Leaving Mother Lake

by Yang Erche Namu

  I should have known better of course. A grown woman never received lovers on the night of her ceremony. Not because there was a rule against it but because her womanhood was so new she had not had time to sing the courtship songs with anybody. As for me, I told myself as I lay my head back on the pillow, there was little chance of my attracting a lover for some time yet. I knew nothing of what girls learn when they spend all their time gossiping in the fields. I had a long skirt and my own bedroom, but I still had everything to learn about being a woman. Before I could find a lover who wanted to sing with me, I had to learn to joke and to do something about meeting men’s eyes. I had to learn to walk the way my mother had showed me and to sit like a self-respecting woman. And perhaps also, I needed to learn to speak in a sweeter voice.

  In the meantime, I thought to myself as I inhaled the sweet smell of my brand-new bedding, I was perfectly happy to have beautiful new clothes and a jade bracelet and to look forward to having so many things to learn. I dragged the quilt over my head and tried not to listen to the whispers and giggles coming from my sister’s room.

  The next day my brother came to knock on my door. “Namu, we’re about to eat breakfast. Are you going to get up?”

  I opened my eyes. Sunlight was casting a golden glow on the timber walls of my flower room, making it so cheerful and pretty, and when I came downstairs, I had trouble adjusting to the darkness inside. Everyone was already seated around the upper hearth, and my mother was pouring butter tea into their bowls. She lifted her head and greeted me with a smile while she put down the teapot and wiped her hands on her skirt, and then rubbed mechanically at her left wrist, looking for her bracelet. She would do that a lot over the next few days, so much so that I almost felt like taking the bracelet off my arm and giving it back to her.

  Still, for the remainder of the New Year festival, my mother was very happy, perhaps as happy as I was. That same afternoon she said, “Namu, you must sort out your presents. Zhema will tell you who gave you what, and you can return something to them and thank them.” So Zhema and I spent some time taking an inventory of my gifts, while my mother and Dujema finished cleaning and tidying up from the day before.

  With every gift I thought, I am a new person. I am a skirt woman. I had nothing, and now I have everything. And I did have so much — cotton scarves, silver earrings, plastic mirrors, a yak-wool rug, two wooden trays, a bunch of silk threads to weave in my hair, at least three shoulder bags . . . and a bag of salt. I thought my mother had misplaced the salt.

  “Ami, here’s your salt!” I said.

  “This is not my salt,” my Ama answered. “It came from the Azha family. They’ve had some difficulties lately and they had nothing else to give you.”

  A Knock on My Bedroom Door

  One of our relatives in Luo Shui had just given birth to a baby daughter and my mother was filling up the bamboo boxes to bring to her.

  “Thirty eggs, fermented glutinous rice, a longevity charm for the baby, and some brick tea. Namu, why don’t you come with me while Zhema takes care of Jiama and your brothers?” I had been a woman for over a year by now, and I felt rather proud that my Ama wanted me to go visiting with her. For that was usually Zhema’s privilege.

  At the lakeshore we pushed our canoe onto the water. My mother stepped in and I sat behind her, and we began paddling. The sky was a pure blue, and aside from the whispery clouds floating above the head of the mountain goddess, it was empty. The lake too was empty. Ours was the only boat on the water, and the only sound came from the soft clapping of our oars. I had not heard such silence for a long time, since I had left Uncle in the mountains and come back to live at home, and I felt an irresistible urge to sing. So I began to sing one of our working songs.

  My mother’s back softened and she slowed her paddling. She was listening to me, and I imagined that she was surprised and pleased by my voice, but when I had finished, she held her oar out of the water and said without turning around to look at me: “Namu, if a man sang to you, would you know how to sing back to him?”

  “Of course,” I answered, looking beyond her head toward the lakeshore. “Of course I would know.”

  Suddenly I no longer felt like singing. Instead I felt queasy. And perhaps Ama felt my discomfort, because she began paddling again — until we had gone a long way from shore, when she stopped without warning and drew her oar into the boat. Then she turned around and looked at me.

  “Namu, stop! I am going to teach you to sing.”

  My mother had a beautiful voice and a sharp wit but the intensity in her dark eyes immediately warned me that I was not going to enjoy this lesson. As soon as she began singing, I recognized the tune — the lovers’ tune.

  Mother Lake is wide and deep,

  Too wide for the wild duck to fly across it.

  My Ama was improvising a lovers’ duet for my benefit. She had sung the opening couplet and now she was pausing, waiting for me to answer. When I did not, she sang back to herself.

  There is no point in fearing the size of the lake,

  Just rock the boat from side to side.

  And again she paused, and still I did not sing back to her, and still she went on singing:

  I did not intend to go fishing,

  But the fish has eyes of gold,

  I had not thought of going hunting,

  But the deer horns are too precious.

  If you are the transparent water of the lake,

  I would gladly change into a fish to probe your heart.

  Then Ama stopped again. “Namu, why don’t you sing back to me? Didn’t you say that you knew how to sing?”

  But I could not sing back. It was not that I didn’t know how to sing. I had spent so much time singing to my imaginary lovers in the mountains. But this was my mother. I could not sing back to my own mother. I could not even look at her. I felt so embarrassed. I turned my eyes away and stared at the water. Ama clicked her tongue with impatience but she did not force me. Instead she went on with her own songs.

  After some time, when I realized that my Ama was no longer singing for me but for the lovers of her youth, I finally dared look at her. There was such tenderness in her face, such joy, and she looked so beautiful, radiant. I felt awed. When she stopped, we sat for a moment without speaking, rocked by the soft clapping of the waves against the canoe, feeling awkward. This show of intimacy was so unusual, so out of our common experience. And suddenly I could not wait to get to the other side of the lake. I plunged my oar back into the water, but my Ama was not ready to go anywhere just yet.

  “Wait, Namu,” she commanded quietly, and as I pulled the oar back into the boat, she asked, looking straight into my eyes, “Do you put out the little fire in your bedroom in the morning?”

  “I’ve never lit the fire,” I answered in a whisper, looking sideways.

  Ama sighed in a way that meant, How can you be so hopeless, and then she said, “One day you will have to light the fire, Namu.” And she explained how the fire should not be too hot or too low but give a beautiful light, to make you relax and soften your body. “You have to be relaxed. If you’re relaxed, then he will also relax. He will take his time with you. It’s always better when a man takes his time, you know. And you must please yourself first. He will always be pleased to please you.” She reached over toward me and touched a pimple on my cheek. “Making love is very good for the skin.”

  I could not bear it. I felt exposed, naked, and as I looked at the water all around me — trapped. “I know, I know, I know,” I repeated while staring straight ahead toward the village of Luo Shui on the other side of the lake. But the shore was a long way off and there was still plenty of time to talk. And now I understood why my mother had not taken my brothers and sisters along with us.

  AFTER THAT BOAT TRIP , I knew how I should light the fire in my bedroom, and I knew that I should please myself to please him, but still I did not wish for a man to come tapping on my window at night. Fortunately, the men never looked at me, or
perhaps they did but I never looked at them. I, who had spent so much of my childhood in the company of men, could no longer look at men. I, who had so wished to become a grown woman, to show off the belts tied at my waist, just wanted to be left alone. At night, when I stared at the cold fireplace in my bedroom, and then at the bottle of Sulima wine waiting to be opened, I had only one thought — that I did not want to open my door to anyone. And this thought was all that kept me from sleeping at night.

  As the months went by, however, other thoughts began keeping me awake. A woman was supposed to have lovers. A woman was supposed to have children. And I was a woman. And my mother had a dream, a grand ambition, to rear a large family, just like my grandmother had. My mother needed grandchildren, and since my sister Zhema had not been able to conceive, she had pinned her hopes on me. As I lay awake turning these thoughts over, I wondered why I had no desire for love and why I was such an ungrateful daughter. Sometimes I also wondered if perhaps I was not simply ugly. Or if there was something wrong with my body and that unlike other women I just did not need love. And then I would ask myself over and over: What will the neighbors say if no lover ever knocks on my door? Will my mother lose face? And what will I do with my life if I never let a man into my room? And what if I were to meet the fate of Zhecinamu?

  Zhecinamu was a beautiful girl from our village. When she bathed at the lake, the men hid in the trees to watch her long black hair flow down her back like a waterfall. When she danced, the men could not take their eyes off her, but her eyes were cold and proud. So proud. She looked down at her suitors and while she smiled with her red lips and her perfect white teeth, her eyes said: You’re not good enough for me. Not one of you is good enough for me. And she would take their courtship belts with a laugh and never wear them. When word of her coldness had spread as far as Tibet, men from all over began coming to our village to court her — not only Moso but Tibetans and Yi and even a few Han officials. Meanwhile, our own men took bets to see which of the newcomers would win her favor. But no one ever did. No matter how well they dressed, no matter how well they sang, how clever or how beautiful they were or how far they had traveled or what precious things they brought with them, Zhecinamu refused to open her door.

  Time passed and the village boys grew bored with their betting game. They began to feel resentful and eventually became very annoyed at Zhecinamu for making them wait for nothing, until one day one of them thought he would play a little trick on her.

  “I know why she won’t open her door,” he said to his friends. “Last night I crept up to her window and I saw her, on her bed. She was naked and she was . . . oh, yes, so beautiful. But there was a huge snake with her. It was coiled around her waist with its head between her breasts. And she was asleep.”

  So the word spread that Zhecinamu had reared a Gu. It began as a silly prank, then it became a rumor, and soon enough everyone believed that it was true, that Zhecinamu did not want to take lovers because she had the evil Gu magic.

  When Zhecinamu went to bathe at the lake, she no longer heard whistling. When she walked in the village street, she no longer felt the eyes of the men burning into her skin. No one brought her gifts, no one sang for her in the mountains. At night the dogs no longer barked in her deserted courtyard. No one came tapping on her window.

  One afternoon Zhecinamu told her mother that she was going to the mountain to collect firewood. She put the ax in her basket and tied the basket on her back, securing the rope across her chest. She walked up the mountain path into the forest, and when she grew tired, she put her basket down. She slid the rope out of the basket, swung it over a high branch, and placed her basket at the foot of the tree. Then she climbed on top of it and tied the rope around her neck, and she jumped.

  In the months that followed, every morning before sunrise, the villagers woke to crying and wailing coming from the forest. It was Zhecinamu’s mother calling to the lonely ghost of her proud daughter. And now all the boys in the village cried for Zhecinamu, but it was too late.

  ANOTHER NEW YEAR HAD PASSED . The end of winter was nearing but the nights were still very cold. That evening I had gone to bed fully dressed but had not as yet garnered enough heat to fall asleep, when the dog suddenly barked in the courtyard. I sat up and listened. Sure enough, there was a shuffle of footsteps, and someone was coming up the stairs. But this time the footsteps could not be for Zhema, because her lover was already with her, and they were still whispering and giggling on the other side of the partition. And if the footsteps were not for Zhema, they had to be for me. I jumped out of bed to make sure the door was closed properly. Whoever it was had reached the balcony, but the shuffling was hesitant, disoriented, and very light. Much too light for a man and much too hesitant for a lover. I held my breath and listened. No, it could not be a man looking for love — lovers always know where they are going, even the first time; it just would not do to knock on the wrong window. But certainly whoever it was had come for me.

  There was a whisper, and then someone asked in Yi, “Namu . . . Namu, are you here?”

  “Añumo? Is that you?”

  It was. It was my Yi sister, Añumo. I called her into my room and lit the candle. She was sweating and out of breath. Her skirt was covered in mud, her square hat had half fallen off her head. She dropped on my bed, almost falling over, exhausted.

  “So, you came back after all! Is your husband a very bad man?”

  IT HAD BEEN JUST OVER A WEEK AGO when I had last seen her. She was on her way to Muli with her wedding escort — her father and her cousins and about ten other men. They had stopped to greet us and tell us the good news.

  That afternoon she looked magnificent. Besides her own colorful skirt, she had three other skirts tied to the side of her waist — part of the bride-price her husband’s family had given for her. And with all these skirts around her, she seemed to be sitting in a sea of colors. She was wearing a beautiful red bodice and her chest was covered with silver jewelry. Large, flat silver earrings hung on each side of her proud face, reflecting the glow of the fire. As she brought her bowl of tea to her lips, I became fascinated by the traditional tattoo on her left hand, nine dots arranged in a square. I had not noticed this tattoo when we had become blood sisters.

  “Did it hurt?” I asked.

  “At first. But it healed very fast. Do you think it’s beautiful?”

  I rubbed the back of my hand. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I said, “Yes, it’s beautiful.” But I knew I did not sound convincing. Añumo took another sip of tea and we were quiet for a while. She was staring at the fire, and her eyes looked dark and worried.

  “You don’t seem happy,” I said to her.

  She turned to gaze at the men who were standing near the stove, drinking rice wine and laughing, and she answered in a low tone. “I’ve never been to his village before. I have never even seen him.”

  I felt so sorry for Añumo. I knew that Yi people had very different customs from ours, but I could not understand how anybody could leave her own house to marry a man she hardly knew. For my part, I was terrified that a man would come knocking at my window at night, but no one and nothing could ever force me to open my door if I did not want to — not even the love or the pride of my own mother. How could my sister Añumo be made to go to live in another village, in someone else’s family?

  Añumo thought she could explain. “One of my father’s relatives came to our house when my mother was pregnant with me. He touched my mother’s stomach and said, If this is a girl, she will be for my son. . . . That was how the match was decided, and now I must go.”

  When the wedding party was ready to leave, I took Añumo’s hand: “If you’re not happy, you can come and stay with us anytime.” She nodded, obviously unconvinced, and then she set off on horseback, a sad colorful girl among twenty men dressed in black capes.

  And now she had come back! And there she was lying on my bed, out of breath, her skirt muddy and her feet bleeding. Was her husband such a bad man? Di
d she hate her in-laws? What had happened? I hurried downstairs to wake my mother and tell her that Añumo had run away from her husband. But as my Ama got up, she said, “Namu, there’s nothing to worry about. This is the Yi people’s custom: the harder a woman runs from her husband, the more she shows that she is strong and capable and that she comes from a good family. The men will soon follow after her, and if they find her, they will carry her back on their shoulders like a sack of potatoes. But if she manages to run all the way back to her father’s house before they get to her, she will have won everyone’s respect.”

  When I brought Añumo into the main room, my mother was already stoking the fire to boil the kettle for some tea. She welcomed Añumo with a nod, and then we sat down to listen to her story. She had been running for two days without eating, stopping only at night to sleep. It had taken her longer than she had thought to get to our house, and when night had fallen, she had become scared. This morning she had lost her shoes and her feet were very dirty and bleeding, and now there was a big splinter under her sole.

  My mother took some kindling from the fire and passed it to me to hold above Añumo’s injured foot so that she could take a look at it. She wiped the dirt off with a wet cloth and went to fetch a needle from her sewing basket to take out the splinter. Blowing gently over the wound to calm the pain, she worked the needle into the bleeding flesh. Añumo was hurting terribly. Her face was covered in sweat and tears rolled down from her eyes, but she did not say anything. She did not complain.

  I wished Añumo had been a real sister and that I could have protected her. I wanted her to stay with us.

  Ama held the splinter to the light and exclaimed, “Look at this! It’s as big as a tree trunk! How could you run with that thing in your foot? You’re lucky it did not get infected.” Then she told me to put the kindling away and pour hot water in the washbasin.

  When the water was ready, I moved to take Añumo’s feet, but she pulled back from me. “No, no, I would not let you wash my feet.” And she put her feet into the bowl herself. Meanwhile, Ama went to look for a pair of her own shoes to give to her, and then she warmed up some leftover stew.