Three Souls (43 page)

Baizhen looks doubtful. “It sounds as though the girls must be exceptional.”

Tongyin nods. “The girls are not only intelligent but also beautiful. You can count on a time when the young Cha wives will rule the elite of Chinese society.”

“But Weilan is just a small-town girl,” Gong Gong says, a note of dejection in his voice. “She won’t be sophisticated enough.”

“No, not true. Not at all. She’s completely unspoiled, a clean slate.” Tongyin laughs and slaps his knee. There’s an oily quality to his voice. “After the betrothal, she would spend a few months of each year at the Cha estate, being trained in all the social graces. It’s part of the marriage contract. She’ll be groomed to be the perfect wife, whether the boy grows up to be a diplomat or a general.”

The dining room is silent. My in-laws are beaming and hopeful, and even Meichiu nods.

I want to pound my fists on the table.

“This sounds too good to be true,” Gong Gong says, finally finding words.

I want to scream at him.
That’s because it is!

“I believe Weilan has the right qualities. Yes, I truly believe this. If you’re willing, I’ll speak to my friend Cha Zhiming.”

There’s a hubbub of excitement at the dinner table. Gong Gong’s eyes glisten at the thought of becoming allied to one of the most important men in China. He pours more cognac all around.

Only Baizhen seems hesitant. “I promised my . . . your sister that Weilan would go to high school. And she wanted our daughter to go to university as well.”

“Surely there’s a better future for her in the Cha family than as a schoolteacher,” Gong Gong says with a trace of annoyance.

“Think of how much better our son’s prospects would be with a sister married into such a prominent family,” Meichiu adds.

I can see Baizhen wavering.

“Now, now,” says Tongyin. “Nothing’s settled. Nothing yet. All I can do is make the suggestion. But perhaps you could take Weilan to the photographer’s tomorrow. I’d like to have some pictures to show Cha Zhiming when I speak to him.”

“Nothing is settled,” Gong Gong agrees, “but your kindness is already more than we ever expected. The least we can do is to arrange for some photographs of Weilan.”

If I could shatter plates and bring down the roof beams, this entire house would be in ruins.

***

He’s selling my daughter! Tongyin must know what Cha Zhiming is like. How can he care so little about her fate? And the family’s going along with it, even Baizhen is swayed.

They don’t know what you know about the Cha family,
my
yang
soul says.
Perhaps Tongyin doesn’t really know either. Or he believes Cha Zhiming wouldn’t touch his younger brother’s fiancée.

All Tongyin knows is that the Cha family once made an offer for Fei-Fei,
my
yin
soul says,
and that gave him the idea.

What Tongyin knows, suspects, or is ignorant about doesn’t matter,
says my
hun
soul.
Weilan mustn’t end up with that family.

I don’t know how, but I must stop him,
I agree.
At any cost.

***

Tongyin sits on his bed in the guest room and lifts up the quilt. Dali has placed two hot bricks wrapped in flannel at the foot of the bed. He sighs and undresses, throwing his clothes over a chair. He puts on silk pajamas and a robe of the same garnet red in a heavier silk. From his suitcase he pulls out a bottle of cognac and pours himself a drink.

He tosses and turns for nearly an hour before the hazy dream shadow forms over his head. Lifting its thin veil I step inside, wondering whether doing harm in a dream has any effect in real life, because all evening I’ve wanted to murder my brother.

In his dream, Tongyin pushes open the door to a long, brightly lit corridor. His footsteps echo on bare concrete and unpainted walls. There are no windows, only doors spaced far apart. Bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling swing back and forth in the draft that blows in from the open door. He’s still wearing his garnet silk pajamas and he shivers in his bare feet. A sliver of light widens to a triangle as a door opens farther along the corridor. My brother hesitantly enters a dingy office where a Nationalist police captain is seated behind a desk. Other men are sitting in the dim shadows at the corners of the room, their faces indistinct, their figures dark and threatening.

“I don’t have it. I don’t have it.” Tongyin looks frightened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know the document existed until after he was executed.”

“It’s the only thing that will save you.” The police captain’s face blurs and now I’m looking at Cha Zhiming.

“My sister would have known where to look,” says Tongyin, “but now she’s dead. I’m trying my best. I’ve sent Hanchin’s wife to look. I didn’t tell you about her, but that’s what I’ve done.”

Rising to their feet, the shadowy figures in the corners reach for their guns.

“Wait, wait. Cha, tell them.” He looks at Cha Zhiming, pleading. “We’re related, we’re family. My niece is married to your little brother.”

Cha Zhiming shakes his head. “Not yet.” A gun appears in his hand.

Tongyin turns and runs into the corridor, which stretches out in an endless tunnel to nowhere. His movements are agonizingly slow, as though he is pushing through river mud, his pursuers always just a few steps behind. Then he wakes up, shuddering.

I’ve learned nothing except what I already know: Tongyin’s frightened of Cha Zhiming and the Nationalist police. And Tongyin somehow knows about the manifesto. I can’t be sure of anything else. Does Cha Zhiming also know about the manifesto? Does he know that Tongyin thinks it’s hidden here?

Then I realize that my hand is still holding on to the edge of his dream shape.

Tongyin reaches for the packet of cigarettes on his bedside table. The table blurs, its colour changes from a lacquered black to rich mahogany. Through the window, a noonday sun blazes down on a rose garden in full bloom. He’s still dreaming. To escape his fear, he dreamed of waking up. Now he’s started a new dream and he’s in his bedroom in my family’s Changchow villa.

Nanmei enters the room, a Nanmei dressed in drab peasant clothing, thin and dirty.

“Miss Wang, what progress have you made?” he asks, with no sign of the terror of his previous dream. A faint wisp of tobacco smoke curls upward with his words.

I will my dream image to appear. I need to speak with him directly.

“You should ask Leiyin,” says Nanmei’s dream image.

“I know she saw your husband while he was in Pinghu.” He laughs, and it’s not a pleasant laugh. “Yes, I would say she helped him quite a lot, my little sister.”

Nanmei’s features swim and now it’s my dream image that paces through the room, dressed in a school uniform, hair in two pigtails. I look about fifteen years old. So that’s how my brother remembers me. The image begins to waver, but before it can shift back to Nanmei’s figure, I step in. My body prickles all over, not quite a sting, not quite an itch. Then the sensation dwindles, my dream image grows solid, and I face my brother to say what I’ve wanted to shout all evening.

“Don’t you dare offer my daughter to the Cha family!”

Tongyin looks startled, then he smiles. “But I’m doing it to keep our family safe, Little Sister. If we’re related to them, they can’t arrest me.”

“Arrest you for what?”

He doesn’t answer my question. “Little Sister, where’s Hanchin’s manifesto?”

“Why? How does that document have anything to do with my child?”

He doesn’t reply, just buries his face in his hands. I try again.

“If I tell you where to find the document, will that be enough to keep you safe? Will you forget about a marriage between Weilan and the Cha boy?”

“I need both, the document and a family connection to the Cha clan. Then I’ll be safe.”

“Tongyin, listen to me. The Cha men like little girls. If you send your niece to that family, she’ll be abused and molested. Please don’t mention my innocent child to those men.”

He doesn’t listen, he’s weeping.

“Did you hear what I said about Weilan?” I shake him and he looks up.

“Yes, yes, I heard. She’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

I slap him and he recoils, a look of astonishment on his face.

“Don’t you dare marry off my daughter to Cha’s little brother,” I hiss. “I may be dead, Second Brother, but I will curse you from beyond the grave if you buy your safety with my daughter. I’ll tell you where I hid the document, but only if you promise to leave her alone.”

“It’s not enough,” he whimpers. “It’s never enough.”

He wakes up, this time for real. I’m standing over him, but am helpless now to make myself heard. He struggles to his feet and reaches for his cigarettes. I can’t tell if he remembers anything about the dream—my pleading and then angry words. If only he weren’t leaving Pinghu tomorrow. I’d haunt his dreams every night until he was more afraid of my ghost than of Cha Zhiming.

The servants at the far end of the estate are stirring. Dali is lighting the stove with coals kept hot from the night before, Old Kwan is throwing cold water over his face while his wife combs her hair into a tight bun. In the nursery, Little Ming is still asleep, Ah Jiao tucked against her side. Weilan is dozing, nearly awake, arms and legs sprawled beneath her quilts. A few rooms away, Baizhen has joined Meichiu and they talk softly, looking down at the baby between them, just as Baizhen and I used to do when Weilan was tiny.

Tongyin’s presence menaces this little world, like a hostile wave that could carry away my daughter to dangerous shores. How can I stop him?

***

I have to warn Baizhen. I have to warn Jia Po. I’ll even try Gong Gong and Nanmei.

But what can Nanmei do?
my
yin
soul replies, puzzled. She stands balanced on a newel post at the end of the stone balusters that surround the terrace, her pleated skirt fluttering in a cold wind.

I don’t know, I don’t know!
I pace from the edge of the terrace to the door of the family shrine and back again, my mind confused. I’ve never felt so helpless. But I must do what I can, influence whoever I can find dreaming of me. I don’t care if the family gets frightened by my ghost haunting their dreams.

Perhaps the Cha family will reject Tongyin’s offer,
my
yin
soul says.
Perhaps we have nothing to worry about.

I can’t take that risk. Once Tongyin has photographs of Weilan to show Cha Zhiming, the situation will be out of my control. Everything will happen away from Pinghu.

You don’t have any control anyway,
my
yin
soul points out.

We have another day,
my
yang
soul says. The old gentleman looks tired again as he says,
When Tongyin and Nanmei are alone, perhaps we’ll learn the true story.

25

S
he doesn’t have leather shoes to go with the dress,” says Jia Po. “Only cloth.”

She slips a pair of embroidered shoes over Weilan’s feet, which are already encased in her best white ankle socks. Dancing around in the little plaid dress Jia Po made for her from the skirt of my school uniform, Weilan is pink with excitement at the thought of getting her picture taken and she twirls to make her skirt rise in the air.

“It’s not a problem, no problem at all,” says Tongyin. “Just tell the photographer to keep the camera above her knees or pose her behind something.” Then, like a casual afterthought, he adds, “Have you had a family photo taken since Weihong was born?”

An hour later, the entire family has set out for Pinghu’s one and only photography studio, Little Ming carrying baby Weihong. I have no interest in following the rickshaws. Tongyin has the house—and Nanmei—to himself and I am desperate to learn the truth about what is between them.

In the library, Nanmei looks tired. Tongyin slouches into a chair with practised nonchalance and looks at her questioningly.

“I even searched the chicken coop,” she says, not waiting for him to speak. “I was sure it would be in this house or the cottage in the orchard, somewhere close by. If it’s here, it would be hidden indoors, protected from the weather.”

“Is there someone else in Pinghu who might’ve been a contact? Hanchin still thought of Leiyin as a schoolgirl. I wonder if he would really trust her with something so important.”

Nanmei considers this and shakes her head. “Perhaps it doesn’t exist. He was captured just a few days after leaving Pinghu and never had the chance to send anyone a message. Perhaps he destroyed it when he knew he was going to be captured.”

“That would be a pity. His manifesto would have given us all so much inspiration, especially now that he’s a martyr to the Communist cause.” Tongyin runs a finger over the books arranged on my bookcases. I can’t believe Nanmei doesn’t see through him, but then she’s not familiar with that oily tone of voice. “Have you looked inside the books?”

“Yes, every one of them and also inside the old exercise notebooks.”

“I keep wondering about some other contact in Pinghu,” he persists.

“Hanchin never told me anything about his contacts. He said it was safer that way.” She sounds guarded.

“If the document had surfaced somewhere else I’m sure we would’ve seen copies distributed all over the country. You may be right. He probably destroyed it before he was captured.” He twirls a pencil between his fingers.

“I had to try every avenue. I’m grateful you could get me here.”

“I admired your husband very much. Very much.” He actually sounds earnest.

“The one time he mentioned you in his letters, he said you’d given him a key to your apartment in Shanghai. You were a good friend.”

Tongyin waves his hand. “Not at all, not at all. It was only a few rented rooms, not even in a very good part of town. Did he say anything else about our friendship?” His tone is casual, but I know there is emotion behind it.