Manqian pushed open the door. The maid, a native of the area, asked gruffly in a loud voice, “Who is it?”
Manqian entered and asked casually, “Has the master come home yet?” The reply was negative. Of course, she had expected that answer, but today she felt relieved. She was timorous, afraid that her husband had come home before her and would ask her where she had been, and as yet she had not found the most succinct and effective lie to tell him. Lying to his face seemed much more difficult than being unfaithful to him. She knew very well that because of the noon air raids, offices opened at three in the afternoon and her husband would not be home until well after dark. But one could never tell—what had happened to her a while ago was a complete accident. Yes, indeed, the meeting she had with Tianjian this afternoon had gone beyond the expected. She was totally unprepared for what had happened. Yes, she had encouraged Tianjian to admire her, but it had never occurred to her that he would take the initiative and force her. She had only hoped for a tender, subtle, delicate emotional relationship with him, one ornamented with complications, filled with doubts and uncertainties, without verbal commitments or traces. In short, she wanted this relationship merely to enable them to touch each other’s souls with remote antennae. For a woman like Manqian, that was the most interesting form of recreation, and also the safest, with her husband a convenient buffer to prevent her and her lover from overstepping the bounds.
But who could have known that Tianjian would be so bold and direct? The substantial, physical love he had offered only frightened her, and somewhat disappointed her, since what she had obtained was more than she had hoped for—like someone with a weak stomach filled with greasy food. Had she known him to be that aggressive, she would not have gone to see him, or at least she wouldn’t have gone out without first changing her undershirt. The thought of her old undershirt, which should have been washed, still made her blush, even at this moment; in fact, this thought embarrassed her more than what had taken place.
Home. After walking through a small courtyard and through the room that served as both living and dining room, she entered her tiled bedroom. The maid went back to the kitchen to prepare dinner; like all household help from the countryside, the maid had no idea that now that the mistress was back it was time to bring her tea. But Manqian was too exhausted to speak to anyone. Her heart confused, she was unclear about what to think. Here and there, certain parts of her skin, such as her face and lips, that had been kissed by Tianjian seemed to retain some lingering impressions. Each place seemed to have a mind of its own, briskly alive, standing out from a feeling of general fatigue.
The room, with its old-style framed windows, had been dark for some time. Manqian preferred the darkness, as if under the cover of night her conscience would not be laid bare like a snail without a hiding place after it leaves its shell. So she did not turn the light on. In truth, the lights in the interior of China were only a shade better than darkness; the gleam they provided was so insubstantial that it seemed as if the color of night had been diluted with water. After she settled down in a chair, the heat generated from walking surged out of her body. She felt she just couldn’t believe what had happened; it could only be likened to a relief carved on the surface of a dream.
She wanted to lie down in bed, with her clothes on, for a little rest. But she was, after all, a woman. Tired as she was, she took off her street clothes and put on her housedress before she lay down. Her fur coat was shedding, and the color of her flannel-lined qipao3 was no longer fashionable. Ever since last summer, this place had been busy. Along with government offices evacuated to this city were numerous stylish married and single women, who dazzled the natives. What Maqian had, from her innermost underwear to her overcoat, was what she had bought for her wedding, and she wouldn’t have minded having some new clothes. But her dowry had been spent long since, when she and her husband fled their home; what Caishu earned was barely enough for monthly expenses, and there wasn’t any money left over for her to indulge in clothes. She was sympathetic to her husband. She never asked him for money for clothes, and she kept her yearnings to herself. Yes, in more than two years of married life, she had not had it easy; Manqian had to grin and bear the hardships of life with her husband, using her pride to sustain love, and never complaining to anyone. A wife like that had certainly done right by her husband.
It should be said, however, that her husband had not done right by her. Before their engagement, Manqian’s mother insisted that Caishu had cheated her of her daughter, and she blamed her own husband for having introduced Caishu to her. Some of Manqian’s girlfriends had also commented that, despite Manqian’s shrewdness, she had made a foolish mistake on such a vital matter as choosing a mate.
But what mother doesn’t object to her daughter’s choice of a mate? What woman doesn’t disparage her friend’s lover behind her back? At college, every young person, besides aspiring to a degree, must also aspire to a lover. In colleges that require students to live on campus, the distance between men and women is greatly reduced. Without the factor of their families, when men and women meet, they get to know one another. Thus this type of contact leads to what the families would call a mismatch. Moreover, love, as legend has it, is blind. It opens its eyes only after marriage. However, many students do not regard love as blind. They want to be loved, to offer their love, to beg to be given some residual love. But love seems to see them as totally unlovable and ignores them altogether. This proves that love is still blind, too blind to see their lovable traits. Thus coeducation not only increases the number of married couples through freedom of choice, but it also leaves behind many rejects from the love game, especially old maids. But the old maids, unlike Manqian, had at least not been willing to be mismatched!
Manqian was somewhat lethargic, and her image of herself was of a poised, refined young woman from a good family. Her long eyelashes, her egg-shaped face, her pale complexion, and her slim figure all contributed to an impression of gracious aloofness in her. She was especially known among her classmates for her love of art, and this caused her admirers to detect an indefinable elegance about her. Some men might consider her beauty too pure and lacking in sensuality, but her detractors, so vulgar in taste, would never have attracted the attention of her curved, slightly nearsighted eyes in the first place. By exploiting her inborn bashfulness, she developed self-appreciation. Some people called her arrogant, but arrogance in a woman is an enticement to a man’s spirit, just as wantonness in a woman is a stimulant to a man’s body. Thus, though Manqian was perhaps not as elegant as she perceived herself to be, she did have a few suitors. She was slow by nature, and her attraction for men was low-key and cumulative. Her admirers were schoolmates of many years. Precisely because they had been together for so long, she was used to their ways and bored with them. None of them could arouse a fresh reaction in her. Until the year of her college graduation she had had no lover. When she was bored and in low spirits, there was an emptiness in her heart that no one could fill. It must be said that she had failed to benefit from the opportunities of college coeducation. At this time, Caishu appeared, seemingly from nowhere.
Caishu was the son of an old friend of Manqian’s father’s. Because of the political situation, Caishu had transferred to Manqian’s school from a college in the south. In view of Caishu’s family’s straitened circumstances, Manqian’s father had invited Caishu to stay with them before school started; he even set up a couch for Caishu to use on weekends and holidays, the idea being to give Caishu a home away from home. Years of education in the city had not eradicated Caishu’s rusticity or his childishness. His naive rudeness, his unsophisticated civilities, and his native smartness made him look ridiculous and yet charming. Ever since the day when Manqian’s father told her to take Caishu to register at school, Manqian had vaguely felt that she was much more experienced than this big, newly arrived country boy, and she relished the joy of being the competent elder sister. On the other hand, Caishu felt strongly for her from the
start and stayed at her home frequently. They became very good friends, almost as if they were of the same family. In his company, she forgot her usual reticence, partly overlooking the fact that he was, potentially, an attractive man. Her feeling toward him was like that of a comfortable foot that has forgotten that it still has a shoe on, a feeling she had never had with other men. What was at first companionship gradually turned to love, not passionate love, but a slowly and steadily growing intimacy. It was not until her girlfriends began to tease her that she realized how much she really liked Caishu.
When her parents found out about this, they quarreled with each other, and Caishu was too scared to come spend the night with them anymore. The mother blamed the father; the father scolded the daughter and blamed the mother; father and mother joined in scolding Caishu and in counseling their daughter, pointing out that Caishu’s family was poor and his prospects dim. Manqian shed some tears, but her parents’ chiding stiffened her resolve, like a piece of hemp rope that has become wet and so become stronger. At first her parents forbade her to see him; later they prohibited an engagement; they hoped time would erode her love for him. But love, like a habit, takes a long time to grow, and, like a chronic illness, even more time is needed to be rid of it. So, after two years, Manqian remained steadfast in her love for Caishu, who, of course, took everything in stride. It was because of the opposition of friends and relatives that their relationship, not nurturing itself as much as it should, began to turn into a unified force against outsiders and an alliance against snobbery. They had waited a long time when the war suddenly broke out, and political uncertainties easily divide families.
War, which traditionally produces many widows and widowers, ironically became the catalyst for Manqian and Caishu’s marriage. Her parents felt they had done their best by her and should stay out of her affairs. So Manqian and Caishu were married without too much ceremony, as they blandly listened to the usual wedding benedictions and to such clichés as “lovers eventually get married.” Soon afterward Caishu and his fellow employees were evacuated to this city.
Purchasing items hard to come by in the interior, packing their luggage, looking for affordable transportation and lodging, buying or renting furniture, hiring a maid, and returning courtesy calls to the wives of Caishu’s colleagues took up a lot of their time before they settled down. After the wedding they were so busy they had little time to savor any sweetness. Manqian, who had never paid any attention to domestic chores, now had to worry about daily necessities such as fuel, rice, oil, and salt. She was not extravagant, but she came from a respectable family. Caishu’s income was limited, and they felt the pinch even though prices in the interior were low at first. People had not become accustomed to poverty since it was the first year of the war; Manqian and her husband were just poor enough to want to hide theirs, and could manage to get away with their pretenses. It was really hard on Manqian. For this Caishu was both sympathetic and apologetic. Husband and wife both wished the war would end soon so they could lead a better life.
It was not long before Manqian discovered that Caishu was not an aggressive or enterprising person. He would never do more than to go to work at his square desk in the office. Even if the war came to an end, his prospects would not improve. His ignorance of the ways of the world made her feel vaguely the absence of anyone to support her. It intensified her fear that she alone had to take care of them both; that she would always have to be a gentle, protective mother to him. All the luxuries associated with being a woman—playing coy, being naughty, and throwing temper tantrums—were denied her, just like material luxury goods. Caishu himself was a child; he could not accommodate wanton coyness.
Except for some activities in the morning, there really wasn’t much for Manqian to do at home. After lunch Caishu would go to work; the maid would be washing clothes in the courtyard, and she would be sitting leisurely in the center of the room, gazing at the sun climbing the wall—a regular diet of ennui and silence that she could share with no one. She did not care to gossip with the wives of Caishu’s colleagues. In the same city lived a number of friends whom she had known before she got married. Those who were men she felt it would be improper for her to associate with anymore. As for women, some were married, and those who were single had jobs or were preparing to get married—all of them were busy with what they were doing. And, because she was trying to save money, she had few activities, and so her friends dwindled in number. Only in the evenings or on weekends would a few of Caishu’s friends occasionally stop by. She felt no desire to cultivate the friendship of those that didn’t come to see her. She loved to read, and her only regret was that there were few new books she could buy in the interior. The few old and tattered foreign novels she borrowed were not enough to fill up the hours in the day, nor the gaps in her soul. Knowing she must be bored, Caishu had suggested she take walks by herself. Out of extreme boredom she went to a movie theater once. She did not go to see the move per se, but to see what constituted a movie in the interior. It was a bizarre old foreign film, and the long benches in the movie theater were crowded with local moviegoers. Whenever a kissing scene appeared on the screen, the audience would clap their hands and yell, “Good, how about another one?” After chatting with her husband a bit after coming home from the movie, she went to bed, but was deprived of sleep by the fleas she had picked up at the cinema. From then on, she was afraid to go to the movies.
In this manner two years went by. And there was no sign of a baby. Every time the wives of Caishu’s colleagues saw her, they would say, “Mrs. Xu, you should have a baby by now!” Because Manqian was a woman with a modern education and a knowledge of science, the old-fashioned wives speculated wildly as to why she wasn’t pregnant. They would remark with a meaningful smile, “Young people these days sure put comfort first!”4
The previous spring enemy planes had bombed the city for the first time. Some houses were destroyed, and, as usual, some common folk who were not worth bombing got killed. But this was enough to frighten the citizenry of all social classes in the city. Even the most naive aborigines knew that bombers were not hens laying eggs in the sky, and they no longer dared gaze at the sky from the streets, clap their hands, and make noises after the air raid sirens had sounded. Air raid precaution measures suddenly became a matter of supreme concern; in editorials and readers’ correspondence columns local papers repeatedly stated the area’s importance for the War of Resistance in the interior and called for air protection. Protection by the air force, detractors argued, would only make the city a military target and induce the enemy to bomb; but such views were not expressed by the papers. After the summer, the city had its air force academy and its airports expanded, and the people began to get used to seeing their country’s planes flying in the sky.
One day late in September, Caishu came home to say that an acquaintance who was distantly related to him had moved to town. Earlier that day a cousin from the air force academy had visited Caishu in his office. This cousin had been a brat who refused to pay attention to schoolwork, Caishu told his wife. Not having seen his cousin for six or seven years, Caishu said he could barely recognize him. He was big and tall now, but just as naughty and flippant as ever. He added that the cousin, after learning Caishu was married, had joked that he would like to “get acquainted” with Manqian in a couple days.
“Should we invite him for a simple meal?” asked Caishu casually. Without much enthusiasm, Manqian replied, “We’ll see. Those guys in the air force are accustomed to good food and fun. He may not think much of our inviting him to dinner. You’ll spend lots of money, but he may not appreciate the dinner, or, worse yet, he may feel he’s been imposed on. Why bother? If you invite him for only a mediocre dinner, you’d be better off not inviting him at all. Most likely he just said he’d like to visit you. So long as he has seen you, that will probably be the end of it. Someone like that probably won’t spend the time to find your house.”
In view of his wife’s disdain for the whole
matter, Caishu lost half his excitement and replied quickly, “We’d better wait. He said he would come. He asked for my address. He also said that he has heard you were beautiful and gifted, with both ‘talent and looks,’ and that he must see you. He had a good laugh with me about it.”
“Humph. Please ask him not to come. I’m old and ugly, nothing more than your housekeeper. If he sees me, wouldn’t we be embarrassed?”
“Come, come,” Caishu comforted his wife, fondling her hair. “If you saw him, you’d certainly like him. He’s talkative, funny, affable, and kind.” Then he changed the subject, wondering why his wife should turn so caustic when she was told she was both pretty and talented. In truth, Caishu was born to be a subordinate or assistant who would be allowed only to take orders and would be good at only that. As he never heard any complaints from his wife, who appeared complacent, he had taken her for granted. Now he was astonished, but dared not ask any questions. Hurriedly, he finished his dinner and dropped the matter.
It would be Sunday in a few days; Saturday night Caishu remembered that Tianjian might show up the following day, and he told his wife. On Sunday she bought a little more food than usual, preparing for Tianjian to come to lunch. Since Tianjian had not committed himself to coming, they prepared just a bit more than usual, so that if Tianjian showed up, he would not get the impression that they had prepared a special meal for him. They also supervised the maid, who swept the living room and the courtyard more thoroughly than usual. As husband and wife made preparations, they laughed to each other, stating that they really shouldn’t make too much of this, because the guest, if he showed up, was no one very important. Despite all that was said, Manqian put on a traditional Chinese dress, which she would hardly wear every day. She also put on a little more rouge, and even applied some lipstick, something she seldom did.
Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts Page 25