Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Yuyang could tell that Fenghua had more nerve than she. Her eyes might scrunch up as the tears streamed down, but she never lost her poise and knew exactly what to say to make a point. That was something Yuyang could never hope to accomplish. Of the two of them, Fenghua was more confident, mainly because she had a nicer face, even though anyone would be hard-pressed to call her pretty. If that weren’t enough, Yuyang could see that Fenghua was a natural-born flirt.

Feeling something akin to stage fright, Yuyang stepped onto the track and immediately froze, making a fool of herself. The starting pistol sounded after the starter yelled, “On your mark.” All the other students rushed ahead, necks stretched to the limit as they fought for position, pushing and shoving to take the lead, all but Yuyang, who stood there like an idiot. She didn’t know that in races above 800 meters, only “on your mark” was shouted and “get set” wasn’t used. How was she supposed to know that? So, after all the others had taken off, the starter walked up with his pistol and said in a pleasant voice, “Are you done thinking? Do you need more time?” Then he shouted, “What are you still standing here for? Go—run.” Startled into her first step—it was more like a leap—she drew laughter from the spectators.

She had begun the race in utter disgrace. And she was surprised to see that Pang Fenghua was already five or six meters ahead. During lunchtime, Fenghua had dragged her along to see the homeroom teacher to tell him with a pained look that she was “inconvenienced” and could not run. The teacher was visibly displeased, but he could say nothing about a female student’s physical condition. Gazing into his eyes, Fenghua changed her tone: “I’ll do the best I can, but don’t be upset with me if I don’t do well.” So reasonable, so accommodating. The teacher nodded and patted her on the shoulder to show his appreciation.

The second the starting pistol fired, Fenghua took off like a racehorse with no sign of being “inconvenienced.” But then she quickly slowed her pace and contorted her face in apparent agony. She kept running slowly, making each step seem like a struggle. Yuyang recalled how Fenghua had managed to skip a physical education class recently using the same excuse. The little whore had been inconvenienced twice in one week like a faucet. She knew how to get what she wanted—she was shameless.

In fact, after counting the days, Yuyang realized that her own misfortune was only a couple of days off. She’d felt bloated during lunch, but Yuyang would never let on to anyone; it was not something she could talk about. When she was on the second lap, she realized that Fenghua had a reason to be shameless. Yuyang was in agony. She could hardly breathe, and the heaviness in her chest made her wish she were dead. Fenghua, on the other hand, had gotten what she wanted; she ran one-and-a-half admirable laps before collapsing in the arms of the homeroom teacher. Yuyang saw it all. Fenghua looked so frail, with her seemingly weightless arms draped around the teacher’s neck as if she were presenting him with a Tibetan hada. Her eyes were shut. She was so delicate, all she lacked was a pillow; she might as well have been the teacher’s own little girl.

Meanwhile, Yuyang struggled, as Fenghua, after drinking a glass of sugar water, was talking and laughing with classmates. Yuyang would have loved to give up halfway too, but the homeroom teacher was yelling at her sternly from the bleachers. Standing straight as a javelin, his arms crossed, he was watching her with a worried look on his face. She was in agony, and she was afraid, but she had to soldier on, one step at a time, for the collective honor of her class.

Yuyang had no idea where she finished, which, in reality, did not matter. When a second ring was draped around her neck after the second lap, the first six girls, maybe even the first twelve girls, had already crossed the finish line. Some were being congratulated, others were pouting like spoiled children. By now there was little happening on the track, but Yuyang kept running, silently, diligently—her neck thrust out like a little turtle’s.

Sheer embarrassment made her want to stop at one point, but a resonant, lyrical sound came through the PA system to encourage her, awarding high praise to her “spirit.” Yuyang felt that she was no longer herself; her torso was gone and so were her arms and legs. All that remained was her spirit, an involuntary force that propelled her forward. She was undeniably slow, but her second wind kicked in, revitalizing and keeping her going. The boundless power of her spirit made it impossible for her to stop even if she’d wanted to. She believed that she could keep at it till dark and reach her symbolic Yan’an [9] Refers to the Long March (1934-35) by Communist forces, which ended at their stronghold in Yan’an. before daybreak, just as long as someone first brought her two bowls of rice and a glass of water.

By the time Yuyang crossed the finish line, the spectators’ attention had shifted to the field, where some of the students had gathered. A tall boy from the class of ’81 was trying to break the school’s high-jump record. He was the track and field star—in fact, the star of the school in general. Knowing that everyone’s eyes were on him, he felt especially inspired and energetic. He kept running his fingers through his hair, taking deep breaths, and making charming but bogus motions with his sticklike arms. Finally, after four or five sets of those, he took off running, but stopped just before he reached the crossbar and trotted past it, eliciting shrieks from the bleachers. Then he lowered his head as if deep in thought, and returned to the starting point, where he once again ran his fingers through his hair, took some more deep breaths, and repeated the charming yet bogus motions. This was the moment when Yuyang crossed the 3,000-meter finish line. Except for the judge who was recording the finishes, no one noticed.

She received nothing for finishing; no one was there to give her an arm to lean on, and she did not get a glass of sugar water. Burning with shame, she cowered on the sidelines. That’s when the cramps started, reminding her that she was more than just spirit, since spirit would not have to put up with cramps. It was a sharp, intense pain. She bent over and saw something that looked like a worm on the inside of her thigh—a red worm, warm and soft, crawling down slowly, and the farther it went, the longer and thicker it grew. Shocked by the sight, she stood there in a daze before bolting toward the dormitory building.

Yuyang was alone in her room, curled up in bed like a shrimp. The pain was more emotional than physical because the 3,000-meter race was over before she’d had a chance to use all of her strength. She was convinced that if it had been a 10,000-meter race, she might have come in first or at least have been among the top finishers. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized that the track and field meet actually held meaning for her. She realized that she was too ordinary; she had nothing to attract attention, nothing she did better than anyone else. If she’d done well in the race, things might have been different, and the teacher would have seen her in a better light.

Come to think of it, Yuyang had accomplished only one thing in her entire life: being admitted into the teacher-training school, which had brought her many days of glory. The news had caused a sensation in Wang Family Village, where it made the rounds several times shortly after the old principal opened the admission letter. “Wang Yuyang? Who’s that?” Commune members had to ask around before finally making the connection between Wang Yuyang and the seven daughters of Wang Lianfang. All but the oldest, Yumi, and the third daughter, Yuxiu—who had left the village more than a decade earlier—were simply too ordinary. Older villagers recalled how different the Wang family had been back then. The girls would step outside and cut a dashing figure, and Wang Lianfang had served as secretary of the local Party branch instead of being the sorry drunk he was now. He had impressed everyone as an authority figure when he made announcements over the PA system, blaring constant references to “our Communist Party” and “the Wang Family Village branch office of the Chinese Communist Party,” so full of himself that he might as well be treated to a cow’s cunt at every meal. [10] An expression denoting the ultimate humiliation. To hear him speak, no one would have believed that he was a local villager; instead, they’d have thought he had trekked thousands of miles through hailstorms of bullets and forests of rifles while overcoming tremendous difficulties, traversing snowy mountains and grassy plains, and crossing the Yangtze River and the Yellow River before arriving at Wang Family Village.