The Library of Legends

by Janie Chang

  Then she paused at the sound of voices from inside the bunkhouse. Soft laughter. One of the windows now betrayed a small gleam of light. Silently, Lian moved closer and stood on tiptoe to look in. A candle on a saucer flickered. There was a dish of dried apricots on the table beside the saucer. A hand reached in from the darkness and took an apricot. Then another candle flared, brightening the space. Jenmei leaned down and fed a dried apricot to someone sitting on the floor. Shao.

  Mesmerized, Lian watched as Jenmei knelt on the blanket to face Shao. Under the quivering flame her expression was rapt, adoring. She moved her face close to his, but he leaned back slightly, his smile as uncertain and wavering as candlelight. Jenmei took his hand and placed it on her cheek. This time, when she leaned forward, he didn’t resist her kiss. And when she finally pulled away from him, Jenmei’s expression was no longer adoring but something else. Triumphant.

  Lian backed away from the bunkhouse, fist jammed in her mouth. She ran all the way back to the dining hall, where she found Meirong eating dinner.

  “Where’ve you been, Lian?” her friend asked. “It’s a good thing I saved a bowl of food for you.”

  AFTER DINNER, LIAN returned to her room. Lights and noises filtered through her window shutters, servants bustling about finishing the day’s chores, families putting children to bed. She lit a lamp and sat beside it to read but the printed pages may as well have been blank. All she could see were two dim figures under the flicker of candles. Had she been the only one who didn’t realize what was going on between Jenmei and Shao?

  She’d been so sure that Shao’s feelings for her ran deeper than mere kindness. At the same time, she’d never dared hope for much. After all, he belonged to one of Shanghai’s great families. Her daydreams had been modest, laughably naïve now that she thought of it. Walks along the lakeshore. Moments of quiet conversation. Nothing as deliberate, as brazen, as Jenmei’s advances.

  When her roommates came back, Meirong wasn’t with them.

  Lian joined in the small talk while the two other girls got ready for bed; they chattered for what seemed an interminably long time before they finally got under the covers. Silence fell over the courtyard home and deep even breathing filled the room. But Lian stared up at the ceiling, listening until the door opened and shut with a soft click of the latch. Then the scuffle of shoes being removed and the bed beside hers creaked.

  “It’s really late,” Lian whispered, “where’ve you been?”

  “I did it, Lian, I went,” Meirong said. “I went to the Communist Students Club meeting. Jenmei made so much sense.” She spoke in a low voice but Lian could hear the quiver of excitement. More than excitement. Jubilation.

  “Oh no, Meirong,” Lian said. She had been afraid of this. “Please, you mustn’t join them.”

  “It was just one meeting,” Meirong said. “It is late, isn’t it? I’m tired.”

  “Who . . . who else was there?” Lian couldn’t help asking.

  “We promised Jenmei we wouldn’t tell,” Meirong said, yawning. “Safer that way.”

  Lian waited a few moments, then whispered, “Meirong, was Shao there?”

  But there was only the soft exhalation of Meirong’s breath, the shadowy rise and fall of her chest.

  LIAN DIDN’T WANT to see Shao or Jenmei, on their own or together, didn’t want to hear the gossip. She ate her meals quickly and returned directly to the courtyard house to study there instead of at the library. She avoided her classmates even more now, slipping easily into practiced isolation. She would hover at the periphery of a group, offer a few words of conversation, and then slip away. She kept her distance so unobtrusively none of her classmates, even Meirong, seemed to notice.

  But Mr. Lee noticed.

  When Lian left the dining hall after breakfast one morning, she and Ying-Ying passed Mr. Lee crossing the yard. They exchanged greetings but before he sauntered away, Lee tossed a comment to Lian, a casual passing thought.

  “You seem rather solitary these days, Miss Hu. I’d like to see you spend more time with your classmates. More time with the newspaper, perhaps?”

  His tone was amiable and no one but Lian would’ve caught the menace in those words. Lee continued across the yard, his sturdy figure and ponderous walk unmistakable, his shadow a stain on the ground.

  “You have been rather a hermit these days, now that I think of it,” Ying-Ying said. “Will you do more with the newspaper?”

  But the last thing Lian wanted was more opportunity to rub shoulders with Jenmei. She couldn’t bear to watch her draw Meirong further into the Communist Students Club or endure the sight of Jenmei with Shao.

  “I was thinking I’d volunteer for Professor Kang,” she said. “He needs help with the Library of Legends.” The library was always busy. If she spent time there, Mr. Lee couldn’t accuse her of being solitary. Not for the next little while.

  Chapter 14

  Lian used a wide, soft brush to dust off the book’s cover. Tales of Enlightened Mortals Who Became Immortal. She turned carefully to the first page. The students had temporarily handed in the Legends they’d been carrying so that volunteers could inspect every page for damage. At some point the entire Library of Legends would have to be stored in a safe place. Professor Kang had taken advantage of their long stay to order boxes from the coffin maker in Zhongmiao Village. Built to exact measurements, they’d be strong, nearly airtight, and easy to stack.

  “Miss Hu,” Professor Kang called from the other end of the long worktable. He beckoned her over.

  “About your term paper,” he said. “There’s something you should see in the caves above Huilong Nunnery.”

  “Why, what’s in the caves, Professor?” she said.

  “There are some Ming Dynasty murals that tell the story of the Willow Star,” he said. “Sparrow says she’s interested so you can go together, if you like.”

  “But what about you, sir?” she said. “Won’t you come with us?”

  “I understand it’s a steep climb,” he said, “otherwise I’d love to see them. Perhaps you could make some sketches to show me.”

  An opportunity to see ancient wall paintings. A chance to get away from the campus for a day. Away from Shao and Jenmei. And Mr. Lee.

  AFTER A NIGHT of rain, the air was still and the skies clear. An hour of walking took Lian and Sparrow off the main road onto a quiet trail that led up a hill, layers of pine needles soft underfoot. Openings between the trees gave them glimpses of Chaohu Lake, its green water and the pale sandy crescent moon of shoreline beside Zhongmiao Village. Lian breathed in the bracing resinous scent of pine, free of anxiety for the first time in days.

  A plain brick wall and open wooden gates marked the nunnery’s entrance. The pebbled path beyond the gates was tidy, swept meticulously clean of pine needles. A nun in dove-gray robes put down her broom when she saw Lian and Sparrow. Head shaven and smooth-skinned, it was hard to tell her age, but when she smiled her greeting, Lian thought the nun might’ve been nineteen or twenty.

  “We’ve come to see the Willow Star murals,” Sparrow said.

  The nun pointed to a bench by the wall to indicate that they should sit, then vanished up the pebbled path. Fifteen minutes later, an older nun came out. She was lean and wiry, her face a withered oval, her plain gray gown stained at the hems. One veined hand carried a covered bowl. She looked them over, her eyes resting speculatively on Sparrow.

  “It’s a steep walk,” she warned, pointing at a narrow track leading away from the nunnery gates. “Twenty minutes to get up there. The cave is also a temple. We ask for donations.”

  Lian dug into her rucksack but Sparrow stopped her. “Professor Kang gave me money,” she said and handed the nun a silver coin.

  Lian and Sparrow followed the old woman up the hill, a steep ascent as warned. The track would’ve been wide enough for two had the shrubs and trees on either side been trimmed. They walked beneath rhododendron and pine, stout trunks of loquat and slender canes of bamboo. Yello
w poplar leaves lay scattered on the path in front of them like gold coins. They brushed against branches still dripping with last night’s rain and soon their hair and shoulders were damp.

  Then the air-raid siren sounded.

  “The trees are too dense up here,” Lian said, heart pounding. “We can’t see the beacons. We won’t know if the bombers are really coming.”

  “We’re safer here than in the village below,” the old nun called back with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They’re not interested in a small place like Zhongmiao, anyway, not when Hefei is so close.”

  “Keep walking, Miss Hu,” Sparrow said. “There’s nothing else we can do.”

  Lian tried to peer through the canopy of trees as she walked. Aircraft roared overhead and branches rattled as though a storm had rolled in. The nun set a brisk pace and was already far ahead; she hadn’t even bothered to pause when the airplanes flew by. She probably walked this steep trail every day.

  The path ended at a small clearing. The limestone cave’s opening had been widened to a rounded arch, protected by a shallow portico roofed with orange tiles. The glazed tiles were barely visible, covered in moss and smothered beneath a tangle of the same vines that draped the cliffs above. Ducking her head as she entered, Lian found herself inside a high domed cavern.

  There was an altar table in front of a narrow recess in the rock wall. There in the niche, lit by a pair of oil lamps, a statue greeted Lian’s gaze with a sneer. The Goddess of Mercy’s features were as bland as rainwater, but some of the gilt on the statue’s upper lip had flaked away, just enough to twist the benevolent smile.

  The nun placed her bowl on the altar and lit a handful of incense sticks. Then she knelt on a cushioned stool to pray, silently rocking back and forth. A ginger cat came out of the darkness to settle with a supervisory air on the stool. A shadow twitched in the corner but the cat didn’t pay any attention to the small rat crouched there.

  Prayers finished, the nun stood up. She gave the cat a scratch between the ears before putting the bowl on the ground and taking off its lid. The cat jumped off its stool and began to eat with dainty bites. The rat came out of its corner and dipped its head into the bowl. The nun chuckled in delight, pointing at the animals to make sure Lian and Sparrow noticed the two creatures, sharing a meal side by side. She lit a pair of oil lamps and gave them one each. She beckoned and they followed her to the entrance of a passageway.

  “Keep your hand on this rope and you won’t get lost,” she said, pointing.

  Two ropes were tied to a metal ring attached to the wall. One was thick and braided, the other thinner and twisted. The nun put a hand on the thinner rope and pointed again to make sure Lian knew which one to take. She started down the passageway and Lian followed, keeping her hand on the rope, which was strung through a series of metal rings. Soon the only sounds were the nun’s tuneless, repetitive humming and the shuffle of their feet as they moved deeper into the caves. At one point the passage forked and the thin rope ended, tied off on a spike, while the heavy one continued around the corner. On the other side of the fork, another metal ring held the next length of thin rope and they followed it down the second tunnel.

  They emerged into an oblong chamber, its ceiling too high for the small oil lamps to illuminate.

  “The Willow Star and the Prince!” the nun announced, swinging her arm in a wide arc. “Look, look at the paintings!”

  Lian lifted her lamp. The curved limestone walls had been whitewashed to provide a background for the murals. A series of paintings, each inside a black-lined border, covered the longest wall of the cavern. Even in the dim light and from several feet away, Lian could see how rough they were, the figures crude and stiff, the colors tawdry. She stepped closer and it was obvious that the outlines of older images had been traced over inexpertly with a thick brush, the shapes filled in with solid colors, no shading or highlights.

  Some of the background had been spared, however. Lian moved along the wall and found faint details. A delicate clump of irises and gentian, a pair of waterfowl standing atop a rock. The original artist had taken clever advantage of the uneven rock surface so that a goose’s body jutted out while its neck and head pulled back in surprise. A horse’s muscular haunches bulged and a rabbit peeked out from a hole in the limestone.

  “These are not the originals,” Sparrow said, turning to the nun. “When were they painted over?”

  The nun looked offended. “The paintings are renewed whenever we can afford an artist. Anyway, the pictures aren’t important, it’s the story that matters.”

  Sparrow smiled. “You’re right. It’s more important that the legend survives. We thank you for its preservation.”

  There was a sweet, melodious quality to her voice when she said this and Lian saw the nun’s eyes widen. Lamplight played across her elderly features, which softened as though she were a girl again.

  “The murals are from the later decades of the Ming Dynasty,” the nun said, her expression neutral once more as she addressed Lian, “but they say the story of the Willow Star is from before the Tang Dynasty, so the legend itself could be a thousand years old.”

  The nun took Sparrow’s lamp and walked over to the first panel of the mural. The light revealed the outlines of a lake. Beside the lake, a horse paws at the ground, its reins loose. Feet planted in his stirrups, the horse’s rider stands, a young man with his mouth open in admiration. His eyes are fixed on a girl bathing under the shade of a willow. Her nakedness is hidden by the tree’s flowing branches, her hair elaborately dressed with ornaments of stars.

  “You can see why she’s called the Willow Star,” the nun said. “This is their first meeting.” She gestured farther along the wall at another panel where the Prince and the Willow Star sit in a garden pavilion, a chessboard between them. The nun moved to another panel where the Prince kneels on the ground, the executioner’s sword about to touch his neck. In the next panel, the Willow Star is prostrate before the Queen Mother of Heaven, whose hand points at the Wheel of Rebirth.

  “Here the Star is deciding whether or not to take the Queen Mother’s offer,” the nun said. “All mortals must drink the Tea of Forgetfulness between reincarnations to erase memories of their previous lives. So it’s impossible for the Prince to remember her, yet the Star accepts the offer so that she can be with her Prince during each of his lives. Her love is eternal and unconditional.”

  She moved along to the next mural, the colors brighter, painted by a different hand.

  “Now this painting is only two hundred years old, added during the Qing Dynasty,” the nun said. “The Willow Star and the Prince during one of his reincarnations.”

  “This isn’t mentioned in the Legends,” Lian exclaimed. She set her lamp down on the cave floor and pulled a notebook out of her rucksack. “The story in the book ends by saying that the Willow Star hasn’t succeeded yet in getting the Prince to remember. There wasn’t any mention of what happened during their reincarnations.”

  Two young women are pictured running through the streets of a town. It’s raining heavily and they appear to be following a red lantern that hangs in the air, leading the way. One woman is richly dressed, the other wears more simple clothing, but stars are woven into the long braid that hangs down her back. There are three lines inscribed beside the mural.

  In this reincarnation they are born into the same wealthy household, the Prince a cherished daughter, the Willow Star her maidservant. The Prince escapes an unhappy marriage with help from the Willow Star. Mistress and maid grow old together.

  “Oh, this is a real find,” Lian said, pencil scribbling rapidly across her notebook. “It’s so tantalizing and so frustrating not to have more. Do you know any other tales of the Willow Star and the Prince?”

  “I only know what’s here,” the nun said. “Stay and look at the paintings as long as you like.” She handed the lamp back to Sparrow and caught hold of the thin rope. Soon there was only the shuffle of her cloth shoes fading into the p
assageway.

  “I promised to sketch the murals for Professor Kang,” Lian said. “The lamps should be good for another hour, shouldn’t they?”

  “I’ll let you know when we need to leave, Miss Hu,” Sparrow said. “And I’ll hold up the lamps for you.”

  “It makes me want to cry when I think how many stories have been lost from not being written down,” Lian said, pulling a sheet of plain paper from her rucksack.

  “But tales alter over time, anyway,” Sparrow said. “In the marketplace or their own homes, storytellers shape narratives to suit their audience and the times. They add and remove details, even change the moral of the story. Yet each version is authentic.”

  “Sparrow, that’s astonishing.” Lian looked up. “You could research and write an entire thesis on that subject.”

  A peal of laughter, and lamplight wobbled. “Too much work,” Sparrow said.

  “The Willow Star made a bad bargain,” Lian said, turning back to her sketching. “Why did she ever agree to such impossible conditions?”

  “She was only a maidservant negotiating with the Queen Mother of Heaven,” Sparrow said. “Perhaps she believed her love was strong enough to overcome impossible conditions.”

  “And she’s been enduring life after life for a thousand years,” Lian said.

  “But she’s immortal,” Sparrow said. “Maybe immortals feel the passage of time differently than we do. Maybe a hundred years to her is only the blink of an eye, a single beat of the heart.”

  “But still, it can’t be easy,” Lian said. “She’s at the Prince’s side through all his lives, watching him grow up, marry, raise children. Watching him fall in love with mortals.”

  There was a long silence. “I like to think,” Sparrow said, “that while the Willow Star is on Earth, the Prince can’t fall in love with anyone.”

  “The poor Willow Star,” Lian murmured, finishing her sketch of the last mural.

  “But she has hope. And therefore persistence,” Sparrow said. “The persistence of water, no matter how small a trickle, eventually wears a path through rock. And eternity is more porous than rock.”