Red Skies (The Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters) (4 page)

She’d laughed and bent down to help him gather the vegetables and he’d stopped moving, put his hand out to stop her, and told her to do it again.

“Do what again?” she’d asked.

“Laugh like that. I’ve never heard another laugh like yours, and it sounds like music,” Bolin had spoken softly, mesmerizing Mari with the intensity of his request. Of course, she couldn’t laugh on command, but she’d returned to his stand the next week.

And the week after that.

He’d told her that, with her petite frame and wild hair, she reminded him of a princess from long ago. She smiled when she remembered all the things he used to tell her—courting her in fifteen-minute increments as she picked through his vegetables. Their meetings were short but packed with anticipation and hope.

His baba, the grumpy old farmer, had at first tried to dissuade their attraction, but when it continued, he began allowing Bolin to take an hour off when Mari came by. When Bolin told her he knew he wasn’t much but he wanted to marry her anyway, Mari had told him he had to come to her home and ask her baba. He’d come that very afternoon, and the rest was history. From then on, he’d tell her to let him ‘hear her music’ when he wanted her to laugh. The sound always made him smile and tell her he’d found the best wife in China.

She looked over to the couch. Despite the racket she made preparing their dinner, Bolin still hadn’t moved. And she hadn’t laughed like that in years. No longer did he ask to hear her music—now he didn’t want to hear anything from her or anyone else.

She sighed and turned back to their dinner. At least one thing had gone her way for the day. Bolin was still sleeping, and she was able to get out of her wet clothes and even soak her freezing feet in hot water for a few minutes before starting dinner. She was exhausted, and her body ached from her nose to her toes, but she still had her household duties to finish before she could even think about going to bed.

She suppressed a smile as she thought back to her last customers. The man—named Maximilian but who went by Max, he’d told her—had almost had a nervous breakdown when his boss couldn’t fit on the camel. She should’ve known his backside would be too large to squeeze between Chu Chu’s humps, but he’d wanted to try anyway. Finally he’d settled for photos of himself standing on the stepladder beside the camel. Max had still paid her very well for her time, and if she wanted, Mari could probably even take a few days off this week with the extra funds. But she wouldn’t. They needed to save all they could for the upcoming winter when the tourist season wasn’t so busy. It would be her first cold season working without Bolin, and Mari didn’t know how she was going to manage it. Already her body ached day and night from all the manhandling of Chu Chu.

“Mari… where’s my pills?” Bolin called weakly.

“I’ve got them, but you need to eat something first. Remember, the doctor said not to take them on an empty stomach.”

“
Aiya
, bring me my pills. My back is killing me.”

Mari looked over the wok and saw Bolin struggling to sit up. His hair was too long, and it stuck up all over his head. She needed to wash it, if he’d let her. Sighing, she went to her purse and removed the small bag. She opened it and took out the bottle, then shook two into her hand. She poured a glass of water and took it and the pills to Bolin.

“Fine. But if you get queasy, don’t blame me. I’m making your favorite—sliced
tudou
and peppers.” He was a vegetarian, and though Mari had tried to tell him a bit of meat would help him gain strength, he still refused it.

He took the water and pills from her and swallowed it greedily. Mari felt a rush of sympathy. He wasn’t the same man she’d fallen for and married, but it wasn’t his fault. Pain and a constant feeling of helplessness were bound to change a person. And Bolin didn’t have anyone else to take his frustrations out on. She looked at his body, too thin from months of lying around. The doctor had told him to begin exercising in small doses, but Bolin refused, saying it hurt too much. She knew why it hurt, too. He’d let his muscles shrivel up to nothing.

Mari couldn’t help a vision of the foreigner, Max, coming to her. After they’d gotten the photos, he’d not only led Chu Chu to the shed a mile from the wall, but he’d also carried her bag of equipment, along with his own. He’d even toted her small ladder over one arm so she wouldn’t have to go back. He hadn’t let Mari carry anything, and that gesture stuck with her—it’d been a while since anyone had treated her that way. It made her think of her baba and how, from the day he’d found her, he’d acted as if she were a precious treasure.

“Bolin, do you think you might want to get up and take a walk down the hall after dinner?”

“No, Mari. I can’t—and stop asking me!” He handed her back the emptied glass and turned over on the couch, facing the wall. He’d be asleep within minutes.

Mari went back to the wok and picked up the wooden spoon, stirring the potatoes. She wished she had someone to talk to about her day and all the strange people she’d seen. She thought of An Ni and, like she’d done a hundred times that day, mentally scolded herself for not going to check on her. She glanced at the hump of blankets that was her husband and considered telling him about the girl, but she knew what he’d say:
Leave it alone, Mari
. Bolin had never had a heart for others, and Mari thought that came from the hard life of a farmer’s family. In their world, it was difficult enough just to feed those under the same roof, let alone look out for strangers. Bolin wasn’t cruel—he’d simply grown up in a different way than she had.

She looked at her desk. “I got a letter from Mama yesterday.” She picked up the paper and unfolded it. She’d read it twice already, but since she couldn’t think of any other conversation to start with Bolin, she figured he might be interested, or at the least she could keep him awake until she could get some food into him.

He didn’t respond from his place on the couch.

Mari put the lid on the potatoes and leaned against the counter, gazing at the gracefully drawn characters that made up her mama’s handwriting. She felt she could almost hear her voice, as gentle as a tender breeze on spring leaves. “Mama says Peony is still struggling—she doesn’t want to accept that she has any foreign blood racing through her veins.”

She looked up. There was still no response from Bolin, but just thinking of her little sister brought a lump to Mari’s throat. She hoped her husband felt a thread of guilt that she hadn’t gotten to go home to be there when Peony had first received contact from the woman who’d abandoned her on a park bench years before. Her little sister had slipped into a short depression, and the sisters gathered around her—giving her support after that one square of paper had rocked her world. Mari was the only one who couldn’t afford to come home, and Bolin should’ve felt bad about that. But she doubted he did. He could only think of one thing, one obsession. And traveling a few hours to comfort someone else wasn’t it. Losing himself in the haze of his painkillers was his only focus these days.

Mari blinked back the tears that threatened to come—tears of homesickness and thoughts of everyone gathering without her. Her baba had offered to wire her enough for a train ticket, but even if she did make herself accept money from him despite knowing his own struggles, how could she have gone and left Bolin all alone? She’d had to decline and, even worse, make up a story to tell her family why she couldn’t be there.

She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. What was done was done. At least her sisters and parents were there for Peony. As her sister had grown older and noticed the stares she received from others, Peony had finally come to the conclusion she wasn’t strictly Chinese, and that was the obstacle she struggled to overcome. Still, Mari appreciated the total honesty their parents had always maintained with all their daughters. They’d always told all they knew about the birth and abandonment circumstances of each girl and how she’d come to be a part of the family—
flowers in the Zheng family garden
, as her baba liked to say.

“She also said the hutong is planning to have their biggest new year’s celebration ever.”

Bolin grunted. Mari knew he really didn’t care about any of it, but she was going to keep talking even if he didn’t. She smiled when she read about Jasmine and how she was learning to read. At least that was an outlet that might give her another means to communicate. Jasmine wasn’t deaf—but for some reason, she had never spoken since she’d joined the family. Mari hoped that her parents could find someone to teach her little sister sign language. That would be her best opportunity at communicating when she got older and was ready to go out into the world.

She read on. “And listen to this—Ivy and Lily are starting to look more and more different.”

Her sisters were twins, and despite the fact that one of them was blind, for years they’d looked nothing less than identical.

“Is dinner ready?” Bolin asked, his voice barely more than a mumble.

She scanned the letter to the end, looking for anything else that might interest Bolin. She skipped over the paragraph about the youngest in the family. The last time she’d visited, the toddler was just learning to walk. Just the visual of her sisters standing over what only months before had been a snuggly little infant, holding her hands as she wobbled along in her first steps, made Mari’s heart ache for that one milestone she’d never achieved—motherhood.

“And Maggie Mei is getting better at sewing—it’s something she can do when everyone else is too busy to entertain her. Isn’t that great, Bolin?”

He grunted again. There was more she’d like to share with him, but she knew he wasn’t listening. No longer did she feel she was a part of a marriage; now they were more like caretaker and patient—and Mari was lonely. Back at home, they were all involved with each other—each day most likely filled with laughter and an air of festivity, despite their hardships. But here, Mari struggled every day to just make ends meet, and she had no one to share it with, because she didn’t want anyone to know. She’d continue to return letters to her mother, full of fairytale details of her adventurous Beijing life, until she could figure out a way to get back on track. And first things first—she had to find a way to turn Bolin back into the strong man she’d married. Even more than his assistance in providing for their tiny family, she missed the intimacy between them—that feeling that she wasn’t alone in the world. She missed his arms around her at night, his voice whispering in her ear. This person—this new cold thing that lay quiet and lifeless before her now—he was only a shell of the man she’d married, and she wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.

She took a deep breath and pulled back her shoulders before she slid the wok off the heat and pulled two bowls from the cabinet. She looked at Bolin again, willing him to wake up—wishing for one of the smiles or kind words he used to be so generous with.

He remained still. She sighed and prepared herself. It would be a battle, but she would have victory tonight, even though getting him to actually eat would probably be harder than getting Chu Chu to move.

Chapter Four

“N
i hao
,” Mari heard someone behind her calling out. She turned and was surprised to see the foreigner, Max, strutting toward her. She didn’t have the energy to force a smile, but she waved half-heartedly. Once more, a difficult night with Bolin had made for an even more difficult day. She’d had only a few customers, barely any tips, and the stubborn camel was giving her a headache.

Max jogged the last few feet until he stood before her. “How are you?”

Mari looked at him and then back at the camel. Couldn’t he see? She was exhausted and aggravated—the story of her life, lately. It was ironic that people used to tell her she had the most musical laughter and lightest spirit they’d ever known. If they could all see her now, they’d not even recognize her.

“I’m fine. Just taking this stubborn creature back to his shed for the day.” Chu Chu glared at her under the fringe of coarse hair that mostly hid his eyes. She looked up at the stranger. What did he want?
Were the photos not good enough?
Mari looked around him and didn’t see the fat boss man anywhere in sight. “What do you need? More photos? You’ll have to come back tomorrow, and this time I mean it. I’m done for today.”

Max reached out and put a hand on Chu Chu. Mari expected the difficult camel to rear his head back and show his yellow teeth, but surprisingly he allowed the gesture.

“I’m shooting my own photos today. This is one of my favorite places to take in the scenery. Then I saw you and wanted to thank you again for what you did.”

Mari raised her eyebrows. “You came all the way out here—probably by taxi, as I don’t see many of you people on the buses—and made your way past the aggressive shop owners and souvenir hawkers, to climb this rigorous wall to
look at the scenery
? Please.”

Max nodded, and his face took on a serious expression. He looked over the wall at the steep mountainside and wild terrain. “Really. I do it all the time. If you avoid looking at the flashy cable cars, the hawkers pushing all the mass manufactured junk, and the thousands of rude tourists—the history underneath it all is phenomenal. Can you imagine, when this wall was being constructed, it was called the longest cemetery in history because of all the workers who lost their lives and were buried along it?”

Mari shrugged. It sort of stung that a foreigner would know more about her own country’s history than she did—but she wouldn’t let him know that.

He pointed toward the west. “And out there, thousands of hostile Mongolians threatened to charge, and the Chinese stood their ground and pledged death before destruction.”

Mari watched him talk, watched the excitement shining in his eyes and in the rising and falling of his voice as he mused about history he had no connection to. It was interesting to her, this man’s love for China that was so evident.

“Anyway, I try to capture candid pictures of people. Have you ever watched their faces when they’re looking at something amazing with their eyes and letting their minds explore the possibilities of the scenes before them? If you can get them in that split second when they forget the chaos around them and let themselves be immersed in what might have been—it’s magical.”

He was right, but she wouldn’t tell him that. Seeing the wall for the first time
was
magical. She still remembered the day she and Bolin had traveled to Beijing, full of ideas and excitement, ready to shed their humble beginnings and make a new life. Their first stop had been the wall, a monument even their own fathers had not had the honor of seeing yet. Bolin had stared out over the ledge, obviously so proud that he was going to get a chance to be more than a farmer. His enthusiasm was contagious, and he’d inspired Mari that day, too. But now that moment felt like at least a century ago. Their magic had faded.

“Are you a photographer?” Mari asked, curious now. He spoke like a poet, and unlike any foreigner she’d come in contact with.

“Photojournalist,” Max said. “I’m independent, but that man you saw—my
laoban
—he’s sponsoring my time in China, hoping I’ll get a scoop that no one else has. Something he can take credit for. He’d like to stay here himself, but he says China is a hardship he can’t handle. But he wanted to come to this part of the wall because he’d heard about Nixon visiting it way back in the early seventies.”

“In what way is China a hardship?” Now Mari really was curious, and not about the president Nixon—she’d heard all that before. She was always enthralled with how other countries felt about China, and despite her own troubles, she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to live anywhere else. Her country had more history than any other place in the world, after all.

Max looked embarrassed and cleared his throat. “Well, you know, the food. He thinks—well he’s an idiot, and I don’t think this—but
he
thinks that it’s unsanitary here. He’s afraid if he stays longer than a few days, he’ll end up with some crazy infection or illness. But I love China.” His face reddened, and he switched subjects. “Hey, listen, want me to pull your camel back to the shed? I remember the way.”

Mari hesitated. If Bolin found out that she was having more than business conversation with a strange man, he’d be angry. But then, she was tired, and Chu Chu walked so much better for Max than for her.

“
Hao le
,” she agreed. The faster she got the camel back in the shed, the faster she could get home. And she might even have time to stop by the block An Ni was on and see if the girl was there.

Max held the rope tighter and gave it one pull. Chu Chu began walking behind him as if he were the gentlest creature on earth. Mari felt like kicking him in his gently swaying rear. But she kept up with them, grateful for the respite from tugging the animal for another mile.

“Were your
laoban’s
children satisfied that their father was a true adventurer?” Mari found it hard to believe that one photo of the man on a camel could mean that much—but still, she’d paid their entire month’s electric bill with the generous tip.

Max laughed. “I guess they did, because he hasn’t called me with any butt-chewing since he was here that week.”

“Butt chewing?” Mari asked.

Chu Chu decided at that moment to move forward—or more accurately, lunge forward—and Max had to drag his heels in to stop the animal from pulling him down the walkway.

Mari caught up to them and grabbed the halter.

Chu Chu stopped fidgeting immediately, and Mari let go, glad to let Max handle him. “You were saying? What is a butt chewing?”

“Oh, sorry,” Max laughed again. “Just American slang that means he hasn’t given me any negative feedback on my job lately.”

She nodded. Americans were strange. She much preferred to work with the Europeans—at least their English was comprehensible. She’d learned the language from books and unfortunately, books did a shoddy job of presenting actual casual conversation. Now she felt like an idiot.

“Oh,
dui
.” She hoped he’d step up his pace. She needed to get home; Bolin would be eagerly awaiting his next medication and would be angry if she was late.

Mari looked at her watch as Max waited for her answer. He said he wanted to ask her questions about Beijing—get her take on the city. She knew she should be getting right home, but honestly, the man had helped her get stubborn Chu Chu to his shelter again. Not only that, but he’d carried most of the equipment, giving her sore muscles a break. He’d saved her at least an hour and maybe more. Would one cup of tea really be too much to agree to? With one glance at the hopeful expression on his face, she made up her mind. It had been ages since anyone cared to spend time with her, so she wasn’t going to feel guilty for making a friend.

“
Hao le
,” she agreed. “I’ll go but I really can’t stay long.”

His smile grew so broad, it covered his face. He took her arm and led her across the path made treacherous by the old stones, to the bottom of the hill and over to the parking lot, chattering as they walked. Mari expected to take a taxi, but instead they stopped in front of a small blue van, and Max pecked on the window.

“
Aiya
!” The driver jumped, startled out of his nap. He sat contorted in the driver’s seat, his legs somehow propped on the dashboard. The noise sent him clumsily working to get back into a proper position, then he leaned over and unlocked the door.

Max opened it and held his arm out, inviting her to step in. “My chariot.”

Mari hesitated before getting in. She’d heard of the crazy serial killers the West seemed to breed relentlessly, but would one as chivalrous and kind as Max really have found his way to China? And why would he, when there were so many naïve women walking the streets in America, who were surely easier to get to? She was being silly. There was no way he meant her any harm.

She followed her instinct and climbed in. Max went to the back and stored all their stuff in the rear hatch, slammed it, then returned to the passenger side and climbed in. He gave the driver instructions, and they were off.