Lisa See - Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

But I didn’t abandon my children easily. My other sisters-in-law were with their own families in their own rooms. I didn’t know what was happening behind their closed doors. They might have already taken sick. They might have already died. I couldn’t trust my father-in-law with the care of my children either. Had he not spent the night beside his wife? Wouldn’t he be the next to get sick? And I had not seen Uncle Lu since the epidemic began, although he left his empty bowl outside his room each morning and evening for me to refill.

I sat in the kitchen, twisting my fingers with worry. Yonggang came over, knelt before me, and said, “I will watch your children.”

I remembered how she had escorted me to Snow Flower’s house just after my wedding, how she had cared for me after I’d given birth to my babies, and how she had turned out to be loyal and discreet in carrying my letters to my laotong. She had done all this for me, and along the way, without my noticing, she had grown from a ten-year-old girl into a big-boned, big-footed young woman of twenty-four. To me, she was still as ugly as a pig’s genitals, but I knew she had not yet fallen ill and that she would care for my children as though they were her own.

I gave her exact instructions for how I wanted their water and food prepared, and I gave her a knife to keep with her in case things got worse and she had to guard the door. With that, I left my children in the hands of the fates and turned my attention to my husband’s mother.

For the next five days, I cared for my mother-in-law in all the ways a daughter-in-law can. I cleaned her lower half when she no longer had the strength to use the chamber pot. I made her the same congee that I had made my children; then I cut my arm as I had seen my mother do so that my vital fluid could be stirred into the porridge. This is a daughter-in-law’s supreme gift and I gave it, hoping that through some miracle what had given me vitality would replenish hers.

But I don’t have to tell you how terrible this disease is. You know what happens. She died. She had always been fair, and often kind, to me, so it was hard to say goodbye. When her last breath seeped out, I knew I couldn’t do everything that should be done for a woman of her stature. I washed her soiled and desiccated body in warm water scented with sandalwood. I dressed her in her longevity clothes and tucked her nu shu writing in her pockets, sleeves, and tunic. Unlike a man, she had not written to leave a good name for a hundred generations. She had written to tell her friends of her thoughts and emotions, and they had written her in the same way. Under other circumstances, I would have burned these things at her grave site. But with the heat and the epidemic, bodies had to be buried quickly with little thought given to issues of feng shui, nu shu, or filial duty. All I could do was make sure my mother-in-law would have the comfort of her friends’ words for reading and singing in the afterworld. As soon as I was done, her body was carted away for a hasty burial.

My mother-in-law had lived a long life. I could be happy for her in that regard. And, because my mother-in-law died, I became the head woman of the household, though my husband was still away. Now the sisters-in-law would have to answer to me. They would need to remain in my good graces to receive favorable treatment. With the concubines also dead, I looked forward to more harmony, because on one thing I was very clear: There would be no more concubines under this roof.

Just as the servants had intuited, the disease was leaving our county. We opened our doors and took stock. In our household, we had lost my mother-in-law, my third brother-in-law, his entire family, and the concubines. Brothers Two and Four survived, as did their families. In my natal family, Mama and Baba died. Of course I regretted that I had not spent more time with them on my last visit, but Baba and I had stopped having much of a relationship after I had my feet bound, and things had never been the same with Mama after our argument over the lies she had kept about Snow Flower. As a married-out daughter, my only obligation was to mourn my parents for a year. I tried to honor my monkey mother for what she had done to and for me, but I was not heartsick with grief.

All in all, we were lucky. Uncle Lu and I did not exchange words. That would have been improper. But when he came out of his room he was no longer a benign uncle idling away his retirement years. He drilled my son with such intensity, focus, and dedication that we never had to hire an outside tutor again. My son never shirked in his studies, buoyed by the knowledge that the night of his wedding and the day his name appeared on the emperor’s golden list would be the most glorious of his life. In the former, he would be fulfilling his role as a filial son; in the latter, he would leap from the obscurity of our little county to such fame that the whole of China would know him.

But before any of that happened, my husband came home. I cannot begin to explain the relief I felt as I saw his palanquin come up the main road, followed by a procession of oxen-pulled carts loaded with bags of salt and other goods. All the things I had worried about and cried about were not going to happen to me—at least not yet. I was swept up in the happiness that all of Tongkou’s women showed as our men unloaded the carts. We all cried, releasing the burdens, fear, and grief we had been carrying. For me—for all of us—my husband was the first good sign that any of us had seen in months.

The salt was sold throughout the county to desperate but grateful people. The extravagance of these sales washed away our financial worries. We paid our taxes. We bought back the fields we’d had to sell. The Lu family’s standing and wealth abounded. That year’s harvest turned out to be bountiful, which made autumn even more celebratory. Having weathered dark days, we could not have been more relieved. My father-in-law hired artisans to come to Tongkou and paint additional friezes under our eaves that would tell our neighbors and all those who would visit our village in the future of our prosperity and good luck. I could walk outside today and see them now: my husband in his jacket boarding the boat to take him downriver, his dealings with the Guilin merchants, the women of our household wearing flowing gowns and doing our embroidery as we waited, and my husband’s joyous return.

Everything is painted under our eaves just as it happened, except for the portrait of my father-in-law. In the frieze he sits in a high-backed chair, surveying all he owns and looking proud, but in reality he missed his wife and no longer had the heart to care for worldly things. He died quietly one day, walking the fields. Our first duties were to be the best mourners the county had ever seen. My father-in-law was laid in a coffin and placed outside for five days. With our new money, we hired a band to play music, all day and all night. People from around the county came to kowtow before the coffin. They brought with them gifts of money wrapped in white envelopes, silk banners, and scrolls decorated with men’s writing praising my father-in-law. All the brothers and their wives went on their knees to the grave site. The people of Tongkou plus others from neighboring villages followed behind us on foot. We were a river of white in our mourning clothes as we inched our way through the green fields. At every seven paces, everyone kowtowed, foreheads to the ground. The grave site was a kilometer away, so you can imagine how many times we stopped on that rocky road.

Young and old wailed their grief, while the band blared their horns, trilled their flutes, crashed their cymbals, and banged their drums. As the eldest son, my husband burned paper money and set off firecrackers. The men sang; the women sang. My husband had also hired several monks, who performed rites to help lead my father-in-law—and, we hoped, all those who had died in the epidemic—to a happy existence in the spirit world. Following the burial, we hosted a banquet for the entire village. As the guests went home, high-ranking Lu cousins gave each person a good-luck coin in paper, a piece of candy to wash away the bitter taste of death, and a washing towel for body cleansing. That took care of the first week of rites. Altogether we had forty-nine days of ceremonies, offerings, banquets, speeches, music, and tears. By the end—although my husband and I were not yet done with our official mourning period—everyone in the county knew that we were, at least in name, the new Master and Lady Lu.