Leaving Mother Lake (15 page)
My eyes stinging from the smoke and emotion, I took Cilatsuo’s hand and stepped down from the pig. I kowtowed to my mother and again to Cilatsuo, and to each person in the room. Finally, I kowtowed to the lamas, three times. My Ama was right. That was a lot of kowtowing. Lama Ruhi touched my head with his prayer book three times, leafing the pages over my forehead for their wisdom to penetrate my mind.
After receiving the lamas’ blessing, I turned around toward the little crowd, and I saw my father standing with Dujema near the stove.
“Uncle! You came!” I said, laughing with surprise.
He had wanted to welcome the New Year with his own family in Qiansuo, and although he had set off really early, he had arrived at the end of the ceremony. He gave me a big smile and handed me a colorful woolen scarf. “This is for you,” he said in his quiet voice. “Your aunt wove it especially.”
I took the scarf and thanked him and went off to thank all the other guests and to make small talk. Then I walked outside, my face hot and flushed with the pride of my womanhood, into the sunlit courtyard while the older women followed me, and behind them, the rest of the guests. The women stopped halfway, and everyone watched as I went up the stairs to my
babahuago,
my flower room.
I went in and shut the door behind me. My big sister was sitting on my bed, waiting for me, and soon her friends were knocking at the little window and we let them in. They were in a happy mood. “Namu, don’t let too many men into your room!” they joked. “Too much love is bad for your eyes,” another warned. “Actually, too much love makes it harder to get pregnant,” someone corrected her. And another pretended to look inside my shirt to see if I was ready for love. “Are your nipples pink?” she asked. She was very funny and everyone laughed. At last I was a grown woman; I was just like my sister and her friends, and it all felt so good and so embarrassing.
Downstairs the guests had seated themselves at the tables in the courtyard — the lamas were at the head of the banquet, and next to them the old uncles and the old women, and then the children. My mother and the younger women did not have time to sit down. They were too busy bringing out the dumplings, the grilled meat, the omelets, the vegetables, tea, and wine.
The rest of the day was spent chatting, singing, eating, and drinking. When the last of the guests left, it was high time to go to bed, and I followed my sister Zhema up the stairs. On the balcony she stood for a moment as she was about to enter her room, gave me a big smile, and waved me good night. Then I opened my own bedroom door.
I placed the candle on the little chest of drawers and sat on my bed — a plank bed with a small cotton mattress and a brand-new, thick cotton quilt. I took off my wig and, turning it over and over in my hands, examined every ribbon, every silk thread and strand of yak hair. And then I lay down under the comforter without undressing. It felt strange to be sleeping alone — without my little sister curled up against me or Uncle snoring on the other side of the fireplace. It felt strange and wonderful, and a little unnerving. I surveyed the plank ceiling above me, and then I sat up and looked at the plank walls around the room. For a while I made animal shadows on the wall by moving my hands in front of the candle. But the night was so quiet and I was so tired.
I had only just blown out the candle when the dog suddenly gave a sharp bark at the foot of the stairs. I sat straight up, my heart beating very fast. Someone had come into the courtyard — someone the dog knew well because he soon stopped barking. And now I heard footsteps on the stairs. I held the comforter around my neck and strained my eyes in the darkness, looking toward the dark shape of the door. The footsteps came closer, and my heart beat faster and harder. But the lover passed my door and shuffled toward my sister’s bedroom.
I breathed a sigh of relief and then, putting my hands to my chest to check my heartbeat, I burst out laughing.
I should have known better of course. A grown woman never received lovers on the night of her ceremony. Not because there was a rule against it but because her womanhood was so new she had not had time to sing the courtship songs with anybody. As for me, I told myself as I lay my head back on the pillow, there was little chance of my attracting a lover for some time yet. I knew nothing of what girls learn when they spend all their time gossiping in the fields. I had a long skirt and my own bedroom, but I still had everything to learn about being a woman. Before I could find a lover who wanted to sing with me, I had to learn to joke and to do something about meeting men’s eyes. I had to learn to walk the way my mother had showed me and to sit like a self-respecting woman. And perhaps also, I needed to learn to speak in a sweeter voice.
In the meantime, I thought to myself as I inhaled the sweet smell of my brand-new bedding, I was perfectly happy to have beautiful new clothes and a jade bracelet and to look forward to having so many things to learn. I dragged the quilt over my head and tried not to listen to the whispers and giggles coming from my sister’s room.
The next day my brother came to knock on my door. “Namu, we’re about to eat breakfast. Are you going to get up?”
I opened my eyes. Sunlight was casting a golden glow on the timber walls of my flower room, making it so cheerful and pretty, and when I came downstairs, I had trouble adjusting to the darkness inside. Everyone was already seated around the upper hearth, and my mother was pouring butter tea into their bowls. She lifted her head and greeted me with a smile while she put down the teapot and wiped her hands on her skirt, and then rubbed mechanically at her left wrist, looking for her bracelet. She would do that a lot over the next few days, so much so that I almost felt like taking the bracelet off my arm and giving it back to her.
Still, for the remainder of the New Year festival, my mother was very happy, perhaps as happy as I was. That same afternoon she said, “Namu, you must sort out your presents. Zhema will tell you who gave you what, and you can return something to them and thank them.” So Zhema and I spent some time taking an inventory of my gifts, while my mother and Dujema finished cleaning and tidying up from the day before.
With every gift I thought, I am a new person. I am a skirt woman. I had nothing, and now I have everything. And I did have so much — cotton scarves, silver earrings, plastic mirrors, a yak-wool rug, two wooden trays, a bunch of silk threads to weave in my hair, at least three shoulder bags . . . and a bag of salt. I thought my mother had misplaced the salt.
“Ami, here’s your salt!” I said.
“This is not my salt,” my Ama answered. “It came from the Azha family. They’ve had some difficulties lately and they had nothing else to give you.”
O
ne of our relatives in Luo Shui had just given birth to a baby daughter and my mother was filling up the bamboo boxes to bring to her.
“Thirty eggs, fermented glutinous rice, a longevity charm for the baby, and some brick tea. Namu, why don’t you come with me while Zhema takes care of Jiama and your brothers?” I had been a woman for over a year by now, and I felt rather proud that my Ama wanted me to go visiting with her. For that was usually Zhema’s privilege.
At the lakeshore we pushed our canoe onto the water. My mother stepped in and I sat behind her, and we began paddling. The sky was a pure blue, and aside from the whispery clouds floating above the head of the mountain goddess, it was empty. The lake too was empty. Ours was the only boat on the water, and the only sound came from the soft clapping of our oars. I had not heard such silence for a long time, since I had left Uncle in the mountains and come back to live at home, and I felt an irresistible urge to sing. So I began to sing one of our working songs.
My mother’s back softened and she slowed her paddling. She was listening to me, and I imagined that she was surprised and pleased by my voice, but when I had finished, she held her oar out of the water and said without turning around to look at me: “Namu, if a man sang to you, would you know how to sing back to him?”
“Of course,” I answered, looking beyond her head toward the lakeshore. “Of course I would know.”
Suddenly I no longer felt like singing. Instead I felt queasy. And perhaps Ama felt my discomfort, because she began paddling again — until we had gone a long way from shore, when she stopped without warning and drew her oar into the boat. Then she turned around and looked at me.
“Namu, stop! I am going to teach you to sing.”
My mother had a beautiful voice and a sharp wit but the intensity in her dark eyes immediately warned me that I was not going to enjoy this lesson. As soon as she began singing, I recognized the tune — the lovers’ tune.
Mother Lake is wide and deep,
Too wide for the wild duck to fly across it.
My Ama was improvising a lovers’ duet for my benefit. She had sung the opening couplet and now she was pausing, waiting for me to answer. When I did not, she sang back to herself.
There is no point in fearing the size of the lake,
Just rock the boat from side to side.
And again she paused, and still I did not sing back to her, and still she went on singing:
I did not intend to go fishing,
But the fish has eyes of gold,
I had not thought of going hunting,
But the deer horns are too precious.
If you are the transparent water of the lake,
I would gladly change into a fish to probe your heart.
Then Ama stopped again. “Namu, why don’t you sing back to me? Didn’t you say that you knew how to sing?”
But I could not sing back. It was not that I didn’t know how to sing. I had spent so much time singing to my imaginary lovers in the mountains. But this was my mother. I could not sing back to my own mother. I could not even look at her. I felt so embarrassed. I turned my eyes away and stared at the water. Ama clicked her tongue with impatience but she did not force me. Instead she went on with her own songs.
After some time, when I realized that my Ama was no longer singing for me but for the lovers of her youth, I finally dared look at her. There was such tenderness in her face, such joy, and she looked so beautiful, radiant. I felt awed. When she stopped, we sat for a moment without speaking, rocked by the soft clapping of the waves against the canoe, feeling awkward. This show of intimacy was so unusual, so out of our common experience. And suddenly I could not wait to get to the other side of the lake. I plunged my oar back into the water, but my Ama was not ready to go anywhere just yet.
“Wait, Namu,” she commanded quietly, and as I pulled the oar back into the boat, she asked, looking straight into my eyes, “Do you put out the little fire in your bedroom in the morning?”
“I’ve never lit the fire,” I answered in a whisper, looking sideways.
Ama sighed in a way that meant, How can you be so hopeless, and then she said, “One day you will have to light the fire, Namu.” And she explained how the fire should not be too hot or too low but give a beautiful light, to make you relax and soften your body. “You have to be relaxed. If you’re relaxed, then he will also relax. He will take his time with you. It’s always better when a man takes his time, you know. And you must please yourself first. He will always be pleased to please you.” She reached over toward me and touched a pimple on my cheek. “Making love is very good for the skin.”
I could not bear it. I felt exposed, naked, and as I looked at the water all around me — trapped. “I know, I know, I know,” I repeated while staring straight ahead toward the village of Luo Shui on the other side of the lake. But the shore was a long way off and there was still plenty of time to talk. And now I understood why my mother had not taken my brothers and sisters along with us.
AFTER THAT BOAT TRIP
, I knew how I should light the fire in my bedroom, and I knew that I should please myself to please him, but still I did not wish for a man to come tapping on my window at night. Fortunately, the men never looked at me, or perhaps they did but I never looked at them. I, who had spent so much of my childhood in the company of men, could no longer look at men. I, who had so wished to become a grown woman, to show off the belts tied at my waist, just wanted to be left alone. At night, when I stared at the cold fireplace in my bedroom, and then at the bottle of Sulima wine waiting to be opened, I had only one thought — that I did not want to open my door to anyone. And this thought was all that kept me from sleeping at night.
As the months went by, however, other thoughts began keeping me awake. A woman was supposed to have lovers. A woman was supposed to have children. And I was a woman. And my mother had a dream, a grand ambition, to rear a large family, just like my grandmother had. My mother needed grandchildren, and since my sister Zhema had not been able to conceive, she had pinned her hopes on me. As I lay awake turning these thoughts over, I wondered why I had no desire for love and why I was such an ungrateful daughter. Sometimes I also wondered if perhaps I was not simply ugly. Or if there was something wrong with my body and that unlike other women I just did not need love. And then I would ask myself over and over: What will the neighbors say if no lover ever knocks on my door? Will my mother lose face? And what will I do with my life if I never let a man into my room? And what if I were to meet the fate of Zhecinamu?
Zhecinamu was a beautiful girl from our village. When she bathed at the lake, the men hid in the trees to watch her long black hair flow down her back like a waterfall. When she danced, the men could not take their eyes off her, but her eyes were cold and proud. So proud. She looked down at her suitors and while she smiled with her red lips and her perfect white teeth, her eyes said: You’re not good enough for me. Not one of you is good enough for me. And she would take their courtship belts with a laugh and never wear them. When word of her coldness had spread as far as Tibet, men from all over began coming to our village to court her — not only Moso but Tibetans and Yi and even a few Han officials. Meanwhile, our own men took bets to see which of the newcomers would win her favor. But no one ever did. No matter how well they dressed, no matter how well they sang, how clever or how beautiful they were or how far they had traveled or what precious things they brought with them, Zhecinamu refused to open her door.