The Library of Legends

by Janie Chang

  She suddenly felt very old.

  Her mother maintained a veneer of calm to the outside world; she was disciplined when it came to concealment. But Lian learned to recognize the early signs of panic. The quick, nervous movements of her mother’s hands. The way her mother’s eyes darted around, searching for hidden terrors. After seven years and four homes her mother was still cautious, but less inclined to panic. Each change of address seemed to ease her mother’s mind, as if each move put more obstacles between her and her demons.

  When Lian won her scholarship to Minghua University, her mother made a small celebration dinner, all Lian’s favorite dishes. River shrimp stir-fried with green peas, a hearty Harbin-style chicken stew, a simple salad of shredded cucumber in a sweet vinegar dressing.

  Then after dinner, Lian’s mother finally told her what happened seven years ago.

  Her father had gone to Tientsin on business. He stayed with a cousin, the man in the long blue scholar’s robe who had come to see her mother. This relative was the only one who still spoke to her father. The others had shunned him after he’d married her mother, an orphan with no family and no dowry. In Tientsin, her father had indulged in his hobby of browsing for antique books.

  “Your father was shot down in the street,” Lian’s mother said. “A police officer thought he was the Japanese spy they’d been hunting. A young officer, who realized his blunder almost immediately.”

  But the authorities still accused her father of being a spy.

  Her father’s cousin had military connections and was able to unearth the truth. It was a delicate time for the Tientsin police. The young officer was nephew to the chief of police, whose career was on the brink after a series of highly visible and embarrassing mistakes. The family was ready to compensate Lian’s mother if she promised silence. They threatened her if she made a fuss.

  “But I’ve known people like that before,” her mother told Lian. “Even if you cooperate, they don’t trust you. Sooner or later, they find a way to get rid of you. We had to disappear.”

  Lian washed the last bowl. “Mother, if you want me to stay, I can attend Beida University instead and live at home.”

  “No, no. You must go to Minghua University,” her mother said. “I’ve made you sacrifice too much already.” Her eyes filled. “I know how much you’ve worried and watched out for me. But I’m better now.”

  “I don’t mind staying,” Lian said. “Peking is home now.”

  Her mother put a hand over hers. “Your father always wanted to see the Library of Legends for himself. He would’ve been so proud. I’m so proud.”

  BUT ALL THIS time, the authorities had known. Had been keeping an eye on them. The truth didn’t matter since official accounts claimed her father had been a Japanese spy. Lian didn’t want to give in to Mr. Lee’s demands. But how could she face Shao and Meirong if they thought her father had been spying for the Japanese? Would they even give her a chance to explain?

  She had thought herself indifferent to Meirong but now realized she was not. Meirong’s sunny, uncritical friendship suddenly mattered very much. And as for Shao, she shuddered when she remembered the hatred in his voice whenever he spoke about the Japanese.

  She had to do as Mr. Lee ordered. And all the while she had to behave normally. Pretend nothing was wrong, that she enjoyed the company of her classmates. The best way to act busy was to throw herself into her studies. Opening her rucksack, Lian pulled out Tales of Celestial Deities and began reading.

  The Willow Star and the Prince

  There was a prince, just a minor one. The Willow Star was only a maidservant in the heavenly court. But the plainest servant girl in heaven is still more beautiful than the loveliest mortal and when the Willow Star descended to visit the mortal world, they met and fell in love. But their happiness didn’t last. The heir to the throne decided to purge the court of potential rivals and the Willow Star’s Prince was executed along with other sons of the royal household.

  The Star returned to her home constellation, crying so hard the stardust of her tears flooded the skies, obscuring both moonlight and starlight, making celestial navigation difficult for mortals. The Queen Mother of Heaven demanded she cease her crying. The Willow Star begged the Queen Mother to let her reunite with her lover. The Queen Mother agreed, with conditions. The Willow Star could join the Prince during each of his reincarnations, but she couldn’t tell the Prince about their past. If she could make him remember their love, she could bring him home to the heavens.

  As far as we know, the Willow Star has yet to succeed in this quest.

  Chapter 12

  Under a full moon, fears of enemy aircraft were never far away from Shao’s thoughts. They were on the road again, bound for a fishing village called Zhongmiao near the city of Hefei. There, inside the borders of Anhui Province, they would be safe. However, by now, Minghua 123 knew “safe” was a relative term. Reports of battles moving south and west meant they would soon be within reach of Japanese bombers again.

  Shao had been taking his turn at the rear of the convoy to make sure no one lagged behind. Now that another scout had taken his place, he made his way up the line, rummaging in his rucksack for the steamed bun he’d saved from the previous day. Then he remembered he’d already eaten it. He sighed. Hunger was no longer a novel sensation. Nor the cold. His hands, wrapped in rough woolen mitts, were chilled, and his lips were chapped from the cold wind.

  A hand on his elbow interrupted his thoughts. “Would you like a bun, Young Master?” Sparrow said. “The cook’s assistant gave me an extra.”

  Shao devoured the bun. The heavy steamed bread weighted down his stomach like lead. As if she knew what he was thinking, Sparrow poked him in the stomach, and he pretended to recoil, as though they were children again. Her face was still that of the girl he remembered, especially when her eyes crinkled in laughter. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a paper bag. Dried apricots.

  Shao bit into one. It tasted of summer, sweet and intense. He chewed slowly, transported back to his childhood, to the orchard behind his grandfather’s summer house in the Moganshan Mountains. He closed his eyes, remembering how the air had been scented with ripening fruit, pears, apricots, and peaches. The tickle of long grass brushing against his bare legs as he chased Sparrow through the trees. Both of them collapsing in giggles. She’d been allowed to go with his family on that trip, for some reason.

  He took another apricot. “You can have the bag,” she offered.

  “No, that’s all I need.” He pulled his rucksack more firmly onto his shoulders. “Before we left Nanking, did you even guess what it would be like?” He gestured at the surrounding countryside. “That things were so, well, so backward in so much of this province?”

  The names of the small towns where they’d stayed for rest stops were already fading from Shao’s memory, yet what he had seen was lodged in his mind. Towns that hadn’t changed in a hundred years, where electricity was still a rumor. Counties where a single family owned all the land, ruling what was practically a feudal system with tenant farmers toiling in the fields. Children and adults shitting over open troughs, faces emaciated from hunger and wasting illnesses. He saw a peasant population steeped in superstition, farmhouses where livestock and people shared the same quarters.

  “Not just in this province,” she said. “The poverty, the primitive rural villages, this is what conditions are like in most of China.”

  “I’ve been appalled so often, Sparrow,” he said. “Every day, I still can’t believe what I see.” Only to Sparrow could he admit this. Because she understood, already knew, he’d been unprepared for the poverty. “I mean, the lice and skin sores, vermin-infested sleeping quarters—for us it’s temporary. But these people, it’s how they live. Will they ever see better days?”

  “It’s been like this for centuries,” Sparrow said. “Human life has always been one of China’s cheapest commodities.”

  “What did you say? ‘Commodities’? Sparrow, wher
e do you learn such words?” he teased, knowing that Sparrow read everything that came her way. Since working at Minghua she had even made use of the library, with special permission from Professor Kang.

  “The poor exist in our cities as well,” she said, looking prim.

  “I know that,” he said. “I’m not blind.”

  It was just that he’d never paid them much attention. Beggars determinedly staking out their small patches of pavement. Children squatting outside shop doors, selling cheap candies and cigarettes arranged on wooden trays. There were so many, and they were so persistent, so much a part of the streetscape. Sometimes he flipped a coin to a beggar or bought a package of mints off a tray.

  Sparrow poked him in the ribs. “I think you’re getting exactly the sort of education you need right now.”

  “You sound like Wang Jenmei,” he said. “Are you going to lecture me on socialism now?”

  She was silent for a moment. “You need to stay away from that one, Young Master.”

  “Don’t worry, Sparrow,” he said. “Even if I attend one of her meetings, I’d never get involved in her brand of politics.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Sparrow shook her head. “Her skin is not as tough as it seems. Her feelings bruise easily. She doesn’t like being disappointed.”

  “No one likes disappointment. I need to catch up with Shorty,” he said. “On second thought, I will take those apricots. He may want some.”

  It was easy locating Shorty, who was whistling, something he often did while walking. Rather irritatingly, however, it was always the same tune, one from an American film. “Pennies from Heaven.”

  SHAO HAD COME to Minghua University because of Pao, his neighbor and best friend, whose father owned a fertilizer company and ordered Pao to study agriculture or chemistry, or both. He didn’t care which university Pao chose. Pao decided on Minghua.

  “Do you think I should attend Minghua, too?” Shao sat cross-legged on his bed. “It’s far away, Sparrow. Four hours by train. My mother might not like that.”

  Sparrow squinted at the shoe she was polishing, gave it an extra wipe with the rag. “It’s one of the best universities in China and your mother wants the best for you. She’d be proud to tell her friends you’re at Minghua.”

  A small knot loosened in Shao’s chest. “I’d like to live in a different city. Meet different people.” Get away from his mother’s melancholy. Away from under his father’s thumb, just a little.

  She started on another shoe. “If Pao’s there, you won’t have any problems meeting new people.”

  “I’ll miss you, Sparrow,” he said, in a rush of regret. She had never been exactly pretty, but at that moment, he thought the curve of her lips the sweetest he’d ever seen.

  After the first few weeks in Nanking, when the excitement of settling in at university had worn off, a sensation of unease stalked Shao, a drifting aimlessness. As though he’d somehow strayed from the path he was meant to walk. Following Pao, he had majored in agriculture, telling himself that he, too, wanted to help China produce better crops. But he floundered.

  Pao was sympathetic and unhelpful. He slapped Shao on the back and said, “Let’s go hit some tennis balls and you’ll feel better.”

  Shao woke one morning, drowsily aware that someone was sweeping the hallway outside his dormitory room. It was a comforting, familiar rhythm. Three long sweeps of the straw broom and then a short one to push all the dirt into the dustpan.

  He sat up. Pao was still sleeping, snoring lightly. Shao pulled on his dressing gown and threw open the door. “Sparrow! What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see Nanking.” She was dressed in the dark-blue tunic and trousers worn by all Minghua servants, from groundskeepers to cooks.

  “But why did you leave Shanghai? And my family?” The Liu servants counted themselves fortunate. It was unheard of to leave the Liu household voluntarily. “Did my mother send you?”

  “They’re not my family. My place is with you, Young Master.” Sparrow walked down the staircase, broom and dustpan in hand. She paused at the landing and gave Shao a wide, sweet smile that made her look almost pretty.

  Shao shut the door and sank back on his bed. The untethered sensation was gone, in its place a feeling that he and Sparrow were part of the same journey, that all was well, now that she was here. When he was a boy, that feeling had come over him frequently when he was with Sparrow. But as he grew older, he’d dismissed it, as he did now, the sensation washing over him quickly and draining away. He told himself it was just because Sparrow had turned up suddenly, reminding him of the first time he’d seen her at his nursery door. It was just because she had always been part of his life.

  A week later, Shao changed majors. Whatever he was searching for, he knew it wasn’t to be found in crops or soil, weeds or drainage. Literature and the classics were how he would search for purpose.

  THE YOUNGEST AND oldest members of Minghua 123 traveled on wagons and carts, perched wherever there was room to squeeze on between luggage, crates, and baskets. Female students and servants could also ride for a brief respite from walking. It was Lian’s and Meirong’s turn to ride. They sat with their legs hanging over the side, their backs resting against sacks of rice, knocking each other every time the cart bumped over a rut.

  Lian had spent the earlier part of the evening keeping an anxious eye on Meirong. On their last day at Shangma Temple, Jenmei had announced she was heading up a student newspaper: the Minghua 123 News. She scheduled a “walking meeting” to discuss plans while on the road to Zhongmiao. Meirong had volunteered immediately and even offered to work as coeditor alongside Jenmei.

  Lian had trailed the walking meeting at a safe distance. She watched Meirong’s spirited gestures and obvious enthusiasm with dismay. The others in the group were mostly second-year students like Meirong. Jenmei had a way of attracting young admirers.

  Now Meirong was dozing, almost asleep, while Lian sat miserable, wide awake. How could she keep Meirong away from Wang Jenmei? What if Mr. Lee demanded she spy on Meirong as well? Lian had been avoiding Shao, certain that her every word and gesture, her false smiles, even her downcast eyes, would betray her. She had even been avoiding Meirong.

  Her sense of belonging, always tentative at best, had evaporated, leaving nothing more than a dim remembrance of warmth. When she looked at them now, her classmates seemed to shine with duty and patriotism, so united in their camaraderie they were like a family. They looked out for each other. They trusted each other. She wanted to stop caring about Meirong and Shao, stop caring about all the classmates who had so inexplicably become friends.

  On days when Lian couldn’t bear any more of Mr. Lee’s scrutiny, the only reason she didn’t run away from Minghua 123 was because she had no idea where to go. If she had learned anything since leaving Nanking, it was about the hazards of wartime travel. Her mother could be anywhere. On a train heading straight for the coast or on a meandering route that might take weeks or months before reaching Shanghai. She had to wait until she knew her mother had arrived in Shanghai—or some other destination.

  Only then could she make a decision.

  Fatigue prevailed over misery. Lian wrapped her arms around her knees and put her head down with a sigh, letting the motion of the cart rock her into drowsiness as the road passed through open fields. The cart followed the wide curve in the road to pass a large pond, the ruined shell of a farmhouse behind it. There were people camped inside and around the farmhouse’s walls, refugees too tired or too poor to find a better shelter.

  A cold wind carried sounds from the encampment. Coughing and sneezes. A child’s whimper. With the approach of morning, the full moon was starting to fade, but its image still shone out from the pond, a perfect reflection on that tranquil surface. Three figures moved to the water’s edge. Two were ragged, a man and a woman bundled against the cold. The third, she somehow knew, was Sparrow. Their conversation carried across the waters of the pond.

  �
�Don’t take too long.” It was Sparrow’s voice. A voice that gleamed. “The gates to the Palace will only stay open for a year.”

  “We’ll tell the others,” the woman replied, “but not all are willing to leave.”

  The conversation made no sense at all to Lian.

  Sparrow held the woman’s shoulder for a moment, a gesture of farewell. The man put his hand out and Sparrow gave it a quick squeeze. He seemed to be wearing a fur mitt, badly made. Or else his hand was deformed. Sparrow continued to the front of the Minghua convoy, where the road vanished into the shadows of a bamboo forest. The couple stood motionless at the side of the field, shoulders hunched against the cold. When the cart rolled past, Lian caught a glimpse of their eyes. Yellow and shining with glints of green. The eyes of wolves. Or were they foxes?

  She put her head down on her arms and fell asleep.

  ON THEIR FINAL approach to the fishing village, Minghua 123 stopped to let a detachment of soldiers march by. Lian and Meirong moved off to stand in the fields while soldiers and military vehicles took over the road. The officer leading the soldiers was on horseback. He looked tired, his chin dark with stubble. The scouts carrying rifles stood at attention as he rode past. The officer saluted them gravely in return, as if they weren’t just students holding outdated guns.

  Meirong tugged at Lian’s sleeve. “I wish you’d join the newspaper project,” she said, “then we could work on it together. I know you think Jenmei might slant the articles to favor a left-wing point of view, but all she wants are well-written articles, regardless of ideology.”

  Lian forced a smile. “I’m not a journalist.”

  “We need all kinds of help,” Meirong said, “not all of it to do with writing. I mean, you could just do the copying. Copy the finished articles onto newsprint. Then we’ll paste up the news sheets on walls.”

  “On walls where?” Lian asked.

  “Wherever we’re staying, like at the post office in Shiama. Any town or temple,” Meirong said, “wherever people can see it. And we’ll also need copies for ourselves, so that when we’re settled, we can publish our writings. We badly need volunteers to copy two sets of everything. One to paste up on walls and one to keep.”