Waxing Moon (4 page)

4

After Mrs. Wang’s departure, Mr. O took a nap in his bedroom, curled up on his side without a cover. He dreamed that he was watching himself as an ancient man with white hair and a long white beard. He had a cane in his hand, and he could feel the shortness of his breath as he was climbing a mountain. There seemed to be no end to his climbing. In the middle of the mountain, he stopped to look behind him, but, strangely, he was still at the foot of the mountain. He climbed again for a long time. He saw an old pine tree and decided to sit under it. But a woman was occupying the shady spot, so he hesitated to go near it. It was a young woman of bewitching beauty. He realized that it was his first wife, Mistress Kim, as young as when she had first arrived in his house after the wedding. He wanted to say something to her, but looking at his old self, he couldn’t. He thought she wouldn’t recognize him. He was frightened by the sheer youth of his wife, or rather by his withering self, so he walked backward away from her. But in his mind, he hoped his wife would recognize him, call him by his name tenderly. He fell, tripping over something. He couldn’t make himself get up, so he screamed for help. His wife didn’t come to help him, and the branches of the pine tree turned into snakes and slithered toward him. He got up quickly and yelled angrily at his wife for not helping him. His wife was nowhere to be found, but a beautiful flower bloomed under the pine tree. The snakes were coming closer and closer to him. He screamed even louder and woke himself up.

His back was drenched and his head was spinning. He was relieved to find himself in his own room. He cleared his throat and tried to say something, but he wasn’t able to for a while.

It was still light outside but very quiet.

He sat up and reviewed his dream slowly. It made him angry for two reasons. His wife hadn’t come to his rescue, and why had he been such an old man while his dead wife seemed intensely young? What could it possibly mean? And then he thought about the pine branches turning into snakes, the most ominous creatures one encountered in a dream. It chilled his bones just to think of them. But his wife had turned into a pretty white flower, looking magnificent under the pine tree. Mr. O slapped his knee and thought of Mrs. Wang’s visit. What was it she had wanted from him? He had to think for a moment. The woman was like a man. Her voice was deeper than his, and her eyes glared like those of a general about to strike his enemy.

After a few moments, it came to his mind. She wanted a name for his late wife’s daughter. His daughter. Their daughter. He couldn’t recall having seen the baby.

Mistress Kim’s funeral had lasted only three days, shortened from a seven-day event, due to Mistress Yee’s insufferable pain with her wrist or arm, he remembered now. By the time the funeral was over, the daughter of Mistress Kim had already been sent to a wet nurse.

“One ugly baby,” Mistress Yee had reported to him in bed after having seen her. “Can’t be a baby of a handsome man like you,” she had said, squeezing him hard without warning, which paralyzed his jaw.

He cleared his throat and called out for some help. A male servant came in. Mr. O asked him to get water for his ink and to rub the black chalk onto the stone block to bleed. While waiting, Mr. O thought of the dream once again. It no longer frightened him. But he still didn’t feel good that he had appeared such an old man in his dream and his dead wife so stunningly beautiful. She was not that beautiful, he said argumentatively to himself. She had been judicious, intelligent, and well-mannered to a point that was unnecessary between husband and wife.

Mr. O began to write slowly and precisely,
Meehua
, in Chinese characters. He looked at it scrupulously and let the rice paper dry. She might want her baby to be named Beautiful Flower, Meehua. That could be a name for a girl. Not very fashionable.

He smoked for a while, and there was an announcement that Mistress Yee had returned from the temple. She entered before he welcomed her, collapsed next to him, and complained about how hard it was to kowtow one hundred eight times for the health of his son. But she would be, of course, willing to cut her flesh off her body if it were for the sake of their son.

Mr. O massaged his wife’s shoulder. She fit into his embrace like a spineless creature; his first wife had felt as stiff as a bamboo stick. He laughed, knowing that Mistress Yee wouldn’t have kowtowed one hundred eight times for anything. But one never knew. She might have done it for her son
,
he thought. People changed. Yes, people did.

“Well done, my little lamb,” he said.

“What is this?” She sat up. “What did you write? Is this for me?” A smile rippled around her lips.

Mr. O confessed what it was for. Mistress Yee laughed flightily, showing her white teeth. “You shouldn’t do that to that creature. She was as ugly as a forgotten pumpkin in the winter field. This adds insult to injury.” She laughed once again but this time indignantly.

Gently untangling himself from his wife’s limbs, Mr. O tried to put his calligraphy aside. He was a bit self-conscious about his choice for the baby girl’s name. It was definitely unfashionable.

“So what motivates you to do this?” Mistress Yee asked, with a strain in her voice. She would have bitten him if she could.

“The midwife came by this afternoon and demanded a name for the girl,” he answered, still thinking about the dream in the back of his mind.

“So you waited until I left to do this!” she cried, raising her eyebrows suspiciously.

“Why are you so upset? I am doing my duty or else I will be mocked. The midwife criticized me already. I felt like an idiot in front of her,” Mr. O grumbled.

Mistress Yee wondered if Mrs. Wang was in any way related to the dead whore. She had called Mistress Kim a whore on the nights when her husband had chosen to be with her and Mistress Yee lay alone, consumed with jealousy and a feeling of utter defeat.

“So who is this fatso called Mrs. Wang? Is someone else paying her? What does
she
gain in this game of getting a name for the ugly infant girl?” Mistress Yee asked coquettishly.

“The peasant woman wants another payment, which I will send promptly. I can’t let the peasants gossip about me,” Mr. O said.

“What do you mean? I sent the woman more than most peasants earn in a lifetime!”

Mr. O lit his pipe and puffed smoke with a blank expression. He wanted to send the name to Mrs. Wang as soon as possible, so that he could forget about it. He knew no other woman like Mrs. Wang. She had stared at him directly, as if he had done something wrong to her personally. In any case, he didn’t want to see her again.

5

Nani was on her way to see Mrs. Wang. It was after early breakfast, and the air was clean and so crisp she could almost touch it as she walked on the dirt road up the hill.

Her mother had come with Mistress Kim when she married into Mr. O’s family. Nani was an infant when she arrived with her mother, who had worked as Mistress Kim’s nanny since her birth. Some years before, Nani’s mother had died of pneumonia, and Mistress Kim had promised that she would marry Nani off to a decent man. But unfortunately, Mistress Kim had also passed away. Nani hadn’t known how lonely she would be without Mistress Kim, who had shown more gentleness and kindness than her mother sometimes; most of the time actually. Nani had been having dreams about her mistress lately, and she would wake up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe for a moment. Mistress Kim always appeared with so much blood on her face and clothes. “Mistress, why is there so much blood on you? Whatever happened? Speak, I beg you.” But Mistress Kim would gaze far away without a word. Then she would collapse and sob heartrendingly, and Nani would scream and wake up. The other maids were irritated by her hysteria so early in the morning.

Birds with bright orange chests were chirping on the branches of trees as Nani passed by. She used to ask her mother how she could fly, and her mother had replied that she would fly if she was born again as a bird. Once, Nani had asked what her mother would like to be born as in her next life. Her mother thought for a moment and said that she would like to be born as Nani’s mother again.

Tears bunched up in her throat as she thought of her mother. Her mother would never be born again as her mother, she thought. If she were born again now, her mother would be younger than she was. So how could her mother ever be her mother again?

Nani looked back again and again as she climbed up the hill, swallowing her tears. Then she spotted Min. He was coming, after all. She had told him the night before about her errand, and he had nodded in agreement, but in the morning he was not outside waiting for her. So she left without him. Now he was coming hurriedly, with his mouth slightly open, as if he would say something. Nani didn’t look back anymore; she climbed up faster now.

Min caught up with her in no time. Now he was right behind her. She could hear him breathe. Without acknowledging each other they climbed for a while. Finally, she was out of breath. When she reached the middle point of the hill, she decided to sit under the old pine tree. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly, and the blood rushed to her cheeks and lips. Her mouth was completely dry. White flowers stood under the pine tree arrogantly, as if claiming the place as their own.

Min sat away from the tree and was looking down the hill. The sun was already blazing down on their village.

Nani observed Min, who plucked a pine needle from a branch and began to pick his teeth while looking at his dusty toe peeking out of a worn straw shoe. He watched Nani studying the flowers. He moaned, smiling stupidly, baring his front teeth. Tufts of his hair extended in all directions, manifesting how he had slept. He moaned again smiling broadly. Nani sighed involuntarily for something as small as a seed felt stuck in her chest. But her lips curled up.

He got up and Nani flushed, not knowing where to look. He came close—still smiling—picked one of the white flowers, and put it in her hair.
You look as pretty,
he groaned, waving his hand in the air. She shot a fierce glance at him and ran up the hill. Min walked, frowning pathetically with all his facial muscles.

Inseparable they had been in their childhood. But when Nani was no longer a child and Min had begun to develop strong arm muscles, Nani’s mother pulled his ear, looked straight in his eyes, and said, “Stay away from my girl. I can’t afford to have a son-in-law without a patch of land. You hear me?” All he wanted was to take care of Nani, but he stayed away from her until, serendipitously, her mother died in the middle of the harsh winter. For the first year after her death, Nani was in mourning, the second year she rejected him, the third year she was upset about everything, and now, in the fourth year, she seemed to be mad only at him. But once in a while, Min found a piece of meat tucked under rice or a boiled egg in his lunchbox and his raggedy shirt hemmed.

Min walked a little faster until he noticed that Nani lagged behind. There were thick bushes of mountain berries ahead of him. He picked up a fallen branch and bent the thorny bushes to make it easier for Nani to pass by. Suddenly, Nani screamed frantically. There was a cat snake in the middle of the dirt path, its head cocked but motionless. Min advanced carefully toward the venomous creature. He threw the branch at its head, but the snake was faster than him. It disappeared into the earth.

Nani burst out crying, her shoulders shuddering, but she marched forward. When her crying subsided, Min went ahead of her and opened his palm. It was full of mountain raspberries, some of which had been crushed and bled on his palm. Without meeting his eyes, she picked a few and dropped them in her mouth. They were tart. Min dropped a few in his mouth and gave the rest to Nani.

The last stretch to Mrs. Wang’s house was the steepest. Min squatted in front of Nani, inviting her for a piggyback ride. He had done that so many times when she was a little girl, but this was the first time since they had gotten older. Nani hesitated for a moment but got on his back.

Min produced a hideous but familiar moan of happiness and raced up the hill.

Nani held on to his shoulders, which felt like rocks smoothed by the water on the seashore over the years. It was a hot day, but she didn’t mind the extra warmth and the moisture on his back. She realized that this was the feeling she had craved for some time, but she didn’t connect it with her recent unnamable frustrations. There was no one on earth she trusted more than Min. He was a parent, a brother, a friend, and a husband already, in her mind, though she knew there had to be more to it once Min really became her husband. Her mother had said, “Stay away from him. Once a servant, always a servant. He’s got a good heart, but a good heart doesn’t get you a roof over your head. You will understand what Mama means later. But don’t you forget what Mama says.” At that time, she wasn’t interested in him, so what her mother said about Min didn’t register in her mind. But now she vaguely understood what she might have meant. Once a maid, always a maid. After Mistress Kim’s death, Nani had felt completely lost. She was demoted to kitchen maid and was doing errands of all kinds and getting orders even from that stupid maid of Mistress Yee’s. She could run away and forget about everything and marry some stranger with a roof over his head, as her mother would have liked her to. But would life without Min be possible?

She slapped Min’s shoulder violently and said, “Slow down. I am going to throw up if you go that fast.”

Min moaned again with sheer pleasure and adjusted his pace. Nani was as light as a feather. He could run to the next village and not feel tired at all. His heart was burning with desire to do anything for Nani, and yet doing nothing seemed to be what she wanted him to do.

“I want to get down. Let me down,” Nani kicked her feet in the air. Mrs. Wang’s house was in sight.

Min let her down carefully and felt the chill on his back. She still had the white flower in her hair. No woman on earth could measure up to his girl’s beauty.

Before they reached Mrs. Wang’s gate, Nani turned around, pulling his sleeve toward her, and asked, “Do you want to run away with me?”