Butterfly Tears

by Zoë S. Roy

  The couple busied themselves in their daily routines. Their family life remained a stale pool in a deep valley in early summer. Only Jun’s babbling made joyful ripples.

  ***

  One hot and damp Friday in July, Ting proofread an extra article; it was an emergency, the manager said. Exhausted, she dragged herself to the bus stop and back to the apartment. As she walked down the hallway, she could hear Jun crying and smell burned rice. She quickly pulled the door open and saw her daughter pushing a bottle of milk away while Dong stood, red-faced, his hand holding a steaming pot.

  “Remember your daughter?” Dong shouted at the sight of Ting, flinging the pot of rice to the floor.

  “Control your stinking, boorish manner!” Ting shouted back, inflamed with rage.

  “Why are you late? Where have you been? I had to pick up Jun after the daycare called and said you couldn’t.”

  “Where do you think I was? I was working! Why should I have to do everything? Why can’t you pick up Jun sometimes?”

  “This is your job!” Dong said, his face burning with anger, his body lunging toward her. “And it should be your priority!”

  “You stupid man!” Tears streaming down her face, Ting took Jun in her arms and stormed out of the apartment. She could still hear him shouting as she ran to the bus stop.

  Ting and Jun got on the first bus that came by. It was crowded but a young man offered Ting his seat. After thanking him, she sat down holding Jun in her lap. The people around her looked sleepy, but Jun was wide-eyed with curiosity, standing up on her mother’s lap and pressing her face on the window, her hands waving at the people outside. Ting held her daughter’s legs securely and leaned her rigid back against the seat. Her eyes stared at the seat in front of her. The sweat on her forehead glistened under the soft, yellowish light of the bus and slowly trickled down her pale face.

  Half an hour later, she reached her destination. After being buzzed in, she climbed the stairs to the sixth floor with Jun in her arms, stopping every three or four steps to hold her daughter on her knee for a brief rest. Finally, she reached the apartment she was looking for and knocked on the door. An elderly woman appeared and looked at Ting expectantly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Aunt Yue, Dong and I…,” Ting said, choking back tears. “He yelled at me.”

  Aunt Yue gently took Jun from Ting’s arms and carried the little girl to a couch. “Come in, come in, and sit down. Now, what happened?”

  “I always pick up Jun from the daycare and fix supper,” said Ting, sitting down next to Jun. “Except for today. Today I had to stay at work later than usual to finish proofing one more article. Dong was so mad that he had to pick Jun up that he lost his temper.”

  “So you haven’t had your supper yet.”

  “Right. And Jun needs milk, too.”

  “I have some powdered milk. Just give me a minute to prepare it.” Aunt Yue walked to the kitchen and returned with a glass of milk in her hand, placing it on the coffee table near the couch. She said, “I have some leftovers in the fridge. You can have them if you want.”

  “I’m not hungry, but I do have to make some noodles for Jun.” Ting took the glass of milk and helped Jun drink it. A few moments later the noodles were ready and Ting fed them to her daughter. It wasn’t long before Jun was sound asleep.

  Ting looked around her aunt’s cozy living room and relaxed in an armchair near the only window. “Aunt, don’t you think Dong is selfish?”

  “Why?” The aunt placed two chairs next to the edge of the couch, so Jun wouldn’t roll onto the floor, and then sat on the wingback chair next to Ting.

  “Dong was angry with me because he had to take Jun home and make supper. When the manager asked me to stay, I phoned the daycare and asked them to let Dong know he had to pick up Jun. Why was he so angry? I do all the housework and take care of Jun practically by myself. I have a job, too.”

  “As a wife and a mother, you can’t escape your family duties.”

  “But he should share half of those duties.” Ting glared at her aunt, expecting a more supportive answer.

  “Ideally, yes. But in most of the families I know, the women do the majority of the housework. Maybe it’s a kind of tradition that women have to follow unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless women remain single, like me.” Aunt Yue chuckled. “I don’t need to do anything for a husband or a child.”

  “That’s why you are successful in your career,” Ting said appreciatively.

  “But I lost the opportunity to enjoy having my own family as a result.”

  “Do you have any regrets?”

  “In my time, it was the only choice I had because I wanted to study medicine more than having a family.”

  “Things haven’t changed in my time,” sighed Ting.

  “Think about your life positively. Dong is well-educated and ambitious. I think he really cares for you and Jun.”

  “Do you think so?” Ting looked at her aunt quizzically. “If he loved us, he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did. And he would let me go to graduate school, which would help me get a better job. Why can’t I have a career too?”

  “I don’t want to judge, Ting. It’s your choice,” Aunt Yue said as she patted Ting on the shoulder. “When you are a wife and mother, you have to give up a part of you. This is what I have learned from life and also why I never wanted to get married.”

  When the telephone rang, Aunt Yue answered. “Yes, she’s here.” She signalled to Ting. “It’s for you.”

  Ting took the phone and heard Dong’s voice, “I apologize, Ting. Are you still mad at me? Please come home.”

  “Are you really sorry?” Ting listened for a while to Dong’s excuses and then said, “Okay, I’ll come home tomorrow. Then we can talk it over.”

  After hanging up, Ting turned to her aunt and said, “I’m starving. Can I have a bite of something?”

  Ting’s aunt chuckled and opened the refrigerator.

  ***

  The summer passed by.

  One evening in September, Ting turned on the radio after Jun had fallen asleep. Eager to learn more about the United Nations’ Fourth World Women’s Conference that was convening in Beijing, she searched the dial for Voice of America as it provided news not given by the Xinhua News Agency. To her surprise, she heard one of the conference participants call for Chinese lesbians to join the women’s struggle for equal rights with men. Chinese lesbians? Ting had never heard anyone talk about this. Women who love other women? And have nothing to do with men?

  Dong didn’t get home until after 10:00 p.m. He had been busy attending to students who needed extra help. Ting handed him a glass of iced tea. “Do you think there are lesbians in China?”

  “What a strange question!” Dong replied, yawning. “I don’t know anything about that,” he added, heading toward the bathroom.

  Ting tried to continue the conversation after Dong came back. “I just heard about them on Voice of America. There is a big women’s conference in Beijing. Women from the West are asking Chinese lesbians to join them.”

  “How can women have sex with women? It’s strange and ridiculous. Let’s go to bed.” Dong took off his T-shirt.

  “I’m wondering what their rights are,” Ting said. “They want equal rights.”

  “Rights?” Dong laughed. “What rights?” He climbed into bed. “Come on. It has nothing to do with us. Don’t be bothered.”

  “I’m curious,” said Ting as she lay beside Dong. “Lesbians don’t marry men, you know. Maybe they can do whatever they want. I’d like to know more about them.”

  His warm hands were already cupping her breasts. “Curiosity killed the cat,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.

  Ting suddenly felt like a cat caught by Dong. Her body became stiff. The words women, lesbian, curiosity, and cat, bega
n spinning in her head.

  Dong’s body was on top of her, heavy and sticky. She felt uncomfortable but did not push him away.

  “Are you dead or what?” Dong’s voice pulled her back to the present. “Don’t you like this?”

  Ting turned her head aside on the pillow. “Not really. I’m feeling a little pain.”

  “Pain? Since when?”

  “What? Are you suggesting I’m making this up because I have no interest in sex with you? Why don’t you just call me a lesbian then?” Ting pushed Dong off and turned her body away from him.

  “How would I know?” grumbled Dong. Exhausted, he dropped off into dreamland.

  The Clock Tower of the Customs House echoed in the distance. It was already midnight, and Ting was still awake. Her thoughts flashed to what she had heard about Canada, a country whose doors were open to immigrants. Many people in Shanghai applied for immigration via the Canadian Consulate. Are women equal to men there? Lesbians too? Are they successful in their careers, and married too? Are they lesbians because they don’t want to cater to men? These questions preoccupied her.

  Perhaps I should immigrate, Ting thought. I’d have a chance to find out what kinds of rights and freedoms the women enjoy over there, and, I can become one of those women. Excited about this thought, she got up and searched in one of her drawers for a flyer she had received just that day from one of her co-workers who had family in Canada. The flyer was about immigrating to Canada.

  She took a good look at the flyer. Then she took a good look at the date on her digital watch: it was September 26, 1995. Like thunder cracking in the sky, she suddenly remembered: Oh my! I’m thirty years old today. Thoughtfully, she asked herself, And what have I accomplished? She gripped the flyer in one hand. But the only thing that came to mind was that she had forgotten to ask Dong to buy her a birthday cake.

  Ten Yuan

  I WORKED AS AN APPRENTICE at an armament factory in the early 1970s, during the middle of the Cultural Revolution. People didn’t talk about money because the revolution was more important. But I still kept my fingers crossed, hoping to be promoted to a second level within two years, so my pay would increase by ten yuan a month. Ten dimly shining coins would make a nice sound, and buy me a pair of pointy-toed shoes.

  In a workshop, I laboured with vises, wrenches, hacksaws, nails, and bolts to repair or change machine parts. Sometimes I needed to cut an iron bar or bend a steel rod, my hands always greased with oil. It would’ve rained dark oil if I had slapped my hands in the air. Sometimes I had to clean broken machine parts in a metal tub of oil, examining them, like a nurse who had to rinse a wound.

  Our factory produced cannon shells—shells that would subsequently be filled with explosives in yet another factory. The product was considered confidential, and that was why the factory had been built in this isolated rocky valley. We worked and lived in concrete buildings, and rarely caught sight of trees or birds. I liked to think that the birds were smart and knew that bullets could kill them and that cannonballs were much more powerful than bullets.

  Our factory, for various reasons, often had to stop production. The whole country was involved in the Revolution, and sometimes denounced engineers or technicians were not allowed to work. When this happened we simply stopped working; there was no one to solve problems on the assembly line. Sometimes we didn’t have electricity, and other times, the materials we needed had been delayed in transport.

  When we had nothing to do, we played cards in the workshop. Why not? Everybody got paid no matter if he worked or not. Some of us even napped on benches. One skinny guy always perched himself near a window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the few women who worked in the factory walking by. Within ten square kilometres, there were no villages or towns, so it was difficult for us bachelors to find girlfriends. This skinny guy would sit there all day, when he had the chance. We named him Flower Geek, and his window the Ogling Stage.

  One day, when the electricity went out, and all the machines stopped turning, the foreman patted my shoulder and said, “Tell us a story, Lee!” He called me by the name the Communist Party secretary had used a year earlier, on that first day, when he had given a speech to all the new workers. After the tedious speech, he took a roll call from a piece of paper in his hand.

  “Lee Ma!”

  I remembered looking around to see who shared my family name. Nobody answered.

  “Lee Ma! I’m calling you!” The Party secretary had then pointed at me. “Why don’t you answer?”

  His words had thrown me for a loop. “I … my … name is Tea Ma.”

  “It’s Lee Ma on my list!” he had barked.

  What could I do if that’s how he had chosen to read my name? Since then, some of the men had teased me, using my new name. “Lee Ma!” One would point at me as if he were the Party secretary, his arm cutting the air. “If you don’t answer, I’ll behead you!” It always made everyone laugh.

  Now our foreman called me again, “Lee!” Holding a cup in the crook of his little finger like a rich woman, he said, “Tell us the story, ‘The Sign of the Four’!” The foreman knew I had read a lot of Sherlock Holmes, so he always asked me to retell Holmes’ adventures with the other men. This brought some pleasure to our boring and somewhat dispirited life. At that time, Sherlock Holmes’s books were banned like most other books, but I had a way of sneaking them into the factory. Storytelling wouldn’t get me into hot water if nobody blew the whistle.

  “On his deathbed, an old, very wealthy gentleman held the hands of his son and daughter,” I began. “He told them about his adventures and the fortune he had made in his travels to India and then brought back to England. He was about to whisper to his children where his treasure was hidden, when…” I paused, trying to heighten the suspense.

  Striking my arm, one fellow asked, “When what?”

  “His eyes wildly scanned the room, and the terror in his voice rose as he yelled, ‘Keep him out!’” For extra effect, I opened my mouth wide, squeezed my eyes shut, and made a strange, gurgling sound.

  “Keep who out? A ghost?” asked one listener. Someone jumped from his bench to come and sit beside me.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  I told them that a horned and bearded man was pressing his nose against the window of the old man’s room. My listeners murmured among themselves. I paused to take a sip of tea from a mug that one of them had just passed to me, and then continued the story…

  On yet another day, when all the machines stopped turning, we decided to play poker. Easing ourselves to the ground in a circle, we shuffled a set of cards and six of us started to play.

  “Gee!” Flower Geek suddenly called out. “Look!”

  I looked up from the cards in my hand. Flower Geek had risen from the Ogling Stage and was boogying toward us.

  “Tea!” a female voice burst out behind me. “Do you have a minute?” Startled, I turned around and to my surprise, Cao, a girl apprentice from another workshop, had entered the room, carrying a tray full of steaming mugs of tea.

  Cao always took care of her appearance. At that time, girls had few choices for clothes. On this day, she wore a blazer and a loose, dark blue skirt. In our eyes, she looked like a beauty out of a fairy tale.

  She seldom bothered to speak to us young fellows, so I wondered about the real reason for her sudden appearance in our room. She must have something important to say, I thought.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked calmly, not wanting to seem too interested or too curious.

  “Can you find Dream of the Red Chamber?” She looked at me and waited for me to say yes.

  “Why? Dream of the Red Chamber has been banned.” Curiosity occupied the whole of me. “Can’t you recite Chairman Mao’s quotations? Why do you need that book?”

  “Why not? Chairman Mao said ‘Dream of the Red Chamber is the encyclopaedia of Chinese feudalism.’ Judging
by your answer, it seems you don’t know this particular quotation,” replied the girl, her smile gently mocking me. “My supervisor, Sister Guo, asked me to find a copy of Dream of the Red Chamber.”

  “Sister Guo? Alright. I’ll let you know next week,” I replied. If Sister Guo, as a Party member, dares to read that book, why shouldn’t I?

  “Please,” Cao said, “thank you! I’ll expect to hear from you then.” She glided away. All of our eyes focused on her behind. A week later I found the book for Cao. After that she came to my workshop several times to either borrow or return books. That was how we became friends.

  ***

  Time flew. I had been working as an apprentice for two years. As the time for promotion was around the corner, the factory organized an activity of long-distance jogging as a military manoeuvre for us young workers. In those years, success in the activities organized by the Communist Party was far more important than attaining other work skills. I knew that our performance in this manoeuvre was a crucial measurement of whether we would get a raise of ten yuan in the near future. Excited, we prepared our knapsacks and readied ourselves for the test.

  Because he had applied to join the Communist Party, Flower Geek got appointed as our leader. The Party gave him this assignment as a trial of his faith and loyalty. He certainly didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity, so he became unusually sociable, speaking to this person and patting that one on the shoulder.

  The jogging drill would last five days, and we would pass through three towns. Altogether, sixty-seven workers, composed of fifty-nine young men and eight young women, joined the journey. Flower Geek played favourites with the girls and granted privileges to them. He would, for example, give them more free time and never blamed them when they were late or when they chatted during political meetings. Although all the young men were unhappy about that, we didn’t dare have words with him. And besides, we were happy to have more women in the factory.