Three Souls (27 page)

He trampled over weeds to a small, derelict cottage at the foot of the hill, paused by a broken-down fence of bamboo slats, and pointed to a path, overgrown and barely visible. The path led us up the hill in a slow spiral between dense growths of azaleas and rhododendrons, the shining smooth leaves of camellias and their red-and-white blooms, and the fragrant branches of lilacs.

Pines, maples, and elms grew tall, shading the path. We brushed past masses of orange and yellow azaleas, stepped on woody stems that gave off a fragrance like incense. A thick mat of pine needles cushioned the path and birdsong shrilled above the sound of birch leaves fluttering in the breeze. Branches of flowering cherry trees that hadn’t been pruned in years dropped the last of their pink and white petals.

“
Wah, waaah!
” Weilan shouted with delight each time her upraised hands brought down a shower of blooms.

“My seven-times-great-grandfather built this hill when our family was at the height of its prosperity,” Baizhen said. “I remember coming for picnics when my grandfather was still alive. Now Father wants to sell Infant Mountain. I wanted you to see it before it goes.”

Dappled light opened up on the summit, where we found a small pavilion, no more than a thatched roof atop four posts. Baizhen set Weilan down on the trail and she immediately scrambled to the peak. He pulled me up the final incline.

I found myself looking down on Pinghu and the surrounding countryside. Amid a glaze of green fields, the lake that gave Pinghu its name gleamed like a polished amethyst. I could see the town, the pagoda by the lake, and the monastery beside it. I could even see the dusty faraway hills that marked the boundaries of the next town.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” I exclaimed. And I meant it.

All at once it came to me that Pinghu had given me the serenity of ordinary days, a quiet pond set in the chaotic landscape that was China. For as long as it could hold back the inevitable intrusion of war, I would cherish its simple pleasures.

Weilan scampered around the clearing, urging Little Ming to unpack our lunch. I knelt down to hug my daughter, and pointed to the north, where I could see a distant locomotive approaching the town, its plume of black smoke a contrast to the bright landscape all around.

***

My souls and I watch, enjoying the memory.

My memory-self is relaxed and laughing, teasing Baizhen and Little Ming. My face almost glows, radiant with new-found appreciation for my little world.

This town, this marriage, they were not what I had imagined for myself,
I tell them.
But I had a husband who loved me with great devotion and a daughter we both adored. It was enough. I was content.

At last,
my
yang
soul grumbles.
You took long enough to realize it.
But he sounds pleased and sweet honey coats my tongue.

That was a very happy day.
My
yin
soul stands at the summit, where a light wind makes her hair ribbons flutter. Lilacs scent the air.

It was certainly the day I realized I could be truly happy.

Look,
says my
hun
soul
. The train has pulled in to the station.

17

T
he package from Gaoyin contained only a few newspapers and film magazines. Her open letter amused me: it detailed at length the challenges of toilet training her youngest. Her secret letter made my heart sink:

My Dearest Sister,

I don’t dare continue our secret correspondence any longer. Read the news and you’ll understand why I’m sending only government-approved newspapers and journals from now on. The secret police are far more thorough than our families when it comes to searching for hidden notes. If ours are discovered, just the fact that we write in secret will implicate us.

Many of the writers and poets Father used to invite to his salons have gone over to the left. Tongyin is mixed up with the Communists in some way and I’m worried for him. Tell your husband to stay away from politics.

So this would be our last secret letter. Gaoyin had her children to consider. She was a more cautious person now than the sister who had agreed to help me run away. I hadn’t felt this lonely since my first year as a wife, before Weilan was born. As for Gaoyin’s warning, there wasn’t much danger of anyone in Pinghu getting caught up in politics, I thought. For one thing, politics would first have to find this town.

I turned to the newspapers and began to read. On the second page of the
Shanghai News
I saw it:

CHINA MILLENNIUM SHUT DOWN BY POLICE

Police have raided the offices of China Millennium, citing treasonous writing as the reason for arresting the editor, Lin Shaoyi. Yen Hanchin, poet and translator of Russian novels, who has been identified as the anonymous writer Nobody Special, is still at large. Staff at the journal were burning documents when police arrived, including a list of subscribers to the magazine. Police, however, already had a copy of the list and are making further arrests.

Like everyone else, I had believed Nobody Special was a collective of poets and writers, but it had been Hanchin all along. His name in print no longer made me catch my breath, but this news made me wonder where he was hiding.

***

“Ah, here’s something interesting,” said Gong Gong.

We were in the parlour. I was sewing a tunic for Weilan in her favourite shade of turquoise, and Jia Po was making a pair of cloth shoes for Gong Gong.

He handed me an invitation to the opening of a new bookstore on Southern Harmony Street. I recognized the name of the proprietor, Wang Duchen, the son of Bookseller Wang, who used to source rare books for Gong Gong.

“I’ll ask Bookseller Wang about this,” said Gong Gong. “If his son has opened the store with his blessing, then I’ll attend the opening to show my support.”

“He’s selling books by contemporary authors,” I noticed with interest. “He won’t be competing with his father’s business.”

GRAND OPENING
Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore, 24 Southern Harmony Street

We specialize in contemporary works of prose and poetry, and literary-arts journals. Our publications come from Peking, Shanghai, and Nanking. Please honour us by attending our opening-day celebrations, to be held at noon on the sixth day of the sixth month.

Wang Duchen, Proprietor

Gong Gong went to Bookseller Wang’s shop that very afternoon and returned with assurances from Wang that his son had opened the new shop on behalf of the Wang family.

“Wang wants to see whether modern literature will sell,” Gong Gong reported. “But he doesn’t want any young radicals mixing with his own customers, so they opened a separate store, which his son will manage. Bookseller Wang is very considerate, for a shopkeeper. But then, he does sell books.”

On the sixth day of the sixth month, my father-in-law set off to inspect the new store. When Gong Gong returned, I was in the main house with Jia Po, adding knot buttons to Weilan’s blouse, struggling to keep the stitches hidden. He carried a small package of books. The store, he reported, wasn’t hanging its hopes solely on modern literature. There was a small selection of classics as well as some children’s books.

“I made a small purchase. Just to show support for young Wang.”

He placed the books on the table beside his chair. Jia Po brought his slippers and I poured out fresh tea for him.

“The clerk who helped me said these authors are the most popular right now. Lu Hsün, Hu Shih, and some poet called Yu Dafu. Never heard of them.”

I picked up one and then the next, greedy for the prospect of something new.

“Which one will you read first, Gong Gong?”

Gong Gong waved his hand. “Take them all, take your time. I’m not interested in modern literature. Oh, and there’s something for you. For Weilan, actually.”

He pointed at a cheap copy of
The Children’s History of Twenty-Four Exemplars of Filial Piety.
“The clerk gave it to me for free. For my granddaughter, he said, although I don’t remember telling him about our family.” He paused, then continued. “Well, I’m sure Bookseller Wang briefed the staff on his most important clients.”

I finished my struggle with the blue buttons, folded the little blouse into my sewing basket, and picked up the new books. Jia Po was engrossed in the gossip Gong Gong had brought back from town, and the two were oblivious to my presence when I stood up to leave. There was time for an hour of peaceful reading, and I decided to do it in the pavilion. A light breeze had come up and with it the promise of one of the brief but powerful summer showers that blow in from the sea. I could smell it in the air and I hurried through the bamboo grove to the shelter of the pavilion. Like everything else on the estate, it looked a bit forlorn: the ancient wisteria vine planted at its base hadn’t been pruned in a decade. Any day now the roof would come free from its moorings, prodded off by the wisteria’s creeping tendrils.

I sat on one of the curved stone benches in the pavilion and skimmed the first pages of each book, unable to choose between them. I opened the children’s book and flipped through the familiar stories. A slip of blue notepaper was tucked in the middle, a bookmark or a price tag, I thought. Idly, I drew it out.

There was a faraway rumble of thunder and raindrops began flicking off the wisteria leaves. But I barely noticed. The pale blue onion skin was as familiar to me as the handwriting on it:

Come to the Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore on Thursdays.

Special prices for old friends.

You may lose all that you acquire, but knowledge and wisdom remain yours forever.

I tucked the slip of paper back in the book, closed my eyes, and felt my body shiver, but not because of my wet clothing. No, it simply wasn’t possible.

***

The following Thursday, with a list of things I didn’t really need tucked in my tunic pocket, I went shopping. I bought dried shrimps and straw mushrooms, a jar of bean paste, and a spool of black thread. I looked modest and matronly in a high-collared tunic of deep blue and a matching skirt, but with every step my heart pounded as loudly as the drumbeats of a dragon dance, my thoughts were clotted and confused, my body drawn forward by a nameless compulsion that was both pleasurable and frightening.

Eventually I stood at the threshold of the Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore. I loitered outside, pretended to read the notices pasted on the whitewashed wall, lists of books that had just arrived. Finally when I could delay it no longer, I pushed open the door to a harsh jangle of brass bells.

At first I couldn’t see anything. Then my eyes adjusted from the bright sun outside to the store’s gentle light, filtered as it was through paper shades. A young man faced the counter, a customer.

Behind the counter was Hanchin.

He didn’t look like a simple store clerk, not to my eyes. Even with round glasses perched on his nose and wearing an old-fashioned
changshan
gown of dark grey, he carried himself with too much confidence. He nodded at me and resumed wrapping the customer’s package, so I lingered in the far corner of the store beside a case of children’s books. I stole glances at him while thumbing through a picture book.

“You’ll enjoy those books, sir,” Hanchin said, as he opened the door and bowed to the customer. “This author used to write for
New Youth
and other magazines.”

He stood outside the shop entrance for a moment, polishing his glasses with a handkerchief of faded green plaid. He held the glasses up to the light, squinted, and put them back on. He was thinner than when I’d last seen him, his cheekbones standing out in sharp ridges. Reluctantly, I realized he was also far handsomer than I remembered, more forceful and enigmatic than the romantic figure from my faded daydreams.

He looked up and down the street. Then he came back in, pulling the door shut.

I spoke into the silence, hoping my voice wouldn’t tremble.

“Do you really need those glasses, or are they a disguise?”

“Really, Leiyin. We haven’t seen each other in years and you ask about my glasses?” The same amused, intimate smile. “Yes, I’ve grown a little nearsighted. And you. You’re a mother now, I understand. ”

“Six years. We haven’t seen each other in six years.” I steadied my voice. “Yes, I have a daughter, almost five years old. What are you doing here, Hanchin?”

“I’m in hiding.” As calmly as if he were talking about the weather. He took the picture book out of my hands, replaced it on the shelf. His movement stirred the stale air of the bookshop, spread the faintest trace of sandalwood.

“But why here? This town is a backwater.”

“That’s why it’s perfect. Who’d ever think of coming to a town such as this?”

“Did you know I lived here?”

“Yes, I knew. I’ve always known.”

Against my will, my heart raced. I’d stopped looking for his name in the newspapers but he had somehow kept track of me.

“What if I hadn’t seen that note in the book you gave my father-in-law? I wouldn’t be here today, on a Thursday.”

“Well, the book was meant for your daughter, so there was a good chance you’d see it. And even if you weren’t sure what the note meant, you’d know who it was from.” Oh, he was so sure of himself.

“What if I hadn’t seen the note at all?”

“A new bookstore, Leiyin. How could you resist? You would have come through these doors before long. But Thursdays are convenient. Young Wang usually helps his father at the other store on Thursdays.”

“Why did you contact me, Hanchin? You’re a political criminal. Why would I endanger myself for you? I hardly know you.”