There were times when I was so angry I would scream at her, my words bitter and harsh. My thoughts would flash to images of Sister and Ma. I could not move my mind forward, to other things, but saw them again, in the sitting room of my old home, discussing Sister’s wedding and then greeting Xiong Fa’s parents. I saw the trail of watermarks left by the rain dripping off their rich clothes, each mark a deep bruise on that house, which would never heal. I thought of Ma sitting silently across the table from me at dinner and Ba chewing slowly. The question still rang in my head but it did not matter anymore what their answer had been; I hated them.
Sometimes I would ask Yan to tell me stories just so I could hear her voice, her words filling my mind so nothing else could enter, even the hatred would be smothered for a few minutes. She would tell me about her garden and the vegetables she grew there, about the planting and the weather she would hope for. I heard her tell me the same stories many times, but it was always comforting to hear them start and finish as expected.
Late in the night when I was alone, after the candles had been lit and extinguished, I would imagine Bi coming to find me like one of the heroes in the wuxia stories; instead of a fishing rod he would arrive wielding a sword, and after beating the guards at the courtyard gates, he would enter the house and confront Father-in-law. These were simply dreams that occurred as I lay in the dark, waiting to fall asleep.
Each night I was devoured like the food sprinkled into the huge porcelain basin of fish at the center of the courtyard. This house took the hours of each night from me, greedily, in little pieces; it was only Yan who returned me to life with her kindness. I felt I did not have a body of my own; there was just this flesh that was a tool for my mind to use when I was allowed control of it, but everything—my skin, lips, legs, arms, and buttocks—could be used or commanded by others at any time for their own pleasure. At night the family entered me from everywhere, leaving me hurting and red. My days and nights had been broken apart.
Weeks had passed since that tea dance and the night that followed. During my many subsequent nights of being overpowered by Xiong Fa, we had established a new routine. The candle was no longer lit, as he could not seem to bring himself to look at me and I did not want to look at him. We could now do this without seeing ourselves, our pain. I still could not think clearly while he was with me in my bed. Every night he entered me and filled me full of his seed, only to hurry away again. I saw nothing when he was with me, felt only his need to satisfy himself; to satisfy his family.
In my mind I remained in the courtyard I had created and sometimes it took me a long while after he had left to come back to my room. Yan always entered after he had left, to help heal me for the next night.
Eventually, whether day or night, Xiong Fa could not speak to me; I wanted to ask him one question, just one word.
“Yan, you come here every night after he has been. Does he make you come here?” I shouted at her as I lay in bed, tired from Xiong Fa’s latest visit. She knew that I would still fight Xiong Fa, I needed to fight and I needed to shout at her.
“You know that he doesn’t ask me, that would be against First Wife’s wishes, mistress. Please do not ask me anymore.” She did not stop what she was doing.
“I will ask you what I want!” I screamed back at her. I watched her face and hands as she moved around the room, gathering a cloth and bowl of water to wash me with and her old shawl that I would wear as she applied her balm.
“Does he talk to you? Does he tell you why he keeps coming? How can he keep visiting me like this?” I wanted to scream at her because I could not yet scream at anyone else.
“He doesn’t speak to me. I am your maid and so he doesn’t speak to me,” she answered quietly, knowing that I would stop soon, once the fight had left me.
“Don’t lie. I saw him speak to you that day when his mother was looking at my bedsheets. You saw me as well. Why do you lie to me? I know what you are thinking.”
“You know it is his duty and that he has no choice. Mistress, you have asked me many times before. I have no other answers for you.” She was almost pleading with me but she did not look at me, just kept working.
I followed her with my eyes until she stood near the fox stole Xiong Fa had given me as a birthday present. It now hung near the mirror on a rack with another shawl he had given me. I had not worn it since that day at the Cathay Hotel, because there had never been another dance. My attention was caught by the fox’s teeth and dark gums, its ebony eyes and nose, everything false and painted to bring it back to life so that whoever wore it would forget that it really signified death. I realized it was ugly and violent and was glad I had not worn it again. I looked at it and momentarily forgot about Yan. When I focused on her again my anger was gone.
Yan had made me understand that Xiong Fa could not stop himself, he must follow his mother’s wishes; like Ba and Grandfather, he would hurt me because he did not have the courage to stop himself. He knew what he should do but could not do it. How could they, these men, be so weak as to let this happen to me, when they knew how much pain I would suffer?
First Wife now waited for my monthly bleeding, examining my underclothes and sheets. Then in the fourth month it did not arrive. We all waited for several weeks and after that Xiong Fa did not appear again and I was ordered to stay in my room. I was happy to stay there and be brought my meals. I was happy not to see or be with any of them.
A doctor arrived. He examined my pulse and breathing and told First Wife that I was pregnant and it would be a boy. They gave him a huge li shi and everybody celebrated with expensive and rare tea from some distant part of China.
I still had to stay in my room. I slept, I read wuxia stories, and gazed at the guards protecting the door through which I had entered this perfectly ordered world. I did not believe the doctor. Such men with their traditional ideas and mysticism had failed Sister. If they had succeeded she would have been here instead of me. I would be with Bi in the fields or by the river, perhaps resting with him under the peaceful night of bright moon and stars he mentioned. I would be with the seamstress, working through linen and silk to create fine clothes. Anywhere else but here.
Now there was no longer fear and pain, I was left with my hatred of this life and those that had put me here.
I’m sorry, so very sorry, but I vowed in that room, my gilded prison, that if I gave birth to a boy I would gladly do what they wanted, though even they had not yet been arrogant enough to ask. I would give my son over to them, to be raised in the Sang manner, as their perfect heir: I would not want him in any case. If the child were a girl then I would not give her to them, though they would not want her anyway. No, I decided, a girl I would treat as I had been treated. Perhaps even worse.
My daughter, I vowed, would become a servant to peasants, a maid to the luckless and homeless. I promised myself that I would do this. By being given away to peasants, she would inherit a share of my suffering; Ma and Sister’s legacy to her, for all their hard work, would be a lifetime spent with street vendors and itinerant peasants, the people they had hated and belittled so much.
Two male servants always sat near my door. I instructed one of them to fetch Yan. She must have been surprised to be called, because she rushed to my room. I was on the first upper floor of the house and she would have been in the maids’ area in the cellars or else outside. She arrived out of breath and I could see she was relieved to find me sitting by the window staring out at the sky. Gasping slightly, she asked me, “Mistress, are you well? Is the baby okay?”
There was no visible sign of you yet. Without so much as seeing or feeling you, I’d made an oath to hate and abandon you.
“Yes, I am well.” I paused. “Yan, you are my maid and you take care of me,” I said then.
“Yes, mistress.”
“I need you to swear something to me.”
“Anything. You are my mistress.”
“I want you to promise that if my baby is a girl, you will take it to
the backstreets and give it away to peasant people. Like the ones we see traveling through the streets, offering to sharpen scissors and knives.”
She waited to see if I had finished, then asked, “I know a son is better, and in the countryside I know many families would do this. But why do you want to? This family has enough money to take care of many daughters. Third Auntie has two.”
I had realized Yan would need convincing.
“I know there’s plenty of money, but at this time I want only sons. This family needs sons. I don’t want any girls, they are useless . . . weak and vulnerable. This family needs to be strong. Girls are treated badly by everyone, even their own family. If I have a daughter, I want you to give it to a peasant couple who have no children and will need the girl because there is no one else to care for them. We can have more daughters later, after sons,” I replied.
With you in my stomach, I lied to achieve what I wanted, just for myself. I told Yan the traditional reasons, the customary excuses, so that she would believe in my good intentions and promise to obey me. Yan had lived in the countryside and she knew this practice. She listened and agreed with the reasons I gave her. I could see from her eyes that for these few moments she considered us friends, as she had before on so many bruised and wakeful nights. She thought me a person to whom she could tell the truth, and from whom she expected the same. Then, seeing nothing wrong with my explanation, the maid in her returned; she looked at the bed and dressing table, prepared to tidy them, and said nothing more. I was in control. I had never felt that way before. I told her that I just wanted her promise, which she gave, and then said I would like to be alone.
According to family rules, reinforced by their doctor, I was not permitted to leave the house until the end of the second month of my pregnancy. Yan told me that from the beginning of the fourth month, I would not be permitted to leave the house at all, because it was not considered dignified for a pregnant woman to be seen in public; another disgrace to the Sang family. This was not prescribed by the doctor but was an order direct from First Wife, supported by Father-in-law. Yan then explained that even though a pregnant woman could go out during the third month, out of respect to First Wife it was not customarily done.
A month or so passed and, as part of the benefits of my pregnancy, I was moved from my old room to a larger apartment near the front of the house, with a better bathroom. My new window gave me a good view of the streets and houses opposite, too, but that simply made me want to go outside more. I called for Yan.
“Yan, please can you take me outside for a walk? I need to go for a walk,” I whined a little as I asked.
“Mistress, if I go out and we are caught then I will be thrown out of the house and punished. You know what happened to your husband’s servant,” she replied very wisely, because if we were caught they might indeed throw her out or punish her harshly.
“Those are only old rumors . . . I will take the blame if we get caught. You can say that I forced you, threatened you, told you if you did not agree then I would throw you out of the house. I desperately want to go outside! As I told you, I used to spend all my time outside in the gardens and park. Just one hour will be good for the baby.”
She hesitated but I knew that as she was from the countryside she would believe that fresh air was good for the baby, and would be persuaded.
“I’ll check if First Wife and your husband have gone to their lunch appointment, then we can leave by the servants’ door.”
“That is wonderful. Thank you, Yan.” I had become wiser now, with a better idea of what I wanted and how I could get it.
We waited until First Wife and Xiong Fa had gone to lunch with Father-in-law then left quietly by the back entrance, which led into the market. We went down side streets and little alleys. I desperately wanted to eat noodles and sweet buns, and Yan led me in search of them, for I didn’t know any of these lanes. I realized I just missed being free. It was now early May and the sun was heating up. I asked Yan to take me to a place we could eat dumpling noodle soup.
When I entered the little restaurant, the owners saw my wealthy appearance and moved some other customers so Yan and I could have a table to ourselves. The attention and respect the owner and customers showed us gave me a sense of power I had never before experienced. We ordered quickly and were served first. The noodles were delicious. Sucking them up smudged my lipstick and left small grease spots on my dress. I started to giggle as I ate, remembering all the times I had eaten such food with Grandfather. Yan smiled at me. We finished and bought some steamed buns, walking to one of the small squares where we sat on a stone bench and watched the people around us, trading and working. I looked out of place there in my full cheongsam with fur stole but I did not care.
After we’d finished I wanted to walk to Tailor Street where all the clothes were made. I suddenly wanted to watch hands and fingers busy working as I had seen once before. I walked slowly past the shops, glimpsing hands carefully stitching and embroidering. I saw huge bolts and rolls of foreign cloth in colors that could never be worn in the traditional Sang household.
At the end of the street were the expensive shops. As we reached them, First Wife suddenly stepped out from one of the shops in front of us with two of her maids in tow. A car was waiting for her on the side of the road but she saw me and shouted for me to stop. I knew she would continue to scream but I didn’t care. She shuffled quickly up to me, followed by her two maids, eventually, her face almost touching mine. I could smell the bitter, putrid odor of her longlife herbal medicine on her breath.
“What are you doing here?” she spat at me. Without waiting for an answer, she told me, “Get back to the house. It is wrong for a pregnant woman to be seen outside.”
I stood and looked at her. I was taller by three or four inches and the need to look up to me was enough to make her even angrier. As she screamed, she realized that people were stopping to watch. She hesitated a moment and looked about. I straightened my back and made myself a little taller still, forcing her to look up even higher. She shouted with rage and her parted lips revealed blackened foul teeth.
I looked down at her and saw that she was ugly and rotting. She was nothing.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I told her. “I am carrying the male heir to the family name. I am the First Wife. Do you understand? I am the First Wife now.”
Her face filled with dark color and swelled before my eyes.
“Did your maid lead you here?” she demanded, ignoring the curious stares of the onlookers. “You are too stupid to come here yourself.”
“She did not.”
“Then she’s insolent for following you when she knows you must stay at home.”
“I demanded she should come. She had no choice.”
I remained quite still but inside I trembled. I felt cold and my skin itched everywhere. I felt at any second I might cry, faint, shake violently, or just unclench my teeth and scream at her. I knew if I moved I would not be able to control myself, so I continued staring down at her, and for a moment she was at a loss. She looked at my mouth and face and then back at my eyes. Then she slapped me across the face, but still I did not move. It was she who took the first step back.
“Return to the house,” she barked at me.
She walked away quickly, not allowing me time to reply, and I realized she could never win. I realized I was the future and she the past, and that she knew this. She turned back to the car, her maids scuttling after her. I watched her get in and then the car moved away, heading back to the Sang house.
I turned to look at Yan behind me. She looked sad and I knew she was worried for me.
Chapter 11
When I returned to my apartment, Xiong Fa’s servant, Ah Cheuk, was waiting to ask if my husband might be allowed to see me. Now that I was pregnant he behaved as though I was a delicate child who must not be upset. I granted his request. He arrived shortly afterward and told me that his mother had complained about my rudeness and disrespect. I t
old him that I had not been out in nearly six weeks and there were no rules that forbade visits outside during the third month of pregnancy. He looked at me and at that moment I saw in his face the mouth and eyes of his parents.
“Yes, but it is respectful to stay inside.”
I did not wish to talk to this man or his family.
“Very well, I will stay in, but you and your family will leave me alone until the birth of your son. First Wife hit me and the fright may have harmed the baby.”
“I understand.” He gave in so meekly and easily.
And so, for the next six months they did not speak to me unless I granted them a meeting. I spent my time either with Yan or by myself. We ate congee and she told me stories of her husband’s adventures in the army. He was a man of courage yet a simple person, who lived for his Emperor and sacrificed for the family he hoped to have but never did. He traveled around the country and I asked Yan if he had ever been to Daochu, a small town near Xian, the ancient capital. She said she had never heard him talk of it. It felt exciting to hear myself ask about Bi’s hometown. It made me tremble a little.
While I was pregnant, I was served special food so that you would grow up healthy and strong, tall and beautiful. No more Jin Hua ham. Fish, soup, and vegetables instead, so you would be intelligent and wise. My child would be perfect, I was sure, yet in all of this I thought of you very little. I wish now I had spent that time thinking of you, not hating and scheming. I know now I should have enjoyed feeling you grow inside me. If I had let myself feel you, you would have been a part of me and not simply an appendage that I could discard. I should have done what Sister and Ma had never done and Ba was afraid to do, then I could never have let you go. But in my fury I now took up their legacy, and forced myself to ignore you, your kicks, the sickness in the morning that you brought me, and the swelling of my breasts ready for motherhood; I ignored all these signs of your presence, these hints for me to change my mind and reconsider. I had even stopped looking at myself naked so I would never see you, but I felt you then and I always have.
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