Traces of Love Read online

  Eileen Chang

  TRACES OF LOVE

  Translated by Eva Hung

  Edited by Julia Lovell

  Contents

  Traces of Love

  Traces of Love

  Although it was just November, they had lit a fire at home, just a small brazier with red-hot charcoal ensconced in snow-white ashes. The coal had been a tree. Then the tree died, yet now, in the glowing fire, its body had come alive again – alive, but soon to turn into ashes. The first time life was green, the second time, a dark red. The brazier smelled of coal. A red date fell into it and started burning, giving out the fragrance of the sweet congee served every year on the eighth of the twelfth month. The coal’s minute explosions made a sizzling noise, like grated ice.

  They did have a marriage certificate. It was framed and hung on the wall. The upper corners of the picture frame had two rosy-winged cherubs draped with flowing golden sashes; the lower part was a painting in Chinese ink depicting a pool of pale blue water on which two colourful ducks were resting. In the middle was neatly written in clerical script:

  Mi Raozheng, native of Wuwei in Anhui Province, age 59,

  born 9–11 p.m., 25 February 1885.

  Chunyu Dunfeng, native of Wuxi in Jiangsu Province, age 36,

  born 3–5 p.m., 9 April 1908.

  Dunfeng stood under the picture frame, one knee on the sofa, trying to catch the light as she counted the stitches in her knitting. Mi Raozheng walked over to get his overcoat, saying awkwardly, ‘I’m going out for a while.’ But Dunfeng kept her head down and kept on counting, her lips moving silently. Mi Raozheng started to put on his coat, walked over to her, and smiled somewhat helplessly. After a while, Dunfeng looked up and said, ‘Huh?’ She looked down at her knitting again; it was grey, and stippled with tiny knobs of white fluff that looked as if they were caught in its threads.

  ‘I’ll be back in a while,’ said Mr Mi. He found it difficult to put this into words. He couldn’t have said ‘going there’; the ‘here’ and ‘there’ was just too much. Perhaps ‘going to Little Shadu Road’* then – but that would be saying he had one home here, and another home on Little Shadu Road. He used to refer to his other wife as ‘her’, until Dunfeng objected, saying, ‘But no one speaks like that!’ After that, on the rare occasion when he referred to her, he used headless sentences.

  He said now, ‘Quite ill. I’ve got to go and have a look.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Dunfeng laconically.

  Something in her voice made Mr Mi feel that he couldn’t just go. He put his hands on the windowsill and looked out, mumbling to himself, ‘I wonder if it’s going to rain?’

  Dunfeng looked slightly impatient. She wound the wool up, stuffed her knitting into the floral bag, and made to go out. But as soon as she opened the door, Mr Mi stopped her, trying to explain, ‘I don’t mean … All these years now … Really quite ill, and no one there to look after things. I can’t possibly …’

  This irritated Dunfeng. She said, ‘Is there any need to say all this? What’d people think if they heard you?’

  Amah Zhang was doing the washing in the bathroom, with the door half open. Amah Zhang had been with his family for a long time and knew everything. She could have thought that Dunfeng was preventing him from going back to see his sick wife. Scandalous!

  Dunfeng stood at the door and called out: ‘Zhang!’ She then gave her these instructions: ‘Neither of us will be home for dinner tonight, there’s no need to keep the two vegetarian dishes. Put the beancurd on the balcony to keep it cold, and put some ashes on the brazier to keep the fire in, all right?’

  She had a different voice when she talked to the servants – a low-pitched, elderly and ill-tempered voice, but also somewhat saccharine, like a madame’s. Her chinless chin was pointing upwards, her round face hanging down with its soft fullness, her eyelids half shut. Her classic aquiline nose was also pointing upwards, showing two small noble nostrils. Dunfeng came from an extremely well-established family – one of the oldest merchant families of Shanghai. She was wedded at sixteen, widowed at twenty-three, and only married Mr Mi after over a decade’s widowhood. She had a happy life now, but she never went overboard; after all, she was a woman of experience. She touched her hair: it was lifted high in the front, supported by cotton wool underneath, and combed into a horizontal chignon at the back, as neat and orderly as her mind. She gathered her handbag and her carrier bag, and put on her coat. Wrapped in layers of clothes, her white, fleshy body was like a big, solid rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves. Her cheongsam was elegantly cut, not too tight, but for some reason it looked stuffed, as though the lining was woven with thin wires.

  Mr Mi walked over to her, asking, ‘Are you going out, too?’

  ‘I’m off to my aunt’s. It doesn’t look as though you’ll be back for dinner, anyway, so why bother with the cooking? The two dishes for dinner have been prepared with you in mind – a hot pot and gelatin fish – they’re not to my taste.’

  Mr Mi returned to the sitting room and stood in front of a desk. There was a stack of stele rubbings with sandalwood covers; he straightened it somewhat. A pale green jade box containing red seal ink, a crackle-glazed brush-holder, a water jar, a brass spoon – everything was cold to the touch. On a cloudy day this home looked particularly clean and tidy.

  While he was still fidgeting with things on the desk, Dunfeng came out again. He could only bend slightly forward at the waist because of the stiff coat he had on, and also because of his paunch which had grown with the years. ‘Why, you’re still here,’ said Dunfeng with minimal interest. He smiled and said nothing. She picked up her handbag and carrier bag, and walked out the door; he followed. She pretended not to notice and crossed the road quickly, yet she worried that he’d be puffing behind her to catch up. Though she was angry with him, she did not want him to look like an old man, so she had waited till some cars were coming before she crossed over, thus creating some delay.

  She had walked for quite a distance before she noticed that it was raining. Just a drizzle really, more like a chill in the air than rain. Worried that the fur collar of her coat would get wet, Dunfeng wanted to take off the coat, but her hands were not free.

  Mr Mi relieved her of her handbag, carrier bag and floral knitting bag, saying, ‘Want to take off your coat?’ He then continued, ‘Don’t catch cold. Let’s get a pedicab.’

  It was only after he had waved down a two-seater pedicab that Dunfeng said, ‘You’re not going my way.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Mr Mi.

  Dunfeng turned her head around in the fluffy black fur collar to cast him a half-smiling glance. She had been brought up by an old concubine of her father’s, and had lived in the midst of the concubines of her husband’s family, and so had unwittingly developed a brothel-style kind of charm.

  Their pedicab turned smoothly into a road in a residential area. On one side there was a small lot: black gravel and brownish grass, and a dark brown house with faded blue venetian blinds standing quietly in the rain. For some reason it looked distinctly foreign. Mr Mi was reminded of the days when he studied abroad. He looked back at the house. A black dog was sitting on the gravel, small curly ears, wet curly fur, body leaning forward attentively, listening or watching for something. Mr Mi recalled that the old gramophones had a dog as a logo; the gramophone played dance tunes, the body heat and scent of Western women rose up from the round collars of their dresses. He also recalled that among his first-born’s toys was a green glass dog, about an inch tall, sitting just like the black dog, with red glass beads for eyes. At the thought of the translucent green glass dog, his teeth smarted. Perhaps he had once pretended to chew on it, teasing his child; perhaps he had tried to prevent the child from putting it in his mou
th, and out of concern his own teeth could feel the smart – he no longer remembered. His first child was born overseas. His wife was a classmate, Cantonese. In those days there were few Chinese women students overseas, so shortly after he met her they fell in love and got married. His wife had always been neurotic, and later her temper became even more violent, so much so that all her children rowed with her. Fortunately they were now studying in central China, and things had quietened down considerably. He had seldom been with her these last few years. Even the old days when they were in love seemed to have been muddled through in a hurry; all he could remember were the fights, there were no happy memories to treasure. And yet it was the youthful pain, the anxious years which had truly touched his heart. Even now, as he recalled them, winter and the ash-like rain entered his eyes. He felt a prickling sensation in his nose.

  Mr Mi collected himself. He poked his gold-rimmed spectacles higher with his fingers, and shifted slightly in his shirt. It was cold outside, which made the covered pedicab feel particularly warm and clean. This drizzling weather was like a big brown dog, hairy, wet, sniffling up at you with its black icy nose. Dunfeng got down from the pedicab to buy some sugar-roasted chestnuts. She handed them to him while she looked in her handbag for the money. The paper bag in his hands was piping hot, and the heat blurred his thoughts. He could feel her shoulders through her layers of clothes, through the shoulder pads on his coat, and those on hers. This was his woman now, gentle, superior, and quite a beauty a couple of years ago. This time he had not tumbled into marriage; he had made inquiries and plans to make sure that in his old age he would have a bit of peace and a pretty companion to make up for past unhappiness. Yet … He smiled and handed her the small bag of chestnuts. She took out two, shelled and ate them. Her face looked red against the black road surface and the brown trees: a face like a flat surface; even her eyes and eyebrows did not have depth, as if they had been painted on the face. And so she looked made up even when she was not wearing any. Mr Mi smiled at her. With the woman of his past, it was rows and fights. With her, sometimes he had to say ‘I’m sorry’, sometimes ‘thank you’. But that was all: thank you, I’m sorry.

  Dunfeng threw away the nutshells, wiped her hands together, and put her gloves back on. She felt at peace sitting next to her man. Someone on the street had lifted his gown and was peeing against the wall – didn’t he mind the cold? The pedicab went past the post office. Across from the post office there was a house, an old, grey, Western-style house where a macaw was usually hung out on the balcony squawking miserably. Every time she went past this place she was reminded of the home of that husband of hers. She had meant to point the bird out to Mr Mi, but since they were having a tiff she decided not to. She looked up to see the old, greyish-white bird pacing to and fro on its perch; it did not squawk that day. There were two pots of withered red chrysanthemums on the balcony railings, and an amah was bending over to shut the French windows.

  The path from the home of that husband to Mr Mi had been a tortuous one. Dunfeng was a woman who put a lot into relationships, a virtuous woman. Even her heartless tailor took advantage of her by pawning the clothes she had had made, causing her much grief, so one can imagine what her marriage had been like. She put the chestnuts into her carrier bag; the paper bag was made of newspaper. She recalled having seen a sheet of newspaper from the North-east a couple of days ago – it had been wrapped around some stuff – and on it there had been an ad for a film called The Trials of Marriage. She had thought of herself at once. About her marriage, she had given one version to one person and a different version to another, so much so that now even she herself wasn’t very clear as to what had actually happened. She would just smile and sigh: ‘Oh – it’s such a long story.’ Even when it had all been settled, one of her brothers-in-law, who had then become a ruffian, had tried to blackmail her, threatening to tell Mr Mi that her husband had died of syphilis. It was a lie, of course, but was there a young man in that family who had not had 606 injections?* Finally it was her aunt who had acted on her behalf and offered some money to hush up the whole thing. She came from a very big family, but except for this aunt’s family, she seldom saw any of her relatives. Her brothers were all the old concubine’s children. Mr Mi had not met them at all as his original wife was still living, and it would have been difficult to decide on a proper form of address between them. As for Dunfeng, she did not know how to behave to them: if she were to show off her good fortune, they might want to borrow money from her; if she were to tell them her grievances, they might laugh at her. The relatives who had acted as matchmakers were always telling her how much they had done for her. Mrs Yang, her cousin’s wife, was particularly irritating with her idiotic boasting. Mrs Yang was the daughter-in-law of Dunfeng’s aunt, and this aunt and her son were about the only people Dunfeng felt she could talk to. In fact if she had not been so terribly bored, she would not have paid such frequent visits to the Yangs.

  The Yangs lived in an upper-middle-class town house off a small alley. Mrs Yang was at the mahjong table in the dining room. Winter days were short, and the lights had been turned on at 3 p.m. The mahjong table had a leather surface trimmed with metal borders – it had quite a long history. The Yangs had always been a progressive family. When Mrs Yang’s father-in-law was head of the family, his children were sent to new-style schools and made to study English. When Mrs Yang’s husband had just returned from abroad, he was a real radical. He forced his wife, who had just given birth, to eat fruit and sleep with the windows open; his mother-in-law was not amused. At his encouragement, Mrs Yang became a lively mistress of the house; her sitting room had the feel of a salon. Like a French hostess, she received gifts of flowers and chocolates, which were most flattering to her self-esteem. A good number of men came to tell her how unreasonable their wives were; Mr Mi had been one of them. Since he received little consolation at home, he was fond of spending time with other people’s wives – just talking and joking with them was enough to make him happy. Because of this, Mrs Yang had always thought that she had given Mr Mi to Dunfeng.

  Under the lamp, Mrs Yang’s oblong face shone with delight. Two stripes of rouge spread from her eyes down to her jaws – a face all red and white, and all laughter. Her smiling eyes were squeezed narrow, and some loose hair was hanging over them. Though she was not going out, she had an old imitation caracul coat draped over her shoulders. She shrugged her shoulders, grabbing the lapels at her chest to hold the coat in place, and reached for Dunfeng’s hand with her spare hand, saying, all smiles, ‘Hey, Coz – and Mr Mi. It’s been a long time. How have you been?’

  When she greeted Mr Mi she did not look directly at him, as if to avoid suspicion. She held affectionately on to Dunfeng’s hand and asked again, in a hushed voice, ‘How are you?’, all the while examining her from top to toe with irrepressible fondness, as though the woman Dunfeng were entirely her creation. Dunfeng hated her for it.

  ‘Is Cousin home?’ she asked.

  ‘When has he ever come home so early?’ Mrs Yang sighed. ‘You have no idea, Coz. How can one still call this a family?’

  Dunfeng smiled and said, ‘You’re really something. Married all these years, and you’re still like newly-weds, fighting all the time.’

  It was here at the Yangs’ that Dunfeng met Mr Mi for the first time. On that day too, their host and hostess quarrelled in a fashionably foreign manner, like lovers. Mr Mi looked on and feltjealous, though he had no right to be. Because ofthat he made conversation to Dunfeng, hoping to make Mrs Yang jealous, and then he took Dunfeng home in his car. That was how it had all started … If it was indeed true that such a minor incident had started it all, Dunfeng would not have admitted it anyway – her pride would have been hurt. But to say that Mrs Yang was completely out of the picture was not quite the truth either; Dunfeng believed that her jealousy was never without cause.

  She still remembered playing mahjong at the metal-rimmed leather table that night. She couldn’t afford to lose, but she
had to pretend to be easy about it. Now that money was not a problem, she could show herself to be a little miserly, but as a poor relative then she had had to take care that she was generous. Now she had money, but the Yangs, like most families in these difficult times, were going downhill. Though Mrs Yang still had her mahjong parties, the players were different now, mostly young men of questionable background. Dunfeng was rather disgusted with them. The one in a black suit wasn’t even wearing a waistcoat. He was seated behind Mrs Yang and just now had said to her, ‘Auntie Yang, I’m going to make a phone call. If I get some soap would you like some?’ Mrs Yang did not reply. Her coat had slid off her shoulders, and he stroked her back lightly with a finger. She did not seem to feel the tickle, or anything at all. When he turned round to spit, she took a mahjong tile and drew a line right down his back, saying, ‘A line has to be drawn – between men and women, OK?’ Everyone laughed. Mrs Yang had always had a quick tongue. But Dunfeng thought that, while such behaviour among gentlemen and ladies would no doubt have been considered bold and witty, in the present company it was just cheap.

  In the next room someone was playing a flute. To hide her embarrassment, Dunfeng walked over to the door to take a look, and saw Mrs Yang’s daughter Yue sitting at the desk with a score in her hands, softly singing a tune from a Chinese opera, accompanied by someone sitting next to her.

  ‘Is Yue learning Peking opera?’ Dunfeng asked Mrs Yang.

  ‘It sounds very melodious,’ said Mr Mi.

  ‘The two of us will soon be performing together – in Selling a Horse. She’ll be the male lead, and I the female,’ Mrs Yang replied with delight.

  ‘You’re still as active as ever, Mrs Yang,’ said Mr Mi.

  ‘Oh, I’m merely there for a laugh, but these kids at the Peking Opera Association are real enthusiasts. There’s Wang Shuting’s daughter, and two of Gu Baosheng’s sons. I would not have let Yue join if there were any riff-raff there.’