Inheritance Page 5

  Li Ang looked away. Once in a great while, more often as a child, he had experienced what he came to think of later as a memory of the senses. Surrounded by friends, or laughing at a joke, he would remember, very suddenly, the bright, soft blue of his mother’s dress, the smooth cotton threads under his fingers as he clung to her. This happened very rarely, almost never since he had become a man. Now, as he stood before the window, he recalled a faint, sweet smell, the scent of his mother’s cheek and the area between her neck and collarbone, where he had, many years before, buried his face. “Hush, hush,” she had whispered. “It’s not that bad. Nothing could be all that bad, now, could it?” Silently, his lips shaped the words.

  For several minutes he stood before the quiet room, no longer seeing it. Then the wind shifted, bringing a gust of music from outside. Li Ang remembered the reason he had left the others. He collected himself and walked ahead. He reached his wedding chamber and knocked on the door.

  Occupation

  Hangzhou 1931–37

  LATER THAT YEAR, ON A LEAF-SCENTED EVENING FOLLOWING the Harvest Festival, Hu Mudan entered the room that had been Chanyi’s. The furniture had not been rearranged since Chanyi’s death. In the weeks after the funeral, Weiwei and Gu Taitai had flipped a coin over the task of cleaning the haunted place. But their interest had soon faded; Hu Mudan had taken over. Now the air smelled pleasantly of wood oil. She made her way into the dark, reaching for the lacquered edge of a small bureau. In a corner of the bottom drawer she had hidden a satin pouch. Her swollen stomach made it difficult to kneel, but she found the pouch and closed her fist around it. Climbing down the stairs, she was forced to stop and catch her breath.

  She had told no one she was pregnant, even when her belly revealed the truth to all, and she had confided in no one her expectations that this child would be a boy and that he would be unusual. Without Chanyi, there was nobody to tell.

  She had paid a peddler to whet the kitchen shears. To sterilize the blades, she took a bottle of fiery sorghum liquor from Wang’s office cabinet. She even found a chamber pot, remembering the way that women in labor moved their bowels. Clean rags waited in a willow basket. Everything was ready. She closed the door to her room and slipped the satin pouch under her mattress.

  For hours she lay, and stood, and squatted, struggling not to shout although her body was being torn apart by a powerful and indifferent pair of hands. Between the bouts of pain, she raised the bamboo blind and watched the gibbous moon, a lemon kite, fly up over the garden. The pain returned, erased the moon. The room took on the smell of the sea, steaming sour with each breath. She believed she would not die, for recent dreams had shown her she would live to see her living child. But even if she died it might not be the end of things. She might learn what had happened to Chanyi. Perhaps she might even see Chanyi. Perhaps it was true what the Methodists believed, that there was a peaceful place where friends collected after life.

  The hours passed; dawn cast the room in dazed, gray autumn light. Someone knocked on the door. “Come in!” Hu Mudan cried eagerly, thinking that it might be Chanyi. But the door swung open to the orders of a midwife.

  Although her sight was almost gone, old Mma had not failed to note the changes in the sound of Hu Mudan’s voice, which months ago had taken on the high pitch of pregnancy. She had consulted with Junan and ordered her to fetch some help. So in the end, Hu Mudan did not have to finish her task alone. The child was born during the noon meal, which Gu Taitai prepared so haphazardly that the doorman broke his molar on a stone in the rice. Loud infant cries rang through the courtyard. It was a boy, as Hu Mudan had guessed, dark-skinned and round-skulled as a northerner, with a cap of spiky hair and eyes the same color of earth at the bottom of a pond. Hu Mudan explained politely to the others that the hair predicted a lack of intelligence and the enormous head great stubbornness. The midwife cleaned the child and wrapped him tightly, saving his umbilical cord, since Hu Mudan had once heard a story in Sichuan about the importance of drying the cord and making an amulet to protect the child from trouble. Later Mma told Junan that Hu Mudan was being inappropriately cautious, as if her son were something more than an illegitimate child of a servant.

  TO JUNAN, THE PREGNANCY and birth presented a problem in household management. Hu Mudan had given the boy her own surname, Hu. Where was the father? Junan and Mma went over the list of men who worked in or around the house and they decided Hu Mudan could not possibly have wanted them. She and the doorman had a long-running feud. Old Gu was indeed so old his gums had turned to sponges and he had to eat rice gruel. Gongdi, the errand boy, was young enough, but so backward that he could not have figured out how to mount a woman even with clear instructions. It must have been someone outside the house. Perhaps the man who sharpened knives? A rickshaw runner? The mystery might not be known until the child matured enough to reveal the father through his face or manner. Perhaps it would never be known. Meanwhile, this baby boy, this Hu Ran, was living in the house as if he had been brought there by a fairy. Junan believed Hu Mudan ought to be told to leave at once. But Mma refused. She didn’t want anyone else, not even her granddaughter, to help her use the toilet. She wouldn’t be persuaded by Junan or her father. And Junan knew better than to expect support from Yinan.

  Yinan was another problem. Since the wedding she had become even more of a bookworm; her right hand was often stained with ink. She spent hours reading newspapers and had developed a fascination for the slender film star Ruan Lingyu. She persuaded Junan to see New Woman. Junan suffered through two hours in the smelly, noisy theater, holding her handkerchief to her nose, while Yinan sat enchanted by the melodramatic story of a beautiful and talented woman writer driven to prostitution in order to save a sick child. During the final scenes, as the dying woman heaved upon her hospital bed, Junan heard a choking sound from the seat next to her. Yinan had burst into tears. Junan found her another handkerchief—her sister never remembered them—and sat through the movie’s end aghast.

  One afternoon, Junan walked into Yinan’s room and noticed an unusual scent of sugar and fruit.

  “Meimei, what is that smell?”

  Yinan’s eyes widened. She darted a glance at the cushions on her bed. Junan went to the bed and tossed the cushions aside.

  She discovered a smooth, flat box, decorated with red flowers and gold trim. She lifted the lid and found a mosaic of bright candies nestled in fluted paper, some shaped like striped ribbons, some flat disks with a bloom of color in the center. She turned from the gaudy box to Yinan’s frightened face—eyes round, lips pursed, still sucking guiltily at the sweet stone in her mouth.

  “Where did you get this box of candy, Meimei?”

  Yinan shook her head.

  “Meimei?” Threatening now.

  “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  “You know I’ll find out anyway.”

  Still, Yinan resisted. After half an hour of badgering and threatening her with no results, Junan was forced to give up. She left the bedroom frustrated, carrying the candy box, knowing no more about her sister’s suitor than she could guess.

  The fact that Yinan had an admirer troubled Junan. The extravagant gift was disturbing, but more disturbing was Yinan’s refusal to give away the boy’s identity. To whom did she owe such loyalty except to her family? How had she met him when she rarely left the house?

  Junan was forced to consult Hu Mudan. She found her in the courtyard working on a bundle of blue cotton. Hu Mudan made her own cloth shoes and was very particular about the soles. Next to her, Hu Ran lay in an enameled wash pan, watching everything that happened. His very presence posed a question she couldn’t answer. Ignoring him, she went right to the point and asked Hu Mudan if she knew anything of an admirer.

  Hu Mudan answered mildly that she had no idea who the man might be. She hadn’t known of any admirer, but a few days ago, when Deng Xiansheng came through the gate, s
he had seen something colorful—red and gold—tucked between his books and papers.

  Junan couldn’t conceal her surprise. Deng Xiansheng was Yinan’s calligraphy and writing tutor. He was in his forties, with pouches under his eyes and thinning hair over a high, round forehead. He came to the house three times a week wearing respectable but shabby clothes; his tutoring was strict and very serious. If he’d been born three decades earlier, he would have been the kind of man who studied for more than half his life to pass the jinshi exam. Now, at a time when the studious life had lost its power and significance, he had no fulfillment but from what could be found within the purity of a line, or an intelligent, forceful turn of the brush.

  “Surely you’re joking,” Junan said. Yinan wasn’t even a good calligrapher. Her writing was artistic, but it lacked ambition. It was typical woman’s work.

  “Most people become attached to someone. Why not Deng Xiansheng?”

  “It’s too absurd—has he no shame? He’s almost three times older than she is.”

  Hu Mudan said, “Older isn’t always bad. Someday she will need a man to take care of her.”

  “I know. But she’s so backward that I wonder. And who would put up with her, and who would know what she was up to, and how to manage her?”

  “There’s more to her than meets the eye. About a match, your father might have ideas.”

  Junan frowned at Hu Mudan, but the woman sat pulling her thread through the sole of her shoe, mild and uninvolved. From the wash pan, Hu Ran watched and made no sound.

  “My father’s connections aren’t what they used to be.” She thought for a moment. “But this box of candy is an insult. It is an insult to us that Deng Xiansheng could have thought we would even tolerate this attachment, even though she’s backward for her age, and not beautiful.”

  Junan watched Hu Mudan’s thimble ring push the big needle back through the layers of cloth. “And so much of it is her fault. How could anyone have assumed we cared what she was up to, when she won’t wear any of the new clothes I took the trouble to have made for her? And she won’t take care of her things. They’re all wilted and wrinkled. She looks like a salted lettuce.”

  “She doesn’t like to wear starched clothes,” said Hu Mudan.

  “She is getting more and more strange.”

  “No,” said Hu Mudan evenly, “she’s the same.”

  “She won’t wear her new clothes until they’ve been sitting in the drawer for six months. She won’t learn to run a house or do embroidery or behave. All she does is read and write and talk to that pet chicken.” This was not precisely true, but true enough. Yinan snuck the chicken indoors, and sometimes, when she passed by her sister’s room, Junan could hear Yinan confiding in Guagua or asking if she wanted a drink of water. Junan felt a wave of irritation with Yinan, whose behavior had only amused her in the past. She could no longer defend her sister if she was old enough to entertain admirers.

  She hurried into Yinan’s room.

  “Sooner or later,” she said, “you’re going to be married. In the meantime, you can’t go around accepting miscellaneous gifts from slippery-headed and impoverished men.”

  Yinan didn’t answer.

  “I’m going to speak to Baba about your marriage. You are almost sixteen years old.”

  As she waited for Yinan to speak, Junan observed once again that her sister hadn’t learned the importance of concealing her feelings from the people that she loved. Now she appeared both curious and frightened. “I don’t want to marry,” Yinan said.

  Although it was considered proper for girls to feign reluctance, Junan could see that Yinan wasn’t pretending. She didn’t have enough sense to pretend anything. Junan frowned to hide her own confusion. As she looked at her sister’s bent head and glossy braids, she felt that she was trying to hold a conversation with a stranger.

  “You need to learn how to be a woman,” she said.

  “What does a woman do?”

  Junan considered this question. “She is patient,” she explained. “She is canny, and above all, she is careful, xiaoxin. I like to think of what the characters mean: small heart.” Yinan sat very still.

  “That means you must be cautious. You must not make inappropriate friendships with men.”

  “But how will I find someone?”

  “Are you telling me you want to make a love match?”

  Yinan did not reply.

  “You’ve been watching too many movies.” Junan left the room.

  As she went back upstairs, she put the mystery of Deng Xiansheng aside. Xiaoxin. She must have a small heart. Junan had read in the newspaper about young Chinese women reading Marx, joining the Communist underground, and practicing free love. Still others were illiterate, struggling to raise a bleak and ancient living from the earth. In the eye of this storm of change, Junan planned her way. She embarked upon her marriage with a personal agenda: she did not expect to love her husband, nor ever to lean on him for happiness or money.

  When seen in this light, her own marriage was promising. Li Ang’s lack of family brought advantages. Since Li Ang was an orphan, she could live with her own family. Unlike other wives, she would not have to kowtow to a demanding mother-in-law. She could create her own, more modern marriage, free of the vicious treatment and terrible isolation of being a new daughter-in-law in a big house. Li Ang’s job was dangerous, but the threat of civil war had diminished now that the Communists and Nationalists had reached a truce. She would certainly be able to persuade him to take a safer job as a staff officer.

  She assured herself that Li Ang was inferior to her. He was clever enough, but unrefined. Oh, she saw his handsome face, his height and strength, his ability to please people; she knew he would become somebody. But now he was a soldier and his family was nothing. They had just the uncle’s broken-down shop. She assumed that Li Ang knew he was inferior and would therefore be more open to her guidance. She clung to this advantage: that marrying Li Ang had made her safe, that his family was of such low stature it would be impossible for her to truly fall in love with him. This would save her from the fate that had overcome her mother. No, she would be careful. She knew how dangerous it was to get overly attached, how treacherous it might be if she grew to want devotion from the man she married.

  THE IDEA OF LETTING Yinan find someone herself was out of the question. Yinan had no experience with men; she was unusually shy. Moreover, Junan didn’t trust her judgment. She might be inclined to marry a man because she had taken pity on him, or for some other foolish reason. Junan didn’t want to see Yinan sentenced to poverty as the result of a sentimental inclination.

  As a married woman, she was entitled to bring up the subject with her father. The following night, after dinner, she went to his room. When she explained the situation, she saw an expression of unmistakable weariness cross his face, and she began to wonder if she might be asking too much of him.

  “His older brother owes me money,” he said, of Deng Xiansheng. “That is why he tutors Yinan without pay.”

  “If she is engaged, she won’t need a tutor anymore.”

  Her father nodded.

  “What about the Chens?” she asked.

  “That boy is worse than she is. Let me think this over.” But in the following days, he said nothing about Yinan, and Junan began to wonder if she would have to take the matter into her own hands.

  She was surprised a few weeks later when he handed her a letter he had received from Nanjing.

  21st Year of the Republic

  13 December

  Cousin and brother,

  My belated greetings to you in this season of falling frost.

  I am writing to you in response to your recent letter regarding your younger daughter Yinan. Since then I have made inquiries, but nothing promising emerged until today. Lo Dun of Ningpo recently dec
ided to marry, and I have taken the liberty of mentioning Yinan.

  As you know, Lo Dun is from a good family and over the years he has made a decent and steady income. He lives with his mother, and I thought that perhaps an older woman might provide a kind of maternal figure for your daughter. Moreover, Lo Dun is a steady, well-settled man. His intentions are most responsible. Please write to me and let me know what you would like to do.

  Your brother-cousin,

  Baoding

  Her father told Junan that Lo Dun was a decent man, and so he had gone to town and telegrammed his cousin to proceed. But his cousin had wired back that the match was not entirely certain. Lo Dun’s mother wanted a face-to-face meeting. Eventually it was agreed that Lo Dun and his aged mother would come to the house for tea the following week. It would be Junan’s job to coach Yinan.

  At the evening meal, Junan peered thoughtfully at her sister. Yinan was eating spareribs, two slim fingertips placed at each end of the bone, her long neck bent gracefully as she leaned forward. She had never been beautiful, but that slender neck, vanishing into her limp collar, brought to mind a kind of innocence that went beyond mere youthfulness. Her shuidou scar, a shallow blemish high on her forehead, could be fixed, perhaps with powder, when she and Lo Dun met formally.

  On the afternoon when Lo Dun and his mother were scheduled to visit, Junan made Yinan struggle into her new pink qipao an hour early. She spent the hour instructing her sister. “Don’t let him know what you are feeling. He will like you better if he can’t tell. Don’t hold your collar away from your neck; you shouldn’t fidget with your clothes.”

  “This collar is so stiff.”

  “I’m not sure what kind of family they are—they’re merchants, but probably not bookworms like you, so they can’t have too many modern ideas. Bow a little, be respectful. Try to look old-fashioned. And if you smile, don’t show your teeth. It’s vulgar.”