Along the River (22 page)

“Perfectly clear.”

“I hope it is clear, for your sake. Remember, His Majesty is not used to being denied. Meanwhile, please show me where the rock is so my men can cart it to the Palace.”

Through the screen, I watch them leave. With a huge sigh of relief, I try to get up, but my legs are numb from being still for so long. Just as I am shaking them to get the circulation back, I see a hand coming round the side of the screen. My heart gives a giant lurch as the screen is pushed to one side.

“I knew it must be you,” Ah Zhao says, and my stomach returns to its usual place. “I saw the screen move when I first came into the room! Did you know the edge of your dress was sticking out nearly the whole time I was talking to Tong Guan? What on earth are you doing here, Little Sister?”

I try to get up, but collapse in an undignified heap on the floor because one of my legs is still asleep.

“It’s a long story. What are
you
doing here? I thought you were supposed to be showing the General where the rock is.”

Ah Zhao points to his gardening shears.

“I left these so I would have an excuse to come back. I’ll catch up with the General now, then I must speak to your Baba. He’s the only man I trust to give me sound advice. Come on, I’d better give you a hand up before I go.”

Ah Zhao’s hand is warm in mine, and I wish I could feel its support there all the time.

“We must talk this over, Ah Zhao. You can’t go to live in the Palace—it will destroy you.”

Ah Zhao gently releases my hand and picks up his shears.

“Don’t worry, Little Sister. It may not come to that. I have to go now.”

Marble Snail

D
uring the next two months, Gege’s friend Cai You spends more and more time at our home. After classes on most afternoons, the two sit in the garden next to Ah Zhao’s shed and practice the zither for hours on end. They keep asking me for new lyrics, which I gladly supply. I find that I really enjoy writing words to songs. It’s much easier than learning to play the music. Besides, I like to hear my lines being chanted loudly, over and over, for everyone to hear.

Baba comes home earlier than usual today, and finds them playing the zither and practicing one of my lyrics. He joins us at the garden table and tells Ah Zhao to bring out the best tea in the house, as befits the son of the Prime Minister.

“Good tea!” Cai You exclaims, sniffing the fragrance.

“Glad you like it,” Baba replies. “This particular tea was picked from the bushes in our private tea-garden, in early spring. At that time of the year, the tea-bushes are covered with silvery-white leaves, tender and fragrant, that resemble needles. We compress the leaves into tea-cakes and dry them in the sun. When guests like you honor us with your presence, we cut off a bit of cake and grind it with a mortar and pestle. Then we pour freshly boiled water over the powder. We call this ‘white tea,’ because of its color.”

“I’ve never had tea as delicious as this!” Cai You says. “May I present some of this tea to His Majesty as a special present from you? The Emperor is a great connoisseur of tea and is presently writing a book titled
Da Guan Cha Lun
(
Treatise on Tea
).”

“I will be honored to do so. Please tell His Majesty that the quality of the water is as important as that of the tea.” Baba beams. “The water in this tea isn’t drawn from the well in our courtyard but carried from a fresh spring one
li
away. All the utensils used are reserved for making tea and nothing else. A knife that cuts shrimp or garlic is never used to cut tea-cakes in my kitchen! The tea-cake knife cuts only tea-cakes.”

“I’ve noticed how tranquil and beautiful your garden is,” Cai You says, pointing to the door as Ah Zhao walks into his shed. “Look at the bamboo framing the door of this simple wooden hut with its thatched roof! Every trunk is as high and round as the next. And the asymmetry of the paving stones along this path leading to the main house. How did you achieve this poetic effect? Who designed it?”

There’s a short silence as Baba looks around at his garden proudly, with fresh eyes. “Well, I suppose my head servant, Ah Wang, has a lot to do with it…,” he replies vaguely.

“Oh, Baba!” I interrupt impatiently. “You know very well it’s Ah Zhao who’s the brains behind it!”

Cai You makes the kind of face people make if they step in dog poo.

“Ah Zhao!? The barbarian garden boy who just served us our tea? Surely you’re joking? Most barbarians can’t even read or write, let alone design something as sublime as this garden! They’re barely human!”

I’m furious, but also shocked, as it has given me a glimpse of how other people might see Ah Zhao.

“He’s not just the garden boy, is he, Gege?” I wait for Gege to defend him, but he has gone red and is trying to pretend he hasn’t heard.

This just makes me angrier. “He’s our friend, isn’t he, Gege?”

Cai You gives a silly little laugh. “Your friend… the garden boy… is this true, Ze Duan?”

Gege mumbles something that could have been a yes, but says nothing else. To make matters worse, I know that Ah Zhao can hear everything from his shed.

Fortunately, Baba explains to Cai You that Ah Zhao is a very talented artist, and part of our household, rather than just a servant. Cai You gives another silly titter and says he admires Baba’s commitment to the arts.

I’ve had more than enough, so I make my excuses and go to my room. After a while, Nai Ma comes in and says that Cai You has gone home. I go looking for Ah Zhao, so I can apologize, but finding him is not as easy as I’d hoped. Finally, I find him near the ravine at the back of our garden, pruning the dead branches off a pine tree growing out of a rock. I can tell he wishes that each branch he is lopping off is Cai You’s head. I’ve never seen garden shears look more dangerous.

“Come on, Ah Zhao,” I say to him. “Don’t listen to that idiot Cai You—he’s just not worth getting upset about.”

Crack—another dead branch hits the ground. Ah Zhao picks it up and breaks it over his knee.

“It’s not just him—everyone thinks the same thing. No matter how well I paint, I’ll always be the barbarian who is barely human. An outsider, in exile for the rest of my life. Even to your brother!”

I feel desperate to make Ah Zhao realize how important he is to us. “You have no idea of your effect on others, Ah Zhao. When Gege and I are with you, everything comes alive. I know he didn’t behave too well back there… goodness knows what came over him… but in his heart he’s perfectly aware of your perception and intelligence. Surely you know we both think you’re a genius?”

“A genius!? What are you talking about?”

“Remember the time you, Gege and I came to explore this ravine for the first time, and saw this very tree growing out of rock? You made us tap out hunks of granite that day with hammer and chisel, to make paving stones for the path in the garden. Afterward, you did a painting of the gnarled tree so beautifully that its branches appear to be twisting in the wind every time I look at the picture. As for the little snail you carved out of the small piece of black granite that broke off, I like it so much that I’ve slept with it under my pillow every night since you gave it to me.”

Suddenly Ah Zhao is not angry anymore.

“Have you really?” he asks, visibly moved.

“Yes—and I often look at it and wonder what you were thinking when you carved it.”

“I remember very clearly. When I first came across that small, broken piece of granite, its shape appealed to me. It was just a stone, but it had a touching quality. For some reason, it reminded me of you.”

I smile. “Maybe it’s because I tend to hide behind my books. It takes courage to be a writer—especially a woman writer. The act of writing seems so final. Once you’ve put your thoughts down on paper, you can never take them back.”

“For whatever reason, I saw within that stone the image of a little girl too shy to show her talents, just as a snail is afraid to show its horns. I worked on that piece of rock, and something precious emerged. That snail used to be part of a ravine, but now expresses a young girl’s hidden dreams…”

“From now on, every time I look at my snail, I’ll think of you extracting a living symbol from a cold mountain,” I reply. “And now my dream is that Tong Guan will forget all about you, and you’ll stay here with us forever.”

Ah Zhao suddenly looks into my face. “Don’t you realize that change happens all the time? Nothing is forever. Everyone knows that your
niang
is trying to arrange a marriage for you. Do you honestly think you’ll be living here much longer yourself? With a bit of luck, you’ll marry a rich man, bear lots of children and live happily ever after.”

“No!” I cry. “I’ll never marry. I’m going to be a writer.”

“Only time will tell what is to be your destiny,” he says sadly. “But one thing’s for certain. Unfortunately, I don’t think Tong Guan will forget about me.”

Decision

S
ure enough, a letter arrives for Ah Zhao two months later. Baba reads it to him. Of course it’s from Tong Guan, and in it he demands the presence of Ah Zhao at the Palace of Divine Inspiration, within ten days.

Gege and I walk over to Ah Zhao’s hut and wait for him. The two of us sit on the planks covered with bamboo matting that he uses as his bed. I look around the room as Gege rests his arms and head on the tree-trunk table.

“This room has hardly any furniture, but I love it,” I tell Gege. “To me, it’s the most beautiful room in our entire house.”

“Why do you think we like it so much?”

“As soon as you step inside the door, you know you’re in a special place. This room belongs to someone who has no money but possesses the good taste that money can’t buy. Look at the bare earthen floor, the bamboo-covered benches, the thatched roof, the mud walls mixed with straw, the curved wooden pillar, the unevenly spaced bookshelves, the windows cut on several levels. What does it remind you of?”

“It reminds me of an ink-wash painting: simple but elegant. I know what you mean, Little Sister. Whenever I come here, I feel that time is suspended. Even though I know we’re living during the reign of the Eighth Emperor of the Song Dynasty, this room could have been here during the Tang Dynasty or even one thousand years ago, during the Han Dynasty. It would have looked exactly the same. Sometimes, I see Ah Zhao as a prophet, a figure of light, or a character out of myth. At other times, I see him as a man of destiny.…”

“What’s the phrase he likes to say that makes you feel so good?”

“You he bu ke
(is anything impossible)?”

At this moment, the door opens and Ah Zhao walks in, looking white-faced and exhausted. He flops down on the bamboo mat next to Gege and says nothing for quite a while.

“I’d hoped this day would never come!” he finally mutters, and puts his hands over his eyes as if he doesn’t want to see what’s in front of him.

“We all did,” Gege answers impatiently. “What does Baba advise you to do with the Emperor’s offer?”