The Year of Rice and Salt

Widow Kang lived in the women's quarters of the small compound, which was located near the banks of the Chu River. The outer walls were stuccoed, the inner walls wood shingle, and the women's quarters, in the innermost reach of the property, were contained in a beautiful white square building with a tile roof, filled with light and flowers. In that building, and the workshops adjacent to it, Widow Kang and her women would weave and embroider for at least a few hours every day, and often several more, if the light was good. Here too Widow Kang had her youngest son recite the parts of the classics he had memorized at her command. She would work at the loom, flicking the shuttle back and forth, or in the evening simply spin thread, or work at the larger patterns of embroidery, all the while running Shih through the Analects, or Mencius, insisting on perfect memorization, just as the examiners would when the time came. Little Shih was not very good at it, even compared to his older brothers, who had been only minimally acceptable, and often he was reduced to tears by the end of the evening; but Kang Tongbi was relentless, and when he was done crying, they would get back to it. Over time he improved. But he was a nervous and unhappy boy.

So no one was happier than Shih when the ordinary routine of the household was interrupted by festivals. All three of the Bodhisattva Guanyin's birthdays were important holidays for his mother, especially the main one, on the nineteenth day of the sixth month. As this great festival approached, the widow would relent in ber strict lessons, and make her preparations: proper reading, writing of poetry, collection of incense and food for the indigent women of the neighbourhood; these activities were added, to ber already busy days. As the festival approached she fasted, and abstained from any polluting actions ' including becoming angry, so that she stopped Shih's lessons for the time, and offered sacrifices in the compound's little shrine.

The old man in the moon tied red threads Around our legs when we were babies.

We met and married; now you are gone. Ephemeral life is like water flowing; Suddenly we have been separated by death all these years. Tears well up as an early autumn begins. The one who has not yet died is dreamed of By a distant ghost. A crane flies, a flower falls; Lonely and desolate, I set aside my needlework And stand in the courtyard to count the geese Who have lost their flocks. May Bodhisattva Guanyin Help me get through these chill final years.

When the day itself came they all fasted, and in the evening joined a big procession up the local hill, carrying sandalwood in a cloth sack, and twirling banners, umbrellas and paper lanterns, following their temple group's flag, and the big pitchy torch leading the way and warding off demons. For Shih the excitement of the night march, added to the cessation of his studies, made for a grand holiday, and he walked behind his mother swinging a paper lantern, singing songs and feeling happy in a way usually impossible for him.

'Miao Shan was a young girl who refused her father's order to marry,' his mother told the young women walking ahead of them, although they had all heard the story before. 'In a rage he committed her to a monastery, then he burned the monastery down. A bodhisattva, Dizang Wang, took her spirit to the Forest of Corpses, where she helped the unsettled ghosts. After that she went down through the levels of hell, teaching the spirits there to rise above their suffering, and she was so successful that Lord Yama returned her as the Bodhisattva Guanyin, to help the living learn these good things while they are still alive, before it's too late for them.'

Shih did not listen to this oft heard tale, which he could not make sense of. It did not seem like anything in his mother's life, and he didn't understand her attraction to it. Singing, firelight and the strong smoky smells of incense all converged at the shrine on the top of the hill. Up there the Buddhist abbot led prayers, and people sang and ate small sweets.

Long after moonset they trooped back down the hill and along the river path home, still singing songs in the windy darkness. Everyone from the household moved slowly along, not only because they were tired, but to accommodate Widow Kang's mincing stride. She had very small beautiful feet, but got around almost as well as the big flat footed servant girls, by using a quick step and a characteristic swivel of the hips, a gait that no one ever commented on.

Shih wandered ahead, still nursing his last candle's guttering, and by its light he glimpsed movement against their compound wall: a big dark figure, stepping awkwardly in just the way his mother did, so that he thought for a moment it was her shadow on the wall.