Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

“What can I do?” I asked. “Do you want me to try to get the stinger out?”

We both knew it was already too late for that.

“Do you want water?” I asked.

Beautiful Moon couldn’t answer. She breathed only through her nostrils now, and each breath was more of an effort.

Somewhere in the village I heard Snow Flower. “Baba! Uncle! Elder Brother! Anyone! Help us!”

Those same children who had visited us the last few days gathered around our quilt, their mouths agape as they watched Beautiful Moon’s neck, tongue, eyelids, and hands swell. Her skin went from the paleness of the moon she was named for to pink, to red, to purple, to blue. She looked like a creature from a ghost story. A few of Puwei’s widows arrived. They shook their heads sympathetically.

Beautiful Moon’s eyes locked with mine. Her hand had blown up so much that her fingers were like sausages in my palm, the skin so shiny and taut it looked ready to split. I cradled the monstrous paw in my hand.

“Beautiful Moon, listen to me,” I pleaded. “Your baba is coming. Wait for him. He loves you so much. We all love you, Beautiful Moon. Do you hear me?”

The old women began to cry. The children hung on to each other. Village life was hard. Who among us had not seen death? But it was rare to see such bravery, such stillness, such beauty of purpose in the final moments.

“You have been a good cousin,” I said. “I have always loved you. I will honor you forever.”

Beautiful Moon took another breath. This one sounded like a creaking hinge. It was slow. Almost no air could enter her body.

“Beautiful Moon, Beautiful Moon . . .”

The horrible sound ended. Her eyes were just slits in a face cruelly distorted, but she looked at me with full understanding. She had heard every word I’d said. In the last moment of her life—when no air could enter her body and no air could go out—I felt as though she passed on to me many messages. Tell Mama I love her. Tell Baba I love him. Tell your parents I am grateful for all they have done for me. Don’t let the men suffer for me. Then her head tipped forward onto her chest.

No one moved. Everything was as still as the panorama I had embroidered on my shoes. Only the sound of weeping and sniffing would have told anyone that something was wrong.

Uncle ran into the alley and pushed through the people to the quilt where Beautiful Moon and I sat. She was so peaceful in her bearing, it gave him hope. But my face and those around us told him otherwise. A horrible cry tore out of him as he sank to his knees. When he saw the condition of Beautiful Moon’s face, another dreadful howl. Some of the smaller children ran away. Uncle was so sweaty from working in the fields and then running back to us I could smell him. Tears poured from his eyes, then dripped from his nose, cheeks, and jaw and disappeared into the wetness of his sweaty tunic.

Baba arrived and knelt beside me. A few seconds later, Elder Brother broke through the crowd, panting, Snow Flower on his back.

Uncle kept talking to Beautiful Moon. “Wake up, little one. Wake up. I will get your mama. She needs you. Wake up. Wake up.”

His brother, my father, gripped his arm. “No use.”

Uncle had a posture eerily similar to Beautiful Moon’s, his head tucked down, his legs under him, his hands in his lap—all the same except for the sorrow that dripped from his eyes and the uncontrollable grief that wracked his body.

Baba asked, “Do you want to take her or shall I?”

Uncle shook his head. Wordlessly, he pulled a leg out from under him and planted it on the ground to steady himself; then he lifted Beautiful Moon and carried her into the house. None of us was functioning clearly. Only Snow Flower acted, moving swiftly to the table in the main room and removing the teacups we had set there for the men when they came back from the fields. Uncle laid out Beautiful Moon. Now the others could see how the bee venom had ravaged her face and body. In my mind I kept thinking: It was only five minutes, no more.

Again, Snow Flower took control. “Excuse me, but you need to get the others.”

Realizing this meant that Aunt would have to be told about Beautiful Moon’s death, Uncle’s sobs grew deeper. I could barely think about Aunt myself. Beautiful Moon had been her one true happiness. I had been so shocked by what had happened to my cousin that I hadn’t yet had a chance to feel anything. Now my legs lost their strength and tears welled in my eyes in sorrow for my sweet cousin and in pity for my aunt and uncle. Snow Flower wrapped an arm around me and guided me to a chair, giving instructions all the while.

“Elder Brother, run to your aunt’s natal village,” she directed. “I have some cash. Use it to hire a palanquin for her. Then run to your mother’s natal village. Bring her back. You will have to carry her like you did me. Maybe Second Brother can help you. But hurry. Your aunt will need her.”

Then we waited. Uncle sat on a stool by the table and wept so hard into Beautiful Moon’s tunic that stains spread across the fabric like rain clouds. Baba tried to comfort Uncle, but what was the use? He could not be comforted. Anyone who tells you that the Yao people never care for their daughters is lying. We may be worthless. We may be raised for another family. But often we are loved and cherished, despite our natal families’ best efforts not to have feelings for us. Why else in our secret writing do you see phrases like “I was a pearl in my father’s palm” so frequently? Maybe as parents we try not to care. I tried not to care about my daughter, but what could I do? She nursed at my breast like my sons had, she cried her tears in my lap, and she honored me by becoming a good and talented woman fluent in nu shu. Uncle’s pearl was gone from him forever.

I stared at Beautiful Moon’s face, remembering how close we had been. We had had our feet bound at the same time. We had been betrothed to the same village. Our lives had been inexorably linked, and now we were cut from each other forever.

Around us, Snow Flower busied herself. She made tea, which no one drank. She went through the house, looking for white mourning clothes, and set them out for us. She stood at the door, greeting those who had heard the news. Madame Wang arrived in her palanquin and Snow Flower let her in. I might have expected Madame Wang to complain about the loss of her matchmaking payment. Instead, she asked how she could help. Beautiful Moon’s future had been in her hands and she felt obliged to see her through this final passage. But her hand shot up to her mouth when she saw Beautiful Moon’s distorted face and those frightening monster fingers. And it was so hot. We had no place cool to put her. Things would begin to happen very quickly now to Beautiful Moon.

“How much longer until the mother arrives?” Madame Wang asked.

We did not know.

“Snow Flower, wrap the girl’s face in muslin, then dress her in her eternity clothes. Do this now. No mother should see her daughter this way.” Snow Flower turned to go upstairs, but Madame Wang grabbed her sleeve. “I will go to Tongkou and bring your mourning clothes. Do not leave this house until I tell you.” She released Snow Flower, took one last look at Beautiful Moon, and slipped out the door.

By the time Aunt arrived, Baba, Uncle, my brothers, and I were dressed in plain sackcloth. Beautiful Moon’s body had been completely shrouded in muslin, then attired in the clothes for her journey to the afterworld. So many tears in the house that day, but none of them came from Aunt. She swayed in on her lily feet and went straight to her daughter’s body. She smoothed the clothes and then placed her hand over what had been her daughter’s heart. She stood that way for hours.

Aunt did everything properly for the funeral. She went to the burial on her knees. She burned paper money and clothes at the site for Beautiful Moon to use in the afterworld. She gathered together all of Beautiful Moon’s secret writing and burned that too. Afterward, she created a little altar in our house where she made offerings every day. She did not cry in our presence, but I will never forget the sounds that emanated through our house at night when Aunt went to bed. She moaned from some deep, deep part of her soul. None of us could sleep. None of us were any solace. In fact, my brothers and I tried our best to be as quiet—invisible—as possible, knowing that our voices and faces were only bitter reminders of what she had lost. In the mornings, after the men had gone out to the fields, Aunt retreated to her room and wouldn’t come out. She lay on her side, her face to the wall, refusing to eat anything more than the bowl of rice that Mama brought her, quiet all day until night enveloped us and that frightening moaning began again.

Everyone knows that part of the spirit descends to the afterworld, while part of it remains with the family, but we have a special belief about the spirit of a young woman who has died before her marriage that goes contrary to this. She comes back to prey upon other unmarried girls—not to scare them but to take them to the afterworld with her so she might have company. The way Beautiful Moon’s unhappiness came to us every night in Aunt’s otherworldly moans let Snow Flower and me know we were in danger.

Snow Flower came up with a plan. “A flower tower must be made,” she said one morning. A flower tower was exactly what was needed to appease Beautiful Moon’s spirit. If we provided her with a good flower tower, she would have a place to wander in and entertain herself. If she were happy, Snow Flower and I would be protected.

Some people—those with more money—go to a professional flower tower builder, but Snow Flower and I decided to make our own. We envisioned a tower of many levels, like a seven-tiered pagoda. We put a pair of foo dogs at the entrance. Inside, we painted poems on the walls in our secret writing. We made one level for dancing, another for floating. We made a sleeping room with stars and the moon painted on the ceiling. On another level, we made a women’s chamber, with lattice windows done in intricate paper cutouts that provided views in every direction. We constructed a table on which we laid out bits of our favorite threads, some ink, paper, and a brush, so Beautiful Moon might embroider or write letters in nu shu to her new ghost friends. We made servants and entertainers out of twisted colored paper and set them about the tower so that every level would provide company, distraction, and amusements. When we weren’t working on the flower tower, we composed a lament we would sing to calm my cousin. If the flower tower was for Beautiful Moon’s pleasure for all eternity, our words would be a final farewell from the world of the living.

On the day the weather finally broke, Snow Flower and I asked and received permission to go to Beautiful Moon’s grave. It was not a long walk to the burial mound, far less than when Snow Flower had gone to the fields to bring back Baba and Uncle when Beautiful Moon died. We sat at the grave for a few minutes. Then Snow Flower set the flower tower on fire. We watched it burn, imagining it being transported to the afterworld and Beautiful Moon drifting through the rooms in delight. Then I pulled out the paper on which we’d written to Beautiful Moon in our secret writing and we began to sing.

“Beautiful Moon, we hope the flower tower brings you peace.

We hope you forget about us, but we will never forget you.

We will honor you. We will clean your grave at Spring Festival.

Do not let your thoughts run wild.

Live in your flower tower and be happy.”

Snow Flower and I walked home and went upstairs to the women’s chamber. Sitting side by side, we took turns writing the lament onto the folds of our special fan. When we were done, I added to the garland at the top a crescent-shaped moon, as slender and unobtrusive as Beautiful Moon herself.

The flower tower helped protect Snow Flower and me, and it placated Beautiful Moon’s restless spirit, but it did nothing for Aunt and Uncle, who could not be consoled. All that was meant to be. We were at the mercy of powerful elements and could do nothing but follow our fates. This can be explained by yin and yang: There are women and men, dark and light, sorrow and happiness. These things create balance. You take a moment of supreme happiness like Snow Flower and I felt at the beginning of the Catching Cool Breezes Festival, then sweep it away in the cruelest way with Beautiful Moon’s death. You take two happy people like Aunt and Uncle, then turn them in an instant into two end-of-the-liners with nothing to live for, who, when my father died, would have to rely on Elder Brother’s kindness to care for them and not throw them out. You take a family like mine that is not so well off, then add the pressure of too many weddings in one household. . . . All these things disrupted the balance of the universe, so the gods set things right by striking down a kind-hearted girl. There is no life without death. This is the true meaning of yin and yang.

The Flower-Sitting Chair

TWO YEARS AFTER BEAUTIFUL MOON DIED, MY HAIR — WHICH had already been pinned when I was fifteen—was combed into the dragon style befitting a young woman about to marry. My in-laws sent more cloth, cash so that I might have my own purse, and jewelry—earrings, rings, necklaces—all in silver and jade. They also gave my parents thirty bundles of glutinous rice—enough to feed family and friends who would visit in the days to come—and a side of pork, which Baba sliced and my brothers delivered to people in Puwei Village to let them know that the monthlong wedding celebration had officially begun. But what surprised and pleased Baba most of all—and what showed that our family’s hard work in preparing me for my special future had paid off—was the arrival of a new water buffalo. With this single gift, my father became one of the three most prosperous men in our village.

Snow Flower came for the entire month of Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber. During those last four weeks as I finished my dowry, she helped me in many ways and we became even closer. We both had foolish ideas about what marriage would be, but Snow Flower and I believed nothing would ever come close to the comfort we felt in each other’s arms—the warmth of our bodies, the softness of our skin, the delicate smells. Nothing would ever alter our love, and when we looked ahead we thought we would have only more to share.

To us, Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber was the beginning of a deeper commitment between us. After ten years together, our relationship was about to move to new and far more profound levels. Two or three years from now, once I moved to my husband’s home permanently and Snow Flower had gone to her husband’s home in Jintian, we would visit often. Surely our husbands—both men of wealth and high esteem—would hire palanquins for this purpose.

Since I didn’t have sworn sisters to join me during these festivities, my mother, my aunt, my sister-in-law, Elder Sister—who came home, pregnant again—and a few unwed girls from Puwei Village all came to celebrate my good fortune. Madame Wang joined us periodically too. Sometimes we recited favorite stories, or one person would choose a chant that we all followed. Other times we sang of our own lives. My mother—who was satisfied with her fate—recounted “The Tale of the Flower Girl,” while Aunt, still in mourning, made us all weep as her words came out in a sorrowful dirge.

One afternoon, as I embroidered the belt to cinch my wedding costume, Madame Wang came to entertain us with “The Tale of Wife Wang.” She took a stool next to Snow Flower, who was deep in thought, composing my third-day wedding book and searching for the right words to tell my in-laws about me. The two of them spoke very softly to each other. Every once in a while, I heard Snow Flower’s voice saying, “Yes, Auntie” and “No, Auntie.” Snow Flower had always shown a kind heart to the matchmaker. I had tried—with only moderate success—to emulate her in this.

When Madame Wang saw we were all waiting, she wiggled her bottom on the stool to get comfortable and began the saga. “There once was a pious woman with few prospects.” She had grown quite plump in recent years, which made her slower and more deliberate in her storytelling and in her movements. “Her family married her to a butcher—the lowest possible match for a woman devoted to the Buddhist way. As devout as she was, she was a woman first and gave birth to sons and daughters. Still, Wife Wang did not eat fish or meat. She recited sutras for hours each day, especially the Diamond Sutra. When she wasn’t reciting, she begged her husband not to slaughter animals. She warned him of the bad karma that would come to him in the next life if he continued his profession.”

The matchmaker put a hand on Snow Flower’s thigh in a comforting gesture. I would have found that old woman’s hand oppressive, but Snow Flower didn’t push it away.

“But Husband Wang told her—and some might say rightly—that his family had been butchers for more generations than anyone could count,” Madame Wang continued. ” ‘You continue to recite the Diamond Sutra,’ he said. ‘You will be rewarded in your next life. I will keep slaughtering animals. I will buy land in this life and be punished in the next.’ ”

Wife Wang knew she was doomed for sleeping with her husband, but when he tested her knowledge of the Diamond Sutra and found that she could recite it without flaw, he gave her a room of her own so she could remain celibate for the rest of their married life.

“Meanwhile,” Madame Wang went on, and once again her hand traveled to Snow Flower, where it rested lightly on the back of her neck, “the King of the Afterworld sent out spirits to look for those of great virtue. They spied on Wife Wang. Once convinced of her purity, they enticed her to visit the afterworld to recite the Diamond Sutra. She knew what this meant: They were asking her to die. She begged them not to make her leave her children, but the spirits refused to hear her pleas. She told her husband to take a new wife. She instructed her children to be good and obey their new mother. As soon as these words left her mouth, she fell to the floor, dead.

“Wife Wang experienced many trials before she was brought at last to the King of the Afterworld. Through all her tribulations he had been watching her, noting her virtue and piety. Just like her husband, he demanded that she recite the Diamond Sutra. Although she missed nine words, he was so pleased with her efforts—both during her lifetime and in the afterlife—that he rewarded her by allowing her to return to the world of the living as a baby boy. This time she was born into the home of a learned official, but her real name was written on the bottom of her foot.

“Wife Wang had led an exemplary life, but she was only a woman,” the matchmaker reminded us. “Now, as a man, she excelled at everything she did. She attained the highest rank as a scholar. She gained riches, honor, and prestige, but as much as she accomplished she missed her family and longed to be a woman again. At last she was presented to the emperor. She told him her story and implored him to let her return to her husband’s home village. Just as had happened with the King of the Afterworld, this woman’s courage and virtue moved the emperor, but he saw something more—filial piety. He assigned her to her husband’s home village as a magistrate. She arrived wearing full scholar regalia. When everyone came out to kowtow, she stunned the gathering by taking off her manly shoes and revealing her true name. She told her husband—now very old—that she wanted to be his wife again. Husband Wang and the children went to her tomb and opened it. The Jade Emperor stepped out and announced that the entire Wang family could transcend this world for nirvana, which they did.”

I believed Madame Wang told this story to tell me about my future. My Lu husband and his family, as esteemed and respected as they were in the county, might do things that could be considered offensive or even polluted. Also, it was the nature of a man born under the sign of the tiger to be fiery, spirited, and impulsive. My husband might lash out at society or scoff at binding traditions. (This is not as bad as being a butcher, I admit, but these traits could be dangerous nevertheless.) I, as a woman born under the sign of the horse, could help my husband fight these bad traits. A horse woman should never be afraid to take the lead and steer her mate clear of trouble. To me, this was the true meaning of “The Tale of Wife Wang.” Maybe she could not make her husband do what she wanted him to do, but through her piety and good works she not only saved him from the condemnation brought about by his polluted acts, she also helped her whole family reach nirvana. It is one of the few didactic tales told to us that has a happy ending, and on that late autumn day in the month before my marriage it made me happy.

But otherwise my feelings were mixed during Sitting and Singing. I was sad I would be leaving my family, but just as I had with my footbinding I tried to see something bigger—not that tiny slice of life I could see from our lattice window but a panorama like the ones Snow Flower and I saw when we peeked out the window of Madame Wang’s palanquin. I was convinced that a new and better future lay ahead of me. Perhaps it was something in my nature; a horse would wander the world if it could. I was happy to be going somewhere new. Naturally, I’d like to say that Snow Flower and I followed our horse natures exactly as the horoscopes outline, but horses—and people—are not always obedient. We say one thing and do another. We feel one way; then our hearts open in another direction. We see one thing but don’t understand that blinders hinder our vision. We plod along a well-loved path and then see a road, an alleyway, a river that tempts us. . . .

This is how I felt, and I thought that Snow Flower, my old same, would feel the same as I did, but she was a mystery to me. Snow Flower’s wedding was a month after mine, but she seemed neither excited nor sad. Instead she was unusually subdued, even as she sang the proper words during our chanting and worked diligently on the third-day wedding book she was making for me. I thought perhaps she was more nervous than I was about the wedding night.

“I’m not afraid of that,” she quipped, as we folded and wrapped my quilts.

“I’m not either,” I said, but I don’t think either of us spoke with much conviction. In my daughter days, when I’d still been allowed to play outside, I’d seen animals do bed business. I knew I was going to do something like that, but I didn’t understand how it would happen or what I was supposed to do. And Snow Flower, who usually knew so much more than I did, was no help. We were both waiting for one of our mothers, elder sisters, my aunt, or even the matchmaker to explain how to do this chore as they had taught us how to do so many others.

Since we were both uncomfortable with the topic, I tried to guide the conversation toward our plan for the next few weeks. Instead of returning home immediately after my marriage, I would go straight to Snow Flower’s house for her month of Sitting and Singing. I needed to help her with her wedding preparations as she was helping me with mine. I had been wanting to go to her house for ten years now, and in some ways I was more excited about that than in meeting my husband, because I had heard about Snow Flower’s home and family for so long, while I knew almost nothing about the man I was going to marry. Still, although I was filled with anticipation—at last I’d be going to Snow Flower’s house!—she seemed vague about the details.

“Someone from your in-laws’ home will bring you to me,” Snow Flower said.

“Do you think my mother-in-law will join us for your Sitting and Singing?” I asked. This would please me, because she would see me with my laotong.

“Lady Lu is too busy. She has many duties, just as you will one day.”

“But I’ll get to meet your mother, elder sister, and . . . who else will be invited?”

I had expected that Mama and Aunt would be part of Snow Flower’s rituals. She seemed so much a member of our family that I thought she would want them there.

“Auntie Wang will come,” she said.

The matchmaker would probably make several appearances during Snow Flower’s Sitting and Singing, just as she had at mine. For Madame Wang, our marrying out was the completion of years of hard work, meaning that her final payments were due. She wouldn’t miss any occasion where she could show to other women—the mothers of potential clients—her splendid results.

“Other than Auntie Wang’s presence, I don’t know what my mother has planned,” Snow Flower continued. “Everything will be a surprise.”

We were silent as we each folded another quilt. I glanced at her and her features seemed tight. For the first time in many years, my old insecurities bubbled up. Did Snow Flower still feel I was unworthy of her? Was she embarrassed to have the women of Tongkou meet my mother and aunt? Then I remembered that we were talking about her Sitting and Singing. It should be exactly as Snow Flower’s mother wanted it to be.

I took a strand of Snow Flower’s hair and tucked it behind her ear. “I can’t wait to meet your family. It’s going to be a happy time.”

She still seemed drawn as she said, “I worry that you’ll be disappointed. I’ve said so much about my mama and baba—”

“And Tongkou and your house—”

“How can they be as good as what you’ve imagined?”

I laughed. “You’re silly to worry. Everything I have in my mind comes from your beautiful word pictures.”

THREE DAYS BEFORE my wedding, I began the ceremonies associated with the Day of Sorrow and Worry. Mama sat on the fourth step leading to the upstairs chamber, the women of our village came to witness the laments, and everyone went ku, ku, ku, with much sobbing all around. Once Mama and I finished our crying and singing to each other, I repeated the process with my father, my uncle and aunt, and my brothers. I may have been brave and looking forward to my new life, but my body and soul were weak from hunger, because a bride is not allowed to eat for the final ten days of her wedding festivities. Do we follow this custom to make us sadder at leaving our families, to make us more yielding when we go to our husbands’ homes, or to make us appear more pure to our husbands? How can I know the answer? All I know is that Mama—like most mothers—hid a few hard-boiled eggs for me in the women’s chamber, but these did little to give me strength, and my emotions weakened with each new event.

The next morning, nervousness jolted me awake, but Snow Flower was right beside me, her soft fingers on my cheek, trying to calm me. I would be presented to my in-laws today, and I was so afraid that I couldn’t have eaten even if I’d been allowed to. Snow Flower helped me put on the wedding outfit I had made—a short collarless jacket cinched with a belt over long pants. She slipped the silver bangles my husband’s family had sent onto my wrist, then helped me put on their other gifts—the earrings, necklace, and hairpins. My bracelets jangled together, while the silver charms I’d sewn onto my jacket tinkled harmoniously. On my feet I wore my red wedding shoes and on my head an elaborate headdress with pearly balls and silver trinkets—all of which quivered when I walked or moved my head or when my feelings broke through. Red tassels hung down in front of my headdress, forming a veil. The only way I could see and still maintain proper decorum was to look straight down.

Snow Flower led me downstairs. Just because I couldn’t see didn’t mean that I didn’t have many emotions tumbling through my body. I heard my mother’s ragged footsteps, my aunt and uncle speaking to each other in gentle voices, and the scrape of my father’s chair as he rose. Together we walked to Puwei’s ancestral temple, where I thanked my ancestors for my life. The whole time, Snow Flower was at my side, guiding me through the alleyways, whispering encouragement and reminding me to hurry if I could because my in-laws would be arriving soon.

When we got home, Snow Flower and I went back upstairs. To keep me still, she held my hands and tried to describe what my new family was doing.

“Close your eyes and picture this.” She leaned in close, and my tassels fluttered with each word she spoke. “Master and Lady Lu must be beautifully dressed. They, along with their friends and relatives, have departed for Puwei. They are accompanied by a band, which announces to everyone along the route that on this day they have possession of the roadway.” She lowered her voice. “And where is the groom? He waits for you in Tongkou. In just two more days you will see him!”

Suddenly we heard music. They were almost here. Snow Flower and I went to the lattice window. I parted my tassels and looked out. We still couldn’t see the band or the procession, but together we watched as an emissary walked down our alleyway, stopped at our threshold, and presented my father with a letter on red paper declaring that my new family had come for me.

Then the band turned the corner, followed by a large crowd of strangers. Once they reached our house, the usual commotion commenced. Down below, people threw water and bamboo leaves on the band, accompanied by the customary laughter and jokes. I was called downstairs. Again, Snow Flower took my hand and guided me. I heard women’s voices sing: “Raising a girl and marrying her off is like building a fancy road for others to use.”

We went outside, and Madame Wang introduced both sets of parents. I had to be at my most demure at this moment when my in-laws first glimpsed me, so I couldn’t even whisper to Snow Flower to describe what they looked like or if she could gauge what they thought of me. Then my parents led the way to the ancestral temple, where my family hosted the first of many celebratory meals. Snow Flower and other girls from our village sat around me. Special dishes were brought out. Alcohol was served. Faces turned red. I was the subject of much teasing by the men and old women. All through the banquet, I sang laments and the women replied. By now I hadn’t eaten a real meal for seven days, and the smell of all that food made me dizzy.

The next day—the Day of the Big Singing Hall—featured a formal lunch. My handiwork and all of the third-day wedding books were displayed, accompanied by more singing by Snow Flower, the women, and me. Mama and Aunt led me to the center table. As soon as I was seated, my mother-in-law set before me a bowl of soup that she’d prepared to symbolize the kindness of my new family. I would have given anything to have just a few sips of the broth.

I could not see my mother-in-law’s face through my veil, but when I looked down through the tassels and saw golden lilies that seemed as small as my own, I felt a wave of panic. She hadn’t worn the special pair of shoes I’d made for her. I could see why. The embroidery on these shoes was far better than anything I had done. I was disgraced. Surely my parents were embarrassed and my in-laws disenchanted.

At this terrible moment, Snow Flower came to my side and took my arm again. Custom dictated that I leave the party, so she escorted me out of the temple and back home. She helped me upstairs, and then lifted off my headdress, removed the rest of my wedding clothes, and buttoned me into a nightdress and my sleeping slippers. I stayed quiet. The perfection of my mother-in-law’s shoes gnawed at me, but I was afraid to say anything, even to Snow Flower. I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me too.

Very late that night, my family returned home. If I was going to get any advice about bed business, it had to happen now. Mama came into the room and Snow Flower left. Mama looked worried, and for a second I thought she’d come to tell me that my in-laws wanted to back out of the arrangement. She rested her cane on the bed and sat down beside me.

“I have always told you that a true lady lets no ugliness into her life,” she said, “and that only through pain will you find beauty.”

I nodded modestly, but inside I was practically screaming in terror. She had used these phrases again and again during my footbinding. Could bed business be that bad?

“I hope you will remember, Lily, that sometimes we can’t avoid ugliness. You have to be brave. You have promised to be united for life. Be the lady you were meant to be.”

And then she stood up, balanced on her cane, and hobbled out of the room. I was not relieved by what she had said! My resolve, my adventurousness, and my strength had completely weakened. I truly felt like a bride—afraid, sad, and very scared now to leave my family.

When Snow Flower came back in and saw I was white with fear, she took my mother’s spot on the bed and tried to comfort me.

“For ten years you have trained for this moment,” she gently reassured me. “You obey the rules set down in The Women’s Classic. You are soft in your words but strong in your heart. You comb your hair in a demure manner. You don’t wear rouge or powder. You know how to spin cotton and wool, weave, sew, and embroider. You know how to cook, clean, wash, keep tea always warm and ready, and light the fire in the hearth. You take good and proper care of your feet. You remove your old bindings each night before bed. You wash your feet thoroughly and use just the right amount of scent before putting on clean bindings.”

“What about . . . bed business?”

“What about it? Your aunt and uncle have been happy doing this thing. Your mama and baba have done it enough to have many children. It can’t be as hard as embroidery or cleaning.”

I felt a little better, but Snow Flower wasn’t done. She helped me into the bed, curled around me, and continued praising me.

“You will be a good mother, because you are caring,” she whispered in my ear. “At the same time, you will be a good teacher. How do I know this? Look at all the things you have taught me.” She paused for a moment, making sure my mind and body had absorbed what she’d said, before going on in a much more matter-of-fact manner. “And besides, I saw the way the Lus looked at you yesterday and today.”

I twisted out of her arms and turned to face her. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

“Remember when Lady Lu brought you the soup?”

Of course I remembered. That was the beginning of what I imagined to be my lifetime of humiliation.

“Your whole body trembled,” Snow Flower continued. “How did you do that? The entire room noticed. Everyone commented on your fragility combined with restraint. As you sat there with your head tilted down, showing what a perfect maiden you are, Lady Lu looked over you to her husband. She smiled in approval and he smiled back. You will see. Lady Lu is strict, but her heart is kind.”

“But—”

“And the way the whole Lu party examined your feet! Oh, Lily, I’m sure everyone in my village is happy to know that one day you will be the new Lady Lu. Now try to sleep. You have many long days ahead of you.”

We lay face-to-face. Snow Flower put a hand on my cheek in her usual way. “Close your eyes,” she ordered softly. I did as I was told.

THE NEXT DAY my in-laws arrived in Puwei early enough to pick me up and get me back to Tongkou by late afternoon. When I heard the band on the outskirts of the village, my heart began to race. I couldn’t help it, but tears leaked from my eyes. Mama, Aunt, Elder Sister, and Snow Flower all cried as they led me downstairs. The groom’s emissaries arrived at the threshold. My brothers helped load my dowry into waiting palanquins. Again I wore my headdress, so I couldn’t see anyone, but I heard my family’s voices as we went through the final traditional calls and responses.

“A woman will never become valuable if she doesn’t leave her village,” Mama cried out.

“Goodbye, Mama,” I chanted back to her. “Thank you for raising a worthless daughter.”

“Goodbye, daughter,” Baba said softly.

With the sound of my father’s voice, my tears came down in twin streams. I clung to the railing leading to the upstairs chamber. Suddenly I didn’t want to go.

“As women, we are born to leave our home villages,” Aunt sang out. “You are like a bird flying into a cloud, never to return.”

“Thank you, Aunt, for making me laugh. Thank you for showing me the true meaning of sorrow. Thank you for sharing your special talents with me.”

Aunt’s sobs echoed back to me from her dark place. I couldn’t leave her to mourn alone. My tears matched hers.

Looking down, I saw Uncle’s sun-browned hands on mine, pulling my fingers away from the railing.

“Your flower-sitting chair waits for you,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

“Uncle . . .”

Then I heard the voices of my siblings, each of them wishing me farewell. I wanted to see them with my eyes instead of being blinded by those red tassels.

“Elder Brother, thank you for the goodness you have shown me,” I chanted. “Second Brother, thank you for letting me care for you when you were a baby in split pants. Elder Sister, thank you for your patience.”

Outside, the band played louder. My hands reached out. Mama and Baba took them and helped me over the threshold. As I stepped over it, my tassels swung momentarily back and forth across my face. In little flashes I saw my palanquin covered in flowers and red silk. My hua jiao—flower-sitting chair—was beautiful.

Everything I had been told since my betrothal was arranged six years ago flooded my mind. I was marrying a tiger, the best match for me, according to our horoscopes. My husband was healthy, smart, and educated. His family was respected, rich, and generous. I had glimpsed these things already in the quality and quantity of my bride-price gifts, and now I saw them again with my flower-sitting chair. I loosened my grip on my parents’ hands and they let go of me.

I took two blind steps forward and stopped. I couldn’t see where I was going. I reached out my hands, longing for Snow Flower to take them. As she always had, she came to me. With her fingers wrapped around mine, she led me to the palanquin. She opened the door. All around me I heard crying. Mama and Aunt sang a sorrowful melody—the usual one to say goodbye to a daughter. Snow Flower leaned in close and whispered so no one could hear.

“Remember, we are old sames forever.” Then she took something from inside her sleeve and tucked it inside my jacket. “I made this for you,” she said. “Read it on your way to Tongkou. I will see you there.”

I got into the palanquin. The bearers lifted me up and I was on my way. Mama, Aunt, Baba, Snow Flower, and some friends from Puwei followed my escorts and me to the edge of the village, calling out final good wishes. I sat alone in the palanquin, crying.

Why was I making such a fuss when I would return to my natal home in three days? I can explain it this way: The phrase we use for marrying out is buluo fujia, which means not falling into your husband’s home immediately. The luo means falling, like the falling of leaves in autumn or falling in death. And in our local dialect, the word for wife is the same as the word for guest. For the rest of my life I would be merely a guest in my husband’s home—not the kind you treat with special meals, gifts of affection, or soft beds, but the kind who is forever viewed as a foreigner, alien and suspect.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out Snow Flower’s package. It was our fan, wrapped in cloth. I opened it, anticipating the happy words she would have written. My eyes scanned the folds until I saw her message: Two birds in flight—hearts beating as one. The sun shines upon their wings, drenching them with healing warmth. The earth spreads below them—all theirs. In the garland at the top of the fan, two small birds soared together: my husband and me. I loved that Snow Flower had placed my husband in our dearest possession.

Next I spread open on my lap the handkerchief that had been wrapped around the fan. Looking down, my tassels swinging with the movement of the bearers, I saw she had embroidered a letter to me in our secret language to celebrate this most special moment.

The letter began in the traditional opening to a bride:

I feel knives in my heart as I write to you. We promised each other that we would never be a step apart, that a harsh word would never pass between us.

These words came from our contract, and I smiled at the memory.

I thought we would have our whole lives together. I never believed this day would come. It is sad that we came into this life wrong—as girls—but this is our fate. Lily, we have been like a pair of mandarin ducks. Now everything changes. In the coming days you will learn things about me. I have been restless and filled with apprehension. In my heart and in my mouth I have been weeping, thinking you will no longer love me. Please know that whatever you think of me, my opinion of you will never change.

Snow Flower

Can you imagine how I felt? Snow Flower had been very quiet these past weeks, because she’d been concerned that I would no longer love her. But how could that be? In my flower-sitting chair on my way to my husband, I knew nothing would ever change my feelings for Snow Flower. I had a terrible sense of foreboding and wanted to yell to the bearers to take me home so that I could ease my laotong‘s fears.

But then we arrived at Tongkou’s main gate. Firecrackers spit and popped; the band clanged, tooted, and drummed their instruments. People unloaded my dowry. These things had to be taken straightaway to my new home so my husband could change into the wedding clothes I’d made for him. Then I heard a terrible but familiar sound. It was that of a chicken having its neck cut. Outside my flower-sitting chair, someone spattered the chicken’s blood on the ground to ward off any evil spirits that might have arrived with me.

At last my door opened, and I was helped out by a woman regarded to be the head of the village. The actual head woman was my mother-in-law, but for this purpose it was the woman in Tongkou with the most sons. She led me to my new home, where I stepped over the threshold and was presented to my in-laws. I knelt before them, touching my head to the ground three times. “I will obey you,” I said. “I will work for you.” Then I poured tea for them. After this, I was escorted to the wedding chamber, where I was left alone with the door open. I was now just moments away from meeting my husband. I had been waiting for this since the first time Madame Wang came to my house to see my feet, yet I was totally flustered, agitated, and confused. This man was a total stranger, so I was naturally curious about him. He would be the father of my children, so I was anxious about how that business was going to happen. And I had just received a mysterious letter from my old same and I was consumed with worry for her.

I heard people move a table to bar the door. I tilted my head just so, my tassels parted, and I saw my in-laws stack my wedding quilts on the table and place two cups of wine—one tied with green thread, the other with red thread, then both of them tied together—on top of the pile.

My husband entered the anteroom. Everyone cheered. This time I did not try to peek. I wanted to be as conventional as I could in this first meeting. From his side of the table, he pulled the red thread. From my side, I pulled the green thread. Then he jumped up on the table right onto the quilts and leaped into the room. With that action we were officially married.

What could I tell about my husband in the first instant that we stood side by side? I could smell that he had made a general cleaning of his body. By looking down I could see that the shoes I’d made for him were handsome on his feet and that his red wedding trousers were the exact right length. But the moment passed, and we moved on to Teasing and Getting Loud in the Wedding Chamber. My husband’s friends burst in, unsteady on their feet and feeble in their words from too much drink. They gave us peanuts and dates so we would have many children. They gave us sweets so we would have a sweet life. But they didn’t just hand a dumpling to me like they did to my husband. No! They tied the dumpling with a string and dangled it just above my mouth. They made me jump for it, making sure I never reached my goal. All the while, they made jokes. You know the kind. My husband would be as strong as a bull tonight, or I would be as submissive as a lamb, or my breasts looked like two peaches ready to burst the fabric of my jacket, or my husband would have as many seeds as a pomegranate, or if we used a particular position we would be guaranteed a first son. This is the same everywhere—low-class talk permitted on the first night of any marriage anywhere. And I played along, but inside I was growing more frantic.

I had been in Tongkou for hours. Now it was late at night. Outside on the street, villagers were drinking, eating, dancing, celebrating. A new round of firecrackers was set off, signaling everyone to go home. At long last, Madame Wang closed the door to the wedding chamber and my husband and I were alone.

He said, “Hello.”

I said, “Hello.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I’m not supposed to eat for another two days.”

“You have peanuts and dates,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone if you want to eat them.”

I shook my head and the little balls on my headdress shook and the silver pieces chimed prettily. My tassels parted and I saw that his eyes were cast down. He was looking at my feet. I blushed. I held my breath, hoping to still the tassels so he wouldn’t glimpse the emotions on my cheeks. I didn’t move and neither did he. I was sure he was still examining me. All I could do was wait.

Finally, my husband said, “I’ve been told you’re very pretty. Are you?”

“Help me with my headdress and find out for yourself.”

This came out more tartly than I intended, but my husband just laughed. A few moments later, he set the headdress on a side table. He turned back to face me. We were perhaps a meter apart. He searched my face and I boldly searched his. Everything Madame Wang and Snow Flower had said about him was true. He bore no pockmarks or scars of any kind. He was not as dark-skinned as Baba or Uncle, which told me that his hours in the family fields were few. He had high cheekbones and a chin that was confident but not impudent. An unruly shock of hair fell across his forehead, giving him a carefree look. His eyes sparkled with good humor.

He stepped forward, took my hands in his, and said, “I think we could be happy, you and I.”

Could a Yao nationality girl of seventeen hope for better words? Like my husband, I saw a golden future before us. That night, he followed all the correct traditions, even removing my bridal shoes and putting on my red sleeping slippers. I was so accustomed to Snow Flower’s gentle touch that I can’t really describe how I felt having his hands on my feet, except that this act seemed far more intimate to me than what came next. I didn’t know what I was doing, but neither did he. I just tried to imagine what Snow Flower would have done if she were under that strange man instead of me.

ON THE SECOND day of my marriage, I rose early. I left my husband sleeping and stepped out into the hall. You know that feeling when you are sick with worry? This is how I’d felt from the moment I’d read Snow Flower’s letter, but I couldn’t do anything about it—not during my wedding, last night, or even now. I had to do my best to follow the prescribed course until I saw her again. But it was hard, because I was hungry, exhausted, and my body hurt. My feet were tired and sore from so much walking these last few days. I was uncomfortable in another place too, but I tried to blot out these things as I made my way to the kitchen, where a servant girl about ten years old sat on her haunches, apparently waiting for me. My own servant girl—no one had told me about that. People in Puwei didn’t have servants, but I recognized what she was because her feet had not been bound. Her name was Yonggang, which means brave and strong like iron. (This would prove to be true.) She had already built a fire in the brazier and hauled water to the kitchen. All I had to do was heat the water and take it to my in-laws so they could wash their faces. I also made tea for everyone in the household, and when they came to the kitchen I poured it without spilling a drop.

Later that day, my in-laws sent another round of pork and sweet cakes to my family. The Lus held a big feast in their ancestral temple, yet another banquet where I was not allowed to eat. Before everyone, my husband and I bowed to Heaven and Earth, my in-laws, and the Lu family ancestors. Then we passed through the temple, bowing to everyone who was older than we were. They, in turn, gave us money wrapped in red paper. Then—back to the wedding chamber.

The next day, the third of a marriage, is the one that all brides wait for, because the third-day wedding books that family and friends have made are read. But by now all I could think about was Snow Flower and that I would see her at the event.

Elder Sister and Elder Brother’s wife arrived, bringing the books and food I was finally allowed to eat. Many women from Tongkou joined the females of my husband’s family to read the words, but neither Snow Flower nor her mother came. This was beyond my comprehension. I was deeply hurt . . . and scared by Snow Flower’s absence. There I was at what is considered the happiest of all wedding rites, and I couldn’t enjoy it.

My sanzhaoshu contained all the usual lines about my family’s misery now that I would no longer be with them. At the same time, they extolled my virtues and repeated phrases such as If only we could persuade that worthy family to wait a few years before taking you, or It is sad we are now separated, while entreating my in-laws to be lenient and teach me their family customs with patience. Snow Flower’s sanzhaoshu was also what I expected, incorporating her love of birds. It began, The phoenix mates the golden hen, a match made in heaven. Again, the usual sentiments, even from my laotong.

Truth

IF CIRCUMSTANCES HAD BEEN NORMAL, ON THE FOURTH DAY after my wedding I would have gone back home to my family in Puwei, but I had long planned to go straight to Snow Flower’s house for her Sitting and Singing month. Now that I was close to seeing her again, I was more anxious than ever. I dressed in one of my good everyday outfits, a water-green silk jacket and pants embroidered with a bamboo pattern. I wanted to make a favorable impression not only on anyone I passed in Tongkou but also on Snow Flower’s family, whom I had heard so much about over these many years. Yonggang, the servant girl, led me through Tongkou’s alleyways. She carried my clothes, embroidery thread, cloth, and the third-day wedding book I had prepared for Snow Flower in a basket. I was happy for Yonggang’s guidance yet uncomfortable with her company. She was one of many things I would have to get used to.

Tongkou was far bigger and more prosperous than Puwei. The alleyways were clean, with no chickens, ducks, or pigs wandering freely. We stopped before a house that looked exactly how Snow Flower had described it—two stories, peaceful and elegant. I had not been there long enough to know the village’s customs, but one thing was exactly the same as in Puwei. We did not yell out greetings or knock to announce our arrival. Yonggang simply opened the main door to Snow Flower’s house and stepped inside.

I followed right behind and was immediately assailed by a strange odor, which combined night soil and rotting meat with an overlay of something sickeningly sweet. I had no idea what the source of that could be, except that somehow it seemed human. My stomach roiled, but my eyes rebelled even more, refusing to accept what they were seeing.

The main room was much larger than the one in my natal home, but with far less furniture. I saw a table but no chairs. I saw a carved balustrade leading to the women’s chamber, but other than these few things—which showed in their craftsmanship a much higher quality than anything in my natal home—there was nothing. No fire, even. It was late autumn now, and cold. The room was dirty too, with food scraps on the floor. I saw other doors that must have led to bedrooms.

This was not only completely different from what a passerby might have expected from seeing the exterior, but it was vastly different from what Snow Flower had described. I had to be in the wrong place.

By the ceiling were several windows, of which all but one had been sealed. A single ray of light from that window pierced the darkness. In the gloomy shadows, I spotted a woman squatting over a washbasin. She was dressed as a lowly peasant in ragged and dirty padded clothes. Our eyes met and she quickly averted her gaze. Keeping her head down, she stood up into the shaft of light. Her skin was beautiful, as pale and pure as porcelain. She wrapped the fingers of one hand around those of her other hand and bowed.

“Miss Lily, welcome, welcome.” She kept her voice low, not out of deference for my newly acquired higher status but at a timbre that seemed tamped down by fear. “Wait here. I will get Snow Flower.”

Now I was totally shocked. This had to be Snow Flower’s house. But how could it be? As the woman crossed the room to the stairs, I saw she had golden lilies, nearly as small as my own, which to my ignorant eyes seemed remarkable for someone from the servant class.

I listened very hard as the woman addressed someone upstairs. Then my ears heard the impossible—Snow Flower’s voice speaking in its most stubborn and argumentative tone. Shocked, that’s how I felt, utterly shocked. But beyond this one familiar sound, the house itself was eerily quiet. And in that silence I sensed something lurking like an evil spirit from the afterworld. My whole body resisted this experience. My skin crawled in revulsion. I shivered in my water-green silk outfit, which I’d worn to impress Snow Flower’s parents but which offered no protection against the damp wind that blew through the window or the fear I felt to be in this strange, dark, smelly, scary place.

Snow Flower emerged at the top of the stairs. “Come up,” she called down to me.

I stood paralyzed, trying desperately to absorb what I was seeing. Something touched my sleeve and I started.

“I don’t think the master would want me to leave you here,” Yonggang said, her face a mask of worry.

“The master knows where I am,” I responded, without thinking.

“Lily.” Snow Flower’s voice had a quality of sad desperation to it I had never heard before.

Then a memory from just a few days ago flashed in my mind. My mother had told me that as a woman I couldn’t avoid ugliness and I had to be brave. “You have promised to be united for life,” she’d said. “Be the lady you were meant to be.” She hadn’t been talking about bed business with my husband. She’d been talking about this. Snow Flower was my old same for life. I had a greater and deeper love for her than I could ever feel for the person who was my husband. This was the true meaning of a laotong relationship.

I took a step and heard something like a whimper from Yonggang. I didn’t know what to do. I had never had a servant before. I patted her shoulder hesitatingly. “Go along.” I tried to sound like a mistress should, however that was. “I will be fine.”

“If you need to leave for any reason, just step outside and call for help,” Yonggang suggested, still concerned. “Everyone here knows Master and Lady Lu. People will take you back to your in-laws’ home.”

I reached out and took the basket from her hand. When she didn’t budge, I nodded at her to move along. She sighed in resignation, bowed quickly, backed herself to the threshold, turned, and left.

With my basket gripped firmly in my hand, I climbed the stairs. As I neared Snow Flower, I saw that her cheeks were streaked with tears. Like the servant woman, she was dressed in gray, ill-fitting, and badly repaired padded clothes. I stopped one stair below the landing.

“Nothing has changed,” I said. “We are old sames.”

She took my hand, helped me up the final step, and led me into the women’s chamber. I could see that it too had been lovely at one time. It was perhaps three times the size of the women’s chamber in my natal home. Instead of vertical bars on the lattice window, an intricately carved wooden screen covered the opening. Otherwise, the room was empty but for a spinning wheel and a bed. The beautiful woman I had seen downstairs, her hands folded neatly in her lap, perched gracefully on the edge of the bed. Her peasant clothes couldn’t disguise her breeding.

“Lily,” Snow Flower said, “this is my mother.”

I crossed the room, linked my hands together, and bowed to the woman who had brought my laotong into this world.

“You must forgive our circumstances,” Snow Flower’s mother said. “I can only offer you tea.” She rose. “You girls have much to talk over.” With that, she swayed out of the room with the sublime grace that comes from feet perfectly bound.

When I left my natal home four days ago, tears had poured down my face. I was sad, happy, and afraid all at the same time. But now, as I sat with Snow Flower on her bed, I saw on her cheeks tears of remorse, guilt, shame, and embarrassment. I longed to yell at her, Tell me! Instead, I waited for the truth, realizing that each word from Snow Flower’s lips would cause her to lose whatever face she had left.

“Long before you and I met,” Snow Flower said at last, “my family was one of the best in the county. You can see”—she gestured around her helplessly—”this once was glorious. We were very prosperous. My great-grandfather the scholar received many mou from the emperor.”

I listened, my mind spinning.

“When the emperor died, my great-grandfather fell out of favor, so he came home to retire. Life was good. When he died, his son, my grandfather, took over. My grandfather had many workers and many servants. He had three concubines, but they gave him only daughters. My grandmother finally bore a son and secured her place. They married in my mother for that son. People said she was like Hu Yuxiu, who was so talented and charming she had attracted an emperor. My father wasn’t an imperial scholar, but he was educated in the classics. People said of him that he would one day be the headman of Tongkou. Mama believed it. Others saw a different future. My grandparents recognized in my father the weakness of having been raised as the only son in a house with too many sisters and too many concubines, while my aunt suspected that he was cowardly and susceptible to vice.”

Snow Flower’s eyes were distant as she relived a past that no longer existed. “Two years after I was born, my grandparents died,” she continued. “My family had everything—stunning clothes, plentiful food, lots of servants. My father took me on trips; my mother took me to the Temple of Gupo. I saw and learned a lot as a girl. But my father had to take care of Grandfather’s three concubines and marry out his four sisters by blood and the five half sisters who had come from the concubines. He also had to provide work, food, and shelter for the field workers and the house servants. Marriages for his sisters and half sisters were arranged. My father tried to show everyone what a big man he was. Each bride-price was more extravagant than the last. He began to sell fields to the big landowner in the west of our province so he could pay for more silk or for another pig to be slaughtered as a bride-price. My mother—you saw her—she is beautiful on the outside but inside she is much like I was before I met you: pampered, sheltered, and ignorant about women’s work other than embroidery and nu shu. My father . . .” Snow Flower hesitated, then blurted out, “My father took to the pipe.”

I remembered back to the day that Madame Gao had made such a nuisance of herself talking about Snow Flower’s family. She’d mentioned gambling and concubines but also that Snow Flower’s father had taken to the pipe. I was nine years old. I had thought he smoked too much tobacco. Now I realized not only that Snow Flower’s father had fallen victim to the opium pipe, but that everyone in the upstairs women’s chamber that day, except for me, had known exactly what Madame Gao was talking about. My mother knew, my aunt knew, Madame Wang knew. They had all known, yet every one of them had agreed that this common knowledge should not be shared with me.

“Is your father still alive?” I asked tentatively. Surely she would have told me if he’d died, but then again—given all her other lies—maybe not.

She nodded but offered nothing more.

“Is he downstairs?” I asked, thinking of the strange and disgusting smell that had pervaded the main room.

Her features went very still; then she lifted her eyebrows. I took this to mean yes.

“The turning point came with the famine,” Snow Flower resumed. “Do you remember that? We hadn’t met yet, but there was a particularly bad crop followed by a very cruel winter.”

How could I forget? The best we’d eaten was rice gruel flavored with dried turnips. Mama was frugal, Baba and Uncle barely ate, and we had survived.

“My father was not prepared,” Snow Flower admitted. “He smoked his pipe and forgot about us. One day my grandfather’s concubines left. Maybe they went back to their natal homes. Maybe they died in the snow. No one knows. By the time spring arrived, only my parents, my two brothers, my two sisters, and I lived in the house. On the surface we still had our elegant life, but in actuality the debt collectors were beginning to visit us regularly. My father sold off more fields. Finally, we had only the house. By then he cared more for his pipe than he did for us. Before he would pawn the furniture—oh, Lily, you can’t imagine how pretty everything was—he thought he would sell me.”

“Not as a servant!”

“Worse. As a little daughter-in-law.”

This had always been the most horrible thing I could imagine: not having your feet bound, being raised by strangers who had to be of such low morals that they didn’t want a proper daughter-in-law, being treated lower than a servant. And now that I was married I understood the most terrible aspect of this life. You might be nothing but a bit of bed business for any male who lived in the household.

“We were saved by my mother’s sister,” Snow Flower said. “After you and I became laotong, she arranged a so-so match for my elder sister. She does not come here anymore. Later my aunt sent my elder brother to apprentice in Shangjiangxu. Today my younger brother works in the fields for your husband’s family. My younger sister died, as you know—”

But I didn’t care about people I had never met and had only heard lies about. “What happened to you?”

“My aunt changed my future with scissors, cloth, and alum. My father objected, but you know Auntie Wang. Who’s going to say no to her once she’s made a decision?”

“Auntie Wang?” My mind reeled. “You mean our Auntie Wang, the matchmaker?”

“She is my mother’s sister.”

I pressed my fingers to my temples. The very first day I met Snow Flower and we went to the Temple of Gupo, she had addressed the matchmaker as Auntie. I thought she’d done this out of courtesy and respect, and from then on I’d also used the honorific when I spoke to Madame Wang. I felt stupid and foolish.

“You never told me,” I said.

“About Auntie Wang? That was the one thing I thought you knew.”

The one thing I thought you knew. I tried to absorb those words.

“Auntie Wang saw right through my father,” Snow Flower went on. “She understood he was weak. She looked at me too. She read in my face that I did not like to obey, that I didn’t pay attention, that I was hopeless in the arts of home care, but that my mother could teach me embroidery, how to dress, how to act in front of a man, our secret writing. Auntie is only a woman, but as a matchmaker she is also business-minded. She saw where things were headed for our family and for me. She began looking for a laotong match, hoping it would send a good message through the countryside that I was educated, loyal, obedient—”

“And marriageable,” I concluded. This was true for me as well.

“She searched the county, traveling far outside her usual matchmaking territory until she heard about you from the diviner. Once she met you, she decided to hitch my fate to yours.”

“I don’t understand.”

Snow Flower smiled ruefully. “You were headed up and I was going down. When you and I first met, I didn’t know anything. I was supposed to learn from you.”

“But you’re the one who taught me. Your embroidery has always been better than mine. And you knew the secret writing so well. You trained me to live in a home with a high threshold—”

“And you taught me how to haul water, wash clothes, cook, and clean the house. I have tried to teach my mother, but she sees things only as they were.”

I had sensed already that Snow Flower’s mother held on to a past that no longer existed, but having just heard Snow Flower tell her family story, I think my laotong also saw things through the happy veil of memory. Knowing her for all those years, I knew she believed in the idea that the women’s inner realm should be beautiful and without worry. Perhaps she thought things would somehow go back to the way they once were.

“From you I learned what I needed to know for my new life,” Snow Flower said, “except that I have never been able to clean as well as you.”

True, she had never been good at it. I had always thought it was her way of blinding herself to the messiness of the way we lived. Now I realized it was easier for her mind to glide through the air far above the clouds than to acknowledge the ugliness right before her eyes.

“But your house is much larger and harder to clean than mine, and you were just a girl in your hair-pinning years,” I argued stupidly, trying to make her feel better. “You had—”

“A mother who could not help me, a father who was an opium addict, and brothers and sisters who left one by one.”

“But you’re marrying—”

Suddenly I recalled that last day when Madame Gao had come into the upstairs chamber and I witnessed her final argument with Madame Wang. What had she said about Snow Flower’s betrothal? I tried to remember what I knew about the arrangement, but Snow Flower rarely if ever talked about her future husband; she rarely if ever showed us any of her bride-price gifts. We had seen bits and pieces of cotton and silk that she was working on, true, but she always said these were everyday projects like shoes for herself. Nothing fancy.

A frightening thought began to formulate in my mind. Snow Flower had to be marrying out into a very low family. The question was, just how low?

Snow Flower seemed to read my thoughts. “Auntie did the best she could for me. I’m not marrying a farmer.”

That hurt a little, since my father was a farmer.

“He’s a merchant then?” A merchant would have a dishonorable profession, but he might be able to restore some of Snow Flower’s lost circumstances.

“I will be marrying out to nearby Jintian Village, just as Auntie Wang said, but my husband’s family”—again she hesitated—”they are butchers.”

Waaa! This was the worst marriage possible! Snow Flower’s new husband would have some money, but what he did was unclean and disgusting. In my mind I replayed everything from the last month as we’d prepared for my wedding. In particular I recalled how Madame Wang had stayed at Snow Flower’s side, offering comfort, quietly cajoling. Then I remembered the matchmaker telling “The Tale of Wife Wang.” With deep shame I saw that the story had not been meant for me at all but for Snow Flower.

I didn’t know what to say. I had heard the truth in snippets, ever since I was nine, but had chosen not to believe or acknowledge it. Now I thought, Isn’t it my duty to make my laotong happy? Make her forget these troubles? Make her believe that everything will be fine?

I put my arms around her. “At least you will never go hungry,” I said, although I turned out to be wrong about that. “There are worse things that can happen to a woman,” I said, but I couldn’t think what they could be.

She buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed. A moment later, she roughly pushed me away. Her eyes were wet with tears, but I saw not sadness in them but wild ferocity.

“Don’t pity me! I don’t want it!”

Pity had not entered my mind. I felt sick with confusion and sadness. Her letter to me had ruined my enjoyment of my wedding. Her not showing up for the reading of my third-day wedding books had deeply wounded me. And now this. Under all my turmoil simmered the feeling that Snow Flower had betrayed me. For all our nights together, why hadn’t she told me the truth? Was it that she honestly didn’t believe what her fate was to be? That because in her mind she was always flying away, she thought this would happen in real life too? Did she truly believe that our feet would leave the ground and our hearts would actually soar with the birds? Or was she just trying to save face by keeping her many secrets, believing this day would never come?

Maybe I should have been angry at Snow Flower for lying to me, but that’s not what I felt. I had believed I had been plucked for a special future, which made me too self-centered to see what was directly in front of me. Wasn’t it my lack as a friend—as a laotong—that had prevented me from asking Snow Flower the right questions about her past and her future?

I was only seventeen. I had spent the last ten years almost entirely in the upstairs chamber surrounded by women who saw a specific future for me. The same could be said for the men downstairs. But when I thought about all of them—Mama, Aunt, Baba, Uncle, Madame Gao, Madame Wang, even Snow Flower—the only one I could really blame was my mother. Madame Wang may have duped her in the beginning, but she had eventually learned the truth and decided not to tell me. How I felt about my mother twisted and warped with the realization that her occasional signs of affection, which I now saw as part of her greater lies of omission, had simply been a way to keep me on course to the good marriage that would benefit my entire natal family.

I was at a moment of supreme confusion, and I believe it set the stage for what happened later. I didn’t know my mind. I didn’t see or understand what was important. I was just a stupid girl who thought she knew something because she was married. I didn’t know how to resolve any of these things, so I buried them deep, deep, deep inside of me. But my feelings didn’t—couldn’t—disappear. It was as though I’d swallowed the meat of a diseased pig and it slowly began to spoil my insides.

I HAD NOT yet become the Lady Lu who is respected today for her graciousness, compassion, and strength. Still, from the moment I walked into Snow Flower’s house, I felt something new inside me. Think again of that diseased piece of pork, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. I had to pretend I wasn’t sick or infected, so I used my will to good purpose. I wanted to bring honor to my husband’s family by being charitable and kind to people in the lowest of circumstances. Of course, I did not know how to do that, because these things were not natural to me.

Snow Flower was getting married in a month, so I helped her and her mother clean the house. I wanted it to be presentable to the groom’s party, but no one could deal with the foul odors that permeated the rooms. The sick sweetness came from the opium that Snow Flower’s father smoked. And the other rankness, as you have probably guessed, came from his impacted bowels. No incense, no burning of vinegar, no opening of windows even in those cool months could disguise the filthiness of that man and his habits.

I saw the routine of that household, in which two women lived in fear of the man who resided in a room on the ground floor. I experienced their hushed voices and the way they cowered reflexively when he called for them. And I saw the man himself, lying there in his stink and mess. Even in poverty, he was as petulant and quick to anger as a spoiled child. There may have been a time when he’d lashed out physically at his wife and daughter, but now he was just a drug-dazed creature who was better left alone with his vice.

I tried not to let my emotions show. Enough tears had poured in that house without mine being added. I asked to see Snow Flower’s bride-price gifts. In my mind I thought: Maybe this butcher family won’t be so bad after all. I had seen the silk pieces Snow Flower worked on. These people must be relatively prosperous, even if they were spiritually polluted.

Snow Flower opened a wooden chest and carefully laid out everything she had made on the bed. I saw the sky-blue silk shoes with the cloud pattern she had finished the day Beautiful Moon died. I saw a jacket that used some of that same silk on the front panel; then, in a neat row, Snow Flower propped five pairs of shoes of different sizes in the same fabric but embroidered with additional designs. This all looked familiar to me, and suddenly I understood why. These things had been fashioned from the jacket Snow Flower had worn on the first day we met.

My hands traveled over other items in her dowry. Here was the lavender-and-white material that had made up Snow Flower’s traveling outfit when she was nine, now recut and reshaped into vests and shoes. Here was my favorite indigo-and-white cotton weaving that had been slit into panels and strips to be incorporated into jackets, headdresses, belts, and decorations on quilts. Snow Flower’s actual bride-price gifts were minimal, but she’d taken pieces from her own clothes to create a unique dowry.

“You will make a remarkable wife,” I said, truly awed by what she had accomplished.

For the first time, Snow Flower laughed. I had always loved that sound, so high, so alluring. I joined in, because all of this was . . . beyond—beyond anything I could have imagined, beyond what was fair or right in the universe. Snow Flower’s situation and what she’d done with it was horrible and tragic and funny and amazing all at the same time.

“Your things—”

“Not even mine to begin with,” Snow Flower answered, as she gulped for air. “My mother recut her dowry clothes to make my outfits when I visited you. Now they are recut again for my husband and my in-laws.”

Of course! This had to be the case, because now I could remember thinking that a certain pattern seemed too sophisticated for a girl so young, or cutting loose threads from a cuff when Snow Flower wasn’t looking. I was stupider than a chicken in a rainstorm. Blood rushed to my face. I clasped my hands over my cheeks and laughed even harder.

“Do you think my mother-in-law will notice?” Snow Flower asked.

“If I was too blind to notice, then . . .” but I couldn’t finish because it was all too funny.

Perhaps it is a joke that only girls and women can understand. We are seen as completely useless. Even if our natal families love us, we are a burden to them. We marry into new families, go to our husbands sight unseen, do bed business with them as total strangers, and submit to the demands of our mothers-in-law. If we are lucky, we have sons and secure our positions in our husbands’ homes. If not, we are faced with the scorn of our mothers-in-law, the ridicule of our husbands’ concubines, and the disappointed faces of our daughters. We use a woman’s wiles—of which at seventeen we girls know almost nothing—but beyond this there is little we can do to change our fate. We live at the whim and pleasure of others, which is why what Snow Flower and her mother had done was so beyond. They had taken cloth that had once been sent from Snow Flower’s family to Snow Flower’s mother as a bride-price gift, been shaped into the dowry of a fine maiden, been reshaped again into clothes for a beautiful daughter, and now restructured another time to announce the qualities of a young woman marrying into the house of a polluted butcher. All of it was women’s work—the very work that men think is merely decorative—and it was being used to change the lives of the women themselves.

But so much more was needed. Snow Flower had to go to her new home with enough clothes to wear her entire lifetime. Right now, she had very little. My mind raced with things we could do in the month we had left.

When Madame Wang arrived for Snow Flower’s Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber, I took her aside and begged her to go to my natal home. “There are things I need. . . .”

That woman had been critical of me for so long. She had also lied—not to my family but to me. I had never cared for her and now I liked her even less for her duplicity, but she did exactly as she was told. (I now outranked her, after all.) She returned from my home several hours later with a basket of my wedding dumplings, some of the sliced pork my in-laws had sent, fresh vegetables from our garden, and another basket filled with cloth that I had planned to cut when I returned home. To see Snow Flower’s mother eat that meat was something I’ll never forget. She had been raised to be a fine lady and, as hungry as she was, she did not tear into the food as someone in my family might. She used her chopsticks to pull apart slivers of the pork and lift them delicately to her lips. Her restraint and control taught me a lesson I have not strayed from to this day. You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.

I was not done with Madame Wang. “We will need girls for Sitting and Singing,” I said. “Can you bring Snow Flower’s elder sister?”

“Her in-laws will not let her come back to this house.”

I digested this fact. I had not heard that such a thing was possible.

“We still need girls,” I insisted.

“No one will come, Miss Lily,” Madame Wang confided. “My brother-in-law’s reputation is too bad. No family will allow an unmarried girl to cross this threshold. What about your mother and aunt? They already know the situation—”

“No!” I wasn’t ready to deal with them yet, and Snow Flower didn’t need their pity. What my laotong needed were strangers.

I had cash from my wedding. I slipped some of it into Madame Wang’s hand. “Do not return until you have found three girls. Pay their fathers whatever you think is the appropriate amount. Tell them I will be responsible for their daughters.”

I was sure that my new married status to the best family in Tongkou would be persuasive, yet I could just as easily have been talking out of my behind, for surely my in-laws had no idea I was using their position in this manner. Still, I could see Madame Wang weigh this. She needed to continue to do business in Tongkou and was just about to reap the long-term benefits of bringing me to the Lu family. She did not want to jeopardize her position, but she had already bent many rules to benefit her niece. At last Madame Wang worked out the equation in her mind, nodded once, then left.

A day later, she returned with three daughters of farmers who worked for my father-in-law. In other words, they were girls like me, except they had not had my special advantages.

I willed that month. I led the girls in their singing. I helped them find good words to write about Snow Flower—someone they knew not at all—in their third-day wedding books. If they didn’t know a character, I wrote it for them myself. If they dawdled in their quiltmaking, I took them aside and whispered that their fathers would be punished if they didn’t adequately perform the jobs they had been hired for.

Remember how things were for my elder sister? She was sad to be leaving our home, but everyone believed she was going to a fair marriage. Her songs were neither too tragic nor too blissful, reflecting what was to be her future. I had had mixed emotions about my marriage. I too was sad to leave home, but I was excited that my life would change for the better. I had sung songs to praise my parents for bringing me up and to thank them for their hard work on my behalf. Snow Flower’s future, on the other hand, looked bleak. No one could deny or change that, so our songs were filled with melancholy.

“Mama,” Snow Flower chanted one day, “Baba failed to plant me on a sunny hill. I will live in the shade forever.”

Her mother sang back, “Truly, it is like planting a beautiful flower on a pile of cow dung.”

The three girls and I could only agree, raising our voices in unison to repeat both phrases. This is how things were: heavyhearted, but done in the traditional manner.

THE DAYS GREW colder. Snow Flower’s younger brother visited one day and glued paper against the lattice window. Still, the damp crept in. Our fingers grew tight and red from the constant chill. The three girls were afraid to say much of anything. We couldn’t go on this way, so I suggested that we move downstairs to the kitchen, where we might warm ourselves by the brazier. Madame Wang and Snow Flower’s mother deferred to me, showing me once again that I had power now.

Long ago I had made my third-day wedding book for Snow Flower. It was filled with lovely predictions about Snow Flower and her future, but these things no longer pertained. I started again. I cut indigo cloth for the outside, folded it around several sheets of rice paper, and stitched the binding with white thread. Inside the front leaf I pasted red paper cutouts into the corners. The first pages were for me to write my farewell song to Snow Flower, the next were for my introduction of her to her new family, and the rest were left blank so she could use them for her own writings and to store her embroidery patterns. I rubbed ink against stone and enlisted my brush to write the characters in our secret language. I made each stroke as perfect as possible. I couldn’t let my hand—so unsteady from the emotions of those days—mar the sentiments.

When the thirty days were over, the Day of Sorrow and Worry began. Snow Flower stayed upstairs. Her mother sat on the fourth stair leading to the women’s chamber. Our songs had grown and developed by then. Despite the ominous threat of Snow Flower’s father’s anger at any noise, I raised my voice to chant my feelings and recommendations, such as they were.

“A good woman should not detest her husband’s disadvantage,” I sang, remembering “The Tale of Wife Wang.” “Help lift your family to a better state. Serve and obey your husband.”

Snow Flower’s mother and aunt echoed these thoughts. “To be good daughters, we must obey,” they sang together. Hearing their voices harmonizing together, no one could doubt the devotion and affection between them. “We must stay in our upstairs rooms, be chaste, be modest, and perfect the womanly arts. To be filial, we must leave home. This is our fate. When we go to our husbands’ homes, new worlds unfold—sometimes better, sometimes worse.”

“We had our happy daughter days together,” I reminded Snow Flower. “Year after year, we were never a step apart. Now we will be together just the same.” I recalled things we had written in our first exchanges on the fan and in our laotong contract. “We will still speak in whispers. We will still choose our colors, thread our needles, and embroider together.”

Snow Flower appeared at the top of the stairs. Her voice floated down to me. “I thought we would soar together—two phoenixes in flight—forever. Now I am like a dead thing sinking to the bottom of a pond. You say we will be together just the same. I believe you. But my threshold will hardly compare to yours.”

She slowly descended, stopping to sit by her mother. We expected to see bitter tears, but there were none. She linked arms with her mother and listened politely as the village girls continued their laments. Looking at Snow Flower, I couldn’t help wondering at her seeming lack of emotion, when even I—as excited as I’d been to be marrying well—had cried during this ceremony. Were Snow Flower’s feelings just as confused as mine had been? She would miss her mother surely, but would she miss that vile father of hers or miss waking up each morning in that empty house, which could only be a constant reminder of everything that had gone wrong with her family? It was terrible to be marrying into a butcher’s home, but as a practical matter could it be worse than this? And Snow Flower was born a horse too. The galloping spirit that yearned for adventure was just as strong in her as it was in me. Still, although we were old sames, both of us born under the sign of the horse, my feet were always on the ground—practical, loyal, and obedient—while her horse spirit had wings that wanted to soar and fought against anything that might rein her in, despite having a mind that sought beauty and refinement.

Two days later, Snow Flower’s flower-sitting chair arrived. Again she did not weep or struggle against the inevitable. She lingered for a moment in the piteously small crowd that had gathered and then stepped into the sparsely decorated palanquin. The three girls I’d hired didn’t even wait for the flower-sitting chair to go around the corner before they set off for their homes. Snow Flower’s mother retreated inside, and I was left alone with Madame Wang.

“You must think me an evil old woman,” the matchmaker said. “But you should understand that I never lied to your mother or your aunt. There is little a woman can do in this life to change her fate, let alone someone else’s, but—”

I held up a hand to prevent her from listing her excuses, because I needed to know something different. “All those years ago when you came to my house and looked at my feet—”

“You’re asking me if you really were special?”

When I said yes, she regarded me with hard eyes.

“It is not so easy to find a potential laotong,” she admitted. “I had several diviners looking throughout the countryside for someone I could match to my niece. True, I would have preferred someone from a higher family, but Diviner Hu found you. Your eight characters matched perfectly to my niece’s. But he would have come to me anyway, because, yes, your feet were that special. Your fate was destined to change, with or without my niece as your laotong. And now I hope her fate has been changed because of her relationship to you. I told many lies, so she might have a chance at life. I will never apologize to you for that.”

I stared into Madame Wang’s overly rouged face, considering. I wanted to hate her, but how could I? She had done the best she could for the one person who mattered more to me in the world than any other.

SINCE SNOW FLOWER’S elder sister would not deliver the third-day wedding books, I went in her place. My natal family sent a palanquin, and in a short time I arrived in Jintian. No decorations or raucous sounds of a wedding band gave any hint that anything special was happening in the village on that day. I simply stepped out of my palanquin onto a dirt pathway in front of a house with a low-slung roof and a pile of wood against the wall. To the right of the door was something that looked like a gigantic wok embedded in a brick platform.

A feast should have been prepared for my arrival. It wasn’t. The top women in the village should have greeted me. They did, but the coarseness of their dialect, even though only a few li from Tongkou, told me a lot about the unsavory quality of the people who lived here.

When the time came to read the sanzhaoshu, I was ushered into the main room. On the surface, the house resembled my natal home. Drying chilies hung from the central beam. The walls were of rough unpainted brick. I had hoped these similarities to my home would be reflected in the people who lived there. I did not encounter Snow Flower’s husband on this occasion, but I did meet his mother, and she was a dreadful creature. Her eyes were set close together and her lips had the thinness that connotes a narrow mind and a mean spirit.

Snow Flower came into the room, sat on a stool next to the display of her third-day wedding books, and waited quietly. Although I felt I had changed with marriage, she did not look different to my eyes. The women of Jintian clustered around the sanzhaoshu, running their dirty fingers over them. They talked among themselves about the stitching on the edges and the paper cutouts, but none of them said a word about the quality of the writing or the thoughts expressed. After a few minutes, the women took positions around the room.

Snow Flower’s mother-in-law walked to a bench. Her feet had not been as badly bound as my mother’s, but an oddness to her gait marked her class even more than the guttural sounds that spewed from her mouth. She sat down, glanced with distaste at her new daughter-in-law, and then focused her unfeeling eyes on me. “I understand you have married into the Lu family. You are very lucky.” The words were polite, but the way she spoke them suggested that I had bathed in offal. “People say that you and my daughter-in-law are well versed in nu shu. The women of our village don’t value this pastime. We can read it, but we believe it is better to hear it.”

I thought otherwise. This woman was like my mother, illiterate in nu shu. I glanced around the room, sizing up the other women. They hadn’t commented on the writing because they probably knew very little of it themselves.

“We have no need to hide our thoughts in scribbles on paper,” Snow Flower’s mother-in-law continued. “Everyone in this room knows what I think.” When uneasy laughter greeted this comment, she raised three fingers to silence her friends. “It would amuse us to hear you read my daughter-in-law’s sanzhaoshu. Estimations of my daughter-in-law’s worth coming to us from a big-house girl in Tongkou will be most appreciated.”

Everything that woman said was a verbal sneer. I reacted as a seventeen-year-old girl might. I picked up the third-day wedding book that Snow Flower’s mother had prepared and opened it. I imagined her refined voice and tried to re-create it as I chanted.

“I present this letter to your noble home on this third day after your wedding. I am your mother, and we have now been separated for three days. Misfortune struck our family, and now you marry out to a hard village.” As was the custom for a third-day wedding book, the subject shifted, and Snow Flower’s mother addressed the new family. “I hope you will show my daughter compassion for the poverty of her dowry. Even the top layer is plain. Please don’t mention it.” It went on in this way, talking about Snow Flower’s family’s bad luck, their fall from social status, and the poverty they now experienced, but my eyes swept right over these written characters as though they didn’t exist. Instead, I made up new words. “A good woman like our Snow Flower should fall into a good place. She deserves a decent family.”

I set the book down. The room was very quiet. I picked up the third-day wedding book I’d written for Snow Flower and opened it. My eyes sought out Snow Flower’s mother-in-law. I wanted her to know that my laotong would always have a protector in me.

“People may speak of us as girls who married out,” I sang, in the direction of Snow Flower, “but we will never be separated in our hearts. You go down; I go up. Your family butchers animals. My family is the best in the county. You are as close to me as my own heart. Our futures are tied together. We are like a bridge over a wide river. We walk side by side.” I wanted Snow Flower’s mother-in-law to hear me. But her eyes stared back at me suspiciously, her thin lips pressed into a slash of displeasure.

As I came to the end, again I added a few new sentiments. “Don’t express misery where others can see you. Don’t let sobbing build. Don’t give ill-mannered people a reason to make fun of you or your family. Follow the rules. Smooth your anxious brow. We will be old sames forever.”

Snow Flower and I were not given an opportunity to speak. I was led back to my palanquin and returned home to my natal family. Once I was alone, I unpacked our fan and opened it. A third of the folds now had writing commemorating moments that were special to us. That seemed about right, for we had lived more than a third of what was considered a long life for women in our county. I looked at all the things that had happened in our lives up to that point. So much happiness. So much sadness. So much intimacy.

I went to the last entry where Snow Flower had written of my marriage into the Lu family. It covered half of a single fold in the fan. I mixed ink and pulled out my finest brush. Just below her good wishes for me, I carefully limned new strokes: A phoenix soars above a common rooster. She feels the wind around her. Nothing will tether her to the ground. Only now that I was alone and with those words written did I finally face the truth of Snow Flower’s fate. In the garland at the top I painted a wilted flower from which little tears dripped. I waited until the ink dried.

Then I closed the fan.

The Temple of Gupo

MY PARENTS WERE HAPPY TO SEE ME WHEN I RETURNED. THEY were happier still with the sweet cakes that my in-laws sent as gifts. But to be honest, I was not so happy to see them. They had lied to me for ten years, and my insides churned with loathsome emotions. I was no longer the little girl who could let river water wash away unpleasant feelings. I wanted to accuse my family, but for my own welfare I still needed to follow the rules of filial piety. So I rebelled in small ways, isolating myself emotionally and physically as best I could.

At first my family seemed unaware of the change in me. They continued to do and say the customary things and I did my best to refuse their overtures. My mother wanted to examine my private parts, but I denied her this, pleading embarrassment. My aunt inquired about bed business, but I turned away from her, pretending I was too shy. My father tried to hold my hand, but I implied that now I was a married woman this kind of affection was no longer appropriate. Elder Brother sought my company to laugh and share stories; I told him he should do these things with his wife. Second Brother saw my face and kept his distance; I did nothing to change that, suggesting modestly that when he had a wife of his own he would understand. Only Uncle—with his baffled look and nervous hopping—elicited any sympathy from me, but I confided nothing. I did my chores. I worked quietly in the upstairs chamber. I was polite. I held my tongue, because all of them, except my younger brother, were my elders. Even as a married woman, I had no standing to accuse them of anything.

But I could not act like this and go unnoticed for long. To Mama, my behavior—though courteous in every respect—was unacceptable. We were too many people in a small household for one person to take up so much space with what she considered to be my pettiness.

I was home five days when Mama asked Aunt to go downstairs for tea. As soon as Aunt was gone, my mother crossed the room, leaned her cane against the table where I sat, grabbed my arm, and sank her nails into my flesh.

“Do you think you are too good for us now?” She hissed her accusation as I knew she would. “Do you think you are superior because you did bed business with the son of a headman?”

I raised my eyes to hers. I had never shown her disrespect. Now I revealed the anger on my face. She held my gaze, believing she could weaken me with her cold eyes, but I did not look away. Then, in one swift movement, she released my arm, drew back, and hit me hard across the face. My head jolted to the side then came back to center. My eyes sought hers again, which only offended Mama further.

“You dishonor this house with your behavior,” she said. “You’re beyond disgraceful.”

“Beyond disgraceful,” I mused in a low tone, knowing that my calm echo would aggravate her even more. Then I grasped her arm and yanked her down so that we were face-to-face. Her cane clattered to the floor.

From downstairs, my aunt called up. “Are you all right, Sister?”

Mama replied lightly. “Yes, just bring the tea when it’s ready.”

My body shook from the emotions raging beneath my skin. Mama felt them and smiled in her knowing way. I dug my nails into her flesh as she had done to me. I kept my voice low so that no one in the house could hear what I said. “You are a liar. You—and everyone in this family—deceived me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out about Snow Flower?”

“We didn’t tell you out of kindness to her,” she whined. “We love Snow Flower. She was happy here. Why should we have changed the way you saw her?”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. She’s my laotong.”

My mother jutted her chin stubbornly and changed tactics. “Everything we did was for your own good.”

I dug my nails deeper. “Your good, you mean.”

I knew the physical pain I was causing her, but instead of grimacing she now twisted her features into something kind and beseeching. I knew she would try to justify herself, but I never could have imagined the excuse she would conjure up.

“Your relationship to Snow Flower and your perfect feet meant a good marriage, not only for you but for your cousin as well. Beautiful Moon was to be happy.”

This diversion from what I was upset about was almost more than I could bear, but I held on to my composure.

“Beautiful Moon died two years ago.” My voice came out hoarsely. “Snow Flower came to this house ten years ago. Yet you never found the time to tell me of her circumstances.”

“Beautiful Moon—”

“This is not about Beautiful Moon!”

“You took her outside. If you hadn’t, she would still be here today. You broke your aunt’s heart.”

I should have expected this manipulation of the facts from my monkey mother. Even so, the accusation was too harsh, too cruel to be believed. But what could I do? I was a filial daughter. I still had to rely on my family until I got pregnant and moved away. How could a girl born under the sign of the horse ever triumph in battle against the devious monkey?

My mother must have sensed her advantage, because she went on. “A proper daughter would thank me—”

“For what?”

“I gave you the life I could never have because of these.” She motioned to her deformed feet. “I wrapped and bound your feet, and now you have received the reward.”

Her words transported me back to the hours when I experienced the worst pain of my footbinding and she had often repeated a version of that promise. With horror, I realized that during those awful days she had not been showing me mother love at all. In some twisted way, the pain she inflicted on me had to do with her own selfish wants and desires.

The fury and disappointment I felt seemed unbearable. “I will never again expect any kindness from you,” I spat out, releasing her arm in disgust. “But remember this. You made it so that one day I would have the power to control what happens to this family. I will be a good and charitable woman, but do not for once think that I will forget what you did.”

My mother reached down, picked up her cane, and leaned on it. “I pity the Lu family for having to take you in. The day you leave here will be the most blessed in my life. Until then, do not try this nonsense again.”

“Or what? You won’t feed me?”

Mama looked at me as though I were a stranger. Then she turned and hobbled back to her chair. When Aunt came upstairs with tea, nothing was said.

And that’s how things remained, for the most part. I softened toward the others: my brothers, Aunt, Uncle, and Baba. I wanted to cut Mama out of my life completely, but my circumstances wouldn’t allow that. I had to remain in the house until I got pregnant and was ready to give birth. And even when I moved to my husband’s home, tradition would require me to travel back to my natal home several times a year. But I tried to keep an emotional distance from my mother—though on most days we were in the same room—by acting as though I’d matured into a woman and no longer needed tenderness. This was the first time I would do this—properly follow customs and rules on the outside, let loose my emotions for a few terrible moments, and then quietly hang on to my grievance like an octopus to a rock—and it worked for everyone. My family accepted my behavior, and I still looked like a filial daughter. Later I would do something like this again, for very different reasons and with disastrous results.

SNOW FLOWER WAS dearer to me than ever. We wrote each other often, and Madame Wang delivered our letters. I worried about her circumstances—if her mother-in-law was treating her well, how she tolerated bed business, and whether things had worsened in her natal home—and she fretted that I no longer cared for her in the same way. We wanted to see each other, but we didn’t have the excuse of visiting to work on our dowries, and the only trips we were allowed to take were to our husbands’ homes for conjugal visits.

I went to my husband four or five nights a year. Every time I left, the women in my natal household cried for me. Every time I carried my own food, since my in-laws would not provide my meals until I fell permanently into their home. Every time I stayed in Tongkou, I was encouraged by how I was treated. Every time I returned home, my family’s emotions were bittersweet, for each night away from them made me seem more precious and made the fact that I would soon leave forever a reality.

With each trip, I became more emboldened, looking out the palanquin window until I knew the route well. I traveled over what was usually a muddy and rutted track. Rice fields and the occasional taro crop bordered the roadway. On the outskirts of Tongkou, a pine tree twisted over the road in greeting. Farther along on the left lay the village’s fishpond. Behind me, back where I had come from, the Xiao River meandered. Ahead of me, just as Snow Flower had described, Tongkou nestled in the arms of the hills.

Once the bearers set me down before Tongkou’s main gate, I stepped out onto cobblestones that had been laid in an intricate fish-scale pattern. This area was shaped like a horse’s hoof, with the village’s rice husking room on the right and a stable on the left. The gate’s pillars—decorated with painted carvings—held up an elaborate roof with eaves that swept up to the sky. The walls were painted with scenes from the lives of the immortals. The threshold through the front gate was high, letting all visitors know that Tongkou had the highest status in the county. A pair of onyx stones carved with leaping fish flanked the gate for visitors on horseback to dismount.

Just over the threshold lay Tongkou’s main courtyard, which was not only welcoming and large but covered with a carved and painted eight-sided dome that was feng shui perfect. If I went through the secondary gate to my right, I came to Tongkou’s main hall, which was used for greeting common visitors and small gatherings. Beyond this lay the ancestral temple, which was for hosting emissaries and government officials and for festive occasions such as weddings. The village’s lesser houses, some of which were built of wood, clustered together just past the temple.

My in-laws’ home sat prominently on the other side of the secondary gate to my left. All the houses in this area were grand, but my in-laws’ was particularly beautiful. Even today, I am happy to live here. The house has the usual two stories. It is built of brick and plastered on the exterior. Up under the exterior eaves are painted tableaus of lovely maidens and handsome men, studying, playing instruments, doing calligraphy, going over the accounts. These are the kinds of things that have always been done in this house, so those pictures send a message to passersby about the quality of the people who live here and the ways in which we spend our time. The interior walls are paneled in the fine woods of our hills, while the rooms are highly ornamented with carved columns, lattice windows, and balustrades.

When I first arrived, the main room was much as it is now—with elegant furniture, a wood floor, a good breeze from the high windows, and stairs that climbed along the east wall to a wooden balcony embellished with an overlapping diamond pattern. Back then, my in-laws slept in the largest room at the back of the house on the ground floor. Each of my brothers-in-law had his own room that sat on the perimeter of the main room. After a time, wives came to live with them. If they didn’t give birth to sons, those wives were eventually moved to other quarters and concubines or little daughters-in-law took their places in my brothers-in-law’s beds.

During my visits, nighttime was devoted to bed business with my husband. We needed to make a son, and we both tried very hard to do what was necessary for that to happen. Other than that, my husband and I didn’t see each other much—he spent his days with his father, while I spent mine with his mother—but over time we got to know each other better, which made our evening task more bearable.

As in most marriages, the most important person for me to build a relationship with was my mother-in-law. Everything Snow Flower had told me about Lady Lu following the usual conventions was true. She watched over me as I did the same chores that I did in my natal home—making tea and breakfast, washing clothes and bedding, preparing lunch, sewing, embroidering, and weaving in the afternoon, and finally cooking dinner. My mother-in-law ordered me about freely. “Dice the melon into smaller cubes,” she might say, as I made winter melon soup. “The pieces you have cut are fit only for our pigs.” Or “My monthly bleeding escaped onto my bedding. You must scrub hard to get out the stains.” As for the food I brought from home, she would sniff and say, “Next time bring something less smelly. The odors of your meal ruin the appetites of my husband and sons.” As soon as the visit was over, I was sent back home with no thank-you or goodbye.

That about sums up how things were for me—not too bad, not too good, just the usual way. Lady Lu was fair; I was obedient and willing to learn. In other words, we each understood what was expected of us and did our best to fulfill our obligations. So, for example, on the second day of the first New Year after my wedding, my mother-in-law invited all of Tongkou’s unmarried girls and all of the girls who, like me, had recently married into the village to pay a visit. She provided tea and treats. She was polite and gracious. When everyone left, we went with them. We visited five households that day, and I met five new daughters-in-law. If I hadn’t already been Snow Flower’s laotong, I might have searched their faces, looking for those who might want to form a post-marriage sworn sisterhood.

THE FIRST TIME Snow Flower and I met again was for our annual visit to the Temple of Gupo. You would think we would have had much to say, but we were both subdued. I believed her to be remorseful—about having lied to me all those years and about her low marriage. But I too felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to discuss my feelings about my mother without reminding Snow Flower of her own deceit. If these secrets weren’t enough to stifle conversation, we now had husbands and did things with them that were very embarrassing. It was bad enough when our fathers-in-law listened at the door or our mothers-in-law checked the bedding in the morning. Still, Snow Flower and I had to discuss something, and it felt safer to talk about our duty to get pregnant than to delve into those other thorny subjects.

We spoke delicately about the essential elements that must be in place for a baby to take hold and whether or not our husbands obeyed these rituals. Everyone knows that the human body is a miniature version of the universe—the eyes and ears are the sun and moon, breath is air, blood is rain. Conversely, those elements play important roles in the development of a baby. Since this is so, bed business shouldn’t take place when rain pours off the roof, because it will cause a baby to feel trapped and confined. It shouldn’t take place during thunderstorms, which will cause a baby to develop feelings of destruction and fear. And it shouldn’t take place when the husband or wife is distressed, which will cause those dark spirits to carry over to the next generation.

“I have heard that you should not do bed business after too much hard work,” Snow Flower told me, “but I don’t believe that my mother-in-law has heard that.” She looked exhausted. I felt the same way after visiting my husband’s home—from the nonstop labor, from being polite, and from always being watched.

“This is the one rule my mother-in-law doesn’t respect either,” I commiserated. “Haven’t they heard an exhausted well yields no water?”

We shook our heads at the nature of mothers-in-law, but we also worried that if we did become pregnant we might not have healthy or intelligent sons.

“Aunt told me the best time to get pregnant,” I said. Although all her babies had died except for Beautiful Moon, we still trusted Aunt’s expertise in this regard. “There can be no unpleasantness in your life.”

“I know.” Snow Flower sighed. “When water is still, the fish breathes with ease; when wind is gone, the tree stands firm,” she recited.

“We each need a quiet night when the moon is full and bright, which suggests both the roundness of a pregnant belly and the purity of the mother.”

“And when the sky is clear,” Snow Flower added, “which tells us that the universe is calm and ready.”

“And we and our husbands are happy, which will let the arrow fly to its target. Under these circumstances, Aunt says, even the most deadly of insects will come out to mate.”

“I know what needs to occur”—Snow Flower sighed again—”but these things are hard to align at one time.”

“But we must try.”

And so, on our first visit to the Temple of Gupo after our marriages, Snow Flower and I made offerings and prayed that these things would come to pass. However, despite following the rules, we didn’t become pregnant. You think it’s easy to get pregnant after doing bed business only a handful of times a year? Sometimes my husband was so eager that his essence did not go inside.

During our second visit to the temple after becoming wives, our prayers were deeper and our offerings greater. Then, as was our custom, Snow Flower and I visited the taro man for our special chicken lunch followed by our favorite dessert. As much as we both loved that dish, neither of us ate with enjoyment. We compared notes and tried to come up with new tactics to become pregnant.

Over the following months, I did my best to please my mother-in-law when I visited the Lu household. In my natal home, I tried to be as congenial as possible. But no matter where I was, people were beginning to give me looks that I read as admonishments for my lack of fertility. Then, a couple of months later, Madame Wang delivered a letter from Snow Flower. I waited until the matchmaker left before unfolding the paper. In nu shu, Snow Flower had written:

I am pregnant. I am sick to my stomach every day. My mother tells me this means the baby is happy in my body. I hope it is a boy. I want this to happen to you.

I couldn’t believe that Snow Flower had beaten me. I was the one with the higher status. I should have gotten pregnant first. So deep was my humiliation that I didn’t tell Mama or Aunt the good news. I knew how they would react. Mama would criticize me, while Aunt would be too joyous on Snow Flower’s behalf.

The next time I visited my husband and we did bed business, I wrapped my legs around his and held him on top of me with my arms until he was done. I held him for so long that he fell asleep limp inside of me. I lay awake for a long time, breathing calmly, thinking of the full moon outside and listening for any rustling in the bamboo beside our window. In the morning, he had rolled away from me and was sleeping on his side. By now I knew what had to be done. I reached under the quilt and placed my hand around his member until it was hard. When I was certain he was about to open his eyes, I withdrew my hand and closed my own eyes. I let him do his business again, and when he rose and dressed to begin his day I stayed very still. We heard his mother in the kitchen, beginning the tasks that I should have done already. My husband looked at me once, sending a loud message: If I didn’t get up soon and begin my chores, there would be serious consequences. He didn’t yell at me or hit me as some husbands might, but he left the room without saying goodbye. I heard the low murmurs of his and his mother’s voices a few moments later. No one came for me. When I finally rose, dressed, and went into the kitchen, my mother-in-law smiled happily, while Yonggang and the other girls exchanged knowing glances.

Two weeks later, back in my own bed in my natal home, I woke up feeling as though fox spirits were shaking the house. I made it to the half-filled chamber pot and threw up. Aunt came into the room, knelt down beside me, and wiped away the dampness on my face with the back of her hand. “Now you really will be leaving us,” she said, and for the first time in a very long while the great cave of her mouth spread into a wide grin.

That afternoon I sat down with my ink and brush and composed a letter to Snow Flower. “When we see each other this year at the Temple of Gupo,” I wrote, “we will both be as round as the moon.”

MAMA, AS YOU can imagine, was as strict with me during those months as she had been during my footbinding. It was her way, I think, to consider only the bad things that could happen. “Don’t climb hills,” she chastised me, as though I had ever been allowed to do that. “Don’t cross a narrow bridge, stand on one foot, watch an eclipse, or bathe in hot water.” I was never in danger of doing any of those things, but the food restrictions were a different matter. In our county we are proud of our spicy food, but I was not permitted to eat anything seasoned with garlic, chilies, or pepper, which could delay the delivery of my placenta. I was not allowed to eat any part of a lamb, which could cause my baby to be born sickly, or eat fish with scales, since this would cause a difficult labor. I was denied anything too salty, too bitter, too sweet, too sour, or too pungent, so I couldn’t eat fermented black beans, bitter melon, almond curd, hot and sour soup, or anything remotely flavored. I was permitted bland soups, sauteed vegetables with rice, and tea. I accepted these limitations, knowing that my worth was based entirely on the child growing inside of me.

My husband and in-laws were delighted, of course, and they began to prepare for my arrival. My baby was due at the end of the seventh lunar month. I would visit the annual festival at the Temple of Gupo to pray for a son and then travel on to Tongkou. My in-laws agreed to this pilgrimage—they would do everything they could to ensure a male heir—on condition that I spend the night at an inn and not overtax myself. My husband’s family sent a palanquin to pick me up. I stood outside my family’s threshold and accepted everyone’s tears and embraces; then I got in the palanquin and was carried away, knowing I would return again and again in coming years for the Catching Cool Breezes, Ghost, Birds, and Tasting festivals, as well as any celebrations that might happen in my natal family. This was not a final goodbye, just a temporary farewell, as it had been for Elder Sister.

By this time, Snow Flower, who was further along in her pregnancy than I, already lived in Jintian, so I picked her up. Her stomach was so big, I couldn’t believe her new family was allowing her to travel at all, even if it was to pray for a son. We were funny, standing in the dirt, trying to hug each other with our big bellies between us, laughing the whole while. She was more beautiful than in all the years I had known her, and true happiness seemed to pulsate from her.

Snow Flower talked during the entire trip to the temple, speaking of how her body felt, how she loved the baby inside her, and how kind everyone had been to her since she’d moved into her husband’s home. She clutched a piece of white jade that hung around her neck to help give the baby’s skin the clear pale color of the stone, instead of the ruddy complexion of her husband. I also wore white jade, but unlike Snow Flower, I hoped it would protect my child not from my husband’s skin tone but from my own, which, even though I spent my days inside, was naturally darker than the creamy white of my laotong‘s.

In years past we’d quickly visited the temple, bowing and putting our heads to the floor as we made supplications to the goddess. Now we walked in proudly, sticking out our round baby bellies, glancing at the other mothers-to-be to see who was larger, who carried high and who carried low, yet always mindful that our minds and tongues should carry only noble and benevolent thoughts so these attributes would be passed on to our sons.

We made our way to the altar, where perhaps a hundred pairs of infant shoes were lined up. Both of us had written poems on fans as offerings to the goddess. Mine spoke of the blessings of a son, how he would carry on the Lu line and cherish his ancestors. I ended with, Goddess, your goodness graces us. So many come to you to beg for sons, but I hope you will hear my plea. Please grant my desire. That had seemed appropriate when I had written it, but now I imagined what Snow Flower had done with her fan. It had to be filled with lovely words and memorable decorations. I prayed that the goddess would not be too swayed by Snow Flower’s offering. “Please hear me, please hear me, please hear me,” I chanted under my breath.

Together Snow Flower and I laid our fans on the altar with our right hands, while with our left hands we each snatched a pair of the baby shoes from the altar and hid them in our sleeves. We then left the temple quickly, hoping not to be caught. In Yongming County, all women who want a healthy child steal outright—but with the pretense of covertness—a pair of shoes from the goddess’s altar. Why? As you know, in our dialect the word for shoe sounds the same as the word for child. When our babies are born we return a pair of shoes to the altar—which explains the supply that we stole from—and make offerings as thanks.

We stepped back outside into the beautiful day and made our way to the thread kiosk. As we had for twelve years, we searched for colors that we felt would capture the ideas for the designs we had in our minds. Snow Flower held out a selection of greens for me to examine. Here were greens bright as spring, dry as withered grass, earthy as leaves at the end of summer, vibrant as moss after a rain, dull as that moment before the yellows and reds of fall begin to set in.

“Tomorrow,” Snow Flower said, “let’s stop by the river on our way home. We’ll sit and watch the clouds drift by overhead, listen to the water wash the stones, and embroider and sing together. In this way our sons will be born with elegant and refined tastes.”

I kissed her cheek. Away from Snow Flower I sometimes let my mind ramble into dark places, but now I loved her as I always had. Oh, how I had missed my laotong.

Our visit to the Temple of Gupo would not have been complete without lunch at the taro stand. Old Man Zuo grinned toothlessly when he saw us with our baby bellies. He made a special meal for us, taking care that he followed all the dietary requirements for our condition. We savored every bite. Then he brought our favorite dish, the deep-fried taro coated in caramelized sugar. Snow Flower and I were like two girls in our giddiness, rather than two married ladies about to give birth.

That night in the inn after we had slipped into our nightclothes, Snow Flower and I lay in bed facing each other. This would be our last night of togetherness before we became mothers. We had learned so many lessons about what we should or shouldn’t do and how these things would affect our unborn children. If my son could respond to hearing profane language or the touch of white jade against my skin, then certainly he had to feel my love for Snow Flower in his little body too.

Snow Flower put her hands on my stomach. I did the same to hers. I had grown accustomed to the way my baby kicked and pushed against my skin from the inside, especially at night. Now I felt Snow Flower’s baby moving inside her against my hands. We were in that moment as close as two women could be.

“I am happy we are together,” she said, then let a finger trace a spot where my baby was reaching out an elbow or a knee to her.

“I’m happy too.”

“I feel your son. He’s strong. Just like his mother.”

Her words made me feel proud and full of life. Her finger stopped, and once again she held my belly in her warm hands.

“I’ll love him as much as I love you,” she said. Then, as she had since the time she was a little girl, she trailed one hand up to my cheek and let it rest there until we both fell asleep.

I would turn twenty in a couple of weeks, my baby would come soon, and my real life was about to begin.

Sons

Lily,

I write to you as a mother.

My baby was born yesterday.

A boy with black hair.

He is long and thin.

My childbearing pollution days are not over.

For one hundred days my husband and I will sleep apart.

I think of you in your upstairs room.

I await word of your baby.

Let it be born alive.

I pray for the Goddess to protect you from any problems.

I long to see you and know you are well.

Please come to the one-month celebration.

You will see what I wrote about my son on our fan.

Snow Flower

I WAS HAPPY THAT SNOW FLOWER’S SON WAS BORN HEALTHY and hoped he would remain so, because life in our county is very fragile. We women hope to have five children who reach adulthood. For that to happen, we must get pregnant every one or two years. Many of those babies die through miscarriages, at childbirth, or from illnesses. Girls—so susceptible to weakness from poor food and neglect—never outgrow their vulnerability. We either die young—from footbinding as my sister died, in giving birth, or from too much work with too little nourishment—or we outlive those we love. Baby boys, so precious, can die just as easily, their bodies too young to have taken root, their souls too tempting for spirits from the afterworld. Then, as men, they are at risk from infection from cuts, food poisoning, problems in the fields or on roads, or hearts that can’t stand the stress of watching over an entire household. This is why there are so many widows. But no matter what, the first five years of life are insubstantial for boys and girls.

I worried not only for Snow Flower’s son but for the baby I carried as well. It was hard to be afraid and have no one to encourage or comfort me. When I was still in my natal home, my mother had been too busy enforcing oppressive traditions and customs to offer me any practical advice, while my aunt, who had lost several unborn children, tried to avoid me completely so that her bad luck would not touch me. Now that I was in my husband’s home, I had no one. My in-laws and my husband had concern for the baby’s well-being, of course, but none of them seemed troubled that I might die delivering their heir.

Snow Flower’s letter felt like a good omen. If childbirth had gone easily for her, surely my baby and I would survive it too. It gave me strength to know that even though we were in new lives, our love for each other had not diminished. If anything, it was stronger as we embarked on our rice-and-salt days. Through our letters we would share our ordeals and triumphs, but as with everything else we needed to follow certain rules. As married women who had fallen into our husbands’ homes, we had to abandon our girlish ways. We wrote stock letters, with accepted formats and formalized words. In part, this was because we were foreigners in our husbands’ homes, busy learning the ways of new families. In part, it was because we did not know who might read our letters.

Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman’s letter needed to include the usual complaints—that we were pathetic, powerless, worked to the bone, homesick, and sad. We were supposed to speak directly about our feelings without appearing ungrateful, no-account, or unfilial. Any daughter-in-law who lets the real truth of her life become public brings shame to both her natal and husband’s families, which, as you know, is why I have waited until they were all dead to write my story.

At first I was lucky, because I didn’t have anything bad to report. When I became betrothed, I’d learned that my husband’s uncle was a jinshi, the highest level of imperial scholar. The saying I had heard as a girl—”If one person becomes an official, then all of his family’s dogs and cats go to heaven”—now became clear. Uncle Lu lived in the capital and left the care of his holdings to Master Lu, my father-in-law, who was out most days before dawn, walking the land, speaking with farmers about crops, supervising irrigation projects, and meeting with other elders in Tongkou. All accounts and responsibility for what happened on the land rested on his shoulders. Uncle Lu spent the money with no concern for how it arrived in his coffers. He had done so well that his two youngest brothers lived in their own nearby houses—though not as fine as this one. They often visited with their families for dinner, while their wives called almost daily to our upstairs women’s chamber. In other words, everyone in Uncle Lu’s family—the dogs and cats, all the way down to the five big-footed servant girls who shared a room off the kitchen—benefited from his position.

Uncle Lu was the ultimate master, but I secured my place by being the first daughter-in-law and then by giving my husband his first son. As soon as my baby was born and the midwife put him in my arms, I was so blissful that I forgot the pain of childbirth and so relieved that I didn’t worry about all the bad things that could still happen to him. Everyone in the household was happy and their gratitude came to me in many forms. My mother-in-law made me special soup with liquor, ginger, and peanuts to help my milk come in and my womb shrink. My father-in-law sent through his concubines blue brocaded silk so that I might make his grandson a jacket. My husband sat and talked to me.

For these reasons I have told the young women who have married into the Lu family, and the others I eventually reached through my teaching of nu shu, that they should hurry to have a baby boy. Sons are the foundation of a woman’s self. They give a woman her identity, as well as dignity, protection, and economic value. They create the link between her husband and his ancestors. This is the one accomplishment a man cannot achieve without the aid of his wife. Only she can guarantee the perpetuation of the family line, which, in turn, is the ultimate duty of every son. This is the supreme way he completes his filial duty, while sons are a woman’s crowning glory. I had done all this and I was ecstatic.

bq. Snow Flower,

My son is here beside me.

My childbearing pollution days are not over.

My husband visits in the morning.

His face is happy.

My son has eyes that stare at me in question.

I can’t wait to see you at the one-month party.

Please use your best words to put my son on our fan.

Tell me of your new family.

I don’t see my husband very often. Do you?

I look out the lattice window to yours.

You are always singing in my heart.

I think of you every day.

Lily

Why do they call these rice-and-salt days? Because they are composed of common chores: embroidery, weaving, sewing, mending, making shoes, cooking meals, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, washing the clothes, keeping the brazier going, and being ready at night to do bed business with a man you still do not know well. They are also days filled with the anxiety and drudgery of being a young mother with your first baby. Why does it cry? Is it hungry? Is it getting enough milk? Will it ever sleep? Does it sleep too much? And what of fevers, rashes, bug bites, too much heat, too much cold, colic, not to mention all the illnesses that sweep through the county taking babies each year, despite the best efforts of herbal doctors, offerings on family altars, and the tears of mothers? Quite apart from the baby who suckles at your breast, you have to worry on a deeper level about the true responsibility of womanhood: to have more sons and ensure the next generation and generations after that. But during the first few weeks of my son’s life I had another concern, which had nothing to do with my daughter-in-law, wife, or mother duties.

When I asked my mother-in-law to invite Snow Flower to my son’s one-month party, she said no. This slight is something people in our county consider a terrible insult. I was crushed and confused that she would do this but powerless to change her mind. The day turned out to be one of the most important and festive occasions of my life, and I experienced it without Snow Flower at my side. The Lu family visited the ancestral temple to place my son’s name on the wall with all their other family members. Red eggs—a symbol of life dyed red for celebration—were given to the guests and relatives. A grand banquet was served with birds-nest soup, salted birds that had been pickled for six months, and wine-fed duck stewed with ginger, garlic, and fresh red and green hot peppers. Through it all I missed Snow Flower horribly and later wrote to her as many details as I could recall, not thinking that they might remind her of the dreadful oversight. Apparently she accepted the lapse, because she sent a gift of an embroidered baby jacket and a hat decorated with small charms.

When my mother-in-law saw these, she said, “A mother must always be careful whom she chooses to let into her life. Your son’s mother cannot associate with a butcher’s wife. Filial women raise filial sons, and we expect you to obey our wishes.”

With her words I realized that my in-laws not only did not want Snow Flower to come to the party, they didn’t want me to see her at all. I was horrified, terrified, and, since I’d just had the baby, crying all the time. I didn’t know what to do. I would have to fight my in-laws on this matter, not realizing how dangerous it would be.

In the meantime, Snow Flower and I secretly wrote to each other nearly every day. I had thought I knew all about nu shu and that men should never touch or see it, but now that I lived in the Lu household, where all the men knew men’s writing, I saw that our secret women’s writing wasn’t much of a secret. Then it dawned on me that men throughout the county had to know about nu shu. How could they not? They wore it on their embroidered shoes. They saw us weaving our messages into cloth. They heard us singing our songs and showing off our third-day wedding books. Men just considered our writing beneath them.

It is said that men have hearts of iron, while women are made of water. This comes through in men’s writing and women’s writing. Men’s writing has more than 50,000 characters, each uniquely different, each with deep meanings and nuances. Our women’s writing has perhaps 600 characters, which we use phonetically, like babies, to create about 10,000 words. Men’s writing takes a lifetime to learn and understand. Women’s writing is something we pick up as girls, and we rely on context to coax meaning. Men write about the outer realm of literature, accounts, and crop yields; women write about the inner realm of children, daily chores, and emotions. The men in the Lu household were proud of their wives’ fluency in nu shu and dexterity in embroidery, though these things had as much importance to survival as a pig’s fart.

Since the men deemed our writing insignificant, they paid no attention to the letters I wrote or received. My mother-in-law was another story. I had to skirt the edges of her awareness. For now she didn’t demand to know to whom I was writing, and over the next several weeks Snow Flower and I perfected a delivery system. We used Yonggang to run between our villages to transport our notes, embroidered handkerchiefs, and weaving. I liked to sit at the lattice window and watch her. I thought, so many times, I could make the trip myself. It was not that far away and my feet were strong enough to make it, but we had rules governing such things. Even if a woman can walk a great distance, she should not be seen alone on the road. Kidnapping by low types was a danger, while reputations were under even greater threat if a woman did not have the proper escort—her husband, her sons, her matchmaker, or her bearers. I could have walked to Snow Flower, but I never would have risked it.

bq. Lily,

You ask about my new family.

I am very lucky.

In my natal home, there was no happiness.

My mother and I had to be quiet all day, all night.

The concubines, my brothers, my sisters, and the servants were gone.

My natal home felt empty.

Here I have my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my husband, and his younger sisters.

There are no concubines or servants in my husband’s home.

Only I fill those roles.

I do not mind the hard work.

Everything I needed to know came from you, your sister, your mother, your aunt.

But the women here are not like your family.

They do not like fun.

They do not tell stories.

My mother-in-law was born in the year of the rat.

Can you imagine anyone worse for someone born in the year of the horse?

The rat believes the horse is selfish and thoughtless, though I am not.

The horse believes the rat is scheming and demanding, which she is.

But she does not beat me.

She does not yell at me beyond what is customary for a new daughter-in-law.

Have you heard about my mother and father?

Within days of my falling into my husband’s home,

Mama and Baba sold off the last of their belongings.

They took the cash and slipped away into the night.

As beggars, they will not have to pay taxes or other debts.

But where are they?

I worry about my mother.

Is she still alive?

Is she in the afterworld?

I do not know.

Perhaps I will never see her again.

Who would have guessed that my family was so unlucky?

They must have done bad deeds in former lives.

But if they did, then what about me?

Do you hear any words you can tell me?

And you, are you happy?

Snow Flower

Now that I knew this tragic news about Snow Flower’s parents, I began to listen more carefully to the household gossip. Word began to filter in from merchants and salesmen who roamed the county that they had seen Snow Flower’s parents sleeping under a tree, begging for food, or wearing dirty and tattered clothes. I thought often of how my laotong‘s family had once been powerful in Tongkou and how her beautiful mother must have felt to be marrying into the family of an imperial scholar. Now look how low she had been brought. I feared for her with her lily feet. Without influential friends, Snow Flower’s parents had been reduced to the mercy of the elements. Without a natal home, Snow Flower was worse than an orphan. I believed it was better to have dead parents, whom you could worship and honor as ancestors, than parents who had disappeared into the transient life of beggars. How would she know when they died? How would she be able to provide a proper funeral, clean their graves at New Year, or appease them when they fretted in the afterworld? That she was sad and without me to hear her thoughts was hard for me and had to be unbearable for her.

As for Snow Flower’s last question—was I happy?—I wasn’t sure how to respond. Should I write about the women in my new home? My new upstairs chamber housed too many women who did not like one another. I was the first daughter-in-law, but not long after I arrived in Tongkou the second son’s wife came to live in the house. She had gotten pregnant right away. She was barely eighteen and cried nonstop for her family. She gave birth to a daughter, which upset my mother-in-law and made matters worse. I tried to befriend Second Sister-in-law, but she kept to a corner with her paper, ink, and brush, constantly writing to her mother and sworn sisters, still in her home village. I could have told Snow Flower about the unseemly ways Second Sister-in-law tried to impress Lady Lu by constantly kowtowing, whispering obsequious words, and maneuvering for position, while Master Lu’s three concubines bickered among themselves, their petty jealousies pinching their faces and turning their stomachs sour, but I dared not put these sentiments on paper.

Could I have written to Snow Flower about my husband? I suppose I could have, but I didn’t know what to say. I rarely saw him, and when I did he was usually talking to someone else or engaged in important tasks. During daylight hours, he went out to survey the fields and oversee projects on the land, while I embroidered or did other chores in the upstairs room. I served him at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, remembering to be as demure and quiet as Snow Flower had been at my family’s table. He did not speak to me on those occasions. He sometimes came to our room early to visit our son or to do bed business. I assumed we were like any other married couple—even Snow Flower and her husband—so there was nothing of interest to write.

How could I answer Snow Flower’s question about my happiness when the main conflict I had in my life had to do with her?

“I admit you have learned well from Snow Flower,” my mother-in-law said one day, when she caught me writing to my laotong, “and we are grateful for that. But she is no longer a member of our village, nor is she under Master Lu’s protection. He cannot and should not try to change her fate. As you know, we have codes governing wives that have to do with war and other border disagreements. As female guests, wives are not to be harmed during feuds, raids, or wars, because we are seen as belonging to both our husbands’ villages and our natal villages. You see, Lily, as wives we have protection and loyalty from both places. But if something happened to you in Snow Flower’s village, anything we might do could lead to retaliation and possibly even an ongoing fight.”

I listened to Lady Lu’s excuses, but I knew her reasons were far more base. Snow Flower’s natal family was disgraced and she’d married a polluted man. My in-laws simply didn’t want me to associate with her.

“Snow Flower’s fate was preordained,” my mother-in-law went on, venturing closer to the truth, “and it does not meet yours in any way. Master Lu and I would look favorably on a daughter-in-law who decided to break contract with someone who is no longer a true old same. If you need companionship, I will remind you of the young married women in Tongkou to whom I introduced you.”

“I remember them. Thank you,” I mumbled haplessly, while inside I was screaming in terror. Never, never, never!

“They would like you to join a post-marriage sworn sisterhood.”

“Again, thank you—”

“You should consider their invitation an honor.”

“I do.”

“I’m just saying that you need to discharge Snow Flower from your thoughts,” my mother-in-law said, and finished with a variation of her usual admonition. “I don’t want memories of that unfortunate girl influencing my grandson.”

The concubines snickered behind their fingers. They enjoyed seeing me suffer. In moments like these, their status rose and mine fell. But other than this continued criticism, which the others relished and which frightened me deeply, my mother-in-law was kinder to me than my own mother had been. She followed all the rules, just as Snow Flower had said. “When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son.” I had heard this my entire life, so I was not intimidated. But my mother-in-law taught me another axiom one day, when she was aggravated with her husband: “Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.” For now, my in-laws could prevent me from seeing Snow Flower, but they could never stop me from loving her.

bq. Snow Flower,

My husband treats me well.

I don’t even know where all our family fields are.

I also work hard.

My mother-in-law watches everything I do.

The women in my household are well educated in nu shu.

My mother-in-law has taught me new characters.

I will show them to you when we next meet.

I do embroidery, weaving, and shoemaking.

I spin cloth and prepare meals.

I have a son.

I pray to the Goddess that one day I’ll have another son.

You should too.

Please listen to me.

You must obey your husband.

You must listen to your mother-in-law.

I ask you not to worry so much.

Instead, remember when we embroidered together and whispered at night.

We are two mandarin ducks.

We are two phoenixes flying across the sky.

Lily

In her next letter, Snow Flower mentioned nothing about her new family other than that her son had learned to sit. When she came to the end, she inquired again about my life:

Tell me about your meals and what is discussed.

Do they recite the classics when they eat?

Does your mother-in-law entertain the men with stories?

Does she sing to them to aid in their digestion?

I tried to answer truthfully. The men in my household discussed finances: what extra piece of land they could lease, who would till it, how much they should seek in rents, the cost of taxes. They had a desire to “get higher,” to “get to the top of the mountain.” Every family says these things at New Year, incorporating special dishes that invoke these wishes—knowing that this is exactly what they are. But my in-laws worked very hard to make them happen. It made for boring conversation that I did not understand, nor did I care to understand. They already had more than anyone in Tongkou. I could not imagine what else they could desire, yet their eyes never wavered from the top of the mountain.

I hoped that Snow Flower was happier now, conforming—as all wives must—to circumstances completely different from anything she had known before. Then, one dark afternoon as I nursed my son, I heard Madame Wang’s palanquin stop outside our threshold. I expected to see her come up the stairs. Instead, my mother-in-law entered the room and with a disapproving frown dropped a letter on the table beside me. As soon as my son was asleep, I pulled the oil lamp closer and opened it. I noticed right away that the format was different. With a feeling of trepidation I began to read.

bq. Lily,

I sit upstairs and cry. Outside I hear my husband killing a pig. He compounds his violation of the pollution laws.

When I first married in, my mother-in-law made me stand on the platform outside the house and watch as a pig was killed so I could see where our livelihood comes from. My husband and father-in-law brought the pig to our threshold. He was carried upside down on a pole strung between my father-in-law’s and my husband’s shoulders. The pig was between them, crying, crying, crying. He knew what was coming. I have heard this many times now, because they all know what is about to happen and their cries echo through our village much too often.

My father-in-law held the pig down next to a large wok filled with boiling water. (Do you remember that wok outside my house? The one embedded in the platform? Below that is a place to burn coal.) My husband slit the pig’s throat. First, he collected the blood for blood custard, then he shoved the body in the wok. The pig was boiled to soften its skin. My husband asked me to scrape the hairs off the hide. I cried and cried, but not as noisily as the pig had done. I told them I would never watch or be a part of this pollution again. My mother-in-law condemned me for being so weak.

Every day I become more and more like Wife Wang. Do you remember when my aunt told us that story? I have become a vegetarian. My in-laws don’t care. It leaves more meat for them.

I am alone in the world but for you and my son.

I wish I had never lied to you. I promised I would always tell you the truth, but I don’t like you knowing of my ugly life.

I sit at the lattice window and look across the fields to my home village. I imagine you at your window looking back at me. My heart flies across the fields to you. Are you sitting there? Do you see me? Do you feel me?

Without you I am sad. I urge you to write or visit me.

Snow Flower

This was horrible! I looked out the lattice window toward Jintian, wishing that I could at least see Snow Flower. I felt terrible knowing that she was suffering and I couldn’t put my arms around her to comfort her. In front of my mother-in-law and the other women in the upstairs chamber I pulled out a piece of paper and mixed ink. Before I picked up the brush, I reread Snow Flower’s letter. The first time I had taken in only her sadness. Now I realized she’d broken from the traditional stylized lines used by wives in their letters and was using her nu shu to write more candidly and forthrightly about her life.

With her bold act, I realized the true purpose of our secret writing. It was not to compose girlish notes to each other or even to introduce us to the women in our husbands’ families. It was to give us a voice. Our nu shu was a means for our bound feet to carry us to each other, for our thoughts to fly across the fields as Snow Flower had written. The men in our households never expected us to have anything important to say. They never expected us to have emotions or express creative thoughts. The women—our mothers-in-law and the others—put up even greater blockades against us. But from here on out, I hoped Snow Flower and I would be able to write the truth of our lives, whether we were together or apart. I wanted to drop the set phrases that were so common among wives in their rice-and-salt days and express my real thoughts. We would write as we had talked when we were huddled together in the upstairs chamber of my natal home.

I had to see Snow Flower and tell her things would be better. But if I visited her against my mother-in-law’s wishes, I would be committing one of the worst crimes possible. Sneaking around to write or read letters paled in comparison to this, but I had to do it if I wanted to see my laotong.

bq. Snow Flower,

I cry to think of you in that place. You are too good to have such ugliness in your life. We must see each other. Please come to my natal home for Expel Birds Festival. We will bring our sons. We will be happy again. You will forget your troubles. Remember that beside a well one does not thirst. Beside a sister one does not despair. In my heart I am forever your sister.

Lily

Sitting in the upstairs chamber, I planned and schemed, but I was scared. Simplicity seemed best—I would pick up Snow Flower in my palanquin on my way home—but it would also be the easiest way to get caught. The concubines might look out the lattice window and see my palanquin veer to the right toward Jintian. Even more dangerous, the roads would be busy with many women—including my mother-in-law—returning to their natal homes for the festival. Anyone might see us; anyone might report us, if only to curry favor with the Lu family. But by the time the festival arrived, I had built up my bravery to the point I thought we might succeed.

THE FIRST DAY of the second lunar month marked the beginning of farming season, hence the Expel Birds Festival. Inside, on that morning, the women in our household rose early to make sticky rice balls; outside, birds waited for the men to begin planting rice seeds. I worked next to my mother-in-law, squeezing together the balls, using this rice to protect more rice, that most precious of daily foods. When the time came, Tongkou’s unmarried women carried the bird feast outside and set the balls on sticks in the fields to attract the birds, while the men sprinkled poisoned grain along the edges of the fields for the birds to continue gorging themselves. Just as the birds pecked at their first deadly mouthfuls, Tongkou’s married women stepped into palanquins, got on carts, or climbed onto the backs of big-footed women to be taken through the fields back to their natal villages. The old women tell us that if we don’t leave, the birds will eat the rice seeds our husbands are about to sow and we won’t be able to give them any more sons.

As planned, my bearers stopped in Jintian. I did not get out of the palanquin for fear someone might see me. The door swung open and Snow Flower, with her son asleep on her shoulder, joined me. It had been eight months since I’d seen her at the Temple of Gupo. With all the work she did, I had imagined that whatever plumpness she had gained during her pregnancy would be gone, but she was still shapely beneath her tunic and skirt. Her breasts were larger than mine, although I could see that her son was scrawny compared to my own. Her stomach also bulged, which was why she’d placed her son on her shoulder instead of cradled in her arms.

She gently turned her son so I could see him. I pulled my son from my breast and lifted him so the babies were face-to-face. They were now seven and six months old. They say all babies are beautiful. My son was, but her boy, despite his thick black hair, was as thin as a river reed, with sickly yellow skin and features scrunched into a scowl. But of course I complimented her on him and she did the same to me.

As our bodies swayed, bumped, and lurched to the bearers’ gait, we talked about our new projects. She was weaving a piece of cloth that incorporated a line from a poem—a very difficult and taxing undertaking. I was learning how to make pickled birds—a relatively easy task except that it needed to be done correctly to prevent spoilage. But these were simple pleasantries; we had serious things to talk about. When I asked her how things were going, she did not hesitate for a moment.

“When I wake up in the morning, there is no joy except what I feel for my son,” she confessed, her eyes locked onto mine. “I like to sing when I wash the clothes or bring in the firewood, but my husband gets angry if he hears me. When he is displeased, he won’t permit me to cross over the threshold for anything other than my chores. If he is happy, in the evening he lets me sit outside on the platform where he kills his pigs. But when I’m there, I can only think of the animals that have died. When I fall asleep at night, I know I will rise again, but there will be no dawn, only darkness.”

I tried to reassure her. “You say these things because you are a new mother and it has been winter.” I had no right to compare my loneliness to hers, but even I was enveloped by melancholy on those occasions, when I missed my natal family or the cold shadows of the shortened days dampened my heart. “Spring is here,” I offered, both to her and myself. “We’ll be happier with the longer days.”

“My days are better when they are short,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Only when my husband and I go to bed do the complaints stop. I don’t hear my father-in-law grumble about the weakness of his tea, my mother-in-law chastise me for the softness of my heart, my sisters-in-law demand clean clothes, my husband order me to be less of an embarrassment in the village, or my son demand, demand, demand.”

I was appalled that my old same’s situation was this bad. She was miserable and I didn’t know what to say, though just a few days ago I’d promised myself that we would be more candid with each other. In my confusion and awkwardness I let myself be bound up by convention.

“I have tried to accommodate my husband and mother-in-law and it has made my life better,” I offered. “You should do the same. You suffer now, but one day your mother-in-law will die and you will be the lady of the household. All number-one wives who are mothers of sons conquer in the end.”

She smiled ruefully, and I thought over her complaint about her son. I truly didn’t understand it. A son was a woman’s life. It was her job and her fulfillment to meet his every demand.

“Soon your son will be walking,” I said. “You’ll be chasing him everywhere. You’ll be very happy.”

She tightened her arms around her baby. “I am already with child again.”

I beamed my congratulations, but my brain was in turmoil. This explained her swollen breasts and bulging stomach. She had to be pretty far along. But how could she have gotten pregnant so soon? Was this the pollution she had written about in her letter? Had she and her husband done bed business before the hundred days were complete? It had to be so.

“I wish you another son,” I managed to say.

“I hope so.” She sighed. “Because my husband says it is better to have a dog than a daughter.”

We all knew the truth of those words, but who would say that to his pregnant wife?

The feel of the palanquin setting down and the whoops of joy and greeting coming from my brothers saved me from trying to come up with an appropriate response. I was home.

How the household had changed! Elder Brother and his wife now had two children. She had gone back to her natal home for the Expel Birds Festival, but had left the youngsters for us to see. My younger brother had not yet married in, but preparations for his wedding were well under way. He was officially a man. Elder Sister had arrived with her two daughters and a son. She was growing old before our eyes, though I still thought of her as a girl in her hair-pinning days. Mama could not criticize me as easily, although she tried. Baba was proud, but even I could see the burden he felt by having so many mouths to feed for even these few days. Altogether, there were seven children aged six months to six years under our roof. The household rattled with the sounds of tiny footsteps running across the floor, pleas for attention, and songs to quiet. Aunt was happy with all the children about; a house full of children had been her lifelong dream. Still, every once in a while I saw her eyes tear up. If the world were fairer, Beautiful Moon would have been there with her children too.

We spent three days chatting, laughing, eating, and sleeping—none of us arguing, backbiting, condemning, or accusing. For Snow Flower and myself, the best times were at night in the upstairs chamber. We placed our sons on the bed between us. Seeing the two of them side by side, the differences between them were even more apparent. My son was fat with a shock of black hair that stood straight up like his father’s. He loved to nurse and gurgled at my breast until he was drunk with my milk, pausing only to look up at me and smile. Snow Flower’s son had a difficult time with his mother’s milk, spitting it out on her shoulder when she burped him. He was fussy in other respects as well—crying late in the afternoon, his face red with anger, his bottom pink and blistered with rash. But once the four of us snuggled beneath the quilt, both babies quieted, listening to our whispers.

“Do you like bed business?” Snow Flower asked, when she was sure everyone was asleep.

For so many years we had heard the bawdy jokes told by old women or the offhand remarks made by Aunt about the bed fun she and Uncle had. All of that had been very confusing, but now I understood that there was nothing confusing about it.

“My husband and I are like two mandarin ducks,” Snow Flower prompted, when I didn’t respond right away. “We find mutual felicity in soaring together.”

I was taken aback by what she said. Was she lying again, as she had for so many years? Into my bewildered silence, she spoke again.

“But as much as we both enjoy it,” Snow Flower went on, “I am disturbed that my husband doesn’t obey the rules about bed business after giving birth. He waited only twenty days.” She paused again, then admitted, “I don’t blame him. I agreed. I wanted it to happen.”

Though completely bewildered by her desire to do bed business, I was relieved. She had to be telling me the truth, because no one would lie to cover a worse truth. What could be more shameful than committing a polluted act?

“This is a bad thing,” I whispered back. “You must follow the rules.”

“Or what? I’ll become as polluted as my husband?”

This thought had already come to me, but I said, “I don’t want you to get sick or die.”

She laughed into the darkness. “No one gets sick from bed business. It only gives you pleasure. I work hard all day for my mother-in-law. Do I not deserve the delights of night? And, if I have another son, I will be happier still.”

That last part I knew to be true. The one who slept between us was both difficult and weak. Snow Flower needed to have another son . . . just in case.

Too soon, our three days were over. My heart felt lighter. My palanquin dropped Snow Flower back in front of her house; then I went home. No one had spotted my diversion on the road, and the cash I paid my bearers guaranteed their silence. Emboldened by my success, I knew I would be able to see Snow Flower more often. Many festivals throughout the year required married women to return to their natal homes, and we also had our annual visit to the Temple of Gupo. We might be married ladies, but we were still old sames, no matter what my mother-in-law said.

OVER THE FOLLOWING months, Snow Flower and I continued to write each other, our words flying back and forth over the fields as free as two birds floating on a high breeze. Her complaints lessened and so did mine. We were young mothers and our lives were bright with the day-to-day adventures of our sons—new teeth coming in, first words spoken, steps taken. To my mind, we were both content as we settled into the rhythms of our new homes, learned how to please our mothers-in-law, and adjusted to the duties of being wives. I even grew more accustomed to writing Snow Flower about my husband and our intimate moments. By now I understood the old instruction: “Ascend the bed, act like a husband; descend the bed, act like a gentleman.” I preferred my husband when he descended the bed. By day, he followed the Nine Considerations. He was clearheaded, listened carefully, and appeared affable. He was modest, loyal, respectful, and righteous. When in doubt, he asked his father questions, and on those rare occasions when he got angry, he was careful not to let it show. So by night, when he ascended the bed, I was happy for his enjoyment but relieved when he finished with me. I did not understand what my aunt had talked about when I was in my hair-pinning days, and I truly didn’t comprehend Snow Flower’s pleasure in bed business. But no matter how deep my ignorance, I knew one thing: You cannot break the pollution laws without paying a heavy toll.

Lily,

My daughter was born dead. She left without planting roots, so she knew nothing of the sorrows of life. I held her feet in my hands. They would never know the agony of footbinding. I touched her eyes. They would never know the sadness of leaving her natal home, of seeing her mother for the last time, of saying goodbye to a dead child. I put my fingers over her heart. It would never know pain, sorrow, loneliness, shame. I think of her in the afterworld. Is my mother with her? I don’t know either of their fates.

Everyone in my household blames me. My mother-in-law says, “Why did we marry you in if not to bear sons?” My husband says, “You are young. You will have more children. Next time you will bring me a son.”

I have no way to vent my sorrow. I have no one to listen to me. I wish I could hear you coming up the stairs.

I imagine myself as a bird. I would soar in the clouds, and the world below would seem very far away.

The piece of jade I wore around my neck to protect my unborn child weighs upon me. I cannot stop thinking about my dead baby girl.

Snow Flower

Miscarriages were common occurrences in our county, and women were not supposed to care if they had one, especially if the child was a girl. Stillbirths were considered dreadful only if the baby was a son. If a stillborn child was a girl, parents were usually thankful. No one needed another worthless mouth to feed. For me, while I’d been petrified when I was pregnant that something might happen to my baby, I honestly didn’t know how I would have felt if he had been a daughter and had died before breathing the air of this world. What I’m trying to say is that I was bewildered that Snow Flower felt the way she did.

I had begged her to tell me the truth, but now that she had I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to reply with sympathy. I wanted to give her comfort and solace. But I was scared for her and didn’t know what to write. Everything that had happened in Snow Flower’s life—the reality of her childhood, her terrible marriage, and now this—was beyond my understanding. I had just turned twenty-one. I had never experienced real misery, my life was good, and these two things left me with little empathy.

I searched my mind for the right words to write the woman I loved, and to my great shame I let the conventions I’d grown up with wrap around my heart as I’d done that day in the palanquin. When I picked up my brush, I retreated to the safety of the formal lines appropriate for a married woman, hoping this would remind Snow Flower that our only real protection as women was the placid face we presented, even in those moments of greatest distress. She had to try to get pregnant again—and soon—because the duty of all women was to keep trying to give birth to sons.

Snow Flower,

I am sitting in the upstairs chamber thinking deeply.

I write to console you.

Please listen to me.

Dear one, quiet your heart.

Think of me beside you—my hand on yours.

Imagine me crying at your side.

Our tears form four streams that run forever.

Know this.

Your sorrow is deep but you are not alone.

Do not grieve.

This was preordained, just as riches and poverty are preordained.

Many babies die.

This is a mother’s heartbreak.

We cannot control these things.

We can only try again.

Next time, a son. . . .

Lily

Two years passed during which our sons learned to walk and talk. Snow Flower’s son did these things first; he should have. He was six weeks older, but his legs weren’t sturdy trunks like my son’s. His thinness stayed with him, and it seemed a thinness of personality. This is not to say he wasn’t smart. He was very clever, but not as clever as my son. By age three, my son already wanted to pick up the calligraphy brush. He was magnificent, the darling of the upstairs chamber. Even the concubines showered him with attention, bickering over him as they did over new pieces of silk.

Three years after my first son was born, my second son arrived. Snow Flower did not share the good luck of my destiny. She may have enjoyed bed business with her husband, but it produced nothing—except a second stillborn daughter. After this loss, I recommended she go to the local herbalist to procure herbs to help her conceive a son and enhance her husband’s strength and frequency in his below-the-belt region. Thanks to my advice, Snow Flower informed me, she and her husband had been satisfied in numerous ways.

Joy and Sorrow

WHEN MY ELDER SON REACHED FIVE YEARS, MY HUSBAND started to talk about bringing in a traveling tutor to begin our boy’s formal education. Since we lived in my in-laws’ home and had no resources of our own, we had to ask them to bear the expense. I should have been ashamed of my husband’s desires, but I never regretted that I wasn’t. For their part, my in-laws could not have been more pleased than the day the tutor moved in and my son left the upstairs chamber. I wept to see him go, but it was one of the proudest moments of my life. I secretly harbored the hope that perhaps one day he might take the imperial exams. I was only a woman, but even I knew that these exams provided a stepping-stone for even the poorest scholars from the most wretched circumstances to a higher life. Nevertheless, his absence in the upstairs chamber left me with a black emptiness that was not filled by my second son’s amusing antics, the squawking of the concubines, the bickering of my sisters-in-law, or even my periodic visits with Snow Flower. Happily, by the first month of the new lunar year, I found myself pregnant again.

By this time, the upstairs chamber was very crowded. Third Sister-in-law had moved in and given birth to a daughter. She was followed by Fourth Sister-in-law, whose complaining grated on everyone. She, too, had a daughter. My mother-in-law expended particular cruelty on Fourth Sister-in-law, who later lost two sons in childbirth. So it is fair to say that the other women in the household greeted my news with envy. Nothing caused more consternation in the upstairs chamber than the monthly arrival of one of the wives’ bleeding. Everyone knew; everyone talked about it. Lady Lu always noted these events and loudly cursed the young woman in question for all to hear. “A wife who does not bear a son can always be replaced,” she might say, though she hated with her entire soul her husband’s concubines. Now, when I looked around the women’s chamber, I saw jealousy and smoldering resentment, but what could the other women do but wait and see if another son came out of my body? I, however, had experienced a change of heart. I wanted a daughter, but for the most practical reason. My second son would leave me for the world of men very shortly, while daughters did not leave their mothers until they married out. My secret ambition flamed with news that Snow Flower was also with child. I cannot tell you how much I wanted her to have a daughter too.

Our first and best opportunity to meet to share our aspirations and expectations arrived with the Tasting Festival on the sixth day of the sixth month. After five years of living with the Lus, I knew my mother-in-law had not reversed her position on Snow Flower. I suspected that she was aware that we saw each other during festivals, but so long as I didn’t flaunt the relationship and kept up with my household duties, my mother-in-law left the subject alone.

As it had always been, Snow Flower and I found pleasure in the upstairs chamber of my natal home, but our old intimacy couldn’t be shown, not when we had our children in our bed or in cots around us. Still, we whispered together. I confessed to her that I longed for a daughter who would be my companion. Snow Flower smoothed her hands over her belly and in a small voice reminded me that girls were but worthless branches unable to carry on their fathers’ lines.

“They will not be useless to us,” I said. “Could we not make a laotong match for them now—before they are born?”

“Lily, we are worthless.” Snow Flower sat up. I could see her face in the moonlight. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Women are the mothers of sons,” I corrected her. This had secured my place in my husband’s home. Surely Snow Flower’s son had secured her place too.

“I know. The mothers of sons . . . but—”

“So our daughters will be our companions.”

“I’ve already lost two—”

“Snow Flower, don’t you want our daughters to be old sames?” The thought that she might not crushed against my skull.

She looked at me with a sad smile. “Of course, if we have daughters. They could carry our love for each other even after we go to the afterworld.”

“Good, that’s settled. Now, lie down beside me. Smooth your brow. This is a happy moment. Let us be happy together.”

We returned to Puwei with newborn daughters the following spring. Their birthdays did not match. Their birth months did not match. We peeled away their swaddling and held their feet sole to sole. Even as infants, their foot size did not match. I may have looked at my daughter, Jade, with mother eyes, but even I could see that Snow Flower’s daughter, Spring Moon, was beautiful in comparison to mine. Jade’s skin was too dark for the Lu family, while Spring Moon’s complexion was like the flesh of a white peach. I hoped Jade would be as strong as the stone she was named for and wished that Spring Moon would be heartier than my cousin, whom Snow Flower had honored in her daughter’s name. None of the eight characters corresponded, but we didn’t care. These girls would be old sames.

We opened our fan and looked at our lives together. So much happiness had been recorded there. Our match. Our marriages. The births of our sons. The births of our daughters. Their future match. “One day two girls will meet and become laotong,” I wrote. “They will be as two mandarin ducks. Another pair—their hearts glad—will sit together on a bridge and watch them soar.” Above the garland at the top, Snow Flower painted two small sets of wings flying toward the moon. Two other birds, nesting side by side, looked up.

When we were done, we sat together, cradling our daughters. I felt so much joy, yet I didn’t stop to consider that by ignoring the rules governing the match of two girls, we were breaking a taboo.

TWO YEARS LATER, Snow Flower sent me a letter announcing that she had finally given birth to a second son. She was jubilant and I was elated, believing that her status would rise in her husband’s home. But we hardly had time to rejoice, because just three days later our country received sad news. Emperor Daoguang had gone to the afterworld. Our county was plunged into mourning, even as his son, Xianfeng, became the new emperor.

I had learned, from Snow Flower’s family’s bitter experience, that when an emperor dies his court falls out of favor so that with every imperial transition come disorder and disharmony, not just in the palace but across the country. At dinner when my father-in-law, my husband, and his brothers discussed what was happening outside of Tongkou, I absorbed only what I could not ignore. Rebels were causing trouble somewhere and landowners were pressing for higher rents from their tenant farmers. I felt for people—like those in my natal family—who would suffer, but truly these things seemed far removed from the comforts of the Lu household.

Then Uncle Lu lost his position and returned to Tongkou. When he stepped out of his palanquin, we all kowtowed, putting our heads to the ground. When he told us to rise, I saw an old man dressed in silk robes. He had two moles on his face. All people cherish the hair on their moles, but Uncle Lu’s were splendid. He had at least ten hairs—coarse in texture, white in color, and a good three centimeters long—sprouting from each mole. As I got to know him, I saw that he loved to play with those hairs, pulling them slightly to encourage them to grow even more.

His clever eyes looked from face to face before settling on my first son. My boy had lived eight years now. Uncle Lu, who should have greeted his brother first, reached out a veined hand and laid it on my son’s shoulder. “Read a thousand books,” he said, in a voice resonant with education yet twisted by many years in the capital, “and your words will flow like a river. Now, little one, show me the way home.” With that, the most esteemed man in the family took the hand of my son, and together they passed through the village gate.

ANOTHER TWO YEARS passed. I had recently given birth to a third son, and we were all working hard to keep things as they’d been, but anyone could see that between Uncle Lu’s loss of favor and the rebellion against the rent increase, life was not the same. My father-in-law began to cut back on his tobacco and my husband spent longer days in the fields, sometimes even picking up tools himself and joining our farmers in their labors. The tutor left and Uncle Lu took over my eldest son’s lessons. And in the upstairs chamber, the bickering between the wives and concubines increased as the usual gifts of silk cloth and embroidery thread diminished.

When Snow Flower and I met at my natal home that year, I barely spent any time with my family. Oh, we had our meals together and sat outside at night as we had when I was a girl, but Mama and Baba weren’t the reason I visited. I wanted to see and be with Snow Flower. We had turned thirty and had been laotong for twenty-three years. It was hard to believe that so much time had gone by and harder still to believe that once she and I had been heart-to-heart close. I loved Snow Flower as my laotong, but my days were filled with children and chores. I was now the mother of three sons and a daughter, while she had two sons and a daughter. We had an emotional relationship that we believed would never be broken and was deeper than the binds we had with our husbands, but the passion of our love had faded. We didn’t worry about this, since all deep-heart relationships must endure the practical realities of rice-and-salt days. We knew that when we reached our days of sitting quietly we would once again be together in the old way. For now, all we could do was share as much of our daily lives as possible.

In Snow Flower’s household, the last of her sisters-in-law had married out, eliminating the chores she had once needed to do for them. Her father-in-law had also died. A pig he was slaughtering had twisted so strongly at the final moment that the knife slipped in his hand and sliced his arm down to the bone; he bled to death on the family’s threshold as so many pigs had done. Now Snow Flower’s husband was the master, though he—and everyone who lived under that roof—was still very much under the control of his mother. Knowing Snow Flower had nothing and no one, her mother-in-law stepped up her needling, while her husband lowered his protection of her against it. Still, Snow Flower found joy in her second son, who had already grown from a baby into a robust toddler. Everyone loved this child, believing that the first son would not make his tenth birthday, let alone age twenty.

Although Snow Flower’s circumstances were not as high as my own, she paid attention and listened far more deeply than I did. I should have expected this. She had always been more interested in the outer realm than I. She explained that the rebels I’d heard about were called Taipings and that they sought a harmonious order. They believed—as do the Yao people—that ghosts, gods, and goddesses have an influence on crops, health, and the birth of sons. The Taipings forbade wine, opium, gambling, dancing, and tobacco. They said property should be taken away from the landlords, who owned 90 percent of the land and received up to 70 percent of the crop, and that those who worked on the land should share equally. In our province, hundreds of thousands of people had left their homes to join the Taipings and were taking over villages and cities. She talked about their leader, who believed he was the son of a famous god, about something he called his Heavenly Kingdom, about his abhorrence of foreigners and political corruption. I did not comprehend what Snow Flower was trying to tell me. To me, a foreigner was someone from another county. I lived within the four walls of my upstairs chamber, but Snow Flower had a mind that flew to faraway places, looking, seeking, wondering.

When I returned home and asked my husband about the Taipings, he answered, “A wife should worry about her children and making her family happy. If your natal family disquiets you so, next time I will not give you permission to visit.”

I did not say another word about the outer realm.

A LACK OF rain and what that did to the crops made everyone in Tongkou hungry—from the lowest fourth daughter of a farmer to the revered Uncle Lu—yet I still didn’t concern myself until I saw our storeroom begin to empty. Soon my mother-in-law disciplined us over spilled tea or too large a fire in the brazier. My father-in-law refrained from taking much meat from the central dish, preferring that his grandsons eat this precious resource first. Uncle Lu, who had lived in the palace, did not complain as he might have, but as the truth of his circumstances sank in, he became more demanding of my son, hoping that this small boy would be the family’s passage back to better circumstances.

This challenged my husband. At night when we were in bed and the lamps turned low, he confided in me. “Uncle Lu sees something in our son, and I was happy when he took over the boy’s lessons. But now I look ahead and see we might have to send him away to pursue his studies. How can we do that when the whole county knows we will soon have to sell fields if we are to eat?” In the darkness, my husband took my hand. “Lily, I have an idea and my father thinks it is a good one, but I worry about you and our sons.”

I waited, afraid of what he would say next.

“People need certain things to live,” he continued. “Air, sun, water, and firewood are free, if not always abundant. But salt is not free, and everyone needs salt to live.”

My hand tightened around his. Where was this leading?

“I have asked my father if I can take the last of our savings,” he said, “travel to Guilin, buy salt, and bring it back here to sell. He has granted me permission.”

There were more dangers than I could name. Guilin was in the next province. To get there, my husband would have to pass through territory occupied by the rebels. Those who weren’t rebels were desperate farmers who’d lost their homes and had turned into bandits who stole from those who dared travel the roads. The salt business itself was perilous, which was one reason it was always in such short supply. Men who controlled salt in our province had their own armies, but my husband was just one man. He had no experience dealing with either warlords or wily merchants. If all this were not enough, my female mind imagined my husband encountering many beautiful women in Guilin. If he were successful in his venture, he might bring one or more of them home as concubines. My weakness as a woman came out of my mouth first.

“Don’t pluck at wildflowers,” I begged, using the euphemism for the types of women he might meet.

“A wife’s value is in her virtues, not her face,” he reassured me. “You have given me sons. My body will travel a great distance, but my eyes will not look at what they shouldn’t see.” He paused, then added, “Remain faithful, avoid temptation, obey my mother, and serve our sons.”

“I would do no less,” I promised. “But I don’t worry about myself.”

I tried to tell him of my other concerns, but he responded, “Do we stop living because a few people are unhappy? We must continue to use our roads and rivers. They belong to all Chinese people.”

He said he might be gone for a year.

FROM THE MOMENT my husband left, I worried. As the months wore on, I grew increasingly anxious and frightened. If something happened to him, what would become of me? As a widow, I would have very few options. Since my children were too young to take care of me, my father-in-law could sell me away to another man. Knowing that under those circumstances I might never see my children again, I understood why so many widows killed themselves. But crying day and night about the possibilities was no way for me to go. I tried to maintain a serene facade in the upstairs chamber, even as I agonized over my husband’s safety.

Longing to be comforted by the sight of my first son, I did something I had not done before. I volunteered many times a day to fetch tea for the women in the upstairs chamber; then, once downstairs, I sat quietly within earshot of his lessons with Uncle Lu.

“The three most important powers are Heaven, Earth, and Man,” my son recited. “The three luminaries are the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Opportunities given by Heaven are not equal to the advantages afforded by Earth, while the advantages of Earth do not match the blessings that come from harmony among men.”

“Any boy can memorize the words, but what do they mean?” Uncle Lu was strident in his correctness.

Do you think my son could give a wrong answer? No, and I’ll tell you why. If he didn’t answer a question correctly or made a mistake in his recitations, Uncle Lu gave him a whack on his open palm with a bamboo slat. If he got it wrong the next day, twice the punishment.

“Heaven gives Man weather, but without the fertile soil of the Earth, it is worthless,” my son answered. “And rich soil is useless without harmony among men.”

From my shadowed corner I beamed with pride, but Uncle Lu did not conclude the lesson because of one right answer.

“Very good. Now let’s talk about empire. If you strengthen the family and follow the rules that are written in the Book of Rites, then order will be found in a household. This spreads from one household to the next, building the security of the state until you reach the emperor. But one rebel begets another rebel and soon there is disorder. Little one, pay attention. Our family owns land. Your grandfather ruled over it while I was gone, but now the people know I no longer have court connections. They see and hear the rebels. We must be very, very careful.”

But the terror he was so afraid of did not arrive in the form of the Taipings. The last thing I heard before the death spirits descended on us was that Snow Flower was pregnant again. I embroidered her a handkerchief wishing her health and happiness in the coming months, then decorated it with silvery fish jumping from a pale-blue stream, believing that this was the most benign—and cool—image I could create for one who would be pregnant during summer.

THAT YEAR THE big heat came early. It was too soon to go back to our natal homes, so we women and children languished in our upstairs chambers, waiting, waiting, waiting. When the temperature continued to go up, the men in Tongkou and in the villages around us took the children to the river to wade and swim. This was the same river where I had cooled my feet as a girl, so I was delighted when my father-in-law and my brothers-in-law offered to treat the children in this way. But it was also the same river where the big-footed girls did the washing and—as the village wells soured with insect larvae—hauled water for drinking and cooking.

The first case of typhoid struck in the best village in the county—my Tongkou. It fell upon the precious first son of one of our tenant farmers, then swept through that household, killing everyone. The disease arrived as a fever, followed by a severe headache, then sickness in the stomach. Sometimes a hoarse cough came next, or a rash of rose-colored spots. But once the diarrhea hit, it was only a matter of hours before death brought a merciful end. As soon as we heard a child had taken ill, we knew what would happen next. First the child died, then the other brothers and sisters, then the mother, then the father. It was a pattern that we heard again and again, for a mother cannot turn away from a sick child and a husband cannot abandon a dying wife. Soon every village in the county had cases.

The Lu family retreated from village life and shut its doors. The servants disappeared, perhaps sent away by my father-in-law, perhaps running away out of fear. To this day, I still don’t know. The women in our household gathered the children into our upstairs chamber, believing we would be safest there. Third Sister-in-law’s infant son was the first to show symptoms. His forehead became dry and hot. His cheeks flushed a deep pink. I saw this and took my children to my sleeping chamber. I called for my eldest son. Without my husband here, I should have surrendered to his desire to stay with his great uncle and the rest of the men, but I did not give him a choice.

“Only I will leave this room,” I told my children. “Elder Brother is in charge of you when I am not here. You are to obey him in all ways.”

Each day during that dreadful season, I left the room once in the morning and once at night. Knowing the way that this disease discharged itself from the people it attacked, I carried out the chamber pot and dumped it myself, being careful that nothing from the night soil storage area touched my hands, my feet, my clothes, or our pot. I drew brackish water from the well, boiled it, and then strained it so it was as clear and clean as possible. I was afraid of food, but we had to eat. I didn’t know what to do. Should we eat food raw, straight from the garden? But when I thought about the night soil we used in our fields and how the sickness had poured from so many bodies, I knew that couldn’t be right. I remembered back to the one thing my mother always cooked when I was sick—congee. I made it twice a day.

The rest of the time we were locked in my room. During the day, we heard people running back and forth. At night, the fitful cries of the ill and the anguished cries of mothers came to us. In the morning, I put my ear against the door and listened for news of who had gone to the afterworld. With no one to care for them except each other, the concubines died agonized and alone, but for the very women whom they’d conspired against.

Whether it was day or night I worried about Snow Flower and my husband. Was she trying the same safeguards I was following? Was she well? Had she died? Had that pathetic first son of hers succumbed? Had the entire family perished? And what of my husband? Had he died in another province or on the road? If anything happened to either of them, I didn’t know what I would do. I felt caged in by my fear.

My sleeping chamber had one window, too high for me to see out of. The smells of the bloating and diseased dead set before houses permeated the humid air. We covered our noses and mouths, but there was no escape—just a foul odor that stung our eyes and spoiled our tongues. In my mind I ticked off all of the jobs I had to do: Pray constantly to the Goddess. Swathe the children in dark red cloth. Sweep the room three times a day to frighten any ghost spirits hunting for prey. I also listed all the things from which we should refrain: no fried food, no sauteed food. If my husband had been home, then no bed business. But he was not home, and I had only myself to be vigilant.

One day as I cooked the rice porridge, my mother-in-law entered the kitchen with a dead chicken hanging from her fingers.

“There’s no point in saving these any longer,” she said gruffly. As she disjointed the bird and chopped garlic, she warned, “Your children will die without meat and vegetables. You will starve them to death before they can even get sick.”

I stared at the chicken. My mouth salivated and my stomach grumbled, but for the first time in my married life I turned a deaf ear. I did not answer. I just poured the congee into bowls and placed them on a tray. On my way to my room, I stopped before Uncle Lu’s door, knocked, and left a bowl for him. I had to do this, don’t you see? He was not only the oldest and most respected member of our family but my son’s teacher as well. The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.

The other bowls I delivered to my children. When Jade protested that there were no scallions, no slivers of pork, not even any preserved vegetables, I slapped her hard across the face. The other children swallowed their complaints, while their sister bit her lower lip and fought back tears. I paid no attention to any of it. I simply picked up my broom and went back to sweeping.

Days passed and still no symptoms in our room, but the heat was fully upon us now, worsening the smells of illness and death. One evening, when I went to the kitchen, I found Third Sister-in-law standing like a wraith in the middle of the darkened room dressed head to toe in the white of mourning. I guessed from her appearance that her children and her husband must be dead. I was frozen in place by the empty, soulless look in her eyes. She did not move, nor did she acknowledge that she saw me just a meter in front of her. I was too scared to back away and too scared to move forward. Outside I heard the night birds calling and the low moan of a water buffalo. In my alarm, a stupid thought entered my brain. Why weren’t the animals dying? Or were they dying and there was no one left to tell me?

“The useless pig lives!” A voice rang out virulent and bitter behind me.

Third Sister-in-law did not blink, but I turned to face the source. It was my mother-in-law. Her hairpins had been pulled out and her hair fell in oily strings around her face. “We should never have let you into this house. You are destroying the Lu clan, you polluted, filthy pig.”

My mother spat at Third Sister-in-law, who did not have the will to wipe the mess from her face.

“I curse you,” my mother-in-law swore, her face red with anger and grief. “I hope you die. If you don’t die—but please, Goddess, make her suffer—Master Lu will marry you out by fall. But if I had my way, you would not live to see daylight.”

With that my mother-in-law, who had not once acknowledged my presence, spun away, grabbed the wall for support, and staggered out of the room. I turned back to my sister-in-law, who still seemed lost to this world. Everything told me that what I was about to do was wrong, wrong, but I reached out, put my arms around her, and guided her to a chair. I set water to heat, then with all the courage I could find I dipped a cloth in a bucket of cool water and wiped my sister-in-law’s face. I threw the cloth in the brazier and watched it burn. Once the water boiled, I made a pot of tea, poured a cup for my sister-in-law, and set it before her. She did not pick it up. I did not know what more I could do, so I began to make the congee, patiently stirring the bottom of the pan so the rice wouldn’t stick or burn.

“I strain to hear my children’s cries. I look everywhere for my husband,” Third Sister-in-law murmured. I turned to face her, thinking she was speaking to me. Her eyes told me she wasn’t. “If I remarry, how can I meet my husband and children in the afterworld?”