Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (34 page)

Regret

I AM NOW TOO OLD TO USE MY HANDS TO COOK, WEAVE, OR
embroider, and looking at them I see the spots brought by living too many years, whether you work outside under the sun or are sheltered your whole life in the women’s chamber. My skin is so thin that pools of blood collect just under the surface where I bump into things or things bump into me. My hands are tired from grinding ink against the inkstone, my knuckles swollen from holding my brush. Two flies sit on my thumb, but I’m too weary to shoo them away. My eyes—the watery eyes of a very old lady—have been watering too much these past days. My hair—gray and thin—has fallen from the pins that should hold it in place beneath my headdress. When visitors come, they try not to look at me. I try not to look at them either. I have lived too long.

After Snow Flower died, I still had half of my life ahead of me. My rice-and-salt days were not over, but in my heart I began my years of sitting quietly. For most women, this begins with their husband’s death. For me, it began with Snow Flower’s death. I was “the one who has not died,” but things kept me from being completely still or quiet. My husband and family needed me to be a wife and mother. My community needed me to be Lady Lu. And then there were Snow Flower’s children, whom
I
needed—so that I could make amends to my
laotong.
But it’s hard to be truly generous and behave in a forthright manner when you don’t know how.

The first thing I did in the months immediately following Snow Flower’s death was to take her place in all her daughter’s wedding traditions and ceremonies. Spring Moon seemed resigned to the prospect of marriage, sad to be leaving home, uncertain—having seen the way her father treated her mother—about what lay in store for her. I told myself these were the kinds of things all girls worry about. But on her wedding night, after her new husband fell asleep, Spring Moon committed suicide by throwing herself in the village well.

“That girl not only polluted her new family but the entire village’s drinking water,” gossips whispered. “She was just like her mother. Remember that Letter of Vituperation?” That I had composed the letter that had ruined Snow Flower’s reputation raked across my conscience, so I hushed this talk whenever I heard it. Through my words, I became known as someone who was forgiving and charitable to the unclean, but I knew that in my first attempt to make things right with Snow Flower I had failed miserably. The day I wrote that girl’s death onto the fan was one of the worst of my life.

I next focused my efforts on Snow Flower’s son. Despite the lowest of circumstances and no support from his father, he had picked up a bit of men’s writing and was good at numbers. Nevertheless, he worked at his father’s side and had no more joy in his life than he had when he was younger. I met his wife, who still lived with her natal family. This time a good choice had been made. The girl became pregnant, but the thought that she would be falling into the butcher’s house pained me. Although it is not my way to interfere with the outer realm of men, I prevailed upon my husband—who had not only inherited Uncle Lu’s vast holdings but had added to them from the salt business profits and now had fields that stretched all way to Jintian—to find something for this young man to do besides slaughter pigs. He hired Snow Flower’s son to collect rents from the farmers and gave him a house with its own kitchen garden. Eventually the butcher retired, moved in with his son, and began doting on his grandson, who brought big joy to that home. The young man and his family were happy, but I knew that I still had not done enough to earn my way back to Snow Flower.

AT AGE FIFTY,
when my monthly bleeding stopped, my life changed again. I experienced a shift from waiting on others to having others wait on me, though I certainly watched what they did and corrected them for anything not done to my satisfaction. But as I said, in my heart I was already sitting quietly. I became a vegetarian and abstained from such warm foods as garlic and wine. I contemplated religious sutras, practiced cleansing rituals, and hoped to renounce the polluting aspects of bed business. Although I had conspired my entire married life for my husband never to bring in a concubine, I looked at him and felt sympathy for him. He deserved the rewards of a lifetime of hard work. I did not wait for him to act—perhaps he never would have—but took it upon myself to find and bring into our home not one but three concubines to entertain him. By choosing them myself, I was able to prevent many of the jealousies and petty disagreements that usually arrive with pretty young women. I did not mind when they gave birth. And, in truth, my husband’s esteem grew in the village. He had proved that he could not only afford the women but that his
chi
was stronger than any man’s in the county.

My relationship with my husband turned into one of great companionship. He often came to the women’s chamber to drink tea and talk with me. The solace that he found in the quiet of the inner realm caused his worries about the chaos, instability, and corruption of the outer realm to melt away. We were more content together at this time than perhaps at any other in our entire lives. We had planted a garden, and it bloomed around us in so many ways. All of our sons married in. All of their wives proved to be fertile. Our home was merry with the sounds of grandchildren. We loved them, but there was one child not of my blood who interested me most of all. I wanted her near me.

In a little house in Jintian, the rent collector’s wife had given birth to a girl. I wanted that child—Snow Flower’s granddaughter—to become my eldest grandson’s wife. Age six is not too early for Contracting a Kin, if both families want to seal a betrothal for a prized couple, if the groom’s family is willing to begin delivering bride-price gifts, and if the bride’s family is poor enough to need them. I felt that we met all the conditions, and my husband—after thirty-two years of marriage, during which I had never caused him to be embarrassed or ashamed of me—was generous enough to grant me this request.

I sent for Madame Wang just as the girl’s feet were about to be bound. The old woman was escorted into the main room by two big-footed girls, which told me that even though other matchmakers now had more business, she had put away enough money to live well. Still, the years had not been kind to Madame Wang. Her face had wizened. Her eyes were white with blindness. She was toothless. She had very little hair. Her body had shrunk as her back hunched. She was so frail and deformed she could barely walk on her lily feet. I knew then that I didn’t want to live so long, yet here I am.

I offered tea and sweetmeats. We made small talk. I believed she didn’t remember who I was. I thought I could use this to my advantage. We chatted some more, then I came to the point.

“I’m looking for a good match for my grandson.”

“Shouldn’t I be speaking to the boy’s father?” Madame Wang asked.

“He is away and requested that I negotiate on his behalf.”

The old woman closed her eyes as she thought about this. Either that or she drifted off to sleep.

“I hear there is a good prospect in Jintian,” I went on loudly. “She is the daughter of the rent collector.”

What Madame Wang said next told me that she knew exactly who I was.

“Why not bring in the girl as a little daughter-in-law?” she asked. “Your threshold is very high. I’m sure your son and daughter-in-law would be happy with that arrangement.”

Actually, they were quite displeased with what I was doing. But what could they do? My son was a scholar. He had just passed the next level of the imperial examinations to become a
juren
at the very young age of thirty. Either his head was in the clouds or he was traveling the countryside. He rarely came home, and when he did it was with outlandish stories of what he’d seen: tall, grotesque foreigners with red beards, who had wives with waists so constricted that they couldn’t breathe and huge feet that flipflopped like just-caught fish. These tales aside, my son was filial and did what his father wanted, while my daughter-in-law had to obey me. Nevertheless, she had removed herself from these discussions entirely and retired to her room to weep.

“I’m not looking for a big-footed girl,” I said. “I want to marry in a girl who has the most perfect feet in the county.”

“This child has not begun that process. There are no guarantees—”

“But you have seen these feet, am I correct, Madame Wang? You are a good judge. What do you think the result will be?”

“The child’s mother may not know how to do a good job—”

“Then I will see to it myself.”

“You can’t bring the girl into
this
house if you intend a marriage,” Madame Wang said querulously. “It would be improper for your grandson to see his future wife.”

She had not changed, but then neither had I.

“You are right, Madame. I will visit the girl’s home.”

“That is hardly appropriate—”

“I will be visiting often. I have many things to teach her.” I watched Madame Wang mull that over. Then I leaned forward and covered the old woman’s hand with my own. “I believe, Auntie, that the girl’s grandmother would have approved.”

Tears welled in the matchmaker’s eyes.

“This girl will need to learn the womanly arts,” I continued hurriedly. “She will need to travel—not so far as to give her ambitions outside the women’s realm, but I think you would agree that she should visit the Temple of Gupo every year. They tell me there once was a man who made a special taro treat. I hear his grandson continues the legacy.”

I persisted in the negotiation, and Snow Flower’s granddaughter came under my protection. I personally bound her feet. I showed her all the mother love I could possibly give as I made her walk back and forth across the upstairs chamber of her natal home. Peony’s feet came to be perfect golden lilies, identical in size to my own. During the long months that Peony’s bones set, I visited her nearly every day. Her parents loved her very much, but her father tried not to think about the past and her mother did not know it. So I talked to the girl, weaving stories about her grandmother and her
laotong,
about writing and singing, about friendship and hardship.

“Your grandmother was born of an educated family,” I told her. “You will learn what she taught me—needlework, dignity, and, most important, our secret women’s writing.”

Peony was diligent in her studies, but one day she said to me, “My writing is crude. I hope you will be forgiving of me and it.”

She was Snow Flower’s granddaughter, but how could I not see myself in her too?

I SOMETIMES WONDER
which was worse, watching Snow Flower or my husband die. Both suffered greatly. Only one had a funeral procession in which three sons went on their knees all the way to the grave site. I was fifty-seven when my husband went to the afterworld, too old for my sons to think about having me marry out again or even worry about whether or not I would be a chaste widow. I was chaste. I had been for many years, only now I was doubly a widow. I have not written much about my husband in these pages. All of that is in my official autobiography. But I will say this: He gave me reasons to continue day after day. I had to make sure his meals were provided. I had to think of clever things to amuse him. With him gone, I ate less and less. I no longer cared to be an exemplar of womanhood in the county. Days drifted into weeks. I forgot about time. I ignored the cycles of the seasons. Years folded into decades.

The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you. I outlived nearly everyone—my parents, my aunt and uncle, my siblings, Madame Wang, my husband, my daughter, two of my sons, all of my daughters-in-law, even Yonggang. My eldest son became a
gongsheng
and then a
jinshi
scholar. The emperor himself read his eight-legged essay. As a court official, my son is away most of the time, but he has secured the Lu family’s position for generations to come. He is filial, and I know he will never forget his duties. He has even bought a coffin—big and lacquered—for me to rest in after I die. His name—along with those of his great-uncle Lu and Snow Flower’s great-grandfather—hangs in proud men’s characters in Tongkou’s ancestral temple. Those three names will be there until the building crumbles.

Peony is now thirty-seven, six years older than I was when I became Lady Lu. As the wife of my eldest grandson, she will become the new Lady Lu when I die. She has two sons, three daughters, and may yet have more children. Her eldest son married in a girl from another village. She recently gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. In their faces I see Snow Flower, but I also see myself. As girls we are told that we are useless branches, because we will not carry on our natal family names but only the names of the families we marry out to, if we are lucky enough to bear sons. In this way, a woman belongs to her husband’s family forever, whether she is alive or dead. All of this is true, and yet these days my contentment comes from knowing that Snow Flower’s and my blood will soon rule the house of Lu.