The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane Read online

  * * *

  I still love my family and do my chores obediently. And I still cherish Ci-teh but reveal little to her of the dreams of the life I’ll have with San-pa. Ci-teh, perhaps sensing this new and growing space between us, finds excuses for us to leave the village—“We’re going to gather firewood. We’ll be back soon”—so I can open my heart to her without fear of others eavesdropping. I understand her desire, because we’ve always shared everything. But even as Ci-teh wants to hear every detail, I find myself hoarding them, speaking insignificantly about my emotions and skirting her questions by asking if her father has received any proposals since the Swing Festival. (Her family is once again the richest on the mountain, having recovered from the setback caused by the sacrifices required to absolve and cleanse them of human rejects. As a result, Ci-teh will go into marriage with many gifts.) She tells me about this and that boy, but it doesn’t make me any more forthcoming.

  My evasions must hurt her feelings, because she strikes out at me by saying, “People say San-pa still visits other girls in their villages’ Flower Rooms.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I tell her, and I don’t.

  When she hints at names and places, I can come to only one conclusion.

  “Are you jealous?” I ask.

  She gives me a haughty look. “Of what?”

  “Of me, because you visit the Flower Room and steal love in the forest with different boys, and none of them have asked to marry you?”

  “That’s a mean thing to say when I’m just trying to be your friend.”

  “Waaa! Don’t you think it’s mean to repeat gossip? And even if he does those things, what makes him any worse than you—or any other boy or girl on Nannuo Mountain—who tries the intercourse? That’s what we Akha are supposed to do before marriage.”

  She remains silent for a long while. Finally, she asks, plainly and simply, “Are you one of those girls who forgets her friends when she does the intercourse? I didn’t forget you when I started doing it.”

  That I don’t have an answer causes both of us anguish. But isn’t this how it’s always been between us—with one falling and the other rising?

  * * *

  San-pa comes often to Spring Well Village. We’ve met in the Flower Room. We’ve gone into the forest. I went ahead and asked him about other girls, and he asked me about other boys. My answer: “None.” His response: “No other girls for me either.” I’ve come to enjoy the intercourse, and we’ve even done it not like animals but face-to-face. I like that especially. Being able to look into his eyes. Kissing his mouth. Wrapping my legs around him. Afterward, when he walks home, I stay perched on our pine-needle bed, and we sing call-and-response love songs across the hillsides.

  “The flowers bloom at their peaks, waiting for the butterflies to come—”

  “The honeycombs wait for the bees to make honey—”

  “A beautiful flower calls to her love—”

  “The bee flies through the air to find her—”

  “He drinks her nectar—”

  “She holds him in her petals—”

  We sing the refrain in unison, letting all who hear us know that our love is absolute. “Let us pick flowers together. Alloo sae, ah-ee-ah-ee-o, ah-ee-ah-ee-o.”

  We’re happy, but one thing has not changed since the pancake incident. As A-ma reminded me, I was born on Pig Day, and San-pa was born on Tiger Day. This is not an auspicious match, so naturally our families are against a union. In the manner of all Akha fathers, A-ba sends messages to me indirectly. First Sister-in-law touches my shoulder and confides. “A weak boy grows up to be a weak man.” Second Sister-in-law is brusque. “The whole mountain knows he’s lazy.” Third Sister-in-law, my favorite, mutters to me, “You won’t have anything to eat if you marry that good-for-nothing.” They can say whatever they want, but that doesn’t make it so.

  A-ba has allowed San-pa into the house, and the two of them have spoken. The situation for my family is better these days, which influences how the conversation proceeds. Three years ago, my a-ba was able to trade some of our extra rice for a young female pig. She grew up, was bred, and now we have three pigs sleeping under our floor. We’ll never be as well off as Ci-teh’s family, but A-ba’s improved status gives him the confidence to hold out for the best marriage proposal that will arrive for me.

  Sitting next to our home’s dividing wall, I’ve been able to listen to the conversations between San-pa and my a-ba. San-pa announces that he’s come to fetch a wife, which is how Akha men refer to marriage. “No,” A-ba says. San-pa recites his male ancestors back fifty generations. “No,” A-ba says. San-pa points out that we don’t have any matching ancestors for seven generations, which means we’ve passed the incest taboo. But A-ba doesn’t care. “No,” he says. Adding: “It is not yet time for my daughter to go-work-eat,” which is the way Akha women look at marriage. “My daughter plans to take the gaokao and be the first on Nannuo Mountain to go to college.”

  That’s how much he doesn’t like San-pa!

  Five months later, the Month of Rest arrives. In the West, it would be considered comparable to February. Since the men don’t have to work, they put their most formidable efforts into settling their marriage plans. Unmarried women spend their time weaving and waiting for proposals, which is why this month is sometimes called the Month of Marriage and Weaving. So far, I’ve done plenty of weaving but have seen no marriage arrangements made.

  During the last half of the second cycle, San-pa comes to the house to ask yet again if we can be wed. He receives the usual answer: “No.”

  “I will be a good husband—”

  “I don’t think so.” Today, instead of the usual mismatched-day argument, A-ba goes in a different direction. “You might think that you live far away and that we would not hear about you. But we have heard. You’ve been trading in things you shouldn’t and trying things you shouldn’t. If you were as respectable as you claim, then your parents would have sent two elders from your village to ask for Girl to become a daughter-in-law. They would have sent gifts. If we reached terms, then she would go to your home for a night, make sure she thought she could be happy, and three days later the two of you would marry. None of that has happened, because they disapprove too. I remember your a-ba, Boy, and he was an honorable man. Even all those years ago, he was prepared to protect my daughter’s reputation from the actions of his own son.”

  San-pa has no way to defend himself.

  My father speaks again. “The matter is finished.”

  Later, in the forest, I ask San-pa what my a-ba meant. “What does he think he’s heard about you that puts you in such an inky light?”

  But San-pa puts his mouth over mine, and we start conversing in other ways.

  That afternoon we begin to make a plan.

  “We’ll move away together,” I say. “We’ll walk to Menghai. We’ll be married there, and no one will stop us.”

  He tucks escaped wisps of my hair back under the protection of my day-to-day headdress. “I am a man,” he says. “You are a woman. It is my duty to care for you. I will make the decision. You will stay here and take the gaokao. I will leave Nannuo Mountain to find work in one of the other countries where the Akha roam—”

  “But can’t we stay together? I’ll go with you. Laos is so close. Myanmar too—”

  “No!” His voice is surprisingly sharp. “It is not right. Your father would never forgive me. I will go . . . to Thailand.” Does he decide on this country to remind me that he’s in charge? “It’s a long walk—maybe two hundred and fifty kilometers on a map, but much longer through the mountains. But what are mountains to me? I’ll make it in ten days, maybe less. You keep studying and take the gaokao. When I return with my pockets heavy with good fortune, I’ll find you at your college. I’ll join the market economy and make even more money. After you graduate, we’ll ask a village where people don’t know us if we might be allotted a piece of land. I’ll farm, and you’ll be a leader of women.”
He stares into my eyes, surely seeking how deep my love is for him. “We’ll tell people I was born on a more compatible day—”

  “We could never lie about the lineage!”

  “We won’t have to. I’m suggesting the change of just one word from Tiger to Sheep. From now on, that’s what I’ll claim when I meet someone new. It will give us a fresh beginning.”

  I’m not sure this fabrication is a good idea or that the false label will change the essence of who he is, but I consent to his plan. He will one day be my husband, and I will be his wife. I must learn to obey, if we are to be happy.

  He rips two thick threads from the hem of his tunic. “When going far away, strings must be tied around wrists. I’ll be tied to you, and you’ll be tied to me.” He loops one of the threads around my wrist and makes a tight knot. As I do the same for him, he continues. “This proves we’re human, because spirits don’t have strings. I promise to come back with enough money to buy a rice farm and marry you, a girl I’ve known and loved since childhood. We’re going to your a-ma and a-ba right now to tell them.”

  My entire family—all my brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, and my parents—listens to us when we gather in the common room. There is a saying in the Han majority culture about a smiling face hiding bad intentions. That’s what I see when I look at the faces that belong to my family. Their mouths say the correct words, but behind their tongues are deeper truths, and they permeate the room.

  “Do you want to give up your opportunity to finish school and go to university?” A-ba asks San-pa, when what he really means is, Go away and never come back.

  “Your parents will be proud of you,” A-ma says, but her entire body radiates a message as strong as the sun: You talk like a flying eagle, but your hands are like Chinese sour vegetables, meaning, he can talk big all he wants, but he’ll forever be a pancake stealer in her eyes.

  “This will change the direction of your story,” First Brother states, although he could just as easily be saying, Once you leave here, you’ll forget about my sister. So be it.

  My family walks San-pa to the village gate, which means that we don’t have a chance for private goodbyes. Still, San-pa says loud enough for everyone to hear, “I promise to come for you, Li-yan.”

  He backs away, slowly, slowly, not for a second taking his eyes off me. I’m so blinded by tears that I don’t see what’s about to happen, and my family—curse them—doesn’t call out to warn San-pa until it’s too late. Instead of passing cleanly through the spirit gate, he backs right into it. It’s the worst omen possible and strictly taboo. Even San-pa is startled and alarmed, so much so that he turns and bounds into the forest.

  “I hope his parents perform cleansing rituals for him,” A-ba comments.

  “It doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done,” A-ma says, barely hiding her contempt. “Come. We must visit the ruma. We need to be cleansed.”

  THE GREEDY EYES OF A TIGER

  The day after San-pa leaves, I visit Ci-teh. We sit on the floor and talk, as though my coolness toward her when San-pa was here never happened. “We are as jungle vines,” she says, even though I’ve hurt her. “Our roots will forever be entwined in friendship.”

  “Our friendship will go on as far as the stars,” I agree, and finally tell her everything about San-pa.

  My friend doesn’t warn me about him or criticize him. Instead, she closes her eyes and sighs. “One day I’ll be as happy as you. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could marry out to the same village, come to a head together, and help our children to be as close as we are?”

  I squeeze her hand and silently make the same wish too.

  * * *

  A few days later, we’re catching up on our home chores before tea-picking season begins when frightening noises come thundering from the forest. They grow louder and nearer. Small children cry into their mothers’ tunics. Elders quake on their sleeping mats. Dogs crawl under houses, too afraid to bark. The sounds are mechanical but inconsistent—humming one moment, grinding the next. They abruptly end with a hideous cough. Everyone in our village must be inwardly thanking the ruma for building a spirit gate so powerful it barred whatever the horrible thing is from entering Spring Well.

  No one ventures to the gate to investigate, but the birds begin to chirp again and the dogs come out from their hiding places. A few minutes later, we hear a male voice call . . . in Mandarin, “Hello, hello, hello!” No one answers. The voice rings out again. “Hello, hello, hello! Is anyone here? Come out. Let us meet.” Again, the voice speaks Mandarin, but it sounds off, more melodious, as though he’s singing. Still, the voice clearly belongs to a man, and not a spirit. Even I can tell that.

  A-ba comes to the dividing wall. “Girl, what is he saying?” After I translate for him, he says, “You’d better come with me, since you’ve learned the man’s tongue.”

  I meet A-ba outside, where the headman, ruma, and a few other men have already gathered. They all hold their crossbows. As we near the spirit gate, I see a man, a boy, and a car. A car! Green, with a tin red star attached to the front. It’s an old People’s Liberation Army mountain vehicle—something I’ve seen in school posters commemorating the War of Liberation. The car door opens, and another man, who’s been sitting behind the wheel, steps out. We stay on our side of the spirit gate. The visitors remain on their side of the gate. In the silence, a lot of surveying happens. The driver is dressed nearly identically to Teacher Zhang: blue pants and jacket, like every other nonminority man I’ve ever seen. But the other two are as odd as can be. The little boy is bald, for one thing, but his father quickly covers his head with a tiny cap with a big brim in front. The child’s pants—bright yellow!—are cut well above his knees. The tops of his shoes are made of cloth, but the bottoms look like bendable plastic. His shirt has short sleeves and hugs his body. No buttons or anything like that. Instead, a drawing of a yellow boy with hair that comes up in sharp spikes decorates the front. I try to pronounce the word that’s been printed in Western letters coming out of the boy’s mouth: Cow-a-bunga! It’s not a word I know.

  I step forward.

  “I’m guessing, young lady, that I must speak to your elders through you,” the man says. He strides straight through the gate—he must have been warned not to touch it—and extends his hand. “In Mandarin, my name is Huang Benyu. I’m from Hong Kong.” So he’s a native Cantonese speaker—which explains his accent and extra tones—but his Mandarin is much better than mine.

  “Hong Kong,” I murmur. He could just as easily have said the moon.

  “This is my son,” he states, motioning for the boy to join him. “While we’re on the mainland, we’ll also use his Mandarin name, Xian-rong. He is five years old and my only son. My only child.”

  I translate this information for the men around me. I feel that we must all be staring at the strangers in the same way—our mouths agape, our eyes wide. Apart from Teacher Zhang, none of us has met someone from outside our province, let alone from another country. Hong Kong.

  When no one says anything, he goes on: “I’ve come a long way to buy your tea. I’m a businessman. I make and supply cranes. China is in great need of those now.”

  Why are we in need of birds? No idea, but we listen anyway.

  “That is my vocation. My avocation is tea. I am a tea connoisseur.”

  “Huang Xiansheng,” I say, using the Mandarin honorific for mister, “I don’t know how to translate all of this.”

  He throws his head back and laughs, exposing every single one of his teeth. The men around me edge back. I retreat even farther, wanting the protection of my a-ba and brothers. From my secure position, I take a closer look at the stranger. His head is shaped like a turnip—plump, with vaguely purple cheeks. His hair is as black as lizard eyes. He’s chubby, like the posters I’ve seen of Chairman Mao. I never believed those images were real—that anyone could look like that, so fat, with a belly sticking out—but the way the stranger’s belt circles his middle
, emphasizing all the food that must have gone to build it, almost makes me want to laugh. His pants have sharp creases down the front and back. The material doesn’t resemble anything I’ve seen before. His short-sleeved shirt is crisp, also with sharp creases.

  The stranger regards us too, taking our measure in the way a farmer might look into the mouth of a water buffalo. I don’t think he likes what he sees. But I have an idea of what he is: rich. Not well off like Ci-teh’s family, but something altogether different.

  “Is there a place where we can sit and talk?” he asks. “I’d like to sample your tea, possibly buy some.”

  After I translate, most of the men scurry back to the village. They want no part of this. Only the headman, ruma, and my a-ba and brothers (who must safeguard me) remain. The men whisper among themselves. We Akha are known for our hospitality, but they question bringing the stranger into one of our homes. The headman makes the decision.

  “This girl speaks the stranger’s language, and she has her clan to keep her from harm. We’ll go to where she lives.”

  My brothers glare at me as though I’ve brought the worst disgrace possible upon the family. My father’s eyes have the steely look they get when he guts a deer. They never approved of my education, and now it has placed the family in an uncomfortable position.

  “All I want to do is buy tea,” Mr. Huang assures us in his unnervingly friendly voice. “You have tea here, don’t you? Yes, let us drink tea.” (As though we wouldn’t offer it.) “But made only with springwater. Do you have springwater?”

  What other kind of water is there? Rainwater? Creek water? Pond water?

  “Our village is called Spring Well,” I say.

  He laughs again. “Of course! That’s why I chose your village to visit first.”

  We make a peculiar procession. The little boy skips ahead as though he knows where he’s going. His a-ba doesn’t seem particularly worried. One of our neighbors must have alerted A-ma and the sisters-in-law, because tea has already been brewed by the time we arrive. Once the men have seated themselves on the floor in the central room, the sisters-in-law are waved off. A-ma stands with her back against the bamboo wall, her hands clasped before her, watchful. I stay at her side and translate when necessary. A-ba gestures for the stranger to try First Brother’s tea, but when he takes a sip his face crinkles as though he’s rinsed his mouth with unripe persimmon juice.