Xiuying

A hard lump had grown inside Xiuying's left breast. She first found it herself, in the last month of winter, no bigger than a peanut. She said nothing, afraid that Genfa would fuss about going to the county town -- the bus fare there and back, the registration, the food and lodging, all of it another expense they could ill afford. Most women in the village lived like this, bearing what they could not name, and none of them ever truly went to the city for such a thing. She pulled her clothes tighter and slept on her side at night, pretending the hardness was not there.

By spring it was the size of a walnut, and at night the pain made her bite the corner of the quilt, not daring to cry out. It was on a windy evening that Genfa heard the stifled gasps from under the covers and turned over; through her autumn clothes his hand met that cold, stubborn knot. His own hand went cold at once, but all he said was, we will go to the county tomorrow.

Before dawn the next day they took the bus to the county hospital. A long queue stretched outside the surgery clinic; on the wall a red poster read Treat First, Pay Later, with a smaller line beneath: rural cooperative patients must pay the full cost of outpatient tests up front and claim reimbursement back home. Xiuying drew number eight and was not called until the sun leaned west. The doctor wore a little round mirror on his forehead; he pressed twice and sent her for an ultrasound. The payment window took forty minutes, and the ultrasound was booked for the next afternoon. Genfa did the sums in his head -- two round trips and a night's lodging would eat what two more loads of vegetables might bring at the market -- but he said nothing, only pulled her padded collar up around her neck.

When the ultrasound came back, the doctor's brows knotted. This does not look like a good thing, he said; you must go to the city, have a biopsy, or simply cut it out and send it for testing. They had never been to the city. Genfa asked how much. Keep ten thousand ready, the doctor said, and the hospital deposit is separate.

Three hours on the bus brought them to the city's First People's Hospital. The outpatient building blazed with light; the floor tiles threw back their faces. The registration machines were mobbed, their ticket slots chirping one after another. Genfa could not work the machine. A scalper edged up and said, fifty extra and I will get you a specialist's number, seen today. Genfa felt in his pocket and handed over the crumpled bill.

The specialist looked for three minutes and wrote out forms: biopsy, pre-surgery blood work, an electrocardiogram, a chest film. Each had to be paid for first, each meant another queue. Xiuying sat all day on a plastic chair in the corridor. Next to her an old man coughed without stop, spitting into a plastic bag, flecks of blood scattered through it. Xiuying did not dare look; she turned her face to the wall, where a poster read Service with a Smile, one corner curled and torn away.

The results would take three days. Outside the hospital's low wall Genfa found a small inn -- forty a night, no window. Xiuying lay on the narrow bed and listened to the ambulance sirens wail, night after night. At midnight she said suddenly, Genfa, let us go home. He said, we have not seen the results. She said, I already know.

On the third day they took the report. The doctor said it was confirmed, invasive; she needed surgery, a full removal with lymph-node clearance, three thousand at the very least. The cooperative would cover part, but drugs and tools outside the list were on them. Genfa asked, and if we do not operate. The doctor said, that is for you to weigh.

Back at the inn, Genfa spread the paper across the bedside and read it character by character by the hallway light. Xiuying made no sound. He thought of the twenty-three thousand he had saved from last year's grain, kept in the township credit union, meant to seed his son's wedding. The son worked in the south and on the phone always said the factory kept him overtime, no time to come back.

Genfa went to the admissions desk and learned it plainly: a ten-thousand deposit first, surgery scheduled for next week, imported tools billed extra; the cooperative's deductible was sixteen hundred, it covered a little over half of what was on the list, and nothing off it. He stood before the glass window in the payment hall and saw his own face mirrored there, laid over the faces queuing behind him, none of them distinguishable from the others.

He tossed and turned that night. Near dawn he decided: go back first, sell more grain, borrow from relatives, and when the son sent money after the harvest, come back for the operation.

They took the bus home. Xiuying's lump had grown another turn; when the pain came she crouched at the stove mouth and stuffed the apron corner into her mouth. Genfa went out to borrow twice and met with soft refusals. When villagers asked, Xiuying only said she had caught a chill, and pasted a plaster over her breast to hide it, as though the thing were a shame too ugly to show.

By summer she could no longer rise from bed. Her right arm swelled too heavy to lift; at night the pain stole her voice and she could only dig her nails into the mattress. Genfa went to the township clinic; the doctor shook his head at a glance and said she must get to the city at once, we cannot take this here. Genfa said, the money is not yet gathered. The doctor said nothing more.

Before the mid-autumn festival Xiuying was gone. Her face was clean when she left -- Genfa had wiped it with a hot towel. At the village entrance the old locust was in flower, white petals across the ground, and the wind shook them down until the whole yard was scattered with them.

Genfa took out the twenty-three thousand, repaid what he had borrowed, and with the rest bought Xiuying a thin-skinned coffin. At the funeral a light rain fell; few came to see her off, only the kinsfolk. The band played two tunes, off in their key.

At the coming of winter Genfa took the bus to the county again. This time it was not for Xiuying. He had found a hard lump in his own lower right belly, the size of a peanut, painless to the touch. When the bus reached the county hospital stop, he did not get off. He drew his hand from his pocket, looked at it, and put it back.

The bus went on. Inside, the passengers each leaned back in their seats and dozed, no one speaking. Beyond the window the locust stood bare; its naked branches scraped across the glass like someone drawing line after line outside, drawing without a sound.