“I don’t have it even if she did.”
“That’s not the point. Everyone knows women won’t spend their money on books. Men will buy candy, dress material, or cosmetics to give to a woman, but in the case of books, they’ll lend them to her, never buy them as presents. And women don’t want them to either. Why? Once borrowed, it has to be returned. It’s borrowed once, then returned once. One book can be an excuse for the two of them to meet twice, and it leaves no trace behind. That’s the first step toward romance a girl and a boy have to take. Once the book is lent, complications follow.”
Smiling, Hung-chien said, “You’re a real terror! But what you say about Miss Sun is complete rubbish.”
Smiling smugly at the cabin ceiling, Hsin-mei said, “Not necessarily. OK, enough. Don’t talk any more. I want to sleep.”
Hung-chien knew that sleep, like Miss T’ang, would evade him. Thinking of the long and troublesome night ahead, he felt the dread of the lone traveler crossing an open plain in the depth of night. He tried to find something to say to Hsin-mei, but Hsin-mei ignored him. Left without aid or resistance, he let the pain of his affliction nibble and gnaw away at his heart.
The next morning the ship did not enter the harbor. Instead, shortly before noon, the steamship company dispatched two launches to the ship to take the passengers ashore. The first-and second-class and some of the third-class passengers boarded the first launch, whose deck was five or six feet lower than the deck of the third-class cabins, so the passengers had to jump down. Every slight surge of the water would separate the launch and the ship by more than a foot; the space seemed like an open mouth waiting for someone to fall in. The passengers cursed the company in unison, but everyone went ahead and jumped regardless of the peril. Surprisingly, no mishaps occurred. Quite a few must have hurt their stomachs in the jump, as they all massaged their stomachs, frowning and wordless. Hung-chien was worried lest he get appendicitis. With so many people jammed onto the little launch, in the air were the cries of “The boat’s tilting. A few people on the left move over to the right.” “No! Too many on the right! You want to stay alive?” The yelling of each remark rolled over people’s tongues like a snowball, getting bigger and clumsier as it went and passing from one end of the boat to the other.
Meanwhile someone told Hung-chien that it would be difficult to find a hotel on shore and that nine out of ten of the rooms would be filled. Hsin-mei said since there were several hundred passengers arriving with Li and Ku on the second launch, and if they waited for everyone to get ashore before looking for a hotel, they’d probably spend the night outdoors. It was decided that when the launch docked, Hsin-mei and Miss Sun would take the luggage and go find a hotel; Hung-chien would wait for Li and Ku on the dock, and when Hsin-mei had found a hotel, he would come and get them. As soon as Hsin-mei left, suddenly the air raid sirens sounded. Hung-chien grew apprehensive, thinking how misfortune always came in pairs. With the bad luck he’d been having, there was no assurance he wouldn’t be killed by a bomb. He was even more worried about Li and Ku aboard the ship. Then it occurred to him that since the ship was the property of the Italians, allies of the Japanese, it wouldn’t be bombed. It was, however, more important for him to run for his own life, but he noticed that no one else on the dock was running, so he stayed back. Fortunately the emergency alarm wasn’t set off. After an hour or so, the air raid watch was over and Hsin-mei came hurrying up. Shortly afterwards, the second launch approached the dock in pitch blackness amidst the buzzing of voices. Hung-chien caught sight of Li’s huge metal trunk, which was set off against the small, narrow prow of the launch; the trunk was like a large nose or enormous mouth on a small face, giving the startling impression of the part being larger than the whole, as if violating the rules of geometry. That such a huge trunk could have been transported off the larger ship was even more of a miracle of physics. Without his dark glasses on his face, Li’s large, white eyes looked like two shelled hard-boiled eggs. Hsin-mei hurriedly asked him where his glasses were. Li pulled them from his pocket and put them on, explaining that he had put them away so they wouldn’t slip from his nose and get broken while they were jumping onto the launch.
Li and Ku had not made the first launch because of their luggage, but Li implied by his tone that the terror he and Ku had just experienced on the ship from the air raid was on account of Hsin-mei and the others. If he had not given the first-class tickets to them, he too would have had the priority to board the launch and would not have been caught between fire and water or suffered a “shock to the nerves.” Hsin-mei and Hung-chien’s skills at pretense and flattery literally went bankrupt at this point, and they really could find no way to express their gratitude. Ku Er-chien’s enthusiasm, however, was undimmed.
“What a lucky day!” Ku cried. “We really escaped from the very jaws of death! I never thought we’d see you two again. I think everyone on the ship today was depending on Mr. Li’s good fortune—Mr. Li, you were on the boat so the airplanes didn’t pay us a visit. And that’s not just nonsense. I believe in fate. As Tseng Kuo-fang1 once said, ‘Believe not in heaven but in luck.’”
At first Li seemed like a cold-blooded animal in hibernation, but Ku’s praise in front of everyone sent the warmth of spring into his body, and he wriggled with the signs of life. With a smile unexpectedly gracing his features, he said, “People engaged in great enterprises all believe in fate. Before I left home this time, a friend read my fortune. He said my luck was now changing. ‘Along the way bad luck will turn to good.’”
Ku clapped his hands and said, “Hasn’t it, though? I was quite right.”
Hung-chien could not help remarking, “I had my fortune told, too. My luck has been terrible this year. Aren’t you all afraid of getting involved in my bad luck?”
Ku’s head shook like a child’s hand rattle as he replied, “Nonsense! Nonsense! Ai! We’ve been so lucky today. People living in Shanghai go around in a dream world. How could they know there are such dangers on the road? One shouldn’t miss coming to the interior. We should find a restaurant this evening and celebrate a little. It is my treat.”
They rested awhile at the inn and then went out to eat. After a few glasses of wine, Li Mei-t’ing had fully revived. Whereas before he had been but an insect of early spring, now he was an insect of Dragon Boat Festival time. He plied Miss Sun with questions and made all sorts of silly comments.
Hsin-mei and Hung-chien shared a room. After returning to the inn, they lay on their beds and chatted. Hung-chien asked Hsin-mei if he had noticed Li’s unseemly behavior toward Miss Sun.
Hsin-mei replied, “I could tell long ago he is a lecher. When he came ashore without his dark glasses on, I took a good look at his eyes, which have more white than black—the sign of debauchery. I often heard my father say that when I was little.”
Hung-chien said, “I’d rather he be lewd. At least that makes him somewhat human. Otherwise there’s really nothing human about him.”
Just as he was speaking they suddenly heard a woman’s hoarse voice in Li and Ku’s room next door. The walls of most Chinese inns are very thin, and though one’s body may be in one room, it seems as though one’s ears are staying next door. As usual, the inn had blind, opium-smoking women soliciting business from room to room and inviting guests to pick numbers from Shaohsing operas2 for them to sing. While Li was bargaining with them, Ku drummed on the wall and invited Hsin-mei and Hung-chien to come over and listen. Hsin-mei said he could hear the music through the wall just as well and wouldn’t go over.
Ku said with a laugh, “You’re taking advantage of us. You have to pay as well. Ha, ha! Gentlemen, that’s a joke.”
Hsin-mei and Hung-chien both pouted their lips and made wry faces without replying. Hung-chien had not slept well the night before and was very tired. Despite the intermingling sounds of stringed instruments and singing in the adjoining room, sleep painted everything pitch black. From the moment his head touched the pillow he slept until dawn, feeling t
hat all the weariness curled up within his body had been pressed flat by sleep, the way wrinkles and creases in clothes are pressed out with an iron. It occurred to him that if he wanted to be a true jilted lover who gave up food and lost sleep, it really wouldn’t be easy. The pain of the day before yesterday was so fierce it seemed to have uprooted the source of his injured feelings. All the pain had been eradicated, and he was left too numb and weakened to suffer any more for T’ang Hsiao-fu.
From his bed Hsin-mei yawned and exclaimed, “What a living hell! After the Shaohsing opera was over, you started snoring your head off! It’s sheer luck the roof wasn’t blown off by your nose. I didn’t get to sleep until just before dawn.”
Hung-chien, who had always assumed himself a very quiet sleeper, said in embarrassment, “Really? I don’t believe it. I’ve never snored before. Maybe the person next to us was snoring, and you thought it was I. You know how thin these walls are.”
“You dirty rat!” said Hsin-mei angrily. “Why don’t you just say I snored and blamed you for it? I just wish I could have gotten a recording of your snoring.”
If a recording really had been made, it would have been a thunderous racket, like the roaring of waves or the gobbling and gulping of wolves or tigers, accompanied by a thin, sharp thread of sound in the middle that rose and fell abruptly without stop. Sometimes the thread rose higher and higher, getting thinner and thinner like a kite-string about to snap. Then for some reason it would descend and stabilize as if reaching a peak. Hsin-mei was so keyed up that his nerves climbed and fell with it. Now as he thought back on it, he still wished he could twist off Hung-chien’s nose as a warning for him to be careful next time.
“All right,” said Hung-chien. “Don’t keep trying to get back at me. I was tired yesterday. But if you’re going to be so unforgiving, heaven will punish you with a wife who snores like thunder. She’ll blow a bugle by your pillow every night.”
“To tell you the truth,” said Hsin-mei, laughing, “last night when I heard you snoring away, I was thinking that I should add another item to the list of standards for choosing a mate I was telling you on the ship: ‘Must not snore while sleeping.’”
Hung-chien also laughed. “But to figure out a way to test it out before marriage—”
“Don’t say it,” said Hsin-mei. ‘I think you can tell by a person’s face whether or not he snores.”
“Oh, of course,” said Hung-chien. “If you marry a woman with a rotten nose there won’t be any question about it.”
Hsin-mei jumped up from his bed and tried to pinch Hung-chien’s nose.
They went from Ningpo to Hsikou the next day, boarding a boat and then riding in rickshaws. On the boat, it began to drizzle, sometimes one or two drops at a time, drops which didn’t seem to be coming from the patch of sky above their heads. Then, when one took a closer look, there was no more. A while later the raindrops became denser, but it still wasn’t like rain, just several droplets of water making mischief in midair, rolling and jumping about until tired, then falling to the ground at the right time. Hung-chien and his colleagues, huddling together at the prow of the boat keeping watch on the luggage, hurriedly took out their raincoats. All except Li, who said the rain wasn’t heavy and that it wasn’t worth opening his trunk to get out his raincoat.
The rain grew bolder as it fell, the drops linking together to form a thread. The surface of the river seemed to have broken out with smallpox, as countless pockmarked eddies continuously came and went. When the rain became denser, it seemed as though hair were growing from the smooth, glossy surface of the water. Li prized his new raincoat so much he had been reluctant to wear it during the trip; then he bewailed his own stupidity, saying he shouldn’t have put it away in the bottom of the trunk. If he opened the trunk now, all his clothes would get wet. The thoughtful Miss Sun said she had a rain hat and lent him the small green silk parasol she was holding. It was actually a parasol used to shield herself from the sun. Worried that the spokes might get broken if it were packed in her suitcase, she always carried it with her.
After they had gone ashore, Li went into a teahouse and collapsed the parasol. Everyone gave a start, then burst out laughing. The rain had wet the green silk and caused the colors to run; Li’s face also turned from yellow to green, and the green stains on the front of his white shirt looked like a ruined water color painting. Miss Sun blushed and hastily apologized. Li said reluctantly that it didn’t matter; Ku called the waiter to get water for Li to wash his face. While Hsin-mei was bargaining with the head rickshaw boy, Hung-chien took care of the parasol for Miss Sun, instructing the waiter to squeeze out the water and set it in front of the stove to dry. Looking up at the gray sky, Li remarked that the rain had stopped, so there was no more need to carry an umbrella.
After having some refreshments, they all got into the rickshaws. The waiter handed Miss Sun the parasol, which was now steaming hot as well as dripping wet. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon. They urged the rickshaw boys to hurry. Less than half an hour later, they came to a steep, rocky incline. Encumbered by the heavy load and trying to make his way on the slippery road, the rickshaw boy pulling Li’s huge metal trunk tripped on his way down the slope and fell, overturning the rickshaw. In alarm, Li jumped from his rickshaw screaming, “You bashed the trunk!” and calling the puller a worthless scamp. The rickshaw boy pointed to the blood dripping from his knee, and asked Li to take a look. Li then said no more. After some difficulty, they paid off this rickshaw puller and found another rickshaw. When they reached a long bridge fastened with rattan strips, everyone got out and walked. Without any railing, both sides of the bridge caved downward in the shape of a long, thin saddle.
Hsin-mei was the first to step onto the bridge, but after two steps, he retreated, saying his legs had gone limp. The rickshaw boys laughed at him and urged him on.
Ku said, “Let me go and show you how it’s done,” and with that he strode nonchalantly across; he then stood on the bridge’s buttress and called to the others to come over.
Li mustered his courage, took off his glasses, and cautiously inched his way across. When he’d reached the other side, he called, “Mr. Chao, come on over. Don’t be afraid. Miss Sun, would you like me to come back and help you across?”
Ever since that night on the boat, Hsin-mei had grown very cool toward Miss Sun. Now he was afraid there was no shirking his duty as her “uncle” to give help to those in danger and distress. Why not give this chivalrous job to Hung-chien? And so with his heart in his mouth, he made his way across.
Realizing Hsin-mei’s intention, Hung-chien silently cursed his own cowardice, afraid he’d only make a mess out of it if he tried to help her. All he could do was smile ruefully at Miss Sun and say, “That leaves just us two cowards.”
“Mr. Fang, are you scared?” asked Miss Sun. “I am not. Would you like me to go in front? If you follow me, you won’t have to look at the void below and you won’t have the feeling that the bridge is endless. This way you would have more confidence.”
Hung-chien was struck with admiration. Women are strange creatures, he thought. When they want to be considerate, they really can go all the way; they can even make the pores of your skin feel their tenderness. As he followed her onto the bridge, the smooth surface gave way slightly under his feet, then bounced back again. The inky green color of the water far below showed through the countless cracks in the rattan. He fixed his eyes on the back hem of Miss Sun’s Chinese dress [ch’i-p’ao] and didn’t dare glance to either side. Fortunately, the bridge soon came to an end. Miss Sun turned and smiled triumphantly. Hung-chien hopped down from the bridge’s buttress, yelling, “I’ve already been condemned to walk the Bridge of No Return without even entering hell! Are there any more bridges like this ahead?”
Ku was about to say, “You people who’ve been abroad aren’t used to Chinese roads,” when Li asked Hung-chien in a stage whisper if he’d ever read Literary Games, in which there was a marvelous eight-legged essay3 en
titled “Helping the young maid across the bridge.”
Hsin-mei smiled and said, “Miss Sun, were you leading him from the front or was he looking after you from behind?”
It suddenly occurred to Hung-chien that other people hadn’t necessarily caught on to what a useless coward he was, since following behind Miss Sun could be interpreted in two different ways. He quickly said, “Miss Sun was leading me across the bridge.” Miss Sun knew this to be true, while to the others it just sounded as though he was being polite. His vanity had led him to cover up the facts with a true statement. Miss Sun, who had apparently caught on to his intention, just smiled and said nothing.
The sky gradually darkened at the approach of a storm. The rickshaw pullers quickened their pace, saying the weather was about to get worse. The sky seemed to have overheard their remark and responded with a thunderous roar from the air as though several dozen brass drums were rolling on the floor of the heavens. Ever since morning the air had been oppressive, as though it were holding its breath. Suddenly the sky sprang an opening at some point, and the wind outside came rushing in gusts. The yellowing vegetation awoke momentarily from its slumbers, sighing gently and rustling softly. The earth seemed like a steam cooker when the lid is lifted. The rain followed, fresh and joyful, not like the afternoon rain, which had seemed like sweat oozing from the hot, stuffy sky. The rain came down harder and harder, as though the drops were scrambling to get to the ground first, too impatient to line up in rows. Pushing and shoving, they united in solid blocks of cold water, which splashed down in wild confusion. The rickshaw boys would run a few steps, then mop the water from their faces with their soaking sleeves. The heat generated by their running did not equal the force of the rain. Shivering, they said to one another that they’d have to get a good drink of warm wine later and asked the passengers to lift themselves up, so the pullers could get at their dry clothes underneath the seats. The passengers curled up in balls, wishing they had some extra clothes handy to put on. Li borrowed Miss Sun’s parasol again.
Fortress Besieged Page 22