Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters

by Buck, Pearl S.

  “Perhaps you cannot understand, at your age, the relationship between men and women of my generation,” Madame Wu replied. “But it is because I have always been happy with your father, and he with me, that I have decided upon the step. Please, my son, return to your place. I require of you only to obey your mother in this as you have in all things. You have been the best of my sons. What you say will influence your younger brothers. What Meng says will influence the young wives. You must help her, too.”

  Liangmo struggled against this in his own mind. But so deep was his habit of obedience to his mother that he obeyed her now. “I will do my best, Mother, but I will not pretend that what you have told me does not sadden this day.”

  She smiled slightly. “I am really saving you greater sadness on other days,” she said. And then she saw that what she said was an enigma to this man so much younger than she, and so she rose and took up the box of pearls. “Come,” she said. “We will go and see Meng and I will make my gift.”

  He had risen when she did, and now he stood beside her, young and strongly built as his father was, head and shoulders above her. She put out her little hand and rested it on his arm for a moment in a gesture of affection so rare that it startled him. She did not easily endure the touch of another human being, even her own children’s. He looked down at her and met her clear upward look.

  “In you,” she said distinctly, “I have built my house upon a rock.”

  Meng was playing with her little boy in the courtyard of her own house within this great house. She was alone with him except for his wet nurse, who squatted on her heels, laughing and watching. Both young women, mother and nurse, adored this little boy all day long. At night he slept in the nurse’s arms. In this common adoration the two women found a deep companionship. They poured out, in happy sacrifice, the love and attention the child demanded.

  Meng’s body was made to bear children, and her breasts had been full of milk. But no one, not even she herself, had thought of allowing the baby to pull at her lovely small breasts and spoil their firmness. Lien had been hired to provide milk. She was the young wife of one of the farmers on the Wu lands. Her own child, also a boy, had been fed flour and water and rice gruel by his grandmother, instead of his mother’s milk. For this reason he was now thin and small and yellow, while Lien’s nursling was fat and rosy. Lien was allowed to go home once a month, and when she saw her child she wept and put him to her great breast. Her full nipples dripped milk, but the child turned away his head. He had never tasted this milk, and he did not know how to suckle. Lien could never stay out her day because of her aching breasts. By midafternoon she must hasten back to the Wu house. There her nursling waited for her, shouting with rage and hunger.

  At the sight of him she forgot the thin yellow child. She opened her arms, laughing, and the big fat boy screamed for her from his mother’s knees. Then Lien ran to him, snatching open her coat as she ran. She knelt beside him at Meng’s side, and with both hands the child grasped her breast like a cup and drank in great gulps. Together Meng and Lien laughed, and each felt in her own body the child’s satisfaction.

  Now, to see the two women as they watched the child, it would have been hard to tell from the two faces which was the mother. Indeed, the child made no difference. He smiled radiantly on both. He was learning to walk, and he took the few steps from one to the other, laughing and falling upon each in turn.

  Meng was always happy, but she had been deeper in happiness the last few days than she had ever been. She had told no one except Liangmo of the coming of the second child. Servants, of course, knew it. Her own maid had first reminded her that her second moon cycle had passed without sign. In the servants’ rooms there was already secret rejoicing. But in a great house servants were like furniture, used without heeding.

  Lien knew, and knowing it was more gay than ever. A house with many young wet nurses was a lucky house. She had gradually ceased to love her own child. All her rich animal love was transferred to her nursling. Her own home was poor and hard, the food scanty. The mother-in-law had a bitter tongue and a hand greedy for the wages Lien brought home. Although Lien had loved her home once and had wept all day and all night when her husband’s mother had sent her to the Wu house, now she had come to love the good food, the ease, the idleness. Beyond nursing this healthy boy, nothing was asked of her. She was urged to eat, to drink, to sleep. Her young, pleasure-loving body responded quickly. This was now her home, and she loved her nursling more than her child.

  She longed, in the soft fullness of her content this morning, to tell her young mistress how rejoiced she was at the promise of a second birth, but she hesitated. These rich, idle, soft young women allowed anything, it seemed, and yet sometimes they flew into anger not expected and causeless. She continued only to laugh, therefore, and to praise the little boy.

  “A little godling,” she said fondly. “I never see one like him anywhere, Mistress.”

  Before Meng could do more than smile, they heard footsteps. The child ran to Lien, and from her arms stared at his grandmother and father. Meng rose.

  “Here you are, Meng,” Madame Wu said. “Sit down, child. Rest yourself, please. Come here to me, son of my son.”

  Lien pushed the little boy forward and inched herself along on her heels so that he was always in the shelter of her arms. Thus he stood at Madame Wu’s knee and stared at her with large black eyes whose corners were tucked in. He put his fingers in his mouth, and she took them gently away.

  “A lovely boy,” she murmured. “Have you raised a name for him yet?”

  “There is no haste,” Liangmo replied. “He does not need it until he goes to school.”

  She looked down at the little boy. He stood in their midst, the center of them all. And yet, she thought musingly, it was not he himself, not this simple creature, who so held their hopes in him. Were he to die, another would take his place. No, he was a symbol of continuing life. It was the symbol which held all their dreams.

  She turned her eyes from the charming little face and remembered why she had come.

  “Meng, Liangmo tells me you have added happiness,” she said. “I have come to thank you and to bring you a gift.”

  Meng blushed her ready peach bloom and turned her little head. The one defect in her beauty was her hair, which tended to curl in spite of the fragrant wood oil with which she continually smoothed it. Now her pleasure was mingled with fear lest her hair was curling again before Liangmo’s mother’s eyes. She loved Madame Wu, but she feared her. No one ever saw a hair misplaced on Madame Wu’s graceful head. Then she put out both hands to receive the gift and forgot her fears.

  “My mother’s pearls!” she breathed.

  “She gave them to me, but I am too old for pearls,” Madame Wu said. “Now everything happens for good in this house. You declared your happiness today, and I had these pearls ready to give you.”

  “I have always craved these pearls,” Meng said. She opened the box and gazed down at the jewels.

  “Put them on,” Liangmo commanded her.

  Meng obeyed. Her soft cheeks blushed more deeply. They were all watching her, even the little boy. But her slender fingers did not fumble as she fastened the pearls in her ears.

  “I used to put them in my ears and beg my mother to let me keep them,” she confessed.

  “Now you have earned them,” Madame Wu said. She turned to her son. “See how rosy the pearls have become. They were silver gray.”

  It was true. The pearls looked rose pink against Meng’s soft flesh.

  “Ai ya,” Lien cried. “She must not look too pretty or the baby will be a girl!”

  They laughed, and Madame Wu closed the laughter by saying as she rose to depart, “I would welcome a girl. After all, there must be female in the world as well as male. We forget it, but it is true, is it not, Meng?”

  But Meng was too shy to answer such a question.

  It was the hour of the birthday feast. Madame Wu had taken her place at the le
ft of Old Lady, who because of her age and generation had the highest seat. Mr. Wu sat on his mother’s right, and on the other side of him sat Liangmo. Tsemo, the second son, sat on Madame Wu’s left, and on Tsemo’s left the third son, Fengmo. Yenmo, the fourth son, was still a child of seven. But he had come to live in his father’s rooms, and now he stood in the circle of his father’s arm. Thus one by one each member was in his place, and below the sons the two sons’ wives sat, Meng with her child on her knee, and a maidservant stood near to take it away if it became troublesome. Old Lady was proud of her great-grandchild but easily impatient, whereas Madame Wu had endless patience.

  Indeed, nothing seemed to fret her. Her smooth pearl-colored face looked with pleasure on this great gathering of her family. At six other tables, of eight places each, there were uncles and aunts and cousins and friends and their children, and at one table Madame Kang presided. All had sent gifts to Madame Wu before this day. These gifts were of many kinds—pairs of vases, packages of dates, boxes of soft cakes and sweets, scrolls of silk upon which were pasted characters cut out of gold paper, each carrying a good wish. There were many other gifts. Mr. Wu had added two bolts of heavy brocaded silk, and Old Lady had added two boxes of fine tea for her personal gift.

  The family gift had been expensive. They had ordered a painting, by the best artist in the city, of the Goddess of Long Life. All the guests agreed as to its beauty when they came to offer their first greetings to Madame Wu. The picture hung in the place of honor, and even its details were correct. The goddess held the immortal peach in her hand. By her side was a stag, red bats flew about her head in blessing, and from her girdle hung the gourd containing the elixir of life. Even long-lived herbs were not forgotten by the artist; he had tied them to her staff.

  On the wall behind Madame Wu hung a square of red satin upon which were sewn the characters for long life cut out of black velvet. Against this bright satin Madame Wu’s dark head was dainty and austere.

  To all the greetings and good wishes of the guests Liangmo responded for Madame Wu. Before the guests were seated, he and Meng had gone to each table and thanked the guests, for their mother, as the eldest son and daughter-in-law of the house.

  Everything, that is, had been done with ease and yet with some formality, which showed that the Wu family valued the old ways and understood the new. Every now and again Madame Wu rose from her seat and moved among the guests to make sure that all had been properly served. Whenever she did this the guests rose and begged her not to trouble herself, and she in turn begged them to be seated again.

  When she had so done twice, the third time Mr. Wu leaned across the corner of the table and said, “I beg you not to rise again, my sons’ mother. I will take your place when the sweet is served.”

  Madame Wu bent her head and smiled slightly in thanks, and then she saw that Old Lady had taken too large a piece of fowl and was dripping the broth from it upon her gown. She took her own chopsticks and held the bit until Old Lady could encompass it all in her mouth. As soon as she could speak Old Lady did so with her usual vehemence. “Ying!” she cried loudly.

  Ying, waiting always near her own mistress, came near at once. “Ying!” the Old Lady cried, “you tell that piece of fat who is your man that he must cut the fowl smaller. Does he think we have the jaws of lions and tigers?”

  “I will tell him, Ancient,” Ying replied.

  But Old Lady felt quite happy now, being full of food, and she began to speak to everybody in her loud, flat old voice.

  “Foreigners eat huge pieces of meat,” she said, looking around the room. “I have never seen it, but I have heard that the whole leg of a sheep or a lump of cow as large as a small child is set on their tables, and they hack it with knives and cut off pieces from it. They take it up with iron prongs and thrust it into their mouths.”

  Everybody laughed. “You are in good spirits, Mother,” Mr. Wu said. He had never tried to correct the mistaken statements of his mother. In the first place, he did not wish to make her unhappy, and in the second place, it made no difference anyway and so was not worth the trouble.

  At this moment the sweetened rice with its eight precious fruits came in, which was a sign that the feast was half over, and everyone looked pleased at the sight of the delicacy. At the door Ying saw her husband standing half hidden in order to hear the praises of the guests. Madame Wu saw him, too, and leaned toward Ying.

  “Tell him to come here,” she commanded.

  Ying’s pride rose in a flush to her plump cheeks, but out of good manners she pretended to belittle her husband.

  “Lady, do not trouble yourself with my good-for-nothing,” she said in a loud voice.

  “But it is my pleasure,” Madame Wu insisted.

  So with false unwillingness Ying beckoned to her husband, and he came in and stood before Madame Wu, smoothing his filthy apron with pride, for no good cook has a clean apron and he knew it.

  “I must thank you for this sweet rice and its eight precious fruits,” Madame Wu said in her kind way. “It is always delicious, but today it is better than ever. This I take as a sign of your faithfulness and goodness of heart. I will remember it before the day is over.”

  The cook knew that she meant she would give gifts to the servants at the end of the feast, but in good manners he pretended otherwise. “Please do not think it good,” he said. “I do not deserve mention.”

  “Go away, oaf!” Ying whispered loudly while her eyes shone with pride. And so he went away, well pleased, and behind his back Ying tried not to look too proud and beyond her station.

  And now Mr. Wu must rise to fulfill his promise, and he went to every table and begged the guests to eat heartily of the sweet. Madame Wu followed him thoughtfully with her eyes. Did she imagine that he lingered a moment at Madame Kang’s table where the pretty young third daughter sat beside her mother?

  “Pudding, pudding!” Old Lady complained, and Madame Wu put out her slender arm and, holding back her sleeve, she took up a porcelain spoon and dipped the pudding generously into Old Lady’s bowl.

  “Spoon—where’s my spoon?” Old Lady muttered, and Madame Wu put a spoon into the old hand.

  Then she continued to watch Mr. Wu thoughtfully while everybody at the table was silent in enjoyment of the dish. Mr. Wu was beyond doubt lingering beside Madame Kang’s pretty daughter. The child was modern, too modern, for her hair was cut to her shoulders and curled in the foreign fashion. She had been to school for a year in Shanghai before that city was taken by the enemy. Now she frequently made her mother and father wretched by her discontent in living in this small provincial city.

  Madame Wu watched her as she lifted her head and replied pertly to something Mr. Wu had said. Mr. Wu laughed and went on, and Madame Wu took her spoon and dipped up a fragment of the glutinous sweet. When Mr. Wu returned she looked at him with her long clear eyes.

  “Thank you, my sons’ father,” she said, and her voice was its usual music.

  The feast went on its long pleasant course. The sweet was followed by meats, and then at last by the six bowls. Instead of rice the cook had made long fine noodles, because it was a birthday feast and the long noodles were a symbol of long life. Madame Wu, always delicate at eating, refused the meats, but it was necessary that she eat some of the noodles. They were made even longer than usual by the zealous cook, but she wound them with graceful skill around her chopsticks.

  But Old Lady had no such patience. She held the heaped bowl to her mouth with her left hand and pushed the noodles into her mouth with her chopsticks, supping them in like a child. Old Lady ate everything heartily. “I shall be ill tonight,” she said in her penetrating old voice. “But it is worth it, daughter, on your fortieth birthday.”

  “Eat to your own content, Mother,” Madame Wu replied.

  One by one guests rose with small wine bowls in their hands, and toasts were drunk. To these Madame Wu did not reply. She was a quiet woman, and she looked at Mr. Wu, who rose in her place and accepte
d the good wishes of all. Only Madame Kang, catching her friend’s eye, silently lifted her bowl, and as silently Madame Wu lifted hers and the two drank together in secret understanding.

  By now Old Lady was full of food, and she leaned against the high back of her chair and surveyed her family. “Liangmo looks sick,” she declared.

  Everybody looked at Liangmo, who indeed smiled in a very sickish fashion. “I am not ill, Grandmother,” he said hastily.

  Meng gazed at him with troubled eyes. “You do look strange,” she murmured. “You have been strange all morning.”

  At this, brothers and brothers’ wives all looked at him, and he shook his head. Madame Wu did not speak. She quite understood that Liangmo was still unable to accept what she had told him today. He looked at her at this moment with pleading in his eyes, but she merely smiled a little and looked away.

  It was when she turned her head away that she caught the shrewd, too-intelligent gaze of her second daughter-in-law. Tsemo’s wife, Rulan, had not said one word all during the feast, but speech was never necessary for this girl’s comprehension of what was happening about her. Madame Wu perceived that she had seen the son’s pleadings and also the mother’s reply. But Tsemo himself paid no heed to what went on. He was an impatient young man, and he sat back from the table, tapping his foot restlessly. For him the birthday feast had lasted long enough.

  Somewhere an overfed child vomited suddenly on the brick floor with a great splatter, and there was a fuss among the servants.

  “Call in the dogs,” Madame Kang advised, but Ying, hastening to the scene of the disaster, begged her pardon.

  “Our Lady will not allow dogs under the tables,” she explained.

  “You see, Mother,” Madame Kang’s pretty third daughter pouted. “I told you nobody does—it’s so old-fashioned. I’m always ashamed when you do it at home.”