The Concubine's Daughter (46 page)

Taking her place beside Siu-Sing, the old woman removed the beaded
baby sling from the basket. “This is the sling I made for your mother to carry you on her back through the Ti-Yuan gardens. It brought you here safely, along with other precious things.” Reaching into the sling, the Fish withdrew a bundle wrapped in yellow silk.

“Today is your tenth birthday—the age of maturity; you are no longer a child but a young woman of responsibility. I was tempted many times to give you these things sooner, but your mother was sure of her wishes. She wanted you to be old enough to receive them as she did … not as toys or playthings, but as her greatest treasures. These small things come to you with endless love. They are rightfully yours now.”

Unwrapping the yellow silk robe, so fine she could see her fingers through it, Siu-Sing found a small white satin purse, a photograph in a silver frame, two fat books tied in a scarf of embroidered silk, and a leather pouch. The books were almost the same size, one with a cover of scarlet leather closed by a gold clasp, the other much older and carefully made by clever hands. From the silver frame, a Chinese woman with a radiant smile gazed back at her, the man beside her strange beyond any Siu-Sing had seen. “It is your father and mother, Siu-Sing—Master Ben and Li-Xia.

“Your mother was as
lieng
as any flower but strong as the tallest tree. Your father comes from another land far away, but his mother was Chinese. He is known as Di-Fo-Lo to our people and as Devereaux to the Westerners … Captain Ben Devereaux. He is a brave and successful man who loved your mother greatly.”

From the silk purse, Siu-Sing lifted a gold coin threaded upon a fine chain. “Your mother collected a thousand pieces of gold in her lifetime. This is the first of them, the one she treasured above all others. Your father gave it to her; from this coin he built a fortune, beautiful ships and fine houses. For a while they shared the greatest of all dreams … the dream of happiness.”

Also contained in the purse was a finger jade as white as suet that, when held up to the light, was shot with red and orange streaks. “It is called an orange-peel jade, and is very rare. This belonged to your grandmother, Pai-Ling, one with lotus feet from a fine family in Shanghai. It
was passed on to your mother, who held it tightly in her hand when she was lonely and afraid. She said it brought her comfort, and the spirit of her mother would always come to her.”

The Fish shook her head sadly, as though the recollection were too difficult to contemplate, then quickly found her twinkling smile. She handed Siu-Sing the scarlet book, its leather cover decorated with peony flowers. Siu-Sing’s fingertips glided across the letters stamped in gold, soft and smooth to her touch.

“It is your mother’s name as spoken by your father … he called her Lee Sheeah.” Opening the clasp, Siu-Sing was delighted to find its pages filled with the beautiful writing of two worlds, edged with delicate paintings; drawings, tiny yet perfect, some in finest brush, others even finer from the nib of a pen; among them leaves and petals pressed to last forever. “Your mother told me that these are the leaves of the mulberry tree—a special one she called the Ghost Tree. The flowers are called morning stars; she wore them in her hair when she married your father.”

The Fish was silent while Siu-Sing turned the pages as though each were a leaf of pure gold. “It is your mother’s journal. She said it contained her ‘thousand pieces of gold’ for you to share. She wrote in it every day in the last months of her life.” The Fish took a long and painful breath. “I think she knew her time was short, and wrote this for your eyes alone.”

Sing opened the second book. Its yellowed pages were equally beautiful, but in a different hand; the watercolors faded, the stitching broken and pages loose. “This is the journal of your grandmother Pai-Ling. Li-Xia treasured this book when she was your age.” The Fish shook off her somber tone. “The scarf was also of great importance to her; she called it her happiness silk, and would tie it in her hair when sadness or worry came.”

Sing studied the minute needlework of groves of trees, tiny figures bearing baskets on their backs, and squirrels and finches around its edges. She could find no words for such a moment and closed the books, wrapping them in the happiness silk. The smoothness of the finger jade
felt like warm satin in her palm. She looked for a long time at the photograph in its tarnished silver frame.

“There is one more thing I am to give you,” the Fish said. “I do not know its purpose or its value, but she said you would discover this for yourself.” The object, held in a pouch of soft leather, was heavy in Sing’s hand. Inside, she found a gold dragon’s claw set with a number of steel pins.

The Fish said gently, “The day will come when we must leave the lake and travel to the Golden Hill on the other side of the mountains. It was your mother’s last wish that you be re united with your father. You are preparing long and hard for this great journey, and I have kept these precious things safe for these ten years.”

She embraced Sing, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “I will leave them with you … they are not for sharing, even with me. When you are ready, we will replace them in the chest of stone and I will teach you the puzzle of the locks. But now let us drink tea while I tell you everything there is to know about Li-Xia and Master Ben.”

Training with her beloved
si-fu
continued through blizzard cold, blinding rain, and savage heat. In the Place of Clear Water, Siu-Sing studied at the jade table, often with the Fish at her side. The old lady never interfered, but was always happy to speak when words were needed; always ready with a basket of food—sticky rice wrapped in spinach leaves, steamed bread and green tea in a wicker warming pot—close by.

The Fish seemed seasoned but undiminished by each passing year. On this peaceful afternoon, her grip upon the
yulow
, the long sculling oar that almost seemed part of her, was as firm and strong as ever, as she propelled the flat boat through the marsh to empty the crab pots for the evening meal.

The flat blade of the oar stirred lazy swirls of water; the reed beds whispered with their passing; and sometimes a spoonbill rose suddenly to beat the air with sturdy wings. The first pot yielded two crabs, which soon lay flapping wildly on the bottom boards, their pincers tied with
reed. But the Fish found the second pot empty, hauled up and abandoned, its trap wide open.

“The reed-cutters are thieves and liars; they steal from our pots and swear before all gods that they do not.” The Fish uttered a string of Tanka curses that could raise the dead, before resetting the wicker pot with fresh bait. “Your
si-fu
gives them herbs they cannot pay for and tends their ills, yet they steal the food from his table. Two crabs and three small fish are not enough.” Angrily, she drove the
yulow
deep into the mud and tethered the sampan, sliding her bare feet into the shallows, sending up ochre plumes of silt. From the bottom of the boat, she took two wide-mouthed nets fixed to slender bamboo poles, tossing one to Siu-Sing.

“Let’s see if we can catch some shrimp or maybe a flatfish. I will take the deeper shoal; you can try close to the shore.” She waded into uncut reeds that closed upon her like a screen. Her words drifted back: “We’ll meet back here in no more than half an hour to see what we have caught.”

The water was pleasantly cold around Sing’s knees, the yellow clouds of silt stirring with every stealthy step. Sunlight had penetrated the marsh on its downward track when she decided it was time to return to the sampan. She was accustomed to measuring the time by the passage of the sun and was seldom mistaken. Her net sagged and wriggled with a lively eel—a favorite when stewed with black beans and peppercorns.

She followed the mud trail to the sampan easily, emptying her catch alive and cleaning the net of weed. Any moment she would hear the Fish’s voice returning, grumbling about the reed-cutters frightening the fish and cursing the boatmen for dredging the marsh. Hearing nothing but a distant chorus of herons settling on the sandbars, she called aloud, “Paw-Paw, the tide is turning. It is time to go.
Paw-Pawww
.”

She followed her call with the cry of a marsh hen, a signal they used to locate each other in the reed beds. Once, twice, and a third time more loudly. Never had she known the lake more silent, and never had she not immediately heard the answering call.

At first Siu-Sing was not alarmed. Perhaps Paw-Paw had lost her way,
or chased a crab or an eel large enough to lead her into deeper waters. The trail of bent reeds was as easy to follow as a goat track, the mud still settling as Siu-Sing waded strongly into the thicket, her calls louder with every swishing step. Gradually, the water deepened, until it was halfway up her thighs. It was no longer clear and astir with teeming life, but darker and colder where the sun did not reach.

Self-control did not allow for great alarm, but the voice of Master To came to Siu-Sing, first as a whisper, then growing louder as the water deepened:
The crane was content to live quietly in the marsh, to build its nest in the rushes and to dry its wings on the sandbar. But the tiger came seeking the crane in the reed bed and tried to destroy her… .

Her calls remained unanswered. When the sun told her it had been more than an hour since they had left the sampan to go their separate ways, a chill of fear took hold of her heart. Suddenly she saw Paw-Paw’s woven hat, sodden so completely it would no longer float, lying still beneath the surface. She lifted it clear of the water, her throat so tight and her mouth suddenly so dry that she could not find the voice to cry out.

She did not need to wade much farther before spotting the wide-legged pants and sleeves of Paw-Paw’s loose-fitting
sam-foo
, billowing with so much water that they made her widespread limbs seem no bigger than a child’s. The Fish was afloat facedown, blending with the muddy waters, the empty fishnet at her side.

Siu-Sing fell to her knees, gathering up the lifeless weight almost too heavy to lift clear of the water. The Fish’s mouth gaped open, a thin swath of hair plastered across her closed eyes. Water cascaded from her clothing as Sing half carried, pushed, and pulled her into the shallows. Beneath her hand the heart was still, her thin wrist lifeless. Shaken by sorrow such as she had never known, Siu-Sing willed the warmth of her own chi to enter the saturated body, begging the gods that had watched over this great lady for so long to bring her back, to help pull the boat from the water, and leave her footprints in the sand.

Siu-Sing did not call for help. She knew Master To was too far away to hear her, and any reed-cutter or boatman within earshot would not heed the cry of a
jarp-jung
. Siu-Sing could only hold the Fish tightly,
whispering her good-byes. Pressing lifeless fingers to her lips, through the mist of tears she saw that the jade birth bracelet, so much a part of this brave soul that it was never to be removed even in death, was missing.

When Master To found them at dawn, Siu-Sing was sitting silently beside the body. She had straightened the old lady’s limbs and cleaned her face and hair of weed and silt, arranging her clothing and placing a garland of flowers in her hands. “I did not want the land crabs to find her,” she said simply, as he lifted the body of his cousin and carried it up the slope to the Place of Clear Water.

“She will rest here in eternal peace and happiness, and continue to watch over you,” he said. “All that you strive to learn she will share, as she has done since you were born.” They made a coffin of bamboo, and dug a grave facing the lake. Together he and Siu-Sing carried many large and heavy rocks to cover her resting place, piling them high as protection against wild things. Over these, the rich soil of the glade was planted with flowers that flourished in such shaded corners. Before it, Siu-Sing laid a garden of stones collected from the pond, each selected for its perfect shape and color.

They knelt before the finished tomb and Master To took Siu-Sing’s hand. “Your
paw-paw
’s age was great and her spirit even greater. She was not ill, but her heart had carried much … perhaps more than it should. Be happy that she is now at rest, yet forever with us.” They spoke no more of the Fish’s sudden death, and did not question the reed-cutters or the boatmen. Sing continued her studies in the Place of Clear Water, fetching fresh fruit and flowers each day and trying to forget the puzzle of the jade bracelet.