The Woman Warrior_ Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston [63]
“We’re leaving on Friday,” said Brave Orchid. “I’m going to escort you, and you will arrive safely.”
On Friday Brave Orchid put on her dress-up clothes, which she wore only a few times during the year. Moon Orchid wore the same kind of clothes she wore every day and was dressed up. Brave Orchid told her oldest son he had to drive. He drove, and the two old ladies and the niece sat in the back seat.
They set out at gray dawn, driving between the grape trees, which hunched like dwarfs in the fields. Gnomes in serrated outfits that blew in the morning wind came out of the earth, came up in rows and columns. Everybody was only half awake. “A long time ago,” began Brave Orchid, “the emperors had four wives, one at each point of the compass, and they lived in four palaces. The Empress of the West would connive for power, but the Empress of the East was good and kind and full of light. You are the Empress of the East, and the Empress of the West has imprisoned the Earth’s Emperor in the Western Palace. And you, the good Empress of the East, come out of the dawn to invade her land and free the Emperor. You must break the strong spell she has cast on him that has lost him the East.”
Brave Orchid gave her sister last-minute advice for five hundred miles. All her possessions had been packed into the trunk.
“Shall we go into your house together,” asked Brave Orchid, “or do you want to go by yourself?”
“You’ve got to come with me. I don’t know what I would say.”
“I think it would be dramatic for you to go by yourself. He opens the door. And there you are—alive and standing on the porch with all your luggage. ‘Remember me?’ you say. Call him by his own name. He’ll faint with shock. Maybe he’ll say, ‘No. Go away.’ But you march right in. You push him aside and go in. Then you sit down in the most important chair, and you take off your shoes because you belong.”
“Don’t you think he’ll welcome me?”
“She certainly wasn’t very imaginative,” thought Brave Orchid.
“It’s against the law to have two wives in this country,” said Moon Orchid. “I read that in the newspaper.”
“But it’s probably against the law in Singapore too. Yet our brother has two, and his sons have two each. The law doesn’t matter.”
“I’m scared. Oh, let’s turn back. I don’t want to see him. Suppose he throws me out? Oh, he will. He’ll throw me out. And he’ll have a right to throw me out, coming here, disturbing him, not waiting for him to invite me. Don’t leave me by myself. You can talk louder than I can.”
“Yes, coming with you would be exciting. I can charge through the door and say, ‘Where is your wife?’ And he’ll answer, ‘Why, she’s right here.’ And I’ll say, ‘This isn’t your wife. Where is Moon Orchid? I’ve come to see her. I’m her first sister, and I’ve come to see that she is being well taken care of.’ Then I accuse him of murderous things; I’d have him arrested—and you pop up to his rescue. Or I can take a look at his wife, and I say, ‘Moon Orchid, how young you’ve gotten.’ And he’ll say, ‘This isn’t Moon Orchid.’ And you come in and say, ‘No. I am.’ If nobody’s home, we’ll climb in a window. When they get back we’ll be at home; you the hostess, and I your guest. You’ll be serving me cookies and coffee. And when he comes in I’ll say, ‘Well, I see your husband is home. Thank you so much for the visit.’ And you say, ‘Come again anytime.’ Don’t make violence. Be routine.”
Sometimes Moon Orchid got into the mood. “Maybe I could be folding towels when he comes in. He’ll think I’m so clever. I’ll get to them before his wife does.” But the further they came down the great central valley—green fields changing to fields of cotton on dry, brown stalks, first a stray bush here and there, then thick—the more Moon Orchid wanted to turn back. “No. I can’t go through with this.” She tapped her nephew on the shoulder. “Please turn back. Oh, you must turn