Hung-chien flushed scarlet and turning to Jou-chia said, “Well, I guess we won’t go in then. We’ll just ask Hsin-mei to give our regards to Auntie.7 Hsin-mei, here’s the money for the steamship tickets.”
Hsin-mei was just refusing it when Jou-chia said, “Since we’re here, we should see Auntie.”
Jou-chia was wearing her new clothes today, and her courage was high. Besides, she was a little curious. Though Hung-chien was afraid of meeting Su Wen-wan, his curiosity too was aroused. Hsin-mei led them inside. Before they entered the living room and while Hung-chien was hanging his straw hat on the rack, Jou-chia opened her purse and looked at herself in her mirror.
Su Wen-wan was even more fashionably dressed than she was the year before, and her face was much fuller. Her dress, partly Western in style, was close-fitting and smart. It was in a design of pale red and light green horizontal stripes with white stripes in between, as colorful as the flags of small European countries. The large, wide-brimmed straw hat on the tea table by her side was of course hers and made the small parasol in Jou-chia’s hand seem an age behind the times.
As soon as Hung-chien entered, he bowed deeply from a distance. Mrs. Chao stood up to greet him. Su Wen-wan, who remained calmly seated, said brightly, “I haven’t seen you for a long time, Mr. Fang. How are you?”
Hsin-mei said, “This is Mrs. Fang.”
Wen-wan had already noticed Jou-chia, but now, as though only just discovering her at Hsin-mei’s mention, she nodded to her while at the same time whipping a quick glance over her from head to toe. Unable to withstand her “once-over,” Jou-chia felt awkward and ill at ease.
Wen-wan asked Hsin-mei, “Is this Mrs. Fang still that bank? banking house?—Ai! My memory is really dreadful—manager’s daughter?”
Hung-chien and his wife heard it all very clearly and blushed simultaneously, but could not easily refute it, since Wen-wan’s question was spoken in an undertone as though not meant for their ears.
Hsin-mei, for the moment unaware of Miss Su’s references to Hung-chien’s past, merely said, “She’s the daughter of a colleague of mine. They were married here in Hong Kong last week.”
Wen-wan woke as though from a dream and sighing to herself in surprise, said, “Oh, so it’s another one—Mrs. Fang, have you been in Hong Kong all this time, or were you just passing through after returning from abroad?”
Hung-chien tightly gripped the armrest of his chair to keep himself from jumping up. Hsin-mei secretly shook his head. Jou-chia could only admit that she was not returning from abroad but merely exiting from the interior. Wen-wan’s interest in Jou-chia immediately vanished, and she resumed her conversation with Mrs. Chao. Mrs. Chao said that this was the first time in her life she had ever flown and was terrified at the thought.
Wen-wan said with a laugh, “Auntie, with Hsin-mei along, what are you afraid of! I’ve flown back and forth by myself five or six times.”
Mrs. Chao said, “How can your husband feel easy about your coming and going by yourself?”
Wen-wan said, “Oh, but he has official business keeping him here! He’s flown with me to Chungking twice. The first time was when we went to see my father just after we were married. He was going to come with me today to pay you a visit and see Hsin-mei while he was here.”
Hsin-mei said, “I’m honored. I saw Mr. Ts’ao the day you were married. He hasn’t put on any more weight, has he? He seems a head shorter than I, which makes him easily look fat. It doesn’t matter in Hong Kong, but in Chungking if the official in charge of supplies and provisions got fat, people would start poking fun at him.”
This was the first time since he’d arrived that Hung-chien felt like laughing.
Wen-wan flushed slightly, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Chao said, “Hsin-mei, you silly child, over thirty years old and still you like to talk nonsense. In times like these, isn’t it a good thing to be fat? I wish you weren’t so thin. Miss Wen-wan, a mother always thinks her son isn’t fat enough. You have a very nice complexion. I feel very comfortable looking at you. It must gladden your old mother’s heart to see you. Give our best to Mr. Ts’ao when you go back. He’s tied up with official business, so he mustn’t come over.”
Wen-wan said, “It doesn’t matter if he occasionally skips half a day of work, but today he asked for leave from the office. He got drunk last night.”
“Alcohol is such a harmful thing,” Mrs. Chao fussed. “You must urge him not to drink so much next time.”
Wen-wan darted a glance at Hsin-mei and replied, “He can’t drink. He’s not like Hsin-mei, who has such a great capacity and will finish off a bottle of whiskey every time he drinks.”
Hsin-mei secretly made a face at Hung-chien when he heard the first remark and so was too late to protest the next one.
“Someone got him drunk. The local members of our college class had a party yesterday. It said on the invitation ‘Spouse Invited,’ and since he’s considered my ‘spouse,’ I took him along. Someone gave him too much to drink.”
Hung-chien couldn’t help asking, “How many people from our class are in Hong Kong?”
Wen-wan said, “Oh, Mr. Fang, I forgot you were in our class, too. Didn’t they send you an invitation? Yesterday I was the only one from liberal arts. All the rest were in science, engineering, law, or business.”
Hsin-mei said, “You see how important you are! Now it’s only the ones in science, engineering, law, and business who’ve been lucky. The ones in liberal arts are too poor to show their faces. They’re afraid to be seen by their classmates. Fortunately, you’re around to uphold the dignity of the liberal arts.”
Wen-wan said, “I can’t believe old classmates could be that snobbish. Aren’t you from the law department? If you’re going to talk about being lucky, you’ve been pretty lucky yourself.” With that she laughed triumphantly.
Hsin-mei said, “I don’t come anywhere near your Mr. Ts’ao. Alumni meetings are always attended by the well-fed ones with nothing to do but shake hands with their rich classmates. When they see a classmate who hasn’t made it, they ask, ‘Where are you working?’ and then without waiting for an answer they prick their ears up to catch what the rich classmates are saying. For students, social gatherings provide a chance for men and women to meet. When I was in America, people used to call the Foreign Students Summer Club the ‘Big Three Conference’: the show-offs, the suckers, and the—uh—the girl-snowers.”
They all laughed. Mrs. Chao laughed till she began to cough and forbade Hsin-mei to utter any more nonsense. Wen-wan laughed more tersely than the rest and said, “You were in the Summer Club yourself. Don’t deny it. I saw that picture. Which of the Big Three were you?”
Hsin-mei was unable to answer.
Wen-wan clapped her hands and said, “Well, so you can’t say it. Auntie, I don’t think Hsin-mei’s as honest as he used to be, and he’s become much more small-minded. It must have something to do with the friends he made this year.”
Jou-chia stared hard at Hung-chien. Hung-chien again tightly gripped the armrest of the chair.
“Auntie, I won’t see you off tomorrow. We’ll meet in Chungking next month. I’ll send the servant over with that little bundle of things later on. If it’s inconvenient for you to carry, just let him take it back as it is.”
Wen-wan stood up and picked up the straw hat by the tassel like the Greek huntress Diana taking up her shield. She enjoined Mrs. Chao not to see her out, then said to Hsin-mei, “I’m going to punish you by having you take those two cartons and see me to the door.”
Hsin-mei noticed Hung-chien and his wife standing and, to prevent Wen-wan from rudely ignoring them, said, “Mr. and Mrs. Fang are saying goodbye to you.”
Only then did Wen-wan nod to Hung-chien and hold her hand out for Jou-chia to shake as one might stick a finger into hot water to see if it were scalding or not. From the expression on her face it appeared she was shaking hands with someone a head taller than Jou-chia since her gaze went over Jou-chi
a’s head. She then said warmly, “Goodbye, Auntie,” and threw a half-pleased, half-vexed glance at Hsin-mei. Hsin-mei quickly picked up the boxes and followed her out.
Hung-chien and Jou-chia conversed politely with Mrs. Chao, and when Hsin-mei came back in, they rose to say goodbye. Mrs. Chao made them stay a little longer, complaining to Hsin-mei, “You acted so silly again. Why did you have to disparage her husband?”
Hung-chien thought to himself, Su Wen-wan may think Hsin-mei has not gotten over his feelings for her and was reacting out of jealousy.
“Don’t worry,” said Hsin-mei. “She wouldn’t get angry. As long as we take her contraband for her, it’ll be all right.”
Hsin-mei wanted to walk them to the bus stop. When they had left the house, he said, “Su Wen-wan sure had her nerve today, being so rude to you that way.”
Purposely putting on a show of great magnanimity, Hung-chien said, “Oh, it’s nothing. She’s a rich girl and a rich wife. It’s only right that she put on those little airs.” He didn’t notice Jou-chia eyeing him. “You said ‘take her contraband.’ What’s that all about?”
“Every time she flies to Chungking,” explained Hsin-mei, “she takes some of the latest cosmetics, medicines, high-heeled shoes, fountain pens, and such to give away. Or maybe she sells them, I’m not sure.”
Hung-chien nearly cried out in astonishment; then it dawned on him that the vast and lofty blue sky above was not the province of God and heaven, but was provided exclusively for the sake of dropping bombs and operating petty business ventures. “Strange!” he remarked. “I’d never have expected it of her! So she is even in business. I thought it was only people like Li Mei-t’ing who carried contraband! Isn’t she a poet? Does she still write new-style poetry?”
“I don’t know,” said Hsin-mei with a smile. “She sure knows money business! She was just urging my mother to hurry up and buy foreign currency. It seems women are all good schemers.”
Jou-chia kept a blank face, pretending not to have heard.
Hung-chien said, “I’ll say something silly. She seems very—uh—very intimate with you.”
Reddening, Hsin-mei said, “She knows I’m in Chungking too, so every time she goes, she always looks me up. She’s just nicer to me now than she was before she got married.”
Hung-chien sniffed and felt like saying, “No wonder you need a self-protective photograph,” but didn’t.
Hsin-mei paused a moment, then gazing off in the distance said, “Just now when I saw her to the door, she said she still kept a lot of my letters—I’d forgotten all about them. I don’t know what sort of nonsense is in them. She said next month when she comes to Chungking, she’s going to bring the letters along to return to me. But she won’t return all of them. She said some things in the letters she can still accept. She wants to take them out in front of me one by one and pick out the ones she can’t accept any more to return to me. Isn’t that ridiculous?” He laughed unnaturally.
Jou-chia asked coolly, “Doesn’t she know you’re about to get engaged, Uncle Chao?”
Hsin-mei said, “No, I haven’t told her. I’m rather distant with her.”
After Hung-chien and Jou-chia had boarded the cable car down the mountain and Hsin-mei was on his way back home, it suddenly became clear to him, and he said with a sigh, “It takes a woman to see through a woman.”
Hung-chien got gloomily into the car. He knew he had wronged Su Wen-wan before and deserved to be slighted by her today. But what annoyed him was that even Jou-chia had suffered her abuse. Why hadn’t he poked fun at Su Wen-wan a little instead of just lowering his head, suppressing his anger, and letting her carry on at will? It was so distasteful. But then it wasn’t so much getting the cold shoulder from her, it was the contrast between the past and the present which hurt so much. Two years ago, no, one year ago, he was completely her equal. Now she was as high above him as the clouds were from the mud. Why, look at Hsin-mei even. Hsin-mei showed him respect by treating him as a friend, but Hsin-mei too was gradually advancing in his career, so that now he had to look up to Hsin-mei too. It wasn’t like before when they were equals. His anxious frame of mind was like a wild animal caged in a dark room, frantically ramming, clawing, beating against the walls, trying to find a way out. Noticing his silence, Jou-chia restrained herself and kept quiet. When they returned to the hotel and after the bellboy opened their door, Hung-chien took off his jacket, turned on the electric fan, and stretching his arms out before the breeze, said, “We’re back. Ai!”
“Your body is back, but I’m afraid your soul has been carried off by your lover,” added Jou-chia expressionlessly.
He of course said she was “being silly.”
“I’m not being silly,” she replied with a sardonic laugh. “You got into the car like a man of wood, not saying a word and completely forgetting I was there next to you. I was very discreet and didn’t disturb you, just to see when you’d speak to me.”
“Well, am I not speaking to you now? I’m not at all vexed about what happened today.”
“How could you be vexed? You could only be pleased.”
“That’s not so. What would I be pleased about?”
“Watching your former sweetheart insult your present wife, and in front of your close friend—that doesn’t make you pleased?” Jou-chia dropped her derisive tone and spoke with outright indignation, “I told you before. I don’t like seeing Chao Hsin-mei. But what good did it do? You wanted to go, so could I say, ‘No?’ We went only to be scorned and laughed at.”
“You are absolutely unreasonable. Weren’t you the one who wanted to go in? When the thing is done you blame it all on me! And anyway, she didn’t insult you. She even shook hands with you on her way out.”
She flared with anger, then said with a laugh, “I am so honored! I was touched by the great lady’s imperial hand. This lowly hand of mine will remain forever fragrant. I don’t dare ever wash it! ‘Didn’t insult me!’ Humph, if someone attacked me outright, you’d act as if you hadn’t seen it. Anyway, your wife deserves being bullied by some strange woman. Well, if I ever saw my husband being ridiculed and abused, I certainly wouldn’t be able to put up with it. I’d feel as if I had been stripped bare. When she said Hsin-mei’s friends were no good, wasn’t she referring to you?”
“Let her abuse. If I gave it back to her, she couldn’t take it.”
“Why didn’t you give it back to her?”
“Why should I quarrel with her? I just think she’s pathetic.”
“How kind of you! Why don’t you leave some of your sweet temper and generosity home for me to enjoy for a change? Whenever you meet someone outside, you bow your head and smile, but when you come home, if one thing I say doesn’t suit you, you get hostile and start quarreling. People think Fang Hung-chien is so polite and so patient. They don’t know how much I have to put up with from you. And I’m the only one who would. If it were that great lady, just try venting your anger on her.” She paused a moment, then added, “Of course, if you’d married such a perfect wife as that, you’d never have to lose your temper.”
What she said was partly true, although with a few spices added for seasoning. Unable to deny it and seething with rage, he just stood gazing out the window. His silence made her assume her last remark had struck home, and she was too overcome with jealousy to keep still. Controlling the agitation in her voice, she muttered sneeringly, “I see it all now. It was all a bunch of empty boasts. All—empty—boasts.”
He turned and asked, “Who’s boasting?”
“You. You were saying how much she used to love you, how she wanted to marry you. Today it was quite obvious she’s on close terms with Hsin-mei while she never gave you so much as a straight look in the face. You went after her and didn’t get her is what! Men always brag like that.”
Hung-chien could come up with no counterevidence to refute this Discussions of Ancient History8 sort of historical reinterpretation, and could only say, “All right, all right, so I was boasti
ng. You’ve seen through it. So I was boasting.”
“Isn’t she wonderful!” said Jou-chia. “She’s pretty, her father’s rich, she has money, and she’s a returned student. If I were you, even if she hadn’t taken a liking to me, I’d have gotten down on my knees and pleaded, but when she actually showed favor—”
Hung-chien’s eyes went red, and he roughly cut her short, “Yes, that’s right, she really didn’t want me. But surprisingly enough a woman like you tried every trick and scheme to marry me.”
Eyes bulging, she bit her lower lip so hard it left a blood mark. In a trembling voice, she said, “I was blind! I was blind!”
Four or five hours later, Jou-chia hadn’t gone blind, but both of them had gone mute. They ate and went about their business completely ignoring each other. Hung-chien knew he had spoken too harshly and inwardly regretted it, but for the moment he was not willing to give in. In the afternoon he suddenly remembered that he had to go the next day to the ship company with the receipt to pick up the tickets. Hsin-mei had given him the receipt two days before, but he’d forgotten where he’d put it and would not ask Jou-chia. He hurriedly went through his suitcases and pulled out his pockets but could find it nowhere. In his anxiety, he broke out in wave after wave of sweat, which rolled over each other like waves on the Yangtze River.
Watching him scratch his sweat-dampened head and twist his flushed ears, Jou-chia then asked, “What’re you looking for? The ship company receipt?”
Hung-chien gave her a shocked look. Hope suddenly arose, and with a genial smile, he asked, “How did you guess? Did you see it?”
“You put it in the pocket of that white suit.”
“Damn it!” he exclaimed, stamping his foot. “I gave that suit to the bellboy yesterday to send to the dry cleaners. What should I do now? I’ll hurry over there right away.”
Jou-chia opened her purse and said, “You got your clothes out to be cleaned and then just handed them over to the bellboy without first checking through them yourself! Luckily I took the receipt out for you. There was an old bill in there too.”
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