All the Flowers in Shanghai (16 page)

The weather was getting colder and the street vendors had already started cooking chili hot pot, fragrant steamed buns, and lots of delicious fried snacks such as
dofu
sticks. If Bi were here we would have gone out to share a sesame bun and a bowl of hot noodles. Like Ma and Sister, Father-in-law and First Wife considered this peasant food and did not allow it in the house except for the servants in their quarters. The cooking smells filled the car very quickly and I closed my eyes and pictured all the things that I could taste on the tip of my tongue.

Underneath the aromas of the food was the pungent smoky scent of the charcoal stoves on which everything on the street was cooked. When the car stopped I could hear utensils scraping against pans and people calling out prices. And all the way I could hear the clamor of bells as people took to their bicycles rather than walk in the cold.

I breathed all these smells in, and with my chest full of them I sensed a small piece of my old self return: some of the excitement and happiness I had once shared with Grandfather.

We arrived and a doorman opened the car door and helped me out. I was guided straight into the hotel lobby through revolving doors—the first time I had seen such things. I watched another person go through the doors before me and it looked like they just magically vanished inside the building. I vanished inside, too, where it was clean and bright, just as Sister had described. The foreign-designed buildings had plenty of windows and there were mirrors everywhere, and instead of being lined with dark wood, the walls were painted white. The floor was made of white marble and the roof was as high as a temple’s. Everything around me was open and exposed, which made me feel very small. The hotel employees wore smart bright uniforms and around the lobby there were comfortable Western-style chairs and tables laid with cups and saucers. One of the uniformed young boys came up to me and led me through the lobby, past the bright reception desks, and into the ballroom.

I could hear the band before I entered the room. The music was loud and frightening yet its rhythm and boldness excited and enticed me inside. As I entered the room I saw men and women moving quickly and erratically on the dance floor, poking their limbs out to their sides and in front of them. There were waiters in white coats standing around and a few tables around the dance floor were occupied by guests. Everything was clean and white; floors, walls, uniforms, and tablecloths.

Xiong Fa appeared then and led me over to a table occupied entirely by women.

As we walked he whispered to me, “You look very beautiful in my present. I will have to spend all year thinking how next year’s can be even better.” He looked down at me and winked.

As we approached the table I recognized two of the women from our wedding but I had not spoken to them before. They were dressed in Western clothes like Sister might have worn. I felt foolish again in front of these sophisticated ladies but I had now become used to my embarrassment and had learned to conceal these feelings and my ignorance by not speaking too much or drawing attention to myself. I had become the pretty little flower among the trees, the tiny buttercup content to go unnoticed.

But the journey here had refreshed me and as I looked around at the strange room and all the people, I was excited by the beauty and brightness. I was sitting perfectly still but I was excited inside.

Xiong Fa sat at an adjacent table, smoking with the other men. He laughed with the others, though not as much, and seemed to enjoy sitting there quietly. He looked over at me and smiled.

One stylish woman smiled at me and in a soft voice said, “I think your fur is very elegant. Where did you get it?”

“My husband gave it to me as a present,” I replied proudly.

“Ah, are you pregnant then?”

I looked puzzled in reply.

“He must have tried by now . . . Well, if not it will be soon.” She smiled again.

I blushed because I did not really know what she was asking. The woman smiled at the others, who looked uncomfortable at her candor.

“Well, don’t worry about it. The Sang family has its own rules and you must play along with them if you want to stay there. Does the old man still eat only five dishes?” She laughed, showing off her beautiful teeth and flashing her bright eyes at me.

“You must be the respectful, dutiful daughter-in-law,” she continued kindly. “Your mother-in-law’s last job in life is to get a grandson for her husband. And when she does, things will get better, trust me. My name is Ming—pleased to meet you.”

“My name is Feng . . . Mrs. Sang Xiong Fa.” I stumbled over this, the first time I had heard the change of family name from my own lips.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? Suddenly you belong to someone else,” she said quietly, then announced to the others, holding out her hand to me as men do, “Well, Sang Feng Feng, hello.”

The others at the table all smiled at me and nodded gently in my direction but said nothing. She placed her hand on mine. I looked up at her, surprised.

“Don’t worry about them, they’re too busy thinking of themselves, worried they will behave inappropriately and some terrible punishment will be brought upon them from above,” she whispered with a smile. “So how old are you? I don’t think you are any older than seventeen.”

“I am eighteen and one month,” I whispered back.

“Really? Happy birthday for last month then. We should have some
birthday cake,
” she said excitedly.

“What’s
birthday cake
?” I whispered, trying and failing to copy Ming’s pronunciation of the foreign language.

She held my arm tighter and moved closer to say mysteriously, “It’s some strange Western thing. I’ll tell you more one day, when we know each other better. I like you, you’re not afraid.”

She straightened up then and lit a cigarette.

“So, you have only been married a month?”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry we could not come to your wedding but we were in Beijing.” She studied me a moment and continued, in a kindly tone. “You must have found your wedding very frightening? These large family gatherings can be very intimidating, especially when it is your own wedding.” She drew on her cigarette and breathed out the perfumed smoke. “Did you go to school? You look like a girl who went to school.”

Her rapid conversation made me feel dizzy, but she spoke so quickly and confidently that I wanted to hear more.

“Yes, I did.”

“Good. Well, let me give you some advice then: keep reading and writing, read anything you can, because it will help you. We women, and you
are
a woman,” she commented, leaning back a little to take in every aspect of my appearance, “today in fact a beautiful woman . . . need to be educated. You never know, do you?” She squeezed my hand encouragingly. “One day you may have something really important to tell someone.”

I found it difficult to understand what Ming was saying; she did not speak slowly and carefully like Grandfather but quickly and mysteriously, referring to so many different things at once.

“Well, Feng Feng, I need to go dance with my husband . . . he’s the tall one over there.” She pointed to a man with a broad face, not Shanghainese, dark wavy hair, and dark skin color. “He is trying to grow an ugly monkey-faced beard like a hairy Westerner.” She sighed. “So much trouble!

“I hope I will see you again soon.” She got up to go then hung back for a moment. “I knew as soon as I saw your pretty face and that old-style dress that you were not like the rest of us older women. I’m thirty years old, can you believe it?” Her voice became slow and wistful. She looked at me. “You are beautiful and not yet affected by all this. You must stay this way.”

I did not think very much about her final comment; at that time all I understood was that whatever Xiong Fa did, it was my duty to let him. This woman spoke with such wisdom and calm that I listened to her carefully even while I did not understand all of what she said.

Her husband was waiting on the dance floor and I watched her walk to him, silent and graceful, like a swan gliding across the unbroken surface of a calm lake. They danced and I watched in awe.

The music changed and a few of the men came over to the table and asked the other women to dance. No servants were needed to pass messages, the men just extended their hands and the women took their lead. I ended up sitting with another woman who had not been asked to dance, either. She looked tired and nervous, hunching in on herself and clenching her arms tight to her sides as if to make herself as small as possible. I recognized this posture.

The next tune was slow and I saw couples hold each other closer and sway together, moving in faint circles. As they held each other, some of them whispered, sharing intimate jokes and secrets. One couple was very forward: the woman rested her head on the man’s shoulder. Grandfather would have been outraged to see such poor manners.

The next song sounded similar. To my surprise, Xiong Fa walked up to me then and held out his hand. I blushed and told him that I could not dance; that I was not like Sister. This was the first time I had compared myself to her in front of him and I half-expected him to tell me that he knew this already. But he said nothing, just smiled warmly and continued to look at me while holding out his hand.

I stood up and he walked me to a space just inside the dance floor. He put my right hand on his shoulder and held my left. Then he put his left hand on my waist and we gently swayed together. I felt strange, momentarily safe in his arms for the first time since entering the house, then I felt his fingers tighten around my waist and hand and for a moment I was reminded of our nights together and my helpless suffocation.

After several minutes he said I danced very well and that he hoped we would be able to dance together often.

“I would like to take you to more dances. If that is something you would like to do as well?”

I did not reply.

“They have many in the afternoon, lots of different dancing styles. We could learn together.”

We moved slowly and awkwardly over the wooden floor in silence for a while. I felt embarrassed but excited and happy at the same time, daring to imagine a different life from the one I had endured during the last six weeks. Xiong Fa broke the silence.

“I remember your sister once said you were always playing in the gardens next to your parents’ house. Would you take me there one day?”

“Yes . . . Yes!”

He laughed a little at my enthusiasm but I did not mind. The idea that we might go there made me so happy. We continued the slow dancing for another few songs, after which it was half past five and we had to go home for dinner.

Xiong Fa walked me to my car, which was parked at the entrance to the hotel, and then went over to his own. On the way back to the house, I pictured us sitting in the gardens together. Perhaps he would fish like Bi had done, and I could tell him the names of the flowers as Grandfather had taught me.

At the house I sat in my room and waited for dinner. I watched the guards change; saw the old servant feed the fish in the giant Qinghua basin. He’d brought them small pieces of food left over from the kitchens and the fish hungrily snatched at the bits of waste flesh and vegetables as they hit the surface of the water. Even though the largest and most beautiful fish were able to muscle their way past the others to take the best bits, the old man still favored them. He would drop the best pieces near their mouths until they ate their fill and then would simply toss the rest of the food into the water for the others to fight over. I had watched him do this many times and he was never moved to help the smaller fish, who were destined to fight and savage each other every day.

Usually I felt drained and intimidated by the complexity of my life in this house but attending the tea dance had made me feel different. I felt light and relieved, as if perhaps everything could change. Sister’s bitter warning in the courtyard at home had haunted me every day for the last six weeks but now I dared to imagine that I was finally overcoming my fears and she had been wrong.

After finishing dinner that night, I was able to spend my usual hour sitting at my window, watching the stars come out. Today had been very different from the rest of my time here. As I sat at the window my imagination drifted through scenes of life as it might be lived in this house after Father-in-law and First Wife were gone, and Xiong Fa and I had taken their place.

Yan came in and I joined her at the dressing table. She finished preparing me for Xiong Fa and led me to the bed as always, but this time when she sat beside me, she leaned closer. She held my left hand and brought her face so close to it that I thought she might kiss it. Her breath was warm on the back of my hand, and through that little patch of warmth I felt bonded to her. She did not look up at me, just stared at my hand. Then she whispered to me that Xiong Fa’s mother had demanded an heir to the family and said that he and I must do what was necessary to make me pregnant.

I listened to Yan but did not know what that meant. She looked up at me. I was already doing just what I was asked, everything that he wanted. Yan’s eyes, although small and deep-set in her weathered face, held a brightness that always drew my attention. I had not studied her face so closely before; we do not generally look very carefully at those who serve us. Beneath the warm smile that always greeted me, her skin was rough and torn, unlike the elder women of the Sang family, who, although fat and saggy elsewhere, had oiled and treated their facial skin to keep it smooth. The wear I could see on Yan’s face assured me that she had survived her hard life, had not hidden or sought to be sheltered. She had been scarred and defeated, but she had lived. I could see now that, whatever happened, I would live, too. She would help me, if I would let her.

But this evening, there was something more. I sensed something would now be different. Yet even in my anxiety I couldn’t move my lips and tongue to ask, I still couldn’t bring myself to behave contrary to my pride. I thought instead about my old life with Grandfather; walking, running, playing, and eating . . . but thinking so little. Now there was so much to understand that was new, but I could not.