Good Chinese Wife

by Susan Blumberg-Kason

  After Mama and Baba resurfaced from their nap, Cai pulled a thin paperback book titled Beijingers in New York from his father’s bookshelf.

  “Until we get to Shanghai, you can read this book. I think you’ll like it.” He handed it to me and massaged my shoulders lovingly.

  The novel was printed in Chinese on rough gray paper, scattered with simple sketches of scenes from the story. In college I had once tried to read Jane Eyre in Chinese but didn’t get past page thirty. Beijingers in New York would certainly last me until we reached Shanghai.

  Chapter 11

  Sojourn in Shanghai

  On my first trip to China, my high school group visited Beijing, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, and Shanghai. It was June 1988, twelve years after Mao died, nine years after the United States and China restored relations, and one year before the tragedy at Tiananmen Square. It was also four years after China and Great Britain signed the Joint Declaration that paved the way for Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. As a recent high school graduate, I only sensed part of this history, but I could feel that China was in the throes of change.

  Shanghai was our last stop that June. It was supposed to be Hong Kong, but the cost to include that city was so exorbitant that it would have rendered the trip unaffordable for our group of six students and nine teachers. After two weeks in a Beijing Soviet-built hotel and rudimentary university dormitories in smaller cities, we arrived in Shanghai. It seemed like another country. Although the city was a skeleton of what it is today, back then it had an understated charm that was apparent in the colonial architecture along the Bund, or Huangpu River waterfront.

  People got around by riding bicycles or long, accordion buses, but they carried themselves with a sophistication I hadn’t seen before, even in Beijing. We stayed at the international students’ dormitory at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, housed in the old French Concession. A few years after that trip, I returned to Shanghai for a week with my father to visit two of his students’ families. We stayed with one in their urban apartment, the tall ceilings and frayed French windows a gentle reminder of the opulent years before 1949.

  I was anxious to return to Shanghai with Cai the summer we married. When it came time to bid Mama and Baba farewell after a month and a half, I didn’t look back. To reach Shanghai from Hubei province, Cai booked us passage on a two-day boat ride, embarking from Wuhan, that would sail down the Yangtze River to the City on the Sea.

  “It’ll be nice for you to experience China by boat,” he said. “You can’t see the same areas when you fly or take the train.”

  It sounded like a good idea when he suggested it. I pictured a romantic journey as the lone Western woman among hundreds of Chinese, bound for Shanghai. When we boarded the boat, the rails were packed with passengers waving good-bye to their families and friends on the ancient dock below. I felt like I was on location for a film set during the Nationalists’ flight from China’s coastal cities for the safety of Taiwan as the Communists took over in 1949. The romance of this thought fluttered away as I stepped over passengers camped across the steerage floors.

  Cai gripped my hand, leading me through the masses to the bare floors of second class—the most luxurious section in China at the time. The concept of first class was still taboo, because back then people were supposed to be equal in China, regardless of profession or family background. Our portion of the boat consisted of two dozen berths, each with two beds, and two Western-style toilets to be shared by all second-class passengers. Cai and I occupied a couple of metal chairs outside our berth, seated along a railing overlooking the mighty Yangtze. To pass the time, I flipped through my Chinese-English dictionary, trying to decipher the many characters I didn’t recognize in Beijingers in New York. Cai chatted casually with a middle-aged man and his twentysomething daughter from the berth next door.

  As the sun began to set across the Yangtze, I took leave to find the bathroom just inside an interior corridor. When I opened the door to the first Western bathroom, I saw pieces of brown paper towel floating in the toilet. I checked the second, but that door was locked. On it hung a handwritten sign that read, “Closed for repair.” I returned to the first toilet. At closer glance, I noticed muddy footprints on the toilet seat rim. Though I never sat on public toilets, this time I took extra care to squat as far from the seat as possible.

  After nightfall, I returned to the one functioning toilet, but discovered it, too, now had a repair sign on the door. Both toilets were out of order.

  I had no problem using the squat toilet at Mama and Baba’s apartment, or even the grungy, rust-covered one at the dilapidated apartment Cai still kept in Wuhan. But how would I manage the squat toilets used by five hundred people in steerage? There must be another Western bathroom we didn’t know about. I ran-walked back outside to find Cai and our neighbors, the father and daughter, still sitting on lawn chairs on the deck, which was illuminated by dull, bare lightbulbs hanging outside our rooms.

  “Cai.” I tried to catch my breath. “The two toilets are both out of order now. Is there another Western one somewhere else?”

  “No, those are it.” He stood up and caressed my shoulders. “You’ll have to use the main cabin toilets. They’re going to be terrible. I’m sorry.”

  What choice did I have?

  “Do you want me to walk you there?” he asked, taking my hands in his.

  I looked out onto the dark river. The smell of burning fuel and rotten fish further punctured my idyllic vision of this voyage. He couldn’t go into the ladies’ room with me, so there was no point in him leaving our cabin. “It’s okay. I can find it.”

  The steerage corridors had transformed since we’d boarded that afternoon. They were still teeming with standing-room-only passengers, but now some had rolled out thin bamboo mats and were resting on those, while others were curled up on newspapers they had spread out. I followed my nose to the toilets. As the stench grew stronger, I knew I was getting closer.

  Inside the windowless ladies’ room, I was besieged by a dozen eyes peering at me from the troughlike lavatory. The room was illuminated by a tube of head-splitting fluorescent light. I slunk to the very back of the trough so as not to draw attention to myself. Divided by three-foot-high wooden partitions, the toilet was accessed via narrow, wooden horizontal planks, to be straddled while running water and human waste flowed down the center. I didn’t dare breathe deeply; I opened my mouth just enough for the bare minimum of stagnant air to creep in. Practically gagged, I tugged my pants down, trying to balance without holding on to the partition in front of me, all while the boat rocked gently back and forth on the Yangtze.

  Quickly rinsing my hands with icy water—there was no soap—I hightailed it out of there. As I made my way back to Cai, I heard passengers rudely commenting on my long nose and ghostlike skin. But those voices quickly faded as I returned to the tranquility of the second-class cabin where Cai greeted me with a wide, understanding smile, enveloping me in his arms and planting a kiss on my head of tousled curls.

  “You’re really a hao tóngzhì, a good comrade.”

  • • •

  Once in Shanghai, Cai and I strolled hand in hand along the Bund. With its familiar Hong Kong drugstores and colonial architecture, Shanghai still seemed the oasis of civilization I had remembered from my two previous trips. I soaked in views of the tree-lined avenues and tattered mansions of the former French Concession. And I felt at home along the quiet elegance of once-sophisticated Huaihai Road, which in my romantic daydreams I still thought of as the pre-1949 Avenue Joffre, where trams cruised down the center of the street, and Chinese and Europeans shopped together in Jewish Russian-owned clothing boutiques.

  For the first time all summer, I found and bought postcards for friends and family in Hong Kong and the United States. Cai reserved us a room at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music’s international student dormitory, the same building where I had stayed during m
y first trip in 1988. Coincidentally, that was also the summer Cai had finished an exchange semester at the Shanghai Conservatory. Much to my dismay, we would only spend one night in Shanghai before heading on to Suzhou so he could start his dissertation fieldwork in Taoist ritual music.

  Rain descended upon the city that evening like a much-needed shower. Cai and I hailed a pedicab to the art deco Cathay cinema, where we saw the romantic Hong Kong film Red Rose, White Rose. It all seemed so lavish compared to six weeks in Hidden River and that stinky boat ride. I felt like a privileged honeymooner, even though we had already been married for three months and had our one-night honeymoon in Hong Kong the night of our civil ceremony. I drifted off to sleep that night feeling content for the first time since we arrived in China that summer.

  I could easily have spent another two weeks at the Conservatory, exploring the remnants of Old Shanghai. We had only covered a small part of the city the day before. But it was out of my hands because Cai’s professors were awaiting our arrival in Suzhou. The plus side of leaving Shanghai so soon was that I’d finally be able to visit the foreign language bookstore near the train station. Besides the arrival of my family from the United States and my wedding banquet later that month (different from the small ceremony in Hong Kong three months before), I’d been looking forward to this day the most.

  At the Shanghai Railway Station the next morning, Cai worked his way to an outside ticket window, blending easily into the crowds, while I stood in the plaza. Car exhaust and an open sewer assaulted my senses, but I didn’t care. I scanned the surrounding buildings, which were dwarfed by a red banner promoting a better tomorrow. It didn’t take long for me to locate the foreign language bookstore housed in a blocky, concrete, Soviet-era building. I’d only need ten minutes.

  But when Cai returned from the ticket window, his tense eyes focused not on me, but beyond where I stood, toward the red Chinese character banner above the station entrance. Had he run into a problem buying tickets? Foreigners paid a higher price for many things, including train and plane fare. Perhaps the ticket seller had charged him an outrageously inflated price for my ticket. Or maybe she’d scolded him for marrying a foreigner. Something wasn’t right.

  “Haole, zou ba.” He sounded as though we were running late and nodded toward the station entrance. Let’s go.

  I stood still. “Aren’t we going to the bookstore?” It didn’t seem possible, but perhaps he’d forgotten about it.

  “No time. Our train leaves in fifteen minutes.” He looked toward the entrance and took off the White Sox cap he had bought in Hong Kong, shoving it into his fake-leather shoulder bag.

  The weight of Shanghai’s humidity descended on me like the abrupt summer monsoons in Hong Kong. Nothing unusual had happened at the ticket window. Cai simply couldn’t be bothered to go to the bookstore. Didn’t he remember how he had suggested it back in Hidden River? I continued to stand in place, my shoulders bent like a woman in mourning.

  “We’ve been talking about it for weeks,” I said more to myself than to Cai.

  He turned toward me, his lips nearly vanishing. “Susan, you have to think less about yourself all the time. You can’t always get what you want. This is China. My professors will be waiting for us, and we need to get to Suzhou. Let’s go.”

  The scalding Shanghai heat couldn’t compete with the hot flush that spread over my face. Where was this coming from? He had never raised his voice to me. One of the world’s largest cities, Shanghai back then only had two or three foreign bookstores. Considering this, how hard would it be to let me do the one thing I asked for—to spend a few minutes in the bookstore, especially since I’d never asked for anything else these past six weeks?

  Surely there was a later train that would still get us to Suzhou in time. There were probably a few such trains. I stared at the ground of the station plaza, afraid I’d cry if I looked him in the eye. Cai exhaled an annoyed sigh and started for the entrance, fading into the throngs that moved en masse like an unstoppable, unthinking herd. Much as I hated to allow this behavior, I had no choice but to follow. He held our passports and our money.

  Chapter 12

  The Train to Suzhou

  The eleven forty to Suzhou crept along the tracks, chugging away from the hazy Shanghai skyline. I sat on a hard seat sandwiched between two young Chinese men, our legs touching. As the train picked up speed, I felt desperately alone among the hundred travelers pouring into the aisles. Holding back tears, I turned to Beijingers in New York. The clunky characters seemed more foreign than usual. I flipped through my tattered red Chinese-English dictionary with trembling hands, balancing the novel on my lap.

  Seated opposite, Cai stared out the window, his almond eyes full of displeasure. A loud belch from a woman across the aisle distracted me from his icy glare, but only for a moment. He seemed furious with me for a reason I couldn’t fathom. In the middle of all these people, I couldn’t possibly start a scene with Cai.

  Was my tone of voice too harsh back at the train station? Was it wrong of me to ask about the bookstore? And if either or both were true, couldn’t he at least tell me that rather than pretend he didn’t know me?

  A middle-aged woman in a physician’s white coat and matching floppy surgical hat entered our car, pushing a metal cart piled high with Styrofoam-boxed lunches. All around, passengers stepped up to the cart, ordering a lunch of pork ribs, boiled cabbage, and steamed rice. Even if I consented to eat pork, I wouldn’t be able to order one because I didn’t have a single Chinese yuan. Cai kept our cash and passports in his money belt.

  Without so much as glancing in my direction, Cai paid for one lunch. “Yī,” he said. One. He slurped his rice from a plastic spoon as the lunch lady moved through the car. If we’d been on normal terms, I could picture Cai handing me a lunch with both hands and apologizing that the meal contained pork. He’d ask if I could eat the rice and cabbage for now, and would promise that we’d find something else after arriving at our destination.

  But he remained silent. When was Cai going to look at me again? I just hoped he’d snap out of it by the time we reached Suzhou.

  • • •

  After the grueling train ride to Suzhou, Cai’s eyes lit up as we approached the administrative offices of the Temple of Mystery, or Xuánmiào Guān. The building stood on a dusty Suzhou street with heavy bicycle traffic and appeared to be a colorful remnant of the prerevolutionary era, before chunky, gray Stalinist-style architecture became commonplace. Without speaking to me, Cai entered the temple first. A young receptionist led us to a typical Chinese receiving area with a large boardroom table and oversized chairs draped with faded, white crocheted antimacassars. A narrow air-conditioning unit hummed in a corner. Soon the temple leader and administrative staff filed into the room.

  “I heard from your professors, Xiao Cai. They should be here in a few hours. Dr. Tsang will arrive this evening.” The Taoist leader called Cai “little” in reference to his young age of thirty-three.

  We could have gone to the bookstore in Shanghai after all. I bit my lower lip as two office ladies served us hot tea, even though the outside temperatures had reached the low nineties. Carefully lifting the lid off the tall, white porcelain mug, I saw dozens of long, thin, green tea leaves floating in the steaming liquid. The staff greeted me like a familiar friend and complimented my Mandarin. “Zhōngguó xíguàn ma?” An older female asked if I’d acclimated to China.

  After Cai’s silent treatment on the train, I didn’t know what to think about living in China. Cai never acted this way in Hong Kong. Was he nervous about working as a peer now with his revered professors? And why had he allowed me to sit mutely by his side as he played cards with his friends all those weeks in Hidden River? Glancing around the room, I understood that I couldn’t speak up. The temple staff knew Cai and his academic reputation. I was just a foreigner, an outsider, a stranger.

  “She’s not accustomed to e
verything,” Cai chortled without looking at me, as if sensing my hesitation. “But she’s trying.”

  • • •

  As soon as we took leave of our hosts and went to find our room in the guesthouse next door, Cai reverted to his cold, commanding demeanor. Sulking, he entered the room first, stepping onto thin, red carpeting covered with black splotches. It looked like someone had purposely poked lit cigarettes into it. Guesthouses were bare-boned accommodations reserved for Chinese citizens only.

  Because I was married to Cai, I was allowed to stay with him as long as we presented our marriage certificate to the manager. But had I been married to a non-Chinese, we wouldn’t have had to show proof of marriage to stay at a hotel. The Chinese government didn’t allow its citizens to cohabitate with people of the opposite sex other than their spouses, in theory, but didn’t care what non-Chinese couples did.

  “We’re going to find something to eat.” Cai broke his silence, his eyes still full of contempt.

  How long could he keep this up?

  I followed him outside to a symphony of bicycle bells. The cyclists pedaled in rows of six, all keeping a constant rhythm. We dodged bikes in both directions under the singeing midafternoon sun and entered a small restaurant across the street. Except for two waitresses, we were alone.

  “You have to eat now.” Cai spoke as though granting a prisoner’s reprieve.

  A dusty clock on an oil-stained wall read three o’clock. I hadn’t eaten since before we left Shanghai, but my stomach still felt twisted. I sat in silence, afraid to make eye contact with Cai.