Tie Ning - The Bathing Women

1

Autumn had arrived, and their wedding date was approaching, but Tiao often lost her temper with Chen Zai for no reason. Once, when he turned around, she discovered that the hair on the back of his head seemed thinner than it had been; he was balding prematurely. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen the back of his head before, but why hadn’t she realized that he was losing his hair? She mentioned this to him, and he said, “I’ve been this way for ten years, Tiao. Have you really never noticed?”

Tiao went quiet. If she hadn’t noticed that the back of his head had been like this ten years ago, then it simply proved she didn’t know him well enough. This made her nervous and unsure. And when she was nervous and unsure, she became capricious. She stayed up late and got up late, and Chen Zai had to try to wake her, calling her a lazy girl again and again. Then she would lift off the quilt, sit up, and say, “I know you think I’m lazy. I know it.”

“I don’t mind your being lazy, but if I didn’t call you ‘lazy girl,’ you wouldn’t get up at all.”

“Do you really not mind my being lazy?”

“I really don’t mind.”

“Then you have to say it in my ear.”

So he said it in her ear.

Still unsatisfied, she said, “You have to say you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Am I the one you love most?”

“Yes, you’re the one I love most.”

She fell back, throwing herself onto the bed. This quick and careless gesture of hers Chen Zai found very exciting. The curtains were not opened yet, which tempted them into other activities. So he got onto the bed, held her tightly, and buried his head into her warm bosom.

As the evening came, she kept making demands on him, loosing a stream of obscenities, and also asking him to beat her. He didn’t know why she would act like this, or why she was shivering as if with fever, frantic as if it were the last day of life on earth, and tender as if they were going to part forever … He didn’t dare think about it any further. They were going to have a good life together, and nothing could stop him from loving her. During the night, late on this night with its bright autumn moon and light breeze, they drew the curtain open and let the moonlight flow over their big bed, and they made love in that moonlight, which melted Tiao’s wildness into a soft coupling with Chen Zai; her gleaming body undulated in the moonlight like satin billowing in a light breeze. They were so naturally attuned to each other, what could it be, if not love? In his arms, she sank into a sleep so deep it seemed as if she would never wake up again.

For a while he gazed at Tiao in her sound sleep, then got off the bed quietly and went to the living room. He hesitated briefly in front of the telephone and picked up the receiver and began to dial. He was calling Wan Meicheng; he’d heard that she was going to Gabon. He didn’t notice that Tiao in the bedroom had woken up and come to the living room in pyjamas. She heard Chen Zai’s conversation at the door. When he put down the receiver she turned on the light.

He looked at her standing at the doorway with some surprise. She returned to the bedroom and got his pyjamas for him to put on. Then they sat down. “I heard your phone call.”

“I’m sure you’ll understand. She, their family, are southerners who like to sleep with their windows open at night. It used to be my job to close the windows. Now it’s autumn and the wind is chilly. I was afraid she wouldn’t remember.”

“Chen Zai, you don’t have to explain. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He stood up and said, “Let’s go back to sleep.”

“No. Listen, I have a few more things to say.”

He reached out and took hold of her feet and said, “Your feet are very cold.”

“I don’t care.”

So he lifted her feet and placed them on his chest.

“Chen Zai, you know when a person is planning to make an important decision he or she might feel frustrated for quite a while, as I have. I just figured out why I’ve been losing my temper at you and have been so unhappy with myself lately. It was because I wanted to make a decision but kept hesitating. Now I want to tell you, you should … you should …”

She couldn’t go on; she was crying. Although she had made up her mind, it was still so difficult to let it out.

He said, “Tell me what you mean. What should I do?”

She calmed herself a bit and continued, “You should go back to Wan Meicheng.”

“Tiao, don’t treat our life like a children’s game.”

“If I treated our life as a children’s game, I wouldn’t be in such pain. Don’t you know that? I wouldn’t suffer so much. You think I want this to happen? Do you think I like doing this?”

“Is this because of a telephone call? A phone call isn’t love. You know it isn’t.”

She said, “I know it’s not love, but it’s concern, something deeper than love. Ten years of marriage produces such concern. Because you understand this kind of concern I have to leave you; because you understand this kind of concern I respect you more. Chen Zai, I love you, but you should leave. You must leave.”

“Tiao, listen to me. There are things you still don’t know—”

She interrupted him and said, “I know. Wan Meicheng and I met a few times.”

“You and she met? You two?”

“Yes, we met. So it’s not because of the phone call you made today; it’s because I was moved by her. She made me sad; she had the power to make me feel sad. I have to give you back to her. You might think you did something to hurt me, but you’ve done nothing wrong. You’re a real man because you kept your promise of marrying me. In an era that despises promises, you preserve the old-fashioned innocence of a promise. But that’s not how life is. Life demands that we be separate. Chen Zai, I want you to believe me, the further away I’ll be from you, the more I’ll love you …”

The next day, Tiao called Wan Meicheng as soon as she got into the office. She told Wan Meicheng that she didn’t have to go to Gabon anymore. Chen Zai had something urgent to say to her. She also told Wan Meicheng that she was not going to marry Chen Zai, and that Wan Meicheng could remarry him at any time.

To avoid Chen Zai, Tiao moved back to her parents’ home for a while. She lived with Yixun and Wu again, in the midst of their quarrels.

One morning, when Wu heated up the milk, it began to spill over the sides of the pot. She immediately moved the pot off the stove and told Yixun that the milk was ready.

Yixun said the milk was not ready and she needed to heat it up again.

“The milk was already boiling over. How could it not be ready?”

“The milk has to boil in the pot. It has to really boil, like boiling water.”

Wu said, “It already overflowed. How can it not have boiled?”

Yixun said with loathing, “Of course it didn’t. It’s very likely that some part of the milk is still cold.”

Wu said, “So what? Pasteurized milk can be drunk cold.”

Yixun said, “Are you trying to say it was a good thing to have the milk overflow because it can be drunk cold? I find it extremely strange that you can’t admit to even a small mistake. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t found straw in this so-called ‘high-temperature pasteurized’ milk. You do know what straw is?”

Wu mumbled, “That was because you happened to drink the milk while you had your reading glasses on.”

Yixun raised his voice and said, “Right, right. It’s precisely because I had my reading glasses on that I saw the straw in my milk, which only proves I don’t know how much straw I’ve swallowed when I’m not wearing them. What are you trying to say by pointing out that I drank the milk with my reading glasses on? What’s the connection between my wearing reading glasses to drink and your lifelong ignorance of how to heat milk or to tell when water boils?”