On one warm Sunday afternoon Yumi, Yuxiu, and Wang Lianfang sat in a circle around the baby in the courtyard to catch some sun. Guo Jiaxing was a man without Sundays—he preferred his desk at the office, where he stayed whether he was busy or not. Even with the warm spring sunlight bathing the courtyard, Yuxiu was still in her overcoat—as overdressed as a corpse. Being small boned and young, she had kept her figure, especially with the sash wrapped tightly around her belly; her appearance had hardly changed. To be sure, there were signs that aroused Yumi’s suspicion—quite a few, in fact.
For one, Yuxiu quickly gained back all the weight she had recently lost. She had a remarkable appetite for a while, and then for some time she was suddenly absentminded and sleepy-eyed. If she dropped her chopsticks, she’d grab another pair from the table and use them to drag those on the floor closer instead of bending over to pick them up. All these were clues, any one of which could have led to the discovery of her problem, but Yumi didn’t pay much attention, mainly because it hadn’t occurred to her that she ought to. That is how it is with so many things; we find evidence to match the reality only after the fact, though the more we pay attention, the more problems we discover.
Yuxiu had managed to hide her situation for so long primarily because she and Yumi were together every day. Yuxiu’s added weight is a case in point. She was much heavier than she’d been before, but since she hadn’t gained the weight overnight, it was almost impossible to detect; the weight gain slowly and gradually became a sort of quiet transformation.
Yumi felt her scalp itch from sitting under the lazy sun for so long, while Wang Lianfang was in a “meeting” with his granddaughter. The more she scratched her head, the worse it seemed to itch. Deciding to wash her hair on the spur of the moment, she called out to Yuxiu, who had gone inside. The girl was more lethargic than ever; she’d been listless all morning and took to her bed whenever she got the chance. But Yuxiu was not lazy; she had a bellyache that made her walk with a pained look when Yumi told her to get some water. After setting the basin up, Yuxiu began to wash Yumi’s hair, but her mind was elsewhere and her fingers lacked consistency, hard at work one moment then slackening off the next. She even had to stop for a minute, and when she did, she made a muffled noise as if her throat were blocked. Nothing emerged but her labored breathing. Growing impatient, Yumi said, “What’s wrong with you, Yuxiu?”
Yuxiu mumbled a response, and it wasn’t until she was rinsing her sister’s hair that Yumi realized something was definitely wrong. Yuxiu should have dumped the water before the second rinse, but she didn’t; instead she crouched down and remained motionless, her eyes staring straight ahead. Her lips were quivering wildly as if they were being seared by boiling water. Yumi noticed beads of sweat on her sister’s forehead.
“Why are you still wearing that coat?” she asked.
But instead of answering, Yuxiu backed up slowly, a willful look in her eyes. When she reached the wall, she leaned against it for support and slid down to a sitting position as she closed her eyes; she opened her mouth wide, but no sound emerged. Then she reached under her coat, her hands a flurry of motion as she unknotted, tugged, and pulled at the sash. Her eyes were still shut and her mouth hung slack as she dragged the sash out little by little; the more she pulled, the more she held in her hand, like a magician. Finally she exhaled and made a guttural noise that, to Yumi’s ears, sounded like agony but could have been ecstasy. But that was all—Yuxiu did not make another sound.
Sensing that something might be terribly wrong, Yumi walked up to her sister, water dripping from her hair, and tugged tentatively at the overcoat; Yuxiu did not resist.
“Stand up, Yuxiu,” Yumi said sternly.
Her eyes still shut, Yuxiu merely twisted her neck from side to side, so Yumi pulled her up.
“Stand up, I said.”
Yuxiu struggled to her feet, but with the cord untied, her pants slipped to the ground the moment she got to her feet. Yumi lifted Yuxiu’s coat and undergarment, exposing a giant belly that presented a terrifying sight under the harsh glare of the sun. “Yuxiu!” Yumi cried out.
Cocking her head to look at Yumi out of the corner of her eye, Yuxiu continued her labored breathing and, holding on to her sister, slowly sank to her knees.
“It’s all over for me, sister,” she said softly.
Yumi grabbed a handful of Yuxiu’s hair.
“Whose is it?” she asked.
“It’s all over for me, sister,” Yuxiu said again.
This time Yumi pulled Yuxiu’s hair back to make her sister look up at her. “Whose is it?” she demanded furiously.
Wang Lianfang was standing behind Yumi.
“Stop asking, Yumi. He’ll be part of the next generation of revolutionaries.”
The following morning, Yuxiu gave birth to a baby boy at the county People’s Hospital. Yumi had begged the doctor to abort the child, but she’d refused, saying it was too late and too risky. True to her reputation, Yumi did not panic. With a letter from Guo Jiaxing to the head of the hospital, she took charge, and everything went smoothly. But she had her own issue to deal with: She needed to know the identity of the baby’s father.
On the way to the hospital, she had grilled Yuxiu while they were on the speedboat, even slapping her a dozen times. When her hands were sore from slapping her sister, Yumi had tugged at Yuxiu’s hair, ultimately pulling out a handful; Yuxiu had remained stoically quiet the whole time. The corners of her mouth had begun to bleed, and even Yumi had not been able to bring herself to slap her anymore, yet Yuxiu had refused to tell her what she wanted to know.
“I’ve never seen a slut like you!” Yumi had screamed at her sister. After seeing her into the delivery room, Yumi sat quietly on the bench in the hallway with the speedboat skipper, utterly exhausted. Reclaiming her daughter from the skipper, she sighed and shut her eyes weakly. But then they snapped open. She glanced over at the skipper, slowly stood up, turned, and kneeled before him. Stunned, he tried to pull her up, but she said, “Skipper Guo, please, for our sake, don’t tell anyone. Please, I beg you.”
The skipper got down on his knees. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Guo,” he said, flustered. “I give you my word as a Party member.”
Yumi sat down again, her mind now busily figuring out what to do with the doctor and the baby. How should she deal with the baby? And was it a boy or a girl?
Everything went smoothly, and Yuxiu had her baby half an hour later. When the doctor walked out and pulled down her mask, Yumi went up, grasped her hands, and asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A boy,” the doctor said. Yumi fell silent as an unspeakable bitterness and sadness surged inside her. You did well for yourself, you little slut, she thought.
The doctor stood there looking at her and waited. Yumi’s lips quivered before she sighed and said, “I think we’d better give him away.”
After taking care of the details, Yumi walked into the ward and stood before Yuxiu with a grim look. Yuxiu’s bloodless face looked paler than paper, but although she appeared to be drained of energy, she took her hands out from under the blanket and said softly, “Sister, let me see my baby.”
Yumi had not expected such a blatant request, and her face turned dark purple.
“Yuxiu,” she blurted out, “how can you be so shameless!”