Daughter of the Bamboo Forest
Page 1
Daughter of the
Bamboo Forest
Sheng-Shih Lin
Copyright © 2012 Sheng-Shih Liu-lin
Cover design © 2012 Julia Lin
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Historical Background:
Chapter 1: Little Jade
Chapter 2: Silver Pearl
Chapter 3: The New Couple
Chapter 4: The Grandmother, 1941
Chapter 5: The Great Grandfather
Chapter 6: An Ling
Chapter 7: Silver Pearl's Homecoming 1942
Chapter 8: Step-grandparents' House
Chapter 9: Step-Grandfather
Chapter 10: A New Beginning, Tianjin 1943
Chapter 11: The Plague 1943
Chapter 12: The Rented House
Chapter 13: Husband and Wife, Tianjin 1945
Chapter 14: The Addicts, 1946
Chapter 15: The Abbey School, 1946
Chapter 16: The Dragon King, 1946
Chapter 17: A turning point, 1946
Chapter 18: Wei Jen
Chapter 19: Reunion
Chapter 20: Lee and Jen, Niece and Gugu (Aunt)
Chapter 21: General Tung
Chapter 22: Under the Same Roof
Historical Background:
In 1932, northeastern China fell under Japan’s influence when the Imperial Japanese Army turned Manchuria into the puppet government of Manchukuo. Because Japan was using Manchukuo as a base to invade the rest of China, the Japanese occupation provided relative stability and peace in the region. For a short while, Japan was eager to show the League of Nations that Manchukuo was a peaceful and happy place. This ended when Japan withdrew from the League in 1933.
Four years later, in 1937, Japan took over Peking, Shanghai, and later Nanking. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As the Japanese army invaded deeper and deeper into China’s heartland, there were not enough Japanese troops to occupy the vastness of northern China. The ensuing power vacuum was filled by local strongmen and bandits, and life in the countryside of northern China was on the cusp of revolutionary change.
But in the summer of 1941, life ebbed and flowed and remained, for just a bit longer, as it had always been.
Chapter 1: Little Jade
Time: Summer 1941
Place: The countryside of northern China
There is a place where time stops and eternity survives under a shade of green. Even shadows come with a green tinge. In the deep of the bamboo forest, the land is damp and dark. A velvety layer of moss covers the earth. No sunlight or moonlight penetrates the thick layers of bamboo leaves, and the wind vibrates to the secret rhythms of the forest. When the wind touches the leaves they whisper to one another, and the entire forest sighs and sighs with the soothing gentleness of a lullaby.
Little Jade was the only red spot in the soft green of the forest. Her grandmother liked to dress her in bright colors for summer: a red silk top and pants embroidered with children playing and rowing a dragon boat. The silk was soft to the touch, and felt cool and slippery against her skin. She also wore red shoes embroidered with a lotus flower and a golden frog. Most children her age wore blue, the peasant color, and their clothes were made of rough cotton which had to be worn for months before it became soft against their tender skin. Red was a color worn only during holidays or on festive occasions like weddings, and sometimes, at funerals. For If someone died at an old age, or of natural causes, a funeral was a time of celebration rather than mourning. If the family was rich enough, the celebration could continue for weeks.
Little Jade had been to a funeral and a wedding within the past few months. Each occasion was as elaborate as the celebration of the New Year which was another reason that she was still being dressed in red instead of peach blossom pink or duckling yellow, her usual summer colors.
Little Jade knew all the corners of the forest. She looked up at the bamboo stalks overhead as each reached straight for the sky above. The tallest stems could almost touch the lowest hanging stars at night. She picked up a bamboo stick, and drew a circle on the damp ground. Then she drew bigger and bigger circles, each of which overlapping the last one. She loved to play in the forest. She was not afraid of the green bamboo snakes, which her grandmother warned were among the most poisonous of all snakes. Once, she saw a snake as green as new bamboo leaves hanging from a branch. It opened a mouth of bloody red, but it did not scare her. This forest was hers. It belonged to her family along with probably the rest of the world.
“Little Jade! Little Jade!” Her grandmother called, standing at the very edge of the forest where the family’s vegetable garden ended. It was a long walk for her.
“I’m coming, grandma!” She called as loudly as she could, and she began running toward the house. She did not know what time it was. She could never keep track of time in the forest.
“Little Jade! Little Jade!”
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Hurrying along, Little Jade almost tripped over a bamboo shoot. She could see her grandmother standing behind the vegetable garden fence.
“I knew you were playing in the bamboo forest again. Little Jade, you never listen to me. How many times have I told you not to play there?”
“Yes, grandma.” Little Jade tried to catch her breath.
“Your father wants to see you,” the grandmother said with a worried glance at her granddaughter.
“Why?” she asked, sensing that something bad was about to happen.
“He wants to talk to you before he leaves,” the grandmother sighed.
“Is he leaving again? When?”
“In two weeks. Just after he visits the temple.”
“But he just got back!” cried Little Jade. “He just got married.”
“Your father and your new mother are leaving for their honeymoon,” the grandmother said quietly.
Little Jade followed her grandmother through the vegetable garden. It was late afternoon, almost evening. The sunlight was warm on her face. She rubbed her dusty hands against the sides of her pants, thinking about what she might say to her father.
“Why are you so quiet, Little Jade? Look at you, your lips stick out so much that I could hang an oil bottle on them. Are you angry with your father? Well, you know how it is. Young couples these days go on honeymoons. I don’t want to see your father leaving so soon either. He is my only son. I haven’t seen him for so long...” The grandmother’s voice grew weak and faded away. The only sounds that reached Little Jade were the cries of the ravens from far away.
“Oh, grandma, I’m not angry with father.”
“Then what is it? You’re such a little girl, just six years old.”
“No, I’m not. I am seven...” Little Jade’s voice was small.
“I am getting old. You have to forgive your grandma for not remembering your age. Why, you’re only a baby to me. Seven years old! You are too small for a seven-year old.”
Little Jad
e did not respond because if she did, there would be no way to hold back the tears. Slowly, they walked underneath a lattice arbor laden with ripe squash, which led to the back door of the house. The grandmother pushed aside the falling vines, and they entered through the heavy wooden kitchen door. Two slave girls worked busily in the kitchen. White steam from a large pot of soup filled the room. Little Jade’s old nanny sat in front of the stove, stoking the fire with a bamboo fan. They all greeted Little Jade and her grandmother cheerfully: “Good evening, Old Mistress and Little Lady.”
“Good evening,” the grandmother replied.
“What’s for dinner tonight, grandma?”
“We are having fish and duck.”
Orchid, the slave girl with two pigtails said, “It’s your favorite, Little Jade.”
“I don’t feel like eating,” Little Jade said. She left the kitchen, went to her room, and crawled into bed. She felt a piercing sensation inside her chest as she buried her head under the cool green quilt to block out the world. Teardrops rolled down her cheeks and sank into the pillow. To silence her weeping, she bit a corner of the quilt. She did not want to think of her father and his new wife. Instead, she thought of her grandmother.
Suddenly, Little Jade knew her grandmother was nearby. She could smell the faint scent of sandalwood incense burning in front of the white porcelain statue of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. Under the soft, newly lit candlelight of early evening, the grandmother knelt and chanted mantras in a quiet voice, gently flowing like the steady currents of a river on a calm day. Her eyes were downcast and her lips barely moved as she recited mantras from memory. Kwan Yin wore a flowing white robe tied with a trailing blue sash, her face held a tolerant smile. The smoke from the incense coiled into continuous circles in the room as it wafted into the mosquito nettings. Sometimes Little Jade imitated her grandmother and knelt and chanted, but she could never last more than the time it took to burn half an incense stick.
Little Jade shared a room and a bed with her grandmother. She had been sleeping next to her grandmother for as long as she could remember. It was a large room with a high ceiling. The walls were whitewashed and the wooden window frames were painted dark red—the color of congealed blood caught in a bowl from the neck of a chicken. The screens were bright green, the color of bamboo. There was a rectangular window through which Little Jade could see the west courtyard where a maple tree stood in the middle. There was also a round window, so high up that it could not be reached. The room was filled with the grandmother’s dowry furniture. The heavy teak bed had a frame for hanging the mosquito nets. The white nets were soft and fun to play with. Little Jade always imagined that Kwan Yin’s cloud-like long skirt and sleeves were made of mosquito netting. Sometimes she wrapped the netting around her body, pretending that she was a goddess who rode the smoke of sandalwood incense all the way to heaven.
***
“Little Jade! Little Jade! Where are you?” She could hear her grandmother’s voice getting nearer and nearer. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.
“She is sleeping,” a man’s voice answered. It was Little Jade’s father.
“She can’t be asleep. She just returned from playing in the bamboo forest.” Her grandmother and her father were approaching the bed. They looked down at Little Jade.
“She has been crying,” said the father. “Her cheeks are wet.” The father’s low voice trailed off as the girl squeezed her eyes shut.
“I don’t think she likes you leaving so soon,” said the grandmother.
“Yes, Mother.”
“I don’t want to say too much. It’s just that you’ve been busy ever since you came back to get married. You’ve hardly spent any time with her. She had waited a long time for your return.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Little Jade held her breath, careful not to make a sound, while squeezing her eyes shut. She thought of her father. She had never really talked to him. She had not met him until two months ago. He was a tall man, taller than anyone in the village. He had a handsome face with a square jaw, thick dark hair, arching eyebrows, and deep-set eyes. He was probably looking at the floor now. He was not supposed to talk back to his mother.
Little Jade had been very young when her father left, and she had no memory of him. Over the years, she had sketched pictures of him in her mind. He looked happy in the photograph hanging on the wall in the family hall. He was smiling, unlike most people in their portraits. In the background was a Japanese building. He was wearing a dark western-style suit, a white shirt, and a tie. He had studied in Japan for three years.
Little Jade thought her father looked just like his photograph, even though he didn’t smile much around her. She remembered the day he returned. He had walked into the front gate carrying a leather suitcase. She had been looking out the window, and she knew immediately that he was her father. He had cut a striking figure as he strode toward the inner courtyard. There was something magnetic about him.
Upon seeing her father, Little Jade went running through the house calling excitedly for her grandmother. She met her father later that day after he had washed and changed into a blue silk gown. The grandmother led her down the sun-lit hall to his room. The grandmother’s hand squeezed Little Jade’s hand tightly as the two of them walked toward the door. Finally, they were in the room, and the grandmother pushed Little Jade in front of her. “Son,” she said, “come and meet your daughter.”
Sitting on the chair next to the window, he rose and walked toward her. As he drew near, it seemed that his blue gown grew large, as if it were going to swallow her. She stood silently and looked at her shoes as he knelt down to see her. She shot one look at her father and couldn’t take her eyes off him. He looked tired, but he was smiling. His face leaned toward her. His shiny black hair was still wet from washing and combed back smoothly. He carried a faint smell of soap. She smiled back, but then his face changed. He muttered, “Little Jade looks like her mother.”
The grandmother did not respond. The father stared at his daughter’s face as if searching for something familiar. Little Jade stood frozen and confused. He noticed his daughter’s discomfort and smiled again at her, reluctantly. He handed her a blue velvet box the size of a teapot. “This is for you,” he said, “It’s a special toy. I hope you like it.” Little Jade reached over and held the box with both hands. She stared expectedly at her father.
“Don’t be afraid of me, Little Jade. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby. I just want to take a good look at you.” Slowly, he stood up. His eyes pierced the child. His blue gown moved like a curtain rising on the girl’s face. Gently, he touched the top of her head before he walked back to the bed and sat down. Looking at his daughter, he said, “You have your mother’s eyes.”
He turned to his mother. “You can take Little Jade away now,” he said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you with her all these years.”
The grandmother answered gently, “Nonsense! She is my only grandchild, and you are my only son. She is the root of my life.”
Quiet engulfed the room as he looked at the floor. She continued, “We will leave you now. You need your rest.”
As Little Jade and her grandmother left the room, she held on tight to her grandmother’s hand. Thinking, as she walked, of how her father had touched the top of her head with his long fingers.
Days passed and Little Jade couldn’t decide how she felt about her father. She wished that she could run to him and swing her arms around his neck the way she always did with her grandmother. But, deep down, something told her that she couldn’t. The father hadn’t talked to her since he met her in his room. Little Jade would run into him in the big house, and she would pass him in the hallway. In the evening, they would eat at the same dinner table. She found herself looking for him around the family compound, and she became familiar with the sight of her father, but she never heard his voice. Sometimes, when she played in the courtyard alone, she stopped suddenly—sensing that someone wa
s watching. Turning around, she would often see the back of her father’s blue gown growing smaller as he passed through the ranks of moon gates.
Now her father must be watching from the doorway. Thoughts of him were racing through her head, and there was a heavy weight on her chest. She felt cold and hot at once. She was scared. She could no longer pretend that she did not care to know about her father, or her mother. Where was her mother? What had happened to her?
When her father had remarried, she had been given a new mother, but where was her mother, the real one? She had been thinking hard about this. All the other children had a mother and a father. But she knew only her grandmother. No one mentioned Little Jade’s mother. It was a forbidden subject. When she asked her grandmother about her mother, she always looked sad and shook her head and Little Jade dared not ask again. Once she asked the old nanny whether her mother was dead. The wizened old woman would only say she did not think she was dead and nothing more. Where was she? No one knew. Or, if they knew, they were not about to tell her. Where did they hide her? What had happed to her? Little Jade had gone through all the family photographs, all the portraits of her ancestors, but she could not find her mother. The last two months since her father’s return had been terrible for her. She wanted to ask her father where her mother was, but he continued to avoid her. She was hoping that maybe after another month or so, when everything settled down, she could just go over to him and ask, “Father, where is my mother?” It was such a simple question. She had been reciting it over and over in her head, and the voice inside her was growing louder and louder making her head hurt. She could hear a thundering voice shouting: “Father, where is my mother?”
Little Jade heard her own voice sounding weak and timid. Sobbing, she uttered the question she longed to have answered. She could not see clearly because of her watery eyes, but she could picture her father’s face turning pale. Nobody answered. Suddenly, she felt her grandmother’s skinny hand on her forehead. Her hand was cold and soothing as she touched Little Jade’s face.