Read Online Peony in Love by Lisa See - Free Book Online Page B

around her daughter.
    “I wish we could do this quickly,” Mama went on, “but haste and a soft heart are what caused this problem in the first place.”
    She kept her grip on the ankle with her left hand, while her right slowly pulled away toward the toes. My cousin began to scream.
    I felt light-headed but exuberant too. Mama was showing me much mother love.
    I followed her movement and my cousin’s screams intensified.
    “Good,” Mama said. “Feel the bones straighten beneath your fingers. Let them fall into place as they squeeze through your hand.”
    I came to the toes and let go. Orchid’s feet were still horribly misshapen. But instead of strange bumps poking against the flesh, the feet looked like two long chilies. Above me, Orchid’s body heaved with sobs as she tried to catch her breath.
    “This next part will be painful,” Mama observed. She looked to one of the cousins standing to her right, and said, “Go and find Shao. Where is she anyway? No matter. Just bring her. And quickly!”
    The girl returned with my old wet nurse. She had once been part of a good family, but she came to work for us when she became a widow at an early age. The older I’d grown, the less I liked her, because she was so strict and unforgiving.
    “Hold the child’s legs in place,” Mama ordered. “I don’t want to see any movement from the knees down, except what comes from either my daughter’s hands or my own. Understood?”
    Shao had been through this many times and knew what needed to be done.
    Mama glanced around at the cluster of girls. “Step back. Give us some room.”
    Although those girls were as curious as mice, Mama was the head woman in our household and they did as they were told.
    “Peony, think of your own feet when you do this. You know how the toes are tucked under and how your mid-foot is folded in on itself? We accomplish this by rolling the bones under the foot as if you were rolling a sock. Can you do that?”
    “I think so.”
    “Mother,” Mama asked Second Aunt, “are you ready?”
    Second Aunt, who was known for her pale skin, appeared almost translucent, as though her soul was barely in her body.
    To me, Mama said, “Once again, just follow me.”
    And I did. I rolled the bones under, concentrating so hard that I barely noticed my cousin’s shrieks. Shao’s knobby hands held the legs with such strength that her knuckles went white. In her agony, Orchid vomited. The putrid mess shot from her mouth and spattered my mother’s tunic, skirt, and face. Second Aunt apologized profusely, and I heard the bitter shame in her voice. Wave after wave of nausea washed over me, but Mama didn’t flinch or waver for one moment in her task.
    Finally, we were done. Mama looked at my work and patted my cheek. “You did an excellent job. This may be your special gift. You will make a fine wife and mother.”
    Never had my mother offered such approval for anything I’d done.
    Mama wrapped the foot she’d worked on first. She did what Second Aunt couldn’t do; she made the bindings very tight. Orchid was beyond tears by now, so the only sounds were my mother’s voice and the soft swish of the cloth as she passed it up and over and under the foot, again and again, until all three meters had been used on the one tiny foot.
    “More girls are having their feet bound than ever before in the history of our country,” Mama explained. “The Manchu barbarians believe our women’s practice to be backward! They see our husbands and we worry for them, but the Manchus can’t see us in our women’s chambers. We wrap our daughters’ feet as an act of rebellion against those foreigners. Look around; even our maids, servants, and slaves have bound feet. Even the old, the poor, and the frail have bound feet. We have our women’s ways. This is what makes us valuable. It’s what makes us marriageable. And they cannot make us stop!”
    Mama sewed the bindings shut, set the foot on a cushion, and began working on the