Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

He said, “Right Away is a person, a migrant worker from the Henan countryside who works in Beijing. The movie tells the story of how he goes home during the Spring Festival. It’s a very interesting story, it’s … No, I shouldn’t continue. I’m a little afraid to talk about art now around you. Are you coming to see the movie tomorrow? I hope you will, and I also hope …”

“What else do you hope?”

He put down the pipe and hugged himself with both arms. “Tiao, you’re still not married, right?”

“Yes, I’m still not married.”

“Well, I’m the same. I’m also not married.”

She said, “Oh.”

“Aren’t you interested in my life anymore?”

“We all have our own lives.”

“Don’t you want to know why I’m single? My wife … she died, a brain tumour, a malignant brain tumour.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He said, “Why do you think I came to Fuan? I made the trip almost entirely because of you. Tiao, if you’re still unmarried, if you could … could recall everything between us before …”

“Professor Fang Jing, I’m not married yet, but I will be soon.”

“Really? Who is he?”

“He’s an architect. This Yunxiang Square where you’re staying was his work.”

He said, “Oh.”

She glanced at her watch and said, “It’s getting late. I should go. I have to work tomorrow, so I can’t attend the premiere, but I’m sure it will be a great success. Please take care of yourself.”

He stood up and stopped her at the door. He said, “I beg you to keep me company a little longer. If you think it’s too late and it’s inappropriate for us to stay in the room, how about going out? Can we go out to have something to eat?”

She smiled at him calmly. “Please let me by.”

He moved aside to let her leave the room. Not quite in step, he walked her into the lift and then down through the lobby. Knowing he would receive her polite but firm refusal if he continued, he stopped at the door of the hotel. He gazed at the back of her figure, so familiar to him but which he could no longer approach, and he remembered the first kiss she had given him, as light as a feather. Suddenly he wanted to return to Beijing right away, right then.

Sitting in the taxi and seeing Fang Jing’s figure, which seemed a bit at a loss at the door of the lobby, Tiao’s stomach started to gurgle. Those tiny black characters, long destroyed by her, seemed to emerge again, flowing around her body, inside her, and down her limbs. On her bare arms, the goose bumps seemed to be the bulges made by the letters. She confirmed to herself again that what she loved were the words, which would never disappear, not the person who wrote the words. Sympathy arose again in her heart and she wished Fang Jing’s life would turn out happy.

She went home and Chen Zai was waiting for her in the light of the desk lamp.

He said, “I read the evening paper. Fang Jing is here.”

“I just came back from Fang Jing’s place.”

“I knew you would tell me.”

“Hold me, Chen Zai. Hold me.”

He held her and kissed her eyebrows gently. “Try to be a little happier, a little happier.”

She buried her head in his shoulder and said, “I’m happy. I’m very happy.” But even then she couldn’t explain to herself why there were so many undercurrents that wouldn’t go away.

6

The experience of many women testifies to the power of shopping in relieving depression. Tiao didn’t think she was depressed, but today she walked around the mall aimlessly. She intended vaguely to buy things for her wedding; she had already bought quite a bit on and off, but still felt as though she’d accomplished nothing.

She went first to a small shop that sold light window curtains and saw many sample products from the Netherlands. Some were quite expensive, such as the pipe organ shade, wooden venetian blind, and a bamboo shade, but she liked them very much; others, like those metal blinds, didn’t appeal to her. She was thinking that the soft-looking pipe organ screen might suit Chen Zai’s study. As for the living room, she preferred a white shade, more classical and traditional, but peaceful. She’d always liked white shades.

After that, she went to the Fuan Famous Brand Department Store, which had opened recently. She took the lift directly to the second floor to shop around in women’s clothes. While she was there, an argument between two customers flared in the makeup section, possibly near the Christian Dior counter. The argument started small, but for some reason it got more and more heated. On one side were two young women with a child, and on the other side, the person who caused their anger and raised voices, was Tiao’s mother, Wu.

Wu had been picking out mascara for herself, and the woman holding her child was also looking through the display in the case. The child in her arms was about two years old and growing increasingly impatient with his mother’s meticulous browsing. He wriggled in her arms and kept hitting his mother, and as a side target, he hit Wu, who stood next to them. Wu didn’t like the child next to her, and she expressed her feelings by staring at him, as if she were one child staring at another, and maybe this was the true flash point. As an adult, if Wu had reminded the mother that she should stop her child from hitting other people, what followed wouldn’t have happened. However, stare she did, a sixty-year-old woman glaring at a two-year-old, which seemed immature and ridiculous. Even though the child’s mother didn’t notice Wu’s rude stare, a seed of hatred had been planted in the child’s heart. Children hold grudges. A two-year-old already has the ability to judge who’s good to him and who isn’t. This strange old woman next to him was apparently not friendly to him, so when she pressed against his little finger accidentally with her elbow, the child suddenly started to cry.

The child pointed at Wu with an aggrieved expression through his tears. Although he couldn’t describe to his mother Wu’s stare from a moment before, he could let his mother know that the person who made him cry was this old woman beside him. It was this old woman who had bullied and violated him, in a manner impossible to bear! Shocked by her son’s crying, the woman immediately seated the child on the counter with an air of entitlement and asked anxiously, “Sweetheart, sweetheart, what’s wrong? Did someone hurt you? Tell Mum what happened.” The child looked even more wronged. He kicked his little legs, pointed at Wu, and was choked with sobs. The woman glared at Wu and walked up to her. “What’s the matter with you? Why did you make my child cry?”

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t make your child cry.”

“Then why did he point at you? Why didn’t he point at someone else?” The crying child pointed his little hand at Wu again and said through his sobs, “Hand … hand …”

Wu recalled that she might have accidentally knocked against the child’s hand with her elbow a moment ago. She said to the woman, “I’m sorry. Maybe I accidentally hit your child’s hand. I apologize.”

As soon as the woman heard that this old woman had hit her child’s hand, her anger flared. She first grabbed the child’s hand, rubbed and blew on it, then blew on it and rubbed it again. She blew and rubbed it some more, and then grabbed Wu’s sleeve and said, “Hmm, you hit my child’s hand and didn’t want to admit it at first. Why did you hit his hand? You’ve lived all these years and learned nothing. Don’t you have eyes? What would you have done if you had broken his hand? Not a single hair on his head has been touched since he was born, and now he has the misfortune to run into you. How could you treat a child this way? How could you? He’s a baby, and what did he do to deserve being attacked by you?”