Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

In the end, she resumed her humble attitude: she simply had to see him, with no strings attached. This frightened Mr. Cheng, who went into hiding. His “fright” had little to do with Jiang Lili specifically, but with relationships between men and women in general. He had offered up his heart twice — albeit, it is true, each time in a slightly different fashion — the first time he invested his love and the second time his loyalty. Each time he gave himself wholeheartedly to the effort, but what did he receive in return? Nothing but suffering — suffering when he didn’t get the girl, and even more suffering when he did. He began to doubt if there could ever be happiness between man and woman, and gradually grew convinced that all attempts were futile.

Jiang Lili’s phone calls were going unanswered. Going to inquire after him at Mr. Cheng’s new workplace, she was told that he was on an extended leave for a trip to his hometown. They were not sure when he would be coming back. She went to his apartment on the Bund to see if she could track him down. She had a key — which she had hardly used, because Mr. Cheng usually came to her house. There was a desolate look to the place, with its noiseless elevator, few signs of human activity, and domed ceiling. The air was swirling with dust as she inserted the key into the keyhole. Inside, dust danced in the light shining through the cracks between the curtains. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that a heavy layer of dust had settled on the floor, the camera, the tables, and the chairs, as well as on the cloth covering the light fixtures. Standing in the middle of the room, she grieved as she recalled how, not too long ago, it had been flooded with radiant light. The chairs and the steps in front of the backdrops were still there, looking cold and indifferent. Jiang Lili went into the dressing room and turned on the lamp on the vanity table, empty now except for dust. Staring at herself in the mirror, the only living being in the apartment, she saw a heartless, hollow shell. She wandered into the dark room, which had a light of unknown source. A string of negatives were dangling from a metal wire. Upon inspection, all were scenery shots, devoid of people. She went into his bedroom, where there were a bed, a dresser, and a rack for clothes and hats. One lone dusty shirt hung on the rack. Other than that, the room was in perfect order, like a man lacking expression or words. Jiang Lili thought she could hear dust descending from the ceiling. She realized that this time Mr. Cheng would not come back to her no matter how persistent she was. She had lost him for good.

As the relationship between Jiang Lili and Mr. Cheng went through its sea changes, virtually all that Wang Qiyao did was wait — wait for Director Li. Right after he put her up in the Alice Apartments, they had spent two weeks together. To Director Li, who usually crowded two days into one, this counted as a honeymoon. After this he showed up only sporadically, sometimes for a night, sometimes for a few hours during the day. Wang Qiyao never questioned him as to where he was or where he was going. She had no interest in, nor any understanding of, politics or business matters. Her apathy pleased Director Li, who saw it as an ignorance that came out of a woman’s self-awareness and pathos. He loved her even more and regretted that he could not spend more time with her.

During this period Director Li was like an arrow on a tightly drawn bow, ready to take off at any minute. Even in sleep he would abruptly sit up, ready to give or carry out an order. He was bedeviled by nightmares that made him struggle and cry out. Wang Qiyao could only hold him tight, whispering consoling words all the while, until he woke up in a sweat. He would then turn around and embrace her. Only then would his tense body ease up a bit. Some nights he could not sleep at all. He would sneak out into the living room to listen to a Mei Lanfang record. Even with Wang Qiyao he felt he had to put up a front; only Mei Lanfang could totally disarm him and let him relax. Only Mei Lanfang on the gramophone knew what he was thinking — and Mei Lanfang would never tell. Sometimes Wang Qiyao woke up in the morning to find him gone from her bed. She would find him asleep on the sofa, the tobacco in his pipe turned to ashes; only the record on the gramophone would still be moving, going round and round.

Director Li never told her when he might be back. Wang Qiyao stopped counting the days on the calendar. Time became a straight line, registering neither day nor night. Eating and sleeping, she had only one purpose, which was to wait for Director Li to show up. It was only after she met him that she began to realize just how immense the world really was. A person could disappear without a trace for weeks on end. She also realized how isolated one’s world could become. The chime of the trolley cars sounded so far away, as if it had nothing to do with her. She understood what separation meant, and what impermanence meant. Sometimes she said to herself, Director Li is sure to return the next time it rains. Then, when it rained, she would say, He ’ ll be sure to come when the sun comes out. She would flip coins trying to predict whether or not he would appear. She would look at the flower buds in the vase, saying to herself, Surely he will appear by the time the flowers have bloomed. Instead of counting the days, she counted how many times the outside light reached a certain point on the wall, playing on the idea that the Chinese word for “time” is made up of the characters for “light” and “shadow.”

Feeling lonely as she waited, she tried to fill her loneliness, but the more she tried, the lonelier she felt. She could have gone to stay with her parents, but she did not want to be interrogated. For the same reason she did not want them to visit her. She had stopped phoning them, effectively cutting herself off. After the first time, Jiang Lili visited twice more, and they went to the movies together. But then she stopped coming. Nobody else called, and Wang Qiyao did not go out. She forbade the maid to go out except to buy food, and even then she severely limited the time the maid was allowed to spend on errands. She wanted the maid, too, to feel what it meant to be lonely. Loneliness added to loneliness. She ate very little, once a day at the most, and was usually oblivious to what she was eating. She sometimes put on the Mei Lanfang record and tried to figure out just what it was that Director Li got out of the songs. She also wanted to be better prepared in case he took her to another Peking opera, but the significance of the lyrics still eluded her. She felt resigned to having always to wait for Director Li. It had been a game of waiting from the outset — the days she waited far outnumbered their days together. She did not realize that waiting was the main activity at all the units in Alice Apartments.

Every time Director Li came back, Wang Qiyao could not help crying. She never complained, but Director Li knew why she was unhappy — although this did not prevent him from leaving again. Director Li too felt helpless. Even he couldn’t figure out at what point all those accumulated setbacks began to weigh him down and make him feel helpless — he whose pet phrase used to be “Go for it!” had became “Unfeasible.” Because of his willingness to take risks, he had penetrated to the very core of power, but now that he was there, he had run out of room for maneuvering and almost everything became unfeasible. People thought he was powerful, but he knew he was helpless, even when it came to his own fate. He pitied Wang Qiyao as well as himself. His loss of faith in himself only strengthened his pity for her, and he tried to be good to her. Wang Qiyao, for her part, came to yearn for him, and there existed between them the true affection of man and wife. This was a love engendered by waiting, a tenderness that contained more sorrow than joy, an affection that tried to make the most of what they had.