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had to do what he said.

Snow Flower took me back upstairs to the women’s chamber, where she made a bed withsome of her clean, though frayed, dowry quilts. On the cabinet she placed a low bowlfilled with warm water for me to wash my face. Oh, how I wanted to dip a cloth into thatwater and wipe away the cares that played across my laotong’s features. As I thought this,she brought out an outfit almost identical to hers—almost, because I remembered when she had pieced it together from one of her mother’s dowry treasures. Snow Flower leanedforward, kissed my cheek, and whispered in my ear, “Tomorrow we will have all day together. I will show you my embroidery and what I have done on our fan. We will talkand remember.” Then she left me alone.

I blew out the lantern and lay beneath the quilts. The moon was nearly full, and the blue light that came through the lattice window transported me back many years. I buried my face in the folds where Snow Flower’s scent was as fresh and delicate as when we hadbeen in our hair-pinning years. The memory of low moans of pleasure filled my ears.Alone in that dark room I blushed at things perhaps best forgotten. But the sounds didn’tgo away. I sat up. The noises were not in my head but coming up to me from Snow Flower’s room. My laotong and her husband were doing bed business! My laotong may have become a vegetarian, but she was no Wife Wang of the story. I covered my ears and tried to fall asleep, but it was hard. My good fortune had made me impatient andintolerant. The polluted and polluting nature of that place and the people who lived there rasped against my senses, my flesh, my soul.

The next morning, the butcher left for the day and his mother went back to her room. Ihelped Snow Flower wash and dry the dishes, bring in firewood, haul water, slice thevegetables for the midday meal, go to the shed where the sides of pork were kept to fetchmeat, and attend to her daughter. Once all this was done, Snow Flower set water to heatthat we could use for bathing. She carried the kettle back upstairs to the women’s chamber and shut the door. We had never had any inhibitions. Why would we now? The air in that little house was surprisingly warm even though it was the tenth month, butgoose bumps rose on my skin behind the path of Snow Flower’s wet cloth.

But how do I say this without sounding like a husband? When I looked at her I saw thather pale skin—always so beautiful—had begun to thicken and darken. Her hands— always so smooth—felt rough on my skin. Lines were etched above her lip and at thecorners of her eyes. Her hair was pinned back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck.Strands of gray threaded through it. She was my age—thirty-two. Women in our county often do not live beyond forty years, but I had just seen my mother-in-law go to theafterworld, and she had still looked very handsome for a woman who had reached theremarkable age of fifty-one.

That night, more pig for dinner.

i didn’t realize it then, but the outer realm—that tumultuous world of men—was pushing第 137 页 共 189 页

its way into Snow Flower’s and my lives. During my second night at her house, we wereawakened by terrible sounds. We met in the main room and huddled together, all of us,even the butcher, terrified. Smoke filled the room. A house—maybe a whole village—wasburning somewhere. Dust and ash settled on our clothes. The clatter of clanging metaland the beat of horses’ hooves pounded into our heads. In the dark of night, we had noidea what was happening. Was it a catastrophe in just one village or was this somethingmuch worse?

A big disaster was coming. The people who lived in villages behind us began to flee,leaving their farms for the safety of the hills. From Snow Flower’s window the nextmorning, we saw them—men, women, and children—on hand-drawn or oxen-pulledcarts, on foot, on ponies. The butcher ran to the edge of the village and shouted to thestream of refugees.

“What’s happened? Is it war?”

Voices called back.

“The Emperor has sent word to Yongming City that our government must take actionagainst the Taipings!”

“Imperial troops have arrived to drive out the rebels!”

“There’s fighting everywhere!”

The butcher cupped his hands and yelled, “What should we do?”

“Run away!”

“The battle will be here soon!”

I was petrified, overwhelmed, and dazed with panic. Why didn’t my husband come forme? Again and again I berated myself for choosing this time—after all these years—tovisit Snow Flower. But this is the nature of fate. You make choices that are good andsound, but the gods have other plans for you.

I helped Snow Flower assemble bags for her and the children. We went to the kitchen andgathered together a large sack of rice, tea, and liquor for drinking and to treat injuries.Finally, we rolled four of Snow Flower’s wedding quilts into tight bundles and set them bythe door. When everything was ready, I dressed in my silk traveling outfit, went outsideto stand on the platform, and waited for my husband, but he didn’t come. I looked u theroad to Tongkou. A stream of people were leaving there too, only instead of going up

pp intothe hills behind the village they were crossing the fields, going toward Yongming City. Thetwo trails of people—one going into the hills, the other going to town—confused me.Hadn’t Snow Flower always said that the hills were the arms that embraced us? If so, whywere the people of Tongkou going the opposite direction?

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In the late afternoon, I saw a palanquin leave the Tongkou group and veer toward Jintian.I knew it was coming for me, but the butcher refused to wait.

“It’s time to go!” he bellowed.

I wanted to remain behind and wait for my family to get me. The butcher said no.

“Then I will walk out and meet the palanquin,” I said. So many times sitting at my lattice window I’d imagined walking here. Couldn’t I now go toward my family?

The butcher chopped his hand through the air to prevent me from saying another word.“Many men are coming. Do you know what they will do to a lone woman? Do you know what your family will do to me if anything happens to you?”

“But—”

“Lily,” Snow Flower cut in, “come with us. We’ll be gone for only a few hours, then we’llsend you to your family. It is better to be safe.”

The butcher lifted his mother, his wife, the youngest children, and me into the cart. As heand the eldest son began to push us, I looked back across the fields behind Jintian. Flames and plumes of smoke billowed into the air.

Snow Flower kept passing water to her husband and eldest son. It was deep into fall now,and when the sun set the chill came down on all of us, but Snow Flower’s husband andson sweated as if it were the middle of a summer day. Without being asked, Spring Moon hopped down from the cart, taking her little brother with her. She carried the boy on her hip, then on her back. Finally, she set him on the ground, took his hand, and kept her other hand on the cart.

The butcher assured his wife and mother that we would be stopping soon, but we didn’tstop. We were part of a trail of misery that night. At the time of the most forbiddingdarkness just before dawn, we hit the first steep hill. The butcher’s face strained, his veinsbulged, his arms shook with the effort of trying to push the cart up the hill. Finally he gave out, collapsing behind us. Snow Flower slid to the edge of the cart, hung her legs over theside for a moment, then let them drop to the ground. She looked at me. I looked back. The sky behind Snow Flower was red with fire. The sounds that traveled on the wind pushedme out of the cart. Snow Flower and I tied two quilts apiece to our backs. The butcher slung the sack of rice over his shoulder and the children carried as much of the other foodas possible. I realized something. If we were only going to be gone for a few hours, whyhad we brought so much food? I might not see my husband and children for several days.In the meantime, I’d be out here in the elements, with the butcher. I put my hands over my face to collect myself. I could not let him see my weakness.

On foot we joined the others. Snow Flower and I took the butcher’s mother’s arms andpulled her up the hill. She weighed us down, but how like her rat personality this was!第 139 页 共 189 页

When Buddha wanted the rat to spread his word, the wily creature tried to get a free ridefrom the horse. The horse wisely said no, which is why the two signs have not been agood match ever since. But on that terrible path on that hideous night, what could we twohorses do? The men around us wore grim faces. They had left behind their homes andlivelihoods, and now they wondered if they would return to piles of ash. The women’sfaces were streaked with tears of fear and from the pain of walking farther in one nightthan in their entire lives since footbinding. The children did not complain. They were toofrightened. We had only just begun our escape.

Late the next afternoon—and we had not stopped once—the road narrowed to a paththat wound up steeper and steeper. Too many sights bruised our eyes. Too many soundsscratched our ears. Sometimes we passed old men or women who had sat down to rest,never to get up again. In our county I could not have imagined that I would see parentsabandoned in this way. Often, as we went by, we heard mumbled requests, last wordsspoken to a son or daughter and repeated now as final sustenance:

“Leave me. Come back tomorrow when this is over.” Or, “Keep going. Save the sons.Remember to set an altar for me at Spring Festival.” Every time we passed someone likethat, my thoughts traveled to my mother.

She could not have made this journey with only her cane for support.

Would she have asked to be left behind? Would Baba have deserted her?

Would Elder Brother?

My feet hurt as they had duri my footbinding and pain shot up my legs with each step.But I was lucky in my suffering

ngng. I saw women my age and younger—women in their rice-and-salt years—whose feet had broken under the stress of walking so far or hadfractured into bits against a rock. From the ankle up the were unhurt, but they werecompletely crippled. They lay there, not moving, only cry

yying, waiting to die from thirst,starvation, or cold. But we kept going, never looking back, burying shame in our emptyhearts, shutting out the sounds of agony and sorrow as best we could.

When the second night fell and our world grew black, despondency enveloped all of us.Belongings were abandoned. People got separated from their families. Husbandssearched for wives. Mothers called out for their children. It was late fall, the season whenfootbinding begins, so many times we encountered young girls whose bones had recentlybroken and who were now left behind, as had food, extra clothes, water, traveling altars,dowry gifts, and family treasures. We also saw little boys—third, fourth, or fifth sons— who begged anyone who passed for help. But how can you help others when you have tokeep moving while holding tightly to your favorite child’s hand with your husband’s handtightly grasping yours? If you are afraid for your life, you don’t think about others. Youthink only about the people you love, and even that may not be enough.

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We had no bells to tell us what time it was, but it was dark and we were beyond tired. Wehad been walking now for more than thirty-six hours— without rest, without food, andwith only the occasional sip of water. We began to hear horrible long screams. We couldnot imagine what they were. The temperature dropped. Around us leaves and branchescollected frost. Snow Flower wore her indigo cotton and I was in my silk. Neither of ouroutfits would be much protection against what was to come. Beneath our shoes, the rocksbecame slippery. I was sure my feet were bleeding, because they felt oddly warm. Still, wekept walking. The butcher’s mother staggered between us. She was a weak old woman,but her rat personality had a will to live.

The path narrowed to a third of a meter. To our right, the mountain— I cannot call it a hillany longer—rose so steeply it touched our shoulders as we trudged single file. To our left,the mountain fell away into blackness. I could not see what was down there. But on thetrail ahead of me and behind me were many bound-footed women. We were like flowersin a gale. Our feet were not our only weakness. Our leg muscles—which had neverworked this hard—ached, quivered, shook, and spasmed.

For an hour, we followed a family—father, mother, and three children— until the womanslipped on a rock and fell into that pit of darkness below us. Her scream was loud andlong, until it abruptly ended. We’d been hearing this kind of death all night. From thereon, I passed one hand over the other, grabbing at weeds, allowing my hands to be torn bythe jagged rocks that poked from the cliff to my right. I would do anything to keep frombecoming another scream in the night.

We came to a sheltered bowl. The mountains were silhouetted against the sky around us.Small fires burned. We were up high, yet with this dip in the landscape the Taipings couldnot see the glow from the fires, or at least we hoped they couldn’t. We edged our waydown into the bowl.

Perhaps because I was without my family I saw only children’s faces in the firelight. Theireyes had a glazed and empty look. Perhaps the had lost a grandmother or a grandfather.Perhaps they had lost a mother or a sister. They

yy were all frightened. No one should see achild in that condition. We stopped when Snow Flower recognized three families fromJintian who had found a relatively sheltered spot under a large tree. They saw the butcherhad a sack of rice on his back and scooted over to make room for us by the fire. Once I satwith my feet and hands close to the flames, they began to burn, not from the heat butfrom the frozen bones and flesh beginning to thaw.

Snow Flower and I rubbed her children’s hands. They wept quietly, even the eldest boy.We pushed the three children together and covered them with a quilt. Snow Flower and Inestled together under another, while the mother-in-law took an entire quilt for herself.The last was for the butcher. He waved at us dismissively. He pulled one of the men fromJintian aside, whispered a few words, and nodded. He knelt down beside Snow Flower.

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Snow Flower gripped his arm. “Don’t go! Don’t leave us.”

“Without a fire, we won’t last the night,” he said. “Don’t you feel it? Snow is coming.” Hegently pried Snow Flower’s fingers from his arm. “Our neighbors will look after you whileI’m gone. Do not be afraid. And”—here he lowered his voice—“if you have to, push thesepeople away from the fire. Make room for yourself and your friend. You can do it.”

And I thought, Maybe she can’t, but I couldn’t allow myself to die up here without myfamily.

As tired as we all were, we were too scared to sleep or even close our eyes. And we wereall hungry and thirsty. In our little circle around the fire, the women—who I learned laterwere post-marriage sworn sisters— distracted us from our fears by singing a story. It’s afunny thing that although my mother-in-law was extremely literate in nu shu—perhapsbecause she was so familiar with such a variety of characters—singi and chanting hadnot been very important to her. She was more interested in composing