by Janie Chang
“I think your fourth great-uncle picked her off the streets,” Amah Fu had said. She frowned, her broad forehead wrinkled in thought. By then she was no longer his nanny but still worked in the house. She paused for a moment from folding a tablecloth, then shook her head. “I don’t know, but there was talk that Sparrow’s mother was a maidservant who died. Unmarried.”
That was all anyone could tell him about Sparrow. She never volunteered any information about herself. When asked, she’d only say she had no memory of her life before the Liu household or how she got there. Over the years, Sparrow took over from Amah Fu. In addition to her other household chores Sparrow cleaned Shao’s room, mended his clothing, and always appeared when he needed her. Sparrow was the one constant in his life, always calm, always reassuring. It wasn’t because of anything she said, it was how Sparrow made him feel. As if there was something else that mattered more, something more real than his father’s indifference, his mother’s melancholy.
His mother’s moods darkened Shao’s early childhood. That he was not the only one affected became clear one momentous day when Grandmother Liu tottered through their front door, actually making the walk from her mansion at the other end of the estate. Supported on each side by a maid, she entered the spacious foyer. Then his grandmother sat down on a small wicker chair and two burly house servants carefully lifted the chair up the circular staircase, the old woman’s tiny bound feet dangling, her two maids trailing behind.
A silent crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs, her sons and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren and an assembly of servants. At the back of the crowd, Shao clutched Amah Fu’s hand. His father waited at the top of the stairs, his handsome, square face downcast. He met his mother’s irritated glare with a look of shame. The servants set down the chair, Grandmother Liu and her maids vanished down the hallway. Shao’s father stood for a moment with slumped shoulders, then followed. Whispers drifted around Shao.
Do you remember the first time she tried to take her own life?
She doesn’t realize how lucky she is.
Too spoiled. Too educated. No wonder the master turns to other women.
Soon after, Shao was old enough for school and worries about his mother became easier to push from his thoughts, supplanted by the excitement of new friends and teachers, books and sports. It became even easier when the Zhu family moved in across the street. The Zhu boys soon discovered how many playmates there were in the Liu estate and came over so often some of the elderly Lius mistook them for members of their own clan. By the time Shao finished high school, he and Zhu Pao had been best friends for years. Shao was closer to Sparrow, but that didn’t count. Sparrow was only a girl and a servant.
Her devotion required no effort from Shao.
Chapter 9
Two scouts carrying lanterns led the way. It was their second night of walking and they would reach Shangma Temple before daybreak. None of them grumbled about traveling on a dark night, with only stars and a sliver of crescent moon to brighten the sky. It was far preferable to nights when the skies were clear, the landscape sharp and distinct beneath a full moon. Starlight brightened the outlines of clouds, picking out a ridge of hills no more than a mile away. Their destination, hidden in the notch of a valley, was not yet visible. They walked silently in a long uneven procession of twos and threes.
Fall was cold this year, unusually so. Even students from the northern provinces felt the chill. For many in Minghua 123, raised in coastal cities and temperate climates, it was pure misery. They wrapped up in every piece of clothing they’d brought, but even with faces and heads muffled, it still wasn’t enough. Fatigue was to blame, demanding more from their bodies than they could spare.
On the road ahead, Shao saw a female student beside a donkey cart. Even if the lantern hanging from the cart hadn’t lit her face, he would’ve recognized Lian. She was alone, Meirong nowhere to be seen. He walked faster to catch up. She offered a shy smile of greeting and the lantern enclosed them both in its wavering circle of light. They walked for a time in silence, then Shao cleared his throat.
“So, Lian, which volume of the Library of Legends do you carry?” he said. This had become a frequent question between students, some of whom had never even heard of the Legends before the evacuation. Some, especially the agriculture majors, made it clear they were reading their Legends book purely out of duty.
“Tales of Celestial Deities,” she said. “And you?”
“Fox spirits, alas,” he said. “Tales of Fox Spirits, Volumes 100 to 140.”
“I don’t think there are that many . . .” she began to say, then they both laughed.
“There’s a big collection of Fox lore,” Shao said, “enough for multiple volumes. But not 140 of them. Just three, filled with variations of the same story.”
“A poor but handsome young man falls in love with a beautiful mysterious maiden,” she said, “and his fortunes improve dramatically. They live together happily until the day he discovers she’s actually a shape-shifting Fox spirit. Whereupon he rejects her and all his fortunes vanish.”
“In some stories the man accepts her for what she is,” he said, “and they live together happily until he dies. Then the Fox disappears, presumably to find love with some other young man.”
“I think the saga of the Library of Legends itself is wonderfully intriguing,” she said. “It’s amazing that even a single volume managed to survive.”
“Yes, that’s how I feel too,” he said. “Did you read Professor Kang’s pamphlet about the Legends? It almost makes one believe in heavenly intervention. That the scholar responsible for editing the volumes kept a copy for himself, and it stayed in his family for centuries.”
“The reason I wanted to attend Minghua was because of the Library of Legends.” Her words were eager, her voice passionate. “It’s all that’s left of the Jingtai Encyclopedia, from a time when China represented the peak of human civilization. Did you know about the Legends before coming to Minghua?”
“My father bought the Minghua University Press edition for his library at home,” he said. “I used to spend hours reading the Legends. It’s a relief to know that even if something happens to the books we carry, at least the stories inside them won’t be lost.”
“But to hold the originals in your hand,” Lian said. “To read those stories in the actual handwriting of scholars who copied them out five hundred years ago. To see notes scribbled in the margins by the imperial scholar Yao himself. What enchantments those books must hold to have survived so long.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” he said. It pleased him to hear her voice so animated. To know she appreciated the Legends as much as he did.
“My father also owned a Minghua edition of the Library of Legends,” she said, and her voice grew subdued. “He would’ve loved to see the real Library but . . . well, he died when I was a child.”
They walked together in silence. It was a companionable silence. Shao liked that Lian didn’t demand anything of him, that he didn’t have to make polite, trivial conversation.
A lamp and footsteps. “Young Master, the other scouts are asking for you,” Sparrow said, holding out a lamp. “They’re going to confirm the arrangements for our stay in the next town.”
Ahead of them, some students had detached from the main group, lanterns casting small pools of brightness along the road.
“Lian, let’s walk together again sometime,” Shao said, taking the lamp. “Sparrow, see you in town.”
Sparrow didn’t reply. She wasn’t looking at him, but at Lian. A pitying look. A trick of the light, he thought. Then he sprinted to join the knot of scouts at the front of the line.
Chapter 10
Shangma Temple would be their refuge for ten days, giving them a much-needed rest. Built as a religious retreat, the Buddhist temple stood between hills far away from the main road. It was centuries old, a complex of buildings that included temples, a monastery, gardens, and a guesthouse for pilgrims. The path
to the temple’s main gate was a steep and winding climb, the first test of a pilgrim’s devotion. An easier path for wagons and draft animals led to a side entrance. Terraced courtyards looked down on the stream that ran between two small towns called Shangma and Shiama, Upper Horse and Lower Horse, connected by a wide stone bridge.
During its years of prosperity, a steady procession of the devout traveled to Shangma Temple seeking prayer and peace. They breathed in clean mountain air and refreshed themselves in the icy chill of Shangma Temple’s waterfall pool. The truly pious climbed even higher, to the hanging valley above where they could worship at a small shrine.
But in recent decades the number of pilgrims coming to Shangma Temple had dwindled and now only a dozen elderly monks remained to look after the property. They lived in one courtyard. The rest of the property, the guesthouse and lesser temples, stood empty. The abbot had been more than pleased for Minghua 123 to stay there in exchange for rice and money.
Professors inspected temples and halls to decide which ones to use as classrooms. Servants boiled water for baths and laundry, beat quilts and mats on paving stones to rid them of bedbugs. Students cleaned the rooms where they would sleep, swept out the halls that would be their classrooms, and unpacked books to set up a makeshift library on brick-and-board shelving. All the students longed for rest, for the chance to study and think about something else besides the war. They longed for the illusion of normalcy.
HO LIFANG, KNOWN for so long as Shorty Ho that his classmates had forgotten his formal name, reached inside his pants to scratch his balls. He paused to glance at the doorway. They’d kept the guesthouse’s windows and doors open to air it out. He reached in deeper for a really long, satisfying scratch. It felt like eons since he’d taken a bath or put on clean clothes. There were nights when he had slept with nothing but a thin mat between him and hard earthen floors. The dirt on his clothes chafed his skin. Or maybe it was lice. Or maybe the itch in his crotch signified fleas.
It would be his turn to bathe in an hour. And for the next ten glorious days, he would sleep in a proper room. The guesthouse didn’t have any beds, but its floors were wooden planks, not the hard-packed earth or cold slate used for temples. He stretched luxuriously in anticipation and scratched some more. He heard footsteps in the corridor and quickly yanked his hand out. He groped in his rucksack for a book, then waved it at the classmate walking past. As though he’d been reading all this time.
He glanced at the cover. His volume of the Legends was Tales of Dragon Lords. He sighed and read the introduction.
There are 128 dragon, dragonlike, or serpentine deities. Their element is Water. The Dragon Lords control all forms of water, from freshwater lakes and rivers to the sea. They determine rainfall and, therefore, floods. They can be benevolent or malevolent. As with most animal deities, Dragon Lords and their offspring can shape-shift, appearing as mortals when they wish to involve themselves in the affairs of mankind.
Shorty tried his best to get past the first page. The Library of Legends might be a national treasure, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that interested him. He gave in to fatigue. His eyelids drooped and a soft snore escaped his nostrils. His hands let the book drop.
A cold breeze scoured the room. It ruffled the book lying open on his stomach and turned a few of the ancient pages, then paused. Had Shorty woken up, he might’ve found the book open at “The Story of the Dragon King’s Daughter,” a tale that hadn’t been recounted for centuries within hearing of a waterfall pool. He might’ve stood by the window, closed the shutters, and, while doing so, admired the hanging valley above, a view of orange and gold autumn foliage. He would’ve glimpsed torrents of water that cascaded over steep rock faces before merging into a single waterfall that plunged into the pool beyond his window. And had Shorty been one of the few remaining mortals who could see, truly see, he also might’ve noticed something swimming down the waterfall.
PROFESSOR KANG WAITED on the stone bench. Two hundred years ago, a landscape designer had positioned the seat thoughtfully, just beyond the waterfall’s spray. Shangma Temple had been built during an era when people set aside time to admire such views, to compose poetry while listening to birdsong and splashing water. Now his ears were attuned to other sounds, to the rumble of aircraft engines, the mechanical wail of sirens.
An undulating movement disturbed the curtain of falling water. Then a swaying shape emerged from the spray and swam toward the edge of the pool. It rose up, a column of white. The professor clenched his fists so tightly his nails dug into the palms of his hands, but he’d promised the Star he would do this. He stood up and slowly, warily, moved closer to the pool. He could hear his heartbeat over the sounds of rushing water.
When the creature turned around, it had become a woman. She stood swathed in silvery silk, shining out from dark rock walls like a pillar of glacier ice. There was a blue tinge to her pale complexion and the barest trace of a pattern on her cheeks that suggested scales. Her hair rippled down her back, its own dark waterfall. Her long robes swirled in the current, not quite covering the tail that supported her graceful figure.
The professor cleared his throat and bowed. “Noble Lady, I have a message for you.”
The Dragon Lord’s Daughter stared at him with unblinking, lidless eyes. “So. You can see me.”
“Yes, Noble Lady,” he said. He was speaking to a Water Dragon. A Water Dragon. “The Willow Star sent me with a message from the Queen Mother of Heaven.”
“There are rumors in the wind, rustlings of news in autumn leaves,” she said. “Is it true? The Palace gates are open?”
“Yes, it’s true,” he said. “The Willow Star asks that you go to the Kunlun Mountains as quickly as you can. Tell your kin. Tell everyone you know. The gates won’t stay open forever.”
And a moment later, a large white snake swam its way up the waterfall. Professor Kang sat down again. He listened to the splashing of the pool and waited for his pulse to settle down.
TOO RESTLESS TO lie still, Lian tiptoed out of the guesthouse. Minghua 123 was not the only group sheltering at the Buddhist retreat. Halls and temples held a few dozen refugees who had followed them to Shangma, hoping the monks would take them in. Some were on their way to relatives, hoping for a place to live until it was safe to return. Others had tagged along with Minghua for safety or perhaps for a sense of destination. Many had no idea where to go, driven only by fear and instructions from the authorities. They knew only that they had to press ahead, keep moving west or south, deeper into the heart of China.
Lian had walked beside some of these families, listened to them exchange news and rumors. In low voices they repeated what they’d heard about cities taken over by the Japanese. They debated the safest routes, which ones skirted occupied territories, which towns had refugee centers. Their voices grew heavy with longing as they spoke of their homes, of doors that opened onto laneways, of whitewashed walls and gray roof tiles. Of meals eaten at large round tables noisy with crockery and bickering children. Of springtime when fields glazed over with green, lush with anticipation of the harvest to come.
Parents whispered in dark corners, trying not to wake their children. They hoped for news that the Japanese had been repelled. They wanted nothing more than to retrace their steps and rebuild their lives. Yet they also knew if they returned it would be to piles of rubble. The houses where generations of their family had lived and died were gone. If their houses and shops still stood, they would’ve been looted, emptied of furniture and goods, and stripped of the keepsakes that had given their owners joy.
Lian recognized many of the refugees. The young peasant couple who shouldered carrying poles, the dangling baskets filled with their belongings and two children. The family that took turns, men and women both, carrying their grandmother on their backs, her bound feet tapping against their hip bones as they walked.
There was the young couple, once proud owners of a small shop. They had nothing now, both home and livelihood gone. They h
uddled in a corner, his hands around a steaming bowl of hot water. The bowl was beautiful, a fine blue-and-white porcelain. It was undoubtedly their own, a cherished piece they couldn’t bear to leave behind. The husband passed the bowl to his wife but it slipped out of her hands and shattered on the slate floor. The woman began to weep, picking up the shards as though they were precious gems.
Suddenly, Lian could barely breathe, gripped by the knowledge that such scenes, and worse, were being repeated tens of thousands of times across China. She stumbled away from the guesthouse, her heart weighted with sorrow, loss, and rage. The young couple, those families, they would never be the same. China would never be the same.
She stopped running when she reached the waterfall pool. She sank onto the stone bench. Spray from the waterfall fractured sunlight into small rainbows. It was all ridiculously, inconsiderately beautiful. She was still sobbing when Liu Shaoming found her. He didn’t say a word, just sat down beside her.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” she said. She shrugged, hoping the casual gesture conveyed how little her tears mattered.
“Everyone’s tired,” he said, “tired and sad. We wouldn’t be human otherwise.”
The look on his face was both grave and questioning, his entire attention was fixed upon her. If her mother had been there, she would’ve cautioned Lian against getting too close. But her mother wasn’t there for comfort or caution. And what if her mother was wrong? Lian’s classmates were friendly and kind, especially Meirong. And Shao had been nothing but courteous and thoughtful.
He put an arm around her and she allowed herself to lean against him. The vault of her heart opened, just a little.
CLASSES WERE BACK in session. Students sat on stone floors for their lectures then gathered to study in the library at rickety tables built from sawhorses and planks. All the chairs had been collected to use in the library, so they ate their meals standing up, holding a bowl and chopsticks. Shoveling rice into their mouths as quickly as possible so they could go back for seconds.
