Three Souls (28 page)

I was speaking the truth. I knew nothing about his childhood or what he’d been doing these past few years.

“And yet you came.” The scent of sandalwood grew stronger as he moved closer, took my hand.

“I have to get back.” I pulled my hand away. “Just tell me why you contacted me.”

“I need you to hide something for me. Then I need you to give it to someone when the time is right.”

“What’s the ‘something’?” I could almost see the lure he was placing before me, drawing me in with curiosity.

“A document. I’m still writing it.” He smiled. “It’s a Communist manifesto for China.”

“A what?”

“A manifesto is a declaration of principles and objectives.” As if I didn’t know that, but I wanted to hear his voice. His eyes were mysterious, those glints of light in dark pupils. “Our history and beliefs aren’t the same as those of Western nations. Our manifesto must build on the foundation stones of our own culture, not theirs.”

I leaned back against a tall bookcase. “But why hide it? Why not take it with you?”

“I can’t risk that. I may be captured. The manifesto is more important than I am, Leiyin. If the Party approves, it’ll be distributed all over the country to inspire and guide people, to allow all Chinese to move forward as one.” His eyes shone in the dim light of the store, his voice was husky, fervent.

“Surely there are others who can do this. Young Wang, for instance.”

“If the Nationalists come looking and find out I worked here, he’ll be the first one arrested. But there’s nothing to link you and me. That’s one of the reasons I chose to hide in Pinghu.”

“I see.” He was here because there was nothing between us.

“After I leave Pinghu, a courier will come to get it from you. Will you hide it for me?” He took my hand again and put both of his around it.

Part of me, the part that remembered being seventeen and insane with love, longed to say I would do anything for him. Another part realized I had been too naive about Pinghu. It might be a boring small town, but if Wang, the bookseller’s son, was a Communist sympathizer, then the civil war had found its way here long ago. And now Hanchin was asking me to risk my family’s safety.

“How can you ask me to do this? I have a husband, a child . . .”

“Leiyin, I’m only asking you to do what you feel is right. Once, you wanted to make a difference to our country. You should know that even in small towns such as this all over China, men and women are taking a stand.”

In my new life, in this town, there was no point holding on to my convictions. Or so I had told myself. I felt ashamed for losing sight of Madame Sun Yat-sen’s vision for a new China, one where women had a voice. But that vision didn’t include helping a wanted criminal.

“Leiyin, you understand better than anyone else what this work means to me. There’s no one else I would trust with this document. As for the other reason why I came to this town . . .”

He lifted my chin with a long finger and I pulled my eyes away from his. I shook my head, but he pulled me toward him, pressed his lips against my forehead. I willed myself to resist the feelings his touch aroused in me but then his lips met mine. He bent down farther and his mouth moved behind my ear, below the tortoiseshell combs in my hair, down to my neck.

“How did you end up married so quickly?” he said, his breath warm beside my neck. “One day you were a pretty schoolgirl and the next day you were gone.”

I felt my knees soften, a slow melting that threatened my ability to stand upright.

“My father wouldn’t allow me to go to college, so I ran away. But I failed. Father married me off as punishment for my disobedience.” I hated that I couldn’t control my breathing, short panting gasps that I tried to keep quiet.

“You’re not in love with your husband, then?” He said this teasingly.

“He’s a kind husband and a good father.” I pushed myself away from his embrace.

“I’m glad to hear that.” The playful tone was gone.

Suddenly I thought of Gaoyin’s last letter, her concern for Tongyin.

“Hanchin, what’s been going on with my second brother? Is he mixed up with you and the Communist Party?”

“What do you think? Is Tongyin capable of political intrigue?” His eyes narrowed.

“My brother’s capable of boasting, that’s all. But he could get into a lot of trouble that way.”

“You’re right to worry, Leiyin. Tongyin talks too much.” His voice grew serious. “For your own sake as well as his, Tongyin must never know I was here. The less either of you know about my situation, the safer it is for you.”

The brass bells rang and a young man pushed open the door. He stood for a moment outlined against the sun, blinking while his eyes adjusted to the muted light. Hanchin moved to a display shelf beside me and pulled out a magazine.

“On page 16 there are some verses by that poet who interests you, Madame. Please accept this magazine with our compliments. Come by the shop again next Thursday. The book should be here by then. There’s no charge if you change your mind.”

He turned to the new arrival. “Welcome, welcome. How may I assist you?”

A SONG OF PURE HAPPINESS IV

by Nobody Special, after a poem by Li Bai

Her face like moonlight brightens his heart to springtime.

He yearns for her voice in the echoes of morning birdcalls.

He sets aside his pen and recalls her loveliness,

Promises they have yet to keep, the place where they last joined hands.

It wasn’t his best poem.

But it didn’t matter because I knew what the verses signified. Once again, Hanchin had declared his feelings, both secretly and openly, and in print. Alone in my library, I pulled out a copy of
The Complete Tang Poems,
a volume Father had given me years ago. I read the referenced quatrain over and over again even though it was one I knew well, one I had memorized to please my father.

A SONG OF PURE HAPPINESS III

by Li Bai

Tang Poem Number 319

The beauty of his lady amidst his flowers

Brings eternal pleasure to the emperor’s eye

On a railing in the Aloe Pavilion she leans

As he listens to the distant spring wind sigh.

The pavilion. Where we last joined hands. I felt my hard-won contentment washing away, swirling downstream in trails of indigo, dye that had never set properly in the fabric of my life.

***

My souls flutter in distress, making a noise that mimics rainfall on green bamboo.

I was never in love with Baizhen,
I tell my souls.
You know that.

But you were fond of Baizhen, weren’t you?
My
yin
soul gazes at me, her brown eyes reproachful.
He was a kind husband and a good father.

More than fond. Baizhen was my family.

But you never lusted after him. Humph.
My
yang
soul stomps away across the garden, taking a swipe at a row of oleander shrubs with his cane.
It wasn’t enough for you to have a kind husband who didn’t blame you for only giving him a daughter.

I hang my head, unable to counter his accusation.

You knew when your memories began unfurling that Hanchin would return to your life, didn’t you?
My
yin
soul. I smell the damp freshness of rain on moss, a hint of camellia growing nearby.

At the far end of the garden, my
yang
soul pulls out his handkerchief. The calico cat has returned and he flaps it at her. She springs at it, playful rather than frightened.

When will I die, and how?
I wonder. But my souls shake their heads, no wiser than I am about what the past has yet to reveal.

The moment I saw the slip of blue paper in the book, I knew Hanchin had something to do with my death. I don’t have much longer, do I?

No, not much longer,
says my
hun
soul, stroking my hair.
Your life is nearly over.

***

Waiting for Thursday was like a life sentence. My senses felt vividly alive, but a blur of emotions distracted me every moment. Hanchin’s words and his touch rolled back the years, reminding me of my ambitions: to teach, to help educate the poor, to make a difference to my country. I felt the walls of the Lee estate close in on me again. I avoided Baizhen as much as possible, certain that my shifting moods, my anxiety and anticipation, would betray me and tell him how I longed for someone else’s company. The veneer of courtesy that concealed my true thoughts was so thin I didn’t trust myself to maintain it.

So I busied myself with household finances, sat for hours in Jia Po’s small office, and riffled through years of bills and scribbled budgets. I reviewed our expenses, rewrote menus and seasonal shopping lists to economize on food. I went into the storerooms, pulling out trunks that hadn’t been opened in years, searching for fabric to sew new clothes for Weilan, who was growing so quickly her ankles already stuck out past the hems of trousers I had made for her a few months earlier.

When Thursday finally came, I went to purchase thread and buttons for the new trousers I was making for my daughter. My errand at the dry-goods store didn’t take very long, and left me only a short walk from the Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore.
Again I loitered outside, pretending to read handbills pasted to the wall. It was early afternoon, the time of day when young mothers settled children down to naps, when elderly gentlemen rode in the privacy of sedan chairs to visit old friends or favourite courtesans. Cooks and housewives had long since finished at the markets and returned home, their arms laden with green cabbages or shiny freshwater eels still twitching in tightly woven baskets. The street was empty when I stepped inside the shop.

Hanchin looked up when the door opened. He was alone. He had only to look at me to know my decision.

“Thank you, Leiyin,” was all he said, but his smile said much more.

Then he took my hand and I followed him to the back of the store, where a curtained doorway led into a storeroom. It was lined with stacks of books and wooden crates. There was an old cot pushed against one wall and, beside it, a wash basin on a wooden chair. A wide plank set across some crates served as a desk.

“This is where I live, work, and write. Room, board, and wages.” He was still holding my hand, still smiling.

I pointed to a stack of paper on the plank, weighed down by an ink stone. “Is that your manifesto?”

“Drafts. The fifteenth or twentieth—I’ve lost track. I’ll need another week or two.”

“I read the poem,” I blurted out. This was what I really wanted to ask him. “Were you thinking of me when you composed it?”

In reply, he pulled me into his arms. His lips brushed across my forehead, eyelids, cheeks, and, finally, my mouth. The desire I had felt when I was seventeen didn’t compare to this. Now I was married and understood the urgent needs of a man’s body, understood more about my own. I wanted to satisfy his hunger. I helped him undo the buttons of my tunic, felt his fingers stroke the silk undershirt beneath and lift it away from my skin, felt his hands slide up over my breasts and then down my back to unfasten the hook at the top of my skirt, felt the fabric drop to the ground. Felt his hands explore between my thighs.

I gasped. This wasn’t anything like the intimacies I shared with Baizhen, for Hanchin’s touch was slow and lingering, a leisurely appreciation.

“All those lost years,” he whispered. He guided me to the cot, where I collapsed, unable to take my eyes away from him. At that moment, I was willing to risk everything, ignore all my fears, put aside all shame. Desire pulsed through my veins. He pulled up the skirts of his
changshan,
prepared to mount me.

Then we heard the clanking of bells as the door to the shop opened, and a rough voice called out, “
Eh,
Shopkeeper!”

“Wait here,” he said in a low voice, straightening his gown.

I sat up on the cot, pulled my clothing off the floor, and got dressed quickly, reeling as much from disbelief as from his caresses.
All those lost years,
he had said. He had loved me all these years after all. What were we to do, now that we had declared our feelings, a married woman and a wanted political enemy?

After what seemed like hours, another jangle of bells indicated the customer had left. Hanchin returned to the storeroom, knelt by the cot, and held me. I shuddered, fearful yet hopeful, still willing for him to take me. But he shook his head.

“This is no place to meet. And you shouldn’t come here again if you can help it. You might be seen. Wang mustn’t know about our relationship, or that we even know each other.”

“But he should know that I’m on your side, that he has an ally here.”

He shook his head again. “If he doesn’t know about you, he can’t give you away. You should go now.”

I clung to him. “But how can we see each other? You need to get your manifesto to me.”

“I come and go as I please. Wang knows I have business more important than this bookstore. You sort it out, Leiyin. Find a way for us to be . . . together.”

***

I still can’t believe my foolishness. I had wanted excitement and Hanchin had rekindled my cravings for a different life.

Hanchin made me feel seventeen again. It was so potent, the rush of passion, my remembered longings, impatience to make up for all those lost years.

You were lonely,
my
yin
soul says, her voice soothing.
Your sisters couldn’t write to you anymore, you had no other contact with your old life in Changchow. You were vulnerable.
The fragrance of steamed rice, the most comforting scent in the world, rises around me.