Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [114]
“Have you eaten?” Yong says, her voice barely a whisper. “Do you drink tea?”
These are the two most common questions asked when a guest enters your home. Even in her agony, Yong is a woman far above the barbarians outside the villa’s walls.
Kumei, remembering she is also a hostess, gets to her feet and puts water on for tea.
LATER, AFTER THE peasants leave, I fetch water from the stream. The cold water will help sooth Yong’s feet, which are about the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. Her toes and midfeet have been broken and rolled over until the toes meet the heels. They’ve been wrapped in that position for decades. Now they’ve uncoiled, but only so far. They look like camelback bridges—just the toes and backs of the heels touch the ground. The cadres made her walk barefoot, so her flesh, which looks baby soft from being hidden from the world all these years, is ripped and torn. The color? It does not belong on a living creature. I’m trying to be brave and helpful, but my stomach churns. I wish whatever it was I ate or drank would hurry up and pass through me, just as it did when I first arrived here with Z.G.
I’ve had questions about Yong and Kumei for a long time. In the past, I made up romantic stories, for Kumei especially. Now that I’ve helped them in front of everyone, I suppose I’ll have a black mark against me too. Since that’s the case, I need to know what they did to earn such antipathy from everyone in the commune.
“Why do they hate you so?” I ask.
That’s about as direct and American as I can make it. I expect them to shrink from my rudeness, but instead they look at me as if I’m stupid.
“My master was the landowner,” Yong answers, fingering the white ribbon she’ll wear as a stigma for the rest of her life. “Didn’t you know that?”
“I did, but I still don’t understand what they have against you.”
“Because we’re all that’s left of his household,” Kumei says. “The people think we lived privileged lives, but he was a bad man and we had to endure a lot—”
“I know you feel that way,” Yong interrupts. “But I thought he was a good man. He cared for the people here. When the Eighth Route Army came and the soldiers asked him to redistribute his land, he did so without argument.”
“I never even heard the word landowner before the army came,” Kumei says.
“That’s because the word didn’t exist,” Yong explains, her voice warped by pain. “Everyone always called the master en ren, which means benefactor. But the soldiers gave him a new title—dichu—landowner. When the soldiers left, we thought everything would be fine. Instead, the villagers’ hidden anger and resentments surfaced.”
Kumei holds one of Yong’s feet in her hand and with her other hand dribbles cold water over the purple and green skin. Washing bound feet is something that should always be done in complete privacy. Yong should be mortally embarrassed, but she’s already been so humiliated in front of the commune that having me here for this most intimate moment is nothing.
“All wars are brutal, especially for women,” Yong continues haltingly. “But our lives were not so wonderful even before the War of Liberation and land reform. We entered this house as wives, playthings, entertainment, and servants—”
“My parents were poor,” Kumei cuts in. “Poorer than your husband’s family.” She doesn’t wait for me to comment on that. “We had a bad famine when I was little. You think this winter was difficult? It wasn’t nearly as terrible as when I was five. When my brother died, I was told I was being given to the master to