by Anyi, Wang
Vacation
When Xiao Lin received his college admission notice, Wang Qiyao offered to send him and Weiwei on vacation to Hangzhou by way of congratulations.
“Aren’t you coming too, Auntie?” Xiao Lin asked.
Wang Qiyao thought for a moment. It occurred to her that, though Hangzhou is so close to Shanghai, she had never been. She decided to go with them. Shortly before their departure, she called Xiao Lin over while Weiwei was at work and gave him a gold bar to exchange for cash at the Bank of China. Weiwei was not to know. She had more faith in Xiao Lin than in her own daughter; he was the one she went to when she had important matters to discuss or when she was looking for advice. As for Xiao Lin, he went to Wang Qiyao for everything and turned only to Weiwei when he wanted to horse around and have a good time. But whenever he was down, he always shared his innermost thoughts with Wang Qiyao: only she could comfort him. To him she was more his friend than his future mother-in-law. She in turn regarded him at least partially as a friend; she would sometimes forget his age and tell him personal things about herself. She hesitated for a moment as she handed him the gold bar, wondering if she should tell him the story of its origin. But that was a huge secret. How many secrets had she accumulated over the decades! She listened to Xiao Lin’s footsteps as he went out the downstairs door. Around noontime he returned and handed her a stack of bills. She felt that she was cashing out her hidden past. Perhaps it was best not to bring it up after all. Xiao Lin didn’t pry. How people accumulated their wealth was one of this city’s unverifiable secrets: an old Shanghai native like Xiao Lin knew this all too well. Wang Qiyao kept him for lunch before sending him home.
During their three days in Hangzhou Wang Qiyao did her best to make herself scarce. In the mornings she would wake up before them and go out for a walk around the hotel. Their hotel was right on Inner West Lake, and she would walk along its banks all the way to Bai Causeway. The sunlight lit up the surface of the lake and she worked up a light sweat before heading back. On the way she would run into Weiwei and Xiao Lin, who were also going for a morning stroll.
“See you at breakfast,” she would say before going back inside the hotel. By this time the hot water would be have been turned on and she would take a shower, change clothes, and go down to wait for them in the hotel dining room. They would show up about fifteen minutes later. Whatever activities they had planned for the day, Wang Qiyao made sure to stay behind part of the time, as well as giving them rein to spend the evenings as they wished. Weiwei didn’t come back to the room until midnight; Wang Qiyao would close her eyes and pretend to be asleep as soon as she heard the door opening. She would listen to Weiwei bump into things as she showered and brushed her teeth, turned the light on and then off again, and finally got into bed. It was not until she heard her daughter quietly snoring that Wang Qiyao felt it was safe to turn over and open her eyes, which had grown tired from being kept closed so long. The room was actually quite bright and everything was clearly visible; the light fluctuated slightly as it reflected off the surface of the lake. Wang Qiyao thought about the Nine Creeks and Eighteen Gullies they had visited earlier that day; a Zen-inspired place of nature and solitude, and wondered what it would be like to live there as a hermit. How wonderful it would be not to be bothered by the annoyances of the world! It would be nice to live in an isolated place where a century is like one day and there is no past or future. But then it was a bit late for her to become a hermit. She had already paid a heavy price during the first half of her life; was it all to have been for nothing? Were there to be no harvest to be reaped from all that she had been through? Wouldn’t she be losing out by giving up halfway? When she went back to ponder what that harvest might be, her mind began to drift and she couldn’t focus any more; gradually, she fell asleep.
On the third morning she woke up to find the room bathed in sunlight and Weiwei gone without a trace. She realized that she had overslept, but she wasn’t anxious. Instead she decided to take it easy. She rested her eyes a bit longer before getting out of bed to comb her hair and head down to the hotel dining room to wait for her daughter and Xiao Lin. She waited for quite some time, and it wasn’t until the dining room was about to close that she quickly nibbled a few bites. She went to wait for them in the reception area, but they still didn’t show up. Finally she went outside to wait for them. It was already muggy on the lake; all along the Bai Causeway and the Su Causeway, tourists were out strolling, their reflections shimmering on the lake. A few wispy clouds floated overhead, but soon disappeared. The sound of cicadas rang out, but there was still no trace of those two.
That morning Weiwei and Xiao Lin had gone for tea at Park Number Six, then directly from there to rent a boat on the lake. They didn’t get back to the hotel until noon. They thought they would run into Wang Qiyao when they got back, but when they didn’t they simply had lunch and went upstairs to grab a few things before going out again. Xiao Lin, who was sharing a room with someone else, went to put his belongings in the women’s room. Opening the door, they were startled to see Wang Qiyao sitting up in bed reading a comic book, a whole pile of comics stacked up beside her.
“Did you have something to eat, Auntie?” Xiao Lin asked after taking a moment to compose himself.
Wang Qiyao, however, responded with silence, pretending not to hear him. She kept her eyes on the comic book and turned the pages with a smile on her face. Weiwei grabbed some clothing and went into the bathroom to change as Xiao Lin said, “This afternoon we’re going to see the bamboo groves at Yellow Dragon Cave. Why don’t you come along!”
“I’m not going!” Wang Qiyao replied, the smile on her face suddenly vanishing.
Xiao Lin paused a moment before he tried to explain. “This morning Weiwei and I went for a walk along Su Causeway. We ended up pretty far out and that’s why we didn’t make it back for breakfast.”
Wang Qiyao could no longer contain the bitterness welling up inside her. Her eyes turned red and she struggled before responding, “Well, I also went out for a walk.”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth she got angry at herself for showing her weakness. “You need not report to me,” she added.
At that point Weiwei emerged from the bathroom and asked, “Are we going or not?”
She directed her question at Xiao Lin and didn’t even look at Wang Qiyao, as if there was no such person in the room.
Looking up from her comic book, Wang Qiyao demanded, “Who are you talking to?”
Weiwei was taken off guard. She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Wang Qiyao flashed a cold smile. “If you’re not talking to me, then just who are you talking to? What makes you think that just because you have a man you can ignore everyone else? You think men are reliable? Just you wait, one day they’ll step all over you and you’ll come running back to me. Maybe you don’t believe what I’m telling you, but just you wait!”
Her comments, which seemed to come totally out of the blue, caused Weiwei to panic. “Who’s got a man?” she retorted. “And who’s the one ignoring everyone else? Today I’m going to set the record straight! And I’m not going to Yellow Dragon Cave either!”
With that, she sat down on the other bed, folded her legs, and stared at Wang Qiyao, affecting the posture of one ready to settle scores. The two of them always treated each other as equals, rather than as mother and daughter; the fact that Wang Qiyao looked so young was not the only reason people took them for sisters. They quarreled frequently, so that even an outsider like Xiao Lin had witnessed their bickering on more than one occasion. But today the scene was something out of the ordinary. It seemed to have come out of nowhere, and even when there was nothing left to argue about they were both determined to carry on. In fact, trouble had been brewing for some time, and Xiao Lin, conscious of the great embarrassment a full-blown eruption would cause all three of them, went over to pull Weiwei away. But she knocked his hands aside.
“You’re always taking her side
! Just what is she to you?” Before Weiwei could finish the sentence, her mother slapped her across the face.
Weiwei was brassy enough to exchange harsh words with her mother, but she was far from the point of being able to trade blows. Beside herself with rage, she could only take refuge in tears. Xiao Lin tried to pull her away, but she only sobbed, “The two of you are ganging up on me!”
No one went out that afternoon. The beautiful sunny day, amidst the gorgeous scenery of lake and mountain, passed by under the shadow of anger, tears, and resentment.
Xiao Lin’s roommate wasn’t around, so he took Weiwei back to his room, where he did everything he could to console her and try to cheer her up. After a great deal of whimpering, Weiwei gradually calmed down.
“Xiao Lin,” Weiwei raised her teary eyes and gazed at her boyfriend. “You be the judge: was all this my fault or hers?”
Xiao Lin wiped away her tears. “What’s all this talk about ‘my fault or hers’? It’s your mother we’re talking about! Even if she was wrong, she’s still your mother.”
Weiwei was upset again. “So, according to you, there is no such thing as right or wrong in the world?”
Xiao Lin laughed. “I wasn’t talking about the rest of the world!” He was silent for a moment before continuing, “You know, there is something quite sad about your mother.”
“What’s so sad about her?” Not wanting to risk a row, Xiao Lin stared blankly out the window. It was only after a brief pause that Weiwei turned him around and asked, “Are you in a relationship with her or with me?”
Weiwei’s stern expression gave the ludicrous question a serious tone. Xiao Lin kissed her. “Is it really necessary for me to answer that question?”
Weiwei laughed, and then became embarrassed. She hid her head under a pillow and wouldn’t let Xiao Lin look at her. The two of them kept on like this and the time slipped away. Before long it was dinner time.
“Let’s go down and get her for dinner. But you have to try and smile!” he said.
Weiwei intentionally drew a long face. “I don’t know how to smile.”
Just as they were getting ready to leave, there was a knock on the door. It was Wang Qiyao. She had changed clothes, had her handbag with her, and looked perfectly serene. She said she wanted to take them out for dinner at the Louwailou and waited patiently for them to collect their things.
The sun was hanging low over the streets, bathing all of Hangzhou in a golden glow. Bicycles glided by as if they too were fish swimming in the shining lake. The few boats remaining on the water drifted to the shore, where they seemed to exchange glances of surprise with the pedestrians. Soon the sky turned a gorgeous hue, dyeing the clouds on the horizon a rainbow of brilliant colors. It was so beautiful that Xiao Lin decided to take some photographs, including shots of the women, singly and together. After the colors had faded from the firmament, they proceeded to the restaurant and sat down to dinner. Wang Qiyao let the two of them order and refrained from interfering. Gradually Weiwei became her old vivacious self. She grew talkative and Wang Qiyao chimed in a few times, putting what had happened earlier that afternoon behind them. Only then did Xiao Lin, who had been walking on pins and needles all day, finally heave a sigh of relief.
“Weiwei,” Xiao Lin said earnestly as he poured out the beer, “you should toast your mother. It mustn’t have been easy raising a girl like you!”
“That was her decision,” Weiwei rejoined perversely. “It’s not as if I forced her!”
Wang Qiyao laughed. “All right, so I forced you, okay?”
“Here’s to Auntie, who really broke the bank paying for this vacation!” Xiao Lin exclaimed.
He had not expected his words to make Wang Qiyao blanch. Although she managed to hold on to her smile, her expression changed, growing colder. She took a sip of beer and, without saying anything, began to eat. Weiwei naturally didn’t notice anything wrong, but Xiao Lin felt uneasy, sensing he had said something wrong—only he wasn’t sure what. He was already exhausted from having spent most of the day trying to patch things up between the mother and daughter, and now it all seemed to have been a wasted effort. Disheartened, he addressed himself to the food and drink. Only Weiwei was still in high spirits, blithely unaware that anything was different. In the end, she was the only one who enjoyed the meal.
That night Wang Qiyao returned alone to her room and, for lack of something else to do, began packing her things for the return trip the following day. In the middle of her packing she suddenly smiled, thinking, So he thinks of me as his private bank! Then, after a pause, And what does she take me for? Putting down her things, she decided to take a shower. It was too early for hot water and all that came out of the shower head was air. Forgetting to turn it off, she lay down on the bed and dozed off. She awoke to the sound of rushing water and clouds of steam billowing out from the bathroom door.
The following day they took the afternoon train back to Shanghai’s North Station, arriving at ten in the evening. The square in front of the station was bustling with people. Lining the square in every direction were lamp posts that shone a murky yellow light onto the swarming crowds. Weiwei and Xiao Lin walked ahead, with Wang Qiyao lagging a few steps behind. Every so often Xiao Lin would turn around to make sure she was okay and didn’t need any help. Wang Qiyao said she was fine, thinking scornfully that she wasn’t so old as to need his help. After they had crossed the square and stood at the curb, they were still surrounded by an endless stream of people. Arriving home, they found the apartment covered in a layer of dust, even though they had been gone for only three or four days. Several moths, hatched while they were away, fluttered around the room.
Christmas
That year saw the revival of Christmas celebrations in living rooms scattered around Shanghai. On Christmas Eve the lights stayed on in those houses till well past midnight. People played Christmas songs on their pianos all night. Festivities such as these invariably involved food and drink, but with Christmas candles and music setting the mood, even the most mundane food and drink took on a special air. There were no Christmas trees to speak of, as there was no place to buy them. For midnight chimes, one had to rely on the time signal coming over the radio, a lonely sound in the still of the night, but even so it made Christmas Eve stand out.
The people who celebrated Christmas were not necessarily Christians; in fact, most could barely tell you who Jesus was. The majority had come to know about this holiday from Christmas cards sent to them from abroad. True churchgoers, who had been living their lives according to the gospel, probably didn’t give much thought to Christmas. They were, for the most part, quite old and had long fallen behind the times. Christmas was observed by the city’s trendiest residents. The sharp eyes of these residents scanned the city for what it lacked and nothing escaped them. They pushed their city aggressively into the mainstream to bring an end to its isolation. Christmas at this time had not yet won mass acceptance, but you could already sense its power and sincerity. The finest china was trotted out, a new tablecloth was laid on the table, fresh roses were put in the vase, and the smartest people were invited as guests—one look and it was clear that these were the new masters of this city. “Merry Christmas” rolled off their lips as they came inside. It was a bit cold out and there was no heating, but they were in such high spirits that they didn’t care; everyone wore spring clothes. Eating and dancing, they would start to warm up and lose their inhibitions. Christmas Eve celebrations generally began around nine o’clock. As most of the people who had stayed home were preparing for bed, others who had gone out were on their way home, and dances were wrapping up elsewhere; at Christmas parties guests were only just arriving. With all the lights out in the neighbors’ homes, the radiance emanated by those parties resembled a beacon light—never again would the city lose its way.
During these years Shanghai was like a huge sponge that, having been dried up too long, opened its pores to soak up all the pleasure it could. There was still a long way to go
before it was saturated. There was more darkness than light in the sky above the buildings; behind those tightly closed windows and doors, most people were sleeping—such paltry sums of pleasure were not enough to go around. If that pleasure were to flow down the street, it would only leave the ground a bit damp. You don’t realize how much pleasure this city needed! Old as those living rooms may have been, they were still functional and large enough to accommodate the singing and dancing of Christmas Eve parties. The pianos were all out of tune, but they were all classic instruments made by J. Strauss & Son. And what about the piano tuners of yore? They needed to be tracked down one by one to resume their old profession—all the old pianos in the city were counting on them. Otherwise what would come of the Christmas songs? And what about all those sonatas and serenades: how would they ever manage?
Weiwei went with Xiao Lin to his classmate’s place for Christmas, leaving Wang Qiyao home alone. She wondered, What Christmas is there to celebrate on a dark gloomy night like this? Sitting down under the lamplight to knit a baby’s wool jumpsuit, she was suddenly struck by the silence all around her. The sounds of people talking and moving about that normally filled the air had completely stopped. Could they have all gone out to celebrate Christmas? At that moment she heard the clock chiming; counting to ten, she realized how late it was. How stupid the whole Christmas holiday was! Who wants to sit together with a bunch of people and listen to the clock strike midnight? Doesn’t it strike midnight every night? Wang Qiyao went to bed well before Weiwei crept back in later that night. When she got up the next morning and set out for the market, Weiwei was still fast asleep, her new boots and clothing strewn around the bed, looking as if she had been on an all-night revel.
