All the Flowers in Shanghai (11 page)

He looked at me and winked again. I felt a warmth behind his words that surprised me. This was the first time I realized that when his family was not observing him, Xiong Fa did not follow them and could behave differently. That night he was gentle and thoughtful toward me. I was nervous and held my breath to stop shaking; I closed my eyes very briefly, perhaps in their presence he forces himself to become more like them: proud, aggressive, and frightening.

“I will serve First Wife properly.” I tried to sound confident looking up at him.

“Good. And please, do not drink anymore.” He laughed.

We walked down to the end of the hall together and knelt before my parents-in-law to serve them tea again. People clapped and cheered as we did this and I felt relieved to have completed one of my duties correctly. I saw Yan standing at the back, watching me and smiling, and did not feel so lonely. There was at least someone here for me. After the second tea ceremony, my parents-in-law and Ma and Ba gave us another large
li shi
. After this I had another change of dress and went to rest.

I stood at the window of my apartment, which was a large room with a big four-poster bed and two overstuffed armchairs. There was a dressing table near the window and a deep walk-in wardrobe behind it. The room looked out across the courtyard to the door through which I’d entered in the palanquin. There was a light rain falling and the dark marble of the courtyard glistened like wet leather. Everything there stood in its correct place: the stone lions at each corner, guards posted to either side of the gate, and a huge Qinghua crock with large golden koi swimming in it. The large ceramic pond was the axis of good luck around which this perfect world turned. Everything here was completely still and in perfect symmetry, only the remaining unopened boxes disturbed its neatness, but they would soon be gone. The rest of the house was swarming with family and guests but once the celebrations were finished, it, too, would be required to be as ordered as that courtyard.

I stared at a guard to see if he would move, until Yan came in to help me dress for the banquet. The man did not move a muscle. Yan got me ready in silence. Then, as she was passing me my jewelry, she took my hand.

“Remember what I told you this morning.”

I nodded. My hand rested in hers momentarily and then she let go.

During the previous night I had not noticed that the banquet hall was so long; it was the largest room I had ever seen. I had never imagined a space like this inside someone’s home. The room was decorated Western-style with a huge chandelier at the center of the ceiling and a stage at one end where a group of musicians played music similar to the tunes I had once heard Sister singing. Thinking of her playfully singing to herself late at night was the first happy memory I’d had of her since she had died. It should have been her walking the varnished wooden floor to sit at the head table with her parents-in-law; it should have been her being examined from every side. She would not have suffered from their scrutiny or felt any loneliness among these hundreds of people. She would have enslaved them all, and I would not even have been invited. I would have been safe at home with Grandfather.

My husband beckoned me to sit first and moved my chair for me. I was not sure if I should sit down before him, this could be a test to see if I knew my manners, but he nodded to indicate I should. He took his own place at the table and there was then a toast to Xiong Fa and myself, after which came a huge roar that was very exciting. It was as though everyone agreed with the marriage and had accepted me.

We were sitting with my father-in-law, First Wife, Second Wife, Ba, and Ma, and other relatives of my parents-in-law. I remembered what Xiong Fa had told me, and when the food arrived he nodded to me. It was all beautifully presented. I decided on a piece of fish as it looked the most delicately prepared dish. I took it in my chopsticks and placed it on First Wife’s plate. Second Wife looked at it closely.

“Jie, look at the piece the girl selected for you to eat! Look at those bones—she wants to choke you already and does not even know yet how bad you can be.” She giggled.

I blushed and felt my cheeks burn.

“That is all right. Now you should take a piece.” First Wife gestured to me to take some fish.

I took a piece from near the tail, which I thought would show them that I was not greedy and was leaving the best pieces to them.

“She should have chosen a better piece though she may not know the difference,” a frowning Second Wife noted to First Wife.

“Well, we expected it. You saw the size of her feet and those huge muscles on her legs? She is like a fisherman’s wife,” First Wife commented.

I wished I could have been. My excitement turned to fear again as I began to understand the nature of this family and what had now happened to me. I wished myself anywhere but there, though I had not yet found the words to express this.

For the rest of the meal I continued to eat modest portions of all the dishes. At the end of the banquet, after more toasts, my husband escorted me back to my room accompanied by Yan. The next day would be the last day of the wedding ceremony and then I would be living in my new home as First Wife of the eldest son of the Sang family. It was what Sister had been brought up to achieve, her place.

I sat in my room looking at myself in the mirror while Yan worked around me. I looked hard, past the makeup and artificial glaze I had been given, and saw another face. Your face, I know that now. I looked at it for a long time. I wish the image had stayed with me longer, for every day afterward, but gradually it faded away in the anger and pain to come. I wished it had stayed with me always.

I will tell you now about your great-great-grandfather Sang. About forty years before this, he came from Hebei Province and started a business selling goods from Shanghai port and taking them into the interior provinces and cities. People in the center of China loved to own exotic things from the West as well as India, Malaya, and Java. He built a big business, bought ships and offices, then constructed a palatial home for all the members of his family. Having worked hard and suffered much, he constructed the huge Sang house to keep his family safe from all the difficulties he had endured. Now the same building that had offered them security kept his progeny isolated from the rest of the suffering world.

I did not want the security of this house; it was not built for me. I wanted to leave there and then, change back into my simple clothes, and run outside. I wanted to find Bi and ask him to hold my hand. I wanted to watch him catch fish and tell him the names of all the flowers, as Grandfather had taught me.

Sleeping in my new bed, I realized that my old one at home had been that of a child whereas this was meant for an adult woman. I felt lost lying in it. It was too big for one person, made from rose and walnut wood with little scallop-shaped patterns in the grain. My new family had given me silks, gold, jewelry, and other wonderful things; so many things I had never thought about before. Ma would have appreciated them so much more than I, but they were nothing compared to the achievement of the most important aim in her life, the thing that best defined her as a wife and mother. There was nothing here I wanted, but I knew that by acquiring it all for myself I had been a good daughter to her, the best, and that was all that ever actually mattered. Our family had kept face and, by association, gained position.

Yan broke the silence.

“Tomorrow is the final ceremony. After this you will be part of the Sang family. From tomorrow your husband may decide to spend the night with you in your room.”

She could see I did not understand the implication, so she came closer to me and sat down on a stool next to the bed. I was still young but felt humiliated by my ignorance; that a maid knew something I did not. In my embarrassment and confusion I snapped: “It is not correct for a servant to sit so close. You should not do this.”

Yan did not appear shocked by my reaction, but stayed where she was. Tears started to roll down my cheeks. Still she remained seated.

“You must leave, it is not right that you speak to me like this. Do not do it again,” I said petulantly.

She did not move but another maid knocked at the door and entered.

“Can I do anything for you, mistress?”

“No,” I said, more calmly. “Everything is fine. I have just woken up from bad dreams. I was startled, that is all.”

Yan waited patiently for me to stop crying before she left me for the night. I lay there alone at last, scared of all the things I did not know and fearful of all the unknown things that could yet happen to me.

Y
an woke me early to dress for the final day. We took it slowly and she was gentle with me. Once she had bathed me she started to brush my hair, talking to me in a soft voice as if reading a bedtime story to a child.

“My husband was an Imperial guard. He was not very senior and was stationed in a port in the north. You will not remember but the country was at war with itself then and many people challenged the Emperor. There were warlords, bandits, and foreigners everywhere, all threatening his rule. In the beginning we lived in the barracks but then when my husband was promoted we moved to a small house in the countryside where we had a small farm.

“He was a quiet man and though his life was one of fighting and war, when we were together it was always very peaceful. He never mentioned his job, the things he saw and did. We would just work together, planting, harvesting, and looking after our house. When he came home we rarely left each other’s side. I loved him very much. Then, after eleven years of marriage, he was killed by a gang of bandits who were trying to steal a shipment of foreign goods he was guarding.

“With so much horror in his life, I always felt that our life together was threatened, that it would suddenly come to an end one day. I didn’t think it would last as long as it did. We weren’t lucky like your parents, we never had children to look after us. There wasn’t much after he was gone and I couldn’t keep the farm on my own, so I stopped and came to Shanghai.” She paused here and sighed. “I wanted to work for people who still had a future and a life before them. Now I look after you. Maybe my luck has changed.” I looked up at her reflection in the mirror and saw her smiling at me; then she continued brushing my hair.

“Do you think I’ll love my husband like you loved yours?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“I don’t know. He’s not a bad man, but he’s the son of his parents. You must do what he says, but always keep a place for yourself.”

I thought hard for a while and realized what she meant.

“I think I once had such a place.”

“You must try to keep it, even if it is only in your imagination and your dreams.”

She finished brushing and went to collect my dress. It was the only one hanging in my wardrobe as yet. I sat in my
du dou
, looking at myself in the mirror again. Yan had combed my waist-length hair and put it up. I still had not become used to looking at myself like this; was not accustomed to seeing my semi-naked body, my bare skin, the shape of my neck, my red lips made up in the Qing style and the makeup on my cheeks. I felt cold and did not recognize myself. I looked like an adult. I looked like a wife.

In the hall again, we knelt down to serve tea to my new family once more. Again, we were given many different and expensive gifts. My father-in-law demanded that ceremonies were performed repeatedly and exactly. Customs must be observed correctly, he believed, because they then brought people luck, and luck brought wealth and long life. He was the guardian of his family’s history and future, and my father-in-law would do all that was required to avoid any damage to that legacy. Ma had told me before the wedding that I was only able to marry into such a family because Sister before me had followed every rule, every point of etiquette, correctly and meticulously. Nothing she did could ever have been questioned or left open to interpretation. It had all been perfect.

This time Ma and Ba stood in the background while my new family made the toasts. Ma smiled and talked to everyone, whether they greeted her or not. It was the beginning of her new life in Society by association. From now on, she would rise in her own social circle by telling people into which family her daughter had married. If they heard nothing else, she would make sure they heard the family name. But she would never be welcomed here.

For Ba it marked an ending rather than a beginning. We would see each other only once and after that I would hear little news of him. I was told he spent most of his time with Grandfather, continuing to work as an architect with a building company as the loans he had taken out over the years needed repaying. He had helped Ma achieve her grand aim and with that satisfied, his life was quiet.

Like many people who feel that the world is inherently good, Ba did not worry about the future but believed that matters would resolve themselves for the best. He had originally married Ma believing that she would live with him in the unambitious yet comfortable way that he enjoyed. He did not wish to be continually tested, to have demands made on him. He was too tired. As Grandfather had loved the botanical world so Ba had loved the urban life with its constant distractions of dances and tea parties, banquets and drinks after work. But he did not aspire to be at the center of it all. For him it was enough to enjoy the spectacle from the fringes, which he felt to be his rightful place.

Ma loved to accompany him to the occasional lavish event they were invited to, but Ba had never deceived himself that they belonged there, as she had. She wanted it but he knew no one would give them face; that perhaps people even laughed behind his back because his clothes were not as tailored as theirs and his ideas and ambitions not as grand. He accepted this, and had been wise enough to keep his distance from the great and the good, careful never to step over the boundaries he had set for himself. He was tempted and others tempted him, sometimes genuinely wanting him to join them and at other times to goad and to belittle him. But he had managed to keep a clear and realistic view of his situation and to avoid costly social complications and consequences—until he was overwhelmed by the scale of Ma’s ambition for Sister.