Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Something else is special about Alice Apartments: a surfeit of mirrors. Mirrors on both sides of the doors, by the bed, next to the dresser, over the sink, on the vanity table; tiny mirrors in powder compacts; and, finally, mirrors next to pillows, to throw light onto the walls for amusement. Everybody therefore appears in doubles at the Alice Apartments, in loneliness or in joy: one is real and the other a reflection; one is authentic and the other an illusion. Songs from the gramophone are also echoed in the apartment in pairs. The needle of the gramophone grows dull from wear — it plays on two grooves at once. Dreams are the shadows of wakefulness, darkness the shadow of light: each is one half of a pair.

Like a woman’s heart, Alice Apartments is made up of countless silken filaments: on the walls, the windows, the beds, the floors, the tables and chairs; in sewing boxes, in makeup cases, in the clothes hanging up in the closet, threading in and out of golden and silvery beads. It is rather a nest for a woman’s heart. For the heart is like a bird that wants to fly as high as it can, tirelessly, heedless of danger. Alice Apartments is a nest resting on the uppermost branch. Alighting, the bird feels it has found a home.

The women in Alice Apartments are not born, nor have they been brought up by their parents: free spirits, their bodies are the essence of heaven and earth. They are wind-borne seeds, disseminated from the sky, that grow into wild, rambling plants. They spread in all directions, putting down roots wherever there is soil; they do not adhere to principles, nor do they fit any mold; they have an irrepressible urge to live, and dying they have no regrets. However, being untethered and carefree, they often become disoriented; they waver. Birds plunge down from the sky at such moments, as hesitation saps their energy, confidence, and hope. The greater the heights to which they ascend, the greater are the dangers they must face.

Alice Apartments may look quiet on the surface, but underneath it is restive, because the hearts of those who live there are oppressed. You can hear this in the ringing of the telephones behind those heavy window curtains. It reverberates in the large living room, even though, having passed through satin and brocade, the eager sound is muted. The telephone is a crucial item in the Alice Apartments, serving as the artery through which life-force flows. The telephone’s ringing runs through the apartments like the undercurrents of a river. No need to find out who the callers are — it does not matter — we need only know that the calls come in the form of a summons, or of consent; they have a revitalizing effect on Alice Apartments. The telephone rings out even in the middle of the night, when it is most unsettling. The sound shoots through the heart’s loneliness, and the heart remains agitated long afterward. Doorbells ringing are of equal significance. Unlike the lingering notes of telephones, however, doorbells tend to be snappy, assertive, overbearing. They are undercurrents powerful enough to affect the direction of the river. No need to find out who presses the buttons; enough to know that they are people capable of carrying out commitments. These two kinds of sound roam Alice Apartments at will with a proprietary air. Alice Apartments — sumptuous, dreamlike, fabulous — float atop these two kinds of ringing. They are the beads that, strung together, make the necklace.

Alice Apartments have their lively moments, always heralded by a doorbell. When the doorbell rings, the heavy curtains can barely contain their giddy merriment. These festivals occur regularly at Alice Apartments, but not according to the calendar. The merriment may last several months, or only one unforgettable night. Laughter and joviality are suspended during these precious hours, as are tears. Normally the maids have hardly anything to do, but at these festivals they are so busy that they have to have the event catered or bring in outside chefs from the Yanyun Restaurant. For these festive occasions, red lanterns are hung, red candles lit, new clothes put on, and comforters embroidered with mandarin ducks taken out from the chests. Festivals come at different times for the residents of Alice Apartments, but one or another seems to be taking place the whole year round. They take turns being merry. At the Paramount Nightclub, not too far away, merriment is also being had by all, an overpowering merriment, but one does not know what kind of squalor lies behind the merriment there. In contrast, the gaiety at Alice Apartments is genuine through and through. What you see is what you get. The Paramount is like a rushing river, but Alice Apartments is like a harbor, waiting for people to come home. They party all night long at the Paramount, but all that changes the next morning. At Alice Apartments, things are kept on an even keel, day after day, night after night.

Charming and mysterious places such as the Alice Apartments are not unique. Blissful little enclaves like it are scattered throughout Shanghai. To outsiders they look like anthills with thick, shell-like walls; who can guess that behind that gray cement lie beautiful and exotic worlds? Their beauty is the beauty of fireflies, shining brightly during their brief lives, all their energy expended on one flare. Afterward, their decaying bodies nourish the ivy, which mourns their beauty. The residents of these places strive to fulfill their ideal of femininity and keep up their hope for happiness. But the strivings into which they pour their souls do not count for much — they are mere remnants in the hands of fate. Places such as the Alice Apartments are therefore like graveyards. The place locks its residents away so that it alone can enjoy them. The inmates come of their own free will, but their arrival marks the end of freedom. Here is a prison of the heart, a prison of volition, a prison of hope. They become the prisoners of place, putting their vestigial hope into the ivy, for ivy is capable of climbing walls and crawling out through cracks. Thus, the Alice Apartments are also about sacrifices, ritualistic sacrifices offered to the goddess of liberty, and to their own selves. That is what “Alice” means.

There is another name for such places: “society girl apartments.” Being a “society girl” is a profession unique to Shanghai, halfway between wife and prostitute. This profession, which dispenses with titles, does not operate according to rules; only what actually takes place matters. It is a livelihood that bears some resemblance to being a free-roaming nomad, who goes from pasture to pasture, seeking shelter in tents. The apartments are the girls’ tents, which they make as beautiful as they can. The girls themselves are beautiful, even elegant; their elegance is in a class of its own, judged by its own standards. Having relinquished the roles of wife and mother, they metamorphose into femininity itself. It would not be excessive to declare that their beauty is an asset to the city, the pride of Shanghai. We must express our gratitude to the people who nurture them, for they have performed an aesthetic service for mankind.

These women spend their entire lives trying to display their beauty for a brief season, like flowers that blossom only once every hundred years. What a splendid sight when these flowers bloom! They have made themselves beauty’s emissaries — beauty is glorious, even if the glory is as fleeting as passing clouds, gorgeous dusk clouds that enfold the entire earth. Nothing belongs to them, but they do not mind being clouds. Brief as their time is, they enjoy it up there, looking down on earth. So what if time is transitory, so what if it is illusory, so what if the clouds should transform into ivy, to crawl through the cracks and walls to wait for the next century?