Little Reunions

by Eileen Chang

  Chih-yung appeared preoccupied. After hearing Julie’s account, he said, “It’s not acceptable for the gendarmes to run wild like this. Hsün Hwa seems like a good person. All right, I’ll write a letter for the family to submit to the gendarmes.”

  Julie thought Chih-yung was only asking for trouble. They didn’t know Mr. Hsün well. Who knows what really was going on? Of course she had heard Wendy praise Mr. Hsün before.

  After the meal, Chih-yung wrote a letter to the commander of the military police unit. It totaled eight lines. Julie was slightly amused to see one of the lines that read, “Mr. Hsün Hwa is considered honorable in general… .” She recalled the incident when she bumped into Miss Chu a different time while delivering her pages to the Hsün residence. No one was home that day, either. Just as she was leaving, the same Miss Chu called out from behind and told her that Mrs. Hsün had gone out and she was there to look after their children. Julie initially thought Miss Chu was Mrs. Hsün’s friend, but then Miss Chu mumbled that she actually worked in a publishing house and already had three children with Mr. Hsün. She also told Julie that he and Mrs. Hsün weren’t officially married, either—the real wife resided in the countryside—but this Mrs. Hsün, a primary-school teacher, was a ferocious one.

  Miss Chu, a tall, big-boned woman with large docile eyes set on a long, broad face, reminded Julie of the distant aunt who had failed to become her stepmother. Similar to this distant aunt who used to hold her hand tight and not let go, Miss Chu also clasped the sleeve of Julie’s peacock-blue padded cotton gown and did not let go. Julie thought Miss Chu needed someone to listen to her vent her despair, but she didn’t want to bring her home for fear of annoying Judy and of entertaining a guest who might be difficult to get rid of. She stood in the alleyway to accompany Miss Chu without knowing that Miss Chu had mistaken her for Mr. Hsün’s new girlfriend and was trying to warn her off.

  In the Nanking dialect such situations are called “a mixed-up mess like a pot of congee,” which Julie never felt applied to her own romantic situation. She thought that the bond between herself and Chih-yung was unique and no one could truly empathize with her, and that, in fact, even a casual glance her way would risk misunderstanding her.

  Julie immediately delivered Chih-yung’s letter to Mr. Hsün’s residence. Mrs. Hsün was home this time.

  “The last time I came I heard Mr. Hsün had been arrested. Mr. Shao happened to overhear when I mentioned it today. He was outraged and offered to write a letter to see if it would help,” Julie explained.

  Mrs. Hsün was shorter than Miss Chu. The outer corners of her eyes bent upward, the high cheekbones on her square face were dusted with yellowish patches of powder—a ferocious visage indeed. And yet she repeatedly thanked Julie. The next day, Mrs. Hsün and Miss Chu went to Julie’s home to express their gratitude some more. Fortunately, Chih-yung had left Shanghai by then.

  “Hsün Hwa’s principal wife and secondary wife came hand in hand, thanking you,” Judy remarked after the women had left.

  A few weeks later, Hsün Hwa was released, perhaps because of the letter, or perhaps not. He went to Julie’s home to thank her in person. Hsün Hwa, who always dressed nicely, looked even more immaculate that day in a well-pressed suit. His narrow triangular face beamed.

  “They suspect me of being connected to the Communist Party,” Mr. Hsün explained. His face was all smiles.

  Julie smiled back. “Are you?” she asked. Judy smiled, too.

  “Of course not,” Mr. Hsün answered, still smiling.

  Then he turned the conversation to the tiger bench, a method of torture that targets the kneecaps. Julie was curious but for some reason her mind resisted digesting the information, as if the cries of pain couldn’t pierce a thick stone door to reach her. It was probably the same door that slammed shut when she heard the news of Mr. Andrews’s death.

  After Mr. Hsün left, Judy commented, “Who knows if he really is a member of the Communist Party or not.”

  Julie wasn’t sure. In Pa Chin’s novels, all Communist Party members live in small back rooms like Mr. Hsün’s, so they could be vacated in the blink of an eye if something happened. But unlike other small rented rooms commonly cluttered with bric-a-brac, the Hsüns’ kept theirs very tidy. An iron-frame double bed with a pink-striped sheet. Mr. Hsün had five children, maybe six. The eldest daughter was already twelve or thirteen. There must be another residence. Three wives and two households overflowing with children—what a mess. Are they his cover?

  “He wrote me a letter before, trying to persuade me to go to Chungking,” Julie told Judy. “Of course that’s not enough to prove he’s not connected to the Communist Party, but I was grateful to him for being willing to ask me. It’s dangerous to express things like that in writing, especially for a ‘man of letters.’”

  Julie could not recall when she received Hsün Hwa’s letter but vividly remembered one sentence: “Only words written on paper can be counted upon”—which suggested everything else is false. He seemed to be subtly referring to Chih-yung. This meant her close association with Chih-yung was no longer a secret. Was Hsün Hwa the second person to warn her about Chih-yung? Or the first, before Hsiang Ching? What he said was too ambiguous and polite, and at the time she didn’t understand. Only now did Julie vaguely see the connection.

  But in the end it was Chih-yung who saved Hsün Hwa’s life, if his letter had indeed been effective. A few days later, Hsün Hwa stopped by again. Judy didn’t come out to see him this time.

  After Hsün Hwa’s third visit, Judy asked Julie, mixing in English, “Should this be considered courting?” She smiled, but Julie could read the anxiety in her eyes and felt humiliated.

  Thanks to Judy’s remark, however, Julie realized that Hsün Hwa had mistaken her intention to help. He probably thought she was a real-life protagonist from the Chinese movie A Lovelorn Actress, which she had seen as a child, in which a warlord’s concubine rescues a falsely accused man of letters from jail.

  Hsün Hwa had previously adapted a literary work to the stage to much acclaim, but his real talent involved acting as a go-between among members of the prewar literary circles. During his visits, he liked to tell anecdotes about literary figures that put him in difficult situations. He would always conclude with his pet phrase: “Awkward, very awkward!”

  Most of his stories went right over Julie’s head as she had never read the books by those writers in his anecdotes, nor was she familiar with their names.

  Hsün Hwa acted with extreme tact. He would smile and mumble, his words barely audible. Then he’d end with a few deep cackles, and conclude: “Awkward, very awkward!”

  Though it turned out that the man wasn’t a complete fool after all. He stopped coming after three visits.

  Chih-yung brought money to Julie on each of his return visits. Once he said, “You should also have some,” and then added in a lower voice, “some money in your place.”

  The words “in your place” sounded irritating.

  Julie felt uneasy every time he handed her money and Chih-yung immediately sensed it. For some reason, Julie felt her heart shiver. Not a good sign.

  One day Chih-yung mentioned central China. “Do you want to visit me?”

  “How can I? I couldn’t even board the plane,” Julie protested. He had come on a military aircraft.

  “Yes you can. Just say you’re a member of my family.”

  Even Julie could tell that “member of my family” was merely a euphemism for “concubine.”

  She smiled but didn’t respond. Chih-yung changed his mind, saying with a smile, “Perhaps it’d be best if you stayed here after all.”

  The implication being, Julie gathered, that she’d give people a bad impression if she went with him. She felt the same way, having turned into a lone fox spirit haunting the two-room apartment.

  One day, in the middle of a conversation with Julie, Judy made a remark, dropping in an English word: “You’re an expensive woman.”

 
For a moment Julie was taken aback. She certainly could be considered a big spender, though in an invisible way. She was constantly consulting doctors and dentists, partly as a result of the chronic maladies from the two severe illnesses she had at the age of seventeen—her annual medical expenses were huge. Also, unlike Judy, who was anxious about putting on weight and could endure meager meals, Julie wasn’t frugal about food. Moreover, she could never resist the eccentric outfits Bebe designed for her.

  Judy found that unfair. “It’s infuriating that Bebe doesn’t dress herself in such a quirky way,” she once declared.

  Julie smiled but didn’t defend her friend. Bebe was ill-suited to wear eccentric clothing because of her short stature and was always on the verge of being overweight ever since childhood. Of course Bebe would never admit to her own slight imperfections. She often said that Julie was “too pale and shy, and therefore needs help to attract people’s attention.”

  Julie didn’t mind feeling as if she were being molded by Bebe. But these days they shared little in common—there were no more Hollywood movies playing, she hadn’t read a book in English for a long time, and her personal life had become secretive.

  Judy once said of Bebe, “It’s like you love her.”

  Bebe’s bold creations met with Julie’s enthusiasm for archaically fashioned outfits, resulting in a wardrobe without one single piece of “normal” attire.

  Years later, Julie stood in a line on a footpath, waiting to register her paperwork. She wore a modest light blue flare-sleeved shirt made of rationed fabric and a pair of lilac-blue cotton trousers. She had stopped wearing glasses long ago. The official in charge, who sat behind a desk on the footpath, saw a bumpkinish woman approach and asked, “Can you read?”

  “Yes,” answered Julie softly. She was pleased. Finally she was seen as a member of the masses.

  “Your hairstyle is always the same,” said Chih-yung.

  “Right.” She smiled, as if she couldn’t sense his disapproval.

  Chih-yung returned on Julie’s next birthday. At the time, U.S. warplanes had been raiding central China. In his letters, Chih-yung told Julie that many people died during the air raids. Some people’s clothing, and even their skin, had been scorched away, the victims looking like those red arhat deities found in Buddhist temples. The stories weren’t as dramatic when retold face-to-face. He didn’t continue, obviously feeling a little disappointed.

  They went out to the moonlit balcony. She couldn’t wait until they returned to the room so she could show Chih-yung her latest portrait. In the photograph she was smiling, and a thin gold necklace Bebe had loaned her hung below her exposed collarbone. The purple gem-stone pendant dangling from the necklace looked like a nipple.

  Chih-yung glanced at the photo under the moonlight. “You look rather ambitious in this picture!” he exclaimed with sudden exuberance.

  Julie smiled but didn’t respond. Bebe had assumed the role of artistic director during the shoot. “Think about your hero!” Bebe suggested. As she imagined Chih-yung in a faraway place, Julie gazed out into the distance. It reminded her of an image in a famous nineteenth-century poem:

  Roll up the blinds for morning ablutions

  Gaze out at the tempestuous Yellow River

  That night Yü K’o-ch’ien came up in conversation. “That Yü K’och’ien isn’t trustworthy,” complained Chih-yung. “He’s already left. What a devious … ! He wanted to court Miss K’ang so he gossiped about me behind my back, telling her, ‘He has a wife.’”

  “Who?” thought Julie. “Me?” At the time, Chih-yung had not divorced Crimson Cloud yet.

  So the editor and his deputy became love rivals over Miss K’ang and the deputy resigned? But Chih-yung condemned Yü K’o-ch’ien for being “ devious,” most likely not because Yü had revealed that “ he has a wife” but because Chih-yung blamed Yü for degrading his innocent relationship with Miss K’ang—at least Julie preferred to believe that.

  “When he first arrived in Shanghai, he told me that he missed his family very much. He talked a lot about his wife and how unique their relationship was,” Chih-yung sneered.

  His tone changed when the topic of their conversation switched to Miss K’ang.

  “During the bombing raids,” he said on a more serious note, “when we were all in the air-raid shelter, Miss K’ang behaved as if she were there to protect me.”

  Apart from this detail, all Chih-yung had to report was his usual playful banter with Miss K’ang.

  The possibility that Julie had always thought “can’t be true” gradually became a reality. “Know thyself and know thine enemy,” Julie thought to herself. “If I still want to hold on to him, I’ll have to hear him out, no matter how hard it is for me.” But as she listened with a frozen smile, she felt as if a storm of invisible cleavers hacked away at her heart, until the image in front of her disappeared.

  The next day Bebe visited in the afternoon. Chih-yung placed two chairs in the middle of the room. Bebe smiled apprehensively as she watched him arrange the furniture. Chih-yung nudged her into one chair then sat directly opposite her, very near. Sitting like a Japanese man with both hands on his lap, he earnestly told her how terrifying the air raids had been.

  Bebe reacted like Julie, responding with the English custom of smiling somewhat uncomfortably while listening. The two women had both experienced bombing attacks without even the protection of air-raid shelters. On the sidelines Julie felt embarrassed and walked away, listlessly pretending to look for something or other on the desk.

  Bebe and Chih-yung went onto the balcony.

  Julie sat in front of the desk by the window that looked out onto the balcony. She overheard Chih-yung ask Bebe, “Can someone love two people at the same time?” Suddenly the sky outside the window appeared to darken, and she didn’t hear Bebe’s reply. Bebe probably didn’t answer seriously, thinking Chih-yung was just flirting. She never mentioned this conversation to Julie.

  After Bebe left, Julie smiled at Chih-yung. “When you asked if someone could love two people at the same time, I felt the sky suddenly darken.”

  Chih-yung smiled weakly and flinched, as if she had pressed a sore spot on him, then nestled his face into her shoulder.

  “Such a wonderful girl … I simply must help her continue her education,” he said at last. “Must nurture her… .”

  Julie immediately recalled what Judy said of her days with Rachel when they lived overseas: “They all thought we were the concubines of some warlord or other”—following the usual practice of dispatching out-of-favor concubines overseas. Just spent all that money to divorce one and now you want to take up the burdens of yet another five-year plan?

  “But she’s so beautiful!” he moaned again in agony. “Even the clothes she washes are always exceptionally clean.”

  Disdain flowed from the deepest recesses of Julie’s heart. She also washed her own clothes with exceptional meticulousness. She was sure she’d also wash his clothes if she had to.

  Rachel often claimed Chinese men didn’t understand romance, “Which is why people say that if one has loved a foreigner, one will never love a Chinese man again.” Of course it’s impossible to generalize in such matters, but practice makes perfect, and in the past Chinese people lived under so many restrictions that they simply lacked experience. One shouldn’t stop with a single individual in matters of love but love one at a time, in succession, while keeping past loves in the heart—only a Western mind-set could facilitate this kind of compartmentalization, enabling isolation. But isolation requires money. Otherwise it would become like the case of Mrs. Hsün and Miss Chu, who were bound to join together to defend against external aggressors. It demanded discipline, too—something Chih-yung couldn’t cultivate.

  This is one of life’s ironies. Rachel had trained Julie from a young age not to be the least bit curious about people close to her. Julie always reserved her curiosity for outsiders. The closer a person was to her, the more space Julie reserved for that
person. It was like following the principles of Chinese painting—sufficient breathing space is essential—or like arranging layers of cotton padding to protect precious jewelry. If a letter wasn’t addressed to her, she wouldn’t even look at the envelope. Yet Chih-yung felt compelled to tell her about his romantic adventures. Of course, realization meant acceptance. But for him, sharing stories was a matter of pride.

  Julie once accompanied Third Aunt to visit Herr Schütte’s home. His wife, a former student, was very young and quite pretty. Pale skin, brown hair, slightly neurotic. Under Nazi rule, German women were discouraged from wearing makeup. She gave birth to a son in China, and the couple called him “the Chinaman.” Even if she regarded Judy somewhat suspiciously, she certainly wasn’t aware of what really occurred—foreign women do not possess that much self-restraint. Herr Schütte loved to make sarcastic remarks about the most trivial matters in an attempt at humor, but it made him difficult to fathom. He must have been a Nazi Party member, otherwise he would never have been made the school principal.

  “They really treat Jews terribly,” said Judy in a hushed voice. “Whenever they enter a shop owned by Jews, they complain that the stench is unbearable.”

  “One good thing about Herr Schütte,” said Judy on another occasion, “he had my teeth fixed. Thanks to him, even the shape of my mouth changed.”

  Herr Schütte had introduced a young attractive female German dentist to Judy, and put up the money. After her teeth were straightened, her mouth gradually grew smaller, her lips thinned a little, and the shape of her face became daintier, making Judy’s countenance much more attractive. Unfortunately, it was a little too late, though as the adage goes, “Better late than never.”

  The next time Chih-yung returned to Shanghai was for a lecture he was invited to give, which Julie attended. It took place at a secluded garden villa, most likely expropriated. At the gate, they bumped into Chih-yung’s son wheeling his bicycle along.

  Perhaps few people were interested in the lecture, or perhaps it was just intended to be an informal talk to a small number of people, as only a dozen or so audience members showed up and sat around a long dining table. A few youths asked questions like seasoned reporters—Julie couldn’t tell if they were students or journalists. By this time the Axis Powers were in a hopeless situation and there really wasn’t much that could be said, but Chih-yung spoke eloquently. She felt he did a fine job, regardless of the venue, much more interesting than the articles he wrote. A young woman with glasses who spoke Mandarin with a heavy Cantonese accent asked several overbearing questions, but Chih-yung parried them leisurely, one by one.