Old Town (18 page)

They had a place to live in and food to eat. That was good enough for Second Sister. She reckoned that they could thus survive in this fool’s paradise until the end of the war. However, disaster always suddenly hits when people are least prepared for it.

Old Lady Guo now bickered with Second Brother’s woman every day. Countless times, she asked Second Sister to kick her out, but Second Sister would always be noncommittal and just let such talk go in one ear and out the other. It was nothing more than just one additional mouth to be fed, and every day another set of clothing to be cut.

How could she have known that this pair was fooling everybody and smoking opium? The county town’s one opium den was in a little alley just behind her tailor’s shop and they often followed right behind Second Sister when she went to work. She never had the slightest inkling of all this. She didn’t even know that they had already stolen the last three silver dollars she had sewn into her ragged quilted jacket and had smoked these away. They also stole the old lady’s few pieces of jewelry for the same purpose. They had begun to smoke on credit at the den, and then when they couldn’t get any more credit, they suddenly hit on an idea about Baohua. The woman told a landowner she had met there that the husband of her man’s older sister was a big official in Chongqing. As she told it, Second Sister was having a hard time as a refugee and wanted to find a good local family to take in her daughter as a child bride. Later on, when the war was over, the husband would return to formally recognize the marriage and help his son-in-law become an official in the capital, Nanjing. Three generations of that landowner’s family had hoped to become officials but had never succeeded in doing so. Now he in turn placed this hope on his own son. The moment he heard of this good thing, he immediately jumped up from his pallet and gladly agreed to the woman’s asking price of four silver dollars. Four silver dollars could buy ten girl children along the road who could work, so it was obvious how much the landlord expected from this marriage connection. Second Brother and the woman took the money and then returned home where they tricked Baohua. “Your ma is going to make you new clothes and wants you to go to the shop for a fitting.” Baohua was very fond of looking pretty and, when she heard that there would be new clothes to wear, she set off with them in high spirits.

Old Lady Guo had once joked that Baohua was always losing wash in the stream and that one day the girl would go floating off after it. This idle jest made Second Sister uneasy. Several days before, she had heard that there really had been a woman swept away while washing clothes. This so frightened her that she immediately and repeatedly gave the order that Baohua was not to go out to wash clothes.

The whole family was sitting around the table waiting for her to return so they could begin dinner. Only Baohua was missing. Second Sister’s heartbeat immediately quickened. “Did Baohua go out to do the wash?”

Baoqing said, “Big Sister went to your shop to try on new clothes.”

“Who’s given her new clothes?”

“Uncle said that you wanted to measure her for clothes.”

Perhaps those two were just feeling bored and took Baohua off somewhere to play. Second Sister sat down and started serving out the bowls of rice when on second thought she felt there was something wrong.
Why tell a lie if you’re just going somewhere for fun?

Fourth Brother then stammered out, “Tha…that…wo…man…took…the bun…bundle…”

She asked her mother, “Ma, did you give that woman another hard time?”

Fifth Brother said, “Today those two were nicer than ever. Second Brother even brought back a piece of sticky rice cake to show his respect to Mother.”

Cloth bundle, sticky rice cake, new clothes
…these few words spelled out a fearsome plot. Second Sister brought her bowl down with a heavy thud and rice gruel went spattering all over the table. “Something’s happened.”

The old lady said, “The farther away that woman goes, the better!”

Second Sister rushed to the little room next to the kitchen. Her brother’s and that woman’s clothes were nowhere to be seen. She rushed to her own room. She pulled out the cloth bundle from under her bedding and felt all around the old jacket. The coins were gone!

“Damn that cur and bitch!”

Never before had Second Sister blurted out such rough words. “Something’s happened! Something’s
really
happened!” Everybody threw down their chopsticks on the table and came crowding into her room. The old lady saw Second Sister clutching the jacket close to her and immediately realized just what that cur-bitch pair had done. She hobbled on her little feet over to the bed and opened the cloth bundle on the pillow and with trembling hands reached inside the pile of clothing. The several gold rings hidden within a red stomach binder had flown off without the aid of wings. The old lady flopped down on her rump and beat the sides of the bed. In a cracked voice like tearing silk, she cried out, “You should be slashed a thousand times, whore! You stole my son, you even stole my rings…my mother’s and my mother-in-law’s dowries!”

Second Sister yelled in a hard voice, “Stop crying, what are a few rings? Something’s happened to my Baohua! That woman’s sold her into a brothel!”

Total perdition had hit them, but Second Sister stayed calm and cool headed. She reflected that the county town was surrounded on three sides by mountains, so there was only one way to get out. She gave orders to Fourth Brother and Fifth Brother to go after them in that direction. Baosheng, gripping his slingshot, declared he wanted to go out after his older sister too. Second Sister herself rushed off to the county town with all the speed she could muster. There was a brothel in town called the Gorgeous Fragrance Mansion, whose lady boss had once had a
qipao
made at the tailor’s shop. This brothel was separated from the town by an ancient bridge. On her way to this bridge, Second Sister realized that Baoqing was by her side. Taking her little boy’s hand, she said through clenched teeth, “Son, we just have to find your sister!”

At the doorway of the Gorgeous Fragrance Mansion was a crowd of brothel sisters on the lookout for business. Because their faces would always be thickly caked with white powder, the local name for them was “little white faces.” Second Sister called out to one of these white faces, and, stuffing a small amount of money into the other’s hand, asked if today the madam had bought a little girl from Old Town. Little White Face put it this way:

“These days, ‘the monks are many, but the gruel’s scarce.’ The Mansion’s eight or ten girls aren’t pulling in two customers in a day, and the boss would like nothing better than to sell us. So how can you talk about someone new being bought?”

Second Sister only half-believed this, and went right in to look for the madam. But this one had the same story and, sucking on a water pipe, added lethargically, “Every day there’s always someone coming to sell me girls. They don’t want money, just a meal. In this way, I don’t keep anyone. So go look elsewhere, why don’t you?” Second Sister believed
this
. So Baohua was surely out on the road somewhere and maybe right now was crying and screaming to go home. Fourth Brother and the others would quickly catch up with her. Then she realized that a woman from a good home should get away as quickly as possible from a dirty place like this. Immediately she flushed red, and, pulling Baoqing by the hand, she ran from the Gorgeous Fragrance Mansion as if her very life depended on it.

Mother and son hurried along their way. By now, it had grown dark. A crescent moon over the mountain peaks shot forth its light with dazzling brightness, for it was almost Mid-Autumn Festival now. This would be the fourth Mid-Autumn Festival since Ninth Brother had gone off.
Oh, Ninth Brother, have you thought of how we have all suffered through these four years?

Baoqing, noticing his mother wiping away her tears, raised his little head up at her. “Ma, Elder Brother is sure to catch up with Sister. Don’t be so sad.”

Second Sister gripped her son’s hand, “Baoqing, your ma is thinking of Daddy. Do you still remember what Daddy was like?”

“I do. Daddy could ride a bicycle.”

“Son, when Daddy returns, we’ll get him to teach you how to ride one. When the time comes, both you and your big brother will ride your own bicycles to school.”

She looked up at the moon over the mountain.
Jesus, if you really are all-powerful, please tell Ninth Brother about all of this. Make him come home. I am just too tired now. My shoulders can’t carry all the people of this family
.

“Ma, Daddy has bought a bicycle up north. He’s riding it back home right now.”

Such words were clearly moved by the Holy Spirit. In her excitement, Second Sister stopped right there and squeezed her son to her breast. “Yes! Yes! Your ma sees!”

Baoqing was beside himself with joy at having made his mother happy. The two of them spoke about Daddy and bicycles as they hurried along. Following the mountain road, they went right through a little hamlet. Up ahead they could make out what looked like a few people on the road. Second Sister went up close and saw Fifth Brother lying on the ground, spitting out frothy saliva and panting for breath. Fourth Brother was by his side, distraught and agitated.

Fifth Brother’s epilepsy! Second Sister went up to him and pinched the midpoint of his upper lip. When he came to again, she remembered Baosheng. “Baosheng?”

Fourth Brother stuttered and stammered but couldn’t say what had happened.

Baohua had not been found. Baosheng had run off to who-knew-where.
Oh, heaven! I can’t go on living!
Then it was as if an enormous black curtain had unraveled in the sky and had fallen over Second Sister’s eyes. In the midst of all this dazzling moonlight, the world in front of her was as dark as lead. Her body was like a leaf that had floated down from a tree and was lying helpless on the ground. She sat there absolutely frozen in stillness.

A short time later, her two brothers found her, still in this state of oblivion.

Second Sister felt she was soaring up into the sky. She saw everything down below. She saw Baoqing crying as he shook his mother’s shoulder. “Ma! Ma! Wake up! I’m scared!” She really wanted to fly on and say, “Son, don’t be afraid! Fly with your ma. Fly north to find Daddy!”

5.

I
CAN TELL
from Joseph’s expression just how much he wants to know how Grandma found her two children, but that’s where I interrupt the story. For I’ve just recalled how, many years ago, Beibei and I got separated at the Summer Palace. In that brief twenty minutes I underwent the most excruciating torment. I became a mother animal whose cub had been stolen by hunters. Crazed, I elbowed and barged my way through the flow of people. If our separation hadn’t been twenty minutes, but twenty days, could I have survived that long? I am now filled with guilt toward Grandma. I always made her stand under the oleander, her eyes anxiously watching for my return. After school, for example, I would impulsively detour to play at a schoolmate’s home. I didn’t understand why my grandma could get so worried if I wasn’t on time. When she had aged to the point of senility, I was still trying to stop her stinginess and petty-mindedness. I wasn’t like Uncle, giving her big fistfuls of small-denomination bills. I only bought her real things. She would always ask very lucidly how much each item cost, converting the cost of a piece of clothing or a pair of shoes into its equivalent in rice. Separated by the wide expanse of our years, I would gaze into her eyes. Her anxiety-filled look stabbed deep into me.

The cell phone rings and when I hear “Hello!” I know that Chrysanthemum’s diplomatic efforts have been totally successful. And by now she surely has taken her bath and is wearing a loose negligee as she sits cross-legged on the sofa, all settled in for a long conversation with me. That’s my style too. We can always keep our ends of the conversation going until it grows light in the east. Now, though, I keep saying, “OK, that’s it for now,” but Chrysanthemum seems to have no intention of stopping. I made the excuse of the battery running low, but she says, “There’s a power outlet underneath your table.” She had a cheap boss who let her use the train only for out-of-town business, so she knows train coaches like the back of her hand. All I can do is to patiently accompany her on this marathon phone conversation.

Chrysanthemum has “nailed down” my schoolmate. It looks as if there will be no problem in our earning a bit of money by taking on a few projects. What she wants to chat about, though, isn’t our upcoming business, but rather her feelings toward this man. All along, she has favored men with full faces, darkly whiskered but clean shaven, just like a certain Hollywood star. She says our future partner’s looks and temperament are just what she had always yearned for day and night in a man. Chrysanthemum is puzzled why I have never taken a fancy to this guy. I tell her that back then he was nothing special, and to be perfectly honest, the only impression he left with me was that they made amazingly tasty steamed dumplings at his home. Often on Sunday evenings, he would carry over a bamboo steamer of them to the girls’ dormitory. “I remember a lot about you at university,” Chrysanthemum says. “There was the time you climbed up on the wall to get back to the dorm and couldn’t get down and he was the one who rescued you. Maybe at that time he was secretly in love with you? Just look at yourself! You missed out on such a good man! You don’t mind my targeting him? To enjoy a guy like that for a week or a month would be worth one year of my fleeting youth. Hello? Aren’t you listening to me? Have you got something going there? Does that guy have what it takes?” “Oh, heavens, Chrysanthemum, what are you saying?” I nervously look at Joseph sitting across from me as if he was some angel sent down from above. The bantering fun and abuse that Chrysanthemum and I are used to would simply be dirty talk in his presence.

I also had my days of angel purity. I had loved Chaofan with a purity and innocence for so long. I supposed that he would be the only man in my whole life and I never looked at any other man. Even if I ate that other guy’s steamed dumplings every day, he’d never have gotten more than a glance from me. That summer, when Chaofan’s symphonic composition, “The Dream of a Chinese Child,” was selected for participation in the Youth Music Conference, I would travel from one end of Beijing to the other, in rain or shine, to listen to his orchestra rehearse. I quietly buried myself in some far corner of the rehearsal hall watching Chaofan at work. For several hours, I had almost no chance to speak a single word to him. As I stared at his back, I would think of early childhood, of all the many things in our innocent friendship, and long for our rosy future. Beat after beat of happiness surging within me made me both giddy and agitated. I hadn’t the slightest doubt that my lover was one of those rare and peerless geniuses and that the name “Chaofan” would finally resound in history. Such ardor and devotion wasn’t much different from the reverence that true believers feel for their god.

I can no longer relate in detail how, bit by bit, my own “god” faded in radiance. Maybe I’ve already said too much. Every time I speak of it, the feeling dulls a little, until I find I can’t even be bothered to mention it. I once wanted to tell my daughter something about her father, since I was about to take her to San Francisco to meet him. “I truly loved your father then.” She was inspecting several pimples on her face with a little mirror and replied without much enthusiasm, “Oh, yeah?” Obviously, corny old love stories didn’t have the attention-holding power for her that those few pimples had, and I discovered that I too was uninterested in rehashing such old things.

Beibei and I reached San Francisco a day before we were to meet him. I knew that my “rare and peerless genius” of old now supported himself by selling his art on Fisherman’s Wharf. He was able to bring the entire wharf to life in an amazing way with his solo electronic band performances. According to one of his friends there, a part-time portraitist, Chaofan was making pretty good money. And that he was very popular with women. There was usually some unattached woman – the race varied—standing there listening and patiently waiting for him to pack up and take her home with him. Chaofan has not told me how he supports himself in San Francisco and I haven’t given his secret away. That evening I deliberately sent my daughter off somewhere and slowly made my way on foot to Fisherman’s Wharf. While I was still several blocks away my ears suddenly picked up the melody of “The Dream of a Chinese Child” and, as if by conditioned response, my heart beat with a wild throbbing. For one instant, that long-gone feeling of happiness and well-being was rekindled within me. But a moment later my pulse returned to normal and casually my steps moved along in time with the music.

I sat down beside a flowerpot behind Chaofan. It was a foggy and damp night without many tourists. Two or three would walk by, stop and listen for a while, and then move on. Only one enthusiastic white woman kept wiggling and twisting to the music. The moment the music stopped, she spoke a few words with the artist and when the music started again, she started to help out by collecting the money for the CDs he sold.
Would he take her home tonight?

It was still “The Dream of a Chinese Child.” I didn’t know what dream it was he had back then. Nor do I know whether he still has dreams now. But I couldn’t help missing those days of infatuation and craziness, and I shed a silent tear for all that. I quietly waited until he packed up, and indifferently watched that woman help him load his instrument into a van. I saw her sit on the driver’s side. These two solitary souls brought together by chance now moved, talking and laughing, out of my sight. San Francisco is a beautiful city but the air is chilly. I’ve heard that single men and women there need only exchange a glance for one of them to take the other home. Did Chaofan suffer with a smile as his vagrant and drifting life led first into one stranger’s embrace and then another’s?

I clearly remember, after that little van was now loaded with the stranger and the synthesizer, just how empty and bereft I felt, but not because of any shock at what I had just seen. Actually, after leaving Chaofan, seeing him again like this was so totally devoid of any of the feeling from our past, I couldn’t even figure out what I had been so passionate about then. But no longer believing in love, no longer having a man to be infatuated with and drive me wild, has desolated me. I feel I am sinking or drifting away. Maybe I really should believe in something, worship something, and offer my long-stifled passions to whatever it was I worshipped and believed in. But what could that be?