The Moon Pearl

by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

  Although houses in Strongworm stood alone, they were close enough that when windows and doors remained open—as they usually did except in winter—sounds and smells drifted easily from one household into another, and it seemed to Mei Ju that their neighbors were well content, unburdened by their failure, the doom that Grandmother claimed would be theirs in the future. Mei Ju realized Grandmother would declare this contentment confirmation of the Fungs’ foolishness. But Mei Ju envied them.

  Yes, Shadow’s family ate meat less often than theirs. But they sat down to meals together; Mei Ju and her sister and baby brother and cousins ate with their mother and aunts after their grandparents, father, and uncles were finished. Moreover, Grandmother’s tales were lectures more than stories, and conversation generally consisted of her grilling Grandfather, Mei Ju’s parents and uncles and aunts. At their neighbors’ house, everyone talked, often at the same time, and their stories excited and amused.

  Of course, Mei Ju had heard Grandmother say over and over, “Life is no laughing matter.” Nevertheless, Mei Ju wanted laughter the way she wanted the sweet taste of lychee in summer, the warmth of her quilt in winter. And she did laugh when she caught glimpses over their courtyard wall of Shadow coiling her father’s thick, glossy black queue on top of his head in ever smaller circles so that it resembled a pagoda, which she then decorated with tiny jasmine blossoms for bells; Elder Brother placing the loose end of his thinner, shorter queue under his nose so it became the spindly moustache of a comic opera character whose antics he imitated.

  Once, Mei Ju had convinced herself that she could likewise make her own family laugh. But her father had shrugged her off as if she were a pesky fly, and Grandmother had chided, “Nuisance child, can’t you see your father is tired? Let him rest.”

  Her throat aching from the effort to swallow her disappointment, Mei Ju had squeaked, “Shadow …”

  “Are you deaf or stupid or both?” Grandmother had demanded. “Haven’t I told you time and again the Fungs are fools?”

  Did that mean she was a fool too, Mei Ju wondered.

  When Third Aunt came home with the news that Shadow’s mother was asking around about a girls’ house for her daughter, Grandmother’s jet black eyes glittered as if she were counting silver ingots. “Shadow’s mother is bound to be teaching Shadow her embroidery secrets, secrets she could teach Bak Ju and Mei Ju if they were in the same girls’ house. Then our family can demand big bride prices for them.”

  Turning to Mei Ju, Grandmother ordered, “Take your little brother and cousins out to play. Watch them. But keep your eyes open for Shadow’s mother. If you see her leave the house, take note of what she’s carrying and report to me at once. At once, do you hear? Don’t drag your feet.”

  Soon as Mei Ju returned with the information that Shadow’s mother was headed for the river with a basket of clothes, Grandmother grabbed clean pants and jackets from the chest in her room, handed them to Ma. “Shadow’s mother is at the river. You know what to do.”

  Mei Ju, utterly baffled, herded her little brother and cousins as far from their house as she dared go without Grandmother’s permission, finally reaching listening distance of the women at the river.

  Above the crack of wet clothes hitting rock, Ma was assuring Shadow’s mother, “If your daughter goes to the same girls’ house as mine, you can be certain my older girl will watch out for her.”

  Ma’s mention of Bak Ju set off a ripple of praise for her from the other women.

  “Bak Ju is the best of daughters.”

  “Truly a ju, pearl.”

  “Mature beyond her years.”

  “Not only obedient, but thoughtful and caring.”

  Shadow’s mother, as their neighbor, must have already known everything the women were saying, yet she was ignoring her load of dirty clothes and giving them her full attention, while Ma, her head modestly bowed over their wash, was beating and rinsing and wringing.

  The chorus of praise turned to Bak Ju’s looks.

  “That girl is beautiful, too.”

  “Yes, she’s wonderfully light-skinned.”

  “And absolutely without blemish.”

  “I tell you, her face is luminous as a pearl.”

  People often said she and her sister looked like twins, and Mei Ju, aquiver with excitement, then worry, wondered whether the women’s praise would now include her, how her mother would respond if they, like Grandmother, complained, “Mei Ju is a nuisance child.” Ma, however, jumped in with a question that turned the conversation altogether.

  “Matchmaker Low, didn’t you negotiate a good bride price for a girl in my daughters’ girls’ house?”

  “Not one. Several. Wah, I got Old Fung five pigs for his eldest daughter.” Matchmaker Low held up her right hand, fingers spread wide. “Five! You see, I can be confident a girl from that girls’ house will show proper reserve.” She paused meaningfully, then added, “Even with her own brother.”

  Folding her lips into a tight line, Shadow’s mother picked at her wash.

  “Isn’t Shadow about ten?” Ma asked, abruptly turning the talk again.

  Shadow’s mother nodded without looking up.

  “I thought so,” Ma exulted. “She’s the same age as Mei Ju. If they’re in the same house, sharing the same bed, they’ll become girlfriends. Good girlfriends. I’m sure of it.”

  In Mei Ju, joy vied with stupefaction. Did that mean she wouldn’t be faulted anymore for wanting to play like Shadow did? Better still, that Shadow would be her friend, a friend with whom she, Mei Ju, could play and laugh the way Grandfather did with his concubine?

  Silently Mei Ju begged Shadow’s mother to say, “Yes, my daughter will join the same girls’ house as yours. They will become good friends.” When Shadow’s mother responded, though, Mei Ju’s heart was pounding too loudly for her to make out more than one or two words.

  Sometimes the members of her girls’ house cried so loudly while chanting weeping songs that Yun Yun was sure everyone in Twin Hills could hear them. The louder they sobbed, however, the more Old Granny praised them.

  More than once, Old Granny cautioned, “Remember, it’s as important for you to know how to sing at a death as at a wedding because after you marry, your lives will be controlled by your husbands and in-laws. Both your joys and your sorrows will come from them. But if they make you unhappy, you can relieve your pain by crying out your personal sorrows, your resentments over slights or injustices during the forty-nine days of mourning that precedes a funeral, and these laments can earn you better treatment.”

  Old Granny also taught them the weeping songs for friends as well as those for a bride, explaining, “A bride’s friends are shut up in the attic with her, and they must show their sympathy and support by weeping as loudly as the bride herself.”

  Sometimes, on nights when Old Granny did not come, the girls played at getting married. The most senior member always acted as the knowledgeable person who would guide the bride. The rest would draw straws for the unhappy role of bride.

  Yun Yun, drawing the short straw, wept as Old Granny said a bride should, and she was, in truth, as frightened as her first night in the girls’ house.

  “We’re just playing,” Lucky reminded.

  Still afraid, Yun Yun took Lucky’s hand for comfort. The most senior girl, acting the part of a bridal guide, spit on her fingertips, teased Yun Yun’s eyebrows into perfect willow leaves. The other girls laid out the combs, perfumed oils, make-believe wedding jacket and skirt.

  Nodding approval at her own handiwork, the guide picked up two long threads, skillfully manipulated them to remove Yun Yun’s facial hair. At the tiny pricks of pain, Yun Yun yelped.

  Lucky squeezed her hand. “Distract yourself by singing.”

  Obediently, Yun Yun quavered:

  “Red and green threads used to pluck my face hair,

  Tidying my face so I can be a wandering soul.”

  But when she saw the guide reach for the powder puff, Yun Yun clam
ped her mouth shut, then her eyes, wished she could somehow seal her nostrils too. Since she couldn’t, Yun Yun tried to hold her breath for as long as she felt the feathery touch of the puff skimming her cheeks—but failed, and as clouds of chalky powder streamed through her nose into her throat, she burst into a series of explosive sneezes.

  Embarrassed by the unseemly eruption, Yun Yun kept her eyes closed. Nor could she find her voice to resume singing. As the guide removed the ties binding her pair of childish pigtails for the hairdressing ritual, however, Yun Yun heard Lucky, her voice clear and lovely as a temple bell, chant on her behalf:

  “Slide the comb from roots to ends,

  Clear out all the knots.

  Tie up the hair,

  But not too tightly.”

  The other girls joined in. Yun Yun should have too. But the sensations that were rippling through her from the guide’s fingers running through her hair, massaging her scalp, and rubbing in scented oil felt so strangely wonderful that Yun Yun gave herself up to them instead.

  By the time the guide turned to combing, it seemed to Yun Yun that her hair had become fine and soft as silk, her skull, indeed all her bones, had melted into liquid gold. Opening her eyes, she watched admiringly as the guide divided the gleaming hair into three sections, braided each into a long, neat plait, then wove all into an elaborate wifely bun.

  With her free hand, Lucky held out the plain brass pin the girls were pretending was the golden pin Old Granny had told them the groom must send. Suddenly one of the plaits slipped loose, and the guide grabbed the pin, pushed it deep into the bun to secure the plaits, piercing Yun Yun’s neck.

  Yun Yun howled, tried to pull free. Lucky, tightening her grip, breathed reassurances into Yun Yun’s ear. The girls, grasping her shoulders and arms, held her still, chanting:

  “Today misfortune has fallen on you without cause,

  You are like a bird snared in a trap.

  Your tears run like the rivers and streams,

  You cannot escape this trap.”

  The guide pushed harder on the pin. Blood spurted. Yun Yun screamed. Lucky wept in sympathy:

  “The groom clutches your hair in his hands,

  His golden pin finds its mark.”

  Only when blood slicked the guide’s fingers did she seem to realize the pin was striking flesh and pull it out, causing a fresh surge. Swiftly Lucky lifted her tunic, pressed it against Yun Yun’s wound, stanching the flow. Yun Yun, through her pain and loud sobbing, heard a ripple of sympathetic murmurs.

  “The rascal will draw more blood than that,” the guide muttered darkly.

  In bed, unable to sleep because of the dull throbbing in her neck, Yun Yun tried to puzzle out the guide’s meaning.

  She knew from the weeping songs that “the rascal” was the groom. But Lucky, asleep beside her, had said that if Yun Yun stayed home instead of going to a girls’ house, she might see her father or grandfather “taking pleasure” in her mother and grandmother. From listening to a few of the older girls talk, Yun Yun understood now that this pleasure between husbands and wives took place in bed, that it was somehow different from the pleasure she took in curling up against Lucky.

  How, though, could there be enjoyment when all the songs Old Granny taught them, everything she said about marriage was about suffering? And if a husband was in truth a rascal who drew blood from his wife, how could he be anything but hurtful? Deeply troubled, Yun Yun woke Lucky and asked her.

  Sleepily Lucky admitted that despite her confident pose, she didn’t know any more than Yun Yun what passed between husband and wife beneath their quilt.

  “Can’t you ask your sisters-in-law?”

  “I did. They said I’d find out when I marry.”

  Yun Yun, too frightened to wait, blurted out her confusion to her mother the next morning, heedless of her grandmother, who was dozing nearby on a bench by the courtyard wall.

  “Will my husband hurt me when I’m a bride?” Yun Yun asked.

  Her mother reddened, busied herself with fetching hot water from the kitchen, pouring it into a basin to wash Yun Yun’s wound.

  Her grandmother opened her eyes, studied her hands, rough and knotted as the fists of mulberry, sighed. “When I was learning to reel silk, I cried every time I had to pull a cocoon out of the basin of boiling water. Ai yah, the blisters and sores on my hand were so painful I was crying even when my hand wasn’t in the water! But the next season, I cried less. After a few years I didn’t cry at all.”

  Her grandmother’s eyes drooped shut and her head once again bowed in sleep. Had she spoken out of a dream, Yun Yun wondered. Or had her grandmother been answering her question? If she was answering the question, what did she mean?

  More confused than ever, Yun Yun prompted her mother. “Will my husband hurt me?”

  Her mother wrung out a cloth, gently swabbed Yun Yun’s wound. “Your father has never hurt me,” she said. “And you can be sure we’ll tell the matchmaker to find you a good husband. One as good as my parents found for me.”

  Yun Yun couldn’t picture her father as a rascal, a creature from Hell, someone to fear. When she was small, he’d often lifted her up, nuzzled her neck, and sniffed her hair; he’d whirled her around and around until she chortled with pleasure. And he was still tender, urging her to eat her fill during evening rice lest she feel hungry during the night, reminding her to put on an extra jacket so she wouldn’t catch a chill while walking to her girls’ house with Lucky. Nevertheless, Yun Yun frequently woke screaming from recurring nightmares of the rascal. And only when she was enfolded in Lucky’s arms could Yun Yun return to sleep.

  Dreams of Happiness

  THE HOUSES in Strongworm were strung out in three long rows, with the river on one side, the village’s paved main street on the other. Shadow’s family lived near the end of the row by the river, and the girls’ house Mama had chosen for her was only one street over, not more than eight or nine houses distant. But on her first night, Shadow asked Elder Brother to accompany her.

  Before he could answer, Mama reminded, “I’ve told you. You’re no longer a small girl, so you mustn’t walk or talk or sit in public with Elder Brother or any other boy. If you do, people will say you lack modesty and good home teaching. Then no motherin-law will want you for a daughter-in-law no matter how beautifully you embroider.”

  Listening to Mama, Shadow’s heart twitched and writhed like the worm her brother had cut in two.

  Mama pinched Shadow’s cheeks affectionately. “Don’t look so glum. You only have to stay the night, and you won’t have to walk to the girls’ house by yourself. I’ve arranged for Bak Ju and Mei Ju to take you.”

  Because they were neighbors, both girls were familiar to Shadow, and when they came for her, they treated her warmly, Mei Ju taking one hand, Bak Ju the other. Even so, Shadow hoped against hope that she’d hear Elder Brother chasing after her, his shoes hitting the dirt hard and fast, his deep voice calling, “Come home. I’ve convinced Mama and Baba you don’t have to go to the girls’ house. Not tonight. Not ever.”

  Finally unable to take another step, Shadow stopped, looked back. The street was empty, the door to their house shut tight.

  On her way next door to pick up Shadow, Mei Ju had imagined them talking freely, joking and laughing together as they walked to the girls’ house. Face to face and hand in hand, Mei Ju barely squeaked out a greeting, Shadow was silent, and Bak Ju launched into a longwinded explanation of the seniors’ exacting standards, the system of fines.

  Frantically Mei Ju tried to loosen her tongue so she could interrupt her sister’s lecture. Shadow’s feet dragged slower and slower. Soon she came to a complete stop.

  Dismayed, Mei Ju halted too, forcing her sister to a standstill, and as Shadow twisted around to look back home, the corners of Bak Ju’s lips turned down like Grandmother’s.

  “You do know that juniors in the girls’ house have to serve seniors the way we all will one day serve our mothers-in-law, don’t you?�
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  Shadow, her eyes shiny with tears, nodded.

  Close to tears herself, Mei Ju at last freed her tongue. “We don’t have to do that much really. Just prepare the seniors’ snacks and pour their tea, fan them when they’re hot. Besides, there’s seven of us juniors, eight now, counting you, and only four seniors, and we take turns serving, so there’s still time to play.”

  Bak Ju resumed walking. “More importantly, we learn from each other. Do you have any special skill to share?”

  Wishing her sister would hold back for now from pursuing their grandmother’s desire, Mei Ju fell into step with Bak Ju. And as Shadow followed without answering, Mei Ju searched for something she could say that would both distract Bak Ju from her purpose and cheer Shadow.

  Nothing, though, came to mind.

  “No need to be modest,” Bak Ju encouraged.

  “I embroider,” Shadow said softly. “My work is good enough for Baba to sell. But it’s not special like Mama’s.”

  “Work hard and it will be,” Bak Ju told her. “Meanwhile we can learn from you, I’m sure.”

  Mei Ju soon understood Grandmother’s eagerness for Bak Ju and herself to acquire the embroidery secrets Shadow was learning from her mother. For Shadow could make the most ordinary pattern distinctive through her selection of threads and colors and stitches. She was generous in sharing her skills, too, and Empress took full advantage, asking for one lesson after another.

  So when Empress, seated on her chair in front of the altar, called all the members into the common room, Mei Ju assumed it was for yet another embroidery lesson. But when the seniors were settled on their bench left of the chair, the juniors on the hard earth floor between the two beds, Empress did not call on Shadow for a demonstration of her skills. Instead Empress instructed Rooster—who knew more wooden fish songs and had a prettier voice than anyone in the house—to come forward and chant “The Embroidery Song” as a tribute to Shadow. Furthermore, when Rooster inserted Shadow’s name into the song in place of the word “wife,” Empress applauded loudly.