The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

  “For Li-yan, the arrival of the human rejects caused her to begin looking beyond our spirit gate to the outside world,” he says, and I see how clever he is to allot a portion of responsibility to me. “For Ci-teh—”

  “We lost our wealth, our reputation, and my brother,” Ci-teh finishes somberly.

  “Which caused you to work hard to regain your family’s prosperity and position. You’ve even been able to bring your brother—if not all the way back into village life—closer to you.” He stamps his staff. “Let us now, as a village, chase away the evil spirits who have haunted these two women. Release them! Be gone! Be gone forever!” He pauses before adding, “We will now practice ceremonial abstinence.”

  Once the routine requirements might have settled things, but this hasn’t been a simple matter of someone touching the spirit gate or a dog climbing onto a roof.

  Someone yells, “What about my land? Will Ci-teh sell it back to me?”

  The suggestion jags through the crowd.

  “That might work for you,” another farmer shouts, “but I can’t return money I’ve already spent.”

  “Shouldn’t Ci-teh be banished?” another man calls out.

  Then a person from Ci-teh’s faction lets his views be known. “Why should she go? I leased my land to her. Why can’t I work for her and grow coffee?”

  “Make the outsider leave! Look at her. She’s not a true Akha.”

  Several click-clicks of tongues reveal support for this last suggestion.

  “If a woman marries out, does that mean she’s no longer Akha?” the ruma asks. “In the past, when our men traveled the Tea Horse Road for months or years, were they no longer Akha? If Li-yan wishes to stay among us, she’s welcome. As for Ci-teh . . . She’s not a human reject. She’s not a murderer. I cannot banish her. She has her own home outside the protection of our spirit gate. Let her continue to live there. Those who want to do business with her know that good and bad spirits are watching.”

  None of this absolves Ci-teh, and it’s clear she could easily rile the crowd again. Instead, she straightens her back and begins threading her way through the crowd, stopping here and there to speak to her supporters. Knowing the effect the birth of the twins had on me, I feel empathy for her and the losses her family endured as a result. I even grudgingly admire the desire that ignited in her when we were girls to help her family. But as she walks away, I know the two of us will never again be friends.

  * * *

  Having exposed Ci-teh, I feel I need to be more present in the village. I want to help the people of Spring Well regain pride in our tea trees, help revitalize the Pu’er business, and stabilize and bring back the money everyone has come to rely on. Fortunately, Jin agrees. During the following weeks, as the monsoon season continues and little can be done for the trees themselves, I go from household to household trying to build trust, while Jin makes business calls on his cellphone and occasionally meets associates in Menghai or Jinghong. At night, we sleep in an abandoned newlywed hut. It’s not the time of year to build a house, but the ruma and Jin begin to seek a proper date for construction. On the appointed day, men go into the forest to cut bamboo. We women gather thatch and fashion bamboo lashing. Our new house—minus the modern conveniences Jin promises he’ll provide eventually—is completed by lunchtime. We move in that afternoon. That night I dream of water. Two weeks later, I wake up sick to my stomach. I’ve come to a head.

  Jin is delighted. He calls his mother, and I can hear her joy through the line. A-ma’s smile is open and wide. She says, “It took you this long to figure it out? The sisters-in-law and I could tell a half cycle ago.” Her words sound matter-of-fact, but her happiness radiates like the sun on a spring morning.

  And this is what I’ve wanted. This is what will make our lives complete, but the worries my condition stirs up are troublesome. What if I have a girl?

  “I don’t need a son,” Jin reassures me. “You don’t need to do that for me.”

  But he doesn’t understand that every Akha wishes for a son first, followed by a girl, followed by a boy, followed by a girl. It’s how we keep balance in the world. I had a daughter; now I must have a son.

  Teacher Zhang inadvertently adds to my anxieties when he and two old women from the Family Planning Office at the tea collection center visit Spring Well to paste posters on the sides of buildings, marking the launch of a new campaign seeking to address “the dark side of the miracle” of the One Child policy. “China already has a huge surplus of men over women, and that number is expanding by about one million each year,” Teacher Zhang announces. Each poster has a different slogan, all bearing the same core message: Daughters constitute the next generation. Men and women build a harmonious society together. Nature will decide the sex of the newborn. Giving birth to a girl is the will of nature. The villagers don’t remove the posters, because all the slogans are in accordance with Akha Law. Then my three eleven-year-old nieces come home with memorized sayings, which they recite with alarming frequency.

  “Care for girls. Support the girl class.”

  “Protect girl children. Benefit the state, the people, and families.”

  “To care for today’s girls is to show concern for the future of China.”

  All this should make me want to have a girl, but the more I’m encouraged to give birth to one, the more apprehensive I become.

  Let it be a son.

  * * *

  In October, five months after the confrontation with Ci-teh, Jin and I feel comfortable enough to go back to Guangzhou so he can take care of business and I can visit the tea market to research what it would take to open a new shop. We have to pass through Menghai to get to the airport in Jinghong, so, as promised, Jin and I stop at the Social Welfare Institute. The rains should be over, but today they’ve reappeared. A beggar woman sits under a makeshift shelter on the steps of the orphanage . . . in this weather, with no one about. I wonder if she’s the same person I saw sleeping under the cardboard sheets when we drove through Menghai on our way to Spring Well. Jin splits off, drops a few coins in her cup, and bounds up the steps to catch up to me as I enter the institute.

  As soon as the door closes behind us, I’m overcome by the smell of urine, which seems exponentially multiplied by the day’s warmth and humidity. Toddlers scurry across the floor in walkers, foundlings squirm in metal cribs, and older children—most with physical or mental disorders—linger at the edges. One child—a boy—sits crumpled in a heap against a wall, his atrophied legs like broken twigs beneath him. Although leftover New Year’s couplets and other decorations festoon the walls, the room, while clean, lacks toys or books. Three women, wearing matching pink smocks and kerchiefs, hang diapers on a clothesline strung from ceiling hooks. One of the women leaves her chore when she sees us. As she wipes her hands on her smock, my a-ma’s bracelet slides into view. It’s Director Zhou. The room begins to swim.

  “Welcome to Menghai’s Social Welfare Institute. Do you drink tea? Have you eaten yet?” she asks politely.

  We’re shown to a sitting room with two overstuffed couches upholstered in faded fabric. Antimacassars cover the armrests and drape over each head position. The other two caretakers bring tea and a platter of sliced watermelon and lychees. The tea is poured, adding more heat and dampness to the chamber. Once everything is served, the two women join us, ready to be part of the conversation.

  “Are you looking to adopt a boy or a girl?” Director Zhou inquires. “Many Chinese couples are adopting now, because they don’t want our children to leave the home country. Most want a boy, but all of ours have special needs. We are told they are the ‘rubbish of society.’ ” She sighs. “If you can only have one child, you want it to be perfect. For birth parents and adoptive parents alike, no? I can offer many choices for girls. Do you want a newborn or one who can already do chores and care for herself?”

  “We’re here on a different matter,” I say. As I recite the facts, Director Zhou nods slowly in recognition. The car
dboard box was not unique—many babies probably arrive similarly—but the tea cake was. More important, San-pa and I were the only parents brave enough—or foolish enough—to come here to track down an illegally abandoned daughter.

  “None of us have forgotten that day,” the director concedes. “I should have called Public Security to come and arrest you. Then you fainted. I am not without heart.”

  The two other caretakers exchange furtive glances as the director pushes A-ma’s bracelet into her sleeve with her unadorned hand. This isn’t like last time, though. I have Jin with me, and he takes over. Sure, the women cover their mouths and tip their heads as if in deep contemplation over the ethical dilemma, but the cash he holds in his hand is too great a temptation.

  “We were told she was sent to Hao Lai Wu—Hollywood,” the youngest one blurts.

  Hollywood? I grip the armrests.

  “Have you been there?” she asks.

  I nod, unwilling to give away anything more.

  All the women, including Director Zhou, brighten. Does everyone own a car? Do all the women paint their nails? Then the questions become more sinister.

  “Is it true that Americans adopt our girls so they can raise them until they’re old enough to have their organs harvested?”

  “Or do they adopt our girls purely for sex?”

  “That’s government propaganda,” Jin chides. “You shouldn’t repeat such things.”

  “Are you sure she’s in Hollywood?” I ask.

  “Everyone wants to go to Hollywood!” the youngest caretaker exclaims.

  “She knows not one thing about it,” Director Zhou says gruffly, drawing attention—and the offered bribe—back to her. She waits as Jin counts out bills and lays them in a stack on the table. When she’s satisfied, she says, “I told you last time that the baby was sent to Kunming. From there she went to Los Angeles. Somewhere in the Los Angeles prefecture,” she clarifies. “We like to think it was Hollywood.”

  Los Angeles isn’t a prefecture, but the city is huge, and really, that could mean Yan-yeh’s anywhere from Venice Beach to San Gabriel, from Woodland Hills to . . . I don’t know. Disneyland?

  “Will you show us the file?” Jin asks.

  The director locates it easily and hands it to me. The folder contains a photograph—showing an infant a few days old with her head wrapped in an indigo cap decorated with silver charms—a footprint in red ink, and a single sheet of paper, which outlines the basics of Yan-yeh’s arrival at the institute. These three items constitute the only tangible proof of my daughter’s existence.

  “Shouldn’t there be more?” I ask, running a finger over the photograph.

  The director smiles at me sympathetically. “One of the photos and the rest of the paperwork went with your daughter to the Social Welfare Institute in Kunming for identification purposes, but a fire seven years ago destroyed their records. You could visit the new facility to see if anyone remembers something, but babies are sent to them from all over the province for foreign adoption. I don’t see how they’ll remember one out of so many.”

  So no easy answers or traceable clues. Still, I now know where my daughter is—if this information is accurate, and if she and her parents have never moved. How could my daughter be in Los Angeles, of all places, and I haven’t been looking for her every moment? I begin to cry. The ladies are kind, patting me on the back, cooing, pouring more tea. The director even offers to return Jin’s money, saying, “We don’t often see the suffering of mothers here. We only see the babies.”

  She gives me the photo and the footprint, then the three women escort us to the front door. Babies wail in their cribs. The toddlers in their walkers push their way toward us. The older children seek our eyes, hopeless, knowing we haven’t come for them. The director puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. The ridge of A-ma’s bracelet presses into my flesh.

  “I would help you if I could,” she says.

  Through my tears, I ask, “If I can’t have my daughter, is there something I can do for the other children?”

  “Oh, no. We’re fine. We’re given everything we need.”

  “Maybe . . .” I try to think big. “What about a washing machine and a dryer?”

  “We could never accept such generosity,” she says, but she’s just being Chinese-polite.

  So our flights back to Guangzhou will be put off another day. We open our umbrellas and step out into the rain. The beggar woman, who’s been here all this time, waves to Jin to approach. He gave her money earlier, but he reaches into his pocket again and begins to move laterally over the steps to her. It hurts enough to see beggars in Guangzhou and the homeless in Los Angeles, but to encounter one in my prefecture? We grew up living on the land. If we caught or found food, we ate it. If we had nothing, we ate nothing. But the idea that one of us would beg?

  “Sir, please come a little closer,” the woman entreats in broken Mandarin. “Let me show you something. I’ve been waiting for the right buyers. You and your wife look like people of fine standing. I know there are collectors from afar who will pay good money . . .”

  I only had to hear the first few words to recognize the voice, and they catch me like a spring trap. It’s Deh-ja. The irrevocable loss I feel about my daughter followed by this chance encounter with Deh-ja, again, feel as humbling and cleansing as a tidal wave. For a moment I can’t move, because it’s all so hard to take in. When I saw her on San-pa’s and my way to Thailand, she was barely surviving, but this is different. Deh-ja—an Akha—has become a beggar. Unheard of. I sweep in a deep breath to steady myself and then walk to my husband’s side, where Deh-ja—filthy, nearly toothless, and as brown and wrinkled as a salted plum—holds out her most special possession for sale: her wedding headdress.

  She doesn’t recognize me until I speak. That’s how much I’ve changed.

  “Fate sent you in one direction,” she says, showing no embarrassment about her circumstances. “Destiny sent me in another. Now, would you like to buy this headdress? I think you remember it.”

  “Of course I remember it, but I’m not going to buy it. You’re coming with us.”

  Jin raises his eyebrows, clearly surprised.

  “No coincidence, no story,” I recite before going on to explain. “Deh-ja once lived in Spring Well. She and I have been together at our worst moments.” I pause to look in her eyes. “We’ve also bumped into each other in the most unlikely places. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

  The next two hours should be filled with the sad tale of Deh-ja living as a hermit in the jungle for many years before traversing mountain trails—always alone—back to Xishuangbanna prefecture. Instead, a cacophony of laughter and hoots of surprise stream out of Deh-ja as she experiences her first shower, her first flush toilet, her first restaurant meal, her first television program, her first mattress, her first air-conditioning, her first nightgown, and her first use of electricity, flipping on and off the bedside lamp.

  “Why are you doing this for me?” she asks as I sit next to her on the bed, holding her hand, trying to assure her about sleeping inside a room with four solid walls for the first time in her life.

  “Maybe it’s not for you. Maybe it’s for me. Tomorrow, we’re going home—”

  “To Spring Well Village? I can’t go there!”

  “We’re going to Guangzhou—”

  “Sun and Moon! Not possible!”

  “As Akha, we’re linked in one long chain of life. Do you still believe in the malevolence of spirits and the power of our ancestors to overcome them?” I ask.

  Of course she does.

  “We were both on those steps today,” I continue. “We don’t have to know why. All we have to do is accept that our spirit ancestors must want us to be together. Akha Law tells us never to ignore portents or coincidences.”

  The following morning, Deh-ja gets her first experience in a car as the driver takes us to Jinghong to buy the appliances. Terror turns her face as white as a phantom. I keep reminding h
er that we can stop if she needs to be sick. The appliances cost barely three hundred dollars—a modest amount for us, but a washer and dryer will change the quality of everyone’s lives at the Social Welfare Institute. Not wanting to take any chances, we follow the truck back to Menghai and watch as the items are hooked up and proven to work. The three caretakers smile through their tears. The older kids shoulder in, wanting to get a closer look. The toddlers surround Deh-ja with their walkers, and her laughter is as light and clear as water tumbling over rocks in a stream.

  It’s close to 4:00 when Jin gives the installer a tip and sends him on his way. Director Zhou offers more tea and a meal. Now that she sees we’ve adopted a beggar, she expects us to take a child with us too. When I tell her I’m carrying a baby, she exclaims, “Wonderful news! Later, when you want him to have a little sister, you’ll know where to come.” She walks us to the door, takes my hand, and transfers something into it. A-ma’s dragon bracelet. “You have a big and generous heart,” the director says. “I’m sorry for your sorrows and for whatever part I may have had in them, but we’re required by the government to do our jobs.”

  The weight of the silver on my wrist soothes my spirit, as though I’m setting things right.

  * * *

  Although Guangzhou is shockingly large by any measure, Deh-ja barely notices because she’s so busy taking care of me. The phrase we Akha use for pregnancy is “one living under another,” meaning a wife lives under her husband and won’t be able to run away. But really, Jin and I are both living under Deh-ja. She’s so bossy! We don’t have a cat, but she reminds Jin at least once a day not to strike or kick one or else our baby will act like a cat when it comes into the world. She forbids Jin to climb trees, which would cause our baby to quake with fear and cry endlessly. (But Jin isn’t likely to climb a tree any time soon.) When I reach five months, she bans him from cutting his hair. But she saves her strictest admonitions for me for even the most minor things. “You were raised to walk at an angle when you carry a baby,” Deh-ja scolds, “so your belly will be less prominent.” I’m careful about that, but it’s hard when so many mothers-to-be walk around Guangzhou in tight T-shirts and leggings, proudly announcing to the world the imminent arrival of their one child.