The Invitation Before the Dragon Boat Festival

On the day he finished the little case Du Yin had ordered, Xu Shen set it on the windowsill and opened and closed the lid more than twenty times. It had three compartments, two for thimbles and one for a rolled-up soft measuring tape. The hinged lid needed no tie and opened at a light touch. He carved no leaves, just sanded a shallow curve into the edge her hand would touch most often. After feeling it, he tested it with an old cloth. Only when no threads caught did he sweep away the shavings.

Du Yin came home late with a small bundle of silk from Shikou. As soon as she stepped into the lamplight she asked how much the box weighed. Xu Shen had thought she would first see how it had turned out. When she asked about the weight, he took it up in his palm and held it out to her. She put it in her travel bag, checked how much space it took, and smiled. It was just right, she said. Now she wouldn't have to worry about a thimble rolling into her shoe when she traveled.

She was going away, but Shikou was only a stop along the way. Mistress Lu’s elder sister needed a batch of spring shirts made in Yuchuan County and had asked two experienced hands to come for about ten days of work. They would eat and sleep at the client’s house and be paid by the piece. She was leaving on the twenty-sixth of the third month and meant to return on the sixth of the fourth. She would pass through Shikou and go another eighteen li northeast, about forty li from town in all.

Hearing her say eighteen li, Xu Shen laid his hand on the box lid and closed it for her. Du Yin asked if that compartment was too shallow. He said it was fine, then after a while asked whether she knew the family, how many people were going, and where they would stay at night. She answered each question. He went on to ask what they would do if it rained or if the people she was working for refused to pay.

“There are people who won't pay in town too,” she said. Xu Shen thought of the hundred and twenty cash he had owed and felt his face warm, though he still felt the two things were different. He took the box out of the bag and set it beside himself on the pretext of smoothing the edge of the lid a little more. Du Yin glanced at the box and made no move to take it back. That evening he returned it exactly as it was, without another word about when she was leaving.

The next day, Madam Lu came to the courtyard to deliver cloth just as Xu Shen was outside repairing a door pivot. She was telling Guiniang about the food in Yuchuan, how in spring they liked to put a certain green leaf in things made with flour, a leaf that tasted slightly bitter on the tip of the tongue and then left a sweet aftertaste. Xu Shen thought for a long while before breaking in to say that Du Yin had yet to finish altering her father's shoes, and her family probably needed her close by. He wondered whether Madam Lu could find an embroiderer with a little less to do.

Madam Lu was taken aback and asked whether this was what Du Yin herself wanted. Xu Shen said she hadn't said she wouldn't go. It was just what he thought. Madam Lu made no reply. She gathered up her cloth and went into the east room to find Du Yin. The voices inside were too low for Xu Shen to make out. Under his fingers, the door pivot he was whittling grew thinner and thinner. By the time he saw what he'd done, all he could do was set it aside and find a fresh piece of wood.

After lunch Du Yin came to the door of the south room. A-Sui recognized her footsteps and started to rise to offer her a seat, but Du Yin waved her back and said she had only come for Xu Shen. The two went out into the courtyard. She began by taking out the box and setting it by his hand with the fifteen cash they had agreed on, without asking why he had spoken for her. The coins hardly weighed a thing, yet as his hand dipped, he felt the wooden box was about to slip away.

“Did Uncle Du ask you to keep me here for him?” she asked. Xu Shen shook his head. She asked if she had ever told him she was afraid to go out. He shook his head again. Du Yin looked at him. There was little anger in her eyes, only a touch of weariness, as if she had spent several nights hurrying through fine needlework only to have to thread the needle again for the very last stitch.

He said he was just worried. She lifted the lid of the box and showed him the shallow curve along the edge. “Finish this and I’ll use it. If you think something bad will happen to me if I go, say that instead of saying my father can’t do without me.” Xu Shen’s throat tightened. He had meant to ask what she would do if something went wrong, but at last he heard what he was doing with those words, holding her back on account of a misfortune that hadn’t even happened.

Du Yin said her father had known for some time. The night before last he had even sent word asking whether she could bring back a bit of Yuchuan's fermenting starter. He hardly needed his daughter to stay and guard his boot. She took back the box, went to the east room, and closed the door without slamming it. That small sound, scarcely a sound at all, made Xu Shen feel worse than a scolding. He put the fifteen cash on the table and left it there all night.

A-Sui asked what had happened, and he said he'd spoken out of turn. His mother wanted to go to Du Yin's room and smooth things over, but he stopped her. The words had been his, he said, and there was no need for her to add to them. He still hadn't worked out how to put things right. He knew only that if he sent his mother over, Du Yin would find herself on the other side of more than a door. There would be layer upon layer of people convinced they knew what was good for her.

The next day he went to see Mistress Lu. Spring shirts were drying in the courtyard, their slender ties lifting in the wind like a flock of soft wings. Mistress Lu saw him but didn’t invite him in, so he stood by the door and told her he hadn’t been speaking for Du Yin the day before. The date of departure was whatever Du Yin herself confirmed. Mistress Lu looked at him for a while and said the work was already arranged. She had never intended to take a carpenter’s word that an embroiderer needed time off.

Xu Shen stood outside the courtyard and tried to smile, but could not. He asked whether someone should look over the road beforehand. She said the people going with Du Yin had already traveled it twice, so there was no need. On his way back he went around by Willow Well Lane. Du Ji was squatting in the doorway taking apart an old shoe. When Xu Shen mentioned his daughter, he said she could bring back the wine starter if she had room, but she should spare her fabric the weight of it. Xu Shen agreed and found he could think of nothing more fitting to say.

Zhang Rong, the embroiderer who was going with her, came to the courtyard first so they could look over the sample garments together. Her husband followed, carrying a long basket for cloth. He wanted to take a few things out of the basket, but Zhang Rong fished two pairs of her own thick socks out of his sleeve. He had tucked them in on the sly for fear her feet would get cold on the road. There was still wood ash on the soles. The two of them started laughing and scolding each other then and there. Zhang Rong shook off the ash, kept one pair, and told him to take the other home to wash.

Her husband asked what to do if the chickens wouldn't go into the coop at night. She told him to drive them in from the south wall as usual and to try to leave the neighbor's rooster out of it this time. He said he knew, then turned to ask Du Yin if she would see to it that his wife kept away from too much raw or cold food. Du Yin laughed and said she wanted some herself. At last he ran out of reminders, picked up the empty basket, and left. Only at the courtyard gate did he remember he was supposed to leave the basket behind and came back red-faced to return it. Xu Shen heard the laughter from inside and couldn't help laughing too. Then he took the large piece of flatbread he had meant to slip into Du Yin's bag and put it back on the table.

On the twenty-fifth, Du Yin set her travel bag out to air in the courtyard. Asui saw several thimbles wrapped in cloth and went over, meaning to say she should take more to eat even if her bag was already full. When she spoke, she told her to take her time on the road. Du Yin thanked her, then suddenly asked whether Asui always wanted to take everything in the house with her when she went away. Asui laughed and said that when she moved to town she had wanted to squeeze even the broken water dipper onto the cart.

Du Yin showed her the bag. It held only two changes of clothes, a small packet of needles and thread, and a wooden box. Asui saw the flexible measuring tape inside the box, its tip worn shiny. Suddenly the forty li the young woman was about to travel felt even farther than the eighteen li she herself had moved from the old house to town. She went inside and cut two slices of pickled radish and asked if Du Yin would take them. Du Yin said she would, but only a little. Salty food made her thirsty.

That evening, Du Yin was putting her thimbles away in the new box when a small one rolled to Xu Shen's feet. He picked it up and tried to put it on his finger, but it wouldn't go on however he tried, and they both laughed. He set it back in her palm. There was a tiny red mark where a fine needle had pricked her. He looked a moment too long, and Du Yin closed her hand and asked if he still needed to take measurements. His ears grew hot. He said he didn't, that he'd made the box to fit the thimble she'd already used. She looked down and opened the lid. Sure enough, it fit exactly. She didn't praise his skill again and simply put the one she used most into the easiest compartment to reach.

That evening Xu Shen set a walking stick beside the east room door. It was hardwood left over from repairing the stool. He'd only shaved off the splinters and hadn't taken it upon himself to carve a name. After setting it down, he picked it up again, knocked, and asked whether she could use it. Du Yin opened the door and tried the length. She said it was a little too long, so he cut it down to suit where her hand rested. The piece he cut off fell right between the toes of their shoes.

She took two steps with the stick, said it suited her, and asked how much it cost. He was about to say there was no charge. After a pause, he said it was an offcut he’d kept and that the work came to four cash. She took out the money, and he accepted it. Strangely, he felt less cold inside than when he had sold her the little box. He knew she could turn it down if she didn’t need it, and he no longer had to hide a gesture of affection in something she had no choice but to accept.

On the day she left, Xu Shen didn't rush to the city gate to see her off. He'd promised Mo Ying he'd fix the water-lifting frame that morning. One side had split, and if he put it off until afternoon, the bedding would have to wait another half day to be washed. As he worked in the yard, he heard Du Yin laughing and talking with the embroiderers going with her, and Fang Xiao asking if she could bring back a bird from Yuchuan. Du Yin said birds had wings of their own and wouldn't ride on her bundle.

Before she left, Du Yin stopped beside him and rested a hand on the new box. Could he wait until she came back, she asked, and go with her for noodles at that place by the river? Xu Shen looked up, nearly taking her words for a promise of some kind. It took him a moment to say yes. She added that there was no need to wait all the way until the Dragon Boat Festival. If she got back by the sixth, they could go on the seventh. If she was delayed on the road, they could talk when she got back.

He watched her go out the gate, holding the chisel in the air a moment before laying it aside. Asui sat by the window without saying whether this was a good thing. She pinched a length of new thread and took a long time to get it through the eye. When she looked up and saw her son still gazing outside, she told him the water stand needed to be a little higher. Mo Ying's bucket was bigger than hers.

In the afternoon he made sure the stand's feet were firm. Mo Ying brought a full bucket to try it, and the stand held without wobbling. She put down the bucket, let out a breath, and said that at last she wouldn't have to brace it with her knee. Xu Shen took the pay he was owed. Coming back to his room, he saw the east window half shut and a bit of blue thread on the sill. He picked it up and set it just inside Du Yin's threshold, where the wind wouldn't take it, instead of slipping it into his own bag.