Little Reunions Read online

Once, when Julie was bathing, she overheard the two of them outside the bathroom door, causing her quite some embarrassment, with Judy bursting into snorts of laughter, saying, “She’s so tall and skinny.”

  “There is a body type like that among preadolescents, you know,” said Rachel. “The art society also appreciates that kind of model.”

  “Oh?” said Judy, who took pride in her own physical attributes and was clearly unconvinced.

  That was the first time Julie had ever heard her mother say anything in her defense; it took a lot of effort for her to keep her joy from showing.

  Of course, Rachel would never allow Julie to be a model of any sort.

  One evening Rachel waited for Judy to help her paint some lampshades. No doubt Judy was working late at the office again; it was after seven o’clock and she still wasn’t back yet. Rachel paced the living room agitated. “You know, before I returned to Shanghai,” said Rachel out of the blue, “your third aunt was speculating and lost all my money. At the time, she was trying to rescue Uncle Chu, so she speculated larger and larger amounts on margin, borrowing more and more money. Now she has found work that pays a paltry seventy or eighty dollars a month, and is slavishly devoted to her job. That’s just ludicrous, isn’t it?”

  Julie was shocked. “How… is that possible?” she asked weakly. “How could someone else withdraw your own money?”

  “To protect the value of my Legal Tender Notes, I entrusted her to do what was needed before I departed because there would be no time to ask me for instructions. Who could have imagined she’d do something like this. Marshal was beside himself when I told him. ‘That’s theft!’ he roared.” Rachel stretched her neck out like a pecking kingfisher as she spoke.

  Marshal was an English teacher and had visited recently. After he left, Rachel heaved with laughter as she told Judy, “Marshal is as fat as a hog now.” She also mentioned that he was married.

  “The money was my lifeline, and she severed it just like that,” Rachel continued. “Good heavens, I wonder what she’ll think of her actions on her deathbed—how will she be able to face herself? Of course, it was all for the young master of the Chu clan. But what did I say to her? Getting on well is one thing, but you don’t want to get into bed with him. Now see how marvelously she has done for herself! Her reputation is destroyed and Aunt Chu hates her because of the young master. Their servant told me so.”

  Julie had noticed that nowadays Aunt Chu was only on good terms with Rachel and was always sarcastic toward Judy, sometimes even outright hostile. Her laugh now seemed derisive and often descended into nasal grunts. But Julie hadn’t thought much about it, since Aunt Chu had completely changed of late. Her hatred of Judy wasn’t necessarily due to Judy and the young master being so disparate in age. Judy, as the elder of the two, should be the one to blame for seducing him.

  “Aunt Chu was also furious that the two of them ignored her, never told her anything, never let her poke her nose into their affairs. Your third aunt flaunted her abilities and the young master just used her. Now everyone thinks of the young master as a capable man. His father was always putting him down, but that’s improved a bit. I was thinking that your uncle Yün-chih doesn’t know, but if he did, who knows what would pour out of that mouth of his. Come to think of it, it was very hard for me, and it’s hard to talk about with anyone—what’s there to say?”

  Julie was silent throughout, her mind a complete blank. The moment she heard this she “suspended judgment,” just as readers of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner had to “suspend disbelief.” Perhaps it was because she felt a bond with Judy, having suffered adversity together.

  “And when they were making the match for me,” continued Rachel, “goodness knows how they talked up the Sheng family. Initially I was unwilling, but your maternal grandmother wept and wailed at me so many times, saying that your uncle Yün-chih was causing her so much grief and that to make up for it I must win back her honor and respect for her. But by the time I married into the household I realized… .” Rachel sounded angry, yet also amused by the absurdity.

  “At that time your eldest aunt was in charge of the household and she was so frugal that she even economized on soap. Auntie Han was a timid woman. She was scared to death of her mistress and would not dare to ask for a bar of soap, so after laundering, the bedding still reeked of dried saliva. I ended up digging into my own purse to pay for soap, and to pay for food, otherwise the dishes they served weren’t edible. Your third aunt was fifteen at the time, and always dropped by and lingered; your second uncle detested her. When the assets were later divided, the will stated that Old Matriarch’s jewels should be given to her daughter, so your third aunt took them. There was also a sack of gold leaf and she wanted that too. Your second uncle was never calculating enough. He just said, ‘Let her have it.’ You could say she was young at the time, but she certainly wasn’t too young to be smart.”

  Rachel talked herself hoarse, pacing back and forth under the dim yellow lamplight. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. “I’m tied down for a paltry sum of money, stuck here unable to move, yet I still despise money. If I was only after money or status, I’d have no shortage of suitors.”

  Julie knew she was referring to Ambassador Pi. Judy had teased Rachel about Ambassador Pi’s newly widowed status.

  “Lloyd was always saying to me, ‘You need someone to look after you. You never think of yourself.’ All my friends advised against letting you go to school. It’s not that I insist on you studying, but you aren’t capable of doing anything else. Marshal also said to me, ‘Hold on to your money. Don’t be foolish.’”

  Julie could not help feeling antagonistic toward Marshal. She saw Marshal the last time he visited. He was short with a profile like a Greek statue. When he put on weight he appeared rather chubby. It seemed that all her mother’s boyfriends shared the same features, as did her father’s women. There was also a French officer. Julie had opened the door for him when he showed up for afternoon tea. He too was handsome, short, and fat, and was dressed in a snow-white uniform, with a floral-rimmed kepi shading his lowered head, which accentuated a double chin. He reminded Julie of the bust of Napoleon on her father’s desk.

  “Nowadays ‘big and strong’ is the only thing on their lips,” Rachel sniggered, ridiculing the criteria her nieces voiced as the perfect match. “They all want me to choose ‘big and strong’ for them. In the past that would be considered disgraceful.”

  Rachel made “big and strong” sound dirty, but at the time Julie didn’t grasp the reference to genital size.

  On the afternoon of a tea party, Rachel would be in good spirits, chortling quietly to herself as she tidied up the room, arranged flowers, spread tablecloths, and set the crockery.

  Rachel was fastidious about her attire, but Julie liked one of her everyday dresses best. It was a dark green knee-length linen dress, which Rachel had made for herself on her sewing machine. There was nothing special about the dress, and it had been the most common style worn around the world for decades—V-neck with narrow sleeves that ended before the elbow—yet it made Rachel look petite and elegant.

  When the guests arrived, Julie would take a thick English book to read on the roof of the tall apartment building. The summer sunlight shone down with such intensity at five in the afternoon that she had to sit in the shade of the threshold. From the light pink terrazzo terrace where it was forbidden to hang laundry out to dry, the bleak view was only interrupted by a few chimney stacks and numerous cream-colored concrete bunkers of various sizes. Sometimes Rachel could be extremely pleasant, but that just made her usual behavior even more unbearable. The money has been spent, so it’s too late to say, “I’m not going.” And if I don’t go overseas, what on earth would I do anyway? Julie couldn’t imagine an alternative and she despised herself.

  And that would be so ungrateful.

  She wants to help you succeed, and despite her nagging it’s all for your own good. She’s helping y
ou but you’re treating her like an enemy.

  Simply because you are relegated to the sidelines you feel disillusioned?

  Julie thought about jumping and letting the ground give her an enormous slap in the face. How else could she let Rachel know how guilty she felt about the sacrifices her mother made for her?

  Julie overheard Judy on the phone with Brother Hsü. Her voice was hoarse from crying, yet she sounded calm as usual. But now and then, after exchanging a few words, she let her temper fly.

  Could that be passion?

  Julie took pains to behave toward Judy the same as before so that Judy wouldn’t suspect she knew anything.

  By now, Judy was probably suspicious of everyone, wondering whether or not they knew about her relationship with Brother Hsü. Julie knew she was the only one whom Judy would not be wary of.

  One day Brother Hsü visited. Julie was a little surprised but Rachel acted effusively warm. Ever since her divorce, he dispensed with formal salutations and simply called her Rachel. In general, calling an acquaintance by their given name was considered conceited, but there was no harm in using an English name. They chatted for a while before he mentioned it had become quite inconvenient to bathe at his home. “Might as well have a bath here, then,” said Judy somewhat impatiently, conveying the impression that she felt it wasn’t worth her while to pretend he had never bathed at her place before.

  Rachel entered the bathroom. When she saw that Julie had just taken a bath and hadn’t cleaned the tub, she bent over and cleaned it herself. “How can we have someone take a bath when it’s like this,” she said cheerily in a low voice—the warm and bashful tone of a happy Rachel.

  After filling the bathtub with hot water, Rachel came out. Slightly embarrassed, Brother Hsü removed his gown and laid it on the couch. He looked even shorter as he entered the bathroom wearing only a white silk top and matching trousers. Rachel and Julie stared intently at his back, looking him up and down, while Judy teared up, turning her head to the side.

  “Auntie Han is leaving,” announced Rachel. “You’d better go and see her off.”

  Auntie Han didn’t come say goodbye herself because Rachel would have to give her money again. A message was delivered that Julie would meet her at the Bubbling Well Temple tram stop. She first stopped by the famous old Chinese snack shop called the Old Big House opposite the tram stop to spend the remaining dollar and change she had on two kinds of walnut sweets. Auntie Han didn’t say a word when Julie handed the two greasy paper bags to her with a smile. With a blank face and the dexterity of a magician, the two greasy paper bags disappeared beneath her large blue smock in a flash. Julie immediately knew she had made a mistake once again—the gift inadequate. But after all this was just a small token of her appreciation.

  “Miss, could you let me have that little box from school?” asked Auntie Han after she had said her farewells. Julie was momentarily startled but quickly agreed. She was referring to the small tin box the school had stipulated for carrying snacks, inscribed with the student’s name. After graduation, Julie had taken the box home, and Auntie Han must have seen it and quietly hidden it with the jewelry box to keep Jade Flower from redistributing these possessions.

  Julie had been wearing glasses for only two days and was not yet used to them. They felt like blinders for a donkey about to set off on a long, arduous journey. Auntie Han seemed to treat her like a stranger, just another Judy in her eyes, her dream of living the good life of a maid who accompanies the future bride into a new household shattered. Julie felt she had let Auntie Han down, as if she had deceived her all these years. Standing on the platform, Julie watched her step onto the tramcar. Both of them knew they were parting forever, but neither of them shed a single tear.

  Julie passed the university entrance exam and received her passport, but she was still unable to leave Shanghai.

  “Let’s wait and see,” said Rachel. “Everyone says war is about to break out.”

  Julie never raised the matter, but she was anxious. She didn’t especially want to go to England. She had heard Rachel say it was cold and wet every day of the year, with thick pea-soup fogs and a sky that turns dark in the afternoon. “Impoverished students can’t go anywhere and don’t get to see anything.” Even the sun, apparently.

  “And all they eat is rock-hard cheese.”

  “I like to eat cheese,” Julie chuckled.

  “That stuff is completely indigestible.”

  All Julie wanted was to go as far away as possible. At the moment, she just wanted to be free.

  She was so anxious, yet she didn’t want to read the newspaper.

  “Someone will surely tell me if anything happens,” Julie thought.

  Unlike Julie’s father, Rachel was not an armchair political analyst.

  “It doesn’t matter if they start fighting,” Rachel continued. “Students will be evacuated to the countryside and given rations. The English are good about things like that.”

  Julie suspected her mother had forgotten she was no longer a primary-school student. Rachel obviously hoped to take advantage of the opportunity to hand Julie over to the British government’s care.

  Julie’s two cousins were soon to be married. They had swapped their prospective partners and still turned up regularly to complain and cry.

  “I return from work half dead of exhaustion,” complained Judy, “to find the sisters crying on my bed.”

  “Wedding nerves,” replied Rachel, “can’t be helped.”

  Rachel busied herself buying fabric and helping the sisters with fittings. One afternoon she went to the Pien family residence. Without all the visitors from Rachel’s family, the apartment suddenly became quiet, an almost audible silence, the sort of silence that sounds like music. It was a weekend and Judy had nothing planned. “I feel like eating stuffed steamed buns,” Judy suddenly declared. “We can make them ourselves.”

  “We don’t have any filling,” Julie giggled.

  “We have sesame paste.” Judy began to knead the dough and admitted, with a laugh, “I’ve never done this before.”

  Clouds of moisture pouring from the bamboo steamer fogged up Judy’s spectacles. When she took them off to wipe the lenses, Julie asked about the tiny white scar she noticed on Judy’s eyelid.

  “Your second uncle did that. At the time I had completely fallen out with him. But when you were locked up I had to go find you, and as soon as he saw me, he jumped up and hit me with his opium pipe.”

  Julie had heard about that but never gave it a second thought.

  “I went to the hospital and had three stitches. Luckily, no one can tell,” said Judy. Nonetheless, she obviously was not celebrating inside.

  Judy removed the sweet sesame buns from the steamer but the dough had not risen and they tasted rubbery. “Not bad,” said Judy. Julie chimed in that the filling was quite tasty. Suddenly tears streamed down her face as she ate, but Judy didn’t notice.

  After the first wedding, Rachel began to plan who to invite over for afternoon tea, but Julie fell ill with a fever that persisted for several days. She moved into the living room, changing places with Judy. And of course the tea party had to be canceled.

  Julie was mortified for needing a small washbasin placed next to the couch to vomit into and longed to be able to crawl into a cave rather than defile the exquisite little chocolate house that was straight out of a fairy tale. Rachel burst in. “Oh, you live only to bring disasters!” she exploded. “People like you should just be left alone to die!”

  Julie thought that sounded like a curse. She said nothing.

  Rachel called a German doctor to examine Julie. He diagnosed typhoid, which would require hospitalization. She was admitted into a small hospital that was recommended by Dr. Feinstein.

  She moved into a single-person room. The first night, a girl in the room next to hers whimpered all through the night, not stopping until dawn.

  “The girl next door also had typhoid,” said the morning-duty nurse, grimly. “S
he died—and was only seventeen.”

  The nurse was unaware that Julie was also seventeen. Julie did not look seventeen. She sometimes felt she was thirteen and at other times thirty.

  Recalling what Judy once said—“When you are eighteen I’ll have some clothes made for you”—that age always seemed so remote to her, so distant. She had already fought off two serious bouts of illness over the past two years and almost didn’t make it to eighteen.

  Dr. Feinstein visited Julie every day. The overweight, bald man was a famous lung specialist in Shanghai. Every time he leaned over Julie’s bed, the smell of antiseptic wafted by, making Julie think of an elephant that had just been hosed down.

  He always teased Julie. “How patient you are!” he said, imitating the way Julie clasped her hands under the blanket. She smiled and quickly straightened her fingers.

  “Ah, Friday is a good day,” the doctor finally said. “You can break your fast.” For the first time since checking into the hospital, Julie ate solid food.

  Last year Rachel had taken Julie to Dr. Feinstein’s clinic, and the doctor also examined Rachel. Julie by chance caught a glimpse of the two of them standing opposite each other, and saw Rachel’s scrawny chest in profile. Rachel appeared a little embarrassed and on guard, yet at the same time she also exuded that enamored, intoxicated look of hers.

  Rachel and Judy took turns bringing chicken soup to Julie. On every occasion, Rachel tried to engage in small talk with the nurse, taking special pains to praise a nurse called Miss Chen for reading diligently and being conscientious. Rachel was always hoping to get special treatment for Julie.

  After Julie was discharged from the hospital, she learned the news of Uncle Chu’s assassination. It happened in the doorway of the Forest of Zen Vegetarian Restaurant. Two men wearing white shirts and khaki trousers fired off a few shots and fled. Uncle Chu was sent to the hospital and lingered there for three days before dying. Everyone said they were agents from Chungking. The earlier rumors about him rang true. Brother Hsü resigned from his job at the bank. Aunt Chu was seriously ill, so the relatives were afraid to tell her the news—she had severe diabetes and coronary heart disease.