was pregnant, even when her belly revealed the truth to all, and she had confided in no one her expectations that this child would be a boy and that he would be unusual. Without Chanyi, there was nobody to tell.
She had paid a peddler to whet the kitchen shears. To sterilize the blades, she took a bottle of fiery sorghum liquor from Wang’s office cabinet. She even found a chamber pot, remembering the way that women in labor moved their bowels. Clean rags waited in a willow basket. Everything was ready. She closed the door to her room and slipped the satin pouch under her mattress.
For hours she lay, and stood, and squatted, struggling not to shout although her body was being torn apart by a powerful and indifferent pair of hands. Between the bouts of pain, she raised the bamboo blind and watched the gibbous moon, a lemon kite, fly up over the garden. The pain returned, erased the moon. The room took on the smell of the sea, steaming sour with each breath. She believed she would not die, for recent dreams had shown her she would live to see her living child. But even if she died it might not be the end of things. She might learn what had happened to Chanyi. Perhaps she might even see Chanyi. Perhaps it was true what the Methodists believed, that there was a peaceful place where friends collected after life.
The hours passed; dawn cast the room in dazed, gray autumn light. Someone knocked on the door. “Come in!” Hu Mudan cried eagerly, thinking that it might be Chanyi. But the door swung open to the orders of a midwife.
Although her sight was almost gone, old Mma had not failed to note the changes in the sound of Hu Mudan’s voice, which months ago had taken on the high pitch of pregnancy. She had consulted with Junan and ordered her to fetch some help. So in the end, Hu Mudan did not have to finish her task alone. The child was born during the noon meal, which Gu Taitai prepared so haphazardly that the doorman broke his molar on a stone in the rice. Loud infant cries rang through the courtyard. It was a boy, as Hu Mudan had guessed, dark-skinned and round-skulled as a northerner, with a cap of spiky hair and eyes the same color of earth at the bottom of a pond. Hu Mudan explained politely to the others that the hair predicted a lack of intelligence and the enormous head great stubbornness. The midwife cleaned the child and wrapped him tightly, saving his umbilical cord, since Hu Mudan had once heard a story in Sichuan about the importance of drying the cord and making an amulet to protect the child from trouble. Later Mma told Junan that Hu Mudan was being inappropriately cautious, as if her son were something more than an illegitimate child of a servant.
TO JUNAN, THE PREGNANCY and birth presented a problem in household management. Hu Mudan had given the boy her own surname, Hu. Where was the father? Junan and Mma went over the list of men who worked in or around the house and they decided Hu Mudan could not possibly have wanted them. She and the doorman had a long-running feud. Old Gu was indeed so old his gums had turned to sponges and he had to eat rice gruel. Gongdi, the errand boy, was young enough, but so backward that he could not have figured out how to mount a woman even with clear instructions. It must have been someone outside the house. Perhaps the man who sharpened knives? A rickshaw runner? The mystery might not be known until the child matured enough to reveal the father through his face or manner. Perhaps it would never be known. Meanwhile, this baby boy, this Hu Ran, was living in the house as if he had been brought there by a fairy. Junan believed Hu Mudan ought to be told to leave at once. But Mma refused. She didn’t want anyone else, not even her granddaughter, to help her use the toilet. She wouldn’t be persuaded by Junan or her father. And Junan knew better than to expect support from Yinan.
Yinan was another problem. Since the wedding she had become even more of a bookworm; her right
She had paid a peddler to whet the kitchen shears. To sterilize the blades, she took a bottle of fiery sorghum liquor from Wang’s office cabinet. She even found a chamber pot, remembering the way that women in labor moved their bowels. Clean rags waited in a willow basket. Everything was ready. She closed the door to her room and slipped the satin pouch under her mattress.
For hours she lay, and stood, and squatted, struggling not to shout although her body was being torn apart by a powerful and indifferent pair of hands. Between the bouts of pain, she raised the bamboo blind and watched the gibbous moon, a lemon kite, fly up over the garden. The pain returned, erased the moon. The room took on the smell of the sea, steaming sour with each breath. She believed she would not die, for recent dreams had shown her she would live to see her living child. But even if she died it might not be the end of things. She might learn what had happened to Chanyi. Perhaps she might even see Chanyi. Perhaps it was true what the Methodists believed, that there was a peaceful place where friends collected after life.
The hours passed; dawn cast the room in dazed, gray autumn light. Someone knocked on the door. “Come in!” Hu Mudan cried eagerly, thinking that it might be Chanyi. But the door swung open to the orders of a midwife.
Although her sight was almost gone, old Mma had not failed to note the changes in the sound of Hu Mudan’s voice, which months ago had taken on the high pitch of pregnancy. She had consulted with Junan and ordered her to fetch some help. So in the end, Hu Mudan did not have to finish her task alone. The child was born during the noon meal, which Gu Taitai prepared so haphazardly that the doorman broke his molar on a stone in the rice. Loud infant cries rang through the courtyard. It was a boy, as Hu Mudan had guessed, dark-skinned and round-skulled as a northerner, with a cap of spiky hair and eyes the same color of earth at the bottom of a pond. Hu Mudan explained politely to the others that the hair predicted a lack of intelligence and the enormous head great stubbornness. The midwife cleaned the child and wrapped him tightly, saving his umbilical cord, since Hu Mudan had once heard a story in Sichuan about the importance of drying the cord and making an amulet to protect the child from trouble. Later Mma told Junan that Hu Mudan was being inappropriately cautious, as if her son were something more than an illegitimate child of a servant.
TO JUNAN, THE PREGNANCY and birth presented a problem in household management. Hu Mudan had given the boy her own surname, Hu. Where was the father? Junan and Mma went over the list of men who worked in or around the house and they decided Hu Mudan could not possibly have wanted them. She and the doorman had a long-running feud. Old Gu was indeed so old his gums had turned to sponges and he had to eat rice gruel. Gongdi, the errand boy, was young enough, but so backward that he could not have figured out how to mount a woman even with clear instructions. It must have been someone outside the house. Perhaps the man who sharpened knives? A rickshaw runner? The mystery might not be known until the child matured enough to reveal the father through his face or manner. Perhaps it would never be known. Meanwhile, this baby boy, this Hu Ran, was living in the house as if he had been brought there by a fairy. Junan believed Hu Mudan ought to be told to leave at once. But Mma refused. She didn’t want anyone else, not even her granddaughter, to help her use the toilet. She wouldn’t be persuaded by Junan or her father. And Junan knew better than to expect support from Yinan.
Yinan was another problem. Since the wedding she had become even more of a bookworm; her right
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