Song of Everlasting Sorrow (26 page)
Read Song of Everlasting Sorrow Online
Authors: Wang Anyi
Bridges are the principal feature of this place, its very soul. To outsiders, they suggest the Buddhist idea of being ferried to the other shore. Wu Bridge is a place of compassion. Beneath its bridges the water swiftly flows, carrying all refuse away. Overhead the clouds glide by, preparing rain for the earth. The bridges let boats pass underneath, and people walk over them to the other side of the canal, where the long eaves stretch out from the houses to shield them from the sun and the rain.
Every grain of rice eaten at Wu Bridge has been winnowed, hulled, polished, washed, and strained in baskets. Every piece of firewood used in cooking the rice has been split into small pieces and placed under the sun to dry. If the firewood, used one piece at a time, is not completely burned, it is set aside as charcoal for the brazier to give warmth in the winter. The stone slab roads of Wu Bridge are covered with the imprints of naked soles; the sides of the canals are crowded with women beating laundry. People live their lives in measured drops at Wu Bridge, neither frittering away their time nor wasting anything. Nor are they greedy. They spend what they earn carefully and make sure there is something left for their heirs. Everything at Wu Bridge—the roads, the bridges, the houses, the pickled vegetables in the pantries, the jars of wine buried in the ground—has been accumulated day by day, generation by generation. You can see this in any early morning scene. Along with the cooking smoke are the enticing smells of sun-dried vegetables and boiling rice, as well as the aroma of rice wine. In this place one reaps what one sows—what can be more satisfying than a beautiful place where the virtuous get their just deserts?
As dawn breaks over Wu Bridge, a rooster opens the chorus of morning cries. Another day has begun, a day of spring flowers and autumn harvests, all clear signs that nothing here ever changes. Never mind the unruly changes going on in the world outside, Wu Bridge remains true to itself. It understands that the multipatterned kaleidoscope of the outside world is only an extension of good, simple living. When the great and the overweening plummet from their heights, Wu Bridge is there to accommodate them. When everything else turns dismal, it remains unchanged. It is the base and the core. It is time itself. Like an hourglass, it renders the flow of time visible. The other shore and the passage there are all contained within.
Water is the reason places like Wu Bridge can exist. The waterways of Jiangnan are like branches on a tree, extending out one from the other, multiplying a hundred times over. Wu Bridge is surrounded by waterways, but it is not isolated, like an island in the sea; it is rather a quiet enclave in a noisy world. The sea is cold, vast, and boundless, whereas these canals and waterways wind through people’s lives. The sea is a place without hope: what happens there is dictated by fate. But canals open up a way out of those places that are without hope; setting up a visible truth to stand against fate, they are easygoing and come-at-able. Compared to islands, places like Wu Bridge are more knowing, more prosaic, more willing to compromise. We can believe in them without sacrificing our earthly happiness, a crude happiness far removed from any splendor. This is a happiness that does not require the accompaniment of elegant music, but grows out of the pleasures of everyday living. Wu Bridge hovers, marvelously poised, between the philistine world and the realm of enlightenment. It is hard to tell to which side the balance is tilted. Places like these are here to put a crimp in society’s vanity, but also to alleviate its sense of hopelessness, maintaining a delicate equilibrium. Once or twice in our lives, we arrive by some miracle at a place like Wu Bridge, where we can recompose ourselves.
Underneath its serene exterior, Wu Bridge has a strong urge to make its presence felt, just as, under its blanket of smoke and mist, the chickens crow and the dogs bark—what you sow there surely shall you reap. How close to the heart Wu Bridge lies! It caresses all the scars we carry around inside, giving reason to our actions, explanations for our fortunes. It understands that everything boils down to two words that drive us all:
to live.
to live.
All the outsiders who come to Wu Bridge seem to arrive in a miserable condition. Dejected and dismayed, most of them come not of their own volition, but because they have no other choice. Even before learning its name, they start complaining—what a backwater the place is. They either stay indoors, sulking petulantly, or swagger about town, looking down on everything. But whether arrogant or crestfallen, they show themselves to be shallow and boorish. It takes them some time to discover that there is more to Wu Bridge than meets the eye, and when they do, they are only too grateful. The folks at Wu Bridge take their haughty attitude with a stoic resignation. This is a form of compassion, like an adult forgiving the unruly behavior of a child. They view outsiders as part of the scenery: year after year, month after month, there are always one or two meandering down the streets. These are the victims of the incessant combat playing out there. The locals are never shocked or surprised when they encounter these strangers from the cities; their presence in Wu Bridge couldn’t be more natural. The locals seem not to understand them, but actually they understand better than anyone. Folks here know that the bright, colorful clothes the outsiders come wearing are but clouds at sunset, and the hearts inside those fancy clothes are flickering lights ready to fade out at any moment. When outsiders arrive in boats, after a long journey through mazy waterways, they feel they have landed on the outer edge of the known world, a world that they hate and love and that they refuse to let go. Blinded by bitterness, they know not what lies in wait.
Wu Bridge is our mother’s mother. But, being once removed, we see her as a stranger. Also, a generation of mixed blood flows between us, so, in the absence of resemblance, she is more distant to us than a stranger. Be that as it may, this is where we all come from. The bridges of Wu Bridge all lead us back to our maternal grandmother—our source—which is why we keep coming back here from the twists and turns of life’s journey. Every one of those strangers from the city has his or her own Wu Bridge. Wu Bridge is the closest of our ancestors; ordinary people like us can simply reach out and touch her. She is not the kind of ancestor we think of when we see the ceremonial banners flying on Grave-sweeping Day in the spring; rather, what brings her to mind are the sweet cakes served that day, made of glutinous rice flour dyed with green herbs and shaped by hand. We associate her with steady, quiet effort, with the comforts of food and clothing. She calls out to us from the aroma of dried meat on New Year’s Day, and from the warmth of charcoal hand-braziers; she summons us to shoulder the hoe to work in the fields, to cast our nets into the sea. It is her voice we hear calling as we stroll over a bridge, ride in a boat, hurry along on a road, or leap over a ditch. Her calls reverberate through body and soul—you can’t hide from them and you can’t escape them. Her calls echo in heated wine jugs, in roasting chestnuts, in jasmine blossoms in June, and in the October osmanthus. Her calls enshroud, building inexorably layer upon layer, besieging those outsiders until they are forced to acknowledge her.
Throughout the Jiangnan region, where waterways spread out like nets, places such as Wu Bridge are scattered about, like nests in trees to shelter lost souls. The outsiders come and go like the tide. Their cycle of departure and return mirrors the ebb and flow of affairs in the world outside. Wu Bridge is where they come to recuperate, but as soon as they are rested they leave again. For this we may blame the gentle and accommodating ways of Wu Bridge, which never cures them of their sickness, only the symptoms. Nevertheless, to all the broken-hearted and teary-eyed arriving on its shores in boats with thatched canopies, Wu Bridge offers solace.
As you approach Wu Bridge by boat below a drizzling sky, going under the arch of one bridge after another, you feel as if you have passed through many imposing gates. You will see hundreds of willow trees, their thin, long leaves swaying like bead curtains in the wind. Through the bead curtains, you see houses built right to the water’s edge, their halfimmersed stone steps covered with velvety green lichen. Bamboo poles, draped with baskets and colorful laundry, stick out from the windows. Galleries lined with stores hang above the water, the columns supporting them overgrown with lichens, and the menu tablets outside the wineshops look as ancient as the columns. It is not at all unusual, along the way, to come across a wedding boat or two, distinguished by a large red paper cutout of the character “happiness” pinned on its thatched canopy. The boat, festooned with red and green satin ribbons, is loaded with the bridal trousseau. The bride weeps, but those are tears of happiness that she is shedding. On either side of the water are yellow cabbages and green rice seedlings: white butterflies flit among them, a brilliant display of color.
At last you have arrived in Wu Bridge.
GrandmaWu Bridge was the ancestral home of Wang Qiyao’s maternal grandmother. Grandma hired a boat and they left Suzhou in the morning, arriving at Wu Bridge by the afternoon. Wang Qiyao sat under the canopy, wearing a blue twill jacket trimmed with camel hair, a cashmere scarf wrapped around her head; her arms were crisscrossed in front of her, as she kept her hands tucked inside her sleeves. Sitting across from her outside the canopy, Grandma was hugging a brazier for warmth and smoking a cigarette. She too had been a beauty in her time. On her wedding day she had traveled this very same canal on her way to Suzhou, and a light spring drizzle had been falling as she arrived in Suzhou, which was abuzz with rumors of her beauty. It was Grave-sweeping Day and the haze that shimmered through the surrounding scenery had mirrored the haze in her heart. Now, after all these decades, everything was crystal clear.
Looking at Wang Qiyao, Grandma felt as if she could see her granddaughter forty years hence. The poor child had set off on a crooked beginning that would not be easy to straighten out. It was all because she was too pretty. In truth, beauty is deceptive, not because it deceives others, but because it deceives oneself. It would be much better for a woman not to be conscious of her beauty. If only she could be kept in the dark for a few years, by then the danger would have passed. Unfortunately, people in a place like Shanghai are always vying to lavish compliments on pretty girls and tell them how beautiful they are. They seduce you into believing that everything is wonderful, that the good times will never end. They take you with them into this dreamland; but people do not easily give up their dreams, even after circumstances have changed. Grandma pities Wang Qiyao for having been so early, so rudely awakened. It would have been nice to have been allowed to dream on for a few more years. Well, she will just have to take things one step at a time. The advantage of an early awakening is that she still has youth on her side. However, starting out now is not the same as starting out then. One has scars, like a cracked egg. It will be a continuation rather than a fresh start.
The old boatman comes from Kunshan, and he is singing a melancholy song from his hometown. Listening to that Kunshan melody at this moment only makes one feel more desolate than ever. The sun gives off a pallid glow. Only the brazier emits some heat to dispel the cold, but its fumes induce a slight headache. Grandma realizes that it will take some time for Wang Qiyao to come around; like someone who has fallen from a great height, she’ll be dazed for a while. Grandma had never herself been to Shanghai but what she had heard was already quite enough. It was a world that cried out with its siren’s wail to all who entered. Once stirred, the heart can never regain its calm. The child may look deadened now, but once the pain and hurt abate she will raise her head again. This is what is so dangerous about Shanghai, a place riddled with sin. Yet in good times, Shanghai can be a heaven on earth where twenty years of gaiety are crammed into a single day. Grandma cannot possibly imagine what that means; the most gaiety she’s ever known was seeing gardenias and jasmines blooming together, their fragrance a sea of pure white dotted here and there by red balsam flowers. She understood the old adage, “A drop of water will not stir someone who has survived the bitter sea.” She knew that this child was in for a difficult journey, and this wasn’t even the worst of it. That was still to come.
The fumes from the brazier, the smoke from the cigarette, the tune of the singing boatman merge into a lullaby. Grandma broods over the paths open to Wang Qiyao. The thing to do is send her to a nunnery, where her heart would be forcibly held down and she will at least be able to live out her days in peace. Yet this option was as unsatisfactory to Grandma as it would have been to Wang Qiyao. Grandma actually appreciated worldly happiness even more than Wang Qiyao. The only kind of happiness Wang Qiyao has known is in large part hollow, made up of finery and fancy food; Grandma has known happiness to its fullest. Grandma loves feminine beauty, which no flower can rival. Often, looking at herself in the mirror, she cannot not help but be thankful that she was born a woman. She prefers the quiet world of women to that of the man, where one has to remain on battle alert at all times, struggling to the death. A man’s shoulders are weighed down by the burdens of family as well as business, and he walks a tight wire where the slightest misstep can plunge him into ruin; whereas a woman simply shares the fruits of his labor and if necessary suffers along with him. The agony of childbirth is fleeting. The flesh and blood breaking off from a woman’s body remain linked to her forever. This is something that men will never understand. Looking again at Wang Qiyao, Grandma pities her for not having yet enjoyed the benefits of womanhood. These benefits are ordinary yet genuine—solid through and through, from the beginning to the end, in name and in fact. They are the happiness that is enjoyed with an ordinary heart. Unfortunately, the poor child’s heart has lost its ordinariness. It has been twisted, and henceforth she will only appreciate warped happiness.
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