Old Town

by Lin Zhe

  Ah Mu noticed the boy’s ruddy complexion and neat attire and knew that Ninth Brother was doing all right. What’s more, the people of Old Town all knew that this foreign couple were Living Buddhas, who helped lift the needy out of misery and distress. Ninth Brother was doing better here than he would at home and surely, he wouldn’t want to go back there to be bullied again by Big Sister-in-Law. So he said to the boy, “Don’t be afraid, I won’t tell Big Sister-in-Law. It’ll be just as if I never saw you.”

  Ninth Brother looked at Mr. Qiao, then at Mrs. Qiao, and blurted out, “I don’t want to go back home with him!”

  So this child wasn’t deaf or dumb after all! The preacher and his wife never imagined that a child could pretend to be deaf and mute for two whole months out of fear of going home. What kind of a home was that? With the appearance of this pathetic deaf-mute child, they had already begun to plan a school for deaf-mutes in Old Town.

  Mr. Qiao took the little boy in his arms and said, “Never fear, you’re our child.”

  The preacher lifted the big sack of rice from Ah Mu’s shoulders and led him to the back parlor for some tea and a chat. And after hearing all about Ninth Brother’s pitiful existence, Mr. Qiao’s blue eyes filled with tears.

  Ah Mu returned to the Lin household and for several days stifled his urge to talk. Then, finally, he could stand it no longer and told Ah Hua his strange tale. In turn, Ah Hua herself couldn’t resist disclosing this to the servant girl next door. Word spreads quickly through a place as small as Old Town and eventually this reached the ear of Big Sister-in-Law. She now worried that Ninth Brother’s return home would not only bring another mouth to the dining table, but, worse, she would have to spend money on his schooling. So she kept all this to herself and didn’t tell her husband, Eldest Brother.

  Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Qiao found themselves in a difficult position. On the one hand, they had comforted the little boy by saying that they would protect him against suffering any further wrongs. On the other, they also felt that they ought to let his family members know that he was still alive and obtain their approval before formally adopting him.

  Just when they were preparing to pay a call on Eldest Brother and Big Sister-in-Law at the Lin family home, Eldest Brother heard from an old friend that Ninth Brother had been adopted by foreigners. This was making real asses of the Lins and bringing discredit to the family’s venerable name. He didn’t bother going home to discuss this first with “the Old Lady,” but headed right over to West Gate, and with his hands clasped in front of him in greeting he burst into the Qiao residence. “Sir, I have just heard that you saved a little brother of my household. I truly do not know how best to express my gratitude. You both are Bodhisattvas come back into the world.” “Not Bodhisattva,” Mr. Qiao replied, “but God, the Ruler Above All, sent us to help your little brother.” Eldest Brother had not given much thought to how “God” and Bodhisattva differed from each other, but he wholeheartedly wanted to bring his little brother back home.

  Eldest Brother took hold of Ninth Brother’s hand. Ninth Brother neither struggled nor resisted, but it seemed with every step he took he looked back, eyes overflowing with tears, at Mr. and Mrs. Qiao.

  Many years later, Mr. Qiao concluded his mission of preaching in Old Town and received an appointment by his church to head its theological seminary in Shanghai. By then, the men of China had already cut off their braids.

  2.

  THERE’S A CHINESE expression, “Fly the womb and change one’s bones.” It means “to undergo a complete transformation.” Think of a boy molding a figure out of mud. He looks at it and isn’t satisfied, and so he crumbles it up and molds a new one. My grandpa’s Big Sister-in-Law still called Christianity “Foreign Buddha.” Although she was full of doubts and perplexities and thought she understood what she really didn’t, Christianity made her “fly the womb and change her bones.” In other words, she totally remolded herself. There was a spirit above her, and this spirit watched her every step and every move. Big Sister-in-Law was afraid that her earlier harsh abuse of Ninth Brother would someday bring retribution to her, so now she was more loving and considerate of him than she was toward her own children. I’ve seen the portrait of her in her later years, all benevolence and goodness. It’s hard to imagine that she had been so cruel as to cast a gravely ill eight-year-old child into the street.

  Ninth Brother graduated from senior high school in Old Town and Mr. Qiao paved his way to Shanghai for higher education. Before he left, Big Sister-in-Law herself sewed a quilted silk jacket and leggings for Ninth Brother. In perpetually springlike Old Town, people there called anywhere else “the North.” The North was cold, and in winter your nose could freeze and drop off. Shanghai was “the North” too. Big Sister-in-Law, afraid that Ninth Brother’s nose would drop off, also specially sewed a foot-wide, silken quilted muffler.

  She sat stitching away by the oil lamp. She sewed up all the scars on Ninth Brother’s heart. “The wife of an elder brother should be treated like one’s mother”—so she was his mother, and he was more filial toward her than were even her own real sons and daughters.

  In those days, Big Sister-in-Law had engaged the matchmaker, Mother Sun, to tiptoe on her tiny bound feet throughout the length and breadth of Old Town to act as a go-between for Ninth Brother. Big Sister-in-Law wanted to settle his marriage before he went off on his long journey. She worried that Ninth Brother would be adopted into some Northerner’s family as a son-in-law and take on their name. If that happened, the Lin family would lose a male carrier of the ancestral name and when she went to the other world, all the assembled ancestors and family forebears there would take her to task for this.

  Mother Sun took Big Sister-in-Law and Ninth Brother around Stipend Lane and Officials Lane to meet various prospects. Though she now believed in Jesus, Big Sister-in-Law was still very particular about achieving an appropriate match. Stipend Lane and Officials Lane residents were all prominent and important families, and only the daughter of a grand family would do for a young master of the Lin family. Ninth Brother, though, was uninterested in the prospective partners being introduced to him. It was just that he couldn’t bear opposing Big Sister-in-Law’s good intentions. So, puppet-like, he accompanied Mother Sun to family after family to view potential spouses.

  People in the West suppose that in feudal times Chinese marriages were totally determined by the parents and the matchmaker, and that the moment before the groom and bride entered the marital chamber, they knew nothing about the sort of person they had married. It’s always like this in the movies. If that were reality, then Old Town had already become enlightened by the beginning of the twentieth century. Here the tradition always was to introduce prospective marriage partners to each other. These men and women met each other in the company of their parents and the matchmaker, and only afterward was it decided whether to proceed with a marriage.

  When the man called on a prospective spouse, the woman’s parents would serve him poached eggs. My grandpa ate poached eggs in a lot of houses, but in none of these did he ever see a girl he took a fancy to. As Big Sister-in-Law anxiously watched Ninth Brother’s departure day looming ever closer, she invited a number of her fellow congregation members to the house to pray for his marriage. That evening, she called him to her and told him if he couldn’t decide on a spouse, his trip would be postponed. “I can’t believe that in all of Old Town there’s not one girl who appeals to you.” In fact, early on there had been a girl who had struck his fancy, a girl he often saw at services at the West Gate church. He knew she was the third daughter of the boss of the Guo Family Cloth Shop at Drum Tower. The church members called her “Third Sister.” All along, Ninth Brother had wanted to tell Big Sister-in-Law to have Mother Sun sound out prospects with the Guos, but he was so timid by nature that he didn’t know how to bring up the subject. Besides, he had absolutely no hold on any winning strategy. Big Sister-in-Law very possibly might refuse. How could that sort of small-time family meas
ure up to entry into the Lin family? Ninth Brother stood in front of Big Sister-in-Law for a long while, his head bowed. Finally, he got the courage to say, “I am a Christian and I would like to find a girl who loves the Lord. Third Miss of Guo’s Cloth Shop at Drum Tower loves the Lord.” Although Big Sister-in-Law wasn’t too satisfied, she didn’t insist against it, and the next day she sent Mother Sun to discuss marriage at the Guo home.

  Unexpectedly, “Boss” Guo had no intention to marry off Third Miss, at least not for the time being. He had four daughters and wanted them to leave home one by one in the proper order. Eldest Miss at twenty-two still had no “mother-in-law’s home,” as they say. In those years, a twenty-two-year-old woman might already be a mother many times over. Mr. and Mrs. Guo were in poor health, and with several boys still very young, they depended on the two oldest daughters to manage the shop’s business and run the household. For the past few years, their parents couldn’t bear letting these girls go off in marriage, and it was with heavy and care-laden hearts that Mr. and Mrs. Guo now saw the two girls becoming unmarriageable old maids.

  Mother Sun hurried back on her little toes to the Lin family with information. The bridge of Eldest Miss Guo’s nose was too sharp, probably a sign of an ill-omened fate. Second Miss Guo’s full-moon face signified great wealth and honor. In the neighborhood around Drum Tower, she was renowned for both her “civil” and “military” capabilities, being highly literate (her “civil” side) and able to wield a ladle and prepare a nine-or ten-table banquet (her “military” side). Big Sister-in-Law was pleased indeed to hear this, thinking that bringing a daughter-in-law like this into the home could save on the wages of two servant girls. She put on her embroidered-flower slippers and tried to drag Ninth Brother off to meet his prospective wife. Ninth Brother, however, stubbornly refused. Though he was an introverted person, he also had an indomitable and tenacious will. Once he set his mind on something, no one short of God himself could make him change it. That year, Old Town got its very first photo studio. In those days, this novelty was quite a sensation. Ninth Brother went to the studio and had his picture taken to leave with Big Sister-in-Law. He hoped that this photograph could substitute for him when she visited the Guo home. Whenever Third Miss Guo could leave home in marriage and be willing to marry the man in this picture, he would return home to finalize the marriage.

  My grandpa set off to study in Shanghai, filled with an adolescent’s worries and desolation about going so far away from his native place. In those days, getting to Shanghai from Old Town involved a three-day and three-night voyage. His fellow passengers were mostly young students attending school away from their hometowns. The blood of these small town and enormously smug young lords fairly boiled within them to be charging out of remote Old Town, where “the mountains were high and the emperor far off,” and into the very heart of this stormy period of the early Republic. They grouped together on the boat, full of impassioned and noble sentiment, and longed for the future, as if each and every one of them grasped in his very own hand the lifeline of the world.

  No one paid any attention to solitary Ninth Brother, keeping to himself and reading the Bible. From time to time, he would raise his head to gaze at the far-distant horizon, thinking of Third Sister whom he had left behind in Old Town. Her voice was really good and her hymn-singing a marvel to hear. Ninth Brother took it as a matter of course that Mr. Qiao would arrange for his study at the theological seminary. And when he thought of becoming a pastor who, together with Third Sister, would work for the Church, Ninth Brother became extremely happy.

  Three days later, Mr. and Mrs. Qiao, from whom he had been separated for so long, met Ninth Brother at the dock. Straightway they took Ninth Brother to the medical college the Church had just opened. Mrs. Qiao said that they had prayed to God for his studies and that, one night in a dream, she saw Ninth Brother wearing a white jacket and treating sick people. Quite by coincidence the medical college was just then recruiting students. She saw this as a decree from God, for God understood Ninth Brother better than they did. It seemed more appropriate that this introverted and reticent child become a doctor rather than a pastor.

  3.

  MY GRANDMA’S OLDER sister, my great-aunt, is now 102 years old. Today she lives in the nursing home in Old Town. Physically, she’s near the point of total collapse. Every day a nurse has to lift her onto her wheelchair and push her out into the sunlight. Her mind is still lively, though over the past twenty years she has borne to the fullest an inner torment. The fact was, during the decades of the government’s single child policy, the five nephews on her side of the family produced only girl children. She herself had only one son who never married. If her husband’s family line comes to an end, that’s of no great concern to her. But her side has no male descendents and centenarian Great-Auntie dwells on this day and night. Maybe this is why her mind has stayed so sharp. Every day she puts on her “old age” glasses and sets to work on her correspondence. One of her letters can take ten to twenty days to complete, or even longer. In these she requests the government to allow the Guo family nephews to have more than one child, by reason of their descent from the Tang dynasty general, Guo Ziyi.2 Previously the Guo ancestral shrine near Drum Tower recorded the history of the clan’s proliferation and this was where her forefather’s name appeared. Guo Ziyi belonged to one of the minority peoples. How did she know this? And how did she know about the government’s policy of permitting the minorities to have a second child?

  Great-Auntie wrote to Chairman Mao in Beijing, and when the nurse told her that the current chairman was named Jiang, she thought that Chairman Mao had retired, and so readdressed the letter to Chairman Jiang. Occasionally, though, she would get mixed up and still write “For the attention of Chairman Mao.” She also still wrote to the Old Town government and her many relatives. One after another letter was mailed out, and one after another came back. The nurse gave these returned letters to Great-Auntie’s Little Daughter. Little Daughter was a retired professor. She hadn’t told her mother that the chairmen had been unable to receive her letters. Nor did she tell her that all her nephews’ wives had long since passed the age for bearing children. Every time she dropped by for a visit, Little Daughter would bring her envelopes, paper, and stamps, and encourage her in her letter writing and struggle on behalf of her nephews’ “second fetus.” Isn’t this both a grand ideal and a fine way to spend time? And so the one-hundred-year-old lady’s days at the nursing home are completely filled. Great-Auntie’s eyes show more luster than those of the old folk around her who are actually many years her junior. She may have broken the Guinness Book of Records for life span and it was all for the sake of continuing the Guo clan line.

  However, long before Great-Auntie came up with her genealogical arguments, the several generations of Guos who earned their livelihood at the little cloth shop at Drum Tower street corner had been the most unremarkable people in the Old Town marketplace. Grandma’s mother gave birth to four girls in succession before going on to bear five boys, also one after the other. By the time the youngest boy had been weaned from the breast, Grandma’s father was sick with all kind of ailments, and so Second Daughter took over management of the shop. This was because Eldest Daughter didn’t know how to keep accounts, often measuring out a zhang of cloth but charging for only seven chi worth.

  Second Daughter, or “Second Sister”—that was Granny. My grandpa had liked Third Sister, but through a strange and complicated turn of events married Second Daughter. Hand in hand, they sustained each other through many decades of life. I have never known a more deeply affectionate and loving couple.

  The Guo daughters were celebrated for their intelligence and beauty. Eldest Daughter, even though no good at bookkeeping, could chant poetry and compose verse as well as write with a fine hand. Had she been young in this day and age, my great-aunt would certainly have been called a “babe” writer. Second Sister was keen-witted and capable. Both the “interior ministry” and the “forei
gn affairs” of the Guo home were totally in her hands. Then there was Third Sister, even more extraordinarily clever and intelligent, and looking like the proverbial celestial beauty that had descended to earth. Third Sister was her father and mother’s darling.

  But the Guo sons? Every one of them was an unmentionable “Ah Dou the Weak.”3 When they were young, they were stubborn, ignorant, and always making trouble. Grown up, they became hard drinkers, opium smokers, slaves of the flesh. People always said that there was something wrong with the feng shui of the Guo ancestral tombs. In those days, very few rich people sent their daughters to study in “Western” schools. Only by a stretch of the imagination could the Guos be considered a comfortably well-off family, but still they were willing to spend the money to send Third Sister to one of these places. Before Granny left home in marriage, Third Sister suddenly got violently ill and died. I heard that my great-grandfather couldn’t bear this shock and that winter he died coughing blood.

  Granny’s sister-in-law, the wife of the eldest of her brothers, scrupulously fulfilled her duties and responsibilities as Big Sister-in-Law. She hung over a dozen painted portraits of departed Guos on the four walls of her narrow little building in the courtyard. She lived through the change of the Qing dynasty and the downward spiral in the family’s conditions. Though she led a desperate and uprooted life for several decades, these pictures accompanied her in their pristine state. Among these were portraits of my granny’s grandparents, parents, and several departed younger brothers. There were also pictures of two younger sisters who had died when they were just babies. The only one who had no picture was Third Sister, the one that Grandpa liked.