Mulberry and Peach

by Hualing Nieh

  ‘From the first to the fifteenth when the moon is full,

  Spring breezes sway the willow, the willow turns green . . .’

  I hear again our family servant singing a folksong in his soft voice. I ride on his shoulders to watch the monkey circus. We walk in wide-open fields. A beggar carrying a broken basket searches for burnt coal in the garbage. The field in front of us is crowded with people Li suddenly stops singing, points saying Little Mulberry let’s go see the execution. I ask are they executing good people or bad people Li says they’re executing Communists. I ask are Communists good or bad, Li says whoever gives the common people food to eat is a good person whoever lets the common people starve is a bad person. A volley of gunfire. Li runs over carrying me on his back. The people who have been shot are lying on the ground in a pool of blood a thin stream of blood trickles down the hill. A skinny old woman kneels by the side crying and burning paper money scattering water and rice over the ashes. A scrawny yellow dog is sniffing at the trickling blood . . .

  When I see the blood my whole body turns to ice, I curl up into a ball. I want to talk with someone I call Teng I want to tell him that I’m a bad woman, when he and I were together I was already pregnant with I-po’s child But I can only utter one word to him: ‘blood!’

  The train is rushing over the Pearl River Bridge in Canton refugees cling to the roof of the train many heads are sticking out the windows. A telephone wire scrapes along the roof of the train. One two three people drop with a splash into the river. Someone standing on the roof of the last car is pissing in the river as he sees the people falling into the river. The people at the window say that on such a sunny day it’s raining but the rain smells a little strange. People at another window say the Communists have already crossed the Yangtze River and will take over China. The heads of the people in the river come up several times then vanish.

  One instrument that establishes contact between people is the body, another is the telephone. My Friday night pastime is making telephone calls.

  351-7789. ‘Hello!’

  ‘Helen!’

  ‘How did you know it was Helen?’

  ‘You have a foreign accent.’

  ‘I haven’t used the name Helen for a long time.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t pronounce foreign names. I can’t even pronounce my own husband’s name, I-po. I call him Bill. What does Mulberry mean in Chinese?’

  ‘Mulberry is a holy tree, Chinese people consider it the chief of the tree family, it can feed silkworms, silkworms can produce silk, silk can be woven into silk and satin material. The mulberry tree is green, the colour of spring . . .’

  ‘Helen, don’t stop, go on talking, go on, it’s coming, that magical feeling is coming, crawling all over my body! Crawling all over my eyes! Crawling into my brain! I can see the silk worms, silver, twisting, curling, spitting out silk, wrapping it all around their bodies, the multi-coloured silk, delicate and luminous, wrapped around the bodies of the silk worms, their heads emerging from the strands of silk, no they’re human heads . . .’

  ‘Betty! You’re hallucinating again, you’ve been smoking dope again . . .’

  ‘The water of the Nile is flowing, flowing, look, it’s flowing right there, do you see it? Helen, believe what I say, it’s all true. I’ve even seen many, many people, many different worlds, they’re all surging forth! They’re all real people, real worlds . . .’

  ‘I don’t understand anything you’re saying! Betty! The thing that’s most real to me is the child in my womb, it’s I-po’s and my child.’

  I hang up.

  353-1876. No answer.

  351-9466. The telephone buzzes. Busy.

  338-2457. No answer.

  338-0060. ‘This is a recording. The number you have dialled is no longer in service.’

  351-9063. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello. I want to speak with Teng.’

  ‘You’ve got the wrong number!’

  ‘What’s your number?’

  ‘I won’t tell you. What number do you want?’

  ‘351-9063.’

  ‘I’ll say it again: You’ve got the wrong number!’

  I hang up.

  351-9063. ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s you again! Wrong number! Please don’t bother me, I want to sleep!’

  ‘Good night.’ I hang up again.

  351-9063. ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s you again - it’s that woman! What’s the matter with you anyway?’

  ‘You listen, lady. Just what’s your problem? You . . .’ The woman at the other end hasn’t finished speaking when the man takes the phone and yells: ‘We’re just having a hell of a good time in bed! If you bother us again I’ll kill you!’

  ‘Are you committing adultery?’

  ‘None of your business!’ Slams the phone down.

  351-9063. ‘Hello.’

  I laugh loudly. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted again.’

  ‘I WILL KILL YOU!’ Slams the phone down.

  351-9063. ‘Hi!’

  ‘Hi! Teng! You’ve finally wiggled your way out from under the bed!’

  ‘What are you talking about? I just wiggled my way out of the lab. I killed another cat.’

  ‘Killing a cat in the middle of the night!’

  ‘I have to finish my experiment. It was a pregnant cat. I raised her awhile, waiting until she bore the kittens before killing her. When I slit open the cat’s stomach, guess what I was thinking about?’

  ‘Thinking about the new-born animals.’

  ‘Thinking about you!’

  ‘My stomach has to be cut open, too. I’ll have to have a Caesarean.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand what you’re saying!’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘We’ll get married immediately.’

  ‘It’s I-po’s child.’

  ‘Oh. Well, then he should take the responsibility.’

  ‘I’m through with him. I’ll take the responsibility myself.’

  ‘You want the child?’

  ‘Eh. It’s a life, too.’

  ‘I agree with you. We kill too many living things. In the beginning it was only people killing other people; now people use machines to kill. I had a strange feeling: when I was killing the cat, for a while it seemed as if I were that cat, one stroke, another stroke cutting the cat’s body, was cutting into my own body as well. Do you really want the child?’

  ‘No doubt about it!’

  ‘I admire your nerve. But, but, in your situation perhaps it isn’t wise for you to have an illegitimate child. I still haven’t told you: The man from the Immigration Service came to see me and ask about you. I said in my whole life I’ve admired only two women, one is my mother, the other is you. In my eyes you two represent all the good womanly virtues.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything, only copied down what I said. That reminds me. About your child, I have a plan. My sister’s been married twice and has never gotten pregnant. You know, my sister’s husband is a second generation overseas Chinese, working in New York as a stock broker, quite well off. All my sister does is go to concerts, travel in Europe, vacation by the ocean, buy works of art, buy designer clothes-several hundred dresses, twenty or thirty pairs of shoes. She also writes poetry, but it’s only a pastime. She’s been to Taiwan once, but her life style didn’t change when she returned. There’s no purpose at all. If she had a child, perhaps her life would change. Before school starts I want to go to New York, in order to apply for jobs and meet the people in the firms, also for the “Action Committee”, you know. We can drive there together and talk to my sister about this. You’re old schoolmates, you can talk easily about anything. You can have a good time in New York. You . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to go on. I decided a long time ago to go to New York, not to talk to your sister about the child, but to see the Empire State Building.’

  ‘Can I go over to see you now?’

  ‘There’s
no Empire State Building here!’

  ‘The hell with the Empire State Building!’

  We hang up. The phone rings immediately.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi! Mulberry . . .’

  ‘Professor, Mulberry’s already dead.’

  ‘Don’t joke with me! Betty’s dead!’

  ‘You’re kidding! I just talked to her on the phone!’

  ‘When I came back, the room was really dark; there was a strange odour. Like the smell of drugs. I turned on the light, Betty was lying on the living room floor, an empty wine bottle beside her. Her mouth was open, fluid trickling from her mouth. I called to her, shook her, but no response. I was terrified. It’s a sudden heart attack and she’s dead! I felt her forehead, it was icy cold! I felt her nostrils, no air being exhaled. She died just like that!’

  ‘Hurry up and call the police!’

  ‘First I have to find something.’

  ‘Find what?’

  ‘Find the letters you sent me. What about your going to New York?’

  ‘I’ve decided to go next week.’

  ‘In fact, you needn’t . . .’

  ‘I have to go open my door. Teng’s here!’

  ‘What’s he doing going to your apartment in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Didn’t you come in the middle of the night, too?’

  ‘Is the child in your belly his?’

  ‘No. It’s yours. Sorry. He’s knocking!’ I hang up.

  I open the door the man in dark glasses stands in the doorway behind him is a long narrow corridor. He wants me to go to the Police Station at one o’clock to have a talk. I invite him inside to talk he says he wants to use the facilities at the Police Station. Is he going to use the lie detector? Is he going to torture me? Is he going to put me in prison?

  I want to escape I don’t dare meet the man in dark glasses. Since last time when he questioned me, he’s certainly found out about a lot more of my crimes: my relationship with I-po my pregnancy my relationship with Teng Betty’s death. Perhaps my being pregnant provoked her to commit suicide or perhaps she died of a stroke, perhaps I-po murdered his wife in order to keep his child. Although I didn’t kill her I’m to blame. I call I-po on the phone no answer. Perhaps he went to the funeral parlour perhaps he was taken for questioning by the police. I call Teng on the phone no answer. I’m the only one left in the whole wide world I walk in circles around the room walking walking walking walking.

  The police take me into a room shut the door and leave me there. The fluorescent lights in the room are all lit up the man in dark glasses sits behind a grey steel desk like the one at the Immigration Service. On the desk is a folder on the top is my alien registration number (Alien) 89-785-462 and an electric typewriter. He stands up and shakes my hand asks me to sit down. He says he came to this area to investigate a lot of aliens who are applying for permanent residency he’ll take advantage of this opportunity to once again ask me some important questions. They are this careful with every case.

  He suddenly asks me if I did or did not commit adultery with Chiang I-po I say we don’t see each other anymore. He pulls a pile of papers from the file words crawl over the page, he says that is the information he found out since my first interrogation, all evidence in regard to my behaviour, some are the result of his questioning people some are the result of people reporting to him. He leafs through to a page that says according to the Landlady’s report on the evening of 20 July, the very evening that the astronauts landed on the moon, Chiang I-po entered my apartment by way of the fire escape. He stares at me asks on the evening of July 20th did he or did he not have sexual intercourse with me I say yes, he asks how long did it last I say I can’t say for sure, we weren’t in bed we were in the bathtub, the small mustache below the two large dark lenses twitches he asks how do you have sexual intercourse in a bathtub? I say first it was I who got in, after a while he also got in after a while he got out after a while he got in again, after a while I got out again after a while the astronauts landed on the moon. He says he doesn’t understand a thing I’m talking about but he must record every word I say. He taps out each word on the electric typewriter.

  He says he still must continue investigating my case if they decide I am an undesirable alien they must deport me, where do I want to go? I say I don’t know. He says he doesn’t know what’s the matter with Chinese all the Chinese people he’s investigated answer the same way, the Chinese are foreigners who haven’t any place to be deported to, this is a difficulty he’s never encountered in investigating other aliens. I ask when they will decide he says he doesn’t know. He tells me to wait wait wait wait ...

  My finger tips hurt suddenly I realise that the cigarette I’m holding is burning my fingers my shoes are splattered with mud on the table beside the bed there’s a half-drunk Bloody Mary. What’s happened to me. I never touched alcohol cigarettes or mud. The calendar on the wall reads 2 September I only remember 30 August when the man in dark glasses questioned me at the Police Station everything after that where I was and what I did I don’t remember at all.

  My god there’s a huge penis drawn in red in the mirror and there are some words scrawled. Mulberry is dead. I have bloomed. I hate Mulberry.

  I wipe out the obscene picture and the words whose joke is this.

  It was my joke. You’re dead, Mulberry. I have come to life. I’ve been alive all along. But now I have broken free. You don’t know me, but I know you. I’m completely different from you. We are temporarily inhabiting the same body. How unfortunate. We often do the opposite things. And if we do the same thing, our reasons are different. For instance. You want to keep the child because you want to redeem yourself. I want to keep the child because I want to preserve a new life. You don’t see Chiang I-po anymore because you are scared of the Immigration Service agent; I ignore him because I despise him. When you’re with Teng you feel guilty, when I’m with him I feel happy. You and I threaten each other like the world’s two superpowers. Sometimes you are stronger; sometimes I am. When I’m stronger I can make you do things you don’t want to do, for example the evening the astronauts landed on the moon, you teased and tormented I-po, when you acted like a slut with Teng in the ghost town graveyard. After those things happened you felt you were even more guilty - I like to do mischief with you like that. Because you limit my freedom. Now, you’re dead, I hope you won’t come back, then I’ll be completely free! Do you know what happened after you died? I thought Betty was dead. I walked up to the Chiang house. Betty opened the door!

  ‘I’m really happy that you’re alive again! Betty!’ I said to her.

  She motioned to me to go around the yard and come in the back door. She was waiting for me at the back door. We went down to the basement. All I could hear was I-po and several people in the front living room competing to call out the names of old alleys in Peking.

  ‘Goldfish Alley!’

  ‘Emerald Flower Alley!’

  ‘Lilac Alley!’

  ‘Rouge Alley!’

  ‘Sesame Wang Alley!’

  ‘Master Ma Alley!’

  ‘Pocket Alley!’

  ‘Magpie Alley!’

  ‘Fresh Alley!’

  ‘Slender Reed Alley!’

  ‘Ladder Alley!’

  ‘Candlewick Alley!’

  ‘Bean Sprout Alley!’

  ‘White Temple Alley!’

  ‘Cotton Alley!’

  ‘Pa-ta Alley!’ I-po was shouting.

  ‘The professor isn’t thinking of Pa-ta Alley. He’s thinking of the courtesans who lived there.’

  I-po laughed. ‘That’s right.’

  The east is red

  The morning sun rises

  In China Mao Tse-tung appears

  He works for the happiness of the people ...

  ‘Communist spy! You’re playing a Communist record!’ A girl’s voice.

  ‘Revolution, revolution!’ Chiang I-po’s voice. ‘This young lady is going to turn in her old friend. H
siao-Chuan, do you believe it? I even went to Taiwan last year and Chiang Kai-Shek’s own son shook my hand.’

  ‘You’re putting me on. I don’t believe it!’

  The basement was one long room. Clothes, newspapers, magazines, cigarette boxes, and empty liquor bottles were strewn everywhere. There was a kitchenette in the corner, all sorts of things piled on the filthy stove. The only furniture in the room was a large colour TV and a box spring mattress studded with cigarette burns. The room smelled of marijuana. A boy with long hair was lying on the mattress watching television. He was wearing only jockey shorts. When he saw Betty and me he gave an unfriendly grunt. The news announcer looked out into the emptiness and began speaking in a monotonous voice: ‘... A bomb from the Second World War was discovered today by a cleaning lady in Carpenterville, Illinois. The police have warned the residents in the vicinity to be on guard for an explosion, and they de-activated the bomb. But a young professor maintained that the bomb would not explode, it was only a new toy left over from the war, he had picked it up in a junk yard in Chicago to use for a room decoration...’

  ‘This is my territory! I feel at ease here. And have everything: booze, sex, entertainment, dope, even violence!’ Betty laughed, pointed to the confrontation of the police and rioters on the TV screen.

  ‘. . . A federal grand jury charged five political activists with inciting a riot. The five have been charged with planning and inciting the bloody riot at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago . . .’

  Upstairs, I-po roared with laughter. The Golden Voice was singing a love song.

  He closed the door I had to go,

  Their two hearts entwine as one,

  Madame, if you can leave them alone, then do,

  Why pursue the matter any further?

  ‘Bill’s never been down here in the basement. I call him the upstairs Chinese; he calls me the underground American,’ Betty said.