Red Skies (The Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters) (7 page)

Finally, he found his voice. “The one where my daughter was found when she was a few days old.”

Max helped Mari up into the rickshaw, then took his place beside her. Mari leaned forward and gave the driver his instructions, then she settled back against the seat, not completely relaxing. Max thought she looked as if she wanted to leap from the moving pedicab.

“It’s a good thing we’re nearby. That’ll save us a lot of transportation money today, since we don’t have to hire car taxis.” Mari said, then scooted over as far as she could.

Max appreciated that she’d picked up that the subject he’d started in the noodle shop was too sensitive and personal to continue until he was ready. “Yes, that’s why I took the small apartment in this area. I wanted to be close. Anyway, I’m glad you’re fine with taking a pedicab, as I’m down a few hundred renminbi. I lost my wallet in the train last week.” It looked to him like the touch of his leg made her nervous, so he moved as far over to the right as he could. With a small distance now between them, she seemed more at ease.

The driver yelled out to offer them a small lap blanket, and Mari replied they didn’t need it. It was a little chilly, but it felt good. Along with the satisfaction in his belly from the tasty
yóutiáo—
deep fried dough sticks that she’d shown him to dip in huge bowls of steaming milk
—
it was nice to have some company for the day, and if he was being truthful, it was an added bonus that the company was Mari. He didn’t want to admit it, but lately, even being in the middle of thousands of people, he felt so alone. And who was he kidding? It wasn’t even just because he was in a foreign country—he’d felt alone for a long time, now, anywhere he’d gone.

“Was your wallet snatched by a pickpocket?” Mari asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe. But I didn’t see anyone.”

He didn’t know how or by whom; he only knew that when he’d gotten off the train from his short trip to Shanghai, his wallet had been gone. Luckily he didn’t carry his credit cards in it—he’d learned a long time ago to keep his cards and some backup cash in a money clip, safely in his front pocket. And he never carried his passport; instead he kept a folded-up copy in his wallet. But the biggest loss had been worse than losing money—all his photos were gone. He didn’t even have any saved on his phone. Now, far from home, he had to rely on his memory to picture her face.

Thinking of faces, he scrutinized Mari’s profile. While he could tell she was a usually happy person, it appeared to him that she hid a certain sadness. Maybe even something like his. He didn’t mind the silence, but she looked uncomfortable, and Max didn’t want her to feel that way.

“So can you tell me a little about the hutong?” he asked.

“I can’t say I know much about this particular hutong, as I’ve never been there. They are all different, but in a way, the same. They are a much better place to live than the towering apartment complexes most Chinese live in now. I was lucky—I grew up in a hutong in Wuxi.” A small contented smile eased across her face, and Max could see a good memory had been unearthed because of their conversation.

“Well, that’s a surprise. I thought you were a big-time Beijing city girl. Wuxi’s quite small, isn’t it?” If Max remembered right, Wuxi was famous mostly because of its sprawling Lake Taihu.

Mari nodded. “Compared to Beijing or Shanghai, it’s definitely small. But Wuxi is growing now, with all the foreign companies bringing their businesses there. When I was little, though, I truly only knew the boundaries of our hutong and just the few streets around it. So it felt like living in a village.”

Since the day Max had read that his daughter was found in one of the small winding alleys of a hutong, he’d been enthralled with them.

“Tell me more.”

Mari sighed, then visibly relaxed against the back of the hard seat. “The hutong was a charmed place to be a kid. We lived in a one-room house, but I never felt we were lacking for anything. I remember our little stove fighting the cold in the winters, and our open windows when we were hot in the summers, but within those walls, I felt safer than I ever have in my life, before or since.”

“Was there any crime in the hutong?”

Mari laughed softly. “Not really. Just little stuff. But my baba was Chairman of the Neighborhood Conciliation Committee, so we probably knew more about what was going on behind closed doors than anyone else.”

“Neighborhood Conciliation Committee?” Max was truly curious—and he loved to hear her talk in her perfect English, even if she did stumble over some words.

“It was a half official and yet half volunteer group. They were—I’m not sure I know the right word for it—
mediators
? They settled frustrations or small arguments within the hutong and neighboring streets.”

He nodded.
Mediators
definitely sounded like the right word. “But what about the police?”

“The committee was first set up to help out the local administration, but really, just like in the old villages, there has always been a community leader. In your American roots, it would have been like the chief of an Indian tribe. The police are a last resort—only called in if weapons or serious injuries are involved. Most everything else can be settled without officials.”

Again, her intelligence astounded him. Obviously, even though she was raised in a small community, she was well read. But her reference did amuse him, considering his blond hair and blue eyes were as far from an Indian heritage as could be.

“It sounds complicated for your father.”

“
Dui
, it could be, but he had a committee to help him. And he was very respected in our hutong, so his word—and his final decision—was rarely challenged. His two-year term was renewed for decades, because my baba is a wise man and just to have him in the room usually settled people down. He continually reminded everyone that our goal was to live in peace with one another, to be a support to those around us. And there
was
a lot of peace and support. If a family was doing poorly and couldn’t afford a meal, they’d usually find vegetables or eggs on their front stoop. Or if their children needed something their caregivers couldn’t provide—the neighbors came together to make it happen. In some ways, even though there were hundreds if not thousands living in the small community, it felt like a huge extended family,”—she smiled, and a small dimple showed on one side of her mouth—“but a family always has issues, you know.”

Max nodded. He knew probably better than anyone the complications, twists, and turns a family can be faced with. Some that could bring a family together, with others having the ability to tear them apart until everything they stood for was nothing more than a useless pile of rubble.

The driver turned a corner sharply, and the pedicab hovered on two wheels for a second, then settled down when the pedaling increased.

Max spied a group of high school kids walking briskly on the walkway, laughing and jostling each other as they pointed at him. With his light hair and eyes, he knew he stood out, but he hoped Mari wasn’t embarrassed to be with seen with him. As for him, he found her stories about her family absolutely fascinating. “Do you remember any of the cases your father decided?”

Mari nodded. “There were some that were so petty it bordered on ridiculous, but since many of the houses shared a kitchen between them, and some of them shared water access, a lot of arguments were over one or another using all the hot water, or leaving a mess in their shared kitchen shed, or using one another’s food supplies without asking.”

Max couldn’t imagine, and the more Mari talked about the hutong, the more captivated he became.

“Sometimes it got more serious when one accused a neighbor of stealing a bicycle, or even other more valuable things. We all lived quite close. Maybe too close, some would think. I remember once when one of the elderly neighbors came to Baba because she knew that a woman was stepping out on her husband with another man. She wanted Baba to tell the husband about his cheating wife.”

“What did your baba do?”

Mari looked embarrassed. “He brought the woman to our home, and my mama counseled her. First, she got to the root of the problem. It seemed the man was being abusive to his wife. When that came out, my mama took her under our roof for a few months while my baba counseled her husband.”

Max’s mouth dropped open. “And you are telling me that the couple got back together?”

Mari nodded. “They really did love each other, and the man the elderly woman had spied with the wife? That was her brother, coming in the evenings to talk to her about returning home. After a few months of counseling, my baba was able to make the young husband understand that life would always be full of ups and downs, but his wife would be there to help him get through it, that to take his frustrations out on the one who loved him the most was robbing him of his own good fortune.”

“Do you think they really stayed together?”

Mari laughed, and the pleasant sound even startled the driver, who cocked his head back. Max could understand how he felt and almost chuckled. Her laugh no longer caught him off guard, but it was still really something amazing.

“I know they did. When I grew up and left home to marry Bolin, they were old and had raised a son. Their son had married, and the last time I saw the couple, they were passing their grandchild back and forth in their front courtyard, arguing over who he looked the most like.”

Max didn’t answer. Her life sounded like a storybook tale. Even something he’d have loved to have been a part of. That reminded him—his daughter
was
a part of such a community.
Or she possibly was at one time.
Or at least she’d been found in one.

The driver stopped pedaling and spat out a few unintelligible words.