“You’re changing my meaning.”
“Are we?” Willow asked. “She talked about you all the time. She never said a bad word against you, but we heard the truth of what happened.”
“She loved you as a laotong should for everything that you were and everything you were not,” Plum Blossom concluded. “But you had too much man-thinking in you. You loved her as a man would, valuing her only for following men’s rules.”
Finished with one cycle, Lotus began another.
“Do you remember when we were in the mountains and she lost the baby?” she asked, in a tone that made me dread what was coming.
“Of course I remember.”
“She was already sick.”
“That’s not possible. The butcher—”
“Maybe her husband brought it on that day,” Willow admitted. “But the blood that burst from her body was black, stagnant, dying, and none of us saw a baby in that mess.”
Again, Plum Blossom finished. “We were here with her for many years, and this thing happened several more times. She was already quite sick when you sang your Letter of Vituperation.”
I hadn’t been able to argue successfully with them before. How could I argue this point now? The tumor had to have been growing for a very long time. Other things from back then fell into place: Snow Flower’s loss of appetite, her skin going so pale, and her loss of energy at the very moment when I was nagging her to eat better, pinch her cheeks to lure in more color, and do all of her expected chores to bring harmony to her husband’s home. And then I remembered that just two weeks back when I’d first arrived in this house, she’d apologized. I hadn’t done the same—not even when she was in her worst pain, not even when her death was imminent, not even when I was smugly telling myself I still loved her. Her heart had always been pure, but mine had been as shriveled, hard, and dry as an old walnut.
I sometimes think about those sworn sisters—all dead now, of course. They had to be careful in what they said to me, because I was Lady Lu. But they were not going to let me walk away from that house without knowing the truth.
I went home and retired to my upstairs chamber with the fan and a few saved letters. I ground ink until it was as black as the night sky. I opened the fan, dipped my brush into the ink, and made what I thought would be my final entry.
You who always knew my heart now fly above the clouds in the warmth of the sun. I hope one day we will soar together. I would have many years to consider those lines and do what I could to change all the harm I had caused to the person I loved most in the world.
Regret
I AM NOW TOO OLD TO USE MY HANDS TO COOK, WEAVE, OR
embroider, and looking at them I see the spots brought by living too many years, whether you work outside under the sun or are sheltered your whole life in the women’s chamber. My skin is so thin that pools of blood collect just under the surface where I bump into things or things bump into me. My hands are tired from grinding ink against the inkstone, my knuckles swollen from holding my brush. Two flies sit on my thumb, but I’m too weary to shoo them away. My eyes—the watery eyes of a very old lady—have been watering too much these past days. My hair—gray and thin—has fallen from the pins that should hold it in place beneath my headdress. When visitors come, they try not to look at me. I try not to look at them either. I have lived too long.
After Snow Flower died, I still had half of my life ahead of me. My rice-and-salt days were not over, but in my heart I began my years of sitting quietly. For most women, this begins with their husband’s death. For me, it began with Snow Flower’s death. I was “the one who has not died,” but things kept me from being completely still or quiet. My husband and family needed me to be a wife and mother. My community needed me to be Lady Lu. And then there were Snow Flower’s children, whom I needed—so that I could make amends to my laotong. But it’s hard to be truly generous and behave in a forthright manner when you don’t know how.
The first thing I did in the months immediately following Snow Flower’s death was to take her place in all her daughter’s wedding traditions and ceremonies. Spring Moon seemed resigned to the prospect of marriage, sad to be leaving home, uncertain—having seen the way her father treated her mother—about what lay in store for her. I told myself these were the kinds of things all girls worry about. But on her wedding night, after her new husband fell asleep, Spring Moon committed suicide by throwing herself in the village well.
“That girl not only polluted her new family but the entire village’s drinking water,” gossips whispered. “She was just like her mother. Remember that Letter of Vituperation?” That I had composed the letter that had ruined Snow Flower’s reputation raked across my conscience, so I hushed this talk whenever I heard it. Through my words, I became known as someone who was forgiving and charitable to the unclean, but I knew that in my first attempt to make things right with Snow Flower I had failed miserably. The day I wrote that girl’s death onto the fan was one of the worst of my life.
I next focused my efforts on Snow Flower’s son. Despite the lowest of circumstances and no support from his father, he had picked up a bit of men’s writing and was good at numbers. Nevertheless, he worked at his father’s side and had no more joy in his life than he had when he was younger. I met his wife, who still lived with her natal family. This time a good choice had been made. The girl became pregnant, but the thought that she would be falling into the butcher’s house pained me. Although it is not my way to interfere with the outer realm of men, I prevailed upon my husband—who had not only inherited Uncle Lu’s vast holdings but had added to them from the salt business profits and now had fields that stretched all way to Jintian—to find something for this young man to do besides slaughter pigs. He hired Snow Flower’s son to collect rents from the farmers and gave him a house with its own kitchen garden. Eventually the butcher retired, moved in with his son, and began doting on his grandson, who brought big joy to that home. The young man and his family were happy, but I knew that I still had not done enough to earn my way back to Snow Flower.
AT AGE FIFTY,
when my monthly bleeding stopped, my life changed again. I experienced a shift from waiting on others to having others wait on me, though I certainly watched what they did and corrected them for anything not done to my satisfaction. But as I said, in my heart I was already sitting quietly. I became a vegetarian and abstained from such warm foods as garlic and wine. I contemplated religious sutras, practiced cleansing rituals, and hoped to renounce the polluting aspects of bed business. Although I had conspired my entire married life for my husband never to bring in a concubine, I looked at him and felt sympathy for him. He deserved the rewards of a lifetime of hard work. I did not wait for him to act—perhaps he never would have—but took it upon myself to find and bring into our home not one but three concubines to entertain him. By choosing them myself, I was able to prevent many of the jealousies and petty disagreements that usually arrive with pretty young women. I did not mind when they gave birth. And, in truth, my husband’s esteem grew in the village. He had proved that he could not only afford the women but that his chi was stronger than any man’s in the county.
My relationship with my husband turned into one of great companionship. He often came to the women’s chamber to drink tea and talk with me. The solace that he found in the quiet of the inner realm caused his worries about the chaos, instability, and corruption of the outer realm to melt away. We were more content together at this time than perhaps at any other in our entire lives. We had planted a garden, and it bloomed around us in so many ways. All of our sons married in. All of their wives proved to be fertile. Our home was merry with the sounds of grandchildren. We loved them, but there was one child not of my blood who interested me most of all. I wanted her near me.
In a little house in Jintian, the rent collector’s wife had given birth to a girl. I wanted that child—Snow Flower’s granddaughter—to become my eldest grandson’s wife. Age six is not too early for Cont
racting a Kin, if both families want to seal a betrothal for a prized couple, if the groom’s family is willing to begin delivering bride-price gifts, and if the bride’s family is poor enough to need them. I felt that we met all the conditions, and my husband—after thirty-two years of marriage, during which I had never caused him to be embarrassed or ashamed of me—was generous enough to grant me this request.
I sent for Madame Wang just as the girl’s feet were about to be bound. The old woman was escorted into the main room by two big-footed girls, which told me that even though other matchmakers now had more business, she had put away enough money to live well. Still, the years had not been kind to Madame Wang. Her face had wizened. Her eyes were white with blindness. She was toothless. She had very little hair. Her body had shrunk as her back hunched. She was so frail and deformed she could barely walk on her lily feet. I knew then that I didn’t want to live so long, yet here I am.
I offered tea and sweetmeats. We made small talk. I believed she didn’t remember who I was. I thought I could use this to my advantage. We chatted some more, then I came to the point.
“I’m looking for a good match for my grandson.”
“Shouldn’t I be speaking to the boy’s father?” Madame Wang asked.
“He is away and requested that I negotiate on his behalf.”
The old woman closed her eyes as she thought about this. Either that or she drifted off to sleep.
“I hear there is a good prospect in Jintian,” I went on loudly. “She is the daughter of the rent collector.”
What Madame Wang said next told me that she knew exactly who I was.
“Why not bring in the girl as a little daughter-in-law?” she asked. “Your threshold is very high. I’m sure your son and daughter-in-law would be happy with that arrangement.”
Actually, they were quite displeased with what I was doing. But what could they do? My son was a scholar. He had just passed the next level of the imperial examinations to become a juren at the very young age of thirty. Either his head was in the clouds or he was traveling the countryside. He rarely came home, and when he did it was with outlandish stories of what he’d seen: tall, grotesque foreigners with red beards, who had wives with waists so constricted that they couldn’t breathe and huge feet that flipflopped like just-caught fish. These tales aside, my son was filial and did what his father wanted, while my daughter-in-law had to obey me. Nevertheless, she had removed herself from these discussions entirely and retired to her room to weep.
“I’m not looking for a big-footed girl,” I said. “I want to marry in a girl who has the most perfect feet in the county.”
“This child has not begun that process. There are no guarantees—”
“But you have seen these feet, am I correct, Madame Wang? You are a good judge. What do you think the result will be?”
“The child’s mother may not know how to do a good job—”
“Then I will see to it myself.”
“You can’t bring the girl into this house if you intend a marriage,” Madame Wang said querulously. “It would be improper for your grandson to see his future wife.”
She had not changed, but then neither had I.
“You are right, Madame. I will visit the girl’s home.”
“That is hardly appropriate—”
“I will be visiting often. I have many things to teach her.” I watched Madame Wang mull that over. Then I leaned forward and covered the old woman’s hand with my own. “I believe, Auntie, that the girl’s grandmother would have approved.”
Tears welled in the matchmaker’s eyes.
“This girl will need to learn the womanly arts,” I continued hurriedly. “She will need to travel—not so far as to give her ambitions outside the women’s realm, but I think you would agree that she should visit the Temple of Gupo every year. They tell me there once was a man who made a special taro treat. I hear his grandson continues the legacy.”
I persisted in the negotiation, and Snow Flower’s granddaughter came under my protection. I personally bound her feet. I showed her all the mother love I could possibly give as I made her walk back and forth across the upstairs chamber of her natal home. Peony’s feet came to be perfect golden lilies, identical in size to my own. During the long months that Peony’s bones set, I visited her nearly every day. Her parents loved her very much, but her father tried not to think about the past and her mother did not know it. So I talked to the girl, weaving stories about her grandmother and her laotong, about writing and singing, about friendship and hardship.
“Your grandmother was born of an educated family,” I told her. “You will learn what she taught me—needlework, dignity, and, most important, our secret women’s writing.”
Peony was diligent in her studies, but one day she said to me, “My writing is crude. I hope you will be forgiving of me and it.”
She was Snow Flower’s granddaughter, but how could I not see myself in her too?
I SOMETIMES WONDER
which was worse, watching Snow Flower or my husband die. Both suffered greatly. Only one had a funeral procession in which three sons went on their knees all the way to the grave site. I was fifty-seven when my husband went to the afterworld, too old for my sons to think about having me marry out again or even worry about whether or not I would be a chaste widow. I was chaste. I had been for many years, only now I was doubly a widow. I have not written much about my husband in these pages. All of that is in my official autobiography. But I will say this: He gave me reasons to continue day after day. I had to make sure his meals were provided. I had to think of clever things to amuse him. With him gone, I ate less and less. I no longer cared to be an exemplar of womanhood in the county. Days drifted into weeks. I forgot about time. I ignored the cycles of the seasons. Years folded into decades.
The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you. I outlived nearly everyone—my parents, my aunt and uncle, my siblings, Madame Wang, my husband, my daughter, two of my sons, all of my daughters-in-law, even Yonggang. My eldest son became a gongsheng and then a jinshi scholar. The emperor himself read his eight-legged essay. As a court official, my son is away most of the time, but he has secured the Lu family’s position for generations to come. He is filial, and I know he will never forget his duties. He has even bought a coffin—big and lacquered—for me to rest in after I die. His name—along with those of his great-uncle Lu and Snow Flower’s great-grandfather—hangs in proud men’s characters in Tongkou’s ancestral temple. Those three names will be there until the building crumbles.
Peony is now thirty-seven, six years older than I was when I became Lady Lu. As the wife of my eldest grandson, she will become the new Lady Lu when I die. She has two sons, three daughters, and may yet have more children. Her eldest son married in a girl from another village. She recently gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. In their faces I see Snow Flower, but I also see myself. As girls we are told that we are useless branches, because we will not carry on our natal family names but only the names of the families we marry out to, if we are lucky enough to bear sons. In this way, a woman belongs to her husband’s family forever, whether she is alive or dead. All of this is true, and yet these days my contentment comes from knowing that Snow Flower’s and my blood will soon rule the house of Lu.
I have always believed the old saying that cautions, “A woman without knowledge is better than a woman with an education.” My entire life I tried to shut my ears to what happened in the outside realm and I didn’t aspire to learn men’s writing, but I did learn women’s ways, stories, and nu shu. Years ago, when I was in Jintian teaching Peony and her sworn sisters the strokes that make up our secret code, many women asked if I would copy down their autobiographies. I could not say no. Of course, I charged them a fee—three eggs and a piece of cash. I didn’t need the eggs or the money, but I was Lady Lu and they needed to respect my position. But it went beyond that. I wanted them to place a value on their lives, which for the most part
were dismal. They were from poor and ungrateful families, who married them out at tender ages. They suffered the heartache of separation from their parents, the loss of children, and the indignities of having the lowest position in their in-laws’ homes, and far too many of them had husbands who beat them. I know a lot about women and their suffering, but I still know almost nothing about men. If a man does not value his wife upon marriage, why would he treasure her after? If he sees his wife as no better than a chicken who can provide an endless supply of eggs or a water buffalo who can bear an endless amount of weight upon its shoulders, why would he value her any more than those animals? He might appreciate her even less, since she is not as brave, strong, tolerant, or able to scavenge on her own.
Having heard so many stories, I thought of my own. For forty years, the past only aroused regret in me. Only one person ever truly mattered to me, but I was worse to her than the worst husband. After Snow Flower asked me to be an aunt to her children, she said—and these were the last words she ever spoke to me—“Though I was not as good as you, I believe that heavenly spirits joined us. We will be together forever.” So many times I’ve thought back on that. Was she speaking the truth? What if the afterworld has no sympathy? But if the dead continue to have the needs and desires of the living, then I’m reaching out to Snow Flower and the others who witnessed it all. Please hear my words. Please forgive me.
Author’s Note and
Acknowledgments
ONE DAY IN THE 1960S, AN OLD WOMAN FAINTED IN A RURAL
Chinese train station. When the police searched her belongings in an effort to identify her, they came across papers with what looked to be a secret code written on them. This being the height of the Cultural Revolution, the woman was arrested and detained on suspicion of being a spy. The scholars who came to decipher the code realized almost at once that this was not something related to international intrigue. Rather, it was a written language used solely by women and it had been kept a “secret” from men for a thousand years. Those scholars were promptly sent to labor camp.