Three Souls (8 page)

That morning the headmistress had called me into her office and handed me a letter from Hangchow Women’s University offering me a full scholarship. I managed to hold on to my dignity in front of her, but a few minutes later when I showed the letter to Nanmei, we both screamed in jubilation, dancing up and down the hallway while our teachers looked on tolerantly.

I had managed to wait until now—after supper, when the entire family was together—to make my triumphant announcement.

“Ah, Third Daughter. More good news?” Father sounded pleased already.

“Yes, Father. My grades were good enough to win a scholarship. Here’s the letter from Hangchow Women’s University. Four years of tuition, all provided for.”

Father read it and handed it back with a nod of satisfaction.

“A scholarship, Third Daughter. Well done, very well done. If you would like to invite some classmates for a celebration, you may do so. Or if you see something you like in a shop, put it on our account.”

“Thank you, Father.” I beamed. He was so pleased, as I had known he would be.

“But write to the university as soon as possible to decline so they can give this scholarship to another deserving student.”

Something rose in my throat. But I held my voice steady.

“Father, what do you mean? I applied for a scholarship because you said you couldn’t afford tuition. But with this scholarship, it won’t cost you anything.”

“Third Daughter, I’m very proud of your accomplishments, but you are not going because there is no need. You will not be working for a living. You have a comfortable future as a wife and mother.”

My mouth went dry. Under the dining table, Sueyin delivered a warning kick.

“But, Father, I
want
to work. I want to be a teacher. Madame Sun Yat-sen says China needs more teachers. It’s . . . it’s my patriotic duty.”

The dining room fell silent, an uneasy hush. Father chuckled, as though reasoning with a small child.

“Third Daughter, always so idealistic. But families such as ours do not need our women to go out and earn money. What would people think of you teaching peasants?”

“Then why did you bother sending me to school at all? Why did you bother caring about my grades?” My voice sounded strident, harsh. Father’s eyes narrowed at my angry tone. Sueyin kicked me harder.

“I sent you to school because you will marry an educated young man who will want an educated wife. High school is sufficient. As for grades, in any effort, one should always strive for the highest achievement.”

“And after such high achievement, all you want is for me to get married and . . . and
breed?
”

Appalled at myself for shouting at Father, I ran out of the room sobbing—angry and frightened.

***

My
yang
soul regards me with disapproval. I bristle, but inside I am hurt.

You argued with him. Worse, you did it in front of the family. Could you not at least have disagreed with him in private?
He shakes his grey head, exasperated. The taste of ginger bites at my tongue.

Father always took such pleasure in my achievements at school. He arrived early to every recital and awards ceremony. He always sat in the front row, where I could see him applaud. I can’t tell you how often I saw him turn to another parent and mouth the words “That’s my daughter.” But those achievements meant nothing to him, in the end.

He was proud of you,
my
hun
soul says. We’re on the terrace outside the family shrine, and I pace back and forth, still seething at the memory.

It continues.
But a career can be a difficult burden, daily drudgery. He wanted you to have a comfortable life.

It’s so unfair!
My
yin
soul defends me.
Look at Tongyin. For him, university was just another place to have a good time. But there was never any question that he would go. He was a son. You can’t blame Leiyin for being angry. What else was she to think, when Father always encouraged her to excel at school? This was the first time she realized education was only meant to increase her value in the marriage market.
Her rosebud mouth purses a little, and a scent of orange blossom soothes the air.

My
hun
soul puts a shining arm around my shoulder.
Actually, I think it was the first time she realized it was possible for a child to hate her own father.

***

The next morning I went to Father’s study, dragging my feet. He sat behind the huge ebony table he used as a desk. The table had belonged to my five-times-great-grandfather, and today the weight of all my ancestors’ disapproval seemed to reside within its polished bulk. Without being told, I knelt in front of the table and bent my forehead to the floor, my hands outstretched on the fine Turkish carpet. I stared down at the deep blues and tobacco browns, patterns that twisted like my insides. But I was still angry.

“Third Daughter, your punishment is that you will not attend your convocation ceremonies tomorrow. Eldest Brother has already sent a note to the headmistress to say you are ill.”

I willed myself to hold back my tears. I would not let Father see me cry.

He walked around the table. Shifting my eyes to the side, I could see the tips of his shoes beside my head, bamboo leaves embroidered on their black canvas.

“Furthermore, Third Daughter, you will not leave the estate for the rest of the week.”

He began pacing. “Eldest Brother and Second Sister asked me not to beat you or lock you in your room. They said missing your convocation would be punishment enough. Now sit up and listen to me.”

I straightened and rested on my heels, my eyes still fixed on the rug.

“Third Daughter. You think you want to teach peasant children to read. Do you think they would come to a city school? You would need to go to them, live in remote villages. From this home to a cottage with dirt floors and vermin? An outhouse that’s no more than a trench behind a wall? Daughter, you couldn’t imagine such a life. Father knows this even if you don’t. Go down to breakfast now and don’t let me see you sulk.”

He sounded almost tender, but I didn’t raise my eyes to his face.

Downstairs, the silence at the breakfast table told me the extent of my disgrace. The servants avoided my eyes as they set down congee and poured bowls of chilled, sweet soy milk. Even Sueyin gave me a cold glare. It wasn’t her fault I had ignored those kicks under the table.

Later, the newspapers arrived. The
Central Daily News
had printed one of Father’s letters to the editor. In it, Father expressed mistrust of the young warlord Zhang Xueliang’s motives for an armistice with the Nationalists. Father’s mood improved considerably after that and we stopped walking on eggshells.

***

I wasn’t allowed any visitors, so Nanmei couldn’t come to tell me about the convocation. I was also banned from attending our next salon, the final one of the season, but when the evening came I positioned myself behind the upstairs windows, hoping at least to catch a glimpse of Hanchin. He didn’t appear. I comforted myself in the knowledge that when Father resumed his salons in the fall, Tongyin would be away at university in Shanghai and I would have opportunities to steal some time with Hanchin. But what did I have to offer him now except a dowry? I was only a high school graduate, unqualified to teach, useless for helping him in building a modern China.

All of this churned through my mind as I took daily walks with my elderly great-aunts and great-uncles around the lake in the Old Garden. I whiled away time playing with Fei-Fei and my little nieces. I explored the entire estate, something I hadn’t done since I was a child. It was useless. Nothing could make me forget that all my plans had come to naught, like bright visions sunk into darkness. The library was my only refuge and that was where Tongyin found me.

“Here, take the latest issue. And you can borrow this.”

He dropped a copy of
China Millennium
and his
Eugene Onegin
on the table beside me and walked out again, whistling. His uncharacteristically kind act told me my misery was so obvious that even Tongyin had noticed. The slip of pale blue onion skin was still in the book, proof that Tongyin hadn’t even read it. I picked up the book and tried reading the first few pages. A week ago, I would have devoured it, but now all I wanted to do was cry.

I turned my attention to
China Millennium,
flipped through the magazine, and in minutes forgot I was in disgrace with my father, forgot I had missed my convocation, forgot I couldn’t go to college:

QUESTIONS FROM READERS

In this issue, we inaugurate a new column. Unlike Letters to the Editor, where readers express their opinions, this feature answers questions from readers. We have many young readers who send in questions about our articles.

Our first question is from a young reader named Song who has concerns about proposals for simplifying our written language. Staff writer Yen Hanchin replies . . .

It was a secret correspondence, carried out in plain sight. What else could it mean except that he cared for me? He understood my situation and had shown the utmost delicacy by acknowledging my letter through his magazine.

***

In our family,
I tell my souls,
there is a tale of a many-times-great-grandfather who fell in love with his bride before he had even seen her. As required by tradition, he never met the bride chosen for him until their wedding day. But they exchanged letters, for that was encouraged. They wrote to each other, composing verses so exquisite that when they finally met, they were already deeply in
love.

Correspondence is a time-honoured and entirely proper way for young people to get to know each other,
my
yang
soul declares.
It allows a contemplation of each other’s qualities far more meaningful than the distractions of dancing and films.

How wonderful,
my
yin
soul says.
To be in love with your husband before the wedding. And through poetry.
There is a sweet, musky scent in the winter air, amber and roses, and her face is rapt.
How happy they must have been.

I shake my head.
Only for a while. The bride died in childbirth and her husband published their poems in a book dedicated to her memory. Father had a copy. I read them, but I was too young to truly understand.

But you were enthralled by the notion of falling in love through letters,
my
hun
soul suggests.

I knew it was possible to fall in love without ever meeting your heart’s partner. It happened to our ancestor, it’s not merely romantic fiction.

Questions about politics aren’t romance,
my
yang
soul points out, wagging his cane at me.

Oh,
says my
yin soul
, rolling her brown eyes,
it’s the fact that Hanchin devised a way for them to correspond in secret. You’re all dry bones,
yang
, not a single soft spot.

She skips to the edge of the terrace and turns to look up at the sky. It is still winter. Months of memories had flowed through my mind yet hardly any time at all had gone by in the real world.

Until you met Hanchin, all the obstacles in your life had been childish and trivial, hardly worth any distress.
My
yang
soul strokes his grey goatee and squints at me in disapproval.
You couldn’t imagine being thwarted. This clever correspondence only reinforced that belief.

You still believed you could persuade your father,
my
hun
soul says.
You still believed you would go to college.

4

A
s soon as my house arrest was over, I went to see Nanmei and found her unhappy but philosophical. She wasn’t going to Hangchow Women’s after all, either. Nanmei’s mother had made arrangements for her to attend Soochow University and to live with her aunt and uncle.

“My parents decided I shouldn’t live in a dormitory when I could save them money by living with family.” She groaned, and fell face down on her bed. “Soochow is the only place with a university where we also have family, so Soochow it has to be.”

Her news made mine slightly easier to share. She sat up and gave me a long hug.

“I promise to write to you every week, you’ll know everything I’m doing. Promise you’ll do the same, Leiyin.”

“There won’t be much to tell. I’ll just be at home with my brain rotting away. Anyway, how can I write anything meaningful when Father reads all my letters?”

“Get a box at the post office, of course.”

I shake my head.

“For goodness’ sake, Leiyin. If you’re worried about Nanny Qiu, just give her a little bribe to keep your secret.” She rolls her eyes at my skeptical look. “Sometimes I don’t understand how someone with your brains can be so naive. You could ask Hanchin to write to that post office box too.”

She was right. “Nanmei, you’re so practical and clever and I’m so . . .”

“You’re so unaccustomed to deception, Leiyin.”

I shrugged and pulled an envelope out of my purse. “I’ll see about a mailbox. I’ll find a way. But in the meantime, could you take this to the post office for me?”

***

The Questions from Readers column was proving popular. In every other issue of
China Millennium,
Hanchin replied to my questions and to others’. As I read his articles over and over, his words and opinions seeped into my thinking:

Basic arithmetic, writing, and some rudimentary science will pull peasants and small-town folk out of ignorance and superstition. Memorizing the Three Hundred Tang Poems will not. Young teachers and doctors, we urge you to find work in rural areas and to consider it a patriotic service to China. While you’re young, the comforts of life matter less.