Song of Everlasting Sorrow (36 page)

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Authors: Wang Anyi

BOOK: Song of Everlasting Sorrow
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Wang Qiyao was not prepared to be caught like this. Her face turned a bright red, and she could no longer take it lightly. She said, with some asperity, “Every time you open your mouth the most deplorable things come out. You must be looking for a tongue-lashing.”
“And what if what I say isn’t so bad?” Sasha challenged.
Feeling trapped, Wang Qiyao put down the porcelain ladle she was holding a bit too hard, and its handle broke in two on the edge of the clay pot. Now, no matter how much Sasha abased himself and how hard Uncle Maomao tried to control the damage, the amiable mood was shattered. They sat around uncomfortably and everyone went home before dark. The snow was melting on the ground, and muddy water ran between untidy mounds. Wang Qiyao accompanied her guests downstairs, but there was a forced joviality in their good-byes.
The day after next, Madame Yan had a private conversation with Uncle Maomao.
“It was silly of Wang Qiyao to make such a big deal out of Sasha’s jokes, making everyone uncomfortable,” she said.
Uncle Maomao, in an attempt to play the matter down, said, “She wasn’t really that upset; the ladle broke accidentally.”
“I am not referring to the ladle,” said Madame Yan. “Sasha was simply making a joke, I thought, but she took it too seriously.”
Having said this, she glared at her cousin. Clearly discomfited, Uncle Maomao feigned a smile. “You’re making too much of this. There’s really nothing to it.”
But Madame Yan retorted, “You’re a smart person and you know very well what I meant. This is the last time I’m going to say anything on the subject. With time heavy on our hands, it is fine to amuse ourselves with each other’s company—but don’t you get any ideas.”
Uncle Maomao gave a little laugh. “What kind of ideas could I possibly have in my situation?”
“Humph!” sniffed Madame Yan. “Well, perhaps you don’t, but there’s no telling just what’s going through
her
mind . . .”
Uncle Maomao felt Madame Yan was not being fair to Wang Qiyao, but he was in no position to defend her, so he simply kept quiet. Seeing him fall silent, Madame Yan took it as a sign that he had accepted her advice.
She relaxed somewhat and said, “I’m responsible for you when you’re over here with me. How could I face your parents if something should happen?”
“I’m a grown man,” insisted Uncle Maomao. “What could possibly happen?”
Madame Yan jabbed his forehead with her fingertip. “If anything does, it will be too late!”
With that, they headed over to Wang Qiyao’s apartment. Sasha was already there, warming his white, slender hands over the stove as Wang Qiyao filled the Thermos with hot water. The four chatted casually as if nothing had happened. Particles of dust swirled in the air, illuminated by the column of light coming in from the window. Madame Yan and Uncle Maomao sat themselves down by the stove and the unpleasantness of the previous day was forgotten.
As the Lunar New Year approached, Wang Qiyao set a pair of millstones next to the stove for grinding glutinous rice. Sasha carefully ladled out the rice, swollen with an overnight soaking, into the mill along with an equal amount of water; Uncle Maomao turned the mill to grind the mixture. Meanwhile, Wang Qiyao pounded sesame seeds in the adjacent mortar. Madame Yan, in her capacity as supervisor of the entire operation, didn’t lift a finger. The aroma of sesame seeds was so tempting that they wished they could just munch on them. Sasha felt a keen sense of the happiness that comes from devoting meticulous care to the details of living. Granted that this happiness, the product of restricting one’s vision to one’s immediate surroundings, is akin to that of the proverbial frog at the bottom of a well, it is nevertheless a way of stretching one’s life out. Moved by this, Sasha, growing solemn, sought enlightenment from the ladies on various fine points of culinary art. They explained things to him patiently, as if he were a naughty child who has decided to reform himself, promising to make New Year’s cakes, deep-fried spring rolls, walnut cookies, and pine nut candies for him. Sasha wondered to himself whether there were enough days before the New Year to prepare all that food, and said aloud, sighing, “How true it is that ‘Each grain of rice comes with hard work’!”
“That’s only half the work,” Madame Yan chortled. “The other half goes into making clothing! But I don’t believe you would know anything about that.”
Once the subject of clothing was broached, Madame Yan and Wang Qiyao immediately launched into an excited discussion about fabrics and tailoring, conjuring up dancing images of gorgeous finery. Sasha was so taken with their exchange that he forgot what he was supposed to be doing, and Uncle Maomao was so dazzled that he didn’t even notice that he was grinding an empty millstone. What the ladies discussed was an entire world meticulously woven of needles and thread; how much care must go into creating a single magnificent outfit to adorn one’s body.
Madame Yan exclaimed, with infinite emotion in her voice, “Nothing is more important for a person than the clothes they wear; these demonstrate better than anything else a person’s spirit and taste.”
“What about food, then?” Sasha asked.
Madame Yan shook her head. “Food ends up on the inside, so it’s not as important as face, which is what announces you to the world. You rely on it for respect and credibility. One must, of course, live for oneself, but think about how dull life would be if there weren’t others to show off to every once in a while!”
At this, she grew sad and her voice dropped. Infected by her sadness, they labored on, but their buoyant enthusiasm had died. The noises they made now sounded hollow, the sesame seeds smelled pungent and greasy, and the paste from the stone mill started to look unappetizing; coal stains showed on the walls, and the air felt dry and dusty. Suddenly everything was musty, tainted, squalid; even the fire in the stove seemed drab.
Soon, however, the squalor was shrouded in darkness, which slipped through the window into the room like a thin but tepid liquid flowing over everything, enveloping space and objects, voices and breath, in a hazy membrane. Only the fire in the stove flared up to warm them with a sudden intensity. At this moment, all desires converged into a longing to nuzzle up to each other; nothing else seemed to matter. The firmament itself might collapse, the earth swallow them up, but what of that? Tomorrow ceased to matter and so did yesterday. As they stir-fried chestnuts in sugar, breathing in the delicious aroma, they exchanged heart-felt words, words carrying the warmth of what was deep inside, albeit only about the most superficial matters. Then, putting an iron pan on the stove, they roasted watermelon seeds, mixing in a few gingko nuts; the nuts gave off a bittersweet scent, a sharp scent compounded of many nameless odors, suggestive of some kind of rebuke, which they conveniently ignored. Putting aside all differences, they luxuriated in their tenderness and affection for each other; what else could they do besides be affectionate? Outside, it was cold and dark, and this only heightened the warmth within. They wished the snow would stay forever, because its melting would be a signal to extinguish the fire burning within their hearts.
They talked, softly and gently, and forgot instantly what they had just said. Words that vanish without a trace and yet are charged with feeling that lingers on—these alone voice what is in the heart. In truth, all they talked about was the sweetness of the chestnuts, the aroma of the melon seeds, the richness of the dumplings, the smoothness of the fermented rice, and the tenderness of the eggs; then conveniently neglected to mention the bitterness of the gingko nuts. The night was pitch dark, but the sky would soon turn bright again. At last their conversation had reached the point of deepest intimacy, where to speak further would only make them grow apart again. They talked about leaving, but their feet lingered. “See you tomorrow,” they all said, but none of them wanted that night to end. Tomorrow might be better, but that was unknowable, whereas they could still hold on to today. But even the present slips through one’s fingers like the sand in an hourglass.
Somehow they found a way to make it through the days while living for the nights. They gathered around the stove, exchanging riddles and telling stories. Many of their riddles went unsolved, just as their stories often seemed to have neither beginning nor end. Wang Qiyao said they lived as if every night was New Year’s Eve. Uncle Maomao said even though they were reversing their days and nights, no matter how hard they tried to go against the grain, some things cannot be changed. Madame Yan said they acted as if they were at a wake, but since the deceased were remote ancestors, they did not feel compelled to grieve. Sasha said it was like they were part of a Siberian hunting party, destined to return empty-handed.
They stuffed the crevices between the stones and the bricks of the world with crumbs from their food and their conversations. They played cat’s cradles with a shoestring, passing the string from hand to hand until it unraveled or got all tangled up; they took strands of hair, knotting them and then untying the knots, until the hair snapped or the knots became too tight to undo; they toyed with interlocking links, which ended up either in a jumbled heap or else scattered on the floor; they worked on an old “seven-piece” wooden puzzle and, much as they tried, failed to devise new combinations. They went to their wits’ end trying to come up with all kinds of little tricks and clever ideas, all of which came to nothing. However, the small always ends up nourishing the great; big things survive by consuming the carcasses of the little. But do not look down on even the most minute of things; for with the coming of daybreak, even the tiniest particles of dust in this world sing and dance in the sunlight.
Chapter 3
 
Kang Mingxun
 
DURING THOSE MUDDLED nights when anything seemed possible, people’s hearts appeared bright on the surface, but there was also a dark side lurking. Uncle Maomao, whose real name was Kang Mingxun, had a place in the dark side as well as the bright side of Wang Qiyao’s heart. She did not dare to think about him, yet could not get him out of her mind.
Once, when they were alone together, Wang Qiyao asked, “So . . . when are you planning to get married?”
“What kind of girl would marry an unemployed bum like me?” Kang Mingxun replied with a wry smile.
It was Wang Qiyao’s turn to smile in disbelief. “Who are you kidding? A man of your impeccable character from such a well-heeled family . . . you could have the hand of any girl.”
“Then would Miss Wang do me the honor of introducing one?”
“But I don’t know anyone in my circle worthy of you.”
Kang Mingxun took up her tone. “Now who’s kidding? It is plain to see that a woman of your elegance could only belong to the highest stratum of society. . . . How could someone of my lowly status impose such a request upon you?”
“You shouldn’t make fun of a girl from a modest background,” said Wang Qiyao.
“Just who is making fun of whom?” Kang Mingxun rejoined.
Thus they parried. However, even though Kang Mingxun was responsive to every one of her queries, the two of them were interrupted before Wang Qiyao had ample opportunity to squeeze all the information she was looking for out of him. The next time they were alone, it was Kang Mingxun who reopened the subject.
“When can we expect to hear of
your
wedding?”
Wang Qiyao took up the same jocular tone. “Who would be willing to marry someone like me ...” but her voice trailed off before she could finish.
Kang Mingxun was poised to pick up the banter when he was startled to discover tears in her eyes. He said hastily, “Forgive me if I said something I shouldn’t. He who knows not what he does is innocent.”
Unable to speak, Wang Qiyao shook her head. It was a while before she repeated, “Who would marry someone like me?”
“Well, whatever could be wrong with someone like you?” he ventured.
“What do you think?” She threw the question back at him.
“You are so perfect a lady that anything I say would be like adding flowers to a piece of brocade.”
“You’re teasing me again.”
“Clearly, my dear, you are the one doing the teasing this time.”
This time Kang Mingxun had been the one to raise the issue, but because he stopped short of asking any pressing questions, Wang Qiyao never got the opportunity that she had been hoping for to give him a direct response.
The repartee between Wang Qiyao and Kang Mingxun was a game of hide-and-seek. The seeker is intent solely on catching his prey. The hider, in contrast, is of two minds, fearful of getting caught but also worried that the seeker might give up the game in exasperation. In concealing himself, he must at the same time keep the other party interested. When other people were present, the two often spoke a language that functioned on two levels. Theirs was a hide-and-seek game played out in the open, with a tacit understanding that left them both plenty of room for maneuvering. They developed a secret code whereby ordinary words took on meanings comprehensible only to the two of them while leaving the others in the dark. Yet, because neither sent any messages openly, these could, if necessary, be repudiated. Hence the alarm when Sasha jokingly announced that he had found a girlfriend for Kang Mingxun—Wang Qiyao was so upset she broke the porcelain ladle she was holding—or what Madame Yan later told her cousin—Kang Mingxun was so flustered he made many a slip in his reply. In both cases, however, they had overreacted; the issues were subsequently dropped. Later, it was Wang Qiyao who brought the subject up again, asking Kang Mingxun who the girl was that Sasha had wanted to introduce to him.

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