The jade and gold bracelet held bittersweet memories. He’d given it to her two years after MeiMei’s birth. She’d overheard him one evening in conversation with his father, regarding the lack of sons to carry the family name. There had been two other pregnancies, but both had ended in miscarriages. Xueliang’s father suggested a second wife. Ming Li had listened, expecting Xueliang to disagree, to tell his father sons would come in time, but instead she heard him say he’d been considering it. When he came into their bedroom that night she had vented her anger, throwing hairbrushes, perfume bottles, anything she could find at him.
‘Never,’ she’d screamed, ‘never bring another woman near this house! I’ll kill her if you do!’
Xueliang had laughed at her tantrum, proud of her jealousy, and the next night he’d given her the bracelet. They never spoke of a second wife again, and Ming Li never found out whether, somewhere, such a woman existed, or maybe just a mistress or two. She didn’t want to know. But she did know the innocent, naïve love she’d felt for Xueliang earlier in her marriage died that day.
She placed the jewellery back in its hiding place, pulled a thread from a frayed section of the coat and re-sewed the seam. Maybe she wouldn’t need to sell them just yet, if she could find some sort of work. Xueliang didn’t want her to work, but Xueliang was no longer here, and Cousin Chih-fu was not about to give up the rent he charged them for that miserable little square of floor space. But where would she find work in a city where nearly everything was owned by the Japanese? She had never worked before. MeiMei had found work in a restaurant, but her meagre wages only bought a little food – not nearly enough to cover their rent. Ming Li attached the needle to the underside of her coat collar and stood up. It would soon be dawn and she should go back and lie down before anyone woke. In the morning she’d look for work. Short of prostitution, she was willing to do anything.
18
‘Pregnant! And proud of it. She had the nerve to tell me it was my fault – that I should have spent more time at home. Christ Almighty! There was a bloody war on!’
Chen Mu poured a measure of brandy into a glass and handed it to Edward. ‘Here, Master Edward, drink this. Calm yourself.’
‘I don’t want to calm myself! A bloody Yank! And now she wants a divorce. She’s moving to America, she tells me. Tomorrow. All packed and ready to go.’
‘And Miss Charlotte, where is she tonight?’
‘What? Charlotte? She wasn’t even there. Too cowardly to face me, I imagine. Just like her mother.’
‘You know that’s not true; Miss Charlotte is no coward. It’s an awkward situation for a child …’
‘She’s not a child. She’s seventeen, old enough to face me. Old enough to write and tell me what her mother’s been up to.’
‘You’re being unfair. You cannot expect a child to take responsibility for a mother’s behaviour. As for her not being there tonight, well, I can understand that. She probably thought it best not to be there to witness your reaction to your wife’s swollen belly. Can you really believe she didn’t want to see you? If I know Miss Charlotte – and I believe I do – she’s probably worrying herself sick right now.’
Edward refilled his glass and took a long swallow. He wanted to believe Chen Mu, believe Charlotte was as angry with her mother as he was.
‘I have to deliver these,’ Chen Mu said as he collected a stack of telegrams – yellow messages now no longer feared but seen as harbingers of good news. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so. We’ll talk then.’
‘Chen Mu?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you know?’
Chen Mu hesitated. He’d heard the gossip, of course. In a town as small as Macoomba, nothing was secret. But he hadn’t seen Julia Billings these past months. He didn’t know, as such.
‘No, Master Edward. I didn’t know.’
Edward paced Chen Mu’s living room, picking up objects, putting them back without even noticing them. He was so angry he wanted to smash something.
While he’d rotted in China, lain in hospital for months on end, she’d been entertaining her Yank, right in his mother’s house – no, his house now. His bed. You should have been home more, she’d yelled at him. Stupid woman. He could see the scene now: he’d barely recovered when they promoted him to Major and attached him to Allied High Command for the rest of the war – Go where? Sorry Sir, can’t do that. Have to go home to the wife and kid … If they hadn’t just dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if he hadn’t just come home, when would he have found out about Julia’s ‘condition’? Would she have written to him before or after going to America? Or would she have waited until the child had been born? He imagined himself in the depths of somewhere like Burma at mail call. Dear Edward, Just writing to let you know I’ve decided to leave you. America is wonderful this time of year. PS: Congratulate me; I’m about to become a mother again! The woman was ridiculous.
He went to pour himself another drink. Hesitated, and picked up the bottle instead. He needed air.
The night soothed him. It was cold and, though still relatively early, it seemed as if the whole township slept. Somewhere an owl hooted. He drank the brandy straight from the bottle while in the sky millions of stars shone. Out here, sitting on the steps of Chen Mu’s front porch, he could think more clearly. He would let Julia go without an argument, give her her divorce. But she wasn’t getting Walpinya Station, nor the house in Sydney. He’d pay her off. In cash. She’d always preferred hard cash to property; he’d borrow from the bank if he had to. Now that the war was over and he’d been guaranteed a promotion at the Technological Museum – recently renamed the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences – he’d have no problem getting a loan. Yes, that’s what he’d do. Pay the whore off.
He raised the bottle to his lips and was surprised to find it empty. Had he finished it already? He thought of Charlotte. Did she want to go to America? In his anger he’d forgotten to ask if she too was leaving. No, he didn’t think she would. She loved Walpinya Station, and she had friends there and in Sydney. She wouldn’t want to leave. Chen Mu was right – she wasn’t that grown up, poor kid. She was probably worried sick. He imagined she’d spent the night at her best friend’s house. Maybe he should go and talk to her. Yes, he should go and find her. Now. His little sweet girl.
He went back into the house.
His car keys were nowhere to be found. He checked the mantelpiece, the armchairs, the coffee table. On a table below the window was a pile of posters – another of Chen Mu’s jobs. They were meant to have been plastered on walls around town, but now were no longer necessary. Edward flicked through them. The enemy listens – your words are his weapons. Another asked people to salvage scrap metal, whilst a third – She may look clean BUT … pick-ups, ‘good time’ girls and prostitutes spread syphilis and gonorrhoea. You can’t beat the Axis if you get VD – made him laugh; it reminded him of the madam and her chickens in Burma.
Keys forgotten, Edward flipped through to the last poster. He pulled it out from the pile. His hands shook.
Australia screams, it was titled. In the background was a map of New Guinea on which stood a wounded Digger, bayonet fixed. What’s that scream? Something’s up, he asked, looking towards a map of Australia in the foreground, pierced by the Stars and Stripes. A smirking American officer straddled the continent, with a young Australian woman struggling in his arms. Shhh … quiet, girly, the Yank whispered. Calm yourself. He’ll be on the next casualty list, no worry.
Edward stared at the poster. The room around him faded. His hands shook more and more. Slowly, he tore the poster in two. Then in four. Then in half again. He tore faster and faster, ripping the paper into smaller and smaller pieces until it became too thick to tear. With a howl he threw the paper into the air. Overturned the table on which the posters rested. The crash only fuelled his anger. He wanted to hit someone. Punch and punch until they bled. Julia’s Yank. No, not the Yank. Julia. He wanted to hit her and go on hitting and hitting and
hitting until her beautiful face was pulp and her belly no longer swelled under her dress. He punched the wall instead and his knuckles cracked.
He held up his hand and looked at it, surprised to see it there, a part of his body. It throbbed and swelled as he watched, the skin turning an ugly purple. Over two knuckles the skin had burst and trickles of blood ran down to his wrist and still he watched, mesmerised by the changes taking place. In some part of his brain he knew he should feel pain but he felt nothing. Not pain, not anger. Just a fascination with his hand, watching it swell more and more and turn purple. Watching the blood run down his wrist and soak into the cuff of his shirt.
‘Master Edward, what happened? Your hand!’ Chen Mu tried to grab Edward’s wrist but Edward pulled back, raising the injured fist as if to strike. Chen Mu stood his ground and his gaze met Edward’s as he slowly reached up for the arm. This time Edward allowed him to examine the fist. ‘You’ve broken it, I’m sure of it. Come, sit yourself down. Let me look at it properly.’
Edward stared at Chen Mu, confused to find him there. He looked around the room, then back to his hand. He allowed Chen Mu to lead him to an armchair.
‘I’ll get some water – some ice. You must soak it. Then we’ll see.’ Chen Mu took in the overturned table, the torn poster, the empty brandy bottle. He’d been expecting something like this.
‘Here,’ he said, pulling a small table up to Edward and putting the bowl of water and ice cubes on it, ‘put your hand in this. I’ll ring the doctor.’
When he came back into the room Edward was hunched over in the chair, cradling his hand, but from the water on the floor and on his clothes it was obvious he’d at least attempted to soak it.
‘The doctor’ll be a while. His wife said he’d gone to attend a birth.’
Edward didn’t answer.
‘You know, Master Edward, you’re not the first. This war – the women. They didn’t have it easy either …’
‘And that makes it all right?’
‘No, no, of course not. All I’m saying is that—’
‘I know what you’re saying and I don’t buy it. She was the one who said no more sex. Separate bedrooms. Not me. No more children, she said. And I didn’t force her. I stood by her. I could have divorced her there and then. But no, I stood by her. For her sake as well as Charlotte’s. A whole lot of good that did me. If I’d known what she’d been up to I would have stayed in China. Stayed near LiLi. Instead I—’
‘LiLi?’
Edward closed his eyes and leaned back into the chair. He hadn’t meant to mention Ming Li; he’d never told Chen Mu about her. But what did it matter now? Why shouldn’t he talk about her? His wife had certainly shown no such discretion.
Chen Mu sat still. He’d suspected such a liaison for some time now – if not in China, then in Sydney. He watched the expressions flitting across Edward’s face. He looked a different person from the cocky young man who’d bragged about his adventures so many years ago. He was gaunt and his skin had a sickly yellow tint, but the change had nothing to do with his physical deterioration. There was something haunting about Edward Billings – an intensity that suggested a troubled mind.
‘Tell me about this LiLi.’
Edward didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. But after a while he began to talk, as if to himself. Slowly, softy, he spoke of the young woman he had met so long ago in the Cercle Sportif Français. He spoke of his yearning for her, of her courage and her beauty and her pain, of the constant urgency he felt to look for her even though he feared she might already be dead. And Chen Mu listened without interrupting, remembering a small boy from a lifetime ago.
19
‘Quickly! Quickly!’ Ming Li told MeiMei as they hurried towards their house.
‘Why? It’ll still be there …’
‘You don’t know that. And even if it is, who knows what state it’ll be in.’
She heaved her bundle containing their few belongings further up her chest and crossed the road, barely looking at oncoming traffic. The Japanese may well have withdrawn from China at the end of the war, but with it the uneasy truce that had existed between the Kuomintang and the Communists collapsed, and the country was now embroiled in civil war. But unlike the rest of China, Shanghai was beginning to prosper once more as Westerners optimistically ignored news of the Communists pressing southwards. For most Chinese, however, starvation continued and thousands more flocked to the city hoping to find work. If their house was still standing, Ming Li wanted to reclaim it before someone else appropriated it.
‘See? It’s still there, Mother. You worried for nothing.’
Ming Li pushed open the gate of the tall granite wall surrounding their house, entered the outer courtyard and stepped behind the privacy wall. Under the veranda of the main house, a woman was breastfeeding an infant, whilst in the courtyard another was washing her hair in the stagnant water of a large carved stone basin that had once held goldfish during the summer months. Both glanced at Ming Li and MeiMei, but Ming Li ignored them and went into the house.
In the inner hall a group of men, all dressed in rags, squatted around a small fire they’d built in the middle of the floor. A piece of wood cracked, drawing Ming Li’s attention to the flames, and she recognised the intricate carvings of their ancestral altar. On seeing this, all the resentment of the past few years, which she’d kept hidden under a façade of submissiveness, suddenly exploded. Armed with a piece of wood she found lying beside her, she screamed at them and beat them out of her house and out of the front courtyard into the street.
Back inside, she entered what had been her bedroom and found a couple having sex in her bed, while curled beside them an old woman slept, and on the floor by the bed a toddler played with a skinny, naked, gurgling baby. Only for the sake of the children did she rein in her temper. She picked up the baby and handed him to MeiMei, and signalled to the toddler to follow her daughter out. By that time the man was trying to climb back into his trousers whilst yelling at her for taking the children, and his partner was shaking the old woman awake.
With the house and courtyard empty of squatters, Ming Li gave her daughter the last of the money she’d received for selling her gold pendant and chain.
‘Food. We need food. Get whatever you can. And something to clean this house – soap, brushes, whatever you can find. The whole place stinks of Japanese and beggars.’
She watched MeiMei leave, then sat on the floor beside the burning remains of the altar. How upset Xueliang would be! This altar was hundreds of years old – had been passed down for generations. But then, did even an altar really matter, when thousands had lost their lives, and thousands more had had their families torn apart?
She went to the kitchen, found an empty tin and filled it with water to drench the burning remains of the fire. As she watched the steam rise she felt an overwhelming need to cry, and for the first time since before the war allowed herself to do so. She cried for what they’d had to endure these past years, and for Xueliang, who had not yet returned. And she cried for Edward, whom she thought of and missed constantly, but knew, deep down, that she would probably never see again. But most of all she cried for the future.
By the time MeiMei returned, Ming Li had regained control of her emotions.
They spent the next two days scrubbing walls and ceilings and floors, pulling mattresses outside so as to better examine them for bed bugs and lice, washing every piece of furniture, every pan not stolen, until they felt all traces of the Japanese and squatters had been flushed away. Then Ming Li took stock of their situation.
The work she had managed to find – mending clothes for those still able to afford it – barely put food on the table and was too sporadic to be relied on, so that she’d had to sell the rest of her jewellery to pay Cousin Chih-fu’s rent. MeiMei was still working at the restaurant, but about to be married. Ming Li knew she’d have to find a better way of earning a living. She paced through the house, noting what was left, thinking. She thought o
f the squatters and the hundreds now homeless, and realised a new opportunity was at hand. But to make it work she’d need money. She would have to try access any money that may still be in Xueliang’s accounts.
She had been queuing for what seemed like hours. At last it was her turn and she stepped up to the teller’s window.
‘How do I know,’ the arrogant young man asked in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, ‘that you are really this man’s wife? What proof have you?’
‘Our papers … When the Japanese commandeered our house—’
‘Maybe, but without papers, I can’t do anything. And even if you had proof, how do I know what really happened to your husband? How do I know whether he’d allow you to take his money, hey?’
Ming Li left that bank and headed for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, where Edward had opened that account for her before the war. She’d never touched any of it, firstly out of pride, then because she simply couldn’t, but things were different now …
Two bronze lions had once guarded the portal of the bank, and people had stroked their paws as they’d passed in the hope that some of the wealth within might come their way. The lions were gone now, probably melted down by the Japanese for the war effort, but the money in her account was still there, though galloping inflation had reduced its value. She withdrew all of it.
With MeiMei’s help she moved furniture into the room next to the kitchen that had once been their amahs’ bedroom, and made this hers and MeiMei’s. The next day she used the money she’d withdrawn to buy extra beds and put locks on all the doors. From the undamaged furniture she made the inner hall into a dining room, and offered all of the other rooms for rent; a risky move, as most Chinese could not afford to rent, and associating with Westerners was more frowned upon than before.
The Yellow Papers Page 15