(2001) The Bonesetter's Daughter (24 page)

For a while, it was very quiet in the studio. Then Great-Granny went up to Mother and said with a worried face: “Eh, have you seen Hu Sen?”

“He’s in the courtyard,” Mother answered. And Great-Granny shuffled out.

My uncles’ wives began to cluck their tongues. “Still crazy from what happened,” Little Aunt muttered, “and that was almost fifteen years ago.” For a moment, I did not know if they were talking about Great-Granny or Precious Auntie.

Big Aunt added, “Good thing she can’t talk. It would be a terrible embarrassment to our family if anyone knew what she was trying to say.”

“You should turn her out of the house,” Little Aunt said to Mother. And then Mother nodded toward Great-Granny, who was now wandering about, scratching at a bloody spot on the back of her ear. “It’s because of old Granny,” she said, “that the lunatic nursemaid has stayed all these years.” And I knew then what Mother really meant but could not say. When Great-Granny died, she could finally tell Precious Auntie to go. All at once, I felt tender toward my nursemaid. I wanted to protest that Mother must not do this. But how could I argue against something that had not yet been said?

A month later, Great-Granny fell and hit her head on the brick edge of her
k’ang.
Before the Hour of the Rooster she was dead. Father, Big Uncle, and Little Uncle returned home from Peking, though the roads had become dangerous. A lot of shooting among warlords was going on between Peking and the Mouth of the Mountain. Lucky for us, the only fighting we saw was among the tenants. We had to ask them several times not to scream and shout while we were paying respects to Great-Granny as she lay in the common hall.

When Mr. Chang delivered the coffin, Precious Auntie stayed in her room and cursed him with her banging pail. I was sitting on a bench in the front courtyard, watching as Father and Mr. Chang unloaded the cart.

I thought to myself, Precious Auntie is wrong. Mr. Chang didn’t look like a thief. He was a large man with friendly manners and an open face. Father was eagerly discussing with him his “important contribution to science, history, and all of China.” To this, Mr. Chang acted both modest and pleased. Then Father left to get Mr. Chang’s money for the coffin.

Though it was a cold day, Mr. Chang was sweating. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. After a while, he noticed I was staring at him. “You’ve certainly grown big,” he called to me. I blushed. A famous man was talking to me.

“My sister is bigger,” I thought to say. “And she’s a year younger.”

“Ah, that’s good,” he said.

I had not intended for him to praise GaoLing. “I heard that you had pieces of Peking Man,” I then said. “What parts?”

“Oh, only the most important.”

And I, too, wanted to seem important, so I blurted without thinking, “I once had some bones myself,” before I slapped my hand over my mouth.

Mr. Chang smiled, waiting for me to continue. “Where are they?” he said after a while.

I could not be impolite. “We took them back to the cave,” I answered.

“Where’s that?”

“I can’t say where. My nursemaid made me promise. It’s a secret.”

“Ah, your nursemaid. She’s the one with the ugly face.” Mr. Chang stiffened his fingers like a crab and held them over his mouth.

I nodded.

“The crazy person.” He looked toward the sounds of the banging pail. I said nothing.

“And she found bones from this place you can’t talk about?”

“We found them together, she took them back,” I answered quickly. “But I can’t say where.”

“Of course. You shouldn’t tell a stranger.”

“Oh, you’re not a stranger! Our family knows you very well. We all say so.”

“Still, you shouldn’t tell me. But surely you’ve told your own father and mother.”

I shook my head. “No one. If I did, they would want to dig them out. Precious Auntie said so. She said the bones have to stay in the cave or she would suffer the consequences.”

“What consequences?”

“A curse. She’ll die if I say.”

“But she is already quite old, is she not?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Often women die at all sorts of ages and it’s not because of a curse. Illness or accident, that’s often the cause. My first wife died ten years ago. She was always clumsy and one day she fell off a roof. Now I have a new wife and she’s even better than the last. If your nursemaid dies, you can get a new one, too.”

“I’m too old for another,” I said. I did not like our conversation anymore. Soon Father returned with Mr. Chang’s money. They chatted a few more minutes in a friendly manner, and then Mr. Chang called to me, “Next time I see you, we’ll talk again,” and he left with his empty cart. Father seemed pleased that Mr. Chang, who was now such a well-known man in our town, had found me worthy of attention.

A few days later, we had a proper funeral for Great-Granny. Everyone wailed loudly, but Mother was the loudest, as was the custom, she being the number-one-ranking lady of the house. She did a very good job sounding sad beyond hope. And I, too, cried, sad but also afraid. And when the funeral was over, I became nervous of what would happen next: Mother would make Precious Auntie leave.

But she did not, and this was why.

Mother believed Great-Granny was still around, haunting the outhouse and making sure everyone still followed her rules. Every time Mother squatted over the hole, she heard a voice asking, “Have you seen Hu Sen?” When she told us this, Third Aunt said, “The sight of your bare bottom should have scared away any ghost.” And we all laughed, but Mother became angry and announced she was cutting off everyone’s allowance for the next month. “To teach you to have more respect for Great-Granny,” she said. For the ghost in the outhouse, Mother went to the village temple every day and gave special offerings. She went to Great-Granny’s grave and burned silver paper, so Great-Granny could buy her way to a better level. After ninety days of constipation, Mother went back to the funerary ship and bought a paper automobile large as life, complete with chauffeur. Great-Granny had seen a real one once at a temple fair in the Mouth of the Mountain. It was in the parking lot where carts and donkeys were kept, and when the automobile roared away, she said, it was loud enough to scare the devil and fast enough to fly to heaven.

So the paper auto went up in flames, and Great-Granny’s ghost traveled from the latrine to the World of Yin. And then our household went back to its normal, noisy ways. For the rest of the family, the concerns were on little daily matters: mold in the millet, a crack in the glass, nothing at all of lasting importance.

And only I worried about what would happen to Precious Auntie.

I remember the day Mother received a surprise letter from Peking. It was the period of Great Heat, when mosquitoes were their happiest and fruit left outside rotted in less than an hour under the sun. Great-Granny had been dead for more than ninety days. We sat in the shade of the big tree in the courtyard, waiting to hear the news.

We all knew the letter writer, Old Widow Lau. She was a cousin, within eight degrees of kinship on Father’s side and five degrees on Mother’s side, close enough to follow the mourning rituals of family. She had come to Great-Granny’s funeral and had wailed as loudly as the rest of us.

Since Mother could not read, she asked GaoLing, and I had to hide my disappointment that she had been chosen for this important task. GaoLing smoothed her hair, cleared her throat, licked her lips, then read: ” ‘Dear Cousin, I send greetings from all those who have asked after you with deep feeling.’” GaoLing then stumbled through a long list of names, from those of brand-new babies to people Mother was sure were already dead. On the next page, our old cousin wrote something like this: “I know you are still in mourning and barely able to eat because of grief. So it is not a good time to invite everyone to come visit in Peking. But I have been thinking about what you and I discussed when we last saw each other at the funeral.”

GaoLing broke off reading and turned to Mother. “What did you discuss?” I, too, was wondering this.

Mother slapped GaoLing’s hand. “Don’t be nosy. You just read, and I’ll tell you what you should know.”

The letter continued: “‘I wish to humbly suggest that your number-one daughter’”—she was speaking of me, and my heart swelled— “‘come to Peking and accidentally meet a distant relation of mine.’” GaoLing threw me a scowl, and I was pleased she was jealous. ” ‘This relation,’ ” GaoLing went on reading in a less enthusiastic voice, ” ‘has four sons, who are seventh cousins of mine, three times removed, with a different surname. They live in your same village, but are barely related to you, if at all.’”

When I heard the words “barely related,” I knew this accidental meeting meant she wanted to see whether I might be a marriage match for a certain family. I was fourteen (this was by my Chinese age), and most of the girls my age were already married. As to which family, Old Widow Lau did not want to say, unless she knew for certain that our family believed such an accident could be beneficial. “To be honest,” she wrote, “I would not have thought of this family on my own. But the father came to me and asked about LuLing. They have apparently seen the girl and are impressed with her beauty and sweet nature.”

My face flushed. At last Mother knew what others were saying about me. Perhaps she might see these good qualities in me as well.

“I want to go to Peking, too,” GaoLing said like a complaining cat.

Mother scolded her: “Did anyone invite you? No? Well, then, you only look stupid for saying you want to go.” When she whined again, Mother yanked her braid and said, “Shut your mouth,” before handing me the letter to finish reading.

I sat up straight, facing Mother, and read with much expression: ‘“The family suggests a meeting at your family’s ink shop in Peking.’” I stopped a moment and smiled at GaoLing. I had never seen the shop, nor had she. ” ‘In this way,’” I continued, ” ‘if there is any disharmony of interest, there will be no public embarrassment to either family. If both families are in agreement about the match, then this will be a blessing from the gods for which I can take no credit.’”

“No credit,” Mother said with a snort, “just a lot of gifts.”

The next part of the letter went like this: “A good daughter-in-law is hard to find, I’m sure you will agree. Perhaps you remember my second daughter-in-law? I am ashamed to admit that she has turned out to be coldhearted. Today she suggested that your daughter’s nursemaid should not accompany her to Peking. She said that if a person were to see the two together, he would remember only the shocking ugliness of the nursemaid and not the emerging beauty of the maiden. I told her that was nonsense. But as I write this letter, I realize now that it would be inconvenient to accommodate another servant, since mine already complain that there is not enough room for them to sleep in one bed. So perhaps it would be better if the nursemaid does not come after all. I apologize that nothing can be done about the poverty of our household… .”

Only when I was done reading did I look up at Precious Auntie, embarrassed.
Never mind,
she signed to me quietly.
I’ll
tell her later that I can sleep on the floor.
I turned to Mother, waiting to hear what more she had to say.

“Write a letter back. Tell Old Widow Lau that I will have you go in a week. I’d take you myself, but it’s the ink season and we have too much to do. I’ll ask Mr. Wei to take you in his cart. He always makes a medical delivery to Peking on the first and won’t mind an extra passenger in exchange for a little cash.”

Precious Auntie napped her hands for my attention.
Now is the time to tell her you can’t go alone. Who will make sure it’s a good marriage? What if that busybody idiot cousin tries to barter you off as a second wife to a poor family? Ask her to consider that.

I shook my head. I was afraid to anger Mother with a lot of unnecessary questions and ruin my chances to visit Peking. Precious Auntie tugged my sleeve. I ignored her. Lately I had done this a few times, and it infuriated Precious Auntie. Since she could not speak and Mother could not read, when I refused to talk for her, she was left wordless, powerless.

Back in our room, Precious Auntie beseeched me.
You are too young to go to Peking by yourself. This is more dangerous than you can imagine. You could be killed by bandits, your head chopped off and put on a stake.
 . . . I did not answer her, I did not argue, I gave her no ground on which to keep her footing. On and on she went that day, the next, and the day after that. At times, she expressed anger at what Old Widow Lau had written.
That woman does not care about what’s best for you. She sticks her nose in other people’s business for money. Soon she’ll stink like the bottoms she’s been smelling.

Later Precious Auntie handed me a letter, which I was supposed to give to GaoLing so she could read it to Mother. I nodded, and as soon as I was out of the room and around the corner, I read it: “Besides all the shooting and unrest, the summer air there is full of diseases. And in Peking, there are strange ailments we have never even experienced here, maladies that could make the tips of LuLing’s nose and fingers fall off. Luckily, I know the remedies to treat such problems so that LuLing does not return home bringing with her an epidemic… .”

When Precious Auntie asked me if I had given Mother the letter, I made my face and heart a stone wall. “Yes,” I lied. Precious Auntie sighed, relieved. This was the first time she had believed a lie of mine. I wondered what had changed within her that she could no longer sense if I was telling the truth. Or was it I who had changed?

The night before I was to leave, Precious Auntie stood before me with the letter, which I had wadded into a little ball and stuffed in a pocket of my trousers.
What is the meaning of this?
She grabbed my arm.

“Leave me alone,” I protested. “You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

You think you ‘re so smart? You ‘re still a silly baby.

“I’m not. I don’t need you anymore.”