Traces of Love

by Eileen Chang

  Someone at the mahjong table asked, ‘Auntie, the names of your children all have the word “Hua” in them, how come the eldest young lady is called Yue?’

  Mrs Yang smiled and said, ‘That’s because she was born on the Moon Festival – Yue is the moon.’

  Dunfeng remembered all her relatives’ birthdays; the poorer she was, the more eager she had been to observe the social niceties so that people would not say things behind her back. She interjected, ‘But I remember Yue’s birthday is in April!’

  Mrs Yang giggled, pulled her coat up and hid her neck in it. Then she walked up close to Dunfeng, looking at her with hazy eyes, and said in a low voice, confidentially, ‘She was born in April all right, but her little person was first made on the Moon Festival.’

  Everyone heard that, and they were in a riot: ‘Oh Auntie Yang –’ ‘Auntie –!’ Dunfeng was embarrassed; for the sake of her family’s reputation she couldn’t let Mr Mi listen to any more of this. She said quickly, ‘I’ll go up to see the old lady,’ nodded to Mrs Yang and walked away. Mrs Yang acknowledged in kind, saying, ‘You two go first, I’ll be coming in a minute.’

  Dunfeng walked up the stairs ahead of Mr Mi. She turned round to look him in the eye and gave him a wry smile. She had wanted to say to him, ‘And you thought she was something precious!’ Mr Mi was smiling in a reserved manner as before. Mrs Yang’s children appeared on the staircase landing, called out: ‘Auntie,’ and went their own way.

  Old Mrs Yang was very particular about cleanliness, and the children did not dare to go into her room often. This time they had not followed Dunfeng in either. There was a green metal desk in the room, a matching chair, a matching filing cabinet, a fridge and a phone. Because of the Yangs’ progressive tradition, even the old lady was fond of new, foreign things. Yet her room was dark, with all the windows shut, and the air made one feel that it was still an old lady’s room. Though she had given up opium-smoking, the opium couch was still there. The old lady was lying on the floral quilted padding, reading the papers. The slits of her padded gown revealed a pair of pinkish-purple woollen pants, tied around her ankles with tapes to make them snug. She sat up to talk to them, pulling at the legs of her pants and apologizing with a smile. ‘Just look at me! This year the cold weather has come early. I had thought I’d have a pair of quilted pants made, but trousers now cost as much as a gown, so I just have to make do for the moment.’

  ‘We have a charcoal brazier at our place, but it won’t do when it gets really cold,’ said Mr Mi.

  ‘He’s telling me to have a fur-lined gown made. Actually I have two old ones, men’s. I wonder if they could be made over,’ said Dunfeng.

  ‘That would be best. These old furs are much better quality than what you get now.’

  ‘I’m afraid they may be too small,’ said Dunfeng.

  ‘Men’s coats are always big, so you should have quite enough material,’ said the old lady.

  ‘The ones I have are very narrow at the waist.’

  Old Mrs Yang smiled and said, ‘So they’re yours? I remember you used to dress up as a man. The way you wore a peaked cap, trailing a thick long plait, made you look like an actor.’

  ‘No, they’re not my own clothes,’ said Dunfeng. Her white, rounded face showed not a trace of embarrassment, and she was smiling serenely, as if it was only right that she should have had an eventful past.

  Her late husband was a slight young man. Old Mrs Yang knew it was his clothes she was talking about; so did Mr Mi, and he was none too happy about it. He stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and turned to look at the calligraphy on the wall. Seeing a little girl peeping at them at the doorway, he walked over and bent down to play with her. The old lady asked the girl, ‘Why don’t you say hello? Don’t you recognize our guest? Now who is he?’ But the girl remained shy.

  And how else would she address him but as ‘Mr Mi’? Mr Mi thought to himself. But the old lady persisted, and now even Dunfeng joined in, saying, ‘Say hello, and you’ll get chestnuts to eat.’

  Irritated by this, Mr Mi interrupted her: ‘Let’s have the chestnuts.’ Dunfeng took a few out from her carrier bag, and the old lady said, ‘That’s quite enough, quite enough.’

  ‘Aren’t you having any, Mrs Yang?’ asked Mr Mi.

  Dunfeng replied quickly, ‘Auntie doesn’t eat snacks as far as I remember.’

  Mr Mi still tried to persuade her to take some, which embarrassed old Mrs Yang somewhat. She said, ‘Please don’t stand on ceremony; I really do not eat them.’ There were some chestnut shells on the tea table, and the old lady pulled a newspaper over them.

  Dunfeng sighed, saying, ‘Now even peanuts and chestnuts are priced individually!’

  ‘And the quality gets worse as the price gets higher. They call them sugar-roasted chestnuts, but I doubt whether they use any sugar in the roasting. That’s why this year’s chestnuts are not sweet at all.’ Dunfeng didn’t notice the old lady’s inconsistency.

  ‘Have you collected your sugar ration yet?’ asked Mr Mi.

  ‘No, I didn’t see it in the papers today. In fact that’s why we have a newspaper delivered every day – to get information about the sugar and rice rations. If I don’t take care of these things, no one else in this family will. Well, I never thought that I’d see such times as this in my old age. Perhaps I should go to a fortune-teller and see what the year has in store for me.’

  Dunfeng smiled and said, ‘Auntie, I was just going to tell you: the other day the two of us went out together and had our fortunes told on the street.’

  ‘Was the man any good?’ asked the old lady.

  ‘We were doing it for fun. He only charged fifty dollars.’

  ‘That’s very reasonable. What did he say?’ asked the old lady.

  ‘Well, he said …’ Dunfeng glanced at Mr Mi and then continued: ‘He said that the two of us will have all our wishes fulfilled, and that he will live for another twelve years.’

  She spoke with delight, as though it was an unexpected bonus. To Mr Mi, however, the twelve years sounded rather eerie; he shivered all over. Old Mrs Yang, being of a similar age, felt the same way. She thought that Dunfeng should have been more careful about what she said, and so she interrupted by asking, ‘That Iron-mouth Zhang you used to go to, I’ve heard he’s become extremely popular.’

  ‘You can’t possibly go to him now. Even with a prior appointment you won’t be able to get near him,’ replied Dunfeng, waving her hand to emphasize her point.

  ‘These days I seldom hear you mention fortune-tellers. As the saying goes: The poor go for fortune-telling, the rich make offerings to the gods,’ said old Mrs Yang, and she started laughing.

  Dunfeng was not pleased by what she said, but she was not paying much attention, for she was watching Mr Mi. Mr Mi had returned to his seat, and had looked at the clock as he walked past the mantelpiece. A rather old-fashioned clock with a rectangular red leather case, a gilded face and very slender hands that susurrated; one couldn’t tell the time very clearly. Dunfeng knew that he was worrying about his sick wife again.

  Old Mrs Yang turned to Mr Mi and asked, ‘Are there fortunetellers abroad?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Mr Mi. ‘Some use dates of birth, some use crystal balls, and some use playing cards.’

  Dunfeng waved her hand dismissively again and said, ‘I’ve been to foreign fortune-tellers. They’re no good! Went to a very famous one, a woman. It was back when my late one was quarrelling with me every single day. That she could tell; she said I didn’t get along with my husband. I asked her, “What am I to do about it?” She said to me, “Bring him here, and I’ll talk to him.” What a joke! I don’t know how many people at home had talked to him, and it didn’t make the slightest difference, so what good would she have done? I said to her, “I’m afraid I can’t do it. He won’t do what I say because he doesn’t like me.” And then she said, “You can bring one of his friends here.” Now isn’t that ridiculous! What would be the use of bringing his frien
d? She just wanted more business! And so I never went back.’

  Dunfeng went on and on about her late husband. Old Mrs Yang could see that Mr Mi felt extremely uneasy about it: he sat there with his legs crossed, his hands clasped over his belly, his lips pursed in an awkward smile. Mrs Yang interrupted Dunfeng again, saying, ‘You mentioned that you wanted a new cook. Our cook Old Wang meant to recommend someone to you. But now he himself has left; he’s dealing in merchandise now.’

  ‘It’s hard to find help these days,’ said Mr Mi.

  ‘Auntie, I don’t think you have enough hands now, do you?’ asked Dunfeng.

  The old lady looked towards the doorway to make sure that no one was there, and then said in a low voice, ‘You may not know this, but I’d much rather have a couple less servants around. They’d just be standing behind the mahjong table at the beck and call of your cousin’s wife anyway. These days I just ask the alley watchman to do the heavy work, like cutting our firewood; I’d rather give him extra money to do it. Just today your cousin’s wife found out somehow that we’ve been giving him money, and she immediately told him to go out and buy cigarettes for her, as if he were her servant. Now don’t you think …?’

  Dunfeng couldn’t help laughing. She asked, ‘Does she still provide snacks and meals for her mahjong parties?’

  ‘How can we afford it?’ replied old Mrs Yang. ‘Everyone has to go home at dinner time, that’s why her present group are all people who live in this alley. The only good thing about them is they’re easy to get rid of.’

  Old Mrs Yang took out a few antique pieces to show to Mr Mi, asking him for an estimate – she was going to sell them. Among these was a big centrepiece painting; the old lady held on to the upper end, and Mr Mi to the lower end, and they stood looking at it. Dunfeng sat herself down on a low stool next to the opium couch, wrapping her fleshy arms around her fleshy knees. She felt that she was a child again, a child protected by the grown-ups, very contented. The world was changing: her auntie had to sell things to make ends meet; her cousin’s wife continued flirting and playing mahjong in straitened circumstances – she might have kept up the front of a rich lady, but the truth was saddening. Dunfeng herself was the only lucky one. The risk she had taken with this marriage had paid off. She was now back in the hands of a reliable man, feeling as if she had always been there.

  As he looked at the painting, Mr Mi said, ‘This is a genuine He Shisun, I’m quite sure of that. But there are a lot of He Shisuns around these days …’

  The old lady looked at Mr Mi and thought to herself: ‘He has a high status in the brokerage, he’s well educated in Chinese and Western learning, he’s polite, and so considerate – and Dunfeng managed to marry him! Dunfeng isn’t that young, and yet she doesn’t seem to have any tact. The way she talks is so hurtful to him, and he just takes it! The times have certainly changed; these days men bow to such behaviour. In the old days she’d never have got away with it. But it’s not as if Dunfeng has never suffered at the hands of men, why is she so ungrateful? Mr Mi must be about sixty, exactly my age. Why should I have such a rotten lot and be burdened with a family? – a daughter-in-law who behaves outrageously, and a son so infuriated by her that he doesn’t come home much. Everything has fallen on my shoulders. If I could be like Dunfeng, living quietly with my man in a house of our own – just the two of us! I’m an old woman now, all I want is to be free from such cares and worries, nothing else really …’

  She rolled up the painting, saying, ‘I have made an appointment with a dealer tomorrow. Now that you have looked at these things, Mr Mi, I feel at ease.’

  Though she spoke casually, her voice conveyed a gentle trust which was very moving. Mr Mi had not received much kindness from women throughout his life, and so he could feel what little kindness there was very keenly. He smiled and said, ‘We must invite you to have dinner with us some time, Mrs Yang. I have a few collectibles at home which you might find interesting.’

  ‘I don’t dare go out in such cold weather,’ said the old lady.

  ‘It’s only a short trip by pedicab. When we get a cook, I’ll come and fetch you, Auntie.’

  The old lady made the appropriate reply while thinking to herself: It’s only right that you pay for the pedicab. If I were to go myself, I’d have to have someone keep me company, and you’d have one more person to feed, so it comes out even.

  Dunfeng was saying, ‘The pedicab is in fact only good for two women sitting together. Two men in a pedicab somehow look rather stupid; and a man and a woman somehow look embarrassing.’

  The old lady laughed and said, ‘It’s certainly awkward for strangers to sit together like that, but with you and Mr Mi, what’s there to be embarrassed about?’

  ‘I just can’t get used to it,’ replied Dunfeng. She thought of herself as a remarkable beauty; as for Mr Mi, except for his glasses, everything about him looked like a baby, small-eyed and small-nosed, as if it couldn’t make up its mind whether to cry or not. Under his suit, his back was straight, just like a well-wrapped-up baby – stiff as a board. Dunfeng cast a quick glance at Mr Mi and turned her head. His head and his face were completely smooth – very neat, exactly like a big steamed bun made from No. 3 rationed flour, sitting very solemnly on the collar of his shirt. However knavish her first husband had been, his appearance had never made her feel ashamed of him, ashamed to admit that this was her husband. He died when he was only twenty-five: a long narrow face, well-defined eyes and eyebrows. When he smiled his eyes were wicked!

  Mr Mi reached for the papers, and the old lady handed them over to him, asking, for lack of anything to say, ‘Have you been to the cinema lately? There’s Six Chapters of a Floating Life. My granddaughters have seen it and they all say it’s very good. There’s an old-fashioned wedding, quite interesting.’

  Dunfeng shook her head, saying, ‘I’ve seen it. Completely unrealistic. It wasn’t anything like that when we got married in the old days.’

  ‘I suppose customs differ,’ said the old lady.

  ‘They can’t possibly differ so much!’ said Dunfeng.

  The old lady stole a glance at Mr Mi who looked bored. He took up the newspaper, glanced at the page from top to bottom, folded it in half, and as he did so glanced at the clock. Dunfeng said coldly, ‘It’s getting late. If you want to go, go on.’

  Mr Mi smiled and said, ‘I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait for you.’

  Dunfeng was silent. However, he still looked at the clock every so often, and then she glanced at him, and he glanced at her. The old lady was puzzled: there’s definitely something to all this. She knew that as a good hostess she should find an excuse to leave the room so that they could say whatever there was to say, but she was too lazy to make the move. Anyway, it serves them right! They’re together all day long and have all the opportunity in the world to say whatever they can’t say in front of others. Why wait till they’re in someone else’s home to put on such a show?

  Since the topic was the cinema, Mr Mi began to talk about foreign operas, foreign plays, and Balinese dancing. Old Mrs Yang marvelled: ‘You’ve been to so many different places, Mr Mi!’

  Mr Mi went on to talk about the temples in Cambodia, where the floors were laid with silver bricks two inches thick, and the statue of Buddha was plated with gold, and the sashes decorated with rubies and sapphires. Dunfeng eyed him with disdain, hating him for worrying about his wife, hating him for not being handsome enough to share a pedicab with her.

  ‘That was the old days. It’s impossible to travel any more,’ said Mr Mi.

  ‘It’ll be easy enough for you to go again when the war is over,’ said the old lady.

  Mr Mi smiled and said, ‘Dunfeng has made it a condition that the next time I travel abroad, I must take her along.’

  ‘She’ll be delighted!’

  Dunfeng heaved a sigh and said, ‘Well, who knows what the future will bring? If both of us live to see the day …’ She, too, sensed vaguely that this was very hurtful. This was serious,
and she was at a loss what to do, so she continued, ‘I mean, we don’t know who is going to die first …’ To cover up her blunder she laughed drily.

  For a while no one spoke, then Mr Mi stood up, reached for his hat and said smilingly that he was leaving. The old lady asked him to stay a little longer, but Dunfeng said, ‘He has to pay a visit somewhere else, so it’s better that he goes first.’

  After Mr Mi had left, the old lady asked Dunfeng, ‘Where is he going?’

  Dunfeng sat down on the opium couch, close to the old lady, and whispered, ‘The old woman is ill, he’s got to see how she is.’

  ‘Oh? What’s she suffering from?’ asked the old lady.

  ‘The doctor couldn’t decide whether it’s bronchitis or not. Just lately he’s been going there every day,’ replied Dunfeng. Her cheeks looked puffed up with displeasure. Her hands were on her knees – one hand was clenched in a fist, gently hammering one knee; the other was massaging the other knee, up and down, up and down. She was the very picture of sorrow and forbearance.

  The old lady smiled and said, ‘Why, you should let him go if he wants to. You know very well that he cares about you.’

  Dunfeng answered quickly, ‘Of course I let him go. First of all, I’m not the jealous type. Besides, I don’t have any feelings for him.’

  ‘You’re only saying that out of anger,’ said the old lady smilingly.

  Dunfeng’s gaze froze upon the old lady. Her face was all fleshy and powdery, and the only hard thing about it was her eyes. They looked hollow, as if she had rolled them upwards. But she was saying with a smile, ‘You know very well how things stand with me. For me, it’s just a way of getting a living.’

  ‘But still, you’re now husband and wife …’ said the old lady with a smile.

  Dunfeng became agitated. She said, ‘I don’t hold anything back from you, Auntie. If I had wanted a man, I would not have married Mr Mi.’ Her face flushed, she moved even closer to old Mrs Yang and said in a low, laughing voice, ‘In fact we seldom do it, maybe once every few months.’ Having said this she stared at the other woman, still smiling.