Little Reunions Page 17

  “People say Uncle Chu’s eyes leaked light, an omen of a sudden, violent death,” Judy said softly.

  “How on earth do eyes leak light?” asked Julie.

  Judy had a difficult time explaining it—something about his eyes growing large and the whites of his eyes appearing more prominent.

  “Is the rumor about Uncle Chu true?”

  “Who knows? Brother Hsü doesn’t know, either. Some Japanese guests came to visit, but that wasn’t unusual. Some say Foster Boy acted as a go-between, while others say Foster Boy had been swaggering about in the name of Uncle Chu.”

  Julie had seen Foster Boy at the residence of Aunt Chu. He was small and fat, with a dark oily face and puffy eyes. He looked grumpy that day and did not utter a word. Perhaps he felt he was wronged. Later Julie overheard Aunt Chu tell Judy that the last time he was sent to deliver payment for the monthly expenses, he squandered the money on prostitutes.

  Julie felt that Uncle Chu could not shirk responsibility for his own death. He had reached the end of the road. Money had run out and he had to call upon his political capital. At least he must have been trying to maintain his connections and did not want to burn bridges.

  Julie was only too aware of her father’s fear of running out of money.

  Brother Hsü was preparing to head north to find work; there was no place for him in Shanghai and the political atmosphere seemed less tense there. It was agreed that he would manage the clan temple, so at least he would have a place to stay for a time. But for the moment he couldn’t leave because Aunt Chu was sick.

  Before Julie set off for Hong Kong, Judy and Rachel took her to visit Aunt Chu. The downstairs reception room was full of people, all from Aunt Chu’s clan, who were deliberating whether they should inform Aunt Chu about the death of His Excellency. Aunt Chu cursed His Excellency for not visiting her yet during her illness.

  The young master of the Chu family—Brother Hsü—was present but didn’t say a word out of fear for being blamed if something went wrong. Anyway, Aunt Chu trusted people from her own clan the most.

  Rachel and her party of two went upstairs. They did not sit because all the chairs had been moved downstairs. In this mostly empty room, a stick of incense burned on the floor in the corner. Aunt Chu lay on a small brass bed. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. Julie barely recognized her—she was so yellow and gaunt, her voice faint and feeble; she obviously wasn’t in the mood for chatting. Julie genuinely felt sorry for her and wanted so much to tell her that Uncle Chu had died.

  Rachel and Judy accompanied Julie to the ship and at the dock met up with Bebe’s family who were seeing Bebe off. The English tutor had suggested they travel together. Rachel was exceedingly perfunctory in her placing of such great trust in Bebe to look after her daughter. The ship was very small and well-wishers were not permitted on board.

  “Second Aunt, I’m leaving,” Julie managed to say with a wan smile.

  “Very well, then. You may leave.”

  “Third Aunt, I’m leaving.”

  Judy shook her hand and grinned. Such an English gesture almost caused Julie to burst out laughing.

  Aboard the ship, the two young passengers inspected their cabin and found that the luggage had already arrived.

  “Let’s go out,” said Bebe. “They’re still there.”

  “You go, I’ll stay. They’ve already left.”

  “How do you know? Let’s go and see.”

  “I’ll stay. You go.”

  Bebe went out on deck alone while Julie sobbed in their berth. The ship’s horn suddenly made a deafening blare that filled the air. The floor under the bed began to shudder. The Shanghai Julie left behind lay in ruins.

  Bebe returned to the cabin and without saying a word began to unpack her luggage. Julie wiped her tears and sat up.

  4

  JUDY FOUND a job at the German radio station as a Mandarin newsreader. Every night, carrying a small oil lamp, she trudged to work by its dim glow along blacked-out streets. The rose-red frosted-glass chimney of the lamp felt safe in her hands but eventually it slipped from her grip and smashed into pieces. Since the Japanese occupation, roads had not been repaired, and sometimes Judy would step into water-filled potholes she couldn’t see in the gloomy light—she had to flounder her way home in the dark. She shook her head and groaned. Over her work gown she wore a navy blue wool coat padded with cotton rather than a proper overcoat. It was her outfit for nocturnal missions, her self-protective attire. Judy tried to learn how to ride a bicycle. She scraped her knees several times and gave up. She had learned how to drive, though not very well. Her Polish chauffeur always sat next to her, ready to trade places.

  “I’m useless. Your second aunt can ski with bound feet. But I’m always afraid I’ll fall over and break my leg.”

  T’ang Ku-wu—T’ang the Solitary Mallard—a celebrity writer popular in the 1920s, started a new magazine to which Julie submitted a story. “When your second aunt wanted to elope,” Judy chuckled, “she wrote to T’ang Ku-wu.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Julie, unable to contain herself. “Did they ever meet?”

  “No, they never met. I don’t know if he ever replied,” said Judy. “T’ang Ku-wu was quite handsome, with a cultured look—I saw his photograph once. Later he married and spoiled his wife terribly. He wrote a poem with the line, ‘Unless I’m peregrinating, our two heads will stay side by side perpetually.’ We almost died laughing.”

  In those days, it was common for people to write articles pretending to be women. Julie surmised that T’ang Ku-wu didn’t reply to Rachel’s letter because he assumed it was written by an idle reader impersonating a woman, or perhaps even another writer pulling his leg.

  T’ang Ku-wu wrote to Julie that her piece would be published. “When shall we invite him over for tea?” Judy gleefully inquired.

  Julie felt there was no need for such courtesies, but seeing how curious Judy was about T’ang Ku-wu, she couldn’t oppose it. She dutifully wrote a note. He soon telephoned to arrange a time for tea.

  T’ang Ku-wu still looked the way Julie imagined he did as a young man: thin and tall, elegant narrow face. He wore a black robe. However, he was bald and wore a scraggly toupee as stiff as a tortoiseshell.

  It became obvious that he felt obliged to attend the tea party, even though he wasn’t impressed by Julie’s prose. They didn’t have much to talk about.

  Julie explained that her mother wasn’t presently in Shanghai. She gestured with her chin at a large photograph on the wall. “That’s my mother.”

  The picture—mounted in a carved gilt oval frame—showed Rachel’s permed hair spilling down over her eyebrows, her stylized bangs a popular look in the early Republican era. T’ang Ku-wu glanced at the photograph, obviously quite impressed. That era was his heyday.

  “I see,” he replied, “that’s your esteemed mother.”

  Not only did Julie feel it was superfluous to have invited him over but their quarters were barely presentable. The narrow sitting area obviously doubled as a bedroom. Sitting around the crowded table cluttered with tea-making paraphernalia, their knees almost touched. Judy did not mind at all; she was flexible and simply accepted the situation—she was without debt and without stress. She once confessed to Julie, “Back in the day I owed Second Aunt money.”

  “I know.” Julie giggled. “Second Aunt told me.”

  Judy obviously didn’t expect to hear that and was extremely displeased. It was supposed to be a secret between her and Rachel. “I was trying to raise funds for Uncle Chu. I dabbled in stocks and faced a cash-flow problem, so I only intended to use her money temporarily.” Her voice went quiet. “I lost it all but I did pay her back later. I still owned all the houses in three laneways—they had all been mortgaged more than once. I repaid your second aunt as soon as I sold them.”

  “I see. I guessed you repaid her around the time she visited Hong Kong.”

  Judy went quiet. “When you heard about that, what did you thi
nk?”

  “I didn’t think anything,” said Julie calmly.

  Judy was unconvinced. “How could you not think anything?”

  “I thought Third Aunt must have her reasons.”

  Judy hesitated, clearly not convinced, and thought, “Could it be that Rachel had not told her that it was for Brother Hsü?”

  “And remember that time we chatted in the cool night air on the balcony,” Julie continued with a smile. “I loved listening to Third Aunt and Brother Hsü talking—the atmosphere among the three of us felt wonderful.”

  “It did?” Judy couldn’t remember the scene but still was delighted at Julie’s description. She fell silent for a moment, then continued, “Your second brother deliberately ignored me after hearing about the Brother Hsü affair—I was very hurt,” she said, saying the word “hurt” in English. She fell silent for a moment, then continued. “I had helped him a great deal when he first arrived in Shanghai.”

  Second Brother was the only nephew from the Sheng clan that Judy liked. She followed Julie in addressing him as Second Brother. After graduating from university, he found a menial job in Shanghai and his wife from Tientsin moved in with him. Despite his family being wealthy, he chose not to depend on them. The family had arranged the marriage; his wife was slightly deaf. Judy once said, “Young people nowadays are the opposite of how we were at that age. They want the family money but don’t want the wives the families arrange.”

  Julie and her brother once visited them together. Julian often went there by himself. His letter about the “stain on the family” was written to this very same Second Brother. The couple lived in two large rooms that occupied an entire floor, a mostly desolate space save for a few pieces of shabby, old furniture. They looked like typical northerners. Second Brother was tall, fair-skinned, and had a long face. Wearing a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles, he could be the protagonist of a Chang Hen-shui novel. His wife also had a long face. She was short though not petite. Overeager to be an attentive host, she moved at a frenetic pace. Julie remembered to speak loudly, but not too loudly. Nonetheless, Second Brother repeatedly had to convey her words again, an obvious embarrassment for him. He appeared rather distant and unwelcoming. Julie felt sorry for them, as their home did not evoke the slightest ripple of a young couple’s joy.

  Julie read excerpts of the novel Lu Nan-tsu, an Honest Fellow by Tseng Hsü-pai, which was serialized in Truth-Virtue-Beauty magazine. In it Cloud Phoenix and her nephew fall in love and have carnal relations. Julie only read two installments so it was not clear to her if they were related on the paternal or maternal side of the family.

  A clan elder drags him off to the clan temple to thrash him with a birch plank. Cloud Phoenix hires a palanquin and rushes to the rescue. The hero of the novel, Lu Nan-tsu, feared she would also be harmed. The story dated from the early Republican era, but the influence of the traditional patriarchal system remained strong decades later. Even more unfortunate was that, unlike Cloud Phoenix and her nephew, Judy’s age wasn’t considered compatible with Brother Hsü’s. Julie, aware of Third Aunt’s sensitivity to this matter, never asked about Brother Hsü’s age. He began university studies very late, probably graduating at twenty-six or twenty-seven, maybe even older. He was one of those people whose skinny appearance made his age difficult to discern.

  Second Brother probably felt like prey himself. He, too, was at least a generation younger than Judy; she had helped him with such warm enthusiasm that it appeared as if she had other motives. And besides, he had a disabled wife.

  Judy fell silent and Julie couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort her. “Did Aunt Chu eventually find out about her husband’s death?” asked Julie, changing the subject.

  “They never told her.”

  More silence, then Judy continued, “Uncle Chu can’t really be blamed for their marriage. Her elder brother forced her onto him. His previous wife had just died and her elder brother badgered him in the study for two days and two nights. They were relatives of long standing. Of course she wasn’t as plump in those days. Everyone said she had an auspicious physiognomy. At that time Uncle Chu only had one concubine. When he formally married another woman, he dismissed all the concubines except for Third Concubine, who accompanied him to Peking after he accepted a new position and he formally took her in. Aunt Chu said that when she married Uncle Chu to be his principal wife, ‘Third Concubine kowtowed, and I wanted to reciprocate, but the bridesmaids standing beside me stayed stiff as boards and prevented me from bending at the waist.’” Then, imitating Aunt Chu’s soft chatty tone of voice, Judy said, “Before the wedding my family had instructed the accompanying servants to watch over me.”

  She continued on in her own voice, “Third Concubine visited the bridal chamber to keep Aunt Chu company. That house up in northern China had two rows of windows, and the top row could only be held half open with a teak pole. One sweltering day, Aunt Chu called for the windows to be opened, but as there was no one else around, she asked Third Concubine to retrieve the pole. Third Concubine said nothing; but as soon as she left the newlyweds’ house, she burst into tears and cried all the way back to her quarters, accusing Aunt Chu of treating her like a maid. Uncle Chu was so furious that from then on that he refused to set foot in the bridal chamber. The dowry maids said their mistress was too forbearing—if he treats his wife like that upon her arrival, then what does the future hold? They instigated the newly married Aunt Chu to make a great fuss. And then who knows what really happened. A rumor spread that the new bride was so strong that she pushed a wall over. Their home was originally a yamen office and so old it was probably on the verge of collapsing anyway.”

  Julie saw a picture of Third Concubine in Aunt Chu’s photo album. A pretty, seductively slender woman with an oval face and dressed in late Ch’ing dynasty couture.

  “Uncle Chu kept ignoring his wife. To the point where Third Concubine exhorted him to be nicer to Aunt Chu. They even let her accompany them on outings to restaurants and the opera. Those were Aunt Chu’s golden days. One time her elder brother visited Peking. He telephoned and asked to speak to the mistress of the house. Their phone had been installed in Third Concubine’s courtyard, and he received the reply, ‘Would you like the consort of the east wing or the consort of the west wing?’ Aunt Chu’s brother was so incensed that he rushed over to slap Uncle Chu in the face.

  “After that, Uncle Chu sent Aunt Chu back to Shanghai, though whenever he returned, he never stayed with her, his principal consort, save for on one occasion when he fell ill and his mother worried about him staying at his concubine’s residence. He moved into the main residence to convalesce and enable Aunt Chu to attend to him. He lived there for several months. Aunt Chu yearned for a child, but, as she later told others, ‘Miss Su lived in the room next to us and her father was far too embarrassed to fulfill my wish for offspring.’ It infuriated Miss Su to bear the blame for their lack of progeny.”

  Miss Su was Uncle Chu’s daughter from his previous marriage.

  “Brother Hsü’s mother was Third Concubine’s servant girl,” said Judy. “After his birth, Third Concubine sold her off to someone in another city and kept the child for herself. That’s why Brother Hsü hates her.

  “Aunt Chu now gets on very well with Third Concubine. Third Concubine often visits Shanghai and stays at Aunt Chu’s residence whenever she comes. Her hair has thinned so much that she wears a small wig. Uncle Chu rejected her as soon as she turned bald. Brother Hsü complained tearfully to his father. He had been calling Third Concubine ‘Mother’ because he had thought she was his natural mother. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Uncle Chu scolded Brother Hsü, ‘she didn’t give birth to you.’ That was how he found out.

  “On her occasional trips to Shanghai, Third Concubine never had a chance to see Uncle Chu. It’s typical of Aunt Chu that when Third Concubine greeted her with a volley of ‘Mistress, mistress,’ Aunt Chu felt on the best of terms with her again, and even explained to others, ‘She’s really
suffering now,’ completely forgetting that Third Concubine had said such unpleasant things about her to Uncle Chu in front of others. Things like, ‘She’s so fat!’

  “Whenever she comes, Third Concubine stays in the small back room facing the landing. Brother Hsü hates it. Aunt Chu bitterly disappointed us when dealing with family matters. She was terrified when we sued your eldest uncle. She felt terribly awkward, always afraid of offending others. ‘What a pity,’ she said. ‘We’re all relatives.’”

  “She really said that?” asked Julie, surprised.

  Judy tossed her head to one side. “That’s right! People like her always say, ‘We should stay in touch with relatives.’ It’s important to them. After Uncle Chu fell into difficulties, Aunt Chu went to kowtow to all the relatives, and was angry that Brother Hsü did not accompany her to ask for financial assistance. Who actually helped? That’s the sort of person she is.”

  After returning to Shanghai, Julie thought that the city really was different from Hong Kong. There were virtually no Japanese soldiers to be seen. Everyone said, “Shanghai is still the same.”

  She wasn’t afraid to wear the homespun fabric with red flowers against a willow-green print that she had brought back from Hong Kong and had made into Chinese gowns and simple Western dresses. It was like wearing a famous painting—she felt rapturous and didn’t care what others thought.

  “There are no movies to see anymore,” complained a disappointed Judy with a wry smile. “I loved those comedies with all their witty and playful dialogue.”

  “Especially Rosalind Russell,” Julie thought to herself, knowing the depiction of strong professional women resonated with Judy.

  “Those people really do speak like that,” said Bebe. Julie agreed. It had become part of a cultural tradition, and almost everyone had a few witty lines ready to fire. Their sophisticated, flirtatious banter differed from what Shanghainese called “eating bean curd,” which carried the condescending suggestion of flirting with frivolous, dimwitted girls.