Three Souls (26 page)

It’s exciting to have a film star in the family,
says my
yin
soul, twirling around the terrace, pretending to dance with an invisible partner. She stops.
If only Sueyin’s reasons for becoming an actress were not so sad.

She joins my
yang
soul on the steps and leans against his shoulder. He pats her hand.

Life isn’t always black and white, is it?
My
hun
soul says, standing beside me.

***

In the fall, all the film magazines featured promotional stills from
A Song of Orchids.
Although Chen Dai had only a minor role, she appeared in as many photographs as the leading lady. Sueyin had already been signed to three more films.

Finally, four months after her departure from our family, a letter from Sueyin arrived, enclosed in one from Gaoyin:

Tienzhen is angry, but not because of Ma Fong. He is jealous of my film career, such as it is. Only the prospect of being cut off without any income prevents him from moving to Hong Kong to join me. I hear the Judge has found him a new wife.

I receive offers every day from wealthy businessmen to be their mistress. One from an American. Occasionally I receive marriage proposals that might even be sincere. By film-world standards I’m very dull, for even when Ma Fong strays, I don’t. Am I happier? Perhaps. But at least I’m responsible for myself and bearing the consequences of my own decisions.

The critics gave
A Song of Orchids
mediocre reviews, criticizing its weak plot. But Sueyin dazzled them. It would be several months before the film finished its run in the big cities and meandered its way to the theatres of small towns like Pinghu.

Little Ming waited eagerly for the film magazines. She turned immediately to the photographs of her favourite actresses and I helped her decipher the captions beneath. We read about films and society parties, the fashions, the gossip, and the romances. There was no doubt that films spurred her to read more than the books in my library did.

“You look a bit like Chen Dai, Young Mistress.” She pointed at the latest photo of Sueyin, in high-heeled boots with a fedora angled over her brow.

“Little Ming, there are such important things happening in China and the rest of the world,” I chided. “Wouldn’t you like to read the newspaper to understand more about what is going on between the Communists and the Nationalists?”

She looked over at me, puzzled. “Mao and Chiang are the two biggest warlords, Young Mistress. That’s how it looks to me.”

I couldn’t blame her for preferring the glamour of the film world. How could I expect her to make sense of the chaos that was Chinese politics?

***

“You’re doing very well, Husband. What’s your vocabulary count up to now?”

“A few words over three thousand five hundred.”

To read the newspapers, Baizhen needed to know at least four thousand of the most common words.

“You’ve made good progress.”

“It’s purely memory work, I know that.” He sighed. “To think your father and brothers studied French and English too. How did they do it?”

“If your father knew how hard you’ve been working, he’d be proud.”

Baizhen shook his head.

“I think he’d berate me. Why couldn’t I have found such diligence fifteen years ago?”

“That wasn’t your fault,” I said fiercely. “He should be pleased with you. I’m pleased.” I patted his shoulder. He looked up, his face earnest.

“I don’t want our daughter to be ashamed of me.”

Our daughter.

How could I deny that I was bound to this man?

***

Copies of
China Millennium
continued to arrive from Tongyin. I still read every issue, but since coming home from Changchow, I no longer looked for mention of Hanchin. I hadn’t seen his name on any articles in almost two years. It was amazing that
China Millennium
still managed to put out issues, I thought. The Nationalist government censored all journalism heavily and although the magazine’s writers conveyed their Communist sympathies carefully and subtly, they were dancing on the edge.

But the latest issue of
China Millennium
broke all the rules. The editor, Lin Shaoyi, expressed disgust with the Nationalists for starting a civil war and fighting our own countrymen instead of uniting with the Communists to fight against the Japanese:

Generalissimo Chiang has placed naive and touching faith in the Western powers for aid against Japanese aggression. Foreigners have no stake in Chinese sovereignty; they only care about our goods and trade. The Nationalists must face reality. Only another Chinese army can help us repel the Japanese invaders.

On the next page, Nobody Special openly accused the Nationalist Government of corruption:

Western dollars have never disappeared so quickly. Generalissimo Chiang could have a unified Republic of China if even half the money sent by our American allies—millions of dollars, rumour has it—had been used for weapons and military training to defeat Mao’s army. Nationalist leaders have so little faith in their own future they are planning their escape routes and lining their own pockets in anticipation. If so, then the Communists have already won.

In the absence of the Qing Dynasty, Gong Gong backed the Nationalists.

“The Chinese Soviet Republic? Don’t make me laugh!” he snorted.

We were entertaining Old Master Chou, Pinghu’s last remaining Qing Dynasty scholar. Master Chou had attained the rank of
juren
in the Imperial Examinations more than fifty years ago. If Gong Gong was gruff and old-fashioned, Master Chou was even more calcified in his outlook.

“The Communists are fighting behind wooden barricades and in trenches,” said Master Chou. “They can’t hold out. The Nationalists are well funded by the West.”

American, British, or French—it was “the West” to these old men. I longed to say the Communists were funded by the West also, by the Russians. But my role was to sit quietly beside Jia Po on a carved rosewood chair, rising occasionally to pass around the almond biscuits.

“And this peasant, Mao,” Gong Gong continued. “The Communist Party used to be run by educated men. Educated in the West, that’s how they got these barbaric ideas, but at least they were educated boys. From good families. They should have known better. And now we have an army of peasants. What do peasants know about governing? Finance? Foreign policy? And who will plant the fields now?”

“What about you, Baizhen?” Old Master Chou pointed his cane at my husband. “What do you think of all this?”

I could tell Gong Gong was about to say something uncomplimentary about his son’s lack of interest in politics, but Baizhen spoke up.

“My hope, sir, is that both sides unite against the Japanese threat. If Mao or Chiang wins, we still have Chinese ruling China. If the Japanese invade and win, we lose our sovereignty.”

Gong Gong nearly dropped his almond biscuit.

“Well spoken, my boy, well spoken!” Old Master Chou thumped his cane in approval.

For the rest of the visit, Baizhen sat as silent as a mouse, trying to remain invisible to a hawk, startled at his own boldness. When I poured another round of tea, our fingers touched. I smiled at him and winked. He blushed, then grinned.

After Old Master Chou’s departure, Gong Gong asked Baizhen how he had acquired an understanding of the news. When Baizhen confessed that I had been teaching him how to read, Gong Gong demanded a demonstration.

Nervous but steady, Baizhen read out loud the opening of an article about modernizing banking practices:

The nation’s banks would do well to eliminate the practice of lending money based on personal relationships. They should follow the Western practice of approving loans based on objective measurements of credit-worthiness.

“Stop,” Gong Gong said. “Enough. I am pleased.”

He included me in his gaze. “From now on, my son, you can travel with me on business. I can teach you something about the business world.”

I bit my tongue.

***

As soon as
A Song of Orchids
reached Pinghu, we rushed to see it. I sat in the darkened theatre with Baizhen, barely able to wait for Sueyin to make her entrance. According to the reviews, the story was about a Ming Dynasty princess who offers to take her older sister’s place in marriage to a barbarian king, so that the older princess can continue her love affair with a court poet. Sueyin played the older princess, a minor role, for the tale centred on the feisty younger sister.

When Sueyin first appeared onscreen, her features were modestly hidden behind a fan, shielded from the dark eyes of the barbarian delegation. The emperor ordered her to show her face and slowly, reluctantly, the princess lowered the fan. The camera lingered on Sueyin’s face. For a moment, there was silence. There wasn’t a single crack of peanut shells, not a murmur of conversation in the entire theatre. Only an audible intake of breath.

The sisters’ farewell, minutes later, was Sueyin’s final scene. From that point onward, the story followed the younger princess and her life at the barbarian court. Again, the camera focused in on Sueyin’s lovely face as she waved at the departing caravan, a long procession that snaked away from the palace, taking the younger princess with it.

To my right, a middle-aged woman bawled into her sleeve and on my left, Baizhen sniffled. I cried and cried. I couldn’t stop, even after we left the theatre. I cried for the princesses, for Sueyin, for myself. I cried because I knew I would never see her face again except in a film theatre, shared with a crowd in the dark.

***

In the spring of 1934, just before my twenty-third birthday, Jia Po and I studied our household finances and came to the conclusion that we had to send Amah Wu back to her family farm. Between Little Ming, Baizhen, and me, Weilan received plenty of attention. She didn’t need a nanny who did nothing except follow her around and snore on a cot in the nursery.

“It’s not her just wages. Amah Wu eats enough for three people,” my mother-in-law said. “Even though she’s not nursing anymore.”

The next morning, Amah Wu, sniffling and red-eyed, left for home with our promise that she would be called upon if we needed a nursemaid again. That afternoon, in response to a note from Jia Po, Jeweller Mah came to the house. He left with Jia Po’s second-best gold-and-jade bracelets and a silver-filigree box that contained a huge Burmese ruby brooch. He also took a few pieces of the Limoges china that had been part of my dowry. He would show it to his other customers. If he could sell the whole set, Jia Po and I would part happily with it, for we never used it. We could eat for another year if we were frugal.

“I wanted to give you that brooch one day.” She looked apologetic. “It was a wedding gift from my grandmother.”

“Can’t you speak to Gong Gong?” I asked, thinking of the rare books in the library. “There must be something he can sell.”

She didn’t reply, just counted ten silver coins into my hand and stacked the rest inside her metal cash box.

“Take Little Ming with you to see a film,” she said. “It’s not your fault money flows out of this house like water.”

***

You could have offered to take money out of your inheritance,
my
yang
soul says. His glasses flash and I taste strong black tea.
What was the use of saving money for Weilan’s education if she starved in the meantime?

I would have written to Changyin once all our other means were exhausted. I didn’t want Gong Gong to think there was any hope of getting his hands on my inheritance. Not until our situation became desperate.

Greedy,
says my
yin
soul, her sweet face scornful.
A greedy man.

No,
I disagree.
Just weak. Vain and weak. His own father was probably not much better when it came to money.

Fortunately Baizhen was content with a frugal life,
my
hun
soul says.
He could have been a far worse husband. It’s amazing he wasn’t.

***

Baizhen organized an outing to celebrate my twenty-third birthday. Old Kwan packed a lunch for us, and we piled into a hired donkey cart driven by yet another of Old Ming’s grandchildren. This one turned out to be Little Ming’s brother, a young man of nineteen. Baizhen sat in front beside the driver, Weilan on his lap, while Little Ming and I rode in the cart, facing backward, legs dangling over the side.

“No, no, I won’t tell you where we’re going,” I heard Baizhen say. Weilan had been pestering him with questions. “All I’ll say is that our family owns a very interesting property on the outskirts of Pinghu.”

“Be patient, My Only Heart,” I called from the back of the cart. “Papa wants this to be a surprise.”

The paved streets of Pinghu rolled away from us and turned into hard-packed dirt roads. The old quilts folded under our buttocks did little to cushion us as the cart bumped and jolted over ruts, but I didn’t care. A clear blue sky with a few clouds like handfuls of ruined lace, small farmhouses, and tidy fields: it all filled me with a sense of well-being.

When the cart stopped and Little Ming helped me slide off my seat, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I turned around. A hill rose up from an otherwise rocky, flat landscape. It was smoothly rounded and resembled a huge burial mound covered in flowering shrubs.

“It’s called Infant Mountain because it’s just a baby of a mountain.” Baizhen looked proud. “We’ll climb to the top for the view and eat lunch there.”

I must have looked unsure. He added, “It’s a gentle climb. I used to do it as a boy.”

Little Ming lifted the wicker basket of food and balanced it easily on her head. Her brother unhitched the donkey to let it graze, and settled himself under the shade of a large bayberry tree. I carried old quilts to spread on the ground and Baizhen swung Weilan onto his shoulders, making her squeal with glee.