Magpies
百度搜索 The Joy Luck Club 天涯 或 The Joy Luck Club 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
An-Mei HsuYesterday my daughter said to me, "My marriage is falling apart."
And now all she do is watch it falling. She lies down on a psychiatrist couch, squeezing tears out about this shame. And, I think, she will lie there until there is nothing more to fall, nothio cry about, everything dry.
She cried, "No choio choice!" She doesnt know. If she doesnt speak, she is making a choice. If she doesnt try, she lose her ce forever.
I know this, because I was raised the ese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other peoples misery, to eat my own bitterness.
And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, oep after anoing up and down, but all going the same way.
I know how it is to be quiet, to listen and watch, as if your life were a dream. You close your eyes when you no longer want to watch. But when you no longer want to listen, what you do? I still hear what happened more than sixty years ago.
My mother was a strao me when she first arrived at my uncles house in Ningpo. I was nine years old and had not seen her for many years. But I knew she was my mother, because I could feel her pain.
"Do not look at that woman," warned my aunt. "She has thrown her fato the eastward-flowing stream. Her aral spirit is lost forever. The person you see is just decayed flesh, evil, rotted to the bone."
And I would stare at my mother. She did not look evil. I wao touch her face, the ohat looked like mine.
It is true, she wore strange fn clothes. But she did not speak back when my aunt cursed her. Her head bowed even lower when my uncle slapped her for calling him Brother. She cried from her heart when Popo died, even though Popo, her mother, had sent her away so many years before. And after Popos funeral, she obeyed my uncle. She prepared herself to return to Tientsin, where she had dishonored her widowhood by being the third e to a rich man.
How could she leave without me? This was a question I could not ask. I was a child. I could only watd listen.
The night before she was to leave, she held my head against her body, as if to protect me from a danger I could not see. I was g t her back before she was even gone. And as I lay in her lap, she told me a story.
"An-mei," she whispered, "have you seetle turtle that lives in the pond?" I his ond in our courtyard and I often poked a sti the still water to make the turtle swim out from underh the rocks.
"I also khat turtle when I was a small child," said my mother. "I used to sit by the pond and watch him swimming to the surface, biting the air with his little beak. He is a very old turtle."
I could see that turtle in my mind and I knew my mother was seeing the same one.
"This turtle feeds on our thoughts," said my mother. "I learhis one day, when I was ye, and Popo said I could no longer be a child. She said I could not shout, or run, or sit on the ground to catch crickets. I could not cry if I was disappointed. I had to be silent and listen to my elders. And if I did not do this, Popo said she would y hair and seo a place where Buddhist nuns lived.
"That night, after Popo told me this, I sat by the pond, looking into the water. And because I was weak, I began to cry. Then I saw this turtle swimming to the top and his beak was eating my tears as soon as they touched the water. He ate them quickly, five, six, seven tears, then climbed out of the pond, crawled onto a smooth rod began to speak.
"The turtle said, I have eaten your tears, and this is why I know your misery. But I must warn you. If you cry, your life will always be sad.
"Theurtle opened his beak and out poured five, six, seven pearly eggs. The eggs broke open and from them emerged seven birds, who immediately began to chatter and sing. I knew from their snow-white bellies and pretty voices that they were magpies, birds of joy. These birds bent their beaks to the pond and began to drink greedily. And when I reached out my hand to capture ohey all rose up, beat their black wings in my face, and flew up into the air, laughing.
"Now you see, said the turtle, drifting bato the pond, why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone elses joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears. "
But after my mother finished her story, I looked at her and saw she was g. And I also<q></q> began tain, that this was our fate, to live like two turtles seeing the watery world together from the bottom of the little pond.
In the m, I awoke to hear—not the bird of joy—but angry sounds in the distance. I jumped out of my bed and ran quietly to my window.
Out in the front courtyard, I saw my mother kneeling, scratg the stohway with her fingers, as if she had lost something and knew she could not find it again. In front of her stood Uncle, my mothers brother, and he was shouting.
"You want to take your daughter and ruin her life as well!" Uamped his foot at this impertihought. "You should already be gone."
My mother did not say anything. She remained bent on the ground, her back as rounded as the turtle in the pond. She was g with her mouth closed. And I began to cry in the same way, swallowing those bitter tears.
I hurried to get dressed. And by the time I ran dowairs and into the front room, my mother was about to leave. A servant was takirunk outside. My auntie was holding onto my little brothers hand. Before I could remember to y mouth, I shouted, "Ma!"
"See how your evil influence has already spread to your daughter!" exclaimed my uncle.
And my mother, her head still bowed, looked up at me and saw my face. I could not stop my tears from running down. And I think, seeing my face like this, my mother ged. She stood up tall, with her back straight, so that now she was almost taller than my uncle. She held her hand out to me and I ran to her. She said in a quiet, calm voice: "An-mei, I am not asking you. But I am going back to Tientsin now and you follow me."
My auntie heard this and immediately hissed. "A girl is er than what she follows! An-mei, you think you see something new, riding on top of a new cart. But in front of you, it is just the ass of the same old mule. Your life is what you see in front of you."
And hearing this made me more determio leave. Because the life in front of me was my uncles house. And it was full of dark riddles and suffering that I could not uand. So I turned my head away from my aurange words and looked at my mother.
Now my uncle picked up a porcelain vase. "Is this what you want to do?" said my uncle. "Throw your life away? If you follow this woman, you ever lift your head again." He threw that vase on the ground, where it smashed into many pieces. I jumped, and my mother took my hand.
Her hand was warm. "e, An-mei. We must hurry," she said, as if a rainy sky.
"An-mei!" I heard my aunt call piteously from behind, but then my uncle said, "Swanle!"—Finished!—"She is already ged."
As I walked away from my old life, I wondered if it were true, what my uncle had said, that I was ged and could never lift my head again. So I tried. I lifted it.
And I saw my little brother, g so hard as my auntie held onto his hand. My mother did not dare take my brother. A son ever go to somebody elses house to live. If he went, he would lose any hope for a future. But I knew he was not thinking this. He was g, angry and scared, because my mother had not asked him to follow.
What my uncle had said was true. After I saw my brother this way, I could not keep my head lifted.
In the rickshaw on our way to the railway station, my mother murmured, "Poor An-mei, only you know. Only you know what I have suffered." When she said this, I felt proud, that only I could see these delicate and rare thoughts.
But orain, I realized how far behind I was leaving my life. And I became scared. We traveled for seven days, one day by rail, six days by steamer boat. At first, my mother was very lively. She told me stories of Tientsin whenever my face looked back at where we had just been.
She talked of clever peddlers who served every kind of simple food: steamed dumplings, boiled peanuts, and my mothers favorite, a thin pah an egg dropped in the middle, brushed with black bean paste, then rolled up—still finger-hot off the griddle!—and hao the hungry buyer.
She described the port and its seafood and claimed it was eveer than what we ate in Ningpo. Big clams, prawns, crab, all kinds of fish, salty and freshwater, the best—otherwise why would so many fners e to this port?
She told me about narrow streets with crowded bazaars. In the early m peasants sold vegetables I had never seen or eaten before in my life—and my mother assured me I would find them so sweet, so tender, so fresh. And there were ses of the city where different fners lived—Japanese, White Russians, Ameris, and Germans—but ogether, all with their own separate habits, some dirty, some . And they had houses of all shapes and colors, one painted in pink, another with rooms that jutted out at every angle like the backs and fronts of Victorian dresses, others with roofs like pointed hats and wood carvings painted white to look like ivory.
And in the wiime I would see snow, she said. My mother said, In just a few months, the period of the Cold Dew would e, then it would start to rain, and then the rain would fall more softly, more slowly until it became white and dry as the petals of quince blossoms in the spring. She would me up in fur-lined coats and pants, so if it was bitter cold, no matter!
She told me many stories until my face was turned forward, looking toward my new home isin. But when the fifth day came, as we sailed closer toward the Tientsin gulf, the waters ged from muddy yellow to blad the boat began to rod groan. I became fearful and sick. And at night I dreamed of the eastward-flowing stream my aunt had warned me about, the dark waters that ged a person forever. And watg those dark waters from my sickbed on the boat, I was scared that my aunts words had e true. I saw how my mother was already beginning to ge, how dark and angry her face had bee, looking out over the sea, thinking her own thoughts. And my thoughts, too, became cloudy and fused.
On the m of the day we were supposed to arrive isin, she went into our sleeping wearing her white ese m dress. And wheuro the sitting room oop deck, she looked like a stranger. Her eyebrows were paihick at the ter, then long and sharp at the ers. Her eyes had dark smudges around them and her face ale white, her lips dark red. On top of her head, she wore a small brow hat with one large brown-speckled feather swept across the front. Her short hair was tucked into this hat, except for two perfect curls on her forehead that faced each other like black lacquer carvings. She had on a long brown dress with a white lace collar that fell all the way to her waist and was fastened down with a silk rose.
This was a shog sight. We were in m. But I could not say anything. I was a child. How could I sy own mother? I could only feel shame seeing my mother wear her shame so boldly.
In her gloved hands she held a large cream-colored box with fn words written on top: "Fine English-Tailored Apparel, Tientsin." I remember she had put the box dowween us and told me: "Open it! Quickly!" She was breathless and smiling. I was so surprised by my mothers range manner, it was not until many years later, when I was using this box to store letters and photographs, that I wondered how my mother had known. Even though she had not seen me for many years, she had known that I would someday follow her and that I should wear a new dress when I did.
And when I opehat box, all my shame, my fears, they fell away. Inside was a arch-white dress. It had ruffles at the collar and along the sleeves and six tiers of ruffles for a skirt. The box also tained white stogs, white leather shoes, and an enormous white hair bow, already shaped and ready to be fastened on with two loose ties.
Everything was too big. My shoulders kept slipping out of the large neck hole. The waist was big enough to fit two of me. But I did not mind. She did not mind. I raised my arms and stood perfectly still. She drew out pins and thread and with little tucks here and there stuffed in the loose materials, then filled the toes of the shoes with tissue paper, until everything fit. Wearing those clothes, I felt as if I had grown new hands a and I would now have to learn to walk in a new way.
And then my mother became sain. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, watg as our boat drew closer and closer to the dock.
"An-mei, now you are ready to start your new life. You will live in a new house. You will have a new father. Many sisters. Another little brother. Dresses and good things to eat. Do you think all this will be enough to be happy?"
I nodded quietly, thinking about the unhappiness of my brother in Ningpo. My mother did not say anything more about the house, or my new family, or my happiness. And I did not ask any questions, because now a bell was sounding and a ships steward was calling our arrival isin. My mave quistrus to our porter, poio our two small trunks and handed him money, as if she had dohis every day of her life. And then she carefully opened another box and pulled out what looked to be five or six dead foxes with open beady eyes, limp paws, and fluffy tails. She put this scary sight around her ned shoulders, then grabbed my hand tight as we moved down the aisle with the crowd of people.
There was no o the harbor to meet us. My mother walked slowly down the rampway, through the baggage platform, looking nervously from side to side.
"An-mei, e! Why are you so slow!" she said, her voice filled with fear. I was dragging my feet, trying to stay in those toe shoes as the grouh me swayed. And when I was not watg which way my feet were moving, I looked up and saw everybody was in a hurry, everybody seemed unhappy: families with old mothers and fathers, all wearing dark, somber colors, pushing and pulling bags and crates of their lifes possessions; pale fn ladies dressed like my mother, walking with fn men in hats; rich wives scolding maids and servants following behind carrying trunks and babies and baskets of food.
We stood he street, where rickshaws and trucks came a. We held hands, thinking our own thoughts, watg people arriving at the station, watg others hurrying away. It was late m, and although it seemed warm outside, the sky was gray and clouding over.
After a long time of standing and seeing no one, my mhed and finally shouted for a rickshaw.
During this ride, my mued with the rickshaw puller, who wanted extra cash to carry the two of us and gage. Then she plained about the dust from the ride, the smell of the street, the bumpiness of the road, the lateness of the day, the ache iomach. And when she had finished with these laments, she turned her plaints to me: a spot on my new dress, a tangle in my hair, my twisted stogs. I tried to win back my mother, pointing to ask her about a small park, a bird flying above us, a loric streetcar that passed us sounding its horn.
But she became only more cross and said: "An-mei, sit still. Do not look so eager. We are only going home."
And when we finally arrived home, we were both exhausted.
I knew from the beginning our new home would not be an ordinary house. My mother had told me we would live in the household of Wu Tsing, who was a very rich mert. She said this man owned many carpet factories and lived in a mansion located in the British cession of Tientsin, the best se of the city where ese people could live. We lived not too far from Paima Di, Racehorse Street, where only Westerners could live. And we were also close to little shops that sold only one kind of thing: only tea, or only fabric, or only soap.
The house, she said, was fn-built; Wu Tsing liked fn things because fners had made him rich. And I cluded that was why my mother had to wear fn-style clothes, in the manner of newly rich ese people who liked to display their wealth oside.
And even though I knew all this before I arrived, I was still amazed at what I saw.
The front of the house had a ese stoe, rou the top, with big black lacquer doors and a threshold you had to step over. Withies I saw the courtyard and I was surprised. There were no willows or sweet-smelling cassia trees, no garden pavilions, no benches sitting by a pond, no tubs of fish. Instead, there were long rows of bushes on both sides of a wide brick walkway and to each side of those bushes was a big lawn area with fountains. And as we walked down the walkway and got closer to the house, I saw this house had been built in the Western style. It was three stories high, of mortar and stone, with loal balies on each floor and eys at every er.
When we arrived, a young servant woman ran out and greeted my mother with cries of joy. She had a high scratchy voice: "Oh Taitai, youve already arrived! How this be?" This was Yan g, my mothers personal maid, and she knew how to fuss over my mother just the right amount. She had called my mother Taitai, the simple honorable title of Wife, as if my mother were the first wife, the only wife.
Yan g called loudly to other servants to take gage, called another servant t tea and draw a hot bath. And then she hastily explaihat Sed Wife had told everyo to expect us for another week at least. "What a shame! No oo greet you! Sed Wife, the oo Peking to visit her relatives. Your daughter, so pretty, your same look. Shes so shy, eh? First Wife, her daughters…gone on a pilgrimage to another Buddhist temple…Last week, a cousins uncle, just a little crazy, came to visit, turned out not to be a cousin, not an uncle, who knows who he was…."
As soon as we walked into that big house, I became lost with too many things to see: a curved staircase that wound up and up, a ceiling with faces in every er, then hallways twisting and turning into one room then ao my right was a large room, larger than I had ever seen, and it was filled with stiff teakwood furniture: sofas and tables and chairs. And at the other end of this long, long room, I could see doors leading into more rooms, more furniture, then more doors. To my left was a darker room, another sitting room, this one filled with fn furniture: dark greeher sofas, paintings with hunting dogs, armchairs, and mahogany desks. And as I glanced in these rooms I would see different people, and Yan g would explain: "This young lady, she is Sed Wifes servant. That one, she is nobody, just the daughter of cooks helper. This man takes care of the garden."
And then we were walking up the staircase. We came to the top of the stairs and I found myself in another large sitting room. We walked to the left, down a hall, past one room, and then stepped into another. "This is your mothers room," Yan g told me proudly. "This is where you will sleep."
And the first thing I saw, the only thing I could see at first, was a magnifit bed. It was heavy and light at the same time: soft rose silk and heavy, dark shiny wood carved all around with dragons. Four posts held up a silk opy and at each post dangled large silk ties holding back curtains. The bed sat on four squat lions paws, as if the weight of it had crushed the lion underh. Yan g showed me how to use a small step stool to climb onto the bed. And when I tumbled onto the silk cs, I laughed to discover a soft mattress that was ten times the thiess of my bed in Ningpo.
Sitting in this bed, I admired everything as if I were a princess. This room had a glass door that led to a baly. In front of the window door was a round table of the same wood as the bed. It too sat on carved lions legs and was surrounded by four chairs. A servant had already put tea and sweet cakes oable and was now lighting the houlu, a small stove for burning coal.
It was not that my uncles house in Ningpo had been poor. He was actually quite well-to-do. But this house isin was amazing. And I thought to myself, My uncle was wrong. There was no shame in my mothers marrying Wu Tsing.
While thinking this, I was startled by a sudden g! g! g! followed by musi the wall opposite the bed was a big wooden clock with a forest and bears carved into it. The door on the clock had burst open and a tiny room full of people was ing out. There was a bearded man in a pointed cap seated at a table. He was bending his head over and ain to drink soup, but his beard would dip in the bowl first and stop him. A girl in a white scarf and blue dress was standio the table and she was bending over and ain to give the man more of this soup. Ao the man and girl was anirl with a skirt and short jacket. She was swinging her arm bad forth, playing violin music. She allayed the same dark song. I still hear it in my head after these many years—ni-ah! nah! nah! nah! nah-ni-nah!
This was a wonderful clock to see, but after I heard it that first hour, then the , and then always, this clock became aravagant nuisance. I could not sleep for many nights. And later, I found I had an ability: to not listen to something meaningless calling to me.
I was so happy those first few nights, in this amusing house, sleeping in the big soft bed with my mother. I would lie in this fortable bed, thinking about my uncles house in Ningpo, realizing how unhappy I had been, feeling sorry for my little brother. But most of my thoughts flew to all the hings to see and do in this house.
I watched hot water p out of pipes not just i but also into washbasins and bathtubs on all three floors of the house. I saw chamber pots that flushed without servants having to empty them. I saw rooms as fancy as my mothers. Yan g explained whies beloo First Wife and the other es, who were called Sed Wife and Third Wife. And some rooms beloo no one. "They are fuests," said Yan g.
Ohird floor were rooms for only the men servants, said Yan g, and one of the rooms even had a door to a et that was really a secret hiding place from sea pirates.
Thinking back, I find it hard to remember everything that was in that house; too many good things all seem the same after a while. I tired of anything that was not a y. "Oh, this," I said when Yan g brought me the same sweet meats as the day before. "Ive tasted this already."
My mother seemed tain her pleasant nature. She put her old clothes ba, long ese gowns and skirts now with white m bands sewn at the bottoms. During the day, she poie and funny things, naming them for me: bidet, Brownie camera, salad fork, napkin. In the evening, when there was nothing to do, we talked about the servants: who was clever, who was diligent, who was loyal. We gossiped as we cooked small eggs and sweet potatoes on top of the houlu just to enjoy their smell. And at night, my mother would again tell me stories as I lay in her arms falling asleep.
If I look upon my whole life, I ot think of aime when I felt more fortable: when I had no worries, fears, or desires, when my life seemed as soft and lovely as lying inside a co of rose silk. But I remember clearly when all that fort became no longer fortable.
It erhaps two weeks after we had arrived. I was in the large garden in back, kig a ball and watg two dogs chase it. My mother sat at a table watg me play. And then I heard a horn off in the distance, shouts, and those two dogs fot the ball and ran off barking in high happy voices.
My mother had the same fearful look she wore in the harbor station. She walked quickly into the house. I walked around the side of the house toward the front. Two shiny black rickshaws had arrived and behind them a large black motorcar. A manservant was taking luggage out of one rickshaw. From another rickshaw, a young maid jumped out.
All the servants crowded around the motorcar, looking at their faces in the polished metal, admiring the curtained windows, the velvet seats. Then the driver opehe back door and out stepped a young girl. She had short hair with rows of waves. She looked to be only a few years older than I, but she had on a womans dress, stogs, and high heels. I looked down at my own white dress covered with grass stains and I felt ashamed.
And then I saw the servants reag into the backseat of the motorcar and a man was slowly being lifted by both arms. This was Wu Tsing. He was a big man, not tall, but puffed out like a bird. He was much older than my mother, with a high shiny forehead and a large black mole on one nostril. He wore a Western suit jacket with a vest that closed too tightly around his stomach, but his pants were very loose. He groaned and grunted as he heaved himself out and into view. And as soon as his shoes touched the ground, he began to walk toward the house, ag as though he saw no one, even though people greeted him and were busy opening doors, carrying his bags, taking his long coat. He walked into the house like that, with this young girl following him. She was looking behind at everyoh a simpering smile, as if they were there to honor her. And when she was hardly in the door, I heard one servant remark to another, "Fifth Wife is so young she did n any of her own servants, only a wet nurse."
I looked up at the house and saw my mother looking down from her window, watg everything. So in this clumsy way, my mother found out that Wu Tsing had taken his fourth e, who was actually just an afterthought, a foolish bit of decoration for his new motorcar.
My mother was not jealous of this young girl who would now be called Fifth Wife. Why should she be? My mother did not love Wu Tsing. A girl in a did not marry for love. She married for position, and my mothers position, I later learned, was the worst.
After Wu Tsing and Fifth Wife arrived home, my mother often stayed in her room w on her embroidery. Iernoon, she and I would go on long silent rides iy, searg for a bolt of silk in a color she could not seem to name. Her unhappiness was this same way. She could not .
And so, while everything seemed peaceful, I k was not. You may wonder how a small child, only nine years old, know these things. Now I wonder about it myself. I remember only how unfortable I felt, how I could feel the truth with my stomach, knowing something terrible was going to happen. And I tell you, it was almost as bad as how I felt some fifteen years later when the Japanese bombs started to fall and, listening in the distance, I could hear soft rumbles and khat what was ing was unstoppable.
A few days after Wu Tsing had arrived home, I awoke in the middle of the night. My mother was rog my shoulder gently.
"An-mei, be a good girl," she said in a tired voice. "Go to Yan gs room now."
I rubbed my eyes and as I awoke I saw a dark shadow and began to cry. It was Wu Tsing.
"Be quiet. Nothing is the matter. Go to Yan g," my mother whispered.
And then she lifted me down slowly to the cold floor. I heard the wooden clock begin to sing and Wu Tsings deep voiplaining of the chill. And when I went to Yan g, it was as though she had expected me and knew I would be g.
The m I could not look at my mother. But I saw that Fifth Wife had a swollen face like mine. And at breakfast that m, in front of everybody, her anger finally erupted when she shouted rudely to a servant for serving her so slowly. Everyone, even my mother, stared at her for her bad manners, critig a servant that way. I saw Wu Tsing throw her a sharp look, like a father, and she began to cry. But later that m, Fifth Wife was smiling again, prang around in a new dress and new shoes.
Iernoon, my mother spoke of her unhappiness for the first time. We were in a rickshaw going to a store to find embroidery thread. "Do you see how shameful my life is?" she cried. "Do you see how I have no position? He brought home a new wife, a low-class girl, dark-skinned, no manners! Bought her for a few dollars from a poor village family that makes mudbrick tiles. And at night when he o longer use her, he es to me, smelling of her mud."
She was g now, rambling like a crazy woman: "You see now, a fourth wife is less than a fifth wife. An-mei, you must not fet. I was a first wife, yi tai, the wife of a scholar. Your mother was not always Fourth Wife, Sz Tai!"
She said this word, sz, so hatefully I shuddered. It sounded like the sz that means "die." And I remembered Popo oelling me four is a very unluumber because if you say it in an angry way, it always es out wrong.
The Col<big>..</big>d Dew came. It became chilly, and Sed Wife and Third Wife, their children and servants returned home to Tientsin. There was a big otiohey arrived. Wu Tsing had allowed the new motorcar to be sent to the railway station, but of course that was not enough to carry them all back. So behind the motorcar came a dozen or so rickshaws, boung up and down like crickets following a large shile. Women began to pour out of the motorcar.
My mother was standing behind me, ready to greet everybody. A woman wearing a plain fn dress and large, ugly shoes walked toward us. Three girls, one of whom was my age, followed behind.
"This is Third Wife ahree daughters," said my mother.
Those three girls were even more shy than I. They crowded around their mother with bowed heads and did not speak. But I tio stare. They were as plain as their mother, with big teeth, thick lips, and eyebrows as bushy as a caterpillar. Third Wife weled me warmly and allowed me to carry one of her packages.
I felt my mothers hand stiffen on my shoulder. "And there is Sed Wife. She will want you to call her Big Mother," she whispered.
I saw a woman wearing a long black fur coat and dark Western clothes, very fancy. And in her arms she held a little boy with fat rosy cheeks who looked to be two years old.
"He is Syaudi, your littlest brother," my mother whispered. He wore a cap made out of the same dark fur and was winding his little finger around Sed Wifes long pearl necklace. I wondered how she could have a baby this young. Sed Wife was handsome enough and seemed healthy, but she was quite old, perhaps forty-five. She hahe baby to a servant and then began to give instrus to the many people who still crowded around her.
And then Sed Wife walked toward me, smiling, her fur coat gleaming with every step. She stared, as if she were examining me, as if she reized me. Finally she smiled and patted my head. And then with a swift, graceful movement of her small hands, she removed her long pearly strand and put it around my neck.
This was the most beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever touched. It was designed in the Western style, a long strand, each bead the same size and of aical pinkish tone, with a heavy brooch of ornate silver to clasp the ends together.
My mother immediately protested: "This is too much for a small child. She will break it. She will lose it."
But Sed Wife simply said to me: "Such a pretty girl needs something to put the light on her face."
I could see by the way my mother shrank bad became quiet that she was angry. She did not like Sed Wife. I had to be careful how I showed my feelings: not to let my mother think Sed Wife had won me over. Yet I had this reckless feeling. I was overjoyed that Sed Wife had showhis special favor.
"Thank you, Big Mother," I said to Sed Wife. And I was looking down to avoid showing her my face, but still I could not help smiling.
When my mother and I had tea in her room later that afternoon, I knew she was angry.
"Be careful, An-mei," she said. "What you hear is not genuine. She makes clouds with one hand, rain with the other. She is trying to trick you, so you will do anything for her."
I sat quietly, trying not to listen to my mother. I was thinking how much my mother plaihat perhaps all of her unhappiness sprang from her plaints. I was thinking how I should not listen to her.
"Give the necklae," she said suddenly.
I looked at her without moving.
"You do not believe me, so you must give me the necklace. I will not let her buy you for such a cheap price."
And when I still did not move, she stood up and walked over, and lifted that necklace off. And before I could cry to stop her, she put the necklader her shoe and stepped on it. Whe it oable, I saw what she had dohis necklace that had almost bought my heart and mind now had one bead of crushed glass.
Later she removed that broken bead and khe space together so the necklace looked whole again. She told me to wear the necklace every day for one week so I would remember how easy it is to lose myself to something false. And after I wore those fake pearls long enough to learn this lesson, she let me take them off. Then she opened a box, and turo me: "Now ynize what is true?" And I nodded.
She put something in my hand. It was a heavy ring of watery blue sapphire, with a star in its ter so pure that I never ceased to look at that ring with wonder.
Before the sed onth began, First Wife returned from Peking, where she kept a house and lived with her two unmarried daughters. I remember thinking that First Wife would make Sed Wife bow to her ways. First Wife was the head wife, by law and by .
But First Wife turned out to be a living ghost, no threat to Sed Wife, who had her strong spirit intact. First Wife looked quite a and frail with her rounded body, bou, her old-style padded jacket and pants, and plain, lined face. But now that I remember her, she must not have been too old, maybe Wu Tsings age, so she erhaps fifty.
When I met First Wife, I thought she was blind. She acted as if she did not see me. She did not see Wu Tsing. She did not see my mother. A she could see her two daughters, two spinsters beyond the marriageable age; they were at least twenty-five. And she always regained her sight in time to scold the two dogs for sniffing in her room, digging in the garden outside her window, or wetting on a table leg.
"Why does First Wife sometimes see and sometimes not see?" I asked Yan g one night as she helped me bathe.
"First Wife says she sees only what is Buddha perfe," said Yan g. "She says she is blind to most faults."
Yan g said that First Wife chose to be blind to the unhappiness of her marriage. She and Wu Tsing had been joined in tyandi, heaven ah, so theirs iritual marriage arranged by a matchmaker, ordered by his parents, and protected by the spirits of their aors. But after the first year of marriage, First Wife had given birth to a girl with ooo short. And this misfortune led First Wife to begin a trek to Buddhist temples, to offer alms and tailored silk gowns in honor of Buddhas image, to burn inse and pray to Buddha to lengthen her daughters leg. As it happened, Buddha chose io bless First Wife with another daughter, this oh two perfect legs, but—alas!—with a browain splashed over half her face. With this seisfortune, First Wife began to go on so many pilgrimages to Tsinan, just a half-days train ride to the south, that Wu Tsing bought her a house he Thousand Buddha Cliff and Bubbling Springs Bamboo Grove. And every year he increased the allowance she o manage her own household there. So twice a year, during the coldest and hottest months of the year, she returo Tientsin to pay her respects and suffer sight unseen in her husbands household. And each time she returned, she remained in her bedroom, sitting all day like a Buddha, smoking her opium, talking softly to herself. She did not e downstairs for meals. Instead she fasted or ate vegetarian meals in her room. And Wu Tsing would make a mid-m visit in her bedroom once a week, drinking tea for half an hour, inquiring about her health. He did not bother her at night.
This ghost of a woman should have caused no suffering to my mother, but in fact she put ideas into her head. My mother believed she too had suffered enough to deserve her own household, perhaps not in Tsinan, but oo the east, in little Petaiho, which was a beautiful seaside resort filled with terraces and gardens ahy widows.
"We are going to live in a house of our own," she told me happily the day snow fell on the ground all around our house. She was wearing a new silk fur-lined gown the bright turquoise color of kingfisher feathers. "The house will not be as big as this o will be very small. But we live by ourselves, with Yan g and a few other servants. Wu Tsing has promised this already."
During the coldest winter month, we were all bored, adults and children alike. We did not dare go outside. Yan g warned me that my skin would freeze and crato a thousand pieces. And the other servants always gossiped about everyday sights they had seen in town: the back stoops of stores always blocked with the frozen bodies of beggars. Man or woman, you couldnt tell, they were so dusty with a thick cover of snow.
So every day we stayed in the house, thinking of ways to amuse ourselves. My mother looked at fn magazines and clipped out pictures of dresses she liked, and then she went downstairs to discuss with the tailor how such a dress could be made using the materials available.
I did not like to play with Third Wifes daughters, who were as docile and dull as their mother. Those girls were tent looking out the window all day, watg the sun e up and go down. So instead, Yan g and I roasted chestnuts on top of the little coal stove. And burning our fingers while eating these sweet s, we naturally started to giggle and gossip. Then I heard the clock g and the same song began to play. Yan g preteo sing badly in the classic opera style ah laughed out loud, remembering how Sed Wife had suerday evening, apanying her quavering voi a three-stringed lute and making many mistakes. She had caused everyoo suffer through this eveniertai, until Wu Tsing declared it was enough suffering by falling asleep in his chair. And laughing about this, Yan g told me a story about Sed Wife.
"Twenty years ago, she had been a famous Shantung sing-song girl, a woman of some respect, especially among married men who frequeeahouses. While she had never beey, she was clever, an entress. She could play seve<cite>99ｌｉb.</cite>ral musical instruments, sing aales with heartbreaking clarity, and touch her fio her cheek and cross her ti in just the right manner.
"Wu Tsing had asked her to be his e, not for love, but because of the prestige of owning what so many other men wanted. And this sing-song girl, after she had seen his enormous wealth and his feebleminded first wife, seo bee his e.
"From the start, Sed Wife knew how to trol Wu Tsings money. She knew by the way his face paled at the sound of the wind that he was fearful of ghosts. And everybody knows that suicide is the only way a woman escape a marriage and gain reveo e back as a ghost and scatter tea leaves and good fortune. So when he refused her a bigger allowance, she did pretend-suicide. She ate a piece of raw opium, enough to make her sick, and the her maid to tell Wu Tsing she was dying. Three days later, Sed Wife had an allowance even bigger than what she had asked.
"She did so many pretend-suicides, we servants began to suspect she no longer bothered to eat the opium. Her ag otent enough. Soon she had a better room in the house, her own private rickshaw, a house for her elderly parents, a sum for buying blessings at temples.
"But ohing she could not have: children. And she knew Wu Tsing would soon bee anxious to have a son who could perform the aral rites and therefuarantee his own spiritual eternity. So before Wu Tsing could plain about Sed Wifes lack of sons, she said: I have already found her, a e suitable to bear your sons. By her very nature, you see she is a virgin. And this was quite true. As you see, Third Wife is quite ugly. She does not even have small feet.
"Third Wife was of course ied to Sed Wife fing this, so there was nument over ma of the household. And even though Sed Wife did not o lift a finger, she oversaw the purchase of food and supplies, she approved the hiring of servants, she invited relatives oival days. She fou nurses for each of the three daughters Third Wife bore for Wu Tsing. And later, when Wu Tsing was again impatient for a son and began to spend too much money in teahouses in other cities, Sed Wife arra so that your mother became Wu Tsings third e and fourth wife!"
Yan g revealed this story in such a natural and lively way that I applauded her clever ending. We tio crack chestnuts open, until I could no longer remain quiet.
"What did Sed Wife do so my mother would marry Wu Tsing?" I asked timidly.
"A little child ot uand such things!" she scolded.
I immediately looked down and remained silent, until Yan g became restless again to hear her own voice speak on this quiet afternoon.
"Your mother," said Yan g, as if talking to herself, "is too good for this family."
"Five years ago—your father had died only one year before—she and I went to Hangchow to visit the Six Harmonies Pagoda on the far side of West Lake. Your father had been a respected scholar and also devoted to the six virtues of Buddhism enshrined in this pagoda. So your mother kowtowed in the pagoda, pledging to observe the right harmony of body, thoughts, and speech, to refrain from giving opinions, and to shuh. And when we boarded the boat to cross the lake agai opposite a man and a woman. This was Wu Tsing and Sed Wife.
"Wu Tsing must have seen her beauty immediately. Back then your mother had hair down to her waist, which she tied high up on her head. And she had unusual skin, a lustrous pink color. Even in her white widows clothes she was beautiful! But because she was a widow, she was worthless in many respects. She could not remarry.
"But this did not stop Sed Wife from thinking of a way. She was tired of watg her households money being washed away in so many different teahouses. The money he spent was enough to support five more wives! She was anxious to quiet Wu Tsings outside appetite. So she spired with Wu Tsing to lure your mother to his bed.
"She chatted with your mother, discovered that she plao go to the Monastery of the Spirits Retreat the day. And Sed Wife showed up at that place as well. And after more friendly talk, she invited your mother to dinner. Your mother was so lonely food versation she gladly accepted. And after the dinner, Sed Wife said to your mother, Do you play mah jong? Oh, it doesnt matter if you play badly. We are only three people nbbr>..</abbr>ow and ot play at all unless you would be kind enough to join us tomorrow night.
"The night, after a long evening of mah jong, Sed Wife yawned and insisted my mother spend the night. Stay! Stay! Dont be so polite. No, your politeness is really more inve. Why wake the rickshaw boy? said Sed Wife. Look here, my bed is certainly big enough for two.
"As your mother slept soundly in Sed Wifes bed, Sed Wife got up in the middle of the night ahe dark room, and Wu Tsing took her place. When your mother awoke to find him toug her beh her undergarments, she jumped out of bed. He grabbed her by her hair and threw her on the floor, then put his foot ohroat and told her to undress. Your mother did not scream or cry when he fell on her.
"In the early m, she left in a rickshaw, her hair undone and with tears streaming down her face. She told no o me what had happened. But Sed Wife plaio many people about the shameless ho had ented Wu Tsing into bed. How could a worthless widow accuse a rian of lying?
"So when Wu Tsing asked your mother to be his third e, to bear him a son, what choice did she have? She was already as low as a prostitute. And wheuro her brothers house and kowtowed three times to say good-bye, her brother kicked her, and her own mother banned her from the family house forever. That is why you did not see your main until yrandmother died. Your mother went to live isin, to hide her shame with Wu Tsings wealth. And three years later, she gave birth to a son, which Sed Wife claimed as her own.
"And that is how I came to live in Wu Tsings house," cluded Yan g proudly.
And that was how I learhat the baby Syaudi was really my mothers son, my littlest brother.
In truth, this was a bad thing that Yan g had doelling me my mothers story. Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth.
After Yan g told me this story, I saw everything. I heard things I had never uood before.
I saw Sed Wifes true nature.
I saw how she often gave Fifth Wife moo go visit her poor village, encing this silly girl to "show your friends and family how rich youve bee!" And of course, her visits always reminded Wu Tsing of Fifth Wifes low-class background and how foolish he had been to be lured by her earthy flesh.
I saw Sed Wife koutou to First Wife, bowing with deep respect while her more opium. And I knew why First Wifes power had been drained away.
I saw how fearful Third Wife became when Sed Wife told her stories of old es who were kicked out into the streets. And I knew why Third Wife watched over Sed Wifes health and happiness.
And I saw my mothers terrible pain as Sed Wife bounced Syaudi on her lap, kissing my mothers son and telling this baby, "As long as I am your mother, you will never be poor. You will never be unhappy. You will grow up to own this household and care for me in my old age."
And I knew why my mother cried in her room so often. Wu Tsings promise of a house—for being the mother of his only son—had disappeared the day Sed Wife collapsed from another bout of pretend-suicide. And my mother knew she could do nothing t the promise back.
I suffered so much after Yan g told me my mothers story. I wanted my mother to shout at Wu Tsing, to shout at Sed Wife, to shout at Yan g and say she was wrong to tell me these stories. But my mother did not even have the right to do this. She had no choice.
Two days before the lunar new year, Yan g woke me when it was still black outside.
"Quickly!" she cried, pulling me along before my mind and eyes could work together.
My mothers room was brightly lit. As soon as I walked in I could see her. I ran to her bed and stood on the footstool. Her arms and legs were moving bad forth as she lay on her back. She was like a soldier, marg to nowhere, her head looking right the. And now her whole body became straight and stiff as if to stretch herself out of her body. Her jaulled down and I saw her tongue was swollen and she was coughing to try to make it fall out.
"Wake up!" I whispered, and then I turned and saw everybody standing there: Wu Tsing, Yan g, Sed Wife, Third Wife, Fifth Wife, the doctor.
"She has taken too mu," cried Yan g. "The doctor says he do nothing. She has poisoned herself."
So they were doing nothing, only waiting. I also waited those many hours.
The only sounds were that of the girl in the clock playing the violin. And I wao shout to the clod make its meaningless noise be silent, but I did not.
I watched my mother mar her bed. I wao say the words that would quiet her body and spirit. But I stood there like the others, waiting and saying nothing.
And then I recalled her story about the little turtle, his warning not to cry. And I wao shout to her that it was no use. There were already too many tears. And I tried to swallow them one by one, but they came too fast, until finally my closed lips burst open and I cried and cried, then cried all aiing everybody in the room feed on my tears.
I fainted with all this grief and they carried me back to Yan gs bed. So that m, while my mother was dying, I was dreaming.
I was falling from the sky down to the ground, into a pond. And I became a little turtle lying at the bottom of this watery place. Above me I could see the beaks of a thousand magpies drinking from the pond, drinking and singing happily and filling their snow-white bellies. I was g hard, so many tears, but they drank and drank, so many of them, until I had no more tears left and the pond was empty, everything as dry as sand.
Yan g later told me my mother had listeo Sed Wife and tried to do pretend-suicide. False words! Lies! She would never listen to this woman who caused her so much suffering.
I know my mother listeo her ow, to no longer pretend. I know this because why else did she die two days before the lunar new year? Why else did she plan her death so carefully that it became a on?
Three days before the lunar new year, she had eaten ywansyau, the sticky sweet dumpling that everybody eats to celebrate. She ate oer the other. And I remember her strange remark. "You see how this life is. You ot eat enough of this bitterness." And what she had done was eat ywansyau filled with a kind of bitter poison, not died seeds or the dull happiness of opium as Yan g and the others had thought. When the poison broke into her body, she whispered to me that she would rather kill her own irit so she could give me a stronger one.
The stiess g to her body. They could not remove the poison and so she died, two days before the new year. They laid her on a wooden board in the hallway. She wore funeral clothes far richer than those she had worn in life. Silk undergarments to keep her warm without the heavy burden of a fur coat. A silk gown, sewn with gold thread. A headdress of gold and lapis and jade. And two delicate slippers with the softest leather soles and two giant pearls on each toe, to light her way to nirvana.
Seeihis last time, I threw myself on her body. And she opened her eyes slowly. I was not scared. I knew she could see me and what she had finally done. So I shut her eyes with my fingers and told her with my heart: I see the truth, too. I am strong, too.
Because we both khis: that ohird day after someone dies, the soul es back to settle scores. In my mothers case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.
So on that day, Wu Tsing, fearful of my mothers vengeful spirit, wore the coarsest of white clothes. He promised her visiting ghost that he would raise Syaudi and me as his honored children. He promised to revere her as if she had been First Wife, his only wife.
And on that day, I showed Sed Wife the fake pearl necklace she had given me and crushed it under my foot.
And on that day, Sed Wifes hair began to turn white.
And on that day, I learo shout.
I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to uand what has already happened.
You do not need a psychiatrist to do this. A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he is just another bird drinking from your misery.
My mother, she suffered. She lost her fad tried to hide it. She found only greater misery and finally could no<q></q>t hide that. There is nothing more to uand. That was a. That was eople did back then. They had no choice. They could not speak up. They could not run away. That was their fate.
But now they do something else. Now they no longer have to swallow their own tears or suffer the taunts of magpies. I know this because I read this news in a magazine from a.
It said that for thousands of years birds had been tormenting the peasants. They flocked to watch peasants bent over in the fields, digging the hard dirt, g into the furrows to water the seeds. And when the people stood up, the birds would fly down and drink the tears ahe seeds. So children starved.
But one day, all these tired peasants—from all over a—they gathered in fields everywhere. They watched the birds eating and drinking. And they said, "Enough of this suffering and silence!" They began to clap their hands, and bang sticks on pots and pans and shout, "Sz! Sz! Sz!"—Die! Die! Die!
And all these birds rose in the air, alarmed and fused by this new anger, beating their black wings, flying just above, waiting for the o stop. But the peoples shouts only grew stronger, ahe birds became more exhausted, uo land, uo eat. And this tinued for many hours, for many days, until all those birds—hundreds, thousands, and then millions!—fluttered to the ground, dead and still, until not one bird remained in the sky.
What would your psychiatrist say if I told him that I shouted for joy when I read that this had happened?
百度搜索 The Joy Luck Club 天涯 或 The Joy Luck Club 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.