Bai and Lim (F)

A Red Pot Tale

When I was eleven my family moved from our mountain village in the north to a seaport town on the south coast. For weeks I moped about the new house for I had fallen in love for the first time in my young life, fallen in love back home with a girl who lived on the other side of the river. To soothe my unhappy heart, now so far away from my beloved, my grandmother thought to tell me the tale of Bai and Lim.

Bai was the youngest daughter of a most successful and esteemed businessman who kept a steady hand on the pulse of the grain markets. His trade extended from the great growing fields and terraces to the port city where ships from faraway locales brought goods and left heavy with holds full of wheat and rice.

Lim, at least twice a month, more often during the full harvest season, would be sent by his father with a large wagonload of rice into the city to sell wherever the best price could be found.

Bai, she with her lustrous black hair and wise green eyes that startled visitors to her father’s trading office, was as everyone knew an accomplished artist—painting, writing poems, composing songs of such lyrical delicacy that locals behind her father’s back chuckled to themselves, murmured “How does she  come into this world so talented when he is so dull?”

Did I mention how Lim could swing an ax? No? Lim split wood like his mother butchered a chicken. Swift, strong, pinpoint blows. Village children would run to watch him when they heard his ax cleaving the wood. Old men would gather and nod knowingly, some even claiming that is how they too split wood when they were younger, younger by many decades.

Each day Bai served her father tea downstairs at his worktable. He would always say, “Good morning, dear daughter, what have you brought me today?” She would smile and bow and answer, “I bring you your morning tea, dear father.”

One morning, five days past the full moon, Lim stepped into the trader’s office. The older man looked up and stood. “Ah, young Lim, finally you are here. Several merchants have been waiting for your load.”

Lim bowed. “Yes. I have brought you a very good load, our very best, long grains, clean and firm.”

“Good, good. Very good. Let me take a look—not to doubt—merely to confirm what I already know.” The trader gestured to the door.

Lim turned and there framed by the doorway, the early sunlight behind her, stood Bai, tea service in hand.

I should tell you Lim was highly regarded in his village. Strong, of course, but dignified beyond his years in his bearing. Many older residents would seek his counsel, many a father wished Lim would settle upon his daughter for a wife.

“This is my daughter Bai. Bai, this is Lim who brings me a great wagonload this fine morning.”

Bai nodded—her eyes closed for a moment—and spoke sweetly, “Good morning, Master Lim.”

As for Lim, he took a half step forward. “Good morning, Mistress Bai.” Or at least that is what he intended to say, but to his ears it sounded something not quite guttural, something like a grunt. He looked into her eyes and then glanced down at the tea service.

By the way, Lim needed to cross into the city center after the rice sale was completed, his mother requiring a bolt of dyed cloth from a very particular source.

When Bai was seven her mother died of yellow fever and so the girl was a first child and an only child. Some family members clucked how she was spoiled, too spoiled to be a good wife. But Bai was attentive to her father, diligent in her duties, and kind to all.

Bai stepped into the office and stood to the side as the two men went out to conduct their business. The trader checked only three bags and happily pulled out his purse, counted out a large sum, and gave Lim of sheaf of bills folded once in the middle and tied with twine.

Two bridges cross the great river into the city center. One is the Bridge of Blossom Time. In the spring as the great row of trees along the stone quay bloom, many a traveler and nearly every resident stops near the midpoint of the bridge where the view can cause even hard hearts to gasp in wonderment and so often tears are seen, the beauty so overwhelming.

This morning Lim instead crossed the Bridge of Sighs to purchase the cloth for his mother, and after a late breakfast of two boiled eggs and a bowl of soup, he turned to retrieve his ox-drawn wagon left with Bai’s father to be unloaded.

As it so happened, Bai after her morning duties, weather permitting, strolled to the Bridge of Blossom Time to take in the glorious sight. She knew where to stand to best watch the flowers shimmer in sun and on the surface of the water.

Yet, as if a scent on the breeze, something gave Lim pause, and with only a momentary halt in his stride, he changed course and headed toward the Bridge of Blossom Time.

As Lim approached the crown of the bridge, he saw Bai standing perfectly still, umbrella over her left shoulder. He approached and stood next to her, surveying the scene, hesitating to speak.

Bai glanced at him and back to the river. “Master Lim.”

He placed his hands on the railing. “Mistress Bai.”

“You are a long way from home.”

“Yes. Yes, four days.”

“Do you miss your home when you are away?”

Lim thought for a moment. “Yes, Mistress Bai.”

“Could you ever leave your home?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know. I—“

Bai turned to face him, her green eyes fixed on his eyes. “I could never leave my home, this city.”

Lim’s face reddened. “No. I understand—no, I guess not.”

“Perhaps we shall meet again. May your return be safe and swift.”

Lim drew in a shallow breath. “Thank you, Mistress Bai. Blessings to you and your father.”

The young man stepped back and started across the bridge. Bai folded her umbrella and sat on a bench overlooking the scene. She studied the trees, the sky, the flowers, the water. Thoughts gathered, she heard the words in her mind: Seventeen blackbirds sit / among the cherry blossoms. / Chatter—silence—flight.

Lyman 2021