Chapter 12: Dark-Flour Buns

Although curfew was still two hours away, the streets had emptied once the first watch began. Most shops were already locked up. There were no street lamps; only the light spilling from the windows of the houses showed the way.

Snow began to fall. Flakes flickered in and out of the lamplight like little spirits dancing through the night. They settled on Zuo Shaoyang’s head and shoulders, soon covering him.

He left them undisturbed. His teeth chattered and his ears ached with cold, but he neither ran nor quickened his pace. Hands tucked into his sleeves, neck drawn down between his shoulders, he strolled along, looking about him. Beneath the drifting snow, everything in this ancient town was new to him.

At last he reached Guizhi Hall. The door opened almost as soon as he knocked.

“Where have you been? Why are you only back now? We were worried sick!” Huixiang brushed the snow from his shoulders as she spoke.

“Just having a look around.” He stamped his feet on the step, pulled out his hands and rubbed them together, blowing into them.

“You hurt yourself this afternoon! What if the pain had come back and you’d collapsed somewhere? Get inside!”

The same solitary oil lamp burned dimly in the hall. A round table had been set in the middle of the room, with four bowls, a large coarse earthenware plate of pickles and a deep bowl of soup in which a few green leaves floated.

Zuo Gui was still behind the long table, his hands hidden in his sleeves and his head bowed over some private worry. Madam Liang sat at the round table, wiping her eyes. When she saw Zuo Shaoyang, she hurriedly dried her tears, rubbed both sides of her hands on her apron and stood.

“Zhong, what were you doing wandering about in the dark? Come and eat! Husband, supper’s ready.”

For all their hardship and the medicine shop’s struggles, Zuo Gui prided himself on his descent from a scholarly family that had produced officials. His wife accordingly addressed him with anxious deference.

He raised his head, walked slowly over and sat down, glancing at Zuo Shaoyang.

Zuo Shaoyang took his own seat. Two dark-flour buns lay in his bowl. He squeezed one. Rather hard. He picked it up and was about to bite into it when a pair of chopsticks cracked across his hand.

He looked up, smarting. Madam Liang was glaring at him.

“Zhong! What’s got into you? Your father hasn’t started yet. Why are you in such a hurry? You never used to do this. What’s wrong with you today?”

“Oh!” He hastily put the bun down and glanced at Zuo Gui.

His father was looking at him too.

“Your sister tells me you fell down a rock face on Mount Qianren this afternoon, injured your head and lost your memory. Is that so?”

Zuo Shaoyang nodded.

“How do you feel now? Does your head still hurt?”

“No.”

Zuo Gui held out his thin, dry fingers. “Give me your hand. I’ll take your pulse again.”

After a careful examination, he considered for a moment.

“Your pulse seems perfectly normal. Can you remember anything from before?”

“Some things. There are still things I can’t remember.”

His father’s grizzled eyebrows drew together.

“There’s nothing wrong with your pulse. But judging by that wound at the back of your head—a wound that long—your pulse shouldn’t be like this. And now you can’t remember the past. Very strange.”

Madam Liang looked anxiously at her son.

“He’ll get better little by little. Let’s eat first. The food’s going cold.”

“Yes, let’s eat.” Zuo Shaoyang gave an awkward chuckle. “I really am hungry.”

After her warning, however, he kept his hands away from the food.

Zuo Gui slowly picked up a bun, took a bite and followed it with a mouthful of pickles. His head remained lowered, his mind elsewhere.

Only then did Madam Liang turn to the other two.

“Eat! Go on!”

Zuo Shaoyang bit into his bun. It tasted bitter and astringent, with gritty particles that felt like sand between his teeth. He chewed with a frown, then held the broken bun up to the lamp.

Thin yellow shreds ran through it. He picked one out and examined it between his fingers. He soon recognised it: mulberry root bark, from the roots he and Huixiang had carried down Mount Qianren that afternoon.

The roots were dug in winter, their rough outer covering scraped away and the root bark stripped off, dried and cut into shreds. It was a common medicine for coughs and wheezing. At university, though, one of his teachers had said that during the famine of 1960, many people had eaten it in place of grain. It had kept a great many alive. The teacher himself had eaten it.

Zuo Shaoyang had never imagined that travelling back to the Tang dynasty would mean eating the same food of desperation.

Now he understood why mulberry roots had filled more than half their baskets. Gathering medicine had not been the main purpose of their trip. Huixiang had chiefly gone up the mountain to dig roots and strip the bark for food.

His heart ached.

He looked at the others. None seemed to find the buns hard to swallow. They ate with evident enjoyment, and soon their bowls were empty. One of his own buns was untouched; more than half of the other remained in his hand.

Seeing his struggle, Madam Liang said tenderly, “Have some soup, Zhong.”

She ladled some into his bowl.

“Soak the bun in it. It’ll go down more easily.”

His stomach was growling. The buns were dreadful, but he knew they might well be his staple food from now on. Whether he liked them or not, he would have to eat.

The prospect chilled him. Frowning, he put the rest of the bun into his bowl, broke it up with his chopsticks and forced himself to eat.

Soaking did nothing for the taste, but at least he could swallow it. Head down, he finished the bowl in one determined effort. His stomach was finally full, however little pleasure the meal had given him.

“Zhong,” his mother asked, “you told Auntie Zhao to give you a few days to raise the money. Where are you going to find so much?”

At the time, he had expected to sell the musk for enough to cover the debt. That dream had collapsed. Now he had no idea.

“I… I was only buying us time,” he admitted with a rueful smile. “We’ll find a way when we come to it. Something will turn up.”

The faint hope in her eyes faded. She sighed and turned to Zuo Gui.

“What are we to do? Could we rent a little land and farm it? Or clear some wasteland? Hou Pu says the court allows three tax-free years for newly cleared land, then charges only half for the next three.”

During their conversation on the way home, Huixiang had told him about their relatives. Hou Pu was her husband, a clerk at the county yamen.

“Farm?” Zuo Gui sighed. He pushed up his sleeve and waved an arm as thin as a stalk. “Do I look like a man who can swing a hoe? Besides, it’s winter. We couldn’t plant until spring or harvest until autumn. What would we live on for the next six months? Air?”

Madam Liang knew it was impractical. Desperation had driven her to suggest it.

“If there’s nothing else for it, come and live with us,” Huixiang offered. “Hou Pu won’t object.”

“With you?” Her mother’s voice was close to tears. “Your whole family is already squeezed into a place scarcely bigger than a shed. Where would we all sleep? You’re hardly well off yourselves. All of you depend on Hou Pu’s little salary. Things are difficult enough already. Taking us in would work him to death!”

“He won’t die! I earn something too, washing and mending clothes for the yamen jail…”

“No.” Zuo Gui’s refusal came low and heavy. “I’d sooner hang myself here than go begging to my son-in-law. Bed!”

He stood, put his hands behind his back and went, slightly stooped, into the bedroom on the left of the hall.

Huixiang helped her mother clear the table. Zuo Shaoyang tried to join them, but Madam Liang waved him away. She had heated water already, she said. He should pour some out and soak his feet before bed.

He knew by now that the kitchen was in the inner room on the right. He felt his way in. Firelight glowed in the stove, bright enough for him to find the foot basin. Taking the half-gourd ladle from the hearth, he lifted a pot lid, scooped out half a ladle of hot water and poured it into the basin. He added a ladle of cold water from the large storage jar.

There was very little left in the jar. Two buckets stood beside it.

“Sis!” he called. “Where do we fetch water? The jar’s almost empty. I’ll go and get some!”

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