The Lotus Leaves Have Yet to Unfurl

On the seventeenth day of the fifth month, the first sound of Nanpu came from a load of fish. A man with a carrying pole tipped the live fish into a wooden tub, and their tails slapped the water, splashing Gu Qing's shoes. She had just brought the luggage ashore and hadn't yet had a good look at the city she'd heard about so often when someone in the crowd pushed her back a step. Shen Su stood at the landing holding a post, the pale brown flower on her hat turned inward by the wind. No one seemed to think they had traveled six days for this moment.

There were a few inns along the river by Nanpu's east warehouse. Gu Qing had asked about prices, and the ones near the landing cost half as much again as at Ludu. She took her grandmother into the first place she had liked. The room had a window, but it looked onto the back lane where they unloaded fish. The floorboards were damp, and at night the water from washing the tubs ran past outside. The old woman sat on the edge of the bed and said nothing against it, but she kept shifting her right leg, unable to find a position where she could rest it straight and steady.

Gu Qing set down the rolled bedding and pictured herself finally getting two good nights’ sleep. She told herself it was only a little damp and almost believed it. When the innkeeper heard they had come for the lotus marsh, he shook his head. The spring had been cold, he said, and the blooms were still sparse. That stretch of water to the east was mostly leaves, and anyone who knew when to come would wait until the end of the month. Gu Qing’s hand stopped on the bag strap. Surely there would be one or two half-open flowers? The innkeeper said he wasn’t a lotus himself. How was he supposed to speak for the flowers across several li of water?

It wasn't a polite answer, and Gu Qing felt her face grow hot. She went out along the river to ask about a cart. The driver said it was twenty-four li one way and even if she hurried over today, she'd have to stay there, as the dirt road still hadn't dried all the way. When she asked whether the flowers had opened, three people gave her three answers. One said they'd opened ages ago, one said another ten days, and one said it depended on the south wind. She brought back the fishy smell and dust of the landing in place of any word about the flowers.

Shen Su was lifting the damp quilt to air it. Gu Qing sat on the stool and suddenly said that if there really were no flowers, they might as well rest for a night and go home, and spare themselves the wait. She regretted saying it as soon as she spoke, but let it stand. What she had feared most all these days was that the flowers wouldn't have opened. Now that they really hadn't, it felt as though she could fold up her worry into one sure disappointment and hurry back somewhere familiar.

Her grandmother lowered the corner of the quilt and asked whose money she was trying to save. Gu Qing said both of theirs, and that she also worried the old woman was uncomfortable staying here. Shen Su felt the edge of the bed and said it was indeed uncomfortable here, so they should first move somewhere else. As for waiting, she herself was willing to wait a few days. Gu Qing did not owe her a flower that she had to deliver today. At the last sentence, her nostrils stirred slightly, as though she too were holding back disappointment at not having seen the flowers.

They moved out that same day, paid a little for leaving their luggage there and using the fire, and had no argument with the innkeeper. The new place was in a little lane half a li from the landing. Just inside the door was a skinny potted pomegranate tree that hadn't yet flowered, with a guest's socks hanging on its branches to dry. The innkeeper, Pang Yun, was about forty and was slicing dried radish. When they asked whether she had a bed low enough for a person to put her feet on the floor, she pointed inside with the back of the knife and let them see for themselves.

The room was plain, and the window looked out on an old whitewashed wall. The bed stood level, the lamp stand was steady, and there was a bamboo chair beside it. Shen Su sat in the chair first, slowly stretched out her right leg, and nodded. Gu Qing felt the bed boards to make sure they were dry before putting their bag down. The two of them could stay for ten cash a night. There were set hours for hot water, and a call wouldn't get another fire lit. Pang Yun made the terms clear, which put Gu Qing more at ease.

Pang Yun told them how the water at Heze had been lately. Her child's in-laws sold vegetables there, and when they came by yesterday, they'd seen just one blossom poking its head up. There was no broad sweep of flowers yet. She made no effort to persuade her guests to stay and turned to greet two men coming in. Whoever stayed paid, and the distance the women had traveled earned them no guarantees. After hearing her out, Shen Su counted forty cash from her own pouch and said they would stay four nights to begin with and see how things went. She kept the rest of her eighty cash in the pouch.

Gu Qing offered to pay for her, but the old woman held down her purse. “I chose this time.” So Gu Qing put the forty down as part of their shared traveling expenses and kept it separate from the extra eighty in personal money. The coins had changed hands, and the waiting no longer fell on Gu Qing alone. She went upstairs, took the pale brown flower off the side of the hat, and smoothed back the petal the wind had disarranged, her hands a little less tense than when they had first stepped off the boat.

On the morning of the eighteenth, Gu Qing woke thinking she was still on the boat. The bed was steady, but she heard a child calling out like a steamed bun seller. Pang Yun’s nephew was helping her deliver breakfast. He sounded like someone on a stage and broke into laughter after three calls. Shen Su lay under the quilt listening, her eyes crinkled with laughter. Gu Qing meant to get up and ask again whether the lotuses had started blooming, but the old woman held her back. The boy was bound to get it right on the fourth try, she said. They ought to hear him out.

That morning they went no farther than the little lanes. Shen Su wanted to see a place that sold bamboo combs. She was there to ask whether local people carved the designs and had no plans to buy one. The comb carver thought her questions too particular and barely answered at first. When he heard that she was a craftswoman herself, he showed her a comb he had cut wrong. Two lines had veered into each other, so he had turned them into ripples. Standing beside them, Gu Qing felt for the first time that she could let her grandmother have a chat without turning it into a sale for her.

They ate the kind of rice cake Achun had told them about. The skin really was thin, soft while hot and hard as soon as it cooled. Shen Su insisted on eating slowly. By the last bite it was cold, and she complained that it was hard but couldn't bear to throw it away. Gu Qing helped her finish half the bite. It made her jaw ache, and they looked at each other and laughed, saying they mustn't tell Achun when they got back how much they had suffered for his treat. They took no cakes home with them, remembering only that little bit of fragrance when the cakes were fresh from the pan.

A brief rain fell on the nineteenth, and Grandmother's knees hurt again. For a moment Gu Qing felt it was all her fault for choosing the wrong weather. She wanted to slip out and ask about flowers while the old woman slept, but at the door she saw the umbrella dripping in the corner and left it there. She sat beneath the eaves watching the rain. Water gathered on a broken tile and fell directly onto the rim of the pomegranate pot, washing the bird carved into it bright.

Pang Yun sat down nearby to mend the door curtain, whose old edges were thoroughly frayed. Seeing the flower on Shen Su's hat, she asked whether they had made it themselves, and whether two coarse-cloth flowers could be made from the trimmed-off curtain edges. She wanted to put them beside the wooden trays in the hall used to register guests' meals, so people could recognize which trays were reserved for those staying upstairs. Gu Qing said coarse cloth would not lie obediently like silk, but broad shapes were possible. Pang Yun selected the two strongest pieces for her, without asking her to contribute her own material.

When the two flowers were finished, Pang Yun said they could cover one night's lodging. If they stayed longer, she would deduct it from the next night and would not ask them to make more. Shen Su sat beside them sorting gray-green thread. Gu Qing cut according to her simple lotus design but did not pack the centers too full. The flowers were neither fragrant nor real, yet stood out clearly beside the old wooden trays. Sure enough, an upstairs guest recognized his meal tray as soon as he saw them. Satisfied, Pang Yun turned to calculate someone else's porridge bill. Gu Qing put away her needle case and did not keep making flowers the next day to save another night's rent.

After the rain stopped, Shen Su refused to go back to sleep and told Gu Qing to go for a walk up the street on her own. Pang Yun was right downstairs, she said. There was no need for both of them to sit watching over one knee. Gu Qing hesitated for a moment, then went out. She took neither flower samples nor the ruler she used to buy fabric. Only when she stopped at a stall selling hair ribbons did she realize she had no idea how to look at colors she didn't need to reckon up right away. The stallkeeper handed her a pale apricot ribbon and said young women looked good in brighter colors. She checked the price, looked at the ribbon again, and couldn't help smiling.

She bought it for three wen, though it was hardly the thing she needed most just then. On her way back she took the long way by the water and adjusted the ribbon in the reflection of a dark window. Her face was the same one she had worn making flowers in Yunjin, yet it was as if someone had lifted her chin a little after she’d held it down for so long. She stood there a while longer, wondering if Grandmother might be waiting for water. She started to go, then stopped and let the river breeze blow the end of the ribbon onto her shoulder.

Back at the guesthouse, Shen Su was listening to Pang Yun tell how her nephew had delivered a guest’s shoes to the wrong floor. Laughter drifted through the half-closed door. Gu Qing heard it and felt a small, familiar emptiness, but no longer wished someone inside would be worrying first. She pushed the door open and went in. The old woman noticed her new hair ribbon at once, first praising its color, then complaining that she had tied it too tightly and telling her to bend her head so she could loosen it. Gu Qing refused, determined to keep the knot she had tied herself. She lifted her face and dodged away laughing, the ribbon ends brushing her grandmother’s outstretched hand.

The twentieth was clear. Word came from Pang Yun's in-laws that a few blossoms were open in the middle of the waters at Heze. If the next two days stayed fine, they could still see them, though they shouldn't expect a whole pond full of red. This time Gu Qing went to ask about Grandmother's knee before hiring a cart. The old woman tried getting up and walking to the door, then said she wanted another day of rest and would go on the twenty-second. Neither of them knew whether those few flowers would wait. Gu Qing tapped the doorframe once and finally said all right.

On the twenty-first, they extended their stay by one night at the same rate, using the two cloth flowers to cover that night's ten copper coins and paying nothing further. The forty they'd already paid covered the first four nights exactly. They spent the day sitting by the river, watching people on a short bridge. A man carrying lotus roots on a shoulder pole stopped in the middle of the bridge to rest his load. People on this side shouted for him to make way. He shifted half a step to one side and sat down again, drawing a round of laughter and curses. Shen Su said afterward that if she sold lotus roots, she'd need a rest too. Gu Qing asked if everyone on the bridge would have to learn to go as slowly as she did. The old woman said nothing, but her eyes lit up as if she'd finally found a companion nobody could hurry.

At dusk, Gu Qing put the water and light umbrella they would need tomorrow by the door. They took Grandmother’s gray lotus out of its box. It had been pressed a little crooked on the boat and its pointed tips were uneven, but the old woman still wanted to wear it. Gu Qing pinned it to the back of her hat and stepped away to look, as Sister Ji had once done for Shen Su. The old woman asked if it was straight. Gu Qing said it was a little crooked, but that was the hat. Shen Su raised a hand to straighten it. Laughing, Gu Qing told her to leave it. A little crooked and people would still know who she was.