All the Flowers in Shanghai (31 page)

I remembered sitting in this doorway watching the seamstress at work, surrounded by red silk, her head bowed over the material, scissors and chalk by her left side, her long white neck shadowed by her heavy black hair tucked up in a bun. Next to the scissors and chalk, the thread pulled from the bobbin, first taut then relaxing, alternating seemingly forever as her hand swayed and stitched the cloth together or created embroidered images. Her work had breathed life into the mannequin, lending it bone, blood, and flesh almost. If someone could have taken such care over me I would have become someone new, the most dignified and graceful woman, someone who would never have done harm.

She was not to know what her dress would mean to me; she had been asked to create something magnificent and fine, that would last, and it was so. It was only in our hands that it became soiled and malignant. We had created nothing beautiful, just wretchedness and ugliness. I could not return to you, Lu Meng, Xiong Fa, or Yan. What would I say to you? Would it help? Would it make everything better? How would I ask forgiveness for something I knew was unforgivable?

You would ask me why, Xiong Fa would ask me why, and I would not be able to explain to you for there was nothing to say except: I did what I could not stop myself from doing. Now, unlike Ba, Ma, Father-in-law, Sister, and even Grandfather, I had seen and understood what pain I had caused.

“Should I kill myself?” I screamed at the mannequin.

I sat and wept then. Choosing death would be cowardice, I knew that. Like Grandfather leaving me; like Ba not preventing Ma from agreeing to my marriage; like Ma not stopping herself from wanting what she believed she deserved, no matter what it cost others. But out of all this unrelenting selfishness came two good things, you and Lu Meng, and without me you could both escape the shadows, to live better lives. The past had poisoned the future for long enough.

I got up and walked over to the mannequin. In the center of the room I stood on the rubble of the fallen ceiling, looking at the stars through the hole in the roof. The night was chilly; I should go back to the fires in the gardens. I reached the mannequin and touched its surface. It was ripped and torn. I placed my hand against its padded breast. This rough, worn simulacrum of a human being had once been the most beautiful thing. I had kept the dress carefully preserved in one of my trunks; it was the only thing that remained from the time before. Suddenly I wanted to see once more the woman who had made it, and who had known the young girl she had altered it to fit.

I returned to the gardens where I huddled around the fire with the homeless people. The old man kindly lent me a blanket and I slept again.

I
awoke with the fixed idea that I would never return home. Whatever happened from now on, both my children were better off without me if all I had to offer them was anger and hatred. I had to escape. I would go to the seamstress, I decided, perhaps Bi might still live with her. There was nowhere else I could think of going.

I remembered clearly that Bi had come from Daochu town. Maybe I could take the train there. For many years there was a street of pawnbrokers near the railway station that had catered to new arrivals to the city. The Communists had shut down many of them but I had heard gossip of some of the wealthier families nowadays selling their possessions to the remaining black-market brokers. I had the jewelry I was wearing so I walked to the street to see if I could sell it.

I had not been outside so early in the morning since I was married. The city was alive at this hour. Ming was right, though, a huge change was coming. As I crossed the pawnbrokers’ street, a balding hollow-faced man beckoned me from a window on an upper floor. I nodded up to him and he stuck his arm out and pointed to an entrance below. The door was unmarked and the building itself looked deserted. I went in to find narrow unpolished stairs in front of me, the wooden treads worn by the passing of many feet. As I reached the first-floor landing, a door opened on the left.

“Please come in.” I saw that the hollow-faced man was short and thin, with dark, blemished skin.

I entered a dim unfurnished room from which a narrow passageway led to an unseen back room emitting the faint promise of daylight. The room we stood in was dark, the window boarded up. Light was provided by a few candles; the whole place looked empty and disused. There was nothing in it except for an empty counter made of mahogany. The man who had beckoned to me went around to the other side of this.

“What can I do for you, madam? You aren’t from this district.” The pawnbroker sounded polite and businesslike, but I felt very anxious.

“No . . . no, I’m not,” I replied.

He was a bony person but had a little potbelly, which strained the buttons of his white cotton shirt. He had a friendly smile that brightened his eyes under his bushy brows. His face reminded me of an ancient god’s, one of the fun-loving sort who liked to drink and eat. I started to take off my necklace, earrings, and rings.

“Please put them on the counter,” he requested, following this with a wide smile that brightened the room. I put the things on the counter in front of him.

These were expensive pieces and should fetch a lot of money, allowing me to travel, buy new clothes, and live for months—perhaps longer.

“I know these are valuable because I bought them myself. What will you give me for them?”

I could see the man knew what they were worth and wanted to let him know I was no fool, though my hands were shaking and my legs felt weak. I felt ashamed to find myself in a transaction of this sort, eager for his money where once the shopkeepers had been eager for mine.

“Very nice pieces, madam,” the pawnbroker commented. Looking up at me, he noticed my unease. “Are you all right? You look as if you’re about to faint.”

“I’m well, thank you,” I answered, too quickly, and he screwed up his face in a show of concern. “Please, let’s just finish this?”

“Okay, as you wish, it’s up to you . . .” He looked at each piece in turn more closely, taking his time. “There are fewer and fewer pieces like this around. People are leaving the country and taking their best jewelry with them. What would you like for them?” He put the final piece down again.

“I would just like to sell them to you.”

“Leaving the country as well?”

“No, the city.”

“You’re going inland?” He laughed to himself and then sucked on his teeth to show that he doubted the wisdom of this. “Very brave of you. The countryside is wild and chaotic . . . I hear all sorts of strange things. Massive building projects . . . people working in huge farms . . . production lines making clothes, tools, and generators. I hear the women drive the tractors and the men pick rice. It’s all upside-down today. Not that a lady like you would be driving tractors, of course,” he joked, laughing a little nervously. “Well, let’s hope not yet.”

He looked down again at each piece and then played with the earrings between his finger and thumb, turning them around again and again.

“I will give you five hundred new renminbi and nine hundred American dollars. What about that?” he said, knowing that even with the foreign currency, he was getting the better deal. But I was in no position to bargain. “It’s a good deal, eh?” He gave his teeth a suck for emphasis.

“Yes, I agree. I will take it.”

I was desperate to leave, to get on the train to Daochu or just anywhere. I could not wander this city that was once my home, with everyone looking at me, staring and pointing. He brought out some paper and was about to wrap the money for safety, but I stopped him and took out a few notes. He wrapped the rest in a tight bundle and handed it to me.

“You should hide this, particularly on the trains. The Communists all say they are for the people, but many of them are hooligans and will steal from the same people they say they’re protecting, first chance they get.” He said this softly, as if he feared being overheard even in this empty room. “I wish you good luck, madam.”

He opened the door for me and I went out onto the narrow landing and looked down the empty stairs to the street door below. He watched me hesitate, reluctant to set foot there again. I seemed to have walked here in a daze, because, now that I listened to it, the noise coming from the street outside frightened me. It was loud and aggressive, heralding a new order in which I, and the Sangs, would have no place.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t go,” the pawnbroker said behind me. “It is dangerous out there for someone like you.”

Someone like me . . . what did he know about me and what I had done? I did not react to his comment but continued to stare at the door to the street.

In the face of my silence, his attitude suddenly changed.

“That’s the problem with your class . . . you’re all so arrogant. That’s why
they,
” he pointed down the stairs “ . . . want to teach you all a lesson. They have forced many of you to share your wealth—all your factories, businesses, and the other things you have—but next time they will take everything that’s left! They will take your sons, your . . .” As he talked he made himself quite agitated, but stopped himself; taking a breath, he bowed his head. “I’m sorry, madam.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I smiled at him. “Thank you very much for your help.” I looked down at the bundle of notes he’d given me.

He seemed to guess what I wanted to do next. “There’s a shop just next door . . . it sells cheap clothes for young Party cadres and zealous youngsters fresh in from the countryside, keen to join the Party. Buy yourself some clothes there and get rid of that expensive dress and foreigners’ shoes and hairstyle.”

“I will. And thank you again.”

“No need to say it. Good luck to you . . . I believe we’ll all need it. Remember, the Revolution is over, long live the Revolution.” He gave a bleak smile, stepped back inside, and closed the door firmly.

In the silence after his departure, I focused on the street outside. Among the masses of people walking to and from the station, I could hear young voices, calling for Shanghai workers to join them in constructing the new nation; to leave the cities and go to the countryside, working for the movement to build a new world order. I could hear chanting and singing about Chairman Mao and the new People’s Republic. The Revolution had come to an end, long live the Revolution!

The whole country had changed, and we families like the Sangs no longer had any idea what was happening around us. We had had everything we needed for so long, we had all but forgotten those who were the source of our wealth. We had turned our backs on them in order to maintain our narrow privileged existence, and now we would be made to pay for our neglect.

I descended the stairs, meaning to turn quickly into the shop next door, but was overwhelmed by the crush of people filling the street. I opened my eyes and saw the scene properly. Crowds of young people fresh from the countryside were pouring out of the train station. From their badges, posters, banners, and chants, they had been ordered by the Party to organize this movement to the cities and join the students there. The Party had sent many students to lead teams of “newly educated” peasants back to different parts of the new nation, to operate and run the State machinery that would build, feed, and clothe new China. Everyone must work to one end only. This was a huge unending mobilization, dedicated to nothing but movement itself. I saw young men and women painting slogans on the walls of buildings, ordering obedience, and posters covered the giant pillars of the station entrance on the opposite side of the road, calling for change and revolution. There were students addressing the people of Shanghai, requesting that they come out and join them at the station; others demanded the fall of Shanghai, saying that the Party must take control of the city. The sheer scale of the changes taking place around me was shocking. The people I had simply ignored were powerful now. Ming had warned me that this was coming, and I had not listened.

I hoped that Xiong Fa had made arrangements to save himself and the family, sacrificed the Sangs’ glorious past for a safe if less glorious future. Father-in-law would not have done it; it was not in the Chinese tradition to gamble with the past in order to secure the future. The old man would rather have burdened the future to maintain the past. I prayed that my husband would be more farsighted in providing for our children and the rest of the family. Then my mind strayed to thoughts of you and I began to panic, standing there, that these huge crowds around me all knew what I had done. In their own striving for purity of deed and thought, they would recognize me as a liar and a demon. I must leave this city and my shame, submerge myself in the new nation. Slide into nothingness and start again: learn to pay for my own survival.

I listened to more of the madness: the shouting and screaming, the hands and arms beckoning frenziedly, demanding people should join, work and fight, give over their minds and bodies to his cause and course: the Great Helmsman.

With my head bowed, I quickly entered the building the man had pointed out to me. As soon as I was inside it the people there jeered at me. It had once been a shop with shelves and a sales counter, but was now more of a general store—selling clothes to new supporters but supplying existing Party members for free. There were piles of plain white shirts, and trousers in dark blue and khaki green stacked on a table in the center of the room or piled in heaps on the floor. On shelves racked from floor to ceiling there were hundreds of pairs of rubber-soled shoes, slippers, and sandals, knapsacks and caps.

A young man standing behind the counter noticed me.

“Look here, a wealthy woman in tatters!”

Everybody cheered and laughed at the sight.

“This is what they deserve,” said another. “Let them wear nothing and suffer like we had to.”

The atmosphere was hostile, I did not feel safe, and yet these were just children—the same age as Lu Meng. There were some older people looking through the stacks of goods, but they went about their business quietly and unobtrusively. I sensed that, like me, they were interested purely in survival. They did nothing to attract attention, for even in that shop, as in the street outside, there seemed to be the constant threat that a spirit of frenzy would seize control of all these young bodies, taking possession of their mouths, arms, hands, legs, and feet, directing them against anyone at a moment’s notice.