Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (12 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catching Cool Breezes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Bed,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Afterward we recited the entire poem together.

“The bed is lit by moonlight.

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

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

Bending over, I miss my hometown.”

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