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great.

But I didn’t abandon my children easily. My other sisters-in-law were with their ownfamilies in their own rooms. I didn’t know what was happening behind their closed doors.They might have already taken sick.

They might have already died. I couldn’t trust my father-in-law with the care of mychildren either. Had he not spent the night beside his wife? Wouldn’t he be the next to getsick? And I had not seen Uncle Lu since the epidemic began, although he left his emptybowl outside his room each morning and evening for me to refill.

I sat in the kitchen, twisting my fingers with worry. Yonggang came over, knelt before me,and said, “I will watch your children.” I remembered how she had escorted me to SnowFlower’s house just after my wedding, how she had cared for me after I’d given birth tom babies, and how she had turned out to be loyal and discreet in carrying my letters tomy

yy laotong. She had done all this for me, and along the way, with-out my noticing, shehad grown from a ten-year-old girl into a big-boned, big-footed young woman of twenty-four. To me, she was still as ugly as a pig’s genitals, but I knew she had not yet fallen illand that she would care for my children as though they were her own.

I gave her exact instructions for how I wanted their water and food prepared, and I gaveher a knife to keep with her in case things got worse and she had to guard the door. Withthat, I left my children in the hands of the fates and turned my attention to my husband’smother.

For the next five days, I cared for my mother-in-law in all the ways a daughter-in-law can.I cleaned her lower half when she no longer had the strength to use the chamber pot. Imade her the same congee that I had made my children; then I cut my arm as I had seenmy mother do so that my vital fluid could be stirred into the porridge. This is a daughterinlaw’s

supreme gift and I gave it, hoping that through some miracle what had given mevitality would replenish hers.

But I don’t have to tell you how terrible this disease is. You know what happens. She died.She had always been fair, and often kind, to me, so it was hard to say goodbye. When herlast breath seeped out, I knew I couldn’t do everything that should be done for a womanof her stature. I washed her soiled and desiccated body in warm water scented withsandalwood. I dressed her in her longevity clothes and tucked her nu shu writing in herpockets, sleeves, and tunic. Unlike a man, she had not written to leave a good name for ahundred generations. She had written to tell her friends of her thoughts and emotions,and they had written her in the same way. Under other circumstances, I would haveburned these things at her grave site. But with the heat and the epidemic, bodies had tobe buried quickly with little thought given to issues of feng shui, nu shu, or filial duty. All Icould do was make sure my mother-in-law would have the comfort of her friends’ wordsfor reading and singing in the afterworld. As soon as I was done, her body was cartedaway for a hasty burial. My mother-in-law had lived a long life. I could be happy for her in第 132 页 共 189 页

that regard. And, because my mother-in-law died, I became the head woman of thehousehold, though my husband was still away. Now the sisters-inlaw would have toanswer to me. They would need to remain in my good graces to receive favorabletreatment. With the concubines also dead, I looked forward to more harmony, because on one thing I was very clear: There would be no more concubines under this roof.

Just as the servants had intuited, the disease was leaving our county. We opened our doors and took stock. In our household, we had lost my mother-in-law, my third brother-in-law, his entire family, and the concubines. Brothers Two and Four survived, as didtheir families. In my natal family, Mama and Baba died. Of course I regretted that I hadnot spent more time with them on my last visit, but Baba and I had stopped having muchof a relationship after I had my feet bound, and things had never been the same withMama after our argument over the lies she had kept about Snow Flower. As a married-outdaughter, my only obligation was to mourn my parents for a year. I tried to honor my monkey mother for what she had done to and for me, but I was not heartsick with grief.All in all, we were lucky. Uncle Lu and I did not exchange words. That would have been improper. But when he came out of his room he was no longer a benign uncle idling away his retirement years. He drilled my son with such intensity, focus, and dedication that we never had to hire an outside tutor again. My son never shirked in his studies, buoyed bythe knowledge that the night of his wedding and the day his name appeared on theemperor’s golden list would be the most glorious of his life. In the former, he would befulfilling his role as a filial son; in the latter, he would leap from the obscurity of our littlecounty to such fame that the whole of China would know him.

But before any of that happened, my husband came home. I cannot begin to explain therelief I felt as I saw his palanquin come up the main road, followed by a procession ofoxen-pulled carts loaded with bags of salt and other goods. All the things I had worriedabout and cried about were not going to happen to me—at least not yet. I was swept up inthe happiness that all of Tongkou’s women showed as our men unloaded the carts. We allcried, releasing the burdens, fear, and grief we had been carrying. For me—for all of us— my husband was the first good sign that any of us had seen in months.

The salt was sold throughout the county to desperate but grateful people. The extravagance of these sales washed away our financial worries. We paid our taxes. We bought back the fields we’d had to sell. The Lu family’s standing and wealth abounded.That year’s harvest turned out to be bountiful, which made autumn even more celebratory. Having weathered dark days, we could not have been more relieved. My father-in-law hired artisans to come to Tongkou and paint additional friezes under our eaves that would tell our neighbors and all those who would visit our village in the future of our prosperity and good luck. I could walk outside today and see them now: my husband in his jacket boarding the boat to take him downriver, his dealings with theGuilin merchants, the women of our household wearing flowing gowns and doing our embroidery as we waited, and my husband’s joyous return.

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Everything is painted under our eaves just as it happened, except for the portrait of myfather-in-law. In the frieze he sits in a high-backed chair, surveying all he owns andlooking proud, but in reality he missed his wife and no longer had the heart to care forworldly things. He died quietly one day, walking the fields. Our first duties were to be thebest mourners the county had ever seen. My father-in-law was laid in a coffin and placedoutside for five days. With our new money, we hired a band to play music, all day and allnight. People from around the county came to kowtow before the coffin. They broughtwith them gifts of money wrapped in white envelopes, silk banners, and scrolls decoratedwith men’s writing praising my father-in-law. All the brothers and their wives went ontheir knees to the grave site. The people of Tongkou plus others from neighboring villagesfollowed behind us on foot. We were a river of white in our mourning clothes as weinched our way through the green fields. At every seven paces, everyone kowtowed,foreheads to the ground. The grave site was a kilometer away, so you can imagine howmany times we stopped on that rocky road.

Young and old wailed their grief, while the band blared their horns, trilled their flutes,crashed their cymbals, and banged their drums. As the eldest son, my husband burnedpaper money and set off firecrackers. The men sang; the women sang. My husband hadalso hired several monks, who performed rites to help lead my father-in-law—and, wehoped, all those who had died in the epidemic—to a happy existence in the spirit world.Following the burial, we hosted a banquet for the entire village. As the guests went home,high-ranking Lu cousins gave each person a goodluck coin in paper, a piece of candy towash away the bitter taste of death, and a washing towel for body cleansing. That tookcare of the first week of rites. Altogether we had forty-nine days of ceremonies, offerings,banquets, speeches, music, and tears. By the end—although my husband and I were notyet done with our official mourning period—everyone in the county knew that we were,at least in name, the new Master and Lady Lu.

Into the Mountains

i still did not know what had happened to snow flower and her family during the typhoidoutbreak. In my concern for my children, in my duties to my mother-in-law, and in the joyof my husband’s return, followed by my father-in-law’s death and funeral, and finall bymy husband and I becoming Master and Lady Lu sooner than perhaps we were ready

yy, Ihad—for the first time in my life—forgotten about my laotong. Then she sent me a letter.

Dear Lily,

I hear you are alive. I am sorry about your in-laws. I am sadder still to hear of your mamaand baba. I loved them very much.

We survived the epidemic. In the early days, I miscarried—another girl. My husband saysit is just as well. If I had carried all my children to term, I would have four daughters—adisaster. Still, three times to hold a dead child in your hands is three too many.

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You always tell me to try again. I will. I wish I could be like you and have three sons. Asyou say, sons are a woman’s worth. Many people died here. I would tell you things arequieter now, but my mother-in-law lives. She says bad things about me every day, turningmy husband against me.

I invite you to visit. My lowly gate hardly compares to yours, but I long to put our troublesbehind us. If you love me, please come. I want to be together before we begin binding ourdaughters’ feet. We have much to talk about in this regard.

Snow Flower

With my mother-in-law in the afterworld, I thought constantly of what she had told meabout a wife’s duty: “Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.” Without my mother-inlaw’s

watchful eyes, I could finally see Snow Flower openly.

My husband had plenty of objections: Our sons were now eleven, eight, and one-and-ahalf,

our daughter had recently turned six, and he liked me to be at home. I eased hisconcerns over several days. I sang to him to calm his mind. I gave each of the childrenprojects, which soothed their father’s heart. I prepared all his favorite dishes. I washedand massaged his feet each night after he came in from roaming the fields. I attended tohis below-the-belt area. He still did not want me to go, and I wish I had listened.

On the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month, I put on a lavender silk tunic I hadembroidered with a chrysanthemum pattern appropriate for fall. I had once thought thatthe only clothes I would ever wear were the ones I had made during my hair-pinningdays. I hadn’t considered that my mother-in-law would die and leave behind heruntouched bolts or that my husband would make enough riches that I would be able tobuy unlimited quantities of the very best Suzhou silk. But knowing I was going to SnowFlower and remembering the way she had worn my clothes when we were girls, I tooknothing else for the three nights I would be away.

The palanquin dropped me before Snow Flower’s house. She sat waiting on the platformoutside her threshold, dressed in a tunic, pants, apron, and headdress of soiled, worn, andoorly dyed indigo and white cotton. We did not go inside right away. Snow Flower wasp

ppleased to have me beside her in the cooling afternoon air. As she chattered on about thisand that, I saw clearly for the first time the giant wok where the pig carcasses were boiledto remove their hair and loosen their skin. Inside the open door of an outbuilding, Iglimpsed meat hanging from beams. The smell turned my stomach. But what was worsewas the mother pig and her babies who kept coming up onto the platform, looking forfood. After Snow Flower and I finished our lunch of steamed water grass and rice, shetook our bowls and set them at our feet so the sow and her babies could eat what we’dleft behind.

When we saw the butcher returning home—pushing a cart loaded with four baskets, each

containing a pig stretched out full length on its belly— we went upstairs, where Snow

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Flower’s daughter embroidered and her mother-in-law cleaned cotton. The room wasmusty and gloom . Snow Flower’s lattice window was even smaller and less decoratedthan the one in my

yy natal home, though I could see through it to my window in Tongkou.Even up here we could not escape the smell of pig.

We sat down and spoke of what was foremost in our minds—our daughters.

“Have you thought about when we should start their footbinding?” Snow Flower asked.

It was right and proper for it to begin this year, but I hoped from Snow Flower’s questionthat she and I were of the same mind. “Our mothers waited until we were seven, and wehave been happy together ever since,” I ventured carefully.

Snow Flower’s face broke into a broad grin. “This is exactly what I thought. You and I hadour eight characters matched so perfectly. Should we not only match our daughters’ eightcharacters but also match those eight characters to ours as much as possible? They couldstart their binding on the same day and at the same age as we did.”

I looked over at Snow Flower’s daughter. Spring Moon had her mother’s beauty at thatage—silken skin and soft black hair—but her demeanor seemed resigned as she sat withher head down, squinting at her embroidery as she assiduously tried not to eavesdrop onher fate. “They will be like a pair of mandarin ducks,” I said, relieved that we had come tosuch an easy agreement, though I’m sure we were both hoping that our matchedcharacters would make up for the fact that the girls’ eight characters were not soperfectly in accord.

Snow Flower was truly lucky to have Spring Moon; otherwise she would have been leftalone all day with her mother-in-law. Let me say this: That woman was still as biting andmean-spirited as I remembered. She had but one refrain: “Your oldest son is no betterthan a girl. He’s a weakling. How will he ever have the strength to slaughter a pig?” Ithought something not befitting Lady Lu: Why couldn’t the spirits have taken her in theepidemic?

Our evening meal brought back tastes from my childhood before my dowry gifts began toarrive—preserved long beans, pigs’ feet in chili sauce, wok-fried slivers of pumpkin, andred rice. Every meal when I was in Jintian was the same in the sense that we always hadsome part of the pig. Pi fat in black beans, pig ears in a clay pot, flaming pig intestines,pig penis sautéed with g

ggarlic and chili. Snow Flower ate none of it, quietly eating hervegetables and rice.

After dinner, her mother-in-law retired for the night. Although tradition says that two oldsames should share a bed when visiting—meaning the husband sleeps elsewhere—thebutcher announced that he would not remove himself to other quarters. His excuse?“There is nothing so evil as a woman’s heart.” This was an old saying and probably true,but it was not a gracious thing to say to Lady Lu. Nevertheless, it was his house and we