By then her eyes had fallen on the area beneath Yuxiu’s breasts, quickening Yuxiu’s heartbeat as she felt a slashing sound rise from her belly, as if Little Tang’s gaze had opened it up, sending her secrets oozing out like intestines. Yuxiu paled as Little Tang quietly went over to shut the door so they could have a private heart-to-heart talk. When she returned, Yuxiu sat frozen, avoiding the woman’s eyes. Little Tang walked up behind her, laid her hands on the girl’s shoulders, and gently patted her. Feeling a warm current rise up inside her, Yuxiu turned and wrapped her arms around the waist of Little Tang, who knew exactly what was going on.
“Whose is it?” she asked softly. Yuxiu looked up and shook her head over and over; she wanted to cry, but knew she couldn’t, so she just let her mouth hang slack. She had never looked so ugly before, which aroused Little Tang’s sympathy. She bent down and whispered into Yuxiu’s ear, “Whose is it?”
Yuxiu began crying so hard she could hardly breathe; strings of snot hung from her nose. As her own eyes reddened, Little Tang took Yuxiu’s hands in hers.
“Aunty, please help me,” Yuxiu pleaded in a choking voice.
Little Tang wiped tears from both her and Yuxiu’s faces before repeating softly, “Whose is it?”
“Aunty, I beg you. Please help me.”
Little Tang did not ask about the baby’s father again, to Yuxiu’s enormous relief. And she set out to help the girl in many areas. Nutrition, for instance.
She warned Yuxiu that pregnancy was too important an event in the life of a woman, married or not, to be careless. They’d talk about what to do about the child later, but Yuxiu must take care of herself, for if she didn’t, and her health suffered, no amount of fish or meat could bring it back. Yuxiu just nodded, listening to Little Tang without a word, since she had no ideas of her own.
Tang prepared chicken broth, pork-rib soup, carp soup, and pig’s foot soup that she sneaked into the accounting office. She made Yuxiu drink it all down, then forced her to eat the meat. She spent a good deal of her own money on Yuxiu’s health and cared for her with the stern, strict manner of a loving mother, with no room for bargaining.
Yuxiu might have been young and impetuous, but by being forced to eat and drink, she realized how lovingly Little Tang treated her, just like a mother, and she often cried as she ate. Whenever that happened, Little Tang cried with her, sometimes even harder than Yuxiu. Yuxiu was no longer worried about the future, for now she had someone to lean on. She cried mainly because of Little Tang, the sort of friend only rarely encountered; with a friend like that, Yuxiu could ask for nothing more. She did not feel the same depth of gratitude and emotional attachment toward her own mother that she felt toward Little Tang, who told her not to worry. “Leave it to me,” Little Tang said, all but thumping her chest for emphasis.
Being young, Yuxiu had a healthy appetite, and before a month had passed, she realized to her horror that her belly was growing at a frenzied pace and was now bulging noticeably. The baby inside, as if responding to her encouragement, had begun misbehaving, kicking here with little feet and thumping there with tiny hands. She reacted to the movements with an indescribable sense of affection, but this was overshadowed by panic. That little lump inside her was a person, one who slashed and gladdened her heart at the same time. Yuxiu went to tell Little Tang, even pulling up her top to show her belly there in the bookkeeping office. Surprised by what she saw, Little Tang sighed and said, “It’s all my fault. I was too anxious and gave you too much nutrition too soon.” But how could anyone blame Aunty Little Tang?
Yuxiu’s special nutritional regimen came to a halt that day, but her belly was like cadre assignments, which always grow, never shrink. Since her blouse could barely cover her belly, she cleverly wrapped it with a sash she fashioned out of lengths of fabric.
“Aunty Little Tang, you won’t tell anyone, will you?” she asked, clearly anxious. Little Tang was so upset she turned her back on Yuxiu and wept once again. Knowing she’d said the wrong thing, Yuxiu apologized abjectly for doubting her and, with great effort, managed to stop Little Tang’s tears.
The ideal solution, in Little Tang’s view, was to go to the hospital, but timing was the key. Obviously, going too late was out of the question, but too early was nearly as bad. That sounded right, but Little Tang could not decide when the timing was right, and, since Yuxiu could not possibly know, she placed her faith in Aunty Little Tang. All she could do was nudge Little Tang every once in a while, but not too often, for fear that this might be misread as a lack of trust. Little Tang, for her part, had her own difficulties. She told Yuxiu that she’d gone to the hospital several times without entering and beat a hasty retreat the moment she saw the doctors. If she’d said what she was there for, Yuxiu’s secret would be out. “You have no idea how bad doctors are at keeping secrets. They’ll talk for sure,” she said. That sounded convincing and reasonable to Yuxiu, who was appreciative of Aunty Little Tang’s attention to every little detail.
But a few days later, Yuxiu decided that she no longer had the luxury of worrying about that. “Go ahead, tell the doctors,” she said. “They’ll need to know sooner or later anyway.”
The days turned progressively cooler until the air was downright cold; for Yuxiu, that was a blessing. If not for the early arrival of winter, the changes in her body would have been obvious. So heaven had kindly dropped the temperature precipitously after a wintry rain, making it natural for her to put on her yellow overcoat. The weather warmed up for a few days after that, but the overcoat was not so out of place that it invited questions. That, unfortunately, was the only good news. Emotionally, the pressure did not lessen; if anything, it got worse because she learned that she could no longer rely on help from Little Tang.
Little Tang made a special trip to see Yuxiu, and the moment Yuxiu saw her puffy eyes, she knew that something was terribly wrong. Little Tang told Yuxiu everything, how she’d gone to the hospital and sought out the director, but before Yuxiu’s name even came up, the director turned suspicious. She said, “He asked me if my son had been ‘fooling around’ and ‘made someone’s belly big.’” She continued, “I’m a mother myself, what could I say?” Little Tang looked miserable and felt guilty about her selfishness as a mother; she was so unhappy she could not look Yuxiu in the eye.
Despite her feelings of despair, Yuxiu was mature enough to understand Little Tang’s predicament and knew she could not ask her to sacrifice her son for her sake. No mother would do that, for this was a matter of “personal conduct,” something that could have a permanent impact on a person’s future. Yuxiu had acted improperly at Little Tang’s house once, leaving a bad impression. She felt terrible about the incident, and now, if Gao Wei were to be held responsible for what she’d done, heaven would strike her dead. Finding it impossible to lend any more help, Little Tang sobbed silently in front of Yuxiu, who felt guilty in the presence of Little Tang’s tear-streaked face; self-loathing rose up inside her; her conscience was under attack. Little Tang’s assistance had turned into a dead end, which meant that Yuxiu had reached a dead end, too. She wiped the tears from Little Tang’s face and said to herself, Aunty, I’ll have to wait till my next life to repay your kindness.
This, in fact, was not the first time Yuxiu had thought about taking her own life. It was not a good end, but it was a way out. Seen from any angle, dying was a solution. She’d frightened herself when the thought first had occurred to her, but then a door opened in her mind and the fear disappeared. Once you close your eyes, she thought, you won’t know anything anymore, so what’s there to be afraid of?