The Concubine's Daughter (6 page)

When she had gone, Li-Xia whispered Ah-Su’s name many times, then hid it away among the special secrets of her heart.

She found strength in the secrecy and the silence of her solitude. She remembered the cold wet feel of the mustard field beneath her toes and how butterflies had drifted from the ginger blossom at her passing. Soon she could pass through the curtain of pain into the perfumed shroud of white, where she could see her mother cloaked in silver by the moon. Sometimes, as she drifted into sleep, she heard a comforting voice that
pushed back the shadows:
You are not alone. Ah-Su is my friend and will watch over you if she can. She will not let them take away your right to walk alone. Without your precious feet, you will always belong to others and never journey through life on your own.

My heart beats with your heart. Your pain is my pain and your happiness will always be my happiness. We will journey together and share all things.

Although this comfort came only in thoughts and dreams, Li-Xia found herself believing that one day her mother would open the door to take her by the hand. Together they would run far away from Yik-Munn and his wives and the great pine that towered like a watchful giant.

Sometimes, when other eyes were turned away, Number Three would kiss Li-Xia lightly on the head, or squeeze her hand with a swiftly stolen smile. Their secret passed between them like a precious coin, hidden in the palm of her tightly closed fist, glimpsed and then gone but firmly held.

It was Ah-Su who wound the bandages, pushing a finger down so that they were not bound quite as tightly when she pulled it out. She would do this while joining the impatient chatter of the other wives.

“Stay still. You wriggle like a worm under the hoe. A fat hen ready for market could not squawk so loudly. It will be easier if you stay still and keep quiet.” It became clear that Number Three could manage Li-Xia with very little fuss. One and Two would stand aside, leaving her to deal with the little demon alone, until after a while they did not even wait until the binding was finished to leave; it had all become too irksome.

One day, Ah-Su opened the shed door quietly and alone in the very early morning. Through the open door the fields were thickly layered with mist, the ducks were still silent, and the cockerels had not yet crowed. She brought warm goat’s milk and a pickled hundred-year egg with a steamed bun filled with minced pork. Under her arm she carried a large bundle of rolled-up clothing fastened with a strap.

“These things belong to your mother. You must keep them safe. Hide
them well, but if they are found, tell no one that it was I who gave them to you or I will not be allowed to see you.”

Ah-Su knelt and held Li-Xia’s face in her gentle hands.

“Her name is Pai-Ling. She comes from Shanghai and is very clever—a great scholar who studied the moon and learned to read the secrets of the stars. In this bundle you will find books and papers that she has written and drawings she has made with her own hand. But she has lotus feet, and that is why she cannot come to you. Perhaps she hides somewhere in the ginger field; it is a beautiful place, always fragrant and ever peaceful. She wears a gown of white and breathes the sweetness of ginger blossoms. You need not be sad.”

“Will I find her there?”

Ah-Su lowered her eyes and shook her head.

“I don’t know. Perhaps she will stay there forever; perhaps sometimes she will visit her mother the moon, but she is very brave and very happy. She has told me that you are as precious to her as a thousand pieces of gold, and that you must always remember this and be strong, as she is strong.”

“Number-One Auntie says she is sometimes in the spirit room—the place where all ancestors gather, behind the big wooden door. Will I find her there?”

Ah-Su smiled sadly and placed her arm around Li-Xia’s shoulders as she sought an answer.

“Perhaps sometimes she may be summoned there. It is better you do not seek her; just know she watches over you.”

Then Ah-Su was gone and the door closed before more could be said.

Li-Xia removed the strap, unrolling the clothing to find many paper pages stitched together into books hidden inside. They were more carefully wrapped in a robe of fine yellow silk. She unfolded the other garments one by one. They were not pretty clothes—brown, dark green, or black, the colors of unhappiness. She could smell traces of her mother—an elusive hint of rosemary oil and powdered spice. She buried her face in each garment, imagining her mother’s skin in the heat of summer
and bitten by winter winds. But the soft yellow silk in their center nestled like a secret heart, stronger and happier than its drab surroundings, and its scent was of jonquils in springtime.

She held it close, until through her sadness the calming voice told her not to cry, but to be strong and make her ancestors proud. As if to confirm her mother’s nearness, something dropped from the folds of silk to glow like a jewel in her lap.

Light from the window fell upon a finger jade of great beauty—milky white with streaks of orange. No bigger than the smallest mouse, it was carved in the shape of a moon bear. Years of contact with her mother’s hand had made it silken smooth and a pleasure to touch.

Her joy at the unexpected gift made her search more thoroughly for other hidden treasures. Eagerly, patiently, she felt among the folds of a padded jacket and discovered something hard and square stitched deep in its lining. She unpicked the stitches, revealing a small book, its many pages covered with the strokes and circles, dashes and dots, squiggles and squares of Chinese writing; row after row, each character so small and perfect it made a tiny picture of its own.

It was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.

After endless days and nights measured by light through the window, Li-Xia could rub her feet and stand up, until enough circulation had returned for her to take a step, and then another, and another. Each night she walked a little farther, first only one length of her bed space, then twice and three times, until she could walk around it ten times … then twenty times … and, with great patience, one hundred times.

She hid the bundle in a secret place where the wives would have to search to find it. There was little chance of this; they were so anxious to leave her each time, they did not look around, nor did they notice that the fox fairy’s feet were not as deformed as they should be. Believing their charge was not able to stand and certainly not to walk—and if she crawled, where could she go?—they no longer bothered to lock the door.

When Li-Xia could walk around her room many times, she unlatched the door, stepped into the night, and, quietly as a fox, entered the darkened kitchen. Crossing the stone floor, the flagstones cold beneath her bare feet, she walked through the passageway that led to the spirit room, until she stood before its great wooden door. This was the place she had heard was occupied by the gods, and where the ancestors dwelled. A fearsome door guardian on either side stared down at her, daring her to enter uninvited.

She did not look at them as, in breathless silence, she lifted the heavy latch and opened the door just wide enough to slip inside. A single red candle burned in a pool of wax upon the altar. “Mah-Mah,” she whispered, and waited. When the shadows did not answer, she called again, a little louder, “Mah-Mah … Mah-Mah … are you in here?”

Trapped smoke made her want to cough and blurred her vision. She rubbed her eyes, and as if by magic, the gods appeared before her in the dull red light from coils of joss sticks burning overhead. First she saw Kuan-Yin, the beautiful goddess of mercy, clasping the vase of compassion, her feet upon a lotus flower. Around her were the eight immortals, fearless guardians of her realm. They glowered at Li-Xia with bulging eyes and bared teeth.

She could see that they were made of wood and painted many colors beneath their coats of sooty dust. The corners were empty, but in the flickering light, stern faces of people long dead looked down at her.

As her eyes became adjusted to the light, they fell upon something more—items of great beauty and in all the colors of the rainbow: a mansion house, a beautiful carriage, many servants, and stacks of paper money. These were the things that were sent to heaven with special prayers to comfort those who had gone away.

First, she took the paper money and the red candle and, with a prayer heard only by herself, burned the heaven banknotes one by one. When they were gone in a tree of sparks, she set fire to the mansion, stepping back from its blaze to watch the paper walls and windows flare and crumble into ash. Onto this she added the carriage, and then the servants,
one by one. When the last black crisp had settled in the censer and she was sure no one lived in the spirit room, she blew out the candle and quietly left the sleeping house … out through the passageway, to where the mustard field was white with rising mist.

The earth was cold and wet. Her toes squished deliciously in the mud, and she wriggled them for many moments, then started to walk. There was only one purpose to her journey—to place one foot before the other, taking her away from the dark room and the smell of incense and the gods that could not see her, did not hear her, and would not tell her where her mother was. And from the women who brought her cold rice and hurt her feet.

Yik-Munn returned to the farm when he heard of the fox fairy’s escape. Sending his sons to search the fields, he entered the spirit room to beg forgiveness for allowing the fox fairy to run away—to find it bare of the offerings he had so prudently set aside for the passing of the great Goo-Mah. He fell to his knees.

It must not be known in the village that the fox fairy was loose and had defied the guardians of the spirit room, or his face would also be as paper, burned to ashes and blown by a thousand winds. A man who could not control his own family was also a man who could not satisfy his mistress or live in his own house without enraging his ancestors. He dared not lose this child and must not beat her as he should. Instead, he beat his wives until they kowtowed for his mercy.

The sons of Yik-Munn trod the furrows, cursing every step until they found her, gone to ground like a fox in the middle of the field.

Having heard of this terrible thing, Goo-Mah had the fox fairy brought before her, mud-caked and shivering.

“You were bad to run from those who feed you. Again, you have made the ancestors angry. You shame the house that gives you shelter, you insult the proud name of this family, and you break the heart of your poor father.”

She sat up in her bed, her wig heavy with ornaments, unsteady in her anger.

Li-Xia tried to keep her voice respectful, but felt no regret.

“My mother is not in the spirit room but lost in the ginger field. I must find her.”

Goo-Mah flapped her hand as though brushing away a bothersome fly.

“You are an ungrateful little witch. The wives come to bind your feet so that you may one day dance upon the golden lotus—to prosper as I have prospered, to have power as I have power. Do you thank them? You do not; you run from them like a cunning fox.”

“Forgive me, Great-Auntie. I do not want a fine gentleman who wants me only for my broken feet. I do not want to be like you. I do not want feet that smell like donkey dung.”

Goo-Mah sat forward from her pillows with such a spurt of fury, the heavy wig slipped and fell, rolling to the floor like a severed head. A large brown cockroach, fat with eggs, scuttled from its stiff, matted coils. The gold bracelets and jade bangles clattered on her arms as she tried to salvage her wig, her head as hairless as a newborn bird.

“Take her away!” she shrieked. “Get her out of my sight! To have lotus feet is an honor she no longer deserves. Lock her up and tell my brother to get rid of her. Who knows what this will bring? She is useless as her ungrateful mother, unworthy of this house.”

Her screeching followed Yik-Munn’s sons as they dragged Li-Xia down the stairs. They did not know that Great-Aunt had choked on her own bile and fallen back in all her finery, her frenzied heart finally stopped like an ancient clock.