Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (25 page)

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 sautéed 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?”

I had no comforting words to offer, for there were none. She had no great tree for protection and no faithful mountain standing behind her. She stood and swayed out of the kitchen on her delicate lily feet, as frail as if she were a lantern that had been released during the lantern festival and was drifting away. I went back to my stirring.

The next morning when I went downstairs, it seemed as though there had been a shift. Yonggang and two other servants had returned and were cleaning the kitchen and restocking the pile of firewood. Yonggang informed me that Third Sister-in-law had been found dead earlier that morning. She had killed herself by swallowing lye. I often wonder what might have happened if she had waited a few more hours, because by lunchtime my mother-in-law was down with fever. She must have already been sick the night before when she had been so cruel.