The Bathing Women. Tie Ning

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СКАЧАТЬ River Farm. But as she bustled around, the one tiny advantage of the Reed River Farm occurred to her: they didn’t need to cook there; they ate in the canteen. She made several odd-looking dishes, asking Tiao over and over again where the seasonings were. Spicy soy sauce and fennel—she had completely forgotten where they were. Finally, she planned to make a dessert: grilled miniature snowballs. She mentioned it to Tiao and Tiao said, “That’s my dad’s dish. No one knows how to make it when he’s not home.”

      “Why can’t we make it? Aren’t fresh milk, eggs, and sugar all we need?”

      “We also need vanilla and citric acid. Without citric acid, milk will stay liquid. It won’t become miniature snowballs.”

      Wu looked at Tiao with surprise and asked, “How do you know?”

      “I’ve seen Dad make it.”

      Wu said, “Find citric acid for me and I’ll make grilled miniature snowballs.”

      “We don’t have citric acid.”

      Wu believed Tiao, but she had a vague feeling that Tiao wanted to keep the recipe for miniature snowballs to herself.

      Later, candied apple was substituted for grilled snowballs. Tiao despised this dish from the bottom of her heart. She had never liked any kind of “candied” dish, thinking it was neither hygienic nor civilized for people to pull out the apples with their chopsticks, trailing syrupy tangled candied strings, and then everyone dipping them into the same bowl of cold water, meanwhile faking the same amazed and satisfied expressions as they ate. Besides, what was so amazing and satisfying about eating sugarcoated apple? Furthermore, when Wu made candied apple, she always overdid the sugar, so there weren’t any sugar strings to be pulled no matter how hard you tried. There were just gooey pieces and chunks that would stick to your teeth and palate. Tiao would keep licking the roof of her mouth with her tongue and sometimes had to put her fingers into her mouth to pry the stuff free. However, it passed as a dessert. With the way Wu cooked, who could blame Tiao for telling her that they didn’t have citric acid?

      When the dinner was ready, Wu began changing her clothes, going back and forth between the few outfits she had, whose styles were almost all the same, but in different colours like grey, green, blue, etc. But Wu looked good, her face glowing with excitement. She kept looking at herself in the mirror and also lowered her head and asked Tiao to smell her hair. “Do you think my hair smells of grease? Smell it again. Maybe I should wash my hair.”

      Tiao sniffed at Wu’s hair and smelled a little grease smoke, but wasn’t in a hurry to say anything. She asked Wu suddenly, “Is Dr. Tang a man or a woman?” Wu was startled for a moment and then straightened her back, her hair falling over half of her face. She said, “It’s … it’s uncle. You should call him uncle. What’s the matter?” “Nothing,” Tiao said. For some reason she didn’t want to tell Wu that her hair smelled of grease smoke; she didn’t want Wu to wash her hair one more time for this thank-you dinner. She felt Wu had spent too much time preparing for the dinner and was taking it too seriously. She had never seen her mother so serious about anything, including Tiao’s and Fan’s business. Wu ignored Tiao’s reservations and washed her hair once more, as if she’d known that Tiao hadn’t told the truth. Her dark, shiny hair matched her fresh, lustrous face—with the two soft, delicate, faultless eyebrows—it all looked very beautiful to Tiao, but she never said so to Wu.

      Dr. Tang arrived, a very reserved man speaking perfect Beijing dialect. He didn’t have his white cap on, so it was the first time that Wu had seen his hair, brownish hair that made his small dark eyes look even darker. They exchanged some courtesies and sat down to dinner. Wu told Tiao and Fan to call him uncle, but Tiao insisted on calling him Dr. Tang and Fan followed her sister’s lead. Fan had a white plastic set of doctor toys, which included a syringe, a stethoscope, and a “kidney tray” for surgery. She showed these toys to Dr. Tang and said with regret that she didn’t have a thermometer, for which she often had to substitute a popsicle stick. If she found someone with a fever, she would give that person a shot. “If you have a fever, you need a shot, right, Dr. Tang?” She repeated the words “have a fever” in a high-pitched voice; for her all illness could be summed up in the words “have a fever.”

      Have a fever.

      Dr. Tang and Wu talked for a long time after dinner. He handed Wu a hardback copy of The Family Medical Encyclopedia and told her that there was a chapter dedicated to rheumatic heart disease. When Wu took the book from him, she noticed a loose thread on one of the sleeves of his jumper. She thought, why would she be so quick to tell Tiao and Fan that she was going to knit jumpers for them?

      She bought a pure light grey woollen yarn and started to knit a jumper, leaning back against her pillow. She usually knitted during the daytime, after Tiao went to school, and also in the evening, after Tiao and Fan fell asleep. That made her look a little underhanded and evasive because she didn’t want her daughters to see her knit this jumper. But in a simple home like theirs, where could she hide it? Tiao eventually found the light grey half-finished item.

      She was a little surprised and asked Wu, “This isn’t Fan’s jumper, is it? Didn’t you say that you were going to knit one for Fan?”

      Wu grabbed the jumper back. “I did say that I was going to knit one for Fan, but I can knit one for myself first.”

      “This is not a woman’s jumper. It’s not for you.” She stood beside Wu’s bed and seemed indignant.

      The next day, when Wu unfolded the jumper to continue her work, she found that the sleeve she had almost finished the day before had disappeared.

      4

      The sleeve had to have been taken apart by Tiao. The knitting needles had vanished, and each row of stitches was undone—Wu had put her heart and soul into those stitches. She was furious, but couldn’t really allow herself to lose her temper. She clutched the unravelled jumper, kept her anger in check, and went to talk things over with Tiao. She thought it might take some effort to get Tiao to confess, and hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Tiao admitted it as soon as Wu asked, as if she were waiting for Wu to question her.

      “Was it you who took the jumper apart?”

      “It was me.”

      “What did I do wrong, to have you unravel my jumper?”

      “You said you were going to knit a jumper for Fan but you didn’t keep your promise.”

      “Yes, I did say that. It was … I couldn’t find the rose yarn in the shop. I saw this kind, which was nice but more suitable for an adult—”

      “What adult? Which adult?” Tiao interrupted Wu.

      “Which adult?” Wu repeated Tiao’s question. “Me, for instance. Like me.” She lowered her voice.

      “But this is not for you. This is a man’s jumper.” Tiao’s voice remained firm.

      “How do you know this is for a man? You don’t even know how to knit.” Wu’s anger flared again.

      “Of course I know. I’ve seen you knit before. I’ve seen you knit for Dad. Are you knitting it for Dad?” Tiao looked directly into Wu’s eyes.

      “Yes … uh, no.” Wu seemed to be forced into a corner by Tiao. She knew if she continued saying that the jumper was for Yixun, she would look even more СКАЧАТЬ