“Laidi,” Mother said, “don’t change the subject. Jintong may be gold, but you girls are silver. So no more talk about dog turds! It’s time for mother and daughter to have a heart-to-heart talk. That fellow Sha is a weasel coming to the chickens with New Year’s greetings. He does not have good intentions. He has his eye on you for sure.”
Laidi lowered her head and stroked the foxtail again as tears glistened in her eyes. “Mother,” she said, “I’d be happy to marry a man like him.”
Mother reacted as if struck by lightning. “Laidi,” she said, “you have my blessings no matter whom you marry, just so long as it isn’t that Sha fellow.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you worry about why.”
With a hateful edge to her voice that seemed out of place for a girl her age, Laidi said, “The Shangguan family has worked me like a beast of burden long enough!”
The shrillness of her comment stunned Mother. Scrutinizing her daughter’s face, red with anger, she then glanced down at the hand stroking the foxtail. I felt her reach for something close by; it was the whiskbroom used to keep the kang neat. Raising it over her head, she screamed hysterically, “How dare you talk to me like that! Just see if I don’t beat you to death!”
Mother jumped off the kang, holding the whiskbroom high in the air. But instead of getting ready to duck the blow that was sure to come, Laidi raised her head defiantly, and Mother’s hand froze in midair; when it finally came down, there was no steam behind it. Letting the whiskbroom fall to the floor, Mother threw her arms around my sister’s neck and sobbed, “Laidi, we and that fellow Sha live in two different worlds. I can’t sit by and watch my own daughter throw herself into a burning pyre…”
By then, Laidi was sobbing too.
Once they’d cried themselves out, Mother dried my sister’s face with the back of her hand and implored her, “Laidi, give me your word you won’t have anything to do with that Sha fellow.”
But Laidi stood her ground. “Mother,” she said, “this is something I really want, and not just for me, but for the good of the family.” Out of the corner of her eye, Laidi looked down at the foxskin overcoat and the two little lynx jackets lying on the kang.
Mother too stood her ground. “I want you all to take off those coats tomorrow.”
“Don’t you even care if we freeze to death?” my sister said.
“A damned fur coat peddler is what he is,” Mother complained.
My sister unbolted the door and strode to her room without a backward glance.
Mother sat down feebly on the edge of the kang, and I heard raspy breaths coming up from her chest.
Then I heard Sha Yueliang’s hesitant footsteps outside the window. His tongue was thick and his lips seemed paralyzed; I knew he wanted to knock against the window frame and, in a tender voice, raise the subject of marriage. But alcohol had dulled his senses and made it impossible for his actions to match his desires. He banged on our window frame so loud and so hard that his hand tore through the paper covering, letting cold air from the outside pour in, along with the stench of alcohol on his breath. In the tone of voice so common to drunks – disgusting yet at the same time somehow endearing – he bellowed, “Mother -”
Mother jumped down off the kang and stood there sort of dazed for a moment, before climbing back up on the kang and dragging me over from beneath the window, where I’d been lying. “Mother,” Sha said, “Laidi and me, when can we be married… I’m not a patient man…”
Mother clenched her teeth. “You there, Sha,” she said, “like the toad who wants to feast on a swan, you can just dream on!” “What did you say?” Sha Yueliang asked her. “I said, dream on!”
As if he’d suddenly turned sober, Sha said without a trace of slurring, “Adoptive mother, I have never in my life begged anyone for anything.”
“Nobody’s asking you to beg me for anything.” With a snicker, he said, “Adoptive mother, I tell you that Sha Yueliang gets and does exactly what he wants…” “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“Given that I want to marry your daughter,” Sha said with a laugh, “how could I kill you, my future mother-in-law?” “Then you can forget about marrying my daughter.” Another laugh. “Your daughter is a grown woman, and you can no longer decide her fate. We shall see what happens, my dear mother-in-law.”
Sha walked up to the eastern window, poked a hole in the paper covering, and flung a handful of candy into the room. “Little sisters-in-law,” he shouted, “have some candy. As long as Sha Yueliang is around, you’ll eat sweets and drink spicy drinks along with me…”
Sha Yueliang did not sleep that night. Instead he walked around the yard and, except for an occasional cough or an outburst of whistling, which he did quite well, since he could imitate the voices of a dozen different birds, he sang arias from old operas or contemporary anti-Japanese songs at the top of his lungs. One minute he’d sing about Chen Shimei, the evil husband beheaded on the order of the angry Kaifeng magistrate, the next he’d bring his sword down on the neck of a Jap soldier. To keep this resistance hero, drunk on alcohol and love, from breaking into the room, Mother added a second bolt to the door, way up high, and, if that weren’t enough, stacked anything she could move, from a bellows to a wardrobe to a pile of broken bricks, up against the door. Then, after putting me safely on her back, she picked up a cleaver and paced the room from one end to the other, back and forth. None of my sisters took off her new fur coat; they huddled together, sweat beading the tips of their noses, as they slept amid the noise created by Sha. Drool from Qiudi’s mouth wetted Zhaodi’s marten coat; Niandi slept nestled up against Lingdi’s bearskin coat like a lamb. Now that I think back, Mother never stood a chance in her struggle with Sha Yueliang. He won over my sisters with his fur coats, and they formed a united front with him; having lost the support of the masses, Mother became a lone warrior.
The next day, with me on her back, Mother ran over to tell Third Master Fan that she’d decided that the best way to repay Aunty Sun for her midwifery was to marry Laidi to one of the mute sons of the Sun family – the hero of the battle with the crows. The day the decision was announced would begin their engagement; the dowry would be presented the next day; and the wedding would take place the day after that. Third Master Fan stared at Mother with a look of confusion in his eyes. “Uncle,” Mother said, “don’t worry about the details. I’ll take care of Matchmaker Xie.” “But this is doing things backward.” “Yes, it is,” Mother replied. “Why do it this way?” “Please, Uncle, don’t ask. Just have the mute come to our house at noon with his engagement gifts.” “What can he possibly have as gifts?” Third Master Fan asked. “Tell him to bring what he can,” Mother replied.
On the way home, I sensed Mother’s fear and deep anxiety. She’d been right to be worried. The minute we walked into the yard, we were confronted by a pack of animals, dancing and singing: a weasel, a black bear, a roe deer, a dog, a sheep, and a rabbit; the only one missing was a marten. The purple marten, a fox wrapped around its neck, was seated on sacks of grain in the eastern side room, staring at the commander, who was sitting on the floor cleaning his powder gourd and musket.
Mother dragged Laidi off the sacks of grain and announced icily, “Commander Sha, she has been promised to another. You resistance fighters aren’t the type to take another man’s wife, I presume.”
“That goes without saying,” Sha replied evenly.
Mother dragged my eldest sister out of the eastern side room.
At noon, the mute son of the Sun family showed up at our door carrying a wild rabbit. He was wearing a tiny padded jacket, with his belly showing below and his neck above; the sleeves barely covered half his thick arms. All the buttons were missing, so he used a hemp rope to hold up his trousers. He nodded and bowed to Mother, an idiotic grin creasing his face. He held the rabbit up to Mother in both hands. Third Master Fan, who had come with the mute, said, “Shangguan Shouxi’s widow, I’ve done as you asked.”