The Vine Basket (3 page)

Still dripping, Mehrigul stood in the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the dim light of the oil lamp. Ata and the others sat cross-legged on the floor rugs, drinking tea. Broken pieces of naan lay scattered on the eating cloth; there was a bit of
polo
on the platter.

Lali ran to Mehrigul. How good it was to have her sister's arms squeeze her in greeting. “Oooh, you're wet,” Lali said, as quickly pulling away.

Ana scraped what was left of the rice mixture into a bowl and set it in front of Mehrigul's eating place. “Tea?” she asked.

“Yes . . . please.” Mehrigul was surprised at Ana's attention. She was used to doing these things herself.

Then she wondered if drinking warm tea was worth having to sit across from Ata. She wouldn't look at him, but it was clear from Ana's calm that they'd all been told of a successful day at market. Ata's version. Whatever lie he'd made up.

The strong, rich odor of mutton fat overruled her anger. Mehrigul scooped the rice into her mouth with her fingers. There was more fat than usual in tonight's
polo,
but no pieces of mutton. The dark specks were raisins.

It was Ata's habit to bring home a small packet of mutton on market days. Memet had done this when he was in charge of going to market. Had Ata forgotten, or had he drunk and gambled away all the pitiful earnings he'd pocketed before wandering off? If her mother thought they'd sold their goods, wouldn't she ask why Ata hadn't brought meat? Mehrigul hoped she wouldn't be called upon to explain.

She leaned back, for the first time slowing her eating.

“You were hungry, Daughter,” Ana said.

Ana had been watching. Everyone had been watching.

She straightened up, licked her fingers. “I had two eggs. Your friend the egg woman kindly gave them to me in exchange for peaches. Remember her, Ana?” Mehrigul turned toward her mother. “You used to be friends. She doesn't even ask about you anymore.”

Ana's head dropped onto her chest. Mehrigul's words had been unkind, but they were true, and for some reason she couldn't hold them back tonight. If Ana were doing the work she was supposed to, Mehrigul might still be able to go to school. Many wives tended the goods from their farm at market. But Ana was too ashamed to be seen with their old donkey and cart, too ashamed to be seen in the washed-out clothing she wore. It had become Memet's job three years ago, when he was old enough to go, while Ana stayed home wallowing in remembrance of the happy, comfortable childhood she had lived in her village.

“How is Aynurkhan? It has been a long . . .” Ana's voice trailed off.

“She still sits by the pots and pans, the same busy spot.” Mehrigul's words were slow and deliberate. She wanted Ata to hear what she was saying—wanted him to know that she had been only a few meters away from where he was gambling. Would he wonder if she'd seen him? She hoped so.

“Hajinsa was there, too,” she went on, “perched on a mat she'd bought. Eating one egg after another as if she were an imperial princess.” Mehrigul extended her arm with the grace of a heron taking flight, her fingers rippling the air in imitation of Hajinsa picking at the eggshell. “So, you see, Ana, not much was talked of with Aynurkhan.”

Lali giggled as her arms fluttered in imitation of her sister.

With a sharp look at Mehrigul, Ata rose, and the moment of lightness passed. He'd heard her words. He knew that the egg seller sat near the gambling table. Still, he couldn't know whether or not she'd seen him. Mehrigul was sure Ata would never ask her about that.

Ata's uncertainty would just be another reason why she and her father were not comfortable together. They never had been. Memet was all to Ata—his only son, the perfect one. Mehrigul was useful at times, dutiful, swift in her tasks, but dreamy, Ata complained. Distracted by the shapes and sounds of things, by her private thoughts.

Like now. Ata had been speaking and her mind was far away. Ana would have to relay Mehrigul's list of chores for the morning.

“ . . . to the mill,” he said, “after the wheat is planted.”

Mehrigul hoped that meant she might go to the mill to make arrangements to have the corn ground. She could see Pati. There was much to tell, and much to ask.

“Did you hear me, Mehrigul?” Ata's voice was hard-edged. “We get started at sunrise.”

There was strained silence in the room as Ata went to the door.

Only when Ata had returned from outside and gone to his sleeping platform did Mehrigul pick up her half-eaten piece of naan and dip it into her tepid tea. She leaned back on her haunches and sucked on it, drawing out as much of the oniony flavor as possible.

Her full belly, the dim light, the heat still radiating from their small cooking stove, made Mehrigul sleepy. She finished her tea and abruptly stood. “I'll help Chong Ata,” she said. Her grandfather was squatting across from her, a small bundle of old bones and sagging flesh. Hard of hearing, his eyesight poor.

Aside from Lali, Chong Ata was the person she cared most about. She'd sat at his side by the hour from the time she was a small child. One by one, she'd handed him willow branches for his baskets as he crouched on the dirt floor of his workroom. She had nestled her bare feet next to his as he held down the branches to build a base. Watched as he wove the sides and lashed the rim. She'd learned to make her own little baskets. In time, she had been allowed to help make the baskets that went to market. Her fingers were shaped like Chong Ata's. Not long and slender like Hajinsa's but nimble and knowing like her grandfather's.

Mehrigul went to his side. “Time to go to sleep, Chong Ata,” she said, leaning over to speak close to his ear.

He reached for her arm and leaned against her as she rocked him to an upright position.

She helped him step into his shoes and led him to the yard so he could relieve himself. Then they went to his workroom. It was the only place her grandfather would sleep.

“Good night, Chong Ata,” she said as she covered him with the felt rug.

Tomorrow, when no one was around to overhear, she would tell him about the grapevine basket.

M
EHRIGUL GLIDED OVER THE
open field as quietly as the morning mist, liking the blanket of cold dampness that engulfed her, the soft, shrouded light of the sun rising in its filmy haze. She'd left her sleeping platform, thrown on pants and shirt, and stolen from the house before Ana could call her to do breakfast chores. Lali was old enough to help.

If Mehrigul went early to the field and prepared it for planting, there might be time at the end of the day to steal away and gather vines. And if she did? A tightness gripped her body. Could she really make another basket like the one the woman had bought?

The thought was unsettling, yet her fingers danced in eagerness to try, even as she cleared the field of leftover ears of corn and carried them to the large pile of cobs that had been gathered for the mill. Scattered stalks needed to be picked up, too. What they didn't need themselves could be sold at market as fodder and bedding.

Mehrigul had begun to hoe seedbeds for the planting when Ana came onto the field, the seed bag hanging from her waist. Every step she took told of her weariness, of the place she'd withdrawn to so no more unhappiness could reach her.

“Where's Ata?” Mehrigul said. “I have Memet's hoe. Why isn't Ata here with his hoe to help?” She lashed the words that had festered in her head at Ana, who clutched her arms in front of her.

“Why . . . he has gone to see Mutalip . . . to arrange for him to pick up our corn.” Her bewildered eyes darted over Mehrigul's face. “Surely you understood . . . you and I are to plant . . .” Ana lowered her head. “We had best get busy,” she said.

“Yes, Ana. Sorry. I should have been listening to what he said.”

Mehrigul lowered Memet's hoe to the large field of unturned earth that stretched before her. She dug down—not too deep, not too shallow—and began again to furrow the seedbed for their crop of winter wheat. “I told him I'd arrange for Pati's brother to carry our corn to the mill,” she said. “I thought Ata would help so the planting could get done before the warmth of the day dried out the topsoil.”

If Ana heard, she didn't answer. She kept moving with measured pace, doubled over at the waist, dropping pinches of seeds inch by inch along the prepared rows.

Ana didn't seem to mind that Ata had abandoned them, but Mehrigul did. Her grip tightened with each jab of the hoe, the splintery wood boring into her palms until the pain brought her to reality. She couldn't twist and weave unwieldy vines into something of importance with injured hands. Blisters had already begun to form on her hands. She didn't want to make them worse.

Right now Mehrigul must focus only on the long task ahead. It seemed likely that Ana knew nothing about the unsold peaches or the magical appearance of one hundred yuan—or didn't want to know. Ata was faultless. Surely, she thought bitterly, it was his job to drive off in the donkey cart and spend her money while they worked the field.

 

It was midafternoon before the last row was turned, seeded, and firmly covered with soil. In a rare moment of usefulness, Ana had noticed Mehrigul's red, swollen fingers and offered to switch tasks, relieving her own tired back, too.

As they returned to the house, neither ana nor daughter spoke of the corn pile that still loomed at the side of the yard. When Mehrigul hung the hoe and seed bag in the shed, it was no surprise to her that the donkey and cart were not there. Ata used to go to the steam baths in the nearby township once or twice a week—Memet, too, when they were both working hard on the farm. Surely that was where he had gone, in tribute to the hard work his wife and daughter were doing. And then out drinking, to be certain he didn't return home before their job was done.

Ana wouldn't question him. She'd fold her hands meekly in front of her and do his bidding. Try not to draw back if he stank of wine.

Maybe Ata was out gambling away the hundred yuan—and Mehrigul wouldn't say anything, either. It was his money now. Somehow, though, she'd make baskets, get them to market, and keep the money next time. She'd use it to help her family.

Another thought came to Mehrigul as she swooped up an armful of dry twigs and headed for the house. The men Ata drank and gambled with—had they sent their daughters to work so they'd have more money? Was that what Ata was doing? Finding out how to lie about her age, how to get false identification papers that claimed she was sixteen rather than fourteen? It could be done. She'd had a friend at school whose family sent her to work in the local cotton factory before she was of age.

One hundred yuan? Nothing, he'd said. Mehrigul would be a
real
help if she went to work—and brought money home to Ata.

She snapped the twigs she'd brought inside into small pieces and stuffed them into the round metal cookstove that sat atop a small tripod stand. She grabbed the kettle and headed for the spigot in the yard. Brought it back. Set it to boil.

Ana was resting.

What would the family do without Mehrigul right now? Was Ata thinking about that? All her jobs would fall to Ana. Even if she earned money, someone would have to do the work. Couldn't Ata tell she was doing all she could to take Memet's place?

Mehrigul was on her way to bring Chong Ata in for tea when the neighbor's donkey cart stopped out on the road, delivering Lali from her day at school. How lucky that the neighbors were glad to have Lali's company for their daughter, now that Mehrigul no longer went to school.

What if she couldn't be here to welcome Lali home?

For a moment she stood paralyzed. Finally she forced a smile as her sister skipped across the yard toward her.

She engulfed Lali with hungry, outstretched arms. Held her as her mind tried to dismiss any thoughts of Ata's treachery. He wouldn't make her go away! Would he?

Lali wiggled free from Mehrigul's hold.
“Xiang bu xiang qu tiao wu?”
she asked in Mandarin as she spun in circles, grabbing at Mehrigul's hands, trying to turn her around in circles, too.

Mehrigul hated the pinched, nasal sounds of Mandarin. “Would I like to go dancing?” she repeated in Uyghur, drawing out the soft, lyrical sounds of the words. Hearing her little sister speak the language of their oppressors unsettled her. She didn't want to hear it. Not now. Not ever.

But it was the language spoken in school, and in all important places. Lali had to know it. Mehrigul had to know it.

Lali stood in front of Mehrigul now, tapping her foot, her head tilted, waiting for her sister's answer.

“
Xie xie,
thank you, Lali. It's a good thing for us to do,” Mehrigul said. She grabbed Lali's hands and twirled her round and round. Soon they were laughing and skipping and dancing, stirring up the packed earth of their grassless yard.

“
Ke yi. Gou la.
Okay. Enough,” Mehrigul said as she pinned her sister's hands together and pulled her to a halt.

“No,” Lali moaned. “Dancing is fun.”

“And we have things to do. Time to take Chong Ata in for tea and to help Ana with supper,” Mehrigul said, turning Lali around in the direction of their house.

Lali broke away, running into her grandfather's room. “
Wo men he cha ba, Yeye.
Let's have some tea, Grandfather,” she'd called in Mandarin before Mehrigul could stop her.

Chong Ata had heard. His hand went up, cupping his mouth as he turned his head away.

Mehrigul drew Lali back into the yard. Waited until her sister's eyes met hers. “Mandarin is our secret language here at home, Lali. Remember? Chong Ata and Ata and Ana don't understand the words, and they don't want to learn. It upsets them if we speak anything but Uyghur.” Mehrigul tightened her grip as she saw her sister's lips begin to quiver. “No, Lali, you must understand. Hearing Mandarin reminds them of how different their lives were before the Han Chinese overran our land. We must not be the ones who remind them.”