The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(38)
Social Welfare Institute
No. 6, Middle Nanhai Road
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture
Yunnan province, China
Report on Baby Girl #78
Today a baby girl foundling was delivered into our care by Street Cleaners Lin and Hu. They report they did not see a mother, father, or any other person of interest. They are fully aware of the penalties for lying and have been honest in similar past situations.
Baby Girl #78 arrived with part of her umbilical cord still attached. It looks four to six days dried. From this, I am giving her a birth date of November 24, 1995. Baby Girl #78 weighs 2.77 kilograms and is 47 centimeters in length. She has black hair. She does not have a birthmark or other identifying marks.
As required, we have cataloged and stored her possessions, except for a cardboard box, which I sent to the kitchen to be used for vegetable storage:
1 cake of tea, 1 blanket, 1 shirt, 1 pair leggings, and 1 cap with charms. These items will remain with the child.
The charms on the hat and the indigo coloring of the handwoven blanket and clothing suggest that the child was born of an ethnic minority woman.
Two photographs and a footprint of Baby Girl #78 were taken during intake and will be added to her file.
Signed,
Director Zhou Shue-ling
SHREDDED OUT OF EXISTENCE
The next three months are terrible. In the beginning, my breasts turn as hard as rocks with the arrival of my milk, and my insides continue to leak red tears. Even after the physical discomforts pass, I ache for my lost baby. Waves of grief wash through me—sometimes with such cruel force that my eyes pool beyond my control. When A-ma sees me thus, she pinches the exposed back of my neck or snaps at me to do my chores more carefully, all to help me gather myself in front of the rest of my family. A-ba, noticing I’m more subdued, decides I’m ready for marriage: “It’s time for you to start contributing to the increase of people,” he declares.
In the fourth month, Mr. Huang and his son return. Mr. Huang looks the same; the boy looks completely different, with a full head of hair instead of a shaved dome. A-ba shows off his new hand-operated rolling machine, for which he traded his best crossbow. “Now we can process an entire kilo in a half hour!” he boasts.
Mr. Huang shakes his head. “Nothing mechanical can touch our leaves.”
A-ba, his shoulders slumped, puts his machine under the house with the pigs and chickens; the stranger hires me again; and his son follows A-ma nearly everywhere she goes. Xian-rong has retained the Akha words he learned last spring and now picks up even more. Tea Master Wu arrives from Yiwu to supervise the killing of the green, kneading, drying, and sorting. He watches every step of the artificial fermentation process too. We happily take Mr. Huang’s money, and he gets to act like a big man. Beneficent.
After three months, we know that the fermentation results are far better than those from last year. Once the cakes are made, Mr. Huang arranges for them to be transported off Nannuo Mountain and out of the country for storage and aging in Hong Kong.
“But I’m still missing my favorite leaves.” Mr. Huang needles me at the end of his trip. “How much will you make me pay for them this year? Double? Triple? This time, will you take me to your grove? I’d like to see how you care for your trees.”
I’m about to go to pick leaves when A-ma stops me. She seems to have a magical sense when it comes to our trees. “The grove is special to our family. It is special to you. Never let an outsider have it. Never let a man see it.”
“I would never take him there, but if I sell him some of my leaves, San-pa and I will be able to—”
“San-pa,” she nearly shouts. “He’s never coming back! And even if he does, do you think we would allow you to leave with him? Where would you go? What would you do?”
I have answers to her stinging questions: He is coming back, they can’t stop me from leaving with him when I’ve walked to Menghai and back alone, we would go wherever he wants. We could start a life in his family’s newlywed hut or go to a whole new village, as he once suggested. But why bother trying to turn a monkey into a goat? A-ma will not change her mind about Mr. Huang or San-pa: “Stay away from that tea man. And forget about San-pa.”
But the temptation and my dreams are too great. I climb the mountain and fill a basket with unfurling leaves from the very tips of each branch of the mother tree. I tell myself these are not the best leaves. Those would have come in the first ten days of tea-picking season, but Mr. Huang buys them, paying me even more than he did last year. Once again, we visit the faraway village so I can process the tea in secret.
One day later, A-ma goes to the grove and discovers what I’ve done. I wish she would shout at me, but that’s not the Akha Way. Instead, she punishes me with quiet words. “Was it worth it? Did it make that boy return for you? It’s been more than a year. You sold your greatest gift. You sold your honor.”
In my shame and despair, I finally accept he’s never coming back. Anguish nearly destroys me. I’m like a leaf that’s fallen from its home branch and now spirals down, down, down, floating out over a cliff, buffeted by winds, shredded out of existence.
A-ma stops asking me to accompany her on healing visits. The sisters-in-law, following A-ma’s example, pretend I no longer exist. My brothers ignore my face swollen from so much crying. A-ba doesn’t even notice what’s happening to me. I feel too guilty to go to my grove for solace and solitude. I can’t talk to Ci-teh, because where would I start? And even if I could confide in her, she’s never around. These days she’s spending every free moment stealing love in the forest with Law-ba, the boy A-ma and A-ba once wanted me to marry. She’s turned into the type of girl she once accused me of being: one who discards the comforts of friendship to give her full attention to a boy.