Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Youqing’s wife had been hiding behind the kitchen door the whole time, so amazed and frightened by what Wang Lianfang was doing that she could hardly breathe. Once she’d managed to calm down, she was struck by a bone-chilling sadness, overcome by feelings that for the past six months she’d lived the life of a lowly dog. Her fingers and toes felt uncommonly cold as she rested her hands on her belly, wishing she could somehow dig what was in there out with her fingers.

No, she’d never do that. She shivered and looked down at her belly. “You bastard,” she said, “you mangy bastard, mangy bastard, lousy mangy bastard!”

At the age of forty-two, Wang Lianfang left home to learn a trade, leaving the family in the hands of Yumi. It was a daunting responsibility, and she suddenly understood the saying that “Only the head of a household realizes the true cost of rice and kindling.” The large issues are hard on the head of the household, of course, but so are the small ones, which can be trivial, bothersome, fragmentary, and piddling, but cannot be avoided and must be met head-on. Dismissing them with a pat on the behind simply won’t cut it. Take Yuye, for instance, a girl not yet eleven, who only days before had broken a window at school. The teacher demanded to speak with the head of the household. Then on the heels of that incident, Yuye knocked over a classmate’s inkwell and splashed ink all over the girl’s face; again the call went out to the head of the household. None of this seemed like a big deal to Yuye, who wasn’t much of a talker, but thanks to busy hands and feet, frequently got mixed up in all sorts of trouble. In the past, the teachers might have given Yuye the benefit of the doubt, since there are two sides to every issue. But now her teacher was caught in a bind. Yumi was summoned to school as head of the household. She didn’t say much after the first incident, just nodded when she heard the story, then went home and got ten eggs, which she took back and placed on the teacher’s desk. The second time she was sent for, she grabbed Yuye by the ear when she heard what had happened and dragged her over to the office, where she gave her sister a resounding slap in front of all the teachers. Yuye’s cheek swelled up and twisted her face out of shape. This time, instead of eggs, Yumi went into the sty, selected a white Yorkshire hog, and took it to school. With this escalation, the principal now got involved.

The principal, who was an old friend of Wang Lianfang, looked first at the teacher and then at Yumi, and did not know what to say to keep from offending either one. So he looked down at the hog and laughed. “Yumi,” he said, “what’s this all about? Are you enrolling him in gym class?” Then he turned to the janitor and gestured for him to take the animal back to where it belonged.

The principal’s genial attitude put Yumi on her best behavior. “When we slaughter the pig,” she said, “we’ll save the liver for you, Uncle.”

“I can’t let you do that,” he said.

“Why not? If Yuye’s teacher can eat the eggs, what’s to keep the principal from eating a pig’s liver?” The words were barely out of her mouth before the teacher’s eyes grew to the size of a hen’s eggs and her face the color of a pig’s liver.

Back home, Yumi took out her forty-weight stationery to write a letter to Peng Guoliang, intending to tell him how hard things had gotten for her. At this point she pinned all her hopes on him, but she stopped short of telling him what had happened at home, since she did not want him to think badly of the family. She had to tread very carefully. If Guoliang moved up through the ranks in the military, her family was assured of a second chance. “Guoliang,” she wrote, “you must set your sights on getting regular promotions.” But then she reread what she had written and felt it was too direct. So she tore up the letter and, after wrestling with her thoughts, wrote: “Guoliang, listen to your superiors and keep making progress.”

The commune’s movie team returned to the village. For days Shi Guifang had been complaining of heartburn, so Yumi chose not to go see the movie, even though it was one of her favorite pastimes; her mother never went to a movie and that always made Yumi grumble. How come, when someone gets to a certain age, they lose interest in everything, even movies? But now she understood that her mother simply wanted to avoid crowds. Besides, movies are so phony, nothing but groups of people passing their days on a white sheet. What does a white sheet know about keeping warm or getting cold? Such thoughts had Yumi wondering if she too was getting old and if her heart was turning cold. When that happens, age is obviously creeping up. People get old gradually, step by step, a slow death of the heart. Aging has little to do with the calendar.

As soon as dinner was over, Yuxiu sneaked a handful of sunflower seeds and was on her way out when Yumi stopped her. She had good reason for not wanting her sister to get away so early because Yuxiu was in the habit of rushing over to get a good seat for the movie. Even before the white sheet had been hung up, Yuxiu would bring a stool up to a spot in front of the projector, one of the best seats available. In truth, ability had less to do with her success in getting a good seat than the willingness of the others to let her have it. But now it would be tactless for her to expect anyone to let her take the best seat, and it could easily lead to an argument. Yumi wasn’t afraid of arguments, but given the current state of affairs, the fewer the squabbles the better. So she tried to keep her sister from leaving early, stressing the need for a little decorum.

But Yuxiu would have none of it. “Don’t be such a nag. Do you see a stool anywhere?” Being no dummy, Yuxiu knew exactly what to do at times like this.

“Then take Yuye with you,” Yumi said.

“Why should I? She’s got legs; she can walk there by herself.”

“Either you take her or you don’t go.” No doubt about it, Yumi was now the boss. Her word was law. This time Yuxiu did not talk back. Instead, she scooped up another handful of sunflower seeds. In the end, third daughter Yuxiu took fifth daughter Yuye, second daughter Yusui took sixth daughter Yumiao, fourth daughter Yuying went on her own, and seventh daughter Yuyang stayed home in bed. Now that this had been settled, Yumi lit a lantern and carried Hongbing into their mother’s bedroom. Their mother had lost weight, which showed not in the outline of her face but in its many wrinkles, row upon row of them, like tracks of flowing water; it was a wrenching picture of sadness. Yumi held a plate of the newly roasted sunflower seeds out to her mother.

“Don’t roast any more, Yumi.”

“Why not?”

“It’s disgraceful to be seen eating them.”

“Ma,” Yumi said, raising her voice, “you have to eat them.”

“Why?”

“To show people.”

Shi Guifang smiled. Instead of saying what was in her heart, she laid her hand on Yumi’s and gave it a couple of pats. To Yumi it was clear that her mother was trying to pacify her and, more important, to remind her that people must accept their fate.

Yumi stood up. “Pretend they’re medicine, Ma, for our sake.”

Shi Guifang patted the side of her bed for Yumi to sit down. Although she spent all day every day in the same house as Yumi, a casual talk with her daughter was a rare treat. Whatever else might be going on, having a daughter like Yumi to talk to helped put her mind at ease and dissolve some of the bitterness inside. It was a quiet, peaceful night, the kind that keeps one’s heart tranquil and dispels desire. After listening for a while, Shi Guifang detected the sort of quiet that belongs to widows and orphans. Wang Hongbing was asleep in Yumi’s arms, looking as adorable as ever. She took him from Yumi and gazed into his face for a very long time. He was at peace with the world, worry free and innocent. Shi Guifang looked up at Yumi, half of whose face was framed in lamplight; she had a lovely profile that was enhanced by the light. The other half, bathed in darkness, was denied a fullness of expression, leaving her with an enigmatic, incomplete look. A burst of wind carried in the crackle of a cinematic gun battle. By leaning over and cocking an ear, Yumi could distinguish between the dive bombers and the ground fire. Shi Guifang could tell what Yumi was thinking. “Go on,” she said, “go watch the movie.”