by Eileen Chang
“It’s such fun to talk with Jory in the office.” Judy chuckled.
Jory—tall, slender, and pale, with full black hair—was a Eurasian who shared an office with Judy. When Julie saw him he looked familiar. Julian as an adult would look the same, thought Julie. He’d also drive his own car, marry early, and be stuck in a job with no future. In most foreign companies, Eurasians had the same status as Judy. Without scientific or technical skills to offer, they had reached the pinnacle of their careers, earning a salary already considered high for a single woman.
“I was on bad terms with Brother Hsü at the time, and often stayed late at the office, flirting with Jory. But then I became scared… .” Her smile disappeared and her voice lowered to a muffle as she faded out. It was clear she was referring obliquely to rape.
Julie could picture the empty offices after work, the desolate commercial buildings at night, but she couldn’t imagine that a handsome young colleague would rape Judy. It seemed so unbelievable that she almost laughed, but at the same time Julie felt profoundly sad.
Judy fell silent, then continued, “For Brother Hsü to have an affair with Brother Wei’s wife, that made me so angry.”
“He had an affair with Brother Wei’s wife?” a stunned Julie feebly asked. Brother Wei’s wife was a real beauty from the second branch of the Chu family, who actually made a perfect match for Brother Wei and had given birth to many children. She had a pointy chin and a pretty face. The red-orange rouge on her cheeks made her almond-shaped eyes look even brighter. Her slightly short stature was coupled with a matchbox-like figure. She usually wore a large, light pink silk flower à la Carmen Miranda, which made her appear even more glamorous and radiant. As a child, Julie was enthralled with Miss Purity and Miss Grace from the Chu family, who were nowhere near as pretty as Brother Wei’s wife, yet back then Julie didn’t really like her, perhaps because she found her Ch’ang-shu Mandarin extremely irritating. She referred to her mother-in-law as niang, pronouncing it with a falling tone instead of the elegant Peking-dialect rising tone, which made her sound insincere.
You couldn’t see that in Brother Hsü, so it’s true you can’t judge a man by appearances. Julie was disgusted; she felt he had let Third Aunt down. Judy had given him confidence, and yet, with the courage of a philanderer, the world was his oyster. All the other members of the younger generation of the Chu clan married late as was the custom of the times. Only Brother Wei married early. Because he had been fooling around with dancing girls as a teenager, it was decided to find him a pretty young wife to curb his carnal instincts. His family chose a beauty from the Yang-tze River delta, a distant relative, whose family was conservative but poor, believing she would be a responsible wife.
The Chu clan’s assets had almost completely dissipated before the generation of Brother Wei and Brother Hsü, who had 絲, the character for silk, incorporated in their generational name. The many members of the second branch of the family in particular put a substantial strain on their finances. And marrying did not rein in Brother Wei from his pleasure seeking. His wife sought revenge and Brother Hsü, a cousin of her husband, was the most logical candidate. Being in-laws in the Chu family provided ample opportunities to meet clandestinely; plus, his ordinary looks didn’t attract attention. Moreover, they had known each other for many years and she knew his cautious ways, how he guarded his mouth like a closed bottle. For a woman in her position, maintaining secrecy was naturally paramount. And for his part, he had probably admired her for a long time. He didn’t display the haughty temper of a scion of the family like Brother Wei, so she probably felt more important from all the attention she received.
Julie now recalled that Brother Hsü enunciated “sister-in-law” with a gentility that resembled the way he spoke of his father. Of course he had spoken like that in front of Judy, but strangely his voice didn’t reveal the slightest indication of a guilty conscience. Was it because at that time nothing had happened yet, or was it that Judy had not found out? Or did she already know, and he remained calm about it?
Julie surmised Brother Hsü used his dalliance with Brother Wei’s wife as a reason to break away from Judy. The pretty wife clearly knew all about Brother Hsü’s affair with Judy, addressing her as “aunt” in a particularly unpleasant voice that oozed with enmity.
“Before Brother Hsü departed, I opened my heart to him. We were still very close friends. If I hadn’t spoken frankly, I would have felt terrible.”
Julie felt sad; she realized that, though their affair had later turned ugly, Judy wanted to end it on a beautiful note, just as it had begun, or else the memories would be unbearable.
“He’s married now,” said Judy sounding cheerful, “to the third daughter of a distant relative.” Judy was also a third daughter and her tone of voice seemed to suggest she thought this coincidence was fated. “She’s dainty, petite, and a finicky type, completely spoiled; she expects him to look after her with every breath. He’s working in Tientsin now, living with his mother-in-law, who spoils him terribly.”
Judy paused before saying in a low voice, as if it were a passing afterthought, “He likes you.”
Julie was shocked. What could he have liked about me? Did he admire my height? Or was it just sympathy because we had both grown up in the shadow of our parents? No one had ever liked her before and she wanted to know all the details of him sharing this information with Judy. But her third aunt had must have endured enough pain for delving so much into the past, and so Julie didn’t press her. She only affected a startled smile.
Julie didn’t like Brother Hsü, and it was not just because of his affair with Brother Wei’s wife. Being devoid of maternal instincts, Julie couldn’t appreciate his poor-little-street-urchin demeanor. Perhaps they were too much alike, and Julie couldn’t stand anyone too similar to her, especially men.
When Julie was in middle school, memento books were all the rage. Everyone had one and everyone was asked to write something in it. If you didn’t want to write a personal message, you could always jot down a moral homily, such as “Studying is like boating against the current: if you don’t exert yourself you will fall behind.” Julie asked Brother Hsü to paint something in her book. He had learned Chinese brush painting from Fifth Uncle, but Julie said, “Paint anything except a Chinese painting.” As a child, Julie took painting lessons from an old teacher who taught her to paint “with only two pigments: ocher and cyanine.” That’s like being half blind! Julie gave up after just two days. She had always craved brilliant colors.
Julie could only remember speaking to Brother Hsü on that one occasion; he had certainly never initiated a conversation with her. He smiled as he took the memento book and returned it after painting a blond dancer in the Art Nouveau style that was popular at the end of the nineteenth century. The figure had a sharply curved goose-egg-shaped face and smooth hair parted in the middle and pulled back tightly—she seemed to resemble his enemy, his father’s third concubine.
After Third Aunt found employment and Julie began to receive payments for her writing, one of the two German tenants moved out, freeing up a room. They no longer lived on scallion pancakes and the housekeeper, Mrs. Ch’in, retired. Judy could, in fact, cook and had even attended a culinary school while overseas. But if she cooked “one meal out of friendship, the second would set precedent,” and she dreaded slipping into the role of housekeeper. Now, however, Judy gladly cooked a few simple dishes. Julie’s only culinary skill was to cook the rice and shop for groceries. One night she went out to buy some crab-shaped pastries wearing a short, tight purple cotton gown with a floral pattern. She strolled, tall and willowy, her hair long and wavy. The wheat-cake vendor from Shantung gave her a curious look, unable to discern her class. Walking home in the moonlight, Julie felt a wave of emptiness. I’m twenty-two and writing love stories without ever having fallen in love—no one can know that.
One afternoon Bebe visited. The recently recovered living room stretched out spaciously in an L shape and included
a red brick fireplace. The weak November sunlight streaming through the glass doors didn’t reach far but hazily filled the room, motes like willow catkins floating in the air.
“Someone wrote a positive review of my book for a magazine—a government official who works under Wang Ching-wei. Yesterday my editor sent me another letter saying the reviewer has been thrown into prison,” Julie told Bebe, amused, as if she were describing the absurdity of the times.
Wendy, an editor at the magazine, sent Julie the galley proof of the book review. The style closely resembled the acerbic wit of the famous left-wing writer Lu Hsün. The thin, snow-white paper with the editorial corrections in bright red made the galley proof look like a page from an antique string-bound volume. Julie was tempted to keep it. After receiving the proofs back, Wendy sent another letter in which she said, “Mr. Shao has now lost his freedom. He is unyielding and won’t be bought off.”
Julie worried that the review wouldn’t be published. Wendy, however, didn’t bring it up with her, and so she felt a little assured. She fantasized about rescuing Shao Chih-yung. But she also despised youthful fantasies.
In the end, it was Araki, a Japanese military adviser, who marched into the detention center armed with a pistol and got him out. Later, when Mr. Shao visited Shanghai, he asked Wendy for Julie’s address so he could call on her. That day he wore an old black overcoat, and she thought he looked very handsome. He spoke Mandarin with what sounded like a slight Hunan accent, in the manner of a professional activist.
The first time Judy met him, she asked politely, “Did your wife accompany you?”
Instantly, Julie smiled. Every Chinese man of a certain age had a wife, so a reminder from Third Aunt was hardly necessary. Nothing could be more obvious.
Chih-yung also smiled as he answered.
“At least his eyes are very bright,” commented Judy after he left.
“You seem so young and innocent around your aunt,” remarked Chih-yung, “but when you’re not with her you seem quite worldly.”
He visited every day. Judy and Julie did not, as a custom, keep all the doors open in their home as many Chinese families did. Because of the tenants, all the doors in the corridor remained shut, which made Chih-yung feel like he was in a hotel, though if the doors had been open, he’d feel as if he had intruded into someone’s home. Once seated in the living room behind a closed door, he stayed for a long time, making Julie feel terribly awkward. With a furrowed brow, Judy grumbled in a low voice, half smiling, “He comes every day, yes indeed!”
Julie would forever see his profile in silhouette as he sat backlit on the sofa opposite her—his cheeks gaunt, his sunken eyes wan and sallow, his arched, Cupid’s-bow lips. When the room fell silent, he twirled a loose thread from the sofa around his fingers, smiled vaguely, and looked down at the ground, as if he held a full glass of water and was trying not to spill any of it.
“Your face has the radiance of a goddess,” he exclaimed softly with amazement.
“I have oily skin,” Julie explained with a giggle.
“Really? Is your entire face oily?” He also laughed.
Chih-yung arranged to visit Hsiang Ching with Julie because, he said, Hsiang Ching wanted to meet her. Hsiang was known as a writer before the Japanese invasion and now was of some repute in the occupied zone. After dinner, Chih-yung rode his son’s bicycle to meet up with her and then hired a trishaw for Julie. It was a chilly winter evening and the journey was quite far. Hsiang Ching lived in a Western-style garden cottage. People crowded into the large ebony-paneled parlor room, but it was a cocktail party without any cocktails. Julie wore spectacles with pale yellow frames, and her face, free of cosmetics other than peach lipstick, looked as translucent as a freshly peeled lychee. Her slightly wavy hair, as fine as gossamer, neither black nor glossy, fell in a shapeless pile on her shoulders. She wore a peacock-blue padded gown of Nanking brocade with bell-shaped sleeves. The whole ensemble looked strange and she felt awkward; indeed, only a few guests engaged her in conversation.
“I’m actually a distant uncle of yours,” Hsiang Ching told Julie.
Julie’s family had a large number of relatives. When Second Aunt and Third Aunt lived overseas, they constantly said, “Don’t look over there—that person might be a relative of ours.”
Hsiang Ching had returned to China after studying abroad. Soon after his return he donned a traditional long scholar’s gown and partook of the opium pipe, but was still quite a handsome man with a Grecian profile. His wife, the same woman his family had chosen for him before he had left, wasn’t at the party. It had been a long time since he had written a word, and now he had even more reason to conceal his genius.
Julie wanted to leave and searched around for Chih-yung. She found him sitting on a sofa in conversation with two others. For the first time Julie saw a look of disdain in his eyes. She was stunned.
Julie worshipped Chih-yung, and yet why couldn’t she tell him so? It was just like giving a bunch of flowers to someone passing by, as hopeless as love in medieval Europe, the love between a knight and a king’s wife being so formal that even the king didn’t bother to intervene. She had always felt that only love without motives could be true love. Of course she never spoke to Chih-yung about the Middle Ages, but he did later write in a letter about “searching for the Holy Grail.”
After every one of his visits, Julie retrieved all his cigarette butts from the ashtray and saved them in an old envelope.
She showed him two photographs of herself that she felt displayed her true visage free of eyeglasses. One was a portrait Wendy had taken for the magazine. She had arranged a sitting with the German photographer Sieber, whose studio was located across the street from her. It cost so much that she only paid for one print. Her face was all that emerged through the shadows, her hair not visible, as if it were a Rembrandt painting. The photograph looked too dark and washed out in the magazine, and so the lone print was truly unique. He said he liked it so she gave it to him.
“This is just one side of you,” he said of the other photograph. “This one reveals the whole person.”
Despite the picture being unclear in the magazine, Chih-yung said, “When I saw it in the detention center, I could tell you were very tall.”
As he was about to leave she casually opened the desk drawer and showed him the envelope full of cigarette butts. He laughed.
Whenever he asked, “Am I interfering with your writing?” she always shook her head and smiled.
He noticed that she ate, slept, and worked in the same room. “You’re still living the student life,” he chuckled. She just smiled.
“I don’t think poverty is normal,” she later said to him. “With poor families, even eating a piece of fruit can be a moral dilemma.”
“You’re like me when I was young. I worked in the post office then. Someone once posted a rubbing of a calligraphic inscription. I really liked it, so I kept it.”
He once loved the fourth daughter of a family in his hometown. She planned to study in Japan; they could have gone together. “I needed four hundred dollars that I didn’t have,” he recalled with a smile.
“I saw a recent photograph of her. She hasn’t changed much, still wears men’s shirts and long pants.”
He didn’t say if she was married and Julie didn’t have the heart to ask. Julie imagined she must have married long ago.
Apart from telling a few anecdotes from his life, Chih-yung had many theories to expound on. Julie, however, felt theories without evidence were mostly “wishful thinking”—the blind use of induction to force facts into a preexisting framework. His views were somewhat leftist, but he “didn’t like” the dismal and chilling atmosphere of the Communist Party, and couldn’t bear to obey their rules and regulations. In her mind the concept of communism wasn’t that impressive; contemporary values held that everyone deserved to have enough food anyway, and things like education should meet individual needs. Implementation, of course, was another matter. And as for
obedience, once you hand over all your freedom, it would be impossible to get it back.
When expounding on the Wang Ching-wei government’s Peace Movement, Chih-yung couldn’t be particularly realistic, so he resorted to grandiloquence. His idealization of Chinese village life seemed to Julie to be nothing more than nostalgia, and she paid scant attention to it. But every night after he left, Julie quivered with exhaustion and felt completely drained as she sat in Judy’s room, bending over the small electric heater, embracing herself as she stared at the glowing red element. Judy didn’t speak much, as though she sensed an imminent disaster, and when she did speak, it was always in a low voice, as if a gravely ill person lived in the house.
Julie never invited people over for meals because that would mean asking Judy to cook. It became embarrassing when he stayed to chat until seven or eight and they never invited him for dinner. Julie also felt guilty for troubling Judy. Eventually she couldn’t endure the pressure of being placed in such a dilemma and wanted to break out of the vicious cycle by secretly going on a trip. Julie had a classmate who apparently had almost been slapped by a Japanese soldier at the station en route to a teaching position in Changchow; she never mentioned her idea. It wasn’t a good time to travel, and besides, she didn’t have any spare money.
One evening, as Chih-yung was about to leave and Julie had already stood up to see him out, he extinguished his cigarette, put both hands on her shoulders, and said with a smile, “Take off your glasses, will you?”
She removed her glasses and he kissed her. A violent spasm radiated down from his arms. She could feel his strong muscles though his clothes.
“This man really loves me,” thought Julie. But the unyielding tip of his tongue felt as dry as a cork when it ventured between her lips—he had talked too much and no saliva remained in his mouth. He instantly sensed her revulsion and withdrew his hands with a faint smile.