The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(16)
“I promise, but . . . A-ma, this tree is sick. Do you see those yellow threads? They’re going to strangle the tree.”
Laughter bubbles out of her. “If I let your a-ba and brothers come here, they’d spray the mother tree with poison to kill all the parasites who’ve found a home in her bark. They’d scrape away the fungi and molds and smash the bugs with their fingernails, but in the long-ago time, farmers let their tea trees grow naturally. Look above us, Girl. See how the camphors protect and hide the mother tree from spirits? The fragrance from the camphors is soothing to us, but it also wards off insects and pests. In other parts of the forest, poisonous plants can grow around the base of ancient and neglected wild tea trees, which means the leaves can produce stomach upset, even death. But do you see anything poisonous here? No. What I’m trying to tell you is that the men in our family wouldn’t know what the yellow threads are, and they wouldn’t like or trust them.” The skin at the corners of her eyes crinkles. “I look at our trees differently.”
Our trees. I’m still not sure how to feel about that.
“These trees are sacred,” A-ma states simply. “And those yellow threads are the mother tree’s most precious gift. I’ve helped many people with the leaves and threads from the mother tree when all else has failed. Do you remember when Lo-zeh had that growth in his armpit? My tea made it disappear. And what about Da-tu? His face would turn red and veins throbbed in his temple. Akha Law tells us no man should beat his wife, but we know it can happen. After the ceremonies for wife beating didn’t work, the nima and the ruma sought my advice. I gave Da-tu my special tea. His face returned to a normal color, and his wild emotions calmed.”
Those are two examples, but I can think of many people she hasn’t healed, who’ve suffered terribly, who’ve died. I’m only ten years old, and I’m having trouble with the memories surfacing in my mind. The woman who wasted away to nothing . . . The man who accidentally sliced open his leg and eventually succumbed to the green pus that ate into the wound . . . Some of my own nieces and nephews who died in infancy from fever . . . No leaves or yellow threads or anything A-ma had in any of her satchels helped them, and they didn’t help . . .
“What about Deh-ja?” I ask. “What about the—”
“You need to stop thinking about the human rejects.”
“I can’t.”
“Girl, what happened to those babies was not about whether or not they could be healed. We have a tradition. This is our way.”
“But Deh-ja and Ci-do were punished too—”
“Stop!” It takes a few seconds for her to still her frustration. Finally, she asks, “Do you remember the time Ci-teh ate honeycomb?”
Of course I do. We were around five years old. Ci-teh’s a-ba had brought back to the village honeycomb from a hive he’d found in the forest. He gave some to Ci-teh and me as a treat. One minute she was talking. The next minute she struggled to grab breath and her arms flailed in panic. The ruma appeared right away and began chanting over her. Then A-ma came running . . .
“You put something in her mouth.”
“If I’d waited for the nima to arrive and go into his trance—”
“You saved Ci-teh.”
“Saved?” Again she makes that bubble laughter. “The spirit priest performed the proper incantations, and the shaman brings power with him wherever he goes.” She kneels before me so we’re eye to eye. “It’s always better to let them take credit for a good outcome. Do you understand?”
I love my a-ma and I’m grateful she saved my friend, but I’m still struggling. I look around the grove and see not health and cures but superstition and traditions that hurt people.
“So,” A-ma says as she rises, “you’ll start coming here with me. I’ll teach you how to care for the trees and make medicines.”
I’m supposed to feel special—and I can see that the mother tree and this entire garden mean more to A-ma than her husband, sons, daughter, or grandchildren—but everything I’ve learned feels like a cut into my flesh with a dull knife.
“It’s time to go,” A-ma says. “Remember, Girl, no man can come here. No one should come here.”
“Not even Ci-teh?” I ask.
“Not even Ci-teh. Not even your sisters-in-law or nieces. This place is for the women in our bloodline alone. You to me to my mother to . . .” Her voice trails off. She glides her hand down the mother tree’s bumpy trunk. A gentle caress.
She’s as quiet on the way down the mountain as she was on the way up. I can tell from the stiffness in her shoulders and the heaviness of her silence that she’s supremely disappointed in me. I didn’t react to my inheritance with enough joy, awe, or gratitude. But how could I, really? A-ma may be the most important woman in our village, but every single man and boy is above her. I would be violating Akha Law to believe her over anything one of them said, and A-ba says this grove is cursed, filled with old trees no one wants and one tree that caused the death of his father. For whatever reason—whether it’s punishment against A-ma’s female line for bringing the grove into his family or he just thinks so lowly of me because I’m a girl—this is what he has provided as my dowry.
My final acceptance of this allows me to see my future very clearly. I’ll have to hope for true love to find a mate, because I’ve been given nothing of value to take into marriage apart from my poor embroidery skills, a worthless grove of ancient tea trees, and my face, which may not be pretty enough to overcome my other disadvantages. The entire way home, I think about what I can do to change my fate. We Akha are meant to roam, and right now I feel anxious to escape. I have enough sense to know, however, that I can’t go anywhere yet. I’m only a child, after all, and I wouldn’t last many days alone in the jungle. Teacher Zhang said, “You don’t have to stay on this mountain forever.” Maybe education can help with my flight, if only in my mind.