“You are Governor Delegate of our province of Bing, the Great General Li of the second imperial rank. Your portrait hangs in the pavilion of the Twenty-Four Veterans of the dynasty. The Chinese people venerate you. His Majesty, the sovereign, appointed you as master of our funeral ceremonies. My Lord, I thank you for being here. In heaven, Father is grateful for the honor you do him.”
The Great General smiled.
“It is rare to hear a little girl speaking with such assurance. Come up the steps, I would like to offer you a cup of tea.”
Beneath the veranda I bowed deeply before sitting amongst the adults.
The Great General spoke to the officials around him: “The Lord of the Ying kingdom was a cultured man who had a nose for business. During the war he excelled as manager of our finances. He spoke little, considered his every word, and worked hard and long. His opinions were always valid. What a shame that he has left us!”
These words felt like a spring of cool water bubbling through my arid heart. I bowed right down to the ground to thank him. The honorable guest asked me about my age, about my mother’s grief, my favorite books, and my friends. When he learned that I could ride, he smiled and talked of his Persian steeds, their training, and their exploits.
I had never had a long conversation with an adult, but the Great General spoke simply, without affectation. He listened to me patiently and enthusiastically. His questions were blunt, but his candor gave me confidence; his smile encouraged me; he made me forget that I was a little girl, and I spoke to him on equal terms.
Time flew by, and the general had to leave. In the middle of the garden, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Heavenlight, you are an exceptional little girl. I shall take responsibility for your destiny!”
The authority in his voice reminded me of Father’s. I was overcome with a most poignant sadness. My tears returned.
MY TENTH YEAR was one long dream pervaded by the image of a catacomb dug into the belly of the mountain. I could not shake off the memory of the death chamber peopled with ceramic statuettes: guards, servants, dancers, horses, camels, houses, and dishes. All around the coffin there were chests and earthenware pots full of clothes, weapons, manuscripts, scrolls of paintings, ornate belt buckles, and an emerald ring carved in the shape of a tiger’s head. Suddenly the stone door would close while I was still inside the cave. I struggled to climb back up the slope, but my knees kept giving way, and the icy cold of the underground world was already drawing me in. The smell of damp earth was suffocating. I started to scream: “The mountains are eating me!” But no one heard, no one came to help me.
Great General Li sent me a Persian colt branded with the symbol of his stables. This honor impressed the clan, and Eldest Brother appropriated him. The very next day my horse became his mount.
In the countryside women did not receive an education. To keep the books and tend to the house, they needed only a few figures and as many ideograms to measure the world on the scale of their own minds. All day long three generations of women stayed in their houses spinning, weaving, and embroidering. Mother had never had any contact with that world. She knew nothing of manual skills. She was appalled by their raunchy jokes and embarrassed by their shameless conversations and uninhibited laughter; therefore, she kept away from their gatherings and took refuge in solitude.
The fact that she was different ruffled the other women. They interpreted her silence as contempt. The jibes and insults they hurled over the wall came crashing down in our courtyard: “When you marry a cockerel, you become a hen; when you marry a dog, you become a bitch. When you marry a commoner, you become a commoner. She’s no more noble than we are!” “They think they’re such princesses. They’re just three more mouths to feed and nothing more!” “Parasites!”
Mother remained impassive, fingering her wooden rosary. She had not been taught to defend herself, but she knew how to draw the strength to resist from her Buddhist faith. Our living conditions were deteriorating, and our mourning was becoming a penitence. The clan sold most of our domestic staff. My brothers had cut our allowance back by three-quarters. Meals were distributed from a communal cooking stove, and they often contained rotten vegetables and rice mixed with pebbles. The boiler room ran out of our share of hot water for baths. Sometimes, certain doors were never opened along the passageways, pinning us in. Mother had never complained. Religious fervor made her deaf and blind.
But the clan was pitiless and went to extremes in persecuting us.
At the request of the two brothers, the Council approved their decision to put their mother’s remains with my father’s. When this news was announced, Mother fainted. If the former wife was to be interred in her master’s tomb, Mother would be forbidden to be by his side. Upon her death, she would be repudiated for all eternity. She came to a moment later, without a word, without so much as a sigh. It was the only time I ever saw her falter.
However much I worried about Mother’s health, she seemed to grow stronger as our lives deteriorated. Her soul already lived amid the marvels of Buddha’s world. Immune to the horror’s of daily life, she thought only of her future life. Her body withered, but her face grew radiant. Intrigued and fascinated, I watched this small, fragile woman dominating the turmoil of destiny with a particular kind of strength that goes by the name of serenity.
I was ashamed of my anger. I prayed at the foot of the statue of Amida. I tried to see this world as a shadow-theater filled with illusions, and I sometimes remembered a house of light, color, and vastness. That was on the other side of eternity. At eleven, I was already an old woman. I was sliding through life like a pebble sinking to the bottom of a well. I had decided to accept the village and its walls daubed with grotesque paintings. I had decided to accept the mismatched plates, the smoking candles, the filthy basins, the foul stench of the latrines, and the women who spat on our door. Happiness had died with Father. I had learned to defy sorrow with my eyes open.
PRAYER DID NOTHING to subdue my hate. The desire for revenge was a venomous gall that infiltrated my organs a little more every day.
One morning my anger exploded.
Sheep, the son of a cousin and a sturdy youth, was head of a gang of adolescents who loitered around the village. When they saw Little Sister and me, they would impersonate us and make fun of our good manners. We usually responded to this provocation by looking away. On that particular day, I was holding Little Sister’s hand and crossing an alleyway when the boys appeared from behind some trees. They chanted in chorus: “You’re just sluts! You’re just bastards!”
I felt my pulse pounding at my temples. I stopped and sneered: “My grandfather and my maternal uncle were Great Ministers. My mother is the Emperor’s cousin. We are noble, and you, you are commoners, barefoot and worthless, lowlier than dogs!”
“The maternal line counts for nothing,” Sheep replied. “Who do you think you are? You’re a commoner just like us! Commoner!”
The chorus went on all the louder: “Commoner! Commoner! The toad wants to think he’s an ox. He puffs himself up… and up… and bursts!”
Ever since infancy, my identity had been modeled on Mother’s, and she never tired of describing how powerful the Yang clan had been in the days of the old dynasties. Her tales had communicated their pride to me and to be called a commoner by that gang of urchins was one insult I could not tolerate.
I let go of Little Sister’s hand and threw myself at Sheep. With one swift blow of my head, I knocked him to the ground. No child from the village had ever dared insult this gang-leader who was known for his strength. Dumbstruck, the gang stepped back and let me roll on the ground with my opponent. Having recovered from the initial daze, he was now punching me. Strangely, this did not hurt; I screamed and struggled, making full use of my nails. Somewhere in the grass, my fingers brushed against a large stone. I picked it up and brought it crashing down on Sheep’s head.