Little Reunions Read online

  Julie found such talk unpleasant. Why should someone have to be so afraid of another person, no matter who that person was?

  “Whenever my mother was angered by your uncle Yün-chih, she’d come crying to me, insisting I stand up for her honor.”

  When Judy finished eating she would practice piano, but occasionally, when she was too lethargic to move, she would sit back and listen to Rachel’s sermons. One day when her homily turned to romance, she directed her remarks to Judy with a smile. “As long as you don’t have intimate relations, it’s truly beautiful when you meet up again. But if you do, then it just feels wrong.” By the end of her soliloquy, Rachel was speaking very quietly.

  “Little Julian, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Rachel then asked. “Your sister wants to be a pianist. What about you? What do you want to do?”

  “I want to learn to drive,” mumbled Julian.

  “You want to be a chauffeur?”

  He remained silent.

  “A chauffeur or a train driver?”

  “A train driver,” he said at last.

  “Dear little Julian, will you please lend me your eyelashes?” Judy teased. “I’m going out tomorrow. Lend them to me only for a day and I promise to give them back.”

  Julian did not respond.

  “Will you, please?” She pouted. “What a miser! Won’t even lend them to me just for one day.”

  “One good thing about Ned,” blurted Rachel out of the blue, “is that he never questioned Julian’s distinctly foreign appearance. Actually, at that time there was an Italian singing teacher… .” Her voice lowered and then faded away.

  Ned is a pet name for Edward, quainter than Ed or Eddie. Julie had seen her father’s calling card and knew he used a different name, though she only ever heard her mother call him Ned behind his back, with a hint of intimacy, which Julie found surprising.

  Rachel ordered a maidservant to fetch castor oil, which she then dabbed on Julie’s eyebrows with a calligraphy brush to stimulate their growth.

  One day, tea was served after everyone finished their fruit. Rachel began talking about their holiday in the Lake District that coincided with a murder case involving a Chinese couple who had arrived around the same time as Rachel and Judy.

  “People there knew nothing about China—they’d ask, ‘Do you have eggs in China?’ It was truly exasperating. And it was in this tiny backwater that a Chinese man murdered his wife—what a disgrace!”

  “And he was a doctor of law,” Judy chimed in.

  “He had studied in America and they were on their honeymoon traveling around the world. The couple met in New York.”

  Judy tossed her head to one side and sniffed haughtily. “That Miss K’uang was ugly,” she said by way of explanation.

  “She was older and that Liao Chung-i was quite handsome. The foreigners must have thought it a bit strange, perhaps particular to Chinese tastes. That day he returned to the hotel alone at four or five and took afternoon tea with the proprietress. Judy, what did he tell the old lady?”

  “He said his wife had gone into town to do some shopping.”

  “Yes, that’s right. He said she’d gone to buy wool garments because it was colder than they had expected. It was raining when they found her. From behind it looked as if she was sitting under her umbrella on the bank of the lake.”

  A perfectly normal scene. Especially in China, countless scenic photos looked just like that after the after the May Fourth Movement in the early 1920s. Rachel laughed nervously.

  “She was strangled with one of her own silk stockings,” Rachel said softly, as if being risqué. “She was barefooted. Both feet were in the water. She must have wanted to be intimate with him and he couldn’t stand it. Really, there is nothing more disgusting than intimacy with someone you don’t like.” Rachel began to laugh again, that breathless embarrassed laugh of hers.

  “They said he’d withdrawn all the money from her bank accounts.”

  “It was just absurd,” Judy grumbled. “To choose a place like that where two Chinese people would stand out.”

  “That’s why I say it was an impulsive act,” said Rachel. “Of course afterward he became a bit hysterical. Everyone said he was handsome and cut quite a figure in the student association. He had a degree and a brilliant future ahead of him. What a waste.”

  Julie knew that when her mother said, “There is nothing more disgusting than intimacy with someone you don’t like,” she was referring to Ned. And Julie was vaguely aware that Judy compared herself to that ugly woman, even though Judy would be ashamed to be seen in her company.

  Many years later, Julie read the memoirs of Chief Detective Inspector Wensley of Scotland Yard. He recalled that when he took his wife on a holiday to the Lake District, he said to her that it was an ideal location for a murder. He had seen the Chinese couple. But that afternoon, he noticed the man returning across the bridge alone, carrying a camera. That caught his attention.

  That evening when he heard that the woman had not returned, he took a flashlight and went to the bridge to look for her. It was raining and he found an open umbrella and a body on the ground. After closer inspection, he concluded she had slid down from a boulder. While she sat on the boulder, someone sitting next to her or close behind had strangled her. It must have been someone she knew. Her clothes were unruffled and she had not been indecently assaulted.

  When Inspector Wensley accompanied the local police inspector to visit the husband it was only nine o’clock but he was already asleep. Upon hearing that his wife had been murdered, he immediately asked, “Did you catch the robber who killed my wife?” The detective replied, “I didn’t say she was robbed.”

  The guests in the hotel had observed the wife wearing several diamond rings, but the corpse by the lake had no jewelry on her. A search of the husband’s luggage yielded her jewelry and bankbooks but no diamond rings.

  “According to Chinese law,” he said, “what is hers is mine.”

  His camera was taken away as evidence. When the police developed the film inside it, they only found shots of scenery. Eventually, they discovered the diamond rings in a film canister.

  Wensley’s memoir didn’t mention that the deceased was ugly, perhaps out of concern not to appear racist. Plus, if the deceased wasn’t depicted as a seductive beauty, readers would possibly be disappointed. He merely described her as “the shortest woman I’ve ever seen.” Her father was a wealthy Cantonese merchant. Of his dozens of offspring, he trusted her the most and put her in charge of family finances when she was just a teenager. After moving overseas, she also ran an antique business in New York.

  While Liao courted her, he deposited two hundred dollars in a bank account, then withdrew most of the funds and deposited them at a different bank. In this manner, he opened many accounts in readiness for her family’s due diligence inquiries.

  On their marriage day, she wrote in her diary: “I have an appointment with the hairdresser at one thirty; I miss my husband.”

  Rachel was right when she said that a capable Westernized woman couldn’t be fooled as easily as the obedient, old-fashioned women of traditional China.

  The diary also recorded the shocking news that her doctor had revealed to her just before they left America: she was barren. The chief inspector believed that Liao killed her because of this. For the lack of progeny is considered the worst of the three unfilial acts. His theory stemmed from the mistaken conviction that he understood Chinese psychology.

  Rachel visited West Lake after returning to China. There she took a photograph and wrote on the back of it:

  Whenever I recall my visit to the United Kingdom

  I wonder about the Llyn Dulyn (Black Lake)

  I am sure its roses still wear their tender rosy rouge

  As I saw them in the good old days

  But the forget-me-nots must have forgotten me

  Sadly, I fear I shall never have a chance to revisit them.

  My aching, dismantling
old frame, how many more times can it withstand the chilly autumn wind?

  Life is but a dream: Nothing in life is solid, substantial

  Even the towers and terraces casting shadows nearby

  Could turn into mere phantoms in a second

  It would appear that Mr. Pi accompanied Rachel to the Lake District.

  Among the many photographs Rachel had brought back with her, Julie noticed one her father had posted overseas to her mother. It was a studio photograph, and on the back he had written a short, classical Chinese seven-syllable verse, though she could only remember part of it:

  Just now I heard the cacophony of x x at Tientsin

  and then the beating of the drum at the remote frontier

  Men of letters x x x x x

  To you my love two little words: I’m safe

  That made Julie laugh out loud.

  One day Judy mentioned that a certain someone had been made a mandarin. Rachel snickered, “How can we still speak of being made a mandarin when nowadays they’re all supposed to be public servants?” Julie almost laughed aloud, too. She no longer believed anything she read in the newspapers.

  At that time Chien-wei was probably still unmarried.

  After lunch, Julie followed them upstairs. At the bathroom door, Rachel resumed her dinner-table commentary. A pair of medium-high-heeled shoes made of white snakeskin with black embossing and an ankle strap rested on the bathroom scales. The shoes were as tiny as Cinderella’s glass slippers. Rachel’s shoes were always custom-made, yet she still had to stuff cotton in the toe area. And no matter how hot the weather was, Rachel wore silk stockings to bed. Julie was not the least bit curious about her mother’s bound feet, unlike her fascination when she watched Auntie Yü’s tiny feet being washed.

  A friend of Ned’s treated him to a night out and they engaged a sing-song girl whom he’d met in Tientsin, Miss Seven. She was a former colleague of Ned’s paramour Euphoria. Miss Seven began to reminisce about Euphoria. Ned’s friend told her to exchange seats with someone so she could sit behind Ned and chat with him more freely. Rachel’s brother, Yün-chih, attended the banquet and later mockingly related the incident to Rachel. It was generally agreed in the Sheng household that Euphoria looked quite old, but Miss Seven appeared to be several years her senior. She was thin, with the complexion of an opium smoker and freckles that showed through the pale makeup on her powdered face. But it appeared that Ned’s passion was inflamed.

  Around that time a maidservant cleaning Ned’s room found a silver-gray silk parasol on the steam radiator. She asked Rachel and Judy about it but it was not theirs. Rachel told her to ask Ned, who said he had no idea where it came from. Rachel then instructed the maidservant: “Leave it on the radiator in Second Master’s room.”

  Two days later the parasol was gone. Rachel and Judy amused themselves with this incident for several days.

  Afternoon guests were mostly from the Chu family, a gaggle of adult cousins under the wing of Aunt Chu. Sometimes they accompanied Judy and Rachel to tea dances; otherwise they danced at home to phonograph records. If Aunt Chu’s sisters-in-law also visited, out came the mah-jongg tiles. When Rachel was in high spirits, she would go down to the kitchen to make wisteria pancakes, deep-fried bamboo-shoot chips, and toffee-coated yams. Ned would occasionally drop by to offer his salutations, then retreat after circling around the room a few times.

  Miss Purity and Miss Grace of the Chu family were both in their early twenties. Miss Grace was born to a concubine. One evening, they both wore above-the-knee padded gowns made of fine apple-green light gauze. Each had a light green silk flower sprinkled with silver powder—one was pinned to the lower left corner of the gown, one to the lapel.

  Everyone said of Miss Purity that her face was round and thus of a sweet disposition, while Miss Grace had an oval face and, though her eyes were a little small, most resembled a classic beauty.

  Julie admired Miss Purity, who had become quite a celebrity after having had her own art exhibition, her picture appearing in the influential English-language North China Daily News.

  Julie began to sketch caricatures. But the only adult in her drawings always looked like Rachel—skinny women with small chins, drooping eyebrows that appeared to be drawn with a pencil, bright eyes like suns on the horizon, and eyelashes radiating out like beams of light.

  “Do you like Miss Purity or Miss Grace?” asked Judy.

  “I like them both.”

  “You can’t say you like them both. You must like one more than the other.”

  “I like Miss Grace.” It would be wrong to say she did not like Miss Grace because she wasn’t as accomplished as Miss Purity. Miss Purity probably wouldn’t care. Everyone liked her.

  Just as Rachel and Judy returned, Aunt Chu also posed a question: “Do you like Second Aunt or Third Aunt?”

  “I like them both.”

  “That doesn’t count. Which one do you like the most?”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Very well, you think about it.”

  Second-Aunt-Third-Aunt was always articulated as one word, as if the two were a single entity. “There was a time when Second Aunt carried you in her belly,” Judy would occasionally say. On face value that was a strange thing to say but the reality was even stranger.

  “Well, have you thought it through?”

  “Not yet.”

  Julie knew she had a special connection with Second Aunt, but being a little distant from Third Aunt, it would be best to cozy up to her. It wouldn’t matter much if it upset Second Aunt.

  “Well, have you thought it through?”

  “Third Aunt.”

  Judy’s face revealed nothing, but Rachel was obviously displeased.

  Several years earlier Ned had sat Julie on his knee and fished a gold guinea and a silver dollar out of his pocket. “Do you want the Mexican silver dollar or the gold guinea?” he teased.

  The small, golden-bronze biscuit was so lovely, much more fun than the bright, shiny silver dollar. Julie knew that size and value were unrelated and that there was no objective standard for loveliness. As if her thoughts were a millstone, she had difficulty pushing them along. After an agonizingly long moment, she finally replied, “I want the shiny coin.”

  Ned angrily slid Julie off his lap, gave her the dollar, and walked away.

  Aunt Chu was the most frequent visitor. She was plump, wore gold wire-framed spectacles, and her hair was cut short. Rachel gave Chinese nicknames to people using Chinese characters that resembled their physiognomy: Aunt Chu, the principal consort, was 瓜 瓜, Gourd Face; the second consort was 玺 玺, Bean Face; Rachel herself was 梮 梮, Long Face; and Judy was 四 四, Square Face.

  “Little Julie is so honest,” Aunt Chu would say frequently. “Simple and honest.”

  “You know the aphorism, ‘Simple and honest’ is another way of saying useless, don’t you?” Rachel said to Julie.

  “Who does Julie resemble most?” asked Aunt Chu. “Julian resembles you. Doesn’t she look more like her third aunt?”

  “She’d be better off not looking like me,” retorted Judy.

  “There’s one thing about her that’s not so bad,” said Rachel.

  In novels, it was always the eyes of heroines that were the central point of beauty. Eyes deep as the ocean, seductive eyes, would be her saving grace. Julie knew that was not her fate, but she lived in constant hope.

  “Oh,” responded Aunt Chu as expected, “what would that be?”

  “Hazard a guess.”

  Aunt Chu stared long and hard. “Her ears?”

  Ears! Who wants ears? My hair completely hides my ears.

  “No.”

  Julie felt a glimmer of hope.

  “Well in that case I really don’t know. Tell me, now. What is it?”

  “Her round head.”

  Everyone is made the same, as the proverb goes. Who doesn’t have a round head?

  “Oh, yes,” said Aunt Chu as she fondled Julie’s cra
nium. “It is round.” She, too, seemed a little disappointed.

  Rachel rarely took Julie out shopping by herself. On one occasion, she dragged Julie off to a department store before meeting with Aunt Chu at the Elegance Cake Shop for afternoon tea. The shop assistant heaped piles of merchandise onto the counter as usual and then brought out two chairs. Julie sat there for so long she almost fell asleep—she was only nine at the time. After visiting several departments, they emerged and stood on the curb about to cross the road.

  “Walk with me,” instructed Rachel, “and be careful. Look both ways to be sure there are no cars.” Suddenly there was an opening, but just as they were about to cross the road Rachel hesitated. Perhaps she felt the need to hold Julie’s hand. She gnashed her teeth, then seized Julie’s hand a little too tightly. Julie was bewildered, as she had not expected her mother’s fingers to be so bony. She felt as if a bunch of thin bamboo canes clenched her hand. They hurriedly crossed Nanking Road through a gap in the traffic, and as soon as they reached the footpath on the other side Rachel relinquished her grip. Julie was overwhelmed by the momentary struggle of her mother’s emotions. This was the first time she’d had any physical contact with her mother since her return to Shanghai. Obviously Rachel also felt a slight revulsion.

  Julie recounted to Miss Purity a translated story that she had read in The Short Story Magazine. Next door to a youth lived three sisters. The eldest had black hair, the middle sister blond hair, and the sickly youngest sister silver hair. One day at dusk, the youth saw a girl in his garden. She frantically embraced him and the two madly rolled about on the ground. It was dark; he could only discern that it was one of the three girls but not which one. She said nothing at all. The next day he visited their home. He closely observed their facial expressions and listened intently to their voices but simply could not tell which sister it had been. Was it the demure eldest sister, the lively second sister, or the shy third sister?

  Miss Purity listened attentively, stone-faced. She was particularly interested in this story because she empathized with the sisters. None of her own suitors had succeeded, so they pursued her younger sister.