Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Yumi avoided talking to her mother as much as possible, for whatever Shi Guifang said came out like a belch; obviously, the words had steeped inside her for too long. And Yusui turned out to be a huge disappointment. The little whore was old enough to know better. Yusui actually had the nerve to kick a shuttlecock around with Zhang Weijun’s daughter and made matters worse by losing to a girl who was tiny all over: tiny face, tiny nose and eyes, and thin, haughty lips. The Zhangs were shoddy goods, all of them. And the shuttlecock? A bunch of lousy chicken feathers. Yusui was born to betray her family—why else would she let someone like that beat her? Now Yumi saw her sister’s true character.

Nothing escaped Yumi’s eyes, and she staunchly kept her composure. Even if Peng Guoliang never flew a People’s Liberation Army airplane, she would not stoop to Yusui’s level of contempt. If people look down on you, it’s probably your fault. Since Yumi had found the strength to keep Peng Guoliang from breaching that last stronghold, she had to fear no one; as usual, she spent her days strolling around the village with Wang Hongbing in her arms. She behaved no differently now than when Wang Lianfang had been the local Party secretary.

Yumi found all those foul females beneath contempt. Back when her father was sleeping with them, they were blocks of stinky tofu, ripe to have holes punched in them by a chopstick. But now they were acting like proper ladies, like chunks of braised pork.

The rotten piece of goods Qin Hongxia returned to the village with her child after spending two weeks at her parents’ home. With nice rosy cheeks, she looked as if she’d gone home for a postpartum lying-in. To think she had the nerve to come back at all! The river stretched out in front of her, but she lacked the courage to jump in and wouldn’t even fake an attempt for show. She affected a bashful look as she crossed the bridge, as if all the village men wished they could take her for a wife. Some of the women sneaked a look at Yumi when Qin Hongxia reached the foot of the bridge, and Yumi knew that their eyes were on her. How was she going to deal with this? What was she going to say or do to this woman? As Qin Hongxia passed by, Yumi stood up, switched Wang Hongbing from one arm to the other, and went up to her. “Aunty Hongxia,” she said with a smile, “you’re back, I see.” Everyone heard her. In days past, Yumi had always called Qin Hongxia “Sister,” but now it was “Aunty,” a change pregnant with dark hints that made any response all but impossible. At first the gathered women did not realize what was happening, but one look at Qin Hongxia’s face told them what Yumi was up to. She had mischief in mind, but was clever and experienced enough not to give it away. The way Qin Hongxia smiled at Yumi was unbearably awkward. No woman with a sense of self-awareness would have smiled under those circumstances.

Wang Lianfang decided to learn a trade. After all, he had a family of ten to feed, and from now on, at the end of fall, no more perks would come his way. He lacked the constitution to farm alongside the commune members; but mainly it was a matter of face. He had no illusions about himself. He considered the loss of his position as Party secretary an acceptable price to pay for having slept with so many women. But to start hauling manure with men who had been his underlings—or digging ditches, or planting and harvesting—would have been a crippling disgrace. Learning a trade was the way to go. He gave the matter serious thought. Standing in front of his maps of the world and the People’s Republic of China, a cigarette in one hand, the other resting on his hip, he narrowed his choices to: cooper, butcher, shoemaker, bamboo weaver, blacksmith, painter, coppersmith, tinsmith, carpenter, or mason.

Now it was time to synthesize, compare, analyze, study, choose the refined over the coarse, the honest over the fraudulent, examine things inside and out, and study appearance versus essence. Given his age, his strength, and the prestige factor, he settled on painter. He made a list of the qualities of the trade he found appealing.

1. It’s not a very taxing job, certainly one he could manage.

2. It’s relatively easy to master—how hard can slapping on enough reds and greens to cover wood be?

3. Hardly any capital is involved—all you need is a brush. A carpenter, on the other hand, needs a saw, a plane, an axe, a chisel, a hammer, and dozens of different tools.

4. Once he started work, he’d spend his time outside instead of hanging around the village all day. What he didn’t see couldn’t hurt him, and that would improve his mood.

5. Painting is viewed as a respectable profession. For someone with his background, the villagers would look at him with a jaundiced eye if his job was slaughtering pigs. But not painting houses. Some red here, some green there, and from a distance it might look like he was engaged in propaganda work.

Once he’d made up his mind, he couldn’t help feeling that his plans could properly be classified as being in line with the concept of materialism.

Wang Lianfang hadn’t visited Youqing’s wife for many days—not a long time, but dramatic changes in the situation had occurred. One day, after drowning his sorrows from noon until three in the afternoon, he stood up and decided to get a little exercise on Youqing’s wife’s body before leaving home. He could not be sure if he was still welcome in the beds of the other women, but Youqing’s wife was his private plot, a place where he could always enjoy some of her husband’s dumb luck.

Wang opened the door and walked in as Youqing’s wife was snacking on dried radishes, her back to him. She immediately smelled the liquor on his breath. “Fenxiang,” he said in full voice, “you’re all I have.” However bleak that sounded, she could not help but be moved by it; it had a warm quality. “Fenxiang,” he went on, “the next time I come over you can call me painter Wang.”

She turned to face him and saw that he was not only drunk but also apparently in a terrible mood. She wanted to say something to make him feel better. But what? The incident with Qin Hongxia had cut deeply, yet she could not bear to see Lianfang in such a depressed emotional state. She knew what he’d come for and, if she hadn’t been pregnant, would have been happy to oblige. But not this time. No, not this time. With a stern look, she said, “Lianfang, let’s not do it anymore. I think you’d better go.”

He didn’t hear a word she said. Instead, he went into the bedroom, undressed, and climbed into bed. He waited. “Hey!” he shouted impatiently. He waited a while longer. “Hey!”

Not a sound came from outside the room, and so, holding up his trousers, he went to see what was wrong. Youqing’s wife was long gone. This was not how he’d expected things to turn out.

As he stood there holding his trousers with both hands, cord in place, suddenly sober, he realized how quickly human relations can change. All right, he said to himself, I see you’ve decided to erect a chastity archway for yourself at this particular moment, not a day earlier or a day later. Well, that’s fine with me.

“Shit!” he cursed with a sneer as he walked back into the bedroom.

He stripped again and climbed into bed, where he began singing a revolutionary opera at the top of his lungs. It was Shajiabang. He sang all the parts—Aunty A-qing, Hu Chuankui, and Diao Deyi. His voice was rough and loud until he came to Aunty A-qing’s part, which he sang in a tinny falsetto. Unable to hit the high notes, he switched to Hu Chuankui’s male role. The entire village could hear Wang’s operatic offerings, but no one came over; instead they acted as if they hadn’t heard a thing. Wang transported an entire act to Youqing’s bed, every word of it, with no mistakes. After the final scene, he imitated the sounds of drums and gongs, put on his clothes, and left.