Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

“You sit there. Just sit and talk,” Little Tang said, picking up a nylon mesh bag on her way to the door. She’d barely stepped outside before she came back to shut the door behind her. Yuxiu turned her head, and their eyes met just as Little Tang smiled at Gao Wei, a special, proud smile unique to mothers who are happy for their sons. “You two have a nice chat, I’ll be right back.”

Yuxiu and Gao Wei were alone in the room; the steam generator supplied the only sound. The silence, which had arrived abruptly, had a special, almost threatening quality. It was immediately apparent that neither Yuxiu nor Gao Wei had been prepared for that silence as they looked in vain for a way to dispel it. They were both being sternly tested by the somber atmosphere—this showed especially in Gao Wei’s face, although Yuxiu was not doing much better. Wanting to say something, she all but forgot where her mouth was. Fear began to register on the face of Gao Wei, who abruptly stood up. “I… I,” he stammered. That’s all that emerged as his breath came in labored spurts. Poor Yuxiu didn’t know what to do, and she was suddenly reminded of the heavy breathing around the haystack the night she was raped.

Gao Wei took a step, but it wasn’t clear if he was going over to open the door or walk toward Yuxiu. Terror engulfed Yuxiu. She jumped to her feet, her palms jutting out in front, and she cried, “Don’t come any closer! Stay where you are!” The suddenness shocked Gao Wei, who did not know what to do. His only thought was to flee. But Yuxiu beat him to it. She bounded to the door, jerked it open, and ran for all she was worth. In her state of alarm, she missed the gate and was stopped by the wall. She pounded her fists on it. “Let me out of here!” she screamed.

Little Tang, who had not gone far, heard the scream and rushed back to see Yuxiu pounding on the wall.

Wondering what was going on, she took Yuxiu by the arm and led her to the gate, where the girl broke free and fled, leaving Gao Wei and his mother standing in the yard. Gao Wei stared blankly at his mother for a long moment before he could speak. “I didn’t do anything,” he pleaded in his defense, looking deeply ashamed. “I didn’t touch her.”

Little Tang dragged him into the house and surveyed the living room carefully. There was no sign of anything amiss. She was sure that her almost pathologically shy son would never have laid a finger on the girl. She’d have been happy if he were bold enough to do something like that. So what went wrong?

She sat down, crossed her legs, and tossed her nylon bag onto the table. “Forget about her,” she said. “I knew all along that she was the hysterical type. What nerve! A girl from the countryside trying to pass herself off as something special in my house!”

Yuxiu hated herself.

How could I have done something like that? Everything was going fine until I ruined it. Now I won’t even be able to master the abacus.

She was crestfallen.

Aunty Little Tang had been so good to her, but after botching things so badly, Yuxiu wouldn’t be able to face her again, let alone talk to her. She shuddered at the thought of seeing Aunty Little Tang. Imagine her surprise when Yuxiu ran into her the next day in the market. If she hadn’t known better she’d have thought that Aunty Little Tang had planned the encounter. It was too pat to be a coincidence. All Yuxiu wanted was to get away, but it was too late. Little Tang stopped her. Thinking she wanted to talk about what had happened the day before, Yuxiu decided to say something to avoid the subject, but Little Tang was the first to speak. “Yuxiu,” she said with a ready smile, “what are you fixing for lunch?” Before Yuxiu had a chance to reply, Little Tang pulled her basket over to look inside. It was empty. “On a hot day like today, the leeks will be tough. You don’t want any of those for Director Guo. His teeth are bad.”

Yuxiu conjured up an image of her brother-in-law brushing his teeth in the morning, and how he first took something out of his mouth. Probably false teeth. “Ah,” Yuxiu murmured as she nodded and smiled.

Little Tang acted as if there’d been no incident the day before—as if it had never happened. Apparently, she was not going to talk about yesterday—not now, not ever. This was good news to Yuxiu, although she could tell that Little Tang’s speech was a bit crisper than usual and her smile broader. Even the crow’s-feet by her eyes stood out more than usual. Yuxiu knew that the smile was intended to inform her that their friendship had run its course. It was over.

All Yuxiu could do was smile, no matter how much effort it took and how much it pained her. Then she said good-bye to Little Tang and stood in front of the leek-seller’s stand in a daze. And as she stood there with all of the confusion of the marketplace around her, she heard the steam generator. It sounded far, far away and sort of unreal. A hard-to-describe sadness and feeling of regret washed over her. As she forced back the tears, she wondered what had come over her the day before. What got into me? What was I thinking? I must have been out of my mind! I ruined the best chance I’ll ever have. And I didn’t even learn how to use an abacus.

Forgetting about leeks, she absentmindedly followed a small street to the town’s vast, mist-covered lake at the far southern end. Just as well, Yuxiu thought. A clean break. He wasn’t mine to begin with, so no harm done. Even if I’d become Gao Wei’s wife, there’d be trouble if they ever found out what had happened to me. She told herself it was a lost cause and vowed to forget about it. But she couldn’t figure out why her acceptance of that fact made her feel even worse. Was there anything in this world that could restore Yuxiu’s maidenhood? She’d gladly trade her right arm for it—even one of her eyes.

Now was not the time for Yumi to tell Guo Jiaxing that she was pregnant because an atmosphere of hostility existed in the house. Guo Qiaoqiao and her father had heated arguments every day, and neither one would give in. Guo wanted to send his daughter to work in the countryside after her sophomore year in high school. That would not only make him look good, but it would also solidify his status in the commune hierarchy. A year or two of fieldwork would lay a good foundation and establish Qiaoqiao’s credentials for whatever she did in the future.

It is important for the young to have wide-ranging goals. Guo tried to pound this concept into his daughter’s head with fatherly concern, citing his son’s experience as a case in point. Guo Zuo had gone down to the countryside to work alongside the peasants as one of Mao’s “educated youths” [7] Urban high school students and graduates were sent by Mao into the countryside during the Cultural Revolution to learn from the peasants. Their numbers were in the tens of millions. and had gained entrance into the Party. When the call went out for factory workers, he was hired at a government-run factory in a big city.

But Qiaoqiao would have none of it. A few days earlier she’d fallen under the spell of an attractive, well-dressed woman in a movie about textile workers and was dead set on getting a job as a spinning machine operator at the Anfeng Commune textile mill. But how could Guo let his daughter take a job in a small textile mill run by the collective? She could wind up with a case of arthritis if she wasn’t careful. But he had another objection, one better left unspoken, and that was the fact that Anfeng Commune was located outside the town of Broken Bridge and thus beyond his influence, which could make things difficult in the future. Yumi guessed that this was his real concern, but she kept that to herself. Where Qiaoqiao was concerned, the less she was involved the better.