The study was paneled in dark wood and lined with bookcases. There was a great variety in the many volumes: Chinese classics, The Book of History, Poetry from Tang and Sung Dynasties, The Art of War, Luen Yu, a collection of Confucius’s anecdotes, economics textbooks on capitalism and Marxism, and most prominently, a leather-bound Bible. A portion of lower shelves was dedicated to magazines and newspapers. Recent issues of Time magazine were arranged into the shape of a fan. Above an ornamental fireplace mantel of carved milky white marble, shot through with gray veins was a large painting by Chang Da Chien whose famous splash-colors style of bright blue and green paints brought out the majestic scenery of Mount Huang. In front of the fireplace, two large, tufted burgundy leather sofas trimmed with brass nail heads faced each other. They were divided by a long dark wood coffee table with an artful arrangement of chrysanthemums in the center. Next to the sofas, was a pair of reading lamps with China blue Shantung silk lamp shades. This was the room in which Jen received guests and fired servants, and where she did her thinking and made her decisions.
Jen was in the sixth month of her pregnancy. Her body was weighted down by the growing fetus within. Her breasts ached and softened like bruised peaches, and her feet and ankles were swollen and red like sausages. Her breathing had become shallower and her movements sluggish. Today, she wanted to spend time by herself. She looped the yarn over the tip of the needle and knitted as she looked out the window. She wondered whether the child she carried would be a boy. She had never forgotten the fortuneteller who had told her that after five phoenixes that there would be dragons.
She did not mind being pregnant again for the sixth time. This way, General Tung would go to other women, as he did during her previous pregnancies. He needed to be with a woman every night. It was a sickness of his. Men are weak that way, Jen thought. In truth, she would rather be pregnant than putting up with his nightly demands. She wondered whether he was patronizing the dancing hall with his lieutenants again. Dancing hall girls were popular these days. In the old days, it was the operas singers who seduced men from prominent families. At least the general was not going with the singsong girls, the “flowers” from the red light district who did not bother to disguise how they made their livings. At age forty-five, General Tung was both charming and predatory. He always had a taste for young women, but Jen knew that he would never bring these girls home. Let him have his fun, as long as it was out of her sight and out of her earshot. Jen was not jealous of the other women. She accepted that as the wife of General Tung that she must fulfill her duty of pleasing him when requested and obeying him when demanded. She accepted that when she was not available, someone must—and would—take her place.
She had come to believe that he had married her primarily because she was college educated, spoke English, and was a Christian. She had married him because she needed a protector. With his connections to the military and her connections to the banking industry through her college classmates, they had forged new ties that afforded them prominent positions. She became a part of the Economic Advisory panel for the Nationalist government, and he was appointed to lead the mission to recover the northern territory after the defeat of Japanese. It had proved a good bargain for them both.
Jen’s father had been a successful merchant. She had inherited his talent for calculating an abacus, for weighing risks against rewards, and for negotiating through life. She had already converted most of their financial holdings into gold bars and stored them in safes in several secured locations. She had done this even before the Nationalist government decided to print money in large denominations in order to create a super-inflation that would devalue the war debts they owed to foreign powers. Jen was the only woman on the committee that made the decision. It was supposed to be top secret.
Jen always prided herself for her ability to view things with a clear head. Even as a young girl, she had disdained the notion of romantic love and anything that had to do with passion. She had never been impulsive. Every decision she made had been a necessary trade to get her to the next place she wanted to be. Like a patient chess player making moves at the beginning of the game, she did not waste opportunities or make mistakes. She understood early on that one’s life is the cumulative result of one’s decisions. As Jen paused to count the loops of yarn on her knitting needle, she was planning as far into the future as she possibly could. She estimated the due date of the baby. The general had told her that they must be ready to move at a moment’s notice. The fighting was growing fiercer. He was not sure how long the Nationalist army could hold off the Communist’s advances.
Jen was still smarting from what had occurred the other night, after they had retired to their bedchamber. Jen had emerged from her bath, her face flushed from the hot steam and her chin length hair still wet and dripping with water. She blotted her hair with a towel, and rested on a chaise beside windows obscured by floor length copper colored velvet curtains. The Tiffany styled torch lamps cast blue and purple patches of light on the ceiling and walls. General Tung was seated on his saddle brown leather armchair nursing a brandy. He was waiting for her.
“Anything happen in the field today?” Jen asked without curiosity. This was the way she always began conversation with him. Whatever he answered, she would nod, not really listening. “I had to interrogate a few Communists. They were young and very stubborn. It took a long time,” said the general.
Jen did not want to know what had happened to the captured young Communists. She flipped through the day’s newspaper. The headlines touted victories for the Nationalist army. “China must be united!” “The Communists must be defeated!” She knew that these headlines were lies. The government controlled the press and would only report victories. The general changed the subject, “Jen, I got a letter from home.”
“From her?” Jen looked up at him. They both understood that “her” meant his first wife. The general looked away. Bracing himself, he gulped down half the yellow liquor in his shallow cut crystal glass.
“From my mother,” he said finally, “She wants me to take care of my boys. You know, to find something for them to do here.” General Tung continued, “They are coming over to see me. They will be here soon, maybe within a week, if not sooner.”
“That’s not what we agreed on. Do you remember what you promised me?” Jen said calmly. She kept flipping through the newspaper, as she waited for the general’s reaction.
“But that was back then. I didn’t think the war would last this long. I have not seen them for ten years.” The general said. Of course, he remembered his promise. He had promised Jen that they would start anew. Both of them had annulled their previous marriages, in front of the western god and the western priest. Jen thought back to the day of their wedding. She pictured, with no particular sentiment, the Northern Church in Peking, a gleaming white gothic structure with four tall spires surrounded by deep green pines and cypress trees. The sunlight had poured through the arching stained glass windows of the church. The general had been waiting for her at the end of the red carpet. He was handsome in his well-pressed military uniform with the bronze stars glinting on his shoulders under the lit candles from the altar while Jen had stood beside him, slender and tall. She held a small bouquet of gardenias and wore a close-fitting suit jacket and pencil skirt of ivory satin with matching heels. Her hair, set in soft waves and cut to chin length, was combed back and held behind her ears with an ornament shaped like a flower and made of seed pearls. The pearl choker she wore with a clasp of an emerald-cut deep blue sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds was a wedding present from the general. Her face had been lightly powdered, and there was a trace of red on her lips.
Just behind her, seated in the front row, a nanny had held their two-years-old daughter Mary, who was dressed in a white lace dress made by nuns. When Jen and the general exchanged vows they had an understanding between them. They had trusted each other.
That was nine years ago. “Your sons are grown men, not boys.” Jen sai
d now. “What are they going to do here? Are they going to follow you around? What are you going to have them do? Fight in the front line? Interrogate Communists? Visit whores?”
“It is my mother’s wish,” the general repeated, ignoring the sharpness of her words. “I want to see them too. It has been ten years. They were ten and twelve when I last saw them”
“What does your mother know?” Jen said. “She is an ignorant old woman living in the same house for the last fifty years. If the general wants to have his grown sons in this house, you may as well bring your first wife and your mother here as well. If that is the case, I better move out of the way with my children. Is this what you want?”
General Tung looked at the woman sitting across from him. Her plain face was framed by wet hair carelessly combed with her fingers. She was thirty-four years old. Early touches of time were traced lightly across her forehead and between her brows. Her simple navy blue cotton robe was wrapped loosely around her swollen body. Her hands leisurely turned the page of the newspaper. Her nails were unvarnished. Her fingers were slender and thin, like freshly washed scallions, the mark of a gentle woman who had never known housework and barely knew how to cook. General Tung looked at his own hands, calloused from military training. His hands were capable of hand-to-hand combat. They were strong enough to strangle a man. But he was no match for his wife. Her hands held the financial key to the household. She was the one who opened accounts in American dollars at Chase Manhattan Bank and wired money to Swiss accounts. She knew where the gold bars were stored and had arranged access with extreme discretion. Her college friends were now in charge of major financial institutions in Peking and Shanghai. He had entrusted all his money to her and she had managed it well.
The general looked up at his wife and saw that she was reading an article in the newspaper and was no longer paying attention to him. It was for this woman that he had turned away from his parents, his wife and his sons. The general was accustomed to having his way, from commanding tens of thousands of men to fight to ordering the swift execution of captured enemies. Yet he was not able to persuade Jen to accept his sons. He had been with many women and thought he knew how to manage them, but Jen was not just any woman. She was stronger than most men, maybe stronger than he was. She was calling him out, reminding him of promises he had made years ago and regretted making. The general took another sip of his brandy.
Jen looked up from her paper. In her quiet way she had made up her mind. “If they come, I will move out,” she said, “It is your decision” It was a canny challenge. Everyone in China knew that Chiang Kai-Shek had left his old country wife to marry Soong Mei-Ling, who was much younger, America-educated, and Christian. General Tung knew that if Jen walked out on him, he would suffer serious damage to his career in Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist government.
Jen softened her tone. “You couldn’t take sons away from their mother,” she said. “Who would look after their mother when she gets old? You should leave the boys to take care of the Tung family.”
The general hesitated, not quite willing to give in. “How about Lee?” he said. “You are keeping her, aren’t you?”
“You can’t compare a twelve year old girl to two grown men,” Jen retorted forcefully, her face frozen as a stone.
***
The two young men sent by General Tung’s first wife arrived in the middle of the next afternoon. The general was out, paying an extended visit to one of his consorts, an actress of modern plays, who lived just a few blocks away. Jen received the general’s sons in the study. She wanted to see them and find out what they had to say.
The servant announced them and let them in. They entered, the older one in front, the younger one following behind. They were younger versions of General Tung, though not as tall or as stocky, but just as broad-shouldered and thick-necked. They wore ill-fitting western style dark blue suits with starched white shirts, as if they had come for job interviews. Jen did not rise to greet them. She smiled and gestured to them, indicating that they should sit down across from her. She asked if they would like something to drink or eat. They declined politely, clearly uncomfortable to be speaking with her, holding their hats in their hands. She ordered the maid to bring tea and a tray of pastries and cut fruits. As the mistress of the house, she had to show authority and hospitality. They regarded her with caution and did not respond to her pleasant manner. She drank her tea leisurely, making them wait in silence after they inquired the whereabouts of their father. Rather than reply, she asked them, in her most gentle voice, about their mother’s health, their grandparents’ health, and the general condition of the crops back at home, and whether there had been enough rainfall.
Jen could tell that they had not expected to be conversing with her. She observed that one looked down at his hands while the other’s eyes darted about the room. Both avoided looking at her. They were not worthy opponents. Jen pressed on, telling them that the general was very busy fighting the Communists and that it was a very bad time to visit and that even she was not sure where the general was from day to day. She explained that he didn’t always return home at the end of day and she was not always sure where he would spend the night, hinting that there were other women. She asked the young men where they were staying and learned that they were staying at the Palace Hotel. She offered to put them up for the night in the event that the general did not return today. They could stay longer if they wanted. Jen told them that they should feel at home here at the Tung estate. It was a meaningless invitation. She knew that as the sons of the proper first wife, the young men could never accept such an offer from a second wife, a mere concubine in their eyes. Jen said that she was sorry when they declined her invitation stiffly and firmly and asked them to reconsider, smiling the entire time.
Jen was determined to assert her position as the mistress of the house. She was not a young concubine who could be easily dismissed by the first wife. She knew that the young men were sent by their mother to remind General Tung of his home and his obligations as a son, a husband, and a father of sons. Jen wanted to take this opportunity to send a message back to the young men’s mother. She wanted to show them that her position with the general was unshakable and that they were wasting their time. As the hour wore on, the two young men ran out of things to say. Not once did they ask about her children. They must have known that she had only daughters and daughters didn’t count for much. Nevertheless, they soon realized that it was not going to be easy to gain an audience with their own father. They saw a pregnant woman devoid of makeup, wearing a loose fitting white shirt over a pair of black trousers and plain black leather flats. It was not the bejeweled satin clad woman with a waft of perfume that they had imagined. The mistress of the house spoke with surprisingly concise sentences and a direct manner. The young men got up and bid her farewell and never returned.
She later told the general that his sons had visited and were staying at the Palace Hotel. She told the general that she offered to put them up but they declined. “Maybe they had to rush back to their mother to report on me.” She smiled when she told him this. Sure enough, when the general went to the hotel he found that his sons had already left to return home.
Jen knew that the only thing she was lacking for the general were sons. She was hoping to give birth to a boy this time. This pregnancy felt different from the previous ones. Jen was sure that the child within her was a boy, a very active boy. She was certain that once she gave birth to a boy for the general, he would soon forget about his other sons. She would not have to wait long. This, too, was part of her calculation.
Yet the timing couldn’t have been worse. Danger loomed large, and there was little room for mistakes. Time was running out. She did not know where she would be in a few months when the baby arrived. She planned ahead and took care of the finances. They could move with very short notice, and it was just a matter of who would be coming with her to Taiwan and who would be left behind. Jen pulled more yarn from the ball. She was alm
ost done with the body of the sweater and was getting ready to knit the little sleeves. She made a mental list of her extended family: her parents, two brothers, their wives and children, her uncles and aunts and their children. There were more distant cousins from both her parents’ sides of the family. She needed to pare the list down. She would not take the addicts, even though they were her own brothers. They would have to stay. It had been draining to support them. She knew that they stole to satisfy their habits for opium and even heroin, but she was willing to take their wives and children if they wanted to come with her. She had to make decisions for all of them, for all the Changs. She was the one in charge.
At last, all her children were within her reach. Jen was glad that her first-born was finally coming to live under the same roof as rest of her children. Jen shook her head as she recalled how skinny and awkward Lee was as she stood there crying and shivering in that empty stadium with her shoulders hunched over. Her new clothes could not disguise her frail constitution. It was clear that the Su family had not taken proper care of her. Lee’s skin was sallow and her voice was small and halting, barely audible, but her eyes were strong. There was no fear in her eyes. They burned with hope and a consuming hunger. Jen could not look into Lee’s eyes for long. She dared not ask what her first born hoped for or for what she was hungering. Jen thought that both Mary and Lee resembled her. Both had her trademark too-thick lips. The ideal Chinese beauty has a small mouth. Full lips were perceived as inelegant because they denoted traces of lineage from the countryside, from the people who must work hard for a living in rice paddies, kitchens, or over washbasins. It was too bad, Jen thought, that both girls had inherited this unfortunate trait. People might guess that they were sisters when they stood next to each other. Of all her children, she had spent the most time with Mary, raising her with the help of her landlady, during Mary’s first two years of life. Mary had received much attention from the general when he was courting Jen. Although Mary’s birth father was An Ling, the general had been the only father Mary had ever known. Lee and Mary would never know that they were sisters. This was a key part of the bargain that Jen had struck with the general.
Daughter of the Bamboo Forest Page 19
