Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Guo Zuo was obviously a happy man. Spending time with a girl like Yuxiu was a first for him. She was even happier than he was, since talking openly and freely with a young man was new to her as well. Given Guo Zuo’s age, a girl like Yuxiu was expected to avoid such situations. But no such expectations accrued to an aunt. What was she expected to avoid? Nothing.

Yuxiu, wittingly or not, began treating Guo Zuo not as a nephew, but as an elder brother, which then made her a little sister, an intoxicating thought. Aunt served as an effective cover. It not only protected elder brother, but even more importantly, it protected little sister as well. It was something special—indescribable and strange, but firmly implanted in their hearts.

A once solemn and respectably sedate home came alive—but, of course, only secretly, almost underground, in dark corners and in the hearts of certain family members. Yuxiu discovered early on that Guo Zuo had plenty to say whenever it was just the two of them, and sometimes his face lit up when he was talking. But when Guo Jiaxing and Yumi returned home, he clammed up. Like his father, his demeanor connoted procedure, policy, organization, discipline, and the spirit of formal meetings.

The only sound at the dinner table was Yumi’s voice urging Guo Zuo to eat or the clacking of her chopsticks when she placed food in his bowl. For Yuxiu, this seemingly subtle difference was both obvious and heartening. It was as if she and Guo Zuo had reached a tacit understanding. The silence around the dinner table held special meaning for her, bringing with it an anxiety that created a strange sense of happiness amid extraordinary bewilderment; although she did not realize it, the silence had developed into a shared secret known only to heaven and earth. People find secrets moving, for they have the power to inspire and achieve a tear-inducing tenderness. Secrets slowly seep into the deepest recesses of themselves and then spread outward. When they reach their outer limits, they quietly split apart and move in directions that cannot be put in order, like spilled water that cannot be recovered.

Yuxiu had a feeling that there was something odd about her, something baffling. Guo Jiaxing and Yumi would no sooner be out the door than she and Guo Zuo would come to life. The oddest thing about it was her preposterous actions. When Guo Jiaxing and Yumi were on their way to the office, she retreated to the kitchen to change clothes and attend to her hair, combing out her short braids and plaiting them with great care until not a strand was out of place. After neatly securing them with butterfly clips, she moistened them with water till they were a deep black and slippery smooth. Finally, she made sure that her bangs were neatly trimmed so that they fell loosely over her forehead like thin tassels. Her grooming completed, she sat at the mirror and inspected herself closely, not returning to the living room until she was satisfied that everything was perfect and that she was as pretty as she could be. Then, taking a seat, she wordlessly removed the dead leaves from the vegetables for the noon meal—all of this under the scrutiny of Guo Zuo, who sat opposite and slightly to one side of her.

The tension in the room was palpable. Silence reigned. The air felt viscous, as if it were trying hard to circulate but not succeeding. But, as they say, there’s tension and there’s tension. Sometimes it has the quality of deathly silence, at other times it is full of life and replete with the power to stir things up. It is easy to shatter, and extra care is needed to stabilize it. He did not speak. Neither did she.

Actually, she did speak. A girl’s hair speaks for her quite eloquently, strand by strand. Can there be a single strand that does not tell of what is in her heart? When Yuxiu combed her hair, confusion filled her head with hesitation, warnings, and embarrassing self-reproach. She knew she was flirting with mischief, that seduction was afoot, and she steadfastly commanded herself to stop, just as Yumi would have done. But something deep down inside would not let her. Though she could not know it, she was experiencing the first awakenings of love. With the coming of spring, light rains fall, and the heart begins to bud. Leaves appear recklessly. Though weak and easily battered by the wind, every plant is born with a stubborn streak, and even if it is pinned beneath a stone, it will squirm until its head emerges and finds a way out, little by little.

Hot though the days were, every once in a while Guo Jiaxing still sat down to drink with members of the leadership. He was not much of a drinker and preferred not to do this. But Director Wang, his superior, liked to drink and chose to hold meetings in the evening, which invariably turned into banquets. Truth be told, Director Wang’s capacity for alcohol was limited, so he never drank too much. But that did not lessen the delight for someone who loved a party as much as he did, which is why the various leaders spent so much after-hours time together.

Director Wang maintained a high standard of behavior where drinking was concerned. He could never be accused of trying to get anyone drunk, but he often remarked that one must drink, and his favorite sayings were “The key is to never lose your fighting spirit” and “Drinking is a good test of that fighting spirit.” For him, it was something a man cannot do without, which was why Guo Jiaxing had to join in.

Something had come over Guo in recent days. When he reached a certain level of inebriation, he wanted to make love as soon as he was home in bed. If he was still relatively sober, the desire would not be strong enough, and if he’d had too much to drink, sex never entered his mind. But when he had reached that precise point and not gone beyond, he was ready to go home and perform. Just where that point was he could not say, but he knew when he reached it.

On this particular night, he’d had just enough to drink—he’d reached that point—and he was feeling potent. Everyone was asleep when he got home. He turned on the light and silently studied Yumi as she slept. After a moment she woke up to the sight of her husband with a peculiar grin on his face. She did not have to guess what he had in mind. At times like this that grin would go through several unique phases—his cheeks would move a bit, then stop, then move a bit more, and stop again, before finally settling into a real smile. And that smile told her he was ready to do it.

With her head resting on the pillow, Yumi experienced a bit of awkward difficulty. She had no interest in dousing his passion, but thought about what the doctor had said a few days before. “Everything is fine, Mrs. Guo,” she’d said, “but you must avoid pressure on your abdomen.” If her husband was not to be denied, the doctor went on, make sure he went about it “lightly” and “not too deeply.” Yumi understood perfectly, but blushed nonetheless. No wonder everyone says that doctors are coarse people, Yumi said to herself. That seems right to me—the woman didn’t even try to be tactful.

Yumi chose not to tell Guo Jiaxing what the doctor had said. Nothing in the world could have made her say those words. He’d fathered two children so this was something he ought to know.

He did. That night he did not press down on her, he didn’t actually “do it” in the full sense of the word. But his hands and his teeth were so savage, so sharp and painful, that he broke the skin on her breasts in several places. Yumi kept opening and shutting her mouth from the pain, but she didn’t try to make him stop. Experience told her it was a bad idea to make a man lose his temper in bed. So she let him have his way. He was soon breathing so hard it sounded painful. He touched and kissed her over and over, but nothing worked, so he groped and kneaded in agony in the dark.