The Bathing Women Read online

  On Sundays, only on Sundays, it was open to the couples who lived in the collective dormitories. It was locked and left unused on other days. Wu and Yixun hadn’t counted how many couples there were among the male and female teams—probably at least eighty. Anyone in a couple would need to use the small house on the hill sooner or later. There was only one house and one day of the week, so people had to wait in line. This type of line was different from the kind they waited in to buy rice and vegetables. Although they were husbands and wives openly, they couldn’t openly wait in line one after another to use the small house. The implication of the word “use” was so direct and obvious that people felt excited and embarrassed on hearing it. Therefore their waiting in line had about it a bit of the intellectuals’ reserve, a modesty, the result of their upbringing, and maybe the careful calculations of the powerless. Early Sunday morning, you wouldn’t see a distinct group milling in front of the house, but you could see men and women in couples scattered randomly around, near and far. They were either under a tree, on a vegetable patch, or sitting on bricks, apparently engaged in tête-à-tête. They looked calm and relaxed, but their eyes were fixed intensely on the tightly closed door of that small house. Every time the door opened and a couple walked out after finishing their business, the next couple to enter would be the one closest to the door, and the next couple after them would take a definite step closer. This “step” was very discreet, maintaining a distance of at least fifteen metres. Who would be heartless enough to wait right outside the door? Couples who came late would judge with care which spot to take. Latecomers never rushed past those who were already there to get to the door. The couples were all very precise about the order. It almost looked like they were scouts—in groups of two—slowly outflanking the small house; the scene also resembled a round of confused chess, unintelligible to laymen, with those anxious couples as the pieces on the board. The chess game only appeared disorderly; it was the unexpected that led to trouble, which happened once in Wu and Yixun’s memory.

  The door high above had finally opened and a couple emerged. Wu and Yixun, as the closest couple, knew that it was their turn and immediately, in unspoken understanding, walked toward the small house. But right then another couple also approached from the opposite direction. The two couples had arrived almost at the same time and their distance from the small house was also about the same. If you used a diagram to illustrate the situation, the relationship of the two couples to the small house could be presented as an equilateral triangle. While they simultaneously headed toward the small house, they simultaneously realized the awkwardness of the situation. When they realized that awkwardness, they may all have hesitated briefly—a pause as tiny as a blade of grass, a product of their polite upbringing. But the reality was so powerful that their footsteps immediately left the tiny mental hesitation behind. Wu felt her legs hurry more urgently than the moment before because the couple coming from the opposite direction seemed to be moving with increased speed and agility: they seemed to be striding in bigger and bigger steps. So she began to extend her stride, too … and the twenty-something metres where the two couples raced with quiet ferocity seemed endless. They kept adjusting their stride and glancing over at each other, calculating how they could arrive a step ahead. Their eagerness made them ignore the way they appeared as they walked; certainly ugly, since they were race-walking without even following a race walker’s form. The only thing they didn’t do was run, but they didn’t run because after all they still couldn’t accept the fact that they would have to run in order to do their conjugal business. Actual running would have damaged the collegiality between the couples, although in their hearts they were running wildly.

  Wu swung her waist and hips to stride forward, intent on occupying the small house first. She was a bit embarrassed about her big steps because they were the sign of her desire. Her desire was originally intended solely for her husband, Yixun, but now she had to announce to reeds, trees, bricks, and tiles, and all these irrelevant things, in broad daylight and with her inelegant way of walking, that she wanted to make love to her husband. She took big steps, unsure of whether she was being shameless or simply had no choice. When they finally reached the small house first, and pushed the door open, she felt very sorry for the couple who would be shut outside.

  The race left her and Yixun short of breath and distracted. They neither kissed nor talked, but tried to finish as soon as possible. Because they’d got in first, they felt they shouldn’t take too much time in the small house. They didn’t even look at each other, as if they were afraid to face the crudeness of their current situation, or were embarrassed about winning the race of a few moments before. Most couples behaved similarly in the small house; they knew how to discipline themselves. No one dawdled endlessly behind the door. Even so, not every couple got a chance. The ones who didn’t would have to wait quietly for next Sunday.

  Two kilometres’ walk from the farm, Reed River Town had roasted chickens for sale. On Sundays, only on Sundays, could the people on the male and female teams go to the town to satisfy their craving. Women always have more cravings for food than men. After Wu and Yixun occupied the small house, Wu would immediately think about the roasted chicken in Reed River Town. Unfortunately, she could not have both at the same time; she couldn’t have the small house and taste the chicken simultaneously. People also needed to set off early on Sunday to buy roast chickens, which were prized then. Since the farm had so many people like Wu, the limited supply of chickens in the town would be sold out in no time.

  There was one couple who did try to have both on the same day. As soon as the gate opened, early on Sunday morning, they left the farm and went deep into the vast, dense reed thickets. They gave up on the wait for the hill house and planned to do their business there in the reeds and hurry to the town to buy a roast chicken as soon as they’d finished. But they got caught in the act by the farmworkers and were made to do numerous self-criticisms at various meetings as typical examples of weak revolutionary willpower and low-life behaviour.

  When Wu reminisced about the past many years later, she would try to avoid the part about the Reed River Farm. She couldn’t bring herself to imagine it was because she couldn’t have both at the same time that she became really sick: half a year later, she had attacks of severe dizziness on the farm. She fainted twice beside the stacks of bricks. She was finally allowed to rest in the dorm for a few days, but had to attend the study group every evening—studying was more relaxing than labouring.

  She participated in the study group, but unfortunately she fainted again in the meeting room, twice. She was sent to the farm clinic, but the doctor there was unable to diagnose the cause of this strange dizziness. Her blood pressure and pulse were normal, but she would sweat profusely and her whole body would feel like a puddle of mud after she regained consciousness. She always looked discouraged when she opened her eyes, as if she regretted coming back to life again. Only when she saw Yixun’s weary and anxious face did she try to make herself more awake. She loved her husband, but when she caught sight of her cracked hands, smelled the moldy damp of the straw bed, took in the little wooden box used as a makeshift desk, the porcelain cup whose handle was broken by a scurrying rat—that cup with a broken handle made everything seem so shabby … she looked at all this and thought boldly that instead of the endless shabbiness, she might be more than willing to submerge herself in dizziness. It was surely a kind of submergence. She would hide herself in dizziness and never reveal the truth to anyone until the day she died, not even to her husband.

  2

  How nice it was to lie, with her head and neck buried in a big fluffy feather pillow, her dishevelled short hair down over her forehead! No one on the Reed River Farm could reach her. She slipped her hands under the quilt, too; she didn’t want to stuff her hands into the rough cloth gloves anymore or stand in front of the stacks of bricks, inhaling the never-ending red powder.

  Wu woke to find herself in her own home,
lying on her own big bed, and resting her head on her own pillow—this pillow, this pillow of hers. She couldn’t help swivelling her head a few times, languidly and with some coy playfulness. She rubbed the snow-white pillow with the back of her head, playing with the real pillow that she had missed so much. She remembered her laziness as a small child. Every morning, when it was time to get up, Nanny Tian had to stand by that little steel-springed bed of hers and try again and again to wake her. She was like that in those days, rubbing the back of her head against the pillow until her hair was a mess. Meanwhile, she’d kick her legs and feet under the quilt and turn her head to the side, pretending to sleep on. Nanny Tian didn’t give up, but kept calling her from beside her bed.

  Wu then would pry open her eyes and ask Nanny Tian to make faces for her, to do cats and dogs and copy the way the mynah bird spoke. Nanny Tian first undid her apron, folded it into a triangle, and tied it onto her head to play the wolf grandmother in “Little Red Riding Hood”; then she tensed her voice to imitate the cat; leaving the best for last, she imitated the mynah: “Nanny Tian, get the meal ready; Nanny Tian, get the meal ready.” Nanny Tian smacked her thick lips and held her neck stiffly to mimic the bird, which made Wu laugh heartily. Nanny Tian did such a good impression of the mynah, which was kept in the kitchen as company for her. Wu loved to get into the kitchen whenever she had the chance. Her favourite thing was listening to that mynah talk, but she knew, whether it was the mynah imitating Nanny Tian or Nanny Tian imitating the mynah, both would deliver a great performance. Even when she went away to the university, she couldn’t help wanting to bring Nanny Tian along, though not for waking her up in the morning, of course. But it seemed to have become a habit to listen to Nanny Tian nag at her every morning, a part of Wu’s peaceful, languid sleep.

  Wu rubbed the snow-white pillow with the back of her head; she could finally snuggle into her pillow again. The farm approved her return to Fuan for a week to treat her mysterious dizziness. She was overjoyed, and Yixun was also happy for her, making a special trip to town to buy a pair of roast chickens for her to bring back to the children. Although Tiao always said, “We’re doing fine,” in her letters, Yixun still felt it wasn’t a good idea to leave two children alone at home. It was simply not a good idea. “It would be great if you could stay home longer,” he told Wu. He didn’t expect his words to become the main excuse for Wu to stay on in Fuan. “Isn’t this what you were wishing for, too? Didn’t you want me to stay at home?” Later, she would say this to him in a loud voice, but with some guilty feelings.

  A week was so precious to Wu that she first buried herself in the pillow and slept for three days. It was the sleep of oblivion, a three-days-without-leaving-the-bed sleep, a making-up-for-half-a-year’s-lost-sleep-in-one sleep. She opened her eyes only when she was thirsty or hungry, having Tiao bring water and food to her bed. After she finished eating and drinking she dropped her head and fell back asleep, snoring gently. It was Tiao who discovered that her mother snored. She believed her mother must have picked up the habit at the Reed River Farm.

  At last she opened her eyes. After getting up and doing some stretches to loosen her muscles, she felt wide awake. Her limbs felt strong, and her insides felt clean and clear, ready to be filled with food. Where was her dizziness? Just as she started to feel lucky that she was no longer dizzy, a fit of panic gripped her: When will the dizziness come back? If she was no longer dizzy, how could she get a diagnosis from the hospital? And she must get that diagnosis. The whole purpose for the week of sick leave was for her to go to the hospital and get a diagnosis. When she returned to the farm, she would have to submit a diagnosis from the hospital.

  She sat on the side of her bed trying very hard to locate the dizziness in her. Fan, nesting by her legs, grabbed her pants with one hand and asked: Mum, are you still dizzy? Then Wu really did feel a little dizzy—if even Fan knew about her dizziness, how could she not be dizzy? She tried to make herself dizzy and took a bus to People’s Hospital.

  The hallway of the clinic at People’s Hospital was noisy chaos. A draft of chokingly sweet fish smell, mixed with the unhealthy breath of the waiting patients, made Wu almost leave a few times. Finally the registrar nurse called out her number. Just as she sat down in front of the doctor, an old fellow from the countryside squeezed in, saying, “Doctor, you can’t fool us country folk. I walked over a hundred li to come to your hospital, and you give me a ten-cent prescription? Can ten cents treat an illness? You people tell me, isn’t this a con?” He yammered on, pestering the doctor for a more expensive medicine, demanding and pleading until the doctor had no choice but to rewrite his prescription.

  “Next, please. Name?” the doctor said without raising his head. Wu gave her name and the doctor lifted his head, taking a look at Wu and then listening to her complaint. She didn’t know why, but she felt a little nervous, and gave the account of her symptoms in a dry and hesitant way. She seemed to have some difficulty meeting the doctor’s direct gaze, although she knew it was just his professional manner. He was a man of about her age, with a clean, long, thin face under a clean white cap. His eyes were small and very dark, and when he stared at her with his small, dark eyes, they seemed to be bouncing over her face like lead shot. Like most doctors, he made no small talk. He listened to Wu’s heartbeat, ordered several laboratory tests for her, routine tests like blood sugar and fat levels, ECG, etc., and he also asked her to get an X-ray of her neck at the radiology department.

  Some test results came back the same day and some wouldn’t be ready until the next. So, the following day, Wu returned to People’s Hospital. She registered at internal medicine first, collected all the test results, and then waited quietly to see Dr. Tang—she had learned from the forms that the doctor’s family name was Tang.

  When she sat across from him again, she immediately sensed on her face the bouncing of his lead-shot eyes. She handed her test reports to him; he buried himself in them for a while, then looked up and said, “You can set your mind at ease. You’re very healthy. There is nothing wrong with you. I thought you might have cervical vertebra disease or a heart problem, but I can assure you now that there is nothing wrong with you.”

  What was he talking about? she thought. Was he saying that she wasn’t sick at all? If she wasn’t sick, why would she come to the hospital? If she wasn’t sick, how was it possible for her to leave the Reed River Farm? That’s right, leave the Reed River Farm. Just then Wu at last completely understood her heart’s desire: to leave the Reed River Farm. She really didn’t want to go back to that place, so she had to be sick, and it was impossible that she was not sick.

  “It’s impossible,” she said, and stood up, forgetting herself a little.

  Gesturing for her to sit down, he asked, somewhat puzzled, “Why don’t you want yourself to be healthy?”

  “Because I’m not healthy. I’m sick.” She sat down, but insisted on her opinion.

  “The problem is that you’re not sick.” He took another look through the stack of test results, along with the ECG report and neck X-rays. “Your symptoms might be mental in origin, caused by excessive nervousness.”

  “I’m not nervous and I was never nervous.” Wu contradicted Dr. Tang again.

  “But your current state is a manifestation of nervousness,” Dr. Tang said.

  She then told Dr. Tang again that it was not nervousness but some disease. “It is really a disease.” She realized she had already begun to act a little irrationally. Her confrontation with the doctor not only didn’t convince the doctor, it didn’t convince her, either.

  Dr. Tang gave a helpless smile. “Certainly, mental nervousness can be an illness, a condition. But as a doctor of internal medicine, I have no authority to give a diagnosis in this matter. I can only … I can only …”

  His conclusion brought her up from the chair again. She began to ramble and repeat herself like a gabby old woman. “I’m not only sick, I also have two children. They’re so small. My husband and I both w
ork on the farm and can’t take care of them at all. You know the Reed River Farm, quite far away from Fuan. Ordinarily we can’t come back. My two daughters, they … they … because …” At this point she suddenly leaned her face in to Dr. Tang’s and lowered her voice, desperately whispering, “You can’t … you can’t …” The next thing she felt was the spinning of the sky and earth. Her dizziness came to her rescue just in time and she lost consciousness.

  She was hospitalized in the internal medicine ward and Dr. Tang was the physician in charge.

  The first thing that came to her mind after she woke was actually Dr. Tang’s small, dark eyes. She also remembered her whispered pleading before she fainted—it was a sort of pleading, and how could she have spoken in that whispering voice to a strange man? She could explain it as her fear of being overheard by others in the clinic, but then, wasn’t she afraid this strange man would throw a woman who tried to fake an illness out of the hospital, or report her to her work unit? Then, during the Cultural Revolution, doctors also basically took on the responsibility of monitoring patients’ thoughts and consciousness. She was afraid, but maybe she was willing to risk her life to win over with whispers this man who controlled her fate. Her dizziness had rescued her in the end. Coming from a woman who might faint at any time, no matter how pitiful and helpless compared to an earthshaking howl, those eerie, frail whispers still hinted at things, either serious or playful, and offered vague temptations. Maybe she hadn’t at all meant to stir up hints of temptation around her, but it was the hints of temptation that stirred her.

  As she lay on the white bed of the internal medicine ward, her body never felt healthier. She told Tiao and Fan later that she was so healthy because of the superb nutrition she received as a child: fish oil, calcium, vitamins … the fish oil was imported from Germany and her grandmother forced her to pinch her nose and take it. Tiao looked at her face carefully and asked, Why are you still dizzy, then?