FSF, September-October 2010

by Spilogale, Inc

  Lilly sat at her own table, quietly eating by herself. The other girls chattered at the next table.

  "The Chinese whores are crafty, always hanging around the Base,” Suzie Randling said. Suzie was the prettiest girl in the class, and she always had the best gossip. “I heard Jennie's mom telling my mom that as soon as one gets her hands on an American soldier, she'll use her nasty tricks to hook him. She wants him to marry her so that she can steal all his money, and if he won't marry her, she'll make him sick."

  The girls broke out in laughter.

  "When an American man rents a house for his family outside the Base, you can imagine what the husband is really chasing after,” Jennie added darkly, trying to impress Suzie. The girls giggled, throwing looks over at Lilly. Lilly pretended not to hear.

  "They are unbelievably dirty,” Suzie said. “Mrs. Taylor was saying how when she took a car trip to Tainan during the summer, she couldn't eat any of the dishes the Chinese were serving her. One time they tried to give her some fried frog legs. She thought it was chicken and almost ate them. Disgusting!"

  "My mom said that it's a real shame that you can't get any decent Chinese food except back in America,” Jennie added.

  "That's not true,” Lilly said. As soon as she spoke up she regretted it. Lilly had brought kòng-uân pork balls and rice for lunch. Lin Amah, their Chinese maid, had packed the leftovers from dinner the night before. The pork balls were delicious, but the other girls wrinkled their noses at the smell.

  "Lilly is eating smelly Chinaman slops again,” Suzie said menacingly. “She really seems to like it."

  "Lilly, Lilly, she's gonna have a stinky gook baby,” the other girls began to chant.

  Lilly tried to not cry; she almost succeeded.

  Mom came into the kitchen, and lightly stroked Lilly's hair. “How was school?"

  Lilly knew that her parents must never know about what happened at school. They would try to help. That would only make things worse.

  "Good,” she said. “I'm just getting to know the girls."

  Mom nodded and went back into the living room.

  She didn't want to go to her room. There was nothing to do there after she had finished all the Nancy Drew books that she brought with her. She also didn't want to stay in the kitchen, where Lin Amah was cooking and would try to talk to her in her broken English. Lilly was mad at Lin Amah and her kòng-uân pork balls. She knew it was unfair, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to get out of the house.

  Rain earlier in the day had cooled off the humid subtropical air, and Lilly enjoyed a light breeze as she walked. She shook her red, curly hair out of the ponytail she wore for school, and she felt comfortable in a light blue tank top and a pair of tan shorts. West of the small Chinese-style farmhouse the Dyers were renting, the rice paddies of the village stretched out in neat grids. A few water buffalo lazed about in muddy wallows, gently scratching the rough, dark hide on their backs with their long, curved horns. Unlike the Longhorns that she had been familiar with back home in Texas, whose long, thin horns curved dangerously forward, like a pair of swords, the water buffalos’ horns curved backwards, perfect for back scratching.

  The largest and oldest one had his eyes closed, and was half-submerged in the water.

  Lilly held her breath. She wanted to take a ride on him.

  Back when she was a little girl and before Dad got his new job that was so secret that he couldn't even tell her what he did, Lilly had wanted to be a cowgirl. She envied her friends, whose parents were not from back East and thus knew how to ride, drive, and ranch. She was a regular at the county rodeos, and when she was five, by telling the man at the sign-up table that she had her mom's permission, she had entered the mutton-busting competition.

  She had held on to the bucking sheep for a full thrilling and terrifying twenty-eight seconds, a record that stunned the whole county. Her picture, showing her in a wide-brimmed cowboy hat with her tight ponytail flapping behind her, had been in all the newspapers. There was no fear on the face of the little girl in the picture, only wild glee and stubbornness.

  "You were too stupid to be afraid,” Mom had said. “What in the world made you do a thing like that? You could have broken your neck."

  Lilly did not answer her. She dreamed about that ride for months afterward. Just hold on for another second, she had told herself on the back of the sheep, just hold on. For those twenty-eight seconds, she wasn't just a little girl, whose day was filled with copybooks and chores and being told what to do. There was a clear purpose to her life and a clear way to accomplish it.

  If she were older, she would have described that feeling as freedom.

  Now, if she could ride the old water buffalo, maybe she'd get that feeling back and her day would be all right after all.

  Lilly began to run toward the shallow wallow, where the old water buffalo was still obliviously chewing cud. Lilly got to the edge of the wallow and leapt toward the buffalo's back.

  * * * *

  Lilly landed on the back of the buffalo with a soft thud, and the buffalo sank momentarily. She was prepared for bucking and lunging, and she kept her eyes on the long, curved horns, ready to grab them if the buffalo used them to try to pry her off. Adrenaline pumped through her, and she was determined to hold on for dear life.

  Instead, the old buffalo, disturbed from his nap, simply opened his eyes and snorted. He turned his head and stared accusingly at Lilly with his left eye. He shook his head in disapproval, got up, and began to amble out of the wallow. The ride on the back of the buffalo was smooth and steady, like the way Dad used to carry Lilly on his shoulders when she was little.

  Lilly grinned sheepishly. She patted the back of the buffalo's neck in apology.

  She sat lightly, leaving the buffalo to choose his own path and watching the rows of rice stalks pass by her. The buffalo came to the end of the fields, where there was a clump of trees, and turned behind them. Here the ground dipped toward the bank of a river, and the buffalo walked toward it, where several Chinese boys about Lilly's age were playing and washing their families’ water buffalo. As Lilly and the old buffalo approached them, the laughter among the boys died down, and one by one they turned to look at her.

  Lilly became nervous. She nodded at the boys and waved. They didn't wave back. Lilly knew, in the way that all children know, that she was in trouble.

  Suddenly something wet and heavy landed against Lilly's face. One of the boys had thrown a fistful of river mud at her.

  "Adoah, adoah, adoah!” the boys shouted. And more mud flew at Lilly. Mud hit her face, her arms, her neck, her chest. She didn't understand what they were shouting, but the hostility and glee in their voices needed no translation. The mud stung her eyes, and she couldn't stop the tears that followed. She covered her face with her arms, determined not to give the boys the satisfaction of hearing her cry out.

  "Ow!” Lilly couldn't help herself. A rock hit her shoulder, followed by another against her thigh. She tumbled down from the back of the buffalo and tried to hide behind him by crouching down, but the boys only chanted louder and circled around the buffalo to continue tormenting her. She began to grab fistfuls of mud from around her and threw them back at the boys, blindly, angrily, desperately.

  "Kâu-gín-á, khòai-cháu, khòai-cháu!” An old man's voice, full of authority, came to her. The rain of mud stopped. Lilly wiped the mud from her face with her sleeves and looked up. The boys were running away. The old man's voice yelled at them some more, and the boys picked up their speed, their water buffalo following them at a more leisurely pace.

  Lilly stood up and looked around her old buffalo. An elderly Chinese man stood a few paces away, smiling kindly at her. Beside him stood another boy about Lilly's age. As Lilly watched, the boy threw a pebble after the rapidly diminishing figures of the fleeing boys. His throw was strong, and the pebble arched high into the air, landing just behind the last boy as he rounded a copse of trees and disappeared. The boy grinned at Lilly, revealing
two rows of crooked teeth.

  "Little miss,” the old man said in accented but clear English. “Are you all right?"

  Lilly stared at her rescuers, speechless.

  "What were you doing with Ah Huang?” the boy asked. The old water buffalo gently walked over to him and the boy reached up to pat him on the nose.

  "I...uh...I was riding him.” Lilly's throat felt dry. She swallowed. “I'm sorry."

  "They are not bad kids,” the old man said, “just a little rowdy and suspicious of strangers. As their teacher, it is my fault that I did not teach them better manners. Please accept my apology for them.” He bowed to Lilly.

  Lilly awkwardly bowed back. As she bent down, she saw that her shirt and pants were covered with mud, and she felt the throbbing in her shoulder and legs, where she had been hit with rocks. She was going to get an earful from Mom; that was for sure. She could just imagine what a sight she must have made, covered in mud from hair to toe.

  Lilly had never felt so alone.

  "Let me help you clean up a little,” the old man offered. They walked to the bank of the river, and the old man used a handkerchief to wipe the mud from Lilly's face and rinsed it out in the clear river water. His touch was gentle.

  "I'm Kan Chen-hua, and this is my grandson, Ch'en Chia-feng."

  "You can call me Teddy,” the boy added. The old man chuckled.

  "It's nice to meet you,” Lilly said. “I'm Lillian Dyer."

  * * * *

  "So what do you teach?"

  "Calligraphy. I teach the children how to write Chinese characters with a brush so that they don't frighten everyone, including their ancestors and wandering spirits, with their horrible chicken scratch."

  Lilly laughed. Mr. Kan was not like any Chinese she had ever met. But her laugh did not last long. School was never far from her mind, and she knitted her brows as she thought about tomorrow.

  Mr. Kan pretended not to notice. “But I also do some magic."

  This piqued Lilly's interest. “What kind of magic?"

  "I'm a literomancer."

  "A what?"

  "Grandpa tells people's fortunes based on the characters in their names and the characters they pick,” Teddy explained.

  Lilly felt as though she had walked into a wall of fog. She looked at Mr. Kan, not understanding.

  "The Chinese invented writing as an aid to divination, so Chinese characters always had a deep magic to them. From characters, I can tell what's bothering people and what lies in their past and future. Here, I'll show you. Think of a word, any word."

  Lilly looked around her. They were sitting on some rocks by the side of the river, and she could see that the leaves on the trees were starting to turn gold and red, and the rice stalks were heavy with grain, soon to be ready for the harvest.

  "Autumn,” she said.

  Mr. Kan took a stick and wrote a character in the soft mud near their feet.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  "You'll have to excuse the ugliness of writing with a stick in mud, but I don't have paper and brush with me. This is the character ch'iu, which means ‘autumn’ in Chinese."

  "How do you tell my fortune from that?"

  "Well, I have to take the character apart and put it back together. Chinese characters are put together from more Chinese characters, like building blocks. Ch'iu is composed of two other characters. The one on the left is the character he, which means ‘millet’ or ‘rice’ or any grain plant. Now, what you see there is stylized, but in ancient times, the character used to be written this way."

  He drew on the mud.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  "See how it looks like the drawing of a stalk bent over with the weight of a ripe head of grain on top?"

  Lilly nodded, fascinated.

  "Now, the right side of ch'iu is another character, huo, which means fire. See how it looks like a burning flame, with sparks flying up?"

  * * * *

  * * * *

  "In the northern part of China, where I'm from, we don't have rice. Instead, we grow millet, wheat, and sorghum. In autumn, after we've harvested and threshed out the grain, we pile the stalks in the fields and burn them so that the ashes will fertilize the fields for the coming year. Golden stalks and red flame, you put them together and you get ch'iu, autumn."

  Lilly nodded, imagining the sight.

  "But what does it tell me that you picked ch'iu as your character?” Mr. Kan paused in thought. He drew a few more strokes beneath ch'iu.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  "Now, I've written the character for heart, hsin, under ch'iu. It's a drawing of the shape of your heart. Together, they make a new character, ch'ou, and it means ‘worry’ and ‘sorrow.’”

  Lilly felt her heart squeeze, and suddenly everything looked blurry through her eyes. She held her breath.

  "There's a lot of sorrow in your heart, Lilly, a lot of worry. Something is making you very, very sad."

  Lilly looked up at his kind and wrinkled face, the neat white hair, and she walked over to him. Mr. Kan opened his arms and Lilly buried her face in his shoulders as he hugged her, lightly, gently.

  As she cried, Lilly told Mr. Kan about her day at school, about the other girls and their chant, about the kitchen table empty of mail from friends.

  "I'll teach you how to fight,” Teddy said, when Lilly had finished her story. “If you punch them hard enough, they won't bother you again."

  Lilly shook her head. Boys were simple, and fists could do the talking for them. The magic of words between girls was much more complicated.

  "There's a lot of magic in the word gook,” Mr. Kan said, after Lilly had wiped her tears and calmed down a little. Lilly looked up at him in surprise. She knew that the word was ugly and was afraid that he would be angry at hearing her say it, but Mr. Kan was not angry at all.

  "Some people think that the word has a dark magic that can be used to slice into the hearts of the people of Asia and hurt them and those who would befriend them,” Mr. Kan said. “But they do not understand its true magic. Do you know where the word comes from?"

  "No."

  "When American soldiers first went to Korea, they often heard the Korean soldiers say miguk. They thought the Koreans were saying ‘me, gook.’ But really they were talking about the Americans, and miguk means America. The Korean word guk means ‘country.’ So when the American soldiers began calling the people of Asia gooks, they didn't understand that they were in a way really just speaking about themselves."

  "Oh,” Lilly said. She wasn't sure how this information helped.

  "I'll show you a bit of magic that you can use to protect yourself.” Mr. Kan turned to Teddy. “Can I have that mirror that you use to tease the cats with?"

  Teddy took out a small bit of glass from his pocket. It was broken from a larger mirror and the jagged edges had been wrapped in masking tape. Some Chinese characters had been written in ink on the masking tape.

  "The Chinese have been using mirrors to ward off harm for millennia,” Mr. Kan said. “Don't underestimate this little mirror. It has great magic in it. Next time, when the other girls tease you, bring out this mirror and shine it in their faces."

  Lilly took the mirror. She didn't really believe what Mr. Kan was saying. He was kind and nice, but what he was saying sounded preposterous. Still, she needed a friend, and Mr. Kan and Teddy were the closest thing to friends she had on this side of the Pacific Ocean.

  "Thank you,” she said.

  "Miss Lilly.” Mr. Kan stood up and solemnly shook her hand. “When there is such a large gap of years between two friends, we Chinese call it wang nien chih chiao, a friendship that forgets the years. It's destiny that brings us together. I hope you will always think of me and Teddy as your friends."

  Lilly explained her muddy appearance by blaming it all on Ah Huang, the “stubborn water buffalo” that she eventually subdued with her Texan cowgirl skills. Of course Mom was angry, seeing Lilly's ruined clothes
. She gave Lilly a long lecture, and even Dad sighed and explained that her days of being a tomboy really needed to come to an end, now that she was a young lady. But on the whole, Lilly thought she had gotten off easy.

  Lin Amah made Three-Cup Chicken, which was Dad's favorite. The sweet smell of sesame oil, rice wine, and soy sauce filled the kitchen and living room, and Lin Amah smiled and nodded as Mr. and Mrs. Dyer praised the food. She wrapped the leftovers into two rice balls and put them in the lunch box for Lilly. Lilly was apprehensive about bringing Three-Cup Chicken to lunch, but she fingered the mirror in her pocket and thanked Lin Amah.

  "Good night,” Lilly said to her parents, and went to her room.

  In the hallway Lilly found a couple of sheets of paper lying on the floor. She picked them up and saw that they were filled with dense typescript:

  have successfully sabotaged numerous factories, railroads, bridges, and other infrastructure. Agents have also assassinated several local ChiCom cadres. We have captured dozens of ChiCom individuals on these raids, and their interrogation yielded valuable intelligence concerning Red China's internal conditions. The covert program has been conducted with plausible deniability, and so far no elements of the U.S. press have questioned our denials of ChiCom accusations of American involvement. (It should be noted that even if U.S. involvement is revealed, we can legally justify our intervention under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty as the ROC's sovereignty claims extend over all of the territory of the PRC.)

  Interrogations of ChiCom prisoners suggest that this program of harassment and terror, combined with the threat of an ROC invasion of the mainland, has pushed the ChiCom to further intensify internal repression and tighten domestic control. The ChiCom have increased military spending, and this likely has shifted scarce resources away from economic development and increased the suffering of the masses at a time when the PRC is experiencing great famines after the Great Leap Forward. As a result, there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the regime.