The Joy Luck Club (50 page)

One of the boys threw a raft made of hollow reed flutes into the water and then dove in and emerged on top of the raft. In a few seconds, the bird also emerged, its head struggling to hold onto a large fish. The bird jumped onto the raft and then tried to swallow the fish, but of course, with the ring around its neck, it could not. In one motion, the boy on the raft snatched the fish from the bird's mouth and threw it to the other boy on the boat. I clapped my hands and the bird dove under water again.

For the next hour, while Amah and everybody else slept, I watched like a hungry cat waiting its turn, as fish after fish appeared in the bird's beak only to land in a wooden pail on the boat. Then the boy in the water cried to the other, "Enough!" and the boy on the boat shouted to someone high atop the part of the boat I could not see. And loud clanks and hissing sounds erupted as once again the boat began to move. Then the boy next to me dove into the water. Both boys got on the raft and crouched in the middle like two birds perched on a branch. I waved to them, envying their carefree ways, and soon they were far away, a little yellow spot bobbing on the water.

It would have been enough to see this one adventure. But I stayed, as if caught in a good dream. And sure enough, I turned around and a sullen woman was now squatting in front of the bucket of fish. I watched as she took out a sharp, thin knife and began to slice open the fish bellies, pulling out the red slippery insides and throwing them over her shoulder into the lake. I saw her scrape off the fish scales, which flew in the air like shards of glass. And then there were two chickens that no longer gurgled after their heads were chopped off. And a big snapping turtle that stretched out its neck to bite a stick, and—whuck!—off fell its head. And dark masses of thin freshwater eels, swimming furiously in a pot. Then the woman carried everything, without a word, into the kitchen. And there was nothing else to see.

It was not until then, too late, that I saw my new clothes—and the spots of bloods, flecks of fish scales, bits of feather and mud. What a strange mind I had! In my panic, in hearing waking voices toward the front of the boat, I quickly dipped my hands in the bowl of turtle's blood and smeared this on my sleeves, and on the front of my pants and jacket. And this is what I truly thought: that I could cover these spots by painting all my clothes crimson red, and that if I stood perfectly still no one would notice this change.

That is how Amah found me: an apparition covered with blood. I can still hear her voice, screaming in terror, running over to see what pieces of my body were missing, what leaky holes had appeared. And when she found nothing, after inspecting my ears and my nose and counting my fingers, she called me names, using words I had never heard before. But they sounded evil, the way she hurled and spat the words out. She yanked off my jacket, pulled off my pants. She said I smelled like "something evil this" and I looked like "something evil that." Her voice was trembling not so much with anger as with fear. "Your mother, now she will be glad to wash her hands of you," Amah said with great remorse. "She will banish us both to Kunming." And then I was truly frightened, because I had heard that Kunming was so far away nobody ever came to visit, and that it was a wild place surrounded by a stone forest ruled by monkeys. Amah left me crying on the back of the boat, standing in my white cotton undergarments and tiger slippers.

I had truly expected my mother to come soon. I imagined her seeing my soiled clothes, the little flowers she had worked so hard to make. I thought she would come to the back of the boat and scold me in her gentle way. But she did not come. Oh, once I heard some footsteps, but I saw only the faces of my half-sisters pressed to the door window. They looked at me wide-eyed, pointed to me, and then laughed and scampered off.

I listened to their banquet while dangling my legs over the back. And although it was night, it was bright outside. I could see my reflection, my legs, my hands leaning on the edge, and my face. And above my head, I saw why it was so bright. In the dark water, I could see the full moon, a moon so warm and big it looked like the sun. And I turned around so I could find the Moon Lady and tell her my secret wish. But right at that moment, everybody else must have seen her too. Because firecrackers exploded, and I fell into the water not even hearing my own splash.

I was surprised by the cool comfort of the water, so that at first I was not frightened. It was like weightless sleep. And I expected Amah to come immediately and pick me up. But in the instant that I began to choke, I knew she would not come. I thrashed my arms and legs under the water. The sharp water had swum up my nose, into my throat and eyes, and this made me thrash even harder. "Amah!" I tried to cry and I was so angry at her for abandoning me, for making me wait and suffer unnecessarily. And then a dark shape brushed by me and I knew it was one of the Five Evils, a swimming snake.

It wrapped around me and squeezed my body like a sponge, then tossed me into the choking air—and I fell headlong into a rope net filled with writhing fish. Water gushed out of my throat, so that now I was choking and wailing.

When I turned my head, I saw four shadows, with the moon in back of them. A dripping figure was climbing into the boat. "Is it too small? Should we throw it back? Or is it worth some money?" said the dripping man, panting. And the others laughed. I became quiet. I knew who these people were. When Amah and I passed people like these in the streets, she would put her hands over my eyes and ears.

"Stop now," scolded the woman in the boat, "you've frightened her. She thinks we're brigands who are going to sell her for a slave." And then she said in a gentle voice, "Where are you from, little sister?"

The dripping man bent down and looked at me. "Oh, a little girl. Not a fish!"

"Not a fish! Not a fish!" murmured the others, chuckling.

I began to shiver, too scared to cry. The air smelled dangerous, the sharp odors of gunpowder and fish.

"Do not pay any attention to them," said the woman. "Are you from another fishing boat? Which one? Do not be afraid. Point."

Out on the water I saw rowboats and pedal boats and sailboats, and fishing boats like this one, with a long bow and small house in the middle. I looked hard, my heart beating fast.

"There!" I said, and pointed to a floating pavilion filled with laughing people and lanterns. "There! There!" And I began to cry, desperate to reach my family and be comforted. The fishing boat glided swiftly over, toward the good cooking smells.

"
E!
" called the woman up to the boat. "Have you lost a little girl, a girl who fell in the water?"

There were some shouts from the floating pavilion, and I strained to see faces of Amah, Baba, Mama. People were crowded on one side of the pavilion, leaning over, pointing, looking into our boat. All strangers, laughing red faces, loud voices. Where was Amah? Why did my mother not come? A little girl pushed her way through some legs.

"That's not me!" she cried. "I'm here. I didn't fall in the water." The people in the boat roared with laughter and turned away.

"Little sister, you were mistaken," said the woman as the fishing boat glided away. I said nothing. I began to shiver again. I had seen nobody who cared that I was missing. I looked out over the water at the hundreds of dancing lanterns. Firecrackers were exploding and I could hear more people laughing. The farther we glided, the bigger the world became. And I now felt I was lost forever.

The woman continued to stare at me. My braid was unfurled. My undergarments were wet and gray. I had lost my slippers and was barefoot.

"What shall we do?" said one of the men quietly. "Nobody to claim her."

"Maybe she is a beggar girl," said one of the men. "Look at her clothes. She is one of those children who ride the flimsy rafts to beg for money."

I was filled with terror. Maybe this was true. I had turned into a beggar girl, lost without my family.

"Anh! Don't you have eyes?" said the woman crossly. "Look at her skin, too pale. And her feet, the bottoms are soft."

"Put her on the shore, then," said the man. "If she truly has a family, they will look for her there."

"Such a night!" sighed another man. "Always someone falling in on holiday nights. Drunken poets and little children. Lucky she didn't drown." They chatted like this, back and forth, moving slowly toward shore. One man pushed the boat with a long bamboo pole and we glided between other boats. When we reached the dock, the man who had fished me out of the water lifted me out of the boat with his fishy-smelling hands.

"Be careful next time, little sister," called the woman as their boat glided away.

On the dock, with the bright moon behind me, I once again saw my shadow. It was shorter this time, shrunken and wild-looking. We ran together over to some bushes along a walkway and hid. In this hiding place I could hear people talking as they walked by. I could hear frogs and crickets. And then—flutes and tinkling cymbals, a sounding gong and drums!

I looked through the branches of the bushes and in front I could see a crowd of people and, above them, a stage holding up the moon. A young man burst out from the side of a stage and told the crowd, "And now the Moon Lady will come and tell her sad tale to you, in a shadow play, classically sung."

The Moon Lady! I thought, and the very sound of those magic words made me forget my troubles. I heard more cymbals and gongs and then a shadow of a woman appeared against the moon. Her hair was undone and she was combing it. She began to speak. Such a sweet, wailing voice!

"My fate and my penance," she began to lament, pulling her long fingers through her hair, "to live here on the moon, while my husband lives on the sun. So that each day and each night, we pass each other, never seeing one another, except this one evening, the night of the mid-autumn moon."

The crowd moved closer. The Moon Lady plucked her lute and began her singing tale.

On the other side of the moon I saw the silhouette of a man appear. The Moon Lady held her arms out to embrace him—"O! Hou Yi, my husband, Master Archer of the Skies!" she sang. But her husband did not seem to notice her. He was gazing at the sky. And as the sky grew brighter, his mouth began to open wide—in horror or delight, I could not tell.

The Moon Lady clutched her throat and fell into a heap, crying, "The drought of ten suns in the eastern sky!" And just as she sang this, the Master Archer pointed his magic arrows and shot down nine suns which burst open with blood. "Sinking into a simmering sea!" she sang happily, and I could hear these suns sizzling and crackling in death.

And now a fairy—the Queen Mother of the Western Skies!—was flying toward the Master Archer. She opened a box and held up a glowing ball—no, not a baby sun but a magic peach, the peach of everlasting life! I could see the Moon Lady pretending to be busy with her embroidery, but she was watching her husband. She saw him hide the peach in a box. And then the Master Archer raised his bow and vowed to fast for one year to show he had the patience to live forever. And after he ran off, the Moon Lady wasted not one moment to find the peach and eat it!

As soon as she tasted it, she began to rise, then fly—not like the Queen Mother—but like a dragonfly with broken wings. "Flung from this earth by my own wantonness!" she cried just as her husband dashed back home, shouting, "Thief! Life-stealing wife!" He picked up his bow, aimed an arrow at his wife and—with the rumblings of a gong, the sky went black.

Wyah! Wyah!
The sad lute music began again as the sky on the stage lightened. And there stood the poor lady against a moon as bright as the sun. Her hair was now so long it swept the floor, wiping up her tears. An eternity had passed since she last saw her husband, for this was her fate: to stay lost on the moon, forever seeking her own selfish wishes.

"For woman is yin," she cried sadly, "the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds."

A gong sounded, and the Moon Lady bowed her head and looked serenely to the side. The crowd clapped vigorously. And now the same young man as before came out on the stage and announced, "Wait, everybody! The Moon Lady has consented to grant one secret wish to each person here…." The crowd stirred with excitement, people murmuring in high voices. "For a small monetary donation…" continued the young man. And the crowd laughed and groaned, then began to disperse. The young man shouted, "A once-a-year opportunity!" But nobody was listening to him, except my shadow and me in the bushes.

"I have a wish! I have one!" I shouted as I ran forward in my bare feet. But the young man paid no attention to me and walked off the stage. I kept running toward the moon to tell the Moon Lady what I wanted, because now I knew what my wish was. I darted fast as a lizard behind the stage, to the other side of the moon.

I saw her, standing still for just a moment. She was beautiful, ablaze with the light from a dozen kerosene lamps. And then she shook her long shadowy tresses and began to walk down the steps.

"I have a wish," I said in a whisper, and still she did not hear me. So I walked closer yet, until I could see the face of the Moon Lady: shrunken cheeks, a broad oily nose, large glaring teeth, and red-stained eyes. A face so tired that she wearily pulled off her hair, her long gown fell from her shoulders. And as the secret wish fell from my lips, the Moon Lady looked at me and became a man.