by Eileen Chang
Brightness, bright as the moon
When can I pluck it from the sky?
“Here and now,” he said, and striking a pose he grabbed hold of Julie. Both of them burst out laughing. He had forgotten he still held a cigarette in his hand. When he realized he had burnt the back of her arm, he burbled like an anxious parent.
He kissed her. Like the flame of a candle she bent away from the wind. But the hot wind persisted and he pressed his face to hers.
“Is this real?” she asked.
“It is, for both of us.”
His daily visits resumed. One afternoon Hsiunan came to look for Chih-yung. After exchanging greetings, Julie took her leave to allow them to talk. She returned with a pot of tea, but Hsiunan left without drinking any. Julie and Chih-yung watched from the balcony on the top floor as Hsiunan left the building, turned, and waved at them.
“Hsiunan said to me, ‘You two seemed to be in heaven,’” Chih-yung reported to Julie the next day.
“That’s because she loves him,” thought Julie, feeling a little sad.
During the temple fair at the time of the Festival of Bathing the Buddha, the nearby streets were full of stalls. The buzz from the street, clearly audible from the height of her apartment, instilled an early-summer ambience. Julie went down to buy two slipper uppers embroidered with gold thread. But nothing in the market possessed the rustic charm of the homespun fabric she had seen in Hong Kong.
“Your clothes are like a country child’s,” said Chih-yung.
Snuggling up to Chih-yung, Julie fondly recalled his profile when sitting across the room. “I seem to only like you from a certain angle,” she said out of the blue.
Chih-yung’s expression suddenly changed at the thought that her enthusiasm for him occasionally waned. But then his eyes displayed contempt as he bent over to stub out his cigarette. “You love me, of which I am deeply aware,” he said with a smile and, like the hulking shadow of a mountain that blacks out the sky, turned to kiss her. A lock of hair fell across his forehead.
After chatting for a while he casually turned to kiss her again, a small animal peering around on the bank of a stream and intermittently lowering its head to drink.
The brick-red curtains, like red sails, blew against the gold-painted iron security bars running horizontally across the windows. The large round mirror on the wall resembled a moon gate. The setting sun reflected in the mirror formed two small rainbows. They gazed at the rainbows in silence, almost with a kind of horror.
“No one else lives like us, together all day,” he chuckled.
He recited lines from “Sitting Alone by Ching-t’ing Mountain” by the T’ang dynasty poet Li Po:
Never tiring of watching each other
Mount Ching-t’ing, there is no other
“If only we could sleep embracing, always embracing,” he said. “In the countryside you can find a muntjac, a kind of large deer with a small head. I once caught one. It was very strong and it almost got away. I was exhausted and fell asleep embracing it. When I woke up the deer was gone.”
The rainbow vanished. They lay next to each other on the sofa. In the fading light of dusk he stared into her eyes for a long time. “All of a sudden I feel you are like a fox seductress in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.”
Chih-yung told Julie that his first wife missed him so much, she became enchanted by a fox spirit and dreamed about him every day. Eventually she caught tuberculosis and died.
He really believes in fox spirits! Julie suddenly felt that the entire vast central plains of China separated them, a chasm so enormous that her heart began to palpitate.
The carved wooden bird perched above the doorway as always.
Chih-yung returned to Nanking.
“I am truly happy you are with your wife in Nanking,” Julie wrote in a letter to him.
Julie then recalled what Bebe had said about men visiting prostitutes after being with their girlfriends. Julie didn’t feel she was insulting anyone—in any case, Chih-yung and Crimson Cloud remained husband and wife as before. She knew that he would never let Crimson Cloud leave him without giving her a large alimony payment.
Julie didn’t feel Chih-yung had anything to apologize to Crimson Cloud for. So beautiful, and just over twenty—she’s bound to land on her feet isn’t she?
Julie felt no envy toward people in his past, or people who would soon be in his past.
“I am still concerned about our future together,” she wrote in the same letter.
“As to our marriage,” he wrote in reply, “it is indeed a quandary. But let me carry the burden of all the unpleasantness. Last night she suddenly went to the dining room to open a cabinet and find some alcohol to drink. I snatched it out of her hands and she laughed maniacally. ‘Father, pity me!’ she wailed.”
Julie’s flesh crept when she read that, but she never asked what Crimson Cloud meant. Julie assumed that from the age of fifteen, Crimson Cloud had replaced her late father with Chih-yung in her eyes, and now she bares her soul to her late father.
“Now everyone knows that Julie Sheng is Shao Chih-yung’s woman,” he wrote in his letter.
Julian must have caught wind of it, too, and dropped by for a visit. His eyes looked wider and rounder than ever, but the household seemed completely normal to him and he couldn’t discern anything.
After Fifth Uncle put in a good word to Ned on his behalf, Julian was able to attend a high school attached to a university. Two years later, he was admitted to the university, but after staying two years, he decided not to continue and wanted to work instead. Since Julian had no interest in his studies, Julie saw no point in him continuing; but she was unable to help him find work and was even less willing to ask Chih-yung to help.
“You can’t always rely on others for help,” Judy said in Julian’s presence.
Julie felt slightly offended. She thought a born loser like Julian would need a helping hand, at least at the beginning of his career. Otherwise, how would he survive?
Once when Julian was sick as a child, Judy cared for him day and night, preparing droplets of medicine every two hours. Julie had heard this from Judy’s own mouth, but Judy had hardened her heart in recent years in self-defense, afraid the whole clan would take advantage of her.
Julie wrote to Chih-yung about a dream. She dreamed that she told her old maidservant everything about him. She saw Chih-yung smiling in the bright sunlight, but for some reason his face was dark red and covered with one-inch swastikas cut in relief that cast distinct shadows. She thought it strange that she had never noticed this before and ran her fingertips gently over his face, wondering if his wounds still hurt.
In his reply, he said he didn’t know what the swastikas carved into his face meant. She knew that exiled prisoners were branded and that the swastika represented the Axis Powers.
She wrote a vernacular poem:
Never have I occupied any places
In his life’s bygone phases
As his years of solitude streamed past
He incarcerated himself in a silent courtyard
The empty rooms filled with sunshine
A sunshine left behind from ancient times
I have a good mind to crash into the compound
And shout: “Here I am! Look, here I am!”
He never admitted it, but he clearly didn’t like the poem. His past had been colorful, not empty, just waiting for her to crash in.
6
CHIH-YUNG went to central China in the summer. When he returned to Shanghai the following October, he told Julie, “I’ve brought a sum of money for Crimson Cloud to resolve the matter with her.”
Julie had never raised the issue of his divorce, except once in a letter saying she was concerned about their future together. But now that he had brought it up, she smiled and said softly, “There’s also your second wife.”
Chih-yung had married her while teaching in the interior. Apart from his eldest son, whose mother had died, his other childr
en were hers. She suffered from a mental illness and lived with the children in Shanghai, under the care of Hsiunan.
“Legally, she is your wife.”
“Everyone recognizes Crimson Cloud as my sole wife.”
“But when you married Crimson Cloud you had not divorced her.”
“I can’t simply drive her out!”
She smiled. “It’s just a legal procedure.” Then she walked away.
Finally the day arrived when he showed her two newspapers printed with the same two advertisements side by side: “Announcing the divorce of Shao Chih-yung and Crimson Cloud Chang” and “Announcing the divorce of Shao Chih-yung and Jade Phoenix Ch’en.” It looked quite absurd. He tossed the newspapers onto a low, lacquer teapoy and sank into the sofa. Behind his grin a disconsolate expression peeked out.
Julie knew he felt sad because of Crimson Cloud. She sat on the arm of the sofa and caressed his hair. He flinched, as if she had touched a sore spot. She only smiled in reply and returned to her seat.
“I bought a truck for Crimson Cloud. She wants it for business.”
“Oh.”
They chatted some more, then fell silent. “I’m truly happy,” Julie suddenly blurted out.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to contain yourself.”
“Shao Chih-yung feels terrible for his wives,” Julie later told Judy.
Judy furrowed her brow and smiled. “Really! That’s just like the saying, ‘In your mouth it’s just flavorless bone, but if it falls on the ground it turns into juicy meat in your mind.’”
She added, “Of course, that’s a good sign—he’ll do the same for you some day.”
As soon as the announcements were published, the newspapers naturally deduced their plan to marry.
“All the major papers and tabloids are reporting it,” sniggered Judy, with a triumphant smile. “But I am very annoyed that they say you don’t want to get married so soon after moving in with me. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
The relatives had been gossiping with tales of Judy infecting Julie with her celibacy. Of course, that was before the news of Chih-yung spread. Judy had not told Julie about this.
“So when will you get married?” Judy asked.
“Chih-yung mentioned the same thing but, given the current circumstances, it’d be better not to—at least for me.”
He actually put it this way, suggesting with bravado, “An announcement would be fine. And we could invite friends over for drinks. That would be fine too.”
He’s trying to make amends. Julie felt sad.
Chih-yung, observing Julie’s unresponsiveness and seeming uninterest in his proposal, retracted the offer.
Judy nodded and grunted in acknowledgment when Julie mentioned “current circumstance,” but then she frowned and asked, “What will happen if you have a child?”
Under normal circumstances Julie would just giggle in surprise at a comment like that, but today aunt and niece were behaving out of character. “He said if we have a child he’d ask Hsiunan to raise it,” replied Julie, smiling.
“Pay no attention to him,” Judy scoffed. “The whole process can be very painful. Maybe like me you’ll be infertile. Heaven knows how many abortions your second aunt had.”
“Second Aunt had abortions?” Julie parroted in shock.
Judy snorted, grinned, and then, apparently regretting her slip of the tongue, looked at Julie and added sotto voce, “I thought you knew.”
Julie’s indifference toward Judy’s relationship with Herr Schütte could have contributed to Judy’s misconception. In Hong Kong, Rachel had said, “Your third aunt has an ability to find friends as soon as I leave.” When Julie returned to Shanghai, she guessed her mother had been referring to Herr Schütte, the principal at the German school whom Judy got to know during her German studies. Julie had met him. He was thin, of medium build, with blond hair, and he wore spectacles. He was rather handsome, but he always seemed to speak in a sarcastic tone of voice. Julie went to Bebe’s for meals whenever he visited Judy.
“I truly never knew,” Julie tittered. “Second Aunt always seemed so fiercely opposed to sexual entanglements.”
Judy shook her head wearily and sighed. “One time she had an abortion because of Chien-wei.” She snorted in exasperation. Was it because they were strangers in a strange land that had made it even harder to find a doctor? “I didn’t know much about anything in those days. At the time, she thought that if she really couldn’t get a divorce then I could marry Chien-wei as cover, which I agreed to.” She paused before continuing. “When your second aunt moved in I was only fifteen years old. I thought I was in love with her.”
Judy didn’t come out and say she loved Chien-wei, but of course she loved him too. Julie was so shocked at hearing this revelation that her ears throbbed. Although tragic, she saw nothing wrong with this ménage à trois in which one willingly beat the other who was in turn willingly beaten.
“Why didn’t you go through with it?” asked Julie.
“Then there was the Northern Expedition, right? Divorce was prohibited during the era of the Peiyang government.”
No wonder the inscription on the photograph Chien-wei gave to Judy oozed with regrets. “To Judy, forever my little sister.” The long face in the photograph conveyed a sentimental expression, with big black oval eyes, thick eyebrows, a widow’s peak—a handsome visage indeed.
Of course, the three of them traveled together to the Lake District that time. Rachel had written in her poem: I am sure its roses still wear their tender rosy rouge. Red roses bloom in the cool summers of northern England, where Lake Poets like William Wordsworth lived long ago and where, more recently, that overseas student killed his wife when they were there. Perhaps Judy’s morbid fear of people coveting her assets was triggered by that murder, and so she preferred the cocoon of her warm little coterie, willingly sharing a man with her sister-in-law; she in the open, Rachel secretly.
“There was also Marshal,” Judy said with a chuckle, “as well as Honest Nephew. Your second aunt had many stories in this vein.”
“I don’t remember Honest Nephew.”
“How could you forget?” Judy became agitated as if her credibility was being questioned. “Honest Nephew! The one with TB.”
“I only remember Fat Nephew and Pigtail Nephew.” One was fat and the other had a long queue running down his back as a child. “And that Colonel Boudinet.”
Judy obviously didn’t consider the French military officer who once came for tea worth mentioning and thus couldn’t be counted. “Your second aunt was not as beguiling the last time she returned from Europe!” Judy said, shaking her head.
Julie had always thought Rachel looked most ravishing in those days.
Judy noticed Julie’s shocked expression and abruptly stopped. Feeling numb about her own mother was one thing—she felt offended listening to someone else criticize her.
“But Dr. Feinstein was because of you,” Judy chuckled.
Julie was dumbfounded. So the German doctor treated her typhoid for free! That freshly hosed-down elephant who bent over her bed and assailed her nose with the smell of antiseptic. Rachel standing opposite the doctor in his clinic. A clinic in an old ornate, Western-style residential building. The two silhouetted against a stained-glass window as he lowered his head to listen to her dainty chest with his stethoscope; Rachel’s guarded expression on her blushing face.
No wonder Rachel cursed Julie at her bedside, saying, “Oh, you just live to bring disasters! People like you should just be left alone to die!”
Perhaps the doctor even paid the hospital bill.
Sometimes in life we learn things too late, as if all the principal players had already died. Julie felt numb. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it—she felt nothing. This revelation changed nothing: her affection exhausted, no emotions remained.
Perhaps Rachel had so many lovers that one more made little difference. But one can’t really say that because she had loved a
ll of them. They were the ones who chose not to make long-term plans with Rachel, so to whom could she be loyal?
The more Julie thought about it, the more she felt that she had known all along. After the afternoon-tea guests left and Julie returned from the roof, she had noticed the steaminess in the bedroom and the carelessly made bed—the sheets and comforter were ruffled and everything about the room seemed a little messy. Of course, it had been a momentary impression that quickly got pushed aside.
But how could she have no memory of Honest Nephew? He must have felt guilty and receded to the background. After Rachel and Judy moved, he never visited, unlike his siblings.
Julie felt somewhat resentful toward him alone, though not because of her mother’s association with him as a married woman. It would be absurd to talk of legalities now. Perhaps Rachel was taking her revenge; that was around the time Ned had set up a separate household for his concubine. Julie resented Rachel’s relationship with Honest Nephew simply because she treasured her childhood. She felt that period of her life was somehow exclusively hers. Many years later she encountered a family in the New England countryside. A young boy led a burro along the path. It was adorable, though its face wasn’t as long as the ones she had seen before. After they had been walking together for a while, Julie stretched out her hand to pet the burro’s neck. The boy instantly looked upset. Julie understood because she still remembered how possessive she had been as a child.
One year they invited the nephews over to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Judy still kept a small photograph of the occasion. Ned was there—the only one not wearing a golden paper crown on his head. Julie didn’t sit at the table but still remembered the red crepe paper that Rachel and Judy had used to wrap the flower pots before the banquet. Crepe-paper crackers were placed on the table; the suspended lanterns and colorful banners were made of crepe paper, too. It was the first time she had ever seen such decorations and she loved it, but she still couldn’t remember Honest Nephew. Nor was he in Judy’s photograph.
