Dreams of the Red Phoenix by Virginia Pye Page A

about Lian’s faulty chimney.
    Charles looked away from the roof and noticed an old woman crouched on her haunches outside the door. Beside her, a girl who Charles guessed was around his age sat on the stone bench. The two ate with fast-moving chopsticks from bowls and seemed to be engaged in a heated argument.
    He bowed. “Pardon me, esteemed grandmother,” he began, “I am sent from the Carson household, where Lian works. We would be honored to have your company at our home.”
    The old woman looked up with eyes milky from cataracts. She tipped her head to the side and shouted in a different dia lect—one from the countryside that Charles happened to recog nize because many of the mission servants spoke it.
    â€œWho is it that speaks so poorly to us?” the grandmother asked the girl. “His voice hurts my ears.”
    The girl answered her grandmother in the same country dia lect. “Hush,” the girl said. “He is a white boy. American, I think. He must be the son of that witch Lian works for.”
    Charles tried not to laugh. He continued in the more formal dialect, which the girl seemed to understand, not wanting to em barrass them by showing that he had grasped their rude com ments.
    â€œLian works for us, and my mother would like to invite you to come with me to stay at our home.”
    The old woman said, “He sounds like someone caught his tongue in the door.”
    Charles felt a flame of indignation. No one had ever said he didn’t speak well. He would have to ask Han for his honest opin ion. The old woman must have cotton in her ears.
    â€œMy grandmother thanks you for the kind offer,” the girl said, “but we are quite contented here. Lian’s home is not large, but there is room for us. She is at her employer’s so much of the time, year in and year out, that we rarely see her, but we are quite hap py to be here now.”
    Charles noted the dig she had slipped into her reply. So Lian felt she worked too many hours and days. No doubt, Charles thought. He would speak to his mother about that.
    â€œAre you sure you don’t want to come?” he asked again. “We have food and mats for sleeping. Don’t you want to be with your Auntie Lian?”
    The girl turned to the old woman again and said in the coun try dialect, “He says they have food and a place to sleep. How about we go?”
    â€œThey poison us with their food. I don’t trust foreigner dev ils. How do we know they are any different from the Japanese dogs? They come to rob us. No, we will make our own food. I remember when all we had was stone soup. I remember when the Righteous Harmony Society chased them all out! That was the right idea!”
    The girl waved her hand and said, “I’ve heard your old sto ries, Grandmother. Maybe I don’t want to eat stone soup.”
    â€œAll right then, go! Leave me here. I will sit like this all day.”
    As the girl stood, she swayed slightly, light-headed, Charles guessed, from hunger. He wanted to offer her a hand but didn’t reach out. The top of the girl’s head barely came to his shoulder, her collarbone protruded, and her arms were as thin as young bamboo. But her eyes, dark, iridescent pools, still caught the light. Nothing about her seemed dull to Charles, but clearly she needed more meat on her bones.
    â€œWe thank you for the invitation, but my grandmother has been through a lot. It took us days to get here. Lian’s food is the first we’ve had in a while. My grandmother needs to rest before we move anywhere.”
    â€œI understand,” Charles said, “but I’ll drop by again soon to see—” he looked down at the grandmother—“how she is doing.”
    The girl blushed, and Charles realized that his cheeks were warm, too. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, and be fore he knew it, he had reached out to shake hers. The girl’s hand seemed