Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

“There was one term left before my graduation and I could hardly wait for him to come back from abroad. When he returned a month later, in desperation I asked for a leave from school and went to Fuan to see him. I came to his place, his apartment. It was evening, a spring evening. I completely lost control of my emotions and cried my heart out in his room. The intrusion must have made him very uncomfortable, and I can see now how I made his life unbearable. He wiped my face with a hot towel and kept offering to take me home. What an awkward situation it was for a decent man. What did I hope to achieve? I said I was willing to do anything for him. I cried and said, ‘I love you, Chen Zai. I love only you. Marry me. You’re the only one in the world I would want to be with.’

“He kept saying, ‘Let me think it over. Let me think it over carefully. But it’s too late tonight. You should go home.’ He helped me on with my coat and drove me home. As soon as his car left I ran back to his place. I stood downstairs and gazed at the light in his window, and then I leaned against his door. I wanted to get close to him this way, to express my loyalty to him. I was like the old cat my family had years ago. He was so old that he could hardly walk anymore. And we didn’t want to see him die at home. One day my father took him on his bicycle and rode a long way, leaving him on a tractor parked on the side of the road. But two days later, when my father opened the door to go to work, he saw the old cat curled up there waiting for us to open the door. He’d found his way home by himself. I sat at Chen Zai’s doorway like that cat, hoping I would move him the way the old cat moved our whole family. I sat in front of Chen Zai’s apartment for an entire night until he found me next morning when he was leaving. I’d fallen asleep by then. He carried me into his apartment and put me on his bed. He held my cold hands in his hands and said, ‘Why do you have to be like this?’

“I couldn’t take it anymore and kissed him desperately. He began to kiss me back. That day he didn’t go to work. He stayed home all day to keep me company. He was so gentle to me, and he cried on the wedding night. He howled. Do you know, Tiao, I’d never seen a man weep like that. I was awestruck by it, caught midway between joy and panic. I knew he was crying for you, and his crying made me feel at the very moment I had him, I’d also lost him forever.

“At the very moment I had him, I also lost him forever.”

Wan Meicheng was finished talking, or maybe she just stopped temporarily. “Would you like some water?” Tiao asked.

Wan Meicheng shook her head and said, “You’re crying, but I don’t want your tears. I don’t know why I would say these things — this isn’t what I wanted most to say today.”

“I think I could listen to you all day.”

“I wouldn’t want to disrupt your work in the office. If you like, we can make an appointment to meet. I’ll get your phone number and you can take mine.”

“Yes, you can have my number and give me yours, too.”

3

They began meeting when Chen Zai was not in Fuan. The first time it was Wan Meicheng who called, and Tiao played a passive role. She felt she should, that she couldn’t initiate anything with Wan Meicheng, who was the “victim,” although Tiao already felt so curious about her.

They met at Yunxiang Square. First they talked about the square that Yixun had described as representing unrivalled ugliness, and both actually liked Chen Zai’s “flat-face” building very much. Then they went to the café in the “flat face.” Tiao ordered a cup of La Taza coffee and Wan Meicheng a cup of Irish coffee. Wan Meicheng sipped the coffee and said, “I’d never drunk coffee before I married Chen Zai. My stomach would hurt as soon as I drank it. But because Chen Zai liked it, I felt obliged to drink it as well. Sometimes he worked very late, and I would stay up and keep him company by drinking coffee with him. He didn’t notice at all that I didn’t like coffee. I forced myself to put up with the pain so he wouldn’t find out. I was so afraid that he didn’t like me and I wanted to mould myself to him in everything. Strangely, I actually got used to coffee and my stomach stopped hurting, which gave me some confidence. I came to believe that as long as I was determined to learn something, I would succeed, just as I learned from you.”

“Learned from me?”

“Yes, learned from you. Imitated you.”

“Imitated me?”

“Chen Zai never told me who the woman he loved was, but I instinctively knew it was you. The first time I saw you was when you went to Chen Zai’s parents’ place. I remember clearly it was a Sunday. We originally planned to go together, but something came up and Chen Zai couldn’t travel along with me, so I went ahead by myself first. Whenever I went to Chen Zai’s parents’ home, I liked to stand on their balcony for a while, from where I could see the small garden in the Architectural Design Academy. My deep secret was that I hoped to see you from there. I knew you and Chen Zai had lived in the same compound and your parents still lived in the Architectural Design Academy. Did you go home to visit your parents? I so looked forward to seeing you — the one I most feared. I imagined what you looked like thousands of times, sometimes as very ugly, and other times as very beautiful. Then that Sunday I stood on the balcony to look into the small garden, wondering if there were any stories of you and Chen Zai that took place there. It was a very simple garden with a London plane tree, a green fence, grass, and some hardy rosebushes. Unlike the flowers and grass in a park, these weren’t purposely set there to try to attract the attention of visitors. I stood on the balcony and imagined that you would walk out of there. Then I saw Chen Zai’s car. He parked in front of the building, got out, and ran around to open the door. In the blink of an eye, I hid myself behind the large, wide cinnamon tree on the balcony. Just in that split second I had a feeling that he was opening the door for you. Sure enough, you got out of the car. The two of you stood by the car and talked for a while, and then you walked further into the compound along the small road. Chen Zai’s mother heard the car and also came to the balcony. I asked her who the person was that had just been talking to Chen Zai. She said, ‘That is Tiao, Yin Xiaotiao. Her family lives in the same compound as we do.’

“Sure enough, that woman was you, Tiao. For a long time the name ‘Tiao’ had frightened me, made me feel uncomfortable and tense. When you first appeared that Sunday, I felt a pang of emptiness and unease. From my momentary glimpse of you, as I hid behind the cinnamon tree, I remember your hairstyle, clothes, and shoes. I had imagined you as someone very avant-garde, with short hair like a boy’s. But you wore your hair gathered up and used a hairpin to fix it into a tidy ponytail, casual and unusual. Your smooth forehead and graceful walk also left a deep impression on me, making me both envious and ill at ease. I even remembered you held a light, soft straw hat in your hand, decorated with a linen ribbon that had Persian chrysanthemum patterns. Ah, crowned with Persian chrysanthemums, I thought. I had no idea why such a poetic description would pop into my mind just when I was at my lowest: crowned with Persian chrysanthemums.

“Anyway, you were crowned with Persian chrysanthemums. Do you remember having that straw hat?” Wan Meicheng said, and scooted the chair under her bottom so she could be closer to Tiao. Tiao could see her nostrils flaring, which made her seem like some harmless small creature with a keen sense of smell. She was sniffing Tiao, or maybe she wasn’t sniffing Tiao but trying to sniff out Chen Zai through Tiao. She was driven to get close to Tiao, and the closer she was to her, the closer she was to Chen Zai. Maybe her nostrils were not flaring, and it was just Tiao’s imagination. Still, she believed Wan Meicheng’s eagerness to be around her was because of her yearning to be around Chen Zai, exactly as she’d said at their first meeting. It made Tiao feel a little insecure, and yet she was also drawn to Wan Meicheng. Wan Meicheng hadn’t come to condemn her and provoke her; their meeting felt more like a heart-to-heart talk, with frankness and compliments enhancing each other. Wan Meicheng was either very sincere or very crafty, but one thing Tiao was sure of was that she wasn’t threatening. What had she asked her? Oh, she’d asked if Tiao remembered that she used to have a straw hat.