by Carol Jones
He reached for the door pull, a brass ring attached to a bat of good fortune, its wings outstretched like a butterfly. The moaning was almost ear-splitting now, rising to such a pitch that he thought surely the entire village must hear it. Opening the door, he put one foot over the sill and then the other, his eyes momentarily closed. When he opened them it was his mother he first saw. She knelt on the rug rending her clothes and tearing at her hair, a wild keening issuing from her throat. Then he noticed his father lying on the floor beside her, his robe hitched up to show his bony ankles. Young Wu could not understand why his father did not remonstrate with his mother. If she talked too much while serving his dinner he would throw his bowl to the ground in disgust. Yet now he lay face down and silent, as his wife wailed louder than a cat in season.
‘Ma… Ma… be quiet,’ he hissed. ‘Ba is sleeping.’
If he didn’t instantly calculate the sum of the clues set before him, who could blame him? What son expects to enter his father’s study and discover him murdered? Find his mother keening over a bloody corpse? That was the knowledge these moments finally brought to him. His mother’s grief, his father’s still form, the discarded seal lying upon his disordered robe, his greying queue matted red, the seeping blood staining the rug. Added together, these facts resulted as surely as the tallying of an abacus, in a single explanation.
*
One minute the only movement in the house was the rattling of the wind through empty courtyards, the only sound was the wailing of his mother; and the next moment, Gatekeeper Wu was hobbling into the family’s inner sanctum with what seemed like the entire Wu contingent trailing behind him.
‘Aiya! Aiya! Who did this?’
‘Where is the murderer?’
‘Who has killed Wu?’
The angry voices bled into each other so that Young Wu could not separate them. He felt like the entire clan had come to accuse him of being a bad son. How else could this have come to pass?
‘What shall we do, Master?’ the old man said, pulling at the hem of his tunic. ‘What shall we do?’
‘My father is dead, Old Man. He cannot tell us now.’
‘You must tell us what to do. You must find the murderer.’
Suddenly his mother ceased moaning and spoke to him. ‘You must avenge your father’s murder or his po will not rest.’ He waited for her to say more, to reveal some truth that he might grasp. Something that might help him understand. But with these few words she resumed her wailing, bowing repeatedly over the lifeless form of her husband.
‘It’s true,’ said his Second Uncle, shouting to be heard above the din. ‘Your father’s po will not rest in his grave. It will become a ghost to haunt the living. Look at all this blood! Even his hun may not remain in its tablet.’
Young Wu watched as a ripple of horror passed through the assembled Wus. Third Aunty actually looked up at the peach tree as if to discover his father’s po hovering in its leafless branches. But there was nothing there, only the annoying breeze that had plagued him since he first returned home.
‘There aren’t enough offerings in the world to ease his journey in the underworld if you do not avenge his death,’ said Third Uncle, to which the gathering of Wus nodded as one. Young Wu wondered if the ancestors gathered, silent and invisible, for he felt the weight of their judgement upon him too.
‘The girl did it,’ said the old man, his good eye fixed upon Young Wu’s face. ‘She was the only one here. No one else passed through the gate. I will attest to that.’
‘The girl was alone with him. This is true,’ cried his mother, interrupting her bowing briefly. ‘He ordered us not to disturb him.’
The gathering nodded in understanding, for you did not disturb Big Wu if ordered not to.
‘You must find her and take her to the yamen so the magistrate can deliver justice,’ announced Third Aunty, who was a great believer in the Emperor to bring order.
‘That old woman is talking nonsense. You must find the murderer and deliver justice yourself!’ said Second Uncle. ‘Only then will your father’s po sleep.’
‘Ya! How will your father face the Courts of Hell while his murderer runs free?’ said Third Uncle, shaking his fist for emphasis. ‘He will be the joke of the underworld. All the demons of Hell will be laughing at him.’
Faced with this barrage of advice, Young Wu was yet to find his voice. Both his father’s younger brothers were glaring at him, expecting him to set things to rights, but his tongue was glued in place, as if by a mouthful of sticky rice. How could he set his father’s death to rights when it was his father who ordered their house, who lavished punishment and doled out praise? It was the father who sat in judgement in Sandy Bottom Village. Not the son.
‘The girl cannot have gone far, Master,’ said the old gatekeeper. ‘I don’t know how she escaped without my notice.’
‘Perhaps she is still here!’ said Second Uncle. ‘Let’s search the building. She cannot escape us all! And when we catch her, Young Wu will deliver justice!’
‘Justice! Justice!’ shouted the Wus. ‘Young Wu will deliver justice!’
He tried not to picture the form this justice would take. He tried not to imagine Little Cat thrust into a pig crate and thrown in the river. He shut his eyes to the vision of her body jerking on a rope, long bare legs kicking air.
‘The gate was wide open when I arrived,’ he said finally. ‘She will not be here any longer. Are you sure no one else entered, Old Man? Perhaps when you went to relieve yourself?’
‘The doors were closed and latched when I left. When I returned they were open. That’s when I went and knocked on the old master’s door.’
The Wus gathered in a circle around him, waiting. Everyone in the village knew him as Young Wu, son of Big Wu, who was headman of the village and the Wu clan elder. Everyone expected him to take action. For who amongst them could rest easy if a ghost was on the loose, especially one with a temper?
‘Second Aunty will lead the women and search the girls’ house for any sign of Little Cat. I will speak to the Mo family.’ He stood with his legs apart and his hands akimbo, trying to find the strength to do what was needed, to do his duty as a son. He was eighteen and he was a man. And yet… he had not been a man for so very long. He was not practised in its ways. And murder had not come to Sandy Bottom Village since he was a small boy and Bully Yee’s father killed his mother by striking her in the face with an iron cooking pot.
‘And then what, Master?’ asked the old man.
‘And then… and then we shall see.’ He knew they expected him to vow vengeance upon the perpetrator but he could not bring himself to do it. Not yet. Not until he had to.
19
The Mo family conveyance was more raft than boat and needed a steady hand to keep it afloat. Their father had built it when newly married – five giant bamboo poles lashed together, each a hand’s width in diameter – and it had done good service for their family, ferrying mulberry leaves and hanks of silk to market and returning laden with rice and tea. Second Brother scampered along the raft like an otter but it took Little Cat most of the morning to find her river legs, for the narrow raft tilted dangerously with any jerky movement. By midday she was wielding the long bamboo pole as expertly as her brother.
They kept to the canals and creeks, avoiding the busy river traffic where they might be more easily discovered. Her twin was accustomed to poling the raft along these waterways from his many trips to market with their father. But by late afternoon, when they had passed through the market town and were deep inside the watery maze of Sun Dak county, he decided that travelling on foot would be faster.
They rounded a bend in the creek and joined a wide shallow waterway where fishermen worked huge nets hung from flimsy bamboo frames. Others fished from rafts with shiny-feathered cormorants that rested on the boats with wings outstretched to dry. The birds were trained to dive for fish and return the catch to their masters. Little Cat wondered whether the birds would be so obliging i
f their necks had not been snared to stop them swallowing all but the smallest of prey.
Second Brother guided the raft to the bank where a stand of trees concealed them from the inhabitants of a nearby village. Little Cat stepped lightly to the bank, trying not to capsize the raft, as her twin dug his pole deep into the river mud to hold it steady. Once she was on dry land he handed her one basket at a time, before disembarking and hauling the raft up behind him.
‘How will we return the raft to our father?’ she asked.
Her brother did not look up from the business of securing the raft.
‘Goh Go?’
‘We won’t.’
There was no need to say more. She knew a pang of guilt then for she hadn’t thought about returning the raft once during the many hours of their journey. Her head had been too full of thoughts of capture to consider the repercussions of their hasty departure. She had not spared a thought for her father, who would lose the boat that saved him regular long walks to market hauling heavy baskets.
‘I’m sorry. One day I will get him a new raft. When we have made our fortunes on New Gold Mountain.’
‘Will you also get back his land?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Wus are certain to take back our lease now,’ he said, looking up from his business with baskets and boat to face her. His wide mouth was set in a grim line that matched the frown scratching his forehead. ‘Now that a Mo daughter has murdered the Wu clan elder.’
‘I did not—’ she began, but he cut her off before she could deny the word ‘murder’.
‘I doubt they will see it that way.’
Was it murder to defend your honour, even your life? Big Wu had put his bony hands upon her. He had cleaved at her sex with his bamboo claw. Should she have stood frozen like a frightened rabbit and let him have his way? Even as she grappled with these thoughts, another image teased at the edges of her memory. One she could not quite catch. It flitted away just as she snatched at its meaning.
‘Wing Chun defended herself,’ she said. She did not know how to explain her reasoning to her brother so she invoked the name of the renowned female warrior as her shield.
‘Wing Chun is a myth. You see what happens when girls learn to fight?’
‘What?’
He shrugged, as if that said it all. ‘A man knows how to fight without killing. Women always take things too far. You should have cried out.’
But who was there to listen? Big Wu had sent them all away: the gatekeeper, who surely knew what was afoot, his wife, who did not want to know. Young Wu, who had turned away from her, who had abandoned her.
‘You could have pleaded with him.’
She could not bring herself to tell him that fear had stolen her voice. She could still feel the dry hard lump of it clogging her throat. ‘When has Big Wu listened to anyone?’ she said instead. ‘Did he listen to our father’s cousin?’
‘Aiya! That old story. Can the flames stop the moth throwing itself at them? Ba says his cousin was always disturbed.’
It seemed to her that Fate had a history of disturbing girls. But she did not say this to her brother either, for he wouldn’t understand. He stood with his back to the river, his shoulders yoked beneath the weight of his baskets. The last rays of sun lit one side of his face, the other was in darkness.
‘Well, we must ride the tiger now,’ he said, staring out at the craggy peaks lining the horizon. Beyond the hills lay the city of Kwangchow and the mighty Pearl River. He did not glance back the way they had come, to the village where their family had lived for twenty-three generations. He spoke no regret of leaving home without even a prayer of leave-taking to the ancestors, but she saw it in his eyes.
‘Come. Let’s find somewhere to rest. And then we must make some changes.’
*
The Mo twins squatted beneath a bower of osmanthus trees eating a hasty meal of hard rice cakes and dried fish. Although the nights were growing colder, they dared not light a fire to warm aching limbs or boil water for tea. Even now the Wus might be sniffing out their trail.
The river lapped at the bank below, its far side shrouded in evening gloom. And around them the heady scent of osmanthus flowers merged with the stink of river mud and dried fish to give Little Cat a headache. Or perhaps it was merely the weight of her pigtail dragging at her scalp. So much had happened in the last twelve hours that her thoughts were as muddled as her tangled braid. Perhaps if she laid her head on the grass and closed her eyes, when she awoke everything would be different. She would be back in the girls’ house gossiping with her friends and dreaming of warrior nuns.
‘No time for sleeping. We must travel through the night.’
‘I was only resting my eyes.’ It wasn’t only her head that ached. Her entire body felt heavy, so that she must order her limbs to obey. And her monthly bleeding must be arriving early because her trousers were spotted with blood.
After rummaging in one of his baskets, Second Brother’s hand emerged with a knife. He waved it in her direction, the blade catching a stray gleam of moonlight. For the first time since she had appeared at the fishpond that morning, he smiled. It wasn’t an encouraging sight.
‘What’s that for?’
‘Camouflage.’
He shuffled towards her on his knees, a glint in his eyes. The last time he had given her that look was just before he executed a sidekick to her shin. She sprang to her feet, landing in fighting stance, her hands already poised for attack. This was a strange time to be sparring but perhaps he wanted to keep her on her toes. Anything might happen on their journey.
‘You think I am playing with you? I am done playing, little sister.’ He stood without urgency, straightening to his full height, slightly taller but in other ways almost her mirror image. Broad-shouldered, long-legged, with a thick mane of hair that reached to his waist.
‘Undo your pigtail.’ When she didn’t move he added, ‘You want to fight like a man. You want to go adventuring. Then you must look like a man.’
He was right, of course. She could not continue as she was. She had never heard of a girl venturing across the seas to New Gold Mountain. And although she wore the same samfu as any village boy, and walked upon the same tough-soled feet, her hair declared her sex. Her mother longed for the day when the eldest Mo aunty would braid her daughter’s hair into a married woman’s bun and send her off in a sedan chair to her husband’s home. It would signify the end of her girlhood and the beginning of her new life as a grown woman. But Little Cat now dreamed of combing up her hair and becoming sor hei, a self-combed woman. She would vow to remain celibate for the rest of her life. She would do away with the need for a man. She would be a grown woman, but make choices like a man. She would comb up her hair into a bun, make her offerings to the gods and celebrate with a banquet. Then all her friends and family would give her lucky red packets.
That was her dream.
‘Men don’t cry, little sister,’ said her brother, an expression of disgust on his face.
She wiped away tears with the back of her hand and promised herself that she would not cry again. She would face this new future – whatever it might bring – like a woman. Like a warrior. She untied the ribbon that fastened her pigtail and ran her fingers through her hair, unravelling each braided strand so that it hung down her back like a skein of reeled silk.
‘Go ahead. But try not to make me bleed.’
Her twin clutched a fistful of hair from the top of her scalp and handed it to her.
‘Hold this out of the way.’
Then he took the knife and slashed at the remainder, slicing as close to her scalp as possible around the circumference of her head so that one single pitiful hank remained.
‘When we get to Kwangchow you can visit a barber. This will do for now.’
He stooped to gather the discarded hair and took it down to the water’s edge where he released it into the river, jettisoning any clue to their presence. In the darkness she could not see w
here it floated. She did not know which way the river would take it or where it would end up. Just as she did not know where this journey would take her. All she could do was follow it to its end.
She lifted a hand and traced it over her prickly scalp. Then she gathered the remaining hank and began braiding it into the tight queue of a man.
20
The trail of Wu men wound up the alley, their torches casting shadows across pitiless faces. The wind ruffled their clothes and whipped their hair, adding to the tension as they pressed close to his heels, their hands itching for vengeance, their voices barely restrained to a sullen murmur. The Wus were under siege and someone must pay.
He knew as soon as he stepped through the gate that the Mo family had heard the news. The last of the daylight had faded and only a single oil lamp and the flickering torches lit the courtyard but they were lined up along the veranda as if waiting for an execution. He wondered how much they knew. Whether they knew that their daughter had bludgeoned his father with his seal, so that he died in a pool of his own blood. What were they hiding behind those pale, anxious faces? His father said that everyone was hiding something.
Ah Keong looked up expectantly as he entered, but Young Wu did not meet his eyes. He couldn’t afford to give any hint of silent contract or promise. On this of all days, he must be his father’s son. Hard and uncompromising, merciless and unforgiving.
‘The thunder is loud yet little rain falls.’ He heard his father’s laughing voice in his head, shaming him still, even though he was dead.
One by one the family approached and bowed, even the old grandfather, leaning on his cane.
‘We have heard that your father has passed,’ said Mo, shaking his head, his face grim. ‘It’s too sudden.’
‘We hope that you will restrain your grief,’ said the grandfather.
‘Do not be too sad,’ said the wife.
‘Whatever we can do to help,’ said Ah Keong, clapping him on the shoulder.