Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

Wu said, “You don’t come home very often. What’s wrong with me looking at you? Don’t you know what I’m most concerned about is you?”

“What you’re most concerned about is that face of yours.”

“Tiao, how can you talk to me like that? How?”

“How do you want me to talk to you? If you want me to respect you, you have to respect yourself first.”

“How have I not respected myself? Having nose-correction surgery is my own business. I didn’t interfere with other people or force anyone else to do it with me. What does this have to do with self-respect?”

“But you force your family to look at your face, to accept a stranger with a strange face. Before, your face was real and natural, and it was at least my mother’s face. I’m sorry, I can’t accept your current face; at the very least I have to have some time to get used to it.”

After saying that, Tiao left home without eating.

Now she went back because Wu had beeped her. Knowing her status in her daughter’s heart, Wu seldom beeped her. But she had today, which made Tiao wonder whether something unusual had happened at home.

As soon as she entered the house, she noticed Wu sitting on the sofa with a pair of sunglasses on. The melodrama of wearing sunglasses in her own living room, ominous and silly — Tiao couldn’t describe the complicated feeling she had, but her instinct told her that Wu’s sunglasses had nothing to do with any illness but with her plastic surgery. She sat down across from Wu, quickly scanning her face and the sunglasses, which looked steady on the bridge of her nose because of the surgery. Tiao wondered whether this time perhaps she’d fixed her eyes. She got straight to the point. “Mum, is there some kind of emergency you need to talk to me about?”

“Yes, it’s an emergency. It’s about you and Chen Zai.”

“What is it about Chen Zai and me?”

“I heard from Youyou’s mum that Chen Zai was making a big scene about divorce, over you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, over you.”

“Yes, he’s trying to get a divorce, but he didn’t make a scene out of it. As far as I know, his wife, Wan Meicheng, didn’t make one, either. They’re discussing it. Can you not use the phrase ‘make a scene’? It’s so vulgar.”

“It’s not whether they make a scene or not. What’s important is that he’s doing this because of you, right?”

Tiao went quiet for a while and said, “Yes.”

“Tiao, I just want to tell you to stop right here. It’s not something to be proud of. Word has spread all over the compound, and your father and I are colleagues of Chen Zai’s parents. We live in the same compound and have to see each other on a daily basis. It’s embarrassing; besides—”

Tiao said impatiently, “Besides, what?”

“Are you urging me on, or interrupting me? Besides, divorce is something that can get very complicated. Chen Zai has been married for ten years and might not be able to get a divorce.”

“How do you know that he can’t get a divorce? Why can’t you say something positive about my business?”

“Because I need to be responsible for you. Both your father and I would like to see you end up well. But that won’t happen with Chen Zai. Neither of you are young anymore, so don’t do things on an impulse.”

“I appreciate your sense of responsibility, but what bothers me is why you talk about things so important to me with sunglasses on. It looks like you’re an actress. Can you take off your sunglasses to talk to me?”

“I put on sunglasses precisely because of you. I just had surgery on my eyelids and it will take a while to recover. I’m afraid you won’t want to see me. You didn’t want to see me when I had the surgery on my nose, did you?”

“I hate to see you wear sunglasses even more.”

Wu took off her sunglasses and said, “Then I’ll take them off.”

When she took off her sunglasses, her red, swollen eyes were hard for Tiao to bear. The thought occurred to Tiao that Wu was truly carrying out her plastic surgery plan, step by step. She had said her eyelids were too loose and droopy, and that after the nose she would have eyelid surgery, and then fix her double chin, tighten her facial skin, and extract the fat from her belly, etc. That she would risk her life in these operations on her face and pour money into the plastic surgery department made no sense. She was also stupid not to consider, what with her lifted nose, stitched eyelids, and sunglasses, how Tiao could take her seriously on an important personal matter. It would be more accurate to say Tiao’s personal life didn’t enter her mind, rather than that she was concerned with Tiao. Maybe her instinct as a mother was alerted by her daughter’s dangerous relationship with a married man, but she wasn’t able to express her worry and concern in a prudent and solemn way. Her strange appearance only added to Tiao’s distrust.

Tiao said with loathing, “Given the way you look now, do you think you can make me listen to your advice?”

“What’s wrong with the way I look now? I’m your mother anyway.”

“That’s not necessarily true. My mother doesn’t look like that. I probably wouldn’t recognize you if we met on the street. Don’t you want to sew your double chin and tighten your skin? That would make it more difficult for me to recognize you. Why do it? You’re not an actress or a television emcee. Why do you have to ruin your own appearance and embarrass and frighten us?”

“Don’t exaggerate. Do I really frighten you? If I do, how can you manage to stay here and argue with me?”

“I’m arguing with you because even when you ask me to come home and talk about an important matter like Chen Zai’s divorce, you’re still distracted. You’re only interested in your own face and body. You make it impossible for me to talk to you about all the things that a daughter would like to talk over with her mother, love or marriage. You’ve never given me the chance. You just call me here according to your own whim.”

“I’m not doing anything according to my own whim. I’m truly concerned about you and Chen Zai. No matter how many plastic surgeries I have, I’m still your mother.”

Tiao stood up from the sofa and said, “You’re a … a …”

“A what? A what?”

“You’re a monster.”

Yixun walked out of his study to reprimand Tiao for talking so disrespectfully to her mother, and added, “Tiao, don’t leave yet. I need to talk to you.”

6

Tiao reluctantly followed Yixun into his study and chose to sit on a chair far away from him.

Yixun’s attitude today took her by surprise, and she was not happy about his taking Wu’s side and criticizing her. Yes, she had spoken disrespectfully to Wu, with whom she used the formal address but whom she called a monster. But that was a fact that Yixun knew better than anyone else. Compared to Tiao’s disrespectful language, Wu’s new look was far more upsetting to him. Could he really tolerate living in the same house with a woman who fixed her nose and eyelids, walked around in sunglasses, and gargled loudly right in front of him? Had he really become so big-hearted and tolerant? Or was the change because he had made common cause with Wu, overlooking her disagreeableness in turning their sights on Tiao? Tiao had a hunch that on the issue of Chen Zai, Yixun would take the same stand as Wu did.

She was right.

And Yixun was even firmer than Wu was.

He simply told Tiao, “I object to your continuing to carry on a relationship with Chen Zai.”

“We’re serious about each other. He’s getting a divorce.”

“What do you mean, ‘getting a divorce’? You’re not young anymore. Why are you still so naïve?”

“Dad, you make it sound like Chen Zai is deceiving me. He and I have known each other for many years, and you’ve known him for many years, too. Clearly you know him very well. Why would you still say things that are so unfair to him?”