The Bathing Women

I wish you health,

Your daughter, Tiao

It was a long letter sprinkled with political phrases popular back then, such as “If this can be tolerated, what else cannot be?” and “expose,” etc., a letter filled with accusation and tears. Continually looking up words in an elementary school dictionary, Tiao spent three days finishing the letter. At sad moments, tears soaked the paper, smudging some of the words and stippling the pages. Tiao wanted to copy the letter out again, but she was eager to send it. Besides, even though the letter was a bit messy, it did reveal her real feelings, after all. She wanted Yixun to see her true feelings and anxiety.

She found an envelope and carefully wrote down the names and addresses for both the sender and receiver. She then hid the letter in her backpack and threw it into the first postbox she saw on her way to school. It was a round, cast-iron pillar box that stood outside the gate of the Architectural Design Academy, only a hundred metres from Tiao’s home, Building Number 6 in the residential complex. She stood on tiptoe to throw the letter into the mailbox, and her heart felt relieved as soon as she heard the gentle pa sound as the letter dropped to the bottom of the box, as if the postbox liberated her right at that moment, setting her long-unhappy heart free.

When she came home in the afternoon, Wu had already cooked the dinner. It won’t taste good, Tiao thought, but she ate her fill. She believed Yixun was coming home soon and things would change. Nothing would be a problem. Her change of mood started after dinner. At the time, Fan was lying under the covers of Wu’s big bed with her eyes quietly closed, her fever down and her measles almost gone. Wu was leaning on the side of the bed knitting. This jumper was for Fan. She had followed Tiao’s suggestion and bought the rose-coloured yarn. Keeping vigil over Fan for several days in a row had made her thinner than before; her eyes were red and her hair slightly messy. She knitted with her head lowered for a while, then took a bottle of eyedrops from the nightstand and put a few drops into her eyes. The eyedrops must have burned, and she leaned against the pillow with her eyes closed, bearing it quietly for a while. Some liquid ran out of the corners of her eyes, which Tiao thought was a mixture of tears and eyedrops. She felt that the way Wu leaned on the pillow with her messy hair and teary eyes looked a little awkward and pitiful. How she clutched her knitting needles also touched Tiao with a kind of sadness that she couldn’t explain. The room was quiet and peaceful, as if no stranger had ever entered and nothing had ever happened. In those few seconds, just in a few seconds, everything changed.

Why did she have to write to Yixun? Was everything she put in the letter true? What would happen to her family when her dad came home? Why would she expose Wu? Wasn’t that a word that should be used only for enemies? All of a sudden Tiao felt pressure in her head as if a disaster were approaching—it must feel that way when a disaster approached. With the pressure building in her head, when Wu was not paying attention, she opened the door and sneaked out.

She passed several residential buildings in the Architectural Design Academy, going by the office building near the gate, the one pasted with all kinds of slogans and posters. In the daytime, the wind blew through layer upon layer of posters and tore them to shreds, making the building look like a giant wailing madman. Night silenced the madman and its body only made small monotonous rustlings, a bit lonely but not frightening. As soon as she crossed the pitch-black courtyard and walked out the gate, she saw the postbox, faithfully and steadfastly standing in the shadow of the trees on the pavement. She rushed straight at the letterbox with hands outstretched. She anxiously groped for the mail slot: a narrow slot, which immediately made her realize the pointlessness of her fumbling, since she had no way to slide her hand into it. By the dim streetlight, she could read the two rows of small words below the slot: “collection time, 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.”

Tiao clearly understood those two lines of words, but once again she reached her hands into the slot. She explored the narrow slot with her fingers one after another, hoping that a miracle would happen, that her small fingers could fish out a letter that was already gone. She had sneaked out of the house believing she could get the letter back as long as she found the postbox. Now she realized that this belief of hers was just a pathetic, self-deceiving fantasy. Up and down, she studied the ice-cold cast-iron postbox, taller and bigger than she was. She encircled it with her arms, holding its waist in hopes of pulling it up by the root, or pushing it over and smashing it. She wrestled with it, pleaded with it, and sulked at it; all the while she believed for no reason that as long as she kept working on it she could get that terrible letter back. She didn’t know how long she tortured herself, not stopping until she was utterly exhausted. She then threw herself onto the postbox and beat it wearily with her small fists. This seemingly faithful postbox had refused to serve her. She leaned against the postbox and started to cry, sobbing and beating it, not knowing where to find the letter that had gone. After a while she heard someone speak behind her: “Hey, child, what’s the matter?”

She was frightened and immediately stopped crying, staring alertly at the one who had asked her the question. Although much taller than she was, he was not an adult, but three or four years older than she was, or four or five at the most. He was one of those high school students who, of course, were adults in Tiao’s eyes because they normally treated elementary school students with arrogance, and liked to appear older than they actually were. That was why this boy addressed her as a child.

But there was nothing arrogant about him. His voice was soft and there was real concern in it. He stooped towards Tiao, who was still leaning on the postbox, looked at her, and gently asked again, “Child, what’s the matter?”

Tiao shook her head, saying nothing. Somehow the word “child” calmed her and brought back her tears; a vague feeling of having been wronged filled her heart, as if this “Child, what’s the matter?” were something she had looked forward to hearing for a long time. She was entitled to be addressed that way and asked that question about many, many things. Now a stranger had done it, which made her want to trust him even though she shook her head and didn’t say anything. She said nothing and just wanted to hurry home because she remembered the adults’ warning: Don’t talk to strangers.

He followed her to the gate of the Design Academy and asked, “Do you live in the Design Academy? Then we are in the same complex. I live here, too. I can take you home.” He wanted to walk beside her, but she picked up her pace to get rid of him, as if he were a stalker. Finally, she ran into the building and up the stairs. She heard him calling outside, “I want to tell you my name is Chen Zai and I live in Building Number Two.”

6

Why do I always run into you when I’m at my lowest? Why do I run into you when I don’t want to run into anyone? When I am basking in glory, all decked out, and pleased with myself, you’re never there. That night, when I stood on the pavement hopelessly beating the postbox, I was oblivious to the possibility that someone could see me and I might get arrested. Something like that happened in Fuan later; two bored young men lit a firework, threw it into a postbox, and burned all the letters. They were sent to prison. I heard about it a year later. Luckily, throwing fireworks into a postbox never would have occurred to me; luckily, that incident happened after I tortured the postbox, otherwise I probably would have done the same thing out of frustration. I know it’s a crime, and I must have looked like a criminal at the time; at least I showed criminal passion. It was you who observed the darker side of me, and how long had you been watching? Did you start to spy on me as soon as I walked to the postbox, or did you approach as soon as you saw me? If it’s the former, that would make me very unhappy, because if you’d been watching that long you would have figured out that I wanted to steal letters. That’s the kind of thing others shouldn’t know, that battle I had with myself. Maybe you just accidentally saw me, and that “Child, what’s the matter?” really came out of concern, like that of a close family member. Maybe I should have just howled in front of you and begged you to smash the postbox along with me. But you’re not family. Besides, what’s the use of pounding a postbox? I didn’t realize until later when I was calm that my letter was long gone from the postbox. Ai! You said you lived in the same complex as I did, Building Number 2, three buildings away from us, which made me feel both trusting and uneasy. Trusting because living in the same complex felt like being “comrades in the same trench”—the catchphrase at the time—uneasy because you might see me again, point me out to your classmates or neighbours, and gossip about me, telling them about the show I’d put on that night. Who knows? One day, an afternoon in summer, I was playing rubber-band jump rope in front of the building with the rope of rubber bands strung between two trees and slipped higher and higher; I always liked the game, from primary school right through to middle school—I had just started sixth grade. I’d been easily able to jump to the “middle reach” long before; I hoped I could kick my leg up to the “big reach,” the highest height in the game. How high was the rubber-band rope then? It would have been the distance from my feet to the tips of my middle fingers when I stretched my arms upward over my head. My feet couldn’t reach that high at the time, which I simply couldn’t accept. One classmate of mine who was shorter than I was could jump to the “big reach.” That could only mean that I was awkward, my legs were not sufficiently flexible, and maybe my waist was not supple enough. So, my rubber-band jumping on this summer afternoon was not just self-amusement but a strict training regimen. I hoped to jump to the “big reach” so that I could get back at those who humiliated me by making me the rubber-band-rope holder. I tied the two ends of the rope to a pair of poplar trees and raised the height gradually, one try after another. I jumped very smoothly and finally raised the rope to the “big reach.” I gathered all my strength and kicked my right leg up toward the band, but unfortunately, I did it too violently, lost my balance, and fell to the ground. Maybe because the afternoon was so quiet, I heard the thump of my own fall.

Half of my face scraped on the ground and I skinned a knee. My vanity must have been considerable, because even when the pain made me grimace I remembered to look around, to check if anyone had witnessed my embarrassment. At first glance I caught sight of you, recognizing you as the person who said, “Child, what’s the matter?” to me that night. You happened to be passing by on your bike and saw this tumble of mine. It made me very angry, at you and at myself as well. I was still angry as I hurried to get up from the ground, hiding the sharp pain and pretending to walk home calmly as if no one were around. I hummed a song as I entered the building. I had to show you that even though I fell down it hadn’t hurt at all, that I didn’t mind falling, that everyone fell while learning to do the “big reach” … I was so nervous that I forgot to untie the rubber-band rope from the trees. When I remembered it late in the afternoon and ran back to the poplars, someone had stolen it. The ten-foot-long rubber-band rope, which I’d put together by saving the rubber bands one by one!

Many years later, when I was an adult, during the winter Fang Jing left me, I wrote a letter to force him to come see me at Fuan. He agreed to come, but said he was very busy and could only talk to me at the train station. He bought a return ticket to Beijing as soon as he got off the train. We sat in the noisy, smoky waiting room—sometimes the noisiest public location can be the best place to have a private conversation. I asked why he had promised to get a divorce but kept putting it off. Why would he stay married while he forbade me to have a boyfriend? I said a lot and he said very little; he spoke one sentence after I said ten. He said, finally, “Falling in love with me was a mistake, and you should calm down and think about starting a new life on your own.” Full of himself and absentminded, he stood up and got ready to leave while he was still talking. I seized his sleeve then, the sleeve of his ostrich-grey Brazilian leather jacket. This was what I’d most feared hearing; I would rather have had him say, “You can’t have a boyfriend. I won’t allow it.” That would have at least shown that he cared about me. I held on to his sleeve, bowed my head, and started to cry, quietly but in surging waves. I didn’t know when he disappeared from view, but I still held on to a bag of Fuan’s local delicacy: honey twisted dough sticks. How would Fang Jing in his Brazilian leather jacket appreciate this sort of local delicacy? But I sincerely wanted to please him with the dough sticks, even when I faced his impatience. I curled up on the wooden bench in the waiting room, not wanting to go home, my hand still clutching the bag of dough sticks and my heart as confused as a tangled bunch of twine. I must have been stupid to the extreme, because even after Fang Jing escaped my pestering (if that was what it was) and had boarded the train to return to Beijing, I still hated him and missed him—to hate is to miss. I stayed there and didn’t want to leave because Fang Jing had just sat there, his breath and the warmth of his body lingering. Chen Zai, you arrived again, always showing up at moments like these. But I wasn’t afraid of you anymore, nor did I pretend to be someone I wasn’t, as I had the year I fell at rubber-band rope. We were all grown up and you were like an older brother of mine, not too close but not too distant, either. We lived in the same complex; we would smile and talk a bit when we saw each other. I sensed that you meant me no harm and had never intended to ridicule me. You walked over and sat next to me. You must have been going to Beijing also—I knew you were a graduate student of architecture. You said, “That man who was just talking to you looks very familiar. Isn’t he the big celebrity Fang Jing?” I burst into tears then, burying my face in my hands without caring. Time slowly made me understand, that day in the waiting room, it was exactly because I was with you that I could be so free. Only you, no one else, could allow me to cry in public without restraint. You accidentally witness everything about me, my slyness, my falling, the love carved in my heart, and its loss. You’ve seen all of it. I held on to you as if I had grabbed a lifesaver, spontaneously telling you everything about Fang Jing and me, regardless of whether you wanted to hear or not. We sat in the waiting room for an entire day. You bought bread and water when we were hungry; neither of us touched the bag of dough sticks. You didn’t return home with me until very late. You lied that you were going back to Beijing next morning; you told me only after we walked into the building that you had to take the train back to school that night. Only then did I realize you’d stayed just for me. I didn’t know why I would load all my trouble and sadness on you, about whom I didn’t know much. Time made me understand it was unfair to you, but it seemed fated.

Why do you always run into me when you’re at your lowest? Why do you run into me when you don’t want to run into anyone? On that windy night, I saw a delicate little girl holding the postbox, sighing, and hitting it, although you didn’t know you were sighing. I hadn’t yet seen your face then, but from your body, from that small dark figure of yours, strangely I felt a deep pain like I’d never felt before. Later you turned your face toward me. It was too dark to make out your expression, but my own pain increased because you seemed so much in pain, although I couldn’t see it in your face. Real pain is expressionless; real pain might well be a little girl holding a postbox under the dim streetlight. I couldn’t help being moved by you, moved in a way that will stay with me all my life, I thought. Yet what felt like a vow might have been a young man’s impulse, a momentary instinctive sympathy for the weak. Back then I wasn’t considered an adult yet, although I was five years older than you were. But I was wrong; my long love started when you were twelve, right from the night when you stood in front of the postbox. How happy I was when I found out you and I lived in the same complex. You wouldn’t know for many years how I’d find excuses to pass your building, Number 6. That summer afternoon, the afternoon you fell when you were jumping, I didn’t pass by your building by accident; I’d circled the building many times on my bike. I didn’t intend to see you fall; I just wanted to see your little face in the daylight. But you fell just as I came around. You raised your head, looking at me with a frown, half of your face smeared with sweat-soaked dirt. I wanted to say I loved your small soiled face. I loved the vain little trick that you played, pretending to be so casual even though you were limping. I loved your back as you hurried, where a little braid came loose. I even remember the song you hummed then: Villages and kampongs, beat the drum and strike the gong, Ah Wa people, sing a new song … with your knee bleeding, you sang “Villages and Kampongs” and went home, not leaving me the slightest chance of saying hello. It’s my own business that I love you. When I was looking at your back, fluttering and dusty, I had a vague feeling that you would make me feel rich and full; you would always be the immovable centre of my heart. But why does it matter? For many years I deliberately avoided telling you how I felt. I was especially surprised when you told me your story in the waiting room so suddenly. Your total trust of me was so unexpected and cruel; it mercilessly pushed me further away. I couldn’t express my love for you when you’d just lost your love; I would look like some rat trying to take advantage. You always controlled the distance between you and me; we could be only so close and no closer. I don’t know how long I have to keep all this bottled up, but I don’t want to stay far from you; I like to see you often, and to do my best to help you when you need it.

A week after the postbox incident, when Tiao went to check for post and newspapers, she unexpectedly found the letter she had sent out, the one to Yixun at the Reed River Farm. She’d been so eager that she’d forgotten to put on a stamp, and the letter was returned for “unpaid postage.”

When Tiao, who had been on edge for a week, expecting Yixun to come home any minute and turn the house upside down, who often broke into a cold sweat at a knock on the door, finally got the letter, she almost laughed out loud. Ah, post office, how grateful I am to you! Ah, postbox, how grateful I am to you! she shouted in her heart while she clutched the letter that had strayed for days, as if she were afraid it would fly away. The dark clouds cleared and the sunshine returned. This “lost-and-found letter” gave her a lifelong fondness for the post office and postboxes, which always seemed to have some mystical connection of good luck for her.

She slipped the letter into her pocket and then opened the door. After handing the newspaper to Wu, she rushed into the bathroom and locked herself in. She sat on the toilet and tore the letter to shreds, until it was turned into snowflake-like bits. She dumped them into the toilet and flushed it again and again. Fortunately, Wu was not paying attention to Tiao’s behaviour.

Tiao emerged from the bathroom completely at ease. She wanted to forgive her mother. She even thought if Dr. Tang came again, she would try her best not to object.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_e4b06b9d-590a-5b7c-bd72-1cc8eae7d61b)

Where the Mermaid’s Fishing Net Comes From (#ulink_e4b06b9d-590a-5b7c-bd72-1cc8eae7d61b)

1

Dr. Tang came again, and this time he brought his niece Fei.

Tiao was immediately drawn to Fei, who was fifteen that year, but to Tiao she already appeared to have the body of a grown woman. Her dark eyebrows, red lips, and deep chestnut curls on her forehead lit up Tiao’s eyes. It was a time when makeup wasn’t allowed, so how were Fei’s lips so brightly coloured and gorgeous? It was also a time when perms were banned, so how did Fei get her curled fringe? How did she dare? The vivid lips and curled fringe made Fei look like a visitor from another planet; those slightly skewed eyes of hers gave her a touch of boldness and decadence. Tiao learned the word “decadence” from political posters. It was a bad word, but for some reason this bad word made her heart race. Even though she didn’t completely understand the meaning of decadence, she was already sure it applied to Fei precisely. Perhaps by associating this word with Fei she unconsciously expressed her own attraction to evil: the female spy, the social butterfly … in the movies she used to watch, those women, constantly surrounded by men, always wore expensive and beautiful clothes, drank good wine, and looked mysterious. That would be decadence, but why were decadent people so pretty? Fei was decadent, and that vague decadence in her excited Tiao. She had never met a female before Fei who thrilled her so much. She felt that somehow she’d already started to worship Fei, this beautiful, decadent girl. Because of this, her loathing for Dr. Tang lessened somewhat.

Dr. Tang brought two movie tickets, distributed by the hospital, for an Algerian film, Victory over Death. “Let Tiao and Fei go, otherwise who knows how long they’ll have to wait for the school to buy them group tickets,” Wu said very agreeably, seemingly eager to please, which annoyed Tiao a little. Although she liked going to the movies, especially with someone like Fei, she didn’t like Wu’s tone. The more ingratiating Wu sounded, the more she heard a dismissal—she was sending Tiao and Fei off so she could be with Dr. Tang. So Tiao said she didn’t want to go; she had to do her homework. She just wanted to make a little trouble for Wu.

Then Fei stretched out her hand to her uncle, not her entire hand, but two of the fingers: index and middle. She wiggled her fingers at her uncle and said, “Tickets. Tickets. Give me the tickets.” Tiao wasn’t surprised by her Beijing dialect; she believed a person with Fei’s looks had to speak Beijing dialect. It would have been strange if she hadn’t. The way she wiggled her fingers seemed indecent, and the tone in which she spoke to the adults made her sound impudent. Tiao had never come across anyone who behaved in this manner and spoke in that tone. She was probably stunned, so when Fei almost grabbed the tickets from her uncle’s hand and gestured with her head, Tiao stood up and left with Fei as if she had received an irresistible command.

The movie was showing at Da Guangming Theatre, three bus stops from Tiao’s home. They didn’t take the bus—they walked. For a shortcut, they wound through some alleys single-file. Fei walked very fast, pretending not to notice Tiao’s quivering eagerness to follow her. She didn’t talk to Tiao and didn’t bother to walk beside her. She wore a plissé shirt, white background printed with bean-sized strawberries, and a pair of blue khaki uniform pants that perfectly hugged her swaying bottom. On her feet, she had on a pair of black T-strap leather shoes, which weren’t for adults, but were hard for a middle school student to get. The shoes didn’t just represent wealth, but also a style and taste beyond those of an ordinary Fuan family. Shoe factories in Fuan didn’t make leather shoes of this kind; one could immediately tell they came from a big city, even though they were just made of fine pigskin. Fei swung her bottom, raised her chin slightly, and stuck out her already-developed chest, walking in front of Tiao all the time. She rolled her plissé sleeves above her elbows, revealing the layer of soft, fine yellow down on her forearms, dazzling in the sunshine. She was so striking that there were always passersby who stopped to look at her: men, women, adults and children … Two young men in worker’s clothes came toward them on their bikes. They swung around after passing and caught up with Fei from behind, purposely sandwiching her from both sides. Swaying and squirming on their bikes, they brushed their sleeves on her bare arms and then darted off. She didn’t call them “Obnoxious!” or “Pervert!”—just walked more proudly, as if no one else existed. She didn’t pay attention to them at all; they were not worthy of her spit or her curses.

At last they entered the narrow, quiet alley that led to Da Guangming Theatre. Noticing there was no one around, Fei suddenly stopped, as if waiting for Tiao to catch up. Excitedly, Tiao caught up with her, feeling it was a gesture from Fei showing that she regarded Tiao as her equal and would finally walk with her side by side. Tiao rushed to her, only to be forced by Fei into a corner. Backed against the wall, face-to-face with Fei, Tiao thought she was going to tell her some secret, which sometimes happened when two girls walked together. But before she could react, Fei slapped her hard across the face. The crisp, loud slap, echoing in the alley, made Tiao see black in front of her eyes, followed by thousands of golden sparkles dancing around her head. It didn’t hurt; she had no memory of pain. Maybe what Fei said blocked the pain that Tiao might have felt, or transferred the feeling to somewhere else in her. After she slapped Tiao, Fei got very close to her face and said something terrible with that pretty mouth of hers. She said, “Your mum is a bad woman, a whore!”

Tiao opened her eyes; the alley was still the same alley, and Fei stood before her, with her hands on her hips and sweat on her face, as if awaiting Tiao’s counterattack. “Your mum is a whore.” Tiao couldn’t believe she had really heard it, that the vulgar, explosive words had really come out of Fei’s mouth. She never wanted to hear those words again in her whole life, but she felt compelled to repeat them over and over in her mind. Her heart raced, every hair on her body seemed to stand up, and hot blood rushed to her face, the swollen face that Fei had slapped. Tiao was angry, but a terrible shame kept her from raising her head. For a moment, she was about to agree with Fei. She suspected that her mother’s being a whore involved Dr. Tang, and the things she had written about in the letter to her dad. She now believed the only people who knew about Wu and Dr. Tang were her and Fei, but her instinct was to protect Wu. For a stranger to insult her mother this way was intolerable. She intended to retaliate but didn’t know how; she felt guilty because what Fei had said was true, and she couldn’t quite find the words for a reply. Tears started suddenly and she tried to turn around to walk back. The good things about home came to her mind and she wanted to go there. “Don’t you dare leave!” Fei said behind her, and she stopped, compelled by Fei’s voice. She really didn’t know why she would listen to Fei.