The Concubine's Daughter (23 page)

“My family fished the Yangtze River for many generations. I grew up beside the rushing waters, sometimes yellow as a peach, sometimes brown as a yam, sometimes green as a fresh apple. The voice of the river sang me to sleep and I awoke to the chanting of the trackers hauling junks against the rapids, men as strong as oxen, bent to the towrope till their noses touched the ground.”

She lifted her head and squared her meager shoulders. “I had a cousin, about my age but perhaps a little older. We were friends and he taught me many things. I could lift a dip net jumping with small silver fish when I was three. I knew the name and hiding place of every frog, and where the white crane made its nest.” She paused at the memory. “We grew our own rice and picked pomegranates and pomelos from our own trees. Our life was good, and the river was abundant, our bowls were always overflowing.”

Her tone was shaded with sadness. “A great storm came, thundering like ten thousand white horses through the gorges—they say it was the greatest of all storms. The old people on the river had never seen the river gods so angry. The gods let loose their dragons and swept away the fruit trees, our goats and our pigs, and the temple where we prayed in the great flood. Everyone in my family perished, with many thousands of others, except my cousin To-Tze.”

She lifted her voice from this passing shadow. “But the gods decided to spare us. We clung to a fallen tree and were swept into the great Tung-Ting Lake, the Place of Peace and Harmony. Reed-cutters took us in and I was raised in the lake’s marshes, but To-Tze was given to the Voice of Buddha monastery, named after its great bell that can be heard across
the lake. They say he became a great master of White Cane
wu-shu
and left the Voice of Buddha to teach all over China, that he returned to live as a hermit on the wildest slopes of the lake to meditate and become a barefoot doctor.” She paused to shake her head and lift her cup.
Her hand is steady,
thought Li,
she is strong of heart and knows so much of life; there is nothing she does not understand
.

“Perhaps he is still there,” the Fish concluded. “It is the most beautiful place in all of China. It is my
huang-hah
, the place of my childhood, in the central hills of Hunan. One day, when I can no longer thread the needle, and my hands can no longer find the beads, I will return there perhaps to find To-Tze. There is nowhere else I would rather take my final journey.”

Seeing that freedom was so new to her, the Fish delighted in taking Li on her visits to the markets, teaching her to haggle over the price of vegetables, freshly cut or dug that morning, and of fish and crabs still flapping and crawling in butts of seawater.

Each day they discovered another hidden corner of the waterfront and the labyrinth of narrow streets, alleys, and lanes that led to its busy and ever-crowded center. Only a moment’s step from the fine residences and fashionable shops of the Praia Grande and the constant breeze off the mudflats, the real Macao began—the Old Quarter, where the first traders had put down roots, many of their families still living above their original shops. The Fish seemed to know every inch of the cobbled streets crammed with narrow shop fronts, streetside vendors, and artists and artisans of every description, threading through the bustling crowds with such energy that Li had to step briskly to keep pace with her.

“They call this the city of sin, and sin can be easily found here. There are many devils—smugglers and pirates, harlots, gamblers, and opium eaters—but it is also a city of angels if you know where to seek them. Many different gods reside here.” They passed a street of shuttered houses, large red lanterns hanging from every upstairs window—invitations to sample exotic services from every corner of the Orient
scrawled on banners of scarlet silk. “Red Lantern Street, home to whores from every province and beyond. A man can buy an hour in his choice of heaven for a dollar or two.”

They passed through crumbling archways into another crowded alley—“Good Luck Street, where fortune is found and life is lost with the turn of a card or the roll of a dice.” Pungent cooking smells from every corner of China greeted them on the Street of a Thousand Flavors.

The Fish turned into a lane so narrow and darkened by overhanging balconies that lanterns burned in the middle of the day, and with stalls so close the proprietors could have shaken hands across its shadowy walkway. The air was filled with the mingled scents of joss sticks, the smoke of incense gathering to hang like mist upon a river. “This is Joss Street, where spirits trade with the living in all matters past and future.”

Beckoning Li to follow closely, the Fish descended a short flight of stone steps to enter a sparsely lit shrine, the airless space just large enough to house a modest altar.

Upon it stood an effigy of the White Monkey—Great Sage, Equal to Heaven; beside it, a bamboo container marked with many ancient talismans. A coil of joss stick, large as a cartwheel, hung above it, as candles burned on either side. At its feet, folded into a dusty robe of darkest purple, sat the oldest human being Li had ever seen; whether it was a man or woman was impossible to say.

Li’s first thought was that the crumpled figure was dead, until it raised its head. The Fish bowed, then squatted before him, waiting until Li was close beside her. “Greetings, Lo-Yeh, I have brought a friend to seek your blessing and to speak with the stars.” A long, thin hand emerged from the robe’s myriad folds, its fingernails long and curled as the claws of a cat. It seemed without flesh, thin and transparent as rice paper, closing around the copper coins the Fish dropped into the outstretched palm.

“This is Lu-Ssi, once a famous Taoist pope, now the elder of all priests,” the Fish whispered reverently. “He is an immortal—some say
he is one hundred and sixty years old, but others say this is rubbish, he is only one hundred and forty. He can no longer see or hear and seldom speaks or moves from this spot where he meditates among the stars. It is believed that his spirit can leave his earthly body and return at will. His wisdom is greater than any other’s.”

The withered claw reappeared, held out toward Li.

“Do not be afraid; give him your hand. He must make contact with your soul.”

The claw enclosed Li’s outstretched fingers, its grip surprisingly warm, a distinct pulse beating in the center of the palm. His fingers closed tightly over hers, robbing her of the will to withdraw; heat generated by his grip burned its way into the core of her being, draining away her chi like blood from a wound. His sightless eyes told her nothing. Seconds passed and her hand was released, her energy renewed like the gush of water filling an empty gourd.

The priest unrolled a mat marked with mystic symbols, then reached for the bamboo container and shook it with unexpected vigor, spilling slivers of peach wood onto the mat before him. They scattered in a meaningless puzzle, each bearing lines of miniature calligraphy burned into the thin slips of wood. From somewhere above, a small bird fluttered down to settle on the pile of slivers, scratching them aside, pecking first at one and then another, hopping busily from side to side. To Li, it looked like nothing more than a common sparrow pecking for crumbs in the roadside dust.

“It is Lu-Ssu, the heavenly rainbird, said to be the eyes of the Great White Sage.”

The Fish had not yet finished speaking when the bird fluttered onto Li’s shoulder; she froze, feeling the tiny golden beads of its eyes so intently fixed upon her that she dared not move. Without warning it swooped back to the mat, selecting a single sliver and dropping it into the priest’s lap before winging off, swallowed again among blackened rafters. The priest felt the minute inscriptions for several silent moments—sliding delicate fingertips slowly up and down, searching like the hand of a master musician tuning the strings of a fine instrument—then began
to murmur in a language Li had never heard. The Fish listened intently, nodding her understanding and asking an occasional question.

His voice rose and fell like wind through the cracks of a window—deep in his belly, then shrill as a frightened child. “It is the voice of the Great White Sage, Equal to Heaven,” the Fish muttered close to Li’s ear. “There is no higher power in matters of the universe and our place in it.” When he was silent, scooping up the fortune-telling sticks, she stood, bowing her thanks, then backed away from the altar with Li at her side. “Let us go to the Street of a Thousand Flavors and drink sugarcane juice among the living. I will tell you then what he sees among the planets.”

“Tell me now,” Li urged her, more than a little unnerved by the visit.

After a moment’s hesitation, the Fish gave her usual grin but failed to meet Li’s questioning eyes. “Your future is assured. The path is clear; you will reach the peak of your mountain sooner than you dreamed. You will surely find your thousand pieces of gold.” Li was strangely disappointed by the sparseness of the forecast, but the Fish hurried ahead and clearly wished to say no more.

F
or Li, the visit
to Joss Street soon became a buried memory, the shrine and its ethereal guardian no more than wisps of scented smoke. As though to help her forget, the Fish gave her a silver dollar, large and round and heavy in her hand.

“It is the master’s way,” she confided. “Only he would pay a bonded servant, and only he would give so generously. Now that you have gained his trust, you too are entitled.” It was the first money Li had seen. When told she would receive the same at the end of each month, she could not believe it. “I have done nothing to deserve this. I have taken but given nothing.”

“Never take shelter from the winds of fortune when they blow your way.” The Fish gave her silent laugh and left Li to contemplate the wonder of the bright silver coin, heavy in her hand. Horizons opened in her mind that seemed to stretch forever. As if this gift was not enough, she could take each Sunday afternoon as her own, to do with as she chose.

On that first Sunday, Li walked the boulevard alone, the coin carefully wrapped deep in the pocket of her
sam-foo
. This was a Mexican dollar, said by the Fish to be of solid silver. She wandered through the crowded lanes off the Praia, keeping the flat blue of the ocean always in sight as she had promised. Acrobats and jugglers, musicians and magicians, all tried to claim her attention, but there was only one thing more wonderful than the silver coin.

She found what she was looking for in a busy lane, close to the market
square. Among a row of little shops filled with curios and antiques stood one that sold only books and the fascinating tools of the scholar. It was small and quaint, with a bell on the door, and above it, in faded gold characters, the shop of a thousand poems. Its crowded window was filled with volumes of every shape and size and color. There were glass cases containing brushes, blocks of solid ink, seals, and all kinds of paper, in rolls and bundles tied with tapes of red and gold. It smelled of ink and oil paint, old paper and old books, dust and discovery. Here she spent her first silver dollar. The shopkeeper, whose fine white beard and whiskers were, she told herself, certainly those of a great scholar, was delighted by the interest of one so young. He invited her to explore his treasures more closely, and never tired of answering her endless questions. After many hours, she left the shop with a strong bag containing books both thick and thin, carefully discussed and decided upon, as well as an ink block, a selection of brushes, and a thick wad of fine white paper.

Ben Devereaux had been thinking of the girl from Ten Willows for some time. He had never regretted saving her life, but now he was forced to contemplate her future, with all its uncertainties. The fact that she was legally his property and therefore his responsibility had begun to concern him. Indie had been right; he had acted on impulse.

None of his servants were bonded to him; he had found that fair treatment, due respect, and decent pay commanded far more loyalty and reliable service than a deed of ownership—which was what the
sung-tip
he had signed amounted to. It was more of a personal responsibility than a legally binding contract, a bill of sale, a receipt for goods purchased and delivered with about as much importance as the purchase of a bottle of good brandy.