by Eileen Chang
“We saw your mother,” the cousins later told Julie. “Nothing much to look at, if you ask me,” one of them said. “Really quite old.”
The morning after the wedding Julie went downstairs to the living room. Everything seemed the same as it had been when she was small—the vermillion phoenix–motif carpet, the familiar faint trace of dust mixed with the fragrance of flowers. There were two new pots of flowers. In preparation for the guests, four kinds of confectioneries and snacks were arranged on the table. Julie sat down and ate some, though it felt as if she were taking a bribe.
Julian came in and saw the treats in blue cellophane wrappers on the table. He ogled them for a moment, then sat down and began to stuff his face too. Brother and sister did not speak as they devoured an entire plate of chocolate-coated peanut candies. A maidservant, who had accompanied the bride to the groom’s household, noticed and without saying anything opened the jar to take out another couple of handfuls of candy, encouraging them to eat. The two smiled and turned to leave.
It was rather awkward for the newlyweds to live near Ned’s former in-laws—gossiping and scrutinizing would be inevitable as they walked around the same neighborhood every day. They moved to a large foreign-style bungalow in a depreciated area with cheaper rent. After a meal, Jade Flower went onto the balcony to look out over the neglected tennis court in the garden. Julie followed her, then Ned wandered out slowly. The strong wind blew against Jade Flower’s faded silk gown with thin lilac stripes, revealing her dainty waist and bony hips. Her glossy hair was tied back in a bun. In the sunlight, her long rectangular face with a pair of almost rectangular eyes looked particularly pale.
“Goodness, you two are very similar,” joked Ned. He sounded a little embarrassed by his comment that seemed to suggest the marriage was fated by heaven, for even his former wife’s daughter resembled Jade Flower.
But Jade Flower was not amused. She laughed coldly and responded with only a faint smile and a grunt.
Perhaps we do look a little similar on a first impression. Hard to say for sure.
One of Julie’s classmates wrote poetry in classical forms and this year’s theme was the mid-autumn moon.
Beyond the pass three provinces suddenly lost
The country, like the moon, wanes for all to see
The Chinese-language instructors heartily approved and circulated the poem throughout the school. When Julie went home for the end-of-month break, she jokingly asked her father, “Why hasn’t the fighting started?” She felt a little guilty because she had merely overheard people talking.
“Fighting?” said Ned brusquely. “Fight with what?”
Another time, when she came home from school, Julian reported, “Fifth Uncle has gone to Manchukuo to be an official.”
This uncle from the Sheng clan was a frequent visitor. The match between Jade Flower and Ned was made by his two younger sisters. He was also an opium smoker, and many people praised his mastery of Chinese painting. A large man with a dark horse-face on which sat a pair of tortoiseshell-framed spectacles, he spoke quietly with a gentle voice. He was fond of Julie and often caressed her bare arms, longingly burbling, “Little darling.”
“Fifth Uncle has gone to Manchukuo?” Julie asked her father.
“What else can he do?” Ned spluttered angrily.
Julie did not know that the source of this outburst stemmed from Fifth Uncle always visiting to borrow money. He had been a section chief in the Peiyang warlord government that was established in 1912, but after the Republican government’s Northern Expedition put an end to the Peiyang regime in the late 1920s, he relied on his two sisters. He had sent his wife back to the old family home but still maintained a concubine’s household and numerous children.
Julie had also observed him caressing Judy’s arm, and he borrowed money from her too.
“I don’t like Fifth Uncle,” Julie said to Judy one day.
“It’s strange,” replied Judy inattentively, “that you don’t like Fifth Uncle. He’s very fond of you.”
“Fifth Uncle is just a cranky old scholar,” Aunt Chu chimed in from the sidelines.
One day Ned was in a good mood and inscribed one of Julie’s round silk fans with the words she read as “Meng the Beautiful.” Julie already had a rather masculine name, so she was very happy with this feminine-sounding name, completely unaware that it was intended to communicate that her father anticipated more daughters. It also could mean “Dreaming of Daughters.” Most people feel that having only one son is cause for apprehension, whereas one daughter is more than enough. Ned, however, was clearly preparing for many more children. Otherwise, why would a family of four live in such a large house.
“Second Uncle gave me the name ‘Meng the Beautiful,’” Julie told Judy.
“How utterly common,” Judy sneered, frowning bemusedly.
“Oh?”
“Your second aunt has more than one hundred names.”
Julie had seen one or two of the names Rachel used in old bank passbooks—Shu-mei, meaning Rime Plum, and Chin-lan, meaning Beguiling Orchid—although she only used one English name and when signing letters, she simply wrote Chel.
“Write a letter to your second aunt,” Judy urged with a smile. She constantly pressed Julie, who would finally, under duress, sit at Judy’s desk with a guilty smile and pick up her pen. But she could never think of anything to write beyond, “I’m diligently practicing piano” or “It’s the winter holidays again.” Mentioning anything else would result in a scolding. Rachel’s writing style in her letters mirrored her personality. But even in movies “ideology” has to be delivered through pretty actresses. Without the physical attributes present, whatever Rachel’s message was, it ended up being nothing more than preaching empty words.
That day, Julie drank tea as she struggled to write a letter to her mother. A drop of tea fell onto the letter and the black ink spread into a blurry splotch.
When Judy saw it she laughed. “Second Aunt will think it’s a tear.”
Julie was mortified. “I’ll copy it out again.”
Judy took the letter and read it. All the words were clear. “It will do. No need to copy it out again.”
Julie smiled sheepishly. “It would be better to copy it out again,” she insisted. “I don’t mind.”
Judy realized her little joke was the root of all this and became annoyed. “It’s fine!” she snapped. “No need to rewrite it.”
Julie still hesitated, but knowing Judy was in straitened circumstances and could not bring herself to despoil another sheet of fine writing paper, she didn’t push it.
•
During the winter, the only heater lit in the whole house was kept in the living room where Ned and Jade Flower smoked opium. One day at lunchtime, Jade Flower descended the stairs, holding a hot-water bottle with a brocade cover. Ned finished eating first, then, as was his habit, paced around the room. When he came up behind Jade Flower, he suddenly grabbed the hot-water bottle and pressed it on the back of her neck. “I’ll scald you to death! I’m going to scald you to death!” he gleefully cried out.
“Stop it,” she chortled, turning her head to dodge him.
Another day, in the afternoon, Julie went to their living room to read newspapers and saw Julian reclining on the opium bed, snuggled up close behind Jade Flower. He was still quite small, like a cat. He looked so content, as if he had finally found a safe haven. Julie was stunned. Since when did Meng Kuang accept Liang Hong’s tray? An allegory from her favorite novel The Story of the Stone flashed through her mind. When did they of all people become such a perfect family? The three of them there on the opium bed are the very picture of a blissful family, as though they were meant to be like that. It’s obvious there is no place for me here.
Judy gave Julie a large doll, as heavy as a real baby, wearing a boy’s hat, shorts, and pants of light-blue knitted wool. She also knitted a set of clothes in light green. Julie imagined Judy wanted her own child, one that looked exactly like the
doll.
“Lend me your doll so I can put it on display,” Jade Flower requested with a smile.
Julie immediately brought the doll to Jade Flower, along with the extra change of clothes. Jade Flower set the doll on the opium bed.
“Your mother surely does want a child of her own,” sneered Judy when Julie told her.
Julie never actually liked the doll, but walking past it there on the opium bed with its arms outstretched gave her a creepy feeling. “Go ahead and cast your evil spells,” she silently told the doll.
Ned and Judy’s litigation with their eldest brother dragged on for a long time and the costs were becoming ruinous. Jade Flower stepped into the fray to mediate. “There are just three of you but I have twenty or thirty brothers and sisters, and we all get along very well.” The siblings descended from Jade Flower’s mother frequently stayed at the Shengs’ house. Her mother, an old concubine, soon brought her two youngest children to stay with her. Julie and Julian called her Good Grannie.
Judy refused to settle out of court and her elder brother stood firm too. “When she dies,” he bellowed, slapping his hand on the table, “you can come to me for money to buy her coffin. Otherwise, there won’t be a penny for her.”
Jade Flower was frugal with the household expenses. She dismissed Auntie Lee, saying Julie was rarely home and Julian was already a big boy, so Auntie Han could keep an eye on him as well as do the laundry. In fact, although Julie was a boarder, Auntie Han still had to deliver snacks to her every week and bring back her dirty clothes to wash.
The pay for maidservants at that time was three Chinese dollars a month, at most five dollars. But the Sheng family had always been paying Auntie Han ten dollars because she was a favorite of the late matriarch. Now her pay was reduced by half to five dollars, but Auntie Han, as ever, tried her best to please her new mistress. Whenever Auntie Han was called upon while serving at the table she always responded with a heartfelt, felicitous, “Ma’am.”
Auntie Han had shrunk with age. Standing short and squat, her wrinkled face widening, she resembled a large crouching dog, obediently looking up to Jade Flower, especially alert because she was hard of hearing and tried to make up for that deficiency with her eyes.
Auntie Han was forever urging Julie to “Go in,” referring to the room where her father smoked opium.
Now Auntie Han never uttered her customary opening line: “In the time of Old Matriarch… .” That would sound like she was complaining.
Julie returned home from boarding school and saw that Julian had shot up overnight. He swaggered around the house, his lanky frame clothed in a brand-new full-length blue cotton gown, which made him appear bloated. He became extremely volatile, no one knowing when he would next erupt.
“He was fine a minute ago,” Good Grannie complained under her breath to a maidservant. “This child… . He doesn’t come when you call him. Almost as if he has something to hide.” Then she added, “It’s even embarrassing for us relatives.”
Ned liked to call his son using his full name for humorous effect. “Julian Sheng! Fetch that letter for me!” Julian would acknowledge the command, then with great alacrity remove a long Western-style envelope from inside the desk drawer and pass it to his father.
Once, by chance, Julie saw Julian practicing his own signature on a voided check. Jade Flower was sitting on the opium divan and whispered something in Ned’s ear. Her big eyes betrayed a mischievous smile. Ned suddenly sprang up and cuffed Julian hard on the ear.
On another occasion Julian was again summoned but refused to go. Auntie Han and two maidservants pushed and shoved but he lay sprawled out on the floor firmly holding on to the doorframe.
“Agh,” Auntie Han grunted disapprovingly.
His punishment, known as “brick-and-incense kneeling,” was to kneel on two bricks in the garden for the time it took a stick of incense to burn. Julie was by herself on the ground floor but she did not glance once into the garden. She was angry with her brother for having fallen into Jade Flower’s trap of making concessions for future gains, and then being such a coward. When he came back inside she ignored him. Suddenly he glared at Julie, and tears welled up in his eyes.
Even the male servant Teng Sheng was disgusted. “He’s only got one son and he beats him every day like a slave girl,” he railed loudly in the reception room at the gatehouse. Ned did nothing at the time, but after a short interval sent him off indefinitely to the country estate. The old man eventually died in the countryside.
Julie often lay reading in a large gloomy room with just a few rays of sunlight streaking through the angled-slats of the jalousie windows. She fantasized about ways to become rich so she could rescue Julian and Auntie Han. From the laundry room on the other side of the wall, Julie could hear the repetitive sound of Auntie Han pounding the sheets vigorously on the washboard in the concrete tub.
From time to time Judy visited for the sake of maintaining cordial relations with Ned’s family. On one such occasion, she wore a beige velvet coat with muskrat-fur trim around the bell-shaped bottom to flaunt her beautiful long legs. “At least your third aunt has good legs,” Julie remember Rachel often saying. A little plumper than Marlene Dietrich, not bony, and quite straight. Judy would usually say a few perfunctory words mocking Auntie Han’s Hofei dialect, “Ah, Auntie Han. Are you fine? I’m good, oh.” Then a customary little snort of indifference followed. And yet one day Judy said to Julie, “It just occurred to me that Auntie Han watched us grow up, too. Why is she so different toward you?”
“Perhaps,” replied Julie, unable to think of anything else to say, “old people tend to show more affection toward their grandchildren than toward their children.”
Jade Flower brought Julie bundles of hand-me-downs from her family home. Cotton gowns with frayed collars, more gowns than Julie could ever hope to wear, gowns that seemed awfully out of place in her exclusive private girls’ school. Julie yearned for a school uniform, but her wish was never fulfilled.
“I’ll have some new clothes made for you when you turn eighteen,” Judy promised.
To Julie that eighteenth birthday seemed so incredibly remote, an unseeable existence beyond a gigantic, impassable mountain.
“I promised your second aunt I would look after you,” said Judy on one occasion. She did not want Julie to feel like she owed her anything.
“We lost the court case,” Judy told her in a rather lighthearted tone.
“How did that happen?” asked Julie in a low voice, perplexed.
“They bribed the judge. We bribed the judge, too … but they had more money.”
Judy did not reveal to Julie that another reason for the defeat was that Ned changed sides and came to a private arrangement with their eldest brother.
“They say my brother has been stealing,” Julie told Judy.
“What did he steal?”
“Money.”
There was a momentary silence before Judy responded. “When children see small change laying around, it’s quite normal for them to take it. But when the Keng clan gets wind of something like that, it then becomes stealing.”
The school yearbook planned to publish a photograph of every graduating student the following year. Julie had a photograph taken with her short hair tucked behind her ears. She looked like a little chick. Jade Flower saw that Julie seemed despondent. “You look like that because you haven’t permed your hair,” Jade Flower said, smiling. “Do you want to get a perm?”
“Mother asked if I want to have a perm,” Julie told Judy.
“She just wants to marry you off,” chortled Judy.
Julie became wary.
Cousin Lü, an impoverished member of the Keng clan, a distant nephew of Jade Flower’s, was a frequent visitor because he accompanied Ned to the stock exchange to learn the ropes. Every classical description of a handsome man applied to Cousin Lü: His “complexion as lustrous as a jade ornament” with “lips like painted vermillion” and “upturned eyebrows as straight as swo
rds above piercing bright eyes,” “handsome as a jade tree facing the wind.” He wore a dark blue silk gown when he entered Julie’s room. After they exchanged greetings, he sat down and didn’t say another word as he flipped through a novel on Julie’s desk.
To end the awkward silence, Julie asked him if he had read the novel and what films he had seen. Each time she asked a question, he paused, smiled, then shook his head. She ran out of topics; he lowered his head and noisily turned the pages. After lingering for a while, he finally stood up and announced, “Cousin, you are studying, I will not disturb you anymore.”
“That Cousin Lü is so annoying!” squawked one of the Keng cousins. “As Sixth Sister tells it, he also goes over to their place, sits down for ages, and doesn’t say anything. Sixth Sister says it’s maddeningly annoying.” The speaker was a member of the wealthy branch of the Keng clan that had two fashionable girls in their twenties. There were so many people in Cousin Lü’s branch of the Keng clan and none of them had any money so he never visited them and sat quietly.
At first Julie thought the comment made by the cousin from the Keng family was just sour grapes, but when she heard that Cousin Lü had behaved the same toward the two daughters in Sixth Sister’s family, Julie felt somewhat at a loss. Soon afterward, Julian told her of Cousin Lü’s marriage to a bank manager’s daughter. Later, when Julian reported that as soon as Cousin Lü rose from poverty and made a bit of money he acquired a paunch and a taste for dancing girls, Julie felt slightly relieved.
Julian was particularly interested in Cousin Lü’s career. Unlike Julie, he was in a big hurry to grow up. One of Jade Flower’s younger brothers gave Julian an old shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, which along with a stained necktie that Judy had given him as a child completed the outfit. He looked quite presentable and could often be found lingering in front of the bathroom mirror moistening his hairbrush under a faucet to coax a towering bouffant. Once, when Julian was twelve, Julie went with him in the family automobile to a movie. It was just the two of them and after the show they went to Welcome Café for ice cream, but Julian ordered beer instead.