The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices (3 page)

From then on, as long as my mother was not in the room, even if she was just cooking in the kitchen or in the toilet, my father would corner me behind the door and rub me all over. I became more and more afraid of this ‘love’.

Later, my father was moved to a different military base. My mother could not join him because of her job. She said she had exhausted herself bringing up my brother and me, she wanted my father to fulfil his responsibilities for a while. And so it was that we went to live with my father.

I had fallen into the wolf’s lair.

Every midday, from the day my mother left, my father climbed into my bed while I was resting. We each had a room in a collective dormitory and he used the excuse that my little brother did not like taking a midday nap to lock him out.

For the first few days, he only rubbed my body with his hands. Later, he started to force his tongue into my mouth. Then he began shoving at me with the hard thing on his lower body. He would creep into my bed, not caring if it was day or night. He used his hands to spread me open and mess about with me. He even put his fingers inside me.

By then, he had stopped pretending it was ‘father’s love’. He threatened me, saying that if I told anyone I would have to endure a public criticism and be paraded through the streets with straw on my head, because I was already what they called a ‘broken shoe’.

My rapidly maturing body made him more excited by the day, but I grew increasingly terrified. I fitted a lock to the bedroom door, but he did not care if he woke all the neighbours by knocking until I opened it. Sometimes he deceived the other people in the dormitory into helping him force open my door, or told them that he had to climb through the window to collect something because I was sleeping so soundly. Sometimes it was my brother who helped him without realising what he was doing. So, regardless of whether I had locked the door or not, he would enter my bedroom in full view of everyone.

When I heard the knocking, I was often paralysed with fear, and just curled up in my quilt shivering. The neighbours would say to me, ‘You were sleeping like the dead, so your father had to climb in to collect his things, poor man!’

I did not dare sleep in my room, I did not dare to be alone in it at all. Father realised I was finding more and more excuses to go out, so he made a rule that I had to be back home in time for lunch every day. But I often collapsed before I had even finished eating: he had put sleeping pills in my food. There was no way I could protect myself.

I thought of killing myself many times, but could not find it in my heart to abandon my little brother, who had no one to turn to. I grew thinner and thinner, and then fell seriously ill.

The first time I was admitted to the military hospital, the duty nurse told the consultant, Dr Zhong, that my sleep was very disturbed. I would shake with fright at the slightest noise. Dr Zhong, who did not know the facts, said it was because of my high fever.

However, even when I was dangerously ill, my father would come to the hospital and take advantage of me when I was on a drip and could not move. Once when I saw him walking into my room, I started screaming uncontrollably, but my father just told the duty nurse who came running that I had a fierce temper. That first time, I only spent two weeks in hospital. When I came home, I found a bruise on my brother’s head, and bloodstains on his little coat. He said that while I had been in hospital, Papa had been in a foul temper and had beaten him on the slightest pretext. That day my sick beast of a father pressed my body – still desperately frail and weak – to him madly and whispered that he had missed me to death!

I could not stop crying. Was this my father? Had he had children just to satisfy his animal lusts? What had he given life to me for?

My experience in hospital had shown me a way to go on living. As far as I was concerned, injections, pills and blood tests were all preferable to living with my father. And so I started to hurt myself, again and again. In the winter, I would soak myself in cold water, then stand outside in the ice and snow; in autumn I would eat food that had gone off; once, in despair, I stuck my arm out to catch a falling piece of iron so that it would cut off my left hand at the wrist. (If not for a piece of soft wood underneath, I would certainly have lost my hand.) That time I won myself a whole sixty nights of safety. Between the self-injury and the drugs, I grew painfully thin.

More than two years later, my mother got a job transfer and came to live with us. Her arrival did not affect my father’s obscene desire for me. He said that my mother’s body was old and withered, and that I was his concubine. My mother did not seem to know about the situation until one day last February, when my father was beating me because I had not bought him something he wanted, I shouted at him for the first time in my life, caught between sorrow and fury: ‘What are you? You beat anyone as you please, you mess about with anyone as you wish!’

My mother, who was watching from the sidelines, asked me what I meant. As soon as I opened my mouth, my father said, glaring at me fiercely, ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’

I had taken all I could, so I told my mother the truth. I could see that she was terribly upset. But just a few hours later, my ‘reasonable’ mother said to me, ‘For the security of the whole family, you must put up with it. Otherwise, what will we all do?’

My hopes were completely crushed. My own mother was persuading me to put up with abuse from my father, her husband – where was the justice in that?

That night my temperature reached 40°. Once again I was taken to hospital, where I have stayed until now. This time I didn’t have to do anything to provoke my illness. I just collapsed, because my heart had collapsed. I have no intention of going back to that so-called home now.

Dear Yulong, this is why I don’t want to see my father. What sort of father is he? I am keeping quiet for the sake of my little brother and my mother (even though she doesn’t love me); without me they are still a family like before.

Why did I draw a fly, and why did I make it look so beautiful?

Because I long for a real mother and father: a real family where I can be a child, and cry in my parents’ arms; where I can sleep safely in my bed at home; where loving hands will stroke my head to comfort me after a bad dream. From my earliest childhood, I have never felt this love. I hoped and yearned for it, but I have never had it, and I will never have it now, for we only have one mother and father.

A dear little fly once showed me the touch of loving hands.

Dear Yulong, I don’t know what I am going to do after this. Perhaps I will come to look for you, and help you in some way. I can do many things, and I am not afraid of hardship, as long as I can sleep in peace. Do you mind if I come? Please write and let me know.

I would really like to know how you are. Are you still practising your Russian? Do you have any medicine? Winter is coming again, you must take good care of yourself.

I hope you will give me a chance to make it up to you and do something for you. I have no family, but I hope I can be a younger sister to you.

Wishing you happiness and good health!

I miss you.

Hongxue, 23 August 1975

I was deeply shaken by this letter, and found it difficult to maintain my composure during that evening’s broadcast. Later, many listeners wrote in to ask if I had been ill.

After my programme had finished, I called a friend to ask if they would go to my house to check that my son and his nanny were all right. Then I sat in the empty office and put the scraps of paper in order. So it was that I read Hongxue’s diary.

27 February – Heavy snow

How happy I am today! My wish has come true again: I’m back in hospital. This time it wasn’t too hard, but I’m suffering so much already!

I don’t want to think any more. ‘Who am I? What am I?’ These questions are useless, like everything about me: my brains, my youth, my quick wit and nimble fingers. Now I just want to have a good, long sleep.

I hope the doctors and nurses will be a bit lax, and not check the wards too diligently on their rounds this evening.

The hospital room is so warm, and comfortable to write in.

2 March – Sunny

The snow has melted very quickly. Yesterday morning it was still pure white; today when I ran outside, the little snow left had turned a dirty yellow, stained like the fingers of my fellow patient Old Mother Wang, who smokes like a chimney.

I love it when it snows heavily. Everywhere is white and clean; the wind traces patterns in the surface of the snow, hopping birds leave delicate prints, and people too, unwittingly leave beautiful tracks. Yesterday I sneaked outside several times. Dr Liu and the head nurse scolded me: ‘You must be crazy, running outside with a high temperature! Are you trying to kill yourself?’ I don’t mind what they say to me. Their tongues may be sharp, but I know they are soft underneath.

It’s a pity I don’t have a camera. It would be nice to take a picture of the landscape blanketed in snow.

17 April – Sunshine (wind later?)

There is a patient here called Yulong: her chronic rheumatism brings her to hospital several times a year. Nurse Gao is always tutting sympathetically, wondering how such a pretty, clever girl could have got such a troublesome illness.

Yulong treats me as a dear younger sister. When she is here, she keeps me company in the courtyard whenever I can leave my room (patients aren’t allowed to visit other wards. They are afraid we’ll infect each other or affect the treatment). We play volleyball, badminton or chess, and chat. She won’t let me get lonely. When she has something nice to eat or to play with, she shares it with me.

Another reason I like Yulong is that she’s very pretty. A long time ago I heard somebody say that friends start looking alike after some time. If I could have half Yulong’s beauty, that would be good enough. It’s not just me who likes Yulong, everyone else does too. If she needs something done, everyone is willing to give her a hand. She also gets special favours that other people don’t. For example, her sheets are changed twice a week rather than once, she is allowed to have visitors in her room, and she never has to wait for a nurse’s attention. The male nurses always find a reason to hang about her room. I’m sure Yulong gets better food too.

I really envy her – as Old Mother Wang says, her face is her fortune. Old Mother Wang doesn’t like Yulong, though. She says she’s like the fox fairy in the legends, who lures men to their deaths.

. . .

I got up secretly to write, but Dr Yu found me on her night rounds. She asked if I was hungry, and invited me to have a late-night snack. She said that a full stomach would help me sleep.

In the duty room, Nurse Gao lit the stove and started to prepare noodles with crispy fried green onions. Suddenly there was a power cut. The only light came from the stove. Dr Yu hurriedly went to check on the patients with a torch. Nurse Gao carried on cooking. She seemed to be used to doing things in the dark, and very soon the scent of fried onions filled the air. Kind Nurse Gao knew I loved crispy onions, so she picked out two spoonfuls of them specially for me. Soon the power came back on and Dr Yu returned and the three of us settled down to eat. While I was enjoying my second spoonful, I told Dr Yu how Nurse Gao had spoiled me by picking out the onions specially.

Suddenly, Dr Yu pushed away my spoon and asked urgently, ‘Have you swallowed any?’

I nodded, puzzled: ‘This is my second spoonful.’

Nurse Gao was also bemused. ‘What’s wrong? Why are you frightening us?’

Dr Yu pointed anxiously at the crispy onions scattered on the floor. Among the green onions were countless dead flies, burned to a crisp. The flies had been drawn out of hiding by the heat and light of the stove. Weakened by the winter, they dropped into the pot. In the darkness, nobody had noticed.

Dr Yu and Nurse Gao quickly found some medicine. They had two pills each and I had four, washed down with glucose solution. The noodles, which had smelled so wonderful, were tipped into the toilet. They tried to reassure me that I would not get sick.

My head is full of those flies I swallowed. Did I break their bones and crush their bodies with my teeth? Or did I swallow them whole?

Goodness! But I’ve written a funny little story!

21 April – Light rain

I have decided to keep a baby fly as a pet.

Last Sunday I did not have any drip treatment, so I slept well until I was woken by a soft, shivery feeling on my skin. Only half awake, I felt too lazy to move, and lay there wondering where the feeling came from. Whatever caused it was still there, moving busily up and down my leg, but it didn’t disturb or scare me at all. I felt as if a pair of tiny hands was gently stroking me. I was very grateful to that pair of little hands, and wanted to know whose they were. I opened my eyes and looked:

It was a fly! How horrible! Flies are covered with sewage and germs!

But I never knew that the feet of a fly could feel so soft and gentle, even if they are dirty.

For several days, I waited for those ‘little hands’, but they did not come again.

While I was being X-rayed after a barium meal this morning, I suddenly thought of the time I visited the specimen room in the hospital, and of the little animals the doctors raised for medical experiments. I could raise a clean fly! Yes, I would find a baby fly and keep it in my mosquito net.

25 April – Overcast

It is very hard to find a baby fly. The world is full of big flies, buzzing all over the place, landing on the filthiest, smelliest things, but I don’t dare touch them. I really want to ask Dr Zhong for advice; he is a biology expert, and would definitely know where to find a baby fly. But if I ask him, he’ll think I’m mad.

8 May – Sunny

I’m so tired, so very tired.

Two days ago, I finally caught a baby fly. It is very little. It was struggling in a spider’s web on a small apple tree in the thicket behind the canteen. I covered the fly and web with a gauze bag made out of a face mask, and took it back to my room. As I was passing the treatment room, Nurse Zhang asked me what I’d caught. I blurted out the first thing that came into my head, that it was a butterfly, then hurried back to my room and dived into my mosquito net. As soon as I was inside, I slowly opened the gauze bag. To my surprise, the gauze fibres had unstuck the spider’s web, and the baby fly could move freely. I thought it must be very tired and hungry after having been stuck for goodness knows how long, so I ran to the duty room, stole a little bit of gauze, and poured some glucose solution on to it. Then I ran to the kitchen and picked a piece of meat from the pot of leftovers. When I got back to my mosquito net, the baby fly seemed not to have moved. Its tiny wings were waving feebly; it looked hungry and tired. I put the meat down on the sugared gauze, and gently pulled it close to the baby fly. Just then I heard the sound of the medicine trolley. It was time for the afternoon treatment. I had to find something to cover the fly with, I couldn’t let it be discovered. I like collecting little containers, so it was very easy for me to find a box with a transparent plastic lid in which to put the fly and its gauze ‘nest’. I had just finished doing this when Nurse Zhang pushed the trolley in.