Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Ten minutes later he spotted Wang Qiyao from his car. From behind the lace curtain in the rear window, he caught sight of a pedicab approaching until it was almost parallel with his car. There was Wang Qiyao in her autumn coat, her hair blown about by the wind as she tightly clutched her lambskin purse. Her eyes were fixed ahead, as if she was searching for something. The pedicab moved forward alongside the car for a while but then got left behind, and Wang Qiyao disappeared from view. Instead of comforting Director Li, this chance encounter filled him with despair. It was a scene emblematic of a chaotic world, one snapshot in a life that was flying past. The thought struck him that they were actually two people sharing the same fate, one with clear understanding, the other without a clue, but neither had any control over their destinies. Two lonely souls, they had no one to rely on other than themselves, like two autumn leaves blowing in the wind, briefly making contact with each other before being blown apart. The car moved slowly through traffic, the driver beeping the horn. Because he had waited for Wang Qiyao, Director Li was now pressed for time. This was the late fall of 1948. Shanghai was about to undergo massive changes, but the city failed to comprehend this. Neon lights continued to light up each night; wine continued to flow; new Hollywood pictures continued to premiere at the local cinemas; and the latest melodies kept on playing at the dance halls. A fresh group of taxi-dancers paraded themselves.

Wang Qiyao also had no idea what had happened. She had been waiting for Director Li, hoping with all her heart that he would appear; but in the end they were like two shadows passing in the night.

That evening someone else came to Alice Apartments. It was Wu Peizhen. Wearing a black coat, with her hair permed and her lips painted red, she looked very much the picture of a well-to-do married lady, more sophisticated and attractive than she had ever been in her school days. Wang Qiyao hardly recognized her as she entered. Even after ascertaining that it was indeed her friend, she was still quite astonished, saying to herself that Wu Peizhen’s good looks must have been hidden all along by her excessive modesty. Wu Peizhen, on the other hand, felt self-conscious about her new image.

“I’m married,” she said with a blush.

Wang Qiyao felt as if she had been struck a sharp blow. “Congratulations,” she murmured as her eyes went blank.

She sat down without offering a seat to Wu Peizhen. At this point the maid came out with tea. “Please have some tea, Miss.”

Wang Qiyao scolded the maid harshly. “Can’t you see she is a Missus? How can you call her Miss? You must be deaf and blind!”

Stung and bewildered, the maid did not try to defend herself and simply left the room. She knew Wang Qiyao was in a bad mood. Wu Peizhen became even more uncomfortable. She was a sensible person, and being newly married made her particularly sensitive to social nuances. She heard the bitterness in Wang Qiyao’s voice and blamed herself for bringing up the subject as soon as she entered the door, as if she had come to flaunt her marital status. In reality, it had not occurred to her that this was anything to gloat about. She recomposed herself and sat up to face Wang Qiyao, to tell her that she was sorry for the sudden visit but that she could not possibly leave without saying goodbye. Once she left, she said, she did not know when she would see her best friend, and her only friend, again. This might not be how Wang Qiyao viewed their friendship, she realized, but she herself had always done so. Apart from her own parents, Wang Qiyao would be the only person in Shanghai she was going to miss; their carefree time together had been the happiest in her life. Wu Peizhen was overstating the case, but it was true for her then and there. There, amid all the turmoil and chaos, as people became sickened with uncertainty, the past presented itself as the best of times.

Wang Qiyao could not focus as she listened to Wu Peizhen. So many things had happened that day. Her mind was reeling. She had been waiting weeks for Director Li, who would not come; then when he finally came, she was out, and when she got home, he was gone. Now Wu Peizhen showed up, saying she was married, and then told her she was leaving.

When Wang Qiyao had finally calmed down enough to disentangle the events, she interrupted Wu Peizhen: “Where are you going?”

Wu Peizhen had to think for a moment before saying she was leaving for Hong Kong with her husband’s family. The family owned a mid-scale industrial firm that was relocating to Hong Kong. They had tickets on a steamer due to leave the next day.

Wang Qiyao laughed. “Wu Peizhen, little did we know that you would turn out to be the luckiest among the three of us!”

“The three of us?” Wu Peizhen asked in confusion. “Which three of us?”

“You, me, and Jiang Lili,” Wang Qiyao replied.

Hearing Jiang Lili’s name, Wu Peizhen was a little upset. She turned her head away. In her heart she had always felt that Jiang Lili had snatched Wang Qiyao from her. Although she was now married and more mature, she still kept unsettled scores from her schoolgirl days — we tend to keep these kinds of scores well into old age.

Without noticing that Wu Peizhen was piqued, Wang Qiyao continued, “We are no match for you. Jiang Lili will probably end up as an old maid, whereas I am neither a wife nor a concubine. You are the only one who married well, with endless years of pomp and prosperity ahead of you!”

Wang Qiyao became increasingly excited as she talked. Her eyes sparkled as she scratched her nails back and forth against the sofa, so hard that they were on the verge of breaking. Not knowing what to say, Wu Peizhen lowered her head. Then, impulsively, she grabbed hold of Wang Qiyao’s hands and said, “Come with me to Hong Kong!”

Wang Qiyao was caught off guard and totally lost her train of thought. When she realized what Wu Peizhen had said, she snickered. “How would I go with you? As a servant? A concubine? If a concubine, I may as well stay in Shanghai. No purpose served by simply moving around.”

“Don’t you ‘concubine’ me,” Wu Peizhen replied. “You understand perfectly what I meant. I have always regarded you as my better.”

A quiver ran through Wang Qiyao and she felt limp. She twisted her head toward the wall, and stared at it for a moment. When she turned her face back toward Wu Peizhen, it was full of tears.

“Thank you, Wu Peizhen,” Wang Qiyao murmured through her tears. “But I cannot leave. I have to stay here and wait for him. If I leave and he comes back, what would happen then? He will be back. If he does not find me here, he is going to blame me.”

The next day, at the time of Wu Peizhen’s scheduled departure, Wang Qiyao thought she could hear the whistle of the boat leaving the shore. The times they spent together scrolled by in her mind, one scene after another. During that period of their lives, they were like white silk, on which words were later to be written; then the words became sentences, and the sentences strung together to become history. Those wordless days had been carefree days. They could do what they wished: they had no responsibilities; even their sorrows were irresponsible sorrows. The relationship she had with Wu Peizhen did not involve responsibility — it was pure friendship. That was not the case with Jiang Lili, where personal interests always had to be considered — this did not mean, of course, that considering such things was anything to be ashamed of. Her friendship with Wu Peizhen was like a plant floating in clear water, whereas her friendship with Jiang Lili resembled a lotus growing in a mud pond. With Wu Peizhen’s departure, a large section of Wang Qiyao’s life history was snipped off and taken away — the section on which there were no words. The rest of the scroll was full of words, some smudged because they were written when the brush was weighed down with too much ink. The free flow of calligraphy suffers when it is executed with too much earnestness.