The Promise Bird

by Zhang Yueran

  Chun Chi stood on her balcony, watching the great fires before its entrance, more excitement than she’d ever seen. This was only their second day in the new northern capital. She liked the winters here, skies full of snowflakes and more on the ground, like walking on soft clouds. She filled her pockets with little icicles and enjoyed the sensation of sticking her hand amongst them, a numbing cold that reached straight for the heart. She built a snowman with her father. It snowed so much that year. Her father, still a young man, radiated heat from his thick palms. She later realised that this was life force, something he would lose in only a few years’ time.

  The same year, her father was appointed general, and began his life at sea. First, there were emissaries who needed to be escorted home after the celebrations. Next, there was the ongoing work of exploring the seas for hitherto unmapped lands — they needed to be informed that this prosperous kingdom in the east existed, and plundered for marvels to be brought back to the Emperor. No one could have said whether he actually enjoyed going out to sea. After he was gone, Chun Chi found a naval map he’d left behind, and carefully traced the long stretch of land, like a peapod, surrounded by the South Seas.

  Even now, Chun Chi remembers every detail of the day her father set off. He and the other officials and eunuchs, all dressed in red court robes, were dispatched onto four great fleets, on a lighter with silk sails pulled towards the sea by stallions. Two days later, they would reach Tanggu on the shores of the Yellow Sea.

  Chun Chi was now a young maiden of marriageable age, but that day, her father held her hand tightly until it was time for him to go. She would always be his little girl. He took her to see the great ships at dock, larger vessels than she’d ever seen before. Each of them had nine masts trailing red silken sails, like blazing sunrise clouds. Standing before her father’s ship, an uneasy presentiment warned her to remember every detail of its likeness — it would be taking her father away from her.

  Behind him, half-submerged, rising and falling, the ship was a slumbering sea monster. The water, disturbed, let out faint moans, like a secret signal to Chun Chi. She insisted on going on board the ship and her father could not refuse her. She wanted to see everything — their freshwater tanks, their food (rice, vegetables, preserved fish), the tame otters they used for catching fish. In the cubicles where they slept, she saw the little mementoes the sailors brought with them, the white tea flowers they grew in jars to enjoy with their water ration.

  Before leaving the ship, she noticed a tea flower sticking half out of its metal canister by a porthole, rocking with the motion of the ship and shedding white petals, stark white against the red paint of the sill, like bright stars. They quivered, and finally tumbled into the sea. Tiny leavings, containing human memories, sinking to the bottom of the silent ocean. Sighing, Chun Chi lifted her skirts and stepped back onto shore.

  The night guard came off duty, and the last lot of supplies was loaded — at dawn, the ships raised anchor. Prayers were said to the sea goddess Mazu, the red silk sails were raised, and the great ships took advantage of the seasonal north-east winds to speed their journey. Chun Chi watched them disappear one by one into the Yellow Sea, their hulls glittering, the talismanic snake-eyes now too far away to be visible. She felt very weak, as if her heart had been plucked out and borne away on those ships.

  4

  No one knew the whereabouts of her father’s fleet. The ships that had returned received no bounty. This was a year of disasters. During a thunderstorm in the middle of spring, lightning struck the middle one of the Forbidden City’s three palaces, starting a fire that crept along the golden roof, then down the scarlet pillars and the heavy silk curtains, finally reaching the wooden Dragon Throne of the Emperor. Many were killed or wounded. The Emperor was shaken — certain that his ambitious plans to navigate the ocean had angered the heavens by probing mysteries he was not meant to. Added to that were the many epidemics and famines sweeping the country, so much so that the royal warehouses stood empty.

  Further expeditions were cancelled, and the sailors and officials who returned were not only unrewarded, but sent to take up positions far from the capital, as if they were infectious.

  Chun Chi quickly realised that her father’s many wives and children hoped he’d stay away. If he were to be relieved of his position, they would no longer be able to live in a mansion as they did now, surrounded by servants. Only Chun Chi’s mother burnt incense before the Buddha every day, praying for her husband’s return. The infection in her lungs grew worse; she coughed violently at even the slightest change in the weather, sometimes bringing up blood. Her constant worry that she had not much time left in this world, and would not live to see him again.

  News finally came — he was alive. Sailors coming back from the South Seas brought a letter to say his ship had been wrecked in a storm. He’d been washed up on an island, where the natives took him in. They were good to him, providing him with farmland and slaves. Now he had come to love that unrestricted life and did not wish to return; instead, he wanted his family to join him. He had arranged with the local Malay chief for their children to marry, a symbol of the eternal sincerity on both sides.

  The family looked askance at each other. Was the man mad? To them, the South Seas were a wasteland, the people living there little better than savages. They decided he must have heard what had happened to the sailors who’d returned and, growing lonely, was putting a good face on it to encourage his family to join him.

  Chun Chi helped her mother back to her room, but then doubled back. That winter, the doctor had told her mother not to leave her bed. Still, Chun Chi supported her slowly back to the now empty hall, where she lit the oil lamp and, leaning against the desk, slowly read the letter again. A violent coughing fit took hold of her, so the paper shook like a bird taking flight.

  Short of breath, she rested her head on the desk, gently pillowing it on the letter. It was a long time before she was able to look up and say, “Chun Chi, shall we go and find your father?” Her voice was a sharp knife through the ice of a winter lake.

  “All right,” said Chun Chi.

  She was worried about her mother’s health, but didn’t try to stop her. Her mutely obedient mother had never made a decision. Travelling to the South Seas was the first wish she’d ever expressed, and Chun Chi couldn’t refuse her. Saying yes so lightly, she barely realised that she had also agreed to her own marriage.

  This was the winter Chun Chi turned seventeen, a warm season. She gave her pet rabbit to Fourth Mother’s daughter, left a half-embroidered pocket for her maid Ah Qiao to take care of, and after repeated pleas, was allowed to bring her beloved zither with her.

  The mother and daughter’s departure caused ructions through the rest of the household, who fought over every single item of their furniture, from the rosewood chairs to the bed-curtains. Chun Chi’s mother sold enough of her jewellery to ensure a good dowry for her daughter, and had a wedding gown made. The rest she left behind.

  The doctor advised her to wait till the end of the winter, but Chun Chi’s mother insisted on leaving immediately. They went before the New Year celebrations had ended. Chun Chi helped her mother over the firecracker debris and onto the carriage. It was a sad contrast to the pomp with which her father had departed, but perhaps this solitude was what her mother wanted.

  5

  Chun Chi is by her mother’s bedside, feeding her medicinal soup, when three strapping men burst into the cabin. They look Chinese, but years at sea have beaten sharp angles into their faces, and their bodies give off the spicy galangal smell of the tropics. Typhoon winds blow through the door after them; lightning draws white streaks across the night sky, like a pigeon with its throat slit, disappearing into the impenetrable dark clouds.

  Chun Chi jumps up, spilling scalding soup on her hands, almost dropping the bowl. The smell of men assaults her. These three have crashed into her world like a meteor. She feels as if she has been physically hit, short of breath, and has to open
her mouth to take in great gulps of air.

  One of the men drags Chun Chi outside. The pirates wrench open the wooden chests containing her dowry, their eyes shining at the sight of the gold and jewels. Not recognising the value of the fine dragon’s well tea and ginseng, they tread on them.

  The men find the osmanthus wine and break open the casks, the smell perfect for an evening so enchanting. Have a drink, poor little pretty girl. They pull Chun Chi’s head back and force the wine down her throat. She struggles like a swan having its neck broken, her long hair straggling down, tickling the men’s palms. They decide to play a finger-guessing game for her. She is won by the youngest. Ridhuan, they call him. His brothers jeer — this will be his first time. He is skinny, his eyes bashful. He has never been out to sea before.

  Ridhuan slowly climbs on top of her, shuddering as he touches her ice-cold skin, his penis shrivelling like a frightened squirrel. His brothers laugh and he flushes red in shame. They say let them show him how it’s done. Humiliated, he crawls off her.

  When his second brother enters her, Ridhuan hears the girl scream and smells the sharp stink of blood. The girl’s skirt is torn, and her necklace has unknotted, sprinkling pearls over her white body, like sparkling rain. The cruelty of this scene excites him, making his blood surge. Ridhuan’s body feels his body tense, the squirrel emerging from its hiding place.

  When his brother stands up, his trousers are stained with the girl’s blood, a pale red circle, like a trampled flower. Ridhuan feels the red spreading, deepening, blinding him, an evil eye that reminds him unblinkingly of his shame.

  6

  Chun Chi’s mother, her illness beyond the reach of medicine, crawls from the hold. Who knows how she heaved herself from her bed. She drags herself forward, still coughing up blood, and sees Chun Chi sprawled bleeding on the deck. Beyond pain or anger, all she can do is weep as she makes her painful way over to her daughter.

  “Are we still going to find Daddy?” asks Chun Chi, making her way slowly back from another world.

  Chun Chi’s mother rests the brazier of her forehead on her daughter’s face and cries till she has no voice left. Perhaps now she feels regret — her insistence on going after her husband has led to her daughter’s ruination. But she must not give way. She feels ashamed of how easily she has surrendered to fear. “Yes,” she nods.

  “Get lost.” A man’s hand pushes Chun Chi’s mother aside. She falls, but pulls herself up, kneels at his feet, kowtowing and begging him to spare her daughter. He kicks her again, and she sprawls against the ship’s railings.

  Before Chun Chi can call to her mother, the man has entered her. She can put up with the pain, even the humiliation, as long as nothing happens to her mother. If they both survive, they can continue to the South Seas to find her father. But the older woman grabs the man’s leg and is attempting to pull him off. The man, in the throes of pleasure, kicks her again, square in the chest, so she spews blood over his legs. Enraged, he calls for his brothers to throw her off the ship.

  Chun Chi struggles under him as the man who raped her earlier throws her mother over one shoulder and carries her to the railing. She tries to push the man off her but it is already too late, her mother’s tiny body sweeps through the air like a broken rainbow and tumbles into the water. Chun Chi’s mind turns white, and she faints. The man continues to violate her, but she does not feel it. She is plantlife, part of the great earth, her expression peaceful as if the pain has ebbed away into the soil.

  Ridhuan stands uneasily. He cannot bear to look at the girl, so faces the sea. Its surface is calm and flat, no sign of the woman so recently swallowed by it. He shivers. His heart tightened when his brother threw the old woman in, when Chun Chi screamed. He has seen murder often before, yet this one hurt him.

  Behind him, his eldest brother grunts like a beast, reaching the heights of pleasure. How ugly this enjoyment is. Ridhuan would like to walk over and pull him aside, rescuing his prey. Instead, he turns and walks slowly into the hold.

  7

  It is over. The rain starts again, increasing until the stars are no longer visible, taken away by a parsimonious god. The low night sky is now a sheet of desolation. Barricaded in the hold, the pirates grumble and curse before slumping, exhausted, into deep sleep.

  Chun Chi gradually recovers consciousness. Her hands are bound above her head, the rope wrapped round and round them. She is an unwanted shuttle, abandoned in a corner. There is no light. She cannot even see the men in the room with her, only guess their positions from their snoring.

  Her mother is dead, she tells herself, and tears come to her eyes before she can stop them. She remembers her mother at the end, tenderly stroking her hair, confidently answering “Yes” when she asked if they’d still find Daddy. She looked so strong, so calm that for an instant, Chun Chi believed they would soon be out of danger.

  Now she will never see her mother’s smile at being reunited with Father. The end of life is ashes and smoke. She presses her face against the wooden wall to stifle a sob.

  Into her endless black despair, a hand silently brushes against her fingers, light as a petal. Her body quivers, each hair on end. Is this a dream? There is nothing around her, only darkness. She sighs, her heart cooling. The hand comes again, clasping her palm this time. The sudden warmth could mean anything, but for her it is all the light she needs, replacing any number of stars or lighthouses. There is no way to ascertain the intentions of that hand, all she can do is extend her own.

  The strange hand creeps from her palm up to her fingers, pressing against every inch of skin, burning, bringing it to life. This mysterious hand comes clasping secrets, planting the will to live in her flagging heart, each subtle movement igniting a flame. She finally allows herself to weep. Their fingers extend, intertwine, moving in rhythm with the ship, in the pitch dark amongst the snores of men, plunging deep into her shame and torment, wrenching out a beautiful pure white lily from the mud.

  8

  Chun Chi wakes as light reaches the edges of the sky. The rain has stopped, and someone has opened a porthole to let in the grey, watery light. Her palm is sweating, as if something has melted in it. A smell lingers in her palm from last night. Reality and imagination are becoming hard to tell apart.

  Ridhuan sits by the porthole, his body half out, surveying the horizon. The other two men are still asleep, snoring out of sync with each other. Her eyes fix on Ridhuan’s hand, wondering if it was this hand that brought her to tears last night. It is a hardworking hand, its joints protruding, and must have struck many blows to acquire such a scar on its back, like a centipede. As she stares, he pulls his head back. It must still be drizzling, his short hair glistens with water and his face is wet, his eyes brilliant.

  “A great wave might be on its way. I saw a few ships raise the warning flag,” he says to her in a low voice.

  “Are pirates scared of waves?” she mocks.

  “I was, as a child. My parents were washed away by a tidal wave.”

  The boy before her can be no more than sixteen or seventeen, the outlines of the child he used to be still present. He is not yet strong enough to be a pirate, has not acquired the armour he will need. She looks at him closely, trying to find everything soft about him — the thought flashes across her mind that this might be her escape route.

  She says in an undertone, “So you’re an orphan.”

  He turns to face her now. “Yes. Our big brother brought me up. The four of us, brothers, inseparable. We’ve survived all these years, good fortune and bad.”

  “By ‘good fortune,’ do you mean robbing and killing people, raping women?”

  Their eyes meet. He holds her gaze. “It’s not the way you think. Our big brother is the tribal chief. Our tribe is very rich, we seldom need to resort to this. Now we’re at war with another tribe, and need a big ship to use against them, so our brother sent us to get one.” Ridhuan doesn’t know why he is telling this girl so much — but he doesn’t want her to think he i
s a common pirate.

  “Take the boat if you must. Why did you have to kill my mother?“

  “It’s because you’re Chinese. My brothers despise the Chinese.”

  “Don’t your ancestors come from China too?”

  “No. My mother was a wise, noble-born Malay woman. We own this territory. The Chinese are our slaves.”

  “You’ve never been to China. If only you could see how big, how noble our kingdom is. You can’t imagine how grand our Emperor’s palaces are.”

  “That’s enough. I don’t need to know any of that. All I know is you Chinese, whether soldiers or women, are only fit to be our slaves.”

  And then they are silent, as if a wide river has sprung up between them, and they can only look at each other from opposite banks.

  9

  “I’m so cold. Look, I’m shivering.” Chun Chi finally breaks the silence.

  Ridhuan lifts his head and stares at her with bloodshot eyes. Chun Chi guesses that he has not slept well all night. Her eyes drift down to his hands.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  “We may bring you back to our village, or we may—” He stops.

  “May kill me before you reach home?”

  Ridhuan is silent and sad. When he walks over to her, the wooden boards tremble drunkenly. She looks up at his hesitant footsteps. His broad skeleton has not filled out with flesh, ankles and knees protruding in little round knobs. This is a body full of life, she thinks. Not like his two brothers, already clotted with dirt and grease, unable to grow, struggling even to breathe.

  After being violated the day before, as the pain ebbed, a hitherto unrevealed door opened for Chun Chi, and desire rushed from it in a flood, cramming her full. Now it stirs — the boy with his rolled-up trousers revealing bronze calves, covered evenly with thick hair, and under that, taut muscles latent with power.