Daughter of the Bamboo Forest

by Sheng-Shih Lin;Julia Lin

  ***

  The waiting room had been lit by glaring fluorescent lights. His mother-in-law had risen from a wooden bench to greet him. A boy, she said, grinning at him earnestly. The bright light cut harsh lines on her face. An Ling felt his own face smiling as he asked to see his son. He was told to wait, for now the newborn was sleeping. He thought how pleased his mother would have been, and his grandfather as well. An Ling was suddenly optimistic. He would start a new life, just as his ancestors had done generations ago.

  ***

  For the past weeks, An Ling had been reading in the newspaper about the plague. The article was contained in a small square at the corner of the paper, almost unnoticeable. Now, the Japanese controlled most of the Chinese language newspapers and filled them with shocking headlines, “The glorious Japan Empire is victorious!” one headline declared, its propaganda presented in giant red block characters.

  The map of China, in the shape of a maple leaf, was steadily being diminished by areas marked: “Japanese Empire” shaded in red, the color of the rising sun of Japan. An Ling grew numb and fearful, hoarding food and coal in the back room of his rented house, and making plans to leave for the south as soon as Silver Pearl was well enough to travel. He knew that all modes of transportation to the countryside had been cut off. Refugees from the north flooded the city, bringing with them unspeakable tales. People were starving in the countryside. Hungry people were digging up new graves to eat the dead.

  An Ling was afraid to think of Little Jade. No one knew what had happened in the villages infected with plague. No one wanted to know.

  An Ling sighed. Looking around the room, he saw the gray walls and the landlord’s heavy rosewood furniture. Old newspapers and movie magazines piled up in one corner. His mother-in-law served him a cup of Oolong tea and sat down across from him, as if waiting to talk. An Ling’s mouth felt dry. He sipped the tea carelessly, burning his tongue. Abruptly, he hurled the teacup on the floor, shattering it. His mother-in-law excused herself and disappeared. An Ling closed his eyes, pressing his hands against his temples.

  Silver Pearl entered the room, dragging her slippers against the wooden floor. She wore a loose-fitting purple robe. Her large eyes had sunk into their sockets. Silver Pearl looked at the broken teacup on the floor. She said, “You shouldn’t smash that teacup in front of my mother.” An Ling refused to look at her. He threw an arm over his face. “Don’t talk to me,” he said.

  Silver Pearl saw him sitting before her, covering his face like a child afraid of being hit. She felt a tenderness springing within her. She reached out and touched his hand. An Ling shook off her hand. Silver Pearl stiffened. She sat down on a chair and said, “An Ling, we’ve been waiting for you and worrying because you took so long. It’s dangerous outside the city limits. And the minute you get home you break the tea cup.” She paused but could not suppress a sudden rage. She blurted out as her face turned red, “Just like your daughter!”

  “Leave me alone, Silver Pearl!” An Ling shouted, holding his head as if in pain.

  Startled, Silver Pearl looked at him and said, “Why are you screaming at me? What have I done? We’ve been worrying. Anything could have happened to you. How come it took you so long to bury...,” her voice trailed off and grew silent.

  Silver Pearl started to sob. “Our son is dead and all you can do is yell at me. My mother says that Little Jade put the stool where it tripped me. It’s her fault.” Silver Pearl wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s your daughter’s fault. She broke that teacup on our wedding day and brought bad luck on me. She deserves to die—just like my son!”

  Silver Pearl felt someone grab her hair in one jolt, jerking her head backward. Her face was slapped to one side, then the other. She was dizzy and she could not see.

  “When will you stop? What a poisonous tongue you have! How can you curse a little girl like an enemy? Wishing her dead? You are a stupid woman!” An Ling’s eyes reddened and he pushed Silver Pearl away.

  Silver Pearl’s mother ran to her and held her. “Are you mad?” she asked them. “Aiya, what a time to fight! I beg you to stop fighting.”

  Silver Pearl’s cheeks were swollen. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She lay on the floor, wailing: “I don’t want to live anymore! Go ahead and kill me! My mother didn’t raise me to be beaten by you. An Ling, you’re a coward. If you care so much about your daughter, why did you leave her at home? You have no heart. You don’t care for your daughter, you don’t care for anyone. I curse her because she cursed me! Go ahead and kill me! My son is dead and I don’t want to live anymore.”

  An Ling stood up, exhausted, leaning against the wall. He buried his face in his hands, sobbing. His shoulders shook uncontrollably. The mother knelt next to her daughter, muttering, “Stop babbling, Silver Pearl. Let’s go inside.”

  With her hair all over her damp face, Silver Pearl sat on the floor and wept, “You can’t shut me up, An Ling. Where is your precious daughter? Where is my son? Haven’t you heard that there is a plague? The entire village has died off. You’re afraid to go back because you’re afraid to die. You know Little Jade is already dead. The paper said no one survived. It’s too late, An Ling. Why don’t you stab me with a knife? I’m dying anyway, bleeding all the time. All of us will die soon, except for you. You’re too selfish to die.”

  “Silver Pearl, stop talking like this!” the mother pleaded.

  “No, Mother!” Her voice bit at An Ling and did not let go. “Are you crying now, An Ling? I hope you are. I didn’t see you cry a tear when our son died. Why are you crying now? Why? Yes, I want to talk loud and clear anywhere I go. I’ll tell it to the Buddha when I die...” She shook violently, gasping.

  “Are you finished?” An Ling said with hatred, tears streaming down his face. “Very well, I’ll leave to find Little Jade right now. You think she is dead, but I think she is still alive, waiting for me. You evil woman! How can you curse her life? If Little Jade is dead, what about your father? Do you wish him dead too? I’m going back to find them. If I don’t find Little Jade, I will not come back.”

  ***

  Alone in the bedroom, Silver Pearl put her favorite gown over her head, slipping into it quickly. Her skinny arms slipped out of the armholes, rising above her head, white against the dimness of the room—like the outstretched arms of someone drowning. Loose black hair shook away from her yellow face as it emerged from the lush colors of the gown. The fabric was woven under the tropical sun of a distant island. It had a bold mix of deep fuchsia, canary yellow and the overlapping bright green of the ferns that paved the belly of a jungle. Gold threads had been woven through the fabric like traces of sun shooting through a dense forest. The stiff mandarin collar scratched her neck and she frowned, smoothing the gown with her hands. Silver Pearl’s fingers ran over the decorative bottoms made of sparkling crystals that dotted diagonally from her throat to the side seam under her right arm. The buttons glinted in the dying light of the room like precious stones excavated from the depth of a mine. A sense of loss came over her as her fingers slowly pressed over her chest. With fingers resting over her breasts, she imagined two jets of thin milk spraying out of her nipples penetrating the night, and feeding her son in the world of the dead.

  Chapter 11: The Plague 1943

  The bed was dirty with sand and fallen hair. The center of the pillow was smudged with hair grease. Little Jade pushed aside the mosquito netting and put her feet on the ground, searching for slippers. Her pants were rolled up to her knees. The sores on her calves were large and purple like grapes. She walked into the main room, using a turkey feather fan to fend off the flies that buzzed around her legs.

  She pressed the sores with her fingers. They were softer after turning from bright red to a deep purple. She showed her step-grandfather her sores, and he ran his fingers over them, nodding approvingly as if testing the ripeness of fruits. The old man went to the backyard came back with a branch of bamboo. He used the knife and cut a s
lice of inner bamboo shard, thin as a blade. He used it to pierce open the sores on Little Jade's legs. It didn’t hurt at a all. Little Jade watched each sore burst open with black blood and yellow pus, and finally oozed with fresh red blood. The smell of rotten fish filled the warm stuffy air. More flies circled around Little Jade and she tried to hit them with the fan. The old man opened a bottle of alcohol and its vapor broke through the thick stench. He washed the wounds on Little Jade's legs with a piece of cloth soaked in alcohol.

  It hurt. A sharp cutting pain spread all over Little Jade’s legs as she clenched her teeth. She watched the old man graze the dead skin from her legs with the bamboo blade and clean away dirty blood--the way a cook scrapes clean the scales and innards of a fish. The ugly purple lumps turned into coin-sized disks of pink under-skin, each one covered with a thin layer of blood. The old man gave Little Jade a worn towel with one corner soaked in alcohol. She placed it under her nose, breathing in the cool clean vapor.

  Tilting his head, the step-grandfather drank from the alcohol bottle. As he swallowed the knot on his throat slid up and down. Little Jade pressed the damp towel on her forehead and her skin tingled.

  “Is everyone else dead, grandpa?” Little Jade asked, wiping the towel all over her face, shuddering.

  The old man smacked his lips and turned to his granddaughter, “No, they are just staying inside.” His dull eyes stared at her like fish eyes.

  She didn’t believe him. She was convinced that they were the only two alive in the entire village, perhaps in the world. There were no more parades of mourners carrying the dead on the street. The dead were buried, in coffins, in cabinets, and some in rolled straw mats with their feet sticking out at one end. It was lonely being alive. The bones in his knees made a cracking sound as the old man stood up slowly and muttered, “I’ll be back soon.”

  The step-grandfather picked up a bamboo basket from the floor and walked out the front door wearing pajamas that draped loosely over him. The glaring sunlight filtered through the thin fabric and revealed the outline of his bent body. He stopped in the middle of the street and looked around as if confused. Finally, he made up his mind and threaded out of Little Jade’s view.

  The old man was going out to look for food again. They had finished eating all the food in the house, and all the tofu and soybeans from the old man’s shop. The villagers stole most of the soybeans and there was nothing left. Every day the old man went out and returned with something in his basket—a small bunch of wild vegetables, a piece of root. They never mentioned the lack of food to each other. Every day, the old man cooked two meals and they sat solemnly across from each other at the dining table. They looked into their bowls and not at each other, drinking half a bowl of thin soup as if carrying out an ancient ritual.

  They had been hungry for a while. In the beginning, it felt like a slow fire burning the inside of Little Jade’s guts, a constant and numbing pain. But after a while, the fire inside died and filled her with smoke. What was in her was scarcely heavier than the air surrounding her. She felt so light that she was almost floating when she walked around the house. She got dizzy often and from time to time she flew a little, skipping steps. She somehow traveled without touching the ground.

  There was no wind. The putrid air hung heavily over her head. The flies swarmed through the door and tried to land on her legs as she waved the fan feebly, fighting them off. She felt thin stabs of pain all over, on her back, behind her neck, on her arms. She struggled to get up and limped toward her bed, swatting herself with the fan and the towel. She lifted the mosquito netting and ducked under. A few flies trailed her into the netting. She cornered them with the fan and smashed them against the wall. The bodies smeared into the flaking plaster and spots of black blood dotted Little Jade’s palms.

  Resting her head on her knees, Little Jade was breathing hard. The wounds on her legs felt inflamed. She was sweating under her hair and on her back, and her skin began to itch. She scratched herself with dirty fingernails, reaching behind her back, digging into her hair, and over her shoulders. She finally gave up in exhaustion, lying restlessly under the dusty mosquito netting. Strands of hair stuck to her sweaty neck and forehead. She covered her face with the towel. The alcohol had evaporated, leaving a faint smell that faded as she strained to sniff. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep with the flies whizzing outside the netting, inside her head.

  Little Jade was alone in a garden. The flowers were in full bloom, crowding each other with blossoms as big as babies’ heads. Their petals spread open, curling back, giving out a strong scent of evil, like a mixture of opium and heavy perfumes. Giant white lilies were ghastly green under the moonlight, and red roses were a deep purple, bleeding in the night. She stood still, surrounded by flowers, looking around slowly and feeling unsure. In the darkness, the flowers were edging toward her, inch by inch, secretive and purposeful. There was a breeze, light as a sigh, and Little Jade felt a cold hand quickly stroke her back. She screamed and ran. The wind grew fierce, grating her face and ears, wailing under the night sky. She ran faster. Her eyes were burning and her throat was dry. Her head suddenly filled with noises: the sound of bubbles rising and bursting when water boils in a pot, the hissing sound of fire licking the damp air. The moon was bright and nearly green like the color of the tip of a flame, slowly burning, brewing a mysterious potion in the bewildering night.

  Out of nowhere, a well appeared in front of her. She held onto its moss-covered wall and panted. Behind her, noises and shadows were closing in. Little Jade looked into the well and saw a moon. Someone pushed her.

  She was falling. The air was suddenly thin and icy, and it cut the inside of her nose. When she inhaled, her nose bled. Her mouth was open, but words that she could not speak crawled in her throat like ants.

  In the house of the step-grandfather, Little Jade woke up. She did not open her eyes. She had been trying to dream of her father, but he must be too far away and did not care to enter her dreams. Father had promised to come for her as soon as he could. He said that he wanted them to spend the New Year together. Yet the New Year was less than a month away, and he was still not back. Little Jade breathed through her nose which felt cold and a little sore. Her head was hurting.

  She curled like a shrimp under the stiff blanket around her. She tried to pray, but her mind was blank. Her feet were numb. She reached down to squeeze them, her fingernails digging into the moist skin, but she didn’t feel a thing. She opened her eyes and saw a pale light beaming through the door. She sat up slowly, wrapping the blanket around her. In a trance, she walked out of her room barefooted, into a faint green mist. The air felt oddly damp and cold. Outside the open door, a hazy moon glowed like a firefly in the bottomless darkness. “Grandpa, grandpa, where are you?” She whispered, pulling the blanket closer to her. No one answered. She looked around, holding onto the back of a chair and tightened her grip. The wood felt cold and hard. She was not dreaming. She saw a shadowy figure moving outside the door.

  She approached the door slowly, trying to see. Someone was sitting in the street gesturing with his arms toward the night sky. “Grandpa!” She called. Her voice was quickly swallowed by the thick darkness. He ignored her and went on signaling with his arms over his head. She called again, yelling loudly, “Is that you, grandpa?”

  She heard her own voice trailing off as the black clouds unveiled the moon. Suddenly, she saw a silvery layer of snow blanketing the ground. The step-grandfather sat half-naked in the snow, throwing handfuls of snow all over himself. His dirty gray hair and beard were covered with snowflakes, and his face was fixed in a wide grin. His mouth hung open, trembling as if in joy, as if in pain. The dust of snow twirled about him, gliding down his bony shoulders and landing on his lap.

  Little Jade ran toward the old man, her bare feet sinking into the soft snow. The stiff blanket flapped around her like clumsy wings. She stood in front of the old man and kneeled down. She scooped a handful of snow, and buried her face in it, smelling
the scent of heaven and clouds. The icy grains slipped out between her fingers and she looked at her step-grandfather. He looked back wildly at her. She wrapped the dirty red blanket around them both. “Let’s go home,” she said gently.

  He nodded sadly at her as she helped him stand up. They walked slowly back to the house, the red blanket still draped around their shoulders.

  She sat the old man down next to the dining table and covered him snugly with the blanket. She went into the kitchen to start a fire. Hitting two flints against each other, she tried to catch the orange sparks with a piece of old scrap paper. Eventually, she built a small fire to heat up the soup, placing her hands close to the fire for warmth. They had been living on this soup of grain, wild vegetables, and bones.

  The damp wood gave out a smoke that made Little Jade’s eyes water. Steam rose from the pot as the thin gray soup grumbled to a boil. She poured a bowl of soup and carried it to her step-grandfather. He sat quietly, huddled in the red blanket like a statue of Buddha. Little Jade put the bowl in front of him and said, “Have some soup, grandpa.”

  The old man looked down at the soup for a long time, but did not reach for the spoon. The snowflakes on his eyebrows and beard were melting into droplets of water. Little Jade went back to the kitchen and poured herself a bowl of soup, drinking it slowly, standing next to the stove where the fire was dying.

  Everything is going to be all right now, Little Jade thought faintly as she drank up the soup. A warm current traveled down her throat, flowing slowly. She narrowed her eyes and covered her mouth with both hands, breathing into them. Thin strands of white steam escaped between her fingers. A sweet and sturdy feeling rose up in Little Jade, like clearly remembered happiness from long ago. Just like this, one breath after another, she kept on living, living.