Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

Everything in the dream made her miss Chen Zai more. Gazing at the translucent curtain lit by the morning rays of sunlight, she decided to burn all the love letters scattered on the bed and the floor. Even though, with Chen Zai’s temperament, he wouldn’t have been troubled if she’d kept them, she just wanted to burn them and concentrate on the life of love she would have with Chen Zai. She got up, brushed her teeth, ate breakfast, and then started the burning. She gathered all the love letters in a stainless steel washbasin, took it to the kitchen, and struck a match to light them, using chopsticks to turn the flaming pages over so they could burn more completely. It felt like a method of cooking, something related to food. Her meticulous and thorough hand movements didn’t seem like destruction but creation. Maybe she was even aware herself that she was indeed making something with the burning. Otherwise, why would she have chosen to use kitchen utensils? Finally only a thin pile of ashes remained in the basin, very light, almost weightless. She collected the ashes into a juice glass and then poured water into it, which turned black. This glass of black water contained all the words that Fang Jing had written to her. Those pages of small, elegant characters he had written with black ink, his frenzied love for her, were all dissolved in this glass of black water. She had the desire to drink it, to give those black words a chance to survive or die in her body. So she drank, first a small sip, and then a big swallow. In the end, she drank it all, this glass of black water.

She left the kitchen and came to the living room, sitting where she usually did, in the armchair she liked. She didn’t feel any discomfort in her stomach or intestine, and she was confident that her mood was stable. She wanted to call home and tell Yixun and Wu that Chen Zai was divorced. Hadn’t they said three years ago that it would be impossible for him to get a divorce? Hadn’t they called Tiao naïve, and didn’t Yixun tell her to “get out”? Now he was divorced, actually divorced. She wanted to call her parents to gloat, with a victor’s smugness, but also intended to relieve their worries. Ever since Yixun told Tiao to “get out,” she went home only in the holidays. But just then the phone rang. She answered, and it was Fan.

Lately, the main topic of their phone conversations was Wu’s plastic surgeries. When Tiao described over the phone, with indignation, how Wu had nose and eyelid surgeries, she thought Fan would be more annoyed than she was. But quite surprisingly, Fan just paused for a second and then laughed until she gasped for breath. “That’s hilarious. That’s so hilarious. Well, won’t I have a new mother this way?” And she laughed again. Her laughter contained neither anger nor approval; in it, there was an observer’s detachment that allowed for watching others make fools of themselves, and Tiao’s indignation made her laugh even harder. She truly looked forward to seeing people in China make fools of themselves, and was also curious to see Wu’s new face. When Tiao refused to send her Wu’s post-surgery photographs, she simply called Wu for them. Her request for pictures encouraged Wu to plan more surgeries. No longer shy about it, Wu openly talked with Fan over the phone about her vision of face-lifts and liposuction. Wu and Fan, the mother and daughter, had grown close because of Wu’s plastic surgeries, which made Tiao remark acidly during one of their phone conversations, “Fan, you’ve given Mum plenty of spiritual support. But when she went to do her abdominal liposuction, I was the one who took her to the hospital and then picked her up afterwards. Are you aware that this kind of surgery is dangerous? Why don’t you come home and visit her?”

Fan said, “Next time. When she does her breast augmentation, I’ll come back.” Tiao just wanted to slam the phone down when she was listening to her sister.

But Fan’s phone call this time was not to discuss Wu’s plastic surgery. She said, “Older sister, guess who came to Chicago. Fang Jing.”

“Really? Do you want me to get you an introduction to him?”

“No need. I’ve met him. When he was giving a lecture at the University of Chicago, I was his interpreter.”

“Really?”

“I told him that I was your sister. He said he would have guessed even if I hadn’t told him.”

“Is that so?”

“Then he invited me to dinner. When I was with him, he didn’t mention you at all. He kept praising my English.”

“Really?”

“Later, I drove him to the art museum. He likes Marc Chagall’s paintings. He likes this Jewish guy.”

“Really?”

“Why do you keep saying ‘really’? Don’t you want to know what I think of him?”

“No, I don’t want to know.”

“But I want to tell you. He called me every day, so one time I spent the night at his place.”

“Really?”

“I’d say he’s a nice-enough guy, but unfortunately I don’t love him. He’s naïve, and after he told me that two of his teeth were rotting, I lost interest in him entirely. But just a few moments ago, right before I called you, he phoned.”

“Really?”

“So, what do you think about it?”

Tiao took a deep breath and said with great deliberateness, “Fan, I wanted to tell you that Chen Zai is divorced.”

“Really?”

“I think you should be happy for me.”

“Of course, I … am happy for you.”

Tiao put down the telephone and stood up to stretch. The black water was circulating through her body, and the words that Fang Jing had written filled her insides. Her body was filled with a long-vanished true love. There was no hatred in her heart, only her hope for the future.

On the same day, at the Publishing House, a woman she’d never met arrived at her office to see her. The woman introduced herself. “My name is Wan Meicheng. I’m Chen Zai’s ex-wife.”

2

Tiao was rattled at Wan Meicheng’s unexpected appearance at her office. She wasn’t afraid that Wan Meicheng had come to attack her, though; it was not the first time that Tiao had come between a married couple. She was determined to marry Chen Zai openly. No, she wasn’t afraid of Wan Meicheng; she was simply a little nervous, with mixed feelings of guilt and sympathy.

She led Wan Meicheng to the sofa near the door and sat across from her. She didn’t stare at Wan Meicheng but carefully took her in. Chen Zai had mentioned that Wan Meicheng was ten years younger than he was, which meant she was five years younger than Tiao, so about thirty-three years old, but she looked even younger than that. She was gentle and delicate, but her forehead was full, with shiny hair all combed back and secured with a red-wood hairpin. She had light eyebrows, and her large eyes with their frank gaze seemed to conceal no ill intentions. Her makeup and clothing were tasteful. Tiao remembered that Chen Zai had said she was an art teacher in a high school, and she looked exactly like an art teacher: honest, responsible, but also with an underlying romanticism that she restrained. She took out a pack of cigarettes and asked Tiao, “Can I smoke here?”

“Technically speaking, no. I don’t even have an ashtray.”

Suddenly she seemed disoriented and said, “Well, I mean, I never smoke at school or in front of the students. It’s just I’m here with you … and we’re meeting for the first time and I’m very nervous. I’m thinking that smoking might help a little. But still I shouldn’t smoke, I know.”

Wan Meicheng’s admitting to Tiao that she was nervous made Tiao feel she was more honest than she was herself. Tiao picked up a paper cup, half filled it with water, and placed it in front of Wan Meicheng. She said, “You can flick the ash into the water. It’s informal, but practical.”