Old Town by Lin Zhe Page B

heart .
    At some point, who knows when, the sound of Old Lady Guo’s groans and moans brought Ninth Brother out his dark thoughts and back to reality. A doctor’s sense of responsibility extricated him from his melancholy and he said to First Sister, “I’m studying medicine. May I have a look at Auntie’s illness?”
    First Sister wiped the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief and looked blankly at Ninth Brother, “Oh, yes, now I remember. You are Young Master Lin. One year, Mother Sun came here to discuss the possibility of marriage. But we Guos don’t have good luck.”
    After Ninth Brother took pulses and diagnosed the problems of the two old people, he went to the only Western clinic in all of Old Town to get some medicine. When he retraced his steps to the Guo household, it was already evening. Eldest Sister responded to his voice and opened the gate. His gaze was absorbed by Second Sister sewing by the lamplight. Her needle-runs and thread-pulling were like a work of art. Oh, so beautiful! He knew that three generations of Guos relied on that pair of nimble and skilled hands. Day or night, Second Sister sewed and embroidered to pay for the doctors and the medicine for their mother and grandmother and for her little brothers’ private tutor. Ninth Brother was filled with sympathy and tenderness.
    Three days later, Mother Sun arrived at the Guo home with Ninth Brother’s proposal of marriage to Second Sister.
    Out of sympathy for the Guo family, Ninth Brother had made up his mind to become their son-in-law. Although he felt rather more inclined toward Second Sister, he really wasn’t particular about which of the daughters he married. It was his Big Sister-in-law who decided on the choice of Second Sister. Second Sister’s sewing artistry was renowned throughout Old Town. People said that the qipao she sewed made fat women look less plump and thin ones not so skinny. How the Lins needed such an intelligent and capable girl to manage the household! They had three generations, over twenty mouths to feed, and no one who earned any money. Outwardly, they still had to maintain the dignity of a great family and a grand home. Grandchildren had to be sent to the “foreign” school. And on every festive occasion, the whole household had to change into new brocades and damasks. Big Sister-in-Law urgently wanted Second Sister to marry into the Lin family. She hoped Ninth Brother would alter his travel plans and extend his stay for nine or ten days to wed and consummate his marriage. After that, he would leave his bride in her mother-in-law’s home. Before the bride had even crossed the threshold, Big Sister-in-Law had already mentally cancelled the additional outlay for that year’s new clothes.
    Ninth Brother did not fulfill Big Sister-in-Law’s wishes, though. The Guos needed Second Sister more than the Lins did. These days, as he was treating his future mother-in-law’s illness, he could see with his own eyes the difficult straits that family was in. He agreed with his future mother-in-law to wait for the eldest of the Guo brothers’ betrothal before returning to marry Second Sister. He also agreed that he and Second Sister would take care of her younger brothers.
    This marriage built on feelings of responsibility and sympathy gave Ninth Brother unlooked-for happiness. In Second Sister, he found all the fantasies and hopes he had invested in Third Sister. Many decades of the winds and rain of human life would prove that he and Second Sister were a loving union of man and wife matched in heaven.

 

C HAPTER T HREE – H APPY F AMILY P ORTRAIT
     

     
    1.
     
    I NO LONGER go anywhere by train. Over the past few years, the market has been so hectic that I just take a plane from one city to the next for signing contracts and meeting important clients. So all these cities leave me with pretty much the same impression: airport, hotel, and banquet room. Time being gold and with the money state of mind so urgent,