Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Stung by the comment, Youqing had no idea how to respond. Basically a decent man, he decided his only recourse was to work harder in bed, giving it his all. His “all” fell short. But his biggest mistake was to repeat what his mother had said. His wife was livid and immediately attributed the comment to her gossipy mother-in-law. Youqing was too simple and too decent to come up with anything that evil, that hurtful. Deeply angered, Fenxiang flung curses at her husband, all indirectly aimed at his mother. And, never one to let a matter drop, she demanded that his mother move out: “It’s her or it’s me, you choose.”

On the day she swept her mother-in-law out of the house, Fenxiang fired a ruthless parting shot: “You old cunt, you’ll never again hold a man between your legs.” Yet, if the truth be known, her mother-in-law’s comment had not been altogether unreasonable. The longer the daughter-in-law went without having a child, the uglier the villagers’ comments grew, many of them aimed at Youqing himself. All mothers come to the defense of their sons, which is why his had complained about her daughter-in-law. “Youqing doesn’t appear to be a virile fellow,” the villagers were saying.

The truth is, Youqing’s wife believed she was incurably barren. But since he had redoubled his efforts in bed, she did not have the heart to tell him. The doctor had made it clear that the miscarriage had done too much damage. But that had not stopped her from trying. She undertook a regimen of herbal preparations, staying with it for nearly four months. Nothing worked, in part because she had an aversion to traditional Chinese medicine—not the taste, but something else. The common practice was to take the dregs of herbal preparations outside and dump them in the middle of a road to be stepped on by passersby, who would crush them into the dirt; then and only then would the treatment prove effective. But Youqing’s wife did not want anyone to know that she was taking the medicine, for that would make her vulnerable to all sorts of gossip. Everything had to be done in secret.

Luckily for her, as the former member of a propaganda troupe, she had promoted the philosophy of materialism and was impervious to the attractions of superstition. She merely dumped the dregs in the river. Her attempts to keep her regimen secret, however, were easily thwarted by the aromas of the herbal concoctions she cooked up, which traveled farther than the smell of an old hen being stewed. The minute she started brewing the herbs, people’s heads would pop up in the yard, and they would slip gazes more lethal than arsenic through the cracks in the doorway. Over time, Youqing’s wife felt more like a sneak thief than a follower of Chinese medicine, which doubled the bitter taste of whatever she was taking. In the end, she gave it up. That sort of bitterness she could do without.

Her affair with Wang Lianfang had not yet begun by the time people started talking about them. It was not until the winter of 1970 that he began climbing onto her body. In the spring of 1971, the affair was still in its early stages. Their first meeting—out on the street—had occurred not long after her brief period of recuperation. Wang’s eyes bespoke compassion, but Youqing’s wife needed only a single glance to know exactly what was on his mind. Men in official positions customarily use a cordial smile as an invitation to sex, and Youqing’s wife knew how to treat men like Wang. She responded with a bashful smile, confident in the knowledge that eventually he would take her to bed. It was a foregone conclusion, one that fit perfectly with the plan already forming in her mind. She would give Youqing a child; one way or another she would have his baby before having sex with Wang Lianfang, which was going to happen sooner or later. But it should be later. Men are like burglars: The easier the entry, the faster the departure. She’d learned this from experience, and the lessons of history must not be forgotten.

Wang Lianfang, on the other hand, was impatient. That became clear to her soon after they met, when he desperately tried to create opportunities to be alone with her. Say what you will, he was not a man given to reckless behavior in public. Cats instinctively wait for nightfall; dogs know to hide in corners. If Wang Lianfang showed up in front of her house, Youqing’s wife would go next door for some boiled water, excitedly and loudly proclaiming, “Well, look who’s come to see us, it’s Party Secretary Wang.” In the face of such excitement, Wang Lianfang had to suppress his anger and react with a warm and friendly smile. By keeping things out in the open, Youqing’s wife differed from the other women, who were almost pathologically cautious. Her way was better, effectively delaying the day when he would mount her and push her head down as a rooster does to a hen.

One day he decided to broach the subject directly: “Youqing is a fool. I wonder if I’ll ever be lucky enough to enjoy the benefits of his sort of dumb luck.” Youqing’s wife felt her heart lurch. She was not unmoved by his comment, but she pretended that she’d missed the obvious and responded in a loud voice that made Wang very nervous. She was careful not to overdo it, since she wanted to keep him on a string and not scare him into retreating. If he lost hope, she would ultimately wind up more hopeless than he. She knew what she was—a lazy woman. Lazy people need someone to depend on. Without that, they are condemned to live out their days in a dreary anticipation of death.

The head of production had assigned Youqing’s wife to the fertilizer detail, a dirty, tiring job that earned relatively few work points. The assignment had been intended as a warning. So, with a rake over her shoulder, she joined a team of men as they headed out to the fields in high spirits. Wang Lianfang was walking toward them, so greetings were exchanged. They’d continued a dozen or so steps past him when Youqing’s wife suddenly turned and caught up with Wang. She reached out to brush some dandruff off his collar and fingered a loose thread. But instead of pulling it out with her hand, she leaned over and bit it off, then knotted it with her tongue and spat it out seductively.

“You don’t look a damned bit like a Party secretary,” she said in a low voice. “Why don’t you go out and rake fertilizer for me?”

It may have been a silly comment, but it had a stunning effect on Wang Lianfang, who was so overjoyed his eyes glazed over.

Needless to say, Youqing’s wife did not work with the fertilizer detail that day. Standing at the head of one row, she took off her green-checked head scarf, scrunched it up in her hands, and said, “This won’t do. I’m heading back.”

Hoisting the rake over her shoulder in full view of the head of production, she took off for home, swishing her hips like a set of tractor tires. No one tried to stop her. Who knew what she’d meant by “This won’t do”? And what was she “heading back” to do?

By this point Youqing’s wife had given up hope. There would be no more pregnancies for her. Youqing, too, had brought his efforts to an end; nothing he had tried worked. Feeling put out and unhappy, he had left for the irrigation site on the day that Wang Lianfang came by at noon. Youqing’s wife had just had a good cry over how badly her life seemed to be turning out. How had it come to this?

“Where did I go wrong?”

She’d had such high hopes, loved being in the spotlight, and was eager to excel, only to see everything turn out horribly, not at all what she’d expected. The future looked dismal. Wang Lianfang walked in with his hands clasped behind his back and shut the door. He stood there looking as if he had already bedded her. Not surprised by his visit, she stood up, thinking she ought to be pleased. He could have just about any woman he wanted, and yet she had been on his mind all along; he clearly liked her.