Mulberry and Peach

by Hualing Nieh

  ‘The Wall of Nine Dragons is falling down. The Wall of Nine Dragons is falling down! The Wall of Nine Dragons! Falling down! Falling down!’ Aunt Shen murmurs unconsciously, lying on the k’ang with her face to the wall.

  She has not eaten for two days.

  The artillery fire becomes more frequent. The windows to the courtyard rattle with each explosion. The main gate keeps banging open. The sandy wind blows stronger.

  I walk into Chia-kang’s room and discover him and Hsing-hsing squeezed together on a chair. Hsing-hsing is sitting on his lap. His hand is inside her blouse. They stand up suddenly.

  I run outside and hail a pedicab and hurry to the Peking Hotel to inquire about the airplanes. The airline has managed successful landings at the temporary landing strip at the Temple of Heaven. Because of the fuel shortage, there are only two flights a week. I make a reservation. I’m number eight thousand and twenty-one, scheduled to depart in three months. The solar New Year has just begun.

  I walk through blowing sand to the lake, Pei Hai, which has just recently been opened to the public.

  Golden Turtle and Jade Frog.

  Double-Rainbow Pavilion.

  Hall of the Serene Way.

  Hall of Rippling Waters.

  Five-Dragon Pavilion.

  I approach the Wall of Nine Dragons. Nine colourful dragons are prancing between the blue heavens and the green waters, playing with their golden dragon pearls and their tongues of fire. The dragons, the sky, the water, the pearls, the tongues of fire are a mosaic of glittering glazed tile. The Wall of Nine Dragons stands more than twenty feet high. It has been standing here for seven or eight hundred years, since the Yuan dynasty.

  I go home, back to my room off the corner courtyard. Chia-kang is waiting for me there. He tells me that I’m the only one he loves and that Hsing-hsing is really in love with his brother Chia-ch’ing. When they are together, he always hopes I will walk in and discover them because she is really thinking about Chia-ch’ing.

  I tell him I’ve already made a reservation to go south and that his mother had already told me how things were.

  ‘My mother! My mother! She is going to make me kill myself,’ says Chia-kang stamping his foot. ‘Mulberry, if you want to go away, then let’s go away together.’

  When he comes back from his mother’s room, there are red marks on his face.

  ‘... New China News Agency cable, 14 January: Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, has already rejected Chiang Kai-shek’s January 1 request for peace negotiations. Comrade Mao Tse-tung announced the eight conditions under which peace negotiations can be held. (1) Punish all war criminals; (2) Abolish the invalid system of justice; (3) Abolish the invalid constitution; (4) Reorganize all counter-revolutionary armed forces according to democratic principles; (5) Confiscate property of the bureaucrats; (6) Reform the land system; (7) Abolish traitorous foreign treaties; (8) Convene a political negotiating conference of all non-counter-revolutionary parties, and establish a democratic coalition government.

  ‘The People’s Liberation Army Broadcasting Station announced from Tientsin: The People’s Liberation Army liberated Tientsin today, and took the puppet mayor of Tientsin, Tu Chien-shih and the Nationalist Party Garrison Commander Ch’en Ch’ang-chieh and others, captive. More than ten villages in the suburbs of Tientsin are still burning ...’ The students cut out the wire from the doorbell to repair their radio.

  The Shen doorbell is now mute.

  The Communists are bombing the centre of the city.

  The landing strip at the Temple of Heaven is closed.

  The gates to the city have been opened and the refugees who fled into the city are now pouring out. Daily there are four or five thousand people waiting by the gates to get out.

  Amah Ch’ien and her son come to the Shens and demand that half the house be given to them. The Shens only offer her one ounce of gold.

  She sews the gold into her belt and wraps it around her waist. She stands in the long line waiting for the guard to check her before leaving the city. The sun is setting. The gates will be closed before dark. When it is Amah Ch’ien’s turn to be inspected, a donkey pulling a cart of nightsoil passes by. The donkey, excited by the crowd, starts galloping. The guards chase the donkey and manure splatters all over the ground. When the donkey is finally subdued the gates have been closed and no one can leave the city. Suddenly an artillery shell falls on Amah Ch’ien’s head. The donkey, excited again, gallops off.

  Amah Ch’ien’s son comes to tell us about her death and demands that the Shens pay for the coffin.

  A loud thump comes from Aunt Shen’s room.

  Chia-kang and I run from the parlour into her room. She is sprawled on the floor. She stares at us, her eyes unnaturally bright. But she really doesn’t see us.

  She is no longer here in the house with us.

  Chia-kang goes to lift her to the bed. She waves him away with her hand.

  ‘Don’t touch me. I have something to say. Your father and Phoenix have returned. I have been talking with them for a long time. I’ve told lies my whole life and I’ve heard lies all my life. Now I can tell the truth. Chia-kang, I haven’t treated you fairly. I have suffocated you. I didn’t want you to be a success. I only wanted you to spend your whole life quietly here with me. I held you back on purpose, telling you that you were too soft that you couldn’t take it. I encouraged you to play around with the maids, even sleep with Hsing-hsing. I know you don’t really care about them. I let your father have Phoenix so I could keep him under my control. But now you are serious about Mulberry. When the two of you are together laughing and talking, I lie here crying alone. I said bad things about you in front of Mulberry. You want me to let you go. You told me that you can’t spend your whole life with me. And I said to you that I have remained a widow my whole life for your sake. After your father died, there were men that were interested in me. You said you wanted me to remarry. I slapped you. You went to Mulberry’s room. I held the jacket you had left in my room and cried the whole night. I pinched my feet, the way you used to pinch them, the way your father used to pinch them ...’

  ‘Mother . . .’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me.’

  ‘Mother, I only have one question. Father always had other women. How could you stand it?’

  She rolls on the floor laughing, pulls down her pants and reveals part of her buttock and slaps it, saying, ‘I have one precious possession: a good figure. Although I’m getting old and my body is drying up, this part is still good. This part of me has committed so many sins! Your father and I are even on that account. But not you. Chia-kang, I was a widow all these years for your sake. You ...’

  ‘Mother. . .’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me. I must say this: Chia-kang, you’re not a true son of the Shen family. Chia-ch’ing, the runaway, is the only legitimate son!’

  ‘Then whose son am I?’

  ‘You were given to me by the gods at the White Cloud Temple . . .’

  ‘Mother . . .’

  ‘Listen to me. Phoenix was the maid who came with me when I married. I couldn’t have children. I thought I could raise the sons she bore. But once she had a son, she became too haughty. Whoever bore sons had power in the Shen household. I was frantic. I went to see doctors - useless. I just couldn’t get pregnant. The eighteenth of the first lunar month in 1925, I made a trip to the White Cloud Temple with some of the women that I used to play mahjong with. That evening the festival of the Immortals was celebrated at the White Cloud Temple. Late in the evening, two or three hundred male and female devotees chanted Taoist sutras in the great hall. There was chanting and chanting, the painted lanterns glowed, and cymbals and drums clashed as the Immortals descended to earth: there was the Primordial Heavenly Master, the Secluded Holy One, the Master of Penetrating Heaven, the Emperor of Dark Heaven, the Immortal of the Golden Cap, the Black Cloud Immortal, the Golden Light Immortal, the Youths of the White Crane, the Youths
of Fire and Water ... all the important and unimportant immortals appeared. The Immortal of the Golden Cap told me that if I wanted a son I would have to borrow an embryo. He took me to the Hall of Four Emperors to steal a porcelain baby-image, and then he led me to the store house behind the great hall and taught me how to use it to borrow an embryo. Nine months later I gave birth to you, Chia-kang. I could have shared the glory with Ch’un-feng. But who could have known she was pregnant again? ... I took some arrowroot dug up in the dead of winter, made it into powder and put it in her tea. She drank it and had a miscarriage and died from hemorrhaging. Now, Chia-kang, everything I have kept secret has been said. Go ahead and curse me. The burden has been lifted from me.’

  She turns suddenly and points at me: ‘Mulberry, I have something to say to you, too. When you first came to Peking, I didn’t like you the minute I saw you. Your eyes are too watery. You’re a girl who dreams wild and ridiculous dreams. You try to seem clean and pure, but in your heart, you’re like a snake or a scorpion. You’re the kind of girl who could even fantasize about your own father. You’re an evil star—a jinx on your father, mother, husband and sons! Chia-kang, do you still want to marry Mulberry?’

  ‘If she is willing.’

  ‘You are aware of all her faults?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Chia-kang, why do you want to marry her?’

  ‘Because she is different from girls from the North. I’ve been in Peking too long.’

  ‘Mulberry, do you want to marry Chia-kang?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Chia-kang, are you really sure you want to marry her?’

  ‘I decided that a long time ago.’

  ‘My son. You’re being a real man. You played around with the maids and Hsing-hsing because you wanted to be a man. But you couldn’t escape your mother’s clutches. Now you’re a real man ... You . . .’

  ‘Mother, it’s too cold on the floor. Mulberry and I will lift you back up to the k’ang.’

  ‘Only on one condition: I can still go on talking when I’m back on the k’ang and you won’t interrupt me. If I stop, the Wall of the Dragons will fall on me.’

  ‘Go on and talk, Mother, you don’t have to stop.’

  The ideogram for double happiness, written in gold, hangs in the middle of the wall, between two scrolls with auspicious sayings. A red felt tablecloth has been spread out on the long table on which sit two burning red tapers. The Shens’ parlour is the ceremonial hall.

  There are thirteen guests: Hsing-hsing, her mother, her grandfather old Mr Wan, and his bride Joy - the whole family has come. Joy is pregnant.

  My wedding dress, flowered velvet, is borrowed from Hsing-hsing. Hsing-hsing is styling my hair: long curls hanging down to my shoulders. She says that this hairstyle is worn by European aristocrats and that it brings out my classic features. The small notch in my right earlobe is covered by the curls. The mole below my right eye looks darker after I put on my makeup. Hsing-hsing leads me from the room near the garden into the ceremonial hall.

  The groom is waiting. He stands between the tall red tapers, and facing old Mr Wan, the legal witness. The others lead his mother into the hall. She sits in the seat of honour at the long table. (She didn’t stop talking for two days and nights, but she has calmed down.)

  Artillery fire sputters over the roof.

  ‘President Chiang, due to reasons not yet disclosed, has announced that he will resign . . . ’ The students’ radio blares from the courtyard

  They come and go in front of the parlour and peer in at the ceremony.

  I am standing beside the groom.

  The master of ceremonies announces: ‘Let the ceremony begin.’

  The legal witness, Old Mr Wan, delivers a speech: ‘. . . This modest gentleman and this fine and charming lady are a true match made in heaven. We Chinese value virtue above everything else in this world. If one must choose between a man of talent or a man of virtue, how much better it is to choose the gentleman of virtue . . .’

  ‘. . . The Headquarters of the Extermination Campaign Against the Communist Rebels in North China has announced that forces of more than fifty thousand soldiers have already safely withdrawn to T’ang-ku . . . ’

  ‘. . . From ancient times, many treacherous ministers of state and dissipate sons have had great talent, but have lacked virtue. Those who have wrecked the state and ruined their families are too numerous to count. Thus, Chia-kang’s virtue is especially precious in these troubled times. And his virtue is due to the efforts of his wise and saintly mother.’

  ‘. . . After eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japan, there followed three years of civil war. Not only has this destroyed the only thread of hope that survived the victorious war of resistance, but slaughtered by the tens of thousands . . .’

  ‘The first commandment in The Way to Manage a Household is: Do not listen to the words of women and do not treat your parents ungenerously. Then the household will be at peace and although there may be chaos in the world outside, one will find refuge in the joy of family love . . .’

  ‘Our armed forces have safely retreated from Feng-p’u and Ho-fei and have destroyed the main bridge over the Huai River . . .’

  ‘. . . For generations the Sangs have been a family of distinguished scholars. Mulberry Sang herself is a virtuous and capable woman. I will quote from The Classic for Girls the following words of advice: “A woman must submit to her husband. A wife should serve her husband’s parents with the same attention with which she would hold an overflowing cup and cultivate herself as carefully as if she were treading on ice.” Finally, I wish that the new bride and groom be as harmonious together as the lute and zither. May your sons and grandsons be without end.’

  ‘. . . Fu Tso-i and the Communists are holding peace talks in the Western Hills. Two bombs exploded in the house of one of the negotiators, the former mayor . . .’ Several students stand talking in the doorway.

  Next the appointed matchmaker makes a speech. He first solemnly announces that he was forced up on the platform at the last minute and made to play the role of the matchmaker. When he gets to the word ‘platform’ he looks all around and adds in a low voice: ‘There is no platform. In these troubled times, everything must be simplified.’

  There are two loud blasts of artillery. The door to the ceremonial hall swings open and shut.

  The matchmaker clears his throat and says that his virtue is his brevity. He doesn’t want to delay the bride and groom’s enjoyment of this happy occasion. ‘The scenery was of mountains collapsing, the earth cracking open, bright and dazzling, revealing the golden light. Branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit too: a peach with a hard, solid seed wrapped in tender flesh.’ He tells two more jokes and finally finishes by warning the new bride and groom, ‘On the wedding night you must watch out for spies and be careful not to divulge your secrets. The city must be protected or else everything will be disrupted.’

  My room off the corner of the courtyard becomes the wedding chamber. In the room there is a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. The rest of the furniture was sold to the junk dealer. Chia-kang’s father used to work at the long desk. His things are still arranged on it: a large marble brush stand, two rows of bamboo brush holders holding twelve unused brushes of different sizes. In the white flower-embossed ink box are two pieces of white silk wadding. There’s a stack of writing paper with a red inscription ‘The Room of Retreat’.

  Two large red candles are burning on the desk. In the stove the fire is burning briskly. Chia-kang ran around the whole afternoon looking for a basket of coal to buy especially for the wedding.

  The artillery suddenly stops.

  Chia-kang takes the flashlight and examines every corner of the room, even under the bed, and then goes out to inspect the courtyard.

  He comes in, closes the door, and locks it.

  I am sitting on the edge of the bed.

  He motions to me, pointing first at me and then at the bed.

  I don’t move.


  He tugs at my dress.

  I still don’t move.

  He paces up and down. He must not say anything. If the groom speaks first he will be the first to die. His shadow leaps from the wall to the ceiling. Then it suddenly looms larger and jumps down at me from the ceiling.

  He walks over to me and sits down and begins to unbutton my dress. As soon as he undoes a button, I quickly fasten it up again.

  He pushes me down on the bed and strips off all my clothes. Then he takes off all his clothes. Our clothes lie in a heap on the floor.

  I slip under the embroidered quilt. He lifts the quilt and falls on top of me. His whole body caresses my body. Suddenly I start itching. I wriggle underneath him and try to scratch. He cocks his head and pouts at me. I pick up his hand and bring it near the candlelight. I can’t see anything in the dark. My scalp and the soles of my feet begin to itch. I shove him aside and begin scratching wildly.

  He begins scratching himself.

  The two of us scratch on the bed: scratch lying down, sitting up, rolling over.

  He gets out of bed and picks up one of the candles, still scratching himself.

  Some sort of furry substance has been spread all over the bed.

  We don’t understand who would play a joke like this on our wedding night.

  We brush ourselves off and then brush off the bed.

  As soon as we get back into bed, a dog starts barking. Then we hear voices and a gong.

  ‘Kill that beast,’ the students are yelling.