Leaving Mother Lake (16 page)

Time passed and the village boys grew bored with their betting game. They began to feel resentful and eventually became very annoyed at Zhecinamu for making them wait for nothing, until one day one of them thought he would play a little trick on her.

“I know why she won’t open her door,” he said to his friends. “Last night I crept up to her window and I saw her, on her bed. She was naked and she was . . . oh, yes, so beautiful. But there was a huge snake with her. It was coiled around her waist with its head between her breasts. And she was asleep.”

So the word spread that Zhecinamu had reared a Gu. It began as a silly prank, then it became a rumor, and soon enough everyone believed that it was true, that Zhecinamu did not want to take lovers because she had the evil Gu magic.

When Zhecinamu went to bathe at the lake, she no longer heard whistling. When she walked in the village street, she no longer felt the eyes of the men burning into her skin. No one brought her gifts, no one sang for her in the mountains. At night the dogs no longer barked in her deserted courtyard. No one came tapping on her window.

One afternoon Zhecinamu told her mother that she was going to the mountain to collect firewood. She put the ax in her basket and tied the basket on her back, securing the rope across her chest. She walked up the mountain path into the forest, and when she grew tired, she put her basket down. She slid the rope out of the basket, swung it over a high branch, and placed her basket at the foot of the tree. Then she climbed on top of it and tied the rope around her neck, and she jumped.

In the months that followed, every morning before sunrise, the villagers woke to crying and wailing coming from the forest. It was Zhecinamu’s mother calling to the lonely ghost of her proud daughter. And now all the boys in the village cried for Zhecinamu, but it was too late.

ANOTHER NEW YEAR HAD PASSED
. The end of winter was nearing but the nights were still very cold. That evening I had gone to bed fully dressed but had not as yet garnered enough heat to fall asleep, when the dog suddenly barked in the courtyard. I sat up and listened. Sure enough, there was a shuffle of footsteps, and someone was coming up the stairs. But this time the footsteps could not be for Zhema, because her lover was already with her, and they were still whispering and giggling on the other side of the partition. And if the footsteps were not for Zhema, they had to be for me. I jumped out of bed to make sure the door was closed properly. Whoever it was had reached the balcony, but the shuffling was hesitant, disoriented, and very light. Much too light for a man and much too hesitant for a lover. I held my breath and listened. No, it could not be a man looking for love — lovers always know where they are going, even the first time; it just would not do to knock on the wrong window. But certainly whoever it was had come for me.

There was a whisper, and then someone asked in Yi, “Namu . . . Namu, are you here?”

“Añumo? Is that you?”

It was. It was my Yi sister, Añumo. I called her into my room and lit the candle. She was sweating and out of breath. Her skirt was covered in mud, her square hat had half fallen off her head. She dropped on my bed, almost falling over, exhausted.

“So, you came back after all! Is your husband a very bad man?”

IT HAD BEEN JUST OVER A WEEK AGO
when I had last seen her. She was on her way to Muli with her wedding escort — her father and her cousins and about ten other men. They had stopped to greet us and tell us the good news.

That afternoon she looked magnificent. Besides her own colorful skirt, she had three other skirts tied to the side of her waist — part of the bride-price her husband’s family had given for her. And with all these skirts around her, she seemed to be sitting in a sea of colors. She was wearing a beautiful red bodice and her chest was covered with silver jewelry. Large, flat silver earrings hung on each side of her proud face, reflecting the glow of the fire. As she brought her bowl of tea to her lips, I became fascinated by the traditional tattoo on her left hand, nine dots arranged in a square. I had not noticed this tattoo when we had become blood sisters.

“Did it hurt?” I asked.

“At first. But it healed very fast. Do you think it’s beautiful?”

I rubbed the back of my hand. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I said, “Yes, it’s beautiful.” But I knew I did not sound convincing. Añumo took another sip of tea and we were quiet for a while. She was staring at the fire, and her eyes looked dark and worried.

“You don’t seem happy,” I said to her.

She turned to gaze at the men who were standing near the stove, drinking rice wine and laughing, and she answered in a low tone. “I’ve never been to his village before. I have never even seen him.”

I felt so sorry for Añumo. I knew that Yi people had very different customs from ours, but I could not understand how anybody could leave her own house to marry a man she hardly knew. For my part, I was terrified that a man would come knocking at my window at night, but no one and nothing could ever force me to open my door if I did not want to — not even the love or the pride of my own mother. How could my sister Añumo be made to go to live in another village, in someone else’s family?

Añumo thought she could explain. “One of my father’s relatives came to our house when my mother was pregnant with me. He touched my mother’s stomach and said, If this is a girl, she will be for my son. . . . That was how the match was decided, and now I must go.”

When the wedding party was ready to leave, I took Añumo’s hand: “If you’re not happy, you can come and stay with us anytime.” She nodded, obviously unconvinced, and then she set off on horseback, a sad colorful girl among twenty men dressed in black capes.

And now she had come back! And there she was lying on my bed, out of breath, her skirt muddy and her feet bleeding. Was her husband such a bad man? Did she hate her in-laws? What had happened? I hurried downstairs to wake my mother and tell her that Añumo had run away from her husband. But as my Ama got up, she said, “Namu, there’s nothing to worry about. This is the Yi people’s custom: the harder a woman runs from her husband, the more she shows that she is strong and capable and that she comes from a good family. The men will soon follow after her, and if they find her, they will carry her back on their shoulders like a sack of potatoes. But if she manages to run all the way back to her father’s house before they get to her, she will have won everyone’s respect.”

When I brought Añumo into the main room, my mother was already stoking the fire to boil the kettle for some tea. She welcomed Añumo with a nod, and then we sat down to listen to her story. She had been running for two days without eating, stopping only at night to sleep. It had taken her longer than she had thought to get to our house, and when night had fallen, she had become scared. This morning she had lost her shoes and her feet were very dirty and bleeding, and now there was a big splinter under her sole.

My mother took some kindling from the fire and passed it to me to hold above Añumo’s injured foot so that she could take a look at it. She wiped the dirt off with a wet cloth and went to fetch a needle from her sewing basket to take out the splinter. Blowing gently over the wound to calm the pain, she worked the needle into the bleeding flesh. Añumo was hurting terribly. Her face was covered in sweat and tears rolled down from her eyes, but she did not say anything. She did not complain.

I wished Añumo had been a real sister and that I could have protected her. I wanted her to stay with us.

Ama held the splinter to the light and exclaimed, “Look at this! It’s as big as a tree trunk! How could you run with that thing in your foot? You’re lucky it did not get infected.” Then she told me to put the kindling away and pour hot water in the washbasin.

When the water was ready, I moved to take Añumo’s feet, but she pulled back from me. “No, no, I would not let you wash my feet.” And she put her feet into the bowl herself. Meanwhile, Ama went to look for a pair of her own shoes to give to her, and then she warmed up some leftover stew.

Añumo ate as though she had been starving, and I could not help commenting, “You eat like your father did the first time!” And Ama slapped me on the back of the head. I immediately understood why. Still, I kept staring at Añumo because the Yi have a very peculiar way of eating by placing food in their cheeks while they still are taking more into their mouths, until their cheeks seem very full and round like squirrels’ cheeks. When she had finished eating, she came into my room and we went to sleep next to each other. She fell asleep right away because she was so tired. I too was very tired, but I found it difficult to sleep. First of all because the events of the night had disturbed me, and then because of the acrid smell that emanated from Añumo’s hair. Following the custom of her people, my blood sister had not washed her hair or her face for a very long time.

When she joined us for breakfast the next morning, I had already warmed up the water to wash her hair. Before she had a chance to sit and drink a bowl of tea, I handed her the washbasin. “Here, come outside with me and let me wash your hair. I could not sleep all night.”

This time my mother did not slap me. Añumo was horribly embarrassed but she obliged me and followed me into the courtyard carrying our enamel basin. When I had finished drying her hair with the toweling cloth, my Ama said, “You have such long and silky hair, Añumo. Would you like me to comb it for you?”

Añumo smiled and my mother combed her beautiful hair and braided it into two parts as was the correct way for a married woman. Then Ama carefully cleaned her comb, placing the loose hair in the little basket under the porch with the rest of our hair, because we believe that unless we store every loose strand of hair, the birds will use them to make their nests and give us headaches.

Later in the morning, when I picked up my basket to go and do some weeding in the fields, Añumo prepared to come with me but my mother would not let her go because of her foot. “You can’t go anywhere with this,” she told her. “And you need to rest. You have a long way to run before you get back to your father’s house.”

When I came back from the fields sometime after noon, Añumo was standing at the stove, working side by side with my mother. They were making tofu and taking turns at stirring and scooping the thick white foam rising above the bean stew. I could not help thinking that they looked like mother and daughter, and again I felt so sorry that Añumo was not a real sister to me. I did not want her to leave, and told her as much.

“But I can’t stay with you, Namu,” she said a little sadly. “I’m a married woman. What would my husband say? And my father?”

“Well, if you stay here with us, you won’t have to worry about husbands or fathers, will you?”

Añumo held her breath for a while and then she burst out laughing. For my part, I did not think it was very funny, and I continued arguing, trying to convince her to stay with us, until the dog cut the discussion short, barking furiously. And just as my mother went out to see what was happening, Zhema rushed into the room and went straight to the pantry. “Quick, Namu, they’re here! She has to run,” she ordered in a low voice, as she took out some barley cookies and quickly cut a thick slice of ham, which she wrapped in a cloth.

Añumo had sprung to her feet, ready to run, but she did not know which way to escape and so she stood in the middle of the room, her eyes wild and darting toward every corner, like a trapped animal.

“Wait! At least put the shoes on properly. Be careful of your foot,” I pleaded, my voice breaking and my eyes burning.

She looked down at her feet and bent over to pull the canvas shoes over her heels, and I helped her tie the laces. Meanwhile, Zhema had grabbed her felt cape and wrapped it around her shoulders. She pushed the food into her arms and, taking her by the hand, quickly led her through the storeroom and out of the house and into the vegetable garden, where we helped her over the mud wall.

The men, a party of six, had come into the courtyard, and my mother was talking with them, doing her best to waste their time. “Yes, she must be quite a long way away by now. She left yesterday. But you must be so tired, why don’t you stay for dinner and sleep here overnight?”

The men looked at each other and hesitated. They were very tired and they could do with something to drink. So they came into our house and wasted more time, but they would not stay for dinner.

After they left, I suddenly felt angry at my mother. “Why didn’t you say something to them? Why didn’t you keep them here longer? Why didn’t we keep
her
here? You’re an older woman, the men would listen to you!”

My mother shook her head impatiently. “This is a Yi custom. She has to run back home. What are you so upset about?”

Well, I knew it was a Yi custom, but Añumo was my sister, and I knew better than anyone how dangerous the mountain was and how late in the afternoon already, and I could not bear to think of how frightening it must be to run alone through the night. I was far from knowing then that only a few months from now, I too would be running alone in the mountains.

Meanwhile, from that evening on, whenever I heard a dog barking in the night, I no longer feared that a man might be coming to knock at my window. Instead, I hoped it was Añumo returning to stay with us after all. But we never saw her again.

A Song and a Trip to the City

N
ot long after Añumo left us, we received other visitors. I had been at the lakeshore all day with my girlfriends, turning over the earth to prepare for the spring planting. And now the sun was beginning its descent behind the mountain and the birds were growing quiet. It was time to walk home. We were almost at the village when we heard the children laughing and calling out:
“Letsesei!
Guests are coming!
Letsesei!
”

Outsiders were so rare. Except for government officials and the paramedics who chased after the children with vacci-nation needles, no one ever came to our village. In those days the only motor vehicles that crossed our mountains were the log trucks that sputtered up the hills and then rolled down the dirt tracks, freewheeling over potholes, their engines cut off to save fuel. But even these dirt tracks were a long way from Zuosuo. To get to our village, you had to come on foot or on horseback.