Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Pretty soon they ran out of things to talk about, and simply sat facing each other in awkward silence. They couldn’t talk about the past; things had changed so drastically that it was hard even to remember what had happened.

“I have come,” Jiang Lili began after a long silence, “because Mr. Cheng asked me to see you.”

Wang Qiyao smiled faintly. “What does Mr. Cheng do to keep himself busy these days? Is he still doing photography? Has he bought new equipment? Several lamps burned out in his studio, and he was talking of replacing them.”

“He has not touched those things in a long time.” Jiang Lili replied. “These days he can hardly work up enough energy to turn on an electric light, much less the lamps in his studio.”

Wang Qiyao laughed. “That old Mr. Cheng! Sometimes he really acts like a naughty child.” Then she asked, “How about you, my dear? When are you going to get your Ph.D.?”

Having made this first jab at Jiang Lili, Wang Qiyao grew livelier and took aim with another. “And have you written any new poems lately?”

Jiang Lili was livid. How dare she speak to me as if I were a child? Rounding on Wang Qiyao, she asked, “What about you, Wang Qiyao? You must be doing very well?”

Wang Qiyao raised her chin a little bit.

“Not bad.”

It was an expression she had never shown before: the heroic pose of a martyr.

Then she went on, “I know what is going through your mind. I even know what your mother thinks. Your mother is certain to compare me to your father’s kept woman in Chongqing. Please excuse my bluntness, Jiang Lili, but if I don’t say these things aloud, we shall have nothing else to say to each other. I understand you are avoiding the subject so as not to embarrass me. Therefore let me talk about it.”

Jiang Lili felt her face turning red and white by turns. She wished a hole would open up in the ground into which she could burrow; at the same time, she had to acknowledge Wang Qiyao’s superiority in handling the situation — she had certainly hit the nail on the head.

“I hope you do not mind my making this comparison,” Wang Qiyao continued. “How should I put it?. . Your mother is like the fabric sewn on the outside, to be shown to the world, because she is presentable. The woman in Chongqing is the fabric used for the lining. It mayn’t be presentable, but it’s inexpensive and serves a necessary function. Your mother and the woman in Chongqing are each mistress of her respective domain, neither taking away from the other. Whether we end up as one or the other is not within our personal control. It is all fate.”

Jiang Lili had ceased to be agitated. Even though her parents were being used as examples, she felt she was being given a lecture on life. The matter under discussion bore no resemblance to the relationships in her romantic novels, but it was straightforward and had a ring of truth. Wang Qiyao spoke unexcitedly, as if she were analyzing someone else’s affairs with cold detachment.

“Of course, it would be ideal if one could both be presented to the world and serve a real function,” she went on to say, “but we all come with our distinct properties. Rather than making do, it’s better to put each fabric to its most fitting use. This is to pursue the ideal in a far-from-ideal world. Furthermore, there’s an old saying that even the moon goes through cycles of perfection and incompleteness, and when the vessel is full, the water spills over. Who’s to say that, lacking the other half, one might not be more secure as a result?”

Jiang Lili listened intently. Perhaps Wang Qiyao was justified in belittling her after all. Putting things this way, her explanation could even make her mother feel better about the woman in Chongqing.

Wang Qiyao was right. With the taboo subject now out in the open — exposed in all its starkness and simplicity — they both felt much more at ease. To Jiang Lili’s queries about Director Li, Wang Qiyao answered truthfully, recounting for her an outline of the events that had led her there. She even took Jiang Lili to see their bedroom, but before they entered, she rushed forward, blushing, to stuff something from the bed into the dresser. Jiang Lili realized that Wang Qiyao was no longer the pure young girl she once had been and that henceforth there would always be a line dividing them. After they returned to the living room, Wang Qiyao ordered the maid to go out and buy some crabmeat buns for snacks. As they ate, they gossiped about Wang Qiyao’s neighbors, thereby confirming many rumors and correcting others floating about in Shanghai. The sky outside brightened. They seemed to have gone back to old times, putting their differences aside. They acted as if Mr. Cheng did not exist and talked more about Director Li. Wang Qiyao showed Jiang Lili his pipes, large and small, in a metal box. She took one out and clowned around, puffing away at it. When Jiang Lili stood up to say goodbye, Wang Qiyao insisted that she stay for dinner. She even made a show of asking the maid to prepare special dishes. The maid was as enthusiastic as the mistress at the prospect of entertaining their first dinner guest.

Over dinner, Wang Qiyao said poignantly, “I have had countless dinners at your house. Now I can finally have you over to my home.”

Jiang Lili was touched and for the first time appreciated how confined Wang Qiyao must have felt living at her house. Darkness had fallen outside, and the lights in the living room were turned way up. A record of the opera king Mei Lanfang singing in his usual falsetto played on the gramophone; the lyrics were difficult to understand but the emotion in his voice was palpable. The chinaware under the lamp had a serene look, the food was delicious, and the warm Shaoxing wine gave off a comforting vapor.

Jiang Lili was uncertain as how she was going to break the news to Mr. Cheng. She was afraid he would take the blow very hard. She also worried for her own sake — if Mr. Cheng were to become totally despondent, her own dream would have no chance of being realized. She pitied both Mr. Cheng and herself for their lack of control over their own destinies.

She made a date to meet him in the park. From afar, she saw him standing alone and felt sorry to have to bring him such unwelcome news. Mr. Cheng spotted her and came up to greet her as she was getting ready to step out from the pedicab. Walking on the paved road that ran along the edge of the park, neither wanted to bring up the subject, so both remained silent. They made a full round before deciding to rent a rowboat. Out in the middle of the lake, facing each other in the boat, they felt the invisible presence of Wang Qiyao between them.

After they had been rowing a while, Jiang Lili finally said, “Does Mr. Cheng still remember? The last time we were in a rowboat here, there were three of us.”

She meant to prepare him for what was coming with this. Mr. Cheng sensed that she was about to report something devastating. He turned red and tried to push the topic away by calling attention to a willow tree, so pretty it should be in a painting. Ordinarily, this remark would have been pleasing to Jiang Lili, but she was not about to be diverted from her mission today. She tried another opening.

“My mother says, ‘Ever since Wang Qiyao stopped coming around, Mr. Cheng has disappeared as well.’”

Mr. Cheng forced a smile but could find nothing to say by way of a response, so he hung his head. Sorry as she felt for him, Jiang Lili was determined to get it over with. She mustered up her courage and blurted it out.

“My mother also told me some rumors about Wang Qiyao.”

Mr. Cheng almost dropped the oar in his hand. His face seemed suddenly drained of blood. “Rumors are unreliable,” he retorted. “All kinds of rumors go the rounds in Shanghai.”