by Jean Roberta
“I’m just grateful none of them have yet asked me to commit suicide to redeem my shame.”
Sparrow and Green Siskin both chuckled bitterly.
Two men emerged from behind a clump of trees. They held rusty swords and wore bright blue scarves around their necks.
“Kneel, traitorous whore,” one of them said.
Green Siskin looked at them. “You’re the remnants of Grand Secretary Shi’s militia?”
The men nodded. “The only way you could have survived the massacre was by collaborating with the enemy.”
“You’ve gotten it all wrong,” Sparrow started to say. But Green Siskin shushed her.
“Don’t,” whispered Green Siskin, keeping her eyes on the men. “The Manchus will be back any minute. If Yelu thinks I’ve been playing him, everyone will die. Now get on the horse.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Green Siskin’s tone grew impatient. “Haven’t you learned anything? In this world, virtue is worthless. I’m not trying to be a hero. I need you on the horse because you have unbound feet and can use the stirrups. I need to ride behind you and hold onto your waist so the horse can run rather than just walk. Get on there before they’re too close!”
Sparrow obeyed, and the two men began to run towards them.
Green Siskin smiled at the two men. “I’m so glad two great heroes have arrived to rescue me.”
“Your wiles won’t work on us. We’re here to carry out justice.”
“Come on, get up here with me!” shouted Sparrow.
Green Siskin smiled up sadly at Sparrow.
“How am I supposed to get up there with these feet? Now go.” She slapped the horse’s rump and it leapt away. Sparrow screamed and it was all she could do to hold onto the reins.
Looking back, Sparrow saw the two men descend on Green Siskin, who remained standing very straight.
•
Sparrow and the Manchu patrol looked and looked, but Green Siskin’s body was nowhere to be found.
Instead, in the clearing was a large flock of birds: swallows, sparrows, magpies, hwamei, orioles, black drongos, martins. They were all chirping, twittering, singing, and instead of a cacophony, what emerged was a melodious song that Sparrow instantly recognized: the tanci melody that Green Siskin had so favored.
A siskin flew out of the flock and landed on Sparrow’s outstretched hand. Its back, instead of being a bright yellow, was a faint, jade-like green. In its beak it held a jade ring which it deposited in Sparrow’s hand.
“Green Siskin, is that you?” Sparrow’s vision blurred. Her throat was tight and she could speak no more.
The siskin hopped in her hand and chirped.
•
The Twisted Ladle was doing good business on this night. It was right after the harvest, when people’s purses were full and limbs sore.
The little inn didn’t have the kind of delicacies that the teahouses in the big cities served, but the laborers and laundresses and petty farmers and farming wives who filled its benches didn’t care. Rice wine and sorghum mead flowed freely, and fried tripe came by the plateful. People said what was on their minds, instead of what they thought they ought to say, as was the wont with learned scholars and clever merchants.
But they were all quiet now, listening to the young tanci woman. She strummed her pipa:
I sing of great Yangzhou, the city of white salt,
Of wealth and fame, a thousand refined teahouses.
But one night they came, iron hooves to assault,
So starts the tale of a girl of the blue houses.
The singer-storyteller wasn’t pretty, not exactly. Her face was too thin, with a delicate nose and quick eyes that reminded one of a bird. Her long, dark hair was cropped short, as though to remind her listeners that she was selling music and story, instead of something else that some men might have desired. She wore no makeup or jewelry, save for a jade ring on her right hand.
On her shoulder sat a green siskin, a lovely bird apparently trained to chirp and harmonize with the playing of the pipa.
“… then the invading army surrounded Yangzhou, like a stormy sea pounding against a rock…”
She clapped two bamboo sticks together to simulate the sound of horses’ hooves. She dragged a rusty nail across an old gong to simulate the sound of armor grinding against armor.
Of course the young woman didn’t call the invaders in her story “Manchus.” It had been more than a decade since the Manchu conquest of China. The new dynasty claimed the Mandate of Heaven, and clever scholars came up with cloying tributes to the wisdom and strength of the Manchu sages.
Like all true stories, her story was set a long, long time ago.
“…‘What does a lowly woman, a concubine, know of virtue?’ asked the captain…”
The little siskin fluttered from table to table, picking at melon seeds, and everyone marveled at its beauty.
In the same manner, as the young woman told the story, she hopped between voices and expressions, and it was like she was putting on a play all by herself. The audience was mesmerized. They had never seen a tanci performance like this.
“…Green Siskin strode up to the soldiers and said, ‘What treasure do you need?’…”
They clenched their fists as they pictured the bodies in the streets. They cheered and laughed as Green Siskin tricked the invading commander. They spat and slapped the table in anger as the ignorant merchant condemned Green Siskin.
Hundreds of thousands died in six dark days.
A despised woman saved thirty-one.
Ever cunning, she sought no fame nor praise.
Defying fate, she did what could be done.
As far as most in the crowd were concerned, the Yangzhou Massacre never happened. Official histories were always composed by sealing away ghosts.
But the truth always lived on in song and story.
Masters and mistresses, this I know to be true:
There is no Heavenly ledger, no all-fair Judge.
Yet general, prostitute, merchant, or child,
The fate of this world each one of you can budge.
And the little siskin took off from the young woman’s shoulder and circled around the room, chirping and singing, lifted up by the warm air, by the loud cheer that exploded from the crowd: free, free, free.
•
[Author’s Note:
The title of this story is taken from a Chinese idiom built from two literary allusions. A slightly modified version of the historical tale behind “knotting grass” is told by Green Siskin; the historical tale behind “holding ring” refers to a Han Dynasty man who rescued a siskin injured by a hawk, only to find out later that the siskin was the avatar of an immortal who thanked the rescuer with a few jade rings. The idiom usually refers to a deep, abiding sense of gratitude.
The Yangzhou Massacre of 1645 destroyed one of the greatest cities of Ming China and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. It is but one of the many atrocities of the Manchu conquest of China, the total death toll of which has been estimated to number twenty-five million. For the next two and half centuries, during which the Manchus ruled China under the Qing Dynasty, memories and facts about the conquest were suppressed. As a result, the exact number of victims at Yangzhou may never be known.
Most of what we know about the massacre comes from a small book called An Account of Ten Days at Yangzhou, an eyewitness report of the massacre by a survivor named Wang Xiuchu. The book was proscribed in Qing China, and we know of it only from copies preserved in Japan. Most of the details concerning the massacre in this story are taken from it.
One scene from the book has always haunted me: a description of a few women who apparently survived the massacre by becoming mistresses of the Manchu invaders. What these women did was considered shameful under the cult of chastity that prevailed among some members of the elite culture of late Imperial China, but I believed that there was a story here, suppressed in the margins of a book that was itse
lf suppressed by those whose power was built upon slaughter and rape.
This story is dedicated to the memory of all the victims and heroes of the Yangzhou Massacre, men and women, rich and poor, remembered and forgotten.]
•
Nkásht íí
Darcie Little Badger
Great-grandmother taught me everything she knew about death before it took her.
Never sleep under a juniper tree. They grow between this world and the place below.
Bury the dead properly, lest their ghosts return.
A ghost is a terrible thing.
Someday, we will all be terrible things.
Great-grandmother, you were right.
•
Annie designed our pink-paint-on-cardboard sign: TELL US YOUR PROBLEMS TELL US YOUR STORIES TELL US ANYTHING. WE 2 LISTEN. We never offered counsel or passed judgment. Sometimes, people just need a willing ear. After all, that’s how Annie and I became friends. Beginning in high school, she listened to my troubles, and I returned the favor. Annie’s secrets, though bizarre, were easier to swallow after we spent time together, which is how she convinced me to busk for karma. The act would bring us good fortune, she promised. For better or worse, I believed her.
That day, Annie and I camped near a fountain shaped like Maria de Soto, the city founder. Water bubbled from her outstretched marble hands. The bowls she normally carried (they represented “cups running over,” according to a copper plaque) had been removed for cleaning. “Stigmata,” I commented, and Annie laughed. It was a pleasant distraction from my phone; Mom had been texting all morning, breaking our one-year silent spell, and every message felt like a needle in my chest.
As if drawn to cheer, a scruffy, thirty-something man limped toward the fountain. He wore a sweat-stained white shirt and wrinkled black pants; his patent leather oxfords needed polish.
“Morning,” I said. Never good morning, because it often wasn’t.
He knelt on the grass and looked from Annie to me, back and forth, like a tennis spectator. To be fair, we made a strange pair. Annie, a stout, tall Apache woman, had severely thick eyebrows and lips that turned down, even when she smiled. She also shaved her head daily, as if preparing for war. Her features contrasted with my girlish face and willowy frame. Primary school bullies called me “Pocahontas,” so it goes without saying that I never braided my hair. However, I kept it long to protect my ears and back from the sun.
“You listen?” the man asked. His hoarse voice smelled sour.
“Yessir,” Annie said. “We do.”
“My daughter died.”
Annie’s cheerful expression withered.
“Murdered,” he continued. “Nobody believes me. They think…but I didn’t. My Melanie survived the accident. Car accident.” He spoke in a breathless staccato. “During vacation in central Texas. Five months ago. Melanie sat in her car seat. My wife, Rita, slept. We entered Willowbee, small town, before eleven. A deer ran onto the street. No time to brake, so I panicked and swerved. The car hit a tree. Rita never slept with a belt.”
He uttered a dry sob that sounded like “broken neck.” Annie nodded sympathetically.
“After the collision, Melanie cried. She’d survived. But I could not reach her from the driver seat. I crawled outside, circled the car. Had two broken legs but managed. And Christ. Christ. When I opened the back door, an owl-woman was inside the car. She held Melanie.”
“Owl-woman?” I asked. “What is…” Annie made a shushing noise.
“She had owl eyes,” he said. “Big, yellow circles with black pits. But otherwise, the woman—or monster, or…whatever—looked like Rita. Just younger and taller. Taller than me, even.” The man, who wasn’t shorter than six feet, made another raspy sound before continuing, “I begged her to return Melanie, but she carried my daughter away. Outside, around the tree, across Heron Bridge. Into darkness. Impossible to chase with broken legs, though I tried. I tried. The paramedics found me thirty feet from the car. They found Melanie in the river. Not a scratch on her body. She’d drowned. But everybody—everybody—believes the accident threw her outside. Ridiculous. I strapped her in a car seat. Will there ever be justice for my girls?”
“Was it a juniper tree?” Annie asked.
Color drained from his ruddy cheeks. “Yes.” He grasped her shoulder. “What does it mean?”
“Careful,” I warned, touching the Mace hidden in my side pocket. We’d so far avoided most dangers that plague lost young things, but worry dominated my thoughts, especially after spending weeks inundated in confessed sins and tragedies.
“It’s all right, Josie,” Annie said. “There are legends…”
“What legends?” the man asked. Then, he folded ten dollars in my empty coffee cup, but Annie shook her head. “We’re only paid in karma,” she explained, because the truth beggared belief. Even I didn’t understand the preternatural laws we observed.
“What legends?” he repeated.
“The kind my great-grandmother knew,” she said. “Juniper trees often grow along passageways between this world and the spirit realm, like…. Sir?”
“Hang on. I have something for you.” With that, he stood and limped away.
“Is this guy serious?” I asked.
“Could be. Ghosts are terrible things.”
“Ghosts? Huh, maybe he met La Llorona,” I said. “¿Dónde están mis hijos?”
“Stop, Josie. You can be irreverent about anything but this.”
“That actually wasn’t a joke. It’s possible, right?”
Annie considered my question for a couple minutes, and then she nodded. “Mmhm. Possible. Oh, look! He’s coming back.” Sure enough, the man had returned. He thrust a picture at us. It depicted a baby—Melanie?—with bright blue eyes and a gummy smile. Somebody—Rita?—cradled her. The adult’s torso and left hand were visible; she had long pink nails and wore a gold cross around her neck.
“Sir, we’re only here to listen, understand?”
“No, and that’s the problem. I don’t understand. But I want to understand. What happened that night?”
Annie tapped my shoulder until I turned and caught her eyes. “Let’s go to Willowbee,” she said.
“You’re kidding.”
“Please? It’ll just take a couple days. Anyway, I have a feeling. We need to follow through.”
My cell phone beeped again.
Well, it’s not like we had anything better to do.
“Meet us here next week, same time,” I said. “Keep in mind that we can’t promise answers.”
“That’s fine,” the mourning father said. “Just promise that you’ll try.”
He left; he left the photograph behind; he left me in a lurch. What did Annie expect to find in Willowbee?
“We’ll need travel money,” she said. “C’mon.” I folded the sign, while Annie tucked the photograph in her messenger bag. A vertical crease between her eyebrows spoke to more worries than usual.
After thanking Maria de Soto for her shade, we crossed sun-baked streets. At Markov Deli, I paused and asked, “Here?”
Annie shook her head. No. We continued wandering.
Outside a gas station, the ritual repeated. “Here?” No.
One hour later, the Asian grocery store on Vega Street broke our unlucky streak. “Here?” Annie nodded. As we entered the store, a wind chime over the door tolled sweetly. It rang again when we exited with chicken dumplings, chrysanthemum tea, and the five hundred dollars Annie had won from a scratch-off lotto game called “Pushing Your Luck.”
•
When a black haze coalesced over our hometown, and only I noticed, Josie convinced me to leave. I wonder if it’s still there, haunting that lonely place. It resembled the cloud that followed Great-grandmother before she died.
•
The trip to Willowbee took one day by bus: nine hours riding and two hours waiting at a way station in Dallas. Annie and I shared a duffel bag, and we sat behind a man who dozed in his bulky wint
er jacket, although it was late summer.
At sunset, Annie fell asleep with her cheek against the window pane. Every vibration that shook the bus rapped her temple against the glass. That couldn’t be comfortable.
I removed a T-shirt from the duffel bag and tucked it behind her head. She muttered “thanks” between dreams. I’d offer my shoulder instead, but it was too low. Annie’s height, five feet ten, seemed remarkable, considering her barely nourished past.
As a child, she had had a dozen allergies, and if you think it’s hard funding a balanced meal with food stamps, try adding dietary restrictions to the mix. At least food malaise brought us together. We met during the free breakfast program in middle school. Instead of milk, Annie and I drank vanilla soy from paper cartons. “Are you lactose intolerant, too, or vegan?” I’d asked.
Her response was, “What’s a vegan?”
We became school chums, a relationship that only exists between classes. At the time, my best friends all played basketball. The athletic sisterhood had been crafted by Coach Gomez-Frances, who believed that trust and companionship won games. She reinforced team camaraderie with extracurricular events like laser tag, pizza parties, and WNBA group outings. She oversaw trust-building exercises during morning practices. She promised that our loyalty would outlast our boyfriends.
Coach Gomez-Frances had been right, but that’s only because I never found a boyfriend. Yes, the team’s bond helped us defeat other sisterhoods, girls from foreign school districts who wore strange-colored jerseys and worshiped lesser mascots. But without basketball, our little clique dissolved.
For me, Annie was all that lasted past high school. I even lost my family.
The trouble at home started when Mom met good ol’ boy Regis Miller at a singles mixer. When he became Stepfather Regis, he parked a new Corvette on the street, hung a forty-six-inch TV on the wall, and bought Mom a cubic zirconia tennis bracelet. Of course, the car didn’t last a week before somebody broke its window to steal ten dollars from the glove compartment, so we had to purchase a new home, too, one in a better neighborhood, one with a garage. He told Mom, “Don’t worry about money. Little Miss should feel safe.”
