“All the boys will want to take you to the Flower Room when they see you,” I say in greeting.
“The Flower Room? I’ve already done that.” She giggles. “I’d rather go into the forest to steal love. The question is when are you going to the Flower Room?”
I blush. Just the idea of meeting alone with a boy without our parents . . .
“Of course,” she continues casually but knowing the effect her words will have on me, “if he comes, you might want to take him straight into the forest. There’s nothing to it, you know. You need to stop behaving like a blind kitten and act your age. Otherwise you’ll never get married.”
Some boys and girls—like my friend—have been going into the forest to steal love since they were twelve. Not me. My free time was taken up with homework and studying. Over time, my seat in school was moved forward until I sat in the front row. San-pa also began to move forward, reaching the middle of the room. In another two years, we’ll take the gaokao, the countrywide test to see if we’ll be allowed to continue our education at a first-, second-, third-, or fourth-tier university or college. If we fail, we won’t have a chance to take it again. If we make it, we’ll be the first members of any mountain tribe on our mountain to be granted higher education. Then we’ll get married, have as many children as we want, and be a part of all the changes that are still to come to our prefecture . . .
I’m not sure when I fell in love with San-pa. A week ago when he teased me about wanting to see me in my headdress? A year ago when I helped him for hours with his algebra homework? Or maybe six years ago when he gave me that bite of pancake? We have spent so much time together these past few years as the only Akha in our class. Together we studied the history of other countries beyond those that abut our borders but are still similar to China in outlook: Russia, North Korea, and Cuba. Together we struggled through the great Chinese novels—Dream of the Red Chamber and Rickshaw Boy—as well as those written by our Russian friends—Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. We’ve talked and talked. And we’ve spent hours together, just walking, partway to and from our first-and second-level schools. He’s always been interested in what I have to say, and I’ve loved hearing about his hunting expeditions with his a-ba and other men in his village. I’ve been able to help him with his essays, and he’s always shown his appreciation by bringing me a little treat plucked from the jungle—a blossom, a necklace of woven vine, or an egg from a nest.
“If San-pa asks me to go to the Flower Room or the forest, I’ll go,” I confide to Ci-teh in a whisper.
People in the next village can probably hear her laughter. Although we no longer spend the entire day together as we did when we were in Teacher Zhang’s class, Ci-teh and I are still as close as two girls can be.
“If you don’t like it with him, then steal love with one of the other boys who’ll be here during the festival,” she says once she’s caught her breath. “You can do it as long as he isn’t in your clan.”
“Stealing love with San-pa won’t be for me like it is for you and—”
“Boys try out girls. Girls try out boys,” Ci-teh continues right over me. “If they both like the intercourse, then the boy will ask for marriage. If the girl comes to a head by mistake, then they will either get married or the girl will visit your a-ma for one of her special potions. If neither of them likes the intercourse, then why would they want to spend the rest of their lives together? Then it’s only right to look elsewhere.”
“I’m not of a mind to sample every pumpkin in the market. I only want San-pa. Until we become village elders. Until we die. Forever into the afterworld.”
My admission sends Ci-teh into another spiral of giggles.
We climb a series of paths to a clearing that overlooks the village. Some men have already taken down the old swing, while others watch over a pit where pieces of a sacrificed ox turn on a spit. I look for San-pa in the crowd, but there are so many people . . . Women barter homemade brooms, embroideries, or dried wild mushrooms for silver beads and other trimmings for their headdresses. Men trade home-cured hides for iron to give to the village blacksmith to hone into blades for machetes and ax heads. Ci-teh and I are the only girls in our village who’ve put on our headdresses for the first time, and boys look us over like goats to be traded.
Ci-teh pulls on my sleeve. “When the time comes—and it will—you let him make a way down there first. It will still hurt, but it will hurt less. He’s probably stolen love before. He’ll know what to do.”
Before I have a chance to ask what make a way means, whoops and hollers cut through the air as a throng of young men emerge from the forest with four thin tree trunks stripped of their bark. One member of the pack carries over his arm loops of magic vine. San-pa! I’m accustomed to seeing him in school in unadorned leggings and tunic, but today he’s dressed as a man who wants to announce to everyone what a good family he’s from. His mother has dipped the cloth of his shorts and jacket in indigo dye many times to get a deep and very rich color. Even from afar I can see that his jacket is built of many layers. And his mother or sisters or both have stitched his belt with five bands of intricate embroidery. Instead of a turban, he wears a cap sheathed with silver cutouts hammered into the shapes of acanthus leaves.
“Look at him,” Ci-teh sighs dramatically. “He’s definitely come to look for a wife. He’s come for you! Why else would he walk so far? Why else would he join the boys from our village in going to the forest for the vine and to cut the trees? Hours on mountain paths and he still looks so . . .”
“Man beautiful,” I finish for her.
“Beautiful?” Ci-teh covers her mouth to hide her giggles.
He spots me. He doesn’t pretend indifference. His mouth spreads into a wide grin, and he begins threading his way through the crowd toward Ci-teh and me. She clamps shut her mouth, but I can feel her excitement. He stops a meter in front of us. His eyes shine like black pebbles washed by the rain.
“You have a nice village,” he says, “but I look forward to the day when you come to mine. It’s bigger, and we’re on the crest of a hill and not in a saddle.”
His meaning could not be clearer. He’s telling me he’ll make a good husband, because his village is better—wealthier and easier to defend—than mine. I blush so deeply that I’m sure I’ve turned the color of mulberry juice, which is so embarrassing that I feel my face burn even worse. Fortunately, the ruma arrives in the clearing.
The swing won’t go up until tomorrow, so this part of the ceremony will be short. The ruma starts his ritual chanting, but we don’t fully understand what comes out of his mouth. Our culture was built over many centuries by ancestors who lived on the earth before us. How they pronounced their words a hundred or a thousand years ago is only for the ruma to know. By the time he’s done, I’m ready to have a proper conversation.