Gift of the Golden Mountain

by Shirley Streshinsky

  The short, squat man who had been sitting outside the shack greeted her with, "Have you eaten, Sister?" She knew it was a standard greeting, what the Chinese say instead of "How are you?" and the answer is supposed to be "yes." But the only thing she had had to eat that day was a watery gruel with a few bits of oily fish on top, and she was starved.

  "I have, yes," she told him, "but if you have some food, I would be grateful for a small portion." He looked at her and cocked his head, as if she were some new species of animal, and went to the back of the shack where a small fire was going. In a few minutes she was eating huge black mushrooms and greens she could not identify, cooked in a great black wok and served on top of a bowl of rice. She lifted the bowl to her mouth and shoveled the food in. It was all she could do to remember the proper way to hold her chopsticks, she was so hungry.

  As soon as she finished, the man ushered her inside the shack where two bicycles were waiting. She offered him the two gold coins, but he took only one. She was puzzled, but there was something about the methodical way he took the coin that told her not to offer more. They set off right away, pedaling along a narrow roadway that struck out through the field, then they veered off onto a smaller road. After an hour or more, when she was beginning to think her legs might fall off, they stopped to have warm tea from a Thermos he had in his kit, and moon cakes. An artist or a photographer might have thought it a charming scene, peasants taking tea and cakes under a lychee tree. The charm escaped May. Her cotton slacks and shirt were wet with sweat, and her period had started, right on schedule.

  Eight days after her arrival in Macao, May found herself spending the night in a small farmhouse on the edge of a village in south China. They had arrived after dark, and she had climbed a ladder to a loft where she slept among rough sacks of what smelled like grain. She had a new traveling companion, Xue Lian, a woman May guessed to be in her early thirties who had a smooth, round Mongolian face and who exuded competence and good humor.

  As they were settling in for the night, Xue thrust her feet into a roost of sleeping chickens, causing an uproar of outraged clucking. "Quiet down little babies," she crooned to them, "Xue Lian's big feet did not mean to enter your dreams."

  As soon as May opened her eyes the next morning, Xue was there with a bowl of warm water so she could wash up. "Hurry down," she whispered, "I have fixed our morning meal." May climbed back down the ladder, stepping onto the hard-packed dirt floor of the main room. There was not enough light to see well, but she thought several bundles in the far corners, under the loft, must be sleeping bodies.

  She breathed in the fresh, cool air of the compound and shook the dust out of her clothes. Smoke was rising from the roof of the cooking room. Xue Lian came out carrying a black kettle filled with gruel, and another pot containing rice with more of the ubiquitous giant black mushrooms and greens. They ate in the gray predawn light, sitting on their haunches outside of the cook house. May started to speak, but Xue Lian shook her head, motioning to her to be silent and eat.

  They pushed hard that morning, traveling along a dusty country road so rutted that they often had to walk the bicycles. Once they passed a young woman shepherding a gaggle of geese. She carried a long wand and prodded the birds along, and all May could think of were the old pictures in a Mother Goose book she had as a child. Softly, under her breath, she began to hum, "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Xue Lian turned, smiling, and began to hum it too. The two women crossed a great field, humming the old nursery rhyme as loud as they could, and when they were finished they began to laugh.

  "Where did you learn that song?" May wanted to know.

  "Some missionaries taught my mother, my mother taught me," Xue Lian said proudly. "I used to sing it to the children, but no more. Not since Western influences have been discouraged."

  "Then you are a teacher?"

  "Once I was. In nursery school, I think you say."

  "And now?"

  A broad smile grew into an irrepressible laugh. "Now I guide travel tours for American ladies." She pushed far enough ahead, then, to make talk impossible.

  Usually they skirted the villages, but now they were headed directly into one, a very old place surrounded by a brick wall, streaked black with age. Clustered at the road leading in was a group of young men in uniform and behind them, at the gate, two older men who were checking identification cards. May glanced anxiously at her companion who said, "Be calm, do as you were told." She tried to remember what Joe had said to say when they asked for her card, she tried to remember her alias, but she couldn't. Her mind was utterly blank.

  She almost lost her balance when she got into the queue to present her card. Xue's hand shot out to steady her bicycle. Her underarms felt prickly, a sweat bee buzzed around her neck but she did not dare free a hand to brush it away. Xue was next in line, then it would be May's turn. She concentrated on breathing deeply, on swallowing the rising panic when an old man came running toward them shouting something incomprehensible. A dozen villagers rushed up to him, older people mostly, pushing in front of Xue and May, surrounding the man and the officials, and soon everyone was shouting and gesturing.

  She felt a tug on her sleeve. Xue was moving ahead, through the gate, and May knew she should follow. She started slowly, keeping her eyes on Xue, who was entering the gate . . . only a few steps more and she would be safe.

  "Stop. You there." He meant May, she could feel it in her back.

  "What is your name?" he asked.

  "Kwan Da-yong," May was amazed to hear herself answer in a voice she scarcely recognized, as she handed over her card.

  He examined it carefully, holding it close to his eyes. Then he looked at her and frowned. "What business have you here?" he asked, holding the card up between them.

  She reached for it with her hand open, so he could see the single piece of jade that was nestled in her palm.

  At this moment the other official extricated himself from the hubbub and approached them. This is it, she thought, you're caught on illegal entry . . . spying, probably . . . forged papers, bribing an official, it's all over. She forced herself not to look to see if Xue Lian had fled.

  With the dexterity of a magician, the official lifted the jade from her palm with his middle fingers and pocketed it, while handing back her card from the Revolutionary Committee. "Just another student," he said, waving her through.

  Xue Lian was waiting around the first turn. "He took a bribe," May said, her voice quavering.

  Xue shrugged and said, "If the troubles we have just been through have taught us anything, it is that greed is inevitably part of the human condition."

  They went down narrow streets, turning right and left and right again until May was lost. The buildings were close together, crowded along the narrow lane so she saw only the doorways, was aware only that the buildings were old and high, of stone that was black with age. She turned into a narrow doorway in a house that was dark and smelled as if animals were kept there. She was led up a steep flight of wooden stairs to a room that was empty, except for a table covered with a blue and white flowered cloth, and two elaborately carved chairs that she guessed had been salvaged from some grand place.

  Her companion smiled enigmatically, and said she should wait and not to go near the window, and then she left. Ten minutes passed, to May it seemed an hour. This was not her mother's town, she knew that. It would be another day, possibly two, before they reached the remote village where her mother lived. This stop had not been on the schedule. Do exactly what you are told to do, Joe had said, but this wasn't Macao and she had no idea what was happening. What if someone had turned her over to the authorities? But if that had happened, she asked herself, what would she be doing in a home?

  She heard someone enter below, a door pushed firmly shut, slow and shuffling steps. She stood, pressed against the wall, hardly daring to breathe. The window was the only way out. She wanted to run over to it, to see if she could climb out. Stay away from the window. Do exactly as you are told. I
t was too late, she was committed to trust them. She had no choice.

  Voices rose from below: Xue Lian's, laughing, and another. Then someone was climbing the stairs, slowly. The head appeared; it was bigger than the body. At first she thought it was a boy, a dwarf. Its twisted body seemed to sidestep into the room, moving with difficulty. She turned to face it.

  "Wing Mei-jin," it said in a voice so feather soft it seemed to float across the room to her, and then in a very old-fashioned, stilted English: "Do not be afraid, my child. I am Tsiao Jie. My father—your grandfather—had the name for me 'China Rose.' I should like to present myself to you as your aunt."

  She smiled, a big, open, glorious smile that spilled over into her eyes. May felt something come loose inside her which began to roll around, making her feel giddy. "You," she said, with a laugh on the verge of becoming a cry, "it is you."

  "Yes," Tsiao Jie laughed too, a wonderfully sweet laugh. "Have I surprised you, dear one?"

  They spoke in Mandarin for the speed, because there was so little time and so much to say. Tsiao Jie told May about her grandfather, about her father when he came to China. She said that it had been her most precious wish someday to see May, to touch her face and tell her how proud her grandfather would have been. "He loved beautiful women, you see," she said, her eyes sparkling with wit, "and you are so beautiful. I see now why Chou said we must hide your face."

  Chou. Pronounced "Joe." Of course. The English he spoke was Tsiao Jie's English—May's grandfather's English.

  "Is Chou your friend?" May asked. "How much did you have to do with bringing me here?"

  "There is no time to talk of such things," was her answer, but May knew. Tsiao Jie had put herself in jeopardy to help her. She had engineered the journey, and the people who were helping May were doing it for her aunt, for China Rose.

  "Have you talked with . . . my mother?" May asked.

  Her face, which was the most alive face May had ever seen, became sad. "I have seen Ch'ing-Ling twice," she answered, and May knew the words had been rehearsed. "Once when your father was still alive, again just after his death. Then I was sent far away, to the North, and I have not seen her again."

  "Does she know I am coming?"

  "No," Rose answered simply, "I feared that if she did, she might not agree to see you."

  "She may run from me, even now."

  "Yes. It is possible that you will be disappointed."

  May's answer came without hesitation. "It won't matter, Aunt Rose. If I had to leave now, it would be all right—seeing you, talking to you, being here. It's as if I've found a part of my past that has been missing. I'll always remember how it was, being here today with you."

  Rose took her hand and squeezed it so hard it would have hurt, had May been able to feel pain. "I'm going to come back to China," May said. "I'm going to come back with Hayes, so that you can meet him. And Kit. We will have a family reunion. China can't keep me out forever."

  May watched her great eyes fill with tears; she laid her cheek next to the tiny woman's, and found it soft and smooth. Then Rose's hands pressed gently on her arms as she said, "Go now to meet your mother, and then go back to your betrothed and live in happiness and peace, and when you come back to China, bring me also a grandniece. Or a nephew, or one of each."

  That afternoon May pedaled her bicycle for four hours over rough country roads. She could have gone on forever.

  They slept under a thatch of ironwood trees not far from a stream with duck pens. May lay awake, filled with a kind of elation. She listened to the ducks scrabble, and went over and over everything Rose had said to her. She had tried so long to imagine what it would be like, meeting her mother, but she had not thought about Rose. China Rose. Dad's half sister, those same wonderful eyes—his eyes!—in that poor little twisted body.

  May knew that her grandmother had been crippled. Grandfather had been tall and straight, like her father, but he had loved two crippled women . . . Rose's mother, she would have liked to ask about her. There was so much she wanted to know.

  Realizing that Xue Lian must be a follower of her aunt's, she asked, "What can you tell me about her?"

  Xue answered, laughing, "She has greatness, your aunt. There is nothing we would not do for her."

  "We?" May asked.

  "Those of us who have the honor to know her, to be at her service. There are many."

  "How many?"

  "That you must ask your auntie—when you come to see her through the front door." She laughed hard, as if she had made some wonderful joke. "Your Mr. Nixon," she ventured, "he is opening the door to China, you will be back."

  May tried to tell her why he wasn't "her" Mr. Nixon, tried to explain why he was probably going to be tossed out on his ear over a scandal called Watergate, but Xue could not understand. As far as she was concerned, Nixon is a great man simply for having come to rap on China's closed door.

  That morning, the first karst formations came into view, strange mountains rising in the morning mist. May felt as if she had entered an ancient Chinese scroll, pedaling through green fields as the karsts came closer and closer. She watched the sun reach its apex and tried to think what time it would be in Washington, but she could not. Washington was another world, another time. When the sun was at an oblique angle, they arrived at the River Li.

  "We rest now, and let the river be our feet," Xue Lian said as they waited on the river bank. Soon a raft made of giant bamboo poles pulled up, and they maneuvered to get their bicycles onto it.

  For more than two hours they floated down the river, the karst formations rising majestically on every side and into the distance. This was the China of May's imagination: delicate in its complexity, light reflecting off the water, giant stands of bamboo casting tender shadows. Here and there villagers harvested weeds from the river's bottom or fished. Cormorants stood motionless on a sandbar, children played alongside the river as their mothers washed clothes and spread them on the rocks to dry. This was life along the River Li, represented on the ancient scrolls, China of a thousand dreams, the poet's China. She could understand why Madame Mao did not want foreign visitors to come to this place, to disturb the old ways, to bring change. And she could see why her mother would have chosen to live here, in the calm of a village on this winding river at the edge of time.

  She sat cross-legged on the raft, one hand holding on to her bicycle to steady it, and felt as if she could drift forever down the River Li.

  The village was like several others they had passed—a high, dun-colored wall behind which nestled several compounds. Children played along the riverbank, clamored over the boats that were tied there. The raft bumped to a stop on the stony quay, and a small boy jumped out to steady it so the two women could disembark with their bicycles. May stretched to make the jump from the raft to the slippery rocks, dragging her bicycle with her. She lost her footing and fell, the bicycle crashing down upon her, metal tearing into the flesh of her leg.

  "Owww," Xue Lian cried out for her as she came to her aid, "It hurts."

  May tried to smile as she pulled herself upright. A young boy jumped to help. She limped up the quay, allowing the boy to guide the bicycle for her, and sat down on a low wall. The cut was bleeding profusely. Xue Lian knelt to look at it, clucking.

  "Here," May said, taking one of the clean rags out of her sack, "wrap this around it."

  Xue worked efficiently, pressing the cut to stop the bleeding.

  "Good we go to see the doctor," she said.

  "Here?" May asked. "Is this the village?"

  The other woman nodded, not smiling now. "It is not far, can you walk?"

  The searing pain in her leg could not compete with the fear rising in May's throat. She rose, and for an instant thought she might faint. She took a deep breath.

  "Lean on me," Xue Lian said. "The clinic is there, down that road."

  As the women hobbled off, the villagers began to gather to follow them. Strangers seldom came here, they were something new to see
, and one was bleeding. They pointed and chattered. You could see the dark blood spreading on the rag tied around her leg. By the time they reached the small white building marked with a red cross, some twenty people had gathered to follow and watch.

  One old man offered, "The doctor is not there."

  A reprieve. The tightness in May's chest seemed to subside.

  "Where is she?" Xue Lian asked.

  "In another village," the man answered, waving his arm vaguely in the direction of the river.

  "When will she be back?"

  The man shrugged, he had said all he could say. A woman pushed forward, taking over. "Babies sick there, she gives medicines. Back before dark."

  Xue Lian looked at May. "Let's go inside and stop the bleeding. You can wait there while I find us some food."

  May did as she was told. She seemed to have lost the ability to think for herself. Whatever happened now would be determined by forces she could not control. She could only wait as she had waited on the raft, floating down the river. Xue Lian lifted the latch on the clinic and pushed the door open. They stepped into a single large room with a wood floor and whitewashed walls. Xue guided May to a wooden chair, and she sat patiently while the other woman found soap and water to wash out the cut. The villagers watched from the open door, but none crossed the high threshold.

  "The doctor," Xue Lian said to May in lowered tones, "must have very strict rules. Look how clean and neat this place is, compared to the village."

  As if given permission, May looked around the room, studying the place where her mother lived and worked. It was a large and airy room. In the front section were two tables, one which might serve as a surgery, and a narrow bed. Medical supplies and instruments were neatly categorized in a glass-front cabinet set against one wall. In another were Chinese herbal medicines.