The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature

by Yunte Huang

  Lotus answered, “I go to meet him? He should come to meet me, shouldn’t he?”

  Cloud said, “That’s right, he should be the one to come to meet you first.”

  Standing to one side, Coral impatiently pushed Feilan on the back of the head. “Hurry up, hurry up.”

  It was at the dinner table that Lotus actually met Feipu. That evening Chen Zuoqian had the cooks prepare a banquet to welcome Feipu back home. The table was covered with sumptuous and exquisitely prepared delicacies; Lotus looked at the food and could not help thinking that the welcoming banquet on the day she first entered the Chen household was not nearly as grand as this one. She felt a little hurt, but her attention very quickly shifted to Feipu himself. Feipu was sitting next to Joy; Joy said something to him, and then he leaned over toward Lotus, smiled, and nodded his head. Lotus smiled and nodded back at him. Her first impression of Feipu was that he was unexpectedly young and handsome; her second impression was that he was very thoughtful. Lotus always liked to evaluate people’s character on meeting them.

  The next day was the Double Ninth Festival. The gardeners brought all of the chrysanthemum pots in the garden together in one place and arranged them in various colors to form the characters for “good fortune, prosperity, longevity, and happiness.” Lotus got up very early and walked all around, by herself, looking at the chrysanthemums. There was a chilly morning breeze, and she was wearing only a sleeveless woolen sweater; she just folded her arms across her chest, held her shoulders, and walked around, looking at the flowers. A long way off she saw Feipu coming out of the central courtyard and walking her way. Lotus was hesitating, trying to decide whether or not to greet him first, when Feipu called out, “Good morning, Lotus.”

  Lotus was rather startled at his direct use of her given name; she ­nodded and said, “According to our generational difference, you shouldn’t call me by my name.”

  Feipu stood on the other side of the flower beds, smiled as he buttoned up his shirt collar, and said, “I should call you Fourth Mistress, but you must be a few years younger than I am. How old are you?”

  Lotus turned to look at the flowers in an obvious display of displeasure. Feipu said, “You like chrysanthemums too? I thought I’d be the first one to enjoy the scene this early in the morning; didn’t think you’d be up even earlier.”

  Lotus replied, “I’ve liked chrysanthemums ever since I was little; I certainly didn’t just start liking them today.”

  Feipu asked, “What’s your favorite kind?”

  Lotus answered, “I like them all, but I just hate crab claws.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Feipu.

  “Crab claws bloom too impudently.”

  Feipu laughed again and said, “That’s interesting; I just happen to like crab claws best.”

  Lotus glanced over at Feipu a moment. “I figured you would.”

  Feipu asked further, “Why is that?”

  Lotus took a few steps forward and said, “Flowers are not flowers and people are not people; flowers are people and people are flowers; don’t you understand such a simple principle?” Lotus suddenly raised her head and caught sight of a strange gleam drifting by briefly, like a leaf, on the surface of Feipu’s moist eyes; she saw it and she understood it.

  Feipu stood with his hands on his hips on the other side of the chrysanthemums and said suddenly, “I’ll take all the crab claws away, then.”

  Lotus said nothing. She watched Feipu take all the crab claws away and put some black chrysanthemums in their place. After a short interval, Lotus spoke again. “The flowers are all fine, but the characters are no good; they’re too vulgar.”

  Feipu wiped the mud off his hands and winked at Lotus. “Nothing can be done about that. Good fortune, prosperity, longevity, and happiness is what the Old Master told them to arrange. It’s the same every year, a custom passed down from our ancestors.”

  Whenever Lotus thought of the time she spent enjoying the chrysanthemums on the Double Ninth Festival, she felt happy inside. It seemed as though from that day on she and Feipu had some sort of secret understanding between them. Sometimes, when she thought of how Feipu had moved the crab claws away, she would laugh out loud. Only Lotus herself knew that she really didn’t particularly dislike crab claw chrysanthemums.

  “WHO DO YOU like best?” Lotus regularly asked Chen Zuoqian while he shared her pillow, “Of the four of us, who do you like best?”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “Why, you, of course.”

  “What about Joy?”

  “She turned into an old hen long ago.”

  “And Cloud?”

  “Cloud’s still tolerable, but she’s a little flabby.”

  “What about Coral, then?” Lotus could never control her curiosity about Coral. “Where does Coral come from?”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “I don’t know where she comes from; she doesn’t even know herself.”

  Lotus said, “You mean Coral is an orphan?”

  Chen Zuoqian answered, “She was an actress. She sang the female lead in a traveling Peking opera troupe. I was an amateur performer myself. Sometimes I’d go backstage and invite her out for dinner; one thing led to another, and she just came along with me.”

  Lotus stroked Chen Zuoqian’s face and said, “All the women want to go along with you.”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “You’re half right there; all women want to go along with a rich man.”

  Lotus began to laugh. “You’re only half right too; you should’ve said, ‘When a rich man gets rich he wants women, wants them so much he can never get enough.’ ”

  Lotus had never heard Coral sing Peking opera, but that morning she was awakened from her dreams by a few crisp, clear, long, drawn-out words sung in opera style. She poked Chen Zuoqian lying next to her and asked if that was Coral singing. Chen Zuoqian responded groggily, “That bitch, when she’s happy, she sings, and when she’s unhappy, she cries.” Lotus opened the window and saw that a layer of snow-white autumn frost had fallen during the night. A woman dressed all in black was singing and dancing under the wisteria vine. It was Coral after all.

  Lotus draped a cloak over her shoulders and stood in the doorway watching Coral from afar. Coral was already totally absorbed in her song; Lotus felt that she sang in a delicately plaintive manner, and her own emotions were aroused. After a long time Coral stopped abruptly. She seemed to have noticed that Lotus’s eyes were brimming with tears. Coral threw her long flowing sleeves back over her shoulders and walked toward the compound. Some crystalline specks of brightness danced on her face and clothing in the morning light; her round, tightly coiled chignon was moist with dew, and thus her entire appearance was damp and laden with sorrow, like a blade of grass in the wind.

  “Are you crying? You’re living a very happy life, aren’t you? Why are you crying?” Coral asked dryly as she stood facing Lotus.

  Lotus took out a handkerchief and wiped the corners of her eyes, then said, “I don’t know what happened. What was that you were singing?”

  “It’s called The Hanged Woman,” Coral answered. “Did you like it?”

  “I don’t know a thing about Peking opera; it’s just that you sang so movingly that I felt sad too, just listening.” As Lotus spoke, she noticed Coral’s face take on an amiable expression for the first time.

  Coral lowered her head, looked at her opera costume, and said, “It’s only acting; it’s not worth feeling sad about. If you act very well, you can fool other people, but if you act badly, you only fool yourself.”

  In Lotus’s room Chen Zuoqian started to cough, and Lotus looked at Coral with obvious embarrassment. Coral said, “Aren’t you going to help him get dressed?”

  Lotus shook her head and said, “He can dress himself. He’s not a child.”

  Coral looked resentful. She laughed and said, “Why does he always want me to help him on with his shoes and clothes? Looks like people are divided into the worthy and the unworthy.”

  Just then Chen Zuoqian shouted from ins
ide the room, “Coral! Come in and sing something for me!”

  Coral immediately raised her willow-thin eyebrows; she laughed coldly, ran to the window, and yelled inside, “This old lady doesn’t care to!”

  Lotus had experienced Coral’s temper. When she talked about it in an indirect manner with Chen Zuoqian, he said, “It’s all my fault for spoiling her years ago. When she feels defiant, she curses my ancestors for eight generations. That little bitch of a whore, sooner or later I’ll really have to punish her.”

  Lotus said, “You shouldn’t be too cruel to her; she’s really quite pitiful; she has no other family, and she’s afraid you don’t care about her, so she’s developed a bad temper.”

  After that Lotus and Coral had some lukewarm contact. Coral was crazy about mah-jongg. She regularly called a group together at her place to play; they played from right after dinner until very late into the night. From the other side of the wall, Lotus could hear the clicking sound of the tiles noisily shuffled all night, and it kept her awake. She complained to Chen Zuoqian, and he said, “I guess you’ll just have to stand it; when she plays mah-jongg, she’s a little more normal. Anyway, when she loses all of her money, I won’t give her any more. Let her play. Let her play until she drops.”

  On one occasion Coral sent her maid over to invite Lotus to play mah-jongg, but Lotus sent her back with these words: “Invite me to play mah-jongg? It’s a wonder you could even think of it.” After her maid returned, Coral herself came over. She said, “There are only three of us—we need one more; do me a favor.”

  Lotus replied, “But I don’t know how; won’t I just lose my money?”

  Coral took Lotus by the arm. “Let’s go. If you lose, we won’t take your money. Better yet, if you win, you can keep it, and if you lose, I’ll pay for you.”

  Lotus said, “You don’t have to go that far; it’s just that I don’t like to play.”

  She saw Coral’s smile turn into a frown as she was speaking. Coral said, “Huh, what have you got here that’s so great? You act like you’re sitting on a big pot of gold and won’t move an inch; it’s only a dried-up old man, that’s all.”

  Lotus was so irritated that her temper began to flare up; just as she’d decided to tell her off and the curses were already boiling up onto her tongue, she swallowed them back again, bit her lip, and thought for a few seconds. Then she said, “All right, then, I’ll go with you.”

  The other two players were already seated at the table waiting; one was the steward, Chen Zuowen, but she didn’t know the other one. Coral introduced him as a doctor. The man wore gold-rimmed glasses; his complexion was quite swarthy, but his lips were moist, crimson, and softly expressive in a feminine manner. Lotus had seen him going in and out of Coral’s room before and, for some unknown reason, could not believe he was a doctor.

  Lotus was quite absentminded as she sat at the mah-jongg table; she really could not play very well and listened, bewildered, as they shouted out, “My game,” and “Just the tile I needed.” All she did was shell out money, and gradually she began to feel bad about it. Finally she said, “My head aches, I need a little rest.”

  Coral said, “Once you sit down, you have to play eight rounds—that’s the rule. You’re probably feeling bad about your losses.” Chen Zuowen chimed in, “It doesn’t matter, to lose a little money wards off many calamities.” Coral retorted, “Just consider that tonight you’re doing Cloud a favor; she’s been terribly bored lately. Loan the old man to her for one night and let her give you back the money you lose.”

  The two men at the table began to laugh. Lotus laughed and said, “Coral, you really know how to amuse people.” But in her heart she felt like she’d just swallowed a hornet.

  Lotus coldly observed the flirtatious glances passing between Coral and the doctor; she felt that nothing could escape her intuitive understanding. A tile fell off the table while they were being shuffled, and when Lotus bent down to pick it up she discovered that their four legs were wrapped in a tight embrace; they separated quite quickly and naturally, but Lotus definitely saw what they were doing.

  Her expression did not change, but she did not look directly at Coral and the doctor’s faces any longer. At that moment her emotions were very complicated; she was a little apprehensive, a little nervous, and also a little exultant at finding them out. “Coral,” she thought to herself, “you’re living too freely, too brazenly.”

  IN THE AUTUMN there were many times when the sky outside her window was dark and damp as a fine rain fell unceasingly onto the garden, splashing off the aspen and pomegranate leaves with a sound like shattering jade. At times like those Lotus would sit by the window, wearily staring at a handkerchief hanging on the clothesline being drenched by the rain; her feelings at the time were turbulent and complex, and some of her thoughts were so personal she could not reveal them to anyone.

  She simply could not understand why every time it was dark and rainy her sexual desires were heightened. Chen Zuoqian was incapable of noticing how the weather affected her physiology; he could only feel embarrassed at his inability to keep up with her. He’d say, “Age is unforgiving, and I can’t stand using aphrodisiacs like three-whip spirit ointment.” He caressed Lotus’s warm, pink flesh until countless little frissons of desire pulsated just under her skin. His hands gradually grew wild in their movements, and his tongue also began to caress her body. Lotus lay sideways on the sofa; with her eyes closed and her face flushed, she listened to the pearls of rain crashing onto the window, and spoke in a low moan, “It’s all because of the cold rain.”

  Chen Zuoqian did not hear her clearly. “What did you say? Gold chain?”

  “Yes,” Lotus lied, “gold chain; I want a beautiful gold chain necklace.”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “There’s nothing you want that I won’t give you, but whatever you do, don’t tell the others.”

  Lotus rolled over and sat up quickly. “The others? Who the hell are they? I don’t give a damn about them.”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “Yes, of course, none of them can compare with you.” He saw Lotus’s expression change rapidly; she pushed him away, quickly slipped on her underclothes, and walked over to the window. Chen Zuoqian asked what was wrong. Lotus turned her head back and said with slightly veiled resentment, “I don’t feel like it now. Why did you have to start talking about them?”

  Chen Zuoqian stood sullenly beside Lotus and watched the rain fall­ing outside the window. At times like those the entire world was unbearably damp. The garden was completely empty; the leaves on the trees were green and cold; in the far corner the wisteria vine swaying in the wind took on the appearance of a person. Lotus remembered the well and some of the stories she’d heard about it. She said, “This garden is a little spooky.”

  “What do you mean, ‘spooky’?” Chen Zuoqian asked.

  Lotus just pursed her lips and faced the wisteria vine. “You know, it’s that well.”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “A couple of people died in that well, that’s all; jumped in and committed suicide.”

  Lotus asked, “Who was it who died?”

  Chen Zuoqian answered, “You don’t know them, anyway; a couple of family members from earlier generations.”

  Lotus said, “I suppose they were concubines.”

  Chen Zuoqian’s expression immediately grew severe. “Who told you that?”

  Lotus laughed and said, “No one told me. I saw for myself. I walked over to the side of that well and immediately saw two women floating on the bottom; one of them looked like me, and the other one also looked like me.”

  Chen Zuoqian said, “Don’t talk nonsense, and don’t go there anymore.”

  Lotus clapped her hands and said, “That’s no good; I still haven’t asked those two ghosts why they threw themselves into the well.”

  “Why would you have to ask?” said Chen Zuoqian. “It could only be because of some filthy affair.”

  Lotus was silent for a long time and then suddenly burst out, “No wonder
there are so many wells in this garden. They were dug for people to throw themselves into to commit suicide.”

  Chen Zuoqian put his arm around Lotus. “You’re talking crazier all the time. Don’t go on imagining things like that.” As he spoke, he took hold of Lotus’s hand and made her rub him down there. “He’s ready again now, come on; if I die in your bed, I’ll be perfectly happy.”

  In the garden the autumn rain was bleak and dreary, and for that reason their lovemaking had an aura of death about it. Everything that came before Lotus’s eyes was black; only a few daisies on her dressing table emitted a faint red glow. When she heard a noise outside the door, she grabbed a perfume bottle close at hand and threw it in that direction. Chen Zuoqian said, “What’s the matter now?”

  Lotus answered, “She’s spying on us.”

  “Who’s spying?”

  “Swallow.”

  Chen Zuoqian laughed. “What’s there to see? And besides, she can’t see us anyway.”

  Lotus replied in a severe tone, “Don’t defend her; I can smell that slut’s foul odor from miles away.”

  AT DUSK A crowd of people were sitting around in a circle in the garden listening to Feipu play a bamboo flute. Dressed in a silk shirt and silk pants, Feipu looked even more elegant and charming. He sat in the middle holding the flute while his listeners, for the most part his business companions, sat around in a circle. That crowd of people had become the center of attraction for everyone in the Chen household. The servants whispered back and forth as they stood on the porches observing them from afar. The rest of the people inside the rooms could hear the sound of Feipu’s wooden flute through the windows, like the faint sound of gently flowing water; no one could ignore that sound.

  Lotus was frequently very moved by the sound of Feipu’s flute, sometimes so much that tears rolled down her cheeks. She wanted very much to sit down with that crowd of men and be much closer to Feipu. When Feipu took up his flute, he reminded her of a young man at college who used to sit alone in an empty room playing a zither; she could not remember that young man’s face very clearly and did not have any hidden, secret affection for him. But she was easily transported by that sort of exquisitely beautiful scene; her emotions flowed forth like ripples on an autumn stream. She hesitated quite a while, then moved a rattan chair out onto the porch, sat down, and quietly listened to Feipu’s playing. It was not long before the sound of the flute grew still and was replaced by the voices of the men talking. Lotus immediately felt it most uninteresting, and she thought to herself, “Talking is such a bore; it’s nothing more than you lying to me and me cheating you; as soon as people start talking, they put on a hypocritical display of affection.”