February Flowers

by Fan Wu

  I didn’t go to graduate school after graduation, though all my professors wanted me to. In my final year I suddenly became tired of studying and wanted to explore the real world. By then the job market was booming and it was easy to obtain permanent residence in Guangdong. I took a government job as an office secretary in Guangzhou. It bored me more quickly than I had expected. I was especially averse to the social activities I had to endure as part of the job—all the single girls in my office had to attend dinners or parties held for officials from Beijing or other higher authorities and to drink and dance with them. During one party a high-ranking official put his arms around my waist and asked me to down a glass of hard liquor. When I refused he threw the glass onto the floor. I quit the next day and began frequent job switching—copy editor, reporter, saleswoman, bar waitress, business analyst, freelance writer—until I became exhausted and settled down at an editorial job with a reference and textbook publisher.

  With my busy life I gradually forgot Miao Yan, forgot my resentment toward her, and forgot my struggle with my past. I made new friends and became close to some, though I never mentioned Miao Yan to them. Most of my classmates, including Pingping and Donghua, stayed in Guangzhou and I saw them from time to time for coffee, movies, or shopping. Both Pingping and Donghua were married and had a child. I still read a great deal but no longer played the violin or wrote poems—I just didn’t feel like it. I ’m not sure when the girlishness in me began to fade and I started to walk, speak, and act like a woman. Maturity: that is what people call it.

  Along with my frequent job switching I began to be interested in men again and had various boyfriends. We met, sparkled, got excited and involved, then parted in less than a year as my infatuation faded. This became such an entrenched pattern that in the end I had to stop dating to avoid more emotional damage to myself and others. I was alone for a year before I met my husband during an assignment editing a medical reference book. He was the author and a cardiologist.

  If my parents hadn’t urged me to get married I would probably have remained single. But they called daily, sometimes twice a day. I hated to upset them—after all, I already lived so far away. They often said Guangzhou was a complicated capitalist world and I should be with a man whom I could trust and depend on.

  For them my husband—then my boyfriend—was perfect. He was in his early thirties, had a degree in medicine and a successful career, and—most important—he was honest and trustworthy. So we got married the year I turned twenty-six and soon moved into a two-bedroom condo his hospital had assigned to him downtown. Sex was all right but we never got really passionate about it. He often worked late in the operating theater and was exhausted when he got home, while I always thought there was something wrong when we made love—the position was wrong, the foreplay was too short, the timing of the orgasm was off…

  We never talked about our sex life. We hardly talked at all—he was a quiet person. When I was cooking he would sit on a stool in a corner of the kitchen, reading newspapers to keep me company. He cared about me and would buy me flowers and expensive gifts for no particular reason. When we could spend a whole evening together we sometimes cuddled on the sofa watching a movie. Neither of us was eager to have a child right away, so life continued smoothly. Day in and day out we went to work and came back home, ate dinner separately most of the time, went to bed at different hours, ran errands or visited friends together on the weekends, and made love when we felt like it, which was not often.

  After we had been married for about a year I found myself thinking of Miao Yan occasionally when I was cooking, watching TV, talking with friends, or even at work. The same old questions returned—where was she? Was she married? What did she look like now? These were never more than fleeting thoughts. Life and work kept me busy.

  One night I woke in the middle of the night and looked at my husband beside me. Listening to his periodic snoring, I wondered what life really meant to me. I asked myself if I loved him, if I was happy and content as everyone thought, if there was something missing in my life. When I let my mind wander, I thought of Miao Yan and felt an aching longing to see her—to tell her about my life, my lackluster marriage and job, and hear what she would say. I missed her unrestrained laughter, her perfume, the rhythm of her high-heeled shoes on the floor, her nicknames for me. I missed the passion and intimacy that I had never felt with anybody else, including my parents, my other girlfriends, my ex-boyfriends, even my husband. Then it occurred to me that life without her was a bore.

  Four months later, my husband and I divorced.

  Sometimes I wonder if what I was really yearning for was the kind of devoted passion I no longer possessed as an adult. “Not growing up is a good thing,” as Miao Yan had said.

  I call home on Friday the week before I am to fly to the United States—I have been admitted to a university in New York to study comparative literature. My mother picks up the phone. I tell her: it’s hot in Guangzhou and every day the temperature is above thirty-five degrees; the price of meat has gone up ten percent compared with last year; motorcycles will be prohibited on major streets; car prices have gone down and many of my coworkers are buying cars; the apartment building I’m living in will be torn down next month.

  “Your father’s and my salaries won’t be enough for us to live there. We’ve been teaching for more than twenty years yet your salary is three times ours.” My mother sighs but soon cheers up. “You’ve got to come home to see the newly renovated Eight One Square. It’s very grand. Your father sometimes takes his students there and tells them the history of Nanchang.”

  “How’s Baba?” I ask.

  “A literary journal just accepted one of his papers on Lu Xun. Nanchang University is inviting him to teach a summer class. These days he writes day and night. He says he must make up for lost time. He ’s in his study right now. Let me put him on the phone.”

  “Don’t interrupt him. I’ll talk to him next time.”

  “We worry about you. You don’t know anybody in the U.S. It’s hard for a woman your age to get a PhD. If you had gone straight to the PhD program after graduating it would have been better. Also, now you’re divorced—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to see you off at the airport?”

  “It’s high travel season. Guangzhou ’s jammed with workers from other provinces. You’ll have a hard time getting tickets.”

  “Then promise your father and me that you’ll come back home every…” Her voice dies into an almost inaudible croaking.

  “I promise,” I say, holding the telephone tightly. I am silent for a while, then ask: “Ma, do you recall telling me not to expect others to approve of my choices in life?”

  “Did I say that?” She stops sobbing, then laughs. “I don’t remember. I’m getting old. We have only one daughter and we want you to be happy.”

  We chat a little more and I tell her I will call every evening before my trip.

  After hanging up I go down to a noodle place across the street. A young Cantonese couple owns it and they greet me in their poor Mandarin. I order a bowl of fish porridge and a plate of shrimp-stuffed flat noodles. Nothing tastes better to me than warm flat noodles with soy sauce. Nowadays all my Cantonese friends have learned to speak Mandarin. They criticize me for not learning Cantonese. “Bad attitude,” they often say. I argue that they all speak Mandarin so well anyway and there are probably more native Mandarin speakers than native Cantonese speakers in Guangzhou. Truthfully, though, there is no excuse but my own laziness.

  By the time I’ve finished eating it is nine o’clock. I decide to take the ferry downtown. The boat is much bigger and newer than the one Miao Yan and I took years ago. The fare has gone up from fifty fen to three yuan. I don’t know where I want to go until I am on Beijing Road, a pedestrian-only street in the evenings. The nightlife has just begun—neon lights blazing, loud music blaring from the stores lining the street. I keep walking, hearing passersby spea
king all kinds of different dialects—Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, Kejia, Fujianese, Hunanese, Sichuanese, and other dialects I can’t recognize. I see foreigners, too. They look around like little kids, constantly distracted by the noise and action around them. When I pass by a crowd outside a store I stop. Two girls in white miniskirts and pink knee-high boots are standing at the store entrance, clapping their hands to attract attention. They are promoting a new selection of fruit-scented condoms. “Ma, are those candies?” asks a passing nine-or ten-year-old boy. His mother does not reply but pulls him closer and quickens her pace.

  I am going to visit a gay bar I’ve read about on the internet. According to the article it is also for heterosexuals but people there are liberal toward homosexuals, who still live underground, afraid of revealing their sexual orientation, though homosexuality is no longer classified as a “mental illness.” Comrades: that is how homosexuals refer to themselves.

  The cover charge is high and the bar, with its muted lighting, artsy decor, and handsome waiters and waitresses, looks much like other upmarket bars in Guangzhou. Most customers are in pairs—man and woman. I sit and order a glass of merlot. To my surprise, I don’t see the expected scenes of same-sex hugging and kissing. In a corner two girls sit closely on a bench but they’re not doing anything other than chatting. They look awfully young, perhaps in their late teens. The short hair of the girl on the right is dyed bright red and she wears a nose-ring. At the table next to me is a young couple sharing one beer, the woman giggling at something the man has just drawn on a napkin. In front of them a group of mixed gender seem to be celebrating someone’s birthday.

  I am the only one who is alone, which makes me uncomfortable. I finish the wine and order a bottle of Qingdao beer. After a few sips, I begin to smoke—I plan to leave in a few minutes.

  “Hello.” A woman walks elegantly toward me.

  “Hey,” I respond. For a fleeting moment I think I see Miao Yan. The woman is just as tall, about the same age, and has the same length hair. But of course she is not Miao Yan. Her face is thinner and paler, her eyes smaller, and her breasts protrude from her tight black top.

  “How about a light?” She sits across from me, a cigarette between her fingers.

  I light her cigarette.

  “Expecting someone?”

  “No.” I meet her eyes.

  “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “It’s my first time here.”

  “I see.” She nods meaningfully, then leans forward. “Nice earrings. Where did you get them?”

  “Tibet. A coworker bought them for me as a gift.”

  “They look nice on you. May I touch them?”

  I thank her for her compliment and am about to remove my earrings.

  “A little innocence always makes a woman more alluring.” She laughs. “I want to touch them when they’re on you.”

  I watch as she inhales and exhales slowly, as though trying to refocus her thoughts, her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “You remind me of an old friend of mine,” I say, smiling. “We used to be very close.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Another continent. I’ve not seen her for years.”

  “Why are you here?” She taps her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray on the table.

  “Just curious.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I loved her as my best friend.”

  “Nothing going on?”

  “Like what?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Oh, no. It never occurred to me.”

  “Did you ever want to touch her or kiss her?”

  I hesitate. “Sometimes.”

  “Did you want to have sex with her?”

  “No.” I lean back. “Never.”

  “Did she want to have sex with you?”

  “I don’t think so. She always had boyfriends. I don’t think she was interested in girls. We liked each other as sisters, as family.”

  “You never know. Perhaps she wanted you but was afraid.”

  I shook my head.

  “Did you ever make a move?”

  “I had no desire.”

  “I’ve seen many women like you. You don’t have the guts. You’re too timid and too baffled.” She takes my beer with her free hand and sips it slowly from where my lipstick is left, her stockinged leg stroking mine under the table.

  I withdraw my leg.

  She puts down my beer. “My first girlfriend was just like you when we started. She and I knew each other for many years before that. She later went to university here. A smart and pretty girl. But she couldn’t face it and went to Australia.”

  I suddenly know who the woman is. That summer noon. Her dangling red purse and eye-catching yellow top as she walked around the campus with Yishu.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but I have to go,” I say.

  She raises an eyebrow and nods. “Will I see you again?”

  “Probably not,” I reply.

  After putting a tip on the table, I start for the door, feeling her eyes on my back all the way.

  I stroll down Beijing Road as the deepening night chills the summer air. My high-heeled shoes are hurting so I hail a taxi. I ask the driver to drive around Shamian Island, Up and Down Ninth Street, Zhong Shan Fifth Road, Tianhe Book City, and a few other places I like to go to for shopping or leisure. I have never wanted to see the city as much as I do today—it’s nothing close to perfect but it’s where I’m most comfortable.

  When I arrive at the eighty-story Citic Plaza, I get out of the taxi. The building, massive, blue, glimmering, stands like a door to a mysterious universe. I order espresso and two slices of tiramisu at a café on a high floor. Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, the city spreads before my eyes: a vast collection of skyscrapers and neon lights, jammed traffic, sparsely distributed parks, and pedestrians at every corner.

  I visit San Francisco during my first spring break. A few days before the visit I find myself losing sleep and becoming easily irritated. It is snowing heavily when I leave New York, but in San Francisco it is bright and smells of sunshine. As suggested by my guide book, I take the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf, then a bus to the Golden Gate Bridge. Surrounded by tourists like myself, I feel relaxed and comfortable. Nobody knows me. Nobody will judge me.

  After dinner I take a bus to Chinatown. I don’t know if Miao Yan still owns a boutique here or if she has moved out of San Francisco but I am not worried. Didn’t she say that we had been connected in previous lives? If there is a thing called fate, I would put myself in its hands today. I know, when we meet, that I will have a good time—catching up, joking about my anxiety and frustration toward her, hearing her stories of moving around since university and her plans for the future, sharing the loss of innocence and the excitement of living in a new country.

  I will talk with her like a woman, her equal, confidently, wisely, maturely, as if I was her twin sister. I have plenty of time and energy to stroll every street, every block, and in my mind’s eye, there she is—appearing out of nowhere, just as she did when I saw her on the rooftop for the first time—examining a delicate dress with her long, thin fingers in the gentle light from above.

  Acknowledgments

  I feel extremely fortunate to have Toby Eady as my agent. I am forever inspired by his enthusiasm, wisdom, and, above all, boundless passion for enriching the communication between the West and the East. Thanks also go to Jennifer Joel, for her trust and hard work in introducing the book to the U.S.

  I am grateful to Laetitia Rutherford, Jo Jarrah, Mary Verney, and especially Johanna Castillo, whose editorial acumen and dedication have made this book possible. And I would also like to thank Judith Curr for taking a chance on a new voice, and her staff for being so helpful and efficient.

  Thanks to John Joss, a British-born writer and a fearless motorcyclist, for his editorial advice and friendship. From the very beginning, he has believed in my work.

  M
y gratitude also goes to Alan Cheuse, Porter Shreve, and Tom Parker, all writers and teachers, whose encouragement came when it was most needed.

  I must thank Sandra Cisneros and Xinran. They are women of class and kindness.

  I am appreciative of my friends Daniel Barnett, Ryan Foon, Alfonso Lopez, David Dupouy, William Opdyke, Celia Chung, and the Macondo Workshop fellows for reading my writing.

  I’m most thankful to Bernice Tsai, with whom I can share joys and sorrows, and An, Pey-Ning, Yu -Ling, Howard, Swati, Peg, Christine, Ed, Bill, and Sue for friendship.

  And, finally, I am profoundly indebted to Mattias Cedergren, for his love, patience, and unwavering confidence in me.

  february FLOWERS

  Fan Wu

  A Readers Club Guide

  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  The narrator of February Flowers begins her tale with the words “After my marriage ends…”, situating the reader in the midst of her life, akin to beginning “Hansel and Gretel” in the midst of their search for bread crumbs, trying to find their way home. Why do you think Ming chooses to begin her story in the middle and not at the beginning or even at the end? What does it tell us about the kind of story that we are about to be told? What effect does it have on us as readers?

  Ming is portrayed as a cautious, serious, and even withdrawn teenager. Between her and Yan, it seems that Ming is the “good” girl and Yan is the “bad” girl. To what standards are both Yan and Ming conforming? Against what is each girl rebelling? What from Ming’s past might be the cause of her evident caution and even disdain toward both the world in general and specifically toward men?

  Why do you think Yan decides to embrace her sexuality and womanhood while Ming prefers to deny hers? What impact do you think their upbringing had on their notions of female sexuality? Does February Flowers seem to say that our childhoods impact how we view ourselves as we grow up, or that our natures are strictly innate?