Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

The three of them spent the night in Villa Number One, with Tiao and Fan sharing a bedroom. Both a little bit drunk, they lay, each in her own bed, carrying on an intermittent conversation. Fan said, “Are you attracted to Chen Zai?”

Tiao said, “Chen Zai is married.”

Fan said, “His being married and your being attracted or not are two completely different matters. Why don’t you answer my question directly?”

“I’m not attracted to him. I’m not attracted to any man right now.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

Fan asked, “What if I were attracted to Chen Zai?” Tiao said nothing. Fan continued, “Look how scared you are, so scared that you can’t say a word.”

“That’s enough. Stop being foolish.”

Fan sighed. “You’re right not to let yourself be attracted to him. Don’t expect a married man to have any true feelings for you.” Her feelings of superiority surfaced as she said this, and she was about to use herself and David as an example. David had been unattached when they got together. But Tiao didn’t reply. She fell asleep, or pretended to.

They ate, drank, and slept late, and didn’t go back to Fuan until the next afternoon. As soon as they arrived, Wu announced cheerfully that the whole family was going to eat Japanese food that night. Wasn’t Japanese food very expensive in America? She had already called the restaurant and made the reservation. Fan knitted her eyebrows slightly and said, “Does Fuan have a Japanese restaurant?”

Wu said, “Yes, it just opened.” Yixun said its raw ingredients, steak, and fish were all shipped from Kobe to Tianjing first, and then came from Tianjing to Fuan by air. Still feeling troubled, Fan said she had to wait for a while to decide about going out because she thought her stomach hurt a little, after which she went back to her own room and lay in bed. She seemed unhappy, and the fact that Fuan had a Japanese restaurant seemed to make her unhappy.

Wu and Yixun both felt a little disappointed, but still went to her and asked her patiently, “Why would you have an upset stomach? Did you eat anything spoiled at Mei Mountain Villa?”

Fan said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Tiao immediately said, “It can’t be. Why is my stomach fine?”

Fan said, “I’m different from you. Don’t you know that I’m not used to the environment here? I had diarrhoea the second day after I came back. “

“If you’d been having stomach problems, then you shouldn’t blame the food in the villa.”

“I wasn’t blaming. I just said maybe.”

“But you implied it.”

Suddenly Fan sat up in the bed and said, “I know what you mean better than you know what’s going on with me. Just because your friends treated me to food, entertainment, a sauna, and a driving tour, should I be spouting thank-yous every minute? Do I have to compliment everything? Why do you need people’s gratitude so much? Why should I thank you? What have you done to make me thank you?”

Disgusted by Fan’s sulky and difficult attitude, Tiao also got angry and said, “Haven’t you just come back from civilized America? How come you haven’t learned the basic civilized act of appreciation for other people’s kindness?”

Fan was now completely enraged by Tiao’s sarcasm, and maybe she welcomed the provocation so that she could let out her irrational anger all at once. Even if Tiao hadn’t supplied a provocation, she would have picked a fight with her. Otherwise, the indignation pent up in her chest would find no outlet and she would have no peace with herself. Now the chance to get her own back had come. She looked at Tiao coldly and said, “Appreciate other people’s kindness? It’s your kindness you want me to appreciate, right? But I’m sorry. I don’t plan to. Because every time we’ve gone out to eat, other people have paid. Taking the sauna and staying in the villa were Chen Zai’s gift. Why would I thank you?”

Yixun broke in, “How unkind of you to say that. To welcome you home, your older sister took several days off work and drove to Beijing herself to pick you up—”

Fan interrupted Yixun. “I was going to mention the car. That’s the Publishing House’s car. What does it show when she drives a government car to take care of personal business? Yes, you all live a pretty comfortable life here, but it’s at the cost of corruption and darkness. You thought I would envy you? And those friends of yours! That shabby restaurant that changes its prices for different customers is simply vulgar. Only in China can that sort of thing happen! And still you people blab about it with such enthusiasm and you …” On and on she poured out the vicious words, in a way that reminded Tiao of street people who stop ranting only long enough to pick up their bowls to eat and then put them down to shout again. Remembering how Fan loved the crispy turnip puffs at Youyou’s Small Stir-Fry and how she asked Tiao to bring some home after the dinner, Tiao was completely baffled by Fan, not knowing where her towering rage came from. Wu also tried to calm Fan. “Stop, now. Get a hot-water bottle to warm your stomach. We’ll still try to go to the Japanese restaurant in the evening.”

Fan immediately directed her anger at Wu. “I really don’t understand why you constantly ask me to go out and eat. Especially you, Mum. Since I was a little girl, how many meals have you cooked? What can you cook? Why don’t I have any idea? Now that I’ve come back from so far away, why can’t I just stay home for a while? Why do I have to sit in restaurants all the time? I’m not going. I’m not going to eat Japanese food tonight. I don’t want to talk about eating every three sentences. I hate it that you Chinese can’t ever forget about eating. Eat, eat, eat. Why do you get so happy about just eating a bit of good food …?”

Having remained silent for a while, Tiao suddenly said with an air of pride, “Let me tell you: I’m exactly that kind of Chinese — I get very happy as soon as I eat something good.”

Fan knew Tiao was trying to make her angry. She couldn’t help wanting to slap her at this display of phony pride.

She hated Tiao.

4

They fought. Fan stayed in China for only a month, and they fought almost from the moment Fan got off the plane to the moment she got back on the plane. Strangely, Fan’s complexion was getting better and better day by day. She also put on weight and got some colour in her face. All this seemed to be the result of the arguments: she felt at ease in her homeland, both physically and mentally. She argued in Chinese and when she was tired or hungry afterwards, she lapped up Chinese porridge and ate Chinese food. At the end of the day, she could sleep without worrying about appearances — she could sleep late in a Chinese way.

In the aftermath of every argument with Tiao, she’d feel refreshed and relieved, which frightened her a little, and made her wonder if she had come back to China to fight with people. No, it wasn’t something she’d intended, but somehow she couldn’t help it.

In between the fights, when she consumed with relish the plain rice porridge, the porridge with red beans or pork, and the preserved eggs that Americans would never touch, when she found her sister Tiao didn’t hate her at all but even tried to please her, she felt a little guilty. Guilt brought temporary peace to their home, as if nothing had happened — as if Fan had never gone abroad and still wore that expression of hers when she’d come home from high school and toss the swollen bulk of her fake-leather backpack onto the desk, sending out a burst of overripe classroom smells. Once, rushing back from a mediocre performance on a college entrance exam, she was like that, lips parched, face pale and dripping hot sweat, saying, “Bad, bad, bad,” in a trembling voice as soon as she entered … Tiao missed that Fan with a helpless face; her nervousness and helplessness were more genuine and convincing than her arrogance and toughness.