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        A   F l o w e r   i n   t h e   R a i n y   N i g h t

                           HUANG CH'UN-MING

                      Translated by EARL WIEMAN


1.   The Fish Are Schooling
---------------------------

When the sea water soaks up the sun's first warmth  of  the  year  and
brews  out  that  special  intoxicating salty odor which permeates the
fishing ports and dances in the nostrils with the rhythm of the sea --
this is the time,  in April and May,  when the bonito begin to  school
and  come swimming in on the warm currents.   In March,  small fishing
trawlers from al over the island gather in the barbor at  Nan-fang-ao,
getting  ready  to  haul  in the riches that come jumping on the tide.
The boats pack both the old port and the new port so tightly that  not
a  crack  is  left  between  them;  and the population of the village,
normally only four or five thousand,  swells to over twenty  thousand.
Most of the increase is seamen -- those who wear billed hats and speak
in  loud voices,  those are all seamen.   Venders of all sorts come to
the harbor also at this time,  and there  are  prostitutes,  and  red-
headed,  golden flies -- all come with the arrival of the fish.   This
is the busiest time of the year for the fishing  village,  a  time  of
madness.

     From  the  day the news came that the first fleet of trawlers had
let down their nets into the sea and begun bringing up the fat bonito,
the hum of activity in the harbor quickened until there was no  longer
any  distinction  between  day  and  night.    The lights of the boats
bringing back the news were lit at dusk while the vessels  were  still
over  ten  kilometers  from the harbor entrance,  and by the time they
docked the huge outlines of the mountains had already  been  swallowed
up  in  the  darkness.    The  only  illumination  left on the sea was
provided by the rolling  lights  of  fishing  boats  bunched  together
outside Stone Toad Reef,  waiting to navigate the shoal one by one and
slip into the trench that they called "the threshold".   After passing
through "the threshold" the lights formed into a single orderly column
as  the  boats  sailed  into the inner harbor and continued toward the
docks.   The clamor aboard the vessels conveyed the news that the fish
were schooling,  and even before they docked the villagers were struck
as if by the clap of a bell.   From that instant they spread the  news
throughout  the village,  either by word or mouth or by the excitement
in their expressions and their actions: "The fish are schooling!"

     The poor children of the village took straw baskets and ran  with
their younger brothers and sisters to the fish market to wait for some
fish  to  steal.    This was a regular habit of theirs: as soon as the
boats docked and the fish were lifted ashore basket  by  basket,  they
would bend down into the baskets right there in front of everybody and
snatch some of the fish.   To their way of thinking this was a kind of
barter;  when they bent down to get the fish they would  expose  their
backsides to the fishermen,  who would beat and revile them.  At first
the children had thought of it this way: we take their fish,  and they
beat us and bawl us out of it,  so aren't we even?  The fishermen felt
the same way: we beat them and curse them,  so let  them  have  a  few
fish.    "Your mother's!   Little bandits!"  But later on neither side
had to justify the fish thievery that way anymore;  the trading of the
scoldings  and  beatings  for the fish had long since become a kind of
custom in that village whenever the fish were brought in.

     The brothels  that  had  been  thrown  together  halfway  up  the
hillside grew tense as the sound of the boats' engines drew near.  Ah-
niang [The madam in the house of prostitution.] stood outside the door
watching the fishing boats,  which had already entered the harbor, and
her heart began to thump with the clanging of the  engines.    Turning
her head she yelled inside,  "All right, girls, here comes the money!"
The prostitutes came out to look as Ah-niang pointed at the lights  of
the boats below.   "Look!   The bonito are schooling!  They're earlier
than they were last year; it's only the first of the month."  Then she
called inside again: "Ah-hsueh,  you'd better hurry up and eat;  in  a
little while you won't even have the time to sit up!"


2.   A Flower in the Rainy Night
--------------------------------

     Every  who  saw  her  could  tell  that  she  must have been very
beautiful once.  Even now, despite the wear of time, she still exerted
a kind of beguiling attraction for men,  though perhaps it was only an
illusory remnant of her past beauty.   No matter how hard she tried to
make herself up to look  like  an  ordinary  woman,  she  could  never
conceal  the self-contempt that she wanted so much to hide.   Fourteen
years had passed since the time when, at the age of fourteen,  she had
stood  on  a  stool  inside  the  door  of that whorehouse in Chung-li
calling out, "Hey,  soldier!"  All those years of lying in bed letting
men  have their fun with her had given her a duck walk.   And her eyes
had spent so much time staring at her little ceiling that  they  would
sometimes of themselves focus at that familiar distance,  and then the
sound of the quick panting of those animals would return to  her  ears
and drive her almost to distraction.   All this,  and the feeling that
most people had about women of her profession,  were walls  that  kept
her rigidly separated from the rest of society.

     Although  she  was  used to taking off her only dress in front of
strange men in her little room,  she was frightened of going  out  and
never did so alone unless she had to.   This time,  though, she had to
go out to visit her family home.   True,  she could never forgive  her
foster father for selling her, but in her family the first anniversary
of the death of a parent was a very important occasion.   Ah-niang had
been unwilling at first to let her take a  couple  of  days  off  when
business was so good -- especially since most of her customers were so
pleased  with  her  that  they would ask for her by name whenever they
came looking for a woman.   Because of this the days she took off were
a  loss  for  both Ah-niang and herself.   But what else cuold she do?
Whenever this sort of thing had come up she  could  only  promise  Ah-
niang  that  she  would come back as soon as possible.   "Come back as
soon as you can," urged Ah-niang over and over as  she  was  about  to
leave,  "and  bring  some more girls to help out if you can find any."
As she left the harbor she bought a few fresh bonito  and  hurried  to
Su-ao to catch the 12:05 train back to Jui-fang and Chiu-fen-tzu.

     Since  Su-ao  was  the initial station there were plenty of empty
seats on the train,  and she quickly found one which suited her.   The
time remaining now belonged to the train and she had two full hours to
relax;  she  had not had a good rest since that day when the fishermen
had begun pulling up the bonito.  Yes,  this was much better than that
house on the hillside.   She closed her eyes; whether she slept or not
did not matter, so long as she could avoid those cold stares that made
her so uncomfortable all over.   leaning her head against  the  window
frame  she  crossed  her  arms over her chest,  stretched her legs out
luxuriously,  and crossed her ankles;  her whole  body  seemed  to  be
balanced  on a marvelous fulcrum,  swaying comfortably with the gentle
regularity of the coach as it sped on its way.   She dozed;  but every
time  she  remembered  the  string  of bonito under her seat she would
awake with a start and lean forward to take a look at it.  The pool of
blood oozing from the mouths of the fish  was  larger  each  time  she
looked,  and  her  concern  for  public  cleanliness forced upon her a
feeling of contrite anxiety.   But she felt better when she  saw  that
the people around her were showing no concern;  and at any rate,  what
could she do about it?

     The train was packed with passengers by the time  it  had  passed
through Lo-t'ung and Yi-lan,  and as Pai-mei dozed the seat beside her
was taken by a middle-aged man.  When she awoke he smiled and politely
offered her a cigarette; and for a moment,  unable to find words,  she
stared at him dumbly.   "You don't remember me,  of course, but I know
you!" said the man,  pushing the cigarette closer.   "How I've  missed
you!   Here, try a stick of this."  She was enraged by this display of
vulgarity.  She had heard plenty of words like that used with a double
meaning -- a "stick" of this, a "rod" of that,  a "strip" of something
else  --  but only when she was working,  and then she was prepared to
humor her customers.   Under those circumstances she did not mind such
insinuations, no matter how undisguised, how abusive, how obscene they
were.    But why couldn't these people treat her like anyone else when
she was outside?   She looked at the  fat,  greasy  face  of  the  man
sitting  next  to  her and quickly turned away,  paying him no further
attention.  The man put the cigarette between his own lips and lit it;
he seemed to be satisfied with himself,  as though he had deliberately
wanted  to  provoke her anger.   She laughed;  never had she felt such
loneliness as this man's abuse had aroused.   But no matter how loudly
she  screamed for help,  or how much she called out her own name,  not
even herself could hear her pleas.  If she were an ordinary woman, she
thought after her moment of anxiety had passed,  she would  have  been
perfectly justified in slapping the face of that shameless man.   Then
again,  if she were an ordinary woman he wouldn't have  taken  such  a
liberty with her.  A coldness spread over her, and a sense of solitude
made  her feel that the world she had seen and experienced was no more
than a minute  cage,  a  prison  behind  whose  bars  she  was  nearly
suffocating.   Then suddenly a familiar,  friendly face appeared among
the passengers getting on  at  another  station;  nothing  could  have
excited her more.

     "Ying-ying!"

     She stood up;  at the sound of her shrill, excited voice, strange
faces turned in unison and stared at her.

     A mother in the crowd carefully holding her baby  turned  in  the
direction of the voice and called out involuntarily:

     "Sister Mei!"

     The  child  which  had been sleeping so soundly in her arms awoke
with a start and she patted him soothingly as she squeezed through the
crowd.  When they were finally face to face, they were too moved for a
moment to speak;  they could only find no words to say.   Then Pai-mei
saw Ying-ying's eyes turn to the man in the seat beside her.

     "I'm  going  back  to Chiu-fen-tzu alone," she quickly explained.
"When did you have the baby?  Why didn't you even let me know you were
getting married?"

     Ying-ying answered apologetically,  feeling  that  she  had  been
reprimanded.    "I  got married last year in T'ai-tung.   You were the
only one I meant to tell about it; but I heard you were in P'ing-tung,
and later on somebody said you were in T'ao-yuan,  so how could I have
found  you?"   Her eyes reddened.   "So I was all alone at my wedding.
It sure would have been a lonely wedding, if not for some of Mr.  Lu's
friends."

     A  big,  kind-faced man in his fifties,  who had been standing to
the rear, stepped up beside Ying-ying.  Awkwardly he put his right arm
around the troubled girl to comfort her,  and Pai-mei could  see  from
his  gentle  smile  that  Ying-ying's  past life was truly behind her.
Pai-mei was moved by this as no one else could have been.

     "This is  my  husband,  Mr.  Lu,"  said  Ying-ying  as  her  eyes
brightened.  "And this is Sister Mei!"

     The two nodded to each other.

     "He was a major!"  Ying-ying continued.   "He knows all about me,
and I talk to him about you all the time.  He always said he'd like to
meet you."  She turned to the major.  "See?  Finally we've found her!"

     "Yes  ...  yes."    The  major,  embarrassed  by  his  own  kind-
heartedness, was for a moment lost for words.

     And Pai-mei,  affected by some indescribable emotion, lowered her
eyes bashfully.



     Four years before,  Pai-mei and Ying-ying had worked in a brothel
on  T'ao-yuan Street in T'ao-yuan.   At that time Ying-ying was also a
little girl of just fourteen, and rather frail.  On the evening of the
second day she worked there a rough,  harelipped fellow,  half  drunk,
had  taken  a fancy to her as soon as he stepped in the door.   He had
lowered his head and brought his face right up against hers, while she
cringed back against the plywood walls of the corridor with such force
that the panels squeaked out in protest.   She had  instinctively  put
out her had to shove him away,  but the sight of that fearsome face so
close to her own had frightened her into drawing the  hand  back;  she
had pressed back against the wall even harder as her knees began to go
weak.

     "What!  You don't like my looks?  You're just lucky I like yours,
you stinking bitch!"

     Ying-ying hadn't heard a word of what he said; she was aware only
of  the forceful motions of his huge,  misshapen mouth.   A wide split
from his upper lip to the base of his nose revealed  four  big  yellow
buckteeth  on  the  tips  of  which  saliva  continually collected and
sprayed out every time he spoke.   Ying-ying  had  rolled  her  cheeks
against  her  shoulders  to  rub the spit off and then had dodged away
from the man and thrown herself into one of the little rooms,  locking
herself in and crying in fright.  The harelipped man, far from wanting
to  give  up,  had  chased  after her angrily and banged loudly on the
door.

     "Damn you!" he had cursed.   "I'll  screw  your  little  cunt  to
death!"

     The bagasse-board door had nearly given way,  while inside, Ying-
ying had been too scared even to cry anymore.  At that moment, Pai-mei
had gone over and pulled at the incensed man.

     "Sir,  you've made a mistake," she had said.   "That's our errand
girl.  She can get cigarettes for you, if you want some."

     "I don't want to smoke -- I want to have some fun with her."

     "If  you want her,  you'll have to wait a few years," Pai-mei had
said rather light-heartedly.

     "I don't want to wait, I want it now!"

     "You want it now?   Okay then,  come with me," Pai-mei  had  said
seductively,  guiding his hand to her breasts.   The man had responded
with laughter.

     "Mother's!  That's real boobs!"

     With that the harelipped drunkard had tamely allowed  Pai-mei  to
lead him away into one of the little rooms.

     During  the  transaction  of that piece of business in her little
cubicle Pai-mei had heard fainly, along with the quick pantnig of that
bull animal,  the sound of a whipping and the helpless moans of  Ying-
ying coming from a back room.

     The  man  had left nearly an hour later,  very satisfied.   As he
walked away he had looked back at the  dirty  red-lacquered  signboard
several times,  nodding.   Pai-mei's hair, which had been set just the
day before,  was as disheveled as a bird's nest  that  had  been  torn
apart  by  a  naughty  child.    She had squatted by the water jar and
brushed her teeth furiously time  after  time;  after  ten  or  twelve
minutes  of  this several of the girls who had been standing out front
to attract customers gathered around her.

     "Pai-mei, you want to brush your teeth right out of your mouth?"

     "That  harelipped  guy  --  he  kissed  me!"  she  had   answered
disgustedly, brigning gales of laughter from the other girls.

     After that, although Ying-ying had gotten a good beating, she was
always  grateful  to  Pai-mei  for  saving her from the terror of that
harelipped man.   One time Ying-ying had tearfully told the older girl
all  about  her  past,  and  Pai-mei  had  felt  that  it was not very
different from her own;  so they had taken secret vows of  sisterhood,
and  afterwards  Ying-ying  had  always called her "Sister Mei."  From
then on they had been very close and would take every chance they  got
to  talk  to  each  other;  in their endless converstaions there would
appear at times a ray of hope,  which they would try  ecstatically  to
grasp.    One  day  as  they were chasing an ephemeral ray of hope two
customers had come in together and, as luck would have it, had taken a
liking to the two girls.   They had taken the men to  rooms  separated
only  by  a  layer  of bagasse-board and,  as their business was being
transacted,  they had continued their conversation  through  the  thin
wall.

     "Sister  Mei,"  Ying-ying  had  asked,  "do  you know how to make
dresses?"

     "I never had a chance to learn when I was  the  right  age,"  had
come the reply from the next room.

     "Then  can  you  raise  chickens and ducks?"  Ying-ying had asked
excitedly.  "I can ..."

     "I suppose so; that's easy."

     As Ying-ying was about to continue,  the crisp sound of  a  solid
slap had come from the next room, followed by an angry voice:

     "If  you're going to take my money,  pay attention to what you're
doing!"

     Ying-ying had listened for more sounds from the next room.

     "Sorry, sorry.  Okay,  I'll pay attention," Pai-mei answered in a
brisk voice.

     Ying-ying  had  then  heard the man's frenzied panting along with
Pai-mei's words of praise:

     "Oh ...  You're great ...  You're really great!"  The words  were
followed by the forced sound of debauched laughter.

     Ying-ying  had  wondered  how Sister Mei could pay attention to a
man who had hit her.  She wanted to cry, but then her thought had been
corced back to the man weighing heavily on top of her.

     "You want to get hit too?"  he  had  asked.    "I  wouldn't  take
merchandise  like  you again even if you paid me!"  As he spoke he had
worked furiously,  though,  as though determined to  get  his  money's
worth out of her.

     As  they were washing up after the customers had left,  Ying-ying
had seen the red imprint of a hand on Pai-mei's left cheek.

     "Sister Mei," she had cried out.  "It's all my fault ..."

     "It's nothing," Pai-mei had laughed.   "I've run  into  customers
lots worse than that."

     "I admire you ... if it was me, I couldn't take it."

     Pai-mei had laughed again.   "Couldn't take it?   Then what would
you do?  If I felt that way,  I would have thrown eight years away for
nothing.   Just wait eight more years until you're as old as I am, and
you'll be just as ...   Oh!   No,  in eight more years you'll be  back
home raising ducks and chickens.   And that guava grove at the foot of
the hills you talked about will  be  growing  fruit  just  as  always,
waiting for you to go and pick it."

     "That  isn't  ours,  and  that  old man probably isn't around any
more."

     "Then his son will be just as kind-hearted  as  he  was,  and  he
won't call you a thief if you pick a few for yourself."

     A  look  of  childlike radiance had appeared on Ying-ying's face,
but in a moment it had faded as she said sadly, "I know, in eight more
years I'll be just the same as now.  You've said that fate's a tyrant,
and it's no use for women like us to try to change it."

     "No ..."  Pai-mei  had  not  been  able  to  find  any  words  of
consolation  to say to Ying-ying,  and as she was trying to think of a
way to deny what she had said once,  her thoughts had been interrupted
by the stern sound of the madam's voice calling from outside, "What're
you two washing that takes so long?  Have you drowned yourselves?"

     With that they had put on the rest of their clothes, straightened
their hair a bit, and gone to stand in the doorway again and make eyes
at the men passing by.

     "Come in ... My husband's not at home!"

     Ying-ying  had been,  for a fact,  immature and unable to control
her feelings;  she had hid behind the door and cried in pity for  Pai-
mei,  and  the  older  girl  had scolded her gently when she found her
there, calling her a "fool".

     Apparently Ying-ying had learned a lot  from  Pai-mei,  primarily
because  she  had  acquired from her a philosophy which allowed her to
adapt to that kind of life.   If she had not,  wouldnot she have  been
making an enemy of herself, just as Pai-mei had said?

     One day Ying-ying,  bursting with happiness, had told Pai-mei her
secret.

     "Sister Mei, I'm in love."

     She had been somewhat surprised at Pai-mei's  reaction;  she  had
expected  a  look  of  happiness  and  was  met,   instead,   by  cold
indifference.

     "He fell in love with me first!"  she  continued.    "He's  crazy
about me!"

     Ying-ying was a very sentimental girl,  and she had wanted to cry
when she began to feel the awesomeness of what was happening  to  her.
But the tears would not come.

     "Is it that soldier who's been coming to see you so much lately?"
Pai-mei had asked coldly.

     Ying-ying  had  nodded,  her  eyes staring pleadingly at Pai-mei.
The older girl had been touched by the longing in her eyes.

     "Ah-ying," she had said softly,  "you've got to  trust  me.    If
things can be arranged, I'll do everything I can to help you."

     All  that  night  they  had talked;  there was no time for sleep.
Pai-mei had analyzed the situation  for  her,  and  recounted  unhappy
tales of similar love affairs from her own past.  When it was all over
they had cried bitterly in each other's arms and Pai-mei had made this
conclusion: "in our situation, don't get emotionally involved whatever
you do."

     Although  Ying-ying  seemed  convinced,  Pai-mei  had  still been
uneasy about her.   "People in our  profession  have  to  keep  moving
around," she had continued deliberately.   "Our prices will go down if
we stay in one place for too long, and pretty soon nobody will want us
even if we go for twenty dollars;  if you want to keep your  price  at
thirty,  then  you  have to keep moving to different places.   Men are
awful the way they want new girls all the time."

     "You want to leave?" Ying-ying had asked anxiously.

     "With you."

     "Me?  How can I leave?"

     "Didn't you say you still owe Ah-niang three thousand dollars?"

     Ying-ying nodded.

     "I'll lend it to you and you can pay me back  whenever  you  have
it."

     They  had  left T'ao-yuan not long after that and kept moving all
around the island plying their profession.   At  first  Ying-ying  had
sorrowed  at  times because of the wound left by that first love,  and
when that happened Pai-mei would do her best to comfort the girl.

     "Ah-ying, I've never heard you sing before and you've never heard
me either.   There's a song that I really like," she had said  as  she
began to sing:

          A flower in the rainy night,
          A flower in the rainy night,
          Blown to the ground by the storm.
          No one to see, no one to care,
          It sorrows night and day;
          A fallen, wilted flower, never to rise again.
          A flower in the rainy night.

     "I've heard that," Ying-ying had said.

     "What do you think about it?"

     "It's a sad song, and when you sing it it's even sadder."

     "Ah-ying,  my  tears dried up years ago,  and I know how it hurts
not to be able to cry when you want to.  You still have a lot of tears
left; but when you can't cry when you feel like crying, then you might
as well sing that song.  It'll make you feel a lot better."

     Ying-ying couldn't understand what she meant.

     "What's a flower in the rainy night?"

     "You."

     "Me?" the girl had asked, pointing uncertainly at herself.

     "Me too."

     Ying-ying had felt better then;  if she could be like Sister Mei,
she wouldn't mind.

     "But what does it mean?"

     "The situation we're in right now is very bleak,  isn't it?  It's
like a rainy night,  and women like us are like  weak  flowers;  we've
been  beaten  and  separated  from the branch by the storm,  and we've
fallen to the ground, right?"

     YIng-ying had nodded,  her tears falling;  from that time she had
begun to reconcile herself to her tragic fate.

     The  two  girls were together for over two years;  then Ying-ying
had been tricked away by her foster father and  sold  someplace  else.
Separated, they had lost contact with one another.


3.   Lu Yen
-----------

     Mr.  Lu  and  Ying-ying  found  seats  to  the rear of the coach,
leaving the baby in Pai-mei's arms.  The child, only three months old,
wasn't able to recognize people yet;  so long as it got  enough  sleep
and  enough  food  and  so  long as its diaper was dry,  it would like
contentedly and just look around with its round, luminous eyes.   Pai-
mei  was captivated by the way the little eyes stared at her,  and she
teased the infant with baby sounds, causing it to gurgle with delight.
This was a new experience for her.   It wouldn't do to keep making the
baby noises,  she thought;  if she didn't try something else, the baby
would get tired of it.   But how could she keep it amused?   She began
to feel anxious and apologetic.   By this time the train had just left
the T'ou-ch'eng station and was racing along the coast,  and the sight
of the water gave her an idea; she held the baby upright and faced him
toward the window.  Pointing toward the sea seh began chanting.

     "Look!  Look!  That's the sea!
     "Sea water's salty!  And there's lots of fish in it.
     "Some of them are as big as a train.
     "And some are as small as your little thumb.
     "Heng-ya, heng-ya!  Look!
     "There's a boat!
     "The seamen on the boat catch fish.
     "They catch fish for our Lu Yen.
     "Lu Yen says, `I don't want blue fish.'
     "So the fishermen go catch yellow ones.
     "Lu Yen says, `I don't want yellow fish.'
     "So the fishermen go catch green ones.
     "Lu Yen says, `You dumbbells, I want spotted ones' ..."

     She  sang  it  out  like  a song as the child watched the scenery
flashing by outside the window,  struggling up and  down  happily  and
softly  calling  out,  "Yaa,  yaa."  Pai-mei figured that he was happy
because of her singing and she kept it up even more  enthusiastically.
She forgot everything about her, and she forgot that the baby couldn't
understand  her  as  she continued her song,  making it up as she went
along.

     "The seaman's face turns red and he says  to  Lu  Yen,  `I  can't
catch a spotted fish.'
     "Lu  Yen says,  `Give me the boat and I'll catch some big spotted
ones.'
     "Heng-yu ... Heng-yu ...
     "Lu Yen catches a whole load of spotted fish.
     "Lu Yen makes the fishermen kowtow one by one.
     "And he gives every one of them a good spanking.
     "The fishermen yell, `Ouch!  Ouch!'
     "Lu Yen says,  `Dumbbells,  will you dare  bully  my  auntie  any
more?'
     "We won't dare, we won't dare,' they answer.
     "Heng-ah ... heng-ah ..."

     The  baby  liked  the  rhythm  of  her  chanting  so much that he
struggled to jump up and down.   As the train was  about  to  enter  a
tunnel Ying-ying came up to Pai-mei's seat.

     "Have you wet auntie?" she asked, laughing.

     Pai-mei turned with words of praise for the baby:

     "Ah-ying,  look at your Lu Yen.   What a smart baby!  He seems to
understand everything I say!"

     "They say a new mother brags for three years.   Are you going  to
brag  for  three  years when you're only the baby's auntie?" Ying-ying
smiled.  "We're getting off at the next station."

     After Pai-mei had given Lu yen back to his mother,  she took  out
two fifty dollars bills and stuffed them inside his clothing.

     "There  isn't any red paper for me to wrap this up on the train,"
she said apologetically,  "but I want to give this to  Lu  Yen  for  a
token; I hope it'll bring him a little brother."

     Ying-ying didn't want to take it,  and they pushed the bills back
and forth for a while.   Then Ying-ying got off  the  train  with  her
husband  and  baby,  and when the train started up again Pai-mei stuck
her head out of the window and called to them,  throwing  toward  them
the lucky money she wanted to give to the baby.

     Ying-ying raised her arm as the train pulled away and kept waving
it  in  excitement,  growing  smaller  and  smaller  ass  the distance
increased.   When Pai-mei couldn't see the girl any more she drew  her
head back,  noting contendedly that at last Ying-ying's having found a
husband,  and unconsciously she raised her arm  and  with  her  sleeve
wiped  away  the tears in her eyes.   In her happiness she could still
hear Ying-ying telling of her good fortune: "Major Lu's a  smart  man;
he said that if our baby was a boy we'd name him Lu Yen, and if it was
a girl we'd name her Lu Yuan.  `Yen' means 'continue' and it expresses
a  hope  that  the Lu family line will be continued.   And if it was a
girl the `Yuan' would mean `affinity'  and  would  remind  us  of  the
affinity  between him,  who came all the way from the northern part of
the mainland, and me.  Since Lu Yen was born he's stopped drinking and
smoking;  they said that since he never liked to talk he used to  just
smoke and drink all day long up there in the mountains at T'ai-tung."

     Unconsciously  she  began  comparing herself with Ying-ying and a
sense of  emptiness  closed  it  on  her,  forcing  her  to  turn  and
concentrate  her  gaze on the sky outside the window.   There had been
men who had proposed to her,  and her foster mother had even engaged a
go-between to arrange a match for her;  but if the suitors weren't ox-
cart drivers they were tinkers.   Besides,  all of them were too  old.
Her  foster  mother  had  talked  until  she  was out of breath trying
unsuccessfuly to get Pai-mei  to  accept  one  of  them;  finally,  in
exasperation,  she said, "Take a good look at yourself!  What are you,
anyway?   You ought to be gald that somebody wants you.    What  right
have you got to turn anybody down?"

     "You're not the one trying to get married, so what're you in such
a hurry about?"

     "A  woman  ought  to  have  a  husband!    I  only  wish you were
illiterate."

     "I know  what  you're  after!"  Pai-mei  had  retorted,  somewhat
unreasonably.

     "What do you mean?  What do you mean by that?"

     Pai-mei,  instead of replying, had burst into tears as her foster
mother began scolding her angrily.

     "You rotten baggage,  you don't know when  somebody's  trying  to
help you.  How dare you talk that way!"

     Finally  Pai-mei had poured out everything that had been building
up inside her for so long.

     "Yes,  I'm rotten baggage -- rotten baggage  that  you  sold  off
fourteen  years  ago.    Think  about it -- what kind of life were the
eight of you living then?  And how are you living now?  Now you have a
house to live in.   Yu-ch'eng's graduated from college and has  gotten
married.   Yu-fu's going to senior high school.  Ah-Hui's married.  Do
you eat any worse, or wear any worse clothes than anybody else?  Where
would you be today without this `rotten baggage?'"    The  words  were
accompanied by tears, and the foster mother's anger had dissipated.

     "There now, there now," she had said.  "We're just thinking about
what's best for you."

     "And look at my own family," Pai-mei had continued,  still unable
to restrain her tears.  "They're still as poor as ever.   And yet what
do  you  take me for?   Rotten baggage!   If it wasn't for this rotten
baggage would Yu-ch'eng be where he is now?   His family despises  me.
They avoided me.  They won't even let me get near their children.  Yu-
fu and Ah-hui aren't any different -- they consider me a blot on their
reputation.  What a waste!  How I've wasted myself!"

     "There, there, Ah-mei, you've always been a good girl.  Don't say
any more; mother understands."

     "No!   Today I'm going to talk until I'm finished.  Have you ever
heard so much as a single word of complaint  from  me  before?    Your
trying  to  get  me  married  showed  that  you  still  have  a little
conscience left ...   It's you  conscience  that's  forcing  you  into
trying  to  marry me off.   But I don't need anybody to worry about me
now; I have my own plans."

     The foster mother had been so stung by these truths that she  had
burst into tears.

     "Ah-mei,  mother knows all that,  but I don't know how to make it
up to you.   I know we've been wrong,  but I don't know where we  went
wrong  or  when  we  started  to go so wrong.   Pai-mei,  forgive your
mother!"

     The soft-hearted girl had embraced her foster mother  and  begged
forgiveness in her turn for the words she had just spoken.

     But except for her foster mother there was not a single person in
the  whole Ch'en family that Pai-mei could forgive.   Suddenly she was
struck by the thought that she needed a child,  a child like  Lu  Yen.
Only a child of her own would give her something in this world to call
hers.  Only a child of her own would give her someone to pin her hopes
on.

     "I'm sure I can be a good mother," she thought.

     "But how are you going to get married?"

     "No, I won't get married.  I'm already twenty-eight; and being in
this  business,  anybody  who wanted me would either be a dullard or a
bum."

     "Then who will the child's father be?"

     "Good men come to the brothels too."

     "Will you tell him you want to have his baby?

     "No.   I'll find out what he looks like,  what his  voice  sounds
like, and what kind of person he is, that's all."

     "Then what will you do when the child grows up and asks about his
father?"

     "I'll say,  `Your father's dead.  He was a great man and he hoped
that his son would be like him;  although he's dead,  he still expects
you to be a good son.'"

     "What about your background?"

     "Oh!    I  don't  have  to let my child know everything about me.
I'll move far, far away, to a completely new place."

     "Are you sure you can do it?"

     "Starting from now, I'll do my best."

     "Do you really need a child so much?"

     "That's the only thing I want to keep living for."

     "Is your mind made up?"

     "My mind's made up!"  She couldn't sit  still  any  more  so  she
stood  up;  but  she  didn't  want to go anywhere so she sat back down
again -- and she sat with a deportment new to her, purposeful yet full
of gentleness.   Ying-ying's voice came back to her: "The `Yen' in  Lu
Yen's  name  expresses  hope."  She wanted to the rest of it,  but the
voice disappeared.   Lulled by the clickety-clack,  clickety-clack  of
the  train's  whells  racing  so  rhythmically,  so  monotonously,  so
unchangingly over the rails her emotions faded into nothingness.


4.   Buried
-----------

     The fishing port that she  had  left  for  only  three  days  was
already  bustling  at  the  peak  of  its activity.   The wild flowers
[A euphemism for prostitutes.] on the hillside had no time to  put  on
their outer garments now, and even slipping into a blouse was a luxury
that they could not enjoy for very long.  The fishermen came one after
another,  not  having  time  enough  to even to pick out a girl with a
figure to suit their fancy.   The scent  of  fish  clinging  to  their
bodies  was even heavier than that on the bonito which they pulled out
of the water.

     "Dammit," joked a middle-aged man as he  buckled  his  belt,  "in
three  days'  time  bonito  have  dropped  from  NT$8.60 a kilogram to
NT$1.90.  But you women still charge the same NT$30!"

     At both ends of that row of temporary  houses  people  were  busy
putting up others, and the motorized carts and trucks that transported
the fish were kept busy shuttling back and forth along the road above.
The  drivers  never  forgot  to  blow  their  horns wildly and whistle
whenever they passed by the brothels,  and some of  them  even  yelled
out.    If  the  prostitutes had time they would not let those men get
away easily;  they would come out and yell,  "Come on down!    If  you
don't  we're going to dump a bucket of water on your feet!"  Sometimes
they actually would throw water up  at  them;  the  water  never  came
anywhere  near  the  road,  but  both  the drivers and the girls below
enjoyed the game.

     That morning the craving of the young fisherman Ah-jung had  been
aroused  the  relentless sun;  normally morning was the only time when
the temporary brothels were not very busy.

     The boat that he worked on had taken a huge amount of bonito  the
night  before  and,  riding  too deep in the water when it returned to
port,  it had scraped its bottom coming through the trench  that  they
called  "the  threshold".    This  was a misfortune in which the young
fisherman could rejoice;  for the past several days he  had  been  too
busy  to sleep or even to take a rest,  so he really could not take it
any more.   The chance for a couple of days' rest while the  hull  was
being  repaired  was  a  rare opportunity during that time of frenetic
activity.   The first thoughts that struck his mind that  morning  had
been  about  girls.   Although this was no cause for embarassment,  he
could feel a vague sensation of restlessness growing within his  body.
He remembered how every time they set out to sea,  as the bow of their
boat headed for the mouth of the barbor, the voices of the women would
drift down from the hillside and  the  boat,  which  would  have  been
charged with anticipation for that moment,  would erupt in a frensy of
yelling and carrying-on.   After that the  crew's  talk  would  be  of
nothing but women until they reached the seas around the Bonin Islands
and  the  captain's  first  order  to  prepare  to cast nets drove all
thoughts of women from their minds.   From the way they lit into their
work  then  it  would seem that such a thing as women never existed on
this earth.   But the instant the boat turned toward port again with a
full  load  after  a  period of intense activity,  the talk would turn
natuarally, methodically, back to women again.  That was the time when
the older fishermen,  very openly,  would pick  out  a  few  fat  male
bonito,  cut  open  their bellies,  and take out the white organs that
only the male fish have;  then they would open their mouths  and  gulp
those  bloody  organs  down.    There  was not a single fisherman that
didn't know this was the best aphrodisiac available.

     When one of them saw K'un-cheng down a pair of the organs he  had
joked,  "I guess K'un-cheng Sao's [Sao literally is an older brother's
wife.  K'un-cheng Sai is therefore a polite form of referring to K'un-
cheng's wife.] going to have a rough time of it tonight!"

     "No,  no ...   I just want those birds on the hillside to sing an
even sweeter song."

     The  rest  of them had laughed at that;  but they,  too,  all ate
those organs.   Young Ah-jung,  however,  had stolen away alone to the
rear  of  the boat and furtively cut open several female bonito before
he finally found a male one;  then he had shut  his  eyes  and  forced
himself  to  swallow  the  organs.    While his eyes were still closed
tightly in distate his ears had told him that he had  been  surrounded
by  his  shipmates,  as  the  sound  of laughter attacked him from all
sides.  Flustered, he had jerked his eyes open to look at them as they
taunted him.

     "Ah-jung's surely a fellow who likes to  have  his  meals  alone.
What side of the road are you on anyway, Ah-jung?"

     "Ah-jung,  what've  you  got to be embarassed abuot,  taking your
tonic in secret back here all by yourself?  Mother's!   You don't even
know the difference between male and female bonito yet,  and in such a
dark place too -- I bet what you swallowed was overaies!"

     "Oh ...  How about that!   From now on we  won't  have  to  climb
halfway up the hillside looking for girls any more.  All we'll have to
to is look for Ah-jung, right here on our own boat!"

     The  taunt  had  come  from  a young man about Ah-jung's own age;
there was not a man among them who did not laugh uncontrollably at his
joke.

     Ah-jung's face had reddened and he had leaped at  his  tormentor,
and  in a moment the two of them had been upon each other.   A man was
about to separate them but another had restrained him.

     "It's all right!" he said.   "Don't stop you own dogs from biting
each other."

     "Right!  Let our own dogs bite each other.  Otherwise, they're so
full of energy they might knock a hole in the boat!"

     They  had all gathered around in a circle with the two combatants
in the center,  as though it were a show staged for  their  amusement.
When  they  saw  that  Ah-jung  was  pressed  down  on  the bottom the
onlookers had laughed and said,  "Ah-jung really did eat fish  ovaries
by  mistake just now!"  Then,  when Ah-jung had managed to get himself
on top, they said, "No, no ... Ah-jung took the right tonic!"  Some of
them,  as they spoke,  had  gone  over  and  tried  to  rearrange  the
positions  of  the  two young men so that it would look like they were
making love, and the rest of them had clapped their hands and laughed.
One fellow had run and got a basin half full of water and some  pieces
of toilet paper to put beside them; this had so disjointed the men who
had had experience buying girls that they had nearly split their sides
with laughter.   The boat had rocked a little and the captain,  in his
best voice of command, had called out, "Hey!  Carry them a little more
to the center -- the damned boat's listing!"  With that the  onlookers
had lifted up the two young men,  who were still locked in combat, and
held them.   Then Ah-jung and his foe had  burst  into  laughter  too,
whereupon  they had released their holds and Ah-jung,  who was on top,
had almost fallen to the deck.   The fight had  been  concluded  by  a
remark from K'un-ch'eng:

     "Okay,  okay; save a little energy.  What did you take your tonic
for?"

     The brothels did their best business in the evening.    When  the
boat  passed below the houses,  the fear about the bottom scraping the
reef had been dispelled in an instant: the fishermen had lifted  their
faces and looked longingly at the brothels,  but all they had seen was
fishermen going in and coming out.   Not a single prostitute had  come
out to entice them.   Halfway down the cliff,  separated from the boat
by only a strip of water, they had seen the wads of white toilet paper
that had been thrown down  the  brothels,  fluttering  in  the  gentle
coastal breeze like lilies in full bloom.

     His  courage  roused by the well-ripened craving within him,  Ah-
jung lowered his head and stepped into the brothel; he saw Pai-mei and
picked her without bothering to make a choice.   Seeing  that  certain
slightly unnatural expression on his face, she knew that this customer
would not be hard to deal with.  Very politely she led him inside.

     "What's  wrong?"  she  asked.   "You should be out to sea in such
good weather."

     "We scraped the bottom of our boat," he said lazily.

     "Scraped it?" asked Pai-mei, her eyes widening.

     "Yes, we scraped it on the reef last night."

     "Anybody hurt?"

     "Oh, no."

     Pai-mei went outside to draw some water and get some paper.

     "You're smart,  knowing to come at this time," she said when  she
returned.

     "Why?" asked Ah-jung, somewhat at a loss.

     Pai-mei  laughed  dryly;  she  was  attracted  by the young man's
ignorance.   He seems like a nice fellow,  she thought.   He  wouldn't
give anybody a hard time.

     "Mmm ... nothing."

     Ah-jung was anxious to get on with the business at hand.

     "Are you in a hurry?"

     "No; our boat won't be fixed for two days."

     "You married?"

     "Not  yet,"  he  replied.    "Why  would  I  come  here if I were
married?"

     "You think married men  don't  fool  around  outside?    I  don't
believe  it.   You men ...  you're all animals."  Pai-mei was watching
her young customer  closely.    His  muscles  were  strong  and  well-
developed,  and she imagined the pleasure of his arms holding her with
all their might until she nearly suffocated.    Taking  his  hand  she
began running it over her body;  he took it up himself and stroked her
awkwardly.   He had  heard  his  friends  say  that  prostitutes  were
incapable of being aroused, so he asked her about it.

     "They say that after living this kind of life for a long time,  a
prostitute's feelings for this kind of thing are  all  gone.    Is  it
true?"

     Pai-mei  was pleased at this naive question.   Wasn't he just the
man she wanted to father her child?

     "Why do you ask that?" she inquired.

     "I figure that if you don't have any feelings left any more, then
all the customers at these places must seem like a  funny  bunch,"  he
laughed.

     "What're you laughing at?  You said the customers at these places
must be what?"

     "Do you know about artificial insemination?"

     "I've heard of it."

     "At  home  I've  watched them get sperm from a boar," he giggled.
"The veterinarian tied rice straw around a bench and covered  it  over
with  burlap,  so  that  it looked just like that kind of wooden horse
that they use in gymnasiums.  And then he smeared vaginal fluid from a
sow on one end of it, and when the boar was brought out and smelled it
he got so excited that he slobbered all over,  and he mounted  it  and
worked  for  dear life ...  ha ha ha ..."  He was laughing harder now.
Pai-mei laughed too when she imagined how funny it was.

     "You're insulting me.  You said that I look like a wooden horse,"
Pai-mei pouted.

     "I'm laughing at myself too.  I'm just like a boar," he laughed.

     Pai-mei noticed his white,  even teeth,  his pleasant eyes.   She
saw through to his good heart,  and she told herself that this was the
man with whom she wanted to have  a  baby.    It  was  her  period  of
fertility,  and  she  decided  not  to take any contraceptive measures
afterward.  The thought of it gave her butterflies.

     "No!  You're making fun of me for being like a wooden horse."

     Ah-jung was getting impatient with the banter;  all he wanted  by
then  was  to  get  on  with  it,  but  Pai-mei wanted him to continue
caressing her.

     "Oh,  yes," Ah-jung remembered.   "You still haven't answered  my
question.   Do you have any feeling for this sort of thing?"  His face
twitched with eagerness and he swallowed involuntarily.

     "That depends on who the man is," the girl answered,  discovering
to  her surprise that she felt embarrased.   "If we like him,  we have
feelings like anybody else."

     "What if it's me?"

     "I don't know," she answered softly.   She looked at him intently
for a long time,  but still she wouldn't let him get started.  She was
engraving Ah-jung's image on her memory.

     "Where do you live?" she asked.

     "My home's at Heng-ch'un.  My family farms, but I like the sea."

     "What's your name?"  Her eyes and  her  voice  were  filled  with
emotion.

     "Wu T'ien-t'u."

     She sniffed at his body and he trembled slightly.

     "Your name means `field-soil',  but you only smell of fish.  Your
name should be Wu Hai-shui -- Wu Sea-water!"

     "Okay!" he said, giving her a hug.   "My name's Wu Hai-shui then.
I'm not Wu T'ien-t'u any more."

     He kissed her very sincerely and passionately, and this time Pai-
mei  herself  felt  a  need  for  him.    She  put  her arm around his
shoulders, giving him the signal he had been waiting for.

     "There are holes in the wall," he whispered.

     "They're all stopped up with paper, aren't they?"

     "Some of them aren't."

     "Nobody will look; it's unlucky to look at somebody like this."

     "What's your name?"

     "Pai-mei."

     "Oh ...  Pai-mei ..."  For a moment he felt a  strange  surge  of
happiness.   He was worried about how she felt and asked over and over
how is it?  How is it?   How is it?   When he finished he noticed that
her eyes were filled with tears.

     He  rolled down gently and lay beside her;  he saw the muscles of
her throat twitching and reproached himself, thinking that he probably
hadn't satisfied her.   But she had  certainly  satisfied  him;  never
before  had  a  prostitute made him feel this way,  and he had a vague
feeling of having misued her.   Satisfy her then!   The next  time  he
would surely take longer.

     Suddenly there was a knocking on the wall, followed by Ah-niang's
voice.

     "Pai-mei,  what's  the  matter?"   The tone of the voice conveyed
impatience.

     "She wanted us to hurry up,  doesn't she?"  asked  Ah-jung  in  a
whisper.

     "Don't  pay  attention  to  her," she whispered back.   Then more
loudly, "My customer wants to go on."

     "I don't," said Ah-jung nervously when he heard this.  "I ..."

     Pai-mei signalled him with her eyes to be silent.

     "Then give me another ticket," said  Ah-niang,  knocking  on  the
door.

     "I'll give it to you later," answered Pai-mei.

     "That won't do; I'll forget it."

     "Okay,"  said  Pai-mei,  taking  a card cut from coarse cardboard
from under her pillow and sticking it through the crack in  the  door.
"Here it is."

     Ah-niang took the ticket.

     "What's that for?" asked Ah-jung curiously.

     "When  she collects her share of the money,  she figures it up by
the number of tickets."  Then, as if to change the subject, she added,
"Are you in a hurry to get back?"

     "I'm tired;  I don't want to do it again."  Actually he only  had
NT$50 -- not enough for two times.

     "Then lay here with me awhile, okay?"

     "I ..." he stammered, "I can't do it twice, I ..."

     "Hold  me."    His  protestations were stopped by Pai-mei's plea.
"Let's just like like this for a while," she said contendedly.

     His mind became clearer as he held her dumbly;  yet  it  was  the
clarity  of  ignorance,  for his mind was overwhelmed by an emotion he
could not understand.

     This moment was a very important one for Pai-mei: she hoped  that
it would mark a new beginning for her.   As if from nowhere,  a ray of
hope had quietly entered her body,  whose mystery and  the  weight  it
carried  only  she could fully understand.   She frightened Ah-jung so
much that he cried in her arms.   She wanted more of her  feeble  hope
than for it to remain buried in her body,  although it was at the same
time buried in this society,  in the  perverse  fate  of  this  foster
daughter turned prostute.   She wanted one day to see her hope develop
and grow.


5.   K'eng-ti
-------------

     After Pai-mei had watched Ah-jung make  his  way  back  down  the
hill,  she hurriedly packed her few things as she had planned and said
good-by to Ah-niang.  The madam,  taken by surprise,  thought that she
had offended the girl.

     "If  you're  mad  at  me for asking you for that ticket just now,
you're wrong," she said by way of conciliation.    "That's  our  rule.
And  you're the oldest girl here,  so you should know that better than
anybody else."

     "It has nothing to do with that."

     "Then I just can't understand why you want to leave."

     "No reason in particular."  She knew that if she told Ah-niang or
anyone else that she wanted to go and have a baby they would laugh  at
her.

     "That doesn't make sense."

     "I'm going to get married," Pai-mei lied.

     "Why  haven't I heard you say something about it before now?" Ah-
niang asked.  "With who?"

     Pai-mei smiled and shook her head without answering.

     "Is it that young fellow who was just here?"

     What could she do?   All Ah-niang wanted was to get something  to
gossip  about;  so to relieve herself from the interrogation,  Pai-mei
smiled again and nodded her head silently.

     "Oh ...  Are you crazy,  Pai-mei?   I want to advise you for your
own good ..."

     All  of  her  talking had no effect;  Pai-mei took her bundle and
left.   The girls,  greatly puzzled,  all came to the door to see  her
off.  Ah-niang, standing among them, jeered:

     "Look!  Our Pai-mei's off to get a husband!"

     Pai-mei,  her  eyes  filled with tears but her heart full of joy,
went down the hill toward  the  harbor  and  the  bus  station,  never
looking  back nor stopping for so much as a second.   She had lived by
the coast for a long while,  but now for the  first  time  she  really
heard the sound of the sea rushing against the shore over and over, as
if  it  were cleansing her soul.   Before long the bus came,  and Pai-
mei's past was buried in the swirling  cloud  of  dust  that  it  left
behind.

     It  was  already evening that day when Pai-mei reached the cutoff
leading to the home where she was born,  the  home  where  they  still
called her by her pet name "Mei-tzu."  It was one of those places that
had  not  changed during the past twenty years.   The little Earth God
shrine was still under the tree there at the cutoff,  but the  top  of
the  stone seat beside it was smoother than before.   The potlid grass
that they used on infected sores  was  still  climbing  all  over  the
slope,  the  same  as  always.   Pai-mei remembered how once she was a
child she had lost a coin on that slope, a coin which she was going to
buy some kerosene with.  She had looked for it for a long time and had
pulled up all of the potlid grass in the area without success, and had
become so worried that she had burst into tears.   She had  hidden  in
the Earth God shrine, afraid to go home, for she had known that a good
beating was in store for her.  To avoid the beating she had broken the
kerosend  bottle on the stone seat and picked up a piece of the broken
glass,  intending to slash a hole in the bottom of her foot so that it
would bleed,  figuring that when her mother saw the blood she would be
pitied instead of beaten.   She had sat there with the piece of  glass
in  her  hand,  trembling,  lacking the courage to carry out her plan.
But courage had welled up when she thought of  how  her  mother  would
baby her when she saw the bleeding wound.   She had thought no more of
how fearful and painful cutting herself would be,  but only of how her
mother would wash her foot, dress her wound, and even feel the pain of
it  for  her.    She  had  been overcome with a feeling of comfort and
warmth, but she had cried as the glass cut deeply into the sole of her
foot.  The blood had spurted out of the slash; she had cut deeper than
she had intended.  But she had comforted herself with the thought that
the deeper the would, the more her mother's sympathy would be aroused.
She had known that she could stop the bleeding with a handful  of  mud
from the field, but since she was looking for sympathy she had decided
to let it bleed.  Hiding in the shrine she had waited for someone from
her  family  to come and find her,  but several hours later no one had
come yet and it was getting late.  Then she had become scared, for she
had heard stories about spirit fire being seen where the road branched
off there.   The more she thought about it the more frightened she had
become;  but she couldn't go home by herself,  for the cut in her foot
had been too deep.   Just as she was about to lose all hope her eldest
brother  had found her and carried her home on his back;  she had told
him what happened and he had comforted her all  the  way  home.    But
after they arrived nothing had gone as she had anticipated; instead of
pitying her her mother had thrashed her good, and she hadn't gotten so
much as a single sweet potato for supper that night.  Three days after
that  a stranger had come and taken her away,  and for a long time she
had thought that her mother hadn't wanted her any more because she had
lost that coin.   She hadn't been able to understand at the time  why,
when  she was about to be taken away,  her mother had cried so hard as
she gave her daughter some last instructions: "Mei-tzu,  you're  eight
years old ...  You're a big girl now, and you've got to be good.  It's
because we're poor,  just remember that.   But from now on  you  won't
have to feed on sweet potatoes anymore.   It's all because your father
died so soon ..."  Still mad at her mother for the  beating,  she  had
left with the stranger without a word.

     Pai-mei  climbed  the stone steps up through the terraced paddies
for a while and then walked along a path,  picking up memories of  her
childhood  along  the  way.    Seeing  such a fashionably dressed girl
coming up the hill, the workers in the fields -- men and women,  young
and  old  --  all put down their tools,  straightened up,  and stared.
Wasn't that Uncle Lucky working bare-backed in the potato  field  down
the slope?   Yes!   It was Uncle Lucky!   She could tell by the way he
stood with his one leg shorter than the other.  She waved her hand and
called out:

     "Uncle Lucky, are you weeding the sweet potatoes?"

     The man was mystified and excited by the call.

     "Oh!   Yes ...  Who are you?   How do you know me?"   The  voice,
wafting  across  the  distance,  quivered  with pleasure.   Wanting to
increase his happiness she answered:

     "You built the Earth God shrine at the cutoff  all  by  yourself.
Dosn't everybody know that?"

     "Yes ...  yes ...  That was twenty-three years ago.  After I sell
this crop of sweet potatoes I'm going to fix it up again!"    Then  he
continued even more excitedly: "Hey,  lady,  who're you looking for at
K'eng-ti?"

     "I'm Sung the Capon-maker's youngest girl ..."

     "What?   Is Sung's youngest girl so big already?   Then ...  then
you're Mei-tzu?"

     "Yes ... yes, I'm Mei-tzu."

     "Ah ...  I didn't recognize you,  didn't recognize you.  Has Sung
been dead so long?"  He paused for a while, then continued: "Yes, it's
been that long;  he died the year after I build the Earth God  shrine.
He carried the three hundred and sixty bricks to build the shrine with
for me."

     "Come  over  to  our  place  after a while," Mei-tzu said after a
period of silence.

     "Okay,  okay.   You hurry on home now;  your mother'll be waiting
for you."

     She hadn't gone far when she heard someone running up behind her.
By  the  time  she  turned to look the teenage girl was already by her
side.

     "My father told me to come and help you carry your suitcase," the
girl said, reaching for the bag.

     "No,  no." She shot an appreciative glance over her  shoulder  at
Uncle  Lucky,  who  stood in the distance and indicated with a wave of
his hand that it was all right, let the child carry it.   The suitcase
had  already  been  taken  by  the girl and hoisted onto her shoulder.
They walked on.

     "How long are you going to stay home?" the teenager asked.

     "I'm not leaving," Mei-tzu answered quietly.

     "Not leaving?" the girl asked in surprise.  "Why not?"

     "I want to take a rest." Mei-tzu,  staring  at  the  path  ahead,
seemed to be talking to herself.

     The path stretched along the side of the hill, bounded both above
and  below  by  sweet  potato  fields  and acacia groves.   A group of
village children,  six to eight years old,  made their way through the
trees  above  the  path,  following Mei-tzu curiously at a distance of
seven or eight feet.  They would run for a while and then stop a while
to giggle at something or other.   Mei-tzu noticed that a boy carrying
a bird's nest bore a strong resemblance to someone she remembered.

     "Are you Ah-chiao's kid?" she asked.

     The child stood in embarrased silence but the others laughed that
yes,  he was.  And this other one was, too; they pushed out a girl who
had been laughing with the rest, scaring her mirth from her.

     "How many kids does Ah-chiao have?"

     The boy stretched out six fingers.

     Mei-tzu saw in another boy's face the image of his father.

     "Are you Ah-mu's kid?" she asked.

     The child hid himself in  embarrassment  as  the  others  laughed
again.

     "Huh?   That's funny ...  How do you know?  What fun!" one of the
children said.

     "Okay!   I'll guess some more." Mei-tzu looked at their faces one
by one;  one by one they hid their faces and,  laughing,  ran a little
way up the road.   Seeing this group of lively children reminded  Mei-
tzu that she too would have a child.   But she was worried;  was it in
fact already developing in her body?   She must not fail!   Otherwise,
she would have to start over again.   God!  Goddes of Birth!  You must
help me!

     Suddenly, on the pathway ahead, her mother appeared.

     "Ma ... " Her voice failed; she could say nothing else.

     "Uncle Lucky's kid came and told me  ---  said  that  you'd  come
back."

     Her mother did not stop to wait for her; she walked down the path
as Mei-tzu walked up it, and then the two of them walked side by side.

     "How long are you going to stay?"

     "I'm not going to leave."

     "Not going to leave?" asked the older woman, surprised.  "How can
that be?"

     "I don't care."

     They walked in silence for a while.

     "How're things at home now?" Mei-tzu asked.

     "That'll depend on this sweet potato crop."

     "How's big brother's leg?"

     "That  depends  on  this potato crop too,  whether we can have it
ampulated."  THe voice was strained.

     "Amputated?" Mei-tzu was shocked.

     "The doctors says he won't live long if it's not amputated.   Day
before  yesterday we carried him down there,  and yesterday we carried
hm back again."

     Mei-tzu remembered that when her brother had carried her  on  his
back up the hill that time both his legs had been strong and healthy.

     "You won't be able to stand it here.  His seven kids'll worry the
life out of you."

     "I  have  some money,  Ma -- let's take big brother down tomorrow
morning."

     Tears filled the woman's eyes as she  said,  "Mei-tzu,  it  isn't
that I don't love your brother.   They say that even a tiger won't eat
its own cubs,  no matter how cruel it is.   But I don't think  there's
any hope for him; even the doctor won't guarantee anything.  Better to
help his seven kids than try to save him."

     "Let's try anyway, Ma."

     "Don't be so naive.  Next year the government's going to take all
the forestry bureau land that we use for growing our sweet potatoes at
K'eng-ti.  What'll we do then?"

     "Take back the forestry bureau land?  What for?"

     "It  belongs  to the government,  and they can gro weeds on it if
they want to."

     Uncle Lucky's daughter,  who had been  following  along  silently
behind  with  the  suitcase,  suddenly  broke  in  with  an optimistic
observation:

     "I heard that a provincial assmblyman's trying to help  us  out."
Mother and daughter turned their heads together; as they looked at the
girl  shouldering  the  suitcase  with  her  face  to the ground,  the
expression on her face was extremely different from theirs.

     Just ahead, at the stone wall covered with cactus,  was the house
where Mei-tzu was born.   A black dog was rushing toward them, barking
fiercely.

     "Calm down, Black Ear -- Mei-tzu's one of the family!"  The words
calmed the black dog,  and wagging its tail it walked lightly  to  the
girl and sniffed her.  "That's a funny dog," the woman continued.  "He
came  here  last  year  and  has  stuck around ever since;  he behaves
himself even if we don't feed him.  He catches field rats, and when he
gets a lot of them we helf him eat them.   Those field rats eat better
than  we  do;  every  one  of them is fat,  usually more than a catty.
Black Ear catches rabbits, too."

     The dog seemed to know that his mistress was praising him; he ran
over and rubbed against her legs affectionately.

     "Nuisance, get away from here.   I'll step on your feet if you're
not careful."

     Black  Ear  bounced  away  lightly and let them through the stone
wall.

     Back at the fishing port the next day,  Ah-junt went back to  the
brothel  looking  for  Pai-mei  about the same time as the day before,
taking five fat bonito with him.   He was going to tell her that their
boat had been repaired, that he would have to go back to work.  But he
was met with unexpected disappointment.

     "She isn't here," said the madam.

     "But she was here yesterday."

     "She  said  she  was going to get married with you.   Did you get
married?" she asked.

     "Stop kidding.  Where's she gone?" he asked anxiously.

     "I ask you."

     "Where's her home?"

     "I ask you that, too."

     Ah-jung searched inside the room hopefully with his eyes, looking
at the prostitutes there.  Then he turned and left.

     "What?   Leaving without having any fun?   Stay a while  --  I'll
find a tender chicken for you to taste.   Such a young fellow like you
shouldn't be looking for an old girl."

     He walked away helplessly,  letting the string of fish slip  from
his hand; he went on without even looking back at it.

     "Hsiao-ch'ueh," called the madam when she saw the fish drop,  "go
get that string of fish.  We'll have fish for lunch!"


6.   Ten Months
---------------

     The first thing that Mei-tzu did when she returned  to  her  home
was decide to have her brother's bad leg amputated.

     The  steady  moans  were interrupted by a sudden shout: "Ah-ch'ih
...  Ah-ch'ih ...  Help me ...  Come chase the flies away from daddy's
let.  Ah-ch'ih, you better stay in here!  Ah-ch'ih ..."

     Mei-tzu  rushed into her brother's room and chased away the flies
that had gathered thickly on his decayed leg, sucking up the pus.

     "You've got to listen to  reason,"  she  urged  him  once  again.
"It's  your  own life;  if you don't have enough sense to take care of
it, what can anybody else do for you?"

     "Ah-ch'ih's changed;  that kid think's  I'm  a  bother."    Tears
flowed  as  he  continued:  "I  know  -- the whole family thinks I'm a
bother.  They talk behind my back all the time, I know it."

     "You've got no reason to say that.   You know how much Ma's cried
over you, and Ta-sao [Mei-tzu's sister-in-law.] is doing more than her
share as a woman, the way she's taken over all your work.  What do you
think they do that for?"

     "What about Ah-ch'ih?  I want him to keep the flies away for me."

     "What  do you expect from a four-year-old boy?   I just found him
sleeping on the floor and put him to bed.  You ..."

     "Oh!  The flies!" he called out in pain.

     "You'd better listen to me," said Mei-tzu as she chased the flies
away.   "You've already lost the leg anyway,  so you might as well get
rid of it.  If you don't you're not going to last much longer."

     "All  I  want  to now is for the flies to stop tormenting me.   I
don't care,  so long as I can die in peace."  He thought for a  moment
and  continued:  "I  probably  won't  last  until  this  crop of sweet
potatoes is harvested."

     "You don't have to worry about the money."

     "No, no.   I won't make you suffer any more.   When father died I
should  have  provided  a  good life for you."  His voice was strained
with shame.  "There's no hope for me.   Can you forgive this worthless
brother?"

     "Nobody did anything wrong.  Let's not talk about that any more."

     "Oh!  Those hateful flies!"  Engrossed in her conversation, for a
moment  Mei-tzu  had  forgotten  to  keep waving her hand to scare the
flies away and they had caused her brother to cry out in pain again.

     "It's settled,  then.   Tomorrow we'll take you to the hospital."
Her voice had a decisive ring.

     "No, no.  What good will it do for me to live?"

     "Have you forgotten?  Aren't you good with your hands?  Can't you
make  chairs  and  baskets and sifters and lots of other things out of
bamboo?"

     "Yes -- that's not hard at all."  His eyes brightened.  "Mei-tzu,
it's not too late for your sister-in-law to plant some  bamboo  beside
the stream;  it's best to plant it before the Grave Cleaning Festival,
and next year it'll be ready to use."

     Within the first month after she returned  to  K'eng-ti,  Mei-tzu
began  to  have a new confidence in everything.   Her brother took her
advice and let his leg be amputated;  what made  her  most  unbearably
happy,  though,  was that the time for her period came and passed with
no menstruation.   She was examined at two different  clinics  in  the
town  and both doctors reported a high probability of pregnance.   One
of them calculated that if she really were pregnant, her time would be
up the next January.

     The rays of the May sun did not fail to brighten the little piece
of land known as K'eng-ti.

     Early one morning a middle-aged villager  known  as  Uncle  Woody
returned  from  town  with  news  that set the whole of K'eng-ti in an
uproar.   Grasping a newspaper in his hand he raced up the hill in mad
excitement;  everyone he met was infected by the madness and ran about
wildly through the village.

     Standing in a knot of villagers who had not yet heard  the  news,
Uncle Woody loudly told it again:

     "The government's not going to take back the slopeland next year.
They're goint to turn it all over to us!"

     "Who says so?" asked one of the listeners suspiciously.

     "It's  in  the paper!" replied Unclie Woody.   He showed them the
item in the newspaper where the headline had been circled  in  red  by
the  owner of the general store in town.   He jabbed his finger at the
article,  and the people surrounding him peered intently at the  black
words inside the red circle.

     "Then  it's  true?"  asked one of them as he raised his eyes from
the newspaper.

     "Then it's true!   Then it's true!" echoed the others as they too
looked up from the paper.   Actually, though, not a single one of them
could read.

     When Mei-tzu's mother heard the news  in  the  potato  field  she
dropped her rake and rushed home,  where she grabbed Mei-tzu and said,
"Come, Mei-tzu, we're different now.  I'll take you to look at our own
land!"

     The girl was taken aback for a moment, uncomprehending, until her
mother explained it to her.   Then the older woman led  her  over  the
ridge to look at the sweet potato fields on the slopes.

     "Look!  From the top of the hill all the way to the bottom of the
valley is all ours!"

     They walked over to another piece of slopeland.

     "Mei-tzu,  the  land you're walking on now is our own;  I bet you
never dreamed this could happen!   All the way to the  bottom's  ours.
It's true -- a blade of grass,  a drop of dew,  who'll starve to death
and who'll get rich, it's all predestined."

     The old woman was unusually silent as they started home.    "Mei-
tzu,"  she  said  after  a while,  "formerly we worried about land and
money, but now that we have our land, we've a new problem."

     The words were not lost on Mei-tzu,  but she didn't want to think
further.  She remained silent.

     "Mei-tzu,  don't you think that now that we've this land, we need
a man in the house?" the old woman said as she looked  at  the  silent
girl.  "Besides, you're still young."

     As  expected,  her  mother finally had spoken her mind.   After a
while, Mei-tzu decided to take this opportunity to speak out about her
own plans.

     "I know what you mean.  But I came back for a purpose this time."
Her voice was low.   "I'm pregnant,  and I want my baby to be born  in
this quiet place."

     "Who's the man?"

     "That doesn't matter; I just used him to give me a child.  I need
to have my old child."

     "Have  you  gone crazy?   Pregnant without getting married -- how
can I explain that to the neighbors?"

     "Is that more shameful than being a whore?   It doesn't make  any
difference what you are so long as you treat other people right."

     "I  can't understand you wanting a kid while your own big brother
has more than he can take care of.  I think Ah-ch'ih would make a good
one for you."

     "No,  I don't approve of separating children from their  parents,
or  mixing them up.   If I took Ah-ch'ih to be my son it'd disturb his
mind."  She noticed the solemn expression on  her  mother's  face  and
continued.  "Ma, I'm not blaming any of you for what happened before."

     "Okay,  then."   The old woman gave in,  struggling to change her
attitude and make the best of the situation.  Mei-tzu's already been a
great help to the family since she came back, she thought.   What more
can I ask of her?

     "Mei-tzu," she said happily,  "you didn't bring good luck only to
our own family -- you brought it to the whole village!"   Her  spirits
brightened.

     Soon  everybody  in  K'eng-ti  considered Mei-tzu's return a good
omen,  that the government's giving the slopeland over to them  was  a
result of the good luck which she brought.  That, plus her devotion to
her family and her warmth toward the other villagers,  earned her much
respect in K'eng-ti.



     June was when the land repaid  the  villagers  for  their  labor.
When they began to dig up the soil,  the huge sweet potatoes that were
turned out brought joy to the hearts of all who saw them.

     First the villagers carried ther hand-carts to the  cutoff;  then
they  loaded  them  with the sweet potatoes and sweet potato tops that
they had carried out slung from poles over their shoulders.   Early in
the  morning  they gathered to transport the potatoes the twenty miles
to town.

     There was no man  to  help  out  in  Mei-tzu's  family,  but  her
brother's wife and the three oldest children put on grass sandals like
the  men  wore  and  went  to work hauling the sweet potatoes with the
others.

     When they returned that day the salted fish  which  each  of  the
carts carried drew flies from the town all the way back to K'eng-ti.

     "Dammit!    Handling  a  hoe's  not worth anything at all.   Work
ourselves to death,  and now a hundred catties of sweet potatoes  only
brings NT$48."

     "Isn't that the truth!"

     "But we really worked hard."

     "Just  think  --  two salted fish cost NT$16: the same amount can
buy a whole pile of our potatoes."

     Some of the returning men pulled their empty carts side  by  side
and complained along the way.  When they got to the cut-ff they rested
their feet, smoked, and drank some of the branch water.

     "Mei-tzu,"  asked  Uncle  Lucky,  "do you still want to stay in a
hard-luck place like this?"

     "Yes!" she answered.  "I like it here."

     All of the villagers resting their feet by the Earth  God  shrine
turned their attention to her.

     "Surely you don't think being poor is any fun!" said Uncle Lucky.
"Think  of  it,"  he continued solemnly.   "A hundred catties of sweet
potatoes goes for NT$48.  Certainly that's no fun."

     Mei-tzu hadn't expected that Uncle Lucky's  innocent  talk  would
lead to such deep questions,  and it frightened her a little.  But she
herself had gone to the market in town with her sister-in-law and  the
others  that  day,  and  on  the  way  back she had thought about that
question.   Finally her own ideas,  which she was too timid to express
freely, were practically forced from her.

     "It  seemed that NT$48 for a hundred catties of sweet potatoes is
the price that we asked for ourselves," she said,  and  the  villagers
gathered around her.

     "Twenty  some  carts  left K'eng-ti this morning," she continued,
"and they must have taken ten or twenty thousand catties  of  potatoes
to market -- didn't they?"

     "More  than  that!   More than thirty thousand catties!" came the
answer from the crowd.

     "Okay, over thirty thousand catties.  Look,  around three-fourths
of  the  sweet  potatoes at the market by the gate of the Matzu temple
were ours."  She felt a little awkward in her speech  and  was  afraid
that she wouldn't be able to express herself; but seeing the circle of
faces waiting expectantly for her conclusion, she continued nervously.
"What I mean is, if we could send that many potatoes out over three or
four  days instead of all at once,  maybe we could get a little better
price for them.  But I don't know," she hastened to add.  "That's just
my idea."

     Contrary to her expectations the villagers took Mei-tzu's idea to
heart and then and there, by the Earth God shrine,  they arrived at an
agreement to divide each day's shipment into three batches which wuold
be taken to market in succession.

     And,  indeed,  the  results were apparent the very next day;  the
price of a hundred catties of potatoes had already gone up NT$24.



     July, sometimes, belong to just one person.

     There was no longer any doubt.   The first thing Mei-tzu did when
she  got  up  in  the morning was go to the back yard and vomit.   Her
mother came up behind her quietly and patted her gently on the back.

     "It's for sure then.   It's for sure!"  The woman's voice  showed
excitement, but it was mixed with uncertainty.

     "I  think  it's  for  certain now," Mei-tzu said,  turning to her
mother with hot tears of joy filling her eyes.

     "Yes, it's certain now."

     Mei-tzu's face brightened into a shy smile.  "Ma, all of a sudden
I've got a taste of picked turnips."

     "Pickled turnips?"  The old woman rolled her eyes.  "Ah -- you're
lucky -- there's a bottle left from last year,  but I  don't  know  if
they're  moldy  or  not.   Don't matter,  though;  some of them on the
bottom will be okay, anyway."

     She hurried away and searched through  a  pile  of  old  bottles,
pulling  the  stopper  from  each one and smelling the contents,  then
holding it up and looking at it.  A sense of anxiety engulfed her.

     "What're you looking for, Ma?" asked her daughter-in-law.

     "Where's that bottle of  pickled  turnips  left  over  from  last
year?"

     "Pickled turnips?" the daugher-in-law asked, puzzled.

     "Mei-tzu's baby-sick."

     "What?  Mei-tzu's baby-sick?"

     Mei-tzu's  whole  body was filled with a feeling of warmth as she
heard the crisp, clear clinking of the bottles knocking together.



     It seemed to them that August, September,  and October slipped by
like a cat slinking past.

     November was a time of cleansing.   Every year,  this month never
failed to bring deluges of rainwater to wash K'eng-ti.

     First the moutain rain fell continuously,  and by the  middle  of
the  month  it  was joined by the wind.   The villagers were forced to
stay inside their houses and almost every  woman  in  K'ent-ti  became
pregnant  at the same time.   The stump of Mei-tzu's brother's leg was
much better now,  and his wife got pregnant along with the rest.   But
she was most regretful for bringing herself into this situation again.

     Mei-tzu's  belly  was so big now that it constituted something of
an inconvenience,  and she treated the bit of hope inside her with the
utmost  care.    The baby's clothes and everything else she would need
for it were made ready,  and her mother had  already  raised  a  dozen
chickens  to  strengthen Mei-tzu's health during the first month after
delivery.

     One night the rain fell more heavily and  the  wind  blew  harder
than ever.  K'eng-ti trembled in the storm's onslaught the whole night
through.

     "If  this keeps up our mud-brick wall won't be able to stand it,"
said Mei-tzu's brother,  as though  he  had  had  a  premonition  that
something was going to happen.

     "Here,  then  -- let's get under the dinner table," said his wife
calmly.  His mother,  though,  started calling out to heaven and earth
for protection.

     No  sooner  had  the  eleven of them crowded under the table than
with a thunderous crash the rear wall collapsed,  leaving the  bamboo-
and-thatch roof precariously askew with one end resting on the ground.

     Mei-tzu  fought  back  the  tears  as  she  comforted her wailing
mother: "We can't complain!  We're actually lucky -- if we'd stayed in
the back a minute longer we'd all have been buried alive."

     Not only their house but the rest  of  K'eng-ti  too  was  washed
clean  during  that  one  night.    Mei-tzu  didn't complain about the
disaster like the rest of them;  she was grateful that she had escaped
injury so that she could continue safely to nurture her only hope.



     December came with a smile, brushing away the dark veil that hung
over the countryside.

     The  people  of  K'eng-ti felt that their lives resembled someone
repairing an old roof: finding a leak  here  and  replairing  it  with
great  difficult,  then  having  to search for and repair another leak
that developed there,  only to discovere still another leak  someplace
else.   They couldn't give up;  but to keep on working seemed to do no
good either.  They were really placed in quandary.

     After the November rains the sun  bared  its  indolent  faces  to
watch  them  cleaning  up  after their disaster.   All of the families
whose mudbrick walls had collapsed worked together  on  the  hillside,
some cutting rice straw and mud,  some leading the oxen which trampled
in circles over the piles of mud and straw,  some mixing,  some firing
the bricks.  For more than ten days the hillside was the busiest place
in K'eng-ti.

     "This  kind  of  soft  sun with a north wind is the best time for
making mud  bricks,"  the  adults  there  instructed  their  children.
"These bricks won't have any cracks."

     "But it's even better not to have to make bricks at all," joked a
bystander.

     "Of course,  unless we have to build houses we don't like to have
to make bricks."

     As they bantered the talk turned to Aunt Sung.

     "Aunt Sung," asked Uncle Woody.  "Mei-tzu's so big now, when will
we get to drink some sesame oil wine?"

     Others too voiced their enthusiastic concern: "Yes!  When?"

     "Pretty soon now."

     Mei-tzu's mother was overjoyed by this show  of  concern  by  the
villagers,  and  the  anxiety she had left lest the girl should suffer
their ridicule vanished.

     "It'll be with us in January," she said.

     "Oh?  So soon!"

     "Such a good girl,  she should be given a son," said one  of  the
older bystanders.

     "Yes,  she's  the  only  good  girl  these eyes of mine have ever
seen."

     "Oh,  it is only because you people're just  too  kind  to  her,"
protested her mother.  But of course she rejoiced at the praise.

     "Really, our praise doesn't do her justice."

     "I think she'll have a boy," said one of the women.  "Look at the
way her belly points out."

     "It's only right for her to get a boy."

     "Why'll  it  be  boy if her belly points that way?"  The question
came from a boy of twelve or thirteen who was leading an ox round  and
round over the pile of mud.

     "You've  got no business butting in asking questions about child-
birth," admonished the boy's father gently.   "All you need to know is
how to handle the ox."

     In  the  friendly laughter that followed,  Mei-tzu's mother heard
someone say,  "Aunt Sung's a lucky woman."  She added two extra bricks
to  her  next  load,  and even with the extra weight her happiness was
such that she felt as if she were floating.

     Mei-tzu,  though,  felt a stab of anxiety when she saw her mother
with  eight  of  the  mud  bricks  hanging  from  the  pole across her
shoulder.  "Ma!" she called,  "You shouldn't carry so many;  your back
can't stand it at your age."

     The  old  woman  put  down the shoulder pole and answered without
even taking time to wipe the sweat from  her  face.    "Mei-tzu,"  she
said,  "everybody in K'ent-ti wants you to have a son.   You've got to
try hard!"

     The girl forced a laugh; of course she too wanted it to be a boy,
but who could she appeal to for help?   She could only try to reassure
herself; there would be time enough to worry about it later.

     "I  think  it'll  be  a  boy  for  sure;  it jerks about fiercely
already.   Both sides can move now,  and when it moves it really  acts
like  a boy."  Suddenly she stopped talking,  feeling the movements in
her belly start up again.  "Hurry up, Ma -- put your hand here!"

     The mother pressed her hand on the  girl's  belly  and  her  eyes
rolled  up in concentration as though she were evesdropping on someone
in the next room.  After a while her mouth cracked open and her pupils
darted to the left;  after another of concentration she said,  "Ah ...
This  is  a wild one!   Where's it get all that strength if it isn't a
boy?"

     Mei-tzu was watching her mother's face all  the  while,  and  the
expression  she  saw there forced her into a position from which there
seemed to no escape.   Her face showed a fervent hope as she repeated,
"Is it so?  Is it so?"

     "It's a boy for sure, Mei-tzu!"

     "It should be a boy -- it should be a boy!"

     "It's a boy for sure.  It was just like this when I had your four
brothers."

     "How about when you had me?" the girl asked.

     "When I was carrying you and your sister, I felt like there was a
quiet swelling there.   Then I knew I was going to have a girl,  and I
was right -- I had you and your sister."

     "Then I'll have a boy?"

     "Ai!  What're you worried about?  If it's going to be a boy it'll
be a boy;  it can't run away,  can it?"  Her optimism did a great deal
to  bolster Mei-tzu's confidence.   "Hurry back inside,  Mei-tzu.   Be
careful you don't catch a fold.   I've got to get back to work.    The
bricks'll  be  piling  up."    As  she  spoke  she picked up her empty
shoulder pole.   But she knew that  no  one  could  tell  whether  her
daughter  would have a boy or not.   Actually,  Mei-tzu had had strong
movements too before she was born;  she remembered that of all her six
children, Mei-tzu had had the strongest movements.  What could anybody
do about it?   I didn't mean to lie to Mei-tzu!  she thought.  Turning
back she saw that girl had obediently gone inside already; nothing was
left there but some wet firewood and some  broken  pieces  of  bricks.
She felt weak somehow.   Perhaps she was getting tired;  her legs went
so soft that she felt like she was stepping on her  own  body  as  she
walked  down  the  muddy  path.    Ahead  of her was a place where two
mountains came together,  forming a huge valley.   Looking out through
the mouth of the valley she could see nothing,  but there seemed to be
something there in the far distance that stretched back into the  sky,
diminishing  to  a  tiny  speck.   The old woman focused her attention
there and suddenly felt the mouth of the valley brighten; it seemed to
her that she stood before a temple of the gods, and her whole soul was
in her pleading voice as she uttered her fervent prayer: "God!    Give
Mei-tzu a son!"



     January, they say, is a beginning.

     The mountain wind, which made people crowd around their stoves or
shrink  beneath  their covers,  slipped down over the ridges of K'eng-
ti's houses and squeezed through the mouth  of  the  valley  into  the
town.    Had  the  townspeople been a little more sensitive they could
have perhaps felt the heat that had been stripped fromm the bodies  of
the K'eng-ti villagers.  All of K'eng-ti was like an icebox.

     The ache in Mei-tzu's back was not brough on by the attack of the
cold  front;  she knew it was a signal that the brith of the infant in
her womb had begun, and it filled her with mixed emotions of happiness
and anxiety.

     "If it was anybody else but you, Mei-tzu," her mother said,  "I'd
help with the delivery."

     The girl was secretly relieved when she heard this;  she had been
worrying about it for a long  time  but  hadn't  dared  say  anything.
Since all the women in K'eng-ti had their children in their own homes,
she had wondered what she could say when the time came.  But now there
was nothing to worry about.

     "Ma," she said,  "with the weather so cold, I think I'd better go
into town to have it."

     "I think so, too."

     That same evening the gripping pains started in Mei-tzu's  belly.
Her brother had long before rigged up a sedan chair for her;  and when
the villagers heard that she was going into town to have her  baby,  a
group of them soon gathered to carry the chair for her.

     The  cold  midnight wind pressed them closely and blew the flames
of their torches to the side and  sometimes  below  the  paper  wicks.
Black Ear showed the way for them,  sometimes running ahead, sometimes
behind.

     Mei-tzu's brother stood in the wind with a crutch,  watching  the
light of the torches recede into the darkness of the night,  shrinking
to pinpoints and  then  to  nothingness.    Intuitively  he  felt  the
seriousness  and  significance of the sight and could not restrain the
chill which ran through his bones.

     By the time Mei-tzu arrived at the maternity clinic in  town  the
pains,  which at first had come every twenty minutes, had quickened to
every five minutes;  the doctors said it would be soon now.   A  nurse
came and gave her a shot of medicine to hasten the birth and said that
it  would probably be half an hour more.   Not long after the shot the
pains began to come and go in a continuous stream.   Mei-tzu had  been
put  on  a  delivery  table  and  big  drops  of sweat gathered on her
forehead as she underwent the primal  ritual  which  the  Creator  had
bestowed on womankind.   Yet she took comfort from the wracking pains,
for the more they hurt the more she felt that her hope  had  been  not
only a dream but actually about to be realized.

     The  doctor  told  her  to  grip the rails along each side of the
delivery table and bear down hard.   He stood beside the table  giving
her instructions,  telling her that way was wrong, this way was right.
"You're doing very well," he encouraged her.   "Bear  down  like  that
some  more,  until  the  baby  is born."  The amniotic sac had already
broken.   Three more hours passed and the sky lightened but still  the
baby  had  not  come;  Mei-tzu  appeared  exhausted and the doctor had
become anxious about her,  though he kept his fears  hidden  from  the
others.    The  baby  should have been born by now.   Mei-tzu had done
everything expected of her,  and the doctor had seen  that  she  could
stand  more  pain and could put forth more effort than other expectant
mothers.   Maybe the umbilical cord  had  become  wrapped  around  the
infant's nect?  He wondered.

     The clinic was a small one and there was only one delivery table;
so  when another woman about to give birth came in,  Mei-tzu was taken
to another room.   Two other babies were born and  Mei-tzu  alone  was
still left there,  trying with all her strength to force the baby into
the world.

     When she heard the cry of a newborn child in the next room,  Mei-
tzu  saw  in  her  mind an infant red all over and knew that she would
have one too.   But she had never dreamed that  it  could  be  such  a
difficult  undertaking.    The  doctor  took  note  of her stamina and
decided to try the shots again,  and the attacks of rending pain  that
followed the injections prompted the girl to strive with all her might
once again, moaning all the while.

     "That's  right," the doctor said.   "That's right.   You're doing
very well .. that's the way, don't stop ... bear down again."

     Every time she felt her strength  ebbing  and  her  hope  fading,
those  words  from  the  doctor  would  fill  her  exhausted body with
vitality and she would exert herself again and again and again.   With
the doctor beside her she had faith.

     Sweat  appeared  on  the  forehead of the doctor too as he walked
over to the  glass  cabinet  and  stared  vacantly  at  the  operating
instruments arranged neatly inside.   He couldn't make up his mind; he
had the highest respect for this girl who had been seen so obedient in
everything and so earnest,  who transformed each attack of  pain  into
strength.    She  still had the will and the means to go on;  he would
wait until she was exhausted and then decide what to do.    He  walked
away from the cabinet;  glancing at the clock on the wall he shook his
head, noting that it had dragged on for six hours already.

     "Kind doctor, please help me," pleaded the weak voice.  "I've got
to have this baby."

     "Don't worry," he answered with a forced smile.   "You've got the
baby."

     "I want it to live.  It's got to live."

     "Of course it's alive," the doctor said,  taking her pulse.  "How
do you feel?"

     "Worried about my baby!"

     "There wouldn't be any baby without you, would there?  How's your
head feel?"

     "Very clear."

     "Good!"  He told the nurse to give her another shot.

     Mei-tzu was tortured by another long string of sharp  pains;  but
without wasting a single chance, she transformed her painful struggles
into strength.   She was so soaked as if she had just been dragged out
of a river,  and now she appeared to be much weaker.   It was a little
frightening  the  way her mind remained so clear while her body became
so weak;  and her mother,  who had stayed with her from the beginning,
was shedding a continuous stream of anguished tears.

     "Ma,  why  are  you  crying?   Have you found out there's no hope
left?"

     The old woman could only shake her head.

     "Where's the doctor?" the girl asked anxiously.

     The doctor wreathed his face in smiles again as he came into  the
maternity  room.    "The  time  has  come," he said as he gave her yet
another shot.   "The way you acted before will be a  great  help  now.
Just bear down once more."

     The pains which had subsided came on strong again and Mei-tzu did
her  best,  but with each try it was spparent that she had no strength
left.

     "You know, it's hard on the baby too when it can't come out.   It
wants  to  come  out  too!   But nobody can help it except its mother.
Come!  Try again."

     "Oh ..." Mei-tzu was trying hard.

     "Right," the doctor encouraged her.  "Once more now."

     "Oh ..."

     "Good -- it'll be soon now."

     "Mei-tzu  ..."  Her  mother  anxiously   tried   to   offer   her
encouragement  too,  but  every time she opened her mouth to speak her
voice broke down and so she closed it again.

     "Ah!  We can see the baby's head."

     "Oh ..." Mei-tzu tried extra hard that time.

     "Try a little harder -- we can see its head.   The baby's saying,
`Try  again,  Mommy,  try again.'"  The doctor groaned along with her:
"Oh ...  That's right,  that's right."  He was  filled  with  anxiety;
actually  he  could  not see the baby's head at all,  and the amniotic
fluid had drained dry.  There was not much time left.

     "Oh ..." She bore down again.   She felt like an elephant with  a
heavy load on its back and a stalk of bananas just one step ahead, its
stomach  crying  out  for  food.    It steps forward hoping to get the
bananas,  but they too move  a  step  forward.    The  elephant  keeps
pursuing  the  bananas  but they maintain their distance a step ahead,
until finally the animal realizes that it is all a cruel trick.  Still
it  pursues  the  food  desperately,   thinking  that  its  will   and
determination will surely bring it sympathy.   The girl tried hard, so
weakly now,  still not abandoning  hope;  but  finally  her  exertions
became merely a gesture and she lapsed into unconsciousness.

     Dreamily  she  walked  into  the  garded than appeared before her
eyes.   A man -- he must have been the gardener --  told  her  sternly
that she must not intrude so casually.

     "But I've planted flowers here."

     "What flowers?"

     "I can't say."

     "What kind of flowers?"

     "Just that kind."

     "What kind?"

     "I can't say."

     "Do you mean chrysanthemums?"

     "No."

     "Roses?"

     "No."

     "Then  we  don't  have  the  kind of flowers you're talking about
here."

     "Yes you do!  I planted them here."

     "I don't know anything about them."

     "I don't care ..." Mei-tzu screamed.

     The doctor took her pulse and gave her another shot.   "We  can't
afford  to  think  about  the baby any longer," he said to her mother.
"She's more important."

     "Doctor ... you don't know -- this baby's her very life."

     He understood the very significance of those words.

     "Of course, I'll do what I can."

     The doctor and nurse put on surgical masks and rubber gloves, and
an occasional clink of metal knocking together broke  the  silence  of
the delivery room.   In her oblivion Mei-tzu felt herself afflicted by
a new kind of pain,  and when she came to she felt like a novice  monk
who,  having  dozed  off  while  chanting  scriptures,  wakes  up  and
hurriedly resumes his chanting.   Ashamed of  her  laxity,  she  again
summoned her strength and bore down.  "Oh .."

     "That's right, that's right.  Very good."  The doctor already had
the  baby's  head in his foreceps,  but he waited her for to bear down
again before pulling it out so  that  she  would  not  feel  that  her
efforts had been wasted.

     "Oh ..."

     The doctor pulled.  "Ah ... It's out, it's out ... It's a boy!"

     Mei-tzu's  mother  and  the nurse too let out a sign of relief as
though they had been unburdened of a heavy load.  Mei-tzu herself felt
no emotion when the thing was taken from her womb;  but with the first
sould of the infant's crying she felt, finally, that everything in her
past was truly finished.   She was very calm; her mother, on the other
hand, cried with joy.   The door of the delivery room was opened,  and
waiting  outside  was  Mei-tzu's  crippled  brother  with his wife and
children.


7.   Days for Watching the Sea
------------------------------

     A compulsion in Mei-tzu was born at almost the  same  instant  as
her  baby  --  a  compulsion  which  would not lend itself to even the
simplest explanation, although it was her own.  She insisted on taking
a mental position directly opposed to this compulsion -- with no fear,
however,  of her isolation.   She carried  on  a  mental  debate  with
herself.

     "I'll go!  I'll take the baby and go to the fishing port."

     "The fish haven't schooled yet."

     "I know."

     "Then you can't possibly meet him -- the baby's father."

     "I know; that's not why I want to go."

     "Why, then?"

     "I don't know -- maybe I'll meet him."

     "If you do, then what?"

     "I'll tell him that this baby is his."

     "You want him to take care of you?"

     "Never!"

     "Why, then?"

     "I  know  very  well  that  he  won't be at the fishing port now,
because the fish haven't schooled yet.   He's probably  at  Heng-ch'un
now."

     "Then for what purpose do you want to go to the fishing port?"

     "For no reason; I know I won't meet him, but I have to go ..."

     "But why?"

     "I don't know, so I can't explain what this compulsion is."

     From  the time that the compulsion began Mei-tzu was at a loss to
understand it; she knew only that it was urgent.  Her health was fully
recovered now and the compulsion was driving her  more  strongly  than
ever.

     Taking  her  baby,  she  bought  a ticket and squeezed on a train
going toward the port.   Not a single seat on the car was  empty,  but
she didn't mind; she was happy enough just to be on the train going in
that  direction.    Before she could find a spot to stand comfortably,
two men in front of her stood up at the  same  time  and  offered  her
their  seats;  she  was  so surprised and moved by this ordinary event
that she stood dumbfounded until a woman came over and led to her  own
empty  seat.    She looked into the woman's face and was met by a warm
and friendly smile.   She looked at the people  beside  her  and  then
searched  the  eyes  of  everybody  she  could see;  in them she found
without exception a warmth that she had never experienced before.  Her
eyes blurred.   The barrier that had always constrained her  and  kept
her separated from the crowd no longer existed, and the world that she
saw now was osbscured no longer by the suffocating bars of her prison.
She had become a part of that world.   She treasured the moment as she
slowly lowered herself into the empty  seat,  and  as  she  came  into
contact with the cushion a sense of warmth flowed over her.  "All this
is  what my baby does for me," she thought as she clasped the child to
her and began to cry silently.

     The train sped through the long tunnel at Ta-li, and at the other
end the broad expanse of the  Pacific  flashed  into  view.    Mei-tzu
stared  at  it  for  a  moment and then held the baby upright,  braced
against her arm,  and faced him toward the sea.   His big  round  eyes
were not able to focus yet but his mother pointed at the sea and said:

     "Look, baby that's the sea!

     "Sea water is salty!  Lots and lots of fish live in it.

     "And some are as little as your thumb.

     "Look!  There's a boat!

     "Fishermen are sitting on the boat catching fish.

     "They catch red ones,  and white ones, and green ones, and yellow
ones.

     "All for my good baby to eat.

     "Yes, your father was a brave fisherman.

     "And one day when he was catching a big fish in the sea far,  far
away, he died.

     "My good baby, don't you be a fisherman when you grow up.

     "You'll be a great man."

     Then, as if in prayer, she continued:

     "No,  I  don't believe that just because he has a mother like me,
the baby will have no hope for the future."  Her eyes were wet again.

     The waves of the Pacific sparkled in the soft light of the winter
sun as the train continued its smooth and steady swaying  on  its  way
toward this fishing port.


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Chinese Stories from Taiwan: 1960 - 1970
Columbia University Press (1976), New York.

This book is available at the Central Library (Call no: PL 2653.Lau)