Three souls, p.21
Three Souls, page 21
Dappled light opened up on the summit, where we found a small pavilion, no more than a thatched roof atop four posts. Baizhen set Weilan down on the trail and she immediately scrambled to the peak. He pulled me up the final incline.
I found myself looking down on Pinghu and the surrounding countryside. Amid a glaze of green fields, the lake that gave Pinghu its name gleamed like a polished amethyst. I could see the town, the pagoda by the lake, and the monastery beside it. I could even see the dusty faraway hills that marked the boundaries of the next town.
“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” I exclaimed. And I meant it.
All at once it came to me that Pinghu had given me the serenity of ordinary days, a quiet pond set in the chaotic landscape that was China. For as long as it could hold back the inevitable intrusion of war, I would cherish its simple pleasures.
Weilan scampered around the clearing, urging Little Ming to unpack our lunch. I knelt down to hug my daughter, and pointed to the north, where I could see a distant locomotive approaching the town, its plume of black smoke a contrast to the bright landscape all around.
***
My souls and I watch, enjoying the memory.
My memory-self is relaxed and laughing, teasing Baizhen and Little Ming. My face almost glows, radiant with new-found appreciation for my little world.
This town, this marriage, they were not what I had imagined for myself, I tell them. But I had a husband who loved me with great devotion and a daughter we both adored. It was enough. I was content.
At last, my yang soul grumbles. You took long enough to realize it. But he sounds pleased and sweet honey coats my tongue.
That was a very happy day. My yin soul stands at the summit, where a light wind makes her hair ribbons flutter. Lilacs scent the air.
It was certainly the day I realized I could be truly happy.
Look, says my hun soul. The train has pulled in to the station.
17
The package from Gaoyin contained only a few newspapers and film magazines. Her open letter amused me: it detailed at length the challenges of toilet training her youngest. Her secret letter made my heart sink:
My Dearest Sister,
I don’t dare continue our secret correspondence any longer. Read the news and you’ll understand why I’m sending only government-approved newspapers and journals from now on. The secret police are far more thorough than our families when it comes to searching for hidden notes. If ours are discovered, just the fact that we write in secret will implicate us.
Many of the writers and poets Father used to invite to his salons have gone over to the left. Tongyin is mixed up with the Communists in some way and I’m worried for him. Tell your husband to stay away from politics.
So this would be our last secret letter. Gaoyin had her children to consider. She was a more cautious person now than the sister who had agreed to help me run away. I hadn’t felt this lonely since my first year as a wife, before Weilan was born. As for Gaoyin’s warning, there wasn’t much danger of anyone in Pinghu getting caught up in politics, I thought. For one thing, politics would first have to find this town.
I turned to the newspapers and began to read. On the second page of the Shanghai News I saw it:
CHINA MILLENNIUM SHUT DOWN BY POLICE
Police have raided the offices of China Millennium, citing treasonous writing as the reason for arresting the editor, Lin Shaoyi. Yen Hanchin, poet and translator of Russian novels, who has been identified as the anonymous writer Nobody Special, is still at large. Staff at the journal were burning documents when police arrived, including a list of subscribers to the magazine. Police, however, already had a copy of the list and are making further arrests.
Like everyone else, I had believed Nobody Special was a collective of poets and writers, but it had been Hanchin all along. His name in print no longer made me catch my breath, but this news made me wonder where he was hiding.
***
“Ah, here’s something interesting,” said Gong Gong.
We were in the parlour. I was sewing a tunic for Weilan in her favourite shade of turquoise, and Jia Po was making a pair of cloth shoes for Gong Gong.
He handed me an invitation to the opening of a new bookstore on Southern Harmony Street. I recognized the name of the proprietor, Wang Duchen, the son of Bookseller Wang, who used to source rare books for Gong Gong.
“I’ll ask Bookseller Wang about this,” said Gong Gong. “If his son has opened the store with his blessing, then I’ll attend the opening to show my support.”
“He’s selling books by contemporary authors,” I noticed with interest. “He won’t be competing with his father’s business.”
GRAND OPENING
Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore, 24 Southern Harmony Street
We specialize in contemporary works of prose and poetry, and literary-arts journals. Our publications come from Peking, Shanghai, and Nanking. Please honour us by attending our opening-day celebrations, to be held at noon on the sixth day of the sixth month.
Wang Duchen, Proprietor
Gong Gong went to Bookseller Wang’s shop that very afternoon and returned with assurances from Wang that his son had opened the new shop on behalf of the Wang family.
“Wang wants to see whether modern literature will sell,” Gong Gong reported. “But he doesn’t want any young radicals mixing with his own customers, so they opened a separate store, which his son will manage. Bookseller Wang is very considerate, for a shopkeeper. But then, he does sell books.”
On the sixth day of the sixth month, my father-in-law set off to inspect the new store. When Gong Gong returned, I was in the main house with Jia Po, adding knot buttons to Weilan’s blouse, struggling to keep the stitches hidden. He carried a small package of books. The store, he reported, wasn’t hanging its hopes solely on modern literature. There was a small selection of classics as well as some children’s books.
“I made a small purchase. Just to show support for young Wang.”
He placed the books on the table beside his chair. Jia Po brought his slippers and I poured out fresh tea for him.
“The clerk who helped me said these authors are the most popular right now. Lu Hsün, Hu Shih, and some poet called Yu Dafu. Never heard of them.”
I picked up one and then the next, greedy for the prospect of something new.
“Which one will you read first, Gong Gong?”
Gong Gong waved his hand. “Take them all, take your time. I’m not interested in modern literature. Oh, and there’s something for you. For Weilan, actually.”
He pointed at a cheap copy of The Children’s History of Twenty-Four Exemplars of Filial Piety. “The clerk gave it to me for free. For my granddaughter, he said, although I don’t remember telling him about our family.” He paused, then continued. “Well, I’m sure Bookseller Wang briefed the staff on his most important clients.”
I finished my struggle with the blue buttons, folded the little blouse into my sewing basket, and picked up the new books. Jia Po was engrossed in the gossip Gong Gong had brought back from town, and the two were oblivious to my presence when I stood up to leave. There was time for an hour of peaceful reading, and I decided to do it in the pavilion. A light breeze had come up and with it the promise of one of the brief but powerful summer showers that blow in from the sea. I could smell it in the air and I hurried through the bamboo grove to the shelter of the pavilion. Like everything else on the estate, it looked a bit forlorn: the ancient wisteria vine planted at its base hadn’t been pruned in a decade. Any day now the roof would come free from its moorings, prodded off by the wisteria’s creeping tendrils.
I sat on one of the curved stone benches in the pavilion and skimmed the first pages of each book, unable to choose between them. I opened the children’s book and flipped through the familiar stories. A slip of blue notepaper was tucked in the middle, a bookmark or a price tag, I thought. Idly, I drew it out.
There was a faraway rumble of thunder and raindrops began flicking off the wisteria leaves. But I barely noticed. The pale blue onion skin was as familiar to me as the handwriting on it:
Come to the Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore on Thursdays.
Special prices for old friends.
You may lose all that you acquire, but knowledge and wisdom remain yours forever.
I tucked the slip of paper back in the book, closed my eyes, and felt my body shiver, but not because of my wet clothing. No, it simply wasn’t possible.
***
The following Thursday, with a list of things I didn’t really need tucked in my tunic pocket, I went shopping. I bought dried shrimps and straw mushrooms, a jar of bean paste, and a spool of black thread. I looked modest and matronly in a high-collared tunic of deep blue and a matching skirt, but with every step my heart pounded as loudly as the drumbeats of a dragon dance, my thoughts were clotted and confused, my body drawn forward by a nameless compulsion that was both pleasurable and frightening.
Eventually I stood at the threshold of the Thousand Wisdoms Bookstore. I loitered outside, pretended to read the notices pasted on the whitewashed wall, lists of books that had just arrived. Finally when I could delay it no longer, I pushed open the door to a harsh jangle of brass bells.
At first I couldn’t see anything. Then my eyes adjusted from the bright sun outside to the store’s gentle light, filtered as it was through paper shades. A young man faced the counter, a customer.
Behind the counter was Hanchin.
He didn’t look like a simple store clerk, not to my eyes. Even with round glasses perched on his nose and wearing an old-fashioned changshan gown of dark grey, he carried himself with too much confidence. He nodded at me and resumed wrapping the customer’s package, so I lingered in the far corner of the store beside a case of children’s books. I stole glances at him while thumbing through a picture book.
“You’ll enjoy those books, sir,” Hanchin said, as he opened the door and bowed to the customer. “This author used to write for New Youth and other magazines.”
He stood outside the shop entrance for a moment, polishing his glasses with a handkerchief of faded green plaid. He held the glasses up to the light, squinted, and put them back on. He was thinner than when I’d last seen him, his cheekbones standing out in sharp ridges. Reluctantly, I realized he was also far handsomer than I remembered, more forceful and enigmatic than the romantic figure from my faded daydreams.
He looked up and down the street. Then he came back in, pulling the door shut.
I spoke into the silence, hoping my voice wouldn’t tremble.
“Do you really need those glasses, or are they a disguise?”
“Really, Leiyin. We haven’t seen each other in years and you ask about my glasses?” The same amused, intimate smile. “Yes, I’ve grown a little nearsighted. And you. You’re a mother now, I understand. ”
“Six years. We haven’t seen each other in six years.” I steadied my voice. “Yes, I have a daughter, almost five years old. What are you doing here, Hanchin?”
“I’m in hiding.” As calmly as if he were talking about the weather. He took the picture book out of my hands, replaced it on the shelf. His movement stirred the stale air of the bookshop, spread the faintest trace of sandalwood.
“But why here? This town is a backwater.”
“That’s why it’s perfect. Who’d ever think of coming to a town such as this?”
“Did you know I lived here?”
“Yes, I knew. I’ve always known.”
Against my will, my heart raced. I’d stopped looking for his name in the newspapers but he had somehow kept track of me.
“What if I hadn’t seen that note in the book you gave my father-in-law? I wouldn’t be here today, on a Thursday.”
“Well, the book was meant for your daughter, so there was a good chance you’d see it. And even if you weren’t sure what the note meant, you’d know who it was from.” Oh, he was so sure of himself.
“What if I hadn’t seen the note at all?”
“A new bookstore, Leiyin. How could you resist? You would have come through these doors before long. But Thursdays are convenient. Young Wang usually helps his father at the other store on Thursdays.”
“Why did you contact me, Hanchin? You’re a political criminal. Why would I endanger myself for you? I hardly know you.”
I was speaking the truth. I knew nothing about his childhood or what he’d been doing these past few years.
“And yet you came.” The scent of sandalwood grew stronger as he moved closer, took my hand.
“I have to get back.” I pulled my hand away. “Just tell me why you contacted me.”
“I need you to hide something for me. Then I need you to give it to someone when the time is right.”
“What’s the ‘something’?” I could almost see the lure he was placing before me, drawing me in with curiosity.
“A document. I’m still writing it.” He smiled. “It’s a Communist manifesto for China.”
“A what?”
“A manifesto is a declaration of principles and objectives.” As if I didn’t know that, but I wanted to hear his voice. His eyes were mysterious, those glints of light in dark pupils. “Our history and beliefs aren’t the same as those of Western nations. Our manifesto must build on the foundation stones of our own culture, not theirs.”
I leaned back against a tall bookcase. “But why hide it? Why not take it with you?”
“I can’t risk that. I may be captured. The manifesto is more important than I am, Leiyin. If the Party approves, it’ll be distributed all over the country to inspire and guide people, to allow all Chinese to move forward as one.” His eyes shone in the dim light of the store, his voice was husky, fervent.
“Surely there are others who can do this. Young Wang, for instance.”
“If the Nationalists come looking and find out I worked here, he’ll be the first one arrested. But there’s nothing to link you and me. That’s one of the reasons I chose to hide in Pinghu.”
“I see.” He was here because there was nothing between us.
“After I leave Pinghu, a courier will come to get it from you. Will you hide it for me?” He took my hand again and put both of his around it.
Part of me, the part that remembered being seventeen and insane with love, longed to say I would do anything for him. Another part realized I had been too naive about Pinghu. It might be a boring small town, but if Wang, the bookseller’s son, was a Communist sympathizer, then the civil war had found its way here long ago. And now Hanchin was asking me to risk my family’s safety.
“How can you ask me to do this? I have a husband, a child . . .”
“Leiyin, I’m only asking you to do what you feel is right. Once, you wanted to make a difference to our country. You should know that even in small towns such as this all over China, men and women are taking a stand.”
In my new life, in this town, there was no point holding on to my convictions. Or so I had told myself. I felt ashamed for losing sight of Madame Sun Yat-sen’s vision for a new China, one where women had a voice. But that vision didn’t include helping a wanted criminal.
“Leiyin, you understand better than anyone else what this work means to me. There’s no one else I would trust with this document. As for the other reason why I came to this town . . .”
He lifted my chin with a long finger and I pulled my eyes away from his. I shook my head, but he pulled me toward him, pressed his lips against my forehead. I willed myself to resist the feelings his touch aroused in me but then his lips met mine. He bent down farther and his mouth moved behind my ear, below the tortoiseshell combs in my hair, down to my neck.
“How did you end up married so quickly?” he said, his breath warm beside my neck. “One day you were a pretty schoolgirl and the next day you were gone.”
I felt my knees soften, a slow melting that threatened my ability to stand upright.
“My father wouldn’t allow me to go to college, so I ran away. But I failed. Father married me off as punishment for my disobedience.” I hated that I couldn’t control my breathing, short panting gasps that I tried to keep quiet.
“You’re not in love with your husband, then?” He said this teasingly.
“He’s a kind husband and a good father.” I pushed myself away from his embrace.
“I’m glad to hear that.” The playful tone was gone.
Suddenly I thought of Gaoyin’s last letter, her concern for Tongyin.
“Hanchin, what’s been going on with my second brother? Is he mixed up with you and the Communist Party?”
“What do you think? Is Tongyin capable of political intrigue?” His eyes narrowed.
“My brother’s capable of boasting, that’s all. But he could get into a lot of trouble that way.”
“You’re right to worry, Leiyin. Tongyin talks too much.” His voice grew serious. “For your own sake as well as his, Tongyin must never know I was here. The less either of you know about my situation, the safer it is for you.”
The brass bells rang and a young man pushed open the door. He stood for a moment outlined against the sun, blinking while his eyes adjusted to the muted light. Hanchin moved to a display shelf beside me and pulled out a magazine.
“On page 16 there are some verses by that poet who interests you, Madame. Please accept this magazine with our compliments. Come by the shop again next Thursday. The book should be here by then. There’s no charge if you change your mind.”
He turned to the new arrival. “Welcome, welcome. How may I assist you?”
