The Bonesetter's Daughter

by Amy Tan

  Day and night the family talked of Peking Man and almost nothing else. "Million years?" Mother wondered aloud. "How can anyone know the age of someone who has been dead that long? Hnh, when my grandfather died, no one knew if he was sixty-eight or sixty-nine. Eighty was how long he should have lived, if only he had had better luck. So eighty was what our family decided he was—luckier, yes, but still dead."

  I, too, had something to say on the new discovery: "Why are they calling him Peking Man? The teeth came from the Mouth of the Mountain. And now the scientists are saying that skullcap was a woman's. So it should be called Woman from the Mouth of the Mountain." My aunts and uncles looked at me, and one of them said: "Wisdom from a child's lips, simple yet true." I was embarrassed to hear such high words. Then Gao-Ling added, "I think he should be called Immortal Heart Man. Then our town would be famous and so would we." Mother praised her suggestion to the skies, and the others did as well. To my mind, however, her idea made no sense, but I could not say this.

  I was often jealous when GaoLing received more attention from the mother we shared. I still believed I was the eldest daughter. I was smarter. I had done better in school. Yet GaoLing always had the honor of sitting next to Mother, of sleeping in her k'ang, while I had Precious Auntie.

  When I was younger, that did not bother me. I felt I was lucky to have her by my side. I thought the words "Precious Auntie" were the same as what others meant by "Ma." I could not bear to be separated from my nursemaid for even one moment. I had admired her and was proud that she could write the names of every flower, seed, and bush, as well as say their medicinal uses. But the bigger I grew, the more she shrank in importance. The smarter I thought I had become, the more I was able to reason that Precious Auntie was only a servant, a woman who held no great position in our household, a person no one liked. She could have made our family rich, if only she did not have crazy thoughts about curses.

  I began to increase my respect for Mother. I sought her favor. I believed favor was the same as love. Favor made me feel more important, more content. After all, Mother was the number-one-ranking lady of the house. She decided what we ate, what colors we should wear, how much pocket money we received for those times she allowed us to go to the market. Everyone both feared her and wanted to please her, all except Great-Granny, who was now so feeble-minded she could not tell ink from mud.

  But in Mother's eyes, I had no charms. To her ears, my words had no music. It did not matter how obedient I was, how humble or clean. Nothing I did satisfied her. I became confused as to what I must do to please her. I was like a turtle lying on its back, struggling to know why the world was upside down.

  Often I complained to Precious Auntie that Mother did not love me. Stop your nonsense, Precious Auntie would answer. Didn't you hear her today? She said your sewing stitches were sloppy. And she mentioned your skin was getting too dark. If she didn't love you, why did she bother to criticise you for your own good? And then Precious Auntie went on to say how selfish I was, always thinking about myself. She said my face looked ugly when I pouted. She criticized me so much I did not consider until now that she was saying she loved me even more.

  One day—I remember this was sometime before Spring Festival—Old Cook came back from the market and said big news was flying through Immortal Heart. Chang the coffinmaker had become famous and was soon to be very rich. Those dragon bones he had given to the scientists? The results had come back: They were human. How old was not certain yet, but everyone guessed they were at least a million years, maybe even two.

  We were in the ink-making studio, all the women, girls, and babies, except for Precious Auntie, who was in the root cellar, counting the ink-sticks she had already carved. I was glad she wasn't in the studio, because whenever anyone mentioned Chang's name, she spat. So when he delivered wood, she was sent to her room, where she cursed him by banging on a pail so long and loud that even the tenants yelled back.

  "What a peculiar coincidence," Big Aunt now said. "The same Mr. Chang who sells us wood. His luck could have been ours just as easily."

  "The association goes back even farther than that," Mother boasted. "He was the man who stopped his cart to help after Baby Brother was killed by the Mongol bandits. A man of good deeds, that Mr. Chang."

  It seemed there was no end to the many ways we were connected to the now famous Mr. Chang. Since Mr. Chang would soon be even richer than before, Mother thought he would surely reduce the price of his leftover wood. "He should share his luck," Mother agreed with herself. "The gods expect him to do no less."

  Precious Auntie came back to the ink studio, and in a short while she realized who it was everyone was talking about. She stamped her feet and punched the air with her fists. Chang is evil, she said, her arms flailing. He killed my father. He is the reason Hu Sen is dead. She made a rasping sound as if the whole of her throat would slough off.

  That was not true, I thought. Her father had fallen off a wagon when he was drunk, and Baby Uncle had been kicked by his own horse. Mother and my aunts had told me so.

  Precious Auntie grabbed my arm. She looked into my eyes, then talked fast with her hands, Tell them, Doggie, tell them what I'm saying is true. And the dragon bones Chang has, and she poured imaginary ones into her palm, I realise now that they probably are the ones that belonged to myfather, my family. Chang stole them from us on my wedding day. They were my dowry. They are bones from the Monkey's Jaw. We need to get them back from Chang, return them to the cave or the curse will go on and on. Hurry, tell them.

  Before I could, Mother warned: "I don't want to hear any more of her crazy stories. Do you hear me, Daughter?"

  Everyone stared at me, including Precious Auntie. Tell them, she signaled. But I turned to Mother, nodded, and said, "I heard." Precious Auntie ran out of the ink studio with a choking sound that twisted my heart and made me feel evil.

  For a while, it was very quiet in the studio. Then Great-Granny went up to Mother and said with a worried face: "Eh, have you seen Hu Sen?"

  "He's in the courtyard," Mother answered. And Great-Granny shuffled out.

  My uncles' wives began to cluck their tongues. "Still crazy from what happened," Little Aunt muttered, "and that was almost fifteen years ago." For a moment, I did not know if they were talking about Great-Granny or Precious Auntie.

  Big Aunt added, "Good thing she can't talk. It would be a terrible embarrassment to our family if anyone knew what she was trying to say."

  "You should turn her out of the house," Little Aunt said to Mother. And then Mother nodded toward Great-Granny, who was now wandering about, scratching at a bloody spot on the back of her ear. "It's because of old Granny," she said, "that the lunatic nursemaid has stayed all these years." And I knew then what Mother really meant but could not say. When Great-Granny died, she could finally tell Precious Auntie to go. All at once, I felt tender toward my nursemaid. I wanted to protest that Mother must not do this. But how could I argue against something that had not yet been said?

  A month later, Great-Granny fell and hit her head on the brick edge of her k'ang. Before the Hour of the Rooster she was dead. Father, Big Uncle, and Little Uncle returned home from Peking, though the roads had become dangerous. A lot of shooting among warlords was going on between Peking and the Mouth of the Mountain. Lucky for us, the only fighting we saw was among the tenants. We had to ask them several times not to scream and shout while we were paying respects to Great-Granny as she lay in the common hall.

  When Mr. Chang delivered the coffin, Precious Auntie stayed in her room and cursed him with her banging pail. I was sitting on a bench in the front courtyard, watching as Father and Mr. Chang unloaded the cart.

  I thought to myself, Precious Auntie is wrong. Mr. Chang didn't look like a thief. He was a large man with friendly manners and an open face. Father was eagerly discussing with him his "important contribution to science, history, and all of China." To this, Mr. Chang acted both modest and pleased. Then Father left to get Mr. Chang's money for
the coffin.

  Though it was a cold day, Mr. Chang was sweating. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. After a while, he noticed I was staring at him. "You've certainly grown big," he called to me. I blushed. A famous man was talking to me.

  "My sister is bigger," I thought to say. "And she's a year younger."

  "Ah, that's good," he said.

  I had not intended for him to praise GaoLing. "I heard that you had pieces of Peking Man," I then said. "What parts?"

  "Oh, only the most important."

  And I, too, wanted to seem important, so I blurted without thinking, "I once had some bones myself," before I slapped my hand over my mouth.

  Mr. Chang smiled, waiting for me to continue. "Where are they?" he said after a while.

  I could not be impolite. "We took them back to the cave," I answered.

  "Where's that?"

  "I can't say where. My nursemaid made me promise. It's a secret."

  "Ah, your nursemaid. She's the one with the ugly face." Mr. Chang stiffened his fingers like a crab and held them over his mouth.

  I nodded.

  "The crazy person." He looked toward the sounds of the banging pail. I said nothing.

  "And she found bones from this place you can't talk about?"

  "We found them together, she took them back," I answered quickly. "But I can't say where."

  "Of course. You shouldn't tell a stranger."

  "Oh, you're not a stranger! Our family knows you very well. We all say so."

  "Still, you shouldn't tell me. But surely you've told your own father and mother."

  I shook my head. "No one. If I did, they would want to dig them out. Precious Auntie said so. She said the bones have to stay in the cave or she would suffer the consequences."

  "What consequences?"

  "A curse. She'll die if I say."

  "But she is already quite old, is she not?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so."

  "Often women die at all sorts of ages and it's not because of a curse. Illness or accident, that's often the cause. My first wife died ten years ago. She was always clumsy and one day she fell off a roof. Now I have a new wife and she's even better than the last. If your nursemaid dies, you can get a new one, too."

  "I'm too old for another," I said. I did not like our conversation anymore. Soon Father returned with Mr. Chang's money. They chatted a few more minutes in a friendly manner, and then Mr. Chang called to me, "Next time I see you, we'll talk again," and he left with his empty cart. Father seemed pleased that Mr. Chang, who was now such a well-known man in our town, had found me worthy of attention.

  A few days later, we had a proper funeral for Great-Granny. Everyone wailed loudly, but Mother was the loudest, as was the custom, she being the number-one-ranking lady of the house. She did a very good job sounding sad beyond hope. And I, too, cried, sad but also afraid. And when the funeral was over, I became nervous of what would happen next: Mother would make Precious Auntie leave.

  But she did not, and this was why.

  Mother believed Great-Granny was still around, haunting the outhouse and making sure everyone still followed her rules. Every time Mother squatted over the hole, she heard a voice asking, "Have you seen Hu Sen?" When she told us this, Third Aunt said, "The sight of your bare bottom should have scared away any ghost." And we all laughed, but Mother became angry and announced she was cutting off everyone's allowance for the next month. "To teach you to have more respect for Great-Granny," she said. For the ghost in the outhouse, Mother went to the village temple every day and gave special offerings. She went to Great-Granny's grave and burned silver paper, so Great-Granny could buy her way to a better level. After ninety days of constipation, Mother went back to the funerary ship and bought a paper automobile large as life, complete with chauffeur. Great-Granny had seen a real one once at a temple fair in the Mouth of the Mountain. It was in the parking lot where carts and donkeys were kept, and when the automobile roared away, she said, it was loud enough to scare the devil and fast enough to fly to heaven.

  So the paper auto went up in flames, and Great-Granny's ghost traveled from the latrine to the World of Yin. And then our household went back to its normal, noisy ways. For the rest of the family, the concerns were on little daily matters: mold in the millet, a crack in the glass, nothing at all of lasting importance.

  And only I worried about what would happen to Precious Auntie.

  I remember the day Mother received a surprise letter from Peking. It was the period of Great Heat, when mosquitoes were their happiest and fruit left outside rotted in less than an hour under the sun. Great-Granny had been dead for more than ninety days. We sat in the shade of the big tree in the courtyard, waiting to hear the news.

  We all knew the letter writer, Old Widow Lau. She was a cousin, within eight degrees of kinship on Father's side and five degrees on Mother's side, close enough to follow the mourning rituals of family. She had come to Great-Granny's funeral and had wailed as loudly as the rest of us.

  Since Mother could not read, she asked GaoLing, and I had to hide my disappointment that she had been chosen for this important task. GaoLing smoothed her hair, cleared her throat, licked her lips, then read: " 'Dear Cousin, I send greetings from all those who have asked after you with deep feeling.'" GaoLing then stumbled through a long list of names, from those of brand-new babies to people Mother was sure were already dead. On the next page, our old cousin wrote something like this: "I know you are still in mourning and barely able to eat because of grief. So it is not a good time to invite everyone to come visit in Peking. But I have been thinking about what you and I discussed when we last saw each other at the funeral."

  GaoLing broke off reading and turned to Mother. "What did you discuss?" I, too, was wondering this.

  Mother slapped GaoLing's hand. "Don't be nosy. You just read, and I'll tell you what you should know."

  The letter continued: "'I wish to humbly suggest that your number-one daughter'"—she was speaking of me, and my heart swelled— "'come to Peking and accidentally meet a distant relation of mine.'" GaoLing threw me a scowl, and I was pleased she was jealous. " 'This relation,' " GaoLing went on reading in a less enthusiastic voice, " 'has four sons, who are seventh cousins of mine, three times removed, with a different surname. They live in your same village, but are barely related to you, if at all.'"

  When I heard the words "barely related," I knew this accidental meeting meant she wanted to see whether I might be a marriage match for a certain family. I was fourteen (this was by my Chinese age), and most of the girls my age were already married. As to which family, Old Widow Lau did not want to say, unless she knew for certain that our family believed such an accident could be beneficial. "To be honest," she wrote, "I would not have thought of this family on my own. But the father came to me and asked about LuLing. They have apparently seen the girl and are impressed with her beauty and sweet nature."

  My face flushed. At last Mother knew what others were saying about me. Perhaps she might see these good qualities in me as well.

  "I want to go to Peking, too," GaoLing said like a complaining cat.

  Mother scolded her: "Did anyone invite you? No? Well, then, you only look stupid for saying you want to go." When she whined again, Mother yanked her braid and said, "Shut your mouth," before handing me the letter to finish reading.

  I sat up straight, facing Mother, and read with much expression: '"The family suggests a meeting at your family's ink shop in Peking.'" I stopped a moment and smiled at GaoLing. I had never seen the shop, nor had she. " 'In this way,'" I continued, " 'if there is any disharmony of interest, there will be no public embarrassment to either family. If both families are in agreement about the match, then this will be a blessing from the gods for which I can take no credit.'"

  "No credit," Mother said with a snort, "just a lot of gifts."

  The next part of the letter went like this: "A good daughter-in-law is hard to find, I'm sure you will agree. Perhaps you remember my s
econd daughter-in-law? I am ashamed to admit that she has turned out to be coldhearted. Today she suggested that your daughter's nursemaid should not accompany her to Peking. She said that if a person were to see the two together, he would remember only the shocking ugliness of the nursemaid and not the emerging beauty of the maiden. I told her that was nonsense. But as I write this letter, I realize now that it would be inconvenient to accommodate another servant, since mine already complain that there is not enough room for them to sleep in one bed. So perhaps it would be better if the nursemaid does not come after all. I apologize that nothing can be done about the poverty of our household. . . ."

  Only when I was done reading did I look up at Precious Auntie, embarrassed. Never mind, she signed to me quietly. I'll tell her later that I can sleep on the floor. I turned to Mother, waiting to hear what more she had to say.

  "Write a letter back. Tell Old Widow Lau that I will have you go in a week. I'd take you myself, but it's the ink season and we have too much to do. I'll ask Mr. Wei to take you in his cart. He always makes a medical delivery to Peking on the first and won't mind an extra passenger in exchange for a little cash."

  Precious Auntie napped her hands for my attention. Now is the time to tell her you can't go alone. Who will make sure it's a good marriage? What if that busybody idiot cousin tries to barter you off as a second wife to a poor family? Ask her to consider that.