Breaking Bamboo Read online

  Widow Mu had reached the stage of filling the dumplings.

  The task gained importance when two longshoremen from the basin near the Water Gate of Morning Radiance cleared the last of her stock.

  ‘Market Clerk Chi told me that, for all her beauty, this Lu Ying is of no family,’ remarked Mu. ‘Perhaps she has nowhere to go. The miracle of it is that the Pacification Commissioner did not have a child by her. Then again, his candle has never been good at lighting fires. For all the fine ladies he keeps, there is only one son.’

  Lan Tien sniggered as she rolled out dough. Cao pretended to fuss over vinegar for the sauce; she knew her friend’s insensitivity was well-meant.

  ‘What happens in a palace may happen in an alley,’ said Mu.

  ‘And another thing. Your fine guest has a taste for the best, according to Chi’s cousin. Silks that took a whole village a year to make and are worn only once. Make-up so finely ground the powder runs like water. She ended up with more elegant clothes than His Excellency’s wife!’

  Cao sighed. Really this was too much! Yet she wondered what would happen if Lu Ying asked Shih for extravagant make-up or perfume.

  ‘Nevertheless, I pity her,’ she said, doggedly. ‘And Dr Shih is too sensible to spend more than we can afford.’

  Widow Mu placed nuggets of filling on the dough circles.

  ‘Let a beggar in your house and he’ll soon have his feet on the table,’ she declared.

  The doctor’s wife concentrated on the garlic sauce. Although Mu meant well, she lacked delicacy. Cao didn’t mind when the gossip concerned someone else’s troubles, but found it less diverting when applied to her own. Still, Mu was a neighbour and friend. No one prospered by quarrelling with a neighbour.

  The little shop filled with the spit and scent of frying. Cao glanced out of the window while Mu used chopsticks to drop and retrieve dumplings from a pan of hot oil. Willows overhanging the canal, planted to ensure the bank did not crumble, stirred in the light breeze. Leaves shimmered like jade pendants catching the sun. And she wondered where a good wife’s duty lay.

  *

  Madam Cao knew all about the duties of a doctor’s wife. Her earliest memory was of a patient in her father’s medicine house on Black Tortoise Street in the capital. He had been a water-carrier with a misshapen back, screaming as the smouldering moxa burned his bare skin. It made a great impression on her.

  Afterwards the man seemed grateful to her father rather than angry.

  Mother had died when she was two years old. Of course no portraits of her had been painted for they were humble people.

  And Father was hopeless at describing her. So, as a little girl, Cao painted pictures in her imagination – Mother as a beautiful lady, bobbing in a gilded sedan chair down the Imperial Way, her make-up white as fresh snow, silk dress and hair-ornaments exquisite. Such ladies sometimes entered old Dr Ou-yang’s shop to buy medicines they wished to keep secret from their husbands.

  Black Tortoise Street adjoined the Imperial Way and the Emperor’s palace could be spied in the distance. She would venture to the edge of the wide Imperial Way, gazing out at carriages and streams of people, noble fruit trees planted to form avenues, gentlemen drifting to fashionable tea-houses for cordials. She was sure Mother had joined this world of fine people, so happy as she went up and down, her ghost always hurrying somewhere pleasant. When she told Father he looked very sad and she felt guilty.

  Once she found the courage to ask if Mother had been beautiful. Father had replied: ‘Beauty doesn’t always wear silks.’ A funny reply. He was often strange. And distant. But she remembered his words. Later they would comfort her during difficult times.

  There had been a cat to keep down the rats which frightened her with their scratching and scurrying, especially when she was alone in the house, Father having been called to a patient’s bedside. Once she watched the muscles of its crouched back arch before it leapt. The cat brought her a fat mouse as a present. Father said that some poor people ate rats and called them household deer. She had wondered how their breath smelt.

  When Cao was seven, Father summoned her to the shop. A small boy stood there, slightly older than herself. He was evidently afraid, for he could not stop gazing at his feet and trembling. A small bag lay on the floor beside him. If that was all he owned, she didn’t think it much. Father talked to a man with an odd accent and bowed many times. Then the man went away, having given Father a heavy sack. Cao noticed the stranger did not even say goodbye to the little boy and seemed relieved to go. All three stood awkwardly in the shop.

  ‘Cao,’ said Dr Ou-yang. ‘This is my new apprentice, Yun Shih.’

  The boy started to cry and Father rebuked him severely. Shih stood shaking, biting his lower lip hard. Cao had taken pity on him, offering to show her toys, but the strange boy poked at her dolls and asked in his peculiar accent whether she ever pretended they were sick.

  ‘Why should I?’ she had asked.

  ‘Because this is a doctor’s house,’ he replied. ‘Doctors make people better. That is their duty.’

  They both looked up to find Father watching. Cao wondered if he would be angry but instead he had smiled. A rare enough thing since Mother died.

  ‘You might make me a good apprentice, little Yun Shih,’ he said.

  Then they all smiled and Father sent out for sugar-glazed buns. He seemed very happy about the bag of cash the man with the odd accent had given him.

  When she was ten, Cao frequently discovered Shih staring hard at one or other of Father’s many books and scrolls. A tutor from the neighbourhood was teaching them both to read.

  Shih seemed to learn his characters effortlessly, while she acquired them as one does an impossible skill, like standing on your head with one hand or making Father’s tea exactly the way he liked it. Cao knew she was lucky to have these lessons, none of the neighbours’ girls had lessons. Father told her that just because she was a woman, it didn’t mean she must be a fool. That made her special. Whenever she struggled over a character, Shih would lift his dogged head from whatever task Father had set him and guide her brush until she could write it herself. Sometimes she pretended to struggle so he would help.

  She liked the gentle strength of his hand as it guided her own, their heads bent close together over the paper.

  Once, during the Festival of Lanterns, she found Shih crying in his tiny room. While they talked, the family pig snuffled in its sty outside. There was a smell of fireworks and wood smoke in the night air. Father was out visiting a patient, for even during the festival people fell ill.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ she had asked. ‘Everyone in the world is happy tonight.’

  ‘Because I have no family,’ he replied.

  The enormity of this filled her with sadness. It was the most terrible thing. Then she sat beside him on his narrow bed and took his arm. He flinched at her touch. At once she withdrew her hands to her lap.

  ‘You have Father and me,’ she said, brightly.

  That made his tears worse. Cao returned to her room and thought about him all evening, and how fortunate she was to have Father. The capital blazed with the light of a million lanterns and people capered in the streets until dawn.

  When she was fifteen years old Cao received her hairpins.

  Father placed them solemnly in her hair and a Daoist nun specially hired for the occasion chanted a sutra to ensure her fecundity and happiness. One of her uncles attended, watching the proceedings with a critical eye. First Uncle’s presence proved the ceremony was important: Dr Ou-yang’s brothers didn’t come often, the reason lying in the past.

  Father told her his family had turned against Mother after they were married. It all happened because Mother’s own family lost their wealth due to an earthquake and no one likes to be connected to beggars. But he had defied the pressure to divorce her, and so all his relatives kept away.

  Once a year, during the Cold Food Festival, Cao was taken to Grandfather and Grandmother’s house but
they never stayed long. Then Father would be gloomy for days. Her told her it was a hard thing to be Fifth Son, and that too many children can be a great burden, not just for the parents, but for the children themselves. Cao promised herself that when she had many sons, each would be treated exactly alike. On the day she received her hairpins, First Uncle spoke for a long time with Father in private. Afterwards Dr Ou-yang could not meet her eye and she wondered how she had displeased him.

  If she had lacked a friend, Cao might have been unhappy.

  But there was always Shih. In the role of servant, he chaperoned her to the West Lake for excursions, as Father preferred to stay at home. On one trip, he smiled shyly at her and recited a poem – a poem full of longing and romance. She learned then of his noble ancestor, Yun Cai, who had composed it to honour the beautiful singing girl, Su Lin. Everyone in the city loved that old story.

  Soon afterwards Shih used his small annual allowance to buy a cheap woodcut book of Yun Cai’s verses. Cao agreed the poems were very fine, very fine indeed. She even memorised his favourites and Shih seemed inordinately pleased. Father barely noticed what they did. His patients absorbed him and, when he was too sick to work, as happened more frequently, Shih took his place for the simpler cases. No one seemed to mind if they went to the West Lake together.

  But when Cao was eighteen, everything changed. Dr Ou-yang took to his bed and Uncle came unexpectedly to examine the objects and furniture. Once she heard a quarrel in Father’s room and felt afraid. Shih took on yet more patients, always bringing the fees straight to his master and preparing the medicines as instructed, though really he required no instruction.

  One summer’s day Shih and Cao slipped out to the Che River while Father slept deeply, having asked a neighbour to sit with him. They walked along the shore until they found a secluded place, away from the main paths. Paddle boats churned the water and they ate buns she had steamed earlier. He sat on a low wall by the waterside, throwing pebbles into the water.

  Cao finally found the courage to sit close beside him. He smelt of home, always a place of herbs and compounds, as well as an aroma unique to himself – indefinably comforting – like the scent of warm clothes.

  ‘Your father’s condition is graver than you imagine,’ he said, at last. ‘I can no longer conceal the truth from you. I must tell you because. . .’ He blushed. ‘Because I esteem you.’

  ‘Perhaps we should go back?’ she suggested, in alarm. ‘I should not have left him.’

  Yet she did not rise.

  ‘I am afraid what will happen if he grows weaker,’ he said. ‘I have watched so many strong people fade. I am worried for you.’

  He continued to flick stones into the water.

  ‘You must realise there is a plan to marry you off to one of your cousins,’ he continued. ‘I believe the boy’s name is Wen.’

  Her hand flew to her mouth. Could Father really want that for her? Wen was the least of her cousins – in every conceivable way.

  ‘I believe your father does not like this match,’ said Shih, loyal as ever to the master who had been so kind to him. ‘Dr Ou-yang desires only the best for you. When he has gone, someone must provide for you.’

  His earnest face was softened by the declining sun. Her fluttering heart felt uncomfortable, yet its restlessness was oddly pleasant.

  ‘Why can’t another provide for me?’ she asked, amazed at her boldness. ‘Am I so unattractive that no one will have me?’

  They had turned to each other, faces very close, trying to read one another’s souls. She heard herself whispering, quite shamelessly, as though someone bolder than herself spoke through her mouth: ‘Why should it not be you?’

  Then that shameless mouth was kissing his, tentatively at first, until it came naturally and her eyelids fluttered like her heart.

  Afterwards, Shih begged her forgiveness. He seemed distressed.

  ‘I have betrayed my master,’ he muttered. ‘I am a despicable chaperone!’

  He gasped with surprise when once more she pressed her lips against his own.

  ‘Then we betray him together,’ she said.

  They returned to the shop, secretly brushing shoulders on the Imperial Way, as though touching by accident. The neighbour keeping watch by Father’s bedside told them he had not stirred.

  That evening she entered Father’s bedchamber and cried out in fear. Shih appeared in the doorway and hurried to the sick man’s bed. Father lay flat on his back, mouth open as if about to speak, yet quite peaceful, his eyes staring into emptiness.

  Shih took his master’s pulse then gently pulled down Dr Ou-yang’s eyelids. Apart from a buzzing fly, the room was silent. Outside, two friends talked excitedly as they passed beneath the window. Cao caught the words, ‘ more silver than the God of Riches’, then the voice faded. Shih watched the first of a procession of tears run down her face.

  ‘I must tell your uncle,’ he said. ‘He will arrange a noble funeral. Sit with your father until I return. We shall remember his many kindnesses forever.’

  But the funeral had been plain rather than noble. Uncle did not even bother to inform Dr Ou-yang’s fellow physicians in the guild, though Shih ensured word got around. A score of senior physicians accompanied the dead man to his pyre and Uncle seemed surprised by their presence.

  After the funeral he returned to Dr Ou-yang’s shop and spent hours searching the rooms for hidden valuables. Whatever he found was deposited in a lacquered chest. Then he ordered Cao to fetch tea and examined her closely.

  ‘Niece,’ he said. ‘Your father made arrangements concerning your future. Did he tell you of them?’

  She shook her head, eyes lowered.

  ‘Well, that does not matter. You are to marry Fifth Cousin Wen. This house and its contents are your dowry.’

  He did not ask if she was pleased. She stood trembling before him, unable to look up.

  ‘I will collect you tomorrow and take you home. As for the apprentice, inform him he must leave the house at dawn, when I will settle any outstanding wages.’

  After he had left, weighed down by the lacquer box, Cao rushed to Shih and told him what Uncle had decided. He paced the room angrily.

  ‘I am not distressed for myself,’ he said. ‘Only for you. I cannot believe your father seriously intended you to marry this man. There is a stench of greasy money behind all this. Yet it is a crime to oppose a father’s will.’

  Cao wrung her hands.

  ‘I do not wish to become Fifth Cousin Wen’s wife!’ she cried.

  ‘I have another love. One I can never forget.’

  Shih stopped pacing and met her eyes. They had been little more than children. It would be a year before Shih reached the age of capping into manhood in his twentieth year.

  ‘There may be another way,’ he said, cautiously. ‘A less than honourable way, perhaps. If we have the courage.’

  ‘When I am with you I have the courage for anything,’ she said.

  She had meant it with all her hope and heart, unaware how cruel people can be, and how kind when least expected. Since that day, twelve years had passed. . .

  *

  Madam Cao walked across Nancheng to the East Market, where she was curious to read the proclamation mentioned by Old Hsu. Such notices were customarily hung on the Gate of Fragrant Increase and she joined a small crowd round the strip of paper. When her turn came, a retired clerk politely offered to read it to her.

  ‘I can read, sir!’ she said with more passion than she had intended. ‘Just because I am a woman does not mean I must be a fool.’

  Cao flushed with embarrassment at her rudeness. She did not know what had come over her. Afraid of causing a scandal, she added in a wheedling voice: ‘But if you would help me with the more difficult characters, sir, I would be very grateful.’

  The man chuckled. Cao noticed with surprise that he had taken no offence.

  ‘What, young lady? Speak a little louder.’

  The proclamation gave advanced warn
ing of civic restrictions, should the enemy approach the city. Everything was expressed in vague terms, yet Cao could not avoid a pang of fear. She had heard rumours that those towns which fell to the Mongols perished utterly. Many people preferred to kill their entire family than suffer captivity, or worse. Surely it was impossible the enemy could reach as far as Nancheng. The Son of Heaven’s armies would scatter them long before that. Cao reassured herself she was glad to have read the notice; it would provide something to tell Shih over dinner.

  As she bought peppers and dried wood-ear, lily flowers and onions, to make pour-fish sauce – one of her husband’s favourite dishes – unwelcome thoughts arose. Why did her guest not help with the cooking? Perhaps she did not know how, having grown used to meals served at her whim. Although Shih’s fees from patients had increased since curing the Pacification Commissioner’s son, to the extent that he talked about hiring a maid, Cao still prepared all their meals.

  Thankfully, Shih did not object to Lu Ying eating alone in her room, though it was hardly friendly.

  That made Cao wonder, too. She had noticed he grew awkward whenever Honoured Guest emerged to ask for something. He glanced away, as though trying to dismiss Lu Ying from his mind. While Cao approved of such delicacy, she distrusted what lay beneath it.

  ‘A noble fish!’ declared the merchant. ‘A prince of trout! A dish fit for the Pacification Commissioner’s own table!’

  Cao did not haggle over the price. She wished to get home soon and see what was going on in her absence.

  four

  ‘Now I will explain how the cities of Nancheng and Fouzhou are defended. Water subjugates fire: in this way the wide moats and canals surrounding the Twin Cities drown the burning will of besiegers. Earth subjugates water: thus the high walls of pounded earth lined with stone channel water in ways beneficial to the Son of Heaven’s subjects. One might say the defence of Nancheng and Fouzhou relies upon the five elements. . .’

  From Dream Pool Essays by Shen Kua