Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

Now as he looked at Wu in the chair, her face bloated by grief at Quan’s death, the creases at the corners of her mouth, and the strands of grey showing in her dark hair, he couldn’t help feeling a surge of compassion. He heard what she said about not seeing each other anymore, and he agreed that they should stop. So filled with compassion was he for her that he felt he had to embrace her and remove all her clothes. Compassion can excite a man sometimes. At that moment it wasn’t that he wanted to have her, but rather that he wanted her to have him, to have him one more, final time.

But she didn’t cooperate, and it was no show of refusal but genuine rejection. Here was a situation unfamiliar to Dr. Tang; he was accustomed to her eagerness to please, to her taking the initiative, to her undisguised sexual desire, and to her body’s consummate ripeness. Her current passive resistance gave Dr. Tang a powerful erection. He held her, trying to pull her into the inner room, and she grabbed hold of the door frame, stubbornly refusing to enter. He then shifted direction, dragging her to the bathroom. He dragged her in and locked the door. She struggled in his arms and begged him with her sad eyes, Don’t do this. Please don’t. Her sad eyes touched him and also stimulated him. The more he felt compassion for her, the more he wanted to bully her. He couldn’t stop. While holding her stiff body, he stood in the bathroom and began to masturbate, jerking himself off so violently that it all ended quickly. His violent motion, his strange, low, husky moaning, and his ejaculation had no effect on Wu at all. She just wanted to go home as soon as she could.

3

One day in autumn, late autumn, when Quan was only a year old, Yixun came home from the Reed River Farm for the change of season. He got off the bus and ran into Tiao and Fan, just back from grocery shopping, at the entrance of the Design Academy. He hardly noticed what Tiao carried in her hand but immediately fixed on a string of garlic that hung around Fan’s neck. It was fairly long, circling Fan’s neck like a boa or a scarf, with two ends dangling over her knees. Her little neck leaned forward, weighed down by the garlic, but she was all happy and smiling. Yixun thought she must have asked to have the garlic on her neck herself because she’d seen the photograph of the former first lady Wang Guangmei being denounced. In the picture, Wang Guangmei is forced to wear a necklace of ping-pong balls, so long that it almost drags on the ground. You love to wear necklaces? Then let’s put one on you. Fan’s garlic necklace instantly reminded Yixun of the photo of Wang Guangmei in the huge necklace, and maybe something else as well. In any case, he was very sad, and felt a sharp pain, as if glass had suddenly shattered into pieces that flew into his heart, violently slicing it apart. He could think of nothing in the world more embarrassing than his daughter having a string of garlic around her neck. Her happy face in the autumn wind just added more to his distress at the embarrassing image, the echo of the humiliation of the former first lady.

Fan caught sight of Yixun first. “Dad,” she cried out, and ran right to him, the garlic necklace bouncing on her chest. She ran up to Yixun and dove into his arms, and he immediately took the garlic from her neck. Then Tiao ran over. She said, “Dad, why have you only come back now?”

“Why have you only come back now?” In the sentence Yixun heard complaint and anticipation, and maybe other things. But she had never talked about other things, or Yixun didn’t want to hear her talk about them. In a family with dignity, there was no room for “other things,” no matter how profoundly someone in this family was shamed, or how deeply the person suffered.

After Quan’s birth, Yixun became painfully aware of Wu and Dr. Tang’s relationship. He had tried to convince himself, trusting to his luck, that what he sensed and suspected might not be happening, but Quan’s birth completely destroyed his illusion. He spent a lot of lonely time thinking hard as he attended the tedious study group meetings, hauled bricks on the big cart, or walked in the solemnity of the boundless reeds outside the farm. The humiliation that was most difficult for a man, he swallowed, tolerating the ugly things that Wu did with extraordinary willpower and without once directly confronting her. Not all of this could be attributed to Yixun’s desire to save face, nor was it simply a mark of the low social status of his whole generation. Love for appearances makes someone more intolerant of being shamed, and low status makes it even more likely to have resentful anger flare. Maybe Yixun’s upbringing didn’t instruct him in beating a woman, and his anthropologist father and his mother, who had studied oil painting with the famous Liu Haili, respected each other all their lives. Maybe there was also his pride, which earned him some reputation in the Beijing Architectural Design Academy. One year, Yixun was nominated for the model worker award, but he turned down the honour because he thought the other two nominees were unqualified. He refused to set foot in the same river with them. Time could dim his pride but not extinguish it. Was it because he was so proud that he refused to lower himself by reasoning with Wu? Things might not be that simple. For now, faced with this troubled family of his, or the troubles in his family, he would bide his time. His avoidance might have had something to do with his pride, but it didn’t mean that he would simply let everything go. A shadow had already crept into his heart and things wouldn’t be easily remedied. His brain didn’t stay idle for a minute, which caused his stubborn insomnia. Still, he insisted on not confronting Wu. As he understood her, he was certain if he asked directly, she would confess everything. Maybe she had prepared long ago to be interrogated by him, and maybe she was looking forward to it day and night. Interrogation would be more acutely painful than the silence between them: Come on, Yixun, scold me all you want or beat me as hard as you can. Why are you such a coward? Dealing with reticence requires strong nerves, which Wu didn’t have. She was about to lose her mind because of Yixun’s silent treatment. So Yixun refused to ask. As long as he persisted, he would have the upper hand; never asking meant he would have the upper hand forever. He didn’t want her to talk, and he was not ready to listen — what husband would want to listen to his wife talk about things like that?

Then Quan died.

Quan’s death suddenly freed his tightly-bound heart. Sometimes he felt guilty that his heart could be eased at such a moment. If his soul ever had to answer to God, he would rather he had never had this release, but he couldn’t fool himself.

This time he came home quickly, rushing back overnight. When he saw Wu, he found her with eyes swollen from weeping, yet she wouldn’t risk showing too much grief. Guilt and shame made her hold back her tears in front of him. Right then, he discovered the perfect way to express his feelings. He would exhibit the sadness that Wu was afraid to show, display the sorrow that Wu worked hard to suppress. Why shouldn’t he grieve as if he were Quan’s real father? So he asked Tiao to describe Quan’s death in Wu’s presence, over and over again, and asked questions afterwards.

“Tiao, you said you had been sitting in front of the building reading the whole time. Was your main responsibility that day to watch Quan or read a book?”

“It was to watch Quan.”

“Then why did you only tend to your reading?”

“I didn’t expect she would walk so far away.”

“Why didn’t you expect her to walk so far? She had the use of her legs.”

“I meant she usually didn’t walk that far.”

“How far did she usually walk?”