Blooming Against the Stream

Chapter Two

Uncle Neri is a Felisian, with a straight back, long slender legs, and piercingly bright eyes. He is an old friend of my parents, said to be a childhood companion, and although he also comes from a village background, he is now a wealthy boss, which makes him very proud and fond of holding forth about his career. At such times, he is the star at the dining table, and everyone looks at him with great respect.

"Annie, would you like some more meat soup?" Brother Danny asked me.

Brother Danny is the son of Uncle Neri and Aunt Tina, 12 years old, a tall and thin boy with a head of messy black curly hair. I looked into his eyes, my heart beating like a joyful bird, and my cheeks began to feel warm. I nodded and said, "Of course, thank you."

"I'd like some more too," my sister Bella interjected.

I hate Bella; she copies everything I do and always takes my things.

Danny smiled and added more meat soup for her, even affectionately stroking her hair, which made me even angrier.

Bella looked at me challengingly and reached out to snatch my fruit.

A plum rolled clattering under the table. Everyone else was intently listening to Uncle Neri talk, and no one noticed the dispute between us sisters. I rolled my eyes at Bella and crawled under the table to pick it up.

I picked up the plum, but I also discovered two pairs of entangled legs.

One pair belonged to my mother Elena. She was wearing red high heels and long nylon stockings, and those legs were gently rubbing against the legs of the man opposite her.

In the dim world under the tablecloth, it seemed like only me and these two intimately entwined pairs of legs remained.

I suddenly remembered Heine's words.

'Your dad? That cuckolded cripple?'

I crawled out from under the table. Uncle Neri was still holding forth, and across from him, my mother was resting her chin on one hand, gazing at him like a girl in love, her eyes full of tenderness.

In the evening, Bella kept refusing to sleep. She clamored about wanting to marry Brother Danny and be his bride. Later, she asked me when she could start wearing a bra, and she even squeezed her chest with her arms to create a bit of cleavage, saying she felt she was ready to wear one.

After she fell asleep, I quietly slipped into the bathroom.

Mom takes a bath every day. When I pushed open the bathroom door, she was standing with one foot on the edge of the bathtub removing leg hair, her face covered in a thick layer of white cream.

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" She glanced at me and said.

"I'm going to tell Dad."

"What?"

"I'm going to tell Dad that your leg was pressed against Uncle Neri's."

She froze for a moment, then quickly pulled me into the bathroom and closed the door.

For the first time, I found my mother so terrifying. Her face, covered in white cream, looked very stiff, and her eyes were so angry they seemed capable of shooting flames.

She bent down and said to me word by word: "You saw nothing. If you dare talk nonsense to your dad, I'll beat you to death."

"I will tell Dad. I saw it. You were rubbing against him. You did something wrong." I stubbornly stared at her, but I was very scared inside, tears welling up in my eyes.

She looked down at me for a while, then smiled and said: "Fine, go ahead and tell him. If you do, I'll leave this home forever, and you'll never see me again. Is that what you want? Go on! Tell him!"

"Mom..."

Mother grabbed my arm and started dragging me out: "Come on! I'll take you to tell him!"

"No, don't." I hugged my mother's leg, crying, "I won't say it, I won't say it anymore, please don't go."

Mother sighed, gently patted my back, softly comforted me a few words, then put me to bed.

The next day was the weekend.

I was awakened by the sound of an argument, groggily got up, and looked out the window.

Downstairs, three people stumbled and crowded together. Jolene's hair was grabbed by her father, the man dragged his daughter forward as if pulling a dog, while his wife knelt on the ground crying and shouting.

"No! Please don't!" the woman screamed.

"Get back home!" Mr. Viders kicked his wife down.

The woman wept and pleaded, but he slapped her twice, as if that wasn't enough to vent his anger, he then viciously kicked her in the face. Instantly, blood streamed from the woman's mouth and nose, the glaring red staining the ground.

Jolene cried loudly, begging her father not to hit her mother: "I'll go, I'll stay there obediently, I'll do whatever they tell me to do, please don't hit her anymore."

Bystanders pointed and commented, but no one stepped forward to persuade or help the poor woman and her daughter.

Under the clear sky, the sunlight was so bright it hurt the eyes. Bella knelt by the window, her bright face appearing warm, also drawn to the commotion downstairs, her small hands covering her mouth, eyes wide open.

I felt extremely uncomfortable, lying down and curling up, covering my head with a pillow.

But Bella came to bother me: "Annie, what is a brothel? Is it that small house by the bridge? Monkey and the others say there are lots of w****s living inside."

I didn't know what a brothel was either, or what a w***e was, but it must be something bad. When people curse at each other, they always call the women in the other person's family w****s, even kids often use that word.

I couldn't stand the crying and shouting downstairs anymore, so I put on my shoes and ran out, but Mom and Dad were arguing in the living room too.

Mom shouted sharply: "Your measly salary can't even afford bread!"

"Then what's the use of you buying all that makeup and clothes! Clearly broke, yet you're always treating others to meals—what are you trying to prove!"

"What am I trying to prove! I'm doing it for this family! You just take it out on me—if you're so capable, go earn money to support us! If I hadn't married you, I wouldn't have to live like this!"

With a "smack," a slap landed on Mom's face. Dad was panting heavily, like an angry bull.

Mom went crazy too; she lunged at him, and they started fighting: "You hit me, what gives you the right to hit me..."

Her fierce resistance earned her an even louder slap.

I was terrified, stumbling out of the house, wanting to hide at Melissa's place across the street. Melissa was the same age as me; her dad was a foreman at the textile mill, and her mom had four kids. Melissa never went to school; every day besides doing housework, she took care of her younger siblings. We sometimes played together.

Melissa's mother answered the door; her right eye was black and blue, her arms covered in bruises. I'd noticed a long time ago that her mom often had injuries. Melissa said it was from bumping into things while working.

This was the first time I realized the faint crying sounds from her house weren't from bumps. I didn't step inside but ran away as if fleeing. Suddenly, I realized I was living in a terrifying world where men could raise their fists and beat women as they pleased.

"Last night I had a dream. The first half was beautiful - I wore a white wedding dress and married Danny. But suddenly, the groom turned into Heine. He choked my neck, pressed my face against the wall, and then Heine transformed into Jolene's father who had lost an eye. He punched and kicked me, while I became his ugly wife, surrounded by mountains of laundry waiting to be washed, with several babies crying themselves hoarse nearby."

"I woke up terrified, panting in the darkness, my chest feeling tight. It turned out Bella had her legs and arms all pressed on me."

……

"That day, a group of visitors came to the school."

"We were required to wash our faces and hands, put on clean uniforms, and hold our homework books for inspection. It was said the school's sponsors were coming."

"Lilian was arranged to stand at the very front, holding a bouquet of flowers. The teacher told her to present the flowers to one of the ladies."

"I had never seen such a woman before. All the teachers respected her, and the principal himself accompanied her on the campus tour. She didn't appear particularly beautiful or wealthy, yet she held her head high with a spirit ordinary women lacked - a kind of confidence I had only seen in proud men. The teachers called her Madame Flavy, said to be a scientist who had proven a theorem through mathematical calculations and even made the newspaper."

"I recalled the numb, pained faces of the women around me - hunched over, speaking roughly, tearing at each other in street arguments, buried in housework all day, becoming slaves imprisoned by children, dogs controlled by crying. Forget about earning men's respect - their bodies were always covered in various scars."

"Even my mother Elena, who was beautiful with many clothes and cosmetics, even owning two gold necklaces, was never happy. She always complained about Father and argued with him. Her only happy time was every Friday, when Uncle Neri's family came to visit."

"Just then, Lilian's voice interrupted my thoughts as she was presenting the flowers to the lady."

"'What a clever girl, your Latin is excellent,' the woman praised."

"Lilian beamed with a smile and uttered some strange language."

"The woman looked pleased and asked, 'Besides reading, writing, arithmetic, and theology, what else does your school teach?'"

"'We also have painting and music,' Lilian said."

"'Who taught you Latin then?'"

"It was me, ma'am, I taught myself."

The woman became even happier, she leaned down and kissed Lillian's cheek, encouraging her: "You're wonderful, you must study hard."

"If I study hard, can I become someone like you in the future?" Lillian said, blinking her big eyes, "I want to be a woman like you."

The woman smiled happily, nodded and said: "Reading will change your life, I wish you success, dear."

The woman didn't admit that studying would make her become like her, but in my eyes at the time, the two were indeed equated.

I looked at her excitedly, the gloomy sky of many days suddenly cleared.

For many days, I had been afraid, afraid that when I grew up I would become Jolene or Melissa's mother, working hard every day and still being beaten by my husband.

Now I'm suddenly not afraid anymore, yes, if I were respected like this lady, certainly no man would dare to hit me.