The Rock Child

by Win Blevins

  Ah Lo nodded. Her fingers stripped the undone braid long. She switched back to English. “Women of Tibet very sexly,” Ah Lo said in the tone of a compliment.

  That classification again! Sun Moon felt her anger rise, watched it, let it pass.

  Ah Lo undid the other braid rapidly.

  “No, we are not erotic,” Sun Moon said in Chinese. “I am a nun.”

  Ah Lo pulled back and looked at Sun Moon like a madwoman. She chuckled. “So you go now as disguise,” she said in English. “I make you sexly.”

  Sun Moon watched in the mirror.

  “Like this, I think,” Ah Lo said in Chinese, as though conceding. She held the thick hair in a bun at the rear top of Sun Moon’s head. Studying the mirror, Sun Moon thought, I am sexly. Or I would be except for the scar.

  Her hair looked good. “Yes, thank you.”

  Ah Lo began pinning the hair in place with long ivory sticks.

  Tonight, Sun Moon admitted to herself, I want to look splendid. She looked at the new dresses Sir Richard had had made for her, dresses fit for a real lady. One was a silk of robin’s-egg blue, brocaded with silver and gold thread. Another was a light shade of jade silk, another a brilliant sun orange.

  “You like it?” asked Ah Lo. Sun Moon turned her head from side to side in the mirror, studying the elaborate bun. “Thank you,” she said, “it’s lovely. Later will you show me how to pin it myself?”

  “That’s what friends are for. Wait see what else I have. First I’ll make up your face.”

  Ah Lo came in front of Sun Moon with a flask and rubbed something creamy and soothing on Sun Moon’s cheeks. Then she turned to a jar of white powder—rice powder, Sun Moon realized. The girl applied it liberally to Sun Moon’s face, using a rabbit’s foot for a brush. Sun Moon didn’t like the idea of facial makeup, but Sir Richard had insisted. Then came rouge on her cheeks, then lip rouge.

  Sun Moon used the mirror. She didn’t like the whiteness of her skin, but felt pleased by both rouges. This will be fun.

  Sun smiled broadly at herself. Ah Lo looked at her in the mirror, and cried, “Party tonight!”

  Sun Moon didn’t let herself think about what that might mean to the young whore. Tonight I’m going to a party. It was a victory celebration. For more than a month she had fought the fever. Doubts had raged in her mind like the heat in her body. I am poor, I will never get home, my child will be born dead, I am deluding myself about getting back to Tibet, I will die in this foreign place and no one will read The Book of the Dead over me. Which meant she would have a hard time in the forty-nine days between incarnations, and the next incarnation would be difficult. Oh, she thought despairing, I have lost my way!

  She forced herself to say clearly in her mind exactly when she got lost. The night I made love to Asie by the river. The night she got pregnant.

  Fever, pregnancy, fever, confusion, fever, loss of focus, fever, fear. Her spirit had been storm-tossed. She was clear about what saved her—a precious incarnation of a human being growing in her belly.

  “These, you like?” Ah Lo asked. She held earrings of gold coins beside Sun Moon’s ears.

  “My ears aren’t pierced!” Sun Moon cried.

  “We’ll take care of that,” said Polly, and held up an awl.

  Sun Moon grabbed for her earlobes. “No,” she moaned. Her ears had been pierced, routinely, when she was a child, but had healed during her convent years.

  “You must,” said Polly. “You are to be a grand lady, and grand ladies wear fancy earrings.”

  Sun Moon looked at the earrings Sir Richard had bought her. They were not merely coins but inlaid subtly and beautifully with copper and silver. Against her complexion and hair the effect was remarkable.

  “More gifts from Captain Burton,” she said, waving toward a jangle of jewelry laid out on a piece of velvet.

  “They’re lovely,” said Sun Moon, abashed. Sir Richard was being wonderful to her. She didn’t dare let her eyes take in the abundance of gifts.

  Quickly, Ah Lo held a wood block behind Sun Moon’s right lobe and rammed the awl through. Ouch! She gasped for breath. She hoped the second would feel easier, but the pain was sharp. She held her breath while Polly slid the earrings on, and fastened them.

  She thought of her great good fortune. In great peril I trusted two men. Asie and Sir Richard. Asie had given her so much, and the incarnation within her was the crowning gift. Sir Richard had helped her, supported her, saved her life physically, and now provided the means for her journey. Home.

  I have won. No, that was premature. She still had half the world to cross. I have done the hardest part. She had survived abduction, survived being indentured as a prostitute, survived the escape, survived momentarily the attacks of that Mormon murderer, survived the journey across half the American continent, survived the fever. She had survived physically, emotionally, spiritually.

  Actually, Porter Rockwell worried her more than traveling halfway around the world.

  “Now we try little scent,” said Ah Lo. She made it sound deliciously sinful.

  “No,” said Sun Moon. “No perfume.” She associated perfumes with whores and peasant women, who wore them to cover the unwashed smell.

  “OK. Shut eyes.” Sun Moon started to object. “You say great lady, I make great lady,” reprimanded Ah Lo. “You see.”

  Sun Moon let her eyelids close and behind them drifted in her mind. The scents of the room, silks, powders, ointments, reminded her of riches. She breathed deep and let the breath out slowly. The face of her dead mother floated into consciousness. She felt her mother’s hands on her neck and shoulders. The delicate smoothness of her first silk dress came to her. Her only silk dress, the one she was presented to the convent in. Suddenly she thought she could smell the wildflowers, abundant on the grassy meadows in summer. The sound of her language drifted over her, and the smells of the rich foods prepared for the Flower-Viewing Festival.

  “Look,” said Ah Lo.

  Sun Moon opened her eyes and tried to study the silvery color Ah Lo had put on her eyelids.

  “You see?”

  Sun Moon thought of her convent, and deliberately brought to mind the smell of the butter lamps. I’m going home.

  “Very nice,” Ah Lo said. “Please stand up.”

  Ah Lo helped Sun Moon into the brocaded jade cheongsam, sleeveless, full length, with a stand-up Mandarin collar. She fastened the frog closings, cords covered with fancy cloth which looped over toggles. “Now watch,” she said. She hung a pair of somethings on the ivory pins holding the buns in Sun Moon’s hair. Examining them in the mirror, Sun Moon saw that they were bird cages delicately wrought in brass. Inside, remarkably, were tiny golden birds with eyes of bright emerald.

  Sun Moon gasped. Ah Lo clapped her hands.

  Then the girl leapt for the door and flung it open. “Come,” cried Ah Lo, and Sir Richard strode in. No matter how decorously he moved, he always seemed to Sun Moon a thunderstorm. He had gotten himself up handsomely. Even the scar on his cheek, a slash of violence, looked right on him.

  “You look very lovely,” he said merrily. “Well done, Polly.” The girl bowed to him. For the first time Sun Moon thought, Is she his whore?

  She looked into the mirror and studied her face to conceal her feelings. The effect of the makeup seemed to her extravagant but not unattractive. Maybe it should be extravagant.

  Sir Richard seemed to look her over more carefully. “Splendid,” he said. “Remarkable.”

  “Thank you very much for all this,” Sun Moon said.

  “Sun Moon, it is my pleasure,” said Sir Richard. He sounded like he felt it was.

  Ah Lo busied herself putting slippers on Sun Moon’s feet, embroidered ones with turned-up toes. Sun Moon looked down and suppressed a smile. Since my feet were never bound, Ah Lo must think them large and ungainly.

  “You still haven’t told me how you got all the money,” she said.

  “It’s not complicated,” he said. “Tommy and Da
n’s little scheme served them well, went from less than a dollar to over nine. He and Gentleman Dan made, the way we figure, perhaps $9,000.

  “So here’s the good news. I invested a hundred for you, and made enough to get you home in style.” Sir Richard grinned. He could be quite the pleased-with-himself boy sometimes.

  “Asie make money, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tommy Kirk angry?” Ah Lo made last-moment adjustments.

  Sir Richard chuckled. “When we told him, he said, ‘Of course you did, smart lads. As long as you don’t nick too much.’”

  “What will he do with his profit?” She worried about Asie.

  Sir Richard shrugged. “When a man comes into a handsome piece of money, you may see in what he does next his dreams. Also what he thinks of himself, his fellows, and the world.”

  “Asie’s dreams,” she murmured. To find his mother’s people? To find the real world glimpsed in his river vision?

  “I don’t know that money will help him,” said Sir Richard, voicing Sun Moon’s thoughts. He looked sideways at Ah Lo. “Though some believe that there is no ambition in the world money won’t help.”

  “I have a dream,” Sun Moon said. “To go home. Thank you, Sir Richard.”

  “I am delighted to be of service.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you aware that Asie is planning to use his profit to accompany you on your journey to Tibet?”

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  “It wouldn’t do either of you any harm.”

  Carefully, she shook her head no. Impossible! Then he would know!

  “One more thing for beauty,” said Ah Lo. She held out a small vial to Sun Moon. “Makes eyes big,” said Ah Lo.

  “Belladonna,” said Sir Richard, “deadly nightshade, an innocent stimulus. Have some.”

  Sun Moon shook her head. A drug that affects my consciousness, no, no.

  “I’ll indulge,” said Sir Richard. He took the vial from Ah Lo and helped himself. So did she. They smiled at each other conspiratorially. Watch out, Sun Moon told herself.

  At that moment the door banged and Asie burst into the room. He often burst into places. “Everything’s ready at the Heritage,” he said. “It’s time.”

  Then she saw him take her in, all of the dressed-up her. She thought she could see stars in his eyes.

  “Miss Polly,” said Sir Richard, “may I escort you to the party?”

  Ah Lo slunk to him, brushed his hip with hers, and laughed.

  Sun Moon and Asie looked at each other. She had to admit he looked smart in his new suit, and for tonight in one way they belonged together. “Miss Sun Moon,” he said, “you look gorgeous.” He held out his arm, and she took it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Gentleman Dan hoisted his sherbet in a toast. “Here’s to doing better than four dollars a day,” which were miners’ wages.

  Tommy Kirk cried, “Hear, hear!” We all joined him, me and Sun Moon, Sir Richard and his lady of the evening, Polly, Sam, and Tommy’s other dinner guests.

  There was the rub, the dinner guests. Since they weren’t there, they were pretty well snubbing Tommy.

  Tommy Kirk had bought the Heritage. Then he planned this big, big party to celebrate. He took an advertisement in the Enterprise and hung signs like banners across the front of the tavern. GRAND OPENING—ALL DRINKS FREE ALL NIGHT!!! He didn’t have to say a word about being the new owner. That would be the talk of Washo, a Chinaman buying the classiest saloon and gambling house in the territory. Tommy understood that sometimes you don’t have to say anything to make a statement.

  Next Tommy cooked up a plan to host a small dinner on opening night, presenting Sir Richard to Washo society, who would certainly want to meet the author and explorer. Sir Richard saw Tommy’s thinking, naturally. Despite the barrier of being half-caste, he wanted to be important enough to bring together the distinguished visitor and Washo’s uppity-uppity. Sir Richard loved such social and political games, and consented gladly.

  It didn’t work. Of the first dozen folks invited, bankers, mine owners, and the other first businessmen of Washo, none accepted, and some didn’t even bother to respond. Tommy fell back to second and third invitation lists. You could about guess who showed up in the end, aside from Sir Richard, Sun Moon, me, Gentleman Dan, and Sam. There was the publisher and editor of the Enterprise, cajoled by Sam into coming (and for them it was halfway work). Two of Tommy’s fellow proprietors of saloons and gambling houses, who probably wanted to check out the competition. One of the founders of the mining district, a backwoodsman extravagantly rich and liquored all the time, well beyond caring what anyone thought of him. And Jennifer Ward, a courtesan who worked independently and was revered by everyone in Washo. This was a very beautiful and elegant woman, invited as Tommy’s dinner companion.

  The grand opening was going better. From what we could hear of the drinkers, gamblers, and dancers out at the main rooms, it was a heckuva party.

  So there we were sitting at the table of Tommy’s failure. Guess all of us at that dinner had a better time than he did. Tommy put on a good face and made the champagne flow. Sam acted the life of the party, telling stories and playing the grandee, though he’d made the least money of us. Gentleman Dan was quietly swelled up with some kind of satisfaction—you hardly never knew what Dan was thinking. Sir Richard and Polly floated along on the wine bubbles. Sun Moon was happy on account of she got her passage to Asia, and I was lost in her.

  Oh my stars and cornicles, yes, I was lost. I was trying to listen to the world’s signals. First fate brought a woman from the far side of the world and set her down in a place to save my life and mesmerize my heart. Then it tossed me a bonanza big enough to sail me to Tibet with her, if she’d let me. Seemed like that’s how the signals read, anyhow. Sweet gizzards and Jehu nimshi, Tibet. I was busy being flabbergasted by pictures in my head of a place as foreign as … Well, even Sir Richard’s tales of the bizarre East couldn’t hold anything to how queer Tibet must be.

  Dinner went off handsomely, far as I could tell. Tommy had a crew of seductive-looking Chinese women to serve us (courtesans, for there were no other Chinese females in Washo). He conjured up a genuine white-man feast, no ginger or soy sauce about it. That night was a first for me with champagne and fresh oysters, and I wouldn’t be looking for any second. Everybody laughed at everybody else’s jokes.

  My mind, though, couldn’t get away from two things. The first was how this feast would feed Paiute Joe’s whole family for days, and I wasn’t all the way easy with feasting when they were empty-bellied. The second was Tommy’s snubbing. Appeared to me a man of half-caste could buy things in Washo, could own a lot of Washo, but he couldn’t never be a regular fellow. If they’d snubbed Tommy because he was a man who lived by selling women, gambling, and opium, I would have understood. But they didn’t care anything for that. It was the way they treated heathen Chinee. Or niggers, or Injuns. Or halves, like Tommy and me. I marked that down in my head.

  “This is no ordinary whore,” Sun Moon heard Sam whisper loudly to Asie, “she’s Tommy’s mistress, and the mother of his children.”

  It was after dinner, while the Chinese women were serving around dainty desserts to be eaten with the fingers. Tommy Kirk stood at the head of the table and introduced the young woman as Lu Pu-wai. While Sun Moon was pondering what it meant to escort one woman and then introduce your children’s mother, Lu Pu-wai made a graceful exit, returned bearing a zither, and sat down to play with the air of an artist.

  The zither of Sun Moon’s childhood was the Tibetan yak zither, a six-stringed instrument that accompanied dancing and singing. She was educated, though, and was acquainted with the ch’in, the seven-stringed Chinese zither. It was a more refined vehicle for music, and Lu Pu-wai’s approach to it was elevated. She introduced her performance with words in her own language, and Tommy Kirk translated.

  First he closed the door to the main rooms tight, to shut out the di
n of the big party.

  “Music for us Chinese,” Tommy repeated after her, “is a way for the mind to reconcile yang and yin.” He hesitated and translated, “The great universal opposites. Each time of year has its own fundamental tone. This is autumn, and the tone is F.”

  Here Lu Pu-wai played a five-note scale. Sun Moon watched Asie’s face very carefully. Will this reach his spirit?

  “F is the tone of the north,” Tommy went on translating. “The planet associated with it is Mercury. Its element is wood, and its color is black.” She noticed that Tommy Kirk spoke with an unaccustomed seriousness and a hint of reverence. For the first time she saw the noble part of him. “The piece she will play is well known in China, ‘The Falling Leaf.’”

  Lu Pu-wai’s face took on the softness and blankness of high concentration. Her fingers moved over the fingerboard. The sounds she plucked were separate, distinct, like drops of water on a cymbal, or isolated pings on stone chimes. The effect was ethereal, shifting impressions.

  Sometimes Sun Moon lost the spirit of the music and began to think. Then she noticed the small ways in which the artist ornamented the melody, and the several different kinds of vibrato she used to make the notes more expressive. Then Sun Moon lost herself in the poetry of the sounds once more, and was happy.

  When the performance ended, she wanted to gush breath in and out. She wanted to embrace Asie and look truly into his eyes. She wanted to embrace Lu Pu-wai.

  No one applauded. It felt like they were too stunned to applaud. The performer bowed deeply over her instrument.

  Tommy leapt up, but before he could speak, a high, unearthly sound stopped him. It was the melody of Lu Pu-wai’s song, the same melody, but like the ceaseless wind instead of separate plucks. For a long moment she did not guess where it came from, but thought it the breath of spirit itself, sounding and sounding.

  I didn’t realize at first I had started whistling.

  Until my mind caught on, the tune just sounded exotic. Then I took hold, I heard the five-tone scale with its enchanting minor skips, its wonderful quality of suspension, of going nowhere because it was already at the center of everything. The melody became a stately dance, drifting, turning, lifting, sailing. I was mesmerized.