Second Uncle’s wife beckons to me in a solicitous voice. “Yunxian, would you care to join our circle today?” Although she is just a year younger than Lady Kuo, tiny lines of bitterness blossom out from around her mouth. She sits with her two sisters-in-law in a corner of the room where a library—with inkstones and brushes of every size, cupboards filled with books, and handscrolls to entice the imagination—has been set up. My husband’s uncles—all younger sons—have schemed over the years to assume control of the family and its vast holdings of money and land. Second Uncle in particular. He won’t succeed, because the direct line is set by Heaven and birth order. (That is unless death befalls both my father-in-law and my husband.) Even so, everyone in this room wants more, as if there weren’t enough for everyone.
I respond with a respectful nod. “Perhaps later, if Lady Kuo permits it.”
My answer is a clear no. I can’t be seen trying to align myself with Second Aunt, who exchanges scornful glances with her cohort.
“Come on,” Third Aunt entreats, patting a spot beside her. “We’re discussing the best ways to keep a husband happy. A young bride like you could learn from us.”
I’m reminded of the line from the Book of Changes that says, “Be a hidden dragon. Do not act.” Most people interpret this as an admonition for a woman to be quiet and compliant. Grandmother taught me something different: hide my feelings, harness time, and when I’m ready I will leap, swim, or fly, and no one will be able to stop me. For now, though, I gaze modestly at the floor, trying to achieve Meiling’s demeanor when she does this.
“Thank you so much,” I respond, “but Lady Kuo has been instructing me on bedchamber affairs.”
This is untrue, but my answer solidifies my alignment with her.
I think the matter is closed, but Fourth Aunt offers a variation on Third Aunt’s invitation. “There’s more to being a wife than bedroom affairs. A married couple should seek harmony—”
The others don’t try to hide their snickers.
“We hear the way you berate your husband,” Second Aunt gibes Fourth Aunt. “You’re a tyrant! No wonder the poor man stays in Nanjing. Every time he comes home he must face a barrage of insults.”
“Poor Fourth Uncle,” adds Second Aunt in pretend sympathy. “Whenever he catches sight of you, he runs away like a beaten dog.”
“What about the time she smacked him about the ears?” Third Aunt asks, her mouth spread into a broad grin. “Fourth Aunt is lucky she has sons. Otherwise, her husband would have deposited her on a riverbank.”
“Oh, how I wish for that. I could finally get a good night’s sleep!” Second Aunt says.
Low laughter bubbles from others in the room. You could look at this exchange as teasing or the truth. I feel like it’s a bit of both, for I doubt there’s a person here who hasn’t heard the sour complaints Fourth Aunt hurls at her husband when he’s in residence.
“Waaa! I know a story that touches on this very problem.” This comes from Spinster Aunt, who sits across the room with a group of widows and other older women. She’s the last surviving sister of my husband’s great-grandfather. Her husband-to-be died before marriage, but she’s remained chaste and loyal to him to this day. Her hair is completely white. She has the roundness that comes from not having had monthly moon water for many, many years. She’s known to have the best embroidery skills in the household, but it can also be said that her mind is even more nimble than her fingers. Although not a mother herself, she’s often called upon to bind feet if a mother is susceptible to her daughter’s tears, and she has assisted at the births of most children in the household. “Shall I tell it?” she asks.
This is greeted with a chorus of yeses, although I notice that Fourth Aunt looks far from enthusiastic.
Spinster Aunt begins. “There once was a woman who beat her husband so badly that he ran to the bedchamber to hide. ‘Come out! Come out!’ she hollered. But he didn’t—”
“The husband believed he had the will of a tiger. He cried, ‘No, no, no!’?” This comes from Lady Kuo’s great-aunt, whose face is as wrinkled as a salted plum. The family she married into died out, leaving her nowhere to go. That Lady Kuo and Master Yang took her in is considered a great benevolence. “He was insistent, yelling, ‘When a brave man says no, he means no!’?”
“His words were indeed formidable,” Spinster Aunt agrees. “But wait! What is that mewling?” She leans forward and cups a hand to her ear. From around the room come the plaintive mews and whines of kittens. “The wife narrowed her eyes and opened her ears. Ah!” Spinster Aunt exclaims. “The sounds were coming from under the bed. It turned out that the brave tiger was nothing but a kitten when faced with his wife’s venom. Is there a man anywhere who does not quail before a woman who has become a terror of the back apartments?”
The end of the story is met with appreciative laughter. The positions of these old ones are tenuous, but today they have earned their keep. They live, even more than I do, under the rule of Lady Kuo, and I do not have a place among them.
“Yunxian, you want to know how best to please a man? Come sit with us. We know every wile and ploy.” The speaker is Miss Chen, Master Yang’s newest concubine and current favorite, which gives her a surprising amount of power over the other concubines. She’s my age and flawless in her beauty and comportment. She and the other concubines paint their faces, dress in elegant gowns, and nibble from trays laden with pears, nuts, dates, and persimmons. She has nothing to gain from having me join her circle, but her offer is even less appealing than sitting with the high-ranking wives.
I look around for the final category of women who live here and find them sitting together in a corner. My husband’s three sisters have their heads together as they embroider bound-foot shoes for their future husbands’ mothers and revered aunties. Miss Zhao’s warnings about them could not have been more accurate. I’m lucky when they ignore me. Too often I’ve been the target of their pranks, which they cleverly disguise as accidents. Several times they’ve motioned for me to sit on a particular stool, only for me to find my bottom layers soaked through with water. “Oh,” the oldest always says in fake surprise, “however could that have happened?” The other two sisters barely contain their giggles when I have to leave the inner chambers with my clothes looking like I couldn’t make it to the honeypot. The oldest sister is fifteen and will marry out later this year. The youngest sister is nine. She’ll be married out in six years. I’ll be counting the minutes until all three of them are gone.
As I stand alone in the middle of the room, it hits me that it will be difficult—maybe even impossible—for me to make a friend here whom I can trust or to whom I can confide my loneliness. This leaves the boys under seven and the girls still in their milk days for company.
“Auntie Yunxian.” It’s Yining, the eight-year-old daughter of Second Uncle’s first concubine. She slips her small hand into mine.
“I was hoping you would come for me,” I say.
I let her pull me to a low kang covered with cushions that sits in an empty corner of the room. We’ve been spending time together these past weeks, as I hold a low position in the household, and so does she. I’ve been ailing, and so has she.
Yining opens Analects for Women to the page where we left off yesterday and gives the book to me. “I’ve been practicing my memorization,” she says. “Will you listen?”
“Of course. But first tell me how you’re feeling.”
“I had to sit on the honeypot many times in the night,” she reveals shyly. She looks wistfully at the other girls her age who sit in a circle playing a game. “The aunties don’t want me by their daughters. They don’t want me to pass on my illness.”
Yining and I lie back against the pillows. I hold the book with one hand so I can follow along as she recites. The fingers of my other hand sneak to Yining’s wrist to feel her pulses. A few months ago, when her stools turned watery and white, Doctor Wong, the physician to the household, was brought in to treat Yining. He diagnosed diarrhea brought on by malnutrition. Of course, he didn’t see Yining. He only examined her from afar, sitting behind a screen, as is customary. Nevertheless, Doctor Wong gave her mother a prescription to be filled at a local pharmacy. I think he was wrong in his diagnosis and wrong in his treatment, which is why Yining has weakened further.