Bi Feiyu - The Moon Opera

The nausea returned when she got up to wash her hands. This time the sour taste drew her back to the toilet, where she threw up several times before stopping abruptly. Ah, now she remembered. She finally remembered. She knew exactly what she hadn’t done over the past few weeks. Breaking out in a cold sweat at the realization, she stood at the sink and counted back. Today was the forty-second day since Bingzhang had first talked to her. Since then she’d been so busy with rehearsals she’d lost sight of a woman’s most important monthly concern. In truth, she hadn’t forgotten anything; the damned thing hadn’t come. Now she recalled that crazy night with Miangua forty-two days earlier. She’d been so pleased, so elated, that she’d forgotten to take any precautions. How could she be so fertile? How could such a little escapade come to this? Women like me should never let ourselves be too happy, for if we are, then what should happen will not, and what should not happen will make a spectacle of us. Instinctively covering her belly with her hands, she felt shame, but that quickly subsided and was replaced by uncontrollable rage. The opening night was only days away. How had she failed to squeeze her legs together that night? Staring at herself in the mirror above the sink, she wrapped up her situation with a single comment, patterned after the coarsest of women, in the foulest language she knew: “Fuck me, a slut who can’t even keep her legs closed!”

What was growing in her belly became her most urgent consideration. She counted the days again and felt a chill travel all the way down to her calves. Nothing could save her if she threw up on stage during the performance. The best solution was, of course, a surgical procedure, for that was clean and thorough and would solve all her problems. But surgery had its downside; pain, of course, but pain wasn’t the worst of it. Not only would it take too long for her to recover, but she might well once again “tattoo” her voice on stage. Five years earlier she’d had an abortion, and it had taken a tremendous toll on her body, requiring almost a month to recover. She could not have another one. Pills were her only choice. They would abort the fetus quietly, and she would only need a few days’ rest. She stood vacantly at the sink a while longer before leaving the toilet and heading straight for the main entrance. Xiao Yanqiu was fighting for time—not with anyone else, but with herself. Each day gotten through was one day saved.

Later that same day she held six small white tablets in her hand, with the doctor’s instructions to take one in the morning and one in the afternoon for two days, then two on the third morning. When they were all gone, she was to see him again. The tablets had a lyrical name—Stopping the Pearl—as if such a lustrous object were slowly taking shape in her belly and hindering her from doing what she wanted. No wonder there were fewer poets and playwrights these days; they were all busy giving names to pills and tablets. Sadness surged up inside as she gazed at the tablets in her hand. A woman spends her life in the company of these things, something that started with Chang’e, who stole the elixir of immortality and flew to the moon. Now she, Xiao Yanqiu, had to follow in Chang’e’s footsteps. Medicine is truly strange, one of life’s oddest conspiracies.

Though she lived some distance from the hospital, she decided to walk home. Along the way, she grew angry at herself, but even more so at Miangua. By the time she arrived home, she was no longer just angry, she was filled with loathing. She walked in the door, gave him a nasty look, and went to bed without eating or washing up.

Yanqiu chose not to ask for sick leave, for abortion was not something to be proud of, and there was no need to spread the news. But she reacted badly to the Stopping the Pearl tablets: she was bilious and felt so lightheaded it was as if she had just returned from the moon. With great difficulty, she managed to make it through a day of rehearsal, but her loathing was doubled; it penetrated the marrow of her bones. The homecoming scene that night was a repeat of the day before, except that the atmosphere was even colder. Her face was darker and more menacing than ever as she walked in the door. Like the preceding day, she didn’t eat, drink, or wash up, and she didn’t say a word before going straight to bed. The house felt different. For Miangua, a wintry wind had gathered at the door and was slipping in through a crack; he stood there listening for a while, unaware of what had happened and not knowing what to do about it.

But Xiao Yanqiu did not sleep. Miangua heard her sigh late at night, when all was quiet. She took in a breath and held it, as if not wanting him to hear, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. He sighed too, but softly. Something was wrong, something was definitely wrong. He thought he could almost see the end of life.

Miangua began to feel nostalgic about the past, and when a person does so, it can only mean that something is nearing its end. He and Xiao Yanqiu were not a good match—like a pigeon settling into a magpie’s nest. He’d come into her life when she was in dire straits. Now she was going back on the stage, becoming a star again. Where does Chang’e fly except up to the heavens? Sooner or later she would soar back into the sky, and it wouldn’t be long before their home was turned upside down. He was reminded of her abnormal behavior over the past few days and could only sneer at the dark night.

Xiao Yanqiu took the last two tablets the following morning and sat at home waiting quietly. At nine, she went to the hospital with a stack of sanitary napkins. The doctor told her to take more tablets, this time three little white hexagons. She swallowed them all and walked around for a while before again sitting down to wait. The spasms began slowly, with increasing frequency. Bending over in the chair, she panted.

“What are you sitting here for?” the doctor said sternly when he came out. “It takes four hours. Go outside and run around or jump or do something. Don’t just sit here!”

So she went downstairs, but the pain was so intense it felt as if something were gnawing at her insides. It was becoming unbearable, and she wished she could find a place to lie down. Not daring to go back upstairs, she knew as well that she could not hang around the hospital entrance, in case she ran into someone she knew; that would be too great an embarrassment. So, unable to hold out any longer, she decided to go home. Their place was empty, as were all the flats in the building. And as she stood in the living room, recalling what the doctor had said, she decided to jump, to stir things up a bit. So she took off her shoes and leaped into the air; her heels landed with a thud, frightening and energizing her at the same time. She listened intently before jumping again and landing with another thud. Encouraged by the thumps on the floor, she kept it up. The more she jumped, the greater the pain; the greater the pain, the more she jumped. The jumps accompanied the pain; the pain accompanied the jumps. She leaped higher and higher, and her spirits soared. A singular sense of contentment and relaxation spread over her; this was an unexpected reward, and an unforeseen pleasure. She took off her coat, laid it on the floor, and leaped and twisted as if her life depended on it. Her hair came loose and flailed wildly in the air, like ten thousand gesticulating hands. She felt an urge to shout, to scream, but knew it wouldn’t help if she did. By this time she had forgotten why she was jumping. Now she was just jumping, jumping to hear the thuds, jumping to feel the floor groan beneath her feet. Xiao Yanqiu was deliriously happy. She rose into the air; she was flying. Finally, physically drained, her last ounce of strength used up, she sprawled on the floor as tears of happiness flooded her eyes.