The Vine Basket Read online

  “Why?” Mehrigul had asked.

  He wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t look at her.

  Now he was gone.

  Mehrigul had learned the meaning of Memet’s warning by listening carefully to the whispered chatter of the women at market. She heard stories of girls who were sent south and never returned. The leaders didn’t want their daughters here at home, the women said, where they’d marry Uyghur men and have Uyghur babies. They hoped the girls who were sent away might find Chinese men and marry them; there was a shortage of Han Chinese women. Mehrigul learned it was even worse for the girls who did return home. No Uyghur man would marry one; he couldn’t be certain that a girl who’d been sent away was still a virgin.

  Don’t be taken in, Sister.

  Memet had known and now she did, too. And anyone honest with himself knew that things would not change, the Han would never leave.

  Mehrigul thought of the courage it had taken for Memet to take a stand against them. They’d tried to kill him, but they would punish her in a different manner. For no offense at all, she’d be sent away. Imprisoned thousands of miles from home. A slave in some factory, helping to make the Han Chinese rich.

  Now she’d dared to dream. A dream she might never have had if the American lady had not seen her basket and liked it. Whether Mrs. Chazen came back or not, even if she had to leave her home for a while, Mehrigul would keep making baskets, her own kind of baskets. She knew a fancy basket was not something a farm woman needed, but somehow she’d reach out to a world beyond a journey in a donkey cart. If she got really good, she’d go to Hotan. Look for Abdul. Maybe he’d help her find a way to sell her baskets. He would know their value.

  As Mehrigul stood staring at the place where the ca­dre’s wife had been, another dream crept in. She saw Mrs. Chazen walking away. The three baskets she had carefully wrapped in soft white tissue hung in a bag from the American lady’s arm. Three one-hundred-yuan notes lay in Mehrigul’s outstretched hands. If she asked Ata for a tiny bit of it to pay her school fees—if he would let her go to school now and then—maybe she could stay home. For a while, anyway.

  It was a good dream. The only useful one she had at the moment.

  The image of Mrs. Chazen faded.

  Mehrigul’s hands were empty.

  It was late when Ata came back. If he’d been drinking, it wasn’t evident. His face was stern, his jaw set.

  “Only a few baskets left. A good day,” he said as he passed Mehrigul on his way to retrieve their donkey. Had he looked at her rather than at the cart he might have stopped, sensed something wrong. Or maybe not; Mehrigul wasn’t sure how she looked with her brain and body shut down beyond feeling. She couldn’t remember moving since she’d watched the cadre’s wife walk down the lane and disappear into the crowd.

  Now Ata was here. She would not tell him about her visit from the party chief’s wife. He’d go right to the cadre and sign whatever he had to, and she’d be on her way to a factory tomorrow.

  Mehrigul watched in silence as Ata maneuvered the donkey to the front of the cart, lifted the shafts, tied them to each side of the donkey’s collar, then attached the back support.

  Automatically, Mehrigul reached to remove the poles that balanced the unhitched cart. She eased herself onto the back of the wagon. The cart tilted as Ata took his place, steering the donkey into the lane with flicks of his willow whip.

  “The mutton?” Mehrigul said in little more than a whisper.

  Ata reached into his pocket and thrust a wrapped package toward Mehrigul. “You give it to her.”

  Mehrigul nodded and took the package.

  She gathered the coins she’d collected. Presented them to Ata in her open palm, her head lowered. “Yuan. From this afternoon,” she said, trying to match the compliant tone her mother had mastered so well.

  He took it. Counted it. “You didn’t wander off and buy an egg, did you?”

  Ata’s words changed the numbness she felt to a smoldering fire. He was accusing her of wandering off. Had he been gambling, and was he wondering if she’d seen him? If she’d gone to spy on him?

  Mehrigul took a deep breath before she trusted herself to answer. “No, Ata,” she said, “though I ate a piece of squash.” An edge crept into her voice and she was glad. “I wouldn’t have left our cart in the care of the yarn vendor when we were doing such good business.”

  Ata shrugged. He clicked his tongue at the donkey to make him go faster, and once again seemed interested only in heading home.

  They rode in silence. Mehrigul tried to remove from her mind all but the yellow and gold leaves that fell from the poplars that lined the roadway. For a while, anyway, she’d be sweeping leaves into a bag to use as mulch for their fields and food for their donkey. She almost found comfort in that thought.

  “You and your mother will be going to market next week. Alone,” Ata announced.

  Mehrigul let his words hang in the air. She kept her eyes on her feet, which dangled from the back of the wagon, almost touching the ground.

  “A man I know is going with the pilgrims to Cow Horn Mountain. I’m going with him to set up a market stall at the foot of the mountain.”

  She brought her knees to the floor of the cart, turned to face her father. She knew that twice a year Muslim pilgrims from the surrounding countryside made the long trek to the mountain. They prayed at the graves of the Islamic leaders who long ago had won a battle against the Buddhists by smoking them out of their caves. Ata had never gone before. Why now?

  Mehrigul stared hard at the back of Ata’s head. Even she knew that trip could be dangerous. It wasn’t only Uyghur spies who would be there; the Chinese police monitored pilgrimages. If her father got into trouble, they’d lose the farm, everything. Didn’t he care anymore?

  “You and your mother will have the donkey cart. I’m riding with someone,” he said, finally looking at her.

  “Ana won’t go to market,” Mehrigul said.

  “She’ll have to. You can’t go by yourself, and the rest of the squash must be sold.”

  “What about Lali?” Mehrigul jumped from the cart and walked beside Ata.

  He eyed her with disgust. “Take her. It won’t hurt her to miss a day of school.” He held up his hands, dismissing her. Probably upset he’d bothered to answer.

  Mehrigul could think of no other arguments. And, in a way, it was a good thing: If Ata wasn’t here, he wouldn’t be able to sign papers. She almost smiled when she realized she’d be able to make even more baskets without having to sneak bits of time.

  Home was within sight. “I’ll run ahead. I can get there faster.” Mehrigul bolted, needing to feel the cold wind hit her face.

  For the next two weeks she’d think only about making baskets.

  Ten

  THIS WAS THE SECOND day Mehrigul had been sent to gather walnuts, foraging along the roadway for any that might have been overlooked and had not yet been carried away by rodents. She rode Memet’s rusty old bicycle, stopping beside the walnut trees, combing through the fallen leaves.

  Two baskets hung from the handlebars. One for Ana; walnuts were rich in nutrition and would help nourish them through the cold. They had always gathered as many as possible. That was their winter treat. The other for Ata, who would take half of what she collected to sell at Cow Horn Mountain.

  Mehrigul was reluctant to fill Ata’s basket, but that wasn’t for her to decide. Ata was unhappy with the small amount she’d gathered the day before. With only two more days before he left, she knew she’d be sent to do even more scavenging, and it wasn’t a job she liked. It brought back too many memories of the happy times she and Memet had when they were sent out together to do the gathering, Mehrigul riding on the back of Memet’s bicycle. They’d raced to see who could find the most, the winner getting to hide three walnuts in a pocket to eat later.

  There was too much aloneness in her life now, and it felt good to see Pati coming toward her on her bicycle as she rounded the last corner before returning h
ome. Pati was waving her arm like a willow bough caught in a sandstorm —weaving across the road, trying to keep her balance. Mehrigul glided to a stop, parked her bicycle, and stood waiting, so pleased that her friend had come to see her and that they’d have a few minutes together.

  “Hello!” Pati called in English. She jumped from her bike, leaned it against Mehrigul’s, and poured out a stream of words. “How are you? Today is Saturday. I have come to see you. I am your teacher.”

  Mehrigul burst out laughing. “Hello, Pati,” she answered in English, then switched to Uyghur. “I know that word and not one other of what you just said.”

  Pati pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper from the school bag slung over her shoulder and fluttered it in front of Mehrigul. “I’m here to teach you English,” she said. “I have one hour.”

  The sun was still high enough in the sky for Mehrigul to risk a longer absence, though she knew Ata would be growing impatient, more for the return of the bicycle than for her. He’d been riding off on it lately, at any time of day.

  “We must move in behind the orchard so no one can see us,” Mehrigul said.

  They wheeled the bicycles to a clearing near the grape arbor.

  “When you see someone,” Pati said, “you say Hello, or Hi. Then you ask how they are. How are you? you say.”

  “Hi. How are you?” Mehrigul repeated in English.

  “You can ask them how they are right now—that’s today. Or the day before—that’s yesterday. Or the day after—and that’s tomorrow. Now, say after me: How are you today?”

  “How are you today?” Mehrigul said.

  Names of the days and the months came next, then numbers from one to ten.

  “Pati,” Mehrigul said, “this is good. But I’d love to know some special words.” She stood. Unthinking, she twined a narrow stem that hung from the grapevines around her finger, pulling it, testing it for strength and size. You can test a vine, she thought, but how do you test a friend, to know if she can really keep a secret? She’d trusted Memet. He’d been a good secret keeper. He might laugh when she said something silly, but he never told.

  She’d shared many things with Pati but never anything of such importance. She needed so much to have someone to talk to now. Someone to tell why she wanted to learn English.

  “Come with me, Pati,” Mehrigul said. “I have something to show you in the bamboo patch.”

  They walked along the road to the grove. Mehrigul carefully chose a new entryway into the thicket so that no clear path would lead to her special hiding place. Memet had taught her that.

  She and Pati pushed through the culms to the spot where Mehrigul had stored her piles of cut grapevines and her baskets. Three new baskets lay on the ground, sheltered by cut branches. She removed the covering. There was one cone-shaped basket. Another was unlike any basket Mehrigul had ever seen. She had cut vine pieces as long as the distance from her thumb to her little finger when she stretched her hand wide. Instead of weaving, she had laid out seven pieces side by side, separating them so they formed a square. She had laced two vine pieces across the ends of this base, then two more across the ends of these, building row by row until the basket was shaped like a square box. That had looked too plain, so Mehrigul had added handles of twisted, curved vines, creating graceful arches on two sides.

  The one she picked up was a ribbed basket shaped like half of a watermelon, with vine ribs hanging from a thick, oblong hoop, linked together with a simple in-and-out weave. She faced Pati with this basket cradled in her arms. She squinted to better see her friend’s reaction in the muted light of the grove.

  She saw the smile she’d hoped for.

  “They’re beautiful,” Pati said.

  Then Mehrigul saw Pati suck in her breath, as if trying to keep from saying something.

  “What, Pati? Tell me.”

  “They’re different from your chong ata’s.” Pati reached for the square basket with the arched handles. Turned it around in her hands. “It’s great to look at, but it won’t hold much. And that one?” She pointed to the basket Mehrigul was holding. “It looks like you’ve woven cornhusks or something into it.”

  “I have,” Mehrigul said, her voice quiet and composed. “You see, I’m not certain my baskets have any real use. But Pati . . .” She stopped. “I want you to keep a secret.”

  “Sure,” Pati said.

  “I mean a real secret, one you must tell no one.”

  “I’m your friend. Of course I will.”

  “You must keep your word.”

  “Mehrigul, I promise.”

  “A lady from America saw the old basket I’d hung on the donkey cart and bought it. She asked me to make others. She’ll come back to the market a week from Wednesday . . . to buy more. That’s why I want to learn English.”

  Pati swung her shoulders left to right, back and forth, in what Mehrigul knew to be her greatest show of delight.

  “That’s exciting,” Pati said. Then again there was a question in her eyes. “Has your grandfather seen your baskets?”

  “Not yet. I’m waiting until Ata goes on pilgrimage, then I’ll bring them for him to see. He must be the first one in the family to see them,” Mehrigul said. “It will be important that he likes them.”

  Pati shrugged. “He might think using cornhusks is too common for an American lady.”

  “But look.” Mehrigul held out her basket. “Don’t you think they add texture and color?” A grin suddenly crossed her face. “If you just happen to see a certain young man tomorrow, and he just happens to have leftover scraps of red or blue felt, I’d be very glad to weave them into my baskets. You’re right, a lady from America might like that better.”

  “I’ll try to make it happen,” Pati said.

  Mehrigul placed her baskets on the ground and covered them again with the fallen bamboo culms.

  “I wish I knew the English word for ‘basket,’” she said.

  Pati folded her hands across her waist. This was another sign Mehrigul knew—her friend had something she was reluctant to say.

  “Oh, all right,” Pati said finally, digging into her bag and pulling out a small book. “You need this more than I do. It gives the English word for the same word in Mandarin. The teacher let me have it. I was going to be the smart one and teach you, but you can borrow it.” She handed the battered book to Mehrigul. “You need more words than I can teach you right away.”

  Mehrigul made a low bow in acceptance, then quickly opened the book.

  “Lanzi is the Mandarin word.” Mehrigul searched through the l’s. “Here it is,” she said. “The word is basket. Basket,” she repeated. “Basket.”

  Pati stood tall. “So you say to the American lady, Do you like basket?”

  Swaying and singing, “Do you like basket? Do you like basket?”, they made their way back through the bamboo onto the road. A lightness swept through Mehrigul, lifting some of her doubts, her fears that the meeting with Mrs. Chazen had been so outside her real world that it could only have been imagined.

  But Ata coming toward them, seeing them emerge from the bamboo, was more real than she wished. “What were you doing in there?” he asked, angling his head and frowning.

  Mehrigul had no answer. She froze the carefree look of a moment ago on her face to hide the guilt she felt about her baskets.

  The growing silence spoke of secrets.

  Pati took a step toward Ata. “We heard a strange birdcall,” she said in a sweet, innocent voice. “We rushed through the bamboo, hoping to get a glimpse.” She laughed. “I guess we were just having fun, for we surely would have scared it away.”

  Ata tightened his lips. “Uhmm,” he mumbled, not bothering to acknowledge Pati. His attention was drawn to the book Mehrigul held in her hand. “What’s that?” he said.

  “A school book Pati brought me, so I can study.” Mehrigul kept her voice strong and even, but she couldn’t control the trembling in her hands. She clutched her arms and the book to her, hoping Ata wouldn’
t notice. “The bicycle is by the grapevines. I’ll bring it home right away.”

  “No. You’ll bring it to me now, and you will walk home.” Ata’s voice was quiet. He stood with his hands on his waist, just looking at her. He raised his eyebrows, but not in anger—that would be easy to recognize. If he thought they’d lied to him, why wasn’t he shouting?

  Mehrigul felt Pati’s arm around her, hurrying her away toward their parked bicycles.

  Eleven

  MEHRIGUL TOOK ONE LAST look at the road before she passed the corner of the house that would obscure her view. She hadn’t planned to show Chong Ata her baskets today, but for the first time in long memory she and her grandfather were alone. Ana’s headaches had gotten so bad that she couldn’t leave her bed. Ata was driving her to the doctor in the cotton township. Ana had known the village healer since childhood. He was the only one she’d allow to take her pulse and check for symptoms, to prepare herbs for her to brew into a tea. Ata insisted Ana see him before he left on pilgrimage.

  Mehrigul took the risk that they might change their minds and return early. She wanted so badly to know if Chong Ata thought her baskets worthy of showing to the American lady.

  “I’ve brought two of my baskets for you to see, Chong Ata,” Mehrigul said. She squatted next to him in the yard where he was at work, surrounded by his willow branches. “I need to know if you like them.”

  As Chong Ata reached forward to place his work on the ground, the front panel of his coat flapped open, revealing the sheepskin lining with its long, shaggy strands of wool. Was he already so cold he had to wear it? He would sleep inside when the winter winds came, join the family on the wooden sleeping platforms they shared in the room that was for cooking and eating, for living and sleeping. Still, they never had enough blankets to guard them from the cold that penetrated the cracks in their walls of poplar sticks and mud. They had no money to buy a proper stove with pipes leading under the sleeping platforms to heat them. Heat from pipes was a marvel she knew from visiting Pati. Pati’s beloved grandmother, her whole family had this comfort.