Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Yuxiu decided upon death after all. What’s the point in clinging to life like this? How could you be so gutless? How could you have so little self-respect? Only death will save face for you and your child. Yuxiu, have some self-respect, will you? So she went to the pier once more. The weather was not good that night, with winds howling all around her, turning the night even bleaker and more savage than before. Some of her determination evaporated the moment she stepped out the door, but this time she was calmer, imbued with an approach befitting someone who was not afraid to die. Having been there before, she calmly stood at the water’s edge. The first time is hard, the second time easier. She truly believed she’d be successful this time. It occurred to her that she ought to untie the sash and set the little one free to run a bit; not to do so would be too cruel. But her foot had barely touched the water when violent spasms erupted in her belly. The little imp, startled, incensed, and outraged, was wreaking havoc. She pulled her foot back and blurted out, “My poor baby.” The baby was hurling its anger at Yuxiu, who froze and felt her steely determination soften bit by bit. The fetus kept moving, but its movements then turned gentle as if it were helplessly pleading with her. She sensed a knot tighten inside as something surged up into her throat; she opened her mouth and threw up. Yuxiu backed up onto the bank, vomiting until there was nothing left. The look in her eyes hardened. Suddenly angry, she looked up and said with a contemptuous ferocity, “I haven’t an ounce of self-respect. I’m not going to die. If you think you can put a knife in me, go ahead and try.”

Life gets easier when your heart is dead or paralyzed. No knife falls from the sky, and life goes on. Life is not a millstone that requires daily turning; it keeps going on its own, and you must simply follow along. Yuxiu treated herself as if she were the baby’s bed and blanket, telling herself that even deities cannot do anything to you so long as you don’t call yourself human.

The third month soon arrived. Trying to keep her mind blank, Yuxiu often dozed off sitting behind the scale. One afternoon, her father arrived at the purchasing station, having hitched a ride on a boat from Wang Family Village. With a faux leather briefcase in hand, he stood before Yuxiu smiling broadly. She looked up and snapped out of her somnolence the moment she saw him. Craning his neck forward, he beamed proudly at his daughter. Not expecting to see him there, Yuxiu was puzzled but nonetheless happy. Even so, she did not want the others to see her father’s affectionate look, so she pulled a long face and asked, “What are you doing here?”

Without answering her question, Wang stepped on the scale. “See how much I weigh.”

She looked around and said, “Get down.”

He ignored her. “Come on, tell me how much I weigh.”

“I said get off that.” Yuxiu was clearly unhappy, but her father would not relent. He just kept smiling.

“How much do I weigh?”

“Two-fifty,” she said, using a term that meant dimwit, which only made him smile even more broadly.

“Little tramp,” he said. Without getting off the scale, he turned and explained quite redundantly to the people around them, “She’s my daughter, number three.” He sounded proud, with a hint of tenderness. Then he stepped off the scale and began to chat with her coworkers as he passed out cigarettes. He asked about their family backgrounds, their ages, the year they joined the revolution, the number of their brothers and sisters. He was smiling the whole time and seemed pleased by the answers he got. Making a circle in the air with his arms, he rallied everyone: “You must stand together.” He sounded like a man giving a report on current affairs and political missions. Everyone puffed on the cigarettes and wordlessly turned to look at Yuxiu. This had no effect on Wang, who, still smiling, took out his cigarettes and passed them around again.

Wang Lianfang stayed at Yumi’s place in the government compound, which upset Guo Jiaxing, though he could not say so because Wang was, after all, his father-in-law. So Guo moped around with a long face; but as that was his customary look, it was hard to tell what he was thinking.

Wang did not care that Guo Jiaxing ignored him or that Yumi did as well. His granddaughter was the only one whom he wanted to talk to, reading People’s Daily to her as she lay in her cradle. She gradually got used to Wang’s voice and would cry and fuss if he stopped reading the paper. She would quiet down only when he resumed this important activity. Whenever he could, he’d sit down beside the cradle and wave the paper in his hand. “Listen up, comrades. Ah—be good. Let the meeting begin. The meeting is called to order.”

On one warm Sunday afternoon Yumi, Yuxiu, and Wang Lianfang sat in a circle around the baby in the courtyard to catch some sun. Guo Jiaxing was a man without Sundays—he preferred his desk at the office, where he stayed whether he was busy or not. Even with the warm spring sunlight bathing the courtyard, Yuxiu was still in her overcoat—as overdressed as a corpse. Being small boned and young, she had kept her figure, especially with the sash wrapped tightly around her belly; her appearance had hardly changed. To be sure, there were signs that aroused Yumi’s suspicion—quite a few, in fact.

For one, Yuxiu quickly gained back all the weight she had recently lost. She had a remarkable appetite for a while, and then for some time she was suddenly absentminded and sleepy-eyed. If she dropped her chopsticks, she’d grab another pair from the table and use them to drag those on the floor closer instead of bending over to pick them up. All these were clues, any one of which could have led to the discovery of her problem, but Yumi didn’t pay much attention, mainly because it hadn’t occurred to her that she ought to. That is how it is with so many things; we find evidence to match the reality only after the fact, though the more we pay attention, the more problems we discover.

Yuxiu had managed to hide her situation for so long primarily because she and Yumi were together every day. Yuxiu’s added weight is a case in point. She was much heavier than she’d been before, but since she hadn’t gained the weight overnight, it was almost impossible to detect; the weight gain slowly and gradually became a sort of quiet transformation.

Yumi felt her scalp itch from sitting under the lazy sun for so long, while Wang Lianfang was in a “meeting” with his granddaughter. The more she scratched her head, the worse it seemed to itch. Deciding to wash her hair on the spur of the moment, she called out to Yuxiu, who had gone inside. The girl was more lethargic than ever; she’d been listless all morning and took to her bed whenever she got the chance. But Yuxiu was not lazy; she had a bellyache that made her walk with a pained look when Yumi told her to get some water. After setting the basin up, Yuxiu began to wash Yumi’s hair, but her mind was elsewhere and her fingers lacked consistency, hard at work one moment then slackening off the next. She even had to stop for a minute, and when she did, she made a muffled noise as if her throat were blocked. Nothing emerged but her labored breathing. Growing impatient, Yumi said, “What’s wrong with you, Yuxiu?”

Yuxiu mumbled a response, and it wasn’t until she was rinsing her sister’s hair that Yumi realized something was definitely wrong. Yuxiu should have dumped the water before the second rinse, but she didn’t; instead she crouched down and remained motionless, her eyes staring straight ahead. Her lips were quivering wildly as if they were being seared by boiling water. Yumi noticed beads of sweat on her sister’s forehead.