Throwaway Daughter (18 page)

Ah-miao scrambled to his feet and took one step. But Firecracker could not be stopped. Her screaming intensified. “You useless shit-head! That’s all you are, wife beater. You’re not going to treat me the way you treated your first wife!”

“Where is she?” I broke in. “Can’t you stop all this and tell me where she is?”

Firecracker and Loyal looked at me. I began to shake and tears ran from my eyes. “Damn you!” I cried out. “Damn all of you!”

“What is she talking about?” someone in the crowd whispered.

“She’s a foreigner,” said one of the women. “The poor thing. She came all the way here from Canada to find Chun-mei. But it’s too late.”

I spun around. “You mean she’s dead?”

“It’s too late,” the woman repeated.

PART SIX
Liuhe Village, Jiangsu Province

I
knew it. I knew something bad was about to happen. My left eyelid had been twitching for days. My dear wife, who was taken from me seventeen years ago, used to say, “Left eye, catastrophe; right eye, luck.”

I am glad she was not there to witness this; it would have killed her all over again. I tried to convince myself that my old head was playing tricks on me. Did I hear it right? That lovely young woman who stood tall and straight as a poplar in our front yard is my granddaughter?

One single slip can cause a lifetime of sorrow, my wife used to say. She had warned me many times. When it turned out that Chun-mei was no longer her daughter-in-law and Firecracker was
going to marry Loyal, her poor heart gave up on her. She told me with her last breath that I would be punished, if not in this life, in the next. I didn’t believe her then. If there was a medicine that could cure regret, I would cross a sea of fire and climb a mountain of knives to get it. I’m over eighty years old, toothless and aching in every joint. My body has gone downhill, but my memory is as keen as the edge of a sickle.

I wish I would forget that December evening nearly nineteen years ago. It was the moment I led my family down the path to hell.

My daughter-in-law’s pregnancy had gone well, although as her father-in-law I didn’t make direct inquires. Loyal’s mother filled me in. Loyal had given me a detailed report of Old Fu’s prediction. Since then, I would often laugh myself awake from my dreams, imagining my grandson playing at my feet, or bouncing on my knee.

I showed due respect to my daughter-in-law, more than tradition required. Through old connections and past influence, I was able to arrange light jobs for her instead of field work. Later, an opening came up in a local factory, folding cardboard boxes, and I got her the position. She was the envy of every young woman in
her condition. No more exposure to the wind and rain and sun, no standing on her feet all day. Loyal had been a sickly child who gave me many nights without sleep. I wanted my grandson to have a strong start, right from the beginning.

What a dirty joke it was! My supposed grandson turned out to be a baby girl! If the child had been delivered in the county hospital, according to my daughter-in-law’s plan, I would have fought and argued all the way to the central government in Beijing, accusing the doctors and nurses of switching babies on me. It wouldn’t have been the first time in this country. But when the time came, one frigid evening of freezing rain and snow, I urged Loyal to go and get Sister Liu.

“It will be a very uncomfortable journey for your wife, lying in the wagon, pulled by the walking tractor. The hospital is too far and the roads are too slippery.”

Loyal hesitated.

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing,” I said. “Just remember, you and your sisters were all born at home. You don’t think I would take a risk where my grandson is concerned, do you? Your mama and Sister Liu have brought enough babies into the world to make up a platoon.”

So Loyal rushed out into the storm to fetch Sister Liu.

Hours later, when I was told the disastrous news, I pounded my fist on the closed door of the bedroom where the mother and her useless newborn lay, screaming through the planks at that Liu woman, whom I thought I could trust, then at my wife. Loyal paced the floor behind me. He had wanted to be with his wife, but I wouldn’t let him. I had to remind him that men should stay away from childbirth. Too much blood, unclean blood, which would bring bad luck to men.

Loyal urged me to calm down. What was going through his mind I couldn’t say, but his behaviour, and the look on his face, destroyed my trust. I had to come up with a plan, and soon.

Sister Liu, I knew, wouldn’t be a problem. She and her whole family were indebted to me for help I had given them during the years when I was in office. Nor would my wife be a worry to me. But my daughter-in-law caught me and Loyal off guard. I had heard rumours when I was looking for a wife for Loyal that she was headstrong, but she was a young woman, I had told myself, nothing I couldn’t handle. Ever since she joined our family she had never shown
me, Loyal, or my wife the slightest disrespect. That night, though, she showed her true colours.

My plan fell apart almost as soon as it had been hatched. It depended on getting the baby away from its mother, out of that room. But my wife stupidly let the mother hold the baby. Sister Liu failed me, too. She should have stopped my wife from making that mistake!

Loyal, too, was useless. That brain of his, usually his pride, turned to bean curd. When he finally went into the room, all he did was scurry back and forth between his wife and me, acting as a messenger. “She won’t give the baby up,” he kept repeating. “What am I going to do?”

I hadn’t seen Loyal look so helpless for years. He hadn’t asked for my advice for a long time, not since he got his big ideas about building a new house and starting up a business with those pathetic rabbits. I had taken his change of heart as a sign that he had learned his lesson, his way of putting me back as head of the family again. It was past midnight and we had to act fast. I had never underestimated his wife’s intelligence, but I had surely misjudged her ability to cause damage.

“We’ve got to come up with another plan,” I told my son.

What a night that was. A storm overhead and freezing rain coating the countryside with ice. My wife in bed, facing the wall and refusing to speak to me. Me sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking one cigarette after another. My daughter-in-law weeping in her room as her and Loyal’s voices rose and fell. My son, the seed of Chen, running in and out of the room, wringing his hands.

I had never dreamed that I would one day bargain with my daughter-in-law, a disgrace unheard of since Emperor Chin united China. Nor was I happy to see my son turned into a parrot, repeating her words and mine. But a deal was finally reached hours after dawn.

Loyal brought me her final words. “Tell your father he can inform the village authorities that my daughter was stillborn, or whatever story he wants to make up. But if he tries to hurt her in any way, he will be sorry he ever drew breath in this world.”

I was shocked. I had no idea this usually soft-spoken woman with her gentle manner could utter such hateful and disobedient words. But I felt badly for Loyal. He seemed aged overnight, his face drawn, his shoulders hunched. So I agreed.

During the next two days only my wife was allowed into the room to be with the mother and
child. She had tried to get me to look at what she called the lovely baby. While to everyone in the village I was a tough old bird, my wife knew my weakness. I had to remind myself not to lay eyes on the child. I had to be strong at the critical moment of my son’s life, to make sure he had another chance to get a son.

Time dragged. The freezing rain gave way to wet snow that shut down the village. People stayed at home, keeping warm. I had asked Loyal to hang quilts over the door and to cover all the windows in the same manner. I pretended it was to keep out the northeast wind, but my real concern was the baby’s cries. She was a fierce little thing, I’ll say that for her. But her racket was an enemy to my plans.

Early on the morning of the third day, Loyal walked into our bedroom and said, “She’s gone.” I could hardly see him because dawn had not yet arrived. After he said those two words, he left. I lay still, staring into the darkness. Beside me, my wife began to weep quietly. She had been in bed most of the time since the baby was born, when she was not looking after the mother and child. She had complained of chest pains and she needed rest. Only months later I learned that she hadn’t been well for quite a while.

What a day that was. No one stirred from bed until noon. Our chimney stayed smokeless all day and the house was a cold dark cave, as if we had already fallen into hell.

That afternoon I lay down for a nap, exhausted by the tension of the past days, the silence around me, the lack of sleep. I could not feel the relief I had hoped for. I must have dozed off. I was awakened by the sound of uncontrolled sobbing. I got out of bed, followed the sound up the stairs, found the two women crying. I saw Loyal’s wife lying on her back, facing the ceiling, her clothes rumpled and her hair in a tangle, and Loyal standing at the foot of the bed as motionless as a tree stump. My wife sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes red and swollen. She looked up, saw me, then looked away. My wife of forty years was suddenly a stranger.

“Go away!” my daughter-in-law shouted as soon as she saw me. Her face was twisted with pain. She pointed at me. “You heartless animal! You will pay for this before you die.” Then she let out a loud cry so sad and broken it would soften a stone.

That was the last time Loyal’s wife spoke to me. During the month-long confinement my wife cooked and washed for her like a hired
maid, and when the confinement was over she went back to work in the factory right away. I didn’t need my wife to tell me we had a stranger living under our roof now. Gone were the smiles that had come so easily to my daughter-in-law’s face, and her respect towards me and Loyal. When I came near, she would cast down her eyes and ignore me.

Gradually, as the winter wore itself out and spring came, she softened a bit towards Loyal, and I was pleased to learn that he was back sleeping in the same bed with her. This time, I promised myself, there would be no trips to see that fool Fu. If I had to, I would sell every chicken in our yard, even the two pigs I was raising, to pay for a visit to the machine that had eyes to see through a woman’s belly.

If I began after that terrible winter to feel hope again, the hope turned to shame, and my household, once one of the premier families in the village, became the focus of rumour and ridicule. My poor wife never recovered from not knowing what had happened to the child she had helped to deliver. But the arrival at our home of Qiu-xiang, a woman we had never heard of, killed her. While her ashes were still warm, Loyal was forced to marry the brash and
ignorant woman from Sichuan Province. At their wedding dinner I couldn’t hold back my tears, and when Qiu-xiang caught me wiping my eyes, she exploded in anger, thus earning her nickname, Firecracker.

Ah-miao, Loyal’s son, was born five months later, but there was little joy for me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pretend the happiness I didn’t feel. My son’s new wife sensed my true feelings, and from that day became my enemy. If we had been a dragon and a tiger in our former lives, she told me one day, we were cat and mouse now. She meant one of us must die if the other was to live in peace. By then my dear wife was gone and the thought of joining her didn’t sound too bad. Then one day it dawned on me that I did have something to look forward to: to watch my grandson grow tall and strong. So I refused to die.

I have committed my share of sins. But I, too, have a belly full of bitterness. As far as this Chun-mei business goes, when all is said and done, I was desperate. I wanted to be a good citizen, to obey the rules of the government, to do my small part in building the new China. I rose to high office in the brigade and I was widely respected as a good
and honest official. I followed the Party line and Chairman Mao’s instructions when he was alive and continued to do so after his death.