by Anyi, Wang
Deuce was favored with a flawlessly light complexion and delicate facial features. He spoke as softly as he walked. If he were not such a fine boy, his family would have disapproved of him and the town folks would have made him the butt of their jokes, which was what they customarily did with recluses. But Deuce aroused the parental instinct in people, and they happily indulged him. Several families had thought about making him their son-in-law. This may have had to do with the tenor of the time, in which a solitary figure held a certain appeal. People were genuinely fond of him. Deuce held himself aloof from Wu Bridge, sometimes even letting his contempt show on his face, but this only enhanced his progressive aura. He saw himself as a man of the world, and regarded Wu Bridge as a discarded remnant. He would have left if he had had his choice, but his health was not strong enough to confront the turmoil of the outside world, and he was forced to fall back on Wu Bridge. He had now become one of the discarded remnants, but his heart belonged out there.
Accordingly, Deuce was a tormented soul. There is an old saying that a man’s shadow was his spirit, but Deuce claimed he was a man without a shadow. On moonlit nights he would glare at his own shadow on the stone slab bridge and reject it. Is that really me? Clearly, it must be someone else. One day, walking past the pickled food shop, Deuce saw Wang Qiyao sitting inside. He was electrified. Now there is my true shadow! he exclaimed inwardly. From that day on he volunteered to make deliveries for the shop. He had to walk over three bridges, and his heart leaped with joy, higher as he passed over each bridge, although he did not allow it to show. With a tightly drawn face, he would drop off the bean curd, turn around, and leave. On his return trip, his heart sank at every bridge, but there was exhilaration mixed in with that sadness, and he walked with a spring in his step. He was convinced that Wang Qiyao had been mistakenly snipped off from the proper world and that she still carried with her the splendor of that other realm. Why did she end up here? Deuce was so grateful that his eyes grew moist. Her presence brought sunlight to Wu Bridge, ensuring that this place would never be lost. Her presence brought a glimmer of hope to Wu Bridge, providing a link between this place and the outside world. Oh, what changes she brought to Wu Bridge! Deuce had heard rumors about Wang Qiyao, but no matter how outrageous the rumors were, he was not put off. On the contrary, they fed his fantasy. To him, Wang Qiyao epitomized the opulence of Shanghai—even though this was a bygone opulence, a bygone dream. The reflected glory of Shanghai was strong enough to last through another half-century. Deuce’s heart came alive again.
Wang Qiyao soon began to take notice of this young delivery man. With his fair skin and effetely persnickety schoolboy style, he seemed to her a character out of an old photograph. When he spoke with her great uncle, she listened closely through the partition, and found that he was so soft-spoken he sounded like a bird. Once she ran into him on her way to buy needles and thread. He fled, blushing, to another bridge. Wang Qiyao was amused and began to take an interest in him. She discovered that he had a habit of walking by himself at all hours, and his silhouette in the moonlight was as charming as that of a virgin. He sometimes leaped with a girlish joy. One day, after he had dropped off the basket of bean curd at the front of the store and was on his way to the back room, Wang Qiyao called to him from behind, “Deuce!”
As he turned his head, she hid herself to watch the agitated and confused look on his face. This was the first time Wang Qiyao had engaged in a mischievous act of any kind since arriving in Wu Bridge, and it was Deuce who brought out this side of her. After looking around, Deuce thought he must have been hearing things, but instead of ignoring it, he shouted back, “Who’s calling me?”
Wang Qiyao put her hand over her mouth to conceal her laughter—the first time she had laughed since arriving. This too was because of Deuce.
The following day, running into him on the street, she stood in his path and said, “How come you didn’t see me yesterday with those big eyes of yours?”
Deuce was so embarrassed that he turned bright red all the way down to his neck, where a blue artery pulsated wildly. He fixed his eyes on her but did not know what to do with his hands. “Where are you heading?” she asked more gently.
Deuce mumbled that he was on his way to collect bills and showed her the account book. Wang Qiyao glanced at the handwriting on the slips and asked if it was his. Getting a grip on himself, he answered that some of it was. She asked which parts were his, and he showed her several lines of elegant tiny characters. Wang Qiyao, who knew nothing about calligraphy, praised his writing, “Not bad at all!”
The rosiness gradually faded from Deuce’s cheeks. “You’re mocking me.”
“Even the Chinese teachers at my school couldn’t have written characters the size of a fly’s head with such a fine hand,” Wang Qiyao rejoined with a straight face.
“In Shanghai, the entire educational system is focused on the sciences and other practical subjects,” said Deuce. “Calligraphy is a pastime that one indulges in during leisure hours.”
His range of reference took Wang Qiyao by surprise, and she realized she had underrated him. She tested him with a few other questions, to which he responded intelligently in the tone of a good pupil. Before they parted, she invited him to visit her more often.
Someone else delivered the bean curd the following morning. Deuce himself came in the evening wearing a pair of canvas athletic shoes newly whitened with shoe powder. He still had on his scarf and in his hand was a bundle of books. He came as a visitor, bringing candies for children in the household. The books were for Wang Qiyao, he said; with no movie theater in Wu Bridge, these might serve to entertain her in the evening. It was a random collection of books that included timeworn detective stories such as Astounding Tales and The Cases of Judge Shi, contemporary romances such as Zhang Henshui’s The Heavy Darkness of the Night, and magazines such as Fiction Monthly and Panorama. He’s emptied his bookcase for me, Wang Qiyao told herself. Wu Bridge is a simple and conservative town, after all. In Shanghai a boy like Deuce would have learned how to be more cunning and slick long ago, yet how much more dashing and urbane the boys are in Shanghai! Wang Qiyao looked again at Deuce and felt sorry for him for being buried in the backwoods. Under the lamp his face looked even paler, and a thatch of his very black hair had fallen over his forehead.
She teased him. “So, when are you going to fetch your bride?”
He blushed and said he was only eighteen.
“Your eldest brother is only twenty and he already has several children,” replied Wang Qiyao, nothing daunted.
Deuce snorted, “That’s Wu Bridge for you.”
That he set himself apart from Wu Bridge showed how highly he thought of himself. Wang Qiyao told herself to mind his sensitivity, but she could not help amusing herself at his expense. “Would you like me to introduce you to a Shanghai girl?”
“You are making fun of me.” This, with lowered head, sounding aggrieved.
Seeing that she had hurt his feelings, Wang Qiyao went on hastily, “You are at an age when you should be thinking about your career. What are your plans?”
Deuce explained how he had been going to attend a teaching university in Nanjing when his plans were thwarted by the political situation. Mention of the political situation sent a chill down Wang Qiyao’s spine and she fell silent. Deuce sensed that he had inadvertently touched a sore spot. Rather than questioning her, however, he tactfully offered comfort by saying that things would have to settle down eventually, life has its ups and downs, and—quoting the Book of Changes—when misfortune has reached its limit, good fortune is sure to follow. It was at just such a juncture, when everything seemed uncertain, that Wang Qiyao found herself in the backwater town of Wu Bridge. She had supposed that her life no longer mattered, much less her heart. But suddenly she was struck by a subtle feeling that her heart was coming back to her.
Deuce had the same feeling. Wang Qiyao was like a mirror to him. Only when he sat in front of her did he understand himself.
He started to come by every other day and stayed chatting until the moon rose in the sky. Sometimes, when the weather was warm, they walked the streets together. Lights shone out from under the canopies of boats in the canals and from houses along the canals, and the water sparkled with moving threads of light. Their hearts were both clear and serene.
“Hey, Sis, is the moon in Shanghai the same as this?” asked Deuce.
“It looks different,” replied Wang Qiyao, “but it’s actually the same.”
“Actually, there are two moons,” retorted Deuce. “One is the moon, and the other is its shadow.”
“I didn’t know you were a poet!” Wang Qiyao laughed.
She thought of Jiang Lili, who seemed now to be a person from a previous life. She thought that poetry, an affectation for Jiang Lili, came naturally to Deuce. Deuce demurred, “You are the poet, not me.”
Wang Qiyao refrained from laughing aloud and said, “How could I be a poet? I can’t recite a single line of classical poetry, or even modern poetry, for that matter.”
“Poetry is not about any which lines,” Deuce replied in earnest. “Some people think that if you cut sentences to roughly the same lengths and arrange them in lines, that’s poetry. Others think that poetry is written by linking sentimental words. To them poetry is about striking a pose.”
Wang Qiyao felt the latter was a perfect description of Jiang Lili’s poetic style.
“Actually, poems are pictures drawn with words,” said Deuce. “Take these examples: ‘The moon over the land of Qin and the House of Han shines its beams upon the Radiant Palace Lady.’ That’s like a painting! ‘We called her a thousand times before she came out, still holding the pipa half concealing her face.’ That’s another one! Or how about, ‘Her jade face is streaked with lonely tears, raindrops glistening on pear blossoms in the spring.’ Isn’t that a painting? ‘Behold the slender peach tree, its flowers shimmering!’ They are all word pictures, aren’t they?”
Wang Qiyao’s listened intently. She had not cared much for poetry, but this pricked her interest. Deuce, however, stopped talking.
“Tell me more!” She urged him.
“I have already proved my point.”
“What point is that?”
“I’ve proved that you are indeed a poet.”
At first Wang Qiyao didn’t understand what he meant, then blushed as she figured it out.
Deuce’s Heart
Deuce could not understand it. Why, after being jubilant for a few days, had he become even more morose? Something was gnawing at him. Before, his depression had been diffused; now, it had a focus. Before, he didn’t know what he wanted; now he knew, but what he wanted was impossible. Why would he want the impossible? Isn’t that the same as lifting a rock to smash your own foot? This Shanghai woman that he called “Sis” was like the multicolored clouds at sunset—she could disappear at any moment without a trace. She was, in truth, a legend. He wanted to add a few lines to the legend, but even before he’d got his writing brush ready, she was liable to be off creating another legend. How distinct she was from the rest of Wu Bridge!—as enigmatic as Wu Bridge was transparent. At his age, however, men prefer enigmas over the truth. After all, once you have arrived at the truth, what’s left to wish for? This explains Deuce’s despair and Wang Qiyao’s allure.
Deuce developed a daily routine of going in to chat with Wang Qiyao while she did her needlework in the back room of the pickle shop; but the closer he got, the more distant she seemed to be. And the more distant she seemed, the harder he strove after her. It was as if she was moving farther and farther away, until all that was left was an indistinct silhouette.
Deuce would occasionally think back to that evening they discussed poetry under the moonlight. The verses he’d recited still rang in his ears and at that moment Wang Qiyao seemed to grow closer. The old familiar verses had come tumbling out of his mouth, but he had since been bothered by their contexts. They felt more like Deuce’s own spontaneous creations, inspired by the moment, rather than what they really were—the words of the ancients. Gradually he began to remember the source of each verse, and this made him uncomfortable. “The moon over the land of Qin and the House of Han shines its beams upon the Radiant Palace Lady” comes from a poem by Li Bo about the beauty Wang Zhaojun, who was sent off by a Han dynasty emperor to marry a barbarian chieftain. This line seemed to suit Wang Qiyao’s present situation as her native moon shone down on her in a distant land. The line preceding this one reads, “Once on the road to Jade Pass, never from the end of the earth shall she return.” Was that a sign that Wang Qiyao would stay, never to return to Shanghai? Deuce became excited at this, but then thought perhaps the poem did not quite fit the situation, because Wang Qiyao had not left the country. On the other hand, maybe it did fit after all, because in the poem the Qin dynasty was supplanted by the Han, and China had also just undergone a major change of regime. Then and now, the moon of yesteryear shines on today’s people. It follows—in poetic logic—that, as time passes and does not return, neither would she. That the moon of a bygone Shanghai shone on Wang Qiyao—the idea pierced Deuce’s heart. “We called her a thousand times before she came out, still holding the pipa half concealing her face.” This comes from Bo Juyi’s “The Pipa Player,” a poignant poem about a woman, once beautiful and much sought after, now reduced to singing for a living aboard a boat. “Her jade face is streaked with lonely tears, raindrops glistening on pear blossoms in the spring.” That is from an even sadder poem, also by Bo Juyi, called “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow.” The woman is the favorite concubine of a Tang emperor, who is forced to kill her to appease his mutinous army. Deuce couldn’t help but grow heavyhearted. He wondered why all the famous beauties named in classical poetry came to a tragic end. It is said that beautiful women lead tragic lives. Is that their inescapable fate? It seems that only in the Book of Songs do we have a depiction of feminine beauty ending in happiness and celebration: “Behold the slender peach tree, its flowers shimmering!” But even these lines take on a portentous note, as they follow a series of tragic images. With his heart weighed down, Deuce wondered, Could this really be a sign? He could see the air of misfortune surrounding Wang Qiyao. Ah, but how exquisite she is! Deuce found himself irresistibly drawn to her.
Deuce’s feelings for Wang Qiyao were not only love, but a worshipful adoration. To him, Wang Qiyao was not a person, but a spirit that infused the surrounding air with mystery. Her presence overcame him with visions of loveliness—however transitory—and he felt himself vaporized into something akin to smoke or rain. Wu Bridge, with its extreme quiet, its long nights, dense and serpentine waterways, crowded house eaves . . . was hospitable to illusions. Wang Qiyao was illusion incarnate when she, shimmering with the splendor of the big city, walked on the stone slab streets. One could almost hear dance music echoing in her footsteps. Deuce was suddenly convinced: this woman from Shanghai had been sent to seduce him. The riskier the situation was, the stronger the seduction became. Deuce saw himself the martyr to a hopeless religion. He sought not the eternal, but the ephemeral; the pleasure of the moment, that was all he cared for. He was bewitched.
Wang Qiyao took Deuce’s affection as mere puppy love. She had grossly simplified the situation, but this was what saved the young man. Their relationship could only go on if seen in such unsophisticated terms. As a matter of fact, his love was pure; he wanted nothing in return—it was enough that he be allowed to love her. When Wang Qiyao went shopping for food, Deuce carried her basket. When the sun came out and she decided to wash her hair outside, Deuce poured water on her head to rinse off the soap. When she shucked peas, he held a bowl to catch them. When she did needlework, he grabbed the needle to thread it for her.
Wang Qiyao watched with pleasure as he crossed his eyes trying to thread the needle. It was a simple, spontaneous pleasure, completely uncalculated. She could not help reaching out to touch him on the head. His hair was soft, cool, and smooth. She ran her finger along the ridge of
his nose below his glasses and it too felt cool to the touch, like that of a little dog. Deuce’s eyes moistened with agitation.
“Would you come with me to Shanghai?” she asked.
“I’d love to!” he replied.
“And how do you propose to support your ‘Sis’?” she pushed him.
“I’ll work.”
She laughed, a little startled. Then: “The money you earn will scarcely be enough to buy me hair lotion.”
Deuce was taken aback. “You underestimate me,” he protested.
Wang Qiyao tugged at his dainty earlobe. “I’m teasing you. I don’t even know whether I can return to Shanghai.”
“I’ll take you back on my boat!” Deuce proposed with a look of utter seriousness on his face.
Wang Qiyao laughed. “Can you really?”
“All rivers lead to the sea,” Deuce responded smartly. “What would stop me from taking you back?”
Wang Qiyao fell silent.
A faint light lit up Deuce’s cloudy heart. Confident that he had a rough sense of the terrain, he asked himself what he should do, and decided that it was time to take action. The forsythia had proclaimed the arrival of spring with tiny yellowish flowers on its sparse branches. Deuce thought that he, too, had waited out the winter, and, as he walked along the river watching the boats set out, a plan formed in his mind. Thanks to Wu Bridge’s water, he knew what to do. Inspired by a muddled courage, he resolved to move toward the hazy light shining in his future—there is, in truth, no courage except muddled courage. He stopped his daily visits to Wang Qiyao, but, curiously enough, this made her more real to him. She had been absorbed into his plan, and this, to him, was a momentous parting. He was filled with sorrow at the impending separation, but into the sorrow joy came as well, because he knew that somehow this would lead to an eventual reunion. In his heart he sang a song of intermingled joy and sorrow, the song of a child. If people could have seen him wandering around Wu Bridge by moonlight, they would have been deeply moved by his eyes, in which faith and resolve were transmuted to a limpid tenderness.
