by Anyi, Wang
Then just like that the day of the exam arrived. The afternoon after the exam, Xiao Lin went straight from the test site to Weiwei’s apartment instead of going home. Wang Qiyao brought him a bowl of green bean and lily soup to help him cool off from the summer heat before rushing out to call Weiwei on the public phone to tell her to come home from work early. Xiao Lin had lost a lot of weight in the days leading up to the exam, but he was in high spirits. Asked how he had done, he responded with a perfunctory okay, but she sensed that he was waiting for Weiwei to get home so he could tell her all the details. Rather than asking him more questions, she handed him some newspapers to read. Before long, Weiwei returned, kicking off her high-heeled shoes and complaining how hot it was outside—looking as if she was the one who had just taken the exam. Xiao Lin was waiting for her to question him, but she didn’t. Instead she wondered aloud what movie they were going to see, complaining that they hadn’t been to the movies in ages. She went on to describe the latest style sweeping the streets, saying how she’d be out of fashion if she didn’t catch up.
At this point, Wang Qiyao could no longer stand the discomfiture and started to question Xiao Lin on behalf of Weiwei—what was the exam like and how he did. Xiao Lin gave them the details in an even tone, but his enthusiasm and excitement still came through. He grew particularly animated when he started in on the foreign language portion of the exam—this touched on only about a third of what he had mastered, and he breezed right through. Weiwei got excited as she listened to him and clamored for a celebration at Red House. Wang Qiyao chided: “Xiao Lin hasn’t even had a chance to go home yet. His whole family is waiting! What’s more, it’s not as if he’s gotten accepted anywhere yet. Stop trying to fleece him!”
Xiao Lin, however, said it was all right. He could telephone home and, as to whether or not he would get accepted, that was out of his hands now. He had done his best and the rest was heaven’s will. He spoke with nonchalance, but it was backed up by a strong confidence. Wang Qiyao decided to let them go ahead. As they were heading out the door, Xiao Lin suddenly turned around: “Auntie Wang, why don’t you come with us!”
Wang Qiyao naturally declined, but Xiao Lin insisted. Weiwei, however, was impatient to get going, which made the situation rather uncomfortable.
“Okay then . . .” Wang Qiyao finally agreed. “But it’s my treat! It’ll be my way of congratulating Xiao Lin for his hard work!”
She sent them on ahead and told them she would meet them at the restaurant. By the time she had changed clothes, grabbed her purse, and made it over to Red House, it was already seven o’clock. Twilight during the summer always seems to last forever; the sun had already set, yet its glow was still rippling through the streets. A thousand years may pass, but sunsets like those never change, allowing us to forget the passage of time. Maoming Road is also a place that defies time; the plane trees lining the street on both sides meet in embrace and form a canopy overhead. Although the French-style edifices have seen many difficult days, they are basically unchanged. Farther down the road, the theater at the corner has the forlorn air that pervades after the curtain has fallen and the crowds are gone. Nevertheless, it still has enough glamour to call up its former splendor. Maoming Road is truly the eternal heart of Shanghai—even the sky above has Shanghai written all over it. Wang Qiyao caught sight of Red House behind a row of green trees and thought what an upbeat name it was, enabling people to feel ever-youthful. At that moment the streetlights lit up, emitting a yellow glow that set off the night scene, against a sky veiled by a layer of thin mist.
Wang Qiyao could distinguish Xiao Lin and Weiwei through the glass door of the restaurant. Under the light of a lamp, their heads were almost touching as they bent down to read the menus. Unconsciously, Wang Qiyao hesitated for a moment and thought to herself: How could all those decades have passed by in the blink of an eye like that? She pushed open the door and went inside.
When she got to their table, the first thing Weiwei said to her was, “And I thought you weren’t going to show up!”
Her tone clearly indicated that she would much rather that her mother did not.
Wang Qiyao pretended not to notice and replied, “I promised to take you two out—how could I not show up?”
Weiwei ordered. She picked out the most expensive dishes, partly to show off to Xiao Lin, but also to wring out her mother. Initially Wang Qiyao was ready to go along with this, but, seeing how her daughter completely disrespected her, she decided to assert her authority by canceling some of the dishes Weiwei had ordered and replace them with others that were just as tasty but less expensive. Weiwei tried to argue, but Wang Qiyao retorted, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that something is good just because it is pricy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Oxtail soup is highly acclaimed, but it is best eaten in France where oxen are raised especially for their meat; we don’t have anything like the quality of that meat here. You’d be better off ordering French onion soup, which tends to be much more authentic.”
This barrage left Weiwei speechless. She lowered her head and didn’t open her mouth again for the rest of the dinner. Xiao Lin, however, appreciated the knowledge and experience evident in Wang Qiyao’s words, which he attributed to the “old days.” He asked a string of questions, which Wang Qiyao was only too happy to answer, patiently explaining everything she knew.
In the blink of an eye the table was covered with large and small dishes, the white china giving off a soft glow under the lights. Their eyes grew moist from the steam rising from the food. Outside the sky had turned completely dark and the streetlights shone like stars; under them the people and cars passed noiselessly by. The trees swayed gently in the evening wind, projecting their dreamlike shadows toward them. This corner could be said to be the most romantic spot in Shanghai: shatter that romance and you will still find its broken shards here. For a while Wang Qiyao did not speak. She sat staring out the window as if she was searching for someone or something she knew. But all she saw was the reflection of the three of them in the glass, moving like characters in a silent film. By the time she turned back around, the sound and color had returned. They may not have been aware of it, but the couple sitting before her was a match made in heaven. Wang Qiyao sat in silence, barely moving her fork or knife. She couldn’t drive away the oppressive feeling that her world had returned, but she was now only an observer.
Chapter 2
The Dance
THE WOMAN SITTING in the corner at the dance, content in her loneliness—that is Wang Qiyao. Keeping an eye on a pile of jackets and purses, a charitable smile lighting up her face, she watched the dancers on the floor. She seemed to be saying: You’re doing the steps all wrong, but it’s okay. Each night she too would take to the floor every so often; her partners were always young men and women. Once you got close to her on the dance floor you would hear her whispering instructions to her partner, and only then did it become clear that she was the one teaching them. You wouldn’t have enough experience to rate her dancing skills, but her calm and assured manner was evident. Maintaining her poise like that in a roomful of young people wasn’t easy. At every dance there would always be at least one or two people her own age who were there to turn back the clock. They brought back the air of gallant gentlemen and proper ladies from thirty or forty years before; although they weren’t the most eye-catching ones present, they embodied authenticity. When they got out on the floor, they always looked solemn; the movements they made were exact. Seeing them for the first time, you might think that dancing was work for them and that they approached the floor with a sense of duty. But closer scrutiny would reveal that they were dancing joyously. Their joy did not overflow in the way of young people; it was more like water coursing steadily down an irrigation ditch—quietly, without calling attention to itself, yet full of stamina.
Compared with this, the happiness of the young could only be described as “getting wild.” The thing that is beguiling about Latin dance is its ability to
take raw emotion and channel it into precise movements, giving it a rational, almost philosophical expression. It takes a special understanding to appreciate Latin dance, and this was why the older dancers held themselves somewhat aloof. This was back in the days before disco became popular in China, but the young people were already getting impatient. When they danced, their movements were coarse and impulsive, and they liked numbers with a fast tempo that made it easier to gloss over their mistakes in front of others—and themselves. They were overeager for the excitement of dancing and did not care whether they knew how to dance; all they wanted was to get out on the floor; the rest they could worry about later. They failed to understand the principle of restraint, which is what makes excitement grow and endure. Their inclination was to squander everything; the money they made was never sufficient to cover their expenses, nor was a single night of song and dance ever enough. And so they danced night after night, drawing on the happiness that was their due, not realizing that they were depleting their accounts prematurely. Nevertheless, their excitement was contagious; one could hardly sit still beside them without feeling one’s heart pounding and blood racing.
On one occasion the district political consultative committee organized a dance, and Xiao Lin, who was able to get tickets, took a few friends along. It was here that Wang Qiyao first witnessed true Latin dance. This dance stood out from the others because more than half the dancers were past fifty. Wearing everyday blue and gray outfits, those who knew each other sat together, chatting. The dance was held in a dining hall and the air was filled with the smell of grease. The floor, which had been mopped and sprinkled with powder, only managed to look squalid. The ceiling was stained yellow from accumulated smoke, but the molding was a Renaissance-style floral pattern, the hall was lined with Roman columns, and a semicircular French window looked out into the garden. The blazing lights did nothing to hide the age of the building. Under their glare, one could count every old-age blemish on peoples’ hands and faces. The static-laden music sounded hollow and pathetic as it rang out through a four-speaker boom box in the large open hall, and everyone looked tiny under the great dome.
Only after several bars of music had been played did a few couples make their way onto the dance floor. Under the large domed ceiling, they looked as if they were Lilliputians. But these little people were great dancers with decades of experience, and they burned up the floor with their consummate skill. Their demeanor was cool, but they all knew exactly what they were doing. Thirty years away from the dance floor—yet they had not forgotten a step, for they had been properly trained and had spent the necessary time practicing. And even though this was a kingdom of little people, the look on their midget faces was expressive of a solemn dignity. Can you tell what they are thinking? Do you know what they see? Something unfathomable. Their expressions contained a mixture of sorrow and joy; but what was it that aroused these feelings? The young people all fought their shyness of the dance floor; when they did dance, they felt intimidated in this atmosphere enshrouded by a somber gravity. The graying dancers were timeless, like the hall itself. Latin dance has this truly amazing power to transcend time—to transform the old, timeworn, dejected, battered, foul, and rotten into something noble and ethereal.
Wang Qiyao encouraged Weiwei and her friends to dance while she sat off to one side watching. A draft stole in from the French window. She felt as if the scene before her had been transported from thirty years earlier—the only difference was that, having gathered thirty years of dust, it looked somewhat grayer. She even fancied that she could see whole strands of dust drifting down from the old curtains onto the scene before vanishing without a trace. Once more of the young people got up to dance, however, the scene grew livelier.
A few of them were really decked out; although they looked out of place and their dancing skills were dubious, they certainly grabbed your attention. All it takes to liven up the atmosphere is a little eye-catching youthfulness. Some of these young people are dancing frantically, getting all out of rhythm but still carrying on till the bitter end, when the music stops. Some mistake dancing for walking and end up traipsing all over the hall. In the middle of the dance two men suddenly come in carrying two cartons of soda pop, instructing everyone to show their ticket stubs before claiming their bottle. Impatient dancers walk straight across the floor to get theirs. The hall suddenly fills with the sound of bottle caps popping. A few even take the liberty of going over to the boom box to stop whatever is playing in mid-song and put on their own tape instead, leaving no time for the dancers either to stop or to get in step up with the new tune. Before long it turns into a free-for-all, with people dancing the four-step to folk melodies, and the formerly decorous scene evaporates.
Wang Qiyao was sitting by herself when she was asked to dance, as it turned out, by an older gentleman. By then things were getting a bit out of control and everybody seemed to have the right to ask anyone they wanted for a dance. Slowly Wang Qiyao was led out onto the floor, surrounded by people who were oblivious to all but their own movements. Dancing to the same song, everyone did it their own way. The older gentleman wavered a bit before finally getting into rhythm; his steady steps were like a coral reef in a tumultuous sea. Wang Qiyao could ascertain the kind of person he was from the way he danced: an honest, dutiful, hard-working man with solid assets and a virtuous wife, the sort who would set foot in a dance hall only for social engagements related to his work. Back in the old days he was the kind of man that parents of unmarried girls kept a sharp lookout for. Now his hair was gray and he no longer dressed the way he used to. At the end of the dance he saw Wang Qiyao back to her seat, gently shaking her hand and bowing slightly before turning to leave. Right after that came the last song of the evening, the theme from Waterloo Bridge, “Auld Lang Syne.”
Besides dances organized by different work units, there were also dance parties held in people’s homes. All that was needed for these was a large room and a tape player. Zhang Yonghong’s latest boyfriend, Xiao Shen, was a frequent organizer of such parties and held them at his friend’s house. He invited Wang Qiyao to one of them, saying he wanted her to teach them how to dance. Wang Qiyao insisted that she had nothing to teach them; but she went anyway. Xiao Shen’s friend lived in the Alice Apartments, in a ground-floor flat two doors down from where Wang Qiyao used to live. Although it was dark when they arrived and the surroundings had dramatically changed in the years since she had last been there, Wang Qiyao recognized the place as soon as she set foot inside the compound. She thought it strange that over the years she had never once been back—if it hadn’t been for the dance party that night, she might never have gone back as long as she lived. The place was only three or four bus stops away from where she now lived, but it felt like a world separated by mountains and oceans. Occasionally, when her thoughts drifted to the Alice Apartments, it had seemed a previous life.
Xiao Shen’s friend’s apartment, though also on the ground floor, had a different layout from Wang Qiyao’s old place. It had two bedrooms and an extra area in the living room. His parents and sisters had, one after the other, emigrated to Hong Kong, so he was the only one left in Shanghai and had the entire place to himself. It was clean and had all the amenities, but didn’t have a lived-in feeling. The friend didn’t boil hot water for tea for the guests, but simply set out bottles of soda and beer on the table. By the time Wang Qiyao and the others arrived, several couples were already dancing slowly to the music. It was hard to tell the host apart from the guests, as people seemed to know each other very well. Everyone helped themselves to ice cubes from the refrigerator; when the doorbell rang whoever was closest opened the door; new arrivals made themselves right at home. One guest, apparently uninterested in dancing, even went to take a nap in the master bedroom.
Wang Qiyao had been invited as their dance teacher, but no one seemed interested in learning anything from her; they were all focused on themselves. She felt awkward at first, but seeing how everyone took care of themselve
s, she relaxed a bit. As no one else was playing host, she went to boil herself a pot of water in the kitchen and poured it into a thermos. Then she found a box of tea leaves and made herself a cup of tea before sitting down in a quiet corner. Others followed suit and made tea, but no one bothered to ask who had boiled the water, as if it should have been there in the first place. By then there were about two dozen people in the room, and someone had turned off the lights, leaving on only a single desk lamp. The shadows of people, thrown onto the wall by the hazy yellow light, resembled a black forest. Wang Qiyao sat alone in an unlit corner, content that no one was taking any notice of her. She had returned to Alice, but Alice was now a different Alice—and she was a different Wang Qiyao.
As she sat on the sofa, the teacup she was holding gradually grew cold. Amid the thick forest of shadows, her own shadow had been swallowed up. She almost forgot who she was. But she is the heart of the party! She may have been the only one not dancing, but she was the essence of the party. That essence came in the form of the memories she held within. Never mind the people waving their arms, shaking their hips, and stomping on the dance floor. They wouldn’t know a real dance move if it was staring them in the face. The music they knew was merely the cast-off shells of true music, shed in a century of metamorphoses since the days of Johann Strauss, a whole heap of them. Those swirling motions that once turned circling skirts into blossoming lotus flowers—turn and turn as they might, the figures they trace are empty air, for not a jot of romance remains. All that was left of the old romance was memories in the hearts of a select few—Wang Qiyao being one of them. The memories were fragile and could not endure being put on display, like ancient tombs best left unexcavated; once unearthed, their contents disintegrate with the first breath of air. There is no point in such a party, thought Wang Qiyao. Between two numbers, she heard the sound of the trolley coming from the direction of the Paramount. Just another night at Alice’s? she wondered.