by Ha Jin
Suddenly it flashed through her mind that Ran Su must have found out about the rape. A flush rose on her face as a pang seized her heart and rendered her speechless. She was sure of her conjecture and later told Lin about it. He said she might be wrong, though he was agitated too. He swore he had never revealed the secret to anyone.
She guessed right. The next afternoon, as she and Lin were going to the hot-water house, each holding a thermos bottle, they saw Mrs. Su coming from the opposite direction. Passing them, the skinny little woman spat to the ground and said out loud, “Self-delivery.” She wore black clothes and a mink hat, and one of her eyes was swollen. Both Manna and Lin, despite being shocked, pretended they had heard nothing. When the woman was out of earshot, Manna began cursing Ran Su. But Lin was certain that it wasn’t Ran Su who had told his wife about the rape, because Mrs. Su was deranged and unreliable and her husband seldom talked to her. It must have been those officers’ wives, who always enjoyed gossiping, that had spread the word.
From then on, whenever the little woman saw Manna she would call her “Self-delivery” or shout, “Poked by a man!” The curses often made Manna feel as though she had lost a limb or a vital organ and become handicapped. How she regretted having divulged the secret to Haiyan. She hated the telltale’s bone marrow. If only she had listened to Lin and reported the rape to Ran Su two months ago.
Lin was deeply disappointed by the leak and felt ashamed as well, because sometimes the little woman would call him “a green-hatted cuckold” in front of others. Ran Su was a friend of his, but there was no way Lin could ask him to dissuade his wife from calling Manna and himself names. Mrs. Su had suffered from dementia since the Sus lost their only child the summer before. The boy had drowned in the Songhua River one afternoon when he went to the bank with his pals to net tiny water insects for his goldfish. It was rumored that Ran Su had to give his wife all the money left in his wallet every night; otherwise she would curse his ancestors without stopping, or smash dishes and bowls, or wail like a child, or turn on him with a steel poker. As a result, he always kept banknotes inside the plastic cover of a diary. Because he was so good-tempered and had never thought of sending his demented wife to a mental asylum, Ran Su had gained a lot of respect and sympathy in the hospital. People said he deserved his recent promotion. He was the vice-commissar of the hospital now.
Naturally Manna was furious with Haiyan and would not speak to her. She didn’t go and see her baby, a nine-pound boy, when she heard of the birth. Haiyan, after her maternity leave was over, tried to explain to Manna how the secret had come out. But whenever Haiyan got close to her, Manna would move away and would not listen to the tattletale. Having no way to approach her, Haiyan went to Lin one afternoon and made him listen to her story.
“I never meant to tell on Manna,” she said, sitting before Lin in his office. “You know, a couple in bed will chat about anything, especially when you are bored. I told Honggan not to breathe a word about Manna to anyone. He promised he wouldn’t, but on Spring Festival Eve he got drunk with his buddies and spilled it out. I went to their homes and tried to stop them from spreading the word, but it got out of hand. Lin, I never meant to hurt Manna. She’s been my best friend for many years, why should I sell her out? What could I gain from doing that? Oh, this makes me feel like hell.” She looked tearful.
“I understand,” he said damply.
“You know how I hate that ass of a husband. I almost cracked his skull with a broomstick when I found out what he had done to Manna. If you don’t believe me, go ask him.”
“I believe you, but it’s too late.”
“Oh, how can I make it up to Manna?”
“I don’t see there’s a way now.”
“Can you tell her I am very, very sorry?”
“I can do that.”
He smelled a soapy odor exuding from Haiyan. After she left, he wondered if she had just washed diapers before coming to his office.
Though he passed Haiyan’s explanation and apology on to Manna, Manna was inconsolable and unforgiving. And she had her reason for being so. After the rape became known to everyone, people at the hospital began to treat Lin and her like husband and wife. Their food coupons and salaries sometimes arrived at his desk together at the end of a month; without second thoughts the soldier in charge of mail would leave with Manna letters for Lin; by accident, a clerk once sent them a booklet on family planning, which should have gone to married couples only. Some new nurses would mention Dr. Kong to Manna as if he were her husband, though they would feel embarrassed later when she told them that she was unmarried. All these occurrences hurt her, but she had grown timid now, not daring to fight back or quarrel with others as often as before. She was afraid that anybody might shame her just by referring to the rape.
At last it was clear that she had no choice but to wait for Lin wholeheartedly, as though the two of them had been predestined to be inseparable.
Thus continued their long “courtship,” which gradually became steady and uneventful during the following years. Summer after summer, Lin and Shuyu went to the divorce court in Wujia Town and returned home as man and wife. Year after year, he and Manna hoped that the requirement of eighteen years’ separation before he could end his marriage would be revised or revoked, but the rule remained intact. Ran Su, after Lin had bought him a used copy of Around the World in Eighty Days, a rare book at the time, proposed to the Party Committee to have the rule loosened a little, but the majority of the leaders were opposed to the idea, uncertain about the repercussions. As time slipped by, people grew oblivious to the origin of the rule, as though it were a sacred decree whose authenticity no one would dare question. Year after year, more gray hair appeared on Lin’s and Manna’s heads; their bodies grew thicker and their limbs heavier; more little wrinkles marked their faces. But Shuyu remained almost the same, no longer looking like an old aunt of Lin’s but more like an elder sister.
During these years, most of Lin’s and Manna’s colleagues were promoted to higher positions or left the army, but the two of them remained in the same offices doing the same work, although they got raises. Ran Su, after another promotion, became the commissar of the hospital in 1980. Lin heard that his cousin Liang Meng had married a model worker, a nationally known operator who had memorized over eleven thousand telephone numbers. In 1981 Commissar Wei died in prison, where he had been incarcerated for his connections with the Gang of Four.
Finally, in 1984, Lin asked Shuyu to come to the hospital. This time he would take her to People’s Court in Muji City. After eighteen years’ separation, he was going to divorce her, with or without her consent.
PART
3
1
Bensheng accompanied his sister Shuyu to the army hospital in July 1984, but he stayed only a day, having to return home to attend to his business. The year before, the commune had been disbanded and he had opened a small grocery in a neighboring village, mainly selling candies, liquor, cigarettes, soy sauce, vinegar, and spiced pumpkin seeds. During his absence, Hua was taking care of the store, but he couldn’t set his mind at rest and was unwilling to be away for long. Hua hadn’t passed the entrance exams the previous summer, and fortunately she could work for her uncle instead of going to the fields.
At the hospital, nurses, doctors, officers, and their wives were all amazed to see Shuyu totter about with bound feet, which only a woman of over seventy should have. She always walked alone, since Lin wouldn’t be with her in the presence of others. Whenever she crossed the square before the medical building, young nurses would gather at the windows to watch her. They had heard that a woman with bound feet usually had thick thighs and full buttocks, but Shuyu’s legs were so thin that she didn’t seem to have any hips.
A few days after she arrived, a pain developed in her lower back. It troubled her a lot, and she couldn’t sit on a chair for longer than half an hour. It also hurt her whenever she coughed or sneezed. Lin talked to Doctor Ning about Shuyu’s symptom and t
hen told his wife to go see the doctor. She went to the office the next morning; the diagnosis was sciatica, at its early stage. She needed electrotherapy.
So she began to receive the treatment. The nurses were exceptionally kind to her, knowing Lin was going to divorce her soon. After the diathermic light was set, they would chitchat with her. Lying facedown on a leather couch, Shuyu would answer their questions without looking up at them. She liked the lysol smell in the air, which somehow reminded her of fresh almonds. She had never been in a room so clean, with cream-colored walls and sunshine streaming in through the windows and falling on the glass-topped tables and the red wooden floors. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. Outside, cicadas buzzed softly in the treetops; even sparrows here didn’t chirp furiously like those back home. How come all the animals and people seemed much tamer in the army?
In the beginning, she was rather embarrassed to loosen her pants and move them down below the small of her back, and the infrared heat on her skin frightened her a little, but soon she felt at ease, realizing the lamp wouldn’t burn her. She enjoyed lying on the clean sheet and having her lower back soothed by the heat. A sky-blue screen shielded her from people passing by. When nobody was around, she would close her eyes and let her mind wander back to the countryside, where it was time to harvest garlic and crab apples and to sow winter vegetables—turnips, cabbages, carrots, rutabagas. She was amazed that people in the city could have so many comforts, and that the young nurses always worked indoors, well sheltered from wind and rain. They were never in a hurry to finish work. What a wonderful life the girls had here. They all looked nice in their white caps and robes, though some were sickly pale. When they gave her an injection, they would massage her backside for a few seconds; then with a gentle slap they plunged the needle in. They would ask her whether it hurt while their pinkies kept caressing her skin near the needle. The tickle made her want to laugh.
A nurse once asked her if Lin had bullied her. Shuyu said, “No, he’s a kind man, always good to me.”
“Does he buy you enough food to eat?” another nurse put in. She was holding a syringe, its needle connected to a phial filled with pinkish powder.
Shuyu replied, “Yeah, always white steamed bread, or sugar buns, or twisted rolls. I eat meat or fish every day. Here every day’s like a holiday. Only it’s too hot at noon.”
The nurses looked at each other. One giggled, then a few followed suit. “What does he eat?” asked the nurse holding the syringe.
“I don’t know. We don’t eat together. He brings everything back for me.”
“He’s a good provider, eh?”
“Yeah, he is.”
They all tittered. They were somewhat puzzled by Shuyu’s words. Even though Lin held a rank equal to a battalion commander, his wheat coupons couldn’t exceed twelve pounds a month. How could he feed his wife with such fine foods the whole time? Where had he gotten all the coupons? From Manna? It was unlikely, because she had overtly declared she would have nothing to do with Shuyu. What did Lin eat then? Did he eat corn flour and sorghum himself? What a weird man. He must have saved a lot of wheat coupons for Shuyu’s visit. It seemed he still had some affection for his wife, or he wouldn’t have treated her so well.
Shuyu liked the nurses. Yet however hard they begged her, she would not take off her small shoes, of which they often sang praises. They were all eager to see her feet.
One day, after the treatment, Nurse Li, a bony girl from Hangzhou who had never seen a bound foot, said she would give Shuyu a yuan if she showed them her feet. Shuyu said, “No, can’t do that.”
“Why? One yuan just for a look. How come your feet are so expensive?”
“You know, girls, only my man’s allowed to see them.”
“Why?”
“That’s the rule.”
“Show us just once, please,” a tall nurse begged with a suave smile. “We won’t tell others about it.”
“No, I won’t do that. You know, take off your shoes and socks is like open your pants.”
“Why?” the tall woman exclaimed.
“ ‘Cause you bound your feet only for your future husband, not for other men, to make your feet more precious to your man. By the way, do you know what this was called in the old days?” She patted her left foot, whose instep bulged like a tiny knoll.
They all shook their heads. She continued, “It’s called Golden Lotus, like a treasure.”
They looked at her with amazement, winking at one another. Nurse Ma asked, “Wasn’t it painful to have your feet bound?”
“Of course it hurt. Don’t tell me about pain. I started to bind my feet when I was seven. My heavens, for two years I’d weep in pain every night. In the summer my toes swelled up, filled with pus, and the flesh rotted, but I dared not loosen the binding. My mother’d whack me with a big bamboo slat if she found me doing that. Whenever I ate fish, the pus in my heels dripped out. There’s the saying goes, ‘Every pair of lotus feet come from a bucket of tears.’ ”
“Why did you bind them then?” a ruddy-cheeked girl asked.
“Mother said it’s my second chance to marry good, ‘cause my face ugly. You know, men are crazy about lotus feet in those days. The smaller your feet are, the better looking you are to them.”
“How about Doctor Kong?” Nurse Li asked earnestly. “Does he like your small feet?”
The question puzzled Shuyu, and she mumbled, “I don’t know. He never saw them.”
The girls looked at one another, simpering, their eyes full of amusement. One of them sneezed loudly, and they all laughed.
Because the divorce wouldn’t fail this time, Lin had been trying to have Shuyu’s rural residential status changed to urban. The army would sponsor such a change only if the officer had served longer than fifteen years or held a rank higher than a battalion commander. Lin was qualified, having been in the service for twenty-one years; so the office in charge of this matter was cooperative. He wanted Shuyu to have a residency card, which would enable her to live in any city legally. Besides, their daughter Hua needed such a certificate as well; according to the law, she would follow her mother and automatically become a city dweller if Shuyu’s residential status was changed. With such a card in hand, Hua would have a better chance for employment in Muji. Since she couldn’t go to college now, this was her only chance to leave the countryside.
By no means could Lin make Shuyu understand the necessity and complexity of the process, but she complied with whatever he said. If he told her, “Don’t fetch hot water—I’ll do that,” she would never take either of the thermos bottles out of the room. If he handed her some pills and said, “Take these, good for you,” she would swallow them without thinking twice. To her, his words were like orders, which she couldn’t imagine would do her any harm.
One morning he gave her a one-yuan note and told her to have her hair cut at the barbershop, which was behind the hospital’s tofu mill and was run by three officers’ wives. The moment he left for work, she set off for the shop.
Unlike back home where Hua would cut her hair with a long comb and scissors, here a haircut cost thirty fen. When a plump young woman in the shop told her the price, Shuyu felt uneasy, as though they were overcharging her. She had never spent money so lavishly; for thirty fen she could buy half a cake of Glossy soap, which would last at least two weeks. Nevertheless, she agreed and sat down on a leather chair.
A large kettle began whining from the coal stove outside the door. The middle-aged woman with bobbed hair went out, removed the seething water, and banked the fire with three shovels of anthracite mixed with yellow mud. Then with a poker she drilled a hole through the wet coal. She came back into the room, threw a white sheet over Shuyu, and fastened its ends at the nape of her neck with a wooden clothespin.
“What hairstyle do you want, sister?” she asked Shuyu, raising a red plastic comb.
“I don’t know.”
Two male customers laughed, sitting on the other adjustable chairs.
“Come on,” the woman said to Shuyu, “it’s your hair. You must tell me how to cut it.”
“Well, how about like yours?” She pointed at the hairdresser’s bobbed hair.
The plump young woman chimed in, “She’ll look nice with that.”
“Are you sure you want my kind of hairdo?” the middle-aged woman asked Shuyu. “You’ll lose your bun.”
“Sure, cut it as much as you can.” She wanted her hair to be short, so that she wouldn’t have to come to the barbershop too often and waste money.
The woman untied her bun and began combing the tangled hair while Shuyu sucked her lips noisily. The initial strokes of the comb pulled her scalp and hurt her a little, but in a moment she got used to it. She began to wonder how come the hairdresser could click the scissors so rhythmically, without stopping. In the right corner of the room a tailless cat was sleeping, now and then stretching out its limbs; its ear went on twitching to shake off flies. Shuyu was impressed by the bowl of sorghum porridge near the door. City people were so rich, feeding a cat like a human. No mice could live in this room with a cement floor, why did they need to keep a cat?
While trimming the ends of her hair, the woman asked Shuyu, “Is Lin Kong good to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you two live in the same room?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you sleep?”
“What you mean?”
“Do you and Lin Kong sleep in the same bed?” The hairdresser smiled, while the two younger women stopped their scissors and clippers.