The Valley of Amazement (52 page)

No matter how much I studied, I would be branded as a son whose ancestors were charlatans. No hermit would come asking me for a sip of wine. But I refuse to inherit shame. I dare anyone to spit on the ground as I walk by. I will rebuild our house and our reputation. I will rise on my own and create a beginning for the next ten generations. I will receive what I deserve.

This was the lofty reputation I had chased after. Like his father, he gave out more lies to cover the first ones. He justified them. “If I had told you the truth,” he had said, “would you have come?” Of course not. And now that I was here, I would not help him start the next ten generations of liars. I wouldn’t stay. Leaving, however, was
proving difficult. The compound was like a prison, and the village was a larger one. Damn Perpetual. He knew we would be trapped.

From our first week in Moon Pond, Magic Gourd and I had been scouting for escape routes. We walked the length and width of Moon Pond in half an hour. The market square turned out to be nothing more than an open yard of beaten earth. By the time we arrived in mid-morning, the farmers had already packed up their goods for the day. There was only one lane of commerce—stalls whose tradesmen provided the same service: the repair of pots, buckets, chisels, saws, and sickles, everything a farmer needed for ceaseless toil. The only other goods for sale were for funerals, the best of which was a paper mansion the size of ten men. Its faded colors and tattered edges made it evident that it had been on display for many years. The road we took to reach Moon Pond was half a day from the village at the other end of the valley. If we tried to take it, we would be spotted before we had gone a hundred yards. There were paths that led up into the mountains—to terraced rice paddies and the forests where old women chopped kindling and brought down a bushel on their bent backs. We saw the farmers trudging up early in the morning before the light of dawn and trudging back in the last light of dusk. Some footpaths became waterfalls with sudden rains. We noted them all and crossed off our list those that offered no escape. By the second week, we realized we needed clothes so we would not attract attention. I traded one of my fancy jackets and skirts for four pairs of plain blue tops, pants, and caps that the village women wore. Who knows where the woman who did the trade would wear her new fancy jacket? “She can put it on and enter a dream of being in a place where jackets like this are worn every day,” Magic Gourd said. “That’s where we’re going as well. A dream.” By the third week, it seemed like there were no other ways to leave without hiring a man with a cart. And we had no money to do that.

When Perpetual returned from a business trip, he offered to take me on an autumn walk to see a scenic spot that had inspired many of his poems. I was eager to go. It would enable me to look for other paths and roads. Before we went, Perpetual recited aloud one of the poems that the scenic spot had inspired, so I would fully appreciate the importance of where he was taking me.

“Where the hermit wears the shroud of night,

A half-full wineskin is his only friend.

No greater is he than the boulder on which he reclines,

Knowing that with the erosion of time,

Both he and the boulder will fall

The same distance, he to his death.

And the stars will still shine

Indifferently, as they do tonight.”

The poem put me in a wary mood.

To get to the mountain path, Perpetual took me down the main road through the village. It was an odd choice. I could see from the road an elevated trail that cut into the foothills and went in the same direction. Surely it would have made a better choice to induce amnesia in me. But I soon figured out why he took this route. It was the best place to show me off—Perpetual’s newest courtesan from Shanghai. He walked proudly with my arm through his. I observed how much he enjoyed the attention we received. The women gaped and made humorous remarks to each other. The men sucked on their teeth and leered. The villagers never did this when we walked alone.

Just past the bridge, we finally reached the path that went up Heaven Mountain. After climbing only ten minutes, Perpetual announced we had reached the spot. I surveyed the scenery below: the tiled roofs of houses, rice fields, and small sheds. I told Perpetual I was not tired and that we should walk farther up.

“The footpath is blocked by mudslides and crumbling cliffs,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Why then did you promise to show me
‘wondrous beauty as we walk in clouds up high’?
”

“We don’t need to walk higher to reach the wondrous heights,” he said. “We can make love right here and you can be as loud as you want. No one will hear you.” He patted his groin. “See what you do to me? My sword is sharp. It’s already risen out of its scabbard and wants to drive its mighty self all the way inside you, with your rump as its pommel.”

I had to keep from laughing at his poetic attempts to arouse me.

“Only you give me this urgent need,” he said. “I have never asked Pomelo to come up here.”

“Pomelo has bound feet,” I said. “She can’t walk up this far.”

“I had not thought of that. And the fact that I haven’t is proof that I never had the desire to do so. Hurry and take off your dress. I’m in agony waiting.”

I pointed to the sharp pebbles on the path and said it would make a miserable bed.

“You Shanghai girls are so spoiled. Turn around then and lean against that boulder with your bottom facing me. I’ll enter you from behind. Are you damp yet?”

In Shanghai, his approach to sex had been circumspect to the point of bumbling. But the way he talked about sex now was vile. “I have my monthly flow,” I lied. “I was too embarrassed to tell you.”

”But you should tell me everything,” he said gently, “always, no matter what it is. We agreed to share all of ourselves—mind, body, heart.” Suddenly, his tone turned dark. “Don’t keep secrets from me, Violet, nothing. Promise me right now.” I nodded to keep him from growing angrier, and he became gentle again. He told me to go down on my knees to service him with my mouth. In moments, he was done.

As we walked back, he pointed out a few highlights I had failed to appreciate on the way up: a sour crab apple tree, the stump of a former giant tree, mounds of graves pimpling the hillside. I feigned interest while looking down for a certain road that Magic Gourd had just learned about from Azure’s maid. All the maids shared gossip about their mistresses, and since they thought Magic Gourd was my maid, she was fed the same tattletale tidbits of the household. According to the maid, every three or four weeks, Perpetual told Azure he had to rent a cart and pony to go inspect his lumber mill, which, supposedly, was located about twenty miles away. Azure would tell him each time not to inspect another courtesan and bring her home. The maid said she had never seen the town. She had never even been outside Moon Pond. But a manservant, who we all knew was her not-so-secret lover, had offered to take her there one day. She reported that this offer must have been a marriage proposal. Her lover had heard it was easy to get to. “You take the main road through Moon Pond, go just a ways past the bridge, and keep on until you run into another road that’s pretty wide. Head west into the blinding sun and keep at it for twenty miles or until the road stops and, soon, there you are: Wang Town.” According to the manservant, it was a town, not a village, and it even had shops, brothels, and a port where small boats came and went. Whether that was true, he couldn’t say. He had not yet been there. But once or twice a year, someone passed through Moon Pond, either on their way to Wang Town or coming back. They stopped in Moon Pond only long enough for the manservant to dredge as much information as he could about the world beyond the only one he had ever known.

I could picture those boats. I didn’t care where they went. I would take one of them, any one, as far as it would go. It might be to another town, and in that town there might be other roads, and these might lead to other waterways, other boats. I would keep moving farther away from Moon Pond and closer to the sea, to Shanghai. But to do so, I needed money, which I would not have until I could find out where Perpetual had hidden our jewelry and money. I once told him that I wanted to wear my bracelet, and he said there was no need to put on airs in Moon Pond. It would make me look arrogant, and there was no one here to be arrogant to.

I would have no choice but to steal back what was mine. When I told Magic Gourd about my plan, she showed me its flaws. “How far would you get down the road past the bridge before someone spotted you? Any fool would recognize you. And even if you made it to the east road, Perpetual would come in a pony cart and yank you up by your mane and bring you home. We need to think of something else.”

I imagined a dozen convoluted plans and went over practical matters. Which was worse: working at an opium flower house or living at the ends of the earth as Perpetual’s concubine? The same answer came back: I would rather die in Shanghai.

Azure, meanwhile, was happy to live and die in Moon Pond. She had been making preparations for her lofty place in heaven, even though death was not as imminent as Perpetual hoped. As the mother of Perpetual’s son, her spirit would receive daily offerings of smoky incense, fruit, and tea, as well as the forced obeisance of the rest of us. She had spirit tablets for Perpetual and her made out of the best camphor wood. There were none for Perpetual’s ancestors, since they were disgraced and not worthy of being worshipped. So she brought over her own family’s ancestors—scrolls, tablets, writings, and memorial portraits—so that her little son could lead the rituals.

I coyly asked Azure why there were no spirit tablets for Perpetual’s ancestors. They burned in a fire, she told me. She did not say what the cause of the fire was. I then asked if the tablets would be replaced soon. “When there is money to buy the camphor wood,” she answered. “If we did not have to feed your mouth, it would be sooner rather than much later.” Even if I had not read Perpetual’s account of “The Great Disgrace,” I would have found out about it. It was a secret often told, different snatches relayed by the servants, Pomelo, and the half-truths Perpetual gave until I told him that I knew. I had a sour stomach for a week, angry at myself for having chased after a scholarly family’s bad reputation all the way to this festering pond.

Twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, we had to make our way to the temple she was repairing, go to our knees on the stone floor, and murmur our respects to Azure’s family. I had never had to do these rituals. My mother thought it was hocus-pocus. Edward knew nothing of ancestor worship. I had known a few of the courtesans who bowed and prayed in the privacy of their rooms. But most of the girls did not know whose family they had been stolen from. No ancestors would want a courtesan doomed for the underworld to buy them a better spot in hell using her ill-acquired hell bank notes.

Now that the rainy season was upon us, the temple roof leaked and drops fell on our heads and doused the incense. I thought Azure was stupid to spend money on fixing the interior of the temple without repairing its roof first. One day, as raindrops streamed down my face, I decided I should have a word with Perpetual and let him know my ideas were valuable, too.

That night, after Perpetual had satisfied himself in my bed, I praised Azure’s devotion to the family ancestors. I cited my appreciation of every detail—the pillars, the table, the dais for the Buddha. How smart of her to make
his spirit tablet of expensive camphor wood. I said, “Cheaper wood would attract insects and there’s nothing worse than having your name chewed up by bugs. The oily camphor keeps them away.”

I then told him what I had overheard that morning. “Some farmers were gossiping by my window about a neighbor’s leaky roof. Everyone knew that the farmer’s wife had been nagging her husband for years to fix the roof. This year, he joked that the spouts of rain were convenient for cooking and washing. So why was she complaining? As the story goes, a few days ago, the farmer’s roof collapsed and smashed the stores of food kept just below the rafters. Rats devoured the meat, the dried corncobs were eaten by hens, the pigs got drunk on spilled rice wine and stampeded through town and fell into the river. Worst of all, the farmer suffered a broken arm and leg, making it impossible for him to tend his fields. His parents, wife, and children sought the kindness of neighbors, but the man had been feuding with everyone, and now the family was doomed to starve.

“The story left me trembling,” I said. “In our house, all you have to do is look up and you’ll see as many holes in the roof as there are stars in the Peacock Constellation. A few drops on your head are not a problem. But what if our roof comes crashing down and destroys what Azure has already worked so hard to restore? With all that oily camphor wood, everything could explode into flames and the entire house would burn, along with your poems.”

The last part got his attention. I was about to add that Azure could be killed, but that might be what he hoped for. “In my opinion,” I added, “the roof should be repaired as soon as possible.”

He smiled broadly. “You’ve learned so much already for a city girl.”

I felt as victorious as a courtesan winning a suitor whom another had desired.

“I want to be useful,” I said, “even though I’m only Third Wife.”

Whenever I mentioned my lowly position as “only Third Wife,” he no longer apologized for deceiving me into coming as his First Wife, and I no longer complained—not aloud. Doing so had gained me nothing but his annoyance, which he showed in front of the other wives to shame me. I felt no shame. I did not care what he or the others thought. But if he was annoyed, he would then probably tell Azure to punish me by making my life more uncomfortable. Our food would be leftovers served cold. The laundry maid would return our clothes with spots.

“The roof has been a problem for many years,” Perpetual continued. “Pomelo suggested last year that it be repaired. It seemed like a good idea until Azure pointed out that her ancestors are so happy that the temple is being repaired, they’ll protect me from both disaster and a shortened life. So you see, the roof won’t fall as long as Azure’s fixing the temple.”