A Fire Borrowed in the Courtyard

Early on the tenth, Asui looked for the stove opening on the wrong side when she went to light the fire. The opening in the little room was on the left, while the one in the country had faced right. She crouched down, touched a stick of kindling to the wall, and laughed before noticing that the mat Xu Shen slept on was already rolled up. Her son was washing his face in the courtyard, splashing the water so softly he might have been afraid of making someone regret renting them the room before the day had even begun.

She called to him to have something hot before he left. Xu Shen poked his head in to look at the stove and said there wasn't time. They had timber to cut at the shop. He set a little cloth bundle beside the sewing basket, with a few flatbreads left over from what he'd bought, and topped up the water from yesterday. Asui had been about to say she could fetch water herself. Seeing that he'd put a clean cloth over the back of his hand, she held it back and asked only if he'd be home at noon.

“I'll see when the work's done,” he said.

It gave her no time to expect him, though he hadn't said he wouldn't come. A-Sui let the words hang in her ear like a long thread laid ready for a needle she hadn't chosen. Xu Shen left the courtyard. Huangdou took two steps after him, was stopped by the low board, sniffed at a gap, and went back to lie at her feet. The dog hadn't barked this time, and A-Sui thought she'd soothed it well. She wanted to open the door and let it lie in the sun for a little while, but then she heard the child from the front room coming out and stayed where she was.

The big pot was on the shared stove in the courtyard. When she went to fetch it, she found a basin of soaking rice already on the stovetop and a fire burning below. Fang Guiniang came back from the rice mill and said the water in the pot was for scalding the rice sieve, so she should not put any rice in it. Asui hurriedly moved her own little pot to the other opening, but a dripping wooden basin was already sitting there. She walked all the way around the stove before realizing that in town, having the rooms closer together did nothing to make more room on the stove.

Du Yin came out of the east room carrying two thick garments. She looked younger than she had the day before. Her bun was loosely pinned and there was a bit of thread by her ear, perhaps left there because she hadn't had time to pick it off the night before. She took the wooden basin away, saying her water was barely warm and she could wait. A-Sui thanked her, set her pot in place, and praised her for being so industrious, but her eyes went to the different cuffs on the two garments, one a man's and one a woman's.

“I'm washing them for customers,” Du Yin said.

Asui gave a little hum, as though she had known all along, and asked whether Du Yin had much family. Du Yin shook out the folds of a sleeve with a wooden peg and said her father lived in the back quarter and she took in work here, each keeping their own table. Asui could not tell from this whether she had a husband, so she went to scoop out the rice. When the water boiled, she put in an extra half scoop on purpose, saying that since she had borrowed the fire, they might as well have breakfast together.

Du Yin was about to decline, her sleeves still dripping, but Asui had already filled a bowl. She hung up the clothes and sat on the stool by her own door, taking care to steady the bowl. She stayed outside Asui’s room. Asui thought she was afraid of the dog and hurried to say Huangdou had been very quiet the night before, even when she herself got up. Du Yin nodded, took a sip, and praised the pickled radish for its crunch. It was as if another box had been opened in Asui. She began telling her which kinds of radish kept well up in the mountains.

The porridge was nearly gone when the talk finally came around to Xu Shen. He never knew what it was to be tired when he was working. With a plane in his hands, he couldn't hear a word anyone said. A few years back he'd even had a fever and said nothing. Asui only found out he was ill when the master at the Ren shop sent word. As she went on, it struck her that she was listing nothing but her son's virtues, so she added that he could be stubborn at times, just like his father.

Du Yin scraped a few grains of rice from the edge of her bowl with her spoon and asked whether Xu Shen was still making the pharmacy door that day. Asui looked up at once and said yes. He always made sturdy doors of that size. She had yet to see it herself, but her voice was quite certain. Du Yin said she knew he was good with his hands. He had repaired her father’s bookshelf a couple of years earlier. With that she washed her bowl and took it back to her doorway, leaving Asui’s invitation to talk about how likable Xu Shen was unanswered.

Asui felt a little let down, then thought how well Du Yin knew where to stop, and liked her all the more for it. She asked whether the family of a young woman like her ever pressed her to marry. The bowl in Du Yin’s hand struck the rim of the basin with a light, clear clink. She wiped it dry with a cloth and said they had, but then everyone had got busy with their own affairs and let it drop. Asui was about to ask why they had let it drop when Du Yin got up to peg out the washing. The wet cloth spread open and cut off the rest of the question in the wind.

It was not until the afternoon that Asui discovered she was out of rice. The little half bag she had brought with her would have lasted two days in the mountains, but she had cooked an extra pot the night before and added another bowl that morning, and only a few grains remained at the bottom. She turned the bag over and patted it, raising a ring of fine dust. To think her new life could be held up by something so small. Her son had not come back and no one in the courtyard was idle. Unwilling to go knocking on doors with questions when she had only just arrived, she went inside to look through her sewing basket first.

There was no rice in the sewing basket either. She sat under the south window and listened to the repeated clatter of the grain measure outside. She knew the rice shop was close, yet she felt a flicker of shyness she hadn't known for years. If a stranger asked how many sheng she wanted, she wasn't sure how many of her own wooden bowls made up one of the town's measures. If she counted the money wrong and they laughed, she'd still have to pass that doorway every day.

When Du Yin came back to take in the washing, she found Asui standing by the door with an empty cloth bag. Asui asked first which way the river was, then added a question about the rice shop, as though buying rice were just something she might do along the way. Du Yin glanced at the bag and picked up her purse, saying she happened to be running a little short herself, so they could go together. This time Asui did not demur. She locked her door. Huangdou nudged the wood with his nose from inside, and she called through the door that she would be back soon, that she was only going a little way.

The old rice shopkeeper was indeed hard of hearing. Asui spoke at her usual volume at first. He didn't catch what she'd said and pointed up at a measuring box, asking whether she wanted a dou. She quickly shook her head, and he asked whether she wanted millet or white rice. After a few more words at cross purposes, Du Yin laughed beside her, and Asui went red. At last she raised her voice and said to weigh out only what she could carry home. She didn't want a whole dou.

This time the shopkeeper heard every word. He glanced at her knees, switched to a smaller measure, and asked if that was enough. The rice fell with a soft rustle, and Asui suddenly felt at ease. There wasn't a roomful of people waiting to laugh at her, and nobody expected an old woman from the mountains to know everything. She still counted out her money slowly, and the shopkeeper simply waited with his hands tucked into his sleeves. When he heard Du Yin mention her father, he even asked whether the old book had been mended.

On the way back, Du Yin bought a bunch of greens and snapped off the outer leaves as she walked, her hands moving quickly. Asui offered to carry it, but Du Yin said it was light and handed her a short piece of stem instead to see if it was tender. Asui chewed it. It had a little bite, and she said town people were no better at choosing greens than people in the mountains. This time Du Yin really laughed and ate the other half of the stem herself.

They didn't get to the river. Asui's knees were already swelling by the time they reached the mouth of the lane. She didn't say she was tired. She just stopped and asked a seller of porcelain bowls why he displayed them all upside down. Du Yin took a look and went along with her, stopping to look over the bowls herself. She browsed awhile and bought nothing, and the shopkeeper rolled his eyes at both of them. Asui held back a laugh until they'd passed the shop, then whispered that thanks to Du Yin, she looked like someone who browsed other people's wares with no intention of buying.

Xu Shen came home late that evening. Asui had reheated the pot of porridge twice already. The rice had broken down into tiny flakes and a thick skin floated on top. He looked at the stove as soon as he came in and said she need not wait for him in future. His mother said she had only just eaten herself. Du Yin was passing the room and paused when she heard this, but did not say anything. Xu Shen did not know she had seen the empty rice bag at midday. He thought his mother seemed to have done well enough in town that day, so he picked up his bowl and began telling her about the shop.

When A-Sui heard that Ren Quan wanted to give him more jobs, she was so pleased she left her own small fear of walking out alone unmentioned. She praised Du Yin for knowing how to shop for vegetables and getting things done briskly, then ventured that it couldn't be easy to take on work all by herself. Xu Shen looked up and suddenly heard where the thread of the conversation was leading. “Mother,” he said. She pushed the plate of pickles toward him and told him to eat. She hadn't asked him to do a thing.

On the eleventh and twelfth, breakfast in the courtyard began to settle into a routine. Asui no longer laid claim to the big pot first, and Fang Guiniang moved her rice basin a little farther in. They hadn't talked through every inch of space. Each had simply found that if they kept moving things back and forth like the first day, neither of them would get any work done. Fang Xiao went to look at a red garment hanging up to dry by the east room, still giving the south room's door a wide berth. Asui didn't call her over to pet the dog again.

On the third evening, Huangdou heard a dog barking outside and sure enough barked back a few times. Asui hurried to press his head down. He did not understand and only barked more frantically. At a loss, she opened the inner window so he could smell the meal cooking in the front room through the lattice. The dog could find no sign of the one calling outside the courtyard. After a long bout of sniffing, the steam from the stove drew his attention away, and he slowly lay down.

Fang Guiniang came over, saw that the low board was still in place and the floor had been swept, and said they could keep the dog this way for the time being. They should stop thinking someone had to come out and smile apologetically every time he barked. Her voice was hardly warm, but Asui could hear that things were settled for now. Fang Xiao stood behind her aunt, looking from a distance at the white tuft on Huangdou’s head. She did not cry again, though she still would not step inside.

After everyone had gone, A-Sui spread a small piece of cloth under the dog. Someone outside called to Du Yin to finish up. She answered that she still had one corner left, and some time passed before she blew out her lamp. A-Sui thought of knocking again to ask whether she should make breakfast for them both. She reached out, then drew back and gathered up her own sack of rice first. At night the south window shed light on nothing, but she already knew which door to head for when she needed to buy rice. Knowing that was what she turned over several times before sleep, more than being called a good housekeeper during the day.