A Single Petal Page 2

  When Feng first heard that young wives and girls, even those of Xiao-peng’s age, had gone missing, he racked his brains for a solution to the mystery, for through Yueloong and Xiaopeng he’d grown to love the Miao villagers as he loved his own people. He was most distressed, the week before Feier found Merchant Chang’s body, when three of his brightest Miao girl pupils disappeared. From man-eating tigers to gui, the restless ghosts, from secret pacts and peer pressure to seek wider horizons to Tibetan bride thieves, Feng and his friend had discussed all possibilities. But they could come up with no sensible explanation.

  “Other than the fact that they’re all Miao girls!” suggested Feng.

  “And pretty because of that,” added Yueloong as if Feng needed to be aware of the fact. True, but in Feng’s opinion no Miao woman came even close to the other wordly beauty of Han women from Hangzhou [5]. This was why he had always felt certain Meili’s ancestors must have lived in Hangzhou.

  Yueloong, a busy farmer, couldn’t watch over Xiaopeng every second of the day. There was no-one else to keep house for him or prepare his meals when he was out in the fields with his solitary water buffalo, and Feng could see how worried the man was about his beloved daughter as they puzzled over the missing girls.

  “I should tell the sun wu kong at the monastery and talk to Chen Jiabiao... even seek audience with the prefectural magistrate,” he told his friend. “Someone must have some idea... must have seen or noticed something. A girl can’t just vanish like the morning mist,” he said.

  His flights into poetic metaphor were always lost on the dour farmer.

  “Bloody tearing us all apart in the village!” replied Yueloong. “And it’s not only here that it’s been happening. Many of our younger sisters in the Miao village on the road to Chang’an have also gone. But because we’re Miao folk our Han rulers don’t seem to care. Some of the men here, they say.”

  Yueloong looked away, uncertain how to put this to his friend from the other side of the lake.

  “...well, they blame the Han people. And last year’s drought. Our women would be highly prized by the Tibetans and the Mongols. The cloth they weave, their embroidery - we fetch a good price for these things, get good money to help us through hard times. Some are saying you Han people have stolen our girls to sell on into slavery. Of course I’m not saying I believe in such stories.”

  “I think I’d have noticed, my friend,” interrupted Feng with a chuckle. “We pretty much live each others’ lives in my village. You could hardly hide a chicken away without everyone knowing. And there’d be talk if someone suddenly went around with strings of coins slung across his shoulder. No, Yueloong, there has to be another reason. Besides, how could an unhappy girl taken into slavery make beautiful cloth? She’d be of no value to her new masters. She’d be like a beautiful waterfall whose course has been altered by a landslide and has run dry.”

  “No poetry, please, friend Feng! I’m not in the mood. Of course I don’t believe in those ridiculous rumours. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our men are just seeking scapegoats.”

  “Look, I’ll do those things I said. Talk to these people. Then we’ll put our heads together. We’ll put a stop to this. Before Xiao.”

  He checked himself. He knew nothing could be more painful for Yueloong than the thought of Xiaopeng being taken from him. The girl’s mother had died in childbirth and the welfare of his quiet, loving daughter was his sole purpose in life. Feng couldn’t imagine how his friend would be able to continue without her, and unlike Feier and himself, the child’s marriage would not separate father from daughter for the Miao people lived in a very close-knit community. In all probability, she’d remain in the same small village, with no mean-minded marriage maker to send her far away.

  When Feng and Feier had arrived back in their village that evening, the teacher had been delighted to find Merchant Chang waiting on his door-step, his long-suffering black donkey tied to the plum tree with one weary hoof raised off the ground. The inn was full and Chang had called round to see if Feng could spare him a room for the night - as he always did when he came to their village.

  “My friend, my humble house is yours whenever you need it!” welcomed Feng. “Ni chile ma? [6] And your worthy companion... has she been fed?” He nodded at the donkey.

  “Mimi? Fed and watered,” replied the tubby merchant. “At least they did that at the inn. As for me, well, you know how I admire your daughter’s cooking.”

  “Your baskets, Merchant Chang? May I help you in with them?” asked the girl, knowing full well it wasn’t her cooking the merchant admired. She must have been the worst cook in the prefecture.

  “You may indeed, my pretty one. My back’s killing me these days. I need a wife to massage it twice a day, don’t you think?”

  Feier blushed. She went over to pat the donkey.

  “Such a beautiful daughter you have, Feng. And her hair? When will it be pinned up [7]? Soon, I expect, judging from that figure of hers.”

  Chang had been looking at Feier as she stroked the animal and whispered softly in its ear. Feng felt ashamed to think it took another man to remind him the girl had acquired the curves and breasts of a woman. He’d only ever thought of her as his little girl with the beautiful eyes of his poor late wife.

  “That’s another thing!” he said, an image of the awful old marriage maker hovering at the back of his mind. “But first make yourself comfortable, friend. Treat my house as your own. Feier and I’ll take care of your precious goods. Then whilst she’s preparing something for you we must talk. I have so much to tell you since we last met. and you, doubtless, will repay me with your usual witty tales!”

  Merchant Chang had gone on into the house whilst Feng approached his daughter.

  “Feier! How can you be so rude? You turn your back on my friend without saying a word! He was paying you a compliment. You could have at least thanked him. and answered his question.”

  Feier flushed and continued to stroke the donkey’s nose. She said nothing. Feng hated chiding the girl but, after Yueloong, Chang was his best friend.

  “I. I had to pat Mimi,” she said at last. “She. she looks so sad, the way she’s holding her hoof up.” “Feier?”

  “Baba, you won’t force me to marry him, will you? Please say you won’t.”

  She had looked up at her father. Her moist eyes melted the frost in his heart.

  “Oh, my little child, that would be the very last thing on my mind! You and Merchant Chang? What on earth has got into that pretty head of yours?”

  “The way he looks at me. And I heard what he said to you.”

  “Feier, you are a woman now. Not to me, but to other men you are. He was paying you a compliment and that’s all.”

  “Well, I don’t like it! And why doesn’t he have a wife himself? At his age!”

  “Shhh! He might hear you, child. Funny thing, now you mention it, but we’ve never spoken about that. S’pose I never thought it important. Anyway, as the wife of a merchant she’d hardly ever see her husband. Be more like a widow, ay? Now let’s stop all this nonsense talk and relieve this poor dutiful beast of her burden. Then, my dear daughter, show our guest the respect he deserves. For my sake?”

  “Yes, baba,” the girl replied meekly, and together they set about unstrapping the laden bamboo baskets from the back of the donkey.

  “Enough valuable stuff there to fill a prowler’s chest with coins!” joked Merchant Chang as Feier staggered in from the courtyard with a basket of goods.

  “We don’t have.” began the child, but she was interrupted by her fa-ther standing behind her with the other basket.

  “Feier’s right,” he said. “Until today I’d have said we never have prowlers. Not like the streets of Chang’an. Nothing ever goes missing. But I have the most extraordinary story to tell you. Leave the basket there, Feier. Go
and prepare food whilst I tell our guest all about the Miao girls.”

  Feier had set the basket down and scurried off in the direction of the kitchen.

  “The Miao girls?” Merchant Chang appeared intrigued. “The Miao girls. From the village beyond the lake. Please, sit down, friend Chang. We’ll talk about it over a glass of wine. Feier!” The girl reappeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Warm up some plum wine for Merchant Chang... with the food.” “Yes, baba.”

  Feng and Chang sat at a round stone table in the cluttered courtyard. “You’ve been to that village?”

  “Of course. Best Miao cloth in the whole province! And I should know. But what’s this nonsense about the Miao girls?”

  “Before today I’d have said ‘leave everything outside... nothing ever goes missing in these parts for we’re not in Chang’an’. But now? And all because of the vanishing Miao girls.”

  He called out to his daughter.

  “Feier! Hurry! Our guest is thirsty and hungry!”

  Feier returned a short while later with bowls of vegetables, rice and soup. She hesitated as she tried to work out how to place the food on the table without having to brush against the merchant, for the man’s size presented quite an obstacle. Detouring round to the opposite side, from beside the safety of her father, she reached across and placed the bowls in front of the merchant.

  “Such pretty hands, friend Feng!” the man said, his eyes fixed on the girl’s blossoming young breasts. “Not the hands of a working girl. You’re right to be teaching her calligraphy and opening her mind to our great poets.”

  Feier quickly pulled her hands away, hiding them in her sleeves. She hurried off to fetch a jug of warm plum wine which she put on the table between the two men, together with their best glazed cups. After giving Merchant Chang a respectful bow, she requested permission from her father to leave.

  “Be sure you can show me three more characters on your scroll for Merchant Chang to enjoy when he’s finished his meal!”

  Feng chuckled and winked at Chang as Feier took a few steps back-wards before turning and heading for the schoolroom.

  “A delightful girl, Feng. You must be so proud of her. Soon she’ll make some lucky man very happy!”

  “Oh friend Chang, if only I could be certain of finding a man who will make her happy. There are many who would resent an educated woman who can recite the sayings of Kong Fuzi. Have I been wrong to include girls in my classes? I know that would be the Emperor’s wish. He’s an enlight-ened man. But there are some who’d as soon put an end to his modern ways. Prefer to see women as the kow-towing servants of men.”

  “Have you approached the marriage maker yet?”

  “She wears her hair long, as you observed. I still call her my child.”

  “A child with the body of a woman? Can’t go on much longer. Look, let me know before you approach the marriage maker. I may not have contacts at the court in Chang’an, but I’m widely travelled and know more people than you could count on your abacus. I’ll keep my ears open. Do what I can for an old friend, ay?”

  “You’re very kind, but you’ve enough to concern you. Besides, I couldn’t bear it if my little Feier ended up in some distant prefecture. I’m a selfish man, Chang, a very selfish man. But my problems are as nothing compared to those of my Miao friends?”

  “You teach in that Miao village on your day off and you call yourself selfish?”

  “I enjoy it! That’s surely the epitome of selfishness... to do things you enjoy and wallow in the praise you get!”

  Merchant Chang erupted into a hearty chuckle which caused him to choke on a mouthful of rice.

  “Don’t do yourself down, Teacher Feng,” he said when the coughing had subsided. “So tell me, why should I feel so sorry for your Miao friends?”

  “Their girls are disappearing!”

  “It’s that diet of theirs. Not enough rice, too many vegetables. Look at me!” He patted his overflowing belly. “It would take a pretty bad famine to make me disappear!”

  “This is serious, Chang. Their girls have simply vanished. Why, my three best Miao pupils, all girls, didn’t turn up last week. Their classmates shrugged their shoulders when I asked where they were. Disappeared like the others, they said.”

  “Gone to seek their fortunes together, perhaps?”

  “Miao girls of thirteen, fourteen? No way! Something’s up, Chang.”

  “What about your friend the farmer?”

  “Li Yueloong?”

  “Is that his name? I believe you once said he had a daughter.”

  “That’s what really brought this home to me. He dotes on Xiaopeng, and what worries me is she’s such a pretty child. Just thirteen years, but already has well-formed young breasts... and he told me it’s only the pretty ones that are vanishing.”

  “Most Miao girls are pretty. I’ll say that for them, despite their meagre helpings of rice.”

  “Li is terrified of losing the girl. Like me, he’s a single parent. She means everything to him. If Xiaopeng disappeared I don’t know how he would keep going.”

  “He’ll lose her to a husband one day. Has he thought about that?”

  “They’re different from us, the Miao people. Very close. He’d never lose her in his own village. And for them looks count far more than wealth. He’ll not be faced with the problems I have.”

  “How many?”

  “What?”

  “How many of these girls are gone?”

  “I don’t know. A lot, Farmer Li says. And the magistate’s doing nothing.” “And the other Miao villages... like the one on the road to Chang’an?” “That’s just it. They, too, are suffering. Yet here, less than half a day’s walk away, not a single Han girl has been taken.” “Taken?”

  “It has to be, Chang. Someone is stealing these Miao girls.” “For?”

  “That’s the thing. Pretty girls. All with breasts... old enough to bear children. Young wives, too. The ones still with fine features, smooth skin and sleek, glossy hair. Why, there are many children now without mothers as well as parents who have lost daughters.”

  “And your friend and the other Miao people. they have no suspicions about who’s responsible? Maybe someone in their village angered a high-up government official. Could be his retribution?”

  “It’s us Han people some of them are suspecting. Not my friend Li, of course. But he warned me, and I fear rivalry between our communities. We’re both peace-loving peoples, but this business... “

  “Which is why you’re telling me!”

  “You’d have heard in time, anyway. But as you say, all those people you meet. Someone must’ve noticed something, heard whisperings. or seen a Miao girl where one shouldn’t be seen?”

  “So the prefectural magistrate knows? And who else?”

  “Oh, the Miao folk prefer to keep themselves to themselves.”

  “The sun wu kong at your monastery? Has he been told?”

  “I haven’t... I don’t. you know. since Meili died.”

  “I’m seeing him tomorrow! Next port of call!”

  “I would’ve myself, but you know how it is with Feier... the temple... the things they say there. She never could forgive them for not reincarnat-ing Meili as herself again in our village.”

  “Children! They’re a total mystery to me, my friend. But I understand. You steer clear of the temple. Say your prayers in private, ay? Let the Buddha find his own money.”

  “Praying’s nothing to do with money. That’s what’s so nice about peo-ple like Yueloong. They’re far closer to ways of the Buddha than most of those overfed monks.”

  Merchant Chang peered wistfully at his belly then roared with laughter.

  “So you think I’d make a good monk?” “Yes... but not because of your belly.”
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  “I’d be delighted to ask the sun wu kong. Make enquiries. Of Chen Jia-biao, too. I have some spices for him from the west. Something from the land of the Buddha that can burn holes in the roof of your mouth, they say. Can’t think why anyone would want to ruin food with that stuff, but Chen goes into a state of ecstasy just thinking about it! Perhaps the real pleasure comes when the fire finally goes out!”

  “At least Chen could put pressure on the local magistrate, maybe the Governor. About time that man showed a bit of responsibility.” The merchant’s grin vanished.

  “Be careful what you say, Teacher Feng. He’s a man with a memory as long as a leopard’s tail... and a bite to go with it.”

  “Only between friends, Chang. But he really must know. So many Mi-ao girls in this prefecture have vanished. Maybe more elsewhere.”

  “He’ll not care a damn so long as he gets his taxes. Funny how he and Chen never seem to get on. But you’re right. He’s got to know. Why, if those girls continue to disappear...”

  “That would destroy the Miao people. And us if they raid our village in search of evidence.”

  “I’ll report back to you after tomorrow, friend. It’s the least I can do. And now let’s enjoy your daughter’s wine whilst I tell you about the rest of the world. You live like a silkworm in a cocoon here, Teacher Feng. That poor beautiful daughter of yours, she’ll know nothing of the latest fashions for the women of Chang’an, ay?”