What About the Tree in Summer?

On the first day of the fifth month, Gu Qing went to the Chen house with a small empty bucket. She meant to leave the things Auntie Chen would need to water the tree, then discuss the thirty wen for six weeks of looking after it. As soon as Auntie Chen heard the dates, she said she’d be away for ten days in the middle. Her daughter was close to giving birth, and she’d promised long ago to go to her. Now that the Gu household really was leaving, she still meant to make her own trip.

Gu Qing set the bucket down with a soft clunk. Her first feeling was disappointment, as if a stretch of road she'd just smoothed out had lost a section again. Then she remembered Auntie Chen had been talking about the trip since the beginning of the year. Gu Qing had simply assumed that because she saw her by the well every day, she would always be there. She asked when she'd be leaving. Auntie Chen said from the twentieth through the twenty-ninth of the fifth month, just when Gu Qing and her grandmother might be waiting for the flowers in Nanpu.

“Sister Ma is coming over twice to air cloth for me on those days. You could ask her,” Auntie Chen said. “Ask her yourself. My agreeing doesn't mean she will.”

Sister Ma lived at the other end of Huai Alley. She usually delivered meals to two workshops and had a small handcart; she was busy in the mornings but free after noon. When Gu Qing arrived, she was washing a large food basin, dried dough clinging to its rim, her hands too full to greet her. Gu Qing rolled up her sleeves and helped hold the basin steady. Sister Ma said she could not tell whether a tree was doing well. She could only water it as instructed, check the channels, and lock the gate. If she had to guarantee that not a leaf would suffer, she would not dare take any amount of money.

Gu Qing said she didn’t expect a guarantee and would try it with water herself first. They went back to the courtyard together. When Shen Su heard who was taking over, her first question was who would be able to lift the well cover while Auntie Chen was away. Sister Ma moved it then and there, set it where it wouldn’t trip anyone, and drew a bucket of water as the old woman asked. She was strong and ended up pouring too fast, sending up a ring of mud. Shen Su raised a hand to stop her, and Gu Qing hurried to find a ladle, reluctant to embarrass Sister Ma and afraid that if she said nothing it would happen every time.

“I've poured too fast myself.” She held up the dipper for Sister Ma to see. “Go slowly around this half circle. It doesn't have to be a bucket every day. If the soil is still damp, use less.”

Sister Ma nodded and said that in that case they could put a little piece of pale wood in the planter as a marker and feel the soil each time. Shen Su wouldn't let her stick it into the old roots. The three of them went over that little patch of dirt in more detail than they'd ever discussed who the tree belonged to. In the end they left the marker out and put a little of the same soil in an old shallow pot by the door. It would help them judge how dry or wet conditions were, but they still had to feel the topsoil next to the tree first. The pot could only tell them so much about the roots.

Gu Qing asked Qiu Shen to take another look. The gardener said how much to water depended on the weather over the past several days. In hot weather they should avoid watering at noon, and the occasional bug on a leaf hardly called for slathering it with whatever remedy came to hand. He showed the three of them the holes in the new shoots, then snipped off a short stretch of weak branch where the insects had gathered, leaving the main shoot untouched. Shen Su immediately wanted to keep the leaf. Gu Qing slipped it between sheets of old paper for her without asking how the woman who had once divided up the plum tree had come to save even a bug-eaten leaf.

The tree care was divided simply. Six weeks came to thirty cash, twenty for Auntie Chen's time and ten for the ten days Sister Ma would take over. They would each get half upfront and the balance when the time was up. If grandmother and granddaughter stayed away longer, they would pay separately for the extra days. Saying they were away on a journey gave them no claim on anyone's time indefinitely. Auntie Chen said the price would stand even if they came home before six weeks. Once she had agreed to the work, she would turn down anything that clashed with it. Gu Qing agreed. She took the thirty cash out of the travel reserve she had set aside separately from the working money at home and wrapped it in two little packets. Fifteen went to the first payment. She left the other fifteen with Auntie Chen to divide as agreed when the time came, so nobody would have to wait for her return to get the second half.

When the money changed hands, Shen Su glanced over and nodded gently. The two of them had included this expense in the original twelve hundred, so the eleven hundred and seventy left after paying thirty was exactly what they’d counted on. Gu Qing crossed the words “tend the tree” off her list again. The three hundred for the household was still there, and she hadn’t touched that bundle. When Sister Ma took the money, she said she was being paid to look after a living thing. She hadn’t bought the tree. If any leaves did go bad, she’d tell the Wen family first and see what to do from there. There was no need to wait for the two of them to come home so everyone could apologize together.

When Gu Qing heard the words “make amends,” she realized that her face must always carry that look of making things more serious than they needed to be. She laughed and agreed. Inside the door she left a note in large characters, with just the day the care would change hands, the stretch of the old drain to watch, and a reminder to hold off watering if the soil was damp. She left most of the gardener's finer points out, so nobody would grow more alarmed the longer they read. She knew few characters but wrote the note herself, showing Shen Su the ones she had botched. The old woman picked out one like a chicken's claw and asked whether it meant tree or hand. Gu Qing traced it again and found that either reading still looked much the same.

Auntie Chen asked if she could move the silk plum spray beneath the window farther inside when it rained. Gu Qing thought for a moment before realizing that the key she had given her would get her through the door, but she had yet to explain which things in the room could be moved. She had never liked other people touching her flower designs and kept her fabric drawers tightly shut, so she hesitated at the question. Seeing this, Auntie Chen said outright that if everything had to stay where it was, she would just shut the window when it rained and leave the worktable alone. She had no time to guess about every little thing.

Gu Qing took her inside, put the paper templates most vulnerable to damp in a wooden box, and left the shallow dishes and old silk plum spray by the window where they could be moved. If water splashed in, she told her, just push them in half a foot. There was no need to arrange everything again. Shen Su pointed to her bamboo blind. On fine days it could stay partly up, so the old bed behind it could get some air. Sister Ma stood waiting outside and asked if the quilt on the bed would need airing. No, the old woman said, they weren't asking the two of them to live their lives for them all over again for six weeks. Auntie Chen laughed and said hearing that up front took half the weight off her mind.

Gu Qing opened the door and shut it again. Standing outside, she imagined someone coming in who didn’t know her habits and suddenly saw all the obstacles she usually thought of as conveniently placed: the thread basket on the floor, the raised board behind the door, the little stool by the well that she never put away between uses. She moved them aside one by one, leaving a narrow path someone could walk safely down and sparing herself a show of tidiness for visitors. Auntie Chen walked through carrying a bucket, and nothing rattled underfoot. Only then did Gu Qing hand her the spare key.

The Wen household also needed to know that other people would be coming and going in the courtyard. After hearing them out, Xu Tan asked them to use the Gu family’s own door and keep their buckets out of the open courtyard while customers were arriving to see samples. If they needed to look at the branch tips on the Wen side, A-Chun would open the little gate in the afternoon. Sister Ma was to leave the crates where they were and wait for him instead of moving one herself to stand on. Gu Qing almost said that they were there to look after the tree, not to inspect the goods. Then she remembered that the trunk really was on the Wen side. Tending the tree gave her no grounds to treat the warehouse as her own backyard, so she went over the route again with Sister Ma.

A-Chun took them to see the gate latch and showed them which end to open it from. He was wearing a new hemp finger guard. The boy could now count half the stock himself and had more to do than carry water for people. Shen Su remarked on how tall he had grown. He bent over with a smile and asked when Granny would be back, so he could look forward to the Nanpu rice cakes she would bring. Gu Qing said the cakes went hard when they cooled. He said he knew and was just saying it. When Shen Su took it seriously and meant to remember, A-Chun hurriedly waved his hand. His family sent them up as well, he said. She needn't carry an extra bundle.

That night the old woman still got up to look at the tree once more. Gu Qing heard the door and threw on a robe to follow her. The two of them stood by the well. The leaves had grown thicker, and the shadows the moon cast through them were softer than the outlines of the winter branches. Shen Su asked who would remember to water the tree if it got hot and dry in the summer. This time Gu Qing went over each detail with her, the day Sister Ma would take over from Auntie Chen, how much they had already paid, and when Xu Tan had agreed to open the gate. The old woman heard her out, looked at the tree a little longer, then went back inside.

She left her purse in the travel bag. The next morning she wrapped the little box with the gray lotus even more securely and laid it beside the bedding roll. Gu Qing saw this and finally felt the tightness in her chest ease. They had saved the tree, and Grandmother was still free to go. She could leave home and still care about what she left behind. The old woman would go on asking, and when she was done asking, she would tuck another pair of soft shoes into the bag.

On the fifth, Auntie Chen came to try locking the door. She put the spare key in the lock and the bolt jammed. The Gus' doorframe swelled a little after rain, so the bolt wouldn't line up unless the door was lifted half an inch. Gu Qing always gave it a lift without thinking. Auntie Chen pulled differently and almost bent the key trying to turn it. Zhou Jiping happened to come by with the bamboo braces, so Gu Qing asked him to shave away a little of the swollen wood and paid him two cash. Then she had them each try it once, and the key turned smoothly at last.

After trying the key, Sister Ma tied it inside her waistband so it would not knock against the bronze hook on her cart. She asked whether she could leave word with Granny Liu if grandmother and granddaughter were out when she returned. Gu Qing nodded and gave Granny Liu a rough account of her plans. At the mention of Nanpu, the bean seller asked her to bring back a pinch of good seed beans if she saw any, then immediately withdrew the request so Gu Qing would not have to carry a chore of hers on the trip. Gu Qing laughed at how quickly she changed her mind, but remembered the thoughtfulness all the same.

On the seventh, Gu Qing cleared the ditch one last time, with Auntie Chen at the lower end and Sister Ma standing midway to catch what came down. The water was shallow, but the three took the same places as before and checked it one stretch at a time. Shen Su sat by the door and thought about lending a hand, then grew lazy in the sun and shelled a little bowl of fresh beans while she waited for them to come back. When the beans were cooked, they each had a little. No one gave back her pay on account of the bowl of beans.

At dusk, the tree’s shadow spread across the stones. Gu Qing put away the empty paper that had held the remaining cash. When Grandmother first asked who would water the tree in summer, all Gu Qing could think was “we’ll see when the time comes.” Now that answer had become two keys, thirty cash, and a route they had walked together. Shen Su wiped the old scissors clean and gave them to her to put in the sewing box that would stay behind. The little pair they had set aside for the journey would do. The old scissors would wait at home to trim dead threads when they returned. A long journey was no reason to replace everything.