The Scent of the Gods

Three

'tfiree • There was a monsoon drain that ran near the coconut trees outside Great-Grand- . father's house, where the grass slipped away and then continued on the other side of the drain onto the road. In June you could run to the monsoon drain and stand looking down the steep cement from up there on the edge, and smell leaves rotting on the far dark bottom, and see moss growing in crooked cracks up the sides. And while you were still running, before you reached the drain, you knew already that when you stopped you would be standing at neither the beginning of the drain nor at the end of it, but in the middle somewhere, and that which direction you decided to turn did not matter because the drain would still be running, as if it were the longest drain in the world and ran straight into the horizon, then past the horizon and onwards for- 37 THE SCENT OF THE GODS 38 ever. And you could believe this, believe that a monsoon drain ran on forever, if you did not know already that it went only to the sea. But there were things you knew. There were things you did not know, too, but some things you knew. In December the floods would arrive, and the road held beating rain. My cousins took mahjong paper from the storeroom and went into the red room, where they knelt on the floor and made paper boats while the rain swept through the trees around us. Mahjong paper was thick and smooth. It helped the boats to have nice firm shapes. The grown-ups kept the mahjong paper in rolls, and my cousins would take out one roll at a time. A roll contained twenty-five sheets. When my cousins unrolled them, they would place books at the corners to flatten the sheets. They would fold each sheet into four parts, tear off each part, and fold it into a paper boat. As soon as the monsoon drain outside began swaying in the muddy brown floodwater , they would throw open the front door and race banging down the veranda steps. They would run across the grass, clutching their white plastic bags filled with boats. I would stay behind and watch. Grandma said that Chinese girls did not play in the rain. Once I heard her. She was on the veranda shouting into the bright slanting rain, Li Shin. Li Shin, she shouted. Look after your brother. You know what will happen if he falls into the drain, the floodwater will carry him to the sea and send him back to China. But my cousin Li Shin ran on. He ran and did not stop until he was at the gate. Then he stepped through the gate, onto the road, and there he walked about, wiping rain off his face so that he could look closely at what was on the ground, although out there, there were only patches of weak grass, yellowish green and trying to grow in the stony earth beside the road. Now and then J saw him cross the road. He stood on the other side, staring into the trees with his hands in his pockets. Then he swung around and crossed back. On our side of the road Li Yuen was running along the drain. He laughed and chased his boat down the water. His voice drifting across the grass came through the redroom windows and melted past me into the room. I heard him fade over the big empty floor. THE SCENT OF THE GODS The floor in the red room was an open space, because that was where we played. The red room was the only room in Great-Grandfather's house that had so many windows, tall thin windows that ran in a single row down one long wall. The windows had red silk curtains . Grandma said that silk was discovered in 2640 B.C. by the Emperor's wife Si Ling, who used to sit in the Imperial Gardens watching silkworms. Three thousand years after her death, the merchants invented a land route that allowed them to carry silk into Europe. This was called the Silk Route. Only the bravest merchants could travel on it, because the Silk Route crossed mountains and deserts where the nomad robbers lived. In the red room there were also books. They sat on bookshelves...