The Bathing Women

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Tiao’s apartment had a three-seater sofa and two single armchairs. Their covers were satin brocade, a sort of fuzzy blue-grey, like the eyes of some European women, soft and clear. The chairs were arranged in the shape of a flattened U, with the sofa at the base and the armchairs facing each other on two sides.

Tiao’s memory of sofas went back to when she was about three. It was in the early sixties; her home had a pair of old dark red corduroy sofas. The springs were a bit broken, and stuck out of their coir and hemp wrappings, pressing firmly up through a layer of corduroy that was not very thick. The whole sofa had a lumpy look and it creaked when people sat down. Every time Tiao hauled herself onto it, she could feel little fists punching up from underneath her. The broken springs would grind into her delicate knees and sensitive back. But she still liked to climb up on the sofa because compared to the hard-backed little chair that belonged to her, it allowed her to move around freely, leaning this way and that — and being able to move freely this way and that makes for comfort; ever since she was small, Tiao pursued comfort. Later, and for a long time, an object like a sofa was labelled as associated with a certain class. And that class obviously wanted to exert a bad influence on the spirit and body of the people, like a plague or marijuana. Most Chinese people’s behinds had never come into contact with sofas; even soft-cushioned chairs were rare in most homes. By then — probably in the early seventies — Tiao eventually found a pair of down pillows in a home that only had a few hard chairs. The down pillows were from her parents’ beds. When they weren’t home, she dragged the pillows off, reserved one for herself, and gave one to her younger sister Fan.

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