The Language of Solitude

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  Paul looked at her, his blue eyes full of concern, and asked in a thoughtful voice, “What are you thinking?”

  Yin-Yin gave a short sigh. Western people, she thought. They asked strange questions. Johann Sebastian had clearly not been the only one. She hated the question. What are you thinking? If she had wanted him to know what she was thinking, she would have told him. “What am I thinking?” she repeated. “That I’m hungry.”

  She folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and stirred the thick sauce. Paul stared at her in disbelief. “You can put the water on for the pasta,” Yin-Yin said. “The sauce is almost ready. Where’s the sugar?”

  He set the table in silence. She waited to see if he would make another attempt. But Paul had understood that she did not want to talk about her parents or about her time in prison. So he told her about growing up in New York, about his first trip to China, and about how he had met Christine. They talked about music and looked up Yin-Yin’s friend’s place in Manhattan, where she would be staying, on Google Earth. It was on the corner of Avenue B and Tenth Street.

  It was late. Paul said good-night. He was exhausted, she could see it, and he too wanted to go to bed. Yin-Yin sat alone at the kitchen bar and wondered what she should do. Sleep was out of the question. She was afraid to go for a walk in the dark. She wanted to stay indoors; there was something comforting about this room; she felt safe in this house, perched on top of a hill. It had started raining. Fat drops of rain hit the windowpanes. She walked into the hall and looked at the pair of child’s rain boots. The yellow raincoat in the closet. The marks on the door frame.

  The long and difficult path to letting go.

  Back in the living room, she flicked through Paul’s record collection and realized that they had very similar tastes. Yin-Yin wondered if she would dare to listen to classical music again for the first time since she had been freed. What did she feel like? The violin? No. Schubert lieder? Mahler? No to those too; singing would remind her too much of her mother. The piano would be best. Schubert? Bach? Beethoven?

  She decided on the Well-Tempered Clavier. As she took the CD out of its case and put it in the stereo, she was incredibly nervous, as if she were doing something forbidden. She would soon find out whether she could bear it or not.

  The first few notes were no more than a memory. Still very distant, as though someone were speaking to her in a language that had once been familiar but that she had forgotten. With every prelude, every fugue, more memories returned. She sank into the couch and absorbed the sounds. After two hours with the grave and profound Bach, a carefree Mozart took her by the hand and led her through the night. With him as a companion, the fear diminished more and more until it had disappeared.

  The magical power of music, its mysterious strength. It was like a key that opened something within her; that was why she loved it. Because it went to the depths of a human being and was totally unstoppable. Because the times of darkness could not harm it. Because no one could lie to himself or herself in its company. Mozart, Yin-Yin thought, was always reliable. Like a friend.

  Finally, she dared to move on to Beethoven. The composer she had the most respect for. Not only because she admired his musical brilliance, but because of the feelings that his music roused in her. She had to be careful with Beethoven; even when she had felt much more stable than she did now, there had been times when she could not listen to him in the past, and she had felt able to play his music even less often than that. She put on the Moonlight Sonata. A shudder ran down Yin-Yin’s back. She swallowed. This was why she had become a musician. Because she had not been able to hide from compositions like these. Because they demanded the utmost participation with the soul.

  Just like life.

  The piano notes brought forth tears: liberating tears that did good; tears that she could not hold back, did not want to hold back. Yin-Yin realized that this was not a second moment of weakness, but one of the first instances of strength.

  The situation was unambiguous. The power of darkness was now waning.

  The night had almost ended when she opened the sliding door to the terrace and stepped out into the rain. It was wonderfully warm and powerful, and soaked her T-shirt and trousers in seconds. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth. She felt the rain on her body, the fat drops falling so fiercely on her skin that they felt like needles pricking; the water ran down her face in rivulets. The sound of the piano came out from the house to her. She had not felt such lightness for a long, a very long, time.

  XXIII

  * * *

  It would be a lovely evening, a very special one. Christine had put a lot of thought into how her mother and Yin-Yin should meet. Dinner together at home? She didn’t feel comfortable with the idea; it would give their meeting a kind of everyday normality that did not suit the occasion. On Lamma, with Paul? No, not that either. She was afraid that his presence would unsettle her mother and distract her. She decided on the Dragon Grill, the best Chinese restaurant in the whole of the Tseung Kwan O district; she reserved one of the private dining rooms normally used for family celebrations and business lunches and dinners. Grandmother and granddaughter were meeting for the first time, and she wanted both of them to get to know each other in peace so that they could find a connection without being drowned out by the noise of eating and drinking around them. She preordered her mother’s favorite dishes—steamed tofu with Chinese ham and winter mushrooms, duck stuffed with eight treasures—as she wanted her mother to feel happy that evening. Christine could not imagine what she might be thinking. For forty years she had thought her son was dead, and had now found out that he had just died and that she had two grown grandchildren. Christine thought about Josh, her son, who was not as old as Da Long had been when her mother had last seen him. Just imagining being separated from him tomorrow and never seeing him again was quite unbearable.

  It would not be an easy evening.

  Three women, three generations; one family, no common language. Her mother would speak Cantonese to her and Mandarin to her granddaughter. Christine would speak English, which her mother hardly understood, to Yin-Yin. One of them would constantly be requiring another one of them to translate.

  Christine had not been able to go to Lamma during the day, so she picked Yin-Yin up at the ferry point. She got a shock when she saw Yin-Yin approaching. Her skin was pale and her face had grown thin; there were shadows under her eyes. She looked past Christine as though she were a stranger.

  “Yin-Yin?”

  She stopped in surprise, as though it was a coincidence that they were meeting here. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you. When I listen to music I get completely distracted,” she said, removing the headphones.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Christine could not take her eyes off Yin-Yin. The traces left by her imprisonment.

  “Do I look so terrible?”

  “What makes you say that?” Christine asked uncomfortably.

  “The way you’re looking at me.”

  “No, no, you just look a little tired.” Not a good start.

  They took a taxi to Hang Hau. Christine felt her shoulders growing more tense by the minute, and a hint of pain at the base of her skull, the early sign of a headache. She singled out a few points of interest during the taxi ride, including the old airport, and told Yin-Yin about the many nature reserves in the city. Her niece listened politely.

  “My mother is very much looking forward to this,” Christine said, feeling that she wasn’t sounding very sincere.

  “So am I,” Yin-Yin said in the same tone of voice.

  “I’ve got a packet of her favorite candy here. Coconut candy and pralines from Hainan island. You can give them to her if you like. She’ll be happy to receive them.”

  “Thank you. But I’ve brought a photographic book on Shanghai for her.” It did not sound like she wanted to give her both the book and the candy.

  “That . . . That’s much nicer, of course,” Christine said, embarrassed. “I’l
l give her the candy, then.”

  The restaurant was on the third floor of a shopping mall. Wu Jie was waiting for them. She sat bent over on a chair, staring into space. Instead of the new red jacket that Christine had given her a few weeks ago, she was wearing a worn old vest top; a hairpin had come loose, and strands of gray hair were falling in front of her eyes.

  “Mama, this is Yin-Yin.” Christine was so nervous that she found it difficult to breathe.

  Wu Jie pushed the hair out of her face and looked at her granddaughter for a long time, as though she was looking for similarities to her son. She stood up, supported herself on the arm of the chair, greeted Yin-Yin with a few simple words, and sat down again. Yin-Yin replied politely and gave her grandmother her present. Wu Jie looked at the book briefly and put it aside. “Thank you.”

  They took their places and several waitresses surrounded them immediately. They unfolded napkins, poured tea, and brought little dishes of peanuts and eggs with ginger and mustard to the table. When they had left the room, an oppressive silence set in.

  Christine began to doubt her choice of venue. The room was beautiful, but much too big. Three of them were sitting at a table that could accommodate at least twelve people, and for her mother’s tastes, the tablecloth and the floor were probably too clean and the waitresses’ uniforms not flecked with enough stains from the food.

  Yin-Yin said something and her grandmother answered briefly. Yin-Yin gave an embarrassed smile and asked something else, which she received an abrupt reply to.

  Even though Christine did not understand what her mother was saying, she could tell from the tone of voice that it was not going well. She was familiar with this way of communication: the curt tones and surly replies; the absolute minimum. She had gotten used to it over the years; it was not meant to be unfriendly, the way it seemed from the outside, but to Yin-Yin it must have seemed almost hostile.

  “Yin-Yin is a musician,” Christine said.

  “No one in our family is musical,” Wu Jie said firmly, as though there was still some doubt as to whether this was really a relation who was visiting them.

  “Her mother was a music teacher and she sang,” Christine said quickly, not translating what her mother said for Yin-Yin at all.

  “I see. Does a musician earn money?” Wu Jie wanted to know, as she gave her granddaughter a skeptical look. Christine translated.

  “A person won’t grow rich from it, but it’s enough to live on.”

  Wu Jie nodded absently.

  Yin-Yin tried to start a conversation. She asked questions and her grandmother answered without looking up, until Yin-Yin finally fell silent.

  “What did you say?” Christine asked.

  “I asked her how her health was.”

  “And?”

  “Bad, she said.”

  “What else?”

  “Whether she was happy in Hong Kong. She said it would be terrible if not. After forty years!”

  Christine thought about an old Chinese proverb that a teacher of hers used to quote: Mountains and rivers are easy to move, but a person’s nature is difficult to change.

  It can’t be changed at all, she thought now. Not at all. Not in her mother’s case, at least.

  Four young waitresses brought the rice, tofu, and vegetables. A waiter put the duck on the table, carved it with a celebratory flourish, and showed the women the treasures inside: lotus seeds, chestnuts, two kinds of mushrooms, ham, dates, gingko nuts, and sun-dried scallops. Christine had, as always, ordered too much, but it all smelled delicious, and her mother beamed for a moment. The waiter served them and they started eating in silence.

  Christine tried to start a conversation again. She asked her niece about Xiao Hu, about Yin-Yin’s plans for New York, and the audition for the symphony orchestra. She translated the replies into Cantonese.

  Her mother gnawed at a duck bone, helped herself to steamed tofu, spat gristle out onto the tablecloth, and did not seem interested in Yin-Yin’s replies. She had never been a communicative person. At least, not with words. But her silence right then made Christine more and more uncomfortable with every passing minute. Why didn’t she want to know anything about her granddaughter? Did she have nothing to say to her? Why was she so silent?

  Her mother had behaved in the same strange way two months earlier when Christine had finally told her about what had happened to Da Long. For reasons that she herself did not understand, she had delayed telling her mother that she had met her brother in China. First she was too tired, then her mother was not well, then Christine was afraid it would be too much for her, then came the news that she was pregnant, and then finally she had to tell her everything at once. Da Long had survived the Cultural Revolution! Had become an engineer. Had married and had two children. Now he really was dead. Christine had been so emotional that her voice had trembled and she had kept hesitating as she told her mother all this; she had only managed it all with difficulty. Her mother, on the other hand, had listened to everything without saying a word. Only nodded now and then or murmured something she couldn’t make out.

  Mama, what’s wrong? she had asked.

  Nothing, Wu Jie had said. Her reply had made a shudder ripple through Christine’s whole body. Nothing. Untouched.

  She thought about her unlived life. About unshed tears. Things not said. Sorrow not shared.

  Christine had hoped that the granddaughter would make the grandmother speak, that Wu Jie would ask after her son, that Yin-Yin would talk about her father. But they did not once mention the name that connected them both.

  She missed Paul. He would have relaxed the atmosphere and made it more lighthearted with his questions and with his sense of humor. She searched her mind for things to talk about, but everything that occurred to her had a shadow cast upon it: Min Fang, Yin-Yin’s childhood, her own in Hong Kong. So they praised the food instead and talked about tea, mahjong, lucky numbers, and Chinese astrology.

  The dinner was over in just under an hour. Wu Jie was keen to leave.

  The farewell at the MTR station was brief; they would meet tomorrow afternoon one more time, but now they were taking trains going in opposite directions.

  Christine brought her niece back to the ferry point.

  “I’m sorry. My mother can sometimes be a little gruff.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I don’t know why she was so distant. Even when I told her about Da Long’s death, she reacted very calmly, almost coldly.”

  “Maybe she can simply never forgive him.”

  “Forgive him?”

  The two women’s gazes met. You don’t know? one pair of eyes said. What are you talking about? said the other.

  “Didn’t your mother tell you anything?”

  “No, about what?”

  Yin-Yin looked around the train carriage uncomfortably, trying to hint that this was not the right moment to talk about family secrets.

  “Forgive what?” Christine said impatiently.

  Her niece leaned over to her and said in a low voice, “The death of her husband. It was no coincidence that the Red Guards stormed your apartment that day. Your father had been betrayed to them as a counterrevolutionary.”

  The door being kicked in. The fear of death in her parents’ faces. Her father on the windowsill. A black crow unable to fly. Where was her brother? Why didn’t she ever see him in this image? A horrible realization rose within her. She hoped it was not true.

  “Did Da Long . . . ?”

  Yin-Yin nodded.

  Looking for something to hold on to, Christine grabbed her niece’s hand. “How do you know that?’

  “I only found out yesterday. My father wrote me a farewell letter. Paul found it and gave it to me. It’s in the letter.”

  She did not want to cry. Not on this train. Not in front of Yin-Yin. She saw a little girl in front of her, one with braids, big eyes, a blue school uniform, and long, thin legs. One who had spent too many hours alone in one hundred square feet, who had l
onged for her father and for a big brother, who had borne silence for years, and who had had to be much too brave for her age.

  All because of a few books hidden under the kitchen floor! Because her father had read Confucius! Two-thousand-year-old writings that were now taught in the schools again. Because a fourteen-year-old had been careless, impertinent, or wanted to seem important.

  She felt that she was looking at her life as if it were a great big jigsaw puzzle with important pieces missing. She was now holding one of them. When she added it, another picture would emerge; a lot would be explained, but the reasons would still not be clear.

  Her mother’s pain. Was it not for the missing son but for the traitor? Perhaps she had arranged for him to be sent to the countryside so that she and her daughter could escape to Hong Kong without him. Had they fled not the Communists but their own family? So many questions that she would never get answers to. Blanks that had inserted themselves into her life.

  How close had mother and daughter been? Why had she never managed to share her sorrow? They had lived together for over twenty years, and yet they knew so little about each other.

  “I’m sorry,” Yin-Yin said, sliding closer and putting her arm around her aunt. “I thought you knew . . .”

  “Do you have the letter with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I read it?”

  Yin-Yin hesitated.

  “Please.”

  Yin-Yin took it out of her bag and gave it to her. Christine opened the envelope. She had a vague hope. Perhaps he had thought about his sister too. Not much, a couple of sentences—oh, even a few words would do. She unfolded the letter carefully and read it. Not a word about her. Not a line about her mother. Why was he asking his children for understanding and forgiveness, not those whose lives had been so drastically affected by his actions? Without his betrayal, her father would have lived, and she would not have had to grow up in the tragic fragment of family that was left.