Little Reunions

by Eileen Chang

  “I brought my wife and my son,” chuckled Chih-yung when it was over.

  He was supposed to leave very early the next morning, but that night, out of the blue, he said, “Come to my place, all right?”

  It was almost midnight and Julie didn’t inform Judy when the two of them snuck out. The autumn night was pleasantly cool. Under the dim streetlights there were no pedestrians or cars as he led her by the hand down the middle of the road. The wide asphalt road looked like it had been poured out from the heavens as they walked on the dark-blue sky sprinkled with stardust.

  He brought her to a rather large alleyway house. A maidservant opened the door, looking obviously surprised. The members of the household were probably all asleep. They sat in the living room for a while and tea was served. Hsiunan appeared, greeting Julie with a smile. Like a reunion after a long separation, everyone looked a little uneasy under the dim yellow lamplight. Chih-yung walked over to Hsiunan and spoke a few words to her, whereupon she retreated.

  Chih-yung returned, smiling. “I don’t have a place to sleep in the family home anymore.”

  After they sat for a while longer, he took her to a messy room on the third floor, latched the door, and left. The lamplight was even dimmer here. Julie stood as she looked around, placing her overcoat and purse on a chest of drawers. Suddenly the door opened. A tall woman poked her head in, looked about, then silently closed the door. Julie just caught a glimpse of a long jaundiced face with bright eyes and refined eyebrows, a wave of hair across the middle of her brow. Julie assumed it was Chih-yung’s mentally deranged second wife, which, reminding her of Jane Eyre’s story, sent shivers down her spine.

  “She’s very tall,” Chih-yung once told Julie, “but her features are a little severe.”

  He had revealed snippets of information to her about his second wife from time to time.

  “A friend introduced her to me.” They went home after the wedding, “And immediately I carried her into the boudoir.”

  Perhaps the Western tradition of bearing the bride across the threshold has a similar origin.

  “It’s a rather mute marital relationship,” he had written in a letter. He was probably referring to his second wife.

  After he joined the Peace Movement, Chih-yung ran the newspaper and was often so exhausted rushing out editorials that he shook with fatigue, unable to pick up the cigarette on his desk. When he finally returned home late at night, his second wife would have psychotic episodes, raging at him with blind suspicions.

  She didn’t appear to be mentally ill just now, but of course sometimes such things aren’t evident.

  She certainly chose the right time to go mad—or was it Crimson Cloud who triggered her madness? Julie was never sure.

  Soon afterward Chih-yung returned. Julie made no mention of the intruder. Chih-yung brought two books of Egyptian fairy tales for her to read.

  The wood-frame bed wasn’t large. The grayish-white muslin canopy smelled of dust. The sheets appeared to be fresh. Julie was a little afraid, feeling like she was a prisoner of war. He too seemed slightly embarrassed as he disrobed and got into bed.

  Nonetheless, this time it didn’t hurt. Normally Julie usually asked him not to turn off the lights, “I want to see your face—otherwise how could I know who you are.” His flushed face peered down upon her. To Julie, his face was a golden lotus flower floating in an abyss of misery.

  “Why doesn’t it hurt today?” he said. “Is it because today’s your birthday?”

  His eyes sparkled with excitement and he wriggled inside her like the undulations of a fish tail, flashing a smile at Julie.

  Suddenly he withdrew and crawled toward her feet.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” she asked, terrified. His hair brushed against her thigh—the head of a wild beast.

  The beast sips at the eternal springs of a dark cavern in the netherworld, slurping with his curled tongue. She is a bat hanging upside down at the mouth of the cave. Like a hermit hidden within the bowels of the mountain being explored, encroached upon, she felt helpless and hopeless. Now the small beast sips at her innermost core, small mouthfuls one at a time. The terror of exposing herself mingled with a burning desire: She wants him back, now! Back to her arms, back to where she can see him.

  She was about to fall asleep but the autumn mosquitoes viciously attacked her, despite the mosquito net.

  “How can there still be mosquitoes!” he said, using his fingertip to smear saliva on the bites, which reminded Julie of the time Bebe used saliva to determine if a fabric color would run.

  When Julie awoke the next morning, she couldn’t wait to flip through the book of Egyptian fairy tales that was on her pillow. Chih-yung told her that a heartless girl just like Bebe appeared in one of the stories. Julie knew he must be referring to Bebe’s reaction to the bombing.

  He couldn’t really say Julie was heartless.

  On that cold morning, Julie brought the two books of fairy tales home with her, and the only thing on her mind as she unlocked the door was to not wake up Third Aunt.

  8

  FROM THAT morning until the end of the Second World War, for some six months, Julie lived in a state of emotional chaos. White wax sealed the chaos inside her—on the surface, she appeared calm and secure. During this period, everything seemed to have occurred in the previous year or in the following year, unless outside evidence proved otherwise. Julie remembered nothing from that year, which could be designated a lost year.

  One day in that time of emptiness, while Chih-yung read the newspaper and the afternoon light streamed in, Julie sketched him reading reports about the Potsdam Conference.

  “The war’s ending,” he said calmly as he raised his head from the paper.

  “Oh no,” Julie moaned, smiling, then adding blithely, “I hope it goes on forever.”

  His face darkened. “So many people have died and you want it to go on forever?”

  “I said that only because I want to be with you,” she explained in a gentle voice, still smiling.

  His stern expression softened a little.

  Julie didn’t feel guilty. Up to now, she had lived her entire adult life in the shadow of the Second World War. War, though brutal, seemed permanent to her, always on the horizon of her life. People fear momentous change, so it was natural for her to want it to continue. But whatever her wishes happened to be, would they change anything? Before, she was so worried fighting would break out, but didn’t the war start anyway? If she had elected those who caused the war, then as the saying goes, “Everyone has a duty to their country” and she ought to feel a sense of responsibility.

  One day after a snowstorm, in the spring before Germany surrendered, Herr Schütte bought a bottle of whiskey and slipped on the icy steps to his home. The bottle smashed on the ground, and he sat on the steps and cried.

  Judy helped him sell off his clothes and loaned him money to return home. One item, a midnight-blue overcoat made of an expensive fabric one couldn’t get anymore, had not been worn many times. Julie bought it for Chih-yung, though she didn’t know when he’d have a chance to wear it. Ever since Julie met Chih-yung she knew he’d have to go into hiding after the war, but now that the moment had arrived, she became confused. Also, in her lost year she had lost her way.

  “Dressing Shao Chih-yung up, are you?” mocked Judy.

  One night, Julie was woken up by the sound of fireworks and cheering. She heard Judy say Japan had surrendered, then rolled over and fell back to sleep.

  In the penultimate issue of his newspaper, which Chih-yung mailed to Julie, he wrote in an article, “The person I yearn for is like a lotus flower: rootless, leafless, a bright light floating in the darkness… .”

  Early in the morning two weeks later, she dreamed she heard a telephone ringing, a U-shaped sound, faint on both ends but deafening in the middle. Amplified in her grogginess, the sound turned into a stream of green garlands flying through the crisp cool air.

  Julie finally woke up an
d ran to answer the phone.

  “Hello. This is Araki. Um, he’s back. I’ll take you to see him. Right now okay?”

  I had to perm my hair two days ago. It’s at its worst now, short and uncooperative. Nothing I can do about it.

  Araki arrived half an hour later. To avoid traveling in the same rickshaw, he ordered one for each of them. It was a long journey and excruciatingly slow. Along the way she saw two men wrestling with all their strength, somewhat akin to Mongolian wrestling but different. There were few cars on the road, though occasionally a convoy of trucks transporting Japanese soldiers passed by. Two men with clean-shaven heads, save for a few tufts tied like ponytails pointing upward, wrestled like bulls among the rickshaws, flatbed tricycles, and bicycles, horns locked as they did battle. They only wore singlets and khaki pants, and were very thin, unlike those enormous sumo wrestlers. Julie thought it was some kind of Japanese performance—Japanese residents of the city and Japanese soldiers facing what felt like the end of days would probably be more susceptible to spending money on things that induced homesickness.

  A man following behind the wrestlers shook a section of bamboo filled with beans to beat time. The two men followed the cues and changed their stance, always with heads bowed. At the next traffic light, the two rickshaws stopped next to each other. Julie wanted to ask Araki about the situation but she remained silent. All of a sudden it felt like everything seemed inappropriate to say.

  By the time the rickshaws reached Hongkew it was already around half past ten. They stopped at a row of houses in a lane. After ringing the doorbell, they were met by an unassuming Japanese lady who opened the door. She was short and wore a floral-patterned dress, her small oval face powdered and pink with blush. Araki spoke a few words with her, then led Julie into the house. She followed them up the stairs. This wasn’t a Japanese-style house. They entered a room and Chih-yung sat up in the bed. He had smuggled his way onto a Japanese military ship, disguising himself as a soldier, his head shaven. Feeling embarrassed, Chih-yung put on a boat-shaped khaki hat. He had fallen ill on the ship and had lost a lot of weight.

  Araki sat for a while, then left.

  Chih-yung rose from the bed and moved to Araki’s chair. “Initially, I thought the situation there would allow me start all over again and survive for a while,” he said quietly with a smile, “but then things changed and I couldn’t hold out any longer.”

  Julie also smiled. Whenever she encountered situations like this she tried even harder to appear normal.

  After chatting for a while, Chih-yung blurted out with a small laugh, “Still my love, not wife.”

  Julie pretended to take that as a compliment and laughed, too.

  Chih-yung then said in a low voice, “Now, after the surrender, it seems that none of the high-ranking Japanese military officers can speak frankly with me.”

  Julie was in a daze. There were no windows in the room, only two shutter doors that led out to the balcony, making the room very dark. Suddenly she felt she was sitting in the pitch-black room of a one-story Chinese house, the shadows cast by a window grille falling on rice-paper panes like silhouetted cutouts.

  “There was a huge steerage cabin on the troop carrier where many people constantly threw up.”

  Such a dark image chilled Julie to the bone.

  “Can you make it to Japan?” she asked softly.

  He shook his head faintly. “There is a fellow provincial whose family once provided me with financial assistance to attend middle school. Over the past few years when they needed help I gave them a lot of money. I can live with them in the countryside.”

  Perhaps this is the safest solution. In his hometown he won’t be a stranger who would attract attention. The Americans are occupying Japan. How could he go there? It would be like turning himself in. Foolish of me even to think that was a possibility.

  “How long do you think you will need to hide?” Julie asked in a low voice.

  Chih-yung thought for a moment. “Four years.”

  Julie felt transported again into a tiny dark room with cloud patterns silhouetted from a window grille onto rice-paper panes. Is this déjà vu, or is the mysterious future linked to the past?

  “You’ll be fine,” he said, with that slightly contemptuous look of his.

  She thought of asking him if he needed money but didn’t say anything. Her mother would return as soon as transportation links were reestablished and then Julie would have to repay her. When the postal service resumed, a letter arrived urging Julie to return to Hong Kong to complete her studies. The university administration had tentatively agreed to send her to Oxford University for graduate studies, as long as she continued to achieve good marks. But now that she was a few years older, she feared she wouldn’t be able to knuckle down and take up that long and arduous journey again. Besides, it was too late to apply for the same scholarship she had before because the school year was about to begin. Plus she didn’t have sufficient funds to travel overseas. And yet, if she couldn’t earn enough money writing in Shanghai, perhaps it would be best to just go regardless and worry about money later. At least she had taken that path before, having studied in Hong Kong for a while before winning the scholarship.

  If she were to tell Chih-yung he would definitely think she was leaving him. Maybe being so accustomed from her childhood years to her mother’s comings and goings, Julie didn’t give it much thought. It was simply a question of money.

  As far as the living expenses at Chih-yung’s household were concerned, Hsiunan’s Mr. Wen could handle them. Hadn’t Hsiunan always sacrificed for Chih-yung?

  It was almost noon and Julie had no idea when this Japanese family ate lunch. She didn’t want to trouble the host.

  “I’m leaving. I’ll come back tomorrow.” She stood and picked up her purse.

  “All right.”

  The next afternoon, Julie bought a large cream cake for the Japanese family. She took the tram, but halfway there she noticed Hsün Hwa was also on board. He warmly waved to her, edged his way through the crowd, and stood in front of her, one hand hanging on to a rattan handle.

  After exchanging pleasantries, Hsün Hwa said, “Do you now understand the line I wrote in my letter, ‘Only words written on paper can be counted upon’?”

  “Really?” she thought. “Not sure about that.” Julie just smiled in reply.

  No wonder he was so happy to see her—he had a chance to say, “Didn’t I tell you so?”

  The tram was very crowded. The cake, purchased at a famous bakery and topped with cream, would soon be crushed into a soggy mess.

  Hsün Hwa took advantage of the crowd to suddenly squeeze her thighs between his knees.

  Julie had always been opposed to women slapping men in the face, especially close acquaintances, because it attracted attention with its ostentatious display. She had to wait a short while before turning in her seat and easing herself away as if nothing happened. But in that instant she shuddered—his knees had made her go through the agony of the tiger-bench torture.

  Julie feared that he would disembark at the same tram stop and she wouldn’t be able to get rid of him. She didn’t know the way well herself, nor did she want him to know the address.

  Fortunately he smiled and nodded but didn’t get off the tram with her. It was almost nothing really, but the incident served as a reminder that, as the wife of a traitor, all and sundry could harass her.

  This time Julie came alone and when the Japanese lady opened the door, she looked obviously displeased. Julie perceived that Japanese women bowed and scraped when meeting a man though weren’t particularly polite to women, especially Chinese women, but she intuitively felt a hint of jealousy from this lady. She didn’t even smile when Julie gave her the cake.

  Julie saw Chih-yung and mentioned her encounter with Hsün Hwa. She told him how anxious she was about him getting off at the same stop, but didn’t say a word about Hsün Hwa’s act of ingratitude.

  How did Chih-yung and Miss K’ang
part? Of course that question had crossed her mind the previous day, but she was afraid to hear the answer. Luckily, Chih-yung never raised the issue. While they chatted, however, his face suddenly clouded over for a quiet moment. Julie knew it was because she had not asked him about Miss K’ang.

  Ever since Chih-yung’s confession of simultaneously loving two people, Julie never asked him to give her regards to Miss K’ang again. She simply couldn’t act in a way that exceeded the boundaries of her conscience. Chih-yung had agreed to leave Miss K’ang of his own accord, and Julie had never reminded him of this, the same way she had left his two divorces entirely up to him.

  Now there is no time to save funds to pay for Miss K’ang’s university education. However, he wouldn’t simply leave it at that. He must already have given all his extra cash to her. He had plans to settle in a safe place to achieve something big, which meant he must have had some cash in hand.

  Secretly, Julie hoped Miss K’ang would be more calculating. After all, didn’t she like him because he was a big fish in a small pond? But it must be difficult to be calculating when the man generously gifted funds before running for his life. Even if there were signs of devious calculations, he would have convinced himself otherwise.

  Julie pretended she did not notice Chih-yung’s displeasure.

  “How’s Bebe?” he finally asked, smiling wistfully.

  “Celebrating the opening of communications to the West,” replied Julie cheerfully.