Little Reunions

by Eileen Chang

  Julie stood at the bottom of the steps, smiling stiffly as she waited for the vehicle to leave. The bus pulled out and splashed water from a puddle all over her.

  2

  “THAT Bebe! She still hasn’t come down,” grumbled Audrey, looking at her watch.

  “Say lo, say lo,” the two girls from Penang continued to yammer.

  “You don’t have to worry,” said one of the Penang girls. “Your brother can help you study.”

  “Says who?” Rose shot back, smiling. “He has his own finals to worry about. No time to help me. He telephoned yesterday and asked, ‘How’s it going?’” Her almond-shaped eyes peered out from her fair-skinned round face.

  Julie stuffed herself with milk and porridge, fried eggs, toast, and coffee, yet she still felt empty and unsettled. She had no one to lean on. She was hollowed out, like a bottomless pit.

  Sister Thérèse was rushing around. “Ah Ma-lee!” she shouted as she headed for the dishwashing area in search of the girl from the orphanage. From upstairs came a cry in French, “Soeur Thérèse!” Then she responded in Cantonese, “Lei le, lei le, I’m coming, I’m coming,” accompanied by muttered curses under her breath as she stormed up the stairs.

  Several seniors, overseas Chinese from Malaya, sat at one end of a long table. All the female overseas Chinese students studied medicine. Otherwise, it would not be worth the risk to let girls travel so far on their own. It was generally accepted that only the medical faculty at Victoria University was any good.

  Most medical courses ran for six years but here it extended to seven years. Moreover, students commonly needed to repeat a year. Some seniors were women in their thirties. Though they were all old hands at exams, today they remained particularly taciturn. The dinner table was usually a scene of lively talk and laughter. In-jokes and technical terms abounded, as did white lab coats. Julie couldn’t understand the jokes of the Malaya students except for one story of a wicked classmate who removed a penis from a formaldehyde jar and tossed it on the road in front of the gate to the anatomy building. The seniors almost died from laughter.

  “Rick is the worst.” Julie caught this snippet of conversation one day, though she couldn’t discern what made Rick so terrible. Their thick Malay accents were difficult to understand, and they dropped the word “man!” in every sentence, just like the original inhabitants of the West Indies, when they meant to call their interlocutors “brother.” English-language shibboleths in British possessions spanned both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, perhaps first propagated by sailors, then from the West Indies on to the American jazz milieu.

  All the students ever talked about, apart from their classes and accidents during their internships, was rating their professors. The majority were rated “terrible.” British professors have a tradition of humorous sarcasm that extended to making fun of students. The medical faculty was reputed to be the cruelest.

  Bebe also said Rick was terrible, but when asked about it she pulled a long face, turned her head, and responded in English, “Awful.” Rick taught pathology. Julie imagined his caustic tongue embarrassing the girls as they dissected cadavers. Especially such a feminine specimen as Bebe. Julie told Bebe that her mother knew Rick but did not mention she was instructed to go to him if she needed help.

  One day, with no need to attend her first two classes, Julie strolled down the hill on a small path instead of taking the bus. After many days of spring showers the entire hillside was festooned with two different reds—the crab red and lilac pink of azalea petals on the ground, the trees still flushed with their bright blossoms. The sky was clear and the blue sea surrounded the hill, making the horizon seem to float in midair. The small houses of the neighborhood consisted of professorial residences.

  As she passed a small bungalow, Julie saw a man sitting on a balcony railing, his back resting against a wooden pillar. He was small and handsome, with a pale face, and appeared to be in his twenties or thirties. Two callous, light-colored eyes, appearing almost transparent in the sunlight, cast an unseeing gaze in Julie’s direction. She was startled for a moment. It was Rick; she had seen him before on campus, the back of his collar always wrinkled.

  He had a bottle in one hand. Drinking alone at ten o’clock in the morning? Of course, all of the teachers drank. Julie had heard that the head of the English Department and his wife were both alcoholics. Sometimes, during the four-student tutorials held in their home, his wife, like a mother hen, could be seen in a faded floral dress beaming radiantly as she sailed by without looking at anyone.

  Somerset Maugham’s stories spoke of loneliness in the Orient and depression from life in a small town. In Julie’s eyes, Hong Kong was a magnificent city, so there was no need for such nonsense, and she suspected it was all an act. Otherwise, how could this life of comfort amount to the “white man’s burden”? Julie had not the slightest inkling of just how stifling life in that tiny social circle could be.

  Mr. Andrews was also a drinker. His brick-red face betrayed his tipsiness, making him unpredictable. Everyone feared him. He had begun to put on weight. His low hairline ended in a widow’s peak, under which perched thick, black eyebrows. Once, during a discussion in class about the coats of arms and markings of medieval knights, he asked Yen Ming-sheng, “If you could choose a coat of arms, what would it be?” Yen Ming-sheng was an extremely studious but rather short overseas Chinese student. Fidgeting with his wire-framed spectacles, he answered, “A lion.”

  In the midst of uproarious laughter, Mr. Andrews asked with a straight face, “And what sort of lion? A sleeping lion or a ferocious lion?”

  China had once been likened to a sleeping lion. Yen Ming-sheng paused, then answered, “A ferocious lion.”

  The raucous laughter resumed, and even Mr. Andrews grinned a little. Julie, bent over her desk, laughed herself to tears.

  During a tutorial in Mr. Andrews’s office, Julie noticed a bookcase full of bound volumes of The New Yorker. “So many New Yorkers!” She giggled. She was surprised an Englishman would read an American magazine.

  Mr. Andrews casually picked one out and passed it to her. “Would you like to borrow it? You may come any time to take some, even if I’m not in.”

  Julie was careful to return the magazines only when Mr. Andrews was out, and managed to read the entire collection in no time at all. Julie was a master of the surreptitious picking out of books. Her father bought slightly racy books, and although he didn’t say so, he did not really want her to read them. While her father dozed on the opium bed, Julie would sneak over to the desk where his books were haphazardly piled. She would furtively choose one, read it, return it to the pile, and purloin another without ever being noticed.

  Julie felt a letter of thanks for Mr. Andrews’s scholarship would be sufficient, especially as he lived so far away, but Rachel insisted that she thank him in person. Julie had to arrange for her classmate Sally to accompany her, and they set out on two rickshaws. The journey consumed most of the day. Julie was very tense in front of Mr. Andrews and he quickly became impatient. He chatted a little with Sally before the two girls took their leave.

  Sally often praised Mr. Andrews and expressed her outrage about the injustices done to him. “Actually,” she fumed, “he should have been appointed chair of the department, but he can’t even make it to professor and is still just a lecturer!”

  Mr. Andrews was a graduate of Cambridge, which was apparently well-stocked with homosexuals and left-wingers. Julie sometimes wondered whether something like that had caused his colleagues to shun him. He was not married and did not live on campus in the housing allocated to professors, preferring instead to cycle the long distance to and from work. But then again, perhaps he found the atmosphere in the staff residential quarters stifling. He obviously liked Sally and often joked with her during class. England was full of aloof old bachelors who weren’t necessarily homosexuals.

  Mr. Andrews often wore a red tie. It was the red of old bricks, not a bright red. If he were a com
munist, one couldn’t tell from his lectures, though he loved to ask questions about 1848, the year many small revolutions broke out in Europe.

  Rumor had it that Mike, the Dean of the Arts Faculty, was a real operator. Julie took his class and concluded that this round-faced, silver-haired old man did not really like to read books and simply wasn’t close to being an educated gentleman. He promised to be an impassable hindrance.

  “Say lo! Say lo!” After finishing her breakfast Sally moved to Julie’s side of the table. “Daphne, how are you doing? You don’t look nervous at all.”

  The less Julie wanted to see of her, the closer Sally sat. She turned to Julie and pleaded, “Quick, Julie! Tell me something! Anything!”

  “This time I really don’t know anything, either.” Julie groaned, putting on a forced smile.

  Sally tossed her head around to face Julie. “Even you are saying that!” she blurted out. “You don’t need to worry about—” Sally halted in mid-sentence, paused, then turned to Daphne. “Say lo! Say lo! I really am done for today!” she whined, rocking on her chair.

  Sally certainly was no fool. But who else didn’t know that Julie really had nothing to worry about?

  One day Mr. Andrews asked questions no one could answer. He was about to give up when he impatiently called out, “Miss Sheng!” but Julie also grinned and shook her head. He paused, a little startled for a moment, then called on someone else, but a hint of annoyance could clearly be discerned in his voice. The class became silent for a moment. Students were very sensitive to this sort of thing.

  The prediction Mr. Andrews made in his letter was correct: she did win a full scholarship. But what if I do not do well in the second half of the year? How will Mr. Andrews feel if I don’t live up to his expectations? That would be embarrassing.

  Julie wasn’t able to concentrate on her modern history studies in the new semester because the closer to the present day history progressed, the more it resembled the daily newspaper reports.

  Events in newspapers seemed perennially gloomy and dull. Besides, Julie never believed what appeared in the papers because she was convinced there must always be an inside story.

  Bebe also said that what happens in one’s own life is much more important than big events on the world stage, the same way closer things appear bigger in drawings. The flowers in a vase on the windowsill in front of our eyes are much more substantial than the crowded scenes outside the window.

  Finally, Bebe arrived at the refectory. She didn’t have time to sit down, and stood as she hurriedly made a fried-egg sandwich to eat on the bus.

  The gurney wheels rolled smoothly toward the operating theater. It was time for the scalpel to make the first incision.

  The refectory table faced the blue-gray vista of sea and sky. Silhouetted humps of outlying islands floated in the mist like a family of large and small turtles. Several planes flew low, big and black. The duck-eggshell sky seems unable to support them. Suddenly: Boom, boom. Two thunderous explosions.

  “Another drill,” said a senior-year overseas Chinese student.

  Julie saw a speeding car explode on the horizon. She couldn’t tell if the water tower had been hit or the oil storage tanks had exploded, destroying the car on the road. In an instant, the car was gone. She felt overwhelmed with guilt. Mr. Andrews also had an old car, which he never used. He always rode his bicycle and waved with a smile whenever he saw Julie.

  Then, boom, boom, boom—several dull thuds gently drifted across the sea.

  While everyone gazed out, Sister Henri appeared from behind, her head lowered, hands hidden in her sleeves. Her big black eyes stared through her thick eyelashes at the students. Her large face was framed by a white collar that pushed up against a double chin.

  “University Hall telephoned,” she said calmly without raising her voice, “to say that the Japanese are attacking Hong Kong.”

  Commotion immediately broke out.

  “Those were real bombs!”

  “I was wondering why I hadn’t heard about any drills today.”

  “Sister, sister, did they say where the bombing’s happening?”

  “Why wasn’t there an air-raid warning?”

  “Oh, no!” cried Sally. “My family holidayed on Tsing Yi Island over the weekend. I don’t know if they returned yet. I’d better telephone them.”

  “You won’t reach them,” said Sister Henri. “Everybody is trying to telephone now. Sister Luke tried to call the convent but couldn’t get through either.”

  “Sister, sister! Did the attack come from Kowloon?”

  “Sister, sister! What else did they say?”

  In the midst of the cacophony, only Julie was silent. She sat motionless and cold like a rock. Surging waves of ecstasy rose higher and higher as they lapped against the rock. She dared not move in case her happiness showed.

  “The snake who slithered out of its hole knew all along,” snorted Jenny accusingly. “As soon as the sister came in to tell us, someone already knew and left immediately.”

  The room suddenly fell silent. The girls looked around. Ruby was indeed gone.

  The local girls all went upstairs to telephone their families. The rest wandered outside to watch. There were no more planes. The gardener was standing on a steep slope outside the railings, holding his hand to his forehead, a visor against the glare, as he looked out to sea. Flowers and shrubs had been planted on the grass slope. Lettuce growing in a plot of freshly plowed red soil looked like giant green rosebuds.

  As she leaned on the iron railing, Bebe threw her head back to catch the fried egg that was slipping out of her sandwich.

  “We’d better take all that white cloth inside,” said Audrey pointing at the sisters’ white headwear drying on a low wall. “They’ll be visible from the air.” Each piece of fabric stretched several square feet, starched stiff as a board and pasted onto thin panels edged with aluminum.

  “Go back inside!” shouted Sister Henri, as she rushed out. “It’s dangerous!” No one paid any attention. She then bawled at two Penang girls. Having graduated from a convent girls’ school in their hometown and accustomed to obeying orders, the two girls leisurely wandered back inside, giggling.

  “Gardener! Put the door panels back in place!” Sister Henri commanded. “You’ll all be safest here on the ground floor.” She then rushed upstairs to seek out the latest news.

  As the gardener replaced the door panels most of the students had already returned inside. Sally sat by herself, sobbing. She had tried to telephone her family but could not get through. A senior implored her not to worry. The local girls were all packing upstairs, as their families had sent cars to pick them up. Ruby had been the first to call home and was the first collected.

  Bebe entered from the back door to eat the oatmeal she had missed out on earlier in the morning. Julie sat down next to her. Sally went upstairs again to make a telephone call.

  Several seniors bombastically expounded that it was just fine for the Japanese to attack now because Hong Kong was well prepared and Singapore was even more of a fortress. Reinforcements would arrive at any time.

  “The King of Flowers says a bomb hit Deep Water Bay,” said Sister Thérèse, rushing in to report the latest news. She held the slightly built old gardener in high esteem. He lived with his wife and child in a small hut with a cement floor at the back gate.

  “Sister! There’s no more butter!” whined Bebe in a plaintive voice. “Sister, come and see for yourself, the coffee is ice cold. Please bring another pot.”

  Sister Thérèse did not say anything as she stormed away bearing the coffeepot and the butter dish.

  A downcast Jenny leaned forward. Her yellow oval face turned as dark as a clay statuette; her eyes, far apart on her face, stared down at the table in front of her.

  The only light in the refectory shone through the panes of glass at the top of the door panels. The scene resembled a somber Dutch religious painting: huge, cream-colored square columns the girth of two people lin
king hands; students crowded around a long monastery table set on the bright red floor tiles, eating their last supper.

  “Jenny has seen the most of … of war,” said Audrey giggling nervously. Then turning to Julie, “There wasn’t much to see in the foreign concessions in Shanghai, right?”

  “Right.”

  Julie had lived through the two battles for Shanghai. She thought all she needed to do to survive was follow her father’s instructions: Stock up on rice and coal, don’t be too fussy about food, and don’t go outside.

  A senior suddenly asked Jenny, “So …what’s war like?” She seemed a little anxious, perhaps worried she’d relate too much as she clearly knew the answer.

  Jenny was quiet for a while, then replied softly, “It’s all about fleeing, suffering, and starving.”

  A fresh pot of coffee arrived. After a momentary pause, the lively discussion around the table resumed. Bebe appeared glum and resentful as she continued to wrestle with her breakfast. When she finished, she said to Julie, “I’m going back upstairs to take a nap. Are you coming?”

  As they walked up the stairs, Julie said, “I’m thrilled.”

  “That’s terrible!” exclaimed Bebe.

  “I know.”

  “I know you think it’s not really terrible if you know it’s terrible.”

  Bebe believed that it was better to be a hypocrite—at least a willingness to pretend to be virtuous was a kind of virtue. She loved to debate, but Julie could never be bothered to rebut her.

  They headed toward the two small rooms with doors opposite each other at the end of a corridor paved with bright red tiles. Julie went into Bebe’s room with her.

  “I’m exhausted,” declared Bebe as she collapsed on her bed and proceeded to pummel herself on her waist. Her spine curved too far upward when she lay supine, causing her lower back to hurt. “Call me when it’s time for lunch.”