Two evenings later, we went to the cousin's house for a Viewing the Moon party. I wore another borrowed dress. I sat quietly and did not eat too much and talked even less. Mr. Chang had come up from Immortal Heart, and he and Father discussed Peking Man.
"All the pieces of the skull must stay in China," Father said. "That is not only proper, it's the agreement with the foreigners."
"Those foreigners," Chang said, "you can't trust them to keep their word. They'll find a way to sneak out some pieces. They'll find excuses, make new treaties, put up pressure."
"No treaty can change that Peking Man is a Chinese man and should stay where he lived and died."
Suddenly Mr. Chang saw me sitting on a garden stool. "Maybe one day you and I can collect more Peking Man together. How would you like that?"
I nodded eagerly.
The next day, I was a contented girl as I rode home. I had never felt such importance. I had not shamed Old Widow Lau or my family. In fact, I had been a great success. My father had criticized me in small ways about unimportant matters. So I knew he was proud of me. Old Widow Lau had bragged to her daughters-in-law that I had looks and manners to warrant ten marriage proposals. She was certain I would receive a marriage offer from the Changs within the week.
Though I had yet to meet the Changs' fourth son, who was back in Dragon Bone Hill, I knew he was two years older than I was. Like the other sons, he was an apprentice in his father's coffin-making business. What's more, there had been talk that he, the youngest son, might expand the coffin-making business to Peking, just as our family had done with the ink business. That meant I would live in Peking.
During all these discussions, I did not ask if my future husband was smart, if he was educated, if he was kind. I did not think about romantic love. I knew nothing of that. But I did know that marriage had to do with whether I improved my station in life or made it worse. And to judge by the Changs' manners and the jewelry the Chang wife wore, I, too, was about to become a more important person. What could be wrong with that?
Mr. Wei had come before dawn to take me back. The sky was dark and the air was still clear of summer's rotting smells. In the cart, I began to dream of all the ways I had to change my life. Of course, I needed new clothes right away. And I should be more careful to keep my face out of the sun. I did not want to look like a dark little peasant girl. After all, we were artisans and merchants from an old clan, very respected.
By the time the stars faded and the sun rose, Peking had disappeared from the horizon, and the landscape before me returned to the same dusty dull.
Hours later, the cart climbed the last hill that hid Immortal Heart. I could hear the crowing of cocks, the yowling of dogs, all the familiar sounds of our village.
Mr. Wei started bellowing a peasant love song loud enough to burst his lungs. As we turned the bend, we came upon Sheepherder Wu gathering his flock. The late-afternoon sun sliced through the trees and fell on the backs of the sheep. Wu lifted his stick and called a greeting to Mr. Wei and me. Just then his herd turned in one motion, one direction, like a cloud bringing a storm, and I sensed a great danger. I recalled that Mother had once spoken quietly of this sheepherder's being a widower, who needed a new wife to help him run the looms for his wool. I could practically feel the graininess of yellow Gobi dust as my fingers picked through the wool. I could smell the lamb stink seeping into my fingers, my bones. And now that I stared at the sheepherder with his grin and his upraised stick, I was even more determined that I should marry the son of the Changs. Perhaps that son would turn out to be a one-eyed idiot. So be it. I would still be daughter-in-law to a famous family who ran a business in Peking.
As quickly as it takes to snap a twig-that's how fast the mind can turn against what is familiar and dear. There I was, about to arrive at my old home, and I was not filled with sentimental fondness for all I had grown up with. Instead I noticed the ripe stench of a pig pasture, the pockmarked land dug up by dragon-bone dream-seekers, the holes in the walls, the mud by the wells, the dustiness of the unpaved roads. I saw how all the women we passed, young and old, had the same bland face, sleepy eyes that were mirrors of their sleepy minds. Each person's life was the same as the next person's. Each family was as important as the next, which was to say, not very important. They were country people, both naive and practical, slow to change but quick to think that a disturbance of ants on the ground was a sign of bad luck from the gods high above. Even Precious Auntie had become this way in my mind, a sleepy-headed greasy-hat from the country.
I remembered a funny saying about life in a slow village: When you have nothing else to do, you can always busy yourself picking maggots out of rice. Once I had laughed at that saying. Now I saw that it was true.
Mr. Wei was still singing his loud folk songs as we rode into the town square. And then we came to Pig's Head Lane. I passed all the familiar faces and listened to their harsh, dust-choked greetings. As we came closer to the bend of the neck where our house stood, my heart began to drum in my ears. I saw the family gateway, the arch with its peeling timber, the fading red couplet banners that hung on the pillars.
But just as I pushed open the gate, my heart flew back into my chest, and I was filled with a longing to see Precious Auntie. She would be glad to see me. She had cried when I left. I dashed into the front courtyard: "I'm home! I'm home already!" I went into the ink studio, where I saw Mother and GaoLing. "Ah, back so soon?" Mother said, not bothering to stop her work. "Cousin Lau sent me a note that the meeting went well, and the Changs will probably take you."
I was bursting to tell them about my adventures, the pleasures I had enjoyed. But Mother stopped me: "Hurry and clean up, so you can help your little sister and me grind this up." And GaoLing wrinkled her nose and said, "Choi You smell like the hind end of a donkey."
I went to the room I shared with Precious Auntie. Everything was in its usual place, the quilt folded just so at the bottom of the k'ang. But she was not there. I wandered from room to room, from little courtyard to little courtyard. With each passing moment, I felt more anxious to see her.
And then I heard a pot banging. She was in the root cellar, eager that I should know she was there. I peered down the steep ladder and into the tunnel. She waved, and as she climbed up from the shadows, I saw that she still had the figure of a girl. In the brief moment of seeing only half of her face lit by the sun, she was again as beautiful as she had seemed to me when I was a small child. When she emerged from the hole, she put the pot down and stroked my face, then said with her hands, Have you really come back to me, my Doggie? She pulled my tangled braid and snorted. Didn't take your comb? No one to remind you? Now you know why you need me. You have no brains! She jabbed the side of my head, and this made me irritable. With spit on her finger, she rubbed dirt from my cheek, then felt my forehead. Are you sick? You seem feverish.
"I'm not sick," I said. "I'm hot." She went back to unraveling the mats of my hair. I glanced at her ropy scars, her twisted mouth.
I pulled away. "I can clean myself," I said.
She began to make hissing sounds. Gone one week and now you 're so grown-up?
I snapped back: "Of course. After all, I'm about to be a married woman."