Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

“She just stayed around the building.”

“How far is ‘around’?”

“I have never measured. I don’t know.”

“Who should know these things — does your mother know?” He brought Wu into it.

“My mother wasn’t there.”

“Where was your mother at the time?”

“She was at home working at the sewing machine.”

“Were you at home working at the sewing machine at the time?” He turned to Wu.

“Yes, I was,” Wu said.

“Did you often leave the child in their care and then use the sewing machine at home?”

“Not often. Sometimes I had to make clothes for them.”

“‘Them’?”

“Them, the three sisters.”

“But I haven’t seen them wearing any clothes you made for them. Can you tell me which clothes you made?”

“I didn’t say I made all of their clothes. I only said I sometimes made clothes for them.”

“But you emphasized the time you spent on making clothes for them.”

“I was answering your questions about ‘often’ or ‘not often.’”

“You said you didn’t often make clothes, then what did you often do? Could you please tell me what you usually did?”

“What did I usually do? … Didn’t Tiao tell you everything when she wrote to you?”

“Don’t drag the children into this. What do you think she would tell me in her letters? Do you think she was required to report your life to me? Yes, Tiao did write to me often, and she was the only one who did. In her letters, she told me things that happened in her school, and with her friends, Fei and Youyou. Why would she write to me? That’s because you never know what she’s thinking. This, I truly don’t understand — you’re … you’re sick, so you have more time than other people. What did you really do with all the time you had these last few years?”

Dumbfounded, Wu thought the catastrophe had arrived. Yixun’s questions were clearly designed to lure her, step by step, deep into a trap. Well, if it’s a blessing, it can’t be a catastrophe, and if it is a catastrophe, there is no way to escape. She might as well confess. She composed herself for the final trial. Licking her already moist lips, she said, “Can we have the kids leave for a while?”

“That’s not necessary.” He raised his voice: “There is no need for such a hypocritical request as having them ‘leave for a while.’ What haven’t they seen in this family? From what exactly would they have to turn their faces? There’s no need.”

“But I need to be alone … to talk to you alone.”

“In my opinion, being alone is pointless.” He interrupted her immediately, as if he were afraid she couldn’t hold back her confession any longer, as if he were afraid she would get hysterical and come out with her ugly story. He was pleased at her nervousness, her panic, her trembling lips, and the sudden sagging of her cheeks, which signalled that she was on the verge of collapse. So he had to change direction, or rather say something to steer the dialogue in the direction he intended. He said, “I asked you over and over again what you usually did. I’m sure now you want to say what you usually did was care for Quan. She was a baby and needed care. But it was precisely under your usual care that she died. What kind of mother were you? Do you deserve to be called a mother? You, you didn’t need to work … didn’t even have a job … but you couldn’t even look after a two-year-old. My daughter, the poor child … this poor child … she died in the manhole, but she was killed by you. You don’t deserve to be a mother.”

Yixun smashed a teacup. Then he walked to the sewing machine, pulled out the little drawer that held needles and threads, and dumped it on the floor.

The violence in his voice, his attitude, and his actions actually calmed Wu. To her, Yixun’s words didn’t sound cruel but, instead, soothed her nerves. She hardly believed what she had heard: he called Quan “my daughter.” More than just an announcement and acknowledgment, it might indicate forgiveness, or at least a willingness to disregard all of Wu’s murky and sordid past. Could he really have said it? What happened to him? He didn’t gloat over her misfortune, and how angry he was at her because his daughter died in her care! If that was what he really had in mind and what he really believed, then why not let him shout at her without mercy? Let him berate her as if she were less than human, hurl dreadful curses at her — that her blood should flow and stink for ten thousand years. What she really wanted was to kneel down before him and submit to a beating. Thinking back to a moment ago, just a moment, just that flash of time — but Wu already used the phrase “think back”—to her it was already thinking back to some “time before,” when, cornered and about to confess everything, she had worked out a version of her plea for forgiveness in her mind. After her confession, she’d planned to remind him that God had punished her for him. Making the sinful fruit, Quan, disappear from the earth was the worst punishment that God could send. So Yixun should just let it go. What else did he want from her? Even a murderer pays for the crime by simply having his head roll onto the ground. Not to mention the fact that the one who should die had already died, and the living should just be allowed to continue to live. She’d made up her mind to take this approach, but never had she expected events to take such an abrupt turn: because Yixun claimed Quan as his daughter, and no one else’s, Wu would never be forgiven and Yixun would be justified in never forgiving. So just when a clear light rippled through her chaotic heart, a deep guilt sank in.

Guilt is a feeling worthy of study. Yixun had found a method to express his emotions in a way that would position him as a victim all his life, venting what he wanted to without appearing cruel. He would use his “innocence” to maintain the normal operation of a decent family and his own dignity, and at the same time he would also control Wu through guilt.

Guilt is indeed a feeling that needs to be studied. The gift of inducing guilt in another is a very ruthless and a very effective mode of vengeance. Guilt is not dependent on a person being in the right or in the wrong, and it is unpredictable. It enters our hearts unexpectedly. More often than not, it isn’t aroused by remorse. Paradoxically, it’s at the moment that we have the most combative feelings for our antagonists, when we hate them the most, that we suddenly feel guilty. Maybe Yixun didn’t know what he was doing at first. He thought he would control Wu through guilt all their lives, but he didn’t expect that in later years it would be Wu’s obliviousness to what was going on that would incite his own guilt.

He might accuse her of not washing the cucumber clean enough and she would say she had washed it a number of times. Whenever he heard “a number of times” his head would explode. The stupid, vague exaggeration got to him because “a number of times” does not equate with “clean.” Yixun’s criterion was “clean” and Wu’s criterion was “a number of times.” He and she had never reached an accord on this minor standard of measurement. Yixun had no choice but to shout at her that there were chemicals and dirt on the cucumber skin and you needed to use a vegetable brush to clean it. “That’s why I washed it a number of times!” Wu said. God knows why she had to avoid the crux of the issue; she had to say “a number of times” to avoid admitting that she had not used the vegetable brush. If Yixun continued to press her, she would lie about the brush. In those moments Yixun couldn’t help being tempted to reach out his hands and choke her from behind. He would run to her at the sink and, frightened, she would hurriedly grab the brush. She’d scrub the cucumber with mad ferocity, so fiercely that the bristles scraped the skin and exposed the light green young flesh beneath, which made Yixun desperately want to throttle her again. Guilt arrived right then; just at the moment Wu acted unusually sulky, when she hunched her shoulders and revealed her total lack of virtue, and when he ground his teeth from hatred, guilt suddenly arrived. There was not even a small transition point between the two contradictory emotions, but such a feeling is so real and palpable that it forces us to compromise with life and be less sure of ourselves.