Three Souls (24 page)

When we returned, Old Ming took control. He sent for one of his many grandchildren and within a half-hour a skinny twelve-year-old arrived at our gate. He was dispatched to the post office with a steamed bun and strict instructions to stay there until the clerk put the reply telegram in his hands.

I spent the next few hours walking through the gardens, unable to sit still. I even snapped at Weilan when she tugged at my skirts. Jia Po bundled her away with promises of sweets from Old Kwan. Baizhen kept his distance, but I could sense him at the peripheries of my vision while I paced through the courtyard, anxious and inarticulate.

Perhaps this was one of the weeks Sueyin and Tienzhen had stayed in their Shanghai apartment. Perhaps my father and Changyin were away on business. Stepmother, however, never had reason to leave Changchow. What about little Fei-Fei, Changyin’s wife, Geeling, my nieces and nephews? I even hoped Tongyin was in Shanghai, drunk but safe in some seedy nightclub.

“Come in for supper, Wife. You must eat something,” Baizhen pleaded, his hand on my arm.

“But a telegram might arrive.” I pulled away from him irrationally.

“If it does, whether you read it right away or two minutes later, it won’t change what’s already happened. Please.”

I didn’t know what the chopsticks lifted to my mouth, for it all tasted of ashes. Then we sat silently in the parlour. The moon was just a sliver overhead when we heard the cries from the main gate at last.

“The telegram is here, the telegram is here!”

The boy’s voice carried clearly through the night air and brought us all to our feet. I ran for the entrance courtyard, where Old Ming stood beneath the dim light bulb that hung in the gatehouse. His grandson was perched on the tall stool beside him, panting and gulping down cold tea from an enamel mug. The old man held out an envelope, his hands shaking as much as my own. I ripped it open:

Tongyin and Sueyin are in Shanghai. Everyone else in Changchow. Telephones out. Will send news as soon as we know more.

I sagged against Baizhen.

***

I had always imagined the front lines as far away, in distant regions where no one lived. I thought that soldiers died instantly, felled by a single bullet through the heart. When we read about Japanese planes attacking Shanghai, I pictured them flying in disciplined formations over the city, dropping bombs that landed in unfortunate neighbourhoods, nowhere near my sisters’ fashionable apartments.

Now I saw our beautiful villa ransacked, its gardens trampled, the great front gates smashed open. Our family had always believed ourselves safe in our estate, sheltered behind white walls topped with broken glass, guarded by loyal servants. But in fact we had been sheltered by privilege. The men who fought in the streets now knew nothing of privilege, cared nothing for our name or status.

The daily newspapers told us about the battles in lurid detail. The photographs accompanying the reports were suddenly far too real. Dead and maimed soldiers and citizens sprawled obscenely on the streets, in places I recognized. Bodies piled up against the doorway of a café. Others sought the inadequate protection of a crammed arched passageway. A child’s embroidered shoe lay abandoned by the curb.

All I wanted was to see my father again.

Then, abruptly, it was over.
The Communists have retreated,
the headlines proclaimed. I smoothed a broadsheet out on the table with nervous hands, heedless of the ink smudging my sleeves:

After three weeks of bitter fighting, Nationalist forces have taken back Changchow, driving away the guerrilla army led by Mao Zedong. Our brave soldiers were aided by Western gunboats in Xiamen Bay, which prevented Russian arms shipments from sailing up the Jiulong River to resupply Mao’s forces.

Relieved, I handed the newspaper to Gong Gong. Surely it wouldn’t be long before Changchow’s telegraphs and telephones were working again. There would be news from home.

A day later, news did arrive. It was a telegram from my eldest brother, Changyin.

Father was dead.

***

I return to the roof beams of the temple. Three red sparks join me there, hovering silently before my eyes. Below, the temple doors stand partially open, holding back the muted light of dawn.

My
yang
soul speaks first, a lament.
Too late now, too late. Too late to reconcile with your father. You will regret this until the day you die.
Bitter gentian root washes over my tongue.

I’m past the day of my death and I regret it.
I’m numb with disbelief. How could I have lost all memory of Father’s death?
I forgave him everything when Changchow was invaded. All I wanted was to see him and all my family safe and unharmed. I was going to write him a real letter once the battles were over.

That’s the trouble when you’re young,
my
hun
soul says.
You think you have all the time in the world. You think the world will wait until you’re ready.

A new thought comes to me.
Father’s dead, but so am I. Will I be able to meet him?

Perhaps.
My
hun
soul sounds doubtful.
If you’re able to make amends quickly enough you might catch up with your father in the afterlife before he moves on.

Moves on where?

To his next reincarnation,
my
yin
soul replies.

Of course.

15

B
aizhen went with me to Changchow. Gong Gong wanted to come too, but war disrupts everything, even gestures of respect. The estate had been vandalized and many of the servants were missing. Changyin’s telegram explained they couldn’t entertain house guests.

The retreating Communist army had looted its way out of the city. The men who invaded our home might have been soldiers from either army, or local thugs taking advantage of the chaos. It was hard to tell, for the Communists couldn’t afford to supply all their recruits with uniforms.

I learned that Father and Changyin had tried to reason with the horde that pounded at our gates with rifles and threats. The looters kicked Changyin to the ground and when Father tried to intervene, one of the men struck him with a rifle butt.

“Only a single blow, according to Stepmother,” Sueyin said. “But it was to the head, and he collapsed. He was unconscious and by the time Stepmother found a doctor, it was too late.”

The courtyard of our ancestral temple should have been overflowing with mourners, packed tightly as fermented black beans in a stoneware jar. Instead, Father’s funeral was small and hurried, attended only by family, not at all befitting his status. There were so many funeral processions filing through Changchow’s shattered neighbourhoods that week that we nearly tripped over one another on our way to the cemetery.

Members of the family capable of making the walk trudged silently behind the coffin, our white mourning robes like scraps of rice paper against the hillside as we ascended to the clan’s burial grounds, trampling pine needles and fallen plum blossoms as we went.

In front of the grave, Baizhen and I dropped to our knees. My sisters and their husbands knelt to our left, Stepmother and Fei-Fei to our right. Geeling, who had insisted on walking with us on her deformed feet, knelt at the end of the row. In front of us were Changyin, Tongyin, and our uncles, Father’s younger brothers. They bowed in unison, bundles of incense in their hands. We followed suit, touching our foreheads and palms to hard dirt. I said farewell to my father, mute anguish striking at my heart. Even the sharp, resinous scent of pine felt like a reproach.

***

The morning after the funeral was the first opportunity for time alone with my sisters. I had been the last to arrive home, only just in time for the funeral. Now my sisters and I climbed the embankment in the Old Garden and sank down on the carved stone seats under the pine trees.

“I hoped so much we would sit here together one day,” Gaoyin said, dabbing her eyes, “but not like this.”

Sueyin said nothing, just squeezed my hand.

“If it weren’t for Stepmother,” Gaoyin said, gazing at the lake, “our family would have lost much, much more.”

The moment word came of armies marching toward Changchow, Stepmother had sent away all but the most trusted servants. Then she and Head Servant Lu had organized each family to collect its most precious treasures—antique porcelains, jewellery, gold, and jade. They packed the valuables into crates, baskets, and canvas sacks. The servants dragged the valuables into the middle of the lake, where they vanished from view, covered by a film of duckweed and lily pads. Then Stepmother had wrapped Father’s most treasured books and paintings in layers of oilskin and hid them in the servants’ outhouses. What remained on display was more than enough to convince the peasant army that they were rifling through our very best possessions.

I almost couldn’t bear to look at the villa. All the smashed glass had been removed from the windows but there were holes in the wallpaper where crystal sconces used to shine, and my mother’s chandeliers had been torn from their fittings. The Old Garden, natural in its contours and artlessly wild, had lost nothing more than some plantings of irises, run over by the gardeners’ wheelbarrows, which the looters had used to carry away their spoils, but the rose garden, with its pergolas and carefully trimmed hedges, had been flattened.

“How are things with Shen’s family?” I asked Gaoyin.

“The armies didn’t pass through their street, thank the gods.”

The Liu estate had fared worst of all. The Judge tried to lecture the looters, invoking Confucius and shaking his cane at them while they plundered the property. The soldiers laughed at the old man and, before they left, threw burning torches into the houses. The aging wooden mansions sparked like twigs held over a bonfire. Madame Liu, emaciated and deprived of her opium supply during the three weeks of battle, died the day after the fire.

“The Judge has told us that life is precarious and he wants a grandson. Now that Father’s gone, he may allow Tienzhen to divorce me.” Sueyin paused. “In his own way, Tienzhen tries to be loyal. He says he needs someone who can be hostess at his soirees. He’ll only marry someone as beautiful as I am.”

“They’ll need to search long and hard then,” I said. “Do you really want a divorce?”

My sisters exchanged glances.

“Now that Father’s gone,” Sueyin said, “I feel as though a great burden has been lifted from my heart.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Don’t look so shocked, Little Sister. Of course I wish Father were still alive. All I mean is that I don’t need to worry about shaming him anymore.”

“So you’re leaving Tienzhen, then?” Gaoyin asked gently.

Sueyin nodded. “With or without a divorce.”

“Good.” Just one firm nod of the head from Gaoyin.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving your husband?” I knew I sounded sulky. “Obviously this isn’t a surprise to Eldest Sister.”

“There wasn’t anything
to
tell. When Father was alive, I could only dream about leaving Tienzhen. Now, I can actually do it.”

“Do you expect Changyin to let you live at home?” I asked, worriedly.

“I’m not coming back to our family.” She smiled at me ruefully.

“But where will you go? What will you do?”

“Remember my weekly allowance from the Judge, Little Sister? I’ve saved nearly all of it. And I’ll wait to see whether Father left me anything in his will.” She paused. “I’ve been offered a contract to act in a film. In Hong Kong. I’m leaving Tienzhen for Ma Fong, the director.”

I could only gape. Gaoyin didn’t seem surprised at this bit of news either.

“I met him last year at a film premiere in Shanghai,” said Sueyin. “Then Ma Fong came to one of our soirees. When the time came for actors to read scenes from a script, Ma insisted I be part of it.”

“I was there that night,” Gaoyin said. “The actor they paired with her did a respectable job but Sueyin was mesmerizing. Absolutely and believably tragic. My handkerchief was soaked in tears. At the end, Ma Fong asked Sueyin to audition for his film.”

“How did Tienzhen take it?” I asked, dubiously.

“He was proud and pleased,” said Sueyin with more than a hint of wryness. “Pleased in the manner of a child whose dog has performed a clever trick. Of course I couldn’t audition. But from then on, Ma kept coming to our parties.”

“So you’re leaving because you’re in love with Ma Fong?” I asked.

“You mean, am I alienating my family for love?” She shrugged. “This isn’t love, Little Sister, it’s a business transaction. Unlike the other men, Ma Fong didn’t flatter or flirt with me. He offered me a contract and a salary.”

There was a hard edge to her voice I hadn’t heard before. Yet I was glad of it.

“Couldn’t you do something else? Must you become an actress?” The consequences of her decision had dawned on me.

“I’m not qualified for any respectable jobs like teaching or nursing. What do I have besides my face?” She smiled as though she were amused, but it was heartbreaking.

“But our families will make us shun you! I’ll have to write to you in secret.” I nearly wailed.

“Is that so different from what we do now?”

***

The next morning I began setting the library to rights. I gathered up the books and scrolls and sorted them for reshelving. I was almost glad Father wasn’t there to see his beloved library in such a state. Several fine watercolours lay on the floor, torn and trampled beyond repair, long strips of landscape paintings mixed with fragments of blue-black iris flowers.

“Good idea.” Stepmother smiled at me from the doorway of the library. Her eyes were weary, ringed with dark circles. “You’re the best one for this job. You know how your father organized his books.”

“You look tired, Stepmother. Sit down and talk while I work.”

A low cough interrupted us. Geeling, Changyin’s wife. Her hands fluttered nervously.