Lisa See - Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

I’d done all of those things with an open heart, but what about Snow Flower?

“You do not know of what you speak,” I said. “On the day your niece and I signed our contract, you said, ‘No concubines allowed.’ Do you remember that, old woman? Now go ask your niece what she has done.”

I tossed the fan into the matchmaker’s lap and turned my face away, my heart as chilled as the river water that used to run over my feet. I felt that old woman’s eyes on me, weighing, wondering, questioning, but she did not have the will to go on. I heard her rise unsteadily. Her eyes continued to bore into me, but I did not waver in my steadfastness.

“I will relay your message,” she said at last, her voice filled with kindness and a deep understanding that agitated me, “but know this. You are a rare person. I saw that long ago. Everyone in our county envies your good luck. Everyone wishes you longevity and prosperity. But I see you breaking two hearts. It is so sad. I remember the little girl you were. You had nothing but a pretty pair of feet. Now you have abundance in your life, Lady Lu—an abundance of malice, ingratitude, and forgetfulness.”

She hobbled out the door. I heard her get into her palanquin and order her bearers to take her to Jintian. I could not believe that I had allowed her to have the last word.

A YEAR WENT by. The day of Snow Flower’s cousin’s Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber next door approached. I was still devastated, my mind beating a never-ending rhythm —ta dum, ta dum, ta dum— like a heart or a woman’s chant. Snow Flower and I had planned to go to the celebration together. I didn’t know if she would still come. If she did, I hoped we could avoid a confrontation. I didn’t want to fight her as I’d fought my mother.

The tenth day of the tenth month arrived—a good and propitious date for the neighbor girl to begin her wedding activities. I walked next door and went to the upstairs chamber. The bride was pretty in a wan sort of way. Her sworn sisters sat around her. I spotted Madame Wang and, next to her, Snow Flower: clean, her hair pulled back in the style befitting a married lady, and dressed in one of the outfits I had given her. That sensitive spot where my ribs came together above my stomach constricted. The blood seemed to drain from my head and I thought I might faint. I didn’t know if I could sit through this event with Snow Flower in the room and still maintain my dignity as a woman. I quickly glanced at the other faces. Snow Flower had not brought Willow, Lotus, or Plum Blossom with her for companionship. I let my breath out in a whoosh of relief. If one of them had been there, I would have run away.

I took a seat across the room from Snow Flower and her aunt. The celebration had all of the usual singing, complaints, stories, and jokes. Then the mother of the bride asked Snow Flower to tell us of her life since leaving Tongkou.

“Today I will sing a Letter of Vituperation,” Snow Flower announced.

This was not at all what I had anticipated. How could Snow Flower possibly want to make a public grievance against me when I was the one who had been wronged? If anything, I should have prepared a chant of accusation and retaliation.

“The pheasant squawks and the sound carries far,” she began. The women in the room turned to her upon hearing the familiar opening for this traditional type of communication. Then Snow Flower began to sing in that same ta dum, ta dum, ta dum rhythm I had been hearing for months. “For five days I burned incense and prayed to find the courage to come here. For three days I boiled fragrant water to cleanse my skin and my clothing so I would be presentable to my old friends. I have put my soul into my song. As a girl, I was prized as a daughter, but everyone here knows how hard my life has been. I lost my natal home. I lost my natal family. The women in my family have been unlucky for two generations. My husband is not kind. My mother-in-law is cruel. I have been pregnant seven times, but only three babies breathed the air of this world. Now only a son and a daughter live. It seems I am cursed by fate. I must have done bad deeds in a former life. I am seen as less than others.”

The bride’s sworn sisters wept in sympathy as they were supposed to. Their mothers listened attentively —oohing and aahing over the sad parts, shaking their heads at the inevitability of a woman’s fate, and admiring the way that Snow Flower drew upon our language of misery.

“I had but one happiness in my life, my laotong, ” Snow Flower went on —ta dum, ta dum, ta dum. “In our contract we wrote there would never be a harsh word between us, and for twenty-seven years this was so. We always spoke true words. We were like long vines, reaching out to each other, forever entwined. But when I told her of my sadness, she had no patience. When she saw how poor I was in spirit, she reminded me that men farm and women weave, that industriousness brings no hunger, believing I could change my destiny. But how can there be a world without the poor and ill-fated?”

I watched the women in the room cry for her. I was beyond stunned.

“Why have you turned away from me?” she sang out, her voice high and beautiful. “You and I are laotong— together in our souls even when we couldn’t be together in our daily lives.” Abruptly she brought in a new subject. “And why have you hurt my daughter? Spring Moon is too young to understand why, and you will not say. I did not expect you to have a malicious heart. I beg you to remember that once our good feeling was as deep as the sea. Do not make a third generation of women suffer.”

At this last bit, the air in the room changed as the others took in this final injustice. Life was hard enough for girls without my making it harder for someone far weaker than myself.

I drew myself up. I was Lady Lu, the woman with the greatest respect in the county, and I should have risen above this. Instead, I listened to that inner music that had been pounding in my head and heart for months now.

“The pheasant squawks and the sound carries far,” I said, as a Letter of Vituperation began to form in my mind. I still wanted to be reasonable, so I addressed Snow Flower’s last and most unfair accusation first. I looked from woman to woman as I sang. “Our two girls cannot be laotong. They are not the same in any way. Your old neighbor wants something for her daughter, but I won’t break the taboo. In saying no, I have done what any mother would do.”

Then, “All the women in this room know hardship. As girls, we are raised as useless branches. We may love our families, but we are not with them for long. We marry out into villages we do not know, into families we do not know, to men we do not know. We work endlessly, and if we complain we lose what little respect our in-laws have for us. We bear children; sometimes they die, sometimes we die. When our husbands tire of us, they take in concubines. We have all faced adversity—crops that don’t come in, winters that are too cold, planting seasons with no rain. None of this is so special, but this woman seeks special attention for her woes.”

I turned to Snow Flower. Tears stung my eyes as I sang to her, and I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. “You and I were matched as a pair of mandarin ducks. I always remained true, but you’ve shunned me to embrace sworn sisters. A girl sends a fan to one girl, not writing new ones to many. A good horse does not have two saddles; a good woman is not unfaithful to her laotong. Perhaps your perfidy is why your husband, your mother-in-law, your children, and, yes, the betrayed old same before you, do not cherish you as they might. You shame us all with your girlish fancies. If my husband came home today with a concubine, I would be thrown from my bed, neglected, dismissed from his attentions. I—as all the women here—would have to accept it. But . . . from . . . you . . .”