Inheritance (17 page)

He had only a few clear memories of Junan discussing her sister, whom she treated a bit like one might treat an affectionate and backward child. Shortly after their wedding, Junan had told him Yinan had once foreseen him in a dream, that Yinan had once had a dream about a soldier at the window. He’d made a joke of it. “You women,” he’d said. He reached out and pulled a strand of Junan’s hair across the pillow—lightly, because she had a low tolerance for teasing. “Have you ever noticed that the people who have these magical dreams are always women?”

“I didn’t say she could tell the future. But she is sensitive. Sometimes she surprises me.”

He began to suspect that it was somehow his fault that Yinan was in the house. For one thing, when he had mentioned to Hsiao Taitai that Yinan had arrived, the woman had smiled faintly and said something about Junan sending someone to keep watch over him. The idea was, of course, ridiculous, but in the weeks after Yinan’s arrival he felt an impulse to hide himself. Her eyes were too clear. It was as if this sister, sitting in her room, had the ability to see through walls. He wasn’t worried that she might tell tales about his activities. He was more afraid of what she might see inside of him. She would note the pattern of his days and know that they meant nothing. She would see that he was lost.

ONE EVENING LI ANG
didn’t go out to dinner but headed home. What would he say to her? He felt obligated to get some information. He wouldn’t force her say anything she didn’t want to tell him, but he must somehow learn how things could be made better.

The apartment sweltered in the heat; he stood before her closed door for more than a minute. This would not do. He knocked on her door.

“Come in.”

She was sitting near the window, where there was most hope of a breeze, slowly working with a pair of scissors on white paper. Her gentle profile was outlined in the clear light. He grew aware of himself, grotesquely large and sweating. He backed toward the doorway.

“Meimei, you’re unhappy. What is it?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is there anything I can do? Would you like to come out with me and meet some of the people here?”

“No, please, Gege. I’d rather sit and think.”

“I’m sure that more sitting and thinking is the last thing that your sister would want for you.”

She turned her face toward the window. “And what do you think my sister wants for me?”

“Well,” he fumbled, “I’m sure she wants you to relax here and be comfortable.”

“She doesn’t understand.”

“I will tell Junan you want to go back home.”

She replied gently, as if he were the one who needed comforting, “Don’t worry, Gege. I’m all right here.”

“I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

She put down the scissors. For a long moment he feared that she might actually tell him what was on her mind. Then she looked down at the white paper in her hands. “Take this,” she said, thrusting the paper at him. “Please go away.”

Puzzled, he left. Clearly, she missed her sister, but there was something wistful and charged in the way that she had looked out of the window—some other emotion in her face that he could almost define. He, too, had felt it when he left Junan—a feeling similar to loneliness, yet similar to freedom.

Halfway down the hall, he looked at the object in his hand. It was a folded triangle, cut and slashed through with intricate designs. Clumsily, he unfolded the paper. It was cut in a hundred tiny lines almost as fine as eyelashes. The white six-sided flake lay in his palm, looking fragile enough to melt away, so much effort spent on a trifle. As Li Ang stared at it, it made him think of cold: a cold he had heard about from men who’d grown up in the north, a cold deeper than a thousand Yangtze winters.

THE NEXT DAY,
he sent a telegram.

JUNAN. POSSIBLE TO SEND YINAN HOME? LI ANG.

Every hour he checked for her response. But he couldn’t even be certain that Charlie Kong had managed to hold on to his telegraph. All afternoon he waited; the silence was unbearable. He imagined simply putting Yinan on an empty supplies plane, but it would be risky, not to mention unkind, to send her away. That evening, arriving home, he saw an envelope and seized it up, expecting Junan’s neat and flowing handwriting. But it was not from Junan. The script was even more viscerally familiar. He had to squint in order to make out some of the characters, as the letter had been written in ink, and had gotten wet along the way. It was seared with water, the characters drifting on the page.

Dragon Boat Festival 1940

Gege,

I have now been living in the village for two months. I planned to write to you as soon as I settled down, and I apologize for taking so long. Believe me: writing to you is the first personal thing I have done since recovering from the journey. I have time to write only because today is a holiday. But there are no boats and no dragons here; the villagers form a parade and push each other into the water. It is as if they think that if one of them were drowned, the gods might be appeased and might give us some relief from the continuing scarcity.

After much hardship, we arrived here. Some of us, myself included, were hoping for rest, but the conditions are more destitute than any I have experienced. As a consequence of this, I have become a different person.

When you are truly hungry, when you have worked your day so hard that you barely have the strength to piss, you don’t find it in your head to think about poems, or literature, or what we consider the higher things in life. After living here, I understand it is no wonder that the countryside is backward. I used to believe that it was populated by ignorant people, almost animals, and indeed this could be said to be true, but the larger story is more significant. I still pity these people, for existing for centuries, living their lives with no hope—but I know that they have been taught to see themselves this way. Despite the poverty and difficulty in scratching out even the slightest living from this land, the indifferent KMT taxes these farmers in the food, taking it from their own mouths and draining them of the strength to make more. In this way, I have found myself beginning to think of the Communist revolution as a battle against the fatalism forced upon the people by their rulers over thousands of years. Now we will stand up, and unite, and take our lives into our own hands.

It is happening already. There are several women here with us, and they are treated the same as anyone else, and called Comrade like all of us; truly the conditions force everyone to work and it is clear how deserving women are. Believe me, there are changes taking place in this country, changes that you would never dream of. I hope that someday, when we have thrown off the terrible oppression of the Brown Dwarfs, you will have the opportunity to understand the meaning of what it is I am describing here.

I work in as much poverty as they do, although because of my ability to read and write, and my experience with figures, my chores are different: I do not do as much backbreaking toil, and although our rations are the same, it is this absence of physical labor that is enabling me to have the energy to do a few other things, such as write this letter, and help to set the writings of Comrade Mao Zedong onto the page. Sometimes I get less sleep than the others, but I do the work willingly. It is only now, I think, that I truly understand the need in this country for the changes and ideas that inspire my comrades.

I wish you all the best.

Li Bing

Li Ang weighed the frail letter in his hand. The plain wall of his temporary home loomed far away. He felt that he did not know anyone in the world.

That night, he couldn’t find a comfortable sleeping position. He lay stiff and weary; an ache in his throat brought him close to despair. He thought with longing of his uncle’s stationery shop, where he and Li Bing had spent so many hours arguing and playing go. How had he let his brother leave? At least he should have forced him to accept something when he left town—money, perhaps, or a good warm coat. He wondered when his brother would return, and whether they would meet again.

In the morning, early, he walked among the market stalls. The heat had barely receded in the night, and now the sun rose, enormous, the color of a blood orange. He had not noticed how few supplies were being sold. Dry beans were scarce; the vegetables were scanty. He stood before a tub of rice; the tub was less than half full, and the old woman seated next to it watched him with a suspicion that made him uncomfortable, conscious of his broad chest and the slight belly that filled out his uniform. “Hello, auntie,” he greeted her, and her expression turned sour. It was the pout of a younger woman, and he realized that she was no crone, as he had first assumed, but a woman grown to look much older than her years. He turned hastily away. Near the entrance to the market were men reselling the furniture of the newly arrived who had exchanged their goods for rice: useless finery, precious heirlooms, carved rosewood chests, and lavishly embroidered tapestries, their silk tassels dragging in the dust.

By the time he left the marketplace, the sun had become a bright, delirious yellow.

Later in the afternoon, the sky darkened with thunderclouds; the sun periodically emerged, brassy and strange. Halfway home, it began to rain; the first drops fizzled on the hot stones of the stairs, but by the time he reached the house the stones were slick and dark. He was thinking of his brother, alone in the north, and the telegram on the table surprised him.

Rain had darkened the window; he could barely read the type. Absently, he opened the front door to let in light.

HUSBAND. SHE CAN MANAGE. JUNAN.

From the corner of his eye he glimpsed someone standing there, and he glanced away from the letter to see Yinan in the yard. For years, she had been wearing mourning colors for her father; under the dark sky the bow in her hair looked like a white moth. The sight of her disturbed him. Perhaps the death of her mother in childhood had made her melancholy. He had once heard his neighbors whispering, on the day his own mother had died, that some children did not recover from such loss.

When he left the house a few minutes later for the officers’ club, she was still standing by the miserable camphor tree. As he stepped down from the stairs, he felt the drops splash his forehead.

He gestured toward the house. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wrote your sister to see if you might go back to Hangzhou, but she wants you to stay here.”

Almost imperceptibly, she shifted her gaze down, hiding her thoughts. How ridiculous. Junan had no right to browbeat the two of them like this. He thought that perhaps he should command Junan to accept her sister home, but he imagined that Yinan’s life would then become even more difficult. He felt somehow at fault. But there was nothing to do, no consolation he could give. He wished he could leave her standing there.

“Meimei,” he said finally, “come inside.”

“Thank you, Gege, but I’ll stay here right now,” she said. “The air is fresh and it smells sweet.”

“Your dress is damp.”

“Jiejie has made me receive the latest vaccinations.”

Li Ang smiled. “And me as well,” he said. “With Junan around,” he said to her, “you must have never been sick a day in your life.”

For a moment he thought she might return his smile. “Only once,” she said. “I was sick once. I couldn’t go to the wedding. Do you remember? But that wasn’t her fault. It was the shuidou. You see, I have a scar.”

Then she turned and pointed to her brow. He leaned closer, thinking for the thousandth time that Junan had been right, that her sister was a little too sensitive, a problem, and he wondered what on earth would become of her. Then he forgot why he was leaning toward her. He was not so very close, but he had become acutely aware of the clear gray light, the texture of her eyelids, the curve of her forehead, and, hovering in her breath, the scent of the pressed tofu with garlic sprouts that they had both eaten the evening before at dinner and that she must have eaten again at lunch. Yinan pointed again and he followed her narrow finger with its bitten nail to the faint mark on her forehead, a shallow crater, barely visible. As he stood there, gazing at the frail scar, it seemed to him that he was recalling the visage of a long-forgotten place, a geography he hadn’t traveled for a hundred years, but that had once been imprinted deep into his mind. He seized her by the shoulders, felt the shock of her warmth through his fingers. Then he let go her and hurried away.

HE LEFT THE HOUSE
early, before the women had awakened, but in the evening he came home, drawn back by the feeling he’d forgotten where he had put something and needed to search for it. In the kitchen, Mary was eating her own dinner. She peered at him over the rim of the bowl, surprised. She jumped up and brought him food, which he took into his room. On the way, he glanced into Yinan’s open doorway. She had forgotten all about the evening meal and was seated at her table, reading and chewing the end of her long braid. She didn’t notice him, and after a minute or two he walked away. After he had finished eating he stayed resolutely in his room, at the desk, and took out a sheet of paper to write to Junan. Perhaps a letter, detailing his reasons, would convince her. But he sat without writing for several minutes, staring at his pen and hand.

“Dear Wife,” he finally wrote. “Yinan must leave.” With these characters, his heart beat so violently that his hand shook and he splattered ink onto the paper. He stood up then, still holding the pen, and backed out of his room.