The Tapestries (41 page)

As the morning passed, the active scene before him became thinner and duller. The sky was a blend of black smoke from a nearby bakery and peach-colored clouds, with a stubborn ray of sunshine breaking through the leaves. Just when he was on the verge of bursting with expectation, he heard a female voice calling his name.

Eagerly he turned toward the noise, but to his great dismay, he saw his mother, standing alone before a carriage on the other side of the main road. Her hair hung in strings, and her large eyes, the color of litchi nuts, were swollen and red-rimmed. She wore no makeup; under the sun her skin was bleached to a much starker shade than he remembered. How had she managed to locate him? He wondered if he had unwittingly given her a clue the night before.

He watched her hobble across the street. One beggar whined at her, asking for a penny; another offered his hand to accompany her. He watched his mother reach in her purse and spray a handful of change at the men as though she were feeding a flock of chickens.

Something had changed. As a child, he had never seen her pay heed to the beggars; her habit was to look through them. Not wanting to confront her, he turned away. Again she called out his name. She swayed toward him on her little feet, a pitiful sight, and he took a bitter satisfaction in her obvious struggle.

“Let me have one more moment of your time,” she said through tears that she didn't bother to brush away.

“Whatever you have to say to me,” he replied, “please make it quick. I am waiting for someone.”

She nodded, leaning against the wall for support. Nearby in the courtyard, a young girl hid her face in a conical hat, the white panels of her robe flapping in the wind. Over the fishmonger's protests, the girl poked her fingers at a basket full of red snappers. Beyond them, he recognized the familiar face of Mr. Ung, who was watching from a distance. In his hands he held a silver bicycle. Dan glared at the old man and frowned. Red-faced, the eunuch turned to the basket of fish, pushed his shoulders back, and tried to initiate a conversation with the vendor.

“For a minute of your time,” said his mother, pulling at his sleeve, “I beg you to give me your full attention. This is the last time you will ever see me, so please listen carefully to what I have to say. Give me one final chance to prove my affection to you. Later, when I am gone, respect and pity the memory of this poor woman, because for one shining moment she is giving up her happiness for yours.”

Dan looked at his mother with amazement. In her eyes he saw a trace of benevolence that almost melted his heart. “I am listening,” he said.

Her mouth lifted in a mournful smile. “Very well. I came here with a purpose, and that is to tell you something you don't know about our little family affairs. For as many years as you have been alive, I have carried deep inside me a great secret. Forgive me, dear son!” She paused, brushing an invisible gnat from her shoulder. “You are not the son of Captain Tat Nguyen. In fact, you do not have any relation to the Nguyen family. Therefore, you are not obligated to take revenge for his death.”

His mother's words made the scenery around him sway. The heat flared, and his lungs seemed devoid of air. “Whose son am I then?” Dan asked.

“You were a result of my love affair with the gardener,” she said, “whose name I would rather die than speak. Please, do not look upon me as your enemy. You are free, my son! You can love and marry that girl, because you are not her family's enemy. This is my wedding gift to you. In the depth of my shameful and dishonored soul, I beg your forgiveness. And now that I have said what I came to say, I will not take any more of your time. Soon I shall be going to a faraway land, where I will devote the rest of my life to repenting for my sins. After all, the gods are the only ones with power over Earth.”

She turned and fumbled along the wall.

“Where are you going?” Dan asked.

Lady Yen hesitated. Dan could not see her face. All he saw was her bent head and the soft mass of her hair, moving like a curtain that hid her features from sight. She reached inside her blouse and, without looking back, pressed the banknote against his chest.

“I almost forgot,” she said. “I am giving you back your money so that you can begin a fresh life. Take care of yourself and your new family! Forget me, and instead of pursuing my whereabouts, let me go.”

“You are too late, madam. I have already forgiven you. Please stay.”

She looked up and smiled. “Then I must definitely leave. If I stay, nothing will remain for us to do but to torture each other with our expectations. Each time I look at you, I will only remember how I have abandoned you. Think of me with good thoughts; that is all I ask.”

“But will you not need this money?” he asked.

“Where I am going,” she replied, “I will not require any material things.”

Dan could see her tears flow again. They were quite different this time—genuine, heartfelt, lacking her usual manipulation and shrewdness. He watched from across the street as the coachman shut the door behind her. She never looked back.

The second time Dan saw his mother walk out of his life, he was smiling. He began to erase her from his memory; bit by bit she was vanishing while his mind became a white canvas once again.

A
fter the carriage disappeared down the road, the eunuch ventured closer. His gloomy face portended bad news. In his hands, the bicycle made a low yet unremitting
tic-tic
sound with its two wheels turning. Beyond the old man's shaven head, a few black herons soared on the wind above the jagged tips of the shining city.

“Master Dan,” the old man began, his eyes darting around the market. “You have not returned to your apartment since last night. Your guardian wrote a letter to you before she went back to her village. She insisted that I deliver it to you. Despite her difficulties, she is quite eloquent in expressing herself.” He presented a sealed envelope to Dan, and added, “Sometimes I feel like a postal messenger with all of these notes. All I need is a horse to qualify for the position.”

He turned unsteadily, and his knee bumped against the bicycle. Like a clever conjurer, he grabbed the steering handle and regained his balance. He wobbled again and touched his leg. “Go ahead,” he said. “Read it. Then I will tell you more.”

Dan sat on the sidewalk and tore open the envelope. He recognized Ven's handwriting on the delicate paper inside.

My dearest Dan,

Although this letter is being written this evening with the assistance of Mr. Ung, my story actually began in the month of January 1916.

I remember it as clearly as yesterday. On the first dawn after our wedding night, while you, a child of seven, were still asleep in your comfortable bed, I was awakened to make breakfast for the Nguyen family. There, outside the window of the main living room, accompanied by the young maid Song, I saw the shadows of two men leaning over a desk. Being new and strange in unfamiliar territory, my curiosity prompted me to spy on them. Song made a hole in the parchment that sealed the window, and through this opening I saw your father, Captain Nguyen. The other man was Master Long. They were discussing politics.

From their conversation, I learned that your father was an avid supporter of a rebel group whose leader's name was Le Ngung. They called themselves the Antitax Antiforeigners Blood Brotherhood, and your father recruited Master Long to join them in their fight against the influence of the French over Vietnam. I witnessed them swearing a blood oath of loyalty to each other. I developed a tremendous respect for your father, who had undoubtedly proven his courage and passion for his country. Instantly I became his devotee.

As time passed, I continued watching their frequent gatherings. In the middle of March, before your father went to sea, I overheard a plot to help King Duy Tan to escape the palace, and to deliver a large cargo of gunpowder to the Blood Brotherhood's secret hideaway. Your father trusted Master Long. Unfortunately, this traitor deceived him. Captain Nguyen and his crew were placed in chains and led away blindfolded the minute their ship returned to shore.

Dan, you know the rest of the story, from the burning of the mansion to the beheading of your father. In that moment, my whole world was shattered. I endured the cruelty of your household so that some day I could enjoy the rewards of being your first mistress. Because of Toan, I became a beggar instead, and you a slave. Since then, my only reason for survival is to see you take revenge on them. But you failed me.

My dear young Master, there is one more secret I must confess to you. Song could no longer live with the shame and abuse from the old magistrate, so before she killed herself, she stole your father's map from Toan and gave it to me. You once asked me why I did not bring the old man to his demise. By letting him live with the knowledge that he had lost everything, including the buried treasure, I knew he would suffer long and deeply. Greed destroyed him in the end.

When I leave your apartment, I will take with me the drawing of the second half of the map. I will put the two maps together as you explained and find the treasure. I am returning to Tutor Con and maybe together we will build the life I never had with you.

Dan, you will always be my first husband. I shall never forget you.

Ven

Pain cut through him as he came to the last line of the letter. How articulate her thoughts and language were; she never ceased to surprise him. At the same time, he recognized that she was using words to unleash her silent scorn, to prove to him that she always knew more than he did. He once had her, lost her, found her, and now he had lost her again, forever. But she had also granted him freedom, and a new phase of his life was beginning.

“I am so sorry, young Master,” the eunuch said. “I have another piece of bad news. This morning I came to find Lady Tai May. Because I had shown her your note the night before and witnessed the delighted expression on her face, I was hoping to gather more information about her departure. But the young lady was gone, together with her troupe. I came in the very nick of time to watch them being escorted out of the palace through the North Gate.”

Dan blinked. He was not sure he understood what the eunuch had said. But then it did not matter. Whatever he saw was not true; she had received Dan's letter, and soon she would find him sitting on the sidewalk and waiting for her. His faith in her was strong enough to withstand any test.

“She will come,” he muttered. “It may take her some time, but she will find me.”

“But sir, you do not understand,” the eunuch said, offering his hand. “The young emperor is changing everything. No one knows what he is going to do next. The whole court system looks like it is about to come to an end. There has been so much confusion in the palace. The Queen Mother feared that letting the royal opera performers leave through the Meridian Gate would stir up an undesirable reaction from the people of Hue. That is why they were taken to the other exit. I saw Lady Tai May begging for mercy from one of the guards, but her cries were in vain. You should go inside, young Master. The gate will only remain open for less than another hour.”

Dan pushed the old man's hand away.

“Please, sir, I fear that you may be waiting for a hopeless dream.”

Dan sprang to his feet. The fire in his eyes must have been scathing, for Ung drew back in fear. In his hands, the bicycle skidded on the gravel. Dan grasped the handlebar and caught the elderly man's bony fingers, clenching them so tightly that the eunuch squealed.

“You must think that I am mad,” he said. “Well, you and the rest of the world! You do not know her the way I do. If only you could have seen us as children together. I fell in love the very first time I was brought to her home. I saw her dancing, and I was bought as a slave to bring her happiness. If only you could have heard us exchanging vows under the harvest moon, if only you were the screen that separated us—the hapless embroiderer and the lonely dancer—you would see how deep our love is for each other. Things are not always as they seem, Mr. Ung. Just listen! I wrote to her that I would wait for her here. I can almost feel her presence getting closer, and I will stay on this step until she comes. If I leave, she will never find me.”

The old man looked at him as if he were losing his mind. “This bicycle belonged to Lady Chin. Since you are the sole heir of her estate, I have brought it to you.” With those words, he propped the bike on its stand and left.

Dan sat back on the ground and inhaled. If he had to be here for another thousand years, he told himself, if he had to turn into a stone grave marker while waiting for her, then so be it. Maybe someday, someone would burn a stick of incense for him.

I
t was toward the end of the afternoon when Ven arrived at the time-teller's hut. An oak tree reached thick, tattered branches over the cabin, heightening the impression of desolation. The last rays of sun broke through an umbrella of leaves and dappled the thatched roof, and for a moment, it seemed possible to Ven that spring might come again.

The rains of the past couple of days had left the earth muddy. Around the hut a flotsam of broken wine bottles lay scattered over piles of banana peels, clumps of rice, and fish bones. It was obvious that Big Con had gone back to his drinking. The contented home she had left was now a reminder of what his life had once been.

With each step, Ven stirred up a blanket of flies from the garbage-strewn ground. Their buzzing echoed in the silence of the forest. She found the front door, made of bamboo stalks, overgrown with bindweed dotted with tiny violet blossoms.

Slowly she pulled the door to one side and entered. A condensed mist of mustiness and rotten woodchips permeated the interior. Except for a few brittle beams of light peeping though the holes in the roof, the room was in total darkness. She searched the bamboo bench in the corner for the sight of his drunken face, but all she saw was a blanket, folded neatly, just as she had left it. The barrenness of the place made her so restless that she could not remain inside. She went back out to the edge of the forest.