My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead (67 page)

The wedding was at Yi Pin Xiang Restaurant, with the banquet at Dongxing Restaurant. Zhenbao liked to make a good impression, but he was also careful with money—good enough was good enough for him. He rented a new house not far from his office and had his mother come from Jiangwan to live with them. He spent most of his earnings on work-related socializing, so the household budget was very tight. His mother and Yanli got along fairly well, but Zhenbao had many complaints about Yanli and no one to tell them to. Yanli didn’t like exercise; even “the best sort of indoor exercise” had no appeal for her. Zhenbao made a real effort to be a good husband and help her like it, but he didn’t feel much physical attraction. At first she’d seemed cute, one undeveloped breast nestling in his hand like a sleeping bird with its own lightly beating heart, its sharp beak pecking at his palm, firm yet without strength—but then his hand had also lost its strength. Later on even this little bit of girlish beauty was gone. Gradually Yanli settled into her new environment, and as she did, she turned into a very dull wife.

Zhenbao started going to prostitutes. Once every three weeks—his life was, in every respect, well regulated. He and some friends would take rooms in a hotel and call in the women; they’d tell their families they’d gone to Suzhou and Hangzhou on business. He wasn’t particular about faces, but he liked girls who were dark and a little bit plump. He wanted them fleshy and ashamed, which was his way of taking revenge on Rose and Wang Jiaorui, though he wouldn’t let himself view it that way. If such a thing did enter his mind, he immediately reproached himself for desecrating treasured memories. For these two lovers, he reserved a sensitive spot, a sacred corner of his heart. Wang Jiaorui and Rose gradually became so mixed up in his mind that they became one: a naïve, passionate girl who had doted on him, a girl with no brains, or anything to cause him any trouble, though he—with his self-denying logic and steely, superhuman will—had left her.

Yanli had no idea about the prostitutes. She loved him simply because he, among so many others, happened to be her man. She was always saying things like “Wait and ask Zhenbao about it” or “Better take an umbrella, Zhenbao said it’s going to rain.” Zhenbao was her God, and assuming that role was no problem for him. When Yanli made a mistake, he’d reprimand her in front of other people, and if something escaped his attention, it never failed to escape his mother’s. Each time she was scolded in front of the maidservant, Yanli could feel her authority crumbling away beneath her. When her orders weren’t carried out, she was again to blame. She hated the disdain in the servants’ eyes, and in dealing with them she protected herself by knitting her brows and pouting before she even spoke, her whole face a study in childish chagrin. When she threw a tantrum, she always seemed to be talking back, like a maid or a concubine who has grown used to occupying the bottom rung.

The only time Yanli managed to be mistress of the house—for a few days at least—was when the servants were new, so she liked getting new servants as often as she could. Zhenbao’s mother told everyone that her daughter-in-law was useless: “Poor Zhenbao, working so hard at his job to support the family, but when he comes home he’s pestered with all sort of domestic details. He can’t get a moment’s peace.” Her words got around to Yanli, and the anger built up in her heart. She grew angrier and angrier, and then she had a child. The delivery was difficult. Yanli felt she’d earned the right to throw a fit. But the child was a girl, and Yanli’s mother-in-law had no intention of humoring her. Soon they were irritated with each other all the time. Fortunately, Zhenbao played peacemaker and the embarrassment of a direct confrontation was avoided, but his mother sullenly insisted on moving back to Jiangwan. Zhenbao was very disappointed in his wife: having married her for her tractability, he felt cheated. He was also unhappy with his mother—moving out like that and letting people say he wasn’t a good son. He was still busy-busy, but gradually he succumbed to fatigue. Even the smiling wrinkles of his suit looked tired.

When Dubao graduated, Zhenbao, in his role as talent scout, found his brother a job at the factory. But Dubao didn’t live up to his potential. Overshadowed by his older brother, he became a loafer, without ambition. He was still single, and quite content to live in a dormitory.

One morning Dubao showed up at Zhenbao’s place with a question. The assistant manager of the factory would soon be returning to his home country, and everyone had contributed toward a gift which it was Dubao’s job to purchase. Zhenbao advised him to go to a department store and see what sort of silver items they had. The two brothers left the house together and caught the same bus. Zhenbao sat down next to a woman who, without a glance, picked up the child beside her and put him on her lap. Zhenbao didn’t pay any attention, but Dubao, sitting across the aisle, gasped in surprise. Lifting himself in his seat, he signaled to Zhenbao with his head. Only then did Zhenbao recognize Jiaorui. She was plumper than before, though certainly not paunchy, as she’d once feared would happen to her. She looked tired, but she was carefully made up, and the pendants of her earrings were gold-colored Burmese Buddha heads. Jiaorui was middle-aged now, and her beauty had turned to plain good looks.

“Mrs. Zhu,” said Dubao, smiling, “it’s been a long time!”

Zhenbao remembered hearing that she had remarried—that she was now Mrs. Zhu. Jiaorui smiled back. “Yes, it really has been a long time!” she said.

Zhenbao nodded. “How have you been?” he asked.

“Just fine, thank you.”

“Have you been in Shanghai all this time?” Dubao asked.

Jiaorui nodded.

“It seems a bit early in the morning for running errands,” he continued.

“It certainly is!” Jiaorui said. She put her hand on the child’s shoulder. “I’m taking him to the dentist. He got a toothache yesterday, kept me up all night with his fussing, and now I’ve got to take him in early.”

“Which is your stop?” asked Dubao.

“The dentist’s office is on the Bund. Are you two going to the office?”

“He is,” said Dubao, “but I’ve got to do some shopping.”

“Is everything still the same at the factory?” asked Jiaorui. “No big changes?”

“Hilton is going back. Now Zhenbao will be the assistant manager.”

“Oh, my! That’s wonderful!”

Dubao never talked this much when his older brother was present; Zhenbao could tell that Dubao felt it incumbent on him, under the circumstances, to do the talking. Which meant he must know all about their affair.

Dubao got off at the next stop. Zhenbao was silent for a while. He didn’t look at Jiaorui. “Well, and how are you?” he asked the empty air.

Jiaorui was silent, but after a pause she said, “Just fine.” The same question and same answer as before, but now they had an entirely different meaning.

“This Mr. Zhu—do you love him?”

Jiaorui nodded. When she answered, her words were interrupted by pauses. “Starting with you . . . I learned . . . how to love . . . to really love. Love is good. Even though I have suffered, I still want to love, and so . . .”

Zhenbao rolled up the square collar of her son’s sailor outfit. “You’re very happy,” he said in a low voice.

Jiaorui laughed. “I had to forge ahead somehow. When I ran into something, well, that was it.”

“What you run into is always a man,” Zhenbao said with a cold smile.

Jiaorui wasn’t angry. She tilted her head to one side and thought about it. “True,” she said. “When I was young and pretty, I always ran into men. That probably would have happened no matter what I did, once my social life started. But now, there are other things besides men, always other things . . .”

Zhenbao stared at her, unaware that his heart, at that moment, was aching with jealousy.

“And you?” asked Jiaorui. “How are you?”

Zhenbao wanted to sum up his perfectly happy life in a few simple words, but as he was trying to find them, he looked up and saw his face in the small mirror on the bus driver’s right. He knew his face was steady and calm, and yet the vibration of the bus made his face vibrate too, a strange, calm, regular vibration, almost as if his face was being gently massaged. All at once, Zhenbao’s face really did begin to quiver; in the mirror he saw tears streaming down . . . he didn’t know why. Shouldn’t she have been the one to weep? It was all wrong, and yet he couldn’t stop. She should be weeping, he should be comforting her. But Jiaorui didn’t comfort him. She sat silently for a long time. Then she asked, “Is this your stop?”

He got off the bus and went to work as usual. It was Saturday, so they had the afternoon off. He went home at half past twelve. He had a small Western-style house with a big, imposing wall out front, but then all the houses in the area, row after row of them, looked exactly the same: gray cement walls, as smooth, shiny, and rectangular as coffins, with flowering oleanders sticking up over the top. The courtyard inside was small, but it counted as a garden. Everything a home should have, his had. Small white clouds floated in the blue sky above, and on the street a flute vendor was playing the flute—a sharp, soft, sinuous, Oriental tune that twisted and turned in the ear like embroidery, like a picture of a dream in a novel, a trail of white mist coming out from under the bed curtain and unfurling all sorts of images, slowly uncoiling like a lazy snake, till finally the drowsiness is just too great, and even the dream falls asleep.

The house was perfectly quiet when Zhenbao walked in. His seven-year-old daughter, Huiying, was still at school; the maidservant had gone to fetch her. Zhenbao didn’t want to wait; he told Yanli to go ahead and put the food on the table. He wolfed it down, as if to fill the emptiness in his heart with food.

After eating, he phoned Dubao to ask him how the shopping had gone. Dubao explained that he’d looked at several pieces of silver but none had been suitable. “I have a pair of silver vases here,” said Zhenbao. “Someone gave them to us as wedding gifts. Take them to a shop and have them re-engraved. That should take care of it. You can return the money you’ve collected. It’ll be my contribution.” Dubao agreed, and Zhenbao said, “Perhaps you should come and get them now.” He was anxious to see Dubao and to find out his reaction to seeing Jiaorui that morning. The whole scene had been so nonsensical—and his own response so absurd—that Zhenbao almost wondered if it had really happened.

Dubao came, and Zhenbao casually brought the conversation round to Jiaorui. Dubao tapped his cigarette like a man of experience: “She’s gotten old, really old.” Which apparently meant, for a woman, that she was finished.

Zhenbao reviewed the scene that morning: yes, she had grown old. But even this he envied. He looked at his wife. Eight years of marriage and still no trace of experience. She was hollow and spotless. She always would be.

He told Yanli to wrap up the two silver vases on the mantelpiece and give them to Dubao. She scrambled around to find a chair, removed the cushion, stood on the chair, got some newspaper from the top of the cupboard, went back to the drawer for some string, found a string that was too short, wrapped up the vases and made a complete mess of it, even ripping the paper into pieces. Zhenbao watched the whole thing with growing irritation. All at once he strode over and grabbed the vases from her. He groaned loudly. “When a person’s stupid, everything’s a trial!”

Yanli’s face flushed with resentment, like a slave girl’s. But then she smiled and laughed, glancing quickly at Dubao to see if he was laughing too, afraid he might not have caught her husband’s joke. She stood to one side with her arms folded while Zhenbao wrapped up the silver vases. Her features were strangely clouded, as if a white membrane had been stretched across her face.

Dubao was getting fidgety. At their house friends and relatives often got fidgety. He wanted to leave. Anxious to make up for the faux pas, Yanli rallied. She pressed him warmly to stay— “If you aren’t busy.” She fawned and smiled, her eyes narrowing, her nose wrinkling flirtatiously. She often surprised people with such an unexpected intimacy. If Dubao had been a woman, she would have taken his hand in her own moist palm and held on desperately—imposing herself in a way that was sure to prove distasteful.

Dubao said he really must go. At the door, he ran into the old maidservant bringing Huiying back. Dubao took some gum from his trousers pocket and gave it to the girl. “Say ‘Thank you, Uncle,’ ” Yanli chimed in. Huiying dodged away.

“Ah! So you’re embarrassed!” Dubao laughed.

Huiying flipped up her Western-style skirt to hide her face, showing her underwear. “Now you should be really embarrassed!” Yanli cried out.

Huiying grabbed the gum, flipped the skirt over her face again, and ran away laughing.

Zhenbao sat watching his daughter, with her thin, yellow, prancing hands and feet. Before, this child had not existed. He had summoned her out of thin air.