Leaving Mother Lake

by Yang Erche Namu

  Before going to sleep that night and every night afterward, I dragged a heavy piece of wood and blocked the door with it. Although it was the most unlikely thing in the world, I was terrified that someone would break in, in the middle of the night. In fact, I was so scared, that first night, that I could not bear even to try out the bed my Ama had made up for me just a few hours before. I sat in the light of the woodstove and took out Nankadroma’s picture. I was quite convinced that Nankadroma was the only person in the world who could have understood me.

  MY WORKDAY BEGAN BEFORE SUNRISE . I woke up, put on my nylon slacks and a sweater, and lifted my workbasket onto my back to go collect firewood in the mountain. On the way back, I washed my face in the cold stream, and by the time the sun was up, I was in the kitchen, stirring hot embers and stoking the fire. The stove was an enormous brick box with a brick chimney that went through the roof. On top were three ceramic pots, going from large to small, and underneath was an opening where I added wood to the fire and blew and blew until my face was covered in soot and there was a big bright flame underneath each pot. The pots had come by horseback all the way from Lijiang and they were very precious. The largest was for cooking vegetables and meat and for frying flat bread and Tibetan rice cakes; the middle-size one was to boil water for tea; and the smallest was also for water, for the teachers to wash. The teachers only needed to wash their faces.

  In the morning, with the fire going under the three pots, I could have everything ready in the correct sequence and at the right time. A little before the rice cakes were done, I ladled hot water into five enamel basins, which I brought to the teachers’ rooms — running back and forth five times. While the teachers dressed, I set the table and served their tea and rice cakes. While they ate breakfast, I fed the chickens and the pig. When they had finished breakfast, I washed the dishes. And while the teachers were in their classrooms, I weeded the garden and cut garlic and cilantro and the other vegetables needed for lunch. I prepared the lunch — two vegetable dishes, one meat dish, and one soup — and when lunch was ready, I walked up to each classroom and called out, “Teacher, lunch is ready!” Then the teachers came and sat at the table near the fireplace and ate their lunch. They never talked to me, because I was too busy and I did not speak enough of the Sichuan dialect to have a conversation.

  In fact, I hardly ever spoke to anyone. I sometimes talked with the children, because they spoke Moso, but they were almost never at school. On a good day there would be at least one child in each classroom. There was far too much work to do at home, with feeding the chickens and cutting grass for the pigs, for children to waste their time sitting on a bench in a bookless classroom, listening to teachers who spoke a language they could not understand. Sometimes when there were no children at all in the classrooms, the teachers played chess or read, or they went for a hike in the mountains and came back with baskets filled with wild mushrooms.

  Occasionally, when I badly needed company, I ran home for a quick bowl of tea. I always took something for my mother, some leftover food or cooking oil, and everybody was always so happy to see me. Then I ran back to the school and to my lonely work. But it was a good thing I had no one to talk to — because I could not possibly have shared my thoughts with anybody. They would have thought I had gone mad. “Who do you think you are? You’re a woman, you belong in the house, to the village. Your power is in the house. Your duty is to keep the house, to be polite to old people, and to serve food to the men.” Only men could leave their mothers’ houses, and even they never left just to fulfill their personal ambitions. They left to trade and sell goods and bring back money for their mothers and sisters. Or they left to study the Buddhist scriptures and they came back as lamas, holy men who served the spiritual needs of their families.

  I had been working at the school for only a month and all

  I cared for was to keep myself busy. When the usual chores were not enough to fill my day, I swept the yard over and over again. Or I went into the mountain to chop some extra wood for the fire. Or I bathed in a mountain pool. Sitting in the icy water, I thought of my Ama and Geko and tried to forget that I wanted to leave, and when I came out and dried myself, I tried to think up a plan for my escape. And the next morning, when I woke to find myself in the big, dark, empty kitchen, I remembered not to scream at the teachers.

  A Scandal

  I saw Geko one more time. He came to visit me at the school one afternoon and found me washing dishes.

  “My mother asked me to bring you this,” he said quietly, handing me some rice cakes.

  I looked at the rice cakes and thanked him, and asked him to put them on the table. While I finished the dishes, Geko sat on one of the little chairs and watched me work while he smoked a cigarette.

  “Do you like it here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I tidied up the last of the dishes and poured two bowls of butter tea. Then I drew up a chair to sit opposite him at the table. We tried to make small talk but we did not have a lot to say to each other. Or perhaps we did but we did not know where to start. When he put down his empty bowl, I told him that there was no kindling left and I had to collect some wood. I did not really want him to go home, but I could not bear the silence any longer.

  “There’s nothing left around here,” he replied. “You need to go way up into the mountain.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “I’ll come and help you,” he then suggested, and I did not refuse him.

  We set off for the long hike into the forest, Geko carrying the ax over his shoulder and me carrying my workbasket on my back. The walk, or perhaps the mountain air, did us both good, because Geko recovered his ability to speak. Now he could not stop joking and I could not help laughing at his jokes, and at every opportunity, he picked some wild fruit to give to me or a flower to put into my hair.

  Higher up in the mountain, we came across a big pine tree with dead branches dragging onto the ground, which Geko cut down and chopped into kindling. When he was done, the sun was beginning its descent and the sky was growing gray, and I began to worry about the coming rain and the teachers’ dinner. We loaded my basket and hurried down the mountain trail toward the school, but my basket was so heavy, and we were both so hot and tired, we decided to make a small detour and stop at one of the mountain pools.

  Geko helped me put my basket down on the grass, and while he lit a cigarette, I stepped into the pool up to my knees and washed my face and arms. When I turned around to talk to him, he was lying back on his elbows, gazing in my direction, and I was suddenly struck by the handsome way he drew on the cigarette and the fullness of his lips and the roundness of the circles he was blowing in the air. My heart raced in my chest and the heat rose in my neck and face. I swiftly turned away, aware of my body burning, afraid he would smell the sweat on my body, and I lowered myself all the way into the water. But even then I wanted him to come closer to me, to touch me.

  “Namu,” he called out, laughing. “Don’t walk too far into the pool. It might be very deep.”

  “Don’t you know how to swim? Couldn’t you rescue me?”

  But when I came out of the water with my wet clothes clinging to my body, he stopped laughing. “Look,” he said, “you’ve grown funny. One of your breasts is bigger than the other.”

  I knew he was trying to joke because he was embarrassed, but this time I did not find him funny. I felt ashamed, and disappointed in him. “You dog,” I snapped.

  Turning my back on him, I went to sit in the sun at a safe distance. I was angry with him, but my heart was still beating wildly and I did not dare look at his face. I tried to think of Nankadroma and what she would have done. But all I could think of were his hands and his lips and the smoke rings he was blowing with his cigarette. And all I felt was the fire melting my body. “Come to me,” I said softly, staring straight ahead into nothingness. “Why don’t you come to me?”

  Geko came to me, or rather he pounced on me — embracing me, grabbing my breasts, s
queezing me so hard it hurt, and kissing me with his tongue, and I could taste the smoke on his breath and his tongue was strong and sweet and my mouth was dry. I felt drunk from wanting. His hands were grabbing at my clothes and they felt rough on my skin, a mountain man’s touch, and I wanted his hands so much. He pulled me onto the grass and whispered, “You small torment. I was going mad.” He kissed my face over and over, and I closed my eyes, enraptured, clasping blindly at his body. On feeling my arms tightening around him, he laughed. “You’ll see, you’ll be so happy, you’ll never want to leave again.”

  I remembered Latsoma and Zhatsonamu, who had so wanted to go home to be with their boyfriends. “Once you’ve tasted a man’s body,” Latsoma had said, “you just want more and more. You don’t belong to yourself. You’re just like the old people when they smoked opium.” Oh, she was so right. And Geko was right too. All I wanted was to taste more and more of him, and if I tasted more, I would never leave him. . . . And then as he pulled himself over me, my mother’s words — you have a good body, Namu, you could have ten children. . . .

  I released my arms and opened my eyes and stared at his face. I didn’t want ten children hanging on to my skirts. I didn’t want to get pregnant and stay in my mother’s house, growing my mother’s family. I wanted my own dream.

  “You’ll never want to leave me,” he repeated, not so softly this time — not laughing either, but returning my gaze and pushing against me. He was ready now.

  I slapped him so hard across the face, he pulled back and rolled over on the ground next to me, holding his hand to his cheek, and then he looked at me, dumbfounded. I grabbed at the dirt and threw it into his eyes, blinding him, and I hit him with my fists and screamed at him:

  “Stop it! Stop it! You’re all the same. You all want to keep me here. You think you’re good enough for me? You’re not! Go to the lake and take a look at yourself. I hate you! I hate you! I hate my mother! I hate this place! I hate everything about this place.” He looked at me, his eyes wounded and full of dirt, not understanding, and the more I saw his eyes, the more furious I grew. I was standing up above him by now, and I started kicking him very hard and screaming and crying with rage. I was mad with rage. “I never liked you! And I never want to see you again! Never! Never! I hate you.”

  I did not mean it, I did love him. I loved him. But I also hated myself.

  Geko had rolled onto his side and was holding his arms around his head for protection. When I finally stopped kicking, he slowly uncoiled himself and kneeled before me. His face was bright red, already bruising. He looked stunned, bewildered, horrified. “You are crazy,” he said at last, his voice hoarse with emotion, fighting the tears welling in his eyes. “You think you can leave and make it big in the outside world? Well, go! Go and find out who cares about you!”

  He put his pants back on and started down the hill. He never once looked back toward me.

  I just watched him disappear, breathing easier, feeling calmed, hardened, saying to myself, “That’s how it has to be.” I pulled my clothes together and walked over to the pool to wash my face. To wash Geko’s kisses off my skin. The sun was very low now, and the rain had begun. I loaded my basket on my shoulders and headed back to the school.

  That evening the teachers had to wait for their meal, and by the time they sat down to eat, they were too hungry to notice that my silence was darker than usual. They ate and smoked and chatted away until they grew sleepy enough to retire to their rooms. I didn’t care what they did. I had almost tasted Geko’s body. I had almost lost myself forever. But I did not want to be in love. I wanted to belong to myself. I only wanted my dream.

  I sat near the fireplace far too late into the night, drinking strong green tea. When I went to bed I could not sleep. I replayed the scene near the pond over and over. Geko laughing. Geko in pain and disgusted with me. Then I thought of my mother, and almost immediately I thought of Beijing. And the more I thought of Beijing, the further away from my heart I pushed my mother and my village. All I wanted was to go back to the city, to take a shower and wear red lipstick and walk in high-heel shoes. And I wanted to sing, my eyes blinded by the heat of the stage lights and my ears deafened by the applause of strangers.

  Next day my body ached from Geko’s embrace. He had been too rough with me, and I felt angry. Outside it was raining, and the dreariness of the rain matched the state of my heart. It rained for a week without stopping. On the seventh day I went home. The road was very muddy. I had no shoes and the thick, sticky red clay was caking my feet, and when I slipped and fell flat on my back, I was covered in it. My anger turned to rage again. I hated everything, the rain that would not stop, the mud that stuck to my feet and my clothes, my hair, my face, inside my ears. And again, I hated my mother. And I so wished I had a friend I could talk to. I so wished I did not have to feel so lonely.

  When I walked through the gates, Zhema burst out laughing. “What did you do, Namu? Did you try sleeping in the mud?”

  I did not answer. Ama took me into the house and brought hot water for me to wash and she asked my sister to fetch me some clean clothes. But I could not speak to my mother either.

  “Have you lost your tongue?” Zhema teased again.

  This time Ama cut her short. “Don’t tease her, maybe she is going to have her period. Do you want some chicken soup, Namu?”

  The chicken soup cheered me enough to talk. “I beat Geko,” I said, looking into my bowl.

  Ama did not reply immediately. “I heard about it,” she said slowly. “His mother told me that he came home black and blue, wearing the imprint of your hand on his face.” She gave a little laugh that gave me no reason to believe that she approved of what I had done.

  “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about Geko,” Zhema joined in. “There are plenty of girls in the village who will take care of his wounds.”

  I glared at my big sister and snarled, “I’m not like you, Zhema. I don’t think all there is to life is a man.”

  “Oh, what’s wrong with you!” she snapped back. “Did you swallow gunpowder?”

  “Come on, both of you!” Ama intervened again. “Be nice to her, Zhema. Namu’s just arrived home.”

  So we were quiet for a while, and then Zhema left the room. “I think I’ll go feed the pigs,” she said.

  When she was gone, I asked Ama, “Did I cause trouble between you and Geko’s mother?”

  My mother sighed and sat down next to me. There was a dark scowl on her face. “Since you came back from Beijing, you have been very strange. Geko’s mother can see this. Everybody in the village can see this. You are worrying me. I have worked very hard to raise this family. I would like to see you become Dabu when I am too old. I want you to run the family after me. Your sister is a good girl but she is too timid, she can’t stand up as tall as you can. You are special, and you have been special since you were a little baby. Everyone knows this. And everybody likes you, especially the old people. I know that the day you take charge of this family, I will not have to worry about anything.”

  This was an astonishing speech. I had never thought my Ama had such high expectations of me — Zhema was such a good girl — but I knew that if I let her continue, she would begin to cry, and I did not want to see my mother cry. “Ami, I have to go back to school. I have to feed the teachers.”

  Back at the school, I heated the water and prepared the tea, and I cooked the vegetables and the meat dishes. But I did not go up to each classroom to call in the teachers. Instead I stood on the doorstep and hollered in the rough Sichuan dialect, “Your dinner is ready! If you want to eat, come over and get it! If you’re not hungry, I’ll give it to the pig!”

  Minutes later the teachers traipsed into the kitchen, looking sheepish. I greeted them with a dirty look and a gray face.

  “What’s wrong with you?” one of them dared ask.

  “Full bellies will explode,” I answered him in Moso, and then switched to the Sichuan dialect: “Do you want more food or have you fini
shed?”

  EIGHT DAYS HAD PASSED since I had beaten Geko. It had stopped raining but now the fire had gone out overnight. At sunrise I had hiked into the mountain and brought back a basketful of wood, but it was too wet and the fire would not light. I would get an ember going, and thick gray smoke, and I blew and blew until I was dizzy but the fire just ate the kindling and died out.

  Resigned to the fact that I had to build the fire all over again, I went out into the garden to cut a long piece of bamboo — I did not want to blow and get dizzy and get more soot on my face. Back at the stove, I reorganized the charred pieces, added kindling, and threw the match on the wood. I began blowing long slow breaths into the end of the bamboo. I blew until the kindling crackled and began to glow. I blew until a bright flame licked the bottom of the larger pot, and then I blew until another flared up under the middle pot. Then I took another breath and forgot to take my lips away from the bamboo stick, and the fire blew back into my lungs. The heat licked my throat and burned into my chest — that very place where I had been simmering with anger for so long now that it seemed I had wanted to scream since the day I was born. I fell back and rolled on the ground, and I screamed and screamed.

  One of the teachers came running in, and when he saw the bamboo stick lying near the stove, he burst out laughing. “How can you be so silly! Here, put the fire out,” he said, handing me an enamel cup filled with cold water. And he went back to his room, to his bed, still laughing, to wait for his breakfast.

  I threw the cup against the wall and cursed the teacher. Eventually the pain receded and I stopped screaming, but it took a while before I could get off the floor, and when I did, my anger did not subside. I looked around the room. The breakfast wasn’t made, the fire wasn’t lit. Nothing was done.

  I stood up, walked outside, and grabbed the ax. I came back into the kitchen, I lifted the ax as high as I could over my head, and then I brought it down, as hard as I could, crashing over the stove. In three furious blows I smashed the three earthenware cooking pots. Then I smashed my plank bed, and I smashed the low table and the stools and the rice bowls and the drinking bowls. When there was nothing left to break, I ran all the way back to my mother’s house.