Lisa See - Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

So a small band of men set out, treading carefully down the mountain, hoping to find food and other necessities in the villages we had evacuated. Only a few made it back, and they told of seeing their friends decapitated and the heads mounted on stakes. The new widows, unable to bear the news, committed suicide: throwing their bodies over the cliff they had worked so hard to climb, swallowing burning embers from the evening fire, cutting their own throats, or slowly starving themselves. Those who didn’t take this path dishonored themselves even more by seeking new lives with other men around other fires. It seemed that in the mountains some women forgot the rules about widowhood. Even if we are poor, even if we are young, even if we have children, it is better to die, remain true to our husbands, and keep our virtue than to bring shame on their memories.

Separated from my children, I observed Snow Flower’s closely, seeing how they had been influenced by her, learning more about her through them, and—because I missed my own so terribly—comparing mine to hers. In my home, our eldest son had already taken his rightful place and a bright future stretched before him. In this family, Snow Flower’s eldest son had a position even lower than hers. No one loved him. He seemed adrift. Yet to me he was the most like my laotong. He was gentle and delicate. Perhaps this was why she had turned away from him with such a hard heart.

My second son was a good and smart boy, but he did not have the inquisitiveness of my first son. I imagined him living with us for his entire life, marrying in a bride, siring children, and working for his older brother. Snow Flower’s second son, on the other hand, was the bright light of this family. He had his father’s build, short and stocky, with strong arms and legs. The child never showed fear, never shivered from cold, never whined with hunger. He followed his father like a shadow spirit, even going on hunting expeditions. He must have been a help in some way or else the butcher would not have allowed such a thing. When they returned with an animal carcass, the boy sat on his haunches next to his baba, learning how to prepare the meat for cooking. This similarity to his father told me a lot about Snow Flower. Her husband may have been crude, stinky, and beneath my old same in every way, but the love she showed the boy told me that she also cared very much for her husband.

Spring Moon’s face and manner were everything that my daughter’s were not. Jade carried my so-so family’s coarseness in her features, which was why I was so hard on her. Since the moneys made from the salt business would provide her with a generous dowry, she would marry well. I believed Jade would make a good wife, but Spring Moon would become an extraordinary wife, if she were given the chances I’d been given.

All of them made me miss my family.

I was lonely and scared, but this was softened by the nights with Snow Flower. But how do I tell you this? Even here, even under these circumstances, with so many people about, the butcher wanted to do bed business with my laotong. In the cold and open space right next to the fire, they did it under their quilt. The rest of us averted our eyes, but we could not close our ears. Thankfully he was quiet, with only the occasional grunt, but a few times I heard sighs of enjoyment—not from the butcher but from my laotong. I did not understand this thing. After that business was over, Snow Flower would come to me and wrap her arms around me as we had done as girls. I could smell the sex on her, but with the freezing temperatures I was grateful for her warmth. Without her body next to mine I would have been just another woman who died in the night.

Naturally, with all that bed business, Snow Flower got pregnant again, though I hoped that between the cold, the hardship, and our lack of nourishment that her monthly bleeding had simply paused as had mine. She did not want to hear that kind of talk.

“I’ve been pregnant before,” she said. “I know the signs.”

“Then I wish for you another son.”

“This time”—her eyes gleamed with a combination of happiness and certainty—”I will have one.”

“Indeed, sons are always a blessing. You should be proud of your eldest son.”

“Yes,” she responded mildly, then added, “I have watched you two together. You like him. Do you like him enough for him to become your son-in-law?”

I liked the boy, but this proposal was out of the question.

“There can be no man-woman match between our families,” I said. I owed Snow Flower a great deal for what I had become. I wanted to do the same for Spring Moon, but I would never allow my daughter to stoop so low. “A true-heart match between our daughters is far more important, don’t you agree?”

“Of course you are right,” Snow Flower responded, unaware, I think, of my true feelings. “When we get home we will meet with Auntie Wang as planned. As soon as the girls’ feet have settled into their new shapes, they will go to the Temple of Gupo to sign their contract, buy a fan to write of their lives together, and eat at the taro stand.”

“You and I should meet in Shexia too. If we are discreet, we can watch them.”

“Do you mean spy on them?” Snow Flower asked, incredulous. When I smiled, she laughed. “I always thought I was the wicked one, but look who’s scheming now!”

Despite the privations of those weeks and months, our plan for our daughters gave us hope and we tried to remember life’s goodness with each passing day. We celebrated Snow Flower’s younger son’s fifth birthday. He was such a funny little boy and we were entertained watching him with his father. They acted like two pigs together—nosing about, foraging, jostling their strong bodies against each other, both of them streaked with dirt and grime, both of them delighting in each other’s company. The older son was content to sit with the women. Because of my interest in the boy, Snow Flower began paying attention to him too. Under her eyes, he smiled readily. In his expression, I saw his mother’s face at that age—sweet, guileless, intelligent. Snow Flower looked back at him—not with mother love exactly, but as though she liked what she saw more than she had previously thought.

One day as I was teaching him a song, she said, “He shouldn’t learn our women’s songs. We learned some poetry as girls—”

“Through your mother—”

“And I’m sure you’ve learned more in your husband’s home.”

“I have.”

We were both excited, rattling off titles of poems we knew.

Snow Flower took her boy’s hand. “Let’s teach him what we can to be an educated man.”

I knew this would not be so very much since we were both illiterate, but that boy was like a dried mushroom dropped into boiling water. He soaked up everything we gave him. Soon he could recite the Tang dynasty poem that Snow Flower and I had loved so well as girls and whole passages from the classical book for boys that I had memorized to help my son in his lessons. For the first time, I saw true pride in Snow Flower’s face. The rest of the family did not feel the same, but for once Snow Flower did not cower or cede to their demands that we stop. She had remembered the little girl who used to pull back the curtain on the palanquin so we could peek out.

Those days—cold and uncomfortable and as filled with fear and hardship as they were—were wonderful in the sense that Snow Flower was happy in a way I had not seen her for many years. Pregnant, without much food, she seemed to glow from inside as though she were lit by an oil lamp. She enjoyed the company of the three sworn sisters from Jintian and relished not being locked up solely with her mother-in-law. Sitting with those women, Snow Flower sang songs I hadn’t heard for a long time. Out here in the open, away from the confines of her dark and dreary little house, her horse spirit was free.