Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

“Are you in there?” a voice asked. “It’s me, Guo.”

Yumi wondered if she was hallucinating. Another knock at the door. Knowing how unwise it would be to hesitate, she flipped on the light and opened the door a crack. A man she’d never seen before pushed open the door and walked in, his face cold, devoid of expression. Fortunately for Yumi, she spotted the conference ID badge pinned to his lapel with his name: Guo Jiaxing. Overjoyed, she felt as if she’d been rescued from a desperate situation and been given a new lease on life. He hadn’t gone to the cinema after all.

Yumi lowered her head, only to recall that she wasn’t fully dressed. She glanced up at Guo Jiaxing, thinking she’d get dressed, but she did not like what she saw. This was not a man who had come to meet a prospective mate; he seemed more like a passerby. Yumi’s heart was in her throat.

“I’d like some water,” Guo said as he sat down in one of the chairs. Yumi didn’t know what else to do, and for that reason, she did as he said. He took the water from Yumi, who stood there feeling foolish; by then she’d forgotten all about getting dressed. Guo neither looked at Yumi nor averted his eyes as he sat there, teacup in hand. He had brown eyes, she saw, which were focused on a spot directly ahead, but with a look of indifference. He drank his water slowly, one sip after another, until the cup was empty.

“Some more?” she asked. He responded only by setting the cup on the table—his way of saying no, apparently. Unable to think of anything more to say, Yumi just stood there, not sure if she should get dressed or not.

How could anybody be that calm, that unruffled? He says nothing, he does nothing, his face has all the expressiveness of a conference hall. Her anxieties increased. Well, that’s it, she said to herself. He doesn’t like what he sees. But wait, he may not seem thrilled, but he doesn’t look dissatisfied. Maybe he’s already decided it’s a workable match.

Officials are expected to act like this. As long as they think something’s okay, then it’s okay, and there’s no need to say any more. But this was different; Yumi was, after all, a young woman, not a block of wood. Besides, they were alone, so he had no reason not to do something. She stood there feeling foolish until she too grew increasingly calm.

How strange, she said to herself. All of a sudden I’m as calm as if I were attending the conference. But that did nothing to lessen her fear of Guo Jiaxing.

“Time to rest,” Guo said.

He stood up and began taking off his clothes, as if he were in his own home with members of his own family. “Time to rest,” he said a second time. She knew what he had in mind, since he was now sitting on the bed. While that unnerved Yumi, it also shifted her brain into high gear. Whatever may or may not have been settled, this was inappropriate. Guo had undressed slowly, but then how long can it take to remove a few articles of clothing? Now naked, he lay back on the bed where Yumi had been sleeping only moments before.

She still hadn’t moved.

“Time to rest,” Guo said for the third time. There was no outward change in tone, but she could tell he was getting impatient.

Yumi didn’t know what to do. She actually wished he’d rip her clothes off her body; rape would be better than this. She was still a virgin, and it would be unseemly for her to get naked and climb into bed just so she could marry the man. How was she supposed to do something like that?

Guo Jiaxing never took his eyes off Yumi, who, in the end, got naked, climbed into bed, and slipped under the covers. To her, what she’d stripped off wasn’t clothes, it was her skin. But she did what she had to do. Liu Fenxiang had once said that a woman can be proud but mustn’t be arrogant. Yumi was naked; so was Guo Jiaxing. A subtle smell of alcohol clung to his body, a hospital smell. As Yumi lay on her side under the covers, Guo motioned with his chin for her to roll over onto her back. She did, and the lovemaking began. Too tense to move, she let him do all the work. It hurt at first—a little, not much—and it was not long before it began to feel natural. If she was reading the signs right, he was satisfied with her. He’d muttered “good” during the lovemaking, and after it was over, he said it again. Yumi could breathe easier now.

But there was a hitch. Guo checked the sheets and didn’t see any discoloration. “So you’re not,” he said.

Such a hurtful comment! She was still a virgin since the lack of a spot on the sheets was a result of her own hand, not the actions of a man. She wondered briefly if this was just a technicality. Since she had done with her hand what she wouldn’t let her pilot do, perhaps it was all the same. But she knew it wasn’t. She needed to clear things up. But how? Treating it lightly wasn’t the answer, but neither was overdoing it. She must be careful not to ruin everything, and all she could think to do was sit and get dressed, which accomplished virtually nothing except to make her feel better. She was empty inside and nearly in tears. But crying, she knew, would be a mistake. Guo Jiaxing lay in bed with his eyes closed. “That’s not what I meant.”

Yumi undressed again and climbed back into bed and lay beside Guo, blinking rapidly. Convinced that things had worked out this time, she’d have been perfectly content if she hadn’t suddenly thought of Peng Guoliang. She could have willingly given in to him, but had saved herself until now, saved herself for this. An overpowering sense of self-pity filled her heart. But she forced herself to bear up under it, for she had achieved what she sought, and that was all that counted. Guo smoked a couple of cigarettes before climbing back on top of Yumi.

This time the movements were much slower, more relaxed, as he slid back and forth like a drawer in his desk. Saying as he did so, “Stick around for a few more days.”

She knew what that meant, and her confidence rose. As she lay there, her head pressed against the pillow, she turned to the side and bit her lip. She nodded. “Someone I know is in the hospital,” he said, more words at one time than she’d heard so far.

“Who?” she asked in order to keep him talking.

“My wife.”

Yumi jerked her head around and looked wide-eyed at Guo.

“This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “She’s in the last stages. A few months at best. You’ll move in when she’s gone.”

The smell of alcohol washed over Yumi. She felt as if she were the “last stages” wife, pinned beneath Guo Jiaxing. She was terrified. Guo covered her mouth with his hand before she could scream. Her body was rocking wildly under the blanket.

“Good,” he said.

“MEN DON’T MARRY in May; women don’t wed in June.” In the countryside that is the taboo.

Actually, it is less a taboo than a consequence of the heavy fieldwork during the summer months. But that did not stop Wang Lianfang’s eldest daughter, Yumi, from marrying herself off on the twenty-eighth of May, a mere six days after Lesser Fullness, the eighth of the twenty-four solar periods, when the winter wheat has become full, and one week before Grain in Beard, the ninth solar period. The most urgent and important task for farmers at this time is what they refer to as “fighting two battles.”

The first, the “battle of the harvest,” includes reaping, threshing, winnowing, and storing. The second, the “battle of the sowing,” includes plowing, irrigating, leveling, and planting. Busy times.

People have only two hands, and by choosing this particular time to give her hand in marriage, Yumi showed a pronounced lack of judgment. She was well thought of by her fellow villagers, who viewed her as a sensible girl. But in a farming village, what sensible person would choose to get married in the month of May? No wonder Second Aunt, who lived at the end of the lane, talked about Yumi behind her back. “That girl,” she said, “was in too big a hurry and couldn’t keep her legs closed.”