7

The sixtieth birthday of the long-dead master of the house was celebrated posthumously in the Temple of the Bathing Buddha. The women drove there in a string of open carriages with a few close relatives. The men of the house had gone on before them. Yindi rode with the baby, the wet nurse and an amah and slave girl. The ermine lining showed white around the edges of her high collar cutting across the deep pink plane of the cheek. Everybody turned to look, startled in spite of the others that had gone before her, young faces encased in the same pearl cap and bars of heavy rouge. Between cap and collar only a rhombus of face was left to be seen. The rouge was not so obtrusive on her, being darker. It was a crimson shadow on her and gaudy pink spots on the others making them look like candy dolls. The calvacade and the baby marked her high respectability and the rouge placed her as a northerner. There was no danger of her being mistaken for one of those singsong girls that drove to Chang Park for tea. Still it was a theatrical look; she felt they were a troupe of players incongruously out under the sun sailing along the traffic. She was acting too and enjoyed it, posing as the loved and admired one.
Plane trees lined the wide asphalt streets, the leaves coming down in droves. As you looked down the long straight road they sounded as if they came from very high. She half gasped smiling at all the yellow hands fluttering down to touch her and just missing. The rickshas and carriages and the people dodging them, trailing long shadows criss-cross, gave the impression of fleeing the golden shower. A shop sign of blue cloth hanging out of a second storey window bellied out in the wind and caught the sun on its lower corner. The afternoon sunlight on the old blue cloth looked sad, it was just passing. The day was perfect and to no purpose, like her beauty.
The monks in their ceremonial saffron robes lined up outside to welcome them with folded palms, like a frieze running along the temple wall of the same colour. Alight-ing from the carriages the three daughters-in-law stood out in their scarlet panelled skirts, being the only ones entitled to wear them on this occasion. Their sheath jackets were violet, turquoise and apricot respectively. They all wore the long necklace called the many-treasured chain, twisted ropes of pearls with rubies, emeralds and sapphires woven in. It ended in a large pendant of pearls and gems strung into a variation of the swastika that looked exactly like a dollar sign. Fully four inches high, dangling heavily at the navel it gave their reedy figures the appearance of a forward slouch. Old Mistress was proud that all the relatives said she had the prettiest daughters-in-law and argued endlessly which was the most beautiful. Yindi was the most striking, but some thought Big Mistress looked sweeter and Third Mistress more delicate and both had a fair complexion. She was just Second Mistress, people never seemed to remember who her husband was. He was rarely mentioned and then always in hushed tones with a grimace, 'It's the soft bone disease, but nobody really knows what's wrong with him.' The family did not encour-age too many questions and he seldom appeared, just often enough to be no mystery. What she liked best about going out was to be merely one of the three.
They had reserved the temple for today. Mahjong tables were set up in the side chambers. They had more relatives than ever this year, so many were fleeing the revolution seeking shelter in the foreign settlements. She had heard about revolutionaries making trouble, wild youngsters mostly. Here in Shanghai under the protection of the foreign settlements they attracted more attention than else-where with their own newspapers and their speechifying plays, called 'civilized plays' because they were imported, at a time when the reformers deemed most native things barbaric. Those shows with just talk and no singing were very much the vogue just now but she had yet to see one. The Yaos never went, not just because of politics. The civilized actors, as they were called, including female im-personators who still took all the women's parts, were notorious for the number of their affairs with singsong girls and concubines. It couldn't be these groups that were now forcing the emperor to abdicate? People said it was all because the premier Yuan Shih-kai was a traitor. Of course the court was a mess. The Yaos and their friends had been out of government a long time. Old Mistress seldom spoke of the present trouble but when she did there was a bitter satisfaction in her tone.
The sense of disaster was too general really to worry anybody, least of all the daughters-in-law. It did occur to Yindi that the Yaos were no longer the same as before. It had always been assumed that any Yao boy would be given a post when he came of age, in memory of the late premier. Big Master had resigned after serving as a district governor. Third Master had not been interested, like his father before him and Old Mistress would just as soon they stayed out of the dangerous game. Yindi had thought her son would be different. Now she felt a chill in the air without any perceptible change around her, gayer in fact with more relatives and parties. It was the end of hope for her brother's family too. There was just the money, what was left of it and she'd be waiting for it till her hair was white. But what was the use of thinking? As the old saying tells women, 'Married a chicken, follow the chicken; married a dog, follow the dog.'
She was out on the temple porch with Second Mistress Sun watching the children play, chasing around the court-yard with little slave girls. A boy fell down crying. His amah hurried forward to help him up and rub his palm and knees.
'Beat the ground, beat the ground,' she said slapping the stone pavement, 'it's all the ground's fault, it hurt Master Lung.'
Third Mistress could be heard whispering with Old Li at the moon gate at the end of the porch, 'Not here yet. . . . Chang Fa is back. . . . Chang Fa is no use, send somebody else. . .
'Looking for our Third Master again,' Yindi said.
When Third Mistress joined them at the railings Second Mistress Sun teased her, 'Missing Third Master already?'
'Who's like you? Always together, two in the same pair of pants.'
'Not us, we quarrel every day.'
'Who don't quarrel?'
'You and Third Master respect each other like host and guest.'
'Our Third Mistress is famous for being a good wife,' Yindi said. The magic of the day's outing and the com-pany of other young women had even seemed to put the sisters-in-law back on good terms. 'Our Third Master takes advantage of her.'
'What can I do? Even Old Mistress can't control him.'
'Well, as long as it's out of your sight,' said Second Mistress Sun. 'What the eyes don't see is clean.'
'In fact I'd rather he stays out. Those few days when he's home, Old Mistress scolds if I so much as come back from lunch with my hair a little mussed,' she whispered. They all giggled. 'As if anybody could sink so low.'
'I won't guarantee, with your Third Master,' said Second Mistress Sun.
'We seldom ever.'
This was young married women's talk, difficult for Yindi to put a word in, so of course she must. 'Who'd believe you?'
'We're not a loving couple like you and Second Master,' Third Mistress returned immediately to put her in her place as an outsider on account of Second Master.
She blushed at the very idea of him and herself in bed. 'With us it's really almost never. I can swear, can you?' she said belligerently. 'Third Mistress do you dare swear?'
'Swear what? When you just got a son.' And the pair of them burst out laughing.
'To tell you the truth I don't know how it got itself born.' The minute the words were out of her mouth she was sorry to see the speculative gleam and an inward look in their eyes. They were already repeating it to others in their mind even as they laughed. The brief respite from the constant terror of attending on mothers-in-law turned their thoughts irresistibly toward sex and jokes about sex like soldiers in a war. They usually did not go this far but they seemed to be still waiting, hoping to hear more about Second Master's limitations. Then an unmarried girl came over and they changed the subject.
'Old Mistress calls,' an amah came up saying.
They hurried in. Old Mistress was playing mahjong with Third Mistress's mother.
'Where's Third Master?' she said. 'I sent for him all this time and not here yet. Your mother wants to see him.'
'Third Master is winning at mahjong. The others won't let him go,' said Third Mistress.
'Let him win a bit more,' her mother said.
Her little brother came up to the table and Old Mistress told him, 'Go join the men outside. Brother-in-law is winning, tell him to give you a bonus.'
'Brother-in-law is not there.'
'You didn't see him?'
'No, they said he hasn't come yet.'
'Then what's this about playing mahjong? What tricks are you people up to?'
Third Mistress dared not answer. Her mother was beginning to see the situation. 'What does he know, a child this big. He must have got confused, so many people out there.'
'Not here all this time. His own father's birthday. What kind of a family is this? What would Mistress-in-law think? You too, you'd even help him keep it a secret, can you blame him for getting bolder and bolder?'
Third Mistress's mother smiled slightly and said no more. She was not in a position to make peace as her own daughter was being scolded. Nor could Old Mistress slur over the incident with so many relatives watching. Some had just come from the interior and had heard about Third Master. If she passed it over lightly they would have more reason to blame it all on her over-indulgence.
Third Mistress stood rooted to the spot. Yindi and the amahs and slave girls also stood frozen, afraid to draw attention to themselves by the least sound or movement. The games went on but the players had ceased to call out the name of the tiles.
In time Big Mistress came up and reported, 'Third Master was here earlier on. He's gone to the North Station to see Old Mr Sung off.'
This was not the first time they had made use of Old Mr Sung whose wife was not in town. He had his concubine with him but concubines did not pay visits, so whatever they said about him was in no danger of being contradicted. He might be here in the temple this very minute but Old Mistress would not know. She did not look up from her game. Big Mistress stood still behind one of the chairs, drawn into the magic circle of uprights around the table.
All the games went on in silence until someone dis-carded a tile which had not turned up for some time. Old Mistress snapped it up crying 'Eat!' and inserted the five stripes between the waiting jaws of her four and six stripes. After that the atmosphere eased a little.
'It's so nice and quiet around here, I would have liked to take a house here, only they say it's too far out,' said Third Mistress's mother.
Everybody had something to say on the housing in Shanghai, cramped compared to the interior. Big Mistress and Third Mistress moved around tentatively on little errands. Yindi saw the wet nurse standing at the door and went up to her.
'Have you had noodles?' she whispered. 'Go get some birthday noodles.' She took the baby from her. 'Old Hsia will hold him while you are gone. Where's Old Hsia? Let's go and find Old Hsia, Little Monk.' The baby was called Little Monk. He was already enrolled as a novice in the Temple like his father and uncles when they were little, to deceive Buddha into taking special care of them.
'Walk, walk─
Walk to the street, An orange eat,'
she chanted to the rhythm of her steps. They went outto another courtyard. The leaves had turned, rustling against the old red railings. Homing crows were cawing overhead. It was still light but the moon was already out, a yellow half-burned blotch on pale blue silk. The main palace of the Buddha was here up a broad flight of stone steps, all the carved panelled doors silently open. She was so full of herself and this lovely day it ached gently like milk-laden breasts. She held the baby tighter wishing it was a cat or Pekinese dog or just a pillow so she could squeeze it hard.
Aproned men carrying flat poles trooped in and filed past her on the porch with eyes downcast. Round high boxes of unpainted chip swung at each end of the poles. The name of the restaurant was written in large black characters on the boxes. They were sending down the non-vegetarian dinner which could not be cooked in the temple. She had to be there when dinner was served. It was getting late.
She wandered across the courtyard around the huge iron incense pot on its stone pedestal. Row upon row of names were engraved on it in small fine characters, donors who had this incense pot made, 'Mrs Chan, née Wong; Mrs Wu, née Chow; Mrs Hsu, née Li; Mrs Wu, née Ho; Mrs Fung, née Chan....' The purposely characterless names became a bit depressing seen en masse. These were the women who went in for good works pinning their hopes on the next incarnation. She had the feeling that if she looked more closely she would find her own name there, cast in iron. Maybe she had come across it without recognizing it.
The corridor walk with scarlet pillars and swastika rail-ings ran straight on into another courtyard through the moon gate. When she saw Third Master coming it sud-denly seemed endless like the repetitious vista in a mirror facing another mirror. He wore a large cornelian on his cap set squarely over the brows. His belted riding gown of velvet-embossed coppery silk just reached below the knees showing the brown silk pants tied tight at the ankles. He walked straight-backed but with a rush in the strides, arms hanging down, the half-fists curled back into the narrow sleeves, ready to drop a curtsy to any elder that might happen along, bending one knee to touch the ground with a fist. He had seen her. He seemed to come miles towards her looking at her, smiling. She could only talk to the baby in her embarrassment.
'Look who's coming, Little Monk. See? See Third Uncle?'
He did not speak until he came near. 'How is it you're here all by yourself, Second Sister-in-law? Waiting for me?'
'Pei!' she made a loud spitting noise in his direction. 'Waiting for you─everybody's waiting for you, as worried as ants on a hot pot, and you out having a fine time.'
'Why, wasn't I supposed to be with the guests outside?'
'Until your precious brother-in-law said you weren't there. Old Mistress was angry.'
He put out his tongue and made as if to shrink his neck. 'I won't go in then, I'd be asking for it.'
'You don't care anyway, just run off and we get the worst of it. Little Monk, don't you copy Third Uncle when you grow up.'
'Second Sister-in-law is always ready with a lecture. How old can you be? You're younger than me.'
'Who says so?'
'Of course, aren't you a year younger than me?'
'Trust you to remember a thing like that,' she muttered, pleased. The baby was whimpering thrashing about. 'Aw, aw, aw!' she crooned and rocked him, 'don't want me, want Third Uncle? Want Third Uncle to hold you? Let's smell faces, Third Uncle. Smells sweet.'
He bent close to sniff at the baby's cheek. As she passed it to him his hands brushed against hers and perhaps her breast, bound and levelled by a tight sleeveless shirt worn under the underclothes. It was really impossible to tell except that she suddenly turned and went in the side chamber. He followed her in. The candles and incense were lit but there seemed to be no one around. In the semi-darkness it took a moment to dismiss the idols, some of life-size, while the golden giant Buddha towered half-naked above.
'Going to pray, Second Sister-in-law?'
'What's the use of praying, with such a fate as mine? All I ask is for Buddha to take me back.' She went round the candle rack and looked down at the baby in her arms. 'Now that I have him I've done my duty to you Yaos, I'm free to die.'
He smiled at her across the scarlet-and-gilt bars and the rows of burning candles, little red ones. 'Why is Second Sister-in-law so sad all of a sudden?'
'Because we're here in front of Buddha. Since we're not meant to meet in this life let's tie a knot for the next incarnation.'
'If we're not meant to meet how did you come to my house?'
'Don't speak of it─how I suffered since I came. On top of everything there's this enemy from my last incarnation. There's no getting him off my mind and no hiding from him. It pulls at the bowels and weighs down the belly until I wish I'm dead. Today with Buddha as witness just give me a word of truth and I'd die content.'
'Why say die all the time, Second Sister-in-law? What am I to do if you die?' He was over the other side of the rack holding her from behind.
'Never a true word out of you.'
'You never believe me anyway.' He took the baby and put it down on the round blue prayer cushion. Straight-way it started to bawl. He would not let her pick it up. His hand inside the tight jacket was fretful from haste. The row of tiny paper-thin mother-of-pearl buttons on the undershirt and the innermost sleeveless shirt was set so close it was difficult to unbutton, especially groping in the dark. The struggle made the kisses absent-minded. She was so disturbed she did not know what she had inside until he had it in hand moulding and shaping it. She began to feel the little bird's soft beak pushing at his palm. It crouched frightened, making itself round and was shot through with a filling ache.
'Enemy,' she whispered.
The baby's howls vibrated unbearably in the stone-paved temple, probably could be heard all over the grounds. The moment was stretched so long it nearly snapped. The crying seemed to have gone on for some time and they could do nothing about it as if under a spell. There was just the most primitive desire to hide in a cave, crawl into the dusty darkness hung with lint behind the faded apricot silk apron of the table, right next to the baby on the prayer cushion. In Peking opera the courtesan went to see her impoverished lover living in a deserted temple and they made love under the god's table. That was one reason she hesitated to reach down for the baby.
'Somebody's coming,' he predicted.
'What am I afraid of? All I have is my life, they can take it if they want.'
She knew at once she had said the wrong thing. They were pressed so close she could hear a warning gong strike inside him. Theirs was such a desperate situation that they were bound to get found out before long, hardly worth while for a man when there were so many women legitimately available. But it really did not feel good to let go at this stage. He managed a half laugh.
'Lucky it's me today, Second Sister-in-law. If it's somebody else now, heh heh! . . .'
'Don't be so conscienceless.' She burst out crying pressing her face against the back of her hand on the candle rack.
'If I had no conscience I wouldn't be afraid of hurting Second Brother.'
'Your Second Brother! I don't know what sins your family must have committed, to get a son like that. It's torture for him to live, he'd be better off dead.'
'There's no need to curse him.'
'Who's cursing him? It's just my fate. I dig out my heart to show people and they say it stinks of blood.'
'You have the wrong person, Second Sister-in-law. You may not think it from looking at me the Third Yao, I'm still not that kind of man.' Holding his arm down straight, he flipped the sleeve with a crackle of silk as if shaking off a clinging hand and walked away.
In time she heard the baby crying. She picked him up and buried her face in his cloak, stifling her sobs in the padded scarlet silk that smelled faintly of milk and sweat. He was always dressed too warmly and sour with perspira-tion. She picked up his hat and put it back on his head. A bewhiskered tiger's face stared out over the brow of the little red cap. The protruding eyes of woven gold thread chafed against her wet face.
She dried her tears and came out on the porch. It was dark and the evening bell had just started to toll. The slow booms filled the air annihilating all thought. Peal upon peal they followed her to the inner courtyard.
The dinner tables were already set. They had brought their own dinner ware. Big Mistress and Third Mistress were busy seeing to things. She found the wet nurse and passed the baby to her. Third Master was standing behind Old Mistress at the mahjong table talking to his mother-in-law. Perhaps he would tell his wife tonight. He wouldn't dare risk it getting out? He wouldn't be able to keep it to himself for long, it wouldn't be often that he had done a handsome thing, and what a joke.
Dinner had to wait while different sets of mahjong players strove to finish their eighth round. Then there were the inevitable disputes about seating. The three young hostesses had to make quick judgements while they hustled and cajoled the guests to the exalted end of the round tables. A twenty-year-old aunt took precedence over a sixty-year-old niece and distant relatives over closer ones. People who rated better seats might grab modest ones and refuse to be dislodged, parrying with both hands, and still feel insulted if allowed to remain. Yindi was just beginning to find her way through the maze of relationships. It was especially difficult tonight, every exchange of smile and words pained her. They did not know about her yet. The matter was now in the hands of Third Mistress and her people. She had passed them the knife handle.
It was dark and draughty in the long chamber with the stone floor and just a cotton print curtain over the door-ways and a weak light bulb set high up on a rafter. The scarlet tablecloths loomed big and round. She was stand-ing up all the time reaching her chopsticks clear across to deposit food in somebody's little five-petalled silver plate.
'You eat,' the others said. 'Sit down, Second Mistress. Sit.' They pressed her down but she was up again soon. She shifted around several tables. The scattered talk and thin laughter never quite warmed up.
After the last course came the hot towels. A large oval silver box was passed around the table, the mirror-backed lid pushed up showing the face powder in the form of a hard white egg. By the time it reached her the mirror was steamed over and powder-smudged. The netted bright pink powder puff, a bit damp from use, felt cold and stiff against the face and gave her the creeps.
Mahjong was played until after midnight. In the car-riage the wet nurse told her that the baby could not hold down the milk it drank. It must have caught cold. Second Master was upset about it when they got home. He had been home by himself all day.
The wet nurse said, 'He was fine all along, then I just went off for a little while, Second Mistress told me to go and have some noodles; that must be when it caught cold.'
'Who had him when you were gone?'
'Huh! who indeed?' Yindi said. 'Nobody was around, I had to hold him and go looking for Old Hsia, had no idea where she lay dying. And the little devil Laishi had gone mad chasing around with the children.'
Old Hsia claimed that she on her part had been looking for Second Mistress ever since she finished helping to pre-pare fruits for the mahjong players. Both amah and slave girl got a scolding from Second Master. His flat hen's squawk finally grated on her preoccupation.
'All right, all right, which baby doesn't catch cold now and then?' she said. 'The way you go around beating chickens, scolding dogs. Don't make much of him if you want him to live.' She wanted to pick a quarrel so she would not have to speak to him again tonight.
'You still have to curse him? You could have been more careful to begin with, a baby this big and he's not strong. Shouldn't have taken him in the first place.'
'Was it me who said to take him? Old Mistress wanted the abbot to see him so he could kotow to teacher.'
'Wet nurse, leave the door open tonight, I'll see if he coughs.'
'Yes, sir, I'll listen for it too.'
Their voices sounded far off, annoying as a trickle of ants as they made themselves felt now and then through the clothes. Her foreknowledge separated her from them as the dead were from the living. But she could not bear their busily getting ready for bed, so sure of tomorrow. Not knowing what is going to happen to one's self is not a human state. The moment became timeless, intolerable, holding her like huge pincers. What would they do to her? Concubines who misbehaved were locked up and sent to the north, not the ancestral village but the anonymity of Peking where living was cheap in one of the family's houses well-guarded by old servants put out to pasture as caretakers. What happened to wives who took a mis-step? Apparently wives never did. As much as people talked, this was never said of anybody.
With her nothing had actually happened, true. But who would believe it? And to believe it of Third Master of all people. It all came back for the thousandth time,what she said, what he said and what a fool she was. There was a small fire under her heart cooking it. She swallowed live coal down the parched throat. Towards dawn she got up and took a sip from the teapot on the table. The cold tea was bitter from standing too long. There was a big moon in the window about to go down, just behind the black shape of the two-storeyed house opposite, so big it was like a confrontation, the round face of uneven reddish yellow waiting for her here, a doomsday's sun. In the dark the room seemed much smaller. Second Master's asthmatic breathing and the snoring next door all sounded alarmingly close. The wet nurse slept with the babyinthesameroom with Old Cheng. With the door open tonight it seemed like just an alcove. She could not help anticipating the rise and fall of the snores, a nerve-racking business, with the one slightly behind the other, now hoarse, now rich and bubbly, trailing off with an occasional groan or whistle. It sounded as if everybody was having difficulty getting through the night and had come to the narrowest part, the bottleneck.
What was that crackle and rustle? She stood listening. Old Cheng was turning on her pillow filled with green bean husks. It's good for red eyes to sleep on these beans that make a cooling drink.
She put some clothes on and steered her way carefully through the people lying parallel in the dark, each reduced to a single breath renewed with effort, wheezily, a tangled bunch of ramie stretched taut on some kind of frame, flimsier even than the helplessly offered throat. Her own was an aching iron-ringed pipe that had to be carried erect. She turned the doorknob of the store-room at the back and shut the door behind her before switching on the light. The large room closed around her at once, cosy in the warm yellow light, the unused furniture and piles of trunks arranged neatly against the walls.
Second Master would not see the light in the transom, nor could the others with a whole room in between. She set a stool on his old bed. The trouble with the bed boards was that the crash would be louder than on the floor when she kicked the stool over. There was the transom but it wouldn't do to have the door open. The other door which led to the hallway was locked. She looked around for some blanket or piece of sacking to spread on the bed but everything was packed away. Better be quick than to think of everything, the baby may start crying any minute and wake them up. It wouldn't take a moment anyway, a neighbour woman had done it when she was a child. She brought an extra trousers sash of strong white silk. It was a comfort to be able to make a household chore of it.
It smelled dusty up there, a room within a room just like the other bed. If she had done it in the summer on account of the theft it would be a protest, to clear herself. But knowing these people she wouldn't expect them to think any better of her for it. They would only say it was a common thing to do, like any low-class woman bested in a quarrel. Now she just did not care what they thought. If she still did, at least she had the satisfaction of knowing it looked as if she had something dark and horrible in her life─him if they liked, anyway some man other than Second Master. But she really did not want to think of what she left behind. A person dies as a lamp goes out. What the eyes do not see is clean. What if the world was still here in the morning, carrying on like the concubine out of the wife's sight. Everything had become tiresome, even distasteful, now that there was no more for her and she alone had to go.