The Year of Rice and Salt

'Why do you laugh!,' Kang snapped. 'Do you think I care so much for a testimonial from a Qing Emperor! That I should lock myself in this box for the rest of my life, for the sake of a paper covered with vermilion ink?'

Pao froze, first startled, then frightened. 'But, Mistress Kang Gansu…'

'You know nothing about it. Leave me.'

After that no one dared to speak to ber. She wandered the house like a hungry ghost, acknowledging no one. She scarcely spoke. She visited the shrine at the Temple of the Purple Bamboo Grove, and recited the Diamond Sutra five times, and went home with her knees hurting. The poem of Li Anzi, 'Sudden View of Years' came to her mind: Li Anzi: the mother of two successful officials, who reared them alone as a widow.

Sometimes all the threads on the loom Suggest the carpet to come. Then we know that our children to be Hope for us in the bardo. For them we weave until our arms grow tired.

She had the servants carry her to the magistrate's building, where she had them set down the sedan chair, and did not move for an hour. The men could just see her face behind the gauze of the window curtain. They took her home without her ever having emerged.

The next day she had them carry her to the cemetery, though it was not a festival day, and under the empty sky she shuffled about with her peculiar gait, sweeping the graves of all the family ancestors, then sitting at the foot of her husband's grave, head in her hands.

The next day she went down to the river on her own, walking the entire way, crimping along, looking at trees, ducks, the clouds in the sky. She sat on the riverbank, as still as if she were in one of the temples.

Xinwu, was down there as he almost always was, trailing his fishing pole and bamboo basket. He brightened at the sight of her, showed her the fish he had caught. He sat by her, and they watched the great brown river flow past, glossy and compact. He fished, she sat and watched.

'You're good at that,' she said, watching him flick the line out into the stream.

'My father taught me.' After a time: 'I miss him.'

'I do too.' Then: 'Do you think… I wonder what he would think.'

After another pause: 'If we move west, you must come with us.'

She invited Ibrahim to return, and when he came, Pao led him into the reception hall, which Kang had ordered filled with flowers.

He stood before ber, head bowed.

'I am old,' she told him. 'I have passed through all the life stages. I am one who has not yet died. I cannot go backwards. I cannot give you any sons.'

The life stages: milk teeth, hair-pinned up, marriage, children, rice and salt, widowhood.

'I understand,' he murmured. 'I too am old. Still – I ask your hand in marriage. Not for sons, but for me.'

She regarded him, her colour rising.

'Then I accept your offer of marriage.'

He smiled.

After that the household was as if caught in a whirlwind. The servants, though highly critical of the match, nevertheless had to work all day every day to make the place ready in time for the fifteenth day of the sixth month, the midsummer time traditionally favoured for starting travel. Kang's elder sons disapproved of the match, of course, but made plans to attend the wedding anyway. The neighbours were scandalized, shocked beyond telling, but as they were not invited, there was no way for them to express this to the Kang household. The widow's sisters at the temple congratulated her and wished her well. 'You can bring the wisdom of the Buddha to the hui,' they told her. 'It will be very useful for all.'

So they were married in a small ceremony attended by all Kang's sons, and only Shih was less than congratulatory, pouting most of the morning in his room, a fact Pao did not even report to Kang. After the ceremony, held in the garden, the party spread down to the river, and though small, it was determinedly cheery. After that the household was packed up, its furniture and goods loaded in carts either destined for their new home in the west, or else for the orphanage that Kang had helped establish in town, or for her elder sons.

When all was ready, Kang took a last walk through the household, stopping to stare into the bare rooms, oddly small now.

This square fathom has held my life. Now the goose flies away, Chased by a Phoenix from the west. How could one life encompass such change. Truly we live more lives than one.

Soon she came out and climbed into the sedan chair. 'It is already gone,' she said to Ibrahim. He handed her a gift, an egg painted red: happiness in the new year. She bowed her head. He nodded, and directed their little train to begin the journey west.

Three. Waves Slap Together