Chu Ju's House (2 page)

When I returned with Auntie Tai and Ba Ba, I was sent from the house and told to remain out of the way. As I left, I heard Ba Ba say to Auntie Tai, “This one must be a boy who will grow into a clever man, a man who could put his hand on a bit of land here and there. He would not be satisfied with our pitiful plot.”

To make the time pass, I went to our pitiful plot and began to weed among the rows of garlic and onion. As always I kept a wary eye on the scarecrow. It was an ugly scarecrow, and it never ceased to frighten me. Bees buzzed in and out of the bean blossoms. I knew that Ba Ba would be happy
to see how the cucumber vines were climbing their poles. I crept along the rows tugging at the weeds. Some came away in my hand lightly, others had roots that seemed to reach down to the very center of the earth. The smell of garlic and onion was on my hands. All the time I tugged at the weeds, I thought of my new brother, hoping that after he was born my nai nai and ba ba would stop looking at me as if I had done something wrong when it was not my fault that I was a girl.

Hours went by, but I heard nothing of a little brother. A soft rain began to fall. At first it was only a gentle touch on my cheek and hands, but soon I was pelted by large drops. A flock of bright-blue birds with black faces darted into the shelter of a camphor tree. I crouched under the eaves of our roof, not daring to go inside the house until I was called. Because of the importance of what was happening, I had been forgotten. If it is a little brother,
I thought, this is how it will be. They will forget about me, but that would be far better than having a sister and bearing Nai Nai's anger and Ba Ba's disappointment.

The courtyard filled with water. I took off my shoes to keep them dry. The stones under my feet were cold but the rain was warm. I could feel the vegetables' happiness at the rain. I thought the rain that made the crops grow was a good omen. I felt sure the baby would be a boy.

“Chu Ju,” Nai Nai shouted. “Why are you crouching out there in the rain? Don't you have the sense to come into the house? You are needed at once. Make tea for Auntie Tai. There is much to do here.”

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. If Nai Nai had been pleased with the baby, she would surely have made the tea for Auntie Tai. That the task should be left to a young girl was an insult to Auntie Tai.

In an offended voice Auntie Tai said, “I will not stop for tea. They will be expecting me at my next house, where they are sure to have my tea waiting for me and sesame cakes as well.” There was no courteous
zai-jian
as she left.

“Since you have brought us a girl,” Nai Nai called after her, “you would do well to find a place for her.”

I crept into the small room in which my parents slept. Ma Ma was lying very still. Ba Ba was standing beside her looking down at a small bundle wrapped round and round with a cloth. There was deep disappointment on his face, but also a kind of wonder, the same look I had seen when he had gazed fondly at the green shoots in the cornfield. It was not a son, but it had lain like a tiny seed inside of Ma Ma, and it had grown and now here it was.

Nai Nai saw the look as well and said in a brisk voice to Ba Ba, “Your patients will be waiting for
you at your shop. You had better see to them. You are only in the way here.”

Ba Ba reached down to touch the bundle but seemed to think better of it.

As Ba Ba started for the door, Ma Ma pleaded, “You will have nothing done with the child?”

“The sooner something is done, the better,” Nai Nai answered. “Are you to nurse and take care of her all day? You will get used to the child, and then what?”

In a weak voice Ma Ma said, “Two girls are not the greatest evil that could befall us. Chu Ju is a good worker.”

Nai Nai said, “How long will that last? She will marry, and you will never see her again.”

“She is just fourteen,” Ma Ma said. “By the time she marries, her little sister will be there to help. Perhaps by then we will have a son.”

“Talk of another child is foolishness,” Ba Ba
said. “Some village tattletale would report to the government that we have three children, and the government would fine us so many yuan. We would have to sell everything we have to pay the fine. Or worse. You know that the officials knocked down Li's house because he had a third child. You cannot have a son to carry on our family name until this girl baby is gone.”

Ba Ba's voice became less impatient. “We will wait a little,” he said.

There were tears running down Ma Ma's cheeks. Nai Nai thrust the baby into my arms. “See to her. Let your ma ma sleep.”

Here was this bundle in my arms. It was no heavier than a sack of rice or a melon. I did not know whether to hold the bundle tightly so that nothing should happen to it, or loosely so that something so tender would not be crushed.

I carried my sister into the other room and sat
down upon a chair and peered at her. She looked small and helpless, like a fledgling that falls from a bird's nest. She opened her eyes and I saw she was no fledgling bird, for there was nothing helpless in her eyes. They were shiny and black and crackled with life. She made little sucking sounds with her mouth and waved her tiny hands about. She was like a seedling that pushes up from the ground, bending this way and that until it gains more growth and can stand firm against the wind.

The baby began to whimper. I smoothed down the cap of black hair that stood straight up on her head. I walked back and forth holding the bundle and speaking to it in whispers, telling it that Ba Ba had said, “We will wait a little,” so that there was no cause for whimpering.

From that moment, except for the times Ma Ma nursed her, the baby's care was given over to me. I remembered Nai Nai saying to Ma Ma, “You
will get used to the child, and then what?”

After a few days I asked, “What will you name her?”

Nai Nai said, “There is no need for a name.”

I trembled at Nai Nai's words, for I knew if the baby had a name, it would place her a little more firmly in our family. In my head I named her Hua, Blossom, because she was born on the day the beans blossomed and their fragrance was sweet on the air.

The days went by and Hua was still there. She was with me always. Nai Nai taught me how to wind a length of cloth to hold the baby on my back. When I went on an errand into the village she was with me. She slept beside me at night. Even if I was fast asleep, her softest cry awakened me. When I picked her up, the crying ceased. I was the first to hear the cooing noises she made like the call of the turtledoves that perched on the roof of our house.

At first her eyes were like shining black pebbles rolling about. After a bit they settled first on one thing and then another. Often the black pebbles fastened on my face, looking and looking until I wondered what Hua saw, for my face was only a plain face.

I thought of this baby like a puppy to be carried about with me, something to hold close to me and warm me and amuse me with her little tricks, a new one each day. Her smiles when they came were all for me.

But there was much work to be done for the little creature. I was awakened at night by Hua's cries and had to carry her to Ma Ma to be nursed. Again, early in the morning, I was awakened. All day long she had to be changed and cleaned. Sometimes there would be crying and I could find no reason for it. There was never a minute when I could wander to the village and spend time with a
friend. So when Nai Nai argued day and night that something must be done with the baby, there were times when I did not care if my sister was sent away.

One day I was hoeing a row of turnips in our pitiful plot. The day was hot, and though I had put Hua in the shade of the chestnut tree, she whined with the heat. I was thirsty and sick of the whining. I left Hua in her basket and went to the house for boiled water, in no hurry to get back to my work and Hua's whining. I had drunk my water and was returning to take up the hoe when I saw a great black vulture settle on a branch of the chestnut tree just over Hua's basket. It had an ugly bald head, a cruel yellow beak, and sharp talons. I ran at it screaming and threatening it with the hoe. Such vultures stole ducks and piglets and even grown dogs. What might it have done to Hua?

My hands were shaking and my breath would not come. I sobbed with fright. Suppose through
my fault I had let the vulture carry off my sister? After that everything changed. I would not let Hua out of my sight. When Nai Nai talked of how Hua must be sent away, how someone would come and take her, then Nai Nai became the vulture, ugly and cruel, and I hated her. When there was such talk, I held my sister close to me and hid with her in the fields.

As the weeks went by and Hua grew, she fretted and seemed hungry after her nursing. I begged a little rice gruel for her.

Nai Nai shook her head. “The milk is plenty. We have hardly enough rice for our own bowls.”

When Nai Nai was not looking, I put a little of my rice aside to give to Hua and there was less crying.

Ma Ma held Hua tenderly after the nursing was over, and Ba Ba smiled when Hua's tiny hand curled around his finger, so I had a small hope that
we might keep her after all, but one evening I found out that there was to be no keeping of Hua.

We were all sitting together finishing our rice mixed with a bit of dried fish. Ba Ba announced, “A woman will come tomorrow to make arrangements for the taking of the girl baby.”

In her soft voice Ma Ma begged, “Let us keep her. She is already a part of us. What will become of her if we send her away?”

“That is not our worry,” Nai Nai said. “There are orphanages for such children.”

I looked at Ba Ba, but he only got up and left the house. Later in the evening, when he returned, I heard Ma Ma's voice and Ba Ba's voice long into the night.

I hardly slept for watching over Hua. The next morning, after Ba Ba left the house, the woman came. She was a big woman with small eyes, a tight mouth, and a mole on her cheek with a long black
hair. She wore a large loose-fitting shirt and trousers and a shawl wrapped about her shoulders. I thought she could snatch Hua and hide her in all that cloth.

The woman looked closely at Hua as if she were counting her fingers and toes to see if they were all there. I was sure she had not noticed how bright Hua's eyes were or how neat and clean I kept her.

“An unremarkable girl baby,” she said. “It will be difficult to find a place for her.”

She named a price, and Nai Nai, who had never bothered to look at Hua, now began to point out her fine complexion, her thick hair, and her strong limbs. “Just see how she looks about and notices everything around her,” Nai Nai said. “We are insulted by such a price. Twice the amount would be too little.”

Hua gurgled and smiled at the horrible woman.
When the woman and Nai Nai were busy with their haggling and not looking at Hua, I reached slyly under Hua's shirt and pinched her hard. Immediately she began crying. I hoped the woman would not want a crying child.

“There,” the woman said. “You are trying to sell me an ill-natured girl who will give everyone trouble.”

I held my breath, hoping that the woman would not take her.

Nai Nai scowled at Hua. “She cries because she is insulted that you hold her so cheaply.”

All the while Ma Ma sat in a corner of the room, pale and silent. As the two women argued, Ma Ma began to cry. I had wondered why Nai Nai had not sent her into the other room. Now I understood, for Nai Nai said, “We will not sell her after all. See, her ma ma is not willing to let her go.” And indeed, Ma Ma was sobbing harder than ever; the
sobs were not just show for the woman, but from Ma Ma's heart.

At this the woman offered more, for she could see that what Nai Nai said was true, that Ma Ma did not wish to part with Hua. What the woman did not understand was that Ma Ma had nothing to say in the matter.

At last a price was agreed upon, and the woman said she would make inquiries as to where Hua was to be taken and return for Hua the following morning.

Our meal that night was a silent one. Neither Ma Ma nor I could eat. Ba Ba kept his head down. Even Nai Nai held her tongue. When dinner was over and I had washed the bowls and scrubbed the wok, I took Hua out into the fields.

The spring evening was as pleasant as the house had been bitter. The summer sky still held the light of day. The ripe guavas hung on the trees like
unlit lanterns. There was a light wind that made the scarecrow's shirtsleeves and trousers flutter. For a moment I feared it was moving toward me.

I clung more tightly to Hua. I had heard stories in the village of babies being carried off and never seen again. In any village there will be stories to make a little excitement and send tongues wagging. I had thought such stories were only meant to scare us in a delicious way.

Now I knew the stories of the babies being carried away were true. I looked down at Hua. She was asleep. Her long black eyelashes were a dark fringe on her cheeks. Her round pink mouth was a little open. Hua would be sent away so that the authorities would think our family had no more than one child. One day Ma Ma might have a son to please my nai nai and my ba ba.

If my ma ma could not stop Hua from being sent away, how could I? I wished I could disappear so that there would be only one daughter. The word
disappear
sounded in my head like the tiny insects you hear but cannot see.
Disappear, disappear
, they buzzed.
Then there will be just one child, Hua.

But I was not a magician. I could not make myself disappear.
Think of the map,
the tiny insects buzzed. The map had stretched all the way across the wall of our schoolroom. The whole wall was China. At the bottom of the map was a scale that told how many kilometers the millimeters stood for. The length of my little finger was many kilometers on the map. You could travel thousands of kilometers and still be in China.

 

When I was little, to escape my nai nai's scolding I had hidden in the branches of a nearby banyan tree. If I tucked my legs under me and kept still, she could not find me. If I could hide so close to our house, why couldn't I hide somewhere in the great map?