My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, From Chekhov to Munro

by Jeffrey Eugenides

  He hated her saying that he was afraid; his expression changed, and she stopped. More time passed. “I have really changed . . .” she said. Again he shifted uncomfortably, to keep her from speaking. “I won’t bring you any trouble, I promise . . .” And then, “You can’t leave me, Zhenbao . . .” Her broken sentences hung in midair like the pendulums of several clocks, each ticking along at a different speed, each following its own logic and reaching its own conclusions, each rising up at a different moment, each hammering its bell at a different time . . . to Zhenbao it seemed that the room was filled with Jiaorui’s voice, even though she had long since fallen silent.

  Evening came, and with the lamps still unlit she threw herself on him and wept. Even in her humiliation she had strength. Through the blanket and the sheet he could feel the firmness of her arms. But he didn’t want her strength; he already had his own.

  She threw herself across his waist and legs and she wailed. Her hair, a mess of soft, loose curls, exuded heat like a brazier. She was like a child who’s been wronged, who cries so much that she can’t stop, doesn’t know how to, hoarsely crying on and on, having forgotten why she

  started to cry in the first place. For Zhenbao it was the same. “No, no, no . . . Don’t go on like this, it won’t do . . .” The words required an enormous struggle; he was fighting hard to subdue the surging waves of longing. He spent all his strength in saying “No, no, no” even though he ’d forgotten what it was he meant to refuse.

  But finally he found something suitable to say. With great effort, he raised his knees, making her get up. “Jiaorui,” he said, “if you love me, then you have to consider my situation. I can’t cause my mother pain.

  Her way of thinking is different from ours, but we have to think about her, since she has only me to depend on. The world would never forgive me. And Shihong is, after all, my friend. Our love can only be love between friends. What happened before is my mistake, and I’m very sorry. But now you’ve written and told him without letting me know—

  that ’s your mistake. Jiaorui, what do you say? When he comes, tell him

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  you were only fooling, that you just wanted him to come back early.

  He ’ll believe you—if he wants to.”

  Jiaorui lifted a red, swollen face and stared. In a flash, she stood straight up, apparently astonished to find herself in such a state. She took a small mirror out of her purse, glanced into it while tilting her head this way and that, tossed her hair back loosely, wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, blew her nose, and, without looking at him once, walked out.

  Zhenbao didn’t sleep well that night, and with dawn came new

  awareness; it seemed as if someone had come during the night and fallen across him, weeping. At first he thought it was a dream, but then he realized that it was Jiaorui: probably she ’d been there for a long time now crying. The warmth of the woman’s body lay over him like an eider-down quilt on satin sheets. He luxuriated in the moment, breaking out in a gentle sweat.

  When he was fully awake, Jiaorui left without a word. He didn’t say anything either. Later he heard that she and Wang Shihong had decided to divorce, but it all seemed very remote. His mother cried in front of him a few times, urging him to marry, and he put it off for a while, then finally agreed. His mother arranged the introductions. “She ’s the one then,” he said to himself, when he met Miss Meng Yanli.

  They met first in someone ’s living room. Yanli was standing by a glass door wearing a silk shift with ruddy orange stripes on a gray background. Zhenbao’s immediate impression, however, was of a vague, enveloping whiteness. Yanli was tall and slender, like a single straight line; the only hint of a twist or turn came at the tips of her girlish breasts and the jutting bones of her hips. When a breeze stirred, and her dress swept out behind her, it made her look thin and frail. Her face was soft and very pretty, and yet the main effect was of whiteness. Yanli’s father had died, and her family’s fortunes had gone into decline, but at one time they had been a wealthy merchant family, so the two of them had similar family backgrounds. The young lady was twenty-two years old and would soon be graduating from college. Her college wasn’t a very good one, just the best she could get into, but Yanli was a good student in a mediocre place; she studied hard and didn’t associate much with

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  her classmates. Her whiteness, like a portable hospital screen, separated her from the bad things in her environment. It also separated her from the things in her books. For ten years now Yanli had gone to school, diligently looking up new words, memorizing charts, copying from the blackboard, but between her and everything else there always seemed to be a white membrane. In middle school, she ’d received letters from some boys—the elder brothers of her classmates, for the most part. When her family found out about it, they told her not to get involved with people like that. Yanli had never written back.

  Zhenbao planned to marry her in two months, after her graduation.

  During this time, he took her out to the movies a few times. Yanli rarely spoke or raised her head and always walked a little behind him. She knew very well that according to modern etiquette she should walk in front, let him help her put on her coat and wait on her, but she was uncomfortable exercising her new rights. She hesitated, and this made her seem even slower and more awkward. Zhenbao himself wasn’t a natural-born gentleman, but he had worked hard to learn the part: he took the matter seriously and thought Yanli quite remiss in this regard. Fortunately, a shy shrinking manner in a young girl is not too unpleasant.

  The engagement was short, and secretly Yanli was very disappointed; she ’d always heard that these were the best days of one ’s life. Even so, she was very happy when the wedding day arrived. That morning,

  combing her hair while still half asleep, she lifted her arms up, looked in the mirror, and felt a strange sense of invigoration—as if she ’d been crammed into a glass test tube and was now pushing her head up to pop the lid off, ready to leap from the present into future. The present was good, but the future would be better. Yanli stretched her arms out of the window of the future, and a vast wind blew through her hair.

  The wedding was at Yi Pin Xiang Restaurant, with the banquet at

  Dongxing Restaurant. Zhenbao liked to make a good impression, but he was also careful with money—good enough was good enough for

  him. He rented a new house not far from his office and had his mother come from Jiangwan to live with them. He spent most of his earnings on work-related socializing, so the household budget was very tight. His mother and Yanli got along fairly well, but Zhenbao had many com-

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  plaints about Yanli and no one to tell them to. Yanli didn’t like exercise; even “the best sort of indoor exercise” had no appeal for her. Zhenbao made a real effort to be a good husband and help her like it, but he didn’t feel much physical attraction. At first she ’d seemed cute, one undeveloped breast nestling in his hand like a sleeping bird with its own lightly beating heart, its sharp beak pecking at his palm, firm yet without strength—but then his hand had also lost its strength. Later on even this little bit of girlish beauty was gone. Gradually Yanli settled into her new environment, and as she did, she turned into a very dull wife.

  Zhenbao started going to prostitutes. Once every three weeks—his

  life was, in every respect, well regulated. He and some friends would take rooms in a hotel and call in the women; they’d tell their families they’d gone to Suzhou and Hangzhou on business. He wasn’t particular about faces, but he liked girls who were dark and a little bit plump. He wanted them fleshy and ashamed, which was his way of taking revenge on Rose and Wang Jiaorui, though he wouldn’t let himself view it that way. If such a thing did enter his mind, he immediately reproached himself for desecrating treasured memories. For these two l
overs, he reserved a sensitive spot, a sacred corner of his heart. Wang Jiaorui and Rose gradually became so mixed up in his mind that they became one: a naïve, passionate girl who had doted on him, a girl with no brains, or anything to cause him any trouble, though he—with his self-denying logic and steely, superhuman will—had left her.

  Yanli had no idea about the prostitutes. She loved him simply because he, among so many others, happened to be her man. She was always

  saying things like “Wait and ask Zhenbao about it” or “Better take an umbrella, Zhenbao said it ’s going to rain.” Zhenbao was her God, and assuming that role was no problem for him. When Yanli made a mistake, he ’d reprimand her in front of other people, and if something escaped his attention, it never failed to escape his mother’s. Each time she was scolded in front of the maidservant, Yanli could feel her authority crumbling away beneath her. When her orders weren’t carried out, she was again to blame. She hated the disdain in the servants’ eyes, and in dealing with them she protected herself by knitting her brows and pouting before she even spoke, her whole face a study in childish chagrin. When

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  she threw a tantrum, she always seemed to be talking back, like a maid or a concubine who has grown used to occupying the bottom rung.

  The only time Yanli managed to be mistress of the house—for a few days at least—was when the servants were new, so she liked getting new servants as often as she could. Zhenbao’s mother told everyone that her daughter-in-law was useless: “Poor Zhenbao, working so hard at his job to support the family, but when he comes home he ’s pestered with all sort of domestic details. He can’t get a moment ’s peace.” Her words got around to Yanli, and the anger built up in her heart. She grew angrier and angrier, and then she had a child. The delivery was difficult. Yanli felt she ’d earned the right to throw a fit. But the child was a girl, and Yanli’s mother-in-law had no intention of humoring her. Soon they were irritated with each other all the time. Fortunately, Zhenbao played peace-maker and the embarrassment of a direct confrontation was avoided, but his mother sullenly insisted on moving back to Jiangwan. Zhenbao was very disappointed in his wife: having married her for her tractability, he felt cheated. He was also unhappy with his mother—moving out like that and letting people say he wasn’t a good son. He was still busy-busy, but gradually he succumbed to fatigue. Even the smiling wrinkles of his suit looked tired.

  When Dubao graduated, Zhenbao, in his role as talent scout, found his brother a job at the factory. But Dubao didn’t live up to his potential.

  Overshadowed by his older brother, he became a loafer, without ambition. He was still single, and quite content to live in a dormitory.

  One morning Dubao showed up at Zhenbao’s place with a question.

  The assistant manager of the factory would soon be returning to his home country, and everyone had contributed toward a gift which it was Dubao’s job to purchase. Zhenbao advised him to go to a department store and see what sort of silver items they had. The two brothers left the house together and caught the same bus. Zhenbao sat down next to a woman who, without a glance, picked up the child beside her and put him on her lap. Zhenbao didn’t pay any attention, but Dubao, sitting across the aisle, gasped in surprise. Lifting himself in his seat, he signaled to Zhenbao with his head. Only then did Zhenbao recognize Jiaorui. She was plumper than before, though certainly not paunchy, as

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  she ’d once feared would happen to her. She looked tired, but she was carefully made up, and the pendants of her earrings were gold-colored Burmese Buddha heads. Jiaorui was middle-aged now, and her beauty had turned to plain good looks.

  “Mrs. Zhu,” said Dubao, smiling, “it ’s been a long time!”

  Zhenbao remembered hearing that she had remarried—that she was

  now Mrs. Zhu. Jiaorui smiled back. “Yes, it really has been a long time!”

  she said.

  Zhenbao nodded. “How have you been?” he asked.

  “Just fine, thank you.”

  “Have you been in Shanghai all this time?” Dubao asked.

  Jiaorui nodded.

  “It seems a bit early in the morning for running errands,” he con -

  tinued.

  “It certainly is!” Jiaorui said. She put her hand on the child ’s shoulder. “I’m taking him to the dentist. He got a toothache yesterday, kept me up all night with his fussing, and now I’ve got to take him in early.”

  “Which is your stop?” asked Dubao.

  “The dentist ’s office is on the Bund. Are you two going to the

  office?”

  “He is,” said Dubao, “but I’ve got to do some shopping.”

  “Is everything still the same at the factory?” asked Jiaorui. “No big changes?”

  “Hilton is going back. Now Zhenbao will be the assistant manager.”

  “Oh, my! That ’s wonderful!”

  Dubao never talked this much when his older brother was present;

  Zhenbao could tell that Dubao felt it incumbent on him, under the circumstances, to do the talking. Which meant he must know all about their affair.

  Dubao got off at the next stop. Zhenbao was silent for a while. He didn’t look at Jiaorui. “Well, and how are you?” he asked the empty air.

  Jiaorui was silent, but after a pause she said, “Just fine.” The same question and same answer as before, but now they had an entirely different meaning.

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  “This Mr. Zhu—do you love him?”

  Jiaorui nodded. When she answered, her words were interrupted by

  pauses. “Starting with you . . . I learned . . . how to love . . . to really love. Love is good. Even though I have suffered, I still want to love, and so . . .”

  Zhenbao rolled up the square collar of her son’s sailor outfit. “You’re very happy,” he said in a low voice.

  Jiaorui laughed. “I had to forge ahead somehow. When I ran into

  something, well, that was it.”

  “What you run into is always a man,” Zhenbao said with a cold

  smile.

  Jiaorui wasn’t angry. She tilted her head to one side and thought about it. “True,” she said. “When I was young and pretty, I always ran into men. That probably would have happened no matter what I did, once my social life started. But now, there are other things besides men, always other things . . .”

  Zhenbao stared at her, unaware that his heart, at that moment, was aching with jealousy.

  “And you?” asked Jiaorui. “How are you?”

  Zhenbao wanted to sum up his perfectly happy life in a few simple words, but as he was trying to find them, he looked up and saw his face in the small mirror on the bus driver’s right. He knew his face was steady and calm, and yet the vibration of the bus made his face vibrate too, a strange, calm, regular vibration, almost as if his face was being gently massaged. All at once, Zhenbao’s face really did begin to quiver; in the mirror he saw tears streaming down . . . he didn’t know why. Shouldn’t she have been the one to weep? It was all wrong, and yet he couldn’t stop. She should be weeping, he should be comforting her. But Jiaorui didn’t comfort him. She sat silently for a long time. Then she asked, “Is this your stop?”

  He got off the bus and went to work as usual. It was Saturday, so they had the afternoon off. He went home at half past twelve. He had a small Western-style house with a big, imposing wall out front, but then all the houses in the area, row after row of them, looked exactly the same: gray cement walls, as smooth, shiny, and rectangular as coffins, with flower-

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  ing oleanders sticking up over the top. The courtyard inside was small, but it counted as a garden. Everything a home should have, his had.

  Small white clouds floated in the blue sky above, and on the street a flute vendor wa
s playing the flute—a sharp, soft, sinuous, Oriental tune that twisted and turned in the ear like embroidery, like a picture of a dream in a novel, a trail of white mist coming out from under the bed curtain and unfurling all sorts of images, slowly uncoiling like a lazy snake, till finally the drowsiness is just too great, and even the dream falls asleep.

  The house was perfectly quiet when Zhenbao walked in. His seven-

  year-old daughter, Huiying, was still at school; the maidservant had gone to fetch her. Zhenbao didn’t want to wait; he told Yanli to go ahead and put the food on the table. He wolfed it down, as if to fill the emptiness in his heart with food.

  After eating, he phoned Dubao to ask him how the shopping had

  gone. Dubao explained that he ’d looked at several pieces of silver but none had been suitable. “I have a pair of silver vases here,” said Zhenbao. “Someone gave them to us as wedding gifts. Take them to a shop and have them re-engraved. That should take care of it. You can return the money you’ve collected. It’ll be my contribution.” Dubao agreed, and Zhenbao said, “Perhaps you should come and get them now.” He

  was anxious to see Dubao and to find out his reaction to seeing Jiaorui that morning. The whole scene had been so nonsensical—and his own response so absurd—that Zhenbao almost wondered if it had really happened.

  Dubao came, and Zhenbao casually brought the conversation round

  to Jiaorui. Dubao tapped his cigarette like a man of experience: “She ’s gotten old, really old.” Which apparently meant, for a woman, that she was finished.

  Zhenbao reviewed the scene that morning: yes, she had grown old.

  But even this he envied. He looked at his wife. Eight years of marriage and still no trace of experience. She was hollow and spotless. She always would be.

  He told Yanli to wrap up the two silver vases on the mantelpiece and give them to Dubao. She scrambled around to find a chair, removed the cushion, stood on the chair, got some newspaper from the top of the