Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

“When can I move in?” she asked.

Director Li was taken aback. He had thought it might take some time to get her used to the idea and had not expected her to be so cut-and-dry about it.

“When. . ever. .” he uttered hesitatingly.

“How about tomorrow then?”

This put Director Li in a tight spot, because although he had toyed with the idea of getting her an apartment, he had not taken any steps actually to rent one.

“Let’s wait a few days. .” he was forced to temporize.

In the ensuing days Director Li was constantly in Wang Qiyao’s company, eating with her and taking her to see Peking opera. Director Li was a southerner, but he had spent a large part of his life in Peking and so had become a Peking opera aficionado. He now found the local operas of his hometown of Shaoxing extremely boring. Movies also bored him. The Peking operas he liked were those featuring female lead roles — and among these he delighted most in the ones where the lead was played by a man. He thought that men in female roles were more feminine than women, because only a man could understand what was so entrancing about women — women themselves would never understand. The female leads played by women articulate the female form, but men could articulate the female spirit. This is a simple case of an onlooker being able to form a clearer picture of what goes on than the parties involved. He especially despised Hollywood movies and the women in them, who displayed nothing but feminine shallowness. Those Hollywood actresses were not fit to hold a candle to men playing female roles in Peking operas. He thought if he were to play a female lead, he would bring to life the most beautiful woman in the world. A woman’s beauty is definitely not self-conscious. Women are most beautiful when they are not aware of their beauty — often precisely when they think they are ugly. The feminine beauty articulated by men in female roles is an idealized beauty. Whether moving about or staying still, frowning or smiling, they are interpreting women, as if women are books they have studied. Director Li’s love of Peking opera stemmed from his love of women; furthermore, the two were similar in that he looked at both from the perspective of an aesthete. Wang Qiyao came from a generation in Shanghai that grew up watching Hollywood movies; the drum rolls and clanging gongs of Peking opera always gave her a headache, yet she learned to control her personal dislikes when she accompanied Director Li the opera. After a while she actually began to find it interesting, and was able to make a few intelligent remarks about the performance, allowing her to converse with Director Li on the subject.

Director Li took her to see the apartment a week later.

The apartment was located in an alley off one of those quiet streets that ended at the intersection in front of the Paramount Nightclub in Jing’an Temple district. There were several apartment buildings standing side by side, collectively named Alice Apartments. The one that Director Li rented was on the ground floor, with a large living room and two smaller south-facing rooms that could be used as either bedroom or study. A room designed for the maid faced north. The floor, of narrow teak planks, gleamed with burnished brown wax. The European-style furniture was made of rosewood. Curtains had been hung and the tables were covered with tablecloths. Antimacassars, vases, and other such items had been deliberately laid aside for Wang Qiyao to do with as she liked, to give her the satisfaction of decorating her own home. The closets were also empty, so that by filling them she could fill out her days. The jewelry box was also empty, to be filled with Director Li’s riches.

The overall feeling that Wang Qiyao experienced upon entering the apartment was that it was large and empty. Walking around, she felt tiny. She had the distinct sensation of floating on air. She doubted its reality. Was it genuine or fake? The apartment was dark because it was on the ground floor, the curtains were drawn, and also the day happened to be overcast. When the lights were turned on, it felt like nighttime.

Entering the bedroom, Wang Qiyao saw a bed for two, over which hung a ceiling lamp. The scene looked eerily familiar, as if she had been there before, and her heart sank. She was about to turn around to take a look at the other room, but her path was blocked because Director Li stood right behind her. He held her and maneuvered her toward the bed. After a slight struggle, she found herself lying on the bed. It was dark in the apartment, and only the birds chirping outside the window indicated to her it was still daytime. Director Li mussed up her hair and the makeup on her face, then started to unbutton her. She stayed still and even cooperated by getting out of her sleeves.

This moment was bound to come sooner or later, she thought to herself. She was nineteen and this was the right time. No one deserved this moment more than Director Li. Giving this to him felt more right to her than if she had given it to anyone else. She would be able to settle down with no second thoughts and no lingering doubts. She caught a whiff of the lime that had recently been used to whitewash the ceiling — it struck her nose with a certain cold acridity. On the brink of that very last moment, she did feel some regrets. She realized that she had twice worn a wedding gown — once at the film studio and once on stage during the final round of the pageant — but when it came time for a wedding gown in real life, she was not wearing one.

ALICE APARTMENTS IS a place unknown to most, a quiet island in the midst of a noisy city. Situated near the end of a dead-end street, it is a self-contained world. The window curtains are drawn, and even the cries of the crows and sparrows seem to be shut out. The residents seldom step outside and even the maids do not stop to gossip. As soon as the sun goes down, the iron gate is clanged shut, leaving a small side door illuminated by an electric lamp as the only point of entry. Who lives here and what do they do? Why is the place called “Alice”? Does the name have any special significance? “Alice” evokes the image of a beautiful young girl in love. The place is a wonderland compared to our philistine world. And although it is right next door it could just as well be at the edge of heaven, each world invisible to the other. Why has it been plunked down into this ordinary neighborhood? What kinds of things take place behind those curtains? The city air is full of beguiling rumors, scandalous rumors, rumors of adventurous women who sail away on their love to faraway places — places as distant as Alice Apartments.

Alice Apartments is the quietest spot in the entire city. This quiet does not resemble the unruffled calm of a maiden. It is the quiet of a woman on shore straining to catch sight of her husband at sea, a forced quiet. Here is a fantasy land purchased at the price of loneliness and relinquished youth. In this fantasy land, one day is a hundred years. The streets of Shanghai are filled with would-be Alices, women who are discontent with being ordinary, women full of dreams. Opportunities are severely limited in this city of freedom. Women who make it into these apartments are the elite corps among Alices.

If you were to take the roof off Alice Apartments, you would see a charming world of satin, gauze, velvet, and tassels. Even the wood furniture glows with a silken light. There is a profusion of soft, bright fabrics. The footstool standing next to the bathtub, the cushion on the sofa, the bed curtains, the table covers, all are richly embroidered with resplendent threads. The colors are magnificent; of red alone there are a hundred shades. Flowers run riot everywhere: embossed on lampshades, carved on dressers, worked into the glass of the picture windows, and sprinkled all over the wallpaper, not to mention those that stand in vases, hide inside handkerchiefs, and sit submerged in jasmine tea. Violetscented cologne, rose-colored lipstick, nail polish the shades of impatiens, dresses smelling faintly of chrysanthemum. . these and more proliferated with all their coquetry at Alice Apartments. Flirtatious in the extreme, and feminine to the uttermost. This is a woman’s world. No other place in this city of concrete and steel is so soft, so warm. The light fixtures are shaded to bathe everything in a gentle, dreamy glow. Everything is so supple that you feel that if you were to try to grasp it, it would flow out from between your fingers.