The Yellow Papers (2 page)

The sun was barely up and the mist had not started to evaporate when Chen Mu returned home, his basket full of fresh leaves glistening with dew. He was proud of having thought of this surprise for his mother, of starting the day's routine before her. It would be a small gift, something she may remember when he was no longer here – maybe even something that would make her miss him. He ripped the leaves into pieces and scattered them on the trays of silkworms.

Chen Mu carefully carried the small bowl of hot water and garlic to the bedroom. ‘Mā?' His mother opened her eyes and looked around, confused. She sat up and brushed her hair out her eyes. ‘Here. For you. I fed the silkworms as well, so you won't—'

‘You did what?' She thrust the bowl back into his hands and struggled out of bed. She slipped her bound feet into shoes and, clutching her gown around her thin body, tottered to the front room. Puzzled, Chen Mu followed.

She was frantically picking each piece of leaf out of the trays, brushing each silkworm off. Her long hair hung down the side of her face, and as she stumbled around the frame her whole body shook.

‘Help me!' she snapped, but Chen Mu could only stare. ‘You stupid boy, help me. How often have I told you to wait until the sun has dried the leaves? You know they'll die if they eat damp leaves. You stupid,
stupid
boy! Did you want to kill them all?'

Chen Mu let the bowl drop out of his hand and ran out of the house. Out past the beans climbing the bamboo poles, down the slippery cobbled street leading to the river. Of course he knew about the leaves – his mother had explained it again and again – yet he'd forgotten it all in order to make himself more important in her eyes. On the other side of the river a dog darted out of a courtyard and snapped at his heels, and he thought this fitting for it showed how unworthy he was – he didn't even deserve the respect of a dog. He knew now why he was the only boy out of the whole village to be sent to America – why his mother was sending him away. It was because he was stupid. Too stupid even for women's work.

Across the suspension bridge a man laden with woven straw shoes strung to a bamboo pole blocked his way but Chen Mu pushed on, wanting to escape this new-found insight that enfolded him just as the silk of the cocoon enfolded the worm.

When he could run no more he lay on the side of the hill to catch his breath. Below him the village was still shrouded in mist, so that he felt he could be the only one alive in the world. He sat up and hugged his knees. Was he really so stupid? These past months his mother had sent him to the village schoolmaster so that he wouldn't shame her in Shanghai, where he was to attend school prior to leaving for America. Day after day he'd met with the schoolmaster, and he'd recited from the
Trimetrical Classic
and the
Thousand-words Classic
, then applied himself to his writing; he'd only practised small calligraphy used for every day, for large calligraphy was an art which the schoolmaster thought him too ignorant to attempt. Even so he often struggled, and the schoolmaster constantly found fault where Chen Mu could see none, and he'd hit Chen Mu on the head with a wooden ruler to help the lesson sink in.

‘Look, Chen Mu. Look at this stroke. It's meant to be as sharp as the blade of a knife, but you've made it as soft as a maiden's blush. Start again – from the beginning.'

And even when he thought he'd done well, still the schoolmaster found cause to complain.

‘Your work has no music, Chen Mu. Hold your brush thus. Can you sense the pressure of the hairs on the paper through your fingers? The changing speed as you move it to form this character?'

But Chen Mu only felt the lifeless handle of the brush.

In the valley below the mist was evaporating and Chen Mu realised that if he didn't head back he'd be late for his last meeting with the schoolmaster. He was leaving for Shanghai this very morning, and he knew it would be considered rude if he didn't first bid the man farewell.

He found the old man already in the schoolroom. He knelt and bowed his head to the ground four times, as was the custom. The schoolmaster acknowledged Chen Mu, then picked up a small box from his table.

‘I wish you a safe journey, Chen Mu. You'll do well, if you fight against laziness.' He held out the box with both hands. ‘Remember –
without being worked, jade cannot be shaped into a vessel; without being educated, people cannot be shaped into virtuous citizens.'

Chen Mu was surprised to receive a gift, and was embarrassed, for courtesy required reciprocity. But before he could say anything, the teacher waved him away. Outside, Chen Mu carefully opened the box. Nestled amongst folds of red silk was a brush-rest made of apple-green jade, carved into the shape of the sacred lotus plant. Carefully he took it out of its box and rested it on the palm of his hand. It was about seven centimetres long and four wide. On one side of the curved leaf, attached to the stem, was the conical seedpod on whose surface the tiny round pointed heads of the seeds could be seen. On the other side of the leaf was a lotus flower bud, its petals just barely peeking from the bud scales. The sculpted edges of the leaf were made to provide support for three thin brushes. He knew the meaning of the lotus, for he'd seen it in temples and paintings – it meant rebirth and enlightenment.

Chen Mu held it up to the light and admired its translucency. He felt awed. With a brush-rest like this, he could become a true scholar – an artist even.

The high-pitched trill of a sparrowhawk jolted him out of his daydream. Time was passing and he must hurry. Carefully he put the little jade brush-rest back into its silken bed and closed the box.

He hurried through narrow streets flanked with blank walls, their monotony broken only by doorways into the courtyards beyond. From apertures in rooftops, smoke from cooking fires curled upwards to the sky. In the short time he'd been with the schoolmaster the village had come alive. Men and servant girls hurried back from market, their wicker baskets filled with eels or vegetables, whilst others haggled with merchants as he zigzagged past incense shops, fish stalls and grocery stores.

When Chen Mu arrived home friends and relations had gathered outside with his mother to say goodbye. His bag was at her feet.

‘What's this?' she asked, putting out her hand for the box. Like Chen Mu she rested the brush-rest on the palm of her hand. Everyone exclaimed over the beauty of the gift.

‘It has a bud,' Wang, the oldest man in the village, pointed out. ‘That means potential. The schoolmaster must see something in you that we don't!' He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and his eyes crinkled in silent laughter. ‘Potential's good … if you can survive being skinned alive by the barbarians! They do that, you know, to boys like you!' Then he laughed his dry crackly laugh and pushed his way through the crowd.

The widow Chen placed the brush-rest back into its box and gave it back to her son. She handed him a small pouch tied with red string.

‘Give me reason to be proud. And write often.'

Chen Mu guessed the pouch contained a few coins, but they had no coins to spare. It was then he noticed her short hair – she must have cut and sold it that very morning for the contents of that pouch, to be made into the padding rich women used for their elaborate hairstyles. Chen Mu was shocked – his mother was proud of her hair and had once told him his father always commented on its thickness and shine. And now she'd sold it for him. He knelt and bowed his head to the ground – never would he have imagined her doing such a thing.

Then the silence was broken by the faint call of the bell of the double-mast junk that would take him on the first leg of his journey, announcing its imminent departure. Chen Mu rose and, with the good wishes of the villagers ringing in his ears, picked up his bag and made his way to the river.

2

When Chen Mu first came into close contact with the Westerners of Shanghai, he thought their skin pale and their noses shaped like beaks. Then he saw a woman approach a group of men and link her arms through theirs, and Chen Mu felt his face flush at her shamelessness, but around him people hurried by, unperturbed by her behaviour. Workmen pulled barrows laden with bricks or river weeds and coolies unloaded cargo. A funeral procession went past, its numbers swelled by beggars hired as mourners for the day. They held high long poles on which strings of firecrackers sizzled and sputtered, filling the air with smoke. Hard-faced old women shouted the pleasures that could be had for a price from the small girls at their sides, and men with bamboo poles arched across their backs carried huge bales and scurried by, giving short sharp shouts to warn others in their way. In all this colourful, noisy confusion Chen Mu forgot the brazen woman, and it wasn't long before the two-storey building of the Government School seemed like the only home he'd ever known. And though at first he missed his mother and his village terribly, and wondered if indeed he'd ever see either again, there came a time when he'd suddenly realise he hadn't thought of his mother for a week or more, and then he'd feel ashamed. But there was a lot to be learned before leaving for America, and his days had never been so full.

Each day he rose early to begin with English lessons. The teacher was a Chinese gentleman who'd learned English in Hong Kong, and he taught the boys the characters he called ‘the alphabet'. Chen Mu recited the combination of characters as the schoolmaster said, not understanding any of them, sure he would fail the forthcoming examinations. It was the ‘r' character that gave him the most trouble, and the fact that the language had no emphasis – no tone. Trying to understand the sameness of the language was like trying to differentiate between two grains of rice.

‘How can they understand each other,' he once asked the teacher, ‘when they barely open their mouths to speak?' But the teacher just smiled.

English lessons were followed with classes on how things were done in the West, and Chen Mu learned how to use a knife and fork, and how their position on a plate indicated whether or not you'd finished your meal. He learned that making a noise when eating was not – as in China – a sign that one was enjoying a meal, but a sign of being uncouth and rude. But what amazed him most was the way Western men treated their women, and he wondered how his mother would react if a man ever allowed her to go through a doorway before him.