“I felt I could never be good enough for you,” Yaping said. “You always made me feel inferior. No matter how I tried to impress you, your bar was always higher.”
“Oh, so it was my fault.”
“No, it was me. I was young and insecure, a boy from the south, a small-town kid. I got hurt easily.” Yaping took a deep breath. His shoulders dropped. “I met my wife—I should say ex-wife—on the plane to Chicago. To my surprise, she pursued me. I was flattered; she thought I was worth something. It was a nice change, to be sought after, not to have to prove myself—and as stupid as it may sound, I liked being needed. You never needed me or anyone. I felt useless around you. And sometimes you shut off. I couldn’t reach you. It was as if you wanted to push me away. Is it so unreasonable for a man to want intimacy, to want to help and protect the woman he loves?”
Mei frowned. “You’d rather be with someone who is weak?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I am a man, do you understand? I am supposed to be your protector.”
“I can look after myself, thank you very much,” Mei retorted.
Yaping shook his head and sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. But it doesn’t matter. As I was saying, I was far away from home and alone in a new world. I needed warmth and confidence. Then came the student democracy movement here. When we saw TV reports of the student hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese students in Chicago got organized. We raised money and demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy. There is something about a tumultuous time that bonds people together. She and I fell in love.”
“What happened then? Why did you get divorced?”
“Well, people change.” Yaping gazed into the empty stadium as if his thoughts had been carried far away.
“Have I changed?” asked Mei, tilting her head to one side. As she did so, she felt something touch her hair. It was Yaping’s sleeve.
“I don’t know yet. But I know I have.”
From nowhere, a little sparrow had come, pattering his tiny brown feet joyously across the benches.
“I’m not sure whether we actually change,” said Mei. “When we say that we’ve changed, perhaps we mean that our understanding of the world has changed. Remember when we were young, we used to speak of forever? We pledged to love each other forever and to remember each other forever. I’m not saying that we didn’t mean it. We were sincere about what we said. Only we had no idea what forever was. It was just a word that we used, like ‘rain’ or ‘wind,’ something that existed, something convenient.”
Yaping turned to look intently at Mei as she spoke.
“Now I have seen forever, and believe me, it has no beauty or glamour. Forever is what true sorrow is made of. Watching my mother in the hospital, I see forever coming. It has come so close that I could have touched it. When someone dies, he or she disappears. Death is forever, irreversible and final. Once it happens, nothing can change it. Forever is the end of all possibilities, where no wrongs can be righted and no regrets can be pardoned.
“As I’ve watched life slipping away from my mother, something has departed from me, too. You know about my family. My mother raised me and my sister on her own. We struggled a lot. For years we lived in temporary housing, often with little to eat and sometimes no money to buy new clothes for school.”
She looked out at the deserted, sunlit stadium. For a few seconds, her thoughts drifted. “Thinking about the past makes me feel very sad, especially since, as you probably remember, I have not had the best relationship with my mother. Now that she is seriously ill, I realize that there is so much I don’t know about her and so much I want to say to her.
“Every time I see a thread of new sunshine, a leaf ’s new green, or a flower budding, I think of my mother and how she may not be here to see them again. And I think of the next day, the next year, when all these things will happen again, and life will renew itself as if it has no memory. The world will continue, I will continue, but she will not.”
Mei fell silent. She had forgotten what point she was making. Whatever it was, it no longer mattered. At that moment she came to understand why she had been searching for her mother everywhere she went. She had conjured up her mother’s presence in street-corner parks and in morning markets; as she had walked through narrow, winding alleys, turning corners, she had seen her mother and the loneliness in her glances.
In the distance, a siren screamed, then faded and vanished like a memory.
“You really love her, don’t you?” said Yaping. He heard Mei’s voice coming to him like wind over grassland, like a lost love on its way home, softer and clearer than in his dreams.
“I guess so. I don’t know. Maybe this is what people call love. But I don’t think of it that way. To me, this is just the way things are, the way they are supposed to be. I don’t have a choice. My mother is like a lighthouse. No matter how far I try to get away from her, I always seem to be coming back.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“You mean if my mother dies? I don’t know. I’m a survivor—at least I like to think I am. I have dealt with tough times before, when you got married and when I resigned from the Ministry. But this time it’s different.”
Mei saw the slightest frown gathering between Yaping’s eyes.
“I suppose I should explain why I left my old job.”
He nodded. “I would like to understand.”
“When I was working at the Ministry for Public Security, my title was personal assistant to the head of public relations. It was in many ways an interesting and luxurious job. I had the glamour but without having to sweat over groundwork. Mostly, I relayed orders and requests to local offices and planned and supervised major events and showcases. I liaised with foreign visitors and accompanied my boss to meetings at the Ministry.
“My boss wasn’t brilliant, but he wasn’t bad to work with, either. Our relationship was cordial. We lived inside the same compound. I had many meals at his home and was friendly with his family. One thing you need to understand is that for a bureaucrat like him, he had reached a critical age. If he could rise up further, he would be hailed as young for a ministerial position. But if he failed to break through, he would quickly be considered old and would have to make way for the younger generation.
“I am explaining this so you’ll understand why it was such a big deal when it happened. As I said, as his PA, I often accompanied my boss to ministerial-level meetings. Naturally, I met many important people, including ministers.
“To cut a long story short, one of the ministers had, according to my boss, taken a fancy to me and wanted me to be his mistress. Oh yes, this is quite common now, especially when the man has money or power. I won’t tell you his name. You have been away from China for too long; you won’t know him. But it doesn’t matter. I said no. And when my boss couldn’t convince me to change my mind, he told me that he would make me suffer until I agreed. You see, I had become the bridge that could take him to the top of the ministry. So I was banished to the field and harassed constantly. The rumor mill was working overtime. You can’t imagine the ugly lies that were told about me. I still feel sick, thinking about it. I had no more friends. People avoided me like I was a disease.
“It was like black water flooding in to fill an underground cave. Every space, every opening of my life, was being taken over. I couldn’t escape. So I resigned. It didn’t stop the lies, of course. They reached far and wide. But they could no longer do me harm. I cut people out of my life. I cut my life out of other people’s. Sometimes I think I am rather good at this and prefer it that way. I have a hard shell. In some ways, I’ve probably had it since I was five years old.
“But what I have to face now with Mama is even worse. Where can I go? How can I escape the death of someone I love?”
“Maybe you can’t.” Yaping leaned close to her. Mei could feel the warmth of his body and see the muscles under his shirt. She wished he would touch her, although she felt that if he did, she would break into a million pieces.
“Sometimes you can’t protect yourself from pain.” His words rolled down her neck like loose pearls. “Avoiding it will only make you hurt more. No, I’m not trying to give you advice. I can’t possibly understand how you feel. All I’m saying is that sometimes being part of something painful is in fact what helps us to survive. It helps us go on with our lives.”
“You are probably right,” Mei replied. “But I just can’t think about survival, not now. It’s inconsistent, I know. I think too much about death and forever. But the more I think about them, the more I feel that I can’t live without her. She is the closest thing I have to affection, sad as it may be. The world is a cold place—for me, at least. It will be so much colder without her.”
They were silent. Sunlight spread across the vast space in front of them in waves like music, some notes higher than others, in a serene harmony.
Mei had told Yaping things that she had never told anyone else. She couldn’t understand why she had done it. “I’m sorry that I talked so much about myself. You’ve got a plane to catch,” she said, pulling herself together.
“No, I am sorry. I wish we could stay like this and talk for a long time. Over the years, I have imagined many conversations like this. In a way, they have all been part of a very long conversation that is still going on. I am terribly sorry about your mother.”
They stood up. The sun was warm, caressing their backs like lovers’ hands. A sad silence began to divide the minutes into halves and then halves again until there was no time left.
“I may come back to Beijing to work,” Yaping said. “My firm wants to grow our Asian practice and open an office here.”
When they reached the car, Yaping took his luggage from the trunk. “I will take a taxi to the airport. Mr. Lui here can drive you anywhere you’d like. He’s been paid for the day.”
The driver nodded politely from behind the steering wheel, his gloves spotlessly white.
“Goodbye, Mei.” Yaping gave her his hand.
“Goodbye.” She gave him hers.
Besieged by white sunlight, they stood holding hands, remembering a promise that had slipped away once before, a time long ago.
TWENTY EIGHT
THE PORTER IN LU’S BUILDING had a moon face, a warm smile, and, it seemed, an amazing memory. He greeted Mei by name as soon as she stepped into the lobby.
“Miss Wang, long time no see. What’s it been? Half a year, at least?” The porter twisted a pencil in his hands. His blue uniform had been neatly pressed. He had heard about Ling Bai’s stroke and offered his condolences. “What a pity.” He shook his head. “They had it bad—the older generation, I mean. First it was the Great Leap Forward, nothing to eat; then the Cultural Revolution, struggling and beatings every day. Finally, life gets better, sons and daughters are prospering, and now this. Pity, I say. People like your mother suffered all their lives. No wonder they now have rotten health.” He sighed, twitching his pencil. “Your sister has gone out, but she said if you are here, you should go straight up.” He bowed slightly.
Mei followed him to the elevator.
“Lu is such a devoted daughter. It’s heartbreaking to see her so worried,” said the porter.
Behind them, the giant glass door opened, and in came a young man of about twenty with bleached hair and a slightly younger girl with a pair of oversize sunglasses and baby-doll-pink hair. The man was carrying a golf bag as big as he was. A set of clubs was neatly hidden beneath fluffy yellow duck club warmers. There were also two pink club warmers with pompoms, presumably hers.
The porter quickly called the elevator for the newcomers, smiling at them. The girl bowed while the young man returned a courteous hello. No one spoke again. The penthouse elevator appeared quickly. “Thank you,” Mei said as she stepped inside. She wanted to say more, to return the porter’s kindness. But before she could speak, the door had shut. She was moving up.
With a ding, the elevator arrived at the penthouse. Mei stepped out. A spotless beige carpet stretched into a white hallway. Lights like crystal balls were spaced along the walls. There was no sound, only the pale harmony of silent perfection.
Mei rang the doorbell and waited.
“Oh, Mei, you’re here!” exclaimed the housekeeper, opening the door as wide as her smile. A light aroma of ginger and clove greeted Mei. The sunlight had grown deeper and warmer hues and pasted itself on the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Your aunt’s sleeping,” said the housekeeper.
Mei nodded and handed over her bag and jacket. “How are you, Auntie Zhang?” She tilted her head to the side so that her words could follow the housekeeper, who had started to walk away. “You look like you’ve lost weight.”
“Really?” Auntie Zhang turned back. She smoothed down her floral shirt. “You think so?” She was pleased.
Auntie Zhang was in her fifties. She had long limbs with large hands and feet. She had worked for Lu for many years, first cleaning and cooking and then, after Lu had married, as the housekeeper, overseeing the cleaners and the cook.
She looked at Mei with a gentleness that helped to soften her rustic features. “I know you are worried about your mother.” She pulled a pair of white flannel slippers from the shoe cabinet. “But listen to your auntie: You’ve got to look after yourself. I say the same to Lu. You can’t let it crush you, or your mother will not have you to depend on.”
Mei put on the slippers.
Auntie Zhang pointed her chin toward the window. “Go sit down. I’ll bring you some tea.”
Mei took two steps down to the living room. Long antique red-lacquered side tables lined the walls. Objects glittered from all sides: a gold Buddha, a pair of antique wine goblets, two Tang Dynasty tri-color porcelain horses, a Chinese wedding box painted in real gold (so Lu said), a Bang & Olufsen stereo system, awards, trophies, and pictures in shining frames. There were two pots of white orchids on hourglass flower stands, each with twenty blossoms. The ceiling was so high that it made Mei feel dizzy.
Mei sat on the sofa beneath a Warhol-style portrait of Lu. It was strange to see Lu on the wall instead of Mao Zhedong or Marilyn Monroe.
Mei picked up a lavish book on the Yangtze River from the coffee table and flipped through the pages. On one page, she saw a lone junk with a giant yellow sail, poised on the verge of a dark expanse of water; Mei was struck by its lonely magnificence. A few pages further on, there were pictures of the famous grottoes and “leading to heaven” paths. These paths were chiseled from the faces of vertical cliffs; for centuries, armies had loyally marched along them. Locals believed, the text explained, that at night they could still hear the ghosts of dead soldiers toiling up the cliffs.
All of these paths would be underwater, gone forever, when the Three Gorges Dam was completed. Mei thought that she ought to go and see the river for herself before it was too late.
“Here’s your tea.” Auntie Zhang came in with a tray on which sat a cast-iron teapot and delicate teacups rimmed with gold.
“Where is Lu?” asked Mei.
“She went to the beauty salon, but she should be back soon.” Auntie Zhang poured the first cup, green as the valley. “Drink slowly,” she said. “If you don’t need me, I must go and help the cook.”
The women smiled at each other. Then Auntie Zhang walked away, swinging her long arms.
Mei took her tea to the window. Pink twilight covered the rooftops of Beijing. This part of the city had always felt alien to her, with its walled villas, foreign embassies, and the showcase architecture along the Boulevard of Eternal Peace. She hadn’t set foot in the area until her senior year in university. A Japanese exchange student had taken her shopping at the Friendship Store, a shop dedicated to foreigners only, two blocks south of here, on Inner Jianguo Gate Boulevard.
Mei had been unable to believe her eyes. The marbled halls were filled with things she had never seen before—gold, pearls, Spanish shoes, American sportswear, cosmetics and perfumes, all of which were extraordinarily expensive. Her companion had brought
coupons equal to fifty thousand Japanese yen. Mei could hardly remember her date now, except that he always wore a long black coat and was a good cook. He had taught her to make sushi.
“Mei.” A soft voice spoke behind her.
Mei turned and saw Little Auntie. She was wearing a newly pressed blue shirt. Her black hair glowed from being washed and conditioned.
“How did you sleep?” Mei asked.
“Soundly, like I’ve not slept for days.” Little Auntie sounded cheerful.
“There is tea, but it’s getting cold. Perhaps Auntie Zhang could make you another pot?”
“No. I’ve had plenty of tea.”
They sat down on the sofa. Mei inquired about Little Auntie’s family and whether there had been news when she phoned them that afternoon. They exchanged news of other relatives. Somewhere in the background, they heard the soft clink of china and glasses. Auntie Zhang must be laying the table for dinner in the dining room.
“Is dinner ready?” Lu’s singing voice startled them. They turned around and saw her standing at the top of the steps in a pink dress. It was as if a piece of the burning sky had broken away and drifted inside with her. Her long hair shone and glittered with reflected light. “I’m starving!” Kicking off her high-heeled shoes, she waved at her sister and aunt.
Auntie Zhang brought Lu her lambskin slippers. “It’s ready. It’s ready.”
“Good. Mei! Little Auntie!” Lu gestured to them. “Come, let’s eat now.” She apologized for being late. “My manicurist was sick today, so I had to take someone else. She didn’t understand what I wanted done. Oh, what a headache!” She took Little Auntie by the arm and said sweetly, “Tomorrow, why don’t you go to the salon with my membership card? Get yourself a facial, a haircut, or anything you’d like.”
“That’s very kind. But I can’t…”
“I insist,” said Lu.
They entered the dining room. A long rosewood table had been covered with a tablecloth and laid with sparkling glass and ivory-tipped chopsticks. The walls were white and decorated with abstract oil paintings. A chandelier, so large that it looked more suited to a ballroom, hung from the ceiling. Auntie Zhang and a stout woman were bringing in dishes served on Ming-blue plates.
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