Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

when she conjured up the censorious look in the eyes of the revenue clerk. As the day to see the Magistrate’s wife drew near, women flocked to the shops to buy cosmetics and fussed over new clothes, like maidens preparing for their wedding. But Sun Meiniang still had not made up her mind to go. Although she had seen His Eminence on but two occasions, at which he had not bestowed upon her any sweet words or honeyed phrases, she stubbornly clung to the belief that they had feelings for one another and that one day they would be together like a pair of mandarin ducks with their necks entwined. When women on the street engaged in debate over what the Magistrate’s wife, whom they would soon see in person, looked like, her cheeks burned as if they were talking about a member of her family. Truth be told, she could not say whether she wished His Eminence’s wife to be angelically lovely or demonically hideous. If she had the face of an angel, would that not be the end of her dream? But if she had the features of a demon, would His Eminence not be an object of pity? So she looked forward to the arrival of the special day, yet was simultaneously apprehensive of it. The day would surely come anyway, however, whether its inevitability filled her with hope or with apprehension.
    She awoke amid a chorus of cockcrows. Somehow she had survived till dawn. Having no interest in making breakfast, she was even less inclined to dress up. Time and again she went outside, only to walk right back into the house, catching the eye even of Xiaojia, her gnarled log of a hog-butcher husband.
    “What’s wrong with you, wife,” he asked, “the way you’re going in and out of the house? Do you have itchy soles? I can scratch them for you with a chunk of bottle gourd.”
    Itchy soles? I’ve got a bloated belly, and I have to walk to keep from going crazy! That is what she thought of her husband’s good intentions. A pomegranate tree beside the well was so red with flowers that it seemed to be on fire; she plucked one of the flowers and said a silent prayer: If the petals come out even, I’ll go to the yamen to see the First Lady, but if they come out odd, I won’t go, and I’ll give up my dream of ever being with him.
    And so she began: one petal, two petals, three . . . nineteen. An odd number. A chill settled over her heart; her mood plummeted to the depths. No, that didn’t count. My prayer lacked devotion, so it doesn’t count. She plucked another flower from the tree, bigger and fuller than the first one. This time she held it in both hands, closed her eyes, and mouthed a new prayer: Gods in the heavens, Immortals on earth, give me a sign . . . She began with the petals in a mood of extreme solemnity: one petal, two petals, three . . . twenty-seven. Again, an odd number. She tore up what was left of the flower and flung it to the ground. Her head hung disconsolately on her chest. Xiaojia walked up.
    “Do you want to wear a flower, my wife?” he asked in a cautious, fawning tone. “Here, let me pick one for you.”
    “Get away from me!” she thundered before spinning around and storming into the house, where she lay down on the kang, covered her face with the comforter, and sobbed.
    Crying helped a little. She got up, washed her face, and combed her hair. Then she took a pair of half-sewn shoe soles out of her dresser, sat cross-legged on the kang, and began to sew to keep her restlessness under control and avoid having to listen to the animated chatter of the women out on the street. Her husband, foolish as ever, followed her into the house.
    “They’re all going to see the Magistrate’s wife. Aren’t you going?”
    That threw her back into a state of turmoil.
    “People say they’re going to pass out sweets. Take me along so I can grab some.”
    With an exasperated sigh, she said to him, as if speaking to a child, “Are you still a little boy, Xiaojia? This is an event for women only. Why in the world would you want to go, a hulking man like you? Aren’t you afraid the yayi would drive you off with their clubs?”
    “But I want to grab some sweets.”
    “Go out and buy some if you want them so badly.”
    “They don’t taste as good as the ones you grab.”
    The lively chatter of the women on the street rolled into the house like a fireball and singed her painfully. She jabbed her awl into the shoe sole; it snapped in two. She threw the sole, with the embedded awl, down onto the kang, and threw herself down on