by Alex Miller
Yes! But she sounded as though she were saying something else.
Then I am happy.
Tell no one, yet.
You are like a general, Miss Lien. You fight a campaign that the rest of us do not wish to understand, because we are afraid to understand it. He saw how tired she was and he was ashamed. They had spoken enough. He took her arm and tucked it against his side and led her towards her apartments. He knew how to look after her and to make her strong. It thrilled him to think of having a hungry person to cook for once again. Given an occasion, Yu Hung-meng was the finest cook in Hangzhou.
MEN
The heat of the day had passed. It was evening and Huang was alone in his study. He was seated facing his garden. He had slipped behind the polished surface of the present and was in that pleasurable and dangerous state of consciousness which lies half-way between considered reflection and the free association of images from the memory when, in a drift of cool air from the open casements, he detected the familiar perfume of crushed amaryllis bulb. He became alert. Then he heard the rustle of silk against the door. He turned. She stood at the entrance to his study. She was dressed in her green lily-flower gown and wore her hair in a chignon clasped by a red-flowered headdress. With small steps she came towards him. He struggled to rise from his chair.
Ten minutes later, Yu brought a variety of sweet dishes, a little wine and hot water for tea.
A tremor passed through her womb. She was waiting to see if it would come again. It had not been a movement but a thrilling of the nerves, a message of being from the child. She placed her hands on her stomach and pressed. Tomorrow she would tell Yu to call the wind-and-water expert. Then she would have one of the old women determine if this child was to be a boy or a girl.
She had woken from a confusion of unfinished, anxious dreams, believing herself still in Shanghai, and had looked in wonder at the white moonlight where it cast on her wall the sharp black shadow of a branch of the winter-flowering plum tree. Had the silence woken her? Or the calls of the night herons? Or the child? The fretted canopy of her bed aroused memories she could not reach. What was she being reminded of? What lay below the surface of her mind like silver coins at the bottom of a well? The mosquito net was stirred by an uncertain breeze which blew in through the open casements. The air had crossed the lake and had picked up along its margins the perfume of the camphor laurel trees. Her bed seemed narrow and hard and her mind to be on guard against something which she could not specify: the secret dispositions of the enemy, perhaps. A general, Yu had said. She considered the old man’s comment. She got up then and went out on to the verandah, intending to smoke a cigarette. But the first puff made her feel uneasy again in the stomach, and there was an emptiness about the night, a close concealing silence, which she didn’t like. So she went back to bed and pulled the mosquito net down. The breeze had dropped and the air was thick and humid once more. First she lay on her back and then she lay on her left side and then her right. But it was no use. However she arranged her limbs her hips ached dreadfully within a few minutes. It was as if she had forgotten how to lie comfortably. Briefly she drifted into a light sleep, only to wake again. In the stillness she could smell the lake water and realised it must be nearly dawn. That is how they had met …
The boats had collided, head-on: the violent encounter of two travellers going in opposite directions. An omen they had chosen to regard with contempt. The prows bumped and the gunwales slid along each other with a rumbling like a roll of war drums in the cavern beneath the stone arch of the bridge. He was returning from the Back Lake to the Outer Lake and she was going to the Back Lake with the intention of visiting the peony gardens. Their lanterns swung about wildly as the boats struck, casting a red and dancing light on to the seeping stones of the bridge.
He was a giant, an ogre, a monstrous spirit who must lie in wait under the bridge to waylay innocent travellers and devour or enslave them to his will. In the stern of his boat was an even more alarming creature. White as death and hairy, clasping the boat pole in both his hands, the Russian chauffeur stared with infatuated wonder at his ugly master. Feng leaned from his boat, which swayed and jumped about dangerously in the confined space, driving waves against the stones of the bridge with the sound of glass bells, and he grasped the gunwale of her boat with both his hands and thrust his face close to hers. She did not flinch.
He searched her features. His eyes were yellow and clouded and down the centre of his forehead was a cleft, as if his head had been split in two many centuries ago by a blow from a battle-axe in a desperate fight with the other ogres. She had noted that the halves of his head were poorly joined, and had concluded that this unreconciled condition no doubt rendered his wrath a certainty. He had determined, she supposed, that if he could not defeat his fellow ogres, then he would torment human beings; whom he no doubt fancied must be easier prey than his peers. She was surprised and deeply excited to find that she was not afraid of him.
The red lanterns swung back and forth and his face appeared to be splashed with the blood of freshly devoured victims. She imagined a scene of carnage in the Back Lake, the scattered debris of many lives floating among the peonies. But it was his teeth that had most amused her. And she’d had a good look at them. They were huge and misshapen and seemed to have been thrust hurriedly and without regard for order into his mouth in a great double handful by the tooth-giver. They glinted with many stars of gold. His hands gripped the gunwales, locking their craft together. The stern of her own knocked against the stones of the bridge, knocking for admittance, as if this were to be her last contact with the world of the living. His dark smudgy eyes gazed deeply into hers, and he seemed to see through her disguise and to search for a glimpse of her soul.
She returned his gaze without recoiling. If she was about to die, she was pleased to discover that she would die defending herself. For she felt an energy and coldness that delighted her and made her ready. It was the same feeling she had experienced while she was painting her masterpiece. An exultation, a fierceness, elevated her above the impermeability of present reality, or drove her beneath it. There was no difference. With this feeling she knew she could fight the giant and would not run away from him. There was even a desire to die fighting him. Or was it a desire to live fighting him? Surprisingly it amounted to the same thing. It was something she’d known all her life but hadn’t actually come face to face with till this moment.
It was as if she were both the fierce person in the boat who saw life and death as one and the same thing, and at the same time was an onlooker, a disinterested observer gazing down from a great height on the two craft and their occupants. There they were, two aroused beings, so unlike each other or anyone else that they must share a peculiar kind of kinship, locked in conflict under the bridge between the two lakes, neither in one place nor in another, but uncertainly placed where one thing did not necessarily lead to another.
Then he spoke and the splendid illusion of gods and demons was broken by the tuneless hissing of his Shanghai accents. What kind of girl goes out on the lake at night with only an old man to defend her virtue?
Release my boat or I shall instruct my boatman to thrash you.
He did not let go of her boat but addressed his companion. How has this girl, who wishes us to think she is a boy, gained the permission of her father and mother to go on such an outing? What kind of strange Chinese family can she come from? Am I supposed to believe there are such oddities living among the grave and haughty gentlefolk of Hangzhou?
I shall not warn you again, she said.
He let go the gunwale. He laughed. I meant no offence. I’m sorry if I startled you.
You didn’t startle me.
He held his boat steady by raising his hands and pushing against the low bridge, as if he were indeed a god and were required to support the heavens. I’ve been here nearly a week. You can’t imagine how boring it is for me. You people do nothing but drink tea and creep about your houses plotting all kin
ds of idiocies. He smiled, his thick purplish lips drawing back from his massive jaw with relief.
She said nothing.
I’ve been visiting your governor, he said, with mocking condescension towards the official referred to. I suppose you know him? I suppose your father drinks tea with him? He hopes to borrow a large fortune from me, and I shall probably lend it to him. Do you think I should? He laughed. You’re not going to pretend to be old-fashioned, are you, after dressing up like that? I’m from Shanghai. There’s no need to be old-fashioned with me. It’s a much more interesting place than this, I can tell you. Hangzhou’s a dump. It’s stuck in the past. You ought to know. There are plenty of people in Shanghai who’d appreciate that a girl needs to dress as a boy here if she wants to do anything. Plenty of them. One or two of them might even surprise you.
Another boat was attempting to pass under the bridge. She told Yu to go on.
Feng called after them, You can’t escape from me that easily. She heard him laugh and say something in English to his companion. The following day he called at the house. He was even uglier in daylight, without the theatrical effect of the red lanterns. He arrived wearing a richly embroidered gown, which made him look ridiculous and dangerous. Like a wild animal that’s been decked out for a ritual. His boatman of the night before had turned into his uniformed chauffeur of the daylight, a man with unreadable features, as impassive and empty as a loaf of white European bread.
She remained hidden throughout the visit, spying on them. Feng was rude. He was openly contemptuous of her father’s delicate formalities and evasions. She watched them through the half-closed casements of her bedroom, which was situated on the opposite side of the formal garden from her father’s apartments. Feng was large and real, an intruder in her father’s study. But it wasn’t Feng she was afraid of. Her fear was that this event would slip away in a day or two and become the past. Her fear was that she would fail to snatch from it a kind of splendour, a kind of perilous splendour that she knew she must have from life by some means. His voice carried across the garden. I intend to marry your daughter. But I’m not going to hang around forever waiting for your answer. I’m due back in Shanghai tomorrow. I’ve talked to people. I know how you stand, Huang. Who’s going to make you a better offer? Someone in this city? You know you’re never likely to get a better offer than mine. You won’t have to worry about money ever again. She heard her father say Feng paid him too much honour, and saw him withdraw to consult with her.
He is insane, Huang said, stricken. What are we going to do? She saw how truly terrified her father was. Huang asked miserably, Shall I send him away? She observed Feng through the casement. He stood very still, unnaturally still, staring into the garden. He didn’t pace up and down or look about him with curiosity, as an impatient man or a stranger to the house might have been expected to do, but stood perfectly still. She observed how entirely suitable the word man was to describe him. The way the word horse describes a horse. He was as wealthy as a warlord and undoubtedly as accustomed to power. Where another man might have gained a certain courtliness of bearing, a distinction and increase of dignity, by wearing such a gown, Feng made it the costume of parody. She giggled. She saw that the gown infuriated him. And that he was impotent. She could imagine him revenging himself on everyone who saw him wearing it – the demigod who must destroy every mortal who sees his face, for those who see his face see the limit of his power and cease to live in awe of him. She said, Tell him he must return here in exactly one month from today to receive his answer.
Huang groaned.
Tell him, she said, still looking through the casement, that you will give him his answer then. She stood up and turned to her father. Go, honoured parent, and give the Shanghai banker our message. But Huang did not move. You see, she began to explain, taking his arm and walking him gently towards the door, if we turn him away without any hope at all, such a man will be certain to destroy us.
Huang was aghast. Then we are in his trap!
But on the other hand, she continued, if we permit him to gain his end too easily he will not respect us and may decide to destroy us anyway. We must hold him with something. At liberty he is too dangerous.
But what shall we do in a month when he comes for his answer?
She took his arm again. If you do as I advise today, we shall have gained a month to consider that.
Huang resisted and drew his arm from hers. And what if he doesn’t accept our condition? he asked with anguish. What if he says a month is too long for him to wait?
She considered this. Then tell him, she said, that there is a reason for the month, but that you cannot disclose it to him.
What reason is that?
She smiled. There is no reason father. But how shall he insist on knowing what it might be?
Dazed, and unable to think of any further objections to her plan, Huang permitted himself to be ushered towards the door.
Through the casement she watched him speaking with Feng. The two men kept a wide distance between them. She saw Feng cast an angry look towards her casement and she drew back a little, Su Shi’s line coming into her mind: Seen from our boat the mountains race like horses.
THE CAMPAIGN
Under her command, Yu and Huang and the company of the household restored the rooms and the courtyards and the gardens of the old house to their former well-cared-for state. On the last evening of her visit before returning to Shanghai, Lien asked her father to pronounce upon the varieties of tea which had been collected for him on her orders. She had painted new silk labels for the collection. The smell of freshly ground ink lent to the study an air of well-ordered industriousness. She had found, when she came to paint the ties, that she had ground the ink and applied the loaded brush to the silk in a manner that was determined and energetic and practical, a manner she despised. She’d had to make an effort to resist offering a sardonic commentary as she proceeded with the task, which she had found particularly irritating and tedious.
There you are, honoured parent! She placed the last of the tea boxes in the cupboard and stood back to admire her handiwork. Now you are a connoisseur again. She heard the note of irony in her tone and hoped her father had not detected it.
She did not enjoy behaving in this way. But she was unable to correct it. The child troubled her at night and she was unable to sleep. She felt tired all the time, and besieged by a kind of violent intolerance. The smallest ineptitude among the servants made her lose her temper and see in their action an attempt to thwart her. To be sure, there had been some real initial resentment to her new regime among the members of the household, and she had found during the first week or two that her orders had sometimes not been carried out. But she knew, considering the difficulties, considering the irregularities in the situation, things had not gone too badly. She did not regret an early action during the campaign. A particular man and his wife had talked of the daughter who ought to have remained in her husband’s family. It was the gatekeeper’s daughter-in-law who brought her news of this sedition. She did not pause to consider the woman’s motives, but went immediately to the couple and had them beaten and turned out into the street. The other servants were very subdued and obedient after this. The two who had been turned out hung around the little red doorway for a few days, being fed secretly and encouraged to hope for mercy by their colleagues within. She will soon relent! After a week, however, Huang was forced to receive a deputation and he agreed to reinstate the man and the woman and to intercede on their behalf with his daughter.
That was not wise of you, father, she said to him, as soon as the gatekeeper’s daughter-in-law informed her of what he’d done. And she went at once herself to where the terrified couple were washing bedding and told them that if she ever saw them near her father’s house again she would have them arrested and sent to the mines. Huang was shocked by her severity. But they have been in my house all their lives, he pleaded. They have no money and no hope of finding positions elsewhere. They will be
forced to live among the scavengers. I am certain they will not offend you again. They have learnt their lesson.
It is not to them that I am teaching a lesson, honoured parent, she explained patiently, hearing, however, that she sounded as though she were addressing a senile aunt and not the renowned scholar Huang Yu-hua. It is the servants who remain with us to whom I am teaching the lesson.
She refused to discuss the matter any further. She was suffering. Her body was no longer her own. Enjoyment had been denied to her. She was governed by a compulsion to put everything in order around her, a compulsion to establish for herself a kind of orthodoxy of her own. A rampart against irregularities. To give herself a place. This had nothing to do with a motherly instinct for nest building. She was not a part of the child’s strategy, the child was a part of hers. She bitterly resented not being able to enjoy a cigarette and the other western habit she’d acquired in Shanghai, a cup of coffee. They both made her feel sick. And she couldn’t sleep. Her bed was hard. It didn’t welcome her body. The child was like a huge round ball of clay inside her the instant she lay down. It seemed to roll around freely. But worst of all, her mind seemed not to belong to her any more. It surprised her with the hysteria of its responses. The harder she tried to be pleasant and tolerant the more provoked she felt.
She tried to talk to Yu about it. He sat and listened and smoked a Camel and gazed at the foot of her bed, and every now and then he nodded. There are two of me, she said. As if I am myself and my sister. She laughed. I’ve never had a sister. She is sophisticated and westernised. All the things I loathe. I am loyal and determined to defend the verities of my childhood. There is no question of not loving my father and you and this house and our way of life. It isn’t that. It isn’t that simple. It is just that it all irritates me beyond belief. I don’t feel as though I’m in control. She saw the look of bewilderment in his eyes and she gave up. Leave me. I’m exhausted. He crept out.