The Moon Pearl

by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

  Shadow shook her head. “You know Empress has a sister who wants to become a member and one of the other seniors has two cousins. So I’ll suggest we make room for them by setting up a bed in the loft. And since there’s only room up there for a makeshift one of planks laid over two sawhorses, I’ll also offer to sleep in the loft and ask for two more volunteers. Of course everybody except you two will be taken by surprise, so you’re bound to beat anyone else to the jump. And it’ll appear too natural for anyone to suspect us.”

  Rooster laughed approvingly. “You’re wily as a fox.”

  “Yes,” Mei Ju agreed.

  But Bak Ju would doubtless claim their deceit as proof that book learning for girls opened the door to vices. Then again, were they the magistrate’s daughters, deception would be unnecessary.

  The plan unfolded more perfectly than Shadow had dared hope. Not only were the members of the girls’ house blind to the ruse, but they heaped praise on her for the cleverness of her proposal to make more space. And Widow Low, who came to the house to teach weeping songs, commended the three of them for their willingness to give up their own comfort for new members, concluding, “Sacrifice is the most important virtue a woman can possess.”

  To ensure their secrecy, Shadow told Mei Ju and Rooster they’d limit study to first light, when everyone else was asleep. Nor would Shadow permit Rooster to go down to the altar in the common room to pray lest she wake any girls on her way. Presenting Rooster with a little statue of Gwoon Yum that she’d bought from a peddler, Shadow said, “We can squeeze a small altar to the Goddess behind our bed.”

  Wisps of sweet smoke, heat from the glowing tips of incense sticks, and the faint swish of a handbroom courted Shadow into wakefulness. Arching her back like a cat, she stretched, rubbed sleep from her eyes.

  Beside her, Rooster was on her knees, sweeping up the last bits of ash from the altar. Mei Ju was standing in the middle of their bed, carefully folding back the shutters from the skylight, sending fresh cool air, still slightly moist from rain that had fallen during the night, into the thick, heavy closeness of the loft.

  Shadow took a deep breath, dragged herself upright. She glanced up at the square of sky: pearl gray tinged ever so faintly with pink.

  “We’d better get started,” she whispered.

  While Shadow retrieved Elder Brother’s tattered copy of the Three Word Classic from under their bedmat, Rooster quickly set down the handbroom, folded her hands in prayer, and reverently bowed—once, twice, three times—to the Goddess. Mei Ju, having finished latching back the shutters, sat cross-legged directly below the skylight.

  Shadow joined her, beckoned to Rooster. “Sit on my other side. That way all three of us can see the page.”

  As Rooster slid over, Shadow held up the book. “This is the Three Word Classic.”

  She expected them to ask her whose book they were using. When neither did, Shadow understood that they didn’t have to, that they’d guessed who the book belonged to, who’d taught her. Their silence proved their discretion, and in her head, Shadow told her brother, “See, you’re safe.”

  Out loud, she said, “I’ll point to the characters as I read them to you. Then, after I stop at the end of the sentence, you’ll repeat it while I move my finger down the page for you, and you’ll keep repeating it until you’ve memorized all the characters. Alright?”

  “Yes,” Rooster and Mei Ju chorused softly.

  Slowly, deliberately, Shadow read, “Man is by nature born good.”

  When she stopped, Mei Ju recited the sentence haltingly as Shadow’s finger shifted from character to character. Rooster, who’d leaned forward as Shadow had started reading, slumped back, her forehead beneath her sparse bangs creased in a puzzled frown.

  Shadow nudged Rooster. “You’re both supposed to recite at the same time.”

  “I know. But didn’t you read it wrong?”

  Startled, Shadow hurriedly reviewed the first line of the book. “No, I didn’t.”

  “If man were born good, though, parents wouldn’t have to scold babies for being bad, and Empress and the rest of the seniors wouldn’t be cruel. So how can that sentence be right?”

  Shadow struggled for a response. Elder Brother’s teacher had never offered explanations. Nor had Elder Brother or his classmates ever asked their teacher questions. It wasn’t permitted. In truth, she was sure they’d given no more thought to meaning than she had, and Shadow had assumed Rooster and Mei Ju would be as accepting.

  Mei Ju, silently chewing her lips, seemed to be. But then she rarely questioned anything, whereas Rooster pecked and scratched at every little thing. Indeed, both Elder Brother and Bak Ju claimed this was how Rooster brought troubles on herself, and why the seniors’ attempts to break her will were for her own good.

  With a heartfelt sigh at the difficulties she’d as willfully drawn on her own self, Shadow fidgeted with the Three Word Classic, which had fallen shut on her lap.

  “This is the book all students learn to read from, and that’s what you want, isn’t it? To learn to read?”

  Mei Ju nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” Rooster apologized. “I know I sound ungrateful. But that’s it, you see. In spite of my prayers to Gwoon Yum, I still can’t stop myself from wanting more than I have.

  “That’s why I want book learning. So I can study the sutras and become like the monks that pass through Strongworm. They’re poorer than my family. Hnnnh, they have to beg for every grain of rice they eat. Yet you never hear them raise their voices except in prayer or song. And they look so untroubled.

  “But if I can’t even understand the first sentence that every schoolboy learns, how can I hope to grasp the meaning of the sutras? How will I ever feel the monks’ peace?”

  The realization that she hadn’t understood the extent of Rooster’s longing struck Shadow so forcefully that she sagged beneath its weight. Nor could Shadow see how, with her limitations, she could help Rooster. Unless …

  “I know this sounds strange,” Shadow said. “But hear me out.

  “I used to embroider lotus in solid colors on stiff stems. After studying the flower for the longest time and in all different kinds of light, though, I slowly came to see the petals and leaves have graceful curves. Then I experimented with different stitches and thread, looking for the combinations that would best create those curves and show off the shadings of color. I still can’t paint them with my needle as well as I want to, but I’m getting there.

  “If you give that same kind of attention to the sutras, maybe you’ll find the understanding and peace you’re looking for.”

  Smiling, Rooster picked up the Three Word Classic, opened it to the first page, and handed it to Shadow. “Not if I don’t learn how to read I won’t, Teacher.”

  A Dead, Stinking Fate

  A MONTH before Mei Ju began learning to read, she’d started her apprenticeship for reeling silk. At first all she’d moved were her eyes, which had peered fearfully through a heavy mist of hot steam at Third Aunt plunging cocoons into a large basin of boiling water to soften the gum binding the fibers.

  Third Aunt’s widebrimmed straw hat shielded her from the sun beating down into the courtyard. But she couldn’t avoid the heat from the fire beneath the basin, and sweat filmed her face and soaked through her tunic.

  Stooped over the basin, she squinted in search of the barely visible loosened silk, and her brow furrowed as she manipulated each strand through an agate guide with one hand, wound the threads onto a revolving reel with her other.

  So that the silk she was reeling would be unbroken, she had to keep adding fresh cocoons. She also had to remove the spent cocoons’ dregs before they could pollute the water. Soon the tips of her fingers were scalded red.

  Mei Ju knew from helping Bak Ju spread salve on her badly blistered fingers and palms that an apprentice’s suffering was worse. And when Third Aunt said, “You’re standing too far away. Come close so I can guide your hand,” Mei Ju could not force herself
to step forward.

  “To be a reeler, you have to accept discomfort,” Third Aunt told her kindly.

  Bak Ju, who’d recently completed her apprenticeship and was reeling silk at her own basin across from them, assured Mei Ju, “You’ll get used to it. I did.”

  Ma and Second Aunt, bringing in more baskets of cocoons, said they had too.

  “Better get going before Grandmother comes out to check on you,” Ma added under her breath.

  Still Mei Ju did not, could not move. Realizing there was no chance of escape, however, she didn’t resist when Ma pushed her forward and Third Aunt took her hand.

  To Mei Ju, learning to read and write was similar to learning to reel. When faced with a new character, she tried to figure out the different strokes and commit them to memory the way she tried to separate out and then gather the silk fibers from cocoons. Writing wasn’t as complicated as reeling. She had only to hold down her paper with one hand, move the brush with the other. Yet completing a perfect page of calligraphy was just as hard as reeling a perfect skein of silk since a stroke once made could not be touched up any more than a fiber of silk rewound.

  Mei Ju, then, found her lessons with Rooster and Shadow in the loft required as much concentration as her lessons with Third Aunt, and both were painful. The characters, unlike the cocoons, didn’t have to be plucked out of near boiling water. But the knowledge that she was betraying her sister’s, her entire family’s, trust was like a stone pressing against Mei Ju’s heart.

  When reporting their change in sleeping arrangements to Grandmother, Bak Ju had not only repeated Widow Low’s praise but added her own: “Mei Ju and Shadow are maturing, and Rooster’s conduct is bound to improve from close association with two such thoughtful girls.” And to Mei Ju’s relief, Grandmother had dismissed the matter with a nod. No one else in the family had questioned the move then or since. They were too preoccupied with Grandfather’s failing health.

  Before Grandfather had fallen ill, he’d come home from his concubine’s house every morning. The woman would accompany him as far as Shadow’s house, and he’d walk the final twenty or so steps without her. He’d rarely been on his own for more than a few moments before a family member either saw him or recognized the tap, tap, tap, of his cane and rushed to assist him. Then, when he was ready to go, he’d scarcely be off his chair and headed for the door before Ba or Second or Third Uncle would leap to his feet and seize Grandfather’s elbow, murmuring, “Let me help you.” As they left, no one in the room ever offered the usual farewell caution, “Walk slowly.” It was as if Grandfather were not quitting the house but merely leaving one room for another.

  Since the winter, Grandfather had been too ill to leave the house he shared with his concubine. Yet the family continued to maintain the pretense that he was a part of their own household. The coffin he’d bought for himself waited in the loft above their common room. Every day Grandmother brewed strength-giving soups and gave them to a son or daughter-in-law to take to Grandfather as if they had no further to walk than one of the sleeping rooms. They, in turn, offered reports of Grandfather’s condition as if Grandmother had just left his side and would return in a moment.

  Mei Ju, like the other grandchildren old enough to sustain the charade, asked Grandmother how he was feeling. The younger ones asked to see him. Regardless, Grandmother always responded, “Grandfather’s tired today, but he’ll be glad to know that he has such filial grandchildren.”

  Grandfather died in the night. Fortunately, when Third Aunt came to the girls’ house just before dawn to fetch Bak Ju and herself, Mei Ju heard her, and she all but slid down the ladder while Shadow and Rooster hid book, paper, brushes, and inkstone.

  Mei Ju had long known from other deaths in Strongworm that men for the most part mourned silently while women let loose high-pitched, penetrating wails and chanted laments not unlike the weeping songs for brides. And Widow Low, when teaching weeping songs, often cautioned, “Practicing death laments will bring bad luck. So you have to learn them yourselves by paying close attention whenever you have the opportunity to hear them.”

  But Mei Ju could never seem to separate herself sufficiently from the mourners’ sorrow to listen as she should, and she’d memorized no more than a few stock phrases. On their way home, Bak Ju reminded Mei Ju of her ignorance, the need to listen closely to the lamenting for Grandfather.

  “I will,” Mei Ju vowed.

  Stepping over the threshold, seeing Grandfather’s coffin before the altar, and hearing sobs from family members already gathered around him, Mei Ju’s resolve crumbled. How could she not mourn her own grandfather with her full mind and heart? Mei Ju chewed her lips. How could she mourn him without thinking of his concubine with whom he’d laughed and sung?

  At her sister’s prompting, Mei Ju took one of the lengths of coarse white cloth Third Aunt was handing them. After Mei Ju poked her head through the hole in her piece, Bak Ju helped her straighten the mourning cloth so it covered both her tunic and pants and handed her a white hood to pull over her hair.

  Third Aunt nudged them toward the rest of the family. Also covered in the white of mourning, they were kneeling in proper order of age and importance beside Grandfather, who was lying scarily wraithlike in the open coffin.

  Of course his concubine was absent. She’d never once crossed their threshold. When Mei Ju, as a small girl, had asked her sister the reason, Bak Ju had told her sternly, “The concubine is an outsider. She’s nothing to our family.”

  Now Mei Ju, taking her place between her sister and girl cousins, scolded herself as sternly. “Listen to the laments. Pay close attention.”

  Thick black plumes of pungent smoke from the incense and candles crowding the altar stung Mei Ju’s eyes, and they teared. Blinking hard, she focused on Ma, who was leaning over Grandfather, placing a ball of rice in his hand while wailing:

  “Don’t be afraid of the wild dogs.

  Feed them this rice and they won’t trouble you,

  They’ll let you walk unmolested to the Courts of Hell.”

  Ma set a few rooster feathers and a swatch of dog hair in the coffin, crying:

  “Don’t be afraid because you can no longer see.

  This cock will crow so you’ll know when dawn breaks.

  This dog will howl so you’ll know when night falls.”

  She dropped to her knees.

  “Don’t be afraid.

  You have lots of descendants.

  Wish your grandchildren peace and good fortune!

  Wish peace to all those who come to pay their respects!”

  As she knocked her forehead against the floor in obeisance, another voice rose, strong and bitter:

  “This illfated person is your concubine,

  Yet you let me be treated like a stranger.

  Why should I be treated as though I were not kin?

  Why should I be treated like a beggar?

  Ai yah, I am miserable!

  What will become of me?”

  Mei Ju wouldn’t have been any more shocked had her grandfather sat up in his coffin. Indeed, there were muffled gasps from everyone present. And despite Widow Low’s assurances that a woman could go to any house where there’d been a death and say anything in a lament without fear, Mei Ju expected her father and uncles to swoop down on the concubine who must have slipped in unnoticed while everyone’s attention was on Ma. But they did not, and the concubine remained where she’d planted herself—kneeling midway between the front door and the foot of the coffin.

  At the head of the coffin, Grandmother, her voice thin and cracked with age but no less bitter than the concubine’s, cried:

  “This dead-fated person gave you sons,

  This dead-fated person raised them;

  Now you have grandsons as well as sons.

  Yet you valued me less than a blade of grass,

  You didn’t treat me well.”

  Listening, Mei Ju realized Grandmother was not merely criticizing Grandfather but beli
ttling the concubine’s pain, pushing it aside with her own. Widow Low had warned the girls that verbal battles sometimes occurred between women lamenting the dead, but Mei Ju had never witnessed such a struggle, and her belly, seized by the singers’ distress as well as her own, cramped so painfully that she doubled over.

  Bak Ju wrapped her arms around Mei Ju, bracing her. “Don’t worry. I’m sure that woman can’t outsing Grandmother.”

  The concubine’s response pierced Bak Ju’s murmur, Mei Ju’s turmoil:

  “This dead-fated person looked after you.

  But you didn’t look out for me.

  I cared for you when you were sick,

  Who will care for me?”

  Grandmother, sounding more angry now than bitter, shot back:

  “Before my husband had another woman,

  He had no troubles at all.

  He had no headaches or any other problems.”

  The concubine’s tone also changed, becoming that of a humble suppliant seeking to ingratiate:

  “If I were like your wife,

  I would have a good fate.

  I would have sons pulling at my jacket,

  Sons clinging to my legs.

  But my fate stinks,

  And I have none.”

  Pity for the concubine swept over Mei Ju like flood waters breaking through a dike, and she shuddered. Bak Ju’s arms around her tightened. Burying her face in Bak Ju’s shoulder, Mei Ju struggled to hold back her tears. But she couldn’t. Nor could she bear to listen to any more.

  During the forty-nine days of high mourning that preceded Grandfather’s burial, Ba hired laborers to take over the work in their fields and wormhouse. Ba also engaged a priest to chant prayers and perform the necessary rituals, to make sure no mistakes were made.

  Widow Low—even more knowledgeable on certain details than the priest because of her long years of participation in white affairs—came every day to give additional advice about when each mourner should bow to Grandfather and how many times; what offerings to make, how to prepare them, and the order in which they should be presented. Instead of reeling silk, Mei Ju and Bak Ju folded silver paper into ingots which they then burned in the courtyard—together with paper clothes and houses and servants—for Grandfather’s use in the spirit world.