Rebellion

by Molly Patterson

“I see,” Addie said. “Li K’ang, why don’t you go take your bath.”

  “It’s not too cool out yet,” he replied. “I’ll wait.”

  “And Wei-p’eng?” She glanced around before remembering that it was their other servant’s night away; his family lived up the mountain, three hours’ walk distant. He left Saturdays at noon and returned in the early evening on Sundays. “Never mind. Boys, come say your prayers.”

  She put the boys to bed and sat in the courtyard with Li K’ang, who asked her to read to him from the Chinese prayer book. Several years earlier, he’d announced quite suddenly that he was converting to Christianity. He had been living with them for three or four years by then and never shown signs that he was interested. God’s power, Owen had said, is greater than anything we can imagine.

  Li K’ang was converted, but he couldn’t read, and most nights he asked Addie to read to him. He stood with his hands folded behind his back and listened to the Scripture with great concentration. Usually Addie read only a page or two, but tonight she read for almost an hour without stopping and without looking up to see whether Li K’ang wanted her to finish. At last Owen came in through the unlocked gate, and when he saw them there, Addie seated with the prayer book open on her lap and Li K’ang standing several feet away, silence suddenly fell. “Continue,” he said, and Addie did as she was told. She read to the end of the passage, and they all said, Amen.

  Owen went to take his bath, and when he was finished, he came back into the courtyard, where Addie was still seated. She had been watching the stars. There were so many of them, and sometimes she would see one falling. Tonight they had stayed still. When she heard Owen come up beside her, she closed her eyes and took a breath, ready to apologize. But he spoke first. He’d gone for a walk, he said, so he could pray and discover what God wished them to do. “I received no answer, Addie,” he said. From the other courtyard came the soft splash of water: Li K’ang, taking the last bath of the evening. It was fully dark, but the moon and stars were shining so brightly that every shape was visible. They had not lit any lamps. “I received no answer,” Owen repeated. “I leave it to you to decide. I’ll go to bed now, and I recommend that you stay here and pray until you learn what it is that God wishes you to do.”

  Hours later, Addie still remained in the courtyard, seated in the chair. The silence was so absolute she was almost convinced that it had its own hollow sound. It might have been the stars singing a far-off note. She strained her ears, listening.

  Yes, she decided, she had her answer.

  They started off on this first journey into the mountains early in the morning. It was still dark outside when Addie heard the clatter of hooves on the stone street, and a moment later there was a rapping on the gate. The household was all awake, Li K’ang having insisted on preparing a breakfast for the brave travelers, Owen and Wei-p’eng standing silently together, off to one side of the courtyard. Owen was smoking his pipe and Wei-p’eng held a mug of tea in his hands, which he looked down at every now and then without choosing to drink from it.

  Addie had packed everything the night before, but feeling the presence of the two men out in the courtyard, their disapproval, low and white-hot, she had stayed inside on the pretense of gathering a few last items. At the sound of the mules’ approach and then the sharp rapid knock, undoubtedly Poppy’s, she came out into the courtyard.

  “Your satchel is all packed?” Owen asked. He had his arms crossed, the pipe sticking out by his elbow, dragging a thin curl of smoke like a loose thread behind it.

  “Yes.” She wondered if he would retrieve her bag from the bedroom, but he made no motion to do so. Never mind, she could get Wei-p’eng to do it while they ate breakfast, and she wouldn’t let it bother her if he narrowed his eyes when she asked him. Though he had been with them for years, that didn’t mean he had earned the right to stand in judgment upon her.

  Wei-p’eng opened the gate, and Poppy, lifting her skirts, stepped over the foot-high threshold. Behind her, framed in the doorway, was a squat mule with a gray blanket laid over its spine and bags hanging on either side. It stared into the courtyard with dumb curiosity, attracted by the movement and sound. The sky was still black, and the half-moon was sinking toward the horizon.

  “Good morning, Mr. Bell. Good morning, Addie. The whole house is up, I see.” Poppy looked from one to the other and pressed her lips together in a wry smile. Turning back to the open door, she said in Chinese, “Mr. Wang, let me introduce you.”

  The first mule moved forward a few steps, and the one behind it came into full view. Sitting astride the animal was a man in cotton trousers and shirt, and a thick vest lined in brown fur. His queue lay over it, and he had what appeared to be a bowler hat sitting on top of his head. Outside of T’ien-chin, Addie had never seen a Chinese man wearing a bowler hat—certainly, she had never seen a rough-looking man like him wearing one. He climbed down off the mule and eyed them warily, making no move to cross the threshold.

  “Please, come in,” Addie said, when Owen remained silent.

  But Mr. Wang shook his head and declined her invitation. “Thank you,” he replied, “I’ll stay here and see to the mules.”

  Addie tried to think how to say, You don’t want to start out on an empty stomach. “Please, there is plenty,” she said instead. “We have eggs and rolls and milk.” Too late, she realized that she should have asked Li K’ang to make noodles, a bowl of hot broth, scallions skimming the surface—a meal that would put their Chinese guide at ease in a home filled with foreign objects, foreign smells.

  “Never mind about him,” Poppy said. “Mr. Wang isn’t comfortable inside any house, much less a foreigner’s. He’s built for the road, and would probably sleep in the saddle before he’d lie down on a soft bed like those you’ve got.”

  Owen frowned at Poppy’s comment—during a trip to T’ien-chin a few years before, they’d bought mattresses to replace the hard ones they’d never grown accustomed to sleeping on—but she seemed oblivious to the offense she might have given. Glancing at the sky, which was turning gray by degrees to the east, she said, “Dawn’s coming on. What do you say we eat breakfast and get the road under our feet.”

  A half hour later, their little mule train was snaking through the streets. The sky was already aflame over the mountains, and within minutes they were climbing the road out of town, Mr. Wang at the front, Addie in the middle, and Poppy taking up the back because, she said, she was more used to rough travel than Addie was, and presumably more able to fend off whatever dangers might sneak up on them on the wending mountain paths.

  The town, safely contained within its walls, fell away as they climbed, and the mountaintops, rather than growing closer, only seemed to get farther away. Addie tried to make conversation with Mr. Wang, but he answered her questions in blunt monosyllables, offering nothing more than what was asked. “You’re from one of the villages, aren’t you?” “Yes.” “Do you have a family?” “Yes.” “How many children do you have?” “I have three sons.” “No daughters?” “I also have two daughters.”

  After a while, she gave up trying to make conversation with him and talked to Poppy instead. Her friend had not joined in her attempts to speak with Mr. Wang. She had seemed only to wait for Addie to give up before she began rhapsodizing about the scenery. They were in the mountains now, with an incline to one side that dropped off just a yard from the mules’ feet, the tufts of feathery grass giving way to nothing but air. “I understand the advantages of living in a valley,” Poppy said, “but you do forget what it’s like to look down instead of up all the time. Changes your perspective.”

  “It gives you a feeling like God,” Addie said.

  “I wouldn’t let your husband hear you speak that way. Sounds too much like sacrilege.”

  Addie smiled, unwilling to worry about Owen.

  Behind her, Poppy hollered, and Addie asked what she was doing.

  “Trying for echoes.” She hollered again, a little louder than before. �
��I’m building up to it so I don’t startle the mules. Hello!”

  How long had it been since Addie had done such a thing? Years upon years, not since she was a child. Going up to T’ai-yang Shan, as they did some years when the summer was too hot to bear, the boys would shout and whoop, calling out into the void to hear their voices come back to them, and then shrieking with laughter. They were always amazed that the sounds didn’t go on traveling forever away from them but were returned unchanged, as if their exact doubles were standing on the other side of the valley shouting back at them. Addie had played along with this idea, pointing at a spot far away and saying to Henry, “Look, I think I see your twin hiding behind that tree,” and he would squint and ask her, “Where, Mama? I don’t see him.” Freddie would no longer take part in this game, but he didn’t ruin it for his little brother, either, and Addie had laughed along, always feeling as they went up to T’ai-yang Shan a swell of happiness, a hope that two months in a different place would make her life, when she returned, more recognizable as her own, and treasured more from the distance.

  “Hello, hello!” Poppy shouted, still not quite loud enough for echoes. “Go on, Addie, give it a try.”

  “Hello!” she called.

  Poppy waited a moment, allowing Addie’s voice to hang in the air, and then “Hello!” she sang out, and Addie repeated it again, louder.

  “Hey, you!”

  “Hey, you!”

  And then their voices were coming back to them, overlapping one another. They waited until the last hollow sound had been returned, and then Addie released a loud peal of nonsense, a hoot or a whoop that took a whole chest full of air to send out over the valley. A long moment of silence followed as the sound raced through the air and then, bouncing off the steep rock face, sailed back to meet them.

  She’d thought that Poppy would give another shout to echo her own, but she didn’t, and so Addie’s call returned alone, wild and strange. The sound was outside her now and couldn’t be captured. Poppy laughed, and Addie was surprised to hear Mr. Wang laugh, too.

  They came upon the village of Han-hsing late in the afternoon, an hour after the sun slipped behind the peaks and shadows had darkened their path. The village consisted of no more than two dozen laotung—cave homes built into the mountains, with low doors that were rounded at the top, and two small windows covered with paper to keep out the flies. Outside the one nearest to the road, two women were sorting through a basket of wilted greens. As the three mules approached, the women stopped their hands and stared. Here was a sight. Mr. Wang greeted them, and this snapped the older woman out of her shock. She stood and began speaking, gesturing up the road and then up at the houses above. After a moment, their guide turned and spoke to Addie and Poppy in the familiar dialect of Lu-cho Fu. “You’ll go sit with the first wife and daughters of Ku Chieh-shih, until he comes back from the fields.” He inclined his chin, and Addie saw that villagers seemed to be appearing from nowhere. They stood in front of all of the houses, and were coming down the paths to greet them.

  Climbing down off her mule, Poppy said, “Let’s see if we can’t get acquainted with some of them before the village leader comes and takes over everything.”

  And then they were among them and carried along in a snaking line up to one of the homes. Three doors led out onto the same flat entranceway in front, and framing each one were long sheets of faded red paper painted with Chinese characters, torn in places and covered in a fine layer of dust. They were escorted by one of the women to the middle door of the three. Inside the cave, it was cool and dark. The walls were plastered, and a table was pushed against one wall, a set of shelves against the other. At the far end of the room was the stove and the k’ang, which was covered in blankets. In the winter, the stove would feed heat into the area under the bed, but in the summer the stone k’ang stayed cool. Their hostess led them to it, and they sat.

  Addie pushed her skirts aside and sat on one hip with her feet tucked under her. Poppy crawled back and sat against the wall with her legs straight out. Only Ku Taitai joined them. She ordered a younger woman to get tea for the guests and then began talking. Addie couldn’t follow all of it, but every now and then Poppy stopped the woman and translated. She understood far more than Addie, who grasped short threads of the conversation but couldn’t knit them together.

  Ku Taitai told them that her husband was the leader of the village. He had three wives and she was the first. Their home was the largest in the area; it had three rooms on this level and another four up the path. The other wives had those spaces. Ku Taitai had two sons and one daughter. She pushed up the sleeves of her jacket and showed them her jade bracelets. They had goats and farmed several plots of land nearby.

  Addie drank tea while the woman talked. She abandoned trying to understand and simply listened to the sound of her voice. An audience had gathered around them, half the village crowded into the room and watching the three women seated on the k’ang. There were only a few old women, who stood hunched with their hands folded at their backs, and Addie wanted to invite them to sit, but understood that it was not her place to do so. After a time, Poppy spoke. She explained about God, that there was only one god, and He had sent the two of them here to share this news. That was all—there was nothing about Jesus or sin or heaven and hell. She asked Ku Taitai which were her children, and the woman beckoned to a young boy at the front of the crowd. He crawled up onto the k’ang, put a hand out to touch Addie’s hair, and asked, “What is it?” Then he looked at his hand to see if any of the color had come off on his fingers. Poppy laughed—her own hair was nearly as dark as the Chinese’s—and said, “Addie, they think you’re made of gold.”

  Later that night they were given that same room to sleep in, and Addie wondered who had been displaced—a whole family, maybe, crowded in with others now to make way for them. Before being sent to bed, they sat outside with Ku Chieh-shih beneath a million stars, the moonlight so bright they could see the mountains all around, and though Addie could not understand very much of the conversation, she gave herself over to the not knowing. Now, lying in a darkness so deep she couldn’t be sure whether her eyes were opened or closed, she shifted onto her side and faced the invisible shadow of her friend. She touched Poppy’s cheek, felt her flinch and grow still. Then she placed her palm over Poppy’s eyes. Remembering this night later—yes, she recognized it as the moment where she tipped forward and fell tumbling into love. She could trace it all back to here: her leaving Lu-cho Fu and Owen, and all that followed.

  At the time, she felt only eyelashes fluttering against her palm. Then lips on her skin, whispering. Addie didn’t know what had been said, but when Poppy’s hand found her own mouth, she put her lips to the rough palm. It smelled of leather and rapeseed oil and peppers and dirt. She couldn’t see in the black cave, and she didn’t dare move. The seconds fell away like water into a pool. She breathed in and out, concentrating on the sensation of air filling her chest and leaving it again, until Poppy’s hand moved away and it was her mouth instead.

  18

  One week after they left Lu-cho Fu, somewhere west of T’ien-chin, Addie awoke at the tiny, dirty inn where they’d spent the night and felt hovering over her some vague sense of dread. Her heart was pounding. It could have been night, but she heard the twitter of birds: the timid approach of day, not yet arrived.

  Her sleep had been full of dreams. She couldn’t quite remember them but knew that she had been reliving odd moments of her life, only at different speeds: slowed down and stretched out, or else sped up to a frantic pace. She had traveled across and around the world in these dreams, and there had been armies of strangers crowding at the edges, and she had run through dark, hazy landscapes for hours, days. And throughout all this, she’d felt hovering close to her the souls of people she hadn’t seen or thought of in years: the young German woman in Marietta who’d showed up alone at church every Sunday and never spoke to anyone, the Negro couple who came by the house every fall selling moun
tain medicines. A woman in Lu-cho Fu whose son had died of infection. A blind beggar in T’ien-chin. All these long-forgotten people crowded around, jostling close whenever she was still. Completely absent were those she loved and knew well. Where were her children? Where were her parents, and Flora and Will, and Louisa? Where was Owen?

  She remained in bed for a time, back pasted with sweat against the roll-up mattress. She could hear the rustling of insects in the straw, but exhaustion sat heavy on her chest, and anyway, she had slept here all night; there was no point in caring now. Yet she knew she would not fall asleep again. She got up and dressed and put away her nightgown in the satchel that held her few things. It was not yet light, and Poppy was still sleeping. Addie sat down on the edge of the bed to wait for day to arrive, listening to the twittering birds, the mice scurrying along the walls. Outside, the mules were shifting now, their hooves softly knocking the hard ground.

  At last, Poppy stirred and yawned. “You’re up,” she said.

  “I’ve been awake for a while.”

  “Anxious to get on our way?”

  “I suppose.” She was still seated on the edge of the bed, watching the tiny points of gray light that were appearing in the holes and cracks in the wall.

  Poppy yawned again and rubbed her neck. Her pillow had fallen onto the floor; the bed sat in the middle of the tiny room, and there was no headboard. Addie figured it had been positioned that way so critters wouldn’t crawl off the wall and into the bed at night. “I won’t shed any tears leaving this place,” Poppy said.

  “Neither will I.” Then Addie smiled because she was no longer alone in her wakefulness, and the uneasy sensation of her dreams was fading.

  A few hours later, the two of them were sitting on the deck of a flat boat making its way downriver. The sun was coming down hard, and Addie had a parasol tilted to block the rays. A Chinese newspaper they’d bought in T’ai-yüan lay open on her lap. She hadn’t read more than a few of the headlines. It was difficult work, reading Chinese. In the heat, too, her mind seemed not to be functioning as it should—it felt mushy, like soft wet sand that keeps swallowing footprints.