The Bathing Women. Tie Ning

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СКАЧАТЬ and didn’t come back until very late. Before she left, she always spent a long time in front of the mirror, combing her hair, gazing at her reflection, changing clothes and practicing pleasant expressions, checking both her front view and side view. How wilted and spiritless she appeared when she was tossing around on her pillow, her hair dishevelled and her eyes dull, with drool at the corner of her mouth, thin and silvery, like a snail track. Had Dr. Tang seen her this way? If Dr. Tang saw this side of her, would he still want her to visit him?

      But when Wu stood before the mirror and prepared to leave, she seemed to have turned into a completely different person, enthusiastic and energetic, her entire body lit up like a candle. Sometimes she even brought one or two dishes along, food for Dr. Tang. For this reason she had to enter the kitchen, the place she had always hated. Clumsily, she’d make fried eggplant and beef-carrot stew. She would put up with Tiao’s comments, believing Tiao was just being intentionally hurtful. Tiao made a point of saying that Wu’s cooking was bland, that the beef-carrot stew wouldn’t be tasty if she didn’t use curry powder. Wu then humbly asked where the curry powder was, but Tiao declared happily she didn’t have any and they just couldn’t find curry powder in Fuan, that the curry powder they used to have came with them from Beijing. Wu never noticed that Tiao had been removing the seasonings little by little. She hid them so Wu wouldn’t find them and use them, because they had all become too closely associated with Dr. Tang.

      When Wu was not home, Tiao flipped through the pages of The Family Medical Encyclopedia that Dr. Tang had given Wu. She turned to the section on rheumatic heart disease, but unfortunately there were too many words she didn’t understand. She looked at pictures of ugly human bodies, one of which was a woman with a curled, upside-down baby in her belly. Tiao wrote a line in pencil in the margin next to the baby, “This is Dr. Tang.” Why would she pick a baby and make it into Dr. Tang? Was it because only a baby like that was less powerful than she was? She then could freely express her contempt for the adult Dr. Tang through this fetus.

      Wu still went to see Dr. Tang, carrying her lunch box, offering Dr. Tang the food she cooked, and herself. One evening she left, and didn’t come home the whole night. It was on that night that Fan had a high fever. Having a fever, having a fever. Precisely the words Fan always used when she was playing the doctor-patient game. Her entire body was burning hot, her face all red, and her nostrils flaring. She said she was very thirsty and wanted Tiao to cuddle her. Tiao held her in her arms and let Fan’s fever scald her. She gave Fan water and orange juice, but neither could lower her temperature. Where was Wu? Both of them needed her. When Fan’s fever made her cry, Tiao cried with her. She patted Fan’s back with her small hand and said, “Let me tell you a story. Don’t you love to listen to stories?” But Fan was not interested in stories. She must have felt terrible. She kept coughing and threw up several times. Her coughing and vomiting made her sound both old and young, like an old man trapped in a child’s body. Tiao’s heart was broken into a thousand pieces; Fan’s suffering gripped her with pain. She hated Wu, thinking how she would shout at her when she came home. She held Fan in her arms all night long. Young and small as she was, she took on the responsibility of caring for Fan, who was smaller and weaker than she. She didn’t close her eyes the whole night, washing her face when she felt sleepy. She was determined to wait for Wu to come home with open eyes, letting Wu see for herself that Tiao had been waiting for her all night. At daybreak Wu opened the door and tiptoed in.

      A big pillow flew at Wu as a welcome—Tiao had grabbed it from the bed and thrown it at Wu’s face. She didn’t know where she got the nerve for this rude behaviour, which should never be used to deal with adults and parents. But once the pillow was thrown there was no way to take it back. She stared boldly at her mother.

      Wu’s mind went blank. Only when Tiao shouted at her that Fan was dying did she come to her senses and rush to Fan. Fan was half conscious with the fever, a pink rash covering her forehead and behind her ears. She probably had the measles.

      Fan’s illness worried and frightened Wu. But she had no time for regret right then. She just picked up Fan and hurried out.

      “Where are you going?”

      “The hospital.”

      Tiao asked which hospital, and Wu said People’s Hospital.

      “You can’t go to People’s Hospital!” Tiao stamped her feet like a little lunatic.

      5

      Adults are still adults. Even if you throw pillows at their faces, these somewhat confused people remain in charge. Wu ignored Tiao’s stamping. She put Fan on the crossbar of her bicycle and pedaled directly to People’s Hospital. Tiao followed the bike, running all the way. In the emergency room, while the doctor on duty took Fan’s temperature, Wu went to the internal medicine ward and got Dr. Tang. It was not that she didn’t trust the doctor on duty; she just trusted Dr. Tang more. In this unfamiliar city, when she had trouble, a doctor with whom she had an intimate relationship would naturally become her protector, even though he was not on duty in the emergency room and didn’t know pediatrics. Tiao couldn’t stop Dr. Tang from appearing. She watched Wu and Dr. Tang bustle around Fan and had a feeling she had been deceived. Yes, she had been fooled by this pair of hypocrites, this man and woman. She felt angry and sad. She didn’t know the word “hypocrite” then. She wouldn’t find this word for them until she was an adult looking back. But right then she thought about her dad. She felt very sorry for Yixun. She decided to write him a letter. She wanted him to come and save her, and Fan as well.

      Fan had measles.

      At home, later that day, Tiao began to write to Yixun behind Wu’s back, using stationery with light green lines. In the upper right corner of the paper was a row of light green printing, the size of sesame seeds: Beijing Bus Company. They’d brought the paper along with them from Beijing when they moved. Tiao had bought it at a stationery store when she was still at Denger Alley Elementary School. At the time she never considered why the paper would have Beijing Bus Company on it. These light green words gave her a feeling that whenever she wrote, a bus would come to pick up the letter and take it far away, to the place where it belonged. Years later, when she worked in the Publishing House and saw all kinds of letters and manuscripts, she recalled her childhood, and the Beijing Bus Company paper she had used to write letters. She understood then it must be the letterhead from the printing house of Beijing Bus Company, but was still puzzled. Why would a bus company own a printing house? And why would its paper flood every major stationery store in Beijing?

      On Beijing Bus Company paper Tiao wrote to Yixun.

       Dear Dad:

       How are you? I missed you very much today because Fan had measles. She had a fever, coughed very hard, and even threw up. I think she also missed you very much, but you were not there. Next, I’m going to tell you something about Mum; I must expose her. Ever since she came home, she hasn’t taken care of us at all. She either lies in bed sleeping or goes to the hospital to see a doctor. I told her about my school, how I was going to graduate from elementary school soon but haven’t joined the Junior Red Guards yet. Besides me, there are only four other of my classmates who are not in the Junior Red Guards. Two of them have landlord grandfathers and one has a father who wrote to the Nationalist Party in Taiwan. There is one other classmate whose mum used to be the vice president of a university here and had been denounced. I think I’m different from them. I believe you two are good people, but why can’t I join the Junior Red Guards? Is it just because I came from Beijing and have a different accent? I asked Mum and she said if I couldn’t join the Junior Red Guards then just don’t join. She also won’t allow me to learn the Fuan dialect, saying it’s an ugly accent. You see how backwards she is! Dad, you probably don’t know that we don’t have classes anymore. Our teachers take us to dig air-raid shelters every day, telling us that this is to protect us СКАЧАТЬ