Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

by Lisa See

  I set the book down. The room was very quiet. I picked up the third-day wedding book I’d written for Snow Flower and opened it. My eyes sought out Snow Flower’s mother-in-law. I wanted her to know that my laotong would always have a protector in me.

  “People may speak of us as girls who married out,” I sang, in the direction of Snow Flower, “but we will never be separated in our hearts. You go down; I go up. Your family butchers animals. My family is the best in the county. You are as close to me as my own heart. Our futures are tied together. We are like a bridge over a wide river. We walk side by side.” I wanted Snow Flower’s mother-in-law to hear me. But her eyes stared back at me suspiciously, her thin lips pressed into a slash of displeasure.

  As I came to the end, again I added a few new sentiments. “Don’t express misery where others can see you. Don’t let sobbing build. Don’t give ill-mannered people a reason to make fun of you or your family. Follow the rules. Smooth your anxious brow. We will be old sames forever.”

  Snow Flower and I were not given an opportunity to speak. I was led back to my palanquin and returned home to my natal family. Once I was alone, I unpacked our fan and opened it. A third of the folds now had writing commemorating moments that were special to us. That seemed about right, for we had lived more than a third of what was considered a long life for women in our county. I looked at all the things that had happened in our lives up to that point. So much happiness. So much sadness. So much intimacy.

  I went to the last entry where Snow Flower had written of my marriage into the Lu family. It covered half of a single fold in the fan. I mixed ink and pulled out my finest brush. Just below her good wishes for me, I carefully limned new strokes: A phoenix soars above a common rooster. She feels the wind around her. Nothing will tether her to the ground. Only now that I was alone and with those words written did I finally face the truth of Snow Flower’s fate. In the garland at the top I painted a wilted flower from which little tears dripped. I waited until the ink dried.

  Then I closed the fan.

  The Temple of Gupo

  MY PARENTS WERE HAPPY TO SEE ME WHEN I RETURNED. THEY

  were happier still with the sweet cakes that my in-laws sent as gifts. But to be honest, I was not so happy to see them. They had lied to me for ten years, and my insides churned with loathsome emotions. I was no longer the little girl who could let river water wash away unpleasant feelings. I wanted to accuse my family, but for my own welfare I still needed to follow the rules of filial piety. So I rebelled in small ways, isolating myself emotionally and physically as best I could.

  At first my family seemed unaware of the change in me. They continued to do and say the customary things and I did my best to refuse their overtures. My mother wanted to examine my private parts, but I denied her this, pleading embarrassment. My aunt inquired about bed business, but I turned away from her, pretending I was too shy. My father tried to hold my hand, but I implied that now I was a married woman this kind of affection was no longer appropriate. Elder Brother sought my company to laugh and share stories; I told him he should do these things with his wife. Second Brother saw my face and kept his distance; I did nothing to change that, suggesting modestly that when he had a wife of his own he would understand. Only Uncle—with his baffled look and nervous hopping—elicited any sympathy from me, but I confided nothing. I did my chores. I worked quietly in the upstairs chamber. I was polite. I held my tongue, because all of them, except my younger brother, were my elders. Even as a married woman, I had no standing to accuse them of anything.

  But I could not act like this and go unnoticed for long. To Mama, my behavior—though courteous in every respect—was unacceptable. We were too many people in a small household for one person to take up so much space with what she considered to be my pettiness.

  I was home five days when Mama asked Aunt to go downstairs for tea. As soon as Aunt was gone, my mother crossed the room, leaned her cane against the table where I sat, grabbed my arm, and sank her nails into my flesh.

  “Do you think you are too good for us now?” She hissed her accusation as I knew she would. “Do you think you are superior because you did bed business with the son of a headman?”

  I raised my eyes to hers. I had never shown her disrespect. Now I revealed the anger on my face. She held my gaze, believing she could weaken me with her cold eyes, but I did not look away. Then, in one swift movement, she released my arm, drew back, and hit me hard across the face. My head jolted to the side then came back to center. My eyes sought hers again, which only offended Mama further.

  “You dishonor this house with your behavior,” she said. “You’re beyond disgraceful.”

  “Beyond disgraceful,” I mused in a low tone, knowing that my calm echo would aggravate her even more. Then I grasped her arm and yanked her down so that we were face-to-face. Her cane clattered to the floor.

  From downstairs, my aunt called up. “Are you all right, Sister?”

  Mama replied lightly. “Yes, just bring the tea when it’s ready.”

  My body shook from the emotions raging beneath my skin. Mama felt them and smiled in her knowing way. I dug my nails into her flesh as she had done to me. I kept my voice low so that no one in the house could hear what I said. “You are a liar. You—and everyone in this family—deceived me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out about Snow Flower?”

  “We didn’t tell you out of kindness to her,” she whined. “We love Snow Flower. She was happy here. Why should we have changed the way you saw her?”

  “It wouldn’t have changed anything. She’s my laotong.”

  My mother jutted her chin stubbornly and changed tactics. “Everything we did was for your own good.”

  I dug my nails deeper. “Your good, you mean.”

  I knew the physical pain I was causing her, but instead of grimacing she now twisted her features into something kind and beseeching. I knew she would try to justify herself, but I never could have imagined the excuse she would conjure up.

  “Your relationship to Snow Flower and your perfect feet meant a good marriage, not only for you but for your cousin as well. Beautiful Moon was to be happy.”

  This diversion from what I was upset about was almost more than I could bear, but I held on to my composure.

  “Beautiful Moon died two years ago.” My voice came out hoarsely. “Snow Flower came to this house ten years ago. Yet you never found the time to tell me of her circumstances.”

  “Beautiful Moon—”

  “This is not about Beautiful Moon!”

  “You took her outside. If you hadn’t, she would still be here today. You broke your aunt’s heart.”

  I should have expected this manipulation of the facts from my monkey mother. Even so, the accusation was too harsh, too cruel to be believed. But what could I do? I was a filial daughter. I still had to rely on my family until I got pregnant and moved away. How could a girl born under the sign of the horse ever triumph in battle against the devious monkey?

  My mother must have sensed her advantage, because she went on. “A proper daughter would thank me—”

  “For what?”

  “I gave you the life I could never have because of these.” She motioned to her deformed feet. “I wrapped and bound your feet, and now you have received the reward.”

  Her words transported me back to the hours when I experienced the worst pain of my footbinding and she had often repeated a version of that promise. With horror, I realized that during those awful days she had not been showing me mother love at all. In some twisted way, the pain she inflicted on me had to do with her own selfish wants and desires.

  The fury and disappointment I felt seemed unbearable. “I will never again expect any kindness from you,” I spat out, releasing her arm in disgust. “But remember this. You made it so that one day I would have the power to control what happens to this family. I will be a good and charitable woman, but do not for once think that I will forget what you did.”

  My mother re
ached down, picked up her cane, and leaned on it. “I pity the Lu family for having to take you in. The day you leave here will be the most blessed in my life. Until then, do not try this nonsense again.”

  “Or what? You won’t feed me?”

  Mama looked at me as though I were a stranger. Then she turned and hobbled back to her chair. When Aunt came upstairs with tea, nothing was said.

  And that’s how things remained, for the most part. I softened toward the others: my brothers, Aunt, Uncle, and Baba. I wanted to cut Mama out of my life completely, but my circumstances wouldn’t allow that. I had to remain in the house until I got pregnant and was ready to give birth. And even when I moved to my husband’s home, tradition would require me to travel back to my natal home several times a year. But I tried to keep an emotional distance from my mother—though on most days we were in the same room—by acting as though I’d matured into a woman and no longer needed tenderness. This was the first time I would do this—properly follow customs and rules on the outside, let loose my emotions for a few terrible moments, and then quietly hang on to my grievance like an octopus to a rock—and it worked for everyone. My family accepted my behavior, and I still looked like a filial daughter. Later I would do something like this again, for very different reasons and with disastrous results.

  SNOW FLOWER WAS

  dearer to me than ever. We wrote each other often, and Madame Wang delivered our letters. I worried about her circumstances—if her mother-in-law was treating her well, how she tolerated bed business, and whether things had worsened in her natal home—and she fretted that I no longer cared for her in the same way. We wanted to see each other, but we didn’t have the excuse of visiting to work on our dowries, and the only trips we were allowed to take were to our husbands’ homes for conjugal visits.

  I went to my husband four or five nights a year. Every time I left, the women in my natal household cried for me. Every time I carried my own food, since my in-laws would not provide my meals until I fell permanently into their home. Every time I stayed in Tongkou, I was encouraged by how I was treated. Every time I returned home, my family’s emotions were bittersweet, for each night away from them made me seem more precious and made the fact that I would soon leave forever a reality.

  With each trip, I became more emboldened, looking out the palanquin window until I knew the route well. I traveled over what was usually a muddy and rutted track. Rice fields and the occasional taro crop bordered the roadway. On the outskirts of Tongkou, a pine tree twisted over the road in greeting. Farther along on the left lay the village’s fishpond. Behind me, back where I had come from, the Xiao River meandered. Ahead of me, just as Snow Flower had described, Tongkou nestled in the arms of the hills.

  Once the bearers set me down before Tongkou’s main gate, I stepped out onto cobblestones that had been laid in an intricate fish-scale pattern. This area was shaped like a horse’s hoof, with the village’s rice husking room on the right and a stable on the left. The gate’s pillars—decorated with painted carvings—held up an elaborate roof with eaves that swept up to the sky. The walls were painted with scenes from the lives of the immortals. The threshold through the front gate was high, letting all visitors know that Tongkou had the highest status in the county. A pair of onyx stones carved with leaping fish flanked the gate for visitors on horseback to dismount.

  Just over the threshold lay Tongkou’s main courtyard, which was not only welcoming and large but covered with a carved and painted eight-sided dome that was feng shui perfect. If I went through the secondary gate to my right, I came to Tongkou’s main hall, which was used for greeting common visitors and small gatherings. Beyond this lay the ancestral temple, which was for hosting emissaries and government officials and for festive occasions such as weddings. The village’s lesser houses, some of which were built of wood, clustered together just past the temple.

  My in-laws’ home sat prominently on the other side of the secondary gate to my left. All the houses in this area were grand, but my in-laws’ was particularly beautiful. Even today, I am happy to live here. The house has the usual two stories. It is built of brick and plastered on the exterior. Up under the exterior eaves are painted tableaus of lovely maidens and handsome men, studying, playing instruments, doing calligraphy, going over the accounts. These are the kinds of things that have always been done in this house, so those pictures send a message to passersby about the quality of the people who live here and the ways in which we spend our time. The interior walls are paneled in the fine woods of our hills, while the rooms are highly ornamented with carved columns, lattice windows, and balustrades.

  When I first arrived, the main room was much as it is now—with elegant furniture, a wood floor, a good breeze from the high windows, and stairs that climbed along the east wall to a wooden balcony embellished with an overlapping diamond pattern. Back then, my in-laws slept in the largest room at the back of the house on the ground floor. Each of my brothers-in-law had his own room that sat on the perimeter of the main room. After a time, wives came to live with them. If they didn’t give birth to sons, those wives were eventually moved to other quarters and concubines or little daughters-in-law took their places in my brothers-in-law’s beds.

  During my visits, nighttime was devoted to bed business with my husband. We needed to make a son, and we both tried very hard to do what was necessary for that to happen. Other than that, my husband and I didn’t see each other much—he spent his days with his father, while I spent mine with his mother—but over time we got to know each other better, which made our evening task more bearable.

  As in most marriages, the most important person for me to build a relationship with was my mother-in-law. Everything Snow Flower had told me about Lady Lu following the usual conventions was true. She watched over me as I did the same chores that I did in my natal home—making tea and breakfast, washing clothes and bedding, preparing lunch, sewing, embroidering, and weaving in the afternoon, and finally cooking dinner. My mother-in-law ordered me about freely. “Dice the melon into smaller cubes,” she might say, as I made winter melon soup. “The pieces you have cut are fit only for our pigs.” Or “My monthly bleeding escaped onto my bedding. You must scrub hard to get out the stains.” As for the food I brought from home, she would sniff and say, “Next time bring something less smelly. The odors of your meal ruin the appetites of my husband and sons.” As soon as the visit was over, I was sent back home with no thank-you or goodbye.

  That about sums up how things were for me—not too bad, not too good, just the usual way. Lady Lu was fair; I was obedient and willing to learn. In other words, we each understood what was expected of us and did our best to fulfill our obligations. So, for example, on the second day of the first New Year after my wedding, my mother-in-law invited all of Tongkou’s unmarried girls and all of the girls who, like me, had recently married into the village to pay a visit. She provided tea and treats. She was polite and gracious. When everyone left, we went with them. We visited five households that day, and I met five new daughters-in-law. If I hadn’t already been Snow Flower’s laotong, I might have searched their faces, looking for those who might want to form a post-marriage sworn sisterhood.

  THE FIRST TIME

  Snow Flower and I met again was for our annual visit to the Temple of Gupo. You would think we would have had much to say, but we were both subdued. I believed her to be remorseful—about having lied to me all those years and about her low marriage. But I too felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to discuss my feelings about my mother without reminding Snow Flower of her own deceit. If these secrets weren’t enough to stifle conversation, we now had husbands and did things with them that were very embarrassing. It was bad enough when our fathers-in-law listened at the door or our mothers-in-law checked the bedding in the morning. Still, Snow Flower and I had to discuss something, and it felt safer to talk about our duty to get pregnant than to delve into those other thorny subjects.

  We spoke delicately about the
essential elements that must be in place for a baby to take hold and whether or not our husbands obeyed these rituals. Everyone knows that the human body is a miniature version of the universe—the eyes and ears are the sun and moon, breath is air, blood is rain. Conversely, those elements play important roles in the development of a baby. Since this is so, bed business shouldn’t take place when rain pours off the roof, because it will cause a baby to feel trapped and confined. It shouldn’t take place during thunderstorms, which will cause a baby to develop feelings of destruction and fear. And it shouldn’t take place when the husband or wife is distressed, which will cause those dark spirits to carry over to the next generation.

  “I have heard that you should not do bed business after too much hard work,” Snow Flower told me, “but I don’t believe that my mother-in-law has heard that.” She looked exhausted. I felt the same way after visiting my husband’s home—from the nonstop labor, from being polite, and from always being watched.

  “This is the one rule my mother-in-law doesn’t respect either,” I commiserated. “Haven’t they heard an exhausted well yields no water?”

  We shook our heads at the nature of mothers-in-law, but we also worried that if we did become pregnant we might not have healthy or intelligent sons.

  “Aunt told me the best time to get pregnant,” I said. Although all her babies had died except for Beautiful Moon, we still trusted Aunt’s expertise in this regard. “There can be no unpleasantness in your life.”

  “I know.” Snow Flower sighed. “When water is still, the fish breathes with ease; when wind is gone, the tree stands firm,” she recited.

  “We each need a quiet night when the moon is full and bright, which suggests both the roundness of a pregnant belly and the purity of the mother.”