Along the River (6 page)

I try to help them sometimes, but Gege always shoos me away. Gege was born in the Year of the Ox, whereas Ah Li was born in the Year of the Rabbit. Although Gege is two years older, Ah Li is half a head taller and already has fine hair growing above his upper lip. He has tousled, dark brown hair, big round eyes and a prominent but crooked nose. Old Ah Wang
, Baba’s number-one manservant, calls him
Da Bi Zi
(Big Nose).

Ah Wang has worked for us since Baba himself was a baby. He’s always scolding Ah Li for laziness. Ah Li enjoys gardening but hates cooking, doing laundry and dusting and cleaning.

Like Gege, Ah Wang was also born in the Year of the Ox, four
sheng xiao
cycles (forty-eight years) earlier. Like most Ox people, he is strong-willed and stubborn. Ah Wang is a foot shorter than Ah Li, with bow legs and a bald head fringed by wisps of white hair. Something’s wrong with his back because he’s unable to stand up straight, and he walks with his shoulders hunched and his head bent forward at all times. The boys don’t like him, and call him Hunchback.

Ah Li tries to avoid Ah Wang as much as possible. He spends his time tending the flowers and shrubs in the courtyards, walking around with his hands in his pockets and whistling as if he’s lord of all under Heaven. Gege often saunters into the garden to “help” Ah Li, instead of doing his homework and studying the Confucian classics.

At times, Ah Wang reports Gege’s truancy to Baba. He says Ah Li is a bad influence and will make Gege fail the
Jin Shi
(Imperial Examination). Baba usually laughs and says that Gege understands how important the examinations are and will not dishonour the Zhang family by failing. He also says that someone who carves jade as well as Ah Li must be intelligent. However, to stop Ah Wang from complaining to Niang, he forbids the boys from playing in the garden where Ah Wang can see them. So the two boys begin spending time in Ah Li’s garden shed, where he sleeps.

While they are in there, instead of memorizing Confucian sayings and composing essays, Gege and Ah Li make amazing objects such as wooden flowers, bamboo cups, paper-cuts, clay figures and stone sculptures. They laugh and joke and have so much fun that I can’t resist going there myself.

Under Ah Li’s direction, Gege and I have become willing helpers in transforming his shed into a playhouse. First we clean out the rubbish and sweep the earthen floor. Beneath the window, we erect a platform of long, wooden planks and cover it with bamboo matting to transform it into a sort of bed for sleeping, sitting or jumping. Against the wall, we build a large wooden box with a lid, for storage. Finally, we help him make a round table by placing a large slice of polished tree trunk on a flat piece of beveled stone. Outside the hut, we frame the door with two rows of bamboo trunks of equal height and roundness. We put two wooden benches facing the garden with their backs to the bamboo. Throughout the monthlong process, Ah Li directs us like a general, placing a piece of stone here, or removing a shrub there. He emphasizes over and over that
space
and
voids
are as important as flowers and trees in the creation of beauty and harmony.

We spend many happy hours creating our playhouse in the garden, but one day we look up and see Ah Wang’s beady little eyes glaring at us through the window.

“Looks like trouble ahead,” says Gege. As usual, he’s right.

Painting Lessons

A
h Wang tells Niang about us. He says that Gege is wasting time with Ah Li, and that I’m encouraging them. Niang scolds me and gives me her usual lecture—the one where she says: “Isn’t it enough that you’re rebellious, lazy, ugly and unfilial? Do you have to prevent Gege from studying as well?” Then she gives me a slap (which I was expecting) and follows it with a painful, sly pinch (which I wasn’t). The worst bit is that she tells Baba, who gets really cross. As punishment, he orders Gege to spend more time practicing his
shu fa
(calligraphy) so his handwriting will impress the Imperial Examiners.

The lucky part of the whole business, though, is that Baba doesn’t tell us we have to stop spending time with Ah Li. So, the next afternoon, when Ah Li has finished his chores and Gege has recited his Confucian sayings, we meet up.

“It’s just not fair,” Gege says, kicking the stone support under the table. “I’m sick of practicing my
shu fa
—it’s boring. I’d much rather paint pictures of objects I can see.”

“It’s all Niang’s fault,” I say. “She hates it if we have any fun at all.”

“How does
she
know what you do?” Ah Li asks. “She doesn’t leave her rooms often enough to find out, does she?”

“I think she pays Ah Wang to tell her exactly what’s going on in the house. A few days ago I saw him speaking to her at her door, and he was jingling coins in his pocket.”

Ah Li laughs. “I’m amazed she has to pay Ah Wang—I’m sure he’d gladly tell tales on me for nothing. Anyway, what’s so bad about learning
shu fa
? You’re lucky to get the chance. I’ve always wanted to learn how to read and write.”

“And you’re lucky you don’t have to do it!” Gege retorts. “But if you are so keen to learn, then I can teach you. I won’t be the best teacher, but I can show you the basics.”

Ah Li looks delighted, so I help Gege carry the four “scholars’ treasures”
(wen fang si bao
—ink-stick, ink-stone, brush and paper) to Ah Li’s shed, and place them on the big round table. We show Ah Li how to make fresh ink by grinding the ink-stick in water, against the ink-stone.

Gege moistens his brush with ink, and teaches Ah Li the correct way of holding the brush vertically between his third and fourth fingers. He begins with a few simple characters such as
xin
(heart),
Tian
(Heaven),
ren
(man) and
li
(strength). To our amazement, from his first stroke, Ah Li’s
shu fa
looks far better than Gege’s or mine, even though he has never done this before. Unlike my childish squiggles or Gege’s impatient scrawls, Ah Li’s
da zi
(big characters) are balanced, harmonious and imbued with emotion. For instance, the three dots and single curved line in Ah Li’s word
xin
(heart) appear to have emerged from his very own heart through the power and velocity of his brush.