Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

The newcomer grabbed a chair to sit down with them, ordering coffee and a piece of cake for himself. There seemed to be endless things to discuss. Uncle Maomao turned to Wang Qiyao, explaining discreetly that they knew him from their bridge games. The man was a poor but enthusiastic player. He didn’t have any regular partners and had to resort to bribing people with dinner invitations to get them to play with him. Wang Qiyao understood that Uncle Maomao was making an effort to include her in the conversation, but it only made her feel even more out of place. Presently, the man turned around to invite them to dinner at Maison Rouge. Madame Yan and Sasha accepted. Uncle Maomao looked inquiringly at Wang Qiyao, who made a slight bow and said that she had to go home before dinnertime for an appointment with a patient.

“What appointment?” demanded Madame Yan. “How come you didn’t mention that earlier? You can’t leave just yet!”

Sasha also insisted that she stay; he said that if she wasn’t going, then no one was going. Uncle Maomao asked if the patient had a telephone, and suggested that perhaps she could call to tell him she would be late. Wang Qiyao knew that he was trying to give her a way out of her predicament, hoping that she would be able to come along.

“Let me think about it for a moment,” she replied.

Everyone thought that this meant she was staying, but after a short while she stood up and firmly took her leave. Furious, Madame Yan accused her of being inconsiderate of her friends. Wang Qiyao apologized profusely, but deep down she was thinking, She ’ s only angry at me because I had the gall to rebuff her patronage.

Uncle Maomao walked out with her. It was already dusk and the wind had picked up. Fortunately, she was able to withstand the chill on account of having been too warm inside. Uncle Maomao was quiet, his head hanging low, so she tried to keep the conversation going by asking about the kinds of services offered at the Club and whether they were expensive. When they reached the gate, she said, “Do go back in, it is cold out here.”

As if he had not heard her, Uncle Maomao blurted out, “I was just trying to make sure that everybody had a good time tonight.”

He spoke no further, but Wang Qiyao instantly understood what he meant. Her heart fluttered. Is there anything that escapes this man? At this point she saw a pedicab and, quickly hailing it, she climbed in without looking back.

Winter had arrived. Wang Qiyao discussed with Uncle Maomao installing a stove with a chimney in the apartment so that they could enjoy their tea and play mahjong in comfort. Uncle Maomao agreed to get the stove and aluminum pipes but refused to accept any money from her. He arrived the next day with a worker who had brought the materials along in a cart attached to his bicycle. Under Uncle Maomao’s supervision he completed the job in a few hours. The stove worked perfectly and the pipes fit so snugly that not a wisp of smoke escaped into the room. As they warmed themselves at the stove and ate lunch cooked right there on it, Wang Qiyao buried a sweet potato in the embers, and it was roasted in no time. That afternoon they abandoned the other refreshments in favor of the sweet potato and vied like children to pile so much coal into the stove that they nearly smothered the fire. When the room grew dark, their faces, reflecting the fire in the stove, became transformed, like something in a dream or an illusion. The following day it snowed, not the clammy sleet normal for south of the Yangtze River, but real dry snow that accumulated on the windowsill. Even Peace Lane looked immaculate.

This was the winter of 1957. The large world outside was undergoing shattering upheavals, but the small world around the stove existed in a remote corner, or perhaps a crack, of the large world, forgotten and, for this reason, safe. What a lovely scene it was — the snow drifting outside, the stove burning inside. They thought up all kinds of delightful things they could do with the stove, roasting Korean dried fish, baking pastries, scalding thinly sliced mutton in a pot of water, boiling noodles, and so forth. Gathered around the stove, they chatted, ate, and drank. Lunch, afternoon snacks, and dinner rolled into one long meal. The sun on those snowy days was of little consequence, the hours no longer mattered, time became infinite. They dispersed reluctantly only after it was pitch black outside. Barely awake and half-dreaming, they quivered in the sub-zero temperature as they slipped and slid their way home.

Sitting around the stove had the effect of making them feel like part of a family. When Wang Qiyao and Madame Yan knitted, Uncle Maomao and Sasha would hold their yarn; when the ladies made dumplings, the men arranged them carefully in circles, flower-shapes, or pyramids. They bantered a great deal, often ganging up on Sasha. They asked him if he had made a habit of eating Russian bread, meaning, of course, that Russian woman.

“Russian bread’s not bad,” Sasha replied, “but I can’t handle Russia’s ‘foreign’ onions and ‘earthly’ potatoes.”

Everyone laughed at the pun he was trying to make, and he declared brashly that, if they were interested, he could bring them more bread, but only on the condition that they ate it with onions and potatoes.

At the hail of taunts that came in response to this, Sasha lamented, “The proletariat is being assaulted by the capitalists!”

“Who are capitalists?” Wang Qiyao cried in mock indignation. “I am the Number One Proletarian here. I rely on my hands for my living.”

“Then why are you on their side instead of helping me?” demanded Sasha.

“I’ve been forced to give everything my family had to the proletariat,” Madame Yan scoffed. “So I am now the real proletarian and you are the rentier.”

“Proletarian or not,” Wang Qiyao went on, “I’m not going to help you, Sasha! We’re rice-eating Chinese, and you’re a bread-eating Russian. We belong to two different camps.”

The other two applauded her stance. Acting as if deeply hurt, Sasha accused them of bullying a poor orphan boy. At this they felt a surge of real sympathy and tried to mollify him. He grabbed Wang Qiyao’s hand and begged pathetically, “Let me call you Mama!”

Aghast, Wang Qiyao flung his hand away, crying, “Stop it, Sasha! Have some respect for your own mother!”

When they saw that he really did not care, they began to rib him about his mother. He said, “What of it? It’s only natural that my mother should have looked for another man.”

They were quite shocked at this attitude, and, though they laughed, they thought the less of him as a result.

Sasha was pleased that he had got them to laugh, but he was also thinking, You capitalists, stinking of rot, you dregs of society! You have no idea what awaits you. Nevertheless, he genuinely liked them, not the least because they fed him an unending variety of delectable foods. Perhaps his fondness for food was an aftereffect of his tuberculosis, from which he needed plenty of nourishment to recover. Over the years, he had developed a discerning taste, and so he readily appreciated the delicacies Wang Qiyao provided. He also enjoyed their company. In contrast to his lack of money, he had endless time on his hands. Every morning, on waking up, he had to figure out how he was to spend the day; in this regard they were all in the same boat. The fact that they viewed life differently was an added attraction, since this could enhance his social experience. Experience was what Sasha valued. He needed experience to understand the world, which he intended to ride as an expert swimmer rides the waves. He was willing to make certain sacrifices in exchange for the benefit of their company. In reality, he did not take them seriously, just saying whatever came into his mind. This, however, did not mean there was no substance to his jabbering. Truth was mixed in with fiction, the genuine jumbled up with the bogus. How they took it was entirely up to his audience. This is what is known as “muddling through.” Thus, those in the know pretended that they weren’t, and those who weren’t pretended that they were. The sun went from east to west, and from west to east, as did the moon. And so the days and nights in this city passed.