The Good Women Of China

by Xinran

  Another reason I like Yulong is that she’s very pretty. A long time ago I heard somebody say that friends start looking alike after some time. If I could have half Yulong’s beauty, that would be good enough. It’s not just me who likes Yulong, everyone else does too. If she needs something done, everyone is willing to give her a hand. She also gets special favours that other people don’t. For example, her sheets are changed twice a week rather than once, she is allowed to have visitors in her room, and she never has to wait for a nurse’s attention. The male nurses always find a reason to hang about her room. I’m sure Yulong gets better food too.

  I really envy her – as Old Mother Wang says, her face is her fortune. Old Mother Wang doesn’t like Yulong, though. She says she’s like the fox fairy in the legends, who lures men to their deaths.

  . . .

  I got up secretly to write, but Dr Yu found me on her night rounds. She asked if I was hungry, and invited me to have a late-night snack. She said that a full stomach would help me sleep.

  In the duty room, Nurse Gao lit the stove and started to prepare noodles with crispy fried green onions. Suddenly there was a power cut. The only light came from the stove. Dr Yu hurriedly went to check on the patients with a torch. Nurse Gao carried on cooking. She seemed to be used to doing things in the dark, and very soon the scent of fried onions filled the air. Kind Nurse Gao knew I loved crispy onions, so she picked out two spoonfuls of them specially for me. Soon the power came back on and Dr Yu returned and the three of us settled down to eat. While I was enjoying my second spoonful, I told Dr Yu how Nurse Gao had spoiled me by picking out the onions specially.

  Suddenly, Dr Yu pushed away my spoon and asked urgently, ‘Have you swallowed any?’

  I nodded, puzzled: ‘This is my second spoonful.’

  Nurse Gao was also bemused. ‘What’s wrong? Why are you frightening us?’

  Dr Yu pointed anxiously at the crispy onions scattered on the floor. Among the green onions were countless dead flies, burned to a crisp. The flies had been drawn out of hiding by the heat and light of the stove. Weakened by the winter, they dropped into the pot. In the darkness, nobody had noticed.

  Dr Yu and Nurse Gao quickly found some medicine. They had two pills each and I had four, washed down with glucose solution. The noodles, which had smelled so wonderful, were tipped into the toilet. They tried to reassure me that I would not get sick.

  My head is full of those flies I swallowed. Did I break their bones and crush their bodies with my teeth? Or did I swallow them whole?

  Goodness! But I’ve written a funny little story!

  21 April – Light rain

  I have decided to keep a baby fly as a pet.

  Last Sunday I did not have any drip treatment, so I slept well until I was woken by a soft, shivery feeling on my skin. Only half awake, I felt too lazy to move, and lay there wondering where the feeling came from. Whatever caused it was still there, moving busily up and down my leg, but it didn’t disturb or scare me at all. I felt as if a pair of tiny hands was gently stroking me. I was very grateful to that pair of little hands, and wanted to know whose they were. I opened my eyes and looked:

  It was a fly! How horrible! Flies are covered with sewage and germs!

  But I never knew that the feet of a fly could feel so soft and gentle, even if they are dirty.

  For several days, I waited for those ‘little hands’, but they did not come again.

  While I was being X-rayed after a barium meal this morning, I suddenly thought of the time I visited the specimen room in the hospital, and of the little animals the doctors raised for medical experiments. I could raise a clean fly! Yes, I would find a baby fly and keep it in my mosquito net.

  25 April – Overcast

  It is very hard to find a baby fly. The world is full of big flies, buzzing all over the place, landing on the filthiest, smelliest things, but I don’t dare touch them. I really want to ask Dr Zhong for advice; he is a biology expert, and would definitely know where to find a baby fly. But if I ask him, he’ll think I’m mad.

  8 May – Sunny

  I’m so tired, so very tired.

  Two days ago, I finally caught a baby fly. It is very little. It was struggling in a spider’s web on a small apple tree in the thicket behind the canteen. I covered the fly and web with a gauze bag made out of a face mask, and took it back to my room. As I was passing the treatment room, Nurse Zhang asked me what I’d caught. I blurted out the first thing that came into my head, that it was a butterfly, then hurried back to my room and dived into my mosquito net. As soon as I was inside, I slowly opened the gauze bag. To my surprise, the gauze fibres had unstuck the spider’s web, and the baby fly could move freely. I thought it must be very tired and hungry after having been stuck for goodness knows how long, so I ran to the duty room, stole a little bit of gauze, and poured some glucose solution on to it. Then I ran to the kitchen and picked a piece of meat from the pot of leftovers. When I got back to my mosquito net, the baby fly seemed not to have moved. Its tiny wings were waving feebly; it looked hungry and tired. I put the meat down on the sugared gauze, and gently pulled it close to the baby fly. Just then I heard the sound of the medicine trolley. It was time for the afternoon treatment. I had to find something to cover the fly with, I couldn’t let it be discovered. I like collecting little containers, so it was very easy for me to find a box with a transparent plastic lid in which to put the fly and its gauze ‘nest’. I had just finished doing this when Nurse Zhang pushed the trolley in.

  Nurse Zhang said, ‘What about your butterfly then? Let’s see if it’s pretty or not.’

  ‘I . . . I thought it wasn’t very pretty after all, so I let it go,’ I lied, stammering.

  ‘Never mind, next time I’ll catch you a beautiful one,’ he consoled me.

  I thanked him, but wished he would hurry up and leave. I was worried about my baby fly.

  It’s much harder to keep a baby fly than a kitten. Everybody likes kittens, so if you have a kitten, many people will help you. But nobody likes flies. I’m worried that someone might kill it, or that it will escape. I haven’t dared venture outside for exercise for the last few days because I’m afraid the baby fly will have an accident. I can’t sleep easily at night either because I’m worried the doctors and nurses will chase the fly away. I listen for their footsteps, and thrust my arm out of the mosquito net before they come in, so that they can take my pulse and temperature without lifting the net. It’s been like this every day, for several days. I am really so very tired.

  This is much better than sleeping at home, though. Besides, my baby fly really looks much better now. It’s growing very slowly, it hardly seems to be getting any bigger. But that’s fine, I don’t like those big, green-headed flies at all. The baby fly is always landing on me: I love the gentle, sometimes ticklish feeling on my skin. I like it too when it plays on my cheeks, but I don’t let it kiss me.

  11 May – Sunny

  I haven’t had to have any drips for the last few days. Dr Zhong says they’ll keep me in for a few more days of observation, and a new treatment. I don’t care what they do, so long as I can stay here and not go home.

  My baby fly is wonderful.

  I’ve made a house for it, where it can be safe, and move around too: it’s a gauze cover, the sort the canteen uses to cover the food. The head cook gave it to me because I said that I had to have drips every day and couldn’t have meals at the regular times and wanted something to stop flies and bugs crawling all over my food. The head cook is a good person. He agreed at once, and even sewed on a little gauze bag especially for me to keep clean bowls and utensils in. And so the little fly has its own special house, but the most important thing is that he is very safe there. Nobody would suspect that there was a fly inside an anti-fly cover. Also, I don’t have to run to the canteen to get food for it: it can enjoy my rice and vegetables with me.

  I can sleep in peace again.

  It’s beautifully sunny today. I put the fly in its
house at the foot of my bed, and borrowed Old Mother Wang’s magnifying glass to watch it eating sugar.

  The fly looks like a little old man under the microscope – it’s hairy all over! I was so startled, I had to put down the magnifying glass in a hurry. I don’t want to see it looking so ugly. Seen with the naked eye it’s ever so cute: its body is tiny, you can’t say for sure whether it’s grey, brown or black (maybe it’s patterned); its wings glitter in the sun like two little diamonds; its legs are so slender they make me think of a dancer’s legs; its eyes are like small glass balls. I have never managed to find its pupils; it never seems to look at anything.

  My baby fly looks really funny on the sugared gauze: its front feet busy all the time, moving back and forth, rubbing together, like people do when they wash their hands.

  9 June – Cloudy, clear later

  I’ve been feeling very faint for the last couple of days, but when it’s time for the daily examination, I don’t have a high temperature, and my blood pressure isn’t particularly low either. Today, I could hardly see the shuttlecock when I was playing badminton with Yulong; once, I almost collapsed trying to return her serve. My vision is blurred, everything seems to have a flickering shadow. Luckily, Dr Zhong was on duty today. When I spoke to him about the situation, he said that I would have to go back to the main hospital for another blood test.

  Okay, I won’t write anything more. I am seeing double.

  I can’t see my baby fly properly either, he’s too small. Today, there seem to be two of him.

  Nurse Zhang says he’s going to give me something nice today, but I’m about to go to sleep now and he still hasn’t come. He must have been teasing. I won’t write any more today, I’m too sleepy. Good night, dear diary.

  11 June – ?

  I have only just stopped crying. Nobody knew why I was crying, the doctors, nurses and other patients all thought I was scared of dying. As a matter of fact, I’m not scared of dying. Old Mother Wang says, ‘Life and death are separated by a thread.’ I think that must be right. Death must be like sleep; I like being asleep and away from this world. Besides, if I died, I wouldn’t have to worry about being sent home. I’m only seventeen, but I think this is a good age to die. I will be a young girl for ever, and never turn into an old woman like Old Mother Wang, with a face scored with lines.

  I was crying because my baby fly is dead.

  The evening of the day before yesterday, I had only written a few lines of my diary when I felt so dizzy I could not carry on. I got up to go to the toilet, then, just as I was about to get back into bed, I saw a pair of demonic eyes staring at me from the headboard of my bed. I was so frightened, I screamed and fainted.

  Dr Liu said I was delirious for half a day, shouting all the time about flies, demons and eyes. Old Mother Wang told all our fellow patients I was possessed, but the head nurse told her not to talk nonsense.

  Dr Zhong knew the reason for my collapse, and gave Nurse Zhang a terrible telling-off because of it. Nurse Zhang had spent several hours catching a big, patterned butterfly as a present for me. He had pinned the live butterfly to my bed-head, hoping to give me a nice surprise, never dreaming that I would be scared out of my wits by it.

  While I was delirious, I couldn’t look after my baby fly. In that time, somebody had put things on to my bedside table that had squashed my baby fly flat in its gauze bag. I had great difficulty finding it, but by that time, its tiny body was already dried out.

  Poor little fly, it died before it had even grown up.

  I put the baby fly gently into a matchbox I had been saving for a long time. I pulled out a bit of white cotton wadding from my quilt, and padded the matchbox with it. I wanted the baby fly to sleep a little more comfortably.

  Tomorrow, I will bury the baby fly in the little wood on the hill behind the hospital. Not many people go there, it’s very peaceful.

  12 June – Overcast, cloudy later

  This morning the skies were dark and gloomy. It was dull grey in the wards too: everything around me reflected my feelings. I was constantly on the verge of tears, thinking about the little fly, who would never play with me again.

  Dr Zhong says my white blood-cell count is too low, and that is why I feel faint. From today, I must have three bottles of a new medicine on a drip; each 500ml bottle takes about two hours, three bottles will take nearly six hours. It will be so hard to lie here alone, counting every drop of medicine. I will miss my baby fly.

  At noon, the sun came out hesitantly, but it kept ducking behind the clouds. I don’t know if it was mischievously playing hide-and-seek, or if it was too ill or too lazy to shine down on us. Perhaps its heart was aching for the baby fly too, and it was crying in secret?

  I didn’t finish the drips until after supper, but I did not have much appetite. I wanted to bury my baby fly while it was still light.

  I wrapped the matchbox up in my favourite handkerchief, and, taking the long way round to avoid the duty room, slipped out of the hospital to the little wood on the hill. I chose a spot next to a rock that could be seen from below the hill, and planned to bury the fly there. I wanted to use the rock as a gravestone, that way I could easily see it from the back door of the hospital. The ground was very hard – digging with my hands didn’t work. I tried using a twig but it was very difficult, so I decided to look for a thicker branch instead. I rested the matchbox on the rock, and climbed further up the hill to look for one.

  Suddenly, I heard someone breathing hard and a strange moaning cry. Soon after, I saw a woman and a man rolling around on a grassy patch in the wood. I couldn’t see very clearly, but they seemed to be wrestling. The breathing sounded like the last struggle of a dying person.

  I started shivering with fright. I didn’t know what to do: I’d seen scenes like this in films, but never in real life. I knew I was very weak, and didn’t have the strength to help the woman, let alone hold back the man. I thought I had better fetch help. I hurriedly grabbed my matchbox – I could not leave my baby fly there alone – and ran back to the hospital.

  The first person I saw when I had reached the bottom of the hill was the head nurse, who had been looking for me by the door of the hospital. I was so tired, and was panting so hard that I couldn’t speak, but I pointed urgently at the hill. Dr Zhong, who had just finished his shift and was leaving the hospital, came out and asked what had happened.

  I didn’t know what to say to make them understand. ‘I think someone’s going to die!’

  Dr Zhong ran off up the hill and the head nurse gave me some oxygen. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep while I was inhaling it.

  When I woke up, I went to the duty room. I wanted to know if the woman in the wood had been saved, and how she was.

  Strangely, Nurse Gao, who was on duty, did not tell me anything. She just patted me on the head and said, ‘Oh, you . . . !’

  ‘What about me?’ I felt very put out. I still don’t know what happened.

  13 June – Sunny

  I have found a safe place for the baby fly: one of the nurses gave me a box of liqueur chocolates this afternoon. I love liqueur chocolates: I like piercing two holes in them with a needle, and then sucking out the liqueur (you can’t suck it out if there’s only one hole). Today, as I was doing this, I suddenly had a novel idea. I could put the baby fly in a hollow liqueur chocolate, which I could keep in the fridge in the duty office (the head nurse said I can store food there). And so I laid the baby fly in a liqueur chocolate, which he would certainly have enjoyed eating. This way, I can visit him often too.

  I’m ingenious, aren’t I? I am! At least, I think so.

  23 June – Hot and windy

  Yulong will be discharged tomorrow – I don’t want her to go. Leaving the hospital is good for her, of course.

  What shall I give Yulong as a leaving present?

  24 June – Hot and humid

  Yulong has left – I couldn’t see her off because I was on a drip. Just before she left she got permission to come t
o my room to say goodbye. She gently stroked my hand, which was covered with needle punctures, and spoke to me affectionately. She advised me not to wash my hands in cold water, but to soak them in hot water instead, so the blood vessels would heal more quickly.

  She also gave me a pair of gloves she had knitted specially for me. She had originally planned to give me them later, when winter began. She took a good look round my room, piled high with medical equipment, and praised me for keeping it so clean and tidy.

  I asked if she knew what had happened to the woman on the hill. She didn’t know what I was talking about so I told her about what I had seen. She went very quiet and her eyes filled with tears.

  I gave Yulong a picture I had drawn of a beautiful baby fly, which I had framed with old rubber, bits of cellophane and cardboard. Yulong said she had never seen a fly drawn so beautifully, she also praised the originality of my frame.

  I sent her on her way with good wishes, but secretly hoped she would come back to the hospital soon to keep me company.

  16 July – Rain

  I would never, ever have imagined that I could have been responsible for ruining Yulong’s life.

  Today I received a letter from Yulong in her village:

  Dear Hongxue,

  Are you well? Are you still having drips? Your family is unable to look after you, so you must learn how to take care of yourself. Luckily, the doctors and nurses at the hospital all love you, and so do the other patients. We all hope you can soon return to where you should be, among your family and friends.

  I have been expelled from the military academy and sent back to my village under escort: all the villagers say I have shattered their hopes.

  I have never told you that I am an orphan. My parents died one after the other – one of illness and the other probably from starvation – not long after I was born. The villagers took pity on me, and brought me up in turns. I lived on food from a hundred households, and grew up wearing clothes from a hundred families. The village was extremely poor. The villagers made their own children go without in order to send me to school: I was the first girl from my village ever to do so. Four years ago, the military academy came to the region to recruit students from among the peasants and workers. Our Party branch secretary travelled with me through the night to the prefecture army camp to beg the army leaders to accept me. He said it was the dearest wish of all in our village. The leaders told my story to their comrades, and I was eventually given special permission to participate in the practical training, and later to join the military academy.