The Vine Basket (15 page)

Not today. This was not a day for weaving. That was a fact she must accept. Pangs shot through her left hand now. She'd not heeded the truth of the proverb. Her heart
had
been foolish and unwise. Her hopes and dreams unreal.

Ata had known the truth about her all along.

So had Hajinsa. “Yes, Hajinsa!” Mehrigul cried out to the trees. “I am nothing but a simple peasant with my scarf tied under my chin. The kind they send away to work in factories.”

Mehrigul untangled what little work had been done, straightening the long strips, laying them together across her lap. She gathered the rest of the bamboo from the bag and laid that, too, on her lap. Just looked at it. Maybe someday she'd learn to prepare bamboo, make her own bamboo baskets.

She leaned back on her elbows. She was dreaming again. That chance had passed. The cadre and his wife would be the ones to decide her future.

She was a failure. She had failed to achieve the most modest of her dreams—to have just one simple basket to show Mrs. Chazen.

Mehrigul knew the punishment for dreaming. She'd be sliced like an apple, thrown to the desert. Or far away to the south. It didn't matter which. Either seemed good punishment for a foolish dreamer.

She sat staring at the stream. Watching as it spilled from the ancient stone walls of the mill and cascaded over its bed of stones. Rippling, forming patterns as it flowed by. Strange, the comfort it gave her.

Reluctant to leave but thinking she must not sit idly, Mehrigul gathered the ends of the bamboo weavers and brought them up together, cradling them in her arms. They almost became a basket, a collection of long, straight bamboo spokes forming a circle of graceful beauty that seemed to flow toward the sky.

Mehrigul held them. She couldn't let them go. She loved the simplicity, the perfection of the bamboo and the peace it brought her. It was as if the bamboo was telling her it didn't want to be woven, it wanted to be free. As free as the culms in the grove.

How could she keep the bamboo like this without holding it in her arms? Nothing she'd ever seen had that teaching. Yet there had to be a way.

She studied the bottom of the basket—that was what she called it, for it was a basket. But it needed some kind of base or it wouldn't stand upright. Maybe if she arranged the bamboo into many piles and crisscrossed the piles one on top of the other until they looked like a wheel . . . a wheel with many spokes and a kind of woven-together center . . . then she'd bring the spokes together in four clusters . . . and wrap the bottom of each cluster with a bit of bamboo to make a sturdy base . . .

She saw her basket in her mind, and it made her smile.

As hesitant as she was to let go of the bamboo, she laid it out flat on the rug. First she made sure, as Chong Ata had instructed, that every strip was turned so the shiny surface would be seen on the outside. Then she built her wheel, using a few strips at a time.

Mehrigul looked at her hands. The hard part would be pulling the bamboo around the center into four clusters and binding each cluster with bamboo. She took four strips and dipped them into the millstream. Held them in the water until they were soft and pliable, and then she began.

There was pain. There was much pain, but her plan seemed to work. She bound each cluster about four centimeters away from the center, wrapping it around and around with the bamboo strip until it became a little foot. Four small feet around the crisscrossed center would be the base of her basket.

Now she needed something to take the place of her arms holding the bamboo upright. She decided to make a loose braid with three strips of the bamboo—if her fingers would let her. She chose new strips and again dipped them into the stream to make them as supple as possible.

She thought only of braiding Lali's soft hair. Pain shot through her fingertips–she lightened her touch and kept working. She made one long braid and put it aside.

Her right hand was throbbing, but it hadn't bled again. She tried to rest but couldn't stop. With feet and legs and arms, she gently coaxed the bamboo upward and tied her braided piece around it, about a quarter of the way up. To make certain it would stay in place, she fastened it to an upward strip of bamboo every few centimeters around. Finding the most level spot on the rug, she set her basket there and slowly removed her arms.

It stood upright. It stood even.

M
Y HANDS COULDN'T WEAVE
, Chong Ata . . . I had to do something else. It's almost a basket . . . or, I think of it as one.” Doubt flooded Mehrigul's mind. She hung her head. “At least I didn't spoil the bamboo. It can be used again.”

“Why don't you show me what you made, Mehrigul? I'd like to see it.”

Mehrigul noticed Ana standing by the door as she reached for the sack that had held the bamboo. She didn't want her to see. Only Chong Ata would pass judgment.

“I would like you to show me, and your ana as well,” Chong Ata said. “You would honor her by letting her see what you have done.”

Slowly, Mehrigul lowered the sides of the bag.

There it was before her, as tall as the distance between her elbow and the tip of her hand, as wide as her ten fingers at the top. Beautiful narrow strips of bamboo flowing freely upward from a firm base. Mehrigul caught her breath in wonder that her hands had made such a remarkable thing—or so she thought, again, for a fleeting moment. She turned away. She knew you couldn't just gather some bamboo together and call it a basket.

Chong Ata was looking and not saying anything.

“It's not to sell, Chong Ata,” she said quickly. “I made it for you. It was jus. . . .what the bamboo told me to do.”

Chong Ata leaned closer to the object before him. Without touching it, his hands flowed upward with the graceful rise of the bamboo.

Mehrigul waited. Stopped breathing. She'd thought that at least Chong Ata might like it as a present. But there were no tears in his eyes, as there had been before when she showed him her special woven baskets. This time he seemed to be smiling, almost laughing. She closed her eyes, ashamed she'd thought her work might have some worth.

Then Chong Ata spoke. “I would be most pleased to have your basket as a gift, but I want you to show it to the American lady. If she likes it as much as I do, you must let her have it.” He sat back, his gaze still fixed on the work before him.

“You like it then, Chong Ata, and I can call it a basket?” She had heard his words, but the meaning hadn't gotten through to her mind. “I shouldn't feel ashamed?”

“Not ashamed, Mehrigul. Proud.”

Mehrigul hadn't noticed Ana moving toward them until she knelt at their side.

“I will make a clean cotton bag to carry your basket in,” Ana said. “We can wrap it so it will be protected on the way to market.”

Mehrigul shot a fierce glance at Ana. She'd spoken of protecting it. But if Ata stormed in and said he wanted it, would she let him have it?

Ana's help was too late. The dirty bag that was cushioning it would do. Mehrigul turned away, only to see Chong Ata shaking his head.

“Thank you, Ana.” Mehrigul forced the words through her clamped jaw. Hating that Ana was spoiling her special moment with Chong Ata. Wanting, if only for a brief time, to enjoy the happiness she felt about having a basket to show Mrs. Chazen. She wouldn't have to run away and hide if the American lady really did come back.

“Let me see your hands, Mehrigul,” Chong Ata said.

She had already removed the wrapping from her left hand. She held it out, not surprised to see it was still swollen, with reddened blotches.

“And your other hand.”

Mehrigul tried not to wince as Chong Ata began to remove the bandage. She looked away and saw Ana's hands cover her eyes. Then Ana quickly rose and disappeared into the house.

By the time Chong Ata had removed all the covering, Ana was back with water and a new paste of crushed herbs. Clean pieces of white cloth hung over her arm. Together, Chong Ata and Ana tended Mehrigul's wounds. Nothing soothed her hands. She steeled herself against the pain, knowing she must have faith in the healing power of the medicine her grandfather spread over her raw flesh.

It was Ana who dressed her hands, using the softest, most precious cotton she had stored away. “I'm sorry, Mehrigul,” Ana said. “I should have been in the field helping you. I've not been much use to anyone lately . . . I'm sorry.”

Mehrigul knew she should respond, but what could she say? That it didn't matter? That she understood and forgave Ana? Neither was true. She nodded and said nothing.

“If you like . . . I will try to help you bathe . . . and wash your hair,” Ana said as she finished tying the bandage. “So you'll be read. . . .for tomorrow.”

Almost against her will, Mehrigul let herself be drawn in by Ana's gentle words. “Yes, Ana,” she said, the taut muscles in her body softening until she wondered if she could hold herself up. “Thank you.”

Maybe the doctor's teas—and learning the truth about Ata—had begun to bring her ana back to them.

 

Lali, Chong Ata, and Mehrigul ate in peace, kneeling around the platter of rice and peppers that was set before them. Ana brought a treat of freshly made cornmeal-and-onion cakes when she joined them. No one mentioned Ata's absence or the missing donkey and cart. Lali, freed from his grim presence, told stories of her school day.

“My friend taught me a new dance,” she said, springing up, her arms above her head moving in wavelike gestures. Then, slowly, she began to circle her wrists, crossing them in graceful arcs, then bending her hands away in lovely curves, all in rhythm to the simple folk tune she sang. Chong Ata clapped in time, and soon Ana joined him. Mehrigul hummed along as she swayed her body.

Now every part of Lali was moving. She turned her neck with little fast shakes. Then bent sideways, backwards, still giving her little shakes. She picked up her skirt and pointed her toe, her legs copying the fast, shivery movements that Uyghur dancers make as she took three steps forward and then slid her foot backwards with a small kick. The more they clapped, the more lively her dance. Chong Ata's head began to tilt and shake.

As Mehrigul got up to dance with her sister, Ata came through the doorway, sucking the music and laughter from the room. Lali ran to hide behind Ana. Mehrigul froze, the shivering in her legs no longer in time to the music.

Ata didn't seem to see them or to have heard them. He moved with heavy gait and slumped beside the eating cloth, his eyes wide in bewilderment, or was it fear?

“What is it?” Mehrigul said, her voice wavering. Something terrible had brought Ata to this state—the Han were taking the farm from them, or he'd heard that Memet was in prison or shot dead.

Ata's mouth worked, but the sound was swallowed inside him. He rocked back and forth.

“What's happened?” Mehrigul pleaded. She was beside Ata, close enough to know there was no stink from wine, which doubled her fears. “Tell us!”

“A message . . . from Memet. He's left Kashgar. I wasn't told how or why. Only that he wouldn't be safe there anymore. He'll cross the Chinese border and go through the mountain pass into Kyrgyzstan. We are to know no more. We can't expect to hear from him . . . maybe . . . for years . . .”

An eerie wail rose from Ana's throat.

“Yes. Cry!” Ata hurled the words at Ana as he lurched to his feet and bolted toward the door. “Our son might as well be dead to us!”

Mehrigul listened to Ana's sobs. To Lali's whimpers as she pulled at Ana's arm.

Silently, Mehrigul got up. She walked out into the yard and crept along the shadows so there would be no chance of meeting Ata. Moved deep into their fields until she was certain she was alone, then fell to her knees. She bowed her head but kept her voice strong.

“Thank you, Allah,” she said. “Thank you for keeping Memet safe.” He had not been shot or swallowed up by the desert. He had a chance now to begin a new life. Even as she had these thoughts, she wept for the loss of her brother. Maybe forever.

As her cries fell silent, she told her heart the truth she knew. Memet could never return to his life here, at the end of their narrow, poplar-lined lane. He could never bring a young bride here. As much as Memet loved his family and his home, he knew that, too. He had tried to change things and failed.

The chill of the night air enveloped Mehrigul as she looked out at the stark silhouette of leafless trees, a harbinger of the long, cold winter ahead. Fallen leaves scuttled across the field, stirred by the winds blowing from the Taklamakan. The winds that had from time unknown swept over their land, trying to bury them under layers of drifting sand.

The Uyghurs had learned to hold back the desert. It was neither friend nor enemy. But the Han sweeping over their land were nothing like the ebb and flow of drifting sands. The Han had come to stay. And they'd driven Memet away.

And we who are still here—what should we do? Do we have a choice?
Mehrigul squeezed her knees against her body, folding herself into a tight ball—against the cold air and the powers that were overwhelming her people. Those who stayed had to do what the cadre ordered. And someone in a far-off place was telling
him
what to do. Someone who didn't like the sound of their beautiful Uyghur language, or the way they lived. Someone who didn't seem to want them here.

Their lives were changing faster and faster. With her whole being, Mehrigul recoiled from the idea of following Memet into an unfamiliar world. She had no yearning to live in a city or to work in a factory. Hadn't Memet warned her? The song haunted her memory.
Don't be taken in, Sister,
he'd sung.
Don't be taken in.

When the cadre came around with his papers, Mehrigul would have no choice. Ata would sign the lie about her age, and she would be sent thousands of miles away.