Daughter of the Bamboo Forest

by Sheng-Shih Lin;Julia Lin

  The doctor assured Silver Pearl that her child was unharmed. It was lucky that she did not fall on top of the stove. Just to be on the safe side, she was to stay in bed for the time being. She openly accused Little Jade of placing a curse on her and said that having Little Jade around was dangerous to her unborn child. Little Jade thought that her father believed Silver Pearl.

  On the day of departure, Little Jade followed her father out, letting the door with peeling red paint slam behind her with a cruel finality. An Ling lifted his daughter into the waiting wagon and stepped in to sit beside her. As they pulled away from the rented house, Little Jade was overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness so absolute and so without hope that she dropped her face over her knees and began to sob. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her! She screamed silently, gasping as tears washed over her face, drenching the coat over her lap. Silver Pearl was right. I wished for her death. Without Silver Pearl, father and I would not be apart. Now that Silver Pearl has won, and I’ve lost, Silver Pearl will never let the father come back for me. This is the end. I have no one now, no father, no mother, no grandmother. Where is my mother? My own mother. Will I ever see her in my lifetime? Little Jade repeated these questions silently over and over again. Who could answer these questions?

  She refused to look at her father when he reached over to touch her hand. An Ling patted his daughter’s head tentatively, and then he withdrew his hands into the pockets of his coat. They rode in silence. Every bounce of the wagon reminded Little Jade that she was alone again.

  The sky hung low overhead. Somber gray clouds rolled slowly, moodily, contemplating a storm. The folds of the clouds were tinted a soft green like the patina of rusted ancient weapons. A yellow light was dimming over them. The day was fading fast. A chill set in, and a swarm of blackbirds soared suddenly into the sky like a dense shadow, screaming and scrambling and finally diving into a cluster of evergreen in a nearby cemetery.

  Chapter 15: The Abbey School, 1946

  After Little Jade’s father left her at the abbey school, she knew he wouldn’t come back for her. But she was determined to find a way to return to him and to somehow make Silver Pearl disappear. Maybe she would run away from the school and find her way back to her father like an abandoned dog refusing to be left behind, whether Silver Pearl liked it or not.

  Little Jade shared a dormitory room with five other girls. One of them was named Bai Feng, which means White Phoenix. Bai Feng became her friend. During the first few weeks at the school, Little Jade avoided talking to anyone. But as she slowly came to notice the things and people around her, Bai Feng was always there. She followed Little Jade everywhere and sat next to Little Jade whenever she could. Bai Feng was determined to be Little Jade’s friend, and Little Jade allowed it.

  Bai Feng was at least fourteen, maybe even fifteen. It was not until much later that Little Jade realized that Bai Feng had had no friends before Little Jade arrived. No one else would befriend her because she was overweight and because her face was covered with pockmarks. Little Jade felt an affinity with Bai Feng and her imperfections. She rolled up her trousers to showed Bai Feng the smooth discs of slightly indented skin on the surface of her legs.

  Before long, they were going everywhere together. They became inseparable. They sat next to each other in the classrooms and in the dining room. Bai Feng always gave Little Jade choice pieces from her portion of the meal. She was trying to lose weight, she would always say, I shouldn’t eat so much.

  Every Sunday, it was mandatory to attend mass at the school chapel. The chapel was a rectangular building with a tall ceiling and high windows. It used to be a warehouse and was the only room large enough to accommodate all the students and teachers from the abbey school. At one end of the room, there was a wooden stage decorated with heavy green fabric. The podium was draped with white cloth elaborately embroidered with a golden cross. Behind the stage, there was an altar of white painted wood with touches of gold. A pair of heavy pillar candles were placed stood on either side of the altar and in the center there was a statue of the Madonna holding baby Jesus. The full-cheeked face of the baby Jesus had an impossibly wise expression. The Madonna had golden hair and dull blue eyes. She looked down at the baby resting on her chest and the corners of her lips lifted just a bit in an almost-but-not-quite smile. She wore a long robe of blue and white with gold trim at the edges. Little Jade thought she bore a striking resemblance to the Kwan Yin statue from her grandma’s room. When Little Jade was a little baby, her own mother must have looked down at her and smiled, but no matter how hard she tried, Little Jade could not recall her mother’s face.

  ***

  Usually, the sermon was delivered by a visiting priest from the local church. He was a thin, Chinese priest with hair parted in the middle who wore gold-rimmed glasses and spoke with a heavy southern accent. He told the students to keep their hearts as pure as the heart of the holy Madonna who gave birth to Jesus while still a virgin. Little Jade had heard of similar stories of the Immaculate Conception from Chinese fables: women who were impregnated by forces of nature—a shooting star, a five-colored cloud, or a dragon that emerged from a storm. The resulting child always became the emperor or the empress.

  The priest told the girls stories from the Bible puzzling them with tales of the suffering Job and the rivalries between Cain and Abel. No one could ever understand the points of these stories, but nevertheless, the students listened politely. From time to time, an old French nun played a small organ, and the Chinese nuns led the students in singing choir songs.

  “Don’t think evil thoughts,” he warned sternly. The audience was timid and silent. He went on to tell them the story of King David and Bathsheba. This was a tale of adultery that was not entirely suitable for the young girls sitting before him. Fortunately, his delivery was dry and his accent was thick, and the students did not pay much attention.

  There was another wood statue that hung high from the ceiling of the chapel. It was of the grown Jesus suffering on the cross. It was placed discreetly behind a pair of dark green curtains. So much nakedness of a grown man would be scandalous in a school for girls. Little Jade caught a glimpse of Jesus’ face and was taken by the sadness of his eyes and the blood dripping from his open wounds. It was a disturbing sight. It reminded Little Jade of the tortured scenes on the Buddhist temple walls that portrayed different punishments in hell. The mountains made of knives and the sinners being fried in the depth caldrons of oil, the gossips and liars having their tongues cut out. The adulterers were naked and were half-eaten by wolves. Grandma always told her to close her eyes while she led her by the hand through that stretch of the temple galley. The only difference was that all the sinners in the picture looked horrified while the face of Jesus was filled with a peace and acceptance that belied his suffering. Little Jade could not bear to look at him for long.

  The curtains were pulled open only once during a special visit from a French priest. The entire school got into such a stir in preparation for his visit. Even the ever-serious French nuns became giddy with excitement. They fussed over every detail. Everything had to be just right. The furniture and floor were polished to a high sheen and the students were told to press their uniforms for the occasion. On the appointed day, all the nuns dressed in their snow-white habits instead of the usual gray robes while the students wore perfectly pressed white shirts and long, knife-pleated blue skirts. The celebrated guest was a tall man with orange hair, bushy orange eyebrows, and ruddy skin. Little Jade had never seen such coloring on a human being. And his eyes! They were blue as the tip of a flame burning in hell. Little Jade had seen such eyes on the face of a demon in Buddhist paintings on temple walls.

  That special Sunday, the chapel was brightly lit with extra candles. Two kerosene lamps hung high to illuminate the figure of Jesus on the cross. After the choir sang a welcome song for the special guest, the foreign priest stood on the altar and said his sermon in a strange accent that was difficult for Little Jade to understand. He wor
e a flowing white robe with a thick gold sash draped around his neck. He urged the audience to believe in the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. He explained that we were all sinners since birth because Adam took a bite from the apple offered by Eve. We should confess our sins and pray for forgiveness.

  Little Jade knew that it was Mencius, a student of Confucius, who stated that all human beings are good at the beginning of their lives and that it is what they learn later on that changes human nature for the worse. Grandma had believed that sins and good deeds are carried from lifetime to lifetime through reincarnation. She believed that she suffered because she had done something bad in her previous lifetime. All she could do in this lifetime, she would say, was to perform good deeds and hope for a better life in her next reincarnation. How odd to think that you could be free of your sins by simply confessing them. It would be too easy! The logic of sins, confession, and forgiveness was confusing to Little Jade. The nuns burned sweet smelling incense during the mass. It brought tears to its audience’s eyes. The sound of the organ music swelled again and the priest said, “Let’s pray.”

  The priest sipped from a glass of red wine and took a small white wafer from a gold cup. He lifted the cup high in front of the altar and chanted in a foreign language. The students were told to line up to receive communion. The elderly French nun held a golden goblet covered with a piece of neatly folded white linen. The priest picked up thin white wafers, one at a time, and placed one into the mouth of each waiting recipient. Little Jade inched forward watchful of the girls in front of her. Finally, it was her turn. She stood there facing the towering priest. He held the wafer and deftly placed it on her tongue as he said something in a language she did not understand. Little Jade avoided meeting his eyes and was trembling as she walked away.

  She knew that the wafer symbolized the body of Jesus who died on behalf of a sinful mankind. Little Jade was afraid to swallow the wafer certain that if she did an unknown force would fester within her and one day take over, but the wafer began to melt. Little Jade held the last trace of the wafer on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to spit it into her handkerchief, but she knew that this would be disrespectful. She did not know what to do and the wafer had melted in her mouth before she could make up her mind.

  ***

  In the classroom they memorized and recited Confucius’ words. They recited out loud that “their bodies, hair, and skin were given to them by their parents and they must not damage themselves.” They also learned the rules of proper behavior for a woman according to the Book of Etiquette and Conducts for Women: “Do not show your teeth when laughing, do not sway your skirts when walking, always observe the expressions of others and listen carefully before speaking.”

  In sewing classes, they cut patterns and learned to make simple smock dresses tied with a sash. They learned to put together colors: bright red should never contrast bright purple, scallion green is compatible with peach blossom pink, aqua blue and sky blue are calming to the eyes. They learned to embroider and made flower blossoms on pieces of silk with hair-thin needles. Little Jade often helped Bai Feng, who had poor eyesight, thread the needles and finish a stitch just right, hiding the knot, and the end of the thread under the fold of the fabric. In nursing classes, they learned to make bandages from clean white cloth and to wrap bandages in different ways depending on the nature of the injuries. They learned to make a sling for a broken arm, and to secure a wooden stick along the injured arm or leg to keep it in position. Bai Feng was good at tying neat knots and wrapping bandages nice and tidy—but not so tight that the blood could not circulate. The nuns helped out in the local hospital and the older students were expected to assist them. Bai Feng was one of the students who accompanied the nuns during these visits.

  Bai Feng told Little Jade of the things she saw in the hospital. She helped with dressing the wounded soldiers from the Nationalist Army. She overheard the soldiers saying that the Japanese had been defeated and that the Chinese were fighting each other now that battles were being waged by the Nationalists against the Communists.

  When the Japanese had surrendered, the hospital was taken over by the Americans. The American doctors and Chinese nurses worked with the French nuns. One of the nurses, Miss Du, was friendly with Bai Feng. They often took breaks together. Miss Du had an American name, Lily. She told Bai Fang that only Nationalists soldiers received treatments at the hospital because the Americans were friends of the Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek. Without the weapons from the Americans, the Nationalists wouldn’t be able to fend off the Communists advances. A captured Communist was a dead Communist. Thus, the Communists have no use for hospitals, Lily said.

  ***

  In the nursing textbooks, there was a chapter on midwifery, a subject that was not taught in the classroom. The students were told that they should read it on their own and that it would not be on the exams. One night, Bai Feng and Little Jade flipped through the pages of the textbook together and read it carefully while looking closely at the crude drawings that illustrated the birth of a child. They tried to decipher the names on the arrows pointing at the different parts of a woman’s body. The womb was the “fetus’s palace,” the ovaries were the “egg nests,” and the vagina was the “dark passage.”

  “That is where the baby comes out,” Bai Feng said pointing to one of the pictures.

  “Ah-h-h-h...!” Little Jade marveled at the new discovery. She stared at the drawing of a woman’s body. “But it’s impossible, Feng. The baby is too large to come out of an opening so small,” Little Jade whispered, thinking of her own body.

  ***

  The eggshell-white schoolhouse stood on a gentle hillside facing Jade Lake. The lake was green and reflected the bamboo forest surrounding it. A mud road led from the side of the school through thickly grown bamboo trees and ended at the cobble stone beach where Bai Feng and Little Jade liked to take walks. Watching the green silk lake wrinkle into delicate fish-scale patterns at each breath of wind, Little Jade would settle on one of the large stones that littered the cobblestone beach. Bai Feng walked bare-footed in the shallow water, her skirt tucked at her waist, and her white slip was showing underneath.

  One day, while they were at the lake, Bai Feng told Little Jade that years ago there hadn’t been any large stones on the beach. She said that a long time ago the lake had belonged to no one. Women from nearby villages used to go to the bamboo forest in groups to dig for bamboo shoots after a good rain, but young women were warned not to go into the forest alone. People said that there was a dragon king living beneath the surface of the tranquil lake. After a while, rumors circulated about a certain young woman, who seemed to be gaining weight steadily and whose voice drifted easily. She pricked her fingers too often when she did her needlework in the company of other village women.

  One day she disappeared. A web of bloody membrane was found floating in the white reeds that grew along the shore of the lake. Some of the membrane covered the cobblestones and made them look like blood-shot eyes that had lost their pupils. The village people said that the dragon king came out of the lake to find young women to be his brides. They said that the dragon transformed himself into human form—except he still had dripping hair that coiled like waterweeds as if he’d just gone swimming, and tiny blue scales behind his ears and under his arms. When he found a young woman alone in the forest, he would pretend to be lost, and he would ask for directions. The unfortunate woman, her hands muddy from digging bamboo shoots, would look up and see his strangely liquid eyes which were of the clearest blue, pouring over her. She would follow him into the lake.

  After the dragon king made the young woman pregnant, he let her go knowing that she would return on a moonlit night to the cobblestone beach. There, she would give birth to a stone the size of a newborn infant, and die. And he would watch from the center of the lake, weeping as he witnessed the death of his bride. Then he would cover her face with her long black hair and bury her at the bottom of the lake. The s
tone would be left on the beach to absorb the essence of the sun and the moon, and it would break open one day when its time had come.

  Listening to Bai Feng, Little Jade ran her fingers over the coarse surface of the stone which had been warmed by the sun. She imagined something alive and monstrous inside the stone, something that was moving and turning beneath her. But Bai Feng did not notice how quickly Little Jade stood up from the stone. Bai Feng merely said, “Let’s go, it’s getting late.” The shadow cast on the water by her plump body grew longer and longer as the sun slowly dropped behind the forest.

  Little Jade followed Bai Feng through the bamboo forest pushing the thick branches aside and feeling the dry leaves crackle softly underfoot. The rustling of the leaves stirred up memories of another bamboo forest from long ago, her very own forest. An unsettling darkness rose within Little Jade. It was like the secretive tides of the lake which were rising steadily now under the sickle of the new moon hanging just above the forest.

  ***

  Little Jade’s father was coming to visit. His letter had arrived the other day. Carefully, Little Jade had opened the blue envelope with her name on it. It read “Miss Su Bright Jade,” her school name. Each stroke of the characters was written in a determined, strong hand, denting the envelope. It was a short letter, written in a formal language, as if he expected the nuns to open the students’ mail.

  Bright Jade my daughter:

  How have you been recently? Is everything well at school? I’m fine and so is your second mother. I will come visit you at the end of this month. Study with attention and be well.