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For the last days of Snow Flower’s life, I took us on a journey throu h our lives together.We had both memorized so much that we could recite whole passag

gges, but she weakenedquickly and spent the rest of the time just holding my hand and listening.

At night, in bed together under the lattice window, the moonlight bathing us, we weretransported back to our hair-pinning days. I wrote nu shu characters on her palm. Thebed is lit by moonlight. . . . “What did I write?” I asked. “Tell me the characters.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t tell. . . .”

So I recited the poem and watched as tears dripped from the edges of Snow Flower’seyes, ran down her temples, and lost themselves in her ears.

During the last conversation we had, she asked, “Could you do one thing for me?”

“Anything,” I said, and I meant it.

“Please be an aunt to my children.”

I promised that I would.

Nothing helped or relieved Snow Flower’s suffering. In the final hours, I read her ourcontract, reminding her how we had gone to the Temple of Gupo and bought the redpaper, sat down together, and composed the words. I read again the letters we had senteach other. I read happy parts from our fan. I hummed old melodies from our childhood. Itold her how much I loved her and said I hoped she would be waiti for me in theafterworld. I talked her all the way to the edge of the sky, not wanting

ngng her to go yetyearning to release her into the clouds. Snow Flower’s skin went from ghostly white togolden. A lifetime of worries melted from her face. The sworn sisters, Spring Moon,Madame Wang, and I listened to Snow Flower’s breathing: an inhale, an exhale, then

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nothing. Seconds passed; then an inhale, an exhale, then nothing. More excruciatingseconds, then an inhale, an exhale, then nothing. The whole time I kept my hand on SnowFlower’s cheek, as she had done for me throughout our entire lives together, letting herknow that her laotong was there until that final inhale, exhale, and then truly nothing. somuch of what happened reminded me of the didactic story that Aunt used to chant aboutthe girl who had three brothers. I now understand that we learned those songs andstories not just to teach us how to behave but because we would be living out variationsof them over and over again throughout our lives.

Snow Flower was carried down to the main room. I washed her and dressed her in hereternity clothes—all of them ragged and faded, but in patterns I remembered from ourchildhood. The oldest sworn sister combed Snow Flower’s hair. The middle sworn sisterpatted Snow Flower’s face with powder and painted her li s. The youngest sworn sisterdecorated her hair with flowers. Snow Flower’s body was p

pplaced in a coffin. A small bandcame to play mourning music as we sat next to her in the main room. The oldest swornsister had enough money to buy incense to burn. The middle sworn sister had enoughmoney to buy paper to burn. The youngest sworn sister had no money for incense orpaper, but she did a very good job crying.

Three days later, the butcher, his son, and the husbands and sons of the sworn sisterscarried the coffin to the grave site. They walked very fast, as if they were flying across theground. I took almost all of Snow Flower’s nu shu writing, including much of what I hadsent her, and burned it so she would have our words in the afterworld.

We returned to the butcher’s house. Spring Moon made tea, while the three sworn sistersand I went upstairs to clean away all signs of death. It was through them that I learned ofmy greatest shame. They told me that Snow Flower was not their sworn sister. I didn’tbelieve it. They tried to convince me otherwise.

“But the fan?” I cried out in frustration. “She wrote that she was joining you.”

“No,” Lotus corrected. “She wrote that she didn’t want you to worry about her anymore,that she had friends here to console her.”

They asked if they could see the words for themselves. Snow Flower, I learned, had taughtthese women how to read nu shu. Now they crowded over the fan like a gaggle of hens,exclaiming and pointing out to one another hallmarks that Snow Flower had told themabout over the years. But when they came to the last entry, they turned serious.

“Look,” Lotus said, pointing to the characters. “There is nothing here about her becomingour sworn sister.”

I snatched the fan away and took it to a corner where I could examine it myself. I have toomany troubles, Snow Flower had written. I cannot be what you wish. You won’t have tolisten to my complaints anymore. Three sworn sisters have promised to love me as I am

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—

“You see, Lady Lu?” Lotus said to me from across the room. “Snow Flower wanted us tolisten to her. In exchange she taught us the secret language. She was our teacher, and werespected and loved her for that. But she didn’t love us, she loved you. She wanted thatlove returned, unburdened by your pity and your impatience.”

That I had been shallow, stubborn, and selfish did not alter the gravity and stupidity ofwhat I had done. I had made the greatest mistake for a woman literate in nu shu: I had notconsidered texture, context, and shades of meaning. More than that, m belief in my ownself-importance had made me forget what I had learned on the first day

yy I’d met SnowFlower: She was always more subtle and sophisticated in her words than this meresecond daughter of a common farmer. For eight ears, Snow Flower had suffered becauseof my blindness and ignorance. For the rest of my

yy life— which has been nearly as manyyears as Snow Flower was when she died—I have lived with the regret.

But they were not done with me.

“She tried to please you in every way,” Lotus said, “even by doing bed business with herhusband too soon after giving birth.”

“That’s not true!”

“Every time she lost a baby, you offered no more sympathy than her husband or mother-in-law,” Willow went on. “You always said that her only worth was from giving birth tosons, and she believed you. You told her to try again, and she obeyed.”

“This is what we are supposed to say,” I answered indignantly. “This is how we womengive comfort—”

“But do you think those words were a consolation when she had lost another baby?”

“You weren’t there. You didn’t hear—”

“Try again! Try again! Try again!” Plum Blossom taunted. “Can you deny you said thesethings?”

I couldn’t.

“You demanded that she follow your advice on this and many other things,” Lotus pickedup. “Then when she did, you criticized her—” “You’re changing my meaning.”

“Are we?” Willow asked. “She talked about you all the time. She never said a bad wordagainst you, but we heard the truth of what happened.” “She loved you as a laotongshould for everything that you were and everything you were not,” Plum Blossomconcluded. “But you had too much man-thinking in you. You loved her as a man would,valuing her only for following men’s rules.”

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Finished with one cycle, Lotus began another.

“Do you remember when we were in the mountains and she lost the baby?” she asked, ina tone that made me dread what was coming.

“Of course I remember.”

“She was already sick.”

“That’s not possible. The butcher—”

“Maybe her husband brought it on that day,” Willow admitted. “But the blood that burstfrom her body was black, stagnant, dying, and none of us saw a baby in that mess.”

Again, Plum Blossom finished. “We were here with her for many years, and this thinghappened several more times. She was already quite sick when you sang your Letter ofVituperation.”

I hadn’t been able to argue successfully with them before. How could I argue this pointnow? The tumor had to have been growing for a very long time. Other things from backthen fell into place: Snow Flower’s loss of appetite, her skin going so pale, and her loss ofenergy at the very moment when I was nagging her to eat better, pinch her cheeks to lure in more color, and do all of her expected chores to bring harmony to her husband’s home.And then I remembered that just two weeks back when I’d first arrived in this house,she’d apologized. I hadn’t done the same— not even when she was in her worst pain, noteven when her death was imminent, not even when I was smugly telling myself I stillloved her. Her heart had always been pure, but mine had been as shriveled, hard, and dry as an old walnut.

I sometimes think about those sworn sisters—all dead now, of course. They had to becareful in what they said to me, because I was Lady Lu. But they were not going to let me walk away from that house without knowing the truth.

I went home and retired to my upstairs chamber with the fan and a few saved letters. Iground ink until it was as black as the night sky. I opened the fan, dipped my brush into the ink, and made what I thought would be my final entry.

You who always knew my heart now fly above the clouds in the warmth of the sun. I hope one day we will soar together. I would have many years to consider those lines and dowhat I could to change all the harm I had caused to the person I loved most in the world.

Sitting Quietly

Regret i am now too old to use my hands to cook, weave, or embroider, and looking atthem 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 thatpools of blood collect just under the surface where I bump into things or things bump into第 181 页 共 189 页

me. My hands are tired from grinding ink against the inkstone, my knuckles swollen fromholding my brush. Two flies sit on my thumb, but I’m too weary to shoo them away. Meyes—the watery eyes of a very old lady—have been watering too much these past day

yys.My hair—gray and thin—has fallen from the pins that should hold it in place beneath myheaddress. 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 werenot over, but in my heart I began my years of sitting quietly. For most women, this beginswith their husband’s death. For me, it began with Snow Flower’s death. I was “the onewho has not died,” but things kept me from being completely still or quiet. My husbandand 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 makeamends to my laotong. But it’s hard to be truly generous and behave in a forthrightmanner when you don’t know how.

The first thing I did in the months immediately following Snow Flower’s death was totake her place in all her daughter’s wedding traditions and ceremonies. Spring Moonseemed resigned to the prospect of marriage, sad to be leaving home, uncertain—havingseen the way her father treated her mother—about what lay in store for her. I told myselfthese were the kinds of things all girls worry about. But on her wedding night, after hernew husband fell asleep, Spring Moon committed suicide by throwing herself in thevillage 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 acrossmy conscience, so I hushed this talk whenever I heard it. Through my words, I becameknown as someone who was forgiving and charitable to the unclean, but I knew that inmy first attempt to make things right with Snow Flower I had failed miserably. The day Iwrote 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 andno support from his father, he had picked up a bit of men’s writing and was good atnumbers. Nevertheless, he worked at his father’s side and had no more joy in his life thanhe had when he was younger. I met his wife, who still lived with her natal family. Thistime a good choice had been made. The girl became pregnant, but the thought that shewould be falling into the butcher’s house pained me. Although it is not my way tointerfere with the outer realm of men, I prevailed upon my husband—who had not onlyinherited Uncle Lu’s vast holdings but had added to them from the salt business profitsand now had fields that stretched all way to Jintian—to find something for this youngman to do besides slaughter pigs. He hired Snow Flower’s son to collect rents from thefarmers and gave him a house with its own kitchen garden. Eventually the butcherretired, moved in with his son, and began doting on his grandson, who brought big joy to

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that home. The young man and his family were happy, but I knew that I still had not doneenough to earn my way back to Snow Flower.

at age fifty, when my monthly bleeding stopped, my life changed again. I experienced ashift from waiting on others to having others wait on me, though I certainly watched whatthey did and corrected them for anything not done to my satisfaction. But as I said, in myheart I was already sitting quietly. I became a vegetarian and abstained from such warmfoods as garlic and wine. I contemplated religious sutras, practiced cleansing rituals, andhoped to renounce the polluting aspects of bed business. Although I had conspired myentire married life for my husband never to bring in a concubine, I looked at him and feltsympathy for him. He deserved the rewards of a lifetime of hard work. I did not wait forhim to act—perhaps he never would have—but took it upon myself to find and bring intoour home not one but three concubines to entertain him. By choosing them myself, I wasable to prevent many of the jealousies and petty disagreements that usuall arrive withpretty young women. I did not mind when they gave birth. And, in truth, my

yy husband’sesteem grew in the village. He had proved that he could not only afford the women butthat his chi was stronger than any man’s in the county.

My relationship with my husband turned into one of great companionship. He often cameto the women’s chamber to drink tea and talk with me. The solace that he found in thequiet of the inner realm caused his worries about the chaos, instability, and corruption ofthe outer realm to melt away. We were more content together at this time than perhapsat a other in our entire lives. We had planted a garden, and it bloomed around us in somany

nyny ways. All of our sons married in. All of their wives proved to be fertile. Our homewas merry with the sounds of grandchildren. We loved them, but there was one child notof 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 thatchild—Snow Flower’s granddaughter—to become my eldest grandson’s wife. Age six isnot too early for Contracting a Kin, if both families want to seal a betrothal for a prizedcouple, if the groom’s family is willing to begin delivering bride-price gifts, and if thebride’s family is poor enough to need them. I felt that we met all the conditions, and myhusband—after thirty-two years of marriage, during which I had never caused him to beembarrassed or ashamed of me—was generous enough to grant me this request.