Fu Ping 0231550200, 9780231550208

Citation preview

Fu Ping

A Novel

Wang Anyi Translated by Howard Goldblatt

FU PING

WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA

WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

QQQ

For a complete list of titles, see page 283

FU PING A Novel

WANG ANYI Translated by Howard Goldblatt

Columbia University Press New York

This publication has been supported by the Richard W. Weatherhead Publication Fund of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assistance given by the Pushkin Fund in the publication of this book.

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Translation copyright © 2019 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wang, Anyi, 1954–author. | Goldblatt, Howard, 1939–translator. Title: Fu Ping : a novel / Wang Anyi ; translated by Howard Goldblatt. Other titles: Fuping. English Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2019] | Series: Weatherhead books on Asia Identifiers: LCCN 2018060636 (print) | LCCN 2019006199 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231550208 (electronic) | ISBN 9780231193221 | ISBN 9780231193221 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231193238 (paperback) | ISBN 9780231550208 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Women internal migrants—Fiction. | Shanghai (China)—Fiction. Classification: LCC PL2919.A58 (ebook) | LCC PL2919.A58 F8413 2019 (print) | DDC 895.13/52—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060636

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee Cover photo: Back Lane, 1960. Photograph by Fan Ho. © 2018 by Themes+Projects / Modernbook Editions

AUTHOR’S NOTE

SHANGHAI, JUNE 9, 2003

In the summer of 1998, a few of us went on a trip to Yangzhou. We took the train to Zhenjiang, where a friend picked us up by car and we crossed the river to reach Yangzhou. It was the rainy season, and the air was filled with moisture. Weeping willows and a stretch of rice fields formed a lush landscape, along with some unusual red-brick houses. That shade wasn’t the common rusty brick red, but a fiery red with washes of yellow. I later realized that it was a crudely fired red brick used by ordinary families. This scenery evoked a sense of enchantment and romance that reminded me of Li Bai’s elegant verse: “Leaving for Yangzhou in the misty spring month of flowers,” but in the style of a folk tune, like the Ming “hanging branch” lyric or “mountain songs.” At that moment, a face appeared before my eyes—she later became the title character in my novel Fu Ping.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I grew up with a nanny from Yangzhou. I first learned to speak neither Shanghainese nor Mandarin, but the Yangzhou dialect. Her voice had a gentle, charming drawl that appealed to little girls’ affectations. She once bought me a handkerchief in apple green and fuchsia pink, the vibrant shades evoking the cheerfulness of magpies chirping in trees. My mother said it was tacky, but I loved it to death. Most of my nanny’s fellow villagers had delicate facial features. Their slim eyebrows curved upward when they smiled, as did the corners of their mouths. Their skin tone wasn’t dark and swarthy, like farmers who worked outdoors the year round, but rather a pale yellow, which could be considered fair among farmers at the time. So, my nanny’s relatives from Yangzhou all looked quite lovely and urbane. My nanny had an intriguing attitude toward relationships between men and women. When we became teenagers, she took on a personal sense of duty to keep a close watch on our behavior. She always felt the need to comment on schoolmates of the opposite sex I knew well and reported about them to our mother. But at the same time, she conspired with us to cover our backs. Once, I was “on a date” with this boy at home when my best girlfriend stopped by. My old nanny put on a show of talking to her in a loud voice, holding her off, which bought time for the boy to escape through the back door. There was another time when she pulled me behind the door and told me conspiratorily that she’d dreamed that soand-so became my boyfriend; from then on I ran off any time I  saw him. In any case, she was interested in these sorts of

Q

vi

Q

AUTHOR’S NOTE

things, somewhat innocent and yet, to a certain degree, betraying human natural desires. Now that I was in misty Yangzhou, the past regained its color and emotional ties. I even thought that Shanghai’s concrete jungle was made softer, graced with flair by the customs of these people from Yangzhou. This was precisely why I wrote Fu Ping. Midway through the novel, Fu Ping is going to see her uncle, and she is about to enter the Yangzhou community in which he lives—but where should I have her go? An experience from ten years earlier leaped out of my memories. It was during the early 1990s, when some friends from Beijing came to Shanghai for a full-length television documentary on the Chinese population problem. It was midsummer, and I was taking a break from writing, so I went with them to visit different spots. For one of them we followed the sanitation workers on a motorized garbage scow on the Suzhou River. It was a picturesque day. Life on a trash-filled boat wasn’t as filthy and harsh as we had imagined. The deck was painted red and was so clean it sparkled. Everything was scrubbed spotless; you could even see the wood grain in the legs of the small stools. After the garbage was loaded onto the boat, it was covered by a sheet of canvas, white from repeated washings, and then tied down at all four corners. As the boat sailed along the Suzhou River, we passed through the narrow riverways squeezed between high-rise buildings; then the river opened up as we moved on. The concrete riverbanks were replaced by soft muddy

Q

vii

Q

AUTHOR’S NOTE

slopes, and above those slopes were lush green crops and dense groves of trees; even the water gradually became clearer. Some of the boats coming our way were also garbage scows; they all shouted out greetings as they passed. Women were sitting barefoot on the deck and sewing on that beautiful day. The laboring life does, in fact, have real charm. Those sanitation workers, all from Subei, regardless of gender, had muscular bodies that could move nimbly on a cramped, rocking boat. They paused when they saw me because they hadn’t expected to see a woman onboard. After a quick discussion among themselves, one of them ran off and brought back another woman from the team who was to look after my safety. She threw a life jacket over me, grabbed my hand, and never released it, not even for a second. Her solid palm and artless smile contained a simple, direct tenderness. Afterward, I had lunch in their dining hall. The food had strong flavors: the stewed meat melted in my mouth, the fish was fried to a golden yellow, and the soup had the consistency of condensed milk, which suited the villagers’ sense of abundance. So I let Fu Ping go there. I wanted a downpour at the end of the novel. Let this city soak in water, become crystal clear, and have the lotus flowers bloom. In the chaotic changing of times, normal life remains unchanged, and in normalcy lies a simple harmony, arranged based on the reasonable needs of human nature, producing strength for generations to carry on.

Q

viii

Q

FU PING

Chapter One

NAINAI

FU PING

showed up one afternoon at the house where Nainai

worked. In the lane little girls jumping rope created a faint echo off the walls as their shoes scraped the concrete. Yellow rays of afternoon sun—it was after three o’clock—shone brightly. The sunlight made their dresses sparkle. Following the directions in Nainai’s letter, Fu Ping walked to the end of the lane. She stood in the open doorway, blocking the sun’s rays. Although she could not see the faces of the women in the hallway, the sun at their backs traced their silhouettes. One of them stood up. So, Fu Ping, you’re here. All Fu Ping said was, Nainai. Nainai was Li Tianhua’s grandmother, but not by blood; she had adopted him in order to have a grandson. Back when the matchmaker had come to Fu Ping with a marriage proposal, she had stressed two points: first, Li Tianhua had attended middle school, and second, his grandmother was a nanny in Shanghai.

FU PING

So even though he was the eldest child in a large family that lived on the brink of poverty, it was not a hopeless case. Nainai, who had been widowed early on, had no sons, and her married daughter belonged to another family. That left the adopted grandson as her sole heir, and she had made his schooling possible. She had come to Shanghai as a housemaid at the age of sixteen, thirty years before, long enough for her now to be considered “old” Shanghai. She had achieved considerable status among neighborhood household helpers. Fu Ping, orphaned in childhood and taken in by her father’s younger brother and his wife, had placed great importance on her marriage prospects, but she kept that to herself, wanting to bide her time. She lowered her head when matchmakers called, would not say yes and would not say no. If a candidate came to the house, she steadfastly refused to show her face, choosing instead to spend the day at a girlfriend’s house and not coming home until whoever it was had left. Actually being taken to a prospect’s house was out of the question, so her aunt was forced to go alone. I need to get the girl married, she’d think, or people might accuse her uncle and me of not caring enough about our niece’s future. So  when she returned home, she reported everything to Fu Ping: how the man had kind parents and well-behaved younger siblings, how the eldest of his younger sisters was already engaged, how the house was to be spruced up the next year, and so on. Still Fu Ping would not say yes and would not say no. Until, that is, Li Tianhua’s name was mentioned. On the day he showed up, instead of hiding, she stayed to cook a meal and prepare tea. Observing from beneath lowered eyelids, she saw a pair of black cloth shoes, held close together, not especially large

Q

2

Q

FU PING

and slightly narrow; the round, somewhat pointed tips were in sharp contrast to the white gauzy socks, and the arches were slightly elevated. Those were not the feet of a man who worked the fields, those wide, flat feet made for standing in mud and water. She could tell he was not someone who made a living by the sweat of his brow. Before long, the matchmaker brought the betrothal gifts. In addition to the usual knitting wool, fabrics, and colored thread, there was also some traveling money, which Nainai had included so the girl could see the sights of Shanghai. And that was how Fu Ping arrived at the house where Nainai worked. A grandmother she may have been, but she looked younger than Fu Ping’s aunt. Her hair was still black, and from the front it looked like a bun, though that was a result of how she tucked the short hair behind her ears. She wore a blue cotton jacket with long, looping buttons down the front and a mandarin collar. Nainai lacked the fair complexion of most city residents, but did not have the swarthy look of country folk either; rather, her skin had a faint yellow tinge. It was taut on a round, full face, but was not delicate—tough, perhaps, and resilient, but not old. Her hands, too, were like that, with large knuckles covered by skin that was starting to show its age. By this time, Nainai had nearly shed her hometown accent, but did not speak like a Shanghai native. It was more a hometown dialect with a Shanghai lilt. Her posture was erect, both when walking and when seated at the table or at work; but when she squatted down, she rested on her haunches, legs apart, the sign of a countrywoman. Nainai’s features, too, were like that: a nicely shaped, delicate face. She was somewhat portly, not at all the look of

Q

3

Q

FU PING

a countrywoman. But when she spoke, her lower lip protruded slightly, her upper lip hung back to reveal a glimpse of her teeth, and that did bear a faint resemblance to those trenchant village women. A youthful injury in the corner of one eye had not left a scar, but had formed a barely noticeable dimple in the corner. Sometimes, when she looked in a certain way, the dimple made her appear to be gazing at something out of the corner of her eye, and that lent her a slightly trenchant charm. All in all, though she’d lived in Shanghai for thirty years, Nainai had not been transformed into a true urbanite, and yet she was no longer a rustic; she was, instead, a hybrid—half urban, half rural. This half-and-half hybridity made her a special type. When she and women like her were out on the street, one look was all anyone needed to spot them for what they were: nannies. Back home in the Yangzhou countryside, leaving home to work as a nanny was a long-standing tradition. For some it was a permanent occupation, for others more temporary. Like Nainai, there were women from surrounding villages who had lived in Shanghai for years and become full-fledged, registered residents of the city. Most had been widowed young, or were married to shiftless, unreliable husbands, and had not delivered a son. That was the case with Nainai. Bereft of family support, these women were forced to be self-reliant. The longer they stayed away from home, the less often they returned. And when they did, the visit was usually short-lived. They were no longer used to their hometown environment, which habitually led to bouts of diarrhea or a rash, and that sent them right back, often bringing along another woman or two to find work in a city household. Sometimes they wrote letters home, urging one of

Q

4

Q

FU PING

the village women to come to Shanghai to find work. As time passed, large numbers of women from neighboring villages were living and working in Shanghai, most in the same general area. Since some of the employers were related, or at least acquainted, the women who worked for them saw one another often, something that made adapting to life away from home easier. Nainai had lived in Shanghai thirty years, virtually all that time on or near Huaihai Road in the flourishing Western District. Like all residents of a city’s urban core, she viewed the quieter outlying districts as inhospitable countryside. In reality, those outlying spots, such as Zhabei and Putuo, were where others from her hometown had congregated. Most were boat people who had come down on the Suzhou River as a result of wars or natural disasters. When they found a spot of unclaimed land, they threw up a rush tent, sort of like a boat cabin, and moved in. Then it was off to the factories to find work. They constituted at least half of Shanghai’s industrial workforce. But Nainai would not associate with those people. She had acquired the urbanite’s prejudice of viewing only Huaihai Road as the true Shanghai. After working in Western District homes for decades, Nainai had encountered every type of family imaginable, and that made her a woman of wide experience. She once worked for a Shaoxing opera actress who was under contract to play old women roles, for which she was given a regular, substantial salary. Her husband was a plastic surgeon in private practice. Childless, they owned a large flat in a building that catered to foreign nationals, with an Indian doorman and an elevator operator who spoke English. And so Nainai learned a few

Q

5

Q

FU PING

English phrases, “good morning,” “thank you,” “come,” “go,” and the like. She was not expected to cook or do laundry; her sole task was to clean the carved mahogany furniture, with its mother-of-pearl inlays, with a fine-bristled brush. She did not stay long, could not get used to the light work or the lack of human contact. Her next employer lived in a long lane at the eastern end of Huaihai Road, a typical family with lots of children, where the husband, who worked in a foreign company on the Bund, was the sole breadwinner. She shared household duties with the wife, which included looking after the children. The wife had a gaunt, sallow face and was a sloppy dresser, giving one the impression that she was the maid. Not a day passed that they didn’t worry about the family finances, and they were often late with her wages. Nainai hadn’t been there long when the husband was diagnosed with a lung disease and stayed home to recuperate. Despite the woman’s tearful pleas, Nainai gave notice, not only forgoing her last month’s wages, but even spending some of her own money to buy shirts and shorts for the children. Such a demoralized existence was not for her. She also worked for a middle-class family in which both husband and wife were employed and left their four children in her care. They were a loving couple; if anything, the husband was a little too caring with his wife for Nainai’s tastes. He had milk delivered daily and warmed it for her in the morning; if she complained about the smell, he spoon-fed her. His attentions to his wife came at the expense of his children, who were drawn to Nainai right after she arrived. She liked them in turn, partly because they were so well-behaved; yet she decided to give notice. She simply could not abide their father’s disgusting

Q

6

Q

FU PING

behavior. Having lost her own husband when she was quite young, she lived a chaste, widowed life, and could not bear to see a loving couple. But she hated having to part with the children, and even after she went to work for another family, they often came to see her; she introduced them to the children of her new employer as playmates, as friends. The two families lived in neighboring lanes, but the status of the new family’s lane, with its apartment buildings, was a couple of rungs above the old one. The husband was a doctor; it was, by then, post1949, so he had shuttered his private clinic and now served as the head of a municipal hospital, traveling to and from work in a chauffeured automobile. He was a stern man who never once spoke to Nainai, nor ate at the same table with her. Yet he was the sort of man she held in high regard, a gentleman. His wife was a good woman as well, genial, generous, never cozying up to her husband in front of her or the children. If only the children hadn’t been so insolent. The eldest, a girl, had barely started middle school and was already into modern fads—permanent waves, brassieres, wearing her mother’s nylons, and forever complaining that Nainai ruined her clothes by scrubbing them— truly, a spoiled young lady. Her two brothers were a little better, but still haughty. They ignored the children of her former employer when they came to play, practicing the piano instead, always a fast number, while their visitors shrank off to one side, a sight that hurt Nainai deeply. But they were, after all, children, who could not put on airs for long, and they were soon playing together. Then one day the husband came home early from work and noticed that someone else’s children were playing in his house. He said nothing at the time, but later had his

Q

7

Q

FU PING

wife tell Nainai to ask the children not to come anymore. Stung by this rebuff, a few days later she found an excuse to give notice. She, too, had her snobbish ways, but she also had her pride, and could not abide arrogance in anyone. She felt at ease in Shanghai, and was so self-assured that she chose her families, they did not choose her. And she was firm in her insistence to work only on Huaihai Road in the Western District, and only for Shanghai natives. She would never have considered working for speakers of the Shandong dialect, Party functionaries who came down from the north. Someone once referred her to an army commander in a Hongkou military compound. She went to take a look, and though the salary for taking care of the children was high, she chose not to take the job. The family lived in a sparsely furnished building, with waxed floors and a row of sofas against the wall, much like a government conference room. The kitchen was large, but the pots were empty and the stove cold. Not even water was boiled there; soldiers brought that over from a communal boiler. The family ate in not one but several dining halls, the commander in one, his wife—also in the military—in another, and the children in yet a third. Not what you’d call normal family life, and certainly not for her. She did not care for military surroundings either— they were not conducive to family life. So she walked out of the compound under an expanse of open sky, onto a similar expanse of open road. Not another person in sight, nor a single house, a bleak, dreary scene. Who can possibly live in a hellish place like this? she fussed. Back in the countryside at least there would be a pond with ducks and geese, and farmers in the field with their oxen. You walk around and soon you spot a village, with

Q

8

Q

FU PING

chimney smoke and clucking hens and swallows coming south to nest. Gaze into the distance, and you see one brick house after another. The coarse red bricks, fired just once, are porous and less sturdy than the green ones, but red creates a beguiling contrast to the lush green of the surrounding willows. Nainai was recalling all the colors in her country home when a passing army truck threw up a cloud of dust that coated her face and body, dreary dust from head to toe. Her homesickness had slackened by the time she was back in the vicinity of North Sichuan and Haining Roads, where the streets narrowed and shops, pedestrians, trolleys, and automobiles began to appear. Gazing down the lanes, she saw laundry drying and children playing, and she smelled cooking oil in the air. Here was a life she understood. The buildings in Hongkou were just too tall. Little balconies with black wrought-iron railings made the redbrick walls seen uncommonly big, too broad and too steep. That was true with the lanes, too—broad, big, and quite imposing, with vaguely oppressive verandas. The residents were a jumbled lot, with irregular features, an unsightly crowd that overshadowed the occasional attractive individual in its midst. This was a sight she could not bear. As she walked across the Haining Road Bridge at one of the wide stretches of the Suzhou River, she saw a congested cluster of ships sailing her way from upstream. Repelled by the stench rising from the river and the dampness carried on the wind, she did not feel at ease until she was back on Huaihai Road. When the new-style, relatively squat, shallow houses came into view, she could see all the way to the end of each narrow lane. They twisted and turned, with storefronts crowded up against each other on nicely

Q

9

Q

FU PING

proportioned byways. There were high-rises, but not like those at Hongkou, which had the fortified look of the Main Post Office; here the lobbies were only as wide as a single shop. Inside, elevators rose and fell in view of the people outside, with sunlight streaming in through stained-glass windows above the landings of a marble staircase beside the elevators. The elevator operators and the doormen were engaged in small talk, a word or two of their conversations reaching her ears as she passed. The street bustled with pedestrians, but they were orderly residents from the neighboring lanes for the most part, not a jumble of humanity. Everything was on a smaller scale, with interactive life that made it a good place for families. The locals simply looked better and were genteel, unlike Hongkou residents, who were sort of gruff. The locals knew how to dress, but were not slaves to fashion; precisely because they were familiar with the fads, they were staid, even a bit old-fashioned. Nainai walked along, no longer homesick. As we have seen, she had acquired the attitude of city residents, including their prejudices. Could anyone say she was not one of them? She was more familiar with the city than those young folks. Listen to her relate all the strange things she’d seen and heard, things you could never dream up. This street alone would have plenty of stories for you. Like the kidnapper who tapped a child on the head, causing him to lose his sense of direction, until all he saw was the street in front of him; he walked off with the man, right out of sight. Then there was the story of the ghost that cried in the middle of the night, and for this there was a name attached, that of a certain old woman from one of the lanes who heard it every night for a full half year, and then died. And there was

Q

10

Q

FU PING

the story of a wife who ran off with a servant, a woman who murdered her husband, and so on. Nainai knew lines from lots of dramatic offerings: The New Year’s Sacrifice, Wang Kui and Mu Guiying, The Butterfly Lovers, and Third Sister Yang on a Bed of Nails, most of the lines coming from popular local plays or Shaoxing opera. She could even sing a few of them! You can believe me or not, that’s up to you, but she had even seen Hollywood movies. Charlie Chaplin, for instance, she knew who he was. And she said his name like an American: Chap-lin. But she didn’t much care for American movies, mainly because of the happy endings; she preferred tragedies. The mere mention of one of the sad dramas had her in tears. Every child in her care had heard her tell stories that were perfectly suited to their youthful taste. She saw no need to faithfully follow a story line, preferring to hop from spot to spot, an episode here and an incident there, but always with powerful atmospherics, with a knack for exaggerating tales of horror and misery. In retelling The New Year’s Sacrifice, she focused on the scene in which Xianglin’s wife donates money for a threshold at the temple to avoid having her two husbands cleave her in half in the underworld. In Wang Kui and Mu Guiying it was the episode in which Mu Guiying returns from the grave, and in The Butterfly Lovers it was the final scene where the graves split open. The episode from Third Sister Yang on a Bed of Nails was particularly horrific. The children, their faces turned ashen from fright, would crowd around to listen and to tremble, and then beg her over and over, One more, tell us one more. Sometimes Nainai told stories from her country home. They, too, were horror stories, but another kind of horror, the rural

Q

11

Q

FU PING

kind. Filtered through her agrarian view of the world, they incorporated bewitching elements, and were not always simple and straightforward. That is why they sounded a bit like stage plays, filled with local color. One told of a beautiful bride in a phoenix headdress and embroidered cape who was being carried to her new home in a sedan chair in a colorful procession; when she raised her head and looked around, she bared her teeth, revealing the true image of a ghost. And with that she brought ill fortune into a peasant’s home. There was also the story of the little demon incarnate. All the offspring of a certain couple had died in infancy, never later than their first birthday, to the devastation of their parents. Then one day a medium advised them to cut the toes off the next child to be born so he could not walk to the door. They decided to take the advice: when the scissors were poised to cut off his toes, the latest infant’s eyes snapped open—they belonged to a grown-up! This was the story’s terrifying climax. Then there was the story of the dying man who spotted chain-carrying generals and soldiers sent by King Yama of the netherworld to lead him away. Nainai made the rattling of chains and the clanking of weapons horrifying yet impressive, investing her tale with the vibrancy of a theatrical martial arts battle. Those stories were all linked to Nainai’s own past. Widowed at a young age, the mother of two sons who had died one after the other, she accepted her lot as a woman born to suffer, preordained to seal the fate of her loved ones and destined to be self-reliant. After years of domestic work, she had accumulated some savings, but inadequate to outlast the requests for loans and handouts by a host of kin. Loans were really just handouts

Q

12

Q

FU PING

that sounded a bit nicer, for the money never found its way back. How many people she carried on her back! Her daughter was betrothed and her son-in-law wanted to attend high school, at her expense; she had to pay for clothing for her nephew, who was studying to be an actor with a county drama troupe, where the first three years provided only room and board; her younger sister’s husband was stricken with cholera and had needed an operation— again, her money. Now her grandson had a prospective wife, so naturally that meant she would have to spend more. When she’d decided to adopt a grandson, her old friends in Shanghai had tried to talk her out of it. Now she would be his support, but would the day come when he’d take care of her? She was merely adding another expense on top of all the others. The current family she worked for had also urged her not to do it, saying she was better off holding on to her money. They’d even taken her to a bank to open a savings account; then, if people from home came for a handout, she could tell them it was in the bank and had to stay there until the account matured. But she went ahead with the adoption anyway. The so-called grandson was in reality the grandson of her late husband’s elder brother. Her daughter was to be married this year, and when that happened, her brother-in-law would claim the family house. But with a grandson, even though the place would belong to her brother-in-law, it would serve as her home. When she was too old to work, she’d return to the countryside and move in, as reason and custom dictated. To plan for that day, she cleverly arranged for her daughter to marry a nephew in her elder brother’s family. That way, if her adopted grandson turned his

Q

13

Q

FU PING

back on her, her elder brother and his wife would have to take her in. Even after working in Shanghai for three decades and acquiring a Shanghai resident’s card, she had no choice but to plan a return to the countryside, and that was why she was willing to lend money, even give it away, with the hope that the grateful recipients would not abandon her when the time came for her to go home. For a while, rumors of an affair between her future son-in-law and his classmate reached her ears from the countryside, so she asked someone to write a letter to ask him if it was true. He wrote back, with a line that said, When one drinks from the well, one doesn’t forget the well digger. She knew he was just being sweet and clever, but it was heartwarming anyway. She was the well digger, wasn’t she?

Q

14

Q

Chapter Two

EMPLOYER

NAINAI WENT

to talk to the family before Fu Ping arrived. You

can deduct five yuan a month for what my grandson’s fiancée eats while she’s here, she said. It’s only one more pair of chopsticks, they replied generously, so there’s no need to talk about that. After all, she’ll eat what everyone else eats. Nainai would not have brought this up with them if she hadn’t been aware that they were good and decent people. The couple she worked for, officials in a government office, were also former members of the PLA; but since they were southerners—from the Jiangsu–Zhejiang region—they had little in common with those who had come south from Shandong. They had no trouble adapting to life in Shanghai. Under the tutelage of a nanny like her, they quickly learned how to eat and dress, and how to live like the locals. But there were differences: more open and relatively free of prejudices, they believed whatever Nainai told them. They had originally lived

FU PING

a more shared lifestyle, the sort that Nainai had seen in the compound at Hongkou: government housing, communal dining halls, children with assigned nannies, and no need to be concerned about household chores. Now they turned everything over to her and lived a carefree life. And since she ran the household, she found it easier to forgive some of their shortcomings. For instance, Mistress—Nainai used the old terms for her employers, something that took them a while to get used to— gave her all her dirty clothes to wash, including underwear, which clashed with her principles. As a widow, she avoided contaminated objects, as if she were a Buddhist nun, and there was definitely something unclean associated with soiled women’s underwear. But she went ahead and washed them, aware that someone like Mistress, with her military background, was not up on social etiquette, and that she would not have done that had she known. Besides, they treated her as a member of the family. When people from her Yangzhou village came to visit, rather than complain, Mistress actually greeted them with a friendly nod and had them stay for meals, which gave Nainai a great deal of face. She had worked in several households since coming to Shanghai, but this was her first new-style family, and she was happy with them. The generosity and open-mindedness of her new employer had no effect on Nainai’s work ethic. She worked as hard as ever, remained respectful, and treated her new employer in precisely the same manner as she had her old ones. She brought the man of the house hot water for him to wash his feet every night. A simple, laconic man, he paid even less attention to household affairs than did his wife. Seeing her carry in the basin of water

Q

16

Q

FU PING

unsettled him a bit, but since he could not stop her, he let her go ahead. After he washed his feet, she took the basin away to dump the water, and, over time, that settled into routine. On her own, Nainai also took some of the nicer clothes to the laundry and dye shop to be washed and ironed, since she was in charge of household expenses. When there were guests, she steeped and poured tea, as expected. But she did not always leave the room afterward, which was unexpected. Rather, she took a seat to the side, occupying herself with needlework as she listened to conversations between her employers and their guests; she frequently heard new and interesting things. Sometimes the conversation inspired her to add comments, which the guests found interesting, unique even. Most had military ties, and some were still on active duty. Steeped in the concept of equality, they never treated her as a servant. To them she was less a nanny than a spinster aunt or a widowed in-law. Many of the newly established residents of Shanghai, such as her employers, brought in unmarried relatives to help around the house. Theirs was a typical official’s family, one that could be both frugal and extravagant. They had no personal property, but both husband and wife earned respectably high salaries. They lived in a modern building on a Huaihai Road inner lane that boasted a large ground-floor room with a southern exposure and a smaller one with a northern exposure. A modest garden was attached to the larger room, intended for their use alone, but which they generously left open to others. Their next-door neighbor and the family upstairs were permitted to walk through their flat to get to the garden, where they put out their laundry to dry. The rooms had varnished floors and metal window

Q

17

Q

FU PING

frames. The housing authority waxed the floors once each season. Their agarwood furniture, either rented or borrowed from their work units, which came with numbered metal tags, rested upon the shiny, well-maintained slender floorboards. Their bed was made up with white sheets and a green army blanket brought over from their military quarters. The large room had no window covering, but since the smaller room, with its northern exposure, was their bedroom and faced the lane, patterned curtains hung at those windows. Over time more furniture was added. One was a wardrobe bought by the family upstairs. It was so big the movers had been unable to carry it up the stairs, after trying every imaginable angle, getting it only as far as the landing. When they asked their downstairs neighbors if they would be interested in buying it, they agreed on the spot, without even asking the price—they never worried about how much things cost. The wardrobe was an imposing piece of furniture, with an orange Chinese ash veneer and simple lines down the sides, a Western design with no feet and double doors that opened outward, with mirrors on the inside. One side was for hanging coats, the other had drawers. Truthfully, it did not match the family’s status, and would have looked better in the home of a bourgeois family that worshipped the West. Then they bought a sofa big enough for three. Nainai guessed its cost at a single glance. It had a chromed metal frame, streamlined wood armrests, and Simmons seats and cushions. She tested the tightly patterned springs with her hand, seeing how they produced a soft seat that bounced back after the occupant stood up. The cover was tightly stitched green velveteen, soft but sturdy. This sofa, she thought to herself, was the type owned

Q

18

Q

FU PING

by capitalists of former days, and it, like the wardrobe, seemed out of place, though it did give the room a lived-in feel. It no longer looked as if they’d be decamping on a moment’s notice. Later on, when Nainai asked for a table to prepare food, they moved the dining table they’d rented from their unit into the kitchen and went out to buy another table for meals. They’d learned how to economize by going to a consignment store, where they bought a table with four leather chairs. With her ability to spot quality, Nainai saw that it was an old walnut table with Chinese geometric patterns intricately carved on the sides and edges. But the color and veneer were Western, which made her wonder how bad things had to have gotten for the original owners to give up such a possession. At Nainai’s urging, the mistress bought a camphor chest. With this accumulated property, the place was furnished. Living among the citizens of Shanghai, they naturally came under their influence and accumulated what they needed for a long stay in the city. But food was at the center of their daily lives, and it was the major expenditure from their combined salaries. In Nainai’s eyes, they were willing to spend whatever it took to satisfy their robust appetites, even if, in her opinion, they were far from qualified gourmets. Every two or three days, for instance, they ate in a restaurant, and always at the same few places: the Renaissance Café, which served Western food and was just across the street; the Greenfield Sichuan and Yangzhou Restaurant; the Sunya Cantonese Restaurant; and the Hong Chang Xing Mutton Restaurant, the last two a bit farther from home, on Nanjing Road. That is not to say that these were not fine restaurants, but the family lacked discerning taste and relied

Q

19

Q

FU PING

mainly on reputation. They returned to the same places and ordered the same few dishes over and over, those with strong flavors and large portions. That too was a habit nurtured in the military—lots of fish and plenty of meat. Nainai’s specialty was Yangzhou cuisine, which suited their tastes, and by which, over time, she raised their standards. Yangzhou cuisine is known for being thoroughly cooked, with strong, penetrating flavors, prepared with meticulous care and delicate ingredients over a slow fire. Nainai cooked country-style, with a liberal use of condiments, especially soy sauce, dishes with a rough finish. To them it was the epitome of fine dining. That was why they frequently had dinner guests, all of whom were won over by Nainai’s culinary skills. The couple had a large circle of friends, many of them military, forthright, warm, and friendly people who sat down at the dinner table as soon as they arrived and were ready to eat. And so, they hosted a dinner party every three or four days and a banquet once a week or so, instilling their life with spectacular vitality. When both were on assignment or headed down to the countryside, Nainai was left with the two children at home, and things quieted down appreciably. When she came to work for the family, the elder girl was in the first grade, the younger one stayed home, steadfastly refusing to go to kindergarten once Nainai arrived. The school was at the end of the lane, so between classes, the elder girl ran home for a glass of water or a biscuit before racing back in time for the next class. Nainai would take the younger girl down the lane to wait for her sister when school let out, and the two of them would buy a plateful of pan-fried baozi from the “Shandong old-timer” who sold them out of a

Q

20

Q

FU PING

shack he lived in at the lane entrance. Nainai ate the charred bottoms, saving the skins and filling for the little girl. The Shandong old-timer wasn’t all that old, about the same age as Nainai, perhaps in his late thirties. But he wore old-style clothes— the baggy pants with leg ties worn in his hometown—shaved his head, and was slightly humpbacked. The little mistress and her nanny were two of his favorite customers; he often stood off to the side to watch them eat their portions, bite after bite, a wistful look in his eyes, sometimes even a bit misty. Could Nainai have reminded him of a wife back home, or did the little girl conjure up an image of his own children? The elder girl would show up when the baozi had been finished off, and if she was late, Nainai would go to the school and say to her teacher, Can you tell me why our little friend isn’t out yet, Madam Teacher? Has she been kept after school? Nainai generally favored older forms of address, such as “Mistress” and “Madam Teacher,” but she was also adept at using new terms like “little friend.” Holding the younger girl’s hand, she would walk into the classroom pointed out by “Madam Teacher.” Usually, the elder girl was on cleaning duty, manning a broom along with some of her classmates, sending dust flying. With her hand over her nose, Nainai would walk up and snatch the broom out of her hand. You naughty girl! she would complain. These were clean clothes, and now I’ll have to wash them again! The girl would stomp her foot angrily, more than once, but soon quiet down and walk out of the classroom to wait. Nainai would quickly sweep the girl’s assigned part of the floor and walk outside, where she would dust herself off, take both children by the hands, and head home.

Q

21

Q

FU PING

And so, Nainai became familiar enough with the school at the end of the lane that she could simply walk into the classroom; and the teachers and students became just as familiar with her, calling her so-and-so’s aunty. Students would turn their heads and say to so-and-so, Your aunty’s here! The minute the elder girl spotted her, she invariably stomped her foot angrily to show displeasure over interference in her life at school. Unfazed, Nainai would stuff some sugar-fried chestnuts or a piece of cake into the girl’s hand. And sometimes she simply went to see if the girl was listening to her teacher and not acting up. One day the girl came home in a boastful mood, bragging about a spring outing at Renaissance Park the following afternoon. Her sister began to bawl at the news, since she would miss the chance of going to the park. Don’t cry, Nainai said, I’ll take you tomorrow. She was especially fond of the younger girl, not because she had any better qualities than her sister, but because she was home with her all day long, and that drew them closer. The next day, after the girl’s nap, she took her to the park as promised, and actually found the elder girl, who was sitting in a circle with some classmates as their teacher led them in a game of toss the hanky. Nanny and the little girl sat behind her and opened a kerchief that held washed apples, biscuits, and candy. The elder girl turned and glared at them to get them to move, but when she saw what they’d brought, she reached out for some of the treats. When it was over, the spring outing gained two tails— one big and one small—that followed them all afternoon. Sometimes, the grown-ups decided to take their children to a movie or a restaurant, and if the elder girl was still in school, Nainai went to get permission from the teacher to

Q

22

Q

FU PING

take her out of class early. She would stand respectfully, but not obsequiously, in front of the teacher, clasped hands held in front, explaining the situation with such clear logic that the teacher would have been hard-pressed to say no. As a woman of the world, Nainai intimidated the younger teachers. But she treated one of the older teachers with great respect, both for the knowledge she’d acquired and for her understanding of human interactions. Whenever that teacher saw Nainai, she stopped to have a cordial chat. On one occasion, when the teacher saw the girl stomp her foot for Nainai’s benefit, she told her she mustn’t be disrespectful of her elders. That had the desired effect. The teacher also liked to pat the younger girl on the head and ask how old she was, when she’d be starting school, and if she wanted to attend the same school as her sister. From the janitor, Uncle Youming, with whom Nainai had become friendly, she learned that the teacher was unmarried and lived alone. As a sign of her experience, she asked, Is she a Catholic nun? Uncle Youming said no. Nainai sighed. How could an educated woman have such a hard life? She was sympathetic toward a woman who devoted her life to the education of youngsters and had no home of her own. That preyed on her mind. The girls spent more time with Nainai than they did with their mother, and over time they patterned their behavior after her. They preferred soft pastel colors, flowers, the fragrance of toilet water, beady plastic hairpins, and Shaoxing opera. The actors’ bright painted faces and costumes, their stylized movements and singing, and the romanticized stories fascinated them. Among their favorite toys were some beads displayed in

Q

23

Q

FU PING

a glass case at the local toy store. The unique style and fine quality made these particular beads quite costly. Another type, used to make beaded purses and flowers, were cheaper and were available mainly at the City God Temple, where they were sold by weight out of barrels. Both poorer in quality and quite a bit darker, they could be bought in great quantities. The sisters owned both kinds, coarse and fine, all mixed together and kept in three or four small aluminum pails. How did they play with them? They strung them together with needle and thread to make ornaments like those worn by Shaoxing opera actors, then draped them over their ears, tied them to their hair, or wore them around their necks and wrists, where they clicked and tinkled when they stood on their beds to perform opera. The flaps of overhead mosquito netting during the summer months were parted and tied to the sides, like an opera stage, for a pair of little imps, draped with jewelry and towels that served as wide, flowing water sleeves, to mimic performers singing opera. They could play this game only behind their mother’s back. As a woman with a military background, for whom proper deportment was paramount, she could not abide this sort of childish behavior. If she saw it, she shouted at them to stop acting like little imps. What might happen when they were just getting into their roles was Nainai would quietly interrupt their “performances” with news that “Your mother’s home.” They would bring the opera to an abrupt end, scramble down off the bed, and remove their costumes. But the minute their mother was out the door again, they were back in costume and onstage, ready to start anew. After Nainai finished her chores and could rest, she would bring a chair up to the bed, sit down, and work

Q

24

Q

FU PING

on her embroidery as she enjoyed their antics. Any time a Shaoxing opera movie came to town, she was sure to take them to see it. So when she heard that Chasing Fish was going to be shown in color, she took the younger girl with her to stand in a line that had begun forming early in the morning, before the ticket window had opened. There was a four-ticket limit for each person in line. Nainai had the girl sit there on a stool while she ran home to start breakfast and do the laundry, returning frequently to see if the ticket window had opened and if the line had moved. She brought something for the girl to eat on each trip before returning to the kitchen. The little girl sat patiently in line until the ticket window opened, when she got down off the stool, held it in front of her, and moved up with the line, one slow step at a time. Nainai managed to buy four tickets by noontime. Then the little mistress and her nanny walked home with their purchase, red in the face from excitement. Three of the tickets were for them, the fourth for the nanny upstairs, who was so grateful she bought them some of her semitransparent “crystal baozi.” On the day of the movie, Nainai walked excitedly to the theater, holding the girls by the hand. When they arrived, the previous showing had not let out, and the entrance swarmed with people for the next showing, mostly housewives and nannies, especially the latter, all chattering in hometown dialects as they noisily waited for their turn. The girls held tightly to Nainai’s hands as they squeezed in among the crowd, afraid that something might happen at the last minute. But finally, the doors opened and they entered the theater, where the lights went down and the screen lit up with colorful images. At that moment they were enveloped in blissful contentment.

Q

25

Q

FU PING

The days passed happily. Nainai had a wonderful relationship with the sisters. The girls shared a weakness: they were prone to tooth decay, owing mainly to all the sweets they ate, and it was up to Nainai to take them to the dental clinic to have their cavities filled, so often that she and the dentists became friendly. People tended to notice when the three of them were out on the street. The woman was always neat, tidy, and wellspoken; the girls, however, though neatly dressed and well-fed, behaved differently. The elder girl was quick to speak, her sister was slower but more caustic. Since she was the younger of the two, she was usually the one people liked to tease, saying the sorts of things people often say about young children: She can’t be her parents’ natural child. I wonder where they found her. Things like that. Her sister was always ready to add her comments. At first, the little girl took it in stride and ignored the comments. But too much of that soon had her in tears. Nainai would rush to her defense, and the talk would turn to questions about the family she worked for. Never one to reveal the sorts of things they hoped to hear, Nainai took pains not to offend them in the process. Most of the dentists at the clinic had vagabond airs; their speech was riddled with boastful, exaggerated talk, slightly on the vulgar side, but often quite witty. So the girls went to have their teeth worked on, but also for a bit of fun, which kept them there a little longer. When a patient came in to have a tooth pulled, out would come the novocaine syringe, the tweezers, and little mallets, scaring one adult and two little girls right out of the clinic. By the time the younger girl started school, her sister was in fourth grade, and changes began to occur. Both girls had grown,

Q

26

Q

FU PING

as had their tempers, especially the younger one, who wasn’t nearly as close to Nainai as she had been, nor as quiet. Now she was more likely to argue with Nainai than her elder sister, and fonder of stomping her foot. Always eager to outdo others, she followed school rules to the letter, which made for considerable pressure. She insisted on being awakened early enough to be at school in time to line up the desks and chairs, wipe the blackboard, and start morning readings. One morning she overslept, and bawled like a baby, faulting Nainai for not waking her up. She ran off to school that day without breakfast. In fact, it was nearly an hour before classes were to start. When she moved into the second grade, in order to get permission to join the Young Pioneers, she decided to start washing her own clothes, though she did not know how to go about it. So she settled for washing her handkerchiefs and socks. Discouraged to begin with, when she came home from school one day and saw Nainai washing her handkerchief and socks, she shrieked and rushed at her, reaching into the soapy water to retrieve her things as if rescuing them from a fire, and burst into tears again. She treated everything with unchildlike seriousness, which put on edge not only her nerves but those of people around her as well. The tense moods affected her looks, since she walked around all day long with a scowl. Her elder sister, on the other hand, began acting like a fastidious young mistress from a proper family, choosing what to wear with great care, and always putting on clean clothes, even on overcast days. She insisted that her clothes be folded so neatly they looked newly pressed. Ever since the girl was little, Nainai had habitually combed her hair into braids during the children’s breakfast, always in a style she

Q

27

Q

FU PING

liked, with her favorite ribbons or hair ornaments. Now, however, she complained that Nainai’s way made her look like a peasant. No longer did either sister pattern her likes and dislikes after Nainai. Now they preferred fresh new things and colors, and had no interest in playing Shaoxing opera. The beads they’d once treasured were carelessly left here and there, until they were all gone. Since the girls could have practically anything they wanted, they tended not to take care of their things, and when they said they didn’t want them anymore, that would be the end of it. Little by little, their fickle nature began to show. Living in the noisy world of a big city, as they had all their lives, a sort of capricious approach to life may have been inevitable. Truth is, the girls lacked a solid foundation. They had military parents, but grew up amid nannies and maids; on top of that, they were exposed day and night to the sights and sounds of urban petty bourgeois life, making it difficult to live by any set of rules. There were times when the girls made Nainai angry enough to complain to their mother: If it were anyone but you, Mistress, she’d say, I’d give notice! After doing her best to placate Nainai, the girls’ mother would straighten her daughters out, demanding that they stop acting like privileged capitalists and throwing their weight around. What’s a capitalist? Someone who goes around calling an “aunty” “amah.” That is so vulgar! They might not have known the meaning of “vulgar,” but during those days, they knew enough to hold “capitalists” in contempt. Fu Ping showed up at their house just as they reached the age when they opposed Nainai in everything.

Q

28

Q

Chapter Three

FU PING

FU PING

had a round face. Not thinly round, like a lotus leaf, but

thick and slightly puffy. As a result, she looked less lively, less quick-witted, than most people with round faces. Small, single-fold eyes added to the dullness of her appearance. She had a small, rounded nose and mouth, both on the thick side, which increased this look of dullness. When she first arrived from the countryside, her cheeks were red, her skin rough and wrinkled, but well toned and solid. Either because she was new to the city or simply wasn’t much of a talker, she had little to say. But she paid close attention to what was said around her, keeping her eyes fixed on you when you talked. And when that happened, you would see beneath the dull exterior a keen expression just below the surface, as well as a light in her eyes. The redness in her cheeks faded as her days in Shanghai added up, and while her skin appeared at first glance to be fair, it was actually a pale yellow, which gave her a shrewd look. She kept

FU PING

her hair short, nearly covering her ears, parted on the side and clasped on the longer side with a plastic peacock feather ornament—a little spot of pink on green. After moving in with Nainai, she spent most of each day head down, engaged in needlework. With Nainai’s shallow sewing basket on her knees, she made clothes for Nainai, as well as for herself, from a length of colorful fabric Nainai bought for her. She spent some of the time darning the children’s socks, sewing on buttons, and doing a bit of delicate needlework. She had worked with needle and thread as a farm girl, but only on coarse material that did not require fine work. So Nainai taught her a number of sewing techniques and styles: a simple back and forth stitch, a herringbone stitch, hems with invisible stitches, and buttonholes of all types—vertical, fancy, double stitched, and hidden—enough to keep her busy practicing for quite a while. She had short, stubby fingers and thick, strong wrists that peeked out from her sleeves. With her head down, her hair fell forward, exposing the nape of her neck and a bit of her upper back, which were also thick and strong looking; it was a fleshy back. She was still young, and years of hard work had left her with well-developed muscles and a tight bone structure, a well-proportioned appearance. Nainai was thinking how farsighted her daughter-in-law had been to seek out a hardworking girl like this for Nainai’s rather delicate grandson, a true helpmate. Fu Ping’s clothes all seemed too small; they clung to her body. The backs of her blouses and jackets hung just above her buttocks, her collars were pulled in back. The sleeves fell to an inch or two above her wrists, about the same distance as her pant legs from her ankles. She wore blue-dyed cloth shoes, with

Q

30

Q

FU PING

a cross strap. Given all that tight clothing, she exhibited a garish rural flair. Her movements, like her expressions, were slow, even a little wooden. But this “wooden” bearing exuded strength. Her movements were vigorous and effective, so while she may have appeared “wooden,” she was anything but sluggish. The job of buying and bringing home rice fell to her shortly after her arrival. With a securely tied fifty-jin sack of rice on her left shoulder, she kept her left hand on her hip and held the front of the sack with her right as she stepped nimbly down the lane. That too exhibited a garish rural flair. City girls would never spread their limbs like that, nor would they walk in that crisp, bouncy manner, almost like a stage actor’s gait. All this lent Fu Ping a certain charm, which came not from her looks or her manner, but from how she carried herself, the way she moved, and how she did things. This was inseparable from her Yangzhou country background, from her youth, and from her sex, naturally. Fu Ping held Nainai in awe because she was Li Tianhua’s grandmother. She had met him on two occasions, but they had never spoken. He seemed to her quite remote. Now she spent all her time in the company of his Nainai, even sharing her bed at night. She could feel Nainai’s warmth and smell the oil she used on her hair, her bath soap, and her face cream. A fairly small bed, intended originally for Nainai alone, it had been pushed into the corner where the northern and eastern walls met. The door was in the western wall, while a table for thermoses, a cold-water jug, and a tea service sat between it and the bed. A larger bed rested against the southern wall, more to the west than the east, where a door led out to the little garden. That

Q

31

Q

FU PING

bed was for the family’s two girls. Many objects separated the two beds: a sofa and cupboard by the eastern wall; a chest of drawers and a camphor chest by the western wall; a square table, leather-upholstered chairs, and several low stools in the middle of the room. Yet even with all that, the room did not feel cramped or cluttered, and there was little danger of bumping into things just by walking around. From half a room away the girls would talk back to Nainai or make fun of her Yangzhou accent and her unsophisticated view of the world, laughing so hard they’d roll around in bed. Their excitement and madcap behavior had as much to do with the stranger, Fu Ping, as anything. Being overactive was a trait they shared with Nainai. As a relatively guileless woman, she was not as concerned about the generational difference between her and Fu Ping as was the younger woman. She proudly dug down to the bottom of her chest to show Fu Ping a fur-lined padded jacket she’d managed to purchase after saving for years, along with silky cotton and camel hair fabric. She also wore gold earrings, and when Fu Ping looked at them from the side, glinting bright yellow, though her expression may have been “wooden,” her heart raced. At night, after the lamps were out, moonlight and the shadows of trees entered the room through the uncovered window. Her ears filled with lighthearted banter between Nainai and the girls. Since this was a game they played, as someone who had just arrived, she had no way of appreciating what was going on. Besides, the Shanghai dialect was still new to her, so what she actually heard was lively yet incomprehensible noise darting back and forth. If only they could have seen her face at that moment. It had come alive with a shiny patina. She lay on her

Q

32

Q

FU PING

side, head tilted down, hair pulled behind her ear to expose a cheek, giving her a wholesome look. Since she had not done any hard work during the day, she wasn’t tired, was, in fact, quite spirited. The room’s furniture, which seemed luxurious in the dark, emitted a faint luminescence. The visible patterns in the hardwood floor were like water ripples. It would be wrong to characterize Fu Ping as wooden at that moment, for she had been all eyes and ears; though she did not grasp the significance of everything that was going on, she caught the gist. Each day brought something new or led to a new appreciation of something old, and she fell into a deep sleep each night with newly gained impressions. Though she was not especially tired, her young body easily followed the natural rhythms of life: she had a good appetite and slept well, night after night, even snoring softly. The faint shadows of tree branches etched onto her cheek added a winsome look to her face. Nainai occasionally spoke to Fu Ping about her grandson. That is how she referred to Li Tianhua. My grandson is an honest boy, Nainai would say, not to mention sensible. He’d been a good student, too, and if not for the fact that all those younger siblings made it necessary for him to go home and start working, she’d have been happy to support him for a few more years of schooling. Keeping her head down, Fu Ping refrained from commenting, making it impossible to tell if she was even listening. Nainai went on, My grandson came for a visit once. The mistress liked him at once; she chatted with him, asking how things were out in the countryside and what plans he had for the future. After all her fine words about her grandson, Nainai finished with the comment, When the time comes, he’ll be the

Q

33

Q

FU PING

one to take care of me. Then, whether or not Fu Ping had been listening, Nainai got up and went into the kitchen to start cooking. How could Fu Ping have missed Nainai’s point in telling her all this? That day, however, was far off, as far as she was concerned, and who knew what might happen between now and then? On this point, Fu Ping was different from most girls from the countryside. In her view, everything was subject to change, nothing was ever permanent. Some of the neighborhood’s older women and their nannies, who had seen enough people to know what they were truly like, said privately to Nainai that Fu Ping, unlike her grandson, seemed crafty, almost willful. Nothing, they said, escaped those lively eyes. There was no denying the perceptive abilities of these women, who could spot the liveliness in the eyes of an otherwise wooden expression. These women could be forgiven for a slightly far-fetched reading of the girl, since they could not bear to have anyone underestimate their keen insight in such matters, and the one thing they were good at was stirring up trouble. But it would have been wrong to discount their judgment; they had unusual backgrounds, so what they said might be credible. Nainai was less calculating, and was easily influenced. She took most everything they said to heart, and then worried about it. One night, she recalled, after the girls had worn themselves out and were fast asleep, Fu Ping disturbed the quiet with an abrupt laugh. What’s so funny? Nainai had asked. Fu Ping would not say. At the time, Nainai had thought nothing of it, but now, in retrospect, it did seem as if the girl was a bit craftier than she ought to be. Might she someday be unkind to her grandson? She decided to find out. Aren’t you going to write

Q

34

Q

FU PING

home? she asked Fu Ping one day. You can ask the elder girl to write a letter for you. She writes very well. My uncle and aunt don’t miss me, Fu Ping replied. Hard to tell if it was intentional, but she had interpreted Nainai’s grandson’s “home” as her aunt and uncle’s place. So Nainai told the elder girl to write a letter to Nainai’s daughter-in-law and then asked Fu Ping if there was anything she wanted to tell them. Fu Ping kept her head down and said nothing. The second time she was asked, she replied with a question of her own. What could I have to tell them? By this time, the young scribe was getting impatient and grumbled for them to let her wrap up the letter so she could go out and play. Nainai gave up. She tried a few more times, but got nothing out of Fu Ping and felt somehow that she had been outmaneuvered. Nainai had gained firsthand experience of her “craftiness.” In the past, Nainai had taken the girls to the movies. Now that was Fu Ping’s responsibility. But neither of the girls listened to her, acted up instead, refused to let her hold their hands, and, rushing ahead, hoped she’d chase after them the way Nainai had done; that way they could find a place to hide, either in one of the shops or behind a tree. It was a game both Nainai and they had always enjoyed, turning the short distance from their house to the cinema into a playground. They would pass a general store, a furniture store, a prepared-food shop, a photographer’s studio, a lane intersection, a tailor shop, and a mediumsized dry goods shop before crossing a narrow street to reach the cinema. Crossing the street was the reason the mistress had insisted that Nainai accompany the girls instead of letting them go on their own. Knowing that the adults did not want them

Q

35

Q

FU PING

to cross the street was all the incentive they needed to try it. Like children everywhere, games with an element of danger excited them. So when they neared the intersection, like athletes spotting the finish line, they let out excited screeches, yanked their hands out of Nainai’s, and ran at full speed, one this way, the other that way, making it impossible for her to deal with them both. By the time she reached the other side, in full panic mode, the girls were nowhere to be seen. So she backtracked, just as the two little imps sneaked up behind her from their hiding place in a little shop, and nearly frightened her out of her wits when they shouted. They hadn’t crossed the street at all, they hadn’t dared to, and only wanted to trick her into thinking they had. After they had played the same trick on Nainai more than once, there was no need for her to be anxious over their impish behavior. But she was. Every time they pulled it on her, she stomped her foot, worried sick. And that, of course, was why they never tired of it. Taking in a movie without Nainai lost much of its appeal. Once, when she was in the hospital with appendicitis, the children went to the movies and to the home of their English tutor alone. They were, their mother reminded them, to hold hands and cross streets with adults. All the familiar sights and sounds were suddenly new and strange, and everything seemed cold and hard. One day, as they were on their way home, they spotted someone up ahead, hands stretched out like an eagle’s talons about to swoop down and snatch a chick off the ground. They ran up—it was Nainai! They let go of their hands and rushed to her. The younger one had a delayed reaction; she simply grabbed Nainai’s hand and wouldn’t let go, while the elder child threw herself into Nainai’s arms and

Q

36

Q

FU PING

burst out crying. Nainai’s tears quickly followed, and the three of them walked home, arm in arm. Fu Ping never cared for their little games. She would not run after them when they sprinted away, and never showed surprise when they sneaked up from behind and tried to scare her. Deflated by her lack of involvement, they fell behind and lumbered along, arms around each other’s shoulders and passing uncomplimentary judgment on Fu Ping, who refused to so much as turn back to look. She let them do whatever they wanted. But when they reached an intersection, they had to take their places on each side, holding her hands as they crossed the street to reach the cinema. Once inside, they sat impatiently waiting for the lights to dim and the movie to begin. In their eyes, Fu Ping was no fun at all and had no feelings for them. She stared at the screen with a blank look, and what she was thinking was anyone’s guess. Truth is, Fu Ping was not nearly as complicated as people thought, and did have trouble handling the two young imps. Nothing got past the locals, who must have been fed something special to produce such glib tongues and quick reactions. She never could figure out what they had in mind or what their actions were all about. And so, as far as she was concerned, they could boast a witty exterior and little else. Then there were the crafty-eyed amahs and nannies who spoke as if they were imparting the wisdom of the ages, but what were they really like? Fu Ping had no idea. Yet unlike Nainai, she was neither weak nor easily influenced. No, she formed her own views. Familiarity with the street beyond the lane came gradually as she carried out chores for Nainai—buying one thing or

Q

37

Q

FU PING

another, or taking the youngsters to the cinema. For her, walking along the street was like strolling through the Dragon King’s Crystal Palace, not a speck of dirt to be found and glitzy lights all around. All well and good, as she saw it, but a world apart from hers, one that played but a small role in her life. She liked the look of all those modern young people, but they somehow did not seem quite real, like characters in a movie or a play. The clothing in display windows was equally unreal in her eyes. Fashionable, but not wearable, unless you wanted to look like a freak. She preferred the portraits in the photography shop window, since they were so lifelike; they appealed to her sense of reality—transcendent visions of real people. But what truly fascinated her were places like the fabric shop, with its three-bay shop front, where bolts of fabric on the display cases and racks made her feel at home, almost like meeting someone you know. She often stopped to watch the clerk unroll a bolt of fabric, sending it bouncing on the counter to make loud thumps. Then a pair of scissors made a small opening on the double-folded fabric, and the desired length was separated from the bolt with a hiss. Then came the clicking of abacus beads, and when the price was tallied up, the next thing Fu Ping saw were the money and the sales slip being fastened onto a metal clip to send to the cashier, followed by the sound of the clip swishing back along a wire to reach the hand of the clerk. By then the purchase had been rolled up, wrapped in paper, and tied with fine ribbon. The transaction was complete. The mix of sounds had a stimulating effect on Fu Ping, who was also drawn to the tobacco shop across the street, another place that made her feel at home. The proprietress rested against the counter as she ate out of a fine

Q

38

Q

FU PING

blue-edged porcelain bowl; when a customer entered, she tucked her chopsticks under the bowl, held both in one hand, and handled the purchase with the other. She greeted familiar passersby, who paused to chat. A tailor shop at the head of a lane a dozen or so paces from the tobacco shop was home to an elderly dressmaker and her apprentice. A northerner herself, the dressmaker spoke the Shanghai dialect with a northern accent. Her apprentice, somewhat feebleminded from the look of her, was a big girl with a bulbous red nose who stammered badly; but that did not impact her skills at the sewing machine. They worked in a tiny space, no more than ten square feet between a wall and a window to the street, which filled the interior with light. Anyone walking by the lane instinctively glanced inside. Fabric was piled up on a counter close to a pair of whirring sewing machines. Fu Ping saw it all, the world of labor and food below the Crystal Palace, and that helped erase the barrier between her and the bustling street. Over time she got to know some of the people who lived on this block. While there was usually a good deal of pedestrian traffic, there weren’t many regulars, and after a while she recognized some of the faces. One belonged to a slender, reasonably attractive woman with wavy hair whose looks were spoiled by an unhealthy appearance, an unhappy look. Most of the time she wore a white woolen cardigan over a Western-style skirt and carried a handbag, like a schoolteacher or an office worker. But she was outside rushing around when most people were at work. Fu Ping also regularly saw a moon-faced older woman with a Ningbo accent and large eyes. She knew many of the people on the street, greeting and stopping to chat with them in a loud,

Q

39

Q

FU PING

clear voice as she made her way along. She was hardly ever without something in her hand, a grocery basket or a wok, for instance. Then there was the old man with a long face who had the look of a peasant— dark skin, gaunt, somewhat stooped, with closely cropped hair. But the greasy apron around his waist showed that he was a clerk in the local sauce and pickle shop. Sometimes he’d be carrying an empty oil container, at other times it would be a vat, and once she spotted him with a bowl of peanut paste, carefully covered by oil paper. He was being followed by a little girl in tears. Someone had walked off with the change from her purchase, and he was going home with her to explain to her parents what had happened. There was a sallow-faced pair of twin girls who appeared to have suffered their confinement in the womb and ended up with frighteningly narrow seams of faces. Though still in school, they wore the looks of impatient adults, grumbling as they cast sidelong glances at people. Then there was a bound-foot old woman from the Northeast who dressed all in black, including a black cap with a jade ornament sewn into the front. Her face was pockmarked. A woman like that would be out of place in Fu Ping’s Yangzhou village, but she blended in fine on a Shanghai street. No one found her appearance odd, and certainly not worth a second look. Though she carried the heavy smell of onions, garlic, and yeast, and spoke the local language of the Northeast, people stopped to talk to her from time to time. It was a street on which all sorts of laboring residents, people who held down a variety of jobs, mingled comfortably to produce a richness that opened up new worlds for Fu Ping.

Q

40

Q

FU PING

She found life on her Shanghai street far more interesting than any movie. Unlike Nainai, she never cried or was moved by what she saw on the screen; she needed no reminder that it was make-believe and unworthy of her tears. When the other amahs and nannies shared their views of movies and plays, Fu Ping listened inattentively, but she paid close attention when they talked about the families they worked for. The extent of  these women’s knowledge was impressive, and she had to admit that they were well-informed. She learned the richly complex histories of local families, each of which possessed a story worthy of characters in a movie or a play. Village life seemed to never change, not for generations, and one family was very much like all the others. Not here, where backgrounds were different, where every story was filled with unique twists and turns. She had thought that everyone in Shanghai lived a life of ease and comfort until she realized how hard it was to make a living in a city. People in Shanghai were proof of that. But she could also see that not everything was a struggle, that losses could be offset by gains. Since she was good at carefully following the women’s fragmented talk, she learned not only who they were as individuals, but also how they were related. She only listened, keeping her questions to herself. By then she could understand the Shanghai language and could even guess the meanings of local sayings and slang. When they covered their ears or cupped their hands over their mouths, the looks on their faces gave her a pretty good idea what they were talking about. Not only were they given to talking about local families, they did not shy from gossiping about one another. Each

Q

41

Q

FU PING

represented a story of great complexity. One day Nainai took the children to see a dentist, leaving Fu Ping alone at home. As she was sitting at a table gluing on shoe soles, some neighborhood amahs and nannies were having a gossip session in the hallway. She heard snatches of the conversation, and soon realized that they were talking about Nainai! Her hands began to shake, not from anger, nor from surprise, as the image of Nainai’s full-figured profile, gold earring and all, materialized in front of her eyes, and at that moment she realized that Nainai cut quite a handsome figure.

Q

42

Q

Chapter Four

LÜ FENGXIAN

LÜ FENGXIAN,

a native of Suzhou, was a neighborhood stand-

out. Endowed with long, curved eyebrows, a prominent nose, and lovely eyes, she appeared poised and graceful, and if she’d had her long hair fashionably waved, and dressed in a qipao, hers would have been the traditional beauty of a calendar girl from an earlier era. She lacked, however, the gentility of one of those early beauties, and, in fact, wore a disagreeable look. A daytime nanny, she lived alone in one of the lanes in a house apparently left to her by a former employer who had come to the city as a bride from a place in Suzhou called Mudu and had brought her along as a maidservant. Her life had revolved around brushing her mistress’s hair, doing needlework, and occasionally going into the kitchen to prepare some Suzhou food. In 1948, when the family was relocated to Hong Kong, she was invited to go along if she wished. Hard though it was to be separated from her mistress, her image of Hong Kong was a replica of Fuzhou

FU PING

Road, where Cantonese women in wooden clogs walked noisily along the cobblestone road. Hot and humid, in her mind, it was known for the spread of athlete’s foot, a malady everyone called Hong Kong foot. She thought of her mother and father back in Mudu, where, thanks to the money she’d regularly sent home, they had opened a shop that sold funeral paraphernalia. Certain that she would return one day, her mother would not let her shop fall into the hands of her elder brother and his wife. So Fengxian told her mistress that she would rather stay in Shanghai, along with the family’s cook and chauffeur. The cook stayed in the house with his wife and children, but the chauffeur found work in a taxi company and left the big, empty house to her and to the cook and his family, who shared one room. Not happy to eat with the family, she cooked for herself and, since the situation outside was precarious, did not dare go look up her hometown sisters to relax a bit, which kept her indoors, lonely and on edge. At first, she’d bothered to air out the place and do some dusting, but gave up after a while and kept the doors and windows shut, so as to get by with less frequent dusting. Before long, dust accumulated on the banister and cobwebs formed in corners. She got into the habit of sleeping in late. Since her room faced west, onto a path connecting the rear courtyard with the front garden, she could hear the cook’s wife methodically sweep up fallen leaves, and as time wore on, she began to regret not accompanying her mistress to Hong Kong. The lonely days ended when the Red Army entered the city and took over the house as a government office. They kept the cook on and let him and his family stay, but she was forced to take lodging in a third-floor garret down the lane, where she

Q

44

Q

FU PING

found work with nearby families. She had reached the age of twenty-five, a bit old to remain unmarried during those days, but not because she had no opportunities. The chauffeur who had worked for the family came to see her, neatly dressed in a tunic and matching trousers, his sleek hair parted in the middle. Even his black leather shoes were polished. By then he had been taken on as a driver for a government office. He was three years her senior and had a steady job, by all accounts a perfect match. But, put off by a golden tooth that made him look like a playboy, she refused his offer of marriage. Another suitor, a man in Mudu who was a year younger than she and owned a little furniture shop, came with the blessings of her parents. She had seen him back in her hometown, and though he lacked polish and modern airs, he was neat and clean. But the thought that his shop was next to the family’s paraphernalia shop worried her that he might have designs on her place. It was too risky. Any woman who held a claim on property had to be vigilant. Besides, she’d gotten used to being on her own and managed quite well without a man. And so, unmarried she remained, one year, two years, and then three. Two more years passed. Mudu was brought into the fold of the joint state-private ownership system, and shops big and small were handed over to the state. Although there was no change in the operation of many of these shops, salaries were now paid to the onetime owners, who were no longer entitled to profits earned. Her parents’ shop was forced to close, since it  dealt in items linked to superstition, thereby ending Lü Fengxian’s plans for the future. Fortunately for her, she had a Shanghai residence permit and a place to live; having grown

Q

45

Q

FU PING

accustomed to life in the city, she had little motivation to return to her hometown, as she would not know how to live there. Painful though the loss of the shop was, nothing was gained by agonizing over it. And so she set down roots in Shanghai. She could do most anything she put her hand to better than others; though she hadn’t worked much in the home of her former employer, she had watched and learned from what others did. She had a special talent—she never forgot what she saw and knew how to do whatever it was she learned from it. What sort of people had her employers been, and what sort of highborn life had they lived? Lü Fengxian needed to master only a small portion of that life to convince ordinary folk that she was part of it. As a result, everyone in the lane came to ask for her help with important matters. If someone invited guests, she taught them how to prepare shark’s fin soup or a custard for dessert; if a daughter was being married off, she was asked to put together the trousseau and consult on the embroidered goods and needlework; when an elderly resident died, she knew about the enshrouding and the funeral arrangements; if a child contracted measles, Lü Fengxian was the authority on what to eat and what to avoid. Always happy to help out, she would not take anything for her troubles, and might actually contribute something of her own. Every soul in the lane was in her debt and held her in high esteem. Lü Fengxian was deeply fond of the lane in which she lived. Only when she was feeling down would she compare her current situation to what it had been like with her employer as proof that she had been better off then. But she was, in fact, living on her own, even though it was the life of an ordinary person with

Q

46

Q

FU PING

modest means. Though she had been surrounded by fine things in the house, none of them had belonged to her. Beyond that, for an influential, wealthy family like theirs, appearances were deceptive, for they had haggled over the cost of just about everything, proof that financial difficulties were wearing them down, something outsiders could not imagine. But for her, the family’s lifestyle became an asset, since it elevated her status. Admittedly, she was a member of the serving class, but she stood apart from her peers, unlike Nainai and the others, who lived in someone else’s house and ate their food; as a result, she enjoyed a more fulfilling life than before—most of the time, at least—to which a notable gain in weight stood as testimony. Most of the residents of the lane would be considered middleclass, people who lived a vibrant, busy life, concerned with daily necessities and focused on feeding the family. By leaving the empty confines of the big house, Lü Fengxian felt as if she had returned to the human race, in an urban spot where streetcars sped up and down the street and left a trail of loud clangs in their wake. Before shops opened their doors each day, clerks lined up on the sidewalks for morning exercise to the rhythms of loudspeakers that sent waves of music onto the street and into the lanes, where, even when all was still, an undercurrent of sound flowed in the radiant sunlight. After nightfall and, especially, on holidays, a clamor arose all around. Lü Fengxian’s main source of income was a family that lived upstairs in the building where Nainai worked, a childless couple who also had government jobs. An uncomplicated family was exactly what she’d been looking for. As an unmarried, childless, and fastidious woman, she had little appreciation for

Q

47

Q

FU PING

children. A fondness for a clean, neat appearance, coupled with aloof airs, did not appeal to prospective employers with small children. This particular family was just what she was looking for, and as soon as the notice went up, she was the first person everyone thought of. Husband and wife went out early each morning and returned late in the evening, taking only breakfast and dinner at home. Other than cooking, her duties were limited to doing laundry for the couple and keeping the flat clean. That way she could make lunch for an elderly lady originally from Pudong who lived alone two doors down. Informed people in the lane knew that the woman’s husband had moved to Hong Kong to be with his mistress and the children by both women; she had chosen to stay behind by herself. Her days were lonely but peaceful, and she found little to upset her quiet, comfortable life. Lü Fengxian fixed her lunch and washed the odd piece of clothing. Then in the afternoons she cleaned the apartment of a family who lived near the elementary school by the lane entrance, a job that consisted of waxing the floors in the three bedrooms and the mahogany living room furniture. She returned to the couple’s flat around three in the afternoon, in time to fix dinner. When they had finished, she washed the dishes and went home to prepare dinner for herself. She did not cook her own meal in their kitchen, making a clear distinction between what was hers and what was theirs to forestall any misunderstanding. Her dinner was ready between seven and eight o’clock, when she would sit at the table, take out a fine, goldtrimmed porcelain rice bowl, and enjoy a leisurely meal, accompanied by sporadic sounds filtering in through the window. Someone in the neighborhood played the piano, not nearly as

Q

48

Q

FU PING

well as her previous family’s children, but pleasing to the ear and capable of conjuring up an array of familiar sounds. Finished with dinner, Lü Fengxian would wash up and take an account book out of a drawer, lay it open on the table, and write down all her expenses for the day, using the few characters her mistress had taught her in order to read the names, brands, and cost of things when she shopped. She took great pleasure in recording everything with a writing brush, sitting up straight: onions, two fen; lean pork, thirty fen; amaranth, or red spinach, ten fen. Proud that she knew how to write the word “amaranth,” she felt sure that even some educated people would write “red spinach” instead. Next she wrote down the half bar of Guben laundry soap she’d been given for that month and the ration card she’d bought for that season’s thread, before adding everything up. That done, she counted the money in her purse to see if it equaled the sum she had arrived at. Closing the account book and zipping it up always brought her a sense of abundance and stability. Hers was a classic self-sufficient life, one for which she needed to feel no disgrace. From time to time she had visitors, but only a few. Mistress Jin, who lived next door, was one of them; another was Fifth Granny from down the lane; and a third, who lived farther away, was Aunty A-ju, the nanny for a family that had been friends with Lü Fengxian’s former employer. The family had stayed in Shanghai, but had let their servants go, all but Aunty A-ju. These three visitors to her door were women of good standing and considerable experience. They came to see if the former Changzhou dressmaker would be taking up needle and thread again this year, or to ask for her help in removing

Q

49

Q

FU PING

crabmeat from the shells. Sometimes Aunty A-ju was sent by her mistress to see if there was news of Lü Fengxian’s former employer, or perhaps to pass a message to them. Not much of the night would be left after her visitors departed, but enough to do a bit of needlework and plan the next day’s activities. Outside, stillness had settled over the lane, though there was still some activity upstairs, and soon even it ceased. Time to put away her work, get dressed for bed, turn out the light, and go to sleep. She and Nainai helped each other whenever they could. Lü Fengxian could not kill a chicken—there was, it seemed, something she could not do. Nainai had no trouble doing it. After grabbing the bird by its wings with one hand, she bent its head back with the other until she could grasp it along with the wings. Then she plucked out the neck feathers before cutting it with scissors. After a couple of spastic twitches of the legs, the bird’s feathers puffed up and then fell, and it stopped moving. She turned it over to let the blood drip into half a bowl of water, and it was done. But when the Dragon Boat Festival rolled around, Nainai asked Lü Fengxian’s help in making and wrapping sticky rice dumplings called zongzi. She’d sit on a stool at the table, facing a large bowl of red beans and rice and another of soy-stirred rice, plus a plate of pork stripped from rib bones. Bamboo leaves would be soaking in a wooden basin of fresh water. Holding a length of twine in her teeth, she’d form two leafs into a cone, hold it in one hand, and, with the other, spoon in the right amount of rice, add meat, then more rice before folding over the top of the leaf cone and tucking it in nice and tight, leaving a little tail at the bottom. Once all the corners and

Q

50

Q

FU PING

edges were pinched together, it was time to tie the zongzi with the twine, using hands and mouth. Almost quicker than the eye could see, a perfectly wrapped zongzi was created. Meat-filled zongzi were long and thin; the sweet variety triangular. If she was in a good mood, she’d make a string of tiny zongzi for the girls. Neighborhood women gathered round to watch her work. Whenever Lü Fengxian went home to Suzhou to visit her parents for a few days, Nainai cooked dinner for the couple upstairs and did the laundry; when Nainai was hospitalized several days with appendicitis, Lü Fengxian returned the favor for her family. That time Nainai and the younger of the two girls had lined up for the movie Chasing Fish, the fourth ticket they’d bought was for Lü Fengxian. Not someone with particularly strong opinions, Nainai was normally content to rely upon others. Lü Fengxian, on the other hand, had plenty of ideas, and liked nothing better than deciding things for others. So it was no surprise that Nainai sought her opinions more than anyone else’s. Yet in the matter of adopting a grandson, Nainai did not take her advice. Her relatives were a more powerful force. Besides, unlike Lü Fengxian, Nainai was not the independent type. Older and more conservative, she simply could not cut ties with her relatives. Lü Fengxian had nothing bad to say about Nainai’s grandson, who was a gentle, agreeable boy given to blushing. But Fu Ping was another matter. There was a sharp edge to the dullness in Fu Ping’s staring eyes, which were partially hidden behind slightly puffy, singlefold lids. That girl is no one to take lightly, Lü Fengxian mused. One day she gave Fu Ping a large bowl of food she had prepared. Nainai was so moved that her face colored as she told Fu

Q

51

Q

FU PING

Ping to say thank you. But Fu Ping reacted coolly to the gesture, muttering something under her breath before looking down. This bore out Lü Fengxian’s opinion. On another occasion, she was out walking when she spotted Fu Ping in front of the dry goods shop. Apparently, the girl had walked past it and then stopped for a closer look inside. The posture added life to her usual wooden image. Unaware that she was being observed, she held the posture, not moving even when Lü Fengxian walked past her, creating the impression that the girl was restless. Then, on yet another day, Lü Fengxian saw the two children trying to rattle Fu Ping with crazy talk. For the longest time she said nothing, but when she did speak, it was something so barbed it effectively shut them up. They were not well-behaved children in Lü Fengxian’s eyes, but this time she felt obliged to come to their defense. Come here, she said. Aunty Fengxian will make a radish flower for you. They came to her, and she fashioned a flower for each of them. After making cuts down the side of the radish’s red skin, she flared the slices outward like flower petals, then trimmed the white inside into stamens and pistils. Fu Ping, who ought to have been embarrassed by what was happening, made no sound as she kept her head down and tended to her needlework. After watching Fu Ping for a while, Lü Fengxian remarked to Nainai that the girl was more willful than Nainai’s grandson could ever be. I wonder if he’ll suffer because of her, Nainai lamented. Admittedly, he was an adopted grandson, but he was a good boy, and she was fond of him. She recalled how guileless he had been during his previous visit. The mistress had talked to him and offered him an apple, but he had refused to

Q

52

Q

FU PING

accept it, and wound up with it in his hand only when the two girls went up, pried open his fingers, and made him take it. In Lü Fengxian’s opinion, Shanghai was not a place where the girl should remain for long, or she might start getting ideas. But I can’t make her leave if she doesn’t want to, Nainai said. My grandson would suffer if I offended her. It was clear to Lü Fengxian that the young woman intimidated Nainai. I can help you do things, she mused, with an inaudible sigh, but I can’t help you live your life. She kept that to herself. While Nainai was not as astute as Lü Fengxian, she, too, was a good judge of character, and found it strange that even after a month in Shanghai, Fu Ping showed no sign of homesickness; not once had she mentioned a desire to return home. Nainai had asked what she planned to buy to take home for her aunt and uncle and cousins. That’s not a problem, was all she’d said in response. Was she talking about going home or taking gifts? Nainai could not figure the girl out, and since she did not know what to do about it, she went to see Lü Fengxian, who suggested that she summon her grandson to Shanghai and have him take Fu Ping back with him. That would solve two problems: first, it would make Fu Ping leave, and second, it would bring the marriage closer to reality. Nainai wasn’t so sure. The boy was so bashful he might not want to come, and even if he did, might Fu Ping refuse to go back with him? That could be a crushing blow to her grandson. When a woman snubs a man once, that will likely be repeated, and his confidence will be shattered forever. Lü Fengxian dealt with Nainai’s concerns in simple terms: that depends on what sort of young man he is, she said. The hidden meaning in her comment was, Should your

Q

53

Q

FU PING

grandson not get his way on this, then he will have no excuse if he suffers in the future. Only partially swayed by the suggestion, Nainai came up with a compromise, which was to see what Fu Ping thought of the idea of having him come to the city for a few days and then for her to return home with him. Fu Ping’s face reddened when Nainai brought the matter up. I don’t know this “grandson” of yours, she said sullenly without looking up, embarrassing Nainai, as if she was in a hurry to marry the girl off to her grandson. How could Fu Ping miss Nainai’s intent? She knew what was behind the suggestion, and had a pretty good idea it had come from Lü Fengxian. Even in the short time Fu Ping had been in Shanghai, she had figured out that Nainai was not a strong woman, was easily swayed by others, and that her friend Lü Fengxian said things about her behind her back. Fu Ping was young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, incapable of taking the true measure of a person; she simply did not like Lü Fengxian, who she believed harbored bad intentions. In her view, fear was at least half the reason people had so many good things to say about her. Fu Ping thought of her as a “smiling tiger,” putting on an amiable front by doing people favors. She did not think that Lü Fengxian liked her all that much, and yet she gave her food and clothing, she taught her needlework crossstitches, and she showed her how to darn silk stockings. Fu Ping not only had scant life experience, she was a country girl who saw the world in black and white, and had yet to learn how complicated people can be. Lü Fengxian, for instance, was strong and lonely, but needed companionship. Because she was cleverer than others, avoiding mischief altogether would have

Q

54

Q

FU PING

been difficult, but she was not a bad person. For the time being, there was no more talk about getting Fu Ping to go back home, and Lü Fengxian actually found work for the girl. When she learned that a family with a new baby who lived in the lane was looking for someone to wash diapers, she thought first of Fu Ping. This will give you a chance to earn a little for yourself, she said, so you won’t have to rely on Nainai for everything. It’s as hard for her to get by as for anyone. For the first time, Fu Ping reacted to a well-meaning comment by meekly nodding and saying, Thank you, Aunty Fengxian. That alone had the effect of softening Lü Fengxian’s attitude toward her. But to Nainai she said, This job will help you keep an eye on her. Needless to say, Nainai was grateful. Fu Ping started work that very day. Lü Fengxian accompanied her to the new mother’s home, where she pointed out the ladle and showed her where to find a basin, the family’s coal and gas supply, and a kettle to heat water. Then she showed her how to start with a thin layer of soap and add hot but not boiling water to make suds. The soap smell will disappear after rinsing twice in clean water, she said, which saves both soap and water. Back in the village the river supplies you with free water, but here in Shanghai you have to pay for it. Fu Ping kept her head down as she listened attentively, not upset at being taught. Washing diapers would bring in only two yuan a month, but for her, earning money from her own labor in Shanghai was a big deal. When she’d finished her first basin-full of diapers, Lü Fengxian returned to show her how to set up a bamboo pole above the lane, one end resting on the second-floor windowsill, the other atop the wall across the way. Satisfied by a quick

Q

55

Q

FU PING

inspection of the washed diapers, she then left her alone, but not before a final admonition: When you work for someone, do your best, that way whatever you get will be well earned. Touched by the woman’s concern, Fu Ping was thinking, Aunty Lü Fengxian is everything they say she is. No wonder people respect her. In bed later that night she asked Nainai with a smile, Nainai, what do you think of Aunty Lü Fengxian? Obviously in a good mood, she felt like talking, as Nainai could tell from the lilt in her voice. She sighed. She’s a good person, just a bit too eager to excel for my taste. What’s wrong with wanting to excel? Fu Ping asked. In itself, it’s a good thing, Nainai replied, but that does not mean that you are fated to excel. Fu Ping was not willing to concede the point. What about fate? Nainai let her thoughts continue: Her fate can’t match mine, she said. She has neither sons nor daughters. I at least have a daughter, and a grandson. Mention of the grandson ended the conversation for Fu Ping. It also reminded Nainai of many things. A grandmotherly old woman and a young girl, sleeping next to each other yet separated by a million miles, each caught up in her private thoughts as she drifted off to sleep.

Q

56

Q

Chapter Five

GIRLS’ SCHOOL

FU PING’S

family lived in a lane that intersected Nainai’s. The

considerable distance between it and the parallel lane in front was given over to the athletic field of a girls’ middle school. That crossing lane was accessed at the eastern entrance to the next lane over. The buildings were both older and taller than those on the opposite side of the athletic field in Nainai’s lane, four stories high with brick walls. The schoolhouse was on the eastern edge of the athletic field, a building much like those on the crossing lane, and was accessed through the same lane entrance. Many city-run elementary and secondary schools had once been privately owned, usually a couple of buildings in the middle of a residential area. This particular school was limited to middleschool students—no high school component—and was neither the best nor the worst of such schools. The students were average, many if not most of them daughters of ordinary citizens who lived in the small byways off the busy main street. At seven

FU PING

each morning, girls in school uniforms swarmed to the lane. Then at three or four in the afternoon, the same swarm emerged from the lane and dispersed in all directions. They were an odd group. Whether alone or in clusters of two or three, they were restrained and well-behaved on their way to and from school, eyes looking straight ahead, faces taut. But the minute they walked into the schoolhouse they went crazy, making a racket, giggling and arguing, all but levitating the building. That was why girls at this middle school were considered “foolish” in the community, by which people meant “wild.” It was not a compliment. At a nearby coed school, formerly run by French Catholics and anointed as one of Shanghai’s key middle schools, the students were mostly from middle-class families, and the quality differed, naturally. These girls preferred short navy blue or checked cotton skirts, over white knee-length socks and white sneakers or black leather shoes with straps. The tips of their short braids and bangs were curled to be fluffy. Even if they wore their hair short, they still preferred to keep it that way. Most of the boys wore glasses, Western trousers, and leather shoes, and carried oversized leather briefcases. Many of their families engaged piano or English tutors, and some of the students were members of the school’s drama club, which had a long history and had gained a measure of fame in Shanghai. They had performed Shakespeare in the original version as well as Dumas fils’s La Dame aux camélias. These students clearly looked down on the students at the girls’ school as beneath them, girls who shrank in their company. The girls’ school students were relatively unsophisticated. They favored garish clothes and carried book bags made from

Q

58

Q

FU PING

patterned cloth with ruffles. As for hair, long braids tied off with flowery hairclips were the fashion. Yet given the large numbers of girls thrown together, inevitably a few were more polished than others, but even they did not attract much attention. During recess, instead of opening books or playing games, they took out crochet hooks or wooden knitting needles and worked on sweaters. One of their favorite after-school activities was posing for thumbnail pictures in costume at a photo studio. On holidays or at special commemorations they performed on a stage erected on the athletic field, with a curtain, lighting, and a microphone, one class hard on the heels of another. Group or individual songs were the staples of such performances, along with standard operatic moves and gestures. On one occasion, a pair of girls performed a comic dialogue dressed as boys. The shorts one of them wore actually made her appear more feminine than ever, but sort of tawdry. These girls tended to look older than other students their age, and in fact, were almost womanly. In nearly all school activities, from calisthenics to flag raising to standing in formation and P.E., they went through the motions, doing no more than was required. For more strenuous activities, such as parallel bars or working out on the pommel horse, they shrank back, pushing each other forward with a bit of “idiotic” laughter. The P.E. teacher manifested little interest in the girls, and instead of forcing them to try harder, he pretty much let them do as they pleased. His lack of interest spoiled the fun, so they approached the equipment, one at a time, with the teacher standing to the side to ensure their safety, and they came off the bars or dismounted from the pommel horse with red faces. When they read aloud in class their

Q

59

Q

FU PING

voices were flatter than those of the coed students, producing a sultry, lackadaisical sound, as if they knew there was little future for them in schoolwork, and they were just marking time. Thus, most observers assumed that student life for them had no appeal, that it was tasteless, insipid, and lacked promise. But who could say? It was entirely possible that they found pleasure in it. The athletic field was separated from the lane by a six-foot bamboo fence that was painted black and smelled like paint and rotting bamboo. While only splintered views of the field were offered by gaps in the bamboo, the entire yard was visible from second- and third-story balconies. On student performance evenings, the front windows in houses in the crossing lane and rear windows in the front lane were thrown open so their occupants could lean out and enjoy the show. On some nights, open-air movies were shown on a large screen set up on the field, turning the occupants of the lanes in front and in back into movie buffs. Truth be told, though the field was not very big, it created quite a sight when filled with hundreds of schoolgirls. With all those youngsters in one place, even when they weren’t talking, a buzz-buzz rose from the site, replaced by a shwa-shwa when they moved their feet—marching or exercising. Just imagine how it would have sounded if they’d all made noise at the same time. After morning calisthenics, once the students had left, the field had a lonely, deserted air, left to the sparrows, which hopped around looking for food and ingesting sand. That was when Fu Ping started work. She arrived with a wooden tub filled with diapers, soap, and a washboard, sat by the fence, and began scrubbing. A row of athletic apparatuses for high and

Q

60

Q

FU PING

long jumps stood in sandpits on the other side of the fence. During gym class the P.E. instructor would lead a class of girls out to the pits to work on parallel bars, jumps, and the like. An array of sounds entered Fu Ping’s ears from beyond the fence: screeches, secretive giggles, whispers, and the soft thuds of jumpers landing in the sand, all punctuated by trills from the P.E. instructor’s whistle. These sounds, neither loud nor annoying, brimmed with life. Fu Ping occasionally turned to look at the fence, though she could not see much through the gaps, little more than flashes of color from the girls’ clothing. On this, of all days, a gate opened in the fence. So there had been a gate all along, but it was always locked—until today, that is. After the flag raising and calisthenics, instead of going into the classrooms as usual, the girls ran noisily over to the gate and into the lane. They had started out in neat formation, four to a row, but that lasted for only a hundred feet or so. Now it was every girl for herself as they surged into the crossing lane like a flood tide, then into a perpendicular lane, and from there onto the main street. Arms flailing, legs churning, they laughed wildly, as if this was the most fun ever. Pandemonium erupted in lanes where peace and quiet normally reigned, shattering the morning peace and quiet on the street, all caused by the slaps of shoe soles on pavement and the clamor of uninhibited laughter. People out walking stopped to stare. Students from the girls’ school, they were thinking, acting like idiots! But did that bother the girls? No, look all you want, we don’t care! Once they came together, they were a force to reckon with, running down the street like a ragtag mob, arm in arm or arms around shoulders, grabbing and clutching as they entered the school lane;

Q

61

Q

FU PING

then, back on the athletic field, they spread out like loose sand and whooped it up. Forced to stand, Fu Ping moved her basin and stool up to the fence and pressed herself against it as the students ran past, filling the air with their shouts, so startling her she could only gape open-mouthed. All those faces, one after another, flashing past created a blur, no single one distinguishable from the others. No difference either in what they were wearing. Windows up and down the lane flew open as people who were not at work or in school stuck their heads out to gawp at the students running by. A few of the bolder girls looked up at the observers and cried out, Hey! causing an explosion of laughter from her friends. But now that their neighborhood run was over, the gate in the fence was shut and locked behind them, then further secured with wire. From start to finish, the whole episode had lasted no more than half an hour, though it felt to everyone that an army—thousands of men and horses—had passed by. A measure of quiet returned, spoiled only by the faint sound of students reading aloud in the classrooms. Here and there, black bobby pins dotted the ground in the lane, plus a coil of red cellophane ribbon. A philatelic market stood at the entrance to the girls’ school lane, a bustling corner where idle passersby mingled with stamp collectors. Afternoons were always the busiest, when school let out and the students threaded their way through the traders’ stalls. It was not the neatest or cleanest spot in the area. The lane itself was fairly dark, thanks to high brick walls that had stood for many years, letting in little sunlight and creating an ideal spot for moss to grow. The commodious, old-style Western

Q

62

Q

FU PING

houses, topped by high roofs, had marble walkways and stairs off of which every spoken word and footfall echoed. They were occupied by old-fashioned families who lived secluded lives. Adults and children alike had a noticeable pallor and a weak constitution. By contrast, the school’s athletic field was bright and airy, full of life. The girls’ wild laughter drove away much of the lane’s gloomy, moldy atmosphere. There was an unsophisticated edge to their girlishness, a countrified air that stood out on the modern street, though it had a fresh quality and stood in defiance of the hoary, stale nature of the lane. How many dismal things must have occurred in the darkened buildings behind them. Since no communal lights burned at night, when all the gates were shut and barred, an inky darkness consumed the vestibules, footpaths, and staircases. The school would be deserted by then, its classroom building dark, but not necessarily the athletic field, which faced windows in the lane behind it. Lights also burned in rear windows in the lane in front and emerged from west-facing windows on the wall between neighbors in a distant crossing lane—people were awake there. And so, you could stand on the athletic field and see light on at least three sides, serene light emitting the warmth of family life in the lanes. A weak glow overlaid the sandpits. From this vantage point the moon and stars were clearly visible, their light gentle, soft, and tranquil. Fu Ping went to work at the house in the front lane every day, emerging with a wooden tub to sit with her back against the fence as she scrubbed. Rustling noises filtered through, and sometimes a couple of the girls would rest against the fence on the other side, making it move slightly. Rhythmical bounces

Q

63

Q

FU PING

against the fence accompanied whispered conversations and produced gentle nudges on Fu Ping’s back. Keeping her head down, she did not interrupt her scrubbing by turning to look. But when the fence stopped moving and all was still—no more whispering on the other side— she experienced a mild sense of isolation. One day she heard someone call out, Big Sister! Not thinking it could be for her, she paid it no mind. But when it was repeated, and again, she turned and saw a face pressed up against the fence, offering a slight profile in order to see through a gap with one eye. Big Sister! This time Fu Ping knew she was being called. She stood up and gazed at the exposed eye, but said nothing, just responded with a questioning look. Big Sister, the eye said, toss that shuttlecock back to us, would you? Fu Ping looked around and spotted a shuttlecock on the ground. It was a copper coin wrapped in thick felt, with feather ducts housing three Plymouth Rock chicken feathers. She walked over, bent down, and picked it up, and then tossed it over the fence. The eye immediately backed away from the fence and spun around. Fu Ping could see the splintered outline of a figure and a pair of long braids dancing in the air. She went up to  the fence and looked through one of the gaps, where she saw students kicking the shuttlecock back and forth, but with little passion: a couple of kicks, and they stopped to talk; a couple more kicks, another stop, and more talk. Other students were moving around farther off, in groups of three or four, taking advantage of the ten o’clock recess. Morning sunlight blanketed the field—bright and beautiful— creating a soft yellow background in sandpits atop which the girls’ figures presented the image of a flower garden. A bell sounded.

Q

64

Q

FU PING

The girls picked their shuttlecock up out of the sand and headed back to the classroom building, as did the other girls on the field. It took hardly any time for it to clear out—the wind had blown the flowers away. From that day on, Fu Ping delighted in looking through the fence to watch the girls do calisthenics or run or just explode in laughter. She discovered that the sandpits were among their favorite gathering places, for they were farthest from the classroom building and from other girls on the field, a quiet corner where two or three of them could talk and play games. When school let out, a few of the girls would come to the sandpits with their best friends, hang their colorful book bags over one of the parallel bars, and play together. By then the other students had left for home, while an occasional shout or two from the middle of the athletic field made this corner seem especially quiet. Fu Ping never quite figured out if different groups congregated here, or maybe just a bunch of regulars. Since she had no clear view of their faces, to her they all seemed pretty much alike: vibrant clothes, long braids, and garish book bags with ruffled edges. They kept their voices low in this corner of the field, soft as fine bird songs, whispering back and forth, as if exchanging momentous secrets. One day, when their talk grew serious, a girl discovered the presence of Fu Ping, who was leaning against the fence spying on them. With a meaningful look, she put her arm around her friend, and they walked off together, casting backward glances. Fu Ping was too embarrassed to actually watch them after that, but that did not stop her from keeping tabs on what was happening on the other side, for the lively activity lessened her isolation.

Q

65

Q

FU PING

Then one day, she actually spoke to them through the fence. It happened in the afternoon, when seven or eight girls, most likely a sort of clique, brought stools over to hold a meeting. They sat in a circle and carried on a casual conversation, back and forth until they ran out of things to say. They then turned their attention to the fence and to Fu Ping, who was doing laundry on the other side. Besides scrubbing diapers, she also washed the clothing and bedding of the new birth mother. Now that the girls had grown quiet, her washboard scrubbing was loud and sharp-edged, as, little by little, soapy water oozed out through seams in the wet clothing and made potent squishing sounds. They watched her work for a while before one of them called out, Hey! Fu Ping knew the girl was calling her, but she ignored her. My name’s not Hey! she was thinking. This time the inside voice skipped the niceties. Come over here! Fu Ping didn’t move, though she did stop scrubbing and turned to face the fence. What’s your name? the voice asked. Obviously, a bold, maybe even rude, girl. Seated with her back against the fence, she twisted around to speak to Fu Ping, who did not respond. She was too startled to do so. This was the last thing she’d expected, and she did not know what to say or do. The other girls weighed in: Why should she tell you? She doesn’t know you. The rude girl said, What can it hurt to ask? Come over here, she said a second time. Now it was Fu Ping’s turn to act up. She neither went over nor responded. And when the girl’s shouts took on a sense of urgency, she got up to walk away. Where are you going? they shouted as they got up and ran to the fence. Don’t leave! Stop! Stay where you are! they cried out shrilly and pushed the fence. Fu Ping had to laugh. She walked back.

Q

66

Q

FU PING

They had a lot to talk about that day, one on this side of the fence, the others on that side. Mostly it was them asking, her answering. They asked where she was from; how many people were in the family she worked for; what she did for them; who else lived in the lane; and where the kids went to school. They also asked if she knew about the incident in the lane, where an infant girl had once been dumped into a garbage can. Apparently, the lane held considerable interest for them, having spawned plenty of stories of dubious credibility. And so, there was a lot they wanted to learn from Fu Ping. In the process, they forgot to ask her name this time. Unfortunately, Fu Ping’s standard response to each question was, she didn’t know. But even that was not especially disappointing. They were, after all, gossipy girls who were happy to talk to a stranger. Fu Ping was happy too. She was living among strangers in an unfamiliar city. Even Nainai had to be considered a stranger, so no wonder she was gloomy much of the time. Fortunately for her, she’d always lived with people who weren’t particularly friendly, so gloomy feelings were common. This afternoon’s experience had livened her up. But in the days that followed she did not see that group of girls again; maybe she did, and maybe they were no longer interested in talking to her. Girls on that side of the fence were back to doing what they always did, whispering among themselves, yet Fu Ping always felt that the girls she’d spoken with that day were among them, and she considered them old friends. Then someone spotted Fu Ping talking to the schoolgirls and reported that to Nainai, who told her she must stop. They are not good girls, she told her, not well-behaved. Fu Ping learned that rumors about the school floated around the lane, unsavory

Q

67

Q

FU PING

talk that the students often wound up with swollen bellies. Nainai was on speaking terms with the school’s caretaker, Uncle Youming, who lived in the same lane as the school. He’d begun working at the school after years of keeping watch over the lane, but continued to live in a connecting addition to two buildings at the head of the lane. What he said about the girls’ school had to be credible. But who could be absolutely certain? The residents, after all, were prejudiced against the school. It bothered Fu Ping to hear criticism from Nainai, who had lived in Shanghai so long she must have forgotten how improper it was to talk to her grandson’s wife-to-be about girls with or without swollen bellies. She could not help but think back to Lü Fengxian and the other women who said things about Nainai. The girls now seemed different somehow, and not in a good way. Realizing that their whispering on the other side of the fence was suggestive, Fu Ping lost her respect for them, at least to some degree. But then, when she sensed their movements on the other side and heard their giggles, she softened her view. Before long, the monthlong lying-in for the new mother was over, and Fu Ping’s help was no longer needed. Once again with time on her hands, she hoped that Lü Fengxian might help her find more work. That did not pan out, but A-niang, who worked next door, told her about a family with children to be looked after. Nainai would not let her take the job. Fu Ping, she said, did not do well with small children. Shanghai children are cast in gold, she explained, and if a mishap occurred, restitution would be impossible. Although Fu Ping held her tongue, to her the meaning was clear: you’re afraid I won’t want to leave Shanghai. Having time on her hands after working for a month

Q

68

Q

FU PING

drained much of the joy of living as boredom set in. When Nainai sent her out to buy things, she took her time, sometimes passing up a local shop and walking all the way to the next major street to buy whatever it was. That had the collateral advantage of introducing her to new sights and new faces. It wasn’t a great distance to travel, but there were differences, and that was especially true with the narrow, winding streets she walked down, where even the air smelled different, not to mention the people’s appearance, attire, and the way they carried themselves. Nainai was aware that it was taking Fu Ping longer and longer to return from her shopping trips, and she said so. That elicited no response and changed nothing. On one occasion Fu Ping returned to find Nainai, Lü Fengxian, and A-niang huddled together in the kitchen talking about something. They stopped as soon as she walked in the door, and she knew they’d been talking about her again. A few days later, a letter addressed to Nainai arrived from Fu Ping’s mother-in-law in the Yangzhou countryside, obviously written by the grandson. Filled with elegant phrases, it exuded modesty and courtesy. She asked after “Revered Mother’s” health, praised “Revered Mother’s” generosity and kindness, and passed on a bit of news about the harvest, all before bringing up the situation with Fu Ping. She said that Nainai’s grandson had visited Fu Ping’s aunt and uncle a few days earlier to see if New Year’s for the wedding was possible, and told Fu Ping to buy some clothes in Shanghai. She did not, however, send money, which meant she expected Nainai to see to the purchases. This was further indication of how weak and obtuse her grandson was. He simply wrote whatever his mother

Q

69

Q

FU PING

told him to write. He’d have to possess a bit more self-respect to write what he wanted. What made your mother-in-law think she needed to say that? Nainai complained to Fu Ping, who retorted, Just who is this so-called mother-in-law of mine? before turning and walking out of the room. It was early winter, a time when the sky turned dark at dusk. Fu Ping walked the streets for a while, not returning until night had fallen and lights shone in windows up and down the lane; the occupants were at dinner. She was not hungry, and had no desire to return to Nainai’s. So she turned into the crossing lane and walked up to the fence to look around. A light burned in front of the classroom building, casting a muted glow onto the athletic field’s sandpits, while this side of the fence was shrouded in darkness. With her back against the fence, she looked up into the narrow strip of sky above the city, sliced by buildings into fragments. Muted conversations and mealtime clatter emerging from closed windows were all that disturbed the pervasive quiet. But then, unexpectedly, she heard something on the other side of the fence; it sounded like sobs. She turned and put her eye up to a gap in the fence. Someone was moving in the darkness. Whoever it was sensed movement on this side, held her breath, and made no noise. An infant somewhere in the neighborhood began to cry, creating a forlorn aura around them. Fu Ping nudged the fence. Hey! she said softly. No response. A moment later, the rustle of soft footfalls moved off into the distance. Whoever it was had run off.

Q

70

Q

Chapter Six

LIAR

THE ELDEST

child of Nainai’s employer, their “Lao-da,” was

thirteen according to the Chinese calendar, but really just a twelve-year-old sixth grader with long braids. Nainai stood behind Lao-da to braid her hair at breakfast each morning. The meal and braiding ended at the same time, when the girl picked up her bag and went off to school. In the afternoon she brought classmates home to do their homework together and talk. One of the girls who came home with her, Tao Xueping, was older than the others, a full two years, since she had been held back twice in school. She was fifteen. A year or two in age made a huge difference, with girls on one side and a young woman on the other. Tao Xueping looked much more mature than the others—half a head taller and more fully developed, with a young woman’s breasts. Her face was fuller, too, her skin the color of ivory, while the other girls’ skin was sallow and somewhat transparent. She had large, widely separated almond-shaped

FU PING

eyes, a nose that turned up at the tip, and full, red lips. She ought to have been seen as attractive, but a weak, submissive look changed that, and kept her from being pretty. She wore patched, ugly clothes, the patches haphazardly applied, in the wrong colors, with uneven stitching. Her shoes were open either at the heels or the toes, and her schoolbag had holes in all four corners. A big girl like that, so slovenly, so shabby, presented a shockingly dreadful sight. But what was truly disturbing was seeing her play with younger girls, fun she could not share in, forced to watch and to do their bidding. The girls played with a set of mahjong tiles and a beanbag, tossing the beanbag into the air and arranging the tiles in a certain pattern, and then catching the beanbag before it landed. When they missed it, Tao Xueping bent down and retrieved it for them. When they kicked the string of buttons, snail shells, or olive pits outside the lines while playing hopscotch, it was she who retrieved and returned them with a fawning smile to the girl who kicked them. She was not allowed in when the other girls jumped a rope made of rubber bands, but when the strand broke, she picked up the spool that came off the strand and rolled on the ground. Anyone could see that she was not accepted into the group, but the daughter of the family, who could be a mean, careless devil at home, was everyone’s friend outside, and so Tao Xueping latched on to her. The group came over after school each day, and when all the other girls left to go home, Tao Xueping stuck around, sometimes till dark. She lived with her stepmother, who had brought two children of her own into the marriage, and then had two more with the girl’s father. As the eldest, she was unavoidably neglected

Q

72

Q

FU PING

and, owing to a lack of ambition and the effort to better herself, looked down on. Begging for attention from others, she came home with Lao-da, wearing a pathetic smile as she looked fawningly at her classmate’s sister, at Nainai, even at the neighbors. After the other girls finished their homework, they tossed their schoolbags aside and ran outside to play. Nainai chased after them to have Lao-da pick up the room first. She was angrily stomping her foot as Tao Xueping went over and straightened what had come out of the schoolbags. She eagerly helped Nainai pick bad parts off of vegetables, thread needles, and fold clothes. Intuiting that Nainai reacted positively to her tale of woe was evidence that the girl was no fool. When asked why her mother would not make her a new pair of cloth shoes, she revealed to Nainai that the woman was not her birth mother; nothing stirs a woman’s heart more than stories of a woman mistreating her stepchildren, and Nainai was properly indignant. She asked many questions, and then revealed the girl’s answers and family background to women who worked for neighboring families. After that, while the other girls were playing in the yard, Tao Xueping sat among adult women who tearfully listened to her sad story. She told them that after her parents divorced, her mother went to live with the girl’s grandmother in the Nanshi District. Her father forbade her to see her mother, so she was not allowed to visit her grandmother, who had raised her from infancy. She once sneaked off to the Nanshi District, but her mother’s brother refused to let her in the house, telling her that since she had chosen to stay with her father, she must stop coming to see her mother. Was that her fault? she complained at this point of her

Q

73

Q

FU PING

story. Her mother had told her to stay with her father since he had a job and she did not, making it impossible for her to take care of her daughter. When she returned from the Nanshi District, her father demanded to know where she’d been and went through her pockets and schoolbag, where he found a No. 11 bus ticket stub. Knowing where she’d gone, he beat her and sent her to bed without dinner. She lifted her bangs to reveal bruises on her forehead. This is where he hit me, she told them. With that kind of father, they could imagine what her stepmother was like. All they had to do was look at her patched clothes to see how she was treated. When Nainai told Tao Xueping’s story to Lao-da, as an object lesson, she not only refused to listen, but warned Nainai not to be fooled, because the girl was a notorious liar. The epithet “liar” quietly spread through their class, a slanderous accusation that may have had no basis in fact. Children’s actions are often a mystery, but it might have been that they felt she wasn’t trustworthy enough, and took that to the extreme of labeling her a “liar.” Or maybe something had happened, since she’d been held back at school. But who had the patience to delve into her personal history? Many rumors contain kernels of truth, but are blown out of proportion. And once the impression takes hold, it hardens. Truth is, children’s intuition can be on target, and there definitely was something crafty about Tao Xueping’s craven, toadying gaze. She looked into your eyes with a hangdog expression, when she was, in fact, observing, probing. Besides, what was someone her age doing hanging around younger girls, picking up after them like a servant? She had no friends in the class, only Lao-da, so she stuck close to her. At

Q

74

Q

FU PING

the very least, this schoolmate did not ignore her like the other girls did. And yet, she began gradually to get on Lao-da’s nerves. There were, however, others—Nainai, their neighbor A-niang, and Lü Fengxian—who never tired of listening to her sad story, and even that wasn’t enough for them, as they shared her story with others. Tao Xueping stayed at her classmate’s home as late as possible. Lao-da’s parents were busy with the “four cleanups” campaign, which was aimed at cleansing elements in the political, economic, organizational, and ideological spheres, one working in a factory, coming home once a week, the other in the suburbs, coming home only once a month. Most of the time it was just Nainai, Fu Ping, and the two youngsters, four at the table, while Tao Xueping stood behind them to watch, stepping back and declining the offer to join them for dinner. But then she would walk up and show her classmate’s sister how to eat a snail by inserting the tip of a chopstick under the shell and sucking hard till the meat slipped out. If the earthenware pot was placed a bit off the pad, she straightened it, even offered to refill empty rice bowls. That got on Nainai’s nerves. We’re eating, she’d say bluntly, why don’t you go home for dinner? The first few times that happened, she replied, That’s all right, we don’t eat till later. Or, I don’t eat dinner. But before long, she took the hint to leave. She was not as foolish as she looked. She could almost read people’s minds. When she left, she not only did not go home, she did not even leave the building. She went down the hall and leaned against the neighbor’s door, where A-niang, one of her regular listeners, was calling her son, daughter-inlaw, and grandchildren to dinner. Hers was a larger, livelier

Q

75

Q

FU PING

family, and she did not immediately notice that there was someone at the door. But when she invited Tao Xueping in, the girl turned and walked off. So A-niang ignored her. But she returned and once again leaned against the door, where she listened to the children bantering and laughed along with them. Before much time had passed, the ice was broken, and a conversation ensued through the doorway. A-niang had related the girl’s sad story to her son and daughter-in-law, who felt they knew her. In the days to come, they greeted her warmly when they met. Physically, she was already a grown-up. But after the same thing happened several times, her standing outside the door to watch them eat and listen to their conversation began to wear on them. And so, on one occasion, Tao Xueping walked up to the door and, for the first time, found it closed. She could hear the children making a fuss, the adults scolding, and the clatter of chopsticks on bowls on the other side of the door. She could do nothing but move on to the next apartment, which was in an adjoining building. This family ate at two tables, one for the adults, the other in the kitchen for the nanny and the children. This made things easier. She could sit on a bench in front of the  second table to watch and chat, causing the children to forget their table manners. They started acting up as soon as it was time to eat. That is how it went, one family after another, getting to know so many of them that in time no one could recall whose friend she was. As we have seen, Lü Fengxian had a friend, Auntie A-ju, the nanny for a family friend of her former employer’s. She was from a town called Xukou in Suzhou, quite a distance from Lü Fengxian’s hometown of Mudu. Her husband, whose family

Q

76

Q

FU PING

owned no land, had co-owned a business. She sent her earnings back home so he could become a fishmonger at the local ferry landing. Just her luck that he took up with a woman on a fishing boat and fathered a son with her. At first A-ju feigned ignorance of what he was up to, but when the Marriage Law went into effect after 1949, and the government outlawed the practice of taking a concubine, her husband was forced to choose between the two women. A-ju took herself out of the running. He and the other woman were living a normal life together in Xukou, and since they had a child, there was no denying that they were a couple. All A-ju had was the legal status, and she was filled with resentment. She lacked the strong will of Lü Fengxian, which is why she’d merely scraped by all these years. At first she directed her resentment at the woman who had stolen her husband, but then turned it to her husband’s unfaithfulness and lack of gratitude, and finally simply cursed her own fate. Resentment invariably led to tears, of which she had shed a river. Lü Fengxian did not ignore her, as she might have done with someone else, since they were from the same area and she worked for the friend of Lü Fengxian’s former employer. But she was a bit of a mystery. She visited Lü Fengxian often, sometimes calling on her at night and at other times at her employer’s home during the day. That is how she came to know Tao Xueping. The girl’s life story broke A-ju’s heart. She cried each time she heard it, especially the part where the girl’s father would not allow her to see her mother, another example of a heartless man, something she knew all too well. She felt she just had to tell her own sad story. They both recounted their stories so often

Q

77

Q

FU PING

that even Nainai and the other women who were drawn to tragic stories began to lose interest. As time went on, their audience dwindled to the point that they could exchange their stories only one to the other. Auntie A-ju took no notice of the fact that Tao Xueping was not yet an adult, though she struck her as an understanding girl, for she seemed riveted by Auntie A-ju’s tale of woe, to which she sighed sympathetically and walked her home, arm in arm, afterward. Soon Tao Xueping stopped going to her classmate’s home, not even to the lane where she lived, and she was forgotten. But who could say? She was now a frequent guest at the home where Auntie A-ju worked, coming and going on a regular basis. Most of the time, the apartment building on the west end of the street where Auntie A-ju’s employer lived was deserted during the day, the adults at work and the children at school, leaving only an old woman in her seventies at home. The girl Auntie A-ju brought along was a well-disciplined charmer who was good at buttering people up, so naturally the old woman took to her. At first she listened to the girl’s story in the kitchen, but before long Tao Xueping was allowed into the living quarters; at times when Auntie A-ju was elsewhere and the girl came on her own, the old woman invited her in. Tao Xueping was more restrained at this home, having seen how much more orderly life was here than in her classmate’s lane, not nearly as casual or open. When she negotiated the marble steps, she could hear her footfalls echo back to her from the dome high overhead, lending a forbidding air to the scene. She never overstayed her welcome here, always leaving before dark. But on the one occasion, when she stayed too long, the old woman’s

Q

78

Q

FU PING

son came home. He wore gold-framed eyeglasses, and though he was dressed in the standard tunic, it had been carefully pressed. He walked past her without so much as a glance. She instinctively shrank back. Even the old man guarding the building gave her a look of indifference. She did not dare speak to the guard, knowing he would not be interested in hearing her sad story. The old woman was the only one who treated her with warmth, though she seemed somewhat fickle. She would have a great deal to say to her one time, but the next time she came, it could be as if she didn’t know her. That said, she was still interested in the girl. The lonely old woman was so afraid of her son that it took her a long time to get up the nerve to reveal what had happened. She told him that the shabby girl who had come over with Auntie A-ju had borrowed money seven or eight times, not much, one yuan, or two, three at the most, but had never paid any of it back. What’s more, in recent days she had stayed away. Her son was livid, not just over the money but also the comings and goings at his house by someone they knew nothing about, disrupting the scrupulous sense of order in the home. He went immediately to ask Auntie A-ju about Tao Xueping. It did not take long to trace the girl to her classmate. Lao-da was a bit of a terror at home, but she had never run up against anything like this before; she locked herself in her room and cried her eyes out. She refused to take Auntie A-ju to Tao Xueping’s house to get her to return the money she’d borrowed. Left with no choice, Nainai had to take care of it. So, after dinner, she and Auntie A-ju, with Fu Ping along for moral support, went to see Tao Xueping.

Q

79

Q

FU PING

Her family lived on a chaotic street well off the main road. Partitioned wood-framed buildings lined the street, with an occasional storefront. There was also an outdoor market, which filled the air with the smell of rotting vegetables and the stink of meat and fish. None of Tao Xueping’s classmates had ever been to her house, and knew only that she lived in a building fronting the street beside a stand where oily crullers and flatbreads were sold. They first entered a doorway to the left of the cruller stand, where briquette-burning stoves lined the wall along a narrow passageway. A wooden ladder led to the upper floors. They groped their way upstairs, where closed doors were barely visible in the dark hallway. Without knowing if anyone lived there, they knocked on each door and called out Tao Xueping’s name. No one emerged from behind any of the doors, so they went back downstairs single file, producing creaks with each step. Back outside, they stood in the street, gathered their wits, and then went to the right of the cruller stand. The door to that room was unlocked, so they walked in and were faceto-face with a man drinking alcohol under a lit lamp. A woman sat on the bed behind him, nursing an infant. Both of them, blank looks on their faces, stared at the three women who had barged in on them and heard them ask for Tao Xueping; they then listened as they related all the bad things the girl had done. When the visitors had finished, they stopped, leaving the room in silence, except for the baby’s suckling sounds. The woman had dropped her head at the first mention of Tao Xueping and kept it there. Her hair covered her face as she sat in the shadows. A padded jacket of an indescribable dark color was draped over her shoulders. The man did not pause in his drinking or

Q

80

Q

FU PING

eating. Nainai struggled to remind them of the long-standing tradition of settling one’s debts. The man finally spoke. I didn’t tell you to lend her money. That really upset Nainai. What kind of nonsense is that? she said, raising her voice. Having no interest in a debate, the man went back to his food. In an audacious move, Nainai walked up and smacked her hand on the table. You’ll either pay back the money you owe or else, she snapped. The man shrank back. I don’t have any money. Nainai had never encountered such a weak, shameless rascal. She was prepared to argue with him until she looked up and spotted a row of little faces gazing down from the floor above, their eyes shining through the darkness, and her anger melted away. In the end, Nainai went to the school, walked into the classroom, dragged Tao Xueping out, and demanded that she pay back the money she had borrowed. In front of her teacher and school principal, she promised she would. But today led to tomorrow, which led to the day after, and the promise was never kept. Fortunately, Auntie A-ju’s employer did not actually care about the money, but wanted to warn her not to come back, and that brought the incident to an end. But in Nainai’s neighborhood, the excitement over the affair did not die down and was a topic of conversation for a long time. In their discussion of Tao Xueping, she became a dangerous, disreputable girl. Who could have predicted that such an individual and the affair she caused would crop up in the midst of their decent, structured lives? Nainai described the girl’s home to the other women, with a father, stepmother, and a pile of little brothers and sisters. She spiced up her narration a bit, but all the spice in the world could not come close to matching what they felt when they were in

Q

81

Q

FU PING

that room. They were stunned. The people weren’t just poor, not just indigent, they were beyond hope, a family with no future. The storm over Tao Xueping waned. She no longer came to her classmate’s home. From time to time someone would ask Lao-da what happened to Tao Xueping. She would answer imperiously that she didn’t know and walk on. But Fu Ping saw her on the street one day, a baby in one arm, and in the other hand an ice pop, which she stuck so far into her mouth that only the stick showed. With that she raised one knee, laid the baby across it, and straightened its diaper, the practiced actions of a mother. The baby reached out to tap her face, trying to get to the icy treat. She turned her face away, out of reach. Eventually, she took it out of her mouth and put what remained of it up to the baby’s lips. As Fu Ping watched the scene across the street, what she saw was not Tao Xueping, but herself, dragging along a brood of her uncle and aunt’s children. She also saw her own future with a clutch of little brothers and sisters. In time they’d be her siblings, though they would be members of Li Tianhua’s family. All children were disgusting, with their tears, their snot, their piss and shit, forever hungry, always mouthing off and fighting. Tao Xueping actually showed up at her classmate’s home once more, wearing a military uniform with no collar or cap insignia. Since they had never seen her dressed so neatly, she looked like a new person. She’d grown taller during that time, and was now an adult. She walked in the door as if none of the past had ever occurred, put her arms around Fu Ping’s neck, and then took the pot from Nainai and washed the rice for her. Laoda and the other girls were at the table doing their homework;

Q

82

Q

FU PING

she walked up to Lao-da, undid her braid, rewove it, and tied it with a ribbon at the tip. She was leaving for Xinjiang to join a reclamation and cultivation brigade, and had dropped by to say good-bye. With her new clothes and a real future, her mood was light and cheerful. She had not gotten over her desire to be liked, but she had stopped being obsequious. She told them she’d be going to North Station the next morning, where she would board a train for a weeklong ride to Xinjiang. In addition to the uniform she was wearing, she had been outfitted with a padded jacket, an overcoat, and a set of long johns—top and bottom. She was also given a comforter, a blanket, a canteen, a mess tin, a flashlight, and a salary, with raises every year. Xinjiang produced all you can eat of Hami melons, honeydews, and grapes, she said. She enchanted them as she glibly rattled off all this. In the eyes of conservative residents of central Shanghai, Xinjiang was a scary place where only soldiers and criminals were sent. But here at this moment, it took on a wondrous quality. There was hope for Tao Xueping, after all.

Q

83

Q

Chapter Seven

QI SHIFU

HONESTLY, FU PING

had noticed for some time that Nainai acted

differently any time Qi Shifu from the housing management office came to make repairs. Qi was a husky middle-aged man with a long, rectangular face and a crew cut who always wore dark blue khaki work clothes. A quiet man who talked and laughed little, he projected a friendly look. Nainai always sent for him when anything needed fixing in the flat since he was a diligent man whose work was always satisfactory. He even looked around to see if there was anything else that needed his attention while he was there. Once, when he was repairing a flush toilet, he saw that several mosaic floor tiles were missing and filed that away for the future. Materials for old buildings like this were in short supply. The floor tiles were a case in point: hexagonal, they were small yet thick, totally different from later styles. He looked to other older buildings for replacement pieces anytime one of the residents

FU PING

redid a bathroom floor, saved a few of the old tiles, and tried to match them to Nainai’s floor. Several times he tried, but none of the new tiles was exactly right. Yet he refused to give up. Eventually, he found some that were close, trimmed them with a file, and filled in the gaps. During all that time, whenever he came by, he took the discarded tiles out of his pocket, without saying anything, crouched down, and laid them out to see if they fit. If not, he stood up, paused for a moment, and left, again without a word. Nainai kept her back to him, attending to her own chores, acting as if she were unaware that someone had walked in the door. Not until he left did she turn around. On one occasion, the wooden kitchen floor needed fixing, which Qi Shifu dealt with over a period of days. As was his habit, he came in, said nothing as he tossed his tool bag down on the floor and got to work. He stood and left around noon, returning in the afternoon. As always, Nainai kept her back to him and busied herself with her own work. But this time she was a real chatterbox, her voice quite high. Her demeanor? It was more animated than usual. When it was time to quit work that afternoon, he put away his tools, sat on a stool, lit a cigarette, and had a leisurely smoke while Nainai swept up the sawdust and broken nails. The atmosphere was so relaxed she felt quite calm, while Qi was his usual taciturn self as he smoked. When he’d finished his cigarette, he got up and left. Nainai laid down her broom, turned, and went to her room. Late afternoon sunlight slanted in from the lane behind and fell on the new beige floorboards and the heads of the gray nails holding them down. They looked clean and fresh amid the older, darker planks around them, and gave off a wonderful, new-wood smell.

Q

86

Q

FU PING

Qi was born into a family of carpenters in the Pudong countryside, where many residents learned the carpentry trade and then found work in the Puxi District. His father, himself a seasoned carpenter, came first to Shanghai, then took his son out of school to join him. The boy had to learn the trade on the job, since he’d had no previous training. But learn it he did. His father worked in an apartment building for foreigners. In addition to carpentry, he was also responsible for plumbing, heating, and electrical repairs. The boy went along and learned from his father. Workers in the area leaned toward variety over specialization. Dabbling in everything, they were proficient in the basics, but not much more. Though Qi Shifu spoke little, he was more adept at spotting a problem and knowing what to do about it than his father. After 1949, private property was nationalized, and Qi went to work for a management office. By then, the old carpenter had retired and gone back to the countryside, where he built a twostory house with a lifetime of earnings and furnished it with homemade mahogany items. Most of his allotted land became part of a farming cooperative, where he earned work points when he was able; the rest of the time he stayed home and took it easy. His son sent money from Shanghai for his parents to buy provisions. They planted the remaining small plot with fruit and vegetables for their own use. They always had enough to buy meat and fish, and some left over for a bit of alcohol. The old carpenter enjoyed his later years as he waited for just one thing—a grandchild. Qi Shifu, an only son, was married at twenty to a Pudong District girl who was four years his senior, a so-called Pudong

Q

87

Q

FU PING

wife. She went with him to Shanghai, and that was all the old carpenter needed to retire and go back home. Qi and his wife lived in the west wing of a house near Eight Sages Bridge that had been sublet by a landlord. The new tenants now paid rent to the management office. By applying his carpentry skills, he made sure the old place was in impeccable shape. He repaired the floors, the doors, and the windows, replacing rotting wood with new; the same held true for rusty bolts, butt and bifold hinges, and locks, all new. As a result, the place was in tip-top shape, nothing was out of place, and Qi’s wife was particular about having a neat, spotless home. There were patterned curtains on the windows, a simple sheet covered the bed, and the cupboards, tables, stools, and floor were brought to a shine with lye. The walls, made of a limestone compound with an adhesive, were almost blindingly white. Anyone walking in could not escape the feeling that the place was antiseptically, almost chillingly clean. But a closer look revealed a reason for the excessive  cleanliness, and that was the absence of a child. They were childless after many years of marriage. They had sought medical intervention the first few years, even tried a number of folk remedies, but after seven or eight fruitless years, they quit trying. His father gave up hope and found a boy in the countryside he told them he’d raise for them and send to Shanghai to live as their own when he was old enough. When they went back and saw the boy, that certain feeling was lacking. He was so shy they knew they could not take him back with them, so he stayed with the old man. When the boy was thirteen or fourteen, the old carpenter tried to teach him the trade,

Q

88

Q

FU PING

but he could not get the knack of it, probably because he had not inherited the family gene, so the old man gave up. Fortunately, Shanghai residents placed less stock in the need for male offspring, and having a child was not all that important, which meant less pressure. Qi Shifu and his wife were quite well-off, enjoyed a life of relative ease, and with the passage of time, a child no longer occupied their thoughts. But as a quiet man with a retiring nature, he was not good at making friends. Family is important to someone like that, but unfortunately his family was tiny, with only one other person, his wife. They got along well, if a bit dispassionately, and had little to say to each other; and, of course, they had no child, which gave them nothing to argue about. And so, unavoidably, their life together was somewhat bleak. Unlike his father, Qi Shifu had little taste for alcohol and no hobbies. Compared with all else, work was what he preferred. When he wasn’t on the job, if someone in the neighborhood needed something done, all they had to do was call Qi Shifu, and he would be there. He did the work, and did it well. So even though he had no friends to speak of, he was known as a good man and was well-liked. A good man whose days were rather insipid. After reporting for work in the morning and getting his list of jobs for the day, he wasted no time going from home to home to fix things. He went home for lunch, took a ten-minute nap, and was back at work until it was time to knock off for the day. His workload was even more varied than when he’d been assigned to the apartment complex and had been responsible for repairing plumbing, lighting, doors and windows, and elevators.

Q

89

Q

FU PING

Now there was more to do. When needed, he repaired leaky roofs and opened clogged sewer drains. He also worked in shantytowns, replacing roof tiles during the rainy season. He did what he was asked to do and never turned down a job, unlike workers who refused to stray from their specialized training. Everyone living in the jurisdiction of his housing management knew him; it was always Qi Shifu this and Qi Shifu that, which brought a smile to his face, a sense of belonging. He reddened without fail when adults told children to greet him, was tonguetied and did not know what to do, as if afraid of them, could not look them in the eye. He did not realize how fond of children he was. Except for emergencies that required overtime at night, he worked primarily during daylight hours, times when there would normally be only an old woman at home, or maybe a nanny or a wet nurse plus an infant. Not adept at conversation, he threw himself into the job, and if a woman asked him what the trouble was, or how easy it was to fix, or whether or not he could finish the same day, his responses were monosyllabic. That stopped the conversation in its tracks, so she would walk off and leave him to his work. When she returned, the job would be done to perfection, the area swept clean, everything put back where it belonged, and he would leave without a word. Well aware of his temperament, no one tried to get him to talk. They were happy to leave things in his capable hands because they knew he would do a first-rate job. The women left behind in a house went about what they were supposed to do, and could say what they wanted around him, knowing he was a gourd with no leaks. In fact, he did not, could not, hear what was said, not

Q

90

Q

FU PING

even if he’d wanted to. Until one day, that is. He was in a bathroom installing a new bathtub faucet. In a hallway outside the bathroom wall that led to the rear door some women were jabbering, when suddenly he heard sobs that went straight to his heart. He pricked up his ears to listen. The sobbing woman was bemoaning the abuse she received from her family over not having a son. By living simply and paying little attention to the lives of others, Qi Shifu had practically no experience and minimal facility in understanding moods, whether happy or sad. Now, as he listened to the woman’s lament, without trying he gained an appreciation of the bleak side of life, and was deeply moved. When he finished installing the faucet, he tested the speed and flow of water and mopped the tub dry before packing up his tools and walking out. As he passed the women in the hallway, by searching among them he found one with puffy eyes. Those eyes returned his gaze. The long, slender tips of her eyelids dipped into the corners of her eyes. Two weeks later, he returned to repair the baseboard in a third-floor apartment. He entered the house from the rear alley to a north-facing kitchen to the left of the back door. A woman with her back to him was chopping vegetables at a table, her cleaver expertly producing a tympanic tattoo on the cutting board. She turned to see who had walked in, creating an opening for him to notice a pile of neatly sliced carrots. As she was turning, she picked up a slice and put it in her mouth. Her gold earrings swung back and forth with her movements. The bright orange carrots and the gold of her earrings framed black hair and a pale face with a slight double chin. She was wearing an indigo cotton jacket; his eyes landed on the array of bright colors. He recognized her.

Q

91

Q

FU PING

We have seen that Qi Shifu lived simply. That, however, did not imply that he lacked life experiences. It is just that whatever he saw and heard was unrelated to him, and so he hadn’t delved deeply into the meaning of any of it. But on this day he had a glimpse of the woman’s life, and though it was superficial, to him it was profound. He experienced a sense of compassion that lingered. As always, he said nothing, and he returned twice to the same address without meeting her again. On one occasion, he heard from the neighbors that she had taken her employer’s children to see a dentist. By then he had begun paying close attention to what people were saying. As he walked out, feeling disappointed, he noticed a small chair by the corridor wall, one made for a child. A sewing basket rested on the seat; a half-finished article of clothing lay atop the basket. Blue with white flowers. The fabric was loosely rolled up, highlighting the solid texture and freshness of the material, and, for no obvious reason, he assumed it was hers. It happened so fast it caught him off guard. He’d gone out to the lane entrance to buy cigarettes and matches one Sunday afternoon when he heard a shout behind him: Qi Shifu. He turned. It was her. So this is where you live, she said. Yes, he replied. Would you like to come up for a moment? She followed him into the lane, casually sizing up the hybrid style of houses on both sides of the lane. Most of the gates were fully or partially opened, offering glimpses of the front yards and, in the bright sunlight, the floating images of clothes in motion. The family she worked for was off visiting friends, she told him, so she’d come out to see someone from her hometown. My friend works for a family near Eight Sages Bridge, she said, not far

Q

92

Q

FU PING

from here. Sad to say, she wasn’t home, and she might have gone looking for me. Her accent was a hybrid—northern Jiangsu and Shanghai dialects. He could not distinguish the difference between standard northern Jiangsu speech and her variety, but to his ears hers had a softer touch, with a slight upward lilt at the end. He listened the way he always did, but his responses were livelier than usual. She followed him in the back gate. Moss grew on courtyard walls and on a pair of buckets. Potted plants lined up on the concrete terrace included a China rose in full bloom. Bedding was drying under the brilliant sun on balconies, clothes were drying on bamboo poles crisscrossing the area overhead. It was early afternoon. They were alone in the sun-drenched courtyard, while street noises were muted, as if filtered through a membrane. Qi let the woman walk ahead, up a flight of stairs so steep her feet seemed to be stepping on his head. He could distinguish the fine stitching on her cloth soles and her beige stockings. She stopped at the first landing and turned as if to ask if this was his floor. He squeezed by her on the cramped landing and took out his key. Her smell filled his nostrils—the soft, warm fragrance of face cream, with a hint of sour body odor. Once the door was open, he followed her in and shut it behind him; the sound of the spring lock clicking in place spooked him; he began to sweat and, without thinking, wrapped his arms around her from behind. She turned. Sunlight slanting in through a windowpane fell on the eye he could see. The area around the eye was fleshy, resembling some kind of animal. She blinked. In the days to come—Sundays or evenings, whenever Qi’s wife was in Pudong—the woman came over. I thought you were

Q

93

Q

FU PING

a good man, she liked to say. Then she combed her hair in the mirror. At the time, she wore it in a bun; pulling her long hair tight against the scalp with oil, and then making it even tighter with a strip of cloth over the top, she held one end in her mouth and twisted the neatly combed hair into a flat bun at the back of her head. She then put a hairnet over the bun and held it in place with hairpins before removing the cloth strip. Qi’s heart raced as he watched her. He also stared at how she did up her jacket with its oblique opening. She raised her right arm and reached over under the armpit to fasten each large button, one after the other, with her left hand, leaving the one at her throat for last. Then with both hands, she adjusted the collar encircling her neck, and, with a bit of difficulty, buttoned it shut. Now she was fully and neatly dressed, prim and proper, a look of simple elegance. At last a bit of sweetness had been introduced into his simple life, but that would turn sour before long. One day the woman showed up, but instead of going to the room ahead of him, she sat in a chair facing him, wrapped her arms around her knees, looking very somber, and told him she was pregnant. He was calm as she began, but once the news sank in, he was agitated. Wringing his hands, he began pacing, bumping into objects in the cramped room without being aware of it. The woman, thinking he was panicking, was surprised to see him smile. What looked like new wrinkles surfaced on his beaming, slightly contorted face. She was waiting for a decision, but after her patience ran out, she banged her hand on the table to get his attention—he was oblivious. I’m going to get rid of the little devil, she said with a pout, and once again was surprised when he spun around, waved his hands, and

Q

94

Q

FU PING

said, Don’t! Don’t what? she demanded. More hand-wringing. The woman had no idea what he was thinking, but he suddenly looked like a stranger to her; she got up and stormed down the stairs, one loud step at a time, causing some of the doors at the bottom of the stairs to open a crack, as the residents caught sight of a woman’s retreating back. Qi Shifu’s wife knew that something was going on between the two of them, for the neighbors had hinted as much. So she was prepared when he told her that the woman was pregnant with his child. After the anger, after the tears, after kicking him out of her bed, and a trip back to her parents’ home in Pudong, she decided to take the child. At least one of them would be the biological parent. The decision had a calming effect on her. For a couple who had never engaged in pillow talk, and had not even gone through bad times together, keeping things the way they were was easy. Now they were seeing a child come their way, and their future seemed bright. She was secretly grateful that someone else was going to bear their child. Qi said he’d go see the woman and tell her what they’d decided. Husband and wife agreed that they’d send her to Pudong to have the child, telling people she was a distant relative. What harm could that do? After the baby arrived, they would go their own ways. Using the repair of the handle on a window with an iron grating as an excuse, Qi went to see the woman at one o’clock in the afternoon. The neighbors were resting after finishing lunch and sending the children back to school. A month had passed since she had come to tell him she was pregnant. They had not met during that month, which seemed like a very long time. When he arrived, she was on a chair on the garden steps

Q

95

Q

FU PING

in front of the building scrubbing an aluminum pot under the sun. She’d found half a dustpan of sand from somewhere and was using it to polish the pot till it shone. The sand sparkled under the bright sun, while her black hair, blue clothes, and white stockings dazzled. His heart skipped a beat, recalling events that had occurred not so long ago, but seemed far away. On this day he’d come to discuss something very important with her. Not a sophisticated man, he had little or no understanding of the effect his and his wife’s decision would have on her. So it wasn’t hard for him to tell her about their plans. She listened with her head down and savagely scrubbed the pot, creating bright streaks of sheen. She heard him out and said nothing for a long moment. How nice of you to agree! she finally said with a laugh. Qi did not know what to make of that, but the laugh scared him. Not daring to ask, he did the job he’d come to do and left. If he hadn’t come to talk things over with her, she might not have had the will to go through with her plan. After all, a human life was growing inside her body. But he had come, filled with excitement, and had eagerly related the plans he and his wife had hatched. This was to all their advantage, not hers. That night, with tears in her eyes, she said to Lü Fengxian, I don’t have a son of my own, so why should I give them one? I’d be a fool to do what they want. So she went to her employer and made up a story that she had appendicitis. She had a doctor perform the true procedure. Lü Fengxian filled in for her at her house, took food to her in the hospital, and looked up a distant relative who lived in the Xujiahui District and would put her up for a couple of days as she recuperated. No one but Lü

Q

96

Q

FU PING

Fengxian knew. But there is no wall in the world without holes, and she did not have to say anything for the word to get out eventually. In the aftermath of the abortion, Qi grew increasingly morose. He went back to Pudong on occasion and saw the child his father had adopted for him. The boy was already out of middle school, a handsome child who was well on his way to adulthood. Strangely, he spoke little, like Qi himself. He did not want to become a carpenter, and was no more than an average student. What he liked to do was raise animals. He had a pigeon coop and cages full of rabbits, cats, and dogs. During the summer months, the house resounded with chirping katydids and crickets. Though few people lived in the two-story house, the place was always filled with life. Qi would lie on his bed in the mornings listening to the boy stomp up onto the roof, open the coop, and call the pigeons out. The footsteps and calls were spirited. The day arrived when he took the boy to Shanghai with him. He would let him bring one pair of pigeons along, that and a dog. Before the morning fog had burned off, a man and his son walked down the road leading to the wharf. He carried a large backpack, his son a small one, a dog in his arms and a pair of pigeons on his shoulders.

Q

97

Q

Chapter Eight

THE GRANDS

TIME PASSED,

and as Qi Shifu and the woman aged, past events

faded from memory. Then one day, when he was feeling emotional, he said to her, I wanted to marry you, but I couldn’t. Marry me? she snapped. You think you could have afforded to marry me? She unlocked the trunk at the head of the bed, raised the lid, and took a sack out from the bottom. She dumped the contents onto the bed—gold rings, gold thimbles, gold locking plates, two gold ingots—before removing her gold earrings and tossing them into the mix. Marry me with what? Her upper lip flared a bit in a smirk. She looked shrewish and pitiful at the same time. He walked up and clumsily tried to replace her earrings. As he did so he managed to get some of her hair caught; she wore it short now and tucked it behind her ears. Fu Ping walked in on them just then, embarrassing them both. He put down the earrings and walked out.

FU PING

Nainai sat on the edge of the bed as she slowly put her earrings on and looked down at the pile of glitter. Come here, take a look, she said. Fu Ping stayed put and threaded a needle with sunlight streaming in the window behind her. Nainai smiled. Come over here and take a look, she said. This is what I’ve put aside all these years. Not caring whether Fu Ping moved or not, she began describing the purity, style, and value of her cache of gold. Fu Ping slowly turned around, keeping her distance but drawing close enough for her eyes to see and her ears to hear. Nainai put her treasure back into the sack, one item at a time. Nainai’s had a tough life, she said, but she’s relied on no one but herself. I’ve earned everything I own, down to the smallest needle. She got up and put the sack back into the trunk, then locked it, and continued with what she was saying. I took your future husband as my grandson for my old age, so you would not have to take care of me. Ask your mother-in-law if you don’t believe me. Has she spent as much on him as I have? However bad that may have sounded, it carried a sense of saying what needed to be said. Fu Ping was not hurt by the comment. Unlike past days, when she was unaffected by use of the words “husband” and “mother-in-law,” this time there was something more important in what Nainai said than what the words seemed to imply. She turned to look at Fu Ping, who stood impassively at the window. She had enjoyed an easy life since coming to town, but rather than filling out, she had actually lost weight. She said little, and what was on her mind was anyone’s guess. Nainai sighed. My grandson lacks mettle. He won’t mistreat you, but don’t expect too much of him. You were born to look out for yourself. You and I share a fate. That sounded as if she was

Q

100

Q

FU PING

trying to win the girl over, but there was no lack of sincerity. She had learned over recent days that she mustn’t underestimate Fu Ping. The distance between them shrank after Nainai’s soul-baring comments. Sometimes she talked about her grandson, and, unlike before, when she would simply walk away, Fu Ping was willing to listen. Nainai was very fond of her grandson. She recalled how he had looked as a little boy, sporting what was known as tile-cut hair and going to school with a cloth sack under his arm. As he got older, he changed to a student’s haircut, with a fringe of hair over his forehead. He had such delicate features that people often mistook him for a girl. Nainai adopted him right out of primary school, where he had been a “three-good merit” student year in and year out. But his family was too poor to keep him in school and also keep his younger brothers and sisters fed. As he stood in front of Nainai the day of the adoption, not making a sound, his toes poking through his shoes, his mother told him to kowtow to Nainai. If he did, she said, Nainai would pay for his schooling. He stayed rooted to the spot as tears fell like beads at his feet. And that was how Nainai adopted him. She did not return to her Yangzhou village until two years after that. Her adopted grandson met her at the pier. He had grown taller and, it appeared, thinner than ever. Still taciturn. He gathered Nainai’s luggage, hooked it onto a pole, and hoisted it onto his shoulder, and was off. As she fell in behind him, she watched him sway from side to side under the weight, holding up well, like a country boy who could not escape hard work despite his frailty. Needless to say, the adoption of a grandson did not sit well with her daughter, who

Q

101

Q

FU PING

insisted that she could take care of Nainai in her old age. You have your husband’s mother to worry about, Nainai said. After she adopted the boy, her daughter often complained to her about Nainai’s husband’s elder brother and his wife, who were scheming to get money and other things from her. They spared no expense when building a house, and did not seem to value money. They even told people they’d let Nainai adopt the boy because they pitied her for not having an heir. That kind of talk never failed to get a reaction from Nainai, and while she would not think of confronting Li Tianhua’s parents over it, word has a way of being passed on and becoming more troublesome along the way. Yet, no matter how troubling it got, the boy was never involved; he was above it. Not even Nainai’s daughter had anything bad to say about the grandson. He was a good boy. As she listened quietly, Fu Ping gradually conjured up a picture of the boy and what he was like. She had never gotten a good look at him. Under lowered eyelids, all she’d seen were two feet held close together, white socks and black cloth shoes. And she’d never really heard him either. When he came to Shanghai that day with her travel expenses, he’d had a brief conversation with her aunt, only a few words of which had entered her ears. Their accent was soft and lilting to begin with, and in his mouth it was even more so, almost operatic. For a girl who had grown up in the home of a family not her own, Fu Ping dealt with people warily. As a result, she was good at sizing them up. She could tell at first glance that the boy was well-behaved. Now, as Nainai spoke of him, the picture became clearer. He stood in front of Fu Ping, replete with parents, siblings, many relatives, and plenty of gossip. She knew all she

Q

102

Q

FU PING

needed to know about family. Family meant trouble, lots of it. And she saw a future filled with trouble. Being well-behaved became a flaw. He was ensnared in trouble from which he could not extricate himself. His docility could turn into a defect, an inability to make decisions. Fu Ping resented him for that. Then he sent a letter to Nainai, and after her employer’s Lao-da read it to her, she said to Fu Ping, It’s for you. Not a sentence in the letter was addressed to Fu Ping. He asked how Nainai was doing, asked about the weather, asked whether the flu was going around, and asked about the food. If there were any local products Nainai wanted from home, he would send them to her, and she should come home if she did not like life in Shanghai. He was taking good care of her room, keeping it clean inside, and had planted sunflowers in her garden, where the large blooms cast their shadows by her window. The hens were getting bigger and laying eggs. His mother had put the newly laid ones aside for Nainai. The ducks were doing fine— a basketful of their eggs every day. And the pig, it was fatter than ever. When Nainai came home, they would kill it, and she would have plenty of pork. He knows I’m not going back, Nainai said. He’s obviously waiting for you. It was an affectionate letter, beautifully written, and Fu Ping was touched. Resentment turned to compassion. Finally, Nainai raised the return issue with her. It was by then the end of the calendar year, and Nainai’s intent was to encourage Fu Ping to return to Yangzhou for New Year’s. It’s not that I don’t want you here, Nainai said, but people should not celebrate New Year’s away from home. Take me, for instance. I’m still able to work, so I’m a member of my employer’s family.

Q

103

Q

FU PING

But you can’t do what I do. Fu Ping listened with her head down, so Nainai tried a different approach: I know you don’t care for your uncle and aunt’s home, and it would work out nicely if you and my grandson could get married over Chinese New Year’s. Your mother-in-law mentioned that twice in her letter. Fu Ping’s face turned red. Nainai thought she was blushing, never entertaining the thought that she might be angry, that she would rather have no home than go to the grandson’s. Nainai continued, following her own train of thought: If you want something, just let me know, Fu Ping, and I’ll buy it for you. Nothing, Fu Ping said, and Nainai finally grasped that she was unhappy. They slept in the same bed that night, caught up in their own thoughts. The two little girls were fast asleep. The silence was broken only by the ticktock of the clock marking the seconds. Anxiety filled their hearts over the days that followed, as the end of the year rapidly approached, but it remained unclear whether or not she would go back. Shanghai streets, even in the bustling city center, are not as vibrant during the winter season. A cold front had arrived, stripping trees of their leaves and turning them from green to brown, to be crushed under passing feet. Her employer’s children delighted in stomping on dead leaves, jumping joyously when that made a crunching noise. Amid such happy sounds, the street turned increasingly bleak. The sun’s rays were pale and gloomy. Few people ventured out, and those who did rushed along. Shops remained open, but their business tailed off. Clerks tucked their hands into their sleeves and paced the floor behind display cases, stomping their feet to ward off the cold. Bolts of fabric in Fu Ping’s favorite shop lost their colors, as those on

Q

104

Q

FU PING

display were mostly heavy woolens in the grays, blues, and blacks of winter wear. She walked the streets to buy something for Nainai, fully sensing the lonely atmosphere, and feeling that the time to go back was upon her. What was she going to do? Maybe she was thinking too much, but it felt to her that the mistress’s attitude toward her had cooled. In recent days, when she came home from the office, they ate at the same table, but she was not as heedful of Fu Ping as she’d been at first. Fu Ping knew this would not be her home for long. It appeared to her that Nainai had begun making preparations for her to go back. She bought her a red padded Chinese jacket with extra long sleeves, which were all the rage in Shanghai at the time. Fu Ping told Nainai to put it aside, refusing to try it on. Nainai also bought a length of silver-gray worsted fabric for Fu Ping to make a pair of Western-style trousers; not now, she’d said, maybe later. Nainai then bought her a silk quilt cover, a pillow, and a woolen blanket. Fu Ping did not give any of it a second look. Frustrated, Nainai could only say tearfully, Fu Ping, have you given up on my grandson? An intransigent young woman, Fu Ping did not know what to do when others approached her with tenderness. Now here was Nainai, two generations her senior, all but begging her. No, she said. Then why don’t you like anything I want to give you? I’m still young, she said. She almost cried when she said that. Nainai’s tears stopped. She sighed and continued in a decidedly cooler tone: You aren’t sold on my grandson, you’re worried that all his younger brothers and sisters will be a burden, that it’s a broken family, not a good household waiting for you to take charge, and that you’re better off staying single. You think my grandson is

Q

105

Q

FU PING

a pushover, too compliant and filial, and you’re afraid he’ll yield to your in-laws. Fu Ping was stunned by what she was hearing, knowing that Nainai had seen through her. Anyone could have. Everything was out in the open. She considered herself to be cunning, but it had taken only a few words from Nainai to expose her. I feel sorry for my grandson, who’s being stifled by his family, Nainai said. He’d have other choices if it were based solely on his fine character and appearance. She was on target again. Of course, Fu Ping understood, but she hated to hear it coming from Nainai. With tears in her eyes, she said, You came to me. A rift opened in Fu Ping’s relationship with Nainai. She sensed that in the way Lü Fengxian looked at her, as if she felt that Fu Ping was “unworthy” of Nainai’s grandson. On top of that, the employer’s Lao-da surprised Nainai by saying, You people are ruining your grandson. Both girls followed Nainai’s example, calling the young man Grandson. You people have ruined Grandson’s future, the elder one said to Nainai. Fu Ping heard that and it upset her. Women who worked for other families in the neighborhood gave her harsh, judgmental looks. She felt her isolation, knowing how low she’d fallen in their eyes. Some nights she went into the lane and up to the fence at the girls’ school. Few people would be on the athletic field in the cold, and the corner where the girls liked to hang out was vacant and silent. Not hearing a sound, she turned and headed back. On this night she stopped at the lane entrance, decided where she wanted to go, and took off. Most shops had closed for the day, though fluorescent bulbs in display cases still cast

Q

106

Q

FU PING

their pale light on bricks out front. A few small shops remained open under a single forty-watt bulb that lent the insides a sense of warmth. As she walked along, she turned absentmindedly into a narrow, murky street. At some point she recalled that this was not the first time she’d been on this street. It was where Tao Xueping had lived before leaving for Xinjiang. Fu Ping now knew no one else anywhere in the city. Suddenly someone popped out of a small lane and shouted, Hey, girl, stop! She barely had time to be frightened before the brazen man was standing in front of her. He looked young, young and sleazy, his teeth shining through the darkness. She walked around him and quickened her pace. He did not follow her, and was reduced to calling out in obvious disappointment, You don’t have to be afraid of me, girl! Of course, she was afraid. She was shaking as she left the murky street and emerged onto one that was a bit brighter, heading home. She entered through the back gate, still out of breath, and walked into the kitchen, where Nainai was telling ghost stories to a roomful of adults and children. She was stringing cowpeas out of a basket at her feet to dry and use in a dish of braised pork. The finished coils lay in a shallow basket beside her. The children were competing to hand her the peas as they shrieked over her narrative. No one saw Fu Ping come in, and so the frightened look on her face went unnoticed. She went straight to her room. The mistress was in her bedroom. The larger bedroom was dark. She had not turned on the light, as a bit of light from outside kept it from being completely dark. The grain of the wood floor was still visible. Fu Ping sat on the edge of the bed, her heart racing, her breath

Q

107

Q

FU PING

coming in short, rapid bursts. Neither returned to normal for a long time. You all want me to leave, she said to herself. Well, I’m staying! Nainai was an easy person to read. When she was unhappy, her face showed it. Fu Ping was strong-willed and had nothing to say to Nainai unless the older woman spoke first. And she would not ask for work unless Nainai gave her something to do. So all day long she neither spoke nor had anything to keep her busy. The fright she’d received that night on the lane kept her indoors. Never especially spirited, she now looked more wooden than ever, sitting on her stool, with nothing to do or say. The children played a game in front of her, jumping and shouting, We are blocks of wood, we can’t speak and we can’t move. They froze in place at the word “move” in all kinds of strange poses. The children were the “everybody” in the saying, Everybody hits the one who’s down, bullying whoever’s most unlucky. They even went so far as to shout “can’t move” into Fu Ping’s face. That had no effect on her, as if she hadn’t even heard it. The girls, having noticed how Nainai had cooled toward Fu Ping, talked Nainai’s ear off and laughed like crazy during meals, which highlighted Fu Ping’s isolation. Nainai talked with them, but her heart was not in it. She constantly sneaked a look at Fu Ping out of the corner of her eye. With her head down, Fu Ping shoveled the rice in her bowl up to the edge, creating a steep wall. Finally, Nainai had had enough. She picked up a bit of food with her chopsticks and put it in Fu Ping’s bowl. What are you trying to prove by shoveling your rice like that? she barked. Are you planning on eating up all our rice? Anyone else would have detected the placating undercurrent in Nainai’s

Q

108

Q

FU PING

comment. But Fu Ping was too strong-willed to take advantage of the implied offer. So, instead of replying, she kept her head down and continued to shovel the rice up. Nainai was increasingly downcast, often crying and losing her temper easily. A minor quarrel with one of the children could ignite her anger. When Lü Fengxian tried to talk to her, she said, If I don’t do right by my grandson, he’ll blame me for what happens. It was something Fu Ping could not abide to hear, so she ran outside, unconcerned about the possible dangers out on the street. She seethed as she walked. It’s the middle of the day, she thought. I don’t think anyone will bother me! The episode in the lane lost its power to frighten her as time passed. And, after all, it was daytime, so what could happen? That experience had actually emboldened her. Going out became a regular occurrence. She’d leave in the morning and not return until the afternoon, sometimes as late as the evening. No one knew where she went or what she did there. One evening she returned after everyone had finished dinner. Nainai was waiting for her. Fu Ping, she said tearfully, I simply cannot let you stay any longer. Go home. Fu Ping said nothing, but Nainai’s dejection did have an effect on her. She went up and took a bowl Nainai was washing from her, lowered her head, and finished washing it. With both hands covering her face, Nainai sobbed. Forcing herself to hold back, Fu Ping sniffled and said, I’ll go. Nainai’s sobs grew quieter and, finally, stopped. Peace reigned in the house over the days that followed. Fu Ping appeared reconciled. She looked at the items Nainai had bought for her and accepted every one. She also let Nainai accompany her to a tailor shop to have a pair of Western-style

Q

109

Q

FU PING

trousers made. On their way home, they passed the fabric shop, where Nainai told her to pick out material that caught her fancy. As she lingered over the stock, her eyes roaming from one bolt of patterned fabric to the next, Fu Ping seemed somehow downcast. It took quite a while and many bolts of cloth before she chose two, which the clerk took down and laid on the counter, then noisily flipped the board over and over to lay out as much as she needed. After a slit was cut for the clerk to rip off the lengths she wanted, an abacus created a chorus of clicks. The money and sales slip were sent sliding along an overhead wire, and when it came back, the purchase was concluded. Nainai then bought enough material to make tops for two pairs of cloth shoes, telling Fu Ping to make them for her grandson. She did not say no. New purchases in hand, the women, separated by two generations, walked home slowly. There was increased activity on the streets now, as the more industrious residents were stocking up for New Year’s. Hams, smoked meats, and salted pigs’ knuckles hung outside the smoked meats shop. Roasted seeds and nuts, and dried foods had come on the market. People brought their children to outfit them in new shoes and socks; business was brisk at the cotton goods shop, where most of the customers were couples who planned to be married over New Year’s, and were buying their winter bedding. Trees had shed their leaves, which opened up the sky with a clear, crisp feel. Streetcar cables strung across the sky sang a cheerful, rhythmic tune. Some residents of homes lining the streets were washing the outsides of windows, the afternoon sun glinting off the glass surfaces, flashing with each movement, sometimes blindingly so. Nainai told Fu Ping that after she was back

Q

110

Q

FU PING

home she should tell her mother-in-law to send a pig’s leg and a pair of hens with the next person coming to the city. This was something the mistress had asked for some time ago. Fu Ping said she would. Once the date to set out was chosen, Nainai had Lao-da write to her grandson and tell him to meet Fu Ping at the pier. The whole neighborhood knew that she was going home to get married, and came by with gifts. Lü Fengxian’s gift topped the others—two pounds of camel-colored coarse knitting yarn for Grandson and a pound and a half of pink medium weight wool for Fu Ping. Mistress gave her two pillowcases; actually, she gave Nainai the money to buy them for her. With roughly ten days to go, Fu Ping stayed home sewing the cloth shoes for Grandson, pulling the needle and long thread through the soles with a rasping sound. Her future was pretty much settled.

Q

111

Q

Chapter Nine

AUNT

ONE AFTERNOON

the elder girl came home from school quieter

than usual. When Nainai touched her forehead she could tell the girl had a fever. She told her sister to come with them to see the doctor. She refused. We’ve noted that she was at a contrarian age, so best to leave her at home, where, fortunately, Fu Ping was around. Nainai told her to start the rice at five that evening, pick and wash the vegetables, and not let the little girl go out and run wild. When they returned home at 5:30, after seeing the doctor and filling a prescription, the vegetables had not been washed, the rice was uncooked, and Fu Ping was nowhere to be found. The little girl, home alone, sat meekly stringing some old beads she had dug up. Where is Fu Ping? Nainai asked. Her aunt came and took her someplace, she said. Nainai’s heart sank and she could hardly breathe. Aunt? she said. Since when did Fu Ping have an aunt? This is the first I’ve heard of her. The girl mumbled that she was a large woman who

FU PING

spoke the northern Jiangsu dialect. Fu Ping called her Aunt. The woman said she’d bring her back in a few days, after she’d spent some time with them. Did she say how many days? Nainai asked. Didn’t I just say she’d be back in a few days? the girl sniped. Nainai went in to see if Fu Ping’s things were still there. They were. The half-finished shoes she was making for Grandson lay in the sewing basket. Her composure somewhat restored, she went in to make dinner. Things did not go well in the kitchen. The rice was half cooked, Nainai cut her finger while chopping the vegetables, and she forgot to add salt to the soup. The mistress, who seldom complained, asked her what was wrong. She made up an excuse, saying she’d been harried after getting home late from the doctor visit. But she could not hold the truth in for long, and told the mistress how Fu Ping had gone off with some aunt. The mistress thought for a moment. She’s a good girl, she said finally, but we don’t know a thing about this aunt. Yet as someone with a military background, she tended to see things in black and white, and tried to always look on the bright side. Maybe Fu Ping really does have an aunt, she said with a note of relief. It can’t hurt for her to be away enjoying herself for a few days. That helped to settle Nainai’s mind a bit. But when Lü Fengxian heard the news, she introduced a somber note. Her long brows twitched; she wore a worried look. Where did this so-called aunt pop up from? The aunt was for real, a member of Fu Ping’s family. Her maternal uncle had come to Shanghai with her granduncle, who worked on a scow. Her aunt was from a family who also worked on a scow, transporting garbage on the canals; later, the work

Q

114

Q

FU PING

came under the jurisdiction of a sanitation bureau. Now the family had settled in Shanghai’s Zhabei District near East Station. Fu Ping could not recall ever meeting this uncle, but her paternal uncle and aunt had from time to time mentioned another uncle, Sun Daliang, who lived in Zhabei and went out each day on a garbage scow. Whenever Fu Ping had an argument with her aunt back home, the elder woman would say, If you’re not happy here, go look up your uncle in Shanghai. When Fu Ping’s mother died, this uncle came to his sister’s funeral. After that, the family needed to figure out what to do with Fu Ping. Since her father had died three years before, she was now an orphan, and there were two options open to the family: she could stay with either her maternal or her paternal uncle. Her maternal uncle, using the excuse that it would be hard for her to gain residence in Shanghai, demurred, so Fu Ping stayed to live with her hometown uncle and aunt. She had heard this story so many times that in her mind her maternal uncle was just an estranged relative. Over the many years, perhaps because of his aversion to taking responsibility, he chose not to have any contact with her, not even a letter. She’d forgotten him, in any event. But all the tough times with Nainai had her thinking about him once again. When she went out walking alone, surrounded by strangers, she had the depressing thought that in a city so big there wasn’t a single person she could go to. That is when thoughts of Uncle popped into her head. She did not seriously consider looking him up at first, but since she had nowhere else to go, if she was out for a stroll, why not walk to the train station? When she first arrived in Shanghai, she recalled, she’d taken a trolley from

Q

115

Q

FU PING

the station. So once she located that particular trolley stop, she set out on foot to the train station, following the overhead wires. She could have boarded the trolley with some of the spending money Grandson had sent for travel expenses, but she chose to hold on to it. She did the same with the money she’d earned washing the diapers of the newborn baby. She would not even spend the few coins Nainai occasionally gave her. No, she wanted to walk. She had no idea what lay ahead, but by walking, vague hopes for the future began to take shape in her mind. The first two days she lost her nerve and turned back after passing a couple of stops. But as her familiarity with the route increased, so did her confidence, and she walked farther and farther down the line. More than once she did not make it back for dinner, even stayed out till after dark. By then, the lanes were deserted, and at the thought that she’d walk all the way to the station the next day, her spirits rose. One day she reached a train station, but it was North Station, not East Station. She was told that East Station was quite far, that she would have to head east, following the tracks. She started over the next day. This time she made it to East Station. Standing on an overpass, she looked down at the shantytown and wondered, Do I really have an uncle down there? A train whistle split the air and swirled above her. White smoke poured from the train’s locomotive and slowly dissipated. She’d reached Zhabei sometime around noon, earlier than she’d expected, since the route had become so familiar. Wispy smoke with the smells of firewood and charcoal hung over the structures. She was sweating, thanks to the sun beating down on her back and the fact that she’d walked fast to get there—the place people called

Q

116

Q

FU PING

Zhabei, by East Station, under an overpass, where her uncle lived. But it was so big and so densely packed that finding him would be like fishing a needle out of the ocean. She looked down at the narrow spaces between eaves and spotted a woman hanging up laundry before walking inside and out of sight. All she could see were dark roof tiles, punctuated by the occasional concrete terrace. The tiles extended as far as she could see. The simple dwellings were all connected, forming what looked like a gigantic net. She asked the first person she saw if he knew a Sun Daliang. He said he did not, but he offered to take her to see someone, who in turn took her to someone else. They handed her off, like passing a baton, confident they could get her to where she was going. Fu Ping was involuntarily entrusted from one person to the next—sometimes an old man, sometimes a woman. They all spoke Fu Ping’s dialect, and she could tell that they were from a county either just east or just west of her home village. Unlike Nainai, they had no Shanghai accent. She followed them down and through narrow lanes. Some people behind open doors were eating lunch, and when they spotted a stranger, they picked up their rice bowls, walked out, and asked who she was looking for. When her guide told them, they cocked their heads, thought for a moment, and then suggested that they go ask so-and-so. So-and-so was next on their list. Most of the homes had brick walls, some had pocketsized yards within bamboo fences, where they had planted melons and beans that grew on the walls, over all of which hung the smells of vegetation and tiles. The growth flourished in the luminous sunlight. Water faucets stood at tiled or concrete sections of the mud path. Fu Ping was now in the heart of the

Q

117

Q

FU PING

shantytown, already having forgotten how many guides she’d had; along the way someone handed her a bowl of noodles with mushy vegetables. In the end, they led her up to Sun Daliang’s house. It was past two in the afternoon. Children just out of school were running noisily down the lanes past her; the sun slanted to the west, its rays softened. Uncle was not home. The woman standing there must have been her aunt. Chunky, with a large face, big eyes, a short nose, and a wide mouth, she had a jaunty look. She and Uncle worked on a garbage scow, but she’d taken the day off to do laundry, all of which now hung in profusion, drying in the sun. Working with garbage is a grungy profession, which is why the boat people are fanatics about cleanliness. Their scows are spotless. The red-painted beds, cupboards, floor, and walls are scrubbed clean daily. The garbage is placed astern under canvas tarpaulins pulled tight, the sides and corners fastened seamlessly to the deck. Flies, attracted by the stench, cling to the scows as they sail. But the forward cabins and decks are ultraclean. Low tables and small stools are washed in river water, as are hands and feet. The people go barefoot inside the cabin and out. They scrub and dry everything with extra effort when they are home; people on the shore avoid them, saying they eat flies with their rice, when in fact they are spotless, with little tolerance for filth. Aunt was a member of a scow family who had moved over to Uncle’s when they were married. It was a common marriage among people who worked the scows. Most families would not permit their daughters to marry into that profession, finding it below them; they were, as we’ve noted, fly eaters! The rare woman who did marry one of the men would work with him

Q

118

Q

FU PING

on his scow. A round-trip to and from the Jiangsu garbage station took two or three days, ideal for a married couple. Most girls in such families were unwilling to marry men not from a scow to avoid the looks they got ashore, as if they were seeking a higher social status. Besides, they were used to life on the river. Their spirits always rose when they sailed the Suzhou River. During the months of March and April, the banks were alive with golden rape flowers, a dazzling playground for butterflies. The scows, reflected in water cleansed by spring showers, docked at noon or late afternoon, when the people lit their stoves and prepared meals. There were plenty of flies, of course, but not for eating. The scows tended to dock at the same spots, where they were greeted by the same farmers, who came to the scows for Shanghai products the boat people had bought for them and to supply them in turn with freshly harvested melons and vegetables. It was an alluring, carefree life, one enjoyed by children born and raised on the scows, who could not abide working shifts at a factory. So girls did not refuse marriage with boatmen. Most were from northern Jiangsu, and those few who were not learned to speak the northern dialect. Entering their domain was like walking into a village bound by close relationships. If anything, the boat people were even more close-knit, more alike. If one family had a problem, everyone pitched in to help. It was that way at home, and that way away from home. Their accent symbolized their unity, announcing that they came from the same place. Intermarriage among families strengthened and solidified those bonds. As she hung up a bedsheet with a bamboo pole, Aunt asked her visitor in a loud voice who the girl was, and invited them

Q

119

Q

FU PING

both inside without waiting for an answer. Their home had two rooms between brick walls. The outer room was divided in two horizontally, the top half, with its window to the outside, serving as a loft. It was not quite clear which direction the door and windows faced, probably east, edging slightly southward. It was like all the other houses, packed close together, using all available space. Some leaned, some tilted, but viewed as a whole, the scene was one of neatness and order, with lanes from north to south and from east to west. Uncle’s house was clean, despite the lack of a single piece of decent furniture. Frameless beds rested on benches or stacked bricks. Cupboards were modified cargo crates. A cheap porcelain teapot with an ear handle, painted with the Longevity God and his dragon-head cane beside two boys holding immortality peaches, sat on the sole piece of real wooden furniture—a red lacquered table buffed to a sheen. Aunt poured tea and nudged a cup over to each of her guests. As she did so, she sized up Fu Ping. She’s full-figured, isn’t she? she said. Her guest smiled. That’s because Sun Daliang is portly. What nonsense is that? Aunt protested. Just what does that mean? It’s not nonsense, the guide said. Don’t they say, There will always be someone within three generations who looks like an uncle? If he’s portly, then so is she. Uttering an exclamation, Aunt took a good look at Fu Ping. She recalled that Sun Daliang did indeed have a niece in the Yangzhou countryside, one whose parents had died when she was a girl, and that they had been asked to take her in. But there had already been too many burdens placed on them, including supporting his aunt and her son. He had to help out his ailing

Q

120

Q

FU PING

parents-in-law, and his eldest child was still breastfeeding. Sun Daliang’s uncle had left him a barely seaworthy scow, but he had no money for a major overhaul, which meant constant minor repairs. At the time, garbage scows had yet to form a cooperative, so each owner was responsible for his own repairs. How was he supposed to add another mouth to his family? He heard afterward that her father’s younger brother and his wife had taken her in. They’d had no contact with relatives in the countryside in all the years during which the girl had grown into a young woman. Now she was in their house, and her aunt was happy to see her. As a forthright woman not given to overthinking, she felt no embarrassment over having refused to take her niece in years before. She put down the teapot and said, You’ll sleep with me tonight. Then she sat down and asked Fu Ping to tell her what was happening back home, and what she could tell her about some distant relatives. The person who had brought her over asked questions and listened closely to the answers. More people walked in, since everyone in the neighborhood knew that kin had come calling, and came by to see her. They may not have been from the same place, but they were interested in news from the countryside, and that drew them to Fu Ping. The questions flew from all sides. She was not much of a talker, but in the short time she was there, she said more than she had in all the months since coming to Shanghai. Despite her natural reticence, she turned lively, answering every question she was asked. She did not go quiet until the topic of her marriage was raised. I have to go back to Nainai’s, she said. Aunt tried to get her to stay, but finally gave up and walked her to the trolley stop.

Q

121

Q

FU PING

They hardly spoke on the way. The question Is there a match in the works? from one of the neighbors had affected Fu Ping, and it had affected her aunt as well. It was getting late, and there were pockets of people waiting for trolleys to take them home after work. It was a chilly evening, with winds colder than those in the city center. As they walked, Aunt asked Fu Ping when she planned to go back home. In a couple of weeks, she said. When Aunt asked why she didn’t hold off for a while, instead of saying she’d already been in the city for six months, Fu Ping told her it wasn’t a good idea for her to spend too much time at the home where Nainai worked as a housekeeper. Her aunt invited her to stay with them; she did not respond, and her aunt did not repeat the invitation. Once she’d seen Fu Ping onto the trolley, she turned and started walking home. You didn’t want me back then, Fu Ping said silently, but now you do. And yet seeing her portly aunt squeeze through the crowd, she swallowed her anger. It was the day she’d come home to find Nainai crying. She was in a serious frame of mind. Actually, it wasn’t so much that as not knowing what to do. She’d found where her uncle lived, but so what? She hadn’t thought that far enough ahead. What was going through Aunt’s mind when she met Fu Ping? Her twenty-three-year-old nephew was unmarried. As we’ve seen, young men on garbage scows generally married young women from other scows. Half of those women were willing marriage partners. But the other half married away from the river, increasing the uncertainty of marriage prospects for the young men. Which is why they sometimes went back home to marry girls from their village. The difficulty of gaining

Q

122

Q

FU PING

Shanghai residence cards meant little to people who lived on the boats. What difference did it make if they remained villagers? They still earned their keep through hard work. Besides, the sanitation bureau was always looking for workers, since city dwellers were stubbornly biased against the occupation. The bureau actively recruited boat children for its labor force, and often had to rely on temporary workers as well. Village girls aboard their husbands’ scows could earn extra money as temps. The lucky ones found their way onto the bureau’s quota list and gained city residence. So, Fu Ping’s aunt figured, why not introduce Fu Ping to her nephew? Aunt ruminated as she made her way home. Though she was not a deep thinker, thoughts of the past occupied her. She wondered if Fu Ping harbored ill will against an uncle and aunt who had refused to take her in as a child. But no, not after all these years. Fu Ping had come looking for them, so she must not nurse a grudge, and would be keen on reconnecting with family members. But on the other hand, could her visit have been intended to upset them? Could she have meant to say to them, Without you two, I managed to grow up, didn’t I? Aunt speculated, in a somewhat petty way. But it did not seem likely, since the girl had not seemed haughty, was easygoing, and readily answered her questions. And when she spoke of losing her father as a child, she showed no resentment or bitterness. So then, what had motivated her to come looking for us? Back and forth her thinking went, until her head ached. Her thoughts were not going anywhere, so she took a different tack and wondered who this Nainai Fu Ping talked about was. She had never heard anyone mention a nainai. If Fu Ping had one,

Q

123

Q

FU PING

wouldn’t she have taken her in instead of seeing her upbringing decided by passing her off to one of the other uncles? So if she did not have a real nainai, then she must have been adopted. Such things were common around there. Now that Aunt had figured this out, the earlier thoughts no longer troubled her. It was clear now, and she could walk home unburdened. Stove fires were burning in all the kitchens, where dinner was being prepared, releasing pleasant smells into the air. Especially that of stewed meat, which overlay the area. Aunt strode into the narrow yard of her home. She had to turn sideways to get through the open half of the gate, but it was a proper yard, with a brick wall and a level cement ground surface that had a bit of a sheen. Her eldest had washed the rice and was cooking dinner. Her youngest was playing with toys on a stool. The middle two children were still out playing somewhere. She felt the bed sheet drying in the sun with her hand. It was stiff and cool to the touch. To keep the laundry from dampening in dew that was on its way, she took it down, letting a bit of sunlight into the yard. It would soon be dark, so lights were on in the house. The overpass looked shadowy at dusk; a horn sounded from a train rumbling into or out of the station, making the ground tremble. White steam rose in the air, but just for a moment, before the sky cleared again. People were walking in the lane, gates and doors creaked shut, and there were loud conversations. None of the footsteps belonged to Sun Daliang, who was off helping someone work on a house. A fellow boatman who lived at the far end of the shantytown was adding on for his son, who was to be married over the New Year. Since this was the day the roof beam was to go up, boatmen who were not out on the

Q

124

Q

FU PING

river went to help. After folding and putting away the clothes, Aunt swept the yard and asked her eldest where the other two children had gone. Just then, they walked noisily in the door. Before she could unload on them, she saw they were each holding half a basket of briquette pieces. So she told them to go outside and wash up before she’d let them back in the house. They picked up a basin, filled it with water from the vat beside the door, and washed their hands and faces, all the while carrying on a conversation with neighbor children. A quiet house turned noisy. Now Aunt waited for Uncle to return home so she could report that his niece had dropped by and tell him what she was thinking. As an impulsive woman, Aunt could not wait to have Fu Ping come live with them, meet their nephew, get acquainted, come to an agreement, and set a date. What worried her was that Fu Ping would return to Yangzhou before any of that was arranged. Something could foul up the works. Many good marriage prospects were ruined by such bad timing. With her imagination running wild, she set the table, watched her children wolf down their dinner, told her eldest to do the dishes and her younger ones to wipe down the table and stools before doing their homework. She swept the floor. At eight o’clock she sent the kids to bed. She sat on her bed, but did not lie down; instead she knitted some woolen socks with bits of yarn and waited for her husband to return. The nights there were quiet, no city sounds. Rumbling trains made the bed vibrate, but that created strength, not racket, and underscored the night’s serenity. After a day of manic play, the children were talking in their sleep and grinding their teeth, but making hardly any noise. Before long, she began to drift off, the

Q

125

Q

FU PING

knitting fell out of her hands, she lay back, and she was asleep. When she woke up, she was no longer alone in bed, and knew that her husband had come home. She woke him with a shove and told him what had happened during the day. Still half asleep, he heard her say something about someone back home, but wasn’t sure he heard right. Do you agree? she demanded, though he did not know about what. He mumbled his agreement, rolled over, and went back to sleep. This time he dreamed of his home in the countryside, with its rippling water and a few redbrick houses. He had not been home in a long time. Over the next few days, Aunt sought the advice of neighbors. Most were supportive. There’s nothing wrong with taking in a family member. A few thoughtful neighbors remarked that after all these years, there was no way of predicting what she was like, what sort of temper she had, and how the village family felt, or even if she was engaged. How could a village girl that old not have a marriage prospect? But Aunt had decided that the first order of business was to bring her over so they could get to know each other; that way they could see what kind of girl she was. They could then take the next step. So Aunt washed up and dressed in her best. Carrying a colorful cloth bag with a wooden handle, she traveled to Shanghai to fetch Fu Ping. To them “Shanghai” meant the center of town, as if they lived in an outlying provincial village. She took these pains solely in order to meet Nainai. So, they had a hometown relative in Shanghai! Unfortunately, she missed seeing Nainai, and felt bad about that as she brought Fu Ping home with her.

Q

126

Q

Chapter Ten

SUN DALIANG

SUN DALIANG’S

niece was a stranger to him when they first met,

but as soon as she spoke, the familiar village accent chased that feeling away. Sun had left the village at the age of twelve and gone to work on his uncle’s scow. The Sun family’s village was an impoverished one, with modest acreage and generally arid land, bordered by bigger and richer villages that tyrannized them over irrigation, the water supply, even the paths between plots of land. Every season, it seemed, someone plowed away part of their land. That was the source of the tradition of working on the river; one person brought out ten, ten brought out a hundred. The first among them rented a manure boat at the Shanghai night soil pier. On it he began hauling night soil, an occupation that was taken up by those who came after him. The accent of many of the boaters hauling night soil on the Suzhou River marked them as natives of this village. The village had

FU PING

never produced any exceptional people, but they were honest, decent folk. Powerful people behind the scene ran the Shanghai night soil piers, from the top down to the minor pier runners. The villagers were frozen out of even the lowest level of involvement. As a result, the brotherhood exploited generations of boatmen, who could boast only the boat each of them owned. But even the little sustenance that slipped through their fingers was enough to feed most of the villagers. When Sun Daliang started out on the scow, he could not even handle the tiller and was given the job of tracker, walking along the bank with a  towrope until a wind caught the sail and he could climb aboard. Then, when the scow reached its destination, he became a stevedore, unloading the ordure taken out of Shanghai and transporting local vegetables back into the city; if there was too much to offload, temporary workers were hired to help. He was a short man to begin with, and the tracking and unloading stunted his growth. He was in his forties, but from behind he looked like a child. If a loaded handcart came down a lane where he was walking, the carter would call out, Move it, kid! When he turned around, the man would see he’d made a mistake. But Sun had a powerful physique and taut skin, which was deeply tanned. After spending so much time on a scow, his legs splayed outward, which ought to have caused him to lurch from side to side. But no, he was perfectly steady. If you looked closely at his thick, round face you might see a resemblance to Fu Ping. He also had a dull, blank look, except for one object: eyeglasses. The strange white-framed myopic glasses looked out of place on Sun’s round face. But they gave him a wise look. He was one

Q

128

Q

FU PING

of the few literate individuals among his generation of boatmen, having spent nine months in a private school. His uncle had sent him to study under a distant relative during his second year aboard the scow, at the age of thirteen. His uncle treated him like a son. Six of his own eight children had died from one of three dangers aboard a scow: drowning, typhoid, and blood flukes. They had claimed all but a boy and a girl. He’d taken to this nephew after a year with him, appreciating his willingness to work hard, his respect for his elders, and his native intelligence—he was a quick learner. The schoolmaster relative came aboard the scow one day to hear what Daliang’s uncle had to report from their village. When he saw an old issue of the Shenbao in Daliang’s hand, he pointed to a character and asked him what it was. When he told him, he asked how he knew that. He said he’d asked someone. So the man wrote out another character, one with something added to the first one, and asked how it was pronounced. The same, the boy said. How do you know? It changes the meaning but not the sound, he replied. Why do you think it’s not pronounced like the added part instead? After a thoughtful moment, he said that added parts can only change the meaning. The schoolmaster was amused by the mature way the boy talked, so he continued: Why can it only change the meaning? This appeared to stump Daliang, but after thinking it over, he took a chance: Because it has fewer strokes than the other one. It was a child’s answer, which made the schoolmaster laugh. But he praised him for using his head. Then he told Daliang’s uncle that the boy would fare well if he spent a few years in school. Without a moment’s hesitation, the uncle told the boy to put his things together and go with the

Q

129

Q

FU PING

schoolmaster after dinner. They agreed on the tuition and room and board: half a boatload of vegetables per month. The schoolmaster, also surnamed Sun, lived in two rooms in a large compound in the Nanshi District. He and his wife slept in the inner room with an infant son. Two older children shared a three-foot plank bed in the outer room, opposite a narrow shelf that held a Confucian memorial tablet. An old-style table beneath the shelf was where the family ate, where the boys did their schoolwork, and where their father wrote. He sat in an armchair behind the table, while the students sat on stools pushed together at night to make a bed for Daliang. There were seven students altogether, all taking four classes before lunch, straight through with no break. They went home at noon and did not return in the afternoon. There were two Chinese language courses, one in arithmetic, and one devoted to behavior and conduct. The Chinese courses were intended to teach the Four Books and Five Classics, but seldom went beyond basic literacy. Arithmetic was nothing but learning to use an abacus. Behavior, on the other hand, was complicated. It was also the teacher and his students’ favorite time of the day, with its varied activities. Sometimes it was singing, taught by the teacher’s eldest daughter, who was studying at a modern school. She taught them songs from The Grape Fairy, a single-act musical by Li Jinhui, or a farewell song with lyrics starting with “Outside the pavilion, by an ancient road, green grass grows all the way to the horizon.” On other days it was drill, something he had made up by copying Boy Scout marches. Sometimes the teacher told stories. He could handle both old and new styles of study, not favoring one over the other. He taught anecdotes relating

Q

130

Q

FU PING

to Confucius and his disciples, he taught Song-dynasty stories from Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, vernacular stories, Tang-dynasty tales, and novels he’d just read. The favorite story of both teacher and students was Zhang Tianyi’s children’s tale Big Lin and Little Lin. The teacher read a small section each day to keep the students in wide-eyed suspense. The fantasies involving well-to-do Big Lin and dirt-poor Little Lin were new, fantastic, and exciting, but always logical and reasonable, which made them believable and entertaining. Sun Daliang sometimes overheard his teacher reading in his room, laughing openly, and he knew he was reading Big Lin and Little Lin. Daliang would have liked to have a chance to read it on his own too, but the teacher hid it well out of sight, and he never did find it. Once he even looked in the rice vat—it wasn’t there. He turned around and there was the teacher smiling proudly at him. Sun replaced the lid resentfully. They walked off in separate directions, knowing full well what the other was thinking. Teacher and student got along so well they were almost like older and younger brothers. Though he was an adult, the teacher was sort of naive, while Daliang, the youngster, was quite grown-up, more mature. They loved books and knowledge, and those two passions made them both quite witty. After each session with Big Lin and Little Lin, the remainder of the time was spent outside on walks, another of the behavior-class activities. In the springtime, the teacher called their walks greenery hikes, though there was precious little greenery in the city. These walks often took them to the wharf, where waves rose and fell in the swollen river. Humid winds softened the chill in the air and wetted the boys’ hair and clothes. The noonday sun made the river

Q

131

Q

FU PING

appear shallow, its rays bouncing brightly off the surface. River traffic was heavy with boats sitting deep in the water and carving out watery grooves. A grand hum lay over the river, smothering all other sounds to create a far-ranging hush. The teacher and his students did not talk as they watched boats pass by, so they could hear the creaking of distant tillers, all combining to produce a sense of unreality. His uncle delivered the vegetables at the end of each month. Sun Daliang picked them up and took them home, where he checked them carefully, holding back some for the family and taking the remainder to sell. He gave the money he earned to the teacher’s wife. He tackled odd jobs around the teacher’s home whenever worked needed to be done, almost as if he were learning the ropes of an assistant. He chopped firewood and formed coal shavings into briquettes. The teacher clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head as he intoned words from the philosopher Mengzi: “When Heaven is about to confer a great task on a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil; it exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty; it confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetence.” When he first arrived, he took out the teacher’s chamber pot in the morning, and though his wife said nothing, he stopped the boy and took it out himself. You can work hard, he said, but you must not suffer humiliation. Though it seemed minor to him, that the teacher had exaggerated its significance, the words left him deeply impressed. For the rest of his life, Daliang would not permit himself to engage in any demeaning task. He could

Q

132

Q

FU PING

appreciate the saying, One day as a teacher, a lifelong father, thanks to his teacher. He profited greatly from those nine months, student days he would remember for the rest of his life. He never returned to Nanshi, but if he closed his eyes, he could see a series of still images: enter through the small South Gate, walk down Wang Family Pier Road, turn into Doushi Street, through a cobblestone road with no name, enter a winding, twisting lane, until you reach a low spot, where there is an unremarkable wooden gate. Push it open and walk into a large winding, twisting compound; the teacher’s home is in one of those east-facing twists. Every smell imaginable fills the place: the musty aroma of pickled vegetables, the foul odor of a baby’s urine, the sulfuric smell of burning coal, stale-food odors, a heated mixture of aromas amid which the teacher lives and reads, his head bobbing from side to side, holding a little stoneware teapot in which broken bits of tea leaves steep. Here the images end. The teacher was living hand-to-mouth when Daliang arrived. It was the year after Shanghai fell into enemy hands, and his family survived only on the tuition he received from students. Two had just quit, and before long, one more followed. Then his eldest daughter had to drop out of the elementary school; within a few months, only four students remained, and those did not always show up or pay the tuition. As for Sun Daliang’s half boatload of vegetables, given the increased dangers on the Suzhou River, where, from the Zhongshan Road Bridge to Huangdu, a distance of thirty-six li, there were thirty-six checkpoints, seventy-two per round-trip, the deliveries were often late, and once or twice missed altogether. As the difficulty of

Q

133

Q

FU PING

getting by increased, the normally optimistic teacher began to worry. At dinnertime he would walk out of the house and not return until after dinner, when he would say he ate at a friend’s house. As the days went on, Daliang also began absenting himself at mealtime. On one occasion, they met at the salt pier by accident. Without explaining themselves, they headed off together. After walking a while, the teacher tucked his hands into his sleeves, sniffed the air with his head tilted up, and said, It’s a Jiaqing-reign wind. Daliang did not understand. What is that? It’s the smell of soybeans, his teacher replied. Daliang still did not understand, so his teacher told him about the open sea trade policy implemented in the twenty-third year of the Kangxi era, when traffic on the Huangpu River was heavy. Southeast winds rose up every year as winter turned to spring, filling the sails of large junks carrying soybeans from the Northeast down to the bank by Dadongmen. Mountains of beans rose on piers with tightly packed storehouses. Commerce in soybeans flourished during the Jiaqing reign, until the currency set the standard for all Shanghai commerce. At this point, Daliang realized that his teacher had led him up to Bean Market Street. The character for “bean” used to be written with the image of grass on top, his teacher said. That gave it a more elegant appearance, and kept the classic intent. But now, people are more materialistic, with no time for the luxury of idle pleasures. As his teacher lectured him on the deserted wartime street, his hollow cheeks reddened, making them look fuller than usual, and his eyes shone brightly. As night fell, bean-sized lights came on in frame houses on both sides of the street. Daliang followed his teacher

Q

134

Q

FU PING

to the end of the street and then turned with him in the opposite direction. The day came when the teacher could no longer feed his family, and he decided to pack up and return to his country home in Xinghua. Daliang rode the teacher’s rented boat back to his uncle in Fengbin. Japanese were everywhere on the Suzhou River, creating a climate of anxiety that eclipsed the sadness of parting and misfortune. By the time he considered the reality of never seeing his teacher again, the boat had already sailed out of view. He was fourteen when he returned to his uncle’s scow, a year older than when he’d left. His older cousin appeared to be suffering from blood flukes. Even though his abdomen was not distended, he so severely lacked energy that all he wanted to do was sleep, and virtually nothing could awaken him. His uncle had grown visibly older, and so Daliang was thrust into the role of the family’s primary breadwinner. He was no taller, still tiny, but he wore the expression of an adult: coolheaded, composed, and unhurried. He was clearly myopic as a result of too much reading in poor lighting and had to squint to see objects at a distance, which lent his childish face a pensive look. Relieving his uncle of the burden of survival was inevitable. At the tiller, he propelled the scow down the Suzhou River, a cramped, oppressed waterway squeezed between gray concrete buildings that passed slowly under a gloomy sky. Suffering was endless. Before long, the Japanese commandeered his scow. Under their control, it sailed to Hongkou, where it took on a load of bricks to take to the town of Liuhekou. Bricks are heavy by definition, and the Japanese piled on as

Q

135

Q

FU PING

many as they could, until the scow was nearly swamped. As they sailed slowly out of the crowded port, the level of buoyancy improved a bit. When they unfurled the sail to catch the wind, gulls flew into the air. A flotilla of boats began to spread out into the broad heart of the river. The Japanese soldier aboard the scow chattered unintelligibly with countrymen on other boats nearby. Something struck Sun Daliang on the shoulder, and when he turned to look, one Japanese soldier was gesturing with his hands, first pointing to the nearest boat, then holding one hand out and quickly bringing it together with the other. After two repeats, Sun understood that he was being asked to bring his scow closer so they would not be alone. He had to smother a laugh with the discovery that the man was afraid. He responded with a more complicated gesture. Bending low at the waist, he let one of his arms fall, and then moved it back and forth fervently, followed by bringing both hands together and then spreading them, indicating that the two boats needed to be kept apart in the river’s rapid flow. He did that three times, and assumed that the Japanese soldier got the message. His face fell as he swayed his way over to the railing, where he waved and shouted to his countryman on the distant boat. His shouts spread weakly over the river. That gave Sun Daliang an emotional lift, dispersing much of the gloom and depression he had been experiencing. He began to sing. The words “Outside the pavilion, by an ancient road, green grass grows all the way to the horizon” came back at him, blown into his throat by the wind to make a sound like sobbing. His tears flowed. Life went on, bit by bit, terrible days followed by somewhat better ones. The Japanese left, so did the Nationalists, and peace

Q

136

Q

FU PING

returned to the Suzhou River. The night soil pier was under government control, this time without all the levels of big and small middlemen. Day in and day out it was still work and eat, but now both were guaranteed. Sun was married in 1950, at the age of twenty-two. Husband and wife made a living together, since, as we have seen, she too was from a boat family. When Uncle died, Aunt returned to their native home with her son. The Communists cured his blood flukes at no cost, but his poor health allowed him to participate in light work only. He and his mother got by solely on money Sun Daliang sent home. That seemed only right, since Sun had taken over his uncle’s scow. He and his wife lived their days aboard the aging boat until 1956, when they were organized into a co-op and assigned work transporting garbage. Funds belonging to the collective were distributed for boat repairs, which led to increases in transport, and allowed them to accumulate some savings from their wages. The arrival of peace created high hopes in them, hopes of buying a house on land. As they watched their child crawl across the deck like a locust, tethered to the tiller, Sun and his wife wanted a riverbank house. At night, after the scows tied up and lanterns were lit, the bosses and workers visited other tied-up boats, hopping from railing to railing, drinking and talking mostly about houses ashore. Some of them sold village houses to buy houses onshore. Though they still spent most of their time on the river, when they tied up, boatmen without houses watched them gather up their belongings and head ashore amid jeers and catcalls. They too were thinking about a house on land. It was what people who lived the year round on the water dreamed of. Sun and his wife scrimped on food and clothing,

Q

137

Q

FU PING

his wife refusing even to buy face cream, while he stopped drinking. Boatmen drank to allay the cold and wet air and to fight off loneliness. But not Sun Daliang. A strong-willed man, he abruptly stopped drinking, which distinguished him from other boatmen, and granted him increased prestige. His wife was good-looking enough to be called a flower on the river, and yet she had married this dwarfish, far from handsome man with family members to support, and would have no other. She had a discerning eye—she could see that he was an extraordinary individual. Seemingly, they had a child each year, one more mouth to feed. And there were other, unexpected expenses. For instance, he had to return home when his older sister, Fu Ping’s mother, died. Then, when his aunt died, a grand funeral was called for. There were weddings and funerals in his wife’s family as well, and Sun, a man with a big heart, always helped out as best he could. Yet, with all those outlays, little by little, they saved up money that gave them hope that a house ashore was possible. Sadly, in 1960, when famine struck, saving was now out of the question, and, in fact, they had to dip into their savings to get by. Warding off hunger to stay alive trumped everything else. On occasions when they were at the end of their rope, Sun had thoughts of taking his family back home, just as his teacher had done before him. But when they sailed out of Shanghai and he saw the wretched poverty on the banks in the countryside, he changed his mind, determined to survive in the city. He had slim hopes of buying a house ashore now, but he refused to give up. On the contrary, his hopes kept bobbing up,

Q

138

Q

FU PING

shining down on him, and were reinforced as he made buying a house his long-term goal. He knew it would be hard, but he was unrelenting. Part of their savings had been spent, but they managed to hold on to most of them, and, once the situation improved, the losses were quickly made up, and the amount grew steadily. By the year 1963, they had put away eleven hundred yuan, enough to buy a rundown, one-hundred-thirtysquare-foot house from an old boatman who had been beaten down by the lean years and returned to the countryside. The house had stood vacant for two years before he sold it. Sun Daliang led his family ashore, at last. They walked in the door of the hovel with nothing. Light entered from all four directions as they stood on the dirt floor beneath cobwebs. A row of little heads popped up in a swallow’s nest in the rafters when the occupants heard noise and looked down at the people, unafraid. His wife flung her bedroll down on the floor, and shouted a command. The children responded by running off like hungry little animals. She rolled up her sleeves, picked up a hoe, and began shoveling the garbage around the room, simultaneously smoothing out the uneven dirt floor, removing the blackened clumps of dirt to show the fresh brown earth underneath. The children began picking up broken bricks and pieces of tile, and carried them outside, along with baskets of dirt. Sun looked at his wife’s back as she busied herself, and got a warm feeling. Charging ahead into the future: that was what he especially liked about her. He finished a cigarette, and started on his first job in the new house: nailing a calendar onto the wall. By that time, bricks and tile were piled outside the door;

Q

139

Q

FU PING

there was also a small pile of dirt. The children shouted as they ran in and out, attracting neighbors, who left their houses and came over to see what was happening. In those days, the shantytown looked nothing like it did two years later; there was more space between houses then. Sun gave his neighbor a heads-up before he started work on a yard between his front door and the rear wall of the house in front, since he had to seal off a narrow lane to create a yard between his front door and the house in front. That forced people to take a slight detour to the main lane to pass. Instead of raising objections, they went easy on him. The yard was so small you could bump into the front wall almost the second you stepped outside; but it was a yard. They built a wall of their own out of pieces of brick and tile, took down the damaged front door and made it into a gate. He went out and bought a used door, planed it down, painted it red, and mounted it in the doorway. He also painted all the window frames red. He mended walls, sealing the cracks with lime and finishing with a coat of whitewash. He repaired the roof by adding tiles and replacing the broken ones. White walls, black roof, red door and windows, encompassed by a colorful brick wall, all combined to create a fine little house. Now that the inside was whitewashed, he spread a layer of fine dirt over the smoothed-out floor and borrowed a roller to tamp it down. He hung a New Year’s scroll with an opera poster of the “Centenarian General” on one wall, and next to the red window frame he hung a cricket cage he’d made out of ice-pop sticks. It was empty at the moment, but crickets would be calling it home within a few months.

Q

140

Q

Chapter Eleven

XIAO JUN

AS WE

have seen, Sun Daliang built a loft in his house, which

had a front and a back room. The loft occupied the top half of the front room, which was the height of a man. The space itself was no more than half as tall as a person where you entered, but the height doubled at the center of the peaked ceiling. He framed a glass window on the sloped roof of the room, which was built for storage: lengths of wood, pieces of plywood, asphalt felt, cotton quilting, earthenware vats, old children’s textbooks, plus a rubber tire and a bundle of old newspapers. Items they had accumulated over time, and though none of it was being used at the moment, a use might be found for some of it one day. That was what home was about, a place to keep things they might use in the future. Now Aunt was making preparations for their niece to come stay with them, and she needed her own space, since she was no longer a child, and it would not do for her to share space with her uncle. Besides, their eldest son was

FU PING

twelve, and at school, as well as at home, the sexes were kept apart. So she cleaned out the loft for Fu Ping. While she was working in the space, Xiao Jun, a primary school graduate who lived in the neighborhood, dropped by to help move things around. Quick on her feet, she bounded up and down the ladder, providing plenty of help to Aunt. When she asked if she could come sleep with the new girl, her wish was granted. Xiao Jun had a bunch of brothers, and as they brought wives into the family, she was shunted from place to place to sleep. She enjoyed the life, since as the only girl in the family, she was lonely at home. She made friends easily, but then so did all the local children. They were like one big family, related by place if not by blood. Xiao Jun was more outgoing than most of the others. The boys at home spoiled their only sister, turning her into a free spirit. After graduating from primary school, she failed the middle school entrance exam, and that kept her at home with time on her hands. She sometimes went out on a scow, but her family did not need her to work. They had plenty of help for the three scows, two of which were sailed by her brothers. With all those people, one more mouth to feed made no difference. She saw herself as a girl still, though she was already sixteen, having started school late and then repeated some grades. Still, she was the youngest at home, wasn’t she? She had no reason to worry about a future, and was happy with the way things were. Much of her time was spent dropping in at neighbors’ houses, where, given her aptitude and willingness to work, she was eager to help rather than hang around home with nothing to do. She helped women cook, do the laundry, and babysit. Anytime relatives dropped by a neighbor’s house,

Q

142

Q

FU PING

she came running to join in on the excitement and lend a hand. If one of the visitors happened to be a girl her age, they were fast friends in no time. She treated people with great affection, and her enthusiasm was infectious; people easily warmed to her. She did have one failing where making friends was concerned, however—she could be fickle, quick to latch on to something and someone new. So, though she had many friends, her friendships tended not to last very long. New friends replaced old ones, and before a deep relationship could form, she was off to the next friend. Her dealings with people were defined by reaching but not moving past surface attractions, resulting in few true friendships. At this juncture, Fu Ping would be the latest recipient of her enthusiasm. Xiao Jun had not met Fu Ping during her first visit, but she had learned of it, and was heartsick over the missed opportunity. She visited the Suns often to find out if Fu Ping would be returning. Excited to hear that she’d be coming to stay a while, she had a host of questions about a girl even her aunt did not know well. All she could say was that Fu Ping was eighteen, two years older than Xiao Jun, who eagerly awaited her arrival. In her imagination, they were already best friends. When Fu Ping finally arrived, seeing how diffident and tight-lipped she was did not dampen Xiao Jun’s high spirits. She was always at the side of Fu Ping, her “big sister.” At night, she ran over after dinner to make up a bed in the loft. She brought a mattress pad from home, which she spread out on the floor and covered with a cotton blanket and a sheet to make a cozy bed. She then drew her and Fu Ping’s patterned coverlets close together. One was date red with white flowers,

Q

143

Q

FU PING

the other sapphire blue with pink flowers, and both had been aired in the sun, until they were thick and fluffy. A yellow overhead light made the loft feel warm and full of life. Once that was done, she sat on the foot of Fu Ping’s bed to wait. People went to bed early there, especially in the winter, when the days were short, and bed seemed so inviting. As soon as dinner was over, whole families washed up and went straight to bed. Xiao Jun waited, but Fu Ping was not coming right up, so she got to her feet, picked up a rag, and dusted the light bulb to brighten the space. When she heard someone using the water basin downstairs, she guessed that Fu Ping was washing up. When the children started making a racket, their mother quieted them down. But there was no sound from Fu Ping, so Xiao Jun sat back down and picked up some knitting she’d brought from home to wait. She wore the demure look of a bride waiting for the groom to enter the wedding chamber. Obviously, Fu Ping’s aunt was holding her back; it sounded as if they had gone into the back room, where a chest was opened and shut. Fu Ping’s aunt must have been looking for something to give her. As Xiao Jun figured, the children were soon asleep, and Fu Ping climbed the ladder carrying a bundle. She entered the loft, and there was the neighbor girl sitting on her bed knitting; the girl looked up and smiled broadly. Fu Ping returned her smile, which thrilled Xiao Jun, who, despite the cold, slipped out from under the covers and took Fu Ping’s bundle from her. Let’s put this over there, she said. She pulled back a piece of patterned cloth in a corner of the loft to reveal a wooden soapbox standing in a low spot under the slanted roof. Xiao Jun respectfully laid Fu Ping’s bundle on top of the box

Q

144

Q

FU PING

and replaced the cloth curtain. Then she turned around and placed Fu Ping’s shoes side by side behind her own feet, heels in, toes out. After moving the overhead light chain to above her head, she told Fu Ping to wake her up when she went to the toilet at night. Fu Ping, unused to such attention, urged her into her bed. But Xiao Jun refused to get under the covers until Fu Ping was settled in. Back and forth they went, each declining the other’s attempt; a lot was said during those moments, and by the time they were both in bed and the light had been turned off, they were no longer strangers. Xiao Jun told Fu Ping her name, her age, which elementary school she’d attended, the size of her family, what her sisters-in-laws were like, how her brothers treated her, even her family’s financial situation. Fu Ping listened without interruption, an occasional “uh-huh” showing she was listening. Xiao Jun’s mouth gave out after a while, and she fell asleep. Fu Ping was still awake as the moon shone in through the window onto her face. She was thinking about Nainai. It had only been half a day, but a new page of her life had opened, and she wondered what the future held. As Uncle and Aunt were leaving to work on the scow the next morning, Aunt told Xiao Jun to take Fu Ping for a boat ride. I’ll stay home to cook for the children, Fu Ping said. They can manage by themselves, Aunt told her. So Fu Ping said she’d go with them on their boat. Why would you want to hang around with us old folks? You can go on Guangming’s scow. So that is what she did. Guangming, Aunt’s nephew, had gotten his inland waters shipping license the year before, and was second-in-command on his father’s scow. All the scows were motorized by then, and

Q

145

Q

FU PING

were assigned numbers. Guangming’s scow, number 6005, transported construction refuse from the Huaian Road Pier. Filled with excitement, Xiao Jun ran home, where she filled a lunch pail with some meat and greens, and then took Fu Ping looking for Guangming. Guangming’s youth was served by the modern clothes he preferred. Even aboard the scow he wore leather shoes, a wristwatch, and neatly pressed suit pants. Instead of a padded Chinese jacket, he wore an orange rubberized seaman’s vest over his sweater. He spoke the Shanghai dialect, but with a northern Suzhou accent. What gave him away were stressed sounds that should have been glossed over, as he tried to be precise. He was a decent young man, but this trait gave people the impression that he was somewhat shallow. The girls in their circle were not impressed. They called him an undercooked bone; he had no marriage prospects. Girls outside their circle were prejudiced against him to begin with. They considered him to be somewhat pompous and would have nothing to do with him. All this while he retained an inflated opinion of himself. And so he was still single at twenty-three, an advanced age in this crowd, and if he did not find a wife soon, it would be too late. Starting to worry, he was especially attentive to girls, so when he saw Xiao Jun and Fu Ping coming his way, he greeted them with a smile: Welcome, welcome aboard. He had straight, even, white teeth, and had to be considered handsome. Owing to his days in the wind and sun, his skin was dark, which was all right, but he swept his hair up and kept it high with thick gel. Topping his dark face, it made him look like a thug from old Shanghai. Xiao Jun poked fun at him, and he responded by pulling her braid.

Q

146

Q

FU PING

Since they had grown up on scows, walking on deck was as natural as being on land. The boat rocked as they chased each other around the cabin, nearly causing Fu Ping to lose her balance. When Guangming saw the trouble she was having, he gave up and let Xiao Jun thump him on the back to end the chase. Boys and girls of marrying age tend to be quite perceptive. Fu Ping was staying with Guangming’s aunt, and he had an idea what was behind her sending the girl to his boat. So while he chatted and goofed off with Xiao Jun, his eyes were on Fu Ping, who was wearing her aunt’s blue khaki coat with a soft woolen collar over a patterned Chinese jacket. With her hands in the slash pockets, she bore the look of a city girl. But short hair parted on the side and held in place with a plastic clip gave her a countrified look you would not see in the city. Her time in Shanghai had turned her cheeks from red, when she first arrived, to slightly yellow. Her eyelids were not as thick as they had been, resulting in clearer and more refined-looking eyes. She stood quietly to the side and watched them have their fun, sometimes looking down pensively into the water. That had an impact on Guangming. Deep down he was not as slick as he  seemed, and since he still was not married, he was more bashful than most boys his age. He abruptly turned stiff and unnatural, as his face reddened. He ignored Xiao Jun when she continued bantering and once even came close to losing his temper. When she saw that, she punched and turned her back on him, and then walked back to Fu Ping and put her arm around her shoulder to join her in gazing at the riverbank scenery.

Q

147

Q

FU PING

As it sailed down the Suzhou River, their boat was reflected in the glistening black, syrupy water. It was a pleasant, windless day. Freshly washed mops hung from windows of the frame houses on the banks. They were too far from people washing clothes in the river to hear their conversations or the bawling children. The boat’s engine noise smothered all other sounds and created a greater distance to the riverbank. A few of the multistoried buildings seemed to be following them, standing tall in the clear sky, their concrete rooftops reflecting the sun’s rays. The river was dark by comparison, and they seemed to be sailing through the shadows cast by buildings. And yet, a muted light rose up from the river bottom, settling on their faces to form a soft glow, while the light on the banks was harsher. The city appeared lofty and mammoth when seen from the river, and alien. They were in one of the city’s remote reaches, far from densely packed city structures, which were yet visible. Sunlight refracted off the complex surfaces before settling on one spot. And so, a glance in that direction was rewarded with a thicket of bright light, almost as if a small sun were perched there. Light gusts of wind brushed the water’s surface, chilling the travelers’ faces, hands, and feet. But so what—they were used to the cold. The girls looked to be doing just fine, but Guangming had tied a surgical mask over his nose and mouth. Forgetting the cold shoulder he’d given her earlier, Xiao Jun went back to pick on him, telling him he looked like a doctor. But what would a doctor be doing aboard a garbage scow? Guangming blushed all the way down to his neck. Take it off or leave it on? He remained red-faced for a moment, until neither girl was looking his way, when he took the mask off. Guangming is so

Q

148

Q

FU PING

thin-skinned, he’s like a girl today, Xiao Jun remarked, one who’s about to climb into the bridal sedan chair. Fu Ping pretended to neither notice nor hear what she said. A girl like her, who’d grown up in the rural countryside and was prudent where relations between boys and girls were concerned, was highly sensitive to what was going on. Her aunt’s plans astonished her. No wonder, she said to herself, no wonder! Having gotten nowhere with Guangming, who obviously was not attracted to her, Xiao Jun lost interest in the boat and urged Fu Ping to go ashore with her so they could walk home, telling her there were fun things to do along the way. Have you been to the Great World? If not, I’ll take you there. Without waiting for a response, she told Guangming to stop and let them off. Fu Ping had no interest in going to the Great World, but now that she’d seen through her aunt’s scheme, she was uncomfortable staying aboard Guangming’s boat. Xiao Jun’s suggestion to go ashore would simplify matters. So when they nestled up to a small pier and stopped, she went ashore with Xiao Jun. The engine sputtered a moment before the scow glided away from the shore and sailed on, entering the Wusongjiang, where the river widened, shrinking the perceived size of the boat, now a lonely object as it sailed out of sight, reluctantly. Desolate fields dotted this vast stretch of shoreline in the winter. Wheat seeds were hibernating. Vines in field corners sported yellow leaves. Xiao Jun did not move for a moment, then shouted happily, Let’s go! as she took Fu Ping’s hand and started running. Fu Ping tried but failed to free her hand and struggled to keep up. Xiao Jun was wearing a blue khaki coat, just like Fu Ping, with the addition of a bold red scarf around her

Q

149

Q

FU PING

neck. Her long braids bounced around on her back as she ran, knees high, white sneakers kicking the ground. She’d been a champion runner at the school for boat children, so how was Fu Ping supposed to keep up? Out of breath, she was dragged along. Finally Xiao Jun stopped and laughed at Fu Ping’s complaints. With all that running and carping by her friend, Fu Ping finally got into the spirit. She ran up and grabbed hold of Xiao Jun’s braids, threatening to pull up what she called two cornstalk tassels. Xiao Jun tried to get away, but Fu Ping held on, so she bent over and spun round and round with Fu Ping, protecting her head with her hands. With the sun high in the sky, casting their shadows on the ground, they looked like they were dancing a reel. In the end, Xiao Jun surrendered to Fu Ping, who let go of her braids, and the girls headed home along the riverbank. Xiao Jun knew some of the boaters who passed them on the river, and waved to them. Who’s that behind you? they teased. Your sister-in-law? She’s your sister-in-law, Xiao Jun shot back. Then she turned serious. She’s Sun Daliang’s niece. She stepped back, held Fu Ping’s shoulders, and said, Ignore them. You’re better than my sister-in-law. Fu Ping tried to punch Xiao Jun, who ducked and held on to her shoulders. They walked off like best friends, and when they came to a fork in the road, they left the riverbank. At some point they left the fields and entered an area with densely packed structures, mostly squat frame houses, and were now walking on a narrow cobblestone road. Laundry drying on bamboo poles sticking out of open upstairs windows looked like national flags that nearly brushed the heads of passersby, who could easily jump up and touch the low eaves. The clangs of a

Q

150

Q

FU PING

hammer on metal buckets, small kettles, and aluminum pots created a din that emerged from a roadside blacksmith shop. The air was clogged by a rancid odor, the smell of preserved meat. Xiao Jun stopped in front of a corner shop, keeping one shoe on the doorsill, so the toe could slip in and out of the groove of a removable door. The rafters above a wooden display case were decorated with dusty, greasy hollowed-out carvings. After years of neglect, the paint was badly chipped. The original russet color was now black. Widemouthed glass jars sat atop the counter, the off-centered openings sealed with large cork stoppers, facing inward. Inside the jars were small triangular paper packets. They held candied bayberries and lotus seeds, candied and salted turnip strips, preserved green olives, pearshaped vanilla flavored pastries, candied plums, and salted kumquats. All the snacks were sprinkled with licorice, which emitted a cloyingly sweet medicinal odor. While Xiao Jun lingered there, a shop that sold fabric remnants caught Fu Ping’s attention. The goods were piled upon a bed board, picked over until it was a colorful jumble of twisted, folded, carelessly strewn cloth. The bulk of the remnants were too small to make tops or pants, but by diligent rummaging, you might find something that would work. Patch them, and if you did it right, it would turn out fine. Remnant shops lined the street; one of them specialized in remnants for mops, sold by weight. Fu Ping looked them over carefully, spotting several that could be useful if sewn together. Another shop sold only buttons, drawer upon drawer of them, as many as a hundred different kinds and colors, even varying styles in a single color. Simple, everyday little white buttons came with four holes, two holes,

Q

151

Q

FU PING

hidden holes, edged, edgeless, or fancy edged, pure white, rippled, and shiny. Another shop specialized in needles and thread, selling everything from the tiniest embroidery needles all the way up to thick ones for bedding, dozens of sizes, and thread in all thicknesses and material, silk, colored, and embroidery. There were also numerous kinds of piping— cloth, silk, satin, angled, smooth—all hanging above the door in the shop front. Goofy little Xiao Jun was telling the truth, Fu Ping was thinking. This is a great place. After spending time with what they each fancied, they met up again. Xiao Jun bought some of her favorite snacks and stuffed one of them into Fu Ping’s mouth. It was sticky candy. They left the area and headed west, both chewing on the candy. Their stomachs were rumbling by noontime, but they were so excited their faces were red, their foreheads were dotted with perspiration, and their palms were sweaty in each other’s hands. They unbuttoned their coats and opened their lapels to reveal the padded jackets underneath. They looked like sisters. The streets widened, asphalt surfaces with cables for the trolleys crisscrossing overhead, while the buildings were bigger and taller, with more people. They walked all the way to the Jing’an Temple. They were practiced walkers and happy to be out on the street, but Xiao Jun said she was famished, and insisted on finding something to eat. Fu Ping wasn’t interested at first, but when Xiao Jun said it was her treat, she agreed so as not to embarrass her friend. Then they fought over what to eat. Xiao Jun wanted noodles and walked into a wonton noodle shop, where some men were eating. Fu Ping balked and said she wasn’t going in. Xiao Jun could not get her to change her mind, so at a stand that had

Q

152

Q

FU PING

closed for the day she bought some cold flatbreads, which they ate as they walked. With all the people strolling this way and that, it would have been hard to avoid walking by empty-headed men who gave them the once-over. Fu Ping stopped eating, so annoying Xiao Jun that she crammed a flatbread into Fu Ping’s hand and walked on, still chewing. Fu Ping followed her until the crowd thinned out, when she lowered her head and took a bite. Their feet were blistered by the time they reached the Great World, and their calves were cramping. Even Fu Ping had had enough. She sat with Xiao Jun on the roadside, reminding herself that back home she could walk twenty li with a load over her shoulder. What happened? she wondered. The answer came to her after thinking it over. The streets in Shanghai had hard, concrete surfaces, while in the countryside, the dirt road surfaces were soft, easy on the legs. She shared that with Xiao Jun. She had gotten more talkative since spending time with Xiao Jun, who laughed. What’s all this hard and soft business? We’re not talking about steamed buns or rice. Fu Ping snorted out of frustration with her friend, and said nothing more. After sitting a while, they decided to look around at the Great World. They were stunned to discover that they could not stand. The blisters had taken a break along with them, and ballooned up. Every step was like sticking needles into the soles of their feet. Their calves were worse, almost as if they belonged to someone else. They tried to stand by holding on to each other, but sat right back down. Up and down, up and down. They held on to each other and laughed hilariously. Some passersby turned to look, but that did not bother Fu Ping, whose face was pressed

Q

153

Q

FU PING

up against Xiao Jun’s back as she laughed. The Great World gate stood there behind them, and they could almost see the fun house mirrors inside. The round buildings, shaped like tiered birthday cakes, each tier smaller than the one below it, were showy, sort of rustic and tacky, but innocent looking, standing happily in the setting sun. The buildings looked like a stage set against the sky, as weak sunlight shone on them from low in the sky, giving them an even, flat, and fine sheen.

Q

154

Q

Chapter Twelve

OPERA HOUSE

A CULTURAL

center for the Water Transportation Brigade stood

in a southeastern corner of the shantytown. It was reported to have once been a famous Yangzhou opera house. In its earliest days it was where the Weiyang Troupe staged plays to invoke the gods. Some old-timers could still recall the famous actor Pan Xiyun. The costumes were sumptuous—the bright red of the python robe, plus sapphire blue, duck yellow, and kingfisher green flags and armor. Gongs and drums vied for sound supremacy, as flames from incense sticks and candles flickered on all four sides of the stage, creating a vibrant scene. The building, now recast as an auditorium, was host to meetings, reports, film screenings, and the occasional play staged by lesser-known, outof-town dramatic troupes. Most of the time it stood vacant and unused, with a retired old boatman tending the entrance. The local kids all knew the man, called him Gramps. After school they came running and shouting for Gramps, who opened the

FU PING

gate so they could play inside. In truth, there was little to do there, but it was, after all, a big empty space with a newly laid concrete floor. The original slab stone tiles had been dug up and dumped at the base of the compound wall. The auditorium had been refurbished, the outer wall repaired with cement. The two posts at the entrance, wood at one time but now made of poured concrete, rested on wooden bases with chipped red paint. The theater also had a concrete floor with row upon row of bleacher seats on two sides, all the way to the line of windows, which were high up on the walls, like fanlights in a bathhouse. The stage was not large, maybe a dozen steps wide and seven or eight deep. The posts on two sides were wooden, the color almost completely faded away. The stage floor planks creaked, and dust rose from the gaps. Thin sheets of plywood created a backstage area with a door on each side for actors’ entrances and exits. It was the same height and width as the stage out front, but two or three paces shallower, forming a narrow strip. A long table with drawers had been placed in the center of the backstage floor. Observant kids who looked to make mischief dug through the drawers, sometimes coming up with a discarded bead or a head wrap. Costume trunks rested on the floor in front of the wooden partition. The name Chen was on each of them, dating from which era or left by which troupe remained a mystery, one that no one cared to investigate, out of concern that the trunks could contain nests of rats. There was another door backstage, which led down concrete steps to the rear compound, where outdoor toilets stood in the corner—north to south for men, east to west for women. A Chinese redbud tree stood across from the toilets; it took

Q

156

Q

FU PING

little imagination to envision actors shouting their lines backstage or stretching their legs against the wall. The stage did not appear to have seen much attention, which is why it looked so old. The one new spot was above the front, a red concrete five-pointed star. The stage was the favorite spot for children who came in to play—jumping around, chasing one another, and shouting, the sound echoing off the high ceiling. Oh, yes, we haven’t mentioned the ceiling. Horizontal beams had turned black, likely thanks to incense smoke when the gods were invoked. The space above the beams was so dark that the rafters, shaped like upside-down Y letters and covered with dusty cobwebs, were barely visible. Wires had been strung from the beams for electric lights with tinplate covers, one every two or three feet, but would have been for gas lamps a while back and candleholders before then; with the advent of electricity, electric lights were the order of the day. The theater had the look of a temple, and it may well have once been one. So despite its unimpressive size, it projected an undercurrent of solemnity. The children would play until around four in the afternoon, when the sun’s rays began to dim and filter in over the entrance threshold, revealing dust motes dancing in the air. The walls had yellowed, as if covered by a coat of glaze that, for some reason, gave it a scary look. A mischievous child might choose that moment to scream, rattling the others, who would swarm out of the building. The theater was home to frightful tales. In one of them, Gramps heard a commotion up on the stage, with gongs and drums. They were singing opera! It was a performance of The Yang Family Generals. He wondered when the Weiyang Troupe

Q

157

Q

FU PING

had come, and why he hadn’t been informed. So he got out of bed, threw a coat over his shoulders, walked out of his room, and went into the theater compound, which was lit up by candlelight that turned the ground red. Gramps spent the night in a state of hysteria, failing to take note of the fact that in a time when electric lights were used, those were actually candles. All he cared about was rushing excitedly inside. The door was locked, and he’d forgotten to bring the key. He similarly neglected to consider the fact that the troupe could not have gotten inside unless he’d opened the door for them. To him, it all seemed right and proper. He peeked in through a crack in the doorway, and the first thing he saw was a bright red aura caused by thousands of candles in their holders. The next vision made his hair stand on end. There on the stage, hopping and jumping and singing, was a host of yellow weasels, one with a flag sticking up from its back, eyes flashing, probably in the role of Mu Guiying. It twisted its long, thin waist in a performance for the ages. Gramps broke out in a cold sweat and his mind cleared as he stumbled back to his room. The red glow he’d seen was in reality weeds between the flagstones, plantains and sixinch-tall bristle grass. The compound is like a wasteland, he said to himself, no wonder there are weasels. At some later date, the flagstones were dug up and replaced by a concrete floor. When opera troupes began performing there, Gramps insisted that they light incense and pay proper respects to the spirits. The gloomy undercurrent remained. Throughout the area, anytime children misbehaved, parents threatened to send them into the theater compound. That never failed to make them behave. Adults in any family that had a

Q

158

Q

FU PING

child who cried through the night would burn a stack of spirit paper in back of the compound, and the child would stop crying. That is why the theater had the feel of a temple. And Gramps was the temple attendant. These Yangzhou migrants were by nature superstitious, and since they spent much of their lives working on the river, where accidents happened all the time, they were forever suspicious of unexplained events. They were different from Fukienese sailors, who were tossed by high ocean waves and strong winds, and thus highly fatalistic, almost religiously so. They had their own god: Mazu, the patron saint of seafarers. People had built temples to Mazu all up and down the coast. Yangzhou boatmen did not revere their gods to this degree, for their gods were rather ordinary, more like folk heroes, neither as sanctified nor as specialized as Mazu. They were involved in all aspects of daily life and differed from person to person and from time to time. Yangzhou boatmen survived by working hard, and were poorer than their coastal counterparts, who could pay respects to their god in style. They could only make small-scale attempts to appease the gods, even negotiate with them— gods you could talk sense to. And so, people in the area had no trouble believing in cavorting weasels. When opera troupes from their hometown came to perform, the theater became a guildhall, drawing Yangzhou boat people from all around. They watched performers unload their carts, prepare the stage, and set up cookstoves. We have already seen that this was a theater with rudimentary facilities, so visiting performers bedded down for the night on the stage. The women slept backstage, where they made beds from makeup tables,

Q

159

Q

FU PING

stools, and chairs. Trunks containing their gear could not be used, an ironclad theatrical tradition. They put up a curtain to create a corridor for the men to visit the toilet. The men laid their bedding out on the floor by the stage. It was a hard life. But in the eyes of the people who came to watch, it was unique and alluring. At the time, no matter where they were heading, they took a detour to the theater grounds. They would not go in, choosing instead to stand in the entrance and gape inside, where they might see performers practicing movements and acrobatic skills. What really interested them was how the performers lived; maybe the actor who performed the female role would be in the yard drying clothes. She had just washed her hair, which hung across her back down to her waist, and was tied with a band. She was wearing everyday clothes with a flowery pattern, far from new and quite tight, probably a size too small. If they were lucky, they’d be around when the performers were eating. Meals were served military-style, prepared in a tent alongside Gramps’s guardhouse. They used coal-burning stoves, the coal brought along with the props and sets. Gramps lent them a long, narrow table from the theater, upon which they placed a large wok and platters for the food. Then, one by one, they filled their tea mugs or lunch boxes and went off to eat. Some squatted and some stood as they soaked up sun and talked among themselves, tin spoons clanging crisply against the sides of their aluminum lunch boxes. The actors stepped out from paintings and became flesh-and-blood humans, which piqued the viewers’ curiosity. People who lived nearby would come up with their own rice bowls, squat down, and eat alongside the actors, to listen to them talk about their hometowns.

Q

160

Q

FU PING

Before the night’s performance, Gramps shut the entrance door securely, but there were always a few who got in before that. Some were people he knew and some were people who somehow knew members of the opera troupe, all of whom showed up early. By then the theater had undergone a change. Rows of bench seats that had been pushed up against the wall had been lined up neatly, with space between them for passage. A maroon curtain now hung in front of the stage. These additions did not make the theater appear more crowded, did, in fact, make it seem bigger somehow, tidy and grand. The lights were still off, keeping the theater dark and stately. Early arrivals tended to lower their voices as they made their way through the rows of seats. The floor had been washed and swept, with traces of water here and there spreading hints of somber coolness. Faint laughter and speech seemed to emerge from behind the curtain. These early arrivals worked up the courage to walk up the two steps on the side of the stage and pull back a corner of the curtain. The stage was kept dark, even with overhead lights hanging above wooden racks. Two or three figures were moving around, appearing quite small on the empty stage. Two beams of light broke through the darkness from the backstage doors, the source of the speech and laughter. It was a different world. A pair of hundred-watt or brighter bulbs produced dazzling light to reveal a roomful of beautiful people. Some were at mirrors painting their eyebrows, others had paired off to work on each other’s faces. Over here one of them stood behind another to pull the headband tight. Heavily powdered faces seemed like full moons. Eyes and brows were exaggerated— bigger and darker—lips were painted bloodred, cheeks were

Q

161

Q

FU PING

rouged the color of peach blossoms. Most had donned some stage attire; their headbands were fastened, but no headdresses, not yet. That gave them the look of languid, slightly bored sleeping beauties. A closer look showed that the costumes were not very clean, were in fact dingy and stained with rouge and lipstick residue. Actors’ yellowed teeth were in stark contrast to white powdered faces and red lips. The taunts that emerged from those mouths lacked refinement, not what one would expect. Not yet completely in their roles, but no longer ordinary human beings, they captivated the spectators. The backstage was getting increasingly crowded, with people talking and laughing as they watched the actors put on their stage makeup. One of the actors got up when he was finished and walked outside through the rear door to warm up his voice. Teacup in hand, he sipped and sang, over and over, as the darkening sky highlighted his painted face, which now was like an evil spirit transformed into a beauty. By this time, the hall had filled up under the lights; though not especially bright, there were enough of them to flood the stage with brilliance. The beams and blackened rafters disappeared from view. Throngs filled the space under the lights, the genial lilt of their Yangzhou accent swirling in the air above them. It was a gathering of the entire Yangzhou boat populace, some of whom returned nearly every day. Greetings erupted all around, while children ran and shouted as they chased each other among the seats. Not everyone was there for the performance; many had come only to see people from home. So even while the opera was under way, the noise level out front was  high and stayed that way. Fights among the children,

Q

162

Q

FU PING

sometimes vicious, were not unheard of, but Gramps grabbed the battlers, one with each hand, and threw them out. That did not stop the spectators from enjoying the performance, as each new entrance was greeted with warm applause and loud cheers. When an actor sang a popular aria, the audience joined in. Martial operas were crowd favorites. With gongs and drums, the performers streamed onto the stage, setting up a racket. They occasionally stumbled, but nobody cared. They walked back and started over, and when they got it right, the spectators rewarded them with thunderous cheers. Over the years, one particular performer of the female dan role was praised above the others, and when she took the stage, the audience quieted down. She had a special way of singing, drawing the ending notes out with a slight downturn. Her spoken dialogue was slow, but not uncommonly so, and lower than most, but not low. In the “Stealing the Magic Herb” scene of Legend of the White Snake, when Madame White Snake changes costumes to fight in jacket and trousers, she revealed a wasplike waist, narrow shoulders, and slender hands and feet; her gaze turned lively, her voice was crisp and clear, an altogether remarkable transformation from character to character. The people, reminded of Gramps’s weasels, held their breath, their eyes following her every move. When she left the stage, gongs and drums accompanied shrimp soldiers and crab generals as they filed onto the stage in the roles of acrobat-clowns. The audience exhaled and cheered loudly. The Suzhou River was still, with scattered lights cast by anchored boats piercing the black water like nails. A few distant two-story buildings were thinly pressed against the horizon. The sky was dark as far as the eye could see, except for the

Q

163

Q

FU PING

haze of city lights on the dimly lit horizon. That was a different scene, the light and shadows of modernity, with trendsetting men and women. But not here. This was a small but splendid world of hustle and bustle. It was New Year’s Eve, and the theater was bustling. A troupe from Xinghua, northern Jiangsu, was in town to perform the modern opera Duo yin, about a revolutionary power struggle. The small troupe traveled with truckloads of costumes, props, and lights, a far cry from troupes of olden days. The stage scenery even included a fake wall and a real gate, enough material to construct a house. There were also rolls of fishnet that took several men to move. They thudded to the stage when they were hung and unrolled, stunning anyone standing nearby. A rice paddy in a soft breeze unfolded before people’s eyes, so lifelike they could almost smell the growing rice. Lights shone down from all sides, turning illusion into reality. Even though the costumes were contemporary styles, they were still attractive, with bright colors and in such quantity as to fill several wardrobes. There were trunks for shoes, each divided into compartments and all with names on them— names of the roles, not the performers— and not common property. The curtain was new, and could be fronted by a second, sheer, curtain to produce foggy morning scenes. The musical instruments were also new; the taut drumhead was unmarred by patching. Notes from the flute were as resoundingly clear as a whistle. Everything—lyrics, tunes, and plot—was a new treat for the ear. The female leads were lovely and alluring, though their styles differed widely. They wore their hair short, girded their waists with leather belts, and moved like men, full of heroic mettle, a sight to behold. The landlady, who would likely Q

164

Q

FU PING

be the role for a clown performer in traditional opera, swiveled her hips as she delivered sweet dumplings to the official, a comic scene that brought the role close to that of traditional opera, and every time she came onstage she was greeted with raucous applause. The modern troupe was very popular among the locals, who filled every seat each night. Gramps sometimes sneaked in a few people without tickets who could stand out in the corridor. People who could not get tickets at the entrance and were not allowed in stood outside in the darkness just to listen to the gongs and drums. Xinhua District, where the troupe originated, was Sun Daliang’s home, and one of the qin musicians was from the same village. Both had left home as youngsters and had never met, but they discovered that they knew some of the same people. During this period, whenever Sun was home, he attended every show, and before each performance sat with the musicians beside the curtain to talk with his newfound friend. Sometimes he went backstage to soak up the hometown accent the actors spoke. The children he brought with him ran around the stage, front and back, like mad. When Xiao Jun went, she dragged Fu Ping along. Fu Ping was intimidated by an uncle she barely knew, and with whom she’d spoken only rarely over the nearly two weeks she’d been staying with them. She went, since Xiao Jun was going, and her aunt urged her to tag along. On two occasions, when they reached the opera house, she saw Guangming standing at the entrance, waiting to enter with tickets he’d bought beforehand. Fu Ping knew that her aunt had planned it. As the crowd streamed in, Uncle went to see the qin player, the children wanted to run around on their own, and Xiao Jun wanted to watch the actors put on their makeup. Fu Ping had Q

165

Q

FU PING

nothing special in mind except to go with her. Guangming tagged along. Once inside, the three of them sat on a bench backstage waiting for the actors to finish their early dinner, clean their lunch boxes, steep a large mug of strong tea, and saunter over to put on makeup. Naturally Guangming wanted to talk to Fu Ping. He asked this and that, to which she paid no attention at first. But the thought that he was Aunt’s nephew, a relative of hers as well, persuaded her that no harm could come from talking to him. And so she did, but only gradually. We have seen that Xiao Jun was a fickle girl. The moment she laid eyes on the new faces of the troupe, she forgot all about Fu Ping. In a matter of moments she had struck up a friendship with one of the student actors; she brought her a basin of water, made her a mug of tea, steeped wood shavings in water for her to slick back her hair, and gave her food she’d brought from home. Having only been with the troupe two years, the girl had not yet served out her apprenticeship. She was restricted to walk-on roles and charged with maintaining the costumes; she was studying for the sheng male role, with bright eyes and striking eyebrows, turning her into a handsome young man. Possibly because she was somewhat eccentric, she had no close friends in the troupe, and spent much of her time alone. No wonder she did not refuse Xiao Jun’s ardent attentions, did in fact welcome them. And so, Xiao Jun busied herself with her new friend, virtually deserting Fu Ping and Guangming. Now, without Xiao Jun between them, Guangming and Fu Ping sat close enough for her to smell his hair oil and hand and face moisturizer. Every few minutes he pulled back his sleeve to display a shiny wristwatch and report the time to Fu Ping. It’s

Q

166

Q

FU PING

5:39 . . . it’s 6:01 . . . He was starting to get on her nerves, and she had to agree with Xiao Jun’s comment that he was a poser. But she could see that he wasn’t a bad person, that he had a good heart. So she decided to put up with him and concentrate on observing the performers, who teased one another as they applied their makeup. The Xinghua accent differed a bit from hers, a more northern, harsher sound. But she had no trouble understanding them, and it was, after all, the language her maternal grandmother spoke, which made it feel intimate, familiar. A male actor held the face of one of the females as he meticulously painted her eyes and brows. Both had powdered faces, in reds and whites, like masks. Their noses nearly touched. But since they did not look real, that did not seem lewd to Fu Ping, and was actually quite riveting. Their features came slowly into view, so fresh and appealing they looked a bit scary. Fu Ping was mesmerized, and she suddenly felt someone tug on her sleeve. She turned, and was nearly cheek to cheek with Guangming, so close she smelled a fishy odor coming from his mouth; mixed with the hair oil and moisturizer, it made her uncomfortable. It’s already 6:47, he said, so we should go in and take our seats. With a sudden loss of control, she jerked away to put distance between them and did not respond. He was getting restless. It’s chaos in there, people are sitting anywhere they like, he said. He had already peeked inside and seen that someone was in their seats. Fu Ping responded by standing up unhappily, not because she might lose her seat, but because she did not want to talk to Guangming. She followed him out from behind the screen and down the steps, where her ears were assailed by a loud din. As they stepped

Q

167

Q

FU PING

out from the bright backstage lights, the hall seemed dark. Heads bobbed under the light of a dozen electric lights, a group here, a bunch there, squabbling over seats; with so many people shouting, no one could hear anyone else, and no one would back down. They made their way up to their seats, which were, in fact, occupied. Guangming had bought four tickets, one each for Fu Ping and him, and two for the four children, who could sit two to a seat. Uncle was not going to watch, as he was wrapped up in conversation with the qin player. Nor was Xiao Jun, who was busy waiting on her new friend. But now what? Eight people were sitting in their four seats, only one of whom— Sun’s eldest—was in the family, and he was squeezed into the space between two seats. Guangming went up to argue with them. They ignored him. If these were your seats, why weren’t you here sitting in them? One of them shoved Guangming. As his face turned red, he rolled up his sleeve and made a fist, ready to fight. The overhead lights went down, the footlights went on, throwing a circle of light onto the screen. The opera was about to begin. There was tension in the air all of a sudden. Gramps walked up waving an oversized flashlight, throwing beams of hazy light all around. Go outside and fight if you’ve got the balls! he shouted as he dragged Guangming and the other guy outside. The screen rose, revealing a green rice paddy behind the sheer screen, blazingly bright. The audience slowly went quiet. Fu Ping realized that she was standing alone out in the aisle, with nowhere to go. How embarrassing! Then a hand reached out and pulled her over. She turned and saw it was a skinny but fresh-faced old woman, who told the young man on the aisle, her son, also skinny, and also fresh-faced, wearing glasses, to move over and let Fu Ping sit. Q

168

Q

Chapter Thirteen

TO THE OPERA

AUNT SAID

to Fu Ping, Let’s invite Nainai to the opera. A quick

count showed that Fu Ping had already been with Aunt more than ten days. Only a few days remained before New Year’s. She wondered how Nainai was doing, and how Li Tianhua was doing back home. Fu Ping’s head drooped at the thought of Nainai’s grandson. That afternoon, Aunt told Fu Ping to stay home and keep an eye on a pork shoulder simmering in rock sugar while she went to Huaihai Road to see Nainai. Aunt was wearing a new blue jacket with a checkered fake collar and a new pair of Uncle’s black-laced padded cotton shoes with corduroy tops, white piping, and air holes. Over her shoulder she carried a gray zippered leatherette handbag she’d borrowed from Xiao Jun. She brushed her hair back over her ears, giving her the look of a Party cadre. For her, going to visit Nainai was an important event to be taken very seriously. To people living in the Zhabei District, Huaihai Road was considered the real

FU PING

Shanghai. So as Aunt wended her way through the shantytown lanes, to anyone she met who asked where she was going, she announced loudly, I’m off to Shanghai! What for? they’d ask. We’re inviting the girl’s Nainai to the opera! she’d reply. After leaving the shantytown, she walked to the trolley stop. It was a Sunday afternoon, under a clear blue sky. Not many people were waiting for the trolley. By then, everyone had bought what they needed for New Year’s and were home cleaning house, salting fish and meat, and firing up chimney stoves to boil water. Young and old alike were bathed and ready to see out the old year and welcome in the new. Aunt’s family was ready. New clothes for adults and children were folded in the closet, while in the yard there was a salted pork knuckle and a salted ham, as well as a brined chicken that hung from a horizontal bamboo pole. Two days earlier, she had told her eldest girl to roast melon seeds that had been dried and held over from the summer, which, along with gingko nuts and a handful of soybeans, were sealed in a metal container. On her way to see Nainai, Aunt planned to stop on Huaihai Road to buy two jin of soft candies. Everything was as it should be for the New Year. If Nainai is willing, Aunt was thinking, she can join us for New Year’s dinner, which would make it much livelier. Life was better these days, and relatives ought to visit each other. Stop by stop, the trolley drew near Nainai’s home, and Aunt felt increasingly close to the older woman. In part, she wanted to meet Nainai so they could discuss Fu Ping’s future. She could see that Guangming liked Fu Ping, but how Fu Ping felt remained a mystery. She was still a girl, so she was not expected to exhibit any attitude. It really was a matter for the grown-ups.

Q

170

Q

FU PING

Aunt thrilled over the prospect of the marriage being settled by New Year’s. Having grown up on the boats, she knew how to work hard, and lived a simple life. She envisioned no obstacles to success. She’d had her eye on Sun Daliang right off, and had told her parents, who’d said he was too short for her. His height might bother you, she’d said, but not me. Then they’d reminded her that he had a mother and an elder brother to support. I don’t care, she’d said. When her parents could not talk her around, they asked a matchmaker to take on the task and quickly worked out an arrangement. They were married, and it turned out fine, as she’d figured. Their life was not easy, but whose was? Sun Daliang was a man with ambition, someone who wanted his hard work to mean something. And sure enough, it had borne fruit. It wasn’t just going from life on a boat to a home on land; it was more like going from earth up to paradise. Seeing things in simple terms had never failed her. Which is why she would be shocked by how events played out on this day. But Aunt was not a woman opposed to a change of heart; she was always willing to rethink things from the beginning. After doing that several times, she was able to see why things worked out the way they did this time. And that made everything right again. Back to the visit. Aunt stepped off the trolley and eagerly headed to Nainai’s lane. Along the way she spotted a grocery shop that was crowded with customers. Taking her handbag off her shoulder and holding it tight in front as a protective measure, she pushed her way up to the candy counter. Assorted candies were available in two prices: one was for a mix of hard and soft candies at one twenty per jin; the second was for soft

Q

171

Q

FU PING

candies only, which sold for one fifty per jin. When she reflected on how her third and fourth children fought over their favorites, she did not hesitate to spend three yuan on two jin of soft candies. She stuffed her purchase into her handbag, virtually filling it. Her forehead was beaded with sweat by the time she shouldered her way out of the shop. Pedestrians jammed the street, and no one’s hands were empty. All the shops were packed. A steady stream of vehicles passed in both directions, the overhead electric cables sparkling in the sunlight like illuminated spiderwebs. Shanghai is the real thing, Aunt was thinking. Look at all the activity! She found the entrance to Nainai’s lane, where people were streaming in and out. That included a man carrying buckets of hot water over his shoulder. Hot water! he shouted. Hot water! Steam issued from beneath the wooden lids of his buckets. When Aunt found Nainai, she had already bathed the children and taken a bath herself; her face was red, her hair mussed, as she walked out from the bathroom carrying an empty wooden bucket. The girls were kicking a shuttlecock around in the house. Dazzling beams of sunlight splashed down on their red and green sweaters, amplifying the colors. Aunt liked what she saw. She unzipped her handbag and handed the girls some candy as she told Nainai she was Fu Ping’s aunt and that she had come to take Nainai back with her to see an opera. Nainai did not smile. I’m old, she said, and I don’t care for hustle and bustle, including opera. Not recognizing that Nainai was unhappy, she pressed on: It’s not about an opera, it’s about a bit of enjoyment. I left Fu Ping home to stew a pig’s knuckle for Nainai! Just hearing Fu Ping’s name softened Nainai’s attitude. She sighed. The girl hasn’t been back

Q

172

Q

FU PING

once since she left. What am I supposed to say to her motherin-law? That was talk Aunt had not expected. Her eyes widened, and Nainai could tell that this was not a scheming woman; her attitude continued to soften. She told Aunt everything about her and Fu Ping’s relationship. What Aunt heard came as a disappointment, but she was thankful she’d held off saying anything to Guangming. In fact, she recalled, she’d asked Fu Ping if she had a future mother-in-law, and when Fu Ping had not said yes or no, she’d assumed that meant no. The thing was, how could a girl as old as Fu Ping not have a future mother-in-law? She’d let herself be fooled by the girl’s shyness. Nainai laid her heart bare, and Aunt was deeply moved. She really is a good nainai, she said to herself, though she looks too young to be one. She tried again to get her to come for the opera, saying she’d send Fu Ping back with her when it was over. This time Nainai changed her tune, saying she’d have to ask the mistress if it was all right. New Year’s was just around the corner, and there was so much to do. Aunt suggested that she go to see the mistress right away. Nainai was well aware that her mistress would not normally oppose such things, but this was a good excuse to reveal her status. The two girls stood close by listening to the conversation; once their mother gave the okay, they wheedled Nainai into taking them along. Aunt was delighted, of course, and took the younger girl’s hand. That’s the ticket! she said. You’ll go too. And so the younger girl took the hand of her sister, who held Nainai’s hand, and the four of them walked out the gate together. At four in the afternoon the sun’s rays slanted across the bamboo fence in the shantytown. Fu Ping returned from

Q

173

Q

FU PING

getting soy sauce and was about to walk into the yard when Nainai and the others arrived. The girls shouted Fu Ping! the moment they laid eyes on her. They had short memories, having forgotten their shabby treatment of her. They experienced only surprised delight in seeing her after such a long time. Fu Ping’s heart warmed at the sight. Nainai did not look angry; she merely said, You shouldn’t have stayed away so long, you worried your Nainai. The worries that had been building in Fu Ping all day vanished, and she wanted to shower affection on her nainai—Nainai, she said. Nainai watched her go inside and return with a cup of puffed rice tea with brown sugar. After that she roasted some peanuts and even gave Nainai one of Uncle’s cigarettes. Nainai’s eyes welled up. She was, after all, just a naive, inexperienced girl, so what could she do, fly up into the sky? Maybe she worried too much about her. She was already warming up to Uncle and Aunt. She could tell that Aunt was a warmhearted woman, and as for Uncle, though he didn’t say much, he was sincere and respectful, invariably deferring to Nainai for everything—tea, cigarettes, taking a seat. When the children walked in, they were told to greet Nainai and kowtow before they ran outside with the daughters of the mistress to play. They had never had so many playmates. They became instant friends, and were in no hurry to come back in. The neighbors, who had known that someone from Shanghai was coming, clustered around to get a look at her. One look told them that the visitor had even greater stature and was more impressive than they’d imagined, instilling in them a bit of stage fright and excitement at the same time. A few of the more seasoned older men sat down and started talking to Nainai, while

Q

174

Q

FU PING

their womenfolk stood nearby to listen. Some of them quickly went into the kitchen to help Aunt prepare dinner, chopping pork for meatballs and shredding tofu for a ham dish, typical hometown dishes. As night fell, Aunt had someone call the two girls in for dinner and told her children to run over to the opera house to save seats, knowing how crazy it could get later. Guangming showed up, and when he heard what Aunt wanted, he rushed over to the opera house himself. Aunt hadn’t given a thought to the boy till the minute he arrived, and she was upset with herself. But since she was a forthright, open-minded person, she felt no troubling sense of embarrassment, and let Guangming go ahead. She’d explain things to him later. In the final analysis, she refused to believe that a boy like him could not find a mate. The dining table looked as if Sun Daliang’s family might be celebrating New Year’s early. The plates and dishes were piled high with typical Shanghai food, much of it swimming in thick sauces that glistened red. The two girls were big meat eaters, so tonight’s meal seemed made for them. Nainai worried that they might get sick from too much rich food and would have liked to stop them. But how was she supposed to do that, with people right and left piling meat into their bowls? As the meal progressed, even she ate quite a bit; when was the last time someone had cooked a meal for her and kept calling her “Nainai”? She lost count of the cups she’d drunk, and though she was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol, she was clearly enjoying herself. People at the table and those standing behind it looking on clicked their tongues and complimented Nainai for her ability to drink and the two girls for their healthy appetites

Q

175

Q

FU PING

for meat. When the adults put down their cups and began serving rice, Uncle’s children wedged their way up to the table, turning the atmosphere livelier than ever. They fought over food to show off, and ate much more than usual. They’d become friends playing outside, but now they began to argue over who could eat the most fatty meat. Their parents told them to quiet down, but only for show, which actually served to encourage them. The food vanished quickly, until the plates were empty; more food was heaped on them, and it too vanished in a hurry, emptying the plates a second time. Sun Daliang, someone shouted, do you still plan on celebrating New Year’s? Aunt’s face turned red. Of course, she said, her eyes flashing, why wouldn’t we? Every day is New Year’s for us! Someone outside reported that the opera was about to begin, and the hall was filling fast, time for Nainai to go. Along with the two visiting girls, the family’s children raced to the opera house. Nainai followed, with Aunt on one side and Xiao Jun, who had dropped in, on the other. She was peppering Nainai with questions. Are those earrings gold, Nainai? Did Nainai make the jacket you’re wearing? Fu Ping lagged behind, followed by Sun Daliang, as the procession made its fitful way to the opera house. It was the first day of a new opera, the classic costume drama Meng Lijun. The audience was larger than usual; the hall was packed. Guangming had saved half a row of seats, many of which had now been forcefully occupied by others. But there were still four or five, which he protected with his body, yet even they were in jeopardy of being seized. When he saw Nainai and the others walk in, he jumped onto a seat, waving his hands and shouting. His hair was a mess, the front stuck to his sweaty

Q

176

Q

FU PING

forehead, and he looked comical standing there shouting. Nainai laughed. Once they’d threaded their way down the aisle and squeezed into seats, they’d made it. Nainai leaned over and whispered to Aunt with a chuckle, It looks like that nephew of yours and this girl were made for each other. She patted Xiao Jun’s hand, which was resting in the crook of Nainai’s arm. Xiao Jun was too intent on telling Fu Ping when her new friend would be onstage and what her costume would be to hear what had been said about her. But Fu Ping had heard, and she lost her concentration, but only for a moment. Aunt had a sudden insight that Nainai was, after all, a woman who saw things more clearly than she did. Before the audience quieted down, the clang of a gong and the beat of a drum signaled the beginning of the opera. The curtain rose on an array of fancy costumes and dazzling ornaments. The crowd roared. It was a song-and-dance opera, not martial. The actors were painted beautifully, with red cheeks and white teeth, tinkling jewelry, all of which mesmerized Nainai and everyone with her. Uncle leaned over between each act to explain the contents of the opera to her. His explanations were so detailed that people sitting within hearing distance bent close to listen. Once he’d said his piece, it was time for the next act. The performance ended at ten o’clock; the crowd compressed as people streamed out of the hall and then the compound to reach the street, where they noisily tramped across the cobblestones, dispersing down many lanes until only a few people remained. It was a mild evening, with a waning crescent moon high in the sky. The breezes were slightly chilled. The effects of the alcohol drunk beforehand had worn off, and the excitement

Q

177

Q

FU PING

over the outing had passed. They spoke in hushed voices as they sensed the quiet of the evening. The girls stumbled along, and Nainai was feeling something akin to lightness. No one spoke when they reached the trolley stop, where they waited. Uncle said to Nainai, If you have no objection, you can treat us as family. Ask us for anything, and we’ll provide it, money, manpower, or whatever. You’re already family, aren’t you? Nainai replied. Your niece will be my grandson’s wife. She turned to look at Fu Ping. Fu Ping, she said, are you going back with me? Without looking up, Fu Ping said, All right. With no more to say, they waited till the trolley arrived. After they’d seen Nainai, Fu Ping, and the girls aboard and waited till the trolley left, the family started walking home. But before they’d gone far, the usually quiet Uncle began to sing. The children sang along with him. Even after the trolley was far down the road, their voices continued to swirl in the air. The trolley was virtually empty, no more than five or six people. Nainai sat on one side with the girls, Fu Ping sat alone on the other side. The younger girl was fast asleep in Nainai’s arms, her sister was leaning up against her, both soft as molding clay. Nainai’s mind was clear as she looked out the window and saw her reflection in the glass, one earring glistening just past the corner of her eye. Fu Ping was staring at the driver’s back. Since it was the last trolley of the night, his movements at the steering wheel were rapid and jerky, as he wanted to finish up and go home to bed. The driver, whom Fu Ping thought was Guangming at first, leaned to the side when he turned the steering wheel and then straightened up. Without warning, her head

Q

178

Q

FU PING

bumped against the seat in front. The trolley stopped, and they were home. Nainai wasted no time in telling Lü Fengxian all about the meal she’d had, the opera she’d seen, and Aunt and Uncle’s family. With an emotional sigh, she said, They’re good people, and they live a good life, even if their house is a bit run-down. I know they’re good people, Lü Fengxian replied, but why were they so eager to have Fu Ping come stay with them? They let her come home with me, didn’t they? Nainai defended them. Nainai, you’re too soft. They let her come home, Lü Fengxian scoffed. What if they hadn’t? That got Nainai thinking that she might have been a soft touch. She’s right. What did Fu Ping mean to them? Why had they stuck their noses in our business? The good feelings she’d brought home with her slowly melted away. But the girls weren’t so quick to put this experience out of their heads. They often asked Nainai about the uncle and aunt, to which she responded, I don’t know. Ask Fu Ping, she knows. But Fu Ping said she didn’t know either. They’re your aunt and uncle, Nainai said, how could you not know? My parents died when I was young, so I was never told anything, Fu Ping said. How would I know? This was what changed in the wake of the visit—Fu Ping did not hesitate to talk back to Nainai. Furious, Nainai raised her voice: How could you stay all this time with someone you don’t even know? Fu Ping held her tongue. But she was so angry her face turned red. After that, when they were both in better moods, Nainai would sometimes ask Fu Ping, What sorts of things did you do at their house? What kind of people did you meet? Fu Ping said she didn’t do

Q

179

Q

FU PING

much of anything and didn’t meet anyone new. That, too, upset Nainai: What do you mean you didn’t meet anyone new? There’s Xiao Jun, and there’s Guangming, weren’t they strangers to you? Her reply made Fu Ping angry. A neighbor and a relative, how could they be strangers? Fu Ping’s tongue had sharpened; Nainai had always assumed that the girl was not very articulate. New Year’s was drawing near, but Nainai and Fu Ping were caught up in acrimony. They seethed inside, and just about anything set them off in bursts of anger. On the afternoon before New Year’s Eve, Aunt strode happily in through the gate, a bundle in her hands. Nainai, she called out. Fu Ping. They both sat tight without responding. Aunt missed the sign. Instead, she tossed her bundle down on the bed, opened it, and took out the contents, one article of clothing at a time. Fu Ping, these are wedding presents from your uncle and me. I hope Nainai won’t think they aren’t good enough, nothing but crude odds and ends, but good enough for country folks. There were a pair of red long johns, a pair of round-toe shoes, and white gloves, all protective clothing used by boat people; two pairs of nylons and a vest worn over a padded jacket were new. There was also a gift from Xiao Jun: hand-knitted gloves that could be used as work gloves. Besides the clothing, there were steamed buns from the dining hall for Nainai. Neither she nor Fu Ping so much as glanced at the items. Fu Ping went beyond that by getting up and walking out the door. Aunt was too stunned to speak. She just stared at Nainai, who kept her head down as she continued grinding rice, filling the room with the heavy grate of a millstone. My niece is upset with me, Aunt said. No, Nainai said, she’s upset with me. Now Aunt knew what was happening. She

Q

180

Q

FU PING

put down what she was holding. Nainai, she said, it’s you I’ve made angry. Nainai said nothing. The pique Nainai had felt toward the aunt softened now that they were face-to-face. Are you unhappy with us because we didn’t take her in when she was young? You don’t know how hard that would have been. We could barely manage with just the two of us. She went on to describe their tough life at the time. The more Nainai heard, the more she was taken in by the story. I know it wasn’t easy for you, she said, but that’s not what I’m upset about. What is it then? Aunt was confused. You shouldn’t have taken the girl home without talking to me first. Aunt wanted to explain that she did that only because Fu Ping had first looked them up, and that Nainai wasn’t home the day she came for Fu Ping. But Nainai stopped her. She’s become a different girl since returning from your home. You saw how she ran off the minute something made her unhappy. Aunt sheepishly reflected on how she’d tried to arrange something with Guangming; she looked away. Aunt must know, Nainai continued, that I’ve been expecting my grandson to look after me in my old age, so how will I face him if I let Fu Ping get away? She began to cry. Never able to stand to see tears on someone older, Aunt’s face reddened and her eyes grew moist; her tears were about to flow too. She took Nainai’s hand. I was wrong, Nainai, she said. I didn’t know Fu Ping was promised to your grandson. I thought she was your adopted granddaughter, and I was interested in introducing her to a nephew on my mother’s side. But then I learned differently . . . Before she finished, Nainai took Aunt’s hand. The boy with upswept hair? Aunt nodded. She saw that Nainai’s tears had stopped falling.

Q

181

Q

FU PING

Nainai finally calmed down. She tidied up her hair, put her hand on the wooden handle of the small millstone, and went back to work, filling the room again with the loud sound of millstone grinding. Children from the countryside are wellbehaved, she said. Fu Ping was just upset with me, nothing more than that. At that moment all Aunt could think of was that she had done something quite terrible, and said to herself, Nainai, I’ll never again have anything to do with Fu Ping. After that she sat a while longer before getting up to take her leave. Won’t you take these things home with you, Aunt? Nainai said. They’re for your own use. Fu Ping has whatever she needs. But I’ll thank you for her. Aunt did not put up a fight. She hastily packed up all the gifts and left with the bundle she’d come with. When Aunt’s footsteps grew faint, Nainai stopped working and thought quietly. The cessation of millstone noise in the house brought in sounds from outside. Neighborhood children, at home over the winter break, were kicking a shuttlecock or jumping rope out in the lane, blending the rhythmic sound of footsteps on the concrete with the crisp cadence of, Thirty-seven, thirtyeight, thirty-nine. The maid next door was probably frying fish balls that sizzled in an oily pan. A serene, auspicious New Year’s neared. That night, Nainai poured the watery rice paste into a gauze sack and hung it over a pot into which strained water dripped. Then she steamed some egg dumplings she had prepared earlier and soaked red beans in clear water to make a paste the next morning. The carp had already been sliced and marinated in soy sauce and other seasonings. The chickens were in their coop clucking away as she tossed in raw rice. The butcher knife,

Q

182

Q

FU PING

freshly sharpened, awaited them. She’d finished all she needed to do by ten o’clock. She walked out through the gate to the houses in front. Lü Fengxian had left her door unlocked, and was waiting for her. The lights were on inside, a sheet of paper lay on the table, and the ink had been prepared. She was going to write a letter home for Nainai.

Q

183

Q

Chapter Fourteen

NEW YEAR’S

THERE ARE

busy times during any year, and slack days. On the

last day of the lunar year, Nainai’s family started having dinner parties. The guests were all familiar with her kitchen skills, and the first question they asked as they came in would be, Will we be having your meatballs? Or, Will there be braised pig’s shoulder? Only then would they shed their coats and hats and rush to the table like soldiers in battle. Nainai would bring in dish after dish, each greeted with heartfelt praise. She did not take well to compliments; they just pressed her to work harder. A guest got drunk at one of the parties and spent the night, sharing a bed with his host, which forced the mistress to sleep with the children. In the morning, Nainai brought in New Year’s sticky rice cake in egg batter and some sticky rice balls in fermented rice wine sauce, so the guest stayed for breakfast, and then did not leave until after that night’s dinner party. By the third of the month, her work was done, since it was time for

FU PING

the master and mistress to have dinner at other people’s homes. Nainai spent the day at the Great World Arcade with Lü Fengxian. Qi Shifu, who had fixed the kitchen sink the day before, told her that he was on duty that day, and that he’d just returned from New Year’s dinner in Pudong, where he’d left his wife and adopted son. Lü Fengxian remarked that a place like the Great World was a lot more fun with a man along, so they had invited him to go along. Before they left, they asked Auntie A-ju and Fu Ping to come, making it a party of five. Nainai put on a seldom worn camel-hair jacket that had been at the bottom of her trunk. Though it was on the thin side, it was warm enough for the mild day. She told Fu Ping to change into her new red silk padded jacket. Fu Ping was not in the mood for a New Year’s celebration, but was well aware of the taboo against sounding negative during the period, so she did as she was told, and took a good look at herself in the mirror. The red jacket gave her face a rosy glow; Nainai told her to pin up her dark hair with a green clip, which gave her an altogether lovely look. Overcome by shyness, she turned and walked away from the mirror, but could not help feeling good inside. When Nainai saw her move off so she could use the mirror, she smiled at the sight of the girl’s hair covering half her face, and her heart stirred: I must see her married to my grandson, Nainai said to herself. She took a half-yuan bill from her small coin purse and stuffed it into Fu Ping’s hand. Fu Ping tried to give it back. Not enough? Nainai commented. Fu Ping kept it. They changed their shoes and socks and walked out the door. Scraps of red firecracker paper had been swept to the side of the lane before dawn, but by that afternoon another layer already

Q

186

Q

FU PING

covered the ground, making it slightly springy. Children were still setting off firecrackers, one after another. Nainai and Fu Ping walked out of the narrow lane accompanied by an occasional pop, and met up with Lü Fengxian and A-ju. Lü Fengxian was wearing a short brown woolen coat, a dark green silk scarf with a yellow and green pattern around her neck. A-ju had on an embroidered satin jacket and straight Western trousers. The two of them presented an eye-catching sight as they stood beneath a bright afternoon sun in front of the fence around the school’s athletic field; it was like a painting. They sized each other up when Nainai and Fu Ping arrived, made some droll comments, and walked as a group to the end of the lane. Qi Shifu would be waiting for them at the Great World entrance. That was closer to his home near Eight Sages Bridge, so he could line up to buy tickets beforehand. Most people were off visiting relatives on the third day of the new year, so few pedestrians were out on the street. It was fairly quiet, just past noon. They were used to being busy with chores; for them to take time off to stroll the streets on a beautiful day was sheer enjoyment. They scrutinized window displays, eyed modern young men and women, read movie posters, and went into cinema lobbies to gaze at photos of movie stars. They talked about one of the movie stars who lived in a flat where a fellow villager worked as a maid. That reminded them of another movie star, one who was even more famous and showy, who lived in a two-story house with a garden and was driven everywhere in her own car. They were chattering like schoolgirls as they walked out of the cinema, formerly known as the Paris Theatre, and onto the main street to board a trolley. They first fought

Q

187

Q

FU PING

over who would pay for the trolley tickets, back and forth until Lü Fengxian won. They let her pay. The next struggle was over seats; this time she lost and had to be the first to sit down. After a couple of stops, as passengers disembarked, all the others found seats, scattered at first, but at a stop at the halfway point, more people got off, and the four of them were finally seated together. They looked out the windows to take in the passing scenery. More and more people were out on the streets as the afternoon marched on. A brightly colored balloon slipped out of a careless child’s hand and wobbled skyward, ultimately caught on an overhead wire, where it looked like a colorful knot. Fashionably dressed women with wavy hair and fresh lipstick stood out in the crowd in their long Western coats over cheongsams and stiletto shoes. They could have been actresses out for a stroll in their theater makeup. As they took in the street scenes, the travelers made sure not to miss their stop. They hadn’t expected so many fellow riders to want off at the same stop. It seemed to them that half the passengers lined up at the door to get off. No longer anxious, they waited patiently until half of those had gotten off before slowly getting up from their seats. Qi Shifu was waiting at the trolley stop with the tickets. A trolley pulled up, disgorged its passengers, and left. There was no sign of the four women. His neck hurt from craning to look for them. The next trolley arrived, disgorged its passengers, and he’d just about given up hope when he saw them slowly step down and walked over to them with the tickets. I thought you weren’t coming, he said with a look at Lü Fengxian. Why would you think that? Nainai asked as she turned to him. Lü Fengxian explained: It took time for us all to meet up, and then we

Q

188

Q

FU PING

did a little sightseeing on the way to the trolley stop, where we had to wait. That’s why we were late. A-ju and A-niang, the fifth member of the group, who did not know Qi Shifu well, just smiled. By this time Nainai had walked to the entrance, where she waited for the others to catch up. Qi took a few steps to hand her a ticket, but then stopped and went back for the others. Back and forth he went. He seemed different in his navy blue wool tunic, more reserved. He looked so helpless after Nainai took the lead that it was hard not to feel sorry for him. Lü Fengxian came to his rescue by moving A-ju along, and Fu Ping fell in behind them. Finally, Qi could run up to Nainai. As soon as they had their tickets punched, they stepped up to the fun house mirrors. While they were laughing at their reflections, Lü Fengxian whispered to Nainai, I asked Qi Shifu to come, so please be a little nicer to him for my sake. Nainai was unhappy that Lü Fengxian had caught her acting badly, but Lü Fengxian was not Qi Shifu, and Nainai could not be willful with her. So she held her tongue, though her laughter in front of the mirrors was somewhat forced. Fu Ping stayed back, not wanting to see an ugly reflection. She tried to walk past them, but A-ju caught her and pushed her up to the mirrors. A-ju herself looked into every one of them, and more than once. Lü Fengxian had to drag her away. Seeing how happy they all were, Qi smiled and kept glancing at Nainai, wanting to go up and speak to her, but not knowing what to say or how to say it. Would that make her even unhappier with him? He could not make up his mind, and his feet had the same problem, taking a few steps forward and then backing up. Fortunately, Lü Fengxian saw what was happening.

Q

189

Q

FU PING

She walked up next to Nainai to chat about one thing and another, and then turned and said something to Qi. Nainai’s face slowly softened and Qi’s discomfort lessened. A-Ju walked behind them, alone with Fu Ping. She was interested in everything, and wanted to see it all more than once, but she knew that would annoy Lü Fengxian. And since Nainai was not in a very good mood, she got Fu Ping to walk with her. Qi suggested that they take a look at everything in the park before choosing where they wanted to spend more time. They all agreed and fell in behind him as he led them through the main building, one floor at a time. The wooden balconies were packed to the railings with visitors watching an acrobatic show on the stage below. Gasps of surprise kept erupting from the spectators, and from time to time they glimpsed through gaps in the crowd a sparkling figure leaping into the air like a flying fish and then dropping back down. A moment later, bursts of laughter rose from the crowd, likely because an acrobatic clown had mounted the stage. Anxious to have a look, A-ju grabbed Fu Ping’s arm and tried to squeeze her way up to watch the show. She not only failed to find a spot, but received some dirty looks. Wait till this performance ends and the people drift off, Qi told her. That way you can grab a spot up front to watch the next show. A-ju was hell-bent on their finding a spot, and not just any spot, but seats up front on the stage level. They continued their excursion, climbing to the top floor, where there were more people, but with space to move around. People milled about, gazing down to the street below, children ran wild, and vendors struck wooden clackers to hawk watermelon seeds, fivespice melon peas, and ice pops and ice cream, the sound

Q

190

Q

FU PING

dispersing in the open air. Under bright sunlight, the wind was strong, but not chilly, almost springlike. They stood at the railing to take a quick look down at the street, but no more than that, as their hearts raced; they stepped back before looking again. What they saw now was an unbroken flow of rooftops, tiles like fish scales. Many of the windows open to let in sunlight glistened. Terraces were also sunlit. Some of the compound walls were shedding bricks that were outlined by the sun’s rays. Laundry drying on terraces flapped vigorously with each gust of wind. A fish drying on a bamboo pole was tossed about in the wind. Qi Shifu left to buy sodas, while the women stood with their backs to the railing. The small group presented a colorful sight in the bright sunlight. Nainai’s look was muted, but she projected a subtle beauty with her gold earrings, somewhat sallow skin, and backswept hair that resembled a topknot from the front. She looked as good as anyone. Five or six children of one family playing tag caught their attention. No more than a year or two separated any of them. They all had inherited their father’s knife-edge narrow face and sallow skin, but were full of life. More than once, the youngest child ran over to the four women, snaked his way in between their legs, showing only his face as he waited to see if his brothers and sisters would find him. Their father was wearing a navy blue wool tunic, just like Qi Shifu, but threadbare and badly wrinkled. He kept his hands in his pants pockets and scrunched up his shoulders to fight the cold, which spread the lapels of his tunic like wings. His narrow face colored in the wind, and goose bumps erupted on his neck. But he wore a broad smile as he watched his children play. Their mother stood with her back to the wind, which made a

Q

191

Q

FU PING

mess of her hair. She was a woman who knitted decorative borders. Each time she finished a one-inch square, she put it in her cross-body leatherette bag, so she could later connect all the pieces to create a tablecloth or a sofa cover. The couple raised their brood of children by means of their craft skills and hard work. After letting the children play a while, they led them away. The four women suddenly realized that Qi Shifu had been gone a long time, and A-ju suggested that they go look for him. Lü Fengxian disagreed, saying they needed to stay where they were, or no one would be able to find anyone. Why worry about finding him? Nainai said just as he surprised them by showing up. His hands were so full of soda bottles he had to ignore the sweat on his forehead. He’d gone off to find out when the next acrobat show would start, and then bought sodas. There he was told he could not take the bottles with him, that customers had to drink their sodas there. By arguing his case, he was allowed to take the bottles with him if he agreed to leave his work ID and give the vendor a ten-yuan deposit. He’d taken a detour to the site of the acrobat show on his way back, which was why he’d been so long. They drank their sodas and walked down to a wooden terrace. The acrobat show was over, the music had ended, and the crowd had drifted away, affording them a full view of the stage below. It was directly under the domed ceiling, and impressively encircled by terraces on all four levels. A tangle of utility cords and steel wires hung above the empty stage. Patient spectators awaiting the next show sat in seats up front, while others ambled along the wooden terraces on each level. Music from stringed instruments seeped out from the sides of the terrace, drawing

Q

192

Q

FU PING

in A-ju, who lost interest in the acrobatic show. Now she wanted to see a Shaoxing opera, so they entered a hallway and checked out the theaters one after another. A movie was showing in one darkened, half-full theater. It was a family drama in which a son wanted to wear woolens, but the father, who had suffered hardships, was adamantly opposed. Taken in by the plot, the women stood to watch, giving Qi a chance to collect the empty bottles, which he took back to retrieve his ID card and deposit while the others enjoyed the movie. The scene with the son and the woolen clothing ended, and since they were not fans of contemporary dramas, they walked out and waited for Qi in the corridor. He’s a good man, said A-ju, who had never before spent time with him. If he’s that attentive to people he doesn’t know well, he must be a wonderful husband. Lü Fengxian, who knew what had happened with Nainai, decided not to say anything in response, to keep from embarrassing her. He likes to look busy, Nainai said. A few moments later, he returned and asked why they’d decided not to watch the movie. It wasn’t any good, they said, and then continued checking the other rooms. Next came a recreation room, with tables for Go and poker. Colored paper on which puzzles were written hung from the ceiling. People were supposed to solve the puzzles for prizes— things like song sheets and postcards. The women could not solve any of them and had no interest in the prizes, so they walked on. A pair of storytellers was in the next room. The man was strumming a three-string instrument, while the woman was holding a pipa. Drawn to the familiar hometown accent, Lü Fengxian and A-ju wanted to hear more. But Nainai was getting bored and said that she and Fu Ping would explore some

Q

193

Q

FU PING

other spots. Qi Shifu could stay with them. But how would they find each other later? After talking it over, they decided that Qi would go with Nainai until they found a spot they liked, and then return to tell the others. For the moment, they were now two groups. A sense of awkwardness prevailed as Qi walked off with Nainai and Fu Ping; none of them spoke for several moments, and they did not stop at a room from which the clang of a gong and beat of a drum emerged. They kept walking. Qi took something wrapped in red out of his pocket and put it in Fu Ping’s hand. He had planned to give it to her all along, but had hesitated, worried that it would be awkward with Lü Fengxian or A-ju around, and that Fu Ping, who wore a cold look, would not accept it. Sure enough, she refused to take it and, her face reddening, dodged to avoid his hand. Why are you giving her that? Nainai asked, which embarrassed him. Fu Ping pushed his hand away, as if fighting him off, a look of fear creeping into her eyes. When Nainai saw how mortified he appeared to be, his eyes misting over, she said, Fu Ping, if an adult wants to give you something, you must take it. Unexpectedly, Fu Ping shoved the envelope at Nainai, turned, and ran off, not stopping until she was some distance away. The envelope fell to the floor. Qi looked away, pretending not to have seen that, and it was left to Nainai to bend down and pick it up. They were standing in front of a performance studio entrance, where the drawn-out, singsong strains of opera emerged. Go in and listen to the opera, Qi said haltingly, and I’ll look up the others. He walked, nearly fled, off. When he arrived, Lü Fengxian and A-ju were looking ill at ease. The storytellers’ audience was made up almost totally of

Q

194

Q

FU PING

older aficionados, who knew the performers well enough to engage them in desultory repartee, mostly in a jargon only they knew. The two outsiders, who could not make sense of any of it, were eager to get up and leave when Qi showed up. He escorted them to where he had left Nainai and Fu Ping, and found the two of them inside watching the performance. It was a modern opera by a local, little-known Shanghai troupe, which attracted few listeners. People walked up, stopped to watch briefly, and moved on. Our visitors sat for a while, until they were bored enough to talk about finding a better performance that they could watch from beginning to end and make their visit to the Great World worthwhile. They sent Qi out to scout the possibilities. The curtain came down on the performance up front while they were talking. It was after four in the afternoon, when most of the entertainers took a break. People were streaming into the corridors and onto the terraces, raising a chorus of chatter. The four tired visitors rested quietly in their seats. Outlines of neon lights and metal frames were reflected gracefully on the long window to the outside. It allowed a faint yellow glow from rays of afternoon sun to slant in. A few fluorescent lights were turned on, but the brightness felt somewhat dreary. The studio had nearly emptied out, and the occasional head that poked in poked right back out. Just when the visitors’ interest was flagging, lively music started up in the main square, the sound of blaring trumpets perking the tired visitors up. Qi Shifu returned with good news. The Shanghai opera Liu Yi and the Dragon Princess would be staged at seven o’clock, with a famous actress in the lead role. That breathed life into the visitors, who decided to go wait for it to start. As for dinner, they

Q

195

Q

FU PING

would have to rely on Qi’s help to buy them snacks. They got up and started walking to the main studio to make sure they got seats. It was a good decision, since some seats were already taken when they got there. They sat in the front row and immediately began pooling their money for the food. As usual, they fought over who would pay until Qi said it would be his treat. They said he’d already paid for the tickets and the soft drinks, and it was their turn to treat him. Lü Fengxian suggested that they exclude Fu Ping, since she was still a child. Nainai disagreed, not that she was still a child, but that she was with her. They went round and round a bit longer, finally concluding that Fu Ping would pay her share, but Qi did not have to. He would do so when he went to make the purchase, however. They handed him their money and sent him off, finally settling down, no longer affected by the lively activities outside. Night had fallen by then, but the lights were on inside, brighter than ever, almost radiant. Great World was a place with eternal days. Qi returned with cakes, flaky cookies, red-bean rolls, and oranges, which he handed out to the women. He could now sit with them. Nainai looked to have calmed down; Fu Ping, on the other hand, turned away to avoid looking at Nainai. But since A-ju was talking with her, that saved the situation from turning awkward. And so they sat, waiting patiently for the opera to begin. The lights turned brighter as balloons were released from the overhead dome. The number of spectators had doubled since the afternoon performance. Children perched on adult shoulders towered over everyone as they moved forward. There were no empty seats. Snatches of instrumental music oozed out from

Q

196

Q

FU PING

behind the curtain; the footlights snapped on and off. Fu Ping needed a bathroom break. Lü Fengxian and A-ju told her where to go, and to hurry back so the crowd would not block her way on her return. Keeping a seat for her would be a challenge. Qi could have accompanied her, but after what had just occurred, he was afraid to even speak to her. Nainai thought about getting up and going with her, but changed her mind and just watched her elbow her way through the throng, her face pale from concern. Hurry back, she shouted. The mass of people swallowed up the sound. There was tension in the air. Fu Ping walked downstairs, as she’d been instructed, turned the corner at the landing, and went into the toilet. There was a line, so she had to wait. She heard soft feminine sounds from outside, but there was nothing she could do but wait until it was her turn. When she came out, she retraced her steps, only to wind up in a different place. The corridor wound around the main square, and she must have made a wrong turn, but would have found her way back if she had kept going. She was, however, sure she was on the wrong floor, mistakenly thinking she had walked upstairs at first, not downstairs. So she returned to the toilet and walked down one level, where she headed down the corridor. Wrong. She turned to go back just as loudspeakers blared for acrobats. She had walked out onto the terrace, which was as crowded as it had been that afternoon. Back in the corridor, she had no idea where the opera stage was. At that moment, she managed to compose herself enough to look around, and determined that if she stayed in the corridor, sooner or later she’d find her way back. But she was on the wrong floor, and no amount or walking would take her where she wanted to

Q

197

Q

FU PING

go. She took the stairs to the next floor down, which compounded the problem. When she finally figured that out, she headed back upstairs, and now she had no idea how many levels down she’d gone. So she walked, anxiously, encountering more and more people, as it was the Great World’s peak hour. She had to elbow her way along, not knowing enough to apologize as she stepped on shoes and met with angry complaints. At one point she even felt a hand touch her breast. Now her confidence was shattered. Shaking with anxiety, she walked down and down, until she was in the entrance hall. She left through the gate and walked into the street, where vehicles raced back and forth. Car headlights and streetlights formed a river of light. She walked through the light stream as changing neon lights flickered overhead and blaring horns assaulted her eardrums. When gongs and drum signaled the beginning of the opera, Nainai and the others streamed out of the studio to search for their missing companion, upstairs and down, four pairs of eyes scanning faces. Every time they spotted a girl in red, they ran up to see if it was her. They even took to checking girls wearing other colors, and soon they nearly lost track of what they were looking for. They examined some faces more than once, but they found no trace of Fu Ping. Nainai felt certain that the incident with the red envelope had offended the girl, and she’d run off spitefully. She angrily turned on Qi Shifu. Even the slow-witted A-ju saw that there was bad blood between Nainai and Qi, and did not dare say a word. We should head back, Lü Fengxian said finally. Who knows, she may be back home already.

Q

198

Q

FU PING

They did not get back till after nine o’clock. Nainai walked into the house. All the lights were off in her room. The two girls were asleep, and someone was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her red jacket was visible in the moonlight; she looked like a new bride, but this person was clearly terrified, gasping for breath, her chest rising and falling. Nainai swallowed the angry words that were on the tip of her tongue.

Q

199

Q

Chapter Fifteen

AFTER NEW YEAR’S

THE OLD

woman next door, Taitai, died on the fifth day of the

new year. She was the grandmother in the family, A-niang’s mother-in-law; she had just turned eighty. Her death was thus treated as a celebratory event, and all her grandsons and greatgrandsons wore red mourning attire. Ningbo natives place great store in rituals, and since she had lived to a ripe old age, she received a grand funeral. Nainai sent Fu Ping next door to help. Taitai had bound feet that looked like steamed zongzi, and a tuft of hair thick as a finger combed neatly into a bun at the back of her head. She sat in front of the mirror on her mahogany Ningbo-style dressing table every morning, combing her hair. Dust had accumulated in the cracks between the inlays and carvings of the antique table. Originally a double pedestal table, it sported an oval mirror in the middle above a row of small drawers that held binding strings, face powder, and the like. The footrest was badly warped, the squat chests on each

FU PING

end tipped inward, and the mirror was cloudy. Taitai sat on a bench, an ordinary piece of furniture, not original mahogany. She combed her hair from early morning to as late as noon. Once that was done, she waited for her daughter-in-law to come in with her noonday meal, always two dishes A-niang prepared for her. Her palate had changed over the years, from the salty, strong-flavored food favored by people in Ningbo to very sweet dishes. Now virtually toothless, she could eat only soft foods, so A-niang prepared mushy, sugary dishes. Her hair now combed, she sat by the table to eat her two bowls of food, bending her face down close to the rims to greedily slurp up the contents. When she was done, it was time for her nap. That lasted until Auntie brought a simple evening meal to her bed. She also brought her water to wash her face. Her feet were cleaned once a week, at noontime. After she’d eaten her lunch, A-niang brought her a basin of clean water and laid a fresh binding cloth beside it. Taitai then washed her own feet. It took a very long time, and neighbor kids came in to watch, though no one had the patience to stick around for the whole process. She first soaked both feet in a brass basin, another item with a long history, and for Taitai’s use alone. Deeper than most basins but narrower, when you held it in your hands, it felt as if you were offering it up. Taitai sat without moving while her feet soaked. After several minutes, A-niang came in to add hot water, repeating the process until the water reached the rim, when she scooped some out and replaced it with fresh water. Children looking on usually left the scene at this point. Taitai was very, very old. She was deaf, her vision was poor, there was hardly a tooth in her mouth, and her back was badly

Q

202

Q

FU PING

bent. But she looked dignified. She groped her way alone in the room, her ancient, withered, lopsided figure presenting a strange and forbidding sight. The house faced south, side by side with Nainai’s, with a courtyard beyond the window, its gate facing Nainai’s house. A large plane tree stood in front of the window, while oleander shrubs and loquat trees grew along the inside wall in the neighboring courtyard. This effectively blocked the sunlight and made the woman’s room quite dark, with flickering shadows of branches and leaves. The furnishings were oldfashioned, a stark contrast with the modern buildings in the lane. Other than the dressing table, there were two additional mahogany pieces: the bed and a table. The bed looked very much like the kangs of old, and ought to be called a platform. There were raised edges on three sides, short on the two ends and somewhat higher in the center, high enough to support the lower back. As with the dressing table, dust had accumulated in the inlays and carvings over the years. By lifting up the mattress pad, repairs on the frame weaving were exposed— replacement bamboo crosspieces, many of them broken, were a far cry from the original slats. A mahogany “Eight Sages” table had been well maintained, though its color had faded quite a bit, and the surface grooves were filled with dust and some dry kernels of rice. Benches from the kitchen in the old house were arrayed on all four sides of the table. There was a cupboard made of a hard wood other than mahogany. A pull-down wood screen opened to reveal an array of bottles and jars filled with crispy shortbread made from beans, qilin pastries, and sticky candy. Drawers lined the bottom. A double bed strung with crisscrossing coir ropes in the corner was for A-niang and the grandson.

Q

203

Q

FU PING

A mix of odors pervaded the room: the musty smell of an old woman, the moldy smell of mattress pads, dusty odors from the cracks in hardwood flooring and wooden implements, as well as the aroma of the salt and rank food residue common to Ningbo homes. All in all, the smell of a family of status. Taitai’s husband had served as a minor official in Ningbo, a personal adviser to a much higher official. Intelligent and kindhearted, he unfortunately was not fated to live a long life, dying before the age of thirty, and leaving behind a widow and a son. She was someone who had ideas of her own and did not adhere to her husband’s family tradition of sending her son to school for an official position. Instead she had him study with a private tutor for several years before sending him off to Shanghai to become an apprentice in a pawnshop run by one of her relatives. People said that fate had not treated her well and that she was hard-hearted; but they admired her vision, her boldness, and her willingness to avoid putting on airs. The son was an only child, but under her influence, was not a bit haughty, was in fact modest and restrained. He did what was expected of him. Alone in Shanghai, a novice, though living in the home of a relative, he put up with whatever came his way, not returning home once the first three years, as dictated by the apprentice tradition. A few years later, he grew to be a capable pawnshop assistant. By then, his mother had found a mate for him, A-niang. She’d been born into an ordinary family; her parents were owners of a small sticky-rice snack shop who lived a handto-mouth existence where thrift and diligence were paramount. A-niang, a small, taciturn girl, had a pleasant face, her eyes downcast, but only slightly. Though there was something

Q

204

Q

FU PING

childish about her, she was a good worker. She carried a full tray of steamed rice pastries in two hands, bent her knees slightly, flipped her hands over, and dumped the contents neatly onto the counter. She then nimbly ran her fingers over each of the hot snacks to make sure it was done. Taitai had spotted the girl one day when she was buying snacks, and sent someone over with the proposal. How could her family say no? It was an official’s family, and the son was a pawnshop assistant in Shanghai. Before the New Year, he came home in a cloak with a fox fur collar and gold-rimmed glasses. He was tall, fairskinned, and had an oval face. His upper lip protruded slightly at the ends, the way his father’s had. Though he was a tradesman, he had refined airs, owing to his family background. The wedding took place over the following New Year’s, after which Taitai sent him back to Shanghai and kept her daughter-in-law at home with her, where she was now in the role of mother-inlaw. A-niang was already pregnant, but brought her mother-inlaw water to wash her face all the way up to when she went into labor. She sent someone to ask A-niang’s mother to come tend to her daughter for the first month and to take a message to Shanghai that mother and child were both fine and that her son need not return home. The child was two months old as New Year’s rolled around, before his father saw him for the first time. After the holiday, he returned to Shanghai, leaving A-niang, pregnant again, at home. Five years came and went, and the couple spent no more than a total of two months together, but were parents of five sons. This too was a credit to Taitai’s vision, her unerring foresight. She’d seen that after her first child, a girl, A-niang was born, her mother had given

Q

205

Q

FU PING

birth to three sons in a row. Where childbirth was concerned, it was like mother like daughter. Truth is, her son was in the process of starting his own business in Shanghai, but like his father before him, he contracted tuberculosis, having received his father’s bad genes. His mother took a maid named Xiangxiang with her to Shanghai to bring her only son back home. Bleak scenery descended as their boat left Ningbo Harbor and set out for the open sea. Taitai sat on the wooden deck leading to the cabin, but never once shut her eyes. She could have afforded to stay inside the cabin, but did not think it was money wisely spent. Her son had also stayed on the deck when he’d left home. You are going to learn a trade, she’d said to him, not become an official. Later on, after he’d learned what he needed to, he stayed in the cabin on his way home for the sake of appearance. Now she was seated in the cabin her son had been in, engulfed in the stench of foot and mouth odors as well as the smell of duck shit in baskets carried by peasants; now she understood the hardships her son endured by leaving home at such a young age. The ship docked the following morning. Knowing that Taitai herself had come, her pawnshop relative came to meet her. She did not ask any questions on the rickshaw that took her straight to the mixed lane at the end of Jing’an Temple Road where her son lived. The lane was a gigantic mess from which smaller lanes spoked outward. Some were home to typical Shanghai-style Shikumen lane houses, but only wood-frame houses and some Beijing-style compounds existed in most of the minor lanes. Her relative’s rickshaw took the wrong lane, a minor lane, at first, and had to turn back. The lane was so cramped that the two rickshaws had trouble turning around and

Q

206

Q

FU PING

had to travel slowly. Taitai stomped a bound foot on the floorboard, which made it clear to her relative how anxious she was. Her son lived on the second floor of a frame house with a steep wooden ladder. Taitai climbed up, one bound-foot step at a time. The twenty-five-square-foot room was furnished with a single bed, a desk with drawers, a wooden chest, three stools, one for a kerosene stove, one for a washbasin. The last one was left empty for guests. Her son was asleep under a thin blanket, so thin the bed looked empty. His business attire, including a cloak with a fox fur collar, a long poplin coat, and a white Western suit, hung from nails on a wooden partition beside the bed. Dust covers protected all his clothes. Taitai had wanted her son to be frugal, but had not meant for him to live in such poverty in Shanghai; even her relative had not expected this. Taitai thought about the money he had sent home each month, as well as his plan to start his own business. But this was not the saddest part; that would come later. Taitai sent someone to buy passage for the return home and arranged for transportation to the pier, while she and Xiangxiang gathered up his belongings. In one of the desk drawers she found the pair of “tiger head shoes” his eldest son had worn as a baby, a telltale sign of how lonely he had been. She was so shaken by her son’s longing for his own son that she wailed wretchedly, thumping herself in the chest and crying out, This breaks my heart, it kills me! When she got him home to Ningbo, Taitai put him up in her daughter-in-law’s room. Her experienced eyes told her that the woman had a good heart and virtually no physical desire, unlikely to hurt his health by making demands. Besides, with the condition he was in already, he deserved a bit of family

Q

207

Q

FU PING

happiness. It would be the longest time they’d ever spent together, about the same as all the other times over several years added together. Since she was afraid that her grandchildren might catch what her son had, to see their father they were only allowed to stand in the doorway. All five children stood behind a waist-high gate in the doorway while their mother crouched on the bed to lift her husband’s head and upper body high enough for him to see them. A skinny child, like him, was the eldest. A short, fat one was number two. A naughty one, who liked to pick on others, was number three. Next came four and five. Unable to talk, he managed a weak smile. By the time the counting off was over, he was sweating from head to toe. Twice a day, morning and evening, Taitai lined the children up at the gate, while their mother stood by his pillow and told him what mischief they’d been up to, while they counted off one by one. Husband and wife had lived apart all this time, and she was not one to socialize, but when she talked about her children, she had plenty to say. Her husband lay quietly listening, eyes that at other times were glazed over regaining their focus to show his attention. Five or six days passed that way as he grew a bit stronger and did not seem as heavy when she helped him sit up. The rest of the family drew some hope from that, but the outcome was never in doubt, as he eventually got worse. She could no longer help him up during his last ten days or so, and he lay in bed gazing at the five children standing behind the gate. A man with a mild nature, he pitied his poor children, but was incapable of taking care of them. Though Taitai did not cry when her son died, she did not sleep for a day and a night, just smoked until the floor was

Q

208

Q

FU PING

littered with cigarette butts. Before the required forty-nine days of mourning were up, she was already lending out money at high rates of interest. Later on, fellow villagers cursed her as lacking a conscience. By then, the Japanese had occupied Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, cutting off all sea and land travel, which adversely affected public and private banks alike. The owners of small businesses needed capital, refugees needed money to survive, widows had lost their source of income, and families in need felt the pinch, but no ready cash was available, except through Taitai. The market was in desperate need of cash. But not Taitai. Her husband had left an inheritance and her son had added to that when he died. She had also saved the money he’d sent back each month, and there was her daughterin-law’s dowry. Though the girl had come from a family of modest means, owing to the fact that she was marrying up, they had done the best they could to make sure she would be well treated, and gave her a substantial dowry, which she turned over to Taitai. They had expenses, but Taitai always spent as little as possible, resulting in more money coming in than went out. Now she went into action. Having studied with a private tutor for two years as a child, Taitai was literate enough to deal with loan receipts, which she placed, arranged in the order they came in, in the drawer for her Osmanthus oil under her dressingtable mirror. She knew without looking what was in there. When the due date arrived, she waited at home until noon. If the debtor did not show up, she combed her hair neatly, changed clothes, and went calling. She’d give the person until that night to pay off the debt. If the person asked for a few more days, she’d respond by saying, I am a woman with two generations

Q

209

Q

FU PING

of widows in the family and five children, all living off what we’ve saved up, so how can I give you more time? But she was not a woman in the people’s eyes; to them she was more ruthless than any man. If the debt remained unpaid, she and Xiangxiang took anything of value from the debtor’s shop or home as payment. That might even include the wok used for the meal they were eating at the moment. After serving Taitai for years, Xiangxiang had learned how to be hard-hearted and never show compassion. She unhesitatingly took whatever Taitai told her to take, even pointed out objects that had escaped Taitai’s attention. She’d never married, preferring to be Taitai’s loyal servant, an important factor in the family fortune. The family grandsons called her Uncle Xiang, and to the great-grandsons she was Grandpa Xiang. But she did not enjoy Taitai’s strong karma and died before her mistress. Over the years, Taitai gained a terrible reputation. Even A-niang’s family refused to have any contact with their daughter. People tripped the children and threw stones at them when they were out walking, and their gate was often decorated with lewd notes. Someone frightened Taitai one night by firing a hunting rifle outside her bedroom window. The depth of the people’s enmity toward her came as a shock, but she refused to acknowledge that she had done anything wrong. I helped you when you were in trouble, she’d say, and that makes me your benefactor. You are too poor to complain. The Japanese had surrendered by then, and the eldest son had reached the age of his father when he’d left home to learn a trade. So Taitai decided to move the family to Shanghai. As a fiercely strong-willed woman, once she made up her mind, she called in all her

Q

210

Q

FU PING

outstanding debts, sold off her property, and packed up. A week later, they were on a steamship bound for Shanghai. Once in the city, she leased a Shikumen house on Xinzha Road with the help of a well-heeled Ningbo resident and then subleased it. The rent could have been enough for the family to live on, but instead, she apprenticed the eldest grandson to a ginseng shop run by a Zhejiang man. Having heard that there was a future in antiques, she arranged for the second grandson, who had a clearer mind, to take on menial work in an antique shop on Guangdong Road. But he was not as easily persuaded as his elder brother, and wanted to go to school. He refused to eat, and bit his finger to write a note in blood: I promise to repay Grandmother what she spent for my tuition and room and board twenty years from now. He refused to back down. Seeing that he had a stubborn streak, she gave in. It turned out to be a wise decision, for he studied mechanics and later was hired as a mechanical engineer in the Dalong machine-fabricating plant. He supported Taitai and A-niang in style. After going round and round with grandson number two, Taitai had neither the ability nor the desire to worry about the rest of her grandchildren, in case anyone said she favored some and not the others. Her heart softened where the grandchildren were concerned. Besides, she was a woman who knew how to adapt to circumstances, and since they were in Shanghai and a new era, when children usually got an education, she decided to let them go to school. She, too, wanted something to do, so she had a telephone installed. Then she joined a gold-trading fellow villager, and with the fluctuations of the gold market lost her investment. Yet compared to the small, individual investors, who lost

Q

211

Q

FU PING

everything, it would not be far-fetched to say she’d actually made money. Taitai reached the age of sixty-five in 1949. She figured she had enough to see her through until all the children were employed and could provide for her. Finally, she could relax. And that was how her life went. Xiangxiang, who had always been by her side, told Taitai that she was a formidable woman, a rarity in her time. Have you forgotten that time I wailed openly on Jing’an Temple Road? Taitai replied modestly. Those were tears shed by a warrior, Xiangxiang said. Taitai just sneered. Many people showed up to pay their respects to Taitai. There were her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, distant relatives, and fellow villagers. The house was filled with the harsh sounds of people speaking the Ningbo dialect; the crowd spilled out into the yard. Great-grandchildren wearing white hemp sashes around their waists and mourning caps with red knots on their heads ran up and down the lane setting off firecrackers. The meal was served in stages, with the children’s table out in the lane under Fu Ping’s watchful eye. Fortunately, they had already bought supplies for New Year’s; otherwise, they might not have found enough to buy. Everyone commented on Taitai’s good fortune, dying right at the time for welcoming the God of Wealth, when all preparations had been made. Though her body had already been sent to the funeral home, the wake was still carried out at home, as they followed the old custom. The small children were rounded up to go home to bed, leaving Taitai’s grandchildren to maintain a vigil through the night. They sat around a rectangular table playing poker. A-niang made two meals for them, one for the late evening, the other

Q

212

Q

FU PING

for the time before dawn. By the second meal, they were all dozing off, nearly stuffing the sweet sticky-rice balls up their noses. The floor was littered with playing cards. A-niang moved her five grown children off to bed, where they sprawled across the one bed, as she sat looking at them, and liking them more and more. Their childhood images floated in front of her eyes, seeing them grow older year by year, until what they were now. She also mentally relived the past. Taitai had made everything possible for them. The sky began turning light; the neighbor’s door opened. Then so did theirs. Fu Ping stuck her head in. What’s on for today? she asked. On the day of the funeral three large pots of thick tofu soup were prepared in A-niang’s kitchen for neighbors who wanted to share in Taitai’s good fortune and long life. There were so many people coming and going, with frenzied activity, that A-niang’s threshold was nearly worn away. Fu Ping was in the kitchen spooning out tofu soup for the children. Fireworks were set off in the rear lane, with rockets soaring into the air, where they exploded and fell down in shards, as well as firespitting firecrackers that sent sparks flying in all directions, some hitting the kitchen window and making the glass flare red. Fu Ping, her face flushed, tended the pot, her vision clouded by rising steam. She ordered the children to line up properly and stop crowding, or they would disturb the pot and soil their New Year’s clothes. When the younger daughter in Nainai’s family stepped up, Fu Ping dished out an extra spoonful. The others complained. I know her, she said, I don’t know you, and that’s why you got less. It doesn’t belong to you, a stubborn child insisted. If that’s how you feel, I won’t give you any.

Q

213

Q

FU PING

Arguing with the children made her happy, and pitching in to help made her realize that she had something to offer. She could survive anywhere. The new year gave her hope, and who could say what the future held? Fu Ping got up early the next morning and swept up the firecracker confetti that littered the ground by the back door. There were also watermelon seed husks, peanut shells, and orange peels. She even diligently swept the ground at the base of the wall and around the covered drain. After sweeping the trash into a pile, she went into the kitchen for a dustpan. The sun was not yet up and there was a chill in the wind. Her hands were cold, but it was comforting to breathe in the raw air. Everyone went to bed late over New Year’s and got up late the next morning. It was Sunday, so after completing the rituals of the day before, A-niang’s family slept in. Fu Ping was alone in the lane. How peaceful! She could even hear the chirps of sparrows. As she swept trash into the dustpan, a pair of feet entered her field of vision. They were in black shoes and white socks. The shoes were made of Venetian fabric, had gently pointed toes, and were very narrow. She looked up to see who it was. Just as she figured, she was looking at Li Tianhua.

Q

214

Q

Chapter Sixteen

GRANDSON

NAINAI HAD

invited her grandson to Shanghai. All she’d said in

her letter was to come for a visit. Nainai would buy some things for him, and he could return home with Fu Ping. He thought something was up because Fu Ping had remained in Shanghai all through New Year’s. He also noticed that the handwriting in the letter was different. No longer the juvenile scribbles he was used to, this time the characters were written neatly with a small brush, not in any particular style, but with a seriousness about it that seemed to indicate something. He came with two chickens and a smoked ham for Nainai’s employer. With all the trouble Fu Ping had caused them from her prolonged stay, it was admirable that they weren’t upset. After an all-night boat ride, he stepped onto the pier in the haze of early morning sunlight. The city was still asleep. The moment he left the clamor of the pier and walked onto a city street, silence fell abruptly. He heard crisp footsteps on the cobblestones. All the shops were

FU PING

shuttered, residents’ windows were shut. The metal buckets over a water carrier’s shoulder clanged as he walked, but even that did not disturb the pervading stillness. Passengers from the boat bustled off in all directions, transported by automobiles into the web of Shanghai streets, and were gone. People who boarded a bus at the pier were let off at each stop, but few new passengers got on, until the bus was all but empty. Under the whitening morning sky, the multistory houses, the streets, and the people all became one-dimensional, almost unreal. After being let off the bus, Nainai’s grandson walked to her lane. He knew the way. After crossing an intersection, he passed a diner called Eternal Spring. On his visit several years earlier, Nainai had taken him to the diner for a meal of stuffed tofu skins and fried  gluten puffs. He kept walking, past a marketplace that crossed the street and was connected to two other streets. The marketplace was quiet, for now that people had bought all they needed for New Year’s, they stayed home. Those who delivered produce from the countryside could also sleep in for a few days. Up ahead was a school formerly run by foreigners, with statues of Jesus and Mary on the rooftop, both visible from Nainai’s house. School had been out for some time; the athletic field beyond the iron gate was deserted. After the school came an apartment building with a tall, gloomy lobby, flanked by little shops on both sides, all shuttered. He made a turn and saw that the stationery shop was still in business. Passing the shop, he headed east into a lane whose entrance was blackened by smoke from burning briquettes. A site that supplied boiling water in the entrance was in service. A fire blazed under a kettle, the flames a faint reddish color in the brightening sunlight,

Q

216

Q

FU PING

looking almost cold. From here Nainai’s grandson could see the garden at the entrance to her house; nothing had changed over the years, not even the smells. The aroma of buttered toast wafted above the lane, along with the rancid odor of cooking oil, the perfume of women’s face cream, and the charred smell of frying vegetables. The streets were virtually deserted, and there were few people in the lane. But when he turned into one of the minor lanes, he spotted someone in a sky-blue jacket sprinkled with tiny yellow flowers, busily walking in and out of a house. It was Fu Ping, he was surprised to see. She turned and walked inside. Nainai came right out, followed by the two girls, and A-niang, who lived next door. He was thrown into the mix, greeting first one and then the other, answering questions from this one and that one. Nainai’s employer invited him in and offered him a seat, but he begged off. So Nainai led him into the kitchen, where they could talk while she cooked. Three families shared the kitchen: Nainai, Lü Fengxian, and A-niang, each used a third of the space. When the girls saw the visitor, they squeezed their way into the kitchen to be part of what was going on, and refused to leave. The boy was so shy he could not look up when people’s eyes were on him, and his earlobes reddened. Fu Ping constantly wove her way in and out of the crowd, little more than a blur. At lunchtime, the mistress invited the grandson to eat with the family, and when he begged off, the two girls took him by the hands and led him inside. Once he was seated, Fu Ping refused to come to the table, and nothing anyone said changed her mind. Things quieted down after lunch, when the mistress and her family went visiting. Nainai asked her grandson if he wanted to take a nap.

Q

217

Q

FU PING

No, he said. Did he want to go for a walk? No. So the two of them sat in her room. Fu Ping washed the dishes after eating in the kitchen, but did not stray into that other room. Nainai’s grandson asked her how she was feeling. She said she was doing fine, except for some stiff joints, especially on rainy, overcast days, when she felt a dull ache in her knees, likely caused by rheumatism. He said there was a medicinal tonic she could take, made with mulberry twigs, plane tree leaves, and scopolin, from a medicinal plant called dinggongteng. Taken once a day, over time it would provide some relief. I’m just getting old, Nainai said, and I don’t know how much longer I’ve got. I’m afraid I’m going to be a burden before long. No, you won’t, he replied. You’ve got family, me, for instance. Yes, she said, I’ll retire once you’re married. The word “married” produced a lull in the conversation, so she changed the subject. She asked if they’d killed a pig over New Year’s. Yes, he said. We sold half the meat and kept the other half. We ate part of it and preserved the rest. Your mother was awfully generous to send a whole ham with you, she said. She felt bad about imposing on the mistress all this time, he told Nainai. She has a point, Nainai agreed. Again there was a lull, so they changed the subject again, focusing on the funeral for their neighbor, Taitai. Her grandson had shown up a day late and had missed out on the longevity tofu dish, when everyone up and down the lane had come for some. He looked down and laughed. How embarrassing that would have been! What do you mean? It’s for luck. A-niang said you can sleep at her place tonight, she told him. You’ll share a bed with her grandson. Is that all right with him? he asked. Why wouldn’t it be? she said. We’re like family. Fu Ping helped out at Taitai’s

Q

218

Q

FU PING

funeral. Finally, she was part of the conversation, but they quickly changed the subject. Nainai talked about how challenging it had been for A-niang, Taitai’s daughter-in-law, serving her all those decades as if she were a buddha. How difficult it must have been to have someone as demanding as Taitai for a mother-in-law, and how much easier it would be for someone to have an easygoing mother like yours for a mother-in-law. Like all rivers flow to the ocean, no matter what they talked about, at some point it came around to Fu Ping. And each time they made a careful detour. Fu Ping had still not shown her face by that afternoon. Lü Fengxian insisted that the grandson have dinner with her. She had prepared some special dishes, which she’d laid out on the kitchen table, and had the boy eat with her there, not in her room. She did all that for you, Nainai said to her grandson. At that moment, Fu Ping walked into the room. Nainai had the young man wash up in the kitchen before she took him next door to sleep; there she stayed to talk and do needlework with A-niang. Things had quieted down after the funeral, and A-niang looked fine. She shared with Nainai anecdotes about Taitai, and after a while she looked in on the two grandsons, one grown, one still small. They were both fast asleep. The ten-year-old boy had a long, rounded head shaped like a taro root, a mouth with an overbite, and fine, thin eyebrows. He was an affectionate boy who slept with his arm under the neck of his bedmate, whose arm was wrapped around his waist. Their faces were touching. Nainai and A-niang gazed admiringly at the boys, both gentle and good-looking, sleeping like a pair of girls.

Q

219

Q

FU PING

Nainai’s grandson was a year younger than Fu Ping, eighteen after New Year’s. In Shanghai he would have been a highschool student. Now he carried the weight of his family on his shoulders. He knew nothing about relations between the sexes, which is why he was not attracted to Fu Ping. He knew, however, how hard things had been for his parents, and that his mess of a family relied solely on him. The earlier he took a wife, the sooner he’d have a helpmate, someone to help get by. He did not dislike Fu Ping, and actually felt good that she had agreed to marry him. What positive qualities did he have? he wondered. In fact, plenty of marriages were arranged just that way. She had never laid eyes on him, nor he on her. This unexpected encounter in the doorway at the back of the house was a first for both of them, though it passed quickly. And yet, she occupied a real place in his heart, for one basic reason: she was his wife-to-be. The youngster was a slave to his fate. That could not be seen as a sign of weakness, for it entailed an acceptance of responsibility, and could actually be considered a sign of strength, one more powerful than that of resistance. The villagers had many views on why Fu Ping was taking so long to come back to the fold; he, too, had been getting anxious. But just seeing her removed much of that anxiety. She hadn’t changed much in his image of her. She had not become a true city girl: she did not perm her hair like the girls in the city, even some in the countryside, and wore the same clothes as always. The familiar hometown accent was still present in the occasional comments he heard from her, and she stubbornly steered clear of him. Could he see what was in her heart? Knowing so little about each other—virtual strangers who lacked even superficial

Q

220

Q

FU PING

understanding—how could they be expected to appreciate each other’s feelings? The grandson was more comfortable the next day, now that everyone was off to work or school and the place was quiet. Fu Ping, having gotten used to his presence, was relaxed enough to sit at the table with Nainai and him for lunch with the mistress’s children. After lunch Nainai told him to take off his sweater and have Fu Ping repair the tattered cuffs. She took some odd lengths of thread of a similar color from Nainai’s sewing basket and went out into the yard to sew. The young man’s smell wafted out of his sweater in the heat of the sun. She tore off the broken yarn from a sleeve, sending bits of thread flying in dust motes and spreading his smell. With her head lowered, she wove in the new yarn with a bamboo needle. Nainai was inside talking to her grandson. She urged him to lie down, but he declined, and something she said made him laugh lightly. Fu Ping did not turn to look, but she could sense that Nainai had pushed him down on the bed, where he kept up a sporadic conversation with her. He sounded sleepy, his voice soft and mellow. Next door, A-niang’s grandson laid his arms on the windowsill behind the iron grating and said in a thin voice, Hey, Grandson! Fu Ping hissed at him, Who’s that calling for Grandson? Nainai asked her who she was talking to. Nobody, she replied. I heard you say something, Nainai said. I said nobody and I meant it! Nainai’s grandson said nothing while they bickered, but Fu Ping knew he was listening. The following afternoon, the girls came home from school and wanted the grandson to take them to a movie. A-niang’s grandson tagged along, and Nainai told Fu Ping to go with

Q

221

Q

FU PING

them to keep an eye on the girls. She said no. You wretched girl! Nainai scolded her. Why not? Go! I say. She refused. So with three children in tow, the grandson walked into the lane, stopped where it made a turn, and looked back to see if Fu Ping was coming. He turned and walked out of the lane. Are you afraid he’ll take a bite out of you? Nainai asked Fu Ping after they left. Fu Ping kept her head down and her mouth shut. You think you’re too good for him, is that it? Nainai continued. Fu Ping did not look up. You are going to the movies with him tomorrow, and that’s that! Nainai said. Fu Ping dropped her head even lower, and Nainai had to do the same to see her face. She could not keep from smiling, so Fu Ping lowered her head until her face was in her lap; that way Nainai could not see it. Nainai poked her in the head—hard—and, gritting her teeth, said, I really don’t know what’s in that head of yours. She paused and sighed. He’s a good boy, and I don’t want you taking advantage of him. Fu Ping looked up, red-faced, and said, Who would dare do that to a grandson of yours? You would, was Nainai’s reply. He has all those people in his family, Fu Ping said. You would, even with all those people in his family, Nainai replied. With a snort, the young woman stood up and ran off. Go ahead, run! Nainai shouted, pointing to Fu Ping’s back. Where do you think you can run to? Without replying, she ran straight to the yard out front to take in the wash. Nainai’s grandson came back with the children as night was falling. In the kitchen, she asked what they’d seen and whether it was any good. Her grandson said it was about catching Chiang Kai-shek’s spies on an island. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fu Ping washing vegetables by the sink as he was

Q

222

Q

FU PING

talking. All of a sudden, he jumped up like a basketball slam dunk and touched the top of the doorframe. What are you so happy about? Nainai wondered out loud. He just laughed. He was back to acting like a spirited eighteen-year-old. Gesturing excitedly, he told Nainai all about the movie. The boy next door came over to ask him how to solve an arithmetic problem. He explained it patiently. Children are fond of you, A-niang said. I can’t even imagine how happy you’ll be with children of your own one day. Who can say what the future holds? Nainai commented. The future? Marriage, A-niang said, children, and you as a grandmother. This talk sent Nainai’s grandson out with the boy. The two older women exchanged a look and glanced over at Fu Ping, who kept her back to them as she laid the washed vegetables onto the cutting board, sliced a cleaver through the veins, and began chopping from one end, making the board thud loudly. That night, as the three of them sat in A-niang’s room, Nainai’s grandson took out thirty yuan and handed it to her: My mother asked you to buy some things, he said. Me? Have your wife buy them. He just smiled. Your mother doesn’t get it, Nainai said. The little bit of money she managed to squeeze out from between her teeth is no big deal to her. She turned to Fu Ping. Fu Ping, your mother-in-law has sent you some money. I don’t want it, Fu Ping said. Nainai told the boy to hand it to Fu Ping. With uncharacteristic courage, he put the money into the sewing basket in Fu Ping’s lap. That took her by surprise. It was too late to move away. His face was red. What is it with you? Nainai chided. He was so embarrassed he threw himself down on the bed next to Nainai. Fu Ping’s face was just as red. As

Q

223

Q

FU PING

she looked at the two youngsters, Nainai could not help feeling that they were as fresh as bamboo shoots just poking through the ground. That produced a smothered sigh. A few moments later, the mistress’s daughters showed up, and the three children asked the grandson to tell them a story. As this was not something he did well, Nainai told one instead, the one about a ghostly bride, which they had heard many times before. A-niang also told a popular story from her hometown in Ningbo called “Father and Son Become Brothers-in-Law”: seeing that her husband has left no heir, a virtuous widow serves as matchmaker to marry her sister to her husband’s father. The story largely went over the heads of the children, who then pestered the grandson to sing a song for them. The older girl even took out her songbook for him to choose from. Singing was something he liked, but he just shyly turned the pages. The children badgered him until he finally chose a song. He was blushing even before he started. Meanwhile, Fu Ping missed a stitch in her sewing. They had both experienced an attack of nerves. He held his breath for a moment before starting to sing a tune from the movie The Frontier Outshines the Yangtze Delta. Replete with sharp cadences, it was not easy to sing; his voice quivered in the opening lines, and the pitch wavered. The children found that funny; Fu Ping buried her head in her lap. The laughter actually calmed him down. The next lines went better, and it was smooth sailing from there on, with an added crispness to his voice. Who knew that Nainai’s grandson had such a good voice? No one made any noise, adult or child, so they could concentrate on his singing. He was never off-key, though his heavy hometown accent gave the song a slightly comic tone. But there

Q

224

Q

FU PING

was no humor in the way he sang, as he raised his head and looked straight ahead, having forgotten that there were other people in the room. His face was still red, but from a dignified sense of elation, not shyness. The atmosphere in the room had turned spirited by the time the song ended, and the children dug through the songbook to choose their favorites for him to sing next. He did, and they joined in. The old tunes are better than those new songs, Nainai said, and wanted her grandson to sing one of them. He pondered the request for a moment, and then chose the folk song “Pick a Reed Flower.” Sung in the Yangzhou dialect, it sounded so funny the children fell across the bed laughing. The old women laughed too, and so did Fu Ping, but on the sly. Everyone had a wonderful time that night, and as they were saying good night, A-niang suddenly recalled that the next day was the fifteenth, the day of the Lantern Festival, a not so important holiday in Shanghai, but one that eclipsed New Year’s celebrations in the countryside. Nainai’s grandson said that it was a big celebration back home; his mother would fry glutinous rice balls and stew a fish, while his father made lanterns for his brothers and sisters to light. You’ve only been here a few days, Nainai commented, and you’re already homesick. Not really, he said, and then paused a moment before commenting on how his mother had so much to do around the house and that they needed to work in the field soon. The boy said he’d go to Jinling Street the next day to buy tickets for the boat ride home. Nainai was reluctant to see him go, but if Fu Ping did not head back pretty soon, anything could happen. So she put him off for another day before letting him

Q

225

Q

FU PING

go. She handed him money, which he wouldn’t take. He’d brought enough with him to pay for the tickets, he said. But she insisted, and in the end, stuffed it into his pocket. He left early the next morning and did not return until noon. She asked what had taken him so long. There was a long line, he said, and he’d walked back with the tickets. Why did you do that, Nainai asked, just to save a little trolley fare? He smiled. Nainai took the girls to see a dentist that afternoon, leaving Fu Ping and her grandson home alone. She was inside gluing soles onto cloth shoe tops, while he was in the yard weeding and picking up paper scraps, dead leaves, and pebbles. He also retied Nainai’s clothesline rack. He spoke to Fu Ping several times, once to borrow her dustpan, another to ask for some string, and a third to ask where he should dump the debris. She told him to leave it there, and she’d take care of it. She opened the front gate and dumped it into a nearby trash receptacle. He made another pile and scooped it up for her; altogether it took three or four trips to finish cleaning the yard. Fu Ping laid a basin half filled with hot water in front of him, and then went back to the table to finish working on the shoes. He washed up, dumped the dirty water, and sat down in front of the gate to look through the older girl’s songbook. He started humming a tune. Having worked up a sweat, he peeled off his lined jacket, and sat there in a faded red jersey, making him look like a student. The tickets were for a boat leaving in two days. They were fifth class with assigned seats, leaving Shanghai at night and arriving home early the next morning. It was a bright, sunny day. Nainai’s grandson sang a few lines and squinted to take in the sunlit yard. With the weeds gone,

Q

226

Q

FU PING

he was able to see bugs scurrying on top of the dirt, and that made him itch. Then he heard Fu Ping call his name: Li Tianhua! What a surprise that was. He turned, not sure if he should believe his ears. She was looking at the shoe soles, but not working. He was seeing her in profile, the visible eye staring straight ahead, somber looking. What is it? he asked. She hesitated a moment before making up her mind. We’ll take our share from the family and live alone, she said. What about my parents? he asked her, responding without thinking. He used the formal term “parents,” which lent his question a bit of solemnity. Fu Ping went back to gluing shoe soles; he turned around and thumbed through the songbook some more. But no more singing. The atmosphere chilled as something significant had risen between the two youngsters and was already spreading. As the sun moved a little in the sky, shadows formed on the ground in the yard. The boy next door had gone with A-niang to burn incense in the temple and hadn’t returned. Silence hung over the building, broken by city sounds from the street far beyond the lane, including the clang of trolley cars. When she finished working on the shoe soles, Fu Ping got up and walked past him into the yard to take down wash drying in the sun. Two of the items were his; she took them inside with everything else. The boy went to bed early, since he had gotten up so early that morning. He was asleep by eight o’clock. Fu Ping went into A-niang’s room to ask Nainai for a thin needle and some thread. The mistress had asked her to repair the hem in the down lining of her coat. Nainai searched through her sewing basket to find the right color of thread and asked the girl if she could manage. If not, Nainai would take care of it. As she was

Q

227

Q

FU PING

looking for the needle and thread, Fu Ping looked down at the sleeping grandson, whose face was in the tiny hands of A-niang’s grandson. They slept nose to nose, eyes shut, the lowered lashes quivering with each breath. Fu Ping quickly looked away, took the needle and thread from Nainai, and walked out of the room.

Q

228

Q

Chapter Seventeen

NO GOOD- BYES

IN THE

end, Grandson did not take Fu Ping back with him.

They were to board the boat that night. That afternoon, Nainai told Fu Ping to go buy two jin of almond cookies for the children in her daughter-in-law’s family. Fu Ping left, but did not return. She had packed up her things, and left it all on her bed, alongside a change of clothing. The one-yuan note Nainai had given her to buy the cookies lay on the top of Nainai’s sewing basket. The thirty yuan Grandson had given her had been placed under her bags. But she had not left a cent of her own money. Obviously, she had made careful plans to leave. Nainai assumed that she had gone to Uncle and Aunt’s place, and she knew they would not let her stay for long, that sooner or later they’d send her back. But one day passed, then a second, and a third, and no sign of the girl. At first, Nainai had thought about going to Zhabei herself to bring Fu Ping home with her. But on second thought, she realized how futile that would be if Fu

FU PING

Ping came back with her but did not want to stay. As he was leaving, Grandson said valiantly, We’re not going to beg her to come. With tears in her eyes, Nainai said, I drove your wife away. Grandson consoled her, like an adult: I’ll bring a wife back to Nainai next year. He turned his face away, but Nainai saw that his eyes were red. No tears, however. He would not let Nainai see him to the pier. Picking up his bags, he walked down the lane, his thoughts turning first sad, then angry: If you do come home, Fu Ping, I won’t take you back, even if you get down on your knees and beg. She did not come home. Aunt’s place was exactly where she’d run to. Where else could she go? Aunt and Uncle were out on their scow, leaving only their young children, who thought nothing of their cousin’s arrival. The loft she’d slept in the last time was untouched, except for the bedding rolled up in a corner. She mopped the floor, took the mat downstairs to air it out, and made up her bed. After dinner, she washed the dishes, put the younger children to bed, and went up into the loft. The older children were downstairs doing their lessons until they got sleepy, turned out the light, and went to bed. We have seen how night fell earlier here, and the neighborhood went quiet as bright moonlight streamed in through her small window. The threads of a cobweb beneath the ceiling glistened. Where am I? Fu Ping wondered at one point. Her next thought was, Where have they taken the scow? She fell asleep. When she woke up, seemingly after a long sleep, a bicycle whizzed down the lane outside, sounding as if it were right next to her ear. Someone’s door creaked open, and the sound of a woman’s voice came to her. In fact, she’d hardly slept at all. She fell back asleep, but was

Q

230

Q

FU PING

awakened by what she thought were her aunt and uncle walking in. They had returned home late one night in the past, she recalled, since there were so many boats on the river they had trouble mooring, and had to sail back overnight. But it wasn’t them; it was the wind sending a piece of cardboard skittering across the floor. She slept on and off, until a dim light that sketched the shadowy outlines of many objects replaced the moonlight. Realizing that it was daybreak, she got out of bed, dressed, and went downstairs. The children were asleep in the gray light. She walked across the room and out the front door into the bright sunlight. The sky above the squat buildings rose high, grayish white, cloudless, clean, and smooth. Moisture in the air chilled her hands, and each breath sucked cold air into her lungs, a fresh, buoyant sensation. After lighting the charcoal stove to make porridge, she washed her face and rinsed her mouth. One by one, the children got out of bed, breathing life into the room. The lane was coming to life as well. As Fu Ping carried the chamber pot to the waste station, people she knew asked when she’d come back and why they hadn’t seen her arrive. The gray sky had turned white, with threads of bright sunlight turning the edge the color of gold. The sun was out, drying the moisture in the air. It was still nippy, but not prickly cold. After breakfast, Fu Ping took the children’s dirty clothes to the water supply station to wash them. She knew many of the people there, and they made room for her to come up to the water. When they saw the clothes in her basin, they remarked how Sun Daliang’s children were different, that they didn’t seem to get their clothes very dirty. When one of the women

Q

231

Q

FU PING

saw that Fu Ping had not brought a stool along, she gave the one she was sitting on to Fu Ping, saying she was finished and was taking her wash home to hang out to dry. Someone asked Fu Ping to help her wring out comforter covers and sheets. On such a fine day, a steady stream of women came up to do their laundry, working quickly so as to take advantage of the warm sun to dry the wash. New Year’s cheer was still visible on the women’s faces. They were recalling the good food and drink they’d enjoyed on the eve of the holiday, the impressive fireworks people set off, and the youngsters who had gone to Shanghai with Xiao Jun, where they had rowed a boat on the Suzhou River all the way to Waibaidu Bridge and the Bund, not returning home until late at night. Someone asked Fu Ping if she had seen Xiao Jun. She said she’d just arrived and hadn’t had the time. Who knew where she’d gotten off to these days! The woman who’d asked her winked and said conspiratorially, You’re going to be family pretty soon. That surprised Fu Ping. Then another woman, suddenly reminded of something, said to Fu Ping, Didn’t I hear that you were going back to the village to get married? As her face reddened, Fu Ping picked up her laundry and headed back, her heart racing. Everyone knows! she muttered to herself. The older children were off at school, while the youngest, who was out playing somewhere, had left the gate open. After walking inside and closing the gate behind her, she wiped down the bamboo poles and hung the wet clothes up to dry. It would be another hour before the sun slanted into the narrow yard. When would Aunt be back? After hanging out the clothes, Fu Ping tucked her hands under her lined jacket to warm them. Her nearly frozen fingers hurt at first, and

Q

232

Q

FU PING

then tingled as they slowly regained feeling. She dropped her hands and, in a determined mood, said, Who cares? Aunt and Uncle returned at around three that afternoon and were surprised to see Fu Ping when they walked in. Uncle silently nodded and smiled. But Aunt’s face fell. A somewhat intimidated Fu Ping took the bedding Aunt was holding outside to air it in the sun, poured warm water into a basin for Uncle to wash up, and then went into the kitchen to cook the leftover rice and vegetables together in a pot, which she brought to the table. The children came home from school, screaming they were hungry, so she went back to the kitchen and scraped off crispy rice crust for them. After that, she picked up a bucket and went outside to fetch water. She did not see Xiao Jun, who was coming down the lane toward her, and who moved off to the side to let her pass. For most of the afternoon Fu Ping busied herself cooking and taking in the wash. Aunt let her go about her work, watching her walk in and go out without pause, providing no chance for them to talk. The girl shouted at the children to wash up, to eat, and to stop fighting, her voice higher, her shouts more urgent than usual. Aunt had a thousand questions, but could not find the right moment to ask them. Finally, when dinner was over, the dishes washed, and the children either in bed or doing their homework, Sun Daliang went out to play chess. By the time the room was quiet, Aunt had distilled her thousand questions down to one: Does Nainai know you’re here? Fu Ping said nothing, but when Aunt repeated the question, she said, I think I’m old enough not to get lost. Aunt’s eyes widened. So she doesn’t know. She sighed. The way you keep

Q

233

Q

FU PING

running over here, Nainai is going to think we’re trying to steal you away from her. Steal who! Fu Ping demanded. Your niece? Aunt pounded the table angrily. No, she growled, her grandson’s future wife! Who’s her grandson’s future wife? Fu Ping shot back. Aunt sneered. If it’s not you, why do you call her Nainai? And why did you let her pay for your trip to Shanghai? You’re staying in the home of her employer, aren’t you? Fu Ping looked deflated, and Aunt began to feel sorry for her. This is no way to act, she said, softening her tone. Keeping faith is important. She’s been good to you and has spent a lot of money on your behalf. But even if she hadn’t, that does not mean you can go back on your word. People would curse you and your ancestors behind your back. At that point, Fu Ping stood up. I had a  mother, she said, but I’ve gone through life without her. So what do I care about ancestors? She turned and went up into the loft, leaving Aunt at the table, staring wide-eyed at her back, speechless. The children witnessed the argument without knowing what it was about. With all that tension in the air, their frightened eyes settled first on their mother and then on the loft. Fu Ping sat on the edge of her bed, her arms wrapped around her knees. She kept the loft dark, no lights on. With her chin on her knees, she wondered where she could go if Aunt would not let her stay. A train rumbled past, rattling the house, and then blew its shrill whistle, releasing heavy steam. The argument with Aunt had brought her a sort of equilibrium. Who cares! she said again. She moved to the center of the bed, undressed, and lay down. How had she missed seeing Xiao Jun? was her last thought before she fell asleep.

Q

234

Q

FU PING

Aunt and Uncle were the ones who could not sleep that night. Should they let their niece stay or not? Letting her stay could be a lapse of conscience, since they would be helping her take advantage of others. If not, recalling her comment of having a mother but not growing up with one proved how deep her resentment went, and they did not want to make it even worse. After all these years, the arrival of their grown-up niece had stoked guilty feelings. As people who valued a sense of humanity and fair play, they knew they had a real problem. They tossed and turned in bed that night, and seeing Fu Ping in the morning created an awkward moment. Uncle, who was not much of a talker, merely nodded to her. Aunt, on the other hand, took pains to be cordial, telling Fu Ping to take it easy when she started carrying out her chores, unlike the past, when Aunt would tell her what she wanted done. The children were on their best behavior, doing what was expected of them without being told. They quickly swept the floor, cleaned the bowls, and took the bedsheets out to wash. Whatever was needed—vegetables, rice, oil, salt—was bought, and anything that had to be mended was hidden from her. Once everyone else had left the house, Fu Ping idled alone in the nice, clean space. She stood in the doorway watching water drip from the bedsheets drying in the sun. Women passed by the open gate, chatting with each other, their footsteps crisp and clear. Fu Ping listened as the footsteps moved on. She paused a moment, and then walked out of the yard, closing the gate behind her. She decided to go see Xiao Jun. It was another nice day. The ground was slightly spongy. Forsythia was blooming on a neighbor’s fence. She headed east,

Q

235

Q

FU PING

then turned south to reach Xiao Jun’s three-story stucco house. Xiao Jun’s mother was sitting in the sun picking weevils out of old rice on a sheet of newspaper. The sun in her eyes made it hard to see who had come in, until Fu Ping said she was Sun Daliang’s niece. Did you get married? she asked right off. Pretending she hadn’t heard, Fu Ping asked if Xiao Jun was home. She’s out on the boat with Guangming. What the woman at the water supply station had said to Fu Ping the day before— You and Jun are about to be related—rang in her ears. So that’s what she meant! How had she missed that? With her heart racing, she crouched down and helped Jun’s mother pick out weevils and let her fill her in on what happened. Xiao Jun had received permission to become a temporary worker so she could be licensed to work alongside Guangming after they were married. In a few years she could apply for a permanent job as soon as there was an opening. They had been boat people for three generations, so she ought to get her permit with no trouble. She also told her that Guangming was a few years older than Xiao Jun, but that’s just what was needed for a girl as impetuous as her. It’s about getting by, not playing house, isn’t it? She added a comment: So now we’re family! Why hasn’t she come to see me? Fu Ping asked. She must not know you’re back, Xiao Jun’s mother said. I came to tell her I’m back, so she can come over if she wants. Fu Ping picked out a few more weevils, and then stood up, dusted the rice powder off her hands, and left. She was alone that afternoon. Aunt and Uncle were at a brigade meeting, the children were scavenging briquette scraps after school. There was more activity in the lane than in the morning, but no one came to visit. They knew all about Fu

Q

236

Q

FU PING

Ping’s situation after a day and a half and were avoiding her as much as possible. These were simple people who held to their code of morality. They had left their native homes, but maintained an intimate fondness for the countryside. What happened there always seemed to play out in front of their eyes. Since their social horizon had expanded here, so too had their concept of native home. It was no longer any particular village or county, but everywhere the northern Suzhou dialect was spoken. They did not approve of what Fu Ping had done, and they sympathized with the young villager she’d tricked. They’d never met him, but they had met Nainai, his grandmother. And what a kindly, refined grandmother she was! She was worldlier than they, but she fit right in when they talked about the countryside or their village families. Surely they now held unfavorable opinions, and vocally so, of Fu Ping, so when they saw Sun Daliang’s children out gleaning coal, they asked sarcastically, Is that big sister of yours going to stay? What are you going to feed her? The children just cast their eyes down and walked on, turning cold in their attitude toward Fu Ping. She was out in the sunlit yard slowly chopping kindling with a hatchet; the yard was fully in the sun. One of the children walked in through the gate and dumped the coal in their basket in front of the wall. Our papa will make briquettes out of this on Sunday, they announced loudly, as if afraid she’d touch the scraps. They then opened the gate and went back out. It slammed shut, leaving Fu Ping alone again. She raised the hatchet and brought it down on the thin strips of wood, then picked the pieces up and tossed them onto the stack of firewood. She stood up and went inside. A corner of the drying sheet that had billowed in the wind was

Q

237

Q

FU PING

caught. Instead of taking it down, she left it there and went up to her loft. At dinnertime, Uncle climbed up and told Fu Ping to come down to eat, displaying palpable sincerity. She obviously could not act up with Uncle, of whom she thought so highly, so though she wasn’t planning on eating dinner, she went downstairs anyway. The food was already on the table, where the children sat waiting for her, chopsticks poised and ready, so they could start. It was a gloomy dinner table, clicking chopsticks the only sound. Slow down, Aunt said to one of the children now and then, or you’ll choke. What did you do in Shanghai? Uncle broke the silence. Did you see any movies? Given the awkward situation, it had been left to him to make peace. Fu Ping kept her head down and shoveled rice into her mouth, answering yes or no to whatever she was asked. Don’t just eat rice, Uncle said as Aunt tried to put food in Fu Ping’s bowl, which she moved out of the way. She can take care of herself, Uncle said to Aunt, who set the plate down in front of her niece. They managed to get through the meal. The moment Aunt stood up from the table, the children snapped into action, one picking up the dishes, another the chopsticks, and in no time, the table was cleared. Fu Ping did not fight them to do the work, except to shove the stools under the table just as Xiao Jun walked in. She looked different. She’d cut off her braid and curled the back and bangs, giving her hair a puffy look. She was wearing a green wool jacket with a georgette scarf around her neck. Intended to give her a modern look, it actually made her look rustic. This was clearly Guangming’s doing; his aesthetic style was now playing out on Xiao Jun. Although people said that

Q

238

Q

FU PING

he was a poser, young people tended to be open and preferred new things. When Xiao Jun saw Fu Ping, she moved out of the light. I went looking for you today, Fu Ping said, wanting to ask if you’d like to spend the night here. At first Xiao Jun said sure, but then she said she was supposed to sleep with her sisterin-law, since her brother had gone to a class in Shanghai. Neither one of them said anything more for a long moment. Xiao Jun was well aware that Aunt had tried to get Guangming and Fu Ping together, but now he was with her. She hadn’t played a role in that, but it was awkward nonetheless. Now that Fu Ping was back, Xiao Jun could not help feeling somewhat responsible. She was quite young and had grown up in the company of decent, simple people, doted on by her parents and older siblings, and inexperienced as a result. Put into an awkward position, she hated the way this had developed, and wished they could start over. But she was happy with how well Guangming treated her. Sure, sometimes he went overboard, to her embarrassment. But they had known each other all their lives, and it was only natural that she happily accepted his attention. Having a little family of her own was extremely important to Xiao Jun, who wanted to make a good home. That was why she had made herself into a hardworking, attentive, responsible, and somewhat carping young woman. She had, we have seen, changed, but her hair and clothes were only surface evidence. The real change was internal. She was now acting older than her age. Aunt sat Xiao Jun down and took out melon seeds left over from New Year’s. Why hadn’t Guangming come with her? she asked. Xiao Jun blushed at the mention of his name. Feeling a

Q

239

Q

FU PING

bit uneasy as well, Aunt scooped up some melon seeds for Fu Ping, as if she were a guest who’d dropped by. Not feeling at all awkward, Fu Ping asked Xiao Jun when the wedding would take place. How would she like a pair of pillows? Xiao Jun lowered her head and giggled, a throwback to her juvenile ways. Aunt relaxed a bit now that Fu Ping had broached the topic and talked about the wedding. She asked where they would live, what plans they had for the wedding banquet, and what gifts Guangming planned for her. She said she already had everything she’d need. Of course you do, Aunt said. You’re the family’s little treasure, and your parents will surely do their best to send you off. That comment stung Fu Ping, who scowled. Aunt saw that, but she could not take back the comment, and looked for a way to soothe her niece’s feelings. We’re Fu Ping’s family, she said, and we want to do right by her when the time comes. This did not help. Fu Ping forced a smile. Wait and do it for Xiaofen, she said, meaning their six-year-old daughter, the only girl. Aunt could only laugh uneasily in response to her niece’s caustic comment. She was the aunt, after all. As they sat there, Fu Ping happened to look out the window and saw someone lurking outside. She got up, opened the door, and went out. Whoever it was came in through the gate, hands in pockets. She took a good look. It was Guangming. Come on in, Guangming, she said as she turned to face Xiao Jun. He’s come to pick you up. With his head down, he brushed past Fu Ping into the house and greeted his aunt before sitting next to Xiao Jun. Why are you standing out there, Fu Ping? Aunt asked. She said she wanted to see if the chicken coop had been shut properly. She stood a while longer and then came back inside.

Q

240

Q

FU PING

Guangming was sitting at an angle, head down. He looked more robust than before. Although she could not see his face clearly in the shadows, she noted that his hairstyle was different; no longer sporting a pompadour, he had cut it short and wore it with a handsome part. Xiao Jun had probably told him to do that. He looked younger and livelier. He and Aunt talked about brigade matters: the assigning of scows, stations for garbage drop-off, those sorts of things. Xiao Jun broke in with her opinions. Guangming first heard her out, and then said with a smile, You know that too, do you? Why wouldn’t I? she shot back. Guangming backed down. All right, all right, you do. Aunt reached out and stroked what was left of Xiao Jun’s braid. How could she not know? Aunt asked. She’s a smart girl. Sometime later, Guangming stood up. Let’s go, he said. Xiao Jun’s staying, Aunt said. She’s going to spend the night with Fu Ping. Hearing her name spoken, Fu Ping looked up and saw that Xiao Jun’s eyes were on her. They stopped, eyes locked together. Xiao Jun pulled away from Aunt and headed to the door with Guangming. On her way out, she unselfconsciously put her arm in his and they walked out together. After seeing the couple to the gate, Aunt walked in on Fu Ping, who was clearing the table. She put the uneaten melon seeds back in the jar and swept the discarded husks into a dustpan. Suddenly feeling badly about how she’d treated Fu Ping, she walked up and took the dustpan out of the girl’s hand. This made Fu Ping mad. She thrust the dustpan into her aunt’s hands, turned, and stormed up into the loft. Don’t put this on me, Aunt said, throwing caution to the wind. I’d hoped to see you with Guangming, but . . . Fu Ping, who had already gone

Q

241

Q

FU PING

up the ladder, came back down, her face blanched. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Aunt. What does Guangming have to do with me? You’re not my mother, so who are you to give me away to any creep who comes along? This bald criticism by her niece had Aunt in tears. Same with Fu Ping. Two pairs of eyes stared back at each other, until both turned away. Fu Ping went back up the ladder, Aunt went to her room, and that is how they passed the night.

Q

242

Q

Chapter Eighteen

UNCLE AND NIECE

THE DAYS

did not pass comfortably. The argument between Fu

Ping and Aunt had been hurtful to both, and they stopped speaking. She could not stay, that was obvious, but where could she go? All her aspirations were useless. Fortunately, Aunt was not home a lot, going out on the scow with Uncle every few days, and each round-trip took two days. Fu Ping was alone with a brood of children most of the time. They were, after all, children, so avoiding Fu Ping lasted only a couple of days. When their parents were away, the minute they walked in the door, they asked, What’s for dinner, Big Sister? And when they did not feel like washing their own clothes, they left them for Fu Ping. She felt comforted by that attitude, which lessened her feeling of being a freeloader. But she was still a stubborn person, and she kept her cousins at a distance, not acting like a sister. As a matter of fact, the children could have served as a bridge to the adults, through whom she could easily reconcile

FU PING

with her aunt, who was not a difficult woman. But Fu Ping did not know how to take advantage of the situation. She had little to say to the children, but she did what was expected of her. As a result, they were somewhat intimidated, but relied on her for quite a bit. Aunt and Uncle left the family in her care when they went out on the scow and never worried. On occasion, they felt like having a talk with her, but the look on her face stopped them. The stalemate dragged on. Fu Ping’s relations with their neighbors also grew stiff. She might have gained some understanding and sympathy if she could have aired her complaints and explained things to them. But she lacked empathy. So she became a loner, having nothing to do with others. Wherever she went, the women, who were having a lively conversation, would fall silent and start talking again only after she walked off. But they did not pick up where they had left off; now they talked about her in subdued voices. She knew that was what they were doing, and she kept her distance from them, even feeling hostility. Xiao Jun never came over again. At dinner she heard the children say that she was getting married on May 1 and that his family would build an add-on to the house for them after New Year’s. The bricks had already been bought and delivered. They also said that she was too young to be legally married, so they’d changed the age on her household registration; they would change it back after the marriage was recorded. Fu Ping told the eldest child to borrow some cloth ration tickets from his mother. He returned with them almost immediately. She then bought a few yards of red poplin and began embroidering a pillow cover with

Q

244

Q

FU PING

brown thread for Xiao Jun. Lü Fengxian had taught her the pattern and the best colors—it seemed like a lifetime ago. Fu Ping felt good about finding something to do. How else would she pass the time? Aunt and Uncle were home on this day. Aunt had gone to the market and was in the kitchen washing the vegetables. Instead of going up to take over, Fu Ping stayed in her loft to embroider the pillow cover. Uncle called up to invite her to take a walk with him and not stay cooped up in her room. She could not ignore Uncle, so she put down the embroidery frame and went downstairs. They walked out together, with him in front. If someone they met in the lane asked, Where are Uncle and Niece off to? Just taking in the sights, he’d reply. They left the area, crossed the street, and went onto the viaduct, the spot where Fu Ping had stood when she first came in search of her uncle. The area looked a lot different to her now. The house chimneys, laundry drying under eaves, people walking in the lanes, it all seemed vibrant, picturesque, perhaps a little chaotic. That was because it was no longer new and unfamiliar to her. She followed Uncle across the viaduct, wondering where he was taking her. He did not look like he had someplace in mind, with his hands behind his back, walking at a leisurely pace. When he saw someone he knew, he stopped and asked to borrow a light or chat for a moment. A train passed, releasing steam that stuck to rooftops near the viaduct for a moment before moving on. After it dissipated, orderly rows of squat rooftops appeared beneath a broad expanse of sky. It looked enormous. Fu Ping’s melancholy was subsiding. She let out a long sigh.

Q

245

Q

FU PING

Uncle walked down off the viaduct and onto a narrow street. The barrier at a railroad crossing ahead had already been lowered and red lights were flashing. A train was approaching. Uncle stopped about thirty feet from the crossing and said to Fu Ping when she caught up, You can tell it’s a freight train by  the sound. The thunderous locomotive was at the crossing before he finished. The road surface quaked, steam blotted out the rooftops on both sides of the tracks as tanker cars crossed, one after another. People on both sides of the tracks had stopped talking; they seemed alarmed by what was happening. Massive iron wheels thundered loudly against the tracks. After the train had passed and the all-clear bell had rung, the people recovered and began to cross under the slowly rising barrier arms. Scattered houses on the other side of the tracks gradually gave way to similarly scattered farmland. The density of farmland increased farther out. A thin carpet of green covered the land as the tips of wheat stalks poked through. Uncle walked slowly down a small road parallel to the tracks; Fu Ping followed him. The sky opened wide, but the scene differed from the vista they’d seen as they stood on the viaduct. Here the vastness was tempered by gentle billows. And it was a clear azure blue, not the leaden sky of moments before. In a word, the mild, gentle scenery contrasted vividly with the earlier harshness. They passed a pond thickly covered with water plants. An overturned sampan lay at the pond’s edge, seemingly stuck in dense shrubbery. Uncle stopped and waited for Fu Ping to catch up. He pointed to the dense greenery on the pond. What do you folks call that? he asked. Water gourds, she replied. Water gourds are one kind of water plant, he said, but this one has a

Q

246

Q

FU PING

name that sounds like yours, but written differently: it’s fuping, a sort of duckweed. He crouched down, plucked up one of the rooted plants, and wrote both names on the ground with it. Have you had any schooling? he asked. She shook her head, leaving unsaid a comment that with all her other uncle’s children, how could she have gone to school? Oh, Uncle said as he tossed away the plant. Uncle and niece resumed walking; soon the railroad tracks came back into view. A road maintenance truck was parked next to a railway switch. Uncle walked over to a concrete bollard and sat down. He told Fu Ping to sit on another one a few feet away. Then he took out a cigarette, lit it, and enjoyed a leisurely smoke. The sun was directly overhead, turning the sky a light, almost transparent blue. Now that the moisture had evaporated, the brown earth turned almost yellow. Tree branches were still bare, but buds had begun to appear. The two tracks met like a sesame twist before separating into different directions and heading forward side by side, appearing to merge into one far off at the horizon. The grain of the railroad ties was clearly visible, the ground between them spread with stones and pebbles of the same size and shape, reflecting the dazzling bright sunlight. Scraps of paper fluttered above the ties, probably tossed out a window by a passenger. From where they sat, they saw poplars lining both sides of the tracks. They were newly planted, to which their thin trunks and modest height attested. But they were pencil-straight, framing the railroad tracks off into the distance. Uncle and niece sat close but not together on concrete bollards, soaking up sun. From somewhere out of sight came the sound of a hammer on steel. That would be repair work by a road maintenance crew.

Q

247

Q

FU PING

Uncle finally got to his feet and dusted the ashes off his clothes. He gestured to Fu Ping that it was time to head back. So she stood up and started walking with him. He chose a different route this time. They walked along the tracks for a while, and then stepped across them onto a narrow street. After they passed several single-story buildings, they turned onto a broad avenue, both sides lined with factories with tall smokestacks; trucks with heavy loads drove up and down the avenue. Fu Ping was of average height, but she looked husky alongside Uncle. He took a good look at her and smiled. People on our side of the family are short, he said, so you must have taken after your father. I don’t know, she replied. I have no memory of him. Oh, was Uncle’s response, as he kept walking. More and more people were out on the streets, which were lined by three- and fourstory apartment buildings, row upon row, with trees between them. The streets were narrower, with curbs and sidewalks. With a look at the houses, Fu Ping said, Why don’t you live in one of those, Uncle? He turned his attention to the same buildings. We’re boat people, he said. We’ve lived ashore only for two or three years, after a life aboard a scow. Oh, Fu Ping replied. It hasn’t been easy for you, she said, sounding very adult, but you’ve done really well. He smiled, which made her blush. But in the end, she smiled too. They walked into a shantytown that was smaller than the one they lived in. The houses, somewhat squatter than theirs, were also in worse condition. There were even a few rammed-earth houses with thatched roofs. The serpentine lanes were cramped and narrow. But Uncle seemed to know where he was going. At a turn in the lane, he stopped at a whitewashed wall on which

Q

248

Q

FU PING

the words “preserved meats” had been written. There on a table beyond the gate was a plate of brined parts of a pig’s heads— tongues and ears—covered by a gauze screen. Uncle called into the yard. An old man in a black padded coat came out and greeted Uncle warmly, a northerner by his accent. When Uncle pointed to the bowl, the man picked out a piece of tongue, laid it out on the table, and cut it into slices. Then he slid the cleaver under them, picked them up, and placed them on a sheet of oilpaper, which he rolled and folded into a pyramid shape. Uncle handed it to Fu Ping as he took out some money. Where’s the girl from? the old man asked. She’s my niece, Uncle replied. She looks too old to be your niece. My sister is eight years older than me, Uncle explained as he was handed his change. They walked off, threading their way through small lanes. The old guy is from Henan, Uncle said to Fu Ping. He brought the brine starter from his hometown. Word has it that it’s been around for three generations. His preserved meat enjoys a fine reputation here. They walked out of the warren of houses, and could see the viaduct up ahead. They weren’t far from Uncle’s house. After heading down a narrow lane bordered on both sides by two buildings that looked like factory warehouses, they were now under the viaduct. Dinner was on the table when they walked in. Aunt took the brine package from Fu Ping. You’re back, she said. Yes, Fu Ping replied. The children, who had been waiting impatiently for them to return, rushed up to the table. The family sat down and started eating. As time passed, Aunt treated Fu Ping the same as before. So did the neighbors, gradually. The locals, who had short memories, let the past be the past. There was even one dotty

Q

249

Q

FU PING

old woman who came by with a marriage proposal for Fu Ping. That reminded Aunt of the mistake she’d made, and she was not about to repeat it. Fu Ping had finished embroidering the pillow covers, even adding ruffled edges. She folded them up and asked Aunt to deliver them to Xiao Jun. Since her friend was avoiding her, Fu Ping found it awkward to go see her. Fingering the wedding gift, Aunt felt like asking, What are your plans, Fu Ping? But in the end, she could not bring herself to say anything. Fu Ping was by then a full-fledged contributing member of the family. On those infrequent occasions when either Uncle or Aunt had business to take care of or wasn’t feeling well, Fu Ping took their place on the scow. She still had a lot to learn, but she wasn’t afraid of hard work and was happy to help, which came in handy. They wanted to pay her for the temporary work, but she would not take it. When they forced her to accept it, she went out and bought some fabric to make clothing for the children. She was, it became clear, an indispensable member of the family. But in her mind, there was still a gulf between them. She had little to say. After dinner, she went up into her loft without delay, and turned down all Aunt’s invitations to take in a movie or spend some time with girls in the neighborhood. They married young around there; most of the girls her age were already married. That meant she would have to spend time with younger girls. And when she did, she invariably began thinking about her future. But she was drawing closer to Uncle. She worked on the scow with him on days she filled in for Aunt. They sailed down the Suzhou River, the passing buildings unfolding like a slide show of constantly changing scenes:

Q

250

Q

FU PING

fields of rape, a slate-blue sky. Neither she nor Uncle talked much, exchanging no more than a few comments during the day, each focused on what they were doing. But that suited Fu Ping just fine. Now that life was getting better for them, he might have a couple of drinks during lunch, but no more than that. The alcohol usually loosened him up, and he’d talk to her about the past or share things he’d read about. One day he told her the Big Lin and Little Lin story. When he reached the part where the prince’s hat hung from the tip of a crescent moon, Fu Ping could not help thinking that Uncle was a kid at heart. And he treated her like one, telling her a story he should have been telling his youngest child. She laughed so hard she nearly spit out a mouthful of rice. She wasn’t worried that Uncle would be mad at her. She laughed so seldom that she looked a little strange when she did—the corners of her eyes turned down, making her wide-spread eyes seem even farther apart, which brightened her look. With her lips parted, she had an adolescent, rather innocent appearance. They usually made and ate lunch while tied up at Fengbin, where a family of old friends of Uncle and Aunt had a house not far from the river. Their eldest son, who was two years older than Uncle’s eldest, often waited for Uncle’s scow at the river’s edge, waiting for him to share a game of land-battle chess. Uncle would play a couple of games with him after lunch. They’d sit on the ground by the river and lay out the chessboard, which was held down by dirt clods on the four corners. They preferred to play hidden chess, revealing nothing of their moves, so Fu Ping served as arbiter, by which she learned the names of the pieces: commander, army chief, division head, soldier, and more. She also learned the hierarchy

Q

251

Q

FU PING

of ranks. When the games ended and they were back on the boat, the boy reluctantly folded up the board and put away the pieces before walking off into the cotton field alone. Going out on the scow with Aunt wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. Fu Ping held grudges. During their several arguments, Aunt had said hurtful things, and Fu Ping was not about to forget that. But Aunt spoke her mind, and they were lively trips with Aunt telling Fu Ping to do one thing or another. Sharing a bed at night, the way they crowded into each other brought them together in more ways than one. The nights were so long that even if they had nothing they wanted to say, they made things up. And the topic of one of those nightly talks was Fu Ping herself. Stay and live with us, Aunt said. You’ll be the eldest girl at home. Does that mean you wouldn’t want me if I was younger? Fu Ping replied. That biting response stopped Aunt. But better to have mentioned it than not, and it lessened some of the tension between them. Nothing more was said for a moment, until Aunt calmed down. You fight me, but do you dare talk back to Nainai? That struck a nerve. Fu Ping would not let it pass. No, she said, that’s why I ran away. She rolled, face to the wall, and went to sleep. Most of Fu Ping’s time was spent in the house looking after the children, not working on the scow. She was not particularly fond of children, a result of spending too much time with her paternal uncle and aunt’s unruly children when she was young. But she was used to living with relatives, and knew how to stay within bounds. For that reason, she was a better homemaker than her aunt. Things were different here than in her other uncle’s home. Over there they worked hard and struggled to get

Q

252

Q

FU PING

by. It was a battle to make sure there was always enough to eat, taking care of chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep, both inside and outside the kitchen. And Uncle’s home was nowhere near as fastidious as Nainai’s, where everything, needlework, tea, and meals, had to be done just right. It was exhausting. Uncle’s family did not have to worry about having adequate food or clothing, nor were they particular about things. Meals were cooked in a big pot, what they wore was mostly brigade-supplied work uniforms. Clothes were passed down from child to child. Hence there wasn’t much housework for Fu Ping to do. With little need to sew, she had lots of time on her hands. Braiding the girls’ hair every day was one of her chores, but that took little of her time. When she was bored in the house, she went for walks that often took her to the shantytown where Uncle had taken her to buy preserved meat. There were few places to shop in the shantytown, and she was prejudiced against the people in her own neighborhood. Add to that the fact that they were furiously building an add-on at Guangming’s house, and she could easily pass by if she wasn’t careful. It did not concern her, but she wanted to keep some distance, though she did not dare stray too far, not yet. Her surroundings were less hospitable than Nainai’s, which is why this other shantytown appealed to her. Why had she never gone there alone? Probably because it was separated from her area by factories and warehouses. When people here went out, the viaduct was their landmark, and they hardly paid attention to the shantytown on the other side. Besides, it was so much smaller than theirs and home to a jumble of residents, people from Yancheng, Sheyang, and Lianshui in Jiangsu, and others from Anhui, Shandong, and Henan

Q

253

Q

FU PING

provinces. Residents here, on the other hand, were all from Yangzhou, Gaoyou, or Xinghua, and made their living on the scows. Over there the people were barbers, knife sharpeners, as well as onion, ginger, and fish peddlers in the market, occupations that invited being looked down on by others, and was the reason they were nearly invisible. The whole place was long and narrow, a lot like the city’s lanes, the longtangs, but chaotic, not nearly as neat. Houses were cramped together, the lanes full of twists and turns, and yet under the low, slanting eaves, each house hung a blue sign with the address in white. The area was called Mei Clan Bridge. It was once a garbage dump, and trash pickers built slum dwellings with reed mats on top of it. Over time rammed earth and then brick houses replaced them; in the end, the city government designated it as an approved residential area. That then was why so many of its residents made a living in trash. Once you entered the area, a close look at the ramshackle houses showed a variety of cottage industries. Two glass jars in one window opening were filled with red and green hard candies; another held brown, somewhat transparent zongzi-shaped malt candy. The family next door was up before dawn to steam rice cakes, the hot steam carrying the smell of tangy, sweet fermented rice throughout the area. As soon as the sun was up, the cakes were taken in a converted child’s wagon to peddle on the street. The rest of the day was spent outside the door drying rice in the sun, grinding it up, and pounding it into rice flour. A dentist practicing in the next lane over provided extractions and false teeth. His neighbors folded tinfoil day in and day out. Next to them was a family from Shandong who had

Q

254

Q

FU PING

visitors from home at the end of the year. They were put up in the kitchen, where they fried nuts well into the night, releasing clouds of a buttery smell into the neighborhood. Just around the corner lived a family whose occupation was a sort of metalwork, hammering scrap metal into dustpans of all sizes, and punching holes in tin cans for molding honeycomb coal briquettes. There were also washerwomen who went to the machine repair shops out front and collected the unmarried workers’ clothes. The grimy work clothes, carrying the strong smell of gasoline, would be so stiff they could stand up in alkali water, which was what they used to launder out the grease. Another family earned their keep by gluing soft soles onto the bottoms of shoes. The soles would be made from piles of cloth scraps they collected, and then washed and dried before gluing them on to sell for a pittance. It was patently clear that many of the occupations grew out of the collection of waste materials, and many of those were following occupations of their forebears. Trash they had collected was piled up in their yards, where old and young alike busily separated it into wastepaper, cloth, metal, and leather. The air was filled with a stew of smells. Inasmuch as the local industries were varied and near the bottom of the labor chain, the place looked dirty. But once you got to know the people, you realized that they were anything but dirty. Their honest labor fed and clothed their families, and every bit of money they earned came from their own sweat. And so, beneath this mix of minor occupations resided a solid, healthy, self-respecting strength, all of which was revealed in a variety of details. Fu Ping sometimes bought preserved meats from the Henan man with money Aunt and Uncle paid her for working on the

Q

255

Q

FU PING

boat. Once he got to know her, he called her Niece and introduced her to some of his neighbors. As time passed, they got to know Fu Ping and were friendly toward her, following a tradition of treating outsiders with humility and courtesy. That stemmed from not any sense of inferiority but a form of selfrespect. One day, Fu Ping went to Mei Clan Bridge to get the blacksmith to repair a pair of metal tongs. On the way she met an old woman struggling to carry a basket of coal cinders, so she took the basket from her and carried it all the way to the woman’s house. Fu Ping was invited in but declined the invitation. She had spotted a young man sitting on a bed inside. He had a thin, lively face. So did the old woman. Fu Ping thought she’d seen him somewhere before, and after thinking back, she recalled the time she’d gone to see a local opera and someone had taken her seat. An old woman had taken her arm and made room for her in her seat. A young man had sat in the next seat. It was this woman and her son.

Q

256

Q

Chapter Nineteen

MOTHER AND SON

NATIVES OF

Anhui Province, the woman and her son had lived

in Jiangsu’s Liuhe County. They’d had a good life when the boy was young. His father had been a clerk at the Bank of China. They’d lived in employee quarters on Wanhangdu Road. Although his low status qualified him for a one-room flat only, with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities, they had a flush toilet, a white enamel bathtub, and piped-in gas. There were waxed hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling metal-framed windows. Their son wore a cashmere jumper in a canopied baby carriage his mother pushed to the park to relax in the sun under a plane tree. She dressed in cotton qipaos and wool cardigans and carried a sewing basket. This idyllic picture of mother and son was common in Shanghai’s parks. Unhappily, good times sometimes don’t last. The boy’s father, stricken with typhoid fever, was not treated in time and died. Mother and son’s fate changed overnight. The father had been a man of limited talents

FU PING

and little possibility of career advancement. He had also been a reserved, cautious man who had made few friends among his coworkers. His superiors and colleagues had shown up for his funeral out of a sense of duty. Custodians had been sent to carry the coffin to the Anhui Provincial Guildhall, but it was so heavy—as if filled with lead—they tried but failed to lift it. One of them stepped up, burned some paper in a bowl, and said, Rest easy, young brother, we’ll take care of your wife and child. Strange as it sounds, they found they could lift the coffin, after all. This development brought tears to the eyes of fellow workers who had barely known him. After the funeral, they collected a bit of money for the newly widowed woman, and the old custodian who had made a vow to the dead man was as good as his word, as he assumed responsibility for the well-being of the woman and her son. But he was burdened with caring for his own family, and could not support them forever. A few months later, a bank representative tactfully broached the subject of housing, but even without the bank’s involvement, she would have found it difficult to keep living there. Even with the death compensation and the money donated by his colleagues, she could not afford the rent, utilities, and food. So after talking to the old custodian, she decided to return to Liuhe County. It was not a wealthy home to return to, but there was land and a house, and mother and son were entitled to a share. Her husband had only a few brothers, and she was bringing a grandson back to continue the family line. So she wrote home and pawned or sold everything she could, leaving whatever she could not take with her with the old custodian for the time being. She’d deal with that later. A few days after that, he accompanied them to the station and saw them onto the train home. Q

258

Q

FU PING

Her husband’s home was in Liuhe’s county seat, where the land had been divided and allotted to local peasants during the Land Reform. So the family relied upon money sent home from sons working in Zhenjiang and Chuxian. The Shanghai son had done the most. Though he’d lived with his family in the city, he’d sent money home for his parents every month. Not only did that end abruptly, but there were now two more mouths to feed. Mother and son were treated with compassion at first, but the sisters-in-law soon voiced their displeasure. Their husbands were away working for the family, while the widow and her son were contributing nothing. That was followed by complaints from the mother-in-law that her Shanghai daughter-in-law could not do much around the house, that she went down to the river to wash clothes in high-heeled shoes, and wound up in the river with the laundry. And she was considered fastidious to an extreme. She bathed her son even on cold days. The water, fetched from a well, was free, but the kindling and coal needed to heat the water was paid for by the blood and sweat of her brothers-in-law. The household head paid no attention to family affairs and was addicted to opium, so he lived under other people’s thumbs. Needless to say, he neglected the fact that his dead son had been sending money home for years, never missing a month, and that now his family ought to be cared for. Life for the newly arrived widow and her son was getting difficult. Not only were they the targets of sarcastic barbs, at times they were not even called to meals. Ignored by others, they spent much of their time in their room, coming out only when they were called to the table. If no one said anything, they simply missed a meal. The shabby treatment reminded the mother of the money in her trunk; if things got any worse, she was Q

259

Q

FU PING

thinking, she’d take her son back to Shanghai. I’ll take it one more day, she told herself, and if that doesn’t work, off we go. And so it went, one day following another. Relatives who lived away returned to the village as the lunar year came to an end, and that included her late husband’s brothers and his elder sister, who was married to a man in a neighboring county, and her husband. The sister’s husband was a businessman, or, more accurately, a trader who traveled to Nanjing and Xuzhou selling cotton. They were meeting the widow of their younger brother for the first time, and were friendly toward her, even including their Shanghai nephew when distributing gifts. She came to her sister-in-law’s room at night to talk, warming up the widow’s heart, which had experienced the cold shoulder ever since they moved back. Parents dote on their own daughters, whose attitude determines how they behave. So naturally, the widow’s mother-in-law also warmed up to her. The sisters-in-law, who were all under the thumbs of their husbands, treated the widow with restraint. As wage earners, the sons needed to be broad-minded. On the day the family offered sacrifice to the ancestors, the widow’s son knelt down on his small legs and kowtowed, and everyone was saddened by the fact that he was now fatherless. New Year’s went well for them, with mother and son called to dinner, the boy taken out to play, and a friendship developing between the elder sister and the widow of her young brother. The night before the sister and her husband were to leave, they came to her room and told her they wished to join together in opening a shop. The husband had long planned on renting a space for a shop for selling cotton in the winter and grass mats in the summer.

Q

260

Q

FU PING

They’d found a space, a name had been chosen, and negotiations with a supplier were progressing well. All they needed was capital, so now they came to the widow with a proposition. If she bought into the operation, she would receive dividends each quarter. That would give her enough to live on and money for the child’s education. By investing, the little bit of money she had would work for her rather than be depleted over time. The plan made sense, but even more important to her was the kindness her in-laws were showing her, and this was a chance to show her gratitude. And so she handed roughly three-quarters of her savings to her brother-in-law; he obviously revealed this to his mother-in-law, whose warmth toward the widow continued. That held true for the sisters-in-law as well. The whole family now looked forward to the brother-in-law’s success, so they could all share in the earnings. But time passed and no earnings were forthcoming. First he told them it was a shortage of customers, and when business began to improve, the supply of goods dried up. As soon as that was resolved, the new government bought up the entire supply. After the first year passed, the family complained about his lack of business skills. But unable to speak openly before their parents, the sisters-inlaw shifted their displeasure to the young widow. Why hadn’t she offered her money to the family, even just to spend it on a load of rice? Besides, who knew if she had turned over everything. She must have held some back for herself. Some of this talk found its way to their mother-in-law, which got her thinking about where that money had come from. She should have shared in her son’s bereavement benefit, and although she would never say so openly, the look on her face said a great deal. The

Q

261

Q

FU PING

upshot was, the widow and her son were back to where they’d been before. Then came the year 1950, when the government nationalized the son-in-law’s cotton business and assigned him a job as a clerk in a shop selling bowls across the street. The shop had lost money from day one, meaning the compensation was so small that there was virtually nothing left after the debts were paid off. Now even her last path out of poverty had disappeared. The county government opened a textile mill that year and was looking for workers. The Shanghai widow responded for a tryout, and, to her surprise, was hired as a mill worker making cheap yarn. That was good news. The work was hard, but she now had a salary. All her sisters-in-law had found work, placing their older children in school and leaving the younger ones at home with their grandmother, who did her best to care for them. One day, the Shanghai youngster ran a fever. His grandmother fed him a bowl of ginger broth, wrapped him in a blanket to make him sweat, and left it at that. His mother agreed there was no cause to worry when she returned from work; she gave him another bowl of ginger broth and had him sweat some more. The fever hung on for several days, until he began to have febrile seizures. It was their good fortune that a medical unit of the PLA was making a circuit, so they took the boy to be looked at. The diagnosis was polio, and though they managed to effect a cure, he wound up with a crippled leg, and all her money was gone. The textile mill operated for several months, but when the low technical competence failed to improve after a few months, it was converted into a yarn factory that supplied coarse cotton yarn to mills in Nanjing and Shanghai. Older married women

Q

262

Q

FU PING

were let go. She needed another job, but that was easier said than done. The boy had reached school age, but the family saw no need for a crippled boy to go to school. The way his mother saw it, however, schooling was even more critical for a crippled boy. She had lived in the city and knew that she had to plan his future. Having reached the end of her rope, she wrote to the old workman in Shanghai, who responded immediately with travel expenses. She was aware of his family circumstances, and what his gesture meant in terms of friendship, as well as the implication of her acceptance. She dried her eyes, packed her things, and as she walked out the gate, this Shanghai sister-inlaw was no longer her weak, former self. The old workman was at the train station to meet her and her son. He hardly recognized them. She was wearing blue work clothes; her hair was drawn haphazardly behind her head. Though only in her thirties, she had wrinkles on her face. Her son looked to be in even worse shape. With the aid of a staff he held in his hands, he walked by swinging his crippled leg around, planting his good leg, and taking a step forward. The workman recognized them by her leather suitcases, which were the only signs of their former life in Shanghai. He walked up sadly and picked up the boy. Why make him walk? he asked. Can I hold him in my arms all his life? she responded. Her words carried the hint of a Liuhe accent, and had a hard tone. After squeezing into the workman’s home for a couple of days, he found a lean-to near Mei Clan Bridge in Zhabei that belonged to a fellow villager from Lianshui in Datong County and that had served as their kitchen. They rented it to her for a very small fee. The workman helped her move the furniture he’d

Q

263

Q

FU PING

kept for her to the new place and supplied her with kitchen utensils. He also hunted down a pair of used crutches for the boy. Once mother and son were settled, they needed to establish their Shanghai residence, which was relatively easy at the time, unlike later years, when giving it up was easy, obtaining it nearly impossible. Once that was done, she needed to enroll the boy in school. Next, she had to find work. The first task presented no problem. She easily got him enrolled in the first grade at a school for river transport families. Finding a job was much harder. That is not to say there were no jobs available, but finding the right one, a stable job, was virtually out of the question. So she did a little bit of everything—packing crates at the train station, delivering goods, clearing silt on the Suzhou River, cooking for boat hands, doing their laundry, guarding bicycles, removing sand casing in a molding factory, unspooling yarn, washing dishes, moving garbage, emptying honey buckets. Such work required no training, but developed the skill of endurance; she was no longer afraid of hard work. That carried her from day to day as her son advanced from grade to grade in school. He earned praise as a good student every year. The old workman found him a new set of crutches each year, up until his third year in middle school, when he stopped growing, and there was no need for a new set. Moving on in school presented obstacles. High schools did not admit disabled children, who were assigned work in their districts. That was the theory, but not the practice, because their district was honeycombed with heavy industry and there were few workshops suitable for the disabled. So he stayed home, and did so for years. He was a gentle youngster who had no recollection of any childhood good times, having grown up in poverty. Suffering Q

264

Q

FU PING

became a way of life, and the occasional kindness shown him left a deep and rich impression. That is why his memories of Liuhe were not as dark as his mother’s. His cousins had popped soybeans over a brazier during the winter months. Though he could not elbow his way up to the brazier, popped beans flew high into the air, and some of them clanged into the metal tray he held. Ships sounded their horns as they sailed up and down the Yangtze, which flowed near the old house. Look at all the water! the children shouted from the rooftops during the summer floods. A vast stretch of white water obscured the opposite bank, but not the flocks of water birds soaring above it. Over New Year’s, when his father’s elder sister returned home, out came the smiles from the rest of the family, and he was given many things to eat: sesame candy, sweetened rice wafers, honeyed dates, and persimmon cakes. When they saw the visiting aunt to the pier, the Yangtze was but a thread of a river, but almost so long and winding that no end was in sight. The world was so vast! Getting sick was terrible, but he recalled the PLA doctor’s hand on his forehead and his consoling words. Everyone had been so nice to him during those days, showering him with compassionate looks and stuffing his hands with good food and presents. The train ride to Shanghai had also left a deep impression. The car was so bright and so spacious. The scenery sped past his window above a gentle, rhythmic rocking on the tracks. At each station, the wheels screeched frighteningly and steam belched from the stacks as the train ground to a bumpy, seemingly reluctant stop. Then passengers surged aboard, their loud steps on the wooden floor creating intense emotions. They arrived at Mei Clan Bridge, and when he labored down the narrow lanes with his crutches, without warning a pair of Q

265

Q

FU PING

hands picked him up roughly, plopped him down, crutches and all, onto a three-wheeled pushcart, and carried him off. When he reached his destination, he was set down on the ground. When he was a few years older, anytime a bicycle rode past, he held his crutches in one hand and agilely hopped onto the rear rack to ride a while. When neighbor trash pickers came across books, they brought them to him to see if he could use them as textbooks or notebooks, so he would not need to buy them himself. There was a time when he loved going to gleaners’ houses to pick up all sorts of keys on chains, take them home, and match them with similar keys. Slowly, he figured that theoretically each key would open one lock, whereas in fact they were all just slightly off. He started with his own home, fitting keys to locks. Choosing the closest ones, he filed the teeth until they worked. He then did the same for friends, helping out youngsters who had lost their house keys and were afraid to tell their parents. This way no one would have to know. But just when this hobby became a sort of obsession, his mother made him stop. She returned all the keys he’d been given and gave away all his tools, not backing down no matter how much he cried and carried on. He made such a scene she thundered back, What kind of craft is that, forging keys to be a housebreaker? You’re lucky no one has tried to throw us out! That stopped him. Mother and son lived prudently, never forgetting that someone had taken them in, and that they must act accordingly. Mei Clan Bridge residents were decent, honest people, which made proper behavior even more important. The frail young man’s self-respect grew naturally out of his circumstances. Most of his schoolmates at the water transport elementary school had come from the residential area beneath the viaduct Q

266

Q

FU PING

up ahead. They lived in large, sturdy, neatly spaced houses. Their parents worked on Suzhou scows and enjoyed a steady income. They all spoke the Yangzhou dialect from northern Suzhou, which, over time, had incorporated elements of Shanghai speech, turning it somewhat harder and crisper. They wore round-toed shoes made for working people, waterproof galoshes, and rubber vests. They tended toward arrogance, looking down upon classmates from the shantytowns, saying things in front of them that they did not understand to show that they were the authentic residents and the others were outsiders. They might not be good students, but their futures were assured; most would find work on their parents’ boats and evolve into regular, not temporary, workers. They disdainfully called their classmates Mei Clan Bridge kids. In spite of that, he made a few friends, and each new friend was evidence that they were not as haughty as he’d thought; they were actually more magnanimous and carefree than the kids from Mei Clan Bridge. His friends came to his house all the time, and one of them asked him to make a key for him. He never once visited any of their houses, however; his excessive self-respect inevitably included a bit of petty insecurity. And no wonder, living in poverty naturally lowered one’s self-esteem. Among the things he envied them for, it was the way they talked about the Suzhou River that impressed him the most. They were so intimate with the river, it was as if they owned it. To be sure, this had no negative effect on his friendships, because he was a gentle, restrained boy. Then one day he met the Yangzhou girl who lived near the viaduct. At first she just carried a bucket of coal shards home for his mother. She did not come inside. But she did on subsequent occasions. She sat at the table gluing cardboard boxes Q

267

Q

FU PING

with them. He asked her if she’d ever gone out on a scow, where they’d gone, how far they could travel in a day, and so on. Now that he’d grown up, he wasn’t as shy as he’d been as a child, and far more outgoing. After his mother made him stop forging keys, he got interested in repairing zippers, fountain pens, umbrellas, even complex desk clocks, transistor radios, and sewing machines. He was infatuated with mechanical objects. The trash pickers brought him broken things, which he took apart and put back together, sometimes finding a way to fix them for further use. In this way, he became a small-scale repairman. Unfortunately, where they lived, few people owned such things, so word of his skill did not travel far, and his talent could not serve to make a living. But the old custodian, whom he’d taken to calling Uncle, helped him apply for financial assistance for the disabled. It wasn’t much, but it was steady income. His mother had reached the age where she could no longer manage heavy work, and neighbors had given her their piecework for the local cardboard-box factory. Mother and son worked from dawn to dusk making the boxes, which brought in some more money. Fu Ping’s first visit spawned many more, and she quickly learned how to glue the boxes. She was slower at it than either of the other two, but not bad for a beginner. She sat in the leanto, with sunlight pouring in, making cardboard boxes. The room had a musty odor, but that was overcome by the smells of earth and grass and sunlight from outside, which made it clean and fresh. Vegetable stew with potatoes and yams on the stove emitted the salty, somewhat sour, yeasty smell of soy sauce. It was what mother and son ate. Fu Ping felt very much at peace in the presence of two innately quiet people; they were less well-off even than she, and yet they got by. Q

268

Q

FU PING

She was happy to answer the young man’s questions, although she did not think there was much to talk about. Besides getting the scow under way, working, carrying water, cooking, docking, and sleeping, what else was there? But he was fascinated. She realized that he had something in common with Uncle. But what exactly was it? He reminded her of how Uncle had told her the story about a hat hanging on the crescent moon. It was like they were two children, not grown-ups. All three of them recalled that they had met before, when the mother had shared a seat with her at the theater. He had seen her standing in the aisle, looking lost and quite pitiful. Now they knew one another. Once in a while the girl brought them some coal chips in a basket and mixed them up to form briquettes. She came over early one fine day, dragged everything in the lean-to outside, including bedding, to air in the sun. Then she climbed a ladder and pasted the holes in the ceiling shut. She spread newspaper over the dark, moldy rooftop material, which brightened the inside, and filled it with the heavy scent of newsprint ink, along with the pleasant dry smell of sun-soaked bedding. On another day she brought over some pig’s leg bones, washed them, and then laid them out on the wood stump, where she cracked them with the back of an ax. She dumped the pieces into water, added onions, ginger, and soybeans, and then let it simmer, quickly filling the room with the aroma. The lean-to now had the smell of abundance. His mother was determined to have her stay for dinner. She begged off. His mother tried to drag her inside, and a tug-of-war ensued. Finally, he spoke up. She wants you to stay, he said, so stay. His peremptory, impatient attitude shocked her. Then, like a startled bird or animal, she tore herself away and ran off as fast as her feet would carry Q

269

Q

FU PING

her. She did not return over the next few days, and they thought that was it. But she did not forget the day they needed to deliver finished boxes and receive new raw material at the factory, so she showed up. She borrowed a handcart, loaded it up with finished boxes, and left. When she returned, his mother once again wanted her to stay for dinner. She did not reply, so the young man said from inside, Don’t force her if she doesn’t want to stay. Let’s eat, then, she said unexpectedly. Mother went in and added some more food for the table. She moved the cardboard into the lean-to, piling most of it onto a wooden chest in the corner, putting the rest on the bed to keep it handy. The boy picked up a stack, laid it on the table, and went to work. The two of them worked silently, neither saying a word, keeping the room quiet, as dinner simmered in a pot that shook and began to turn as steam escaped from under the lid. She went up, tilted the pot slightly, and turned it around atop the stove. The room darkened, though it was still light outside, casting her silhouette onto the patch of brightness. During dinner, his mother asked, Will your uncle and aunt be waiting dinner for you? There’s no problem. The whole family went to a wedding banquet tonight. Whose wedding? Mother asked. She told them it was a relative. Why aren’t you going? She did not answer.

Q

270

Q

Chapter Twenty

THE FLOOD

IT RAINED

heavily that year. During the usual rainy season,

which starts in late April, there had been more rain than in years past, and it did not look as if it would ever stop. Mold and mushrooms began to grow in the squat houses. Clothing was constantly damp, and people’s bodies felt clammy. Even during the hottest time of the year, the sun’s heat could not dry up the mildew. And still the rains came, along with the flood season. Rain and more rain throughout Suzhou and Hangzhou brought water down from the upper reaches, turning into floods, in what was called “triple-threat” weather. The water rose in the Suzhou River, overflowing the concrete steps and reaching the level of the bank. The water, light in color and thin in texture, raced along. The air was not rainy-season muggy, and was chillier than usual. The level of humidity in the air dropped, while torrential rains continued to fall. Water accumulated quickly on city streets. People rolled up their pant cuffs and walked, shoes

FU PING

in hand, through the water, like rowing a boat. The children could not have been happier, and nothing the adults said could keep them from “rowing” along under umbrellas or with their heads exposed. They “rowed” from one end of a street to the other, and back. Major thoroughfares on higher ground with better drainage were free of water accumulations. Like ribbons of dry land surrounded by water-covered smaller streets, they were the tracks on which vehicles sped. Garbage floated atop water on the smaller streets that turned dirty as it mingled with foul sewer water. Boys rowing along were undeterred by the filth. Most were shirtless, wearing only shorts, their summer tans now almost black, ribs showing on their spindly bodies. But they were hardy youngsters and spry. Open-mouthed laughter exposed straight white teeth. As each torrent of rain ended, and before the next one began, the water receded, and soon the streets came back into view, to the rowers’ disappointment. But that did not last long, for the rains returned, and more steadily than the day before. Rains that cause floods are not cloudbursts. No, those are squalls of slanting water carried along by heavy winds. Houses and streets judder and change appearance in those pounding rainfalls that come in a violent rush and are quickly over. Floods follow dull, heavy rainfalls unaccompanied by strong gusts of wind. They do not appear threatening, but the quantity is tremendous, falling like watery pillars, with densely packed droplets. When you see a rainfall like this, you know it is not going to stop anytime soon, that it has great lasting power. In short order, the water in ditches overflows. All the drainage ditches in the modern lanes fed rear courtyards, like resonators. The

Q

272

Q

FU PING

ditches produced the loudest music. Reinforced-concrete covers began to move and shudder, turning the courtyards into small ponds, and soon after that, an inch of water would cover the kitchen floors. Longtangs in front and in the back became rivers of water. This was a force of water that could hardly be imagined, a virtual cloud of rainwater that enveloped the city. Meals became a problem. Carts loaded with produce slogged their way to market from the countryside, their wheels partly swamped by water on the roadways. Aphids poked holes in Chinese cabbage; eggplants, loofahs, cucumbers, sword beans, tomatoes all looked different. They shrank or turned yellow or were infested with insects. Business boomed at shops selling prepared or preserved foods. Canned food sales increased. This was not normal, more like wartime. People bought large quantities of bread and pastries, to the delight of children, who preferred the abnormal, the greater the better. In fact, however, life proceeded in normal fashion. In factory workshops, workers stood in the water to operate their lathes and planers. Electricians were busy examining, repairing, and protecting electric circuits to prevent short circuits. Work went on at government offices, as usual. Some bus routes stopped running, but most continued normal operation, conveying people here and there. The schools were not in session yet, but the holiday had ended for school workers, who had to prepare for the new school year and new students. Shops were open for business; the clerks did business standing in water if the place was flooded. Rice shops were busy selling rice to flocking customers. As long as there was rice in the pantry, floods were nothing to be afraid of. People lined up in front of rice shops, pant cuffs rolled up, umbrellas

Q

273

Q

FU PING

in hand. Even cinemas stayed open for the usual crowds of moviegoers. Lines formed early as waterlogged patrons waited eagerly for the current showing to end. There were even weddings, with brides and grooms having their wedding pictures taken in photography studios; the top halves of the couple were neat and proper, the bottom halves a real muddle, as if they were wading in a river to catch fish. In a word, the floods had little effect on the people’s lives, as they carried on as usual, with a bit of added excitement. Transportation on the Huangpu River, on the other hand, was affected. With frightfully high water levels, boats had to be careful not to get stuck under bridges, which was known as a “bridge block.” It was not infrequent, and tugboats were sent out to tow the stuck boats away. But the Huangpu looked good over a few days, grand and magnificent with a vastly wider channel. The water level was barely below the levee. Numerous boats tied up along the shore, giving the impression of a major harbor. Flocks of water birds flew over from Wusongkou Wharf, creating a tragic air in the misty sky and raising the city to a higher level from prosaic urban life. Black metal railings on the Waibaidu Bridge were an expression of the aesthetic values of early industrial society; the obvious function and symmetry of the design fitted the Huangpu scenery perfectly. The downpour created a watery mist that softened the harsh appearance of the metal railings, making them less intimidating. Rows of stone structures from the colonial period formed a screen around the curving riverbank, giving this modern city on the Yangtze Delta a majestic air, especially the domed spires that formed a classic European vista in front of rain clouds that refused to disperse.

Q

274

Q

FU PING

People lined the riverbank to observe the floodwaters. Ferries tooted their horns, the sound traveling far and seeming to make the river wider. Not much water accumulated in this part of town, thanks to the early construction of a drainage system that created a basis for the city’s future development. Shrubbery flanked the streets along the river, unlike plane trees along streets elsewhere, whose leaves felled by the rain spread across the asphalt. The shrubs were shorter, lessening their losses, and in fact, washed clean and green by the rain, were quite eye-catching. Private houses with rooftop sundecks filled the space behind the towering stone buildings. Pigeons in rooftop coops huddled together, cooing loudly, feathers stuck to their bodies. They were lucky the coops were relatively dry, although rats driven out of sewers by the rain were drawn to the pigeon food, running amok between the double floors in old buildings. They were dangerous enemies. The pigeon keepers were vigilant, driving away the rats with their approaching footsteps. Petals, leaves, and stems from flowers in broken clay planters plastered the wet flooring. At night, an old man in a rubber raincoat walked the crisscrossing lanes ringing his bell and shouting, Close doors and windows tight, be careful with candles, finishing with, Take potted plants inside to keep them safe. The days were significantly shorter when it rained, and night fell early. When people came home from work, they dried their feet, ate dinner, and went straight to bed. The nights were cold once rain drove away the muggy heat, and terry cloth blankets simply were inadequate. Thin comforters were needed. Smooth grass mats spread atop the bed had a cooling effect. The rain turned fine at night,

Q

275

Q

FU PING

producing a gentle sound just made for sleeping. Tomcats settled in for the night. The fine rain resulted in less water on the ground, and the children who had rowed through flooded streets during the day were now fast asleep. Those with tapeworms ground their teeth. Wet clothing hanging in the room slowly dried in the heated air they breathed. Water ran down empty bamboo poles outside and dripped to the ground. People with bamboo brooms swept up the water, which gave the impression that the rain had stopped and the sun was out. But the sweepers were wearing raincoats and galoshes. Fine rain fell from the sky, and another rainy day began. The city’s buildings changed color, turning darker. Red bricks, the gravel facing of walls, black tiles, and gray rooftops all had a leaden appearance. But their effect was not gloomy; the colors had increased fullness and sharper detail. A dynamic, lively rhythm accompanied the falling rain. Rubber overshoes were virtually useless, and people went out on the streets wearing wooden clogs, the noisy heels sending water flying with each step. That too was lively. Pedicab business boomed. The drivers raised their tung-oil-protected canopies, lowered curtains in front of the passenger seats, and tied them down to make sure no water leaked into the interior. As for the drivers, they wore cone bamboo hats and palm-bark rain cloaks, looking like oldtime fishermen. But that worked beautifully, for it kept out the rain and the drivers could still see clearly and move freely. They rolled their pant cuffs up to their knees and wore Yuanbao rubber overshoes as they stomped on the pedals. An old fisherman riding along city streets presented a strange, but pleasant sight. Over those days, shops, trolleys, and cinemas were permeated

Q

276

Q

FU PING

with the acidic smell of waxy rainwear that prickled the lining of noses and choked throats. It was not an altogether unpleasant smell, and some people actually liked it. But it was still an unusual odor. The rancid smell of preservatives in shops where preserved meat was sold spread thickly, and the meat turned oily, with a yellow sheen. Would anyone buy it? Yes. Vegetables were in short supply and coal briquettes were damp, but you could always steam a piece of salted pork or cured drumstick. And that made a good meal. That was why people’s hair had an oily, rancid smell. Though it wasn’t pleasant, it carried the scent of abundance. In the small longtangs, people who used braziers were often seen picking up red-hot coals and acting as if they wanted to tuck them under their shirt, grab an umbrella, and speed home with them, to place in their own cold braziers, much the way primitive man got tinder to light a fire. Others picked up burning boughs. Business for suppliers of boiled water was much better than usual. If home stoves were not working, this was the place for water; you could also bring a pot of partly cooked rice and set it on the stove to finish cooking. Coal inside the stove burned hot, while more coal around the stove kept it from going cold. The proprietor and his family worked hard: he tended the fire, his wife watched over the coal, the elder son poured water, the second son took the water chits, and for those who would not hand over chits, sons three and four raised a stink. Steam and noise constantly rose heavenward. Strange though it sounds, even on rainy days fire engines raced up and down, bells clanging, but to deal with water, not fire. When a water pump was blocked, fire hoses were put to work. When a house collapsed, firemen came to the rescue.

Q

277

Q

FU PING

Plenty of shantytown lean-tos either fell apart or were about to; water on the floor or leaks in the roof counted for little. Families stacked their beds and tables. They put their stools on top of tables, then put their trunks on top of chairs. Food, coal, and kindling went on top of the trunks. One bed was stacked atop another, over which a sheet of oilcloth was draped and tied to protect against the rain. The lanes were like Venetian canals. A cart was placed in spots where the water was particularly deep, to help people cross. Sometimes planks were used, like a bridge across a larger expanse of deep water. Oilcloth was in great demand. If you could get your hands on a sheet or two, you could sit back, relax, and sleep till dawn with no worries. If people needed help, you could lend them a sheet. Then there were the highly welcomed weather forecasts. Someone’s toothless old granddad was carried off the bed by his son on his back at dusk to a rain-soaked spot, where he faced south for a moment, and then faced north, before opening his shriveled mouth and uttering his words of wisdom: When the sky turns yellow, the rains will come. Tomorrow will be another rainy day. His words carried far, faster than a phone call. Grown-ups and children alike parroted the words: When the sky turns yellow, the rains will come. Train whistles seemed far away in the rain, encased in a watery membrane, moving elegantly through the rain. The strong vibrations seemed to soften a bit, were springier and much less violent. Children were out at the crack of dawn running down lanes to the Suzhou River to look at the water. These children did not talk of rowing through floods. Having grown up on the banks of the river, they had seen more of the world of water.

Q

278

Q

FU PING

The Suzhou was now a major river. The children ran barefoot along the bank, past the Hengfu Road Bridge, the Tianmu Road Bridge, the Jiangnan Road Bridge, and the Wuning Road Bridge. When they had no choice but to come down to the bank for a moment and skirt below bridge pilings, their bare feet slapped noisily against the concrete base. They rounded the bridges and once again faced the river. The water was so wonderfully clear they could see moss in the shallows. Boats plied the river, some belonging to their own families. They jumped and shouted, but the sound of diesel engines muffled their voices. After the boats passed, the children were running again, their barefoot figures reflected upside down on the surface of the water, fragmented by raindrops that created ripples. They finally stopped running, caught their breath, and then said, Let’s go home! So they turned and ran in the opposite direction, drenched by the falling rain, but that’s the way it was, and they did not care. The sky did not darken, despite the rain, and actually turned extraordinarily clear. Sunbeams fell on the children, whose shouts carried in all directions. One morning, four children were walking down a shantytown lane under the Zhabei Viaduct. The two older children were carrying an oar each over their shoulders, one of the younger ones was carrying a basket, and the youngest, a girl, who was empty-handed, nearly had to run to stay with the others, her short legs churning to keep up. The eldest kept turning back to wait for her. People up and down the twisting lane asked them where they were going. We’re going to bring our elder sister back, was their answer. Turning first left, and then right, they emerged from the lane, walked past factories and

Q

279

Q

FU PING

warehouses, down another lane and into another shantytown. This was obviously lower ground, with deeper pools and water in houses. They made their way through a narrow lane, past the house with the wall sign preserv ed meats, which was now disfigured by the rain, all the inked strokes dripping toward the ground. The gate was locked; the Hunanese owner had probably been flooded out and moved in with relatives. The children were in shorts; the youngest had on an adult’s vest that hung down off her shoulders and covered her bottom. This was not one of their old haunts, but it wasn’t completely alien to them. See, they did not take the wrong lane at the fork, but came straight to the gate in front of the small house. A new lean-to had been added to the larger one by the wall. Everything had been piled up inside, one bed on top of the other. Mother and son were sitting on the lower bed. She was at the head of the bed, her legs dangling over the side as she shelled soybeans. Her son was leaning up against one-half of a table fiddling with a radio. Duck bones simmered in a pot on a coal stove on the other half of the table. Fu Ping was sitting on the upper bed, her head touching the top. A scrub board on her lap served as a portable table for her to glue boxes. She told the children to hop up onto her bed the moment she saw them. There wasn’t space for all of them, so the youngest climbed up with her hands on the bed frame. After checking on how everyone was doing, she asked if school had started, and whether or not Aunt and Uncle were out on their scow. Once the casual talk was over, the eldest child told her their reason for coming. Their parents had sent them to help Fu Ping and her family move. The transport brigade had opened the cinema to put up

Q

280

Q

FU PING

workers whose houses had collapsed. Worried that Fu Ping’s lean-to wasn’t safe, Aunt and Uncle had gotten a spot and set up beds and bedding for them there. They were to come right over and not wait until the structure collapsed. The mother declined the offer at first, but Fu Ping said, All right, let’s move. She lifted the youngest down to stand in the water, wrapped the raw materials and finished boxes in a large sheet of oilpaper, and then tied it up so no water could get in. She handed it to the eldest child and got down off the bed. Standing on the table, she took changes of clothes for all three of them out of the pile of trunks, rolled them into a bundle, and told the young man to carry it on his back. She gathered up the rice, briquettes, and food to carry herself. The mother would take the stove and wok. After one last look around the room, Fu Ping shut the window and locked the door. After the mother’s room was locked and the window was shut, they were on their way. A boat the children had borrowed was tied up close by, but they had to walk down several streets to get there. Fortunately, there were enough of them that no one had to carry a big load. The young man walked with difficulty, but with his crutches, and managed to keep up, carrying two bundles on his back, one with clothing, the other with his treasured tools. Getting wet did not bother them. The sky was wet, the ground was wet, and so were their clothes. They talked and laughed as they walked. When someone they met on the way stopped to watch this strange procession, they smiled at the passerby until he was so embarrassed he looked away and walked off. Once they were finally on the boat, a sampan, and seated, they left the bank. The children complained that they were moving too slowly after

Q

281

Q

FU PING

a few moments, so three of them jumped into the water and began pushing, one behind and one on either side. The little girl sat on the mother’s lap eating a steamed bun she’d taken out of a basket. The stove was still burning, filling the air with the smell of cooking duck. Fu Ping was rowing until she tossed down the oar and leaned over the side to throw up. But it didn’t come. Only the mother saw this, and she smiled to herself. The young man was watching the vast floodwaters over the Suzhou River, cold and clear, the boat riding almost as high as the banks. Warehouses and people’s houses along the bank passed by like an unfolding watercolored scroll. The sky was the same color, a mix of blue and green. People moving along looked thin, as if made of silk. The children pushing the boat were having a great time, floating on the water and kicking with both feet. The mother asked the girl in her lap, Do you know what they are? They are lotus boys delivering a baby from Guanyin Bodhisattva. Fu Ping blushed, lowered her head, and kept it there.

Q

282

Q

WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

LITERATURE David Der-wei Wang, Editor Ye Zhaoyan, Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, translated by Michael Berry (2003) Oda Makoto, The Breaking Jewel, translated by Donald Keene (2003) Han Shaogong, A Dictionary of Maqiao, translated by Julia Lovell (2003) Takahashi Takako, Lonely Woman, translated by Maryellen Toman Mori (2004) Chen Ran, A Private Life, translated by John Howard-Gibbon (2004) Eileen Chang, Written on Water, translated by Andrew F. Jones (2004) Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976, edited by Amy D. Dooling (2005) Han Bangqing, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, first translated by Eileen Chang, revised and edited by Eva Hung (2005) Loud Sparrows: Contemporary Chinese Short-Shorts, translated and edited by Aili Mu, Julie Chiu, and Howard Goldblatt (2006) Hiratsuka RaichĎ, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun, translated by Teruko Craig (2006) Zhu Wen, I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell (2007) Kim Sow̡l, Azaleas: A Book of Poems, translated by David McCann (2007) Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, translated by Michael Berry with Susan Chan Egan (2008) Ch’oe Yun, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch’oe Yun, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2008) Inoue Yasushi, The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan, translated by Joshua A. Fogel (2009) Anonymous, Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou, translated by Patrick Hanan (2009) Cao Naiqian, There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night, translated by John Balcom (2009) Park Wan-suh, Who Ate Up All the Shinga? An Autobiographical Novel, translated by Yu Young-nan and Stephen J. Epstein (2009) Yi T’aejun, Eastern Sentiments, translated by Janet Poole (2009) Hwang Sunw̡n, Lost Souls: Stories, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2009) Kim S̡k-p̡m, The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost, translated by Cindi Textor (2010)

The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, edited by Xiaomei Chen (2011) Qian Zhongshu, Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays, edited by Christopher G. Rea, translated by Dennis T. Hu, Nathan K. Mao, Yiran Mao, Christopher G. Rea, and Philip F. Williams (2011) Dung Kai-cheung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, translated by Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall (2012) O Ch̡ngh̿i, River of Fire and Other Stories, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2012) EndĎ Shĝsaku, Kiku’s Prayer: A Novel, translated by Van Gessel (2013) Li Rui, Trees Without Wind: A Novel, translated by John Balcom (2013) Abe KĎbĎ, The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe KĎbĎ, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Richard F. Calichman (2013) Zhu Wen, The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan: More Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell (2013) The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, Abridged Edition, edited by Xiaomei Chen (2013) Natsume SĎseki, Light and Dark, translated by John Nathan (2013) Seirai Yĝichi, Ground Zero, Nagasaki: Stories, translated by Paul Warham (2015) Hideo Furukawa, Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima, translated by Doug Slaymaker with Akiko Takenaka (2016) Abe KĎbĎ, Beasts Head for Home: A Novel, translated by Richard F. Calichman (2017) Yi Mun-y̡l, Meeting with My Brother: A Novella, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl with Yoosup Chang (2017) Ch’ae Manshik, Sunset: A Ch’ae Manshik Reader, edited and translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2017) Tanizaki Jun’ichirĎ, In Black and White: A Novel, translated by Phyllis I. Lyons (2018) Yi T’aejun, Dust and Other Stories, translated by Janet Poole (2018) Tsering Döndrup, The Handsome Monk and Other Stories, translated by Christopher Peacock (2019) Kimura Yĝsuke, Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa’s Deluge: Two Novellas of Japan’s 3/11 Disaster, translated by Doug Slaymaker (2019)

HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE Carol Gluck, Editor Takeuchi Yoshimi, What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, edited and translated, with an introduction, by Richard F. Calichman (2005) Contemporary Japanese Thought, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman (2005) Overcoming Modernity, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman (2008)

Natsume SĎseki, Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings, edited and translated by Michael Bourdaghs, Atsuko Ueda, and Joseph A. Murphy (2009) Kojin Karatani, History and Repetition, edited by Seiji M. Lippit (2012) The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, edited by Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko (2013) Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People, translated by Ethan Mark (2015)