The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(97)
The men are done by noon. We celebrate by sacrificing a pig, so the entire village—whether they are of Ci-teh’s faction or mine—can share a banquet. Only on the next morning are we women allowed to visit the new gate.
But this will not be our only security measure. Jin and I drive to Laobanzhang to see what the people there are now doing to protect the authenticity of their teas. The headman shows us guard gates and tells us that three years of future harvests will be confiscated if someone is found selling counterfeits. So, in addition to our traditional spirit gate, the men of Spring Well install an electronic gate with a sentry post so that every vehicle that arrives can be inspected to make sure that passengers are not carrying in “outside tea” and every vehicle leaving is inspected to make sure that no outside tea has been fraudulently wrapped with our label. Every cake we process is also packaged with a newly required protection ticket, proving where it came from and what it is.
* * *
After two months, all the tea has been processed. Tea Master Sun returns home. I hire Teacher Zhang to run the business and oversee things when I’m away. He promises to write to Mrs. Chang. Jin, his mother, Deh-ja, and I must go back to Guangzhou so my husband can resume his business without the inconvenience of distance, I can test if the teas we’ve made are as good as I think they are in my new shop, which I’ll open upon my arrival, and Deh-ja and my mother-in-law can fight over who can fret over me more.
Following what has become an unspoken tradition, A-ma and I visit my grove on my last day on Nannuo Mountain. As A-ma picks among the parasites on the mother tree to make her remedies, she has me scrape the yellow threads from the bark into a tiny container. When we’re done, we wander through the grove and I confess to her my wish.
“I’d like to come home to have my baby,” I say. “I want you to deliver it.”
She doesn’t take a moment to consider. “I must say no.”
“Because it’s taboo?” I ask. “You brought Yan-yeh into the world.”
“It’s not that. I’m honored that you’ve asked me, but all outside people go to a hospital or clinic to have their babies.”
“I’m not an outside person—”
“I don’t want you to go to just any hospital. I’ve discussed it with your husband, and he’s promised to take you to America to have my grandson.”
“What about the taboo of not visiting another village or else I might have a miscarriage there?”
“You’ve already traveled a lot with the baby inside you.”
“But Spring Well is my childhood home, and I want you to deliver—”
“Girl, you need to have your baby in America for two reasons. First, so you’ll be near Yan-yeh. Maybe in her heart she’ll learn she has a brother. And second, to give your son American citizenship. Anyone who can afford it, does it. Even I know that.”
“Will you come with us?”
The silver charms and coins on A-ma’s headdress tinkle and twitter as she shakes her head. “I need to stay here in case someone gets sick. And a baby is due to arrive soon in Shelter Shadow Village. I could never let that bride go through delivery with just her mother-in-law to help her.”
Later, A-ma gives me things to take to the American hospital in case they don’t have proper medications: monkey callus for the doctor to rub on my back if the labor settles there, pangolin shell to massage my stomach to help contract my womb after the birth, the filings off a bear’s paw in case I bleed badly, and a special weed to put between my legs after the delivery to heal up my “end.”
“If your baby gets an eye infection, squeeze a little of your breast milk into his eye,” she advises. “Do they have malaria over there? You already know the treatment, but I made a weak poultice for a newborn, just in case.”
* * *
The opening of my new shop goes splendidly well. Within days, my three tea men are back too. It’s wonderful to see them again, and they banter with me about the size of my belly and which of their names I will choose to name my baby. (Sweetly funny.) Obviously this wasn’t the best time to start a new business, but so many people are relying on me and tea picking and selling follows its own schedule. So, just two weeks after saying goodbye to A-ma in our grove, I leave the care of my shop in the hands of my mother-in-law. The next day, Jin, Deh-ja, and I take a flight to California.
One week later, on the morning of May 15 in the Western calendar, I go into labor. When we arrive at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Jin fills out the paperwork and I’m wheeled to a labor room. Deh-ja promised A-ma not to leave my side, but within minutes she’s out in the hallway arguing with Jin, who promised me not to leave my side. “If a husband sees his wife give birth, he may die from it!” I hear Deh-ja squealing like an irate sow. My husband’s voice comes through the walls low, calm, and insistent. In the end, they both stay with me. I’m glad for their company and support, but this is so far from Akha tradition that together we vow never to tell A-ma.
The hospital staff is patient with us, but how can anyone argue with Jin and win? “If my wife says she needs to drink hot water to help the baby come out,” he tells the nurse, “then get her some hot water.” “If after the birth my wife needs to have a shell rubbed on her abdomen,” he tells the doctor, “then this is what will happen.” But when Deh-ja lays out a piece of indigo cloth on the side table and places a knife, some string, and an egg on it, Jin pulls out his wallet and tries to palm money into the doctor’s hand.