Years of Red Dust (2 page)

Let's take a turn here. Watch out for the droplets from the laundry on these bamboo poles across the sky of the lane. An American journalist once said that the colorful clothing festooned on a network of bamboo poles presents an Impressionist scene. But according to a folk belief, walking under women's underwear may bring bad luck. Whether you believe it or not, it can't hurt to take a detour. And that's another convenience of those sublanes. You can move through the lane a number of different ways. Here we are, coming to the front entrance of the lane.

Oh, look at those people gathered here, sitting on bamboo chairs, wooden stools, and holding teas, cigarettes, and paper fans. This is another special thing about the lane. The evening talk of Red Dust Lane—Red Dust talk.

You may well find chess and card games and talk among neighbors in other lanes of the city. But what is going on here is truly one of a kind. Some people have moved away but still come back to Red Dust for the evening talk. It is a time-honored tradition here. Except in bad weather, a group of people always turns out for the evening conversation of the lane and about the lane.

Now what's special, you may say, about neighbors talking? Well, what makes it unique is the way they make
a story out of everything, a way of seeing the world in a grain of sand. Of course, the lane residents don't invent stories with real heroes or heroines—certainly not the type of “the talented scholar and beautiful girl” or “unrivaled kung fu master.” Nor stories with conflicts or climaxes as in books. Still, our storytellers try all kinds of experiments, traditional or avant-garde, flashing back and forth, showing but not telling, sometimes narrating from a special point of view, and sometimes from all points of view.

Since the characters are real people, the evening talk is enhanced through its interaction with the real Red Dust life. While listening to a story, we offer interpretations from our own perspectives, and contributions too, if we happen to know something the narrator knows not. After all, a narrator is not always that reliable, what with their told or untold reasons for making an omission or alteration. The audience knows better and is capable of pulling a story to pieces and retelling it in different ways.

A written story inevitably comes to an end at the last page of a book, whether happily ever after or not. Nothing is like that in real life. You can put an end to your narrative one intoxicated evening, but in a few years, there will be some new development or unexpected twist. A comedy turns into a tragedy, or vice versa, which changes the meaning of the earlier story. Needless to say, sometimes we also play a part, however inadvertent or insignificant, in the stories of others, which, in turn, come to affect ours.

Now look at this young man sitting in the center of the group. He's called Old Root—his surname is Geng, a homonym for “root,” and he invented the nickname for himself. According to him, “old” in Chinese does not necessarily refer to one's age; it also connotes wisdom and experience. Though in his twenties, he has an old head on his young shoulders. Self-educated, he reads books like someone swallowing dates without worrying about their pits. Like the proverb goes, the water does not have to run deep: a dragon in it will make it special. Judging from the position of his chair, he must be the storyteller for the evening.

Oh, there's a blackboard leaning against his chair. I don't know anything about the blackboard, but there must be something exciting about it. And sitting next to him is Four-Eyed Liu, another bookworm, who likes to give his newspaper-based interpretation to everything. And Big Hua, who is as curious as a cat. Let's stay here and listen here for a while. Don't worry about the time. If it gets late, I will buy you a night snack—as your second landlord in Red Dust Lane.

Do you remember the opening lines of the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
? After peace comes war, and after war comes peace. Things are just like that, an endless repetition in this mundane world of ours. Time rolls up and
down, waves upon waves, leaving behind, on the moon-bleached beach, stories like shells. Open it, and you may find something after your heart, but if not, don't be too disappointed. It is only a matter of perspective that things appear to be either good or bad. In the year 1949, with the Communists in, and the Nationalists out, there are many things appearing and disappearing, like always, with the change of dynasties.

In the early spring days of 1949, the Nationalist government boasted of making Shanghai an oriental Stalingrad, a turning point in China's civil war, but to the people here it felt unreal. Shortly after Chiang Kai-shek announced his resignation, a monstrous white snake was killed by lightning in Qingpu county—a portentous sign similar to the one at the end of the Qing dynasty. Then panic spread, after news came that the vaults of the Shanghai Bank had been emptied of their stock of bullion. My friend Cai, a waiter in Dexing Restaurant, told me something he saw with his own eyes. For several days in April, the restaurant was reserved by the top commanders of the Nationalist troops. One night, he brought a platter of sea cucumber with shrimp roe to a reserved private room, where he saw a celebrated courtesan reclining naked on the table, feeding her big toe like a fresh scallop to a four-star general, her white foot still flexing to a tune from the gramophone: “After tonight, when will you come back?” Dexing was a genuine Shanghai cuisine restaurant, and these Nationalists knew they
could never enjoy a Shanghai banquet again. With high-ranking officials being so decadent and pessimistic, how could the Chiang dynasty not fall?

Well, don't be impatient, my Red Dust fellows. I'm not going to give you a long lecture on the change of dynasties. I'm coming round to the story for the evening, and to the blackboard too. It's just that it always takes one thing to lead to another in this world. Karma in Buddhism, or whatever you want to call it. Things are related and interrelated, though this is not so easily comprehensible to laymen like you or me.

Back to the story. Because of the negative propaganda about the Communists in those days, rich Shanghainese started fleeing the city by whatever means possible—rushing to the airport, to the train station, to the harbor. Like others, in March my boss fled to Taiwan without notice, abandoning the factory. I had to find work to support myself, so I borrowed from the food market a tricycle used for shipping frozen fish bars in its trunk. With the war raging near Ningbo, the market hadn't had a supply of fish for days.

My idea was simple. As people were frantically leaving with all their belongings, transportation within the city had become a huge problem. For some, a tricycle could be the very means they needed, and that presented an opportunity for me. Also, some were getting rid of their things very cheaply. A heavy mahogany Ming-style cabinet of exquisite craftsmanship sold for a silver dollar, I heard. In
fact, I myself got a radio for practically nothing. It was the chance of a lifetime—if you had a way to carry what you found.

So I pedaled the tricycle around the swell Upper Corner of the city, venturing into Henshan Road, an area inhabited by fabulously wealthy people with young maids in black dresses, white aprons, and starched caps, and armed guards standing at the gray iron gates. Behind the high walls, those mansions still shone impressively in the afternoon light. It was another reminder of the social polarities—there such a large house was for only one family, while in our neighborhood a far smaller house had to be cut up like pieces of chopped tofu to accommodate a dozen or more families. A red-turbaned Sikh guard hurried over and, ferociously, like an evil-chasing warrior striding out of a superstitious door sign, ordered me to leave. I was suddenly glad at the thought that things were going to change soon.

I decided to try my luck in some less fancy areas, where people also wanted to leave but were without their own cars. I went to Xinle Road, which stretched out silent and nearly deserted almost to the end, where I saw a woman standing alone, in a white raincoat.

She had a couple of purses in one hand and several bags and suitcases heaped on the curb, and she stood in her high-heeled sandals, waving her other hand frantically at any remote resemblance of a taxi—at the moment, the approaching tricycle of mine. As I had guessed, she was anxious to go to the airport. Perhaps in her mid-thirties, she had a willowy
figure, fragile against the pile of luggage. There was an elusive quality about her, especially in her large eyes, something that reminded me of a blossoming pear tree, transparent in the late spring. She hesitantly murmured in a distinct Beijing accent that, after purchasing the airline ticket, she did not have much money left. That was possibly true. A ticket those days could have cost a fortune. The tricycle trunk should be enough for all her belongings, among which I noticed a blackboard with the names of Beijing operas written on it.

Then recognition came. She was none other than Xiao Dong, a celebrated Beijing opera actress. I cannot say I'm a Beijing opera fan. Only once could I afford seeing her perform on the stage of the Heavenly Toad Theater. She played Yuhuan, a beautiful Tang imperial concubine, alone in her chamber, drunk, amorous with the fantasy of her lord enjoying rapturous cloud and rain with another imperial concubine. It was such a breathtaking performance, the flowers must have shamefacedly folded themselves before her graceful charm. Xiao was so much more than that. It's hard to put into words. Well, you may have heard those Beijing opera terms—orchid fingers, water sleeves, wasp waist, and lotus blossom steps . . . Suffice it to say that she brought all of them to perfection. You would have to watch her perform to really understand the art of Beijing opera. Many people declared that they were willing to drown in “the autumn waves” of her eyes. I knew better
than to have such dreams. Even one of those flower baskets presented to her after her performance cost more than I earned in a whole year.

What's more, she was said to have been pursued by Shen, a business tycoon connected to the Nationalist government as well as the Blue Triad. A couple of years earlier, when she had lost her voice, almost ending her career, Shen helped her, bringing in the best doctor from Germany. After her recovery, he proposed, but she did not consent, because he was a married man. It was not uncommon for such a man to have a second wife or concubine, and her resistance could have ended up like an egg thrown against a stone wall, but to everyone's surprise, instead of using his Triad connections and resorting to force, he kept piling flower baskets against the stage she walked on, smiling and applauding like one under a spell. Then, however, the incredible story of the two was drowned in the headlines of the civil war. I had not heard anything about the pair for a while, and I had no clue how Xiao came to be standing here, all alone.

“You are Xiao!”

“You know me?”

“Why are you leaving Shanghai?” It was none of my business, but I imagined few would enjoy Beijing opera in Taiwan, where most people spoke the Taiwan dialect.

“I have no choice. Shen is dying in Hong Kong.” She added, “Sick, broke, his assets all gone because of the war.
He's nobody there, lying in a hospital with needles stuck all over his body. A dragon stranded in a shallow pool is being ridiculed by shrimps.”

That sounded like a line from a Beijing opera, the name of which I've forgotten. I was not that thrilled with the quote: though not necessarily a shrimp, I was no dragon in her eyes. Still, her statement overwhelmed me.

Xiao chose not to go to him when he was rich and powerful. Now that he was down and out, she was giving up everything, flying to him at the expense of her career. The city, gloomy with the spreading evening, appeared to be suddenly glistening in her large, lambent eyes.

“Don't worry about the fee. Put as much as you like into the tricycle,” I said. “I am your fan.”

It was a heavy load, but I pedaled to the airport as if on wings. In the trunk that smelled of the fish she sat, pensive, without her makeup. People could have taken her for someone working for the food market, as her white raincoat, though expensive, looked like a uniform.

At the airport, I attempted to help her check the luggage, but it was hard with so many people trying desperately to get all their belongings aboard. She looked at the blackboard, on which the written characters appeared to have faded, having possibly been worn off by rubbing against the other luggage. She handed the blackboard to me, heaving a deep sigh, in a pose I thought I had seen in a Beijing opera called
Xizi Holding Her Heart
.

“It's the blackboard program for my first day on stage. I
have kept it ever since. You love Beijing opera, I know, so you keep this. I don't think I will ever step on the stage again,” she said, as she produced her purse.

I pushed back the money she offered me, my hand touching hers for a split second. “The blackboard more than covers the fee.”

Standing outside, I gazed at her retreating figure and listened to the last clicking of her sandals as she disappeared into the somber gate, the sound like a helpless beat made by the night watchman in the Tang dynasty.

My mind was blank until an old proverb occurred to me: a love affair that causes the fall of a city—in a different version, the fall of an empire. In that opera I had seen her perform, Emperor Xuan lost a great empire because of his infatuation with his favorite concubine, Yuhuan. Xiao and Shen reversed the order: it took the fall of Shanghai to finally bring them together.

Humming the tune from the opera, I thought of a Chinese proverb. As a horse proves its strength by galloping a long distance, people get to know each other in times of disaster. And then another proverb came to mind: a beauty's fate is as thin as a piece of paper. I tried to think of some lines of my own, but without success. It's strange that those old sayings function like a retaining wall when the soil begins slipping from the slope.

There's such a lot I do not know about her, I kept telling myself. Why had she not consented earlier, for one thing, if she had cared for him that much? A lot of empty space,
but from another perspective, that may be just as well. In a traditional Chinese landscape painting, empty space allows room for imagination. You may laugh at my maudlin sentimentality over a small personal drama during such an important historical time. But in the last analysis, where do we live? In our petty personal lives, not in a history textbook.