The Year of Rice and Salt

Shih squeezed gingerly, turning his head aside, then harder. He squeezed until his forearm was taut. The egg held. Widow Kang took it from him and tried it herself. Her arms were very strong from embroidery, but the egg stood fast.

'You see,' Bao said. 'Eggshell is weak stuff, but the curve is strong. People are like that too. Each person weak, but together strong.'

After that, on religious festival days Kang would often join Bao outside the gate, and discuss the Buddhist scriptures with him. The rest of the time she ignored the two, concentrating on the world inside the walls.

Shih's studies continued to go badly. He did not seem to be able to understand arithmetic beyond addition, and could not memorize the classics beyond a few words at the start of each passage. His mother found his study sessions intensely frustrating. 'Shih, I know you are not a stupid boy. Your father was a brilliant man, your brothers are solid thinkers, and you have always been quick to find reasons why nothing is ever your fault, and why everything has to be your way. Think of equations as excuses, and you'll be fine! But all you do is think of ways not to think of things!'

Before this kind of scorn, poured on in sharp tones, no one could stand. It was not just Kang's words, but the way she said them, with a cutting edge and a crow's voice; and the curl of her lip, and the blazing, self righteous glare – the way she looked right into you as she flailed you with her words – no one could face it. Wailing miserably as always, Shih retreated from this latest withering blast.

Not long after that scolding, he came running back from the market, wailing in earnest. Shrieking, in fact, in a full fit of hysterics. 'My queue, my queue, my queue!'

It had been cut off. The servants shouted in consternation, all was an uproar for a moment, but it was cut as short as Shih's little pigtail stub by his mother's grating voice: 'Shut up all of you!'

She seized Shih by the arms and put him down on the window seat where she had so often examined him. Roughly she brushed away his tears and petted him. 'Calm yourself, calm down. Calm down! Tell me what happened.'

Through convulsive sobs and hiccoughs he got the story out. He had stopped on the way home from the market to watch a juggler, when hands had seized him across the eyes, and a cloth had been put across his face, covering both mouth and eyes. He had felt dizzy then and had collapsed, and when he picked himself off the ground, there was no one there, and his queue was gone.

Kang watched him intently through the course of his tale, and when he had finished and was staring at the floor, she pursed her lips and went to the window. She looked out at the chrysanthemums under the old gnarled juniper for a long time. Finally her head servant, Pao, approached her. Shih was led off to have his face washed and get some food.

'What shall we do?' Pao asked in a low voice.

Kang heaved a heavy sigh. 'We'll have to report it,' she said darkly. 'If we didn't, it would surely become known anyway, from the servants talking at the market. And then it would look as if we were encouraging rebellion.'

'Of course,' Pao said, relieved. 'Shall I go and inform the magistrate now?'

For the longest time there was no reply. Pao stared at Widow Kang, more and more frightened. Kang seemed under a malignant enchant ment, as if she were even at that moment fighting soul stealers for the soul of her son.

'Yes. Go with Zunli. We will follow with Shih.'

Pao left. Kang wandered the household, looking at one object after another, as if inspecting the rooms. Finally she went out of the compound front gate, slowly down the river path.

The Qing dynasty forced all Ilan Chinese men to shave their foreheads and wear a queue, in the Manchurian manner, to show submission of the Hans to their Manchu emperors. In the years before the White Lotus conspiracy, Han bandits began to cut their queues off as a mark of rebellion.

On the bank under the great oak tree she found Bao and his boy Xinwu, just where they always were.

She said, 'Shih has had his queue cut.'

Bao's face went grey. Sweat sprang on his brow.

Kang said, 'We take him to the magistrate presently.'

Bao nodded, swallowing. He glanced at Xinwu.

'If you want to go on a pilgrimage to some far shrine,' Kang said harshly, 'we could watch your son.'

Bao nodded again, face stricken. Kang looked at the river flowing by in the afternoon light. The band of sun on water made her squint.

'If you go,' she added, they will be sure you did it.'

The river flowed by. Down the bank Xinwu threw stones in the water and yelled at the splashes.

'Same if I stay,' Bao said finally.

Kang did not reply.

After a time Bao called Xinwu over, and told him that because he had to go on a long pilgrimage, Xinwu was to stay with Kang and Shih and their household.

'When will you be back?' Xinwu asked.

'Soon.'

Xinwu was satisfied, or unwilling to think about it.

Bao reached out and touched Kang's sleeve. 'Thank you.'

'Go. Be careful not to get caught.'