Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (16 page)

These words came from our contract, and I smiled at the memory.

I thought we would have our whole lives together. I never believed this day would come. It is sad that we came into this life wrong—as girls—but this is our fate. Lily, we have been like a pair of mandarin ducks. Now everything changes. In the coming days you will learn things about me. I have been restless and filled with apprehension. In my heart and in my mouth I have been weeping, thinking you will no longer love me. Please know that whatever you think of me, my opinion of you will never change.

Snow Flower

Can you imagine how I felt? Snow Flower had been very quiet these past weeks, because she’d been concerned that I would no longer love her. But how could that be? In my flower-sitting chair on my way to my husband, I knew
nothing
would ever change my feelings for Snow Flower. I had a terrible sense of foreboding and wanted to yell to the bearers to take me home so that I could ease my
laotong
’s fears.

But then we arrived at Tongkou’s main gate. Firecrackers spit and popped; the band clanged, tooted, and drummed their instruments. People unloaded my dowry. These things had to be taken straightaway to my new home so my husband could change into the wedding clothes I’d made for him. Then I heard a terrible but familiar sound. It was that of a chicken having its neck cut. Outside my flower-sitting chair, someone spattered the chicken’s blood on the ground to ward off any evil spirits that might have arrived with me.

At last my door opened, and I was helped out by a woman regarded to be the head of the village. The actual head woman was my mother-in-law, but for this purpose it was the woman in Tongkou with the most sons. She led me to my new home, where I stepped over the threshold and was presented to my in-laws. I knelt before them, touching my head to the ground three times. “I will obey you,” I said. “I will work for you.” Then I poured tea for them. After this, I was escorted to the wedding chamber, where I was left alone with the door open. I was now just moments away from meeting my husband. I had been waiting for this since the first time Madame Wang came to my house to see my feet, yet I was totally flustered, agitated, and confused. This man was a total stranger, so I was naturally curious about him. He would be the father of my children, so I was anxious about how that business was going to happen. And I had just received a mysterious letter from my old same and I was consumed with worry for her.

I heard people move a table to bar the door. I tilted my head just so, my tassels parted, and I saw my in-laws stack my wedding quilts on the table and place two cups of wine—one tied with green thread, the other with red thread, then both of them tied together—on top of the pile.

My husband entered the anteroom. Everyone cheered. This time I did not try to peek. I wanted to be as conventional as I could in this first meeting. From his side of the table, he pulled the red thread. From my side, I pulled the green thread. Then he jumped up on the table right onto the quilts and leaped into the room. With that action we were officially married.

What could I tell about my husband in the first instant that we stood side by side? I could smell that he had made a general cleaning of his body. By looking down I could see that the shoes I’d made for him were handsome on his feet and that his red wedding trousers were the exact right length. But the moment passed, and we moved on to Teasing and Getting Loud in the Wedding Chamber. My husband’s friends burst in, unsteady on their feet and feeble in their words from too much drink. They gave us peanuts and dates so we would have many children. They gave us sweets so we would have a sweet life. But they didn’t just hand a dumpling to me like they did to my husband. No! They tied the dumpling with a string and dangled it just above my mouth. They made me jump for it, making sure I never reached my goal. All the while, they made jokes. You know the kind. My husband would be as strong as a bull tonight, or I would be as submissive as a lamb, or my breasts looked like two peaches ready to burst the fabric of my jacket, or my husband would have as many seeds as a pomegranate, or if we used a particular position we would be guaranteed a first son. This is the same everywhere—low-class talk permitted on the first night of any marriage anywhere. And I played along, but inside I was growing more frantic.

I had been in Tongkou for hours. Now it was late at night. Outside on the street, villagers were drinking, eating, dancing, celebrating. A new round of firecrackers was set off, signaling everyone to go home. At long last, Madame Wang closed the door to the wedding chamber and my husband and I were alone.

He said, “Hello.”

I said, “Hello.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I’m not supposed to eat for another two days.”

“You have peanuts and dates,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone if you want to eat them.”

I shook my head and the little balls on my headdress shook and the silver pieces chimed prettily. My tassels parted and I saw that his eyes were cast down. He was looking at my feet. I blushed. I held my breath, hoping to still the tassels so he wouldn’t glimpse the emotions on my cheeks. I didn’t move and neither did he. I was sure he was still examining me. All I could do was wait.

Finally, my husband said, “I’ve been told you’re very pretty. Are you?”

“Help me with my headdress and find out for yourself.”

This came out more tartly than I intended, but my husband just laughed. A few moments later, he set the headdress on a side table. He turned back to face me. We were perhaps a meter apart. He searched my face and I boldly searched his. Everything Madame Wang and Snow Flower had said about him was true. He bore no pockmarks or scars of any kind. He was not as dark-skinned as Baba or Uncle, which told me that his hours in the family fields were few. He had high cheekbones and a chin that was confident but not impudent. An unruly shock of hair fell across his forehead, giving him a carefree look. His eyes sparkled with good humor.

He stepped forward, took my hands in his, and said, “I think we could be happy, you and I.”

Could a Yao nationality girl of seventeen hope for better words? Like my husband, I saw a golden future before us. That night, he followed all the correct traditions, even removing my bridal shoes and putting on my red sleeping slippers. I was so accustomed to Snow Flower’s gentle touch that I can’t really describe how I felt having his hands on my feet, except that this act seemed far more intimate to me than what came next. I didn’t know what I was doing, but neither did he. I just tried to imagine what Snow Flower would have done if she were under that strange man instead of me.

ON THE SECOND
day of my marriage, I rose early. I left my husband sleeping and stepped out into the hall. You know that feeling when you are sick with worry? This is how I’d felt from the moment I’d read Snow Flower’s letter, but I couldn’t do anything about it—not during my wedding, last night, or even now. I had to do my best to follow the prescribed course until I saw her again. But it was hard, because I was hungry, exhausted, and my body hurt. My feet were tired and sore from so much walking these last few days. I was uncomfortable in another place too, but I tried to blot out these things as I made my way to the kitchen, where a servant girl about ten years old sat on her haunches, apparently waiting for me. My own servant girl—no one had told me about that. People in Puwei didn’t have servants, but I recognized what she was because her feet had not been bound. Her name was Yonggang, which means
brave
and
strong like iron.
(This would prove to be true.) She had already built a fire in the brazier and hauled water to the kitchen. All I had to do was heat the water and take it to my in-laws so they could wash their faces. I also made tea for everyone in the household, and when they came to the kitchen I poured it without spilling a drop.

Later that day, my in-laws sent another round of pork and sweet cakes to my family. The Lus held a big feast in their ancestral temple, yet another banquet where I was not allowed to eat. Before everyone, my husband and I bowed to Heaven and Earth, my in-laws, and the Lu family ancestors. Then we passed through the temple, bowing to everyone who was older than we were. They, in turn, gave us money wrapped in red paper. Then—back to the wedding chamber.

The next day, the third of a marriage, is the one that all brides wait for, because the third-day wedding books that family and friends have made are read. But by now all I could think about was Snow Flower and that I would see her at the event.

Elder Sister and Elder Brother’s wife arrived, bringing the books and food I was finally allowed to eat. Many women from Tongkou joined the females of my husband’s family to read the words, but neither Snow Flower nor her mother came. This was beyond my comprehension. I was deeply hurt . . . and scared by Snow Flower’s absence. There I was at what is considered the happiest of all wedding rites, and I couldn’t enjoy it.

My
sanzhaoshu
contained all the usual lines about my family’s misery now that I would no longer be with them. At the same time, they extolled my virtues and repeated phrases such as
If only we could persuade that worthy family to wait a few years before taking you,
or
It is sad we are now separated,
while entreating my in-laws to be lenient and teach me their family customs with patience. Snow Flower’s
sanzhaoshu
was also what I expected, incorporating her love of birds. It began,
The phoenix mates the golden hen, a match made in heaven.
Again, the usual sentiments, even from my
laotong.

Truth

IF CIRCUMSTANCES HAD BEEN NORMAL, ON THE FOURTH DAY
after my wedding I would have gone back home to my family in Puwei, but I had long planned to go straight to Snow Flower’s house for her Sitting and Singing month. Now that I was close to seeing her again, I was more anxious than ever. I dressed in one of my good everyday outfits, a water-green silk jacket and pants embroidered with a bamboo pattern. I wanted to make a favorable impression not only on anyone I passed in Tongkou but also on Snow Flower’s family, whom I had heard so much about over these many years. Yonggang, the servant girl, led me through Tongkou’s alleyways. She carried my clothes, embroidery thread, cloth, and the third-day wedding book I had prepared for Snow Flower in a basket. I was happy for Yonggang’s guidance yet uncomfortable with her company. She was one of many things I would have to get used to.

Tongkou was far bigger and more prosperous than Puwei. The alleyways were clean, with no chickens, ducks, or pigs wandering freely. We stopped before a house that looked exactly how Snow Flower had described it—two stories, peaceful and elegant. I had not been there long enough to know the village’s customs, but one thing was exactly the same as in Puwei. We did not yell out greetings or knock to announce our arrival. Yonggang simply opened the main door to Snow Flower’s house and stepped inside.

I followed right behind and was immediately assailed by a strange odor, which combined night soil and rotting meat with an overlay of something sickeningly sweet. I had no idea what the source of that could be, except that somehow it seemed human. My stomach roiled, but my eyes rebelled even more, refusing to accept what they were seeing.

The main room was much larger than the one in my natal home, but with far less furniture. I saw a table but no chairs. I saw a carved balustrade leading to the women’s chamber, but other than these few things—which showed in their craftsmanship a much higher quality than anything in my natal home—there was nothing. No fire, even. It was late autumn now, and cold. The room was dirty too, with food scraps on the floor. I saw other doors that must have led to bedrooms.

This was not only completely different from what a passerby might have expected from seeing the exterior, but it was vastly different from what Snow Flower had described. I had to be in the wrong place.

By the ceiling were several windows, of which all but one had been sealed. A single ray of light from that window pierced the darkness. In the gloomy shadows, I spotted a woman squatting over a washbasin. She was dressed as a lowly peasant in ragged and dirty padded clothes. Our eyes met and she quickly averted her gaze. Keeping her head down, she stood up into the shaft of light. Her skin was beautiful, as pale and pure as porcelain. She wrapped the fingers of one hand around those of her other hand and bowed.

“Miss Lily, welcome, welcome.” She kept her voice low, not out of deference for my newly acquired higher status but at a timbre that seemed tamped down by fear. “Wait here. I will get Snow Flower.”

Now I was totally shocked. This had to be Snow Flower’s house. But how could it be? As the woman crossed the room to the stairs, I saw she had golden lilies, nearly as small as my own, which to my ignorant eyes seemed remarkable for someone from the servant class.

I listened very hard as the woman addressed someone upstairs. Then my ears heard the impossible—Snow Flower’s voice speaking in its most stubborn and argumentative tone. Shocked, that’s how I felt, utterly shocked. But beyond this one familiar sound, the house itself was eerily quiet. And in that silence I sensed something lurking like an evil spirit from the afterworld. My whole body resisted this experience. My skin crawled in revulsion. I shivered in my water-green silk outfit, which I’d worn to impress Snow Flower’s parents but which offered no protection against the damp wind that blew through the window or the fear I felt to be in this strange, dark, smelly, scary place.

Snow Flower emerged at the top of the stairs. “Come up,” she called down to me.

I stood paralyzed, trying desperately to absorb what I was seeing. Something touched my sleeve and I started.

“I don’t think the master would want me to leave you here,” Yonggang said, her face a mask of worry.

“The master knows where I am,” I responded, without thinking.

“Lily.” Snow Flower’s voice had a quality of sad desperation to it I had never heard before.

Then a memory from just a few days ago flashed in my mind. My mother had told me that as a woman I couldn’t avoid ugliness and I had to be brave. “You have promised to be united for life,” she’d said. “Be the lady you were meant to be.” She hadn’t been talking about bed business with my husband. She’d been talking about
this.
Snow Flower was my old same for life. I had a greater and deeper love for her than I could ever feel for the person who was my husband. This was the true meaning of a
laotong
relationship.

I took a step and heard something like a whimper from Yonggang. I didn’t know what to do. I had never had a servant before. I patted her shoulder hesitatingly. “Go along.” I tried to sound like a mistress should, however that was. “I will be fine.”

“If you need to leave for any reason, just step outside and call for help,” Yonggang suggested, still concerned. “Everyone here knows Master and Lady Lu. People will take you back to your in-laws’ home.”

I reached out and took the basket from her hand. When she didn’t budge, I nodded at her to move along. She sighed in resignation, bowed quickly, backed herself to the threshold, turned, and left.

With my basket gripped firmly in my hand, I climbed the stairs. As I neared Snow Flower, I saw that her cheeks were streaked with tears. Like the servant woman, she was dressed in gray, ill-fitting, and badly repaired padded clothes. I stopped one stair below the landing.

“Nothing has changed,” I said. “We are old sames.”

She took my hand, helped me up the final step, and led me into the women’s chamber. I could see that it too had been lovely at one time. It was perhaps three times the size of the women’s chamber in my natal home. Instead of vertical bars on the lattice window, an intricately carved wooden screen covered the opening. Otherwise, the room was empty but for a spinning wheel and a bed. The beautiful woman I had seen downstairs, her hands folded neatly in her lap, perched gracefully on the edge of the bed. Her peasant clothes couldn’t disguise her breeding.

“Lily,” Snow Flower said, “this is my mother.”

I crossed the room, linked my hands together, and bowed to the woman who had brought my
laotong
into this world.

“You must forgive our circumstances,” Snow Flower’s mother said. “I can only offer you tea.” She rose. “You girls have much to talk over.” With that, she swayed out of the room with the sublime grace that comes from feet perfectly bound.

When I left my natal home four days ago, tears had poured down my face. I was sad, happy, and afraid all at the same time. But now, as I sat with Snow Flower on her bed, I saw on her cheeks tears of remorse, guilt, shame, and embarrassment. I longed to yell at her,
Tell me!
Instead, I waited for the truth, realizing that each word from Snow Flower’s lips would cause her to lose whatever face she had left.

“Long before you and I met,” Snow Flower said at last, “my family was one of the best in the county. You can see”—she gestured around her helplessly—“this once was glorious. We were very prosperous. My great-grandfather the scholar received many
mou
from the emperor.”

I listened, my mind spinning.

“When the emperor died, my great-grandfather fell out of favor, so he came home to retire. Life was good. When he died, his son, my grandfather, took over. My grandfather had many workers and many servants. He had three concubines, but they gave him only daughters. My grandmother finally bore a son and secured her place. They married in my mother for that son. People said she was like Hu Yuxiu, who was so talented and charming she had attracted an emperor. My father wasn’t an imperial scholar, but he was educated in the classics. People said of him that he would one day be the headman of Tongkou. Mama believed it. Others saw a different future. My grandparents recognized in my father the weakness of having been raised as the only son in a house with too many sisters and too many concubines, while my aunt suspected that he was cowardly and susceptible to vice.”

Snow Flower’s eyes were distant as she relived a past that no longer existed. “Two years after I was born, my grandparents died,” she continued. “My family had everything—stunning clothes, plentiful food, lots of servants. My father took me on trips; my mother took me to the Temple of Gupo. I saw and learned a lot as a girl. But my father had to take care of Grandfather’s three concubines and marry out his four sisters by blood and the five half sisters who had come from the concubines. He also had to provide work, food, and shelter for the field workers and the house servants. Marriages for his sisters and half sisters were arranged. My father tried to show everyone what a big man he was. Each bride-price was more extravagant than the last. He began to sell fields to the big landowner in the west of our province so he could pay for more silk or for another pig to be slaughtered as a bride-price. My mother—you saw her—she is beautiful on the outside but inside she is much like I was before I met you: pampered, sheltered, and ignorant about women’s work other than embroidery and
nu shu.
My father . . .” Snow Flower hesitated, then blurted out, “My father took to the pipe.”

I remembered back to the day that Madame Gao had made such a nuisance of herself talking about Snow Flower’s family. She’d mentioned gambling and concubines but also that Snow Flower’s father had taken to the pipe. I was nine years old. I had thought he smoked too much tobacco. Now I realized not only that Snow Flower’s father had fallen victim to the opium pipe, but that everyone in the upstairs women’s chamber that day, except for me, had known exactly what Madame Gao was talking about. My mother knew, my aunt knew, Madame Wang knew. They had
all
known, yet every one of them had agreed that this common knowledge should not be shared with me.

“Is your father still alive?” I asked tentatively. Surely she would have told me if he’d died, but then again—given all her other lies—maybe not.

She nodded but offered nothing more.

“Is he downstairs?” I asked, thinking of the strange and disgusting smell that had pervaded the main room.

Her features went very still; then she lifted her eyebrows. I took this to mean yes.

“The turning point came with the famine,” Snow Flower resumed. “Do you remember that? We hadn’t met yet, but there was a particularly bad crop followed by a very cruel winter.”

How could I forget? The best we’d eaten was rice gruel flavored with dried turnips. Mama was frugal, Baba and Uncle barely ate, and we had survived.

“My father was not prepared,” Snow Flower admitted. “He smoked his pipe and forgot about us. One day my grandfather’s concubines left. Maybe they went back to their natal homes. Maybe they died in the snow. No one knows. By the time spring arrived, only my parents, my two brothers, my two sisters, and I lived in the house. On the surface we still had our elegant life, but in actuality the debt collectors were beginning to visit us regularly. My father sold off more fields. Finally, we had only the house. By then he cared more for his pipe than he did for us. Before he would pawn the furniture—oh, Lily, you can’t imagine how pretty everything was—he thought he would sell me.”

“Not as a servant!”

“Worse. As a little daughter-in-law.”

This had always been the most horrible thing I could imagine: not having your feet bound, being raised by strangers who had to be of such low morals that they didn’t want a proper daughter-in-law, being treated lower than a servant. And now that I was married I understood the most terrible aspect of this life. You might be nothing but a bit of bed business for any male who lived in the household.

“We were saved by my mother’s sister,” Snow Flower said. “After you and I became
laotong,
she arranged a so-so match for my elder sister. She does not come here anymore. Later my aunt sent my elder brother to apprentice in Shangjiangxu. Today my younger brother works in the fields for your husband’s family. My younger sister died, as you know—”

But I didn’t care about people I had never met and had only heard lies about. “What happened to
you
?”

“My aunt changed my future with scissors, cloth, and alum. My father objected, but you know Auntie Wang. Who’s going to say no to her once she’s made a decision?”