her tongue around in her mouth until she had a good supply of saliva and spit on the ground. That’s what Memet would have done.

  As she stood watching, the cadre did not single Ata out. Rather quickly, he said his goodbyes to all and walked down the lane, by himself.

  Then Ata and Osman and another man were leaving. They followed the same path as the cadre but with no haste in their steps. Ata didn’t even give a quick glance back in Mehrigul’s direction. Where was he going?

  She wanted to yell. Run after him. Make him tell her what was happening. But she didn’t. She stayed by the cart, as tethered to it as their donkey to his hitching post. She would be there until Ata decided to return. That was why he had brought her. Wasn’t that her duty?

  There was little Mehrigul could do but trace the haze-covered sun as it inched across the November sky. And wonder why she should even try to sell cornstalks—or her basket. She covered the white bag that held the basket with her skirt. If the cadre or his wife came around, they didn’t need to know about it.

  Rather amusing, she thought, but this time no laughter came. Mrs. Chazen and Abdul would have trouble finding her out here in nowhere, but the cadre and his wife would have no problem at all. The local party leader would have little use for her now, though. Ata was the one he needed. Likely, the teacher had already told the cadre or his wife that Mehrigul had not returned to school.

  By noontime, Mehrigul hadn’t sold one bundle. More farmers were passing by now. She should try, she knew. Yet all she could manage was to stand behind the cornstalks, her basket hidden under her skirt, and search the lanes. Wondering why she still cared. But she did care, with every inch of her being. What if Mrs. Chazen and Abdul had returned to the market and were looking for her? Even if they couldn’t find her right away, they might take an extra minute or two to look for her. She must keep watch.

  In time, though, the thought of what Ata would do if she sold nothing took over. A friendly-looking man was coming down the lane. She went to the front of the cart. She remembered how Memet used to call to people when business was slow, telling them they needed radishes, onions, peppers. She’d do that. Time to feed your donkey, she’d call out.

  No words came.

  The words that raged inside Mehrigul were for the way her life had fallen apart, the helplessness she felt against Ata and the world outside that wanted to take her away from all she held dear, and her anger left her silent.

  The man passed.

  Mehrigul leaned against the cart. Perhaps next time.

  A farmer leading a donkey came by. “I’ll take two bundles,” he said. “Four yuan.”

  “Ten,” she said.

  “Four is generous enough,” he said, and began to walk away.

  “No. Wait. Four is fine . . . if you’ll take them from the pile yourself.”

  The man pulled the yuan from his pocket. He raised his eyebrows as he laid the notes in Mehrigul’s bandaged hands. He took the stalks and moved on.

  By midafternoon the cart was half empty. Mehrigul had put her basket on the ground by the inside of the cart wheel, where she hoped no one would notice it. She stood at the front of the cart with a bundle of tall stalks at her side, swaying it back and forth to get the attention of passersby. As the sun moved lower in the sky, more and more stopped to buy. She was in the middle of a sale when she caught a flicker of red out of the corner of her eye—a young girl and her mother.

  “Just take it. Leave the money,” she called as she raced down the lane. “Pati, I’m here!” she shouted, waving her arms as Pati and her mother came around the corner into full view. Shopping bags hung from their arms.

  “We’ve been looking all over for you, Mehrigul. Do you really expect anyone to find you way out here?”

  Mehrigul could only shake her head as she struggled to hold back tears, covering her face to hide gasps of relief.

  “We saw him—your father,” Pati said, “but we didn’t want to ask. We just knew you were here somewhere.”

  Mehrigul found her voice. “Have you seen a foreign lady? She’d be walking around with a Uyghur guide.”

  Pati and her mother shook their heads. Both put their arms around Mehrigul as she led them back toward the cart.

  “I’ll stay here so you and Pati can look for her,” Pati’s mother said.

  “I . . . I can’t leave. Ata . . .” Mehrigul couldn’t go on. He’d be furious. And if he was drunk? “He’s not himself since Memet left. I mustn’t go.”

  Pati’s mother paused for a moment, studying Mehrigul. “I understand,” she said.

  “Describe the lady, Mehrigul. We’ll find her if she’s here,” Pati said, her arm still around her friend’s shoulder.

  “Well, she’s different from us. Not Uyghur. Definitely not Chinese. She’s a white tourist lady. If you see someone like that, ask if she’s Mrs. Chazen. A guide will be with her, named Abdul. He’s like our fathers.”

  “If they’re here, we’ll find them.”

  “And, Pati, you know where we usually have our cart? Please tell the people around there where I am. They could tell Abdul. Also the egg woman who sells by the pots and pans. She knows me. She’ll help.”

  Mehrigul tried to be hopeful as she watched Pati and her mother hurry off. Could she be allowed one last dream?

  She knew they might return with the news that Mrs. Chazen had already come and gone.

  Twenty-Five

  SUDDENLY EVERYONE WANTED TO buy cornstalks, but Mehrigul didn’t want to sell. If Ata came back before Pati and her mother returned and the cart was empty, he’d leave. She’d never know if Mrs. Chazen was looking for her or had come at all. She’d never know if she had made another basket worth one hundred yuan.

  Mehrigul put the price for a bundle of cornstalks higher with each sale.

  “Four yuan? For one?” a man said. “It’s late. Bargain time.” He thrust a two-yuan note at her.

  “Four,” Mehrigul said.

  The man pulled out another note, almost threw it at her. “If my donkey could make it home without eating, you’d never get this.” He yanked a bundle from the cart.

  Then there were only three bundles left.

  “Already sold,” she told the next farmer, and the next, and the next. “Sold,” she said, not looking at them, her eyes fixed only on the pathway to the main market.

  Still no Pati or her mother. No Ata. Not even the ca­dre’s wife to bring her
news.

  “I’ll take them all, so you can go home,” a man said. He waved a few yuan at her.

  Mehrigul backed against the cart. Spread her arms in a protective gesture.

  “No . . . no . . . I can’t,” she stammered.

  Then she couldn’t go on. She could think only that Pati had not found Mrs. Chazen but hadn’t bothered to come back and tell her.

  Mehrigul whirled around. Grabbed the bundles with her hands—hard—so it hurt. Heaved them onto the man’s cart and grabbed the money. “Take them! Go!” she screamed, and rushed to the back of the cart. She needed to feel the pain—to feel something.

  Patches of blood stained the dirty white cotton of her bandages.

  She stood beside the white cotton bag that held her basket. The pure whiteness of it shone like a beacon amidst the muted tones of old carts, hard-packed gray earth, the hazed sun that was sinking closer to the crest of the Kunlun.

  All that was left out here in nowhere was a girl with a basket.

  Finally, Ata appeared, his gait steady, the same angry, tight expression on his face as always. If he’d signed his daughter’s life away, it seemed to have changed nothing. His eyes went to the empty cart—and the bag at Mehrigul’s side.

  “Couldn’t get your hundred yuan, could you? I told you she wouldn’t come back.”

  “Is that all you have to say, Ata? What happened? The cadre?”

  Ata didn’t answer. He kept moving toward the basket. “Let me see that silly thing no one wants.”

  Mehrigul grabbed the bag. Skirted around Ata with lightning steps. She would not let him take her basket from her. Not this time.

  “I’ll buy the mutton,” she cried as she fled.

  Mehrigul wove in and out among the merchants with no plan, no destination. Stirring up dust. Hoping Pati might still be there. Out of rhythm in this place where the few neighbors left met to chat or bargain in an easygoing way over the price of unsold potatoes.

  She slowed when she saw Hajinsa and her mother in front of a table with mutton buns. Hajinsa held a bun to her mouth, nibbling at the bottom and sucking out the fatty broth. Maybe Mehrigul disliked Hajinsa because she always seemed to have enough to eat.

  Mehrigul kept close to the table on the opposite side of the path, trying not to be seen. Trying not to think of her own empty stomach. There had been too much else on her mind for her to bother eating the few raisins she had in her pocket.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello, Mehrigul?” Hajinsa had barely stopped sucking on her bun to call out, her long, thin fingers still holding it close to her mouth, ready to bite into its rich filling.

  Mehrigul’s mouth watered in spite of herself as she stopped to face Hajinsa. “I guess I didn’t see you,” she said. “I’m in a hurry. I’m looking for Pati and her mother.” She mimicked Hajinsa’s arrogant bearing, then wondered why she hadn’t just ignored her and moved on.

  “We passed them a while ago. They’re around.” Suddenly, Hajinsa cocked her head. “What are you hiding in the bag behind your back, Mehrigul? Did you actually buy something?”

  Hajinsa’s mocking tone seared through Mehrigul at the same time she heard Pati’s call. “We’re here, Mehrigul! We’re coming.”

  Pati was walking toward her with her mother and Mrs. Chazen and Abdul.

  Twenty-Six

  MEHRIGUL STOOD PARALYZED, AS if watching a mirage in the desert. If I shut my eyes, she told herself, no one will be there when I open them.

  She closed and opened her eyes. Mrs. Chazen was walking toward her, wearing the same wide-brimmed hat as the time before, the same comfortable shoes. Slowly, Mehrigul brought her arm from behind her back and held the white bag in front of her.

  “We almost gave up trying to find you,” Abdul said. “When you were not in the same spot, we had no idea where to look.”

  “You’ve found her now, and what she has for you is very special,” Pati said, moving over to stand beside her friend.

  Mehrigul pulled in a quick breath. Pati didn’t know. She’d only seen the grapevine baskets, before Ata took them—not one made from bamboo.

  The bamboo basket was not what Mrs. Chazen expected. What if she didn’t like it? Thank you, she’d say, but no one in my shop would want it. And walk away.

  They were standing around Mehrigul, waiting.

  The English words she’d practiced were trapped in her throat. She swallowed, afraid to let them out. But it wasn’t the words she was afraid of—it was the answer.

  “I have one basket, Mrs. Chazen,” Mehrigul said, her English words slow and without music, and started to open the bag. Then she turned to Abdul and poured out words in Uyghur. “I made more that Mrs. Chazen might have liked better, but I don’t have them now. They’re gone. I know I can do it again . . . if I have time . . . if the American lady is able to come back.”

  Abdul gave a nod and turned to Mrs. Chazen. For a moment they spoke in English.

  “It is unlikely she will come back anytime soon, Mehrigul. Perhaps in a few years. But she would like to see what it is you have brought,” Abdul said.

  With shaky hands, Mehrigul placed the bag on the ground. She caught a glimpse of Hajinsa, a smirk on her face as she stood watching, amused at Mehrigul’s distress.

  All Mehrigul wanted to do was run away. No one here needed to see her basket. It was Chong Ata’s gift. Hadn’t she given it to him? But Chong Ata had said she must first show her basket to the American lady. Mehrigul must let her have it, if she liked it.

  Mehrigul knelt beside the cotton bag. There was a stain of blood on the handle where she’d grabbed it. She was extra careful as she pulled away the protective coverings and cupped the base of the basket with her bandaged hands. As she touched the bamboo, she thought of the cloth she had tied to the culm, the token that carried her wish—to make something of beauty that would help her family. She asked, again, for her wish to be granted.

  Lifting her basket from its coverings, she set it upright on the bag.

  The creamy yellow color of Chong Ata’s bamboo, flowing upright and free, was even more lovely than Mehrigul remembered. No matter what happened—no matter what her life would have to be—she would find time to keep making baskets. And, Allah willing, Chong Ata would not yet have lived out his days, and would be there to teach her how to craft baskets from all their land’s riches when she returned.

  No one was saying anything. Mehrigul knew she must look up. She was ready, now, to know what Mrs. Chazen thought.

  She rocked back on her haunches, preparing to stand, when suddenly Mrs. Chazen squatted on the other side of the basket, right there on the dusty pathway.

  “Mehrigul,” she said, studying first the basket, then Mehrigul’s face, back and forth, back and forth. She opened her mouth to speak, then turned to Abdul and let out a string of English words.

  Abdul squatted beside them. “She wants me to tell you that you have made an unusual basket, a remarkable one, that she would be privileged to have for her own. It is so much more than she expected.”

  Heat rose in Mehrigul’s face. Her heart beat too fast. She folded her hands to still her excitement.

  “Please thank Mrs. Chazen,” she said quietly. “But there is something she needs to know. I could not have made the basket if it hadn’t been for my grandfather. It was he who prepared the bamboo. He gave it to me, and I tried to do something with it that wouldn’t spoil its beauty. So, you see”—she looked up now, her eyes meeting Mrs. Chazen’s, wishing she had her own English words—“it’s really my grandfather’s basket.”

  Mehrigul watched as Mrs. Chazen listened to Abdul. She could not guess what the American lady was thinking.

  Finally, Mrs. Chazen nodded and gave her reply.

  “Mrs. Chazen believes,” Abdul said, “that your grandfather is a very good artisan and there is much you can learn from him. But that you, Mehrigul, have an unusual creative strength that is all your own, and you must take credit.”

  As she fought to absorb
these words, to believe they were meant for her, she saw Mrs. Chazen reach into her bag. She would ask how much Mehrigul wanted for her basket. Could she say one hundred yuan out loud, for everyone to hear? It was the first time she’d remembered that others were watching and listening.

  Mehrigul’s eyes went to Hajinsa, who stood gawking, the half-eaten mutton bun still in her hand. Pati and her mother were arm in arm, smiling, nodding their heads when they caught Mehrigul’s glance.

  “Mrs. Chazen would like to pay you,” Abdul said. “She wonders if two thousand yuan would be acceptable?”

  “How . . . much?” Mehrigul asked. She knew she’d heard wrong. That was more than half of what they made all year!

  “Two thousand yuan! Wow!” Pati let out before clapping her hand over her mouth.

  Laughing, Mrs. Chazen and Abdul stood up. Mehrigul stayed squatting, not at all sure what she should do. Mrs. Chazen reached toward Mehrigul, then stopped and pointed to Mehrigul’s bandaged hands, her head tilted in question.

  “Are your hands injured badly, Mehrigul?” Abdul asked.

  “No.” She shook her head, hoping they hadn’t seen the bloodstains. “I’ve been working in the fields. It’s time to plant winter wheat. I’m not used to that kind of work.”

  “Aren’t you still in school, Mehrigul?” Abdul asked.

  Slowly, Mehrigul stood. Lowered her eyes. Unwilling to speak the truth in front of Hajinsa.

  When she did not answer, Mrs. Chazen put her hand on Abdul’s arm. They spoke for a long time.

  “Is your family here with you? Mrs. Chazen and I would like to meet them,” Abdul said.

  “My ata,” Mehrigul said.

  “Would you like Pati and me to go with you?” Pati’s mother asked.

  There was comfort in her words, but Mehrigul knew that whatever happened must be between her and her father. He would be angry enough when he heard they knew about the money. And she had to tell him herself.

  “Thank you for all you’ve already done. I’ll be fine.”