She bought a pure light grey woollen yarn and started to knit a jumper, leaning back against her pillow. She usually knitted during the daytime, after Tiao went to school, and also in the evening, after Tiao and Fan fell asleep. That made her look a little underhanded and evasive because she didn’t want her daughters to see her knit this jumper. But in a simple home like theirs, where could she hide it? Tiao eventually found the light grey half-finished item.
She was a little surprised and asked Wu, “This isn’t Fan’s jumper, is it? Didn’t you say that you were going to knit one for Fan?”
Wu grabbed the jumper back. “I did say that I was going to knit one for Fan, but I can knit one for myself first.”
“This is not a woman’s jumper. It’s not for you.” She stood beside Wu’s bed and seemed indignant.
The next day, when Wu unfolded the jumper to continue her work, she found that the sleeve she had almost finished the day before had disappeared.
4
The sleeve had to have been taken apart by Tiao. The knitting needles had vanished, and each row of stitches was undone—Wu had put her heart and soul into those stitches. She was furious, but couldn’t really allow herself to lose her temper. She clutched the unravelled jumper, kept her anger in check, and went to talk things over with Tiao. She thought it might take some effort to get Tiao to confess, and hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Tiao admitted it as soon as Wu asked, as if she were waiting for Wu to question her.
“Was it you who took the jumper apart?”
“It was me.”
“What did I do wrong, to have you unravel my jumper?”
“You said you were going to knit a jumper for Fan but you didn’t keep your promise.”
“Yes, I did say that. It was … I couldn’t find the rose yarn in the shop. I saw this kind, which was nice but more suitable for an adult—”
“What adult? Which adult?” Tiao interrupted Wu.
“Which adult?” Wu repeated Tiao’s question. “Me, for instance. Like me.” She lowered her voice.
“But this is not for you. This is a man’s jumper.” Tiao’s voice remained firm.
“How do you know this is for a man? You don’t even know how to knit.” Wu’s anger flared again.
“Of course I know. I’ve seen you knit before. I’ve seen you knit for Dad. Are you knitting it for Dad?” Tiao looked directly into Wu’s eyes.
“Yes … uh, no.” Wu seemed to be forced into a corner by Tiao. She knew if she continued saying that the jumper was for Yixun, she would look even more stupid than she already did. Maybe Tiao would immediately write to her dad and tell him that Mum was knitting for him. So she admitted that the jumper was for Dr. Tang. It was Dr. Tang who had asked her to knit a jumper for him. Dr. Tang was not married yet and he needed someone to take care of him. So she agreed to knit this for him. She was even going to try to find him a girlfriend … She didn’t know why she was babbling all of this to Tiao.
“Then why did you say you were knitting this for yourself?” Tiao still didn’t let it go.
Wu’s guilt turned into anger. She said, “What do you want? What do you really want from me? Why do you upset me so much? Don’t you know that I’m ill?”
“If you’re ill, then why do you spend so much time knitting?” Tiao didn’t back down.
“I spend so much time knitting because … because I hope to spend more time at home with you. Does my doing this bother you? Look at the other children in the Architectural Design Academy. Don’t they all have to stay home by themselves, pathetically wasting their lives? Not all parents are as lucky as we are: to be able to have one of us at home to take an interest in our children.”
Tiao didn’t say anything more. She was thinking Wu might be right, but mostly her mind was filled with doubt. Wu spoke about “taking an interest” but Tiao didn’t see any of it from her. She was not concerned about the sisters; didn’t notice Fan had lost her front tooth, and didn’t ask once what they had eaten every day in the last half a year. The way Tiao was mistreated for not knowing how to speak the Fuan dialect—Wu had never asked about any of this. So Tiao was more skeptical than trusting. And she didn’t believe that Wu believed her own words, either. Her years of suspicion crystallized into doubt at that moment. This was sad for both mother and daughter, and something that neither seemed to be able to do anything about, which made it feel more cruel to have to accept.
Wu didn’t feel she had won just because Tiao didn’t reply, but she preferred not to think about it any further. She was the kind of person who didn’t like to think deeply, a lifelong escapist. Her mind was not large enough to accommodate either caring for others or self-analysis. She clutched the jumper and returned to bed and to her big crumpled pillow to resume knitting. By the lamplight, she used the bamboo knitting needles to pick up the loose stitches one by one and finished the sleeve and the entire jumper in a single night.
Then she bought some yarn to knit a jumper for Yixun. She changed the colour to a cream. She knitted day and night, her hands flying and her eyes getting bloodshot, as if she wanted to work off her guilt with the unusual knitting as well as ease her nerves. She knitted with great skill and she herself was surprised by the speed: she took only seven days to knit jumpers for two men. Seven days; she had never come close to that mark, not before or afterwards. Whether it was to punish herself for her fall or to ease the way for her to fall further, she didn’t know. She had a feeling that her relationship with Dr. Tang had not yet run its course.
Neither had had their fill of each other. Almost every Sunday, Dr. Tang came to Wu’s house for dinner. When Wu’s month of sick leave was up, he renewed it for another month. If he continued to renew her sick leave without anyone noticing, wouldn’t she be able to stay at home for a long time? This was something she hardly dared to imagine but wished for with all of her heart. When the Cultural Revolution turned violent, she became what was known as a wanderer, and she really wanted to be one. “Wanderers” was the label given to the faction of people who avoided political campaigns and labour reform and refused to take a stand on matters of principle. This group—muddleheaded, backward—couldn’t be brought onto the stage to play their parts in history. If a doctor were found to provide a false certification for a patient, the consequences could be very severe. They wouldn’t merely say he was violating professional ethics, which wouldn’t be a serious enough charge. They would accuse him of undermining the great revolution, that is, being antirevolutionary. And Dr. Tang might very likely get arrested as an antirevolutionary. Dr. Tang was in fact risking his life, for Wu.
Now Dr. Tang wore the jumper Wu knitted for him openly—it fit really well. Wu liked to look at his mouth chewing in the daylight. The way he ate was very elegant; his mouth made small but accurate movements, adeptly dealing with difficult foods like fish heads or spare ribs. It almost looked like he used his mouth as a knife to perform a quiet operation on food. That mouth of his seemed to be of particular use for eating food and keeping silent—when he wasn’t eating, he was very quiet. His words were rare, which seemed to make his mouth even more precious. Wu would try to kiss him when no one was around, but he would pull away. So she let him be. She didn’t have to kiss him. In some respects, she was easily satisfied. She would confine herself to observing that mouth. From her limited experience of men, she believed he was shy. He was an unmarried man.
She kept telling the sisters that she was going to get a girlfriend for Dr. Tang, but that it was really difficult. Dr. Tang came from a politically-tainted family, and was also raising his niece on his own. The niece, whom Wu had met, was an orphan, the child of his older sister. She kept talking about finding a girlfriend but never took action. Tiao had never seen her bring anyone home who looked like a girlfriend type. During this period, Yixun came home