The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(23)

“Should I continue?”

I take a breath and nod. Slowly, slowly, he moves back and forth. The startling pain is gone, but I don’t feel anything close to the urgency I felt before. San-pa does though, and he picks up his rhythm—just as I’ve seen all those male animals do. When he’s done, he falls onto on his back next to me, hiding the hot thing under his tunic before I get a chance to see it.

“Next time it will be better,” he says. “I promise.” He kisses me and smooths my skirt down my legs. “Will you stay the night with me?”

When I nod, he wraps his arms around me, pulling me to his chest. I close my eyes and listen to his heartbeat.



* * *



“I was an unmarried girl too . . . once,” A-ma comments when I arrive home the next morning. “Just remember today is a day of ceremonial abstinence for the entire village. That means—”

“I know what it means,” I retort. What I’m thinking, though, is that my sore parts will have a chance to heal.

“You were supposed to be different with your school and your plans—”

“None of that has changed.”

She doesn’t believe me. “You’re no different than any other girl on this mountain. Stupid with love.” She sighs and goes back to her grain grinding.

It may be a day of ceremonial abstinence—the requirement that we must be careful with our arms and legs has new meaning to me—but San-pa and I go to the forest anyway. “Just to talk,” he says. We return to the spot where we did the intercourse. We sit, and he tells me how he’s loved me since he first saw me at the tea collection center. He couldn’t say anything to make me happier, and he couldn’t do anything to make me happier than when he reaches into his pocket and gives me the eye of a peacock feather.

“For your headdress,” he says.

“How did you get it?” I ask.

He juts his chin. “It’s enough for you to know that I found something that might bring you joy.”

Our future is clear. Now that he’s given me a gift, all that’s left is for his parents to send emissaries to ask my a-ma and a-ba if he can take me to his village in marriage. We’ll graduate . . . Go to university . . . Join the market economy . . .



* * *



The following week, I’m surprised to discover Teacher Zhang in the school yard during lunch. Rumors travel fast, and I suspect he’s come to congratulate me. I’m wrong.

“Are you sure marriage to this boy is what you want?” he asks. “You’ve worked so hard.”

I try to be polite. “You’ve been my greatest teacher.”

“What about the gaokao?”

“San-pa and I will take it together.”

Teacher Zhang shakes his head sadly. “You know he’ll never be invited to take the test, and even if by some miracle he is invited, he’ll never pass, while you have a future. You could be the first on this mountain to go to Ethnic Normal College, or maybe even Yunnan University.”

“You’re wrong about San-pa—”

“If you marry him, tradition will weigh on you,” he insists. “Your families will want you to stay home, have babies, and heal like your mother.”

He hears what he’s saying as a threat, but San-pa will never let those things happen.

“Tell me you won’t stop studying,” he persists.

“I won’t stop studying,” I promise. “I’ll take the test even if San-pa doesn’t.”

Teacher Zhang nods his head three times very sharply, and then shifts his shoulders within his jacket. With that, he leaves, going back to the primary school for his afternoon class.

I look around the yard for San-pa. I spot him sitting on a wall with some other boys, their legs dangling. I realize he’s watched my exchange with Teacher Zhang, but he doesn’t cross the yard to ask me about it.



* * *



I still love my family and do my chores obediently. And I still cherish Ci-teh but reveal little to her of the dreams of the life I’ll have with San-pa. Ci-teh, perhaps sensing this new and growing space between us, finds excuses for us to leave the village—“We’re going to gather firewood. We’ll be back soon”—so I can open my heart to her without fear of others eavesdropping. I understand her desire, because we’ve always shared everything. But even as Ci-teh wants to hear every detail, I find myself hoarding them, speaking insignificantly about my emotions and skirting her questions by asking if her father has received any proposals since the Swing Festival. (Her family is once again the richest on the mountain, having recovered from the setback caused by the sacrifices required to absolve and cleanse them of human rejects. As a result, Ci-teh will go into marriage with many gifts.) She tells me about this and that boy, but it doesn’t make me any more forthcoming.

My evasions must hurt her feelings, because she strikes out at me by saying, “People say San-pa still visits other girls in their villages’ Flower Rooms.”

“I don’t believe it,” I tell her, and I don’t.

When she hints at names and places, I can come to only one conclusion.

“Are you jealous?” I ask.

She gives me a haughty look. “Of what?”