by Sky Lee
Even after he had worked with her for a long time, he never broke through her composure. Every day she was the same easy person to get along with, with the same unruffled face, although a bit too unfailingly courteous and poised, considering the kind of life she must have under Mui Lan. Ting An just attributed that to the chineseness in her which he found rather appealing. Well-bred chinese women were like that, he decided. Always thinking of others ahead of themselves. They’d sooner die than embarrass anybody else with their own personal problems—terribly imposing to let on they felt like slitting their wrists in a minute or so.
He had watched her play the role of the perfect daughter-in-law all along, always eager to please, to work tirelessly, never bitter, so it was easy for him to see her gradually abandon the once very bright, very genuine zeal for her new married life. A bit more every year, until nothing was left in her eyes but solitude. All the rest a shell—a thin, delicate porcelain shell. So translucent he could see right through, and he always wondered why nobody else ever could.
To an outsider perhaps, she was still a young and happy girl. Who remembered that it was already over five years since they’d drunk at her wedding banquet? Everyone still called her the newly arrived auntie, not out of politeness but more out of absentmindedness. Women would be more exacting, but these old chinamen—who among them ever recalled that back in the village, a woman married five years would have a tiny baby in front, one on her back and a big one clinging to her pantlegs? If she had children here, a woman like Fong Mei would have a firm stake in this land. Besides, women like to have babies, dress them up, show them off, that sort of thing.
Fortunately, Ting An wasn’t what you might call an outsider. The source of her troubles was obvious to him. She was squashed under her mother-in-law’s big thumb. And that old bag would have a sadistic knack for making life miserable for a daughter-in-law. If only Fong Mei had one baby, her problems would be over; she’d be able to tell Mui Lan off. That’s the way with mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. What could Mui Lan do then—throw her own grandson out? Dead, stinky bitch! Let her try!
Ting An was still there, planted squarely in front of Fong Mei. She knew she’d been too rough on him; she stole a glance at him. People used to say that he was half-indian—his mother a savage. Before, Fong Mei used to search his face for traces of this, but she only saw a chiselled face, gracefully masculine, like a chinese from the north.
It wasn’t his fault that he had walked in at an inopportune moment. Any other time, they would have chatted amiably about this and that. Never for any length of time—that would have raised eyebrows! The door to the kitchen, where others could plainly see them, would always be wide open. Often another worker would be in the vicinity and be easily led into their lighthearted conversation. He always had a juicy bit of gossip to entertain her with, or he’d tease her about commonplace things. Being local-born, he was peculiar, to her way of looking at things, and his friendliness used to make her nervous at first, but he certainly wasn’t as brash as white ghosts. Anyway, she should have been more appreciative of his efforts to cheer her up even if they were a bit clumsy and rough. Still, this was the first time she had actually broken down in front of him, or anybody for that matter. She chewed her lips bravely, hands pulling nervously on a belaboured handkerchief. He was still waiting intently for an explanation. But she didn’t have a safe one.
She glanced shyly at him and made a painful attempt. “I know a man will just laugh, but it’s frightening being a bride . . . I mean wife. We just get thrown into the clutches of strangers. I didn’t know what to do, except what I was told. Well, now it seems that isn’t . . . enough,” her voice emptying. “Oh, how could you understand! I’m so stupid,” she finally muttered.
“Auntie Fong, I wouldn’t laugh. Why should I? Remember, I am an orphan myself!” Ting An didn’t like the way his voice squeaked with too much responsiveness. It occurred to him that for all of the talking they’d done, they’d never really talked at all.
He began again, his voice tamed. “A Fong, my mother died when I was a baby. I never even knew my father. Then, after my grandfather died, I was twelve years old, penniless, and I had no one . . . except for your Lo Yeh. Gwei Chang took me in as a worker and gave me a bed. He treated me real good, but sometimes it’s been lonely. I’m not that sure of things, myself . . .” He had never spoken so candidly, never exposed himself. He was a bit dumbfounded, but what followed was a silence which seemed to purr with warmth, a long-forgotten warmth that renewed his senses.
When he looked at her, he found that she was stretching out her fingers to him, and they almost touched his arm. But then, she drew back immediately. And when she looked up at him, she saw that he had seen. She flinched with embarrassment. Her eyes trailed off, but the shy smile never left her lips. For a brief moment, both of them seemed to be entranced by their closeness. Without having to look, she noticed the resolute firmness about his mouth and jaw. Her own husband’s jaw was always slightly slack, his mien almost shiftless. Ting An leaned forward, and his slender hand reached out to brush a stray hair aside.
She had to shrink from his touch. It was her duty. With her voice strung tight, she appealed to him not to, by saying, “Now, I feel even more stupid!” Adding an artificial laugh. “I mean compared to you, what do I have to complain about? Being separated from my family at seventeen years old? A grown woman already. But how heart-wrenching for you, Elder Brother.”
“No, not really.” He smiled down at her. Yes, he would let go for now. “Sudden separation is always worse, especially for some people.” And he would continue to play his part. “As for me, you’re wasting your pity on me. I’m a bull-demon, don’t you know!” He thumped on his puffed-up chest. “Lived with rough labourers all my life. They used to feed me rancid goat’s milk from old liquor bottles. Never knew a woman’s touch! Never missed it . . .” Yet, to himself, he thought: until now.
“Still, how wicked of me to complain!” Fong Mei demurred flawlessly. She wished she could tell him how much she appreciated his friendship and understanding. But she, like him, as if paralyzed from a spider’s vicious bite, couldn’t move from her side of what suddenly yawned into a huge chasm.
Soon he pulled himself away from her desk, leaving her to herself in the dusty back recesses of the storeroom where the discarded things of the Wong family business were shelved.
II
TIES OVERSEAS — A TICKET IN
MUI LAN
1924
Tyrannized by her own helplessness, Fong Mei cowered on the floor in front of her mother-in-law and wept piteously. Mui Lan sat at the secretary in her bedroom and stared at her daughter-in-law, a sneer frozen on her mouth, her plump, slippered feet tucked so neatly under her chair that she gave the appearance of being a cruel court eunuch in an opera. On the dainty desk top, strategically placed, a marriage certificate, a neat stack of immigration papers and miscellaneous receipts. On the four-poster bed, a camphor chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl, full of Fong Mei’s wedding gold and jewelry, rested its case. Strategically gone, both the Wong elder and son, to their respective vocations, thus qualifying Mui Lan for omnipotence at home.
A gentle breeze blew through the tulle curtains at the window. Outside, a thick, hazy summer’s midmorning, the air unctuous with the cloying scent of overripe fruit. Raspberries oozing sweet juices rotted and dropped from their limp canes, smashing in the dust like the bloodied carnage of a badly executed slaughter.
“Her male offspring guarantees the daughter-in-law’s position in the family. You are barren and thus may not be accredited with one!” Mui Lan brought the matter of concern home with a single daggerous plunge! After this, she would no longer have to address the petrified younger woman. As far as Mui Lan was concerned, Fong Mei was a dead person.
“Damned, stinky bag!” she spoke into the air. “We received her into our home in the most flamboyant style. With the costs of hiring the go-betweens and the negotiators; with the costs of
her passage and the bribes, never mind the gifts; and of course the cost of the wedding itself—never mind the risks we took with our Wong name and livelihood in a government investigation to secure her immigration status . . .” Her face contorting violently, she screeched out, “Your mother’s stinking . . . no one, absolutely no one would dispute me if I claimed publicly to have borne you in your flowery sedan chair across the ocean on my own back!”
Mui Lan had escalated to such a brain-bursting pitch so quickly that she had to pause to regather her corporeal forces. It had become stifling hot in the upstairs room. Taking great gulps of air, she started again.
“For five years, five long years, we’ve housed, fed and clothed her. And for what end? So that she could disgrace our ancestors’ good name and bring bad luck onto this family, and ultimately risk our future descendants? Where am I to find peace in such a situation? Who do I go to for justice? Damned stinky she-bag!”
Having no face left at all, having lost her standing as a human being, Fong Mei’s colour drained away, her neck limp and weak as if broken. She had been expecting a scolding for a long time, but this tirade of raging obscenities left her flaccid with fear. Snot drivelled out of her nose; tears trickled after each blink. Sobs, chokes and mucous muffled into her sleeves. Mui Lan’s eyes fixed on her, black as hell, as if yearning to rub her off the face of this earth.
Ha! Mui Lan thought to herself, looking over the results of her exertions, satisfied with the slumped remains of her daughter-in-law before her. That despicable pig-bitch wouldn’t dare wrangle with her. Her standing as a human being was all but lost. She might as well die!
Actually, in the beginning, Mui Lan had been afraid that Fong Mei would balk at her. One could never be sure of this younger generation of wild chickens who dared to presume that they had rights. Her daughter-in-law was no simpleton. She could have learnt very quickly to turn against the old ways when they didn’t suit her any more. Who knew what she might attempt, from beguiling her husband to turn against his own mother to shamelessly running away to the Jesus-ghosts who would no doubt harbour her?
Mui Lan glanced down at her hands and the small key held in her own unconscious grip. She had stolen the little brass key from her husband’s ring of keys while he slept. If the old man were to catch even a whiff of her plans, he would veto them with one big puff of his smelly cigar. Then, where would she be? Still, Mui Lan was willing to risk her old man’s ire to play the trump card that she now pushed towards Fong Mei.
“Here, look!” Mui Lan said decisively. “Here are your entry papers, marriage certificate and wedding gold. According to our tang people’s customs and laws, they are all meaningless now. Even this marriage contract! Useless too. Take them! Take them and go! Roll your useless female eggs a long way from here!”
Fong Mei gave an agonized shriek and sprang to her knees. “No, no, Nye Nye!” she begged and kowtowed. “Have mercy! Have mercy! Where am I to go?”
“Go back home to your own family! You have more than enough gold here to pawn for a passage.” Mui Lan sneered, knowing full well that a spurned daughter-in-law would rather commit suicide than go back to her parents’ home, for all the ten generations of everlasting shame that she would cost her family, in fact her whole village.
“No!” Fong Mei gasped as if strangling, and broke down into uncontrolled heaving and sobbing again.
“I don’t care where you drag your dead body. You definitely have no right to stay in the way of my son’s son. Who’s going to speak up on your side? Resist, and other people will hold up your stinky thing for ridicule. Ha! They’ll all say Lee Mui Lan has right on her side,” she sniffed like a fretful badger, this way and that.
“If we were in the village, not even your father would dare say a thing. Who else would have the patience and virtue to keep a big-eating cow, a downright fraud, in her home for so long.” Still shaking with pent-up anger, Mui Lan stopped again, her breathing fast and strained.
After a long sigh for dramatic effect, she fussed: “Haven’t I done everything possible?” And her voice cracked with emotion as if she were the one hard done by. “Spared no expense to ensure you ‘get happiness’ and bear a boy—even a girl—to my son? You’ve eaten our best food, had all the required medicines. I’ve sent gifts, and money to have incense burnt at the temples at home, to have amulets made. I’ve even risked our reputation to send you to that dead, immoral, white doctor-specialist. All without results. You have no future. You’re no good!”
I have her now, thought Mui Lan, and waited until the torrential sobs subsided. Confident that her daughter-in-law’s life was now entirely in her hands—to have and to hold, to squeeze or to let live—Mui Lan began gently. “Listen, Fong Mei! I’m not so hard-mouthed as to want to disgrace your parents. What is there in it for me? But our customs are clear and practical too. If the first wife cannot bear a son, then she stands aside for another. That way, the family is assured of a yellow, ‘lucky’ road. Otherwise, who will there be left to honour even you, to sweep your grave? Now if we were in China, A Fuk would simply bring home a concubine. And when she bore a son, he would call you ‘first mother.’ You know these traditions. It’s not as though we are out to strike you in the face!”
By now, Fong Mei was all but cried out. She still kneeled on the floor, covered in a cold sweat, as if drained from some kind of wasted exertion. The funny thing was she didn’t know why she should be exhausted. Her life was like that of a work beast. When old and used up, it is bovine and calm, placid about its fate, and does not expect mercies. She had accepted this long ago, and now she tried to fix this image in her mind, if for no other reason than it would give her dignity. But tears quickly oozed beyond control, and fear made her grovel before she could stop herself. Suddenly, she realized that there was rage as well. So, it was rage, pushing her body beyond its limits! Rage that made her body shudder with icy fear.
Mui Lan thought Fong Mei was nodding in agreement, so she went on. “As daughter-in-law, though obviously not flawless, your behaviour is above reproach. A Fuk is fond of you, is he not? As am I and Lo Yeh! The past five years, you have learnt and worked a good deal.” Mui Lan’s words skidded together, and Fong Mei recognized their insincerity immediately. “But no matter how much you do, you have done nothing until you have given a son to us.”
This idea of a baby was a trance-inducing chant that had long ago lost its meaning. Fong Mei was being punished, not for something she had done but for some apparent blank part of her.
“However,” Mui Lan continued, “no one can accuse the Wong family of having ‘a wolf ’s heart and a dog’s lung.’ Here, we are living on the frontier with barbarians. We stick together. Who wants to turn you out?” Adding slyly, “It’s more a matter of whether you want to stick with us.”
“Living in a land with foreign devils makes it very difficult for tang people. How can we bring another woman into the country without exposing ourselves to another, even more treacherous government investigation? Then, by their laws, concubines are illegal. So A Fuk would need to divorce you first.” Mui Lan stole a sly glance at Fong Mei, who stiffened on cue. “And we tang people don’t like to subject ourselves to their courts. It would be like placing ourselves in the paws of a tiger.”
Each detail flawlessly revealed; every angle precisely designed for Fong Mei’s unconditional surrender. Strangely enough, Mui Lan felt a twinge of guilt. She suddenly became aware of the glass wind-chimes that hung on the porch downstairs. Was it an isolated gust of wind, or did she just now hear the thin, incessant tinkling drift in through the window? It made her slightly uneasy.
“Here in this wilderness,” she said, more loudly than she’d intended, “there are no chinese women who are suitable for marriage into a respectable home. What few there are, are no good; but perhaps with the right connections and a sizable sum of money, we can pay off a clean enough woman to have a child for us! In secret of course, if you want! Then, after she brings him forth, the baby is yours. An
d no one but the four of us will be the wiser.”
Yes, her plan did sound very simple after all. Mui Lan looked almost elated after she heard her own words. After all she wasn’t the sort who enjoyed this kind of sneaking about. If only she had stayed in the village, none of this would have been necessary. It would have been a simple matter to have Choy Fuk take a wife more of her own choosing. Then, how blissful things would have been!
Dote on her grandsons! Wait for letters and money from an ‘old rooster’ who might never have come back into her life! Sit around the threshold, splitting melon seeds with her front teeth, chattering with the neighbours to her heart’s content. Delighted with herself, Mui Lan began to ramble on, forgetting the presence of her daughter-in-law who observed her very carefully.
“I know a woman’s heart! What woman would deny that yearning for a baby son, or even a baby girl to begin with. First-born daughters bring good luck, he, he, he! Do you think that I haven’t shared the emptiness which you must have suffered, being childless these long years? Well, now you have the opportunity. All you need to do is give up your old man for a few days, and soon you’ll have a son—and with him, security, prestige, honour, and the glowing warmth of a family to look after your old age. What could be easier? And where’s the harm in that?” she asked innocently.
Mui Lan wasn’t really expecting an answer. And of course there wasn’t one.
KAE
1986
I myself was not present, but I’ve often wondered. What if, maybe just for a second or two during this lengthy monologue, my grandmother’s young eyes—albeit puffy, bloodshot and glassy—had raised up to her mother-in-law as if to make bold? What if they had betrayed her innermost thoughts for that instant?
“You ancient she-dog,” she might have cursed, very quietly of course, “look at yourself! Frothing at the mouth one moment, grinning dementedly at your own dreams at another! Would you take in another woman’s offspring? You old bitch, would you give over your man to some diseased slut?”
