Needless to say, these words did not comfort Elder Sister. She sobbed harder, putting her hands over her ears. Mama had to speak, but when she did the words that came out of her mouth slithered from the deepest part of the yin—negative, dark, and female.
“You married out,” Mama said, in a way that seemed oddly detached. “You go to another village. Your mother-in-law is cruel. Your husband doesn’t care for you. We wish you would never leave, but every daughter marries away. Everyone agrees. Everyone goes along with it. You can cry and beg to come home, we can grieve that you have gone, but you—and we—have no choice. The old saying makes this very clear: ‘If a daughter doesn’t marry out, she’s not valuable; if fire doesn’t raze the mountain, the land will not be fertile.’ ”
Hair-Pinning Days
Catching Cool Breezes
SNOW FLOWER AND I TURNED FIFTEEN. OUR HAIR WAS PINNED up in the style of phoenixes as symbols that we were soon to be married. We worked on our dowries in earnest. We spoke in soft voices. We walked on our lily feet in a graceful manner. We were fully literate in nu shu, and when we were apart we wrote each other almost daily. We bled each month. We helped around the house, sweeping, picking vegetables from the house garden, preparing meals, washing dishes and clothes, weaving, and sewing. We were considered women, but we didn’t have the responsibilities of married women. We still had the freedom to visit when we wanted and spend hours in the upstairs chamber, our heads bent together as we whispered and embroidered. We loved each other in the way I had longed for as a little girl.
That year, Snow Flower came to stay with us for all of Catching Cool Breezes Festival, which takes place during the hottest time of year when the stores from the previous harvest are nearly gone and the new harvest is not yet ready. This means that married-in women, the lowest in any household, are sent back to their natal homes for days or sometimes weeks. We call it a festival, but it is really a series of days that remove unwanted eaters from their in-laws’ tables.
Elder Sister had just moved into her husband’s home permanently. Her first child was about to be born and there was nowhere else she could possibly be. Mama was visiting her family and had taken Second Brother with her. Aunt had also gone to her natal home, while Beautiful Moon was staying with her sworn sisters across the village. Elder Brother’s wife and baby daughter were Catching Cool Breezes with her natal family. Baba, Uncle, and Elder Brother were happy to be left alone. They wanted nothing from Snow Flower and me except hot tea, tobacco, and sliced watermelon. So for three days and nights of the weeks-long Catching Cool Breezes Festival, Snow Flower and I were alone in the upstairs chamber.
On the first night, we lay side by side, wearing our bindings and sleeping slippers, our inner garments, and our outer garments. We pushed our bed under the lattice window, hoping to catch a cool breeze, but there was none, just torrid stillness. The moon would be full soon. The light beams that streamed in reflected off our sweaty faces, making us feel even hotter. The next night, which was even warmer, Snow Flower suggested we shed our outer garments. “No one is here,” she said. “No one will know.” It brought relief, but we longed for something cooler.
On our third night alone together, the moon was full, and the upstairs chamber was awash in a bright blue glow. When we were sure the men were sleeping, we peeled off our outer and inner garments. We wore nothing but our bindings and our sleeping slippers. We felt air move across our bodies, but it was not a cool breeze and we were still as warm as if we were fully clothed.
“This is not enough,” Snow Flower said, stealing my thought right out of my mind.
She sat up and reached for our fan. Slowly she opened it and began to wave it back and forth over my body. As hot as the air was against my skin, it was still a luxurious feeling. But Snow Flower frowned. She closed the fan and set it aside. She searched my face, then let her eyes travel down my neck across my breasts to the flat of my stomach. I should have felt embarrassed by the way she stared, but she was my laotong, my old same. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
Looking up, I saw her bring her forefinger to her mouth. The tip of her tongue darted out. In the bright light of the full moon I saw it pink and glistening. In the most delicate gesture, she let the tip of her finger glide across that wet surface. Then she brought her finger down to my stomach. She drew a line to the left, then another in the opposite direction, followed by something like two crosses. The wetness was so cool on my skin that goose bumps rose up. I shut my eyes and let the feeling ripple through me. Then, so fast, the wetness disappeared. When I opened my eyes, Snow Flower was staring into them.
“Well?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a character,” she explained. “Tell me which one it is.”
Suddenly I understood what she’d done. She’d written a nu shu character on my stomach. We had been doing something like this for years, drawing characters in the dirt with sticks or on each other’s hands or backs with our fingers.
“I’ll do it again,” she said, “but pay attention.”
She licked her finger and it was no less a fluid movement than the first time she’d done it. As soon as that wetness touched my skin, I couldn’t help closing my eyes. The feeling made my body heavy and breathless. A stroke to the left to create a sliver of moon, another sliver below that and in reverse of the first, two strokes to the right to create the first cross, then another two strokes to the left to create the second. Again I kept my eyes closed until the momentary chill left my body. When I opened them, Snow Flower was looking down at me inquisitively.
“Bed,” I said.
“That’s right,” she said, her voice low. “Close your eyes. I will write another.”
This time she wrote the character much tighter and smaller in a spot just next to my right hip bone. This one I recognized immediately. It was a verb that meant to light.
When I said this, she brought her face down to mine and whispered in my ear, “Good.”
The next character swirled across my stomach next to the opposite hip bone.
“Moonlight,” I said. I opened my eyes. “The bed is lit by moonlight.”
She smiled at my recognition of the opening line to the Tang dynasty poem she had taught me; then we switched positions. As she had done with me, I took time to look at her body: the slenderness of her neck, the small mounds that formed her breasts, the flat expanse of her stomach that was as inviting as a new piece of silk waiting for embroidery stitches, the twin hip bones that protruded sharply, below that a triangle identical to my own, then two slim legs tapering down until they disappeared into her red silk sleeping slippers.
You have to remember that I was not yet married. I still did not know the ways of a man and wife. Only later did I learn that nothing is more intimate for a woman than her sleeping slippers and nothing is more erotic for a man than seeing the white skin of a naked woman against the bright redness of those slippers, but on that night I can tell you that my eyes lingered on them. They were Snow Flower’s summer pair. For her embroidery design she had invoked the Five Poisons—centipedes, toads, scorpions, snakes, and lizards. These were the traditional symbols used to counteract the evils brought on by summer—cholera, plague, typhoid, malaria, and typhus. Her stitches were perfect, just as her entire body was perfect.