believing him. He carefully prised open the prickly skin, and inside lay rows of flesh-covered seeds. I fell in love with the creamy taste of the golden flesh instantly. I even loved its astonishingly unique smell, which prompted an English novelist to describe it as eating a sweet raspberry blancmange in a lavatory. I am perfectly capable of finishing five or six fruit in a single sitting.
By the time I was eight months pregnant, I was so uncomfortable that I would lumber out of bed as quietly as possible and lie on the hard coolness of the bench in the kitchen. Through the window the inky blackness of the Malayan night would reach in and caress me, its touch heavy and moist. Sometimes my husband would come in to peer worriedly in the gloom and inquire after me. And on those wretched nights I would swallow my nasty spurt of irritation and remind myself that he was a good man.
At least I did not have little Mui Tsai’s terrible sorrows. She was also pregnant. Her stomach bulged through the thin high-necked blouse she wore to denote her status as a “little sister.” She tied her loose black trousers underneath the smooth bulge. In the shadows cast by the oil lamp, little by little I heard her story. It had its sad beginning in a little village in China when a strange fever brought death to her mother. Mui Tsai was eight years old. In less than a month, a new silk-clad mother came to live with them. In the tradition of good Chinese omens, a small red mouth flowered in her pale round face. The Chinese favored brides with small mouths, believing that women with big mouths were harbingers of ill fortune. A woman with a large mouth spiritually swallowed her husband and caused his early death.
The new bride’s mouth was reassuring, but the thing that made Mui Tsai’s father’s heart swell with pride was his bride’s bound feet. They were smaller than her eight-year-old stepdaughter’s feet, for Mui Tsai’s mother had been too softhearted to bind her daughter’s feet. The new wife sat in her bedroom, quite helpless to heed the calls of ordinary housework. Mui Tsai ended every long, arduous day with the task of taking off her stepmother’s restraining bandages and bathing her feet in warm, scented water. So many years later, Mui Tsai’s elongated shadow shuddered on my kitchen wall with the memory of her stepmother’s bare feet—a sight wisely denied to all men and especially husbands, for the stark deformity without the dainty little shoes was unbearable. Twisted, bruised, and reeking of decaying flesh, they had the power to repel the most ardent suitor. Every day some dead skin and ingrown nail had to be clipped away before the ugly things were rebandaged with rose petals.
For three years Mui Tsai fetched, cleaned, and cooked for her new mother. After her thirteenth birthday her stepmother’s gaze turned from ill-concealed dislike to one of calculation. Mui Tsai’s sister had just turned eight and could now take over her duties. If the elder girl remained in the household, there would be the worry of a marriage. Marriages meant dowries. One morning while Mui Tsai’s father was at work, her stepmother made the young girl dress in her best and sit in the front room. She sent word to the market, and a passing merchant came to the house. A document, legal and binding, was drawn up on thin red paper. From the moment her stepmother’s soft white hands signed the paper, Mui Tsai became the exclusive property of the merchant. For the rest of her life she would have no will of her own.
The merchant with the hard eyes and long yellow fingernails paid for her, and she was taken away with nothing but the clothes on her back. He caged her. In the same room there were other cages with other crouched, frightened children. For weeks she lived like that, a sullen maid passing bowls of food and receiving containers of waste through the same hole in the cage. In that dark room, together with girls from other villages, they cried
By the time I was eight months pregnant, I was so uncomfortable that I would lumber out of bed as quietly as possible and lie on the hard coolness of the bench in the kitchen. Through the window the inky blackness of the Malayan night would reach in and caress me, its touch heavy and moist. Sometimes my husband would come in to peer worriedly in the gloom and inquire after me. And on those wretched nights I would swallow my nasty spurt of irritation and remind myself that he was a good man.
At least I did not have little Mui Tsai’s terrible sorrows. She was also pregnant. Her stomach bulged through the thin high-necked blouse she wore to denote her status as a “little sister.” She tied her loose black trousers underneath the smooth bulge. In the shadows cast by the oil lamp, little by little I heard her story. It had its sad beginning in a little village in China when a strange fever brought death to her mother. Mui Tsai was eight years old. In less than a month, a new silk-clad mother came to live with them. In the tradition of good Chinese omens, a small red mouth flowered in her pale round face. The Chinese favored brides with small mouths, believing that women with big mouths were harbingers of ill fortune. A woman with a large mouth spiritually swallowed her husband and caused his early death.
The new bride’s mouth was reassuring, but the thing that made Mui Tsai’s father’s heart swell with pride was his bride’s bound feet. They were smaller than her eight-year-old stepdaughter’s feet, for Mui Tsai’s mother had been too softhearted to bind her daughter’s feet. The new wife sat in her bedroom, quite helpless to heed the calls of ordinary housework. Mui Tsai ended every long, arduous day with the task of taking off her stepmother’s restraining bandages and bathing her feet in warm, scented water. So many years later, Mui Tsai’s elongated shadow shuddered on my kitchen wall with the memory of her stepmother’s bare feet—a sight wisely denied to all men and especially husbands, for the stark deformity without the dainty little shoes was unbearable. Twisted, bruised, and reeking of decaying flesh, they had the power to repel the most ardent suitor. Every day some dead skin and ingrown nail had to be clipped away before the ugly things were rebandaged with rose petals.
For three years Mui Tsai fetched, cleaned, and cooked for her new mother. After her thirteenth birthday her stepmother’s gaze turned from ill-concealed dislike to one of calculation. Mui Tsai’s sister had just turned eight and could now take over her duties. If the elder girl remained in the household, there would be the worry of a marriage. Marriages meant dowries. One morning while Mui Tsai’s father was at work, her stepmother made the young girl dress in her best and sit in the front room. She sent word to the market, and a passing merchant came to the house. A document, legal and binding, was drawn up on thin red paper. From the moment her stepmother’s soft white hands signed the paper, Mui Tsai became the exclusive property of the merchant. For the rest of her life she would have no will of her own.
The merchant with the hard eyes and long yellow fingernails paid for her, and she was taken away with nothing but the clothes on her back. He caged her. In the same room there were other cages with other crouched, frightened children. For weeks she lived like that, a sullen maid passing bowls of food and receiving containers of waste through the same hole in the cage. In that dark room, together with girls from other villages, they cried
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