Little Reunions

by Eileen Chang

  Concerned, he studied her face.

  “Let’s go up to the roof, all right?” Chih-yung proposed.

  Might as well get some fresh air, it’s suffocating in here.

  No one ever went up to the roof. With the wartime blackouts no neon light from the city was reflected from the night sky. It was as if they strolled through a huge public square, but where was the public square? Nothing in any direction as far as the eye could see, just the sky above.

  On the roof, she still felt like she was suffocating, but couldn’t imagine that she once had contemplated jumping off this same roof.

  The view of the giant fortresslike chimney stacks and machine rooms looked the same.

  Chih-yung and Julie didn’t say much, and what they did say the breeze dissipated and muffled for the most part.

  They stood beside the cement balustrade for a while.

  “Let’s go down,” he said.

  Julie gingerly opened the apartment door with her key, aware that Judy knew they had gone out and returned.

  Back in the room they sat down, but the suffocating atmosphere hadn’t changed and they just exchanged a few irrelevant words.

  He stood up after sitting for a while, forcing a smile while taking her hand to lead her to bed, their arms stretched out horizontally in a line. In the dim light, she suddenly saw five or six women whose heads were wrapped in Islamic shawls or perhaps ancient Greek attire. They were dark silhouettes, one following another, walking before their eyes. Julie knew they were women from his past, but in the midst of her horror something made Julie feel calm, as if she had joined the ranks of the shadowy group.

  Both Aldous Huxley and the eighteenth-century writer and politician Lord Chesterfield said of sex, “its position … ridiculous”—and they were right. Julie began to laugh hysterically. She laughed so hard that he felt deflated.

  He smiled, sat up, and lit a cigarette.

  “We really have to get this right today.”

  He kissed her incessantly, trying to make her feel at ease.

  But it became even more hilarious—it felt like rhythmic pounding on an earthenware urn.

  “Ow, it’s no good, I can’t do it,” she almost blurted out, but she knew it would have been in vain.

  The mechanical pounding of the earthenware urn felt endless. She felt she was tied to an instrument of torture pulling her in two directions to rend her asunder. She could sense the torturers’ patient determination.

  More pounding, more pulling, no end in sight. Suddenly she felt she was suffocating and almost vomited.

  He looked intently at her face, as if checking to see if she had stopped breathing.

  “Just now you had tears in your eyes,” he said in a soft voice. “I don’t know why, but I don’t feel guilty.”

  He fell asleep. She gazed at his face in the dim light, a frontal view she didn’t like.

  She felt lost, as if setting sail at dusk on unfamiliar waters, on a distant journey.

  It was the night before he planned to flee. He slept with his back to her.

  The meat cleaver in the kitchen is too heavy. The watermelon knife with the long blade is easier to handle. Just one stab into his well-tanned back. He’s a fugitive now. Just drag the corpse downstairs and toss it in the gutter. What could Hsiunan do about it?

  But Julie knew from her reading of detective novels that all the best-laid plans of criminals inevitably have defects and fall apart when someone stumbles upon them by chance.

  “Would you be willing to die for someone who doesn’t love you?” she asked herself.

  She could visualize a team of plainclothes detectives handcuffing her and then frog-marching her away along a wall.

  The abject shame of going to jail for him would not be worth it.

  He seemed to sense something and instantly rolled over but didn’t appear to wake up. Not wanting to sleep facing him, she rolled over too. They were like sardines in a can, lined up in one direction.

  Hsiunan came early the next morning to collect him. They needed a bedsheet to tie up a bundle of his possessions but Julie couldn’t find a clean one. Soon after they left she rushed downstairs with a sheet and ran to the gate, but they had already gone. She stood there frozen and dumb for a while. A piebald puppy sat on the step in front of her, its little ears pointed forward. In silhouette the puppy appeared happy with everything he surveyed—the street, the clear autumn morning. Julie felt the same: it seemed that everyone was gone, and her world had become pleasantly uncluttered.

  Julie turned around and went back inside. A little girl, the daughter of a Jewish neighbor, sat on a step singing: “Hello! Hello! Goodbye! Goodbye! Hello! Hello! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

  In the countryside, Chih-yung stayed with the Yü family. Once, when Mr. Yü had business in Shanghai, he brought Julie a long letter. “I was ready to eat it if they searched me,” Mr. Yü told her.

  “You’d suffer from indigestion if you ate such a long letter.” Julie chuckled.

  Mr. Yü didn’t seem to have the haughty mannerisms of a scion of a provincial family. Precocious in appearance and proper in speech, though he still couldn’t resist laughing as he told Julie, “Hsiunan teased Chih-yung for not being able to keep himself from falling asleep on the train when she took him back to the countryside—he was exhausted from working so hard the previous night.”

  Julie could only smile. “Our bed was so narrow,” she thought, “and he was probably a bit jumpy that night, so he didn’t sleep well.”

  The night Chih-yung stayed with Julie he observed one of Judy’s handbags, an adorable, shiny American bag made of little squares of soft plastic, newly arrived postwar merchandise. “I want to buy one for my wife,” he wrote in a letter.

  “Even I can’t get used to life in the countryside now,” he wrote.

  Julie constantly pleaded with Chih-yung not to write excessively long letters, particularly if sent by post, due to the dangers involved, but he ignored her, turning out voluminous screeds. He craved an audience.

  “Shao Chih-yung is so bored in the countryside he’s about to go completely mad,” Julie said to Judy, giggling.

  “Is it that bad?” Judy frowned.

  Mr. Yü stopped by another time to tell Judy that in the countryside, even one unfamiliar face would raise suspicion. Out of security concerns he had moved Chih-yung to another town to live with his relatives.

  Rachel finally left India but didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to return to Shanghai. She traveled to Malaya and settled down there. Julie didn’t return to Hong Kong to resume her studies, telling her mother that she wanted to continue writing. Rachel scolded her in a letter for having the limited horizons of “a frog at the bottom of a well.”

  Judy, however, was not enthusiastic for Julie to pursue her degree. “Going out into the world and working is another measure of success,” Judy often intoned. Left unspoken was Judy’s belief that it wasn’t worth spending any more money on Julie’s education because she wasn’t suited to academe—she might as well try her luck at her chosen occupation.

  Although Julie said nothing, she had always thought of overseas study as her last resort. However, she was aware that life in postwar Britain was extremely arduous; residents there could barely look after themselves. She had even less confidence in her ability to survive in America.

  “Americans are unpredictable,” Judy frequently commented.

  To play it safe all she could do was stay at home and send manuscripts overseas, but that never yielded any results.

  Chih-yung used a pseudonym to write a letter to a famous scholar to discuss Buddhism. Julie forwarded the letter and transmitted the answer back to Chih-yung once she received it. She thought the author’s tone was amiable, though he said Chih-yung’s letter was a bit long and that he “could not fully comprehend” it. In his next letter to Julie, Chih-yung blamed himself “for bringing disgrace on his own head” and apologized for letting her down.

  Why is he so fragile? A famous
person hardly ever responds to a reader. He didn’t know who you are. And even if he did know he might have ignored the letter altogether. Chih-yung simply can’t bear to be out of the limelight. He’s falling apart.

  Julie suddenly felt the overpowering urge to see someone from Chih-yung’s family. At that moment she felt she had no other family.

  Julie went to see Hsiunan. The house looked the same, most likely because Mr. Wen was now helping out. After her marriage to Mr. Wen, Hsiunan continued living with Chih-yung’s family to manage the household. Julie had not even congratulated Hsiunan and Mr. Wen on their marriage.

  Hsiunan greeted Julie with a cordial smile but was obviously surprised at her visit.

  “He sounded extremely anxious in his letters, no patience at all,” sobbed Julie, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t know why she had never cried in Chih-yung’s presence.

  Hsiunan was quiet for a moment, then said, “When he’s impatient he’s extremely impatient, but when he wants to be patient he can be incredibly patient.”

  Now Julie didn’t say anything. Perhaps only a woman like Hsiunan could truly understand the man she loves. That film star Errol Flynn famously said, “A man and a woman should never speak the same language.” Perhaps he was right.

  Julie sat briefly, then left. Upon returning home she reported to Judy, “I visited Shao Chih-yung’s home.” Julie saw Judy’s expression change, not knowing the reason was that Judy thought Julie could no longer cope with separation and wanted to follow Chih-yung.

  Almost two years had passed. After the war, the value of gold dropped. If her mother didn’t return soon, Julie wouldn’t have enough money to repay her, no matter how frugally Julie lived. All thoughts of studying overseas had long ago flown out the window. Aside from the frustration of not being able to pave the way for the future, Julie mostly stayed at home, reluctant to socialize and yet quite at ease.

  “You’re surprisingly calm,” Judy commented more than once.

  Mr. Yü returned to Shanghai. When talking to him about Chih-yung, the tears unexpectedly flowed down her face again.

  “If you miss him so much,” said Mr. Yü softly, “you can pay him a visit.”

  Julie smiled faintly and shook her head.

  The conversation moved on to other topics but when it returned to Chih-yung, Mr. Yü casually said out of the blue, “From his conversation I’d say he thinks more about Miss K’ang.”

  “Oh,” Julie acknowledged politely, not saying anything more.

  She never asked for any news of Miss K’ang.

  But she did want to ask Chih-yung face-to-face what his plans were. Suddenly the uncertainty was no longer bearable. Writing letters seemed pointless, his words now seeming invariably vague.

  Judy did not approve of Julie visiting Chih-yung but of course didn’t prevent her going, either. Her only advice for Julie was to have a blue, extra-thick padded cotton overcoat made, just like the self-protective attire Judy had worn when she stumbled her way in the dark to get to her job at the radio station. Of course Julie selected the most eye-catching peacock-blue fabric.

  Mr. Yü would be returning home at the end of the year and they planned for him to take her with him. After the Lunar New Year, he would take her to the township where Chih-yung lived in hiding.

  “If you are sold down the river, I’ll have no way of knowing,” said Judy on the day of Julie’s departure.

  “I’ll send you a postcard as soon as I arrive,” Julie replied with a smile.

  9

  OPERAS were performed during Chinese New Year in the countryside. A small elegant stage was set up in the courtyard of the clan temple. The stage canopy abutted the ceiling of the hall and a shaft of light streamed down through the gap onto the side of an actress’s face like a real theatrical spotlight. She sat on a chair in a corner, ruminating and singing to herself. The percussionist loudly beat the hardwood clapper. Wisps of blue smoke wafted through the angled shafts of sunlight. Even the sun in this ancient story was covered in dust.

  The actress’s puffy cheeks, adorned with thick white powder, were slightly too plump and her back protruded like a camel’s hump. She wore a long lemon-yellow jacket buttoned down the front and festooned with embroidered red flowers and green leaves over a white silk skirt. Wooden signboards hung on a pair of black lacquered columns en-twined with gilt dragons at the side of the stage read LOUD NOISE PROHIBITED! and SILENCE! A large chiming clock showing half past two contrasted incongruously with the ancient sunlight.

  “Why is every one of them so ugly?” someone jeered. The hecklers in the audience were mostly women.

  “This year the troupe has good costumes but the actors are just ordinary,” said a man in the back row, espousing the voice of reason.

  “We could never afford a truly good troupe anyway, could we?”

  The front row consisted of wooden horseshoe-back armchairs. Mrs. Yü brought Julie in, sat briefly, then bundled up her child and left. She was short, and the five-or six-year-old child she carried in her arms was almost as tall as she was; she had trudged for quite a long journey along the paths between the fields. Her attire was rather girlish; her bangs touched her eyebrows and her hair hung down to her shoulders. Under her peacock-blue overcoat she wore a white silk gown with a red floral pattern and a bright red trim. Her footwear consisted of homemade fabric shoes with fastening straps. She first met Mr. Yü in the county seat when both of them were running for shelter during an air raid. It was quite romantic.

  When they arrived at the theater, the young male protagonist had already taken his leave from his parents and was at his aunt’s house to study in solitude. He went inside to change into a fresh white gown with embroidered emerald-blue flowers. The scrawny young girl who played the role of the young male student was just in her teens and had very thick red makeup unevenly plastered on her narrow face.

  “Why is every single one of them so ugly?” heckled another voice in the audience.

  “This year the troupe has good costumes… .” It was probably the manager, who sat in the back row, pointing out how frequently the actress changed costumes.

  On the stage, the young male made an obeisance to his aunt and greeted his female cousin before taking his seat. As he sat down the stagehand swept up the back of his gown and set it over the back of the chair, clearly revealing the gray singlet that covered his waist.

  The tan—the student’s female cousin—sat alone singing, then wrote a poem and gave it to the young maid to pass on to her cousin in the study. The slave girl’s face looked like a horse saddle; she wore matching slate-blue silk jacket and pants, and swayed her way out of the room to deliver the poem. On the way to the study, she placed a hand on her waist and sang out her troubled thoughts.

  “Why is every single one so ugly?”

  The young lady sat embroidering in candlelight as the young male furtively approached and gingerly touched her hair with his fingertips again and again, holding his fingers to his nose to savor the aroma. She suddenly discovered his presence and jumped in fright, her chubby shoulders vaulting up in the air in the same way as the ferocious General Tsao Tsao would in a Peking opera. Her face was made up white like the general’s, though not quite as white.

  Another wave of jeering. “Why is this one so ugly?”

  When the tan settled down again, she invited her male cousin to sit and chat as if the nocturnal visit were nothing out of the ordinary. Gradually she broke into song, swaying from one side to the other and shrugging her shoulders to represent her rising ardor.

  “Why is this one so ugly?” A peal of laughter resonated.

  Two stagehands, one on each side of the stage, held up a doorway curtain—or rather, just the overhanging fringe of a curtain—and, uncertain when they’d be needed, fussed about in the wings, sporadically rushing forward only to fold back the curtain and retreat. After a while they swaggered forward again. The two performers concentrated on singing a duet, the curtain a Freudian symbol hovering be
hind them.

  The stagehands finally got the timing right, hurried forward, and stood in place to let the two performers fly hand in hand through the symbolic opening.

  The old tan—the mother—held up the candle to inspect the room and called out for her daughter. From behind the curtain the daughter cried out in a quavering voice, “Maaaamaaaa… .”

  “What is this Maaaamaaaa, are you planning to murder me?”

  The mother lifted the curtain; the young man somersaulted out and then kneeled down in respect, but the back of his gown flopped over his head.

  “Goodness me, who is this giving me such a fright?”

  The daughter appeared and also kneeled next to her mother.

  After a stern rebuke, the mother encouraged the young man to take the imperial examination, and only then, after being admitted to imperial ranks, would she give him her blessing to marry her daughter.

  On his journey to take the examination the young scholar encountered a beauty, a young girl from another family.

  “This is a good one!” came the approving comments from below the stage. “This one is quite pretty.”

  The actress, obviously aware of her own beauty, carried herself with exquisite care, moving so gracefully that her dress didn’t even sway as she floated across the stage. She wore less makeup than the others and her costume was less garish, just a simple, elegant long turquoise jacket embroidered with pink flowers. She entered the temple to burn incense and the young man kneeled beside her.

  “This one’s really good-looking,” came a shout from a new admirer.

  Mrs. Yü had already been waiting for quite a while, standing in the back row holding her tall child. Julie couldn’t linger any longer. She stood up and jostled her way to the back of the theater, deeply regretting not being able to witness the unveiling of the lovers’ secret pledge to marry without parental permission, the scholar returning a licentiate and marrying both girls, the joyful reunion with the two beauties (or maybe even three).