Male Child His wife was with child again. She still went about the work in the house, chopping wood into the proper lengths to feed the stove, sweeping the floor and boilh1g water for his bath in the evenings when he came in from his shop. Her enlarging belly made her movements very clumsy, and once or twice he had said impatiently to her, "Why don't you stop all this h� rd work, and leave it to the oldest girls? They are getting very idle, and that will not do for girls of their age!" The eldest gil'l was twelve, and the second, eleven; they, together with the third girl who was nine, should be doing theil' share of the household work, and helping to take care of their younger sisters; otherwise, what good were they as girls? And Chuan Poon thought sadly of his six daughters-would the curse never be lifted? Would he never have a son? Chuan Poon agonized over this curse of being denied a son. For thirteen years he had waited for a male child, but each time it wns a girl child. Was this a punishment for sin? The more he thought about it, the n1ore Chuan Poon began to fear that the Almighty was angry with him and was chastising him with an endless line of girlchildrenl He began to cast about in his min� for the possible causes of divine displeasure, and decided on two: when he was a young man, working as a rubber tapper on a large and lonely plantation, � ,e had one day do11e a very stupid ,md dal\gerous thmg: he h� d actually urinated near c1 shrine on a grassy mound m 39 this plantation, and had never even offered a jossstick in expiation afterwards. Secondly, a few years after he was married and had begun to start his own business of dry goods, he had gone to the temple with his wife for the festival of the Nine Gods to offer prayers, but he had previously done a ghastly thi11g which, if his wife had known about, would have utterly scandalised her-he had, secretly of course, consumed a meal of rice and beef curry in a restaurant, when he was supposed to have been purifying himself like the others on a vegetarian's diet, in preparation for this festival. It would have been bad enough if he had eaten pork or some other meat, but beef! If his wife and mother-in-law had known about this tra11sgression, they would have been most anxious 011 his behalf. Fortunately nothing had happened that day when he went to worship in the temple; he had heard that the temple medium once he had go11e into his trance, would smite a man dead for such a heinous sin of sacrilege. Was he being punished now? Chuan Poon's heart filled with dread at the thought, and he decided tha.t he had to do something about these two transgressions. First, he went to the plantation to offer propitiatory gifts of cooked food and fruits, burning two very large joss-sticks. The shrine was 110 longer there, but he chose a suitable spot under a tree and made his peaceofferings there. Secondly, he got his old mother-in-law to go to the temple and offer more propitiatory gifts for him, and lastly, he voluntarily went on a vegetarian's diet of purification, abstaining from the delicious fish, prawns and pork that his wife usually cooked for him. In this way, he hoped to remove the last vestiges of the
40 anger of the deities against him. They could not have been very angry, Chuan Poon argued, otherwise why had they blessed him with prosperity in his dry goods business? He was thinking of expanding his business by adding on to the present wooden shop and having a greater variety of goods. But even the thought of his growing wealth did not bring c01nplete contentment to Chuan Poon, for again and again he was plagued by the thought that he had no son: what was the use of all this prosperity when there was no male heir to leave it to and to carry on his name after he had gone to join his ancestors? Chuan Poon groaned ·under the burden of such a distressing realisation. His wife was growing big with child now, and the fears began afresh. How would he bear the humiliation of another girl-child? In his father's and his grandfather's time, the fault was always said to be that of the woman, and she could be put away if she could not beilr any male children. But Chuan Poon did not even once think of putting his wife away. He was angry with her sometimes for this inability of hers, but always he thought of her as a woman who had been a good wife to him. In their lean years-at one time he fell ill and could earn 110 money for a year-she had cooked the delicious rice puddings her mother had taught her as a child, put them into two baskets which she carried strung at each end of the long pole across her shoulders, and walked the hot dusty streets, crying out for customers. Then the hard times were left behind, a1,d she contim1ed to be a good wife at home, bearillg children almost every year. Her feet and hands were coarse, her face was broad and plain, and her belly was much distended with childbearing, but Chuan Poon, in the darkness of night, felt the softness of her wo1nau's 41 body, and was contented. He was unlike his friend, Ah Bah who, he knew, lusted after other women, and wasted his money in whore-houses instead of using it to develop his business. In his wife's fifth month, Chuan Poon had consi1lted a fortune-teller, and found to his great joy that the child this time would be a male child. For a tirne, his amdeties disappeared. His business was doing well; he, Chuan Poon, whom the old people of the village remembered as a starving ragged vagabond, was now the most prosperous dry goods retailer in the village. He employed a yotmg man to help him in his business, a1,d that gave him more time to visit and supervise a coconut plantation that he had just purchased. It had once belonged to his friend, Ah Bah, but that wastrel had lost his money on his dice and his women, and so had to sell the property his father had left hirn. Ah Bah visited Chuan Poon often, and one evenh'tg Chuan Poon accepted Ah Bah's invitation to drink some beer in a house a little distance from the village. It was a whore-house, and when Chuan Poon showed that he was rather uneasy, Ah Bah laughed and slapped his thighs in great enjoyment at the joke he had played 01, his friend. Chuan Poon was a little ashamed that he should be sitting and drinking beer in a whore-house. A woma1, came up and joined them; she was a woman in her fifties, and then she called for another woman, and this one who came h,to the room was very young, softskim,ed a1,d beautiful. She put her eyes dow1, 1nodestly and was h,troduced as the niece of the older woman. Chua1, Poon came again to this place-on.ce, accompanied by Ah Bah, alld once Oll his ow1,, after he had made a round of his coconut estate and felt lonely for the company of this beautiful woman. Delights
42 unknown or uncared for in the past when there was so much to do to earn money, were now his, and he felt sensations of joy and satisfaction that he had never before experienced and having experienced, could not do without. The woman's softness of flesh and her coyness pleased and thrilled him. When the hot blood coursed through his veins and made him want to burst with passion, the woinan was there to satisfy all his desires. He was often away from hoine now, especially during the nights, and his old mother-in-law a� d wife woi,dered but said nothing. She was very big now, and lay down oftener than she used to. Sometimes she looked at him as if she wanted to ask him something, but he grew irritable and avoided her, and beat his daughters when they annoyed him, ui1til they no longer came to him, and the two oldest began to whisper sulkily about him to each other. One evening Chmm Poon, going to the· house, found another man with his woman, and he was very a ngry and went to the older woman, her auntie, to protest whereupoi1 she turned round and angrily deman _ ded, "And do you think you have a monopoly of iny niece? You do not own hel', she is not your wife!" Chuan Pooi1 fretted in his jealousy, angry that the womai, should give her favours to other men. And he began to be conscious of his coarseness, and of his £h1gernails always with the dirt in them, for the wom,m had once teased him about them. He wanted her for himself aloi,e, aud he groaned h1 his helplessness. He wei,t to Auntie and told her he would like to keep the woman as his mistress; he would buy her a house to live in and money to spend every month, a1ld she would not then be allowed to take other men. The older 4:, woman went into consultation with her niece, and both said, no; not a mistress kept secretly, but a wife openly acknowledged by all. No less tlum that. Chuan Poon was very troubled at this; yet he wanted the woman. But what about his wife now? She was in her eighth month already, and would be ready for the confinement soon. And for the first time, Chuan Poon' s heart swelled mightily in anger against her-why could she i,ot give him a son? For many days Chuai1 Poon fretted alone; then he went to see the woman again, and she and her aunt baited him and made him feel even more angry. His anger was great because he knew that he could not do without her; yet at the same time, he could not bl'ing himself to put his wife away and n:i.ake the won1an the mistress of his household as she wanted. His eyes when he returned home in the night avoided those of his wife as she lay on the bed, huge with the coming child. She was sure to have a girl-child again, he thought irritably. Other men put away their wives because they could not bear male-children. He said suddenly to his wife, his voice loud with annoyance, "And what is the use of waiting and waiting for a male child? You never 1,eem to be able to give me a son. This is a curse upon both of us!" She said nothing, but looked at him very sadly. After a while she said slowly, "If it is a girl child again thh� time, you may take another wife, and I shall not complain. You may bring her to live h, this house, and I shall be subject to her. I shall explah, the n.,Atter to my old mother so that she too will accept it." He went on ai,d 011 in his angry voice about the httn1iliatio1\ of ilot having a male child, sayh,g that nll his relatives had had male childrel\, he WM the oi1ly one S1.)
4-4 accursed. The next night, he went, trembling in new excitement, to see the woman and he said to her, "If my wife bears a girl-child again, she will let me take another wife, and then I will bring you back as the mistress of my household." "What if it is a male child this time?" she asked. "It will not be," he replied. "There have been six girlchildren already, and it is unlikely that the seventh will be male. I know of many who have had eight or more girl-children." Her tilne was approaching. Chuan Poon went to the temple to pray, the little beads of perspiration standing on his brow. I-fo stood outside the locked room, in which the midwife and his old mother-in-law already were and str,dnecl his ears to hear the first cries of the child.