The Bathing Women (21 page)

She never knew how Yixun reacted when he first saw Quan, because she’d kept her eyes cast down the whole time. She’d just lowered her eyes and, steadily, in her outstretched hands, held the baby for Yixun to see—she wanted him to accept her child. If only he had taken the child from her hands, then her heart would have been at peace. But he didn’t. On the contrary, he backed off a step. He withdrew his extended hands and slid them into his pockets—he was also fidgeting; he also needed to relieve his nerves by moving. Then he said without looking at her, “I’d better wash my hands. I was on the bus all day and dust got everywhere.”

He stayed at home only one night and returned to the farm.

So, who could say that Yixun didn’t know anything?

It was time to put an end to things.

This expression very much appealed to her now. One person’s death had made her understand that there were things in life that she needed to end. With this thought in mind, she went to People’s Hospital to see Dr. Tang. For once, arriving at those two first-floor rooms, she didn’t go directly to the inner room but took a seat in the waiting room, and Dr. Tang immediately knew why Wu had come.

They had never discussed Quan’s paternity. Dr. Tang hadn’t been to Wu’s home since Quan’s birth. But Quan didn’t stop growing and changing because Dr. Tang wasn’t around. Soon all those features that obviously belonged to the Tang family started to show in her. She had so quickly grown very different from Tiao and Fan. How little Quan looked like her surprised even Wu. The child’s appearance didn’t leave any room for doubt in the adults, the families, and the society in which she would have to live. So, when she was a year old, Wu brought her to People’s Hospital to meet Dr. Tang. It was a meeting that did not reveal anything new. Between Wu and Dr. Tang no curtain needed to be drawn back: Dr. Tang’s heart was as clear as glass when he looked at this baby with the curly brown hair who stared at him with little dark eyes. He seemed somewhat surprised and confused, taking Quan in his arms, slightly embarrassed and a little excited. He must have wanted to kiss her but clearly didn’t dare put his lips close to her face. With a lump in his throat, he asked, “What is her name?”

“Her name is Quan.”

“Which character for Quan?”

“The character for grass on top, and the one for completion below—Quan, meaning heavenly grass.”

He paused, and then asked, “The character for grass above and completion underneath?”

She said, “Yes. Doesn’t the character for Fei also have the character for grass?”

It was already too obvious, so they both stopped talking. Besides, she didn’t want to discuss anything; she’d just wanted to bring Quan here for him to see.

For this, Dr. Tang was grateful to Wu. He had always been grateful that she let him avoid responsibility towards her and now was even more grateful to be relieved of responsibility towards this child of theirs. Because she’d permitted him this escape, he didn’t have to feel nervous and could just relax, which had allowed him to enjoy sex with her. This was the real reason he needed her. In such repressive times, a woman like Wu could provide someone of his family and social background a warm bed in secret to soothe his anxiety and despair. By this stroke of sheer luck, she helped him maintain a relatively healthy balance between body and mind. They both knew the good days wouldn’t last, which didn’t mean they could have predicted Quan’s death. Unlike Wu, Dr. Tang was not shocked that Quan lived for only two years, and he didn’t mourn deep or long, either. He had been involved with a shorter life than Quan’s—in his niece Fei’s abortion. He didn’t consider his pessimism about the lives in the Tang family as cruel. In fact, he had predicted long ago that they would live to suffer, just as with his sister Jingjing’s miserable death, or his niece Fei’s plight, or the awkward life he was living himself. No one had ever understood what was in his heart, and this woman named Wu in particular didn’t understand.

Now as he looked at Wu in the chair, her face bloated by grief at Quan’s death, the creases at the corners of her mouth, and the strands of grey showing in her dark hair, he couldn’t help feeling a surge of compassion. He heard what she said about not seeing each other anymore, and he agreed that they should stop. So filled with compassion was he for her that he felt he had to embrace her and remove all her clothes. Compassion can excite a man sometimes. At that moment it wasn’t that he wanted to have her, but rather that he wanted her to have him, to have him one more, final time.

But she didn’t cooperate, and it was no show of refusal but genuine rejection. Here was a situation unfamiliar to Dr. Tang; he was accustomed to her eagerness to please, to her taking the initiative, to her undisguised sexual desire, and to her body’s consummate ripeness. Her current passive resistance gave Dr. Tang a powerful erection. He held her, trying to pull her into the inner room, and she grabbed hold of the door frame, stubbornly refusing to enter. He then shifted direction, dragging her to the bathroom. He dragged her in and locked the door. She struggled in his arms and begged him with her sad eyes, Don’t do this. Please don’t. Her sad eyes touched him and also stimulated him. The more he felt compassion for her, the more he wanted to bully her. He couldn’t stop. While holding her stiff body, he stood in the bathroom and began to masturbate, jerking himself off so violently that it all ended quickly. His violent motion, his strange, low, husky moaning, and his ejaculation had no effect on Wu at all. She just wanted to go home as soon as she could.

3

One day in autumn, late autumn, when Quan was only a year old, Yixun came home from the Reed River Farm for the change of season. He got off the bus and ran into Tiao and Fan, just back from grocery shopping, at the entrance of the Design Academy. He hardly noticed what Tiao carried in her hand but immediately fixed on a string of garlic that hung around Fan’s neck. It was fairly long, circling Fan’s neck like a boa or a scarf, with two ends dangling over her knees. Her little neck leaned forward, weighed down by the garlic, but she was all happy and smiling. Yixun thought she must have asked to have the garlic on her neck herself because she’d seen the photograph of the former first lady Wang Guangmei being denounced. In the picture, Wang Guangmei is forced to wear a necklace of ping-pong balls, so long that it almost drags on the ground. You love to wear necklaces? Then let’s put one on you. Fan’s garlic necklace instantly reminded Yixun of the photo of Wang Guangmei in the huge necklace, and maybe something else as well. In any case, he was very sad, and felt a sharp pain, as if glass had suddenly shattered into pieces that flew into his heart, violently slicing it apart. He could think of nothing in the world more embarrassing than his daughter having a string of garlic around her neck. Her happy face in the autumn wind just added more to his distress at the embarrassing image, the echo of the humiliation of the former first lady.

Fan caught sight of Yixun first. “Dad,” she cried out, and ran right to him, the garlic necklace bouncing on her chest. She ran up to Yixun and dove into his arms, and he immediately took the garlic from her neck. Then Tiao ran over. She said, “Dad, why have you only come back now?”

“Why have you only come back now?” In the sentence Yixun heard complaint and anticipation, and maybe other things. But she had never talked about other things, or Yixun didn’t want to hear her talk about them. In a family with dignity, there was no room for “other things,” no matter how profoundly someone in this family was shamed, or how deeply the person suffered.

After Quan’s birth, Yixun became painfully aware of Wu and Dr. Tang’s relationship. He had tried to convince himself, trusting to his luck, that what he sensed and suspected might not be happening, but Quan’s birth completely destroyed his illusion. He spent a lot of lonely time thinking hard as he attended the tedious study group meetings, hauled bricks on the big cart, or walked in the solemnity of the boundless reeds outside the farm. The humiliation that was most difficult for a man, he swallowed, tolerating the ugly things that Wu did with extraordinary willpower and without once directly confronting her. Not all of this could be attributed to Yixun’s desire to save face, nor was it simply a mark of the low social status of his whole generation. Love for appearances makes someone more intolerant of being shamed, and low status makes it even more likely to have resentful anger flare. Maybe Yixun’s upbringing didn’t instruct him in beating a woman, and his anthropologist father and his mother, who had studied oil painting with the famous Liu Haili, respected each other all their lives. Maybe there was also his pride, which earned him some reputation in the Beijing Architectural Design Academy. One year, Yixun was nominated for the model worker award, but he turned down the honour because he thought the other two nominees were unqualified. He refused to set foot in the same river with them. Time could dim his pride but not extinguish it. Was it because he was so proud that he refused to lower himself by reasoning with Wu? Things might not be that simple. For now, faced with this troubled family of his, or the troubles in his family, he would bide his time. His avoidance might have had something to do with his pride, but it didn’t mean that he would simply let everything go. A shadow had already crept into his heart and things wouldn’t be easily remedied. His brain didn’t stay idle for a minute, which caused his stubborn insomnia. Still, he insisted on not confronting Wu. As he understood her, he was certain if he asked directly, she would confess everything. Maybe she had prepared long ago to be interrogated by him, and maybe she was looking forward to it day and night. Interrogation would be more acutely painful than the silence between them: Come on, Yixun, scold me all you want or beat me as hard as you can. Why are you such a coward? Dealing with reticence requires strong nerves, which Wu didn’t have. She was about to lose her mind because of Yixun’s silent treatment. So Yixun refused to ask. As long as he persisted, he would have the upper hand; never asking meant he would have the upper hand forever. He didn’t want her to talk, and he was not ready to listen—what husband would want to listen to his wife talk about things like that?

Then Quan died.

Quan’s death suddenly freed his tightly-bound heart. Sometimes he felt guilty that his heart could be eased at such a moment. If his soul ever had to answer to God, he would rather he had never had this release, but he couldn’t fool himself.

This time he came home quickly, rushing back overnight. When he saw Wu, he found her with eyes swollen from weeping, yet she wouldn’t risk showing too much grief. Guilt and shame made her hold back her tears in front of him. Right then, he discovered the perfect way to express his feelings. He would exhibit the sadness that Wu was afraid to show, display the sorrow that Wu worked hard to suppress. Why shouldn’t he grieve as if he were Quan’s real father? So he asked Tiao to describe Quan’s death in Wu’s presence, over and over again, and asked questions afterwards.

“Tiao, you said you had been sitting in front of the building reading the whole time. Was your main responsibility that day to watch Quan or read a book?”

“It was to watch Quan.”

“Then why did you only tend to your reading?”

“I didn’t expect she would walk so far away.”

“Why didn’t you expect her to walk so far? She had the use of her legs.”

“I meant she usually didn’t walk that far.”

“How far did she usually walk?”

“She just stayed around the building.”

“How far is ‘around’?”

“I have never measured. I don’t know.”

“Who should know these things—does your mother know?” He brought Wu into it.

“My mother wasn’t there.”

“Where was your mother at the time?”

“She was at home working at the sewing machine.”

“Were you at home working at the sewing machine at the time?” He turned to Wu.

“Yes, I was,” Wu said.

“Did you often leave the child in their care and then use the sewing machine at home?”

“Not often. Sometimes I had to make clothes for them.”

“‘Them’?”

“Them, the three sisters.”

“But I haven’t seen them wearing any clothes you made for them. Can you tell me which clothes you made?”

“I didn’t say I made all of their clothes. I only said I sometimes made clothes for them.”

“But you emphasized the time you spent on making clothes for them.”

“I was answering your questions about ‘often’ or ‘not often.’”

“You said you didn’t often make clothes, then what did you often do? Could you please tell me what you usually did?”

“What did I usually do? … Didn’t Tiao tell you everything when she wrote to you?”

“Don’t drag the children into this. What do you think she would tell me in her letters? Do you think she was required to report your life to me? Yes, Tiao did write to me often, and she was the only one who did. In her letters, she told me things that happened in her school, and with her friends, Fei and Youyou. Why would she write to me? That’s because you never know what she’s thinking. This, I truly don’t understand—you’re … you’re sick, so you have more time than other people. What did you really do with all the time you had these last few years?”

Dumbfounded, Wu thought the catastrophe had arrived. Yixun’s questions were clearly designed to lure her, step by step, deep into a trap. Well, if it’s a blessing, it can’t be a catastrophe, and if it is a catastrophe, there is no way to escape. She might as well confess. She composed herself for the final trial. Licking her already moist lips, she said, “Can we have the kids leave for a while?”

“That’s not necessary.” He raised his voice: “There is no need for such a hypocritical request as having them ‘leave for a while.’ What haven’t they seen in this family? From what exactly would they have to turn their faces? There’s no need.”

“But I need to be alone … to talk to you alone.”

“In my opinion, being alone is pointless.” He interrupted her immediately, as if he were afraid she couldn’t hold back her confession any longer, as if he were afraid she would get hysterical and come out with her ugly story. He was pleased at her nervousness, her panic, her trembling lips, and the sudden sagging of her cheeks, which signalled that she was on the verge of collapse. So he had to change direction, or rather say something to steer the dialogue in the direction he intended. He said, “I asked you over and over again what you usually did. I’m sure now you want to say what you usually did was care for Quan. She was a baby and needed care. But it was precisely under your usual care that she died. What kind of mother were you? Do you deserve to be called a mother? You, you didn’t need to work … didn’t even have a job … but you couldn’t even look after a two-year-old. My daughter, the poor child … this poor child … she died in the manhole, but she was killed by you. You don’t deserve to be a mother.”