The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature

by Yunte Huang

  “But he said only that a wife is a companion for life, not that a husband and wife are companions for life.”

  Mrs. Wen opened her eyes wide in total incomprehension.

  “He now has five of these companions for life,” Mei quickly continued. “He treats them very thoughtfully and equally, but he guards them jealously. You’d almost think he used eunuchs in that famous garden of his. It’s practically his Afang Palace.”*

  Mrs. Wen did not grasp the point of these words. But the number five conjured up rumors she had heard and aroused her interest. “I’ve heard that some are extremely ugly. Is it true?”

  This time it was Mei who did not entirely understand. But just as she threw Mrs. Wen a startled glance, Mei realized what her companion was referring to. With a laugh, she stretched and coldly replied, “There was one who once wrote a poem containing the lines, ‘I’d rather be concubine to a hero / than be the wife of a common man.’ She’d probably qualify as the world’s ugliest woman.”

  The sun’s rays outside the window abruptly fell into shadow, as if the boat had entered a tunnel of some kind. Mei craned her neck to see but noticed only an exceedingly tall cliff slowly receding, its peak hidden from view. Suddenly, suspended before her eyes were row after row of trees, both tall and short, their trunks straight and thin like those of the hemp. Mei drew back her head and looked at Mrs. Wen’s dazed expression. “One of the peculiarities of the general† of the Afang Palace,” Mei added, “is that almost all his companions are kind of ugly.”

  A profound silence crept into the room. The normally talkative Mrs. Wen seemed to have been stricken speechless. She suddenly lay back on the bed and covered her face with her hands. Her fat, clumsy body and her unnaturally small feet all reminded Mei of that woman dwelling deep within the Afang Palace who would rather not be the “wife of a common man.”

  Images out of the past slowly began to congeal in Mei’s mind, enveloping her consciousness like a veil of smoke. As in a dream, she was once again a family tutor in that large garden. She saw the familiar layout of man-made hills, the fish pond, and the Western-style gazebo. Ah! That unforgettable gazebo. It was there that she had refused the temptation of money and jewels. It was not that she did not like luxuries but that she valued her freedom more. Above all, she did not want to become a prisoner of the Afang Palace. It was also there that she had come to know the jealousy that had been bred in women by thousands of years of dependence on men. The vision of a small round face with a pair of fierce triangular eyebrows rushed into her mind. And then the smooth, shiny barrel of a Browning revolver, staring at her like the eye of some bizarre monster.

  A barely audible snort of contempt rose up from deep within Mei, waking her out of her gloomy reverie. It was the same snort with which the yuanzhu bird in Zhuangzi’s famous story replied to the owl who was cherishing his piece of rotting rat meat as if it were a precious jewel.‡ In fact, the last lesson Mei had taught as a family tutor was that very fable, “The Owl Gets a Rotten Rat.”

  A faint snoring arose from the bed. Mrs. Wen had fallen asleep. Mei glanced out the window and then walked softly out of the cabin, back to the passageway outside the dining hall. She sat down on one of the rattan chairs.

  On both banks of the river, mountains so tall they had never been inhabited jutted out of the muddy waves and pierced the sky like two high walls. The steamship Longmao puffed asthmatically down the middle of the river. Every once in a while a junk or two appeared on either side, but they clung so closely to the cliffs that it seemed as if those aboard could stretch out a hand and pick the wisteria growing on the rocks. Below the distant towering cliffs ahead were several small wooden boats. Crowded together as if immobile in the narrow pass, they seemed to leave no space for the steamship to squeeze through. But only a few minutes later, with a triumphant blast of its whistle, the Longmao was hurrying past. Only then was it clear that the Yangtze was really wide enough for four steamships. The wake created by the steamship’s propellers dashed against the shore, and the snail-like wooden boats clinging to the cliffs swayed like a gathering of drunken men.

  Mei smiled as she looked at the wooden boats. She admired the great power of this machine and had no pity for the snail-like objects being buffeted by the violence it created. She had complete faith in the huge monstrosity that carried her and was intensely conscious that this mammoth product of modern civilization would bring her to a new future. Although before her was a world unimaginably strange, it was surely more vast and more exciting than anything she had known. Of this she was firmly and unalterably convinced.

  But she had no illusions. The experience of the last four or five years had taught her three lessons: never long for the past, never daydream about the future, but seize the present and use all your abilities to cope with it. Her past was just like a boat moving through the Wuxia Mountains. She often saw precipices blocking her path, convincing her that there was no way out. But if she bravely and resolutely pressed on, she would always discover that the road ahead was actually very wide. Then as she went a little farther on, the cliffs would again loom before her, and a way out would seem even more remote. If at that point she had looked back from whence she had come, she would have seen that the mountains were already hidden by clouds. To look back on the past was unbearable. The future was indistinct and full of hazards. She could only seize the present and press forward with both feet planted firmly on the ground. She was a “disciple of the present.”

  A hot wind passed over her. The sun’s rays danced on the water like myriad specks of gold. It was almost noon. Mei leaned back in the rattan chair and felt her eyelids grow heavy. Although the scenery before her was fascinating, it now made her feel somewhat weary. The endless river pressed between the barren mountains, twisting and turning interminably as the torrents of water rushed ceaselessly forward, always promising new mysteries and yet always the same. And amidst it all, the ever-present triumphant, yet mournful, sound of the ship’s whistle.

  She slumped down in the chair, letting herself drowse off to escape the monotony. No thoughts of the past disturbed her peace, and no thoughts of the future came to arouse her emotions.

  A waiter arrived to call her to lunch. She found out from him that it would be around three o’clock before they reached Yichang and concluded that this so-called fast steamship was no better than a slow boat after all. She wished she could cross the Kui Pass immediately. The closer they approached the Sichuan border, the more her impatience grew. To Mei, everything about Sichuan was narrow, small, meandering, just like the river flowing before her.

  After lunch, taking advantage of a reprieve from Mrs. Wen’s incessant chatter, Mei withdrew into the cabin to take a nap. She had long since found this leading member of the women’s suffrage movement boring. Now Mei had begun to hate her. She hated her vulgar manners; she hated her extreme narrow-mindedness; she hated the way she put on airs to mask her base nature; she hated her extremely muddled ideas on women’s rights.

  Half consciously, she compared herself to Mrs. Wen. Then, suddenly, Mei thought of what would happen after they reached Shanghai. She asked herself, “We are representatives, but as a group, what do we represent? How will we be able to accomplish our collective mission?” She could not but laugh. She admitted to herself that she had used her attendance at the National Student League conference as a pretext to evade the advances of that diminutive warlord. She knew if she did not escape now, it would be difficult to avoid being forced into becoming one of the ladies of the Afang Palace. As to whether her companion, Mrs. Wen, also had personal motives for attending, Mei was even less inclined to speculate.

  All thought of sleep departed. From Mrs. Wen, Mei’s mind wandered to recollections of other acquaintances. Xu, a good friend from middle school with whom she had kept in touch until two years ago, when she was a teacher in southern Sichuan, leaped into her mind. “She’s in Nanjing,” Mei thought excitedly. And with this a multitude of disconnected memories streamed into
Mei’s head, finally driving her from her bed.

  A rumbling sound arose from the deck. From outside the window came the sound of swarming footsteps. Mrs. Wen stuck her head in through the window and shouted joyfully, “Don’t you want to see the Kui Pass? We’re almost there!”

  Mei replied with a smile. The enthusiasm of the throng outside made her feel hot. She changed into a muslin blouse, wiped her face with a towel, and ran nimbly out to the passageway.

  Lofty cliffs still stood on both banks, but now they were not so high and had begun to slope slightly. Behind them rose row after row of mountains, each taller than the ones before. The rays of the sun had now turned them a brilliant golden color. The wind had died down to a gentle breeze, as if it too had barely awoken from its afternoon nap.

  The boat seemed to be moving more slowly. The splashing of the waves became more even. The whistle emitted a constant arrogant bellow like the cries of the heralds in ancient times who ordered the people to make way for an approaching official.

  Many people were lined up along the railing, staring straight ahead. Mrs. Wen was among them. Mei stood in the passageway. She clasped her hands behind her neck and gently swayed her shoulders from side to side. Her short sleeves fell back to her shoulders, revealing her snow-white arms like two triangles on either side of her head. The sight of her bare skin attracted quite a few sideward glances. Mei bit her lip and grinned as if no one else were there. Then, impulsively, she raised her eyebrows and skipped off, cutting right through the clusters of passengers to the door of the captain’s cabin.

  About one hundred feet from the front of the ship, two walls of stone jutted out of the water and faced each other across the river, so vertical and smooth they seemed to be sliced out of the rocks with a knife. There were no trees, no vines, no ferns, only the pitch-black rocks looming majestically over the river like a monumental doorframe without its top. Joining these two strange stones were row after row of undulating mountains. Each billowing wave of the Yangtze rushed to be first to reach the shore, crashing violently against the foot of the cliffs.

  The boat’s whistle once again let out a long earsplitting shriek as the Longmao sailed into the great stone gateway. Mei craned her neck to see. The intensity of the sun made her dizzy. She felt as though the rapidly receding stone precipice was swaying, about to topple. Instinctively, she closed her eyes. She saw a flash of red light and then all was dark.

  Mei buried her face in her hands and thought to herself, “So this is the Kui Pass. This is the great pass out of Sichuan. This is the demon pass§ that separates Sichuan from the rest of the world!” These thoughts left Mei momentarily distracted, until the boat’s whistle once again roused her. She lifted her head and felt a blinding flash from the returning sunlight. The Yangtze opened up before her, so broad that she could not see the shore. All that was visible were distant, smoky objects like the shadows of clouds lying on the horizon. As if a great weight had been lifted from her chest, Mei smiled, raised her arms high, and took a deep breath. She paid tribute to this glorious work of nature. It was only at that moment that she fully realized the vastness and power of the Yangtze River.

  She turned her head to the right. The cliffs of the Kui Pass were still faintly visible. The pass itself now seemed but a crack among the myriad peaks, and within the crack lay a mysterious darkness.

  “From here on you won’t be seeing any more good scenery. Once you leave Sichuan the Yangtze is really quite ordinary. The Kui Pass is a natural boundary.”

  From her left came the sound of Mrs. Wen’s voice. Mei turned her head and saw Mrs. Wen straining to move her small feet. As she nodded and walked away, Mei pursed her lips in a smile and called gently after her, “This is also the last time we’ll be following a meandering, narrow, dangerous, mazelike route. From here on we enter the broad vast world of freedom!”

  Chapter Two

  When Mei was eighteen years old she was enrolled as a student at the Yizhou Girls’ School in Chengdu. It was in that same year, on May 4, that the students of Beijing began their historic mass movement. Their initial attack on the Zhao mansion¶ gave rise to the raging tide of “May Fourth.” The flames that burned through the Zhao mansion set fire to the zeal of young people throughout China.

  Within a month this raging tide, this spark, had burst forth and spread all the way to Chengdu, that remote and enigmatic land on ­China’s western frontier. Mei had gone to Shaocheng Park to witness the activity generated by a rally to boycott Japanese goods. The slogan of the rally was “patriotism.” Of course, Mei knew that she should love her country, but the slogan was too general, too broad to arouse her enthusiasm. She remained only a spectator. At the time she was too caught up in her own personal dilemma, one that she could not resolve. Only three days earlier, without her consent, her father had betrothed her to her first cousin, Liu Yuchun.

  When she returned home from the rally that evening, her father had himself just returned from getting drunk at the Lius’. He had apparently heard something at the Liu Dry Goods Store because instead of going straight to sleep as usual, he summoned Mei and began to rant, “So, this is our great republic! Students meddling in other people’s private affairs! They plan to go to the dry goods store to inspect it for Japanese goods. If they find any they’ll confiscate them, and they even intend to impose a fine. It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. I can’t believe the yamen# won’t take any action.’’

  Mei lowered her head and said nothing. The words “inspect the dry goods store” pierced her like a knife. The earthshaking patriotic cries at Shaocheng Park, which had seemed so remote to her this afternoon, now turned out to be directly related to her personal problem. In the future she would have to be the proprietress of a store that secretly sold Japanese goods. This prospect intensified her misery. That day, when she heard people shout, “Patriotism,” she hadn’t given it a second thought, for she knew she had never sold out her country. Now her complacency was gone. Suddenly she felt like a notorious traitor.

  “Heh! What they say sounds good enough. They say they want us to buy Chinese products. Well, I’m a genuine doctor of Chinese medicine, the real article. But in recent years look how unpopular, how poor I’ve become!”

  Her father spoke wheezingly, filling the room with the stench of alcohol. From the students, he moved on to his usual routine of cursing his son. His tongue thick from drink, he laboriously recited the past events that Mei had heard so often before. How he had sold off family property to send his son to study in America. How, later, he had sold more family property to pull the right strings to get his son a job. How his son, who was happily living far away, never even asked whether his father was dead or alive. His eyes were completely red by the time he finished his tale.

  “The year before last he was employed in the office of the Shaanxi military governor, but he still wired home again and again asking for money. Last year he became a magistrate and he stopped coming to me for money. But his telegrams and express letters also stopped. Ah! This is the way a son who studies abroad and becomes an official acts. The one with real promise is that child Yuchun. He was an orphan. I took him into our home only because he was related to us. Later, when I sent him to be an apprentice at the Hong Yuan Dry Goods Store at the Yuelai market, it was only so he’d have a way to make a living. And with nothing but his bare hands he turned around and made a fortune.”

  Her father closed his eyes and nodded his head in satisfaction. Then, abruptly, he opened them wide and shouted, “How dare those student bastards prevent people from selling Japanese goods!” Repeating himself once more with venom, Mei’s father then staggered into his own room.

  Mei watched his retreating figure and heaved a great sigh. If there hadn’t been a maid still standing in a dark corner of the room, Mei would have already let the tears welling in her eyes pour out. Her eyes darted in every direction, like a drowning person searching desperately for something to hang on to. There was nothing, only the flickering flames of th
e kerosene lamp leaping toward her, the ancient wooden furniture gaping dumbly all around her, and the chill of a household in decline that pierced her to the marrow.

  Biting her lip to hold back the tears, Mei fled into her own bedroom. Here the warmer atmosphere comforted her somewhat. On a delicate pear-wood table were arranged the mementos of the blissful days of her childhood: an exquisitely dressed doll; a red-lipped, white-toothed Negro figure with a small clock in its protruding belly; two peacock feathers inserted in a tea-green triangular glass vase. These were all relics of better times, five or six years ago, before her mother had died. Mei, without a mother and without sisters, had used these toys to replace the intimacy of real flesh-and-blood relatives. Now she stared absentmindedly at these mute, though almost human, friends. Confused thoughts crossed her mind, but none took root in her consciousness. It was as though she were being assaulted by disconnected images—the dry goods store, Japanese products, Cousin Liu, marriage, the rally at Shaocheng Park—each throbbing feverishly in her head.

  Impulsively, she went to her bed and took out a small inlaid ebony box. She lifted the lid. It was completely empty except for a single photograph of the face of a slightly feminine-looking young man. Mei gazed at the photo for a few minutes, then closed the box and lay down on the bed. A vision of another man flashed before her eyes. On his round face were two broad, thick eyebrows and a pair of shrewd eyes. He was not basically bad-looking. He just displayed too much of the vulgarity of the crafty businessman.

  Mei buried her face in the pillow and gritted her teeth. How she hated that man! Her secret hatred of him was as great as her secret love for the other man. But it was not her secret love for the one that caused her to hate the other. She had hated him for a long time. Both were her cousins, but for some reason she had never felt as close to her father’s sister’s son, who had been raised in her own family, as she felt toward her other cousin on her mother’s side. Although she did not want him to, the former continually pursued her. From the time Mei was barely old enough to know about sex, he, already an adult, had constantly looked for opportunities to flirt with her. She still had a scar on her arm where he had scratched her. This was something a proud girl like Mei could not tolerate. She carried in her bosom the secret of this humiliation. She secretly detested this man. Yet it had now been decided that she was to spend the rest of her life with this very person.