"Because…"
"Because since he's come here, I don't know who I am," she said. "I act one way, he acts another. He's said terrible things."
"What terrible things were those?"
"That the women in the factory are uneducated, that our country is corrupt, that the people who run the factory are honest…"
"Ah, so it is a political disagreement."
"That, and he thinks he can treat me like a woman, like a taitai."
"Don't you want to be his wife?"
"It is a word that, like so many in our language, is a prison to me."
"I don't understand."
"Mama, baba. Separate words for older brother and younger brother- gege and didi. Separate words for older sister and younger sister-jiejie and meimei. Yeye, nainai, bofu, shushu," she rattled off the words for paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, oldest paternal uncle and younger paternal uncle. "All these are different than the words for their maternal counterparts, and those words connote a lesser meaning because the female side is seen as unimportant."
Suchee picked up another piece of newsprint, coated it with the paste, and pressed it to the growing sole. "You aren't telling me anything I don't know."
"My whole life I've known exactly where I fit in the family tree. Even when I lived in America, I felt the pressure of that. No, not pressure, the weight, the sense that I could never truly be myself."
"But our words are a comfort," Suchee said, glancing up from her work. "They tell us who we are. They are what make us Chinese."
"No, they are what keep us locked to the past," Hulan countered. "When a daughter, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son," she said, completing the proverb she had thought of when talking to Tang Dan.
At this Suchee put down her work. Once again Hulan was struck by how much her friend had aged in this harsh environment. But Hulan was doing just what she had accused David and the taxi driver of doing, judging Suchee by her face. Behind the rough skin and tragic eyes, Suchee was as she'd always been-gentle, kind, and astute.
"It is sad, Hulan. You have not changed since you were a girl. You were always running away, even when you first came running to the countryside all those years ago."
Hulan disagreed. "I was sent to the Red Soil Farm."
"Yes, but even then you ran away from the truth of you."
"I don't understand."
Suchee's eyes narrowed as she appraised her girlhood friend; then she asked, "Do you want me to say this?"
TTudclenly Hulan wasn't sure, but Suchee went on. "Here is what I remember about you: Unlike most of the girls sent here, you were happy to be away from your family. Oh, you said you were lonely, but no one ever saw you cry, no one ever saw you write a letter. When they had struggle meetings, you spoke out the loudest and said the worst words. No one wanted you on their team, because at any time you could turn against an individual person or the entire group."
"I know all this," Hulan said. "I'm sorry for the things I did."
"Are you sure? Because what I remember is that your words kept you safely alone."
"You think I spouted those slogans and reported on people's infractions because I didn't want friends? You're absolutely wrong."
"Am I?" When Hulan didn't answer, Suchee said, "If you couldn't run away from people physically, then you could distance yourself by being politically superior."
"I never treated you that way."
Suchee raised her eyebrows. A dark silence settled on them.
Finally Hulan said, "It was against the rules to have sex. That was the worst infraction."
"I was your friend," Suchee said. "You didn't have to report us."
"But everything worked out. Ling Shaoyi was able to stay here with you. The two of you had a life together."
Suchee shook her head. "Do you think a day goes by when I don't wish that you had never seen us on that day, that I had never married, that I had never given birth to a daughter? Shaoyi was sixteen and I was twelve when your train arrived. You remember how I loved him from afar? That was the love of a farm girl for a city boy. Two years later, he finally saw me, but we were not looking to spend our lives together. We both understood our differences. Like you, he was from a good family. They had always planned for him to go to university and become an engineer. But you said your words and then you ran away."
"I didn't run away. A family friend came to get me. Do you think I was happy about what happened next? I was made to say more terrible words and then was sent into exile i i America -"
"Even after you left, Shaoyi was punished," Suchee pressed on. "There were more struggle meetings. He was called a counterrevolutionary, a revisionist, a cow demon. They made him write self-criticisms. The brigade leaders instructed us to get married. But what kind of a ceremony was it? We both wore dunce caps. We were paraded through the compound. We didn't have a wedding banquet, but people did throw rotten fruit at us. We didn't enjoy a wedding night. Instead I was sent back to my family and Shaoyi was put in the cow shed. I heard later that they kept him there for three months and only brought him out after he contracted pneumonia. I thought I would never see him again, but I was wrong. When the others went home, Shaoyi had to stay behind. When he came to my parents' house, I didn't recognize him. He had lost much weight and his color was that of a dead man. He looked sixty, not twenty."
"Everyone suffered in those days," Hulan said, echoing the words that Peanut had said earlier today. "Is there anyone in our country who wasn't affected by the Chaos?"
"Your words are true," Suchee said. "But many people were able to retrieve their old lives. Shaoyi was not one of them, and neither was I. Like most girls, I had been betrothed almost since birth. I know this is a feudal idea, but even in those dark times customs didn't change that much in the countryside. Naturally, the family heard of the cause of my mock marriage and called off the engagement. My parents tried to find another match for me, but who would take into their family a broken piece of jade? When Shaoyi came to our door, my father decided to accept him."
Hulan understood the devastating implications of what Suchee was telling her. In China a daughter was never considered to be a member of her birth family. She was raised as an outsider-someone who consumed valuable rice until she went to the family of her husband. Upon marriage the bride's family had to provide a dowry, while the groom's family had to pay a bride price. A poor family such as Suchee's might have anticipated a few bride cakes, a few slivers of pork, and maybe a jin or two of rice. But as a broken piece of jade-a girl who had lost her virginity- Suchee was effectively worthless. No family would pay for her, and her parents couldn't afford a larger dowry. However, Shaoyi too had been worthless. He no longer had access to his family. He certainly had no ties to anyone in Da Shui or any of the other neighboring villages. By being taken into his wife's home, Shaoyi lost his identity. He traded in his last name and took on Ling as his new surname.
"At first I was happy," Suchee continued. "Then I saw the way he suffered. You city people do not understand hard work. Do you think a man who's supposed to be an engineer is capable of chopping down trees for firewood, of plowing the fields with an ox, of using a long-handled hoe to work the land all day, every day, year after year? Even my father felt sorry for Shaoyi. Sometimes my father would say to him, 'Go help Mama and Suchee with their work.' And Shaoyi would have to obey, because he was no longer a true man. What could we give him to do? He couldn't cook. He didn't know how to patch clothes or"-and here she gestured to the work before her-"make shoes. My mother taught him how to shuck corn. Day after day he would sit outside stripping the cobs of their kernels, or separating seed, or cleaning the rice. Neighbor men saw him doing this work and ridiculed him.