Inheritance Read Free

with her arms. “Jump, jump!” she shouted. But the rough roaring voice of the fire rose higher.
    “Jump! I will help you!”
    The green figure hurtled into smoke. The woman fell to the ground, bringing Hu Mudan down with her.
    Hu Mudan could hear her own cry, faint against the roaring flames, but she heard no sound from the woman next to her. This silence worried her. She pulled herself to a poised, defensive crouch. She took the woman’s shoulders in her hands and turned them over. They were the slender, almost sharp-boned shoulders of a young wife. Her eyes were half closed and her eyeballs had slid back; her parted lips exposed a few even, white teeth. Her face, which was serene and smooth, was lit up in unearthly shadows from the glow of the fire. Hu Mudan studied the sensuous flare of her upper lip, her curved cheekbones, her high oval forehead and shadowed, deep-set eyes. The eyelids flickered.
    “Up, up,” Hu Mudan gasped in the heat. “Hurry.” She pulled the green silk robe, warm and smooth against her fingertips.
    The woman, coughing, pointed toward the back of the house. She had difficulty walking and leaned heavily on Hu Mudan. Step by step, they struggled.
    Behind the house there was a smaller courtyard that had been built to house a temple and had fallen into disrepair. A small pond lay in its center. The water was low at this time of year, but still it made a firebreak. When they had hobbled around the pond, they couldn’t go another step. They collapsed to the grass, leaning on each other, watching the fire. The young woman wept. Hu Mudan stared dazed into the flames. The glowing house reflected in the pond recalled a fireworks spectacle that she had once glimpsed over the river.
    Finally the woman raised her head and told Hu Mudan her name was Chanyi. “Who are you?” she asked, in her curious, gentle way. “Are you new in the house?”
    “No.”
    “Where do you come from?”
    Hu Mudan shook her head.
    “Please stay here with us,” Chanyi said, and closed her eyes.
    Hu Mudan stayed there, in the garden, breathing the smell of autumn chrysanthemums and the sweet, worn scent of roses faint amid the odor of burning. The woman’s heavy head dropped into her lap. A thick braid slid against her calf, but otherwise she lay still, the head flung back over Hu Mudan’s knees. A jade pendant lay in the hollow of her throat, and the pockets of her robe were embroidered with dragons. Examining the pale green robe that washed and flickered in the flames, Hu Mudan noticed the slight bulge of the belly beneath, and understood that the robe was a gift from someone who very much desired this daughter-in-law to give birth to a boy.
    The fire burned. All over China, houses were flaming up in a splendid light before they settled ghostlike into embers and ashes. Hu Mudan sat in the garden with the young daughter-in-law from the Wang family. She felt a sense of peace and determination rise through her like an answering flame. She had found someone on whom to focus her care. She had been with many men, but she had never felt trust before, and now she instinctively knew that to trust someone meant to be responsible for that person. Hu Mudan tipped her palm to the marbled glow of the fire, and she saw the path of her life run before her, like lightning branching in her hand.
    SHE HAD BEEN HUNGRY. She had been alone. In that time of trouble, Chanyi had made room for her. Hu Mudan believed in the old loyalties, and she immediately began to serve as Chanyi’s maid. Only she knew how to comb Chanyi’s knee-length hair, beginning at the ends and moving gently to her scalp. Only she understood how to keep her mistress safe from the despondency that haunted her. After Chanyi bore two daughters and her hair grew light and thin, Hu Mudan did not comment but continued to comb carefully, gently. When it became apparent that Chanyi had lost her beauty, Hu Mudan did not offer flattery or false hope. For this, her mistress loved