by Eileen Chang
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
Julie smiled and said nothing. To wait or not to wait was not for her to decide.
Chih-yung had mentioned “four years.” Half of the four years had already passed. A certainty has now, however, become elusive.
Life in a small town was like living inside a clock that ticks very loudly. Time passed but being so close to it she didn’t know what time it was.
On the day of her departure, he didn’t wait for her to speak. “Please don’t ask me again,” he pleaded, smiling weakly.
Julie smiled back and questioned him no further.
She didn’t realize at the time that he had already answered her. A few weeks after she returned to Shanghai Julie had an epiphany.
Perhaps he was waiting for the day when he could show his face in public again and have a reunion with his three beauties.
It was only then that she understood the English phrase “iron in the soul.” She had never experienced its meaning, never knew what it referred to. Perhaps it would be better to phrase it as “iron entered into the soul,” meaning the soul was made stronger.
And then the phrase “the dark night of the soul” suddenly jolted Julie’s heart.
Pain, like the low, dull rumble of a train running all day and night without end, plagued her heart. She’d wake up and realize the rumble was in fact the relentless ticking of her wristwatch right next to her pillow.
By chance, while walking along the street, she heard Peking opera music drifting out of a shop. The voice of the male performer singing the part of an elderly male character who wears an artificial beard resembled Chih-yung’s central Chinese accent, and tears welled up in her eyes instantly.
While sitting at the dinner table Julie thought about how Chih-yung depended on the charity of others, the way he sat with the host family at the round dining table. She ate vegetables as if they were wet rags and crunchy foods as if they were paper, unable to swallow.
She dreamed of herself standing in front of the small red-lacquered cabinet in the stairwell of her previous home in the north. A large crack ran along the top of the cabinet. Old and dilapidated, it had been left behind when they moved to Shanghai. In her dream Julie spread jam onto a slice of bread that she would bring to Chih-yung. He was hiding in an empty room next door.
Julie never cried in front of Judy, but of course Judy knew she was suffering. One day Judy saw her hurriedly putting away a bowl and a pair of chopsticks to prevent Judy noticing she hadn’t eaten. “‘Eating little during a time of trouble cannot be sustained,’” Judy gently prodded.
Julie put her dinnerware into the cabinet, returned, and sat down. “Shao Chih-yung fell in love with Miss K’ang, and now he has this Master Hsin and I didn’t get a chance to ask him if he needs money.” Is it worth agonizing like this over a paltry sum of money?
“Pay him back then!” responded Judy.
“Second Aunt will soon return. I want to repay Second Aunt.”
“You don’t necessarily have to repay right away.”
Julie fell silent. She needed to repay her mother immediately.
She couldn’t say this out loud—that would appear indignant. But if I don’t say it Judy will think I want to repay Second Aunt while I still have the money in hand… . Hopeless! As if the money could never be earned again. But Julie’s childhood years were more difficult than Judy’s, which is why Julie tended to view everything as difficult.
After a long silence, Judy laughed softly. “He’s really a bit too generous with his ardor.”
Judy once retold some old family stories. “We Shengs are descended from impoverished scholars from the northern countryside, unsophisticated and stubborn. But the Piens are the family of a high-ranking military officer. When the old man retired, he continued to behave as if he were leading troops, rising at the crack of dawn. He’d kick on the door of anyone not up and curse. He even treated your grandmother like that when she was his daughter-in-law.” Judy paused as if thinking, then said, “The whole Chu family is depraved.”
Julie knew Judy was referring in particular to Uncle Chu and his son, Brother Hsü. And those were men she loved. She helped Uncle Chu out of affection for his son, though she also had feelings for him.
“You’re wicked,” Judy once said to Julie.
It was nothing like the great sage Confucius saying, “While he may sound disappointed, he was secretly pleased,” as she once harbored a sense of admiration for Julie. Judy herself had experienced heartache, but now as she observed Julie’s suffering, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed—after all, Julie was just an ordinary woman.
“No man is worth it,” she said coldly in a soft voice.
“I don’t know why,” Julie once casually admitted to Judy, “but when I begin to like someone I feel pure rapture, but when I’m low I don’t feel anything, just numbness.” Judy laughed at her, thinking her words bizarre.
Julie was by no means prone to melancholia. On the contrary, she was quite resilient. And in truth only her mother and Chih-yung contributed to her suffering. Back then she had wanted to kill herself to make a statement to her mother: “Now do you know how I feel?” As for her psychological state during her relationship with Chih-yung, suicidal thoughts lingered but she didn’t let them surface, knowing how foolish an act would be. Chih-yung could talk himself into believing anything. If she killed herself he would come to a perfect explanation: “That, too, is ideal,” he’d say, and everything would be just as wonderful as ever.
But she continued to write long letters to Chih-yung as before, telling him of her torment. Now it was his turn to ignore reality, not comprehending Julie’s feelings, or perhaps feigning incomprehension. He replied with long letters, too, full of explanations and supplications. His letters were thick bundles, as if he were oblivious to attracting attention at the post office.
Julie lived on large cans of American grapefruit juice, which she found milder and not overly sweet compared to orange juice. One day while walking on the street after a couple of months on her grapefruit-juice diet, Julie gave herself a fright when she saw a haggard, scrawny woman coming toward her, reflected in a shopwindow. Years later she read reports of women in mainland China no longer menstruating during the famine years. Julie hadn’t had her period for several months.
Mr. Yü arrived.
There was a nasty fright in the small town, he explained perfunctorily—Was it because he received an unending stream of long letters?—so Chih-yung decided to move back to the countryside.
After chatting a while he knitted his brow. “He wants to be with Miss K’ang. How will that work? Her accent isn’t local and will certainly attract too much attention in the village, but he insists that I go and get her.”
Mr. Yü sounded desperate. He was having trouble shouldering the extra burden and wanted Julie to help out. He knew that mentioning Miss K’ang would rile her up.
Julie just smiled as he spoke. Will she go? Hard to imagine. It’s not time yet for a reunion. That’s asking her to live a life underground.
“He’s not very practical when it comes to women,” Julie blurted out. She had always believed that had Chih-yung really been intimate with Miss K’ang he would not have idealized her so much.
Mr. Yü was momentarily lost for words. “He’s very practical! He is!”
Now it was Julie’s turn to be lost for words. The two of them didn’t speak any further.
At least they had parted intimately. Of course they had. The ritual for the reunion of the three beauties required a memento—otherwise pledges of eternal love would mean nothing.
Julie didn’t blame even herself for being so naïve and not foreseeing this outcome. All she felt was that it was over, that she had come to the end of a very long road, because she now realized that Miss K’ang was waiting for him.
While she wasn’t committed to monogamy, she also knew she wouldn’t be able to bear the situation. She was fluent in the language of suffe
ring, it being her first language.
Opportune Jade was passing through Shanghai and Hsiunan accompanied her to Julie’s home. Julie didn’t ask how many days she’d be staying and obviously had no intention of hosting Opportune Jade. Hsiunan said she would return in a little while to pick her up.
Now it was obvious to Julie that while “escorting the maiden Ching-niang on a One-Thousand-Li Journey,” Opportune Jade and Chih-yung had consummated their relationship. But when Julie came face-to-face with Opportune Jade, she didn’t think about such matters and simply served her guest a cup of tea, then quickly returned to the kitchen to assist Judy.
“Should I make a few more dishes?” Judy asked softly.
“No, otherwise she’ll think we’re living too comfortably.”
While Julie observed Opportune Jade at the dinner table, and how she seemed to have lost her appetite, a revulsion rose up from deep within her viscera.
Judy engaged in chitchat but Julie only managed to an insert an occasional word or two. She didn’t ask about Chih-yung, nor why Opportune Jade and him had to live apart for the moment. No doubt he had returned to Mr. Yü’s family home, but they were more or less living together openly.
Soon after they finished eating, Hsiunan returned to pick up Opportune Jade.
“She looks like quite a good match for Chih-yung,” Judy said softly with a smirk.
Julie smiled in acknowledgment—she didn’t mind at all.
Julie no longer wrote long letters, simply sending off short businesslike notes to Chih-yung from time to time. Chih-yung assumed she had gotten over her misery. In a letter he wrote: “Yesterday Opportune Jade came by after her noon nap; her face exhibits signs of youth departing, yet I love her more than ever. One night, while asleep together, she woke up to discover that the fasteners on the front of her chest were undone and said to me, ‘If we can spend five years together I’ll die happy.’ My problem is I’m perpetually self-satisfied, and I want to share every little thing that happens in my life with you. I think she’s equally wonderful and you ought to be a bit jealous of her. But if you became genuinely jealous, well, I wouldn’t be able to take that, either.”
Julie felt as if she had received a love letter sent to the wrong address. It made her both angry and amused.
11
HER MOTHER returned.
Julie went to the docks with Judy to meet her when the vessel arrived. As usual, the entire family of Julie’s maternal uncle went to the dock, this time with the addition of several sons-in-law who were all the product of introductions made by their aunt Rachel.
Ever since she wrote that scathing account of her relatives in the Pien clan, Julie had not seen any them. At the dock, they greeted Judy warmly as always; toward Julie they acted quite normally though with a smug look on their faces. Now, at last, they could point their accusatory fingers at her. Naturally they had filed a full report long ago concerning Julie’s relations with Chih-yung.
“I saw your second uncle on the street wearing a blue cotton gown,” a cousin gleefully reported. “He’s a bit chubbier now.”
All her cousins were now fashionable wives with children, which they didn’t bring along.
Julie stood at the back of the crowded cabin. As always her uncle’s family acted as a human shield. Finally it was her turn to step forward, smile, and formally greet Second Aunt.
Rachel grunted her acknowledgment, and simply threw a stern sidelong glance at Julie.
The relatives crowded into the narrow cabin chatting and laughing boisterously, though the atmosphere felt slightly subdued because Rachel had aged.
A few wrinkles as one ages matter little, but for major facial features to erode away, changing the relative position of the eyes and mouth—it’s as if she had transformed into another person. A few years in the tropics also deeply tanned her skin, making her look even skinnier.
After disembarking, everyone headed together to the Pien residence. The living room was still decorated the way Rachel had designed it, the walls painted a “bean-paste shade” of dusty brown, neither dark nor light, which didn’t conform with the fashions of the time. Rachel’s brother Yün-chih had disapproved of it because it looked too understated, with which Julie agreed, thinking the color created a cold and bare effect like a theater backdrop for a slum.
Brother and sister had always been close. “You’ve become an old lady!” joked Yün-chih. “And I see your false teeth weren’t correctly molded.”
He was the only person who could say things like that. A slight titter passed through the room, but a hint of a smile was the most everyone present could display.
Rachel didn’t smile. Instead, she responded unaffectedly, “You have no idea how much time the dentist spent on the measurements. He proudly confirmed that he had put in an enormous amount of effort and that this was his best work.”
“That is to say,” thought Julie, “the dentist admired her.”
Julie sat on a sofa with a female cousin, who told her, “When cousin Julian visited last, he said he was looking for work. Other avenues had not proved fortuitous and in the end we found him a position in our bank. The job wasn’t perfect but now he has been transferred to Hangchow and the remuneration is much better. Cousin Julian is a good person without any vices, besides being too fond of eating out… .” She dragged out the last sentence as if she was undecided if she should continue or not. Most likely she was about to recount how she had admonished Julian to save a little money so she could introduce a girlfriend of hers for marriage. But to her it seemed inappropriate to discuss such matters with Julian’s infamous sister.
Of course, Julie had heard that her cousin had arranged a job for Julian, as Julian himself had mentioned it. This cousin was obliged to help Julian because Rachel had introduced her to her husband. Telling all this to Julie was a way of saying Julie was ungrateful, whereas her uncle’s family didn’t hold a grudge and on the contrary helped her brother. It demonstrated the contrast with her own indifference as Julian’s elder sister.
Rachel chatted with her relatives until late in the night. Judy and Julie left first. Rachel’s seventeen suitcases had arrived before her. The husband of one of the cousins arranged for retainers to accompany the luggage to the house. Everyone marveled at the ludicrous amount of luggage.
She had more than a dozen pieces of luggage when she passed through Hong Kong the last time. But then it seemed normal and no one laughed at her.
“It would appear that your second aunt has returned well-prepared to play the part of a matriarch,” Judy tittered behind Rachel’s back.
Perhaps Judy was referring to Rachel’s stern demeanor.
On another occasion Judy was unable to restrain herself from whispering to Julie, “Locking drawers like that when she goes out. As if she’s moved into a den of thieves.”
The last German tenant had moved out long ago. Rachel moved into his room, which had an en suite bathroom, her accommodations very private, indeed.
“Best not to come to my room so often,” Judy warned Julie.
“Yes,” Julie responded with a knowing smile.
Out of fear Rachel would encounter Julie and Judy talking about her behind her back, Julie not only hid from Rachel but also avoided being seen alone with Judy. Julie felt as if she had ceased to exist.
At the dinner table Rachel revealed some of her experiences abroad. In India, she had worked as the personal assistant to Jawaharlal Nehru’s two sisters. “Goodness! Unbelievably arrogant. Like princesses.”
While in India she would have paid more attention to her attire than she did now, back in Shanghai. She often wore a floral-print dress and either a pair of black leather riding boots or short white bobby socks and mid-height heels, which looked quite incongruous.
“Why are you wearing short socks?” asked Judy.
“Everyone does in Malaya.”
Julie wondered if wearing short socks prevented the English from contracting fungal infections in the tropics and the riding
boots protected against snakebites.
In Pune Rachel had lived for a while in a leprosarium. “It was the most hygienic place in the whole of India.”
Later Julie heard Judy say that one of Rachel’s lovers was an English doctor. He probably worked at the leprosarium and was with her the whole time she lived in Malaya.
“The English in India have incredible status.”
“Is it still like that?” asked Julie, not directly referring to Indian independence.
“Yes, even now.”
One day Julie heard Rachel grumbling to Judy, “When a woman gets a bit older, men are only interested in her for sex.” She emphasized the last word in English.
Rachel noticed Julie’s reticence and began to soften toward her. One day after lunch, with no one else around, Rachel leisurely asked, “Are you still waiting for that Shao Chih-yung?”
“He’s gone,” said Julie, smiling. “He’s gone, so of course it’s over.”
All of Chih-yung’s letters were posted to Bebe’s house for Julie to collect.
Rachel nodded, apparently believing Julie. Maybe she had seen Yen Shan visit once or twice and also overheard Julie telephoning him, though Julie never spoke more than a few words before hanging up.
Having just returned to Shanghai, Rachel had not seen any of Yen Shan’s films yet and did not know him. He was difficult to miss, though, with his tall slender stature, fair-skinned squarish face, handsome features, bright eyes, and widow’s peak.
Julie met him during her grapefruit-juice-diet days. A movie studio was considering an adaptation of one of her novels and the studio boss sent a chauffeur to pick her up for negotiations. It was the first social gathering Julie had attended since the end of the war. She was skinny though it was less obvious when she put on a cheerful face. After all, she was still young and quite small-framed. That day Julie wore a bell-sleeved top made from an antique quilt cover that used to be Judy’s, the rare ivory-colored silk printed with a black phoenix pattern. The bird’s feathers were mixed with dark purple elements. She pinned a large purple velvet butterfly with white stripes in her shoulder-length hair. It was meant for traditional-style chignons but dangled from Julie’s hair like a purple flower about to drop to the ground.
