A wintry gust blew into the hallway and picked up a slip of paper, which immediately assumed the wind’s form and its substance. The wind blew past Xiao Yanqiu, causing her to shiver. The paper itself was like a Qingyi in the wind, drifting yet wistful, until it was tossed into a corner by the wall. When another blast followed, it quivered, as if both seeking and trying to avoid the wind. That slip of paper was a sigh from the wind.
The weather turned bitterly cold as the opening approached. At moments like this, the factory boss showed his true mettle as a media manipulator. At first, there were occasional reports in the media, but the heat was turned up as the day drew near, until all the media outlets, big and small, had joined the clamor. The noise of popular opinion created its own mood, almost as if The Moon Opera had, bit by bit, become part of the people’s daily life, the sole focus of attention by society in general. The media created a peculiar buzz, telling people that “everyone is waiting anxiously.” Using the seductive countdown method, these expressions of public opinion reminded people that everything was ready, everything but the east wind, that is.
The voice rehearsal was nearly over, and Yanqiu had visited the toilet several times. She had sensed something was wrong as she crawled out of bed that morning, overcome by nausea. But she refused to dwell on her discomfort, since she’d felt much the same back when she was taking all those diet pills. But on her fifth visit to the toilet, she was troubled by feelings she could not describe; her only certainty was that she had something important to do. Her bladder felt full, yet each time she tried to urinate, nothing came. All the time she was in the toilet she thought about that important thing she hadn’t yet done, but still could not say what it was.
The nausea returned when she got up to wash her hands. This time the sour taste drew her back to the toilet, where she threw up several times before stopping abruptly. Ah, now she remembered. She finally remembered. She knew exactly what she hadn’t done over the past few weeks. Breaking out in a cold sweat at the realization, she stood at the sink and counted back. Today was the forty-second day since Bingzhang had first talked to her. Since then she’d been so busy with rehearsals she’d lost sight of a woman’s most important monthly concern. In truth, she hadn’t forgotten anything; the damned thing hadn’t come. Now she recalled that crazy night with Miangua forty-two days earlier. She’d been so pleased, so elated, that she’d forgotten to take any precautions. How could she be so fertile? How could such a little escapade come to this? Women like me should never let ourselves be too happy, for if we are, then what should happen will not, and what should not happen will make a spectacle of us. Instinctively covering her belly with her hands, she felt shame, but that quickly subsided and was replaced by uncontrollable rage. The opening night was only days away. How had she failed to squeeze her legs together that night? Staring at herself in the mirror above the sink, she wrapped up her situation with a single comment, patterned after the coarsest of women, in the foulest language she knew: “Fuck me, a slut who can’t even keep her legs closed!”
What was growing in her belly became her most urgent consideration. She counted the days again and felt a chill travel all the way down to her calves. Nothing could save her if she threw up on stage during the performance. The best solution was, of course, a surgical procedure, for that was clean and thorough and would solve all her problems. But surgery had its downside; pain, of course, but pain wasn’t the worst of it. Not only would it take too long for her to recover, but she might well once again “tattoo” her voice on stage. Five years earlier she’d had an abortion, and it had taken a tremendous toll on her body, requiring almost a month to recover. She could not have another one. Pills were her only choice. They would abort the fetus quietly, and she would only need a few days’ rest. She stood vacantly at the sink a while longer before leaving the toilet and heading straight for the main entrance. Xiao Yanqiu was fighting for time—not with anyone else, but with herself. Each day gotten through was one day saved.
Later that same day she held six small white tablets in her hand, with the doctor’s instructions to take one in the morning and one in the afternoon for two days, then two on the third morning. When they were all gone, she was to see him again. The tablets had a lyrical name—Stopping the Pearl—as if such a lustrous object were slowly taking shape in her belly and hindering her from doing what she wanted. No wonder there were fewer poets and playwrights these days; they were all busy giving names to pills and tablets. Sadness surged up inside as she gazed at the tablets in her hand. A woman spends her life in the company of these things, something that started with Chang’e, who stole the elixir of immortality and flew to the moon. Now she, Xiao Yanqiu, had to follow in Chang’e’s footsteps. Medicine is truly strange, one of life’s oddest conspiracies.
Though she lived some distance from the hospital, she decided to walk home. Along the way, she grew angry at herself, but even more so at Miangua. By the time she arrived home, she was no longer just angry, she was filled with loathing. She walked in the door, gave him a nasty look, and went to bed without eating or washing up.
Yanqiu chose not to ask for sick leave, for abortion was not something to be proud of, and there was no need to spread the news. But she reacted badly to the Stopping the Pearl tablets: she was bilious and felt so lightheaded it was as if she had just returned from the moon. With great difficulty, she managed to make it through a day of rehearsal, but her loathing was doubled; it penetrated the marrow of her bones. The homecoming scene that night was a repeat of the day before, except that the atmosphere was even colder. Her face was darker and more menacing than ever as she walked in the door. Like the preceding day, she didn’t eat, drink, or wash up, and she didn’t say a word before going straight to bed. The house felt different. For Miangua, a wintry wind had gathered at the door and was slipping in through a crack; he stood there listening for a while, unaware of what had happened and not knowing what to do about it.
But Xiao Yanqiu did not sleep. Miangua heard her sigh late at night, when all was quiet. She took in a breath and held it, as if not wanting him to hear, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. He sighed too, but softly. Something was wrong, something was definitely wrong. He thought he could almost see the end of life.
Miangua began to feel nostalgic about the past, and when a person does so, it can only mean that something is nearing its end. He and Xiao Yanqiu were not a good match—like a pigeon settling into a magpie’s nest. He’d come into her life when she was in dire straits. Now she was going back on the stage, becoming a star again. Where does Chang’e fly except up to the heavens? Sooner or later she would soar back into the sky, and it wouldn’t be long before their home was turned upside down. He was reminded of her abnormal behavior over the past few days and could only sneer at the dark night.