A Road of One’s Own

The second day of the fourth month dawned clear, and Gu Qing called for a little donkey cart as arranged. The driver assumed they were going to the market in the south of town. When he heard they wanted to go out to Luwan on the outskirts just to try walking a stretch of plank walkway, he paused in surprise, then quoted a round-trip fare all the same. Shen Su came slowly out of the house with her light brown hat, saw Gu Qing laying three layers of quilts on the cart, and asked if she meant to take the bed along too.

Gu Qing said the boards were hard. Her grandmother pressed them with her hand and took off the top quilt. “With this one underneath me, my feet won't reach the boards. I'll be rocking even more.” Gu Qing still wanted to slip an old blanket back in, but the driver had already put down the step and was waiting with a hand on the shaft. She let her grandmother get on first, then folded the remaining quilts into a low cushion and tied it down all around with cloth straps to keep it from sliding.

Outside the west gate, the wheels rolled over a stretch of loose stones. Shen Su drew in a breath and pressed her right hand to her knee. Gu Qing immediately asked if she wanted to go back. The old woman raised her eyes to the gate and asked the driver to slow down, leaving the question unanswered. The ride usually took less than a quarter of an hour, but this time it took nearly half an hour. When Gu Qing paid, she watched the driver's face, expecting him to mind. He only said he would wait for them in the afternoon for the ride back, so there was no need to hurry at the bridge.

Luwan was still a long way from Jiangnan. At the water's edge there were only new reed tips and swaths of old yellow-brown stalks. No lotuses. Shen Su stood on the bank and caught her hat strap when the wind blew it up into her face, looking like someone out for the first time and doing her best to seem as if she'd seen it all before. Gu Qing saw the look on her face as she watched the water and let it pass. She went to ask about the passenger boats putting in that day.

The woman who ran the boat let them look into the cabin. It was low enough that they had to stoop through the doorway. The beds were just wide planks. They could add straw mats at night, a far cry from the heated brick bed at home. All the inconveniences caught Gu Qing’s eye first. There was the threshold, the walk around to the stern to use the latrine, the chance of lukewarm meals, and nowhere a bowl of water would sit steady when the boat rocked. She asked about them one by one until the woman stood up and said that if they couldn’t put up with all that, they should stay ashore and spare themselves quarreling halfway there.

Shen Su asked where on the boat she could lean her back, whether someone could hold a lamp when she went aft at night, and whether she could pay for a footrest. Seeing she had practical questions, the woman led her to an inner berth and let her sit a while. The old woman slowly straightened her legs and sat for several minutes. She was still stiff when she got up and needed Gu Qing's shoulder to steady herself. She gave the boat no praise for comfort, yet she was in no hurry to say they should go home.

After they came ashore, they walked toward the end of the pier. From there they could see the water at the bend. There was a bird on a nearby piling that Gu Qing couldn't name. Her grandmother picked up her pace as she watched it, but she hadn't gone half a li before slowing down, holding the rail, sweat beading on her forehead. Gu Qing offered to help her to the shelter at the head of the pier. She said she'd stand for a moment first, then sat down on an unoccupied stone.

The wind blew her white hair across her lips. The old woman tried to brush it away, but her fingers shook too much to clear it. Gu Qing had already taken out the water. When she saw her grandmother still rubbing her right knee, she finally asked, “What if it’s still like this when we get to Nanpu?”

“Then it’ll be like this there, too.” Shen Su caught her breath. “I never said I’d get a new pair of legs when we went south.”

Gu Qing said no more and crouched to secure the loose tie on her grandmother's shoe. She had imagined lotus leaves stretching to the horizon, and the old woman so happy she forgot her pain. She had never imagined that happiness and pain could remain together on the stone, neither diminished. Once the tie was fastened, she did not immediately pull her grandmother up. She sat beside her, palm against the sun-warmed stone.

A stall under the shelter sold hot water and wheat cakes. A clay kettle steamed on the stove, and Gu Qing bought two bowls. Shen Su reached for her own money. Gu Qing nearly put a hand out to stop her, then drew back and said only that she'd invited her out this time, so she'd pay for the water. Her grandmother agreed, but when a seller of green plums passed, she called out herself and bought three. She picked the smallest and handed it over. Gu Qing took it and screwed up her face at the sourness, to Shen Su's wide delight.

They rested on the stone long enough for a drink, then went all the way to the end. The bird had long since flown off. The post stood empty, and the water kept beating against it in waves. Gu Qing said that if she’d known, they should have walked faster earlier. Shen Su shook her head. “It never said it would wait for me.” Then she laughed, thinking she sounded like an old woman who liked to show off her worldly wisdom in front of others. She couldn’t help taking another look at the empty post.

The cart for the return journey was parked some distance from the bridge, so they had farther to walk. At first Gu Qing wanted the driver to bring it closer, but he said the mud ahead was soft and it would only be more trouble if the cart got stuck. She looked at her grandmother and then at the short stretch of road, and asked whether she could walk it. Shen Su said she could if they went slowly. Gu Qing stopped looking into the distance and calculating over and over. She carried her grandmother’s hat for her, and halfway there let her stop and lean against a tree.

Her grandmother’s knee did hurt more on the day they came home, and that night she had to hold on to the edge of the bed to stand. Gu Qing heated water, wrapped a warm stone in cloth, and tested it before placing it beside the knee. Leaning against the bed, Shen Su said she had simply walked too much that day. The carts were still an option, and so was the trip. She spoke as though afraid Gu Qing would make the decision based on this one night, but Gu Qing spoke first. “We'll stay in tomorrow. We'll see the day after. For a long journey, we need to allow more days to stop and rest.”

For two days the old woman made no flowers, and Gu Qing let her rest without expecting her to make up the work the next day. Gu Qing settled the colors for Luo Yi's next batch on her own, and Xiaoman brought the rough stems as agreed. Xiaoman asked if the bridge was pretty. Gu Qing said there was nothing remarkable, just a stretch of water and a bare wooden post, though getting there was quite an effort. Grandmother heard from the inner room and put in that there had been three very sour plums and Gu Qing hadn't left a single one.

On the fifth, Gu Qing went to the southern wharf to ask about fares again, no longer merely asking the cost of a round trip for two. She asked whether they could stop for a day at Shixian, how the original fare would be calculated if they took the next boat, how far the cheaper cabin was from the stern, and whether there were proper railings at night. The boatman said traveling in stages cost more than going straight through, and an inside berth was not always available. She crossed out the cheapest row, kept several acceptable options, and established that they would lodge ashore if no boat came within a day or two.

She had been to two boat operators and had come home with a range of answers. Five or six days downstream, seven to nine upstream, and longer in bad weather. There were wayside inns where the boats stopped, though they varied in cleanliness and some would let you use the stove while others would not. She told Grandmother all this, and the old woman picked a berth with something close at hand to hold on to when she got up in the night. She could miss a view of the bank or two. It was worth paying to keep her from stepping into thin air in the dark.

As Gu Qing asked her questions, she mentioned what had happened to her father on a freight boat years ago, and her voice dropped. She seldom brought it up, for fear of upsetting her grandmother and for fear that she'd never dare go near the water herself. Shen Su said they were taking a passenger boat this time. They should look at what it carried and where it went as it stood, without fitting the old calamity into every boat they saw. The old woman handed her the hot water, their fingers touching briefly. She offered no assurance that a clear conscience would keep them safe.

Using the width of the narrow part of the cabin, Gu Qing laid out a model with rope on the floor at home, put down a bench, and asked her grandmother to try sitting with her back to the wall. After a while Shen Su said her feet were dangling and she needed something to rest them on. Gu Qing fetched an old wooden box, which was too high, and tried a small brick, which was too low. In the end she took a layer of boards off the box lid. Once her feet rested firmly on it, her lower back no longer felt unsupported. The thick rolled quilt by the window, meant to hold their luggage, would also have to be half as bulky as she'd imagined, or there'd be nowhere to put their legs.

As they went on trying things out, they turned half the room into a boat with no water. Auntie Chen came in, stepped over the rope on the floor, and asked which end was the shore. Shen Su held up her bowl and said she would have to pay the fare before she could have a drink. Auntie Chen actually tossed a coin, and Gu Qing caught it in her palm. After laughing, they sat on the bench again and measured how much room they needed to turn over at night. When Shen Su reached for the corner of the table, Gu Qing noted on the paper that there had to be something to grab on that side in the dark. A laugh and a single trial couldn't settle everything. When they took up the rope, it left a faint line of dust on the floor, but the shortened wooden box under the old woman’s feet stayed. Gu Qing hammered the exposed nail points flat, wrapped both corners in cloth, and had her grandmother step on it once more before putting it with the things they would take.

Toward evening on the sixth, they walked nearly half a li beyond the city gate again. This time they hired no cart. They stopped by a willow and Grandmother sat down while Gu Qing borrowed a little stool from a nearby shop, promising to return it before they went home. The wind was warmer than it had been that day in Luwan. The old woman loosened her knee wrap by half a turn herself. Gu Qing wanted to tie it tight again, but seeing her stretch out her leg to exercise it, she waited with the stool in her arms.

At dinner that night, Shen Su set her purse on the table and let Gu Qing feel how heavy it was, keeping the contents inside. It would be hers to spend when they went away, she said, and she wasn't hiding it to keep it from the household. Gu Qing felt the string of coins through the cloth and thought of all the times she'd felt the whole burden was on her shoulders. She pushed the purse back and said they'd each keep their money safe for now and bring it out together on the day they counted up the travel funds.

On the seventh, Luo Yi came to inspect the second batch of ten flowers. Gu Qing lifted the lid. The bud green was a little paler than on the first batch, and she had already tested it to make sure the dye wouldn’t run. She had also altered the short tip behind the clasp as planned. Luo Yi looked them over, took them away, and paid two hundred wen. Gu Qing set aside Xiaoman’s work sample and the money for the next batch of materials before putting what was left into the travel bag. She didn’t regret the extra cart fare to Luwan, though she made a separate note of the extra hot water they’d bought that night and the time they’d spent resting the next day. When she looked back, Grandmother was sitting behind the little bamboo blind in her flowered hat, running her fingers along the brim until she found the hidden clasp. She undid it herself and fastened it again.