The Concubine's Daughter

by null

  Garlic handed a needle-sharp sliver of bamboo and the hollowed half of a bean pod containing a dark liquid to Pebble, who spat on Li-Xia’s ankle and wiped it clean. “This is a special ink, mixed for us by Giant Yun, who is a master of such things. It is good for the blood and heals quickly.” The bamboo needle pricked Li-Xia’s skin so many times she ceased to count, until Pebble sat back on her haunches. “There, Crabapple. Now you will always be of the mung-cha-cha, and the moon will always be your mother.”

  From the riverfront, beyond the flat-tiled roof of the mill, the Heavenly House of Ming-Chou sat in splendid isolation. Only distant glimpses of its scarlet roof and walled gardens could be seen from the groves.

  The mui-mui called it the Roof of Heaven. Even the mung-cha-cha spoke of it with awe as they gossiped over yum-cha in the shade of the mulberry trees.

  “It is a place where diamonds tumble in the waterfalls, where fat fish fill the ponds and have scales of pure gold and tails of finest silk,” Mugwort said dreamily, her back against the tree and her eyes closed. “Dewdrops form on the lotus leaves to turn into priceless pearls when touched by the sun. The pathways are set with precious stones of every color.”

  “The trees blossom all year round, home to nightingales whose eggs have been known to contain precious gems,” Monkey Nut piped up. “I have heard that the flowers never die, that it is forever springtime behind those walls … and the peacocks that roam among them have feathers plucked from a rainbow, and diamonds crown their heads.”

  Imagining the gardens of the Heavenly House was a game often played by those who would never see them: Even Turtle took her turn. “There are turtles with shells of jade and ruby eyes.”

  Pebble stood up suddenly, tossing away the remains of her bowl. “Do not listen to such stupid things, Crabapple. I was among the first to be chosen for the Heavenly House. Many years ago, when I was young and tender as you are today. There are no diamonds in the waterfalls or pearls upon the lotus leaves. The fish are fat and lazy in the ponds, and stink like any other when they are dead. The flowers wither without water and the trees are bare in winter.” She snorted her contempt.

  “The peacocks and the nightingales are birds like any other; their feathers are not stolen from a rainbow and their eggs are not precious stones.” She swished her mouth with tea and spurted it onto the ground, as she did whenever it was time to work. “Now get your stupid tails off the ground and into the trees. One day, Crabapple, I will tell you the truth about the Heavenly House of the great Ming-Chou … and of joy behind the crimson moon gate.” Li-Xia had never heard such angry words from Little Pebble … and never before seen her waste a grain of rice.

  As seasons passed—fragrant spring, scorching summer, and perishing winter—Li-Xia found great strength in the closeness of those who called her sister, while tales of the fox fairy led those outside the mung-cha-cha to look upon the mysterious Crabapple with a cautious respect.

  The hills and the willows had become her home, but Li-Xia often found herself gazing at the domain of the sau-hai sisters, so far removed from the bamboo huts, the loathsome presence of the larn-jai, and the stench of the animal pens.

  The mill stood among shady tulip trees, surrounded by flower beds and a meandering pond spanned by a narrow bridge. On the other side, the weavers’ small, neat houses were painted white, with roofs of red clay tile and plots of ground for growing fruit and vegetables.

  The weavers could be seen walking the pathways and crossing the bridge, hand in hand, at the beginning and end of each day. They wore the same black tzou as the superintendent, with a white handkerchief pinned to the breast, their hair wound into the same tight bun at the back of the neck held by an identical comb. Only brilliantly colored sunshades distinguished one from the other.

  It was rare, Li-Xia learned, for one of the a mui-mui to become a weaver. One or two might be chosen in their twelfth year to carry the lantern to the Heavenly House; but only when a sister of sau-hai had died or had become too old to work the loom would the comb and the mirror be offered to the chosen one.

  The weavers of Ten Willows appeared contented in their work and gracious in their manner. From a distance it could not be seen if they were young or old, but to the eyes of Li-Xia they seemed blessed by the Tu-Ti.

  “You should not look so enviously upon the compound of the sau-hai, Crabapple. It is not what it appears to be.” Pebble’s voice was strangely cold.

  “But they walk with such dignity and purpose.”

  “They are no angels,” replied Pebble with a note of warning. “Their smiles and gentle ways are for each other, not for us. If you have seen a pack of wild dogs torment a trapped animal before it is devoured, then you have seen the sau-hai take revenge.”

  Pebble had lost her dancer’s smile, and it troubled Li-Xia to think she might have been the cause. She was relieved when the overseer squatted in the shade of the willows and motioned her to do the same, as the others joined them. “If you are so interested,” Pebble sighed, “I will tell you. It is important that you know the truth.

  “The word sau in their dialect means ‘comb’ and hai means ‘up.’ Once the comb and the mirror are accepted, the hair is ‘combed up,’ plaited into a bun and held with the wooden comb. Then an oath is sworn before the Tu-Ti that binds the siu-jeh for the rest of her life. From that moment, she will be safe but she will never be free.”

  “But neither will we, the mui-mui,” Li-Xia said, still greatly puzzled. “A family like ours cannot hope for such comfort and prosperity. Yet we are not free. Is it true that they are paid for their work in exchange for their thumbprint? That they are allowed to visit the village at festival time? That they have fans to keep them cool and a stove to keep them warm?”

  Pebble spat into the dust, reluctant to answer. “Ming sees nothing but good in the sisterhood of sau-hai. He wants no pregnant weavers, so he pays them and provides better conditions. The larn-jai dare not go near them. It is the mui-mui who must watch for that scum at night.”

  Pebble jumped to her feet; in a flash the curved hook of steel protruded from her fist. “The larn-jai will not touch us either; they know that I will have their balls off before you can say ‘bad joss.’ ” She giggled at Li-Xia’s bewilderment, standing erect and raising the bladed fist of defiance. “The credo of our family is this: ‘We hide from nothing and run from no one.’ ” The mung-cha-cha clapped and cheered, echoing their leader with fists held high.

  Li-Xia thought of the larn-jai, who lived like water rats among the livestock and had tamed a pack of mangy yellow dogs to follow them. Some were as young as the mui-mui, others gangling youths, vicious and foul-mouthed in their savage energy. Seeing that the larn-jai were filthy in their appearance and their ways, she had avoided them, ignoring their taunts when she collected her baskets to begin the day.

  “Why are they here,” she asked Pebble, “sniffing around the huts like the dogs they fatten and eat?”

  Pebble laughed, sliding the sliver of steel into the nest of her hair. “They are mindless brutes, but necessary for the heavy labor. For this they are given enough to eat and a place to sleep among the pigpens and vegetable plots. They seek the favors of the mui-mui, offering a fresh vegetable or piece of fruit, and there are some among us who grant them in some dark corner, but only with the mouth or the hand. Virginity is the first rule of the sau-hai, so none will run the risk except those already taken and without hope.”

  Her grin spread wryly. “There is not one among those mui-mui fools who does not dream of working the loom.” Pebble paused to look around the circle. “Ah-Jeh knows that such things happen, but to separate the larn-jai from the mui-mui is like hiding the jackfruit from the monkey.”

  “It is another price to pay for the comb and the mirror, never to know thunder and rain with a man between your legs, or to hold a baby to your breast,” grumbled Mugwort.

  “There are women who will never be touched by a man and have learned to please each other in that way,”
Monkey Nut added. “Some say that Ah-Jeh’s assistant is under her spell and sometimes shares her bed.”

  Pebble sniffed with disgust. “Enough of the black crow and and her flock.” She threw her hat skimming into the river, running to the edge and looking back. “Never forget, Crabapple, that for all their smiles and purity, the hand of sau-hai is merciless to those who disobey them. Their power reaches for a thousand times ten thousand miles. So be wise … be very careful what you wish for.” With those words she dived into the river after her hat.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Ghost Tree

  Winter had been long and raw. The mui-mui had patched the roof and lowered the sides of the huts and tied them down. But winds had howled through them and rain poured from the sodden thatch. When the groves were silent, claimed by crackling frost and silent snow, they foraged for firewood and worked inside the sheds. The rabbit-skin hats, padded jackets, and capes of flax grass gave them some small comfort, but hands and feet were frozen, swollen with chilblains.

  Three iron braziers were dragged one to each hut and kept stoked with wood and buffalo dung, the glowing embers shoveled into a shallow trench dug between the rows of beds. Li-Xia was certain they would die from cold, or be burned to death by flying sparks. Warmth and comfort were almost forgotten, when the winds were suddenly gone and the chill lifted.

  At the beginning of spring, on the third day of the third moon, the festival of Ching-Ming was a day when families all over China paid homage to their ancestors by tending their graves and joining them in a feast of celebration. Generous assortments of fresh flowers were presented, with much burning of joss sticks; gold and silver paper was set alight and sent aloft in honor of the dead, whose spirits were thought to hover while their resting place was restored and their memory properly respected. Most important of all was the gathering of willow catkins, believed to be the symbol of all that is young and promising for a summer of plenty and an abundant harvest. The first of the new season’s life adorned the ancient trees of Ten Willows like liquid gold, alive with the drone of bees and a storm of white butterflies.

  So auspicious was the day of Ching-Ming that all work ceased, the looms were silent, and the mui-mui were allowed to rest.

  “Crabapple, today you will see that even that the mung-cha-cha have ancestors who bless us with a kindly moon,” Pebble said. While others lay on their beds or washed and mended their clothes, the family made crowns of willow catkins and adorned themselves with the golden blossoms. Each carrying a large bunch, they walked the miles of winding river, following the towpath close to the water’s edge, picking flowers, mushrooms, and wild strawberries along the way. Junks of every size and shape sailed past. Most were manned by Chinese, but one was of foreign rig. A short mast and patched sail sprouted from its foredeck; the putter of an engine belched black smoke from a tall stack behind its wheel house. Inside, gripping the wooden helm, a man unlike anyone Li-Xia had seen, awake or in dreams, steered its rusty hull through the sandbanks with a steady eye. A strip of red cloth trapped his mass of oily black curls, and a ring of gold could be seen hanging from his ear. He wore nothing above the waist, his arms and chest thick with matted hair and shining with sweat. At the sight of the squat vessel and its dark column of smoke, Pebble led them quickly down the slight embankment and away from the river’s edge.

  “It is a gwai-lo—baby-eater—on a Portagee ship from Macao. These dark-skinned foreign devils are worse than the pirates they are supposed to fight. Sometimes they will come ashore and take any girl they see and no one will stop them. Let the stink of him pass.”

  It was the first time Li-Xia had ever sensed fear in Pebble, but she could not take her eyes off the devil in his red bandana. “I thought the gwai-lo was pink and white or red as fire. That is what I was told by Number-Three Wife at Great Pine Farm.” Li was afraid but fascinated to look upon such a creature. To her horror, he waved at them and called aloud in words that had no meaning to her. A Chinese crewman, resting on a coil of rope, laughed like a fool and shouted in gutter Cantonese. “My captain will give you good food and wine, perhaps a silver coin if you come aboard to entertain him.”

  “Tell him he is the son of a sea serpent and we would cut our throats before we would come aboard his stinking ship from hell.” Garlic’s voice sang out across the water. In reply, the Portuguese captain stepped out of the wheel house door and to the rail. There he exposed himself to them, urinating into the river as he passed.

  “Are all foreign devils so hideous as this one?” Li-Xia did not realize how foolish her words would sound. The sisters burst into laughter, then quickly assured her that they were. “They are hairy as a goat and smell as bad,” Garlic said with disgust. “They do not wash or clean themselves,” added Mugwort with a shiver. Turtle spoke with a trace of anger seldom heard from her. “They mock our gods and think that we are less than human, born to work for them and be taken like dogs.” Monkey Nut rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Black, brown, red, pink, or white; they are all the same, these foreign devils.”

  With the riverboat well past, they continued along the towpath to a small house built of limestone close to the river. Its wooden jetty had rotted away and its sampan lay half sunk among the reeds, yet the little house seemed to possess a timeless pride. Countless seasons had stripped its once-fresh paint like dead skin. Some of the tiles of its roof were cracked and needed replacing, and its fence leaned from want of repair, the gate sagging upon rusted hinges. A narrow weir had been channeled into a pond beside the house, where a broken waterwheel had once churned among the water lilies. The walled garden enclosed a dozen mulberry trees and a meager patch of vegetables, overgrown with weeds. A few scrawny hens pecked among the fallen fruit beneath a neglected orchard. The pigsty and goat pen were broken and empty, the rice terrace dry and stony.

  An old man sat outside the faded, once-red door, sipping tea and smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Pebble stopped to greet him and warn him of their approach. “Good morning, old lord, how are you today?” His wrinkled face screwed into a show of pleasure at the sound of her voice as he shouted his reply: “Good morning, little sisters. I have been expecting you. It is good to hear your voice again.”

  “We visit the old lord often to help harvest his cocoons and weed his vegetable plot.” Pebble said to Li-Xia. “We will be sad when he is gone and we can no longer listen to the bees in his garden and the doves on his roof or share his ginseng tea. He says that no one will buy his house because it is has too many ghosts, and it is old and needs money and hard work to make it new again. So we have patched the roof and mended the floor and blocked the broken windows and tried to fix the waterwheel. He cannot see very well, but he has the ears of a bat and his chi is still strong.”

  Pebble continued with words of great respect. “His wife lies buried beside his daughter and two sons under the fig tree. We come on the day of Ching-Ming to help him honor his loved ones. He has no one left on this earth and has lost count of the years. So he has adopted us as his granddaughters, and to us he is Ah-Bart, our esteemed grandfather. He says that his ancestors are our ancestors, and that his house has known much happiness.” Pebble looked upon the peaceful little farm with deep affection. “Is it not truly the Heavenly House? It has thick walls and a good roof easily mended, with enough mulberry trees to fill many baskets to sell at the mill. Its garden can provide everything for the table, and when the mill wheel is turning, the water is pure and cold as mountain snow. Our grandfather is truly rich. He is at peace… . This is a place of true harmony, filled with a golden feng shui. He will not leave his house on the river until his ancestors demand it.”

  Pebble opened the squeaky gate, her voice filled with cheer. “We bring the willow blossom, old lord, and flowers and wild strawberries and some mushrooms fresh from the fields. We also have brought a new willow broom to sweep away the cobwebs.”

  The old man waved, inviting them to cross his gate and share his tea. He had been expecting them and had picked lyche
es and red apples and fetched a pot of tasty noodles from the kitchen. All of these were gathered together under the fig tree, where the four graves were resting. The mung-cha-cha set about clearing the little spot of fallen leaves and weeds, while Pebble whisked away with the willow broom. When the graves were cleaned and swept, the headstones washed and scrubbed so that their names could be clearly read, the wildflowers and bunches of golden catkins were placed upon them, while Pebble fried the fish and braised the eels they had also brought with them. With the lighting of joss sticks and much hammering on an ancient plough shear, the ancestors were invited to share the feast of Ching-Ming.

  Time had no meaning as the years passed. Li-Xia filled her baskets as fast and often as any of the mui-mui, and when the seasons changed she worked in the sheds, spreading the larvae on the rush mat trays with fast and clever fingers. When the silkworms hatched, she fed them ten times a day from the baskets of mulberry leaves fetched by Giant Yun.

  The open air and comradeship of the mulberry groves brought her the most contentment—the chatter of the mung-cha-cha among the trees, the scolding of Little Pebble if fingers did not fly and the baskets were not filled fast enough.

  A day came when the clear blue of the sky gave way to a towering thunderhead that challenged the sun. It caused a downpour that lasted no more than fifteen minutes but left the trees saturated, every cocoon sparkling like a single diamond. When the sun broke through, warm and fresh as only an afternoon in early autumn can be, the mui-mui shook the boughs so that the diamonds fell to earth. Wet cocoons were hard to handle, and it meant half an hour’s rest while the sun dried them out.

  Pebble led Li-Xia through the sparkling groves to an ancient tree that stood alone on the highest point of the hill, bigger and shadier than all others, its gnarled roots thick with moss. Like veins on the back of a witch’s hand, Li-Xia thought as they approached.