by Vivian Yang
I heard him chuckle. “There’s my girl.”
“Thanks again for everything, Uncle Fly.”
“A bientôt, darling.”
That was how he had left it: A bientôt.
He wished to see me soon.
20 And Quiet Flows the Huanpu
Hongqiao International Airport.
Evening hustle and bustle.
Travelers. Greeters. Farewell-bidders.
People lining up, pacing up and down, or rushing by.
Sounds of my mother tongue.
I was barely four years old the last time I came to Shanghai, on a train, with my mother, dreading eye contact with anyone.
I met for the only time the man who I would know years later was my father.
Now, Mother, dead.
Father, newly rehabilitated, yet long gone.
I, Mo Mo, returned to a city now full of cars, where my appearance no longer commanded intuitive head-turnings,
To acknowledge my heritage,
To validate my love,
To fulfill my dream.
A few days ago in Hong Kong, when I gave him my arrival information over the phone, there was no offer to pick me up. He had opted against seeing me off when I left Shanghai.
“Airports are sad places,” he had said.
The Smirnoff and Kahlua Coffee Liqueur would be for him. As were the newly purchased albums of The Byrds’ Turn! Turn! Turn! and The Glory of Gershwin. Bracing myself for finding no greeters, I nonetheless searched beyond the plate-glass partition, beyond the crowds pushing against the railing three or four deep, for the man with Byronic looks.
And there he stood, in all his Old World politesse, next to a row of attached seats, a dozen white roses in hand. I dashed forward and flung my arms around him. The edge of the cellophane, coupled with his day’s worth of beard framing those sharply angled cheekbones, produced an electrifying sensation on my cheek.
“Welcome home,” he said with a smoldering look, easing out of the embrace that was still a rare sight in public.
He handed me the bouquet.
“Thank you, Uncle Fly! They’re beau-ti-ful. I wasn’t exactly expecting this … or your coming here.”
In the taxi home, I held the bouquet upright like a baby. “What do white roses symbolize?” I asked sotto voce, tugging at his sleeve.
“Purity.”
The spare room was waiting for me. The floor light was giving off a soft glow next to the twin bed. A vase was on the bedside table, water already in it. I glanced at Uncle Fly and he replied to my tacit question. “A nice touch for your boudoir, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. Thanks for being so thoughtful,” I said, arranging the roses in the vase. Still in my heeled sandals and the cream crêpe-de-chine dress, I turned to face him, holding out both arms.
He stood stationary and asked, “Wouldn’t you like to read it first?”
I dropped my hands and nodded.
He produced the letter. “You’ve had a lot to deal with in a short time. Get some rest and think things over. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, darling.”
Dear Mo Mo,
By the time you read this I will already have been hanged in Tokyo. I will receive this punishment because I killed Mori Matoko who had murdered your mother. I thought I could get away with not being caught as I had done many times before but luck was not on my side this time. Please understand that I am not afraid of dying and I will die a hero’s death.
I avenged her for you to prove that I was a true hero so you would come to Japan now that your mother was gone. She had been so strongly against my sponsoring you that she threatened to report me to the authorities should I do so.
With this last act of my life – well-intended but unfortunately not seamlessly carried out -- I ask that you forgive me for my abrupt departure years ago. I loved you, Mo Mo, but didn’t know how to best express it. After you went to the Film Studio, I sensed our ever-widening gap and couldn’t bear the thought of being eventually told to end our relationship. So I “took the initiative to gain the upper hand,” as the saying goes.
Things didn’t work out in Beijing and within a few months I was back in my hometown. It was there that I heard about the Japanese baseball superstar Sadaharu Oh, whose father was actually from my home county Qingtian. My competitive streak got the better of me and I got on a sampan alone and sailed across the Japan Sea just as Oh’s father had done in the 1920’s , convinced that Oh would help a fellow athlete from his ancestral home to get his foot in the door in Japan.
How naïve I was! The closest I got to Sadaharu Oh was the television screen. I got bumped around but kept my eyes on the prize. I set a goal for myself to make it big in ten years and contact you again as an accomplished man. I think I’ve made it pretty close. That was why I had your friend Wang Hong forward you the visa application to Japan as I was living under a fictitious identity. I retained my Chinese surname Long, which is also a Japanese surname of the same Chinese character for dragon, but spelled as Ryu and gave myself the first name Hideo, the same Chinese characters for hero, because you used to say I was your hero.
My dear Mo Mo, I have achieved what I set out to do a decade ago and have a sizable operation in Shinjuku and beyond. You must be aware of the renovation and conversion into a restaurant of the former Russian Orthodox Church in Shanghai. I had you in mind when we bid for the building and wanted to show you how different a man I am today from the Coach Long you knew. I have instructed my people in Shanghai to have the business registered under your name, so the Church is yours, Mo Mo. This is a present from me for which I do not expect acknowledgement as I have already derived satisfaction from having known you and leaving you with something that is part of your heritage.
Goodbye, Mo Mo. You are forever my fairest film starlet and my Little Kemaneiqi!
Ryu Hideo
In contrast to my reaction to Mick’s letter which was not intended for me, I read through Coach Long’s highly personal last words with composure, even emotional detachment. Although shocked at the speed of his execution, I was almost relieved that he was dead.
The immediate urge was to break the news to Uncle Fly so that he could be free of the concerns of a potential romantic rival. I also wanted to share my excitement of becoming the owner of the former church and my amazement that it was indeed being converted into a restaurant. How prescient of Uncle Fly that he should have already suggested the space to be a restaurant named after me -- Maison Jasmine.
I tiptoed down the corridor to the outside of his suite and listened for a moment -- all quietness within. Then I took the liquors, the CDs and the player and the copy of The Mandarin Literati upstairs to the pavilion room. On the rosewood desk he had written me the Zeng Bie scroll, I left the journal open to the page where my letter was printed.
Back in my room, I lay tossing about, eyes wide shut as if existing in an abyss. I tried to picture Coach Long as he would have looked as Ryu Hideo. Events real and imagined played in my head. Coach Long standing like a pagoda by the poolside holding out a rod attached to a plastic lasso. His defiant facial expression as the Japanese executioners pulled the noose. My maternal grandparents Kirill and Nga Bu cuddling at dawn on the double-spanned Garden Bridge. The resulting child that was my mother and the beginning of all of our troubles. The determined, risk-taking expressions on Mother’s beautiful albeit conniving visage – in the end a severed head. The way Uncle Chief -- my father’s stiffened body might have looked when discovered hanging from a rope in the piano room. And the robust yet amateurish manner of Man Wah chopping aqua in the Ladies Entertainment Club pool …
Sleepless in Shanghai.
A distant chorus of shrill cries of roosters revived me from a semi-slumbering state. I lifted the curtains and looked up to the eastern sky above the garden. It was a hue of diffusing translucent white, like that of my skin. Then, there were more melodic crows -- happy, hearty, harbingering morning -- followed by Mother’s faint voice humming Kirill Mol
otov’s love song to Nga Bu Utro (Morning):
“I love you!” (“Ljublju tebja!”)
Daybreak whispered to day
and, while enfolding the skies, blushed from that confession,
and a sunbeam, illuminating nature,
with a smile sent her a burning kiss.
Taking the present for Ah Fang with me, I went down to the kitchen.
“Mo Mo, you really returned, and beautiful as ever. Why up so early? Bed comfortable?”
“Oh, everything was perfect. Thanks so much, Ah Bu Fang, and good morning.”
“Yes, I was just going out to buy our breakfast. He’ll have the usual toast and marmalade with coffee but I thought you might have missed genuine Shanghainese. Will rice congee with osmanthus flowers and fried donut sticks be to your taste?”
“Sounds yummy. Thanks for being so considerate. Here, I’ve got you something from Hong Kong, imported from Myanmar, actually. See if it fits.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have …” she said as she opened the red and golden bordered jewelry box. “Ahhh … a bangle in Burmese jade … so precious ... must have been pricey.”
I slid it on for her. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just happy that the size was right. When I was little in Hong Kong, a Shanghainese ah bu as kind as you are took care of me. She used to wear a jade bangle like this so I thought you might like this.”
Examining the bangle in an appreciative fashion, Ah Fang reached to hold my hand and said, “I’ll treasure it forever. Ah Zheng and the others would be so envious if they saw this.”
“I’m glad. By the way, you know the girl who just returned from Tokyo, Wang Hong? What is she doing?”
“Yes, Ah Zheng said she is helping out at her boyfriend’s place.”
“Who’s the boyfriend?”
“The one from the soy sauce shop. Looking at him now you’d never guess. He seems to be doing well with his friend, also returned from Japan. Young people nowadays, like the tide of the Huangpu River coming and going wave after wave.”
“That’s because there are more opportunities in Shanghai now. Even I returned, you see.”
“Oh yes, of course. Don’t get me wrong, Mo Mo, I’m happy you returned. It pains me so to see him missing you, you know. Now everything will be fine.”
“Let’s go out together but I’ll get my own breakfast outside. Thanks just the same. Could you tell him that I should be back by late morning? Thanks.”
Standing outside the house the Jewish-Hungarian architect Laszlo Hudec built over half a century ago, I experienced a familiar feeling of homecoming until I remembered I was calling on Wang Hong. Step by step I climbed the circular stairs to the second floor, my hand on the banister throughout. I sucked in a quick breath and knocked on the door to the two-room flat.
“Who is it?” asked a man’s voice that didn’t seem to belong to Old Wang.
“It’s Wang Hong’s friend Mo Mo. Is she in?”
Nobody replied but I could hear commotion inside. Then the door opened to an angle just enough to block the view to the toilet area and Wang Hong threw herself at me. “Mo Mo, you are back! The Renaissance Shanghainese contacted you, right? I’m so sorry about your loss.”
“Thanks ... and thanks for delivering the letter, too. Let me wait outside here while you get ready and we’ll catch up over breakfast somewhere.”
Through the half-opened door I could see a Japanese futon mattress on the floor and a bed sheet tied to the column separating the area where my ximengss bed once was. Condiments must have moved in with her and Wang Hong has learned the concept of privacy in Japan, I thought. The door to the bedroom was closed and I found myself picturing the FOREVER padlock on it, on the suitcase Mother took with her to Tokyo, and then on the same suitcase containing her mutilated body …
At the sight of the space Mother and I used to share, the bereavement that I had suppressed until now overcame me. Grief surged up my nose as though I had mistakenly downed rice vinegar for shots of baijiu. Closing the flat door from the outside, I began to sob against the wall, my body shuddering.
Moments later Wang Hong came out and, seeing me in this state, embraced me. “Cry your heart out if you want, Mo Mo … you are with me now.”
Towards the end of my cathartic release against her shoulder, Wang Hong fished out tissue after tissue from a packet advertising a female skin-whitening product.
“Thanks,” I said, sniffing.
“Use up the whole packet. They distribute these for free on the streets of Tokyo. I brought tons of them back,” she said as she blotted the area surrounding my eyes. “There, no more tears. Let’s go and conquer Huaihai Road once again.”
“For breakfast?”
“Sure, and our treat, too!”
“You and Condiments’?”
“Right. He and his business partner own this Yoshoku joint and their Western breakfast set is great. All Japanese standards maintained.”
“And what’s Yoshoku?”
“It’s European foods with a Japanese flair, perfect for the East meets West former Avenue Joffre, don’t you think? It was my idea and they stole it, ha!”
Suddenly I noticed a changed Wang Hong with her stylishly layered bob, natural looking makeup, nude gloss on her full lips and sleek form-fitting sheaths. “You look wonderful … and so smartly put together.”
“Arigato.” A ready Thank You came from someone who had never used to say it. “When you work in the service industry you have to present yourself at your best for your customers’ sake. It wasn’t that hard, really. I mean I did learn a lot in Tokyo but the seeds of our sophistication were sown right here in the French Concession, weren’t they, Mo Mo?”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“Ikimasho!” she said. Let’s go!
Wang Hong was anxious to see Hideo’s letter. “What do you mean you didn’t bring it for me read?” she protested. “I tried so hard not to open it because I had to respect your privacy. I asked the Renaissance Shanghainese for your number in Hong Kong but he said he’d asked for your permission first. He must be in love with you to be so protective.”
Blushing, I changed the subject. “Since when have you cared about other people’s privacy?”
“Since Japan,” she declared matter-of-factly. “The place has certainly taught me a thing or two. Anyway, what did Hideo say?”
I exhaled. “First of all, he’s dead, and that was the letter he was allowed to send the day of his execution.”
“Are you serious? Thank Buddha I listened to Condiment’s appeal over the phone and returned – must have been just before they hanged Hideo. He said I should flee immediately rather than being a sitting duck waiting to be deported. He knew it was all over for Hideo as homicide was a big crime and he had already transferred funds around. Oh, by the way, he must have told you that the old church is in your name now, right? Guess what, Condiment and his partner are involved in the restaurant conversion so keep us all in mind when it comes to staffing, Boss!” She said the last sentence with a kind of bow that almost made me laugh.
“I’ll rely on you all to make things happen. And please tell Condiments that I appreciate what he and his friends have done for the project and I hold no grudges. Let’s work together in the future.”
As I pushed the pavilion room door open, strains of Turn! Turn! Turn! greeted me. The sunlight, partly filtered through the slatted shutters, threw an expansive and dotted stream on the wax polished floor. Against the glare I could make out that his eyes were half closed, the stately wing chair offering a stately refuge, a glass in hand.
“I’m back, Uncle Fly.”
Slowly, he rose and gazed at me with a wistful look on his face.
“They’ve already hanged him so everything is over. He did leave me the church and it is being converted into a restaurant.”
“Ahh,” he uttered, his facial muscles twitching. “Oh, by the way, thanks for the presents. I’ve already availed myself of them. Let me fix you a White
Russian, too.”
Uncle Fly turned the music volume down and walked toward the table. I could see his hands shaking when he poured the Kahlua.
“Congratulations and cheers,” he said.
We touched glasses and he swallowed his drink in one gulp. “I won’t ask any questions now that your benefactor is gone. It’s your chance to interrogate me about Helen if you so wish.”
I took the empty glass from him and placed it on the teapoy. “‘Interrogate’ would be the wrong word but I am dying to find out why you wouldn’t let us meet. After all, she’s also my benefactor -- to use your term, isn’t she?”
“That’s what she’s tried to make you think. The truth is, she couldn’t wait to see you leave Shanghai … she went ballistic when she realized that my heart had long been …” He stopped, his searing eyes darting towards mine.
My stomach lurched. “… been?” I prompted.
His eyes never leaving me, Uncle Fly took my hand and pressed his lips against it. I felt the warmth of his breath.
And his heart.
“I had been fighting back my feelings for you for so long. I thought – initially – that it would be selfish of me to prevent you from pursuing the life you wanted … so I asked her to find you a sponsor in Hong Kong and she was only too happy to do so.”
“You don't think that now,” I said in a trembling voice.
“No, darling. The Lord has answered my prayers and you’re back by my side,” he whispered, drawing me close. “I have missed you so ... Je t’aime, ma chérie.”
I felt my eyes warming up.
“Moi aussi, je t’aime.”
……
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven