对床

Fifth of April, 2039, a Tuesday, Qingming, six in the morning, Qingshen. It rained in the night and was still raining at dawn, fine rain on the flagstones of Bamboo Weavers' Street, soundless. My mother sat in the back room before the bamboo casket my uncle wove, a flower woven into its lid; inside, forty-three letters, 1996 to 2038, one a year, arriving before Qingming. She took them out one by one, looking at the dates, at her own hand: the early ones neat as a schoolgirl's, then faster and smaller, the last ones large again with old eyes. She read one aloud in Qingshen dialect: "Xiushan: little money this year, more next time. Go and see Mother's grave often." From her cloth bag, a new envelope: "To Xiushan. 2039." Written on the plane. She put it on top unopened. The forty-fourth. My uncle in the doorway: "What does it say?" "Read it." One line: "Xiushan: this year I came myself." He stood there a long time. My cousin, back from Chengdu overnight, sat on the threshold pulling plastic bags over his shoes against the mud. My uncle took the bow down from the back-room wall: “Forty-four years it’s hung there. Today’s the first time down.” He wrapped it to carry on his back; my mother carried the mallet inside her coat.

The grave is halfway up the hill outside town, in a bamboo grove. Rain dripped from the leaves down our necks; the path was slick; my uncle walked ahead with the bow on his back, stopping to wait. A low mound, a stone: "Tomb of our late mother Zhou Suzhen. Daughter Lin Xiufen; son Lin Xiushan. Erected October 1995." Beside it three clumps of young bamboo, left of the stone, right of it and behind, half a man high, leaves tender green and beaded with rain. "Last year you sent money to plant bamboo. The day Xiao Ke came we planted three; all three lived. I said by the time you came they'd be half a man high." On a stone beside the stele, a slim, fine-featured man in a blue cotton robe, a cloth over his knees against the rain, a book in hand, unread. "Su Zhe, styled Ziyou, of Meishan. My brother's first wife was from Qingshen. Qingshen women have good memories, know their own minds and say nothing." Sister and brother? Forty-four years; the first time here together. "My brother and I were together every day as boys; not one day apart." My uncle cleared the weeds and swept the slab; my aunt set down a bowl of tofu pudding and twice-cooked pork, the old way. Then he handed my mother a small pot of red paint and a brush: "This year, you trace it." She traced the great characters slowly, red and shining, rain beading and rolling off; then the small line: Daughter, Lin Xiufen. At her own name she stopped; the brush hung on the last character; red dripped onto the slab. Last year on the fifth edition's cover she wrote her name and traced it three times. In October 1995, when this stone was cut, she was in New Jersey, carrying me. She couldn't come back.

She traced it, and her brother's, and stood on numb legs. "The bow." She slung its strap over her shoulder, the bow hanging at her side, string outward, exactly as my grandmother stands at her shop door in the 1993 photograph. Mallet in her right hand, left on the bow's back, she looked at the new oxhide string, and struck. A deep, loud note rolled out from the string into the bamboo, and the raindrops on the leaves seemed to tremble with it. Again. The third time her hand stopped in the air, the mallet shaking. She crouched on the wet leaves, holding the bow, and wept aloud: not the airport's weeping for forty-five years apart, but the weeping that October forty-four years ago had no room for. "Mother, I came back late." Su Zhe beside me: "My brother and I, setting out to our posts east and west, read a line about lying in facing beds on a night of wind and rain, and promised to retire early, go home, face each other, listen to the rain. We never did. One year in Pengcheng we had a hundred days together; lying listening to the night rain I rejoiced, thinking the old promise kept; then remembered we were adrift far from home. Those two are luckier than we were." That night, in my grandmother's old room, my uncle made up her bed with a faded quilt, its batting forty-five years old, a little packed but still thick: "Sister, this one is yours back." My grandmother fluffed it for her; she left it, too heavy. He set his own bamboo cot facing it, foot to foot across a small table. Through the wall, over rain on the tiles, Qingshen dialect, one voice higher, one lower: our grandmother, her bow, the tune she hummed; their father, dead when he was four and she eight; that September; silence. "Sister, that year you couldn't come back. I know." "I know you know. I didn't. Forty-four years I argued it with myself and couldn't settle it." Before dawn I heard my mother laugh, a girl's laugh I had never heard. Su Zhe at the eaves: "Beds facing in the night rain: my brother and I promised it all our lives and never managed it. A promise kept late doesn't matter. Forty years, fifty: once you're home and sitting across from each other with the rain still falling, it's kept." And: "My brother keeps a teahouse in the City of Brocade, waiting for a guest. For you, with your mother, and the two jades." In the morning my mother, eyes swollen, face loosened as if a heavy load were off: "Before we go back I want a bowl of tea. Your grandmother said anyone can sit in a Chengdu teahouse." — M.

Memo to file. Qingshen, 5 April 2039. Principal.

1. The casket. Forty-three letters, 1996 to 2038, one each spring with money for the grave. Her handwriting ages across them: schoolgirl, hurried, large with failing eyes.

2. The forty-fourth. Written on the plane, put in unopened: "Xiushan: this year I came myself."

3. The grave. Erected October 1995 by daughter and son; three bamboo seedlings planted last year by her brother and her son, all alive, half a man high.

4. The tracing. "This year, you trace it." At her own name she stopped; red dripped onto the slab. When the stone was cut she was in New Jersey, carrying me.

5. The bow. Slung the way my grandmother wore it in 1993. Two strokes of the mallet on the new oxhide; the third never fell. "Mother, I came back late." Not the airport's weeping; the one that October had no room for.

6. Su Zhe's promise. Two brothers read "facing beds on a night of wind and rain" and vowed to retire early and live together. They never did; a hundred days in Pengcheng was the nearest, and even then they were adrift. "Those two are luckier."

7. The quilt. My grandmother fluffed it for her daughter, who left it behind as too heavy; her brother slept under it forty-five years. "Sister, this one is yours back."

8. Facing beds. Her mother's bed and his bamboo cot, foot to foot. Through the wall: the tune, the bow, their father, that September. "That year you couldn't come back. I know." "I know you know. I didn't."

9. The Wall Street version. A retired pension manager rode two hours back to the office on the day his forty-year bond matured and watched the principal arrive: "Forty years of interest. Today the principal's back; now it's finished." I didn't understand what there was to watch.

10. The arithmetic. Forty-three letters with money: coupons, paid on time, every year; that is not forgetting. This year she came herself: principal.

11. The line. "A promise kept late doesn't matter. Once you're home and sitting across from each other with the rain still falling, it's kept." Before dawn, my mother's laugh, a girl's, one I had never heard.

12. Next. Su Zhe: "My brother keeps a teahouse in the City of Brocade, waiting for you, your mother and the two jades." My mother: "Before we go back I want a bowl of tea. Anyone can sit in a Chengdu teahouse."

"We read the line about lying in facing beds on a night of wind and rain, and promised each other to retire early."
Su Zhe and his elder brother Su Shi, the poet known as Dongpo, were inseparable as boys in Meishan. When their careers scattered them across the empire, they made a pact inspired by a Tang couplet: one day they would retire, lie in facing beds and listen to the night rain together. They never fully kept it. Su Shi's famous mid-autumn lyric, written for his brother, settles for sharing the same moon a thousand miles apart.
A long separation sustained by regular remittances resembles a long-dated bond. The annual payments are coupons: they keep the obligation alive, and their punctuality is itself a statement that nothing has been forgotten. But coupons are not the principal. The obligation is only discharged when the principal returns.
For an emigrant, the principal is presence. Forty-three letters with money for a mother's grave were coupons paid faithfully for forty-three years; the forty-fourth, delivered by hand, was the redemption. A promise kept late, Su Zhe concludes, is still kept.
"Once you're home and sitting across from each other with the rain still falling, it's kept."