When at last they reached the top, then, Yun Yun forced herself to stand alone, and through her tortured breathing, gasped, “Thank you, I’ll be alright now.”
Her lips unfolded, she could not hold back a groan. Mei Ju, pulling the carrying pole out of the gully, dropped it.
“Let me ask your father-in-law and husband to bring a chair to carry you home,” she urged.
“No.”
Fear made Yun Yun’s tone harsher than she intended, and Mei Ju flinched.
Remorse swept through Yun Yun, stripping away pretense. “You’re very kind. But I’d just get punished for being with you and failing to bring back the brush I was sent for. As it is, I’ll be scolded for being slow. Probably for falling, too.”
“Don’t worry.” Mei Ju pointed up at the sun high in the sky, the dark smoke rising from the houses in the village, the spinsters’ hut. “There won’t be any prying eyes until morning rice is over. And we have plenty of brush. Enough to fill both your baskets.”
She smiled warmly. “So come to our hut for a wash, something to eat, and a proper rest.”
Listening to Mei Ju, Yun Yun recalled Shadow’s mother urging her to take shelter from the rain in the hut. She, too, had claimed there was no need for worry, and Yun Yun, in accepting that invitation, had earned a beating.
Already, though, Yun Yun’s shoulders had slumped, her legs were sagging at the knees, and the prospect of washing, eating, and resting, however high the risk, was enticing. Too enticing to refuse.
Returning Mei Ju’s smile, Yun Yun murmured a fervent, “Thank you.”
Mei Ju insisted on returning for the pole and baskets later so she could brace Yun Yun for the short walk to the hut. And Yun Yun, leaning heavily on her, realized Mei Ju’s wisdom, her own foolishness in claiming she could walk unassisted. Yun Yun also appreciated Mei Ju’s thoughtfulness in distracting her with a steady stream of chatter. Nor were Shadow and Rooster any less kind, quickly smothering their astonishment with a hearty welcome, a basin of water for washing, even a temporary change of clothes.
The hut itself had been transformed from when Yun Yun had last been inside. Still small and bare and dim, it was spotlessly clean and neatly arranged, made rich by the skeins of colorful threads and the shawls, robes, and lengths of brightly dyed silks; the fragrance of sandalwood incense burning before the Goddess Gwoon Yum; the pungent smells of vinegar, garlic, and ginger from dishes of pickled cabbage, salt fish, long beans, and pea shoots on the table.
Yun Yun, her tongue and throat excited, sat down readily on the stool Shadow pulled out for her, fixed her eyes on Rooster, who had lifted the lid from the pot of rice and started scooping it into bowls.
She was, Yun Yun soon noticed, holding back, not filling the bowls completely because they wouldn’t otherwise have enough rice for four.
Embarrassed, Yun Yun stammered, “I’m not hungry.”
Mei Ju, making no pretense of plenty, said out loud what Yun Yun had already observed. “We don’t have much. But by holding back a few spoonfuls from each of our bowls, Rooster has filled one for you. This way we all eat.”
Yun Yun’s belly growled loudly.
Mei Ju smiled. “That’s settled then.”
In Yun Yun concern for the spinsters’ bellies vied with the yearning in her own.
“Anyway, we’re more hungry for a visitor than we are for rice,” Shadow encouraged.
With a grateful sigh, Yun Yun accepted the bowl Rooster handed her. Mei Ju picked up pea shoots with her chopsticks, dropped them in Yun Yun’s bowl. Shadow added a bit of salt fish, Rooster some beans.
“Sik faan, eat rice,” they chorused.
Echoing their invitation to begin, Yun Yun fell on the food, and as the spinsters took up their own bowls, Shadow reminded Yun Yun that they’d once been neighbors.
“You probably don’t recognize me.” Playfully Shadow pinched her once plump cheeks. “Look, there’s no flesh left.”
Yun Yun flushed, set her chopsticks down guiltily.
“No, no,” Shadow protested. “You mustn’t stop.”
“She’s just boasting about how hard she’s been working,” Mei Ju teased.
Shadow giggled. “You’re lucky you weren’t here for one of our early meals.”
Mei Ju laughed. “None of us had ever cooked on a movable clay stove before, and our fires were either too big or too small.”
“A couple times we almost set the roof on fire,” Rooster said. “And we were always covered in soot long before the meal was cooked. Now you know why we cook outside.”
Their playfulness, generosity, and kindness made Yun Yun feel like a girl with her own family, free of fear or tension, and she savored this freedom even more than the tastes pleasuring her tongue, the warm fullness in her belly. In truth, she wished she never had to leave.
To safeguard Yun Yun from would-be tattlers, Mei Ju and Shadow posted themselves at the two bends in the road from which they could signal Rooster, who was standing in the doorway of their hut. And from her post, Mei Ju saw Rooster wait for the all clear from them both before ushering Yun Yun out. Watching her totter under the load of brush, however, Mei Ju recognized Yun Yun wasn’t in the least safe. In truth, Mei Ju felt that in sending Yun Yun back to the Chows, she and her friends were not unlike Second Uncle carrying Eldest Cousin out of the house to die.
For a long time Mei Ju was too discouraged to move, and when at last she returned to the hut, Shadow was already bent over her embroidery frame, Rooster was working her beads, murmuring, “Nam-mo-oh-neh-toh-fu.”
Reminded of their own troubles as outcasts, Mei Ju closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Like a balm, the fragrance from the incense burning before the Goddess entered her, and Mei Ju was reminded of the comfort that chanting Gwoon Yum’s song together had offered the day they’d made their vows of spinsterhood.
Impulsively she rapped her knuckles against the tabletop, beating out the rhythm. Shadow looked up from her embroidery, Rooster from her beads, and Mei Ju, warmed by her friends’ swift response, nodded at Rooster to lead the chant.
Smiling acknowledgement, Rooster did. Not from the beginning of the song, as Mei Ju had expected, but near the end.
“With jade and opals I deck me,
With the moon pearl I am crowned.
Who faithfully follows my footsteps
May share in my infinite gain;
And she who is brave enough to relinquish,
Will know what it is to attain.”
Confused, Mei Ju didn’t join in. Shadow, too, was silent until Rooster finished.
“We have nothing left to relinquish,” Shadow cried then. “Nothing.”
“Yes we do.” Rooster’s voice pulsed with excitement. “We have ourselves.”
“Ourselves?” Mei Ju echoed stupidly.
“Yes, we can surrender ourselves to the Lord Buddha by becoming nuns.”
Mei Ju, struck speechless, wondered if she’d misheard.
“What are you talking about?” Shadow spluttered.
“When we chose to comb up our hair, we thought only of ourselves. Now, through my prayers, I see that’s why we’re outcasts, why my brother lost his patron’s favor. But it’s not too late for us to take the road we should have walked from the start. Then all that’s been lost will be restored.”
“We’ll be in a nunnery, you mean.”
Mei Ju, aghast at Rooster’s proposal, was grateful for Shadow’s sharp retort, hopeful it would act like a slap on a hysteric and return Rooster to her senses.
Rooster, however, beamed. “Yes.” Worse, she declared she already had a nunnery picked out, a large one in the market town downriver, and she proceeded to pour out what she’d learned from itinerant monks about Ten Thousand Mercies Hall.
“Naturally none of these monks have been within Ten Thousand Mercies’ walls. Men aren’t allowed. But they say the nunnery has a fine reputation that goes well beyond its gates. The town’s very best families send for Ten Thousand Mercies’ nuns
to chant at the deathbeds of female relations and dispel evil influences in the streets surrounding their houses. There are also plenty of visitors, supplicants and pilgrims who describe the grounds as extensive, the buildings beautifully decorated.
“The main building houses an immense figure of the Lord Buddha as well as smaller images of Gwoon Yum and other lesser Gods. Then there are four or five smaller buildings, where the nuns sleep and sew and spin. Obviously I couldn’t ask outright, but it sounds as if a few of the nuns have book learning, and my guess, my hope is that they pass their time studying the sutras.”
Nothing Rooster was saying attracted Mei Ju. Rooster, though, was radiant, crackling with wonder and joy as she paced back and forth declaiming the virtues of Ten Thousand Mercies Hall. Nor was Shadow, tracking Rooster with her eyes, making any further effort to quench Rooster’s fire. Had Shadow become snared by Rooster’s zeal?
At the possibility that she might be abandoned by both her friends, cold terror seized Mei Ju, and she ground her teeth together to keep from crying out while Rooster continued to exhort.
“What’s certain is that Ten Thousand Mercies is governed by an abbess whose holiness is indisputable. Her rule isn’t rigid either. Of course every nun has to chant liturgies three times a day before Buddha. But they can pray as often as they wish before the Goddess of Mercy or any of the other Gods. The nuns also take turns going out to beg for rice and fruit and vegetables… .”
“You said you’d had your fill of begging,” Mei Ju, unable to stay quiet another moment, reminded.
“That’s my point. I was too proud.” Rooster pulled her long thick braid from behind her back, held it up with both hands as though it were an offering. “In becoming independent spinsters and refusing to cut off our hair or beg, we were all three too proud. We have to be like Gwoon Yum, willing to give up not just our hair but our very lives. Only then will we gain true freedom. Do you see?”
Mei Ju turned anxiously to Shadow for her response.
“No, I don’t.”
Relief flooded Mei Ju. But Rooster’s face drained of joy, and her pallor reminded Mei Ju of Grandfather’s concubine walking out of Strongworm alone.
“I’ll go with you,” Mei Ju blurted.
Shadow gasped. Rooster grabbed Mei Ju’s hand.
“Can you help Shadow see the light?”
“No,” Mei Ju said, reproaching herself for misleading her friends. “I just mean to keep you company for the journey.”
Dropping Mei Ju’s hand, Rooster bowed her head and began working her beads. “There’s no need. Gwoon Yum will be with me.”
Mei Ju, searching for something she could say or do to make amends, chewed her lips, fidgeted with her collar, the buttons of her tunic. Suddenly, Shadow pushed aside her embroidery frame, rose, walked towards the altar, and as she passed Mei Ju, gave her elbow a squeeze.
Grateful for the comfort, Mei Ju watched Shadow retrieve their last earnings from behind the statue of Gwoon Yum, tilt the sack towards Rooster, bowed over her beads. The coins within the little sack jingled like temple bells, and when Shadow raised her eyebrows questioningly, Mei Ju nodded a vigorous yes.
Shadow held the sack out to Rooster. “Let this be our farewell gift to you.”
Rooster looked up, stared at the sack, folded both her hands around her prayer beads.
“At least take your share,” Shadow urged.
Rooster’s fingers tightened around her beads. “I don’t need money.”
“What about your journey?” Mei Ju said.
“Nuns beg, remember? Hnnnh, with what the water peddlers have made off of us in commissions, it won’t really be begging no matter which one of them I convince to take me.”
“Then give the money to your parents and brother,” Shadow pressed.
“I won’t see them before I leave. It would only upset them. Anyway, once I’m a nun, Laureate will be restored to his patron’s favor and my family’s future will be secure, so they really don’t need these few coins. You will.”
Magpies Cry and Caw
MEI JU usually woke to birdsong, the rich scent of freshly lighted sandalwood incense overpowering the stink of their honeybucket, the sharp click of Rooster’s prayer beads, her soft, steady chanting of “Nam-mo-oh-neh-toh-fu.”
Sometimes, though, Mei Ju would waken from the faint rustle and tug of their sleeping mat as Rooster slid her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her clogs with her feet. Knowing Rooster cherished her time alone, Mei Ju never opened her eyes or spoke on these occasions, but continued to lie quietly with Shadow, always the last to stir, deep in sleep beside her.
Their hen wasn’t as considerate. Caged inside for safety at night, it would squawk and peck at the bamboo bars the moment Rooster’s clogs began tapping across the hard dirt floor.
“Shush, now. Shush,” Rooster would implore, quickening her pace.
Soon Mei Ju would hear her flick open the cage, the scritch-scratch of the hen’s claws as it hopped out, the muffled sounds of Rooster carefully raising the crossbar and unfastening the latch, the creak of the door easing open, the two quitting the hut for their vegetable patch.
According to Rooster, the hen trailed her as she ladled water onto the base of each plant. “I tell you, our hen is as merciful as the Goddess who gave it to us. It only eats the bugs that get stunned by the cool water, the ones that’ll sicken and die anyway.”
Now, watching Shadow return the small sack of coins that Rooster had refused to their hiding place behind Gwoon Yum, Mei Ju recalled the many times she’d seen their hen stalking, chasing, and snapping up many a healthy insect and worm; and she hoped Rooster, in her determination to shave her head and become a charity spinster, wasn’t likewise blinding herself. Certain Rooster couldn’t be dissuaded from her course in any case, Mei Ju didn’t try, but threw herself into preparing their evening rice. Nor did Shadow and Rooster talk further about Ten Thousand Mercies or anything else. Not then. Not while eating their evening rice. Not after they returned to their embroidery.
Seeking escape from this uncomfortable silence, Mei Ju climbed into bed early. Shadow and Rooster soon followed, doubtless for the same reason, and Mei Ju, lying between her friends, felt them seething, tossing, and roiling with an intensity that matched her own, knew they were as unsuccessful in courting sleep as herself.
How could it be otherwise? Although it was not unusual for men to go to the market town to sell cocoons or skeins of reeled silk, Mei Ju knew of no woman who’d been. As a small girl, she’d been entranced by her grandfather’s, father’s, and uncles’ talk of amazing sights: jugglers and trained monkeys that performed in the streets; lavishly decorated temples; stores crammed with bolts of cloth, furnishings, crockery, mats, clothing, and adornments of every color, shape, and size. When she’d asked permission to accompany Ba to market, however, Grandmother had snapped, “Modest girls like modest women stay close to home.”
Now Rooster would be going. Alone. Offering herself to the Lord Buddha as a sacrifice to save her brother and family. How would that be different from her sacrificing herself in marriage? Or from Bak Ju sacrificing herself to the River Dragon?
Some time during the watch before dawn, Mei Ju at last tumbled into troubled dreams—from which she was pulled by birdsong, Shadow’s even breathing. Dimly aware of hot sun on the soles of her feet, Mei Ju realized the air was not only fetid from their hen’s waste, their own, but moist and heavy, with none of the freshness of dawn, no sandalwood smoke either. Indeed, rubbing away the crust sealing her eyelids, Mei Ju found herself squinting at golden light blazing through the window left unshuttered because of the summer heat. Then why hadn’t Rooster come in from watering yet? And if she was still watering, why was there no sound of ladle knocking against waterbucket?
Groggily Mei Ju propped herself up on her elbows, surveyed the hut. The hen was gone from its cage. There was no new incense burning before the Goddess. The crossbar from their door was propped against the wall. Beside
it were their two waterbuckets and shoulder yoke. On the table was the red lacquer box in which Rooster kept her inkstick, stone, brush, and paper.
Of course! That was why Rooster hadn’t started watering yet, why she wasn’t cleaning Gwoon Yum’s altar or praying. She’d been writing. Practicing her calligraphy in search of calm, perhaps. Or composing a couplet to commemorate her decision. Or trying her hand at an essay like Laureate.
Curiosity jolted Mei Ju fully awake, and she leaped out of bed and ran barefoot to see—halted in midstep, wondering where Rooster could be. Fearful now of what Rooster’s writing might reveal, Mei Ju slowly backtracked for her clogs. And when she set out again, she moved at a crawl.
But the hut was too small for Mei Ju to delay reaching the table for long, to avoid finding and reading Rooster’s note in which she explained her intent to leave Strongworm while the village slept: “This way, I can spare us the misery of a prolonged leavetaking, and my departure will be as inconspicuous as I can make it.”
Stumbling over to their small altar, Mei Ju emptied cold ash from the incense burner, lit new. And as fragrant smoke rose and surrounded the Goddess, Mei Ju prayed for smooth winds to carry Rooster to Ten Thousand Mercies and the peace she sought.
At the end of Yun Yun’s stop in the spinsters’ hut, Rooster had cautioned her to walk with care, Mei Ju and Shadow had told her, “Don’t be a stranger.” “Come back soon.” That her visit had escaped notice, however, Yun Yun considered a rare stroke of good fortune, and she didn’t dare risk another.
Inside her head, though, Yun Yun returned over and over to the time they’d passed together. And, recalling the spinsters’ kindnesses, large and small, she’d chant soundlessly to them:
“You swaddled me with your concern,
You suckled me with your goodwill.
True sympathy is more valuable than gold,
I will remember yours forever.”
The spinsters didn’t always leave their hut together. So Yun Yun, like the rest of the village, didn’t realize Rooster was gone until Shorty tied up in Strongworm again.
It was common practice for the water peddlers to attract customers with news from other villages, the market town, sometimes even the provincial capital. Shorty—his silver teeth flashing, his caterpillar eyebrows leaping—declared he had information about one of Strongworm’s own, and he dropped teasing hints for almost a day to an ever growing crowd of patrons before revealing he’d taken Rooster to Ten Thousand Mercies Hall, a large nunnery in the market town downriver.
The Moon Pearl Page 17