Since I didn’t have sworn sisters to join me during these festivities, my mother, my aunt, my sister-in-law, Elder Sister—who came home, pregnant again—and a few unwed girls from Puwei Village all came to celebrate my good fortune. Madame Wang joined us periodically too. Sometimes we recited favorite stories, or one person would choose a chant that we all followed. Other times we sang of our own lives. My mother—who was satisfied with her fate—recounted “The Tale of the Flower Girl,” while Aunt, still in mourning, made us all weep as her words came out in a sorrowful dirge.
One afternoon, as I embroidered the belt to cinch my wedding costume, Madame Wang came to entertain us with “The Tale of Wife Wang.” She took a stool next to Snow Flower, who was deep in thought, composing my third-day wedding book and searching for the right words to tell my in-laws about me. The two of them spoke very softly to each other. Every once in a while, I heard Snow Flower’s voice saying, “Yes, Auntie” and “No, Auntie.” Snow Flower had always shown a kind heart to the matchmaker. I had tried—with only moderate success—to emulate her in this.
When Madame Wang saw we were all waiting, she wiggled her bottom on the stool to get comfortable and began the saga. “There once was a pious woman with few prospects.” She had grown quite plump in recent years, which made her slower and more deliberate in her storytelling and in her movements. “Her family married her to a butcher—the lowest possible match for a woman devoted to the Buddhist way. As devout as she was, she was a woman first and gave birth to sons and daughters. Still, Wife Wang did not eat fish or meat. She recited sutras for hours each day, especially the Diamond Sutra. When she wasn’t reciting, she begged her husband not to slaughter animals. She warned him of the bad karma that would come to him in the next life if he continued his profession.”
The matchmaker put a hand on Snow Flower’s thigh in a comforting gesture. I would have found that old woman’s hand oppressive, but Snow Flower didn’t push it away.
“But Husband Wang told her—and some might say rightly—that his family had been butchers for more generations than anyone could count,” Madame Wang continued. ” ‘You continue to recite the Diamond Sutra,’ he said. ‘You will be rewarded in your next life. I will keep slaughtering animals. I will buy land in this life and be punished in the next.’ ”
Wife Wang knew she was doomed for sleeping with her husband, but when he tested her knowledge of the Diamond Sutra and found that she could recite it without flaw, he gave her a room of her own so she could remain celibate for the rest of their married life.
“Meanwhile,” Madame Wang went on, and once again her hand traveled to Snow Flower, where it rested lightly on the back of her neck, “the King of the Afterworld sent out spirits to look for those of great virtue. They spied on Wife Wang. Once convinced of her purity, they enticed her to visit the afterworld to recite the Diamond Sutra. She knew what this meant: They were asking her to die. She begged them not to make her leave her children, but the spirits refused to hear her pleas. She told her husband to take a new wife. She instructed her children to be good and obey their new mother. As soon as these words left her mouth, she fell to the floor, dead.
“Wife Wang experienced many trials before she was brought at last to the King of the Afterworld. Through all her tribulations he had been watching her, noting her virtue and piety. Just like her husband, he demanded that she recite the Diamond Sutra. Although she missed nine words, he was so pleased with her efforts—both during her lifetime and in the afterlife—that he rewarded her by allowing her to return to the world of the living as a baby boy. This time she was born into the home of a learned official, but her real name was written on the bottom of her foot.
“Wife Wang had led an exemplary life, but she was only a woman,” the matchmaker reminded us. “Now, as a man, she excelled at everything she did. She attained the highest rank as a scholar. She gained riches, honor, and prestige, but as much as she accomplished she missed her family and longed to be a woman again. At last she was presented to the emperor. She told him her story and implored him to let her return to her husband’s home village. Just as had happened with the King of the Afterworld, this woman’s courage and virtue moved the emperor, but he saw something more—filial piety. He assigned her to her husband’s home village as a magistrate. She arrived wearing full scholar regalia. When everyone came out to kowtow, she stunned the gathering by taking off her manly shoes and revealing her true name. She told her husband—now very old—that she wanted to be his wife again. Husband Wang and the children went to her tomb and opened it. The Jade Emperor stepped out and announced that the entire Wang family could transcend this world for nirvana, which they did.”
I believed Madame Wang told this story to tell me about my future. My Lu husband and his family, as esteemed and respected as they were in the county, might do things that could be considered offensive or even polluted. Also, it was the nature of a man born under the sign of the tiger to be fiery, spirited, and impulsive. My husband might lash out at society or scoff at binding traditions. (This is not as bad as being a butcher, I admit, but these traits could be dangerous nevertheless.) I, as a woman born under the sign of the horse, could help my husband fight these bad traits. A horse woman should never be afraid to take the lead and steer her mate clear of trouble. To me, this was the true meaning of “The Tale of Wife Wang.” Maybe she could not make her husband do what she wanted him to do, but through her piety and good works she not only saved him from the condemnation brought about by his polluted acts, she also helped her whole family reach nirvana. It is one of the few didactic tales told to us that has a happy ending, and on that late autumn day in the month before my marriage it made me happy.
But otherwise my feelings were mixed during Sitting and Singing. I was sad I would be leaving my family, but just as I had with my footbinding I tried to see something bigger—not that tiny slice of life I could see from our lattice window but a panorama like the ones Snow Flower and I saw when we peeked out the window of Madame Wang’s palanquin. I was convinced that a new and better future lay ahead of me. Perhaps it was something in my nature; a horse would wander the world if it could. I was happy to be going somewhere new. Naturally, I’d like to say that Snow Flower and I followed our horse natures exactly as the horoscopes outline, but horses—and people—are not always obedient. We say one thing and do another. We feel one way; then our hearts open in another direction. We see one thing but don’t understand that blinders hinder our vision. We plod along a well-loved path and then see a road, an alleyway, a river that tempts us. . . .
This is how I felt, and I thought that Snow Flower, my old same, would feel the same as I did, but she was a mystery to me. Snow Flower’s wedding was a month after mine, but she seemed neither excited nor sad. Instead she was unusually subdued, even as she sang the proper words during our chanting and worked diligently on the third-day wedding book she was making for me. I thought perhaps she was more nervous than I was about the wedding night.
“I’m not afraid of that,” she quipped, as we folded and wrapped my quilts.
“I’m not either,” I said, but I don’t think either of us spoke with much conviction. In my daughter days, when I’d still been allowed to play outside, I’d seen animals do bed business. I knew I was going to do something like that, but I didn’t understand how it would happen or what I was supposed to do. And Snow Flower, who usually knew so much more than I did, was no help. We were both waiting for one of our mothers, elder sisters, my aunt, or even the matchmaker to explain how to do this chore as they had taught us how to do so many others.