My classmate who became a mistress
Column: Essays Added Time: March 31, 2011 15:25:48 Source: admin Clicks: 15
Rong Rong was my classmate in junior high school. I knew very early that she was being kept by someone as a mistress, so I wasn't very close to her. But since we were in the same city and from the same village, we still occasionally interacted. If it weren't for the year I was so destitute that I had to borrow money from her, perhaps we would still be in contact. But that time, she really broke my heart.
That time, I had spent all my money and couldn't find a job while looking for one. With an empty stomach and a terrible mood, I went to Rong Rong's place and mustered the courage to ask her for help. Rong Rong didn't refuse, and with gratitude, I took the hundred yuan she gave me. Not knowing what to say, Rong Rong suggested we go buy groceries together. Her place was much better than mine; there was a market downstairs. At the meat stall, Rong Rong ordered twenty yuan worth of pork. When it came time to pay, I thought she would do it, but instead, Rong Rong gestured for me to pay. So, I handed over the hundred yuan I had just borrowed.
Not long after, I finally found a job paying three hundred yuan a month. When I received my salary, I quickly took the money to repay Rong Rong. I gave her a hundred yuan, expecting her to decline politely, but she accepted it without hesitation. After that, I rarely contacted her again.
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed. I am now married with children, and through my own efforts, I have a car and a house. The last time I went back to my hometown, I met Rong Rong's neighbor, and when we talked about Rong Rong, she told me about Rong Rong's past.
When Rong Rong's father died, her youngest brother, the one they struggled for years to have despite family planning policies, was only one year old. Her oldest sister was twelve, and there were two other sisters, aged ten and seven. The slim Rong Rong became the pillar of the family. Her father suddenly passed away in April, and in May, during wheat harvest, Rong Rong and her mother worked all day to finish cutting the wheat in the fields. By the time they loaded the cart, it was already late at night. Other families had finished and gone home, leaving the mother and daughter unable to pull the heavy cart out of the field no matter how hard they tried. In desperation, they cried loudly in the wheat field. Seeing their difficult situation, neighbors arranged a marriage for the good-looking Rong Rong to help them get through the busy wheat season.
Having a partner meant less worry about physical labor, but as summer was coming to an end, her three younger sisters needed money for school. The man could help with work, but he didn't have the means to fund the education of all her sisters. Out of necessity, Rong Rong bit her lip and went out to work. Jobs weren't easy to find back then, and Rong Rong soon fell into bad company. After working in a dance hall for a year, she met a man in his thirties or forties whose child was already in elementary school. The man was ugly, less than 160 cm tall, and couldn't even touch the ground with his feet when riding a motorcycle, but he had some money—not a lot, but he seemed reliable and not too slick. Rong Rong decided to stay with him, stopped working at the dance hall, and relied on him for support. With his help, her siblings' tuition and family living expenses were covered, and she no longer had to resort to disreputable means. It was a relatively good deal at the time.
Rong Rong's older sister, only two years younger than her, had already graduated and soon also started working. Under Rong Rong's care, her path went smoothly, and she quickly found a boyfriend who worked in the government in this city—stable income, nice person. They got married after a year of dating and lived happily ever after. However, while their small family was happy, after getting married, Rong Rong's sister never contributed any money to the family again. Rong Rong's mother urged her to contribute, but it was useless. She just said she had no money. Faced with such a selfish sister, Rong Rong never complained. In fact, when her sister bought a house and asked Rong Rong for money, Rong Rong actually gave it to her.
Seeing that Rong Rong's family was doing relatively well, Rong Rong's grandmother, who did small businesses and wasn't poor, once demanded that Rong Rong repay a five-hundred-yuan debt her father owed her. Now that her son was gone, she wanted the daughter to repay it. This shocked Rong Rong almost to the point of fainting...
Listening to Rong Rong's neighbor recount these stories, I changed my previous view of her. Indeed, her stinginess was something several of us fellow villagers noticed, but now I understood that she was stingy with outsiders, but absolutely selfless and inclusive towards her family.
Back in the city, I drove with my daughter to see Rong Rong, whom I hadn't seen for over ten years. Unexpectedly, in this rapidly changing city, Rong Rong was still renting the same apartment. What used to seem spacious and beautiful to me now appeared old and cramped. The man Rong Rong depended on was still the short man. She had a boy for him, who was already seven years old, but she was still not officially recognized. His wife was still in her original position, with wrinkles appearing on her forehead, yet Rong Rong remained a third party, an unnamed person, and a morally condemned mistress in others' eyes. But I no longer looked down on her. I know she doesn't like that man either. I know she wants to find a handsome man she likes and live a good life, but for some people with humble origins, walking according to one's own will is incredibly difficult. To outsiders, I seem to be much better off than Rong Rong in many aspects, but is doing business my choice? No. From childhood, I liked painting, but if I made a living by painting rather than making money through business, my father would have to endure pain and bow his head while pulling a cart on muddy country roads to make a living, and super pickles would have to deal with witches. My mother would forever struggle in poverty, and my siblings would never have a way out, so I have to do things I don't want to do.
Maslow said: Human survival is divided into five levels. The first level is survival issues, the second is security, the third is social interaction, the fourth is respect, and the fifth is self-actualization. From the first level to the fifth, the span is enormous. In the current stage of social development, for us, living according to our own will is unrealistic.