During these years, most of Lin's and Manna's colleagues were promoted to higher positions or left the army, but the two of them remained in the same offices doing the same work, although they got raises. Ran Su, after another promotion, became the commissar of the hospital in i98o. Lin heard that his cousin Liang Meng had married a model worker, a nationally known operator who had memorized over eleven thousand telephone numbers. In i98i Com missar Wei died in prison, where he had been incarcerated for his connections with the Gang of Four.
Finally, in i984, Lin asked Shuyu to come to the hospital. This time he would take her to People's Court in Muji City. After eighteen years' separation, he was going to divorce her, with or without her consent.
PART 3
1
Bensheng accompanied his sister Shuyu to the army hospital in July i984, but he stayed only a day, having to return home to attend to his business. The year before, the commune had been disbanded and he had opened a small grocery in a neighboring village, mainly selling candies, liquor, cigarettes, soy sauce, vinegar, and spiced pumpkin seeds. During his absence, Hua was taking care of the store, but he couldn't set his mind at rest and was unwilling to be away for long. Hua hadn't passed the entrance exams the previous summer, and fortunately she could work for her uncle instead of going to the fields.
At the hospital, nurses, doctors, officers, and their wives were all amazed to see Shuyu totter about with bound feet, which only a woman of over seventy should have. She always walked alone, since Lin wouldn't be with her in the presence of others. Whenever she crossed the square before the medical building, young nurses would gather at the windows to watch her. They had heard that a woman with bound feet usually had thick thighs and full buttocks, but Shuyu's legs were so thin that she didn't seem to have any hips.
A few days after she arrived, a pain developed in her lower back. It troubled her a lot, and she couldn't sit on a chair for longer than half an hour. It also hurt her whenever she coughed or sneezed. Lin talked to Doctor Ning about Shuyu's symptom and then told his wife to go see the doctor. She went to the office the next morning; the diagnosis was sciatica, at its early stage. She needed electrotherapy.
So she began to receive the treatment. The nurses were exceptionally kind to her, knowing Lin was going to divorce her soon. After the diathermic light was set, they would chitchat with her. Lying facedown on a leather couch, Shuyu would answer their questions without looking up at them. She liked the lysol smell in the air, which somehow reminded her of fresh almonds. She had never been in a room so clean, with cream-colored walls and sunshine streaming in through the windows and falling on the glass-topped tables and the red wooden floors. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. Outside, cicadas buzzed softly in the treetops; even sparrows here didn't chirp furiously like those back home. How come all the animals and people seemed much tamer in the army?
In the beginning, she was rather embarrassed to loosen her pants and move them down below the small of her back, and the infrared heat on her skin frightened her a little, but soon she felt at ease, realizing the lamp wouldn't burn her. She enjoyed lying on the clean sheet and having her lower back soothed by the heat. A sky-blue screen shielded her from people passing by. When nobody was around, she would close her eyes and let her mind wander back to the countryside, where it was time to harvest garlic and crab apples and to sow winter vegetables – turnips, cabbages, carrots, rutabagas. She was amazed that people in the city could have so many comforts, and that the young nurses always worked indoors, well sheltered from wind and rain. They were never in a hurry to finish work. What a wonderful life the girls had here. They all looked nice in their white caps and robes, though some were sickly pale. When they gave her an injection, they would massage her backside for a few seconds; then with a gentle slap they plunged the needle in. They would ask her whether it hurt while their pinkies kept caressing her skin near the needle. The tickle made her want to laugh.
A nurse once asked her if Lin had bullied her. Shuyu said, "No, he's a kind man, always good to me."
"Does he buy you enough food to eat?" another nurse put in. She was holding a syringe, its needle connected to a phial filled with pinkish powder.
Shuyu replied, "Yeah, always white steamed bread, or sugar buns, or twisted rolls. I eat meat or fish every day. Here every day's like a holiday. Only it's too hot at noon."
The nurses looked at each other. One giggled, then a few followed suit. "What does he eat?" asked the nurse holding the syringe.
"I don't know. We don't eat together. He brings everything back for me."
"He's a good provider, eh?"
"Yeah, he is."
They all tittered. They were somewhat puzzled by Shuyu's words. Even though Lin held a rank equal to a battalion commander, his wheat coupons couldn't exceed twelve pounds a month. How could he feed his wife with such fine foods the whole time? Where had he gotten all the coupons? From Manna? It was unlikely, because she had overtly declared she would have nothing to do with Shuyu. What did Lin eat then? Did he eat corn flour and sorghum himself? What a weird man. He must have saved a lot of wheat coupons for Shuyu's visit. It seemed he still had some affection for his wife, or he wouldn't have treated her so well.
Shuyu liked the nurses. Yet however hard they begged her, she would not take off her small shoes, of which they often sang praises. They were all eager to see her feet.
One day, after the treatment, Nurse Li, a bony girl from Hangzhou who had never seen a bound foot, said she would give Shuyu a yuan if she showed them her feet. Shuyu said, "No, can't do that."
"Why? One yuan just for a look. How come your feet are so expensive?"
"You know, girls, only my man's allowed to see them. "
"Why?"
"That's the rule."
"Show us just once, please," a tall nurse begged with a suave smile. "We won't tell others about it."
"No, I won't do that. You know, take off your shoes and socks is like open your pants."
"Why?" the tall woman exclaimed.
"'Cause you bound your feet only for your future husband, not for other men, to make your feet more precious to your man. By the way, do you know what this was called in the old days?" She patted her left foot, whose instep bulged like a tiny knoll.
They all shook their heads. She continued, "It's called Golden Lotus, like a treasure."
They looked at her with amazement, winking at one another. Nurse Ma asked, "Wasn't it painful to have your feet bound?"
"Of course it hurt. Don't tell me about pain. I started to bind my feet when I was seven. My heavens, for two years I'd weep in pain every night. In the summer my toes swelled up, filled with pus, and the flesh rotted, but I dared not loosen the binding. My mother'd whack me with a big bamboo slat if she found me doing that. Whenever I ate fish, the pus in my heels dripped out. There's the saying goes, 'Every pair of lotus feet come from a bucket of tears.'"
"Why did you bind them then?" a ruddy-cheeked girl asked.
"Mother said it's my second chance to marry good, 'cause my face ugly. You know, men are crazy about lotus feet in those days. The smaller your feet are, the better looking you are to them."
"How about Doctor Kong?" Nurse Li asked earnestly. "Does he like your small feet?"
The question puzzled Shuyu, and she mumbled, "I don't know. He never saw them."
The girls looked at one another, simpering, their eyes full of amusement. One of them sneezed loudly, and they all laughed.
Because the divorce wouldn't fail this time, Lin had been trying to have Shuyu's rural residential status changed to urban. The army would sponsor such a change only if the officer had served longer than fifteen years or held a rank higher than a battalion commander. Lin was qualified, having been in the service for twenty-one years; so the office in charge of this matter was cooperative. He wanted Shuyu to have a residency card, which would enable her to live in any city legally. Besides, their daughter Hua needed such a certificate as well; according to the law, she would follow her mother and automatically become a city dweller if Shuyu's residential status was changed. With such a card in hand, Hua would have a better chance for employment in Muji. Since she couldn't go to college now, this was her only chance to leave the countryside.