Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (23 page)

I was sad. Chunying was my closest friend. Her marriage meant there would be no more stories or songs or shoes. We would never again ride on the back of a water buffalo together and watch the sun set over the flooded rice paddies. Chunying’s mother, Auntie Chen, asked me to be the special assistant for her daughter and accompany her to the groom’s village. I was delighted.

On the morning of the wedding I put on my best clothes, a clean white shirt with a small green-flowered pattern and my least patched pair of dark trousers. I combed my long hair carefully and braided two perfect plaits. Finally, I took out the shoes Chunying had made for me. I tried to pull them on but they no longer fit. I put them away sadly. “No more Chunying. No more shoes,” I whispered to myself, on the verge of tears. I set out barefoot for Chunying’s nearby hut.

Many people had already gathered at the dwelling. Red paper squares had been pasted onto the door with golden double-happiness cutouts.

“Congratulations, Auntie Chen,” I greeted Chunying’s mother.

“Ah, look at you,” she said. She touched my hair. “Your braids are so wonderful. They are as thick as a baby’s arm. When you get married, you will make a very pretty bride.”

I was embarrassed by the mention of my own marriage. I blushed and asked where Chunying was.

“She is inside getting her face opened for her marriage,” Auntie Chen told me.

“What is that?” I asked.

She invited me inside to find out. Three old women huddled around Chunying, who sat on a stool next to the window. Auntie Sun held a thread between her teeth and wrapped the other end around her middle finger. The thread was taut. She slowly rolled it over Chunying’s forehead to scrape off the wisp of tiny hairs. Chunying’s eyelids fluttered as the thread was drawn over her skin. She saw me and smiled without moving her head.

“Are you opening her face, Auntie Sun?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “because she is no longer a girl. She is now a woman. When you get married, you will have this done, too.”

“Does it hurt, Chunying?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “It tickles.”

“Don’t talk!” Auntie Sun reprimanded.

One of the women combed Chunying’s hair and tied it into a bun at the nape of her neck. “This means,” another woman told her, “that from this day on, you are a woman and no longer a girl.” The others nodded assent.

Chunying stood and the women disrobed her. Once she was naked, they dressed her in red undergarments, red trousers, red shirt and a red head covering. A red veil was pulled over her face. One of them brought in a pair of elegant red shoes. I recognized them immediately. For weeks Chunying had worked on them as I read to her. On the toe of one shoe, she had embroidered a green dragon, and on the other, a golden phoenix. These were the symbols for happiness and a good marriage. Chunying sat down and lifted her feet, and the women put the shoes on her. But to prevent them from touching the earth floor, they put another pair of slippers over the new shoes—an older pair.

Chunying’s brother announced breathlessly, “They are coming! They are coming!”

I ran from the bedroom to watch. There was a flurry of activity, and someone shouted, “Quick, close and bar the door!” It slammed shut.

Auntie Chen barred it from inside. In the distance we heard gongs and drums approaching. We sat silently as they drew near. When they were outside the door, there was a series of explosions from strings of firecrackers. As the noise died away, someone began pounding on the door. “Open up!” he shouted. “Open up!” others in the crowd repeated. Their chant became a song, and soon everyone outside was singing together,

For a moment I was frightened and ran back to Chunying. She was sitting on her stool, trembling, her hands folded in her lap. People in the next room responded to the men outside:

A woman opened the door slightly and a red bag was pushed inside. The door was closed and barred again. Auntie Chen put the bag in her pocket.

Another song came from outside:

The people inside sang back:

And so the lyric went back and forth until the door was opened and the groom’s people came inside. As they entered, the women inside began crying and moaning. I watched in wide-eyed fascination. Auntie Chen cried, “She does not want to leave, you cannot take my daughter. You cannot.”

She was so convincing I thought a struggle might break out. Yet this was merely another village tradition. The women pretended to be sad.

Soon everyone in the hut was crying. An old woman turned to me and said, “You are supposed to cry. Cry! Cry!”

I couldn’t squeeze out any tears, so I rubbed my eyes to make them red.

Another woman whispered in my ear, “It is time to assist Chunying through the door.” She led me to Chunying, who remained seated within a circle of crying women. The older woman showed me how to extend my hand. Chunying raised her head. I could not see through her veil but I saw a dark spot on the material—from her tears, I thought. She took my hand and stood. The old woman cleared a path for us and I led Chunying toward the door. It was difficult for her to walk and she teetered back and forth as if she might lose her balance at any moment. I didn’t know who was more frightened between the two of us. We were both shaking like leaves.

Just after Chunying crossed the threshold, she paused, and one of the women removed her old slippers and set them down inside the door. Every eye was fixed on Chunying. I led her out onto the path that passed through our village and into the countryside. As we walked, I heard her mother and father burst into tears behind us. At that moment the gravity and finality of this ceremony finally sank in, and I began to cry. Chunying heard me and gently squeezed my hand.

The groom walked at the front of the procession. He seemed as nervous and self-conscious as I was. He was a common-looking man, nearly indistinguishable from all of the other young men who lived out their lives in the countryside. His face was round and ruddy, his eyes narrow. He was about the same height as Chunying. He was not good-looking, but he was not ugly.

We marched in a long line through several villages. In each village people came out to greet us with singing and chanting. They good-naturedly teased the bride and the groom. The bride was supposed to be shy and say nothing. As the villagers laughed and shouted, Chunying gripped my hand even tighter. Neither of us spoke during the two-hour walk to her new home.

Just outside Bao Village a delegation met us and led us to the home of the groom. Children came running to gape at the bride. A dozen tables were set up in front of the groom’s hut for a feast that included everyone in the village and all of those who arrived from Gao Village. Chunying was seated at a table beside her husband. The villagers had killed and cooked a pig, so there was pork and vegetables for everyone. It was the best meal I’d had in months. I stuffed myself. I was seated next to Chunying, who was so nervous she could not eat a thing. In the midst of such a festive occasion, I felt so sorry for my dearest friend.

Everyone drank the village’s special brand of liquor, a milky white concoction distilled from rice for special occasions. It was so powerful, many of the people from Gao Village observed, that drinking it was like consuming liquid fire. In fact, one of the men touched a match to a glass of the liquor and it burned. The more people drank, the more they sang and the happier they became. There were scores of toasts, each one ending with people emptying their glasses and shouting, “Bottoms up.”

Old Crab was seated with his son at our table. He wore a clean white shirt that contrasted sharply with his ruddy face. As the time passed and he consumed more and more liquor, his face began to glow. He stood and offered half a dozen drunken toasts to the bride and groom, collapsing onto the bench after each one.

When the feasting was finished, it was time for the wedding ceremony. The parents of the bride and groom and local dignitaries were assembled. But Old Crab was nowhere to be found. A search party was organized, led by his concerned son. They found the team leader sprawled out unconscious next to a latrine. He had carelessly dropped a half-extinguished cigarette into his pocket and burned a large hole in the front of his shirt. His face was smeared with vomit. His son revived him with a bucket of cold water, cleaned him up and led him to join the other dignitaries. But he could not stand on his own; his son had to put Old Crab’s arm around his shoulder and prop him up during the ceremony. Everyone noticed the large brown-rimmed hole in Old Crab’s shirt and said how lucky he was not to have set himself on fire.

The bride and groom stood before a portrait of Chairman Mao that was held high in the air by two men. They wished for a long life for the Great Helmsman and bowed three times. The bride and groom bowed three times to each set of parents. Then they bowed to each other. With that the marriage was sealed.

One of the young men shouted, “Now it is time to make havoc in the bedroom.” The bride and groom were escorted into the bedroom. Villagers played games with the couple, making them sing a popular revolutionary song to each other, then making them dance or stand on a stool on one foot. Some put dates under the sheets of the wedding bed. These were supposed to have the power to induce the bride and groom to have a son soon. Others made the new couple sip lotus seed soup, which was thought to make them have one son after another. “Big strong sons are more valuable than gold,” one of the village elders reminded everyone.

As night fell, people began to file back to their own villages or huts. I was invited to remain in Bao Village overnight. All night long I thought about my friendship with Chunying. The following morning I quietly let myself out. As I was leaving the village, I saw Chunying outside, fetching water for her new family. I ran to her and she turned and smiled weakly at me. We held each other’s hands, as we often did
in the past. I blurted out, “Did you like sleeping with your husband last night, Chunying?”

I’d listened to all the joking the previous evening about what the couple would do at night. Chunying and I had talked about it just before she was married, but neither of us knew much about what went on between a man and a woman in bed. It was a secretive and forbidden subject.

She blushed and looked at the ground. “You’ll know when you are married,” she responded.

“But I want to know now, Chunying,” I insisted.

“What happened is that he hurt me. He hurt me a lot.”

That was all she said. It made me feel very bad. She had been hurt on her wedding night by her husband. After that I had mixed feelings about marriage. All the ceremony and the feasting and the fun, and it all ended when the husband hurt his wife. I was going to tell Chunying that I wanted her to be my attendant when I married. But now, seeing her and hearing her sad words, I said only, “I’ll come back and visit you soon, Chunying.” She nodded and trudged back toward her new home, carrying water.

I spent my afternoons alone after that. I missed Chunying so much. One day I saw two little girls on the back of a water buffalo going out to graze, and I remembered Chunying and was sad. I went to visit her during the next Chinese New Year, when it was customary to visit relatives and friends. By that time she had given birth to her first child, a girl. The baby was cute, very fat with a round face. She was wrapped in a new blanket and wore a red padded shirt and green pants. She looked well fed and healthy. When Chunying and I talked, I felt as if we did not have much to say to each other. There were long silences and awkward pauses as never before in our conversations. She responded to my questions with a single word or a nod. She seemed distracted and melancholy. We held hands for a moment before we parted, but she looked away from me, as if embarrassed or disappointed.

Chunying’s mother and father visited us the following year on New Year’s Day. I asked about Chunying. “How is she? Is she visiting you this year?”

“Oh, no, Yimao,” her mother said. “She has given birth again.”

“Was it a boy this time?” I asked, knowing how much the in-laws wanted a grandson.

“No,” her mother said. “She had twin girls.”

I giggled with delight. “Twin girls! I’ll go see them.”

Two days later, I went to see Chunying. I grabbed a handful of special candy that had been sent to us from relatives in Tianjin. I wanted to give it to Chunying. Snow had fallen throughout the night. As I passed out of Gao Village and the road rose into the hills, I paused to catch my breath and look back. Everything was buried beneath a thin blanket of fresh snow. But the landscape around Gao Village had changed since Chunying’s wedding. There were no trees. The previous autumn Old Crab had ordered every tree around the village cut down. He called this “chopping off the capitalist tail.” He wanted to prevent villagers from cutting the trees for their own use, so he eliminated the forests in the name of socialism. He sold the lumber and pocketed the profits.

In the middle of the village stood a wooden pole made from what had once been the tallest tree in the surrounding forest. It was topped with a loudspeaker that blared announcements, news, and patriotic songs from commune headquarters. Plumes of frost rose from my nose and mouth. The cold air on my face was razor sharp. I sang to myself as I crossed the countryside. Chunying was fortunate to have twins, I thought. I wondered what names she had chosen for them. What did they look like? What would their smiles look like?