Red Poppies

HighBridge Audio

Excerpt

1
Wild Thrushes
It snowed that morning. I was in bed when I heard wild thrushes
singing outside my window. Mother was washing up in a brass basin,
panting softly as she immersed her fair, slender hands in warm milk, as
if keeping them lovely were a wearisome chore. She flicked her finger
against the edge of the basin, sending tiny ripples skittering across
the surface of the milk and a loud rap echoing through the room.
Then she sent for the maid, Sangye Dolma.
Acknowledging the summons, Sangye Dolma walked in carrying another
brass basin. She placed the milk basin on the floor, and Mother called
out softly, "Come here, Dordor."
A puppy yelped its way out from under a cupboard. It rolled around on
the floor and wagged its tail at its mistress before burying its head
in the basin and lapping up the milk, nearly choking on it. The
chieftain"s wife, that is, my mother, loved the sound of someone
choking on the little bit of love she dispensed. Amid the noise of the
puppy greedily lapping up the milk, she rinsed her hands in fresh water
and told Dolma to check on me, to see if I was awake. I"d had a low-
grade fever the day before, so Mother had slept in my room.
"Ah-ma," I said, "I"m awake."
She came up and felt my forehead with her wet hand. "The fever"s gone,"
she said.
Then she left my bedside to examine her fair hands, which could no
longer hide the signs of aging. She inspected them every time she
completed her morning grooming. Now that she"d finished, she
scrutinized those hands, which were looking older by the day, and
waited to hear the sound of the maid dumping the water onto the ground.
This waiting was always accompanied by fearful anxiety. The cascading
water splashing on the flagstones four stories below made her quaver,
since it produced the shuddering sensation of a body splattering on the
hard ground.
But today, a thick blanket of snow swallowed up the sound.
Still, she shuddered at the moment that the splash should have sounded,
and I heard a soft muttering from Dolma"s lovely mouth: "It"s not the
mistress hitting the ground."
"What did you say?" I asked.
Mother asked me, "What did the little tramp say?"
"She said she has a bellyache."
"Do you really?" Mother asked her.
I answered for her. "It"s okay now."
Mother opened a jar and scooped out a dab of lotion with her pinkie to
rub on the back of her hand. Then another pinkie brought out lotion for
the other hand. A spicy, pungent odor spread through the room. The
lotion was made of marmot oil and lard, mixed with mysterious Indian
aromatic oils presented to her by the monastery. The chieftain"s wife
had a natural talent for looking disgusted. She displayed one of those
looks now, and said, "This stuff actually smells terrible."
Sangye Dolma offered up an exquisite box containing a jade bracelet for
her mistress"s left arm and an ivory bracelet for the right. Mother put
on the bracelets and twirled them around her wrists. "I"ve lost more
weight. "
The maid said, "Yes. "
"Is that all you know how to say?"
"Yes, Mistress. "
I assumed the chieftain"s wife would slap her, as others might do, but
she didn"t. Still, fear turned the maid"s face red.
After the chieftain"s wife started downstairs for breakfast, Dolma
stood by my bed and listened to the descending steps of her mistress.
Then she stuck her hand under my bedding and pinched me savagely. "When
did I say I had a bellyache? When did I ever have one of those?"
"You didn"t, "I said. "But you"d like to fling the water with even more
force next time."
That stopped her. I puffed up my cheek, which meant she had to kiss me.
"Don"t you dare tell the mistress, "she said, as my hands slipped under
her clothes and grabbed her breasts, a pair of frightened little
rabbits. A passionate quiver erupted somewhere deep inside me, or maybe
only in my head. Dolma freed herself from my hands and repeated, "Don"t
you dare tell the mistress."
That morning, for the first time in my life, I experienced the
tantalizing sensation of pleasure from a woman"s body.
Sangye Dolma cursed, "Idiot!"
Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I asked her, "Tell me the truth, who"s the real
id ——idiot?"
"I mean it, a perfect idiot. "
Then, without helping me dress, she walked off after giving me a nice
red welt on my arm, like a bird"s peck. The pain was absolutely new and
electrifying.
Snow sparkled brightly outside the window, where the family servants"
brats were whooping it up, throwing rocks at thrushes. But I was still
in bed, wrapped snugly in a bearskin quilt and layers of silk,
listening to the maid"s footsteps echo down the long hallway.
Apparently, she had no intention of coming back to wait on me, so I
kicked off the quilt and screamed.
Within the territory governed by Chieftain Maichi, everybody knew that
the son born to the chieftain"s second woman was an idiot.
That idiot was me.
Except for my mother, just about everybody liked me the way I was. If
I"d been born smart, I might have long since departed this world for
the Yellow Springs instead of sitting here and thinking wild thoughts
over a cup of tea. The chieftain"s first wife had taken ill and died.
My mother was bought by a fur and medicinal herb merchant as a gift to
the chieftain, who got drunk and then got her pregnant. So I might as
well be happy going through life as an idiot.
Still, within the vast area of our estate, there wasn"t a single person
who didn"t know me. That"s because I was the chieftain"s son. If you
don"t believe me, become a slave or the brilliant son of a commoner and
see if people know who you are.
I am an idiot.
My father was a chieftain ordained by the Chinese emperor to govern
tens of thousands of people.
So if the maid didn"t come to help me dress, I"d scream for her.
Anytime servants were late in responding, I"d send my silk coverlets
cascading to the floor like water. Those Chinese silks, which came from
far beyond the mountains, are much slicker than you might think. Since
earliest childhood, I never understood why the land of the Chinese was
not only the source of our much needed silk, tea, and salt, but also
the source of power for chieftain clans. Someone once told me that it
was because of weather. I said, "Oh, because of weather. "But deep
down I was thinking, Maybe so, but weather can"t be the only reason. If
so, why didn"t the weather change me into something else? As far as I
know, every place has weather. There"s fog, and the wind blows. When
the wind is hot, the snow becomes rain. Then the wind turns cold, and
the rain freezes into snow. Weather causes changes in everything. You
stare wide-eyed at something, and just when it"s about to change into
something else, you have to blink. And in that instant, everything...