Ghost Woman

Uncle Lin had a thin face and pointed jaws. His two small triangular eyes stared at Ting until he broke into a grin. A smile dimpled Ting’s smooth, oval face and spread to her big, shiny eyes. 

     Uncle Lin exited a pickup truck. “I’ve been working in the city for three years, and now you are such a beautiful girl. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

     Ting blushed, embarrassed by his stare. “Hello, Uncle Lin,” she demurred.

     “I’m going back to town. I need someone to help me count the goods on this delivery. Why don’t you help me? I’ll drive you home in the evening. I can give you a 200 yuan for your labor. If you do well, you can work for me in Luoding city.”

     Ting’s eyes lit up. Like most village girls, she’d dropped out of primary school to herd cattle and gather wild vegetables and herbs to feed the pigs. She was eager to work in the city and escape the harsh, dull poverty of rural life: to marry a man she didn’t like, cook for him, mend his clothes, birth his children, and labor year-round in the rice fields until her hair turned white, her skin wrinkled and her life was over. 

     “I’ll do it,” Ting answered. 

     “I need to leave soon or we’ll be late. But you haven’t told your parents. They’ll worry. You’d better go home first.” He paused deliberately. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you with me, but I may not return until next year.” 

     “I work in the fields and often get home late at night. Take me with you now! My parents will be happy if I return with 200 yuan.” She gave Uncle Lin her sweetest smile. Her father always said a smiling girl would have a good life.

     “You should have a good image to meet customers in the city. We can’t let them know that we’re from the countryside.” 

     She got into Uncle Lin’s car parked not far from the village entrance. He brought her to the barber’s and bought her a new dress. Instead of a long ponytail, taupe shirt, and trousers, she now wore a bob, her slim figure zippered into a blush red dress covered in strawberries. 

     “You must be thirsty. Have some juice.” Ting accepted the drink, finished it in one gulp, and drifted off to sleep. 

     The truck crawled slowly along the bumpy road, dust creeping through windows. It was late and the sky was dark, everything a shadowy vague.

*****

By the time Ting woke, it was noon. The sky, overcast with dark clouds. Ting looked out and saw the car parked on the road beside a small village. 

     “Where is this? Aren’t we going to town?”

     “I passed a friend’s house and want to say hello,” Uncle Lin replied. 

     Ting followed him, zigzagging around the village until they came to a house at the foot of a hill. She felt a nameless fear and shivered. 

     The dark door opened. A man stuck out his head and said in a hoarse, deep voice, “Have you brought her?” He looked Ting up and down. “Is that her?”

     Uncle Lin nodded, pulled Ting into the courtyard, and the door quickly shut behind them. The man, who looked to be her father’s age, and an old woman stood in the yard.

     The old woman scrutinized Ting. “She’s just a little girl. Let her go. Besides, it’s illegal to buy humans in China. Use the matchmaker. Even if it costs a little more, it’s legal. I’ll borrow some money to pay the matchmaker.”

     “Isn’t buying from a matchmaker the same as buying from a trafficker? Matchmakers find and sell women nearby, while traffickers sell women from far away. A bought woman is cheaper than a married one.” The man smiled with pride at his own argument.

     The old woman nodded thoughtfully. 

     Still not fully awake, Ting watched Uncle Lin and the man finally settle on a price of 3,500 yuan. Suddenly she understood.

*****

She was locked in a room against the wall, iron bars on the windows and the glass covered with brown paper. Her left foot was bound by an iron chain. 

     The room, dim with a leaden gloom even as the sun shone, and bleak, cold, and dark if it was cloudy. 

     Every day the old woman pushed open the door just enough to slip a bowl of water and a few steamed buns inside. A pail in the corner served as a toilet. 

     A darkness engulfed her, accompanied by a silence more haunted than wailings and howling. 

     She either lay in bed or circled the room, oppressed by great loneliness.

     Closing her eyes, she found herself no longer in the cage but scrambling up a rugged path, carrying a bundle of firewood. Sweat soaked her shirt and her hair, stained with grass, clung to her forehead. The breeze wafted with the smell of grass and flowers. She smiled her familiar smile, two dimples on her face. 

     Twelve days later, on an auspicious day according to the lunar calendar, the man married Ting. 

     When he tore off her clothes on their wedding night, she scratched his face with her nails. The man became a beast and pounced. 

     When morning came, he slept, snoring like a pig. 

     On the corner of the bed, Ting’s hands were still tied behind her back, her naked body covered in bruises and blood.

*****

Ting did housework and worked in the yard. The old woman kept an eye on her. The man locked the gate whenever he went to the farm. 

     Ting missed her family. She hadn’t been home for many days. They must be worried. She hated herself for being naive and trusting Uncle Lin but hid her homesickness—she wanted to lower their guard. 

     It had rained the night before and the ground was wet. While sweeping, the old woman lost her footing. Ting was not far away and caught her before she fell. “You’d better go to bed and rest. I’ll sweep the yard,” Ting said.

     She helped the old woman into her room. When Ting was sure she was asleep, she stacked two stools against the courtyard wall. Climbing over the wall, she gritted her teeth and jumped. A sharp pain shot through her ankle. Still, Ting ran but just as she passed the neighbor’s house, a woman rushed out. She wrapped her arms around Ting and cried, “Help! She’s running away!” Soon the villagers crowded around her. 

     “I miss home. Please have mercy on me, let me go!” 

     Ting told them how she had been trafficked. The eyes of the woman who held her turned red for Ting’s misfortune, but her grip on Ting did not relax. She said, “Your husband bought you. You must stay and give him a son. If you run away, he’ll lose all his money.” 

     That night, in the dim light, the man smiled grimly at her. She shivered and tried to back away, but her hands and feet were tied and she couldn’t move.

     “How dare you run away?” He slapped her hard and then kicked her in the chest. In great pain, Ting nearly fainted. 

     “I bought you. You are my property. I can even kill you.” 

     The man hoisted her up on a rope, picked up a broom, and swung it at her, blows raining down on her back and thigh. Her shrill wails pierced the night’s silence, long and desperate. 

     She couldn’t get out of bed for three days. The man warned her, “If you run again, I’ll cut and salt your hamstrings.” He sharpened the knife until it shone. 

     Ting knew she couldn’t flee. The whole village had become eyes to watch her, a net impossible to escape.

*****

Living was dying to Ting. Work became her only pleasure—she worked like an animal, tilling, mucking, sowing, watering, weeding, and harvesting. 

     When the sun went down, the night came again. She wished to disappear into thin air. To be without dread of the coming night. 

     “Sleep,” the man said. 

     A shudder ran through her, and her hair stood on end. Without a word, she undressed and got into bed. When the man wasn’t talking, she could hear her teeth chatter. 

     He threw her down and the pain of a knife pierced her body, raced through her. 

     Her eyes remained wide open, dry and lifeless as an old well.

     She turned to look at the candlelight on the table, where several moths flitted. A tiny one collapsed by the candlestick—blackened and shriveled, its wings engulfed by the flame. She was no longer herself—she left her form and flew into the fiery candlelight like the moth, consumed by light and heat, became a puff of smoke, a speck of ash. An eerie smile dawned across her face.

     “Whore!” The man slapped her hard. “You enjoy this?” He bit her shoulder and arms until she bled. 

     As her belly grew bigger, the man stopped beating her. Nausea, vomiting, dizziness, anemia, and pregnancy sickness afflicted her. But she suffered most from homesickness.

     She knelt before the old woman and pleaded, “Please let me write a letter to my parents. They must have been anxious all this time. I’m pregnant. I won’t run away. I promise I will give you a grandson.”

     The old woman assented. A month later, Ting’s father knocked at the door. She tried to give him a bright smile—her father used to say her smile could turn bitterness into sweetness. He’d always liked her smile the most. 

     At the sight of her stomach her father choked, “You are already married and pregnant. Even if I took you back, the village would judge and despise you. No one would want to marry you. Besides, your husband would never let me take you away. You should live here and be a good wife and mother.”

     Ting’s smile froze. 

     Before her father left, he told her to smile and things would get better. 

     That night, she looked up—stars punctured the dark sky like glass splinters—and her eyes glazed over. 

     She fell into perpetual darkness.

*****

A piercing pain came as she went into labor. Ting felt the stab of a thousand burning knives and a throbbing spread throughout her body. 

     She screamed. Wet hair pressed against her forehead, eyebrows screwed together, eyes bulging above flared nostrils, hands clutching sheets wet with sweat. Her face yellow, then red, purple, then white. She was too weak to speak. 

     Finally, a daughter was born. Her wailing woke Ting from a daze. 

     Out of the corner of her eye she saw the midwife put her daughter into the bucket. “No!” she cried in horror. “Please let me have my first daughter. If she dies, I will die with her.” 

     The almost mad determination in her eyes startled the old woman, who handed her the baby. 

     Ting held the child close, kissed her, and gently licked the dirt off her skin with the tip of her tongue.

     Light twinkled again in her eyes. 

*****

Ting staggered along the mountain path under the weight of a large sack, holding her 3-year-old daughter Liling in one hand. Her lower abdomen bulged. The man led the way, followed by the old woman. 

     Liling said, “Mom, I’m tired. Can you hold me?” Just as she tried to lift Liling, the old woman scolded, “How can you carry a heavy sack and Liling at the same time? You already had two miscarriages.” And she took the sack. 

     “Mom, where are we going?” 

     “To a new home. Your father built a house in the mountain. Those horrible family planning officials won’t knock on the door anymore. We don’t need to hide.” 

     They walked for hours until they came to an intermountain depression surrounded by gentle slopes, so there would be no flooding or landslides. In the middle stood a mud house with a kitchen outbuilding. Near the hillside sat a pig barn. A large yard lay to the left. Next to the yard, a straw shed made of corn stalks. In front of the house, a stream snaked away into the distance.

     After they settled into the mud house, Ting and the man planted vegetables on a flatbed near the stream and raised chickens, pigs, and rabbits. They made a living in the mountains, cutting wood, gathering herbs, hunting, and planting. 

     When Ting was about to give birth, she had great pains. She’d suffered when she birthed Liling, but this was so unbearable that she gripped the bed. A lump emerged from her with a cry. The midwife held the baby before her eyes and said, “A girl.” Ting turned her head and closed her eyes, tears running down her cheeks. The baby cried and grabbed her arm. The old woman carried the newborn away, whose crying ebbed. Ting forced herself not to imagine what they’d do with her baby—with every thought, a knife thrust into her heart. She wished she could’ve made the child vanish without suffering. 

     For months she heard the newborn’s cries in the middle of the night, as if her soul hadn’t yet left the house. Years after becoming a ghost woman, she remembered the warmth of those little fingers on her arm.

*****

Ting’s last earthly memory was of hurting all over with Liling in her arms as the man swung a broom over her head. 

     “What did I buy you for, you bitch? You killed my son!”

    Everything that had happened that day was a dream. That morning as Ting watered the garden, she heard Liling scream and ran toward the sound. In the distance, a yellow dog jumped on top of Liling and bit her. Ting seized two large rocks and threw them at the dog. It let go and trotted away as blood streamed down Liling’s face.

     Seven-months-pregnant Ting lifted Liling into a wheelbarrow. Together with the old woman, they wheeled her to a clinic in the village. Before Liling had finished her treatment, the family planning officials rushed into the clinic, forced Ting into a car, and took her to the town health center where she received a forced abortion for violating the one-child policy.

     The doctor gave her the induction injection. He pulled the fetus out of her body, showed her the dead baby, and threw it into a bucket. 

     The old woman arrived later. She did not look at Ting but went straight to the bucket. “It was a boy! My grandson!” She cried for a moment, then turned on Ting. “You killed my grandson!”

     When the man returned from the market that afternoon, the old woman told him. Ting was tending to Liling, who had a fever, wiping her with a wet towel. The man picked up a broom and beat her. Ting scooped Liling into her arms to protect her.

     She beseeched the old woman, “Please! Leave Liling alone! She has stitches in her head and can’t get hurt again!”

     The old woman shook her head. “So many years, and you haven’t had a son.” 

     The man kicked her hard, swinging a broomstick at her head and back. She held her daughter tightly. She felt too weak to move. She thought she might be dying. 

     It was the absence of wailing and cursing that woke her. She rose from her form and drifted through the empty mud house. Her body below on the floor, surrounded by flies and infested with maggots. She no longer felt excruciating pain—her heart had stopped beating. She no longer felt sadness, guilt, or despair.

     Ting had never felt so light. She floated out of the house.

     The rain stopped, and the sun peeped out from behind the clouds, mocking the earth. The hillside was lush green; the fog wrapped its waist like silk.

     When the first light broke through the mist, she floated across the wet grass. At noon, she wandered with the cicadas and frogs, singing. In the evening, when the mountains were infected with a thin layer of red, she drifted in the forest. Late at night, the stars blinked at her. But she could no longer smile; she’d forgotten how.

     She wondered how Liling was. Would she remember her mother? That she loved her forever? 

     Time crawled under her skin but no longer wielded any power. She would not die again. Her love was a kite string that would eventually pull Liling back to her. Her life was long enough to wait for Liling to return here and find her. 

     She whispered Liling’s name, as if crying.

 

*****

Several days before she became a ghost woman, as they washed clothes by the river, Liling approached Ting and asked, “Mom, why aren’t you happy? Have I done something wrong?”

     She said, “Liling is a good girl. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

     “Why don’t you smile, Mom?” 

     It occurred to her that it had been a long time since she had smiled. Forcing a smile, she said, “I always get happy when I see Liling’s smile. Your smile can turn bitterness into sweetness.” 

     Liling grinned. She looked at her mother’s belly and said, “Mom, after my brother’s birth, will you still love me?” 

     Ting took Liling by the hand and came to a big rock. They dipped their feet into the stream. 

     She said, “Can you feel the soft sand on the bottom of your feet and the cool water running through your calves?” 

     “Yes. I like it.”

     “Look at the view around you.” 

     The river reflected the lush trees; yellow, white, and red flowers blossomed on the carpet of green grass. The water, clear and bright, was dotted with smooth pebbles and translucent little fish with big, black eyes, rising and diving; gathering and dispersing. White clouds chased the sun. Sunlight leaked through the leaves, a sparkling green light. 

     “Liling, close your eyes. Feel the breeze brushing against your face and the warm sun embracing you. Please remember—this is how your mom loves you. I’ll always love you.”