The Tapestries (12 page)

“Stop! I am scared,” he screamed.

“You must listen to me, young Master,” she said. “I need you to understand. I belong to you, and I shall remain with you so long as life runs through my veins. Only Death could part us, and now I can feel it in my bones. Before I die, I want to find you a home that can give you food and shelter. I must not wait too long. We cannot escape this place, so we must find a way to ensure your safety among your enemies, even as they are searching for you. And where could I hide you? Where is the very place in this village that no one will look for you? I have found the answer. Indeed, my sole consolation is the fact that, at the height of my malady, I have come upon a plan to save you.”

Dan did not fully understand what she said, but he sensed her seriousness. “Do not send me away,” he begged her. “Come and sit with me. We will have lunch together, Ven.”

She stood up and searched for her straw hat, which lay nearby with the rest of her clothes. The boy watched her with fear in his eyes. He gathered the taro roots in his hands. “Please, Ven. Eat something. You'll get your strength back. Then we will leave here together.”

Ven sat up and faced the burned wall. Her shoulders shook. In a flat voice she said, “I can't, young Master. You eat the food. I would not rob you of your last meal in this house.”

The boy froze in consternation. “What do you mean, Ven? Where will I eat? Who will I live with?”

Ven buried her face in her hands. “Tonight you will eat at the house of Toan, on the floor with the rest of the servants.”

Dan stepped back, transfixed with horror. The taro roots fell from his hands. “No, no,” he wailed. “I cannot go to the house of Toan.”

“We have no choice. To save you, I must sell you to Magistrate Toan's family. If I die, you must pursue revenge for your parents and me. If I survive, I will be right here watching over you.”

Dan ran out of the kitchen. Ven somehow found the strength to catch up and seize his arm. The boy struggled to get free. Despite his screaming, she did not release his wrist. He fell to the ground. “I hate you,” he moaned, beating her feet with his fists.

Ven lifted him across her shoulders. His weight temporarily threw her off balance. She rested against the wall, waiting for a wave of dizziness to pass. “I am sorry,” she muttered. “Let us go while I still have some strength. Since I can no longer offer you any assistance, I must break off my relationship with you.”

With the boy sobbing against her neck, Ven gathered his clothes and tied them in a bundle. She put her straw hat on her head to shield her burning eyes from the torrid sun. As she eased through the back fence, she moved so slowly that she thought she would never reach the road that led to town.

V
en carried her husband for almost half an hour before weakness threatened to make her fall. The afternoon was drawing to a close. Her shadow fell on the wet surface of a rice paddy, stretching out the length of a palm tree above the green sprouts. In the distance, a pair of oxen moved their weary feet along the earthen levees to search for grass. She saw the dark outlines of a couple of magpies that rode atop the cattle. Backlit by the sinking sun, their feathers shimmered like drops of black ink.

Ven stopped and swung the boy down from her shoulders. Holding him by his upper arm, she led him across the fields. Beneath their feet, the drying mud was bumpy with the imprints of hasty footsteps.

“Do you really plan to sell me?” Dan whined. Tears melted the dirt on his face into black streaks. “Have pity on me, Ven. I don't want to die like my father. I want to live.”

She walked faster.

“Please, Ven,” he said. “I do not want to be without you. I already miss you so much. Please let me stay with you, just one more night together, I beg you.”

The entrance to the village came into view from behind a row of areca palms. On the right was the house of Toan. Several haystacks, like bald hills, sat outside its front gate next to a group of jackfruit trees. As a farmer, Ven realized that in order to gather that much rice straw, Magistrate Toan must control hundreds of acres.

She felt as though she were about to enter a tiger's lair. How would she face the enemy? What would happen if Magistrate Toan or his son recognized them as the missing fugitives? Only fate could decide what would happen next. She felt light-headed. Hunger and illness once again overcame her.

She stood at the gate, holding her husband's hand. Red tiles covered the top of the entrance, which was supported by a pair of black wooden posts. Two enormous iron doors, also painted black and ornamented with white porcelain carp—a sign of prosperity—closed on each other and were secured with an iron hook. Thick walls of sun-dried bricks bordered the compound's three acres. Beyond the gates, a long courtyard led to a two-story house. Its front porch overhung a doorway decorated with images of dragons and phoenixes, painted blue and red against the golden panels of the doors.

Ven turned away. It was impossible. Her husband was right: she needed to eat and rest. Somewhere in her head, a much louder voice urged her to carry out her plan. Sweat broke out on her back as though she had been pulling the plow across the field all morning. She lifted the front panel of her shirt and wiped her forehead. Slowly, she turned to face the large gates.

She saw no one inside. In the front yard, a handful of pigeons pecked lazily at a bowl of rice crumbs. Next to them, a row of leafy-stemmed orchids with large, droopy flowers bathed under the harsh sun.

“It must be done,” she muttered to herself and inserted her fingers through the peephole to unhook the gates. Turning to her husband, she said, “You wait here. From now on, if anyone asks, I am your mother, and your name is Mouse.”

“My name is not Mouse,” the boy argued. He was looking inquiringly at Ven. “It's Dan. My daddy said in the old language it means tiger, not mouse.”

“You were born in the hour of the rat, were you not? The magistrate's men are searching for a boy named Dan Nguyen. As long as you remember that your name is Mouse, you will be safe. Understood?”

“Yes, Ven.”

Ven strode through the gate, looking neither right nor left. Her husband leaned against the wooden post and watched her.

From the kitchen, a brown dog dashed through the courtyard toward her. It jumped forward, aiming its sharp fangs at her throat. Ven let out a shriek. She fell on the ground, waving her hat to protect her face. Her voice echoed in the empty garden, while the dog's barking roared like a thunderstorm. “Help me, please, somebody!”

No one answered. The dog lunged to bite at her feet. Ven used the hat as a weapon to fend it off. The animal snapped its jaws and tore the straw brim into shreds. “Help me, anybody!” she implored.

A woman dressed in a black silk outfit rushed out from the back of the kitchen. Her hand held a large bamboo stick. In the corner of her mouth hung a toothpick. Despite the horror of her predicament, Ven watched the young woman with astonishment. Even though she carried more weight on her stout frame, her face bore the features of the maid Ven knew. Song cracked her cudgel on the back of the beast. Shouting, she chased it across the courtyard until it disappeared under a lilac bush.

Once the animal was out of sight, Song returned to the intruder. Seeing Ven's sickly pallor, she dropped the staff from her hand. Her toothpick also fell at her feet. “Are you ill, Mistress?” she asked Ven.

Ven pushed herself up from the ground. Blood welled from the wounds in her right hand where the dog's teeth had punctured her skin. She tore a piece of cloth from the front panel of her shirt, then wrapped it around her palm.

Song stared at her. “Why have you come here? Are you mad? Didn't you hear that Magistrate Toan has just executed thirty fishermen? Leave now, before he returns and kills you, too.”

Ven took the maid's hand to steady herself. “That monster!” she exclaimed. “Heaven will damn him for betraying a dead man's last wish. But the devil has never seen Dan or me. No one in this house has. Please, Song, you must help us. Don't tell anyone the young master's identity.”

“Do you think I am your enemy?” cried Song. “I am and always will be a faithful servant to the Nguyen family. Why are you here in this house of calamity? And how can I help?”

A sad smile brushed Ven's face. “As you can see, I am not well,” she said. “I can no longer care for my husband. Bringing the young master to this house is the only way to save his life, since no one would think of looking for him here.”

Song clasped her hand to her mouth to hide her shock. Ven wondered what had possessed her to be so frank. It was a great risk for her to trust the maid, but she had no other choice. She said, “Song, for the short time that I have known you, you have shown nothing but great kindness. Please help me protect the last bearer of the Nguyen bloodline. I will owe you my deepest gratitude.” She fell on her knees before the maid.

From inside the living room, a woman's voice stirred in the hot air, as scornful and haughty as the afternoon sun. “Who is out there, Fifth Mistress? If it is a beggar, do not waste your time. If you want to give anyone our leftover rice, feed it to the pigs instead. We do not need those beggars to glorify our family name. Do you hear me?”

Ven caught the frightened look on the girl's face. “Fifth Mistress?” Ven asked. “Which of the men granted you that title, the father or the son?”

“My life now belongs to Magistrate Toan,” the girl replied. “If you want to leave the young master here, you must make an arrangement with his first wife, the old mistress. Come with me.” She turned from Ven to lead the way.

A
cross the long courtyard they went, until Song left Ven to wait on the front porch while she disappeared behind a panel of doors. In a large room that resembled the backstage of an opera house, the peasant woman stood alone, peeking through the entrance.

“What took you so long out there?” Ven heard the same sour voice shrill beyond an ivory partition that shielded the room behind it. Its surface was decorated with a mosaic sculpture of a nude model made from little pieces of blue jade. The girl in the picture reclined on a beach and seemed to smile and wink at Ven.

On the right and left sides of the screen, a pair of ancient verses were engraved into the wooden beams of the house and glossed with a layer of golden paint. Its original color had since faded, and the ink had become rusty. Above the inscriptions hung an advertisement for baby formula cut out of a French magazine. The fat, happy faces of the babies in the photographs were as foreign to Ven as the tin cans that bore them.

In the far corner of the room, Ven saw an ornate mahogany cabinet. Behind its glass door was a china bowl filled with chicken eggs that were waiting to be eaten. The dish sat atop a white marble tray.

Ven shifted her view to the rosebushes nearby. Their white flowers, blooming broadly under the encouraging sun, were within her reach. Despite her dismal situation, she studied the petals and could not help admiring their fragile beauty. How simple and untroubled they were, in contrast to the rest of the house. She looked at her hands. Under the blood-soaked bandage, the wound seemed to have stopped bleeding.

Song pushed the partition aside. Ven remained on the front porch, looking through the door. She would not dare cross the threshold. In the center of the room, she saw an elderly woman, dressed in lustrous black satin. The old lady reclined on a bench, holding a cup of tea. Ven recognized the emerald glow of Master Nguyen's soup bowl in her bony fingers. She concealed her anger by keeping her eyes low. A child about six years old played at the old lady's footstool. She held in her hands a bottle of colored liquid and a small metal loop. In the soft light of the room, the little girl made soap bubbles by twirling her loop through the air.

Magistrate Toan's first mistress scrutinized Ven through sunken gray eyes. Thick saliva, a mixture of betel juice and limestone powder, filled the tiny cracks on the old lady's lips. From afar, the sharp look in her eyes, the wrinkles on her thin face, and her shockingly red mouth reminded Ven of a monkey in an expensive costume. Ven fell to her knees and knocked her head against the stone ground.

“Who are you?” the old lady asked. Her voice echoed through the cavernous room.

“I am a beggar, Great Lady,” Ven replied.

“Our door does not open to beggars. Leave this place at once.”

Ven looked at the old mistress. “I am not here to beg for food,” she said. “I have a small affair to discuss with you.”

“What sort of affair?”

Standing in a corner, Song said, “She wants to sell her seven-year-old son to the house of Toan.”

“Why does she not speak for herself?” the old woman asked. “Where is the boy? I do not see anyone but that beggar woman.”

Ven crawled on her knees across the marble floor to get closer to the old lady. Her mouth was dry from the fever. “The boy is waiting by the gate,” she said.

“Seven years old,” the old lady said, sipping her tea noisily. “He is too young to be a servant in this house. What can a starving child do that could be worth the rice that we feed him?”

“I can teach him the duties and responsibilities of a skilled servant, Old Mistress,” Song replied.

The old lady gave Song an angry glare. “You are now a mistress,” she said to the girl. “In front of the servants, you should behave like a lady. You do not teach somebody to be a slave. It must be innate, like an ox born to plow the fields, or a dog to guard houses.”

Ven implored, “Have a heart, Great Lady. Think of it as a good deed for your life in Heaven. Only a small payment will save a hungry child and his mother.”

Master Long came into the room, carrying a book. He removed a Western-style felt hat and fanned himself; then he touched the little girl's black hair and asked, “Why is a beggar in our living room, First Mother?”

The old lady answered, “She is selling her son. A small household affair, which need not trouble you.” Turning to Ven, she ordered, “Bring the boy in. I want to see if he is fit to serve my first grandchild. A seven-year-old slave is worth three silver dollars.”