The Mind's Journey Home
AUTHOR: Chata Saladbar
Chapter 6: The Green-eyed Monster
When Shang finally reaches the village square he is greeted by the cacophony of sounds and the myriad of odors that belong to celebrations everywhere. The squeaking wheels of hand-pulled carts, cackle of old men and laughter of small children move all around him. He smiles despite of himself, despite the fact that only hour before he had laid his head down and hoped for the day Grandma predicted, a day where he would look back at the untimely deaths of his parents without the feeling of a knife being shoved into his gut. Grandma's words give him much hope.
He walks through the cramped, confined maze, negotiating his way past the people planted everywhere. He is drawn to a single and loud allocution from a makeshift stage and follows the sound. It is up on the stage where he sees her first, a slim and small body, that he knows, despite all its petiteness, is ironclad and determined. His height allows him an unobstructed view. Flanked by her family, Mulan stands calm and self-possessed. Her presence alone could have filled the stage.
Some official is proclaiming her achievement, describing her great deeds with waving arms and a fluctuating intensity in his voice for dramatic presentation. Shang focuses on Mulan. Watching her he decides that her beauty comes from more than her lovely exterior but rather from some lit-from-within quality that he finds so extraordinary. He hopes that the Matchmaker is in this square eating her words slowly like boulders. "She'll have many marriage offers now" he says quietly to himself, losing the smile that had so effortlessly been formed on his face earlier; he was foolish let Grandma get his hopes up. Why would Mulan consider his offer? Even if her father agreed, he would never push his daughter into a marriage.
It is a dry, bright day, the late spring heat is tempered only by a steady valley breeze. The official describing Mulan's adventure can't help but reveal his own deeply ingrained gender biases. He doesn't do Mulan justice. He doesn't state that only once in a dynasty does a human break free from the confines of the little world into which they were born and escape from the tradition in which they were created in. And in stepping out of their own time and place they find universal fame. If there was anyway he could repay Mulan, it would be to insure that her story isn't forgotten and that she becomes part of the common of knowledge of names and stories for China's eternity. He promises this to himself.
The retelling of her epic to hundreds only serves to awaken Shang's guilt. He wonders for a moment what he is doing here; he should ride home now before he loses any more face. He could then settle himself securely as the master of his large empty estate. He could be content as a bachelor, harming no woman with the lifelessness of his home. Perhaps as pennance he would also give most of his belongings away, away to the peasants carrying unspeakable loads in front of him. Once ensconsed in his life perhaps he would only remember Mulan's great deeds and forget how she had once fully owned his soul.
"Are you Captain Li Shang?" a young female voice addresses him.
"Of course he is Meigui. They said he was coming and he is the only one in an Imperial uniform!" A different female voice scolds the other.
"Oh Feilang...she is just trying to be polite." Even another feminine voice, "obviously something you know little about."
"She isn't suppose to address him first, I know that much." Yet another.
The conversation is enough to break Shang's thoughts. He looks around him and finds himself presented with a bouquet of four lovely young girls around him. He doesn't remember a time when he had ever been in the presence of so many unescorted women.
"No..that's fine," he tells them. "I mean yes, I am Captain Li Shang."
His response is returned with giggles. The girls glance at each other then eye him with shy but inquisitive stares.
"You held that monster Shan-Yu down so the Emperor could escape!" One of the girls exclaims, lowering her face a little but looking straight at him with large coquettish dark eyes.
He watches for a moment how the wind simultaneously lifts each of the girl's straight black hair from their shoulders. They wear brightly colored silk robes with alternating hues that compliment what the other is wearing. Together they make a pretty picture; he wishes he had brought his sketchbook.
"It was Fa Mulan that allowed the Emperor to escape." He tells them as he told many others from that first village he passed on his journey.
His comment does not phase them. "My father is inviting you to his house tonight to honor you." The prettiest one, Meigui, is definitely the boldest one of the group. "My father is a very important man, he has already talked to Fa Zhou about this, isn't that where you are staying? My father wanted to make sure you were not there for other reasons."
"You aren't suppose to meet him until then." The other girl pipes in. "We are going to be in trouble. We all are going to be in trouble."
Shang grins at the way the girl seems to emphasize every other word.
"Hush Xiu, I am not doing anything wrong..." Meigui pouts at her friend, and then with a face that has stared at itself too often in mirrors turns to him with a smile. "Am I Captain Li?"
"Of course not."
"See?" Meigui teases her friend. Shang half expects her to stick her tongue out a Xiu, but she doesn't. Instead she remains surprisely composed and regal. "You will make it tonight when my father asks?"
"I was hoping to start my travels tonight," Shang feels a little bad for disappointing her.
"I've been told that one should never start a journey at night. Besides my father was so hoping to talk to you, he was friends with your father. So were the fathers of Xiu, Feilang and Hua." Her smooth upturned palm points to her friends. She is standing a foot farther past her three shyer companions.
"We all grew up with stories of your fine house." Xiu is talking now. " Do you remember General Chou? My dad told us how mischievious and wild you were as a little boy."
Shang laughs then, his first real laugh in months. He remembers a simplier time when he wasn't so anxious to be groomed into the family's profession. "Yes, I guess I was," he says. "and I remember your father well. Neither he or my dad were too impressed with me back then."
"Our fathers are certainly impressed with you now." Meigui tells him. "They would be honored to see you again."
A hand cart wheels periously close to Meigui and Shang has to pull her closer to get her out of the way. "Be careful," he warns her.
Meigui doesn't move back, she stays near him, but he doesn't hear her reply. Something makes him turn his attention back up to the stage. Mulan stands there with her hands on her hips, as slender and uncertain as the day he first saw her (him). This time there is also a shadow in her expression, as if that something that forever linked them, that something that started in another time and place, is broken; trouble comes down like a curtain between them.
When she hurriedly leaves the stage he calls out to her, but the noise from the crowd seems to increase, drowning out his voice.
****