Old Town (16 page)

3.

N
ANJING
¹⁶
WAS ABOUT
ninety miles from Old Town by mountain roads. It was a pretty little mountain town that today has become a popular travel and holiday destination. Travel agency ads call Nanjing, the little Switzerland of China’s south. One of my sophisticated friends has gone to Switzerland and to Nanjing and what he said was even more fatuous: “In what way is Switzerland better than Nanjing?”

However, in later years, whenever Grandma mentioned Nanjing a look of pain would come over her. Her facial features seemed to clench up, as if she were having a toothache. Her head would tremble slightly as she said, “It’s really such a long story. If I had known that place was called Nanjing, I should have realized that it was all going to be ‘a long story’ and never would have gone there looking for trouble.”
¹⁷

At the end of the 1960s, the Old Town government posted a bright red “good news” announcement. The name of my youngest uncle, Baoqing, was included on a list published by the revolutionary committee of those cadres being sent down to work at the grass-roots level in the countryside. In those days, this was an extremely great honor. It meant that the people on the list had already passed a rigorous investigation. If by sheer good luck you got through this, you could once again put on the laurels of a “comrade.”

Among those places accepting cadres being “sent down” was this county town of Nanjing. Uncle Baoqing still remembered that beautiful little mountain place and so out of sentimentality picked Nanjing for himself. But before making his final decision, he came home to ask his parents’ opinion. The moment Grandma heard “Nanjing,” her “toothache” hit again, and, shaking her head, was much against Young Uncle’s going to that “It’s a long story” place.

On the final stage of this first journey there by the Guos, the sedan chair carriers were men from the county town of Nanjing who, with customary expertise, brought the refugees from Old Town to the residence of Master Huang. Master Huang was Second Sister’s uncle and her mother’s brother. He was a county official who had established a certain good name for himself locally, but the carriers said that his wife was even more famous. In Nanjing County, everyone knew her, from the county head down to the smallest peddler. Along the way, the two carriers seemed to want to go on gossiping about Huang’s wife, but Old Lady Guo would have none of it. Many years before, she herself had been to Nanjing and knew how awful the local word of mouth was about
that
woman. And she herself had shed tears over it. The Huang family had only this one younger brother now to burn incense for the ancestors and, having left home and family to live far away, had gotten a fierce-tempered woman as his old lady. This was worse than his being a “live-in son-in-law” and a misfortune for his family.

“
Ai-ya-ya
! Actually I was hoping you would be coming!” Second Sister’s aunt, Huang Ah Cui, then pulled a handkerchief from out of her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes, going through the motions of wiping away tears. “Quite a few days ago I prepared a meal to welcome your arrival. But I really couldn’t keep it. Look—I just had the servants help us eat it.”

She then stood by the side of the dining table. There hadn’t been enough time to put away a few empty bowls and bit of salted vegetables on small plate. There wasn’t half a drop of oil on the table.

Second Sister’s mother paid no attention to her, but in great distress dragged over the younger brother she hadn’t seen in so many years. “How come you’ve gotten so skinny? You’re getting more and more skinny! Pretty soon you’ll turn into a dried sweet potato.”

In contrast, Huang’s old lady was really tall and corpulent. When husband and wife stood together, one of them looked like a hairy gourd that hadn’t grown right, while the other looked like a big winter melon just fallen off the vine.

“You Huangs eat but don’t get fat,” Ah Cui said, “Whatever was good to eat there, you never gave it to him first!”

“Who says he wasn’t fat? When he was born, he weighed seven and a half
jin
.
¹⁸
The fat just rolled all over him. Take a look for yourself—now what has he become? A mere skeleton!”

The sister and her brother were twenty years apart in age and she was like a mother to him. Without realizing it, Huang Ah Cui put herself in the position of a mother-in-law.

“Big Sister, are you saying that I have treated one of you Huangs harshly?”

Standing off to one side, Second Sister was feeling uneasy and fidgety. She hastily took out from her bundle a silken floss jacket and gave this to her aunt. “Auntie, try this on to see whether it fits or not.”

Auntie Huang took the jacket between her fingertips and dropped it on the back of a chair. “Later, when the day cools down I’ll try it on.”

It was clear to Second Sister that the other woman saw this present as something frivolous. Then, turning away, she slid the jade bracelet off her wrist. “Auntie, this jade bracelet was especially chosen for you.”

Auntie Huang raised the bracelet and bathed it in the full sunshine. The space between her eyebrows that had been knitted together now relaxed. “Oh, Second Sister, I heard that Uncle is away being a big official. You are truly lucky, unlike your own uncle cooped up here in the mountain gullies, serving as an utterly insignificant one. Ah, I suppose there’s no hope for me in this life.”

Hearing her aunt’s words, Second Sister couldn’t help feeling nervous. Luckily, at that moment, her mother was engaged in a lively chat with her younger brother about family matters, otherwise an argument between the two sisters-in-law would have been unavoidable. Their days as refugees still barely started, and with such naked hostility between her mother and her aunt, neither of whom would give way to the other, how would they all manage to live together under one roof?

Auntie Huang took Second Sister to the room that had been prepared for the Old Town relatives. A servant followed them to put the traveling bundles inside. When the servant had withdrawn, Auntie Huang said in a lowered voice, “Uh, Second Sister, if you have brought with you any valuable things, things that are worth money, it would be best to give them to me and Uncle. Our home has a cellar for storing precious objects.”

Over the past few years, Second Sister had been continually selling off a large amount of her jewelry. Of what she now carried on her person nothing had been more precious than that bracelet. Now seeing Auntie Huang’s scorching eyes, she didn’t dare tell the truth about the awkward predicament of the Guo and Lin families. After Auntie Huang left, Second Sister sat on the bare-plank bed and stared vacantly into space. For the past two or three years those embarrassing times when she had slapped her own cheeks to plump them up had been really frightening. Could it be that now, having fled, she would live those days all over again? Lodging in this place, she would have to spend money and incur all kinds of personal obligations that would have to be fulfilled. Why not just rent two small rooms outside?

At dinner, some fried peanuts had been added to half a small plate of diced salted vegetables. These peanuts were kept in a glass bottle with such a narrow mouth that you had to stick your chopsticks straight down into it to laboriously pluck out just one peanut. Gan’er, who was sitting at the table, dragged this glass bottle toward him and spilled out a good part of the contents.

Auntie Huang stared wide-eyed at this from across the table. Her husband concentrated on eating his rice gruel. In ordinary times, Gan’er’s granny would have certainly corrected him. Now, though, she pretended to take no notice. Auntie Huang’s eyeballs moved in a slow survey of the Old Town relatives.

Second Sister could stand it no longer. “Gan’er! Put the peanuts back inside!”

Gan’er didn’t want to.

Second Sister lay down her chopsticks and said with a stern expression, “Did you hear me? Put the peanuts back inside!”

Gan’er looked at his aunt, Second Sister, and, letting out a howl, went into a fit of crying that no one could do anything with. He jumped down from his chair and rushed to the doorway, shouting that he wanted his Granny “Ah Ma.”

Cajoling her grandson, she put the blame for this all on Second Sister. “Why did you set off my little ancestor?
¹⁹
Gan’er, be good now, and Ah Ma will go out and buy you peanuts…”

Second Sister sat at the table pondering all this. She had already decided to rent a home outside as soon as possible. It had been difficult to speak out about this before, but now was her big chance.

“Uncle, Auntie, we have fled here and we don’t know how long we will be staying. These children have all been spoiled in Old Town and I am afraid that they will be a big nuisance for you. I think that if we rented a place outside to stay, that would be the best thing to do.”

Auntie Huang loudly opposed this. “Nowadays there are lots of people fleeing here to Nanjing, and not just you Old Town people. They also come running from over there in Zhejiang. Rents are getting more expensive, while our house has many empty rooms. I had originally also thought about renting them out. So, if you feel uncomfortable about it, just give me a rental payment.”

“No. We would rent somewhere else. You have no idea how noisy Gan’er can be.”

Uncle still kept his head down as he ate his rice gruel. Auntie Huang poked him with her chopsticks, “Hey, say something, you!”

Uncle hemmed and hawed, “Sounds good, sounds good.”

“What?” Auntie threw down her chopsticks and then turned back to Second Sister, “You’re burning your bridges behind you! Here we’ve taken you in, and now you want to go pay rent to someone else for a place to stay!”

Over on the side, the old lady heard about making rental payments and she hobbled on her little feet back to the dining table. “Now, Little Brother, we, your older sister and your brother-in-law, fostered your education and supported your becoming an official. But now that misfortune has hit your older sister and she comes running to you, you now want to charge rent?”

By now, Gan’er’s tantrum was reaching a whole new level, and over here the sisters-in-law were quarreling. But Second Sister felt relieved and realistic about things.
This kind of a situation would have happened sooner or later. Rather than procrastinating to the fifteenth day, as they say, why not just lance the boil at the very outset?
She took her three frightened children, who had now lost their meals here, and went back to their little room.

Very early the next morning, Ah Cui decked herself out to the nines. Bubbling over like an elated matchmaker, she told Second Sister that she had now found a good house for her and she praised Second Sister for her wide range of knowledge and her farsightedness. She said Second Sister was very sophisticated and worldly wise. “I really can’t bear your moving out. They say things smell more fragrant the farther off they are, while those that are nearby stink. If I were to force you all to stay here, afterward we wouldn’t be so close. I’m still thinking of coming to Old Town to live out my last years. When that time comes, I will be relying on you.”

Second Sister had been in the middle of a dream when Ah Cui arrived. When she opened the door, Ah Cui’s high spirits hit her straight on. But for a moment she didn’t react.

Ah Cui came right up to her, and lowering her voice, said, “You ought to leave your jewelry, silver dollars, and all your valuable things here. Your uncle and I can take good care of these for you.”

“Oh, I didn’t bring much in the way of valuables.”

“How can that be? The doctor’s family is so rich.”

Second Sister considered this for a moment. “I was afraid we’d run into bandits on the way, so I buried all the jewelry and silver dollars in the Lins’ back courtyard.”

Ah Cui stooped over and, slapping herself on the thigh, shouted, “
Ai-yah-yah
! How could such an intelligent person like you have done such a foolish thing? The Japanese toss out one bomb and everything goes flying sky-high in the explosion. When you get back home there’ll be nothing at all!”