The Concubine's Daughter (32 page)

Wang and his galley boys carried a roasted pig into the house, along with a feast fit for the family of the comprador of a famous company. Firecrackers were lit in an ear-splitting cascade of good luck and prosperity. Inside, the rooms were fresh and clean, with curtained windows and pictures on the walls. In the kitchen, large enough for many guests, the cooking stove already roared beneath large woks filled with fresh noodles, sizzling vegetables, and flavored rice. A table big enough to serve a banquet had been laid with pretty crockery upon a snow-white cloth, with a red
lai-see
packet waiting to be opened beside each bowl.

When all were seated, Li stood at the head of the table. “The lucky money is enough to take a holiday, to seek your
huang-ha
and perhaps find news of family … or just to spend in the village market on whatever may touch the heart. All of this has been made possible by the barbarian you have been warned of, the man called Di-Fo-Lo, whose heart holds all that is best of two great worlds … the world of China and the world outside.”

There was great applause when Li had finished speaking, then one by one the
mung-cha-cha
responded. Each had found a gift to lay before her. Pebble was the first to speak. “May all gods bless the little Crabapple,” she cried, clapping her hands as the other girls stood to join her. “We have little to give, but I have made you a crown of morning stars, each flower a precious gem. And this is the best pebble I could find. It is very old, but the older it gets the stronger it becomes … just like me.” She placed the crown of flowers on Li’s head and a large river stone in her hand. On its polished surface Pebble had etched her
mui-mui
name with the point of her knife.

The river stone was immediately followed by Garlic’s bamboo flute. “Perhaps you will learn to play it one day … and when you do, you will think of me and I will hear its music wherever I am.”

Turtle unfolded her finest silk, displaying its brightness as she placed it around Li’s neck. “And I will always be a part of your peacefulness. This is a happiness silk; you will never be sad when you wear it.”

Mugwort and Monkey Nut presented a pair of sandals, beautifully made from cane grass and stitched with intricate care with stolen strands of silk, with tassels of feathers at the ends of the laces. “Each of us made one, so they may not be exactly the same, but they are true to each other. When you wear them, we will walk with you wherever you go.”

Last to approach her was Giant Yun. It was the first time Li had seen him fully clothed, his huge body clad in the simple dress of a river fisherman. With his head bowed and both arms outstretched, he presented a carrying case of closely woven willow twigs, with plaited straps to keep it secure. Its flap was fastened by a slip of willow, which Li opened to reveal a box of such delicate beauty, the
mung-cha-cha
murmured with wonder. Slid from the safety of its case, the box was no larger than the book of tallies that Ah-Jeh had kept upon her tall desk in the silk room—perhaps three hand spans long, two hand spans wide, and one hand span deep. Shells of every size, shape, and color had been fixed into intricate floral garlands on every corner and panel of its pale yellow wood.

Li lifted the lid to find, laid upon a bed of dried petals, the pearly splendor of a large horse-mussel shell, every inch of it exquisitely carved with miniature images of river life: on one side the grand cascade of the willows, ducks among the reeds, junks and sampans on the water; on the other, the mulberry groves on the hill overlooking the valley, the cart beside them, and two
mui-mui
emptying their baskets. Beneath this, in characters almost too tiny to be read, words spelled out the heart of Giant Yun:

“Making this box and carving this shell gave me endless pleasure. I did not count the hours or the days or the months or the years before it was finished, because time is slow flowing as the river.” These were difficult words for Giant Yun to find, and he hesitated, looking around the ring of faces as though for permission to continue. He saw only the smiles of those who respected him.

“It is made of willow wood and the shells are the gifts of a thousand tides. It is much too pretty for my hut by the river and I have kept it hidden from the
larn-jai
for many years. Now I know that it was meant for you, to hold the things most important to your heart.”

Li bowed to him as she would to any lord, placing the river stone, the happiness silk, and the bamboo flute inside. “No empress was ever given such a sacred box. It will hold all things precious to me and always be filled with treasured memories.”

Li slipped her feet into the woven sandals. “Thank you for all these gifts, which will remain with me forever. I have one final gift for you.” She produced the documents she had purchased from Ah-Jeh. “These are your
sung-tips.
Let us burn them and celebrate your freedom together.”

Once the contracts were merrily set ablaze, the blessing of the House of the Kindly Moon continued long into the evening, and joy flowed unabated without the need of wine.

With silence settled at last and a moon big and round as a goat cheese smiling upon the little house by the river, Ben Devereaux saw the jib sail carefully hoisted and the moorings quietly slipped. At the helm as the ship pulled away, he turned to Li with inquiring eyes. “It sounds as though this day has been a great success. Everything worked just as you planned.” Ben told her that Ming-Chou had been too old and ill to make an appearance, but the terms of the Double Dragon Company had been accepted: The rotting huts of the
mui-mui
would be torn down and replaced by houses of lime-washed brick, with roofs of tile that would not leak in any weather, and with a garden plot for growing vegetables and keeping hens. There would be a bath house with hot water, and once
each week amahs would come to rub their tired backs; and a doctor from the village would tend them when they were sick. There would be fruit and vegetables to eat; salt fish would no longer need to be stolen, nor eels caught to flavor their rice. A visiting tailor would supply them with changes of clothes, for work and for festivals; they would even have a place to wash them and lines to hang them from. A cobbler would make and mend their footwear.

All of these improvements were long overdue and had been accepted in most silk farms in Kwangtung Province. Ben had said that his threat to do no further business with Ming-Chou, and to send inspectors from Macao, had even secured the reluctant agreement to pay a modest wage and to allow the
mui-mui
to visit the village on festive occasions.

Li-Xia smiled at him with shining eyes. “There are no words to tell you what this means to me. It gives purpose and brings light to those things that seemed forever dark. If I live for a hundred years, I can never thank you enough for giving my family their freedom and their dignity.”

Ben nodded his understanding, as
Golden Sky
answered to the helm and a foresail was set to follow the glittering path of the river.

“Go below and get some sleep. Wang will wake you when we approach the Great Pine Farm.”

Li was endlessly grateful for Ben’s tolerance and tact. When she had asked to revisit her past before moving on to their future, his smile had embraced her without reservation. “If these are things that you must do to help make you whole and show you the beginning of happiness, then they are as necessary to me as they are to you.”

Even when she had invited him to be the guest of honor at the opening feast of the House of the Kindly Moon, he had respectfully declined. “The hulking presence of a barbarian, no matter how well meaning, would hamper the freedom of thought and speech that such an occasion deserves.” He kissed her gently and held her for a moment, then drew away, determined to wait for the proper time before yielding to the growing need he felt for her. “There will be other adventures for us to share, but these will never come again. You have earned these moments—enjoy them without interference. They mark the beginning of a new life.”

With the coming of dawn, as they approached the Great Pine Farm, he turned from the helm admiringly when she presented herself for his inspection. “From what little I know of your business here, they do not deserve such grace and intelligence among them, even for a moment.” He sighed with an exaggerated grin. “No comprador of my acquaintance ever looked quite so lovely.” He continued less playfully. “I can only imagine what this visit means to you, but I think I know how very difficult it must be. Remember, if things are not as you would wish them, you only have to call my name.”

Li waited to face her father with no sense of foreboding, only an impatient resolve to achieve what she had come for and be gone forever from his presence. She looked around the trading room, recalling her fifth birthday and the shattering of the happiness tile. His chair did not seem so high and all-commanding as it had on that unhappy day, now appearing shabby, no longer a throne. She chose not to sit upon one of the merchants’ stools assembled around the spice table, determined to make this unpleasant meeting as brief as possible.

She was not kept waiting long before Yik-Munn appeared. He had aged more than she would have imagined: his high-crowned hat, made loose by loss of hair, balanced rather ridiculously upon ears that seemed to have grown larger, their famous Buddha lobes shrunken and no longer godlike. His eyes peered through small round spectacles as if looking for ghosts, with no flicker of his crude energy and pride. Li was curiously untouched by either sympathy or triumph. If anything disturbed her peace of mind, it was her absolute absence of feeling. But it made what she had to say and do much easier.

Like Ah-Jeh, Yik-Munn did not recognize the young woman who stood before him, knowing only that she had been announced as a representative of a Macao trading company wishing to speak to him on urgent business. For a comprador, she was uncommonly young and pleasing to the eye. Taller than most and shapely in an elegant cheongsam of turquoise-blue silk, she carried an ivory fan, and a folded yellow
sunshade laid beside her matched the iris in her hair. A surge of pleasure at this lightly perfumed vision made Yik-Munn acutely aware of his advancing years.

Li looked upon her father as a forgotten stranger. “I do not expect you to recognize me. I am your daughter, the one you called Li-Xia, the Beautiful One, the daughter of Pai-Ling Ling.” She did not wait for his look of disbelief to be followed by myopic recognition, or the croak in his scraggy throat to form words she had no wish to hear. Only his magnificent teeth remained untouched by the passing of time, but while these had retained their artificial shape and size, his mouth had not. It was hard to tell if his grimace was caused by astonishment or pain.

“I am here to tell you what you must do if you are to save face, or else forever damn the name of Yik-Munn. I bring no hatred or thoughts of revenge, nor do I seek anything that is beyond my right as the daughter of a well-respected man and a member of an honorable family.” Yik-Munn could neither smile nor sneer, his watery eyes as fearful as if the spirit of the fox fairy had finally returned to punish him.

“I suggest that you listen and carry out my wishes without delay. You will provide a palanquin to carry me to the ginger field. You will take me to my mother’s grave and swear before all gods that this is where she lies. You will have your sons fetch stones for the best artisans to erect a tomb over her resting place without disturbing her remains. You will have them carve this upon its entrance in Hunan marble in both Chinese and English.”

She gave him a slip of paper, which he reached for with a trembling hand, fumbling with his spectacles. “I will tell you what it says: