Three Sisters

by Bi Feiyu

  "It must be," she said. "Otherwise I'd understand it."

  Again he smiled, but this time he nodded and said, "Yes, it is." The girl's not only pretty, he thought. But she possesses a sort of unlettered intelligence and a bit of unsophisticated cunning. Very interesting and quite amusing.

  With the scorching sun shining in the yard, it had been an enjoyable afternoon, but the weather changed abruptly. Gusts of wind rose up, followed by a rainfall that quickly turned into a downpour. Large drops bounced off the ground and the kitchen roof, and the house was promptly shrouded in a dense mist that formed a watery curtain just beyond the living-room door.

  Yuxiu reached out through the curtain; Guo Zuo walked up and stuck his hand out next to hers. The insane torrent stopped as quickly as it had begun; it had only rained for four or five minutes. The watery curtain was replaced by beads of water that fell one at a time, creating a tranquil, lingering, dreamlike aura. The brief rainsquall had cooled the air, a welcome respite from the heat. Yuxiu's mind wandered, her arm still suspended in midair. Her thoughts were miles away; she seemed to be staring at her hand, but saw nothing, although her dark curly lashes blinked rhythmically in concert with the beads of water dripping from the roof and also created a tranquil, lingering, dreamlike aura. Then she came back down to earth.

  She smiled at Guo Zuo through a veil of embarrassment that seemed to come out of nowhere, reddening her face, deeper and deeper, and forcing her to avert her eyes. She had, she felt, just taken a mysterious journey somewhere.

  "I guess I should call you aunty," Guo Zuo said. That simple statement reminded her that there was an established relationship between her and Guo Zuo—aunt and nephew. An aunt at her age? The question was: Did becoming his aunt bring them closer together or increase the distance between them? She mulled over the concept of "aunt"; to her it implied intimacy, and as it wound its way around her mind, she began to blush again. Afraid he would notice, but secretly hoping he might, she experienced feelings of elation mixed with threads of sadness that made her heart race.

  Once the ice is broken, conversation comes more easily. And so it did for Yuxiu and Guo Zuo, who were able to talk comfortably about many things. Her favorite topics were urban life and movies, and he always had ready answers to her questions. She was bursting with curiosity. Guo Zuo could see that even though she was a country girl, she was ambitious and had an expansive mind—she was a bit on the wild side, having the sort of impudence typical of someone who has no desire to spend the rest of her life in farming villages. There was a deep yearning in her dark, exceedingly soft eyes, which were like the feathered wings of a night bird that, having no feet, does not know where to land. Yuxiu, who spoke only the local dialect, wanted him to teach her how to speak Putonghua, the national language.

  "I can't speak it either," he said.

  "I don't believe you." She cast him a sideways glance.

  "Honest."

  "I said I don't believe you." She tried to look angry, but could not mask the look of reverence in her eyes as they swept over him. He, on the other hand, seemed flustered and appeared eager to leave. With her hands behind her back, Yuxiu blocked his way, shifting her body seductively.

  "I really can't," Guo Zuo said, his voice taking on a serious tone. Yuxiu made no response. With a smile, he repeated insistently, "Honest, I really can't."

  But Yuxiu would not give up. By now Putonghua was no longer the is - sue; what mattered was the conversation, which is what she'd wanted all along. But not Guo Zuo, who stood with a silly grin on his face, which she found irritating. She turned her back to him. "I don't like you," she said.

  Though Guo Zuo could not be bothered by the fact that Yuxiu had stopped paying attention to him, it was not something he could simply put out of his mind. Those four words—"I don't like you"—irritated him. It was the sort of irritation that confused him; it forced him to reflect on things and left him unsure of how he felt.

  Whether he wanted to or not, he began noticing things about Yuxiu; during dinner that night he made a point of looking her way a time or two. That did not please Yuxiu. Actually, it distressed her. Knowing she had the temperament of a child, Guo Zuo reminded himself that he was a member of a unique family, and that it was important to avoid doing anything that made people unhappy.

  The next day, after Yumi left for work, Guo Zuo placed his book in his lap and struck up a conversation with Yuxiu. "All right, I'll teach you."

  Not only did Yuxiu not squeal with pleasure, but she let his offer pass without comment as she prepared some vegetables. Instead, she chatted about mundane personal things, such as whether or not he enjoyed living away from home, how he liked the food where he was, who did his laundry for him, and if he ever felt homesick. All grown-up matters that made her sound like a caring aunt, not at all like the day before. Guo Zuo wondered how she could be one person one day and someone else the next.

  Since he had nothing special to do, he got up and stood beside her to help with the vegetables. She smacked the back of his hand, hard enough to make it sting. "Go wash your hands," she said sternly. "This is my job, not yours."

  That stopped Guo Zuo, but only for as long as it took him to catch her meaning; he washed his hands. When she was finished, she washed up, walked over to him, and put out her hand.

  "What's this for?" he asked.

  "Slap it."

  Guo Zuo bit his lip. "Why?"

  "I slapped yours a minute ago, so now you slap me back."

  That made him smile broadly. "Forget it," he said.

  "No."

  "I said forget it." He drew the words out.

  Yuxiu stepped closer and said, "No."

  Her tone was sly and capricious, and he wasn't sure how to deal with her. That excited him. Now he had only one option—do as she said. This was beginning to look like playing house, except that it was a flirtatious game. After he slapped her hand, Yuxiu took the cigarette out of his other hand, put it up to her lips, and breathed in a mouthful of smoke. Then she shut her eyes and mouth to send two identical streams of smoke slowly out of her nose. The smoke lingered in the air as she returned the cigarette, opened her eyes, and said, "Did I look like a secret agent?"

  He found that strange. "Why would you want to be a secret agent?"

  "Because they can be so alluring," she said in a hushed voice that carried a touch of mystery. "Who wouldn't want to be someone that gorgeous?" She was not joking, and danger now seemed to lurk somewhere between them.

  Guo Zuo reacted nervously, but was more aroused than ever. He tried to sound serious, but did not do a very good job. Somewhat paternally, he said, "Keep talk like that in the house."

  Yuxiu laughed. "I don't need you to tell me that," she said. Then she said charmingly, "For your ears only." Her conspiratorial tone implied a special bond, a closeness and mutual understanding between them.

  Her eyes widened. "You won't tell your father what I just said, will you?" she asked nervously.

  His smile failed to allay her fears. She wanted a promise.

  "Let's take a vow," she said, holding out her thumb to seal the deal. "A hundred years of silence." She linked his pinkie with hers. One hundred years sounded too long, so she changed the vow: "Let's say 'fifty years of silence.'" This had the appearance of a pledge of faithfulness, which obviously pleased them both. Their thumbs separated, but the feeling persisted and led to melancholy, followed by a barrage of disconnected thoughts.

  Guo Zuo was obviously a happy man. Spending time with a girl like Yuxiu was a first for him. She was even happier than he was, since talking openly and freely with a young man was new to her as well. Given Guo Zuo's age, a girl like Yuxiu was expected to avoid such situations. But no such expectations accrued to an aunt. What was she expected to avoid? Nothing.

  Yuxiu, wittingly or not, began treating Guo Zuo not as a nephew, but as an elder brother, which then made her a little sister, an intoxicating thought. Aunt served as an effective cover. It not only protected elder broth
er, but even more importantly, it protected little sister as well. It was something special—indescribable and strange, but firmly implanted in their hearts.

  A once solemn and respectably sedate home came alive—but, of course, only secretly, almost underground, in dark corners and in the hearts of certain family members. Yuxiu discovered early on that Guo Zuo had plenty to say whenever it was just the two of them, and sometimes his face lit up when he was talking. But when Guo Jiaxing and Yumi returned home, he clammed up. Like his father, his demeanor connoted procedure, policy, organization, discipline, and the spirit of formal meetings.

  The only sound at the dinner table was Yumi's voice urging Guo Zuo to eat or the clacking of her chopsticks when she placed food in his bowl. For Yuxiu, this seemingly subtle difference was both obvious and heartening. It was as if she and Guo Zuo had reached a tacit understanding. The silence around the dinner table held special meaning for her, bringing with it an anxiety that created a strange sense of happiness amid extraordinary bewilderment; although she did not realize it, the silence had developed into a shared secret known only to heaven and earth. People find secrets moving, for they have the power to inspire and achieve a tear-inducing tenderness. Secrets slowly seep into the deepest recesses of themselves and then spread outward. When they reach their outer limits, they quietly split apart and move in directions that cannot be put in order, like spilled water that cannot be recovered.

  Yuxiu had a feeling that there was something odd about her, something baffling. Guo Jiaxing and Yumi would no sooner be out the door than she and Guo Zuo would come to life. The oddest thing about it was her preposterous actions. When Guo Jiaxing and Yumi were on their way to the office, she retreated to the kitchen to change clothes and attend to her hair, combing out her short braids and plaiting them with great care until not a strand was out of place. After neatly securing them with butterfly clips, she moistened them with water till they were a deep black and slippery smooth. Finally, she made sure that her bangs were neatly trimmed so that they fell loosely over her forehead like thin tassels. Her grooming completed, she sat at the mirror and inspected herself closely, not returning to the living room until she was satisfied that everything was perfect and that she was as pretty as she could be. Then, taking a seat, she wordlessly removed the dead leaves from the vegetables for the noon meal—all of this under the scrutiny of Guo Zuo, who sat opposite and slightly to one side of her.

  The tension in the room was palpable. Silence reigned. The air felt viscous, as if it were trying hard to circulate but not succeeding. But, as they say, there's tension and there's tension. Sometimes it has the quality of deathly silence, at other times it is full of life and replete with the power to stir things up. It is easy to shatter, and extra care is needed to stabilize it. He did not speak. Neither did she.

  Actually, she did speak. A girl's hair speaks for her quite eloquently, strand by strand. Can there be a single strand that does not tell of what is in her heart? When Yuxiu combed her hair, confusion filled her head with hesitation, warnings, and embarrassing self-reproach. She knew she was flirting with mischief, that seduction was afoot, and she steadfastly commanded herself to stop, just as Yumi would have done. But something deep down inside would not let her. Though she could not know it, she was experiencing the first awakenings of love. With the coming of spring, light rains fall, and the heart begins to bud. Leaves appear recklessly. Though weak and easily battered by the wind, every plant is born with a stubborn streak, and even if it is pinned beneath a stone, it will squirm until its head emerges and finds a way out, little by little.

  Hot though the days were, every once in a while Guo Jiaxing still sat down to drink with members of the leadership. He was not much of a drinker and preferred not to do this. But Director Wang, his superior, liked to drink and chose to hold meetings in the evening, which invariably turned into banquets. Truth be told, Director Wang's capacity for alcohol was limited, so he never drank too much. But that did not lessen the delight for someone who loved a party as much as he did, which is why the various leaders spent so much after-hours time together.

  Director Wang maintained a high standard of behavior where drinking was concerned. He could never be accused of trying to get anyone drunk, but he often remarked that one must drink, and his favorite sayings were "The key is to never lose your fighting spirit" and "Drinking is a good test of that fighting spirit." For him, it was something a man cannot do without, which was why Guo Jiaxing had to join in.

  Something had come over Guo in recent days. When he reached a certain level of inebriation, he wanted to make love as soon as he was home in bed. If he was still relatively sober, the desire would not be strong enough, and if he'd had too much to drink, sex never entered his mind. But when he had reached that precise point and not gone beyond, he was ready to go home and perform. Just where that point was he could not say, but he knew when he reached it.

  On this particular night, he'd had just enough to drink—he'd reached that point—and he was feeling potent. Everyone was asleep when he got home. He turned on the light and silently studied Yumi as she slept. After a moment she woke up to the sight of her husband with a peculiar grin on his face. She did not have to guess what he had in mind. At times like this that grin would go through several unique phases—his cheeks would move a bit, then stop, then move a bit more, and stop again, before finally settling into a real smile. And that smile told her he was ready to do it.

  With her head resting on the pillow, Yumi experienced a bit of awkward difficulty. She had no interest in dousing his passion, but thought about what the doctor had said a few days before. "Everything is fine, Mrs. Guo," she'd said, "but you must avoid pressure on your abdomen." If her husband was not to be denied, the doctor went on, make sure he went about it "lightly" and "not too deeply." Yumi understood perfectly, but blushed nonetheless. No wonder everyone says that doctors are coarse people, Yumi said to herself. That seems right to me—the woman didn't even try to be tactful.

  Yumi chose not to tell Guo Jiaxing what the doctor had said. Nothing in the world could have made her say those words. He'd fathered two children so this was something he ought to know.

  He did. That night he did not press down on her, he didn't actually "do it" in the full sense of the word. But his hands and his teeth were so savage, so sharp and painful, that he broke the skin on her breasts in several places. Yumi kept opening and shutting her mouth from the pain, but she didn't try to make him stop. Experience told her it was a bad idea to make a man lose his temper in bed. So she let him have his way. He was soon breathing so hard it sounded painful. He touched and kissed her over and over, but nothing worked, so he groped and kneaded in agony in the dark.

  "This is no good," he muttered, breathing his liquor breath on her face. "This isn't working."

  Yumi sat up and thought long and hard before deciding to put him out of his misery. She got out of bed and took off his pants. Then she knelt on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and took him into her mouth. This came as a shock. He had known lots of women and had plenty of experience in bed. But this was a first for him. He thought about making her stop, but his rebellious body would not let him. Meanwhile, Yumi's determination did not slacken as she moved along with him. Guo Jiaxing was powerless to stop this scene from being played out; that night Guo had sex in what for him was a very strange way.

  Yumi, her lips pressed tightly together, turned, lifted the lid of the chamber pot, and vomited loudly. Her husband's problem had been solved, and the effects of the alcohol had evaporated. Nearly paralyzed with euphoria, he loved her with all his heart at that moment. He took her in his arms like a father holds his child. Gazing up at him and wiping the corners of her mouth with toilet paper, she smiled and said, "A bit of nausea, I guess."

  When Guo awoke early the next morning he saw that Yumi was awake and that she'd been crying; her cheeks were wet with tears. Thoughts of the stirring events of the night before ran through his mind as he gazed at her and wo
ndered if it had all been a dream. "Let's not do that again," he said as he patted her on the shoulder. "No more of that."

  She buried her head in his chest and said, "What do you mean, no more of this or that? I'm your woman." That simple comment moved him in ways he'd never felt before.

  "Then why are you crying?" he asked as he looked into her tear-streaked face.

  "For myself," she said. "And for my foolish little sister."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Yuxiu keeps pestering me about getting her a job at the grain-purchasing station. She says it wouldn't be any trouble for someone as powerful as her brother-in-law to arrange. That made sense to me, so I said okay without checking with you first. Over the past few days I've been thinking that no one has the power to blot out the sky. You already found me a job at the co-op, and now I'm asking you to find one for your sister-in-law. That would be too high-handed. She can swear at me for all I care, but the thought of my family looking down on me is something I could not stand. They'd say that when she married the director of the revolutionary committee, she forgot where she came from and wouldn't even help out her own sister."

  With thoughts of the previous night in his head, Guo knew he could not deny his wife's request. He tilted his head and blinked a time or two. "Wait a few days," he said thoughtfully. "A few days. It would look bad for her to get a job so soon after you. I'll put in a word for her one of these days."

  The private conversation between Yuxiu and Guo Zuo came to a sudden halt, plunging the room into total silence, for neither wanted to begin talking again, as if there was a fuse in the air that would send up smoke if they weren't careful. They did not know how or when it started. Yuxiu stole several glances at Guo Zuo, as their gazes turned into wary mice that were sticking their heads out at dusk, each one scaring the other and sending them both scurrying around. The night before, after intuiting what was on his mind, she sneaked a look at Spartacus and saw that he'd stopped at page 286. That morning he had resumed his reading, engrossed in the book for over an hour before getting up for cigarettes. The moment he left, she tiptoed over and picked up the book only to see that he was still on page 286. This discovery made her heart flutter with unease. Obviously he was pretending to read, though his mind was elsewhere, and she assumed that he was thinking of her. She'd thought she would be happy to learn how he felt, but no, the realization actually produced a sharp pain; with tears brimming in her eyes, she tiptoed back to the room behind the kitchen, where she sat lost in thought on the edge of her bed.