Katherine (17 page)

“But it’s not about whether I loved him or not.” I gulped the words. “It’s about how you teased and betrayed me.”

“Well, you don’t have to make me feel any more terrible than I already do. The truth is that Lion Head and I were once attracted to each other, just like you and he . . .”

“No!” I yelled. “Lion Head hates you!”

“How do you know that?” asked Katherine, almost smiling.

“He told me so,” I said. “He told me so last night. He said you were a phony American.”

“Oh, well.” Katherine sighed. “I guess actions speak louder than words. Do you want me to prove he’s a liar? Lion Head and I have a date tonight. Would you care to come along? Only if you can behave civilly, of course.”

I stared at Katherine.

“If you decide not to speak to me again, there is nothing much I can do,” she said, folding her hands under her armpits.

“I don’t know you, Miss America.”

“Cut the shit. Nine-thirty tonight at Red Peony Park, in the abandoned Lord Temple behind the olive tree. You’ll see who’s your friend.”

*   *   *

I
had a headache. I wandered the streets after I left Katherine’s hut and sank myself in the sea of people. I walked without purpose. What would I see tonight? Was there anything more to shock me? I imagined the two bodies ironing each other. Would Lion Head take her home? How did her skin look in the dim light of his room? How would he feel, touching her breasts again, tracing the curve of her waist, smelling her foreign fragrance, and hearing the way she moaned? I thought about Lion Head’s excitement and his betrayal of me. I was jealous.

I got on a suburban bus with about a dozen passengers and
dozed off until the conductor woke me up at the end of the line. I got off the bus. The moon was riding the wind, passing black clouds at high speed. Thunder rolled in the distance. The universe felt like an ancient stage.

I was in the open fields of the Cha-hua Gardens, the home of a kind of wild mountain rose. They were vast in numbers. The buds bloomed like fire-balls during the day. When the flower withers, it tumbles and turns to ashes almost instantly. Happiness and sadness in the same moment. My spirit was lifted by the beauty of the flowers, but I couldn’t avoid seeing the
cha-hua
wither. The beauty jumped on my face, took away my breath, and then beat me up. Petals, scattering like snowflakes, piled up at the flowers’ roots. It made one feel honored and deprived at the same time. Katherine. Lion Head. I had no way of knowing myself but through them.

*   *   *

I
passed the garden’s Foreign Friendship Gift Shop. The lady behind the counter called out, “I’m closing,” as I stepped into the shop. A banner hung from the ceiling that read
PROLETARIANS UNITE! LONG LIVE THE WORLD’S REVOLUTIONARY FRIENDSHIPS!
The shop displayed imitation traditional robes to fool China lovers and Peking opera masks, also for fools. Something glittering under the counter caught my eye. I leaned over the counter and looked at the pairs of earrings, stone-shaped, shell-shaped, diamond-shaped. My ears were not pierced. Modern Chinese women no longer did things like that to enhance physical beauty and please men.

My grandmother’s feet were like rice cakes, I remembered. I used to sleep holding them. Her crooked toes gave me nightmares. Grandmother told me that her mother made her do that. She was told that no one would marry her unless she bound her feet. I once
asked Grandmother how painful it had been. She said that every day she felt like an animal on a slaughtering block. The sharp pain went on for years, from age three to sixteen. The pain didn’t stop until her body stopped growing. There were infections. The feet mildewed. It smelled like spoiled porridge. She had to stay in bed most of the time. Her room was full of wrapping cloth. Then, when she was seventeen, men thought she was beautiful. The way she walked—
ruo-bu-jin-feng
, too weak to withstand the wind—made her a perfect beauty. She was married off that same year. Her parents were very proud.

But the pain in her heart never went away. She showed me her right foot. The toes curled into the ball of the foot. She could not walk far. If she did, her feet would hurt and swell. She still remembered her mother’s tears as she bound the little feet every day. I would rub my grandmother’s ankles. She tried not to show her pain, but I knew she was suffering.

I looked at the earrings, thinking about Katherine. The woman who had no idea what “lotus feet” meant. I couldn’t remember whether Katherine had pierced ears. I didn’t care. I wanted to buy her the ocean-green pair. I came to terms with the fact that I hated her and loved her too. I wanted to see her wearing my earrings. I wanted to give them to her tomorrow to let her know that at this moment I missed her. I asked the clerk to put them out on the counter. A pair of tiny, delicate jade boots. I asked the clerk to wrap them up.

*   *   *

I
could see Katherine and Lion Head sitting together under the hundred-year-old tree in the moonlight. Other lovers wandered around like ghosts pouring hot words into each other’s ears. Arms around shoulders. Head-to-head, as if glued together. The fragrance of flowers danced thick and thin in the air.

Katherine and Lion Head. What are you talking about? I hadn’t realized until that moment that they had both been my lovers. Logic disappeared. My senses blurred. I felt instinct calling. God in heaven, embrace me with your black velvet cloak.

Katherine and Lion Head were talking. No hand gestures. I could not hear them. It was better that way. The leaves fluttered above their heads. It started to rain. Typical Shanghai rain. Thin and playful.

I saw them get up and shake hands. Lion Head’s hair was flat. He said something, his body leaned against the tree trunk, he spoke loudly, made a big gesture, arm traveling through the air until finally he punched the trunk with his fist, angrily. He stood with his back to Katherine, then suddenly he walked away.

Katherine remained seated. She watched him disappear in the mist. Then she turned around, toward my direction. I couldn’t see her eyes. I knew she was looking for me. But I didn’t make myself seen. I went home.

*   *   *

I
n the dark hallway that led to the library, I presented my gift. I tried to make it a casual gesture. I said, “Oh, Katherine, how are you? By the way, here’s something for you.”

She didn’t stop walking. She smiled and said, “Oh thanks. What’s in the box?” She shook it and passed me without slowing down.

I had carefully wrapped the box with dry leaves glued on straw paper. I was no longer important to her. I wanted so much to tell her that there was a pair of beautiful earrings in the box; that Chinese women never wore earrings; that I wanted us to be best friends; that they cost me a month’s salary but of course I wasn’t talking about money, what I was talking about was . . .

As I watched her back, I felt rejected. There was no reason for
her to pay attention to me—as my father would say, to a fool whose brain was made of tofu.

I heard the sound of Katherine’s heels. I turned and saw her walking toward me. I was about to walk away. I was afraid that she might do something that would embarrass me. Yet I was curious. I slowed down, allowing her to catch up, and felt her hand tap me on the shoulder.

“You didn’t have to do this.” Her voice was soft.

“I wanted to,” I said, feeling a little dizzy, as if walking on a cloud.

“Why?” Her voice was softer still.

My words stuck in my throat. I made an effort, took a deep breath, and pushed the syllables up. Imagining a pair of chopsticks prying open my jaw, I fired out the words. I heard myself say, “Because we are friends.”

“That’s nice of you, thank you,” she said in a pleasant tone.

I shut my eyes.

She walked away, swaying her buttocks.

I never saw her wear that pair of earrings.

M
y aunts came to visit the family. Aunt Golden Moon and Aunt Silver Moon were talking secretly with my mother, showing her photos. When I came in the room, they looked at me from head to toe, then smiled excitedly at each other. I tried to ignore them. I knew my mother had been worried about my age and my declining price on the marriage market.

I didn’t want to face the fact that my womanhood was depreciating every day. It would have been dishonest to say that I wanted to live by myself till the end. I didn’t have much time left to pretend. The truth was going to get me. Once I passed thirty, the neighbors would look at me with pity in their eyes. The matchmakers would keep offering men but they would get older and uglier.

My mother was losing her inner strength. Though she initially refused, she began to look at the photos my aunts presented. She
tried to find a son-in-law among them. In the meantime, she watched me nervously.

I felt dutiful toward my family. I was afraid of missing the “only opportunities left,” as my aunts cautioned me. “At least make a date with a gentleman—magic might happen,” they said.

*   *   *

O
n my way to the date, on a bus, I studied the man’s photo in detail. He was in his early thirties. An ordinary face. Round. Seemed nice. He taught mechanics at Shanghai Industrial University. He was from the North and was supposed to be big and tall. My mother must have told my aunts that I couldn’t stand to be with a man shorter than I.

I put the photo back in my pocket and forgot the man’s face. I took it out again. Studied it. Put it back. I did this several times. I simply couldn’t memorize the man’s face. I said to myself, Let him do the work. If we both failed to recognize each other, that would be that.

He recognized me, but I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the way he carried himself that shocked me. He moved like a sea lion, as if he had a big heavy tail. He dragged and swayed his bottom half as he walked. He was tall but had short legs. He carried a black plastic document bag on his shoulder which tipped him to the right. “Hello,” he said. “Have you eaten?”

I said I hadn’t. He said he would take me out to dinner. He took me to the university cafeteria and bought me a box dinner of fried rice with beans. I never liked fried rice with beans. He bought himself a box dinner too. His was rice with chicken. He said no words to me. He just ate and ate like a pig, with a loud shoveling noise. He didn’t look at me. After he finished eating, he wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve. Then he sat and waited for me to finish my food.

I had a hard time eating. I was so disappointed. With a stuffed mouth I stood up and went to empty my box in the leftover vat by the cafeteria door. When I came back to the table, he said, “Would you like to meet again?”

*   *   *

I
had my family on the floor with the way I described my date. My brother was greatly amused. My father shook his head and turned to look at my mother. My mother looked sad, but she couldn’t help laughing too. Mother asked what exactly was wrong with the man. I said, “Nothing. It’s just that I can’t help laughing when I think of him.”

“But this is a good sign,” she said. “You can keep each other amused!”

“Mother,” my brother yelled, “don’t you see? He’s a clown in her eyes!”

*   *   *

A
month later I went on another date. He was the son of my aunt’s colleague at the hospital. From a good family. The family had grace, my aunt told my mother; they were educated abroad. The son was one year older than me. He was a dubbing actor and had a good voice. He dubbed for movie actors who didn’t have a good voice or didn’t speak well. He was famous in this circle.

A toothless lady called my name from the phone booth down the lane. Now every neighbor would know that I had gotten a phone call from a young man named Wu. Heads popped out of each window as I walked out in my slippers to make a return call from the booth. I walked lazily, pretending the call was not a big deal. My mother didn’t say anything when I paid a three-cent service fee to the toothless lady. Mother watched me with deep seriousness in her eyes. I knew she was praying again.

“Hello?” I heard a voice like a banjo on the other end. He sounded like Mr. Perfect.

“Saturday?” I said. “Sure . . . A walk after dinner? Sure . . . Seven o’clock? Sure.”

He showed up at seven o’clock sharp. Neatly dressed. A square face. Leather jacket and nice pants. He offered to shake hands with me. A comrade handshake. He had skinny, pale white hands. “Let’s walk.”

The banjo played. For ten blocks. I listened carefully and tried hard to fight my boredom. Although he was an army veteran, his life had been easy. Luck had been with him. So many relatives wanted to fix him up with women. “Too bad that, one way or another, one has to get married,” he said.

So he was giving it a try. He was looking for a shoe that fit. He was in no hurry. “Men in their thirties are at their best, which happens not to be the case for women,” he said.

“True,” I responded, as if aging had nothing to do with me. I wondered whether in America this would be such a devastating problem. I wondered if Katherine ever had to face this in her life.

My feet were begging to take me home. The Wu man offered me a piece of chocolate. It cost him a half day’s salary. Now I had to be polite. I dragged myself another two blocks, then I said, “It’s getting late, my parents are waiting up.”