Die without Offspring ( Part III)
Yannie Q. Fan
(Continued)
Grandma Second was short and beaming all the time. Her cheeks were aglow from field labor. She had only one eye, but that was overflowing with more goodwill and intentions than two eyes could ever be brimming with. Her marriage of Grandpa Second was her second marriage. She talked about her first husband by calling him "my old man". "My old man was nice to me when he was alive. He never said half a 'No' to the girls I bore to him." She told her story sometimes when she was upset about Grandpa Second's frowns. I never met those girls. Grandma Second said they were all given away to their mother-in-law's households far, far away from Mound Liu.
I heard some more about Grandma Second's "old man" here and there after I became familiar with girls and young men my age.
Grandma Second's "old man" disappeared when he found out he had leprosy. Grandma Second was married to the Liu Clan after she married off all her daughters from her first marriage. Folks in the village said she would not have had to step into this marriage if she had had a son to depend on in her old age. Whenever Grandma Second was talked to, her lips would be moving along with others' and her mouth was sometimes agape with her jaw half-drooped as if she was ready to say "Yes" to anyone. Grandma Second lips were mimicking mine as she was tending to my question about the order of the Button sisters. When she made sure she understood my question, she giggled and patted on her belly, "There are too many girl eggs in here, I had to skip a couple of them. If I had one more girl? I would call her Button Eight or Ten, so the Goddess of Children would be thinking 'Hmmm, that woman has had enough girls and deserves a boy or two.'" When the girls were not around, Grandma Second would talk to herself loudly, "Girls are just extra mouths to feed. Once they are grown up enough to pay us back with for the hardship we bore in rearing them, they are gone to their mother-in-laws' households. They live under someone else's roof. You can not see them very often even when you are missing them so bad." She sighed, "It's useless to raise girls."
That was why none of the girls in the village were going to school then. Girls got their education from their parents and others around them. Of the science of reproduction, none of us had any real understanding at that time. The "science" of "girl eggs" from Grandma Second confused me for years to come. Button Two believed it devoutly and tried to indoctrinate me into it while I was teaching her and other girls to read and write.
Teaching Button Two and the other girls to read and write was terminated when she was betrothed to her mother-in-law's household by her parents. She was then seventeen years old. Button Two came to tell me the news, her eyes mixed with jubilation and anxiousness: the betrothal gift was handed to Grandpa Second and Grandma Second right after the matchmaker came to her house and observed her, which told Button Two she was chosen with great satisfaction by her future mother-in-law's household. The custom at that time went a certain way: the future bride's household, after insinuating their desire to receive betrothal gifts, would be sent the gifts three times a year-at the Dragon Boat Festival, the Moon Festival and the Lunar New Year respectively. The gifts would vary and may include clothes for the girls and their siblings, fresh foods made by the future Groom's household, cash, crops during years of natural calamity, and on rare occasions, a sewing machine which, as a part of the dowry when the girl was married away, together with the bride, would become the property back to the girl's mother-in-law's household.
Button Two met with the young man under the supervision of parents' from both sides and did not say "No!" to him, but she was not sure if her mother-in-law would be as nice as her big sister's. When she told me her worries about mother-in-law, I told her selfishly that I did not want her forfeited. I was afraid of losing her and could not bear to see a beautiful young girl suddenly become a woman with a group of kids tiring her out. At that time, I was in deep doubt about whether marriage could bring a girl happiness. A mother could share with her children her fervent wishes for their bright future. But, if the mother has a questionable political past, as my mother did, those dreams for her children may never materialize. In addition, because of the traditional concept about girls and boys, a young girl's happiness in marriage may be ruined if she cannot give birth to a boy. Although I never expressed these concerns to Button Two, she convinced me she would not let her mother-in-law's household marry her away until she was old enough.
The second year after she got engaged, Button Two told her dad and mom not to ask for any betrothal gifts from her mother-in-law's household, saying, "I don't want to be looked down upon and made to pay all these debts when I'm married off there!" She told me this time and again after she had fights with her dad and mom.
Two years after my conversation with Grandma Second, she did "skip a lot of girl eggs" and bore a boy to her husband and their family clan. I did not understand how she skipped "girl eggs" to be able to bear that boy. That was the year before I was accepted by a university, the year of 1971. It was the first year when many of the universities opened their doors to young people and resumed their annual recruiting procedures after they had been shut down for six years during the time of the Cultural Revolution.
The folks in Mound Liu and some other folks from nearby villages offered to donate money for a feast in honor of Grandpa Second, for the one-month celebration of the birth of his son. Grandpa Second refused politely by saying "Nothing to be fussing about to have a son at such an old age. I will be gone far before my son is grown up and never benefit from this good fortune." He asked his brother, Grandpa Fourth to choose a name from a name encyclopedia book. Grandpa Fourth was the only middle aged man in the village who had gotten a senior high school education. The boy was named Hao Sheng, meaning Born of Heaven's Kindness.
Button Two, Button Three and Button Six were attending to Hao Sheng all the time. They had less time for playing but instead spent every spare minute rocking the crib in that big central room where every uncle, aunt and cousin could take a close look at the boy. Grandpa Second arranged to put Hao Sheng's crib in the central room under his own father's request. Great Grandfather had seventeen grandchildren, including Button Two's big sister, Hao Sheng was the eighteenth and only grandchild for whom the old man offered supervision in the form of the girls who were now looking after their baby brother full-time. Great Grandfather even had his bedroom narrowed by moving his preciously- carved ancestral monument and shrine table closer to his bedroom. Having the temporary wall pushed closer to his bedroom, the old man had to climb up on his bed from one end. Now Hao Sheng would have more space for his crib.
Everyone in the village could hear Grandpa Second's loudly and clearly crispy whips cracking in the air when he was plowing or harrowing in the paddy fields with Big Horn. Of course, the whips would not touch a single hair of Big Horn's hide. He was heard happily humming tunes all the time.
Grandma Second beamed more but looked humble. She told me she was being careful not to offend the Goddess of Children by wearing too jubilant an expression. The mother-in-laws and husbands in the village started asking her to be a midwife again. She had had to stop her practice for a long time because of her boyless history. One morning I ran into her when she stepped out of a house with her hands stained in blood she just helped a folk's wife deliver a boy. Grandma Second wanted to make everyone in the village aware of the happy news. "Good luck, good luck. Not to wash it off." She pretended to say this to nobody when she saw my disgust at her hands. Button Two told me her mom kept her bloody hands the whole day and touched all their clothes with them.
Button Two did not had that much time with me, as she was so busy sewing her dowry, taking care of her baby brother and making more working points for his expenses. "He will attend school all the way up to the highest level in the whole county and read all the books for us. You just don't know if he would find a job in a big city and never ever work in paddy fields baring his feet." Button Two seemed oblivious to the fact, by that time she would no longer be in Mound Liu with her brother.
"Hao Sheng died for no reason!" I was stunned by this news from my sisters when I went back to Hefei from the university for my first summer vacation in 1972. By that time, my mother had been released from the devil shed and was living in a different apartment in the same complex. My father and two sisters were allowed to go back to Hefei and join my mother.
Two years later in 1974, I went back to Mound Liu for my first visit since leaving for the university. Walking on the ridge to the village, I met Button Two, she was picking up water caltrops (a kind of fruit grows in water), in a canoe-shaped boat. Button Two looked more attractive, yet her beautiful eyes no longer sparkled, instead her eyes looked more like her father's with that sadness and silence exuding. Button Two told me her father had passed away shortly after Hao Sheng's death. She was home alone that day, as her mom, together with Button Three and Button Six, had accompanied her big sister back to her mother-in-law's.
Button Two accompanied me from house to house saying "Hello!" to grandpas and grandmas. At this time of day, only elderly people were home. They had not changed that much. But the children, most of them were girls as boys went to school, who followed us the whole time, had changed a lot. They were much taller and many of them were carrying little brothers and sisters on their backs. Two years after being away from Mound Liu, nothing had changed but the addition of more children.
Peepee Pot insisted that we would have dinner at his house. Peepee Pot was then teaching at a primary school set in the office of the senior production team. He was married right after he graduated from the township high school. The girl he married was not his high school classmate whom he loved and had vowed to marry, but a girl picked out by his parents. Button Two told me her uncle and aunt could not wait to have grandchildren, and since Peepee Pot's girl did not want to marry that soon, his parents had arranged another marriage for him.
All the girls and "big men" -- my young-men friends two years before, came to Peepee Pot's house. I could not find among them all the familiar faces that were constantly in my dreams. Button Two said four girls were given away to their mother-in-laws' households in different villages near or far. Mound Liu had gained through marriage three girls from other villages. I asked how come Mound Liu's new daughter-in-laws did not come to join us, and the new husbands said in one voice, "Oh, no, they are too thin-skinned to meet strangers." Others started teasing them, saying, "Go back now, or your lao po, old woman, will throw you on your knees all night by the foot of your newly-wed bed!"
That night I slept at Button Two's house. Her mom, Button Three and Button Six were not coming back from her big sister's.
I was wide awake the whole night, tossing and turning in Button Two and her sisters' bed. Button Two told me her big sister's husband was not sleeping with her big sister any more. After years of marriage, she still could not bear "one boy or half a girl" to her mother-in-law's household. Her mother-in-law cursed her, "I haven't seen a single hair of a baby from her for years. So what's the point of keeping her in my house?" Button Two said her big sister could no longer bear the cold-shouldered attitude under that roof and had asked for a divorce. "Of course, my mother can't do anything but keep telling my sister the old words: 'Conduct yourself well by following your father while young, your husband after marriage and your brothers if widowed.'"
Button Two was twenty-one years old; her future mother-in-law constantly urged her to marry. Grandma Second said, "Yes!" Button Two said, "No!" Her mother-in-law's household said, "If not, then renounce the engagement and return all the gifts." Button Two had no recourse but to say, "I'm afraid I can't go back on their word." She could not remunerate this debt.
Button Two fell asleep after she told me long stories about Hao Sheng. She kept asking nobody a question: "Why did Heaven just let my dad die without a son, and my family without offspring?" She began to sob and her shoulders were trembling.
Hao Sheng was gone with happiness, hopes and dignity of the Button sisters' family.
Early the next morning, Peepee Pot came to see me off. He and some other "big men" walked me all the way to the yard of the People's Commune. I could not bear to see Button Two's tears and insisted on her staying by the gate of the earth fence with the other girls and folks.
At the gate of the commune, approaching to the "big men", I tried to shake hands with them. The "big men" hurriedly raised their hands and waved to me to avoid the modern etiquette of shaking hands. Peepee Pot was holding his hands in his pockets and said, "Come back to see us." A tractor came to take me to the ferry. A gust of dirt rolled up and blocked everything from view. In 1988, the year before coming to the states, I went back to Mound Liu for the second visit. I stepped into Button Two's northeast quarter; Grandma Second could not recognize me nor remember me. Peepee Pot told me that Button Two and Button Three were given away to their mother-in-laws' households. Button Six was doing a temporary job as a cook at a mining area for her boy cousins. I calculated Button Six should be twenty-three years old that year and it was believed that she was too old to be given away to a mother-in-law's household.
Last year, in the summer of 1997, together with my son, I went back to China and visited Mound Liu for the third time, thus keeping my promise to "come back within ten years" from the last visit. The Button sisters' quarter was vacant with dirt and spider webs. Grandma Second had left to live with her cousin on her mother's side after she had given away Button Six to her mother-in-law's household with no betrothal gifts. Button Six was married away to a widowed man with two children.
My son took a picture of some of the children in front of the house where my father, two sisters and I had been living from 1968 to 1972. The house had been bought by Peepee Pot when the commune system was collapsed in 1990. Twelve children in the picture, and except for one child whose gender I can not recognize from the hairstyle or clothing, there were three girls and eight boys.
Grandpa Second's descendants were nowhere to be seen in Mound Liu. The top of his cone-shaped grave was not covered with a bowl-shaped cap, which told people that Grandpa Second had nobody to enshrine and worship him by putting consecrated rice in the bowl. The grave had nothing on it but was covered with waist-high wild weeds whimpering in the wind year after year.
I am aware more and more: how lucky that I can live a life to fulfil a life mission -- working with the child and for the child. This story is written out for the children who have special life experience as well as their parents who are making them special.
With this, a lot of thanks to Phyllis Warr, a language teacher and speech team coach at Proviso Township High School of Illinois, and Suzzane Luchs, a mom with an adopted girl from China. Their understandings, encouragement, devotions … "lured" me to tumble backwards into my past and finished this never ended story.
Yannie