‘Haven’t you finished hoeing yet?’
Fourth Wife You quickly reached for her shirt.
The man laughed, and said, ‘No need to put it on. There’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’ Fourth Wife You sat back down, her face and breasts both facing the man.
The man said, ‘Do you want some help?’
Fourth Wife You replied, ‘Sure.’
The man asked, ‘What would I get in return?’
Fourth Wife You asked, ‘What do you want?’
The man said, ‘I’ll hoe this entire field better than an ox could plough it, and break up the dirt as though I were milling grain. But you’ve got to sit there at the head of the field, so that whenever I turn around I can see your bare chest.’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘Go ahead.’
The man said, ‘When the field has been hoed, I’ll plant your autumn crops. All I ask is that tonight you and I sleep together on that ridge.’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘Don’t waste time talking. Get to work.’
The man leaned over and began hoeing. He did, in fact, hoe much better and much faster than she. He brought the hoe down vigorously and pulled it back and forth, then bent down and turned the earth over, the scent of fresh earth wafting over the field. At one point the man looked up and stared at the topless Fourth Wife You, and asked, ‘You don’t know how good your breasts look, do you?’ He hoed some more, then looked up again and said, ‘I’ve been watching, and you’ve got the best breasts of anyone in the villages around here. Even after four children, they’re still nice and firm.’ He hoed some more, then looked up again and said, ‘It’s getting chilly. You can put your shirt back on, but don’t button it.’ Fourth Wife You draped her shirt over her shoulders and covered her children with a sheet, then returned to where she had been sitting, still with her breasts and chest facing the man.
He continued hoeing, walking backward down the field while periodically glancing over at Fourth Wife You’s pert breasts. In order to see them more easily, he didn’t hoe the field from one end to the other, but rather proceeded back to the head of the field and hoed it again in the same direction as before. Every time he looked up, he said something sweet to Fourth Wife You. She didn’t reply, and instead merely sat there with her breasts exposed and her arms either on her knees or resting at her side, permitting the man to watch her as he repeatedly approached and drew away. The mountain ridge was as quiet as a sleeping herd of cattle. Fourth Wife You’s husband, Stone You, sat down behind her.
He said, ‘Don’t you know who this man is? He is an ass from a neighbouring village.’
Fourth Wife You ignored him.
He said, ‘Mother of our children, I never imagined you could be so shameless. If the children woke up and saw you like this, and didn’t open their idiot mouths to eat you right up, well, they would be no children of mine.’
It was only then that Fourth Wife You turned and looked at him in the moonlight. With a ‘Pah!’, she spat on the ground in front of him and said, ‘If you have any pride at all, go turn the earth yourself, like that ass.’
Stone You said nothing more, and stood behind her, muttering. Fourth Wife You heard him begin to weep, but didn’t say anything else and didn’t look at him again. She just sat there motionless, like a statue made of wood or clay, and remained there until only a narrow patch of land was left to be hoed, like a grey ribbon running along the edge of the ravine. By this point the man was tired and had something else on his mind.
He said, ‘Let’s sleep for a while. Then I’ll finish.’
Fourth Wife You replied, ‘Finish what you started, and the sleep will be all the sweeter.’
The man said, ‘That triangular bit at the front, too?’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘That, too. I can grow forty or fifty stalks on it.’
In the end, the white wheat stubble in the gully became invisible, and the ground appeared dark red under the moonless, nearly starless night, as soft as if it were laid with a thick layer of crimson flowers. There was dew on the tips of the grass at the head of the field.
The eldest daughter sat up and, without opening her eyes, peed on the ground next to her youngest brother’s feet, then lay back down. Her brother, finding his feet in a pool of steaming urine, pulled them away, rolled over, and murmured, ‘Ma, Ma! Who’s boiling my feet in a pot?’ Fourth Wife You went over to cover her children with the sheet, and said, ‘Go back to sleep. No one’s boiling your feet.’
At that point the man walked over excitedly, treading on the soil he’d just hoed. He had broad shoulders and walked with vigour, each step making a small depression in the loose soil. Fourth Wife You watched him approach, and moved away from her children. In a flash, she had her arms in the sleeves of her shirt and was buttoning it up.
The man tossed his spade to one side, and asked, ‘Why are you buttoning your shirt?’
Fourth Wife You glanced at him.
‘Do you plan to marry me? If you don’t plan to marry me, then don’t think of touching me.’
The man stared in surprise.
‘But we agreed – we agreed that if I hoed the entire field, we would spend the night together on this ridge.’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘You also said you would help me plant the autumn crops. Have you done that?’
The man grabbed his spade angrily.
‘I worked all night, and now it’s almost dawn. If you won’t sleep with me I’ll split your head open with this spade.’
Stone You turned pale and dropped to his knees before the man.
Fourth Wife You looked at Stone You, at the man’s upraised spade, then at his furious expression. She calmly walked several steps toward the spade, squatted down beneath it, and said, ‘Then go right ahead and strike me down. I’m burdened with these four idiot children, and long ago lost my desire to live. Strike me down and you won’t even need to pay with your life. Just raise my four children for me.’
The man turned to look at the reed mat on the ground, and saw that the four children had all woken up and were rubbing their eyes, staring at him and Fourth Wife You. He lowered his spade and planted his foot on Fourth Wife You’s chest, saying, ‘Fuck, I might as well just rape you.’
Fourth Wife You wiped the dirt from her chest and replied, ‘If you rape me, then I’ll hang myself in your doorway. You still won’t have to pay with your life, you’ll just need to raise my four children until they all have families and jobs of their own.’
The man stood there for a while, then walked away furiously.
The dawn came creaking in, interrupting the footsteps of the man in the distance, as well as the look Fourth Wife You exchanged with her husband.
And so Fourth Wife You got her field hoed, planted, fertilised, weeded, and harvested. Then, she moved on to the next season. One season followed another, just as night follows day – propelling her forward and propelling her children into adulthood. Her hair went grey, and she grew visibly older.
Chapter Two
In the middle of the harvest season, Third Daughter suddenly decided she wanted a husband and a family, and also to learn about sex. By the time Fourth Wife You was fifty, she had succeeded in finding husbands for her two elder daughters, and while they lived an impoverished life with their new families as they had with her, at least they had a life. Although both of her elder daughters were addled, when their illness wasn’t acting up they could still sew buttons and count to ten. They knew how to go out and buy salt, and could bring back the correct change. They knew to bow their heads when a man looked at them, and only when their illness acted up did they fall to the ground, vomiting, foaming at the mouth, convulsing, and ultimately losing consciousness. But Third Daughter was different. She couldn’t count to seven even when her illness wasn’t acting up, and when she went to the village entrance to buy staples such as oil and salt, she never remembered to bring back the change. Whenever Third Daughter had her period, Fourth Wife You had to help her clean herself. Fourth Wife You had always assumed that Third Daughter would never have a chance to learn about sex, but now she was saying that she did in fact want a family and a husband, just like her elder sisters. Standing in the field of ripe corn, looking at her daughter’s glow of excitement, Fourth Wife You saw some sparks in the sunlight fly between the corn stalks. The sky was high and the clouds were sparse, and the sound of corn being harvested on the ridge travelled toward them as clouds of dust rained down on the stems and leaves of the corn plants. The calm summoned Stone You from his grave, whereupon Fourth Wife You asked her daughter in his presence, ‘Daughter, what did you just say?’