by Lisa See
The rest of the time we were locked in my room. During the day, we heard people running back and forth. At night, the fitful cries of the ill and the anguished cries of mothers came to us. In the morning, I put my ear against the door and listened for news of who had gone to the afterworld. With no one to care for them except each other, the concubines died agonized and alone, but for the very women whom they’d conspired against.
Whether it was day or night I worried about Snow Flower and my husband. Was she trying the same safeguards I was following? Was she well? Had she died? Had that pathetic first son of hers succumbed? Had the entire family perished? And what of my husband? Had he died in another province or on the road? If anything happened to either of them, I didn’t know what I would do. I felt caged in by my fear.
My sleeping chamber had one window, too high for me to see out of. The smells of the bloating and diseased dead set before houses permeated the humid air. We covered our noses and mouths, but there was no escape—just a foul odor that stung our eyes and spoiled our tongues. In my mind I ticked off all of the jobs I had to do: Pray constantly to the Goddess. Swathe the children in dark red cloth. Sweep the room three times a day to frighten any ghost spirits hunting for prey. I also listed all the things from which we should refrain: no fried food, no sautéed food. If my husband had been home, then no bed business. But he was not home, and I had only myself to be vigilant.
One day as I cooked the rice porridge, my mother-in-law entered the kitchen with a dead chicken hanging from her fingers.
“There’s no point in saving these any longer,” she said gruffly. As she disjointed the bird and chopped garlic, she warned, “Your children will die without meat and vegetables. You will starve them to death before they can even get sick.”
I stared at the chicken. My mouth salivated and my stomach grumbled, but for the first time in my married life I turned a deaf ear. I did not answer. I just poured the congee into bowls and placed them on a tray. On my way to my room, I stopped before Uncle Lu’s door, knocked, and left a bowl for him. I had to do this, don’t you see? He was not only the oldest and most respected member of our family but my son’s teacher as well. The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.
The other bowls I delivered to my children. When Jade protested that there were no scallions, no slivers of pork, not even any preserved vegetables, I slapped her hard across the face. The other children swallowed their complaints, while their sister bit her lower lip and fought back tears. I paid no attention to any of it. I simply picked up my broom and went back to sweeping.
Days passed and still no symptoms in our room, but the heat was fully upon us now, worsening the smells of illness and death. One evening, when I went to the kitchen, I found Third Sister-in-law standing like a wraith in the middle of the darkened room dressed head to toe in the white of mourning. I guessed from her appearance that her children and her husband must be dead. I was frozen in place by the empty, soulless look in her eyes. She did not move, nor did she acknowledge that she saw me just a meter in front of her. I was too scared to back away and too scared to move forward. Outside I heard the night birds calling and the low moan of a water buffalo. In my alarm, a stupid thought entered my brain. Why weren’t the animals dying? Or were they dying and there was no one left to tell me?
“The useless pig lives!” A voice rang out virulent and bitter behind me.
Third Sister-in-law did not blink, but I turned to face the source. It was my mother-in-law. Her hairpins had been pulled out and her hair fell in oily strings around her face. “We should never have let you into this house. You are destroying the Lu clan, you polluted, filthy pig.”
My mother spat at Third Sister-in-law, who did not have the will to wipe the mess from her face.
“I curse you,” my mother-in-law swore, her face red with anger and grief. “I hope you die. If you don’t die—but please, Goddess, make her suffer—Master Lu will marry you out by fall. But if I had my way, you would not live to see daylight.”
With that my mother-in-law, who had not once acknowledged my presence, spun away, grabbed the wall for support, and staggered out of the room. I turned back to my sister-in-law, who still seemed lost to this world. Everything told me that what I was about to do was wrong, wrong, but I reached out, put my arms around her, and guided her to a chair. I set water to heat, then with all the courage I could find I dipped a cloth in a bucket of cool water and wiped my sister-in-law’s face. I threw the cloth in the brazier and watched it burn. Once the water boiled, I made a pot of tea, poured a cup for my sister-in-law, and set it before her. She did not pick it up. I did not know what more I could do, so I began to make the congee, patiently stirring the bottom of the pan so the rice wouldn’t stick or burn.
“I strain to hear my children’s cries. I look everywhere for my husband,” Third Sister-in-law murmured. I turned to face her, thinking she was speaking to me. Her eyes told me she wasn’t. “If I remarry, how can I meet my husband and children in the afterworld?”
I had no comforting words to offer, for there were none. She had no great tree for protection and no faithful mountain standing behind her. She stood and swayed out of the kitchen on her delicate lily feet, as frail as if she were a lantern that had been released during the lantern festival and was drifting away. I went back to my stirring.
The next morning when I went downstairs, it seemed as though there had been a shift. Yonggang and two other servants had returned and were cleaning the kitchen and restocking the pile of firewood. Yonggang informed me that Third Sister-in-law had been found dead earlier that morning. She had killed herself by swallowing lye. I often wonder what might have happened if she had waited a few more hours, because by lunchtime my mother-in-law was down with fever. She must have already been sick the night before when she had been so cruel.
Now I had a terrible choice to make. I had kept my children protected in my room, but my duty as my husband’s wife was to his parents above all else. To serve them did not just mean bringing them tea in the morning, washing their clothes, or accepting criticism with a smiling face. Serving them meant that I should esteem them above everyone else—above my parents, above my husband, above my children. With my husband away, I had to forget my fear of the disease, expel all feelings for my children out of my heart, and do the correct thing. If I didn’t and my mother-in-law died, my shame would have been too great.
But I didn’t abandon my children easily. My other sisters-in-law were with their own families in their own rooms. I didn’t know what was happening behind their closed doors. They might have already taken sick. They might have already died. I couldn’t trust my father-in-law with the care of my children either. Had he not spent the night beside his wife? Wouldn’t he be the next to get sick? And I had not seen Uncle Lu since the epidemic began, although he left his empty bowl outside his room each morning and evening for me to refill.
I sat in the kitchen, twisting my fingers with worry. Yonggang came over, knelt before me, and said, “I will watch your children.”
I remembered how she had escorted me to Snow Flower’s house just after my wedding, how she had cared for me after I’d given birth to my babies, and how she had turned out to be loyal and discreet in carrying my letters to my laotong. She had done all this for me, and along the way, without my noticing, she had grown from a ten-year-old girl into a big-boned, big-footed young woman of twenty-four. To me, she was still as ugly as a pig’s genitals, but I knew she had not yet fallen ill and that she would care for my children as though they were her own.
I gave her exact instructions for how I wanted their water and food prepared, and I gave her a knife to keep with her in case things got worse and she had to guard the door. With that, I left my children in the hands of the fates and turned my attention to my husband’s mother.
For the next five days, I cared for my mother-in-law in all the ways a daughter-in-law ca
n. I cleaned her lower half when she no longer had the strength to use the chamber pot. I made her the same congee that I had made my children; then I cut my arm as I had seen my mother do so that my vital fluid could be stirred into the porridge. This is a daughter-in-law’s supreme gift and I gave it, hoping that through some miracle what had given me vitality would replenish hers.
But I don’t have to tell you how terrible this disease is. You know what happens. She died. She had always been fair, and often kind, to me, so it was hard to say goodbye. When her last breath seeped out, I knew I couldn’t do everything that should be done for a woman of her stature. I washed her soiled and desiccated body in warm water scented with sandalwood. I dressed her in her longevity clothes and tucked her nu shu writing in her pockets, sleeves, and tunic. Unlike a man, she had not written to leave a good name for a hundred generations. She had written to tell her friends of her thoughts and emotions, and they had written her in the same way. Under other circumstances, I would have burned these things at her grave site. But with the heat and the epidemic, bodies had to be buried quickly with little thought given to issues of feng shui, nu shu, or filial duty. All I could do was make sure my mother-in-law would have the comfort of her friends’ words for reading and singing in the afterworld. As soon as I was done, her body was carted away for a hasty burial.
My mother-in-law had lived a long life. I could be happy for her in that regard. And, because my mother-in-law died, I became the head woman of the household, though my husband was still away. Now the sisters-in-law would have to answer to me. They would need to remain in my good graces to receive favorable treatment. With the concubines also dead, I looked forward to more harmony, because on one thing I was very clear: There would be no more concubines under this roof.
Just as the servants had intuited, the disease was leaving our county. We opened our doors and took stock. In our household, we had lost my mother-in-law, my third brother-in-law, his entire family, and the concubines. Brothers Two and Four survived, as did their families. In my natal family, Mama and Baba died. Of course I regretted that I had not spent more time with them on my last visit, but Baba and I had stopped having much of a relationship after I had my feet bound, and things had never been the same with Mama after our argument over the lies she had kept about Snow Flower. As a married-out daughter, my only obligation was to mourn my parents for a year. I tried to honor my monkey mother for what she had done to and for me, but I was not heartsick with grief.
All in all, we were lucky. Uncle Lu and I did not exchange words. That would have been improper. But when he came out of his room he was no longer a benign uncle idling away his retirement years. He drilled my son with such intensity, focus, and dedication that we never had to hire an outside tutor again. My son never shirked in his studies, buoyed by the knowledge that the night of his wedding and the day his name appeared on the emperor’s golden list would be the most glorious of his life. In the former, he would be fulfilling his role as a filial son; in the latter, he would leap from the obscurity of our little county to such fame that the whole of China would know him.
But before any of that happened, my husband came home. I cannot begin to explain the relief I felt as I saw his palanquin come up the main road, followed by a procession of oxen-pulled carts loaded with bags of salt and other goods. All the things I had worried about and cried about were not going to happen to me—at least not yet. I was swept up in the happiness that all of Tongkou’s women showed as our men unloaded the carts. We all cried, releasing the burdens, fear, and grief we had been carrying. For me—for all of us—my husband was the first good sign that any of us had seen in months.
The salt was sold throughout the county to desperate but grateful people. The extravagance of these sales washed away our financial worries. We paid our taxes. We bought back the fields we’d had to sell. The Lu family’s standing and wealth abounded. That year’s harvest turned out to be bountiful, which made autumn even more celebratory. Having weathered dark days, we could not have been more relieved. My father-in-law hired artisans to come to Tongkou and paint additional friezes under our eaves that would tell our neighbors and all those who would visit our village in the future of our prosperity and good luck. I could walk outside today and see them now: my husband in his jacket boarding the boat to take him downriver, his dealings with the Guilin merchants, the women of our household wearing flowing gowns and doing our embroidery as we waited, and my husband’s joyous return.
Everything is painted under our eaves just as it happened, except for the portrait of my father-in-law. In the frieze he sits in a high-backed chair, surveying all he owns and looking proud, but in reality he missed his wife and no longer had the heart to care for worldly things. He died quietly one day, walking the fields. Our first duties were to be the best mourners the county had ever seen. My father-in-law was laid in a coffin and placed outside for five days. With our new money, we hired a band to play music, all day and all night. People from around the county came to kowtow before the coffin. They brought with them gifts of money wrapped in white envelopes, silk banners, and scrolls decorated with men’s writing praising my father-in-law. All the brothers and their wives went on their knees to the grave site. The people of Tongkou plus others from neighboring villages followed behind us on foot. We were a river of white in our mourning clothes as we inched our way through the green fields. At every seven paces, everyone kowtowed, foreheads to the ground. The grave site was a kilometer away, so you can imagine how many times we stopped on that rocky road.
Young and old wailed their grief, while the band blared their horns, trilled their flutes, crashed their cymbals, and banged their drums. As the eldest son, my husband burned paper money and set off firecrackers. The men sang; the women sang. My husband had also hired several monks, who performed rites to help lead my father-in-law—and, we hoped, all those who had died in the epidemic—to a happy existence in the spirit world. Following the burial, we hosted a banquet for the entire village. As the guests went home, high-ranking Lu cousins gave each person a good-luck coin in paper, a piece of candy to wash away the bitter taste of death, and a washing towel for body cleansing. That took care of the first week of rites. Altogether we had forty-nine days of ceremonies, offerings, banquets, speeches, music, and tears. By the end—although my husband and I were not yet done with our official mourning period—everyone in the county knew that we were, at least in name, the new Master and Lady Lu.
Into the Mountains
I STILL DID NOT KNOW WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO SNOW FLOWER
and her family during the typhoid outbreak. In my concern for my children, in my duties to my mother-in-law, and in the joy of my husband’s return, followed by my father-in-law’s death and funeral, and finally by my husband and I becoming Master and Lady Lu sooner than perhaps we were ready, I had—for the first time in my life—forgotten about my laotong. Then she sent me a letter.
Dear Lily,
I hear you are alive. I am sorry about your in-laws. I am sadder still to hear of your mama and baba. I loved them very much.
We survived the epidemic. In the early days, I miscarried—another girl. My husband says it is just as well. If I had carried all my children to term, I would have four daughters—a disaster. Still, three times to hold a dead child in your hands is three too many.
You always tell me to try again. I will. I wish I could be like you and have three sons. As you say, sons are a woman’s worth.
Many people died here. I would tell you things are quieter now, but my mother-in-law lives. She says bad things about me every day, turning my husband against me.
I invite you to visit. My lowly gate hardly compares to yours, but I long to put our troubles behind us. If you love me, please come. I want to be together before we begin binding our daughters’ feet. We have much to talk about in this regard.
Snow Flower
With my mother-in-law in the afterworld, I thought constantly of what she had told me about a wife’s duty:
“Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.” Without my mother-in-law’s watchful eyes, I could finally see Snow Flower openly.
My husband had plenty of objections: Our sons were now eleven, eight, and one-and-a-half, our daughter had recently turned six, and he liked me to be at home. I eased his concerns over several days. I sang to him to calm his mind. I gave each of the children projects, which soothed their father’s heart. I prepared all his favorite dishes. I washed and massaged his feet each night after he came in from roaming the fields. I attended to his below-the-belt area. He still did not want me to go, and I wish I had listened.
On the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month, I put on a lavender silk tunic I had embroidered with a chrysanthemum pattern appropriate for fall. I had once thought that the only clothes I would ever wear were the ones I had made during my hair-pinning days. I hadn’t considered that my mother-in-law would die and leave behind her untouched bolts or that my husband would make enough riches that I would be able to buy unlimited quantities of the very best Suzhou silk. But knowing I was going to Snow Flower and remembering the way she had worn my clothes when we were girls, I took nothing else for the three nights I would be away.
The palanquin dropped me before Snow Flower’s house. She sat waiting on the platform outside her threshold, dressed in a tunic, pants, apron, and headdress of soiled, worn, and poorly dyed indigo and white cotton. We did not go inside right away. Snow Flower was pleased to have me beside her in the cooling afternoon air. As she chattered on about this and that, I saw clearly for the first time the giant wok where the pig carcasses were boiled to remove their hair and loosen their skin. Inside the open door of an outbuilding, I glimpsed meat hanging from beams. The smell turned my stomach. But what was worse was the mother pig and her babies who kept coming up onto the platform, looking for food. After Snow Flower and I finished our lunch of steamed water grass and rice, she took our bowls and set them at our feet so the sow and her babies could eat what we’d left behind.