Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

At first she was anxious, for they all knew of her shameful past, but it did not take long for her mind to be at ease. Envy was written on the face of everyone from Wang Family Village when they saw her, which satisfied her vanity. She could literally look down on them in their boats from her vantage point on the shore. Things were not the same anymore, and that realization gave her confidence, particularly since the villagers were turning over their grain to the nation, and she sat there, more or less a representative of the nation.

As she sat behind the scale, Yuxiu’s thoughts naturally turned to Guo Zuo. She wondered what he was doing. She thought mostly about that afternoon. But “that thing” meant little to her. After so many men, what did one more matter? What saddened her was his departure; he should not have left so suddenly and in such haste, without a word to her, as if she would have clung to him and not let him go. He had broken her heart. Yuxiu was not stupid and would have refused even if he had wanted to marry her. She was ruined and had enough self-awareness not to try to tie him down.

What made it hard was missing him. At first she just missed having him around, but after some time, her body longed for him and that mystified her. She had been afraid of “that thing” but after Guo Zuo, and after such a long time, how had she come to want it as if it were an addiction? It was an unusual longing that would come with a vengeance, as if claws were gouging her heart. But Guo was nowhere to be found. She tossed and turned in bed and finally pressed down on herself with a pillow; she felt better, but only slightly. Gasping for breath, she was convinced she was a slut. Why else had she become so shameless?

One night her longing took on a new guise; it was her mouth that longed for something, a strange longing, a craving that made her wish she could stuff a handful of salt into her mouth. In the end, she got out of bed and tried some salt. It took her breath away, but it didn’t help. Opening the cupboard, she made a careful inspection, but turned up nothing to eat but garlic, leeks, soy sauce, vinegar, MSG, and sesame oil. She decided on the vinegar, the sight of which made her drool. A small sip energized her immediately, the tart taste reaching down into her heart and taking the edge off of her hunger. Problem solved. Relieved and comforted, she tipped her head back and took one big gulp after another, realizing that she was more than just a slut—she was also a glutton. No wonder the old folks in Wang Family Village said, “A male glutton is poor for a lifetime, a female glutton has loose pants.”

Unaware of what was happening in her body, Yuxiu was not convinced that she was pregnant until the third month, in mid-October. Still young, she was little bothered by morning sickness, which lasted but a short time, and since she was busy with work at the purchasing station, she ignored the symptoms. Her first missed period ought to have alerted her that something was out of the ordinary, but at the time she was preoccupied with Guo Zuo. She carried on imaginary conversations with him, quarreling, then making up, then quarreling again. Immersed in thoughts of him all day along, she forgot about herself. When her period didn’t come the second month, she was momentarily concerned, but then she reflected on what had happened in the spring. She didn’t get pregnant after being raped and didn’t think she would this time because Guo Zuo had been the only one.

More men meant more virility. How could a single man be more virile than all those others combined? Comforted by the false certainty that nothing would happen, she teased herself that being pregnant with Guo’s child would give her the perfect excuse to go see him in the provincial city. That thought put her in a happy mood; although she couldn’t be certain, she was convinced that everything would turn out fine, that her period would come in a few days. When it still hadn’t arrived nearly a week into the third month, she began to feel uneasy, yet continued to hope that luck was with her. When the pregnancy was confirmed, she was, of course, afraid, but still she hoped for the best, anticipating a miscarriage. Deep down, however, her heart grew increasingly heavy, and her mind filled with apprehension, up one minute and down the next, as if she were stumbling along on a gimpy leg.

By the middle of October Yuxiu’s concerns multiplied. She knew she had to come up with a plan. The most important thing was that Yumi could never know; for if she did, Yuxiu would be as good as dead. There was only one path out of her predicament—to get rid of the thing inside her. And the best way to do that was to go to the hospital; but she’d be exposed if she did, which would make things worse than if she didn’t go at all. She decided she had to find her own solution, the first of which was to jump up and down. She recalled how, back in Wang Family Village, Wang Jinlong’s wife had miscarried as a result of jumping up and down after a fight with her mother-in-law. She’d slapped herself on the buttocks, then leaped around, cursing until she cried out and lost the baby.

That’s what I’ll do, I’ll jump up and down. And Yuxiu began carrying out her plan right away. Whenever she had a free moment, she’d find a secret place with a cement floor and jump forty or fifty times; she then increased it to seventy or eighty times and eventually to just under two hundred. She jumped higher and higher, but after two weeks, all that happened was that her appetite improved. So she told herself that she ought to slap her buttocks the way Jinlong’s wife had done; so she did that four or five times, only to be disappointed by the false efficacy of a shrew’s behavior. She had to find another solution. She was reminded of Zhang Fagen’s wife, whose miscarriage had been caused by medicine prescribed by the co-op clinic when she had the shakes from malaria. Zhang’s wife had lost a three-and-a-half-month-old fetus, which, according to the barefoot doctor, was caused by the quinine pills; the medicine bottle had indicated that pregnant women should avoid taking them. Now she knew how to take care of her problem—get hold of some quinine pills.

Despite being a common medicine, it took a great deal of effort to acquire them. She made some new friends, whom she called older sister or aunt, and after four or five days, she got what she needed. Her mind was finally at ease that morning when she went to work and took the pill bottle with her. She sneaked into the public toilet, where she dumped a handful of the pills out of the bottle and tossed them into her mouth. Denied water to help her swallow them, she had to chew the pills, crunching away as if she were eating fried broad beans; tears welled up in her eyes from the bitterness. She forced the pieces down, which filled her with assurance and happiness before returning to sit behind the scale and carry on conversations with the other workers. The medicine began to work after about as long as it takes to smoke a cigarette. Her lips turned purple and her eyes lost their focus; her neck hung limp and lolled around like a sick chicken’s. Her mind, though, was still lucid; afraid that the others might try to send her to the hospital, she got up with a smile and walked toward the warehouse. She had to hold on to the wall when her body began to fail her and groped her way inside to climb onto sacks of grain before she passed out. Yuxiu slept till dark, during which time she had countless strange dreams. At first she dreamed that she had cut open her belly, taken out her intestines, and wound them around her neck before she began to squeeze out one of Guo Zuo’s fingers from them. She kept squeezing, producing nine fingers, which she held in her hands and said, “Guo Zuo, these are all yours. Put them on.” Guo took a look and picked one out to affix to his hand, which was missing a finger. Staring at the extra fingers in her hands, she wondered why there were eight more. Why? She didn’t know the answer. Guo Zuo just stared at her. She panicked and woke up to find him standing in front of her. Greatly relieved, she leaped with joy. “You’re back,” she said. “I dreamed about you. I just dreamed about you.” But, in fact, she was still dreaming.