A Hundred Flowers

by Gail Tsukiyama

  Wei

  Wei stared out the train window into blackness. He imagined all the farmers he’d seen in the countryside were indoors now with their families, eating together or telling stories about their day or preparing for bed. He looked past his reflection at the poorly lit train car he sat in. Everything appeared sad and dull in the dingy light as the train rattled on into the night and most of the other passengers slept. Wei suddenly felt homesick. Heartsick. He was no longer tired and wished he hadn’t napped earlier so that he might sleep now to pass the time. Instead, there was nothing but the long night ahead of him. He looked over at Tian to find him still awake with a book in his hands, though he didn’t seem to be turning the pages.

  Wei shifted over to the aisle seat and closer to Tian. “You’re not going to sleep yet?” he asked.

  Tian turned toward him and said, “I find I don’t need very much sleep.”

  “You never finished your story,” Wei said.

  “What story is that?” he asked.

  “What happened to the woman who lived in Luoyang?”

  Tian put his book down. “Ah, yes, that story,” he said. When he reached for the bottle of rice wine, Wei saw a slight tremor in his hand. “That calls for a bit of liquid courage.”

  Wei declined when he held the bottle toward him. Tian took a swallow, then lit a cigarette and let it burn between his fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” Wei finally said. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too difficult.”

  “Her name was Ai-li,” Tian said, leaning closer to Wei. It was clear by the glint in his eyes that he’d made the decision to tell his story. “We were together for five years. She was from Luoyang, where she’d remained living and working in an office during our courtship. I took the train back to Luoyang every two or three months to see her. When we had saved enough money, we were going to marry and Ai-li was going to move to Guangzhou. Our plan was to buy a small apartment, and later a bigger place. Her dream in the beginning was to have a house and a child.” Tian smiled at the memory. “At that age, dreams feel more tangible than reality. You can see and taste the happiness right in front of you. I was simply happy to be with her.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “We met in Guangzhou where I was going to school. Ai-li was the friend of a friend, and she was visiting her in Guangzhou when we met at a gathering. It was early 1946, a challenging time for all of us students. The World War had just ended and our civil war was escalating again. We were all filled with concern and hope and the raw energy that comes with youth.”

  Wei recalled many of his students over the years at Lingnan. They must have gathered together outside of class in their rooms or restaurants, small dramas occurring daily. He felt strangely close to them at that moment, many of who would be Tian’s age or older, now. There had been so much confusion and upheaval at the university at the time and it was such a vulnerable age, filled with daring. He’d never stopped to ponder just how many of his students lived and died for the Communist or Nationalist causes back then. How could he have been so oblivious? Wei suddenly wondered if Tian had been a student at Lingnan.

  “Were you in college then?” he asked.

  Tian nodded. “I never went to a university. I was studying at a technical college when I first met Ai-li. You?”

  Wei nodded. “I’m retired now. I was a teacher,” he said, and no more.

  “I could have guessed.” Tian laughed. “You have the eyes of a teacher.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “An intellectual curiosity.”

  “Ah, a nice excuse for prying,” Wei said, and laughed. “So I might as well ask you how this woman Ai-li came to steal your heart.”

  “That’s exactly what I would expect,” Tian said. He took another drink. “She was barely nineteen, with long flowing black hair, full lips, and a shy expression that soon relaxed as the evening wore on. From the first moment I saw her, I wanted to kiss those lips. She had stolen my heart. It sounds terribly unoriginal, but it did happen to me.”

  Wei thought of Liang. “I believe it happens more often than we think.”

  “Our first year together was perfect,” Tian continued. “The fighting between the Kuomintung and the Communists made it more difficult for us to travel back and forth to see each other, but our courtship from a distance was somehow made more precious by the challenge. Even from afar, we were completely happy together. Strangely, I never worried she might find someone else. I would have married Ai-li within the first month of knowing her if I could have,” he said, his voice softening. “I should have.”

  “You were both very young.”

  Tian nodded. “There seemed to be all the time in the world, and then suddenly there wasn’t.”

  “What happened?” Wei asked. “Did she meet someone?”

  “In a way,” Tian said. He took another drink from the bottle and put out his cigarette. “After I finished college, while the Party fervor continued to build, I moved to Luoyang to be with Ai-li. I rented a small room there. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t adapt very well to Luoyang. Ai-li was away working all day, while I was having trouble finding any work. Before I moved to Luoyang, Ai-li hadn’t told me she’d begun attending Party meetings in the evenings. She’d become friends with a young woman in her office who had persuaded her to attend a meeting with her. Ironically, it was Ai-li who returned week after week, while her friend lost interest. Her pro-Communist beliefs increased with each of my visits. It was early 1949, and as you well know, all of China was teeming with revolution, but I had no idea Ai-li was becoming so involved with the Party in Luoyang. The more she talked about the Party, the more I began to resent that it was becoming such a big part of her life. Thinking back, I carry some of the blame. I wasn’t very easy to be with at the time,” Tian said, looking over at Wei. “Visiting Luoyang had been fine, but when faced with a hot and arid climate for months on end with no job prospects, and Ai-li spending more and more time at her Party meetings, I missed my family and friends in Guangzhou. We had the usual small arguments, but nothing out of the ordinary for a young couple finding their way.”

  Wei nodded. He thought of Liang and how she always kept his life calm and balanced so he could concentrate on his work. How much did she have to put aside in order to appease him? He’d been so blind to the life he had.

  “Months later,” Tian continued, “when I returned to Guangzhou to visit my family and friends, I was offered a job working at a family friend’s paper company. I had fully intended to return to Luoyang and make a life there. But I had just turned twenty-three, and the job offered more money than I’d ever made. I was elated to think that Ai-li and I could finally get married and live in Guangzhou, but instead of being happy when I returned to Luoyang with the news, she was clearly upset by it.”

  Tian stopped talking and rubbed his eyes.

  “I should also mention,” he continued, “that Ai-li’s entire appearance had changed gradually during the last two years we were together. By the time the Party had declared victory in 1949, she had stopped using any kind of makeup and disdained all the false propaganda that represented a bourgeoisie society. When I returned from Guangzhou, I was shocked to see she had cut her beautiful long hair, which she knew I had always loved, to a short and blunt cut like so many of the other female Party members. If a haircut could express anger, it was hers. I was upset but tried not to show it.

  “I kept telling her, ‘You’ll get another job and make new friends in Guangzhou. With my salary, we’ll be able to marry and start a life of our own, just like we always hoped.’ She only smiled distantly. Any person who wasn’t half as much in love could have seen that she no longer believed in that life.”

  “Did she say anything to you before then?” Wei asked.

  “Our disagreements had mainly to do with politics,” he answered.

  Tian stopped and looked around the car, as if to make sure no one else was listening before he continued.

  “
When I first moved to Luoyang, Ai-li implored me to go with her to a Party meeting. ‘You’ll see how right it all is,’ she said. ‘Our life together will only gain strength through our dedication,’ she went on. But I would have none of it. ‘Aren’t I good enough for you? Why do you need the Communist Party to make you happy?’ I asked. ‘Because the world is bigger than us,’ she said. Ai-li spoke of regretting all of our foolish talk, and viewing our hopes and dreams as nothing more than bourgeoisie ideals held by silly children.”

  Tian stopped to take a drink.

  Wei didn’t know when, but the dim lights in the car had gone off, leaving them in shadows. The car was now illuminated only by Tian’s weak reading light spilling sadly upon him, making it appear as if he were being interrogated.

  “You don’t have to go on,” Wei said.

  “It’s all right,” he said softly. He cleared his throat and continued. “After a very difficult week, Ai-li suddenly relaxed as if all the fight had seeped out of her. For the first time in a year, I saw traces of the old Ai-li return. She stopped going to Party meetings in the evenings and came to see me instead. For the next week of my stay, it was as if we had found our way back to each other. Slowly, quietly, we discussed our plans again, and it was finally agreed that I would return to Guangzhou first to begin my new job and Ai-li would follow in a month or two, after she’d settled everything in Luoyang, to begin our life together.”

  Tian looked over at Wei. “You think me foolish to believe her, but at the time, I needed to believe her. Wouldn’t I have known if she were lying? It was so much easier to see what I wanted. Ai-li seemed herself again, excited about the move, and I was relieved to be able to stay put in Guangzhou and work, eager to show her more of the city and how wonderful it would be for us living there.”

  Wei reached over for the bottle of liquor in Tian’s hands, swallowed a mouthful, and handed it back to him. But instead of taking a drink, Tian simply cradled the bottle in his hands.

  “It was closer to three months by the time Ai-li was ready to come to Guangzhou,” he continued. “On the Friday she was to arrive, I left work early and hurried to the train station to wait. I still remember the feeling of anticipation that raced through my body. When the train arrived, I searched for her in each window and then waited and watched as each passenger stepped off, thinking surely she would be next. But she never was.”

  “What happened?” Wei asked, although he already knew Ai-li had never boarded a train.

  “My first thought was that she must have missed the train. I contacted her work but no one had seen her. She had few really close friends except for those in the Party. Her family lived far away in the countryside, near Fuzhou, and I had only met a cousin of hers in all the time we were together. Ai-li often said she didn’t really belong anywhere. But she belonged with me. I waited for the next train to arrive, thinking she might have transferred along the way and was coming in on another train. It was dark when the last train arrived, and Ai-li wasn’t on it.”

  Tian shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. He dropped the cigarette butt to the floor and stamped it out with his sandal.

  “What did you do?” Wei asked.

  “By then I was frantic. I returned to my room, half out of my mind with worry, believing that something must have happened to her. I remember it being so hot that night; the room seemed to suck all the breath from me. I lay on my bed sweating, just waiting to catch the first train that left the following morning for Luoyang. The last time I saw her, everything between us had seemed fine again. She had dropped the Party façade and was the same sweet, gentle young woman she always was. During our last week together, she was happy and filled with plans to make the move to Guangzhou. I’ve replayed every moment of our time together and there’s only one detail that keeps on returning even after all these years. When Ai-li left me at the train station, she didn’t look back as she always did. She walked straight down the steps, turned the corner, and was gone.”

  Tian stopped talking. He looked past Wei and out the window as if he were still searching for her.

  Wei sat back and rubbed his shoulder, feeling the dull throb of his scraped elbow. Hadn’t he felt the same fierce desperation? The raw, frenzied emptiness of having his son simply vanish. Ai-li had most likely chosen to disappear; Sheng wasn’t given a choice. Why hadn’t they heard from him in such a long time? Wei wondered if Luoyang was a city of ghosts. He glanced across the aisle to see that Tian had closed his eyes. Was he dreaming of seeing Ai-li again? It was her memory that he still loved. Wei, of all people, knew what a strong hold that could have. He leaned back and pulled his mein po tighter around him. The world was a harsh place for brokenhearted men.

  Kai Ying

  Kai Ying quietly made her way downstairs. She heard movement down in the kitchen and thought for a moment that Wei might have returned, but instead, when she turned on an oil lamp, she saw Suyin rifling through the cabinets.

  “If you need something, all you have to do is ask,” Kai Ying said, her voice even and firm.

  The girl turned, startled, the light catching the surprise and fear in her eyes. “I didn’t mean…” she began.

  “I need you to promise me that it stops here and now,” Kai Ying said.

  “I was afraid…”

  “Promise me,” she repeated.

  Suyin looked as if she wanted to cry. “I promise,” she said softly.

  Without another word, Kai Ying turned around and went back upstairs.

  * * *

  Kai Ying tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. She was upset, disappointed rather than angry at Suyin. She liked the girl, but if Suyin was going to stay in the house any longer, Kai Ying needed to be able to trust her from this night forward. Kai Ying hoped she’d made the right decision in giving her another chance, but she couldn’t imagine what would become of a fifteen-year-old girl and her baby, alone, and out on the streets again.

  Song

  Even Song’s garden couldn’t provide solace. The day was just beginning, the dirt still damp and cold as she dug up old roots and turned over the soil with thoughts of her spring planting already in mind, but even visions of long beans and gai lan couldn’t ease her mind or alleviate her restlessness. She hadn’t felt this nervous churning in her stomach for a long time, not since the days of Old Hing, when she never knew if he was going to flare up and find fault where there wasn’t any. Song always felt as if she were standing on thin ice, ready to take the plunge into the icy depths at any moment, the frigid water filling her body, coursing through her veins, and stealing the last of her breath. She had to do something to take back her life before it was too late.

  Song had never told anyone, not even Liang. It would remain her burden. She did return to see Herbalist Chu during those difficult days after she met Kai Ying, only it wasn’t about a way to end her own life. “A rat problem, I suppose,” Herbalist Chu had said. He looked at her knowingly, and then asked her if she was sure of what she was doing. “Yes,” Song said, without a moment’s hesitation. She had never been so sure of anything in her life.

  It all happened much quicker than she had expected, a bit of chuan wu in Old Hing’s food, and by the second day he was bedridden with difficulties breathing, struggling for air as his heartbeat slowed, and by the third day—stopping altogether. Only once, after he had lost his voice, did she see him watching her, his gasping breaths filling the room. She could see him wondering if she’d had the courage to end his life, his dark, angry pupils revealing all, coming to the conclusion that she was too weak, too stupid to have poisoned him. She could read his thoughts. “Yes, yes it was me,” she said, leaning close to his ear and making sure that he had heard her.

  He died that evening.

  Old Hing was nearing eighty-five years old and most of their neighbors chose to believe he’d died of natural causes. A lucky man, they told her, to have gone so quickly, although she knew some wondered how such a vile man could be taken so simply in his sl
eep and without suffering. Song had waited, ready to take whatever punishment came her way, but weeks and then months went by before she quietly assumed her new role as a widow.

  * * *

  Song had compartmentalized all those feelings of dread and despair that had shadowed so much of her life. Now another kind of fear enveloped her, only this time it was for Wei. Song prayed to Kuan Yin that he would find his way safely to Luoyang. Why hadn’t she called out his name when she’d seen him leaving the other morning? She might have been able to stop him, or at least talk some sense into him. There was no use lamenting now. He’s a smart man, she thought, he’ll find his way, but even she wasn’t completely convinced. Song looked up at the overcast sky and couldn’t help but think she’d let Liang down.

  Wei

  The train lumbered on through the night. Sometime during the long pause, both he and Tian leaned back on the hard seats and slept for a few hours. Wei closed his eyes and had dreamed of Liang. In the dream, she was angry at him but he didn’t know why. He woke feeling uncomfortable, knowing that they were on the verge of an argument. Their arguments never lasted long—angry words, disappointed sighs, followed by a silence that usually ended a few hours later. Thinking back, most of their disagreements originated with something he had refused to do. Only once in their long marriage did her anger remain palpable for days.

  It was just before the Communist Party came into power, and he had purposely lied to Liang when she asked him to go to a political rally with her. He had told her that a new shipment of antiquities had come to the university and he needed to receive and catalogue them. In truth, he didn’t want her to go; she of all people knew he had no interest in political matters. As long as his research continued, he was a happy man. He also feared the Party had eyes everywhere and he and Liang would later be considered agitators. He’d hoped Liang wouldn’t go without him and she hadn’t. She’d been quiet the next morning at breakfast. When he asked her if everything was all right, she had replied in a controlled voice, “I just wanted you to give me one evening of your precious time for something I believed in. I’ve given you a lifetime.”