Zomi looked confused. “But I still have so much to learn!”
“As do I. Do you not feel the call of the world, though, Mimi-tika? There will always be more books to read, but I think you’re ready to perform your own deeds that will be written about one day.”
“What about you? If I leave you, who will make your tea in the evenings? Who will argue with you at lunch? Who will ask you—”
“I will be all right, child.” Luan laughed. “Besides, I have been thinking of starting another adventure. There are intriguing pieces of wreckage we have seen in our travels that suggest new worlds beyond the sea.”
“Like the pieces you showed me with the strange winged and antlered beasts carved into them? I told you my mother and I found them when I was younger, too.”
Luan nodded. “I’d like to ask the emperor for help to find those new worlds. There has always been a restlessness in my soul that cannot be denied.”
“Then let me come with you!”
“I am content to drift through the world in a balloon or on a barge, letting the Flow take me where it will. But I’m an old leatherback; you, on the other hand, are not yet ready to embrace life as a Fluxist. As the waves pound the sand, so does the empire call for men and women of talent. The Grand Examination will be next year, and you’re ready to make your mark. You must enlarge your spirit and take up your duty.”
He reached out and caressed the necklace around Zomi’s neck. The berries had long since dried out, and over time, contact with skin and clothes had polished the surfaces to a smooth, shiny sheen, though the bright red hue had not faded one whit. “We will set out for Dasu in the morning so that you can attend the Town Examination, the first step in a long journey to the sea of power.”
“Teacher, I must ask you for a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Is it all right if I never mention that I am your student until after the examination?”
Luan was surprised. “Why?”
“If I succeed, I want it to be because of my talent, not because of your name—the way that clerk in Dasu once offered me such a good price for my grain. And if I fail, I do not want to sully your reputation and have people think that you were not a good teacher when the truth was that I was too stubborn to study well.”
“Ah, Mimi.” Luan was moved by her combination of pride and solicitousness. “Do as you will. But I know that I will never have another student as good as you. I eagerly wait for the day you soar to heights I can only aspire to.”
Zomi did not trust herself to speak, for suddenly her vision had grown blurry and her throat constricted. So instead of more words, Zomi bent down and started to sculpt logograms in the sand.
Air-over-heart. A man. A child.
Heart-in-man. Heart-in-child. Open-hand-closed-fist.
Water-over-heart.
The Ano word for “teacher” literally meant “father-of-the-mind,” and what was love but an exchange of hearts?
Luan hugged her, and both stood there until the wind had dried the heart-water on their faces and the silent music of the stars had soothed their souls.
Aki Kidosu made all of Mimi’s favorite dishes: scrambled eggs with dried caterpillars, fresh mushroom stew flavored with spring herbs and bitter melons, sticky rice cake filled with sweet green-bean-and-lotus paste. There was no money to afford pork, but the caterpillars were well seasoned and especially tasty.
Mimi ate heartily. “I have so missed this!” It was wonderful to be home after all these years. “The caterpillars have such a sweet fragrance. It reminds me of a poem:
“Is that from a folk opera?” her mother asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen it.”
“It’s… a poem by Princess Kikomi of Amu,” Mimi said, embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”
She and Luan Zya had liked to quote bits of poetry at each other. To make old lines say something new was a way to practice the mentality of an engineer who often needed to make old parts accomplish new purposes. But here, in this simple hovel where she had grown up, where the walls were cracked and the floor was bare dirt without a mat, it seemed wrong to quote the words of the dead princess of the Tiro state most dedicated to the ideal of elegance and refinement.
“Try the bitter melon! It’s from the garden.”
“Mmm, mmm!”
Between bites, Mimi noticed that the hair at her mother’s temples had grown white, that her spine had grown more curved, and Mimi’s heart ached to think of her struggling all by herself to maintain the farm and keep up the rent.
Then Mimi saw that her mother, who had been chewing contentedly on a piece of sticky rice cake held in her hands, had stopped and was staring at her.
Mimi stopped as well, the single eating stick held daintily in her hand with a piece of rice cake on the end suspended awkwardly a few inches from her mouth.
“You eat like the daughter of the magistrate,” said Aki. It was hard to tell whether her tone was admiring or regretful.
“It’s just a habit,” Mimi hurried to explain. “The teacher and I—we sometimes liked to discuss the intricacies of a particularly obscure logogram during meals, and it was easier if we kept our fingers free from grease… and Kon Fiji said that—”
She stopped, embarrassed by herself: She was reciting Amu poetry and quoting Kon Fiji at her mother. Resolutely, she pulled the rice cake off the end of the eating stick, careless of how it stuck to her fingers, and took a big bite from it. When she put down the eating stick, she deliberately set it down so that it crossed obscenely with its companions on the table.
Her mother nodded and went back to eating, but her motions were now awkward, uncertain, as though she was sitting with the daughters of Master Sécru Ikigégé, their landlord, at the symbolic New Year’s meal where the landlord was supposed to express thanks for the tenants, and the girls always sneered at the uncouth manners of the tenant farmers.
As she counted the new wrinkles on her mother’s face and the new patches on her dress, Mimi’s heart twitched.
How can I go to the Town Examination and think of leaving her here by herself? I will stay with Mama always.
She tried to continue the conversation. But after Aki politely dealt with her praise for the food (“Oh I’m sure you’ve had much better out there in the world”) and her inquiry after her mother’s health (“Still many more years left in this sack of bones!”), Mimi ran out of things to say. After years of chattering away at Luan Zya at meals about philosophy and engineering and politics and poetry and math, she had forgotten how to converse with her mother.
Mimi was utterly ashamed.
“Why don’t you take a nap after the meal?” her mother said, breaking the awkward silence. “I’ll flip over the sheets on the bed so that they’re clean.” The tone she used seemed to suggest that Mimi was a guest, the daughter of a magistrate or scholar.
“I don’t need to nap,” said Mimi. “I can help you around the farm or the house. What do you need?”
Her mother smiled. “Oh, this would bore you. I need to go over to Master Ikigégé’s house and help his oldest daughter cut paper butterflies for her wedding.”
“Isn’t she supposed to do that herself?”
“Well, she’s got fat fingers—though she’s trying to lose weight before the big day.”
Aki and Mimi giggled. For a moment it felt like the old days, but then Aki added, “I’m already late. If I don’t go over quickly, he’ll add another five coppers to my rent.”