It had been dusk when they entered the restaurant, still an exploratory shade of night. When they left the restaurant, it had already settled properly into night. But it was a pleasant, semitropical summer night. Night had fallen openly and plainly with no deep, unfathomable recesses, as if to provide the director of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a model backdrop.
Looking at the sky, Hsin-mei said, “What beautiful weather! I wonder if there are any air raids in Chungking this evening. My mother will be too frightened to go there. I’m going home to turn on the radio and listen to the news.”
Hung-chien felt very full. He couldn’t speak Cantonese and was afraid of getting in an argument with a rickshaw boy, so he strolled leisurely back to the hotel by himself. His talk with Hsin-mei had set him thinking. He realized that people should be successful. Successful people always had interesting things to talk about, like Hsin-mei, for example. All year he had been full of complaints, which could be set off at the slightest aggravation. Since he had never liked hearing other people complain, he assumed other people didn’t care to hear him complain either. He was therefore careful to control himself; so like a dog with a muzzle, he could never speak out freely. According to Hsin-mei the war would only deteriorate and drag out. Now that he had a family to worry about, if Hsin-mei had really guessed right about Jou-chia’s illness—he felt so ashamed and alarmed—he broke out in a light sweat all over.
He started to think about something else: Hsin-mei liked that girl very much. One could tell that at a glance. But it didn’t seem to be a very passionate affair. Otherwise, Hsin-mei wouldn’t have talked about her in such a humorous vein. Maybe the way Hsin-mei felt about his girl friend was just the way he himself felt about Jou-chia. Apparently marriage didn’t require a very great love. Not detesting each other was already foundation enough for marriage. Was it all because there was too great an age gap between the man and the woman? But what about his feelings for T’ang Hsiao-fu last year. Maybe all his feelings had been exhausted on her and could no longer take control of him. That sort of feeling did seem rather frightening now when he thought back on it. It threw him into such a state that he lost all desire to eat or sleep, and it wouldn’t spare him for a moment. It was just crazy, really too much! But then the sickness did have its moments. Sometimes he’d just as soon get it again. He heaved a sigh and thought how much he felt like an old man. Only a person with a healthy state of mind could get that sort of disease, just as only a big fat man could get congestion of the brain and suffer a stroke. An anemic, undernourished, thin individual never gets it. If he were ten or fifteen years older and reached the moment of “twilight brightness,” maybe he could fall foolishly and madly in love. An old man’s love was said to be like an old house set ablaze. Once it started burning, there was no saving it. In the dull state he was in now, his emotions did not constitute a burden on his mind, which was just as well. At least it was quite comfortable. Better to get the marriage procedures over with as quickly as possible. . . .
Hsin-mei had said Jou-chia had “gone to all kinds of trouble,” and since she had obliged him by showing him her respect, he ought to feel more compassionate toward her. Hung-chien then realized he’d left her all alone for too long and hurried back to the hotel. On his way past a fruit store he stopped and bought some fresh lichee and dragon’s eyes.
There was no light in the room when Hung-chien pushed open the door, only a beam of light from the corridor shining into the room. He pulled the door closed. Not hearing a sound from Jou-chia, he assumed she was asleep and stepped softly, intending to place the fruit on the table, but he failed to watch out for the chair he had sat in earlier. It was off by itself a few feet from the table, not having been put back into place. He upset it with his foot, bruising the top of his foot and his knee. “Damn it,” he cursed. “Who didn’t put the chair back after sitting in it?” At the same time he was thinking, “Oh, hell, I woke her up.”
When Hung-chien left, loneliness was added to Jou-chia’s discomfort, and she was filled with resentment. After she waited and waited and he still hadn’t come, her resentment grew with interest at seemingly usurious rates, and she waited for his return just so she could settle accounts. When she heard him open the door, she spitefully refused to speak first. Then when he tipped over the chair, she nearly burst out laughing, but one laugh would have dissolved her anger. Fortunately, she had no trouble restraining herself. For a moment she could not decide which would be more righteously indignant: to say that all this time she had been anxiously waiting for him or that she had just fallen asleep only to have him wake her up.
When Hung-chien saw no sign of life after knocking over the chair, he lost his nerve and, afraid she had fainted, hurriedly switched on the light. When Jou-chia, who had been lying in darkness for over an hour, was suddenly confronted with the light, she couldn’t open her eyes. She raised her eyelids, then closed them, turned away from the light, and let out a long breath. Relieved, he then discovered that his silk shirt was soaked with sweat. As he took off his jacket, he said solicitously, “I’m sorry I woke you up, Did you sleep well? How do you feel?”
“I was just dozing off when all your racket woke me in a fright. You’re the one who sat in the chair, so what did you curse other people for?”
These remarks were made with her face to the wall. Hung-chien, who was then hanging his clothes up and did not hear her clearly, turned his head and asked, “What?”
She rolled over and said, “Ai! I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to raise my voice to speak to you. Why don’t you save me the strength?” But she did in fact raise her voice by one key—“You’re the one who moved the chair over there. As soon as Hsin-mei got here as though he were a messenger sent by the King of Hades,4 you became oblivious to everything else. Now you act recklessly and blame me.”
The edge in her voice made him apologize. “It’s my fault. I scraped some skin off my leg—” This sympathy-getting ploy produced no effect. “I was out for a long time. You really didn’t get any sleep? Have you eaten anything? These fresh lichee—”
“So you yourself know you were out for a long time, do you? In any case, when you’re eating, drinking, and enjoying yourself with a good friend, whether you stay out all night is up to you. I could die in the hotel all by myself without anyone noticing it.” She began to sob, turned her face away again, and lay down.
He hurriedly sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to turn her head back. “I’ve been gone too long. Please forgive me. Hey, don’t be angry. I didn’t go out until you told me to.”
She lifted off his hand and said, “Well, now I’m telling you not to touch me with your sweaty hand. You hear me? Huh, I told you to go out? Deep down, didn’t you want to go yourself? Could I have kept you here? There wouldn’t have been any point to it anyway. If you’d stayed here in the hotel, you’d certainly have found some excuse to get angry at me.”
He released his hand and sat down in the chair, fuming.
“So now aren’t we quarreling just the same! If you’d wanted me to stay at the hotel with you, why didn’t you honestly say so at the time? I’m not a tapeworm in your stomach. How do I know what you’re thinking?”
She turned her head around and whimpered, “If you really loved me, you’d know without my having to tell you. It’s not something that can be forced. If you can’t understand unless I tell you, then forget it! Even a stranger traveling with me wouldn’t have left me alone for such a long time if he saw I wasn’t feeling very good today. Humph, and you’re supposed to be the one who loves me!”
He snickered. “If a stranger were willing to do all that for you, he wouldn’t have been a stranger. He’d have been your sweetheart at least.”
“Don’t try to trip me up with words. What if it were a woman? I’d rather be with women. All you men are no good. You do nothing but coax us into letting you get what you want and don’t care about anything else.”
These last remark
s touched off Hung-chien’s private thoughts, and walking to the edge of the bed he said, “All right, don’t quarrel. Next time I won’t go out even if you beat me or pull me. I won’t stray an inch from your side. That should fix it.”
A slight smile appearing on her face, she said, “Don’t make it sound so pitiful. Your friend already says I hooked you. If I don’t let you go out with him anymore, heaven knows how bad a name I’ll get then. Let me tell you something. This is the first time I’ve ever been mad at you. From now on I’ll be more discreet and keep my mouth shut even if you stay out till the small hours of the morning. That way I won’t annoy you.”
“You’re too prejudiced against Hsin-mei. He means well and is very concerned about us. Have you calmed down now? I have something serious to discuss with you. Are you ready to listen?”
“Go ahead. Whether I listen or not is up to me. What’s so serious that you have to pull such a long face for?” She burst into laughter.
“Could it be you’re with child, and that’s what’s making you feel so uncomfortable?”
“What? Rubbish!” she snapped. “If I really did have a child, I wouldn’t forgive you. I wouldn’t forgive you. I don’t want a child.”
“Whether you forgive me or not is another matter. We’ve got to be prepared. Now Hsin-mei has urged me to get married as soon as possible.”
She sat up in a flash, her eyes bulging, and her face gone completely pale. “You mean you told Hsin-mei about us? You rat! You rat! You must have bragged to him—” She pounded furiously on the bed as she spoke.
In fright he retreated a few steps from the bed. “Jou-chia, don’t misunderstand. Let me explain—”
“I don’t want to hear your explanation. You’re bullying me. I’ll never be able to face people again. You bully!” She then fell back down, put her hands over her eyes, and heaved with sobs.
Not being made of raincoat material, his heart was soaked by her tears, and he hurriedly sat down by her head, pulled her hands away and wiped her tears for her, coaxing and entreating her. When she had tired herself out from crying, she finally stopped and let him explain. After hearing him through, she said hoarsely, “I don’t want him meddling in our affairs. After all, he’s not my guardian. Why do you have to take everything he says as an imperial edict? If you want to do what he says, then go get married by yourself. Don’t force me into it.”
“We needn’t talk about it any more,” he said. “I won’t do what he says. I’ll leave everything up to you. You haven’t eaten the lichee I bought for you yet. Want some? All right. Just lie there and don’t move. I’ll peel them for you.” He moved the tea table and wastepaper basket up close to the head of the bed as he spoke. “I didn’t take a rickshaw either way today. These were bought with the money I saved. Of course, I have enough money to buy fruit, but saving money to buy it makes it seem more like something I really gave you.”
Her tear-stained face softening into a smile, she said, “What’s the use of saving those few measly cents? If you exhaust yourself by walking, it’s not worth it. The few cents you saved from the rickshaw wouldn’t be enough to buy this much fruit anyway.”
“The price they asked for them wasn’t that much. I bargained and got them for even less,” he said.
“You’ve never been a sharp shopper. You’ll buy something expensive and still think you got it cheap. Have some yourself. Don’t give them all to me.”
“Since I’m so incompetent, I’m marrying a worthy wife like you!”
She shot him a glance and said, “A wife’s not as good as a friend.”
“Ai yo! There you go again. I might as well cut off my friends. Since you refuse to get married, I don’t even have a wife. It’s a true case of ‘Losing a wife, and having one’s friendship destroyed.’”5
“Don’t talk nonsense. It’s getting late. I didn’t get any sleep this afternoon, and then this evening I was waiting for you. Are my eyes swollen from crying? I won’t be fit for company tomorrow! Give me my mirror.”
Hung-chien noticed her eyelids were in fact puffed, but unwilling to tell her the truth, he merely said, “Just a tiny bit. It doesn’t matter. Get a good sleep and the swelling will disappear. Ai, you don’t have to get up to look in the mirror!”
“I still have to wash my face and rinse my mouth.”
When he returned to the room after taking a bath, she was already in bed. He asked, “Are you sleeping on the pillow you had just now? It’s sopping wet from your tears. It won’t be comfortable. Sleep on mine. Let me sleep on your damp one.”
Jou-chia said gratefully, “Silly boy, I don’t need a new pillow. I’ve already turned it over. I’ll sleep on the other side. Does your leg still hurt where you scraped it? I’ll get up and bandage it for you.”
He had soaked his leg in the soapy water while taking a bath, and now the injured spot stung painfully, but he said, “It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt at all. Relax and go to sleep.”
She said, “Hung-chien, what you said has really started me worrying. Do whatever you think best about the wedding.”
He had washed his hair and was just then combing it. When he heard this, he put his comb down, bent over, and kissed her on the forehead. “I knew you were the most reasonable and obedient of all people.”
She sighed happily, and turning her face away, fell into a deep sleep.
During the next week they were busy to the point of distraction. As soon as they were half finished with one thing, they remembered something else which had to be taken care of. Thanks to the help of Hsin-mei’s relatives, the civil wedding went off without a hitch. Besides this, there were letters to be written informing their families and asking for money, the wedding ring to be ordered, and new clothes to be made. When the registration procedures were completed, they went to a photo studio and had their picture taken in rented wedding clothes, invited guests out to celebrate, and moved to a better hotel. At the last minute they sent the pictures home, even though they were hard-pressed for money. Although it had saved a great deal of trouble, they had spent all the money they had with them. Fortunately they received a generous gift from Hsin-mei.
Because he had not yet found a job for the rest of the year and had no income during the summer, Hung-chien was reluctant to spend any money at first and was against having any new clothes made, or if they were, insisted they needn’t be very good. Jou-chia, on the other hand, said she wasn’t a vain, wasteful woman, but since marriage was the “major ceremony” of a lifetime and took place only once, it should be done properly. It was already so cheap and simple it couldn’t get any more so. If they had clothes made of good material, they could wear them next year. They were so rushed that tempers flared, and arguments followed.
Jou-chia said angrily, “I didn’t want to get married here in the first place. That was your idea. You want me to dress up that day like a beggar woman? I don’t have a single relative to turn to here, so I have to take care of everything myself. There’s no one around to talk things over with, let alone help me! I’m fed up with all the nuisance! There’re plenty of people at home to help out, and we can always find some way to make ends meet. Papa and Mama have put aside some money for me. You can write and ask your father for money, too. If we’d gotten married in Shanghai, you think your family wouldn’t have to spend a cent? We’ve already saved the family quite a bit of trouble by getting engaged the way we did.”
As a returned student, Hung-chien knew about the three P movement popular in the West (Poor Pop Pays): The son usually cries out for “independence and autonomy,” but when it comes time to spend money, he’d make the old man fork over. Hung-chien did as she said and wrote to his father. When Jou-chia saw the draft of his letter, she objected that the wording was not clear or sincere enough and wanted him to write it over, adding, “Why are you and your father so formal with each other, and why don’t you show the least bit of affection? I never write a draft when I write to my father!”
Like a writer being criticize
d for his first work, Hung-chien was so furious that he was all set to throw down his pen, burn the draft, and not write anything more.
“Don’t write him then,” she said. “I don’t need your family’s money; I can write to my own father.”
When she had finished the letter, she asked him if he cared to look at it. He took it from her and read it over. The tone was indeed affectionate. One could almost hear all the “Papa’s” and “Mama’s” written on the page. In the end he too sent a letter, this time without letting her read it.
Later when she found out she wasn’t pregnant, she complained to him that it was all because he had listened to Hsin-mei. This kind of slapdash wedding would only arouse the family’s suspicions. But the letters home had already been sent, and everything had been prepared. There could be no last-minute cancellations. During the few days following the wedding, they eagerly awaited their families’ replies. It was a far cry from the carefree days they had spent in Kweilin.
The money the Fangs and Suns wired arrived in succession. Hsin-mei reserved steamship tickets back to Shanghai for them. Mrs. Chao also arrived in Hong Kong and would shortly fly on to Chungking. Two days before the steamship was to sail, Hung-chien and his wife went up the Peak to see Hsin-mei: first, to pay their respects to Mrs. Chao; second, to give them a send-off; third, to say goodbye; and fourth, to reimburse him for the tickets and other expenses.
When they arrived at the home of the relatives with whom Hsin-mei was staying and sent in their card, Hsin-mei came running out with the doorkeeper behind him, saying, “Sister-in-law,6 how nice of you to come. I’m honored.”
Jou-chia protested with a smile, “Uncle Chao, you mustn’t call me that. I’m not worthy.”
Hsin-mei said, “Nothing of the sort. Hung-chien, you’ve chosen a bad time to come. Su Wen-wan is inside. She’s been in Hong Kong for the last two days, and when she learned my mother was here, she came to see her today. I thought maybe you didn’t want to see Su Wen-wan, so I hurried out to say hello. But she knows you’re out here.”
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