A-ma should not be telling this story to a human reject. I should not be opening my tunic and exposing my breasts. Neither of us should have touched her. I can’t imagine a cleansing ceremony exists strong enough to erase our offenses.
A-ma presses on, never hesitating in telling the traditional story. “Then, in a village so remote the people did not yet have clothes to wear and protected themselves from the elements with only palm fronds and kneaded bark, a woman like me—a midwife—gave the child the temporary name of No-food-no-tiger. From that day forward, that tiger—and all tigers born from the creature—have been repelled by the strength of temporary names carefully chosen: No-bite, Mildewed-rice, Soured-tofu.” She puts a fingertip on my daughter’s forehead. “Your temporary name is Spiny-thistle.”
The baby nuzzles my breast and finds my nipple, seeking the healthy drops of yellow fluid that will nourish her until my milk arrives. How serene she is. How small and perfect. The pulls of her mouth are surprisingly strong, and they trigger a spasm that pushes the friend-living-with-child out of my body. I loosen my arms so A-ma can reach my baby’s stomach, cut the cord, and tie it. We cannot take the friend-living-with-child home to bury under the ancestor shrine, so A-ma buries it under the mother tree.
A-ma hands me a jug of water and walks to the edge of the grove, leaving me alone with my daughter. I suck some of the liquid into my mouth, spray it on Spiny-thistle’s body, and use the corner of a piece of cloth to clean the birthing muck from her skin. How can this tiny bundle of flesh be so precious to me already? I understand in all my sore and aching parts, including my pathetic little heart, that this is why the mothers of human rejects may never touch or hold them.
A-ma returns and squats next to me. She peels the heart-forget egg and hands it to me. Numb, I take a bite. It may help me forget the physical pain of childbirth, but I’ll never lose the agony of this. A-ma searches my eyes. I search hers. What are we going to do? My emotions are jumbled. Love for my daughter. Terror that A-ma will insist I use the ash and rice husk mixture on my baby. Concern that A-ma is going to remove Spiny-thistle from my arms and do what I cannot. I don’t have the strength to fight A-ma for my daughter when I just gave birth. And even if I fought her and won . . .
I say to A-ma the obvious thing. “I can’t keep the baby—not without a father.”
“If you take her back to Spring Well, your a-ba or one of your brothers will need to complete . . . the ceremony. The headman, ruma, nima, and village elders will see to it.”
Tears course down my cheeks, fall from my chin and onto my daughter’s face. She blinks at the interruption of her sucking.
“Maybe for once the Han majority laws can help,” A-ma goes on. “The One Child policy doesn’t apply to us, but suppose you give her away—as so many Han women must do when they birth an unwanted daughter. I have heard it happens.”
Yes, we’ve heard it happens, but is it so? Could a mother abandon her baby? Look at me. I couldn’t do what Akha Law told me to do. Maybe Han majority women can’t do what Chinese law tells them to do either.
But when I say this to A-ma, she responds, “It is the only hope for you or the baby. We must try.”
“But where can I leave her?” My voice trembles. If someone on Nannuo Mountain found an infant abandoned in the forest, he would immediately recognize it as a human reject with a father too weak to do what needed to be done. It would be up to that stranger to make sure the rite was carried out. Akha Law is immutable when it comes to human rejects.
“There’s a place I’ve heard the family-planning women talk about at the tea collection center.” A-ma takes her time to pronounce the Mandarin word. “Orphanage. You will find one in Menghai—”
“Menghai?” It’s the nearest big town, where the tea factory is, and where I begged San-pa to take me. The only people I know who’ve been there are the mountain traders who bring goods to us; Teacher Zhang, who passed through when he was sent here to learn from the peasants; and Mr. Huang, his son, and their driver.
“They say it’s about twenty kilometers or a day away by horse cart,” she says. “You ought to be able to walk there and back in three nights.”
We make a new plan. It must forever stay a secret—to protect my reputation, if I hope to marry one day, and to keep A-ma from being disgraced as a midwife and woman, who, until now, has been an ideal of our Akha ways.
When she goes home for supplies, I stare into my daughter’s face and tell her how much I love her, hoping my words will seep into her flesh, blood, and bones to be held within her forever. “You have been born on Chicken Day,” I whisper tenderly. “This is wonderful, because you’ll always know the opening and closing of the sun.” I tell her how sorry I am that I won’t be able to chew food for her when she reaches four months or feed her fish when she’s older so she becomes adept at fishing. “Always remember that if you’re afraid a spirit is coming toward you, spit at it, because spirits are afraid that if saliva touches them they will get leprosy.”
I teach her the sounds of the forest around us: how to distinguish the rustling of the wind in the trees from the crackle of an animal brushing against shrubs and vines as it makes its way on a wildlife trail; how to look at the sky and estimate from the number of stars if there will be rain, fog, or a blanket of humidity at dawn; and, most important, how to understand her place in the world. “From my a-ma to me to you, know that every plant, animal, and mote of dust has a soul. You must make correct choices for the world to remain in balance.” As I murmur these words, I’m on guard for a spirit to swoop down and suck the breath straight out of my lungs as punishment for keeping my daughter alive instead of sending her to the great lake of boiling blood.
Hours later, A-ma returns with a tea-picking basket strapped to her back. She makes a camp for us in the rocky grotto, where we’ll be protected through the night. She unpacks clean clothes for me, as well as rags to place between my legs to catch blood. For the baby, she’s brought some swaddling, including a cap with charms. A-ma inspects the place where the baby came out. I have bleeding, but nothing excessive or uncontrollable. I haven’t had need for opium or any of her poultices, but I’m exhausted from the months of hiding, from the disappointment that San-pa didn’t return in time, from the trek to my land, and from expelling my daughter. I lie on my side with Spiny-thistle cradled to my breast. The moon illuminates the trees, filtering leafy shadows across the grove. If only there were a way to make her remember this moment.
* * *