“A beautiful flower calls to her love—”
“The bee flies through the air to find her—”
“He drinks her nectar—”
“She holds him in her petals—”
We sing the refrain in unison, letting all who hear us know that our love is absolute. “Let us pick flowers together. Alloo sae, ah-ee-ah-ee-o, ah-ee-ah-ee-o.”
We’re happy, but one thing has not changed since the pancake incident. As A-ma reminded me, I was born on Pig Day, and San-pa was born on Tiger Day. This is not an auspicious match, so naturally our families are against a union. In the manner of all Akha fathers, A-ba sends messages to me indirectly. First Sister-in-law touches my shoulder and confides. “A weak boy grows up to be a weak man.” Second Sister-in-law is brusque. “The whole mountain knows he’s lazy.” Third Sister-in-law, my favorite, mutters to me, “You won’t have anything to eat if you marry that good-for-nothing.” They can say whatever they want, but that doesn’t make it so.
A-ba has allowed San-pa into the house, and the two of them have spoken. The situation for my family is better these days, which influences how the conversation proceeds. Three years ago, my a-ba was able to trade some of our extra rice for a young female pig. She grew up, was bred, and now we have three pigs sleeping under our floor. We’ll never be as well off as Ci-teh’s family, but A-ba’s improved status gives him the confidence to hold out for the best marriage proposal that will arrive for me.
Sitting next to our home’s dividing wall, I’ve been able to listen to the conversations between San-pa and my a-ba. San-pa announces that he’s come to fetch a wife, which is how Akha men refer to marriage. “No,” A-ba says. San-pa recites his male ancestors back fifty generations. “No,” A-ba says. San-pa points out that we don’t have any matching ancestors for seven generations, which means we’ve passed the incest taboo. But A-ba doesn’t care. “No,” he says. Adding: “It is not yet time for my daughter to go-work-eat,” which is the way Akha women look at marriage. “My daughter plans to take the gaokao and be the first on Nannuo Mountain to go to college.”
That’s how much he doesn’t like San-pa!
Five months later, the Month of Rest arrives. In the West, it would be considered comparable to February. Since the men don’t have to work, they put their most formidable efforts into settling their marriage plans. Unmarried women spend their time weaving and waiting for proposals, which is why this month is sometimes called the Month of Marriage and Weaving. So far, I’ve done plenty of weaving but have seen no marriage arrangements made.
During the last half of the second cycle, San-pa comes to the house to ask yet again if we can be wed. He receives the usual answer: “No.”
“I will be a good husband—”
“I don’t think so.” Today, instead of the usual mismatched-day argument, A-ba goes in a different direction. “You might think that you live far away and that we would not hear about you. But we have heard. You’ve been trading in things you shouldn’t and trying things you shouldn’t. If you were as respectable as you claim, then your parents would have sent two elders from your village to ask for Girl to become a daughter-in-law. They would have sent gifts. If we reached terms, then she would go to your home for a night, make sure she thought she could be happy, and three days later the two of you would marry. None of that has happened, because they disapprove too. I remember your a-ba, Boy, and he was an honorable man. Even all those years ago, he was prepared to protect my daughter’s reputation from the actions of his own son.”
San-pa has no way to defend himself.
My father speaks again. “The matter is finished.”
Later, in the forest, I ask San-pa what my a-ba meant. “What does he think he’s heard about you that puts you in such an inky light?”
But San-pa puts his mouth over mine, and we start conversing in other ways.
That afternoon we begin to make a plan.
“We’ll move away together,” I say. “We’ll walk to Menghai. We’ll be married there, and no one will stop us.”
He tucks escaped wisps of my hair back under the protection of my day-to-day headdress. “I am a man,” he says. “You are a woman. It is my duty to care for you. I will make the decision. You will stay here and take the gaokao. I will leave Nannuo Mountain to find work in one of the other countries where the Akha roam—”
“But can’t we stay together? I’ll go with you. Laos is so close. Myanmar too—”
“No!” His voice is surprisingly sharp. “It is not right. Your father would never forgive me. I will go . . . to Thailand.” Does he decide on this country to remind me that he’s in charge? “It’s a long walk—maybe two hundred and fifty kilometers on a map, but much longer through the mountains. But what are mountains to me? I’ll make it in ten days, maybe less. You keep studying and take the gaokao. When I return with my pockets heavy with good fortune, I’ll find you at your college. I’ll join the market economy and make even more money. After you graduate, we’ll ask a village where people don’t know us if we might be allotted a piece of land. I’ll farm, and you’ll be a leader of women.” He stares into my eyes, surely seeking how deep my love is for him. “We’ll tell people I was born on a more compatible day—”
“We could never lie about the lineage!”
“We won’t have to. I’m suggesting the change of just one word from Tiger to Sheep. From now on, that’s what I’ll claim when I meet someone new. It will give us a fresh beginning.”
I’m not sure this fabrication is a good idea or that the false label will change the essence of who he is, but I consent to his plan. He will one day be my husband, and I will be his wife. I must learn to obey, if we are to be happy.
He rips two thick threads from the hem of his tunic. “When going far away, strings must be tied around wrists. I’ll be tied to you, and you’ll be tied to me.” He loops one of the threads around my wrist and makes a tight knot. As I do the same for him, he continues. “This proves we’re human, because spirits don’t have strings. I promise to come back with enough money to buy a rice farm and marry you, a girl I’ve known and loved since childhood. We’re going to your a-ma and a-ba right now to tell them.”
My entire family—all my brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, and my parents—listens to us when we gather in the common room. There is a saying in the Han majority culture about a smiling face hiding bad intentions. That’s what I see when I look at the faces that belong to my family. Their mouths say the correct words, but behind their tongues are deeper truths, and they permeate the room.