Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Rebuffed in front of Yuxiu, Yumi spun around and went quickly to her own room, where she leaned unhappily against the window and silently observed Yuxiu, who noticed the look on her sister’s face through the window—it was a mixture of humiliation, anger, and helplessness. Instead of lowering her eyelids, Yuxiu looked off in another direction so she wouldn’t have to see that sight. It’s none of my business, she told herself. But as Yumi saw it, Yuxiu was being provocative.

“Yuxiu,” Qiaoqiao yelled from her room. “Come here!”

Yuxiu headed to the east room, first shaking her head as a sign of reluctance—for Yumi’s benefit, obviously. This has to stop, Yumi said to herself, alone at the window. I can’t let Yuxiu keep living off of one person and helping another.

Yumi held her feelings in until it was time to make dinner. She went into the kitchen and looked out into the yard—it was empty. After a few perfunctory swipes on the counter with a dishcloth, she turned to her sister. “Yuxiu,” she said, “you’re my sister.” Coming out of the blue like that, anyone hearing this would not know what to make of it. But as she picked up a large spoon to stir the rice porridge, Yuxiu knew what was on Yumi’s mind; she could hear it in her voice. The sudden comment may have sounded forceful, a strict warning, but it seemed weak. The atmosphere in the kitchen took a strange turn that would test both sisters’ tolerance.

Without looking up, Yuxiu kept stirring the porridge and said, after pausing a moment to think, “I’ll listen to you. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” But what sounded submissive was actually a honey-coated rebuke. She had gained the advantage by feigning innocence and had turned the tables on Yumi, who was stuck for a response. What could she tell Yuxiu to do with Qiaoqiao in the picture? What could she dare ask her to do? She stood there, dishcloth in hand, stymied. A long moment passed before she said to herself, All right, Yuxiu, go ahead, do what you want.

On the surface it had been a trivial dispute, but one of enormous significance, especially for Yuxiu, for whom it was a turning point. Yumi had sounded the alarm for Yuxiu, only to discover that it was actually sounding for herself. Undeniably, the day would come when Yuxiu would openly defy her.

One of Yuxiu’s tasks was to shop for the day’s groceries. Seldom feeling obliged to rush home, she took advantage of the outings to wander around town, often gravitating to the supply and marketing co-op. It was her favorite spot. In the past, when she lived in Wang Family Village, she had always gone to the co-op simply to linger and take in its ambiance. Well-suited to people seeking a place to rest or be a tourist, it owed its attraction in part to well-stocked shelves, but even the process of buying something was itself interesting. The cashier sat high above the salesclerks, who stood beside a steel cable, each with its own metal clasp. When a clerk wrote out a sales ticket or was given cash, she clasped it onto the cable and flung it upward like a tiny locomotive making its way up a suspended track, all the way up to the cashier. A moment later, the little locomotive whizzed its way back, carrying change or a receipt. Magical, inscrutable, wondrous.

Yuxiu carried a secret in her heart from when she was a little girl filled with envy: She had a fascination with the cashier sitting high above the others. The woman had been sitting in that spot for years, and the way she clicked her abacus fascinated Yuxiu. Her fingers reminded Yuxiu of a butterfly or a bewitched moth that skimmed the surface of water then darted off. When the woman’s fingers stopped, they looked like a dragonfly resting lightly on a lotus leaf, creating indescribable beauty. So soft it seemed to contain no bones, the cashier’s hand formed Yuxiu’s childhood dream. Too bad she isn’t pretty. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she often mused, if she could sit up there one day?

Yuxiu would make herself up like a lovely snake crossing a river, a sight for everyone in the commune, young and old, when she slithered around. An ambitious child who harbored secret plans, she’d believed with all her heart that she would not spend her whole life in Wang Family Village, that she would not hang herself from that particular tree. She’d always had faith in her plans for the future. Now, of course, that faith had died; her plans would not pan out after all. And so for her, the supply and marketing co-op was a place of shattered dreams and a broken heart. But people are strange creatures, because sometimes they actually develop a fondness for just such a place and cling desperately to it with no thought of ever leaving.

Unhappy that Yuxiu liked to loiter and waste time doing nothing, especially at the co-op, Yumi told her to stay away from the place. Yuxiu asked why. Yumi’s answer was simple and straightforward: “It’s no place for you.”

Yumi’s hard work in bed was not wasted effort. Sex is like that; you reap what you sow. She was pregnant. She didn’t tell anyone, but she could feel the changes in her body, things she’d never felt before. More than being just the addition of something inside, the changes affected her entire body so deeply that it felt as if she had been reborn as a different person.

Emboldened by this development, she enjoyed increased confidence in her dealings with Qiaoqiao. Naturally, she did not openly display her newly felt sense of authority, especially in her face. Instead, she held it inside her, where it took on qualities of magnanimity, steadiness, and self-assurance. After the child was born, Yumi would stop feeling inferior and put upon in front of Qiaoqiao even if the girl’s father continued to back her in all matters. Both children would be his, and it would be unthinkable for him to be close to one child and distant from the other—or to state a preference. That simply would not happen. Once you held your own child in your arms, that sort of distinction was not possible. A mother’s value rests with her son, as they say. The problem was Yuxiu, and Yumi needed to watch her carefully. Who did Yuxiu side with? Where did she stand? Her position in all this would figure prominently in Yumi’s future and in her fate.

Yumi decided to be magnanimous, only to discover that, to her surprise, Yuxiu had begun moving in a new direction. She was spending less time at home, always running off to somewhere, usually in the afternoon. Yumi knew that her sister was not one to sit around and wait for things to happen, and it only took a few days of keeping a close eye on her to see what she was up to. As soon as Yuxiu had free time, she was off to the bookkeeper’s office, where she had grown cozy with bookkeeper Tang, a comrade well into her forties whom everyone nonetheless called Little Tang. She had chubby cheeks and fair skin, the sort of face that proclaimed springtime the year round. She was like a sunflower, quick to smile and as likable as she could be. Yuxiu called her Little Tang like everyone else, but made it unique by adding the word “aunty”—Aunty Little Tang—thereby displaying her familiarity with proper etiquette. This created a special bond between them.

Needing to know what had turned her sister and Little Tang into bosom buddies, Yumi strolled over to a spot outside the bookkeeper’s window one day, and there they were: Yuxiu and Little Tang, each sitting in front of half a watermelon and scooping out tiny pieces with paper clips. They saved the seeds by tossing them onto the glass-covered desk. They nibbled and talked and laughed, taking pains to keep the noise down, whispering even though they assumed there was no one else around. Obviously, theirs was an uncommon friendship. Yuxiu, her back to the window, was oblivious to the watchful look in Yumi’s eyes. It was bookkeeper Tang who spotted her outside the window. She stood up and said to Yumi: “Come in, Mrs. Guo, have some watermelon.” There was so little melon left that the invitation was meant as a courtesy. But it did not seem false to Yumi, who actually felt rather good about it. To her surprise, people who lived and worked in the compound were given to calling her Mrs. Guo behind her back. It was a refined form of address. Rising water lifts the boat, and Yumi was struck by a sense that her identity had changed. She smiled.