by Eileen Chang
The woman withdrew her hand from her hair to shake hands with the guests, but seeing the shampoo on her fingers, she hesitated. She nodded and smiled instead, then wiped her fingers on her dressing gown. A little shampoo splashed the back of Zhenbao’s hand. Instead of rubbing it off, he let it dry there. The skin puckered up slightly, as if a mouth were lightly sucking at the spot.
Mrs Wang turned and went back into the other room. Zhenbao directed the workers as they moved the bed and wardrobe, but he felt troubled, and the sucking sensation was still there. His mind wandered as he headed to the bathroom to wash his hands, thinking about this Mrs Wang. He’d heard that she was an overseas Chinese from Singapore who, when she was studying in London, was quite a party girl. She and Wang Shihong got married in London, but Zhenbao had been too busy to attend the wedding. Seeing her was much better than hearing about her: under her white, shampoo-sculpted hair was a tawny-gold face, the skin glistening and the flesh so firm that her eyes rose at a long upward slant, like the eyes of an actress. Her striped dressing gown, worn without a belt, hugged her body loosely, and the black-and-white stripes hinted at her figure, each line, each inch, fully alive. People like to say that the wide, long-sleeved gowns of former times didn’t flatter curvaceous beauties, but Zhenbao had just discovered that this was not the case. He turned on the faucet. The water wasn’t very hot, though the water heater downstairs was certainly on, and yet the lukewarm stream seemed to have a lighted wick running through it. Twisting and winding, the water ran from the faucet, every inch of it alive, while Zhenbao’s mind went running off to who knows where.
Wang Shihong heard the sound of running water and came into the bathroom. ‘Do you want to take a bath? The water never comes up hot in this bathroom. The hot water pipe wasn’t connected properly. That’s one bad thing about this apartment. If you want to wash, come into our bathroom.’
‘Oh no, please don’t bother,’ Zhenbao said. ‘Isn’t your wife washing her hair?’
‘She must be finished by now. I’ll go and have a look.’
‘Oh, really, it’s not that important.’
Wang Shihong went to speak with his wife, and his wife said, ‘I’m just finishing. Tell the amah to draw him a bath.’
A little later, Wang Shihong told Zhenbao to bring his soap, towel, and clothes into their bathroom. Mrs Wang was still in front of the mirror, struggling to get a comb through her tightly permed hair. The bathroom was full of steam, and the night wind blew in through the open window. On the floor, clusters of fallen hair swirled about like ghostly figures.
Zhenbao stood outside the door holding his towel and watching the tangled hair, in the glare of the bathroom light, drifting across the floor. He felt quite agitated. He liked women who were fiery and impetuous, the kind you couldn’t marry. Here was one who was already a wife, and a friend’s wife at that, so there couldn’t be any danger, but … look at that hair! It was everywhere. She was everywhere, tugging and pulling at him.
The couple stood in the bathroom talking, but the water filling the tub was loud and Zhenbao couldn’t hear what they said. When the tub was full, they came out so he could take his bath. After his bath, Zhenbao crouched down and started picking up stray hairs from the floor tiles and twisting them together. The permed hair had turned yellow at the ends; it was stiff, like fine electrical wire. He stuffed it into his pocket. His hand stayed there, and his whole body tingled. But this was too ridiculous. He extracted the hair from his pocket and tossed it into the spittoon.
Carrying his soap and towel, he returned to his own room – Dubao was opening the trunks and arranging things. ‘What kind of person could the previous tenant have been?’ Dubao asked. ‘Look, here under the chair slipcovers, and under the carpet here – those have got to be cigarette burns! And these marks under the table – they won’t come off. Mr Wang isn’t going to blame us is he?’
‘Of course not. They must know about it already. Besides, we’re classmates from way back, so they won’t be as petty as you are!’ Zhenbao smiled.
Dubao fell silent. Then he asked, ‘Do you know who the previous tenant was?’
‘His family name is Sun I think; he’s back from England, teaching at a university now. Why do you ask?’
Dubao smiled before he spoke. ‘Just now when you were gone, the majordomo and the amah came to put up the curtains. They said something about not knowing how long we’ll stay, and they said that Mr Wang had wanted to kick out the man who lived here before. Mr Wang was planning to go to Singapore on business, and he should have left a long time ago, but something happened and he got nervous – he wouldn’t leave till the other fellow was out. Neither of them budged – not for two whole months.’
Zhenbao told him to shush. ‘How can you believe such nonsense! When you live in someone’s house, the first rule is never to discuss the family with the servants. That only leads to trouble!’ Dubao didn’t say anything more.
A bit later, the amah came to call them to dinner, and the brothers went into the dining room together. The cooking in the Wang household had a slightly Southeast Asian flavor, Chinese food prepared Western style, and the main dish was lamb curry. Mrs Wang had nothing but a thin slice of toast and a piece of ham in front of her. She even cut the fatty part off the meat and gave it to her husband.
‘Such a small appetite?’ Zhenbao smiled.
‘She’s afraid of getting fat,’ said Shihong.
Zhenbao’s face expressed disbelief. ‘Mrs Wang looks just right. She’s not fat at all.’
‘I’ve just lost five pounds, so I’m a lot thinner than I was,’ she said.
Shihong grinned and reached over to pinch her cheek. ‘A lot thinner? Then what’s this?’
His wife gave him a sharp glance. ‘That’s the London lamb I ate last year.’ Everyone laughed hard at this.
Even though the Tong brothers and Mrs Wang had just met for the first time, their hostess hadn’t bothered to change before coming to the dinner table. She was still in her dressing gown and her hair was still wet. A white towel was wrapped carelessly around it, and every so often the towel dripped, spangling her eyebrows. Dubao was a country boy, and Mrs Wang’s free-and-easy ways struck him as strange indeed. But even Zhenbao found her pretty remarkable. Mrs Wang was extremely attentive, asking all sorts of questions. She wasn’t very good at keeping house, that was clear, but she did know how to entertain.
‘I haven’t had time to tell you,’ Shihong said to Zhenbao, ‘but I’m leaving tomorrow. I have some business in Singapore. It’s good that you’ve moved in and can take care of things here.’
‘Mrs Wang is very capable,’ Zhenbao said with a smile. ‘She’ll be taking care of us, I’m sure. I very much doubt that it will be us taking care of her.’
‘Don’t be fooled by her chatter,’ said Shihong. ‘She doesn’t understand a thing. She’s been in China for three years now, but she still isn’t used to it here, and she can’t really speak Chinese well.’
Mrs Wang smiled slightly and didn’t disagree. She merely summoned the amah to fetch a bottle of medicine from the cabinet, and poured out a spoonful. Zhenbao saw the thick liquid, like white paint, in the spoon, and winced. ‘Is that cream of calcium? I’ve taken that before – it tastes terrible.’
Mrs Wang emptied the spoon down her throat. For a moment she was speechless, but then she swallowed the medicine. ‘It’s like drinking a wall!’ she said. Zhenbao smiled again. ‘When Mrs Wang talks, she hits the nail right on the head!’
‘Mr Tong,’ said Mrs Wang, ‘don’t keep calling me Mrs Wang.’ She got up and went over to a desk near the window. It’s true, Zhenbao was thinking to himself, the name ‘Mrs Wang’ is just too commonplace. She sat at the desk, apparently writing something. Shihong went over to her, put his hand on her shoulder, and bent down to ask, ‘You’re perfectly healthy, so why are you taking doses of that?’
Mrs Wang kept on writing, without turning her head. ‘The heat is rising in my system – I’ve got a pimple on
my face.’
‘Where?’ said Shihong, leaning his face close. She moved aside lightly, frowning and smiling at once. ‘Hey there, hey there!’ she warned him.
Dubao, raised in an old-fashioned family, had never seen a husband and wife like this. He was unable to sit still and left to admire the scenery. He opened the glass door and walked onto the balcony. Zhenbao went on peeling an apple with a fair degree of composure. But Mrs Wang came back across the room, and thrust a piece of paper at him. ‘There, I too have a given name,’ she said.
‘The way you write Chinese characters, you shouldn’t show them around,’ Shihong said with a smile. ‘People will just laugh.’
When Zhenbao saw the three crooked words on the paper, each one bigger than the last, and the last one breaking apart into three distinct fragments – wang jiAO RUI – he really had to laugh.
‘I told you people would laugh, didn’t I?’ Shihong said with a clap of his hands.
‘No, no,’ said Zhenbao, controlling himself. ‘Really it’s a pretty name!’
‘Those overseas Chinese – the names they pick never have any style,’ said Shihong.
Pouting, Jiaorui grabbed the piece of paper and crumpled it up. She turned on her heels and walked off, seemingly in a huff. Not thirty seconds later she came back with an open jar of candied walnuts, which she’d already started to eat, and she offered them to Zhenbao and Dubao.
‘I thought you were afraid of getting fat!’ laughed Shihong.
‘It’s true,’ said Zhenbao. ‘Sweets are very fattening.’
‘You don’t know about those overseas Chinese, they –’ Shihong started to say, but Jiaorui hit him. ‘It’s always “they, them, those overseas Chinese”!’ she said. ‘Don’t call me “them”!’
Shihong went right on. ‘They have the bad habits of the Chinese and the bad habits of foreigners as well. From the foreigners they learn to be afraid of getting fat, won’t eat this, won’t eat that, always taking purgatives but can’t stop eating sweets. But then – go ahead, just ask her! If you ask her why she’s eating this, she’ll say she’s had a little cough recently, and candied walnuts are good for a cough.’
‘That really is the old Chinese way,’ Zhenbao said with a smile. ‘Anything you like to eat is, of course, good for something.’
Jiaorui picked up a walnut and slid it between her teeth. She pointed her little finger at Zhenbao. ‘Stop that now – there really is some truth to it!’
To Zhenbao, she seemed drunk. Fearing the kind of faux pas that so often follows drink, he mumbled something inconsequential and strolled onto the balcony. The breeze was cool on his skin: most likely his face had been pretty red a moment before. Now he was even more troubled. He’d just put an end to his relationship with Rose, and here she was again, in a new body, with a new soul – and another man’s wife. But this woman went even further than Rose. When she was in the room, the walls seemed to be covered with figures in red chalk, pictures of her half naked, on the left, on the right, everywhere. Why did he keep running into this kind of woman? Was it his fault that he always reacted the way he did? Surely that couldn’t be. After all, there really weren’t many women of this sort, not among the pure Chinese. He’d just returned to China, so he was running with the half-Chinese, half-Western crowd. Any Chinese he met while abroad was ‘an old friend found in a faraway land.’ When he returned home and saw those ‘old friends’ again, the first time they met they were bosom friends, the second time mere acquaintances, and by the third time they were strangers to each other.
And yet, when it came to this Wang Jiaorui, hadn’t Shihong done pretty well for himself by marrying her? Of course, Wang Shihong’s father had money; if a man had to forge ahead on his own, as Zhenbao did, such a woman would be a major impediment. And he wasn’t easygoing like Wang Shihong, who let a woman flout every rule. What was the point if you had to argue all day long? That was sure to sap a man’s energy and drain him of ambition. Of course … she was like this precisely because her husband couldn’t control her; if Wang Shihong had managed to get a handle on her, she wouldn’t be quite so unruly.
Zhenbao leaned on the railing, his arms folded. Down below, an electric tram with a brightly burning lamp stopped at the entrance of the building. Several people got on and off, and the lamp moved away. Wide and quiet, the street stretched beyond him; the only light was from a little restaurant on the first floor. Two leaves skittered by in the wind like ragged shoes not worn by anyone, just walking along by themselves. So many people in the world – but they won’t be coming home with you. When night fell and silence took over – or when, as could happen at any time, you stood at the brink of death – there in the dark, you needed a wife you really loved, otherwise there would be nothing but loneliness. Zhenbao didn’t think this through clearly, but he was overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding.
Shihong and his wife were chatting as they walked onto the balcony. ‘Is your hair dry?’ Shihong asked. ‘If you stand in the breeze your cough is going to get worse.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jiaorui, unwrapping the towel and shaking out her hair.
Zhenbao figured that since Shihong was leaving the next day, the couple would want to speak in privacy. Raising a hand to disguise a forced yawn, he said, ‘We’ll go to bed now. Dubao has to get up very early tomorrow so he can go to school and get a student handbook.’
‘I’m leaving in the afternoon,’ Shihong said, ‘so I probably won’t see you.’ The two men shook hands and said good-bye. Zhenbao and Dubao went to their room.
The next day, when Zhenbao came back from work and pressed the doorbell, Jiaorui opened the door, phone receiver in hand. It was dim in the hallway, which made it hard to see, but Shihong’s hat and coat were gone from the coatrack, along with the leather suitcase that had been under the rack. He must have left already. Taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack, Zhenbao heard Jiaorui dial a phone number in the other room. ‘Please ask Mr Sun to come to the phone,’ she said. Zhenbao listened. He heard her ask, ‘Is this Timmy? No, I’m not going out today, I’m at home waiting for a boyfriend.’ She started to giggle. ‘Who is he? I’m not telling you. Why should I tell you? … Ah, so you’re not interested? Not even interested in yourself, are you … Anyway, I’m waiting for him to come for tea at five o’clock. I’m waiting specially for him, so don’t come over.’
Zhenbao went to his room without waiting for her to finish. His brother wasn’t there, or in the bathroom either. He went out to see if he was on the balcony, and Jiaorui emerged from the living room to greet him. ‘Dubao asked me to tell you that he’s making the rounds of the used bookstores to see if he can find some books.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Zhenbao. He took a good long look. She was wearing a long dress that trailed on the floor, a dress of such intense, fresh, and wet green that anything it touched turned the same color. When she moved a little, the air was streaked with green. The dress had been cut a bit too small, it seemed: the seams along the side were split open an inch and a half, then laced together, in a crisscross pattern, over a green satin strip that didn’t fully cover a startling pink slip. Looked at too long, those eye-popping colors would prove blinding. Only Jiaorui could wear a dress like that with such utter insouciance.
‘Would you like some tea?’ she asked, turning back into the living room. She sat down at the table, and lifted the pot to pour the tea. The table was set for two, with a plate of butter biscuits and toast. Zhenbao stood by the glass door.
‘Isn’t there a guest coming?’
‘We won’t wait for him. Let’s go ahead and have something to eat.’
Zhenbao hesitated, unable to figure out what she had in mind. Then, just for the time being, he sat down.
‘Do you take milk?’ Jiaorui asked.
‘Either way.’
‘Oh, that’s right, you like green tea. You were abroad so many years and couldn’t get it there – that’s what you said yesterday.’
‘You have a go
od memory.’
Getting up to ring the bell, Jiaorui threw him a glance. ‘No, you don’t know. Usually my memory is terrible.’
Zhenbao’s heart jumped, and he was knocked off balance. The amah came in. ‘Make two cups of green tea,’ Jiaorui ordered.
‘Ask her to bring another teacup and plate while she’s at it,’ said Zhenbao, ‘for the guest who’s coming later.’
Jiaorui gave him a sharp look. ‘Who is this guest that you’re so anxious about? Amah, bring me a pen and a piece of paper.’ She dashed off a note, then pushed it across to Zhenbao. Two lines, simple and succinct: Dear Timmy, So very sorry, but I have something to do today. I’ve gone out. – Jiaorui. She folded the paper over and gave it to the amah. ‘Mr Sun will come in a little while. When he does, give this to him and tell him I’m not home.’
The amah went out. Zhenbao took a biscuit. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘Why go to so much trouble, asking a man to come to your house, then turn him away empty-handed?’
Jiaorui leaned forward, carefully considering the selection of biscuits on the plate, but she couldn’t find any that she liked. ‘When I asked him to come I didn’t plan to turn him away.’
‘Oh? A last-minute decision?’
‘Don’t you know the saying? It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.’
The amah brought the green tea, leaves floating all over the surface of the water. Zhenbao held the glass in both hands without drinking. His eyes were fixed on the tea but his mind was elsewhere, working things out. Jiaorui was still carrying on with that Mr Sun behind her husband’s back, and evidently she was worried that Zhenbao would see what was going on. That’s why she’d put on this sweet act today. She wanted to win him over so he’d keep his mouth shut. But in fact Zhenbao had no intention of interfering in their private lives. It wasn’t that his bond with Wang Shihong was too weak – even if they’d been blood brothers, stirring up disputes between a husband and wife was not his style. Even so, this woman could cause a lot of trouble. Zhenbao redoubled his caution.