Little Reunions Read online

  Beyond the deep pink carpet with a vermillion phoenix motif, a fire raged in the fireplace. The sound of chopsticks clinking on bowls and boisterous chatter drifted in from the other room.

  Only a tiny corner of the velvet curtain now curled around Julie, but the two sing-song girls still didn’t see her. Julie concluded that they were ignoring her.

  Auntie Lee helped serve the food, passing dishes to junior maidservants to carry into the dining room. “I don’t know why,” she said in a low voice, “but those two are not allowed to eat and are not permitted to leave. Heard they’re sisters.” When she peeked into the living room, Auntie Lee caught sight of Julie. She clicked her tongue impatiently and furrowed her brow, smiling to herself as she led Julie away from the festivities and delivered her back upstairs.

  “He is now injecting himself,” Auntie Lee confided to Auntie Han in hushed tones. “He chases her around the room insisting on injecting her too.” They giggled uncomfortably.

  Yü-heng regularly wrote letters to Rachel overseas, giving her updates. Rachel hid one such letter among some small photographs after she returned to China, which Julie chanced upon:

  Madam,

  Please be graciously informed hereby: I believe you have already received our previous dispatch. Recently, Thirteenth Master summoned your humble servant to inquire about the matter of injections. Your humble servant advised that Euphoria is now also receiving injections and is severely addicted. At this stage the best solution is to lure the tiger out of the mountain and let Thirteenth Master find an excuse to take Sixteenth Master to stay with him for a while. Then, at the same time, find a way to force the woman out. Sixteenth Master should postpone traveling to Shanghai because Euphoria is a southerner who would possibly shadow him there. Sixteenth Master is easily swayed by others and is incapable of exercising control. Yesterday, your humble servant surreptitiously entered Sixteenth Master’s quarters to acquire a packet of the drug which he passed on to Thirteenth Master for chemical analysis… .

  Yü-heng worshipped the New House and followed their custom of calling Ned Sixteenth Master. He felt proud of himself for his “covert operations,” like those in the drama Chiang Kan Steals a Letter, and for establishing a connection with Thirteenth Master. However, this didn’t win him any rewards. After Rachel and Judy returned to China he asked them to make introductions for employment, but Rachel replied, “The government has moved the capital to Nanking and we have no more connections.”

  One day, when Euphoria sauntered up to the third floor to rummage for something in a trunk, she passed by Julian’s door. Julian was very ill at the time but she didn’t drop in on him.

  “She didn’t even turn her head,” grumbled Auntie Lee.

  Auntie Yü said nothing.

  “Yep, and she didn’t even ask after him,” said Auntie Han.

  Even if she asked, thought Julie, it would be insincere. Euphoria didn’t have any children of her own so she could never bring herself to accept him as Ned’s son. Julie couldn’t understand why Auntie Han and Auntie Lee made such a fuss about it.

  For a long time, Julie wasn’t summoned into the room to recite her classical passages from memory. Julie passed Ned and Euphoria’s door and saw a single brass bed in the passage by the door blocking the way. Ned sat on the edge of the bed facing the door, with a gauze bandage wrapped around his head. He looked very strange, but his slightly irritable expression was still the same as when he listened to her recite. He looked downward bitterly, both hands resting on the bed, his short-sleeved undergarment revealing surprisingly plump arms.

  “Thumped him with the spittoon, she did,” the maidservants whispered. “No idea what started it.”

  A car sent from the New House collected Ned, unbeknownst to Julie. In the afternoon, she heard a commotion downstairs.

  “Thirteenth Master has arrived,” announced the maidservants excitedly.

  Auntie Lee and Jade Peach went over to the staircase to listen, while a stone-faced Auntie Han sat silently, cradling Julie in her arms to prevent her running downstairs. Julie heard Thirteenth Master pounding a table with his fist, cursing, and a woman wailing and shouting in spurts of loud, repulsive Yang-tze-delta Mandarin, followed by silence. Was that Euphoria? Julie was petrified.

  Thirteenth Master left with Ned in the car. A frenzy of packing broke out downstairs. The male servants were all helping. Before the sky turned dark, several flatbed trishaws were piled high with baggage and filed out of the front gate. Upstairs everyone crowded around the windows to catch a glimpse.

  “Wonderful!” blurted Jade Peach. Auntie Yü stood silently to one side.

  Then another trishaw left. And another.

  Yet another left. Jade Peach and Auntie Lee sniggered contemptuously. “How could there be so many things for her to move?” whispered Jade Peach.

  Everyone looked concerned, as if the rooms beneath their feet were being hollowed out.

  “They’re letting her take all her possessions on the condition that she doesn’t set up shop in Tientsin or Peking,” said Auntie Lee.

  “She’s going to Tungchow because that’s where she’s from,” Jade Peach chimed in.

  “Is that the Tungchow in the south or the northern Tungchow?” asked Auntie Lee.

  No one seemed to know the answer.

  Did Euphoria return to the north after the Peiyang warlord government collapsed? If she had returned, would she have been able to set up shop again? Wouldn’t she be a bit too old? And besides, she was a morphine addict. Julie never mulled over such matters, but whenever Euphoria’s name was mentioned, Julie would always defend her: “Well I still thought she was very attractive.”

  Julie forgot about all the things she couldn’t understand at the time: Ned in hot pursuit in the cavernous bedroom, him capturing his companion and administering morphine injections, the gloomy scene of ecstasy. Ned, though, had no respect for Euphoria and so instructed Auntie Han to prevent the children from greeting her by name. This contempt excited him, along with being bashed on the head with a spittoon. Ultimately, that provided the family in the New House sufficient reason to intervene and they then severed the ties between the proverbial loving pair of Mandarin ducks. Not only that, Euphoria didn’t receive any compensation for her termination—her future prospects were probably quite grim.

  Julian recovered and Euphoria was gone, but for some reason Auntie Yü lost heart and resigned, saying she wanted to go home. The Sheng family was about to return to the south, and if she went with them she could save on travel expenses, but anxious to return home as soon as possible, she just couldn’t wait.

  Jade Peach tried to fill an awkward silence, saying, “Auntie Yü is leaving, but she’ll come back when Hairy Boy gets married.” She immediately realized she didn’t sound convincing and appeared a little uncertain of herself. No one responded.

  A white leather suitcase, a basket, and her bedding formed a pile in the middle of the room. Julie burst into tears—it suddenly hit her that everything comes to an end.

  “Hairy Girl is such a good child,” said Jade Peach. “Wasn’t even raised by her, yet she still cries like that.”

  Auntie Yü said nothing as she busied herself packing her things. Julian silently stood to one side.

  Word came from the ground floor that the rickshaw had arrived. Just as she was about to leave, Auntie Yü spoke: “Hairy Girl, I’m leaving now. Hairy Boy is younger than you, so take care of him. Hairy Boy, I’m leaving. From now on Auntie Han will look after you. Be good and take care.”

  Julian said nothing and didn’t look at her. The houseboy went upstairs to help with the luggage. Auntie Han and Jade Peach went with her downstairs to see her off in a flurry of farewells.

  Since then, Julie always thought Auntie Yü had entrusted Julian to her and the other maids. She felt she had let Auntie Yü down. Auntie Han perhaps felt the same.

  Now it was their turn to move.

  “We’re going to Shanghai! We’re going to Shanghai!”
Jade Peach jabbered.

  The furnishings had been dispatched by sea and all that remained was a small iron-frame bed. Julie squatted in front of the bed eating a pomegranate sent over from the New House. It was the first time she’d ever seen a pomegranate.

  The seeds looked like little red crystal dice. After eating the pomegranate, she used the kernels to make an array of soldiers ready for battle. She then placed the peach-pink paper band wrapped around the lid of the fruit basket under her bed to represent the muddy waters of the Ch’in-huai River that runs through Nanking for her army to cross.

  Then the iron-frame bed went and Julie slept on the floor with Julian, between Auntie Han and Auntie Lee. Dismantling an entire household fulfilled childhood fantasies of destruction. The lamp high above their heads seemed especially distant and dim as the children faced each other with their heads on the same pillow, giggling. Looking into Julian’s large oval eyes, Julie thought he appeared as fragile as a soda biscuit. She couldn’t resist the urge to hug him tightly through the bedding and crush him.

  Julie’s earliest memory of just the two of them was of sitting side by side on the bed, not too close in case one of them pushed the other off. They resembled two unstable clay dolls. The people crowding into the room were from other worlds while only Julie and Julian were of the same kind, mindful of each other. A lacquer bowl placed in front of Julie contained “objects of prognostication.” All manner of virtuous objects, like calligraphy brushes and inkstones, were deliberately placed right in front of Julie, while wicked things such as dice and dominoes were set farther away, well out of reach. Auntie Han and Jade Peach recalled Julie took hold of the calligraphy brush and the cotton-rouge applicator, but after much shilly-shallying, she put them down again. No one remembered what Julian went for.

  Perhaps there was an earlier memory, of a time before Julian was born, when Julie squirmed in her gilded vermillion lacquered standing-barrel crib to avoid the white copper soup spoon that fed her. Where is the porcelain spoon? The white porcelain spoon with the little crimson flower. I don’t like the metallic taste of this thing.

  “Aiyee,” Auntie Han moaned each time a spoonful of congee spilled.

  Infants are unable to focus their eyes. Auntie Han’s face loomed huge and blurred.

  Suddenly Julie caught hold of the spoon and threw it far away, so far she couldn’t see where it went; she heard the clatter as it hit the ground.

  “Grumpy today for some reason,” grumbled Auntie Han.

  Julie was too small to speak but could understand words. She became annoyed when they picked up the spoon, sent it out of the room, and replaced it with another copper spoon.

  Other people came and went but Julie couldn’t make out their faces.

  Suddenly she heard a loud drumming sound and her legs felt warm. The barrel crib consisted of two sections, and it amplified sound like the famous ancient Sound Corridor in Soochow. She knew she had done something wrong and had turned victory into defeat. Auntie Han muttered to herself as she picked Julie up to change her clothes and wipe the base of the crib.

  One day, as Julie stood next to Rachel’s dressing table, which she now equaled in height, Rachel lost her temper and slapped Jade Peach.

  “Get on your knees!”

  Jade Peach knelt down but still appeared unusually tall, her upper body disproportionately long. Julie stared for a while then began to wail.

  “What a horrible racket!” barked Rachel, frowning. “Auntie Han! What are you waiting for? Take her away.”

  Another day Rachel was packing her suitcase while Julie watched from the side as maidservants passed a steady stream of lovely objects to Rachel, one at a time.

  “All right, you may look but not touch.” That day Rachel’s voice felt particularly soft. But after packing her suitcase for a while, Rachel suddenly became agitated and turned to Julie, saying impatiently, “Very well then, you may go now.”

  A constant stream of female visitors flowed from the New House and back, all of them dispatched by Seventh Mistress to exhort Rachel to stay.

  The night before Rachel’s departure a burglar stole many pieces of her of jewelry.

  “He even dropped a big turd on the floor,” tittered the maidservants in revulsion.

  Rachel posted toys to them from overseas: foreign dolls, army forts, a miniature spirit stove that really worked, a large fur ball with blue-and-white-striped ripples. No one knew what the ball was for. Julie called it a “tiger egg.” Pretending the upturned table and chairs were a truck, she drove with Julian into the desert to conquer the barbarians and, along the way, they stopped to make lunch, cooking the tiger egg.

  “Do you remember Second Aunt and Third Aunt?” asked Jade Peach in her customary shrill voice.

  “And who is this?” asked Jade Peach, showing Julie a large picture of Rachel that she had colored herself.

  “It’s Second Aunt,” replied Julie casually, after a quick glance at the picture.

  “And where have Second Aunt and Third Aunt gone?”

  “Overseas.”

  The questions and answers were like a catechism.

  Jade Peach put the picture away. “They’re all right,” she said softly to Auntie Han, “they’re not pining for their mother.”

  “They’re still young,” said Auntie Han, blinking her eyes.

  Julie knew it was out of the ordinary for Second Aunt and Third Aunt to travel overseas, but the more the adults around her made it sound mysterious, the less interested she was in asking about it.

  While Auntie Han stooped over the bathtub to wash clothes one day, Julie undid the ribbon of her blue apron, which slipped off and fell into the water.

  “Aiya!” exclaimed Auntie Han crossly.

  Auntie Han tied the ribbon and Julie untied it again and it slipped back into the water a second time. Julie laughed, though felt it was a boring prank.

  Sometimes Julie wondered if everything about her life was a dream, that one day she would wake up to find herself an entirely different person, perhaps a foreign child playing with a toy sailboat at the edge of a pond in a park. Of course, some days seemed endless, but dreams could be just as long.

  Many years later, on a secluded street in Washington, D.C., Julie came across a little girl with light brown hair cut in the same short bob she once sported herself. The girl was alone, climbing up and down an iron gate, holding on to a horizontal bar with both hands. Up one step, then down one step, again and again, repeating the same action yet never seeming bored. It suddenly occurred to Julie that she was looking at herself. She always felt like a foreigner—even in China—because of her isolation.

  She was like a tree, inching toward Chih-yung’s window, indistinctly blossoming tiny flowers in the lamplight coming through the window. Yet she was only able to peek at his world through the glass pane.

  7

  BROTHER Hsü visited Shanghai after the war ended. He had gone to Taiwan to look for work but couldn’t adapt to the place. He was only passing through on his way back to northern China.

  “What is Taiwan like?” asked Julie.

  “Phew! It was hot!” He shook his head and heaved a sigh of relief, as if he had just returned to Judy’s balcony with a hand towel to wipe his sweat away after an exhausting day running about. Now it felt to Julie as though nothing had changed—Brother Hsü, Judy, and herself all chatting away on that same dark balcony. “The sun in Taiwan is scorching. Brand-new roads everywhere, wide and long. It takes forever to go to from one place to another, even by rickshaw,” Brother Hsü continued.

  Julie imagined it was the same as the blinding sunlight at noon on hot summer days at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum nearby in Nanking.

  “And the food was awful,” Judy added with a hint of a smile. “He was miserable. And he was homesick.”

  What a spoiled man, thought Julie. He had not lived the high life before. His new mother-in-law spoiled him. Mother and daughter finally found a man to front the household, and in return, Brother Hsü
found a marital shrine in which he took shelter.

  Of course, he would have heard about her romance with Chih-yung. “Judy must have told him,” Julie said to herself. There was always a bond of understanding between Brother Hsü and Julie. Despite not seeing him for years, Brother Hsü sometimes popped into her mind when Julie thought about certain things. Then she would remind herself: So what? Understanding won’t change anything.

  Logically, Julie shouldn’t have forgotten that he had liked her, since so few people ever took an interest in her. Yet, as if she had an excess of romance to discard, she forgot everything that had happened between them. Remembering would only have made the reunion awkward.

  Judy must have told Brother Hsü that Julie liked to listen to them, and he spared no effort in holding forth. He shared a string of stories about relatives in the north. These people reminded Julie of her father and younger brother. Brother Hsü also mentioned her father:

  “I heard Second Uncle is enthusiastically helping to arrange funerals. He likes to give advice on rituals, quoting the classics.”

  Judy went straight into mocking Brother Hsü for being homesick. She declared that she wouldn’t mind bringing up his wife. But Julie didn’t mention “Sister Hsü,” nor did she think to ask him if he had any children. It was as if nothing had changed. The three of them once again chatted away the summer night on the same dark balcony.

  Jade Peach dropped by. Now in her thirties, she had become somewhat attractive, and even her big-boned figure seemed less offensive. She was wearing a long gown instead of her maid’s outfit, yet she retained her modesty. Short hair with her bangs swept to one side.