Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Read online

  Family,

  Today I pick up a brush, and my heart flies away home.

  To my family I write—regards to dear parents, aunt, and uncle.

  When I think of past days, my tears cannot stop falling down.

  I still feel sad to have left home.

  My stomach is big with baby and I am so hot in this weather.

  My in-laws are spiteful.

  I do all the household work.

  In this heat it is impossible to please.

  Sister, cousin, take care of Mama and Baba.

  We women can only hope that our parents will live many years.

  That way we will have a place to return for festivals.

  In our natal home, we will always have people who treasure us.

  Please be good to our parents.

  Your daughter, sister, and cousin

  I finished reading the letter and closed my eyes. I was thinking, So many tears for Elder Sister, so much joy for me. I was grateful that we followed the custom of not falling into your husband’s house until just before the birth of your first child. I still had two years before my marriage and possibly three years after that before I joined my in-laws permanently.

  I was interrupted from these thoughts by something that sounded like a sob. I opened my eyes and looked at Snow Flower. A puzzled expression spread across her face as she stared at something to her right. I followed her gaze to Beautiful Moon, who was brushing at her neck and taking great breaths.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Beautiful Moon’s chest heaved with the effort of drawing in air—uuuu, uuuu, uuuu—sounds I will never forget.

  She looked at me with her lovely eyes. Her hand stopped brushing and clasped the side of her neck. She did not try to stand. She sat with her legs tucked under her, still looking like a young lady sitting in the shade of a hot afternoon, her needlework in her lap, but I could see that beneath her hand her neck had begun to swell.

  “Snow Flower, find help,” I said urgently. “Get Baba, get Uncle. Quick!”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Snow Flower try as best she could to run on her tiny feet. Her voice—unused to being raised—came out unsteady and high-pitched. “Help! Help!”

  I crawled across the quilt to Beautiful Moon’s side. I saw on her embroidery a bee struggling for life. The stinger had to be in my cousin’s neck. I took her other hand and held it in my own. Her mouth opened. Inside, her tongue was growing, engorging.

  “What can I do?” I asked. “Do you want me to try to get the stinger out?”

  We both knew it was already too late for that.

  “Do you want water?” I asked.

  Beautiful Moon couldn’t answer. She breathed only through her nostrils now, and each breath was more of an effort.

  Somewhere in the village I heard Snow Flower. “Baba! Uncle! Elder Brother! Anyone! Help us!”

  Those same children who had visited us the last few days gathered around our quilt, their mouths agape as they watched Beautiful Moon’s neck, tongue, eyelids, and hands swell. Her skin went from the paleness of the moon she was named for to pink, to red, to purple, to blue. She looked like a creature from a ghost story. A few of Puwei’s widows arrived. They shook their heads sympathetically.

  Beautiful Moon’s eyes locked with mine. Her hand had blown up so much that her fingers were like sausages in my palm, the skin so shiny and taut it looked ready to split. I cradled the monstrous paw in my hand.

  “Beautiful Moon, listen to me,” I pleaded. “Your baba is coming. Wait for him. He loves you so much. We all love you, Beautiful Moon. Do you hear me?”

  The old women began to cry. The children hung on to each other. Village life was hard. Who among us had not seen death? But it was rare to see such bravery, such stillness, such beauty of purpose in the final moments.

  “You have been a good cousin,” I said. “I have always loved you. I will honor you forever.”

  Beautiful Moon took another breath. This one sounded like a creaking hinge. It was slow. Almost no air could enter her body.

  “Beautiful Moon, Beautiful Moon . . .”

  The horrible sound ended. Her eyes were just slits in a face cruelly distorted, but she looked at me with full understanding. She had heard every word I’d said. In the last moment of her life—when no air could enter her body and no air could go out—I felt as though she passed on to me many messages. Tell Mama I love her. Tell Baba I love him. Tell your parents I am grateful for all they have done for me. Don’t let the men suffer for me. Then her head tipped forward onto her chest.

  No one moved. Everything was as still as the panorama I had embroidered on my shoes. Only the sound of weeping and sniffing would have told anyone that something was wrong.

  Uncle ran into the alley and pushed through the people to the quilt where Beautiful Moon and I sat. She was so peaceful in her bearing, it gave him hope. But my face and those around us told him otherwise. A horrible cry tore out of him as he sank to his knees. When he saw the condition of Beautiful Moon’s face, another dreadful howl. Some of the smaller children ran away. Uncle was so sweaty from working in the fields and then running back to us I could smell him. Tears poured from his eyes, then dripped from his nose, cheeks, and jaw and disappeared into the wetness of his sweaty tunic.

  Baba arrived and knelt beside me. A few seconds later, Elder Brother broke through the crowd, panting, Snow Flower on his back.

  Uncle kept talking to Beautiful Moon. “Wake up, little one. Wake up. I will get your mama. She needs you. Wake up. Wake up.”

  His brother, my father, gripped his arm. “No use.”

  Uncle had a posture eerily similar to Beautiful Moon’s, his head tucked down, his legs under him, his hands in his lap—all the same except for the sorrow that dripped from his eyes and the uncontrollable grief that wracked his body.

  Baba asked, “Do you want to take her or shall I?”

  Uncle shook his head. Wordlessly, he pulled a leg out from under him and planted it on the ground to steady himself; then he lifted Beautiful Moon and carried her into the house. None of us was functioning clearly. Only Snow Flower acted, moving swiftly to the table in the main room and removing the teacups we had set there for the men when they came back from the fields. Uncle laid out Beautiful Moon. Now the others could see how the bee venom had ravaged her face and body. In my mind I kept thinking: It was only five minutes, no more.

  Again, Snow Flower took control. “Excuse me, but you need to get the others.”

  Realizing this meant that Aunt would have to be told about Beautiful Moon’s death, Uncle’s sobs grew deeper. I could barely think about Aunt myself. Beautiful Moon had been her one true happiness. I had been so shocked by what had happened to my cousin that I hadn’t yet had a chance to feel anything. Now my legs lost their strength and tears welled in my eyes in sorrow for my sweet cousin and in pity for my aunt and uncle. Snow Flower wrapped an arm around me and guided me to a chair, giving instructions all the while.

  “Elder Brother, run to your aunt’s natal village,” she directed. “I have some cash. Use it to hire a palanquin for her. Then run to your mother’s natal village. Bring her back. You will have to carry her like you did me. Maybe Second Brother can help you. But hurry. Your aunt will need her.”

  Then we waited. Uncle sat on a stool by the table and wept so hard into Beautiful Moon’s tunic that stains spread across the fabric like rain clouds. Baba tried to comfort Uncle, but what was the use? He could not be comforted. Anyone who tells you that the Yao people never care for their daughters is lying. We may be worthless. We may be raised for another family. But often we are loved and cherished, despite our natal families’ best efforts not to have feelings for us. Why else in our secret writing do you see phrases like “I was a pearl in my father’s palm” so frequently? Maybe as parents we try not to care. I tried not to care about my daughter, but what could I do? She nursed at my breast like my sons had, she cried her tears in my lap, and she honored me by
becoming a good and talented woman fluent in nu shu. Uncle’s pearl was gone from him forever.

  I stared at Beautiful Moon’s face, remembering how close we had been. We had had our feet bound at the same time. We had been betrothed to the same village. Our lives had been inexorably linked, and now we were cut from each other forever.

  Around us, Snow Flower busied herself. She made tea, which no one drank. She went through the house, looking for white mourning clothes, and set them out for us. She stood at the door, greeting those who had heard the news. Madame Wang arrived in her palanquin and Snow Flower let her in. I might have expected Madame Wang to complain about the loss of her matchmaking payment. Instead, she asked how she could help. Beautiful Moon’s future had been in her hands and she felt obliged to see her through this final passage. But her hand shot up to her mouth when she saw Beautiful Moon’s distorted face and those frightening monster fingers. And it was so hot. We had no place cool to put her. Things would begin to happen very quickly now to Beautiful Moon.

  “How much longer until the mother arrives?” Madame Wang asked.

  We did not know.

  “Snow Flower, wrap the girl’s face in muslin, then dress her in her eternity clothes. Do this now. No mother should see her daughter this way.” Snow Flower turned to go upstairs, but Madame Wang grabbed her sleeve. “I will go to Tongkou and bring your mourning clothes. Do not leave this house until I tell you.” She released Snow Flower, took one last look at Beautiful Moon, and slipped out the door.

  By the time Aunt arrived, Baba, Uncle, my brothers, and I were dressed in plain sackcloth. Beautiful Moon’s body had been completely shrouded in muslin, then attired in the clothes for her journey to the afterworld. So many tears in the house that day, but none of them came from Aunt. She swayed in on her lily feet and went straight to her daughter’s body. She smoothed the clothes and then placed her hand over what had been her daughter’s heart. She stood that way for hours.

  Aunt did everything properly for the funeral. She went to the burial on her knees. She burned paper money and clothes at the site for Beautiful Moon to use in the afterworld. She gathered together all of Beautiful Moon’s secret writing and burned that too. Afterward, she created a little altar in our house where she made offerings every day. She did not cry in our presence, but I will never forget the sounds that emanated through our house at night when Aunt went to bed. She moaned from some deep, deep part of her soul. None of us could sleep. None of us were any solace. In fact, my brothers and I tried our best to be as quiet—invisible—as possible, knowing that our voices and faces were only bitter reminders of what she had lost. In the mornings, after the men had gone out to the fields, Aunt retreated to her room and wouldn’t come out. She lay on her side, her face to the wall, refusing to eat anything more than the bowl of rice that Mama brought her, quiet all day until night enveloped us and that frightening moaning began again.

  Everyone knows that part of the spirit descends to the afterworld, while part of it remains with the family, but we have a special belief about the spirit of a young woman who has died before her marriage that goes contrary to this. She comes back to prey upon other unmarried girls—not to scare them but to take them to the afterworld with her so she might have company. The way Beautiful Moon’s unhappiness came to us every night in Aunt’s otherworldly moans let Snow Flower and me know we were in danger.

  Snow Flower came up with a plan. “A flower tower must be made,” she said one morning. A flower tower was exactly what was needed to appease Beautiful Moon’s spirit. If we provided her with a good flower tower, she would have a place to wander in and entertain herself. If she were happy, Snow Flower and I would be protected.

  Some people—those with more money—go to a professional flower tower builder, but Snow Flower and I decided to make our own. We envisioned a tower of many levels, like a seven-tiered pagoda. We put a pair of foo dogs at the entrance. Inside, we painted poems on the walls in our secret writing. We made one level for dancing, another for floating. We made a sleeping room with stars and the moon painted on the ceiling. On another level, we made a women’s chamber, with lattice windows done in intricate paper cutouts that provided views in every direction. We constructed a table on which we laid out bits of our favorite threads, some ink, paper, and a brush, so Beautiful Moon might embroider or write letters in nu shu to her new ghost friends. We made servants and entertainers out of twisted colored paper and set them about the tower so that every level would provide company, distraction, and amusements. When we weren’t working on the flower tower, we composed a lament we would sing to calm my cousin. If the flower tower was for Beautiful Moon’s pleasure for all eternity, our words would be a final farewell from the world of the living.

  On the day the weather finally broke, Snow Flower and I asked and received permission to go to Beautiful Moon’s grave. It was not a long walk to the burial mound, far less than when Snow Flower had gone to the fields to bring back Baba and Uncle when Beautiful Moon died. We sat at the grave for a few minutes. Then Snow Flower set the flower tower on fire. We watched it burn, imagining it being transported to the afterworld and Beautiful Moon drifting through the rooms in delight. Then I pulled out the paper on which we’d written to Beautiful Moon in our secret writing and we began to sing.

  “Beautiful Moon, we hope the flower tower brings you peace.

  We hope you forget about us, but we will never forget you.

  We will honor you. We will clean your grave at Spring Festival.

  Do not let your thoughts run wild.

  Live in your flower tower and be happy.”

  Snow Flower and I walked home and went upstairs to the women’s chamber. Sitting side by side, we took turns writing the lament onto the folds of our special fan. When we were done, I added to the garland at the top a crescent-shaped moon, as slender and unobtrusive as Beautiful Moon herself.

  The flower tower helped protect Snow Flower and me, and it placated Beautiful Moon’s restless spirit, but it did nothing for Aunt and Uncle, who could not be consoled. All that was meant to be. We were at the mercy of powerful elements and could do nothing but follow our fates. This can be explained by yin and yang: There are women and men, dark and light, sorrow and happiness. These things create balance. You take a moment of supreme happiness like Snow Flower and I felt at the beginning of the Catching Cool Breezes Festival, then sweep it away in the cruelest way with Beautiful Moon’s death. You take two happy people like Aunt and Uncle, then turn them in an instant into two end-of-the-liners with nothing to live for, who, when my father died, would have to rely on Elder Brother’s kindness to care for them and not throw them out. You take a family like mine that is not so well off, then add the pressure of too many weddings in one household. . . . All these things disrupted the balance of the universe, so the gods set things right by striking down a kind-hearted girl. There is no life without death. This is the true meaning of yin and yang.

  The Flower-Sitting Chair

  TWO YEARS AFTER BEAUTIFUL MOON DIED, MY HAIR

  —WHICH

  had already been pinned when I was fifteen—was combed into the dragon style befitting a young woman about to marry. My in-laws sent more cloth, cash so that I might have my own purse, and jewelry—earrings, rings, necklaces—all in silver and jade. They also gave my parents thirty bundles of glutinous rice—enough to feed family and friends who would visit in the days to come—and a side of pork, which Baba sliced and my brothers delivered to people in Puwei Village to let them know that the monthlong wedding celebration had officially begun. But what surprised and pleased Baba most of all—and what showed that our family’s hard work in preparing me for my special future had paid off—was the arrival of a new water buffalo. With this single gift, my father became one of the three most prosperous men in our village.

  Snow Flower came for the entire month of Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber. During those last four weeks as I finished my dowry, she helped me in many ways and we bec
ame even closer. We both had foolish ideas about what marriage would be, but Snow Flower and I believed nothing would ever come close to the comfort we felt in each other’s arms—the warmth of our bodies, the softness of our skin, the delicate smells. Nothing would ever alter our love, and when we looked ahead we thought we would have only more to share.

  To us, Sitting and Singing in the Upstairs Chamber was the beginning of a deeper commitment between us. After ten years together, our relationship was about to move to new and far more profound levels. Two or three years from now, once I moved to my husband’s home permanently and Snow Flower had gone to her husband’s home in Jintian, we would visit often. Surely our husbands—both men of wealth and high esteem—would hire palanquins for this purpose.

  Since I didn’t have sworn sisters to join me during these festivities, my mother, my aunt, my sister-in-law, Elder Sister—who came home, pregnant again—and a few unwed girls from Puwei Village all came to celebrate my good fortune. Madame Wang joined us periodically too. Sometimes we recited favorite stories, or one person would choose a chant that we all followed. Other times we sang of our own lives. My mother—who was satisfied with her fate—recounted “The Tale of the Flower Girl,” while Aunt, still in mourning, made us all weep as her words came out in a sorrowful dirge.

  One afternoon, as I embroidered the belt to cinch my wedding costume, Madame Wang came to entertain us with “The Tale of Wife Wang.” She took a stool next to Snow Flower, who was deep in thought, composing my third-day wedding book and searching for the right words to tell my in-laws about me. The two of them spoke very softly to each other. Every once in a while, I heard Snow Flower’s voice saying, “Yes, Auntie” and “No, Auntie.” Snow Flower had always shown a kind heart to the matchmaker. I had tried—with only moderate success—to emulate her in this.