Xiaobin Xu - Crystal Wedding

As this discussion was going on, the door opened and Nanny Zhang came in carrying the baby. ‘He knew you were coming!’ she said. ‘As soon as you came down the street, he saw your red coat and cried for you. I’m so blind I couldn’t see you but he wouldn’t stop struggling and crying. Such a clever child!’

Sure enough, as soon as Niuniu saw Tianyi he launched himself at her. No one else would do. She took him and felt how heavy he was. Like a steelyard weight. She coaxed him back to a good mood by waltzing around the room with him, and the baby began to crow with laughter. He looked so sweet when he laughed that Tianyi forgot everything else. She was just a silly mother! She told herself off, but the little boy’s smiles had her completely in thrall. She whirled round and round the room, with her baby in her arms, as if challenging the two older women. She felt their eyes on her, hostile and grim. She found it so strange that these two women seemed unable to exhibit the slightest love and affection for this child, the heir they had longed for. They seemed to have hearts of stone.

That day, she arranged to share Nanny Zhang’s bed for her afternoon nap. The nanny prattled away about this and that, then suddenly she raised her fat body and whispered in Tianyi’s ear: ‘These are two wicked women, you know! They’re saying that your mother actually used the Wangs’ sewing-machine to make a padded jacket for Niuniu …!’

That night, a distraught Tianyi finally exploded. ‘Your mother and grandmother are like harpies!’ she exclaimed to Lian. ‘Haven’t they ever had children of their own? They’ve got no idea how to behave!’ She ticked off her grievances: ‘On our wedding night, they came and knocked on our door. That was out of order! Your mother said the baby had come a bit soon! What did she think she was saying? I’m a decent woman, why shouldn’t I have a baby? And why can’t that old witch ever get on with me? What have I ever done to get on the wrong side of her? Let me tell you, our family may be poor, too poor to afford a sewing machine, but when my mother wants to make Niuniu a padded jacket, why on earth would she want to use your family’s sewing machine? Let me tell you, we never needed you to bring that sewing machine over, but those women kept insisting we should take whatever we needed. And you believed them, you blockhead! How come they only have to say one thing and you fall for it. Whatever they say, goes, it doesn’t matter what I say! They’re just a couple of peasants! All big talk and tight fists …!’

Even to herself, Tianyi felt she sounded just like any shrew of a wife, but she was unable to stop. Finally, Lian fell on his knees in front of her, boxed his own ears over and over, and she was reduced to silence. She was astounded at Lian’s falling on his knees, but even more astonished at herself. She was no better than an ignorant woman like Nanny Zhang, going on and on about things that were utterly trivial, but it was precisely those things that had hurt her, had caused her indescribable pain. How on earth had she ended up living like this? At dead of night, her numbed nerves sometimes sprang back to life, and stabbed her agonizingly. Her reaction was to wrap her armour around herself and drift back to sleep again.

At least she still had her friends. Jin was always dropping by these days. One day, he had an extraordinary request: he wanted to have sex with a girl but they had nowhere to go. Could Tianyi find somewhere for him? Jin’s conversation had been turning in this direction for a long time now. He wanted to do some sort of sexual experiment. Tianyi had often hinted that Di had feelings for him. He was quite intelligent enough to understand the hints she dropped, but he pretended to be dumb and so Tianyi let it be.

He was an unusual young man: illegitimate, he had been abandoned at a hospital by his parents when he was a baby, and brought up by a foster-mother. His foster-mother could not have children of her own, and lavished all her energies on his education. When he was very small, she taught him to read stories of the ancient philosopher Meng Zi and the widowed mother who had schooled him. Then his birth mother wanted him back. Perhaps she could not bear to see the boy subjected to such a strict educational regime. He certainly achieved academic success but it was not a normal childhood, and he had been left with a gnawing feeling of unsatisfied curiosity. As time went by and he grew up, his feelings towards his adoptive mother became more complex. He kept trying to please her and had nothing but praise for her kindness in taking him on. But somewhere in his heart, he also resented her for casting a baleful shadow over his life. She was always there, watching from a distance, spying on him, so that he never dared overstep the limits.

His emotions were like a prisoner desperate to break out of jail. His sexual urges grew stronger and at dead of night he masturbated constantly. It sapped his energy and made him depressed. Only a girl could save him from himself. That girl could have been Di, but he liked his women curvaceous and wild. Di was too flat-chested to interest him. If truth be told, Tianyi was the one he really fancied. She was a lovely young woman, married but with the quiet simplicity of a girl and, best of all, she had curves. However, she also had an air of dignity that awed him and put her far out of his reach.

Now a girl had finally appeared to rescue him. She was in her final year studying piano at the Conservatoire and had heard him gabbling away at a meeting. Somehow that touched her sympathies. On their first date, in the park, they got down to some serious petting. He gave Tianyi a blow-by-blow account, making her blush with his frankness: ‘She undid her bra so I could feel her breasts,’ he stammered. ‘Then she pushed my hand down there …’

‘Is she pretty?’

‘No, but she’s curvy, and she’s really hot.’

‘So she fits the bill?’ Tianyi asked with a touch of sarcasm.

‘Yes, yes she does,’ Jin went pink. ‘So I need your help, I’ve been wanting to do an experiment, to watch a girl’s reaction to having sex …’

‘That’s not fair, if she really loves you …’

‘But I might fall in love with her during the experiment. So there’s nothing unfair about it …’

‘It’s crazy.’

As with everything else, Tianyi told Lian all about it. To her astonishment, Lian not only did not condemn Jin, he evinced great enthusiasm for the plan and, of his own accord, went looking for a room. This gave Tianyi a whole new level of respect for him.

The one he found was next-door to their own apartment, and belonged to a friend of Lian’s on the Planning Commission. He had gone abroad for six months and left Lian with a set of keys so he could keep an eye on the place.

Jin was hugely grateful, but Tianyi had a few more chores now, as she had to take them a thermos of boiling water, and sometimes breakfast too. Naturally enough she got to meet the luckless girl who was to become the object of the sexual experiment. It was true she was not pretty, but she was very fair-skinned and her full, high breasts strained against her T-shirt. To Tianyi, the older woman, she was shy and deferential. With Jin, according to him, she was sexually voracious. She liked it dozen times a day and Jin began to flag.

‘She twists her head on the pillow when we’re having sex. What does that mean, is it from pleasure …?’ Tianyi was amused and entertained at the things he told her, until she realized he was staring at her own breasts, which she did not like at all.

‘Anything else? Off you go then!’ she would interrupt him brusquely.

‘We … we need more condoms … the last lot got used up …’ he stammered.

Tianyi felt as if she was trapped in a world of make-believe, forced to play the clowning assistant.