Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

Snow Flower And The Secret Fan by Lisa See

IN THIS NOVEL, I HAVE FOLLOWED THE TRADITIONAL CHINESE style for rendering dates. The third year of Emperor Daoguang’s reign, when Lily was born, is 1823. The Taiping Rebellion started in 1851 and ended in 1864.

It is believed that nu shu—the secret-code writing used by women in a remote area of southern Hunan Province—developed a thousand years ago. It appears to be the only written language in the world to have been created by women exclusively for their own use.

Sitting Quietly

I AM WHAT THEY CALL IN OUR VILLAGE “ONE WHO HAS NOT yet died”—a widow, eighty years old. Without my husband, the days are long. I no longer care for the special foods that Peony and the others prepare for me. I no longer look forward to the happy events that settle under our roof so easily. Only the past interests me now. After all this time, I can finally say the things I couldn’t when I had to depend on my natal family to raise me or rely on my husband’s family to feed me. I have a whole life to tell; I have nothing left to lose and few to offend.

I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one and the same. For my entire life I longed for love. I knew it was not right for me—as a girl and later as a woman—to want or expect it, but I did, and this unjustified desire has been at the root of every problem I have experienced in my life. I dreamed that my mother would notice me and that she and the rest of my family would grow to love me. To win their affection, I was obedient—the ideal characteristic for someone of my sex—but I was too willing to do what they told me to do. Hoping they would show me even the most simple kindness, I tried to fulfill their expectations for me—to attain the smallest bound feet in the county—so I let my bones be broken and molded into a better shape.

When I knew I couldn’t suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure—not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more torturous pain of the heart, mind, and soul. She was also pointing out my defects and teaching me how to use them to my benefit. In our country, we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men’s writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother’s love.

The binding altered not only my feet but my whole character, and in a strange way I feel as though that process continued throughout my life, changing me from a yielding child to a determined girl, then from a young woman who would follow without question whatever her in-laws demanded of her to the highest-ranked woman in the county who enforced strict village rules and customs. By the time I was forty, the rigidity of my footbinding had moved from my golden lilies to my heart, which held on to injustices and grievances so strongly that I could no longer forgive those I loved and who loved me.

My only rebellion came in the form of nu shu, our women’s secret writing. My first break with tradition came when Snow Flower—my laotong, my “old same,” my secret-writing partner—sent me the fan that sits here on my table, and then again after I met her. But apart from who I was with Snow Flower, I was resolved to be an honorable wife, a praiseworthy daughter-in-law, and a scrupulous mother. In bad times my heart was as strong as jade. I had the hidden might to withstand tragedies and sorrows. But here I am—a widow, sitting quietly as tradition dictates—and I understand that I was blind for too many years.

Except for three terrible months in the fifth year of Emperor Xianfeng’s reign, I have spent my life in upstairs women’s rooms. Yes, I have gone to the temple, traveled back to my natal home, even visited with Snow Flower, but I know little about the outer realm. I have heard men speak of taxes, drought, and uprisings, but these subjects are far removed from my life. What I know is embroidery, weaving, cooking, my husband’s family, my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, and nu shu. My life course has been a normal one—daughter days, hair-pinning days, rice-and-salt days, and now sitting quietly.

So here I am alone with my thoughts and this fan before me. When I pick it up, it’s strange how light it feels in my hands, for it records so much joy and so much grief. I open it quickly, and the sound each fold makes as it spreads reminds me of a fluttering heart. Memories tear across my eyes. These last forty years, I have read it so many times that it is memorized like a childhood song.

I remember the day the intermediary handed it to me. My fingers trembled as I opened the folds. Back then a simple garland of leaves adorned the upper edge and only one message trickled down the first fold. At that time I didn’t know many characters in nu shu, so my aunt read the words. “I understand there is a girl of good character and women’s learning in your home. You and I are of the same year and the same day. Could we not be sames together?” I look now at the gentle wisps that compose those lines and see not only the girl that Snow Flower was but the woman she would become—persevering, straightforward, outward-looking.

My eyes graze along the other folds and I see our optimism, our joy, our mutual admiration, our promises to each other. I see how that simple garland grew to be an elaborate design of interwoven snow blossoms and lilies to symbolize our two lives together as a pair of laotong, old sames. I see the moon in the upper right-hand corner shining down on us. We were to be like long vines with entwined roots, like trees that stand a thousand years, like a pair of mandarin ducks mated for life. On one fold, Snow Flower wrote, We of good affection shall never sever our bond. But on another fold I see the misunderstandings, the broken trust, and the final shutting of the door. For me, love was such a precious possession that I couldn’t share it with anyone else, and it eventually cut me away from the one person who was my same.

I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it—not just mother love but the love for one’s parents, for one’s husband, and for one’s laotong. I’ve experienced the other types of love—pity love, respectful love, and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn’t value the most important love—deep-heart love.

These last years I have copied down many autobiographies for women who never learned nu shu. I have listened to every sadness and complaint, every injustice and tragedy. I have chronicled the miserable lives of the poorly fated. I have heard it all and written it all down. But if I know much about women’s stories, then I know almost nothing about men’s, except that they usually involve a farmer fighting against the elements, a soldier in battle, or a lone man on an interior quest. Looking at my own life, I see it draws from the stories of women and men. I am a lowly woman with the usual complaints, but inside I also waged something like a man’s battle between my true nature and the person I should have been.

I am writing these pages for those who reside in the afterworld. Peony, my grandson’s wife, has promised to make sure that they are burned at my death, so my story will reach them before my spirit does. Let my words explain my actions to my ancestors, to my husband, but most of all to Snow Flower, before I greet them again.

Daughter Days

Milk Years

MY NAME IS LILY. I CAME INTO THIS WORLD ON THE FIFTH DAY of the six month of the third year of Emperor Daoguang’s reign. Puwei, my home village, is in Yongming County, the county of Everlasting Brightness. Most people who live here are descended from the Yao ethnic tribe. From the storytellers who visited Puwei when I was a girl, I learned that the Yao first arrived in this area twelve hundred years ago during the Tang dynasty, but most families came a century later, when they fled the Mongol armies who invaded the north. Although the people of our region have never been rich, we have rarely been so poor that women had to work in the fields.

We were members of the Yi family line, one of the original Yao clans and the most common in the district. My father and uncle leased seven mou of land from a rich landowner who lived in the far west of the province. They cultivated that land with rice, cotton, taro, and kitchen crops. My family home was typical in the sense that it had two stories and faced south. A room upstairs was designated for women’s gathering and for unmarried girls to sleep. Rooms for each family unit and a special room for our animals flanked the downstairs main room, where baskets filled with eggs or oranges and strings of drying chilies hung from the central beam to keep them safe from mice, chickens, or a roaming pig. We had a table and stools against one wall. A hearth where Mama and Aunt did the cooking occupied a corner on the opposite wall. We did not have windows in our main room, so we kept open the door to the alley outside our house for light and air in the warm months. The rest of our rooms were small, our floor was hard-packed earth, and, as I said, our animals lived with us.

I’ve never thought much about whether I was happy or if I had fun as a child. I was a so-so girl who lived with a so-so family in a so-so village. I didn’t know that there might be another way to live, and I didn’t worry about it either. But I remember the day I began to notice and think about what was around me. I had just turned five and felt as though I had crossed a big threshold. I woke up before dawn with something like a tickle in my brain. That bit of irritation made me alert to everything I saw and experienced that day.

I lay between Elder Sister and Third Sister. I glanced across the room to my cousin’s bed. Beautiful Moon, who was my age, hadn’t woken up yet, so I stayed still, waiting for my sisters to stir. I faced Elder Sister, who was four years older than I. Although we slept in the same bed, I didn’t get to know her well until I had my feet bound and joined the women’s chamber myself. I was glad I wasn’t looking in Third Sister’s direction. I always told myself that since she was a year younger she was too insignificant to think about. I don’t think my sisters adored me either, but the indifference we showed one another was just a face we put on to mask our true desires. We each wanted Mama to notice us. We each vied for Baba’s attention. We each hoped we would spend time every day with Elder Brother, since as the first son he was the most precious person in our family. I did not feel that kind of jealousy with Beautiful Moon. We were good friends and happy that our lives would be linked together until we both married out.

The four of us looked very similar. We each had black hair that was cut short, we were very thin, and we were close in height. Otherwise, our distinguishing features were few. Elder Sister had a mole above her lip. Third Sister’s hair was always tied up in little tufts, because she did not like Mama to comb it. Beautiful Moon had a pretty round face, while my legs were sturdy from running and my arms strong from carrying my baby brother.

“Girls!” Mama called up the stairs to us.

That was enough to wake up the others and get us all out of bed. Elder Sister hurriedly got dressed and went downstairs. Beautiful Moon and I were slower, because we had to dress not only ourselves but Third Sister as well. Then together we went downstairs, where Aunt swept the floor, Uncle sang a morning song, Mama—with Second Brother swaddled on her back—poured the last of the water into the teapot to heat, and Elder Sister chopped scallions for the rice porridge we call congee. My sister gave me a tranquil look that I took to mean that she had already earned the approval of my family this morning and was safe for the rest of the day. I tucked away my resentment, not understanding that what I saw as her self-satisfaction was something closer to the cheerless resignation that would settle on my sister after she married out.

“Beautiful Moon! Lily! Come here! Come here!”

My aunt greeted us this way each and every morning. We ran to her. Aunt kissed Beautiful Moon and patted my bottom affectionately. Then Uncle swooped in, swept up Beautiful Moon in his arms, and kissed her. After he set her back down, he winked at me and pinched my cheek.

You know the old saying about beautiful people marrying beautiful people and talented people marrying talented people? That morning I concluded that Uncle and Aunt were two ugly people and therefore perfectly matched. Uncle, my father’s younger brother, had bowlegs, a bald head, and a full shiny face. Aunt was plump, and her teeth were like jagged stones protruding from a karst cave. Her bound feet were not very small, maybe fourteen centimeters long, twice the size of what mine eventually became. I’d heard wicked tongues in our village say that this was the reason Aunt—who was of healthy stock, with wide hips—could not carry a son to term. I’d never heard these kinds of reproaches in our home, not even from Uncle. To me, they had an ideal marriage; he was an affectionate rat and she was a dutiful ox. Every day they provided happiness around the hearth.

My mother had yet to acknowledge that I was in the room. This is how it had been for as long as I could remember, but on that day I perceived and felt her disregard. Melancholy sank into me, whisking away the joy I had just felt with Aunt and Uncle, stunning me with its power. Then, just as quickly, the feeling disappeared, because Elder Brother, who was six years older than I was, called me to help him with his morning chores. Having been born in the year of the horse, it is in my nature to love the outdoors, but even more important I got to have Elder Brother completely to myself. I knew I was lucky and that my sisters would hold this against me, but I didn’t care. When he talked to me or smiled at me I didn’t feel invisible.

We ran outside. Elder Brother hauled water up from the well and filled buckets for us to carry. We took them back to the house and set out again to gather firewood. We made a pile, then Elder Brother loaded my arms with the smaller sticks. He scooped up the rest and we headed home. When we got there, I handed the sticks to Mama, hoping for her praise. After all, it’s not so easy for a little girl to lug a bucket of water or carry firewood. But Mama didn’t say anything.

Even now, after all these years, it is difficult for me to think about Mama and what I realized on that day. I saw so clearly that I was inconsequential to her. I was a third child, a second worthless girl, too little to waste time on until it looked like I would survive my milk years. She looked at me the way all mothers look at their daughters—as a temporary visitor who was another mouth to feed and a body to dress until I went to my husband’s home. I was five, old enough to know I didn’t deserve her attention, but suddenly I craved it. I longed for her to look at me and talk to me the way she did with Elder Brother. But even in that moment of my first truly deep desire, I was smart enough to know that Mama wouldn’t want me to interrupt her during this busy time when so often she had scolded me for talking too loudly or had swatted at the air around me because I got in her way. Instead, I vowed to be like Elder Sister and help as quietly and carefully as I could.

Grandmother tottered into the room. Her face looked like a dried plum, and her back bent so far forward that she and I saw eye to eye.

“Help your grandmother,” Mama ordered. “See if she needs anything.”

Even though I had just made a promise to myself, I hesitated. Grandmother’s gums were sour and sticky in the mornings, and no one wanted to get near her. I sidled up to her, holding my breath, but she waved me away impatiently. I moved so quickly that I bumped into my father—the eleventh and most important person in our household.

He didn’t reprimand me or say anything to anyone else. As far as I knew, he wouldn’t speak until this day was behind him. He sat down and waited to be served. I watched Mama closely as she wordlessly poured his tea. I may have been afraid that she would notice me during her morning routine, but she was even more mindful in her dealings with my father. He rarely hit my mother and he never took a concubine, but her caution with him made us all heedful.

Aunt put bowls on the table and spooned out the congee, while Mama nursed the baby. After we ate, my father and my uncle set out for the fields, and my mother, aunt, grandmother, and older sister went upstairs to the women’s chamber. I wanted to go with Mama and the other women in our family, but I wasn’t old enough. To make matters worse, I now had to share Elder Brother with my baby brother and Third Sister when we went back outside.

I carried the baby on my back as we cut grass and foraged for roots for our pig. Third Sister followed us as best she could. She was a funny, ornery little thing. She acted spoiled, when the only ones who had a right to be spoiled were our brothers. She thought she was the most beloved in our family, although nothing showed her that this was true.

Once done with our chores, our little foursome explored the village, going up and down the alleys between the houses until we came across some other girls jumping rope. My brother stopped, took the baby, and let me jump too. Then we went home for lunch—something simple, rice and vegetable only. Afterward, Elder Brother left with the men, and the rest of us went upstairs. Mama nursed the baby again, then he and Third Sister took their afternoon naps. Even at that age I enjoyed being in the women’s chamber with my grandmother, aunt, sister, cousin, and especially my mother. Mama and Grandmother wove cloth, Beautiful Moon and I made balls of yarn, Aunt sat with brush and ink, carefully writing her secret characters, while Elder Sister waited for her four sworn sisters to arrive for an afternoon visit.

Soon enough we heard the sound of four pairs of lily feet come quietly up the stairs. Elder Sister greeted each girl with a hug, and the five of them clustered together in a corner. They didn’t like me intruding on their conversations, but I studied them nevertheless, knowing that I would be part of my own sworn sisterhood in another two years. The girls were all from Puwei, which meant that they could assemble often, and not just on special gathering days such as Catching Cool Breezes or the Birds Festival. The sisterhood had been formed when the girls turned seven. To cement the relationship, their fathers had each contributed twenty-five jin of rice, which was stored at our house. Later, when each girl married out, her portion of rice would be sold so her sworn sisters could buy gifts for her. The last bit of rice would be sold on the occasion of the last sworn sister’s marriage. That would mark the end of the sisterhood, since the girls would have all married out to distant villages, where they would be too busy with their children and obeying their mothers-in-law to have time for old friendships.

Even with her friends, Elder Sister did not attempt to grab attention. She sat placidly with the other girls as they embroidered and told funny stories. When their chatter and giggles grew loud, my mother sternly hushed them, and another new thought popped into my head: Mama never did that when my grandmother’s late-life sworn sisters came to visit. After her children were grown, my grandmother had been invited to join a new group of five sworn sisters in Puwei. Only two of them plus my grandmother, all widows, were still alive, and they visited at least once a week. They made each other laugh and together they shared bawdy jokes that we girls didn’t understand. On those occasions, Mama was too afraid of her mother-in-law to dare ask them to stop. Or maybe she was too busy.

Mama ran out of yarn and stood up to get more. For a moment she stayed very still, staring pensively at nothing. I had a nearly uncontrollable desire to run into her arms and scream, See me, see me, see me! But I didn’t. Mama’s feet had been badly bound by her mother. Instead of golden lilies, Mama had ugly stumps. Instead of swaying when she walked, she balanced herself on a cane. If she put the cane aside, her four limbs went akimbo as she tried to maintain her balance. Mama was too unsteady on her feet for anyone ever to hug or kiss her.

“Isn’t it time for Beautiful Moon and Lily to go outside?” Aunt asked, cutting into my mother’s daydream. “They could help Elder Brother with his chores.”

“He doesn’t need their help.”

“I know,” Aunt admitted, “but it’s a nice day—”

“No,” Mama said sternly. “I don’t like the girls wandering around the village when they should be working at their house learning.”

But about this one thing my aunt was stubborn. She wanted us to know our alleys, to see what lay down them, to walk to the edge of our village and look out, knowing that soon enough all we would see was what we could glimpse from the lattice window of the women’s chamber.

“They have only these few months,” she reasoned. She left unsaid that soon our feet would be bound, our bones broken, our skin rotting. “Let them run while they can.”

My mother was exhausted. She had five children, three of us five and under. She had the full responsibility of the household—cleaning, washing, and repairing, cooking all our meals, and keeping track of the household debts as best as she could. She had a higher status than Aunt, but she could not fight every day for what she believed was proper behavior.

“All right.” Mama sighed in resignation. “They can go.”

I grasped Beautiful Moon’s hand and we jumped up and down. Aunt quickly shooed us to the door before my mother could change her mind, while Elder Sister and her sworn sisters stared after us wistfully. My cousin and I ran downstairs and outside. Late afternoon was my favorite part of the day, when the air was warm and fragrant and the cicadas hummed. We scurried down the alley until we found my brother taking the family water buffalo down to the river. He rode on the beast’s broad shoulders, one leg tucked under him, the other bouncing on the animal’s flanks. Beautiful Moon and I walked single file behind them through the village’s maze of narrow alleys, the confusing tangle of which protected us from ghost spirits and bandits alike. We didn’t see any adults—the men worked in the fields and the women stayed in their upstairs chambers behind lattice windows—but the alleys were occupied by other children and the village’s animals: chickens, ducks, fat sows, and piglets squealing underfoot.

We left the village proper and rambled along a raised narrow path paved with small stones. It was wide enough for people and palanquins but too small for oxen- or pony-pulled carts. We followed the path down to the Xiao River and stopped just before the swaying bridge that crossed it. Beyond the bridge, the world opened before us with vast stretches of cultivated land. The sky spread above us as blue as the color of kingfisher feathers. In the far distance, we saw other villages—places I never thought I would go in my lifetime. Then we climbed down to the riverbank where the wind rustled through the reeds. I sat on a rock, took off my shoes, and waded into the shallows. Seventy-five years have gone by, and I still remember the feel of the mud between my toes, the rush of water over my feet, the cold against my skin. Beautiful Moon and I were free in a way that we would never be again. But I remember something else very distinctly from that day. From the second I woke up, I had seen my family in new ways and they had filled me with strange emotions—melancholy, sadness, jealousy, and a sense of injustice about many things that suddenly seemed unfair. I let the water wash all that away.

That night after dinner, we sat outside, enjoying the cool evening air and watching Baba and Uncle smoke their long pipes. Everyone was tired. Mama nursed the baby a final time, trying to get him to fall asleep. She looked weary from the day’s chores, which were still not completely done for her. I looped my arm over her shoulder to give her comfort.

“Too hot for that,” she said, and gently pushed me away.

Baba must have seen my disappointment, because he took me on his lap. In the quiet darkness, I was precious to him. For that moment, I was like a pearl in his hand.

Footbinding

THE PREPARATION FOR MY FOOTBINDING TOOK MUCH LONGER than anyone expected. In cities, girls who come from the gentry class have their feet bound as early as age three. In some provinces far from ours, girls bind their feet only temporarily, so they will look more attractive to their future husbands. Those girls might be as old as thirteen. Their bones are not broken, their bindings are always loose, and, once married, their feet are set free again so they can work in the fields alongside their husbands. The poorest girls don’t have their feet bound at all. We know how they end up. They are either sold as servants or they become “little daughters-in-law”—big-footed girls from unfortunate families who are given to other families to raise until they are old enough to bear children. But in our so-so county, girls from families like mine begin their footbinding at age six and it is considered done two years later.

Even while I was out running with my brother, my mother had already begun making the long blue strips of cloth that would become my bindings. With her own hands she made my first pair of shoes, but she took even more care stitching the miniature shoes she would place on the altar of Guanyin—the goddess who hears all women’s tears. Those embroidered shoes were only three and a half centimeters long and were made from a special piece of red silk that my mother had saved from her dowry. They were the first inkling I had that my mother might care for me.

When Beautiful Moon and I turned six, Mama and Aunt sent for the diviner to find an auspicious date to begin our binding. They say fall is the most propitious time to start footbinding, but only because winter is coming and cold weather helps numb the feet. Was I excited? No. I was scared. I was too young to remember the early days of Elder Sister’s binding, but who in our village had not heard the screams of the Wu girl down the way?

My mother greeted Diviner Hu downstairs, poured tea, and offered him a bowl of watermelon seeds. Her courtesy was meant to bring good readings. He began with me. He considered my birth date. He weighed the possibilities. Then he said, “I need to see this child with my own eyes.” This was not the usual case, and when my mother fetched me her face was etched with worry. She led me to the diviner. She held me in front of him. Her fingers clutched my shoulders, keeping me in place and frightening me at the same time, while the diviner performed his examination.

“Eyes, yes. Ears, yes. That mouth.” He looked up at my mother. “This is no ordinary child.”

My mother sucked in her breath through closed teeth. This was the worst announcement the diviner could have made.

“Further consultation is required,” the diviner said. “I propose we confer with a matchmaker. Do you agree?”

Some might have suspected that the diviner was trying to make more money for himself and was in league with the local matchmaker, but my mother didn’t hesitate for an instant. Such was my mother’s fear—or conviction—that she didn’t even ask my father’s permission to spend the money.

“Please return as soon as you can,” she said. “We will be waiting.”

The diviner departed, leaving all of us confused. That night my mother said very little. In fact, she would not look at me. There were no jokes from Aunt. My grandmother retired early, but I could hear her praying. Baba and Uncle went for a long walk. Sensing the unease in the household, even my brothers were subdued.

The next day, the women rose early. This time sweet cakes were made, chrysanthemum tea brewed, and special dishes brought out of cupboards. My father stayed home from the fields so he could greet the visitors. All these extravagances showed the seriousness of the situation. Then, to make matters worse, the diviner brought with him not Madame Gao, the local matchmaker, but Madame Wang, the matchmaker from Tongkou, the best village in the county.

Let me say this: Even the local matchmaker had not been to our house yet. She was not expected to visit for another year or two, when she would serve as a go-between for Elder Brother as he searched for a wife and for Elder Sister when families were looking for brides for their sons. So when Madame Wang’s palanquin stopped in front of our house, there was no rejoicing. Looking down from the women’s chamber, I saw neighbors come out to gape. My father kowtowed, his forehead touching the dirt again and again. I felt sorry for him. Baba was a worrier—typical for someone born in the year of the rabbit. He was responsible for everyone in our household, but this was beyond his experience. My uncle hopped from foot to foot, while my aunt—usually so welcoming and jolly—stood frozen in place at his side. From my upstairs vantage point, the conclusion was evident on all the faces below me: Something was terribly wrong.

Once they were inside, I went quietly to the top of the stairs so I could eavesdrop. Madame Wang settled herself. The tea and treats were served. My father’s voice could barely be heard as he went through the polite rituals. But Madame Wang had not come to speak trivialities with this humble family. She wanted to see me. Just as on the day before, I was called to the room. I walked downstairs and into the main room as gracefully as someone can who’s only six and whose feet are still clumsy and large.

I glanced around at the elders in my family. Although there are special moments when the distance of time leaves memories in shadows, the images of their faces on that day are very clear to me. My grandmother sat staring at her folded hands. Her skin was so frail and thin that I could see a blue pulse in her temple. My father, who already had plenty of aggravations, was speechless with anxiety. My aunt and uncle stood together in the main doorway, afraid to be a part of what was about to happen and afraid to miss it too. But what I remember most is my mother’s face. Of course, as a daughter I believed she was pretty, but I saw her true person for the first time that day. I had always known she had been born in the year of the monkey, but I’d never realized that its traits of deceit and cunning ran so strongly in her. Something raw lurked underneath her high cheekbones. Something conniving lay veiled behind her dark eyes. There was something . . . I still do not quite know how to describe it. I would say that something like male ambition glowed right through her skin.

I was told to stand in front of Madame Wang. I thought her woven silk jacket was beautiful, but a child has no taste, no discrimination. Today I would say it was gaudy and unbefitting a widow, but then a matchmaker is not like a regular woman. She does business with men, establishing bride prices, haggling over dowries, and serving as a go-between. Madame Wang’s laugh was too loud and her words too oily. She ordered me forward, clasped me between her knees, and stared hard into my face. In that moment I changed from being invisible to being very visible.

Madame Wang was far more thorough than the diviner. She pinched my earlobes. She put her forefingers on my lower eyelids and pulled the skin down, then ordered me to look up, down, left, right. She held my cheeks in her hands, turning my face back and forth. Her hands squeezed my arms in rough pulses from my shoulders down to my wrists. Then she put her hands on my hips. I was only six! You can’t tell anything about fertility yet! But she did it just the same, and no one said a word to stop her. Then she did the most amazing thing. She got out of her chair and told me to take her place. To do this would have shown terribly bad manners on my part. I looked from my mother to my father for guidance, but they stood there as dumb as stock animals. My father’s face had gone gray. I could almost hear him thinking, Why didn’t we just throw her in the stream when she was born?

Madame Wang had not become the most important matchmaker in the county by waiting for sheep to make decisions. She simply picked me up and sat me on the chair. Then she knelt before me and peeled off my shoes and socks. Again, utter silence. Like she had with my face, she turned my feet this way and that and then ran her thumbnail up and down my arch.

Madame Wang looked over at the diviner and nodded. She stood again and with an abrupt movement of her forefinger motioned me out of her chair. After she had once again taken her seat, the diviner cleared his throat.

“Your daughter presents us with a special circumstance,” he said. “I saw something in her yesterday, and Madame Wang, who brings additional expertise, agrees. Your daughter’s face is long and slender like a rice seed. Her full earlobes tell us she is generous in spirit. But most important are her feet. Her arch is very high but not yet fully developed. This means, Mother, that you should wait one more year to begin footbinding.” He held up a hand to prevent anyone from interrupting him, as if they would. “Seven is not the custom in our village, I know, but I think if you look at your daughter you will see that . . .”

Diviner Hu hesitated. Grandmother pushed a bowl of tangerines in his direction, so he might have a way to gather his thoughts. He took one, peeled it, and dropped the rind on the floor. With one section poised before his mouth, he resumed.

“At age six, bones are still mostly water and therefore malleable. But your daughter is underdeveloped for her age, even for your village, which has endured difficult years. Perhaps the other girls in this household are, as well. You should not be ashamed.”

Until this time I had not thought there was anything different about my family, nor had I considered that there was anything different about me.

He popped the wedge of tangerine into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and went on. “But your daughter has something besides smallness from famine. Her foot has a particularly high arch, which means that if the proper allowances are made now, her feet could be the most perfect produced in our county.”

Some people don’t believe in diviners. Some people think they make only commonsense recommendations. After all, autumn is the best time for footbinding, spring is the best time to give birth, and a pretty hill with a gentle breeze will have the best feng shui for a burial spot. But this diviner saw something in me, and it changed the course of my life. Still, at that moment there was no celebration. The room was eerily quiet. Something continued to be terribly amiss.

Into this silence, Madame Wang spoke. “The girl is indeed very lovely, but golden lilies are far more important in life than a pretty face. A lovely face is a gift from Heaven, but tiny feet can improve social standing. On this we can all agree. What happens beyond that is really for Father to decide.” She looked directly at Baba, but the words that traveled into the air were meant for my mother. “It is not such a bad thing to make a good alliance for a daughter. A high family will bring you better connections, a better bride-price, and long-term political and economic protection. Though I appreciate the hospitality and generosity that you have shown today,” she said, emphasizing the meagerness of our home with a languid movement of her hand, “fate—in the form of your daughter—has brought you an opportunity. If Mother does her job properly, this insignificant girl could marry into a family in Tongkou.”

Tongkou!

“You speak of wonderful things,” my father ventured warily. “But our family is modest. We cannot afford your fee.”

“Old Father,” Madame Wang responded smoothly, “if your daughter’s feet end up as I imagine, I can rely on a generous fee being paid by the groom’s family. You will also be receiving goods from them in the form of a bride-price. As you can see, you and I will both benefit from this arrangement.”

My father said nothing. He never discussed what happened on the land or ever let us know his feelings, but I remembered one winter after a year of drought when we didn’t have much food stored. My father went into the mountains to hunt, but even the animals had died from hunger. Baba could do nothing but come home with bitter roots, which my mother and grandmother stewed into broth. Perhaps in this moment he was remembering the shame of that year and conjuring in his mind how fine my bride-price might be and what it would do for our family.

“Beyond all of this,” the matchmaker went on, “I believe your daughter might also be eligible for a laotong relationship.”

I knew the words and what they meant. A laotong relationship was completely different from a sworn sisterhood. It involved two girls from different villages and lasted their entire lives, while a sworn sisterhood was made up of several girls and dissolved at marriage. Never in my short life had I met a laotong or considered that I might have one. As girls, my mother and aunt had sworn sisters in their home villages. Elder Sister now had sworn sisters, while grandmother had widow friends from her husband’s village as late-life sworn sisters. I had assumed that in the normal course of my life I would have them as well. To have a laotong was very special indeed. I should have been excited, but like everyone else in the room I was aghast. This was not a subject that should be discussed in front of men. So extraordinary was the situation that my father lost himself and blurted out, “None of the women in our family has ever had a laotong.”

“Your family has not had a lot of things—until now,” Madame Wang said, as she rose out of her chair. “Discuss these matters within your household, but remember, opportunity doesn’t step over your threshold every day. I will visit again.”

The matchmaker and the diviner left, both with promises that they would return to check my progress. My mother and I went upstairs. As soon as we entered the women’s room, she turned and looked at me with that same expression I had just seen in the main room. Then, before I could say anything, she slapped me across the face as hard as she could.

“Do you know how much trouble this will bring your father?” Mama asked. Harsh words, but I knew that slap was for good luck and to scare away bad spirits. After all, nothing guaranteed that my feet would turn out like golden lilies. It was equally possible that my mother would make a mistake with my feet as her mother had made with hers. She had done a fairly good job with Elder Sister, but anything could happen. Instead of being prized, I could totter about on ugly stumps, my arms constantly flapping to keep my balance, just like my mother.

Although my face stung, inside I was happy. That slap was the first time Mama had shown me her mother love, and I had to bite my lips to keep from smiling.

Mama did not speak to me for the rest of the day. Instead, she went back downstairs and talked with my aunt, uncle, father, and grandmother. Uncle was kindhearted, but as the second son he had no authority in our home. Aunt knew the benefits that might arise out of this situation, but as a sonless woman married to a second son, she had the lowest rank in the family. Mama also had no position, but having seen the look on her face when the matchmaker was talking, I knew what her thoughts would be. Father and Grandmother made all decisions in the household, though both could be influenced. The matchmaker’s announcement, although a good omen for me, meant that my father would have to work very hard to build a dowry appropriate for a higher marriage. If he didn’t comply with the matchmaker’s decision, he would lose face not only in the village but also in the county.

I don’t know if they agreed on my fate on that day, but in my mind nothing was ever the same. Beautiful Moon’s future also changed with mine. I was a few months older, but it was decided that the two of us should have our feet bound at the same time as Third Sister’s. Although I still continued to do my outdoor chores, I never again went to the river with my brother. I never again felt the coolness of rushing water against my skin. Until that day Mama had never hit me, but it turned out that this was just the first of what would become many beatings over the next few years. Worst of all, my father never again looked at me the same way. No more sitting on his lap in the evenings when he smoked his pipe. In one instant I had changed from being a worthless girl into someone who might be useful to the family.

My bindings and the special shoes my mother had made to place on the altar of Guanyin were put away, as were the bindings and shoes that had been made for Beautiful Moon. Madame Wang started to make periodic visits. Always she came in her own palanquin. Always she inspected me from head to toe. Always she questioned me about my house learning. I would not say she was kind to me in any way. I was only a means to make a profit.

DURING THE NEXT year, my education in the upstairs women’s chamber began in earnest, but I already knew a lot. I knew that men rarely entered the women’s chamber; it was for us alone, where we could do our work and share our thoughts. I knew I would spend almost my entire life in a room like that. I also knew the difference between nei—the inner realm of the home—and wai—the outer realm of men—lay at the very heart of Confucian society. Whether you are rich or poor, emperor or slave, the domestic sphere is for women and the outside sphere is for men. Women should not pass beyond the inner chambers in their thoughts or in their actions. I also understood that two Confucian ideals ruled our lives. The first was the Three Obediences: “When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son.” The second was the Four Virtues, which delineate women’s behavior, speech, carriage, and occupation: “Be chaste and yielding, calm and upright in attitude; be quiet and agreeable in words; be restrained and exquisite in movement; be perfect in handiwork and embroidery.” If girls do not stray from these principles, they will grow into virtuous women.

My studies now branched out to include the practical arts. I learned how to thread a needle, choose a thread color, and make my stitches small and even. This was important, as Beautiful Moon, Third Sister, and I began working on the shoes that would carry us through the two-year footbinding process. We needed shoes for day, special slippers for sleep, and several pairs of tight socks. We worked chronologically, starting with things that would fit our feet now and moving to smaller and smaller sizes.

Most important, my aunt began to teach me nu shu. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why she took a special interest in me. I foolishly believed that if I was diligent, I would inspire Beautiful Moon to be diligent too. And if she was diligent, perhaps she would marry better than her mother had. But my aunt was actually hoping to bring the secret writing into our lives so that Beautiful Moon and I could share it forever. I also did not perceive that this caused conflict between my aunt and my mother and grandmother, both of whom were illiterate in nu shu just as my father and uncle were illiterate in men’s writing.

Back then I had yet to see men’s writing, so I had nothing to compare it with. But now I can say that men’s writing is bold, with each character easily contained within a square, while our nu shu looks like mosquito legs or bird prints in dust. Unlike men’s writing, a nu shu character does not represent a specific word. Rather, our characters are phonetic in nature. As a result, one character can represent every spoken word with that same sound. So while a character might make a sound that creates the words for “pare,” “pair,” or “pear,” context usually makes the meaning clear. Still, much care has to be taken to make sure we do not misinterpret meaning. Many women—like my mother and grandmother—never learn the writing, but they still know some of the songs and stories, many of which resonate with a ta dum, ta dum, ta dum rhythm.

Aunt instructed me on the special rules that govern nu shu. It can be used to write letters, songs, autobiographies, lessons on womanly duties, prayers to the goddess, and, of course, popular stories. It can be written with brush and ink on paper or on a fan; it can be embroidered onto a handkerchief or woven into cloth. It can and should be sung before an audience of other women and girls, but it can also be something that is read and treasured alone. But the two most important rules are these: Men must never know that it exists, and men must not touch it in any form.

THINGS CONTINUED THIS way—with Beautiful Moon and me learning new skills every day—until my seventh birthday, when the diviner returned. This time he had to find a single date for three girls—Beautiful Moon, myself, and Third Sister, the only one of us to be the proper age—to begin our binding. He hemmed and hawed. He consulted our eight characters. But when all was said and done, he settled on the typical day for girls in our region—the twenty-fourth day of the eighth lunar month—when those who are to have their feet bound say prayers and make final offerings to the Tiny-Footed Maiden, the goddess who oversees footbinding.

Mama and Aunt resumed their pre-binding activities, making more bandages. They fed us red-bean dumplings, to help soften our bones to the consistency of a dumpling and inspire us to achieve a size for our feet that would be no larger than a dumpling. In the days leading up to our binding, many women in our village came to visit us in the upstairs chamber. Elder Sister’s sworn sisters wished us luck, brought us more sweets, and congratulated us on our official entry into womanhood. Sounds of celebration filled our room. Everyone was happy, singing, laughing, talking. Now I know there were many things no one said. (No one said I could die. It wasn’t until I moved to my husband’s home that my mother-in-law told me that one out of ten girls died from footbinding, not only in our county but across the whole of China.)

All I knew was that footbinding would make me more marriageable and therefore bring me closer to the greatest love and greatest joy in a woman’s life—a son. To that end, my goal was to achieve a pair of perfectly bound feet with seven distinct attributes: They should be small, narrow, straight, pointed, and arched, yet still fragrant and soft in texture. Of these requirements, length is most important. Seven centimeters—about the length of a thumb—is the ideal. Shape comes next. A perfect foot should be shaped like the bud of a lotus. It should be full and round at the heel, come to a point at the front, with all weight borne by the big toe alone. This means that the toes and arch of the foot must be broken and bent under to meet the heel. Finally, the cleft formed by the forefoot and heel should be deep enough to hide a large cash piece perpendicularly within its folds. If I could attain all that, happiness would be my reward.

On the morning of the twenty-fourth day of the eighth lunar month, we offered the Tiny-Footed Maiden glutinous rice balls, while our mothers placed the miniature shoes they had made before a small statue of Guanyin. After this, Mama and Aunt gathered together alum, astringent, scissors, special nail clippers, needles, and thread. They pulled out the long bandages they had made; each was five centimeters wide, three meters long, and lightly starched. Then all the women in the household came upstairs. Elder Sister arrived last, with a bucket of boiled water in which mulberry root, ground almonds, urine, herbs, and roots steeped.

As the eldest, I went first, and I was determined to show how brave I could be. Mama washed my feet and rubbed them with alum, to contract the tissue and limit the inevitable secretions of blood and pus. She cut my toenails as short as possible. During this time, my bandages were soaked, so that when they dried on my skin, they would tighten even more. Next, Mama took one end of a bandage, placed it on my instep, then pulled it over my four smallest toes to begin the process of rolling them underneath my foot. From here she wrapped the bandage back around my heel. Another loop around the ankle helped to secure and stabilize the first two loops. The idea was to get my toes and heel to meet, creating the cleft, but leaving my big toe to walk on. Mama repeated these steps until the entire bandage was used; Aunt and Grandmother looked over her shoulder the entire time, making sure no wrinkles saw their way into those loops. Finally, Mama sewed the end tightly shut so the bindings would not loosen and I would not be able to work my foot free.

She repeated the process on my other foot; then Aunt started on Beautiful Moon. During the binding, Third Sister said she wanted a drink of water and went downstairs. Once Beautiful Moon’s feet were done, Mama called for my sister, but she didn’t answer. An hour before, I would have been told to go and find her, but for the next two years I would not be allowed to walk down our stairs. Mama and Aunt searched the house and then went outside. I wanted to run to the lattice window and peek out, but already my feet ached as the pressure on my bones built and the tightness of the bindings blocked my blood’s circulation. I looked over at Beautiful Moon, and her face was as white as her name implied. Twin streams of tears ran down her cheeks.

From outside, Mama’s and Aunt’s voices carried up to us as they called, “Third Sister, Third Sister.”

Grandmother and Elder Sister moved to the lattice window and looked out.

“Aiya,” Grandmother muttered.

Elder Sister glanced back at us. “Mama and Aunt are in the neighbors’ house. Can you hear Third Sister squealing?”

Beautiful Moon and I shook our heads no.

“Mama’s dragging Third Sister down the alley,” Elder Sister reported.

Now we heard Third Sister yell, “No, I won’t go, I won’t do it!”

Mama scolded her loudly. “You’re a worthless nothing. You’re an embarrassment to our ancestors.” These were ugly words but not uncommon; they were heard almost every day in our village.

Third Sister was pushed into the room, but as soon as she fell to the floor she clambered to her feet, ran to a corner, and cowered there.

“This will happen. You have no choice,” Mama declared, as Third Sister’s eyes darted frantically around the room, looking for a place to hide. She was trapped and nothing could stop the inevitable. Mama and Aunt advanced on her. She made one final effort to scramble under their outstretched arms, but Elder Sister grabbed her. Third Sister was only six years old, but she struggled and fought as hard as she could. Elder Sister, Aunt, and Grandmother held her down, while Mama hurriedly applied the bandages. The whole while, Third Sister screamed. A few times an arm broke free, only to be restricted again. For one second, Mama loosened her grip on Third Sister’s foot, and soon that entire leg flailed, the long bandage twirling through the air like an acrobat’s ribbon. Beautiful Moon and I were horrified. This was not the way someone in our family should act. But all we could do was sit and stare, because by now growing daggers of pain were shooting from our feet up our legs. Finally, Mama finished her task. She threw Third Sister’s wrapped foot to the floor, stood, looked down at her youngest daughter with disgust, and spat out a single word: “Worthless!”

Now I will write about the next few minutes and weeks, the length of which in a lifetime as long as mine should be insignificant but to me were an eternity.

Mama looked at me first, because I was the eldest. “Get up!”

The idea was beyond my comprehension. My feet were throbbing. Just a few minutes ago I had been so sure of my courage. Now I did my best to hold back my tears and failed.

Aunt tapped Beautiful Moon’s shoulder. “Stand up and walk.”

Third Sister still wailed on the floor.

Mama yanked me out of the chair. The word pain does not begin to describe the feeling. My toes were locked under my feet so that my body weight fell entirely on the top of those appendages. I tried to balance backward on my heels. When Mama saw this, she hit me.

“Walk!”

I did the best I could. As I shuffled toward the window, Mama reached down and pulled Third Sister to her feet, dragged her to Elder Sister, and said, “Take her back and forth across the room ten times.” Hearing this, I understood what was in store for me, and it was nearly unfathomable. Seeing what was happening and being the lowest-ranked person in the household, my aunt roughly took her daughter’s hand and pulled her up and out of the chair. Tears coursed down my face as Mama led me back and forth across the women’s chamber. I heard myself whimpering. Third Sister kept hollering and trying to wrestle away from Elder Sister. Grandmother, whose duty as the most important woman in our household was merely to oversee these activities, took Third Sister’s other arm. Flanked by two people much stronger than she, Third Sister’s physical body had to obey, but this did not mean that her verbal complaints lessened in any way. Only Beautiful Moon buried her feelings, showing that she was a good daughter, even if she too was lowly in our household.

After our ten round-trips, Mama, Aunt, and Grandmother left us alone. We three girls were nearly paralyzed from our physical torment, yet our trial had barely begun. We could not eat. Even with empty stomachs, we vomited out our agony. Finally, everyone in the household went to bed. What a reprieve it was to lie down. Even to have our feet on the same level as the rest of our bodies was a relief. But as the hours passed a new kind of suffering overtook us. Our feet burned as though they lay among the coals of the brazier. Strange mewling sounds escaped from our mouths. Poor Elder Sister had to share the room with us. She tried her best to comfort us with fairy stories and reminded us in the most gentle way possible that every girl of any standing throughout the great country of China went through what we were going through to become women, wives, and mothers of worth.

None of us slept that night, but whatever we thought we felt on the first day was twice as bad on the second. All three of us tried to rip our bindings, but only Third Sister actually freed a foot. Mama beat her on her arms and legs, rewrapped the foot, and made her walk an extra ten rounds across the room as punishment. Over and over, Mama shook her roughly and demanded, “Do you want to become a little daughter-in-law? It’s not too late. That future can be yours.”

Our whole lives we had heard this threat, but none of us had ever seen a little daughter-in-law. Puwei was too poor for people to take in an unwanted, stubborn, big-footed girl, but we hadn’t seen a fox spirit either and we believed fully in those. So Mama threatened and Third Sister temporarily surrendered.

On the fourth day, we soaked our bandaged feet in a bucket of hot water. The bindings were then removed, and Mama and Aunt checked our toenails, shaved calluses, scrubbed away dead skin, dabbed on more alum and perfume to disguise the odor of our putrefying flesh, and wrapped new clean bindings, even tighter this time. Every day the same. Every fourth day the same. Every two weeks a new pair of shoes, each pair smaller. The neighbor women visited, bringing us red-bean dumplings, in hopes that our bones would soften faster, or dried chili peppers, in hopes that our feet would adopt that slim and pointed shape. Elder Sister’s sworn sisters arrived with little gifts that had helped them during their footbinding. “Bite the end of my calligraphy brush. The tip is thin and delicate. This will help your feet to become thin and delicate too.” Or, “Eat these water chestnuts. They will tell your flesh to think small.”

The women’s chamber turned into a room of discipline. Instead of doing our usual chores, we walked back and forth across the room. Every day Mama and Aunt added more rounds. Every day Grandmother was enlisted to help. When she tired, she rested on one of the beds and directed our activities from there. When it got colder, she pulled extra quilts over her body. As the days grew shorter and darker, her words got shorter and darker too, until she rarely spoke but just stared at Third Sister, willing her with her eyes to keep up with her rounds.

For us, the pain didn’t lessen. How could it? But we learned the most important lesson for all women: that we must obey for our own good. Even in those early weeks, a picture began to form of what the three of us would be like as women. Beautiful Moon would be stoic and beautiful in all circumstances. Third Sister would be a complaining wife, bitter about her lot, ungracious about the gifts that were given to her. As for me—the so-called special one—I accepted my fate without argument.

One day, as I made one of my trips across the room, I heard something crack. One of my toes had broken. I thought the sound was something internal to my own body, but it was so sharp that everyone in the women’s chamber heard it. My mother’s eyes zeroed in on me. “Move! Progress is finally being made!” Walking, my whole body trembled. By nightfall the eight toes that needed to break had broken, but I was still made to walk. I felt my broken toes under the weight of every step I took, for they were loose in my shoes. The freshly created space where once there had been a joint was now a gelatinous infinity of torture. The freezing weather did not begin to numb the excruciating sensations that raged through my entire body. Still, Mama was not happy with my compliance. That night she told Elder Brother to bring back a reed cut from the riverbank. Over the next two days, she used this on the backs of my legs to keep me moving. On the day that my bindings were rewrapped, I soaked my feet as usual, but this time the massage to reshape the bones was beyond anything I had experienced so far. With her fingers Mama pulled my loose bones back and up against the soles of my feet. At no other time did I see Mama’s mother love so clearly.

“A true lady lets no ugliness into her life,” she repeated again and again, drilling the words into me. “Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you find peace. I wrap, I bind, but you will have the reward.”

Beautiful Moon’s toes broke a few days later, but Third Sister’s bones refused. Mama sent Elder Brother out on another errand. This time he needed to find small stones that could be wrapped against Third Sister’s toes for extra pressure. I have already said she was resistant, but now her cries were even louder, if such a thing were possible. Beautiful Moon and I thought she responded this way because she wanted more attention. After all, Mama was devoting her efforts almost entirely to me. But on the days when our bindings were removed, we could see differences between our feet and Third Sister’s. Yes, blood and pus seeped through our bandages, as was normal, but with Third Sister the fluids that oozed from her body had taken on a new and different smell. And while Beautiful Moon’s and my skin had wilted to the pallor of the dead, Third Sister’s skin shone as pink as a flower.

Madame Wang came for another visit. She inspected the work my mother had done and made a few recommendations of herbs that could be made into a tea to help the pain. I did not try that bitter brew until the days of snow set in and the bones in my mid-foot cracked apart. My mind was in a haze brought on by the combination of suffering and the herbs, when Third Sister’s condition suddenly changed. Her skin burned. Her eyes glittered with water and fever insanity, and her round face waned into sharp angles. When Mama and Aunt went downstairs to prepare the midday meal, Elder Sister took pity on her pathetic sibling by letting her stretch out on one of the beds. Beautiful Moon and I took a break from our walking rounds. Afraid to be caught sitting, we stood at Third Sister’s side. Elder Sister rubbed Third Sister’s legs, trying to give her some relief. But it was the deepest part of winter and we all wore our clothes with the heaviest padding. With our help, Elder Sister pulled Third Sister’s pant leg up to her knee so she could massage the calf directly. That’s when we saw the brutal red streaks that rose from underneath Third Sister’s bindings, snaked their way up her leg, and disappeared back under her pants. We looked at one another for a moment and then quickly examined the other leg. The same red streaks were there too.

Elder Sister went downstairs. To tell what we’d found, she had to confess her failure in her duties. We expected to hear Mama’s hand strike Elder Sister’s face. But no. Mama and Aunt hurried back upstairs instead. They stood at the top of the landing and surveyed the room: Third Sister staring at the ceiling with her little legs exposed, two other girls waiting meekly to be punished, and Grandmother asleep under her quilts. Aunt took one look at the scene and went to boil water.

Mama walked to the bed. She didn’t have her cane and she flapped across the room like a bird with broken wings, and as a person she was about as useless to help her own daughter. As soon as Aunt returned, Mama began to unwrap the bindings. A disgusting odor infused the room. Aunt gagged. Although it was snowing, Elder Sister tore away the rice paper that covered the windows to give the stench an exit. Finally, Third Sister’s feet were fully exposed. The pus was dark green and the blood had coagulated into brownish, putrid mud. Third Sister was brought to a sitting position and her unbound feet set into a steaming bowl of water. She was so far away in her mind that she didn’t cry out.

All of Third Sister’s screams of the past weeks took on a different meaning. Did she know on that first day that something bad might happen? Was that why she had resisted? Had Mama made some terrible mistake in her haste? Had Third Sister’s blood poisoning been triggered by wrinkles in her bindings? Was she weak from bad nutrition as Madame Wang claimed I had been? What had she done in her previous life to deserve this punishment now?

Mama scrubbed at those feet, trying to remove the infection. Third Sister fainted. The water in the bucket became murky with noxious discharge. Finally Mama pulled the broken appendages from the bucket and patted them dry.

“Mother,” Mama called to her mother-in-law, “you have more experience than I. Please help me.”

But Grandmother didn’t stir under her quilts. Mama and Aunt disagreed about what to do next.

“We should leave her feet open to the air,” Mama suggested.

“You know that’s the worst thing,” Aunt came back. “Many of her bones have already broken. If you don’t bind them, they will never heal properly. She’ll be crippled. Unmarriageable.”

“I would rather keep her on this earth unmarried than lose her forever.”

“Then she would have no purpose and no value,” Aunt reasoned. “Your mother love tells you this is no future.”

The whole time they argued, Third Sister didn’t move. Alum was spread over her skin and her feet were rebound. The next day, the snow still fell and she was worse. Though we were not rich, Baba went out into the storm and brought back the village doctor, who looked at Third Sister and shook his head. It was the first time I saw that gesture, which means that we are powerless to stop the soul of a loved one from leaving for the spirit world. You can fight it, but once death has grasped hold, nothing can be done. We are meek in the face of the afterworld’s desires. The doctor offered to make a poultice and prepare herbs for a tea, but he was a good and honest man. He understood our situation.

“I can do these things for your little girl,” he confided to Baba, “but they will be money spent on a no-use cause.”

But the bad news of that day was not yet done. While we kowtowed to the doctor, he looked round the room and saw Grandmother under her quilts. He moved to her, touched her forehead, and listened to the secret pulses that measured her chi. He looked up at my father. “Your honored mother is very sick. Why did you not mention this before?”

How could Baba answer this and save face? He was a good son, but he was also a man, and this business fell within the inner realm. Still, Grandmother’s welfare was his most important filial duty. While he was downstairs smoking his pipe with his brother and waiting for winter to end, upstairs two people had fallen under the spell of ghost spirits.

Again, our whole family set to questioning. Was too much time spent on worthless girls that the one woman of value and esteem in our home was allowed to weaken? Had all that walking back and forth across the room with Third Sister stolen Grandmother’s storehouse of steps? Had Grandmother—tired of hearing Third Sister’s screams—closed down her chi to shut out the irksome racket? Had the ghost spirits who’d come to prey on Third Sister been tempted by the possibility of another victim?

After so much noise, and after all the attention that had been paid in recent weeks to Third Sister, all focus now shifted to Grandmother. My father and uncle left her side only to smoke, eat, or relieve themselves. Aunt assumed all the household duties, making meals for everyone, washing, and caring for all of us. I never saw Mama sleep. As the first daughter-in-law, she had two main purposes in life: to provide sons to carry on the family and to care for her husband’s mother. She should have watched Grandmother’s health more assiduously. Instead, she had allowed man-hope to enter her mind by shifting her attention to me and my good-luck future. Now, with the fierce determination born of her earlier neglectfulness, she performed all the prescribed rituals, preparing special offerings to the gods and to our ancestors, praying and chanting, even making soup from her own blood to rebuild Grandmother’s life force.

Since everyone was occupied with Grandmother, Beautiful Moon and I were assigned to watch over Third Sister. We were only seven and did not know the words or actions to comfort her. Her torment was great, but it was not the worst I would see in my lifetime. She died four days later, enduring more suffering and pain than was fair for such a short life. Grandmother died one day after that. No one saw her suffer. She just curled up smaller and smaller like a caterpillar under an autumnal blanket of leaves.

THE GROUND WAS too hard for burial to take place. Grandmother’s two remaining sworn sisters attended to her, sang mourning songs, wrapped her body in muslin, and dressed her for life in the afterworld. She was an old woman, who had lived a long life, so her eternity clothes had many layers. Third Sister was only six. She did not have a lifetime of clothing to keep her warm or many friends to meet her in the afterworld. She had her summer outfit and her winter outfit, and even these were things that Elder Sister and I had worn first. Grandmother and Third Sister spent the rest of winter under a shroud of snow.

I would say that between the time of Grandmother’s and Third Sister’s deaths and their burials much changed in the women’s chamber. Oh, we still did our rounds. We still bathed our feet every four days and changed into smaller shoes every two weeks. But now Mama and Aunt watched over us with great vigilance. And we were heedful too, never resisting or complaining. When it came time for bathing our feet, our eyes were as riveted to the pus and blood as Mama’s and Aunt’s. Each night after we girls were finally left alone, and every morning before our routine began again, Elder Sister checked our legs to make sure we were not growing serious infections.

I often think back on those first few months of our footbinding. I remember how Mama, Aunt, Grandmother, and even Elder Sister recited certain phrases to encourage us. One of these was “Marry a chicken, stay with a chicken; marry a rooster, stay with a rooster.” Like so much back then, I heard the words but didn’t understand the meaning. Foot size would determine how marriageable I was. My small feet would be offered as proof to my prospective in-laws of my personal discipline and my ability to endure the pain of childbirth, as well as whatever misfortunes might lie ahead. My small feet would show the world my obedience to my natal family, particularly to my mother, which would also make a good impression on my future mother-in-law. The shoes I embroidered would symbolize to my future in-laws my abilities at embroidery and thus other house learning. And, though I knew nothing of this at the time, my feet would be something that would hold my husband’s fascination during the most private and intimate moments between a man and a woman. His desire to see them and hold them in his hands never diminished during our lives together, not even after I had five children, not even after the rest of my body was no longer an enticement to do bed business.

The Fan

SIX MONTHS PASSED SINCE OUR FOOTBINDING, TWO MONTHS since Grandmother and Third Sister died. The snow melted, the earth softened, and Grandmother and Third Sister were prepared for burial. There are three events in Yao lives—no, all Chinese lives—on which the most money is spent: birth, marriage, and death. We all wish to be born well and marry well; we all wish to die well and be buried well. But fate and practical circumstance influence these three events like no others. Grandmother was the matriarch and had led an exemplary life; Third Sister had accomplished nothing. Baba and Uncle gathered together what money they had and paid a coffin maker in Shangjiangxu to construct a good coffin for Grandmother. Baba and Uncle made a small box for Third Sister. Grandmother’s sworn sisters came again, and at last we held the funeral.

Once again, I saw how poor we were. If we had more money, perhaps Baba would have built a widow arch to commemorate Grandmother’s life. Perhaps he would have used the diviner to find a propitious spot with the best feng shui elements for her burial or hired a palanquin to transport his daughter and niece, who still could not walk very far, to the grave site. These things were not possible. Mama carried me on her back, while Aunt carried Beautiful Moon. Our simple procession went to a place not far from the house, yet still on our leased land. Baba and Uncle kowtowed three times in succession, again and again. Mama lay on the burial mound and begged forgiveness. We burned paper money, but no gifts other than candy were given to the mourners who came.

Although Grandmother could not read nu shu, she still had the third-day wedding books that had been given to her at her marriage so many years before. These, along with a few other treasures, were gathered together by her two late-life sworn sisters and burned at her grave so the words would accompany her to the afterworld. They chanted together: “We hope you find our other sworn sisters. The three of you will be happy. Don’t forget us. The fibers between us are connected even if the lotus root is cut. Such is the strength and longevity of our relationship.” Nothing was said about Third Sister. Not even Elder Brother had any messages to give. Since she had no writing of her own, Mama, Aunt, and Elder Sister wrote messages in nu shu to introduce her to our ancestors, and then we burned them after the men left.

Though we were still at the beginning of our three-year mourning period for Grandmother, life continued. The most agonizing part of my footbinding was behind me. My mother didn’t have to beat me so much, and the pain from the bindings had lessened. The best thing for Beautiful Moon and me to do now was sit and let our feet bond into their new shape. In the early morning hours, the two of us—under Elder Sister’s supervision—practiced new stitches. In the late morning, Mama taught me how to spin cotton; in the early afternoon, we switched to weaving. Beautiful Moon and her mother did the same lessons only in reverse. Late afternoons were devoted to the study of nu shu, with Aunt teaching us simple words with patience and great humor.

Without having to oversee Third Sister’s binding, Elder Sister, now eleven, went back to her studies of the womanly arts. Madame Gao, the local matchmaker, came regularly to negotiate Contracting a Kin, the first of the five stages that would make up the wedding process for both Elder Brother and Elder Sister. A girl from a family much like ours had been found in Madame Gao’s natal village of Gaojia to marry Elder Brother. This was a good thing for the potential daughter-in-law, because Madame Gao did so much business between the two villages that nu shu letters could regularly be sent back and forth. Beyond this, Aunt had married out from Gaojia. Now she would be able to communicate with her family more easily. She was so gleeful that for days everyone could see through her smile and into the great cave of her mouth with all its jagged teeth.

Elder Sister, acknowledged by all who met her to be quiet and pretty, was to marry out to a family better than ours that lived in faraway Getan Village. We were sad that eventually we would not see her as often as we would like, but we would have her company for another six years before the actual marriage, then another two or three years after that before she left us for good. In our county, as is well known, we follow the custom of buluo fujia, not falling permanently into our husbands’ homes until we become pregnant.

Madame Gao was not like Madame Wang in any way. The word to describe her is coarse. Where Madame Wang wore silk, Madame Gao dressed in homespun cotton. Where Madame Wang’s words were as slick as goose fat, Madame Gao’s sentiments were as abrasive as the barks of a village dog. She would come up to the women’s chamber, perch on a stool, and demand to see the feet of all of the girls in the Yi household. Of course, Elder Sister and Beautiful Moon complied. But even though my fate was already under the direction of Madame Wang, Mama said I should show my feet as well. The things Madame Gao said! “The cleft is as deep as this girl’s inner folds. She will make her husband a happy man.” Or, “The way her heel curves down like a sac with her forefoot pointed out just so will remind her husband of his own member. All day long that lucky man will be thinking of bed business.” At the time I did not understand the meaning. Once I did, I was embarrassed that these kinds of things had been spoken in front of Mama and Aunt. But they had laughed along with the matchmaker. We three girls had joined in, but, as I said, these words and their meanings were far beyond our experience or knowledge.

That year, on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, Elder Sister’s sworn sisters met at our house for Bull Fighting Day. The five girls were already showing how well they would manage their future households by renting out the rice their families had given them to form the sisterhood and using the earnings to finance their celebrations. Each girl brought a dish from home: rice-noodle soup, beet greens with preserved egg, pig’s feet in chili sauce, preserved long bean, and sweet rice cakes. A lot of cooking was done communally too, with all the girls gathering to roll dumplings, which were steamed and then dipped in soy sauce mixed with lemon juice and chili oil. They ate, giggled, and recited nu shu stories like “The Tale of Sangu,” in which the daughter of a rich man remains loyal to her poor husband through many ups and downs until they are rewarded for their fidelity by becoming mandarins; or “The Fairy Carp,” in which a fish transforms itself into a lovely young woman who then falls in love with a brilliant scholar, only to have her true form revealed.

But their favorite was “The Story of the Woman with Three Brothers.” They did not know all of it and they didn’t ask Mama to lead the call-and-response, although she had memorized many of the words. Instead, the sworn sisters begged Aunt to guide them through the story. Beautiful Moon and I joined their entreaties, because this well-loved true-life tale—tragic and darkly funny at the same time—was a good way for us to practice the chanting associated with our special women’s writing.

One of Aunt’s sworn sisters had given the story to her embroidered on a handkerchief. Aunt pulled out the piece of cloth and carefully unfolded it. Beautiful Moon and I came to sit next to her so we could follow the embroidered characters as she chanted.

“A woman once had three brothers,” my aunt began. “They all had wives, but she was not married. Though she was virtuous and hardworking, her brothers would not offer a dowry. How unhappy she was! What could she do?”

My mother’s voice answered. “She’s so miserable, she goes to the garden and hangs herself from a tree.”

Beautiful Moon, elder sister, the sworn sisters, and I joined in for the chorus. “The eldest brother walks through the garden and pretends not to see her. The second brother walks through the garden and pretends not to see that she’s dead. The third brother sees her, bursts into tears, and takes her body inside.”

Across the room, Mama glanced up and caught me staring at her. She smiled, pleased perhaps that I had not missed any words.

Aunt began the story cycle again. “A woman once had three brothers. When she died, no one wanted to care for her body. Though she had been virtuous and hardworking, her brothers would not serve her. How cruel this was! What would happen?”

“She is ignored in death as in life, until her body begins to stink,” Mama sang out.

Again we girls recited the well-known chorus. “The eldest brother gives one piece of cloth to cover her body. The second brother gives two pieces of cloth. The third brother wraps her in as many clothes as possible so she’ll be warm in the afterworld.”

“A woman once had three brothers,” Aunt continued. “Now dressed for her future as a spirit, her brothers won’t spend money on a coffin. Though she was virtuous and hardworking, her brothers are stingy. How unfair this was! Would she ever find rest?”

“All alone, all alone,” Mama chanted, “she plans her haunting days.”

Aunt used her finger to carry us from written character to written character and we tried to follow, although we weren’t fluent enough to recognize most of the characters. “The eldest brother says, ‘We don’t need to bury her in a box. She is fine the way she is.’ The second brother says, ‘We could use that old box in the shed.’ The third brother says, ‘This is all the money I have. I will go and buy a coffin.’ ”

As we came to the end, the rhythm of the story shifted. Aunt sang, “A woman once had three brothers. They have come so far, but what will happen to Sister now? Elder Brother—mean in spirit; Second Brother—cold in heart; but in Third Brother love may come through.”

The sworn sisters let Beautiful Moon and me finish the tale. “Elder Brother says, ‘Let’s bury her here by the water buffalo road’ ” (meaning she would be trampled for all eternity). “Second Brother says, ‘Let’s bury her under the bridge’ ” (meaning she would wash away). “But Third Brother—good in heart, filial in all ways—says, ‘We will bury her behind the house so everyone will remember her.’ In the end, Sister, who had an unhappy life, found great happiness in the afterworld.”

I loved this story. It was fun to chant with Mama and the others, but since my grandmother’s and sister’s deaths I better understood its messages. The story showed me how the value of a girl—or woman—could shift from person to person. It also offered practical instruction on how to care for a loved one after death—how a body should be handled, what constituted proper eternity garments, where someone should be buried. My family had tried their best to follow these rules, and I would too, once I became a wife and mother.

THE DAY AFTER Bull Fighting Day, Madame Wang returned. I had grown to hate her visits, because they always meant more anxiety for our household. Of course, everyone was pleased with the prospect of Elder Sister’s good marriage. Of course, everyone was delighted that Elder Brother would also be married and that our home would have its first daughter-in-law. But we had also had two funerals in our family recently. If you put emotions aside, these sad and happy occasions meant the expense of two burials and two upcoming weddings. The pressure on me to make a good marriage took on added meaning. It meant our survival.

Madame Wang came upstairs to the women’s chamber, politely checked Elder Sister’s embroidery, and praised her for its pleasing qualities. Then she sat on a stool with her back to the lattice window. She did not look in my direction. Mama, who was just beginning to understand her new position as the highest-ranking woman in the household, waved to Aunt to bring tea. Until it came, Madame Wang spoke of the weather, of plans for upcoming temple fairs, of a shipment of goods that had arrived by river from Guilin. Once the tea was poured, Madame Wang got down to business.

“Cherished Mother,” she began, “we have discussed before some of the possibilities open to your daughter. A marriage to a good family in Tongkou Village seems assured.” She leaned forward and confided, “I have already had some interest there. In just a few more years I will visit you and your husband for Contracting a Kin.” She pulled herself back to an upright position and cleared her throat. “But today I have come to suggest a match of a different sort. As you may recall from the first day we met, I saw in Lily the chance for her to become a laotong.” Madame Wang waited for this to sink in before she went on. “Tongkou Village is forty-five minutes away by men’s walking. Most families there are from the Lu clan. There is a potential laotong match for Lily in this clan. The girl’s name is Snow Flower.”

Mama’s first question showed me and everyone else in the room not only that she had not forgotten what Madame Wang had suggested on her first visit but that she had been scheming and thinking about this possibility ever since.

“What of the eight characters?” Mama asked, the sweetness of her voice doing little to cover her determination. “I see no reason for a match unless the eight characters are in full agreement.”

“Mother, I would not have come to you today unless the eight characters aligned well,” Madame Wang responded evenly. “Lily and Snow Flower were born in the year of the horse, in the same month, and, if what both mothers have told me is true, on the same day and in the same hour as well. Lily and Snow Flower have the same number of brothers and sisters, and they are each the third child—”

“But—”

Madame Wang held up a hand to stop my mother from continuing. “To answer your question before you ask it: Yes, the third daughter in the Lu family is also with her ancestors. The circumstances of these tragedies do not matter, for no one likes to think of the loss of a child, not even a daughter.” She stared at Mama with hard eyes, practically daring her to speak. When Mama looked away, Madame Wang went on. “Lily and Snow Flower are of identical height, of equal beauty, and, most important, their feet were bound on the same day. Snow Flower’s great-grandfather was a jinshi scholar, so social and economic standing are not matched.” Madame Wang did not have to explain that if this family had an imperial scholar of the highest grade among its ancestors, it must indeed be well connected and well off. “Snow Flower’s mother does not seem to mind these discrepancies, since the two girls share so many other sames.”

Mama nodded calmly, the monkey in her absorbing all this, but I wanted to fly from my chair, run down to the riverbank, and scream my excitement. I glanced at Aunt. I expected to see that big smiling cave of a mouth, but instead she had clamped it shut as she tried to hide her delight. Her whole body was a picture of stillness and well-bred decorum, except for her fingers, which swam nervously among themselves like a bowlful of baby eels. She, more than the rest of us, understood the importance of this meeting. Without being obvious, I sneaked peeks at Beautiful Moon and Elder Sister. Their eyes glittered with happiness for me. Oh, the things we would talk about tonight after the rest of the household went to sleep!

“Although I usually make this approach during the Mid-Autumn Festival when the girls are eight or nine,” Madame Wang remarked, “I felt in this instance that an immediate match would be especially beneficial for your daughter. She is ideal in many ways, but her house learning could improve and she needs much refinement to be able to fit into a higher household.”

“My daughter is not what she should be,” Mama agreed indifferently. “She is stubborn and disobedient. I am not so sure this is a good idea. Better to be one imperfect grape among many sworn sisters than to disappoint one girl of high standing.”

My joy of moments before plunged into a black chasm. Even though I knew my mother well, I was not old enough to understand that her sour words about me were part of the negotiation, just as many similar sentiments would be spoken when my father and the matchmaker sat down to discuss my marriage. Making me seem unworthy protected my parents from any complaints that either my husband’s or my laotong‘s families might have about me in the future. It might also lower any hidden costs they would have to pay the matchmaker and lessen what they would have to provide for my dowry.

The matchmaker was unfazed. “Naturally you would feel this way. I too have many of the same concerns. But enough talk for today.” She paused for a moment as if deliberating, though it was quite clear to all of us that every word she spoke and every action she carried out had long been planned and practiced. She reached into her sleeve, pulled out a fan, and called me over. As she handed it to me, Madame Wang spoke over my head to my mother. “You need time to consider your daughter’s fate.”

I clicked open the fan and stared at the words that ran down one of the folds and at the garland of leaves that adorned the upper edge.

Mama spoke sternly to the matchmaker. “You give this to my daughter though you and I have not discussed your fee?”

Madame Wang waved away the suggestion as if it were a bad smell. “Same as with her marriage. No fee to the Yi family. The other girl’s family can pay me. And if I raise your daughter’s value now as a laotong, my bride-price payment from the groom’s family will be further enriched. I am satisfied with this arrangement.”

She rose and took a few steps toward the stairs. Then she turned, rested a hand on Aunt’s shoulder, and announced to the room, “One more thing you should all consider. This woman has done a good job with her daughter, and I can see that Beautiful Moon and Lily are close. If we can agree to this laotong relationship for Lily, which will help solidify her chance of marriage into Tongkou, then I think it would be a good thing to consider looking for a match for Beautiful Moon there as well.”

This possibility took us all by surprise. I forgot about decorum and turned to Beautiful Moon, who looked as excited as I felt.

Madame Wang lifted her hand and let it arch out into a crescent-moon shape. “Of course, you may have already engaged Madame Gao. I would not want to interfere with her local”—and by this she meant inferior—”business in any way.”

If nothing else, this showed that my mother could not equal the bargaining expertise of Madame Wang, who now addressed Mama directly.

“I consider this a woman’s decision, one of the few you can make for your daughter, and perhaps for your niece as well. Nevertheless, Father must agree too, before we can go any further. Mother, I will leave you with one final piece of advice: Use your bed time to plead your case.”

While Mama and Aunt walked the matchmaker to her palanquin, Elder Sister, Beautiful Moon, and I stood in the middle of the room together, hugging and chattering excitedly. Could all these wonderful things be happening to me? Would Beautiful Moon also marry into Tongkou? Would we really be together for the rest of our lives? Elder Sister, who could have felt bitter about her own fate, devoutly wished for everything the matchmaker had proposed to come true, knowing our whole family would benefit.

We were young girls and thrilled, but we knew how to behave. Beautiful Moon and I sat back down to rest our feet.

Elder Sister tipped her head toward the fan I still held. “What does it say?”

“I can’t read everything. Help me.”

I opened the fan. Elder Sister and Beautiful Moon stared over my shoulder. The three of us scanned the characters, finding those we recognized: girl, good, women, home, you, I.

Knowing only she could help me, Aunt was the first one back upstairs. Using her finger, she pointed to each character. I memorized the words on the spot: I understand there is a girl of good character and women’s learning in your home. You and I are of the same year and the same day. Could we not be sames together?

Before I could respond to this girl named Snow Flower, many things had to be examined and weighed by my family. Although Elder Sister, Beautiful Moon, and I had no say in anything that might happen, we spent hours in the upstairs chamber listening as Mama and Aunt discussed the possible consequences of a laotong match. My mother was shrewd, but Aunt came from a better family than ours and her learning was deeper. Still, being the lowest-ranked woman in our household meant that Aunt had to be careful in what she said, especially now that my mother had total control over her life.

“A laotong match is as significant as a good marriage,” Aunt might say to begin the conversation. She would repeat many of the matchmaker’s arguments, but she always came back to the one element she viewed as most important. “A laotong relationship is made by choice for the purpose of emotional companionship and eternal fidelity. A marriage is not made by choice and has only one purpose—to have sons.”

Hearing these words about sons, Mama would try to comfort her sister-in-law. “You have Beautiful Moon. She is a good girl and makes everyone happy—”

“And she will leave me forever when she marries out. Your two sons will live with you for the rest of your life.”

Every day the two of them came to this same sad place in the conversation, and every day my mother tried to steer the subject to more practical issues.

“If Lily becomes a laotong, she won’t have sworn sisters. All the women in our family—”

—have had them is how Mama intended to end the sentence, but Aunt finished it another way—”can act as her sworn sisters on those occasions when they are necessary. If you feel we need more girls when it comes time for Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber before Lily’s marriage, you can invite the unmarried daughters of our neighbors to assist her.”

“Those girls won’t know her well,” Mama said.

“But her laotong will. By the time those two girls marry out, they will know each other better than you or I know our husbands.”

Aunt paused as she always did at this point.

“Lily has an opportunity to follow a path different from the one either you or I took to end up here,” she continued, after a moment. “This laotong relationship will give her added value and show people in Tongkou that she is worthy of a good marriage into their village. And since the bond between two old sames is forever and does not change with marriage, ties with people in Tongkou will be further cemented and your husband—and all of us—further protected. These things will help secure Lily’s position in the women’s quarters of her future husband’s home. She won’t be a woman crippled by an ugly face or ugly feet. She will be a woman with perfect golden lilies who has already proved her loyalty, faithfulness, and ability to write in our secret language well enough to have been the laotong of a girl from their own village.”

Variations of this conversation were endless, and I listened to them every day. What I didn’t get to hear was how all this was translated to my father during Mama and Baba’s bed time. This match would cost my father resources—the constant exchange of gifts between the old sames and their families, the sharing of food and water during Snow Flower’s visits to our house, and the expense for me to travel to Tongkou—all of which he did not have. But as Madame Wang said, it was up to Mama to convince Baba that this was a good idea. Aunt helped too by whispering in Uncle’s ear, since Beautiful Moon’s future was attached to mine. Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men’s decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake.

Eventually, my family made the choice I wished for. The next question was how I should respond to this Snow Flower. Mama helped me add extra embroidery to a pair of shoes I had been working on to send as my first gift, but she could not begin to advise me on my written response. Usually the return message was sent on a new fan, which would then become part of what might be considered the “wedding” gifts exchange. I had something different in mind, which broke completely with tradition. When I looked at Snow Flower’s interwoven garland at the top of the fan, I thought of the old saying, “Hyacinth bean and papayas, long vines, deep roots. Palm trees inside the garden walls, with deep roots, stand a thousand years.” To me this summed up what I wanted our relationship to be: deep, entwined, forever. I wanted this one fan to be the symbol of our relationship. I was only seven and a half years old, but I envisioned what this fan with all its secret messages would become.

Once I was convinced that my response would be on Snow Flower’s fan, I asked Aunt to help me compose the right nu shu reply. For days we discussed the possibilities. If I was to be radical with my return gift, I should be as conventional as possible with my secret message. Aunt wrote out the words we agreed upon, and I practiced them until my calligraphy was passable. When I was satisfied, I ground ink on the inkstone, mixing it with water until I achieved a deep black. I took brush in hand, holding it upright between my thumb, index finger, and middle finger, and dipped it in the ink. I began by painting a tiny snow flower amid the garland of leaves at the top of the fan. For my message, I chose the fold next to Snow Flower’s beautiful calligraphy. I started with a traditional opening and then proceeded with the accepted phrases for such an occasion:

I write to you. Please listen to me. Though I am poor and improper, though I am not worthy of your family’s high gate, I write today to say it was fated that we join. Your words fill my heart. We are a pair of mandarin ducks. We are a bridge over the river. People everywhere will envy our good match. Yes, my heart is true to go with you.

Naturally I did not mean all these sentiments. How could we conceive of deep love, friendship, and everlasting commitment when we were only seven? We had not even met, and even if we had, we didn’t understand those feelings one bit. They were just words I wrote, hoping that one day they would come true.

I set the fan and the pair of bound-foot shoes I had made on a piece of cloth. With nothing now to occupy my hands, my mind worried about many things. Was I too low for Snow Flower’s family? Would they look at my calligraphy and realize just how inferior I was? Would they think my break with tradition showed bad manners? Would they stop the match? These troubling thoughts—fox spirits in the mind, my mother called them—haunted me, yet all I could do was wait, keep working in the women’s chamber, and rest my feet so the bones healed properly.

When Madame Wang first saw what I had done to the fan, she pursed her lips in disapproval. Then, after a long moment, she nodded knowingly. “This is truly a perfect match. These two girls are not just sames in the eight characters, they are alike in their horse spirits as well. This will be . . . interesting.” She said this last word almost as a question, which in turn made me wonder about Snow Flower. “The next step is to complete the official arrangements. I suggest that I escort the two girls to the Temple of Gupo fair in Shexia to write their contract. Mother, I will take care of transportation for both girls. Little walking will be required.”

With that, Madame Wang took the four ends of the cloth, folded them over the fan and shoes, and took them away with her to give to my future laotong.

Snow Flower

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, IT WAS HARD FOR ME TO SIT STILL and let my feet heal as I was supposed to when all I could think about was that I would soon meet Snow Flower. Even Mama and Aunt got caught up in the anticipation, making suggestions about what Snow Flower and I should write in our contract even though neither of them had ever seen one. When Madame Wang’s palanquin arrived at our threshold, I was clean and dressed in country-simple clothes. Mama carried me downstairs and outside. Ten years later when I got married I would make a similar journey to a palanquin. On that occasion I was fearful of the new life that lay before me and sad to be leaving all I had known behind, but for this meeting I was giddy with nervous excitement. Would Snow Flower like me?

Madame Wang held the door to the palanquin open, Mama set me down, and I stepped into the small space. Snow Flower was far prettier than I had imagined. Her eyes were perfect almonds. Her skin was pale, showing that she had not spent as much time outdoors as I had during my milk years. A red curtain hung down next to her, and a rosy-hued light glinted in her black hair. She wore a sky-blue silk tunic embroidered with a cloud pattern. Peeking out from beneath her trousers were the shoes I had made her. She did not speak. Perhaps she was as nervous as I was. She smiled and I smiled back.

The palanquin had just one seat, so the three of us had to squeeze together. To keep the palanquin balanced, Madame Wang sat in the middle. The bearers picked us up, and soon they were trotting over the bridge that led out of Puwei. I had never been in a palanquin before. We had four bearers, who tried to run in a manner that would minimize the swaying, but—with the curtains drawn, the heat of the day, my own anxieties, and the strange rhythmic movement—my stomach felt sick. I had never been away from home either, so even if I could have looked out the window I would not have known where I was or how far I still had to travel. I had heard about the Temple of Gupo fair. Who hadn’t? Women went there each year on the tenth day of the fifth month to pray for the birth of sons. It was said that thousands of people went to this fair. That idea was beyond my comprehension. When I began to hear other noises coming through the curtain—bells jingling on horse-drawn carts, the shouted voices of our bearers telling people, “Move out of the way,” and the calls of street vendors beckoning customers to buy their joss sticks, candles, and other offerings that could be placed at the temple—I knew we had reached our destination.

The palanquin came to a stop and the bearers set us down with a hard thump. Madame Wang leaned over me, pushed open the door, told us to stay put, and got out. I closed my eyes, grateful not to be moving and concentrating on calming my stomach, when a voice spoke my thoughts. “I am so happy we’re still again. I felt like I was going to be sick. What would you have thought of me then?”

I opened my eyes and looked at Snow Flower. Her pale skin had turned as green as I imagined mine to be, but her eyes were filled with frank inquiry. She pulled her shoulders up under her ears conspiratorially, smiled in a way that I would soon learn meant that whatever she had in mind was going to get us in trouble, patted the cushion next to her, and said, “Let’s see what’s happening outside.”

Key to the matching of our eight characters was that we had both been born in the year of the horse. This meant that we both should long for adventure. She looked at me again, weighing the depths of my bravery, which, I must admit, were quite shallow. I took a deep breath and scooted to her side of the palanquin; she pulled back the curtain. Now I was able to put faces to the voices I’d heard, but beyond that my eyes filled with amazing images. Yao-nationality people had set up fabric stands decorated with billowing pieces of cloth, all much more colorful than anything Mama or Aunt had ever made. A troupe of musicians in flamboyant costumes passed by, on their way to an opera performance. A man walked along with a pig on a leash. It had never occurred to me that someone would bring his pig to a fair to sell. Every few seconds another palanquin veered around us, each, we assumed, holding a woman who had come to make an offering to Gupo. Many other women walked on the street—sworn sisters who’d married out to new villages and had reunited on this special day—dressed in their best skirts and wearing elaborately embroidered headdresses. Together they swayed down the street on their golden lilies. There were so many beautiful sights to absorb, all of which were heightened by an incredibly sweet smell that wafted into the palanquin, enticing my nose and calming my stomach.

“Have you been here before?” Snow Flower asked. When I shook my head no, she rattled on. “I’ve come with my mother several times. We always have fun. We visit the temple. Do you think we’ll do that today? Probably not. That would mean too much walking, but I hope we can go to the taro stand. Mama always takes me there. Do you smell it? Old Man Zuo—he owns the stand—makes the best treat in the county.” She had been here many times? “Here’s what he does: He fries cubes of taro until they are soft on the inside but firm and crisp on the outside. Then he melts sugar in a big wok over a large fire. Have you had sugar, Lily? It is the best thing in the world. He melts it until it turns brown, then he throws the fried taro into the sugar and swirls it around until it is coated. He drops this on a plate and places it on your table, along with a bowl of cold water. You can’t believe how hot the taro is with that melted sugar. It would burn a hole in your mouth if you tried to eat it like that, so you pick up a piece with your chopsticks and dip it in the water. Crack, crack, crack! That’s the sound it makes as the sugar goes hard. When you bite into it, you get the crunch of the sugar shell, the crispiness of the fried taro, and then the final soft center. Auntie just has to take us, don’t you agree?”

“Auntie?”

“You talk! I thought maybe all you could do was write beautiful words.”

“Maybe I don’t talk as much as you,” I responded quietly, my feelings hurt. She was the great-granddaughter of an imperial scholar and far more knowledgeable than the daughter of a common farmer.

She picked up my hand. Hers was dry and hot, her chi burning high. “Don’t worry. I don’t care if you’re quiet. My talking always gets me in trouble because I often don’t think before I speak, while you will be an ideal wife, always choosing your words with great care.”

You see? Right there on that first day we understood each other, but did that stop us from making mistakes in the future?

Madame Wang opened the door to the palanquin. “Come along, girls. Everything is arranged. Ten steps will get you to your destination. More than that, and I would break my promise to your mothers.”

We stood not far from a paper goods stand decorated with red streamers, good luck couplets, red and gold double-happiness symbols, and painted images of the goddess Gupo. A table in front was piled with the most colorful items for sale. Aisles on either end allowed patrons to enter the stand, which was protected from the hubbub of the street by three long tables on the sides. In the middle of the stand, a small table was set with ink, brushes, and two straight-back chairs. Madame Wang told us to select a piece of paper for our contract. Like any child I had made small choices, like which piece of vegetable to pick from the main bowl after Baba, Uncle, Elder Brother, and every other older member of our household had already dipped their chopsticks into the dish. Now I was overwhelmed by the selection, my hands wanting to touch all the merchandise, while Snow Flower, at just seven and a half, was discriminating, showing her better learning.

Madame Wang said, “Remember, girls, I will pay for everything today. This is only one decision. You have others to make, so don’t dawdle.”

“Of course, Auntie,” Snow Flower responded for both of us. Then she asked me, “Which do you like?”

I pointed to a large sheet of paper that by its very size seemed the most appropriate for the importance of the occasion.

Snow Flower ran her forefinger over the gold border. “The quality of the gold is poor,” she said; then she held the sheet up toward the sky. “The paper is as thin and transparent as an insect wing. See how the sun shines through it?” She set it down on the table and stared into my eyes in that earnest way of hers. “We need something that will show for all time the precious nature and durability of our relationship.”

I could barely comprehend her words. She spoke a slightly different dialect than I was familiar with in Puwei, but this was not the only reason for my incomprehension. I was coarse and stupid; she was refined, and already her house learning had extended beyond what my mother and even my aunt knew.

She pulled me deeper into the stand and whispered, “They always keep the better things back here.” In her regular voice, she said, “Old same, how do you find this one?”

This was the first time that anyone had ever asked me to look—really look—at something, and I did. Even to my uneducated eye, I could see the difference between what I had chosen on the street side of the stand and this. It was smaller in size and less gaudy in its decoration.

“Test it,” Snow Flower said.

I picked it up—it felt substantial in my hands—and held it up to the sunlight just as Snow Flower had done. The paper was so thick that the sun came through only as a dull red glow.

In wordless agreement we handed the paper to the merchant. Madame Wang paid for it and for us to write our contract at the center table in the stand. Snow Flower and I sat down opposite each other.

“How many girls do you think have sat in these chairs to write their contracts?” Snow Flower asked. “We must write the best contract ever.” She frowned a little and asked, “What do you think it should say?”

I thought about the things my mother and aunt had suggested. “We’re girls,” I said, “so we should always follow the rules—”

“Yes, yes, all the usual things,” Snow Flower said, a little impatiently, “but don’t you want this to be about the two of us?”

I was unsure of myself, while she seemed to know so much. She’d been here before and I’d never been anywhere. She seemed to know what should be included in our contract, and I could only rely on what my aunt and mother imagined should be in it. Every suggestion I made came out like a question.

“We’re to be laotong for life? We will always be true? We will do chores together in the upstairs chamber?”

Snow Flower regarded me in the same forthright way she had in the palanquin. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Had I said the wrong thing? Had I said it in the wrong way?

A moment later she picked up a brush and dipped it in ink. Quite apart from seeing all my shortcomings today, she knew from our fan that my calligraphy was not as good as hers. But as she began to write I saw she had taken my suggestions. My sentiments and her beautiful phrasing swirled together, taking two girls and creating one common thought.

We believed that the sentiments on that piece of paper would last forever, but we could not foresee the turmoil that lay ahead. Still, I remember so many of the words. How could I not? They became the words of my heart.

We, Miss Snow Flower of Tongkou Village and Miss Lily of Puwei Village, will be true to each other. We will comfort each other with kind words. We will ease each other’s hearts. We will whisper and embroider together in the women’s chamber. We will practice the Three Obediences and the Four Virtues. We will follow Confucian instruction as found in The Women’s Classic by behaving as good women. On this day, we, Miss Snow Flower and Miss Lily, have spoken true words. We swear a bond. For ten thousand li, we will be like two streams flowing into one river. For ten thousand years, we will be like two flowers in the same garden. Never a step apart, never a harsh word between us. We will be old sames until we die. Our hearts are glad.

Madame Wang watched us solemnly as we both signed our names in nu shu at the bottom. “I am happy with this laotong match,” she announced. “Like a marriage between a man and woman, the kind ones go with kind ones, the pretty ones go with pretty ones, and the clever ones go with clever ones. But unlike marriage, this relationship should remain exclusive. No”—and here she allowed herself a small cackle—”concubines allowed. You understand my meaning, girls? This is a joining of two hearts that cannot be torn apart by distance, disagreement, loneliness, better marriage position, or by letting other girls—and later women—come between you.”

We took our ten steps back to the palanquin. For so many months, walking had been agony, but right then I felt like Yao Niang, the first tiny-footed lady. When that woman of legend danced on a golden lotus, she gave the illusion of floating on a cloud. Every step I took was cushioned by great happiness.

The bearers carried us to the center of the fair. This time when we stepped out, we were in the heart of the marketplace. On a slight rise I could see the red walls, gilt decorative carvings, and green-tile roof of the temple. Madame Wang slipped us each a piece of cash and told us to buy gifts to celebrate the day. If I had never had the opportunity to make a choice for myself, I certainly had never been given the responsibility of spending money. In one hand I held the coin; in the other I held Snow Flower’s hand. I tried to think of what this girl beside me could want, but with so many wonderful things around me my mind dulled with the possibilities.

Thankfully Snow Flower took charge again. “I know just the thing!” she squealed. She took a couple of quick steps as if to run and hobbled to a stop. “Sometimes I still forget my feet,” she said, her face tight with pain.

My feet must have been healing slightly faster than hers, and I felt a shiver of disappointment that we wouldn’t be able to explore as much as we—I--would have liked.

“We’ll go slow,” I said. “We don’t have to see everything this time—”

“—because we’ll come here every year for the rest of our lives.” Snow Flower finished for me, and then she squeezed my hand.

What a sight we must have been: two old sames on their first excursion, trying to walk on remembered feet with only exhilaration to keep them from falling, and an older woman dressed in a gaudy outfit yelling at them, “Stop that bad behavior, or we’ll go home right now!” Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go. Snow Flower pulled me into a stall that sold embroidery necessities.

“We are two girls in our daughter days,” Snow Flower said, as her eyes scanned the rainbow of threads. “Until we marry out, we will be in the women’s chamber, visiting together, embroidering together, whispering together. If we buy carefully, we will have memories we can make together for many years.”

In the embroidery stall we were of the same mind. We liked the same colors, but we also chose a few that we agreed did not speak to our hearts but would be good nevertheless to create the detail of a leaf or the shadow of a flower. We handed over our cash and went back to the palanquin with our purchases in hand. Once we were back inside, Snow Flower implored Madame Wang for one more treat. “Auntie, please take us to the taro man. Please, Auntie, please!” Assuming that Snow Flower was using this honorific to soften Madame Wang’s stern demeanor, and once again emboldened by my laotong‘s daring, I joined in. “Please, Auntie, please!” Madame Wang could not say no with a girl on either side of her pulling on a sleeve, each begging for another extravagance as only a first son might do.

She finally gave in with warnings that this sort of thing could not happen again. “I am just a poor widow, and spending my money on two useless branches will lower my esteem in the county. Do you want to send me into poverty? Do you want me to die alone?” She said all of this in her usual abrupt manner, but actually everything was ready for us when we reached the stand. A short table had been set up, with three small barrels for seats.

The proprietor brought out a live chicken and held it up. “I always select the best for you, Madame Wang,” Old Man Zuo said. A few minutes later, he carried out a special pot heated by coals in a bottom compartment. Broth, ginger, scallions, and the cut-up chicken we’d seen just moments before bubbled inside the bowl. A dipping sauce of chopped ginger, garlic, scallions, and hot oil was also set on the table. A platter of fresh pea greens sauteed with whole garlic cloves rounded out the meal. We ate with relish, fishing for delectable pieces of chicken with our chopsticks, chewing happily, and spitting our bones on the ground. But as wonderful as all this was, I still kept room for the taro dish that Snow Flower had mentioned earlier. Everything she said about it was true—the way the hot sugar crackled as it hit the water, the irresistible crunch and softness in my mouth.

As I did at home, I picked up the teapot and poured tea for the three of us. When I set the pot back down, I heard Snow Flower suck in air reprovingly. I had done something wrong again, but I didn’t know what. She put her hand over mine and guided it to the teapot, so that together we could turn it so the spout no longer pointed at Madame Wang.

“It’s rude to aim the spout at anyone,” Snow Flower said mildly.

I should have felt ashamed. Instead, I felt only admiration for my laotong‘s upbringing.

The bearers were asleep under the palanquin’s poles when we returned, but Madame Wang’s clapping and her loud voice roused them and soon we were on our way home. For the return trip, Madame Wang let the two of us sit together, even though this upset the weight balance in the palanquin and made it harder for the bearers. I think back and see that we were so young—just two little girls giggling at nothing, sorting our embroidery thread, holding hands, sneaking peeks out the curtain when Madame Wang dozed off, and watching the world go past the window. So involved were we that this time neither of us felt the movement sickness brought about by the bearers jogging and jostling over the bumpy road.

This was our first trip to Shexia and the Temple of Gupo. Madame Wang took us back the next year, and we made our first offerings in the temple. She would escort us there almost every year until our daughter days were over. Once Snow Flower and I married out, we met in Shexia each year if circumstances allowed, always making offerings in the temple so that we might have sons, always visiting the thread merchant so we could continue with our projects in similar color schemes, always reliving the details of our first visit, and always stopping to have Old Man Zuo’s caramelized taro at the end of the day.

We reached Puwei at dusk. On that day I had made more than just a friend outside my natal family. I had signed a contract to be old sames with another girl. I didn’t want the day to end, but I knew it would as soon as we reached my house. I imagined myself being dropped off, then watching as the bearers carried Snow Flower down the alley, with just her fingers daring to sneak under the flapping curtain to wave a final goodbye before she disappeared around the corner. Then I learned my happiness was not yet over.

We stopped and I got out. Madame Wang told Snow Flower to step out too. “Goodbye, girls. I will be back in a few days to retrieve Snow Flower.” She leaned out of the palanquin, pinched my old same’s cheeks, and added, “Be good. Don’t complain. Learn through your eyes and ears. Make your mother proud of you.”

How can I explain what I felt with just the two of us standing outside my family’s threshold? I was beyond happy, but I knew what waited inside. As much as I loved my family and our home, I knew Snow Flower was accustomed to something better. And she had not brought any clothes or toiletries with her.

Mama came out to greet us. She kissed me; then she put an arm around Snow Flower’s shoulders and guided her over the threshold into our home. While we were gone, Mama, Aunt, and Elder Sister had worked hard to tidy the main room. All trash had been removed, hanging clothes taken down, and dishes put away. Our hard-packed dirt floor had been swept and water sprinkled on it to tamp it down and make it cooler.

Snow Flower met everyone, even Elder Brother. When dinner was served, Snow Flower dipped her chopsticks first in her cup of tea to clean them, but other than this small gesture, which showed more refinement than anyone in my family had ever seen, she did her best to hide her feelings. But already my heart knew Snow Flower too well. She was putting a smiling face on a bad situation. To my eyes, she was clearly appalled by the way we lived.

It had been a long day and we were very tired. When it came time to go upstairs I had another sinking feeling, but the women in our household had been busy there as well. The bedclothes had been aired and all the clutter associated with our usual activities organized into orderly piles. Mama pointed out a bowl of fresh water for us to wash up, along with two sets of my clothes and one of Elder Sister’s—all freshly cleaned—for Snow Flower to wear while she was our guest. I let Snow Flower use the water bowl first, but she barely dabbed her fingers into it, suspicious, I think, that it was not pure enough. She held the sleeping garment I gave her away from her body with two fingers, scrutinizing it as though it might be a rotting fish instead of Elder Sister’s newest piece of clothing. She looked around, saw our eyes on her, and then, without a word, stripped and put on the garment. We climbed into bed. Tonight, and for all future nights when Snow Flower came to stay, Elder Sister would sleep with Beautiful Moon.

Mama said good night to the two of us. Then she leaned down, kissed me, and whispered in my ear, “Madame Wang told us what we needed to do. Be happy, little one, be happy.”

So there we were, the two of us side by side with a light cotton quilt over us. We were such little girls, but as tired as we were we couldn’t stop whispering. Snow Flower asked about my family. I asked about hers. I told her how Third Sister had died. She told me that her third sister had died from a coughing disease. She asked about our village and I told her that Puwei meant Common Beauty Village in our local dialect. She explained that Tongkou meant Wood Mouth Village, and that when I visited her I would see why this was so.

Moonlight came in through the lattice window, illuminating Snow Flower’s face. Elder Sister and Beautiful Moon fell asleep, but still Snow Flower and I talked. As women, we are told never to discuss our bound feet, that it is improper and unladylike, and that such conversation only inflames the passions of men. But we were girls and still in the process of our footbinding. These things were not memories, like they are for me now, but pain and suffering we were living at that time. Snow Flower talked about how she had hidden from her mother and begged her father to have mercy on her. Her father had almost given in, which would have consigned Snow Flower to the life of an old maid in her parents’ home or a servant in someone else’s.

“But when my father started smoking his pipe,” Snow Flower explained, “he forgot his promise to me. With his mind far away, my mother and aunt took me upstairs and tied me to a chair. This is why I, like you, am a year late in my footbinding.” This didn’t mean—once her fate had been sealed—that she embraced it. No, she struggled against everything in her early months, even tearing off her bindings completely one time. “My mother bound my feet—and me to the chair—even tighter the next time.”

“You can’t fight your fate,” I said. “It is predestined.”

“My mother says the same thing,” Snow Flower responded. “She untied me only to walk to break my bones and to let me use the chamber pot. All the time, I looked out our lattice window. I watched the birds fly by. I followed the clouds on their travels. I studied the moon as it grew larger, then shrank. So much happened outside my window that I almost forgot what was happening inside that room.”

How these sentiments scared me! Snow Flower had the true independent streak of the horse sign, only her horse had wings that carried her far above the earth, while mine had a plodding nature. But a feeling in the pit of my stomach—of something naughty, of pushing against the boundaries of our preordained lives—gave me an internal thrill that in time would become a deep craving.

Snow Flower snuggled close to me so that we were face-to-face. She put her hand on my cheek and said, “I am happy we are old sames.” Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Lying next to her, looking at her face in the moonlight, feeling the delicate weight of her small hand on my cheek, listening to her breathing deepen, I wondered how could I make her love me the way I longed to be loved.

Love

WE WOMEN ARE EXPECTED TO LOVE OUR CHILDREN AS SOON as they leave our bodies, but who among us has not felt disappointment at the sight of a daughter or felt the dark gloom that settles upon the mind even when holding a precious son, if he does nothing but cry and makes your mother-in-law look at you as though your milk were sour? We may love our daughters with all our hearts, but we must train them through pain. We love our sons most of all, but we can never be a part of their world, the outer realm of men. We are expected to love our husbands from the day of Contracting a Kin, though we will not see their faces for another six years. We are told to love our in-laws, but we enter those families as strangers, as the lowest person in the household, just one step on the ladder above a servant. We are ordered to love and honor our husbands’ ancestors, so we perform the proper duties, even if our hearts quietly call out gratitude to our natal ancestors. We love our parents because they take care of us, but we are considered worthless branches on the family tree. We drain the family resources. We are raised by one family for another. As happy as we are in our natal families, we all know that parting is inevitable. So we love our families, but we understand that this love will end in the sadness of departure. All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my county know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality.

But the love between a pair of old sames is something completely different. As Madame Wang said, a laotong relationship is made by choice. While it’s true that Snow Flower and I didn’t mean all the words we’d written to each other in our initial contact through the fan, when we first looked in each other’s eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us—like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love—true-heart love—must grow. Back then I didn’t yet understand the burning kind of love, so instead I thought about the rice paddies I used to see on my daily walks down to the river with my brother when I still had all my milk teeth. Maybe I could make our love grow like a farmer made his crop to grow—through hard work, unwavering will, and the blessings of nature. How funny that I can remember that even now! Waaa! I knew so little about life, but I knew enough to think like a farmer.

So, as a girl, I prepared my earth—getting a piece of paper from Baba or asking Elder Sister for a tiny scrap of her dowry cloth—on which to plant. My seeds were the nu shu characters I composed. Madame Wang became my irrigation ditch. When she stopped by to see how my feet were progressing, I gave her my missive—in the form of a letter, a piece of weaving, or an embroidered handkerchief—and she delivered it to Snow Flower.

Nothing can grow without the sun—the one thing completely outside the farmer’s control. I came to believe that Snow Flower filled that role. For me, sunshine came in the form of her answers to my nu shu letters. When I received something from Snow Flower, all of us gathered to decipher the meaning, for she already used words and images that challenged Aunt’s knowledge.

I wrote little-girl things: I am fine. How are you? She might respond: Two birds balance on the top branches of a tree. Together they fly into the sky. I might write: Today Mama taught me how to make sticky rice wrapped in taro leaf. Snow Flower might write back: Today I looked out my lattice window. I thought of the phoenix rising to find a companion, and then I thought of you. I might write: A lucky date has been chosen for Elder Sister’s wedding. She might write back: Your sister is now in the second stage of her many marriage traditions. Happily, she will be with you for a few more years. I might write: I want to learn everything. You are smart. Can I be your student? She might write back: I am learning from you too. This is what makes us a pair of mandarin ducks nesting together. I might write: My meanings are not deep and my writing crude, but I wish you were here and we could whisper together at night. Her response: Two nightingales sing in the darkness.

Her words both frightened and exhilarated me. She was clever. She had much more learning than I did. But this was not the scary part. In every message she spoke of birds, of flight, of the world away. Even back then, she flew against what was presented to her. I wanted to cling to her wings and soar, no matter how intimidated I was.

Except for the initial delivery of the fan, Snow Flower never sent anything to me without my sending something to her first. This did not bother me. I was coaxing her. I was watering her with my letters, and she always reacted by giving me a new shoot or a new bloom. But one obstacle confounded me. I wanted to see her again. She needed to invite me to her home, but an invitation did not come.

One day Madame Wang came to visit, this time bringing the fan. I did not open it in one motion. Instead I clicked open only the first three folds, revealing her first message to me, my response next to it, and now a new communication next to that:

If your family agrees, I would like to come to you in the eleventh month. We will sit together, thread our needles, chose our colors, and talk in whispers.

In the garland of leaves, she had added another delicate flower.

On the chosen day I waited by the lattice window, watching for the palanquin to come around the corner. When it stopped before our threshold, I wanted to run downstairs and out onto the street to greet my laotong. This was impossible. Mama went outside and the door to the palanquin swung open. Snow Flower stepped down onto the street. She wore the same sky-blue jacket with the cloud pattern. In time I came to think of it as her traveling tunic and believed she wore it for every visit so as not to embarrass my family for our lack.

She had brought neither food nor clothes with her, as was the custom. Madame Wang offered the same admonition she had given Snow Flower the last time. She should be good, not complain, learn through her eyes and ears, and make her mother proud. Snow Flower answered, “Yes, Auntie,” but I could tell she wasn’t listening, because she was standing on the street, staring straight up to the lattice window, searching the shadows for my face.

Mama carried Snow Flower upstairs, and from the minute her feet hit the floor of the women’s chamber she couldn’t stop talking. She chatted, whispered, teased, confided, consoled, admired. She was not the girl who upset me with her thoughts of flying away. She just wanted to play, have fun, giggle, and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about little-girl things.

I had told her I wanted to be her student, so she started that day to teach me things from The Women’s Classic, like never to show my teeth when I smiled or raise my voice when talking to a man. But she had written that she wanted to be my student too, so she asked me to show her how to make those sticky rice cakes. She also asked strange questions about hauling water and making pig feed. I laughed because every girl knows those things. Snow Flower swore she didn’t. I decided she was teasing me. She insisted she really was ignorant. Then the others began goading me.

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know how to haul water!” Elder Sister called out.

“And maybe you don’t remember how to feed a pig,” Aunt added. “That learning was tossed out with your old shoes.”

This was too much and I got to my feet. I was so mad, I put my fists on my hip bones and glared at them, but when I saw sunny faces staring back at me my anger melted and I wanted to make them even happier.

It was quite an entertainment for everyone in the women’s chamber to watch me toddle on my still-healing feet back and forth across the room, acting out pulling water from the well and hauling it back to the house or stooping for grass and mixing it with kitchen scraps. Beautiful Moon laughed so hard she said she needed to pee. Even Elder Sister, so serious with all her dowry work, tittered into her sleeve. When I looked over at Snow Flower, her eyes were gay as she clapped her hands in delight. You see, Snow Flower was like that. She could come into the women’s chamber and with a few simple words make me do things I would never dream of doing on my own. She could be in that room—which I saw as a place of secrets, suffering, and mourning—and turn it into an oasis of bright times, good cheer, and silly fun.

For all of her talk about speaking in a low voice to men, she babbled to Baba and Uncle during dinner, making them laugh too. Younger Brother climbed on and off Snow Flower as if he were a monkey and her lap a nest in a tree. She had so much life in her. Everywhere she went, she entranced people and made them happy. She was better than we were—anyone could see that—but she turned that into an adventure for my family. To us, she was like a rare bird that had escaped its cage and was roaming through a courtyard of common chickens. We were amused, but so was she.

The time came for us to wash our faces before bed. I remembered the awkwardness I felt during Snow Flower’s first visit. I motioned for her to go first, but she refused. If I went first, then the water would not be clean for her alone. But when Snow Flower said, “We’ll wash our faces together,” I knew that all my common farmer’s work and willfulness had produced my desired crop. Together we bent over the basin, cupped our hands, and scooped water onto our faces. She nudged me with her elbow. I looked into the water and saw our two faces reflecting back through the ripples. Water dripped off her skin just as it dripped off mine. She giggled and splashed a little water from the basin at me. In that moment of shared water, I knew that my laotong loved me too.

Learning

DURING THE NEXT THREE YEARS, SNOW FLOWER VISITED EVERY couple of months. Her sky-blue tunic with the cloud pattern gave way to another outfit of lavender silk with white trim—an odd color combination for a girl so young. As soon as she entered the upstairs chamber, she changed into an outfit that my mother had made for her. In this way we were old sames on the inside and on the outside as well.

I had yet to go to Snow Flower’s home village of Tongkou. I didn’t question this, nor did I hear the adults in my home discuss the strangeness of the arrangement. Then one day when I was nine, I overheard Mama query Madame Wang about the situation. They were standing outside the threshold, and their conversation carried up to me at my spot by the lattice window.

“My husband says we are always feeding Snow Flower,” Mama said that day in a low voice, hoping no one would hear. “And her visits cause us to haul extra water for drinking, cooking, and washing. He wants to know when Lily will visit Tongkou. This is the usual way.”

“The usual custom is for all eight characters to be matched,” Madame Wang reminded my mother, “but we both know that a very important one was not. Snow Flower has come to a family that is below her.” Madame Wang paused, then added, “I did not hear you complain of this when I first approached you.”

“Yes, but—”

“You clearly don’t understand the way things are,” Madame Wang continued indignantly. “I told you from the beginning that I hoped to find a match for Lily in Tongkou, but a marriage could never happen there if a potential bridegroom happened to glimpse your daughter before the wedding day. Furthermore, Snow Flower’s family suffers because of the girls’ social imbalance. You should be grateful that they haven’t demanded an end to the laotong agreement. Of course it is never too late to make a change, if that is what your husband truly desires. It will only mean more awkwardness for me.”

What could my mother do except say, “Madame Wang, I misspoke. Please come inside. Would you care for some tea?”

I heard Mama’s shame and fear that day. She could not jeopardize any aspect of the relationship, even if it placed an added burden on our family.

Are you wondering how I felt, hearing that Snow Flower’s family didn’t feel I was her equal? It didn’t disturb me, because I knew I didn’t deserve Snow Flower’s affections. I worked hard every day to make her love me as I loved her. I felt sorry—no, embarrassed—for my mother. She had lost a lot of face with Madame Wang. But the truth is, I didn’t care about Baba’s concerns, Mama’s discomfort, Madame Wang’s stubbornness, or the peculiar physical design of Snow Flower and my relationship, because even if I could have visited Tongkou without my future husband seeing me, I felt I didn’t need to go there to know about my laotong‘s life. She had already told me more about her village, her family, and her beautiful home than I could ever have learned just by seeing them. But the matter didn’t end there.

Madame Wang and Madame Gao always fought over territory. As the go-between for people in Puwei, Madame Gao had negotiated a good marriage for Elder Sister and had found a suitable girl from another village for Elder Brother. She had expected to do the same for Beautiful Moon and me. But Madame Wang—with her ideas about my fate—had changed not only my course and that of Beautiful Moon but Madame Gao’s as well. Those moneys would no longer go into her purse. As they say, a miserly woman always nurses revenge.

Madame Gao traveled to Tongkou to suggest her services to Snow Flower’s family. It didn’t take long before word of this reached Madame Wang. While the disagreement had nothing to do with us, the confrontation took place in our house when Madame Wang came to pick up Snow Flower and found Madame Gao eating pumpkin seeds and discussing the logistics of Elder Sister’s Delivering the Date ceremony in the main room with Baba. Nothing was said in front of him. Neither woman was that unrefined. Madame Gao could have avoided the quarrel altogether if she’d simply left when her business was done. Instead, she walked upstairs, plopped down on a chair, and began bragging about her matchmaking expertise. She was like a finger poking at a boil. Finally, Madame Wang couldn’t take any more.

“Only a she-dog in heat would be demented enough to come to my village and try to steal one of my little nieces,” Madame Wang snapped.

“Tongkou is not your village, Old Auntie,” Madame Gao answered smoothly. “If it is your village to master, why do you come sniffing around Puwei? By your reckoning, Lily and Beautiful Moon should be mine. But do I cry waa-waa like a baby over this?”

“I’ll make fine matches for those girls. I will for Snow Flower too. You couldn’t do better.”

“Don’t be so sure. You did not do so well for her elder sister. I’m better suited, given Snow Flower’s circumstances.”

Did I mention that Snow Flower was in the room hearing these words, being talked about as if she and her sister were bags of inferior rice being haggled over by unscrupulous merchants? She had been standing by Madame Wang, waiting to go home. In her hands she held a piece of cloth she had embroidered. She twisted it in her fingers, stretching the threads. She didn’t look up, but I could see that her face and ears had turned bright red. At this point, the argument could have escalated. Instead, Madame Wang reached out a veined hand and placed it gently on the small of Snow Flower’s back. Until that time I hadn’t known that Madame Wang was capable of either pity or backing down.

“I do not speak to gutter women,” she rasped. “Come, Snow Flower. We have a long journey home.”

We would have put this episode from our minds, except that those two matchmakers were at each other’s throats from then on. When Madame Gao heard that Madame Wang’s palanquin had arrived in Puwei, she’d dress in her overly bright clothes, rouge her cheeks, and come nosing around our house like a—well, like a she-dog in heat.

BY THE TIME Snow Flower and I turned eleven, our feet had completely healed. Mine were strong and noticeably perfect at just seven centimeters long. Snow Flower’s feet were slightly larger, while Beautiful Moon’s feet were larger still but exquisitely shaped. This, along with Beautiful Moon’s good house learning, had made her very marriageable. With our footbinding behind us, Madame Wang negotiated the Contracting a Kin phase for all three of our marriages. Our eight characters were matched with our future husbands’ and engagement dates selected.

Just as Madame Wang predicted, the perfection of my golden lilies led me to a fortuitous betrothal. She arranged for me to be married into the best Lu family in Tongkou. My husband’s uncle was a jinshi scholar, who had received much land from the emperor as an enfeoffment. Uncle Lu, as he was called, was childless. He lived in the capital and relied on his brother to oversee his holdings. Since my father-in-law served as headman of the village—renting tracts to farmers and collecting rents—everyone assumed my husband would become the future headman. Beautiful Moon was going to marry into a lesser Lu family nearby. Her betrothed was the son of a farmer who worked four times as many mou as Baba and Uncle. To us, this seemed prosperous, but it was still far, far less than what my future father-in-law controlled on his brother’s behalf.

“Beautiful Moon, Lily,” Madame Wang said, “you two are as close as sisters. Now you will be like my sister and me. We both married into Tongkou. Though we have both suffered misfortune, we are lucky to have spent our whole lives together.” And truly, Beautiful Moon and I were grateful that we would continue to share everything, from our rice-and-salt days as wives and mothers to sitting quietly as widows.

Snow Flower had to marry out of Tongkou, but she would be close by in Jintian—Open Field Village. Madame Wang guaranteed that Beautiful Moon and I would be able to see Jintian and possibly even Snow Flower’s window from our new lattice windows. We didn’t hear much about the family Snow Flower was marrying into, except that her betrothed was born in the year of the rooster. This concerned us, because everyone knows this is not an ideal match, since the rooster wants to sit on the horse’s back.

“Don’t worry, girls,” Madame Wang assured us. “The diviner has studied the elements of water, fire, metal, earth, and wood. I promise this is not a case where water and fire will have to live together. Everything will be fine,” she said, and we believed her.

Our grooms’ families delivered the first gifts of money, candy, and meat. Aunt and Uncle received a leg of pork, while Mama and Baba received an entire roasted pig, which was cut up and sent to our relatives in Puwei as gifts. Our parents reciprocated with gifts to the grooms’ families of eggs and rice to symbolize our fertility. Then we waited for the second stage to begin, when our future in-laws would Deliver the Date for our weddings.

Imagine how happy we were. Our futures were settled. Our new families were higher than our own. We were still young enough to believe that our kind hearts would win over any difficulties with our mothers-in-law. We were busy with our handiwork. But most of all we were glad to be in each other’s company.

Aunt continued to teach us nu shu, but we also learned from Snow Flower, who brought new characters with her every time she visited. Some she got from sneaking peeks at her brother’s studies, since many nu shu characters are only italicized versions of men’s characters, but others came from Snow Flower’s mother, who was extremely well versed in our women’s secret writing. We spent hours practicing them, tracing the strokes with our fingers on each other’s palms. Always Aunt cautioned us to be careful with our words, since by using phonetic characters, as opposed to the pictographic characters of men’s writing, our meanings could become lost or confused.

“Every word must be placed in context,” she reminded us each day at the end of our lesson. “Much tragedy could result from a wrong reading.” With that admonition expressed, Aunt then rewarded us with the romantic story of the local woman who invented our secret writing.

“Long ago in Song times, perhaps more than one thousand years ago,” she recounted, “Emperor Song Zhezong searched through the realm for a new concubine. He traveled far, finally coming to our county, where he heard of a farmer named Hu, a man of some learning and good sense who lived in the village of Jintian—yes, Jintian, where our Snow Flower will live when she marries out. Master Hu had a son who was a scholar, a very high-ranking young man who had done well in the imperial exams, but the person who most intrigued the emperor was the farmer’s eldest daughter. Her name was Yuxiu. She was not an entirely worthless branch, for her father had seen to her education. She could recite classical poetry and she had learned men’s writing. She could sing and dance. Her embroidery was fine and delicate. All this convinced the emperor that she would make a fine royal concubine. He visited Master Hu, negotiated for his clever daughter, and soon enough Yuxiu was on her way to the capital. A happy ending? In some ways. Master Hu received many gifts and Yuxiu was guaranteed a courtly life of jade and silk. But, girls, I tell you that even someone as bright and cultivated as Yuxiu could not avoid that sad moment of departure from her natal family. Oh, how the tears poured down her mother’s cheeks! Oh, how her sisters wept in sadness! But none of them were as sad as Yuxiu.”

We’d learned this part of the story well. Yuxiu’s separation from her family was just the beginning of her woes. Even with all her talents, she could not keep the emperor amused forever. He grew tired of her pretty moon face, her almond eyes, her cherry mouth, while her talents—as noteworthy as they were here in Yongming County—were insignificant compared to those of the other ladies of the court. Poor Yuxiu. She was no match for palace intrigues. The other wives and concubines had no use for the country girl. She was lonely and sad but had no way to communicate with her mother and sisters without others finding out. An incautious word from her could result in decapitation or being thrown into one of the palace wells to silence her forever.

“Day and night, Yuxiu kept her emotions to herself,” Aunt went on. “The wicked women of the court and the eunuchs watched her as she quietly did her embroidery or practiced her calligraphy. All the time they made fun of her work. ‘It’s too sloppy,’ they’d say. Or, ‘Look how that country monkey tries to copy men’s writing.’ Every word that came from their mouths was cruel, but Yuxiu was not trying to copy men’s writing. She was changing it, slanting it, feminizing it, and eventually creating entirely new characters that had little or nothing to do with men’s writing. She was quietly inventing a secret code so she could write home to her mother and sisters.”

Snow Flower and I had often asked how Yuxiu’s mother and sisters had been able to read the secret code, and today Aunt wove her answer into the story.

“Perhaps a sympathetic eunuch slipped out a letter from Yuxiu that explained everything. Or perhaps her sisters didn’t know what the note said, tossed it aside, and in its skewed state they saw and interpreted the italicized characters. Then, over time, the women of that family invented new phonetic characters, which they grew to understand from context, just as you girls are learning to do right now. But these are the kinds of particulars that men would care about.” She delivered this reprimand sternly, reminding us that these questions weren’t our concern. “What we should carry away from Yuxiu’s life is that she found a way to share what was happening beneath her happy surface life and that her gift has been passed down through countless generations to us.”

For a moment we were quiet, thinking of that lonely concubine. Aunt began to sing first and the three of us joined in, while Mama listened. It was a sad song, one reputed to have come straight from Hu Yuxiu’s own mouth. Our voices poured out her sorrow:

“My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,

An invisible rebellion that no man can see.

Let our life stories become tragic art.

Oh, Mama, oh, sisters, hear me, hear me.”

The last notes floated out the lattice window and down the alley. “Remember, girls,” Aunt said. “Not all men are emperors, but all girls marry out. Yuxiu invented nu shu for the women in our county to keep our ties to our natal families.”

We picked up our needles and started embroidering. The next day, Aunt would tell us the story again.

THE YEAR SNOW Flower and I turned thirteen our learning came at us from every direction, and we were expected to help in all the usual ways. Where Snow Flower’s womenfolk had excelled in teaching her the refined arts, they had failed miserably with the domestic arts, so she shadowed me as I did my chores. We rose at dawn and started the cooking fire. After Snow Flower and I washed the dishes, we mixed the pig’s meal. At midday, we went outside for a few minutes to pick fresh vegetables from the kitchen garden; then we made lunch. Mama and Aunt once did all these tasks. Now they supervised us. Afternoons were spent in the women’s chamber. When evening came, we helped prepare and serve dinner.

Every minute of every day involved lessons. The girls in our household—and I include Snow Flower in this—tried to be good students. Beautiful Moon was best at making thread and yarn, tasks that Snow Flower and I had no patience for. I liked to cook but was less interested in weaving, sewing, and making shoes. None of us liked to clean, but Snow Flower was terrible at it. Mama and Aunt didn’t chastise her as they did my cousin and me if we didn’t sweep the floor well enough or didn’t get all of the dirt out of our fathers’ tunics. I thought they were lenient with Snow Flower because they knew she would have servants one day and would never have to do these things herself. I looked at her failure differently. She would never learn to clean properly, because she seemed to float above and apart from the practicalities of life.

We also learned from the men in my family, though not in the way you might expect. Baba and Uncle would never teach us anything directly. That would have been improper. What I mean is that I learned about men through Snow Flower’s actions and the way Baba and Uncle reacted to them. Congee is one of the easiest things to make—just rice, a lot of water, and stirring, stirring, stirring—so we let Snow Flower make this for breakfast. When she saw that Baba liked scallions, she made sure that an extra handful was added to his bowl. At dinner, Mama and Aunt had always silently put the plates on the table and let Baba and Uncle serve themselves; Snow Flower circled the table, keeping her head lowered and offering each dish, first to Baba, then Uncle, then Elder Brother, then Second Brother. She always stood just far enough away not to be too intimate but at the same time to exude graciousness. I learned that through her small attentions to them, they refrained from shoveling food in their mouths, spitting on the floor, or scratching their full stomachs. Instead, they smiled and talked to her.

My desire for knowledge went far beyond what I needed to know in the upstairs women’s chamber, in downstairs areas, or even with the study of nu shu. I wanted to know about my future. Fortunately, Snow Flower loved to talk, and she talked a lot about Tongkou. By now she had traveled often between our two villages and had learned the route well. “When you go to your husband,” she told me, “you will pass over the river and through many rice paddies, heading for the low hills that you can see from the edge of Puwei. Tongkou nestles in the arms of those hills. They will never falter and neither will we, at least that’s what my baba says. In Tongkou, we are protected from earthquake, famine, and marauders. It is feng shui perfect.”

Listening to Snow Flower, Tongkou grew in my imagination, but this was nothing compared to how I felt when she talked about my husband and my future in-laws. Neither Beautiful Moon nor I were present at the discussion that Madame Wang had with our fathers, but we were familiar with the basics: Everyone who lived in Tongkou was a Lu, and both families were prosperous. These things interested our fathers, but we wanted to know about our husbands, our mothers-in-law, and the other women in our upstairs chambers. Only Snow Flower could give us the answers.

“You are lucky, Lily,” Snow Flower said one day. “I have seen this Lu boy. He is my cousin twice removed. His hair is the blue-black of night. He is kind to girls. He once shared a moon cake with me. He didn’t have to do that.” She told me that my future husband was born in the year of the tiger, a sign that is as spirited as mine, which made us perfectly suited. She told me things I would need to know to fit into the Lu family. “It is a busy household,” she explained. “As the headman, Master Lu receives numerous visitors from inside and outside the village. Beyond this, many people live in the house. There are no daughters, but daughters-in-law will marry in. You will be daughter-in-law number one. Your ranking will be high to start. If you have a son first, your ranking will hold true forever. This does not mean you won’t have the same sorts of problems as Yuxiu, the emperor’s concubine. Even though Master Lu’s wife has given him four sons, he has three concubines. He must have them, because he is the headman. They help show the people his strength.”

I should have worried more about this. After all, if the father took concubines, the son probably would as well. But I was so young and innocent, this didn’t cross my mind. And even if it had, I wouldn’t have known the conflicts that could arise. My world was still just Mama and Baba, Aunt and Uncle—simple, simple.

Snow Flower turned to Beautiful Moon, who, as always, attended to us quietly, waiting for us to include her. Snow Flower said, “Beautiful Moon, I am happy for you. I know this Lu family very well. Your future husband, as you know, was born in the year of the boar. His characteristics are to be sturdy, gallant, and thoughtful, while your sheep nature will cause you to dote on him. This is another perfectly suited match.”

“What about my mother-in-law?” Beautiful Moon inquired tentatively.

“This Madame Lu visits my mother every day. She has a kind heart, kinder than I could ever tell you.”

Tears suddenly welled in Snow Flower’s eyes. It was so strange that Beautiful Moon and I giggled, thinking it was some sort of joke. My laotong blinked quickly.

“A ghost got in my eyes!” Snow Flower exclaimed, before joining in our laughter. Then she picked up where she left off. “Beautiful Moon, you will be very content. They will love you wholeheartedly. And the best part is every day you will be able to walk to Lily’s house. That’s how close you will be to each other.”

Snow Flower cast her eyes back to me. “Your mother-in-law is very traditional,” she said. “She follows all the women’s rules. She is careful in what she says. She is well attired. And when guests come, hot tea is always at the ready.” Since Snow Flower had been teaching me to do these things, I was not afraid of making a mistake. “There are more servants in the house than I have had in my family,” Snow Flower continued. “You will not have to cook, except to make special dishes for Lady Lu. You will not have to nurse your baby unless you want to.”

When she told me these things, I thought she was crazy.

I questioned her further about my husband’s father. She thought for a minute and answered, “Master Lu is generous and compassionate, but he is also smart, which is why he is the headman. Everyone respects him. Everyone will respect his son and his wife too.” She looked at me with those penetrating eyes of hers and repeated, “You are so lucky.”

With Snow Flower’s word pictures how could I not imagine myself in Tongkou with my loving husband and perfect sons?

MY KNOWLEDGE BEGAN to extend well beyond my own village. Snow Flower and I had now gone to the Temple of Gupo in Shexia five times. Each year we climbed the stairs to the temple, placed our offerings on the altar, and lit incense. Then we walked to the marketplace, where we bought embroidery thread and paper. We always ended the day with a visit to Old Man Zou to have his burnt-sugar taro. Going to and fro, we peeked outside the palanquin when Madame Wang slept. We saw little pathways leading off the main road to other villages. We saw rivers and canals. From our bearers we learned that these waters gave our county contact with the rest of the nation. In our upstairs chamber, we saw only four walls, but the men of our county were not so isolated. If they wanted, they could travel almost anywhere by boat.

All during this time, Madame Wang and Madame Gao were in and out of our house like a pair of busy hens. What? Do you think, because our engagements were set, that those two would leave us alone? They had to watch and wait and conspire and cajole, protecting and securing their investments. Anything could go wrong. Obviously they were apprehensive about four marriages in one household and whether Baba would come through with the promised bride-price for Elder Brother’s wife, adequate dowries for the three girls, and, most important, the matchmaking fees. But in my thirteenth summer, the battle between the two matchmakers suddenly escalated.

It started simply enough. We were in the upstairs chamber when Madame Gao began complaining that local families were not paying their fees in a timely manner, implying that our family was one of them.

“A peasant uprising in the hills is making things difficult for all of us,” Madame Gao opined. “No products come in and no products go out. No one has cash. I have heard that some girls have had to give up their betrothals because their families can no longer provide dowries. Those girls will now become little daughters-in-law.”

That things had become so difficult in our county was not news, but what Madame Gao said next surprised us all.

“Even Little Miss Snow Flower is not safe. It’s not too late for me to look for someone more appropriate.”

I was glad that Snow Flower was not here to hear this insinuation.

“You are speaking of a family that is among the best in the county,” Madame Wang countered, her voice sounding not like oil but like rocks rubbing together.

“Perhaps, Old Auntie, you mean was. That master has seen too much gambling and too many concubines.”

“He has done only what is right for his position. You, on the other hand, must be forgiven your ignorance. High station is foreign to you.”

“Ha! You make me laugh. You tell lies like they are truth. The whole county knows what’s happening to that family. Take trouble in the hills and combine it with bad crops and inattention, and nothing can be expected but that a weak man will take to the pipe—”

My mother rose abruptly. “Madame Gao, I am grateful for the things you have done for my children, but they are children and should not hear this. I will see you to the threshold, for you have others to visit, I’m sure.”

Mama practically lifted Madame Gao out of her chair and nearly dragged her to the stairs. As soon as they were gone from sight, my aunt poured tea for Madame Wang, who sat very still, deep in thought, her eyes far away. Then she blinked three times, looked around the room, and called me to her. I was thirteen and still afraid of her. I had learned to call her Auntie to her face, but in my mind she was always the intimidating Madame Wang. When I neared, she yanked me close, held me between her thighs, and grabbed my arms like she did the first time we’d met.

“Never, never repeat what you’ve heard here to Snow Flower. She is an innocent girl. She does not need that woman’s filth rotting her mind.”

“Yes, Auntie.”

She shook me once very hard. “Never!”

“I promise.”

At the time I didn’t understand half of what was said. Even if I had, why would I have repeated that evil gossip to Snow Flower? I loved Snow Flower. I would never hurt her by repeating Madame Gao’s venomous remarks.

I will only add this: Mama must have said something to Baba, because Madame Gao was never allowed inside our house again. All further business with her was conducted on stools outside our threshold. That is how much Mama and Baba cared for Snow Flower. She was my laotong, but they loved her as much as they loved me.

THE TENTH MONTH of my thirteenth year arrived. Outside the lattice window the white-hot sky of summer eased into the deep blue of autumn. Only one month remained until Elder Sister’s wedding. The groom’s family delivered the last round of gifts. Elder Sister’s sworn sisters sold one of their twenty-five jin of rice, and gifts were bought. The girls came to stay with us for Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber. Other village women visited to socialize, give advice, and commiserate. For twenty-eight days, we sang songs and told stories. The sworn sisters helped Elder Sister with the last of her quilts and with wrapping the shoes she’d made for the members of her new family. Together we all worked on the third-day wedding books that would be given to Elder Sister. These would introduce her to the women in her new family, and we all struggled with the right words to describe her best attributes and characteristics.

Three days before Elder Sister went to her new home, we had the Day of Sorrow and Worry. Mama sat on the fourth step to the upstairs chamber with her feet on the third step and began a lament.

“Elder Daughter, you were a pearl in my hand,” she chanted. “My eyes doubly flood with tears. Twin streams pour down my face. Soon there will be an empty space.”

Elder Sister, her sworn sisters, and the village women began to weep upon hearing my mother’s sadness. Ku, ku, ku.

Aunt sang next, following the rhythm my mother had set. As always, Aunt tried to be optimistic in the midst of sorrow. “I am ugly and not so smart, but I have always tried to have a good nature. I have loved my husband and he has loved me. We are a pair of ugly and not so smart mandarin ducks. We have had much bed fun. I hope you will too.”

When my turn came, I lifted my voice. “Elder Sister, my heart cries to lose you. If we had been sons, we would not be torn apart. We would always be together like Baba and Uncle, Elder Brother and Second Brother. Our family is sad. The upstairs chamber will be lonely without you.”

Wanting to give her the best gift I could, I sang the knowledge I had learned from Snow Flower. “Everyone needs clothing—no matter how cool it is in summer or how warm it is in winter—so make clothes for others without being asked. Even if the table is plentiful, let your in-laws eat first. Work hard and remember three things: Be good to your in-laws and always show respect, be good to your husband and always weave for him, be good to your children and always be a model of decorum to them. If you do these things, your new family will treat you kindly. In that fine home, be calm of heart.”

The sworn sisters followed me. They had loved their sworn sister. She was talented and considerate. When the last girl married out, their treasured sworn sisterhood would dissolve. They would only have memories of embroidering and weaving together. They would only have the words in their third-day wedding books to console them in the years to come. When one of them died, they vowed that the remaining sisters would come to the funeral and burn their writings so the words would travel to the afterworld with her. Even as the sisters were filled with anguish at her departure, they hoped she would be happy.

After everyone had sung and many tears had been shed, Snow Flower made a special presentation. “I will not sing for you,” she said. “Instead, I will share the way that your sister and I have found to keep you with us always.” From her sleeve, she pulled out our fan, whipped it open, and read the simple couplet we had written together: “Elder Sister and good friend, quiet and kind. You are a happy memory.” Then Snow Flower pointed out the little pink flower that she had painted in our growing garland at the top of the fan to represent Elder Sister forever and ever.

The next day, everyone gathered bamboo leaves and filled buckets with water. When Elder Sister’s new family arrived, we showered them with the leaves as a symbol that the love of the newlyweds would be as eternally fresh as the bamboo; then we tossed the water to tell the groom’s family that she was as pure as that clear and vital liquid. Much laughing and good cheer accompanied these pranks.

More hours passed with meals and laments. The dowry was displayed and everyone commented on the quality of Elder Sister’s handiwork. All through the day and night, she looked beautiful with her tear-stained eyes. The next morning, she entered the palanquin to go to her new family. People tossed more water and called out, “Marrying a daughter is just like throwing out water!” We all walked to the edge of the village and watched as the procession crossed the bridge and left Puwei. Three days later, a delivery to Elder Sister’s new village was made of glutinous rice cakes, gifts, and all our third-day wedding books, which would be read aloud in her new upstairs chamber. The day after that, as custom required, Elder Brother took the family cart, picked up Elder Sister, and brought her home. Except for conjugal visits a few times a year, she would continue to live with us until the end of her first pregnancy.

Of all the events of Elder Sister’s marriage, what I remember most is when she returned after a nuptial visit to her husband’s home the following spring. She was usually so peaceful—sitting on her stool in a corner, quietly working with her needle, never causing an argument, always obedient—but now she knelt on the floor with her face buried in Mama’s lap, weeping her woes. Her mother-in-law was abusive, always complaining and criticizing. Her husband was unknowledgeable and rough. Her in-laws expected her to haul water and wash clothes for the entire family. See how raw her knuckles were from yesterday’s chores? These people did not like to feed her and talked ill of our family for not sending enough food for her when she visited.

Beautiful Moon, Snow Flower, and I huddled together, making clucking sounds of commiseration, but inside, although we were sorry for Elder Sister, we believed this kind of thing would never happen to us. Mama smoothed Elder Sister’s hair and patted her trembling form. I expected Mama to tell her not to worry, that these were just temporary problems, but no words came. With helplessness in her eyes, Mama looked to Aunt for guidance.

“I am thirty-eight years old,” Aunt said, not with sympathy but with resignation. “I have lived a miserable life. My family was a good one, but my feet and my face made my destiny. Even a woman like me—who is not so smart or beautiful or is deformed or mute—will find a husband, because even a retarded man can make a son. Only a vessel is needed. My father married me to the best family he could find to take me. I cried like you do now. Fate was crueler still. I could not have sons. I was a burden to my in-laws. I wish I could have a son and a happy life. I wish my daughter would never marry out so that I would have her to hear my sorrows. But this is how it is for women. You can’t avoid your fate. It is predestined.”

These sentiments coming from my aunt—the one person in our household who could always be counted on to say something funny, who always talked about how happy she and Uncle were with their bed fun, who always guided us in our studies with good cheer—were a shock. Beautiful Moon reached over and squeezed my hand. Her eyes filled with tears at this truth, which had not been spoken aloud in the women’s chamber until now. Never before had I thought about how hard life had been for Aunt, but now my mind raced over the past years and how she had always put a smiling face on what had clearly been a disappointing life.

Needless to say, these words did not comfort Elder Sister. She sobbed harder, putting her hands over her ears. Mama had to speak, but when she did the words that came out of her mouth slithered from the deepest part of the yin—negative, dark, and female.

“You married out,” Mama said, in a way that seemed oddly detached. “You go to another village. Your mother-in-law is cruel. Your husband doesn’t care for you. We wish you would never leave, but every daughter marries away. Everyone agrees. Everyone goes along with it. You can cry and beg to come home, we can grieve that you have gone, but you—and we—have no choice. The old saying makes this very clear: ‘If a daughter doesn’t marry out, she’s not valuable; if fire doesn’t raze the mountain, the land will not be fertile.’ ”

Hair-Pinning Days

Catching Cool Breezes

SNOW FLOWER AND I TURNED FIFTEEN. OUR HAIR WAS PINNED up in the style of phoenixes as symbols that we were soon to be married. We worked on our dowries in earnest. We spoke in soft voices. We walked on our lily feet in a graceful manner. We were fully literate in nu shu, and when we were apart we wrote each other almost daily. We bled each month. We helped around the house, sweeping, picking vegetables from the house garden, preparing meals, washing dishes and clothes, weaving, and sewing. We were considered women, but we didn’t have the responsibilities of married women. We still had the freedom to visit when we wanted and spend hours in the upstairs chamber, our heads bent together as we whispered and embroidered. We loved each other in the way I had longed for as a little girl.

That year, Snow Flower came to stay with us for all of Catching Cool Breezes Festival, which takes place during the hottest time of year when the stores from the previous harvest are nearly gone and the new harvest is not yet ready. This means that married-in women, the lowest in any household, are sent back to their natal homes for days or sometimes weeks. We call it a festival, but it is really a series of days that remove unwanted eaters from their in-laws’ tables.

Elder Sister had just moved into her husband’s home permanently. Her first child was about to be born and there was nowhere else she could possibly be. Mama was visiting her family and had taken Second Brother with her. Aunt had also gone to her natal home, while Beautiful Moon was staying with her sworn sisters across the village. Elder Brother’s wife and baby daughter were Catching Cool Breezes with her natal family. Baba, Uncle, and Elder Brother were happy to be left alone. They wanted nothing from Snow Flower and me except hot tea, tobacco, and sliced watermelon. So for three days and nights of the weeks-long Catching Cool Breezes Festival, Snow Flower and I were alone in the upstairs chamber.

On the first night, we lay side by side, wearing our bindings and sleeping slippers, our inner garments, and our outer garments. We pushed our bed under the lattice window, hoping to catch a cool breeze, but there was none, just torrid stillness. The moon would be full soon. The light beams that streamed in reflected off our sweaty faces, making us feel even hotter. The next night, which was even warmer, Snow Flower suggested we shed our outer garments. “No one is here,” she said. “No one will know.” It brought relief, but we longed for something cooler.

On our third night alone together, the moon was full, and the upstairs chamber was awash in a bright blue glow. When we were sure the men were sleeping, we peeled off our outer and inner garments. We wore nothing but our bindings and our sleeping slippers. We felt air move across our bodies, but it was not a cool breeze and we were still as warm as if we were fully clothed.

“This is not enough,” Snow Flower said, stealing my thought right out of my mind.

She sat up and reached for our fan. Slowly she opened it and began to wave it back and forth over my body. As hot as the air was against my skin, it was still a luxurious feeling. But Snow Flower frowned. She closed the fan and set it aside. She searched my face, then let her eyes travel down my neck across my breasts to the flat of my stomach. I should have felt embarrassed by the way she stared, but she was my laotong, my old same. There was nothing to be ashamed of.

Looking up, I saw her bring her forefinger to her mouth. The tip of her tongue darted out. In the bright light of the full moon I saw it pink and glistening. In the most delicate gesture, she let the tip of her finger glide across that wet surface. Then she brought her finger down to my stomach. She drew a line to the left, then another in the opposite direction, followed by something like two crosses. The wetness was so cool on my skin that goose bumps rose up. I shut my eyes and let the feeling ripple through me. Then, so fast, the wetness disappeared. When I opened my eyes, Snow Flower was staring into them.

“Well?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a character,” she explained. “Tell me which one it is.”

Suddenly I understood what she’d done. She’d written a nu shu character on my stomach. We had been doing something like this for years, drawing characters in the dirt with sticks or on each other’s hands or backs with our fingers.

“I’ll do it again,” she said, “but pay attention.”

She licked her finger and it was no less a fluid movement than the first time she’d done it. As soon as that wetness touched my skin, I couldn’t help closing my eyes. The feeling made my body heavy and breathless. A stroke to the left to create a sliver of moon, another sliver below that and in reverse of the first, two strokes to the right to create the first cross, then another two strokes to the left to create the second. Again I kept my eyes closed until the momentary chill left my body. When I opened them, Snow Flower was looking down at me inquisitively.

“Bed,” I said.

“That’s right,” she said, her voice low. “Close your eyes. I will write another.”

This time she wrote the character much tighter and smaller in a spot just next to my right hip bone. This one I recognized immediately. It was a verb that meant to light.

When I said this, she brought her face down to mine and whispered in my ear, “Good.”

The next character swirled across my stomach next to the opposite hip bone.

“Moonlight,” I said. I opened my eyes. “The bed is lit by moonlight.”

She smiled at my recognition of the opening line to the Tang dynasty poem she had taught me; then we switched positions. As she had done with me, I took time to look at her body: the slenderness of her neck, the small mounds that formed her breasts, the flat expanse of her stomach that was as inviting as a new piece of silk waiting for embroidery stitches, the twin hip bones that protruded sharply, below that a triangle identical to my own, then two slim legs tapering down until they disappeared into her red silk sleeping slippers.

You have to remember that I was not yet married. I still did not know the ways of a man and wife. Only later did I learn that nothing is more intimate for a woman than her sleeping slippers and nothing is more erotic for a man than seeing the white skin of a naked woman against the bright redness of those slippers, but on that night I can tell you that my eyes lingered on them. They were Snow Flower’s summer pair. For her embroidery design she had invoked the Five Poisons—centipedes, toads, scorpions, snakes, and lizards. These were the traditional symbols used to counteract the evils brought on by summer—cholera, plague, typhoid, malaria, and typhus. Her stitches were perfect, just as her entire body was perfect.

I licked my finger and looked at the whiteness of Snow Flower’s skin. When my wet finger touched her stomach just above her belly button, I felt her intake of breath. Her breasts rose, her stomach hollowed, and goose bumps shimmered across her flesh.

“I,” she said. This was correct. I wrote the next character below her belly button. “Think,” she said. Then I followed exactly what she had done and wrote on the flesh adjacent to her right hip bone. “Light.” Now her left hip bone. “Snow.” She knew the poem, so there was no mystery to the words, just the sensations of writing and reading them. I had followed every place that she had written on my body. Now I had to find a new spot. I chose that soft place where the two sides of her ribs came together above her stomach. I knew from my own body that this area was sensitive to touch, to fear, to love. Snow Flower shivered beneath my fingertip as I wrote. “Early.”

Just two more words to finish the line. I knew what I wanted to do, but I hesitated. I let my fingertip float along the tip of my tongue. Then, emboldened by the heat, the moonlight, and the way her skin felt against my own, I let my wet finger write on one of her breasts. Her lips parted and her breath came out in a tiny moan. She did not speak the character and I did not demand one. But for my last character in the line, I lay on my side next to Snow Flower so I could see up close the way her skin would respond. I licked my finger, wrote the character, and watched her nipple tighten and pucker. We stayed completely still for a moment. Then, with her eyes still shut, Snow Flower whispered the complete phrase: “I think it is the light snow of an early winter morning.”

She rolled on her side to face me. She put her hand tenderly on my cheek as she did every night since we had begun sleeping together all those years ago. Her face glowed in the moonlight. Then she let her hand move down along my neck over my breast down to my hip. “We have two more lines.”

She sat up and I rolled onto my back. I thought I was hot these past nights, but now, naked, in the moonlight, I felt as though a fire burned inside me far hotter than anything the gods could inflict on us through the mere cycles of the seasons.

I made myself concentrate when I realized where she was planning on writing the first character. She had moved to the end of the bed and had lifted my feet onto her lap. Just on the inside of my left ankle directly above the edge of my red sleeping slipper she began to write. When she was done, she turned her attention to my right ankle. From there, she alternated from limb to limb, always staying just above the bindings. My feet—those places of so much pain and sorrow, so much pride and beauty—tingled with pleasure. We had been old sames for eight years, yet we had never been this close. The line when she was done: “Looking up, I enjoy the full moon in the night sky.”

I was eager for her to experience what I had felt. I held her golden lilies in my hands, then set them to rest on my thighs. I chose the spot that had been most exquisite for me: the shallow between the ankle bone and the tendon that rose up the back of the leg. I wrote the character, which can mean bending over, kowtowing, or prostrating oneself. On her other ankle I traced the word I.

I set her feet down and wrote a character on her calf. After this, I moved to a spot on the inside of her left thigh just above her knee. My last two characters were high up on her thighs. I leaned down to concentrate on writing the most perfect characters possible. I blew on my strokes, knowing the sensation it would cause, and watched as the hair between her legs swayed in response.

Afterward we recited the entire poem together.

“The bed is lit by moonlight.

I think it is the light snow of an early winter morning.

Looking up, I enjoy the full moon in the night sky.

Bending over, I miss my hometown.”

We all know that poem is about a scholar who is traveling and missing his home, but on that night and forever after I believed it was about us. Snow Flower was my home, and I was hers.

Beautiful Moon

BEAUTIFUL MOON RETURNED THE NEXT DAY, AND WE GOT BACK to work. Months ago, each of our future in-laws had Delivered the Dates for our weddings, along with the first installments of our official bride-prices—more pork and candy, as well as empty wooden boxes to fill with all the things we would make for our dowries. Finally, and, most important, they sent cloth.

I have told you that Mama and Aunt made cloth for our family, and by now Beautiful Moon and I were adept at weaving ourselves. But the word homegrown comes to mind when I think of what we created. The cotton was cultivated by Baba and Uncle, the harvest cleaned by the women in our household, the beeswax we used to create designs and the dyes for turning the fabric blue were used sparingly because we were so frugal.

Other than what we made ourselves, I could only compare my bridal cloth to that used in Snow Flower’s tunics, trousers, and headdresses, which had been constructed from beautiful fabrics and sophisticated patterns into a stylish wardrobe. One of my favorite outfits she wore in those days was made from indigo cloth. The intricate design of the indigo and the cut of the jacket were better than anything the married women in Puwei owned or made. Still, Snow Flower wore it with ease until it started to fade and fray. What I’m trying to say is that the cloth and its cut inspired me. I wanted to make clothes for myself that would be suitable for everyday wear in Tongkou.

But the cotton my in-laws sent as part of my bride-price changed all my perceptions. It was soft, without seeds, with complex designs, and dyed in the rich deep indigo so prized by the Yao people. With that gift I realized I still had much to learn and accomplish, but even this cotton was nothing compared to the silk. What arrived for me was not only of fine quality but perfect in color. Red for marriage, but also for anniversaries, New Year’s celebrations, and other festivities. Purple and green, both appropriate for a young wife. A bluish gray the color of the sky before a storm and a bluish green the color of a village pond in summer for my years as a matron and later a widow. Black and dark blue for the men in my new home. Some of the silks were plain, while others had been woven to include double-happiness, peony, or cloud patterns.

The rolls of silk and cotton my in-laws sent were not given to me to do with as I pleased. They were to be used in preparing my dowry, just as Beautiful Moon and Snow Flower had to use their gifts to build their dowries. We had to make enough quilts, pillowcases, shoes, and clothes to last a lifetime, since Yao nationality women believe they should never take anything from their in-laws. Quilts! Let me tell you about those. They are boring and hot to make. However, since everyone believes that the more quilts you bring with you to your in-laws’ house, the more children you will have, we made as many as possible.

What we loved to make were shoes. We made them for our husbands, our mothers-in-law, our fathers-in-law, and anyone else who lived in our new home, including brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, and all children. (I was lucky; my husband was the eldest son. He had three younger brothers only. Men’s shoes were not ornate, so I could do them quickly. Beautiful Moon had a greater burden. Her new home had one son, plus his parents, five sisters, an aunt, an uncle, and their three children.) We girls also made sixteen pairs for ourselves, four pairs for each of the four seasons. These more than the other things we made would be highly scrutinized, but we were happy with that knowledge because we gave each and every pair the greatest care possible, from creating the soles to the final embroidery stitch. Shoemaking allowed us to display our technical as well as our artistic skills, but it also sent a joyful and optimistic message. In our dialect, the word for shoe sounds the same as the word for child. Just as with the quilts, the more shoes we made, the more children we would have. The difference is that shoemaking requires delicacy, while quiltmaking is a heavy chore. Because three girls worked side by side, we competed in the friendliest way to compose the most beautiful designs on the outside of each pair of shoes, while giving great strength and support to the inside.

Our future families had sent patterns for their feet. We had not met our husbands and did not know if they were tall or pockmarked, but we knew the size of their feet. We were young girls—romantic as anyone of that age—and we imagined all kinds of things about our husbands from those patterns. Some turned out to be true. Most were not.

We used the patterns to cut pieces of cotton cloth, then glued together three layers of those footprints at a time. We made several sets of these and set them on the windowsill to dry. During Catching Cool Breezes, they dried very quickly. Once dry, we took those layered forms, stacked three together, and sewed them into a thick and sturdy sole. Most people do a simple repeat pattern that looks like rice seeds, but we wanted to impress our new families so we stitched different designs: a butterfly spreading its wings for a husband, a chrysanthemum in bloom for a mother-in-law, a cricket on a branch for a father-in-law. All that work just for the soles, but we saw these as messages to the people we hoped would love us when we married in.

As I said, it was unbearably hot that year during Catching Cool Breezes. We sweltered in the upstairs chamber. Downstairs was only slightly better. We drank tea, hoping it would refresh our bodies, but even in our lightest summer jackets and trousers we suffered. So we talked often about cool memories from our childhoods. I spoke of putting my feet in the river. Beautiful Moon remembered running through the fields during late autumn when the air was crisp against her cheeks. Snow Flower had once traveled north with her father and had experienced the frigid wind that blew in from Mongolia. These things did not soothe us. They were a torment.

Baba and Uncle took pity on us. They knew more than we did how cruel the weather was. They worked in it every day under the brutal sun. But we were poor. We didn’t have an inner courtyard to lounge in, or land where we could be carried by bearers to sit under the shade of a tree, or any place where we would be completely shielded from the eyes of strangers. Instead, Baba took some of Mama’s cloth and with Uncle’s help strung a canopy for us on the north side of the house. Then they laid some padded winter quilts on the ground so we might have something soft to sit on.

“The men are in the fields during the day,” Baba said. “They will not see you. Until the weather changes, you girls may do your work here. Just don’t tell your mothers.”

Beautiful Moon was accustomed to walking to her sworn sisters’ houses for embroidery sessions and the like, but I had not been outdoors in Puwei like this since my milk years. Sure, I had stepped from our threshold into Madame Wang’s palanquin and had picked vegetables in our home garden. But beyond that, I was allowed only to look down from the lattice window to the alley that passed by our house. I had not felt the rhythm of the village for too long.

We were gloriously happy—still hot, but happy. As we sat in the shade, actually catching a cool breeze as the festival promised, we embroidered the tops of shoes or did final construction. Beautiful Moon’s stitches were concentrated on her red wedding slippers, the most precious of all shoes. Pink and white lotus flowers bloomed, symbolizing her purity and fruitfulness. Snow Flower had just finished a pair in sky-blue silk with a cloud pattern for her mother-in-law, and they sat next to us on the quilt looking dainty and elegant, a gentle reminder of the high-quality work we should insist on for all our projects. They filled me with happiness, bringing to mind the jacket that Snow Flower had worn on the first day we’d met. But nostalgic thoughts didn’t seem to interest Snow Flower; she had simply moved on to a pair for herself, which employed purple silk trimmed with white. When the characters for purple and white were written together they meant a lot of children. As was so common with Snow Flower, her embroidery embellishments called upon the sky for inspiration. This time birds and other flying creatures twisted and soared on the tiny swatches. Meanwhile, I was finishing a pair of shoes for my mother-in-law. Her shoe size was slightly larger than my own, and it filled me with pride to know that, based solely on my feet, she would have to consider me worthy of her son. I had not yet met my mother-in-law, so I did not know her likes and dislikes, but during the heat of those days I thought of nothing but coolness. My design wrapped around the shoe, creating a landscape of women taking their ease under willow trees beside a stream. It was a fantasy, but no more so than the mythical birds that adorned Snow Flower’s shoes.

We made a pretty picture sitting there on those quilts with our legs tucked under us just so: three young maidens, all betrothed to good families, cheerfully working on our dowries, showing our good manners to those who visited. Small boys stopped to talk to us as they set out to collect firewood or took the family water buffalo to the river. Little girls in charge of their siblings let us hold their baby brothers or sisters. We imagined what it would be like to care for babies of our own. Old widows, whose status and comportment were secure, swayed up to us to gossip, examine our embroidery, and remark on our pale skin.

On the fifth day, Madame Gao paid a visit. She had just returned from Getan Village, where she was negotiating a match. While she was there, she had delivered a set of letters from us to Elder Sister and had picked up a letter from Elder Sister to us. None of us liked Madame Gao, but we had been raised to respect our elders. We offered tea, but she declined. Since there was no money to be made from us, she handed the letter to me and got back into her palanquin. We watched until it turned the corner; then I used my embroidery needle to slice open the rice-paste seal. Because of what happened later that day, and because Elder Sister used so many standard nu shu phrases, I think I can reconstruct most of what she wrote:

bq. Family,

Today I pick up a brush, and my heart flies away home.

To my family I write—regards to dear parents, aunt, and uncle.

When I think of past days, my tears cannot stop falling down.

I still feel sad to have left home.

My stomach is big with baby and I am so hot in this weather.

My in-laws are spiteful.

I do all the household work.

In this heat it is impossible to please.

Sister, cousin, take care of Mama and Baba.

We women can only hope that our parents will live many years.

That way we will have a place to return for festivals.

In our natal home, we will always have people who treasure us.

Please be good to our parents.

Your daughter, sister, and cousin

I finished reading the letter and closed my eyes. I was thinking, So many tears for Elder Sister, so much joy for me. I was grateful that we followed the custom of not falling into your husband’s house until just before the birth of your first child. I still had two years before my marriage and possibly three years after that before I joined my in-laws permanently.

I was interrupted from these thoughts by something that sounded like a sob. I opened my eyes and looked at Snow Flower. A puzzled expression spread across her face as she stared at something to her right. I followed her gaze to Beautiful Moon, who was brushing at her neck and taking great breaths.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Beautiful Moon’s chest heaved with the effort of drawing in air—uuuu, uuuu, uuuu—sounds I will never forget.

She looked at me with her lovely eyes. Her hand stopped brushing and clasped the side of her neck. She did not try to stand. She sat with her legs tucked under her, still looking like a young lady sitting in the shade of a hot afternoon, her needlework in her lap, but I could see that beneath her hand her neck had begun to swell.

“Snow Flower, find help,” I said urgently. “Get Baba, get Uncle. Quick!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Snow Flower try as best she could to run on her tiny feet. Her voice—unused to being raised—came out unsteady and high-pitched. “Help! Help!”

I crawled across the quilt to Beautiful Moon’s side. I saw on her embroidery a bee struggling for life. The stinger had to be in my cousin’s neck. I took her other hand and held it in my own. Her mouth opened. Inside, her tongue was growing, engorging.