Lisa See - Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

When I returned home and asked my husband about the Taipings, he answered, “A wife should worry about her children and making her family happy. If your natal family disquiets you so, next time I will not give you permission to visit.”

I did not say another word about the outer realm.

A LACK OF rain and what that did to the crops made everyone in Tongkou hungry—from the lowest fourth daughter of a farmer to the revered Uncle Lu—yet I still didn’t concern myself until I saw our storeroom begin to empty. Soon my mother-in-law disciplined us over spilled tea or too large a fire in the brazier. My father-in-law refrained from taking much meat from the central dish, preferring that his grandsons eat this precious resource first. Uncle Lu, who had lived in the palace, did not complain as he might have, but as the truth of his circumstances sank in, he became more demanding of my son, hoping that this small boy would be the family’s passage back to better circumstances.

This challenged my husband. At night when we were in bed and the lamps turned low, he confided in me. “Uncle Lu sees something in our son, and I was happy when he took over the boy’s lessons. But now I look ahead and see we might have to send him away to pursue his studies. How can we do that when the whole county knows we will soon have to sell fields if we are to eat?” In the darkness, my husband took my hand. “Lily, I have an idea and my father thinks it is a good one, but I worry about you and our sons.”

I waited, afraid of what he would say next.

“People need certain things to live,” he continued. “Air, sun, water, and firewood are free, if not always abundant. But salt is not free, and everyone needs salt to live.”

My hand tightened around his. Where was this leading?

“I have asked my father if I can take the last of our savings,” he said, “travel to Guilin, buy salt, and bring it back here to sell. He has granted me permission.”

There were more dangers than I could name. Guilin was in the next province. To get there, my husband would have to pass through territory occupied by the rebels. Those who weren’t rebels were desperate farmers who’d lost their homes and had turned into bandits who stole from those who dared travel the roads. The salt business itself was perilous, which was one reason it was always in such short supply. Men who controlled salt in our province had their own armies, but my husband was just one man. He had no experience dealing with either warlords or wily merchants. If all this were not enough, my female mind imagined my husband encountering many beautiful women in Guilin. If he were successful in his venture, he might bring one or more of them home as concubines. My weakness as a woman came out of my mouth first.

“Don’t pluck at wildflowers,” I begged, using the euphemism for the types of women he might meet.

“A wife’s value is in her virtues, not her face,” he reassured me. “You have given me sons. My body will travel a great distance, but my eyes will not look at what they shouldn’t see.” He paused, then added, “Remain faithful, avoid temptation, obey my mother, and serve our sons.”

“I would do no less,” I promised. “But I don’t worry about myself.”

I tried to tell him of my other concerns, but he responded, “Do we stop living because a few people are unhappy? We must continue to use our roads and rivers. They belong to all Chinese people.”

He said he might be gone for a year.

FROM THE MOMENT my husband left, I worried. As the months wore on, I grew increasingly anxious and frightened. If something happened to him, what would become of me? As a widow, I would have very few options. Since my children were too young to take care of me, my father-in-law could sell me away to another man. Knowing that under those circumstances I might never see my children again, I understood why so many widows killed themselves. But crying day and night about the possibilities was no way for me to go. I tried to maintain a serene facade in the upstairs chamber, even as I agonized over my husband’s safety.

Longing to be comforted by the sight of my first son, I did something I had not done before. I volunteered many times a day to fetch tea for the women in the upstairs chamber; then, once downstairs, I sat quietly within earshot of his lessons with Uncle Lu.

“The three most important powers are Heaven, Earth, and Man,” my son recited. “The three luminaries are the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Opportunities given by Heaven are not equal to the advantages afforded by Earth, while the advantages of Earth do not match the blessings that come from harmony among men.”

“Any boy can memorize the words, but what do they mean?” Uncle Lu was strident in his correctness.

Do you think my son could give a wrong answer? No, and I’ll tell you why. If he didn’t answer a question correctly or made a mistake in his recitations, Uncle Lu gave him a whack on his open palm with a bamboo slat. If he got it wrong the next day, twice the punishment.

“Heaven gives Man weather, but without the fertile soil of the Earth, it is worthless,” my son answered. “And rich soil is useless without harmony among men.”

From my shadowed corner I beamed with pride, but Uncle Lu did not conclude the lesson because of one right answer.

“Very good. Now let’s talk about empire. If you strengthen the family and follow the rules that are written in the Book of Rites, then order will be found in a household. This spreads from one household to the next, building the security of the state until you reach the emperor. But one rebel begets another rebel and soon there is disorder. Little one, pay attention. Our family owns land. Your grandfather ruled over it while I was gone, but now the people know I no longer have court connections. They see and hear the rebels. We must be very, very careful.”

But the terror he was so afraid of did not arrive in the form of the Taipings. The last thing I heard before the death spirits descended on us was that Snow Flower was pregnant again. I embroidered her a handkerchief wishing her health and happiness in the coming months, then decorated it with silvery fish jumping from a pale-blue stream, believing that this was the most benign—and cool—image I could create for one who would be pregnant during summer.

THAT YEAR THE big heat came early. It was too soon to go back to our natal homes, so we women and children languished in our upstairs chambers, waiting, waiting, waiting. When the temperature continued to go up, the men in Tongkou and in the villages around us took the children to the river to wade and swim. This was the same river where I had cooled my feet as a girl, so I was delighted when my father-in-law and my brothers-in-law offered to treat the children in this way. But it was also the same river where the big-footed girls did the washing and—as the village wells soured with insect larvae—hauled water for drinking and cooking.

The first case of typhoid struck in the best village in the county—my Tongkou. It fell upon the precious first son of one of our tenant farmers, then swept through that household, killing everyone. The disease arrived as a fever, followed by a severe headache, then sickness in the stomach. Sometimes a hoarse cough came next, or a rash of rose-colored spots. But once the diarrhea hit, it was only a matter of hours before death brought a merciful end. As soon as we heard a child had taken ill, we knew what would happen next. First the child died, then the other brothers and sisters, then the mother, then the father. It was a pattern that we heard again and again, for a mother cannot turn away from a sick child and a husband cannot abandon a dying wife. Soon every village in the county had cases.

The Lu family retreated from village life and shut its doors. The servants disappeared, perhaps sent away by my father-in-law, perhaps running away out of fear. To this day, I still don’t know. The women in our household gathered the children into our upstairs chamber, believing we would be safest there. Third Sister-in-law’s infant son was the first to show symptoms. His forehead became dry and hot. His cheeks flushed a deep pink. I saw this and took my children to my sleeping chamber. I called for my eldest son. Without my husband here, I should have surrendered to his desire to stay with his great uncle and the rest of the men, but I did not give him a choice.