Deep as the sky red as t.., p.20
Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea, page 20
Wasn’t it?
“You again, commander,” the fortune-teller said upon Cheung Po’s approach. It was hard to say how she knew, maybe something about his gait. Shek Yeung and Cheung Po were certainly not the only two people who sought her services. The fortune-teller waved in the general direction of a couple of stools. They dragged the stools closer and sat.
“A new problem has—” Shek Yeung said.
“Don’t tell me,” the older woman interrupted. “I pull the fortunes I pull and interpret them as I am moved to. You should know by now that Heaven rarely gives direct answers.” She picked up the stalk that had slid from the canister.
The flock of chickens calls loudly.
They fight as the guests arrive.
I chase the chickens up a tree.
Now I can hear the knock on the gate.
“There’s going to be a fight?” Cheung Po asked.
“Chickens are excitable, stupid animals,” the fortune-teller said. “The new arrivals send them into a frenzy. But does the speaker try to calm them? No, that would be ridiculous. Instead, he chases them where they won’t bother him. The newfound quiet is what allows him to hear the visitors knocking.” She frowned. “This fortune could also be telling you to hide your assets and hide them well. In this case, the speaker might not have wanted his visitors to see his chickens.”
“So … don’t try to wrangle angry chickens,” Cheung Po said.
It seemed clear to Shek Yeung that the chickens represented the many battles between Pak Ling and the pirates. There was no calming everyone, so best to gain some distance from the conflict. That was, after all, the reason they’d sailed off to Maynila. But if the fortune concerned the fleet’s assets, then she would have to increase the security around their stockpiles. And given the inevitable expiration of their food stores, she would have to increase the frequency of raids, even with Pak Ling closing in.
As distasteful as she found the idea of land raids, the reality was that they needed to start immediately. There was no telling when Pak Ling would turn his attention to them. Her feelings about land raids shouldn’t outweigh the security of the fleet—Cheng Yat wouldn’t have let his own feelings interfere.
She told Cheung Po her plan to divide the fleet that evening: two-thirds of the ships would accompany him on the land raids, whereas the remainder would return with her to Canton before her due date. He was in a good mood, draped over a rocking chair in the bahay, picking the remnants of a particularly delicious meal out of his teeth. His good mood quickly disappeared.
“Pak Ling’s people could be anywhere,” he said. “How do you know he hasn’t found out where we are?”
“Even if he knows, he has no authority here.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t hire an assassin. How are you going to protect yourself the way you are?”
“We have no choice. Without a good stockpile, we are at the whims of Heaven. One bad storm and it’s over.”
Cheung Po rocked himself up to standing and began to pace. “We can let some of the squadron leaders handle it.”
She took his wrist gently. “I don’t trust them. I trust you.”
He glared at her, but he didn’t look truly angry. “Don’t flatter me.”
“You know I’m not. Believe me, the biggest danger to me right now isn’t Pak Ling. It’s this child, and you can’t do anything about that. What you can do is make sure that this child has plenty of food and money if the worst happens.”
He shook his head in annoyance, but she knew she’d won.
Cheung Po left before dawn without waking her, though it seemed to her, as she lay half-dreaming, that she felt a warm hand on her head before she heard the door to the bahay gently open and close.
21
Saying goodbye to Maynila proved surprisingly difficult. In the city, Shek Yeung had become reacquainted with a kind of peace, as if crossing paths with a close childhood friend after many years: one got the sense, despite the stilted conversation and awkward pauses, that one was protected, maybe even cherished. She resisted the urge to look astern as the ship pulled away from shore. It was unlikely she would ever return to Maynila.
She asked Old Wong to chart a somewhat circuitous course for Canton that would avoid the areas where imperial ships were most often sighted. Running into Pak Ling or any of his underlings was a bad idea with only a third of the fleet. The long trip gave her time to think. She planned raids and drafted speeches to deliver to the other fleet commanders at their next meeting. But mostly she worried about where the delivery would take place.
That one at sea had been pure bad luck. Her second delivery had, for obvious reasons, occurred at the Cheng family estate. Now that Cheng Yat was dead and she had remarried, the estate wasn’t off limits to her, not exactly, but his relatives had very much implied that she was not welcome outside the occasional visit with her sons. They hadn’t opposed Cheng Yat’s decision to marry her years ago, but they wouldn’t have chosen someone like her had he consented to an arranged marriage.
“Your mother doesn’t like me,” she’d said to Cheng Yat after meeting his family for the first time.
“She doesn’t like any woman who’s not like her,” he’d replied, by which he’d meant any woman from humble origins. The Cheng family might have made its fortune from piracy, but they, Cheng Yat’s grandfather in particular, hadn’t wanted to be remembered for piracy. So Cheng Yat’s grandfather and father had both married patrician women, whose parents agreed to the arrangements with full knowledge of the Cheng family’s reputation. After all, blood money looked and smelled and could be spent like regular money. But Shek Yeung’s background wasn’t the sole reason the Cheng family disliked her. There were some women who, having had no choice but to perform femininity for men all their lives, began to confuse their roles for reality. Such women loved to instruct other women on how to be a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter-in-law—a good woman. The Cheng women, with their molluscan bound feet and fainting fits, knew that Shek Yeung had little interest in—and worse yet, little need for—their instruction. This raised uncomfortable questions: Did any woman really need their instruction? If not, then why had they endured all they had endured?
So giving birth at the Cheng estate was out. The next logical option would have been the midwife’s home. But Pak Ling might have already started surveilling the area, given that she’d been wandering around there that day. Would he ambush her while she was in labor? He seemed to be a principled man, his deception notwithstanding. If he did choose to attack her during her moment of weakness, would she be able to rely on her tears to save her? So many principled men, after all, felt an airy sympathy toward women, the kind of sympathy they might also direct toward an injured dog. Cheng Yat had been the exception. With him, there had been no sympathy, just expectation—she could either meet that expectation or die.
The only option left was Wo-Yuet’s house. Out of habit, she’d made sure, when she went to the sam-hop-yuen, that she wasn’t followed. Her best guess was that Pak Ling had paid various people in the town center to alert him if they’d spotted her, and that was how he found her in the tavern that day.
Anyone other than Shek Yeung would have found the idea laughable: to give birth in a place where a person had recently died, in a home that had never housed a family. “It’s an invitation for envious ghosts,” the aunties back in the village would have muttered while shaking their heads. But it made sense. Most people didn’t know of Shek Yeung’s association with Wo-Yuet, and the house was on the outskirts of town. Shek Yeung would reveal the location only to the people she trusted most: the midwife, Yan-Yan, and maybe also Ahmad, so he could stand guard on the road to the sam-hop-yuen.
Wo-Yuet’s ghost would never hurt her. Shek Yeung couldn’t say how she knew this, but she did. Wo-Yuet had protected Shek Yeung when she was at her most vulnerable, like taking the customers Shek Yeung feared and interceding when Shek Yeung got in trouble with Madame Ko, even when doing so meant raising Madame Ko’s hackles. Shek Yeung simply could not imagine her friend being anything other than benevolent.
By the time the junk finally docked in Canton, Shek Yeung was so big she could barely move around. Many days of sleeplessness had left her feeling dizzy. Her vision occasionally fled, making her chase helplessly after it as if after a lost kite string. With help from Ahmad and Yan-Yan, she half-slid, half-rolled off the ship, and the three of them set off for the sam-hop-yuen.
The longans were beginning to decay, though a few still appeared to be edible. Yan-Yan plucked one from the branch and, digging her thumbnail into the skin, split it down the middle. She squeezed the flesh into her mouth, swirled it around for a bit, and stuck her tongue out at Shek Yeung to show a seed sitting there like a black pearl, laughing at Shek Yeung’s beleaguered sigh. Meanwhile, the kumquat flowers were wilting, the leggy, light brown petals parting to reveal the fruit just beginning to crown.
The rooms were, unsurprisingly, even dustier than during her previous visit. She lay down on Wo-Yuet’s bed, noting the little spots of dried blood on the blanket and pillow. Had her friend suffered right before she died? No, that was a ridiculous question—of course she had. The better question was, had she suffered much?
“I’ll go fetch the midwife,” Ahmad said.
Shek Yeung fell asleep almost immediately after he left. When she awoke, Yan-Yan wasn’t in the room. Shek Yeung didn’t call out to her, relishing the silence. At sea, one was surrounded by sound: people talking, or singing, or sharpening swords; the sails angrily puffing out their chests and then razzing out all the air; and always, always, the sound of waves.
The aunties said that the behavior that came most naturally to a baby was floating—toss a baby into water and you’ll see—that it was the contact with and corruption by the earthly realm that robbed humans of this native ability. It followed, then, that humans returned to the water upon death. Maybe instead of sticking around to haunt the living, the dead simply went to this realm to rest, to float. That didn’t seem so bad.
Eventually, Yan-Yan wandered back in, mouth stuffed with longan. “Want one?” the girl asked, the words leaking from between mashed bits of fruit.
“Any word from Ahmad yet?”
“No, but the midwife is far away, and you did tell him to be careful.”
Shek Yeung patted her bedside. Yan-Yan plopped down on it. “I’m sorry to make you do this,” she said.
The girl shrugged. “It’s better than fighting with Big Brother Cheung.”
Shek Yeung suddenly realized that Yan-Yan might have never actually killed anyone before. But that couldn’t possibly be true. The girl joined the fleet years ago. Still, it wasn’t as if anyone kept track of who killed whom during a battle. Shek Yeung had more than once suspected that some of her own crew members had been killed by fellow crew members with a grudge.
Most people found the first kill difficult. How quickly one grew accustomed to taking a life varied, but in most cases, by the fourth or fifth, one learned to swerve around the feelings as around dog turd. It was a fact that, before a person’s first kill, that person was at a disadvantage in battle. But Shek Yeung didn’t want to do to the girl what Cheng Yat had done to her. For many nights after her first killing, she’d awoken from nightmares in which she was conversing with the man she’d murdered. When she remembered halfway through the conversation that she’d murdered him, his throat opened into a wide red grin as if he’d pulled off the perfect practical joke.
A little after dusk, Ahmad returned with the midwife, a sack of rice, and a headless chicken. Tse Po-Po cooked up an unbearably bitter broth with the chicken and some fortifying herbs, slapping Yan-Yan’s hand away whenever the girl reached for a taste. After dinner, the midwife performed Shek Yeung’s first physical exam in months. “You’re very big,” Tse Po-Po said. “Bigger than last time.”
“I feel bigger,” Shek Yeung said.
“This baby, his size will be a problem.”
“Are there any herbs for this kind of thing?”
Tse Po-Po made an equivocal noise. “Where’s the father?”
“Somewhere else,” Shek Yeung said.
“Close enough to get here quickly if necessary?”
“Why?”
The midwife shook her head and said, “No reason,” and then added after a moment, “Well, he’s a young man. He has time.”
And though Shek Yeung liked to tell herself that she didn’t care about Cheung Po, that she put up with him only for the good of the fleet, she found herself wondering how Cheung Po would react if she or the baby (or both) didn’t make it. Would he mourn her? She hadn’t mourned Cheng Yat, after all. There was no reason to believe that Cheung Po wouldn’t immediately pick a new wife, someone young enough to bear him all those sons he wanted.
What does it matter how he would feel? she berated herself. Dead is dead. Except, for some reason, it did. She wanted to believe that all they’d been through together had made her not only a trusted co-commander to him but something more.
Several days later, on a warm, clear morning, the contractions started. No storm at sea this time, no chatty servants clanging bowls and dishes. Shek Yeung awoke and simply knew it was time.
According to the aunties, one could sometimes tell when one’s time was coming to an end. Old Chan, the town magistrate, awoke one day and asked his wife to prepare his favorite meal, congee with pork and leeks. The wife found the request a little strange (Old Chan wasn’t in the habit of eating breakfast) but did as requested. After breakfast, Old Chan sat down in his favorite chair to watch the birds. When the wife went to fetch him for lunch later, he was dead.
Shek Yeung nudged Yan-Yan awake and had the girl call the midwife. As she waited, Shek Yeung placed a hand on her own belly. There wasn’t pain yet so much as an uncomfortable stirring, like the key to a heavy lock slowly turning. “Here we are, little one,” she said. “Where we go now is up to you.”
Tse Po-Po arrived and helped her down onto the floor into a squatting position. It seemed to Shek Yeung that everything was happening faster than it had in the past. Soon the contractions were coming quickly. The pain made it difficult to think or, for that matter, see properly. Men believed that being a woman was easier than being a man because a man had to fight battles. As someone who’d endured both childbirth and battle wounds, Shek Yeung could say without hesitation that childbirth was worse.
“Well, at least the head is in the right place,” Tse Po-Po said.
Yan-Yan sat wide-legged behind Shek Yeung, a warm rag in one hand and Shek Yeung’s hand in the other. “Take deep breaths,” the girl said, her voice steady. Shek Yeung glanced back at her and was surprised to find a calm expression on her face.
“Don’t look at me, focus on breathing,” Yan-Yan said. “I’ve done this enough times by now to know it goes much better for the mother when she breathes.”
Life at sea changed you, usually for the worse, but sometimes for the better.
“Push harder,” Tse Po-Po said. Shek Yeung bore down.
“Harder,” Tse Po-Po repeated. “He hasn’t even crowned.”
One set of contractions gave way to another, and Shek Yeung lost track of time. At one point she became vaguely aware of Yan-Yan holding a cup of sour liquid up to her mouth and telling her to drink. She barely turned her head fast enough to throw it up, but Yan-Yan persisted, gripping her chin and tipping in more of the herbal concoction.
“Come on, get up, you need to walk,” Tse Po-Po said, tugging on her arm.
“Are you joking?” Shek Yeung screamed.
The two other women yanked Shek Yeung up by the elbows and led her slowly around the room, once, twice. They stopped next to a post and leaned Shek Yeung against it. “Push again,” Tse Po-Po said.
She pushed and felt the head crown. “Good, good,” Tse Po-Po said.
For the briefest of moments, Shek Yeung had the audacity to believe the hard part was over, but then labor stalled again: the shoulders. This stupid child with stupid Cheung Po’s stupidly wide shoulders.
“This is bad,” Tse Po-Po said, fingers on the pulse point on the child’s neck.
“How bad?” Yan-Yan asked.
“This needs to happen now,” Tse Po-Po said to Shek Yeung. “Do you understand?”
The child didn’t want to be here, Shek Yeung realized through the haze of pain. How could she explain it? She’d brought him here without his permission, abducted him from a place where he’d been at peace—just as the pirates had abducted her and she had abducted others. In vengeance, he was going to kill himself and her. And who could blame him? Look at this world.
“Cut him out of me!” Shek Yeung yelled.
“You’ll die!” Tse Po-Po said.
“I don’t care!”
“Not yet,” Tse Po-Po said. “You’re not dying yet.”
I know you don’t want to be here, Shek Yeung found herself thinking at the child. But you’re almost here anyway, so please, just try, and I promise I will do everything in my power to be a better mother to you than I ever was with Ying-Shek and Hung-Shek.
And Big Sister, Shek Yeung found herself thinking at Wo-Yuet, you’ve already done so much for me. I’m sorry to ask this one more thing.
