Daughter of the Bamboo Forest

by Sheng-Shih Lin;Julia Lin

  Jen put down her knitting needles and got slowly to her feet. She had a sudden urge to see her children, to touch their hair, and to gather them into her arms. With all the nursemaids and amahs (older household maids) the general employed, she had few opportunities to care for them. Jen clapped her hands twice. A maid appeared at the study door. “Where are the little ladies?” Jen asked, meaning the younger girls. The maid replied that they were taking afternoon naps with their nursemaids.

  “Where is the young lady?” Jen asked.

  “She is with her English teacher,” the maid replied. “Today is Wednesday.”

  Jen did not want to interrupt the afternoon naps or the English lesson. She waved off the maid and sat alone, thinking of her three younger girls one by one. On the desk, there was a photograph of Jen, Mary and the general that had been taken right after Jen and the general were married. It was a perfect family portrait. General Tung’s arm was around Jen’s shoulder, and Mary was positioned on Jen’s lap. But when it came to the three younger girls, there was no such photograph. Maybe if she gave birth to a boy, another family portrait could be taken.

  All three young girls were faithful copies of their father. They had his deep-set eyes and high cheekbones, his long eyelashes, and thickly grown eyebrows in the shapes of willow leaves. The variations among the three girls were small. One had the pointed chin that denoted a “peach blossom colored life.” Jen knew that she would be a beauty. The other had a square jaw, which meant that she would forge boldly into her future, but for the time being, she was the loudest, and crying constantly for attention. The third one had an unassuming round face with a well-defined widow’s peak. She would be the clever one, though Jen could not quite tell what sort of cleverness. Would it be the kind that would do some good in the world, or the kind of petty cleverness that amounts to nothing?

  She pulled a thick wool shawl over her shoulders and walked out the study into the courtyard. A maid followed a few steps behind holding a heavy wool cape in her arms. Jen felt good as the autumn air hit her face like a splash of cold water. With the child growing within her, she was always warm. She sometimes felt imprisoned in her own body like an animal in a too-small cage. She wanted to go for a walk. She ignored the wind which was getting stronger and carried with it a shrilling sound as it passed through the treetops. She walked past the blooming yellow and purple chrysanthemums and down the stone path that slowly wound past a series of giant, oddly shaped stones that resembled little mountains and had been pulled from the depths of Lake Tai. Along the path, stalks of bamboo created a green curtain against the rocks. Jen sat on a stone bench to rest a moment.

  There was never love, she thought with a mixture of bitterness and self-mocking, only goals and strategic moves.

  Had she missed something important along the way to arrive at this point? In truth, she would never know. Now, she thought, all that’s left are duties and obligations. There was no one to blame because she was the one who had made all the decisions. Her thoughts turned to An Ling. She never wanted to see him again. She blamed the war for breaking them apart, but she never attempted to get in touch with him. She had heard that he, too, eventually got married again. His wife, it was said, was a much younger woman.

  Still, she could not face An Ling in this life. He reminded her of everything she no longer was and never wanted to be: the compliant wife and daughter-in-law locked deep within the estate of a once prominent family whose time had come and gone. After Little Jade was born, she was almost trapped within that big house where she was no more than a chess piece waiting to be moved by larger forces. Now she was the one holding the pieces, and the one who plots the next moves against the formidable opponent of fate.

  She would not look back. She could only keep going forward. Her duty was to protect this child within her, and all her daughters, and her entire family. For them, she would move ahead and somehow they would end up somewhere with a measure of stability and peace.

  Chapter 22: Under the Same Roof

  Within a few days, Fourth Aunt came to help Lee pack her new clothes into the same leather suitcase. She was taking her to General Tung’s residence. A shiny black car waited in front of the house. A young soldier in a khaki uniform and polished black boots was brushing the car with a feather duster. Lee slid into the back seat next to the Fourth Aunt, bumping into her slender frame. The young woman put an arm around the girl and squeezed her shoulder. Lee smiled at her aunt gratefully, and Fourth Aunt returned her smile. There was a trace of cigarette smoke inside the car, reminding Lee once again of her father. She looked out the window as the car pulled away and hoped to never return to this spot. The car drove through the crowded city. It was a rare sunny day during a Peking winter. The blurred faces of pedestrians and street vendors flashed by, and their chatter and noises muffled by the car’s windows.

  The car glided into a smooth stop in front of the gate of a walled compound guarded by soldiers with machine guns hoisted on their shoulders. Two stone lions guarded the front entry, like the stone lions at the gate of the Su family cemetery. Fourth Aunt nodded at the soldiers and took the girl by the hand. The grand estate was once the residence of an imperial prince from the Qing Dynasty. Both the master and the mistress of the house were away in order to make it less conspicuous for Lee to join the household.

  Chang Lee and Fourth Aunt entered the outer gates. Just inside the inner gate they checked in with another soldier who was seated behind a redwood desk. He looked up at them from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “She is Chang Lee,” Fourth Aunt said to him. “The ‘Lee’ that means ‘standing up.’”

  “They are expecting you,” said the soldier as he checked off a line in the notebook. A middle age amah appeared and took over the suitcase from Fourth Aunt.

  “Follow me,” the amah said as she walked briskly ahead of them. Fourth Aunt took Lee’s arm and guided her through winding corridors and led her into the inner courtyards of the estate. Lee saw soldiers performing household duties throughout the grounds, sweeping stone courtyards, and trimming plants in the garden. She passed through a courtyard paved with a carpet-like lawn and festooned with large topiary trimmed into the shapes of rabbits and bears. They passed a seesaw and a swing which Lee assumed to be part of a playground for the youngest inhabitants of the house. She caught glimpses of a nursemaid holding a toddler and singing to her. Fourth Aunt nodded and smiled at everyone as she walked by. Further down, after passing through a fan shaped gate, Lee stepped onto a paved stone path lined by tall stalks of bamboo on both sides. As Lee proceeded down the path, she heard the familiar rustling of bamboo leaves stirring in a light breeze. The thin blades of the leaves, pointed on both ends, trembled against one another. It was as if they were greeting her, as if they were softly saying her previous name, Little Jade... Lee wanted to linger, but she had to keep following the amah.

  At last they found themselves in a suite of a bedroom and sitting area where there were shelves and writing desks and chairs. Lee liked the rooms right away. The sitting room’s windows were covered by curtains made of blue silk tied with matching sashes. Lee looked out the window and saw more bamboo stalks growing just along a tall brick wall as if they had followed her from the courtyard garden. She pushed opened the window and let in the cool autumn air. “Miss, keep the window closed,” the amah said, “or you will catch a cold.”

  “Do you want to have a cup of hot tea?” Fourth Aunt asked as she went to a tray that held a large thermos bottle and four cups. The tray rested on a round table surrounded by four marbled inlaid redwood stools. Lee shook her head and walked over to the bookshelf. She selected a book, an illustrated fairy tale about the moon goddess. There were more illustrated storybooks on the shelf. Beside them was a pot planted with paper whites that gave out a rich, sweet scent. Lee breathed in deeply. She felt strangely happy. She had not felt this way for a long time. She wanted to believe that whatever great chaos was occurring in the greater world, she would always be safe inside this
room.

  The bedroom was a rectangular shape divided in half by moving wood panels. Each half of the room had a window and an identical twin bed. The panels could be shut to form a dividing wall. Fourth Aunt explained that Lee was to share this bedroom with her cousin, the oldest daughter of her Gugu. Her cousin’s name was Mary. She was eleven years old, two years younger than Lee.

  Lee understood right away that Mary was her flesh and blood sister. Her father had told her that she had a sister whom he never saw because he had been in Japan when she was born. Lee looked at the two beds. Hers had brand new bedding of fine cotton faced with a large piece of rectangular blue silk in an ocean wave pattern. It was cool and slippery to the touch. Lee was glad that there was a window on her side of the room. The sunlight filtered through the bamboo stalks beyond the window, casting slanting shards of light on the room’s wooden floor.

  Fourth Aunt directed the amah to put Lee’s clothes into the drawers of a small bureau next to her bed. After the amah had put away the clothes and left the room, Fourth Aunt and Lee sat next to each other on the bed. Fourth Aunt explained that Gugu had three more daughters in addition to Mary: Little Du, Little Fang and Little Ai, aged six, four and two, respectively. Each daughter had a dedicated nursemaid to look after her. The younger children lived on the other side of the house.

  “Lee,” Fourth Aunt called the girl’s new name, smiling a little forcefully, “I am also getting used to calling you Lee.” She reached over to hold her hands. “Remember everything your Gugu said to you. This is a new beginning. She will protect you, but you must keep your promise.”

  Lee did not say anything. She felt her aunt’s warm fingers encircle her hand. She could not wait to see Mary. She had not seen her Gugu since that day at the stadium, but she would see Mary soon, quite soon. They would share a bedroom, and in such close quarters, would surely to get to know each other and become friends.

  Lee looked over at Mary’s side of the room. Mary’s silk bedding was the exact same design as hers but colored coral pink with a curling cloud pattern. The quilt on her bed bumped up near the edge and there was something on her pillow. Lee walked over to take a closer look and found a western style doll on Mary’s bed. It was quite a large girl doll, the size of an infant. Its hair was tied in two long golden braids and secured with blue ribbons in bows which rested over the edge of the quilt. The doll seemed to be sleeping. It had a round face with a pointed chin, and long eyelashes sheltering its closed eyes. The lashes were golden and thick against the doll’s smooth porcelain face. Lee wanted so much to open the closed eyes of the doll and find out what color they were.

  “Don’t touch my doll!” a girl’s voice came from behind. Startled, Lee turned and saw the girl by the door, looking her up and down. Lee thought her face looked familiar, though she had never seen her before.

  That day Mary wore her long hair just like the hair of her doll: tied in braids bound with blue ribbons. She wore opaque white stockings with round-toed leather Mary Jane’s and a checkered powder blue dress that came to her knees and had a ruffled collar and cuffs.

  It was not until much later that Lee realized that this outfit was the same as the one that Dorothy wore in “The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Mary, come meet your cousin Lee,” Fourth Aunt said. “Your mother must have told you about her.”

  “Mother told me that I have to share my room with a cousin from the country,” Mary said coolly. “ But she did not say that she could play with my doll.”

  “I am sorry. I don’t mean to…” Lee stopped, feeling her face turn hot.

  “No use saying sorry. Just don’t do it again,” Mary said.

  Lee sighed. It was not an auspicious start.

  Mary picked up the doll and showed it to Lee. The doll was magical. As Mary brought it to an upright position, its eyes opened to reveal bright blue glass eyes. It was clad in the same dress that Mary wore. The same seamstress, Lee would discover, had made the dresses for Mary and for the doll.

  Lee stared at the doll in silence. Mary held the doll in her arms. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she pulled the ribbons off the doll’s braids. Lee watched Mary’s slender fingers loosen the braids. Then Mary produced a mother of pearl inlaid wooden box from beneath her pillow and opened it. It was a jewelry box with a mirror beneath the lid. She took out a small doll-sized brush and ran it through the doll’s long, golden, wavy hair.

  “Look, this is how you fix her hair.” She brushed the hair of the doll and finally tied it into a high ponytail with a pink ribbon. She arranged the doll into a sitting position on her pillow. Even the arms and legs were movable. The doll enthralled Lee. She could not take her eyes off of it.

  Lee suddenly remembered the music box her father gave her as a gift when he returned from Japan. The beautiful ballet dancer had turned round and round on one leg to a string of chiming notes. She wanted to tell Mary about the music box, but said nothing.

  “Looks like that the two of you are getting along,” Fourth Aunt said as she rose from the bed. “I better get going.” She walked toward Lee and put both hands on her skinny shoulders.

  “Lee, remember everything I said,” she cautioned. “Be well.” She looked deeply into her eyes as she spoke, seeking assurance.

  Lee returned her stare and nodded solemnly. “Don’t worry. I will remember everything,” she whispered.

  She understood how important it was to the grown ups that she keep her identity secret. Lee also understood, in that moment, that it was especially important to keep the secret from Mary.

  Lee did not see Gugu or meet the general that day. The children ate dinner together with the servants. The cook brought many dishes to the dining table. There were two kinds of dumplings, some with a filling of pork and chives and others filled with beef and pickled cabbage. There was a whole duck cooked in a clay pot until tender with slivers of bamboo shoots and scallions floating in broth. No one except for Lee ate the stirred fried mustard greens that were bitter and crunchy. A simple dish of tofu with minced pork was welcomed by the younger children. Lee did not want to eat too fast. She chewed slowly, and she drank a full bowl of duck broth. The food was better than the Changs where she had always felt that someone was looking at her disapprovingly when her chopsticks reached out to pick up food from the dishes.

  The nursemaids made sure the little ones ate their meal. The young girls regarded Lee with curiosity.

  “Who are you?” one of them asked.

  Mary replied, “She is our cousin from the north. Her name is Lee.”

  The nursemaids nodded at Lee. “Call her ‘big sister', Little Du.” one of the nursemaids cajoled her charge.

  “No, she is not my sister. Mary is my sister. She is my cousin.” Little Du replied.

  Lee was embarrassed, “It’s fine. They can just call me Lee.”

  Silence fell on the dinner table for a moment. Then Little Ai began fussing over her food. She only wanted to eat the dumpling skin, not the filling. Her nursemaid told her, “You have to eat the filling. You can’t grow strong and pretty if you don’t eat the...”

  Then Mary cut in, saying firmly, “Little Ai, if you don’t eat the dumpling filling, I am going to tell father.”

  Little Ai burst out crying upon hearing Mary’s stern words, but she ate the filling.

  Lee ate quietly savoring the food. She was glad that no one was paying attention to her anymore. She could tell that Mary behaved like a surrogate parent and regarded herself as the young mistress of the house when her parents were not around. She told her younger sisters to stop fighting, and to stop throwing food. These admonishments were necessary: Lee was surprised to see how little discipline there was in the Tung household.

  Lee went to bed that night feeling warm and full. The bedding smelled like sunshine, perhaps because after being washed, it had been hung from a smooth bamboo stick in the backyard, under the bright autumn sun and a clear blue sky. The pillowcase was crisp against her cheek like the newly ironed dress shirt
her father used to wear when he was taking Silver Pearl out in the evening. Ensconced in her soft flannel pajamas and fresh bedding, her jade pendant next to her heart, Lee fell asleep comforted by the sound of the bamboo leaves outside her window. The divider between two sides of the room was drawn, and she could see that the light from Mary’s side was still on. Slits of yellow light spilled onto Lee’s side of the floor. Mary was still listening to her radio which she had set at the lowest volume. Lee drifted off to sleep carried by the undercurrent of the music from the other side of the room. Her last thought, greeted with a sigh, was that her father would never find her again not even if he wanted to, not even in the next life, because her name had been changed.