Chapter 3

Sure enough, all old Mrs. Chen did was glare at him.

"Come on, then."

Chen Yougong knew that meant she was giving way. He broke into a grin. "Ma, I'm telling you, this girl's got luck written all over her. She doesn't look like a newborn at all. I reckon heaven sent her to me." Every word out of his mouth was honey.

Old Mrs. Chen still said nothing. If they really kept this child, the eldest's wife and the second's wife would be furious, and there would be a proper row over it.

Chen Yougong led his mother to his room, beaming all the way.

Yao Shangqing was still hushing the baby. She looked up at the sound of the door and saw her mother-in-law coming in behind him. She had been about to speak and swallowed it.

"Shangqing, I'll go and mix her some malted milk." Chen Yougong knew how things stood between his wife and his mother, and he gave his wife a steadying look. "Ma's come to see her granddaughter."

Yao Shangqing knew there was no getting round it.

That put old Mrs. Chen's back up at once. Her face went cold and her voice came out flat. "Granddaughter, is it."

Yao Shangqing pressed her lips together. "Ma, why don't you hold her? I've never seen a newborn as pretty as this."

Old Mrs. Chen didn't want trouble between her son and his wife, and she was giving her son his due. She had nothing much against this daughter-in-law either. As far as she was concerned, a decent person who settled down to family life was all anyone needed. But she had seen it from the day of the wedding. The woman hadn't married to make a life, she had married to find someone to look after her parents, and it sat in old Mrs. Chen's chest like a stone. She was thinking all this over, and she took the baby anyway.

Just looking at that little face, you wouldn't say she was newly born. The eyes especially. And the moment she was in old Mrs. Chen's arms she stopped crying and lay there looking up at her. There was nothing sweeter in the world. She went soft right through. It was one child, wasn't it? Then they would keep her. As for the eldest's wife and the second's wife, her third son was the one who put the most into this house, and it was only one baby, a girl at that. She wouldn't be hard to raise.

"Hurry up with that, then." Old Mrs. Chen held the baby and looked up at her son.

Chen Yougong said yes, Ma, and knew it was settled.

It came to Yao Shangqing too, and for some reason she felt like crying. It was the first time her mother-in-law had ever been of one mind with her.

"Has she got a name?" Old Mrs. Chen sat down on the edge of the bed with the baby.

Yao Shangqing nodded quickly. "She has, she has. Yuanyuan. Chen Yuanyuan."

Old Mrs. Chen nodded along, pleased, and started cooing the name at her, though she knew the child understood nothing.

Chen Yougong mixed the malted milk, then poured it back and forth between two cups until it was about the right warmth.

Old Mrs. Chen nearly took it to feed her herself, then thought better of it with her daughter-in-law sitting right there, and put Yuanyuan back into Yao Shangqing's arms.

Yao Shangqing had been mother to three. None of this was new to her. She fed the baby slowly with a spoon.

Old Mrs. Chen watched for a while, then went out.

Chen Yougong saw his mother leaving and followed her out.

She had agreed to keep the child, but there was plenty still to sort out.

"Go to the brigade leader tomorrow and lay it out properly. Ask round the village first and see whose she is. She might have been stolen and dumped. That happens. If we can't find her people, then we keep her, and you tell the brigade leader to put her on the household register. There'll be a fuss here in the morning as it is. Get yourself to bed now. Keep the flask in your room for tonight."

Chen Yougong listened and nodded along to every word.

Old Mrs. Chen went back to her own room alone.

Yao Shangqing got the baby fed and hushed her back to sleep. She was an easy child, she thought. Hardly any trouble at all.

Chen Yougong saw his wife settled, leaned over to look at the baby, and repeated everything his mother had said.

Yao Shangqing understood it all well enough.

With the baby seen to, he remembered the visit to his wife's parents.

"They're all right at the moment, your mum and dad. I've asked people to look out for them as well, and the village there knows about them. They're not unkind, that lot. Don't fret too much."

Yao Shangqing let out a long breath. Compared with others who had been sent down, her family had it far better. She was content with that.

"Thank you."

Chen Yougong was an open man by nature, but shy about feeling.

"Sleep. Go on. We've got things to do tomorrow."

Yao Shangqing laughed under her breath.

The next morning old Mrs. Chen was up even earlier than usual. She had too much on her mind to sleep. She dressed and went out into the yard with her hands behind her back, and she looked in on the chickens first. The weather was turning and they were laying slowly now, one egg every two or three days. The Chens kept four chickens, three ducks and a pig, though the pig was being raised for the brigade. At the New Year share-out they would get an extra two liang of meat for it. Don't sneer at two liang, either. It was a lot.

Old Mrs. Chen took the limp cabbage leaves out from under their cover for the hens.

The chickens were starving. They saw the leaves and came running for their breakfast.

Her eyes went over the nesting spot without much thought, and what she saw stopped her dead. How many was that? She could hardly count them.

She went over and touched the eggs, then looked round quickly. Nobody else was up yet.

"One, two, three, four... eight." Old Mrs. Chen's eyes were out on stalks. What had got into these hens? There had been nothing there yesterday, and now all this at once. She didn't dwell on it. An egg was seven cents, so that many eggs came to a tidy sum at the co-op shop. She carried them into the kitchen, put them in the basket in the cupboard and locked it.

Chen Yougong was up too. He had been in and out of bed all night mixing malted milk, and it hadn't dulled him a bit. He had a daughter now.

Yao Shangqing got up with the baby in her arms. The boys were still asleep and she left them. Winter had come in, there wasn't much work in the fields, and they only went out to work about every other day.

Chen Yougong came out of his room and found his mother in the kitchen putting things away.

"You're up, Ma."

She jumped, and glared at him.

"Can't you make a bit of noise when you walk?"

Chen Yougong laughed. "I do make a noise, Ma, you just didn't hear it. And you needn't worry, I'm not going to say anything."

She wasn't going to get drawn. "Was she any trouble in the night?"

Just hearing his daughter mentioned lifted him.

"No trouble at all. Easier than those three boys by a mile. She's different, this one, right from the start." The grin never left his face.

Old Mrs. Chen had her own worries. "Go and split some firewood. I'll get them up to cook."

Chen Yougong washed his face in cold water, pulled his coat off and set to work.

In the kitchen, old Mrs. Chen took out everything they would need for the day's cooking, then locked the cupboard again.

Then she went and knocked at the east room. "Eldest's wife. Up. Breakfast." After that she went round to the west room. "Second's wife. Up and cook."

She had barely finished when Yao Shangqing came out of her own room. The baby had just gone back to sleep.

"Ma, I'll do it."

Old Mrs. Chen frowned and shook her head. "No need. It's their turn today."

Yao Shangqing knew her mother-in-law and didn't press. She picked up the big broom and started sweeping the yard.

Old Mrs. Chen sat down on a stool with the corn cobs that had been drying on the wall by the window. They were gleanings from the autumn harvest, from the field the team had turned a blind eye to so people could pick a bit for themselves. She stripped the kernels into a flat basket to be ground.

A good while passed and Zhao Qinhua still hadn't appeared. Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu came out first.

"Granny, Mum's dressing my little brother." Chen Dayu spoke with a nervous eye on old Mrs. Chen.

That made the old woman angry. Nobody else's household ran like this. Still, she kept her patience with the girls.

"You two go and wash your faces and hands."

Chen Dayu was seven that year, Chen Xiaoyu five.

Chen Dayu took her sister by the hand and led her off to wash.

Then Li Yue'e, the second son's wife, came out first after all. She looked round, saw no sign of Zhao Qinhua, rolled up her sleeves, and didn't bother knocking. She just called from where she stood.

"Sister-in-law, we're having steamed egg today. If you're not cooking, I'll do it." Then she waited for the door to open. If somebody didn't want to cook, fine, but in weather like this nobody wanted to get up.

Old Mrs. Chen heard it from her stool and said nothing. Getting the woman up was what mattered, not how it was done.

"Ma, how many eggs are we steaming?" Li Yue'e was thinking of how little the hens had been laying.

Old Mrs. Chen wasn't a bad mother-in-law. She didn't favour boys over girls, and she wasn't willing to let the children go short when there was anything to be had. If the house could afford it, they ate better. The eggs were steamed for the children once a week.

"Four. I've got them out already." Eight children, half an egg each. It was something in them, at least.

She had hardly finished speaking when Zhao Qinhua came out.

"I'm up, I'm up." She was grinning as she said it.

Old Mrs. Chen gave her a look and nodded. "Go and cook, then."

Li Yue'e was doing sums of her own. Three children in the eldest's family, three in the third's, and only two in hers. They came off worst on eggs. She would be digging an extra big spoonful out for her son.

Yao Shangqing finished the yard and went to clean out the chicken and duck pens.

Chen Shaoyuan got his two brothers up as well. He was only five himself.

One after another, the eldest son Chen Youliang and the second son Chen Yougang got up too.

Yao Shangqing worked her way through the whole house, inside and out, and looked in on the baby as she went. She was still asleep, so Yao Shangqing went back out.

Breakfast was wild-greens gruel, a big bowl of steamed egg, pickles put up in the summer, and warmed mixed-grain buns.

The whole family sat down on their stools.

Zhao Qinhua had Chen Chengzhuang on her lap. At five months he could manage a little steamed egg.

Li Yue'e sat with one child on either side of her, a son and a daughter. The son was the elder, six that year, Chen Chengcai. The little girl was four, Chen Juanjuan.

Old Mrs. Chen took the big ladle and filled every bowl with gruel, and when she had gone round them all the pot was empty, just as it should be. Then came the buns and the big bowl of steamed egg.

She didn't let them dig in for themselves this morning. She counted heads and portioned it out, so many spoonfuls each.

Li Yue'e, who had been planning that extra spoonful, could only stare.

Every pot and bowl on the table had been shared out.

Old Mrs. Chen looked round at them all. "Do you know why I shared it out like that today?"

They all shook their heads.

She looked first at her eldest, Chen Youliang, with a purpose in mind. "Eldest. Do you remember, when your father had just died and I had the three of you with nothing to eat and nothing to drink, what you said to me?"

Chen Youliang didn't know why she was asking, but he was a plain, honest man, so he answered plainly.

"Of course I remember. I said that when I grew up I'd work hard and make sure you and my brothers had food." Saying it, he thought about all those years of breaking his back in the fields, and how he still couldn't feed his own household, and the shame came up in him.

His mother knew this son of hers through and through.

"Don't take it to heart. You've done well. I'm proud of you. You've always been a good son to me."

Hearing that, Chen Youliang couldn't get the bun down. The guilt only sat heavier.

Old Mrs. Chen turned to her second son, Chen Yougang.

He had heard what she said to his brother, and he was remembering his own childhood. The conscience he had misplaced came back.

"Second son. You've got a bit of cleverness about you, but cleverness won't keep you alive these days. A real trade will. Isn't that so?" She went straight for the sore spot.

Chen Yougang lowered his head and nodded.

She glanced at his wife beside him. "Last year, when Chengcai was ill and there was no money left in the house, your third brother emptied his pockets for you." Then she looked back at her eldest.

Chen Youliang's head went down too. His wife had held him back at the time, and he was the eldest, and he hadn't given a cent.

"There you are," old Mrs. Chen went on. "That's what brothers are. You hold each other up. Your third brother has done a great deal for this family over the years, and you both know it."

Chen Yougang and Chen Youliang answered at the same time.

"Last night your third brother picked up a baby girl on his way home, and he and his wife want to keep her. They haven't got a daughter, after all." She had laid the ground, and now she said what she meant to say.

Chen Yougang hadn't got his mouth open before Zhao Qinhua jumped in. She was quick, and she knew exactly how clever this mother-in-law of hers was.

"Ma, what are those two playing at? They want a daughter? They can raise our Dayu and Xiaoyu any time they like. What's the good of raising one that's nothing to us? She could be sick, for all we know. She could grow up and turn on the lot of us." Zhao Qinhua had it all worked out. If the third family raised one of her girls, the girl would still be closer to her own mother when she grew, and it wouldn't cost Zhao Qinhua a thing.