The Year of Rice and Salt

'No! No! We're trapped!' and then she was sobbing, crying her heart out. Ibrahim held her by the arms, gently squeezing her, and suddenly she looked up at him, seeming awake, and her eyes grew round. 'You were there! You were with us, we were trapped by an avalanche, we were stuck there to die!'

He shook his head: 'I don't remember She struggled free and slapped him hard on the face. His spectacles flew across the room, she jumped on him and held him by the throat as if to strangle him, eyes locked on his, suddenly so much smaller. 'You were there!' she shouted. 'Remember! Remember!'

In her eyes he seemed to see it happen. 'Oh!' he said, shocked, looking through her now. 'Oh my God. Oh…'

She released him, and he sank to the floor. He patted it as if searching for his glasses. Inshallah, inshallah.' He groped about, looked up at her. 'You were just a girl…'

'Ah,' she said, and collapsed onto the floor beside him. She was weeping now, eyes running, nose running. 'It's been so long. I've been so alone.' She sniffed hard, wiped her eyes. 'They keep killing us. We keep getting killed.'

'That's life,' he said, wiping his own eyes once. He collected himself. 'That's what happens. Those are the ones you remember. You were a black boy, once, a beautiful black boy, I can see you now. And you were my friend once, old men together. We studied the world, we were friends. Such a spirit.'

The candle flame slowly dropped back to its normal height. They sat beside each other on the floor, too drained to move.

Eventually Pao knocked hesitantly on the door, and they started guiltily, though they had both been lost in their own thoughts. They got up and sat in the window seats, and Kang called out to Pao to bring some peach juice. By the time she came with it they were both composed; Ibrahim had relocated his spectacles, and Kang had opened the window shutter to the night air. The light of a clouded half moon added to the glow of the candle flame.

Hands still shaking, Kang sipped some peach juice, nibbled on a plum. Her body too was trembling. 'I'm not sure I can do that any more,' she said, looking away. 'It's too much.'

He nodded. They went into the compound garden, and sat in the cool of the night under the clouds, eating and drinking. They were hungry. The scent of jasmine filled the dark air. Though they did not speak, they seemed companionable.

I am older than China itself I walked in the jungle hunting for food Sailed the seas across the world Fought in the long war of the asuras. They cut me and I bled. Of course. Of course. No wonder my dreams are so wild, No wonder I feel so tired. No wonder I am always Angry. Clouds mass, concealing a thousand peaks; Winds sweep, colouring ten thousand trees. Come to me husband and let us live The next ten lives together.

The next time Ibrahim visited, his face was solemn, and he was dressed more finely than they had seen before, in the garb of a Muslim cleric, it seemed.

After the usual greetings when they were alone again in the garden, he stood and faced her. 'I must return to Gansu,' he said. 'I have family matters I must attend to. And my sufi master has need of me in his madressa. I've put it off as long as I could, but I have to go.'

Kang looked aside. 'I will be sorry.'

'Yes. I also. There is much still to discuss.'

Silence.

Then Ibrahim stirred and spoke again. 'I have thought of a way to solve this problem, this separation between us, so unwished for, which is that you should marry me – accept my proposal of marriage and marry me, and bring you and your people with you out with me, to Gansu.'

The widow Kang looked utterly astonished. Her mouth hung open.

'Why – I cannot marry. I am a widow.'

Ibrahim said, 'But widows may remarry. I know the Qing try to discourage it, but Confucius says nothing at all against it. I have looked, and checked with the best experts. People do it.'

'Not respectable people!'

He narrowed his eyes, looking suddenly Chinese. 'Respect from whom?'

She looked away. 'I cannot marry you. You are hui, and I am one who has not yet died.'

'The Ming emperors ordered all hui to marry good Chinese women, so that their children would be Chinese. My mother was a Chinese woman.'

She looked up, surprised again. Her face was flushed.

'Please,' he said, hand out. 'I know it's a new idea. A shock. I'm sorry. Please think about it, before you make your final reply. Consider it.'

She straightened up and faced him formally. 'I will consider it.'

A flick of the hand indicated her desire to be left alone, and with a truncated farewell, ended by a phrase in another language, spoken most intently, he made his way out of the compound.

After that, the widow Kang wandered through her household. Pao was out in the kitchen, ordering the girls about, and Kang asked ber to come and speak to her in the garden. Pao followed her out, and Kang told her what had happened, and Pao laughed.