by Tie Ning
At the Spring Festival that year, Captain Sneakers returned from the countryside to Fuan for the holidays. Late one night, he and his former gang members broke into one of the apartments in the rows of one-story dorms and gang-raped the head nurse of internal medicine, the female “spy” who scrubbed the rest-room, swept the hallways, and confessed the passwords “Where does the mermaid’s fishing net come from?”
Captain Sneakers had planned to break into Fei’s home to revenge himself on her. He had heard about her affair with the dancer. He took a knife with him, intending to slash her face to get even with her for his humiliation. When he lifted the woman, fast asleep, from the bed, he found he’d picked the wrong person. But he didn’t spare her, the old beauty, the old beauty from the old society. He also let his gang members take turns with her. He held the knife to the old woman’s neck, listening to them panting over her body in the dark. He was thinking that, after all, she wasn’t Fei. If it were Fei, he wouldn’t let them do this to her. He felt, as he listened to their panting, that at least he had a conscience when it came to Fei. Fei, you little piece of damaged goods. He cursed her in his heart. You have this old woman under our bodies to thank. Because of her you get to keep your pretty face. I really want to slash your fucking face …
The head nurse went to hospital security after daybreak to report the attacks on her. But who would pay attention to her? The victim of the rape was not a decent woman. An old female spy got raped. An old female spy who was born to be raped. Who else should be raped if not her?
Where does the mermaid’s fishing net come from?
From the ocean.
Chapter 4
Cat in the Mirror
1
There is no such thing in the world as a never-ending banquet. The more sumptuous the banquet, the sadder and lonelier the aftermath. Tiao, Fei, and Youyou had had their secret celebrations, with the grilled miniature snowballs, the Ukrainian red cabbage soup, the sporty boating clothes, and the mysterious “Cairo Night,” in which they submerged and isolated themselves. Tiao even believed that she would never have to worry about anything anymore, not school or family. She already had a world of joy. It was Quan who ruined that joy. Quan’s presence was like crows’ wings, whose flapping and flying made her heart feel gloomy and heavy.
Tiao was deeply unhappy about Quan’s birth. To express her unhappiness, she completely ignored her youngest sister and lavished attention on Fan. She loved Fan, and Fan loved her. Fan obeyed her unconditionally in almost everything, and the foundation of their love was indestructible. Even when Fan had barely learned to talk, she would cheer enthusiastically for her sister, Fan’s clumsy tongue spitting out incomprehensible words. When Tiao tried to kill a fly with a fly swatter, no matter whether she hit it or not, killed the fly or not, Fan would simply make the same loud announcements, “Shmashed. Shmashed.” She praised and encouraged her sister, making Tiao believe that even if the world stopped turning and the seas ran dry, she and Fan would still be inseparable.
They had depended on each other when their parents were away at the Reed River Farm. Fan loved to eat apples and beltfish and Tiao would try to buy them for her whenever possible. She knew their money was not enough for both of them to eat these treats every day, so she taught herself to dislike eating apples and beltfish. She would just watch Fan eat. It was fun to watch Fan eat fish because when she finished a piece, she would use the fish skeleton to comb her hair. “This is a comb,” she told Tiao happily. Tiao stopped her even though she liked her cleverness and imagination. She didn’t want Fan to get her hair dirty. She washed Fan’s hair and feet. They washed their feet every night before bed, sitting on small stools, face-to-face, with the washing basin between them. Tiao liked to smell Fan’s toes, fat and slightly sour-smelling. She washed very carefully, reaching in between every one of Fan’s toes. Sometimes she forgot to keep a towel handy, so she used her own trousers instead, letting Fan rub her feet on them. She could have left the basin and got a towel, but she liked to have Fan dry her feet on her trousers.
“I’ll wipe them,” Fan would say. “I’m really going to wipe them hard.” Tiao then placed both of Fan’s dripping feet on her knees and let Fan playfully kick her feet on her knees, so foot-washing became a game, a shared silliness between them.
If they were walking on the street and Tiao had a basketful of groceries, Fan would always lend a hand. The lending a hand was precisely that, Fan putting her hand on the basket without lifting any of the weight. She just held on to the edge as if she were carrying the basket along with her sister. She loved to help with the work because she loved her sister.
If Fan was bullied by someone in the complex, Tiao would stand up for her against the bullies faithfully to the end. She put aside any shyness or reserve she had. Once, a boy, at the entrance to the building, held out a piece of soap that looked like a rice ball, and he said to Fan, “Lick it. Lick it. It’s a rice ball and tastes very sweet.” Fan stuck out her tongue and was about to lick it. Tiao happened to be passing by. She grabbed the soap and forced it into the boy’s mouth. She actually did that. She stuffed his mouth with soap until he began to cry. He bent over, squatted on the ground, and threw up over and over again. Tiao took Fan by the hand and went home with her head high. As soon as she entered the house, she told Fan, “That was soap, not a rice ball. Besides, even if it was really a rice ball, you still shouldn’t eat it. You can’t just eat other people’s stuff like that without thinking. Will you remember this?” Fan kept nodding her head. She would never forget any of Tiao’s words.
Then Quan was born a year after Wu’s return from the Reed River Farm. By then, the discipline at the farm had slackened quite a bit, and many people in the Academy had found excuses to come back and stay at home. Wu simply raised Quan in plain sight of everyone. She no longer mentioned her rheumatic heart disease, and the baby in her arms was the most convincing reason for her to be at home. As a nursing mother, she had the right to stay at home with her baby.
The house was a mess, and Tiao had to do a lot of chores. Wu made her warm up Quan’s milk one moment and wash her nappies the next. Tiao slammed the milk pot and dented it. She wouldn’t wash the nappies carefully—just dipped them into the water quickly and then snatched them out. She favoured Fan and let Fan drink all the orange juice that Wu bought for Quan. When Quan was a year old and could eat mashed pork floss, she decided to use Quan’s pork to make sandwiches for Fan. By then Fan had already realized that she had lost her mother’s favour and went around dispirited because of it. She would eat the pork-floss sandwiches in big bites and snuggle up close to Tiao, to show the whole family and the whole world: No big deal. No big deal. I have my sister who cares for me.
She exaggerated her loss of favour and fall in status to get attention. What else could she do? She resented Quan, and her resentment was the genuine article, without the least little bit of exaggeration. It was also simple, unlike Tiao’s, which was difficult to put into words. Fan hated Quan because Quan was pretty and also knew how to please people. Particularly when she could walk on her own, when she could be taken outside into the complex by an adult, her sweet and beautiful little face and naturally curly brown hair made almost every neighbour fall in love with her. The more people liked Quan, the angrier Fan got. She took every opportunity to pinch Quan with her nails on her chubby arms and legs and small shoulders. She used her thumb and index finger to pinch a little bit of flesh, just a little. It felt like being bitten by an ant, but the pain was enough to make Quan grimace and cry. Fan was not afraid at all. Quan couldn’t tell on her, because she couldn’t talk.
Wu often took Quan for a walk on the small road in front of their building. When she had things to do, she would ask Tiao or Fan to take her instead. Fan avoided this kind of chore; she didn’t like to be with Quan. The passing neighbours would stop to play with Quan and ignore her, as if she were only along to be Quan’s foil, giving Fan a sharp pang of jealousy. So Fan would knit her eyebrows and make
a great show of having cramps in her legs: “Owww, my legs have cramps, owww …” moaning and falling back—butt-first—on the bed. Wu would then ask Tiao to take Quan for a walk, often just as she was going to Youyou’s home to study recipes and experiment with cooking. Quan, who loved walking and knew how to entertain people with her expressive gestures, had cost Tiao precious time and interrupted plans for quite a few high-toned banquets with Youyou. But she didn’t make up excuses, as Fan did. She obeyed Wu, brought a little stool to the front of the building, and sat down to read. She would read her book for a while and then lift her head to take a look at Quan, who would be strolling aimlessly nearby.
Occasionally her eyes met Quan’s and she would coldly study the dark little eyes of this younger sister. Something was wrong about Quan—Tiao felt it from the very beginning, and now the fact that Quan strolled around the whole courtyard in broad daylight made her feel very uneasy. She wasn’t jealous of Quan’s prettiness and perfection. She had heard from adults that if a child was too good-looking when she was little, she would go downhill and turn out to be ugly later. So she was not resentful of Quan’s good looks. Besides, what was the big deal? Why the fuss about her looks? She was almost two years old and still didn’t know how to talk. Maybe she was a mute. Tiao felt that something was wrong because she was suspicious about Quan’s origin. She believed her birth was a terrible trick Quan had played on their family. She had her reasons for thinking so after Fei came to see Quan.
Fei, abandoned by the dancer and having had the abortion, seemed to be especially observant about babies. She also seemed to talk more bluntly than she used to. One day she suddenly said to Tiao, “Whom do you think Quan looks like?” When Tiao made no response, Fei said, “She reminds me very much of my uncle. Hmm, she might be my cousin.”
Fei looked both a little bit angry and sad. Then she gulped, and a kind of miserable look came over her face.
“She reminds me very much of my uncle.” Fei’s words struck Tiao like a blow to the head, dazing her and sharpening her focus at once. She finally was clear about the question she hadn’t dared to ask, and now she had the answer. Wu and Dr. Tang made her sick, and so angry that she wanted to rage and curse at people in the street. The two were unworthy to be the cause of all Tiao’s suffering, the anxiety, and then, finally, the relief, that she had gone through because of that letter that never reached Yixun. They weren’t worth it. They weren’t worth any of it. How frightened she had been that Fei would make her face the secret. But now that it had happened, she realized she had no refuge. She had to take action. So she was determined to act, no matter how vague her idea of what she should do.
As if deliberately conspiring with Tiao, Fan had started to take action of her own. She dug earwax out of Tiao’s ear and put the light yellow slivers into Quan’s milk bottle. Tiao watched all this and said nothing. Everyone knew the folk wisdom: earwax is poison. People turn into mutes if they eat it.
Quan was probably a mute already, and, if not, she would become a mute for certain after eating earwax. Tiao watched Fan shake the milk bottle and said nothing. Saying nothing was silent approval and encouragement. Fan took the milk bottle that contained earwax and orange juice and walked over to Quan. But the plot failed because, for some reason, her grip loosened and the milk bottle dropped to the floor and broke. Tiao was disappointed, and so was Fan. They didn’t discuss their disappointment with each other. Instead, they expressed it by further ignoring Quan. They played the “sofa time” game that Tiao had invented, which was more of a way to enjoy themselves than a game. Every time Wu went out, Tiao would drag two fluffy down pillows from Wu’s big bed and lay them on two hard-backed chairs. Then she and Fan would sit on them. The warm, soft feeling under their bottoms relaxed them, body and mind. They reclined on their homemade “sofas” and cracked seeds—watermelon, pumpkin, and sunflower. They didn’t permit Quan to get near them to take part in their game. Or, to put it another way, they invented it for the very purpose of upsetting Quan. How they loved to see Quan weep because she couldn’t sit on the “sofa.” It would be even better if Wu could see the scene, Tiao thought defiantly. Wu didn’t dare criticize the way she and Fan treated Quan. And the more Wu was afraid, the more Tiao hated her; the more Wu didn’t dare, the more malice Tiao directed at Quan.
Then came that day.
It was a Sunday. After breakfast, Wu sat in front of the sewing machine, planning to make a new outfit for Quan, and told Tiao and Fan to take Quan for a walk. As usual, Tiao carried a stool to sit on in front of the building to read a book, and Fan also brought out a little chair. She didn’t read. She knitted woollen socks. Every time Wu made clothes for Quan, she would start to make something for herself as if to tell Wu, You don’t want to take care of me, but I can take care of myself. She was knitting a pair of woollen socks for herself; she was clever that way.
Quan was on the road in front of the building, strolling along her familiar route. She held a toy metal bucket in one hand and a little metal shovel in the other and squatted under a tree, digging up a few shovelfuls of dirt. She put the dirt into the bucket and carried it to another tree. She shuttled between the two trees aimlessly, and once in a while she banged on the bucket with the shovel, trying to get her sisters’ attention. Her big sister buried her face in the book, pretending to hear nothing; her second sister held her finger to her lips and kept saying, “Shh,” to her. Why were they so cold and indifferent to her? What had she done to offend and annoy them? It was a mystery she never understood to the end, to the end.
Several old women who had gathered together to sew The Selected Works of Chairman Mao beckoned to Quan. They were tired of sewing and needed a break, and Quan was a cute living plaything to amuse them. They clapped at Quan from far away and called her darling and honey. She immediately dropped her bucket and shovel with a clatter and staggered toward the women.
She got onto the small road, the one in front of Building Number 6 that people walked on every day. When Tiao noticed that Quan had disappeared from her view, she put down her book and stood up. She didn’t want Quan to get too far and was about to call her back, not out of love but out of a sense of duty. Maybe she could ask Fan to call her back, and if they couldn’t get her back with their voices, they could physically drag her back. Fan stood right beside her. Then they saw something that they had never seen before, and events unfolded quickly. A manhole cover lay in the middle of the road, and Quan was walking toward the open manhole. In fact, she had already reached the edge. Fan must have seen the open hole and Quan at the edge, because she seized Tiao’s hand. It was unclear whether she wanted to grab her sister’s hand and rush to the manhole, or if she was asking her sister for permission to run to the hole.
Tiao and Fan held each other’s hands, and their hands were ice-cold; neither of them moved. They stood ten or fifteen metres away from Quan. Both of them were aware that she was still going forward, until she finally went into the hole. When Quan suddenly spread her arms and dove in as if she were flying, Fan’s hand felt a gentle pull from Tiao’s cold, stiff hand. She would remember this pull of Tiao’s on her hand forever; it was a memory she couldn’t erase all her life, and would become the evidence, illusory and real, by which she would accuse Tiao in the future.
Tiao would also always remember their holding hands that day, as well as her tug on Fan’s hand. The gesture was subtle but definite. Was it to stop Fan, a gesture of control, or a signal that something was coming to an end? Was it satisfaction for a great accomplishment, or a reflex action at the height of fear? Was it a hint at their alliance, or a groan out of the depths of their guilt?
Few things stay in a person’s lifelong memory. Major events are often easy to forget, and it’s those trivial things that can’t be brushed away, as, for example, in such and such a year, in such and such a month, on such and such a day, the tiny tug that someone gave on another’s hand.
2
Quan disappeared from the earth forever. For a long time a
fter her death, Wu interrogated Tiao almost every day. “Didn’t you see that the cover was off the manhole?
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you hear those old women call Quan over?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then when did you notice Quan was not in front of you?”
“When I couldn’t see her.”
“Why didn’t you follow her when you saw what was happening?”
“I didn’t see anything, and I didn’t know she was walking towards the hole.”
“You didn’t know there was a manhole there?”
“I knew the manhole was always covered.”
“You didn’t even see it when Quan walked to the edge of the manhole?”
“I didn’t see it.”
“But you should have, because you were her sister.”
“I just didn’t. Fan can tell you.”
Fan quietly came over and Tiao grabbed her hand. She didn’t need to open her mouth. Their hand-holding was the proof of their mutual support, and innocence. The interrogation continued. “Then what did you actually see?”
“I saw a crowd of people surrounding the manhole, and Fan and I ran over.”
“Were they those old women who had called her over?”
“Yes, they were there, and two passersby on their bikes. Later … there was you.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I know I was there.”
Wu couldn’t go on; tears streamed down and covered her whole face. She then turned from the interrogation of her daughters to people outside the family. She knocked on the neighbours’ doors over and over, and went to the homes of those old women who had witnessed what had happened. She stared at them, her hair dishevelled and her clothes unkempt, forcing them in a hard voice to talk about what had happened that day. She was much harsher to them than to Tiao, unloading on outsiders all her grief at the loss of her beloved daughter and the anger that she couldn’t release at home.