Yilan shook her head and tried hard not to cry in front of the young woman.

"Really, Auntie," Fusang said. "You'll be surprised how easy it is to forget someone. I never think about my son."

"But how can you forget him? He came from your own body," Yilan said.

"It was hard at first, but I just thought of it this way: Whoever took him would give him a better life than his own parents. Then it didn't hurt to think of him, and once it didn't hurt, I forgot to think about him from time to time, and then I just forgot."

Yilan looked at the young woman, her eyes in the shape of new moons, filled with an innocent smile, as if she were not talking about the cruelest truth in life. Illiterate and young as she was, she seemed to have gained more wisdom about life than Yilan and Luo. Yilan studied Fusang: young, beautiful, and pregnant with Luo's children-who could be a better choice to replace her as a wife than Fusang? Such a thought, once formed, became strong.

"Have you ever thought of going to America?" Yilan said.

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"No," Fusang said. "My tongue is straight and I can't speak English."

"English is not hard to learn," Yilan said. "Take me as an example." Take Jade, she thought.

"Are you matchmaking for me, Auntie? If possible, I want someone younger this time," Fusang said, laughing at her own joke.

Yilan could not help but feel disappointed. Indeed Luo was too old for Fusang-her father's age already. It did not feel right, Yilan thought, to marry someone your daughter's age to your husband. "Where are your parents?" she asked Fusang. "Do you want to go back to them after this?"

"My mother died when I was two. I've never known her."

"What about your father? Do you remember him?"

"He leased me to a beggar couple for ten years so I could support myself by begging with them. They were like my own parents and raised me from the time I was eight. They promised to return me to my father when I was eighteen, with the money I made as my dowry, so he could marry me off, but then they died and I was brought to my husband's village and before I knew it, aha, I was sold."

"Who sold you? Why didn't you report it to the police?"

"The man said he could find me a job, so I went with him. The next thing I knew, I was locked in a bedroom with a dimwit. And when they finally let me free, my son was already born," Fusang said, shaking her head as if intrigued by a story that did not belong to her. "What's the good of reporting then? They would never find the man."

YILAN AND FUSANG left the restaurant and decided to take a long stroll home. They were the reason for each other's existence in this city, and they had no place to rush to. Fusang's hand was on Yilan's arm, but it was no longer a hand clinging for guidance. Their connection was something between friendship and kinship. When they walked past a department store, they went in and Yilan bought a few maternity outfits for Fusang, cotton dresses in soft shades of pink and yellow and blue, with huge b.u.t.terfly knots on the back. Fusang blushed when the female salesperson complimented her on her cuteness in the dresses. Yilan found it hard not to broadcast the news of the twins. An older woman pa.s.sing by congratulated Yilan for her good fortune as a grandmother, and neither Yilan nor Fusang corrected her. left the restaurant and decided to take a long stroll home. They were the reason for each other's existence in this city, and they had no place to rush to. Fusang's hand was on Yilan's arm, but it was no longer a hand clinging for guidance. Their connection was something between friendship and kinship. When they walked past a department store, they went in and Yilan bought a few maternity outfits for Fusang, cotton dresses in soft shades of pink and yellow and blue, with huge b.u.t.terfly knots on the back. Fusang blushed when the female salesperson complimented her on her cuteness in the dresses. Yilan found it hard not to broadcast the news of the twins. An older woman pa.s.sing by congratulated Yilan for her good fortune as a grandmother, and neither Yilan nor Fusang corrected her.

When they exited the store, Yilan pointed out a fruit vendor to Fusang. It was the season for new bayberries, and they walked across the street to buy a basket. As they were leaving, a small hand grasped Yilan's pants. "Spare a penny, Granny," a boy dressed in rags said, his upturned face smeared with dirt.

Yilan put the change into the boy's straw basket, which held a few scattered coins and paper notes. The boy let go of Yilan's pants and then grabbed Fusang's sleeve. "Spare a penny, Auntie."

Fusang looked at the boy for a moment and squatted down. "Be careful," Yilan said, but Fusang paid no attention. She put a hand on the boy's forehead and he jerked back, but Fusang dragged him closer and said in a harsh tone, "Let me see your head."

The boy, frightened, did not move. Fusang stroked his hair back and gazed at his forehead for a moment. "What's your name?" she said, shaking the boy by his shoulder. "How old are you? Where are your parents? Where is your home?"

Before the boy could answer, a middle-aged man ran toward them from the street corner. "Hey," he said in a dialect not of the province. "What are you doing to my son?"

"But he's not your son," Fusang said. "He's mine."

The boy recoiled from Fusang, his eyes filled with trepidation. The man pulled the boy away from Fusang and said to Yilan, "Is she your daughter? Can't you see she's scaring my child? Don't think we beggars do not deserve respect and that you can s.h.i.t on our faces."

Yilan looked at the man, his yellow crooked teeth and big sinewy hands bearing the threat of a lawless wanderer. He could easily hurt the twins with a mean punch to Fusang's belly. Yilan held Fusang back and said in a placating tone, "My niece lost a son, so please understand that she might make a mistake."

"But I'm not mistaken," Fusang said. "My son has a scar here on his forehead, like a new moon, and he has that, too."

Already a group of people had gathered for the free street show. Someone laughed at Fusang's words and said, "Five out of ten boys have a scar somewhere on their heads, haven't they?"

"Hear that?" the man said to Fusang. "How can you prove he's your son?"

"Can you prove he's your son?" Fusang said. "Do you have his birth papers?"

"Beggars don't bother to bring useless things with them," the man said. He picked up the boy and put him on his shoulders. "Brothers and sisters, if you have a penny to spare for me and my boy, please do so. Or we'll leave now so this crazy woman won't bother us."

Fusang grabbed the man's arm, but with a small push he sent Fusang stumbling back a few steps till she sat down on the ground. Yilan's heart quickened.

"If you dare leave now, you will not have a good death," Fusang said, and started to cry. Neither her curse nor her tears stopped the man. The circle scattered to let him and the boy pa.s.s, and besides a few idlers who stayed to watch Fusang cry, the others left for their own business.

Yilan imagined the twins in Fusang's womb, shaken by anger and sadness that they did not understand. She did not know how to comfort Fusang, nor could she believe in Fusang's claim of the boy's ident.i.ty. After a moment, Yilan said, "Are you all right?"

Fusang put a hand on her belly and supported herself with another hand to stand up. "Don't worry, Auntie," she said. "The babies are fine."

"You could've hurt them," Yilan said. Her words sounded cold, and right away she regretted having spoken them.

Fusang did not reply. Yilan called a taxi, and on the ride home they let silence grow and distance them into strangers. When they entered the flat, Yilan told Fusang to take a rest and not to dwell on the incident; Fusang did not reply but followed Yilan to her bedroom.

"You don't believe me, Auntie," Fusang said, standing at the door. "But he's my son. How can a mother make a mistake?"

Yilan shook her head and sat down on her bed. A moon-shaped scar could happen to many boys and it proved nothing. "You told me that wherever your son was, he was having his own life," Yilan said finally. "So don't think about him now."

"I thought he would have a much better life," Fusang said. "I thought people who wanted to buy a boy from a trader would treat him as their own son. I didn't know he would be sold to a beggar."

Yilan had heard stories of people buying or renting children from poor villages and taking them into the cities to beg. The owners made big money from the small children, whom they starved and sometimes hurt intentionally, so that the children, with their hungry eyes and wounded bodies on display, would look sadder and more worthy of charity. She tried to recall the boy's eyes, whether they bore unfathomable pain and sadness unfit for a child his age, but all she could remember was the man's big hand on his small arm when he was taken away from Fusang.

"Had I known this," Fusang said, "I wouldn't have let the trader take him away. I thought any parents would be better than his dimwit father and me."

"Did you give your son away to a trader?" Yilan asked.

"We couldn't give the boy a good life," Fusang said. "Besides, his grandparents deserved it because of what they had done to me."

Yilan was shocked by the venom in Fusang's words, the first time Yilan had detected the young woman's emotion about her past. "How could you make such a mistake?" Yilan said. "You're the birth mother of your son and no one could replace you."

"But if someone could give him a better life-" Fusang said. "Just like you'll take away the twins and I won't say a thing, because you'll give them more than I can."

"The twins are our children," Yilan said, and stood up abruptly. She was stunned by Fusang's illogic. "You can't keep them. We have a contract."

"If they're in my belly, won't they be my children, too?" Fusang said. "But don't worry, Auntie. I won't keep them. All I'm saying is sometimes mothers do give away their children."

"Then stop thinking of getting him back," Yilan said, and then regretted her frustration. "And perhaps he's not your son at all," she added in a softened voice. "Your son may be living a happy life elsewhere."

Fusang shook her head in confusion. "Why is it that no one wants to believe me?" she said. "He is my son."

"But you have no way to prove it," Yilan said.

Fusang thought for a long moment. "Yes, there is a way," she said, and suddenly became excited. "Auntie, can you give me half of my money now? I'll go find the man and offer ten thousand yuan to buy the boy back from him. He won't sell the boy if he's his son, but if he only bought the boy from a trader, he'll surely sell the boy to me, and that will prove that he is my son."

Yilan did not know how to reply. Ten thousand yuan was a big sum and Fusang might be able to buy the boy from the beggar if indeed the man was only the owner of the boy instead of his father, but that did not make the boy Fusang's son. Or did it matter whether he came from her blood or not? She believed him to be her son, and he might as well become her son, but what did Fusang have, except for the rest of the money she would earn from the pregnancy, to bring the child up? Fusang was still a child herself, acting out of wrong reasoning; she herself needed a mother to pa.s.s on generations of wisdom to her.

"Auntie, please?" Fusang said, her pleading eyes looking into Yilan's. "I can send him to his father for now if you don't like having him around."

"But you're planning to leave your husband," Yilan said. "Plus, he can't possibly take care of a small child."

"I'll find someone to take care of him in the village," Fusang said. "I'll stay with my husband if you think I shouldn't leave him. Please, Auntie, if we don't hurry, the man may run away with my son."

What would Fusang do with a small child? Yilan thought. She found it hard to imagine Fusang's life without her own presence, but what would Luo say if she told him about the situation and suggested they find a way to help Fusang and her son to America? Luo would probably say there was no clause about an advance or any other form of payment beyond the twenty thousand yuan. How could she persuade him to see that sometimes people without any blood connection could also make a family-and Fusang, wasn't she their kin now, nurturing their twins with her blood?

"Auntie?" Fusang said tentatively, and Yilan realized that she had been gazing at the young woman for a long time.

"Fusang," Yilan said. "Why don't we sit down for a moment? We need to talk."

But Fusang, mistaking Yilan's words as a rejection, stepped back with disappointment. "You can say no, but remember, your children are here with me. I'll run away and sell your children if I like. I can starve them even if you find a way to keep me here," Fusang said, and before Yilan could stop her, she ran into the kitchen and climbed onto the dinner table. Yilan followed Fusang into the kitchen and looked at Fusang, her small figure all of a sudden a looming danger. "I can jump and jump and jump and make them fall out of my body now," Fusang said. "I don't care if I don't earn your money. I have a husband to go back to. I will have more children if I like, but you won't ever see the twins if you say no to me now."

Fusang's face was no longer glowing with a gentle beauty but with anger and hatred. This was the price they paid for being mothers, Yilan thought, that the love of one's own child made everyone else in the world a potential enemy. Even as she was trying to find reconciling words to convince Fusang that she would do whatever she requested, Yilan knew that the world of trust and love they had built together was crushed, and they would remain each other's prisoners for as long as they stayed under the same roof.

The Proprietress

THE INTERVIEW WITH the young woman reporter from Shanghai did not come as a surprise to Mrs. Jin, the proprietress of the general store across the street from the county jail. It was not the first time a reporter had asked to talk with her since she had taken in Susu and hidden her from the world of curious strangers; but this story was for a famous women's magazine, and Shanghai was different, a much bigger place than the provincial capital or the county seat, let alone Clear Water Town, which, apart from the jail, had nothing to offer as an attraction for out-of-towners. Mrs. Jin imagined people in Shanghai reading about her and her store, even though she was not the reason the reporter was coming. the young woman reporter from Shanghai did not come as a surprise to Mrs. Jin, the proprietress of the general store across the street from the county jail. It was not the first time a reporter had asked to talk with her since she had taken in Susu and hidden her from the world of curious strangers; but this story was for a famous women's magazine, and Shanghai was different, a much bigger place than the provincial capital or the county seat, let alone Clear Water Town, which, apart from the jail, had nothing to offer as an attraction for out-of-towners. Mrs. Jin imagined people in Shanghai reading about her and her store, even though she was not the reason the reporter was coming.

The bus that carried the reporter into town arrived at three o'clock. Two hours before that, Mrs. Jin had closed her store. She'd wiped all the shelves, dusted every corner, and washed the cement floor twice. The silk blouse and pants she had put on for the day were new; so were the leather shoes, imported from Italy, according to the words printed on the box. A clearheaded businesswoman, Mrs. Jin did not believe the shoe box, but they were nice shoes, better than anyone in town wore, and worth showing off.

The shoes and the outfit were gifts from Mrs. Jin's son, who was a rather successful construction contractor in the provincial capital. When Mrs. Jin had become a widow, two years earlier, her son had asked her to join his family in the city for more comfortable circ.u.mstances, rather than wasting her time in the small store, which made as much money in a month or two as he did in a day. Mrs. Jin refused. At the age of sixty-eight, she was strong enough to lift a thirty-kilo box to the store's highest shelf; there was no need for her to live as a dependent of anyone, her son included. Besides, over those two years she had collected several women who now relied on her for their welfare. She would not give them up for a boring life under the reign of her daughter-in-law, whom she had not liked in the first place.

When she finished cleaning, Mrs. Jin sat down with a cup of tea behind the counter. She had put up a sign that said the store would be closed for the rest of the day, but she knew the townspeople would knock on her back door when they needed her. The sign was only for those who came from out of town; so were the price tags. Mrs. Jin believed the old saying that the smartest hare would not eat the gra.s.s at the entrance to its own hole, and she charged her townspeople much less, barely enough to make a profit.

She had lived all her life in Clear Water Town and had watched its young children grow up, some leaving, like her son, others staying and marrying to produce the next generation for her to watch; she herself had been watched by older people, though the number of those who remembered her as a young girl with two pigtails, or as a new wife with a plump and desirable body, was dwindling now. In a few years the memory of her youth would be gone with the oldsters, and n.o.body would contradict her even if she told the wildest lies about her life. Mrs. Jin sighed. She stood up and checked herself in the mirror. Her hair was neatly tucked into a tight bun and her eyebrows newly plucked, and she examined her face as if studying a stranger; after a while she decided that she was still a presentable woman. Not many women could age as beautifully and regally as she had, a fact that Mrs. Jin was proud of, though there was no one to whom she could boast.

The reporter from Shanghai was less beautiful than Mrs. Jin had imagined-fashionable, for sure, but dresses and jewels and makeup would not help her at Mrs. Jin's age. Her eyes were wide apart, which gave her a distracted look; her hair was not thick enough, and by fifty she would have to consider a wig.

"Some women were born with fewer gifts from heaven," Mrs. Jin said with a smile. "Susu is just one such woman."

"Someone from the courthouse told me she lives with you now," the reporter said. "Can I meet her?"

"She's not ready to meet strangers yet," Mrs. Jin said.

"I won't bother her for long. I'll just ask her a few questions," the reporter said.

Mrs. Jin shook her head. Since the execution of Susu's husband, Mrs. Jin had fended off several reporters for Susu. "She's like a daughter to me, so if you have questions, I can answer them for you."

"What does she think of the court's decision to deny her a baby?" the reporter asked.

"It doesn't matter what she thinks," Mrs. Jin said. It had been a crazy idea on Susu's part in the first place. Who would have thought of asking to have a baby with a husband about to be executed? "The judge said no, so she'd better stop thinking about it."

This seemed to take the reporter by surprise. "What do you think of it, Mrs. Jin?"

"I couldn't have been happier," Mrs. Jin said. These reporters all came with the same despicable ambitions, to witness Susu's grief over her dead husband and to a.n.a.lyze her mad notion of bearing his child. Sometimes they talked about the significance of Susu's case-no one had ever made such a request, they said; she raised the question of whether a man on death row had reproductive rights. But such talk was nonsense. For ordinary people like Susu, there was nothing glorious about occupying a page or two in a history book. "Think about it," Mrs. Jin said. "What would it make a jail look like if every wife asked to have a baby by a husband inside? A mating station it would be, no?"

The reporter smiled. "I think what Susu asked for was artificial insemination," she said, and explained the procedure.

"What a horrible invention," Mrs. Jin said. "There're enough men in this world who will jump at the first opportunity to offer the real thing."

The reporter smiled again. Mrs. Jin savored her wittiness, making a young woman from Shanghai laugh, and supposed that she might like the reporter more than she had thought. Perhaps she could reconsider her decision and let the woman see Susu for five minutes-it all depended on how the reporter behaved.

"Trust me, Susu won't remain a widow for long," Mrs. Jin said. "She'll get a chance to have a baby. I'll see to it personally."

"You said she was like a daughter to you," the reporter said. "Are you a relative?"

"No. She came through this door one day to tell me her story. I liked her, so I said, 'Susu, it's a cruel world. Why don't you stay with me for some time until you're ready to go out there again?' She stayed."

Mrs. Jin observed the reporter. People in this world belonged to two groups: those who were curious about others' stories, and those who were not. Mrs. Jin decided that if the reporter did not show a genuine interest in Mrs. Jin herself, she would finish the interview in a few minutes and make the young woman's trip from Shanghai worthless.

The young woman raised her eyebrows. "You just took her in like that, without even knowing her?"

Feeling the reporter's eyes probe her own for answers and stories, Mrs. Jin was satisfied. "Why? How much more does one need to know to lend a hand to a drowning life?" she said. "It's not the first time for me, anyway. You don't close the door to those who need you."

It was true that Susu was not the first woman Mrs. Jin had picked up from the street, nor would she be the last one. These women lived with Mrs. Jin now in the big house she had once shared with her husband. She had been married to him for forty-three years. There was nothing about him to complain of-in fact, if anyone asked Mrs. Jin, she would say that her husband was the best man she could ever have imagined. Unlike many other men in town, who drank and beat their wives and children, Mrs. Jin's husband was strictly obedient; she had been the one to make decisions and he the one to follow them, from the color of the curtains to the naming of their only son.

It had been her idea, too, to buy the almost defunct general store from the township twenty years earlier, when small private businesses ceased to be illegal. What if there came another round of the Cultural Revolution and the cutting of capitalist tails? her husband said; their business would be the biggest tail in town. Mrs. Jin told her husband one could worry himself to death even in bed, and if he would choose to hide from life like a tortoise, he'd better remember that she would not remain a tortoise's wife. It was the harshest thing she had ever said to him, but it shut him up. She bribed officials of all ranks in the jail so that her husband could go inside twice a week to sell, at high prices, cigarettes, matches, toothpaste, towels, poker cards, and other goods to those who did not have visitors. The store blossomed under the couple's hard labor.

The idea of gathering women companions first occurred to Mrs. Jin not because she felt lonely or abandoned after her husband's death. Rather, she saw this as a new stage of her life. She had taken good care of her husband for four decades-her son, too, before he had gone out and made a man of himself-and now it was time for other responsibilities. It was not difficult to find such women-once a week, female visitors were allowed in the jail to see their men. Some stopped by Mrs. Jin's store for last-minute purchases of articles they had forgotten; more came in after the visiting hour for Mrs. Jin's hospitality, the hot tea and freshly baked buns she offered them for free. Sooner or later they started to talk about their men-fathers, sons, brothers, husbands-similar stories in which the women either believed in the innocence of their loved ones or were readier than the rest of the world to forgive them. Mrs. Jin listened, pouring tea and handing them tissues, reminding herself what a lucky woman she was. She shed tears with them, too, and because of the hours she spent sympathizing, she charged these women extra for any purchases. They left with grat.i.tude. Some returned for more tea and talk; others, whose men were sentenced and either transferred or executed, would be replaced by new women with the same stories.

The reporter, who had come for Susu, decided to write a story about Mrs. Jin instead. An impressive story it would be, she told Mrs. Jin, an important one about sisterhood that would reach all the female readers of the magazine. The reporter's talk was like her big-city clothes, fancy but laughable. She called Mrs. Jin's house "a commune," and praised Mrs. Jin's charity as "revolutionary." Such words reminded Mrs. Jin of a past era: Her own father had been the leader of Clear Water People's Commune, when the town had been a village, before the surrounding farmland was sold for mining. Yet, regardless of the reporter's inanities, Mrs. Jin decided that she herself was indeed extraordinary and worth a story, so when the reporter asked to see Mrs. Jin's commune, she agreed.

The reporter took a picture of Mrs. Jin across the street from the jail. The enclosed compound had been the home of a big landlord, she told the reporter, who found this interesting and snapped more pictures and wrote in her notebook. A few townspeople stopped by to watch and congratulated Mrs. Jin when she told them the news of her being featured in the women's magazine.

She smiled and nodded, already feeling important. She led the reporter across town to her house, a good brick one with a big yard. Upon entering the gate, they b.u.mped into a pair of children who were running wild. The reporter dropped her pen. The two girls, identical twins dressed in the same clothes, stopped immediately. One picked up the pen while the other chirped an apology. Mrs. Jin frowned. Many times she had told the twins to behave properly in her home, but the two girls just did not have the brains for useful lessons. "These are my youngest girls," she said, without introducing them. As she sometimes confused the two, she never used their names.

The twins studied the reporter and smiled simultaneously. "Auntie, I like your bag," one said, touching the reporter's leather handbag. The other handed the pen to the reporter and said, "Auntie, are you an actress? You're the prettiest woman I've ever seen."

"What sweet girls," the reporter said. "How old are you?"

"Six," they both said.

Mrs. Jin watched the twins put on their best charming expressions. Their eyes, too big for their small, heart-shaped faces, gave them a look of helpless innocence. Mrs. Jin said to the twins, "Don't bother the guest."

The girls stepped back, still bearing their matching smiles.

"Their father was sentenced to thirty years," Mrs. Jin said to the reporter, "for robbing an old woman and making her die of a heart attack. Their parents of course did not get married before the girls were born, so they had to hide them from the household registrar."