The Interior

"I've heard things about Miaoshan that trouble me," Hulan said. "You say she was to be married, and yet I hear of other men."

"There were no other men. Miaoshan loved Tsai Bing."

No mother wanted to hear what Hulan was going to say, but she relied on the fact that Suchee had insisted that she wanted the truth at whatever the cost. "I have met a man, Guy Lin, who says he is the father of Miaoshan's baby. I believe him. Did she ever mention him to you?"

Suchee turned her head away to face into the green of the field as though she had not heard.

"There is also a girl at the factory who says that Miaoshan was meeting with a foreigner." Hulan had used a euphemism, but the meaning was clear. "I believe this girl, especially when I add it to what I found among Miaoshan's belongings. You said that Miaoshan dressed like a foreigner. I hadn't thought this that important. So many of our young women-no, so many women in all of China -now dress to copy Westerners. But I was thinking of the clothes that we make here to look like clothes from the West, not the real thing. Even in Beijing I would have trouble finding the type of nu zai ku-'cow boy pants'-that Miaoshan had."

Suchee opened her mouth to speak, but Hulan held up a hand to stop her.

"There is more. In the box in your house I found perfume, panties, and a bra. These are not from our country. These are foreign. You might even say corrupt. There can only be one explanation: The foreigner gave these things to Miaoshan. I have a guess about who this was. Did Miaoshan ever talk to you about Aaron Rodgers?"

Suchee shook her head, but still kept her eyes averted. Her fingers began to fret the hem of a pant leg.

"What about Manager Red Face?" Hulan asked.

Again Suchee shook her head.

"Another name has also come up," Hulan continued. "It is that of your neighbor Tang Dan."

Suchee slowly rotated her face to Hulan. Her eyes were filled with pain and anger. "That is a lie."

"Tell me," Hulan said.

"Tang Dan is my neighbor. I was a friend of his wife's. She helped me when Miaoshan was born."

"But Tang Dan is a widower now."

"Yes," Suchee acknowledged, "and perhaps for that reason he is looking for a new wife."

"Miaoshan?"

Suchee chortled. "Tang Dan is old enough to be Miaoshan's father."

"Which would only show his strength and virility in the village."

"And that is why he has asked me to marry him?"

Hulan was not surprised by the news. "How many times have you said no?"

"He asked me for the first time five years ago, just as Miaoshan finished middle school. I considered it. Tang Dan is a wealthy man in our county. Our lands would have been consolidated. I thought this would give Miaoshan a better opportunity to continue her education. You always said that an education was important for women. Remember how you taught me my first characters? Then, after the Cultural Revolution, people came to our village with a new campaign. It wasn't the usual political campaign that we had all grown so accustomed to. No, this time it was a campaign to educate women. Shaoyi encouraged me and I was one of the first women from our county to join. We began with Chinese, but very soon they introduced us to English ABCs. The government said it was important for us to learn the foreigner's language as well as our own. I thought, if this is so, our country must truly be changing. And if it is changing, then Miaoshan must be a new kind of girl for our new country."

All this seemed very far off the track, but Hulan let Suchee continue for now.

"Very few children in this area go on to high school, because they're needed on the land," Suchee said "But Miaoshan was never much for physical work, and my place is so small that I really didn't need her help every day. Of course, I could have used her hands for watering, but she complained so that I thought she was just like her father. She was born to be a scholar, not a peasant. For her ninth-grade year she was one of only two children from our village accepted to high school. She accomplished that on her own. We didn't need Tang Dan for help, but this didn't stop him from asking if we needed it. Four years later, when Miaoshan graduated, I once again considered accepting Tang Dan's proposal. I don't know if you can understand this, Hulan. When I say he is wealthy, it may not seem so to you by your counting, but he is the first man in our county to become a millionaire."

Hulan told Suchee that Siang had said her father warn't a millionaire.

"Tang Dan isn't going to discuss his business affairs with his daughter," Suchee insisted.

"But he would with you."

Suchee grunted. "I have been alone here for many years. I have relied on no one. I have raised and slaughtered animals. I have bought my own seed and tilled my soil. I have hired people to help me during harvest, but I have sold all of my produce myself. Tang Dan and I understood each other."

"So you discussed his money?" Hulan asked skeptically.

"Liu Hulan, look around you. There is nothing here but hard work. Oh, people can go to the village and watch television in the cafe. Some people, like Tang Dan, even have their own television sets. But what do half-naked American girls bouncing their big breasts in their biji nis have to do with me?" Hulan understood that Suchee was talking about Baywatch, a show very popular in China for its bikini-clad actresses. "For young people like Miaoshan, Tsai Bing, and Siang, they see a paradise that they want to be a part of. For old people like me, I think it only makes people dream of things they can never have."

"You're not old."

Suchee frowned and said, "We are the same age, yes, but look at you. You are just starting your life. I am ending mine."

Hulan could have denied all this; instead she asked, "What about Tang Dan?"

"For many years-since his wife's death and Shaoyi's death-we have met. It has only been talk, and most of that has been about our regrets. Tang Dan and I grew up in the same area, but our lives were almost as different as yours and mine. Even though we had both been born after Liberation, our families had held on to old ways and customs, as was the case in the countryside. As a boy he was well fed and spoiled. As a girl I was seen as merely a visitor to our family home. My father treated me very badly. I wasn't given food or a place to sleep in the house. My mother could do nothing about it, because she had been sold to my father by her father for only a iew yuan during a famine. When the Cultural Revolution came, everything changed."

Having heard Slang's version of these events, Hulan listened carefully for any discrepancies, but the story was still the same. Tang Dan's family had been destroyed, and he'd spent years in a labor camp.