Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

“This is no good,” he muttered, breathing his liquor breath on her face. “This isn’t working.”

Yumi sat up and thought long and hard before deciding to put him out of his misery. She got out of bed and took off his pants. Then she knelt on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and took him into her mouth. This came as a shock. He had known lots of women and had plenty of experience in bed. But this was a first for him. He thought about making her stop, but his rebellious body would not let him. Meanwhile, Yumi’s determination did not slacken as she moved along with him. Guo Jiaxing was powerless to stop this scene from being played out; that night Guo had sex in what for him was a very strange way.

Yumi, her lips pressed tightly together, turned, lifted the lid of the chamber pot, and vomited loudly. Her husband’s problem had been solved, and the effects of the alcohol had evaporated. Nearly paralyzed with euphoria, he loved her with all his heart at that moment. He took her in his arms like a father holds his child. Gazing up at him and wiping the corners of her mouth with toilet paper, she smiled and said, “A bit of nausea, I guess.”

When Guo awoke early the next morning he saw that Yumi was awake and that she’d been crying; her cheeks were wet with tears. Thoughts of the stirring events of the night before ran through his mind as he gazed at her and wondered if it had all been a dream. “Let’s not do that again,” he said as he patted her on the shoulder. “No more of that.”

She buried her head in his chest and said, “What do you mean, no more of this or that? I’m your woman.” That simple comment moved him in ways he’d never felt before.

“Then why are you crying?” he asked as he looked into her tear-streaked face.

“For myself,” she said. “And for my foolish little sister.”

“What does that mean?”

“Yuxiu keeps pestering me about getting her a job at the grain-purchasing station. She says it wouldn’t be any trouble for someone as powerful as her brother-in-law to arrange. That made sense to me, so I said okay without checking with you first. Over the past few days I’ve been thinking that no one has the power to blot out the sky. You already found me a job at the co-op, and now I’m asking you to find one for your sister-in-law. That would be too high-handed. She can swear at me for all I care, but the thought of my family looking down on me is something I could not stand. They’d say that when she married the director of the revolutionary committee, she forgot where she came from and wouldn’t even help out her own sister.”

With thoughts of the previous night in his head, Guo knew he could not deny his wife’s request. He tilted his head and blinked a time or two. “Wait a few days,” he said thoughtfully. “A few days. It would look bad for her to get a job so soon after you. I’ll put in a word for her one of these days.”

The private conversation between Yuxiu and Guo Zuo came to a sudden halt, plunging the room into total silence, for neither wanted to begin talking again, as if there was a fuse in the air that would send up smoke if they weren’t careful. They did not know how or when it started. Yuxiu stole several glances at Guo Zuo, as their gazes turned into wary mice that were sticking their heads out at dusk, each one scaring the other and sending them both scurrying around. The night before, after intuiting what was on his mind, she sneaked a look at Spartacus and saw that he’d stopped at page 286. That morning he had resumed his reading, engrossed in the book for over an hour before getting up for cigarettes. The moment he left, she tiptoed over and picked up the book only to see that he was still on page 286. This discovery made her heart flutter with unease. Obviously he was pretending to read, though his mind was elsewhere, and she assumed that he was thinking of her. She’d thought she would be happy to learn how he felt, but no, the realization actually produced a sharp pain; with tears brimming in her eyes, she tiptoed back to the room behind the kitchen, where she sat lost in thought on the edge of her bed.

Except for mealtimes, Yuxiu avoided the living room; she was, after all, the aunty. That went on for several days and everything seemed fine, but Yuxiu was, in fact, waging an intractable war with tranquillity—a silent, lethal, and exhausting war. She wished there could be someone else in the house to liven it up and bring real peace to her. But her sister and brother-in-law had to work. After they left, the house was empty except for Guo Zuo and, of course, her. The house turned as still as the glass in the windowpanes, bright yet hopelessly fragile. Besides the steam generator at the mill, she heard nothing but her own heartbeat.

Shortly before noon what was making her so anxious finally occurred. Guo Zuo came into the kitchen unannounced. She felt her heart tighten and pound shamelessly. He stood there quietly and awkwardly, not looking at her. Then he took out an emerald green toothbrush and laid it on a stool, saying, “Don’t use your sister’s toothbrush. Sharing a toothbrush is unsanitary.” His voice carried palpable concern. He then left the kitchen and resumed reading in the living room.

Yuxiu held the toothbrush in her hand and stroked the bristles with her thumb, which created a downy feeling that was replicated in her heart. She quickly lost herself in the feeling and, without being conscious of it, picked up a tube of toothpaste, squeezed some of its contents onto the brush, and began to brush her teeth. In a daze, she kept brushing the same spot with the same motion. When Yumi came home more than an hour earlier than usual, she was surprised to see her sister standing by the bed brushing her teeth, because Yuxiu normally used Yumi’s brush in the morning after she was done with it.

“What’s wrong with you, Yuxiu?” she asked softly.

“No,” Yuxiu replied, making little sense, as she was caught between swallowing and spitting out the foamy paste.

That aroused Yumi’s suspicions, so she lowered her voice even more. “Why are you brushing your teeth again?”

“No,” Yuxiu said. This really got the attention of her sister, who spotted the new brush.

“Buy a new brush?”

With foamy liquid now spilling out of the corners of her mouth, Yuxiu said, “No.”

“Then who gave it to you?” Yumi persisted.

Yuxiu stole a quick glance through the window into the living room. “No.”

Following Yuxiu’s gaze, Yumi spotted Guo Zuo, who was reading in the room, and she knew at once what was going on. But she just nodded and said, “Hurry up and make lunch.”

That night Yumi lay quietly in bed, breathing evenly. Her eyes were closed, but when Guo Jiaxing started to snore, and she heard his breathing level out, she opened her eyes and clasped her hands behind her head. Yuxiu had hurt her feelings quite badly. Apparently she was an incorrigible flirt who had inherited Wang Lianfang’s lecherous genes. Yumi knew that the girl was hopeless and that she couldn’t depend on her. No matter where she went, trouble followed. Owing to her promiscuous nature, Yuxiu stopped dead in her tracks whenever she saw a man. This could not continue, and it was up to Yumi to stop it. A nephew and his aunt! Could anything be worse? If they got into trouble and people heard about it, the Wang family would be disgraced. And what about the Guo family? Things like that cannot be hidden. Good news never gets out the door, but scandals travel far. No, she had to send Yuxiu home as soon as the sun rose. She couldn’t stay another day.

But Yumi had no sooner made up her mind than she hesitated. Yuxiu could not go back to Wang Family Village after all; Guo Zuo could follow the fox fairy home, where there would be no one to watch them, a recipe for disaster. So sending her home would not solve the problem. Yumi sighed, rolled over, and saw that this was becoming a big headache. The only answer was to send Guo Zuo away. But how could she convince him that it was the thing to do? She couldn’t possibly talk to Guo Jiaxing about it; things would get ugly if she could produce no evidence of a problem. Unable to find a workable solution, Yumi slipped out of bed.