The Bathing Women (31 page)

“And this alone I will never figure out,” Little Cui said.

Fei stood up and turned her soft young neck slightly, proudly, and sternly, with an expression that seemed to radiate rejection for a thousand miles, as if she were suddenly transformed from a cheap, discardable woman to some unapproachably beautiful creature. She turned her head and looked away. “I’ll move back to the singles’ dorm tomorrow.”

Little Cui looked at this distant Fei and couldn’t help coming to the conclusion that she was a woman whom he had never known. A woman like her was not someone that a man like him could afford. He was afraid of her, and felt that he should, indeed, marry Er Ling. He felt some inferiority as well as some relief. Inferior and relieved, relieved and inferior, that was the way Little Cui divorced Fei.

Fei started to live the single life again. In those days, she missed the friends of her childhood and teenage years. Tiao and Youyou, who used to envy her working-class life, had both grown up. The time she gave them a tour of the factory, and bought them treats, was long ago. Everything happened so quickly. College-girl Tiao and the would-be tourist guide Youyou both tried to persuade Fei to go to college, but she said with a sneer, “Me? Someone like me?”

Things were changing and Fei, of course, hadn’t resigned herself to loneliness. One of Tiao’s relatives was the principal at an art academy, so Tiao planned to introduce Fei to him, in order to get her some work as a model for the oil-painting students. Fei asked about the pay and Tiao said, “The money you’ll make in two half days, which is six hours, would equal the salary you earn in a month now.”

Fei said excitedly, “Damn! Why would I hesitate?”

“But it’s in the nude. You have to take all your clothes off.”

“I like to be nude. Someone should have painted me nude long ago, don’t you think?”

It was an era during which China had just opened its door to the West. For many people, unfamiliar with the idea of models and alarmed by it, nude modelling fell into the category of the shady and unrespectable. The first generation of models in this new era, even when they lived in big cities and worked for art schools, still modelled without their families’ knowledge. The high salaries they commanded were a happy surprise to them and made them the first group of women in China who could afford furs and luxurious clothes, long before the women who made money in business. Models didn’t risk wearing those clothes at home, concealing their despised profession from parents or boyfriends, along with the considerable money they earned. They often left home in ordinary clothes, changing to expensive fashions to promenade the streets glamorously, smugly enjoying their secret.

But Fei had nothing to fear back then; she was her own family. When she mounted the stage nude in the studio, she knew what to expect from the teachers and students. Not evil looks but appreciation showed in their eyes, along with some repressed excitement. So she simply stopped going to work at the factory. What was so special about being a typist? How much money did a factory director make? Director Yu? No, Bureau Director Yu—he had been promoted to the directorship of the province’s Bureau of Manufacturing. How much could a bureau director make? she thought with contempt. Busy and popular, she was on sick leave all the time. By then she had gained some fame in the art world, and besides universities and colleges, individual painters were also willing to hire her to model at their homes. Young artists often fought over her, which she handled in a simple and straightforward manner by going with whoever gave her the most money. A young painter fresh from some training at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (one of the sort who likes to toss his long hair) paid five times the going rate, and she, of course, immediately went with him. He lived with his parents in their spacious house, and had his own studio. Later, Fei learned that the young painter’s father was the vice mayor of Fuan. The painter told her what pose to take and started to paint, but after just a sketch, he threw away the brush and held his head with his hands. Fei said, “Hey, why have you stopped painting?”

The painter said, “You distract me.”

“I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Sleep with me,” Fei said calmly. So the painter slept with Fei and then was able to focus on painting. He even fell in love with Fei.

He was an innocent young man, quite a few years younger than Fei. She told Tiao that when he buried his head in her breasts, she felt he was like a baby. He told her it was his first time, but Fei remained unmoved, and only by remaining unmoved could she conquer all. Later, he fell out with his vice mayor father over Fei because the vice mayor himself expressed a particular interest in her. He insisted on taking her out to dinner after seeing Fei a couple times at his home; he also asked to stay in his son’s studio to watch him paint.

Fei didn’t like the painter’s father: his worldly laugh, his shifty looks, along with that oily face of his, all disgusted Fei. She believed the attractiveness of this sort of person came solely from his power; he was a symbol of power. Once his power disappeared, what would be left for him as an individual? Her opinion of the father didn’t mean she loved the son more than the father. No, she didn’t love anyone. She told Tiao that she was eager for father and son to get into a fight, so she could get away from the pair. She didn’t want to waste any more time on them.

Fei thought Tiao was an innocent listener, but she was not. Having graduated from college that year, Tiao was assigned a teaching job at a high school in Fuan. She had never liked the teaching profession, and wanted to work for a publishing house. Based on what she read, she believed that publishing would become a big industry at the beginning of the new century. She was worried about her career; she had no powerful connections to get her out of the high school and into publishing. And then she heard Fei talk about the vice mayor, which turned her into a not-so-innocent listener. A little despicably, she told Fei what she wanted, begging Fei to talk to the vice mayor for her.

Maybe it was a mutual and tacit understanding that Fei owed Tiao something. The debt was long-standing but never forgotten. For so many years they hadn’t asked anything of each other, but now that Tiao brought it up, Fei knew it was time to pay her debt. She didn’t hate Tiao for it, and even felt happy that Tiao had given her the opportunity.

Fei went to the vice mayor and took care of the business. It wasn’t that hard for her, only a little disgusting. Trying to ignore the shudder that went through her when he rubbed his fat, oily belly against hers, she just kept thinking about Tiao: How I want to do this for you.

So Tiao preserved her own innocence by sacrificing Fei’s dignity and got into the Children’s Publishing House as she wished. Ten years later she was the vice director.

Once, she confided in Fan about it, wishing with all her heart that Fan would side with her as Fan had when she was little. She wanted Fan to say, That’s nothing. That’s nothing at all. Fei is that kind of person to begin with. What’s the difference between selling yourself once or ten times? How Tiao longed for someone to say something like this for her. Then she could feel free of guilt, and not so despicable. But Fan didn’t say that. Instead she said, “Shame on you. You’re so shameless!”

Chapter 6

Fan

1

Some people are fated to leave their own land and live with people from other races, like Fan. When she was in high school and Tiao asked her about her future plans, she said without hesitation, “To go abroad.”

She had a gift for learning languages and an excellent memory. In elementary school she already could recite the famous “Little Match Girl” from the middle school’s English textbook. She also carried on English conversations with her mother, Wu, on weather, food, hygiene, etc. She got excited whenever she saw foreigners in the park, volunteering herself to be their tourist guide, even with her limited English. Later she went to the Beijing Foreign Language Academy to major in English, and her foreign classmates often asked her, “What year did you return to China?”

Her English made people think she’d grown up among native speakers. She would tell them clearly, “I have never been anywhere. I learned my English in China.” Later, she made the acquaintance of an American fellow named David, and she followed David to America. Tiao asked her, “Do you plan to come back?”

She said, “No, I don’t. My life will be much better than yours, plus I have David.” She was very conceited, perhaps because she had the capital for conceit: her American husband, David, and her fluent, slightly British-accented English—she even corrected David’s grammar from time to time. She had passed level B for typing in English while in high school, and TOEFL was a breeze for her. Unlike those Chinese who seemed daunted and uneasy, unable to open their mouths as soon as they left China, Fan was comfortable speaking to foreigners.

A traveller who can communicate with people anywhere on earth is guaranteed success in life. Fan thought about this sort of success constantly; she had to go abroad just to be worthy of this beautiful English she spoke. In America many, many wonderful things seemed to await her, more than China could offer, much, much more. What could China offer? China had her family, but at her age then, she didn’t much value family ties. She had valued her older sister when she was little. She had loved her, worshipped her, and her older sister had been the first person to whom she would run when she was in trouble. They shared happiness and sufferings and … and also the evil little secret that nobody else in the world knew. Fan never doubted her memory; what she remembered was what had happened—the open manhole on the small road at the Design Academy, the waving little hands of Quan when she fell into it, and the unusual clasp of hands between her sister and her, icy-cold, moist, and cramped … it was not that she’d pulled Tiao’s hand, but the other way around. Over and over, she’d repeat to herself that she hadn’t pulled Tiao’s hand but Tiao had pulled hers, that she had been passive, and had been pulled, had been stopped. Twenty years had passed, but the force that Tiao had applied was left frozen into her hand. That wasn’t the reason she had left China, was it? She didn’t want to analyze all this too closely. Although she’d only been seven that year, even then she had a strong desire to be a very good child. The manhole, Quan, the clasping of hands between the sisters … their gesture of vengeance and the elimination of the alien element … all this made her desperate to be an excellent child, the best child, as if it were the only way for her to be worthy of the death of that other child who, ever since her birth, had made Fan unhappy and jealous.

As great as her desire to be that good child were her expectations of Tiao. Under a shadow that couldn’t be lifted, Fan no longer loved and worshipped her sister single-mindedly, and Tiao couldn’t have her unconditional obedience anymore. Yet Fan longed intensely for Tiao to love and spoil her so she could show in every way that she was the most important person in the family. Their first disagreement started with a windbreaker. She was studying at the Beijing Foreign Language Academy then, and Tiao, back from a business trip to Beijing to solicit manuscripts, called her to go out. They could hardly wait to go to an ice-cream shop for yogurt, for which they both had a passion. Back then, Kraft’s and Wall’s dairy products hadn’t made their way to China yet, and yogurt in Beijing was sold in thick, clunky white porcelain bottles, sealed with waxed paper tied in rubber bands. People used a straw to poke through the seal and then made hissing noises as they sucked up the yogurt—it was delicious. Tiao treated Fan to yogurt and also took out a short woollen knit skirt that she had bought for Fan when she attended a conference in Shanghai. She liked to buy clothes for Fan, always remembering to do it wherever she went. But what Fan noticed that day was not the skirt but the windbreaker Tiao was wearing. She said, “Tiao, the windbreaker is very nice. I like it.”

“Yeah, I like it, too.”

“Get one for me.”

“It was imported from abroad.”

“Who bought it for you?” Fan asked.

“Fang Jing.”

“You mean you can’t find one in China?”

“Probably not.”

“Then what am I going to do?”

“Just wait. When I find something similar, I’ll buy it for you.”

Fan said, “Actually, you can give this one to me now and buy yourself something similar later on.”

Tiao hadn’t expected Fan to say something like this. It embarrassed Tiao that her sister had asked her so directly to take off her windbreaker and give it to her. She would have given Fan many things, but not the windbreaker, and not just because it was imported and a gift from Fang Jing, but because the way Fan demanded things from her seemed strange and troubled her. She didn’t know what to say and they paused awkwardly. Then Fan asked, “Older sister, do you like me?”

“I like you. You know I like you.”

“If you like me, you should give me the things I like.”

“Is that how you see ‘like’?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t see it that way.”