Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [37]
“What was once an honored profession,” Dun goes on, “is now little better than being a trash collector. Still, I think it will give you everything you need—anonymity, access to all corners of the city, obedience to the rules you’ve been told to follow, and a way to get coupons and keep busy until your daughter returns.”
Joy
OBSERVING AND LEARNING FROM REAL LIFE
IT’S STILL DARK when the roosters begin to crow. I stay in bed for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of songbirds, the creaking of the floorboards in the room next to mine as my father rises, and the people outside the villa calling morning greetings. With the wood slats on the floors, the sliding doors, and the thin walls, no secrets can be kept. I hear every footstep, snore, hack, sigh, and whisper. I get up and dress quickly in loose pants and a cotton shirt with a faded floral print—both soft from use and many washings, all gifts from Kumei. I run a comb through my hair. I wish it were long enough to braid like the other girls do in the village. Instead, I put a kerchief over my head and tie it at the back of my neck. I take a quick look in a small mirror. Others here have told me how much I look like my father and that we share many mannerisms, like the way I sometimes pinch my chin when I’m in thought or the way I raise my eyebrows in question. That might be so, but that doesn’t mean we’re alike. Anyway, at least I look more like a peasant than I did a month ago when I first got here.
I slide open the door and hurry through the corridors and courtyards to the kitchen. Kumei has already started the fire in the stove and water boils in the teapot. I pour some in a cup, take it outside to the trough, where I went the first night, and use the hot water to brush my teeth and wash my face.
How stupid I was back then! Washing my face and brushing my teeth with trough water seemed fun and adventurous, but I’d gotten sick as a dog and had spent the first few days in Green Dragon with a bad case of diarrhea and vomiting. I’d received little sympathy from Z.G.
“What did you expect?” he’d asked. “This is a village. These people probably only change the water every three or four days. And they probably use it to scrub their feet and armpits too.”
That made me sick all over again. My inhibitions about using the nightstool—and within earshot of Z.G.—were completely gone by the time I fully recovered. But I’d learned, just as I’m learning every day. I now know that the carvings with the squirrel-and-grape pattern in the sitting room for the four bedrooms in this part of the compound symbolize the expectation of prosperity for future generations. The wooden screens covering the windows are carved in a lion’s pattern to show a person’s wealth. The mirror hanging above the main gate wards off evil spirits, while the dried fish tacked to the wall in the front courtyard is there because yu, the word for fish, sounds like abundance. The dried pig legs that hang in the front courtyard? They’re for eating. The odor of gasoline I smelled that first night? That’s how people spot-clean their soiled clothes when they don’t want to wash an entire garment by hand. The tree with flowers that look like sweet peas in the middle of the square? It’s called a scholar’s tree. Its blossoms have now turned into fruits that grow in long yellowish pods like strings of pearls. And when I got my period, Kumei showed me what women in the village do: wrap sand in a piece of cloth and wedge it in my underpants. These are just a few things I’ve learned.
I help Kumei carry the food and eating utensils to the villa’s dining room. Z.G. and Yong, the old woman who also lives in the villa, sit at the table with Ta-ming between them. Yong has bound feet, which are truly gruesome. They’re tiny, like miniature candy bars sticking out from beneath her pants. One morning when I came into the kitchen, she’d pulled up a pant leg to massage a thin white calf. There, behind her ankle, was this mound of scrunched flesh and bones—the parts of her foot that hadn’t been made dainty in