Tainyi felt she was getting stupider by the day. It worried her but she did nothing about it. Her academy was about to host a seminar on issues around women in the Asia-Pacific Region. They wanted her to present a paper, but she could not muster any enthusiasm for it. One evening, Lian suddenly looked at her: ‘Tianyi, I know you don’t love me anymore.’ Tianyi was knitting Niuniu a pair of tiny socks for his sweet, plump, little feet. ‘Please, don’t start a quarrel,’ she said, with an impatient frown. A good quarrel was just what Lian wanted, but he was quelled by Tianyi’s expression. Aggrieved and disappointed, he grabbed a book and began to read. It was The Third Wave, a hugely popular best-seller in those days. That made Tianyi feel she had been too harsh. For the sake of something to say, she commented: ‘That’s something new, you reading a book.’ Lian’s enigmatic reply was: ‘Two thousand years ago, the Emperor Qin burned the books and buried Confucian scholars alive but when it came to it, he was overthrown by an illiterate bandit.’ It dawned on Tianyi that her husband was not nearly as straightforward as he appeared. For one thing, he had an invincible belief in himself.
Tianyi’s judgment was eventually proved correct. Lian was aspirational — or rather ambitious. It was just that his character destroyed his ambitions.
9
B efore the ‘Women in the Asia-Pacific Region’ seminar, Tianyi went to see her baby, who was still staying with Lian’s parents with his nanny. To try and conceal her pallor, she put on her fashionable, red velour coat, then sat on the bicycle, as usual riding pillion behind Lian. She was laden with things for her mother-in-law, as well as clothes for the baby. ‘It’s always good to arrive with presents, it buys you a welcoming smile,’ her mother used to say when she was in a good mood.
But every visit to her in-laws filled Tianyi filled with apprehension. She never knew what devilry the old folk would get up to next. At least on this occasion, Lian’s grandmother did not scowl when she piled her packages on the table, though she did complain: ‘That woman you sent along has eaten us out of house and home, and she expects me to wait on her.’ Tianyi knew ‘that woman’ meant Mrs Zhang the nanny. She looked at Lian. ‘Don’t go looking at him,’ she heard next. ‘This was your idea!’ The old woman was implacable. In her black woollen top and trousers, she looked just like a crow. ‘Mum,’ remonstrated her daughter-in-law, ‘you wanted them to come, and now they’re here, you just …’ ‘And why not? I’ve got something to say and I’m going to say it. I’m over eighty years old, and I’m not afraid of anyone!’ Tianyi felt incapable of making her usual retort. Lian tried to come to her rescue by making a funny face and having a dig at the old lady, which at least earned him a small smile. She batted him playfully with her fan and said nothing more. Tianyi felt disgusted at the scene, and could hardly raise even a perfunctory smile.
As this discussion was going on, the door opened and Nanny Zhang came in carrying the baby. ‘He knew you were coming!’ she said. ‘As soon as you came down the street, he saw your red coat and cried for you. I’m so blind I couldn’t see you but he wouldn’t stop struggling and crying. Such a clever child!’
Sure enough, as soon as Niuniu saw Tianyi he launched himself at her. No one else would do. She took him and felt how heavy he was. Like a steelyard weight. She coaxed him back to a good mood by waltzing around the room with him, and the baby began to crow with laughter. He looked so sweet when he laughed that Tianyi forgot everything else. She was just a silly mother! She told herself off, but the little boy’s smiles had her completely in thrall. She whirled round and round the room, with her baby in her arms, as if challenging the two older women. She felt their eyes on her, hostile and grim. She found it so strange that these two women seemed unable to exhibit the slightest love and affection for this child, the heir they had longed for. They seemed to have hearts of stone.
That day, she arranged to share Nanny Zhang’s bed for her afternoon nap. The nanny prattled away about this and that, then suddenly she raised her fat body and whispered in Tianyi’s ear: ‘These are two wicked women, you know! They’re saying that your mother actually used the Wangs’ sewing-machine to make a padded jacket for Niuniu …!’
That night, a distraught Tianyi finally exploded. ‘Your mother and grandmother are like harpies!’ she exclaimed to Lian. ‘Haven’t they ever had children of their own? They’ve got no idea how to behave!’ She ticked off her grievances: ‘On our wedding night, they came and knocked on our door. That was out of order! Your mother said the baby had come a bit soon! What did she think she was saying? I’m a decent woman, why shouldn’t I have a baby? And why can’t that old witch ever get on with me? What have I ever done to get on the wrong side of her? Let me tell you, our family may be poor, too poor to afford a sewing machine, but when my mother wants to make Niuniu a padded jacket, why on earth would she want to use your family’s sewing machine? Let me tell you, we never needed you to bring that sewing machine over, but those women kept insisting we should take whatever we needed. And you believed them, you blockhead! How come they only have to say one thing and you fall for it. Whatever they say, goes, it doesn’t matter what I say! They’re just a couple of peasants! All big talk and tight fists …!’
Even to herself, Tianyi felt she sounded just like any shrew of a wife, but she was unable to stop. Finally, Lian fell on his knees in front of her, boxed his own ears over and over, and she was reduced to silence. She was astounded at Lian’s falling on his knees, but even more astonished at herself. She was no better than an ignorant woman like Nanny Zhang, going on and on about things that were utterly trivial, but it was precisely those things that had hurt her, had caused her indescribable pain. How on earth had she ended up living like this? At dead of night, her numbed nerves sometimes sprang back to life, and stabbed her agonizingly. Her reaction was to wrap her armour around herself and drift back to sleep again.
At least she still had her friends. Jin was always dropping by these days. One day, he had an extraordinary request: he wanted to have sex with a girl but they had nowhere to go. Could Tianyi find somewhere for him? Jin’s conversation had been turning in this direction for a long time now. He wanted to do some sort of sexual experiment. Tianyi had often hinted that Di had feelings for him. He was quite intelligent enough to understand the hints she dropped, but he pretended to be dumb and so Tianyi let it be.
He was an unusual young man: illegitimate, he had been abandoned at a hospital by his parents when he was a baby, and brought up by a foster-mother. His foster-mother could not have children of her own, and lavished all her energies on his education. When he was very small, she taught him to read stories of the ancient philosopher Meng Zi and the widowed mother who had schooled him. Then his birth mother wanted him back. Perhaps she could not bear to see the boy subjected to such a strict educational regime. He certainly achieved academic success but it was not a normal childhood, and he had been left with a gnawing feeling of unsatisfied curiosity. As time went by and he grew up, his feelings towards his adoptive mother became more complex. He kept trying to please her and had nothing but praise for her kindness in taking him on. But somewhere in his heart, he also resented her for casting a baleful shadow over his life. She was always there, watching from a distance, spying on him, so that he never dared overstep the limits.