Song of Everlasting Sorrow (24 page)

Read Song of Everlasting Sorrow Online

Authors: Wang Anyi

BOOK: Song of Everlasting Sorrow
2.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Jiang Lili’s phone calls were going unanswered. Going to inquire after him at Mr. Cheng’s new workplace, she was told that he was on an extended leave for a trip to his hometown. They were not sure when he would be coming back. She went to his apartment on the Bund to see if she could track him down. She had a key—which she had hardly used, because Mr. Cheng usually came to her house. There was a desolate look to the place, with its noiseless elevator, few signs of human activity, and domed ceiling. The air was swirling with dust as she inserted the key into the keyhole. Inside, dust danced in the light shining through the cracks between the curtains. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that a heavy layer of dust had settled on the floor, the camera, the tables, and the chairs, as well as on the cloth covering the light fixtures. Standing in the middle of the room, she grieved as she recalled how, not too long ago, it had been flooded with radiant light. The chairs and the steps in front of the backdrops were still there, looking cold and indifferent. Jiang Lili went into the dressing room and turned on the lamp on the vanity table, empty now except for dust. Staring at herself in the mirror, the only living being in the apartment, she saw a heartless, hollow shell. She wandered into the dark room, which had a light of unknown source. A string of negatives were dangling from a metal wire. Upon inspection, all were scenery shots, devoid of people. She went into his bedroom, where there were a bed, a dresser, and a rack for clothes and hats. One lone dusty shirt hung on the rack. Other than that, the room was in perfect order, like a man lacking expression or words. Jiang Lili thought she could hear dust descending from the ceiling. She realized that this time Mr. Cheng would not come back to her no matter how persistent she was. She had lost him for good.
 
As the relationship between Jiang Lili and Mr. Cheng went through its sea changes, virtually all that Wang Qiyao did was wait—wait for Director Li. Right after he put her up in the Alice Apartments, they had spent two weeks together. To Director Li, who usually crowded two days into one, this counted as a honeymoon. After this he showed up only sporadically, sometimes for a night, sometimes for a few hours during the day. Wang Qiyao never questioned him as to where he was or where he was going. She had no interest in, nor any understanding of, politics or business matters. Her apathy pleased Director Li, who saw it as an ignorance that came out of a woman’s self-awareness and pathos. He loved her even more and regretted that he could not spend more time with her.
During this period Director Li was like an arrow on a tightly drawn bow, ready to take off at any minute. Even in sleep he would abruptly sit up, ready to give or carry out an order. He was bedeviled by nightmares that made him struggle and cry out. Wang Qiyao could only hold him tight, whispering consoling words all the while, until he woke up in a sweat. He would then turn around and embrace her. Only then would his tense body ease up a bit. Some nights he could not sleep at all. He would sneak out into the living room to listen to a Mei Lanfang record. Even with Wang Qiyao he felt he had to put up a front; only Mei Lanfang could totally disarm him and let him relax. Only Mei Lanfang on the gramophone knew what he was thinking—and Mei Lanfang would never tell. Sometimes Wang Qiyao woke up in the morning to find him gone from her bed. She would find him asleep on the sofa, the tobacco in his pipe turned to ashes; only the record on the gramophone would still be moving, going round and round.
Director Li never told her when he might be back. Wang Qiyao stopped counting the days on the calendar. Time became a straight line, registering neither day nor night. Eating and sleeping, she had only one purpose, which was to wait for Director Li to show up. It was only after she met him that she began to realize just how immense the world really was. A person could disappear without a trace for weeks on end. She also realized how isolated one’s world could become. The chime of the trolley cars sounded so far away, as if it had nothing to do with her. She understood what separation meant, and what impermanence meant. Sometimes she said to herself,
Director Li is sure to return the next time it rains.
Then, when it rained, she would say,
He
’
ll be sure to come when the sun comes out.
She would flip coins trying to predict whether or not he would appear. She would look at the flower buds in the vase, saying to herself,
Surely he will appear by the time the flowers have bloomed.
Instead of counting the days, she counted how many times the outside light reached a certain point on the wall, playing on the idea that the Chinese word for “time” is made up of the characters for “light” and “shadow.”
Feeling lonely as she waited, she tried to fill her loneliness, but the more she tried, the lonelier she felt. She could have gone to stay with her parents, but she did not want to be interrogated. For the same reason she did not want them to visit her. She had stopped phoning them, effectively cutting herself off. After the first time, Jiang Lili visited twice more, and they went to the movies together. But then she stopped coming. Nobody else called, and Wang Qiyao did not go out. She forbade the maid to go out except to buy food, and even then she severely limited the time the maid was allowed to spend on errands. She wanted the maid, too, to feel what it meant to be lonely. Loneliness added to loneliness. She ate very little, once a day at the most, and was usually oblivious to what she was eating. She sometimes put on the Mei Lanfang record and tried to figure out just what it was that Director Li got out of the songs. She also wanted to be better prepared in case he took her to another Peking opera, but the significance of the lyrics still eluded her. She felt resigned to having always to wait for Director Li. It had been a game of waiting from the outset—the days she waited far outnumbered their days together. She did not realize that waiting was the main activity at all the units in Alice Apartments.
Every time Director Li came back, Wang Qiyao could not help crying. She never complained, but Director Li knew why she was unhappy—although this did not prevent him from leaving again. Director Li too felt helpless. Even he couldn’t figure out at what point all those accumulated setbacks began to weigh him down and make him feel helpless—he whose pet phrase used to be “Go for it!” had became “Unfeasible.” Because of his willingness to take risks, he had penetrated to the very core of power, but now that he was there, he had run out of room for maneuvering and almost everything became unfeasible. People thought he was powerful, but he knew he was helpless, even when it came to his own fate. He pitied Wang Qiyao as well as himself. His loss of faith in himself only strengthened his pity for her, and he tried to be good to her. Wang Qiyao, for her part, came to yearn for him, and there existed between them the true affection of man and wife. This was a love engendered by waiting, a tenderness that contained more sorrow than joy, an affection that tried to make the most of what they had.
Wang Qiyao was not aware of how desperate the situation had become. She only knew that Director Li was growing more and more erratic, and this left her feeling ill at ease. She also began to notice that at each visit he looked more haggard and aged than the last time. She felt she was living in a cave while a storm raged outside. But what could she do except worry? His was a world in which the clouds and rain contended furiously; in her world, clouds were clouds and rain was rain. What could she do besides wait? All she could offer to Director Li was her waiting. She couldn’t even discern his world from afar, much less enter it. She listened intently for the sound of his car starting at the entrance to the
longtang
. It was gone in an instant.
On one of his visits Director Li turned to her after they had made love and said gravely, “You must never acknowledge your relationship with me. This apartment is rented under your name, and no one knows when I come to see you. There may be rumors about us, but they are only rumors.”
Lying in bed next to him, she took his words to mean that he wanted to deny any involvement with her. “Of course!” she rejoined sarcastically. “I know very well I am not worthy of being associated with the Lis. I have never fancied myself a member of your family. I have never acknowledged anything.”
She spoke as if the precaution was totally unnecessary. Director Li knew she had misunderstood him, but didn’t quite know how to explain himself, so he simply smiled a bitter smile. He did not think Wang Qiyao could be petty, but there it was. Realizing her mistake, she was deeply contrite. She managed to force a smile as she looked at his drawn face and white hair, saying, “I was just teasing.”
Director Li was moved. He took her in his arms. “My whole life I feel like I have been walking on thin ice and now I’m at the edge of an abyss. This time I’m afraid I may not be able to save myself. I just don’t want you to get entangled in my problems. You who are so innocent.”
He was almost in tears as he spoke. These words came straight from his heart, and they were words he rarely allowed to escape from his lips. He spoke these words for her, but also for himself. Astonished at what she heard, Wang Qiyao wanted to interrupt him as he made these ghastly pronouncements, but the words stuck in her throat. She started to sob.
In retrospect this was an unusual night. Outside, it was abnormally dark and quiet. Not even the vendors’ clappers could be heard, and no music issued from the Paramount. It was so quiet they could clearly hear the maid in her bedroom crying in her dream. Neither of them could sleep a wink. They talked a while before becoming absorbed in their respective anxieties. Wang Qiyao wept quietly, but Director Li pretended not to notice. It was not that he did not want to comfort her, only that he did not know how. Any promise he might make would not be easily kept, so he was better off not making any. Wang Qiyao heard Director Li get up from bed and walk around the living room. She too pretended not to notice. If Director Li, with all his connections, was helpless, who could help him? It was a profoundly lonely night. They were together, yet neither could comfort the other; each was powerless to alleviate the other’s anxiety, both tormented by premonitions. Director Li’s premonitions were based on what he knew. Wang Qiyao was simply scared, sensing the coming catastrophe. She dared not think further, telling herself,
Everything will be better tomorrow when the sun comes up.
As she lay waiting for the dawn, she fell asleep and dreamed that she was on her way to Suzhou to visit her maternal grandmother, but was awakened before she could reach her destination. The room was dark, but she could see Director Li’s face clearly, hovering over her. He placed a Spanish box of carved mahogany next to her pillow, reached for her hand, and put a key in her palm. He said the car was outside and he had to leave. Wang Qiyao put her arms around his neck and sobbed. She lost all her good manners and reserve, hanging on to him childishly, refusing to let him go. She did not know when he would be back again. Facing her were endless days and nights of awkward waiting, of staring at the light on the wall, which moved fast when she wanted it to slow down and quickly when she wished it would stand still. Outside the window, the parasol trees too had frustrated her wish by shedding their leaves prematurely. Wang Qiyao cried for a long time in a confused welter of misery. She was still crying when Director Li pushed her away and left. That night she soaked herself with tears, until morning came and she was too exhausted to go on crying.
This time Wang Qiyao could not sit still to wait for Director Li’s return. She had to get out. She dressed herself properly and hailed a pedicab. She stared absentmindedly ahead at the street scenes, passing from one place to another. The display windows in the shops told her that styles of shoes and hats had changed, but this did not concern her. The new romantic movies advertised outside the cinemas also had nothing to do with her. Nor did the young couples sitting in the coffee shops. She felt she already belonged to an older generation. The silvery sunlight sprinkling down between the leaves dazzled her. Watching the crowd on the street, she thought it unfair that among all of those people there was no Director Li! Stepping down from the pedicab, she realized that she had come out to shop without knowing what she was looking for.
Sometimes Wang Qiyao would go home empty-handed; other times she bought lots of items that she did not want, but piling them into the pedicab made her feel better. She did not know where she wanted to go, but the motion of going forward gave her the sensation that she was getting closer. As the street scenes on either side of her flew past, time was also flying past—that at least was progress.
While Wang Qiyao was going out for her rides, several of her neighbors vacated their apartments. She did not see them go, but only sensed that her surroundings had grown even quieter. To fill the vacuum, she put on Mei Lanfang’s records and turned the gramophone up high. The singing echoed and reverberated through the rooms, making the apartment feel emptier. One day she opened the windows to look at the sky, and was startled to see sparrows flocking all over the balcony across from her. The woman who lived there must have moved out. She looked around and realized that many of the apartment windows were tightly shut and leaves had collected around the windowsills, showing that those units too were empty. Alice Apartments was apparently in a slump. Her heart sank but she comforted herself, saying,
As soon as Director Li returns, everything will be fine. But when will he be back?

Other books

Coven of Wolves by Saenz, Peter
A Family Man by Sarah Osborne
The Drought by Patricia Fulton, Extended Imagery
SirenSong by Roberta Gellis
The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
The Fractal Prince by Rajaniemi, Hannu