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Yang is at work on her fifth novel Oasis. Read the Opening


Oasis

Oasis


Paper Cannot Wrap Fire is Yang's third novel.  Read the Opening

Mei is an illiterate young woman, who lives the life of a domestic servant at her in-laws’ house. After being raped by her father-in-law, Mei gives birth to a boy. She raises her son in the hope that he will grow up to become her savior. After a series of tragedies, Mei finds her strength to take her son to leave the house of suffering.


Paper Cannot Wrap Fire

Paper Cannot Wrap Fire
To Unleash a Son is Yang's second novel.  Read the Opening

Mr. Cai's ambition is to unleash Feng, his only son, to a good life where he can live and prosper on his own. Little does he know that he will befriend a dashing gay man, who seduces him into a deal he cannot refuse.
To Unleash a Son

To Unleash a Son



Enter Yang's Fictional World

Oasis

Minqin was an oasis sandwiched between Badain Jaran and Tengger deserts. For centuries people battled with an ever-rising tide of sand to keep it from claiming their land and homes. Rainfall was negligible most of the year. In the summer, rainstorms brought flash floods that damaged the fields. People depended on Shiyang River and its offshoots for water to live. Patches of farmland that clung to irrigation channels were emerald islands in a sea of beige. Young people, especially sons, inherited their fathers’ land and defended their homes, located at the ancient Silk Road greenbelt. Daughters could get married and move away to cities that had plentiful water for drinking and bathing. Like most farmers, Keira’s parents believed good schooling would guarantee their daughter a better husband. They sent Keira to school, even though they needed her to look after younger children.

The first light seeped over the horizon, silvery and cold. The stars faded. It was a quiet time, the coldest part of the desert summer day. Keira pushed herself up from the bed. Her arms were stiff. Her lower back felt tender. Her neck was so sore she could barely turn and look behind her. Yet, the last thing Keira wanted was skip school and stay home to look after her brothers.

Seven-year-old Keira felt like a little mama. Other girls could have fun skipping and dancing over a chain of rubber bands after school. Keira had to come home to tend her brothers. When she held 13-month-old Goldie in her arms, Keira had to lean back in order to keep him from wiggling down. At times, her brother Woodie hopped onto her back like a flying squirrel. He was almost as tall as Keira, but Mama never asked him to babysit. By suppertime, Keira’s back hurt so much it felt broken. A good night’s sleep usually made her feel better in the morning, but not today.

Keira went to school when the sun began to rise. Doves cooed. Woodpeckers swooped noisily among the rose willows. Quail moved out from their cover in the mesquite, heading toward water. They chattered like barnyard fowl and pecked seeds from the ground. Following them, Keira stopped by the Reed Marsh, her favorite hideout. Beneath the surface of the water the light faded rapidly, changing from a sparkling gold to a dim yellowish brown. Thin bulrush stems bearing long, slender leaves rose from the soft mud. Out of their tangled mass emerged a swarm of silvery fish. A snapping turtle grasped one of the fish, which struggled convulsively and then was still.

At school Keira seldom played with her friends. She preferred to rest during the recess. Keira lent her birdie to a girl in exchange for playing with her doll. Alone in the classroom, she ran a small comb through the doll’s thick black hair. She tried on pink and red ribbons in different parts of the doll’s hair. Keira wore short hair, and her brothers had shaven heads. Her mama had long graying hair that she tied in a bun. Keira told the doll that she wanted a younger sister. She would dress her up to be the belle of the village. With every loving stroke of the brush Keira murmured her promise to the doll. Before long, her friends finished the game of birdie. Their faces were flushed and shiny with sweat, and the doll’s owner said she was hungry. Keira claimed her birdie and came home. Entering the front yard, she saw her brothers wrestling in dirt like bear cubs. She picked up Goldie and dusted his bare legs. Her mama would scold Keira if he had a scraped knee.

“Why are you so late today?” Her mama pushed straw into the stove with a fire poker. Its tip was glowing red.

“The teacher delayed,” Keira lied.

“Go give your uncle a hand.” With her belly resting in her lap, her mama wheeled around like a bottle gourd.

Keira went to the backyard. Goldie’s chubby arms clung to her neck and made it hard for her to breathe. She sat on a stool and lay Goldie in her lap. If she put him down, Woodie would charge the baby and cause him to lie face down in the dust or legs up in the air. Keira sighed loudly, the way her mama often did in the morning when she thought the children were asleep.

“Don’t sulk, Keira.” Her third uncle sharpened the knife blades on a whetstone. “Ask your mama to give you a sister, if you want one.”

“I did, and she said yes.”

“Let me tell you a secret. Parents always want boys. A daughter is raised to become another man’s wife, but a son belongs to the family. He can look after his parents in their old age.” He grasped the rooster’s wings, bent its head back to hold its beak in the same hand, and plucked the soft feathers on its throat. With a quick flick of the knife he slashed its throat. “If you want a sister, you must ask in a way that your mama cannot refuse.” He held the rooster head down to drain its blood. The rooster struggled in vain against his tight grip.

“How?”

“When your mama gives birth, you stay at her bedside and tell her you want a sister.”

“What if she says no?”

“She won’t. Anyway it doesn’t matter what she says.” He sprinkled salt to the blood and made it jell. “When the rice is cooked, you cannot revert it back to grains.”

Keira wiped away drool from Goldie’s chin. She never knew that being a girl she had disappointed her parents. They seemed to depend on her, as if she weren’t a child, but a third parent to the boys. Keira would love to tend a baby sister. Years later, Keira and her sister would help with housework when their mama would have more sons. Then her parents might thank Keira for her forethought, if they ever learned how Keira had begotten her little sister.

“You look pretty when you smile.” Her third uncle soaked the rooster in boiling water. Then he started to pluck it. “Who’s your favorite uncle?” He gave Keira tail feathers to make a birdie.

“You.” Keira laid the features on the step of the porch. Deep bronze and reddish at the tips, the feathers reflected a green hue in the sunlight.

“Who?”

“Third Uncle!”

Sometimes Keira felt sorry for her third uncle. Being childless, he doted on his nieces and nephews. Keira preferred her fourth uncle, a man who was too busy to play with children. He had gone to work in Shenzhen, the booming city in Guangzhou Province. A year before he had sent home a letter. There was a picture of him standing on a bridge, his red collar stiff against his emerald wool vest, his hair being blown in the wind. After seeing it Keira was reluctant to brush her hair for days. She dreamed she grew up, wearing permed hair and heeled sandals like the Shenzhen girls silhouetted on the bridge. Woodie pranced toward Keira, dragging a bamboo rod under his crouch like riding a horse. Goldie waved his arms, cooing eagerly. “You are tough, eh?” Keira scolded. “You want to be slapped around by a rod?” She caressed Goldie’s chubby arms and legs, white and succulent like lotus roots. Her heart melted at the hope of cuddling her baby sister.

As the sun set, the sky gradually became pink, the desert in the distance a golden landscape, beautiful and serene. A delicate sound tinkled across the fields. The flycatcher began to sing, rising into the air with each burst of song. One by one, then in larger numbers, other birds joined the chorus. A mockingbird launched its unbroken, ever-varying serenade. A thrasher sang from a perch in the mesquite. A woodpecker redoubled its shrieking in the rose willow and flew back and forth vigorously. A full moon rose in the pink-washed sky. Tonight, Keira would love to pamper her sister like a little mama.

*    *    *

For weeks Keira had rehearsed her plan. Her mama’s belly grew so large Keira expected her sister would burst out of the seam of her dress. Her grandparents made Keira and Goldie stay with them at night, so that her mama could have some shuteye. Her grandparents’ and parents’ houses, separated by radish and corn fields, were just beyond shouting distance. Often Keira ran back and forth in pitch dark, fetching a diaper or sweatshirt for Goldie. She was able to run home even if she were blind.

One day in August Keira helped her grandpa in the radish field. She watered a row of radishes planted in a narrow ditch, built to conserve water. She could almost hear the radish roots suck up water. Their dark green leaves regained vigor in the glaring sunshine. Keira retreated into the shade of a plum tree. Red clouds gathered over the horizon, like the brilliant scales of a dragon carp. The heat was so intense that the distant mountains seemed to dance in the blue air. Familiar footsteps echoed in the field.

Her father ran toward the house calling for Keira’s grandma. “She’s ready to have the baby!” he shouted.

Her grandma tottered on the ridge in her bound feet. Keira dashed for home, skipping in the fields and squashing a few radishes. She wouldn’t lose a moment to ask her mama to have a girl. At the door Keira heard a baby crying. The midwife croaked, “Congratulations on your big happiness!”

Keira felt cold as if being splashed by a basin of ice water. Her legs gave away. She plunked down on the doorstep and buried her head in her hands. Finally her grandma arrived. “Won’t you go inside?” she asked.

“It’s a boy again.”

To Keira’s surprise, her grandma burst into laughter. “It is the will of God. Don’t be cross. Come on inside.”

Keira remained sitting.

“You sure are stout,” the midwife cooed inside. “Look at your hands. You can build a house with them!” Keira heard her mama laugh, a tired and elated chuckle.

Her grandma opened the door. “Where is my grandson?” She clapped her hands.

Their happiness humiliated Keira. She wanted to hide away and weep. The sun was high, and the desert lay scorched and burning. Rose willow seemed to reach toward the sky in a plea for life-giving water. She turned away from the village and walked toward the Reed Marsh. In the cottonwoods along the dry creek cicadas sounded their high, whirring sounds, like a thousand rattlesnakes. Now and then a woodpecker shrieked among the willows, or a rock squirrel whistled at a danger.

Children were not supposed to come to the marshland by themselves, infested with mosquitoes, snakes and lizards. Some woman drowned herself here a decade before. Villagers said her ghost came out after dark. When Woodie wore her out sometimes, Keira threatened she would take him to the Reed Marsh. That would make him behave for hours. Keira was fond of oleasters, abundant at the marsh. Under dense, round crowns, their lower branches near the ground spread twenty feet, making them look like green eagles hovering over the riverbank. She breathed in the fragrance of oleaster flowers, hidden in the dense foliage. Their reddish silver-specked berries would ripen in a few months. Wild geese, cranes, fox, rabbits and hedgehogs all had a share of the fruits.

Keira sat on the grassy slope. Hot tears flooded her eyes. She didn’t wipe them. As tears brimmed over, her vision regained momentary clarity. Yellow flowers blossomed on the riverbank. Reeds, taller than a house, wavered in the breeze. Catkins flew in the air like goose feathers. Carp and trout thrashed in the river. On the opposite side, a dog frolicked in the water and caught a fish. It hopped up the riverbank. Lying in a sand dune, it ate the fish leisurely.

“I want a sister.” Tears stung her eyes. “Not a brother!”

She heard timid chirping. A young wood duck peered out from a tree cavity thirty feet above the ground. Its mama called for it to leave the nest. The duckling climbed out of the nesting hole. Suddenly it was in the air, flapping its puny wings. It fell to the water like a furball. In a moment, it shook its feathers and started to swim.

“I’m not your slave.” Keira wiped her nose on her sleeve. “What will you ever do for me? It’s unfair.”

In the pond, a dozen ducklings swam alongside their parents. A duckling headed into the lily pads. Suddenly there was a loud snap and splash in the lily pads. The water swirled, then quieted down, and all was as before. Keira took a deep breath. She remembered the large snapping turtle looming there. With lightning speed, it might have thrust out its long neck and clamped down its sharp jaws on the hapless duckling. A mallard lifted off the water and burst into the air.

Keira saw a pair of arms part the reeds. A naked boy with a shaven head appeared. He held up his trousers, each leg tied up in a knot. Seeing her, he squatted down and took out mallard eggs from inside his trousers. He was taller than Keira. His ribs indented his brown skin like the surface of a washboard. Keira wasn’t embarrassed to see a naked boy. At home she gave bath to her brothers. The boy wrung water from his pants, then pulled them on and tied the cloth rope around his waist. He collected a bundle of dried reed, sunning over the sand. He struck a sickle against a flint, and finally lit the straw.

The boy put a few eggs in the fire, and added dry reeds. “You want one or what?” he asked.

Keira shook her head. The boy appeared to be from a poor family, because villagers didn’t eat mallard eggs. Most families kept hens. The boy collected more than a dozen eggs. He couldn’t take them home unless he took off his pants again. How far could he get without being seen? “I can help you.” Keira patted her empty pockets.

He glanced at her. “I’m going to eat them all.”

“You’ll get sick.” Keira sniffled. She didn’t feel like crying anymore.

“Yeah? Watch me.” The boy pushed out an egg from the fire with a stick. He cracked the shell with a rock, peeled it quickly and ate it with hardly any chewing. He stiffed for a moment, but didn’t burp aloud.

“Is it good?”

He picked out another egg from the fire, and poured water on its shell to make it cool. “You tell me.”

Keira was hungry. She knew she shouldn’t accept food from a stranger, but she would hate to go home and watch everyone fuss over the baby. She peeled the egg and ate it. The yolk was a little runny, and it went down easily. “Not bad,” she said. “It may taste better with a little salt.”

With a gust of wind, leaves from the oleaster tree drifted down into the river. Some blew like miniature boats across the surface. Birds flitted back and forth among the creosote bushes, cottontails running restlessly. “It’s going to rain,” the boy said with a hand over his brows. Clouds clustered in the sky. Puffs of dust danced in the wind. Fallen leaves slowly sank to the river bottom. Keira didn’t mind getting wet. Anyhow it was as hot as a bathhouse. The boy put raw eggs in his pocket, then disappeared into the tall reeds. “Are you going home?” Keira sounded like she was fretting, but she wasn’t ashamed. The boy was older than she. He wouldn’t laugh at a girl who had come to the marsh by herself. On the opposite bank, the dog leapt up from the sand dune. It barked sharply as a flash of lightning leapt in the sky, illuminating the interior of the cloud like a lantern.

“I told you it’s going to rain.”

Keira was so happy to see the boy again, as if he were a long-lost elder brother. “Don’t go,” she pleaded.

“Are you crazy? It’s going to flood.” The boy collected the rest of eggs in his pockets.

“Are you giving back the eggs?” There was no answer. A moment later, the reeds down the riverbank parted. The boy went away whistling a tune. Keira was hurt he didn’t say goodbye. “Go on home, scared cat.” She poked the hot ashes with a stick, and found an egg the boy left behind. She sat under an oleaster tree and ate the egg.

It didn’t taste half as good as the first egg. In fact, it almost made her gag. A roar of thunder rolled over the distant mountains and boomed across the flats. When she had left home the desert was brilliant in the glare of sunlight, now it was dark. Swirls of dust ran like elfin figures along the flats and washes. The branches of oleasters and rose willows waved in the wind. Where the sky had been blue and blindingly bright, clouds now shut out the sun.

“Would anyone care if I died?” Keira started crying again, this time about herself, not the baby brother. For the longest time Keira had not shed a tear at home. If Goldie or Woodie cried, she coaxed them until they were happy again. If Goldie wanted to rip out her hair, she had to let him, so that Mama wouldn’t scold her for being negligent. Now Keira was free to cry where no one could hear her. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the greenish undersides of the clouds. Thunder rattled and banged. The wind rose in gusts, veering and whirling. Then the rain began, drop by drop at first, then two at a time—huge drops that splattered on the ground and raised little puffs of dust. Keira stopped crying, fascinated by the august of nature that dwarfed her inner turmoil. Quickly the rain saturated every inch of the oleaster under which Keira sat, her feet soaking in a puddle. The thunderheads poured black curtains of rain.

Keira didn’t want to go home. The rain whipped her body harder than anyone had ever hit her, but she felt no pain. As rain fell in a torrent, little rivulets formed on the ground, snaking in and out among rocks and plants. The rivulets joined; cascades rolled across the slopes; sheets of water gathered in the flats. In ten minutes half-grown rivers were bolting across the desert floor. They reached a dry channel that had not carried water for months. Whitecapped, turbulent and muddy, the water stampeded down the arroyo, sweeping everything before it.

Keira couldn’t swim. She ran for home in knee-deep water. A coyote, soaked and draggle-tailed, dashed for a cleft in the rock. Suddenly Keira was bombarded by hailstones. The driving stones tore the leaves off trees and punctured the tough skins of the cactuses. Keira took shelter under a sheet rock. All around her were helpless creatures. Jack rabbits cowered in its shelter, and the woodpecker for once sat quietly in its hole. Insects folded their wings tightly, clinging to stems and twigs. Keira thought of the woman who had drowned herself in the marsh. Perhaps her corpse would be washed up in the flood.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. A pair of arms reached toward her. Thin and brown, they were more twig-like than human. “Follow me, to the high ground!” The voice was shrill but familiar. Keira recognized the gourd head floating upon raging waters. She would live after all.

“I can’t swim!”

“Grab this!” A thick branch was offered to her.

Keira held onto it and leapt into the water. Her feet couldn’t touch the ground. The torrent swelled. Large sections of land was swept away, with dry, powdery earth subsiding into the torrent like a pinch of salt in a boiling pot. Water plunging down the arroyo tore away bushes along the banks. As the land caved in, all animals living there went with it. Rats, mice and rabbits tried vainly to swim in the seething waters. Beetles, wasps and lizards went sweeping by, struggling desperately or already dead.

Tangled up with a rattlesnake, Keira was so frightened she thrashed about madly to pluck it off her chest. “Don’t let go!” Before he finished, Keira sank into deep water.

Keira watched the surface of the water drift slowly away. She took a few breaths while looking at the dazzling surface of the water from the underside of it. As she sank deeper she felt a great sense of peace, and ease. Then she heard splashing, the boy yelling for her to answer. Keira was supposed to be home, rejoicing the birth of her baby brother. How stupid she was to let herself being drown! She could see the boy each time she came up for another frantic breath of air. By the time the boy found her she knew there was no way he was going to reach her in time, so she pretty much gave up and let herself slide under for the last time, went limp as a dishrag, gave herself over to the flood dragon.

Just when she had relaxed and allowed the water to enter her nose, mouth and ears, she felt a hand grabbing her hair. Up, up, up, she went and then, her head broke the surface. She gagged and puked and drew in great lungfuls of sweet hot August air, while her extremities locked up, all her energy focused on getting air in and out.

“Let me go! You’ll get both of us drown.” The boy’s voice was muffled by gurgling. She threw her arms around his neck and held on for dear life, still sputtering and spouting water. But he was sinking. Rattlesnakes floated about them like seaweeds. “You are choking me. Loosen up!” She wouldn’t listen, but applied herself to him like a trembling second skin.

Many years later she would wonder if their parents would have buried them in the same tomb if both of them had been drowned, like child lovers. Perhaps that would have saved her a lifetime of heartache. At the time, the worst part about potential drowning was the terror of fighting to keep it from happening, fighting for all she was worth to keep her head above water. She held tightly onto the boy until something pounded on her head. Thunders rang in her ears. She remembered a tentative peace once she gave up and just let go. After having a double lungful of water it seemed that death would not be so bad. It was not peace she experienced, as much as resignation. The water turned black as ink.

When she woke up the sky lightened, and the pounding rain slacked. The raindrops thinned out and became smaller, until they turned into drizzle. The coyote emerged from its shelter shaking its coat, and the woodpecker exploded from its hole as if catapulted by a spring. Insects crawled onto the upper surfaces of stems and leaves, drying their wings with their legs. At last the sun broke through. Keira found herself lying under a rose willow. Her shoes were gone. Her limbs were bruised and aching, but she had all her toes and fingers. There weren’t any rattlesnakes in sight. She touched her crown. There was a spot, wet and warm, pulsating with each breath she took. The pain told her she was alive.

Sunlight descended in single rays at first, luminous beams slanting through the overcast. Mist rose in billows. The torrent in the arroyo raged without letup, but the rivulets among rocks and thickets quickly became small trickles and then ceased altogether. The sound of water dripping from rocks and branches filled the desert.

The storm was over, and the sky was blue again. An arch of rainbow glistened in the mist. An unusual stir and excitement filled the desert, and everywhere, in all directions, birdsongs filled the air. Keira pulled herself up by grabbing onto the tree trunk. She stumbled home to meet her baby brother.  Back to Top

Enjoy Yang's Novel

Paper Cannot Wrap Fire

For nine months Mei has been wondering who knocked her up. She is frightened to find out today. It is the Clear Brightness Day. Her husband and father-in-law have gone to the West Hill to sweep their ancestral tomb, as is the custom in High Moral Village. Her mother-in-law is in the living room, praying to the Kuan-yin statue and beating a stick on the wooden fish drum. When a sharp pain cuts into her body, Mei lets out a scream loud enough to wake the dead.

She sits on the edge of the bed, with her knees held far apart by the midwife. As the pain eases, Mei makes herself count her blessings. Most women in the village give birth squatting on a bed of straw laid on the ground, so that they don’t soil the linens. Mei is allowed to do it in her own bed, covered with an old sheet and alpine rush mat, and padded with dry straw underneath. She is pampered, being the only daughter-in-law to carry on Yuan’s family line.

Mei was married to Aren on last New Year’s Day. Her father-in-law hired a rickshaw to escort her. A piece of red cloth was draped over the yellow dome covering of the rickshaw. It didn’t have the opulent look of an embroidered sedan chair, though the ride was smooth and the rickshaw didn’t bounce. Her father-in-law said that the rickshaw suited Mei better; the sedan chair is for a Han woman with bound feet, who is too delicate to walk. Mei wasn’t fooled; she knew that the sedan chair cost more, because it needed four bearers. Having no luxury on her wedding day convinced Mei that she had a laborer’s fate.

Being a woman of the She ethnic group, Mei never bound her feet. As a little girl, she used to work in the fields alongside her father and elder brothers. At fourteen, Mei became the daughter-in-law-to-be of Yuan’s family. For five years she had worked at Yuan’s house, and lived with Aren as brother and sister. On her wedding day, Mei wept as she stepped off the rickshaw. Officially, her days of being a house servant were over when she became Aren’s wife. Her new position brought her more responsibilities, for Mei had to perform the wifely duty in addition to her housework.

Mei howls while a new wave of pain rips through her body. The midwife rolls up a towel. “Bite on this.” She stuffs it in Mei’s mouth. “You have a long way to go.” Mei sinks her teeth into the towel with all her might.

After marrying Aren, Mei set her mind on being a good wife and dutiful daughter-in-law. From dawn to dusk she bustled about the housework, and never uttered an unpleasant word to anyone. She had been left alone to tend to her chores, except for one day last June. Her father-in-law grabbed Mei from behind when she bent over to feed the pigs. No one else was home. It was Kuan-yin’s birthday. Her mother-in-law, a devout Buddhist, attended a vigil for the merciful Bodhisattva at the Kuan-yin Temple. People in the village all say that Mei’s mother-in-law is a good woman. She had brought up Aren well, who was never uncivil to Mei. Little did Mei know that her father-in-law could be uncivil.

The midwife pokes Mei between her legs. “You’re getting there. Relax.”

Mei nods with the towel in her mouth.

Mei wasn’t blind. She saw her father-in-law giving her the eye, sometimes when she washed clothes in the river, and at other times when she watered the wild rice stem patch behind the house. She never eyed him back. Mei knew her place as a daughter-in-law. She didn’t go to the field, unless to bring the men their lunch. Aren and his father would lose face if she hoed in the field like a man. Mei stayed home to cook three meals a day, tended to the vegetable patches, fed the chickens, pigs and oxen and waited on her husband and in-laws. So her father-in-law found her behind the house that day, after he had left Aren spreading manure in the soybean field.

He nearly strangled Mei with his arms wrapped tightly around her neck and chest. When he pressed his mouth on her temple, his slobber and the reek of tobacco made her retch. If she had eaten lunch, she would’ve thrown up all over him, which might have saved her. Alas, she held her breath and pleaded, “Father-in-law, let me feed the pigs.”

“You’re ever so diligent since you came to our house,” he said, licking her cheek with his fat tongue. “Take a rest today. I permit you.”

She shoved him with her butt, the only part of her that she could move. Why didn’t she kick his shins and stomp his feet? Alas, Kuan-yin didn’t bless Mei with the wit to fight the old man. “Father-in-law,” she begged him, “I should bring lunch to Aren in the field.”

“It’s not noon yet. What’s the hurry?” He flung Mei on the hay beside the pigsty, as easily as rolling out an alpine rush mat. He was not a very old man. At thirty-five, sixteen years older than Mei, he had almost twice as much brawn to overpower her. He got on top of Mei and tore off her pants more quickly than Aren had done on their wedding night. She couldn’t shout for help. His hand clenched her mouth so tightly that she couldn’t even bite his palm. Nobody would’ve heard her cries, for they were the only ones home. The pigs saw him rape her, but they buried their snouts in the basin of mash that fell into the pen.

Now Mei’s privates are burning like a stove. She spits out the towel in her mouth, sobbing. “I can’t have this baby. It’s killing me.”

“Stupid girl,” the midwife scolds her. “You haven’t started pushing yet. Shut up and save yourself some grief.”

Mei ignores her and wails like a child who just buried her parents.

That day, Mei kept her eyes glued to the ground when she took Aren’s lunch to the soybean field. He didn’t scold her for being late, like any other man would have, but thrust his spade in the soil and joined her under the mulberry tree. She opened the lids of rice and soup bowls for him. He started eating without looking at her. He ate so fast that soybean-sized sweat beads fell into his seaweed soup.

His appetite soothed her. She still had her husband to feed, and his bed to sleep in at night. If he had learned about the rape, he might have dismissed her. Mei kept her secret desperately, like a drowning woman hanging on to a piece of wood. Then her belly started to swell. Although Mei was petrified, the rest of the family congratulated her on “carrying the happiness.” From that day on, her mother-in-law took over some housework, so that Mei could have a rest and give birth to “a big fat son.”

*    *    *

Mei hears footsteps in the living room, Aren and his father returning from the graveyard. Mei has been laboring since daybreak, but it hasn’t done her any good. Her baby would sooner tear her to pieces than slither out of the hole between her legs. The pain is nothing, though she’s sobbing. What she cannot bear is to see the father of her child.

“Bolt the door!” Mei screams.

The midwife tells Mei she has done it already. “It’s crowning,” she says. “I see its black hair. Give me a push.”

“I can’t.” Mei moans. “I’m splitting in two.”

“Your ma went through the same to have you.” The midwife slaps her thigh. “Go on and push, like you haven’t taken a dump in three days and want to get it out bad.”

Mei pushes harder than she ever shits.

“Push harder! It slipped back inside.”

Mei howls like a sow being slaughtered. “Call for Doctor Gao. Put me out of this misery.”

“What do you need him for? You’re not dying.”

Mei hopes the midwife is right. Few villagers can afford to see Doctor Gao. A generous man, he treats dying patients without charge. Worn out by the bone-crushing pain, Mei would rather have him tend to her than keep on her struggle. “Let me die,” she whimpers.

“Look, its shoulder is coming out. Give me a big push.”

Mei squeezes her eyes shut. She is afraid of seeing what comes out of her filthy privates. Then, a wet thing slides out of her, causing no pain. At last she’s permitted to die. She grows content and dozes off, before a shrill cry wakes her.

“You’ve got a big fat son.” The midwife lays a bloody thing beside Mei, then goes to open the door. “I'll get his pa.”

“Bolt the door.” Mei’s voice is trembling.

Aren and his father enter the room together. To her dazed eyes, their faces are so alike, only one being younger than the other, that they terrify her. Her father-in-law comes to the bed and lifts the wailing boy, purple as an eggplant, with the cord wrapped around his neck. In front of the men of three generations, Mei lies butt-naked like a plucked hen on a cutting board. She closes her eyes and sobs with all her might.

“My heart and liver.” Aren presses his cheek on her forehead. “Dry your eyes. We have a big fat son.”

“Yes, daughter-in-law, you’ve given us a precious bundle with a teapot spout.” He kisses the baby on his “spout.” Blood stains his goatee. “He is the heir of Yuan’s family.”

Mei weeps quietly, wondering who gave her a son and caused her so much pain. It’s a miracle that she’s still alive. Aren, who had never said a dear word to her, called her his heart and liver.

The midwife burns her scissor blades in the flame of the oil lamp, then cuts the cord. She wipes the baby and swaddles him. “What a doting pa and grandpa he has!” She places the bundle in Aren’s arms.

The toadying smile on the midwife’s face makes Mei queasy. After her father-in-law leaves the room, Mei breathes a sigh of relief.

“Let’s call him Sparrow Flower.” Aren holds the swaddle in his right arm and Mei in his left. “The nickname will fool the King of Hell into thinking he is a lowly girl. Then the King won’t reclaim his life or inflict him with disasters.”

“What’s a sparrow flower?” Mei asks.

Aren points at the bed stool. There lays a string of flowers, brown and tattered like dead leaves. “They were ivory when I picked them.”

“Where?”

“On the vine by my grandparents’ grave.”

Mei is wary of the flowers that he got from the graveside. They seem inauspicious. She glances at the straw hat hung on the knob of the armoire, with small sunflower prints on a black background. Mei wove it during the month after she found out she was carrying. “If you want a girly name,” she says, “what about Sunflower?”

“If you like Sunflower, it suits me fine.” Aren holds up the baby like a trophy. “Sunflower, my son!”

Sunflower has a shriveled red face like a dried jujube. His head is pointy, covered with three big blisters. Why did Aren call him a “big fat son”? He is thinner than a rooster she killed last month. His flat nose and creased cheeks don’t resemble any grown person’s, and his eyes are shut. Mei peers at Aren. He grins so wide that his face puffs out like an open cotton boll. Her father-in-law enters the room. Seeing the drop of blood dried on his goatee, Mei feels her pain return, splitting her like a cleaver.

“Your placenta, all in one piece.” The midwife drops a bloody mass in a kettle. “You did real well, missus.” She accepts her fee from Mei’s father-in-law with both hands. “What a fine grandson you have! May Kuan-yin bless him and your family!” She bows at the old man over and again like a pecking chick.

Mei’s mother-in-law totters inside carrying a basin of water. “Let me wash my daughter-in-law.” She sets down the basin on the footboard in front of the bed. “The food is on the table,” she says to the men. “After lunch, you tell our neighbors to come for a red egg birthday party in forty days.” She soaks a towel in the water and wrings it.

After everyone leaves, Mei says, “Bolt the door.”

Her mother-in-law waddles toward the door on her small feet. Han women her age had their feet bound when they were five years old. Her mother-in-law once told Mei that except for her big toes, her other toes had been folded under the soles of her feet and then bound tightly with cloth strips. She pushed the stone mill and walked round and round until the bones of her feet were bent to form delicate cone shapes. Her mother-in-law cannot walk fast on her bound feet. This may be why she was the last one to come to Mei, though she ought to have been the first. Mei picks up the swaddle to show her the baby.

“Don’t hold him so tight.” Her mother-in-law pulls Mei’s arm to wrap it around Sunflower’s back. “You don’t want to hurt his neck.” She puts the tiny head in the crook of Mei’s arm. The baby puckers his lips.

“What do I do?” Mei asks.

Her mother-in-law lifts Mei’s doudu that covers her breasts and belly. She lays the baby on Mei’s breast. Mei watches him suck her teat, then pulls away his head and starts to cry.

“I’m dry,” Mei says with tears in her eyes.

“Nonsense. I’m cooking you hen stew. It’ll get your milk flowing by suppertime.” She nudges his mouth to latch onto Mei’s teat. “Let him suck you. He’ll get something out of it.”

Mei doesn’t know how he can. Soon, he stops crying with her teat in his mouth. He looks as worn-out as she. But Mei cannot fall asleep while her mother-in-law is bustling about her.

She wipes Mei’s thighs with a warm towel, as if Mei were a baby who needs her diaper changed. Even Mei’s mother couldn’t have a gentler hand, had she lived. Mei wishes her mother-in-law had been in the room earlier. Perhaps the midwife wouldn’t have acted like a witch.

“I heard you praying, Ma.”

“That is what I do best.” Her mother-in-law folds up a dry towel to put inside Mei’s underpants. “The midwife said you breezed through it.”

Mei prays for the midwife to trip over a stone on her way home. “Easy? I was split open.”

“He is worth your hardship. Yuan’s family is grateful to you.” Her mother-in-law starts to clean Mei’s bed.

The rosewood bed is large, tall and sturdy, boxed in with its eaves board above, and the head, inside and foot boards around the three sides of the bed. Only one side of the bed is open, enclosed by its wings, the upper part decorated with a lattice window and the lower part solid. Two square stools are attached to the wings. On the outside, the boards are engraved with clouds, peonies, pomegranates and mandarin ducks. Her mother-in-law sprawls her arms to collect the bloody straw under the alpine rush mat.

Not until her mother-in-law is halfway through does Mei realize that she ought to ask Aren to do it. The bed is too big for the old lady to totter around on her bound feet. She pulls up half of the sheet at a time, and wipes away the bloodstain on the alpine rush mat, first with a piece of wet cloth, then a dry one. Her mother-in-law is puffing and blowing when she is done. Her bun is loose, with strands of gray hair stuck to her neck.

“Sorry to trouble you like this,” Mei mutters.

“What trouble? You gave us a big happiness.” Mei remembers that a daughter is called “a small happiness.” Her mother-in-law checks the nightstool by the bedside, emptied and washed in the morning. “I’ll go marinate shrimp heads in millet wine.” She steps down the footboard in front of the bed, then picks up the basin of bloody water. “You get some rest now.” She closes the door on her way out.

Sunflower sucks her teat now and again. What is he getting from her? Mei wonders, when a teardrop splatters on his forehead. Sunflower doesn’t need her tears. She wipes his face. He is smarter than she. For a start, he grew himself a teapot spout. With that, he’ll never be flung down on the hay the way she was. Nor will he suffer birth pangs, which his wife will bear for him. If Sunflower is anyone’s big happiness, he is Mei’s. She vows to bring him up to be a filial son. One day he will become the head of the household, where Mei will live as a matriarch. No one will dare to order her about like a lowly daughter-in-law. From now on, Mei’s life will become better. Her mother-in-law crouched to wash her body for the first time; Mei has become somebody in the family. Thanks to Sunflower, Mei hopes to live to a ripe old age, when she will have no teeth left in her mouth but a great many silver hairs on her head. Her daughter-in-law will wait on her hand and foot, while her grandchildren fill the house with their laughter.   Back to Top

Enjoy Yang's Novel

To Unleash a Son

If one could exchange a limb for a wish, Mr. Cai would have traded his gladly in order to unleash Feng, his only son, to a good life where he could live and prosper on his own.

July was Feng's last shot at the college entrance exams, because he was twenty-two years old and would soon be disqualified for the university admission. Jiao, the neighbor girl who grew up with Feng, had gone to Beijing for college four years before and would return home in May with a B.A. in Chinese. By the end of April, Mr. Cai erected a new fence bordering on Jiao's yard and planted a row of roses along it. From then on, Feng didn't need to say hello to anyone on the other side of the fence unless that person called out to him. Later, Mr. Cai would hint to Jiao that she should not disturb Feng before his exams. Feng was not a free man until the late afternoon of July 9th.

Now Mr. Cai put on his reading glasses to peruse a love letter, written and signed by Feng, to a young cook who worked at the canteen of his continuation school. "I can't wait for the class to end and the day to go dark, so I can slide my hand under your apron to touch your doudu, the lushest satin I've ever stroked."

"What the hell is this?" Mr. Cai pounded the table so hard that his cup jumped up from its saucer.

"Nothing." Feng shuddered and stepped back.

"She accused you of taking liberties with her, and I, your old dad, was called to your school to be given this!" He swept the letter off the table. "You tell me if this can be called a love letter."

"I only . . ."

"Speak up!"

Feng's finger shook as he pointed it to the floor. "When I wrote the letter, I only wanted to feel her doudu. It was made from an old brocade embroidered with . . ."

"What do you take me for, some old dimwit?" Mr. Cai ripped the glasses from his nose. "I was a tailor before you were born. Have you ever seen me touching a woman's underwear when she tries on new clothes?"

Feng wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

Mrs. Cai set the small table, where Feng usually took his meal after he failed an exam. "He is really sorry," she said. "Go study now, and dinner will be ready in a few minutes."

Mr. Cai was too angry to look at Feng, and turned his face toward the windows. A magpie landed on the windowsill to comb its tail with its beak. Even a bird chose its season to mate, lay eggs or raise its young. Why couldn't Feng remain abstinent for a few more months?

"It's okay if you don't care about your own future." Mr. Cai cleared his throat. "But you're indebted to us, who work until our backs break in order to provide for you."

Feng stomped on the letter. As he kneaded the paper under his sole, he slipped and almost fell to the cement floor. Soon the letter was torn in the middle.

Seeing Feng's cheek damp with tears, Mr. Cai managed to choke down his scolding. "Son, you have to be smarter next time. As the old saying goes: the worth of other pursuits is small." He paused for Feng to finish the sentence.

"The study of books excels them all," Feng whispered.

"You know all the right reasons." He rubbed Feng's back and drummed his hard spine. "Now act on your promise like a filial son. Let's put this trivia behind us."

Feng returned to his study room and shut the door. Mr. Cai told his wife to move Feng's place setting to their dining table. It would be easier for him to lecture Feng while they were seated at the same table.

*    *    *

Over the years, Mr. Cai Liang had corrected countless people that his family name was Cai aptitude as in aptitude, not the Cai talent as in talent. He had grown up without a father. His mother didn't give him her surname, Bai white as in white, a synonym for chastity. Instead, she chose him a name composed of the two best words in the dictionary: timber timber combined with talent talent that promises aptitude, and Liang fine quality which means fine quality. Cai aptitude wasn't a traditional surname. Mr. Cai had never met anyone with his family name. Therefore, he was overjoyed to beget a son, who would carry on his lineage. Mr. Cai named him Cai Feng Cai Feng, abundant aptitude. To this day, Feng's name remained to be one of few things that Mr. Cai was satisfied with his son. The other were Feng's good looks.

"All we ask of you," Mr. Cai told Feng at dinner, "is to enter a college this year." He leaned aside to let his wife put the fish soup on the table. "It's about time. You know, China had the War of Resistance against Japan for eight years, and you've been in the continuation school for half that long."

"Eat it while it's warm," Mrs. Cai said and put a soup spoon by Feng's hand. "We're not unreasonable parents," Mr. Cai said. "After you make it onto a university campus, we'll let you date a nice girl. But, you've got to wait for a few months. If you let some trivia interfere with the exams, you may regret it for the rest of your life."

Feng sipped the carp soup. "It's fishy," he said and put down his spoon.

"You don't eat it for the taste, but for the nutrition." Mr. Cai scooped up a spoonful to put it in front of Feng's mouth. "Come on, have some more."

"Now you're feeding him," Mrs. Cai chimed in. "What the newspaper said is true. The one-child-policy gave us a little emperor to wait on."

Mr. Cai pinched his wife's thigh under the table and she fell silent.

Feng swallowed the soup and pouted his lips. "That's a joke, Mom! You know I'm your slave."

"Let's just have dinner like a civilized family." Mr. Cai pushed the soup bowl toward his son.

Feng sipped a half spoon of the creamy white soup. He had been a strict vegetarian ever since he had come down with a food poisoning from eating the lamb hotpot when he was six. Throughout his teenage years Feng had steered clear of eggs, meat and seafood, and prevented Mr. Cai from killing any fish or fowls in his presence. Feng had grown tall and slim, with a pale complexion and large, sensitive eyes. After he failed the college entrance exams four times in a row, Mr. Cai suspected that Feng had been undernourished on his diet, and pressed him to eat eggs. Feng refused vehemently, and resorted to drinking fish soup as a compromise.

For the past year, carp stew had been a regular course at their dinner table. At least three times a week Mr. Cai killed a carp, sliced it up and salted it before Feng came home from school. His wife fried the carp chucks, then simmered them in a crock pot with oyster mushrooms, black fungus and lily flowers, until the soup became fragrant and milky white. Mr. Cai told Feng that the carp was previously frozen, and persuaded him to drink the soup. Luckily Feng had no culinary experience, or he would've known that frozen seafood doesn't make good soup. Mr. Cai didn't oppose Feng's being a vegetarian so long as he would do relatively well among the people his own age. Otherwise, what would become of him when his parents were old and gone? The age-old saying holds true: he who does not plan for the future will find trouble at his doorstep.   Back to Top
Copyright © 2008 Yang Huang

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