Waxing Moon (7 page)

10

Mistress Yee was in bed, delirious. The trip to the temple had drained her. Mirae sat near her mistress and fanned not her face but her feet: her mistress didn’t want to see Mirae’s nostrils. Mistress Yee moaned at intervals. Nani brought in a tray full of nourishments, including Mistress Yee’s favorites, candied lotus roots and poached pears in rice liqueur. But Mistress Yee waved the food away.

Mr. O, after seeing off an old friend, arrived at Mistress Yee’s quarters. He cleared his throat outside the door, and Mistress Yee began to moan more dramatically. Mirae sprang up to open the door.

“How is everything?” Mr. O inquired, looking about the room and at the tray of food.

Mirae just dropped her head, folding the fan she held.

“Leave us,” Mr. O said. He never wanted the maids to be around when he was with his wife. Mirae departed, leaving the tray of food, for she knew that her mistress might ask for food very soon. She didn’t want to be summoned again.

Mr. O waited until Mirae had closed the door behind her and scurried away before he sat near his wife.

“How is everything?” he asked again, taking a piece of snow white rice cake. His mind was involuntarily pondering upon the words of his friend from a neighboring village, who had said that the peasants were out of control, some of them demanding their share of the land. Mr. O’s friend, also a landowner, had called them ungrateful bastards. They had lived off of his land for generations but now what they wanted was to bring him down to shame. His friend was completely wrought up. Do any of my tenant peasants feel this way? No, impossible, Mr. O was convinced. His people would not want to see him bankrupt. That would mean their bankruptcy as well. His people weren’t that stupid. They were family people, responsible people who put rice on their tables at every mealtime.

Mr. O took a bite of white rice cake, and Mistress Yee moaned louder.

Mr. O put his hand on her buttock. “How is everything?” he inquired once more, collecting himself.

“Send a messenger to my family. Let them know I am ill. I would like to say goodbye to them before I go,” Mistress Yee said feebly, looking up at her husband sideways, who was still chewing on a piece of rice cake.

“Let me massage you,” Mr. O said. He began to knead her thigh. But his wife pushed his hands away, sobbing.

“My little lamb, sit up and I will feed you something. I heard you haven’t had dinner yet,” Mr. O said, as if talking to a child.

“No one cares about me around here.”

“The visitor had so much to say, and I just couldn’t get rid of him quickly. He is my childhood friend. He feels quite at home here. By the way, he sends his best regards to you,” he consoled her.

Mistress Yee just snorted and sat up and shot a fierce glance at her husband.

“Now, now, anger is the root of all miseries. Ease your mind,” Mr. O said softly. He was tired and wanted to lie down with his wife, who often faked illness but was as strong as a horse.

“You don’t understand. The head monk at the temple, he insulted me,” she said resolutely.

“What do you mean?” Mr. O asked.

“When I was done with my kowtows, I realized Mirae was no longer with me. I was so preoccupied I didn’t know she had left. She is such a busybody and pokes into everything. Anyhow, I went out to see where she was. And there she was, in front of Sari-tower, conversing with the head monk.” Mistress Yee hesitated a few moments. “I can’t tell you the rest, because if I did, you would stop the annual donation to the temple. And I don’t want that to happen,” she said in a saddened voice.

“Tell me, my dear. You can trust me.”

“Well, it’s obscene. Noble blood streams in your veins; you must not hear such talk.”

“But it concerns you. I must know it,” he urged with a strain in his voice.

Her eyes glared, reflecting the flame of the candle light on the low table. Mr. O felt that his wife was hiding something from him to protect him. He grabbed her small hand.

Slowly, quietly, she spoke, as if resigned, as if she were seeing the event once again: “The head monk was fumbling under Mirae’s shirt. I didn’t want to attract their attention because I was so ashamed to have witnessed such foul, abominable vice. I wanted to step back into the main hall so as to hide myself, but as I started walking backward, I fainted. I think the head monk picked me up and carried me because when I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the floor in the main hall. The head monk was looking down on me, breathing hard. I was frightened, so I asked for Mirae. He assured me that I was in good hands. Mirae didn’t come for a while. I didn’t know where she was. I sat up, feeling sick. The head monk mentioned something about desire being one of the three poisons in life, obviously referring to his own contaminated mind, and perhaps he was pleading with me not to reveal any of the things I had seen. But you are so persistent. And I can’t lie, as you know. So there you have it, the truth. But I don’t want you to act upon it hastily. We all make mistakes, monk or not.”

Mr. O considered the whole confession gravely.

Many years before, his father had taken him to the temple when the head monk was eleven years old. The father wanted to show his son what the unusually talented boy could do with stones. The boy was hard at work chiseling a piece of granite without looking up at the visitors. He was in the process of turning it into a statue of Buddha. He had started at the waist, which was smooth and curvaceous to perfection. It wasn’t until he got older and married that Mr. O realized the sensual quality of the art. Mr. O’s father praised the incontestable skill of the obvious genius, The Little Monk, as he was called then. That was the last time Mr. O had visited the temple.

At his deathbed, his father had Mr. O promise that he would make the annual tribute to the temple. So the son honored the wish of his father, and he would until his own death.

Mr. O was sure that the head monk at the temple was the same person that he was thinking of. Now that he knew what had happened to his wife and maid, he didn’t quite know what to make of it. Once again he remembered the touch of the granite’s cool surface. The waist of Buddha himself. If he were to pick out the single most unforgettable moment of his life, it would be that time when he had touched the unfinished statue of Buddha.

Mistress Yee sat there, holding her breath, thinking that at any moment her husband would explode, determined to murder the head monk. Then she would have to plead, she would have to visit the temple again to advise the head monk how to escape the wrath of her husband. She would have to punish Mirae properly and teach her to behave and to be loyal to her mistress forever.

“How does the head monk look?” Mr. O asked.

“Do you think I look at other men directly in the face? I fainted! I was ill. I almost died at the temple. They didn’t serve me lunch when they knew well the distance I had to travel back! Can you just collect yourself and do something about it?” Mistress Yee said, baffled and irritated.

“What happened today is, if it’s true, intolerable. It’s an insult to me. And to my father,” he said thoughtfully.

“
If
it’s true?” Mistress Yee repeated. She knew very well that it was not the right moment to lose her temper. Her tale didn’t seem to have disturbed him, as she had hoped.

“I don’t mean it that way. I met that monk many years ago. My father revered him. He was the best sculptor alive. I saw part of his work when he was eleven. It was divine,” he reminisced. “Perhaps next time you should go to the temple with another maid. You need to teach your maid—what’s her name—proper behavior. If she could tempt a monk, she is unlimited in what she might do next,” Mr. O said with a benign smile.

“I am not going there ever again!” she wailed.

“That’s not a bad idea. As my father once said, one doesn’t need a temple to see Buddha. And one doesn’t need to see Buddha to learn what one already knows.” He sighed, thinking of his father.

“Then, may I ask why you encouraged me to go to the temple?” Mistress Yee asked haughtily.

“My father went to the temple frequently. I asked him the same question that you are asking now. He simply replied that there are other things you learn by doing things you already know. But I encouraged you to go because you wanted to go. When an expectant mother wants to go to the temple to pray, to celebrate the future event, to practice focusing her mind—whatever it was that you intended to do—no husband would advise her not to go,” he said, getting up slowly. “I am tired tonight. Mr. Chang drained me with his stories.” He walked over to the inner quarters where their bed was prepared.

Mistress Yee sat there, feeling miserable and defeated. The rain subsided; only a few drops fell from the roof onto a puddle every now and then. Tears welled up in her eyes. She thought of her mother’s words,
Don’t ever give up on getting what you want. Life is a battle. But it’s all in your mind. If you don’t want to be trampled, you need to trample those who might trample you.

She kept telling herself that there was no reason to worry. And there really was no reason to worry. But another voice, loud and persistent, kept whispering into her mind’s ear.

She blew out the candle and wiped her eyes. She let her pitch-black satin hair drop from its twist and unbraided it and then slipped out of her clothes. Her husband was fast asleep. She lay next to him, awake, until deep into the night, sorting through her thoughts and calming her agitated mind. A few minutes before she fell asleep, she smiled, her eyes almost closed, remembering a scene from her childhood. A farrier had dipped a piece of metal into a furnace and a few minutes later he took it out to show how red, how hot, how powerful it was. “Don’t you dare come near me, or you will be fatally hurt,” he warned the children around him, smiling mischievously at the seven-year-old Mistress Yee.

11

By the time Nani was so itchy that she woke up, she already had six mosquito bites on her legs. They always bit her, no one else in the room. It was just before dawn. She lifted her left leg in midair and scratched until her skin bled.

She sat up. Even though it was midsummer, the heat had temporarily abated after the pounding rain.

The little maid, Soonyi, barely fourteen but appearing younger because of her small physique, lay diagonally with her limbs stretched out in four directions. She had joined the household only a year before to assist the kitchen maid. But since last spring the kitchen maid had taken time off to take care of her dying mother in the neighboring village.

In the corner was a lump of Mirae in a pathetic fetal position, bobbing up and down as she breathed rapidly. That was strange because she usually slept on her back, with her nose arrogantly tilted up and her long legs stretched straight out. Curious, Nani crawled on her knees over to Mirae. Even before she got close to her, she could feel the heat radiating from Mirae’s body. She was hot. They were not on speaking terms, but Nani shook her shoulder, reluctantly. Mirae moaned and jerked.

“What’s the matter?” Nani asked grimly. It was too early to start a new day.

“I think I am dying,” Mirae barely managed to say.

Nani thought quickly. Her late mother had administered every domestic disaster. After she had passed away, Nani rushed to Mistress Kim with every little anomaly in the house. But now she was alone. She had to use her own head, and it wasn’t always easy.

Fever. What did Mother do about a fever? What did Mistress Kim say about a fever?

Nani gaped at Mirae. She was drenched in sweat. Her hair was loose and a few strands were stuck on the side of her face. Even when she was sick, Nani thought, she was pretty.

Min never seemed to want to touch her. On the way back from Mrs. Wang’s place the day before, he could have done whatever he pleased, but he hadn’t. Was he simply a nincompoop? Or was she simply not attractive? Mirae moaned again, and Nani collected herself.

Her instinct told her that she needed to dry Mirae first and change her clothes. So she pulled out a new undergarment from the chest and began to undress her. It was almost impossible and she was also uncomfortable, considering the kind of relationship she had with Mirae: they were more or less enemies. But why? Nani rummaged through her memory to remember what event had turned them into hating each other. But there was really nothing. Mirae was just too pretty. She behaved like no maid. Supercilious she was. Mistress Yee’s shadow. A shameless parasite. Nani began to untie the knot at her chest. She got nervous, noticing her fingers becoming clumsy.

Nudging at the little kitchen maid with her foot, Nani called out, “Soonyi!” She was sleeping with her mouth open. Nani hated to wake her up from her dream, but she needed someone else to assist her or at least witness what she was doing.

“Soonyi!” she called once again, in a louder voice.

To her surprise, Soonyi quickly sat up, gibbered for a few moments, and then rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Looking about, she whined, “What is it?”

“Light the candle, will you?” Nani asked, with annoyed urgency in her voice.

“What’s going on?” Soonyi asked.

Nani didn’t answer. She removed Mirae’s top garment and began to pat her dry.

Soonyi rubbed her eyes, lit the candle, and gasped. “Gods! What on earth are you doing, Big Sister?”

“Get a bowl of water. She is sick. Can’t you see?” Nani said, in an exaggerated tone of voice, just as her mother had used to speak to her when she was busy.

“All right. What happened?” Soonyi asked as she was leaving the room for the kitchen, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer.

“Bring a spoon too,” Nani commanded.

When Soonyi came back with a bowl of water, Nani held Mirae up and asked Soonyi to feed her water with the spoon.

“She is not swallowing it, Big Sister!” Soonyi cried.

Nani was sweating profusely now too. She thought hard, her teeth rattling from nervousness and her eyes focusing on the candlelight.

“Bring me a clean cloth,” Nani said.

“Where is it?” Soonyi asked, moving her innocent eyes uncertainly.

“In the cupboard. In the kitchen. I don’t know. Look for it!”

Soonyi frowned and sulked, pouting her lips. She went to the kitchen. The gray light from the east was emerging, and the roosters in the distance were announcing it. She looked about to find a clean cloth in the kitchen. She saw the low table on which she had served dried cuttlefish and sesame cookies to Mr. O’s visitor the day before. The cookies were untouched. She ate one. It was even better than yesterday. A little less crunchy, but sweeter from the oozing honey. She ate another. She drank a little plum wine from the jug. That was the only wine she liked, because it was sweet.

Nani examined the skin of Mirae’s chest. It was a whole new world. It resembled the flesh of a peeled peach. It gleamed, blinding her.

“Big Sister, is this good enough?” Soonyi came in and showed her a piece of white cloth that was used in the kitchen for making bean curd.

Nani sighed, and snatched it from Soonyi’s hand. “We need to dress her in the dry clothes. You hold her from behind and I will put the clothes on,” Nani said. Mirae did not put up a fight.

Nani dipped the cloth in the water and let the end of it hang in the hot mouth of Mirae, letting her suck the moisture.

“She needs to rest. Make sure she gets water constantly, even if it’s one drop at a time. I am going to ask Mistress Yee what I should do about this. Stay right here,” Nani ordered, pointing her finger at Soonyi.

“I am not going anywhere, Big Sister,” said Soonyi, looking worried.

Nani left the room and walked up the steps to go across the yard to Mistress Yee’s quarters. Her head felt light.

Min was walking toward the kitchen with split wood on his back for the stove. He was already sweating on his neck. As he disappeared into the rear entrance of the kitchen, Nani thought about Mirae’s radiant skin. She walked faster and went to the outhouse, and when she came out, Min was coming toward her to go outside to do other chores. He passed Nani without acknowledging her presence. Nani picked up a pebble and hesitated for a moment, but before he went too far, she threw the pebble and hit him on his back. He turned around and shot a glance at her.

Nani sighed in frustration.

Min strode toward her and picked her up by the arms and put her back down on the ground. She slapped him hard because she felt frightened. His Adam’s apple moved up and down. He stared at her for a moment, turned around reluctantly, and began to walk away. “Idiot!” Nani said to the back of his head.

Min turned around and looked down at his feet. A group of busy ants worked right by his foot. He moved carefully, so as not to step on them. He looked down once more, as if making sure the creatures were all right. He stared at Nani’s skirt blankly and then his glance moved to her feet.

Her toes wiggled. Her fingers fidgeted. She wondered what Min was thinking. He came over to her slowly and grabbed her hand. His palm was moist and hot. They walked toward the storage room. She had the key to it. They entered in silence and closed the door behind them. In the dark they stood immobilized for a while, listening to each other’s breathing and getting used to the dark. And then Min pulled her close to his chest and groaned like a beast. His arms compressed her organs in her rib cage so tightly that she felt they might explode. When he finally released her, the air temporarily trapped in her throat escaped violently through her mouth, producing a loud sound, the burp of a giant. He rubbed her head ever so gently and groaned again. Nani broke out sobbing, punching his chest. He groaned again. Nani said, “I hate you!” Min kept rubbing her head and groaned more loudly. His body was trembling ever so slightly. Nani stopped punching him. She relaxed in his arms for a while.

“Gods! What am I doing here? Mirae is sick as a dog. I have to go and ask Mistress Yee what I should do!” Nani sprang up and opened the door. Before she ran, she looked around and met Min’s eyes. He was smiling down at her like Buddha. She pushed him away and ran like a little rabbit, looking back with a mischievous grin on her lips.