The Secret Mother Read Free Page B

and followed Mother, who carried a bowl of dates and peanut candies. The room seemed suddenly too small for us all and I wondered if we still owed them for Grandmother’s funeral.
    Mr Quifang’s skin was pallid, his eyes serious. I remembered how gently he’d laid Grandmother out, arranging her white burial robes so as to disguise the thinness of her frame. The same couldn’t be said of his son and apprentice, Li Quifang, who teased the old women of the village by pretending to be their husbands back form the dead.
    Father instructed me to sit next to Madam Quifang who squinted in my direction and then kicked the chicken pecking by her feet until it flapped away.
    “Is this the girl?” she asked abruptly.
    Father bowed again. “Yes, Madam, this is our daughter Mai Ling.”
    “She looks reasonably fed and not altogether ugly, a little unfinished, but is she strong?”
    “Yes, very strong; she works with my wife.”
    “So you can cook?” asked Mr Quifang.
    I was unsure whether or not to speak. Father had not yet introduced us.
    “She cooks well and knows many local dishes; she can also grow vegetables and understands how to care for animals,” Mother said, proffering candies.
    Mr Quifang took one and rolled it slowly, thoughtfully, around his mouth.
    “Well I hope the pig I can smell cooking is better than the skeletal beast you have squealing outside,” declared Madam Quifang.
    I began to fidget with a loose thread on my cuff. Father filled some cups of baijiu.
    “A toast! Let’s make a toast to warm us.”
    “I’m afraid that my wife does not drink.”
    “Surely a little on such an important day?”
    “No.”
    “But it is so cold out there,” added Mother.
    “No.”
    “Perhaps you would prefer wine?” Father fussed.
    “I am allergic to both baijiu and wine.”
    “Please – do not ask my wife again.”
    I gulped back the fragrant, honeyed liquor and hoped they would soon go. Mother had laid out our finest bowls – the hand-painted ones with blue jasmine flowers along the inner rim. They had belonged to Grandmother, who kept them hidden in the ground during the Cultural Revolution.
    “Your wife should not have gone to so much effort,” said Mr Quifang.
    Madam Quifang shuffled her stool closer to mine, so that our knees brushed.
    “We cannot stay long, winter is a very busy time. Besides, we have not come for a banquet.” She nodded in my direction. “Girl, I will start with your feet; take off your boots.”
    Mother gave a solemn, approving nod.
    “Come now,” said Madam Quifang, “no need for shyness, it is important we make doubly sure.”
    A sudden wind brayed at the door as if
Nian,
the beast, had come early. I unlaced my boots and removed the newly darned socks. My toes were the colour of frosted violets and I recoiled as her icy fingers prodded the bones in my outstretched foot.
    “Hm, as I feared.”
    “What is it?” Mother asked.
    Madam Quifang stiffened. “The girl’s feet are broad. A narrow foot shows wealth, a broad foot is … I cannot allow a peasant’s foot to rest under my table. I’m sorry husband, but our family doors must be of equal size.”
    She sat up quickly and jerked my head to one side so that I yelped. “Here, look at this nose! How can I trust my wealth to a girl with such a nose?”
    Mother stooped to tend the fire. “But Madam Quifang, you’re overlooking something important.” She nudged a large log in the grate with the poker. “Surely the matchmaker told you?”
    Madam Quifang let go of my chin and I felt the blood return. “Told me what?”
    “About my daughter’s forehead; see for yourself how high her brow is, how good she is at hard labour? Surely this is what’s required of a daughter-in-law?”
    Daughter-in-law!
    “Stand up, girl, I can’t inspect you sitting down.”
    My legs felt weak. Madam Quifang clapped her hands across my apron and pawed at the place where babies grow – the place Mother called an ‘infant’s palace’.