The Vine Basket Page 8

  “No. More dancing,” Lali said, looking over at Ana for support. Ana shook her head.

  “Maybe later,” Mehrigul said.

  When they returned from the shed, Ana had put pots and pans outside, collecting precious drops of rain. Chong Ata was by the fence that separated the yard from the cornfield. Part of it had been toppled by the storm.

  “If we can get the sections of fallen fence onto the roof, they will make a good rack for the food. The rain could wash away some of the dust and sand,” Chong Ata said. “Do you think you can get it up there, Mehrigul?”

  The sections of the fence that had collapsed were mostly undamaged, the vertical slats still held together with cross boards. And Chong Ata was right—if they laid the food piece by piece on raised platforms, the rain would help salvage it.

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Chong Ata.” Somehow she would do it. She wouldn’t tell him that their ladder had lost its top rungs. It was probably safe for the weight of a girl.

  Soon Mehrigul was arranging the grid. Ana and Lali gathered peaches from the sticky, sandy piles that had collected along the rim of the flat roof and laid them out one by one. They rescued clusters of grapes that had not yet dried to raisins, strings of red peppers, green peppers, the few remaining ears of corn. And when they’d laid out their reclaimed store, Mehrigul made Lali join her in a hunt of the area around the house for anything more they could retrieve. They found a few corncobs, but the sand-coated peach halves were only good for donkey food. Ana stayed on the roof, turning things over and over so all sides were exposed to the rain.

  The rain fell for a good amount of time. Much had been lost, but much was saved, too.

  By midafternoon, the sun shone. Their land would soon be dry and dusty again. Mehrigul dug her bare feet into the softened earth at the bottom of a small puddle and splashed, splattering mud all over the bottom of her pants. She didn’t want Lali to see her, but it felt good. And for the first time in so long, she was free.

  She rushed to the shed and hopped onto the bicycle. Pedaled down the road as fast as she could until she came to the stand of bamboo. She hid the bicycle and made her way into the grove, to her secret place. The profusion of branches and leaves from the culms had protected the ground from the worst of the blown sand. Raindrops fell from the leaves as she pushed her way through, but a little rain would do no harm to her baskets.

  Halfway in, Mehrigul halted, sorry she hadn’t stopped to pick up the bag of felt Pati had given her. But she’d snuck off so Lali wouldn’t ask to go with her. She needed to be alone—to finally weave the vines she’d collected into the shapes she pictured in her mind.

  She stopped again. Had she taken the wrong path? Mehrigul was certain this was her secret spot—her token was there, still tied to the bamboo culm; the bamboo covering she’d laid on top of her baskets was there, pushed aside. There were no baskets. She dropped to her knees, her hands groping in every direction. Could the bamboo have blown aside and the baskets been carried away by the wind? Were they nearby? The unwoven vines were there, lying in neat stacks. Just as she’d left them.

  It had to be the animals. Had squirrels dragged them off, deeper into the grove, for their winter nests?

  She crawled among the culms, moving in ever-widening circles around her hiding place, until she knew for certain she would not find what she was looking for. She went again to her secret spot and sank down, her arms holding her knees tight to her.

  Someone had taken her baskets.

  Closing her eyes helped her remember. Pati knew her secret, had come here with her. She’d gone to the trouble of getting felt for Mehrigul, expecting her to use it, giving it to her only yesterday. Pati wouldn’t do such a thing, even as a tease.

  Ata had been at the road when she and Pati emerged from the bamboo. They had dashed in to chase a birdcall, Pati had told him. Mehrigul had been certain he didn’t believe her, but he had asked no more questions. Had taken the bicycle. Pedaled down the road.

  Then she remembered colliding with Ata as he emerged from Chong Ata’s workroom with the baskets he was taking to sell at Cow Horn Mountain—two bags thrown over his shoulder, one large, one small. The look on his face. He had seemed startled, but it was anger, she’d decided at the time.

  Now she knew.

  What she’d seen was guilt. Ata had taken her baskets.

  Fifteen

  THE HEAVY SMELL OF mutton reached Mehrigul as she crossed the yard. Ana must have made soup with the bone they’d bought at market. A special meal in celebration of the rain. A treat that at any other time she would have welcomed.

  No real feeling had come back to Mehrigul since she sat stunned inside the bamboo grove, staring hopelessly at the empty spot on the ground. She had no plan. Could not wind her mind around what to do. She was filled with rage, yet her body was listless. She wanted only to sleep. To forget.

  “We worried, Mehrigul. We didn’t know what chores might be keeping you.” Ana ladled a large spoonful of soup into a bowl and offered it to Mehrigul as soon as she’d taken her place on the floor.

  Steady your hands, Mehrigul told herself. Take the dish. Raise it to your lips. Drink the broth.

  The bowl seemed so heavy, but they were watching her—Ana, Chong Ata, Lali. She grabbed a turnip with her fingers. Ate it greedily. An onion. A carrot. Still they watched. And cared. She was being treated as if she were the man of the house. She had done the tasks of men and was being honored.

  “The soup is good, Ana,” Mehrigul said, and a smile spread slowly over Ana’s face. “You worked hard today. Thank you for doing this, too.” And Ana had worked hard. She’d made many trips up and down the ladder, trying to restore their supply of food, scraping it, washing it bit by bit. There was a healthy glow to her cheeks that had been missing for some time.

  “It will be a hard winter,” Ana said, “but we’ll be all right.”

  Ana would not have said these words if Ata were there. She was comforting them as she used to, before they were all weighed down by Ata’s voiceless rage. Ata’s anger had begun long ago and had grown worse when Memet left.

  Tonight, when they could be alone, she would tell Ana about Ata. It was time. She would tell everything.

  Mehrigul tucked Lali in early, for she had to wake at dawn and go to school. Chong Ata, too, retired early.

  “Will you walk outside with me, Ana?” Mehrigul said.

  Ana asked no questions. She put on a jacket and followed Mehrigul.

  The blue-black silhouette of mountains stood out against the rosy tints of the afterglow that colored the sky. The ever-present haze of dust had been washed into the earth to reveal the majestic Kunlun, whose glaciers fed the streams that kept them alive. The beauty and the power of these mountains had been made known to her by Chong Ata.

  She’d learned this from Ata, too, in a different way. Ata never used many words, but he was one with their land. He knew its seasons, its signs. Listened to the birds. Taught Mehrigul their names, their calls. He was no longer that person, and hadn’t been for a long time. Even as a small child she sensed that things had changed for Ata, for all of them, on the day Uncle Kasim moved away for his job in Turpan. Leaving sorrow and empty, decaying spaces in their family compound. Leaving all the work of the farm to Ata. As Memet grew, he began to carry some of the burden; the spaces did not seem so empty when he was around. Now he was gone.

  Mehrigul looked at Ana standing beside her, so listless, stooped under the weight of their hardships, the loneliness, and the burden that had been thrust upon her, too, when Uncle’s family left, when her only son left. But Mehrigul would tell her about Ata. She should know.

  “Two weeks ago, at market, an unusual thing happened, Ana. I didn’t tell you about it . . . because it involved Ata in a way that was not good.” Mehrigul and Ana were both looking at the sky, watching the rose color become a deeper red.

  “Do you remember the silly vine basket I made? The one Memet hung on the donkey cart for decoration?” Mehrig
ul glanced at Ana, who kept her gaze straight ahead.

  “No . . . I never noticed,” Ana said with a slight shrug.

  “An American lady who was at the market saw it and liked it. She bought it and offered to buy more. I’ve been secretly making them. She plans to come back to the market next week and buy them.” The deep red of the afterglow was changing into shades of purple.

  “Only . . . the baskets were stolen from me.” Mehrigul forced the words out. She wanted the story told before the purple turned to total darkness. “It was . . . it was . . . Ata.” Her voice caught. “He knew my hiding place. He took them to the pilgrimage market to sell. Why, Ana? Why would he do that? How could he?”

  Ana clasped her hands. She shook her head slowly. “If your father took the baskets, then they were not stolen.”

  Mehrigul could not stifle her gasp.

  “Your father would know best where to sell them,” Ana said.

  “No, Ana.” Mehrigul swiveled to face her. “It was not best to take them to the pilgrimage market. They’ll be of little value there. He knows that.”

  Ana backed away, her hands inching up until they were wrapped tightly around her.

  “I was paid one . . . hundred . . . yuan for the basket by the American lady,” Mehrigul said. Her chest heaved, but the words came clear and steady. She’d make Ana listen. “That is many times more than Chong Ata’s baskets bring.”

  Mehrigul paced around Ana. Circled her. “Ata had spent the money we made from selling the peaches—on something else. I gave him the hundred yuan I earned so he could have our corn ground.” Mehrigul stopped, until Ana’s eyes met hers. “He asked me not to tell you.”

  Ana’s mouth moved but no sound came out.

  “Ata knew exactly how much my baskets might be worth.”

  Mother and daughter stood silent under a night sky that had begun to reveal a few stars and the slim crescent of a moon.

  “Why, Ana . . . why would he take them from me?”

  “Did you see him take them?” Ana said. “How do you know?”

  “He . . . he guessed where they were . . . in the bamboo grove. He saw me come out of there with Pati. Now they’re gone. And . . . I saw a bag where he must have had them when he loaded the truck. I know he had them, Ana . . . by the look on his face when he passed me.”

  “You cannot be certain, then, can you, that he took them?”

  Mehrigul’s hands balled in front of her. How could Ana not believe her!

  “Have you thought that Pati might have taken them?” Ana said. “Didn’t you say she had been in the grove with you?”

  “Pati would never take them. She’s helping to teach me English. She brought felt for me to weave.” Mehrigul spoke faster and faster. Not believing Ana could think that of her friend, when Ata was clearly guilty.

  “Perhaps Pati is no longer your friend,” Ana said, a strange bitterness creeping into her voice. “Maybe it was something that girl she was with at the market set her up to do—the young girl who does not have a high opinion of us, Mehrigul.”

  Mehrigul closed her eyes to regain control. Ana could blame Pati, but not Ata.

  “I don’t think Pati, or Hajinsa, would have much use for the baskets, Ana,” she said. “Nor would a man on pilgrimage. They were not useful, but that’s what the lady seemed to want. She might have paid us a great many yuan for them.”

  Mehrigul stopped. Ana stood there with no expression on her face. As if she had no interest in hearing more.

  “Listen to me, Ana.” Mehrigul grabbed her mother’s clutched arms. Forced them open. Put her face so close to Ana’s that Ana couldn’t help but hear her. “You say it’s all right for Ata to take my baskets. Is it all right for him to take our money we work so hard to earn and spend it on wine? And gambling?”

  Ana tried to pull away. Mehrigul tightened her grip.

  “He gambles, Ana. Throws our money away on the gaming table. I’ve seen him. Is it all right for him to do that?”

  This time Ana did not try to pull away. Or answer.

  “Why is stealing our money so different from stealing my baskets? Tell me!” Mehrigul’s voice pierced the stillness and hung in the air around them.

  Hung in the darkness of the night that had enveloped them.

  Ana leaned her face away. Stared at the ground. “Your father has a heavy heart,” she said in a hushed voice. “When your brother left, he gave up all hope. The world around us is one he no longer understands.”

  “You’re saying it’s all right for us to go without food? For me to give up school? So he can wander off and drink and gamble?”

  “He drinks too much. Many of your father’s friends do.” Ana paused. “He needs the money, Mehrigul, so he can keep his place among them, keep their friendships. It’s all he has now.”

  “Ana,” Mehrigul said, “my baskets are gone. Money you might have had to help get through the winter . . . is gone! You gave up your friends when we no longer had money. Why is this so different—that he has to steal?”

  “Your father is troubled. He’s not dishonest. You’re wrong to accuse him.” Ana pulled away, and Mehrigul let her go. Had all she could do to not push her away.

  Why had Mehrigul thought Ana might change if she knew what Ata had done? She might as well have been talking to their old donkey.

  She’d make more baskets. Hide them in a place no one could possibly find. She’d meet with Mrs. Chazen. She’d buy them. Or not.

  Then what? Mrs. Chazen would go back to America. Mehrigul would be sent away . . .

  “Go fix yourself some tea, Ana,” she said. “I’m sure you could use a good night’s sleep.”

  Sixteen

  LALI NESTLED SO TRUSTINGLY against her gave Mehrigul reason to begin a new day. Daylight strained into the room through dust-gray windows. How quickly the rain had given way to winds from the desert, coating the windows once again with fine grains of sand.

  No one stirred. Mehrigul tucked the blanket around Lali and slid quietly from the platform. She put on pants, shirt, vest—the same dirty, gritty clothes she’d crawled out of the night before—and went about building a fire in their cookstove, grateful that there’d been a few twigs left in reserve. One of her chores today would be to collect more kindling. Nothing was left of the pile that once stood beside the house.

  She walked outside to fill the kettle, then put it on to boil. She found one last piece of naan in the tin. That would be for Lali. If Mehrigul built a fire in the earth oven, maybe Ana would rally enough to bake more.

  Mehrigul woke Lali with a finger to her lips. When Lali’s eyes popped open, she understood and played the game of being extra quiet. She tiptoed. Hugged her favorite red and green sweater with a noiseless squeal. Her face fell when she knelt to drink tea and saw the pitiful chunk of dried naan beside it. Still, she dunked and chewed as quietly as a mouse.

  Once outside, Lali pulled Mehrigul faster and faster toward the roadway. “Can I talk now?” she asked.

  Mehrigul nodded.

  “Tai hao la,” Lali said. “That’s great.” She grabbed Mehrigul’s hands and tried to turn her round. “Do you know what I want to be?”

  “Bu zhi dao, gao su wo. No, tell me,” Mehrigul said.

  “A dancer. Someone who sings and dances and is famous on television.”

  “How do you know about that?” Mehrigul caught Lali, tugged her close.

  “My friend tells me all about it,” Lali said, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Uyghur girls can sing and dance in hotels and make lots of money. I’d live in a big city with my friend.” She broke away. Twirling. Dancing with lively steps.

  “You’re very good, Lali,” Mehrigul called. “I love to watch you. Come, give me a hug before you leave for school.”

  Mehrigul’s arms engulfed Lali when her sister danced to her. She held Lali close until her body stilled. “You can be very popular right here, singing and dancing at weddings. You must practice and learn all the Uyghur songs.” She lifted Lali’s
face, brushing aside the wispy bangs that peeked out from her headscarf.

  “But today,” Mehrigul said in Mandarin, “you will pay close attention to your studies. Get the highest marks. And be better than anyone else at speaking Mandarin. For I believe you, Lali, will make a very good teacher.” She held Lali at arm’s length, made sure she was listening. “That is what I want you to be.”

  Lali squeezed her cheeks. “Teachers are old and fussy . . . and bossy. I don’t want to be one.” She flipped her head from side to side.

  “You have lots of time to think about it. For now, do the best you can.” Mehrigul put her arm around her sister and led her to the road. The family who picked Lali up were heading toward them in their donkey cart. “We can pretend I’m your student and you can give me lessons on the important things you learn each day.” Mehrigul’s face lost its gentleness as she turned Lali toward her; she must make her sister understand how important it was. “That way I’ll know exactly how you are doing.”

  Lali pulled away. “Sounds fun,” she called over her shoulder as she skipped off and hopped onto the cart.

  And if Mehrigul were sent away, who would guide her sister? Who would take care of her precious Lali?

  Mehrigul thought only of Lali and Chong Ata as she did her chores. She hated that Ata and Ana might benefit from her work. Ata, away selling her baskets. Ana, on her sleeping platform, her body still crouched in the corner.

  Mehrigul glared at Ana and gave an extra punch to the dough she was kneading. She banged pots to make as much noise as she could before slamming the door on her way outside. She had to search for dry, seasoned wood to build the fire in the earth oven.

  Ana was up and dressed when Mehrigul returned. She stood looking at the bowl of dough. She seemed surprised it was there, perhaps wondering when she had made it. Which offered little promise that this would be one of Ana’s good days.