by Eileen Chang
Many people milled about in the reception room of the mogul’s home and Julie didn’t know a single soul, though a few faces looked familiar. The mogul introduced some people to her, Yen Shan being one of them. Later on, Yen Shan saw Julie sitting off to the side and went to sit beside her with a smile. His gestures seemed a little exaggerated. Julie couldn’t help being reminded of Hsün Hwa on the tram and she felt he harbored bad intentions, that he was “happy to take advantage” of her, so she smiled politely and looked the other way. He sensed it too and sat quietly hugging himself. That day he wore a pale, fluffy check-pattern Irish pullover, which he seemed unaccustomed to wearing, and appeared surprisingly innocent.
Julie had written some theater reviews when she first returned to Shanghai. One time she went backstage during a production of the play Chin Pi-hsia, which starred Yen Shan. Julie saw him descend the stairs with his head lowered and arms held tightly against his body as he rushed past in a long gown. Wearing no makeup and looking on guard, he slunk by Julie and disappeared. It immediately reminded her of an encounter she experienced on the boat returning to Shanghai. That was just after Pearl Harbor, on a tiny Japanese vessel.
A group of people pressed against the handrails of the narrow walkway. A middle-aged man surrounded by a cluster of lesser luminaries walked toward Julie. He was tall, with a square pale face and a pencil mustache. His suit fit snugly, though it had the appearance of being borrowed, making him look like a man in disguise, as if he were fleeing for his life, shunning contact with people, fearful of being taken advantage of, despite being surrounded by a phalanx of escorts that included Japanese officials and officers in uniforms, even the ship’s captain. Julie couldn’t help casting a few more curious glances at him. Later she heard that the Peking Opera star Mei Lan-fang was also a passenger on the ship. If it had not been for that fleeting memory, Julie would have told Yen Shan, “I saw you backstage at the performance of Chin Pi-hsia. You even stayed in character offstage, it was so convincing.” But of course she didn’t. Yen Shan remained quiet in the mogul’s home the whole time. Then the famous director arrived and they ushered Julie over to meet him.
“If one doesn’t have a good script,” thought Julie, “it’s best to keep one’s mouth shut.”
However, his silence shook Julie out of her slumber.
After that occasion, Julie didn’t see Yen Shan again until three months later when he came with a friend who was visiting her. By then she felt much better—in fact, she didn’t need him to make a personal appearance. She just needed a fantasy romance to caress her face and remind her that she still dwelled among the living.
Rachel hired a seamstress to make her a Chinese gown. She rarely wore Chinese gowns.
The seamstress arrived and took Rachel’s measurements in front of a mirror. Julie noticed her mother’s incensed expression but didn’t know the reason behind it. Who would have thought Rachel was angry at Julie for not introducing Yen Shan? Rachel assumed that Julie thought her own mother was inappropriately dressed and therefore unpresentable.
One day while Yen Shan was visiting, the living-room door suddenly swung open violently and then banged shut. Julie sat far away from Yen Shan with her back to the door. She turned her head around in time to catch a glimpse of Rachel slamming the door behind her.
“Looks like a Malay,” whispered Yen Shan in a frightened voice.
On another occasion, when Julie was taking a bath, the bathroom door suddenly opened violently. Rachel stormed in, glared at Julie, opened the cabinet behind the mirror, grabbed something from the cabinet, and slammed the door shut, leaving a startled and infuriated Julie standing in the bathtub, naked. She finished bathing and stood in the tub, head lowered as she looked herself over. “Did you have a good look?” she fumed to herself. “What’s there to see?”
Julie’s figure hadn’t changed in the nine years since she and Rachel lived together in the apartment. But the day she went to the dock to greet Rachel she appeared a little different. That day she wore a coat fashioned out of a wool blanket. The foreign tailor had cut the thick material at an angle, creating something out of nothing with outstanding workmanship, for whenever Julie neglected to pull the coat forcefully downward, her bosom bulged out. When Julie saw Rachel’s eye briefly scan over her, she was certain Rachel had observed this embarrassing phenomenon.
Since Rachel felt the need to ogle me in the bath, it’s obvious Judy has not disclosed details about my relationship with Chih-yung. She could have told the truth: “Julie makes her own decisions and won’t listen to anyone else’s advice—it’s pointless to try.” Otherwise, how could Judy explain anything? If she tried to pretend she didn’t know, Rachel would snap at her: “Did you drop dead? Of course you know.” Or maybe she could just say, “Ask her yourself.” Hard to imagine she would do that.
But Julie never asked Judy.
After the physical examination in the bathtub and random, cursory investigations into Julie’s relationship with Yen Shan, Rachel began to doubt the rumors flying around and calmed down somewhat, changing to a policy of conciliation. She gave Julie a brooch of a white enamel greyhound, the sort a primary-school student would wear.
“I don’t wear brooches,” said Julie apologetically. “The pinholes damage my clothes. Where did Second Aunt buy it? May I go there to exchange it for something else?”
“Fine, then. You go and exchange it.” Rachel gave the receipt to Julie.
Julie exchanged the brooch for a pair of red copper rose-shaped pendant earrings. She showed them to Rachel.
“Hmm. Not bad.”
One Night Stand finally screened.
The movie studio initially planned to adapt the story, then dropped it. Three months later, they picked it up again because Yen Shan couldn’t find the right project for him to direct, as well as write the screenplay for and star in. They completed the filming before Rachel returned to Shanghai. Julie and Judy attended a preview screening at a theater. The adaptation simplified the story, while making it very disjointed. As soon as the last shot went black, Julie said softly, “Let’s go.” She was repulsed by the thought of everybody congratulating her as soon as the lights came on.
They had not sat with Yen Shan but he caught up with them at the staircase. “Why are you leaving?” he chuckled. “Couldn’t bear to stay to the very end?”
Julie frowned. “We’ll talk later,” she said with a smile, and continued down the staircase.
Yen Shan blocked her path. “I didn’t ruin your story!” he protested. He was anxious. Instead of his usually cautious demeanor, he became so carried away that in a lapse of etiquette his trouser cuffs brushed over the instep of her bare, open-sandaled feet. Standing beside Julie, even Judy cringed with embarrassment.
Voices from the projectionist booth signaled the screening had finished. Fearing others would come out and see them, he let her go.
At the official opening, Judy and Julie accompanied Rachel to the screening, which Rachel, to Julie’s surprise, genuinely liked.
“She’s become just like any other mother,” Julie marveled, “easily satisfied with her daughter’s achievements.”
Rachel expressed only one criticism of Julie’s novel: “You have no real life experience. You can’t just rely on imagination.” And added her oft-repeated quip, “People say it would be wonderful if I were to write a book.”
One afternoon, while boiling water in the kitchen to make a cup of Sanatogen, Rachel bumped into Julie. “Come to my room for refreshments,” said Rachel. She made another cup for Julie and retrieved a box of small cakes from the refrigerator, arranging some on a dish.
“Oh. I’ll get some napkins.”
“Hmm.” Rachel approved.
Julie returned to the living room, opened her drawer, and placed two taels of gold inside a napkin. Before Rachel’s return, Julie had asked Judy, “How much money has Second Aunt spent on me?” Judy did some mental calculations, then answered, “Now it would be the equivalent of about two tael
s of gold.”
Her travel expenses to visit Chih-yung cost her one tael. She gradually exchanged what remained for daily expenses, her savings slowly dwindling. Now she had just over two taels left. Her old dream of presenting her mother with a long box packed with banknotes buried beneath a dozen ruby-red roses now was in danger of slipping through her fingers like two little croaker fish, to be lost forever.
Rachel engaged in small talk as they nibbled on the cakes at the little round table. Then she said to Julie, “I don’t think you look so grotesque. I just want you to promise me one thing: Don’t lock yourself up.”
Then Rachel began to mumble to herself. “In those days there was no shortage of candidates; now there’s not a single one.”
It sounded like Rachel intended to introduce more boyfriends to her. Ever since watching One Night Stand and learning that Yen Shan was just a movie star, there was no possibility for him as far as Rachel was concerned.
“Surely,” Julie thought, “she must have been aware that almost all of my cousins’ husbands were secretly fond of her. Consequently, she harbored some fantasies of her own about young men.” Now there was definitely no more danger of Rachel attempting to be her matchmaker, so Julie felt no need to explain her distaste for matchmaking to her, at least as far as Julie herself was concerned.
“We were rarely together,” continued Rachel, “so when I was with you I always scolded you. Who would have known that we would live in the same house for so long—it just didn’t work out. At the time, we were not sure if the war would break out in Europe. Otherwise, you could have gone there ages ago.”
Julie seized the moment to pass the gold taels to Rachel. “That was when Second Aunt spent so much money on me, which I’ve always felt terrible about. I now repay Second Aunt,” said Julie obsequiously.
“I don’t want it,” retorted Rachel firmly.
“In the past I said I wanted to repay her,” thought Julie, “but she never said she didn’t want it. Of course I was just making empty promises then, and she, naturally, paid no heed.”
Tears streamed down Rachel’s cheeks. “Even if I was just a stranger who once treated you nicely, you don’t have to act like this toward me. ‘A ferocious tiger does not devour its cubs!’”
Julie was astonished that when Rachel quoted a proverb from Nanking, it was reminiscent of something Auntie Yü or Jade Peach would say.
The room fell silent. Head lowered, Rachel wiped her tears, dejected.
Julie had caught glimpses of her mother crying before, but Rachel had never cried in front of her. Should I feel sad? Trying as hard as she could, Julie felt nothing at all.
“Those affairs,” wailed Rachel, “I had no choice, they forced me.” She choked and stopped talking.
Because there were a lot of them—now, isn’t that a little comical?
“She’s completely mistaken,” thought Julie. “I never judge anyone,” she screamed to herself, “how can I judge Second Aunt?” But how do I tell her that? When she was around sixteen, Julie read the preface to the complete dramatic works of George Bernard Shaw. She later felt him laughably juvenile at times, but at least, due to his influence, there were no sacred cows in her life.
Julie knew that as soon as she opened her mouth Rachel would fire back: “Fine! You just don’t care.”
If she were to speak, Julie would turn victory into defeat. She always adhered to the wisdom of keeping one’s own counsel.
Time passed minute by minute, second by second. Those remembrances of things past slowly fossilized, trapping both of them within its solid matrix. Julie could feel the tendons of the grayish-white fossil and smell its dusty scent.
Julie gradually saw the light. Perhaps it’s better this way. Just let Rachel assume she’s paying the price for her love affairs. Heartbreak isn’t so bad for a miserable, sinful woman. Wicked thoughts crawled along the edge of Julie’s consciousness for a long time before creeping in.
Maybe that time Rachel took Julie down to the Repulse Bay beach was meant to give her a hint of what was going on, so that later it wouldn’t be too traumatic if she suddenly discovered it by chance.
Julie had never imagined that Rachel would take the repayment as her wanting to sever relations forever. As the stalemate continued, Julie came to feel that Rachel was trying to preserve some of the affection they once had for each other by not accepting the money.
“Don’t take it, then,” thought Julie, “I have nothing else to give… .”
In any case, as long as Julie simply listened submissively, no one could accuse her of being impolite. Julie glimpsed her face in the mirror. In that moment, she felt completely content with her dreamy eyes, delicate nose, diamond-shaped pink lips, and oval face. She hadn’t scrutinized her own countenance for nine years, and now she felt gratified for still being the same person she was nine years earlier.
Rachel appeared to stop weeping. The silence continued to the point where the conversation could be considered over. Julie quietly stood up and walked out.
Back in her room she realized dusk had already fallen. Julie suddenly felt the room to be terribly gloomy and quickly switched on the lamp.
Time was on her side—it wasn’t a fair battle.
“In any event, you won’t meet with a good end,” she said to herself.
Later she told Judy, “I tried to repay Second Aunt but she flatly refused to accept anything.”
“How could she not want it?” asked Judy, perplexed.
“Second Aunt cried.” Julie then continued in English, “She made a scene. It was awful.” But she didn’t tell Judy what Rachel said so she wouldn’t be too disillusioned.
Judy didn’t ask. She paused in silence, then said, “You still have to pay her back.”
“She definitely won’t accept any money, and I don’t know what to do.” Do I have to force it into her hand? Actually, Julie had thought of that, but didn’t want to reenact the charade of forcing a gratuity on a maid. If she touched her mother’s hand… . She had forgotten the time her mother had held her hand on that occasion crossing the road when she was a child, and the way, for some reason, she was so afraid of touching her mother’s fingers, so scrawny that they felt like a bunch of thin bamboo canes clenching her own hand.
At the dining table Julie always appeared distant and aloof, affecting cinematic “fade-outs.” This usually happened during lunch because Rachel almost never ate dinner at home.
One day Julie was vaguely aware that Rachel was telling the story about finding a snake in her riding boot. She noticed Julie obviously wasn’t paying attention despite the fact she had been directing her tale to Judy. She became agitated and abruptly stopped. “You’re not interested in anything I tell you,” she snapped.
But on another occasion, she recounted the previous night’s dream. Judy had once jokingly complained to Julie, “Your second aunt just has to tell people all about the films she’s seen and the next morning she always has to tell people about her dreams.”
“Little Julie always seemed stiff.” Julie was astonished to hear that sentence from her mother’s mouth. How on earth did she find her way into her mother’s dream? It felt like she had strayed into forbidden territory.
The more she listened, the less she could take in. Rachel went on about how strange the dream was, how everything was so bizarre.
And why did she use my baby name? Was it because calling me “Julie” would mean treating me like an adult and therefore considered a politer appellation?
On another occasion after watching a movie, Rachel expounded at the table about Joan Crawford playing a waitress in Mildred Pierce. Struggling to support her children she opened her own restaurant, but in the end her unfilial daughter turned on her, even stealing her mother’s lover. “I cried my heart out when I watched that film. Really it was too much,” she lamented, her voice a little hoarse.
When Julie herself reached her thirties, she cried too, almost wailing while watching Fear Strikes Out, the biographica
l film about the baseball player Jimmy Piersall. Anthony Perkins played Jimmy, whose father groomed him from a young age to be a baseball player. He experienced enormous pressure, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t earn his father’s esteem. Finally he achieved success, but then went mad.
After hitting a home run, he ran around the field and climbed up the stadium fence shouting, “How was that? How was it? Was it good enough? I showed ’em.”
Her mother wrote to Julie from her deathbed in Europe: “My only wish is to see your face one more time.” Julie didn’t go. After her demise, a world-famous auction house sold off Rachel’s effects to settle her debts. When Julie received the detailed inventory, only a pair of jade vases had any value. They were among the antiques Rachel always took with her when she traveled overseas—she waited for the right price to sell things but she never actually sold anything.
On the occasions when mother and daughter were together, it seemed as though Rachel was forever packing—being a seasoned world traveler, more often than not she had to be ready to set off at a moment’s notice. From the age of four Julie stood by her side watching her pack, and when she grew a little older she helped pass things back and forth. The only skill her mother taught her was how to pack a suitcase: every item assembled in flawless order, so that the soft things wouldn’t be wrinkled and the hard things wouldn’t be broken or crushed. Clothes never needed to be ironed after they were taken out of the suitcase. Once, when Julie traveled to a small town overseas, there were no porters to be found so she hired two university students to carry her suitcase. It was very heavy and they lost their grip, sending the case, which was as solid as a marble slab, tumbling down the stairs, though not the slightest noise emerged from within. One of the students looked on admiringly. “That case was well packed,” he marveled—at last, someone who truly appreciated something about Julie.