Once Upon A Time (7) Wild Orchid

by Cameron Dokey

  When Min Xian saw my bruises, she hissed on sympathy and outrage combined.

  “What on earth did you do to acquire those?” she asked, and then raised a bony hand. “On second thought, don’t tell me. I want to be able to answer with a clean heart when Li Po’s mother shows up, demanding if I know what you’ve been up to with her son.”

  “She isn’t going to do that, and you know it,” I answered. I sank into the fragrant bathwater, hissing myself as the hot water found my bruises one by one.

  Li Po’s mother fancied herself a great lady, and she did not care for my friendship with her son. The only thing that kept her from forbidding it altogether was the Hua family name, older and more respected than her own.

  In particular Li Po’s mother feared Li Po and I might follow in my parents’ footsteps and fall in love. If Li Po asked for my hand and my father consented to the match, then his mother would have to accept me as her daughter-in-law whether she liked it or not. Ours was the older, more respected family. Marrying me would be a step up in the world for Li Po.

  The fact that neither Li Po nor I had ever expressed the slightest wish to marry made no difference to his mother. Her son was young and handsome. The two of us had grown up together. Why should the day not come when we would fall in love? But Li Po’s mother believed, as most people did, that love before marriage was not to be desired. It was unnatural; it complicated more things than it solved.

  I wondered how Li Po’s family would feel if they knew about the lessons he gave me, which were every bit as radical as marrying for love.

  I’d never been able to figure out quite how Li Po managed to sneak away to give me lessons he did, but I think it was because his family was more traditional than mine. Where I had only Min Xian and Old Lao, Li Po was surrounded by family, by aunts, uncles, and cousins, all forming one great and complex web where every member of the family knew precisely who they were in relation to everyone else.

  It was both binding and liberating because with so many people around, it was easy for Li Po to slip away from time to time. By the time knowledge of his absence made its way through the family channels. Li Po was back where he belonged. This was the way most families operated. It was mine that fell outside the norm.

  Yet another aspect of my parents’ relationship that made them unusual was that each had been an only child. I had no cousins to run with, no aunties to help raise me, no uncles to help manage my father’s estate while he was away fighting the Huns. I had only servants. The fact that I loved them as family made no difference. We were not true family, not related by blood. Save for my father, I had no one.

  “Li Po’s teaching me how to use a sword,” I told Min Xian.

  “Stop! Enough!” she cried as she began to scrub my back vigorously enough to bring tears to my eyes. “I told you, I do not wish to know.”

  “You do too,” I countered, though my teeth threatened to rattle with the scrubbing. “Otherwise, how will you fuss?” Quick as lightning, Min Xian gave me a dunk. I came up sputtering, wiping water from my eyes.

  “First reading and writing, then archery and riding, and now this,” she went on before I could so much as take a breath to protest, or get a word in edgewise. “What your father will say when he comes home I cannot imagine.”

  “You don’t have to,” I gasped out, as I finally managed to wiggle free and scoot out of the reach of Min Xian’s strong arm. I dunked my own head this time, tossing my hair back as I surfaced.

  “We both know he’ll say nothing at all. My father hasn’t come home once, not in thirteen years. What makes you think he’ll ever come home? If he wanted to see me, he’d have come back long ago.” Min Xian gazed at me, her lips pursed, as if she tasted something bitter that she longed to spit out.

  “Your father serves the emperor,” she said finally. “He has a place, a duty to perform.” She frowned at me, just in case I was missing the point of her words, which, for the record, I was not.

  “As do we all,” she finished up.

  “He’d have come home if I were a boy,” I said sullenly. “Or sent word for me to go to him.”

  He’d have found a way to love me in spite of his sorrow over my mother’s death, if I had been a son.

  “You can’t know what someone else will do ahead of time,” Min Xian pronounced.

  “That’s not what Li Po says,” I countered. “He says his tutor tells him that a man’s actions can be predicted. That you can know what he will do by what he has, and has not, already done.”

  “That sounds like a lot of scholarly nonsense, if you ask me,” Min Xian snorted, “You can never know everything about a person, for we each carry at least one secret.”

  “And what secret is that?” I inquired, intrigued now, in spite of myself.

  “What we hold deep inside our hearts,” Min Xian replied. “Until we release it, no mind can fathom what we will do. Sometimes not even our own.”

  She made an impatient gesture, as if to show she had had enough philosophizing. “The water’s turning cold,” she said. “Rinse the rest of that soap out of your hair. Then come sit by the fire so it can dry.”

  For once I did as Min Xian wished without argument, as she was right. The water did feel cold. But more than that, I obeyed her because she’d also given me something to think about.

  Was there a secret hiding in my father’s broken heart? If so, what was it? Maybe if I could discover what it was, I could finally find the way to make him love me.

  THREE

  Sitting on a low stool before the fire, I thought all evening about what Min Xian had said, my hair fanned out across my shoulders and back as I waited for it to dry. Usually drying my hair drives me crazy. I have to sit still for far too long. My hair is long and thick. It flows down my back like a river of ink. Waiting for it to dry seems to take forever.

  That night, however, I was content to sit still and think.

  What secrets did the hearts around me hold? What secrets did mine hold? Now that I was taking the time to stop and consider, I could see that it was not Li Po’s clever young tutor who understood people best. It was old Min Xian.

  All of us hold something unexpected deep within ourselves.

  Something even we may not suspect or recognize. While our heart’s rhythm may seem steady, so steady that we take it for granted, this does not mean the heart is not also full of wonders and surprises. That it beats in the first place may be the most surprisingly wonderful thing of all.

  Without warning I felt my lips curve into a smile as one of the great surprises of my life popped into my mind, the day Li Po had first offered to share his lessons with me.

  “I know you’re up there, so you might as well come down,” he’d called.

  It was several weeks after that fateful seventh birthday. I was back in the plum tree, of course. Though I was trying my best to master my new assignments, wishing to make my father proud of me even from afar, the bald truth was that I found them boring.

  If I had lived in the city, in Chang’an, my family’s high status would have meant that I might at least be taught to read and write.

  But I did not live in the capital. I lived in the country, and neither Min Xian nor Old Lao could teach me such skills, for they did not know how. My father might have arranged a tutor for me, to remedy the situation, but he did not. On this as on every other aspect of my upbringing he remained silent. I tried to tell myself I did not mind this neglect.

  I have never been very god at lying, not even to myself.

  And so I was left to learning the tasks that Min Xian thought appropriate and could teach me. Of my three main assignments –

  sewing, weaving, and embroidery – I disliked embroidery the most. I simply could not see the purpose of learning all those fine stitches, particularly as I wore plain clothes.

  Most days o wore a long, straight tunic over a countrywoman’s pants, and sturdy shoes that were good foe being outdoors. My closet contained no embroidered slippers with curl
ed toes, no brightly colored silk dresses with long, flowing sleeves and plunging necklines. Nor did I wear hairstyles so elaborate they could be held in place by jeweled or enameled combs – hairstyles bearing names such as yunji,

  “resembling clouds,” or hudie ji, “resembling the wings of a butterfly.” Instead I wore my hair in a long braid that fell straight down the center of my back. Most of the time I looked like a simple country girl, except for the days when I tucked my braid down the back of my tunic to keep it from getting caught on whatever tree I was climbing. On those days I looked like a boy. At no time did I look like the child of one of the greatest generals in all of China.

  So when the day came that my embroidery needle would not cooperate no matter how carefully I tried to ply it – and the needle thrust deeply into one of my fingers, drawing bright drops of blood – I threw both the fabric on which I was working and the needle to the floor in disgust. What difference did it make that I was trying hard to learn my lessons? Trying to make my absent father proud? He was never going to see a single one of my accomplishments, even if I mastered them to perfection.

  He was never going to see me, because I was just a girl, and my father, the great general Hua Wei, was never coming home.

  Leaving my embroidery in a heap on the floor, I left the house.

  As always I headed for the ancient plum tree. It was where I always went when my emotions ran high, both in good times and in bad. And it was there that Li Po found me, for he knew just where to look.

  “I can see you, you know. So you might as well come down.”

  “You can’t either. I’m invisible,” I said. “Now go away and leave me alone.”

  Another person might have taken me at my word, but Li Po did not. Instead he took a seat beneath the tree on a broad, flat rock that rested beside the stream. This was a favorite place, as well. Peering down through the branches, I could see Li Po had a long stick in one hand. He leaned over and began to make markings in the soft, damp earth beside the rock.

  “I can stay here is I want to,” he finally replied. “I’m on my family’s side of the stream.”

  This was true enough, a fact that made me only more annoyed. I was in a mood to argue, not to be reasonable, and certainly not to give in. and my finger hurt, besides.

  “Tell me what you’re doing, then,:” I called down.

  “Why should i?” asked Li Po. He continued moving the stick.

  “You’re invisible, and a grouch.”

  “Try spending your day embroidering birds and flowers and see how you like it,” I said.

  Li Po stopped what he was doing and looked up.

  “Embroidery again? I’m sorry, Mulan.”

  “Yes, well, you should be,” I said, though even as I made my pronouncement, I knew Li Po was trying to make me feel better. The fact that he got to learn to read and write while I had to learn embroidery stitches was not his fault. And suddenly I knew what he’d been doing with the stick.

  “You’re writing – drawing characters – aren’t you?” I asked. “Will you show me how?”

  “I will if you come down,” Li Po replied. “You’ll give me a crick in the neck otherwise, trying to look up at you.” I climbed down. As I’d been practicing this a lot, it didn’t take me very long. Soon I had crossed the stream and was kneeling on the rock beside Li Po, gazing down at the images he’d etched in the mud. I pointed to the closest one.

  “That looks like a man,” I said.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Li Po nodded. “What do you think it represents?”

  I narrowed my eyes, as if this might help me decipher the character’s meaning. It couldn’t simply be “man.” That was too obvious.

  “Is it a particular kind of man?” I asked. “A soldier?”

  “No,” Li Po said. “But you’re thinking along the right lines. Think of something a soldier must have. Not something extra, like a shield or sword, but…” He paused, as if searching for the right term. “An attribute. Something inside himself. Something you can figure out just by looking at the character.”

  Totally engrossed now, I gazed down at what Li Po had created.

  It really did look like a soldier, a helmet on his head, one arm extending out in front, as if to protect his body form a blow. The other hand rested on his hip, as if on the hilt of his sword. Just below it the back leg seemed bent, as if to carry all the weight. The front leg was fully extended, giving the while figure an air of alertness, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

  But try as I might I couldn’t quite make the connection between the form and what it represented.

  “Determination?” I hazarded a guess.

  “Close,” Li Po said. He gave me a sidelong glance, as if to judge my temper. “Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to keep on guessing?”

  “Tell me,” I said at once. I wanted to understand more than I wanted to say I’d figured it out myself.

  “Courage,” Li Po declared, at which I clapped my hands.

  “Of course!” I cried. “He’s not certain what is coming next, so he holds one arm in front to protect himself, but he’s also ready to attack if he need to. Uncertain but prepared. Courageous.” I gazed at the character, as new possibilities seemed to explode inside my head.

  “Does it always make you feel like this?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  By way of an answer I captured Li Po’s hand, pressing his fingers against the inside of my wrist. You could feel my heart beat there, hard and fast, as if I’d just run a race.

  Li Po gave a sudden grin, understanding at once. “Yes,” he said.

  “Every time I grasp a new meaning, it feels just like that.”

  “Can you show me how to draw the character?”

  Li Po placed the stick in my hand and then closed his fingers over mine. “You begin this way,” he said.

  Together we made the stroke that ran straight up and down.

  That seemed to me to be the soldier’s backbone. The rest followed from there. Within a few moments we had reproduced the character together. Li Po took his hand away.

  “Now try it on your own.”

  It was harder than it looked. I performed the motions half a dozen more time before re-creating the character to both Li Po’s satisfaction and my own. I sat back on my heels, the stick still clutched in my fist, gazing at the row of tiny soldiers marching across the earth in front of me.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “Much more beautiful than embroidery.”

  “It wouldn’t look as nice on a dress,” Li Po commented.

  I laughed, too pleased and exhilarated to let his teasing make a dent in my joy.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t own any fancy dresses anyhow.” I poked the tip of the stick into the wet earth, a frown snaking down between my brows.

  “What?” Li Po asked.

  I jabbed a little harder. “Nothing,” I said, which was a big, fat lie. But I wasn’t sure how to ask for what I wanted. Courage, Mulan, I suddenly thought.

  “Willyouteachme?” I asked, the words coming out so quickly it sounded as if they were one. I took a breath and then tried again.

  “The characters you’re learning, will you teach me more of them? I know my father hasn’t said I may, but I want to study them so much and I…”

  All of a sudden I felt light-headed, and so I drew in a breath. “I think it’s what my mother would have wanted.”

  Li Po was silent for a moment. “It must be awful,” he finally said.

  “Not even knowing what she was called.”

  Without warning Li Po sat straight, as if he’d been the one poked with my embroidery needle. “I know,” he exclaimed. “We could make up a name, a secret name, one we’d never tell anyone. That way you’d have something to call her. You’d be able to talk to her, if you wanted to.”

  He squirmed a little on the hard rock seat, as if he’d grown uncomfortable. But I knew that wasn’t it at all. Li Po was excited, just as I
was.

  “If I choose, will you show me how to write it?”

  “I will,” Li Po promised. “Pretend you’re about to make a wish.

  Close your eyes. Then open them and tell me what you want your mother’s name to be.”

  I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes. I listened to the water in the stream. I felt the warmth of the late afternoon sun beating down. And the name popped into my head, almost s sig it had been waiting there all along.

  “Zao Xing,” I said as I opened my eyes. “Morning Star.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Li Po said. “And look, the characters that form it look almost the same.” Quickly he drew them, side by side.

  “Thank you,” I breathed when he was finished. Never had I been given a more wonderful gift. “Thank you, Li Po.” He smiled. “You’re welcome, Little Orchid.”

  I made a rude sound. “I’m big enough to dump you in the stream,” I threatened.

  “Yes, but if you do that, I won’t teach you how to read and write,” Li Po replied.

  I threw my arms around him. “You’ll teach me? Honestly? You’ll teach me everything you learn yourself?”

  “Everything I learn myself,” Li Po promised. “Now and forever.

  You’re my best friend. I love you, Mulan.”