A half hour later, we come to another obstacle. A portion of the road has washed out. Jin and I decide to walk the last few kilometers. At least the rain is warm. We pass through Bamboo Forest Village and turn onto the trail that will lead home. To our right, on the construction site I remember from my last visit, rises something I never thought I’d see on any tea mountain: a villa as huge as the ones Jin and I used to see outside Guangzhou. It has a tile roof, large patios extended on massive retaining walls, and bright lights blazing from every window on this dark and rainy day.
I peel off onto a smaller path. Jin follows behind me. We each have to catch ourselves several times from falling down the slippery embankment. Soon we pass through Spring Well’s spirit gate. The track that divides the two sides of the village is deserted and dismal. Dogs and chickens have found shelter under the remaining bamboo and thatch houses. The gray brick and stucco structures look bleak, already old somehow. Rain streams down the glass panes of the tea-drying sheds. An odiferous smell seeps from them. Yes, they’re fermenting tea here.
Jin veers toward my family’s new home. Not me. I go straight to Ci-teh’s house. The door is open, and I enter without announcing myself. Ci-teh sits alone at a table with a cup of tea and a pile of papers before her. She’s dressed in the same outfit she wore to fly to Guangzhou for my wedding. Rain batters the roof but otherwise I hear only echoes of emptiness. It’s just the two of us.
“I wondered how long it would take you to get here,” she says, not even bothering to look up.
Passed class note from Haley to Jade, May 18, 2007
Jade,
Why are you and Jasmine being mean to me? You won’t even look at me in class, but I see you passing notes with Jasmine. You said you, Jasmine, and I would go to Old Town together and hang out next weekend. You said we’d all buy matching outfits so we could be samesies. You said we should ask our moms and dads for Tamagotchis for sixth-grade graduation presents next year, so we could take care of them together.
You said I was fresh off the boat, because I wasn’t born here like you. I said Jasmine wasn’t born here, and you said it didn’t matter because her parents are real Chinese, not like mine. All three of us look Chinese, and you know it. You and I have been best friends since kindergarten. When we got into Westridge School in fourth grade, you said we would always be best friends. At our sleepover, you said you and I were like twins. You’re a big fat liar.
And I’m not a midget. I’m not a dwarf either. You are the meanest person ever.
Haley
ONE LONG CHAIN OF LIFE
Ci-teh stares at me coolly. She looks as tu as ever, but for the first time I see her differently. “You’ve always underestimated me,” she says. “Ever since we were girls, you acted like you were smarter than I am.”
“And you were richer, but I thought we were friends.”
“You know nothing, Li-yan—”
She’s interrupted by the spirit priest’s shouts.
“Ci-teh! Li-yan! Everyone! Come out!”
Akha Law wouldn’t allow me to confront Ci-teh alone, but I’d hoped for a little private time with her. Ci-teh nods. She slips on a rain jacket, steps outside, and opens an umbrella. I follow behind her. As wet as I am, I’m grateful for the constant washing of the rain. Beside us, in the mud, stand the ruma and the nima, my a-ma and a-ba, my three brothers, their wives, and all their children, and everyone else who lives in Spring Well. Some are dressed in Western-style clothes and, like Ci-teh, have umbrellas. Others—A-ma and A-ba included—wear their capes made of leaves. The ruma and the nima haven’t donned their ceremonial garments, although the ruma has brought his staff. I glance at my husband, who doesn’t understand Akha. He’s going to have to follow along solely by body language and mood. That realization saps some of my strength.
“Whatever you have to say to each other needs to be said in front of everyone,” the ruma begins, “because your actions have tipped the forest and all who live in it out of balance.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” I object.
Ci-teh points a finger at me. “She’s done everything wrong.”
“That’s not—”
Ci-teh interrupts. “She will accuse us of making counterfeit tea. But we made artificially fermented tea like Mr. Huang showed us so many years ago.”
I put up a hand to stop her from speaking. “Please don’t put words in my mouth. There’s nothing wrong with fermenting leaves as long as you do it correctly and make a good product. That’s what Laobanzhang did and what you used to send to me. But to put a label on inferior tea made in Spring Well, say it’s from Laobanzhang, and sell it as a fake to customers at an inflated price . . . while I’m away. And now you blame me?”
Ci-teh waves off the suggestion. “Everyone’s been doing it, not just our village.”
“Yes, plenty of villages have made false products,” I reply, “but that doesn’t make it right. We’re Akha. We don’t deceive people.”
“Li-yan,” a man calls out, “not everyone did what she wanted.”
“We turned down her request too,” the woman next to him adds.
“Our family refused to sell our maocha or lease our land to her,” First Brother says, and several other heads bob to let me know they too held out.
I knew that Ci-teh had been subleasing land, but I didn’t know how widespread it was.
“If Li-yan hadn’t asked us to send an unreasonable amount of tea to her shop,” Ci-teh says, “then we wouldn’t have done what we needed to do to fill her demand. She just wanted to get rich!”
I wish it hadn’t come to this, but I’m seeing something new about Ci-teh. She’s savvy and selfish. I hope I can find the girl inside her who I used to know.
“Ci-teh,” I say, touching her arm. “You know that’s not what happened. I trusted you, my oldest friend, to help me. We have something valuable to sell, but you corrupted that.”
She pulls away just as someone in the crowd shouts, “Who are you to tell us how to do business?”
People murmur. I worry they don’t trust me.
“We’ve all benefited from the popularity of Pu’er,” I say. “I tried to share my good fortune with you—”
“She’s an outsider,” Ci-teh tells them, defiant.
“Yes, I’ve lived outside, but answer me this: How much did she pay for your artificially fermented tea that you then wrapped in counterfeit paper, knowing your finished product was also not from Laobanzhang?”
A faceless voice reveals “Two thousand yuan a kilo.”
“A lot of money. But do you know what she told me she paid the farmers in Laobanzhang? Three thousand yuan. At the very least, she was stealing one thousand yuan from me per kilo of the fake Pu’er. As we stand together now, only one person knows how much she asked customers to pay for that same tea. Ten, twenty, fifty times what she paid you?”
The grumbling begins again, but this time I sense the tide turning.
“Ci-teh’s made a lot of money by acting against Akha Law,” I press on. “I made a lot of money too. Your lives have been boosted as well. New houses. Electricity. Motorbikes. We can each take some responsibility. But these fakes have caught up to all of us. Outside, the price of Pu’er has fallen by half and is continuing to tumble.”
“It can’t be true.”
“How can we trust you?”